Rock n’ Bean in:
“The Warped Wailing Beyond,” or: “Gettin’ A Message”
Rock and Bean hurtled along the battered highway that cut through the plains, a foot off the ground on their Hover Raft. Bean, a bald green woman with a shimmering blue headband that evoked diamonds, was currently driving, an act accomplished by touching the designated spot on the smooth wooden beams and willing it forward. Rock, the gray man who was also bald and the other occupant of the raft, laid on his back, asleep. The spot where his gold headband was tied formed a rudimentary pillow. They had been traveling this road for days now, and had to sleep in shifts as long as they couldn’t find lodging, because making camp among the razor grasses of the plains was an extravagant hassle.
Bean had zoned out for a bit under the late afternoon sun but was brought back to reality by the sight of a sign on the side of the road. It advertised the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine, an upcoming attraction, and admission was only five tokens per person. “Dear Jod,” she muttered in awe. She gently shook Rock and asked, “I know you’re sleeping but do you want to see the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine?”
“Yes,” Rock replied immediately. He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his face. “You were right to wake me up for it. Let’s get a look at that cube. What’s twine?”
“It’s string but different,” Bean replied. “They might have more information there.”
Now invigorated with the promise of the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine, color had returned to their faces, still green and gray because that’s what colors they were. Rock placed his palm on the navigation groove and added his willpower to the raft, allowing Bean to rest her soul a little. They both guided the raft down the last stretch of highway. The faint symbols on their handwraps glowed a bit, reacting to the transfer of spiritual force.
They watched the plains roll by, mostly featureless but with the occasional ruin or animal nest, and other little incongruities that prevented them from being an endless green ocean of grass. A smoldering crater on the side of a hill indicated a recent meteorite impact, not an uncommon occurrence in Uoiea. Soon, they saw the building where the Cube of Twine was held.
The site was a shoddy wooden building that housed the twine, as well as a few smaller buildings, signs identifying them as a restaurant and a gift shop. A handful of gyrotormobiles were parked in the allotted parking space, metal shells of varying sizes all powered by their ubiquitous gyro-rotor engines. The orange afternoon sun coated them in a sheen that hurt the eyes to look at.
The raft pulled up to the lot. Bean and Rock hopped off, and the raft lazily floated in midair until Bean placed her hand in the groove and willed it to close. With a snap, the raft collapsed into a single wooden beam, which she folded in half until it was the length of a walking stick.
“I’ll carry the raft this time,” Rock offered. He affixed it to his back next to his satchel. “Let’s go see some twine!” He high-fived Bean and they made their way into the building.
A few other patrons were in the lobby of the twine building: a married couple and their child, three young university students, an older man who wore a shirt bearing the image of the Twine Cube, and an uncomfortable looking figure in a long coat who had not groomed himself in quite some time. Another woman, the same age as the university students, stood on the other side of a counter, and presumably was not attending a university but rather employed by the twine establishment. Most of these people turned to look at Rock and Bean when they entered.
“Hey, how’s it going,” Rock said. “We’re here to see the twine.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” the old man replied.
“This is an abnormally big tour group today,” the woman behind the counter said. She put on her hat with a picture of twine on it and stepped out from behind the counter. After collecting T5 from everyone, she began. “Let’s get this over with. I’m Velveeta-Ann, call me Velv. I’ll be your tour guide today.”
Bean raised her hand, and before Velv could speak, said “Will we be able to purchase twine at the end of the tour?”
“We are not taking questions at this time. First we will be learning about the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine. Then, we will step into the next room and see the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine. Taking twine from the cube or adding your own to it is prohibited. Now, this Cube of Twine is believed to be dated Before Humbling, making it an anteworld relic. Unfortunately, attempts to narrow down the age based on the decay rate of the twine particles…” Velv continued, reciting these twine facts like someone who had long since had their fill of twine.
“Isn’t this cool?” Bean whispered to Rock.
“I can’t wait to learn more about twine,” Rock replied. “And get a glimpse of that cube. Do they have food here?”
Velv went on, not stopping for Bean or Rock, since they were whispering and she didn’t hear them. “–debates raged on until the commission stepped in to verify that this cube was bigger than the one on display at the Archearl’s Palace. The local Earl offered it to the Archearl in an attempt to gain his favor, but–”
Just then, the tour was interrupted by a scrawny man running into the lobby, panting. “Messenger!” he shouted through heavy breaths. “There was a Messenger sighting! Coming this way.”
The crowd gasped and muttered. Rock and Bean glanced at one another and pretended to be just as concerned, their secret that they didn’t know what this meant only known by each other.
The arriver, a young man in dusty clothes, appeared to have difficulty breathing but kept choking out words. “Where’s the nearest Fightingman?”
“I don’t know what to do,” Velv said. “This never happened to me before. Oh god.”
“Ma’am, please, where’s the Fightingman on duty?”
“Right, okay. He’s in the diner.”
“Oh, they do have food,” Rock said to Bean but a few other people heard it and gave him a look.
“Okay. I’ll go get him. You go get these people somewhere safe.” The young man turned and stumbled out, towards the squat restaurant building.
Velv waved everyone over. “Okay, attention, we will be staying here until our Fightingman gives us further instructions. I’m sorry the tour will not be continuing.”
“What do you think a Messenger is?” Rock asked Bean quietly. “I feel like everyone is saying it like the first letter is capitalized.”
“Is it like a guy with an envelope?” Bean replied.
“Excuse me,” Velv asked. “Do you not know what a Messenger is?”
“Hmm. We weren’t talking as quietly as I thought,” Rock said.
Velv ignored him and continued. “Where are you from that you don’t know that?”
“Uh, don’t worry about that,” Rock quickly replied. “So what’s the situation here? Because you may have noticed from our headbands, and hand wraps with scripture inscribed on them, and fighting spirit that emanates from us even when we’re at rest, but we’re Fightists.”
“I… that won’t be necessary. We have a Fightingman for such occasions. There’s a few attractions along this stretch of highway, all World’s Biggests, and they’re all under his jurisdiction,” Velv explained. “Only licensed Fightingmen can intervene, I’d have to alert the Constabularium if you took combative action. I’m sorry.”
“We’re trying to help you out, and you’d call ’bules on us? Well, I hope this guy can handle it,” Rock said.
“You know where to find us.” Bean flexed. “Right here.” She then high-fived Rock.
“What’s going on in here?” came a stern voice. Everyone turned to the door where a gruff, leathery man stood. His wrists were encased in metal and a wide brimmed hat hid his face. Rock and Bean noticed his “Fightingman” badge.
“Mr. Reevus, there’s-” Velv began.
“I know,” the man replied. “Why are there people high-fiving in here? This situation is going to get real bad.”
“They don’t know what a Messenger is,” Velv told him.
“We don’t,” Rock confirmed.
“I guessed a guy with an envelope,” Bean added.
“That’s really damn interesting,” Reevus said. “We don’t have time to discuss it though. Everyone get in that room.” Reevus pointed at the twine room.
“Alright, just as he said. Come on,” Velv said. She herded everyone into the room containing the Twine Cube. “You will be seeing the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine but I will not be answering questions about it.”
Bean and Rock followed everyone into the room. Reevus stood in the doorway so that the only way in and out of the twine room was through him.
The World’s Biggest Cube of Twine sat in the center of the room. It was the size of a small building, but smaller than the building it was contained in, otherwise it wouldn’t be inside of it. It was composed of countless strands of a twisted braided string. There was a small plaque in front of the cube and not much else in the room.
Velv ushered everyone into the back corner. None of them were looking at the twine, except Rock and Bean. Bean rifled through her bag and pulled out a translucent card. She held it up to the cube, and after a snapping sound, the image of the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine was now on the card. “One for the old scrapgrimoire,” she said, sliding the card into a hefty book full of other similar cards.
“Whatever the hell that was, it doesn’t happen again,” Reevus snapped.
“What’s this guy’s problem?” Bean asked Rock.
“My problem,” Reevus began, stomping over to them, “Is that you do not realize the magnitude of the situation. The fact that you don’t makes me real suspicious.”
“Get out of my face,” Bean said.
“I’m the only one here who can stop today from becoming a tragedy, got it? Sit down and look at the twine, if you can handle that without doing anything strange.” Reevus headed back to the door, but then stopped. Without turning back around, he said, “Unless you want to come see for yourself. Since you’re so tough.”
“Hey, thanks for noticing,” Rock said.
“Yeah, now we’re talking.” Bean cracked her knuckles.
Reevus led them back outside. He pulled out a small telescope from his vest. He handed it to Rock or Bean, sort of holding his hand out between the two of them. Rock picked it up and tried to angle it so both he and Bean could see through it at the same time, squishing their cheeks together.
In the distance, a white light was moving through the plains. It drifted back and forth but was heading towards the road stop. As it got closer, they could see the being at the nucleus of the light blob. At first glance, it was human. At every subsequent glance, there was more and more wrong with it. It glided through the air on the frames of wings that looked like silver blood vessels growing out of its back, the tips of its feet just barely scraping the ground. The razor grass of the plains bent away from it to allow it passage. Its body was a smooth metallic material, and its proportions were wrong. Too tall in some places, eyes wider than they should be, more joints in its hand than it needed. Its mouth hung open as if its jaw was unhinged and a wavy distortion cascaded out from it, like heat off the road. They could hear it in the distance, singing, a single note that didn’t feel real, like ringing in your ears.
“What’s that thing?” Rock asked. “Does the Messenger know about it?”
“That is the Messenger. You idiot.” Reevus adjusted his wrists, and the metallic bands around them slid out to reveal that they were cylinders built into his flesh. He began loading bullets into them one by one, six in each wrist. “It landed earlier today, you can see the crater from here.”
“We saw it on the way!” Bean said. “Didn’t know it was caused by a weird guy. Are you saying they’re from outer space?”
Reevus winced but otherwise ignored her. “As the Fightingman of this kilostretch of highway, I will engage this incursion. Get inside and stay there.”
Rock and Bean returned to the twine room. “That guy’s whole deal gets on my nerves,” Rock said. The other tourists were huddled together and comforting one another.
“When he gets himself killed, we’re going to have to fight that thing.” Bean glared at Velv. “Or is that not allowed? Gonna call the ’bules on us?”
“Mr. Reevus is a very capable person, this will be over really fast and then we can get back to thinking about twine,” Velv replied. “If he’s standing between it and us, we’ll be just fine.”
Reevus’s figure appeared in the doorway, looking into the room.
“What’s the problem?” Bean asked.
“The problem is that I have deceived you. But through my deception, I will bring you peace.”
“Here we go,” Rock said.
Reevus’s necklace was now visible, from it hanging a symbol, a series of intersecting circles.
Bean elbowed Rock. “Oh, he’s a circle person. The ones who own the observatories we keep seeing.”
“He’s an Orbital Aspectist, the belief that this one specific set of solar systems is actually God, each planet of which representing an aspect or emanation of God and that the patterns of their orbits can convey divine knowledge,” Rock explained.
“Wow, how do you know that?” Bean asked.
“That morning when I went out early to get the long bread before it got stale, I ended up going into one of the observatories and they were in the middle of mass. They seemed nice, told me about their beliefs. They wouldn’t let me use the telescope though,” Rock went on.
“They were right to not do so,” Reevus interjected. “An oaf like you could never understand what you’d have seen if you witnessed the Emanationoids of the Divine Orbits.”
Rock nodded agreeably. “Oh, probably not. That stuff gets too complex for me. The only interpretation of God that ever really spoke to me is Jod.”
Reevus furrowed his brow. “I’m not familiar with that exegesis but it sounds… appropriately simple for someone like you. You will be a wiser man by the end of today.”
“Mr. Reevus, what is going on? What does this have to do with the Messenger?” Velv asked.
Reevus turned to her and the other tourists who were gathered together. “The Messengers come from the cosmos. You see them do so. Arriving like meteors. God, who lives in space, sends them. So that we may hear their Message.” Reevus flipped his necklace around in his fingers as he spoke. “That is why I have gathered you all here, in the shrine of this false twine god, and will keep you here until the Messenger arrives. And then we can all hear its Message together.”
One of the students stepped forward, and her friends tried to hold her back. “Look, man, I’m an Orbitist too.” She revealed a similar necklace. “There’s a reason that a lot of observatory sects don’t believe that Messengers are angels from space. They’re dangerous. And there’s nothing in the Astro-Psalms mentioning anything like them. A lot of observatories actually accept the theory that they are organic beings that form in the atmosphere and–”
“Not interested,” Reevus snapped. He cocked his wrists. “I’m only interested in doing whatever I have to do to make sure you all hear the Message.” He approached the tourists with his fists clenched.
“Listening to the message drives you crazy and then kills you, though,” Velv replied.
Reevus eagerly began explaining. “It only looks like it’s killing you. But in actuality, it is–”
“Alright, that’s enough.” Bean walked up to Reevus and punched him in the side of the jaw.
“Damnation!” Reevus shouted, reeling back and holding his mouth. “That’s how it’s going to be?”
Bean put her fists up, bouncing on her feet. “Yeah, that’s how it’s going to be.”
Reevus swung at her. Bean ducked under it, and Reevus’s fist collided with the wall. One of the bullets in his wrist-cylinder detonated, adding the force of a gunshot to his punch, blowing a hole in the wooden beam.
Rock rushed him and swung at him. Reevus stepped back, let Rock stumble, and then threw another loaded jab with his other hand, which Rock swatted away. Upon the impact of his forearm to Reevus’s fist, the bullet went off, not a direct hit but still releasing enough force to hurt pretty bad. Reevus cocked his wrists again.
“Joddamn,” Rock swore, holding his forearm. Reevus swung at Rock again, and he went on the defense, stepping back each time a punch was thrown at him. He felt the wall behind him coming up, at which point he’d have to figure out how to not get hit by these gunshot-punches, a problem for which he currently had no proposed solutions. With the Cube of Twine taking up most of the room, Bean could only approach from behind, and Reevus would hear her coming.
With nowhere to maneuver and unable to risk getting near this guy’s fists, Rock quickly ran out of options, but stayed chill, because he couldn’t see Bean over Reevus’s shoulder and knew she was therefore cooking something up.
Reevus heard a rustle and by the time he looked in its direction, up, Bean had already leapt off the Cube of Twine and hurtled towards Reevus with an elbow ready. Despite the length of this description on text, this all happened within moments, and Reevus had no time to react. Bean’s elbow drop came down on him like a meteor, or his precious Messenger. There was an audible crack from somewhere within Reevus’s body.
Bean rolled off of him and stood up before he could thrash his fist in her general direction. He hit the wall, and it burst, the stink of gunpowder in the air. He scrambled to stand up, and launched a desperate haymaker at Rock.
This time, Rock grabbed Reevus’s upper arm and wrenched it back with the aid of its own momentum to make Reevus hit himself in the face. The gunshot went off and half of Reevus’s face was now a gruesome mess. He was still up, just swaying and missing an eye. They saw him make the motion to once again cock his wrists. Bean and Rock each grabbed one and stopped the mechanism from doing whatever it did, but Reevus’s surprising strength matched theirs and they were at a standstill. This lasted a moment before Bean pried open his wrist-cylinder and hit it with her palm. The spent rounds and the intact ones yet to be used clattered to the floor. Rock did the same to the other wrist, or rather tried and couldn’t get it loose, so Bean gave him the first wrist to hold and she disarmed the second.
No longer fearing his bizarre augmentation, they were easily able to kick his legs out from under him and restrain him. Rock twisted his arms behind his back and the fight left his body.
They returned to the front of the room to present the defeated man to Velv and the tourists but were met with the sight of the Messenger. The thing was nine feet tall and looming in the remains of the doorway, staring blankly at the cowering tourists. This close, they could see the thin black veins just below the surface of its metallic skin, and the glassy eyes that did not blink. The wings seemed to serve no purpose, as they stayed stationary and yet the thing still floated. It turned to Rock and Bean and their captive.
“Yes!” Reevus coughed with as much of a grin he could muster with what was left of his face. “I’m listening!”
The Messenger opened its mouth. The Message, a beam of quivering air and sound, hit Reevus, and Rock who was directly behind him. It locked them in place like a vacuum seal, which Bean found out when she tried to pry Rock away. He was fixed to the floor in that spot, or maybe fully fixed in space.
“Rock! Can you hear me?” Bean shouted.
Rock could not hear her. The Messenger’s song burrowed into his head. Inside the influence of the song, it wasn’t a sound anymore. It was racing thoughts that wracked the whole body as if the whole body was made of brain tissue and thus capable of racing thoughts. It was every spike of anxiety he had ever experienced in his life all come back at once.
“My brain is having a heart attack,” Rock said. The vibration of the Message warped his voice like when he’d run his hand up and down on his throat to make his voice sound warbly. He found having it done to him against his will intensely upsetting.
“Just let it in,” Reevus said. His voice was startlingly clear. Everything outside the cone of the Messenger’s voice felt a mile away, but Reevus was sealed inside with him. “It’s going to be frightening at first, but we are being given a gift. Knowledge from beyond. From God Himself. We’re going to disappear from this place, because once we know these things, we can never go back.”
As Reevus spoke, he slowly unraveled. It was a bloodless affair. Rather, he was loosened into strands and they peeled back like string cheese. His blood and muscle and bone were crystallized underneath his frayed skin, and those layers soon began to peel away too.
Rock felt the same begin to happen to him too. Names and words he didn’t understand were quickly in and out of his mind. The closest thing he had ever felt was that twilight right before falling asleep, where information grew blurry and swirled together. The difference between what he knew and what he couldn’t possibly understand was shrinking and would soon be the same thing.
“You’re resisting,” Reevus said, his voice weaker now that his throat was losing mass at a rapid rate. “Space God is speaking to you. You are being handed the answers. Do you not want them?”
“I gotta be honest, I don’t think I do.” Rock felt himself relax, on a molecular level. The pressure bombarding his brain lessened a little. “If I have to die to know the answers, I don’t think I care about them then. It’s whatever, you know?’
“No, I don’t know!” Reevus’s voice was now unrecognizable. “You cannot reject the Message! See how it causes me to transcend! The same will happen to you!”
“I don’t want the answers like this, I can probably figure it out myself.”
“You will reject a gift directly from God and ‘figure it out yourself’?” Reevus spat.
“Sounds like a plan, my man.”
“How–” Reevus stopped saying whatever he was going to say and instead said, “It’s happening. Yes. Yes! I feel it! It’s… killing me! Yes! Wait! No! No no no-” And he was gone.
Without Reevus in the song stream with him, Rock was now being hit with the entirety of the Message. The Messenger wormed its way into his mind. There was an audible strain in its voice as it tried to contort its mouth to his language. “Listen.”
Rock felt the voice battering the walls of his brain. He realized that, as hard as it hit, it ultimately needed permission to enter, and people tended to be so worn down by the volume of the Message that they believed they had no choice. But in the face of this torrent and noise and wind, he remained chill. “Nah, I’m alright.”
And if you don’t care about the Message, the Messenger has no power over you. Rock was released from the prison of the Messenger’s song. His ears popped but he was otherwise unharmed, unlike Reevus, who was now a stain on the floor. The Messenger stared at him. He shrugged at it.
Bean’s fist slammed into the Messenger’s mouth, clutching a fistful of twine, stuffing it into the Messenger’s maw. The Messenger clawed at its throat, but Bean’s other hand had another clump of thick, dry twine that she slammed down its throat. The Messenger tried to sing and its voice was unable to escape.
Bean then grabbed the Messenger and flipped it onto the ground to her side. With the doorway clear, she waved everyone over. “Come on, tour’s over. Get out of here. You… rascals.”
Velv and the tourists said nothing, but just fled the room. The Messenger stood up, and with its throat impacted with twine, it put up its arms and pursed its fingers in a strange tilted open palm that was apparently its hand-to-hand fighting stance. Bean and Rock stood opposed to it, their fists up.
The Messenger moved. It glided, fast, snapping into position in front of Rock, and lashing out its hands. Rock’s hefty forearms were able to block most of these hits but they were also too fast for him to do anything else. Any attempt to grab the Messenger’s wrist either missed or the Messenger’s wrist slipped right out of his grip.
Bean swung at it, and it clicked forty five degrees in her direction to catch her fist in its palm. Its other hand still lunged out at Rock with steady mechanical motions. Bean undid her fist, pushing outward against the Messenger’s grip in the process, and when she had the advantage, wrenched the Messenger’s fingers backwards. Holding the hand in place, she opened her other hand into a palm intending to crash it against the Messenger’s forearm. Despite its speed, Bean found the Messenger’s physical body was unexpectedly susceptible to force. It would yield to her weight and muscle. She knew this would break its arm.
The Messenger’s eyes flitted back and forth between Bean and Rock, like it was calculating something. It ultimately decided to disengage Rock and whack Bean’s forearm, forcing her to let go of its hand and preserving the capability of its left arm. This allowed Rock to grab its right arm and snap the limb in half.
The exoskeleton tore open and the fluorescent bone inside was in two jagged pieces. The Messenger did not cry out or recoil in pain, but its poise crumbled. Bean knocked its arms aside and landed hit after hit into its chest. The foil-like material that made up the thing’s exterior buckled under Bean’s strength.
The Messenger apparently decided this was enough and that with the Message undelivered and never going to be delivered, it was time to scuttle itself. It began to glow and tremble and smell like burnt cookware.
“It’s gonna blow,” Bean announced. “We need to get clear of this disaster.”
“I can give us a bit more distance,” Rock said. He picked up the Messenger and held it over his head, and then added, “Jod forgive me.” He reluctantly hurled the Messenger into the only direction it could go in this room, into the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine. He turned and ran with Bean.
Moments later, the Messenger detonated in a silent eruption of light and force. The rest stop blew apart, the Cube of Twine the epicenter of this self-destruction. It rained twine.
Velv and the tourists had gotten pretty far from the rest stop with their head start, and were completely clear of the explosion. When the misty light cleared, they returned to the wreckage. The smell of burnt ozone filled the air. Among the scorched wood, crackling pieces of Messenger, and twine that was no longer part of the World’s Biggest anything, Rock and Bean were gone.
The old twine-loving man saw the Hover Raft already on the road. He wanted to tell everyone, to have constabularii bring them in for destroying the World’s Biggest Cube of Twine, but the Messenger would have come today regardless of their presence. It actually would have been his life that was lost instead had Rock and Bean not been there. They could all live to enjoy twine another day thanks to these wandering Fightists. Jod bless them, wherever they ended up.
- by Michael Awadalla
- This is my own work and has not been generated in whole or in part by AI
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