I should laugh but I have a Mickey Mouse smile.”

– Jaromír Nohavica “Mikymauz”

WALT 1

The dressing room was filled with the smell of nail polish, wig glue and alcohol, slightly repressed by the scent of makeup. The soft light of the vanity mirror caught the actor’s wrinkled, powdered face out of twilight.

“Who are you kidding?” Robert — that was the actor’s name — swept the cotton pad across his chin, leaving a streak of lotion and white lint on the skin. His eyes squinted and his upper lip twisted in neither disgust nor grief.

“Joke,” he said, and reluctantly glanced at his unshaven chin and tired eyes. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look angry either. “Too bad it’s not funny.”

On the stage that evening, all the tricks he had tried had failed him — gestures, expressions and punch lines — no one had been laughing, no one had been applauding. Not that it had been quiet, oh no. Two ladies in the front row had been chatting away throughout the first act, while a cheeky teenager had been enjoying some chips and a guy next to him had been typing on his phone. After the interval, half of the audience had left, and you could hear snoring from the back.

“A homeless shelter is the place you belong,” Robert said to the mirror. He took out a flask from his jacket pocket and took a sip. Tears glistened in his dull eyes, which he noticed with a tinge of masochistic satisfaction. The last time he had smiled was twenty-three years ago, when he was picking up the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series. It had been the pinnacle of his career, and then everything had descended slowly downhill. His “wealth of talent”, which had once been so praised by critics, was gone, but he still had grey tones of melancholy. He just couldn’t use them in today’s farce, and besides, they were transparent to most viewers, who were used to the colourful sitcom chaff. Today he had only convincingly portrayed his fall from grace.

He wouldn’t have to act.

When he heard a knock, he quickly wiped his eyes with his sleeve and tucked the flask into the pocket. He muttered a cautious invitation, and the door swung open.

“Master,” a man called out as he entered the room. He had a puffy face, a high forehead with a receding hairline, and small eyes, but it was the phone in his hand that brought back memories for Robert. This was the guy who had been typing on his cell phone throughout the third act. And now he had the courage to come here with his phone, his baldness and red cheeks and… praise his acting.

His name was Adam Cox. He introduced himself after the welcome shout, which was the beginning of a long, rambling monologue. He said that he had come to see the performance that night, lured by a poster with Robert’s photo. He was surprised to discover that the slogans written on it were not at all exaggerated. “It’s a diamond! Farce of the year! Masterpiece!” he said.

Maybe if he was sober, the actor would have shown more caution and some remnants of healthy self-esteem, but his involuntary reflexes had taken over. Like a young pelican, he tilted his head back, opened his mouth and closed his eyes. After a while, he was unsure whether he was more intoxicated by the whiskey or the compliments. “Masters”, “artists” and “new Marlon Brando” fuddled his brain like strong alcohol. The memory of the hiccup Adam had made during Robert’s performance slowly faded into oblivion…

And yet, something was wrong.

“Sorry, Adam,” Robert interrupted his guest. “But wasn’t the third act a bit boring for you?”

“I’m sorry, master, but I had to quickly check something on the phone.”

“Oh, what was it?”

“I wanted to make sure I could make you an offer, master… an amazing deal. And it turns out that I can.”

Robert sat down more comfortably and crossed his legs.

“I’m all ears,” he said, faking a lack of interest. In fact, he almost sobered up and began to listen intently. The man looked like a salesman, but wasn’t that howagents looked these days? He wouldn’t have known, because for the past twenty years, he’d been organising everything himself, and he’d only seen agents in movies. Culture, decency and good practices had disappeared these days, and he was the last one to cast stones at another loser… But maybe Adam was a winner who just needed help with his outfit.

“It’s a really important role,” said Adam Cox. “No, it’s not just any old episode or cheap farce. And it’s not a movie production either; it’s a live performance.”

“So, is this a theatre production?”

“It’s more like a reality show, really.”

Robert winced.

“Really…” he said, suddenly losing interest. This time, he didn’t have to fake it.

“It’s not trash TV,” Adam Cox reassured Robert, sensing his reservation. He began to speak faster, clearly excited about what he had to say. “Not every man’s docu-soap, oh no. This is the role of the head of an empire. And it’s not an empire of politics or economics, but of an area that really matters — the realm of the spirit. The ruler of this empire conquers and controls minds through stories that are known to people all over the world…”

The agent stood up as he spoke, beaming with pride at his own words.

“He will rise soon to do new things and complete the work that was interrupted.”

The room fell silent. Robert crossed himself and raised his eyebrows questioningly, but Adam Cox shook his head.

“This resurrection will be seen by eight billion people, not just a few,” he said with a warm smile and bowed. “Thank you, master. And after all, you’ll end up in heaven, where there’s no end of love and joy to be found. At least it’s the closest thing to heaven you can buy for a billion dollars in this valley of tears.”

Adam paused and looked at Robert with a cheeky grin. Robert rubbed his chin for a long time.

“And what is the budget for the whole programme?” he asked.

“Over three hundred billion…” Adam paused, looked to the side, and sniffed. Robert quickly put away the flask that was sticking out of his pocket. Adam looked at him with concern, as if he was thinking about it, but finally waved his hand and started typing again on his phone, which he was obviously addicted to.

“… because that’s the net worth of the global network of film studios, TV channels and Internet platforms,” he said, slowly regaining his usual calm. Robert began to make connections in his head, even before Adam showed him the phone display. He’d heard a few comments from people who had taken his photos a month ago, as well as from people who’d seen these photos on the theatre’s website. He’d also heard from a waiter and guests in a certain restaurant, who’d noticed him growing a moustache for his new role. He looked at the black and white photo on the phone, then in the mirror.

“I’m not sure what it’s all about…” he said, looking at his long face with a prominent nose and a slightly recessed chin. “I don’t see any resemblance at all.”

“You look just like Walt Disney!” Adam Cox said, his voice booming like a prophet’s. “And I know how to make money off it.”

After a moment, the last cars’ engines could be heard leaving the parking lot.

“Bil-lions!”

The agent wiped his damp lips, and the actor thought it would be a good idea to listen to the whole story.

A month later, they walked down a shabby corridor into a bright future for both of them. It smelled a bit like urine, grease and rat poison, but that was to be expected. The rollercoaster above them was going at full speed, screeching at the bends and shaking the underground walls. Robert had been sober for a whole month now, and the noise made him shiver even more. He wiped his sweaty forehead and took off his jacket, feeling the cool air on his skin.

“Hot?” Adam asked with a warm smile. “Don’t you worry, it won’t be long now. The cryo-capsule is waiting for you. Is minus three hundred and fifty degrees Fahrenheit enough?”

“Why here?” Robert moaned. His agent had nudged him to speak up. “Why was I kept in the Pirates of the Caribbean basement?” he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Why not in the secret chamber of Sleeping Beauty’s castle? I would have slept right by the side of the most famous sleepy-head in the world. It would make sense…”

“Oh, you know, there’s this urban legend that Walt Disney lies frozen in the basement of Pirates of the Caribbean,” Adam interjected. “Don’t argue with the legend, Legend!”

Meanwhile, the rollercoaster above passed by, and after they unclogged their ears, they could talk normally again.

“I was also thinking about my fee,” Robert said with a smile. “I wonder where you got this billion from?”

“We’re here,” Adam interrupted. He opened the door that said ‘Adam Cox, Junior Development Manager’ and turned on the light. The actor, taken aback, looked into the broom closet that passed as Adam’s office.

“This is your office?” he asked. Without a word, Adam walked over to the dusty espresso machine, next to which stood one clean and one cobwebbed cup.

“Coffee?”

“No,” Robert yelled out loud as another rollercoaster whizzed by above. Wobbling, he made his way over to a chair, stumbling over boxes, buckets and piles of paper along the way. In the fluorescent light, the chair looked like a hologram. He carefully nudged it with his foot before sitting down with a sigh. It was only then that he realised that Adam, sitting on the other side of the desk, was watching him closely.

“Have you been drinking?”

Robert took a deep breath, bent down, and blew with dignity. Adam sniffed and smiled.

“Well done, you’re a real hero.”

“I’m sick.”

“Very well,” Adam said, creaking his chair with his weight. “After hibernation, you should be indisposed, so you don’t have to pretend. The less you have to act, the better for us.”

The actor, who was accustomed to being addressed as ‘master’ or ‘artist’ until recently, straightened up as if he’d been touched in a tender spot.

“I have the utmost respect for your talent,” said Adam, his voice quickening. “I believe in you, and I know you can do it. That’s why I chose you.”

“Not because I’m Disney’s Double?”

“Well, I chose you for two reasons.”

“Let’s talk about my opening statement,” suggested Robert, who, like most actors, was also an unfulfilled screenwriter. “I feel like it’s missing something.”

“Just don’t change anything about it,” Adam said strongly, also filling in as a screenwriter in the project.

“But how do I know what woke me up?”

“Because you didn’t wake up in the hospital, but in your cryo-capsule, and you find out that the failure was caused by negligence of the management board,” Adam explained to him, as he usually did, emphasising the key words. “You figured it out because you’re so clever. A dazzled genius is still a genius.”

“But how did I survive my own death? Most scientists say that cryonics is a waste of time.”

The agent impatiently gestured with his hands.

“Are you a doctor or a scientist, by any chance? Or maybe you’re an engineer? Let’s not talk about things we don’t know much about, okay? We both work in entertainment. Let’s focus on what we know. People will buy anything you sell them, as long as you package it well. They’ve already bought frozen Walt, and they’ll buy the defrosted Walt too, as long as you stay sober and stay in the role.”

He looked accusingly at the actor, who lowered his gaze and grimaced.

“Is TV really coming here?” Robert asked, looking around the shabby hole. He was still trying to handle his mounting tension. He wasn’t sure if the roller-coaster was moving up the hill again, or if his heart was beating faster and faster. The idea of performing live in front of the cameras seemed even more daunting than it did a month ago. Today it brought back not only forgotten desires and dreams, but also forgotten fears.

“Yes, yes, I’ve already reached out to my old contacts,” Adam reassured him. “This bloody network hasn’t absorbed everything yet, there is also independent media out there. They’ll come, and it’s not charity. It’s not every day that the whole complex fails.”

“And if there are victims?”

“Then all the stations will be here.”

The rumbling got louder and Robert covered his ears and cringed. Adam, who was used to the sounds, looked up to the calendar on the wall and smiled. It was decorated with the famous silhouette of a palace with an arch in the background. He shifted his gaze to the paint peeling off the door and then to the mouldy ceiling.

“Tomorrow, this circus will stand in dead silence and darkness. It’ll be quite the earthquake, with a capital ‘E’. And it’s about time…”

He stopped as the walls shook so much that plaster fell from the ceiling, and a piece of it dropped over his eye.

“And the stars in the sky fell to earth, just like figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind,”  Robert recited a phrase that he remembered from some performance he’d seen before. Adam rubbed his eye while glaring at the actor with the other, then waved his hand.

“Tomorrow’s failure will be the last straw for this disastrous management,” he replied, getting up and walking toward the door. “Your first decision as president will be to kick them out. And if there are victims, they will be brought to trial.”

Robert got up, put on his jacket and with a heavy heart, walked toward the door. His poor head had just been crushed by the wheels of an electric locomotive, and its wagons had broken his arms and legs… He knew in his heart that it was all nonsense. The locomotive that had demolished him was called alcoholism, and it pulled wagons of caries, rheumatism, alopecia and eczema. He still lacked money to treat these ailments.

Adam, seeing his expression, couldn’t help but smile wider and pat him on the back.

“Just remember your speech and you’ll be fine.”

“Where’s the… ahem… that goddamn pod?” Robert asked, coughing.

“Right here, behind the wall. It doesn’t really work, the engineer just made it look real. We’ll bring the nitrogen over tomorrow. If you’re feeling chilly, you’ve got a sleeping bag there. Just another hour of the roller-coaster, then we’ll be in a palace-like warmth and quiet. Are you ready?”

“No.”

Adam laughed.

“Come on, come on, you can do it. You’ll get some rest and you’ll be like a newborn again tomorrow.”

“What about the real Disney?”

 “And rich,” Adam kindly added, as if he hadn’t heard him. “And famous, and…”

“Oh, what if they really froze him?” the actor asked. “Oh, there’ll be two of us?”

“Oh, the world is waiting for its Messiah. We’re all waiting for you. Hallelujah!”

WALT 2

The next day, only a big mouse was waiting for them at the emergency exit of the Pirates of the Caribbean complex.

“Oh no, he died!” it squeaked.

This was the first time the artist had seen his most famous creation in half a century.

Of course, none of it was true. The scream came from an actor in a spongy disguise, and another actor pretended to be the creator of the mouse.

Adam hadn’t actually died. He was semi-conscious from an electric shock which had paralysed him when he had tried to immobilise a roller coaster by short-circuiting the underground installation. Robert woke him up in the corridor and helped him out with a fireman’s lift, carrying him outside.

There they discovered that the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was still in full swing, delighting crowds with its lively soundtrack and thrilling journey into the caves. No one but they paid any attention to them.

“Leave me alone,” Adam said, sounding cross as he shook off Robert. “Let’s see if we can find the media. That’s him!” he called to the people who rushed to his aid. “This is Walt!”

Robert tried to stand up straight and smile. But suddenly, a stun gun, tucked under his jacket, gave him a little jolt through his shirt. Robert stiffened, then flopped just like his friend had fifteen minutes ago. Two broad-shouldered bodyguards in gardener uniforms grabbed him by the arms and scooped him into an electric car, whose open boot was loaded with shovels. In the general confusion, no one noticed them, and no one registered Robert’s resemblance to anyone.

Or so it seemed.

The e-vehicle meandered along park alleys, past palaces, merry-go-rounds and fairy-tale characters. Merry children passed before Robert’s stunned eyes.

“I had a dream…” he murmured the speech he had memorised earlier. “I dreamed of a world where sick people wake up from comas, orphans… parents… everything ends well… Adults look after children… Everyone enjoys every moment… Paradise… Florida… my mission into the world,” he whispered, pausing to add his own inserts: “The wolf… the lamb… The leopard… the goat… The calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child…”

The electric car stopped, and one of the guards slapped Robert across the face. They carried him through the gate that had welcomed Disneyland visitors for five decades, the very gate that said “Happiest Place on Earth.” They opened the door of the old Chevy and helped him into the back seat. They handed him a plastic water bottle, which was about half full.

For Robert, it was half empty.

“Who drank it?” he asked. He shook his head and pushed the bottle away.

They found a spot in the beach parking lot. The guy, who had zapped and slapped him earlier, now swung again, but his friend was there to stop him. With Robert in tow, they switched vehicles to a long limousine, the kind driven by newlyweds and one-day millionaires in Las Vegas.

“What’s next?” Robert mumbled under his breath. “A… a helicopter?”

He was dumped in the back of the car. An armrest jabbed his paralyzed side.

“Is it real?” a grey-haired woman next to him asked, looking him up and down through dark glasses as if trying to decide. The guards left, and the door closed behind them with a slam. The car started up, rocking at the parking lot threshold and joining the lazy afternoon traffic on the freeway.

“Is it real?”

Robert looked at the woman. Her hair was neatly tied back. Her sharp cheekbones and pointed chin gave her the appearance of a weasel. Her jacket was elegant and the pearls in her ears and on her neck reflected the leather and wood finish of the car’s interior perfectly.

“Yes, absolutely,” he replied, returning her patronising smile. “Call me Walt, my dear.”

The weasel-woman took off her glasses, leaned over and brought her hand to his face. He straightened up quickly and threw his head back, laughing.

“It’s real,” he said, covering his moustache.

“Did you grow it yourself? Bravo! You’ve done a great job of creating an illusion.”

Robert felt anger, fear and irritation. For a moment he pushed all his confusion aside, wanting to prove something to her and to himself. He’d been abstaining and waiting for the promised billion to help him reenact the forgotten actor that he was. For too long he had been preparing himself for the role of his life to be satisfied with being an extra or a prop, tossed from pillar to post. With a smile, he smoothed his thin black tie and white pocket. He rested one hand on his knee and the other on his chin in a characteristic pose.

“Illusion is my middle name, my dear,” he said, imitating a slight Kansas accent with a warm smile. The woman laughed, then looked at him with a whole new interest.

“You’re ok,” she said. “But that partner of yours…” she gave a soft tut and shook her head. A few lines appeared above her pursed lips.

“Oh, what did you do to him?” Robert asked, straightening up. “Was it you who had him electrocuted?”

The woman let out a deep sigh and became quite serious.

“He’ll be fine,” she said. The actor nodded and looked around. There was a black circle over two smaller ones embossed on the seat headrest. The same logo was on the notebook next to the woman. It only reinforced his suspicions.

“Did you have a microphone in his office?” he asked. “You stopped the media from coming in, is that right?”

She put her sunglasses back on.

“We are the media.”

A phone rang with a familiar tune. The woman retrieved it out of her bag and put it to her ear.

“Yes?”

She frowned as she listened, then hung up and began tapping the display. She winced, clearly not happy with what she was seeing.

“Where are we going?”

She waved her hand impatiently, as if she was swatting a fly. The limousine jumped over a few bumps and then stopped. The door opened and a man with a moustache, wearing a grey jacket, a black tie, and a white pocket square, shuffled in. He nodded to the woman and sat down next to her, facing Robert.

“Call me Walt, sport,” he said with a smile.

Robert was so taken aback that he couldn’t move. His outstretched hand hung midair. It was only later that he realised that the shock of meeting the resurrected genius was intensified by smaller surprises. Why was the woman still tapping away on her phone, ignoring him so obviously? Even if she was the head of the company, she couldn’t be any higher up the ladder than its founder. A few details didn’t quite add up to him, either.

The limousine glided noiselessly down the highway again, and the outstretched hand slowly descended. Men in grey jackets looked at each other with curious eyes.

Robert had the feeling that he was looking at himself in a mirror that was a little out of focus. The hairstyle, tie, shirt, eyes and nose were quite similar, but his cheeks were a little on the large side. And there was more. A double chin and a bulging belly. He couldn’t help but think that he looked more like Walt Disney than the original.

If he was the original.

“You had a great idea, but we were the ones who made it happen,” the other man began. “Your fairy tale is starting to crumble like a house of cards. He wasn’t frozen; he was cremated. You missed doing your homework, didn’t you? Well, the family officially announced it fourteen years ago.”

“Then where did you come from?” Robert asked, curious.

“I’m his clone.”

The actor shook his head and frowned.

“Cryonics is a pitch,” the man said. “On the other side, cloning — there’s not much information out there, but every word is true.”

“Was it already a thing in the 60s?”

“Scientists knew what DNA is and the government was able to secure it. And they found it was definitely worth doing in a few cases. And don’t forget, Kennedy and Elvis fans will soon have their big days too.”

Robert looked at the CEO’s furious face and then at the clone. He still didn’t know where they were taking him, and thought perhaps that the cast for this show had yet to be approved. Maybe he was just being cast for another role? It seemed that the stakes might have been higher than the fee they had promised.

There could only be one Disney.

The woman finally looked up from the phone.

“We have a problem,” she said and pointed at Robert. “Someone took a picture of this disguise and posted it online.”

She showed him a photograph taken just an hour ago, as he and Adam had exited the roller coaster. “Disney is alive and well,” read the caption underneath the cropped portrait. Robert couldn’t help but smile genuinely for the first time that day.

“People have all kinds of theories and guesses about where he is now,” said the weasel-woman in a soft, gentle voice. “Memes, like viruses, spread like wildfire.”

She ran her fingers across the screen and showed them a picture with the distinctive silhouette of cartoon characters leaning against a reindeer with the headline “Disney” and the title “Frozen” with a question mark attached. The second photo showed Robert with the title “Defrost”.

“People are gullible and will swallow any crap as long as it is well packaged,” said the younger man with a smile.

“I think I heard it somewhere,” the old actor said with a sigh, adding a hint of sarcasm. “But aren’t you in the media too?”

The CEO and the rival looked at Robert furiously. He stood his ground and politely offered, “Why don’t we just stick to the plan and hold a conference in an hour? Let’s take advantage of the hype and seize the initiative.”

“I’d love to speak at the conference,” his rival interjected.

“Please,” Robert said with a sigh. “They have my photos. And you’re younger and not to mention fatter…”

“Shut up, both of you.”

The woman threw her phone into her bag. Her pursed lips and furrowed brow made her triangular face look more predatory.

“I beg your pardon,” the man said, loosening his tie. “You must be forgetting something. This comedy has been going on for far too long. You can see for yourself what it led to, if you like. Why have you kept me hidden for so many years? And why are you holding my scripts?”

“Because they suck.”

His chubby cheeks turned red.

“That’s just your opinion. Others believe that the studio will make a fortune on them, especially if they appear under my name…”

“D256-X / B7?” the woman replied with a laugh. “Or Arthur Smith, from your driver’s licence? The government programme is secret and you are officially gone, clone.”

“You will regret it,” the man said, trying to recover his voice. The grey-haired lady pursed her lips and looked at Robert. The actor sensed the curtain before him rise again.

“It’ll be safer to stick to the cryonics story,” he began to speak quickly. “I’ll play everything for you. I will say that in my will, I kept my hibernation a secret and instructed my family to issue a declaration of cremation. And I will prove that I am myself, that is…”

He took a fountain pen from his pocket and bent over his notebook embossed with a Mickey Mouse head. He opened it on the first blank page, put the nib against it, and without tearing it off, penned the signature he had been practising for the last month. The CEO looked at the famous autograph and at Robert. She turned her face to the window and stared at the palm trees moving behind him. She looked as if she was hesitating, but the actor could tell from her expression that the decision had already been made. The producer doesn’t take unnecessary risks. Environmental selection doesn’t promote the most gifted, the truest or the most beautiful, but the best adapted, in a pond full of fish or in show business, no difference. The value of genius in the age of cloning may soon drop, but it’s more sensible to invest in loyalty. However, if her opinion of the scripts written by the clone was true, a talent cannot be copied. Or, at least, it had failed this time. The new — old — head of the studio would be a figurehead, thank goodness!

After all, there could only be one Walt.

WALT 3

Robert looked into his face, illuminated by the warm glow of the vanity mirror. The smell of perfume in the dressing room effectively masked the scent of cleaning products and adrenaline.

“You did it, my friend,” he said to his reflection with a smile.

Diet, meditation and massages had fulfilled their task. All his nasty withdrawal symptoms had disappeared completely. And all his other persistent ailments had been cured too, as there finally were enough funds. His rotten teeth were replaced by a set of implants — for now only temporary, but still even and white, like real ones. After two months of abstinence he had finally begun to sober up. No more stage fright or dark thoughts. He was ready to conquer the world, or rather, to take control of the world that had already been conquered on his behalf.

“Mom, Dad, I’m ready,” he said to his agent and the President of Development, the official function of the weasel-woman, Fiona Cartwright. She spoke first.

“Our last teaser had more viewers than the finals of the last World Cup,” she informed Robert. “Your speech will be seen by half of humanity in just fifteen minutes.”

“Not bad for a piece of ham that I recently pulled out of the rat hole,” smirked Adam Cox. The dressing room buzzed as several assistants ran around, chatting excitedly with each other and on their phones. The make-up artist standing next to him bent down to listen in on the conversation. Robert glared at his agent.

“Just remember it was my idea,” Adam muttered and looked down.

“Which, thankfully, I tweaked ‘a little’,” Fiona said. “Thanks to me, your fairy tale gained more class and a few more authentic touches.”

Adam turned to her angrily.

“Your main contribution was getting me plugged into a million volts.”

“You did that yourself,” she teased.

“I could have died!”

“You could have broken the carousel!”

They stared at each other with fierce expressions, then both smiled.

“Champagne after the show?” Adam asked. And she began to consider his proposal, which showed how quickly the elevator of corporate promotion sometimes runs.

“And to think that not so long ago you were planning to ‘kick this disastrous management out’,” Robert reminded his agent. The President turned to him, raising her eyebrows, and behind her back, Adam put his finger to his lips. The actor waved his hand and sat down comfortably.

“By the way,” he said, “has the security guard, who beat me up a month ago, been fired?”

Fiona smiled briefly and opened her mouth.

“You get on air in fifteen minutes.”

Everyone looked at the assistant standing in the doorway — a bearded man with a samurai bun. Adam looked at his watch.

“We’re starting at six,” he informed him. “And it’s five-fifty already.”

“So, we’re on air in ten minutes,” Fiona added.

“Unfortunately, we may have a slight delay,” he replied, pointing towards the window. “There’s some fuss at the studio.”

“The fuss has been there since the morning,” the president said. “I don’t care about stupid fans.”

Even through the closed windows, the roar of drumrolls and the crackle of flares and sirens could be heard. People seemed friendly, but the producer of the programme assured them ‘just in case’ that the station had a helicopter and a helipad on the roof.

“It’s not about the fans,” said the assistant, pressing the Bluetooth clip in his ear. “It’s about new guests of the show. They’ll be here soon.”

In the silence that fell upon the room, only muffled chants, horns and the beating of drums were heard.

“Guzman!” Fiona roared. She looked around and strode up to the nearest camera. “Guzman! Get your fat ass up and come here. Now.”

A blonde girl in a Mickey Mouse apron passed by, nodded to Robert and quickly looked away. She sat in the chair on his right and arranged the cosmetics in the cabinet. Another girl turned on the lights by the mirror to his left.

“I’ll kill you,” hissed Fiona, turning into a predator again. “You know very well that in five minutes, half of humanity will be sitting in front of the screens.”

One of her smoothly combed locks fell across her face in a grey line. She was about to spit venom from her pursed lips.

“And I know how to attract the other half,” said Alonso Guzman, the show’s executive producer, with a confident smile. His brown eyes and athletic physique were enhanced by a fitted suit. He strode over to Fiona and spoke in a firm, decisive tone, “With the help of the new show’s guests, we’ll…”

“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “You invited a new guest without even telling me? Who?”

Guzman gave the assistant a sharp nod, and he immediately got to his feet. He strode to the door, waved his hands and shouted something down the hall.

“It’s an improvisation in the style of your tacky ‘Tijuana TV’ from which you came here…”

Fiona paused as two men in grey jackets entered the dressing room.

“Good morning,” said the first one. It was the young clone that Robert had met in the limo.

“Hello, I’m Henry Disney,” said the second in a deep, commanding voice. He was an elderly man whom he had seen for the first time. The young clone gazed at Fiona with a hostile look and, without a word, strode towards Robert, nodded and sat on his left with an ironic smile. Behind him, the old clone, helped by a blonde in an apron, climbed into the armchair on the other side.

“What is this?” hissed Fiona. She looked at the producer, narrowing her eyes. “Are you having a clone rally here at five to twelve? I knew you’d mess up eventually. You’re a cocaine-addicted, tacky, provincial dickhead. But today?”

“Shut up.”

Fiona’s face was a white mask of amazement.

“First of all, you invented the ‘Copy of the Master’ action,” Guzman stated, pointing to the clones. “And I’m certain people will believe in real cloning rather than in a fictitious freeze and frostbite.”

“You’re fired.”

Guzman’s laugh sounded like a bark.

“And who will produce this show, you old witch? I can do it in a few minutes and do it my way. All three Disney candidates will enter the studio. The best will win and take it all. They’ll deal the cards.”

Robert caught a knowing look from the actor to his left, who exchanged it with the producer.

“Tell me: do you prefer one chance in three or none?” asked Guzman.

“Why three?” she demanded. Her fury was still battling with surprise. She pointed to the old man. “Who is he?”

“This is the candidate preferred by the Disneys. They contacted me today because they discovered that their great-uncle had a twin.”

“Nonsense,” Adam bellowed, finally recovering his voice. “He didn’t, and even if he did, he’d be dead a long time ago.”

Fiona produced a rattling box from her pocket and the producer moved closer to her.

“Let’s show the old man to the world and laugh at him today,” he said firmly. “Why make him a new sensation tomorrow?”

Fiona swallowed the white pill from the box and opened her mouth again, but at that point, they all started talking simultaneously.

“Let viewers point to the real Disney after the debate.”

“It will be a shit show, not a debate.”

“People are stupid. They like the shit shows.”

“In five minutes, we’ll be on air!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do DNA tests on them?”

“Which moron said that?”

“This is television, not a laboratory.”

“This will be the show of the century.”

“More like the failure of the millennium.”

Robert’s teeth, which had been replaced with implants, suddenly started hurting. It seemed that they were growing artificial roots deep into his head, entwining with the roots of the implants in his new hair. The nonexistent nerves hurt just as much as real ones.

“Why don’t you freeze time in your capsule?” the younger Disney clone smirked, tapping his shoulder. Robert flinched, slipped his hand under his shirt and began scratching himself. He needed an eczema ointment, a head compress and an anaesthetic pill.

“Let’s start with the fact that a third of humanity is asleep right now.”

“When they wake up, they’ll watch the rerun online.”

“I’m sure they have Wi-Fi even in the boonies.”

“I’ll be on air in four minutes.”

Robert knew exactly what kind of anaesthetic he needed. A golden liquid with a spicy aroma and a barley flavour would put him on his feet in seconds. One shot would be enough. He turned in his chair and looked at an open drawer of a cupboard, standing under the window.

“And why did you have the ‘Frozen’ movie produced and promoted as the biggest hit of the studio?”

“To make money, of course.”

“So that after entering ‘Disney Frozen’ Google throws out different answers than data about freezing Walt Disney. You’ve done your best to stop people from pursuing this topic.”

“It’ll be on air in three minutes.”

“Aaaah!”

His critics would have been delighted — Robert had let out an authentic primal scream. It was pure emotion, with no words. The blonde, who was standing closest to him, jumped back and covered her ears, while her friend dropped the powder compact. Fiona turned pale, Guzman turned red, and the assistant gripped his beard and nearly tore it out. Robert got up and walked on, silently. His rivals stepped aside without question, and the rest followed suit. He kicked the garbage can, shifted the fan on the stand and approached the cupboard. He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a bottle that he had sniffed out an hour ago, right after entering the dressing room. He uncorked it, put it to his mouth and took a swig.

The warm vodka burned his throat, adding to the soreness of screaming. Once swallowed, it came back up, but he followed it with a second gulp. The third one went down smooth as silk.

It was like receiving a defibrillator charge on your deathbed. His heart started beating again, and his pain and helplessness passed instantly. Robert exhaled and regarded the people around him as if he was seeing them for the first time. He dazzled them with the whiteness of his implants, but they didn’t smile back. He huffed dismissively and turned to the vibrating glass.

Smog hovered over the city, but the artificial lights shone brighter than stars. Fireworks shot out against the dark December sky, and New York glistened with its own light like New Jerusalem in Saint John’s vision. A parade of cartoon characters flowed slowly through the streets below. The crowd chanted one name.

The view was spoiled only by a dark smudge on the glass. Robert grabbed the lever and opened the window. A choral song with drum rolls — rum, pum, pum, pum — flowed over him like a stream of warm water. Like a blessing. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and began to absorb the vibrating energy. Hundreds of instruments and thousands of throats joined together to create a single, unified sound in response to the horns. Robert raised his hand. Someone must have noticed him and pointed him out to the people around them. The news spread through the streets into the city like an earthquake. With a single gesture, he silenced the raucous crowd. He filled his lungs with the smoke-touched air and screamed again. His voice reverberated from Fifth Avenue to Central Park and back again, echoing back in time. People screamed, and the tune they had searched for before came successfully from thousands of throats.

“Walt!”

They were not strong, they were the strength. Filled with them, Robert felt himself hovering above the floor. This mystery had nothing to do with a hoax anymore. The scam had grown into art and surpassed it. In this situation, was his pop-culture prophet costume still a disguise? The illusionist — the trickster — began to levitate. The body became the Word.

“Walt!”

Who did they love? Who did they shout to?

“Okay, okay, man,” Adam said firmly in his ear. “Keep it up.”

He placed his hands on Roberts’ shoulders and turned him to face him.

“But not everyone on Earth will see you through the window,” he said, looking him in the eye as if he were hypnotising him. “They’re all waiting for you there,” he said, his voice a spell.

“Over there,” he pointed to the door marked ‘In the air’ and firmly guided Robert towards it. He wanted to say something, but his scratched throat wouldn’t let him.

“Go, Prophet,” Adam commanded, sticking the handset in his ear. “Repeat my every word, and today we will be in Eden. Go.”

Robert turned to the window, but someone had closed it, and the glass separated him from his fans again. He emptied the bottle, set it down and shrugged. He allowed himself to be led through the deserted dressing room to the small crowd of people gathered by the studio door. Next to them were his two powdered doubles.

“Five seconds,” Guzman said. He opened the door and, with a gesture of authority, invited the three men in grey jackets inside. He motioned for the others to step back.

But they all backed away.

On the threshold stood a Black man with a grey moustache, also dressed in a grey jacket with a black tie and a white pocket square. He laughed at the sight of wide-open eyes staring at him.

“Don’t worry boys, you’ll get your chance too,” he called to the other Walts in a condescending tone. “People already know from the snapshots that Disney is me. The stations broadcasted it a moment ago. But we play fair until the end. I saw you there on the monitor.”

He turned to Robert. “New York may be yours, Mr. Screamer, but what about the rest of the world? Will you tell your fairy tale to the viewers?”

He laughed and gave Robert a firm pat on the shoulder. His hand was firm, cold and strong, and the skin strung tight over it gleamed like plastic.

WALT 4

Robert wobbled into the studio and stopped only at the brightly lit couch.

The host welcomed the guests and introduced them to the audience. He shook hands with ‘the clone’, ‘the twin’ and ‘the real Disney’ one by one. He called each of them Disney, although it was only with the fourth guest that his ironic smirk disappeared, as if he had dropped the quotes from the name. He let the black man speak first, justified by the fact that the other guests were speechless. Robert sat huddled at the far end of the couch, staring at the man’s hand gesturing excitedly.

He still felt its cold, shivering touch on his shoulder.

The man’s words, now slurred by alcohol, slowly began to register. He made a long list of complaints about the racist 1940s in which the ‘real Disney’ could not reveal the colour of his skin and had to send an adult white actor to meetings. He started using the actor in interviews and documentaries, and that’s how things stayed.

“Did you really make all those cartoons as a kid?” the showman asked.

“I kept making them,” replied the black man, “after my white face died.”

The word ‘died’ was clearly understood, not to be confused with the words ‘was frozen’.

“Did you create all the later Disney movies?” The presenter shook his head in disbelief.

“All of them, up to this day,” the man asserted with certainty and a grin. “Have any of you ever seen their writers’ faces?”

There was a long, awkward silence in the studio.

“We see it now,” the host declared, “because it’s one face.”

Robert was jolted awake by the roar of applause. He fixed his gaze on the black man’s hand and the word ‘Applause’ that flared over the audience. He also felt like applauding in the face of such an internally consistent absurdity. He knew he had to act fast, or fiction would soon become truth. Unfortunately, his sore throat still hurt and he knew it would probably fail to obey him. Furthermore, his mind was blank, and somewhere along the way, he had lost the earpiece through which Adam was to give him instructions.

And there was something else. This competitor would strike up close and take the audience away. That’s why he was the ideal avatar — he didn’t need a voice in his ear.

Robert stood up, silencing the host and the audience with a hoarse mutter. He took a fountain pen from his pocket, rolled up his sleeves and raised his hand.

The host froze, but the drummer didn’t miss a beat. He played the tremolo on the snare drum. Robert didn’t autograph with his famous signature. The studio’s logo was created after Disney’s death and had nothing to do with his authentic autograph. Fiona or Adam might not have known it, but the average internet user could look it up in seconds.

No, Robert did something else. He took a swing and plunged the nib into the iron hand of his black rival with a furious force.

Something clicked, sparks flew and false fingers spread apart. Thick lips cried out, “Man, you damaged my hand,” but they didn’t even wince.

Robert had been right, and the cables and sparks confirmed his suspicions. He seized the pen from the artificial hand and, with a swift and decisive move, thrust it into the black man’s neck. To his astonishment, he found no plastic surface hiding cables, actuators and sensors.

The steel smoothly entered the man’s living flesh, from which blood spurted. The man’s uninjured hand grabbed his wounded neck, while his steel hand swung like a shovel, hitting Robert in the ear and sending him flying to the couch. The cyborg, with a terrible growl, fell on him, put his mechanical arm around his neck and squeezed.

Robert’s consciousness escaped him for a moment, and he ceased to be human. His reptilian brain, buried somewhere under his secondary ganglia and cortex, took control. His head turned, and his jaws opened and tightened on a fleshy cheek. The black man’s hand released his wounded neck and seized his bitten face. Robert bowed his head and thrust the pen into the man’s forehead with all his might. The pressure of steel eased, and at that moment, his consciousness returned. He shook himself, spat out iron-flavoured saliva and sat up. Rubbing his bloodshot eyes, he demanded, “Did I kill him or turn it off?”

It took a long time for the audience to recover from shock. After a while, only Robert stood motionless in the eye of the cyclone, which he had himself unleashed. The familiar, brutal security guard slammed him in the face again and overpowered him (as it later turned out, he had not lost his job — in fact he had become head of security for the studio in recognition of his prowess a month earlier). The dying black pseudo-Disney was taken via an elevator to the roof, to the helicopter, and a Mickey Mouse image interrupted the screens.

And then, everyone started talking at once.

“Viewership jumped to five billion,” Guzman declared as he and his assistants burst into the studio.

“Start the broadcast and point all cameras at Robert,” Adam said, running right behind them. He pushed the bodyguard aside, sat his ward down in an armchair and put the receiver in his ear. “Keep calm, man. We can still salvage this.”

The actor read the words from Adam’s lips because he was deafened by electric alarms sounding from every corner of the studio.

“This madman broke my programme.” Fiona was furious. “I won’t let him tear it down.”

“We’ve won the audience. Are you deaf?” Adam shouted, massaging Robert’s shoulders. “Our Disney just got back into the game. He’s now famous and scary — and he’s entertaining bingo.”

“The audience is five and a half billion, but it’s starting to decline.”

“You broke the hit, you retards! The historic human-cyborg battle has just taken place here. Resume broadcasting now.”

When Robert regained consciousness, he promised to be polite and say the whole truth on air. After hearing it, Adam slapped him back into sanity. Fiona ordered both of them to leave and turned to the cameras to call the other members of the board to a teleconference. She tabled an immediate proposal to fire Guzman, which was approved unanimously. The lawyers delayed police intervention, and the PR agent kicked off a debate with the eternal question, “What are we going to tell stupid people?”

Meanwhile, Robert sat in the corporate cafeteria, washed, dressed and patched up by paramedics. He accepted Adam’s apology. He was in shock, but otherwise fine. He just couldn’t hear in one ear. Adam swore that no one would ever hit him again, and Robert promised that he would never lose the earpiece again. They went from whiskey to vodka, and at midnight, when the bosses finally got along, Robert didn’t care. He stood alone in front of the cameras in the spotlight, as the CEOs sent his rivals home.

“We have a problem,” Adam stated firmly in his good ear on behalf of the board.

“We have a problem,” Robert stated automatically to a select few of his most loyal viewers.

Like the Great Depression and many other disasters, this one had begun with rumours. Four hours earlier (about an hour after the suspension of transmission), the fans gathered in front of the studio had become bored with the choral singing and, as is customary, had begun tweeting from their phones.

There, the surviving Disneys were furious that their candidate had been ignored. In response, they had published the death certificate of their great-grandfather. Someone had posted a photo of the urn with Disney’s ashes, and someone else had posted a statement from the cemetery confirming the cremation. However, the heirs’ triumph had been short-lived. Someone had discovered Walter E. Disney’s birth certificate from 1901, which listed no twin. Someone else had found a movie where the real, undoubtedly white Walt, was drawing Mickey Mouse. Advanced technology had juxtaposed the archival footage with the studio recording and had picked up anatomical details that differentiated the original Disney from the three white fakes. And that had been the end of the story. The human ocean had drained from the studio building and spilled over the narrow streets.

Robert was the Messiah at 6 o’clock; at 7 o’clock he was again breaking popular news as the Beast, but by midnight became a scammer. He stuttered in front of the cameras, sweating, and neither his drunk in-ear agent, nor his predatory boss, nor any of the television magnates had a clue on how to stop the catastrophe. They tried to react to what they saw on the screens, because although in their minds they were still addressing idiots, these idiots were no longer passive television viewers, but active internet users. Overactive ones. The cyber-trolls shouted Robert down with comments, parodied him with memes, turned his speech into a grim joke.

“They didn’t have to turn,” he said to his reflection in the mirror of a one-man cell. The studio’s mercenaries had tried to reverse the trend with fabricated reports, but they had all been identified as fakes and stopped in their tracks. Mickey Mouse, who had brought good luck to the real Disney, had brought down the fake one. The icon that had started it all a hundred years ago, the black-and-white mother of other characters, hung on the screens for too long. Mickey was friendly, chummy and famous, but his strength was his movement and voice. Unlike the Mona Lisa, his smile didn’t intend to hide a secret. While the emotions in the studio soared, the ones in front of the screens simmered. The viewers’ attention to the Mouse waned, just as surely as blood drained from the neck of one of its alleged creators.

The unions of Disney Entertainment Studios,  whose Chair turned out to be the programme’s host, knew exactly what to do at the last minute. They were right to assume that a black Vietnam veteran could be easily controlled, thanks to a surgical implant in his brain, and would arouse sympathy even if people did not believe his story.

The jury bought it. They convicted Robert of manslaughter despite his story of a nervous breakdown. The prosecutor made it clear that he and his partner had planned the fraud and then, in cold blood, removed the obstacles in their way.

“There were at least three obstacles in the studio,” the attorney stated, determined to maintain the frenzied narrative. “Why did he only attack one?”

And there was an answer to that. The allegation of racism was the nail in Robert’s coffin, both in the courtroom and online.

He was to get a fortune; instead, he got a life sentence. He was to be famous; now he was sore and scratched and sober for a year. He was to talk to billions; now he was talking to himself. Adam, on probation and relegated to being an assistant to a demoted Fiona, did not speak with him. Robert was alone again.

“We’re late,” he said to his reflection in the glass, and he was right.

“We are five hours late,” he added, and he was wrong.

In the previous century, he and his agent would have taken control of the studio and participated in its unprecedented expansion into the 21st century. But by Year 2026, they were already out of the running. The web users had taken an interest in him for only a moment — rightfully so — and after a quick verification of facts, they had turned their restless attention to yawning bears, melting glaciers, burning forests and other eco-scandals. Robert was nothing but a distant memory, the freak, the offender.

And the Word became flesh. Both Words.

“They considered live animals more important than the drawn ones,” he said, looking through the mirror behind him. “Can you believe me, Mickey?”

The mouse in the corner of the cell blinked and ran a paw over its mustache. Day by day, Robert was slowly letting go of the bitterness that had initially disgusted him to the sight of the rodent. Now, he saw the reflection of its famous namesake in it. He smiled at the mouse more and more often and spoke to it, certain that one day it would answer him. The animated Mickey had also been silent for several years before speaking. Thank God, they had plenty of time.

Some hour not long after, he is roused by the hostile wailing of his landline pulling at the cords at the back of his eyes. He answers with a dry, strained cough and rubs the soft spot over the missing rib on his side. The voice on the other end is Bernice, years of menthols since he’s last heard her. She tells him, in a depleted sort of way, that she can no longer care for him. Him who Saul never even knew existed.

He drives into the Dust Bowl town as the sky turns a wilting grey, and raps on the remaining bits of aluminum between the rusted-through holes on her screen door. She doesn’t answer, and he enters into a cluttered mess of beer cans, pizza boxes, burger wrappers, chicken bones, flies, beetles and maggots. There he finds him, but not Bernice. An ugly and sickly-looking child. He is pale, small-mouthed and weakly, with those blue veins around his temples joined to large, frightened eyes. Saul thinks there’s a healthy chance this thing staring up at him isn’t even his, but he takes him anyway. They drive back to the farm, and he gives the boy a burger they stopped for on the way. Then he coughs some, rubs his side and takes the bottle back to the couch. He doesn’t know what to do with him, so he does nothing.

It’s not long after that, with a yelp, the rustlers get Benji, not even leaving the dog’s body for Saul to bury proper.

He litters the night with booming flashes of gunpowder as the boy watches, wide-eyed and unblinking. The rancher then takes to his couch and his bottle, and weeps until he’s unconscious. It’s only the night after that he’s pulled from the couch by what he thinks is the sound of his friend crying in the distance, and he runs out with his shotgun, unloading shell after shell, screaming into the void.  He curses the poachers for taking him, calling them wetbacks and spics and filthy goddamn motherfucking cocksucking beaners and demands that they give him back his dog. He bellows and hollers and expectorates, until he coughs and wheezes and gasps for air. Finally, he catches a sliver in his palm and realizes he’s been holding himself up against the railing.

With Benji gone, he begins to lose cattle. Their wailing as the poachers rustle them wrenches Saul from his drink and his couch, and he rushes to the porch with his gun, but never gets there in time. He attempts to care for the boy, who sometimes he sees and sometimes he doesn’t, but never speaks and only observes. He fries eggs and hot dogs and goes into town for pizzas, cereal and instant noodles, but finds them in or beside the garbage or dropped outside the window with only a half-hearted bite or so missing. He shouts at the boy and threatens to strike him and curses him, and coughs harder and harder for longer and longer. One morning he goes to collect eggs and finds the coop empty and curses the poachers for being plain mean bastards on top of criminal ones. He loses more cattle, and his side begins to hurt something awful. At the store, he thinks he hears a noise somewhere between a bark and a yelp and turns half-expecting to see his friend come back to him, but instead finds a teller with a palm held over her mouth, looking in his direction. Staring. At home, in the mirror, he sees he’s lost weight, his cheeks hollowed and his eyes yellow and sunken, and there’s a wet sore on his side that hurts to the touch and sticks with a bite against his shirt. He continues to chase the noise of Benji and his cows, and the couch gets harder and harder to leave.

The cattle all but disappear in number, and Saul begins to stop leaving the three cushions when he hears them. His cough gets worse, his side hurts more and his knees shake when he stands. He asks the boy to bring him his bottle, but never receives the slightest noise in return and he wonders to himself why he can never find the tracks of their tires or the marks of their boots. He dreams of Bernice, of the other men she’s had and the feeling that she chose him because he was a sucker. After a while, he stops leaving the couch altogether and lets the uneaten food pile into the garbage or out the window or onto the floor, and finally lets the boy fend for himself. He shouts out at the rustlers, day and night, whether he hears the calls of his cows, his chickens, his only friend, or not. He can no longer tell when he hears them or imagines them or cares. At some point, he is roused suddenly from his sleep by the voice of Bernice, and desperately searches the room, begging she take the boy, only to find the pale, voiceless child watching him.

One night, Benji barks for the last time, and Saul is pulled off the couch with what seems a sudden and driven purpose. He calls the boy, his voice hollow and depleted, and finds him already at his side, and they step outside and enter his truck together. They drive down the highway, through the darkness, as it begins to rain. Saul doesn’t turn on the headlights, and after a time, they’re pulled over. The officer recognizes the cantankerous old rancher in the dark cabin of the old pickup and greets him with a patient and humored smile. He ignores the foul smell and asks about the boy, and in an empty sort of way, Saul tells him he’s his, and he simply can’t watch ’im anymore. The officer glances at the child looking back at him, and with a sudden sense of wary and aversion, gives Saul the suggestion to drive more carefully and takes his leave.

The headlights of the police car pass through the truck’s cabin as the officer pulls away and disappears into the night, then Saul’s meagre frame collapses into the steering wheel, his eyes and mouth hang open and desiccated, and finally he is dead.

Then with a sudden twitch, he sprouts back up. His jaw drops and his head jerks to face the boy. And with another twitch, his jaw begins to rattle and move free of his lifeless eyes and sallow, wilting skin. And as the undulating bumpy appendage emerging from under the boy’s shirt and entering the wet sore in Saul’s abdomen twitches again, the boy produces a near-perfect imitation of Saul’s voice through his mouth, repeating that they’ll have to find somewhere else for the boy to live, as Saul can’t care for ’im anymore. And back at the farmhouse, the radio plays a show about aliens abducting cattle, a light flashes between the tops of the hills, and lying among the pile of hot dogs, cereals, chicken bones, flies, beetles, maggots, fur, feathers and ear tags, is a dog collar with an inscription that reads: If found, return to Saul.

Night came quickly on the Moon.

Chun took a step back from the translucent walls and lowered herself to the mossy floor of the Great Dome’s garden. She felt the chill of night creep across her skin, and she stretched out her arms, dragging them across the plush surface. The motion stimulated the bioluminescent bacteria growing within the moss, illuminating her silhouette.

She took a breath and tried to lie perfectly still. The glow faded, absolute darkness enveloping the dome for a brief, encompassing moment before the artificial lights flickered on.

“I thought I might find you up here, Changchun.”

Chun jolted upright, grinning, to find her aunt standing next to the water bear statue guarding the ramp. With graceful strides, her aunt crossed the garden, hands tucked inside the silk robes of a priestess.

“Whatcha looking at, little one?” Chun’s aunt asked, the moss thrumming as she lay down next to Chun.

“The darkness.” Chun replied.

“Maybe you’ll encounter the guardians,” Chun’s aunt whispered. “It is said that during the lunar night they will make themselves seen to those who know how to look.”

“Auntie…” Chun rolled her eyes, expecting to see her mother’s older sister smirk as she often did when cracking jokes. But her aunt was still, silently searching the vast darkness beyond.

“Auntie?” Chun said again. Her aunt blinked, as if awakening from a trance.

“Come on little one, let’s go wash up for supper.”

Chun peeked through a slim opening in the yurt’s curtain door.

 “Dion!” she whispered, sizzling with excitement. “Dion, wake up.”

She was answered by a long yawn. “Chun?”

Chun swept into the yurt and gave the hammock a shake. “Dion, you have to get up. We’re going to find the guardians.”

Dion sat up, sleep-disheveled hair settling into place.

“My auntie told me it was possible, just last night.” Chun tugged on Dion’s arm, helping him to the edge of his hammock.

Dion gestured to a set of rods leaning against the wall. “Braces,” he said.

Chun handed them to him, then turned her back respectfully while Dion assembled the exoskeletal supports. He’d ask if he wanted help.

As she waited, Chun’s gaze drifted over a world of warm shadows and comforting darkness, yurts and groves illuminated by bioluminescent algae growing within the walls, solar-powered lights providing a backsplash of artificial illumination where needed. Ropes suspended between terraces intermingled with vines and dangling mosses among canopies of broad mushroom caps and ferns jutting into the empty spaces between platforms. This world, deep inside one of many artificial craters carved into the Moon generations ago, was blanketed in subtle radiance.

Chun watched lifts rise and fall, some transporting people or cargo, others existing simply for the sake of rising and falling, converting momentum into energy through regenerative braking. It was enough to power the stacked superconductors that generated the gravity field. Not quite Earth gravity, but close enough, as long as you stayed within the mine shaft. Chun didn’t fully understand how it worked, but she knew it was important. Everyone did. Of course, even with bioengineering advancements to reinforce the skeleton, being born into such a world could sometimes take its toll.

Chun heard the click as Dion snapped the final neural-sciatic conductor into the peroneal linkport set into his ankle. “Help me down?”

Chun helped steady him and he slid out of his hammock. Dion landed on the moss-padded ground with a soft thud, then gave his legs a shake as the system finished calibrating.

“Okay,” he said, brushing down the last wayward hairs on his head. “Where do we start?”

Chun peered at the carvings covering the shrine gate. She bowed her head and stepped through, holding tight onto Dion’s hand. “Auntie?”

Chun’s aunt turned from the altar she was cleaning. Dion bowed as deeply as his braces would permit. “Madame Longyou.”

A sly grin broke at the corner of Auntie’s lips. “Changchun. And Monsieur Chauvet. What can I do for you both?”

“Auntie, tell us about the guardians. Please,” Chun said. Auntie tapped her chin, then gestured for them to sit. As Chun helped Dion onto the ground, her aunt flicked a willowy mushroom on the shrine. It began to glow, setting off a chain reaction through the rest in its colony until the entire shrine hummed with soft light.

“The water bears are the guardians of our people,” Auntie began. “And always have been, having arrived here on a ball of metal and fire long before our people ever lived in these caverns. Their spiritual energy prepared the Moon for life, and through their work, they became the guardians of all living things in this place.”

“Even us?” Dion asked, eyes wide.

“Even us,” Auntie nodded. “So, we honor them by living in harmony with all the plants and mushrooms and insects and bats of our caves.”

Dion and Chun looked at each other, mouths agape. Finally, Chun turned to her aunt.

“Where can we find them?”

“The guardians are all around us.” Auntie waved her hand in a broad arc.

“Auntie,” Chun mumbled, twirling her finger around a stray piece of hair. “We were hoping we could see the guardians… before the move.”

Auntie leaned down and took Chun’s hands.

“Then you’d better start looking.”

Auntie refused to give them much else to go on, apart from a single piece of the priestess’ wisdom: it was not a matter of knowing where to look, but how to look.

And so, Chun and Dion agreed that the best place to begin their search was at the bottom.

Down the lifts they went, passing shrines and sacred pools.

Down the lifts they went, passing people tending wild orchards, children flying kites from the edges of the terraces, grandparents playing games of chance with the younger generations and, through this, instructing the youths in the tradition of honoring one’s elders.

Down the lifts they went, arriving at the base of the cavern. Here stood the first temple, carved into the solid core of the moon by ancestors. All things in their world trickled down to this place.

Chun helped Dion from the lift and the two walked single file through a garden of lichen-covered rocks, crossed the arched bridge over the reflecting pool with its sightless fish, and finally removed their shoes before entering the temple of the water bears.

Chun lit a rod of incense and placed it on the altar. “For the ancestors.”

Dion held up a rod of incense in offering. “For the cave.”

They both bowed their heads. “For the guardians.”

“Show us how to find you,” Chun whispered.

She opened her eyes and watched the smoke twist and twirl up through the cavern.

Chun took a small vial from the temple, as was custom. She dipped it in the pool of the guardians and held it up to the light to inspect it.

“What should we do now?” Chun asked.

Dion lifted his face, eyes searching for the last wisps of smoke. “I felt them, Chun, the spirits of the guardians.”

Chun filled another vial and handed it to Dion. She tied her own vial around her neck.

“But we didn’t see them,” Chun said. She looked around the temple garden. “What’s a better place to look than this? This is where everything involving the guardians begins.”

“Where it all begins…” Dion repeated, and a smile crossed his face. “Follow me.”

Back up the lifts they went. It took several transfers to reach their destination, but eventually the pair arrived at a dim platform tucked into a remote corner of the cavern. Chun felt her hair flutter in the quiet breeze that breathed from the crevice in the wall. Windchimes lining the gate dinged like a prayer. Chun and Dion grabbed a set of algae bio-lanterns from the shrine gate and ventured into the tunnel. They ducked at the sounds of bat wings fluttering overhead as they followed the thrumming glow of their bioluminescent lamps. Finally, the tight corridor gave way to a sprawling antechamber. And there, coating the walls, were sketches of bats and mushrooms, humans and water bears, the history of their people in ochre and charcoal.

Chun’s wide eyes traced the images of her ancestors arriving on the Moon, packed into cramped quarters on the surface. “Indentured” was the word her auntie used to describe them, these miners who only ventured into the caves to strip bare the resources within. In other scenes, she saw those ancient miners rebelling against the corporations. Sterile mine shafts blossomed into a system of interconnected caves, wild orchards for her people to migrate between, terraces filled with life. But before all of that, depicted amidst a mosaic of handprints, were the guardians arriving on a still-empty Moon amid fire and steel, lying in stasis, their spirits preparing the Moon until they were reawakened by Chun’s ancestors.

Dion reached out and touched the wall, placing his palm against the red-stained impressions of ancient hands. “The guardians are here, Chun. Their spirits are here, in this place.”

Chun placed her hand next to Dion’s. Feelings again, not proof.

Water bears danced throughout the frescos, present throughout the entire history of her people. It was all there, except for the one thing she was most desperate to learn. Not one panel revealed the secret of making the guardians seen.

Still whispering his confessions of faith, Dion turned his lamp. The water bears faded into darkness. Chun’s gaze shifted with the light, fingers trembling and pupils flaring as the lamp illuminated new sketches, figures wearing the ceremonial outfits of her clan, robes billowing with weightless fabrics. Chun heard her aunt’s voice in her mind:

“Our ancestors first moved into the mines as an act of resistance. They connected the caverns and traveled throughout this labyrinth, using their mobility to fight the corporations. The Moon sheltered them, and they nurtured it. After the rebellion, our ancestors chose to remain nomadic so that we would never forget our relationship with the living and spiritual ecosystems of the Moon. But once every 33 years, with the realignment of the solar and lunar calendars, we migrate not through the tunnels but over the surface. The Procession is our way to honor the Moon and the guardians, to remember how fragile life is and that we must remain active in our care of it.”

“I can’t believe this lunar night we get to walk the Procession,” Dion said. He clutched the vial of water from the temple of the water bears around his neck.

Chun turned her head from the wall and scowled into the darkness of the cave.

Dion ran a hand through his hair and looked out from the terrace, eyes tracing all the ground they had covered. He gave the strap on his leg brace a tug.

“Chun, we’ve tried everything,” he said. And he was right. From the Great Dome to the tunnel gateways leading into the adjacent caves, they had searched. They had sat in dark corners where it was said voices of the past still echoed; they had prayed in the temples of the ancestors, and they had meditated among ferns at shrines of the cave spirits. They had ridden every cable car, had utilized every lift, had passed through gregarious communal yurts and had tiptoed around secluded nurseries where human babies and young plants were nurtured together. But they had not seen the guardians.

As he had been in the water bear temple and at the cave paintings, Dion remained resolute in his faith. At every place they searched, whether sacred or mundane, Dion professed the same sense of connection, the same confidence in the water bear spirits as the guardians of life in the caves.

The more Dion asserted this faith, the more irritated Chun became.

“There has to be more we can do.” Chun squeezed her eyes shut. “We have to find the guardians, Dion. I need to see them.”

“Chun,” Dion tried, rubbing at the exoskeletal port on his leg. “It will be okay.”

“No, it won’t!” Chun snapped with such fury that Dion froze, eyes wide, the words left in him strangled by the tightening at his throat.

“It won’t be okay,” Chun grumbled. She turned her back and stomped off, leaving a still-petrified Dion standing at the edge of the terrace alone.

Even draped in shadow, the lunar dust glistened like a taunt. Forehead against the windowpane, Chun glared at the Moon.

“I thought I might find you up here.”

Chun did not turn.

“Changchun, you know better than to abandon a friend,” her aunt’s voice was closer. “I found Dion on a terrace four levels from his family yurt, with his legs about to give out from overextending his time in the exoskeletal braces.”

Chun felt a stinging at the corner of her eyes. She felt her nose twitch, her ears burn.

“Changchun,” her aunt said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“How do you know the guardians will protect us? Out there?” Chun managed to spit the words out.

“Ah, so that’s what this is about.” Her aunt lowered herself onto the mossy floor of the garden, igniting small bursts of light. Chun joined her, hugging her knees, and the two sat in silence, observing the darkness beyond.

“I was much older than you, my first Procession,” her aunt broke the quiet. “And I was very scared.”

Chun looked up, rubbing her nose. “Really?”

“Oh yes! A priestess never lies,” her aunt nodded. “I was terrified. But I did it. I walked through the airlock with my people, and together we crossed the face of the Moon. I have moved between caves many times since then, through the tunnels, just as you have, but I have never forgotten that Procession. Nor have I ever felt that same connection with the spirit of the Moon. It is something I will carry with me for all time.”

Chun bit her lip. “I thought that if I could just see the guardians before the Procession…”  Her voice trailed off. Auntie glanced over her shoulder at the water bear statue guarding the ramp.

“Hmm,” she tapped her chin. “Follow me.”

Taking her aunt’s hand, Chun allowed herself to be led from the walls of the Great Dome and back into the cavern. They took a lift down, crossed in a cable car, and arrived at a place Chun had never been. Her mouth fell open and her eyes bulged at the test tubes and vials, the potted plants, screens and wires poking through ivy and lichen. She always wondered what it was like, the lab where the priestesses worked when not maintaining the temples. A tinge of guilt sparked in the back of her mind as she thought how much Dion would love this.

“Let me see that vial around your neck,” her aunt said, brushing aside a few ferns as she pulled a microscope off the shelf.

Chun reached for the small capsule from the sacred pool. She had almost forgotten she was wearing it.

Her aunt opened the vial, tapped a single drop onto a small square of glass and slid it under the microscope. She looked through the eyepiece, adjusted a few nobs, then leaned back and gestured for Chun.

Heart pounding in her throat, Chun placed an eye to the microscope. At first, all she saw was a haze, blurry outlines moving like bubbles trapped under water. Then, as her sight adjusted, some of the figures began to take more discernible shape. Small dots zipped back and forth in undulating motions, while others squirmed and slithered like snakes. But among this fascinating menagerie of impossible things, Chun saw the unmistakable bulbous torsos, the eight legs, the segmented bodies.

“The guardians,” Chun whispered, watching the tiny creatures dance, masters of this microcosmic domain, this universe contained within a droplet on a microscope slide.

“I told you the water bears would make themselves seen if you knew how to look for them,” Chun’s aunt said. “Do you understand now? The guardians are everywhere, even in a single drop of water, invisible and yet ever present. And just as they have watched over you here, so will they be waiting for you in the next cavern, and so will their spirits guide you there. You need only the faith to believe that life in this place, fragile though it may be, can grow wonderfully.”

In the days that followed, Chun helped her family pack their yurt, as they had done many times before, although this time, their belongings were loaded into special carts built to traverse the lunar surface. Her aunt helped her atone for her mistreatment of Dion through a purification ritual at one of the sacred pools. Chun had been sincere in her apology. As unwavering a friend as ever, Dion was just as sincere in his forgiveness.

One the day of the Procession, Chun soaked in the algae bath that would protect her skin from the radiation and extreme temperatures of the surface. She dressed in the appropriate formality, robes dripping with ribbons that would soon be afloat in the limited gravity of the surface, slim space suit and helmet adorned with symbols of her family, her tribe, her guardians. Beneath it, the vial from the sacred pool was still strung around her neck.

One of the priests struck a gong in his hand. Chun looked down at Dion. As the exoskeletal braces could not be exposed to surface conditions, Dion was secured into a hover chair, which Chun had requested the honor of escorting.

The gong chimed again. Chun felt the vial against her collarbone and looked out the windows of the airlock. The spirits of her guardians would guide her. On the other side of this journey, her family would still be with her. Her people would still be with her, stewards and caretakers anointed to honor the beautiful fragility of life in this place. And the water bears would be there, waiting. The gong rang a third time. Chun squeezed Dion’s hand. The airlock doors began to open, and she smiled.

And the placid turquoise river that shines

With the touch of the sun

Carrying the news from coast to coast

And marries the wind, land and sand.

Hush! Listen, a sudden thud, a ripple, a trepidation

The water turned topaz

Turned jade

Turned ruby

Loaded ships with the heavy load

Is outweighed by the water of rotten corpses

Shaving the ground to zero

Signing the dust by translating the wind

Vowels whirled and consonants collided

Syntax of languid language is limping

The zooplanktons and planktons

Are searching for the moral ground of discourse

When a jellyfish caught the nuke and demanded a justification

Dolphins are holding diplomatic discourse

And octopus is busy predicting the course of the water

Water like time, time like water is running and dropping lives

Big whales are dreaming of the festival of sardines, among chaos

Starfish with many stars want to sway and be top on the chart

The slumbering turtling hope of the subterranean bunker

Refuses to comment on the situation

The salt on the wound is soaring

And the sea of hatred is soaring

Feasting seagulls are frolicking with fun

While sardines are running for their lives

The water rushed, gushed and hushed all

Fire of the river, fired the land, fired the sky

Marching silence is punctuated by the marching feet

All are told to abide by and respect The line drawn on the water.