Science Fiction Multi-Feature Picture Show

Fortuna Lemon (Part 3)

Tambly sent another stone winging into the grove of trees bordering the path. A few choice expletives screamed into the air did little to improve the pounding in his head. He dragged himself further along the smoothed roadway, looking over his should every few steps. Belle would reappear any moment, ready with a slap and a jibe for his worry, he was sure of it.

"Please be okay," he said, "I'll never call you kitten again."

Not many options were open to him. He kept moving forward on the minimal off chance the maintained road lead him to someone, anyone.

His steps eventually lost their stilted rhythm as his anger deflated through effort of distance. Aside from his guilt, he was acutely aware his partner could take better care of herself than he could. Once he reasserted her capability in his mind, he wondered where the hell she'd spirited off to. How had she disappeared into thin air? There was a sizable possibility she'd headed back to the beach. There was also the possibility she'd been snapped up by a sneaky carnivorous plant while his back was turned. Tambly grumbled along.

The cider scented air stirred memories of autumn visits to his great aunt's farm. With the state of the world, few people lived on the surface. Time was too unpredictable, too fluid, constantly shifting decades or centuries from one day to the next. There were a few pockets, far from the impact sites, where time was relatively stable, suffering only a temporal hiccup of a day or two.

Great Aunt Imogen kept a fully functioning farm outside of Reykjavik, complete with illegally imported 20th century farmhands. She taught him many things during his informative years; how to properly swear, three different styles of Poker, a dozen successful pick up lines, and how to hold his liquor thanks to her engine degreasing moonshine. He never understood how batshit crazy the woman was until the Agency busted her for the farmhands years later. Tambly sighed. She would like this place.

His frolic through childhood memories fizzed out as the road deposited him at the edge of a "settlement." He bandied the term loosely. Tambly wasn't sure what the hell he was looking at. If a frat house vomited all over a quaint tourist village, it would be a near accurate description of the haphazard mess of cottages and shacks dotting the deforested stretch of land.

Eye smarting shades of lime green, and fluorescent yellow stood in sharp contrast to weather-worn boards and stones. The yards were crowded with goofy statuary, plastic corruptions, junk sculptures, and one memorable hot pink gazebo. Everything shared the same state of lapsed maintenance. The garish paint was peeling, shutters hung loose, bricks crumbled, and the more cobbled together structures sagged perilously to the side.

It was a ghost town.

Tambly's shoulders dropped. Time to throw in the towel. He wondered if he could meander back to the beach and, hopefully, Sykes. The daylight was slinking away as he stood there, twiddling his thumbs. He should take a few snapshots to please Rossofern. Daylight? But it was night where we landed. Tambly froze, lifting his incredulous gaze to the sky.

"Shite and piss," he cursed, digging the digital camera out to capture the sky. Like a couple of rookie knobs, they both missed it.  "I'm so done with this place." The light, wherever it came from dimmed to a murky twilight.

He'd give his left nut for a shot of whiskey right now.

There was a blink in the corner of his vision. Tambly turned, pursing his lips at the pink neon sign flickering to life. It was his first evidence of the divine. Titties and Beer.

Moth to flame, he followed the promise of earthly delights until he stood directly beneath it, squinting at his surroundings. Maybe not so divine, there was no establishment attached to the sign. Only a listing woodshed and the husk of a black Volkswagen Beetle raised on cinderblocks. Tambly gave the bumper a solid kick for his troubles.

The boot clacked open, rising with a screech of rusted metal. He winced, expecting to find a corroded engine when muffled familiar music emerged from the vehicle. Had he somehow jumpstarted the radio?

In place of an engine block, a set of stairs descended into the earth, emitting a warm reddish glow at the bottom and the tantalizing strain of music. Was that Steppenwolfe?

If he possessed half the sensibility of his partner, he should march out of there right this instant and report the isle of oddities to his superior. Tambly was not a sensible man, and he was thirsty.

___***___

At one point, the body was a woman, a lovely one judging by the delicate slope of her cheekbones. Sykes, careful not to crush any fallen lemons, knelt beside her and examined the layers of rags draped over her person. The deceased female sat, cross legged, her upturned hands resting on her knees in a meditative position. Least she croaked in peace, Sykes frowned, gently tugging free the contents of one sagging pocket.

Playing cards, four of a kind, all aces, and faded with age. Sykes pocketed them, remembering Tambly's fondness for useless memorabilia. Rossofern might have reamed her for her collector's excursion, but Tambly was a unique relic hunter. If it wasn't missed, he nabbed it. Candy wrappers, ticket stubs, empty bottles, the trash of history decorated his home. A smile teased her lips. Tambly made non-interference an art form. She hoped the big lug hadn't stumbled into any deep ditches.

"Bet he would've made a right fool of himself for you," she told the corpse. "If you were alive."

The air fizzed like warm seltzer.

Sykes stood up, searching for the sensation. She yelped when the earth shifted under her boots. It spat up the first gossamer orb a few feet from her. The translucent ball floated upward, passing through a cluster of flowers. Time went wonky.

In the confines of the sphere, the stalks withered and wilted, drying up in a flash before passing through unharmed until it reached the blooms. The blue flutes emerged as golden trumpets, the petals stretching with a whisper of velvet. Unharmed but altered. Sykes jerked her hand back as another bubble floated up to her left. More rose around her, saturating the air, growing harder and harder to avoid. She plastered herself against the rough bark of the lemon tree. Her eyes widened as the orbs clustered and passed  up through the body, leaving living flesh in its wake.

Breath hissed between freshly plumped lips. The plain faded cloth switched to a brilliant cherry red, dotted with clear sequins like drops of dew. The former corpse turned her head toward the cowering temporal enforcer. Her eyes snapped open, revealing mismatched irises, one electric blue, one bright yellow.

Belle Sykes expressed her opinion of the transformation with a strained squeak.