Apex Book Company

Finally, Timon threw the shovel up and out of the pit. He’d buried the son of a bitch deeper than he’d remembered, so the digging had taken longer than he’d planned. First, six inches of the seashells people used instead of gravel in the Panhandle. Then sand and dirt and dirt and sand and here he was, fifteen feet down and the sun already getting high. So much for grave robbing by dead of night.

There wasn’t any kind of casket, they hadn’t had the materials. So he didn’t get that chunk noise like when a shovel hits wood in the movies. Timon had been looking forward to that, that and nothing else, really. Timon liked movies.

So, no satisfying noise, just a little extra resistance when the blade of the shovel cut into what turned out to be his brother’s thigh.

Still here then.

Timon got down on his knees and scraped the sand out from around the body. It took awhile, and with the sun pouring down into the pit, the fire ants started crawling. Timon didn’t notice their bites but the feeling of them crawling over his skin didn’t help his nervousness.

It occurred to him that the ants might find their way into the cut on his brother’s thigh, along with the dirt and the sand, but then he saw that the jagged wound had already closed up. Maybe some got in there anyway, he thought, maybe they’ll wriggle up and come out of the bastard’s nose. Not likely though, all things considered.

When he got the body mostly uncovered, Timon stood and stretched. The crumbling edge of the pit was about eight feet above his head. He’d have to jump to get out.

More hesitance, then. He thought about going ahead and jumping out right then, kicking a little of the dirt back into the hole and just heading out. He shook his head though, Too far now.

He looked back down at his brother. “Hey,” he said. “Wake up.”

And it worked just like they’d thought it would. No clap of thunder. Sure as hell there was no heavenly chorus. Meles just stood up, blinked a couple of times, and brushed at the muck clinging to his skin.

Shit, thought Timon, Where are we going to get clothes that big?

He was taller than Timon, a lot taller. But then, Timon was the runt, that was one of the reasons he’d been chosen as the one that stayed awake. And so Timon was looking up at Meles, something he hadn’t done in a long time.

At first, Meles looked a little out of it, stood holding his hands to his head. Then he saw Timon and just looked disgusted. He started to speak, but no sound came out. He whacked himself on the chest then, and coughed up a huge gout of dirt.

When he did speak, Timon realized what else he’d forgotten. “Stop, stop.” He waved his hands and pointed at his ears. “I can’t understand what you’re saying. No savvy. No speakee, get that?”

Another disgusted look, and then Meles started to speak again but he stopped when his stomach let out a loud growl.

“Right, you’re going to need to eat–” But Meles wasn’t listening. He just looked up, crouched and leapt out of the pit.

“Oh, this is working out just great,” Timon said, and then jumped out after his brother.

He must be really hungry, Timon thought. He’d assumed that Meles–curious, crafty Meles–would be fascinated by all the new sights. But Meles wasn’t even looking at the hulks of wrecked cars rusting in the salt air all around them. He was pulling up big clumps of ragweed with both hands, stuffing it into his mouth as fast as he could.

And looking good doing it, Timon had to admit. Meles was one of his bigger brothers. Ten feet tall, still with the dark olive skin they’d all had back then–even after all this time underground he was perfect, muscled like a body builder. And with more than a mind to match the bod, thought Timon, which was why he’d chosen Meles as the one to wake in the first place.

Smart, yes, smart enough to not eat too much ragweed. Meles spit some stuff out. It came out dry, like a dust cloud. He asked…something.

“Look, I’m not going to understand anything you say, all right? I didn’t sleep through Babel like you guys. Not that you know anything about that. Anyway, nobody talks like that now. Our tongues were confused and shit, okay?”

Meles was ignoring him, sniffing the air, looking around. “Oh,” said Timon, remembering some of the body language now. “You’d better wait.”

But Meles walked over to an old Vega and ran his hand over the rear fender, ignoring the rust and the seagull crap. Timon leaned against a pile of tires, disturbing the mosquitoes.

“You’d be better off drinking the water in these tires,” he said, but he didn’t push it. He figured he’d best wait for Meles to settle down on his own.

Meles punched his hand through the fender and pulled it off, threw it back over Timon’s head somewhere. There was a lot of tearing metal noise as he worked out the gas tank, then shook it. There was a sloshing sound.

Timon shook his head, speaking up in spite of himself. “I’m telling you, you don’t want to do that.”

Meles found the nozzle and turned the tank up, gulping down the dregs of gasoline and rainwater. He curled his face up into a scowl and spat again, this time a spray of fluid instead of dust.

“See,” said Timon. “Tastes like dinosaurs, don’t it?”

Meles didn’t reply, but now he was looking at Timon like he was ready for some answers. So Timon said, “Come on, let’s go steal you some language.”

# # #

The salvage yard was abandoned and a good ways off the road, so they bushwhacked it. Meles kept muttering under his breath, which worried Timon. He could tear me in half if he wanted.

Not that he would do that, though. Meles was a planner, he needed the facts. He needed to be brought up to speed.

They broke out of the trees and onto Highway 98. On his own, Timon would have drawn interest if he’d allowed it. Decrepit, greasy, hunched over, but still way taller than most people who didn’t play for the NBA.

Meles, though, drew attention the way Timon couldn’t have (and hadn’t) even in his prime. He was, after all, a naked giant.

Timon intentionally allowed the both of them to be seen. Traffic along the highway crawled to a stop as drivers and passengers, tourists and truck drivers all stared. Then Timon saw what he wanted.

Meles followed him over to a big Ford van, a white Econoline like Timon had been in plenty, gas powered because Ford still thought catalytic converters were too much of a concession and to hell with electric motors. Timon knew he could drive it once they’d made some adjustments.

First adjustment, remove current driver. The guy had his window rolled down when they walked up, of course. Timon had never been in an Econoline with a working AC. He reached in and grabbed the driver by the collar, dragged him out and tossed him into the median. Then he walked around the back.

Meles was looking at all the cars and the people yelling at them, interested maybe, but not too concerned. Playing it casual, thought Timon.

But he helped Timon pull out the racks of tools and other junk in the van, and started to climb into the back doors. He’d figured out what they were doing.

“Hold up,” Timon said, touching Meles’ arm. “Watch how I do this, you’ll need to know this stuff.”

Timon jumped to the top of the van, the roof giving badly under his weight. He held his index finger up in front of his face and looked out at all of the people gathering around, some outside their cars now, some still at the wheel, trying to jockey their way through the traffic jam, get the hell out of there.

“See this?” Timon asked Meles. He knew his brother couldn’t understand the words, but Meles was watching him closely, so Timon figured he was getting through to him on some level.

“You get their attention and you wag your finger like this. Then you kind of reach into their heads and erase stuff you don’t want them to remember. You can move other stuff around too, if you want.”

Then the drivers and passengers were shuffling back to their cars, or sitting patiently, waiting for the traffic jam to clear.

“Took me a long time to figure that stuff out, man,” said Timon, reaching under and snapping the bolts that held the driver’s seat to the floor of the van. “It’s the same influence stuff we always had over humans, but I kind of refined it.” He moved the seat further back from the steering wheel, far enough that he’d be able to manipulate the pedals without folding himself up too awkwardly.

“There’s some other tricks, too. I wish I could be sure you were getting some of this, man, because I need you to be cool, right? You’re going to be pissed when you start figuring some things out but I need you to remember that I can help you. There’s lots more stuff I can teach you, okay?”

Meles just sat in the back of the van, not giving away anything with his expression. He just stared at his little brother.

Timon sighed. “Okay, let’s do this.”

He started the engine, then looked at the clock on the blaring dashboard radio. Ten o’clock and it was already scorching hot. The smog was going to be bad, too, from the look of the sky to the west.

Timon shifted into drive and inched forward, the van riding very low on its springs. Its former owner was sitting in the grass beside the road, staring at not much of anything. His skin was already reddening. The smog didn’t stop UV.

“Here’s another trick,” said Timon, slowing but not stopping. He reached his arm out in the direction of the man and made a hooking motion with his finger. Then his hand was full of a flashing, fizzling ball of blue light. “See, that’s his voice and his words, whatever language he knows.” He held it out to Meles, saying, “You need to swallow this so we can talk.”

But Meles shook his head, which surprised Timon. Did we do that? Did that mean “no” back then? He couldn’t remember.

Leaning forward, Meles brushed the light out of Timon’s hand. It floated out the window, listless in the muggy air. Meles made a hooking motion of his own, toward the front of the van. Then his hand was full of a different light, tinged red. The radio was silent.

“Huh,” said Timon. “I didn’t know you could work it that way.”

Meles spoke, his voice loud and aggressive, a ridiculous baritone. “That’s because I’m the talent, my friend, and you are support staff. I have the microphone, you sit in the control booth and play with your dials.”

“Oh, Jesus,” said Timon. He started frantically turning the frequency knob to the left.

“Let’s get a time frame, babe. How long was Meles off the air?”

“Um, a while.” Timon accelerated, driving with his knees while he tuned the radio with one hand and fished a book out of a pocket with another. He hesitated, then held it up for Meles to see.

“Do you get this? Did reading come with that voice?”

“So I’m a moron, now, is that what you’re saying? ‘Holy Bible.’ But I’m not here to read, bro, I’m hear to listen. I need facts and figures. Time for the news.”

“Look,” said Timon, “just read this, okay? That’ll get you started.”

Meles took the book, looked at the stained cloth cover. “Gideon? That asshole got a book deal?”

Timon turned his full attention to the road, pointing the van toward Panama City. “Not Gideon,” he said, “the Gideons. They’re like, I don’t know, his fan club or something. But don’t worry about Gideon and his people. They haven’t shown their faces in… look, just read that, okay?”

Meles settled back and read the first page. “Know this,” he said and flipped it. “Know this, know this, was there, participated, know this. Hello. Nephalim? That’s what they call us now? Is that their word for–” and he said a word in the language that Timon didn’t know anymore.

Timon just shrugged and went back to the radio. He hit a public station down in the eighties and a voice came over the speakers. Timon grabbed it and shoved it into Meles’ forehead while he was reading, really getting into the book now.

Meles sat straight up when the yellow lightning ball hit him, then worked his jaw around and said, very clearly, “It makes little difference to me.” He went back to his book, only looking up to say, “I’ll need to eat again, soon. The salad I had earlier had a primitive charm, but ultimately failed to please.”

Timon said, “Food. Right.”

# # #

Timon parked behind the building, squeezed out the driver’s side door and walked around to the back of the van. Meles had been quiet for awhile, reading. They’d been on the road for half an hour before Timon saw the sign he’d been looking for. Free buffet.

He opened the doors just as Meles was closing the book. Meles flipped it against Timon’s chest, saying, “This is the word of the Lord.”

Timon leaned over, picked it up, then saw Meles heading for the door of the building. Smells the food, Timon guessed. Smells something, anyway.

“Hey, wait,” Timon called. He looked around the parking lot and saw a pickup truck with a plastic tarp stretched over the bed. He ripped it off and carried it to where Meles stood waiting.

“Here, wrap this around you. We can make it where they don’t see us much, or at least don’t pay attention. But it’s easier if you’re not bare-assed naked.”

Meles just looked at the neon sign above the door and said, “Behold, the Whore of Babylon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Timon replied, reaching up to drape the tarp over Meles’ shoulders, “It’s that kind of place. But the customers are supposed to stay covered up, at least before noon. And the food’s free.”

They walked in, Meles bending over at the waist to get through the door, past a sleepy looking bouncer who Timon didn’t think would have noticed them even he hadn’t been broadcasting the don’t look signal (and Meles doing the same, Timon saw, Meles catching on very fast).

Timon jerked a table out of a booth and set it to one side. Meles went straight to the buffet and grabbed a couple of big steel trays off the steam table.

He came back to the booth and sat on the floor. Timon laughed, “Your ass is too big for the seat, huh?”

Meles took up a handful of gooey jalapeno poppers, nodded at the stage where a first shift dancer shuffled around the poll.

Timon said, “She had surgery to get that ass, man, yours is just naturally large. I don’t think they’re supposed to sit in the booths anyway.”

Meles sat the empty tray to one side. A huge roach, attracted to the smears of cheese, skittered down the wall beside them. It was the only thing in the dim room that was in scale with the brothers.

The other tray held chicken wings. Meles scooped up a mouthful and said, “‘The Nephalim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.’”

Timon idly watched the floor show, knowing where this had to be going, resigned and fearful at the same time. “You’re not supposed to eat the bones, man,” he said.

Meles leaned back. “‘Man?’ You remember my name, brother.’”

“What? Oh, right. Well, that’s just how people talk. You’ll settle into a voice once you’ve been around a little longer–”

Meles’ hand shot out and grasped Timon’s wrist, hard. Christ, Timon thought, that hurts. He had almost forgotten that, “hurt.”

He looked up and saw his brother, really saw him, and remembered what it had been like. He didn’t think much about the old days, at least he didn’t used to think about them until he finally couldn’t put it off any longer and had to go dig the old days up. So now here I sit in a crappy Florida strip club with one of the baddest sons of bitches I’ve ever been around. And in four thousand years I’ve been around some pretty bad sons of bitches.

Meles spoke again. “It rained for forty days and forty nights, then the waters of the flood were on the earth for 150 days. The Nephalim went up to the ark that Noah had built, but the hand of God stayed them. So they endured the rains and the waters. They swam in the oceans like fishes, and when they tired, they rested against the side of the ark.

“Noah and his sons saw the Nephalim, and cast the offal of the beasts upon them. The Nephalim were mighty warriors and sought to climb the sides of the ark, but the hand of God stayed them.

“So they clung to the ark and swam in the waters for 150 days, until the flood subsided. And they departed a little ways from Ararat, and heard of the Covenant. And there they made their own covenant among themselves.”

Meles grip loosened. Timon rubbed his wrist and whispered, “That’s not in the book.”

“But you remember it, little brother,” said Meles.

“Jesus, yes. Holding on to the side of that goddamned boat while Shem and Japheth threw elephant shit on our heads and laughed. And the smell of that wood.”

“‘Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood,’” said Meles, wrinkling his nose.

“And they call it that because it smells like gophers,” said Timon. “Who knew?”

“So you do remember, Timon. You have kept the memory of the flood, and of the time before, when we were mighty men of renown. But I say to you, there were three tasks appointed unto you.”

“Okay,” Timon said, breathing deeply. This was what he’d been waiting for. The consequences. “Okay, there were three things I was supposed to do.”

Meles held up one finger.

“Watch the humans and look out for when there were enough of them to populate the two hundred kingdoms again for us to rule over. That was your idea, Meles, you said that if we all stayed awake then we’d wind up fighting each other while we waited for them to be fruitful and multiply or whatever.”

Meles didn’t say anything, just held up a second finger.

“And I was supposed to watch over the sleeping places of the one hundred and ninety-nine in the meantime, so that nobody would mess with you guys, or wake you up early. And I did that, mostly.”

Meles turned a dangerous color at that “mostly,” but Timon rushed ahead.

“Fuck you, Meles! Water! You all had to be buried near a damned beach because you trusted the Covenant, didn’t think God would flood the earth again! So I’m supposed to keep an eye on two hundred beachfront lots all over the world? Traveling on foot?

“Look at me! I was the smallest and now I’m even smaller. I’m worn down, Meles! I haven’t rested in four thousand goddamned years! That book I gave you wasn’t anything, that’s about a tenth of the shit that’s gone on! You want to hear about the Romans? You want to hear about the Mongols? You don’t know shit!”

It was a long time to keep things bottled up, and Meles wasn’t killing him or anything, so Timon vented just a little more.

“So if I slacked off and didn’t walk every coastline on five fucking continents every fucking day, excuse me!”

He hadn’t bothered to keep his voice down and the four or five people in the dimly lit place actually turned to look in their direction. Even the pudgy dancer was peering out through the stage lights. Timon started to wave off their attention but Meles beat him to it, waving his hand at them in a lazy arc, three fingers in the air. Three fingers that he kept up when he finished and held his hand in front of Timon.

“There were three tasks appointed unto you,” he said again.

Timon rolled his eyes. “Right. And once Noah and his pups had incested up enough of a population, I was supposed to wake everybody up. And now–”

“And now the hour is late, and mankind has spread across the world,” Meles said. “Four thousand years. How many, Timon? How many of them are there?”

“Um, there’s about eight or nine billion of them, I think.”

Meles did the last thing that Timon thought he would do. He threw his head back and laughed.

“I don’t get it,” Timon said, “I should have woken all of you up at least two thousand years ago and you think it’s funny?”

“Why did you leave us in our slumber, Timon?”

Timon waited a minute, then finally said, “I don’t know, Meles. I just did. I don’t know why.”

“‘Thou shalt not bear false witness,’” said Meles, still laughing. Then he said, “This, too, was prophesied. The Nephalim that were there in those days made a covenant among their number. They went unto the corners of the earth and hid themselves in secret places. They slept until such a time came that they might come forward again. But one did not sleep, and he was set as a Guardian over them.”

Timon looked around, wondering if he could get somebody to bring him a drink. May be my last request.

Meles kept laying it on. “Then the Nephalim Meles thought, ‘This Guardian is false. He will not wake his brethren, but seek to rule over men himself. But this Guardian is weak, and will fail at that task. He will walk the earth alone, until he comes to a time when he can walk no further. Then he will awaken but one of his brethren to guide him and rule over him, and I shall be that one among his brethren.’”

Timon sat with his mouth hanging open. “You son of a bitch. You knew I wasn’t going to wake any of you bastards but you thought I’d come crawling back to you. You son of a bitch!”

Meles let Timon hit him, laughing the whole time. Timon calmed down after a minute, still shaking but seeing that he wasn’t doing any damage.

Meles asked, “Now is the appointed time?”

“You mean why now? You don’t even want to know. There’s so much stuff going on you won’t believe it. You remember the Covenant with men that God made, right, how He promised not to flood the world anymore? Well, Noah didn’t promise anything back, the Covenant was strictly a one way deal. So God doesn’t flood the earth? Big deal, man will do it. You want to hear about greenhouse gases? You want to hear about the Antarctic ice sheet? Rising sea levels? You smelled the air out there, right?

“You guys, you sleeping guys, you were all screwed from the beginning. Even if I’d woken you up when I was supposed to men would have just rolled right over you. You read the book, ‘now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them,’ right? Well, what they’ve purposed to do is screw everything up.”

Meles folded his hands under his chin, listening, thinking.

“Eight billion, I said,” Timon continued. “And they all hate each other, and they’re living on a big poisoned rock with poisoned water and poisoned air. So what are they doing? They’re leaving.”

For the first time since he’d woken him, Timon saw his brother look confused.

“Leaving, yeah. As in leaving the planet. Not all of them, and not for a while yet the way I’ve got it figured, but they’re shutting down and shoving off, no doubt. They’ve got people on the Moon now, and a whole bunch of them on Mars. And that’s just the beginning.

“Our brothers are going to wake up on their own eventually, maybe in another two or three thousand years. And when they do they’ll either be under water or on a radioactive rock.

“So, yeah, I woke you up because you were always the smartest one. And yeah, I want you to tell me what to do. So what’s the plan, smart ass?”

Timon flinched when Meles reached toward him again, but relaxed when Meles just pulled the book out of his pocket. Timon thought he may have done the right thing after all, when Meles said, “First, more of these.”

# # #

Timon pushed the cart between the shelves, careful on the turns because he had it stacked so high with books. He wheeled it up beside the other four and asked Meles, “You through with this one?” He pointed at a cart that was nearly empty, just two or three books thrown onto the bottom shelf.

“Hmmmm?” Meles answered, if that was an answer. He was holding a fat book on German grammar and he was flipping the pages as fast as he could.

“Those books on the bottom, there, you done with them?”

Meles threw his book toward a pile next to a big potted palm. He missed and it clattered across the tile floor. Meles didn’t pay it any mind, though, just reached for another book and said, “Mehr Wissenschaftbucher.”

Timon snorted. “Boy, I’m impressed.” But he went and looked. Not that there would be many, if there were any left at all. Meles had run through over half the shelves in the tiny library in an afternoon. The old man that ran the place was sitting behind the checkout counter, and Timon had him fixed so he’d sing out if anybody came in. Nobody did.

Timon didn’t find any more science books but he thought maybe there was something in the magazine section. Bingo. He got a big armful of Scientific Americans and Discovers and took them back to the table.

Meles was still speed reading and by now Timon was tired of shoveling books for him, so he lay down the magazines and stretched out on the floor. Flip, flip, flip. Meles could read even faster than Timon.

Timon started to read some of the magazines but it was all Mars stuff, which he was bored with. Mars in the magazines, Mars on TV. One of the magazines, one of the lowbrow ones Timon figured, had a big headline that read “Is Mars Your Next Address?”

The flipping stopped and didn’t start up again. Timon looked up and Meles was staring at the magazine in his hand. He motioned and Timon said, “I just started reading this.” He gave it up, though.

Meles read the magazine during the time it took him to say, “Observe, Timon. In this great cathedral of knowledge I have found the critical piece of information resting in your hand. And not in some learned tome, where less imaginative minds would have confined their searches, but instead in this humble journal, this vox populi that you so innocently held, unaware of its import.”

Timon looked over at the top title of the stack of discarded books. Meles was into fiction now, he saw. Conan Doyle.

“You got to cut that out, Meles. You’re driving me bat shit.”

“I detect from your glance and the set of your shoulders that you here refer to my speech, and the veerings in diction and register that have characterized it of late.” Meles was happy about something, pretty pleased with himself.

“Whatever. Just pick something and settle on it, okay? Something cool, though.”

“My dear Timon, I find myself in a magnanimous mood, now that the answer to our dilemma has yielded itself up to my inquiry. The colorful words and pace of your own vocabulary might suit my needs and satisfy your ears, as well. Where did you acquire it?”

Well I’ll be damned, thought Timon. He leaned back and picked up a pile of paperbacks he’d been reading earlier, covers all bright colors, green, yellow, orange. “Crime novels,” he said. “They’re all I read anymore.”

# # #

After the tailors had taken their measurements, and Meles had picked the colors and materials, they’d gone out and scouted around for wheels. They hit pay dirt in the Panama City PD’s impound lot so they had new clothes and a new ride when they headed east.

Nice clothes and a pretty nice ride, too, Timon had to admit. And no sign of rain so they wouldn’t have to worry about getting water spots on their silk shirts. They’d ripped the roof off the Caddy for more head room. Timon figured it must have belonged to a pretty high up hood because of the heavy duty springs and the NASCAR engine. Black, of course, and now a convertible. Probably the only stretch convertible on the road, even if this was Florida.

Meles lay back, linen jacket on the floor beside him, tanning. Every once in awhile they’d pass a load of college girls and Meles would let them see him for a second, flash them a smile.

Timon gave up looking for good music. Central Florida radio was all hillbilly shit, country and gospel. He yelled at Meles. “So what are we doing in Orlando?”

Meles kept his eyes closed and his head tossed back. “I don’t know. Stopping for a piss? Our target’s the other side. Going to see the ocean.” He made wave moves with his hand.

“What do you want with a beach?”

“Jesus,” Meles said, and threw a magazine at Timon. The wind caught it and it flew out of the car, went flapping down the interstate, but Timon saw the red tinged pictures as it went. “Look at all of this stuff,” Meles said, “Books on rockets and planets, newspapers full of stories about the launches and the colony. Do you pay any attention to what’s going on around you? Can you put two and fucking two together?”

Should have stuck with Sherlock Holmes, Timon thought, but he looked at the pile that Meles had brought with him from the library. “I told you they were gearing up to leave, long term. What about it?”

“Well think, about it, Timmy boy. If we aim to be in charge, then we’ve got to be where the people are. We’re heading to the Cape, dumb ass. The last load of supply modules for this round of transports is lifting off tonight. Me and you are going to be on it.”

Timon didn’t slam on the brakes because they were doing better than a hundred miles per hour and he didn’t much feel like flying through the windshield. But he let his toe off the gas.

Meles kept talking, didn’t let Timon say anything. “I suppose this is the part where you act all surprised and throw some kind of bitch fit, right? No way have we got time for that.

“Think. There are eight billion of these mother fuckers now, spread out all over the place and working as hard as they can to screw everything up. You told me this, remember?”

Timon kept driving, not looking up at Meles. But he nodded.

“But up there, there’s just a few thousand of them, and they’re all clustered up around just a couple of big bases. Easier to take charge, right?”

And Timon, he kept nodding, actually getting into it. “Large and in charge,” he said.

“Damn right,” said Meles. “Very large, very much in charge. Gods of Mars.”

“I like that,” Timon said and the needle started to pick up, edged past 120. “I like ‘Gods of Mars.’”

The sun was setting behind them and the bats were getting thick. Timon didn’t bother with the headlights, though. He could see in the dark just fine. He could see the road and it was straight, see the car and it was bad, see the two of them and they were styling.

# # #

“No way,” said Timon.

“Shut up,” said Meles, but he didn’t put much into it. He was scouting out the situation, leaning back against the fender of the car and taking in the view. Which consisted of one very large rocket priming on a launch pad about a mile away. And a whole lot of fences and guards and cameras.

Timon ignored the order. “No way we’re getting in there without anybody spotting us. I can keep a couple hundred of them occupied, sure, but there’s grandstands over there. Not to mention all the cameras and motion sensors and who knows what else they’ve got in this place.”

“I know, little brother,” said Meles. “I know what else they’ve got here. And don’t sweat it, okay. We can hold these pinheads off no problem.”

“In person, sure,” said Timon, flustered. “But what about the cameras, the electrical shit? You got that figured out, Melly boy?”

“This guy sees me pull a voice out of a radio, out of a Ford factory standard radio, and he’s worried about some NASA camcorders. Have a little faith, okay?”

So he laid it all out, and even if Timon didn’t have faith exactly, he went along.

# # #

Went along and did his part, charming the guards while Meles zoned in on all the machines. Timon saw the peculiar spin Meles sent out to fool the electric eyes. It didn’t look that hard. And it worked. They waltzed right through, past the pinheads, past the grandstands and TV camera crews, headed for their ride.

They were sauntering along, Timon looking around for a jeep or something so they wouldn’t have to walk all the way out to the launch pad. Meles still looked kind of intense, feeling around for cameras, but he coughed up some more details.

“One section of the cargo bay is pressurized cause they’re sending up cultures and embryos, stuff like that. We climb up, toss out enough of the crap to equal our mass, then strap in to that compartment. Robots off load it into the cargo ring of the transport, somebody there cracks the seals to check on everything, and we’re on our way. Just forty people on the ship, you could handle that many in your sleep.”

“What about the stuff we throw out? Won’t they find that after the launch?”

“I’ll go up first and throw it out. You kick it under the engines and it’ll get vaporized. Don’t worry so much.”

Timon wasn’t too excited about that part of the plan. It sounded a lot like a plan that could wind up with his ass standing in the middle of the tarmac while Meles traveled first class, solo.

He started to say something, but suddenly Meles threw him to the ground behind some barrels. Is he making his move already? thought Timon, but no, Meles was laying beside him, squeezed against the wall of a utility building.

“You’re turning into one impulsive bastard, do you know that?” asked Timon. Meles hushed him, pointed.

There was somebody striding across the blacktop, headed for the rocket. There were technicians and guards all over the place, and even though this guy was definitely not one of them, they didn’t pay him any attention. Which was kind of odd since he was at least ten feet tall.

# # #

Meles was providing Timon with all kinds of new experiences. Or at least with experiences he hadn’t had in a long time. Pain, bathing, wearing nice clothes. Now bleeding. He was actually bleeding, Meles had hit him so hard.

He dragged Timon into the empty utility building first, then beat him, just pummeled him for a few minutes. Meles finally started talking to him, yelling at him really, between kicks.

“Only one you woke up, huh? You lying sack of shit!” Meles emphasized his comments with things he found lying around. When he said “sack of shit” he smashed a cinder block across Timon’s face.

Timon tried to speak, had to stop to spit out some teeth and concrete, and said, “You are the only one, I swear!” Or something like that, his mouth was mangled up so it came out slurred.

Meles threw him across the room, and before Timon could stand up, he was pinned under a generator. Timon felt new teeth pushing up out of his gums, so he sounded more like himself when he said, “Listen to me! I didn’t wake any of the others up! They must have got up on their own, or maybe some humans found them or something!”

Meles hesitated, straddling the generator. He moved his foot around and pressed Timon’s head to the floor. “It would be a lot of work to kill you,” he said, “But I could do it.”

“Yeah, but could you do it before they launch that rocket?” asked Timon, talking as fast as he was thinking. “Besides, Timon, I swear to God I’m telling the truth.”

He must have sounded believable, because Meles backed off a little bit, took the foot off his face. “You know who I think it was?” he said.

“Out there?” Timon asked. “You mean which brother? I didn’t get a clear look at him.”

“It was Rall. Son of a bitch is even bigger than I am.”

“Rall? No way, guy’s dead between the ears. Never did anything but drink and screw his whole blessed life. Why would he be here?”

Meles made a disgusted noise. “Why are we here? If I figured this out, don’t you think the others could have, too, given time? Except for you, of course, and even you had the sense to wake me up.”

“But that would mean Rall’s been up awhile. No way he could have come up to speed as quick as you.”

“There’s no telling how long he’s been awake. He looked pretty good, not worn down like you. But he could have just bothered to stay in shape, shown a little self respect.”

Timon bristled, but let it pass. “I guess if he’s been up awhile it could explain some things. Those Greek god stories. I don’t know, Paul Bunyan, stuff like that.”

Meles nodded, he’d read all that. “There’s a million of them. That living god down in Central America–”

Timon interrupted him. “Nah, that was me.”

Meles raised his eyebrows. “You? With all the sacrifices and everything?”

Timon was a little edgy, even embarrassed. “Yeah. Sacrifices, ceremonies, all that.”

“Slave girls?”

“Sure, slave girls.”

Meles whistled, looked at Timon a little differently. “Sweet,” he said.

“Yeah, it wasn’t too bad. But look, I don’t have a hundred thousand cannibals to send out there after Rall. I’m kind of at a different place in my life now. And we’re running out of time.”

Meles walked over to the door, looked out at the big clock on the edge of the field. “You’re right. But there’s not a lot we can do at this point. We have to assume that Rall’s not going to be any happier to see us than we are to see him. He was never much of a team player. So we have to get him off the rocket and out of the way, and then get us on the rocket. All in the next…looks like six minutes. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Forget that. I’m boy Friday, remember? You do the thinking, I just carry the spears.”

Which, Timon decided immediately, was a stupid thing to say because it made Meles grimace and say, “Yeah, I’m afraid you’re right. I don’t see any other way.”

“I guess I was supposed to follow some kind of chain of reasoning there?”

Meles threw open the door and started striding across the field, Timon hurrying to catch up. “Look,” Meles said, “This is show time. All the eyes and all the machines are tuned in right to this pad, right now. Three giants beating the shit out of each other is going to draw some attention if we’re not careful. So one of us is going to have to be on full time camouflage duty while the other one takes out Rall.” They were almost to the rocket, wisps of gas starting to pour out of the big engines.

“I don’t know, Meles. I’m pretty good in front of people, but I’ve never had to work in front of cameras this much. I don’t think I can keep all the eyes shut, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Meles said, and walked up beside the rocket. Timon saw a locker and some metal crates thrown under the engines, but forgot about them when Meles said, “That’s why you’re the one that has to deal with Rall.”

Then he threw his head up and yelled a word, a name, in that twisty language. Timon said, “Oh, shit,” and way up the side of the rocket, there was a clanking noise.

They looked up, and saw a face looking down at them. A big face. They couldn’t hear what he was yelling from this distance, but Rall’s expressions were pretty easy to read. And that big loopy grin, Timon remembered–growing bigger very quickly as Rall jumped out of the rocket and dropped four stories to the ground–that big loopy grin was always pasted on Rall’s face when he was about to put a hurt on some poor bastard.

Rall landed light as a cat. “Meles!” he roared. “And the dwarf! Where have you boys been hiding out?” Timon saw that Rall didn’t look quite as healthy and shiny as Meles, saw him cast a quick look at that big clock, too.

Meles wasn’t talking, he was bent over, hands to his head, murmuring under his breath.

Rall said, “Laying it on a little thick just to cover up a quiet reunion there, aren’t you, Mel?”

Timon didn’t think for a second that Rall didn’t see how it was, and he didn’t see any other way of this situation, so he bunched up his fists, said “Oh, shit” one more time, and waded in.

He actually caught Rall by surprise, actually made him give a little ground in that first volley of blows. Rall let out a big breath. “This,” he grunted, “is not how I would have thought you would play it.” Then he got that loopy grin again. “But I’ll take it.”

Timon hit the ground face first, but forced himself up immediately. Rall was closing on Meles, Meles just standing there zoned out. Timon put a shoulder in Rall’s belly, like a free safety piling into some big tight end.

Which is the way I’m going have to do this, Timon thought, as Rall picked him up and dropped him over an extended knee, almost breaking his back. I’m the little guy. How do little guys win fights?

He rolled away from Rall as quickly as he could, Rall following, throwing a few kicks at whatever part of Timon was presenting itself at any given second. Finally, Timon regained his feet.

Then it came to him. With their heads, he realized, little guys win fights with their heads.

Timon had never thought about whether he could influence one of his brothers the way he influenced humans. By the time he figured out how to twist and smooth another’s perceptions and attitudes, his brothers had been buried (he’d presumed) for a couple of thousand years. It might not work as well, or at all.

But what the hell?

Rall was lurching towards him, arms spread wide and eyes bright with some wacked out version of anticipation.

Timon held up a finger. “Hey, Rall,” he said, and pushed. Pushed through a curtain that he’d never felt in a human, sure, but once he was through, the inside of Rall’s head felt pretty much like any other big agressive idiot he’d ever put the mojo on. “Just stand there for a minute.”

And Rall did.

Hunh, Timon thought. Good thing Meles hasn’t figured this out or I’d be playing Zombie Friday instead of Boy Friday.

Not a comforting thought, no way, and Timon was relieved when a quick glance at Meles showed him still crouching, still busy sending out a hundred little lies to a hundred different cameras.

Timon reached into Rall again, careful not to talk aloud this time. Um, why don’t you take a head first jump under the engines, there, bud? Try to land hard enough to knock yourself out if you can.

Then Timon jumped, twirled, and waved his arms about in as impressively as he could. He let out something like a war cry and slapped Rall a good one across the face. Rall’s leap was more spectacular than Timon’s attack, spectacular enough for Meles to come out of his trance a little and stare at Timon, a big question in his eyes.

“Judo, man. Karate, shit like that. I picked it up over the years.”

A flash in Meles eyes, was it suspicion? But he just said, “I was sure we were screwed.”

Timon couldn’t believe it. “Yeah, you’re welcome.” He was going to say more but just then one of the engines fired.

Meles yelled, “Stay here! I’ve got to get up there and throw out some more cargo so we don’t throw the rocket off course! You have to kick it under the exhaust with Rall’s body!”

Fire was rolling out now, and as Meles climbed the outside of the rocket, disappearing into the panel Rall had cracked open, Timon could feel the hair being singed away from his arms and head, the clothes burning off his body. Which was too bad. The shirt had been ruined by all the blood anyway, but he would have liked to have kept the pants.

Just when he was sure Meles was leaving him behind, a Timon sized container hit the pavement next to him. Timon kicked it under the exhaust just as the three biggest engines came online and the rocket begain inching upward.

Okay, Timon thought, jump onto a launching rocket, climb up its smooth outer skin while it’s achieving escape velocity, and find a way inside. He cracked his knuckles. No sweat.

It wasn’t easy, though, and it took time. Time for a little more thinking.

Funny that Rall was up and figured out that the best thing to do was leave the planet–and Rall was an idiot. The rocket cleared the gantry. Timon shimmied up its side.

.Kind of stands to reason, then, that some of the others already had the same idea. They may have even beaten us to Mars. The vibration and noise were incredible, but the climb got a little easier when the rocket tipped slightly and angled out over the Atlantic.

Oh well, once Meles figures out he can put the mental whammy on us, too, he shouldn’t have much trouble getting everybody under his thumb.

Timon reached the hatch, leaned his upper body through. Meles was braced between two buckling metal crates, pointing to another cleared space. “Get your ass in gear! You’ve got to get that hatch sealed and your sorry self into position or we’ll miss the orbital rendevous! Do it!”

So, it could be that all of my brothers are gone, already. Could be there’s nobody to stop me from trying to salvage something down here.

It was like pushing through a curtain. A heavier curtain this time, sure, Meles’ made of barbed wire and chains where Rall’s was cotton and lace. But he pushed through.

“Yeah, Meles, well, here I am. The hatch is sealed and I’m right where you want me.”

Then Timon pushed himself, pushed backwards.

It was a long, slow dive to the ocean below. When he lept from the rocket, he was high enough to reach terminal velocity, but he cut into the water with almost no splash. It takes a lot of confidence to make a dive like that, it takes self-respect.

And he looked good doing it.
END

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Christopher Rowe, a 2004 Hugo and Nebula nominee for best novelette, lives in Lexington, KY with his wife Gwenda Bond. You can find more about Christopher at his Online Journal.

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Christopher Rowe’s short story “The League of Last Girls” appears in the Apex Publications anthology Aegri Somnia. Order your copy today.