Passengers
"Mom! Wait up!" Said Val, almost shouting, to be overheard over the sound of the closing of the automatic doors of her mother's car.
"Mom, she said again, calmer. Just wait a second, what is going on?" She had caught up with her mother by now and grabbed her not so gently by the arm to make her look at her.
That made Molly stop and turn to her daughter. She was looking determined and angry.
"Look, I know you think I lost it or something. I know I haven't been there for you the way you needed it-".
"Not there at all you mean" interrupted Val.
"Mon, it's been 15 years… I haven't heard from you in 15 years, and then I find out that you tried to rob someone's house?!" Continued, Val letting go of her mother's arm and attempted to reach for her hands.
A couple of weeks ago, on the School's Cybernet where she teaches, Valerie had read an article about a woman who was caught during a break in. She had recognized her Mother on the image attached, but that dishevelled lady over 60 looked nothing like the Molly Snipes she remembered. Held by an arm by an Iron Panther, a robot police officer, her hair was gray and messy; she had a black eye that was clearly visible even on her brown skin. Her face was haggard, almost gaunt. That woman looked to be closer to 80 than 60 years old.
"I know you think I've lost it. I know I don't look like I’m okay, or that I'm in a good place, but I think I finally found out what's going on" Molly said pleadingly, looking her daughter in the eyes, and squeezing her hands.
"I know this all looks bad, and you probably think I'm crazy or ill. I've been a shitty mother to you… and your sister…but this… I have to see it through, I have to know.
Don't try to stop me".
"Mom, what are you talking about, asked Val, getting increasingly worried. What is it that you think you have to do? I'm... I'm here now, and you don't have to do anything, we can sit down and maybe catch up or…"
“Val! Listen. Said Molly firmly stepping back holding her hands up. “I have to do this. I have to know I’m not crazy. I know that my little Vivian would’ve never done such a thing, and that she was forced to!” Her tone rose on her last words, and Valerie could see anger in her mother's eyes. To see her like this, so delusional angry and lost, broke her heart.
“What are you talking about? Replied Val concerned “Nobody forced Viv, she’s just sick mom… it happens”.
“Not to my baby!” Molly was shouting now with tears in her eyes, “Look, I have done a lot of things these past 15 years I’m not proud of, but if there’s one thing I know is that your sister would’ve never done that… to anyone!”
A long silence came after that, where Val was trying to think how best to reason with her estranged mother.
“Do you trust me ?” Asked Molly clenching her teeth, while her daughter nodded uncertainly “Viv is not sick, somebody or something messed with her head… her mind... made her do things”.
“Mom, what are you talking about?!” Valerie was slowly losing patience, “There was nobody. Nobody did anything to her. She’s sick and she lost it!. I’ve tried to forgive her over the years but … I’m glad that she can’t hurt anybody now where she is…”
A ball of pain and sadness was forming in her gut, and the painful memories were bringing tears to her eyes and making her heads throb.
“Somebody did that to her, and made her do it! I know I’ve seen it!” Her mother yelled, her tears were falling in large drops from her jaw onto her heaving breasts. “I can prove it! I can prove I’m not crazy and that someone broke our baby and our family! Let me show you what I’ve found out, and then you can decide if I’m crazy or not”.
Val realized how exhausted she was, how this talk scared her, how it pained her to see her mother in that state. It wasn’t just her physical appearance, all that crazy talk of mind controlled little sisters was completely psychotic.
The lump in Valerie's belly went up to her throat now, making words impossible to cross her lips. But the longing for the comfort of her mother, the wish to reunite and patch up broken things from the past, has been there for a while, and had grown over the last weeks. It had grown to a point where she was ready to forget her mother’s absence and just wanted her in her life again. So despite her anger and sadness, she took a long, and deep breath to calm herself. These few seconds of silence between the two women looking at each other, helped Val to see that she was ready to trust her mother in spite of everything, in the hope of a future with her at her side.
She finally nodded sadly and finally said “Okay mom… I- … show me”.
Molly’s rusted and dented self-driving truck stopped abruptly in front of a massive concrete building. Broken flickering neons and Advertising holograms on the facade formed incomprehensible words and sentences. An old inanimate Hoverbot, that used to greet customers, was slumped against the wall near the entry, an arm missing. The glowing light of the Megacity in the background made the building look like a gigantic dark pillar sticking out of the ground.
“That AI is busted, mom, when was the last time you updated it?” Seeing how she wasn’t going to get and answer to her question, Val added, “What are we doing here?”.
Molly had already left the car and was walking towards the entrance of the storage unit building. Val caught up to her, but before she could say anything, a loud clunk came from behind them. When they turned around, surprised, they saw that the car had wanted to park itself better and in the attempt, backed into a light pole.
“Hey! Stop! Just-” yelled Molly to the car. At that command, the music turned on inside the car, and it jerked forward half a meter and everything turned off. The car was silent and unmoving. “Whatever…” she uttered, waving her hand in dismissal and resumed walking towards the building.
“What are we doing here?” asked Valerie again.
“I have to pick up a few things before I can start to explain anything” was the answer she received.
They walked in and passed a cliché of a concierge sitting behind a counter in a small booth in the entrance hall. The man sprawled on a chair was wearing Netgoggles with his head tilted backwards, completely oblivious to the world around him. Sweat was beading on his foreheads and spit was slowly coming out of his mouth. The lobby was filthy, and old rubbish was lying in corners. A dead plant in a pot by the counter (killing a plant wasn’t an easy feat nowadays because science had made them pretty resistant to almost anything).
Flashing Holo-screens on every wall saying things like “three for the price of two! Rent two storage spaces and get the third one for free*” or “Moving to a smaller place to save money? Don’t throw away your old things, we’ll keep them here forever!*”.
On the right of the counter was an old Paternoster with a sign that said “To levels 1 - 480, take the elevator. Underground levels, take the stairs”.
Val couldn’t believe these things were still in use. They had made a big comeback about 30 years ago, but these things were antiques, invented ages ago and caused a lot of accidents. Using them in a place like this made no sense.
After what felt like an eternity, listening to an outdated entertainment AI, that tried to make jokes, they finally reached level 442.
“The higher, the cheaper” said Molly anticipating a comment from her daughter “I know this place is a mess, but nobody questions anything here”. In response, Val just raised her hands to mean she wasn’t going to say anything.
They stopped in front of unit 442-21, Molly pressed her hand against a panel on the wall, there’s a click, a bing, and the door slides away.
“What the hell?!” exclaimed Val quietly in awe. Her eyes wide open at what the sliding door just revealed. She looked over at her mother, who looked uncertainly back at her.
“It will all make sense at some point” Molly said with hope.
The two women were standing in front of a room about 3 meters by 6, filled with trinkets, old books, a dozen dusty screens, memory drives, new articles and towers of metal boxes.
Val was awestruck and couldn’t move or keep her eyes away from the scene in front of her. Molly, impatient and ashamed, stepped forward and grabbed a metal box, two books and threw them in an already quite full bag that was laying on the floor, disturbing the dust laying on it.
“You take that one” She said pointing at the bag on the floor. “I’ll have my hands full with these”. In one hand she had the metal box she picked up first and in the other an empty cat box. “Now we just have to pick up the cat” she said, almost grinning.
Astonished, Val asked, “Is… Goomba still alive?!”. Warm memories suddenly came to her mind. Images of the old and chubby tomcat, unsuccessfully chasing insects in the yard, came to her mind.
“Technically no, but I decided to call this one Goomba as well” Molly replied grinning “although this one is a bit darker and fatter, he’s a hell of a hunter. Brings me all sorts of critters”.
“Okay, before we arrive I have to tell you a few things about what we might see when we get there” said Molly determined.
The Truck was driving slowly through the night, playing an old tune from the 2120s. The air was cool and misty. The brilliant headlights were making the road seem almost white and the rest of its surroundings look even darker. Inside the car, the lighting was dim and slightly warm, making the skin of the two women facing each other appear golden.
“You know how people back on earth believed in gods, angels and all sorts of nonsense…” continued Molly, treading carefully and watching her daughter's reaction. But instead of waiting for a reply, she went on, “and how heaven was supposedly in the sky and Hell somewhere underground. All those Ideas kinda died away when we started warping to other planets and those notions and old religions got forgotten, because if hell or heaven were on earth, how could it work on other planets. The whole concept kinda caved in at some point” during this Val kept nodding approvingly, so Molly carried on “and when you died a bad person you’d go to hell, and if you stayed there long enough you became some sort of bad spirit or a demon I think they called it”.
“Mom, where are you going with this?” asked Val worried.
"Bear with me, kiddo" replied Molly soothingly, putting a hand on Val's lap. "This will all make sense…hopefully."
After a moment of brief silence Molly went on "So these demons were believed to be able to leave hell, somehow, sometimes. Some priests believed that people could be controlled or influenced by these spirits."
"Huh" exhaled Val, "so you think maybe one of these monsters of the Middle Ages crossed space and time?! You think this is what happened to Viv?!" she concluded, her temper rising. But before she could get an answer, Molly said, "we're here."
The car trembled to a stop in front of a small container graveyard that served as a housing complex. These containers were the first wave of housing possibilities for colons. Dropped directly from low orbit, they were equipped with the minimum to start a new life, but after a while cities started to grow and these “first drop areas” were quickly abandoned and rented sold to the poorest people.
When, after yelling at the car to open the doors for half a minute, they finally got out of the car, a man came out to greet them.
"Miss Snipes, thank you for coming so quickly."
"Call me Molly, Victor, this is Valerie, my daughter".
Victor was a tall, barrel chested man, of about 50 years. His graying blond hair was held together in a messy bun, and a patchy beard covered his face.
"I'm so glad you are here, come on in" said Victor in a hurried tone.
"Mom…?" murmured Val, now positively scared of the situation. Not understanding what was going on and having a bad feeling at the same time, made her feel as if her stomach was full of stones, clawing at her inside. Her Mother just ushered her forward, giving her the cat box. Maybe because he was feeling her anxiety or because he was angry at being tossed around, Goomba uttered an annoyed Meow.
Val shushed him soothingly and followed the others inside.
They went through a neat little kitchen, passed a dark living room, and stopped in front of a sliding door at the end of a narrow corridor.
Victor turned to Molly and said quietly
"He's been in there for three days now, he stopped screaming about two days ago. I did as you asked and cut the power and locked the door. Can I do anything more, do you need some help with anything?"
"I think we can take it from here, Victor. Thank you for your trust."
He looked at them anxiously, his eyes jumping from mother to daughter, then nodded resolutely and walked back, leaving the two women and the cat in the dark corridor. The latter groaned loudly as if he knew what was coming.
Molly put a hand on her daughter's shoulder and grasped it hard, "Do you trust me, kiddo?" Val nodded, eyes wide open, "good. Whatever happens in there, don't say anything, don't be scared. Nothing will happen to you. Above all, do exactly as I tell, and all will be good".
"Mom, what's going on?".
"You'll understand soon enough I promise" after saying that Molly exhaled sharply gathering her courage and unlocked the hatches on the metal case and opened it. Val couldn't really see what Molly took out, but it looked like an old hand.
Val was terrified, the stones in her belly were ten times heavier now, she was breathing rapidly, and she thought she could see her own breath in front of her. She couldn't speak and was pumped full of fear or adrenaline, or maybe both.
She was sure she heard the cat meow encouragingly at the sight of whatever was in the box. Her mind was on a rollercoaster of possible and impossible scenarios of what was going on right now.
She was snapped back to reality when the door hissed open and slides into the walls to either sides.
The door and everything beyond it was just a frame of the purest black at the end of a corridor with two silhouettes standing in front of it. They could hear some sort of shuffling around, some whispering, but most of all noises coming from the cat. Val was convinced no cat should be able to do that sort of growling and hissing, but Molly just answered "I know buddy, I know…"
In the background there was a voice (or more than one?) saying intelligible things, but they could make out some words like "my lord…failed…Gormogon…" and in between guttural intakes of breath like someone being drowned and gasping for air.
" Umbaba… I'm sorry…trapped", some gasping, some coughing and more shuffling.
Suddenly there was a spark in front of Molly and then light, a flame from a candle.
Val's jaw dropped, this was too much for her to comprehend. Her brain just went into autopilot mode from there on.
The Candle wasn't just a simple candle, the flame was coming out of the index of a dried and withered hand, Molly was holding it in front of her, so it would shine into the room. But it didn't really light up the space, it just bathed everything in pale greenish and flickering contours. As if one was looking through a glass bottle into the darkness.
Val felt as if the air itself was holding her in place. She thought at first it was terror that prevented her from moving, but when she realized that she couldn't even move her fingers, she knew something was up.
Then Molly took her hand, and instantly she could move again.
"Put your hand on my shoulder and leave it there, or you won't be able to move. It is called a hand of glory. Now hush." Molly whispered, seeing her daughter transfixed and scared.
The instant Valerie's hand was on her mother's shoulder, she could see everything as if it was day. What sort of sorcery this was, she had no idea. This whole situation was so extraordinary and surreal that she was passed trying to make sense of it and just went right back to autopilot mode.
The cat box in one hand, the hand candle in the other and her daughter's hand on her shoulder, Molly walked into the room.
The room was a mess, the bed was on its side, broken flower pots and dirt was on the floor along with paper, clothing, and two broken Holo-screens. It looked like a hurricane had passed through it.
In the corner that the bed made with the wall there was a man. He seemed to be about Victors age, but skinnier and paler. His chest was bare, and between the gray hair were bloody scratches. Crouched and unmoving, looking in their direction, the man looked wide-eyed at the intruders. He suddenly cocked his head to the side like an owl. But the movement was so fast and unnatural, it made him look like a broken robot.
He made a choking and gasping sound and grinned at the two women. He made a move as if he wanted to get up, but stopped dead as soon as the light of the hand reached him.
His grin fixed on his face like a broken doll, he said:
"Aaaah I wondered when someone like you would be arriving. Someone always comes. How about you put that horrible creature away, and then we can have a nice chat. And lose the hand, so I can move and greet you properly." His voice was like a thousand insects crawling out of his mouth.
“The creature, is Goomba, and he’s staying. He’s also the only way I can talk to you, and he scares you shitless, so…” Molly replied, shrugging her shoulders. “As for the hand, yeah, that’s a neat little trick I discovered a while back” she continued in a hushed but confident way. “I met Victor outside, he told me you were in here” she sounded more and more self-assured, “so what is your plan John, or should I say Bolo, or what ever other name you gave yourself?”. At the mention of the name Bolo the man was visibly in pain but couldn’t move, so his eyes just bulged, and he retched and gasped.
“The World walker is not here…we gave the names…we travel first…” It looked like talking about, whoever this world walker was, was hurting him. His insectile voice was deeper now, and it didn’t seem to please the cat because he growled deep from his box.
Valerie's face was a fixed mask of fear.
As if someone had flipped a switch, the man's voice became almost human again, and he said with a smile “but John’s here, he says Hi aaaaaa-” but he couldn’t finish his sentence and gasped again in pain.
“I want to talk to John” Molly said loudly.
“Oh, John’s just watching”
Molly replied loudly and firmly something that Val couldn’t understand, but it sounded like a command, something like Dim si-gah, and then she repeated, “I want to talk to John”.
The man was still frozen in place, but visibly struggling inside. His eyes were closed, but you could see them moving under the eyelids, until they snapped open. And the man pleaded in a completely normal human voice, “whoever you are, help me! I’m trapped in my own mind and this thing is so violent, so … horrible… there’s no room -” John was coughing and gasping again.
"What do you want, woman? John's mine!" He shouted.
"John hasn't eaten in days, probably not slept either; he's on the verge of collapsing and maybe worse. I don't think you're in a position to dictate anything. Leave him. Leave him and return to wherever or whenever you come from". She took a small step towards the man.
"I can keep him going for a while, and have fun with you two. I would love to see what you are made of."
"Dream on asshole. If I can’t convince you to leave, I can always kill John if I need to-" but before she could finish her sentence, Val exclaimed, "Mom, what the fuck?!".
That was too much for Val and had made her snap back to reality. Her mother was talking with some sort of monster about murdering him. That was finally too much, but before she could think or do anything, the man was laughing in his insectile voice, still unmoving on the ground.
"Shut up Val! I need you to be quiet and to trust me" Molly said softly over her shoulder. More laughing came from the man.
"Hmmmm Val, huh?… Valerie, is that it? What’s your mummy's name, little one?”
Suddenly, his face contorted and showed what was supposed to be a smile. He hasn’t been able to move anything but his eyes and mouth until then. Worry started to show on the two women's face, and the grin on the twisted face widened.
“You’re losing your grip, old lady” the insects noises crawled out of the man’s grin while he talked, “but I can see that this wasn’t your first time talking to us. This confidence and the tools, that fucking beast!” the last words were spat out and followed by gasping and retching. The vision of that man talking was horrifying, he was kept in place like a statue, but his features could move now. It was like somebody had pasted a Holo-vid on a statue’s face.
“You have been at it a long time, so you met us a long time ago… aaaah… I get it now” ever so slowly, fighting the powers binding him in place, he turned his head to Val “a Younger sibling maybe?”.
"Shut up! Si-gah! Si-gah!" Yelled Molly with tears and fear in her eyes. “You ruined our lives and I vowed to free the people you take! You broke my baby!”
All the while, the imprisoned John on the floor was whispering “no’s” and “help me’s”.
Valerie realized she was on the verge of insanity, completely overwhelmed by the situation, scared and scared for life. Again. She thought she had put all what happened to Viv and what she had done somewhere in a deep, dark hole in her head. The dark memories triggered by this monster on the floor were slowly crawling out of that pit.
“Mom, I can’t” she managed to whisper between clenched teeth. “I can’t remember, I have to go, this is too much”
“Listen kiddo you can’t go, now is not the time. Snap out of it”
“But… the memories are coming back… Viv’… I can’t” and before Molly could do anything, Valerie had let go of her shoulder and started to turn but froze instantly after letting go.
The man laughed and coughed harder than ever “Viv huh, Vivian and Valerie, haha” with a serious air he turned back in slow motion to Molly, and she could see his toes moving. The hand was losing its grip on him. “If your brats are called Vivian and Valerie, I have heard of you guys.” He laughed so hard he coughed and buckled forwards, “I know who You are. How’s is little Viv’ since we paid her a visit. Huh? I know we travelled to her… Molly Snipes! And how’s daddy? Oh yeah, I heard, he went bye bye. I regret I wasn't there to see. I had other duties back then, but the World walker is good, because I am here now”.
He laughed and made other more horrible noises. At the mention of Molly’s name, he slowly started to rise.
“I am going to enjoy this!”
He was standing up now, his bare chest was heaving, making the dried blood from the scratches crack. Val didn’t have time to fully turn back to see what was happening before she saw the man jump forward and everything went black.
The first lights of the day were showing on the horizon in front of the truck. Val and Molly were sitting on the roof of the truck watching the sunrise. The rising star was preceded by a big blueish moon with two rings. Making the whole scene look like a badly AI generated image.
The two women have been silent for a long time, just looking in the distance. Molly tugging at a bandage on her arm and wincing in pain. Her face scared fresh by claw marks, some covered by cicatrizing gel. Val was breathing shallowly because her ribs hurt like hell. Her wounds were less visible than the ones her mother wore.
“Mom I…” She finally started turning her head to her mother. “I … don’t even know how to begin. I’m so sorry… this is all so hard to believe, it feels like a bad dream, but it’s not”.
“I know Kiddo” Molly replied and put an arm around her daughter to drag her closer. Both let out a groan of pain and decided to hold hands instead.
“I have a lot to tell you, and you have to pay a visit to your sister”.
They both looked at each other for a long time, and suddenly the van decided to open the doors and play loud music. The two women grinned, but kept looking at each other with teary eyes while the sun was rising. Val laughed and said “This” she gestured around her “is so cliché, but I guess it’s also nice” and they both laughed.