Piyo 1
Piyo looked up out his window, up at the stars. A few faintly glowed from behind the cloud cover. Light pollution combined with a forest fire on the other side of the country blotted out most of the stars, leaving the rest of the sky a dull yellow. It was hard to believe that people lived up there, the solar system was so quiet, for the most part restricted to earth besides military on the moon and frontiersmen around Jupiter. It all bothered him greatly.
He always had such complex emotions towards the cosmos, but they seemed to restore some of the inner peace he so badly desired at times, though other times they disturbed him further. Somehow, he needed them, he couldn’t live without them, but he also hated them, he wanted them gone, he couldn’t bear them. There was something so beyond basic, comfortable reality about them that compelled all men, human and alien.
He had again been in the grips of another episode of rabid frustration. There was no rational reason for it, at least as far as he could tell, it just struck him. Everyone had wronged him, everyone had personally offended, no, deprived him of what he should have. But at the same time, he’d deprived himself. What he should have, friends, a ship that could take him up into the stars, maybe even a lover. But how weak he’d been! Piyo gripped his own arm and squeezed, as if in punishment for the evil he’d done himself. He shot daggers up into that night sky, searching for the stars that did him so wrong. He didn’t feel any anger towards them, they never did him wrong, they’d actually been rather merciful towards him. He actually rather liked the stars. He started to feel depressed over how he’d turned his back on the stars. They’d offered him everything, but he rejected it, and why? He felt more depressed over his own state in life and what he’d done to cause it. He couldn’t bear to look at the stars. He continued to look up at the stars. He felt embarrassed to even say the word stars, it reminded him too much of astrologers who obsessed over the minute, meaningless movements of the stars without understanding their true beauty. That was the one constant in all this, he hated even saying the names of stars. He always felt so silly, so embarrassed. There was a knock at the door.
Piyo roused from his strange trance and took gliding steps to the door. This was all it took to lift him back into the waking world. The office was silent and rather solemn, so the light, almost tapping at the door seemed like a very heavy pounding in the cool night air.
He swung open the door and found a tall thin white guy on the other side, probably coming down from the nearby financial office given his briefcase. He was not the kind you’d expect to be up and wandering around town this late at night but by this point Piyo knew better than trusting in nerdy types not to be up getting into trouble. He welcomed the visitor in.
“I know you don’t open this late but I saw there was still a light on.”
“You’re right, I’m not open. How can I help you?”
Piyo cleared his desk and the financier sat down. He produced a huge span of documents and figures and began pointing out and explaining and conjecturing and drawing all sorts of conclusions based on financial irregularities and breaks in protocol and really it was all very unhelpful. It was confusing in that way where adding more details actually makes the conclusion more obscure. The detective was quite lost by the end of it. The financier did not seem to notice.
The detective drew a pen and small notebook from his left pocket.
“Alright, let’s get the basic facts stated. Who exactly am I investigating and what am I looking for?”
The financier’s brow furled, and he slightly nodded his head. He clearly thought he’d already explained these details. He went ahead and clarified anyway, figuring the detective just a bit dim.
“What I’m saying is, there’s a city councilman who’s embezzling funds and making strange purchases. Additionally, he seems to be in bed with more than a few suspicious corporations I haven’t heard of, and I doubt you’ve heard of either. Figure out where the money’s going and get some evidence.”
Piyo jotted some notes.
“Alright, perfect. That’s a simple job then, I’ve investigated this kind of thing plenty of times before.”
The financier’s face stiffened.
“Not quite. A lot of these companies and offshore accounts have connections to the government.”
Now Piyo’s face hardened.
“Show me that property sheet.”
The detective produced a map of the local area and began to reference the addresses and images of the property. The councilman’s primary residence was a large manor on the edge of town, near the coast. It was in close proximity with a particular government owned dock and proving ground, separated only by a dense span of government-owned forest.
“This is much more complex. He’s probably working with some sort of intelligence agency.”
The financier was incredulous.
“I don’t see how you could get that just from the location of his manor. Yeah, he’s got some government connections, but he already works for the government, he’s a town councilman.”
Piyo didn’t even look up from his papers.
“If that dock was actual military, then you’d see contractors coming in and out of there every day, just as often if not more than the government people. I don’t doubt that there’s military there, but this is definitely a site being used by some three letter agencies.”
“So, are you going to still take the job?”
Piyo grinned.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
II – On the Beat
Piyo got his things together. Shoulder holster, multi tool, binoculars, laptop, various cords, pen and pocket notebook, petty cash. Anything a man would need in the field, Piyo had it on him, or at the very least in his bag. He didn’t plan on bringing a full offensive loadout, he was in a peaceful area and the intelligence agencies didn’t typically hire rough sorts. They wouldn’t be hiring aliens either. Piyo could be at ease for that.
It was still night when he locked up the office and stepped out. The night sky was as plain and flat as ever, and the streets were a healthy white-blue from the fancy new LED lighting. Work always brought the detective back into the waking world, but it would have been safe to look up into the sky for him anyway, there was nothing to see.
The night air seemed significantly more cool and refreshing from inside an air-conditioned building. Outside, it wasn’t uncomfortably warm, but the humidity still hung thick in the air. Normally the humidity would at least partially burn away from the harsh sunlight by midday and begin to restore itself at dusk, but the smoke from the distant wildfires dulled the sun enough that it was muggy all day. Didn’t stop you from getting a sunburn though.
Piyo got thinking whenever he was on a walk. Something about this night made him reflect for a brief moment on his past. His heart became weak just thinking about it. He felt a shot of turmoil. It wasn’t worth worrying about what had already happened, it dragged him down. He only had to think about the future.
Piyo was on his way down to a local corner store to get a drink, maybe a nice hot decaf. Something to relax him so he could get some sleep and begin the case early tomorrow, he’d lost enough sleep by this point anyway. He instead wound up in front of a local financial office – with a window forced open.
Peering inside, he found the place strangely neat. Only one drawer had been left open and there was a file left on the ground, neatly at that. Strange. Such a professional, clean job, just to leave a file on the ground and a cabinet open?
The detective removed a flashlight and had a closer look. He looked at names on the desks. Confirming his suspicion, one belonged to the financier. Another notable discovery was that the back door had likely just been opened. It was shut but the lock was undone
Piyo rushed back to the office, not only had the financier had someone tracking him, he knew exactly what he was looking for, he was targeting files. This was a professional, and one strong enough to force open the window, evidently by hand. This had to be handled immediately, and with lethal force.
Piyo’s stopped dead cold. His office door had been opened. It was shut and locked now, but there was no mistaking it, a layer of dust that should have accumulated on the knob by now was missing. A simple, minor detail that he wouldn’t have noticed had he not just seen the site of a break in. His blood ran cold. He had a peashooter on him but that was it, and assaulting such a bold burglar he didn’t know the nature or position of…
He considered the situation. There were two possibilities by this point. Either there were two (or more) people running cleanup and trying to silence anyone on the councilman’s tracks, or there was just one who possessed some superhuman traits that would make him able to notice him coming from a distance, escape, then reach his office first and enter. Either could be planning a trap for him if they knew it was him who saw the financial office. This wasn’t normal behavior though, why would they assume that he’d go back to his office? That is, unless they’d been observing him after he reached the finance office and figured out his next move.
Piyo shuddered. It could be two aliens at that, it didn’t matter if they had superhuman speed, this was far beyond what anyone except the most trained human professionals would be capable of. How the hell did they even know what was going on so fast? This was beyond a basic embezzling mayor. If he wasn’t already convinced that the feds were involved, he was now, but still, they would never employ aliens like this. Just what the hell was going on? And what was it doing in his home?
Piyo felt at once livid, ready to kill for his property, but also violated, disempowered. It had violated his home, and he wasn’t sure what he could do about it, if anything. He didn’t have his full offensive kit, but he couldn’t just go get it either. His mind was like a river, and he was at risk of washing away in it. As always, he could only break out by acting out of sheer impulse. He was always disconnected from himself in that way.
He planned to unlock the door, then chuck a rock through a window, then quickly kick the door in and attempt to get the jump on whatever was in there. He heard mad stepping instantly upon turning the key instead. He heard it flee deeper into the building, clattering against the hardwood floor. The ice in his veins froze his mind over by this point, he stood gripping the nob and holding the key, dumbfounded. Someplace in his mind, he had expected himself to just be overreacting, or maybe the home invader was gone. No, not only had he really flushed it, it seemed to be moving much faster than a normal human being. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t move. This was real.
He finally regained himself. He realized he was standing still and quickly drew back from the door. He then took out the key, drew his gun, and pushed through the door. Piyo practically screamed.
“GET YOUR HANDS UP!”
The lobby was empty. Piyo traced it briefly with his pistol before realizing that he had left the hallway behind him, behind the door. He jerked around and struck his arm against the knob. Lurching backward he hooked the door with his foot and threw it shut. His eyes caught a dark form in the back and he nearly fired before realizing that it was his coat on a rack. Behind it was a forced open window.
III – In the Manor
Dim, orange sunlight just barely made it through the dingy, clouded windows of the manor. Smoke from the fires left the sun a dull red-orange. Although its strength was drastically reduced, the color seemed to warm the chilled hallway. A line of five windows illuminated specks of dust in the air. The walls were a light, grayish blue, painted around simple, rather austere doorframes leading to various guestrooms and closets, scarcely used, forgotten in a distant wing on the third floor of the great house.
Piyo wore a thick jacket and carried a shotgun, he felt his knife in his boot. He came prepared this time.
Piyo listened to his breathing. He watched and listened for any sign of life in that hallway, or the rooms around. The thin layer of dust on the floor suggested that this section of the house was rarely used, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances. Total silence suggested the area was clear.
He stepped forward softly, clutching his shotgun tightly. He had wrapped his heavy boots with thick socks, the kind you use for heavy running to pad your feet. It helped stop anyone from hearing he was coming, at least he hoped.
The investigation was long over. Collecting evidence, the furthest thought from his mind. Piyo was here for a much simpler reason now. He was here to kill the councilman and get out. He hated the councilman. He needed him to die. Piyo absent mindedly gripped the back of his neck. Somehow, even thinking about that man made him tense up. The councilman had done him wrong, probably tried to kill him, but the way his heart stirred just thinking about the whole thing. He hated him, truly, but he couldn’t think of why.
He pushed open the doors one by one, carefully, trying to be sure they didn’t even squeak. One by one he went through bedrooms, linen closets, empty rooms, all quiet, all empty. Eventually, he came to a fire escape besides one last door at the end of the hallway. It was nondescript, the same as every other door, but upon pushing it open, he found a steel ladder leading down, down past even the basement. Why would this be on the third floor? It seemed obvious. Whatever this man was hiding, it was down there, and this was a special escape if anything went wrong. And so down Piyo went.
There were no lights at the bottom of the shaft. The air was getting cooler and more damp. Piyo could feel a faint but growing headache as he breathed the air. The bottom was so tight he could hardly lift his arms.
Through the beam of his flashlight, he could see one door, no handle, likely a one-way fire escape. There were ways around this, however. Standing above the door on the rungs of the ladder, balancing as much as he could as standing in the pit would block the clearance for the door, with little monkeying with the lock and art with a prybar, he managed to get the door open just enough to slide through.
The lights were off inside. There was an expansive network of equipment, parts, boxes and lockers of documents, and computer systems strewn around. From what little you could see of the dark, featureless walls, it seemed the space was arranged haphazardly, grown as needed over time and added to without foresight. It formed a sort of unplanned labyrinth and it was impossible to say what would be hiding inside. For fear of attracting the notice of something by turning on the lights, Piyo swung his flashlight carefully around the space. It was concrete, unfinished. Drops of paint still rested on the floor and the walls were still bare and rough. There were large enough spaces to move large materials through, space enough even to drive trucks in some areas. These tracks had massed dirt tire marks to match. Checking his watch, the detective found they corresponded to the rough heading of the government docks before approaching some location in town. This was some kind of waypoint for them.
Piyo wandered briefly before realizing, this space appeared to be larger than the manor itself. The discovery of an unlit staircase down into a steam tunnel confirmed it. He needed to keep track of where he was going, or else he risked getting lost or trapped. How you could map such a disorganized space was questionable though. He removed a compass he had luckily thought to bring and his pad of paper and began sketching as best he could.
He had, for the moment, forgotten his mission. He eventually found a lone computer, not connected to any apparatus. It, oddly, did not even require a login, bad security practice? Piyo sat down and began looking over the documents.
One of the first sheets he found was research about a certain species of shapeshifters who inhabited a formerly great empire around Algol. They were a frightful race, once noble but now erratic, rash, domineering. They had a need to consume what was around them and their natural ability to modify their own form made them difficult to track and often gave them potent physical powers. Their capital was oppressive, an ancient megacity without comparison on earth, enormous complexes rose from the ground, miles into the air, linking, forming huge structures supported by “legs” that met each other as the rose, making hard geometrical shapes. They formed huge wings, encapsulated what would be entire cities on earth. In recent years though, only a fraction of the city seemed still populated. Only a handful of these wings still had power, only a few more still had sentient residents. All manners of horrors produced by such an ancient, powerful, brutal race could be found within the unpopulated portions, including shapeshifters who had seemed to lose all rational thought and wandered around like some predatory wild animal. Ancient pollution left the city dark at all times, illuminated only by dull red dots in the sky that made up the city’s low-atmosphere defense ring. A bad imitation of the stars.
This was all well known. Algol and the sun were very far from each other so humans and shapeshifters had little direct contact, but everyone knew Algol. What was unusual was the text following.
“Shapeshifter genetics show many promising possibilities when introduced to the human genome.”
Piyo found more documents on the machine. Some of these he’d already heard of, it was hard not to hear about mankind’s discoveries among the stars, but many had much more detail than he’d ever seen before. He absent-mindedly began to rub the back of his neck.
Polaris, the current “north star.” Notable for not having any starlanes, leaving it inaccessible to modern space travel. Despite this, there are signs of an extensive advanced civilization in its orbit. Gas cities around its gas giants, signs of ruins on its main bodies. It seemed to be surrounded by ruins, but without any evidence of how they may have reached there.
Piyo’s headache was getting worse.
“Sagittarius A* Phenomena: Phenomena we have not yet determined the origin of, beyond an ambiguous radius around Sagittarius A*, cause compulsions in human and alien subjects in the area. Effects vary, apparently depending on the person. Somnoscopy reveals exposed individuals continually return to memories and thoughts pertaining to the body, though the specifics are unclear and inconsistent beyond their persistence. Interestingly, awareness of Sagittarius A* can trigger similar effects in subjects, even without direct exposure. Current theories suggest that human beings may gain constant ‘exposure’ to the body through the workings of the so-called spiritual organs. See NSACR-31b.”
He scrolled through the headings. Betelgeuse, Kraz, human genomic research, Site-136, Juliet. Piyo clenched his hand tightly.
Piyo had been a slave aboard Juliet for an unknown length of time. It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember, it was that he didn’t want to. It was such a shameful mode of existence.
Dionaea were intensely psychic. They lived in an extremely tight knit society because of it, aboard stations drifting in the gaps between stars. If they were to apply themselves, they could essentially wipe away the mind of another being.
His carefully cultivated ignorance was broken, and he lost what little inner peace he had left. Piyo partially crushed the mouse with his hand. He stared down at the table for a while.
Grim curiosity and a strange attraction brought him to click the file. What he found gave him great satisfaction. The platform “Juliet” had been sighted drifting near the sun and had been destroyed by a combined WMD strike by the Space Force. There were survivors, but the platform was completely destroyed. It did little to ease his spirit though, it only fulfilled some small sense of unfeeling justice
Just as before though, life intruded and pulled Piyo out of his trance. The mouse cursor began to move on its own. It went down to the bottom left corner of the screen and opened Notepad. Text appeared.
“Who is this?”
Piyo lurched backwards out of his chair and lifted up his hands instinctively, as if being further away from the keyboard would prevent whoever was on the other end from seeing him. He stepped closer again, almost ready to give some response to the inquiry before catching himself.
He watched with shock as eventually, the computer went black. Leaning out of the room, he saw all the computers were now black and unresponsive, eliminating one of the only sources of light in the whole complex.
IV – In Your Heart
Piyo made his way back to the staircase, but he found someone waiting between him and the door. The councilman was dead, propped up against it. He still looked warm, as if he were still alive, merely sleeping, but it was unmistakable that he was gone.
The detective recognized it as a trap and raised his shotgun, only to find it wrenched from his hands from behind. He felt something thin plunge into his shoulder and inject something.
A rush of fluid came shooting out of the needle into his shoulder, and he felt the wave hit him, filling his shoulder, then his whole side with horrible pain, like it had just attacked his muscle directly. He fell to the ground clutching his shoulder, but soon his entire body was in agony. The muscles in his chest contracted. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Could he breathe? He struggled to force his chest outward to take full breaths.
The assailant, the beast, spoke out from behind where he was convulsing on the ground.
“You got one over on me at the office. I’m here to pay you back for the favor.”
The beast laughed at this remark, as if there were some great humor to it that Piyo just didn’t quite get.
Piyo rolled over to get a look at his captor. It was a rather bulky, pale skinned humanoid dressed in street clothes. The “eyes” were pure black, they did not even appear to reflect light. The skin was pale enough that it looked like it could be dead, but the tautness and diffusion of what little light there was proved it was rather healthy, just white. He had a mask in a cargo pocket and a pair of sunglasses in the other, use obvious. He was holding a gun pointing down at Piyo.
Piyo had regained some control over his chest lying on the ground and focusing on breathing.
“What are you? A shapeshifter? One of those… snakes from Algol? You can’t be working for the intelligence agencies. They’d never take your kind.”
This seemed to anger his assailant. He got another dose of the venom followed by some explanation. The beast stood up tall, revealing its immense scale, made even worse by the fact Piyo could not gather himself to stand up.
“I’m no alien piece of shit! I’m 100% human, more human than you even. Rebuilt by the CIA to be the ultimate, the greatest humanity has to offer. You can call me Temujin because I’m here to bend all mankind to servitude.”
Piyo bristled at this remark.
“You sound like a damned… TV cliché. I can name the TV shows you watched as a kid, you get off on being edgy like this?”
“Temujin” chuckled at that comment.
“Oh, you wound me. To think I would just be copying a TV show. This is who I am, authentically, it just happens to be like that in real life as well.” He grinned. “It’s pretty realistic, don’t you think?”
Piyo started to climb to his knees.
“You have got to be joking. Nobody is really like that.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Temujin reached down and picked up Piyo by the arm, hoisting him into the air.
“I’ll give you an option. Either you can let me kill you, or you can let me wipe your memory. It’s rare anyone gets a choice, but you’re impressive in your own way. You might even be useful as a blank slate.”
Temujin’s blank sockets peered deep into Piyo’s slate blue eyes. “I can tell you have much to be disturbed by as well. Maybe you might reach peace by forgetting your troubles, yeah?” He seemed almost authentically concerned upon examining Piyo.
Piyo’s muscles convulsed even worse than from the poison. He received an injection of pure fear and anger, anger at everything. Even greater than that though, he sensed something else driving him onward, something greater than fear and anger. A desire for peace, an authentic peace, a lasting peace. A peace with existence. Something he had never gained so far.
“I’ll never let you have your way, and I’ll never be a slave again.” Piyo ripped a knife out of his boot and plunged it deep into Temujin’s shoulder. He didn’t even flinch.
Temujin laughed madly. “I don’t feel pain. I can’t feel pain. I don’t have that capability anymore. You really thought you could do what I did to you back to me?”
Piyo dropped to the floor, striking his back in the process, sending him back into horrible pain. Temujin removed the knife from his shoulder with both hands, beads of ruby blood jumping out with it, glistening like gemstones in what little light there was. He raised the knife like a sacrificial dagger and mocked saying a prayer before calling out.
“Piyo, I have decided that you shall die! I hold your life in my hands! This is for the good of the world!” He held up the dagger, self-satisfied in the moment, closing his eyes as if to imagine himself a priest atop a great Aztec pyramid about to do his deeds.
Piyo’s shot tore through the beast’s throat, moving straight through. He didn’t react instantly, evidently not feeling the pain, but he could still feel the blood in his windpipe. He dropped the knife and fell backwards, clutching his throat, gagging, coughing up blood, trying to catch his breath.
Piyo placed his peashooter back into the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and stumbled to his feet, running to the stairs. Kicking the councilman aside, he ascended the ladder and escaped as quickly as possible.
V – In the Future
Piyo peeked from behind the blinds in the financial office. The streets were thick with smoke, not from a distant wildfire but from a nearby city. The sky was dark red and brown, the street was abandoned. It had been abandoned for a long time, but now nobody was walking down it.
“It looks like the streets are clear right now. Think I’m gonna get my go-back and make for the woods.”
The financier scoffed at this from behind his desk, despite the fact the rest of the office was abandoned.
“I don’t know what you were expecting when you decided to assassinate a town councilman.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know what I expected by riots in the streets and two cities burning down was not it.”
The financier glared at him as if this was the most obvious thing to happen. Piyo went back to looking out the window.
“I’m going north. I need to dig deeper, see what’s really going on. What are you planning to do?”
“I’ll probably go north too, probably back up to Illinois.”
The financier didn’t even bother looking up from his papers. Piyo strained to look at the stars.
“I need to come to terms with everything I’ve learned. I can’t let go of what I know again. Peace from ignoring what’s troubling you leaves you worse off. If you can’t deal with who you are, where you’ve been what you are, you’ll never be at peace.”
Piyo tried to see through the smoke, up at the stars.