Xerces Blue
“Hands up,” a thick alto voice instructed. The flashlight beam flicked on, pooling a bright white circle around the woman. It pushed away the dusky night in a three-foot radius from her crouched body. Foot falls crunched onto the dried soil. “Police. You are trespassing in a Designated Field of Rubble. Put your hands up.”
The crouching form moved a little. One gloved hand lifted into the air. The other one, with bare fingers, stretched out, flat on the grey soil. She lifted her head, but did not look directly at the flashlight. She pointed. “If you aim that toward my right front pocket, officer, I will pull out my identification. I have permission to be in this DFR.”
“Why don’t you assume the position against that wall, then I can pull your ID myself?”
The woman nodded toward the painting on the wall. “You want to frisk me under a mural of Major Freedom and Admiral Admirable? The Brothers? Think of the photo-op if someone catches this on their phone.”
The police officer sighed, flicking away her flashlight over to the mural of the two most public faces of the Squad of Ultimals. The two men with their blinding smiles, perfect purple hair, and eyes the color of artificially-colored grape beverages, leered down from the billboard.
The officer nodded. “We won’t do this under the Ultimate Brothers. Stand over by Free-Dog. It doesn’t look like he’s had as many snorts of hair spray.”
“She.” The woman stood. “I was told this space was dedicated as a public garden.”
“Yes. Right after the fourth rebuilding, after the Destruction Wars. Now, please. Hands against the wall.”
The woman moved slowly. “The garden was planted, but was dead within a month?”
“Nothing grows here. Hasn’t for like ten years. It’s on the news every day. Are you carrying a weapon?”
The woman went to the mural of Free-Dog, then turned, setting her feet and hands in the positions requested. “My coat contains my wallet, with identification. It also has nine dollars and thirty-six cents, my transit pass, my key ring, one very well-used hanky, and an unopened bag of Tropical Fruit Whim-whams.”
“Whim-whams?” The officer’s voice lifted in surprised excitement. “I haven’t seen those since I was a kid. I didn’t know they still made those things.”
“There is a company overseas that makes them. You have to order them a case at a time. They were my mother’s favorite.”
The officer did a cursory pat down, then stood. “State your name.”
“Alice Moorechilde. PhD.”
The officer paused. “Wait. Moorechilde? That’s the real last name of The Brothers.” The officer glanced at the mural, then patted the pocket with the ID. She withdrew the card and then paused. “This is a Free Passage Marker for all of the quadrants. All of them. I’ve never seen one like this.”
The woman flicked a glance at the officer’s name tag. “Most people call me Alice, Officer Corday.”
“Corday is good. Your ID says you have approval from the Ultimal-Nadir Council.”
“It does.”
“But they never agree on anything.”
“Seldom.”
“How’d you get it?”
Alice smiled crookedly. “If I told you I knew some sex tricks, would you at least be tempted to investigate?”
Corday blinked, then moved her index finger, drawing a short, straight line of negation in the air. “Not while on duty, ma’am.”
“It was a bluff, anyway. I got this impossible pass because I have spent an atrocious amount of time studying plants. As you have noticed, something is not right here in the plant world. So. They sent me to have a look-see.”
“Wait.” Corday leaned in toward the ID, squinting. “This classifies you as an Ultimal.”
“It does.” Alice nodded in resignation. “But yet, I look so ordinary. Regular eye color, regular hair color, regular double chin.”
“Not so much the last.”
“Thanks. But, yes. I have the Ultimal Chromosome. At the same time, I do not have super-duper magical powers. I’m a Shat-On.”
“That’s a banned term.” Corday’s mouth tightened at the left side in disapproval. “But no one will tell me why.”
Alice examined the grey ground. “Life is full of mystery.”
“You come from a family of Ultimals, but you look like Nadir.”
“You know that means: ‘lowest point possible’, right?”
“I do, but the atom-splitters who coined it, probably didn’t. You’re evading.”
Alice chuckled, stepping gingerly over broken lump of concrete. “Yes.”
“The official term is: Obscure Presentational Genetic Ultimal. You’re an OPGU.”
Alice made a gagging noise as she walked to the end of the plot. “Nope. The polite label is all that crap you pronounced. I’m a Shat-On, and I accept it. That’s the past tense of what God did on my head.”
“Maybe. But you got both governments to agree on something. No one else can say that in the whole city. Maybe the world.”
“And yet, I’m still a Shat-On.” She headed down the hill into the rubble field.
“Banned term.”
“Suit yourself.” Alice stepped through a narrow space between two broken former parking structures. “You might want to call this in because I’m going down into there.”
Corday nodded, then followed her in. “So what’s your power? All of you have one, right?”
“In theory, yes. But ‘obscure’ means that mine has not become apparent. It has not been seen, tripped over, or levitated into view.”
“Really? Or is it that your power sucks? Like the lady in sector six who can make pickles glow orange, just by walking past the shelf. Or the guy who grows flowers out of his eyebrows when he laughs.”
Alice smiled softly. “Ah. Mabel and Kerwin. They are lovely at potlucks. But, no. I’m in that 1% who will not discover what their power is until the autopsy.” Alice pointed into the darkness, near a plunge of damaged stairs, then reached into her pocket. “I’m doing what I always do, asking more questions than I can answer.”
“Like what?”
Alice pulled out her flashlight and pointed it down the shattered stairs. The light paused a tiny patch of glistening green. “What is that doing here?”
“It’s moss. Right?”
“Yes. It is Neomacounia nitida, or, if you do not want to be so fancy, Macoun’s Shining Moss.”
“So?”
“It is growing out of the crack in the stairs.”
“So?”
“In the last decade, since The Ultimate Brothers have been co-mayors, there’s been 2000% reported loss-rate among all the plant-life. Crops. Lawns. Flowers. Gardens. Woods. All dying and/or dead. The news channels made up transitive verb for it: The Drusting.”
Corday blinked. “Now that you mention it, I can’t remember the last time I saw something growing anywhere. It’s looks sturdy.”
“Yes. It is also extinct.”
“What?”
“Yes. Wiped out in the late 1800s. Habitat destruction.”
“Then how,” Corday leaned forward, studying the moss, “can this be here?”
“My question exactly. I have another for you.” Alice tiptoed down the ruined stairs, then turned to the left, looking out a crooked doorframe. She pointed into the darkness, into a narrow alley, filled with rocks and bricks from the last Ultimal Battle. “Why is that here?”
“Well. Your brothers were fighting the Dread-Face—”
“Not the broken stuff.” Alice drew a line with her finger stopping the narrative. She pointed her flashlight at a small cascade of green. “I ask about the beautiful stuff.”
Corday pointed her flashlight at a row of ferns. “They’re so big.”
“Yes.”
Her voice hushed in reverence. “What kind are they?”
“Adiantum lianxianense. Which is interesting. They are extinct as well. Habitat destruction.” Alice turned, pointing. “Same with the flowers over there. And the flowers over there. And oh, look, saplings.”
Corday stared at the rare presence of plant-life. “Let me guess: extinct?”
Alice started bounding down the rubble field to the tiny valley full of growth. “Rightaroo.”
“All of this is dead?”
“Extinct.” Alice squeezed through a break in the wall and headed into a rubble tunnel. “Oh, look, succulents!”
Corday followed. “Well, if it’s here, then it isn’t extinct.”
“Precisely.”
“Precisely what? I don’t get it.”
Alice beamed a smile toward the officer. “I’m not sure I do yet, either. But it has sparked my imagination.”
“Oh. Can being smart be your power?”
“No. Intelligence is fairly common. Imagination is a bit more rare, though.”
“Okay, but you could tell me what your power is. I won’t file it and make you pay certification taxes on it.”
“Well,” Alice threaded through a crevice lined with clinging orchids, “there is the one thing.”
“The one thing?”
Alice knelt to study a tiny, creeping caterpillar whose antennae glowed in the darkness. “Transcendent, powerful women are drawn to me. They fall in love with me at first sight.”
Corday studied her, inhaling through her nose before she spoke. “Do they?”
“Yes. My mother did. So did my sister. So did my wife. They stayed in love with me until the last beat of their hearts.”
Corday inhaled through her nose, drawing in the delicate scents of growing life. “I’m sorry for your losses.”
Alice pressed her lips together and inched away from the caterpillar. “Thank you.”
“Three for three, though, that’s quite the record, but I’m not sure that’s a power.”
“You are right twice in a row.”
Corday stepped over a broken chunk of concrete. “As much fun as it is, crawling through your brothers’ mess, I’d like to know why we’re here?”
Alice scratched her nose. “I am looking for a church.”
“A church?” The officer laughed. “Here?”
“Yes. Here. Or here-abouts. The church was here. Way back when, when real faith still existed. Before the wars went nuclear, there was a tiny little shrine, to Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandra.”
“Never heard of him.”
“I think Euphrosyne prefers a low profile.” Alice pointed to a narrow tunnel of rubble and followed it down. “My mother attended the shrine before they split the first atom. She talked about it a lot that last year of her life. By then, this city had been destroyed, then rebuilt, destroyed, and re-rebuilt, we could not find it. But I continue to look.”
“You’re looking for an old church in a land of new gods?”
“False gods.” Alice snorted. “Ultimals are not true gods. Believe me, I have shared a bathroom with them. Nothing is divine about them.”
“Most people judge by different standards.”
“True, but they lack imagination.” Pressing her cheek on the wall of the rubble-ravine, Alice closed her eyes and listened for ten seconds. Then, she pointed southwest and started climbing down a steep pile of moss-covered rocks. “I am going this way. You should either get back to your precinct or radio this in. Either way, have a good evening, Corday.”
A soft scramble of foot falls followed after Alice. “You might need an armed escort.”
Alice chuckled and continued threading through the broken landscape, lit only by the narrow beams of two flashlights. After half an hour of slow progress through uneven tunnels, Alice squirmed through a vent opening then chuckled. “The last bit is a tad narrow, but worth the struggle.”
Corday grunted once but squeezed through, dropping onto a hardwood floor. She looked around the modest and dimly lit place. “So, where are we?”
Alice clicked off her flashlight and stood in a faint, diffused golden light. “Let your eyes adjust and then look straight up.”
Corday turned off her light also, then squinting, turned her face upward. “Okay, I see a room about the size of my apartment, which ain’t that big. Five windows could be stained glass, it’s dark so, I can’t tell. A hardwood floor. Something that looks like a little stone table at one end, a door at the other. High, arched ceiling with a whole lot of big rafters on top.”
“It is a shrine, so there is a tribute altar.” Alice’s eyes brightened as she pointed at the arches above her. “All of it is complete. I don’t see one crack.”
“Me neither.” Corday glanced around with a growing grin. “So. A Shat-On found something that nobody else could find.”
Alice turned her head toward Corday and winked. “I wondered when you would forget.”
“Forget?”
“That you were offended by that term. You had me explain it again and again, so I would think you didn’t understand. But then you forgot. You also forgot that I never quite said that The Brothers were my brothers. I mean, I could be a cousin or an auntie.”
Corday stepped in front of her. “If you’re observing, who do you observe me to be?”
“Not a police officer. You care about staying unphotographed. Plus you have not radioed this in.”
“True.”
“Were you hired to keep me from finding the church? Then, what, I would suffer a tragic accident?”
“Yes. They paid extra so it would look like an accident, but they don’t like you, so it was supposed to hurt.”
“Which part is more expensive? The appearing accidental, or the pain?”
“The combination.”
“Is this where I bargain or something?”
“Generally.” Corday shrugged one shoulder. “Why aren’t you more surprised?”
“My brothers stopped surprising me when I was eight.” Alice crouched down, studying a small, silver mouse that hopped like a frog. “They did not want this church found because it is proof that God exists, and proof that Ultimals are not God. The fact that this place is so pristine after all the destruction is the very definition of the word: miraculous.”
Corday’s brow furrowed. “So?”
Alice breathed out a laugh as she gestured at the shrine. “All of this means there is Divine Intervention. And it means Ultimals cannot stop it.”
“They can’t? They sent me to stop it by stopping you.”
“Of course. I will be dead, and you would be, hm?” She cast an amused side glance. “You would be a witness. One with an active, working brain.”
“You mean a conscience? No, not me. Not in my line of work.”
“I meant,” Alice said, “an imagination. You might imagine if what I said about being in the presence of miracles was true. Then you would start to wonder why, oh why, would my idiot brothers let you live long enough to come back to this place again. If you are alive, then they will have to pay you. They are remarkably cheap creatures, those two.”
The furrow deepened. “I have half already in advance. The other half on delivery.”
Alice paused. “Cash? Or gold?”
“Electronic wire transfer. Why?”
Alice turned her head. “Were they physically close by when you verified this? Within arm’s length?”
“Yeah.” Corday said slowly. “Why?”
“Check your account again. They picked up a trick from our patriarch. Data manipulation with a little hypnosis thrown in. Check the decimals. They like to move them to fool the eyes.” Alice snorted. “I will wait.”
“Get on the floor where I can see you.”
Alice glanced around, making sure no creatures wandered in her path, then lay on her back, knitting her hands behind her head. She stared up at the beams.
Corday wrinkled her lips together. “You’re supposed to be facing down.”
“I am supposed to be afraid of my brothers, too.”
Corday tapped the surface of her phone, then muttered an obscenity. A minute later, she sent a narrow glance down to Alice’s soft smile. “Fine. I didn’t get paid. Is that why you’re smiling?”
Alice pointed straight up. “Come down and look up there. You might smile too.”
“Great,” Corday said grumpily, then, with a what-the-hell sigh, settled onto the floor next to Alice. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Just look and tell me if you see something that should not be there.”
“I hate games.”
“Let me tell you,” Alice said, “about Saint Euphrosyne of Alexandra. He was a champ at hiding in plain sight and keeping a secret.”
“What secret did he keep?”
“His birth gender.”
Corday turned her head. “Oh? Back then?”
“Back then. Euphrosyne was born female with a deep-seated desire to live a monastic life in the service of God. But girls could not do that. Not as monks. So. Euphrosyne used his imagination, kept a secret, made a commitment, and moved into the monastery. He failed to mention his birth gender until the day he died. Soon after that, the miracles started happening for those who needed them.”
“Great story.” Corday cleared her throat. “Now tell me what the fuck I’m looking at.”
Alice pointed at the ceiling. “Tell me everything you see.”
“Big wooden beams, arches, and a lot of painted-on stars. So what?”
Alice turned her head, sending a glittering glance. “Where, precisely, is the light coming from?”
“Coming from?”
“In all the things you described, you did not say: electric cords, or light bulbs, or generators.”
Corday looked around again. “No?”
“Because we are in a rubble field. One that slid down from its original location by at least a quarter mile. In a hole. At night. With no power. All that should mean absolute, total darkness. A pitch-black tomb. But yet. There it is. Illumination. How can that be?”
Corday stared at the diffuse golden light, unable to blink or speak for thirty seconds.
“Damn.” Corday exhaled, shaking her head. “I can’t explain it.”
“We are in the presence of a miraculous beacon.” Alice lifted one hand, scooping up a tiny copper snail with an iridescent shell. “Or maybe in an ark for those living in secret who need a safe place.”
A quiet, low pulsing sound vibrated softly from Corday’s pocket.
Alice glanced. “Is that the bank, apologizing, unable to explain the mistake in your lack of funds?”
Corday pulled out her phone, glancing at the surface. “Nope. It’s the non-payers themselves. They--”
A deep, explosive quake shook the little chapel, tossing the humans, plants, insects, amphibians and mammals across the room. The two women landed against the wall of the sanctuary. They curled together, covering their heads until the shaking stopped.
Corday looked up first, glaring toward the surface. “That wasn’t an earthquake. I know ordinances when I feel them.” She glowered down at her phone. “Those assholes called me in order to kill me.”
“Their manners are appalling.” Alice brushed dust from her hair, and glanced around the tiny shrine. “But oh look. This place is still miraculously intact.”
“Weird.” Corday wrinkled her nose at her phone. “My GPS says we’re not here. It says we’re a quarter mile up and over, right under the mural of Free-Dog.”
“Which is where they shot.” Alice laughed softly and reached into her pocket. “Did you know that Free-Dog ran away right after that photo-shoot?”
“No, but I’m not shocked. Where’d she end up?”
“My house.” Alice set a small silver vial on the floor and patted it once, then stood. “She gets upset if I am not back in time for nighty-night treats.”
“Can’t blame her. I’m a big fan of those, too.” Corday pointed at the sliver of silver on a sea of wood. “Are you just going to leave that?”
“Her.” Alice nodded, turning her face away. “Those are some of my mother’s ashes. She made a request. I have now fulfilled it.”
“Agreed.” Corday stepped around the vial, careful not to disturb it. After a minute, the two women walked to the edge of the chapel.
Alice set her hand on the unbroken door and looked back at the sanctuary bathed in golden light. “My brothers declared war on you.”
“Those little shits short-funded me. They have no idea what they started.”
“They rarely do.” Alice glanced around the tiny shrine and the life that teamed in it. “We should go, before Free-Dog chews through my back door. Again.”
Corday hesitated. “We’re just going to leave all this, um, miraculousness?”
“If we are welcomed, we will be able to find our way back.” Alice patted her shoulder, then pointed at the golden light radiating from the upper beam. “I think Euphrosyne trusts that we are good with secrets and commitments.”
Corday looked up at the light and then made a gentle, respectful salute. “I think so, too.”
Clicking on their flashlights, they climbed up the rubble field. Near the top, Corday cleared her throat. “You know that thing you said? That thing about your power?”
“My non-existent power?”
“You said transcendent, powerful women are drawn to you.” Corday gestured behind her, down the slope. Instead of pure darkness, a tendril of golden-green vines wove along the path. She clicked off her flashlight. “I think you drew at least one more.”
Alice touched the vine with her fingertips, feeling the solidity of life. Pouring out from a crack in the rubble, a cloud of sapphire, extinct butterflies rose up, filling the air. “Imagine that.”
***
The ninth daughter of a surgeon who accidentally cut off the tip of his own index finger, Virginia Elizabeth Hayes developed a keen eye for the absurd at an early age. She is Bi-Polar 2 and identifies as neurodivergent. She is (so far) a cancer survivor. Her by-lines include: Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse The Princeling Papers: or, How to Fight Cancer with Colored-Pencils and Kittens.