"Lucy’s Tether" by Kalvin Madsen

Lucy stepped on an ancient landmine outside Girvetz Hall. I talked to her brother, Suvin, about it as we strolled the beach while the med-techs in the aid center tried to piece her back together.

"If it had been one of those new ones, I’m not sure there would be any Lucy left," he said, his eyes drifting to the horizon. "Then again, she hasn't really been 'Lucy' since the winter solstice, has she?"

I understood his meaning. Everyone did. Just two weeks earlier, I’d found her on the bluffs, her gaze locked on the distant oil platform. Six hours she stood there, never once blinking, pupils dilated to black pools that swallowed her irises. When I reached for her arm, the chill of her skin shocked my fingertips. Whatever essence made Lucy herself had vacated; something else occupied her body now.

"It looks like a crown," she said, but the voice wasn't hers—it was calculated and didactic. "A relic of the Carbon Age. Exquisite."

To us, it was just a silhouette of the world that had died and left us the bill. But to the tethered, it was a museum piece.

That lone oil platform jutted from the water like a monument to the past, its silhouette mocking us across miles of sea. The green, littered waves rolled lazily ashore, almost looking safe.

We continued down the beach to the old Goleta pier, where the brown city river meets the green sea. I noticed a bow of barbed wire peeking from the sand and pointed it out for Suvin to avoid.

“This seems like a place for a landmine, right? Never seen one here, though,” I said. 

Suvin was kicking at some brittle shells when he replied, “Yeah, but they would have gotten washed away by now.” 

Suvin and I exchanged a look, his eyes narrowing beneath salt-crusted brows while mine widened in silent recognition. Lucy wouldn’t have wandered onto a mine. Not when every child here could recite the safe paths in their sleep, tracing them with sticks in the sand during evening lessons. The fact that it happened outside Girvetz Hall, where rusted warning signs still hung from razor wire and faded skull-and-crossbones markers dotted the perimeter like macabre garden ornaments, only confirmed what we already suspected. Whoever was piloting her body, whatever entity now inhabited that familiar shell of flesh and bone, didn’t know our world like we did.

He looked around with narrowed eyes. “We should head back.”

I was feeling it, too, and he knew. Another storm would start soon. The air was becoming rough on the throat, a thick, pea-soup green that tasted of sulfur and wet pennies. We pulled up our breathers, the rubber seals pinching our faces.

I remembered Lucy once refusing her mask during a similar surge. She’d stood there, eyes wide and unblinking, letting the toxic mist coat her lungs. She’d reached out to touch the heavy, emerald fog as if it were velvet.

"Chromatic variance: Emerald-7," she’d whispered. "Atmospheric density provides a superior refractive index for the sunset.”

Adrian Bravo, Lucy’s husband, had to pull a mask over her confused face like she were a child on an doomed airplane.

We took the road back to Campus City, through the main entrance gate on our way to check on Lucy.

As we went by the roundabout, I envisioned a busy confusion of cars making their way in and out. I could almost hear them in my mind, hidden by the building breeze. 

We heard familiar voices up the road—it sounded like Warren and Ethan. Relaxing our guard, we continued on until they came into view, and we all waved, meeting in the middle of the street. Warren and Ethan looked ready for a long journey, each dressed in sturdy clothes and carrying heavy packs.

“Where you going?” Suvin asked frankly. “There’s a storm coming.”

“Yeah,” Warren started, his voice coarse and low. “We’re just coming to realize that.”

“What was the plan?” I asked.

“Supplies from cottage hospital,” Ethan said, looking at the clouds.

“For Lucy?” I asked.

“For Lucy,” Ethan said.

"What does she need?" I asked. 

Warren and Ethan were busy peeking at the sky, deciding whether to stay or go.

Ethan put his hand on Warren’s shoulder and said, “What about those Hazmat suits in the Life Science building?” 

“No,” Warren said. 

Ethan insisted, “Bro, my dad made that suit out of the X-ray protection aprons from the clinic. That might be our best bet.”

I had heard about this suit Dr. Ambrose assembled. A heavy suit of armor practically. 

“The lead suit?” I asked.

Warren nodded. "Ethan’s dad thinks the X-ray aprons can scramble the signal. If we get Lucy into the suit, maybe the tether won't be able to find her. Maybe she can just be a woman with broken legs instead of a telescope for a god."

It was a beautiful, stupid hope. We all knew the tether didn't care about lead; it was stitched into the marrow. But I liked the idea of Lucy being under a heavy weight, hidden from the sky.

Ethan sighed. “It doesn’t matter anyway, dad thinks the blast probably wrecked the… what ever it is. Cut the tether.”

Suvin was losing interest, looking at the road ahead.

“We have to get going. I need to check on my sister.”

We left Warren and Ethan debating their course. It seemed to me they would have to wait out the storm. 

We cut through the rubble of Henley Hall—past the collapsed eastern wall where moss-covered concrete chunks formed a jagged mountain range of debris—to reach Phelps Hall, the old humanities building whose faded brick facade and cracked marble steps had recently become Campus City’s primary care facility. Adrian was sitting on the bottom step, elbows on knees, fingers laced through his unwashed hair, hardly registering our approach through the haze of his private torment.“Any news?” Suvin asked, his voice cracking with the strain of forced composure.Adrian looked up at us slowly, his bloodshot eyes focusing like a camera struggling to find its subject. “She lost her tether, that’s for sure.”It was the only good news he could conjure—news that was hardly news at all in the face of what else she’d lost.“I’m going in,” Suvin said hastily, already pivoting toward the rusted door with its peeling blue paint, but Adrian’s hand shot out, gripping his forearm.

"She’s in surgery. You think I’d be out here if I didn’t have to?"

Suvin was disarmed and shook away his frustration with an odd shudder. 

“At least they won't be able to use her again,” I said. 

Adrian looked up at the sky.

“They don’t deserve to have eyes down here. They should face it themselves instead of waiting and monitoring.”

“They aren’t in the sky,” I said. “Ambrose said they're in the ocean. Underwater city.”

“Probably would make more sense,” Adrian admitted—a common debate. “What about Ethan and Warren, did you see them on your way in?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I think they are gonna give up, on account of the storm.”

“I hope they do. We need the supplies, but we need them more.”

A moment of silent contemplation reminded us of the sharp air.

“Let's wait this out inside,” Adrian said. “I think Anika is making soup.” 

It was true, and we ate watered-down canned tomato soup in a classroom while we waited for news. The whiteboard at the head of the room had been permanently marked with a fire and maneuver diagram. Combat logic.

“What class was this?” Suvin joked.

“One of the last,” Adrian replied.

It was all any of us said during that lunch. We mostly watched the storm building outside, with the thick air becoming more green. We went about closing all the windows, and I went off and closed some in adjacent rooms. Eventually, a nurse came to our classroom and reported Lucy’s consciousness. 

“But it’s not her,” she said.

We were shocked. In under a minute, the three of us were at the door to Lucy’s inpatient room, a transformed classroom, knocking at the door and looking through the small window. 

“Hey, let us in!” 

Dr. Ambrose opened the door to room 1001.

“Calm, calm. Take it slow,” he said as we entered.

There was an odd ambiance in the room. I felt it in my chest. Two masked nurses stood by Lucy's bed.

Lucy was rolling her head on the pillow, groaning. There was nothing left below the shins but frayed denim and the smell of burnt copper. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open—but they weren't her eyes. One pupil remained pin-pricked in pain, but the other was wide and terrifyingly observant.

Suddenly, Lucy shouted, “Oh god! Please! How do I get out of here?”

Her voice was accented, though I wasn't sure where to associate the accent with. All I knew was that it wasn't Lucy.

She looked at us in a fit of pain and said, “Please forgive the intrusion. My assignment was merely to collect data.”

It turns out Lucy’s tether hadn't broken after all. 

Adrian wasn't as entranced as me and was able to respond. He had become familiar with the tether some years ago when they took control of Lucy for the first time.

“I know what you were trying to do, you goddamned lizard! Where the hell did you all go anyway, the ocean or orbit?”

"I’m sorry," she said, and the melodic voice made my skin crawl. "The spectral data from the oil platform was... distracting. I was attempting to calculate the rate of oxidation on the north pylon. I didn't realize the ground beneath this body had been seeded with pressure-sensitive kinetics. A fascinating oversight Regardless, knowing where we are will do you no good. But rest assured—” 

Again, they were overcome with a fit of pain, reeling and groaning. 

“Please, give this body some painkillers—I can’t think straight.”

“Rest assured what?” Adrian demanded.

“We won't use this body anymore. These injuries will only hinder our observations. But the day is coming when Earth will be habitable once more. On that day, we will return.”