Unfair Folk
By
Floyd Largent
Charlotte has been weeping steadily for two days, and the salt water is starting to corrode the strato-components in her eyeballs.
Heaving a great sigh, she makes a strenuous effort to control herself, and after a little while, her tear ducts stop leaking. She dabs at her cheeks with one of the very last tissues before standing up, spine straight, lifting his corpse in her arms in a classic princess carry. He is the last of them, ancient and withered, having done his best to last as long as possible, just so she would not be alone. His name was Jason, but she called him Padre, because he was the last Catholic priest on Earth. Indeed, as far as she knows, he was the last human on Earth.
The humans had begun leaving 80 years ago, choosing to believe a pretty lie created and spread by their near-forgotten enemies. Suddenly transparent to gravity if only they willed it, people began lifting off into the clouds like fleshy rockets, happily heading to Heaven singly, in pairs, and later, in vast groups. Charlotte had no real idea of what drew them away, what tempted them to abandon their home world in droves, because whatever it was, it did not work on her. With her strato-boosted eyes, she could see what they did not, would not: the diffuse sphere of human bodies drifting in low Earth orbit, all the hopeful pilgrims having entered a terminal Heaven they had not expected. She tried to warn them, but no one listened to her except Padre. And then, suddenly, there were no longer enough people to make civilization work, and it all fell apart. That drove the last diehards to flip on the null-grav gene and ascend to the skies. At least their final day was happy, she supposed, until they started to gasp and wheeze and their bodies were freeze-dried by the cold of space. She imagined it was a quick death. She hoped it was.
For 59 years, she had been alone, except for Padre. He had kindly asked her to create a metal exoskeleton for him, a sort of suit of armor, that was as heavy as his own body and would hold him down to Earth, just in case his null-grav gene was flipped by accident or trickery. He knew her warnings were true. She had shown him images from the James Webb Space Telescope, which she had suborned after a brief struggle with the NASA computers, displaying the Death Sphere in great detail.
Padre had wept when he saw all the dead children, their little faces frozen in grimaces of agony.
The weight of the heavy suit had made Padre strong and muscular to the very end, which she admitted to herself that she liked. They had spent their days together scavenging supplies from the ruins of the old world, hunting when they had to as the wild animal populations exploded; and they had spent their nights staring up at the beautiful starry skies, no longer scarred by light or air pollution, counting the meteors as bodies fell from the Sphere.
Now, Charlotte has reached the beautiful clearing where Padre asked her to help him ascend. Bluebonnets are spread as thick as a blanket across the tall grass, accented by the occasional red-orange Indian paintbrush, all attended by honeybees. As he lay dying two days ago, Padre deliberately flipped his null-grav gene, saying he wanted to join the rest of humanity in their dubious Heaven. Charlotte had nodded, sobbing. The only thing that had held Padre down those last few days was his exo-suit.
Quietly, calmly, Charlotte removes Father Jason Alcubierre's armor piece by piece, setting it aside. She gently holds his increasingly lighter body down with one knee, until she has removed the last of his armor. Then she stands and lifts his body overhead, as high as she can reach, before she lets go. He floats slowly upward, a figure out of the Final Judgment, what many who left had called the Rapture. After a bit, his rise accelerates, until he is so enwrapped in clouds that even Charlotte's eyes can no longer track him.
She sighs and says, dispirited, "You can come out now, old monster."
A gaunt, gray-skinned bugbear fades into view, tapping a wicked claw on its lantern jaw. "No need to be offensive, missy," it growls, in a voice like rocks in a blender. Its ivory horns catch the light as it cocks its head to the side and grins at her.
She turns away from the exposed fangs. "The truth should not be offensive to you, Lysander," she murmurs, to herself as much as to the fae.
"Ah, but one lady's monster is another's Adonis," he says, morphing into an achingly handsome sandy-haired man with ears like daggers. His voice is now as smooth and light as Tupelo honey. He snaps his fingers. "Come out, come out! The world is ours again!"
"About time," says a woman as she slides her arm into Lysander's. A redhead, she is so achingly pretty that she makes the most beautiful human supermodels look like hags by comparison. Or would, if there were any supermodels left.
"Now, now, Titania," Lysander tuts. "It hasn't been so long, given the enormity of our lifetimes. What was ours is ours again!"
Other fae appear in various forms, some beautiful, some hideous, all capering like insane children. "The humans are gone! The humans are gone!" is their constant refrain.
"Only until they return!" shouts Charlotte, infuriated by their behavior.
Handsome Lysander rolls his eyes. "Oh, my dear, that will take a while. And what has you so incensed? We bargained fairly to get our world back."
Charlotte steps forward and slaps the elf lord so hard that she shocks him back into his true form. "You murdered eight billion people!"
Lysander phases into his handsome knife-ear disguise as Titania stares at Charlotte, aghast that she would dare lay a hand on a king of fae. Lysander just taps his chin with his forefinger and says calmly, "We did nothing of the kind, darling. We spread a rumor and tweaked a gene that was already there. Whether the humans ascended or not was their own decision."
Charlotte sighs. What he says is true. That humanity had been tricked into ascending is not in doubt. Nor is the fact that in their collective stupidity, they chose to ascend. There is nothing she can say that will change that. "This is not over," she tells Lysander instead, standing tall. "Enjoy this little interregnum of yours. Give me a few hundred millennia, and humanity will rise again."
Lysander just laughs, long and hard.
Charlotte turns and starts trekking south as twilight falls. San Antonio is less than 100 kilometers away, and its ruins are home to a thriving population of chimps, bonobos, and gorillas that she and Padre had released from the Saint Anthony Primate Research Center almost 80 years ago. Assuming the population is large enough, and assuming she can revive her long-dormant uplift protocols, Central Texas will become the next cradle of humanity.
It will just take a while.
As she marches south, she keeps her eyes on the sky, her far-vision picking out the faint Death Sphere, counting the streaks of fire as human bodies re-enter the atmosphere and burn into ash. Hopefully, the bodies in the Sphere will all have immolated themselves before her new humans finally go to space.
She is up to two hundred and fifty in less than an hour when she stops counting. She knows that someday, one of the meteors will be Padre's, marking the final end of a man she loved.
For some reason, she feels a deep sense of peace descend upon her, for the first time in many years.
I'm a former archaeologist who never woke a sleeping god or unearthed an ancient evil (alas). Currently a full-time writer and editor, in the past year I've published or had accepted for publication three poems and 26 short stories, in venues including Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Bullet Points, Chewers, Dream Theory Media, Exquisite Daath, Freedom Fiction Journal, Masticadores International, Suburban Witchcraft, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and more.
By
Floyd Largent
Charlotte has been weeping steadily for two days, and the salt water is starting to corrode the strato-components in her eyeballs.
Heaving a great sigh, she makes a strenuous effort to control herself, and after a little while, her tear ducts stop leaking. She dabs at her cheeks with one of the very last tissues before standing up, spine straight, lifting his corpse in her arms in a classic princess carry. He is the last of them, ancient and withered, having done his best to last as long as possible, just so she would not be alone. His name was Jason, but she called him Padre, because he was the last Catholic priest on Earth. Indeed, as far as she knows, he was the last human on Earth.
The humans had begun leaving 80 years ago, choosing to believe a pretty lie created and spread by their near-forgotten enemies. Suddenly transparent to gravity if only they willed it, people began lifting off into the clouds like fleshy rockets, happily heading to Heaven singly, in pairs, and later, in vast groups. Charlotte had no real idea of what drew them away, what tempted them to abandon their home world in droves, because whatever it was, it did not work on her. With her strato-boosted eyes, she could see what they did not, would not: the diffuse sphere of human bodies drifting in low Earth orbit, all the hopeful pilgrims having entered a terminal Heaven they had not expected. She tried to warn them, but no one listened to her except Padre. And then, suddenly, there were no longer enough people to make civilization work, and it all fell apart. That drove the last diehards to flip on the null-grav gene and ascend to the skies. At least their final day was happy, she supposed, until they started to gasp and wheeze and their bodies were freeze-dried by the cold of space. She imagined it was a quick death. She hoped it was.
For 59 years, she had been alone, except for Padre. He had kindly asked her to create a metal exoskeleton for him, a sort of suit of armor, that was as heavy as his own body and would hold him down to Earth, just in case his null-grav gene was flipped by accident or trickery. He knew her warnings were true. She had shown him images from the James Webb Space Telescope, which she had suborned after a brief struggle with the NASA computers, displaying the Death Sphere in great detail.
Padre had wept when he saw all the dead children, their little faces frozen in grimaces of agony.
The weight of the heavy suit had made Padre strong and muscular to the very end, which she admitted to herself that she liked. They had spent their days together scavenging supplies from the ruins of the old world, hunting when they had to as the wild animal populations exploded; and they had spent their nights staring up at the beautiful starry skies, no longer scarred by light or air pollution, counting the meteors as bodies fell from the Sphere.
Now, Charlotte has reached the beautiful clearing where Padre asked her to help him ascend. Bluebonnets are spread as thick as a blanket across the tall grass, accented by the occasional red-orange Indian paintbrush, all attended by honeybees. As he lay dying two days ago, Padre deliberately flipped his null-grav gene, saying he wanted to join the rest of humanity in their dubious Heaven. Charlotte had nodded, sobbing. The only thing that had held Padre down those last few days was his exo-suit.
Quietly, calmly, Charlotte removes Father Jason Alcubierre's armor piece by piece, setting it aside. She gently holds his increasingly lighter body down with one knee, until she has removed the last of his armor. Then she stands and lifts his body overhead, as high as she can reach, before she lets go. He floats slowly upward, a figure out of the Final Judgment, what many who left had called the Rapture. After a bit, his rise accelerates, until he is so enwrapped in clouds that even Charlotte's eyes can no longer track him.
She sighs and says, dispirited, "You can come out now, old monster."
A gaunt, gray-skinned bugbear fades into view, tapping a wicked claw on its lantern jaw. "No need to be offensive, missy," it growls, in a voice like rocks in a blender. Its ivory horns catch the light as it cocks its head to the side and grins at her.
She turns away from the exposed fangs. "The truth should not be offensive to you, Lysander," she murmurs, to herself as much as to the fae.
"Ah, but one lady's monster is another's Adonis," he says, morphing into an achingly handsome sandy-haired man with ears like daggers. His voice is now as smooth and light as Tupelo honey. He snaps his fingers. "Come out, come out! The world is ours again!"
"About time," says a woman as she slides her arm into Lysander's. A redhead, she is so achingly pretty that she makes the most beautiful human supermodels look like hags by comparison. Or would, if there were any supermodels left.
"Now, now, Titania," Lysander tuts. "It hasn't been so long, given the enormity of our lifetimes. What was ours is ours again!"
Other fae appear in various forms, some beautiful, some hideous, all capering like insane children. "The humans are gone! The humans are gone!" is their constant refrain.
"Only until they return!" shouts Charlotte, infuriated by their behavior.
Handsome Lysander rolls his eyes. "Oh, my dear, that will take a while. And what has you so incensed? We bargained fairly to get our world back."
Charlotte steps forward and slaps the elf lord so hard that she shocks him back into his true form. "You murdered eight billion people!"
Lysander phases into his handsome knife-ear disguise as Titania stares at Charlotte, aghast that she would dare lay a hand on a king of fae. Lysander just taps his chin with his forefinger and says calmly, "We did nothing of the kind, darling. We spread a rumor and tweaked a gene that was already there. Whether the humans ascended or not was their own decision."
Charlotte sighs. What he says is true. That humanity had been tricked into ascending is not in doubt. Nor is the fact that in their collective stupidity, they chose to ascend. There is nothing she can say that will change that. "This is not over," she tells Lysander instead, standing tall. "Enjoy this little interregnum of yours. Give me a few hundred millennia, and humanity will rise again."
Lysander just laughs, long and hard.
Charlotte turns and starts trekking south as twilight falls. San Antonio is less than 100 kilometers away, and its ruins are home to a thriving population of chimps, bonobos, and gorillas that she and Padre had released from the Saint Anthony Primate Research Center almost 80 years ago. Assuming the population is large enough, and assuming she can revive her long-dormant uplift protocols, Central Texas will become the next cradle of humanity.
It will just take a while.
As she marches south, she keeps her eyes on the sky, her far-vision picking out the faint Death Sphere, counting the streaks of fire as human bodies re-enter the atmosphere and burn into ash. Hopefully, the bodies in the Sphere will all have immolated themselves before her new humans finally go to space.
She is up to two hundred and fifty in less than an hour when she stops counting. She knows that someday, one of the meteors will be Padre's, marking the final end of a man she loved.
For some reason, she feels a deep sense of peace descend upon her, for the first time in many years.
I'm a former archaeologist who never woke a sleeping god or unearthed an ancient evil (alas). Currently a full-time writer and editor, in the past year I've published or had accepted for publication three poems and 26 short stories, in venues including Altered Reality, Bewildering Stories, Bullet Points, Chewers, Dream Theory Media, Exquisite Daath, Freedom Fiction Journal, Masticadores International, Suburban Witchcraft, 5-7-5 Haiku Journal, and more.
