Skyquakers (19 page)

Psycho was the first to regain consciousness. He was lying
flat on his back. Some sort of gas mask was over his mouth and nose, but it was
removed when it was apparent that he had come to.

He woke with a big, deep gasp. His head went fuzzy and he
felt sleepy again. The gas mask, attached to a hose and some sort of tank, was
placed back over his face, and with another few breaths, his eyes once again
opened. He felt his left eyelid be pried open and a blue pinprick of a light
was waved back and forth across his iris. The ones over him observed his signs
and motions: they watched his pupils retract and snapped their fingers near his
ears, to see if he responded. Something poked him in the calf and his toes
twitched.

Psycho blinked. He was staring at the roof of a room he had
never been in before, lit dimly by small blue lights on the ceiling, surrounded
by sheer grey walls. He felt the shuffle of multiple
…
giants
around him.

A voice asked if he could hear them. He was too light-headed
to answer just yet.

He heard screaming in the room next door. Unable to move his
body, he could only turn his head. He couldn
’
t see down
the hallway what was happening next to him, but that voice was familiar. It was
her voice. There was a thrashing noise. Something metallic was kicked over.
Tall giants moved about quickly, yelling at each other.

He panted,
‘
Lo
…’

Fingers snapped in front of his eyes, turning his attention
upwards again. Psycho blinked and looked back up at the lingering faces over
him, inspecting his vitals. He tried to move, but it was too difficult to lift
the weight of his body. The air in here was strange, heavier. It would take a
little while to acclimatise, he was told, although he was not sure if it was
said in words or simply beamed directly into his brain.

There were screams again. Psycho turned his head. He wanted
to shout to her that everything was okay, that there was no need to panic, but
only air came out of his throat.

When the kicking and screaming next door finally stopped, it
only made him pant more.

‘Lo,
’
he called.
‘
Lo!
’

Lara woke several months later. She only knew that because
Psycho told her.

‘You didn
’
t transition properly,
’
he said.
‘
They couldn
’
t
take you.
’

She struggled to open her eyes, as though she had been in a
deep, deep sleep. Psycho was nothing but a blurry outline and it took several
blinks to adjust. Her body was heavy and would not respond when she wanted to
move something.

In her daze, he explained what was happening to her and
where she was: she was in an
iso
-pneumatic
environment – a phrase he conjured himself in all his brilliance – which was
balanced for both her and them. Since she had been in this environment for
months now, her body was acclimatised. She may not have remembered, but when
she first woke, kicking and screaming, she would have felt as though she was
drowning without oxygen. That phase had passed now.

As for the grogginess, she had been drugged. There was a
thin plastic tube lodged in the back of her neck, mixing anaesthetic directly
with her spinal fluid and rendering her completely out-cold with no memory of
the time which had passed. She and millions of others were in a permanent
comatosed
state for practical purposes, but to also
conserve their energy: animals did not need to be fed as much when they were
hibernating, and one could imagine the hassle of feeding several billion
species. The tube also helped with that: it fed sugars, amino acids, and fats
into her bloodstream in the most basic molecular forms, bypassing the need for
digestion. As a result, she had lost a few kilos of weight, but that was mostly
because of muscle atrophy brought on by the hibernation. Psycho had temporarily
pinched her line shut, allowing her to come out of her coma.

Lara sat up and realised she was lying in a three-inch
puddle of brown liquid, sitting in the base of a cocoon-shaped glass pod. The
lukewarm mud had stained through her clothes, making her filthy and moist. The
glass pod was shaped like her supine body, completely sealed off, except for a
few pinprick holes above her head which allowed her to breathe the strange, new
air. Her neck had sprouted a thin, plastic tube, which flowed out of the pod
through a tiny hole and was connected to a machine somewhere in the centre of
the room. It made her panic. She clawed at her neck. She pulled at the tube and
felt it was imbedded quite deep into her skin.

‘Don
’
t pull!
’
he said.
‘
It
’
s
feeding you.
’

And where was Psycho? He was on the other side of the glass,
standing upright, clean and well-dressed in a suit and tie, hair slicked back,
chin freshly shaven. He wore black, leather shoes which had hardly been
scuffed, and there was not a speck of dirt on him.

‘The brown water is still a mystery,
’
he said,
‘
from
what I
’
ve managed to gather, it
’
s full of
bacteria that we normally surround ourselves with, like dirt and foods and
pollen and dog shit. We didn
’
t come from sterile
environments and so we can
’
t live and digest food
properly without them. That
’
s my theory, anyway.
’

Lara couldn
’
t stop staring at him. ‘Is
that you?
’

He grinned.
‘
It is. A lot has changed.
’

‘Where am I? Where
’
s Dylan?
’

‘Dylan?
’

‘My boyfriend! He was with me! He was there when
…’
She paused when those images of Veteran
’
s Day came
back, of the running people and the fires and jets crashing into the clouds.
Thousands must be dead; it had been a full-blown attack.

Psycho said,
‘
Yes, you were abducted.
Everyone was.
’

‘Oh, god
…’
She pushed against the
glass.
‘
Get me out.
’

‘I can
’
t. You didn
’
t
transition properly, Lo.
’
He knelt down to her.
‘
I
just woke you up because I was bored. If Vet found me here, he
’
d
probably go nuts!
’

Lara calmed herself down slowly.
You
’
re
in a pod. You
’
re okay
. She looked around
her at the visible world through her glass, but there was not much to see other
than darkness. The walls were very tall and divided into shelves, and running
up and down were thousands of bunches of thin tubes, wrapped together, flowing
liquid from a central tank up into the darkness, to more pods, to more people
trapped in a never-ending nightmare.

‘This
…
this
…
it can
’
t
be a
…’

Psycho stood back and threw out his arms.
‘
A
ship in the clouds!
’
he cried. His voice echoed.
‘
This
place is
huge
. You can
’
t even imagine
—’

‘This is a spaceship. An alien
—’

‘We don
’
t like that word,
’
Psycho said, cutting her off sharply.
‘
It
’
s
derogatory now.
’

‘You
’
re joking.
’

‘I don
’
t joke.
’

‘
Get me out!
’
She
banged on the glass with two fists. The
thump
echoed.

‘
Shh
!
’
he
snarled.
‘
You
’
ll get me, and yourself,
in trouble.
’

‘Tell me where Dylan is.
’

‘I don
’
t know where he’s kept. There
are a hundred-thousand in this room alone.
’

‘Tell me something
–
anything,
’
she begged. She panted a little and the panic began to rise in her
throat.
‘
How long will I be here?
’

Psycho hesitated before saying,
‘
Forever,
probably.
’

She sat back in her enclosed bathtub, the lukewarm brown
water sloshing around her, and hugged her knees to chest with childlike
distress. She noticed she was still in the same clothes she wore to the parade,
only much dirtier now.

‘
What did they do to me?
’

‘Nothing, Lo! Really, nothing! I was there.
’

‘You were
there
and you didn
’
t help me?
What the hell is wrong with you?
’

‘Okay, look
…’
Psycho knelt down close to
her, almost touching noses with her pod. He promised to explain everything from
the start, from the day they were both beamed up from the streets, and then
maybe she would understand.

Psycho heard Lo screaming next door when he woke. They had
to sedate her right away; she hadn
’
t
‘
transitioned
’
properly, so she couldn
’
t make
‘
contact
’
.
All these terms were explained to Psycho eventually by the one named Vet. He
was the head biologist on the ship, the one in charge of all the specimens
beamed up and all the replacements which would eventually be beamed back down.
Vet was a renowned scholar who had dedicated his life to the study and
understanding of the new world. It was his job to know all which could be
learnt about the biology, the atmosphere, the bugs, the viruses, the DNA
;
t
hat was his role aboard this ship.

Vet was in the room when Psycho woke. He was directing small
teams of medics who were taking care of each newly-transitioned ‘native’. Vet
snapped his fingers at Psycho to get his attention. On the flat table, he gazed
up, still in a groggy state. Giant heads looked down at him. He choked on the
air for the first few minutes, taking in big, gasping breaths. The mask was
full of oxygen, and they were placing it on and off his face in order to get
him to acclimatise to the new atmosphere. Handheld devices were placed all over
his chest, each recording separate aspects of his vitals. There was only little
chatter, rhythmic talk, as though each was doing routine checks on their
patient: heart rate, stable. Breathing, stable. Check, check. Once convinced of
his health, the flat bed was mechanically raised to allow Psycho to partially
sit up, where upon he was able to get a better look at the surgery-like
recovery room around him. He saw a table beside him, where the oxygen mask had
been placed. He lazily reached for it, knowing he was close to passing out, but
a hand gently took him by the wrist and placed his hand back in his own lap.
Psycho gawked at the fingers around his arm, and then up at the creature to
which they belonged to. For a while, he couldn
’
t stop
staring. He was hypnotised. These giants all wore plain,
unpatterned
clothing, like ponchos, which draped down to their ankles. They wore layers of
cloth which wrapped around their heads, noses and mouths, revealing only a pair
of eyes. Their skin varied from caramel to black, and the joints in their arms
were different to his, as though they had extra bones between their elbows and
wrists. As for the hand on his wrist, it was Vet’s. It had four fingers, each
with four joints.

Psycho tried to speak, tried to say hello, but he couldn’t
muster words yet.

Once every part of him was marked off as healthy and
functional, the giants lowered his bed once again and left him there. He was
told to lie still and wait, learn to breathe, just relax. The giants needed to
move on to others and wake them too. Psycho stared at the roof for a while and
tried to focus on breathing slowly.

He must have fallen asleep at some point because he was
woken hours later by sharp words. Although they were not said in English, he
could tell by the tone that he was being called at. He rolled over and sat up,
on his own accord this time. He was staring directly at an eight-foot giant,
carrying a digital, glass-framed tablet on which he was pushing several buttons
with his finger.
Christ, even
they
have iPads
. He laughed at his
own joke, which made the giant stare up at him and narrow his eyes through his
white head sheet.
 

Psycho held out a hand.
‘
Hi.
’

The giant looked up, looked down, and kept touching away on
the screen.

He retracted his hand and kicked his feet on the edge of his
bed, like a curious child at the doctor
’
s office.
‘
What
do I call you?
’
he asked.

‘De vet,
’
he said under his breath.

‘
De vet
, as in,
‘
Shut up, I
don
’
t know your language, tiny human
’
,
or
de vet
as in,
the vet
?
’

The giant stared at him with a curious glare, then continued
working away. Eventually, he stopped and turned his tablet so that he could see
the screen. Psycho saw a cartoonish image of a cow on the digital surface.

‘Yeah, yeah, the cow says moo.
Fructzul
een
mrauu
.
’
He pushed the tablet away.
‘
Don
’
t play
games with me. You speak English, or at least one of our languages, don
’
t
you?
’

The giant finally gave in. He folded his arms in his lap
respectfully and stood up straight, head tall.
‘
Little.
’

‘A little is enough.
’

He placed his four-fingered hand on his chest and introduced
himself as,
‘
Vet.
’

‘No, no,
doctor
,
’
Psycho corrected smugly.

Vet shook his head and chuckled a little, in a condescending
way.
‘
No. Vet.
’

Psycho gave in. He held out his hand again and introduced
himself with his real name.

Vet didn
’
t take up the offer. He simply
said,
‘
Stay,
’
before moving on.

Vet could talk fractured English, about as much as Psycho
knew his language, which sounded Dutch, German, or possibly Russian
–
heavy on the consonants, lots of rolled R
’
s, solid V
’
s
and
hacking
sounds, like the Welsh made. With a combination of both, Vet
was able to explain to Psycho that he had transitioned well, but needed to now
make contact. Each boy and girl chosen to transition was given a personal
contact when they were very young
–
a teacher who sat with them
and played with them, who swapped knowledge with them, and who prepared them
for this event. It was many years ago now since any of the transitioned ones
had met or heard their contact, except in dreams, and so it was important to re-establish
that bond
they
once had as young ones. Like babies to
their mothers, student and teacher should instantly recognise one another and
connect. This was done by voice; the ears being a more reliable sense than eye
recognition.