The Immortals: Chapter Two, Part Three

                 Kendra’s eyes flicked to her phone – there was no response from the text message she had sent out – then flicked back to the first note on her sheet.

                “A-One…A-two…a-one two three-“ Marshal, his voice tight and controlled and his face wearing the mask of someone who was trying very hard to not think about something, counted off the tempo for the piece and then the slightly nasally sound of imperfectly maintained saxophones being played by less-than-professional students filled the space behind the bleachers that the section had chosen to practice in.

                There was a simple truth to high school music: You could have skill, quality instruments, or a life. Pick two. Since Kendra and the rest of the sax section rather enjoyed having life, and the Samville Cockatrices prided themselves on sounding like they were actually worth listening to despite coming from Samville, that meant that their instruments were not the best instruments in the field. A combination of poor school, flagging interest in the music programs and lower median income for the students involved made for instruments that bore the years of use in the same way the Titanic bore years of sea-water.

                Proudly, yes. With some measure of historical significance, sure. But no one would ever call it beautiful. Or...particularly functional for that matter.

                For Kendra, her alto sax had a slightly bent connector – normally, when she pressed a button at the top of the instrument to bring out a new note, the sax was expected to open certain vales. However, for the past three months, despite liberal amounts of valve oil and fiddling with screw drivers and lots of creative (and very quiet) swearing, the valve hadn’t opened properly. That meant that when Kendra wanted to shift between two notes, she had to let the valve open half a second before you would normally expect and take a breath – to cover for the fact that the valve was slowly creaking open rather than just popping up.

                Every member of the saxophone section had to deal with similar quirks. With that in mind, Kendra was just a little shocked at how good the piece started to sound by the time they hit the end of measure twenty and Marshal did a quick circular motion with his instrument to get everyone to stop.

                “Nice!” Bernard – the only person in the band with a name that began with a B – looked pleased.

                “Wait, did anyone else notice me going a little flat on measure three?” Stanly asked, looking at his sax’s reed, frowning at it.

                “Nope!” Bernard said, with more eagerness than actual authority.

                “A little…” Marshal shot Bernard a look. The way sections were supposed to work was that the first chair led the rest of them – because, theoretically, the first chair tested highest during the auditions – and the lower you were slotted, the less complex the music was. That fact seemed to have shot over Bernard’s head, and the fact that Marshal glared at him every single time he tried to help the others just amused Kendra to no end.

                It was a bit like watching a cat and a puppy try to direct a small military unit at the same time. A really really thick puppy.

                “Why don’t you play five to ten, and we’ll-“ Marshal started. Before he got any further, Kendra’s phone started to blare rap music at the top of its speakers. Everyone in the section looked at Kendra, who flushed and grabbed her phone,  looking down at it as her sax dangled from her neck strap. She slid her free hand to support the sax, not wanting her strap to give way and dump a seven hundred dollar instrument on the ground.

                “Nice ringtone…” Lisa – the other girl in the section – muttered.

                “Uhhh, I need…to…get this,” Kendra said, looking up at Marshal. “Be right back! Sorry!”

                Marshal clearly wanted to do something that only teachers could get away with. But as he was not a teacher, and this was after school, and Kendra was the second best player in the section, he gritted his teeth, then waved his hand to her – like an Emperor granting a loyal subject leave.

                Kendra shifted, putting the cellphone against her ear as she ducked around the corner of the practice spot and into a small alleyway between the bleachers and the fence that ringed the school.

                “Hey Bijay…” Kendra whispered.

                “Kendra, you need to get to the compound right now.” Bijay said, his voice serious.

                Kendra blinked. “W-What’s wrong?” She moved her hand to more firmly grip her phone, as if worried that it would pop out of her hand.

                “Adder is in the area.” He stopped talking for a moment, and then continued. “He’s an Immortal, and he…well, he runs a small mercenary corporation. His men are the kind of psychos would are willing to do anything for their boss.”

                “Even…”

                “Even kidnapping a girl from high school campus,” Bijay said.

                “Oh great. Just great.” Kendra looked back over her shoulder. “What do I do?”

                “Run.” Bijay’s voice was tight.

                “What!?”

                “Kendra?”

                Kendra glanced over her shoulder again and saw that Bernard was looking around the corner, his brow furrowing. Kendra flushed, trying to think of something to say to the other sax player, while also listening to Bijay.

                “Crichton’s goons are attacking us here.” He sighed. “We’ve got them bottled up, but if we leave, then…” He paused. “Well, let’s just say it would be less than enjoyable.”

                “Great, great, great…” Kendra turned back away from Bernard and looked out at the football field. “I’ll…”

                Three men were advancing across the field. They wore simple white t-shirts, loose fitting khaki pants, and sunglasses. They didn’t seem to be armed – but they had the kind of thick shouldered, wide necked, stern as all hell look that made Kendra think of soldiers. Ex-soldiers. Mercenaries. People who would be bad guys on Burn Notice. That kind of people.

                “Gotta go Bijay,” Kendra said, hanging her phone up, sliding it into her pocket. She turned around, as if to remind herself that there was a tall, barbed wire fence that looped around the back of the bleachers. For a moment, she felt as if all the attempts to make school safer had betrayed her. Then she turned back around and saw that there was still a thin opening to the left of the men. She ran, as fast as she could with a saxophone in one hand, along the front of the bleachers. The men broke from their walk and started to run as well.

                It was embarrassing how easily they kept pace with her. One of them actually managed to get ahead of her and cut her off. She stepped back, looking at the three of them. She gulped, taking another step backwards, her calf bumping against the first seat of the bleachers.

                “Come on, girl, we don’t want to hurt you…” One of the men said.

                Kendra looked around, for teachers, for anything.

                “Hey!” Marshal’s voice came from the left. Kendra glanced-

                One of the men made a motion.

                Kendra felt something like a punch to the shoulder, that then turned into the worst pain that she had ever felt, that then turned to her collapsing to the ground, writhing on the AstroTurf. She gritted her teeth and tried to-

                And then she was standing on her feet. For a moment, the world seemed to be frozen: The goons were around her. One of them held something like a pistol – and two wires reached past her shoulder, two needles sparking against the bleachers behind her. She had moved an inch to the right.

                Kendra took advantage of the distraction to unhook her saxophone. With an internal apology to the marching band’s budgeter and the school council that had voted them at least a little money for instruments, Kendra brought the curved front of the saxophone whistling around to smash into one of the goon’s heads. 

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The Immortals: Chapter Two, Part Two

                 Normally, sitting down to eat after the first few classes of the day was a time to unwind, talk about what had happened, and generally get ready for the next haul of the day. For Kendra, today, it was a time to marvel at just how weird her life had gotten in just a few hours. For one thing, she was listening to her two best friends in the world talk about a time that they had shared together…a time that had included Kendra, explicitly, and yet Kendra had no memories of it.

                “If we have to run sets 34 to 44 one more time, I think I will scream.” Theresa blew on her slice of pizza, trying to get it to cool. The cheese, deciding to rebel against her, sloughed off the side of the pizza and splattered onto the box that she had sitting on her legs. She sighed, then shrugged and started to eat the bare bread – her other hand reaching down to scoop up the still hot cheese. She glanced around – as if worried someone might notice her doing this – and then popped the whole cheesy ball into her mouth, chewing contently.

                It was here that Theresa demonstrated her refinement and superiorty to the male of the species: She picked up a napkin and wiped her hands. Very pointedly, as if to say: See, you don’t need to use your pants.

                Kendra smiled, despite her worries.

                “Yeah,” she said. Jessica nodded as well.

                Sets 34 to 44 were the hardest part of the current segment of show that the Samville High School Marching Band was learning. Sets were, in their most basic forms, simple coordinates: Go to X, Y. Then go to X, Y. Then go to X, Y. By going from set to set, at the same pace as everyone else – a pace kept by a field conductor and a mental metronome in everyone’s mind – shapes and forms were created for the audiences enjoyment. However, Sets 34 to 44 also included several more complex movements - including keeping a very specific shape while moving to the left ten yards, while also playing the most complex part of Yes' The Ladder. The combination of rapid, coordinated movements and complex song made the past week nothing but sets 34, 35, 36, 37 and so on.

               All of it run again and again and again, under the slightly psychotic eye of Miss V.

                Marching Band. Can't live with it, can't back out of it without being lame. Kendra loved every second of it.

                Jessica bit into her slice, chewed, swallowed, and then asked: “So, do you think that Marshal will make the section run a few extra drills tonight?”

                Kendra shook her head. “No, he’s got that date with-“

                Jessica and Theresa both looked at Kendra, looking confused.

                Kendra blinked. “W-What?”

                “Didn’t you notice that Marshal looked super upset this morning?” Theresa asked. Jessica nodded, leaning in, whispering.

                “I hear that he and Gloria broke up,” she said.

                Kendra sighed. “I…I didn’t notice.”

                She knew that that would sound weird. Even if she had no memories of the morning, she knew that she was second chair – that meant she was literally five feet away from Marshal every step of the sets that they ran. She’d have noticed him being upset, and she would have heard why through the grapevine.

                Her stomach twisted and she looked at the pizza that Theresa had handed her earlier. She hadn’t even taken a bite…her stomach felt empty, and she could remember filling it with the meat from Bijay’s BBQ. She tried to imagine what it would be like to remember being born and raised and having friends, and yet…

                And yet, your body would have gone through a whole different life. People, strangers, would know you, and you wouldn’t know them.

                “Kendra, are you okay?” Theresa asked, her voice soft as she finished wiping her fingers and mouth clean. “You look like…”

                Kendra shook her head – cutting Theresa off. “It’s…I’ve got a lot of stuff I need to think about, Theresa.” She smiled, then looked at her. “But, um, if Marshal doesn’t call us in for extra practice, maybe…”

                She trailed off.

                “We could hang out?” Jessica suggested an end to the sentence. But Kendra had just remembered that she’d need to contact the other Immortals and begin her training. She didn’t want to be caught off-guard when Crichton or someone like him came after her.

                “Maybe,” Kendra said, in lieu of saying no. Maybe could turn no. And, hey, she might not need to do anything else today! She smiled, then bit into her pizza – thinking: Hey, think of it like getting two meals at once today!

                Once the pizza was eaten, the three girls had time to talk a bit more.

                Predictably, Theresa was too polite to mention ‘superhot guys.’ Equally predictably, Jessica smiled, leaned against Kendra’s shoulder and asked.

                “Soooooooooooo-“

                “Okay, fine!” Kendra threw her hands up, standing and pacing away from where the three girls sat. She turned around and faced them. “I met him yesterday.”

                “And?” Jessica asked, grinning. “Where? Why? Who? Weightlifter, footballer, shy nerd who is actually surprisingly ripped, werewolf suspect, or…you know, are you weird and going after someone for their personality?”

                Theresa giggled.

                “Werewolf suspect?” Kendra’s brow furrowed.

                “Native American and ripped. Alternatively, super hairy. Like Kent, from my math class!” Jessica nodded.

                Kendra tapped her chin. “Kent…Kent…”

                If she could get Jessica on a tangent, then maybe she could escape.

                Theresa – who shared Jessica’s math class – was one step ahead of her friend and showed off her phone: It had a photo of a remarkably scraggly teenager, with peach-fuzz growing around his jowls. Kendra opened her mouth-

                “Wait, this is a tangent!” Jessica cut her off. She snapped her fingers. “Answer my questions, or I shall…” She trailed off, realizing that she didn’t really have any leverage over her friend. Theresa tapped the lock button  on her phone and slid it into her pocket.

                Kendra, whose cheeks were bright red by now, crossed her arms over her chest and gave in to the inevitable: “His name is Bijay.”

                “…Beee-jay?” Jessica asked, cocking her head.

                Kendra nodded. “He’s a Gurkha.”

                “…he’s a kind of cheese?”

                “No, that’s Colby!” Theresa jumped in, and dissolved into a gale of laughter. 
###

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The Immortals: Chapter Two, Part One

Chapter Two: History

                Kendra finished shaking the hand of the fifth immortal she had met today – a smiling woman with a narrow scar along her cheek who went by the rather simple name of Z  - and walked with Bijay to the final building in the little gated community. The apartments were all – according to him – owned by a trust fund that Sean had arranged to ‘ripple’ into existence. That kept out others and let them act how they needed and wanted to act.

                “What about when you have to move?” Kendra asked. “Or…do you guys all just stick in nor-cal?”

                “We actually don’t need to move as often as you would think. Most immortals have started to come to America – it is easier to alter your past so that someone made it rich here than it is to make yourself…important in previous eras.” Bijay grinned. “Of course, not everyone needs money and fame to be happy.”

                Kendra nodded, looking past him to the wall of the gated community. It seemed woefully little to protect them against a bunch of other maniacs with the ability to alter reality at their whim: A short concrete wall, unable to even stop the sound of the nearby freeway from intruding.

                Bijay tapped her shoulder. “Hungry?”

                Kendra, who was feeling the wearying emptiness that crashed home after a hard shot of adrenaline, nodded mutely.

                Bijay led her back to the first place he had shown off: The open air food court. It was set up near a large pool – the water didn’t steam like it would have earlier in the morning, but the hot tub looked remarkably welcoming – and had been cobbled together with a few BBQ sets and fold out tables that had been fancied up with cloth coverings and other accoutrements. Bijay went to a cooler that sat near one of the BBQs and flipped it open.

                “So, how many people do I need to kill?” Kendra asked, her voice soft. Bijay pulled out a big old hunk of meat that she couldn’t recognize and tossed it onto the BBQ, his hands working the machinery to start up the burners within. Sizzling started to fill the air.

                “It depends. We ten…eleven, now…” He paused, looking a bit somber – she had noticed that his face seemed well built for somber stoicism. It was weird that he smiled so often, but then again, he seemed to be really good at smiling too. Maybe his face was like a swiss-army knife and able to suit many emotions. Kendra realized he was thinking about Sean…soon to be ten again, soon.

                He shook his head, then turned to face her, saying: “We are those who want to keep immortals in check. Our changes on the world are not noticed by mortals. But that does not make them good changes. Sean…” He sighed. “Sean is sacrificing himself.”

                “Oh?” Kendra’s brow furrowed.

                Bijay nodded. “Lives matter. If a life is unlived, it can have shocking consequences. Sean…if Sean was not born in 1925, then Hitler would have won the war.”

                Kendra was rather glad she hadn’t been drinking anything. If she had, she was pretty sure it would have gone all over the table. “How!?”

                Bijay shrugged. “We do not know. There are too many variables, too many instances where a tiny decision influenced a larger decision. It may not have even been Sean: It may have been his parents, his grandparents, his family…everything that would need to change to have him be born later, all of it built into a cascade that ends with this compound…” He gestured around himself. “…being a center of resistance against Nazi occupiers.”

                He grinned. “Personally, I’d be game for a good fight. But the thirty million people in New York and Washington who got nuked were a tad much for my own entertainment.”

                Kendra rubbed her temples. “Jesus Christ…”

                Bijay turned back to adjust the meat.

                When the meal was actually finished, it was remarkably delicious if incredibly weird. He had done something with spice and the meat wasn’t what she had expected – lamb, not beef – but she was so hungry by that time that she didn’t really care. Once the plate was clean, Nef had emerged from one of the buildings and sat down next to Bijay.

                Her face was grim.

                “Is…Sean okay?” Kendra asked, her voice soft.

                Nef breathed in, then breathed out. She nodded. “He’s happy that a new member is joining us. You…are…right?”

                Kendra put her hands on the table, frowning. “I don’t know why Immortals need to fight each other. You guys can freaking recreate reality to your whims…”

                Nef smiled, bitterly: “Every change impacts everyone else. Most of the time, it is a little change. But usually, when one Immortal improves their life, it creates unforeseen consequences for everyone else. But if there were only one…”

                Kendra nodded.

                “I don’t want that psycho Crichton to be God. Really.” She looked up at Nef and Bijay – Bijay was smiling at her.

                “So, you’re with us?”

                Kendra nodded. “Officially.” She smiled and held her hand out. Before this moment, she 

had been here to learn, to escape, to try and get her handle on things. But she had seen enough.

                These people were willing to die for the world. How could she turn that down?

                Nef took her hand, and shook it.

                “So, the tour is done.” Kendra stood with the rest of them. “What now?”

                “Now…” Nef smiled. “Now, you get to see what it is like when someone else ripples you.”

                Kendra brushed her hands through her hair. “In the future, I’ll be able to fight this, right?”

                Nef nodded. “For now, your immortality is mostly reflexive. Just keep this secret and come here when you have some free time.”

                Bijay smiled and added: “Your normal life still matters, at least for as long as you want it to.”

                “That’s comforting…” Kendra muttered, then smiled. “Do either of you have cellphones?”

                They both nodded.

                “You can’t keep the physical recording of them,” Nef said as Kendra started to tap the numbers into her cellphone. “Remember them, and then input them once we’re done.”

                “Got it…” Kendra closed her eyes and started to repeat the numbers.

                She repeated them again and again and again…

                “Wait. Wait. Wait.”

                Kendra opened her eyes. She was standing beside the traffic light, her hand on the cool metal of the button. She was holding her thermos in one hand. But this was not the morning – she was standing beside Jessica and Theresa.

                “And, like, is it just me or is Miss V getting even crazier?” Theresa asked – her hands were clasped around a pizza box. They were returning from the food court, Kendra realized. She whipped her phone out, tapping in Bijay’s number – saving it as “superhot guy.”

                “What’s that?” Jessica asked, leaning over Kendra’s shoulder. “Oooh, superhot guy?”

                “Guh!” Kendra looked at Jessica, flushing.

                “Oh, the light’s changed!” Theresa pointed. “Back to the music room!”

                “R…Right…” Kendra gulped, and together, they waked back into her normal life. 
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The Immortals: Chapter One, Part Four

                The man with the sword – though, on closer inspection, Kendra was not entirely sure that it was a sword – looked up as Nef led her over to the grindstone. Kendra had never really thought much about swords. She knew that long thin ones were rapiers, and that the musketeers were good at using swords (except for when they used guns) and that two handed swords were claymores, but then again, land-mines were also called claymores. She knew that knives in Call of Duty were instantly lethal – but she was also pretty sure that that wasn’t very accurate, as she had once read an article about how shockingly hard it was to stab people to death with a knife.  

                Then the man pushed his welding mask back and Kendra stopped thinking about irrelevant details.

                He was gorgeous, though on second impression, Kendra was pretty sure that it was the smile. His face was rounded and Asian-ish, with a far darker tan than she expected, and short cropped black hair. But that smile…it was broad and generous and impervious to the bad things in the world.

                “Hey Nef. Found a new friend?” He asked, his voice smooth, rich…and British.

                Kendra thought of Sean Connery and Benedict Cumberbatch and Doctors nine through eleven and felt her cheeks get hot. So, his accent is cute too.

                “Kendra, this is Bijay. Bijay, Kendra.”

                Bijay stood, setting his curved sword-knife-thing down on a nearby table and held out his hand with a smile. Kendra looked at his hand as if it was an alien pseudopod. Then her mind slapped the back of her head: Hand. Shake. Make nice. Now!

                “Oh!” She started, then took the hand. He squeezed firmly – but not hard – and shook. “You’re British.”

                He smiled. “You…could say that. If you have an extremely loose and flexible idea of what British is.”

                She nodded. “R-Right. Sorry. I…didn’t know there were Chiii…” She trailed off as he shook his head slightly. “Ja…” He shook his head again. “Tha…” He shook his head a third time. Kendra was turning as red as a tomato now and felt like she should just throw herself in front of a bus.

                You could have just asked him where he was from, you stupid…

                Kendra barely stopped herself from muttering: 'Shut up brain.'

                Instead, she hung her head, let her hand drop, then said: “I’m sorry.”

                “I’m a Gurkha.” He said. “We are from Nepal. My family is from London.”

                Kendra glanced up, and saw that he was still smiling. She smiled back, but it was the kind of miserable smile that said ‘I am an idiot.’

                “Still,” Bijay turned around, picking his knife up – it glittered in the sun – and then turned back. “It’s nice to have a new face around here.”

                His smile faltered slightly as he said: “Nef…Sean is getting worse.”

                “Oh no.” Nef put her hand over her heart. Bijay slipped his knife into a sheath.

                Kendra looked from her to Bijay. “W-What’s wrong?” She asked, biting her lip.

                “Sean is dying,” Bijay said, his voice soft. “He's been getting worse today."

                Nef nodded, her hand curling into a fist. “I…can you give her the tour, Bijay?”

                Bijay nodded and Nef hurried off, muttering to herself in a language that Kendra didn’t recognize. But if it wasn’t ancient Egyptian, then she would eat her own hat. Once she put one on, of course. She turned back to face Bijay, who reached up to untie his blacksmithing apron and shrugged it off. Despite the chilly December morning that had not yet become less-chilly December day, he wore a short sleeve shirt under his apron. 

                He was…muscly.

                Kendra put her hand over her mouth to suppress a giggle as he turned back to face her, his smile returned. It didn’t even seem forced.

                “So, tour?”

                “Tour!” She clapped her hands.

                “Well, this is the grindstone.” He said, gesturing to the stone. “You’ll get to use that later. This way heads to the garage, where the actual blacksmithing kit is…the, uh, the forge, the auto-hammer, the tools, the metal stores.”

                “Do you make a lot of swords?” She asked, walking with him – part of her wanted to ask more details about Sean, but she figured it was a personal thing for Nef. Then she stopped. “Wait, is Nef dating a mortal?”

                “Well, swords break, so…” He stopped, then shook his head.

                Kendra put her hands on her hips. “Wait, I was told I was Immortal. That means living forever, right? So, how can he be dying? Was he…”

                Bijay shook his head. “No, it isn’t anything we can do to fix. If it was, then…” He sighed. “Did Nef tell you about her birthdays?”

                Kendra nodded.

                “Well, I was born 1896, in Nepal. I was also born in 1995, in London.” He sighed. “When an Immortal is about to die, the world changes, karma shifts about, and the immortal stays alive. The bullet misses. The car brakes before hitting. But you cannot dodge death from old age.”

                Kendra nodded.

                “But Immortals are able to change the world, if they focus. This skill is like a muscle.” He lifted his arm, then flexed. Kendra gulped and barely managed to suppress licking her lips. “When you start, you can’t do much. But if you work and exercise and practice, then you can leap further than you can imagine. By the time most immortals are twenty or thirty, they have worked this muscle far enough that they can alter when their parents met.”

                Kendra’s eyes widened.

                “S…So, uh, why are you eighteen years old?”

                Bijay’s smile widened. “Most Immortals learn their talent at their home. I learned mine in a little place. You may have heard of it.”

                He turned around, heading down the walkway that led through the gated community.

                “It was called Gallipoli.”
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