Requiem 4 Page 3

  “I know that’s what he is,” Lincoln said, pointing to Retig. “He’d probably be one of those balls of fire when he passes. You know, floating around the graveyard all gassy ‘n shit.”

  Their laughter was interrupted by another slight reprimand from Djema. When their mockery subsided, Retig spoke up. He’d stepped a little closer, glaring with feral intensity, his words laced with acid.

  “So when did you stop believing, Preach? Was it before or after you got defrocked?”

  It caught me off-guard. I felt the blood drain from my face. Retig’s words were like a punch in the gut. How many times had I rehearsed my discharge from the Church, each time spiraling further into regret and agnosticism. I always thought that branding someone as an apostate was medieval. Thankfully, such pronouncements had begun to wane. Yet I had to be true to myself, even if that meant rethinking what the priesthood required as orthodoxy. Nevertheless, my spiritual wanderings were an open wound begging for infection.

  “That’s right.” Retig broke the silence. “He’s AWOL. Religiously speaking. All that shit about ‘forgiveness,’ ‘mercy,’ ‘the name of the Lord.’ Well the Preacher ain’t so sure of it himself. That’s why they bumped him down here. Isn’t that right, Captain?”

  Djema looked on, trying to appear indifferent to his leading.

  “See?” Retig continued. “No one comes here in their right mind. ‘Cept to get home faster. You all know that. Truth is, Preach was having a crisis of faith and they sent him down to UniCon for detox, for reprogramming, to get him prepped for service as a sciocist. That way, he could pretend to save souls without having to toe the line for the Holy Mother. This is where all the heretics come to disappear.”

  Heretic. I hadn’t heard that word in a while. Just one of many words being scrubbed from the new world lexicon. Now, the only real heretics were the ones who defied UniGlobe dogma, those of the Black Earth. Or adherents to the dying Church and its orthodoxy.

  They were all staring at me, waiting for a response. But I had none.

  Retig nodded approvingly at my silence. “So maybe it's time for a confession. From all of us. We're all just going through the motions. Including Father Aguste Lax. Ain't a one of us believes that ghosts and poltergeists really exist. Or that it's worth putting ourselves in harms way for them. So what do you guys say we just bleach this place and call it a day? They won’t know what we don’t tell ‘em. We call the place clear and Big Brother sends in the earthmovers. Casper gets tucked g’night and we leave this shithole, get our medals, and start one long drunken holiday. Whaddya say?”

  “Retig,” Djema said firmly. “You are out of line, mister.”

  It didn’t matter. Not to him. Or me. Retig nodded smugly and returned to his spot against the far wall.

  There was no hiding from it; they saw me for who I was, I was sure of it—a spineless fool, clinging to a form without substance, hoping against hope that this wasn’t all some sick joke. And that we weren’t the punchline. Yeah. I believed in ghosts. Mainly because I couldn’t fathom that this was all there was. I prayed to God—if there really was one—that this wasn’t all some vast cosmic accident and that we weren’t barreling toward a state of complete and permanent non-existence.

  The throbbing in my head had intensified. A claustrophobic unease wrung my gut. The longer I sat there, the more abnormal things seemed; a disorienting pall had draped my mind. What was happening to me? Or was it the mausoleum itself? It seemed like the very geometry of the room was somehow askew, changing, as if reality had shifted on its axis and my perception was moving with it. I wanted to close my eyes but feared that doing so would send me hurtling into some weird existential darkness.

  “Captain.”

  The voice seemed garbled.

  “Captain,” they repeated, breaking the silence. It was Birch. “You gotta see this.”

  His tone was sober and drew me back from the lunatic edge I’d been teetering on.

  “All of you. Look at this.”

  The skittishness had returned to him. He stood near the end of the northern wall, biting his lip and twitching, his lamp still fixed on the bizarre paintings and carvings embedded there. Birch made the beam rest on the last panel containing the likeness of six images, humanoid, standing together, holding what appeared weapons; serpentine petals surrounded them, framing them in its embrace. I rose clumsily and walked to the wall, peering at these figures, for they evoked an odd recall.

  Indeed, the longer I stared, the more those carvings looked exactly like the members of Requiem 4.

  1.2

  We approached, one by one, peering at the fantastical images stretched across the subterranean granite.

  “I think it’s some kind of history,” Birch said, flashing his light along the length of the wall. “It starts at that end and ends here. Weirdest damn thing I ever seen.”

  Thunder rumbled outside and the structure shuddered in response. Rain pelted the mausoleum, thousands of tiny hands drumming away on the thick stone walls. We gathered around Birch, studying the carvings.

  Technically, it was a polyptych—a mural, both etched and painted in the stone, containing multiple panels. The elongated mural was ribbed by fine geometrical shapes, a complicated stitch-work of leaves, fruit, and celestial bodies that divided the piece into dramatic scenes or chapters. Outside this border, a menagerie of vague forms blurred together, an orgy of human and alien synthesis. Insect pincers. Coiled reptilian wings. Organic detritus. All coalesced into a demented scrim. As stunning as the detail was, the depictions themselves were wont to scald my mind’s eye.

  “What is...?” Cali gawked, then she reached out and ripped away some small dead roots that traced the wall and obscured part of the image. She brushed the dirt off and peered forward. “It looks like…”

  “It can’t be.” Lincoln straightened. “It looks like a unit. A Requiem unit.”

  Birch nodded. “Look,” he said, pointing to details on the carved figures. “There’s a belt, right there. And a weapon attached. These lines—magnetics. Or T-braces.” He gestured to Retig who wore a set of titanium leg braces, mostly used for carrying excessive weight and accelerating movements. Birch continued dissecting the image. “There’s some goggles on this one's eyes, a pack over the back here, and—see this?—that’s our insignia.”

  “There’s six of them, too.” Cali looked at us, her wide eyes sparkling in the light. “Five and a MiChap. See? This figure out front. No weapon and a cross on his chest. You gotta be kidding.” She straightened. “It’s a basic Requiem unit.”

  “Weird.” Birch gaped, a slight twitch tugging at one of his eyes. “That is freakin’ weird.”

  Rain guttered outside the partly opened door and a gust of wind whipped grit from above. Chills skittered up my arms. The disorientation I’d suffered had found its nexus here. Studying this odd polyptych brought with it a riveting dread. Like an accident scene one can’t tear their eyes away from, the piece unspooled like a terrible premonition of an event yet pending, a looming ruin that I was plummeting helplessly towards.

  “Bloody hell.” Retig stepped back from the group, a look of disdain on his face. “This is bullshit. You guys are losin' it. You're letting all this go to your heads. Graviton is hundreds of years old. You realize that, right? There weren't even Requiems around when this thing was built. So how could that be us?”

  “No one said it was us,” Birch replied, glancing back at Retig.

  “Yeah?” Retig said. “Well, that's what you were thinking. Just admit it. That’s what all of you are thinking. Well, it ain't. It ain’t us. That could be anything. Anything. You think we're the only group with six people in it? Shit.”

  “And this?” Birch pointed to several images. “What's this? That's no spear or bow and arrow. It's a vacua piece. Look at the muzzle. And this symbol.” He pointed to an inscription on one of the arms. Then he tapped the decal on his right shoulder. “That's the ORSAG angel. Can't miss it.”

  Retig's lip
curled into a sneer and he brushed his hand through the air. “How in the hell can that be us?”

  Birch straightened. “I didn't say it was, mate.”

  “All right.” Djema pushed her way into the middle of the group. Sweat shone on her forehead and she looked pale. Whatever anxiety had wormed its way into her brain had now taken root and festered. “That’s enough. The squall will be dying down soon. When it passes, we're out of here, got it?”

  “Captain?” Lincoln asked. “You okay?”

  She glanced at him and, without responding, squeezed her way out of the group. “Just be ready to go.”

  But the mystery of the fresco and its carvings had captivated us.

  The age of this structure and the cemetery had to be late 20th century. Probably earlier. Which meant that any of these similarities were strictly coincidental. Yet the similarities couldn't be refuted. Despite Birch's denial, Retig was correct—the images in that last panel looked just like us. How in the world was that possible? And what could it possibly mean?

  Lincoln lowered his voice, as if hiding our continued conversation from Djema. “So what about this?” He pointed to the carvings of the petal-like tendrils that surrounded the image of the group. “What could it be? It's all over this thing. Looks like a... flower.”

  “Or a spider.” Cali glanced at us.

  “Or a squid,” added Birch, laughing nervously. “With wings.”

  Retig cursed. “You heard the Captain. Stop your crazy talk and get ready to leave.” Then he returned to his spot against the far wall, folding his arms and leaning back, glowering at us.

  Yet Retig’s derision could not stifle our fascination.

  “Forget him,” Birch said, turning back to the mural. “Look. It's the same thing here.” He strode the length of the wall, tracing the images with his lamp, returning to the place he'd started. “See? Right here.”

  The light rested on the first panel, which contained a single likeness. The plantlike form stood solitary, like some unspoiled antediluvian prototype. It appeared to be an odd hybrid, part cephalopod, part vegetable, leaves conjoined with odd appendages; an orifice at its center was rimmed with thorns or spurs. Several of its tendrils wandered outward, branching into veins that coiled and met, merging into the larger backdrop which framed the entire canvas.

  “Whatever that is,” Birch pointed at the central image, “it follows through each frame, ending back down there.” He motioned to the final panel.

  Indeed, not only did each frame progress from cruder, primitive scenarios, to the more detailed and advanced, but the plant—if it could rightly be called a plant—appeared in each section. Connected by serpentine tentacles, the image flowed from one panel to the next, subsuming all the accompanying forms to its facsimile. Whether it was depictions of levers or hoists, horses or engines, the plant appeared, twining its presence into the accompanying figures of men, women, and children. Some looked primal, others more modern. All of them, however were ensconced in the pervasive flora.

  “So what do you think, Preach?” It was Lincoln. “This is your expertise. Right?”

  “Me? I’m not an archeologist, Lincoln.”

  “Oh, come on. After all that crap about Type Fours and demigods and shit, and you can't decipher this?”

  I shook my head, feigning ignorance. Yet in the back of my mind, a vague connection was percolating. I’d seen my share of religious artifacts. UniCon reveled in deconstructing ancient sacred systems, partly in an attempt to dispatch any contemporary currency. The spectral hierarchy was as much a novelty as it was a formula for vacuations. Religion was just one long blind grasping at straws, they said, waning systems in a cultural twilight. Nevertheless, some things couldn’t be shaken that easily. Which is probably why images of the Ashkelon ruins were intruding upon my thoughts.

  I’d seen them once, long ago, on my lone visit to Israel. I was young and naïve back then, hoping to save the world. That changed quickly. Encountering such things whittled away confidence in the trite religious assurances I'd formerly embraced. The ruins had just been unearthed in a sewer underneath a Byzantine bathhouse. Along with a small city of screaming mummies and charred skeletons were the famous triptychs telling of a mass suicide. Whether slaves, street urchins, or a religious cult, the victims were never conclusively established. The fact that the triptychs predated the remains led to speculation about the actual chronology of events. And the motives. Some experts had developed a rather exotic theory that the paintings were predictive and actually foresaw the suicide of the victims. Others believed the triptych drove the victims to that end, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Though I doubted that this fresco had any such connection to Ashkelon, the possibility that it depicted an unfolding, unfulfilled history, had poisoned my imagination.

  The person beside me spoke.

  “Makes you wonder about that story, doesn’t it?” It was Lincoln.

  “What story?” Cali asked.

  Lincoln shook himself as if he’d been deep in thought. He glanced at Djema who was now leaning against the wall, her skin gray, sweating even more profusely.

  “Captain,” Cali said. “What’s wrong?”

  “What story?” Birch asked, turning to Djema. “What’s he talking about, Captain?”

  Djema slid down the wall, practically collapsing.

  We rushed to her.

  “Lincoln!” Cali was at Djema’s side, checking her pulse. “Lincoln, get the tricorder. Something’s wrong. Check her vitals. C’mon!”

  As Lincoln retrieved his backpack, Djema waved us off. “No. I’ll be all right.”

  “Like hell.” Cali motioned for Lincoln to hurry up.

  Djema pushed her away. She rose and stood wobbling, doing her best to fight off whatever had possessed her.

  Lincoln had his backpack and now stood opposite her, appearing more interested in his train of thought than her condition. Finally, he said, “Tell 'em, Captain.”

  “Tell us what?” Cali glared at him. “Can’t you see she’s—”

  “Tell 'em about the lost unit.” A faint, partly demented smile creased Lincoln’s lips.

  His words seemed to freeze everyone.

  “The lost unit?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Djema stared blankly at Lincoln before turning away. Cali followed her, staying close, and they slipped into the shadows.

  “She knows,” Lincoln said, setting his backpack down again. “She knows.”

  “Knows what?” Birch gawked. “What are you guys talking about?”

  “About the lost unit,” Lincoln said. “You never heard of it? Thought everyone did. It was a rumor goin' round, way back in Requiem boot. A ghost story or urban legend or something. About Requiem Fours. They said you didn't want to be a Four. Rig the lottery if you had to. Because becoming a Four was a death sentence.”

  Birch swallowed. “What're you talking about? A death sentence? Why? That's just—”

  “Because we ain't the first ones,” Lincoln said matter-of-factly. “We ain't the first unit to come here, Birch. That's why.” He gestured to the mural. “The Fours, they kept disappearing. They sent them in, and none came back. It was the same thing, every time—unit goes in, reports weird shit, transmissions go dead, and then, poof, gone. Like they were never there. Team after team. Recovery squads couldn't find a trace of them. No evidence that Earthers were involved or that there'd been any kind of recent firefight. No hostage demands. Nothing. Your basic cemetery sweep. Only they never came back. None of them. And it was always here, in Graviton. The most haunted place on earth. That’s what they called it. Eternal home of the lost unit.”

  Thunder roiled in the distance. The squall was passing. Yet we’d been caught in another type of deluge. I stepped back, away from Lincoln, not just to get a better view of him, but to make sense of my surroundings. For, once again, a perceptual vertigo had seeped into my brain and left me disoriented.

  “What’s he talking about?” Birch retrieved one of
the lamps and swung it around. Djema was hunched over, drooling saliva. Cali stood at her side. “What’s he saying, Captain? Lost? Lost where?”

  “This is insane.” Cali's eyes were rimmed with fear. “Something's wrong with her. Lincoln, get the kit. Now!”

  “My God.” Birch's gaze darted from wall, to ceiling, to us. “What’s happening, Captain? Is he right?”

  “She knows.” Lincoln said. “She has to.”

  “Lincoln!” Cali yelled. “Get the kit!”

  “And they still sent us here?” Birch said, incredulous. “They knew something was happening and still sent us here? No way. Can you believe this?”

  The lantern slipped from Birch’s grasp and fell to the floor. He unholstered his sidearm and raised it before him. “I don't know about you guys, but I'm not sticking around for something to happen. I’m not gonna disappear out here and—”

  “Shut up!” Cali barked. “And put that away. You're losin' it, Birch.”

  He ignored her, squatted down, retrieved his pack, and hoisted it over his shoulder. He started toward the steps. “I dunno ‘bout you guys, but I’m heading back to the vehicle and getting the hell out of here. How could they have not told us? That’s just crazy.”

  “Stop right there.” Djema wobbled upright and drew her arm across her mouth, wiping away spittle. Then she removed her pistol and cocked it, aiming it at Birch.

  Cali stepped away from her, wide eyed, while Birch froze in position.

  Djema repeated her command as Birch lowered his weapon and began a faint whimpering.

  “He's right.” Djema nodded towards Lincoln. “We knew. We all knew. They were lost. Three teams in all. We’re the fourth.” Djema spat again. “Now holster your piece, private.”

  Birch muttered something, but complied. Djema did the same. She wiped sweat from her scalp. Then she curled her lips and shook her head, as if her next words were ones she’d never hoped to utter.

  “I never believed it,” Djema said. “Hell, no one did. How could you? There had to be some rational explanation. But after they lost the third unit, all bets were off. They debated coming back. Said that the activity here was too much. Whatever was happening in Graviton went beyond sciocist pay grade. Sure, the ghosts weren't real. Latent energy and all that other quantum nonsense. But something else was going on here. Something else… lived here.”