Brent Hanley's Promotion

Learn from your mistakes, and profit from those of others. -Bill

Words by Bill Arundell
Illustration by Dylan Burnett

I get myself into messes quite often. Most of the time I hardly get myself out of one before I’m thrown into another. It’s like a cycle of problematic nuisances that I have to accept and overcome in hopes that I've moved on before the next one comes around. But, if we’re being fair, I asked for it.  No, it’s not like they’re major concerns. You don’t have to feel sorry for me, or anything. That doesn’t stop me from feeling sorry for myself, but I guess that’s my own battle. I’m Brent Hanley and I’m a product tester for Calvin TekCorp. No, don’t roll your eyes; I’m not some whiney guy complaining about his job. At least I have a job. Those aren’t just falling out of the trees anymore. I’ll tell you what, I am grateful for what I have, but that doesn’t mean I have to smile about it all the time. My job isn’t normal. I don’t have a desk, I don’t wear a suit, and I don’t have to stick around until closing to mop the floors. My hours are often irregular, but that doesn’t mean I’m getting called in on weekends or evenings. But what I gain in the convenience department I lack in the safety department.

            Most of the time I’m riding motorized transportation devices, swallowing consumables full of flushable nanotech or checking out virtual reality software for new and improved simulations. On that last one, if I don’t puke all over the thousands of dollars worth of tech then it’s a success. And I say that on behalf of Calvin TekCorp and myself. One time I didn't throw up for fifty-one days straight, which I think is a tester record. But how did I land this job? Most of these positions would go to highly trained military personnel with the capacity to operate and endure the tests, but here at Calvin TekCorp we like to appeal to the little guy. We don't deliver military-grade technology to any united government agencies. Calvin TekCorp is working to bring that next-level gear to you and your family. 

            Good one, right? I know. I used to be a copywriter for Calvin. They were sorry to see me go. Well, no, I was the first one that was asked to leave the department for the tester position, and I like to the think that was because I was the most average looking, slightly overweight, balding thirty-four-year-old white male in the office. I was the guy that tried to get CalTek through the door, but my boss said it was taken in some variation. The reality is that I was entirely interchangeable with a number of other copywriters who were a more consistent with their work than I was. I got the opportunity to join the testing team when I asked my boss for an advance on my bi-weekly pay. I was just short on rent because I had been paying for my mother’s hospital bills. She passed shortly afterward, so the costs went up and I needed the cash. I was trying to support my family and pay for what insurance wasn’t covering but it was just cutting it too close on my own bills. It was a real struggle for a while.

            Shit. 
            I’m sorry. That was a lie. Yeah, all of it. I shouldn’t lie to you. My mom’s not dead, she lives with my step-dad in Grand Rapids, Michigan and she doesn’t call me much anymore. She wasn’t in the hospital, and she wasn’t even sick, not that I’d find out. Relax, it’s not like I spent all my money on drugs and other illegal things. It was perfectly legal. I spent it on online game micro-transactions and self-publishing the crime novel I wrote when I was twenty-three. Less illegal, more stupidly irresponsible. And I was short on rent, but at the time I was really asking for an advance because one of my subs was about to expire. I was using it on one of the work computers. Oh, get over it. It’s not like you never procrastinated before.

            I was denied the advance, but at the end of the week I got a call to head a few floors up to meet with a couple executives about a new opportunity. My boss had filed me as a potentially eager employee looking to make more money, which was true. They saw me as vulnerable and weak, scratching at the bottom of the barrel to make ends meet. I saw me as desperate to buy a cool new sword so I wouldn’t have to spend seventy more hours grinding for an hour-long raid. But I digress. They offered me a job as a product tester, which was one of those hush-hush high risk, high reward positions that stayed off a lot of insurance reports. Some of the testing they did was totally illegal because they ducked under entire rolls of red tape to fast-track the manufacturing and distribution of items that their competitors were painstakingly refining in their labs and testing facilities to provide the best possible gadgets for their customers. Calvin TekCorp didn’t have the time or the money to run everything through the legal ringer. I only heard about the surface layer of legal implications, after signing the non-disclosure agreement of course. Basically, I would test normal, legal products as a front and the rest was justified with under-the-table bonuses for my trouble. The way the short, stout guy in the grey suit that I started calling Danny DeVito in my head put it was that it would be cheaper to pay me to test products than it was to actually use their internal certification system. They also paid some of the third-party agents responsible for turning a blind eye to the products on their way out. And I gotta tell you, if paying me four and a half million a year to shut up and do my job was cheaper than, well, wait, yeah I can understand it. Four and a half mill isn’t that steep for a tech company of that size, especially in a legal certification process. 
            I should have held out for more money.

            I was a tester for nine months. I saw just short of three and a half million for my work, plus a few bonuses. I didn’t have to worry about taxes on the cash bonuses, so I got all that money straight up. Calvin TekCorps continued to pay me my copywriter salary, plus the tester wage which were taxed, and the millions that remained of the difference was delivered to me in cash every week. It was the greatest job I ever had. And I worked at a pet store once. I hung out with a lot of cats. My life had never been better. I had all that money and I barely knew what to do with it. And that is also a lie, because I spent it as irresponsibly as I had spent before I even had money. I sent some to my mom as a boastful spoil of war since she always told me I’d never go anywhere with that job at Calvin TekCorp. I bought a new house, new discounted Calvin TekCorp gear to outfit the joint and I got four cats. Luke, Leia, Han and Burrito. I know, I may have missed out on not calling the fourth one Chewie, but he just didn’t look like a Wookiee. And I was eating Mexican food at the time.  

            Nine months testing products of middling quality, nine months living the life I had always dreamed of. They told me that I could hurt myself doing some of these tests, but I agreed that the dollar bills would muffle the screams and mop up the tears just fine if it ever came to that. I only had to take three days off because one of Calvin’s consumables gave me some wicked diarrhea. That concerned me a bit, thinking I had been damaged permanently but it went away for the most part. Except for the periodic ulcers, but the in-house doctor that observed my health said it was a preexisting issue. So, we’re all good, except I can’t have Mexican food as much. I’d have gotten that sitting at my desk writing about the product anyway: “The new Calvin TekCorp NanoTrek powder lets you endure the harsh conditions of a mountain expedition without the concern for the lack of oxygen, the threat of frostbite or nutritional deficiencies. Mix it with your favourite energy drink and it will begin to produce oxygen in your blood if the atmosphere is too thin, keep your skin warm so your nose stays on your face and feed you bursts of protein and carbohydrates to let you keep on trekking! Don’t worry; your stomach probably won’t bleed. That was just an anomaly.”

            I would be lying if I hadn’t gotten a little worried with the increasingly risky products they were tossing my way. These products were the equivalent of some of the worst things created by man with little market testing, like New Coke, the Nintendo Virtual Boy or most things coming out of SpaceX in the early twenty-first century. I mean, they were death traps. I don’t know how Calvin TekCorp thought they could put some of these things on the shelves without someone throwing out a flag on the play and investigating the entire certification system that I was sitting at the middle of wearing sweatpants and a two-day old t-shirt with ketchup stains. I was testing magnetic levitation personal transports, which you plebes call hoverboards and it tore my pants off by the belt buckle. Good thing I had removed most of my jewelry, I don’t know, eleven years prior following a regrettable unemployed post-college phase. I’d have been splayed out all over that lab. But, guess what? That thing went back for some tweaks and they said they fixed it. So, this is a heads up to any of you trying to ride to school McFly-style. It won’t end well for you.

            But there’s a reason I’m sharing this with you now. It’s because I’m done with this secret, glamorous life as a product tester for Calvin TekCorp. I want to get out of this before one of two inevitable things happens. Either I die in the lab or I get blamed for approving any of the products that don’t kill me outright. Because I just learned that everything that leaves the lab and goes into production has my signature stamped on it. Mine. Not Some lab tech’s, not Danny DeVito’s, mine. I’m done with it. I only tested products that could be used by humans or required a human to use. They could have used robotics like every other company, but any investigator could check records for what the devices did during the testing phases because those things are computers. Instead, they simulated the tests, manually input the results and were free of any issues. You can’t check my records. I’m just a dude, no computer inside. Not yet at least. Those are coming soon. So, when I was shoved into the newest device brought to you by Calvin TekCorp, I figured it would be as safe as they promised.

            Which I should have understood was not safe at all. I slipped on these boots and they locked to the floor. There was a dial on the inside ankle of each piece of footwear that increased the intensity of the hold. You guessed it: gravity boots. If I wanted to be able to walk with a bit of cling I could turn the dial to its lowest setting. If I wanted to make it a little more difficult to lift the boots, I could put it somewhere in the middle, which made it feel like I was walking on Velcro. If I wanted to be stuck to the ground, the highest setting would ensure that I wasn’t going anywhere. I could walk on walls for a bit, but I wasn't strong enough to support myself. I went to the ceiling and hung there, feeling myself slip away every time I lifted a foot. But these idiots were testing gravity boots in Earth gravity, not the zero-G. So, when they automatically locked my boots at full blast and put me through a course of throttling, jostling crash simulators with the floor bouncing around like a car with bricks for wheels, I couldn’t stand up straight. I was knocked left, right and backwards, trying my best to absorb the movement with my knees as my feet held firmly to the floor. My body was responding to the movement in an environment that increased the realistic conditions of the gravity that the boots were intended for. The final rodeo buck from the raging floor threw my body forward, but my feet stayed still. I folded over my knees, breaking my tibia and fibula away from the patella and tearing the posterior cruciate ligament in both legs because the boots remained fix to the floor. Somewhere in their criteria for “Stupid Enough to Sign The Contract” candidates, they neglected to include “Must have genu recurvatum.” They snapped my legs in half. Backwards, for Christ's sake! 
            Okay. Now you can feel sorry for me.

            I left the company that day and began to compile all the information I had in order to hand it over to the certification agency and the police. I was going to spill the beans on all the products I could remember. The thing about having a cool new job, but still the health benefits of a copywriter is I could pay for it with cash but it drew attention to my medical condition. Calvin TekCorp tried to have me treated by the in-house doctor, the same guy that told me the NanoTrek bots didn’t chew holes in my stomach lining, but I passed. I wheeled my way to the hospital after helping myself to their newest model of painkillers and got all the attention I needed. I couldn't sue for everything they did because I signed a contract that qualified my compliance with the work conditions. But I could leak their bullshit anonymously and wait out the hellstorm that would follow. When Calvin TekCorp got word that I might take all their shady dealings to the certification agency, they offered me a settlement. They were ready to give me five year’s pay up front with a healthy severance package and benefits for life. I would be set. So, I took it. They transferred me the funds and I was free from their treacherous ways. We had a deal. They put a guy on me for a while to make sure I didn’t try to go to the certification folks.

            I went to the press instead. Calvin TekCorp went down hard. Best part? I waited for a few of their products to malfunction in the hands of customers. Yeah, maybe a little sadistic on my part, but I needed the leverage. I got myself a lawyer, we put together a great case and waited for my NDA to expire. Those guys didn't think I'd play the long game and I'm sure I would have had to re-up while on the job, but I was gone before they could do anything about it. Once things started going awry for the company I was the whistle blower that brought them to their knees. I wrote a book about it and I didn’t even have to publish it myself. Watching Calvin TekCorp executives being hauled out of their offices on television was a real highlight. It turns out Danny DeVito was some woman named Olivia Calvin, daughter of founder Reginald Calvin and the second generation CEO of the damn company. Don’t know how I didn’t catch that one, but seriously, the likeness was uncanny. My legs healed for the most part, but I don’t have to do much walking since I retired at thirty-five. I’m just a prick on the Internet now. Just living a cycle of messes.

Sanghorn at the Allsight of the Hamhath Plains of Vahldrum

I'll be honest with you. This one is a bit weird. Realistically, it doesn't go anywhere, it's cryptic and I don't know if you'll like it. But I wanted to do it because I felt like I could build a world worth exploring further. I like a good space fantasy. You know, like Star Wars. But sci-fi takes over and rarely is there a fantasy atmosphere that takes hold in those tales. So, I thought I'd turn that around.  -Bill

Prologue (Or, What I Justify as an Explanation for the Goings-On Ahead)

The Rapture over Londinium claimed the lives of the Lessers and one hundred generations have passed. Sanghorn has been tasked by the Prophet of Vahldrum to reclaim the Relic of Furmsul stolen by the vile Warglungs to call upon the Everlast and end the black rule of their Lord King Anvargul. He travels west, alone. Early in his journey, Sanghorn comes across a landmark familiar to the Eastern Rangers of Gloriam, his people. Whilst climbing its storied trails, he discovers a legend that welcomes him with shelter and food for the night.

Words by Bill Arundell
Illustration by Dylan Burnett

Sanghorn slumped down on the dirt at the base of the boulder and rest his back against its chilled surface to ease the soreness in his spine from the day’s long ride across the Hamhath Plains of Vahldrum. The crackling fire warmed his feet, which had nearly frozen as he dredged through the drifts on his climb to the lookout where he met Pagram the Blind in his hole atop the plateau. Pagram had called it the Allsight, but Sanghorn had only ever known it to be the lookout station where the Eastern Rangers of Gloriam would retire if the weather turned cold on their return home from a scouting run to Cathcar. Pagram skewered a clump of nondescript meat on a crooked spit and held it over the fire, feeling for the warmth on his hands to find the centre of the roaring pit. He looked in Sanghorn’s direction with his glazed eyes, clouded with a lifetime of soar sights burned into his memory like the flames that licked the raw meat in his hands. Sanghorn had never met Pagram the Blind before that night, though the tales of his miserable past preceded him in Gloriam. Sanghorn felt as if he already knew the old man, even if most of the stories were not true.

            “It would not hinder me from serving you as my guest, but I would welcome you by name if you would allow it,” said Pagram.

            Sanghorn hesitated as he thought carefully about who he shared his name with on the road that grew evermore dangerous with each night. “If you must call me by name, you shall call me Pathagar, the Raphaediun,” said Sanghorn. For it meant Lone Traveller, Requesting Little Attention in the old language of the Vael Woodsmen to the south. He hoped the blind man would understand.

            “You have traveled far, but I know that you have not come seeking the Allsight,” said Pagram as the spit turned, roasted in his hands. “What is it you seek in the flats of Hamhath, and in such depths of winter as you have now? It must be something of grand consequence to bring a Gloriam man out of his comfortable homestead in the east.”

            “I come with my own business,” said Sanghorn, not wishing to share his mission with the blind old man. Not yet. “I am sure you would understand if I were reluctant to discuss my personal matters.”

            Pagram tilted his head to the left and offered a smile. “You may do as you wish, but it is customary to explain yourself as a guest in my home, no matter how modest this hole may be to you,” said he.

            “I am travelling beyond Cathcar, if you must know,” said Sanghorn. “I will be gone long enough to see the snow melt and the grasses live again, as the trees bloom and the air grows warm. I will not be returning to the homestead, as you say it, for quite some time. That is, of course, if I ever return to Gloriam again. I reserve my own doubts, but there are many who fear I am as good as dead already.”

            The meat was sizzling against the lapping flames that charred its outer surface in a searing burn. Pagram listened to it cook and prodded at the blackened edges with his fingers, licking the juices as they flowed from the gaps formed by his overgrown nails. “If you are gone for as long as you suggest, you will surely pass Cathcar, and Brethna, too,” said he. “And you will draw the watchful eyes in the north before you reach the towering rocklands at the end of the flats. You will be followed, of which I have no doubt. But why would you be watched? What is it that you seek west of Brethna? There is nothing for you there, unless you are seeking death as your Gloriam friends fear most.”

            Sanghorn hoisted Surgruth, the legendary weapon, onto his lap and brushed the dust from the hole off of the icy-cold metal. It was frigid to the touch in all places save for the grip, which remained warm from the long day’s travel in the western portion of the plains as it never left Sanghorn’s grasp. He moved his eyes to glance up at Pagram, with his head still tilted downward at the weapon. “I do not seek death, but it has followed me each day of my journey save the first,” said Sanghorn. “It is like a shadow of my shadow, marking me for the end, but I do not answer to it any more than you can see who I really am, Pagram the Blind.”

            “I should not have to tell you that a blind man sees more than you know,” said Pagram. “Surely the phrase has reached your young ears at some stage in your short life.”

            “No matter its age, my life is of great importance,” said Sanghorn. “And that is not of my word, but the word of the Prophet of Vahldrum. And it was he who tasked me with the journey that I only began two moons short a fortnight. I have heard many a tale about you, Pagram the Blind, but I see you now before me and I do not think I could manage to recall one that suits you best. It would take all manners of convincing to have me share my story with you, Pagram.”

            Pagram the Blind lifted the meat from the fire and split it with his hands as the grease burned his palms, but he paid it no heed. He tossed the shredded slab to Sanghorn who felt the oily fats threaten to blister his hands as he gripped it in his fingers. He loosened his fists over the meat and chewed quickly to save his tongue. Sanghorn feared the insecurity of showing weakness, even to a blind man. Pagram tore at the meat between his hands like an animal fighting for the last scrap. Sanghorn thought him uncivilized, but ignored the manner in which he ate his own half portion. It tasted of salt rub and cloves, but Sanghorn had seen Pagram skin the animal as he entered the patch of his den where they now sat and he tore the muscles from the bones without seasoning it any more than the earth had already.

            “You are my guest, so I will serve you as you wish,” said Pagram between bites. Blood and fat ran down his chin, catching on the stubble that sat grey between his wrinkles. “But you request validation from me, which is something I cannot do alone. For I will always be biased of my own past, no matter the tale or the audience that receives it. But you, Sanghorn, are travelling down a path that you will never set foot on again." Sanghorn's eyes shot up to meet Pagram's. "For you are doomed to continue on to Furmring, and the way out will not be your familiar road. Your Gloriam friends are right to fear your death, as it is inevitable from the moment you set foot on the land of the Warglungs.”

            Sanghorn stopped chewing and locked his jaw shut, clacking his teeth together and burning his tongue on the meat. He had not told Pagram his name, nor his destination. Pagram did not identify his mission, but Sanghorn feared that the blind old man was only saving the traveller the grief of being exposed entirely, like a common criminal left naked in the fields on the coldest of nights. Perhaps Pagram was sparing Sanghorn the embarrassment. “Sanghorn, I have seen and heard more than you have ever been told ten fold. I have lived long enough to recall the Netherbeings descending from the skies and our civilization into the ground. When the Lessers succumbed to the Feeding of the Netherbeings and the Everlast was cast down into Mount Furthang, I was walking the Path of the Mlaidd on my journey to Coelbren. I was but one in a band of men escaping the outbreak of madness that followed the Warglungs, much like the death that trails you in your travels. When the great crafts cracked the skies I was not as young as you are today, but I had my sight. I had my wits, too, believe it or not. But nearly one hundred generations have passed me by since the rapturous events of the Netherbeing invasion and the abandonment of the Warglungs. Their masters shall never return, I believe, and they will remain here until someone or something destroys them. And I have this growing feeling that the Prophet of Vahldrum has fingered you to be the bringer of such a fate. Is it not your destiny?”

            Sanghorn swallowed, but there was nothing in his mouth. He could not recall losing the meat from his maw, but it had slowly fallen agape as he listened to Pagram. His throat had lost all moisture that had coated its walls and left it sore and coarse like the dirt beneath him. “You paid witness to the Rapture over Londinium? And you survived the Claiming of the Lessers?” Sanghorn stopped to gather himself again.

            “And then some,” Pagram said. “But I do not wish to revisit most of it. I remember a time before it was called Londinium.”

            Sanghorn ran Pagram’s words over again in his head. What the blind old man was telling him all but confirmed the stories he had heard as a boy and well into manhood, although they had become pub stories in jest more than tales of dangerous adventure beyond the safe walls of Gloriam. One that had remained with Sanghorn and was still itching at the back of his mind. “If you may tell me but one tale, please let it be of your blinding at the hand of King Anvargul,” said Sanghorn. “It is the only one that the Gloriam people believe to be your tallest and I wish to hear it from you, here and now in your company around your fire. To know its truth would be to confirm all else that I know. But first, I must apologize for my arrogance. I have been the most wretched guest. Surely, I am not Pathagar the Raphaediun, so much as I should be the foolish Urbia, the Ass of Baumfil.”

            “Fret not, Sanghorn,” said Pagram. He shifted his weight to lean toward his guest now that his hands were free from his meal. The blind man pulled a sack from behind the giant stone where Sanghorn rest and began to rummage through its contents, making a great clattering noise. He withdrew a short blade of strange construction, as it was the opposite of all other daggers Sanghorn had ever seen with his own two eyes. The hilt was made of a glistening metal, formed into a grip of secure strength, and the blade of scarred bone with a jagged edge like a cracked tusk. Sanghorn thought it upside down, but it was clear that Pagram held it true. It fit the legend of Pagram’s escape from Furmring when he fought the Lord King Anvargul’s wolfbeasts in the prison deep in the mines below the Warglung Relic Halls. The myth said that Pagram fought the two wolfbeasts that guarded his cell with nothing but his hands, teeth and a rock no greater than his own fist that he knocked from the walls during his escape. The rock was made of maglomite, unique to the depths of Mount Furthang, or so the story goes. Pagram struck the first guard with the rock and cracked its skull between the eyes, bursting its vile blood over Pagram’s bare face and chest, choking him as it covered his mouth. The second guard pounced on the prisoner, but could not pin Pagram to the ground because the blood made him slick to the touch. With a second swinging strike from the maglomite rock, Pagram cracked the wolfbeast’s daggertooth from its jaw. Pamgram lifted the tooth and used it to cut the wolfbeast’s throat before the Warglung soldiers could clamber down the winding steps from their chambers above. Covered in the blood of King Anvargul's wolfbeasts, Pagram ascended.

            “When I escaped the Warglung prison, I came face to face with the Lord King Anvargul and he clasped his scorched hands around my grime-slick, filthy head and cursed my sight. For he wished to set me free to wander the land without my eyes to guide me. When he placed that spell upon my soul he also cursed me with the immortality that was passed onto him by the Netherbeings, for he was a prisoner of their worlds elsewhere. Without the Everlast, no enemy of Anvargul may strike him down.”

            “It is that very Everlast that I seek in my journey to Furmring,” said Sanghorn. “I am burdened with the task of pulling it from the Relic Halls and damning Anvargul to a mortal death, taking the Warglungs with him back to the Netherbeing’s Hell of Souls from whence they came. They will be gathered by the ghost ships that claimed the Lessers and sent away from us so that we may live in peace once again.”

            “Oh, Sanghorn, you have never lived in peace. Even I struggle to remember such a time, and I lived before the Netherbeings. However, I trust that the Prophet of Vahldrum has chosen the right Gloriam King in a long line of leaders to banish the Warglungs once and for all. I—” but Pagram was interrupted by a distant footfalls that grew closer by the second. It became scattered as the Warglung scouts broke out into a run across the base of the Allsight and climbed the sloping trail to Pagram’s hole atop the plateau. “You may be but a guest, but I request that you assist in defending my home,” said Pagram as he stood, now brandishing the Calahast that was hidden beneath his cloak.

            “I will defend your life and home as if they were my own,” said Sanghorn. He stepped quickly to the gateway that framed the top of the path that the scouts were scrambling upon around the far bend, out of sight for only a moment longer. The first blackened brute emerged and Surgruth released a hellfire of blue rage, streaking through the night air like thunderous lightning striking the highest tree. The Allsight's walls echoed with every round. The scout dropped to his knees with a gaping hole in his chest where the bullets had penetrated his rotten maggot cage that contained his corrupt soul. He toppled over at the feet of the next wave of scouts, shocking them into a defensive stance low behind their fallen comrade’s body, using it as cover from the screaming rounds that continued to tear over their heads from the mouth of Surgruth. Although Pagram was blind, Calahast guided his aim toward the scouts in his outstretched hand, and he squeezed the trigger as if by instinct. Truth be told, Calahast whispered in his ear that his aim was true, and the enemy would be punished by the violent hammering of the Caulcrim Calahast. The pistol was as long as legend said, reaching nearly an arm’s length beyond Pagram’s grip and cracking like the ice of the Lake Apham nearing the end of winter with every expelled casing.

            Pagram called to Sanghorn over the claps of gunfire exchanged in the doorway of his home. “You must go! This group will not rest until they find you again, so if I cannot stop them you must gain ground on the next leg of the road,” said he.

            “I cannot leave you behind, not after your hospitality and confidence,” said Sanghorn. He continued to fire down on the scouts, even as the pile of their corpses grew higher with every burst.

            “There is a cleft in the ridge behind the stone,” said Pagram. “But first, you must know. You will find the Relic of Furmsul beneath the floor of the Halls of Furmring. Use it to call upon the Everlast and it will grant itself to you, if you are worthy as the Prophet says. It will banish Anvargul and you will have saved humanity from the bastard scum of the void expanse that have taken this earth from us. Go!”

            Sanghorn turned and placed a hand on Pagram’s shoulder before picking up his pack and climbing behind the stone. Sanghorn knew that if he succeeded in damning the Warglungs of Furmring and the Lord King Anvargul, Pagram the Blind would be known as Pagram the Everlasting. For his immortal soul had gifted Sanghorn the most precious knowledge of the Furmsul and the Everlast. He bound down the rear path and made his way to his Vipercraft and ripped through the night with great haste.

            It would dishearten him to know that Pagram fell to the scouts, but Sanghorn would never return to the Allsight in the Hamhath Plains of Vahldrum ever again. 

The Dock Custodian

Some things are so alien to us that we can't comprehend how they work or what they want if we don't alter our perspective as humans. So, when you're thinking about that, remember that sometimes when you hear something in the corner of a dark room, there's actually something there. It wants you for your brain. -Bill

Words by Bill Arundell

Illustration by Dylan Burnett

 “What’s this shift on? The Galahad?” Jetta said as he thumbed through his schedule, sliding the calendar on the screen to Wednesday.

            “Yeah, the Galahad, a Venture-Class,” Cawley said. “It’s a big one, man, I’m not sure we’re going to see every part of it. We can split up, but I doubt it would make much of a difference.” Cawley eased on the brake as they pulled up to the gate.

            Jetta and Cawley climbed out of their personal transport cart and made their way down the reception ramp towards the gangway connected to the Galahad’s primary personnel entrance. The western wing of the port settings had been shifted into standard night properties, causing the lights to be dimmed to the lowest permitted in the union’s safety regulations. Every night in the western hall, Jetta, Cawley and a few other staff members of the Causeway Station Docks would board the crafts that were on extended-stay at the station. The longer the scheduled visit, the more checks were required. They're primary responsibilities were to ensure the ships were shut down accordingly and that no one was left behind onboard. Most of the guests at the Causeway were on leave, and many ships were decommissioned. Old war ships, some large freighters, even a few of the old shuttles from the Crystal Caberle War in the Yale System found their way to the station. But Jetta felt different about this Galahad ship.

“What was this ship? Is it still up and running? For regular routes, I mean,” Jetta said.

Cawley connected to the Galahad and scrolled through its readout. “Inactive. It’s a tour ship, I think. Off duty, though. A skeleton crew right now probably, so they’ve only got the necessary numbers. That must mean most of the ship is untouched right now. Actually, I’m not sure they even registered it properly. Lots of stuff missing here.”

“What was it before?”

“Hm,” Cawley continued to read to himself, keeping Jetta waiting. “Ah. Prison ship. Yeah, that makes sense. Lots of holds on the old Venture-Class rigs. This one doesn’t seem to be the same as the others, but that’s just because the Under Secretary decommissioned it, I guess. Bet this place has some stories, man. Time to get to work and tuck it in for the night.”

 Cawley would joke that they were babysitters, looking after the ships while their captains and crew were away for the weekend forgetting about their responsibilities. Jetta just enjoyed seeing the different crafts from around the Draeder Quadrant. Jetta and Cawley’s official title was Dock Custodian, and they always worked in pairs. Always.

            “Hey, did you get this message from the chief?” Cawley asked as they stood in the open doorway into the Galahad. “Says there’s a leak in the third hangar.”

            “I’ve got nothing,” Jetta said, looking down for any messages.

            “Chief’s asking for me to go down there and help out. Says it’ll only take a few minutes. You can make your way in and get your survey started. I’ll meet back up with you when I’m done. Cool?”

            “Cool.”

            Jetta flipped on his vest light to keep his hands free for noting any inconsistencies with the ship’s readout on his tablet. The Galahad was a little darker than the station, probably to conserve energy on the old ship. The hull creaked and clattered in hollow echoes throughout the craft, setting Jetta on edge. He walked the personnel tunnel towards the elevator to the main holds in the lower levels of the ship. He thought it would be easier to check off some of the larger sections on his own rather than check the more active areas of the ship without Cawley.

Upon reaching the bottom level, he followed the passageway as indicated on the schematic that illuminated his screen, which informed him that he would be coming up on a sealed door. This must be the prison hold, he thought as he rounded the corner. A musty stench filled his nostrils, distracting him for a moment. It wasn’t the most offensive scent he had ever encountered on a ship, but it was subtly nauseating. He could see the doorframe, but there was no door. The black expanse of the holding quarters swallowed the lamplight and revealed nothing ahead. Jetta cleared his throat and noted the door’s inconsistency with his readout, which then prompted him to close the door himself from the other side. As he stepped through the frame toward the door controls, the metal slab slid down from the top and expelled the air to seal it shut. Jetta began to panic, unable to see very much beyond his outstretched hand, but he was relieved when the door on the opposite side of the holding quarters opened, probably in response to his sealing of the other door. An overhead lamp in the adjacent hallway lit the open frame.  More inconsistencies.

            Jetta decided it best to check the control panel for any lights to save him from falling on his face when he made his way out. There were a number of switches labeled with different categorized sections of the quarter, but he wasn’t sure which would serve him best. Jetta chose the A-1 selection, which his own tablet indicated as the primary overhead lighting, but nothing turned on. He then selected B-1, an area with tables and chairs that acted as some kind of common area. But, again, nothing switched on as he commanded. Jetta sighed, expressing his frustration with the working order of the panel and the inaccuracies of his readout more to himself than anyone else in particular. He turned around to where a chair was supposed to be, and he could see the outlines of it lit up by his vest light. As he strode over to the chair to figure out the schematic, a light flickered on beyond the seat. The LED lamp flooded the floor, and it took Jetta a second or two to process what he was seeing. A prison cell that looked like a large metal crate with barred openings, guarding stained metal tile and a bench no longer than five feet. The door was unlatched and open. Jetta moved to get a closer look but the light extinguished and he was plunged back into the same darkness as before, save for the vest light.

            Jetta didn’t wait long before a second cell, much further along the way was blasted with the overhead LED lamp. But this cell looked different. It was larger and more heavily fortified than the first. There was a wire mesh between the bars that appeared to be some for of electric fencing, preventing the captive from reaching out the small windows. The door was mangled, and metal was shredded at the locking mechanism to the point of being unsalvageable.

            “Jetta,” a voice called from the adjacent hallway, perking his ears.

            “Cawley? Cawl, you gotta see this place. I think something happened here whenever it…” but the light went out again, cutting Jetta short. “Cawl?”

            There was no answer.

            “Cawley?” Jetta tried again. A sharp blast of volume burst from his radio, skreeeeee, like a failed transmission. It reminded him to use it in reporting to Cawley if he were on the ship. Chances were his partner had called his name from a different level, and the old ship carried the sound through the ventilation shafts. Jetta thumbed the radio’s toggle, connected to his tablet, but he got dead air in return. He could not maintain a signal long enough to send a message on the channel. It was dead. Nothing came in or out. Jetta threw down the tablet in impatience, and it clatter on the table. He stepped away from the common area in the direction of the last cell he had seen, detaching the chest light to hold out in front of him for a better view beyond his immediate surroundings. Something hard cracked against Jett'a left shin, sending pain up his leg as he toppled forward. He and the chair hit the floor in an awkward tangled mess, brusing Jetta's ribs. Eventually he reached the cell door. And then static fill the room.

            “Jetta,” the radio blipped and white noise hummed on the table thirty feet behind him. The static crackle continued for another twenty seconds, for the duration of which Jetta was frozen in place. When he stopped, he breathed a sigh, thinking the radio was only receiving intermittently. Then the static hum returned, escalating in volume, but shifting into something else. A violent growling hum swallowed the white noise, moving from a droning ssshhhh to a rolling rrrrraaaaaahh. The sound became so loud that Jetta could no longer decipher where it was coming from. He knew his radio could never reach such a high volume. It couldn’t have been Cawley. Could it?

            “Who’s there? Cawley, I don’t like this, man. Cut it out!” Jetta called out to his friend. This time he got more of a response. From behind Jetta came a low scraping and grinding against the tile, like a chair being dragged under a heavy weight. Jetta spun around and took a defensive stance, but there was nothing he could do. Really, there was nothing to do. The chairs he could see in the small light were unmoved. There was no one there. Not Cawley. Not anyone. But Jetta wasn’t looking in the right place to be finding strange things. He hadn’t looked to the ceiling of the holding quarters to notice the fence system that allowed security to take up surveillance from the overhead catwalk. Beneath the suspended walkway was a mesh fence much like that of the large cell’s window security measure. The fence was barely visible in his personal light, but the sound was clear as anything. Tk, tk, tk, along from Jetta’ right to left, moving above him towards the open door. He thought it sounded like the claws of an animal walking on a hard surface. Like the clack of a dog's paws on tile. The ssshhhh had grown faint for the time being, but it was now coming from somewhere that Jetta could locate to some degree, even if it was only a general direction. It wasn’t his radio after all. And it definitely was not Cawley.

            And then the lights came on. Not just the two cells, but also the others. Every stained and filthy corner was lit enough to see throughout the holding quarter, but the overhead lamps remained dark. That is when Jetta saw out of the corner of his eye a dark lanky figure rush out the open doorway and into the hall beyond. Jetta was anxious to leave, but he wasn’t sure if he could go the same way as that shadowy movement. But his way out was made more difficult as the cell lights turned off one after another.

            “What's going on here?” Jetta called out at a shrill pitch that surprised even him.

            “Follow me,” the same voice said from the doorway.

            “Not a chance, man!” Jetta said, contradicting his movements as he stepped closer to the open door. He left his tablet behind. His pace quickened as he could see into the hallway a little further, which was just as abandoned as the holding cells. The tunnel lit up as he approached it, giving him both the courage to see what was down it, as well as the fear of what wanted him to look. He peaked around the edge to the right. It was empty. The word “Engine” was stenciled on the wall with an arrow pointing down the passageway to another door, much narrower than the first two. Jetta stepped out of the holding quarter and the door sealed itself behind him again. The hallway grew dimmer as he approached the far door, but the lamp over the entranceway remained bright. His steps rang on the metal tiles, but it couldn’t block out the growing static sound he had heard earlier. It grew louder from a ssshhhh, but did not erupt in a growling howl like before. Instead, a repetitive tt, tt, tt echoed in the walls, making them creak and groan like Jetta heard when he first set foot on the Galahad. The more he heard it, the less it sounded like white noise and an old ship.

            Jetta reached the door but the control panel did nothing to open it. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. So, he knocked. The door clanged against his knuckles. The door slid open, but before Jetta could step through he felt a pressure on the back of his neck that culminated in a pricking sensation at the centre.

Jetta crumpled to the passageway floor in a heap.

The sharp hiss of breathing seeped into the hallway as the delicate pincers of the towering figure, draped in a dark blue membrane skin and patches of scales, picked up Jetta’s body and retreated into the core ion engine room that was filled with a dim red lighting. It placed the body on the workbench next to the three other sentient beings in bland grey uniforms and used the pincers to smoothly remove the top of the skull to expose the brain. It slid needles into the tissue with its pair of more practical appendages, carefully placing them in the appropriate locations, concentrating as it exhaled a rhythmic tt, tt, tt. The being completed the connection, placed the human body on the rack with the other aliens and restored power to the computer terminal. It jolted the human body and he computer terminal diverted its systems to the Galahad. 

Jetta awoke in blackness to the sound of ssshhhh.

Tt, tt tt.

The Forgotten Island

As your circumstances change, your perception of priorities change with them. If you're cut off from the world you once knew, chances are you're going to think less and less of it over time. Wendell and his companions remember the way things were, but they're closer to the way things are now. They'll snap back to their former selves when the conditions demand it, but their minds are as stranded as ever.  
-Bill

Words by Bill Arundell
Illustration by Dylan Burnett

It was around noon on a sunny late January day. A Thursday, or maybe a Friday. Wendell was pretty confident in his records and they showed Thursday, so Zara was going with his word. Braelyn still gave Wendell a hard time about it. She always gave him a hard time about everything. Three years and it was the same shit every day, over and over again. She never liked the way he made the fires. She wouldn’t let him gut the fresh kills because she said he would miss the bones. She would never trust him to decontaminate the water. “You’ll get us all killed,” Braelyn would say, no matter the circumstances. Wendell had resorted to taking out his frustration on a few tree trunks with his knife, carving up the spongy bark with the steel blade. He would gouge out slivers and shards as they flew off in all directions, raining on the sandy grass at his feet. He was sick of it. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. It would take a miracle for them to get out of there, alive or otherwise.

            Three years of waiting, alone but with each other. The three survivors might as well have died along with the rest of the platoon. “Those guys had the right idea,” they would joke. But they kept on living, kept on surviving on the shores of wherever they were. None of them had been there before they touched down and the metal and flames started flying. Zara thought the place was called Jeremiah-VI but Braelyn argued that they had been to that planet before and it always rained there. Wherever they were stuck sure didn’t rain that often. Maybe once every three and a half weeks, but that was being generous. Prenura kept coming to Wendell’s mind, but the other two were not so sure about his guess. After a while they stopped arguing over it. A colony world didn’t need a name without a colony, and three people living on the shores of an unnamed ocean didn’t qualify as a settlement. Truth be told, they weren’t even sure if they were on the edge of an ocean. The water was salty, and their survival kit would make it drinkable, but they couldn’t possibly know how big it was. They just chose to forget about it.

            Braelyn made her way back to the campsite with three fresh kills hanging by their thin legs clutched in her balled fist, knuckles white and strained to keep their grip. Some sort of native bird with a meaty breast but an otherwise worthless set of muscles that Wendell would struggle to chew over the course of the afternoon. They plucked the thin feathers and cooked the birds over the fire and split the best parts equally. The fats ran from the corners of their mouths as they ate the meat off the bone. The oils greased Wendell's beard. He had let the hair grow, but it had become more of a nuisance than the convenience of not having to comply with uniform grooming. They had their routines and habits, and since there were only three of them the food was mostly plentiful and general supplies lasted exponentially longer. They got by. They each took turns rifling through their equipment storage looking for weapons they had not used in some time, giving everything equal use to maintain a good supply. With only three in their band of survivors, everyone could have their choice of guns and ammunition. The dead wouldn’t mind. They couldn’t have their say. And those that lived could have their gear.

            Zara was cleaning a pile of multi-purpose rifles and counting the omni-mags that housed all sorts of ammunition options when she heard a low hum in the distance. “I think that pack of pig-dogs is making its way around again,” Zara said in the general direction of Wendell and Braelyn, but to no one in particular.

            “Not their pattern,” Braelyn said. “They were headed south along the shore on Tuesday—”

            “Monday. And I thought we were calling them pogs,” Wendell interrupted.

            “Shut up. They were headed south a few days ago, so that couldn’t be them on their way back up. We won’t see them until after the weekend.”

            “Could be the herd of elephant dinosaur things making their way east,” Wendell said. “It’s around that time of year for them to come breed by the water.”

            “Not sure I want to be around for that again,” Zara said.

            “We should. Lots of good kills to go around when they arrive,” Braelyn said.

            “I’m not sure we…” Wendell trailed off as the humming sound grew louder and closer. It was near enough for them to know it was not coming from the ground. It was in the air, above the tree line and moving fast.

            “What in the hell kinda bird is that?” Braelyn asked, searching the skies for a far off speck or a giant creature. The planet was large enough that the three surivors wouldn't have encountered even the smallest fraction of wildlife, so it could have been anything.

            “Zara, have you got enough of those cleaned up yet?” Wendell said. She tossed them each a rifle and a few clips.

            “That thing sounds big. This could be good. It could feed us for weeks,” Braelyn said.

            “I don’t think we’re going to be taking anything down,” Wendell said as he turned to scan the skies. And there it was, flying low over the treetops to the west, catching the light glare off the front. It grew much larger as it approached the camp, seemingly targeting their location. “Get your suits on,” Wendell said with his eyes still locked on that thing.

            They clambered over the stockpiles of equipment and pulled on their vests and armour. “What is it?” Zara asked.

            “I don’t know but it’s headed this way,” Wendell had to yell over the expanding roar. It flew overhead and out across the water, turning on a dime in the air. The thrusters slowed the craft to a steady crawl back towards the shore. Braelyn searched for the markings on the hull and caught a glimpse of the red insignia and stencilled letters. She couldn’t believe it.

            “It’s the fucking Nats!” Braelyn screamed, picking up her rifle and planting the stock against the shoulder of her flak jacket like she was back in the shit on any given mission. “I knew it! I knew it!”

            “You didn’t know shit! A minute ago you wanted to eat that thing!” Wendell yelled back at her. He couldn’t let her have that moment, even as the ship approached them. The Assufion Nationals had found them. Part of Wendell was relieved that they were no longer stranded on an abandoned colony world some absurd number of light years away from the core. The other part was shitting itself because the first people to find them were likely to riddle their bodies full of bullets. Those three years of struggling to stay alive with the slightest hope that someone would rescue them. Three years hunting and scavenging, even though the first two weeks their diet consisted mostly of their comrades’ remains. Three years of living with the squad leader he couldn’t stand and a quiet rookie who any straight man would have tried to climb on top of the moment he realized they were going to be stuck on some rock for the rest of their lives. Wendell had figured his predisposition for men had inadvertently done Zara a favour. Oh, it was a long three years.

            Braelyn unleashed a hellfire of explosive rounds at the nose of the craft, pinging the off the reinforced cockpit glass before bursting. Between the tiny impact explosions a voice could be heard over a loud speaker. When Braelyn stopped firing the voice could be heard clearer saying, “Hold your fire! Put down the weapons! Hold your fire!”

            “Fuck that!” Braelyn yelled back at the voice that had strangely personified the craft more than usual for Wendell who was becoming anxious to just see different people. The ship touched down on the beach and dropped its loading ramp. A squad of Assufion Nations filed out of the ship and raised their weapons in a warning position but did not fire, at least not until Braelyn shot the lead member in the face, spraying blood and bone over those behind him. She toggled her weapon’s settings and loaded a mini-rocket that she blasted near their feet. The front two soldiers did not have to suffer long as they were mixed in with the eruption of sand, but the two behind them were sent backwards with surface wounds. The sand mixed with their burns and the screams startled Wendell into lowering his rifle for a moment as he looked on. Braelyn charged towards the ship and ran over the squad and finishing off the last two. Wendell and Zara overcame their initial shock and sprang up from crouched positions to chase after her. Braelyn leapt up the ramp followed closely by a scrambling Wendell and even-stepped Zara. They raised their weapons and paced through the central corridor of the ship. It wasn’t much bigger than the standard Orion Union shuttles where they had spent many tours between battlefield deployments and shore leaves. The three of them reached the cockpit door, and Braelyn didn’t wait to check its lock. She blasted it at the bolt mechanism and burst through to find two pilots with sidearms raised. They didn’t stand a chance. The one on her left received a greeting from Braelyn’s under-barrel shotgun and the second a round from the standard rifle in the stomach. “We’re taking this ship,” she said.

            “P—please. Please wait,” the lone survivor of the Assufion National shuttle pleaded to Braelyn as he clutched at his stomach. He looked to Wendell for help but he just stood in the doorway, shocked by Braelyn’s ability to fly right back into the routine of things. She had been a trained killing machine and never lost that grease. For once, he was glad to be on her side.

            “We are taking this shuttle right now,” Braelyn urged.

            “No, y—you must listen,” the pilot said.

            “What is it?” Wendell asked.

            “You don’t under—stand,” he struggled. “We’re here to—”

            “We’ve been waiting over three years to be found, I’m just sorry it had to be you guys. This isn’t personal, it’s survival,” Braelyn said raising her rifle higher to put him out of his misery.

            “No! You need to know!” The pilot raised his bloodied hand to defend himself. “If you take this ship and return to the core you will not be greeted as you hope.”

            “We’ll do just fine, thank you,” Braelyn said.

            “No. You said you have been here for three years? If that’s true, you couldn’t have had communications or you would have been found before now. Am I right? You've really been stranded that long?”

            “No shit, like I said it was bad luck for you guys to have been the first to fly by and spot us,” Braelyn said.

            “What are you trying to say?” Zara asked.

            “You’re Orion Union soldiers, right? Judging by your equipment, we knew you were Orion. If you take this ship, you won’t be received as long lost heroes. The war is over.”

            “What do you mean?” Wendell said.

            “The war ended two years ago. We—the Assufion Nationals won, a sweeping victory of the core battles. The Union was forced out into the fringe and none of them survived I don’t think. At least, none reported back or sought assistance. The Union is dead. The Assufion Dynasty has risen. You have been gone for so long.”

            “What? How is that—how could we—” Braelyn couldn’t believe her ears.

            “You’ve just killed your rescuers. We were sent here to find any survivors that remained from the Union and offer them safe passage to the core. We’ve been planet hopping on all the habitable worlds and any locations with past activity that the Union didn't occupy when they fled. We were here to take you home! Alive!”

            “Can you tell me something?” Wendell asked.

            “What?”

            “What day is it? And where are we?”

            “January 24, 2154,” the pilot said.

            “Yeah?”

            “It's a Thursday. And you’re on Prenura.”

            “I fucking told you,” Wendell said to Braelyn with a smile.