Paradigm by Helen Stringer

his headaches, milder forms of which had started striking whenever they got too close to a city. He’d remembered them lasting longer, but perhaps that was because he’d been so much younger the last time he’d had to use them. About ten. The age of that kid there.
    A mother and her son were waiting for a streetcar under a brightly lit Hermes Industries poster that showed a ridiculously perfect family having a picnic in a green field under the kind of bright sun no-one had seen for decades. Below them, in comforting blue print were the words: “You can always depend on Mutha!”
    Typical, thought Sam. Makes no sense at all.
    “What’s Mutha stand for?” asked the boy.
    Sam couldn’t believe that the kid didn’t already know, but was flabbergasted to discover that his mother didn’t either.
    “I don’t think it stands for anything,” she said, peering through the dusk for the tell-tale lights of the streetcar and glancing nervously at the strange boy in the big coat across the street.
    “It stands for Molecular Universal Tertiary Hyperspatial Analogicon,” said Sam.
    The mother nearly jumped out of her skin.
    “Does it? Oh, well, there you go Ralphie. The nice gentleman knows all about it. Say thank you.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Now come on, dear, the car’s late. Let’s walk a few stops.”
    She hustled the boy away. Sam watched them go and thought that maybe he should take advantage of his time in the city and have a bath and get some new clothes. Or perhaps just clean the ones he had.
    He looked up at the Hermes Industries poster. It was so weirdly outside of anyone’s experience any more, yet it seemed to awaken something deep within.
    A longing.
    That’s what it was. A longing for something ordinary and beautiful that simply didn’t exist any more.
    He was still staring at the poster when he heard the first shot. He spun around, trying to get a feel for the direction. There was another one…and another. They were a few blocks away. That was good—plenty of time to run in the opposite direction.
    He turned to go and was almost immediately grabbed from behind and spun around by what seemed at first glance to be nothing more than an animated pile of rags.
    “Help me!” it gasped.
    Sam hesitated. The grip was strong but the voice was old and weak. He pulled himself free, the movement jerking a filthy hood off the creature’s head, revealing the time-etched face of an incredibly old man.
    “Help me...”
    The man stumbled and collapsed at Sam’s feet, dropping something that clattered into the road.
    “Please…please…don’t let them get it…” His voice faded away to a whisper.
    Sam knelt down and cradled the man’s head. There was blood seeping from at least three separate wounds in his chest. It didn’t look good.
    “Can you—?”
    “No. Listen!” The man reached up and grabbed one of Sam’s lapels, pulling him in.
    “They can’t have it…promise me…”
    The fetid breath of the old man made Sam recoil, but he noticed that although his clothes were rags now, a few shreds still shone with their original saffron dye. Could he be a monk?
    The pounding of booted feet could be heard just around the corner.
    “Come on!” urged Sam. “We have to get out of here!”
    “No…it’s too late,” gasped the old man. “But I got it. You have to tell them that.”
    “Tell who? Got what?”
    “You have to take it back to Shanti Ghara. You must make it safe again.”
    Sam stared at him. That name. He’d heard it before. A story. There was a story…
    “Please! Promise! She cannot have it!”
    “I…yes, I promise.”
    A shot rang through the air and thwacked into the poster behind Sam’s head. The old man’s pursuers had rounded the corner.
    “I can’t leave you!”
    “I’m already dead. It’s there. Pick it up.”
    Sam ran into the road and retrieved the thing that the old man had dropped. It was wrapped in dirty linen and seemed to be some kind of a box.
    “Please, let me