Infinite Chapter 5

 Infinite chapter 5

Space, 40 billion light years away

The vehicle was a speck of light, a glowing ember streaking across the galactic cluster superhighway. Inside, two humanoid aliens with bulbous heads and eyes like black holes sat in tense silence, their giant pupils reflecting the swirling cosmos outside. Their child, a wild fusion of their genetic code, bounced around the cabin like a supernova in a teacup, giggling as he rearranged the gravitational stabilizers with his mind.

Parent 1, whose voice quivered like a dying star, broke the silence. "You’re navigating like a comet with no tail—completely directionless! Do you even know where we’re going?"

Parent 2, whose tone was as condescending as a black hole lecturing a neutron star, snapped back, "And you’re as useful as a supernova in a vacuum. At least I’m trying to keep us from colliding with the literal space pirates you didn’t notice!"

Outside, holographic space pirates—projections from a rogue advertising satellite—swarmed their vehicle, their ghostly cutlasses slashing at the hull. The child squealed with delight, mistaking the chaos for a game.

"See? Even the child thinks this is fun!" Parent 1 said, their voice trembling like a quasar on the verge of collapse.

"Fun? Fun?! This is as fun as a supermassive black hole swallowing a nursery!" Parent 2 shot back, yanking the controls hard to the left. The vehicle lurched, narrowly avoiding a collision with a derelict asteroid.

The argument crescendoed like two neutron stars spiraling toward collision. Neither noticed the fuel gauge blinking like a dying pulsar until the engine sputtered and died. The vehicle coasted to a stop near a rogue planet, its surface as barren and unwelcoming as a cosmic void.

"Great. Just great," Parent 1 muttered, their voice as hollow as a wormhole. "Now we’re stranded, our child is bouncing off the walls, and we’re out of fuel. This is as perfect as a singularity."

Parent 2 glared, their eyes like twin event horizons. "If you hadn’t been so busy criticizing my piloting, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess!"

As they bickered, the child, drawn to the planet’s eerie glow, wandered off. In a flash of light, he tumbled into a wormhole that snapped shut behind him like a cosmic trapdoor.

Parent 2 noticed first. "Where’s the child?!" they shrieked, their voice as piercing as a gamma-ray burst.

Parent 1, already a fumbling mess, stammered, "He—he must’ve fallen into the wormhole! But it’s useless to go after him. The wormhole leads to a time region that runs backward to ours. He’s as lost as a photon in a dark matter cloud!"

Parent 2’s eyes widened, their pupils expanding like collapsing stars. "You’re telling me we’ve lost our child forever?!" They bolted toward the wormhole’s last known location, their movements as frantic as a supernova’s final burst.

"Wait!" Parent 1 cried, their voice cracking like a brittle asteroid. "The moon’s gravity will crush you if you don’t time it right!"

Parent 2 ignored them, skipping ahead like a rogue planet dodging gravitational waves. Parent 1, despite their clumsiness, managed to catch up, their movements as desperate as a comet on a collision course.

"Stop! We need to think this through!" Parent 1 pleaded. "Let’s call the vehicle’s on-star application. They’ll help us!"

Parent 2 hesitated, their rage simmering like a dying star. "Fine. But if this doesn’t work, I’m holding you responsible—like a supernova holding a galaxy hostage."

They activated the telepathy wave, and a bored customer service rep materialized in their minds. Her voice was as flat as a pancake in zero gravity. "Thank you for calling Galactic On-Star. Please state your password."

Parent 1 cleared their throat. "Eternal Neighborly Love, AtilA."

"Sorry, that’s incorrect," the rep droned.

Parent 1 blinked, their confusion as vast as the cosmic microwave background. "What? No, that’s definitely it. Eternal Neighborly Love, AtilA."

"Still incorrect."

"Wait, wait! Try it without the special character ‘Atila.’ Eternal Neighborly Love, remove the AtilA."

The rep sighed, her patience as thin as a photon’s wavelength. "Sorry, you’ve exceeded the maximum attempts. Your account is suspended for 40 billion light years. Have a nice day." The connection severed, leaving them in stunned silence.

Parent 2’s glare was as intense as a quasar’s jet. "You… you *imbecile*! You’ve doomed us! Our child is lost, our vehicle is stranded, and now we’re locked out of help for 40 billion light years! You’re as useless as a white dwarf in a black hole!"

Parent 1, overwhelmed by the weight of their failures, felt their anxiety swell like a collapsing star. Under Parent 2’s withering gaze, they fainted, their dead body tumbling off the rogue planet and into the infinite void. 

Parent 2 watched them drift away, their fury as cold and unyielding as the vacuum of space. "Good riddance," they muttered, though their voice trembled like a dying star. Alone, they stared into the abyss, their child lost, their partner gone, and their future as dark as the event horizon they now faced.

And somewhere, in another region of time, the child giggled, blissfully unaware of the chaos he’d left behind.

———

California, 2085

The world was a kaleidoscope of neon lights, holographic billboards, and virtual realities that blurred the line between the tangible and the imagined. In a crumbling, converted hospital on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Fausto Mendez sat slumped on a stained couch, his VR Beta glasses flickering with the latest news. His gut spilled over his belt like an overfilled sack of flour, and his thinning hair clung to his scalp in greasy patches. He was a man out of time, out of place, and out of luck.

On the screen projected through his glasses, Shappalah Garrison, the CEO of the AtilA brand, stood on a dock surrounded by a massive virtual audience. Her voice was smooth, her smile radiant, and her words like nails in Fausto’s coffin. “The AtilA brand is evolving,” she announced, her holographic form shimmering under the artificial lights. “We’re embracing bold, new directions to honor the legacy of Ramon Atila and to give our fans what they deserve.”

Fausto’s stomach churned as she unveiled the latest abomination: Non-Binary MARS Babies. The holographic screen shifted to reveal grotesque, hyper-sexualized infant versions of the iconic MARS characters. They had pink and blue hair, exaggerated features, and outfits that would make a burlesque dancer blush. One of the babies winked suggestively, and another blew a kiss to the audience. The crowd erupted in cheers.

“What the hell is this?” Fausto muttered, his voice trembling with disgust. “This isn’t what he wanted. This isn’t what he stood for.”

Ramon Atila, Fausto’s great-grandfather, had been a visionary. His MARS series was a masterpiece of graphic storytelling, a sprawling epic about humanity’s struggle for identity and meaning in a cold, uncaring universe. Ramon had believed in art that challenged the mind and stirred the soul, not this… this trash. Fausto clenched his fists, his knuckles white. “He would’ve hated this,” he whispered to the empty room.

The broadcast cut to a sky billboard activation. The night sky above Los Angeles lit up with the Non-Binary MARS Babies, their erotic poses casting a garish glow over the city. The interviewer chuckled. “Looks like those pesky stars are getting in the way!” Fausto ripped off his Beta glasses and threw them across the room. “Stars are supposed to be in the way!” he shouted. “Ramon loved the stars! He wanted more of them, not less!”

From the adjacent room, the sound of a VR video game blared. Fausto’s son, Stephen, was playing *Bubble Boy: Lost in the Galaxy*, a game about a humanoid alien child collecting coins and doing a ridiculous dance that had become a viral sensation among kids. Stephen’s avatar spun in circles, its oversized head bobbing to an obnoxious tune. When the dance ended, Stephen turned to his father and sneered. “Hey, Gummy Bear, when’s dinner?”

Fausto’s jaw tightened. “Get ready for your doctor’s appointment.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Go fuck yourself, Dad.”

Fausto sighed, muttering under his breath. “Kids these days…”

Later, Fausto’s wife, Rita, entered the room. She was a practical woman, her patience worn thin by years of Fausto’s failures. “Bring the car around,” she said, barely glancing at him.

Fausto tried to engage her. “Did you see the news? Shappalah Garrison is ruining everything. But I got an invite to the Joe Pogo Podcast. I’m gonna set the record straight about Ramon’s legacy.”

Rita crossed her arms. “Fausto, you need real work. Not podcasts. Not this… crusade.”

Fausto made the 15-minute walk along the spiraling labyrinth of the abandoned hospital to the entrance, where he was greeted by his self-driving electric vehicle. He lit a cigarette as a light rain developed. It was depressing. He was depressed, hopping into the vehicle and watching episodes of his favorite podcast by the famous Jo Pogo as he took long drags of his smoke.

The sound of Jo Pogo filled his brain. “Brah, just listen for a sec,” he ranted to his guest. “Like, we live in a time unlike any other time, man. We have the technology to physically copy a human. This sets a major precedent, brah. Like what is going on in this world, brah.”

His wife and son entered the vehicle and they travelled to the hospital, where a robot greeted Stephen at the entrance. He thought it would be funny to slap his dad on the back on the head, before exiting the vehicle and leaving his parents to wait for him.

“You have to find real work as a writer,” Rita continued.

“This isn’t just a crusade!” Fausto protested. “Ramon Atila was a genius. He believed in art that meant something. He believed in family, in love, in the human spirit. He—”

“He died broke,” Rita interrupted. “A penniless social outcast. His nieces and nephews control the company now, and they don’t care about you. They’ve moved on. They cut you out of the family fortune. They had some sense. Why can’t you?”

Fausto’s eyes welled with tears. “Because I believe in him. I wrote the best biography of Ramon Atila ever written. I know who he was. I know what he stood for.”

Rita sighed, pulling up the Joe Pogo Podcast on her Beta glasses. Joe Pogo, a man who sounded like a cross between an army vet and a stoned surfer, was ranting about how kids today were learning that white people were the first Neanderthals but black people were the first Homo sapiens. “What a crazy time to be alive!” Pogo exclaimed, his voice dripping with faux profundity.

Rita removed her glasses, her expression unimpressed. “Nice podcast,” she said sarcastically. Then, after a pause, she added, “I want a divorce. I’m having an affair with the neighbor.”

Fausto felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. “What?”

“You heard me,” Rita said, her voice cold. “I’m done.”

That night, Fausto tried to bond with Stephen, but the boy was as dismissive as ever. “Leave me alone, Gummy Bear,” he said, not looking up from his VR game.

Fausto retreated to the hallway, his heart breaking with every step. He thought of Ramon Atila, who had died surrounded by a family that loved him, even if the world had forgotten him. Fausto had no such comfort. He was alone, a relic of a bygone era, clinging to a legacy that no one else cared about.

As he sobbed quietly in the dark, he whispered, “Ramon, I’m sorry. I tried. I really tried.”

Outside, the sky billboard of the *Non-Binary MARS Babies* continued to glow, their grotesque forms a mockery of everything Ramon Atila had once stood for. Fausto looked up at them, his disgust mingling with a profound sense of loss. “You deserved better,” he said to the memory of his great-grandfather. “We all did.”

And in the silence of the abandoned hospital, Fausto Mendez wept for a world that had moved on without him.

——— 

Bronx, 1994

The apartment on Vyse Avenue smelled of café con leche and baby powder. A December draft whistled through the cracked window, but the heat of the bulky Compaq Presario computer hummed warmly in the corner. Ramon Atila, his scarred hands trembling slightly, guided his infant son’s chubby finger across the mousepad. On the screen, a pixelated rainbow bloomed under the clunky clicks of Microsoft Paint.  

“See, mijo? This world’s bigger than the blocks outside,” Ramon murmured in Spanish, his voice gravelly with sleepless nights. Little Ramon Jr. cooed, mesmerized by the blinking cursor.  

Yolanda lingered in the doorway, her caramel eyes soft. She still wore her motel maid’s uniform—pale blue, threadbare at the elbows—though her shift had ended hours ago. The sight of her husband, once a specter in leather jackets and silence, now hunched tenderly over their son, tightened her throat. She slid beside him, her hand brushing his. “Te amo, Ramón,” she whispered. “I just want to love you. I will never leave you.”  

He stiffened. The old wound in his leg throbbed, a phantom reminder of the night nine years ago when she’d found him bleeding out in Room 17 of the Starline Motel, a bullet lodged near his spine. “¿Por qué me salvaste?” he’d rasped then, as she pressed a frayed towel to his chest. “You could’ve walked away.” Her answer had been the wail of an ambulance, then a lifetime of quiet mornings like this one.  

Now, he stood abruptly, cane clattering. His leather jacket, the same one he’d sworn to abandon, hung limp on his gaunt frame. “Promise me,” he said, not meeting her gaze, “you’ll make him learn this. The computer. Every day. Feed his brain, not the streets.”  

“Ramón—”  

“Prométeme, Yolanda.”

Her nod was a tremor. He kissed Ramon Jr.’s forehead, the boy’s curls catching in his stubble, and limped out. The door clicked shut, final as a gun’s safety.  

Winter hardened into spring. Yolanda left the porch light burning, saved his seat at the table, flinched at every creak in the stairwell. The computer gathered dust until she wiped it clean, replaying his plea like a prayer. ‘Feed his brain.’ She taught Ramon Jr. to type before he could write, his tiny fingers stabbing keys as she blinked back tears.  

Men came once—pockmarked faces, hissed questions about debts—but she barred the door, her Spanish sharp as a knife. They never returned.  

By summer, the ache calcified. She’d find herself staring at the screen’s glow, its endless grid of colors a feeble substitute for the man who’d vanished. Yet in those quiet hours, as her son crafted digital worlds brighter than the Bronx, she glimpsed the ghost of a promise: a future stitched not in bullet holes, but in pixels.  

Somewhere, a jacket rotted in a dumpster. Somewhere, a cane splintered in an alley. And in a dim apartment on Vyse Avenue, a woman whispered to the humming machine, “We’re still here, mi vida. We’re still here.”  

AtilA