Bone Planes
by Matthew Lattanzi
In the evening, the bone planes traveled. The engines in their bellies filled the country with a feral roar. Their tangled mess of tubes and metal were blurred against the backdrop of the sunset; their exhaust pipes splattered nearby cities with blood and congealed fat tissue. The refuse had, long ago, transformed the canals between the towering buildings into crimson sludge, making transport through the waterways unnavigable—aside from a few bulky supply ships that managed to slog their way through.
As the bone planes approached, these remaining supply ships picked up speed, racing to their destinations to avoid being sunk by the falling gore. Heavy waves crashed against their hulls as they cut through the labyrinthine aqueducts and into the oversized docking stations—lit orange from base to tip as a lighthouse for ships in the dark.
The passing of bone planes were viewed in a variety of ways. To the rich, they were symbols of progress. To bureaucrats, they represented power and commerce. To everyone else, the only evocation was death, menace, and control.
Corby and Tony Daniels sat on the roof of their parents’ high-rise apartment. The sound of the passing planes rattled the precipice beneath them. The iron ledge vibrated furiously, sliding their tiny bodies closer to the edge. The boys were too preoccupied in their electronic conversation to notice the bulky, gnarled cylinders of steel cruising fifty feet above their heads.
At the moment, Tony was relating a story to his younger brother about his experience with Greyon—a powerful hallucinogen concocted from aborted fetus clones, jaguar adrenaline, and teriyaki sauce. Corby read the messages intently, his pale face igniting with an impish curiosity. Each word was an epicurean vapor filling his nostrils, internally blossoming into red roses that grew brightly, beautifully—but were always trailed by thorny vines of jealousy that pricked Corby deep inside.
Corby scrolled through his word bank as Tony expounded on the mind-altering effects of Greyon. Each new addition to the story arrived with a whirring flash of purple neon and a fierce vibration down the spine. The blood in Corby’s veins glowed indigo, the bright color radiating through his pale flesh before mutating to a sickly blue. His eyes surveyed the lighted canals of blood and followed its winding path through the body.
A sharp jolt traveled up his arm. A bouquet of sparks erupted from his mouth, leaving the throat a closed, writhing tunnel. The smell of burning sulfur filled the air. Corby curled into a ball and tried to block out the pain, gently caressing the area where the thought-imaging device sunk into his bone. He folded back the patch of flesh that covered the tiny screen and keypad. The area was still raw and numb. A small stream of color-shifting blood was leaking from the edges of the display.
Was this supposed to happen?
Corby was ten when he received his Imager. The hype was too much to handle. “It’s like talking but more kick-ass,” the commercial had declared. Another of Corby’s favorite Imager slogans asked, “Why talk when you can type?” Nine out of ten Americans agreed whole-heartedly.
As the intensity of Tony’s story built, both boys found themselves consumed even further by their thought-bubbles. The bone planes continue their approach, flying even lower to the ground—a mere three hundred feet above the brothers. Reflections of the planes’ crumpled tubes shone in the waters below.
Yet their presence was not made known to the boys until a large chunk of hardened stomach fat smacked Tony between the eyes. It bounced off his head and rolled down the ledge, disappearing miles below; the hollow thunk of water heralded its contact with the ground. Tony winced and flicked a speck of grease off his eyelid, peeling away the sticky residue from his eyelashes. A deep, purpling welt formed above the bridge of his nose.
“Fucking gross,” he imaged.
Corby looked over at Tony. For a brief second, he thought he could see his brother sitting next to him on the roof. He imagined his long legs dangling over the ledge. Short, messy blonde hair that resembled ruffled chicken feathers. A lopsided smile strung across his face like a circus trapeze. Blinking his eyes hard, Corby realized he was mistaken. That was impossible. Humans can’t be seen or heard unless transmitted through a television or computer screen. Tony was just as invisible to Corby as Corby was to Tony.
“?” responded Corby.
“Bone plane nailed me with fat. Sick of this shit.”
Corby’s gaze darted skyward. The charcoaled steel of the bone planes glinted against the purpling demise of the sun. A cold electric charge surged through Corby’s spine as he finally became aware of their presence.
No matter how many times his mother messaged him not to worry about the planes, Corby still became dry-mouthed and nauseous every time one passed by. He knew that he had nothing to fear. His family was rich. Only poor people were sacrificed to the bone planes, right? Still the idea that human beings were ground up to power those contraptions sat uneasily on his stomach.
He remembered the stories circulating the internet about the Williams family. They were supposed to be perfect: wealthy, Christian, and members of the Holy Party. Everything a family should be. No one in the Holy Party could be used as fuel. That’s not part of the recipe. Only the blood, flesh, and bone of a Personifier would work. Then four weeks ago, the Williams family was gathered up by the government, killed, and turned into transportation fuel. This wasn’t an isolated case either; lots of people were being collected. Every day the bone planes were powered by someone new. Someone Corby had known. Half of his internet buddy-list had been offline for weeks.
Corby expressed his concern for the Williams family in a highly emotional thought-bubble to his mother. She had finally responded back last night, explaining that the Williams family was a clan of pretenders. They believed in God, but never donated more than five stem cells a week to the collection plate. They couldn’t be a member of the Holy Party when their eldest son was rumored to be a robosexual. As for wealthy, their measly fortune amounted to nothing more than five sex slaves, three personal assistants, and one apartment building. They were even running low on fetuses to barter with.
Thoughts of the Williams family were weighing on Corby’s mind as he unlatched the skin on his left arm and sent his brother the explanation given to him by their mother, asking for verification. He needed his brother to comfort him. He needed not to feel afraid of the planes passing over their heads. Tony fired back with rapid-fire messages accusing their mother of being a liar.
“Bone plane history is more complicated than that,” Tony texted.
Tony explained to Corby how, originally, the bone plane sacrifices were strictly volunteer-based. It was always young, eager men that would answer the call, ready to sacrifice themselves for the good of the world. But, when the economy collapsed, it was no longer a choice. Sacrifice yourself or everyone you know would die. Tony called the practice a deceit and a farce. That’s why he stopped communicating with their mother. She was busy protecting the planes while he was trying to dismantle their mystique, their power.
Corby stared at the planes and thought about what his brother had just messaged him. His heart was punching at his ribcage and his lungs momentarily ceased to breathe in or out.
“Going inside. Planes suck robot rod,” Corby sent his brother, standing up. He looked at the space where he imagined his brother was seated and wondered how his brother was reacting to the planes. Was he getting up as well? Deep down Corby knew his brother was still on the ledge, gazing up at the sky with brave resilience. His brother would never be afraid of the bone planes. His brother wasn’t afraid of anything at all.
Corby stood in front of the blank metal wall; he pressed his hands firmly against it and tugged at the particles. The metal bent and shifted, groaning as a doorway was created. Once inside, a strong draft of wind blew through the interior of the building. Shivering convulsively, he grabbed at the edges of the opening and tugged the particles back into place, restructuring the solid metal wall. With the bone planes out of sight, his heartbeat dulled to a light tapping.
The apartment building was a series of long tunnels, lit by a row of lamps that burned with white flame. The walls of the tunnels were narrow and angled, structured after the hallways of a funhouse. The further down a person traveled, the smaller and narrower the room became. Corby and his brother had enjoyed exploring these tunnels as young children, but had lost interest when the boys realized they were too large to reach the end.
On the side of each wall, in the spaces between light and shadow, was a keypad. Corby approached the nearest one. Hours of thought-bubbling had left his fingers weak and stiff, making it painful to press down on the buttons. After a long series of binary numbers, the tunnel ahead collapsed in on itself. The structure of the room began to melt around him, molecules of steel melded with particles of light. Corby’s balance was rocked by a tiny, imperceptible explosion. His body wavered, and the fizzle of brain synapse forced his eyes closed.
Suddenly Corby was enclosed in a small, cramped room decorated in a garish red. Maroon drapes dangled from glazed ruby walls. The soft, sprung carpet was an ocean of ruddy wine. A vermillion cabinet, sleek to the point of glowing, sat in the center of the room. The color red burned Corby’s retinas, burrowing into his temples.
He stumbled forward, grabbing a hold of his favorite item—the bulky fuchsia couch propped against the left wall. He sank deep into it and felt the heavy material hug his body, smothering his flesh in its warmth. Corby thought how nice it felt, the embrace of the couch. It was as if he had found his way back to the safety of the womb.
Then the television flipped on.
The television always flipped on when it sensed a person thinking or feeling anything.
The tiny dot on the wall expanded before his eyes, resembling a forty-foot tall screen. The images swarmed around him like a nest of angry hornets. A vortex of faces swirling and swirling and swirling. Corby had never drowned before but always believed this was what it felt like. After a few moments he stopped fighting and just let the channels pass through him.
***
Channel 1: Corby’s favorite commercial. Two nameless celebrities. The camera zoomed in and out, focusing only on the attractive celebrities as they engaged in fast, passionless sex to the chatter of a laugh track. The screen was a visual tapestry of bulging breasts, tight asses, an erect penis, and constant penetration. “Suha Roberts has all your boating needs!” exclaimed the announcer.
Channel 30: Advertisement for food. Sixteen naked males surrounded one topless female. Sixteen throbbing, hardened phalluses gleamed with lubricant. The female was covered in a thick, gooey substance. The woman turned to the camera, face oozing so much that it seemed like her flesh was melting. “Eat at MacDoneld’s!” she screamed while cracking a smile so wide it could engulf the sun.
Channel 68: A popular game show, War in the Middle East!!! Season 60. “Tonight, two suicide bombers are competing to blow up an American embassy. Who will win? Meanwhile, American soldiers square off against unarmed Afghan women and children. How many can they kill before running out of ammo? Brought to you by Neko’s Bone Plane Emporium,” the announcer proclaimed. All the while, a slow-motion image showed uniformed American soldiers firing M16s at villagers as they darted away from their homes.
Channel 203: The live torture of a member of the Independent Party. His body was cracked in half. The base of his serrated spine whipped at the air like the strike of a scorpion’s tail. His eyes still twitched; a trickle of blood seeped from the tear ducts; his bottom jaw moved slowly up and down before grinding to a halt, revealing the hollow interior of his mouth. Every tooth had been torn from his gums. Blood firehosed at the camera. His limp tongue lapped at the area where the lips were peeled from his face. One eye was slit in half, a yellow substance poured from it. His innards were strewn across the ground: throbbing heaps of blues and reds and purples. Organs, still spewing crimson, were jittering around the remains of his torso. “Don’t let this happen to you. Align yourself today!” declared the ringside announcer.
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***
A vibration jolted through Corby’s spine. His veins flared to a bright green. The Imager in his arm flashed purple. Tony was attempting to contact him.
“COME OUTSIDE NOW!” Tony screamed through his mental mirror.
Corby was reluctant to evacuate the safety and comfort of the television, of the couch, of the apartment. Yet the fact that Tony wrote in all capital letters was certainly indicative of urgency. According to code 001234 of the Holy Party’s Statuette of Proper Imager Use, it was punishable by death to use caps lock outside of an emergency. They monitored these things, so Tony wouldn’t be that stupid.
Corby tore open the wall and stepped out onto the ledge. Still groggy and slightly stupefied by the television, it took a second for the environment to sink in. The sun was completely gone. The moon was seemingly stuck in utero, kicking its unborn feet against the Earth’s womb. He heard nothing and saw only the darkness. Then there was thunder.
An echoing explosion ripped open the bowels of the night sky. Blood, body fat, and bone showered the city. Pieces of human refuse splattered against steel, plunked in the water, thudded on wood. Blood and fat spurted as it connected with objects. Corby tiptoed around the falling embers of intestine.
A fire brighter than the sun swelled from a focal point in the distance. It burned white and yellow, shimmering against the cool grey steel of nearby buildings. Screams, carried by the wind, reverberated in the water to create an ear-piercing siren. They were whispers that built to a guttural howl.
And, without warning, a bone plane fell. That plane crashed into the next. Dozens of people, bodies immersed in flames, leapt from the plane deck. Corby’s eyes followed the trails of fire that spewed from the bodies. Fireballs. Tiny ants frying under a magnifying glass. Then a splash. All of them drowned in the waters below—their skin melting like plastic figurines. The human infernos ignited the polluted canals. Winding rivers of fire surged through the city.
Corby squinted his eyes. Amidst the fog and flame and smoke, the darkened shadows of several strange creatures approached the corpses of the bone planes. The creatures had no faces, no discernible features. All that could be made out was a blurred image. Corby saw them as shadows with long sharp claws and deformed beaks curving the length of the face. They had tiny, stick-like arms that disappeared when angled straight. Large, flapping tentacles jutted from the sides of the head. Their legs were bulging, rounded tree trunks that scraped against the ground as they surveyed the wreckage.
One of the creatures scaled the bulk of the plane and tapped on the broad side of it. It looked directly at the moonlight and cried ferociously. Its head swelled several inches. With jagged claws, the creature cracked open its own ribcage. It fumbled around inside its body for a moment before producing a large cylinder from the area where a heart should exist.
It pointed the cylinder at the ship. A spray of glowing purple soaked the steel structure of the bone plane. When the moon finally reached the sky and the wind dispersed the smoke, the words “We Have Returned” could be seen freshly painted on the hull.
The veins in Corby’s body illuminated with a bright gold. The vibrations of his Imager, mixed with the thudding of his heart, threw his body into spasms. He had never felt such excruciating pain before. It was as if his nerve endings had exploded simultaneously. He looked at his thought-screen.
“The Personifiers,” Tony had texted.
A delayed explosion shook the apartment building, shattering the nervous silence. Corby stumbled and nearly fell. His body lit up once more.
“Goodbye, Corby.”
Corby could feel something buzzing in his guts. Something that rose to his heart. Corby wasn’t sure if it was vomit or love.
“WTF? GDBYE?” Corby responded.
He could see a shimmering next to him. The soft outlines of someone who looked a great deal like himself.
“This is my chance. The bone planes must be stopped,” Tony imaged.
Corby looked at the smoldering wreck of machines. He looked at the charred bodies floating in the canals; the flames were finally dying away.
“Personifiers R killers,” Corby argued.
“We’re killers. We come from a long line of them. I’ve told you where the bone machines get their fuel.”
The bone planes had always made Corby uncomfortable, but they were a necessity. The Holy Party knew what they were doing. This mayhem, though, the burning bodies and crashing planes, was completely avoidable. The Personifiers were evil.
“Wat R U Gonna Do? Fight against the Party?”
“Yes, Corby. That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
Corby felt his heart start to flame; he imagined it looked like the distant figures leaping to their doom from the bone planes. It felt like a thousand different creatures were tearing their way through his guts. Tony had never agreed with the Holy Party’s rules, Corby thought to himself, but how could he wage open war against them? …against his family? He clenched his fist and swung at the air. He had no idea where his older brother was standing, but he didn’t care. He kept pummeling the air with wide outstretched arms. After a few moments, Corby exhausted himself.
Corby pounded furiously, frantically into his Imager. “Hw dre U? This prty has only killed poor people. Thy dont matter nyway. Teh Personifiers kil the rich. Theres a big diference.”
Corby held his breath and fell to the ground. His body thudded hard against the iron precipice. With the wind slicing his skin and the distant smoke evaporating against the moonlight, he lay flat on his back. He rubbed the small incision in his throat where the larynx once existed. For the first time in his life he truly longed to speak to his brother. Not just text something, but to scream, yell, cry out. Not only that, but he wanted to touch his brother, to actually see him. Corby realized, for the first time, he had no idea what a real human being looked like. He only knew what the television showed him.
There was a swirling in the steel wall behind him, particles scattered and widened. Then it closed. Corby couldn’t see him leave, but knew his older brother was gone. Without another message, Tony had disappeared from Corby’s life. Physically nothing had changed—he could never directly interact with his brother anyway. Yet internally something was different. For the first time in his life, Corby understood what it was like to be alone.
He swallowed hard, pushing away his nausea. He sat upright and rested his head in one hand; the restless air was permeated by the shallow pounding of his heart. The loud drip of blood from the ledges of buildings drowned out the whistling wind. A few echoed screams followed and then…nothing. Only silence. No buzzing of the spine. Just darkness. No veins lit up. Instead of his brother’s bubbling thoughts, all Corby could hear was the trickling of blood into the canals and the brutal rumble of bone planes from somewhere in the distance.
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About the Author
Matthew Lattanzi is a current student in the Northeast Ohio MFA Program. He has been previously published in the online literary magazine The Jenny. That story, “Dreaming in Flesh,” was featured on the Daily Fiction website and was selected as a notable story for the 2011 storySouth Million Writer’s Award.
“Bone Planes” © 2013 Matthew Lattanzi
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