Skinny Dipping in the Rivers of Babylon

Chapter One: Rise and Shine

The girl woke, confused and alone. She blinked. Flickering candlelight chased shadows around a grey room.

Curled into a corner, surrounded by stone. The floor, the ceiling, the walls. All stone. And all so close. In those waking moments, she imagined herself a bug; trapped in the shrinking space between these walls. Her flesh and bones ground into paste as if by a pestle in a mortar.

She wiped sleep dribble from the corner of her mouth and forced tired muscles to stretch and strain. To stand.

Her lack of clothes confused her more. Instinct pulled an arm across her chest. A hand over her crotch. Being alone was a blessing in this state.

Bald, smooth skin under her hand down there. Shaven— her head too.

A hairless, defenceless creature. With no idea of its name.

The candle, housed in an iron sconce on the opposite wall, spat something impure from its wax and threatened to die.

“No!”

She was upon it in three paces of slapping feet on rough flagstones. But having no means to relight the wick, she could only beg it to stay alive.

“Don’t you dare go out!”

Her heart beat in time with the spluttering flame.

When it burned upright and confident again, it revealed a door; blackened wood and iron strapping— but no handle.

Should the room collapse inward, there was no escape. The pestle would grind her into its mortar.

This isn’t a room, it’s a cell, she thought, raising a hand to her mouth; squashed the flesh of her bottom lip against teeth. Hard.

Pain.

Harder.

Blood.

A welcome sign of normality. The pain. The taste over her tongue. Cause and effect. She’d done that. She had some power, at least. If she could make herself bleed, maybe she could draw blood from whoever had trapped her here, robbing her of freedom and dignity. Her anger bled into the confusion.

“Stand back. I’m gonna kick the door!”

From outside. A commanding voice. Male, but high in pitch.

The kick came before she had any more time to think, and the thick slab of wood swung inwards.

Stood in the doorway, a boy half her height. And not more than half her age. Maybe nine or ten. Naked and bald. He had his hands on his hips, seemingly oblivious to his own nudity, or hers.

“I’ve got a real ninja kick. You’re lucky you stood back! I sent the last girl flying across the room with a face full of door.”

He seemed to expect a response and the best she could do was, “Ok. Thanks for the warning.” At least he didn’t appear threatening.

“My pleasure….” he took a bow before squinting at some writing on his arm, “Lisa.”

It didn’t trigger any memories, but it helped to have a name.

“Come on, unless you want to hang around here all day,” he turned and disappeared into a dark passage beyond.

Lisa hurried to catch him. Running was hard with an arm over her breasts and a hand covering her groin.

“Wait. Who are you? Where is this?”

“The usual questions,” he slowed until she was at his side and keeping pace. Every so often, wooden doors interrupted the walls on both sides, “Except one time, this guy asked me if I knew who’d won some silly football game. Like, that was his first question. Weird, eh!”

Lisa wondered if this kid ever stopped grinning. He looked right at home, wandering bare-assed through this creepy place, chatting away as if in the school playground.

“Well?” she pressed.

“Well, what?”

“Who are you, and where are we? and…”

“Oh, yeah, sorry. My name is Rat. Cos I’m small and I scurry around. But I ain’t got a tail,” he pointed his scrawny behind at her as proof and giggled. Lisa suspected it was a joke he’d told before.

“Is this a prison? What did I do?”

Rat looked over at her as they walked, “A prison? Nah, it’s much more fun.”

Lisa sighed. Rat’s idea of fun didn’t seem to match hers.

“Can I have some clothes? Even in a prison, you get clothes.”

“It’s not a prison, silly!” he stopped in his tracks, “why do you need clothes? You’re not cold, are you?”

She thought for a second. The air was warm. The floor too. Come to think of it, back in her room, or “cell” or whatever, she hadn’t been cold either.

“I suppose not, but it’s embarrassing.”

Rat shrugged and started walking again, “You weren’t born with clothes. So, you can’t be reborn with them either.”

Cryptic. Lisa struggled to find a response; she had no choice but to follow him. This had to be a stupid dream…

“I think I’m losing my mind,” she eventually said.

“You’ll be fine. But don’t be cheeky to the boss lady. She’s got a mean slap.”

“The boss lady?”

“Yep. In here. Shush!” Rat stopped at a door that looked like all the others. He put his ear to the wood and frowned in concentration.

Lisa started to whisper another question when a fresh voice startled her.

“I know you’re out there Rat! Stop pissing around!”

Rat grinned up at Lisa, “Yep, she’s in,” he unleashed his famous ninja kick on the door. Lisa winced, covered herself as best she could, and followed him inside.

Her mind jolted with recognition at several of the objects in view. The scene was a chaotic office. A large desk peeked from beneath stacks of paper. Filing cabinets and bookshelves lined the walls. Behind the desk, perched on an executive office chair, was a nude woman. Lisa had run out of blushes, so shrugged away the sight of bare breasts larger than her own. And to be fair, she wasn’t completely nude. A pair of thin-rimmed glasses adorned rather sharp facial features.

“Thank you, Rat,” the woman said as she stood and moved around the desk, “you can scurry off now. I’m sure you’re making the poor lass uncomfortable.”

Rat gave a cute salute as he turned tail— Albeit without a tail— off on some other errand.

“Sorry about him. He’s a cheeky little tike, that one,” she held out a hand and Lisa had no choice but to take it in a handshake, while suffering a close examination from top to toe. “Well. You’re a fine young specimen. Eighteen, right?” she leaned back to check a file on her desk, “yep. Every young fella and old perv’s dream I’d imagine.”

Lisa squirmed and let go her hand to cover up again.

“Oh relax, you’ll get used to it. Soon you’ll be wandering through the place like the rest of us, not bothering to hide that cute birthday suit of yours,” the woman winked. “Right, explanations are due. Take a seat.”

Glad to be on a topic other than her body, Lisa looked around for the offered seat. There didn’t appear to be one visible.

“Shit, it’s here somewhere, or at least I thought it was. Maybe under one of these piles of crap. Never mind, take mine,” she steered Lisa by her elbow, plonked her down in the executive chair, and leaned against a bookshelf. Lisa crossed her legs.

“If Rat told you I was the boss, that’s not quite right. I’m more of a facilitator. Stupid bloody word, but it suits. You can call me Francis. And you’re Lisa, right?”

“So I’m told,” Lisa did her best to keep things together. How was it she recognised every object in this room, but couldn’t remember where she came from or what the hell had happened to her? “This is nuts.”

Francis smiled, “You know, I must have explained this a thousand times, but it’s still hard, and sounds surreal, even to me. Right. I won’t sugar-coat it. We need to get this done before your induction. I’m afraid you’re dead, Lisa.”

“I’m dead?”

“Very. Your body is under a sheet in the city morgue.”

A tide of emotions washed over her, and yet none of them registered. Despair. Grief. Sadness. She felt them each as they took their turns in passing. As if expected. Required. But they did not hurt as they should.

“I…. I don’t feel... right.”

Francis put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder.

“That’s because you don’t know what you’ve lost. You can’t remember your life. And that’s a blessing, trust me. Whoever said ‘tis better to have loved and lost than never loved at all...’ well, he was a fool.” She smiled at the poor girl struggling with her feelings— or lack of them.

“How did I die? … and… if I’m dead…”

“Then what the hell are we doing in my shitty office, shooting the breeze?” Francis finished for her.

“Yeah,” Lisa tried a weak smile of her own.

“Somebody murdered you. I have no more detail than that. And it doesn’t matter, because…”

“Wait a minute. Stop the bus. Murdered?” her voice took on a shrill note as she rose from the chair. Indignant.

Francis pushed the girl back down, “We were all murdered. You, me, Rat, and everyone else in here. But there’s a great reckoning underway, Lisa. You’re here, in spirit, because you have a choice to make.”

“Can I get over my death first? Sheesh!”

“Yes. You can help with the reckoning. The real boss decided there’s an imbalance. The world has gotten too evil. Or at least, humans have. We’re busy putting that right.”

“And if I don’t choose to help with this… reckoning?”

“Then I’ll get Rat to take you back. You’ll fall asleep and won’t ever wake up. Your spirit, like your body, will die.

“That doesn’t seem much of a choice!”

“I know right?” Francis smiled again, “it’s not so simple though, because your next question is something like, ‘if I choose to stay and help, what do I have to do?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Good question. Well, you’ll have to do murder. And a lot of it. Because we’re well behind. We’re the clean-up crew. The mops that wipe away scum, and the scum, have accumulated to unacceptable levels. Hmm… I used to make it sound more poetic than that, sorry.”

Lisa had a hundred more questions, but the phone rang with an old-fashioned chime. Francis leaned over the desk to answer it, and Lisa closed her eyes against the visage of a very adjacent breast.

“She’s only just woken. It’s too soon, isn’t it?” Francis covered the mouthpiece with one hand and said to Lisa, “it’s Henry. A real pain in my backside.”

“You going to send someone for her?” A pause. “No, Rat’s off kicking another door in. Okay, fine,” she hung up. “Sorry sweetness. You’ll have to make your own way to the induction class. They’re rushing things, on account of so many people on the other side in need of a good stabbing.”

Lisa stood, “But I haven’t decided yet.”

“Of course you have. You’re still here, aren’t you? But sure, I’ll play along. Your room is to the right when you leave. You’ll find it, or Rat will find you and take you there. A pleasant sleep, never to wake again. Or the induction class is to the left. Keep walking until you hear the noise of nervous spirits making conversation.”

And with that, Francis steered Lisa to the door with a hand against the small of her back.

Lisa turned left but didn’t think it was much of a choice. She’d wanted to ask why a third choice of, “Go back to whatever my normal life was and avoid being murdered” wasn’t on the table.

Every few paces, a wall-mounted candle cast a weak puddle of light. All the doors on either side were closed, and no noise leaked from them. Until after five minutes of walking, chatter drifted around a corner.

“Ah, our last student!” The man standing in front of the classroom clasped his hands together.

The chatter ceased, in that uncomfortable way it does, when a new person walks into a group. She tried her best to disappear under the stares of the five other “victims” and found an empty desk at the back.

With everyone nude, they all went to great lengths to look only into each other’s eyes. If Lisa wasn’t still so confused, she might have giggled. Especially at Mr Thirty-something standing in front of the class. The male body seemed comical at the best of times, and even more so when shaven clean.

Like Francis, this guy seemed immune to his condition.

“Pay attention. We’re under the gun at the moment. I’m Henry,” he scrawled the name in yellow chalk on the blackboard behind him.

“OMG, we’re back in school!” A lanky boy at a middle desk groaned.

Everyone laughed.

Henry smiled, “Thank you for the segue, err, Anthony, right? Yes. That will do as an introduction to the first key point.”

He wrote “RESIDUAL RECOGNITION” on the board.

Lisa settled into her seat, wondering how long this “class” would take. Other bare bottoms shifted in their seats, as everyone wondered the same thing.

Henry launched into his explanation, pacing back and forth with the unfortunate effect of making things wiggle.

“When you vacated your bodies, and indeed your life, you retained something called residual recognition. Like sufferers of amnesia. Language, objects, environments and even concepts are familiar to you. Any memory of your time alive and your death did not survive. That would be unbearable,” he paused to take a breath. “You’ve all come from a similar demographic to make induction a lot easier. For example, the facilitator’s office and this classroom are all broadly familiar environments. That’s residual recognition. If we plucked you from the heart of the Amazon, you’d be running around like gibbering idiots.”

“That’s racist,” a girl said.

Henry ignored her. He turned back to the board and scribbled: “WHERE ARE WE?”

“Not in Kansas, that’s for sure,” a girl beside Lisa piped up this time, wearing a scowl and chewing imaginary gum. She had her arms folded across her chest.

“That reference comes from well before your time, Charlotte, and my time, too. But we get it, right? That’s a cultural example of residual recognition.”

An Asian girl asked Henry to get on with it.

Lisa studied her classmates. Charlotte had an attitude. If she took the scowl off her face, she’d be attractive. Freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. A red head—IF she’d had hair.

The Asian girl had the beige skin that matched her facial features. Her hair would be black. Lisa reflected on the first part of the lesson. She’d used “Asian” in her head as an ethnic descriptor. But where in Asia? Not Japan. Nor China. The names of countries scrolled across Lisa’s mind like a ticker-tape. Residual Recognition was strong in this one, she thought, and suppressed a laugh at her own Star Wars reference. She settled on Vietnam, as if it mattered.

The two guys were harder to place. Both American or European. Anthony looked like an athlete. A runner with long legs. The other one who hadn’t yet spoken was more portly and older. Maybe even the oldest in here. But suave. Add a beard and he might be a hipster.

It occurred to her they were all pretty good-looking. No denying it. Five good-looking young people. Did ugly people not get murdered? No, that was silly. Of course they did.

Henry was halfway through his next sentence.

“…It’s a staging area. Back behind the front lines. Here is where the troops hang out between missions into enemy territory. Except we’re only ‘here’ in the spiritual sense. There is no physical location. No mass. Now the explanation gets weird…”

“Oh, NOW it gets weird,” Charlotte laughed.

“Yes. Even for me and Francis. And Rat, not that he cares. You’ve all met Rat, right?” Everyone nodded.

“We’re subject to most of the physical laws that govern the mortal world, if you’ll forgive that phrase. But there are a few anomalies. Some good, some annoying.”

At least he didn’t say “Some bad”, Lisa thought.

“The things you see in this room, and other common areas, are all materialised by a great deal of mental effort. Something you’ll learn to do, with varying degrees of success.”

The hipster spoke up, “Why the candles? Why not some decent lighting? And why does everything seem so dated? There’s no technology.”

The Asian, not Henry, answered him.

“Interference. I’ll bet electricity interferes with whatever is going on here.”

“WTF?” from Charlotte.

Asian girl turned in her seat, “It’s all I’ve been thinking of since I woke up,” she shrugged. “Not sure why.”

Henry took over, “Jia is right. We can’t manifest electrical circuitry of any kind. And we think that’s to protect us, or the environment we’re in. But let’s continue.”

The yellow chalk squeaked the word “MANIFESTATION” on the blackboard.

“As you learn the ropes, you’ll be able to do this. Bring physical objects into this world. With some exceptions. Plus, we have a rule: don’t manifest anything in the corridors. We have to keep those clear in case of evacuation. Ha!”

Everyone’s a comedian, Lisa thought.

“So, how do we do it? I hear you ask,” Henry continued, “well, it will sound lame, but it’s a matter of willpower and concentration. Or some say imagination. But yeah, restrict this activity to our own personal space, unless invited to join us in creating communal resources. Yes, the space you woke up in is yours, and you’re able to improve on the err… stone age look, once you learn how to manifest some decorations,” he smiled again.

This cheered everyone.

“POSSESSION” was next.

“Here’s why you have a second chance at some kind of existence, even if it’s not physical. I mean you can think right? So, you exist… and all that. But we have a purpose, a job to do. We cannot avoid it. You’ve each made the choice to be here when you met with Francis. Later, you’ll go back and sleep, and at some point you’ll wake up in another body, in the mortal world. It’s a return trip. And the body is a brief rental. “Possession” is the closest term we could think of. You’re going to use that possessed body to undertake a deed. Murder. We don’t go there to sing songs or spread the good word. We are there to perform surgery. The surgical excision of tumours from humankind,” he let this sink in for a few seconds.

“You’ll have a target to kill. To assassinate. And when you’re done, you’ll return here. And the world will be a better place.”

“Do we get any superpowers or anything?” Anthony asked, showing his immaturity.

“Not really. You use the physical attributes of whomever you possess.”

“Please tell me we don’t have to run around the ‘real’ world naked?” Lisa decided she’d better contribute something to all of this, to become one of the team.

“Ah, that. Well, it’s another of those unexplained phenomena. Your host will most likely be clothed, yes. But when you return, you won’t be, just as you weren’t when you first arrived. We’re not sure why, but we think it’s to facilitate a smooth transition. And it’s easier for you to realise that from now on you’re a blank blueprint that can take on someone else’s physical characteristics. Your previous individuality is gone.”

“Or someone round here is a massive perv?” Charlotte leaned back in her chair, but kept her freckled chest covered.

“The shaving supports that theory!” said Jia.

Henry moved on, “Look, we’re at an intersection between the physical and the spiritual world, and we share aspects of both. We haven’t been here long and there’s a lot to work out. But we’ve made significant progress. You guys think you arrived confused? Imagine being the first!”

“Was that you?” Lisa asked, becoming more comfortable with the group.

“No. It was Rat. He must have been scared out of his wits. Poor fella.”

The class waited for Henry to continue, but he packed his notes into a leather satchel.

“That’s it?” Anthony asked.

“Yep. There’s no use trying to explain more. You have to experience it. Now, I’m under instruction to send you back to your rooms. It’s time for your first missions and…”

Charlotte collapsed and slid off her seat with a thump.

“Oh crap, too late,” Henry sighed, “Anthony, pick her up, will you? She can’t stay here.”

“We will carry her,” Lisa looked over at Jia for support and the Asian girl nodded. Even though the girls didn’t know each other, they would not let a strange guy manhandle their naked classmate.

There was no dignified way of carrying poor Charlotte, other than to each take an end. Lisa decided she was the stronger of the two. Jia looked like she might blow away in the wind. So without another word, she lifted a limp Charlotte by the armpits and let the smaller girl take the feet. The males stood aside as Lisa backed out of the classroom first.

“How far away is her room?” Lisa called out to Henry.

“At this stage of proceedings, you can use any room. They’re all the same.”

And so they carried Charlotte a few feet down the corridor to the first door. Lisa bumped it open with her backside and they lay their patient on the stone floor as gently as they could. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, and Lisa had another residual recognition experience.

“She’s a zombie.”

“Yeah, like Train to Busan,” Jia answered.

“Did you understand any of that so-called class?” Lisa asked her new companion.

“Some. I still think we might be in a perverted reality show. But if we are, it’s a pretty good one!”

They both turned at a noise from outside and Rat came panting into the room.

“You guys have to stay here. There’s no time to get back now. Everyone is on a mission. We’re way behind in quotas. If you guys collapse here, you’re too heavy for me to drag. Hmm... I might be able to drag you,” he looked at Jia, “but not you.” Lisa was sure she should be offended, but had no room for any more emotions at the moment. Before she could counter the insult, Jia collapsed in an awkward heap. Lisa and Rat looked down at her.

“Yeah, well, she’s light because her chest is almost as flat as yours,” Lisa said.

She could hear Rat laughing as her vision dimmed and legs gave way.