Out Numbered

‘Everyone, Sal. Everyone. Jimmy got the schematics from Suzie. It looks bad, real bad.’

Johnny passed the spreadsheet to Sally. The paper disappeared in his hand a flush of static, and reappeared in hers in the HoloSphere. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s a print out, Sal. Every single American, and every single foreign soldier sent here to kill US. Our identities were stolen and sold overseas. It wasn’t for money, Sal, not like the news said. They’s here, and they’s hunting US one by one, day by day. Kill one, they ship in another. We got the brains, but, for now, they’s got the numbers.’

The Importer

She looked at the shipping papers. ‘What do you want me to do with this?’

‘Sign off on the shipment, ma’am.’

‘There are 40 pounds of rubies, two cargo containers of pearls, and one dozen containers of diamond rutilated quartz.’

‘Correct, please sign here,’ he said, shuffling his feet, and then his eyes.

Her partner stepped out from behind the shipping containers, cuffing the importer before he could move. ‘Origin of the shipment?’ he asked the importer.

‘There's nothing on the paper,’ she responded after some silence.

‘Corpses,’ her partner nodded. ‘Derived from corpses.’

After The End

The Witch laid her shawl on the floor of her new cabin. New to her, not new to the land. It seemed to grow out of the land, the gnarled oak, pine, and birch of the wood surrounding the cabin seemed to have bent and twist itself into the very hut she now called home. Opening the shawl, she took each item out one by one. The seeds of her homeland had come with her. She knew as she planted these trees here, the ones across the ocean would begin to wither and die. That wasn't something she wanted, but these plants couldn't fall into the wrong hands. Here, in this wild land, in this rich dirt, the trees would have a chance.

Designs of the Dead

‘The dead have no designs they say, but I sit here with Father Satan and all of our sons in the Underworld. The Living don't see the Designs, but tis we who weave the weather, crafting the air from our cold dead bones. Tis we gifting them their herbs and potions they use for portents to stay alive - another year, another year, they holler, all the way down to Hell their voices reach. Penetrating our earthen walls, with no thought to our food supply or privacy, whom we want joinin’ our ranks, spinnin’ cloth and breakin’ bread with US - no thought at all is given to what we need, to sustain them. No, no - then they holler up to God when they don't get their way, blamin’ everything on the Devil again.’ She rattled a tree root dangling in to her cellar from the roof. ‘I'll give them something to holler about.’

Mardruig i

She dismounted from her ship, skirt trailing behind her in the wind as she walked to the woods. Pricking her finger on the thorned brambles, a drop of her blood bled in to the ground. A shimmer appeared from the plant near her. She nodded to the Spirit of the Plant, and walked farther in to her wood. She had engineered this place, long ago, this island of hers. Without her DNA markers, without the exact beat of her heart, and glint of her eye, the island would turn, killing anyone who dared to enter.

Mak'Ob

She waited with her grandmother, from the bushes watching. The researchers crept forth across the milpa, gathering and collecting samples of the bushes cultivated here for centuries. The crude pilapa housing, a palace to them, was easily looked over by the researchers, who quickly decided nothing of value was there. Just an old fire hearth, some rocks molded as cooking utensils, and dried beans soaking in an old earthen pot.

‘What do we do, Grandmother?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, child. Now we wait.’

Rebuilt

‘What happened, Sally? Everything looks the same, but feels so…different.’

‘AI. It did what you said. It progressed US to the Future. Physically, though. I think it hit a wall, Johnny, and stayed with US, one by one, piece by piece, particle by particle. I think it rebuilt US.’

The Writing Desk

‘You actually think you deserve this?’ she said to the auction buyer. ‘This is a piece of American History.’

He looked at the writing desk.

‘It’s out of your price range.’

‘But I-’

‘Have unlimited funding, yes, I know, Sir, I reviewed all your bank accounts before you entered my auction hall. This piece is out of your price range.’

The next customer came up. She handed him the slip for the writing desk. ‘$2.00 USD,’ was scrawled on the tag. ‘He deserves this desk. He understands the history behind it. No part of this country is for sale, Sir. Please enjoy the rest of your day. Finger sandwiches are behind the counter.’

Cìadg

‘The First Morrigan spoke. You're not allowed out of Irish Hell. You can go to the Land of the Living, dress up in all their Colours, but once you've been Èire, you're never allowed out The Morrigan's clutches.’

The children gathered round the old man nodded.

‘Okay, my lads, Go Play. But once yer done…’

‘We’ll come back, Father Time,’ they echoed in unison.

Rock the Boat

‘What'd you do, Sal?’ he asked her, mildly perplexed. He strung the fishing line and cast it into the rivulets made by the lapping water at the dock.

‘I just planted some seeds. In their minds.’ She looked at their little guy, nestled next to her.

‘What’s with the scuba helmet?’ Johnny asked her, looking at their son.

‘Just in case, we're on the docks, what if-?’

He grinned. ‘Okay, anyway, these seeds?’ he furthered her, reeling in the empty fishing line.

‘I'm sick of it, Johnny, everyone bitchin’ about skin color, ancestry, whose ancestors got here first. So I left some bait.’

‘Yea, like what Sal?’

‘Like…like bloodworms,’ she grinned, watching him rehook the empty line. ‘Just enough to scare everyone. I switched up their records. Now they don't know who’s related to who, who's got here first, who got adopted by who, what vaccine inserts they got, who changed their name a few generations ago.’

‘That's kooky, Sal.’

‘Nah, it'll be fine - AI got safeguards in, makin’ sure no one’s dating a family member or nothin’, but Johnny - their bellyachin.’ So annoying. Now they're all just cosplayin’ as each other.’ She smiled.

‘How soon do you think they'll figure it out?’

‘I dunno,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe by the time you catch that fish.’ She pointed to the sign next to the dock. No fishing. Lake to be restocked next Spring.

The Under World

‘Jesus only went so far into Hell, my child. He was too good, too kind, too fair. In fact we thought it was an Error until the Good People on the Other Side of the Veil sent US A message. In fact, it appears His Soul Purpose here was to wed Your Mother, to birth ye into Existence.’

‘Why Granmama?’ asked the child her spinster grandmother tugging the comb through Her Hair.

‘So you can continue Your Father's Work, go Deeper Into Hell. Apparently there's A Message He Wants Conveyed to your Husband.’

‘My Husband?’

‘Ah well You're both young now, but by the Time you reach the other Side of Hell, He'll be grown and so Will you.’

The child looked in to the Mirror. She had fallen asleep. Her hair was done up in new curls, pearls and ribboned knots. She turned to look at Her Granmama. A Pile of Ashes on the floor.

It was Time.

cu lihn daighn

‘Here they sit and knot the threads, child. God has laid the board, He has sewn the cloth, so He will always have the Advantage, but See, the Devil is His Partner, not His Adversary. The Devil plays the other part of the Tapestry. Where God sits and weaves one side of the Cloth of the Universe, the Devil pulls the Strings Through to the Other Side. Each sit and clip, each weave a delicate portraiture of Heaven and Hell. Here, at the bottom, what do you see?’

‘Clippings, Gran, of all the bits and pieces that wore, that fell, that severed.’

‘Very good. That’s what witches are. We’re the Menders. The ones that cut the cullings, respinning them into beautiful threads again, for God and the Devil.’

aedhreig

An iron cleaved from Vengeance

A knelling of the bell

Another kingly cleave

Another hurled from Hell

Know You Don’t Belong Here

Satan Is The Gate

Go Holy, Let Out

Before it is too late

If your holy cap rests still here

If your blood upon my floor

Know I scream of Death

Tis Death That Wants Some More

Naeg

‘Naeg,’ she spoke to the boy. ‘You don't speak Gaellic, you speak your mind. The language is infallible, uncorruptible. Dinna think you speak Gaellic when you speak Hatred. That's a horse of a different color.’

‘Dinna fash,’ he says, as if he fashioned the language. She looked at the young man before her. ‘You have much to learn.’

Pavlov Push

‘I figured it out, Sal, why all them politicians love China so much, and why's they takin’ away our currency. It's a pavlov push. The face recognition and digital tracking - the invisible currency - you'll see it Sal, people'll catch on real fast. They's bein’ remotely trained. Do this or do that, you find an extra coupon in your mailbox. Behave well online on them comments, you get an extra $100 in your credit balance or an airline upgrade. Marry and mate with who's they say, well now you get the suburban plot with the built in pool. It's social credit with a pavlov push, digital neuroscience and human tracking- an internal takeover of America using psychology and corporations.’

She looked at her husband, in the HoloSphere so vibrant and young, strong and fierce as he ever was when he was deployed. Lowering her lens she saw him in front of her again, back blasted to the bone, tubes every where, and the slow hiss of the machines keeping him breathing.

WW

‘War Wives? I thought they died off after the old wars.’

‘No,’ he spat out his chewing tobacco. ‘Ain’t no gettin’ rid of War Wives.’

Neural Networking

'Neural networking isn't what they think,' she said, turning to the boy getting modded. 'It's like reading their life, but in your brain. You feel everything. You remember bits and pieces of their stories - stories no one ever wanted told.'

'What memory do you remember the most?' he asked, sticking out his arm for her to administer the fluid.

'Ones that haven't even happened yet,' she said, injecting the blue liquid in to his vein. 'Yours,' she said.

Maesop

‘But how will I do it?’ she asked her instructor. ‘They're not ready for this - this level of science entails all the training you've given me, enough data to fill books that would take lifetimes for them to read - I just…I just don't see how I can teach them so much in so little -’

‘You'll be fine. It's most important they remember how to think, not what to think. Then their species can take it from there - they can paint their own story again, after this…edit.’

Her pupil nodded. She inserted the drive in to the computer. If she didn't communicate this knowledge to them, the Star System she saw through her telescope, she already knew the ending. Tumultuous, fiery, full of death with no mercy. She decided to try.

The array of satellites she had set up the year previously purred online. I hope they'll be okay, she thought.

The Cloners

‘You're a replica,’ she said to him, gently, trying not to bruise his feelings. ‘You're not him. The Original. His soul is still buried somewhere with his bones, or with the plants growing over his grave. You're something new. Like an epithelial cell shedded - an echo.’ She reached his hand toward his. ‘This doesn't have to be bad. You can make more choices, take more chances - do things he never would have been able to do in his time. But these thoughts, these memories - they don't belong to us. They belong to the past.’ He reached his hand toward hers. ‘It’s a choice - not an obligation. We don’t have to choose their pathway. We can make our own.’ His hand clasped hers.

màeg dùeth: The Contract

‘Both of them? At the same Time? Are you mad? They'll kill each other with Grief.’

They had just sat down at the Clan Table, an old wood and wrought iron table in the Castle.

‘It’s against all Clan Agreements. The only way to keep those Two happy is to keep them Dead, Together. You remember what happened Last Time? Tore apart The Island in two, dinn't they? Our families are still realing from that, and that was centuries ago.’ She turned to her father, the only Elder sitting at the table. The only one with first hand experience of the stories - their history, which now sat on the shelves, roped and bound in twine and leather. When he died-

‘Yes,’ he said, as if he could hear his daughter’s thoughts. ‘When I die, no one alive will understand the stories. It must be done. You're to be handfasted and wed. Your babe will be born by MoonTime, next year. The second the babe is born - the child's husband will be called forth from the grave in his own manner. All must be put right. All must be made settled. The clans to the North and South will keep them separated. Everything will be written down, observed, recorded. When they are both dying, we will allow them to be reunited, at the Yew Grove where we last buried them.’ He put his hand up, signaling silence. But this time, this meeting - there were no protests. Everyone knew how dire the situation was. How close they were to Extinction. ‘Sign the papers here. I'll bring it to their graves.’