The Bones of Old Carlisle (26 page)

Arrowroot’s phone rang. It was Chief Hatfield.
“I saw it,” he said. “I saw them.”
“What did you see?” Arrowroot asked.
“The robots,” he said, panting for air. “We almost had it, but

“So what happened?” Karl Arrowroot asked.
“No time to talk about it now,” Hatfield replied, “we’re still
looking around. But those things are fast. And machines, definitely
machines.”
“How can you be sure?” Arrowroot asked.
“Well, for one, I’ve never seen a bug with lights,” Hatfield
replied. “Had it cornered in the dark, at the back of Buster’s in
Traxie, that old furniture store. Red lights at its head, red lights
glowing in the dark. Gotta go.”
“Why the hell didn’t you shoot ‘em?” Arrowroot asked as the line
went dead, but he already knew the answer. Chances are, the bullets
would have missed the machine and hit a person.
Arrowroot silently cursed to himself. He would prefer complete
ignorance to what he was going through this morning. Danielle, on the
edge of being charged with federal crimes, and her mysterious plan to
avenge Robert’s death. An incomplete science fiction narrative being
translated online that might or might not be truth and might or might
not explain many things. Robot roaches on a rampage to gather food for
someone, or no one. A man who might be from another planet or might
just be very confused, or very evil, or both.
Arrowroot was closer to drinking than he’d been in weeks. Without
even thinking of the implications, he consulted a mental map of the
area around City Hall, with a focus on nearby liquor stores. He knew
them all, not just because of his weakness but because they all needed
annual permits Council had to approve.
He was halfway through the pile, he told himself. Good enough. Do
the other half tomorrow. Head on home. Swing by that new place, Rye &
Barley, grab a bottle of something, then head on home. Take a break,
drink a little. C’mon.
He stood, then he picked up a letter at the top of his inbox. He
opened it slowly, the sound of ripping paper strangely loud and
unsettling. It was a magazine subscription offer. Home improvement of
some kind. Why’d they send it here? His hands were shaking. He threw
the piece away, sat down, reached for another envelope, drew his hand
back and stood.
His phone rang and he started. Heart racing, he answered.
“Karl,” said Mr. Smiley’s voice.
“Dammit, why you gotta keep buggin’ me?” Arrowroot asked. “You
scared the hell out of me.”
“How do you know what the crystals say?” Smiley asked.
“I don’t,” Arrowroot said, “but some other people do.”
“Who?” Smiley asked.
“Buncha ‘nonymous people,” Arrowroot replied. “Linguists or
somesuch, think decoding stuff is fun for some reason. Takes all
kinds, you know.”
“You’re lying,” Smiley said.
“Aw, shit,” Arrowroot countered. “The biggest liar on planet
earth. Biggest liar on two damned planets, for that matter. Callin’ me
a liar? Shit.”
“If you’re not lying, you are in grave danger,” Smiley said.
“Uh, I think everyone in Heligaux is,” Arrowroot said. “What with
all them damned robots you brought with you. I mean, how much food you
gotta eat? Police almost got one just now. Just a matter of time
before they trap one. Gonna take it apart. Probably find a big tag in
it, like ‘Hands Off, Property of Nebuchadnezzar Smiley’ or something
like that.”
“That’s not my name,” Smiley said in tone that might on his
planet indicate annoyance.
“Well, no shit that’s not your name,” Arrowroot said. “I gave you
your damned name, remember? At least, your last name. Mr. Smiley.
Meant it as a joke, on account of you were pissing me off with your
damned smirk. Like you are now. So whatcha want?”
“I need you to tell me what the crystal says,” Smiley replied.
“Huh,” Arrowroot said. “That’s gonna take awhile.”
“I only need you to read me the part where they land on earth,”
Smiley said.
“How ‘bout I look for it, and you call me later, and maybe I’ll
tell you?” Arrowroot said.
“No, I need it now,” Smiley replied.
“Damn you’re pushy,” Arrowroot retorted. “Okay, but you gotta
answer a question for me first. You got God?”
“No,” Smiley replied.
“Did you ever?” Arrowroot persisted. “I don’t mean you
personally, I probably already know the answer to that one, but your
planet. Did you have God there? Did anyone worship Him?”
“Yes,” Smiley said. “Long ago. Many gods. Then we abandoned
them.”
“What the hell for?” Arrowroot demanded.
“Because they didn’t exist,” Smiley replied.
“Huh,” Arrowroot said derisively. “I bet all hell broke loose
then. No reason to do anything but fight and fuck at that point.
Right?”
“No,” Smiley said. “Do you believe in God?”
“Of course,” Arrowroot answered.
“And that’s the only reason you don’t fight and fuck?” Smiley
asked.
“Well, no, of course not,” Arrowroot said. “But I’m not that kind
of person.”
“How many people are that kind of person?” Smiley asked. “On
earth?”
“Aw, shit, I have no idea,” Arrowroot replied. “Probably most of
us. Probably just about everyone. Humans are bad.”
“Then you are a particularly virtuous member of your species,”
Smiley offered.
“What?” Arrowroot asked. “You really believe that? After
everything I’ve said to you? Beatin’ you over the head with a damn
dried out dog, cussin’ and makin’ up names for you? Of course I’m
not.” Arrowroot paused, confused about the point Smiley was trying to
make. “Anyway, what the hell do you want again?”
“Please read that part of the crystal to me,” said Mr. Smiley.
“Please.”
“Did you say please?” Arrowroot asked. “As in please, since
you’re asking me for a favor, please that way?”
“Yes,” Smiley answered.
“Alright, fine,” said Arrowroot, “if I can find it. Nothing else
to do today except run a city with ten thousand citizens and try to
get them from all getting eat up by your damned pet robots.”
“Reading this could be helpful to solving your problems,” said
Smiley.
“Or your problems, most likely,” said Arrowroot. “Okay, let me
see here. Looks like they’ve translated about 50 pages now, they’re
unscrambling it as fast as Art can get the pages up there.”
“Who is Art?” Smiley asked.
“He’s a guy in town,” Arrowroot said, “operates a fancy pants
microscope, been looking into your crystals since last night.”
“He’s the one who takes pictures of flea penises?” Smiley asked.
“Yeah, whatever,” Arrowroot replied absently as he scrolled
through the narrative. “Okay, so we got people waking up in the
capsule, couple of ‘em died, being human hurt too much or something.”
Arrowroot scrolled some more. “There was 13 of ‘em, then they started
dying. Okay, some fighting here, they’re all trying to get their tubes
out, some just pulling them out, some not wanting to. Out of their
arms and bellies and whatnot. Hurts for some reason. Oh, the tubes get
hot when they come out, I guess to kill germs. Damn, that
would
hurt.
Okay, this is written from one person’s perspective, she’s hating
life, pissed off at everyone. Fighting with a guy named Hengi. Okay,
they’re getting ready to land. I guess they’re still in orbit or
something. One guy takes off his seatbelt. Oh. Gets smashed around,
busted up real bad. Starts hollerin’. Another guy takes off his
seatbelt, trying to help him out. Now they’re goin’ down. Okay, Okay,
I think this is what you’re looking for:”

In the upper corner of the monitor, dozens of numbers flashed.
One indicated our altitude, a second the density of the atmosphere;
four listed the slope of the ground directly under us and at three
points around us. Overall capsule speed as well as the speed along the
three positional axes was tracked. Any one of us in the capsule should
be able with a glance at the metrics to determine optimal landing
differentials and corresponding reverse thrust, and together with our
comrades to execute a soft landing.

But I looked at the numbers and they meant nothing to me. I was
unable to integrate them, to calculate landing time or guess even
remotely how much thrust I should apply. Something essential I had
taken for granted in my old brain was gone from my new mind, as if cut
out of it.

I could feel the increasing resistance as the atmosphere
thickened, buffeting the capsule and screaming around it.
Was I the only one who could not perform the calculus? I looked
up at Hengi. His face was covered in sweat, and he was staring at the
corner of his monitor with an expression I immediately understood to
be abject confusion.
I looked again at the numbers. We were 10 miles high and dropping
far too quickly.
“Ahhh," I cried. "Aiygh!"
Hengi looked up at me, briefly, his eyes narrowed and then
returned to his monitor, brow furrowed, confusion unredeemed.
I heard other cries of distress, unintelligible and frantic.
Something we were doing seemed to slow the craft, gradually at first,
then sharply, then more gradually, but fifteen seconds later, our
speed was still 100 feet per second.
I looked over at the two forms near the airlock, broken third to
die and the one who had gone to help him, fourth to die. Fourth to die
cradled third to die’s head, touched his shoulder, wiped blood from
his eyes. The two of them were as great a mystery to me at that moment
as the numbers on my screen. Why should one care that another had been
harmed? Was there something in our human brains that demanded this?
I looked back at the monitor. We were just above the clouds,
white and moonlit and terrifying. We were dropping toward them too
quickly, and we did not know what lay beneath.
The mist of your Earth swallowed us a few seconds later,
rendering our monitors almost useless. The numbers continued to flash
without a meaning any of us could comprehend, and all was dark where
the earth had been, for we were falling through rain at night.
I brushed my hand against the screen, touching the control icons,
sensing a wobble in the craft. Someone cried out, “ngangaahhhm,” and I
pulled my hand away. All of us were making noise, some in fear, some
from what seemed to be a sense of what should be done. Some were
gesturing toward their monitors, perhaps to instruct the rest of us.
I could hear the rain against the capsule, and the rushing wind,
and I knew it would not be much longer.

There was silence, and then Smiley spoke. “Are you still
reading?”
“No, I’m taking a break,” Arrowroot said. “How you know there’s
no god?”
“No evidence,” Smiley said tersely.
“No evidence?” Arrowroot cried. “With all this around us?
Bullshit. Okay, who made it then?”
“We have matter, and energy, and the laws the govern them, and no
evidence of anything else,” Smiley said.
“Okay, okay, who made it all?” Arrowroot demanded.
“I don’t know,” Smiley replied. “And neither do you. And anyone
who says they know is a liar.”
“Shit,” Arrowroot said, and he scratched his chin and looked out
the window. “You want me to keep reading?”
“Please,” Smiley replied.

We hit your Earth at 30 feet per second, crashing violently,
jarring as we struck at an angle.
Our craft bounced once, hit again, slid with a series of violent
thumps and groans, and came to a smashing halt against a tree.
Third to die had been tossed to the other end of the capsule, his
body completely ruined, head misshapen, one limb almost severed. It
was clear he was dead.
The capsule had been broken apart at the airlock, and fourth to
die lay in the breach, cut open by the raw metal, his pulse pushing
fresh blood from gashes in his neck, arm and stomach. He said nothing
nor moved, only looked at us, and I knew he was also soon to end his
mysterious role in the survey.
There were cries of pain and fear and choking sounds as several
vomited. Hengi’s nose was bloody, and the feel of it trickling around
his mouth bothered him, and he wiped at it and smeared it into his
beard. Jundy was holding the side of her head, eyes closed. Several
were hunched over, rocking and moaning. Only I and the one we would
call Drune, sitting at the far end of the capsule, seemed well enough,
or curious enough, to look beyond ourselves. Our eyes met, and I took
in his face, his dark eyes, the long black hair that hung to his
shoulders, and then I looked away.
For the first time, I breathed your air as it billowed into the
capsule, heavy with moisture, full of the new smells of a world so
full of water it even fell from the sky.
It was raining, steady but light. The water had begun to collect
in places on the roof of the twisted capsule, and a stream of overflow
washed down upon fourth to die, rinsing his blood and running, tinted
red, between our feet and down—

“So I guess that’s the landing,” Arrowroot said. “You heard
enough? Hello? Hey, Nebby, you heard enough? Hello?”
The line was dead.
Arrowroot looked at his phone and noticed he’d gotten a text from
Danielle. “Keep your evening free,” she’d written. “Vengeance is gonna
be sweet.”

Karl Arrowroot felt emptiness as he headed downstairs and to the
Promenade for lunch. Damn Mr. Smiley and his godlessness.
It could still all be fantasy, of course, a strange confluence of
fiction-driven events and artifacts which, by accident or perhaps
intention, was threatening his faith.
He’d lost his son. If he didn’t have God, what did he have left?
Nothing, that’s what. Nothing.
The day was bright and beautiful, and he headed to one of the new
outdoor cafes that invariably arose in spring and went out of business
by the following November. He chose a pasta place, picking a table at
the edge of the patio, where he was most likely to be seen.
Mr. Smiley’s roach robots seemed to be on the defensive now. They
hadn’t attacked the police, instead scurrying away. Chances are, they
wouldn’t strike again until nightfall, and maybe they’d be caught by
then. Or maybe they’d given up. But if they killed again, Arrowroot
didn’t want anyone accusing him of knowing about them and hiding in
City Hall.
Except for the usual pleasantries from a few locals, lunch was
uneventful, and good enough, but not what he needed. “Man cannot live
by pasta alone,” he reminded himself as he trudged back to his office.
Ignoring the stack of paper on his desk, he went straight to his
computer. Almost 50 people were working to translate now, linguists
and hobbyists and science fiction fans from around the world, and more
than 200 pages had been posted.
Several people had written summaries of the narrative, as well as
a first few stabs at commentary and analysis, and that’s where
Arrowroot turned first.
“It’s clearly philosophical science fiction,” asserted one,
pointing to the overarching plot of visitors from another planet,
forced into human form, attempting to conduct a survey of earth and
its inhabitants while dealing with high-tech disaster. The weaknesses
of the human mind were no match for the interstellar requirements and
advanced equipment of the survey, noted the translator, an Indian man
who called himself Vabland. Not only did the meal tractors immediately
turn on the surveyors, he wrote, but a computer-like device and brainscanning equipment provoked the near-universal vulnerability to
superstition, leading to grisly tragedy.
Well into the story, a surveyor named Zeshia used the equipment
to make up a sort of deity and decided it had ordered that she feed
herself to the meal tractors. Arrowroot turned to the narrative,
noting that the description of her graphic death under the relentless
claws of the machines matched what the Army had found: the ruined body
of the woman at the front door of the Carlisle place.
Even more tragic, her death might have been averted. Moments
after she was dead, the surveyor named Drune had figured out how to
turn off the roach robots. They could be controlled remotely, it
seemed, with computer-like equipment the surveyors had taken from the
capsule:

Ten tractors stood frozen across what was left of Zeshia, her
eyeless, upturned face covered in gore, her chest opened, the muscles
of her legs and arms exposed and ravaged.

She had died on her back, one arm raised over her head, the other
by her hip, fingers still splayed as if, even in death, she were
trying to ward off the tractors. Her legs were bent at the hips and
knees, and I imagined she had drawn them up toward her chest at the
end, relaxing them slightly in death.

The tractors had stopped for some reason in the midst of their
work, claws frozen reaching for another piece of flesh, or drawing
what had been torn loose back into their bodies.

Another reviewer argued that the narrative was, ultimately, a
love story. As Tamani and Drune attempted to puzzle out the mysteries
of the survey, they grew close and learned how to use their bodies to
have sex. Then they quarreled and Tamani had sex with Hengi, who
proved to be coarse and autocratic, before reconciling with Drune.

Glancing between the comments and the narrative itself, Arrowroot
had the strange sensation that comes from knowing things others can
only guess at.

Whether the story was true or not, Arrowroot was one of the few
who had seen its physical manifestations: the corpses at Fort Shergawa
and the strange survivor, a young woman so traumatized by what she had
experienced she’d shut the memories off from her conscious.

Had she really made love to a man named Drune, and then cheated
on him with a man named Hengi? Was it Drune or Hengi or someone else
who had been bashed in the head and left for the Army to discover?
Arrowroot found the poetry of that story moving – beings from another
planet take on human form to introduce themselves to the people of
earth, and immediately succumb to the inexorable forces of the human
brain’s lust, jealousy and hatred. Lacking the decades of training in
social propriety and emotional control most humans receive, they would
have no tools for controlling their urges. Death and destruction were
inevitable.

Reading further, Arrowroot learned that the dead man was someone
else, a sad, poetic fellow named Creat who was killed by his lover, a
woman named Jundy, whose dalliance with the human form had completely
unhinged her. He was singing in the Carlisle house, according to the
narrative, making up a song when Jundy shoved him against a door jamb
and then punched him in the head. Clearly she was possessed of the
same strength as Tamani. Creat died within a minute as Tamani watched
in horror, his last sound a puzzled, heartbroken “ah?”

There was still plenty of the story to be translated, and
probably more death to be revealed. Art had not begun scanning the
second crystal, and until he did, the ultimate nature of the story –
as a romance or a science fiction novel or something else – would have
to be surmised. Of the nine surveyors who survived the crash landing,
only five had been accounted for, Arrowroot knew, and he wrote out
their fates on a legal pad:
Tamani: still alive
Sose: killed by the meal tractors in the barn ‘cause they needed

food
Creat: killed by his girlfriend ‘cause she went crazy
Zeshia: fed herself to the tractors ‘cause she thought she was

It was the disturbing details that emerged about this last
character, the woman named Havi, that Arrowroot found most relevant
now. He grabbed his phone and called Chief Hatfield.

“Floyd, it’s Karl, you got a minute?” Arrowroot began.
“Shoot,” Hatfield replied.
“You found any of those things yet?” Arrowroot asked.
“Not a one,” Hatfield admitted.
“Can I give you some information about them without having to

answer a bunch of irrelevant questions?” Arrowroot asked.
“Yes,” Hatfield answered tentatively.
“Okay,” Arrowroot said, “there’s a long book about everything

that happened at the Carlisle place, written in a foreign language or
something, still being translated. It’s online, I’ll email you a link.
It goes into detail about the roach robots, might be helpful.”

“I don’t have time to read a long book,” Hatfield said flatly.
“Of course you don’t, that’s why I’m still on the phone with
you,” Arrowroot replied. “Those things are officially called meal
tractors. Their job was to get food for everyone, for Tamani and the
others. Now, before they know what to feed you, they have to sample
you. Stick a damned needle up under your fingernail, you know, collect
blood and tissue and all. So this one surveyor, named Havi. Yeah,
surveyors is what they called themselves, on account of they were
surveying the earth or whatever. I mean, this is what the story says,
I’m not making it up. Yeah, Tamani was a surveyor too. So this one
surveyor named Havi, they make her get sampled by the meal tractors.
That’s right, hurt like hell, made her crazy seems like, she went
swimming in the Carlisle’s pond right after that, froze her up good. I
mean, it killed her. Hypothermia most likely. Then the other
surveyors, they find her, they’re sad or whatever, drag her out of the
water, lay her next to the pond, wander off, and the meal tractors
find her next, eat her all up since now she’s just so much food to
them. Yeah, she’s one of the ones the Army found, all chewed up with
her arms gone. Remember? Anyway, once the meal tractors stuck that
needle in your finger, then they start getting food for you. Only you.
No one else. They know who you are. And they only give up their food
if you touch them. Gotta be you, no one else. So this lady named Havi,
she’s dead, but only her hands can open up the tractors to get the
food out. Like they know her fingerprints or something, I don’t know.
So that’s why they hacked her arms off. They were using her hands to
get the food out of the damned meal tractors. So they’re walking
around with a dead girl’s dead hands, touching these damned robots to
get the food out. Food came out of the machines’ backs. That’s what it
said, I’m not making it up.”
“Who are they getting food for now?” Hatfield asked.
“That’s the thing,” Arrowroot said. “That’s the tragedy of it. No
one, they’re not feeding anyone. They’re just doing what they’re made
to do, get food, store it until it’s not fresh anymore, then dump it
and get more food. That’s my understanding. I don’t know what the food
looks like but chances are it’s lying around somewhere, probably not
far from the bodies. You know, dump it and get some more.”
“I’m thinking about having the Army come in tonight,” Hatfield
said. “Do a curfew, declare martial law, find these goddamned things.”
“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Arrowroot protested. “There’s gonna be
absolute mayhem. As soon as you breathe a word of what’s going on,
everyone’s gonna get in their damned cars and clog up every road
leaving town. Then they’ll all be stuck in traffic, getting out to pee
and whatnot, and they’ll be ripe for the picking.”
“What do we do, then?” Hatfield asked. “What?”
“They can be turned off,” Arrowroot said. “That’s what it says in
the story, and that’s what Mr. Smiley told me too, if you recall. He
could turn them off if his gear or whatever hadn’t been jammed.”
“Okay, I’ll go to the jail right now, he’s gonna have to talk to
me,” Hatfield said.
“I don’t know if he can help you,” Arrowroot said. “He wants the
problem solved as bad as anyone. He just wants to leave, go back home,
like, to that other planet if you believe all that, and take his
robots with him. But he’s as lost as the rest of us.”
Arrowroot paused. “I have an idea.”
“What you got?” Hatfield asked.
Arrowroot stood, walked over to the window and looked outside. It
was mid-afternoon now, the sun hitting the Promenade and its people at
a pronounced angle. In three hours, he was going to meet Dr.
Schaumberg for dinner, and he didn’t want to cancel. And after dinner,
if Danielle was to be believed, he was going to see his son’s death
avenged. He didn’t want to miss that either.
“Just brainstorming,” he said, “but let’s think about this.
They’re only eating, like, one person every day or so, right? And
they’re probably going for people because we can’t move as fast as
animals. I mean, they ate an old drunk last night, he was probably
asleep when they found him. So chances are, they’re going for the lowhanging fruit, if you will, and they’re not particular to any one kind
of meat, just not enough big animals around or they move too fast.”
“Okay, with you so far,” Hatfield said.
“So get you a couple fresh kills from the farm,” Arrowroot said.
“The one out there on Shaker Road. Big pigs or a cow or two. Then drop
‘em around the last place you saw the robots, near that furniture
store.”
“You mean trap these things?” Hatfield proposed.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Arrowroot replied. “I’d say just
drop the carcass in the bushes and get away. Maybe put some police
tape around it so people won’t mess, and watch from a distance. A good
distance. They know you’re after ‘em, so if they see you they’re gonna
go somewhere else.”
“So we’re gonna drop dead cows around Heligaux every afternoon?”
Hatfield asked. “I don’t think that’s feasible.”
“Just tonight, buy us another day, to sort things out,” Arrowroot
said. “That’s the best I can think of.”
Hatfield was silent. “Okay, let me think about it,” he said.
“Thanks.”
The line went dead and Arrowroot pondered for a moment how bad
this could be. He was making the best decisions he could given what he
knew, but that wouldn’t matter at all if someone else died. What if
they ate a child? What if they were getting hungrier, and they killed
two people? What if it wasn’t an old drunk this time? In that case,
he’d be lucky if all that happened was impeachment.
He chased those thoughts out of his mind and turned back to his
computer, hoping there was something new there he could work with. But
the translation was still stuck at about 200 pages. That’s all Art had
scanned. Must be taking a well-deserved break, Arrowroot thought,
turning back to his notes. He’d listed Tamani and the four dead
surveyors, but the fates of four others were still a mystery. He wrote
their names down next, under the heading “What happened to these?”

Drune: Tamani’s boyfriend, smart and curious. Learned how to shut
off tractors
Jundy: Went bonkers, killed her boyfriend
Hengi: Mean son of a bitch, cheated with Tamani
Nantia: Hengi’s girlfriend, sort of, didn’t do much, fought with
Tamani

And where had Mr. Smiley and the dead man in the kitchen come
from? Arrowroot was now certain these were two newcomers, not the 13
surveyors, but others. Had they landed in another capsule? Arrowroot
was pretty sure Tamani had seen Mr. Smiley land at the Carlisle place,
and that’s why she screamed. But the other one had been there a while
longer, at least a day. Had Mr. Smiley and his dead cousin come in on
two more capsules?

“Got an anonymous tip for you,” Arrowroot said. “Strictly
anonymous.”
“Shoot,” Hatfield said gamely.
“Tell the Army to look around the Carlisle place, maybe not too
far from the house,” Arrowroot said. “See if there’s something strange
out there, specifically like a kinda busted up thing, size of a small
bus maybe, wedged up against a tree.”
“They found it,” Hatfield said flatly.
“Oh, God,” Arrowroot said. “Some bodies in there, right? Chewed
up like the others, right?”
“Yeah,” said Hatfield. “Two.”