Mist and Shadows: Short Tales From Dark Haunts Read online

  A murder?

  A sacrifice?

  Did I cut myself on a cold slice of breath?

  Then, without warning, I’m back, in my own bathroom, staring into the mirror.

  I remember now. The pen broke. It snapped when I was writing in my journal. I pour scouring powder on my hands and scrub them again. The ink won’t come off. I stare at my eyes and see the distant sparks of stars, then dark shadows circling. What mad wanderer have I become? A shift in consciousness and I am gone. Another, and I am back. And then, Patrice is there, gazing over my shoulder. Her brilliant brown eyes are the dark heart of the forest. She is a child of the Earth, not meant for star hopping and galaxy jumping. Her arms slip gently around my waist and she brings me back, grounds me into this world again. She is my anchor and salvation. She is my obstruction and barricade.

  “Someday you’re not coming back. I know it.” Patrice is my best friend, when I’m out of the SYSTEM. She’s too beautiful to compete with and too nice to be jealous of. She’s also my lover and now she reaches across the table and takes my hands in hers. I think she’s going to cry.

  “Someday you’re going to plug into MAX and you won’t be able to get out. Or you’ll have a flashback, like today. Either way, I’ll lose you. I don’t want to lose you.”

  I hear the whisper of pain in her voice. We have these discussions every time I come home. I’m tired of them, but Patrice means a lot to me so I don’t argue. I let her vent. After all, to love a Jumper is madness, second only to becoming a Jumper oneself.

  “You know I can’t get out. I signed up for five years. They own me.” It’s true. Once you’re in the SYSTEM, you don’t own the soul you were born with. I belong to them until my contract is up.

  Patrice sniffles. “I’ve been thinking...what if you got pregnant? They’d have to let you out then. And we’ve talked about when to start a family...”

  This thought has crossed my mind before but I don’t want her to know it. Because the truth of the matter is that I like being a Jumper. It’s addictive. Everybody says they want to stay in for the full five years because of the pension. If you make it through with your sanity, you’re set for life. But all the Jumpers know that it really isn’t about money. It’s about the promise of discovery. The carrot that someday, on a jump, you might actually touch the core of the universe. You might see God in the eternity of the abyss. And that hope, my friends, is the addiction.

  “It wouldn’t work. I’ve got a five year implant. Ninety-nine point five percent effective.”

  “No way to bypass it?” Patrice is good. If anyone could work the odds, she could.

  I shake my head. “No, they’d trace a set up.” That’s not necessarily true, but she doesn’t have to know that.

  “What if I got pregnant?”

  “No dice. You know the insurance looks out for my spouse and family if something happens to me. You’d be taken care of, so would the baby. There’s no way out, Patrice. Besides, I don’t know if I’m ready for children yet. The SYSTEM’s had four years of my life. It feels like four hundred. Just one more year left, just one, and then we can go anywhere we want. I was thinking about Bali. Or Tahiti.”

  She swallows her tears. I know how much she wants children but I can’t face that bond now. I can’t face that tie to the Earth. She sees it in my eyes and drops her gaze to the floor. Patrice knows when to give up. She sips her wine and shrugs.

  “Fiji is nice,” she whispers and we spend the rest of the evening planning our future.

  But I know her mind’s a million miles away, and so is mine. I’ve got another Jump tomorrow.

  The laboratory is warm, too warm for me now but when I plug into the SYSTEM, my body will need the extra protection. The flesh gets cold when the spirit jumps out.

  I hate this place. I hate the stainless steel and white enamel. It’s all so black and white. So sterile. There’s no color, no odor save for the ever-present chemical disinfectant. The only music is the gentle hum of the machines. And yet, this is my altar, my place of worship. I am a supplicant of the stars and here I come to meet my Gods. The laboratory is my temple and Margaret is my Priestess.

  During the early 2020’s, Algor Research discovered the lobe in the brain that triggers OOBE’s, out-of-body experiences. The fundies pounced on the discovery, saying that Algor had managed to prove the existence of God but all Algor would say was that they proved the brain was the host for consciousness.

  Ten years later, they had developed the SYSTEM: Stigsson-Young Space-Time Exploration Meld, if you want the full name.

  Johan Stigsson and Belinda Young theorized that since consciousness could literally detach from the brain, there must be a way to use it explore space and, perhaps, time. Next, they built MAX, the Multi-level Alien Explorer. Once they hooked the SYSTEM up to MAX, all they needed to do was hire a few guinea pigs, link them up to the SYSTEM and whoosh—out of the body and out into the universe, exploring. Of course, the SYSTEM has been refined a long ways from there, but that’s how it started.

  Space probes and satellites still had their place, of course. For one thing, Jumpers are suited more towards discovering conscious life rather than planetary exploration. But the main value of Jumping is the observation of universal truths. When you’re out there, floating between the worlds, you really get a feel for the immensity of space. Knowledge and understanding come on such a different level.

  I’ve seen worlds born and worlds die. As I said, it’s addictive.

  I limber up, stretch on the pale blue mat in the corner. Focus inward. Alpha countdown. Progressive relaxation. The ritual is rote now, I can do it in my sleep.

  “Where are you sending me today?”

  Margaret is my supervisor. She’s also one of the top psychologists in the country. She specialized in alienation theory when everyone else said it was just another fad. She motions to the chair. The black seat reminds me of both a dentist’s chair and a recliner. Only this recliner is hooked up to a host of microprocessors, and where my head rests, wait a series of thin wires waiting to be plugged into the implants in my brain.

  When the SYSTEM finally went online, officially, after a ten-year evaluation period, it was understood that every Jumper would be required to attend counseling at least twice a week. Because, sometimes, a Jumper doesn’t come back. There’s a hospital in Maryland that currently hosts sixty-two shells.

  The body goes on, the brain hasn’t stopped producing signals to the heart and the vital organs, but the consciousness—that spark of intelligent life—is gone. Using electronic implants, they keep the bodies moving and active, but there’s nobody home, and there’s no way to find their souls. After the first few didn’t come back, the government insisted on mandatory counseling. It supposedly keeps us sane, keeps us in touch with the world around us. I guess it works. I’m still here. But sometimes…sometimes when you’re out there, floating between the stars…you feel like you’re not really human anymore. It’s so easy to get lost.

  Margaret smiles at me. She scribbles something down in her notebook. Every time I sneeze, she marks it down. After four years I’m beginning to believe she knows me better than I know myself. She’s beautiful, I suppose. She’s in her early forties, with a tight braid hanging down her back. Wheat colored hair, it’s streaked with gray. I’ve never seen her wear her hair in another style.

  “Anxious to get back in the SYSTEM?” She searches her pocket for a pen. Then she remembers, as she always does, that she tucked it behind her ear.

  So that’s it. I’ve been a little too eager lately. By the time you hit four years in this business, you either love it or hate it.

  “I’m just looking forward to retirement.” The lies are coming easier.

  Margaret scribbles again. She nods and silently motions me over to my station. The chair is soft, with a vibrating back to keep my muscles from knotting up while I’m out. Like a chaise lounge gone mad, it sports electrodes and restraining belts and devices that look like they belong i
n a thirteenth-century torture room.

  I sit down and slide my head back against the pillow. She brushes through my crew cut to find the implants. “How do you feel today?” Her fingers tingle along the surface of my scalp. She’s wired to the SYSTEM too, as a Monitor.

  “Okay. Patrice and I had another fight last night.”

  “She still wants you out of the SYSTEM?”

  “Yeah,” I say reluctantly. I don’t like telling Margaret every detail of my personal life but she’ll find out one way or another. Patrice has to go through regular counseling, too. And Patrice never fails to let Margaret know how she’s feeling.

  “She’s worried.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t be.” I feel grumpy now. “Patrice knew I was a Jumper when I met her three years ago. She chose to stay with me even though I told her what our life would be like. Jesus Christ, I’ve just got one more year and I’m out. I wish she’d get over it.”

  Margaret steps back, she sets down the labyrinth of wires that hook up to my implants. “Have you told her how you feel?”

  “No. No, she’s too upset. I don’t want to make her feel any worse than she does.”

  “Lisa, you’ve got to be honest with her. When a Jumper’s upset over their life at home—”

  “I know, I know. They’re more likely to walk out. It’s not that at all.” I don’t know how to explain. Maybe I don’t want to admit what I’m feeling. “I never needed anybody before I met Patrice. Now...”

  “Now you’re afraid of needing her too much? And you don’t want to lose her?”

  My eyes meet Margaret’s. She understands.

  I nod. “I’m afraid that if I make too many waves, she will. Bad enough for her, with me Jumping every two weeks. If I start complaining, I don’t know what she’ll do.”

  Margaret pats me on the shoulder. I hate it when people do that but since she’s my counselor as well as my supervisor, I don’t flinch.

  “It will be okay.” Then, she plugs me in. “You’re going out on a search mission today. Jorge didn’t come back last night. This morning when we went to unplug him, he didn’t come out of it.”

  My heart skips a beat. Jorge’s been in the service four years, seven months. All he’s been talking about lately has been retirement and the little farm he wants to buy in Cuba. I shake my head. “He wouldn’t walk out. I know it. Something must have happened.”

  “We think so too. His psych sheets all read normal for the past year. No extra stress...his wife is very supportive, doesn’t complain much. His kids are almost grown, the stress level at home registers under five-point.”

  “Where did you send him?”

  Margaret looks around to see if anyone else can hear us. She pulls a chair up and sits close enough to whisper. “We sent him out on the Rift Zone.”

  “The Rift? That’s where Yin Lee disappeared two months ago.” Yin Lee vanished on her second jump. She was twenty-two years old.

  “There’s more to it than that, Lisa. Yin Lee wasn’t the first. When we discovered the Rift, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see if there are rips in space that we could utilize on a physical level. We’ve sent four other Jumpers out there in the past year and they’ve all disappeared. Not one came home.”

  “Four?” I’d only heard about Yin Lee. Obviously the SYSTEM isn’t letting this information leak out because none of the other Jumpers I know have mentioned anything about it. A cool shiver races down my back. “How many Jumpers have you sent out on search missions to bring them back?”

  Margaret flinches. She is lying to me when she tells me, “None, until now. But Jorge was so stable that we think there’s a chance to find him and bring him home.”

  There is nothing I can do. I’m signed up for hazard duty. That’s what Jumping is, all the way around. I can’t refuse a mission.

  I lick my lips. “What else do you want? What kind of information?”

  “Your prime mission—”

  “Is to look for Jorge.”

  “No.” I get another flash that she’s holding back more than she’s telling me. “Your prime mission is to see if there’s an entity out in the Rift Zone. Side duties include the search for Jorge, as well as the other standard requisites. Nature of energy, star patterns...whatever you happen to notice.”

  It slowly dawns on me what she’s asking. “You think there’s something out there that’s eating them up.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Margaret pushes back her chair. She slaps the restraining belts across my wrists and ankles and walks over to MAX. “Are you ready to Jump?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Would you take it if you did?”

  She throws the switch and I leap out of my body, into the wide, wild universe.

  the body is gone I am sitting on the edge of the chasm

  Slowly, slowly, swim back to my mind. Hold on to the thought. I am Jumping. I am a Jumper and I am a human being. I float in the comfort of the womb. Adjustment takes time, but even that is a paradox, since time passes for my body but not my mind. When I return to the laboratory, twenty-four hours will have passed. But out here? I’ll have been out here a thousand years, all wrapped into a single second.

  Lisa Heron. Good. Once I remember my name I’m okay. I know I won’t walk out this time. If you forget your name, it’s easy to go wandering off among the stars. Coming back to myself feels like waking up after a long sleep. Like suddenly throwing open the curtains on a sunny day.

  Minor deaths, they call them. Those first few moments when you forget and panic and the swirling madness sweeps down to envelope you and you’re alone with the visions.

  Minor death, because I die. I die, but don’t realize it until once again, my mind resurrects itself. I am Lazarus, back from the dead. Osiris, made whole again through the ministrations of the eternal, loving Isis. I live. Somewhere, my body breathes. I am invincible, no longer mortal but sole intelligence whose mission it is to seek and learn.

  Yes, Jumping is not for the weak, nor for the power hungry. Jumping can lead to delusions of godhood, and that’s dangerous for any mortal.

  I take stock of my position. I’ve landed near the Rift Zone, though near is a relative term. I can see, I can think, I can observe, I can feel. I cannot touch.

  I reach out, sending tendrils, searching for consciousness other than my own. Took me a full six months to master this form of sentience. Now, I’m one of the best.

  I hope I find Jorge. Once in awhile a lost Jumper comes home. After they get tired of wandering, or in a few cases, they’ve gotten lost and another Jumper helps them find the way back. Not common, but it happens enough to give us hope.

  The Rift is incredibly beautiful. The astronomers speculate that it might very well be a shortcut through space, but it’s going to take us years to find out. Even if it is, we have no technology that can cross the distance in physical form. As the SYSTEM advances, I sometimes doubt we ever will. Why invest the decades necessary for space flight when you can Jump across the galaxy in seconds?

  The Rift looks like a fountain of violet energy, silk-sheer, an immense cavern in space. It shimmers every now and then, its phosphorescent surface glittering. This is the first time I’ve seen the Rift in person. In spirit? I can’t look away.

  am I the core of the universe? am I its center? the mind is infinite

  Back to myself again. The brilliance of the Rift is magnetic, and it tries to draw me out of myself. I could immerse myself in it too easily, become part of the whole, slide into the Rift and forever stay, bathing in the brilliant lights that flicker through the veil.

  I manage to turn away, then cautiously reach out once more, searching for Jorge. Searching for…whatever it is they want me to find. But in the pit of my stomach, I know I don’t really want to find whatever it is that’s out here waiting. There is a strength to this place, a dangerous consciousness. When the celestial fire threatens to pull me in again, I think about Patrice. I owe her my life. I can’t just walk
out on her.

  A crowded bar. The smoke’s too thick, alcohol too raw. My throat hurts. I want to go home but my mother’s dying and I can’t face her pain right now. Not sober. So I order another whiskey, even though Margaret told me not to drink before Jumping. I’ve been a Jumper one year, and I hate it. I wish to hell I had never signed up with Algor. Now I’m paying with my sanity.

  When Daddy walked out on us sixteen years ago, Ma sat me down at the kitchen table and told me in no uncertain terms that he’d never be coming back. She told me I had to grow up, that she was going to be far too busy to play with me or make sure I had my bath before bedtime. I was eight years old—old enough to make my own lunch and take my own bath. She said she would make sure I’d get off to school in the morning, and she’d be home home to say goodnight, but I was responsible for everything in between. I understood. Ma hated her job but there was nothing else for a woman with her limited skills. A fourteen hour shift would pay the rent and buy groceries. The least I could do was make it easier on her.

  So Daddy left and Ma raised me to be independent.

  “You must be fierce,” she said.

  Fierce. When I thought of fierce, I thought of lions on the Savannah. Or of the aborigines who retook Australia. I thought of the miners who traveled to the asteroid belt to make enough to send money home to their families.

  Fierce? I could understand fierce. I promised myself I’d never cave into disease, love or fear. We didn’t have the luxury for those things.

  Growing up, I managed to survive the fear. Love? It had its own agenda. But disease wouldn’t be ignored. Ma’s system was riddled with cancer from the chemicals she had to use every day. She was dying and I was the only one who could take care of her.

  The SYSTEM provides insurance for family members, so when Ma’s old bitch of a boss kicked her out of the factory, I joined Algor and Ma got in to see a doctor. But it’s too late. No hope, they say. The cancer’s too advanced. Go home and wait to die. Too many people, not enough hospital beds. Even for those who have insurance. So I hire a nurse for the times I’m out Jumping, and I talk my way through it with Margaret. But sometimes I have to get away from the whole gray, bleak life. So I come here to drink whisky.