Michael Siemsen - Exigency

AETHER: We’re OK. Don’t move. Coming to you.

Minnie held the flood of questions filling her head.

MINNIE: OK.

For a while she observed little progress until the helmets began rising and falling over growing swells as they neared the cresting surf. She scanned the terrain beneath the surface in search of rocks or anything else the pair might encounter after a violent break. There was ample clearance and their inflated suits would keep them from sinking too deep.

They climbed a high wave just before its break, disappearing behind it, and a moment later, reached their turn. The ominous shade projected over them, rising and collapsing into a rumbling wash.

Orange orbs seemed to roll atop the white lather, and then their arms appeared, right, left, right, propelling them closer, closer, to the second and third ranks of breakers.

Minnie leaned, worked her knees, longed to run into the surf, but stayed. She’d said to stay. She’d said she was coming to her.

Both found their footing, held hands for balance, slogging now through waist-deep outflow, free hands scooping, closer. Aether’s eyes met Minnie’s. Aether stuck out her tongue, rolled her eyes, dragged a leg forward—a grueling exhibition of the longest yard.

On the beach, finally, Pablo dropped to his knees. Aether remained on her feet, shoulders slumped, a few meters from Minnie. She unsealed her helmet and pulled it off. Minnie removed her own and let it fall to the rocks, her white weather cap remaining on her head.

“Hey,” Aether said, panting.

Minnie’s eyes blurred as her smiling lips trembled. “Hi.” She tried to move but was stuck, as if she needed permission to go to her. She tried to ask, her mouth opening but no words escaping. She moved a hand, a tiny movement— may I?

Aether closed her eyes, dropped her helmet, and held out her palms, fingers curling— c’mere.

Minnie’s legs moved like Frankenstein’s monster, heels digging between clacking rocks, arms rising as she came upon her. She knew this moment already, knew exactly how her arms would wrap around Aether’s back, her face would squish into Aether’s chest, and she’d squeeze and collapse against a sturdy body. But she was wrong.

They collapsed into each other—two withered, boneless bodies melting together. Two overwhelmed, exhausted, depleted minds with so much to say and no energy or desire to say any of it. So they sobbed and their chests quaked and the sounds of pounding waves seemed all too fitting.

Their grips gradually eased and Minnie peered up at Aether’s face. “That was from John.”

Aether choked a little, nodded and blinked rapidly, lips curling and compressing, fresh tears streaming down frosty trails. Her lips were turning purple; her whole face was a bit blue.

Minnie let go, picked up Aether’s helmet, and helped her put it back on. “You need to warm up.”

Intense eyes glued to Minnie’s, Aether wiped away the tears and lowered her visor until it was open just a crack.

“Hey, Minnie,” Pablo said.

Pablo!

She felt awful. She’d forgotten he was there. “Come here, you!” She threw her arms around him and he lifted her off the ground, waving her left and right. “So good to see you… and not just ‘cause you’re here to save my life.”

He chuckled. “Well, we’ll see how much saving—ho hey-hey-hey, what’s this?” Pablo set her down and tried to check beneath her cap. The gauze over her ear must have been peeking out.

She smiled, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it lovingly. “A little project for you. But later.” She turned back to Aether, whose focus had shifted southward, down the beach.

“Where’d your friends go?” Aether asked.

Minnie cocked her head to the sea. “I was literally about to ask you the same thing.”

Aether cast a scowl to the horizon. “Biggest hole you’ll ever meet, and they put her in charge of our afvrik. She’s gone and not coming back.”

Minnie pointed past the surf. “What about that one?”

Aether spun round and spied the other afvrik that had been hanging out since the first one left. “Tunhkset! She stayed!”

The afvrik’s handler made a gesture Minnie recognized at once. “Come now.”

Lined up in one row across the bobbing creature’s back, the rest of the Threck echoed their leader, “Come now.”

Pablo clapped his gloves together. “Ha! She actually stayed!” He grinned, astonished, as he shook his head. He clapped once more and eyed Minnie. “Soooo… You happen to have a skimmer parked around here somewhere? I’ve got a pregnant girlfriend waiting back home.”

Minnie blinked. “Wait, what?”

Magnified through a biotherm optic, a parasitic worm clings to a brain’s limbic cortex, two rows of tiny barbed appendages anchoring the creature to the organ. When the host moves, the parasite writhes subtly. A horror scene.

Zooming out from the brain, outside the host creature’s body cavity, an intelligent lifeform—a distinguished member of her society and the head of her civilization’s revered assembly of philosophers—stands proudly before a new structure that exemplifies her people’s accomplishment. A scene of accelerated evolution.

Floating upward to a bird’s-eye view, pointing downward, the leader is seen extending an arm to another intelligent lifeform—a distinguished member of a different society, recently rescued and returned from a dangerous land—and the pair exchange words of praise. A scene of peace, optimism, and potential.

Zooming out again, beyond the bustling construction site, beyond the adjacent field of emerging crops, and across an ocean to another land, the view descends on a shaded patch of coastal vegetation, and a frenzied pack of massive predators ripping plants from the soil. As they claw at the entrance to their prey’s burrow, a red cloud of disturbed fungus spores drifts about, sticking to the beasts’ mouths, and flowing into their windpipes. Another scene of potential.

And finally, zooming out once more, past the clouds, past an orbiting field of debris in the thermosphere, the planet shrinking from a globe, to a ball, to a speck, to nothing. Zooming out farther still, farther, and further.

Editing services provided by the keen intellect of Kristina Circelli from Red Road Editing. As always, these stories would be nothing without my growing list of amazing beta readers: Alyssa W, Angela P, Bill H, Bill R, DeeDee B, Eric D, Jessica B, Joe S, Karen L, Laura B, Laurie J, Lori W, Pascal B, Scott K, Stacey L, Venture C, and Vicky W—thank you all! Further thanks to Hugh Howey, John Chiu, Mary Roach, Jon Reiner, Eugene Mallove, Gregory Matloff, Kevin Fong, M.D., everyone else who took the time to answer one or more of my silly questions over the past two years, and, of course, my wife, Ana, for all she does, and all she puts up with.

Michael Siemsen lives in Northern California with his wife, three kids, dog Brody, cat Atom, several fish, two chupacabrii, and one pesky demon. He continues, as we speak, to spill his guts for your entertainment.

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