“It’s over!” Lucille commanded Charlie and Daisuke to make the Galaxy Zephyr raise the Wheel with one arm while three free hands gripped the Enemy Hurricane’s scorpion carapace. With a flex of titanic muscles, the Galaxy Zephyr jerked the stinging tail.

“Stop! Stop!” The Enemy Hurricane felt its thorax splitting. Rather than relinquish its tail, it let the Galaxy Zephyr stretch its body long and thin like taffy until it was a coiling strand of cosmic spaghetti. It grew a snake-like face baring fangs larger than galactic clusters. With predatory eyes it signaled, “Your next attack is your last!”

Lucille ordered Eisu to stomp the snake flat with the Galaxy Zephyr’s right feet, and Fumiko to tread on the snake’s skull with the left feet until footprints were debossed on its face. In space there was no floor to stomp the Enemy Hurricane against, but they imparted tremendous impact-force due to inertia alone. “Kuso, kuso, kusottareh! What’s this contemptible shit which deems itself worthy of smearing my heel?”

The Enemy Hurricane smiled a serpentine smile. Its fangs were missing.

“Huh?” Lucille made the Galaxy Zephyr lift its two left feet. Embedded in its heels were the missing fangs. Green venom coursed through their calves.

“Fumiko!” Eisu pulled his monitors close. “Sister! Is your crew okay?”

“I don’t—” Fumiko’s crew of thousands was silent. “I don’t know!”

Green venom reached the left thighs. “Fumiko, report!” commanded Lucille, but no reply came.

The Enemy Hurricane chuckled. “They’re dead. My venom will let none of you live.”

“Yeah right! Charlie! Daisuke!” Lucille twisted knobs. The Galaxy Zephyr swiped the Wheel to cut off its own left legs. It caught the severed legs in its mouth and ate them whole. Instantly two new left legs spurt from its hips.

“Fumiko, report!”

Fumiko appeared at attention on Lucille’s main monitor. She was utterly intact. “My crew’s all accounted for, Commander.”

Lucille beamed. “Tell me, o Enemy Hurricane, why’d you think that would work? We’re resurrecting Earth’s whole population, but you thought we couldn’t reconstruct our closest friends? Baka, baka, baka!”

The snake leapt with open maw to sink new fangs in the Galaxy Zephyr’s neck. Mid-jump, its eyes signaled, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“I never cared!” Lucille brought down the Wheel and sliced the snake in half lengthwise.

Each half became a new snake. “You’re young, aren’t you?” signaled the first.

Signaled the second, “for your whole life I’ve been the stars in your sky!” Both leapt for the neck. “I’m the sky-bearer!”

“Bah!” A second sweep of the Wheel sliced both snakes in two. “Sky-burglar! Sky-bungler! Sky-broiler! Sky-bloodier! Shrug off the tyranny of heaven and we’ll wrestle unregulated!”

The quarters of the Enemy Hurricane formed four frogs with toxic yellow stripes. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Lucille’s grin grew wide. “I’m the toad-cooker!” Before the four frogs spat venom, the Galaxy Zephyr sliced them each in half. “Scum-cucker!” The Galaxy Zephyr’s four arms traded the Wheel to swiftly slice the Enemy Hurricane’s eighths into sixteenths. “Face-rider!” The Galaxy Zephyr’s four feet stomped the sixteenths into a compact mass, which it sliced into thirty-seconds. “Skull-fucker!” The Galaxy Zephyr danced on the ball of gore to keep it packed tight. The Wheel sliced the thirty-seconds into sixty-fourths. “I’m the candle who curses the darkness!—but you’d better call me what you want while you’ve still got the chance!”

Lucille opened her mouth to say more, but her battle-frenzy spoke for her.

“Oran doran doran doran doran!” With every syllable, the Galaxy Zephyr sliced the Enemy Hurricane into twice as many parts. “Doran doran doran doran doran!” Four dancing feet stomped the Enemy Hurricane before it could escape or even cringe. “Doran doran doran doran doran!” Finally only fine red powder remained of the Enemy Hurricane. “Doran doran doran doran doooriyaaaugh!”

They swept the Wheel’s broadside across the fine red powder, scattering the Enemy Hurricane across the void. “That’s enough, Commander,” said Professor Akayama. Lucille watched the fine red powder fly in all directions. She pulled a lever and made the Galaxy Zephyr lift the Wheel once more. “Lucille! I said that’s enough!”

“I heard you, Hakase.” She laughed and tucked the Wheel behind the Galaxy Zephyr’s head like a thorny halo. “I just wanted to watch `em flinch.”

Indeed the fine red powder flinched away. The Enemy Hurricane retreated in terror.

“What now?” asked Charlie.

“They’ll just come back again,” said Daisuke.

“Don’t be so sure,” said Akayama.

The bits of powder were already signaling each other with new eyes. “How could we fail?”

“Our scorpion was terrible. We shouldn’t have made snakes. The frogs were even worse.”

“Clearly the Zephyrs are right to ape the human form.”

The fine red powder shaped themselves into billions of billions of muscular warriors, each the mass of a quadrillion suns.

“Now we outnumber them!”

“We can’t lose!” They charged at the Galaxy Zephyr.

Fumiko groaned. “Here they come!”

“Must we fight forever?” asked Eisu.

Daisuke grimaced. “We have no choice.”

“Everyone, battle-ready!” said Charlie.

“Nah.” Lucille relaxed in her chair and pushed buttons with her feet. The Galaxy Zephyr crossed its four legs and rest its four hands on its four knees. “You heard Akayama. This is the end.”

The Galaxy Zephyr’s crew watched the army of Enemy Hurricanes approach, and approach, and approach, but never actually draw near.

“We’re done with the Wheel,” said Akayama, “so I’m releasing the tension we’ve stored in the fabric of reality. The universe itself is expanding, and the distance between objects is increasing. As fast as they fly, the cosmic expansion is faster. Soon nothing will ever break light-speed again.”

The army of Enemy Hurricanes slowly changed their expression from assured confidence to desperation as they struggled to catch the Galaxy Zephyr.

Akayama twisted open ZAP’s hatch. “I’m off to have words with them. I’ll be back.”

Next Chapter
Commentary

“We can’t keep this up!” said Charlie. The Galaxy Zephyr zipped through the empty universe, narrowly evading the Enemy Hurricane’s ten gargantuan missiles.

“We’re almost out of time!” said Daisuke. The missiles tightly tracked the Galaxy Zephyr, relinquishing no leeway.

“Commander Lucille, what do we do?” asked Eisu. The Enemy Hurricane salivated from a thousand maws, awaiting inevitable victory.

“How much longer must we wait for the Chain?” asked Fumiko. A missile grazed mere light-years from her cockpit.

Lucille grit her teeth. “Bird-thing!” The bird-like pilot of ZAP saluted. “Tell me the instant the Chain is ready!”

“Of course, Commander!”

“Jya, Charlie, Daisuke, we’ll take the offensive. Eisu, Fumiko, brace for impact!” Lucille pulled levers to guide the Galaxy Zephyr’s arms.

Charlie squinted his good eye at his monitors. “What are we attacking?”

“The next missile within reach.”

Daisuke clutched his crew-cut. “But it’ll probably explode!”

“We can only hope,” said Lucille.

The Galaxy Zephyr swung the Wheel and sliced the nearest missile in two. Both halves detonated. When the explosions rippled the Galaxy Zephyr’s flesh, Eisu and Fumiko blasted steam from the robot’s feet. The Galaxy Zephyr surfed the shock-waves instead of being vaporized.

“Damage report!” called Lucille. As her ten thousand pilots reported in, Lucille saw the whole left side of the Galaxy Zephyr was seared and blistering. Golden blood oozed. Six of sixteen wings were singed.

“Incoming!” Charlie pointed the Galaxy Zephyr’s right hand at nine missiles catching up across the cosmos.

“Commander!” squawked the bird-pilot of ZAP. “The Chain is ready!”

“Will the new Zephyr save us?” asked Lucille. The bird-pilot shrugged. “While we’re pulling the Chain, we can’t dodge or slice another missile.”

“I say we slice,” said Eisu. “Better to take damage on our own terms.”

“We can’t handle that trauma again,” said Fumiko, “on our own terms or not.”

“No time to dodge,” said Charlie.

“Pull the Chain!” said Daisuke. “It’s all or nothing!”

Lucille had never heard Daisuke advocating such risk. She cracked her knuckles. “Pull!” The Galaxy Zephyr held the Wheel in its left hand and pulled the Chain with its right. The Wheel spun so fast centripetal force lengthened the saw-teeth by light-years.

White powder flowed from the Wheel into the Galaxy Zephyr’s Hurricane Armor. The powder bleached the armor ivory-white and healed its scars and burns.

“Bird-thing, whatever this Zephyr can do, it’d better do quickly!” Lucille watched the missiles approach. “We’ve only got seconds!”

“I can’t watch!” said Eisu.

“Me neither.” Lucille spun her steering-wheel. The Galaxy Zephyr pivoted to face the Enemy Hurricane, turning its back to the missiles. “Minah! It’s been an honor.”

Ten thousand pilots nodded.

From the base of the Galaxy Zephyr’s spine, nine colossal cannons protruded.

Each cannon fired a white torpedo trailing steam.

Each torpedo intercepted a missile and detonated it.

The Galaxy Zephyr was framed by balls of flame.

“Masaka.” Eisu wiped tears from his cheeks. “We’re saved!”

Fumiko just cried.

Charlie slammed his control-panel. “Yes! Yes!”

Daisuke watched debris scatter in all directions. “Let’s collect all the mass we can.”

“No need,” said Lucille. “Look.” The steam-trails of the nine white torpedoes engulfed the debris. Then the torpedoes returned to their cannons. The mass they’d collected merged with the Galaxy Zephyr, which swelled in size by nine times. The Wheel increased in diameter proportionally.

“My God,” said Fumiko. “We’re enormous!”

“Meh.” Lucille shrugged. The Galaxy Zephyr was still barely a twentieth the size of the Enemy Hurricane. She was more impressed by the robot’s lithe, athletic form. Its face grew subtly pointed like a canid snout, and its sculpted hair hid pointed ears. Lucille felt like she piloted a wild animal. “What do you think of that?” she shouted, and her Hurricane Armor translated her shouts into eye-signals for the Enemy Hurricane to see. “When you think we’re whipped, we’ll whip into shape!”

“Then I’ll scourge you with scorpions!” signaled the Enemy Hurricane. Its body churned and lengthened. Its narrow end sharpened into a stinger. It grew eight legs capped with pincers. Its surface grew a shiny maroon carapace.

“Motherfucker, I’ll scourge your scorpions!” Lucille directed the Galaxy Zephyr’s right hand to grab the Chain. “Bird-thing, is another Zephyr lined up?”

“Pull!” yelled the bird-pilot of ZAP.

They pulled the Chain again. The Wheel spun so quickly it threatened to shear apart. “What’ll this Zephyr do for us?” asked Lucille.

“Who knows?” This voice came from Nakayama herself, flying from the Wheel into the Galaxy Zephyr’s armor. She opened ZAP’s hatch to recombine with the bird-pilot. Professor Akayama was finally one solid piece again. “But see how fast the Wheel spins?”

“Yeah, it looks like it’ll burst,” said Lucille.

“Our region of accelerated space-time has reached a particularly interesting scale and velocity.”

“Spit it out, Professor.”

“We’ve crossed a threshold,” said Akayama. “We expended energy to accelerate space-time, but now the Wheel is producing energy.”

“Nice!” Lucille watched the Enemy Hurricane crawl toward them through space. “We can use extra energy.”

“Already done,” said Akayama. “I’m converting it directly into mass.”

Lucille grinned. She now understood, from the way the Wheel seemed ready to split at any instant but maintained integrity, that the professor held it at the breaking point to leech its energy. The energy flowed into the Hurricane Armor and congealed into dense, impenetrable volume. “Alright everyone,” said Lucille to her ten thousand pilots, “just a matter of time!”

The Enemy Hurricane snapped its front pincers. Eisu and Fumiko made the Galaxy Zephyr duck under them. “We’re almost too large!” said Fumiko. “We’ve lost our evasiveness!”

The front pincers snapped again. The Galaxy Zephyr evaded the left pincer but was clasped by the right. The Enemy Hurricane brought down its stinger. “Who needs evasiveness when we have strength!” said Daisuke. He and Charlie braced the elbows of the Galaxy Zephyr against the pincer confining them. They pried it wide open and slipped away before the stinger stung.

The left pincer blindsided them with a back-slap, sending the Galaxy Zephyr spinning through space. It tumbled twenty trillion light-years before stabilizing.

Lucille’s crew righted themselves just to see the stinging tail descend. Reflexively they brought forth the Wheel and sliced the tail’s tip.

“Big mistake!” signaled the Enemy Hurricane. Yellow acid gushed from the sliced stinger.

“Who’s mistake?” asked Lucille. The acid flooded over the Galaxy Zephyr. Its Hurricane Armor cracked like sunburnt skin. The whole robot broke open like a cocoon.

Underneath the white Hurricane armor was blue Hurricane Armor. This broke open also, and underneath was purple Hurricane Armor. This broke open also, and underneath was pink Hurricane Armor. This broke open also, and underneath was blackness so dark it made space look luminous.

“You’ve guaranteed our victory,” said Lucille. “You’ve unleashed our final form!”

The blackness kept growing and growing, gaining mass from the Wheel’s energy. It absorbed the oceans of acid. Under the white, blue, purple, and pink faces, sheer emptiness glared at the Enemy Hurricane.

“How are you—” The Enemy Hurricane reared and snapped its pincers up at them. “Why are you so large?”

“I’ve always been this large!” said Lucille, “you just didn’t have the sense to see it!” The dark mass grew to twice the size of the Enemy Hurricane—twice the size of the observable universe. It had four legs, four arms, and two horns which speared the skins of its former forms and wore them like garlands. The Wheel expanded proportionally.

“Unbelievable.” Daisuke’s hands trembled as he took his controls. His cockpit had moved to where the two left arms conjoined at the shoulder.

“How could we possibly lose?” asked Eisu. His cockpit had moved to where the two right legs conjoined at the hip.

“Don’t let this go to our heads,” said Charlie, at the right shoulder.

“Let’s kick their ass!” said Fumiko, at the left hip.

“Mou ikkai,” said Akayama.

“Huh?” Lucille looked at Akayama on her main monitor.

“Pull the Chain,” said Akayama, “one more time.”

Lucille felt much more resistance in the Chain. It took all the Galaxy Zephyr’s strength to pull the first link from the Wheel. That link was in the jaws of a fleshy skull with six empty eye-sockets. Subsequent links were wrapped in the skeletal creature’s rib-cage. It had twenty arms and twenty legs.

“One last Zephyr for the road?” With Lucille’s direction, the Galaxy Zephyr wrapped the Chain around the Wheel’s rim. The skeletal creature’s forty limbs were the Wheel’s new saw-teeth.

The Galaxy Zephyr’s upper pair of arms reached into the Wheel and plucked out Earth’s sun and moon. They staked the moon on their left horn and the sun on their right horn to save them for later.

Lucille couldn’t stop laughing. “Let’s wrap this up, shall we?”

Next Section
Commentary

When Faith landed on the red mountain, she scratched its dusty surface and a cave opened. Nakayama crawled out. “Yes, Faith?”

“My friend Jay dragged Anihilato above-ground,” said Faith. “He’s got it pinned!”

“Thank goodness. I worried Anihilato would never surface.”

“You’d better go quick!”

“I will.” Nakayama pointed her wings to the cave. “You too.”

“Huh?” Faith tiptoed to the cave-mouth. “But you haven’t wrapped that white wing around yet. Do you mean—”

“You’re due for Zephyrhood,” said Nakayama. “Make haste.”

“Oh gosh.” Faith nervously tapped her paws. “Am I really ready?”

“You were ready the instant we met, but your unusual physiology made delayed gratification more useful. Observe.” Nakayama brushed Faith’s muzzle with one wing and showed the snowy powder she scraped off. “At the dawn of time, I produced this white powder to accelerate the cycle of life and death. Your personality resonates with the powder, so it accumulated around your psyche to expedite my whim.”

“My soul’s just… helpful dust?” Faith wrapped her tail around her haunches and forelegs. “But why?”

“Be glad. If it weren’t so, you’d be a pile of worms squirming in different directions. I couldn’t have managed the afterlife without you.”

Faith surveyed the desert for the last time. “What’s it like being a Zephyr?”

“The description will seem unpleasant, but don’t be afraid,” said Nakayama. “Your body and mind will disintegrate and spread throughout the Wheel. From there you’ll be a boon to all sentient beings.”

Faith approached the cave again. “You mean I’ll help people?”

“Everyone forever.”

“Good enough for me.” Faith leapt into the cave. The red mountain swallowed her. Nakayama turned to the desert and unfolded a forty-foot wingspan.

Her launch rolled a sonic boom over the dunes.

In seconds she found Anihilato and Jay.

Her touchdown raised swirls of sand.

Anihilato tried to squirm under Jay’s debilitating gaze. “Stay away!” it shouted.

“Stay away?” Nakayama drew near. “Oh Anihilato, I knew you’d reject me—and in rejecting me, your task is complete!”

“Careful!” said Jay. “I’ve got to keep eye-contact.”

“I’ll take it from here.” Nakayama’s wings scintillated and morphed. Every feather became an eyeball. The wings formed a dome over Anihilato with eyes facing inward. Anihilato was too petrified to even blink. Jay took the chance to rub his own eyes.

Nakayama popped off both wings and stepped away from them. “Thank you, Jay. If you hadn’t held it here, Anihilato might have hid for all time.”

“I’ve got questions,” said Jay.

“I’ve got answers, but I can’t guarantee they’re to your questions.” Nakayama unsleeved ten blue arms to lift one corner of the dome of wings. Through the lifted corner, Jay saw Anihilato frozen in fear. “Ask away.”

“If I understand correctly,” said Jay, “my world isn’t the real one, right?”

“That’s a matter of perspective.” Nakayama put all her hands on Anihilato’s ten hind legs. The legs popped off easily and Nakayama swallowed them whole. Anihilato groaned. “From my vantage point, your world is as real as anything else. It’s subsidiary to another world, but if it weren’t real, it couldn’t be subsidiary to anything.”

Jay nodded. Even freed from Anihilato’s glare, he stayed stationary. “The strangest thing, though,” he said, “is that some aspects of your original world slip into my subsidiary one. For example, I heard the story of a Blue Virgil who read manga from a library of texts supposedly from the future. After reading the manga, they visited Japan to meet the author while they wrote it. Unless I’m mistaken,” he wagered, “the Blue Virgil’s copy of the manga actually came from you, from your original world. But it was also being written in my subsidiary world. What are the chances of that?”

Nakayama shrugged all ten shoulders and popped off Anihilato’s remaining legs. “Your world’s an unsupervised machine-learning algorithm. If anyone could understand how it worked, it probably wouldn’t work at all.”

Jay nodded. “Did your original Earth have Hitler? Or Stalin?”

Nakayama popped off Anihilato’s twenty arms and ate them one-by-one. The worm-monster crumpled whimpering on the sand. “Who?” asked Nakayama.

“Their regimes killed millions.”

“Oh! I remember now.” Nakayama took Anihilato’s tail and whipped its body to snap its spine. “You must be from the early 2000s.”

“How’d you know?”

“By 2399, Hitler and Stalin don’t even make the top-ten list of murderous authoritarian dictators.”

“Wow. My subsidiary world’s in for a few rough centuries.”

“Every century is rough for the same reasons. What changes is us.” Nakayama merged her five left arms into a jet engine. Blue fire spewed forty meters.

“No! Please!” Despite the protest, Nakayama scorched Anihilato’s scalp. “Aaaugh!” Its six eyeballs boiled and burst.

Nakayama reabsorbed the dome of wings under her robes, then strode to Anihilato’s writhing tail and caught its end in her beak. Nakayama inhaled, stoking Anihilato’s flaming head to char. It stopped screaming as the flames spread to its shoulders. Nakayama blew smoke toward the sunset, then inhaled again, searing Anihilato to its first waist. “Phooo.” Nakayama blew more smoke. “Jay, care to help out? I’m drowning in this thing.”

Jay nodded. Nakayama put Anihilato’s tail in Jay’s mouth. Jay breathed deep. When he finished coughing, Jay opened his eyes and they were jewel-like and green. “Oh. Oh. I can see forever. I am forever. Nothing is salvaged except through me. I am the all.”

“Eh. You get used to it.” Nakayama inhaled though Anihilato again and the monster crumbled into ash. “You and I contain enough data to recreate Earth’s population within any degree of accuracy. Time to end this. I’ll unite you with the other Zephyrs.”

“I’m already united with the Zephyrs,” said Jay. “I contain Beatrice and Faith and Dan and Leo and everyone else, and I always have, and I always will.”

“I’m taking you to the Mountain.”

“The Mountain is in me.” Jay couldn’t stand. Smoking Anihilato had wrecked his sense of balance. “Carry me?”

Nakayama cradled him in both wings. “I can’t carry you and fly. I could throw you to the Mountain or I could swallow you here and now.”

“Do what you’re gonna do.”

“Of course. How could I possibly do what I’m not gonna do?” Nakayama swallowed Jay and launched into the sky.

Next Section
Commentary

In its caverns under the desert, Anihilato coiled all twenty arms and twenty legs around a man-sized egg to catch every ounce of warmth pouring from its yolk.

A worm fell from the cavern ceiling onto Anihilato’s cheekbone. Anihilato plucked the worm and inspected it with six eyes, then opened a lipless mouth to swallow it whole.

Anihilato paused. It whispered, as if to let the egg sleep. “You’re the first worm I’ve seen in eons,” said the King of Dust. “The eternities are ending and worms are growing scarce. Perhaps you and I are the last worms left.”

The worm squirmed in Anihilato’s grasp.

“Don’t worry. Worms are easy to digest,” said Anihilato, as if that made any difference to the worm. “When I meet more complicated creatures, I must consume them twice. First I excrete them as eggs and enjoy their warmth until their egos soften. Only then can I digest them totally. In my previous life I could soften egos using other mystical powers, but I’ve lost that talent and must resort to eggs. My last egg is almost ready. I’ve eaten all the rest.”

Anihilato let the worm crawl across the egg. Then it snatched the worm and ate it.

It wrapped itself around the egg and slept for a long time.

It awoke to a crack.

“I’ve indulged in your warmth enough.” Anihilato felt the egg’s crack with its fingertips. “Time to eat!”

Anihilato opened its mouth.

The egg exploded.

The caverns collapsed. Shifting sands rained like monsoons. Anihilato was buried.

After the collapse, Anihilato dug to the surface. It shook sand from its body and blinked in the sunlight. Anihilato would dig back into the depths, but not before reclaiming what had hatched from its egg. “Monk!” Anihilato scanned the sand. It snapped up scraps of eggshell and crunched them in its teeth. “Jones! Dan Jones! You can’t run from me!”

“Why would I?” Jay sat nude, cross legged, on a pile of eggshells. He’d removed his gray rag from his waist and was tying it like a blindfold over his eyes. “I’m right where I meant to be.”

Anihilato stormed up to Jay in a flurry of arms and legs. “I’ve softened you, Dan! In my limbo you’ve been blunted as I feasted on your yolk’s warmth. I’ll best your eye-contact and reduce you to a nematode. Your rag won’t protect you long!”

“My egg had two yolks.” Jay pulled the blindfold taut. “Make no mistake: the rag’s for your protection, not mine. You’re already a worm. If you blinked in my gaze, you’d turn into a slug.” He rest his hands on his knees.

“You think I’m afraid? Me, Anihilato? King of Dust? Master of Nihilism?”

Jay allowed himself a slanted smile. “You are Anihilato,” he said, “and you are King of Dust, but you are not Master of Nihilism. There is no Master of Nihilism. There’s just you and me, right here right now.”

“You belong to me! I own you!” Anihilato reached six arms around Jay to untie his blindfold. “I put your Eternity-Card in my box of souls. Even if I allowed you to escape out of pity, you’d never find that box. I’ve hidden it deep under the desert!”

Jay giggled. “You think I still care about your stupid box?” Anihilato, taken aback, hesitated untying the blindfold. “If I found your box of souls, you know what I’d do?” Jay laughed. “I’d piss on your box. What worthless trash!”

Anihilato tore off the blindfold.

Scrutinized by six eyes, Jay felt all his muscles lock.

Anihilato, too, felt muscles lock. Jay’s gaze had grown more potent in the egg—or perhaps Anihilato had drawn too close untying the blindfold, and was now paralyzed by its own reflection in Jay’s eyes.

Just before it froze completely, Anihilato swept sand in Jay’s face. Jay cringed—his left eye closed and wouldn’t open.

Anihilato’s mouth curved into a grin. Through the petrifying battle of glares, it managed to speak. “You can’t win, Dan.”

“My name’s Jay now, but call me what you want.”

“You can’t win, DanJay.” Anihilato’s grin spread wide. “Remember teaching me this trick?” It closed its bottom pair of eyes. It reopened them and closed its central pair of eyes. It reopened them and closed its top pair of eyes. “By repeating this, I’ll keep four eyes on you forever. My vision is eternal. Soon you will wink and turn into an earthworm for me to slurp.”

Tears streamed from Jay’s closed left eye.

“Cry, mortal,” said Anihilato. “I’ll savor squashing your hubris.”

Jay’s tears deposited sand-grains from his cornea onto his cheek. He winked his left eye repeatedly. It was red and wet, but now he stared down Anihilato with both eyes.

“DanJay, you only delay the inevitable.”

“I am the inevitable,” said Jay, “and so are you. What happens happens. I’m reality, just like you.”

Anihilato chuckled. “What do you know of reality?”

“Doubtlessly less than you,” said Jay. “You contain every Virgil Blue. Nemo. Jango. Thank you for joining me at the end of the eternities. I couldn’t do this alone.” Anihilato sneered. “But it doesn’t matter. I know well as any Virgil that God is just what happens—no more or less than exactly what exists. God waits between us now.”

Two of Anihilato’s eyes peered into the sky. “If I’m not God, He’s on my side. It’s high noon, DanJay. You’re on borrowed time.” Jay didn’t understand until the sun descended and shined directly in his vision. He had to squint. Anihilato laughed. “Soon, DanJay. Soon.”

“Not soon enough for your sake,” said Jay.

Now Anihilato didn’t understand until noticing its own shadow. As the sun descended, Anihilato cast shade over Jay’s face. Jay’s eyes relaxed. Anihilato tried to move the shadow, but couldn’t lean an inch. “Terrible monks like you make the tastiest worms. I can wait for your surrender.”

“I’m no monk.” In Anihilato’s shadow, he could keep his eyes open a while.

Unless…

A drop of sweat disturbed his right eyelash. The eye clenched shut instinctively.

“Aha.” Anihilato snickered. “Your humanity betrays you.”

More sweat tickled Jay’s nose. It pooled in his ears.

A drop touched his left eyebrow. Jay grunted and tried reopening his right eye, but salty sweat stung it closed again. The drop on his left brow rolled toward his eyelash. Jay shook. Anxiety clutched his chest. He felt teeth take root in his throat.

A cool breeze froze the sweat to his forehead.

Faith Featherway inhaled and blew more chill wind over Jay’s face. “Is that better?”

“Thank you, Faith.”

“Hey!” Anihilato tensed twenty shoulders as if to smack Faith, that white fox, but couldn’t move its arms. “Scram!”

Faith turned and let her misty tail moisten Jay’s eyeballs. “How’s that?”

“Perfect, Faith.” Even with both eyes open, Jay was comfortable as if they were closed. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Faith disconnected her tail and let it envelop Jay like a cloud. “I’m flying back to the Mountain,” she said. “Bug-Bird asked me to keep an eye out for Anihilato. I gotta report this.”

“That’s alright,” said Jay. “I’ll take it from here.”

“You know, butt-head over there ate me alive one time?” She jerked her head at Anihilato. “I think it ate Dan, too.”

“It sure did,” said Jay.

“Good luck.” Faith bounded away with a new tail billowing behind her.

“Wait!” Anihilato tried to inhale her, but that trick only worked in the confines of its caverns. “If you can grow more tails, then give one to me!”

Faith rolled her eyes. “I’ll give my tails to whoever I want. Fuck you! Fuck off!” She flew into the sky.

Anihilato’s lipless mouth twitched in frustration and its six eyes shook. Jay just stared. His eyes were moist and cool and shaded. Reassured, the teeth in his throat retreated.

“This doesn’t mean anything,” said Anihilato. “You’ve failed. You and that frigid rat!”

“You’re half right,” said Jay. “This doesn’t mean anything.”

Anihilato rest one pair of eyes while the other two pairs kept Jay paralyzed. “That cloud will disperse. You will sweat and your eyes will shut. Then I’ll consume you. You can’t outlast me.”

“I don’t need to,” said Jay.

“What—” Anihilato let two eyes look left and right. “What do you mean?”

From the distance, a sonic boom roared over the dunes.

“No!” Anihilato quivered in fear. “Not that! Anything but that!”

Jay shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“Let’s adjourn!” Anihilato wished it could decompose into teeth, and felt more than enough anxiety to do so, but the clarity of the Blue Virgils kept it intact. “We’ll finish our contest underground!”

“Nah.”

“Please!”

“No.”

“Then just release me, no contest! You win! You’re the Master of Nihilism, DanJay! You’re King of Dust! You’re Anihilato!”

“Call me what you want.”

“If I could move, I’d beg on twenty hands and twenty knees!”

“Beg.”

“My box of souls is yours! Take it and leave me!”

“You’re bargaining garbage, Anihilato.” Jay sighed. “I’m here because I’ve seen the emptiness of all things and it’s led me to unconditional compassion—but that doesn’t mean I gotta be nice to you. I’m not surprised this kindness looks like wrath.”

In his peripheral vision, Jay saw the Heart of the Mountain, the Biggest Bird, sweep over the desert on a forty-foot wingspan.

Next Section
Commentary

“I’m glad to have company.” Nemo, the limbless ascetic, leaned to look over Leo’s shoulder. “I heard a bird. Will it arrive soon?”

“Probably,” lied Leo. “You guys love birds, huh?”

“Of course. My islands were built by a bird.”

Leo scoffed. “I’ve never been into imaginary-sky-daddy bullshit. What are you doing all the way up here?”

“Just as I choose,” said Nemo. “I’ve come in pursuit of freedom, to live as I know is right.”

“Oh yeah?” Leo leaned close. “Now you sound like my kinda guy. If society says ‘don’t climb past the clouds,’ that’s the first thing you gotta do. You a monk?”

“No,” said Nemo. “I’m no longer welcome at Virgil Blue’s monastery.”

“Oh ho ho. That’s the stuff. They’ll kick you out if you tell `em harsh truths.”

“Indeed,” said Nemo.

Leo pointed to his own forehead. “You got a, uh, a thing up here.”

Nemo nodded and looked cross-eyed at the swastika carved between his temples. “A reminder of my duties and heritage.”

“Hell yeah. I got one too. Not my heritage, but someone’s heritage, and as long as the world disapproves, I’ll wear it proud.” Leo unbuttoned his Hawaiian shirt. Tattooed across his chest was a blue swastika whose arms bore thirteen stars. “That’s why the world can’t keep up with us. Get me?”

Nemo furrowed his brow at Leo’s tattoo. “What brings you to my little mountain?”

“Glad you asked.” Leo shrugged off his backpack and pulled out a jar of centipedes. “Harvested these all by myself.”

“Hm.” Nemo seemed unimpressed. “Freedom doesn’t come from centipedes.”

“Ha! I figured you had something special up here,” said Leo. “Even monks use centipedes. What’ve you got? What’s your secret to freedom?”

Nemo shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“C’mon. We’re buddies!” Leo took out his cellphone. “You like birds, right? Check this out. On the second island, there’re monks worshiping a fat-ass penguin. They made me delete the photos I took, but I got the last laugh.” Nemo’s eyes narrowed as Leo showed him a hundred photos of Virgil Green’s matriarch. “They thought I only took two, but my camera was on burst-mode, so I got a bunch.”

“I see.” Nemo inspected Leo with a squint. “You know, false images of birds are forbidden”

Leo puffed out his chest. “So’s climbing past the clouds and using centipedes, but that ain’t stopping us.”

“Freedom means setting your own limits,” said Nemo.

“Freedom means having no limits,” said Leo.

Nemo blinked. “If the opportunity arose to torture a toddler to death without consequences, would you consider it an okay thing to do?”

“Psh. Morality. It’d be my choice.” Nemo glared, so Leo folded his arms. “What kind of communo-fascist dictatorship are you imagining,” began Leo, almost promisingly, “where I can’t kill anyone, anywhere, in any way, for any reason or no reason at all? You don’t control me. What are you, some kind of Jew?”

Nemo counted centipedes in Leo’s jar. “Are you consuming those yourself?”

“Nope. Back stateside they sell for a thousand bucks a pop. Might smoke a little, though.”

Nemo bit his ragged lips. His teeth were whittled sharp like a shark’s. “Centipedes aren’t meant to be sold.”

“But people buy `em. Gotta feed the invisible hand of the free market, baby.”

“I thought you weren’t into imaginary-sky-daddy bullshit.”

Leo sneered. “The invisible hand of the free market is real.”

“Everyone says that about their God.”

“But the invisible hand of the free market actually influences reality!”

“Everyone says that about their God.”

“But the invisible hand of the free market allots consequences for actions by assigning ultimate value! It’s the only source of objective truth!”

“Everyone says that about their God.”

Leo sputtered and shook his fists. Spit flecked from his lips. “The invisible hand of the free market is directly influenced by everyone who matters, not lazy chumps like you, so I know it’s real!”

“Everyone claims a personal connection to God. You trust an imaginary-sky-daddy to fix the world quickly as you can break it. You’re bad as the monks.”

Leo clocked Nemo in the jaw.

Nemo rolled backward on his mutilated hips, but his low center of gravity rolled him upright like a child’s boxing-toy. Leo socked him again, and again Nemo rolled upright. “You really want my secret to freedom?” asked Nemo.

“Yeah!”

“Make an offer.”

“Uh.” Leo pat his pockets. He had no money, not even sand-dollars. “I’ll pay bug-sticks and centipedes.”

“I don’t want them. Try again.”

“I’ve got a porcelain egg.”

“Do I look like a nest?”

Leo crossed his arms. “Well, what do you want?”

“Eat your fingers.”

Leo clutched his biceps. “Why would I?”

“If you won’t pay, then freedom will escape you. You’ll forever be slave to your own shadow.”

Leo grimaced. “Crazy bastard.”

“Call me what you want.” Nemo munched his own shoulder. He licked up every drop of blood. “Man is free exactly when he chooses to be, but if you haven’t the guts, I can’t blame you. You’re no man! You’re a wobbling, whimpering victim-complex. You surrender your freedom to everyone you meet because responsibility burns you like ice. Now I’ve got your freedom, somehow, and I’m telling you to buy it back.”

Leo put his right index-finger in his mouth but couldn’t bite hard enough to sever it.

“Come on, now,” said Nemo. “Be less worthless than your daddy.”

Now Leo flushed red with rage. He opened wide and chomped his finger clean off. Blood spurt onto the rocky cave floor. He groaned and spat his finger into his lap. “Don’t talk smack about my daddy!”

“Pathetic!” Nemo snatched Leo’s finger in his teeth. “Did I tell you to bite your fingers off?”

“Yeah! Idiot!”

“Lazy sack of shit! I told you to eat them!” Nemo whipped his neck to fling the finger at Leo’s face. “Or descend and face your father as equal in failure!”

“Don’t talk smack about—” Leo clenched his mutilated fist. “My daddy—my father, I mean, was a wealthy business-owner!”

“What’s his name? What business?”

Leo said nothing.

“Thought so,” said Nemo.

“So what if I don’t know his name!” said Leo. “He fucked my mom and fucked off to make more money! He’s an alpha, just like me!” Nemo just grinned. “My mom said he was rich! Are you callin’ my momma a liar?”

“Some things don’t need to be said.”

Leo chewed his severed finger. Bones cracked in his teeth, and he swallowed. He almost vomited, but bit off his right thumb as well. “Aaaugh!” He horked it down. “Goddammit!”

Nemo watched him eat every finger off his right hand. “You’re spilling blood. Sloppy work.”

“Shut up!” Leo gnashed canines to split ligaments in his left pinky. He jerked his head to tear the digit from his palm. Blood, sweat, tears, and spit trickled down his face, neck, chest, and stomach. His tattoo’s color ran, leaving him bare-chested. Leo skipped his ring-finger and ate the rest, panting. When only his left ring-finger remained, he showed it to Nemo. Leo wore a gold ring. “I can’t eat this one,” said Leo. “My wife would kill me.”

Nemo smirked. “You seek utter freedom but worry what your wife would think? Whi-chii.” It was a whip crack.

“Okay, okay! But I’m keeping the ring.” Leo pulled off the ring with his teeth.

Nemo shook his head. “You can’t be free if you can’t sever your attachments—to your body and to others.”

“How could I be attached to her body?” misunderstood Leo. “She won’t even fuck me.”

“Hmm.”

“Women are the worst,” Leo stalled. “They don’t know a great guy like me when they see one. I didn’t get laid in high-school, and after high-school, women are just used-up sluts whose gaping cavities aren’t worth a damn. But I thought I’d lower myself to fucking one—I bought a wife from overseas. Cheap ’cause she came pregnant. But even that worn-out bitch won’t fuck me! How could I possibly be attached to that husk? I’ll fuck my step-daughter if she’s hot enough in a year or two. It’s not like we’re related.”

Nemo chuckled. “But you won’t eat the ring?”

Leo put his ring-finger in his mouth. He cracked bones, tore skin, and swallowed it whole. “There! Urp—” Leo choked back vomit. “Fuckin’ showed you!”

“You sure did,” said Nemo.

“Now gimme freedom! What are you hiding up here?”

“Nothing you can’t see.” Nemo wiggled his stumps. “You’ve already eaten your fingers. Now finish the job.”

Leo retched and hid his bloody palms under his armpits. “Fucking—false advertising!”

“Liberation comes directly from the void. Accept no substitutes or middle-men,” said Nemo. “Own nothing. Be nothing. Know nothing. Until then you can only suffer.”

“My property,” said Leo, “is mine! I earned it! I deserve it! I’m damn-right to be pissed off at this commie bullshit!”

“You feel how you choose to feel.” Nemo shrugged what remained of his shoulders. “But a true anarchist would rejoice in any circumstance. Governments don’t exist. Social-structure is illusory. Everyone is capable of their capabilities. That tautology is the only freedom. You claim to desire a world without limits, but you live in it. You’re just too pathetic to participate.”

Leo tried to stand up. “I’m leaving. Fuck you.” He slumped into a puddle of his own blood—he was too pale and weak to exert himself.

“Leaving?” Nemo chuckled as Leo tried retrieving his wedding-ring without fingers. “You can barely move. You’ve chosen to die here.”

“Yeah?” Leo jabbed his bloody palms at Nemo and speckled him with blood. “Well, you too!”

“Indeed I’ve chosen this fate. The bird outlined my duty and I accepted. I’ll escort you to the next world if you’d like.” Nemo laughed. “That’s a joke. You won’t like it and I won’t care.”

Leo kept slipping in blood. His sunglasses fell to the floor. “What’re you on about?”

“I’m eating more than myself,” said Nemo. “I’ve devoured every fool who’s chased vices to my peak. My cave is a moth-trap for those pursuing power at any cost.” Nemo gnawed his own shoulders. “I consume the Blue Virgils to dilute souls like yours. Once I’ve totally eaten myself, I’ll have successfully forfeited my ego.”

“You’re loony,” said Leo. “How could you eat your whole self?”

“My hips were tricky,” admitted Nemo, “but once I pulled out my pelvis it was just a matter of nibbling, and I’ve got nothing but time.”

“Moron! Even if you eat everything else, you’ll never eat your own teeth!”

“Oh?” Nemo opened wide and ejected a shark-tooth from his gums. The tooth fizzled, sputtered, and annihilated itself in a flurry of particles and antiparticles. Leo pouted. “Your type is stringy,” said Nemo, “not like bad meat, but metaphysically. If someone identifies with their house, then to eat their ego, I must collapse their house. If someone identifies with their crops, I must wilt their crops. And so on. These are mystical powers I’ve developed through my connection to the Mountain. Luckily your pride confines you. You attach yourself not to your wife or daughter, but your virginity. You attach yourself not to your parents, but your genetic stock. Externally, you attach yourself only to money. I’ll just evaporate your bank-accounts—assuming you aren’t dead-broke.”

Leo had no strength to speak. Nemo crawled along the rocky cave floor like a worm.

“Don’t worry,” said Nemo. “In the next world, you and I will be one with all the souls I’ve snacked on. The Heart of the Mountain, the Biggest Bird, has promised us the receipts to all psyches. We’ll be rich! Greed will be our duty. We’ll grow plump with spiritual power for the sake of all sentient beings.”

Nemo unhinged his jaw and ate Leo’s head.

As he chewed, he mused to himself: “But Anihilato may have more power than the Heart of the Mountain anticipates. Not even every Virgil Blue can dilute the stains on humanity’s spirit. If Anihilato is so great that the Mountain’s Heart cannot collect it, there must arise an opposing force. Someone to look emptiness in the eye, unblinkingly.”

---

In Jango Skyy’s motel-room, Jay writhed on the rug.

Next Section
Commentary

“Pheh.” Leo capped a jar. He’d only caught six fireflies whose shining butts hardly illuminated the rocks. He glared at the moon. “Some help you are, huh?” The moon just made the ocean glitter.

Leo kept climbing the main island of Sheridan. He was done collecting fireflies. They weren’t worth his time. The real prize was all around him.

He chose a centipede-bush at random by bumping into it accidentally. “Shit!” Thorns caught his Hawaiian shirt. He considered removing his shirt, or at least unbuttoning it, but instead he painstakingly unhooked it from the thorny bush. “This is the stuff.”

He pulled a knife from his backpack. The knife had a totally awesome dragon on its hilt, but that’s not why he bought it from his local mall: its glass blade was a cinch to sneak onto airplanes.

He cut branches from the bush. Thorns nicked his palms. “Aw, c’mon!” He wiped blood on his cargo shorts. “Give it up already!” He reached into the bush and grabbed the ball of centipedes. It wouldn’t budge. He swung the knife with wild fervor. In his haste, he hacked some centipedes in half. “Perfect.”

He pried centipedes from the mutilated bush. He chucked the chopped ones over his shoulders. He stowed the intact centipedes in jars.

As he hacked the next bush, he mimicked Jay. “Oh, please, Leo! Only Virgil Blue can prepare centipedes! Come with me and get bum-fucked by monks! Pft.” He filled another jar with centipedes. “What a joke. The monks aren’t even trying to protect these bushes. They’re just asking for people to steal their shit—it’s their own fault. It’s better that I take ’em instead of some random jack-off. Sheridan needs my business-savvy. They should thank me.”

He kept climbing the island. Surely the best centipedes were near the peak.

He tripped immediately. “Fucking nests!” He was surprised to see a woven nest so high holding two porcelain eggs. “Huh.” Both eggs were painted with lacework signifying matriarchs from Virgil Green’s congregation. “They’d never notice one missing.” He dumped his jar of fireflies, sealed an egg in it, and kept climbing.

When his jars were full of centipedes, he turned to watch the sunrise. He’d worked through the night leaving broken bushes in his path. He felt a contact-high from all the centipedes he’d handled, so the light bothered his eyes. He put his sunglasses back on.

He turned to the peak. The clouds obscuring the island’s summit were so near he could touch them.

“Not supposed to climb past the clouds, huh?” Leo smirked and stuck his arm into the fog. “What a dumb rule. Sometimes the whole island is foggy. How do I know when to turn back? And how could they enforce it? They’d have to follow me, and then they’d just be hypocrites.”

Laughing built courage. He entered the fog-bank. If Sheridan kept centipedes at altitude, what awesome bugs did they hide in cloud-cover?

Above the fog, the island’s terrain was more rough. The slopes were so steep Leo puffed and panted. He hefted himself up cliffs by swinging his legs over ledges and pulling his belly after them. Whatever was up here had to be worth it.

Twenty feet above him, he saw a shape through the fog. Was it a fellow trespasser? Leo considered hiding, but then identified the figure’s waddle: it was a bird, six feet tall with long red tail-feathers. It struggled even more than he did plodding up the slopes.

“Heh.” Leo eventually caught up to it. “You birds would be better off if you weren’t too fat to fly. Climbing is human-work.” He and the bird paced neck-and-neck. “You know, all the nests up here—the eggs in `em are chicks. I mean, girl-birds. I’ll bet guy-birds like you have to let the chicks get ahead, huh?” He grinned. “But not you and me. We don’t let anything hold us back.”

The bird didn’t look at him. Its gaze was fixed on the peak. When it came to a cliff, it flapped both wings. It couldn’t fly, but with infinite effort, it hopped high enough to pull itself over the ledge.

“Whoa.” Leo kicked the cliff with both feet trying to climb after it. “Hey, hey! Wait for me!” He grabbed the bird’s tail-feathers and pulled himself up.

The bird lost its balance and fell from the cliff. Leo watched it roll down the slopes. Each time it tumbled, its wing-bones broke. He heard its distant squawking even after the fog obscured it.

Leo turned to the peak. “I’m not a bully, you’re just a pussy.” To sturdy himself for the climb, he chanted the phrase like a mantra. “I’m not a bully, you’re just a pussy.”

The fog chilled as he neared the top. Thin frost coated the stony heights. He finally came to a dark cave.

“Neat.” He entered the cave without second thought. “I must be the first person ever to get here.”

As soon as he said it, he saw he was wrong. He lifted his sunglasses to make sure the sight wasn’t from his centipede contact-high: there was a human figure in the back of the cave, facing rock wall.

“Yo,” said Leo. “Whaddup.”

The figure didn’t turn. Leo approached. Now he wasn’t sure if it was human or a weird rock. If it was human, they lacked arms and legs.

“Are you there?” asked Leo. “Ew!”

It was certainly human, but their pitch-black flesh disgusted him. Where their arms and legs had been, stumps were marred by bite-marks.

“Ha. Creepy.” Leo bit the figure’s shoulder like a dog. “Rawr!”

The figure turned their head. He had wide-set eyes, high cheek-bones, and a swastika carved in his forehead. “Don’t do that.”

“Whoa!” Leo backed up. “I’m just playing, man. Didn’t think you’d care, you’ve already got bite-marks all over.”

The figure turned, somehow, with what was left of his limbs. “Do you know who I am?”

“Nope.” Leo stuck out a hand. “Henry.”

The figure did not shake—of course he didn’t, he had no hands. “Nemo,” he said. “Oran dora. Please, sit.”

Next Section
Commentary

“Why not?” asked Nakayama’s Hurricane. “Why shouldn’t Lucille pull the Chain? We’ve got that white fox! Let’s send her to the Galaxy Zephyr!”

“Iya!” Nakayama flew around Lucille’s Wheel. Judging the bulge to be totally remedied, she released the white wing and returned it to the robot. “I need her. I need Faith. I have a plan which guarantees we rebuild Earth’s population as accurately as possible.”

“I don’t even know how our original plan was supposed to work,” admitted her Hurricane. “Why do you need Faith?”

“Life is too unruly for its principal components to converge near me. Some aspects will surely isolate themselves and hide. They will even be aggressive toward the notion of rejoining humanity.” Nakayama loaded herself into the Mountain like an iron ball into a cannon. “I can’t survey the desert alone. I need someone else to search our Hurricane Planet.” Nakayama used inconceivable methods to select an instant in her torus of timelines. “Fire!”

Her Hurricane fired her from the Mountain. Nakayama spread her wings to dive at the main island of Sheridan.

As she dove, Nakayama assessed the changes since her last visit. The islanders now lived across all three islands, even the barren sandy one. Atop the main island she saw a white-walled monastery. She landed beside a great stone statue. The statue intrigued her. It was a giant bird atop a stone box sheltering a tiny man with its wings.

She turned to the monastery and waited. She might have waited seconds or centuries, so disrupted was her perception of time. Eventually she saw Nemo exit the monastery, recognizing him by his navy robes and silver mask. Nemo approached her and bowed. “Akayama! Oran dora.”

“Virgil Blue,” she said. Nemo nodded. “I must ask you for a favor.”

“Anything,” said Nemo.

Nakayama squawked. “You speak! You speak English!”

“Of course,” said Nemo. “You gave me a thousand books. I studied their texts for centuries. Visitors from other nations taught me to pronounce the words. Welcome to the Islands of Sheridan.”

Nakayama almost cried. “Thank you, Virgil Blue. I can’t imagine the effort you’ve dedicated to understanding me.”

“Anything.” Nemo bowed once more. “O venerable one, I devote my entirety to you.”

“No!” Nakayama crossed her wings in an X. “Devote yourself to nothing less than all sentient beings.” Nemo didn’t understand, and shook his head. Nakayama tried to explain even though she knew she never could, in any language. “I’m collecting souls in the afterlife and I need your help. I can think of no one else to shoulder the indescribable burden.”

Nemo nodded and stowed his hands in his sleeves. “Anything.”

Nakayama hesitated but relinquished her command: “You must contain unruly souls.”

“Contain them?”

“There are some who would avoid me out of fear, or greed, or ignorance, even given eternities to approach. I need you to collect those beings such that your soul includes theirs.”

“How?” asked Nemo.

“You must encompass them in the same way a widow carries her husband’s mind in hers,” said Nakayama. “You must impress upon yourself the total fiber of their form, so when I collect you at the end of the eternities, I contain all conscious thought. To help me reconstruct Earth’s population from dust, you must be King of Dust. Anything which would otherwise be annihilated, you must consume. Anihilato,” she dubbed him.

Nemo nodded like he understood, but of course he couldn’t. “I will consume those who would otherwise never know you,” he said.

“Perfect,” said Nakayama. “I should give you a list.” Using statistical methods she could never explain, Nakayama produced reams of encoded papyrus. “This is a complete catalog of all expected Earthly souls. Either in this eternity or the next, I hope every specimen documented here is accounted for, if not in me then in you.” She pushed the papyrus toward Nemo, but he refused it.

“In this eternity… or the next?” Nemo tensed every muscle in his arms, repelling the papyrus. “If I have two whole eternities, could you save these documents until I enter the afterlife? I feel they’ll be more useful then.”

“I understand.” Nakayama absorbed the papyrus into her sleeves. “As long as you accept your duty, I trust you to the end of time.”

With that, Nakayama blasted back into space and merged with the Mountain. “Is your plan underway?” asked her Hurricane.

“Indeed.” Nakayama watched the islands from above and allowed her toroidal swirl of space-time to spin the scene away. “If my machinations pan out, the pesky principal components will be conglomerated into a single convenient entity.”

“Like a giant worm?” asked the Hurricane. “One worm representing all the disobedient aspects of Earthly life?”

“I know, I know. If my plan works, it will be nigh impossible to convince this entity to join the Galaxy Zephyr—or even reveal itself.” Nakayama floated within the Wheel. “That’s why I need Faith to survey the desert and track Anihilato, so I can collect it at the end of the eternities. But it won’t go willingly! It may even overpower me.” From her seat in the Mountain, Nakayama surveyed the water-world and the Hurricane Planet simultaneously. “Despite Virgil Blue’s good nature, Anihilato will be unruly because of the characters it contains.”

On the main island of Sheridan, Leo climbed uphill. He panted and sweat. Surely the best centipedes were near the top.

Next Section
Commentary

 

When Jay knocked, Virgil Skyy brushed blinds aside and peeked out the window with his good eye. Seeing Jay, he unlocked and opened the door. Jay entered and Skyy locked the door behind him. “Are your friends joining us?”

“I don’t think so.” Jay removed his shoes and loosened his dark purple tie as his eyes adjusted to the dim room. Virgil Blue sat cross-legged on a king-sized bed. Their wheelchair sat in a corner.

Skyy limped to a rug rolled up against a wall. Jay wanted to help handle the heavy rug, but Skyy bid him to sit beside Blue on the bed. He swiftly knocked over the rug with his cane and unrolled it with his feet.

The woven rug depicted the Islands of Sheridan from smallest to largest. On each island, a single man, repeated many times, climbed to the top and claimed the peak. The man was nude and black like coal. Above the islands, a bird in sky-blue robes oversaw the man’s journey.

“The first man, Nemo,” said Virgil Skyy. “The tapestry shows his journey from divine birth to ascendance above the rank of Blue.” He thumped his cane on the floor. “Students usually undertake this ritual after years of training with Virgil Green, then swimming to the main island and climbing it nude like the birds do. You met Virgil Green, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Jay swallowed. “I understand he chased snakes from Sheridan.”

Virgil Skyy shrugged. “Close enough. The way I heard it, Nemo ate the snakes. When Nemo climbed above the clouds, the new Virgil Blue established Virgil Green as a subsidiary representation of Nemo’s being. Nemo was so much larger-than-life that to keep his flame alive, he had to be divided and diluted.”

Jay let his gaze wander the rug. Unconsciously, his focus drifted to Virgil Blue’s silver mask. Jay had a reflection in both of the mask’s eyes. “Virgil Skyy… Jango… On the islands, you said the dead are reborn.”

“We cycle in the sand until our souls find the Mountain.”

“You said no one remembers their past lives.” Jay pried his gaze from the mask. “Are you sure?”

“The sand in the desert of death wears souls smooth.” Jango pulled Jay to his feet. “We are effaced.”

“What if…” Jango guided Jay’s posture in sitting cross-legged on the rug. “What if someone slipped through the cracks?”

Jango sat on the bed beside Blue. “Virgil Blue once dreamed they were a bird eating grubs from tree-trunks. Who’s to say which thoughts are false and which are memories of past lives?” Jango noticed Jay’s concerned expression. “But it doesn’t matter. The mind is just the whorl where the river meets the coast. Someday we will stop spinning, but what we were will spin again. Maybe we’ll spin the same direction as before, maybe oppositely. Maybe we’ll spin two directions at once. If you recall past lives, perhaps you spin clockwise on the surface while your depths present an opposing current. All currents are personal and temporary. The awesome stillness at the end of the eternities belongs to everyone forever.”

Jay put his hands in his lap, but kept them clenched. “Do you know Anihilato? Master of Nihilism, King of Dust?” Jango shook his head. Jay darkened. “What if the dead refuse rebirth?”

“You don’t get a choice. The sand chooses for you.”

“What if someone eats souls so quickly that the sand can’t keep up?” Jay didn’t look at either Virgil. “What if the Mountain’s task is impossible because of that stuck cog?”

“I can’t speak for the Mountain’s plan,” said Jango. “I’m only a Virgil. My goal is to guide.”

Jay released the tension in his hands. “Guide me.”

Jango licked his lips. He considered Anihilato. “My brother has long, greasy hair. Our father always wanted him to cut it short. One day, our shower wouldn’t drain. Our father reached into the drain and pulled out a thick, messy clump of hair. Our father was angry but he laughed, too—‘Look,’ he joked to my brother, ‘our hair-collector is working!’—as if the clog was the drain’s purpose all along. Do you understand, Jay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you’re getting close. Let’s try again: there once was a monster,” he said, “who couldn’t be killed in the day nor at night, inside nor outside, by a man nor a woman. Obviously the monster was slain by a hermaphrodite while passing through a doorway during a solar eclipse. The monster wore ignorance as armor. It protected itself with words like ‘day’ and ‘night’ and ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ and ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ but to those who know better, words are just words. The hero slew the monster with the blade of unpronounceable truth. Do you understand?”

Jay did not say yes or no. He did not even nod.

“You’re ready.” Jango put his thumb and pinky on Virgil Blue’s silver mask. Jay gasped. Jango took the mask away.

Under the mask was a black tangle of centipedes.

“I warned you.” Jango pulled the navy robes from the centipede-bush’s dark thorns. The robe’s sleeves were empty. What Jay mistook for knees were loose folds of fabric. “Centipede loses potency soon after harvest. It’s not easy to smuggle a centipede-bush through customs, but no one bothers the living legend in a wheelchair.” Jango shook a sleeve and a knife fell into his hand. “Close proximity to Blue will give you a contact-high. This gives the Virgil a paralyzing presence.”

Jay managed to speak. “How long?”

“Hm? Oh, Virgil Blue retired above the clouds decades ago.” Jango wrapped his right hand in navy fabric. “I’m watching in their stead ’til the end of time. It should be any year now.” With navy fabric guarding his hand from thorns, Jango reached into the centipede-bush. He used the knife to pry up orange legs until he could pull a whole centipede from the tangle. The centipede curled into a spiral which Jango gave to Jay. “You’ve smoked centipede-powder, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“This is not the same,” said Jango. “You will have no control. I will have no control. The centipede will take you.”

Jay nodded.

“Eat it,” said Jango.

Without hesitation, Jay crunched the exoskeleton in his teeth. He tore off black chunks and swallowed them. Orange legs crawled down his throat. Dark liquid spilled from his lips. Jay wiped his chin and licked the liquid from his palm. He ate the last inches whole, retching and gasping until the centipede was gone.

Jango said something, but Jay couldn’t hear it. He’d left the magic circle.

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Ms. Lyn led Jay to the campus cafe where Jango Skyy sat with Dan and Bob at a booth. Dan helped Jango butter the halves of a bagel to share while Bob sipped a beer. Jay shook Ms. Lyn’s hand. “Thank you again, Ms. Lyn. Can I buy you coffee?”

“I’ve got appointments to plan.” Ms. Lyn left. Jay passed chatting students on his way to the booth.

“Jay!” Jango raised his cane. “Is it time to collect the master Blue?”

“They’re all yours.”

“I’ll let them sit a while. No one would dare disturb their eternal meditation.” Jango bit his bagel half. Dan sipped milk and removed his gloves to swipe through photos on his phone’s touchscreen. “Come, Jay. Dan is explaining Zephyrs.”

“I need water,” said Jay. “Bob, can I buy you anything to eat?”

“I lose my appetite at altitude,” Bob said. “Buy me another beer.”

Jay found a free cup for water and brought Bob his beer. “If you’re drinking, I’ll drive us home, if it’s alright with you.” He sat across from Jango.

Dan showed Jango his phone and the old man took it to scroll on his own. “Okay, those are the covers of each collection,” said Dan. “That’s Princess Lucia, daughter of the ruler of Earth. Her family keeps her landlocked to protect her from the Hurricane, the cosmic horror which ate the universe, but she dreams of joining robot-pilots on the moon. One day she escapes and learns to pilot this robot, the heart of the Zephyr.”

“Hm.” Jango scrolled through comic covers. He closed the eye blocked by cataract and spread wrinkles from his good eye. “What’s the author’s name?”

“The author goes by pseudonym,” said Dan. “The comic was cancelled when the animated version premiered, but the animated version was cancelled too, so it just sort of ends. LuLu’s was a cult-classic while it lasted.”

“These robots.” Jango circled the phone with his finger. “They’re all Zephyrs?”

Dan nodded and took his phone back. “The robots and their pilots are both called Zephyrs. Sometimes it gets confusing.”

“Where are you staying?” Bob asked Jango. “Bring Blue to my house. Dan, Jay, I’ll pump up the air-mattress for you while the Virgils take the fold-out.”

Jango dismissed the notion with the wave of a hand. “Virgil Blue and I booked a motel-room.”

“How long are you staying?” asked Jay.

Jango nibbled his bagel and stowed his hands in his sleeves. “We planned to stay just one night, to extend our invitation to Faith.”

“An invitation?” Bob sipped his beer. “To what?”

“To the islands, of course.” The old monk released a long sigh. “No one has visited me three times in such a fashion as Faith. I thought she was destined for the white-walled monastery. Virgil Blue and I prepared her initiation, if only she was alive to accept!”

Dan bit his fingertips. Jay nodded and swallowed. “Is the initiation still, uh, ready to go?” Jay asked.

“If Faith is dead, then for whom?” asked Jango. Then his eyes opened so wide that Jay saw the white and black of his irises. “Are you suggesting—”

“No, no,” denied Jay, “I wouldn’t invite myself into your congregation. But Dan studies religions. We hoped to perform research for his thesis. Could you show us the materials and procedures of a Sheridanian initiation?”

At his name, Dan looked from his phone. Jango appraised his expression. “I suppose,” said Jango, “but before I invite you to our motel, I must warn you, the materials of a Sheridanian initiation ceremony are… controversial.”

“Centipede-powder?” asked Jay.

Jango shook his head. “The centipedes must be… consumed whole.”

Dan and Jay understood the implication. When Bob caught on, he bolted upright and held his fedora to his head. “You smuggled whole centipedes through customs?” Jango put a stern finger over his lips. Bob grinned giddily at Dan and Jay. “You guys have cool friends!”

“Please understand,” said Jango, “centipede-visions are integral to Sheridan. In fact, if you plan to write about the islands, I insist one of you consume a whole centipede—under Virgil Blue’s supervision, of course.”

“Really?” asked Jay.

“We have the materials prepared for Faith.” said Jango. “Someone might as well eat a centipede. I won’t demand you join my congregation unless you truly must.”

Dan covered his face. “Jay, I don’t know.”

“Is something wrong?”

Dan rest his fists on the table. His face was pale. “I can’t take centipede again.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll take it and describe my experience to you.”

“I can’t be in the same room as a centipede,” said Dan, “not since Beatrice died. I won’t go to Sheridan. Coming here was a mistake.”

“Okay.”

Bob took air through his teeth. “You know, I’m in the same boat as Dan. I don’t wanna overdo anything.”

“Okay.” Jay extended a hand for Jango to shake. “I’ll take up your offer alone.”

Jango shook his hand. “What have you eaten in the last 24 hours?”

“A hamburger, cheese-puffs, and a bowl of cereal.”

“Don’t eat any more. You’ll likely vomit. I certainly did.”

---

That evening, Jay stepped out on Bob’s back-porch. Dark clouds crossed the sky. None looked like foxes.

He dialed his parents’ phone-number.

His cell rang too many times. Jay knew he’d speak to an answering-machine.

“You’ve reached Camilla Diaz and Ethan Jackson,” said his mother. “We can’t answer the phone because we’re on our second honeymoon! We’ll respond when we’re back from the Caribbean. Click!”

Jay drew breath. His jaw trembled. “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. It’s me. Jay.” He almost hung up. He could still change his mind and turn back. “I’m doing something kinda stupid. Kinda really stupid. This might be the last you ever hear from me. So… I love you. Oh, and you’ve got some nice seashells coming in the mail. I love you.”

He hung up. He blew fog on his hands.

He entered Bob’s house. Dan sat on the fold-out, trying to untie his shoes. “I’m walking to Jango Skyy’s motel,” said Jay. “I’m performing the initiation.”

“Really?” Dan struggled with his laces. “You haven’t changed your mind?”

Jay shook his head. “Do you need help?”

“Please. We walked in grass on the way to the cafe. Now my shoes are dirty and I have to wash them, but I forgot my gloves on-campus, and I can’t touch grass-stains with my bare hands.” Dainty Dan let Jay untie his shoes. They were hardly dirty, just damp. Jay pulled the shoes off Dan’s feet. “Jay, on the Islands of Sheridan, did you see too many centipedes?”

“Hardly any at all,” said Jay. “Only near the peak of the main island, above even Virgil Blue’s monastery.”

“Then I’ve changed my mind,” said Dan. “I need to visit Sheridan to prove I’ve moved on. Thanks for bringing me here so I could realize.”

“I know you’ll love Sheridan, Dan.” Jay turned his head so Dan couldn’t see his tears. “Maybe we’ll meet there, huh? If I decide to become a monk?”

Then Jay left and walked to the nearest motel. He knew the Virgils would be there, because there were no coincidences.

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Jay opened the door and froze when he saw Virgil Blue’s silver mask staring back.

Virgil Blue sat cross-legged on top of a table. Jay sat in Blue’s vacant wheelchair and stared at the Virgil’s mask for a while, unable to do anything else. His thoughts wandered the embossed, buggy eyes.

Jay knew he lacked the strength to take a proper photo. Without looking from the mask, he willed himself to put his notepad on his thigh and prepare his pen. His wrist locked in writing-position. Unable to break eye-contact with Blue, he hoped his blind scribbles were legible later.

“I’ve lucked into an interview with Virgil Blue,” Jay wrote. “Their stare transfixes me. I sense messages from past millennia behind the mask. Even if this teacher of teachers says nothing, I’m honored to share space with them.”

Jay couldn’t turn the notepad to continue writing. Instead he watched the mask. He could’ve watched the mask for hours.

Jay saw his reflection in the silver eyes. The perception of depth reminded him how to focus his vision and operate his facial muscles, allowing his gaze to stray from the mask. The Virgil’s robes were navy and thicker than rugs. The Virgil’s sleeves were tucked into each other to hide their hands. The Virgil’s knees were so knobbly they made the robes look like a crumbling cathedral.

Jay found strength to turn his notepad and continue writing. “Virgil Blue’s commanding aura cannot be overstated. I wish I could coax even one word from behind the mask.”

He gathered courage to speak. “Hello, Virgil Blue. My name is Jay. We’ve met before. May I ask a few questions?”

Virgil Blue did not respond.

Jay recalled Skyy’s lesson about asking three times. “May I ask a few questions?”

Virgil Blue did not respond.

“May I ask a few questions?”

Virgil Blue did not respond. Jay sighed and continued writing. “It seems I must leave without a quote.”

Jay wiggled his toes. He couldn’t yet stand under the indomitable presence.

On a whim he wrote “”, an empty quote to convey the Virgil’s wordless message.

“Drop the pen.”

Jay dropped the pen.

“Close it.”

Jay closed the notepad.

“Chase truth in your own navel, not mine.”

“I don’t want the truth,” said Jay. “Not anymore.”

“Shut up.”

He did.

“Stop listening, too.”

He did.

“My body was born centuries ago, but my story is older. I heard it from the previous Virgil Blue, who heard it from the previous Virgil Blue, who heard it from the previous Virgil Blue, and so on. My story concerns the first man, Nemo, after the Biggest Bird declared him the first Virgil Blue.

“The Biggest Bird made Nemo immortal to guide Sheridan for all time, but over centuries, despite perfect health, his mind deteriorated daily.

“Nemo’s last students struggled with his peculiar discipline. Nemo reacted violently when his students answered questions incorrectly—or correctly. He demanded students sit nude with him outdoors on winter nights so frozen fog would frost them.

“When students complained of frostbite, Nemo ate the afflicted fingers and toes. He acquired a taste for flesh and filed his teeth sharp like a shark’s. His final lesson was a display of depravity: Nemo chased his congregation through the snow ranting and raving, pouncing on his slowest students and biting off their fingers at the knuckle.

“It was decided Nemo should retire, and with startling lucidity, Nemo agreed. To pass the title of Virgil, Nemo invented a ceremony in which a bird’s egg—fertilized with sacred seed inside—was smashed on the appointee’s forehead. He passed the title of Blue to his only student who still had ten fingers and toes. Then Nemo climbed above the clouds, never to return.

“The new Virgil Blue brought Sheridan back to non-cannibalistic orthodoxy. They anointed subordinate Virgils to stabilize the islands.”

The room was quiet for a while.

“Two centuries hence, Nemo appeared in Virgil Blue’s dreams. In these dreams, Nemo ate the Blue Virgil’s fingers and toes. When no phalanges remained, Nemo chewed other extremities. After excruciating years, the Virgil’s dream-body was totally devoured. Virgil Blue knew their time had come, and they passed the title. They retired above the clouds after their old master. Since then, every Virgil Blue has passed the title after Nemo cannibalized them in the dream-theater. Every former Blue climbs to the cloudy peak.

“Some laymen dare trespass on that sacred peak, and such trespassers never return. Beyond that, everything these trespassers own is ruined. Their property burns. Their children die. Their spouses throw themselves in the sea. This is why the peak fits as final resting-place for the Blue Virgils: they call nothing theirs. As Nemo breaks my bones in his teeth each night, I understand the asceticism he imposes. Nothing is mine, not physically, mentally, nor spiritually. When Nemo finishes gnawing my skullcap, I will lose nothing in climbing above the clouds.”

The room was quiet for a while.

“Jango Skyy is a masterful Virgil. For his sake, I am the last Blue. Time ends with me. I am Nemo’s last student and his last victim.”

Jay did not move or speak for several minutes. He bowed his head, picked up his notepad and pen, and left without a word.

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