Furies- Thus Spoke

  Praise for FURIES “Thus Spoke”:

  "Furies: Thus Spoke starts like a rocket and never lets up. O'Brian Gunn gives us a wildly inventive vision of technology, the future—and what it means to be human. Don't miss it!"

  - Nik Korpon, author of The Soul Standard, Stay Gold, and The Rebellion’s Last Traitor

  “Furies: Thus Spoke strikes familiar chords - people oppressed for their talents and distinctions. But, as you gaze into Gunn's tales of super-human characters, you may discover your own reflection looking back at you.”

  - R. Alan Brooks, writer and creator of The Burning Metronome

  "With nerve, verve, and visceral thrills galore, O'Brian Gunn wields Furies 'Thus Spoke' like a weapon. His target: The superhero genre. The result: A punchy yet lyrical take on how power can both uplift and corrupt, scrawled on a fabulist scale."

  - Jason Heller, Hugo Award-winning editor, pop culture contributor to The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, and more, and author of Strange Stars.

  FURIES

  “Thus Spoke”

  O’Brian Gunn

  F U R I E S

  “THUS SPOKE”

  O’Brian Gunn

  Denver, Colorado

  Published in the United States by:

  Spaceboy Books LLC

  1627 Vine Street

  Denver, CO 80206

  www.readspaceboy.com

  Text copyright © 2019 O’Brian Gunn

  Artwork copyright © 2019 Spaceboy Books LLC

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, copied, transmitted or stored at any time by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior, written permission of the publisher.

  First printed March 2019

  ISBN: 978-0-9997862-5-3

  To Grandma Ruby

  You’ve gone home, but your love and spirit remain forever in my heart.

  Soundtrack

  Episode One: Curtis Mayfair “Here But I’m Gone”

  Episode Two: Deftones “Change”

  Episode Three: Chris Cornell “Can’t Change Me”

  Episode Four: John Coltrane “Lush Life”

  Episode Five: Zero 7 “Happiness”

  Episode Six: CocoRosie “Promise Me”

  Episode Seven: Coldplay “Viva La Vida”

  Episode Eight: Regina Spektor “Us”

  Episode Nine: David Bowie “Heroes”

  Episode Ten: 311 “You Wouldn’t Believe”

  Episode Eleven: Emiliana Torrini “Wednesday’s Child”

  Episode Twelve: Roger Miller “Little Green Apples”

  Dominion City - Century Heights

  THE younger man sits leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He starts to reach for the glass of water on the living room table, drops his hand and rubs it on his thigh. A palm rests on his shoulder.

  He looks to his left at the older man who looks like him. “What is it, DJ?” Wrinkles deepen around the older man’s eyes as he twitches his brows together. “It’s just the two of us here, you can tell me.”

  DJ starts to speak, but rolls his lips under his teeth and bites down instead.

  “Son, how long have I been telling you that you can tell me anything? Hmm?”

  DJ blinks, lifts his chin.

  “Are you...are you gay?”

  Head shake.

  “Is it, ah, is it related to sex?”

  Head shake.

  “Well, I can’t sit here and guess all—”

  “I’m an Alpha-Omega.” The words tremble from DJ’s mouth and his hands quiver.

  DJ’s father doesn’t move for a moment. He slowly removes his hand from his son’s shoulder and rubs it across his thigh as the muscles in his forehead twitch.

  “I’m...I’m sorry, dad.” The words are whispered.

  His father’s fingers curl into a loose fist as the weight of implication bows him forward over his knees. “Does your mother know?” He sees his son nod out the corner of his eye as he stares at the wall of family pictures behind the loveseat across from them. “What does your gene do to you?” He speaks from behind the wall of his hand.

  The washer clicks to a stop in the laundry room down the hall, breaking the sudden layer of silence.

  DJ swallows before he speaks. “I can see emotions. They’re—” He swallows the lump in his throat. “It’s like seeing colored smoke around a person. I don’t know how I know what the different colors mean.” His shoulders slightly shake as he shrugs. “I just do.”

  His father grunts and scrapes fingertips across his forehead.

  DJ looks over at his father, the motion made with utmost care as if the man will shatter if he turns too quickly or looks too hard. “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” His father stands. “I need a second to process this.” He stalks down the hallway deeper into the house.

  DJ looks after his father as he leaves, resting his elbow on the armrest and flicking his thumb against his lips as he looks out of the window. He shakes his head and exhales a trembling breath. The truth released from his tongue feels like a fuse burning down to a domestic detonation. He wonders how bad the fallout will be. Or maybe it won’t be as tragic as—

  Footsteps sound from down the hall.

  DJ lifts his head and sees his father coming toward him with a gun down at his thigh. He stops flicking his thumb against his lips, stops breathing, hears the distant hiss of the fuse. His father’s mouth is twisted as it twitches to one side.

  DJ starts to speak, but stops when his father glares at him and inhales deep through his nose. “Why me, hmm? Why are you targeting me and my family?” He stops on the other side of the table. “My life’s not shot full of enough ragged holes, now I’ve got demons or aliens or whatever the hell you Alpha-Omegas are snatching my son up and replacing him with a clone.” The gun lifts a few inches in his hand. He drops it when he realizes what he’s doing.

  “What are you—I didn’t do this on purpose.” DJ feels the hollow ache in his chest moments before the tears start to fall, mouth pinching to the side.

  “What did you do with my son?”

  DJ’s expression shifts. “What?”

  “What the hell did you do with my son, you alien freak?” He charges forward until the table no longer separates them. Fingers tighten around the gun. “Did you shapeshift into him after you kidnapped him? I know some of you have the ability to look like other people. Seen it on the news.” The gun is lifted with conviction and pointed at the alien freak’s head. “How long have you been impersonating him?”

  “Dad, I’m—”

  “DON’T CALL ME THAT! I AM NOT YOUR FATHER, YOU HEAR ME!” He presses the barrel of the gun to the alien freak’s forehead hard enough to leave an imprint. Tears stream from the young man’s eyes, eyes he inherited from his father.

  “You are not my son.” The words are pressed out between gnashed teeth. “My son is human. Even if he was one of you, he’d never tell me. He knows how I feel about this—this genetic reawakening bullshit. You messed up.”

  “I’m still human.”

  “This won’t be the first time I’ve shot an intruder.”

  “Dad, please, I jus—”

  The gun’s pulled away for a snatch of a second only to blur towards him again. Pain and light and vertigo bombard DJ’s senses and he is on the floor. A thin stream of blood drips warm and thick from his mouth.

  Keys twist in a lock and the front door of the house is pushed open with a squeak. “Dwight Junior, I’m back. I hope all of your homework’s done.” The door closes. “Just bought that new martial arts flick you like.” A plastic bag rustles and keys clatter on the counter. “I also picked up a little something for myself. I know we can just buy movies online an
d stream them, but I just don’t trust…” Father and son look to the right and see a woman peep into the kitchen where Dwight Junior has left his backpack. “Baby boy?” They watch her walk down the hallway, not once glancing into the living room.

  DJ looks at his father, at the granite hardness in his eyes, and keeps his mouth shut.

  “DJ, I hope you’re not—” The woman steps into the living room and her hands fly up to her mouth as she gasps. Blue eyes widen. “Dwight, what the hell are you doing? Put the gun down. Now.”

  The man sways where he stands and becomes a degree more docile. “Did you know our son’s been replaced with one of those abominations, Annalise?” He nails his glare to the thing that looks like his son and watches as the eyes they share are slowly blotted out to neon blue. “I knew it. Human eyes don’t do that. Where’s my son?”

  “Your son is kneeling in front of you in tears because his father is pointing a gun at his head!” Annalise’s hands clench into fists. “His eyes started doing that a few months ago. We talked about it, there’s nothing wrong with him.”

  Dwight finally rips his glare away. “Are we both looking at the same thing? You did not give birth to this!” The gun barrel jabs accusingly. “You shouldn’t have talked about it, you should’ve done what I’m doing now.”

  “Just give me the gun before you do something else you regret.” Annalise swallows and steps forward with her quivering hand out. “We can go fill your prescriptions after this. You were like this the last time you stopped keeping up with your doses.”

  “Don’t twist this on me, Annalise. I had to decide between buying my medication and taking care of my son.” The father’s eyes narrow on the bleeding boy. “This thing looks damn convincing, but it’s not our DJ.”

  “Dwight, don’t be foo—” She bites the word. “We can discuss this, all three of us, but first, you have to put the gun away.” She takes two more steps forward. “Just give it to me.”

  “All I wanted was to rebuild our relationship, Dad.”

  Mother and father look down at their kneeling son.

  “I’ve seen how unhappy and depressed you’ve been lately.” DJ’s voice trembles over the words. “Like a cave in your chest.” Neon orbs stumble all over his father. “Now you’re hurt and you feel betrayed...by me.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I didn’t mean to do this to you, I swear. I just wanted for us to be closer.”

  “I’m coming for you, DJ.” His father lifts the gun and squeezes the trigger at the same time that Annalise throws herself at her son.

  B L A M !

  For a few fragile moments, it’s as if time stutters and gapes in naked disbelief at what it sees in itself. Then the mirror shatters and slices its way back on temporal track, bleeding truth as time hurtles forward to catch up with itself.

  Annalise looks down at the hole in her chest, the blood soaking into her blouse. She looks over at her son, shoved out of the way. She eases down on her side as if preparing to take a nap, and her breath rattles as it wheezes out.

  Both Dwights watch as Annalise Lucero dies.

  DJ glances up, eyes still charged neon. He blinks. He opens his mouth. “You—”

  B L A M !

  Dwight watches as the thing impersonating his son dies.

  Silence.

  Mouth gaping open, the man eventually melts to his knees. Fingers twitch around the blood-warm contours of the gun. Anger dissolves to agony as the arm holding the gun flops limp. His moaning cries echo through the living room.

  He turns to look at the bodies. He raises the gun to the picture of himself and Annalise holding their son just after he had been born. A sudden crack of anger seizes violently across his face. He fires shots into the wall of family photographs, bullet holes tearing through smiles, memories, laughs, and embraces.

  He aims at the window pane Dwight Jr. painted when he was five and fires a bullet in it.

  “A house full of lies.” Tears roll down his face, drool stretching from the corner of his lips. “But I’m gonna find the truth, I’m gonna find you, son. The real you.”

  He walks out of the house. He stops when he remembers how DJ’s mouth would always pinch to the side whenever he cried, the exact same way it had before he shot...him. He remembers because it was so rare that his son let anyone see him cry.

  Thoughts ricochet in his skull, looking for a way out.

  Minutes later, he goes back into the house full of lies, gun still in his hand.

  EPISODE ONE: Shift

  “WE live in uncertain times, my friends.”

  Bishop Martin’s eyes scan the congregation as he stands at the altar of the Dominion City Apostolic Faith Church. The pews are packed, leaving some members and visitors to either stand or sit in folding chairs in the back and along the aisles.

  “We live in a most dangerous city, in a most dangerous world. But I’ve got good news.” He smiles as he dabs at the sweat on his brow with a handkerchief. “God has sent his servants to us. Some people call them a scientific phenomenon, others a—a hiccup in evolution.” He shakes his head. “But not me. No, I believe that these blessings, these Alpha-Omegas, have descended from heaven to show and remind us that God hasn’t forgotten about us, that God is all around.”

  A clean-shaven man with brown-blonde hair and slightly parted lips nods from where he stands, blue gaze gripped by the bishop’s words.

  “Some of them have forgotten they’re holy agents, vessels of the Almighty. Instead of guiding mankind from the clutches of Satan, they use their gifts, their blessing, for evil. They kill, steal, and destroy.” He blinks and looks out at the crowd. “Just like Satan.”

  A ripple of agreement skips through the church.

  “It’s our job to bring them back to the light. Bring them back to God where they belong.” His voice rises along with a few waving hands in the audience. “Back where we all belong!”

  “Amen!”

  “It is up to us, members of the Apostolic faith, to remind those who have been blessed by God but don’t yet know him. We have to show them.”

  “Yes!”

  “Touch their souls and show them the majesty of God!” He bounces on his heels and starts to stride back and forth across the pulpit in excited, jerky movements. “I refuse to allow them to wallow in sin, to drown in the black waters of evil and spiritual degradation.” His amplified voice grips his listeners by the bones and rattles them, jarring them from their seats into animated reply.

  “Preach!”

  “It is our job as Christians and disciples of God to gather His army, call His troops to the battlefield, raise the banner of war.”

  The interior of the church resounds with an effulgent chorus of, “Yes!”

  “Amen!”

  “Hallelujah!”

  Bishop Martin walks down the aisle, pressing a hand to tilted heads and sending up supplications to God. He continues, offering a smile and a kind word to some and a stern stare and whispered advice to others. The blue-eyed man grips the pew as he looks up, parted lips working silently as he entreats the Lord to continue to give him the strength and wisdom needed to bring lost lambs back to the holy flock. The expression on the approaching bishop’s face is one of bewildered wonder. He raises his arm almost absently, hand quivering at first and then stilling.

  Bishop Martin spreads his fingers and touches the man’s forehead, closing his eyes as he mutters an indecipherable word before gently shoving the man back.

  A silver-white light that no one seems to notice glows where hand met flesh.

  The blue-eyed man’s spine goes rigid as he lifts his hands to the ceiling, to heaven, and begins to call out the Lord’s name. Through half-lidded eyes he sees a silver glow cover his fingers, sparkling with warm radiance. The Lord’s name catches in his throat and coils through his brain.

  He opens his eyes wider and lowers his palms.

  The silver-white glow wavers, wanes, and gradually fades.

  The blue-eyed man clenches his hands into soft fis
ts and lifts his eyes to the cross at the head of the church with the image of Jesus Christ draped across the wood and drenched in golden light. His Savior’s eyes seem to focus on him. His Savior’s eyes burn platinum.

  The blue-eyed man drops to his knees as tears and prayers pour out of him. Members of the congregation gather around, laying hands on him and joining in prayer with clenched eyes and imploring tongues.

  “Yes, that’s right. Tell God what you need, tell Him what’s on your heart. He already knows what’s troubling us, but tell Him anyway.” Bishop Martin returns to the pulpit and fans himself with his handkerchief. His eyes are glued to the man in the center of the mass of lifted hands. “Yes, Lord, yes.”

  The clean-shaven man with brown-blonde hair and blue eyes is named Adam Kensie.

  Yellow-green eyes snap open as dry lips part and air rushes into deflated lungs.

  Vision is a blurred and disorienting thing in the confines of the murk-smeared room.

  A murk-smeared bedroom. The yellow-green orbs waver left and see the naked woman stretched out chest down next to him on the bed, red and gold locks spraying across her back.

  She doesn’t move.

  A trembling hand rises into the frame of vision to touch her back. Stillness. Her cheek. Cooling. Her neck. Nothing.

  The brain connects to the yellow-green eyes connect to the dry mouth that parts but emits no sound. The eyes register the body in which they reside sliding off the bed, emerald sheets slipping away. Balance is assaulted by disequilibrium. Ears are drowning in droning white noise.

  The yellow-green eyes droop down and notice the slacks around feet and pallid ankles. Confusion. A flaccid penis rests between pale legs, the tip still a bit shiny and wet. Embarrassment. Hands draw up the pants and clutch them there with yellowing fingernails.