Ken was eighteen. He was clad only in cargo shorts and wore a full body tan like only those who live perpetually on beaches seem to be able to do and do well. He leaned back against the peeling paint of the lifeguard stand and simply marked time. They told him not to go anywhere, so he had complied. Said someone would come to talk with him. Fine. He waited.

After another ten minutes of nothing–nothing but people in the hazmat suits wandering in and out and around the hastily constructed tent on the sand like overdressed ants–one of the ants came out to speak with him. Between the tent and the suited-up ants, Ken was reminded somehow of a circus.

“Ken?” he asked, smiling. “Ken Amorri?”

Ken stood up, brushed sand from the seat of his shorts and nodded. “That’s me.”

The man kept smiling. He was dressed in a hazmat suit–except the head piece and gas mask were missing, with no sign of them. “I’m William Holland,” he said. “I appreciate your patience, but I just wanted to make sure I talked with you so we could have a complete report of what happened.”

Ken crossed his arms. “I already told the two men who showed up first what happened.”

Holland smiled and nodded, “Of course you did. But let’s just pretend I haven’t already been briefed by them and you tell me. How’s that?” Holland reached inside the hazmat suit and pulled out a small device he had on a lanyard around his neck. He pressed a button and a dark blue light began to flash slowly. “Start from the beginning.”

“I was taking a walk on the beach…”

“Uh-huh. And what time was that?”

“Before seven.”

“And where did you find the body?”

Ken pointed at the circus tent. “Pretty much where you found it. I didn’t go near it. I didn’t touch it.” He added after a moment, “I remembered the warnings at the entrance to the beach.”

Holland nodded, still smiling. “That’s excellent. That’s good work.” Holland tucked the device back into the hazmat suit, waited a moment, then tilted his head, looking at Ken with a different sort of smile. “You’ve…never seen one before…have you?”

Ken raised his eyebrows. “So he’s…it’s…one of….?”

Holland nodded again. “Oh yes. You were right to call it in. But you’ve…never seen one before.”

Ken shook his head. “No. I mean…I’ve seen vids. Heard stories. But…no.”

Holland’s smile changed again. Not necessarily in a pleasant way. “Well…this will be educational then. Come with me.”

Before they entered the circus tent proper, Ken stopped. Holland immediately sensed this and stopped at the flap. “Don’t I…?” Ken began.

Holland tugged at the headless hazmat suit. “Need one of these? Not really. He’s fully isolated now and at this point these are just a formality. Reassuring, but…you won’t be in here long enough. I’ll give you a peek and then send you on your way with our thanks.”

Ken shrugged. The curiosity of youth pulled him forward and Holland held back the flap for him.

When Ken walked in, two men in full hazmat gear stepped forward but Holland held up a hand. “He’s with me. He called it in originally.”

The two nodded and went back about their business, both with handheld devices, tapping away with a stylus built into the finger of one glove.

In the absolute center of the tent there was a clear cube that looked to be an inch thick. Were this an actual circus tent with actual rings, this would have been the center ring: the star attraction. Standing eight feet high and eight feet across, it seemed to be of transparent steel or some other such substance. Around the cube, at a distance of eight or nine feet, a red circle had been laid around the cube on top of the sand.

Inside the cube stood a terrified man.

The man had his arms wrapped around himself as though he were cold, and he was slowly turning and turning in a circle. His face was a mask of misery. Until his turning brought him to where he could see Ken clearly.

“You,” the man said simply. “Listen…you look like a reasonable young man. You have to tell these people there’s been a terrible mistake.”

The man was completely bald on top, wearing bifocals, and dressed in what seemed to be jeans and a plaid button-down shirt. He looked…incredibly ordinary.

“I don’t know how I got here,” the man continued. “I just woke up and was in this box. Please…I have a wife and child. They’re waiting for me at home.” His face seemed to grow more frantic. “Please. Listen to me. Can…can you just bring me a phone? I’m allowed a phone call, aren’t I? Can’t you bring me a phone?”

Ken looked at Holland, who was in turn looking at him, watching for the younger man’s reactions. Ken became increasingly uneasy. Whatever he had expected to see inside the cube, it was not this.

Holland cleared his throat and said simply, “Step over the red line.”

Ken blinked and looked from Holland to the line and back again. “What was that?”

“Step over the line,” Holland repeated. “It’s fine…you’re safe. Trust me.”

Ken decided that he didn’t trust Holland, but again…his youth betrayed him and sent him, nodding slightly, over the red line.

It happened so fast, Ken never saw the man change. One moment the man was there–the worried, balding man wanting to get back to his wife and child–and then the voice disappeared. The man disappeared. And something else was there in its place.

Looking back over the incident–which is something Ken would find himself spending far too much time doing over the rest of his life–he found that it had happened just that quickly. One minute man, next minute…not. It had happened too fast for his mind to fully process it.

The main thing he remembered was the face. The man’s face had changed–more specifically, the jaw had become detached from the rest of the face, and it stretched downwards, stretching the skin with it: a gaping mineshaft of a mouth.

The arms, folded previously, now were no longer arms at all: they were not unlike a swarm of angry bees, though still attached to his/its body. Still attached, because they banged on the transparent steel. Over. And over. And over again.

Despite the horrific sight the befuddled man had become, it wasn’t the savage attack on the cube that convinced Ken that he had come so close to dying. Not just now–not just the seemingly mindless assault on the barrier that would have been, could have been him. Had he not heeded the signs on the beach…had he approached the body washed up on the shore…

No, none of that brought Ken to grips with the fragility of his hold on life. It was instead: the sound.

No longer a befuddled stream of pleas, it was instead the cry of a beast. More to the point, the roar of a lion as though it were crying out through a throatful of locusts…who were also roaring.

Ken stood for a moment, dumbfounded, watching this creature that so clearly wanted him and every other living creature on that beach dead. Watching it attack the cube with a never yielding ferocity.

He felt a tug at his back and was grateful he didn’t piss himself right then and there. It was Holland.

“Just step back across the line. That’s it.”

Ken was complying and as he left the circle around the cube, he saw the man stop, and the man’s skin began to run. It flowed together and apart and eventually reformed into the man who had been there originally. The man stood motionless until one black crawling thing scuttled into place on the side of his nose.

Then the man moved and spoke once more. “Aren’t you listening to me? I said I’m hungry. Please bring me something.”

Ken’s mind was reeling and his throat a desert as Holland led him back to the entrance of the circus tent. “What…what are you–”

“Going to do with it?” Holland asked for Ken. “There’s nothing else to be done: we feed it into a plasma furnace, so that there’s nothing left to infect anyone.”

Ken nodded, as though this made perfect sense. Which, given time away from his own befuddlement, it would.

Holland continued, “It’s important that everyone be aware of what can happen when an Australian washes up on the beach. Make sure you tell your friends about what you saw.”

Ken nodded and said he would. He turned and made his way up the beach, back towards the lifeguard stand. Once Holland had gone back into the circus tent, Ken leaned over, hands on his knees, and dry heaved into the sand. After a few minutes, the terror subsided and let go of his insides…just a little. Enough to get him home, anyway.

And seemingly without purpose.

Argo noticed it first, but Mayster was quicker in saying it. “This room is soundproofed.” He walked over to the walls and ran a hand over them. “Heavily soundproofed.” He knocked on the padding, which didn’t seem to be padding at first. In fact, it looked like concrete until you actually touched it and realized that it was a dense foam of some sort. “What is this?”

“The safest place in the building, honestly. If we were to get attacked, this would be the one place that would be guaranteed to survive.” Welsh walked over to a panel on the wall and hit a button. “But to answer your question, it’s Alexandria,” he said.

Simultaneously, both Argo and Mayster heard a beep from their packs. They pulled down their visors and saw that a new network had been detected. And sure enough, the network ID was Alexandria.

Argo looked over to Welsh, who was scribbling something onto a piece of light blue paper. “What’s the password?”

Welsh held up the paper. He had written down a twenty-eight digit alphanumeric code on it. Both packs read the code through their visors and recognized the code. After this, Welsh pulled out his lighter and set the paper on fire. It flared out instantly, leaving no trace that it had existed mere seconds earlier.

Argo saw a single file folder appear on his visor workspace. When he looked inside that file folder, he saw twenty-eight folders, labelled A to Z with one as an underscore and yet another as a number sign. Inside each one were audio files…thousands upon thousands of audio files. Argo watched the number of files and the amount of space tally up in another window.

Mayster sat down on the couch closest to him, hard. It was obvious he was looking at exactly the same thing. “Holy shit.”

Argo was looking through his visor at Welsh in disbelief. “What…is…this?”

Welsh smiles, “Largest digital music library that I’m aware of. Probably the largest that’s ever existed.”

“Holy shit,” Mayster said, and Argo could see that he had pulled on a glove and was scrolling through the first several screens.

Argo blinked, “Where…where did you get all of this?”

Welsh had a seat next to Mayster. “When the Exodus happened, there were several online music services. There was a guy I met who had made a point of scamming their free trial periods to download their entire contents. So he had, essentially, between those downloads and the library of files he already had, a backup of most of the world’s music. I’m sure there are some indie bands he missed, but most everything that was online, he had. He was a bit of a neurotic completist.”

Argo would look up a band, and there would be a folder normally marked “Live.” Inside was, in chronological order, a listing of complete shows by date. Some artists had entire tour schedules represented, night after night after night. “This is…unbelievable.”

“Yeah, this is where I like to come and spend free time when I have it,” Welsh said, then stood up. “Okay, well, dive in, boys. I’ll have somebody bring you food and water to make sure you don’t forget and let yourselves starve or anything.”

Mayster had already put his ear buds in and was listening to something, wide-eyed.

Argo nodded absently and was following suit.

Welsh chuckled and left them there.

When he checked on them nine hours later, Argo was collapsed on a couch with an arm thrown over his eyes. Mayster was sitting cross-legged in the center of the room, eyes shut, swaying a bit, listening to something. He looked like he was having a bit of a religious experience. On reflection Welsh thought he probably was.

Welsh gave him a little nudge with his boot. Mayster looked up, not the least bit startled but looking quite serene. And exhausted. Welsh noticed that someone had brought them up (or perhaps they had liberated for themselves) a small portable coffee maker. It looked like it had done some serious battle since he saw the two DJs last.

Welsh nodded to Mayster and the question was clear.

Mayster took out an ear bud and said, “Hendrix. Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock. I have never heard this recording before.”

“Seriously?”

Mayster smiled and nodded, “You’d be amazed how comparatively little we had in the way of music out in the Bowl. And, you’d be amazed how old even several gig worth of music can get.”

Welsh smiled and nodded, “Less surprised than you’d think.” He nodded again, towards the earbuds. “How is it?”

Mayster nodded back gravely. “It’s…intense. And it’s fucking gorgeous, man. Fucking scary it’s so gorgeous, man.”

“Good,” Welsh said. “Stock up. Because we’ve got a gig booked in two days. You guys and Thren. And people are dying to hear you. They’re requesting your stuff in droves, you know.”

Mayster was half-listening to Welsh, half-listening to Jimi. “After hearing this, I don’t know if I can hang, man. It was easier when we didn’t have all of this to contend with.” Mayster gestured to the walls, where a library of music hid behind soundproofing foam. “All of this to…you know, live up to.”

“Welcome to the big, scary world,” Welsh said. “You’ll cope. And now if you’ll excuse me, this is one of the few places on the planet where I won’t allow myself to smoke. And I need to.”

Mayster waved at him as he put the second ear bud back in, and Welsh watched him disappear inside the sounds again.

Welsh thought this whole crazy plan just might actually fucking work. Go figure.

As Argo and Mayster put their new packs on, Hedrock mentioned, “Should be pretty much the same setup as you had before, but better.” He paused then added, “Oh, and I put some newer music editing programs on your drives. Your old ones are there, but there’s been some new stuff since whatever disc you copped those from made it out to the Bowl. So give them a shot. And I made sure they have the latest firmware.”

Thirty minutes after that, they received their new bags. They were sleek, black and felt like they could stop a bullet.

“They could stop a bullet,” Hedrock pointed out, “And just for kicks they give off no heat signature no matter what you’ve got inside them.”

Argo asked, “What are you making all of this with?”

Hedrock suppressed a smile. “Thought you’d never ask. Come with me.”

He led the two of them down a hallway and into a large room. On a desk closest to the door was a computer terminal. A sixty-inch flat screen dominated the wall it was hung upon and a wireless keyboard sat on the desk. “I know, it looks archaic with a screen, but the displayless output just never looks right to me. Call me old-fashioned.”

They barely noticed that, however. Instead, the two were eyeing the large container that dominated the room. They had seen a couple of pictures from ancient computer centers, back when machines dominated entire buildings. This looked like a modern day descendant of one of those. It sat, light blue-colored and spartan, with only a door in one side. The rest was non-descript.

“That…is a maker,” Argo said.

Hedrock nodded. “It is.”

“That…” Mayster said, “…is the biggest goddamn maker I have ever seen.”

Hedrock nodded. “I don’t doubt that. Meet Big Blue.” He patted a hand on the side of the enormous device. “She and I go way back.”

“Okay, first, how is it you guys have a maker, and, second, how do you have one that size?” Argo asked. “No one uses makers anymore. And one that size would…” Something clicked in his mind. “Jesus, no wonder you can crank out packs and stuff that fast. You must have armies of…”

“Legions of nanite builders, yes. Armies, in fact,” Hedrock said. “And no one uses makers just because they’re superstitious about technology they can’t see with their own eyes. Who can blame them, really? But still…nothing illegal about it.” He thought for a moment, “Well, not that we really have laws anymore, but you know what I mean.” He pointed to the display. “Basically, it works like this: I use this design program: the Siege Engine. One of my ancestors actually coded the first version of this, before the Exodus, even. I tell this what I want, it tells the maker, the maker makes it. We have so many nanites in there that creating things is pretty damn quick. We just dump garbage in one side and out comes…whatever we want.” He looked at the two of them. “Well, within reason. I couldn’t make a person, for example. Not one that functioned properly anyway.”

Argo and Mayster both gave each other a sideways glance that said: spoken like somebody who’s tried. Just because he can.

“There you two are.”

Welsh was standing in the doorway. “You should be glad I came to rescue you. He’ll tech-talk your ears bloody, so he will.” He jerked a thumb out in the hallway. “I’ve got something to show you. Something…you’ll appreciate.”

“Stephenson Building,” Simon called out, pulling himself to sit on the driver’s side window as before. “All ashore that’s going ashore, we–oh hell.”

A man was coming out of the building towards them. He was wearing a black coverall outfit that looked to be laced with multiple impact fiber weaves. He also had a sidearm strapped to his belt. His eyes were hidden behind thin black sunglasses.

“Simon,” the man said.

“Well, hello there, Hedrock,” Simon replied, all smiles. “So nice to see you ag–”

“You’re not wearing your suit.”

“Well, yeah, I meant to tell you about that…the damn thing is sort of hot…”

“It’s nothing of the sort. It’s got plenty of ventilation.”

“And constrictive.”

“It’s a size too large as it is.”

“And it’s a horrible color.”

“The only reason it’s orange,” Hedrock said, “is you haven’t taken it out to wear it and adjust the color. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Simon sighed, “I’ll wear the suit. Happy?” He began to slide down into the cab.

Hedrock didn’t smile. “Ecstatic.” He turned to Mayster, who was standing closest, “Ingrate. It was a birthday present.”

Simon stuck his head back out. “I heard that!”

Welsh pulled the rest of his bags from the cab, “Would you two get a room already?”

“Will you be needing anything else?” Simon asked Welsh.

“No, we’re good for now, thanks,” Welsh responded. “Just keep your eyes open and let me know if you hear or see anything out of the ordinary.”

“I remember what ordinary was like,” Simon said dourly, and pulled the cab up and away from the pavement.

Welsh turned to Argo and Mayster. “Gentlemen, this is Hedrock. Hedrock, this is Argo and Mayster. Hedrock’s our resident tech. Anything you
need he’ll make you. Whether you want it or not. But trust me, he knows what he’s doing.” Welsh made his way up the stairs to the front door, calling back to Hedrock all the way, “Check their gear, if you would. And make sure they get full access to the building. They’re on staff with all privileges.”

Threnody was nowhere to be seen. Presumably she had already made her way inside while Hedrock and Simon were arguing.

Hedrock was ushering Argo and Mayster in. In the foyer, he stopped them. “All right, show me your gear. I can’t have bad gear in my house.”

Argo and Mayster exchanged a look, and opened their bags.

“Your packs need upgrading to the latest firmware. Your firewalls are severely down level. I’m amazed they’re still functioning. Actually let me replace your packs altogether…I’ve doubled the capacity of mine, it’s an easy hack. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. These earbuds you’re using are shit, I can replace those. Best to just toss them. I can replicate these smart vinyl platters and get you brand new ones, again, I can cut your access time by a third and I could probably move more controls to the center. These bags are shit, by the way. I can fix that easy. I just got some new impact fiber. We’ll get you some light anvil cases for the gear, too, no more of this backpacking it. That’s neanderthal to the extreme. What is this, a slingshot? I respect that. It needs to be rebalanced, though, look at this. I’ve got just the thing for it, don’t worry about a thing. And your ammunition…wow, that’s pretty ingenious, I have to admit, but trust me, we can do better than…what are these–these are ball bearings, right? Ingenious, but crude. I can fix that, no worries. Okay, let me see…what’s left? Ah, yeah, let me see that sword of yours, Mayster.”

Mayster shrugged, unsheathed his katana and handed it over.

Hedrock examined it, turning it this way and that. Then finally, he pulled his sunglasses off and looked at Mayster in awe. “This…this is kami no tekkou, isn’t it?”

Mayster nodded. “Sure is. God metal.”

“Je-sus…Christ,” Hedrock said. “I never thought I would ever…ever…see one of these. There’s only six in existence, and…hell, five are considered lost. Four now.” He handed the blade back to Mayster with an air of reverence. “That’s…perfection. I can’t do anything with that. That sword is welcome in my house any day of the week.”

He pulled out what looked to be a metal basket of some kind. He began dumping all of their gear, clothes and paraphernalia into it. “I’ll start with your packs and get those back to you. I know it’s uncomfortable to be without one.”

Argo had noticed there was no bulge in the back of Hedrocks’ clothing, nothing there at the small of the back where packs normally went. “I see you’re not wearing one. What, are you like Welsh?”

Hedrock laughed. “No one’s like Welsh. No, I’m wearing my pack.” He indicated his black coverall. “Anyway, let me get started on this. You’ll find some available rooms on the second floor. Pleasure meeting you both,” he said, and then left, his eyes on the now-resheathed katana blade.

“You have a fan,” Argo said.

“The sword does. Only serious weapon freaks know it for what it is,” Mayster replied, smiling. “I like him already.”