Paul Hughes - An End

it is a pause in our lovemaking. tobacco burned, we crush filters against tar-blackened glass. i push the chair back to the desk, place the ashtray on the table. i walk back to her, sit beside her. lips merge, hands go hesitantly then purposefully to faces. we fall into each other, limbs intertwined, the taste of smoke on our lips, the shudder and release of desire matching smoothly the movement of two bodies in union.

it is not at all like kissing an

ashtray?”

“Sure, in the back. But don’t you want to save them for later?”

“No…Let’s smoke one now.” He wore a big goofy grin that she hadn’t seen in

“You’re dangerous.”

The door opened and a tall figure walked in, black cloak dry when it should have been wet, unkempt hair more kempt than the weather should have allowed. A single white curl stood out from his hairline. He walked to the counter.

“What can I get you?”

“Sorry, madam…I’m not here for refreshment. Have you seen this man?” The man held out his right hand, and a small holographic appeared.

Susan nodded. Paul was silent, eyes squinted to focus on the character before him.

who..? when—

“He was just in here…He’s the boy who proposed to his girlfriend.”

“Proposed?”

“I assume so…He gave her a silver ring.”

“Silver.”

Susan hesitated…The girl’s hands had been afflicted with the scourge. And this stranger—

“A silver ring. He proposed and they left. You know…Kids. In love. They left.”

“Did you see which way they walked?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t watching.”

“And you?”

Paul cleared his throat. “Sorry, friend. I was drinking my coffee.”

“Thank you for your time.” The man in black turned, walked back toward the door.

Paul stood, faced the man.

“Whistler?”

The stranger paused in mid-stride, head cocked to one side, about to turn—

Paul’s heart hitched in his chest.

Whistler walked out the door without looking back.

“Who was that?”

Paul shook his head.

“Nobody.” He sipped his coffee, held his wife’s hand. “Just a ghost.”

“Light ’em up.”

“What are they saying? What the fuck are they saying?”

“Who cares? Light ’em up. Trigger it. We’ll iron out the paperwork later.”

Hunter shook his head. “This isn’t right. Something isn’t right.”

Tallis glared through him, flipped his visor down. “Call in the fucking strike, Windham.”

“Sir, I can’t just—”

Tallis tore the comm from Hunter’s grasp, shoved him aside. He locked the device into the hardlink on his throat shield. “Tallis wing to orbital firing group. Bring the weapon online.”

copy, wing one.

“Sir, listen to them. They aren’t—”

“Hunter, don’t—”

“They aren’t humans.”

“The fuck are you—”

“ Listen to them!”

“It’s an off-chart language. So what? We have orders.”

“Tallis,” Hunter pulled off his helmet. “Listen to them.”

She hung in velvet black, pressed into place by the cold non-hands of her mechanical caretakers. They would take what they needed from her, as they always had, that gentle rape that they called duty and she called rape.

Tallis had called a strike on the city.

The forces held her motionless in the halls of vapor and light with a liquid precision, the intimate caress of the weapon flux. She cringed at the metal whine of the contact jack as it reached over her shoulders, secured itself to her chestplate: eight subtle penetrations and a locking click, then the deeper invasion of the central hub.

Tears: two.

Somewhere below, there was a planet. There was a city. Somewhere below, there were innocents reaching to the sky, screaming at the invasion force, reeling in confusion at the vessel that blocked out the faded cold of the surviving star. Lilith knew that somewhere below, Hunter was standing with weapon drawn, helmet off, shaking his head.

listen to them

“System?”

No answer.

“Stop the cycle, please.”

The firing chamber was moving into position.

“Stop the cycle, System.”

Felt them: heard them speaking without words, weeping without tears, screaming without hope or substance.

“Stop it!”

Lilith couldn’t move.

Shimmer and shift, silver and submission.

An instant of light, a forever of end.

Hunter shouted in frustration and disgust. Tallis looked pleased.

It struck from above: the beam was peaceful, gentle, a faded light draping across the city, barely casting shadows, barely touching anything at all. From within the static shielding, Hunter and the dozens of other droptroops braced themselves.

The natives fell silent. Hunter realized with a morbid fascination that they had never actually spoken at all. The guttural tones that came from underdeveloped mouths had been the only thing Tallis had heard. He had failed to listen to the voice of the

i have come again to

mind, the Voice of the people who were now an instant from the eternal cease.

Hunter heard. He heard them all.

berlin hannon judithgod

maire

walked across the ice plain to the wreckage of Task’s vessel, which was rapidly being consumed by blue-tinged fire. It was a world of silence, except for faint whisper of wind that brushed painful ice crystals across her face and the crackle of fire as polyalloy ignited from within. One of the men on the top of the vessel hoisted the other figure over his shoulder and jumped to the ground. She heard the distinct wail of pain from the crumpled man as they landed in a pile upon the snow-covered ice. His cry echoed back and forth across the expanse, bordered as it was by cliffs that might have been stone, might have been ice.

She felt a flicker. Tiny flicker. It was returning.

Tears streamed down Task’s face. He was lost in a haze of agony, his body shaking, his breath coming in great gasps as Berlin pulled him away from the twisted remains of his vessel. Task knew that somewhere within, Elle was nothing more than a puddle of melted metal and plastic, returning again to her base elements of manufacture. All that s/he had been was now lost.

Berlin wiped his brow. The fire was overwhelming, mixed with the toxic fumes of the collapsing alloys. Whatever was in this atmosphere was causing the ship to burn with remarkable heat. He inhaled deeply, coughed as smoke singed his lungs with an alien taste. Mixed with the frightfully weak gravity, the harsh light of a single star in the sky, the smoke made Berlin dizzy, nauseous. He had the sudden desire to lay down on the snow, just to rest for a moment, just to close his eyes and try to still his rapid hearts. He just wanted to—

“What’s that?”

Task was looking off in the distance, where for the first time Berlin noticed a faint shimmer of

There was a person walking toward Task’s wrecked ship.

Berlin squinted his eyes, felt the biomech corneas zoom, focus. The figure shifted into clarity.

Maire.

Berlin released Task’s shoulders and he fell unceremoniously to the ground, his legs splaying in divergent twists of shredded fabric and exposed bone. He writhed in pain, sobbed again. Berlin noted for an instant the grisly black path stretching from the place beside the vessel where they’d landed to Task’s present position. He wouldn’t last long if they couldn’t stop the bleeding soon.

“It’s Maire. She’s seen us.”

“But how—”

“We must have been fused to her bubble when they ejected her.” Berlin released his phase weapon from its holster, knew what he would find already: the charge was lost, depolarized from the liquidspace flux. The weapon was useless.