Gil stared at the plane icon creeping across the digital map.

15 more minutes…

A steward walked by and Gil thrust out his arm and seized his attention.

“Snake whiskey, three balls, please.”

The man turned with a crème brûlée smoothness and glided into the centrally located wet bar. His hands blurred and three distinct tones rang out from the spherical ice hitting the tumbler. The cork was extracted. The bottle was tipped, its contents coaxed out. The cork was then restored to its relative position over the poised cobra. A rangpur lime was halved, its juice sprinkled over the sphere that sat exposed.

“Excuse me,”

The steward froze.

“Would you be so kind and deliver this to the gentleman who ordered that drink?” She was South Asian and sharp nosed. Her electric vermillion sari, with its gold filigree and tsavorite gems, gave her a palpable intensity.

The steward raised his eyes to notice her teak-tinted skin and impressively long black hair. Her eyes were uncomfortably large but also deep with intrigue and desire. He next coerced his own eyes into examining what exactly it was she wished to impart. He followed the natural lines of her elegant body beginning with her shoulder. Her chelidon evoked the beautiful fragility of a French pastry. At last he cast his gaze onto her left hand. It was not boney. It was exactly as it should have been. On her pinky finger was a ring. In the microseconds he had taken for himself, the steward decided the ring most closely resembled the crowns of olive branches worn by ancient Olympians. A dull but sparklingly flat green light glimmered off of the elaborate ornament in the low light of the first class bar.

She was holding out a Buddha’s hand fruit.

The powerfully fragrant citron greeted the steward with a cacophony of aureolin tendrils. The steward inhaled to give the slightest hint of vocal agreement when he abruptly noticed the woman was gone.

The fruit remained.

The steward sighed inaudibly.

Gil opened his eyes to find a glass with three spherical pieces of ice sharing their chill with three ounces of Laotian snake whiskey. Immediately to the right of the glass, sat the Buddha’s hand.

Normally, Gil would’ve been savoring the caustic aftertaste of at least half of the glass in front of him. Instead, he drank in the silver and cold hum of the airplane progressing towards his destination. The scent emanating from the cluster of pith filled his head.

Gil was paralyzed in his seat. He needed the drink he ordered, but his hands wouldn’t move. The smell from the citrus fruit was bombarding his senses.

He ran his tongue across his lips; like sandpaper on a fresh cut. His eyes could not move from their fixation. The fruit was pointed directly at him. The mottled skin glistened in the paltry light of the first class cabin. His pupils rolled over the undulating curves. The seatbelt tugged on his swollen hip. Outside, the world passed by with a complete and succinct lack of concern for what was taking place on the flying machine.

His mind’s eye forced itself open.

Satinder Chowdry’s dead eyes stared directly into Gil’s. The lifeless man was bound to a wicker chair in the corner of the room the two men unwillingly shared.

It stunk. There were bugs. Weird bugs.

Gil flexed his muscles against the rope he was bound with. Not five minutes earlier were he and Satinder talking about their mutual outrage surrounding a black market high-stakes cricket match.

The door opened. A Chinese woman walked in. Satinder was murdered.

That was that.

But, as she turned to leave, Gil decided he was ready to go too. He stood, the chair still bound to his backside, and rammed his body into the woman’s. She let out a gargled gasp and Gil shut the door. She tried to get up and strike Gil. He swung around her and jumped. He landed with force on her back, forcing out her last fragment of air.

The chair broke. The ropes remained.

Gil peeled his eyes off of his dead cellmate and visually groped the woman’s body for the knife. It was in her left pocket.

The ropes fell to the ground. Gil slowly opened the door and saw that he was alone. As he made his way down a corridor, a powerful apex lemon scent struck his nose like an asp.

He knew the path he chose was the way out, but the citrusy miasma over encumbered his thinking. His sinuses began to throb with lemony revulsion.

He made a wrong turn.

He was now in a room with an elaborate fruit arrangement. His captors were nearing his locus. The arrangement was accented with living Buddha’s hand trees. There were candles and oil lamps burning the citron oil extracted from harvested hands.

A group of tormentors clamored outside the room. Gil looked out of the large nearby window and saw the road. He covered his face and dove through the glass.

After three days in the jungle, the first class seat had at first felt like a dream come true. Now, though, with the gnarled yellow fruit his captors venerated here before him, having arrived quite unsolicited, he was sure the nightmare simply never finished.

His sense of time was shot. How long have I just been sitting here?

He checked his watch and saw that seven minutes had passed. He regained the awareness of his left hand and reached for the now-sweating glass.

The cold, slightly watered, snake whiskey felt right. The noise the plane was making did not. That is not to say that there was anything mechanically wrong with the sound of the plane; the craft itself was unimpaired. It was that the in-flight GPS informed Gil and the other passengers that they were now five minutes away from their destination, but the aircraft had not begun its approach. All 350 passengers were cruising along safely at 40,000 feet.

He sipped his whiskey.

The fruit before him remained motionless. Inert, yet boastful.

He steadied his heart and took another sip of whiskey.

Maybe there’s a ground delay. Or, perhaps an issue with concurrent landings.

The fruit’s total stillness betrayed the truth.

He didn’t want to believe Satinder when he told him why the two were tied up. None of it made sense. Trace minerals in DNA found only in deep space? Catalytic citrus? No.

Yet, there it sat.

Gil needed to splash some water on his face.

He got up and slid over to the first class WC. The door closed with an inverted clicking sound. Soft white light came on during one of Gil’s blinks.

He washed his hands and refreshed his face with the cool water. A soft cotton towel waited for him on an ornate steel rack. As the towel was slowly lowered, Gil noticed the abundant fruit display he somehow missed upon initial entry. A pleasing mix of pomegranates, green micrograpes, pert and swollen peaches, and kumquats huddled together in a glass cylindrical vase. Gil noticed the fruit made him sweat.

He turned and left the WC. The plane was distinctly more still than when he first entered. The grating aural fog of mechanized flight remained intact. He needed a steward, or even better, a stewardess.

The first class cabin was nearly empty. He finally arrived back at his seat. His drink was full again, the fruit kept its motionless, stolid, watch.

Without sitting, he drank the entire glass of snake whiskey.

The plane icon was now past the destination city of Oakland, California.

He thought he saw a woman in a sari out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned, Gil only saw a fire extinguisher.

He left his position next to his seat and began moving towards the cockpit. He went down the stairs and located the proper corridor.

At the door to the cockpit, he stopped and looked around. He was alone. Of course, the door was locked. Still, he jiggled the handle.

A stewardess turned the corner.

“Can I help you, sir?” She was Ethiopian, powerful, and clearly agitated at his presence.

“I, uh, well, yes. I’m just a little anxious, ya see? It seems like we may have overshot our destination, and I have a very important appointment…”

“Hmm,” the statuesque flight attendant combed her eyes over the worried man. Her keen nose gave her a rough idea of how much strong drink Gil had ingested. “Sir, if I could just have you return to your seat, I’ll double-check to make sure everything is alright, but I highly doubt we have missed our stop.”

Gil was unexpectedly stricken with panic.

“What? We haven’t even begun descent! Look!” He frantically pointed out of a nearby window.

“Sir, if you could please just return to your seat…”

“I think you better oblige, son,” the deep-throated Air Marshall made his presence known.

“Gil!” A woman with a Bengali accent appeared.

Gil spun around to see a gorgeous, dark, tall, woman in a debilitating red sari with enormous eyes.

“Gil, what are you doing up? You know how you get if I let you pace up and down the aisles all flight…” She slithered up next to Gil and hooked her arm into his. “My apologies sir, miss. My husband has these episodes every time we fly. I will make sure we are in our seats, ready to land.” Her smile was a sound enough bribe to put everyone at an unusual ease.

When they got back to ‘their’ seats, the woman took the window.

“Sit down, please,” she softly commanded.

Gil eased into his large chair. Another full glass of snake whiskey, with fresh ice, took its place next to the redoubtable fruit.

The pair sat in silence for an unknown amount of time.

Gil needed something to soften the tallow. He reached out and lifted the glass. The spherical ice made a dull clunk. He cautiously stole a glance at his captor and decided then and there to finish the entire drink in one swallow. He hated to disrespect such a fine solution, but the situation at hand would simply not allow for him to savor the only distillate he permitted into his body. The icy burning sensation took root in his stomach. The high proof liquid, buzzing with life, joined the pool. Gil started to notice the sought after numbness. The crisp unfeeling gave him some respite.

Eventually, the woman reached into her small trinket-laden purse and withdrew a beaming winesap apple. How Gil knew what kind of apple this was, he had no idea.

She seized on the silence and flung it headfirst down the stairs.

“Mr. Ishikawa, please, relax, and the words will come…”

The apple was a deep and callous purple with chalky white and red etching. A perfect, stiff, green leaf poked out of the same nesting as the stem.

She opened her mouth.

“Foaming apple, post-midnight, sorrow untold…” as she spoke, the top of the apple unscrewed and slid off. A glistening, shimmering purple bubble-mass rose from the opening and flowed down the side. Gil looked down at the foam and marveled at its steady breathing.

She was right. Uncontrollably, the words crawled out of Gil’s mouth like a vengeful sannakji.

“Many a sapling is certainly maligned.” What!?

She smiled. “…An ape’s uncertainty was never owed.”

“No matter the expanse laid out in his mind?”

“‘round here, the tortoise is left in the cold.”

“My sternly cobbled pot belies your testimony,” Gil sneered and cut his eyes.

“Unfix your gaze! Fasten tightly your ascot!” Her voice was sharp and convicting.

“The owl’s penchant obscures the latent atrophy…”

“Boiling Bernard’s and Confused Kevin’s don’t simply ‘back-off!’” She was indignant.

“The mind is a diamond, clad in leather.” He instinctively tapped the left side of his skull.

“Many have fallen… their lot forged in plasticine.” She sounded genuinely remorseful.

Gil didn’t know why, but he smiled, and tented his fingers. “Thus the words I recite, hands clasped together:

Flagrant fragrant filigrees,

Flunk flu-ridden fallacies!”

Gil exhaled loudly and deflated in his seat, mentally defeated by the exchange, and ultimately miffed as to the source of the words and expressions he so readily espoused.

“Mr. Ishikawa, when the plane lands, you will follow me to baggage claim. Then, after we retrieve our belongings, you will join me in the cab that will be waiting. Understood?” Without skipping a beat the woman brought the two of them back to the plane. In one smooth stop-motion-style whip of her arm the apple was whole and back in her bejeweled crimson clutch.

Never having seen this woman before, and with three snakes in the hole, Gilgamesh Ishikawa was through with the inflight chicanery the airline had presented him up to this point. “Listen lady, I didn’t spend 48 hours in a hollowed out tiger carcass just to happily jaunt around with you!”

Without a word, the Indian woman extended her beautiful, articulate right hand. She tenderly rested three fingers onto the crown of the citron. Gil recoiled in his chair as the tendrils came to life and wriggled and writhed with sickening popping noises that sounded like joints cracking. She removed her hand and the violence ceased.

Sweat now beading on his forehead, Gil forced out an affirmative glottal sound.

“Oh look, we’ve begun our approach…” she said casually.

Gil felt the plane wobble, shudder, adjust and reposition.

*

When the plane touched down, Gil started formulating a plan. He stood and began filing his way off of the craft with the other, now abundant, passengers. As he passed by the cockpit, he noticed the pilots rubbing their eyes, sleeplessness was written all over their faces. The co-pilot, a fellow Japanese, was on her phone. She was relating, in her mother tongue, to whoever was on the other end her desperate need for a vacation after falling asleep during the flight.

“…A strange and powerful heaviness…” She said as they passed.

Gil felt a prick.

“That’s so you don’t get any ideas.”

The Indian woman had stuck Gil with the needle of her glinting Dungeness broach. Right away Gil felt uneasy. His throat was dry. He felt a cold clamminess set in. His glands in his neck became sore.

“That’s a little something we’ve developed. It’s called QuickFlu. Just lean on me, and everything will be fine. And don’t worry, you’re not contagious.”

As they left the plane, Gil’s vision became glossy. Despite the thickening haze, he did manage to notice that the woman had brought the Buddha’s hand fruit with her.

In the baggage claim Gil began shivering. He wasn’t cold, but the effects of the influenza were full.

They approached the conveyor. Gil saw a group of people standing next to them, waiting for the bags to appear. He let go of the sweet-smelling woman and fell into them.

“H-help me…” his mouth was arid.

“Uh oh!” The Indian woman play-acted concern. “Tsk tsk, sweetie! My apologies, he always has a hard time with flights so he needs a little drinkipoo to last the whole trip…”

I am NOT drunk! Gil violently thought. “I… am not….” Was all that made it passed his lips, though.

“Do not try something that foolish again!” she feverishly whispered into his ear. To further emphasize her point, she withdrew the fruit and woke it.

She was surprisingly strong. In fact, it was she who supported both of their frames as they huddled near the conveyor. She was at best half of his size, but she was able to carry him around with an uncomfortable ease. The fruit was aimlessly clawing at his right side from beneath his coat where she jabbed it into him. Every now and then a burst of lemony fumes would assault his nostrils.

His bag tumbled down the ramp and onto the conveyor.

“…there’s what you took from us…” She said. “Grab it.”

Gil lunged for the bag and when he felt his hand securely on the handle, he spun around and clobbered her with it. As she went down, she dropped the fruit. On the ground it convulsed and seized like a crab on its back.

He stumbled and kicked the fruit at her. It rolled and its tendrils found her face. She furiously began roiling and shrieking on the ground as Gil struggled to find an exit. Eventually she got up, her face crimson with scratches and her own sacred fluid, and started charging in his direction. The fruit, despite her fury, remained fixed on her left cheek like a famished barnacle.

Sweat was pouring down his face. He was freezing cold and burning up at the same time. His head pounded and snot was oozing from his nose. His screams were like echoes in a cave. He wiped his eyes and turned to see her several feet away, wild-eyed with her long arms extended. He condensed all of his concentration and aimed for the fruit. A solid, sturdy fist collided with the fruit, jamming it further into her flesh. With a deep gurgle and grouse she dropped to the ground, motionless. The fruit, however rumpled, continued to bubble and squeak.

Just then, Gil caught his breath, locked eyes with an elderly and mad nun, erupted with vomit, and passed out.

*

When he woke, he was in a vitatank. Through the translucent green liquid, he could make out three figures talking. When they noticed he was awake, they began the draining process.

Gil was hoisted out of the tank, toweled down, and then dressed by three wispy little nurses. The two small-framed women and the bald gentleman, who seemed to be new, next moved Gil to a comfortable green leather chair near the window overlooking the bamboo and maple garden.

His eyes lost the haze Vitatanks leave behind and he could see old books on well-maintained shelves. His feet were cradled in the soft warmth of new slippers.

He took a breath and fixated on a raven sitting on top of a table in the apartment across the garden. There was no glass in the windows and only a single table and chair. The raven gave off an air of enjoyment; Gil could tell it was pleased with both the solitude and the shade of purple staining the walls of its abode.

“Mr. Ishikawa? Gilgamesh Ishikawa?”

Gil blinked and the raven turned to meet his eyes.

“Y-yes,” the words were thick, but they came. His jaw popped and he could smell again.

“My name is Hurst Chisholm, and I’m an Information Aggregator.” The man had well-defined crow’s feet around his eyes. “I know this is all a little fast, but I’ve spent plenty of time in these ‘tanks and I typically like to know what’s going on as soon as I wake.”

Gil nodded.

“The woman on the flight with you, did you know her?”

“No, n-never seen her before,” the warm yellow brightness of the room was the best blanket. Gil felt the light pressing down his exposed forearms. Sure, he was grateful for the rescue, but the ash and gravel coming out of the man who identified himself as Hurst Chisholm was becoming burdensome.

Hurst and the other two men behind him exchanged looks.

“Do the words Ming-Singh-Tsai mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“What about this?” Hurst reached into his green plaztik trench coat and withdrew a blood-covered, clawed, Buddha’s hand.

“Yes! Get it away from me!” Gil reflexively slapped it across the room.

“…Mr. Ishikawa,” Hurst Chisholm continued. “We have reason to believe that you are VERY valuable to the people you escaped from in Assam. This is Mr. Feliciano. In order to protect you and disenfranchise them, we have prepared a new life for you, in Mexico City.”

The smaller of the two flanking individuals stepped forward. He was a lawyer, and a Roman; Gil could tell by the sandals, red tunic, armored gold waist coat, and the illuminated Hammurabi badge all lawyers were required to wear at all times.

“What!?” When Gilgamesh thought of Mexico, he could only think of a young man named Rolando he had read about while researching his pharm.

“You see, the pilots fell asleep. No one is sure why or how, but they were out cold and early toxicology shows they were not drugged. The pilots’ pre-flight physical demonstrated well-rested, properly prepared individuals. But as you know, the flight itself though turned out a bit different.” Hurst reached into his trench and pulled out a pack of Thinkin’ Sticks. He took one slim anti-tobacco rolled combustion insulator and lit it. The smoke, free of carcinogenic material, seemed to vibrate as it dissipated. “Their overshot, as well as your episode in the concourse, are getting a decent amount of attention. My current employers would prefer otherwise.”

“Where are we?” The thought had just dawned on Gil.

“We’re in a safe house of mine in San Francisco.”

“But we landed in Oakland…” Gil referred to a hazy memory of the plane touching down after passing through a fuzzy rainbow of inner static for what felt like hours…

“You’ve been ‘in dispose’ for a few days. Whatever she injected into you was not normal.”

For a time Gil, and the others, were quiet. His side, the side where the citron was, still ached. The Vitatank brought him back to this world, but like Hurst said, whatever she used was not normal.

“Why? Why am I valuable?” Gil spoke up, shattering the accumulated silence.

“It’s your DNA,” the other flanker, a tall bald black man in an impeccable, shimmering, and lavender suit intoned. “Hello, Mr. Ishikawa, my name is Quentin Caruthers.”

The two shook hands.

“The scientific cult of Ming-Singh-Tsai mapped your genome while you were captured and found some interesting markers in your lineage.” Caruthers summoned a three-dimensional holographic display from his wrist and showed everyone in the room Gilgamesh Ishikawa’s sequenced DNA. “See here, on rung 7, is a mutation. The only other source for a genetic mutation such as this occurs in the genome of a single-celled bacteria found in a meteorite of unknown origin. The rock hit Earth in 1985 and the bacteria was only announced after the War in 2115.”

“This scientific cult,” Hurst was now speaking to Gil. “They came to fruition after Rajesh the Venusian Flek addressed the globe. A group of wealthy scientists raised an army of guerillas using grant money originally meant for pharmaceutical research. They hacked the SETI facility and once they obtained the proper research methods and practices, they took a clandestine facility in Assam by force. It has been rumored that after establishing themselves, they now receive critical support from the Free Chinese Hegemony.”

“You said they’re a cult?” Gilgamesh had read about Black Sciences and Cults of High-Minded, over-degreed and under-tenured men and women of science banding together in the name of “guiding human evolutionary progress.”

“Yes, they follow in the footsteps of the Darwinists that stoked the fires in the lead up to the Great Abdication.” Caruthers walked across the spacious Persian rug the group was stationed on and cracked a transom-like window not too far from where Gil sat. He next reached into his perfectly tailored jacket pocket and withdrew a nightstick of a cigar. The egregious and cumbersome tube was then lit by a microtorch.

“But I thought…” Gil was incredulous at the thought of the things he read on the Ultranet being even remotely true, given the reach and oversight of the UN. Next, he thought of Satinder, next to him, in that same type of chair with the bottom cut out. He remembered the things his friend had pleaded for belief in. Now those very same things were being readily demonstrated.

“Yes, we all know the truth about Him and his work etc. But these people are insistent. Remember the stats on how many educated adults still genuinely believe in a Santa Claus?”

He did have a point. It seemed no matter how many ways a theory was empirically disproven, people ultimately believe what they want.

“But why the fruit?” Gil asked.

“Our intelligence indicates something that is going to sound strange, but it checks out.” Hurst cleared his throat. “The fruit is a door knob.”

Gil tore his eyes from the indoor chimney that Caruthers had morphed into, and looked at the tall, worn-looking man directly in front of him. His green coat was as much a part of Hurst as his heavy breath. He remembered the weird noises he and Satinder would hear from their cell. He remembered the fruit and its initial lack, and then over abundance, of movement. The final piece was what happened in the concourse. He let out another sigh and chose to believe what he had seen, and therefore what was now being told.

“Can I have a smoke?” Gil calmly, resignedly, asked.

Hurst reached into the other side of his trench and pulled out a softpack of Sol Verde Solo’s. He deliberately slid a single brown twig out from the rest and gave it to Gil. Next, Caruthers produced a lighter and, through the fog of the aficionado, he lit Gil’s totem. The smoke was clean, sharp. The cannabinoids and other natural mix-ins began their occupation of his respective receptors.

Ten minutes casually sauntered by.

Gilgamesh at last remembered the conversation with the woman on the plane. Over in the opposite corner of the room, Mr. Feliciano sank his teeth into a crisp Jonagold apple. Was it a coincidence? He thought. He recalled being wholly unable to think of anything else other than what he was saying at the time. The words were just there. The words and nothing else. Have these men really saved my life? If so, they’ll definitely have a price…

He ultimately chose to not mention the ‘conversation’.

“A knob to what door?” Gil finally asked through a voluminous exhalation.

The three men who were not Gilgamesh Ishikawa looked at each other.

“You,” Hurst took his hat off and mussed, and then fixed, his hair. Returning the hat to its rightful place, he continued, “You’re the door. It’s that mutation in your genome. You’re like a human Rosenbridge, and the Buddha’s hand is needed to activate the mechanism.”

Gil was silent.

“Where do I lead?”

“Unfortunately, that’s the only piece we don’t have. Our mole was killed shortly after you left.”

“I see.”

“So, Mr. Ishikawa, now you know who we’re dealing with, and how dangerous and unreasonable they truly are. Does Mexico City still sound questionable?” Hurst was on Gil’s side.

Gil paused and took another long, soulful drag on his smoldering branch.

“No, no it doesn’t.” Gil nodded and let out a sigh.

“There’s just one catch,” Caruthers spoke up.

“Oh?”

Hurst reached into his trench and pulled out a green and gold wrestling mask. “Yes, Mr. Ishikawa, how do you feel about lucha libre?”

*

The crowd in the El Circo arena was frothy with anticipation. The slovenly, odiferous announcer that was everything that can be Octavio Botello wiped his face with a cheeseburger wrapper. From the third row, a patron stared gape-mouthed at the human garbage speaking into the pitiable microphone.

The man’s mouth funneled out an announcement in congested Spanish. The 75,000 attendees reacted to the introduction of their Champion, El Feo Imposible. Grating, bagpipe-infused, Punjabi dubstep blared from the speakers. From behind the colossal curtain that led backstage, El Feo Imposible emerged. His mask was custom cut to expose the man’s own disfigured jaw line. From his upper lip and down his neck were a series of dried up lacerations. Xavier had cleared this man to fight only after receiving certified letters swearing to the non-infectious nature of El Feo’s wounds. They looked gross, they smelled bad, but there was no public health issue. The rest of his mask was black with glimmering pieces of metal woven in. He was proudly wrapped in a tartan in the Andersen of Arbrake pattern.

The crowd waved and pulsed for their champion.

After a few struts around the ring, El Feo Imposible corralled himself in the South-Western corner.

Octavio Botello, in all his heaping abundance, trickled his fingers over the ivory keys of his Wurlitzer. The tune was new to every one in the stands. With baited breath, the entire audience turned their focus to the curtain at the top of the imposing metal ramp that led to the ring.

A gray-looking barefoot man wearing only knee-length trunks, a filthy mask, and a decrepit noose stumbled down the ramp. He arrived at the prominent ring and tumbled under the ropes.

The bell rang.

El Feo Imposible launched himself at his challenger.

Gilgamesh, sitting ringside in arguably the best seat in the house, was getting anxious. The heel opponent was getting steadily thrashed by El Feo Imposible. It seemed that no matter how many reassurances Hurst and Quentin had given him, Gil was still uneasy about the Martian fungus in his disruptor. Before all this, Gil was just another interplanetary trucker with a hobby in fungal farming.

In the cab of his rig, he kept an intricate aquaponic garden to keep his mind busy on long hauls. The system provided Gil with a range of life-enriching hybrids in addition to moisture for a mold pharm he was cultivating.

It was while spending some time with a customer who was on his way to an outpost on Mars, he learned the fulfilling meticulousness that is mold cultivation. They were both on the moon and both taking a break before heading to their respective transports when Gil spotted the colorful array of glass and slimy fur in his cab. The Argentinian gentleman calmly, rationally explained each species and its respective environ. He then went on to demonstrate how to safely and effectively establish his own pharm. The letters ‘p’ and ‘h’ in ‘pharm’ came into play as a result of the man’s penchant for designer pharmaceuticals and their potential for self-propagation. Gil hated altered E. coli DNA and its byproducts, so he opted for earth-native psychosuppressants and psychoactives. Before the man left on his ‘journey to the ultimate beyond’ he had given Gil a cylinder of luminescent peacock-chartreuse Venusian cyanescens. When Gil received it from the fellow, the growth shuddered in a pleasant manner for several minutes.

Gil never forgot the man, despite never seeing him again. Although unfortunate, it didn’t prove fatal for Gil’s passion for mold. He took advantage of the Ultranet and filled his cab with a closed circuit, self-sustaining, red shrimp and rock crab producing, aquaponic masterpiece. The cylinders of interstellar mold, mounted on the passenger-side wall, produced copious amounts of spores. Said spores were then extracted via thin glass tubing and processed into tablets on-demand. All this plus a full sized bed and a combo standing shower/toilet rounded out his sanctuary.

However, after one trip from the moon to Goa, a sealed glass canister of Martian fungus changed from a floating, humming, pink ooze to a cluster of pallid gray cotton balls. He had set the rig on auto and was eager to install his latest score. While making an adjustment to the receiving socket, he set the cylinder a bit too close to an LED apparatus he was using for the nano-reef in the dashboard. To complicate things further, Gil went on to drop the canister at a rest stop outside of Pune and several giant squirrels fell dead, golden ooze and sparkling purple foam secreting from their hair follicles.

El Feo Imposible flew from the top rope and collapsed onto the heel wearing a filthy mask and decrepit noose with his prominent elbow. Gil shivered, then desperately looked around at the frothing arena. Of course, he didn’t see any LEDs that carried the spectrum needed for his reef. Nonetheless, he did know he had to act very soon, and with a volatile off-world life form no less.

El Feo Imposible signaled it was time for his finisher, La Catástrofe. The heel was sent to the ropes, and El Feo followed him closely. The heel bounced on the ropes and was immediately captured by the oddly-moving Imposible. El Feo spun with momentum and gave the heel a forceful German suplex. This was part one of his finisher. The crowd roared and barked El Feo’s name.

Gil withdrew the disruptor from his pocket and licked his lips. His tongue touched inside of the mask Hurst had pulled out and handed to him back in San Francisco. He stood up with the other fans and robotically cheered for the second, concluding half of the maneuver.

The hideously disfigured luchador ascended the ropes and gave a bow.

The audience was deafening in their chants.

At the height of the mania, El Feo Imposible leapt.

At the height of the jump, Gilgamesh Ishikawa raised his arm and fired his disruptor, also given to him by Hurst.

The silver beam raced across the distance between its handheld origin and the intended target.

In an instant, the luchador’s intestines were now spilling into the ring.

Everything inside was now outside.

The crowd turned to look through their vomit and at the gunman.

Gilgamesh remembered a play he saw as a child. He was now John Wilkes Booth. Gil hopped over the railing and dove into the ring. With his mask on, he felt invincible.

His target, El Feo Imposible, violently quivered at his feet. Gil reached down and peeled off the mask. He stuffed it into his long trench coat and felt a surge of boldness.

Gilgamesh cried out “Sic Semper Canus!”

The hysteria and frenzy taking over the arena was cresting. Masked men in glorified suits poured in and began crowd control procedures.

When Gil saw the men advancing on the ring itself, he decided it was time to leave.

A large man in an orange mask ascended the mat and slipped through the ropes. Gil turned and threw himself over the top rope.

As he soared over the thick elastic, his foot snagged. His hands shot out and he landed palm-first on the disruptor.

The glass shattered and entered his flesh, as did the fungus.

The sound of people screaming, emptying their stomachs, and running was sucked away. For several seconds Gil was stone deaf. His hand throbbed and his nerves burned from deep within. A wash of pink and gold sparkling light with a peach scent gurgled forth in his throat.

He rolled on to his left side and the world around him froze. He could hear his breathing now, but nothing else. His hand was green, elongated, and immobile.

Suddenly, he felt the overwhelming urge to blink. Keeping his eyes opened burned, keeping the closed stung. Blinking, though, seemed to bring an unusual calm.

Gilgamesh blinked until things started moving again. Really though, the reality he was desperately trying to participate in was melting. He dragged himself to his feet and took a step. The entire planet shook. He dared another advancing of his foot, only to watch the arena, full of people, start dripping away. Like traveling at an impossible velocity, things started to whoosh and whiz by him.

His legs disintegrated. His hands merged with the universe. He tried to turn around and go back, but all he could see was time.

*

When Gil woke up, he was falling. The air raced past him in a panicked hurry. He was supine, looking up at a beautiful blue sky. He wiggled his fingers. All he could feel was air passing between them. His clothes whipped against him violently. He fought to touch his face, but eventually did, and found the luchador mask. He then realized he was using his right hand to investigate his current status. Despite the shaking and the velocity, he could see the green skin, the long fingers, and the disruptor scar. Although no longer bleeding, it still hurt and even seemed to beckon him.

He accepted his current situation and decided to roll over and take a look at where he would die.

The speed of his fall made it difficult for him to complete his desired movement, but it didn’t stop him. He fought his coat for several seconds.

His eyes adjusted to the sea of white clouds he was seconds away from passing through. The empty moisture tickled his lungs as he panted through the mass. The water surrounding him consumed all primary sound and gave him a headphone sensation for the duration of his time in the cloud.

He remembered an occasion when he was a boy.

His mother, Najila, had taken him to a local waterpark. At the entrance to the only slide he could be coaxed into trying, he begged to be allowed to hold onto his mother. The lifeguard gave her permission and the pair rode down together, Najila in the front. The slide was dark and the sound upended his sense of placement in the universe. After a rollicking eternity, they were dumped into the wading pool at the mouth of the slide. Immediately upon entry, he clasped his arms around his mother’s neck. That is not to say that he intended to harm his beloved mother; Gilgamesh was terrified of the sudden submersion and total absence of all sound. His mother thrashed her arms and pumped her legs. Seconds later the two were on the faux sand shore, their chests greedily pumping air into their lungs. His mother didn’t forgive him because she didn’t need to. She was fully aware of what happened and simply smiled at her son’s fierce will to live.

The cloud ended and Gilgamesh was introduced to an ocean of water abutting an ocean of trees. To his left, poking out of the dense foliage were several flattop pyramids and smoke plumes. Gil had seen the entire planet while trucking goods between Earth and it’s colonies, but he had never once seen this forest, with those structures.

He moved his head to look directly below him. He scrunched his eyes tight and adjusted his mask. Gilgamesh burst into laughter.

“What! You can’t be serious!” He shouted at no one.

With each passing second it only became closer and therefore more real.

He had never seen one before in person. There were always movies and history books, posters, tattoos, paintings, and the like, but never once with the naked eye.

As it drew closer, he wondered if maybe he was in an elaborate dream, brought on by powerful drugs at a Sacred Hospital in Mexico City. Perhaps the movement of the air is just the movement of liquid in a Vitatank.

Something, though what exactly he wasn’t quite sure, told him the Vitatank was just a fantasy.

This was his reality.

He laughed a bit more, at first from amusement at the entire situation and what he was falling towards, then from nervousness.

This was the reality he now belonged to.

He took a shaky deep breath and prepared himself for impact.

Gilgamesh Ishikawa was headed straight for a radiant tall ship, parked off the coast of a thick forest, white sails and all.