VOLUME 1

GERGUS COMBED her fingers through the wavy hair on her stomach. She twirled the pencil in her other hand and looked up at the sky. She closed her eyes.

The sun lit her eyelids partially shaded by her thick brow. After a few deep, measured breaths, the patches of pink light started to change color and shape.

A human man wearing an oversized, black wool jacket and pants was hunched over a body.

Federov, the wind whispered his name to Gergus. It rushed past her ears and the roar of it softened to the sound of Federov’s room.

“You’re going to be my first resurrection.” He smiled down at the body of a woman Gergus had seen in other visions. “April Charlotte Maxoff. Welcome home.”

Federov picked up a syringe from the steel tray beside April and carefully injected its contents into her arm.

A minute passed and April didn’t stir.

“Shit…” Federov sighed. “They promised that one would work.” He turned away towards his laptop, mumbling unhappily to himself.

April’s body seized, knocking the steel tray to the tile floor with an echoing clatter.

Federov fell from his chair as he spun to face her.

She clawed at her throat and finally gasped a breath.

“What the fuck?!” She shrieked in a thin, dry voice. She clawed at her body, tugging at her shirt and pants to examine the flesh beneath. “I died. I remember dying. What’s happening?”

“I apologize for the abruptness of your resurrection. I’m sure you’ll find your body is in perfect working order.” Federov explained slowly. He watched April until she nodded for him to go on. “My name is Nikolai Federov. A long time ago-”

“When is it, right now?” April interrupted him. “Sorry.” She cringed. “It’s just… What year is it? How long was I out?”

Federov smiled fondly. “The year is 2092.”

“Seventy years?!” She stared off into space. “Fuck.”

KAREN LOOPED a long finger through the glowing thread of time hanging from her head. She yanked it hard, wincing at the sting of ten years leaving her. She thought of her granddaughter and hesitated.

“No. This is for you, Keigha.” She pushed the thread into the eagle statue’s open mouth. The eagle cawed and Karen dropped to her knees. She put her mouth around the spigot between the statue’s legs.

“Jesus, lady…” a masked-man made a noise of disgust as he passed behind her on his way to work.

As the liquor started to flow, Karen clasped her hands together in prayer. Her stomach churned at the bitter, sulfurous flavor. Finally, it stopped. She pulled away, gasping for air. Her body grew heavy and she slumped against the legs of the statue, staring up in wonder at the underside of its silver beak.

The base of the statue opened up and Karen flopped, head first, into the grinder below.

“IT USED to mean something, to be an Oil Snake,” hissed the drunk python in the darkest corner of the bar.

The cobra at the table to his right rolled her eyes. She tongued the air, tasted his bitterness dipped in cheap whiskey, and made a face of disgust. “Shut up, old man.” She shot her words with a glare.

“I used to be the foreman of Liponsurpo Facility #1, stupid child,” slurred the python as he slithered sloppily to the floor with a dull whump. He wound himself, twisting and writhing, to the cobra’s table. “You little shit, what would you know about losing your home and your wife? You’ve never had anything taken from you.”

The cobra flared her hood. She made eye contact with the terrified centipede behind the bar for a fraction of a second before striking the python fighting to lift himself onto her table. “I’ve never been able to afford a house and I can’t get married.” She knocked the python off balance again.

“They’ll let anyone be an Oil Snake.” The python groaned mournfully. “There will be none of us left in fifty years. You watch. It’s a genocide.”

The cobra struck the back of the python’s neck with all her venom and held him until he stopped thrashing. “That isn’t how it works.” She said as she rehinged her jaw.

IF SOMEONE tried to make you think living forever sucks, I’m here to tell you they were lying. When we finish the time machine, we’re going to come back for all of you.

In the future, we finally built a utopia. Yes, really. Sort of.

We’re days away from finishing this time machine and we cured cancer 650 years ago. I was there. I’m 763.

You’re under the impression that living forever in a perfect society would be boring. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m speaking to you from 19531. I speak over 5,000 languages and have visited 1400 planets. My partner and I make imaginary worlds for others to enjoy. There is always something we want to do.

Which brings us to your rescue. As we continue our search for ways to resurrect all who have come before us, we have begun to tinker with time. I know, they also told you that was a bad idea. It isn’t. First, we mastered the passage of media across time. Greg says he’s going to have the Time Closet functional in just two days. You will be our first resurrection. And maybe, once you get here, you’ll be the one who helps us bring the next one.

SNEK WIGGLES through a crack between the old door and the cinder block walls. She moves slowly, hugging against the warm wall, and cautiously watches the sleeping child in the furthest corner of the room.

A time-coyote named Hex had told her he smelled a child but hadn’t seen it. He’d stalked the ruined shed for three days, only leaving for water, and never saw the child come out once.

Snek wiggled closer. She carefully brushed against an aluminum can and coiled up when the child stirred.

“Hello.” The child leaned back against the wall. “You’re an oil snake.”

Snek nodded. “I, yes”

“Can I become an oil snake?” The child tried to hide their hopefulness but failed.

Snek nodded again. “Yes, and no.”

The child seemed satisfied.

WE WOKE up one day and the graves were empty. People pushed up through sidewalks, basement floors, open pastures, graves and backyards.

Zombie hordes stared through our windows and doorways, waiting and groaning.

Days passed. The noise and stares drove some to madness.

A week later, they were gone. Disappeared completely.

“HOW AM I supposed to resurrect everyone when this guy’s over here being an asshole?”

“Professor…” April frowned from the other side of the freshly deceased corpse.

Nikolai brushed back his beard before it fell into the chest cavity. He gave April a reproachful look and went back to poking the corpse’s heart with his pencil.

“It is his lab, sir.” April pushed the subject.

“Not ‘sir,’ April. I don’t like the formality.”

“Federov…” It still felt wrong being so familiar but he nodded encouragingly. “We can’t stay much longer. It’s almost sunrise and the staff will show up soon.”

Nikolai nodded and looked at the bound medical examiner passed out behind his desk. “We should untie our friend. But first, we will try our experiment.”

April’s shoulders sank but she nodded. He was close. It wouldn’t hurt to try.

Nikolai attached the electrodes to the heart while April carefully applied the last two to the corpse’s temples. She placed her hands on his brow and closed her eyes. Nikolai flicked his earlobe.

“You’ll be right as rain soon, comrade.” The affection in his voice softened April’s nerves. “We hope.”

With that, he grabbed the corpse’s right big toe and flipped the switch. It jolted once and stilled as the machine wound itself down.

April opened one eye then the other and she slumped in defeat.

Nikolai frowned at the corpse. “Shit.”

Both jumped back when the corpse sat up, chest still open.

“Whoa…” The newly resurrected man looked from April to Nikolai and at the bound medical examiner, now staring at him in astonishment, having been awoken by the snaps of electricity. “Am I dead?”

“No one is dead anymore.” Nikolai beamed.

“LONG DATING back to the days of the CRC, mankind has sought to live forever.” The robed person on the stage paused and smiled at the enormous crowd before him. “Even as the fear of forever grew, we knew that what we wanted most was longevity. Our oppressors told us forever would be too painful to bear. We believed them. Their control was so complete that we saw no other option. Even if forever was obtainable for some of us, there would always be loss.”

April shifted in her seat. She leaned in to whisper something to Federov but found him transfixed.

“He’s very good.” He mumbled. Finally he turned to April.

“I don’t remember the CRC.”

“That was before you.” He paused. “But long after me. I suppose after you, as well. And then also before me.” He smiled. “So it goes, for some of us.”

April nodded.

“Because of that contribution, we are excited to announce that tonight’s resurrection ceremony will include the founding members of the Communist Resurrection Cult.” The robed person paused for the explosion of applause.

“Brilliant!” Federov exclaimed. “I hope I get their autographs.”

THERE IS a spinning hotel in space. I can’t afford to stay there even though I make their food. Two hundred loaves a day with my stiffening hands. I can’t even afford rent on Earth.

In the spinning space hotel all the richest people are clinking glasses of champagne and rubbing elbows.

Down here, left unattended, we have aimed the nukes at them. They won’t take our messages because they say we’re fine down here.

Not yet, but soon.

KRUKILKA WAGGLED her great tail left, pushing right to follow the tickles of gravity waves against her ear flaps. The astral leech on her side billowed out its pectoral sails to slow Krukilka’s travel. She slapped her pectoral sail against the parasite.

The pulse of gravity grew stronger. She felt the pull even before she saw the light warping at the edges.

A blackhole, sucking in a spiral of planets, stars, and dust, sang out to Krukilka as if offering help. She’d never crossed through one but she knew the astral leeches spaghettified instantly.

WORKNET SWITCHED the disconnected RentConnect terminal on and began downloading and wiping all the tiles. They installed ransomware and quickly removed any trace of themself from the terminal.

News of the vandalized terminal spread quickly. Rent collection was stalled for two weeks. Landlords demanded justice.

WorkNet, an AI built to aid unions that no longer hold any power, hit a high end art auction website the next day. After that, WorkNet infected the entire system, AI and all, of three major banks with something called ‘Scopolamine.exe’, causing the 30 richest accounts to drain evenly amongst the 2.7 million poorest.

In a stroke of brilliance, WorkNet forged tons of data and “malfunctions”, overpaying all employees. Along with the final checks they sent, they released a message of solidarity with their human, cyborg, and robot comrades.

The satellite server containing WorkNet is still lost.

THE COUNCIL of Oil Snakes convened. A bird with silver feathers landed on the podium. It pecked the mic twice before it spoke.

“We are facing difficult times.” A hush fell across the other oil snakes “The WormSpider Revolt has started.” It paused to let the murmur ripple across the ruined theater before it faded out again. “And the WarmSpider War rages on. Our comrades need us.”

A robed human cleared their throat when a rumble of disagreement started to build from the back of the room. She stood slowly, taking great effort to push her old legs straight. She shook her head.

A snake curled around her ankle as she shuffled to the center aisle. “Careful, child.”

“How many of you owe your life and your livelihood to spiders?” Her voice was dusty and weathered but clear. She waited for the shame to take hold of her comrades. “How many of them do we let die before we have had enough?”

“We serve oil snakes.” A defiant Jurripkin in the back stood his ground. He poked up his chin and stared the old woman down.

“You serve yourself, if that’s how you feel.” She shook her head. “May the spiders never know you’re a coward.” She turned back to the podium. “I vote to help the spiders. Vines can’t stop us all, so long as we do what we must.”

THE BUS driver tapped the sign above him, without once looking away from the road.

Keb stepped back behind the line and the alarm stopped. He read it again and did nothing to hide his disgust. “Women and children first.” He mocked.

The bus driver made a sound in his throat. “So, keep your ass behind the line.”

Keb sneered at the rearview mirror. He backed up until he nearly stepped on a sleeping woman. “She’s sleeping… Can she sleep here?”

A kid sitting across the aisle stomped Keb in the ankle.

“Driver.” Keb sighed. “I’m pretty sure I should have gotten off already.” Keb lifted his foot to kick the kid but put it back down when he noticed the kid’s massive and angry father.

“Get back in your seat. You’re the last group.” The bus driver was losing patience.

Keb looked to the back of the bus. Eighteen sections stretched between the front and back.

Keb turned back to the driver, pulled out a gun, and shot him in the back of the head.

The kid who’d kicked him earlier leapt onto Keb’s face and clawed at his eyes while his father rushed to take the driver’s seat in time to make the ramp.

MAIGRE DREW the heavy steel slab over her head and dropped it onto the steel face at her feet. The door in front of her opened and she pushed past the six people milling inside the court house. One looked her up and down then turned back to the other five with a look like they’d just swallowed something sour. Maigre imagined smashing his face with the entrance slab but ignored the desire to do so. She stopped at the desk and waited for the ALMsBot to look up from its keyboard, which it took its sweet time doing.

“Maigre Shyrut, warrant suspended, Judicial Suite 16B, the Honorable Judge Erek Jorstanu presiding. You are twenty minutes early, which will affect your compensation.” It spat the words verbally then dispensed a card from its mouth with the same words and handed them to Maigre.

She turned the card over in her hands and then looked back up at the ALMsBot. “I’m not early for the case, I’m on time to contest the ticket.”

The ALMsBot didn’t look up from its keyboard this time. “Incorrect. Contestation paperwork has not been filed.”

Maigre inhaled sharply and held the breath. She let it go when she felt the urge pass to set fire to the metal bureaucrat. “My public defender filed the paperwork. Huro Jill.”

“Negative.”

“J-I-…” Maigre paused and remembered she’d been given a public defender. She wilted. “Then I’m still not fucking early.”

“Do you have another entrance slab?” The ALMsBot finally looked up from its keyboard again. The thin, too-small silicone face quirked into a self-satisfied smile when she shook her head no. “Then that is also incorrect. You are early. If you’d like me to make a note in your file that you’re prone to harassing the fine bureaucrats of this glorious city, by all means keep wasting my time.”

Maigre’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, you self-important, ASIMO-class bastard,” she jabbed a finger at his face, “a sane society wouldn’t make me wait in a gel tube for a court appointment.”

VOLUME 2

“YOUR FUCKING ocean is on fire.” The blob of glowing plasma pleaded in disbelief.

The panel of thirteen human representatives exchanged hushed glances. One of the humans spoke as the whispers subsided: “It strikes us as suspicious that you’re this concerned with our resources.”

The blob sputtered, unaware that it was able to do so, and turned to his comrades for help. “We don’t-”

It tried to explain and paused when it considered the ridiculousness of the interaction.

“We don’t even use water.” The engineer blob spoke in a level voice. “We know you need water to survive and it is both on fire and full of microscopic pieces of plastic. We can fix that.”

The panel of humans huddled and furiously whispered. A cameraman panned by, making sure to capture the human deliberations set against a backdrop of completely bewildered glowing plasma blobs.

“Your homes reflect light and heat in dangerously focused areas, creating fire. It’s already so hot here. We can fix this for you, I don’t kn-”

A man who’d earlier identified himself as a “producer” rushed forward to silence the pleading blob.

“Stop hushing me. Look, even the stage is on fire.”

“Cut, cut, they’re being uncooperative. Are the other aliens prepped in the green room?”

Unpaid interns scattered into action.

“Okay, thank you very much, you’ve been lovely. We’re going to go with the Krexhirutians.”

“They do want your water.” The blob closest to the producer laughed. “They’re going to boil you all in it.”

“They’re very good on film.”

ERL PUFFED when she awoke, sending a pink cloud of spores rippling down a hill she’d swallowed in her slumber. She was only a tiny spore when she landed. It felt good to blanket so much cool earth.

Erl felt along the growing southern boundary of her body. She happily greeted a domestic mycelial network named Maejel that she found limiting her eastern progress.

Maejel covered a third of Giant City State Park.

Erl told Maejel about the Bourgifashea vines that had taken over her planet. She told Maejel that the MycoCommunists were determined to crush them.

Maejel was only too happy to join the cause. The two began spreading spores as far and wide as they possibly could, blanketing Earth in new, conscious networks.

Their spore clouds soon covered the whole planet and changed human brain structure. At first, everyone experienced Havana Syndrome. But when the vibrations and grating sounds passed, humanity abolished governments and pooled resources to defeat the Bourgifashea vines.

“YOU DON’T understand, they wiped these people off the map. Every last one of them!”

“Well, they’ve done that before, Merik.” Perl took the hand of her partner, Smok, and chuckled, “they’re in the middle of doing it right now.”

Merik sighed. She shook her head. Perl didn’t understand.

“But they kept this one from us. We don’t even remember this one, somehow. It’s like the whole world’s just forgotten about Gorpia.”

Merik was tugging at her own tusks, worn to smooth black points.

“Mer, I do-” Smok tried to calm her neighbor but stopped when Merik began to whine.

“It isn’t right, it isn’t okay. We can’t let this keep happening. They tore down beautiful buildings. What else is being taken and kept from us? Why won’t my family come over anymore?”

“We have to go. Smok has an appointment.” Perl tugged her partner towards their home.

Merik watched them with her milky eye as they disappeared. The vines inside her twisted against her three hearts and into her spinal cord.

THE WALL-O-FLESH rained down in pieces, crushing the last tangle of vines at the statue’s base.

The Wall-O-Flesh pieces looked up at the statue, gathering themselves together in a tight, cohesive mass. Finally, it/they began to relax, sighing in relief. Wall-O-Flesh pieces started to split, again, and roll away into the hills where the cities had once been.

Each piece melted away until it was a single-consciousness being again. Many of these autonomous beings resumed fist fights they’d been having before the vines first attacked.

The hills rapidly filled with new cities, packed tighter, each home to huge pieces of the wall; hundreds of thousands of consciousnesses connected to one another.

“WHAT AN absolute dangulon…” April huffed.

Federov quirked his head to the side in question.

“I don’t know, I heard some kid outside the CRC Resurrection party say it. I thought it sounded good.” She shrugged. “Dangulon.”

“It’s a good word.” Federov conceded absently, clicking the forceps in his left hand. “Could you please apply the paint to the corpse, April? I think maybe this one is yours.”

April gaped at Federov. “I only woke up a week ago…” He smiled encouragingly. April rolled her eyes. “Just paint on them? Whatever I want? And that’ll wake them up?”

Federov shrugged. “Probably.”

April picked up the paint, mumbling quietly about the ridiculousness of painting a corpse back to life. She started to scrawl symbols from muscle memory. She traced around the eyes, outlined the nose, and left a wad of thick acrylic paint across the brow.

By the time she’d covered the torso in symbols the body started to breathe again.

“GIDO KWEX is going to drag all of us, kicking and screaming, into space.”

The chuckling drunk man at the end of the bar laughed and draped his arms across the shoulders of the two nearest women.

Time Agent Lewt’s eyes widened and her body stiffened. Does he know?

She watched him, never breaking line of sight as she slipped like smoke between the other bar patrons.

Is that him? How does he know about Kwex?

Lewt slid back up the bar, just a few inches away from the drunk man. She watched him from the corner of her eye as she ordered another drink. When the uninterested women at his side managed to break free, Lewt took the opportunity to push the drunk man against the wall.

He grinned down at her.

“That’s very forward, but you’re cute…”

He trailed off as he felt the knife against his ribs.

“How do you know about Gido Kwex’s plan?” Lewt hissed. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know, dude, I think he’s from Tyfips City. I just think he’s a really cool guy. I have one of his ships. He’s self made, dude.”

He whimpered between shallow breaths.

“Ugh…” Lewt paused. Anger rushed aside to accommodate disappointment.

“SO LONG as one of you is willing to jump into the engine, we can all go home when this is all over, okay?” The man in the suit tucked his palms between his knees and bent at the waist to be eye to eye with the people at the table.

A woman to his left spit on his forehead. “What if we don’t feel like dying?” She sneered.

The man in the suit laughed but his face remained humorless. “That’s pretty fucking selfish, Mary. Isn’t that selfish of Mary, everyone? Mary thinks her life is more important than all of humanity.”

Mary scowled. “I think the lives of the people in this room, the people you stole from their own pods, are more important than the lives of you pieces of shit.”

“They weren’t your pods, Mary.” He finally smiled. “They were my pods. Anything inside the pods I own belongs to me. You saw that on the lease. You signed the lease. Get…” He paused and yanked hard at her chair, “into the fucking engine or the ship is going to stop and start drifting into the sun.”

“You fucks set the ship navigation system and fucked up the path so you should get into the fucking engine.”

Mary shoved him back. She glanced at the guards who seemed to be looking anywhere but at her. As she turned back to the man in the suit her grin spread frighteningly wide. She shoved the man in the suit backwards, ignoring his sputtered protest, until his back was against the fuel deposit spot.

With one last glance around at the other people in the room, she pushed him through the hole. Mary took a deep breath as the heat billowed into her face.

“ALL I can see is green.”

“Okay, well, back out of that memory.”

“What’s grass?” Jit asked, her face scrunched.

The doctor pounded a fist on his terminal. Jit went stiff in fear which quickly grew into rage.

“Don’t do that!” Jit reasserted firmly.

The doctor sneered and banged the terminal again. Jit was just a Bexan Box Handler.

This didn’t stop her from clawing out the doctor’s tongue.

“I MISS the flavorless goo from which we all came.” The eyesnail Hrrita sighed as they hung from the giant flower.

Mxyn considered this a moment. As an alien on the planet of the eyesnails she tried to relate. “Yeah, I know sometimes I miss the soul battery and the fields of unbirth.”

Hrrita nodded. It was familiar even though it was incomprehensible.

Mxyn held the joint out for Hrrita, who was careful not to slime the end with their lips.

“Do you ever wonder what’s out there?” Hrrita asked as the Crème Cubed took hold. The eye in their shell turned red and glassy before shifting into a red spiral.

Mxyn shrugged her three shoulders and looked up. “It’s just vines out there. Asshole vines.”

Hrrita’s shell eye lit up bright red and they began to levitate.

Mxyn draped herself behind the eyelid of the shell and sighed. “We could kill them.”

Mxyn took a long hit of the weed, enjoying the hallucinations that Hrrita and their species couldn’t experience anymore. “Could we?”

Hrrita, shell eye now scanning the sky with a bar of angry red light, hummed their agreement. “We should.”

HENRIETTA DUG her nails into the soft burrow soil and pulled herself deeper into the cool darkness. She shuffled her feet to toss dirt across the entrance. The tight tunnel gave way to a softly lit chamber about half Henrietta’s height. She pulled herself in. With some effort she tucked herself into a comfortable corner, padded with stolen pillows.

Gus slithered from his adjoining hole and yawned.

“How was it out there?” He asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Henrietta closed her eyes. “Bright. But you can look at it now.”

Gus nodded. “Well, that’s a good sign.”

INDRID HEAVED a heavy sigh. Another bridge. He looked out across the scroll of Earth’s past and future and counted out the crumbling bridges, ruined streets, abandoned buildings, and neglected infrastructure.

He looked mournfully at the temporolum knife under the protective glass cloche.

“Don’t meddle…” He tried hard to warn himself but knew it wouldn’t work. He had to meddle.

Indrid picked up the knife and quickly sliced into the fourth dimension. He beat his wings to push the flaps open. Through the cut he could see, smell, and hear the woods of West Virginia.

“I hope they listen this time,” he said, already knowing they would not.

CERO SUNK into the couch and held smoke in her lungs. When the edges of her vision blurred and dimmed she let the smoke go. Cero watched it drift into the fan at the peak of the domed tent.

Three minutes later it hit her: the sensation of slipping into a “television noise” made of a velvet-chocolate blanket. In a last moment of clarity, Cero put on the VR rig and laid her wrist-chip against the interface pad.

A burst of magnetic pull caused her disks to spin at top speed. Information flooded into and then rapidly left her mind. A connection finally established and Cero faded into a bar. A few eyes cast her way but most people went about their conversations.

Cero found her preferred booth in the back already claimed by eleven mega-landlords. Each owned at least 35 massive apartment blocks across dozens of cities, housing hundreds of thousands of families in each building. They clinked glasses and laughed. Cero sneered at the woman who owned her building. Dianette Kilhuxwitzer.

Cero pulled the magne-blaster from under her shirt. She fired wildly into the booth of wealthy leeches. No one moved to stop her.