Between Static and Heaven
by Michael A. Reed
“It’s been almost a week,” Talan said.
Zara, Talan’s older sister, peered out the broken window, her eyes fixed on the dust cloud down the road. “The Link is coming this way.”
“What if they can't charge it?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“I know, but it’s never been this long. What if we lose her connection?”
“Relax.”
As The Link neared, people swarmed out from their hiding places beneath sewer manholes, between alleyways, within shadowed buildings. They all came from a bygone neighborhood buried in the Expired Zone, a neck of the city that had been abandoned rather than modernized.
A dozen church bishops marched with The Link hoisted over their shoulders. They gripped the metal polearms with two hands and kept their eyes straight ahead. Crosses swung from their necks and their robes dragged along the ground. Their bodies were draped with neatly twined cables, and their heads were crowned with electrified helmets. Slow and rhythmic, they looked like a team of deep-sea divers had emerged from the ocean.
“Praise be to the Lord,” they sang. “King of Kings. Almighty God!” Their hymns beckoned people to The Link, a giant pyramid-shaped battery that crackled atop the ornately decorated ark.
Talan rushed out of the old apartment building where he and his sister had been squatting to join the amassing crowd. He stretched out his arms and placed Mom’s radio onto The Link. Like everyone’s radio, it magnetized to The Link’s sleek walls.
Breathless, Talan ran alongside the church’s caravan, waiting for the radio to charge with the electromagnetic rays of heaven. It was the only way to speak with his mom again. Heaven and all its glory existed in the fibers of space, hidden within radio waves: The Anointed Frequency. The dead were not gone forever.
“God bless you!” the crowd chanted. “Thanks be to God! Praise Him!”
The Link was flushed with radios of all different sheens, some rusted, some new, others refurbished. Most were dinged and scratched. Talan had tied a little red ribbon to the antenna of Mom’s radio. He squeezed through the throng of eager people and took it back. The bishops kept singing, kept marching, until they turned the corner of the street and disappeared out of sight.
“Zara!” Talan called, raising Mom’s radio above his head.
He looked for her in the dissipating mob of thankful believers. When he didn’t see her, he returned to their bottom-floor apartment, but she wasn’t home. Outside, Talan found his sister in the alleyway beside their building, talking to a man he didn’t recognize.
Zara took a tiny bag from the man’s hand and stuffed it into her pocket. When she saw Talan watching, she dipped her head and whispered something. The man glanced over and scoffed. From the man’s face covering, Talan assumed he was a member of the Cafard.
The Cafard man walked past Talan. Protruding from a slit in his crudely cut cloth mask, a set of sharp mandibles wiggled, itchy and unruly.
“Keep staring, boy,” the Cafard man hissed. His voice fizzled as if his tongue were lighting fireworks in his mouth.
Talan looked away and waited for the pungent smell of oil and ash to fade. Even after the Cafard man had gone, the acid scent of wet dust lingered in Talan’s nose.
“Cafard are dangerous,” Talan said once they were inside the apartment.
Zara kept her hand in her pocket as she plopped onto a tattered mattress. “Don’t worry about it.”
“What did he give you?”
“Seriously, Talan?”
Talan set Mom’s radio on an aluminum counter where the apartment’s kitchen appliances might have been once. It hummed as he turned the dial to reach The Anointed Frequency. Mom would know what to say to Zara. He stopped when he heard static, the radio warming his hands.
“Are you there, Mom?” Talan asked.
The voice that answered was faint and tired, but it gave Talan joy.
I’m here.
In the morning, Talan woke to the smell of basil and sausage. Hungry, he rolled off his mattress, annoyed that his sister would prank him with a Scent Simulation. But it wasn’t an illusion. Zara crouched over a thermal griddle in the middle of the room as she watched breakfast sizzle.
Talan stood by the griddle, silent and gawking, saliva pooling under his tongue.
“Yes, we can share it,” Zara said, a rare smile on her face.
“How did you afford that?” Talan sat cross-legged next to her, his stomach growling.
“Why does it matter?”
“Because a thermal griddle costs money. Where did you get the cash?” He remembered the Cafard man from yesterday and the bag in her pocket.
“Do you remember when mom said you ask too many questions?”
“Yeah. Like every day.”
Zara raised an eyebrow and elbowed her brother’s side.
“Oh,” Talan muttered. “Right.”
“Just be happy you won’t starve today.” Zara shooed Talan away and finished cooking the food.
While Talan ate his breakfast, he powered Mom’s radio. It buzzed and whirred as he adjusted the frequency.
Talan?
“Morning, Mom,” he said with a mouth full of nearly-burnt sausage.
What are you eating?
“Zara cooked meat and basil this morning. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a real meal. I don’t even care that the sausage is bio-printed.” Talan eagerly took another big bite.
Bio-printed? Didn’t you leave the Expired Zone?
“Nope. We’re still here.”
What about your sister’s plan? She was confident she could make enough money to move into the Lights District.
“Yeah, well it didn’t work out. The Junk Platoon said they weren’t taking on apprentice scavengers this year. Oh, and do you remember the ion mechanoid we dug up. The first generation one? Total wash. Circuit boards were melted into its processing nucleus. We tried to sell it to the Under Folk, but they thought we were scamming them and ran us off.”
Mom sighed, as she usually did after hearing her son’s life updates. Talan ate in silence for a while, thinking of something to cheer her up.
“So how’s heaven today?”
Perfect as always.
“Have you spoken with God since last time?”
We’ve been over this already, Talan.
“Can you at least tell me what you do up there? How do you spend your time? Is there time? Do you have a job? Do you get bored?
You’ll know when you die.
“God, that’s morbid.”
Watch your tongue, son. He is listening.
“Sorry. It slipped out.”
Another long sigh and silence. Talan gnawed on his final basil leaf, chewing it slowly like cow cud. He wanted to savor it. His next meal wasn’t guaranteed.
Can I speak with Zara?
“Mom wants to talk to you!” Talan shouted. He shrugged when she didn’t answer.
Is she gone again?
“Must be. I didn’t see her leave. We’ll tune in tonight, though. Unless you have somewhere else to be.”
Ha ha. Very funny.
“What? You can’t laugh when you're dead?”
I’m worried about you two. I can’t help you from here.
“We will be okay, Mom. Just say a prayer for us.”
After sunset, Zara returned with an overstuffed backpack. She unzipped it and dumped a pile of bio-printed food and prepackaged flash meals onto the floor. From the fresh smell of citrus, even a few genuine oranges were buried beneath the pile.
“How?” Talan asked. He knelt and sorted through the food. “Did the Under Folk buy the mechanoid? I thought they said they never wanted to see us again.”
Zara tore open a neatly packaged, green cube of Sesame Chicken and held a lighter beneath it. Within seconds, the cube inflated, the wrapper dissolved, and a maybe-meat conglomerate loaf emerged. She bit into it and slipped down the wall, eyes closed with the satisfaction of a good bite.
“So worth it,” Zara murmured from the ground.
“What was worth it?”
“No more questions. Just eat.”
Talan clutched a cube of Wagyu Burger. He hadn’t had a flash meal in almost a year. Not since mom died. Before he knew it, he was chin deep in farm-raised cow and the savory aftertaste of rosemary.
“Have some more,” Zara said. She tossed a crisp package of snap peas to Talan. He tore it open and shoved the peas into his mouth.
“We should save the rest.” Talan inhaled another handful of peas, pod and all.
“Don’t bother. There’ll be more tomorrow. And the next day. I’m taking care of us from now on.”
“Is it the Cafard man? Did he give you money?”
“Something like that.”
“You shouldn’t talk to him anymore. You know what the Cafard are capable of…”
Zara waved Talan away. “Don’t do this. Don’t do that. What am I supposed to do? Starve? Let you starve? I told Mom I would take us to the Lights District. I made a promise, Talan.”
“Not like this. Mom wouldn’t approve.”
“Well, Mom is dead!” Zara jumped to her feet, took Talan by the arm, and dragged him outside.
She pointed at the distant skyscrapers and the lights shimmering in the night. Hovercabs, so far away they looked like small birds, circled the luxurious towers. Rainbow strobes flickered on and off as the never-ending parties of the Lights District raged beyond their reach. Hues of green and red and purple reached across the empty streets of the Extinction Zone and lingered like jeering shadows.
“You dream of living there but won’t do anything about it. You sit on your ass all day talking with Mom and imagining what it would be like to have a normal life, and I’m left to do the dirty work.”
“That isn’t fair.” Talan pulled away from his sister’s grip and rubbed his arm. “You’re always gone, and I wonder where you are. Where do you go? What did the Cafard man give you yesterday?”
“Do you hate the Cafard because they’re Insectian? Because their bodies are different from yours? Are you a modifist now?”
“Of course not! But the Cafard are criminals!”
“And we’re not? How many times have we swiped a stranger’s food? We found that ion mechanoid, right? We didn’t take it from the Scavenger Platoon’s stash?”
“They left it outside!”
“Forget it. Don’t wait up for me.” Before Talan could say another word, Zara walked away and faded into the Lights District’s blinding kaleidoscope of color.
Fighting back tears, Talan returned to the apartment and curled up on the mattress with Mom’s radio pinned to his chest. He played with the knob and listened to the soothing static but couldn’t bring himself to speak with her. If he told her about Zara, he feared she would worry again. She didn’t deserve to have heaven ruined by her kids’ arguments.
Talan opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep atop Mom’s radio. Frantically, he pulled it out from beneath himself and straightened out the antenna. From the multi-colored lights shining through the broken window, it was still night. Now that he was sitting up, he noticed Zara pacing by the apartment door, her hands tangled in her hair and her head down.
“Stupid…” Zara mumbled. “Oh my God.”
“Zara?” Talan hadn’t seen her like this before.
“I messed up.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and turned out the contents: a thread spool, crumbs, a small screwdriver, and her lighter. It all fell to her feet. “It’s not here!”
“What are you looking for?” Talan rubbed the sleep from his eyelids and stood up. “I’ll help you find it.”
“You can’t help me.”
“Maybe if you told me…”
“Did someone steal it? Was it the bald guy? The old lady with the cyborg foot?”
“Stole what? You’re scaring me.”
“The Cafard bag! I lost their stash of memory overrides! I said I would sell them for a cut of the money!”
Talan held his breath. He knew Zara had taken something bad from the Cafard, but illegal memory overrides were worse than drugs. People in the Extinction Zone didn’t often have a Cranial Access Port, it was too expensive, but someone from the Lights District would pay a fortune to plug an override in their head and change their past. What they knew. The things they’d seen. Their life experiences.
“We’ll run away,” Talan said, grabbing Mom’s radio and his tattered jacket. “The Cafard doesn’t operate in the Southside, right? Let's take the food we have, whatever we can carry, and go.”
“It’s pointless.” Zara was quieter now. “They will find me wherever I go. For God’s sake, they’re Insectian. They’ll smell me. All it takes is one big crack in the wall for them to crawl out of and I’m as good as dead.”
Not knowing what else to do, Talan powered Mom’s radio and tuned it to The Anointed Frequency. Mom’s voice, sleepy and distant, cracked through the stereos.
I know time in heaven is abstract, but you didn’t tune in like you said you would. Did the battery lose its charge again?
“We’re in trouble,” Talan blurted. “Zara got involved with the Cafard. We bought a bunch of food, and it was so good, but we shouldn’t have even had the food. Zara was selling overrides for the Cafard so we didn’t starve, she lost their stuff, and now she thinks they might kill her.”
Slow down. Slow down. The Cafard?
“Not might,” Zara sobbed. “They will kill me.”
I don’t understand. Did you say Zara is selling overrides?
“Yes!” Talan and Zara shouted in unison.
Oh, baby.
“I had to, Mom.” Zara took the radio and held it out in front of her as if she were talking to Mom face-to-face. “We were never going to make it to the Lights District scavenging outdated junk parts. It’s impossible. And you told me… you made me promise!”
Calm down. It’s going to be okay. Tell me everything.
Zara and Mom spoke for hours. Talan tried not to listen. He hated hearing his older sister cry. Crouched at the window, he watched for signs of the Cafard, though he didn’t know what he would do if he saw one of them.
After a while, Zara said her goodbyes and turned Mom’s radio off. Visibly exhausted, she plopped onto the floor beneath the window, looking up at Talan.
“What did Mom say?” Talan asked.
Zara took a deep breath. “We’re leaving in the morning. Mom says it’s the best choice of action.”
Talan was filled with a vague sense of pride. He had been right, not that it mattered. “Southside?” he asked.
“With the override money I still have, we should be able to bribe our way with the Under Folk. Maybe rent a canopy in their tunnel.”
“Do you think they’ll have hard feelings about the busted mechanoid we tried to sell them?”
Zara shook her head. “Nothing money won’t help them forget.”
Talan climbed down from his place at the window and sat beside his sister. They hugged each other and waited for morning.
As Zara said, the Under Folk took the money without asking any questions. It wasn’t as spacious as their burned-out apartment, not that they had paid to live there, but their new home in the earthy tunnel beneath the streets would suffice for now. Considering the circumstances, it was a blessing.
The Under Folk were surprisingly welcoming. They brought Talan and Zara a few decorations for their canopy, a weathered tent with a rug, and at least pretended they had forgotten about the mechanoid scam. It wasn’t much, but with Zara’s backpack full of food, it would be enough to get by for a few days.
Zara had begun carrying Mom’s radio instead of Talan. She tuned in to speak with Mom every day and they prayed together, something Zara hadn’t done for a long time. Neither had Talan with any consistency, but it made him happy to see Zara reconnecting with Mom.
Have you settled in?
Mom’s radio rested in Zara’s lap and Talan sat cross-legged nearby. The tent top was so low they had to bow to keep the sagging tent pole from rubbing against their heads.
“More or less,” Zara said. “I don’t like living underground. It beats the sewers, but it’s too narrow down here.”
Talan nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, and sometimes the Under Folks’ whiskers brush my face when I squeeze past them. It’s the worst feeling. And their freakish little hands, too. I hate looking at those pink fingers.”
“Are you sure you’re not a modifist?”
“I’m not! But they’re mole people! It’s weird.”
“Keep your voice down. They’ll hear you.”
“They can’t hear.”
Zara rolled her eyes. “They’re blind, not deaf, you idiot.”
This isn’t the time for petty arguments. Focus on staying alive. You only have each other.
“We have you as well,” Talan said, patting the radio.
I’m not there to protect you, though. You need to work together. Now more than ever. Do you understand?
“Okay, Mom,” Zara said. “You’re right.” She stopped glaring at her brother and the red faded from her face.
Mom’s voice lowered, more than usual, and they both leaned in to hear her.
What of the Cafard? Have you heard any news?
“Nothing yet.” Zara pulled back the flimsy tent door and peered out at the busy Under Folk moving up and down the dimly lit tunnel. “They’ll know I ran away with their money by now.”
Stay around people and keep to your own business. In a few days, once it’s safe to cross the Northside again, go to St. Fessenden’s Church on the edge of The Lights District.
“We’ve declared sanctuary before,” Zara groaned. “The clergy sends us back to the Expiration Zone with a pitiful slice of the benevolence.”
It’s different this time. You’re being hunted. Tell them you will be killed if they don’t take you in. Maybe they will have mercy on you.
Zara rubbed her eyes, trying not to cry. She had changed so much in a few short days, and Talan missed his sister’s bravado. There was a time when she didn’t care about dying. She had been so focused on the next day that she couldn’t afford to be afraid. At least, Talan had thought so. Perhaps she was just better at hiding her fear than he was.
“I love you,” Zara said.
I love you, too. Check in with me again soon. I’m praying for you both.
Zara turned off Mom’s radio. She lay back with her arms behind her head and stared into the beige tent’s plastic void.
“Do you think you’ll go to heaven?” she asked.
“Of course,” Talan said. It had never been a question for him. Even before Mom died, he believed in his own salvation. Why wouldn’t he? He knew heaven existed.
“What about me?” Zara rolled over and stared at Talan as if he had all the answers.
He hesitated too long.
“I think I’m going to die.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it caught Talan off guard.
“No way. We’re safe here.”
“I don’t think we are.”
“Then let’s keep moving.”
Zara sighed and closed her eyes. “Have you ever had the feeling something is going to happen, and I mean a gut feeling, like a physical sensation so real it sends goosebumps down your skin, and then it happens?”
Talan thought about it. “No. Not really. Maybe when we were kids and you said you were going to punch me in the face to see if it would hurt, then punched me in the face?”
“Not like that.” She smirked. “But that was funny.”
“For you.” Talan rubbed the ugly bump on his nose where it had broken.
“The Cafard don’t forget.” The glimmer of joy on Zara’s face faded away. “They don’t forgive either. I’m scared, Talan.”
Talan put his arm around his sister. “You’ll go to heaven. Not that you’re going to die any time soon. But, when you do die, a long time from now, you’ll be with Mom and me.” He shook her gently, thinking he could make her brave with his love.
“I don’t deserve heaven,” Zara whispered.
“None of us do.”
“Mom’s battery is dead again,” Talan said.
He carefully placed Mom’s radio in the backpack that used to be crammed with food. All they had left to eat was a single pack of bio-printed sirloin steak that Zara had been saving as a celebration meal for their arrival at St. Fessenden’s Church.
“It’s been a week.” Zara finished rolling up her sleeping mat. The Under Folk had agreed to let her keep it if she and Talan examined their latest scavenged scrap pile before they left. Apparently having sight would speed up their sorting process.
“We made the right decision to stay here.” Talan zipped up the backpack and tossed it over his shoulder. Zara usually carried the bag, but he didn’t want her to be weighed down if she had to run.
“There isn’t a choice. We don’t have any more money to pay for our canopy. We must leave.”
“We could ask the Under Folk to stay longer. We could work for them. Clearly, they need someone to see their stash. Maybe we could convince them to keep us around. Be their seeing pets or something.”
“They don’t want us to be their pets, Talan. Come on. Let's go look at that scrap.”
“Or we could bail and get an early start on the day. Will they really care about one sleeping mat?”
“Right. Because the Cafard hunting us isn’t enough. Do you want the Under Folk to hate us, too? You’ll be sleeping one night and they’ll dig a hole beneath you. Then you’ll fall into their gummy pink hands you love so much.”
Talan shuddered when he imagined the nightmare scenario. “Fine. Let’s do it quickly.”
At the scrap heap outside the tunnel, the Under Folk crawled over the scavenged garbage like a hoard of flies swarming a pile of crap. Their noses pulsed as they brushed the rusted metal and sparking wires to assess the value of the Extinction Zone’s archaic treasures.
Talan and Zara had to cover their eyes with their hands because it had been so long since they had seen natural light. It was almost impossible to decipher the difference between a third-generation processing unit and an aluminum trash clincher with the red circles dancing behind their eyelids. Still, they did their best to help the Under Folk.
“What do you see?” the scrap manager asked. He wore a little construction helmet and held an electronic vision pad that recorded notes with temperature variations rather than words.
Zara leaned over the pit and scoured for valuable junk. “There’s a refrigerant capsule. Eighth grade. Looks to be in decent condition. On the far side of the pile—I’m not sure—there might be a high-speed elevator cable.”
The scrap manager perked up and wiggled his whiskers. “Very nice,” he said, gliding his hand along the vision pad. “Anything else?”
As Talan examined the scrap, a familiar smell filled the air. A sharp petrichor. Something like wet dust and day-old rain lingering in the gutters. At first, the scent was faint, but it thickened. He had smelled it before, he remembered. That day the Cafard man gave his sister the bag of memory overrides.
He spun around and searched for signs of the Cafard. Jaw tight and tongue trapped, Talan’s words were a step behind his mind. Where was Zara? She stood at the pit, eyes peeled, as she searched for more good junk. She was distracted and didn’t see the Cafard man, compressed and silent, squeezing himself out of the sewer manhole. He was so fast. So precise.
“Zara, look out!” Talan yelled, his legs finally coming alive. They were only ten feet apart, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop the Cafard man from stabbing her with the screwdriver.
Shocked by the sudden pain, Zara gasped and reached for her back. She turned to face the Cafard man, her eyes wide with adrenaline. Instinctively, she lashed out at her attacker. She grappled with him for a moment. Together, she and the Cafard man tumbled down the side of the scrap pit and landed on the junk pile.
“Help me!” Zara screamed from beneath the Cafard man’s weight.
Unable to see the threat, the Under Folk ran away. The scrap manager’s hard helmet fell off his head as he escaped, and Talan grabbed it before he leapt into the pit.
Zara tried to hold the Cafard man back, but his body was too flexible. He twisted his spine and wiggled loose from her defensive grip. She screamed when he sank his serrated insect jaws into her shoulder. Again and again. The Insectian tore away pieces of Zara’s flesh. Her arm. Her torso. Her ear. Her neck.
Talan struck the Cafard man with the construction helmet with a single, violent swing. The Cafard man cupped his face with a hairy hand. Part of his mandible had snapped and was gushing a chunky white goop.
When the assailant saw Talan standing over Zara, the goo-covered helmet raised to defend her, he laughed.
“She owed us blood,” the Cafard man said, trying to hold the broken pieces of his face together. “We were always going to find her.”
Talan couldn’t think of anything to say. It didn’t matter. He had to protect Zara, even if it meant he died. The helmet was a deterrent. Not a weapon. If the Cafard man wanted to kill him, he could easily do it.
For a long time, all Talan could hear was his heavy breathing and Zara’s moaning. The Cafard man looked as if he might come closer, but instead, he lazily waved a hand.
“You can’t save her.” The Cafard man gave Zara’s crumpled body one last glance. Satisfied with his work, he flung the bloody screwdriver into the junk pile. He cackled before stumbling away and crawling back into the sewer manhole. After a minute, the Cafard scent faded, and Talan was convinced the hitman wouldn’t return.
Atop the scrap, unnaturally bent over a warped sheet of metal, Zara lay dying. Feebly, she covered the screwdriver puncture in her back with one hand and her neck with another. Blood seeped from the cracks in her fingers. Her ear was gone and had been replaced by an open red sore that looked like a halved pomegranate.
“You’re going to be okay,” Talan said. His eyes were unfocused and blurred by tears. Looking at her wounds, he couldn’t believe his own words, but he had to say something.
Zara’s breath was quick and sharp. “I want Mom.”
“Her radio isn’t charged.” Talan hadn’t noticed he was still wearing the backpack. He took out Mom’s radio and placed it next to his sister.
“Tell me what to do,” Zara said between coughs. “Help me, Mom.”
But the radio was silent. There was no Link nearby.
“I can pray,” Talan whispered. “Heavenly Father. God in heaven. Please save my sister.” His voice cracked. “God, I need her! Don’t take her away!”
“Am I going to heaven?”
Talan shook his head. “Not yet.”
Zara’s face was so pale. Her breathing was shallow now and her eyes wandered the sky. She stopped covering the wound on her back and squeezed Mom’s radio to her side.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The Under Folk had returned. They lined the rim of the scrap pit and observed from a safe distance. Talan didn’t understand why they wouldn’t help his sister.
“I forgive you,” Talan said. “You tried to take care of us. So it’s okay.”
Talan waited for a response, but Zara didn’t answer.
St. Fessenden’s Church looked exactly like Talan remembered. It had been several years since he had visited. There had been no real need since the church sent The Link into the Expiration Zone neighborhoods.
An enormous satellite radio rested atop the church and the dish was tilted to heaven. Thick power cables ran up the church walls and rimmed the mosaic glass windows. Inside, the steel pews were lined with bible tablets and neural scripture downloads. Clergymen sang hymns as they marched up and down the aisles.
Growing up, Talan read from a printed bible, an absolute relic that his great-grandmother had given his grandmother who gave it to Mom. Talan had torn it to pieces as a child, unaware of what it meant. It made Mom so sad. For a long time, it had been his worst memory. He wished it still was.
He stood at the sanctuary altar, his hands folded, patiently waiting for the priest to return from behind the red curtains beyond the stage. Faceless people came and went, placing their radios on The Link that rested on the altar. They cried. Prayed. Rejoiced. Talan could feel the electricity in the church and the sheer energy of their belief made his arm hair stand.
The priest emerged from behind the red curtain, his robe of finely braided wires and microchips drifting behind him like a cloud of computer parts. Beneath his arm, he carried a scuffed radio with a red ribbon tied to the antenna.
“For you, my son,” the priest said, handing Talan the radio. “I have communed with heaven and opened The Anointed Frequency. May God bless you all your days as you live out your life on this earth. Go with peace. Amen.”
Talan sat in the pews. He fiddled with the antenna and turned the radio knob, back and forth, until he was connected to heaven.
Mom’s voice echoed from the silence:
I’ve missed you so much, Talan.
“Hey Mom,” Talan said. There was so much to tell her but not yet.
He wanted to know if his sister was in heaven. His doubt told him she wasn’t. As the days had passed, as he dissected her life, her mistakes as well as his own, the unknown had crept into his heart. The loneliness corrupted his judgement and the shame of not saving his sister dimmed his soul. So many mistakes.
“Zara?” he asked. “Are you there?”
At first, there was nothing but static. Then her voice rumbled over the radio and Talan smiled for the first time since she died.
I’m here, Talan.
Michael A. Reed is a speculative fiction writer and ironically dyslexic English teacher from Las Vegas, Nevada. He has too many kids and is actively training them for the zombie apocalypse. His other recent work can be found at Dark Matter INK, Tenebrous Press, and Shortwave Publishing. “Between Static and Heaven” was inspired by his conviction that science and faith are as fundamentally intertwined as certainty and doubt. Find him at Mikecantreed.bsky.social.
“Between Static and Heaven” by Michael A. Reed. Copyright © 2026 by Michael A. Reed.
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