By G.R. Nanda

Nickel curled himself further inwards. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. It was dark. The edges were the only parts illuminated enough to reveal the brown color. 

“I don’t want to have to do anything with you or anyone here,” said Nickel. “Sorry, but we have to leave this place and get to a place called Hedonim. It’s a city where we can find a cargo transport to get to the mainland of America.”

“We?” questioned Elder Hawk. Nickel looked at her quizzical face and opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. 

Damn it, he thought. He didn’t know if betraying the reality of his company would harm Steve or Farrul. 

“The instruments of fate brought you and your friends here from the Past World.”

Past World? thought Nickel.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I’m not from the past. I’m……….from now. Modern times. I was born in America on November 18th, 2183.” 

“The Atlantic tribe exists in a reality outside of the one you come from,” said Elder Hawk. “We live in the world of the god Great Father Hawk. We’re descended from people just like you, who crashed here on a Past World vehicle. They went through hard times, trying to survive here on whatever they could use. Many died. Some killed themselves. We were headed downhill until we discovered the sustenance of the hawk. It gave us life- a main staple for an invigorating diet. We no longer had to rely on depleting starch from the hovercraft and measly kupernacle plants. We ate from the hawk and drank from the moisture of the kupernacle. As you know, these plains aren’t completely empty.  Stragglers did come by now and then- just not on ginormous vehicles like yours. We learned of the acht-chi. It connected us further to the sustenance of the hawk. It brought us closer in hunting the hawk. Great Father Hawk spoke to us. We left the Past World of technology and entered the New World of the hawk.”

“So it was the acht-chi?” said Nickel. 

“What was the acht-chi?” said Elder Hawk. 

“All of that,” said Nickel. “The hawk worshipping. The religion”

“The acht-chi is not our religion. The acht-chi is our gateway to our religion- to Father Hawk.”

“What’s stopping you from returning to my world- returning to the Past World?” asked Nickel. 

“An enlightenment has sealed us off from the Past World,” said Elder Hawk. “Our forebears hailed from the American civilization. They lived with science and technology so much that it corrupted them Their psyches and souls were unsatisfied. Their crash into the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic was the best and worst thing that happened to them. Here, through the hunt of the hawk, they made a new more enlightened way of life for themselves- one that was more connected to nature.”

“That’s all great,” said Nickel, “but  I don’t know what you all want from me.” 

“You have entered our dominion,” said Elder Hawk. “If you cooperate, our dominion could give you hospice.”

“Yeah, actually, we could probably use some help,” said Nickel. He brought his knees to his chest and lay against the basin. He made sure to keep his head forward, away from the swirling water. “My friends and I don’t have any clear ideas about what’s around here in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic or exactly how to get to Hedonim.”

“Hedonim,” whispered Elder Hawk, slowly- mincing on the name. “Why must you and your friends travel to that accursed hub of filthy entertainment?” She frowned. 

“We’re not going to stay,” said Nickel. “Our hovercraft is running out of fuel and like I said before, we’re looking for transportation, so we’re going to hitch a cargo transport.”

“Hedonim means many things to my people,” said Elder Hawk. “I myself see it as nothing more than everything we were glad to leave behind in the Past World. There are some people here who have taken an interest in Hedonim. These plains are a dangerous place, Nickel. I’ll let you know that most of our newborns don’t make it past the age of 14. Those who do will embark on a second initiation rite.” 

“What does this have to do with Hedonim?” said Nickel. He quickly added, “although, I do understand why your mortality is important to tell me-.”

“There was a second hovercraft crash,” said Elder Hawk. “A couple of years after the first. The people onboard spoke English and they were from Canada. They had come in from the opposite direction of the first hovercraft, They had come from the East. They had seen much of Hedonim because they had made a stop there for digital replication repair.”

“They joined our cause- our way of life. They joined Great Father Hawk in the hunt he had laid out for all of our generations.” 

“You see, even though we’ve all worked together very hard to maintain our sustenance and keep this tribe running, we have our share of discord. No one completely forgets the Past World. It stays- the memories. They lose their vitality and their flavor diminishes, but you still remember.” 

“People from the second crash remembered Hedonim. To most, it was just another technological contraption from the corrupted Past World. However, some were enticed by Hedonim. He-Hawk and She-hawk have ultimate control here. Even over me. I can only advise.”

“But He-Hawk and She-hawk can’t control what we see in the acht-chi. Only Great Father Hawk can see to that.”

“For some, Hedonim appeared during acht-chi labors. They said the hawks flew in its direction. Those original few from the second crash passed away , but their word was passed on to the next generations. Once the seeds were planted in their minds, acht-chi dreams nurtured the seeds.” 

“Great Father Hawk wants us to broaden our horizons and see as much as the hawk can. Therefore, we send young adults on a third initiation rite to become directors and leaders of the tribe. We send them on mission quests to foray outside the tribe’s limits to prove worthiness in survival. They must use their dreams- their acht-chi dreams from their whole lives –to guide them outside. They’ll look for what they’ve seen in their slumber. They pass the test if they return safely with new knowledge to share with the tribe. This knowledge usually helps us with hunting schedules and routes as well as predicting weather.” 

“Boy, something you must know is that many youths have been sent out and died. But every single one who’s returned has found a new refuge in their tribe. Their dangerous expedition has made them appreciate the way of Father Hawk.” 

“Something else you must know is that every single one of them was given the option to leave the tribe in their expedition.” 

“I understand-,” said Nickel, “or I think I can sort of understand what your tribe is all about. In fact, I think I understand why your tribe exists and why you do the things you do.”  

“Your tribe’s way of life sounds better than a lot of the ways of my past world in the American military base. My life felt too industrial and scientific.” 

“Hedonim is the most industrial thing in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic,” said Elder Hawk. “Yet some of the tribespeople have wanted to look for Hedonim even after their mission quests.”

“The acht-chi is mysterious. It is beyond my control or the control of any living person. At least any living person from my tribe. The dreamsphere of the acht-chi usually binds my tribespeople together. That is, unless one is motivated by his or her own unique dream visions. For we all see different things in the dreamsphere.”

“I know,” said Nickel. He stood up and directly faced Elder Hawk. “I’ve partaken in the acht-chi.” Elder Hawk’s eyes widened. “When I fell asleep from exhaustion, I had a dream vision. It was a scene. I was in my body and I saw everything from the perspective of my body.”

“What about the friends you say are here?” asked Elder Hawk. 

“They told me they’d been seeing differently for a long time,” said Nickel. “They would see different parts of these plains, but they were all close to a place they thought was Hedonim. I dreamed once and dreamed I was being fired at by people in silver suits. I fell over a cliff and onto the surface of Hedonim. I saw many things inside it and the whole time, a woman I couldn’t see was singing to me.”

Elder Haw’s mouth was firmly closed for a while. 

“Is that dream the reason you have come here?” she asked quietly. 

Nickel’s lips opened a crack, but he didn’t speak immediately. 

“Yes,” he said. “My friends, Steve and Farrul- they thought that Hedonim might exist. They weren’t entirely sure. But when I told them my dream, they knew what I was talking about was Hedonim. Steve was convinced that it was real and that our dreams collectively made a whole picture showing a way to Hedonim. Steve believed I was the key. We were determined to leave on my hovercraft, using the little fuel I had left to make it to Hedonim.”

“Our paths unite,” said Elder Hawk. She walked towards Nickel, cocked her head and frowned. “But our intentions and values contradict. We are notably united. Only in the acht-chi do we share vision.” 

“I mean,” started Nickel. “Part of me thinks this is all some hokey-pokey primitive religion and culture of yours, but I feel like it has real value here- in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic. I don’t understand what it is, but I’m attracted to your way of life.”

Elder Hawk laughed. 

“I’m sure our hokey-pokey primitivity can be of some assistance. The truth is that you’re hokey-pokey to me. When I listen to you, I hear objective talk from a world and its science that I’ve left too long ago for me to understand.”

“The truth is,” said Nickel, “I’m attracted to your spiritual life. I don’t think there’s much spirituality for us deserters stranded in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic. Other than the acht-chi, I guess. The gas here blinds us, but the acht-chi- provides a way to see past the curtain- the curtain of orange. But the acht-chi and the dreams are so wild and they just feel……..untamed. 

Elder Hawk tilted her head upwards and scrunched her eyebrows. 

“How astute,” she said. “You’re an insightful one. Perhaps our cultural divides won’t get in the way of connection. You’re not as mechanical as I would have thought you to be.”

“And you’re not all as primitive as I would have thought you to be,” said Nickel. 

“I wouldn’t use that word.”

“What- primitive?” said Nickel. 

“Yes,” said Elder Hawk. “To you-.” She pointed at Nickel with ehr left hand. “- I am primitive. To me I am enlightened. You are not. You are trapped in the Past World. You are trapped in the objective and the mechanical.” 

“Well………….,” began Nickel. He stood straighter and walked a few steps towards Elder Hawk. His mind was flowing with his own reasoning. His movement and focus was no longer limited to survival and escaping imminent and unpredictable danger. “…….To me, I am enlightened by a culture of science and technology, while you are trapped in a culture without science and technology.” 

Elder Hawk lowered her head and smiled at Nickel. 

“Very good,” she said. “Through discourse- through being blunt, we have reached double truths. Both perspectives hold truth in our own minds. What I am to you is what you are to me.” She cocked her head to her left. “Now, let’s try to see the edge in each other’s pasts. I’ll go first.” She straightened her neck. “Your world’s technology allows for a greater expansion of human knowledge. You come from a world that is vast, intricate and industrious. There is power in that.” Her eyes turned into small slits. She cocked her head to her left again, peering at Nickel. He understood that she was waiting for him to speak. 

“Your culture is connected to this landscape. This landscape is hostile and confusing and you’re connected to it in a way that Steve, Farrul and I aren’t. I feel attracted to your connection with each other and this environment. I’m attracted to your……….. minimalism and lack of technology. It’s fascinating………….and liberating.” 

There was a sinking feeling in Nickel’s chest. He wondered if in his confession, he was forsaking his past and everything he thought he knew in his upbringing. He was afraid of…………changing. Yet, there was a buzzing in his mind- a thrill at discovery that occurred as he spoke his words. The dread and excitement combined in an unsettling mood of shock that transfixed him in terror and awe. His eyes widened as he stared straight ahead. His limbs trembled and his heart pounded. 

Elder hawk moved her neck upright and closed her eyes. 

“Do not fear boy,” she whispered. She moved her head back, leaning against the wall. “Your path will become clearer………….but always know………..knowledge comes with a price………..the truth kills!” she said snarling her last three words. Her whole body slumped and her head fell onto her right shoulder. Her back slid down against the wall. Drool trickled out of her open mouth and she snored loudly. 

Nickel felt himself relaxing- the tension of confrontation wearing away as he realized Elder Hawk was asleep.

By G.R. Nanda

The oracle, the muse of the Atlantic tribe was a sweet, but at times stubborn and inaccessible woman. Elder Hawk spent much of her time inside a spacious hut referred to by the tribespeople as their “nest.” Her time was spent indoors, away from the effortful labors performed by the younger and the physically stronger while they were under the spell of the acht-chi.

She had lived long enough and worked long enough to deserve some peace, solitude and a tribal role that was less physically taxing. Her affairs involved communicating with the god Great Father Hawk, attending to the tribespeople’s woes and confusions. She also attended to every birth and every expected death. Above all activities, she slept. Rich dreaming allowed her to communicate effectively with her god. 

On this night, the tribespeople counted unexpected visitors as “births.” It was because of this that Elder Hawk’s nighttime slumber was interrupted by pounding at the door. 

Elder Hawk’s eyes opened into small slits. Her plump body was sunken into a large sack of leaves. Her shrivelled brown skin was exposed on her face and her thin hands- the rest hidden in her baggy robes. Across from her at the front of the long room, illuminated by small torches on the walls, past the large rug on the floor and the hawk altar in the small basin of water at the middle, the two main doors shuddered. Torchlight spilled from under them. 

“A birth!” someone shouted from outside in the howling wind. “A birth!” 

Elder Hawk closed her eyes and laid her arms on her stomach under her breasts. She breathed deeply. 

None of the courtship rituals from my knowledge warrant a birth at this time! thought Elder Hawk. How could a secret romance have blossomed under my watch? This troubled her greatly. If she wasn’t able to identify, initiate and plan the courtships of the Atlantic tribe, she wouldn’t be fulfilling her role as Elder Hawk. 

The doors opened with a loud blow. The night’s laborpeople walked in carrying torches that alighted dust and orange fog spilling into the room. The wind blew through, tickling and dampening the small flames of the torches hung on the walls. The laborpeople were carrying a long lean body strung up on their tightened hands.

“Elder Hawk!” said Li, one of the laborpeople, who left the mass of people to rush around the fountain, kneeling before Elder Hawk. He was a tall muscly man with long black hair collected in a pony tail and wisps of thin facial hair, slanted eyes and tan skin. He stared wide-eyed into the sleepy eyes of Elder Hawk. “A new birth! You must decide the fate of this newborn!”

The doors were slammed shut. The flames of the torches cast swirling shadows across the walls and their faces. The laborpeople behind Li spread throughout the room and made sure to stay behind. Two people laid the body in front of the fountain. 

“A newborn?” exclaimed Elder Hawk. “How many newborn infants have you seen that big?”

Li bowed his head, contemplating a response. 

The knot in Elder Hawk’s chest loosened. She did not in fact miss a tribal courtship. However, a knot formed again. A being- a teenager had been birthed- brought into the world of the Atlantic tribe. 

“Quite an unexpected birth,” commented Elder Hawk. “A teenager. A young man.” She arched her back and squinted at the unmoving body on the floor. His garments were unlike anything she had seen on her fellow tribespeople. A long crinkled suit of red and grey material covered him from his torso to his feet. “He appears to be from…….. the outside world. 

Li looked up at Elder Hawk. 

“That does appear to be the case Elder,” he said. “It makes me afraid.”

“Before He-hawk dropped him as prey, we were warned by the last shift of laborpeople and watchers that a vehicle from the Past World had landed on our watchtowers. The birthed one we brought probably comes from this vehicle.”

Elder Hawk’s eyes widened. Torchlight shimmered on her large brown pupils. Her eyebrows and eyelids were stretched with concern and shock. 

“A vehicle………,” she repeated, “……… from……….. the………… Past World.” She exhaled for a long time at the last two words. Her lips tightened and turned downward. She wore a pained expression on her face. 

Li nodded. 

“Very mysterious,” he said. 

“Where is the vehicle?” said Elder Hawk. 

“It must have been pulled down by laborpeople in the West Wing. We heard of disturbance and clamor from the watchboys. He-Hawk told us to expect larger than usual prey.” 

“Is this…………… boy here,” began Elder Hawk, pointing to the body on the floor behind Li, “the only one of his kind? Was he alone in the vehicle?”

“I -,” started Li, “- I – I don’t know.” He bowed his head. Li’s exchange was complete. All that he must say had been said. They both knew that Elder Hawk must begin her birthing initiation rite. 

“The Great Father Hawk still works his instruments of fate from the cosmos,” said Elder Hawk. “He has seen to our visitors from the Past World. We will pull from his teachings and His Word.” She tapped her left ear. “I continue to listen and I always do. The fifth nightgown of the month is awaiting. Calm your hearts. I will listen and spread His Word then. Go now, with your laborpeople. Send the next shift and relieve yourselves of the acht-chi.” 

“Yes, Elder Hawk,” said Li, still bowing his head. He stood up and faced the laborpeople. “We leave. Acht-chi fulfilled.” He headed out the door with everyone else shuffling to the door. Gas spilled in when the door was opened. They emptied the room, bringing their large torches outside with them. When the door closed, the room was dimmer and quieter. 

The boy scooted on his side, leaning against the basin in a fetal position. His eyes were still closed. 

“Open your eyes,” muttered Elder Hawk. She stood up from her sack. The feathers inside shifted and ruffled against each other. “Knowledge and re-birth await!”

By G.R. Nanda

“Yes, there’s more bird people!” said Steve. He started to get up, but he fell and began to slide down the floor, before planting his palms and feet firmly on it. His long stringy hair was mangled and splayed all over a forehead lined with sweat. 

There was a pounding at the wall to the left. It was coming from behind Nickel and Steve, towards the middle of the hovercraft. 

Nickel stared through the window and slumped on his piloting module seat. His racing heart and constricting chest told him to get up and do something, but his fear pressed on him like a weight, leaving him unmoving. 

“We have to do something – We have to do something – We have to do something – We have to do……,” Steve repeated frantically. “Where’s Farrul?” he said. “Where’s Farrul?” 

“I think he smacked into something and blacked out,” said Nickel. The pounding got louder and moved closer up the hovercraft towards them. “I think I remember him yelling and falling. When he fell, he stopped yelling and he was quiet. I don’t know if he’s awake yet.”

“Farrul?” shouted Steve. He looked behind him around his shoulders. “Uh-.”

“We cannot breach the captives!” 

The voice was loud and deep- almost a growl. It came from outside, so it was echoey and warbled. “We cannot breach the captives!”

“Then they aren’t captives!” said a man with a higher pitched voice- shrill and crisp. 

“Send in people with weaponry!” came a softer feminine voice, but booming like the rest. “Tear the wall open if needed!” the woman said. Dozens of voices began yelling at once, becoming muddled and indecipherable. 

“We should get out of here,” said Nickel. His head was buzzing with adrenaline. 

“You’re right,” said Steve. “Snap out!” he yelled. “MOVE!” He lunged upwards and slapped his arms across Nickel’s body. Nickel felt Steve’s warmth and his ragged breath as he was literally pulled out of the piloting module and thrown onto the ground. He tumbled over the floor and his palms momentarily slid over the surface, squeaking. 

The yelling outside became a deafening roar. 

“Let’s go to the basement,” said Steve. He planted his palms and feet on the floor and Nickel did the same. They were poised precariously still for a moment. 

Nickel looked under his body at Steve. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. 

“Where else would we have to go?” Steve said in a rasp. “We need to hide! We can’t go outside. Outside is theirs!” 

“If we go into the basement, we’ll be stuck down there!” snarled Nickel. His palms slid down the surface and Nickel pressed his belly onto the ground. “Literally stuck there, waiting for them to come and get us!” he wheezed as he looked up at the front of the Eagle. 

Steve began to speak, then stopped. 

“Damnit, you’re right!” he said. 

“There’s the hatch at the back, down the steps,” said Nickel. He dragged his limbs around on the floor in a circle, using his elbows to pivot his movement. He faced the back of the room and flattened himself. Facing the end of the room, he pointed at the staircase to the left. “That’s where we go.” Nickel winced at a loud slamming from outside that shook the secondary control desk. He slid down again, but pressed the base of his palms onto the cold floor. 

“WHAT?” screamed Steve. “I can’t hear you!” 

“IT’S OVER THERE!” said Nickel as he lifted his entire left arm to point and leaned on an elbow pressing firmly into the ground. “DOWN THE STEPS -.” Nickel coughed. “- TO THE LEFT!” 

“Ok, let’s go!” said Steve. He grunted and rushed forward, sliding down on his stomach. Nickel followed by sliding on his stomach as well. His chest skidded to a halt and the left side of his mouth smacked the floor. Pain shot through the side of his mouth followed by a numbness that enveloped the left portion of his gums. He yelped, but the sound was drowned by the yelling and pounding of the wall to the left. Nickel moved his chest up and managed to jog down until he tumbled onto the secondary control desk, joining Steve who had fallen as well. 

Being mere feet away from the area on the wall bearing assault, the voices and pounding were louder than ever. 

Steve shouted with his grisly bearlike voice, but Nickel didn’t hear him. He shouted louder.  

“COME ON, NICKEL!” Steve scooted away from the desk towards the right and towards an opening between it and the wall. “COME HERE!” 

“LET’S GRAB FARRUL!” Nickel followed crawling on his butt. 

Steve carried a limp and weakened Farrul with a bleeding forehead and threw him down the stairs to the left. When Farrul hit the bottom, he grunted in pain. A groaning came from behind where the wall was being barraged. Nickel moved towards the stairs and then fell down them. His shins hit the steps and flared with pain. His nose hit the bottom and then gushed with blood. 

Steve joined them, slamming down on the back wall, which was now tilted downwards. He was to the right of Farrul and Nickel was to Farrul’s left. He was the closest to the entrance hatch which was on the adjacent wall at his left. They were all crowded in a dark and narrow space.

“Open the hatch!” said Steve. Nickel rolled over, lying against the hatch. He pushed his stomach up and turned the hatch’s knob in a circular motion. He pushed and there was a click. Nickel gripped the knob, and rolling over to the left, pulled it open. Orange gas and chilliness seeped through. The yelling and clamor was audible from outside as well. 

Steve grabbed Farrul and held his upper torso above the opening, preparing to drop him. 

“NO!” said Farrul. He wriggled. “Put me back down!”

“Yeah, slow down, Steve,” said Nickel. “You’ve already hurt him enough. You dropped him down the stairs.” 

“Sorry,” whispered Steve. “Getting ahead of myself.” Farrul wriggled, pushing Steve’s arms and rolled out of Steve’s grip and over his body, landing behind Steve. 

Steve slid down the opening, falling through. 

“Let’s get out of here,” said Nickel. 

Farrul dropped through. 

Nickel grabbed the edges of the opening and let his legs dangle in the cold air. He saw the orange tint disappear the farther down the gas was from the light of the hovercraft, becoming pitch darkness. Nickel hesitated, imagining the perils of entering this new territory. 

There was a loud reverberating bang and echo from the assaulted wall. That was enough. Nickel let go of the edges and descended. He quickly slammed into Farrul who was in turn sprawled on top of Steve. 

“Get off,” wheezed Steve. “You’re gonna crush -.” Nickel and Farrul moved off onto a cold rocky ground. Nickel looked around, seeing hazy frames of dark spires sticking out of the earth amidst a hazy canvas of thick gas. 

The spires closest to them looked like towers and were rugged; the tops were crumbling, broken and there were whole openings in the surface that were jagged at the edges. Torches were placed in these openings, dotting the landscape with light that cast auras of orange color in the ever-flowing gas. 

Behind them was a large and looming wall- a slab of darkness curving over like a wave in an ocean. The top edge was jagged- uneven. Like the spires, pinpricks of orange torchlight and waving cloth dotted the body of the wall. 

“How’d it get this dark already?” said Nickel. Up the slope they had fallen to the bottom of stood the Eagle, dangling off a rock ledge. Next to the Eagle, up the slope, were all the people attempting to breach the hovercraft. They were adorned in feathered clothing and wore feathers in their hair. Behind those who attacked the hovercraft with stick-like weapons and those who held fat rods together, ramming into the hull by moving backwards and rushing forwards, were people who held lanterns of fire with auras of illuminated orange gas. None of them had the wings that Nickel had seen on the man who was perched in front of the window. 

Dull footsteps came from the roof of the Eagle where people walked and crawled, prying at and inspecting the surface. One of them had a thin rod wedged between one of the plates, trying to pry it open. Their light came from a figure holding a lantern. The figure had feminine features. Plates of armor wrapped around her thighs, hips and torso, highlighting womanly curves. A cap of feathers was laid on her head and a beak crowned her nose. Long wings- like those on the bird-man stuck out across her back. The frame stood still, but the individual feathers shook in the breeze. She moved forward, closer the edge of the hovercraft- closer to Nickel, Steve and Farrul. The lantern moved with her, illumining her in lighted gas that revealed more about her features. 

It is a woman, thought Nickel as he observed lumps of breasts protruding from her feathered chest above her armor. 

“AAAAAAaaaaaaah!” she growled, pointing in Nickel’s direction while still holding the lantern. “THERE! THE PASSENGERS ARE THERE!” she screamed while she bent her knees and jabbed down at Nickel, Steve and Farul’s direction, scowling with gritted teeth. 

Fear finally permeated Nickel enough to get him moving. He crawled backwards with his palms and feet while his butt was poised downwards. Abrasive rock scratched and dug at his palms. 

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he whispered, “oh no!”

The banging slowed down and the Eagle’s assaulters stared around, looking for the “passengers,” some finding the direction the woman was pointing in. 

The inspectors on top stopped prying around and looked down at Steve, Nickel and Farrul. 

There was a crunching of rock from behind. 

The woman put her fingers to her mouth and whistled. 

“Whoooeewiiiioueewiiooouee!” she sounded. It was shrill and piercing. 

Yelling sounded from the wall behind. There was a whistling in the air that became louder and louder. Three arrows flew down and planted next to the three stragglers’ bodies: one to the left of Nickel and two the right of Steve and Farrul. 

There was a groaning from the Eagle as the side of its hull was finally breached. Shards of the wall tumbled over each other and crashed on the ground. People entered the opening that Nickel couldn’t see. 

“She-Hawk?” some of them shouted. “Where are they?”

“She-Hawk!”

“We gotta stop them!” said Farrul, standing up. “They’re tearing up the Eagle!” 

“No!” said Steve, grabbing hold of Farrul’s leg. He pulled and Farrul stumbled backwards. 

“Guys, we need to run!” Nickel said. He continued to crawl backwards again. He looked past his right shoulder and saw faint figures of people with glinting red eyes staked out in the distance in front of the looming wall. 

“Yes, yes – I agree!” said Steve. He hurried to his feet and slapped Farrul’s shoulders. “Come on, Farrul! Run – run – RUN!”

Nickel got to his feet and bolted towards the looming wall. Steve and Farrul followed, their feet crunching rock behind Nickel’s crunching feet. Shadowy figures belonging to the red eyes moved together from the left, chasing after them. 

“DIVIDE!” yelled She-Hawk. “Five of you must leave the craft behind and pursue the intruders!”

The chase was on. Nickel, Steve and Farrul ran, but they were running deeper into the stronghold of their pursuers. 

“What’s the point of this?” huffed Farrul. “We’re going to get caught!”

“No, keep running!” shouted Steve. “Let’s keep going around the bend in between the walls! Look for somewhere to hide!”

Arrows whizzed past them from high on the looming wall. Nickel and Farrul exclaimed when they saw them raining down. 

“BUT-” started Farrul. 

“NO!” said Steve. “DON’T THINK! RUN AND HIDE!”

Many footsteps sounded behind Nickel. The feathered pursuers were getting closer. 

“STOP!” they shouted. “There’s more of us!”

“Do not hide from the Hawk of the Atlantic!” boomed a throaty voice from a darkened man on a tall ledge in front of the looming wall. “You are in his NEST!”

“Split up!” said Steve. 

“What?” shouted Nickel, still looking ahead. “That’s a – terrible -.” He panted. “- idea!”

“THERE’S NOTHING ELSE!” said Steve. “They’ll corner us! We – should – confuse – them!”

In a split decision, Nickel turned sharply to his left and ran up to an upwardly inclined surface. 

“Be careful!” shouted Steve. 

“There he goes!” said a pursuer. “Call He-Hawk! She-Hawk can’t see him! He’ll disappear in the fog!”

Nickel’s feet pounded loudly against the inclined surface as if there were a hollow space inside. The farther up he ran, the more he began to see that the surface was reaching up to and connecting to the smaller wall. 

His head buzzed with a familiar panic. His limbs were propelled by adrenaline and fear. Suddenly, the surface joined the top ledge of the wall. However, as he ran atop the wall, the edge narrowed until a precariousness threatened to throw him enough out of balance that he slowed to a halt. 

His breath caught in his throat and exhaustion seeped through his body, deadening his limbs until they cramped. 

“Aaaigaheeeiaaaiahee!”

Rough hands pinched at Nickel’s armpits and propelled him forward. The next thing Nickel knew, he was lifted up into the air by hands with long fingernails that dragged across Nickel’s chest. Nickel could see large winds stretched out at the edges of his vision from behind. The wind suddenly flowed strongly from behind, propelling them up and forward while chilling Nickel to his core. 

“Quite the maverick we have here. Ehh?” shouted the captor in Nickel’s ears. “Ran away from your flock?” You’re the lucky one! The Hawk of the Atlantic just saved you! Your friends can’t run for long! There is no running in the windstorms of the Atlantic!”

“Screeeee!” The sounds of screeching hawks emerged. 

“Screeeee!” They filled the air, becoming clamorous. 

“SCREEEEEEEE!” Nickel’s legs trailed behind and moved forward, whipped by the winds from behind, but he was always pushed backwards by the momentum of his captor gliding forward.

 So his legs swung back and forth like a pendulum. The motion and his helplessness at being carried limp at the armpits left his armpits sore and him feeling nauseous, dizzy and panicked. 

Small dark birds were gliding all around them. Animals. The first non-humans Nickel encountered in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic.  

“Screee! Scree! Screee! Screee!”

They were silhouettes of hawks. Features such as long red wings, glinting red eyes and white bodies were invariably highlighted by the darting bright lines of torches placed throughout the environment. 

Whiiiiiiiizzzzz!

A hawk below to the left suddenly screamed and its wings crumpled. The head arched back with a gaping beak and plummeted to the earth. 

The hawks around ceased gliding and hurriedly flapped their wings. 

Whiiiiiiiizzzzzzz!

Another hawk screamed and crumpled before falling to the ground. The rest of the hawks frantically flapped and chirruped in short spurts. 

“Scri! Scri! Scri!”

Whiiiiiiizzzzz! Whiiiiizz! Whiiz! Whiiiizzzzz! Whizzzzzzz! Whiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzz!

Many birds were consequently felled by arrows which simmered under swirling torchlight. The play of illuminated orange gas and black darkness made the world look like it was filled with ashy smoke and explosions of fire. The storming winds, whistling of arrows, puncturing of hawks and frenzy of panicking hawks screeching was loud and overwhelming. 

“Do not fear!” said Nickel’s captor. “Our bowmen are precise! You won’t be harmed! But you’re not off the hook! You’re still prey from tonight’s hunt! You’re only a different kind of prey!”

Voices shouted from down below. 

“He-Hawk is here!” shouted the captor. “Handle our human prey with care!” He swung Nickel forward and let go of his armpits. 

Nickel flailed as he fell through the air. The flying hawks moved above him and he joined the rain of dead ones. A mass of feathered human bodies, some with feathered masks, some without, appeared from below, holding their hands out while some held torches. 

Nickel’s body slammed into raised palms that poked and slapped him. Nickel couldn’t resist their hands, grabbing and wrapping around his limbs. He screamed and kicked, but the more he kicked, tighter his limbs were held. Someone jerked Nickel’s left foot to the side, twisting his ankle. 

“AAAAAAAAAAaaaauuuuuuuugggGGHHHH!” Nickel screamed louder than ever. “IT HURTS!” he wailed. 

Someone grabbed the side of his head and pulled Nickel’s ear to his mouth. Hot breath tickled his skin. 

“Quiet!” he whispered. “Stop resisting. Stop kicking. Then we can be more gentle. Agree? Nod if you agree!”

Nickel nodded quickly. The man let go of Nickel’s head. 

“Karim!” the man shouted. “Be careful with his legs! You’re hurting him. Loosen up, but tighten it if he keeps fighting!”

As the winds roared and pressed from the left, the people held Nickel firmly above them and marched in a single direction, slowly, but steadily. Nickel saw He-Hawk swoop over them in the fiery orange torchlight that bled a nighttime red though the fog before receding into darkness. The woman with wings, presumably She-Hawk, also appeared over the torchlight, before disappearing into darkness. 

These people below Nickel marched in the same slow rhythm. The sounds of their garments shifting and their soles crunching on the earth had a similar rhythm. At first, they were out of step, but the sounds of their movement joined in unison, becoming a singular motion. 

He-Hawk and She-Hawk swooped overhead from the right, surveying their land.

By G.R. Nanda

The Eagle soared through the air for close to twenty minutes. As soon as Nickel was informed on his control screen that the Eagle was facing omnidirectional wind resistance and he heard quickening winds billowing and grazing the hull of the hovercraft, Nickel initiated the landing part of phase hop. 

“De-activate the thrusters!” shouted Nickel. “We’re gonna land!”

“Allright, Farrul!” shouted Steve. “Push down on the shaft!” Steve and Farrul grunted behind Nickel, no doubt from the effort of pushing down as hard as they could. 

Outside the window, Nickel could see craggly rock formations and dark metal spindles jutting out of the fog. There was a loud beeping and a warning sign flashed on the main screen:

WARNING! SENSORS DETECT OBTRUSIVE OBJECT!

The analytics readout flashed the receding length between the Eagle and the obtrusive object. 6 feet 7.65 inches. 4 feet 8.998 inches. 3 feet 4.571 inches. The Eagle crashed onto a metal framework sticking out of the ground which was receding in clarity as the winds and the fog thickened. The sound of the Eagle’s bottom slamming into the solid was deafening. 

“Couldn’t you have picked a better place to land?” screamed Steve. 

“I didn’t really have a CHOICE!” said Nickel. “Hop is used only for EMERGENCIES!” There was a loud rumble and crash from outside. Nickel saw a long dark cylindrical object coated with rust emerge in front of the window. Spokes of narrow metal rods were behind it, splayed in many directions. 

The Eagle began to free-fall; the solid surface that the Eagle had landed on seemingly gave away. The ship moved down away from the top of the large tower-like cylinder. A large and gaping square shaped opening appeared on the tower’s wall. Cracked shards of glass stuck out of the corners of the opening, connected by thin wires. The opening quickly receded from Nickel’s window view. A fat black apparatus suddenly loomed over the side of the Eagle’s window view. It looked to Nickel like a wall. 

The Eagle struck against the black apparatus. The grating of the two surfaces sounded like a pained screaming. Farrul shrieked. The front of the Eagle slammed into something. Nickel felt the jolt of the front of the Eagle’s hull sear across the floor beneath his feet. There was a moment of slow wobbling as the Eagle rested on the object in the howling windstorm. 

Suddenly, a long metal surface edged out from the bottom of Nickel’s window view. There was a slow vertigo felt throughout the hovercraft. Nickel felt gravity push up and against his body. The object below the Eagle was tilting and the Eagle was sliding down its surface. 

“Fucking glibb,” whispered Nickel. He clutched the arm handles of the piloting module and pressed his legs against its bottom. 

“NOOO!” screamed Farrul. “NO! Goddamn it, Nickel!” He “oomphed” and then he was quiet. It seemed that Farrul had fallen backwards into something. Nickel squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the arm handles harder. 

The sliding got louder and shakier. The Eagle moved faster. When Nickel opened his eyes, the long metal surface was edging up the window view faster and faster like a mountain erupting from the earth. 

He closed his eyes again. 

The frame of the Eagle shook violently, shaking Nickel’s butt. It would move away and slam against his seat erratically. His back shuddered against his chair, sometimes moving inches away. 

So this is happening again, huh? a voice rang in Nickel’s head. The insides of Nickel’s eyelids flashed bright red and became pitch black invariably. The Eagle is crashing down again. Just when things start to feel under my control. There was a sharp ring from the back of the hovercraft. The craft was slammed and released into freefall over and over again. Things just get glibbed up. Nickel’s head rocked back and forth, jerking involuntarily with the movement of the Eagle. 

But then again………….Isn’t that just life? The Eagle banged onto something and wobbled, sliding slower. That’s what dad would say. The Eagle swayed to the right and slammed onto an object large enough to still the hovercraft’s movement. 

This time, you’re not alone. The Eagle fell backwards and crashed loudly. The craft was now completely still. Nickel opened his eyes to see a control desk whose screens were blacked out except for the ones directly in front of him in the piloting module. At least I have people to share the pain with. Nickel chuckled. 

He put his hands to his forehead, pressed, massaged and then rubbed his eyes. He breathed deeply. He put away his hands and stared wide-eyed at the window in front of him. The metal object protruding from under the Eagle was now mostly obscured by orange. All that remained were dark aspects of a metal frame only visible from time to time. Spokes of a spindly framework stuck out in the far distance. 

“We all okay?” said Nickel. The Eagle groaned with tension. Nickel looked around the edge of his piloting module. If he got up from his chair, he would be facing a downward slope behind the control desk. If he tried moving to the back of the control room, he would most likely fall, roll or tumble down unless he grabbed hold of the secondary desk or something else behind him. “Are you guys okay?”

“No, we’re not okay!” said Farrul. “Gee man! We roll with you for a while and this shit happens?”

“I’m sorry about this!” said Nickel. He lifted his head upwards and pushed his arms up on the back of his seat. It sort of felt like he was getting out of bed. “You know, this isn’t that different from when the Eagle landed before I met you guys.” Nickel coughed. “I really do not like flying in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic.”

“Yup,” said Steve from afar. “That’s why us stragglers have been stuck here for so long. Flying out here is hard and expensive. People who try crash most of the time. So few even try to set foot here.” Nickel scooted his butt up the chair. As he moved his neck away from the chair, a cramp formed on its side, causing Nickel to wince. 

“Aaah!” gasped Nickel. He inhaled loudly through gritted teeth.

“What’s wrong?” asked Steve. 

“My neck,” whimpered Nickel. “Muscle twisted. Got a cramp.”

“Walk it off, boy,” said Steve. 

“Yeah, I will,” said Nickel. He massaged the left side of his neck where it hurt. “I can’t really walk though. The craft is slanted. Aah. This is tricky. I’m going to have to slide down. How did we even get here?” Nickel kicked up his legs while pushing up with arms that he used to clutch the chair handle. He squatted in between the places where his butt and back rested in his chair. In the slanted hovercraft, he felt somewhat upright. “Of all the places I could have landed, this friggin……….” 

This is probably a wreckage of an old energy plant, Nickel,” said Steve. “It’s hard to tell what’s where. All kinds of buildings and structures existed in these plains. Plant accident destroyed most of them, but of course a lot’s gonna still be here. I really think we need to time our flights and landings carefully between the windstorms because we don’t want to get pushed into places like these.”

Nickel was absorbing Steve’s words. Understanding them. However, he wasn’t paying attention. That’s because he was staring into the glinting red eyes of a dark figure perched on bent human-like limbs atop the metal surface outside the window. 

“We gotta figure out a better system,” said Steve, “you come from an aerial base, Nickel. You must’ve had lessons in air navigation.” The red eyes glowed brighter. “We should be flying with some kind of knowledge about how we’re flying because we’re going to be flying without a lot of knowledge. We don’t know a whole lot about what’s on the ground.”

The red eyes brightened enough to illuminate the face of the figure. Below the eyes was a beak. A large beak. Triangular and curved slightly downwards. Nickel’s breath caught in his throat and his heart pounded ever faster. 

“But I’m pretty sure -.” Steve grunted. There were thuds from the back of the control room. “- we’ve gotten  closer to where we want to be.” The storm outside began to envelop the beaked figure, blurring its form in orange. The figure quickly poised, upturning his back and moving his head backwards, revealing the tight lips of a mouth that soon disappeared in the fog. Lips that looked human. The thudding suddenly became louder. “Nickel, we can’t plan from our seats. We gotta look around the Eagle. Get up!” 

The figure slightly elongated its body and then stretched his shoulders and arms, revealing what appeared to be the large sleeves of a robe, but which were actually enormous wings. There was more thudding and a gasp from Steve. There was a banging from behind. 

“Nickel, come on, up, up! Are you listening to me?”

There were thin gaps opening inwards from the edges of the wings. The gaps blurred in the orange, but Nickel had seen them long enough to see individual feathers fluttering in the wind. The figure was leaning to the side. His body was bending to Nickel’s left, enclosing his chest away from his view. When he tipped over and his head bucked, the wind took hold of his body and wings. He was lifted and with his wings outstretched, he was seen gliding upwards and over the metal surface, before curving down below it and disappearing from view. 

Steve’s breathing became audible and the thudding could be felt below Nickel’s feet. However, Nickel did not turn around. He was transfixed to his window- disturbed and baffled by what he’d just seen. While the bird-man was gone from view, the memory haunted him and consumed his focus. 

“Nickel!” Steve shouted. Out of the corner of his eye, Nickel could see Steve’s hairy hand reaching across the floor next to him. “Nickel, snap out of it! Don’t get caught up in the moment! You can’t freeze up when shit happens! Nickel -.”

Nickel shuddered and let out a soft whimper. 

“Steve,” whispered Nickel. “Steve, – I saw someone.”

Steve edged along the floor and crouched next to Nickel, holding the edge of the control desk. 

“What?” said Steve. “You saw what?” He coughed. “You saw a person?”

“I saw -,”  Nickel started. His lips quivered. “It was a man with a beak and wings with feathers. He flew away. He – he looked like a hawk. I don’t know. But he looked like a bird.”

Steve was looking at Nickel, frowning and wide-eyed with concern. 

“What?” he said. He looked out the window and laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?” He coughed again. “I mean – there are people out here. We just don’t know who.”

“Must’ve been under the acht-chi or somethin’ – some exercise in radiation dreamstate.” Steve coughed. “Bird? But with wings? That what you saw, Nickel?”

“Yeah,” said Nickel, finding his voice again as he spoke louder. He was still shaken. “It was the weirdest thing – creature. I’ve literally never seen a creature like it before. No bird’s that big. But no! He wasn’t a bird. He was human – a man.”

“Nickel, are you sure it was human?” asked Steve. “These plains have been way too toxic for a ton of wildlife for a long time, but there’s still some. I would see some herds of animals from up in the explorer’s hovercraft when I was cooking. I learned some animals mutated. They get real weird because of the toxic gas. That’s what the explorers said. They kept comparing to something called Chernobyl. Some animals in Russia after some power plant accident. The same probably happened here. That must have been an an-.”

“NO!” shouted Nickel. He gripped the handles of the piloting module. “No!” he closed his eyes and tilted his face to his lap. “No! It was a man! A human. It was definitely some kind of bird-man!” he said, almost screaming his last word. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Nickel! Let’s calm down!” said Steve. He touched Nickel’s shoulder. Nickel immediately slapped Steve’s hand away. 

“Don’t touch me!” snarled Nickel. An overwhelming fear and regret at taking up a mission with the ill stragglers Steve and Farrul welled up inside of Nickel, twisting the inside of his chest. 

“What the glibb is going on?” shouted Farrul from afar. 

“I don’t know what there is,” Nickel told Steve. “I can’t know for sure. It could have been -.” Nickel rubbed his face with his hands. “Aaargh!” 

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” screamed Farrul. Steve turned around. 

“Farrul!” he shouted. “We might be visiting some folks!” 

“WHAT?” screamed Farrul. “Who – what? You’re not explaining shit!”

“CALM DOWN, FARRUL!” roared Steve. “We have to take this slow! We have to act before any explaining can happen!”

“You calm down first,” said Nickel, looking at Steve. “Jeez!”

There was a loud bang outside of the Eagle, heard coming from the roof to the right of Nickel and Steve. Vibrations trailed down the hull of the craft from the point of collision. 

Nickel and Steve were silent and wide-eyed, staring up at the edge of the roof where the sound had come from. 

“What was that?” shrieked Farrul. 

There was another banging, but from the back of the Eagle. Nickel and Steve whirled around. Nickel crouched with his feet perched on his seat, staring over the edge of the piloting module. The secondary control desk in the middle of the room was shuddering.

Farrul was laid against the back of the room, on a wall in between the small staircases to the sides. The right half of his body was hidden behind the secondary control desk. 

“Nickel, shoot!” shouted Farrul. “Don’t you have weapons systems in the Eagle?” 

“No!” said Nickel. “I don’t!”

THOOF! There was another collision, but from the right side of the roof, echoing and vibrating across the metal. 

“Plus, I wouldn’t know where to strike!” Nickel turned back to the window, squinting. To his growing feeling of demise, he saw nothing except for the faint framework of spindly metal and the flat extending surface, muddled by the foggy orange. “I don’t know where they’re coming from!”

THOOF! THOOF! Bangs came two at a time and in opposite sides of the Eagle’s walls. Many objects were shaking. The main control desk in front of Nickel quivered. A loud groaning emanated from the ceiling. 

Suddenly, a feeling of vertigo caught Nickel, pushing him to the right. Steve yelped and tipped over behind Nickel. 

“I think we’re going under!” said Steve. The feeling of vertigo became stronger, pummeling Nickel’s head to the side of the piloting module. He held onto the handles, extending his left arm as the rest of his body slid to the side of the module. Steve suddenly grabbed the right handle of the module and buried his face in Nickel’s arm. 

The Eagle began to grate against the metal object underneath again. The end of the surface was no longer visible, having passed the top of the window. The length was receding faster than ever. 

The grating became louder and louder, turning into a rumbling. The metal surface was becoming uneven, no longer appearing flat through the window. Bumps and elevated patches were seen along the side of the object closest to the Eagle’s front window. 

Faint sounds of yelling voices appeared coming from outside, but were blotted by the grating and crashing. Nonetheless, the yelling was louder each time it could be heard. 

The vertigo became stronger and there was a moment of weightlessness when Nickel felt as if his body was ascending from the floor of the control room. However, he quickly slammed into his module chair. The impact hurt and had him gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. The grating screeched loudly to a halt, rocking Nickel in his chair. 

The sound of the Eagle’s descent ceased in a miniscule instant and Nickel became acutely aware of his pounding heart. He found himself catching up to a pre-existing breathlessness by panting. 

“We’re captured!” heaved Steve into Nickel’s arm. He let go and moved back, inhaling deeply. 

“There’s more -” began Nickel before falling into heavy breaths again. Steve exhaled. “- There’s more bird-people?”

By G.R. Nanda

The aroma of freezer-insulated sponge food hit all three of them in the face as soon as Nickel opened the fridge. Lights turned on inside, illuminating transparent plastic cartons of food and powdered formulas. 

“Holy mother of Hedonim,” said Steve. Farrul laughed. 

“Why Hedonim?” he asked. “Wouldn’t God make more sense?”

“Farrul, I’ve been living a long time dreaming of the technology and civilization we’d been missing out on,” said Steve. “It’s all in Hedonim, so Hedonim’s a lot of what’s on my mind.” 

“Hedonim this – Hedonim that,” said Farrul. “I know what you really care about are those hookers in Hedonim. That’s the only sex you’ve ever gotten -” Steve struck the back of Farrul’s head with his palm. “OW!” said Farrul. “You promised you wouldn’t hit me again, Steve! You promised!”

“Come on!” said Steve. “It wasn’t even that hard. You know I’ve hit harder before. None o’ this hooker talk out of you again, Farrul! You’re just jealous because you know you’ll never get laid without my help in the Desolate Plains of the Atlantic.” Steve chortled. “I know you’re the one who wants to find those hookers! Why else would you be talking so much about them?” Farrul rubbed his head. 

“Ok, I’m sorry,” started Steve, “It wasn’t right of me to hit you like that. I know I promised to never strike you like that again. Shouldna’ done it. I just wanted some seriousness out of you when we’ve got a big jump to make. This Eagle’s really comfy, but we got a lot of hauling ass to do. Better get ahead on it, or we’re gonna get our asses hauled.”

“But!” he said. He moved past Farrul and Nickel and grabbed many cartons of food. “First – let’s eat some goddamn food like I’ve been saying for the past couple minutes.” He stacked cartons on his arm laid across his chest. “Oh man!” he said. “You boys better take some quick, before I take most of em cuz’ I haven’t seen food this good for eating in a LONG glibbing time!” Nickel grabbed a small box of protein powder and a case of an enameled omelet. He held both of them out in front of Farrul. 

“Eat up,” said Nickel. Farrul took the food. 

“I have no clue what this is and how to eat it,” said Farrul. “But honestly, I don’t really care that much because I’m hungry and I want to eat.”

Nickel grabbed some containers of food for himself and his friends and took them to a part of the basement against the wall, where he set up a table and chairs to eat. He had to bring in one more table to host the additional people. 

He brought them to his kitchenette chamber and began to show them how to use a liquifying blender to turn their protein powder into drinkable liquid solutions. At first, he had Farrul pour the powder into the sleek spinning steel cylinder and press the buttons at the rectangular base. Quickly enough, Farrul erred and jammed the inner parts of the cylinder and Nickel eagerly took over preparing the food himself. 

Once he was finished, he brought plates one by one filled with ready-made food to their table. On each of their three plates were sliced chunks of pork (sprinkled with protein powder to compensate for the synthesized artificial patches), green lentil beans, microwaved enameled omelets, all accompanied by protein drinks, frothing with bubbles in cold ceramic cups. 

Nicke, Steve and Farrul ate savagely to quench their hunger and exhaustion. They ravaged their omelets, tearing apart their synthesized shells with their forks and fingers. They devoured them in their mouths as white and yellow niblets spilled out from their lips. They shredded their pork and after swallowing, washed the meat down with protein drinks. No one spoke and after a while, Steve and Farrul slowed down to savor the food that they hadn’t been able to afford for so long. 

Once their plates had been mostly cleared and they were munching on their last bits of food, Steve spoke:

“We should get moving soon.”

“Why?” said Farrul. His eyes were glazed over and protein juice dribbled down his chin, forming dark blue stains on his face. “We finally have a nice place to stay at.” Steve scoffed and shook his head. 

“I keep thinking you can’t get denser,” said Steve,”but you always disappoint me.”

“I don’t know if I want to try anymore,” said Farrul. “I’m pretty sick of the world. I’ve seen enough of it to know I don’t want to have a part in it and I don’t want to see anymore of it.”

“Fool!” spat Steve, spraying droplets of protein drink and sending a few bits of pork flying. “You think you’ve seen enough of the world to decide that?! Enough of the world? Look at me! I’m in my 60s and I’ve seen more of hell on this earth than you can even imagine,” he said, speaking his last words in a cold and biting vehemence. Farrul frowned and looked at his lap. “You don’t even know what the world can do to you after it’s chewed you up for more than 60 years.” Steve squeezed his eyes shut. “Listen, Farrul, I’m sorry for yelling and slapping. I really am. It’s not what you deserve – at least not all of the time – definitely not today. Listen boy, I know the world’s been mean to you, and you’ve done nothing to deserve what you’ve been through.”

“We have a shot, okay? We can make it out. As long as I’m looking out for you Farrul, I don’t want you to give up. Okay?”

“I don’t want you to give up, goddamnit!” said Steve, shooting more pork from his mouth. Farrul flinched when a piece landed on his face. “There’s a better future out there. Waiting. That future depends on the willing. I’ve seen it, boys. When I was cooking on that hovercraft, I was cooking for some smart people – people who believed they could use their brains to learn as much as they can to carve out new and better frontiers in this godforsaken world. I don’t think I’ll live to see an earth with frontiers like they were trying to make, but I know I’ll die trying so I won’t die knowing I didn’t try. I’ll know I made it easier for young people like you. You two are my only world. I’ve got nothing else. My wife’s dead. My kids are dead,” he rasped. Steve coughed and sputtered, covering his mouth so pork or his protein drink didn’t fly out. “I’m going to get us to Hedonim. We’re going to get us to Hedonim.” Steve eyed Farrul. 

“After all we’ve been through, and all I’ve done – don’t forget that, Farrul – all I’ve done protecting you under my wing here, the least you can do, Farrul, is help us get to Hedonim.”

“How are we going to be safer in Hedonim?” asked Farrul. “How will it be better for survival? Hedonim’s filled with screen ghosts. How are holograms gonna help us? What are we gonna eat? Hologram food?”

“Hedonim has information,” Steve said “Data. Energy. Connections – international – heck, even interstellar. People are coming in and out all the time. We find out what we’ve been missing out on, what’s been going on. Then we hitch a cargo transport for the American mainland. You’re right about food though, Farrul. All we got is whatever’s on Nickel’s hovercraft. If we don’t want to run out before hitching a transport safely, then WE GOTTA GET MOVING! It’s our best option, so let’s not screw it up. Hedonim’s the only place near here where we can use an infrastructure to get info and boot this shithole. Look, once we get to Hedonim, you can choose to do whatever you want. There’ll be lots of different people. Right now, we’re all you got.”

Farrul sighed. 

“I’m only going along with this because I owe you, Steve. Without you, I wouldn’t have survived out here. I would have died a long time ago.”

“So you’re in?” said Nickel. 

“Yeah,” said Farrul. “Yeah, that’s right, Steve, I’m in. But I can decide whether or not to listen to you one we get to Hedonim.” 

“Fair enough,” said Steve. He nodded his head slowly and his face scrunched up like he was going to sneeze. Instead, he burped. 

“Breakfast is over,” said Steve. “So we move now. Nickel! Take us to the control room so we can find a way to lift off the Falcon.”

“Actually, it’s the Eagle,” Nickel quickly said. “American Eagle.” Feeling shy all of a sudden, he quickly said, “sorry.”

“No, no,” said Steve. “Don’t be sorry. All it means is you haven’t seen enough movies.” Nickel frowned in puzzlement. “Don’t worry about it. Just take us up. How long will it take for lift off?”

“A bit,” said Nickel. “Ship’s fuel is low and I gotta find a better alternative than straight flying.”

“Will it be takin’ long enough for me to grab some important stuff from camp?” said Steve. 

“Yeah,” said Nickel, nodding his head, “yeah, I’ll be talking a while. So you can go outside. But you gotta be real quick – like really quick! The ship can’t wait while I’m warming it up, or else it’ll lose more fuel.”

“Got it,” said Steve. 

They went up the elevator shaft and Nickel opened a wide emergency hatch in the back of the control room. Steve jogged out of it as orange fog and cold air came through. Farrul sat in a chair behind Nickel who seated himself in the piloting module. He checked the navigational and airborne systems on the screens before him. Fuel was still low. 

“How fast can we go?” asked Farrul. 

“Uh…….,” started Nickel. “We might be able to move fast. But only in quick spurts. Let me check how long a hop would take.”

“A hop?” said Farrul. 

“Yeah,” said Nickel, opening and scanning the numbers on a flight control analytics readout. “Eagle can’t fly, so what it can do is launch 50 feet up in the air and travel horizontally for a mile-ish, maybe a couple meters short of a mile. It really depends on how much velocity it can maintain in the air. The Eagle does not have enough fuel to do that. We gotta use emergency thrusters.” Nickel’s heart began to beat fast as the gravity of the situation settled in. His arms were shaking. A new life was on the horizon. “The thrusters are going to have to be manually activated and then manually deactivated when we land. Most of the fuel expenditure in a ‘hop’ takes place in the landing.”

Steve was heard entering through the wide emergency hatch. He pulled countless bags and crates through, scraping and grating across the floor. When the movement stopped and Steve stood still, Nickel reached across his module to the basic controls located to his left on the encircling control desk in front of him. Familiar with the ship’s systems, screens and buttons, he instinctively slapped a button, closing the emergency hatch. 

“Did ya’ hear me, Steve?” said Nickel. “I was talking about emergency thrusters!”

“Yeah,” said Steve panting. “Farrul and I will activate the emergency thrusters. You navigate the Eagle.” Nickel jumped out of the piloting module and ran to the far end of the control room to lift two hatches on opposite ends of the room embedded in the floor. Gritting his teeth, after he opened a hatch, he pulled out a bulky rectangular device. This was a thruster igniter. After he pulled out the two igniters from the floor, Nickel instructed Steve and Farrul to stand next to the igniters, awaiting the call to pull on the top shaft as hard as they could. The motion would grate mechanics together deep inside the hull of the hovercraft, expelling gas and triggering flames to shoot out of the bottom of the Eagle’s wings. They would have to pull for a long time, until the top shaft stuck in its position. At landing time, the shaft would have to be pushed down, deactivating the thrusters. 

Nickel sat back down in the piloting module and used knobs on the desk to choose options on the main screen. He turned a dial to select an aerial phase. As Nickel hovered over an option, the other options faded and the screen now read:

CONFIRM AERIAL PHASE: HOP

Nickel pressed the dial down, clicking it into a lock. He had confirmed the aerial phase.

“The hop started!” shouted Nickel. Underneath his feet, the floor vibrated. 

“PULL, FARRUL!” said Steve. He and Farrul jerked the top shaft of the igniters upwards, growling and screaming in their effort to keep it up. There was a deafening roar as the thrusters fired up below the wings outside. Picking up on the initiation, the screens in Nickel’s piloting module blacked out before lighting up in the navigational maps, diagrams and controls. Nickel grabbed a hook from the floor, pulling a steering contraption with side handles up to his chest. 

As the Eagle ascended, shooting up through the air, Nickel saw the empty flagpole and deserted tents of Steve and Farrul’s encampment disappear in the orange fog outside of Nickel’s window. 

“KEEP YOUR BUTTOCKS STILL!” screamed Steve. “WE ARE GETTING THE GLIBB OUTTA HERE!”

By G.R. Nanda

Nickel was more than happy to give Steve and Farrul a tour of the Eagle. They followed him sheepishly and were awestruck. He showed them the control room and took them to the lower level storage “basement,” explaining where everything was located and what was inside each chamber. Steve and Farrul’s eyes widened in surprise when Nickel opened his sleeping chamber. They were shocked at the comfort that was palpable in the sight of Nickel’s mattress, his pillows and his blankets. It was a sight of white cotton and fleece. It was a sight that promised warmth to them after sleeping in the cold of their withered tents for so long. 

Nickel’s sleeping chamber was a far cry from the comforts Nickel knew when he lived in civilization many months ago, but he knew why it would seem so appealing to Steve and Farrul. In fact, they looked too attracted by the sleeping chamber, so Nickel chose to spend less time there. He hurriedly closed the door and guided them up the elevator shaft to the control room. 

As soon as they were up, they could see a windstorm raging outside the windows.

“Spent too much time,” said Nickel. 

“You know what?” he suddenly said, “let’s just stay here.” He sighed in relief. “Just for a while.” He turned to face Steve and Farrul. They were the most haggard and exhausted they’d looked to Nickel since he’d met them. However, they were probably too tired to admit that they were wearing thin. Their bodies were hunched over and drooping. Their eyelids opened and closed erratically over glazed eyeballs. “We don’t need to acht-chi ourselves back to camp. Let’s just rest. I have some food.” 

Nickel brought Steve and Farrul back down to the basement and grabbed blankets and pillows from a storage chamber. Setting the items on the ground, they slept soundlessly under the strips of fluorescent lights encircling the roof. 

Nickel dreamed of many hazy images and murky places. He saw the Statue of Liberty, grey and looming against a red sky and above a sea of sloshing dark water. He saw the large blue domed roof of Hedonim. He saw himself on an island of rock jutting out of a cavern of darkness. On the island was himself, Steve and Farrul hanging out in their camp. This slumber of his was not vivid. There was no singing sorceress to pull him into the depths of a world beyond his own mind. 

Nickel was standing in a small room illuminated by an overhanging chandelier of electric light bulbs. In front of him was a large armchair. The person sitting in it gave a hearty laugh. Nickel moved in front and could see a short middle-aged man sporting a black goatee and reading a paperback book seated in the chair. This man was Nickel’s dad. Dad smiled at Nickel, showing small white teeth. There were footsteps in an adjacent room. Sounds of clattering plates and silverware came from there too. It was his mom in the kitchen. The bulbs in the chandelier slowly dimmed. Shadows played across dad’s face. He still smiled and his eyes twinkled in the coming darkness. 

“Time to go to bed, would you say so, Nickel?” he said. 

That was the last scene Nickel remembered when he was awoken by Farrul rummaging his pillows and blankets. It was a world long gone. It wasn’t exactly what his household looked like, but he recognized the essence. Instead of feeling loss or regret, Nickel felt satisfaction and warmth. 

Farrul squinted at Nickel. He was still sleepy eyed. 

“What’s up?” said Farrul. “What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” said Nickel. He rolled over and stuffed his face in his pillow. “I just woke up. I haven’t had time to think about anything.”

“What if we just lived here?” asked Farrul. 

“No!” said Nickel into his pillow. He turned his head and spoke into the open air. “The Eagle’s out of fuel I’ll run out of food soon. I haven’t restocked at a sky-sport in like a month.” He exhaled sharply. “Let’s wake up Steve.” 

“Why?” asked Farrul. 

“I don’t know what to do. He probably does.” Nickel felt a sinking in his chest. He didn’t want to get up from under his blankets. The mood of tranquility he had awoken to was now being replaced by a begrudging anticipation of the confusion he would have to work through in the waking day. His eyes opened wide as his reality sunk in. A knot twisted in his chest as he realized that if the Eagle didn’t start moving soon, he’d run out of food and die. Or would he? Nicke got up on his knees. 

“How long have we been sleeping?” he asked. 

“Pretty long,” said Farrul. 

“Have you been keeping track?” said Nickel. 

“I can tell from what I hear outside. I woke up a couple times and fell back asleep. The weather’s been on and off. I can hear how strong the winds are outside. It’ll storm and stop. Storm an’ stop. But I’ve been hearin’ a lot of storming. When the wind kicks up super loud at the beginning. That’s when I usually wake up.”

Steve mumbled softly, alerting Farrul and Nickel to his sleeping body. 

“Who says we gotta listen to him?” said Farrul. Nickel looked at Farrul with eyes scrunched in uncertainty and suspicion. His mouth opened to retort back, but he didn’t know what to say. “Look, Nickel – look at him. If we didn’t listen to him, there’s really not much he could do about it. He’s pretty old and he’s been out here longer than I have, so he’s been getting sicker than me. Like – I’m pretty bad, but he’s way worse. He’s done the acht-chi way more than I have. And that last one he did really messed him up. I haven’t seen him this exhausted.” 

Nickel shook his head. 

“No!” he said, frowning. “He did that for me! He went into that trance for me! I’m not going to leave him behind. I’m not selfish like that – like……..” He firmly closed his mouth in scowl before he could say, “you.” 

“I’ve been awake longer than you, Nickel,” said Farrul. “I just stayed in my blankets because this place is so warm. I finally have something to rely on for safety other than Steve. I was awake with him at camp when you passed out in the tent. He was crying! He was crying, Nickel! I’ve never seen  him crying before. No wonder he got emotional after you told him your dream! He’s a wreck. This time he did the acht-chi might actually do him in for good!”

“Why are you excited about that?” scoffed Nickel. His frown deepened. He was really getting angry now. 

“I’m not excited!” exclaimed Farrul. “I’m not excited about my best friend and the closest thing I’ve had to a dad almost dying – okay? I’m legitimately trying to work things out and plan. We have to be realistic about how long Steve’s gonna last and how he’d be now. I’ve known him way longer than you! He never told you about how much money he lost in Hedonim. He isn’t as wise as you think he is.” Now Farrul frowned. “Listen: nothing in my life has felt in my control! You’ve been able to control this hovercraft. Me? None of that! I’ve had to listen to Steve for everything because I had nothing better. Now I have you and the Eagle. You should teach me how to use it. I’ve never learned how to fly a hovercraft and if you taught me, I could get out in the world on my own.” 

“I could teach you, fine. But if you left on a hovercraft on your own, you’d probably end up like me for the past couple months – wandering alone without a purpose and without friends. I don’t like anything you said about leaving Steve behind in the dust. He knows more about Hedonim and the Desolate Plains that I do.” Nickel stood up and walked around the basement, moving in a circle around the elevator while avoiding the chambers. His head was buzzing with thought and agitation. He felt better grounded in the motion of his legs. “Look, if Steve wants me to do something crazy, I won’t do it. But I don’t want to be alone anymore. I need people and I do want their help and guidance! He’s not only a father to you. He could be one for me until I can return back to dad. I thought flying alone in the Eagle could set me free. But it hasn’t. I really don’t know as much as I thought I did. I need a mentor.” Farrul got up and followed him around the basement. Nickel didn’t look behind him. “Look! I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but I need help!”

“Yeah, I think I made it clear that I’ll help you,” said Farrul. 

“Not exactly,” said Nickel. He stopped walking and whirled to face Farrul. “You want to be rid of Steve. I can’t be rid of him!”

“Why not?” said Farrul. 

“I just can’t,” said Nickel. “Not after everything he’s told me. He knows the most out of all of us. He’s probably lived to make more mistakes than either of us. We could learn from them.”

“Enough about me,” grumbled Steve, startling Nickel and Farrul. He stretched on the center of the floor. “Let’s talk more about food. There’s no use in arguing over an empty stomach. Hunger makes you stupid and angry. And I’m hungry!”

“Yeah, I am too,” said Nickel. He was glad he could end his conversation with Farrul.

By G.R. Nanda

“Why do you hate me?” asked Nickel. Farrul was huddled facedown on his knees and his arms were wrapped around them. Steve was knocked out cold, laid down behind him. Farrul slowly raised his head. He had stopped shivering. His eye twitched and flakes of crystal around it fell off. 

“I don’t hate you,” said Farrul. “I’m just trying to be careful.”

“You’re being a floppy john,” said Nickel.

“Don’t swear at me,” said Farrul, frowning and speaking an octave higher. 

Nickel scoffed and shook his head. 

“Look,” Nickel started. “We’re in this together.”

“No,” began Nickel, “ – we’re not.”

“Right now we’re in this together,” said Nickel. 

“Listen. If you’ve dealt with life the way I’ve dealt with it, you’d understand. I wouldn’t take it personal if I were you.” 

“How old are you?” asked Nickel. 

“Why are you asking?” said Farrul. 

“I want to understand you – get to know you.”

“Why would it matter to you?”

“I want to know you. I’m here with you. Will be for a long time. Might as well get to know you – you know?”

“I’m 15. How old are you?”

“16.”

“Not far apart huh?”

“No,” said Nickel. A smile played at a corner of his lips. “I guess we’re not.” 

“I only meant by age,” said Farrul unsmiling. “Other than that we’re pretty glibbing far apart.”

“You said no swearing,” said Nickel. 

“We’re pretty far apart,” said Farrul. 

“In what way?” said Nickel. 

Farrul didn’t respond. 

“I was born on November 18th, 2183,” said Nickel. 

“I’m July 7th, 2184,” said Farrul. 

“Huh,” said Nickel. “So if we were going to school, we’d be in the same grade.” 

Farrul said nothing. “10th grade,” said Nickel. “We’d be sophomores.” Nickel looked down at his lap and sighed. “Well, that kind of life – the normal life isn’t an option for us now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Farrul. Silence followed. “You’re talking to me even though I said I would kill you a while ago.”

“Yeah, well I’ve had worse said to me,” said Nickel. “Plus who else is there here to talk to?” To Nickel the sound of blowing wind seemed louder after he said those words. 

“Are you trying to be relatable?” asked Farrul. “Are you trying to make me relate to you?”

“No!” said Nickel. “I mean – I don’t know.”

“I don’t know much anymore,” said Nickel. “Nothing makes sense.” 

“That’s because you’ve lived your whole life until now making sense,” said Farrul. “I haven’t. My whole life has been like this.” Farrul looked up and squinted, appearing like he was in the middle of a thought. “Maybe not my whole life. Most of it. Everything I remember. Life became desperate for me since I was probably 4. After I ran away when my mom died.” There was a guttural noise in Farrul’s throat. He stopped speaking and frowned deeply. Nickel took it that that was all Farrul could manage to say. 

“That burns,” said Nickel. 

“Yeah,” said Farrul, “it does.” 

“Really though,” he said. “Don’t take it personal.” Nickel frowned. 

“You keep saying that, then you keep telling me why you hate me and why we’re different from each other,” said Nickel. 

“Hate keeps me alive,” said Farrul. 

“You sure about that?” asked Nickel. “You don’t look too great right now, all hateful and such. You’re sick and you look demented.” 

“Everything is confusing for me too,” said Farrul, “so hate gives me sustenance. Something to hold on to. Something to understand. There’s nothing else I can understand.”

Nickel opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. 

“You know, I get that,” said Nickel, sighing. “I actually get that.” 

Suddenly, Farrul chuckled. Nickel looked at Farrul with eyes squinting in bemusement. 

“Sometimes hating is harder than I think it is,” said Farrul. His face twitched. It was now visible that he was suppressing a smile. The edges of his lips upturned and then he forced them downwards. He let out what was half of an exhale and half of a laugh. 

“Who the glibb am I kidding?’ he yelled. He burst into loud giggles. Nickel giggled too. They snorted and howled with laughter. 

“WHAT THE GLIBB?” shouted Nickel. 

“Yeah, right?” said Farrul. 

“We’re both gonna die someday anyways!” said Nickel. Both of the boys squeezed their eyes and rocked side to side as they shook in fits of laughter. “Oh………man – that’s crazy.” 

Their laughter dwindled and they chuckled softly. Soon enough, their laughter had subsided entirely. Farrul was leaning his back against the tent with his knees bent and Nickel leaned out of his sack, lying on his side with his shoulder pushing into the ground. They both smiled sheepishly. 

Their eyes drifted to Steve. His large belly slowly rose and fell. Long graying strands of hair stuck out of a thin patch of skin exposed at the bottom of his shirt. His shaggy hair hung over his eyes. He snored loudly and drool seeped out of his gaping mouth. 

“So…………. he’s the one who’s going to tell us how to get out of here?” said Nickel. “Can’t even keep the drool in of his mouth. I mean I don’t know if I can either – but that’s a whole lot of composure right there.” Nickel and Farrul fell back into guffawing. 

“He’s probably dreaming of Hedonim hookers!” said Farrul. He pointed at Steve’s pants. “Just wait till his pants start r-”

Steve growled loudly and lunged upwards at Farrul. He grabbed Farrul’s head and in one swift motion, wrapping an arm around it, tucked Farrul’s entire noggin under his armpit. 

“You’re so funny, eh?” said Steve grinning widely. Farrul was yelling unintelligibly. He was also smiling. “I know you, boy! You wish you was the one dreaming! Don’t project your adolescent fantasies onto me!” He let go of Farrul. His hair was even more disheveled and many of the pale blue flakes had fallen off his body. Steve patted Farrul on his back. Farrul was still grinning, showcasing his grey teeth. 

“Any man who lets me hassle him is a good man in my book,” said Steve. “In return, I help him out and show him what I’ve learned.” Steve eyed Nickel. “That goes for you too, sir. Keep that in mind.”

Nickel smiled awkwardly. Steve stood up. He grabbed a flask of water and took a long swig. Once he finished, he put it down and burped. 

“I better stay standing. Or else, I’ll keep passing out. There’s no use in that.” He looked at Nickel. 

“Your hovercraft might just be the only thing that could get us out of here. You want to take us?” After a pause, he said, “your choice.” 

“I do want to,” said Nickel. Thinking about the American Eagle made him remember an unpleasant truth. “But I just now remembered – the Eagle’s running low on fuel. It’s my fault. But I didn’t know I’d get stuck in a windstorm. I don’t have enough fuel to fly high enough to recharge my ion concentration in the ionosphere.” 

“That’s tough,” said Steve. “Most people who get stuck in these plains can’t leave unless they make it to Hedonim. It seems like all you have left to do is use the Eagle, however long it takes to safely make it to Hedonim.”

“Yeah,” said Nickel. He said nothing afterwards, invoking an uncomfortable silence during which he was yet again filled with wariness about helping two people he’d just met. But their shared experiences in dreamworld held him back from leaving Steve and Farrul behind. 

“I have a working knowledge of these plains,” said Steve. “I haven’t traveled on foot far from here, but I’ve seen this place from high above. There are clusters of high rock in different places. You would want to watch out for the signs that you’re getting closer to them. Getting over them would be very hard. The same thing goes for chasms. I’ve seen wrecked tunnels and turbines from above. I think there’s a group of tunnels to the west, turbines tons of miles past that and then an old transport terminal – the one that was in your dream to the north of that. I’ve seen what the power plant looked like back in the day. Once we figure where we are in relation to some of the bigger stuff here, I can see where everything ends and where Hedonim begins. Going out there is really our only hope. That sound good to you, Nickel?”

“Yeah,” Nickel muttered. He couldn’t think of any better option. 

“A windstorm will start up soon,” said Steve. “We’ll wait for it to end before going to your ship.” 

“So we missed shine-day I guess,” said Farrul sighing. “No meds for the rest of the week.” 

“But we’ve got something better,” said Steve. 

“Steve, just hours ago you were yelling at me for messing up shine-day!” said Farrul. 

“That doesn’t matter now. Not when we’ve got a big opportunity on our hands.”

They waited in an erratic atmosphere of angst inside of the tent. Soon enough, the windstorm started outside. The frame of the tent shuddered and the walls flapped loudly. The wooden chest shook up and down. Nickel got out of the sleeping sack and sat cross-legged against the wall. His body was strained, but frenetic with anticipation of the ordeals to come. 

He wouldn’t be living inside the Eagle alone anymore. It was a liberation. As the thought settled into his mind, he felt a release from the routine of the past months, but also felt overwhelmed at the prospect of a new life to come. Steve and Farrul huddled against the tent, sitting and staring ahead with eyes that showed the same feeling of anxiety and excitement. 

When the wind outside receded from a screaming howl to a whistle, Steve got up. 

“Time to go,” he said. Farrul slowly stood up. 

Get up, Nickel told himself. It didn’t work. Farrul looked at Nickel expectantly. Nickel stretched his legs and moved towards Steve and the entrance of the entrance of the tent. 

If he had a chance to live with people again, Nickel would not mess up by letting them down. In that instant, he decided that being alone was one of the worst things in the world.

Once they’d all stepped outside and Nickel had closed up the tent’s interior curtain and the tent itself, he caught sight of the Eagle. It was still looming in front of the campsite, obscured by orange and parked in the same location and position as before the storm. 

“My god, that’s a hell of a craft,” muttered Steve. “……..beautiful.” 

“You didn’t see it before?” asked Nickel. 

“After a windstorm, fog clears out for a bit,” said Steve. “Then the curtain goes back up.”

“Oh – in that case, LET’S GO!” said Nickel. He started towards his hovercraft, standing tall and unmoving less than a mile away. Nickel heard Steve and Farrul’s footsteps from behind, but swaths of air were still billowing around him, pushing him from many directions. So he slowed his pace until he was jogging. Even that was disorienting. He felt dizzy and the Eagle was now to his left, in the direction opposite to the force of most of the wind. 

Nickel stopped and surveyed the landscape. He had strayed too far. The Eagle appeared in the orange ahead of him, but to the left, only a couple meters away. 

“Nickel!” shouted Farrul. “Come back! Your ship’s here! You’re going the wrong way!” Nickel saw Farrul and Steve’s faint bodies a long way behind him to the left. He took off after them, meeting them with their arms around each other, slowly moving forward. 

“The storm’s over, but the wind isn’t done dying,” said Steve. “Stay with us.” Nickel did as he was told and together, they made it to the hull of the ship. They weren’t sure it was there until they touched its hard surface, soaking in the fog. 

“Allright, how do we get in?” asked Steve. 

“Through the side, behind,” said Nickel. “Wait – something’s off………. I think I’m missing something.” Steve and Farrul stared at Nickel while he tried to solve the mystery in silence. 

“Was it what you were wearing when you met us?” asked Steve.

 “DAMN IT!” exclaimed Nickel. “My glibbing bod-suit! That’s actually important.” 

“Do you want to go get it?” asked Steve. “We’ve only got so much time before another storm. 20 to 30 minutes.” 

Nickel silently pondered his options. 

“No,” he said. “I want to show you guys inside. Plus, I don’t know if I can leave you guys inside alone. The craft is tricky when you’re not used to it.” Nickel walked along the hull of the ship to the left. He motioned his hand for them to follow him. “Wouldn’t want you guys getting hurt, or you guys hurting the American Eagle.” 

Farrul was in awe. Entrails of orange fog swam around the large beast of a machine that Nickel was guiding him and Steve towards. It was tall. Looming. Rusted, but magnificent. The entire hull had a greyish sheen, dotted and striped with red splotches of rust. 

His breath caught in his throat. Steve planted a foot forward, leaning on Farrul, pushing him forward. He followed Steve’s movement, walking alongside the old man. They moved around the curve of the hovercraft. 

Feelings of overwhelming hatred and distrust resurfaced. What did he do to get this craft? Why should I trust him? Those feelings and thoughts were soon blotted out by awe and intimidation. We’re still going? How long is this hovercraft? He continued to follow Nickel. The movement of his limbs uninterrupted by his thoughts and emotions. 

“How-” rasped Farrul. He cleared his throat. “How long is this hovercraft?”

“Pretty long, but we’re almost there!” replied Nickel without turning around. “Just keep – oh! Watch out – for these knobs right here!” he said, tapping rectangular boxes protruding from the side of the craft. There was a dull echo. Nickel walked over the knobs. 

“Yeah,” said Farrul. He wanted to say that he would have taken the precaution without being told. However, the agency of his voice died, leaving him silent. The closer he got to the knob, the more he could see a darkness near it. It was becoming sharper, even darkening the orange fog moving through. 

When he passed the boxes, he looked up and saw wide triangular wings jutting out from the Eagle. When he moved to see its rear, he saw incredibly large circular ports embedded into it. He guessed that was where the exhaust came out from or where the engines were. 

“Alright, now follow me!” said Nickel. 

“We already are,” said Farrul. 

“No, but follow me into here,” said Nickel. He was still facing forward. He ran to a wide square-shaped hatch. It was the same rusted color as the body of the ship. Nickel jerked the circular latch at the center in one turning motion. 

There was a loud click followed by the door squealing as Nickel pulled it open against the entranceway. Orange air moved into the Eagle. 

“All right, I think I………….” started Nickel, before receding into mumbles. 

Farrul and Steve walked towards the open hatch immediately. 

“Oh, man, I can’t wait to go inside,” said Farrul. Steve nudged him forward with his weight. “Glibb man! I’ve been waiting for so many glibbing years. Been stuck out here in this shithole for so long,” Farrul whimpered. He couldn’t help himself. His mother would hate to see how things turned out for him. Crying for a hovercraft to save him. 

Why can’t she be here? thought Farrul. His arm loosened around Steve who wobbled with insecurity. Why can’t she be saved like me? He started sobbing quietly. 

“Let’s go!” he cried. He used his little energy as forcefully as possible. He walked very fast. Steve stumbled even more, trying to catch up with Farrul. 

“Wait!” said Nickel, holding out his hand. 

“No!” said Farrul. “I’ve been waiting so-”

“Listen to him!” hissed Steve. “You’ll be fine!” He thumped Farrul’s chest. 

What am I doing? thought Farrul. 

“Allright,” he said. He couldn’t let his emotions best him. Anger and aggression helped him fight back in the foster programs and labor camps he got switched around after his mother died, but the anger and aggression always hurt. Farrul was tired of hurting. “Allright, I’m sorry.” He stood still against Steve who chose to lean against the Eagle. The water that had been forming at his eyes wavered and a familiar deadbeat exhaustion swept through him, replacing his momentary anger and frustration. 

Nickel stood and looked at them with troubled eyes for a while, until he relaxed and looked at his feet, before swiftly walking through the entranceway. He slammed the door behind him and it clicked loudly. 

After a long moment of howling, but slowing wind, Nickel opened the entrance hatch and holding it open, beckoned Steve and Farrul inside. Where the orange entrails of fog neared the opening in the entrance, bright interior lights made the orange a lighter shade. 

The light cast itself as a bright halo on Nickel’s body. Nickel’s eyes were smaller, softer. He suddenly smiled, the edges of his mouth stretching in quick spurts until they were wide with warmth. 

“Come,” Nickel said softly. 

He looked like an angel beckoning Farrul into heaven. In that moment, Farrul realized that all it took was one angelic character to lay out a hand – to offer kindness in a world – in a life of cruelty and despair. This was one of the few moments in his life – this was one of the few people who touched Farrul with kindness and charity. His mother came before. Then Steve. Now Nickel. 

“Go,” whispered Steve. He planted a foot forward. Farrul had lost himself in the moment and Steve was too exhausted to walk by himself. Farrul gritted his teeth and trudged forward alongside Steve, moving closer to the light of the American Eagle until he was enveloped in it.

By G.R. Nanda

Fearing another slap to the face, Nickel narrated his dream, stammering and pausing to catch his breath. Throughout Nickel’s recollection, Steve looked on, frowning and unflinching. However, his eyes relaxed and a small smile formed on his lips when Nickel mentioned the singing woman who followed him, unseen. As Nickel continued to speak, Steve continued to frown.

He told Steve about running outside while being chased by soldiers with guns. He told him about burning alive, then falling down the cliff. Recalling the memory made him shudder with discomfort, despite it fading into the abyss of memory and dream. Finally he told him about the visions he had while falling into the large dome. 

When Nickel stopped speaking, Steve just nodded his head and sighed. No one spoke and all Nickel heard was the wind outside. 

“What was all of that?” said Nickel. “It was so vivid. The most vivid dream I’ve ever had.” 

“These are the things you see when you perform the acht-chi, the trance that we terrestrial wanderers have learned to use over time. But use it sparingly, because over time it will kill you.”

Nickel’s eyes widened in fear. 

“What did you do to me?” Nickel shouted. His chest bobbed up and down as he began to breathe heavily. Steve reached out and pressed his hand on Nickel’s sleeping sack above his chest.

“Calm down, Nickel,” Steve said. “Breathe slower. Bring your-.” Nickel shot his hand out of his sack and shoved Steve’s arm away. 

“What did you do to me?” Nickel screamed. 

“I opened you to a world you were hiding from on your hovercraft!” said Steve. “I promise-Nickel-I promise I won’t make you perform the acht-chi anytime soon! The acht-chi is the only path to dreamworld. When you inhale these orange fumes, you see outside of yourself, through the fume all across these plains.” 

“I have the dreams and so does Farrul. We all see different things in dreamworld. With enough dreamers, we have enough pieces of the puzzle.” Steve nodded his head and smiled. “I think we have all the pieces of the puzzle.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nickel. 

“I think the dreaming has finally been worth it,” said Steve. “You don’t know. I’ve been dreaming so much, it’s killing me! It’s stretching me! Wearing me thin. Weakening my nervous system — making it weaker than it’s already been made in this wasteland.” Steve’s face twisted in pained expression. He moved away from Nickel and leaned against the tent. His eyes were watery and glazed over. 

“That’s what it does to you,” he whispered. “Slowly, bit by bit, it will kill you. You feel great — powerful when you do the acht-chi. Then after the electricity leaves you, you crash. The more you do it, the more your body will degenerate.” He shook his head. “I won’t do that to you. I only need to see through your mind-see what the sorceress wants you to see. Then I can piece it all together.”

“Sorceress?” said Nickel. “What sorceress? What’s dreamworld? I don’t believe in magic! What’s going on?”

“Magic?” said Steve. “Magic is in the eye of the beholder. Is the kraken magic? No, my friend. You can walk over the canyons into the depths of the basin, beyond the Ghost City into the bottom of the dried up ocean and what’s there? What’s there, Nickel? What’s there are the cracked dried up festering skeletons of SQUIDS! The kraken is real!” 

“The lady sorceress is real,” said Farrul in a low voice. “She sings to us in our dreams. She sings to those who perform the acht-chi and shows us what’s beyond these canyons. You can’t pretend this stuff. I don’t pretend!” Farrul’s shivering and flaky face frowned and he spoke his next words in a growl. “Don’t you take us to be some lying savages or crackpots! I know that’s what us — the suffering — look like to you fancy flyboys cruisin’ around safe in your goddamn glibbing spaceships!” He spat the last words, spittle flying from his lips and landing at Nickel’s sack. 

“I don’t have a spaceship,” muttered Nickel. “If you’d told me about the acht-chi and dreamworld before, I wouldn’t have believed you. I would’ve thought of it as a-a-a hallucination, the hallucinations of the sick and dying. Or something else. I would have resorted to science. But nothing I’ve seen in dreamworld can be explained by any of the science I’ve learned so far.”

He locked eyes with Farrul. “I believe you. It’s impossible for me not to. Not after I saw those silver men and that place — that big glowing place with the skyscrapers and half-naked women. It was all so….. lucid.” Nickel closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his forehead. The dream experience was fading. But the images, the sounds- they still haunted him. Motherless men, suddenly rang the voice of the woman – the sorceress in Nickel’s head. Fighting nature’s amends. The feeling of burning was gone, but the memory of hot light and his charring skin remained. Nickel looked at Farrul and Steve. 

“Nothing feels the same,” Nickel said. “Nothing would ever be the same if I went back to my ship. Trust me, I believe you.” 

“That’s good,” said Steve. “Because we need your dream, a third dream is what we needed to make a bigger picture. Narrating it after awakening helps you hold the memory of the dream.” 

“What do you guys see in your dreams?” asked Nickel. 

“Farrul never did the acht-chi today. I did though. I saw what I usually see, plus a little more or in some different part, just as usual. I saw a dark place at the bottom of the canyon. I saw phantoms, pale blue projections of people using AR technology, fooling around at the bottom of the canyon. I saw them walking beyond me and beyond the windows in front of me. These windows were huge and sticking out of the canyon floor. After that, I always get pushed by the wind onto a highway. I’m just rolling down these dark, long and winding roads. Sometimes, I slam into cars and hovercrafts. But no one’s ever inside of them. Then, I fall into caves where I see machinery and glowing contraptions. Then, there’s always a creepy tall man with spectacles, sitting in an armchair.” 

“When I’m in dreamworld, I see a place up above,” said Farrul. “I roll down a rock face and then I crash down on the roof of a hotel. I fall in and I get stuck in a massive piano. The piano plays super loud while the lady sings all around me. But of course, I can’t see the bitch. She sings words like, ‘piano keys humming. Machine guns are drumming.’ Then the lights go out. Silver soldiers fire their guns at me and I go down the hotel. Everything falls.” He stopped speaking and frowned at Nickel. “Why should I tell you any of this?” 

“I don’t know,” muttered Nickel. “But it seems like all of our dreams take place in the same canyon around here. If it’s all real, then it’s not probably not far off from here.” 

“Yes!” said Steve. “Connecting the dots already. For some reason, the sorceress wanted a third dreamer to show us the whole picture. Farrul always talked about a glowing blue city outside of the hotel, long cables stretching into the horizon, communication towers and broken roads. I knew they were connected by the singing sorceress, but I had no clue how the places were connected. Same landmass. Rocky. Orange. But now-” He spread his arms and tilted his shaking palms towards Nickel. “Now I see. We needed you. I needed you. It was for the dream you just had. It was for that you were destined to fall from the sky with an arc to give me a vision and save me-save us from destitution!” Steve’s arms shook uncontrollably. His face twisted and tears fell out of his eyes. 

“You gotta be kidding me,” said Farrul, laughing and shaking his head. He scowled at Nickel. “We don’t come from where you come!” he growled. “We’re not privileged like you!” He coughed. “Nothing we do is to serve you. I wanna make that clear!” 

“What did I do to piss you off?” said Nickel, edging out of his sleeping sack and up the surface of the tent behind him to level his head with Farrul’s. 

“Only beat me to the ground!” said Farrul. 

“That wasn’t even that hard though!” said Nickel. “And you went after me first!”

“Listen!” spat Farrul. “I don’t owe you anything because you came out of the sky in a hovercraft, wearing a fancy body-suit. You’re no Messiah to me. If I needed to, I could kill you myself. I might be sick, but I’ve suffered in this weather long enough to learn some tricks you don’t know.” 

“SILENCE!” said Steve, flinching out of his sob into a hardened angry face, and sitting up rigidly. Nickel jerked backwards and Farrul ceased rocking. “I’ll have none of this! None of this threatening or blaming!” He scowled with glowering eyes as his right hand pointed upwards. “Nickel is no Messiah! No chosen one! And I never said so. But his arrival will save us and killing him won’t help us.” 

He whirled to his right towards a hunched over Farrul. “If you even try to harm or kill anyone here — in any way — I will make you feel pain worse than being shredded by the teeth of a glibb!” He wheezed loudly. His eyelids moved closer to each other and falling back onto the wall of the tent, he breathed deeply through an open mouth. 

Nickel felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what to think of Steve’s feelings. It was clear to him that Farrul was jealous of him, but he thought that Steve might be making it worse. 

“I still don’t understand what the place in our dreams is,” said Nickel, trying to steer the dialogue away from anger. “I mean — is it all even one single place?” 

“The Desolate Plains weren’t always desolate, Nickel,” said Steve. “Long ago a power plant of some sort existed where we’re camping. It was all part of an energy suppliant infrastructure stretching all around the bottom of the dried up Atlantic ocean. Seafloor farming. Big powerful generators of electricity were here. If you traveled far enough, you might see their wreckage. It’s ugly.”

“The volatile atmosphere was harnessed. Big fast winds were located at their hotspots and used for power. Everything was big and fast and exciting. People visited from their shrinking and dried up countries to see this new technology at the bottom of the seafloor.” 

“This was a glibbing tourism destination believe it or not!” Steve said, chuckling and waving his arms around. “The winds weren’t this bad and windstorms mostly occured in pocketed areas where air density was unique enough for them to be harnessed for energy.”

“But there were accidents. Accidents with the radiation plants and their power generators. At first they were contained. Their sectors were shut down. But people were foolish. They kept the tourism going. People went on tours of the plant in hovercrafts, traveling in safe channels carved into the plains. And these plains were getting windier and really toxic.”

“You see — this large-scale power plant was powering an even bigger tourism destination, tacked away at the bottom of the canyon — the entertainment, extravaganza-theme-park-of-a-city  — the city of Hedonim! It was the new Las Vegas! No more Vegas. No more Dubai! No more Orlando! It was all Hedonim now! That’s where all the fun was. Every real-estate firm was applying for property there. Casinos, amusement parks, city squares, theaters, restaurants, strip-clubs, brothels, hotels, motels. All of that was built there. You had shows all around the city. People pouring in, people pouring out. No one stayed. Virtual reality parks galore. It was addicting. If you didn’t exercise some self-control, it could swallow you whole. You’d lose a gambling bet or waste money on those slot machines, or get too wasted, then you’re barfing on the pavement, facedown without a place to sleep while everyone’s walking past you disgusted.”

“But for most people, you dipped in and out quick enough, you’d feel a shit ton of dopamine, but little enough to keep you sane. A lot of pleasure was guaranteed in Hedonim. Especially a lot of sex.” 

“Was a young man in Hedonim once.” Steve grinned sheepishly. His eyes were glazed over. “Felt a lot of things in myself and a woman for the first time there.” 

Farrul snorted. 

“How hard is it to say that you had sex with hookers in Hedonim?” said Farrul. “Are you still ashamed of buying prostitutes?”

Steve frowned and slowly turned to Farrul. 

“You shut the glibb up right now!” said Steve. “I don’t need these little comments from you! They’re all besides the point! I’ve gotten laid before! That’s more than you can say!” He laughed loudly, wheezing when he was finished. “Isn’t that right?” he chuckled. “That’s more than you too Nickel,” he said looking at Nickel. “I don’t expect a boy born into military conduct to have lost his until marriage.”

“Now listen boys,” he said, raising his hands and looking at the two boys. “If you listen to me — do as I say, both of you,” he said pointing at them, “might have time to lose yours with a ghost in Hedonim.”

“Ok — alright,” said Nickel, feeling uncomfortable. “Tell me more about Hedonim and what else is out there in these canyons. “I thought Hedonim was a failed seafloor basin city in the Atlantic Ocean. I thought the amusement parks went bankrupt and glibbed up their whole economy until everyone left.”

“Oh, no,” said Steve. He snorted. “Back in my day, everyone could try to learn this stuff on the internet. I hadn’t realized how uninformed Americans are without it.”

“It wasn’t the amusement parks going bankrupt,” said Steve. “It was an accident here at the power plant that used to exist.”

“What?” said Nickel. 

“The overseers were reckless. They maintained a tourism environment –built it as fast and for as cheap as they could. Combustion was a usual occurrence here. They’d just move their man-made channels and hovercrafts away from the combustion for the tourists. But soon enough, that wasn’t enough. Whole place blew up. Hundreds of thousands died. But the damage didn’t stop there.” 

“Toxic radiation from the plant spreads throughout the atmosphere. The already volatile atmosphere is made worse. That’s how we got here, kid. That’s what all this orange gas is outside.”

“How are you not dead?” asked Nickel. “How am I not dead?” 

“I’ve told you,” said Steve, “It only weakens you and your immune system. Doesn’t kill you directly. But look-” Steve raised his arms. “I’m no expert. I’ve just gathered information. I’m no scientist. I’m just a cook. Everything I’m saying is what I’ve observed over time and what people smarter and more knowledgeable have told me, or I’ve heard them saying.” 

“But this gas gets down into Hedonim, makes the whole place inhospitable. Bye-bye industry! Everyone leaves as fast as they can. Lot o’ money’s lost. But guess what? The capitalists can’t leave it alone. Too much money’s been invested on it! Whaddya’ gonna do about the whole structures — whole skyscrapers that’ve been put up there?”

“You revamp the place. That’s what you do. Virtual reality’s been big in entertainment tech! You had them in Hedonim. But hold up! There’s AR! Augmented reality, projecting things and places that don’t exist onto your physical environment. Governor of Hedonim calls up Wutobang group from China and the AR division of GSN from America, two hotshot AR techie groups to turn Hedonim into one big ole AR theme park.”

“AR theme park?’ said Nickel. “But I thought the atmosphere made Hedonim toxic.”

“You see,” said Steve, “a completely new network of fiber optic cables was built for Hedonim, by a joint company called Hedonim Enterprises made out of Wutobang and GSN. The whole network of cables runs along the seafloor to the east coast of America. On the east coast, rich people hang out in state of the art AR haptic projection rigs. People rig themselves up to ARP rigs and a 3D holographic avatar of their bodies appear on the streets of Hedonim. Every inch of Hedonim was coated in optimized silicone latex to send information to computer banks through the cables and vice versa. In an ARP rig, you can see, feel and hear in Hedonim as if you were walking in Hedonim. Because it’s your avatar walking in Hedonim. Not you.”

There was silence. No one spoke. 

“Holy shit,” said Nickel, “…….so that’s what’s in my dream?” 

“Yes,” said Steve. “That’s what’s in all of our dreams. Hedonim.” 

“But how does the singing lady fit in?’ asked Nickel. 

“We don’t know,” said Steve. “But she’s been a part of the acht-chi for a long time. And the acht-chi is all that we can trust besides past knowledge.” 

“But I’ve never even seen anything about Hedonim on the Eagle’s navigation computer when I was piloting around this area,” said Nickel. 

“That’s because yours is a military craft, which means its computers only have military protocol information. I’m guessing it’s geographical mapping extends to routes taken in the Medditerranean War.”

“Yeah,” said Nickel. “I forgot.” Nickel then sat in silence, astounded by how much he didn’t know. He felt like the world was crushing him in how much of it was unknown to him.  

“The world was a lot smaller before the nuclear war,” said Steve. “For us, born after it, we have to look outside and parse through all the wreckage to really see what the world is about. Now that the internet isn’t as big as it used to be, that’s even harder than before.” 

“Our way out of here is into Hedonim. It’s the only known settlement close to us.” Steve smiled. “And we have a path into it.”

“How do you know our dreams are right?” asked Nickel. 

“He doesn’t,” said Farrul. “This is really our only choice. We’ve just been guessing the best we could.”

“We’ve been waiting for the dreams to connect,” said Steve. “We’ve been waiting for your dream, Nickel.” Farrul scowled behind Steve. 

“I knew Farrul and I were seeing Hedonim. But I had no clue where to look. Your dream shows me that it’s in a basin below this rock formation. And we have your hovercraft to look for Hedonim in.” Steve laughed. “I have no enlightened logic to explain the dreams, the acht-chi or the singing sorceress. But the sorceress wanted us to find you. She sees all and has gifted you with a sight from your dream.” Tears streamed down Steve’s face again. “I don’t know who or where the powers of fate are, but they’ve gifted us with your arrival. For that, we must be active and use what we have! We must go to Hedonim!”

Despite his surge of inspiration, Steve closed his eyes and his body slumped to the ground as he passed out.