Nano Bytes - A Collection of Short SciFi Stories

Mayday, By TasiaMera

"What? How come you never showed that to me?"

"We didn't keep it. We sold it to Mastragadt," my mother confessed. "It was such a strange contraption! We were afraid it might be cursed. You know what they say about the nomads' magic..."

Mastragadt was the closest thing to a village wise man we had. He liked to collect the weirdest, most useless ancient contraptions and studied them. Some people were afraid of him, said he was some kind of wizard, but those same people would turn to no one else when their utilities started to act out.

It was still dark outside when our group made its way out of the shelter. Its outer surface would have to be swiped clean of the heavy layers of sand the storm had laid upon it, but that was work for the next day.

As soon as I was out, I ran and ran, toward Mastragadt's hut. I was waiting by the door before he himself had time to get there from his own storm shelter. At last, I saw his thin figure approaching, the beard and long dishevelled hair making it seem like he had a disproportionately large head.

"Mastragadt! My bracelet! Do you still have it?"

His bushy beard distorted over his smile.

"May... I knew you would come ask about it someday." He unlocked his door. "Follow me. Try not to touch anything"

I did try. It wasn't easy. Inside, rows upon rows of the most fantastic implements piled in apparent disarray. There was, however, a certain order to it, no doubt, since Mastragadt headed straight for one of the smaller crates and retrieved a curved metal band, handing it to me. It was heavy, despite its small size. It wouldn't fit me as a bracelet anymore, but I could imagine it around a baby's arm. I examined it from every angle, inside and out. Nothing.

"There is no inscription," I uttered, disappointed. "My parents told me it said 'May'."

"Oh, right. Give it here."

Mastragadt took the bracelet to his workbench, pulled a couple of wires from a large black box and connected them to it. After a couple of seconds, a small red dot appeared on the outer surface of the bracelet. And then it spoke!

A distorted female voice came from the bracelet, repeating over and over again:

May... May... 38... 61... May... May... 38... 61...

"What... what do the numbers mean?" I asked, as soon as my heart slowed down a little. No wonder my parents thought that thing was cursed. A talking bracelet...

"That's the question, isn't it? It took me a long while to find the answer."

"Which is...?"

His fingers tapped the workbench and he looked at me, studied me.

"I could tell you. But for you to believe in me, I'd rather show you."

It was dawn when we left the village, the sky acquiring a bluish tint where the sun was about to rise. When we lost the huts back in the distance and sighted the Mount, the whole firmament was already its usual reddish colour. We descended the Mount into the Crater by mid-afternoon. It was just down there at the bottom, when Mastragadt headed toward an entrance to a cave, that I started to have second thoughts. What if he really was a wizard? What if he hurt me?

I followed him inside. The cave was shaped like a perfect hollow cylinder. We didn't have to walk very far inside to find a door. This must have been some kind of ancient shelter.

He opened the door and we walked into a much smaller room. The opposite wall was made of glass - I could see the soil through it and it was cracked in some places. There were two chairs facing a room-wide dark panel in front of them. I gasped as I saw an off-white skull over the back of one of them.

"That recording in the bracelet was corrupted, you see? I found the original here, after years of searching."

Mastragadt touched the dark panel and it lit up. The same female voice filled the room, clearer this time.

Mayday, mayday, 38579, 614363. Mayday, mayday, 38579, 614363.

"So the numbers..." I uttered.

"Are the coordinates for a place. This place."

"And Mayday? Is my full name Mayday?"

Mastragadt shook his head, looking at me with compassion.

"That one took even more research. I found it in a book sold to me by a nomad. It's not a name, it's a distress call. A signal that was used by aircraft to call for help."

I couldn't believe it.

"Aircraft?"

"Yes, May. Vehicles that could move through the air." He opened his arms, taking the room in. "Your bracelet, that crate you were found in... you, May... didn't come from the nomads. You came from here. From the sky peoples."