CHAPTER 40 – THE MARRIAGE

Current Time

It was a clear day in uptown Saint Louis. Sybil Eater of Mint Jam walked through the city streets and was delighted by the modern world. Crossing a particular street, the lights above all became green. The effect radiated out, and soon all the street lights within the city became green at once. "Let me see what this is about" thought Sybil and picked the street light off the cable like picking a fruit off of a vine. She dipped her hand in, and scooped it up, licking her fingers. "It is Mint Jam!" she shouted and clapped her hands in glee. For the rest of the day Sybil ate the Mint Jam that had been transformed from the green lights of the street lights of the city, until she was full and fell asleep under a tree. At dawn, she awoke and noticed the evolution. Sybil of the Fading Mint Light. "Now I am ready to face Nephirota" she thought definitely. Sybil kissed the tree and flew off through the atmosphere back into the void.

Above the towers of the city Sybil watched as a mausoleum ship docked with a sky-platform to refuel. Despite everything going according to plan, she was still giddy, and a little put off by the hustle and bustle of the attendants. Several feet away in the front row Priya sat beside Etheria, and whispered in her ear, "Take this for later", covertly handing her a speck of dust in the palm of her hand. Thinking back on the length of her journey, Priya could recall observing a single Bacteriae in a petri dish in her lab through a microscope. She smirked, thinking of the irony, and how it all had led to her becoming like one as well. As the music started the audience looked back to the entrance where TAP led the bride down the aisle. Humble peacock feathers lined the walkway. "Here, friend, treat her well" she said, introducing the bride to Eric. Dinner was served after the simple service. Priya waited for the right moment, then glanced at Eric, letting him know that she needed a moment to speak with him in private. "I think we should stay friends" she offered, holding both of his hands. The idea struck him well, and he acknowledged it with an embrace. "I'm so healthy now, it's like I'm not afraid of making any real connection" the lab-girl thought, swimming in the beauty of his face. He looked over to Sybil Eater of Mint Jam, and she could feel the spark that had brought the two together. "Echo, come with me" Valco said, interrupting them. Following the giant, that was now a few inches shorter, she came to an empty room in the tent with a woman and a child. "I'm sorry, we raced up the stairs of the anechoic plateau as fast as we could, but we couldn't make the ceremony" the woman apologized. "Don't worry, it wasn't much of a show. Did you want to talk to me about something?" she asked, seeing the anxious child twisting his foot. "Yes, mom. I'm Enterra Mauve and this is Nir, son of Lemoo. If you remember the marriage of TAP, that is where I first saw him. Later on, when the parents died, I adopted him. Nir has been passed on from different families for quite some time. It's not because he's badly behaved or anything … far from it. Just that, well, he's been around for a while" she tried to explain. "Enterra, if there's anything the boy needs, I'd be glad to help, but I'm not really good at riddles" the empress prodded. "Nir … show her" she told the boy, and the image of humanity faded, replaced with a young Rikiral child. Strapped to his wrist was a device that looked like an ordinary watch. "Patron, do you still have the electricity we collected from the beacon?" Priya asked, and he placed a hand onto the watch, activating it, bringing forth a fresh hologram and a recording. Mostly static, but she could just barely make it out, "… if you can hear me, this is … Cala Amnilow. Everything your father told you was true … but there is more …"

A FEW WEEKS LATER

Underneath the swirling bisque of Jupiter's atmosphere lay the city and its people, obliged to watch the hapless migration. Dropping from the creaky door of the broken vessel, Va wiped the dust off her black attire. Deeper into the metropolis she could see plastic buildings inflated and deflated to meet the needs of the moment. "Is this Scenic Oblivion?" she thought aloud, the memory of crash-landing erased by the jolt of its ferocity. Above the plastic buildings robots were hard at work holding aerosol cans and applying digital spray paint, bearing the image of earth's blue sky. Journeying further into the city, Va could barely witness the churning except through gaps in the tapestry. Leather tightly hugged her body, healing the wounds with their pressure like band-aids. Contrary to the SOTA's knowledge there were actually minority populations of Brownsugarians, one of them brushing her shoulder as it passed, leaving a hill of the sugar that she balled into a solid with her fist and shoved into her mouth in hunger. "Man, that is good, but I'm going to need a place to hide out, maybe if I follow one of these dumb locals", and chose the simplest one she could lay her eyes on. They passed a nearby fountain from which the coral would squirt out streams of flavored water into people's mouths, through a patch of garden, striding past simple automatons harvesting pears, cutting them open and collecting the seeds that would decay into analogies, to a pseudo-digital bike shop where Zata Marathon found his daughter Elle sitting on a divider that marked the boundary of the plot. It was brick-red. "Didn't your friends go to the arcade?" he asked of the fretful teen lingering on the dull divider with legs that swung more nervously than pendulums. "I decided to stay here to be alone" Elle reacted, accounting for her lack of disappearance. "There's not much to do here except stare at the sky, honey … did you get bored of the shop?" Zata insisted, trying to boost morale. At that Elle gave a heavy sigh. Words can have that effect on people sometimes, keys that unlock emotions, fumbling instruments. "Dad, that's what I'm here to talk to you about. It's been eating at me all week" the girl admitted, bullying a few stray brick-pebbles off the ledge and onto the ground below with a sweep of her hand. Fear began to grip him as he realized his daughter's imagination had conjured up one of those big fat questions, the ones that people talk about on television. Life, after all, is mostly eating pears and playing holo-cards with your buddies. Deflecting, he put a hand on her shoulder, "Did one of your friends say something about you?". "No dad, it's just …" she began, taking in a full scope of the paint and the surface of a world's air-space layered across its surface, "have you ever wondered why the sky is blue? The real sky"? A subtle hope that he had locked away in an empty room long ago began to fret, and as soon as it did, he realized why he had never come back to that place. "There isn't a good reason, it's just a color" he replied quickly in order to spare her the same fate. Locals noticed the moment, its stillness and absence of noise. Ordinarily, the two of them would chat incessantly. Slowly the pendulums that were moments before like legs came to a halt. "Dad, I can't believe you don't know. It's more than just spray-paints" she gushed. "Elle!" Zata reached out with the sound of his voice, knowing soon that she would make her way around the corner and down a path that is so … insignificant. Bearing his fist down on the brick divider, chunks of history on that rough surface were swept into his memory, like pebbles, and as they were, he looked beyond the plot to Amerlie road. Hiking up there would lead him to a hill over the remainder of the neighborhood, a viewing place where he could see clearly the image striving to be honest, to be a true sky of dandy clouds and blue … perfectly saturated blue … that children choose to witness with eyes that accept nothing but truth. Drumming with hot, glaring enmity Elle cursed, tossing a brown jacket onto a bike rack. "He is so stupid! Everyone else's parents know more than nothing" she denounced, kicking the city property until the other kid's bikes shook, ratting their frames. "Is that so?" a very tall shadow replied. Va stood high over the girl, but realizing the difference kneeled down to show the rough aesthetic outlines of her face. "Who are you lady? You look like a lamppost" Elle spat back, defense against another adult. "Didn't think you saw me earlier. I heard what happened and why you ran away" Va revealed with a steady voice. The ache from the crash landing still radiated keenly through her bones. Lost in bitterness at the hollow excuse her father had given, the girl replied only with anger, "Be quiet and get out of here! You don't know me". Now the pilot who had, over long cruel stretches of time lost everything, felt a note of kindness itch in her throat, "No, I know what happened so you have to listen to me. He loves you, even if he doesn't have the answer. I saw it in his eyes. We're just people and that means not knowing all the answers, but you are a beautiful and young and no one can take that away". Sniffling, Elle tore the jacket and hugged it, then drew in close for a quick embrace before running back to the shop and it's rigorous wheels, ticking off algerbra with every click of their chains. Finished advising the child, she went into the city, disarming an officer of his weapon and threw him into a closet. Not far away, Zata finished walking and stood at the hilltop, feeling the reverberations of that unrest bear down on him. A stranger who had come to their city from farther away took a few steps until she was beside him. "That was a real mess, saw the whole thing" she confessed, letting her other legs stretch out, knowing the man would not dare to turn his head far from the questions that inhabited the horizon. "Do you have any idea what's it's like to lose a father?" he asked, his words laden with hoarse clumsiness. "Actually, I do. What is your name friend?" the foreigner pried. "Zata Marathon. My daughter Elle just … thinks too much", he lamented, an accurate fact of children in that time. "That's natural. She'll get used to things eventually" she calculated, seeing strength in her father that most certainly would be an inherited trait. Feeling the magnetism of kindness, Zata turned to see her face, and was not taken aback by the uniqueness, "Maybe that is what I'm afraid of, but thank you miss … and you are?". Weary arachnid legs stretched out farther to relieve the tension in their muscles, "Zemmy, but I'm not as smart as that sounds". Reciprocating with a laugh, the lonely father pointed to the ceiling of spray paint, "Look up at that flawless picture miss. Most parents would say something like, 'I used to be just like her', but I never really grew up. Still have no idea what it's all about". "I heard the girl say … 'why is the sky blue?'. That's a silly thing not to know" she baited playfully, elbowing him. Zata dimmed the world by placing a hand over his eyes, "I know", then bit down the other words that tried to follow. Sensing the moment was right Zemmy placed her hand, cupping it to his ear. At first, he heard only the ticking of the clocks that were her eyes, then something else, "Let me tell you". Hidden somewhere in an empty room lay a memory of the old skies, the ones that were of their original character, not from magic but from another … simple reason. Loneliness evaporated as Zata let his hand fall from his face, seeing the digital sky with perfect clarity, even with tears that dawdled from the sides of his eyes, "Foreigner … now I can tell her, thank you".