“Old man, what’s that up there?”

“The Unfoundary?”

“You call it that? What is it?”

I frown. It’s a broad gateway high on Thumb Hill. It’s made of tan stone, carved with shapes as old as the Thumb itself, flanked with squared-off pillars and wrapped in cords as wide as I am tall. The binding cords reach up, twined together at the tip of the gateway, and then on beyond our sight into the sky. We can see it from anywhere in the valley, Thumb Hill and the Unfoundary.

“What is it?” the young stranger repeats.

“We call it the Unfoundary,” I reply. “You must not be from around here.”

He shakes his head, which is covered in wavy brown hair. “I’m from the east. Trinlos.”

“Ah, a city. I’ve been there before.”

“You have?” Surprise, perhaps respect. “You traveled a long way, old man.”

“Us both. I hope you didn’t come to see the Unfoundary only, but we don’t have much anything else to see in our valley.”

“You have forests, and snow,” he says, glancing around past the edge of the village. “I’m traveling further south, but I like your village.”

“Fortune to you, then,” I say with a slight bow.

“Tell me, though, what is this Unfoundary? It must be as wide as your whole town!”

I can’t tell whether he means to compliment our scenery or insult our size. “I’d stay off the hillside, if I were you. The Unfoundary is an evil place.”

“What’s evil about it?”

“It’s a place where the dead go–where people sometimes go to die.”

His face shows interest, curiosity. “Trinlos is superstitious, but I didn’t think you westerners were as well.”

I shrug my shoulders. “We stay alive this way. And safe.”

The young man’s intrigued expression fades as he shifts his haversack and stamps his feet for warmth. “I’m not sure how much I believe of your superstition, but it’s interesting, to say the least. Good day to you, old one.”

I grunt. “Safe travels.” What I wouldn’t give some days to travel again. It’s been fifteen years since I so much as climbed the side of the valley.

The day is calm and white–early snowfall from a blank sky. Most of the village stays inside their huts, pungent smoke filtering out through fire holes and the occasional opened door. I see my friend Onór at the side of her hut watching the traveler go.

“You talked to him?” she asks me.

“Yes. He’s from Trinlos–did you know I went there once?”

“Where haven’t you gone?” Onór asks with a faint smile. “I think you’ve had too many years with not enough work to do.”

Perhaps she’s right–I’m five years older than anyone else in the village–forty-five older than most. Some of them have never left the valley. Most have never left sight of it, never seen a city or a sheer mountain or the sea. It’s strange to be the old one.

“Where’s he headed to now?”

“South,” I reply. “Probably looking for money.”

“There’s no riches worth leaving a safe warm hearth for this time of year.”

“Maybe.”

Onór sees my eyes following the traveler onto the forested slope of the valley. “Oh, did you want to go with him?” she asks dryly. “Poor old dog. I think your travels are done now.”

“Maybe,” I say again, with an idea shaping in my mind.

It was a beautiful day when the priests invaded our home. Cloaked in prayer and singing hymns, they shaped our natural environment to suit their bodies. The clergy bent pieces of space-time into rock and water; they forced our bodies that were so used to existing as incorporeal concepts into something they could understand. They defined what we could be until it was what we were.

I remember raging with my family at the rudeness of it all. But, like the others, I calmed as the priests spoke.

They spoke of their home far away and the evil that plagued it. A place filled with fear, anger, hostility, and those who had given up. The priests begged anyone who would listen to go back with them—help them heal their sick and teach them how to care for those who had wandered from the faith. Even now, looking back on it, I’d have made the same decision. There was no way to know. No way to tell just how misguided and cruel they’d turn out to be.

The night before I left, my family and I sang and danced in the stellar fields above the place we called home. It was a song my mother had taught me when I was newly created. A simple four-note melody that echoed across space and filled me with the love and joy of fond memories. It was a reminder of where I’d come from and where I’d go. She told me to hum that song whenever I missed her and to sing with the glory of our pantheon if I ever needed them. “We’ll find you,” she told me, “and we’ll bring you back home.”

Dawn came and I left the undefined reality of home and crossed into the small pocket of physical space where the priests were waiting. They led me to their ship that was docked nearby (their bodies couldn’t yet handle the pressure of conceptual space).

They ushered me inside and sealed the outer walls. The priests gathered around me and filled the air with their echoing chant as they led me deeper into the bowels of the vessel. I felt my new body wrap around me, defining my form and twisting me into a new shape even as I fought against it.

I felt myself diminish with each step. I couldn’t hear the yawning cosmos or feel the subatomic explosions dance across my thoughts. I should have turned and fled. I should have sung my mother’s song and had my brothers and sisters tear this ship apart.

Us, Spawns

“I guess this is not the right day for a sponge.”

“Is there a right day?”

“Must be. A rainy day won’t let me walk past the corner, makes me feel all fat and bloated. A sunny day will turn me into a raisin, old and used up. A windy day now-”

“Got it.”

Their room does not catch the sun, constantly washed in sterile, fluorescent light. Creased sheets, stranger-stained, on two single beds nailed together. As cheap as it gets. Ten euros an hour and twenty a night. The clock is ticking Coca Cola time on the beige wall.

The Lord of Dead Ends blows a perfect circle of smoke towards the ceiling. He cracks his fingers and cautiously leans back against the headboard.

“We need to get going,” says Sponge the Bright, fishing the last crisps from the bottom of the bag.

“You’ll smell like crisps for days,” the Lord of Dead Ends says and grabs the bag from his hands. The TV burps a tulip of purple steam as he turns it off; its cogs grunt and stop.

“Fine. And you get dressed. It takes ages to wrap you up and our first shift starts in an hour.”

“Right.” The Lord of Dead Ends unfolds his long limbs and stretches throwing his head back, hair tickling his waist. His padded full-body suit hangs limp on the coat rack, black. When he wears it he feels like it’s swallowing him up, every inch of his dazzling white skin. It still leaves the face uncovered, though. When you are made of porcelain, there are only so many precautions you can take. “You know this job won’t last either, so don’t keep your hopes up.” He zips the suit up, testing it for spots where the padding has thinned, it seems fine. “There is a reason I am called the Lord of Dead Ends.”

Sponge the Bright snorts and jumps around as he tries to squeeze his fluffy arms into the sleeves of his coat. “I really need to get a cloak next time,” he says, fumbling to button up and failing. The Lord of Dead Ends stifles a chuckle and stubs his cigarette in the astray.

“Shit,” he says, leaning towards the window, looking up. “You were right. It’s this fucking poisonous rain again. I’ll get the umbrellas.”

“Grrreg! Come in here.”

I hated how he rolled his Rs. It always made my skin crawl. This time it also made me chomp down on my tongue. Made it bleed.

I swallowed my blood with a wince. God, I hoped he couldn’t smell it. But I knew he could. He could smell everything. The worst thing about having a wolf for a boss, worse than the rolled Rs, worse than the trails of saliva down the corridors and in the break room, was his sense of smell. I learned early on, and learned the hard way, to forgo steaks for dinner, even on weekends. He’d always get a whiff of it the following day, and he’d be on me like…well, like a wolf.

My sense of smell, unfortunately, though not on par with a wolf’s, was still quite keen. I opened the door to his office and the stench churned my stomach. Don’t vomit again! Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit.

“Yes, Boss. What is it, Boss?”

“Congrrratulations.” His tongue swiped his teeth and gums as if lapping up the saliva-ladened syllables that dripped from his mouth.

I managed, quite convincingly, to contain my enthusiasm. I deserved that promotion. He wasn’t doing me any favors. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You’re going to be Simon’s right hand man.”

“Simon?” That incompetent suck up!

“Yes, Simon!” My boss’s tail rose from behind his chair, swished back and forth, and smacked the phone on his desk, knocking over the receiver. “Every good project manager needs an excellent project manager’s assistant.”

If, by good project manager, he meant an opportunistic buffoon whose only contribution was daily bison scraps, then yes, Simon did deserve the promotion. I bit down on my disappointment. “Thank you, Sir. Will there be anything else, Sir?”

“Yes. Don’t tell Simon until after lunch. I want to give him the good news myself.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Oh, and speaking of lunch. No more antelope. I’m sick of antelope. Order me elk. I have a craving for elk today.”

“Yes, Sir.” I turned to step out of his office, then like the ‘excellent assistant’ that I was, I turned back. “It’s just that…”

“It’s just, what?” His tail swiped the desk and sent some papers to the floor–my efficiency report!

“It’s just that they take so long to deliver elk. Perhaps I could…” I paused for dramatic effect and feigned to be intimidated by his beady black eyes.

“Perhaps you could what? Spit it out!”

“Perhaps I could put in the elk order for tomorrow. Then it’d be sure to arrive on time.”

His smile, if you could call it a smile, stretched behind his perked up ears. He showed me his fangs. His tongue flapped out of the side of his mouth, and he made no attempt to keep the saliva from dripping out. “Elk meat, today!”

“Yes, Sir. Will do, Sir.” I slipped out, shut the door behind me, and took a deep breath of slightly less repugnant air.

Quarter past one and the tension in the office was palpable. No one dared leave for lunch before the boss got his. I picked up my phone and made the call. “Listen, Simon. The boss needs to see you.”

I barely had the time to hang up the receiver before Simon came parading by my cubicle. He gave me a nod. I scrunched my nose and turned my head in rehearsed disgust. “P.U.!” I fanned my face. “Hell, Simon. What happened to you?”

He stopped dead in his tracks–might as well have been a deer in my headlights. “What? What do you mean?”

“I mean that smell.” I pinched my nose with one hand, with the other I pulled the flask out of my desk drawer and handed it to him. “Don’t go in there like that. Here, spray a bit of this on you first.”

He undid the cap and took a whiff–as if he could tell shit from Chanel!

“What is it?”

“It’s what you need.” I waved him away, my other hand still covering my nose. “Now hurry up before I get sick and the boss gets impatient.”

He sprayed his neck–Perfect spot. Good choice, Simon.–handed me back the flask with a smile, and headed for the boss’s office.

Elk urine had never smelled so sweet.

I put the flask back in the drawer, retrieved the other one–Cognac–and strutted down to Cindy’s cubicle. Her cubicle had a much better view of the boss’s office than mine–just off to the side of the glass partition. I passed yet another intern on the way. I smiled at him since I was, after all, glad to see him. Even though we hadn’t had a mauling in months, it’s always handy to have a few interns around just in case.

“What’s up?” asked Cindy.

I plopped myself on her desk and spun around so I could get a good view of the boss’s office. “How’s the new intern working out for you?” I asked.

“Not bad. Not bad.”

I opened the flask, took a sip, and handed it to Cindy.

“Says he enjoys the job and can’t wait to get his hands dirty,” she added.

I chuckled. Even though it was a shit job with a wolf for a boss, sometimes things seemed to work out for everyone–well, almost everyone.

“Thanks. What are we drinking to?”

“The sweet smell of success, Cindy. The sweet smell of success.”

The Amenonuhoko cut through the space between worlds like a blade through grass. Nichibotsu stood on the observation deck, staring out into the shifting darkness. Space folded in on itself, manipulated into an endless interstellar origami by the ship’s drive plates, lurching forward towards its final destination in an erratic series of jumps.
A crewman appeared at the top of the stairs and briskly approached.
“Well?” Nichibotsu enquired impatiently.
“We estimate planetfall in just over twenty minutes” the crewman replied in a voice that matched his Captain’s exactly.
Nichibotsu turned and stared into his reflection’s face, noting the proud stance.
“Good” he observed, “the ship will remain in orbit whilst I complete my task.”
The crewman bowed in acknowledgement and returned to his station. Nichibotsu surveyed the throng of doppelgangers working below. Blister clones had their uses he acknowledged. Not only had they removed the need to take on fresh crew during his centuries-long voyage, but more than once these curious biomimetics had saved his life, sacrificing themselves beneath the wrath of tempestuous gods. Eternals rarely went quietly when confronted with death, and most had chosen to take as many with them as possible when forced to relinquish their hold on reality.
Outside, stars slowly emerged from the blur of movement. Nichibotsu sensed the deceleration long before the deck began to shudder and by the time the Amenonuhoko dropped into orbit, he was striding purposefully across the flight deck towards the forward section.
His First Lieutenant appeared at his side, falling neatly into step as the two men descended through the bowels of the ship. ‘One’ was the most long-lived of his replicas and second in command, having been transcribed from Nichibotsu at a much younger age. The man’s handsome features were obscured though by a mesh of melted flesh which covered one side of his face and his shoulder; a parting gift from another vengeful God.
One eyed his Captain with a calm gaze that perfectly illustrated his understanding of the situation.
“I’ll be transporting down to the surface in a few moments,” Nichibotsu instructed. “If I do not return within the hour, you know what to do?”
The clone nodded his compliance and handed Nichibotsu a small pad.
“Core Imploders are primed and ready to launch, sir. Rift Incendiaries are also prepped, just in case the target attempts to leave the system.”
Nichibotsu smiled narrowly.
“Efficient as always.”
“Would you expect anything less, Sir?”
“Indeed I would not.”
The two men exchanged a brief salute, followed by a formal bow more befitting of their heritage before One took his leave and strode back towards the bridge.
Nichibotsu ran a practised eye across his armour and regalia, checking both were intact. His hand traced the carvings of his cuirass and came to rest atop the hilt of Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the larger of the two swords slung at his hip. The weapon was the last vestige of his heritage and he still felt the pull of the past whenever he laid a hand atop the accursed blade.
Nichibotsu remembered the first time he had drawn the sword from its scabbard: Susanoo’s gurgling cry of rage as he died, choking on his own blood and treachery. Nichibotsu could not outrun the shame of his betrayal, but at least with the storm god’s death, he had been assured that the accursed deity would join his murdered sister in Jigoku.
The strange properties of the blade continued to imbue him with near limitless longevity, but the truth which festered at his core would ensure he never outlived his guilt. Even now, with the end of his task at hand, the ancient Samurai could not escape the knowledge that he would forever be Ronin, cursed to wander the stars without master or honour.
Coolant gas hissed conspiratorially as he entered the transmission chamber, stepping briskly up onto the projector. The operator offered a grim salute before keying in the start-up program.
“Do not trouble yourself with thoughts of victory or defeat…” the technician announced solemnly, without looking up.
“… but instead plunge recklessly towards irrational death” Nichibotsu finished, acknowledging the proverb.
Thoughts of belief and subservience entwined like angry serpents as he reminded himself of the most important advantage which his stem-grown crew bestowed: that of blind obedience. An alternative band of hard-bitten organics or pre-assembled mercs would have looked up to him. Through numerous battles they would have learned to trust his judgment and his leadership. In time, they would have come to worship him and that, he could never allow.
Idolatry – the word made him sick, so symbolic of that which he sought to expunge. Faith was the double-edged sword which Nichibotsu now wielded. Though followers of any denomination needed their gods, so was the reverse also true. Nichibotsu had learned to see past the obscura of dogma and tenet to realise the true fragility which lay at the core of each god: that their power was entirely dependant upon the faith bestowed by their followers. Take an immortal’s allegiance, tear down the obsequious flesh of his disciples till he stood truly alone and you exposed the puny truth of his heart – a heart which could be punctured by any common blade and bled dry. The hatch snapped shut, leaving Nichibotsu alone in the mist of swirling gas to await transport.
For years he had hunted them – destroyed worlds as he sought to rob his prey of their defences. He had constructed vast weapons of destruction: orbital platforms and pan-dimensional atomics to wage his private vendetta, transgenic scout ships with which to scour the galaxy from one end to the other, watching his once omnipotent quarry scurry away. Some had gone quietly, unable to grasp the incumbent reality of their end. Others had stood their ground, hurling petty flame and brimstone in his path till the skies burned red and crackled with fire. Nichibotsu had not cared. He had robbed each of their essence, on their feet or their knees, drinking their dark power and growing stronger with each victory.

I watched Amanda eat. Some celebrity chef had launched a high-end restaurant by her office, so she and some ad agency colleagues had gone to check out the opening.

Her food was amazing. She had this tic where she clenched the muscles up where her jaw met her ears. She only did that when she was eating something really good, like she was fighting to keep the flavor in her mouth.

I clicked my trackball, pausing the footage and freezing Amanda with a perfectly-balanced forkful of something green and frondy halfway to her mouth, already composing the caption in my head. People came to this job thinking they’d get a deeper appreciation of life, vicariously experiencing what they’d never have. They learned fast.

I strobed through Amanda’s afternoon. She had a campaign photoshoot, her first time at the helm of a major project. I swiped off stills and marked out clips of Amanda directing the models. She kept tucking her hair behind her ears — she did that when hiding nerves — but she looked authoritative, a natural. People would eat this up. Behind-the-scenes posts from Amanda’s job always got strong Attention Capture, especially when models were involved.

I grabbed my picks and assembled a photo collage, a few video montages for the weekly “Look Back”, and some hashtagged text-under-photo posts, then dropped them into the queue for publishing. Some clients insisted on approving everything we posted to their social feeds, but Amanda trusted us.

I was closing up when a fresh dataload hit my inbox. Every dataload was a melange of the unstructured digital detritus we crap out every day. Social posts, location data, streaming tracks, cat videos; everything we cram into our faces to make our existence a little more bearable. The YouPlus app on Amanda’s phone slurped up all of that for us. Like most YouPlus clients, she also wore a LifeCam, which grabbed stills and video at irregular intervals based on situationally-aware algorithms. A couple of times a day, I received a voyeur’s wet dream, a barely-filtered glimpse into the lives of half a dozen in-crowd clients.

At first, it was thrilling; deep access to the lives of people so far beyond me in the social pecking order –people who could afford to pay YouPlus more than my annual salary each month to optimize their online self-image.

The thrill faded fast. Seeing how the other half lived threw my life into sharper relief, and their obsession with sculpting the perfect online persona — not professionally, but to their friends — made me despair. The only thing that kept me here was Amanda.

The dataload was marked “high priority”. I was officially off the clock, but Amanda paid premium, and Zed would give me another chewing out if I sat on this until morning. I flicked through the material. It looked routine, not worth fast-tracking, until— There. Harvey, down on one knee, holding up a glittering rock big enough to brain a four-year-old. Video from Amanda’s POV, plus a side view from Harvey’s phone, carefully placed to capture the moment from a flattering angle.

I grinned. This had been a long time coming. I’d watched Harvey through Amanda’s lens long enough to have spotted the signs weeks ago, and I’d been looking forward to watching her kick the asshole to the curb. The worst of their fights, his gaslighting and psych-out manipulation never made the feeds, but, even in the narrative, their relationship had been up and down all year; it just needed a catalyst to get her to drop the bastard. I skipped over his speech, looking for the moneyshot.

She said yes.

I sat there, mouth open. Why would she say yes? She finally had the chance to be shot of him, a perfect trigger to kick out the man who made her so unhappy, and she said yes?

Amanda was the only one who still gave me hope. She was real, even through the repackaged self of the social media lens; there was a vulnerability at her heart that let me feel, deep down, that we weren’t that different. She wasn’t like the others, the Fauxialites who’d do anything for their dopamine hit of attention. They might as well have been another species. Homo Narcissus. That was why Amanda’s narrative worked so well — it had a real person at its heart. The Amanda I knew would never have said yes.

I hovered my hand over the trackball, flexing my fingers, thinking; waiting. I had more than enough material stored up. Ball and screen blurred as I pulled up half a dozen old dataloads, searching for the right pieces.

I could fix this.

He came back on the one-year anniversary of his death. Robert opened the door to his son’s untouched bedroom, preserved down to the glass of water on the corner of the nightstand, now only a film of liquid at the bottom, and there was Samuel, hunched over at the desk, his hands fiddling with the tracks of the unfinished train set, the train set that Robert had begun assembling just yesterday under the lamp’s dim beam that cut through specks of dust flaking down.

At first, Robert didn’t even start; that subconscious part of him that still reached for two dinner plates instead of one welcomed Samuel back into his life against logic. And how many times had Robert opened the door hoping that his son would be there, that the past year had been a stretched-out nightmare? Robert didn’t follow a specific creed, but believed that death was the separation of the soul from the body, which he’d read somewhere in his college days and had wrapped his fingers around the day Samuel came into life and Maribelle passed away just moments after. Still, for a reason Robert couldn’t explain, seeing the back of his dead son’s head didn’t shock him as much as it should have, sending only a current of apprehension through him. He was probably just dreaming, but if this were a dream, he didn’t want to wake up.

“Samuel…?”

Robert almost didn’t want his son to turn around. Samuel’s death had not been pretty. Not at all, and Robert had felt Samuel’s cracked limbs and bones shifting beneath his flesh like a bag of rocks when he’d picked Samuel up from the street after the accident. They’d been on their way back from the toy store, that large train set box on Samuel’s lap, when the truck in the next lane began skidding in the rain.

Samuel turned around, a blank, calm look on his face like it was just another night. The moonlight through the window bounced off his round cheeks. His skin was white and without the vein-like scars that the mortician had done well to hide.

“Hey, Dad. Why did you start without me?”

“What… what do you mean?” Robert held the doorframe; his knees wobbled like Jenga towers barely balanced, a single beam pulled out and he’d collapse into pieces.

“We were supposed to make the train station together,” said his son in his sweet, six-year-old voice.

Cold tingles crawled up Robert’s arms. He blinked his eyes hard several times, then took a hesitant step inside, feeling as if the shift of his weight might make his son dissolve into the lamplight as quickly as he’d gone a year ago.

“I…”

Robert had no more words. He took another step in. He was less than a few feet away from his son now. Did he dare approach him, this … what was it—this ghost? Squinting his eyes, Robert tried to see if it was an apparition. But Samuel was fully there.

“Look,” Samuel said. He turned back around, his arms and hands moving. “I’m adding a track.”

Robert’s teeth were clicking nervously. If this were the ghost of his son, then at least he had a chance to talk to him again. If this were a dream, then he’d let himself indulge in it—see what his subconscious had to say about his son’s memory. Or what if—Robert himself had died in the accident as well, and hadn’t moved on yet? He took a deep breath and took a few more steps forward until he was standing over his son’s shoulder. He gulped, running his fingers over his pants and fidgeting with the pockets.

On the desk, train tracks were spread out like puzzle pieces. The trains were lined up along the edge where Robert had left them, patiently waiting for the tracks to finish looping in concentric circles and across platforms so they could get started on their journey—journeys that would represent what Robert had promised Samuel years ago when they’d seen The Polar Express in theaters: that they’d one day trek across the country on a train in the winter, sipping hot cocoa as they pierced through the ballets of snowstorms.

Directly in front of Samuel lay all that Robert had managed—a row of four straight tracks pieced together—before breaking down, his tears falling onto the tracks like rain drops. Samuel was pushing another track into the end, but he was doing it wrong. You couldn’t just push them together; you had to set their links on top of one another, then pull to lock them. It was simple enough, yet Robert’s hands had shook the day before as he’d snapped them together.

“Samuel…” Robert said. “You—you can’t do it like that.” He reached over and guided the fifth track over the fourth, then pressed it in and pulled, locking them. His finger brushed against Samuel’s hand as he did this. Samuel really was there.

“See, like that,” Robert said.

Samuel glanced up at his dad, then back down. His eyes were the same, too. Dark forest green. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Right…” Robert said. “It’s… no problem.” He cleared his throat. “I’m… going to go make dinner now. I’ll tell you when it’s ready.”

“Okay, Dad.”