The Messenger

Never open the packages. If he’d only followed his own rule, Edgar would be at home sipping ‘Lion’ Luke Clarke's homemade gin, instead of bleeding out on a cold warehouse floor.

"Lydia." he croaked weakly. His stomach acid was leaking into the wound, causing him excruciating pain. Across the warehouse, his murderers were arguing in hushed tones. Probably trying to decide on the best place to hide his body.

It didn't really matter. No one was coming to look for him. Everyone he loved died before the Crash.

"We should do it." one of his captors said. "He's old anyway. It's perfect."

"Fuck no." the other one said. "We ain't wasting it on his old ass."

Edgar had no idea what 'it' was, but he figured they better get to 'it' soon, or 'it' would be a moot point. He chuckled at his own joke, making dribbles of blood roll down his chin to mar the crisp white expanse of his fine lawn shirt.

As his vision grew blurry, Dr. Edgar Morris wondered what was next. He didn't consider himself to be a particularly good person, nor a bad one. He was sure that if heaven existed, that's where Lydia was. He wasn't so sure he'd be headed to the same place when he died, which by his calculations should be about eight minutes and thirty seconds from now.

Who would take care of his birds when he was gone? Most of them would be fine, but Thelma and Louise only came when he called. They’d been with him for so long now, he worried they might not be able to survive in the wild. Sure, the peregrine falcons were apex predators, but he’d hand-fed them since birth, and hunting had been scarce for the last two years.

Mice, squirrel and chipmunk meat was in high demand. Hell, any type of meat was. His neon green MAC tags were the only thing that saved his birds from being some scavenger’s dinner. Who would change them when the time came?

Edgar wasn’t worried about work. Midwest Avian Communications would continue with or without him. Gia and Jerome were expert falconers. They would worry over his absence for a few days, but ultimately, the show would go on.

People disappeared all the time now. Best not to get attached.

Thelma and Louise though, they would miss him. Edgar closed his eyes and thought back to when he first started training messenger birds.

It was long before the crash. He was 8 years old, 9 maybe? He found a pigeon, flailing, half-drowned, in the marsh behind his grandmother's house. The bird's name was Harold, and he had a broken wing.

Edgar made a splint out of popsicle sticks and patched the bird upright on his grandma's back porch. She wouldn't let him bring Harold inside, and once he was healed she threatened to make a pie out of him if she caught him lurking around her back door again.

Fearing for Harold's safety, Edgar said goodbye to his friend. Harold left, but not before teaching him a special whistle that allowed them to reach out to each other.

Over the years, Harold led Edgar to many other sick and injured animals. He healed them all, but he always had a special affinity for birds.

When Edgar went off to college, there was only one major that made sense to him: veterinary medicine. Edgar went on to become a world renowned vet.

For a few years in the early 80s, he was even on TV. Back when there was TV.

When everyone had TV. Edgar corrected himself. Clearly, 5G hadn't crashed all of the satellites like people thought. Some people, like his would-be killers, still had access to technology.

Of course, he knew that from the second he opened the locket.

Midwest Avian Communications, MAC for short, was the largest avian carrier network in the Eastern United States. They covered everywhere from Vermont down to Florida, and as far west as Oklahoma.

His customers relied on his accuracy, his professionalism, and his discretion.

Never open the packages. He berated himself even though it was far too late for that. In the eleven years since the crash made avian messaging the only form of encrypted communication, Edgar had never broken his own rule.

Until today.

He still wasn't sure what made him press his nose against the scratchy fiber of the homemade mailers people used nowadays. All he knew was that it came from the same part of him that knew Harold's name, the part of him that knew how to find wounded animals.

The part of him that knew unequivocally that he was dying, even though his wound had gone from gushing blood to simply oozing it.

Lilacs and Licorice.

Edgar had gone to bed and woken up to that scent more nights than he could remember. It was Lydia. It was love. It was home.

So when the faint scent of Lydia, his Lydia emanated from the package, he broke his one and only rule and decided to open it.

Inside, he found a simple heart-shaped locket, no note. It was a standard issue holo-locket, the kind you could find at any department store before the Crash. At first he thought it was the one he bought Lydia for their 30th wedding anniversary, but when he opened it, instead of seeing a projection of his own craggy face and withered bones, he saw her.

Lydia, young and exuberant, wearing a simple white shift and a braided crown of lilacs.

"Eddie." she said. "Remember when your Grandma said we'd never make it 50 years? I guess we showed her." She laughed, the sounds so crystalline and bright they brought tears to Edgar's eyes.

He was so caught up in the exactness of her likeness, how real she looked even though he could almost but not quite see through her. He'd reached out to touch her with hands like fluttering birds and put his palm right through where her skull should have been.

He'd known she wasn't real. He knew. But it had been so long, and he was so lonely, he had just hoped... but it wasn't meant to be.

Edgar played the message again and again, crying a little more each time. He missed her so much it was a physical ache.

The last time he'd seen her was the day of the Crash. She went out that morning to pick up something for their anniversary party. She never came back.

Edgar knew without a doubt this was what she went out for. She had probably bought the holo locket months ahead of time, that was Lydia’s style. He figured she must have gone to pick it up from the engravers.

Slowly, carefully, Edgar turned the locket over, running his fingers across the back, searching for an engraving he knew was there somewhere.

All he found was cold metal.

He figured the engraving must be on the inside. Pulling the emitter panel back, he searched the inside of the locket. In the center, right beneath her picture were the letters LLEF.

Lydia Loves Edgar Forever

Deep, racking sobs possessed him, his fluttering hands no longer capable of grasping anything. The locket slid from his palm and onto the ground, splitting open on both sides.

Which is how he found the nanochip.

Edgar had been so caught up in the idea of seeing Lydia again, even a hologram of her, that he never stopped to consider why the holo emitter worked in the first place. But with the discovery of a nanochip, an active one, he knew he had made a grave error.

Whatever was on this chip was the real message, and the recipient clearly had the tech to decrypt it, which meant he had the tech to do a BIOS scan.

He would know Edgar had opened the locket. He would find him, and most likely kill him.

Which brings us to how Dr. Edgar Morris, bird whisperer, widower, and world-renowned veterinarian, found himself bleeding out on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.

It's so cliche. Edgar thought. He didn't want to die in a way reserved for movie villains or drug dealers.

Delirium was setting in. It wouldn't be long now.

"...can't be mad about him finding out if he's one of us." Killer number one said.

"Rattled either way." Killer number two said.

"Fact! So we might as well try it. No nuts undug and all that." Killer number one replied.

"If we make him a Breather, we got to bump someone else." Killer number two said.

Breather? Bump someone? Edgar figured he was a little out of touch with slang, he spent most of his time talking to birds, but the killers’ words made no sense to him.

"Doesn't sit right though." Killer number one said. "I didn't mean to stab him, and now he's going to die, and that's going to be on my conscience."

Oh, nice. My murderers have consciences. Or at least one of them does. Edgar thought.

"Dutch would have taken care of him anyway." Killer number two said. "Knows too much. Besides, we got blood on our hands from the six to eight billion people who won't be able to breathe next week. Don't get squeamish now."

Eight billion people? That was the whole planet. Edgar's vision was dimming, sounds dull around the edges. He tried to hang on. It sounded like lots of people were going to die. If he could reach Harold...

Wait. Harold is dead. He reminded himself. It was Thelma and Louise now, and both of them were in other states. They would come home and he would just be gone, just like with Lydia.

Edgar heard himself making piteous noises. Soft, hiccuping sobs and dog-like whines were apparently going to be his last words.

"We can't save them though." Killer number one said. "This one we can."

"That chip belongs to Marlon, and Dutch will have our heads if we choose some nobody over a paying customer." Number two said. "Not our call, man."

Killer number one said something that sounded like "Fuck Marlon." but Edgar couldn't be sure. Everything was echoing, light limned the edges of his vision, and he was cold, so cold.

The argument raged on as the two stood over him. Edgar had the feeling he should be paying attention, but he simply couldn't bring himself to care.

"Lydia." He whispered.

A breeze raised goosebumps on his arms. It smelled like lilacs. And licorice.