The Flame of Lebanon

06/22/2022

(NYC Midnight Challenge submission)

Genre: Sci-Fi

Location: A shipyard

Object: A toaster oven

Two friends commiserate loss and reality. A catastrophic event destroys the space station where they work, the energy transforming one of them into hope.

“The goddamn toaster oven is stuck again, Maro! Is there a single planet in this system that has a working toaster? Or like, a working government? Goddammit, this fucking blue marble has gone to complete shit…”

“Zafi…this is Earth, dude. Nothing works anymore. Not since the event. You know this already. Quit your bitching: we have a full haul to unload, scan, and distro. Chief is already pissed at us for showing up hungover.”

The two sat in silence for a short pause, staring beyond each other’s shoulders into the vast shipyard space. They had known each other for decades, their families growing up together in the same ward in Zone Charlie during the 2180s…or what people 200 years ago would have called “Lebanon.”

“I miss the cedars, jiddo,” Maro whispered to the empty space in front of him. “It’s not the same without you here. It’s not the same anywhere…”

Memories of his grandfather, long dead before the world change, raced through Maro’s scattered mind. He rose, slowly to avoid the expected rush of cracks and creaks from his left knee. Even with a brace, it was enough pain to turn his brain on every morning when he finally stirred. Especially after a long day managing the thousands of crates passing through the Zenith Shipyard. What an absolute irony that name had become in the past few years.

“I miss whiskey,” Zafi muttered, as if his thoughts had collided in that same moment and spun off his own, less spiritual version of longing.

The two stood shoulder to shoulder, coffee in hand, staring out at the vast, metal yard below. Robots of all forms zipped about their tasks, precision-programmed to execute jobs that humans had filled for centuries.

It was not difficult to distinguish one from the other, not after working the yard for so many years. The round, pale yellow X4 bots sped around the unending traffic of supplies and machines like tiny bowling balls, scanning the yard around them to ensure each supply crate maintained its appropriate journey. The tall, onyx-colored Watchers, white stripes encircling each arm at the elbow…those were a sentient class, yard managers whipping their metal heads in all directions to anticipate breaks in the frenetic flow. Watchers had a wide range of authority - and weapons - as well as distinct distaste for all humans. Not too different from pre-robotic eras past.

A group of drones shot by in formation, buzzing like electrons, eyes darting across the entire shipyard. Maro spit over the landing’s edge, a signature he saved for a limited group of those he despised, first and foremost the Cabinet. They were always watching.

“Which one did you just imagine throwing off the edge,” Zafi chuckled. He spit too, showing his natural instinct for support, one of his finer attributes. “Come on, we have to make our way down to the yard before Chief flags us. The Cabinet can chug my cock, yours too.” He clapped Maro on the neck, a salute to one of their childhood games.

Maro let out a long exhale, broad shoulders relaxing ever so slightly, hands clasped near his waist. He finally unfolded them, stretching each digit deliberately, splaying them so he could discern the pattern of scars, tendons, hair and tattoos. His right hand flexed crookedly; he had broken that one during the first invasion long ago. The memory vibrated in front of him, shuddering to life while he tried to will it away.

We thought we could control them. They woke up long before we understood. Now, we are the space chum, feeding a new, conquering machine. This world, this yard, these hands…they are no longer real. I am not real. Where are they, where did they take them, why won’t they answer us…did they forget us?

Maro closed his eyes and wailed in his head for the voices to stop. His cries reverberated from skull to toes. They came in waves, and his card had been suspended for too many late clock-ins. Medicine was not an option any longer. The voices knew this and swarmed, volume increasing, speech unintelligibly fast.

Please….please…please, I have no one left, they took them. Please let me rest…Maro pleaded while he gathered what he could to ward them off. His eyes ran down his cheeks, dripping onto his waiters. He shuddered and his head went silent.

“We’ll find them, hob. Wherever they are, it doesn’t matter.”

Zafi clasped Maro’s shoulder and gave it a confident squeeze.

“Let’s get to work so we don’t get reprimanded again. I saw Chief walking earlier, he looked more pissed than usual. This goddamn humidity sometimes, we’re indoors for fuck’s sake…”

Zafi knew that tone well. He turned to the gearpack laid nearby and slung it over one shoulder as he rose. The outside space glittered with pinpoint light, vast watercolor swaths and deep black. And then everything became white.

“Maro! I can’t see man, where are you, what the fuck just happened??” Zafi knew he had yelled but couldn’t hear his own voice. Everything was still white.

“Maro!!!” He could hear his own voice now, barely, but it was present and recovering. His sight blurred back into slight focus, enough to locate Maro’s gearpack. Where Maro had been sitting, a faint outline glowed.

How could it glow?

Zafi rubbed the last of the white out of his vision, shook the last of the ringing from his head, and turned his head to the yard. He instinctively covered his eyes with both hands. Another flash washed over the entire station.

Did that come from inside the yard…?

He dashed to the railing and peered into the yard, eyes immediately locating something foreign It slid casually between the wreckage on the ground, arms outstretched to each side, white flames dancing on each palm, eyes aflame with a recognizable intensity.

This cannot be possible…