LotS/The Story/Lu Bu's Halloween
ZONE INTRO
Lanjin Cheng, twenty years ago...
"I'm going to suck your blood!" the vampire intoned.
His red-smeared mouth widened, revealing a pair of sinister fangs that promised to pierce the flesh of the living and bring about an exsanguinating feast of crimson death.
Sun Xi laughed. But only for a moment. When she saw the look of disappointment on the vampire's little face, she suppressed her merriment and assumed a look of terror. She even gave a little shriek -- which made the young boy's eyes sparkle and drew a grateful smile from his mother's lips.
"Stop scaring Mistress Sun!" the woman chided.
"Sorry, mother!" the vampire said, though the pride in his eyes belied his words.
A crowd of diminutive witches, werewolves, zombies, ghosts, and other assorted horrors careened into the marketplace from one of the pedestrian paths. They filled the air with exhilarated shrieks, howls, and bloodcurdling roars, before dashing across the square -- raising clawed fingers and glaring terrible doom at shoppers, merchants, and passersby with cheerful impartiality. Most of those victims laughed or frowned in accordance with their natures. A few played along and gratified the children with their apparent terror. One or two stall-keepers added genuine screams and shouts to the medley when the children bumped into their merchandise.
The vampire ran off to join the horrific horde. His mother sighed, gave Sun Xi the resigned expression of long-suffering parenthood, and followed at a more sedate pace.
Mistress Sun beamed at the children's departing backs until they vanished around a corner. There were many on Sian who bristled at the festival's observance. Some went so far as to declare that shopkeepers were debasing their own culture in the name of commerce. Part of her wondered how anyone could feel so bitter after witnessing the wondrous joy Halloween evoked in children. But in truth, the nature of human thoughts and emotions were no secret to her of all women.
She continued her stroll, letting her gaze roam across the stalls and storefronts. Every sight brought a fresh gentle twitch to her lips. Holographic phantoms flitted here and there, dancing in the warm evening air. Some were amorphous creatures, little more than vaguely humanoid bed sheets adorned with round black eyes and gaping ebon mouths which shaped smiles or ghastly howls. Others were rather more detailed. On her right a cartoonish man was fleeing for his life from an equally cartoonish axe-wielding psychopath. The psychopath was evidently an athletic fellow, for he caught up to the unfortunate gentleman and proceeded to hack him to bits with savage blows from his weapon. Holographic blood and gore rained in all directions.
Sun Xi raised her eyebrow. Several nearby women gasped. But the children simply laughed and ran beneath the unreal confetti of carnage, as though it were a blazing summer day and they were playing under a fountain's cooling splashes. She shook her head and walked on.
"Ghost, Mistress Sun?"
An elderly woman bowed at her from behind a stall. Between them, covering its surface in the orderly arrangements of a military force on display, was a vast assortment of ghoulish treats -- from slivers of cake shaped and iced in the image of severed fingers to marzipan zombie heads and steamed buns splashed as though with blood.
The stall-keeper extended a wrinkled hand over the sugary battalions. It clasped a yellow-white specter. Sun Xi bowed, and reached out her own soft, slender fingers to accept it. They brushed the woman's hand...
A young girl plays a flute, sending trills of haunting music through an open window. The notes drift out into the world, where the other children laugh and play. They escape to a freedom that she herself is denied. The girl's mother has told her to practice. To become skilled. To make her proud. She doesn't want to disappoint her mother.
...and took hold of the white chocolate ghost it passed to her.
Mistress Sun sighed. Confusion slipped across the old woman's face. So Sun Xi flashed a quick, bright smile, and moved to swipe her credits.
"No, no! Please!" the woman said.
The stall-keeper's outstretched hand brooked no disagreement. So Sun Xi expressed her gratitude, bowed, and slipped the chocolate into her mouth. Her teeth penetrated its phantasmal form, sundered it into creamy chunks that tingled her tongue and the roof of her mouth with their silky sweetness. She gave a little murmur of pleasure. The old woman's face lit up, as though she were the one tasting the treat instead of Mistress Sun.
Sun Xi thanked her once more, and said -- making sure her voice carried without seeming raised -- that the chocolate had been delicious. When she turned and continued on her way, men and women were already crowding around the stall. If its goods were worthy enough to delight the Emperor's respected advisor...
She smiled as the noise of the old woman's commerce blended into the overall babble the tumult of the market. Then the corners of her mouth descended until her lips were pursed. A single touch had brought that glimpse of the lady's past to her inner eye, unbidden and unwanted. It was the second time such a thing had happened that week. She'd dismissed the first, deemed it a simple quirk of psionic happenstance -- an isolated curiosity brought about by a weary and careless mind. But now... Perhaps she should speak to Wu Tenchu, and seek his counsel.
Mistress Sun walked on. She tried to find distraction in the market's sounds and spectacles once more.
A little witch was riding a broomstick, and complaining to her mother when it failed to take flight. Nearby a small werewolf was dribbling a basketball. Sun Xi wondered if werewolves usually played that particular sport. It seemed unlikely. She'd never seen it happen, anyway. Thugby would perhaps be a more appropriate athletic activity for lycanthropes.
That absurd train of thought returned the smile to her lips. She continued on her way, and allowed her gaze to wander over the stalls with their various seasonal offerings. Sweets and toys for children, pumpkin sake and vodka for adults... Halloween's grand grim bounty was displayed on all sides.
"Bob for apples, Mistress Sun?"
The grinning man gestured towards a large, ornate basin filled with dark crimson liquid. Scarlet apples lurked within its bloody depths, each of their stalks inviting the teeth of adventurous fruit-lovers. A teenage girl stood beside it, staring into the redness like a scryer. Then she took aim, and dived. Her head descended towards one of the apples in a sharp, predatory lunge. Her teeth snapped. When she rose, an apple hung from her victorious jaws. Her face and hair were splashed and dripping. It looked like she'd stood too close to a chainsaw-wrought massacre. But her eyes gleamed, and the people around her applauded.
As for Sun Xi, she uttered polite words of demurral, and moved along.
The next stall was a riot of orange -- its entire length, double that of any of the others nearby, dedicated to Halloween's fruit. Oft neglected during the rest of the year, forced to inhabit the gloom while strawberries, bananas, and other more popular fruits basked in the sun, it now sat resplendent in all its gristly finery.
There were organic pumpkins in every size. Some were unmarred, a row of blank faces ready to receive whatever identity a customer saw fit to buy or -- if they were confident enough in the steadiness of their hands and the caliber of their artistic capabilities -- bestow. Sculpting implements lay on the vendors' side of the table, lest those steel blades or laser-edged cutting tools be mistaken for props, snatched up by high-spirited children, and the cause of bloody mayhem.
Other pumpkins had already been carved by expert hands, the orange flesh sliced and shaped to grant them dreadful visages, gleeful smiles, witches flying across full moons, wolves howling at the same, and countless other impressive things as well. Sun Xi marveled at each of these in turn, wondering how the most intricate had come to dwell on so unlikely a canvas.
At last her roaming gaze passed over the last of them, and onto the synthetic versions -- artificial pumpkins for those who wanted something more permanent. Many were cheap and cheerful, just plastic buckets with lights behind their eyes and mouths, made for children to fill their innards with whatever comestibles they managed to beg or threaten from the neighbors. But the most elaborate were works of art in their own right -- sculpted metal jack o' lanterns with murderous eyes, shrouded in...
A planet explodes in the void. A world of wonder dies, and bequeaths its legacy to the galaxy. It's a sight that should leave her awestruck, overwhelmed by the cosmic magnitude and existential importance of what she's witnessing. But she's seen it before. She knows of that place, which existed beyond the knowledge or even the faintest suspicion of those who live and breathe in the present age.
She's seen it before. And yet this time... This time something is different.
A tiny fragment, a miniscule sliver, dominates her consciousness. The rest of the cataclysm slips away in its wake. This single chunk, one piece of vanished greatness, draws her senses. She probes it. Her mental fingers, across the gulf of time and space, reach out and touch it... It burns. She flinches and withdraws them. It's as though blazing flame lashed out and bit at her. No. Not flame. A darker thing. Malevolence.
But she glimpsed something before it drove her away. This fragment of ill-omen, cast into the void from a world whose time has come and gone, serves as a tomb. It bears an ancient corpse in its cold, lifeless womb.
The journey takes centuries. Perhaps millennia. She can't tell. Time, space, and thought's relationship is complex and ever-shifting. It doesn't matter. Not to her, and not to the malevolence. Its hatred and its dark desires don't diminish by an atom in all that time. They burn in ebon tongues, then rise in triumphant inferno when a world appears in its path.
An interstellar odyssey which began with an explosion terminates with one as well. The tomb smashes into the surface of the planet, penetrates its hide like a murderous blade twisting in a victim's flesh.
...holographic flames that lent an infernal aspect to their sinister countenances.
Sun Xi blinked. A word, one single syllable, found its way to her lips and escaped in an uncomprehended whisper.
"Jack..."
The present day, somewhere in Sian space...
Nick Hallix was dreaming. He knew this. He'd been a lucid dreamer since he was a small child -- a common trait in psychics.
So he didn't panic when he found himself standing naked at the front of a familiar high school classroom, about to deliver a presentation for which he hadn't prepared. He didn't cower away as the other students, and the attractive history teacher, pointed at his crotch and laughed. It would have bothered him in the waking world, of course. But here, it was less of a problem.
Dream control is different from mere lucidity. Often a person will discover that they're dreaming, then wake up to the morning light and deep disappointment when they try and fail to make use of this knowledge. Nick was a past master at both, however. Morpheus' realm was his playground. Hence he decided to play.
The first thing he did was put some clothes on. Dream or not, a man in his profession shouldn't have been standing around naked in a school. Society frowned on that kind of thing, and with good reason. So he imagined himself wrapped in a fancy suit -- like a Contella enforcer. Say what you want about the Consortium, but they're snappy dressers. The wish was father to the thought, and grandfather to reality. A suit appeared on Nick's body. Trousers, shirt, jacket, and boots were all a perfect fit. Of course they were.
Next, he decided to get some payback.
Nick Hallix's psionic powers didn't develop to their full extent until his early twenties, when an ex-girlfriend's fist achieved what over two decades of regular neurological development and cerebral activity had failed to. Thus he hadn't been able to wield those abilities in high school, which would have made the entire experience rather more palatable. Instead, he'd been bullied just like all the other nerdy kids. Especially by Neel Chaudhry...
The swarthy eighteen year-old sneered at him from the back of the room. There, within that place fashioned by Nick's subconscious, Chaudhry was frozen in time. In the waking world, he was a senator. Nick had seen his dusky features -- decades older -- beaming at him from holo-posters emblazed with the Rabid Rhino Party's eponymous mascot, mocking him with the bully's continued success. Once an alpha male, always an alpha male, they seemed to say with their sophisticated smile. But the face across the classroom was the same young, handsome, vindictive visage that had loomed over his high school days and been present at almost every single humiliation and torment. The body it adorned was bulky and bulging, its bloated muscles filled with performance enhancing chemicals. He'd slimmed down for politics. Voters probably found hulking, muscle-bound goliaths rather too simian to be trusted with the handling of the economy and the like. But back then football was his game, and the coaches made sure chems flowed like water.
Nick walked across the classroom, between the desks and their half-forgotten occupants. Neel kept sneering.
"Hey, Hallix," he said, "how'd your mom like my driving?"
An old, familiar taunt. Nick's mother had died in a traffic accident when he was only five years-old. Chaudhry always seemed to consider that an endless source of amusement. He'd even found a picture of Mrs. Hallix online, and bullied one of the art students into painting the image of her smashed and splattered body onto the hood of his car.
"Screw you, Neel."
He kicked Neel Chaudhry in the face. The dusky head exploded, showering the wall behind with a cascade of blood and mushy brains. The other children cheered, applauded, and started chanting his name:
"Hal-lix! Hal-lix! Hal-lix!"
Nick Hallix loved dreams.
He sauntered over to the attractive history teacher, took her by the hand, and drew her to her feet. She swooned. He wasn't sure if women really swooned anymore. They'd certainly never done it in his waking presence. But Miss Andrews, the beautiful educator he'd spent his high school years fantasizing about... She almost melted into his arms. Nick kissed her. And because this was his dream, damn it, her lips tasted of toffee.
Childhood thus conquered, he released her and pondered what he might do next. He was sure he hadn't been sleeping for long. That meant he could enjoy a spot of dreamtime entertainment before he had to wake up. Perhaps he'd set up a classic cross-company prizefight between Ace of Spades and Elam the Shadow, or maybe a monster versus monster beast war pitting a Garlax ragebeast against a Quiskan psi-hound... Though on reflection, splattering Neel Chaudhry's brains all over the wall had satisfied his lust for violence. A mellower pastime might be more pleasing. A night of music, for example... He could attend a concert given by some of his favorite historical composers and musicians, from Beethoven to Beeblax Sool. Yes... That sounded like fun.
Nick span on the spot and willed the classroom away. It vanished into blackness, cast back into the ocean of memory. He span again, and visualized a grand concert hall worthy of the luminaries whose works he wished to hear.
Nothing happened.
He frowned, and tried again. But still the blackness remained untenanted save for his own dream-self -- an endless empty void. Strange... That hadn't happened to him before. He'd always been able to conjure up any location he yearned to, whether remembered from life or fabricated within his imagination.
A faint smile crossed his unreal lips. Of course! His subconscious was telling him he had more important things to do. Halloween was approaching, that festival which would be celebrated across much of human space, more or less in accordance with Earth's calendar -- spread over the course of a week or so. It was a crucial time of year for people like him. As Gax Grayson, his employer, was fond of telling them all in his incessant holo-vid messages, a few good days over the Halloween period could net them as many credits as they'd make during a couple of months at any other time.
When he wasn't using them to explode bullies' heads or listen to long-dead musicians, Nick treated his dreams as a place to practice his craft and hone his skills. He should be doing that now, he mused -- not kissing history teachers and planning other frivolous things. He needed to make sure his routines were ready to delight the many hundreds of children who'd soon come aboard his Haunted House. After all, he had a reputation to maintain. His was the highest grossing ship in Grayson's Halloween Extravaganza. Granted, he had an advantage over the other managers. He only recruited fellow psychics, whose powers gave them a distinct edge in the realm of children's entertainment. But even so, he was proud of what they'd achieved. Moreover, he loved his work. There was nothing like seeing boys and girls squeal in delight, or else scream in the enjoyable terror of the season.
So Nick span round once more. This time he imagined a big crowd of children dressed in their spooky costumes, the kind of audience he performed to and welcomed aboard his Haunted House for a tour of frightful fun.
And still nothing happened. Blackness surrounded him. Blackness, and nothing more.
Nick was confused. His dream control had never failed him like this. Even before he'd mastered it, a failed attempt had ejected him into his warm bed -- not left him standing in a dark abyss. He should wake up and go to the med bay, he decided. Something might be wrong with him.
He clicked his fingers.
He didn't wake up.
Icy talons grasped Nick's heart. Something squeezed at his throat, bringing a pain and breathlessness more real than anything from even his most vivid dreams.
"They must die."
The voice was a roar and a whisper. It drowned the universe and slithered into his ear.
"You will kill them."
Flames burst into existence, violating the darkness with the terrible suddenness of their inferno. Searing heat lashed at Nick's body. It singed his hair and roasted his flesh, filling his nerves with immolating agony and his nostrils with the sweet stink of barbequed pork.
Amid the evil conflagration, forcing its way through the fire like an unfathomable abomination rising from the deepest depths of an ocean, burning yet unscathed, was a grinning orange face. A huge pumpkin... A jack o' lantern blazing both within and without. Tongues of fire danced behind its wicked eyes, beyond the cruel angry curve of its maw. They raged across its entire surface, as though it were a malevolent star illuminating the galaxy with its unquenchable hatred.
Its mouth opened. Orange flesh pulled away and unleashed a fresh burst of heat that made Nick's eyeballs sizzle. An endless inferno, blazing from the birth of the universe to its inevitable destruction, surged inside. It drew him, pulled him inexorably towards an eternity of fire and damnation.
Nick screamed until the voice died in his charred throat. Then the maw closed and swallowed him.
"Kill them."
Tricks, Treats and Trollops
"Halloween is a human festival which originated on Earth. Its exact genesis and initial purpose are the subject of scholarly debate, though it once carried certain religious connotations which are no longer part of its contemporary incarnation. Instead, present-day Halloween largely consists of children dressing up in costumes and extorting unhealthy foodstuffs from adults via threats of mischief. On certain worlds, this behavior may technically fall under local legal definitions of terrorism. However, no children have yet been prosecuted on this basis. A Neo-American senator recently put forward a bill which would have designated 'trick or treat' as a terrorist threat, and authorized lethal force as a response. But it was defeated by a significant margin."
"Mr. Lu Bu..." one of the children said.
"Yes?"
"We're not here to learn stuff. We're here for candy."
"Oh. Very well."
Lu Bu conducted a quick headcount, to ensure that none of his young charges had disappeared. In a tiny fraction of a second, his computerized brain ascertained that the number of vampires, mummies, witches, fairy princesses, superheroes, lycanthropes, Twisted Steel fighters, and other beings, was at an acceptable level. This was important. Several of the event's organizers had been very reluctant to place children in his care, and had only relented because of Lady Hollister's personal assurances. It wouldn't have reflected well either on himself or on the esteemed lady if any of them had gone missing.
The transport had deposited them all at the bottom of their group's designated street. To accomplish his mission, he only had to lead them from one end to the other without mishap, stopping at each domicile on the way to demand candy or similar products. It seemed simple enough. He would-
His hand shot out, seized a wizard by the collar, and yanked him back onto the sidewalk. A vehicle's horn blared. Then its red metal mass sped by -- through the space the boy had occupied a moment prior.
"Why did you run into the road?" Lu Bu demanded.
"I wanted to play with the cat!" the boy said.
He pointed across the way. A black feline was indeed sat on the lawn opposite, licking at a raised paw. It glanced over at Lu Bu, as though to deny its responsibility in the whole affair, before returning its attention to the pursuit of saliva-induced cleanliness.
"No one is to cross the street without my permission. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Mr. Lu Bu!" they chorused.
He scanned their faces for signs of deception. And when he ushered them onward, he brought up the rear so he could better keep watch over them. The robot's practical experience with children was limited. Telemachus was the only child he knew well, and Lu Bu suspected that the young prince was somewhat atypical of his age group. But he was beginning to sense the evening's duties might be more difficult and frustrating than he'd initially expected.
To his satisfaction, none of the others tried to run in front of vehicles, and they all reached the first house intact. So far, so good. He followed them down the path which ran between the two halves of neatly trimmed lawn, and stood back as they crowded around its entrance.
One of the vampire girls kicked the door.
"Give us candy!" she shouted.
"Myxi!" Lu Bu said, modulating his voice for maximum severity. "What would your parents say if they saw you behaving like that?"
"They'd tell me to stop..."
"Exactly. It's not-"
"...and sneak in through the window. Then grab anything that looked expensive."
"Oh. Well, you shouldn't do that either. It's wrong."
"Sorry, Mr. Lu Bu."
She knocked with her hand instead. The door opened, revealing a plump couple with merriment on their faces and huge buckets in their hands.
"Trick or treat!" most of the children said.
"Your candy or your lives!" one humorist added. He was dressed as an archaic highwayman, so Lu Bu decided to classify it as acceptable theatrics and refrain from reprimanding him.
The man and woman went to work with a precision that bespoke many years' practice. They distributed kind words to each child, pouring lavish praise on all their costumes. More importantly, they doled out candy from their buckets with equally liberal hands. An even amount found its way into each pumpkin-shaped bucket the children had been issued with. And when one of the boys tried to pick the woman's pocket, she grabbed his hand with a firm but gentle grip, then gave him a quick lecture with more kindness than severity. It seemed to leave him suitably and sincerely contrite.
Yes, they had to be seasoned veterans -- well prepared for the annual ritual of interstellar celebrities descending upon their neighborhood to give underprivileged children a night of wholesome fun. Lu Bu thanked them, before ushering his flock back up the garden path.
The little monsters laughed and chatted, comparing their hauls. That first taste of blood had satisfied them for the moment, and taken the edge off their voracity.
"Why didn't you wear a costume, Mr. Lu Bu?" a fairy asked.
"I am wearing one," he replied. "I'm dressed as my prototype. It had a slightly different finish."
"That's stupid."
"Its cognitive capabilities were indeed inferior."
A short walk brought them to the door of another large house. This one had grinning pumpkins and fluttering ghosts arranged along its roof. Like the previous dwelling, it too bore an architectural style from Earth's past. It was a traditional neighborhood, emulating a sedate American suburb of yesteryear -- its technology hidden behind the classic veneer. Traditional and affluent. Rich and generous enough to have volunteered for this charitable role, alongside a number of other districts.
This time there was no kicking. A ghost pressed the doorbell. The portal opened inwards in one quick, sharp movement. The children screamed. Then they laughed, when the revealed 'hanged man' winked, let himself down from the noose, and picked up a big tin of bite-sized chocolate bars. His co-conspirator stepped out from behind the door and did the same. More unhealthy snacks were placed inside plastic pumpkins, thus enhancing the happiness of all concerned.
With this fresh success under his proverbial belt, Lu Bu directed the children back towards the sidewalk with rather less trepidation than he'd felt before. That contentment only lasted for a moment, however -- until the children up ahead started shouting.
"More kids!" Frankenstein's monster exclaimed. He pointed down the street.
"They're taking our houses!" a witch yelled.
"They're stealing our candy!" a mummy shrieked.
"Let's stab their faces!" a pirate cried.
Lu Bu hurried across the garden to investigate the former claims and prevent the latter violence. When he reached the sidewalk, beyond the line of evergreens which divided the house from its neighbor, he saw them.
Another band of children, attired in an assortment of Halloween costumes like his own charges. And a taller figure that towered above them. A voluptuous blonde woman, dressed in a risqué vampire outfit which seemed to display more of her legs and breasts than it covered.
She glanced over at him. Her eyes widened. Then she laughed.
"My, my... What a small galaxy!"
"Natasha Cybersmash!" he said.
The mattress beneath Sun Xi was soft and comfortable. It yielded just the right amount to cradle and support her body in the manner she preferred. The chamber around her was dim, lit only by the faint moonlight which shimmered through the unveiled window and formed a murky pool on the carpet. Night's breeze rustled through the cherry blossom trees in the gardens outside.
All the sensations, sights, and sounds were right -- the accompaniments to slumber that she most relished. And yet she lay awake, her mind untouched by sleep's soothing caress.
The vision from the marketplace swam before her eyes. It had refused to leave her thoughts, to slip back into the vast depths of esoteric knowledge housed within her brain. This troubled her. Mistress Sun had seen wonders the likes of which others couldn't even have dreamed -- for their minds hadn't the clay to fashion such things. And she'd glimpsed horrors that might have torn the sanity from those who lacked her mental strength.
But this one thing haunted her. That meant it was important, for reasons she couldn't yet comprehend.
What did it mean? And who was 'Jack'?
She had to find out.