Huang SL

Hunt Kurt

Canton Aaron

McBain Alison

Wilgus Alison

Mulder Allison

Wong Alyssa

Phillips Andrea

Rogers Andy

Zumbro Anna

Horne Annalee Flower

Sharp Anthea

Martine Arkady

Habershaw Auston

Powell Bill

Niemeier Brian

Hawksmoor C. A.

Johnston Cameron

Patel Carrie

Ashley Charlotte

Ovenden Chris

Reher Chris

Chen Curtis C.

Cassidy D. K.

Stout Dan

Smith Daniel Arthur

Davis Daniel J

Bruns David

Fuller David Jón

Boden Derrick

Seiberg Effie

Haber Elad

Wood Eleanor R.

Sjunneson-Henry Elsa

Osborne Emma

Reid Ethan

Lee Fonda

Wu Frank

Nikolopoulos George

Fallon Harlow C.

Heisey Holly

Schultz Hope Erica

Muneshwar Ian

Sharma Iona

Yap Isabel

Popov Ivan

Yang JY

Marr Jack Hollis

Kress Jamie Gilman

Kimble Jason

LaPier Jason

Goh Jaymee

Kramer-Smyth Jeanne

Xilon Jeff

Szal Jeremy

Walton Jo Lindsay

Zebedee Jo

Ayliff John

Hancock John Gregory

Zeigler Jon F.

Edelstein Jonathan

Tomaras Joseph

Rylander KB

Robson Kelly

May Kim

Wells Kim

Johnson L. S.

Pearlman Laura

Teffeau Lauren C.

Roy Lauren M.

Vladimirsky Leo

Smith Lesley

Mitchell Lia Swope

Colter Liz

Bale Lucas

Older Malka

Dunlap Margaret

Philps Mark Robert

Cahill Martin

O'Keefe Megan E.

Hicks Michael Patrick

Pierce Monica Enderle

Waldman Nancy SM

Sundar Naru Dames

Theodoridou Natalia

Wilson Nicolas

Barischoff Nicolette

Constantine Nik

Harris Nin

Tyler P. K.

Gilliam Patricia

Kohler Paul B.

Hall Philip Brian

Jones Rachael K.

Ferraz Rafaela F.

Mehrotra Rati

Rasmussen Rhiannon

Friedman Ron S.

Lynn S

Dunstall S. K.

Divya S. B.

Fleming Sam

Peralta Samuel

Gailey Sarah

Hazlett Sean Patrick

Bird Sofie

Bolz Stefan

Power Stephen S.

Pantazis Steve

Ruskin Steve

Patel Sunil

Shafiq Tahmeed

Vardomskaya Tamara

Waldroon Thomas M.

Trigili Vincent

Nikel Wendy

Swardstrom Will

Squirrell William

Claybourne ZZ

Chapman Zach

Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Preface

Up and Coming was a massive undertaking in a very short time, and we’d like to thank the following people for their help in making it happen:

Bill Katz and David Walton at Writertopia for their incredible support—without them this anthology never could have existed,

Holly Heisey, for the brilliant cover design,

Effie Seiberg, for the smashing title,

Wendy Nikel, Liz Colter, Laura Pearlman, Naru Sundar, Emma Osborne, Effie Seiberg, Sylvia Spruck Wrigley, Stewart C Baker, Nancy SM Waldman, and L.S. Johnson for their assistance, in-depth device compatibility checks, and proofing,

M. David Blake for being the one who originated the tradition of an anthology of Campbell-eligible authors in the first place,

and finally, all the people—far too many to list—who signal-boosted the project or gave us feedback, suggestions, and encouragement along the way.

This anthology was truly a community effort. Many of the above names are Campbell-eligible authors themselves who have work in this anthology—the 2016 group of eligible writers is filled with enthusiastic and generous people.

Lastly, because of the vastness of the project, we’d like to note that the anthology was formatted primarily through automated processes. We’ve made every effort to render every piece correctly and aesthetically, but if you see the odd formatting hiccup, please don’t hold it against the author or the original publisher.

We hope you enjoy wandering the pages of Up and Coming, and if you are so inclined, we encourage you to nominate and vote for the 2016 Campbell Award.

– SL Huang and Kurt Hunt, curators for Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Charlotte Ashley

La Héron

“La Héron” originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2015.

* * *

IN THE GRAYEST HOUR OF the evening of April 16th, 1699, when the sun had just vanished behind the great château that embraced the city of Caen but before her lantern-bearers had taken up the hooks of their trade, a gargantuan woman stooped to fit through the door of the Trois Tours Inn. Her inconvenience did not end at the door. Her steeple-crown hat, two centuries out of fashion, bumped the inn’s rafters and fell askew, causing her to swear and slouch as she made her way toward the crowd clustered at the foot of the stairs. Like the other travelers there, she was road-worn and unkempt, blond hair so filthy that it looked green in the moonlight, spilling like seaweed out of her pointed cap. But so great was the force of her presence that the lesser persons ahead of her moved aside at her approach, clearing the path to the front of the queue where a registrar sat at a table, poised over a long ledger. His pen shook as it hovered over the lists.

“Name?”

“La Héron.”

“Weapon?”

“Rapier.”

“Purse?”

La Héron stepped forward and placed a small stack of coins on the book, which the registrar smartly swept into the lockbox.

“And who will be acting as your second?”

“No one.” La Héron folded her long arms over her chest. “I will negotiate my own bouts.”

“Oh, no,” the registrar said, looking up. “Oh, no no no. You must have a second. The rules clearly stipulate that—”

A distant horn blast interrupted his complaint, a piercing wolf tone that set every brass bowl in the inn ringing. La Héron glanced at the window and frowned.

“A hunt? At this hour?” she asked. “It’s nearly midnight!”

The registrar did not reply. He was frozen in place, only the jelly of his yellowed eyes trembling.

“Monsieur?” La Héron asked him. “Are we finished?”

“Herlechin,” the man whispered. “Damn him.”

“I beg your pardon, monsieur, but if you are finished with me, I’d like my sash and token.”

“What?” The registrar’s wide eyes flickered back to her, focusing again. He turned red and looked at the tournament lists again. “Ah, your second?”

La Héron scowled. The registrar drooped and ran a hand over his now-damp face. After a moment’s thought, he withdrew a blank slip of paper from the ledger and started writing.

“Very well. Go and see Monsieur Chuinard at this address. He can escort you to the Abbaye aux Dames. The hour is late, but the gendarme will help you find an assistant.”

“At the convent?”

The registrar held up a tired hand. “Every man-at-arms in town is already enlisted, madame. You are in no position to be particular. I suggest you call on him immediately.”

La Héron snatched the note and left, ducking through the door. She had not passed ten paces when a galloping ruckus preceded a party of costumed riders bearing down the tight streets of Caen at full speed. She stepped into the shadows of a tannery to let them pass, eyeing them suspiciously. The lead rider was a man dressed head to toe in shiny red leather with a sword on either hip and a grotesque black mask like the face of the devil. He tipped his hat at her as he passed, his demon’s face curling into a smile, flashing sharp, dog-like teeth.

Herlechin. There could be no mistaking the creature. La Héron watched as the party pulled up in front of the inn, dismounted, and entered. When the last of the strange riders had crowded through the door, she continued toward her destination with little more than a shrug.

These were the Black Bouts of Caen, after all. Duelists and mercenaries had come from all over Christendom to compete for the glory and the purse that would be awarded to the winner. It did not matter to La Héron what creatures of the otherworld entered the lists as well. Come they from Hell, fairyland, or anywhere else, she planned to best them and to win as she had so many times before. She only needed a second.

The girl on the pallet appeared to be dead. Her face was purpled and bloody, her hair dark and wet, and her body absolutely still. This did not appear to concern old Monsieur Louis-Ange Chuinard, who plunked a lantern on the nightstand next to the girl’s head and gave the body a nudge with his toe.

“Get up!” he called impatiently. “You have a guest.”

La Héron raised her eyebrow at the sleepy canoness who had admitted them. “The nuns keep prisoners?” she asked.

The old gendarme shook his head. “She did this to herself, I assure you,” he replied. “She’s a scrapper, this one. She will serve your needs, though few would credit it.” He scowled. “Sister Louise-Alexandrine! You’ll get up, or else—”

A hand shot out, quick as a snake, and took the gendarme by the belt. With a quick jerk, the girl used the man’s heft to haul herself to a sit, pulling him halfway to his knees in the process. The gendarme yelped in surprise, but the girl grinned like a jackal. One of her front teeth was newly broken and her eyes could not quite open for all the swelling, but aside from a slight swaying, she looked sound of body.

“Sister Louise-Alexandrine,” Chuinard grumbled, pulling himself free of her grip. “We have need of your service. Tonight. Can you walk?”

“Is that you, Chuinard?” the nun said, furrowing her brow. “You just locked me up, and now you’re letting me out?”

“I did not lock you up, Sister. I merely brought you home. Something, I remind you, you were in no condition to do yourself.”

“My thanks, Chuinard, whatever would I do without you,” the girl said flatly. She turned her blurry gaze on La Héron. “What is that?”

“They call me La Héron,” La Héron answered for herself. “You’re a nun.”

“That wasn’t my idea,” the girl said, and spat a red glob between her feet.

“A drunken nun,” La Héron said thoughtfully. “How old are you, girl?”

“Seventeen. Are you really a bird?”

“She’s twenty-three,” the canoness said, sighing. “You’ve said your vows, Sister.”

“Don’t remember that,” the sister muttered. She hauled herself unsteadily to her feet. “I can walk, if you’ll walk me out of here. What is it, then? You want me to plant carrots? Stitch up yer uniform? What’s the bird-woman for?”

“I need a second,” La Héron replied, a rare smile tugging at her lips. “Do you know anything about dueling?”

Sister Louise-Alexandrine stopped swaying and fixed a sober eye on the taller woman. Her gaze darted toward Chuinard.

“Dueling’s illegal,” she replied cautiously.

“I need a second,” La Héron repeated. “For the Black Bouts. Monsieur Chuinard has recommended you to me.”

The nun blinked hard and put a hand to her temple. “Chuinard, you hypocrite. I get into a few scraps and you drag me back here, but a stranger turns up for some back-alley brawling and suddenly the king’s law is by your discretion, is it?”

Chuinard turned red up to the roots of his black hair. “I dragged you back here to protect you from the blackguard with his boot on your face.”

“I don’t need your protection, ’sblood,” said Sister Louise-Alexandrine, throwing her hands in the air. “I can take care of myself better than—”

“I must beg your pardons, friends,” La Héron said, stepping between the two, who looked as if they might come to blows, “but I need a second. Tonight.”

“I’ll attend you,” Sister Louise-Alexandrine answered. She scowled at Chuinard. “You won’t find a better sword in this town. I’d charge you, but what does a nun need with money?” She guffawed at the irony. “Just get me out of here.”

La Héron looked imploringly at the gendarme, who threw up his arms. “I leave you with Madame La Héron until she is eliminated or withdraws from the Bouts.” He raised a warning finger at both women. “But she comes back here when you are done with her, madame.”

La Héron shrugged. “That is not my affair. I am but a stranger here, as you say.”

“How very fortunate for you,” grumbled Sister Louise-Alexandrine.

THOUGH THEY ENJOYED the unofficial sanction of the minor constabulary like Monsieur Louis-Ange Chuinard, the Black Bouts of Caen were still decidedly illicit affairs, and as such maintained a cloak-and-dagger ambiance. Matches were paired and scheduled by secret organizers, the participants informed with barely an hour’s notice by anonymous letter-bearers who appeared and vanished into crepuscular mists.

Having received their first such summons just after a dinner of oysters in parsley butter, La Héron and the nun who insisted on being addressed simply as “Alex” were crouched on the shaded side of a moat under the Porte des Champs, looking up at the great stone fortress that was Le Château de Caen. Soldiers appeared at intervals to march along the bridge over their heads, but the governor was in Paris and the castle’s remaining residents seemed inclined to take the month off. Rousing drinking songs and raucous conversations rang out from within.

“Music!” cried a cloaked stranger, emerging from shadows of his own. “I could not have asked for a more romantic setting.”

As La Héron and Alex stepped into the light, the stranger unwound his long cloak in one deft stroke and heaped it upon his companion, a dwarf in a bright red hat. The taller man was dressed fancifully in gaily colored silks and breeches, his waistcoat and jacket speckled with gemstones and draped with the same golden sash La Héron wore, marking him as a competitor in the Bouts. He had a dagger at each hip, golden buckles on his shoes, and a foxish smile. La Héron took Alex by the elbow when the woman stepped forward to make their addresses.

“Do not give him your true name,” she murmured, watching the man with shrewd eyes.

“Eh? I am known to every gendarme in town, madame. I have nothing to gain by hiding—”

“It is not the law we should be wary of, Sister.” She gestured with her chin. “That’s a fairy lord, or I’m a butter churn.”

Alex returned a skeptical look as La Héron released her arm, yet as she approached their brightly clothed opponents, her gait slowed with apprehension. The man had goat-like eyes and long ears which tapered to points amidst his golden curls. The man’s little second, upon closer inspection, was a toadstool.

“M’lords,” she bowed. “I am…you may call me Chant des Oiseaux. My companion is known as La Héron. May I ask whom we have the honor of meeting tonight on this field of battle?”

“Birds!” the man said, looking delighted. “Oh, this will be fun!”

“Mademoiselle Birdsong,” the toadstool said, its face little more than nicks in its stem, “I am Agaric, and this is my master, the Count of Hunter’s Fields. Well met. We hope you will do us the honor of setting the terms for this bout.”

Alex glanced over her shoulder at La Héron, who nodded. “Our thanks. I propose the duel be fought to the third blood—or until either person be unable to continue. Blades only, no blows nor child’s play. In the case of dishonorable conduct, the second shall take up the blade of the participant and conduct herself as she deems appropriate. How does this suit you?”

“Very well,” the toadstool gurgled. “Shall we inspect the blades?” Alex bowed in response. The count’s daggers were ornate but mundane weapons, containing no trickery that the nun could see. The inspection complete, the seconds returned to their masters.

“I don’t like this,” Alex muttered as La Héron removed her own cloak and hat. “These things have come from elfland to compete in honorable bouts? I don’t believe it. There’s bound to be tricks or treachery.”

“I know,” La Héron replied, “so we must be ready for that. They allowed Herlechin and his band to enlist. Whatever they are, we must defeat them if we are to win the purse.”

“Herlechin?” Alex looked startled. “Of the Hunts? I think I know that tale.”

“You should,” La Héron told her. “These are not simply bored wood sprites from the Forêt de Rouvray. Herlechin has led his Hunt through these lands since the time of the Conqueror, seeking souls to take back with him to Hell or fairyland or wherever he goes. Deal with this lot as if your soul depended upon it, Sister Birdsong. Keep your wits, and keep an eye on the little fellow.” La Héron removed her purse last and slapped it into Alex’s hand with a warning look.

La Héron took her place opposite the count and eased herself into a fighting stance. Despite her much greater reach, the elf looked unconcerned, spinning his daggers on his palms and humming along with the drunken soldiers in the keep.

La Héron was prepared to launch an all-out attack when the first strains of new music tickled her ears. This new tune wasn’t coming from the keep but the other direction, out in the fields. She skipped back a step into the shadows, lowering her sword a few inches and expecting the count to do the same. If they were discovered dueling, they would both be thrown out of Caen, and the Bouts.

But the count did not move even as the music grew louder, a chorus of pipes and whistles playing Norman peasant music. La Héron glanced askew, trying to see where the noise was coming from without turning from her opponent, but she could see nothing in the gloom beyond moonlit grass and tangles of heather. La Héron stepped deeper into the shadow of the bridge overhead and did not see the thrust of the knife that flew past her cheek like a mercury dragonfly.

“First blood!” the toadstool announced triumphantly. La Héron shook her head, confused. The count was still ten paces from her, looking at his dagger as if he was surprised to see the blood on it. Alex frowned, indicating she had not seen the count move, either.

“It’s the music in the fields,” La Héron called to her second, shaking her head again to clear her thoughts. “Find the revelers and silence them!”

“What music?” Alex called, but La Héron did not hear her. The count grinned like a cat, waltzing from side to side with his knives bared.

“You don’t like it? Come, La Héron, dance with me. The steps are not so different from the ones you know, I’m sure you will agree. Step-and-two-three, step-and-two—”

“Shut up!” La Héron cried and threw herself at her opponent. Her rapier cut broad strokes across the air in front of her, though she had not yet closed the distance between them. Her sword collided with an unseen blade, tossing aside the dagger nobody had seen the count throw. She bore down hard with a furious rainstorm of thrusts which the count, surprised and one-handed, could not parry completely. One, two shots fell home, blossoms of blue-purple blood unfurling on his fine waistcoat. The third and final blow looked inevitable when La Héron was abruptly pulled back, twirled in an ungainly pirouette, and skipped two steps back again. She cried out in frustration.

“You’re a terrible dancer,” the count reprimanded her, the second dagger now returned to his hand. “I shall give you lessons.”

La Héron jerked to and fro, struggling to maintain a defensive position as the silent music played her like a puppet, the count mirroring her staggered steps with his wicked smile. At the whirring periphery of her vision, she could see Alex darting along the verge of the fields, seeking any trace of the music that had bewitched her companion.

“There!” La Héron cried, directing Alex with her gaze to where Agaric landed a discreet hop then stood absolutely still. Behind him lay a new trail of tiny mushrooms, already half-encircling the dueling pair. He had planted half a fairy ring in a matter of minutes, and if he were allowed to complete it, La Héron would be lost forever.

Alex ran to the circle and kicked over a troop of mushrooms. The music La Héron was powerless to resist erupted into a discordant blast of horns, deafening her to anything else. Alex staggered and clutched her head but continued to trip along the line, kicking and tearing the fungi to pieces as fairy horns exploded in their minds like a fanfare to agony. The count’s face turned green with fury and Agaric closed on Alex at a rushed waddle, but their complaints were obscured by the cacophony. Alex bared her teeth like an animal and continued her destruction of the new colony. When Agaric was within reach, she kicked him as well. The spongy flesh of his cap did not explode under the solid toe of her boot, but he staggered, sagged, then went still. The nun clamped her hands over her ears and finished ripping up the ring.

And then, suddenly, there was silence. La Héron stopped spinning, grimaced, and lunged unsteadily at the count, who now watched her with horror and fear in his goat’s eyes. Though she was dizzy and exhausted, her aim was sure. She slashed at his left arm, skillfully drawing a clear line of blood harmlessly from his biceps.

“Third blood,” Alex said, though La Héron could not hear the words for the ringing in her ears. A burst of wind hit her back, causing her greasy blond hair to whip in all directions, then fall flat just as abruptly. The Count of Hunter’s Fields smiled reluctantly and bowed.

“Very well,” he conceded. “The match is yours.” He turned to Alex. “Well played, Birdsong.”

LA HÉRON SAT by the fire at the Trois Tours that evening with a long-necked guitar in her lap as Alex and Chuinard watched her tune the six strings. She plucked out intricate études with each twist of the pegs, testing the capabilities of the instrument the Count of Hunter’s Fields had just given her.

“I would never have guessed you could play so well,” Chuinard complimented her as her long fingers flew through another dazzling storm of notes.

“I can’t,” La Héron replied bluntly. “I have never played a note in my life.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. “The elf gave you an enchanted instrument?”

“Probably,” La Héron answered thoughtfully. She turned to the embarrassed tavern musician now sulking in the corner. “You! Monsieur Moustache! Lend me your flute, friend. I won’t be a moment.” She accepted it with a tip of her tall hat and blew into it experimentally. Moments later she was playing as breakneck a reel as any troubadour ever did. She stopped abruptly mid-note and handed the flute back. “No, I fear Monsieur le Comte has given me the ability to play. He has given me music.”

“That’s incredible!” Alex enthused, now recovered from her initial shock. “What a gift!”

“I suppose,” La Héron said, picking up her cup of wine. She studied the other residents of the inn, most of whom were competitors in the Bouts. “Though it looks to me as if Herlechin’s folk have been distributing ‘gifts’ rather liberally, and not with fair intention.”

Indeed, some of the other participants in the Bouts were looking unwell. The big man known locally as L’Ourson wept endlessly at the far end of the bar. The flamboyant Marquis de Jarzé had suddenly gone completely bald. The Bavarian, Lara, was complaining loudly that the wine tasted of turnip greens, and Jean-François de Monauté kept taking his clothes off. Nobody had escaped the attentions of the surgeon, and it showed.

“They all lost their matches, you know,” Chuinard said. “Only you and Saint-Germaine defeated Herlechin’s hunters.” He looked at La Héron. “Saint-Germaine has a new hound. A gorgeous beast.”

“Do you think Herlechin’s folks are gambling without our knowing it?” Alex suggested. “Gifts for the winners, and…losses for the losers?”

“Good God, I hope not,” Chuinard murmured, but looking about the room, it was difficult for any of them to think otherwise.

“Something to consider, Sister Birdsong,” La Héron said, draining her cup, “when you negotiate my next bout.”

“Let us hope for a human opponent,” La Héron muttered, kicking pebbles at a crossroads just outside the city. Alex stomped her feet and rubbed her arms, trying to keep warm.

“What? No, bring another elf-lord! Just think, La Héron, what gifts you might earn! I have heard the fairy folk have living horses of pure gold and swords which, when broken, become two. Or perhaps—”

“Sister Birdsong,” La Héron said, looking stern, “do not ever think you can best a fairy. Even when you win against these creatures, you lose.”

“Pfft,” Alex scoffed, still a little tipsy from their evening at the Trois Tours. “You’ve bested them already. You and I, La Héron, they have not seen a pair like us, not in any world.”

La Héron shook her head but said nothing. The younger woman was all bravado, drunk more on the freedom and excitement of the Bouts than the cheap Burgundy they’d shared. She did not need to ask how a woman of spirit and skill at arms found herself bound to a nunnery—it happened to all too many young people. She’d have been born to the wrong person at the wrong time, and with no better prospects, gifted to the Church without further ado. La Héron could not help but think it was a pity. The young woman was an excellent companion and there was much she could teach her. She was wasted as a nun.

The pair who eventually arrived were, to Alex’s great satisfaction, decidedly not human, but were drunk as stoats regardless. La Héron’s opponent was the smaller of the two creatures who wove unsteadily up the street, a gnarled old fellow with unnaturally long limbs attached to a cauldron-like torso, no neck to speak of, and a nose as long as a trout. His golden sash tangled in his legs as he walked, and the barrel-chested brute at his side kept stepping on the tattered end which dangled in the dirt, tripping them both. Alex’s grin glinted with wickedness.

“My ladies.” The old fairy bowed, drawing a long rapier with a flourish which trimmed his second’s long mustache. “Well met. I am the—ah—former Duke of Berrymines. This is my son, Broad Benjamin.”

“This match is already ours,” Alex snickered into La Héron’s ear as she moved to negotiate the bout. La Héron sighed but could not disagree.

“Do not fall into greed,” La Héron could only caution her. Alex shrugged, but was careful in her negotiations. In addition to the same terms as the first match, she got the big second to agree that La Héron would lose “nothing which would be missed” in case of a loss.

The old duke dropped into a low crouch and extended a wobbly blade in La Héron’s direction, listing to the right the longer he stood still. His first limp thrust licked the air to her left a good three feet wide of her hip. Expecting a trick, La Héron held back, tapping her opponent’s blade away with care when he stumbled at her with a second overambitious lunge. Alex rolled her eyes from the tree line.

When the old fellow’s third lunge appeared bound directly toward the dirt at La Héron’s feet, she stepped forward and aimed a steady blade at his unprotected shoulder. With his weight behind the drooping thrust, his tip was likely to become stuck in the earth, and one hit might easily become three. This match which had already come to embarrass her would be at an end. Alex grinned as Broad Benjamin slid down the tree next to her to hunker on his broad bottom.

But the ex-duke’s sword never did sink into the ground. A snail the size of a fist glistened in the moonlight as it passed between them, finding itself exactly at the point in the crossroads where the doomed thrust was bound. Berrymines’s rapier hit the center of the tiny spiral and slid off its shell with a muted tink. With nothing to support his weight, the old fairy fell flat on his stomach as the tip of his blade deflected upward just enough to draw a line along the surface of the road and to pierce the leather of La Héron’s boot.

“God’s blood!” La Héron barked, nearly tripping on the man’s head and stumbling into the space where his shoulder used to be. She hopped on one foot, trying to regain her balance as a telltale stickiness seeped from the cut at her ankle. Broad Benjamin looked up, startled.

“First blood?” he asked cautiously. Alex looked stricken. La Héron swore again and limped angrily away from her fallen opponent.

“Yes, dammit,” she growled. “Get up, you old fool.”

“My deepest apologies, madame, my most sincere apologies.…” Berry¬mines kowtowed as he struggled to his feet. La Héron stomped on the snail and kicked its cracked shell out of her way as she took up her position again.

“En garde!” she snapped.

She did not hold back this time. Berrymines was barely in position when she attacked, cutting with quick, short strokes toward his torso. He scrambled backward, pinwheeling her blade away when he was lucky enough to hit it, trying to prevent her from coming within striking range. When he tripped the second time, she stepped back, assuming a defensive position and a suspicious look.

The ex-duke landed on his rear end with a shout of surprise. His boot was trapped awkwardly under an exposed cedar root that pulled up like a submerged rope the more he tried to shake his foot free. La Héron waited with increasing impatience as he jerked and pulled, packed earth spraying as the very veins of the forest tore toward the surface. The ground around La Héron’s feet shook and shifted as buried roots crested.

“Stop that,” La Héron demanded, taking staggered steps to avoid getting caught in the roots herself.

“My apologies, my apologies,” Berrymines muttered, the forest’s very underpinnings coming loose the more violent his thrashing became. “I’ve just got to get unstuck, you see—”

“Trickery!” Alex yelled, reaching for the sword at her own belt. “Be still, old man, or I will—”

“Arh!” La Héron cried out as a net of roots wound its way around her foot and pulled. She fell backward, dropping her sword. The blade bounced on the churning earth, twisted midair, and caught her on the forearm.

“Second blood,” Broad Benjamin called, looking amused from where he was still sitting under the tree.

“Isn’t!” Alex gasped. “It was her own blade that cut her!”

“Counts, I think.” Broad Benjamin shrugged. “She’s bleeding.”

“You knobbly bastard,” Alex growled, advancing on the seated creature with her sword drawn. Even without rising to his feet, he stared her down eye to eye.

“Sister Birdsong!” La Héron rebuked her, unsnagging her foot and standing. “Help the ex-duke up, now.”

“Very kind, very kind,” Berrymines tittered, lolling about on the ground. The forest had ceased its quaking as he stopped struggling. Alex ground her teeth audibly as she violently sheathed her sword. Her handling of the ex-duke was also less than gentle, but the old fairy was soon on his feet and armed once more. La Héron resumed her position and Alex resumed hers, looking grim.

“Are you ready?” La Héron asked simply.

“I am,” Berrymines replied with a short bow.

La Héron lowered her sword and walked casually up to her wavering opponent, past the tip of his sword, which quivered too late as if it couldn’t decide how to follow her. She stood next to him as if he were unarmed and smiled. Then she poked him in the thigh three times in quick succession.

“Match,” she said to him, bowing a final time and sheathing her sword. Alex’s jaw dropped, though the elf-lords merely shook their heads.

“Why did that work? Why didn’t he spit you like a pig?” Alex demanded, rushing to La Héron’s side and looking her over. “You sure you haven’t stubbed your toe, or—”

“It doesn’t take any luck at all to skewer an opponent who offers themselves to you,” La Héron explained. “Just a straight, simple shot.”

The former Duke of Berrymines bowed, unperturbed, in acknowledgement of her assessment. “Well played, madame, well played. I never have been very good at doing things the easy way, I’m afraid.”

“You’re amazing!” Alex enthused as they escorted the stumbling fairies back to the inn. “How do you feel? Any different? What did you win?”

La Héron shrugged and stretched her arms, inspecting her hands. “I have no idea. I do feel rather alive. Probably the excitement of the match!”

“Oh, no, madame,” Berrymines said, leaning heavily on her arm. “I’ve given you the last twenty years of my life.” He blinked sleepily. “I wasn’t going to do much with them anyway.”

Alex stopped walking and stared at the old fairy in shock. “You’ve given her twenty years of life? ’Sblood!” She started walking again, deep in thought. “You lot give God a run for his money.” La Héron shot her a sharp glance, but Alex looked away.

Their celebrations were short-lived. They received their third summons just before dawn. Chuinard delivered the note, his face as white as a sheet.

“You’re to fight Herlechin himself,” he told La Héron. “He insisted, and they gave it to him. He has never been defeated by a child of God. Not in six hundred years.”

Their match was fixed for midday. Alex and La Héron sparred before breakfast, both needing the physical release only the clash of swords could bring, but they were driven inside again by thunder and clouds which rolled in from the sea like Heaven’s host shrouded in black billows. As the church bells started to ring for morning mass, raindrops as fat as mice fell all at once over the city of Caen, flooding the streets. La Héron sat at the water-cloaked windows of the Trois Tours watching the river forming outside.

“I think those are fish falling from the sky,” she said, squinting at the drowned world. “Frogs and leeches. This is an ominous rainfall.”

“Perhaps Herlechin will melt,” Chuinard suggested, trapped inside with them.

“More likely he called the Channel down upon us,” La Héron replied. “Damn him! Is it midday yet?”

Two hours later, the rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the clouds parted, and the noonday sun shone down over the sparkling, water-filled streets. Pollywogs slid into the Trois Tours when Alex and La Héron opened the door to depart.

The water was thigh-deep and filled with lakeland life, swarming the two women as they waded, cloaks floating behind them, toward the southern gate. The streets were deserted, miraculously free even of waterlogged cats or chickens washed out of their yards by the storm. The sun twinkled off closed windows all around them. It was as if the strange rain had washed every person of Caen away with it.

Herlechin stood atop the southern wall where soldiers should have been. His leather suit shone as if it had been newly painted with the blood of men and the black mask which was his demon’s face glinted like polished obsidian. They were met at the gate by a beautiful woman robed in a blue indistinguishable from the sky. When she smiled, she showed blackened teeth and a forked, purple tongue.

“I am Morrígan, and you are welcome, ladies. My lord Herlechin has the honor of meeting you in battle today.” Her voice melted into the air like a drizzle of honey into the pot. Alex and La Héron exchanged a wary look.

“I am Birdsong, and this, Madame La Héron,” Alex said, unable to keep a quaver of unease from her voice. “Will you do us the honor of stating your terms?”

“Most gracious, ma chère. I propose nothing difficult, simply a duel to first blood. I don’t foresee any complications.”

“First?” Alex frowned, but Morrígan’s mocking smile roused her blood. “Naturally,” she snapped. “That is the simplest thing. Only—perhaps, a little wager?”

Morrígan looked amused. “Do you birds need something from Herlechin, then? Brave of you!”

“I need nothing!” La Héron put in, looking alarmed. “Sister Birdsong, a moment?”

Alex ignored her, but Morrígan raised an eyebrow. “Sister?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if tasting the air. “Oh my, yes. A daughter of God! Don’t you smell sweet.” Her forked tongue flitted over her teeth, then retreated. “Yes, I think we could add a little more flavor to this match. Name your terms.”

“Play for me,” Alex blurted, spitting the words out. “If Madame wins, I belong to her.”

“Sister!” La Héron cried. “Don’t be stupid!”

“And a nun for Herlechin if he wins. Very tempting. But, ma chère, you belong to your God.”

Alex squared her jaw. “That isn’t a problem for you, is it?”

Morrígan laughed. “No, Sister, it is not. I confess, I did not think you could offer us anything, but this”—her lips lifted over her sharp teeth—“we agree to your terms.”

“I do not!” La Héron protested.

“It is done.” Morrígan quickly glanced at the tall woman. “You knew we would have to play for something, madame.”

La Héron ground her teeth together and glared at the back of Alex’s head. After a moment’s silence, she waded off to join Herlechin.

The duelists bowed and assumed their positions atop the butter-colored walls, surrounded on both sides by the waters of the storm-brought lake twenty feet below them. Herlechin was twice as tall as La Héron remembered. He wielded two longswords in the German fashion, neither blade as long or as swift as La Héron’s, but heavy, dangerous-looking affairs nonetheless. She could see no eyes in the black pits of his demon’s face, yet somewhere in their depths, La Héron sensed damnation.

Herlechin moved first. He swung one blade down, a lightning strike sent straight for her heart, whirling the second like an echo toward her thigh. For her part, La Héron stepped back and twitched her sword’s point at the back of Herlechin’s gloved hand. First blood needn’t be fatal.

Herlechin repeated this cleaver-like attack three, four times, advancing on La Héron each time, forcing her farther and farther back toward a turret. The fairy lord was tireless, and La Héron’s counterattacks hadn’t enough weight behind them to breach his leather hide. Still, La Héron’s face showed only focus and control, study and thought.

As Herlechin drew up for the fifth attack, La Héron’s heel scraped against the stone wall. Herlechin guffawed to see her trapped, unable to retreat further, but La Héron’s lip only twitched in annoyance. As the great swords fell toward her with the weight of judgment, she quietly lowered her weapon, flattened herself against the turret, and twisted to face the wall’s ledge. She scrambled spider-like onto the lip, faced the water-filled fields, spread her arms, and jumped.

Her escape was obscured by an explosion of yellow rubble and dust as Herlechin’s blow ripped through the tower. A moment later, the blood-red hunter leapt onto the ledge and dove after his quarry. Twenty feet later, there was no splash.

Alex rushed for the stairs, her pace slowed by the deep water. She took the steps three at a time with Morrígan at her heels, raced along the wall toward the ruined tower, and threw herself at the wall’s ledge, gripping the stone with white fingers. The sparkling green water appeared to stretch out to the horizon, broken only by ripples where the long grass swayed below the waves. There was nothing else: no bloody flush, no floating corpse, no froth of struggle, and no sign of La Héron nor Herlechin.

Alex glanced at Morrígan, whose perfect face was muddied by confusion.

“What sort of creature is she?” Morrígan murmured, sounding almost impressed.

Alex kept her eyes on the water. “La Héron,” she muttered.

At this invocation, the surface of the water broke. A snake-like neck preceded a white spray of water where sheets of blue-grey feathers unfurled and took flight. Long, scaled legs trailed behind the lithe bird, clutching a rapier in one talon. The blade was too long and too heavy for feet built for gripping fish, and the heron struggled to escape the pull of the water. After a few moments flapping awkwardly too close to the water’s surface, a red fist punched out of the depths and took hold of the free leg, forcing the blade to tumble from her grip and her body back into the mire.

“No!” Alex cried and vaulted over the edge. The long drop took no time and the shallow water did little to break her fall. With a pained cry, she pushed off the ground and lurched in the direction of the duelists, catching up the sword sinking hilt-first into the flooded field. Herlechin had surfaced now with the thrashing heron’s neck caught in one hand like a chicken for the slaughter.

“Better one loss than two,” Alex muttered. If La Héron bled, Alex would be lost. If La Héron died, they both would be.

So, she thrust.

She thrust gently, careful to avoid slitting the heron’s long neck which snaked and curled as she pecked at Herlechin’s face with her pointed beak. Alex thrust for the heron’s chest, where she hoped the bird had the most muscle. She thrust so slowly that in the space between beats of the wing, between blinks, the heron vanished and the long, pallid lines of a naked woman appeared where the bird’s breast used to be. The weight of her transformation caused Herlechin to buckle, surging forward into the slow path of the incoming blade. La Héron’s arm shot out and covered Alex’s grip on the hilt. Together, they drew a razor-straight line of black blood along Herlechin’s neck just above the collarbone.

Herlechin and La Héron collapsed into a messy heap in the water as a burst of wind hit Alex clean in the face. She dropped the blade and clutched her chest instead. She staggered back a few steps as both duelists splashed to a stand.

“First blood?” Alex croaked. “Does it count?”

For a few quiet moments, nobody answered.

“Yes,” La Héron barked, pushing Herlechin away from her and fishing around in the water for her soggy clothes. “It bloody well counts.” She turned on Herlechin and shook an angry finger in his face. “Don’t like it, monsieur? Argue with fate! Mademoiselle Birdsong’s soul has been gifted to me.”

“It has?” Alex said, frowning and poking her chest.

“Yes.” La Héron waded back toward the gate, clothes bundled under one arm and her sword in the other. “Next time, negotiate better terms. Breaking one bondage and tying up another—not smart, Birdsong. Not smart.”

“Next time?” Alex trailed behind her.

“Yes, next time. You’re free of your God now. You belong to me instead. What else did you think we would do? We go to the next town, the next tourney. Next time. On it goes.”

“You’re a bird.”

“Very astute.” La Héron paused and turned back to Herlechin. “Did your Hunt come for me, monsieur? Did you hope to bring me back to fairyland with you?”

Herlechin grinned, his smile reaching the tips of his ears. “I sensed an attractive soul here, yes.” He chuckled.

La Héron bowed. “Then I wish you better luck next time as well.”

Alex mirrored Herlechin’s smile. “Next time,” she echoed.

Sigrid Under the Mountain

Originally published in The Sockdolager, Summer 2015

* * *

After Esja produced sour milk three days in a row, Sigrid knew she had a problem. Leaving the pail of greenish milk next to her stool, she trudged off in the grey light of the early morning towards the barley field at the verge of the woods; the new field she had cleared only this spring. When your cow spoilt on the inside, she knew, that only meant one thing: mischief.

She found the door nestled in the mud between the last row of barley and the half-completed fence. Made of scavenged barrel-boards and twine, it could have been mistaken for a junk heap if not for the flotilla of little footprints surrounding it. Sigrid lifted the artless trapdoor a few inches just to be sure and was rewarded with the warm stench of burnt rabbit pellets. She dropped the door and staggered back. Kobolds.

“Ogmund,” Sigrid said to her husband that night after he’d come back from the pub, “Ogmund there’s kobolds in the field. Might you not take some time tomorrow to clear them out, before you leave for Norvgod?”

“Kobolds,” Ogmund turned his nose up disdainfully, half tripping over a stool. “I don’t have time for kobolds. Get Jord’s boy to take care of them.”

“What, Grann?” Sigrid planted her hands on her narrow hips, “you want me to send a boy down into a kobold lair?”

“He’s a big boy, and strong. Don’t think he hasn’t been in a fight or three. He should have a few likely friends to help him out.” Ogmund started unbuckling and unslinging his many weapons. “Offer him a bit of coin and see if he isn’t down there before lunch tomorrow.”

“Ogmund, Grann Jordsson hasn’t even got a stout knife to arm himself with.” She looked pointedly at the great steel sword denting her kitchen table. “His mother would tear off my scalp if he were to hurt himself. Couldn’t you just do it?”

"I’m bound for Prince Aelfwenther’s at first light, Sigrid, you know that. I’ve got bigger foes to face than kobolds." Ogmund stretched, took Sigrid by the shoulders and kissed the very top of her tawny head. "Now, come to bed with me, wife. I will need some memories to take with me across the Durkensea." Sigrid crossed her arms, refusing to return his embrace.

“No, I don’t think I will,” she said stubbornly. “I’ve got bread to rise if I’m to eat anything tomorrow, now the cow’s upset.” Ogmund paused, then turned and ducked under the doorframe to her bedroom without saying anything. Sigrid snorted with frustration.

What’s the point of marrying a great, celebrated hero if he won’t even keep kobolds from harrying your cow? She thought, surveying the room. Her eyes alit on the satchel he’d brought back with him from Norvgod—gems and jewels aplenty for her, for all the good they did. What I need is good milk from my cow. Sigrid sighed and turned her thoughts to young Grann Jordsson.

* * *

Grann Jordsson was fifteen years old and as big as a bear. As Ogmund had predicted, he agreed to help Sigrid with her kobold problem in exchange for ten bits of tin and a fresh loaf of bread. He’d enthusiastically raided her shed for equipment, taking with him a ball of twine, a dozen row pegs and a hoe as well, with the promise he’d bring them back when he was through.

Armed with her farming tools, Grann Jordsson descended into the dark and fetid lair at mid-morning, and by sunset his parents were seated at her table drinking barley wine by the jugful. Sigrid baked them bread and kept a lantern lit by the tunnel entrance, but as Jord and Egritt passed out just before sunrise the next morning, she had to admit she would never see her hoe again. She placed woolen blankets over their shoulders, left out the last of the milk, and snuck out at first light.

Sigrid set out down the wooded path towards Yunderhill, the tall keep built into the rocky foothills. It had been a good long time since she’d called on the sorceress there, but she and Groa had played together as girls and Sigrid was sure Groa’s time in Alfheim couldn’t have changed her as much as folk said it had. She brought a loaf of bread and a jug of wine with her, and the satchel of jewels just in case.

“Groa?” Sigrid called from the base of the high walls, circling the keep looking for a door. “Groa, it’s Sigrid Ulafsdottir from down in the valley! Hullo, dear, are you at home?” Her voice seemed to get lost somewhere between her throat and the crow-lined crenulations of the wall, but she kept yelling. “Groa, I’ve been walking all day, and I can’t go home just now. Be a dear and show me to the entrance, will you?”

A dozen crows suddenly took flight, reluctantly finding new perches now that their section of the smooth, grey wall was dropping open on invisible hinges. Sigrid scrambled out of the way as the wall hit the gravelly earth with a bang and a cloud of dust. She was still coughing when a blonde woman robed head-to-toe in red stepped out onto the slab and regarded her curiously.

“Sigrid Ulafsdottir? By my one good eye!” Sigrid moved to meet the red woman still coughing and waving away the dust in front of her face. Groa looked the same as ever, complete with two perfectly good eyes. The two women met with an embrace before Groa took Sigrid by the elbow and drew her towards the tower at the heart of the walled keep. “Where have you been, my dear? I’ve been back for nearly a year now! Not very neighbourly of you, is it now?” Groa chided her, smiling toothily. Sigrid hung her head and squeezed the other woman’s hand.

“I’ve been running the farm alone, Groa, you’ve no idea the work it takes. I’ve been through three farmhands in six months, and Ogmund’s no help at all. I wanted to come sooner, I really did!” Sigrid stopped as a servant shambled past her, smelling oddly of spoilt meat, but Groa tugged her along.

“Three farmhands? Wherever do they go?” Groa led her through a gated door carved so thoroughly with runes that it had the topography of porridge.

“Two were eaten by Rut the Rugged before those fellows from the capitol came to drown her, and the third simply went missing in the woods earlier this fall.” Sigrid thought a flicker of recognition flew over Groa’s face just then, but she didn’t have anything else to contribute. “So, I’m sorry to say, I’m not just here to visit, Groa. I was hoping you might be able to help me with a thing.”

Groa raised an eyebrow as she led Sigrid into the most opulently appointed hall Sigrid had ever seen. Red and gold tapestries lined the walls and the floors, warmed with the extravagance of dozens of wall-mounted torches. The long table was still shiny and soft, the carvings still smooth, and the paint unchipped. Being a sorceress must pay well, Sigrid marvelled, though she did note Groa’s servants left a little to be desired, slow-moving and rather smelly they were.

“Tell me all about it,” Groa insisted, showing her to a chair. Sigrid produced wine and bread, and the two women settled in for an evening of talk.

* * *

"…so it isn’t that Ogmund isn’t a very nice man," Sigrid found herself saying mid-way into the third bottle of wine; a better vintage, Groa told her, though it tasted like the bottom of a well. "It’s only that he’s no good for anything." She cut herself another slice of bread and heaped butter on it, thick and fresh. "He’s ever off overseas killing dragons or ettins or whatever for all these great princes, but what good is that to us? Why can’t he stay home and deal with our problems?"

“Why don’t you go with him, dear? A man with his reputation, I’m sure you’d be staying in palaces from here to Qat San!” Groa motioned for one of her smelly servers to fetch another bottle.

"Pfft," Sigrid snorted dismissively. "Then I’d just be abandoned amongst foreigners, without even my chores to occupy me. No, the truth is I rather prefer being a widow. I only wish Ogmund would stop coming home again. He gets underfoot!" Sigrid laughed inappropriately and Groa joined her. Just like when we were girls, Sigrid thought. We were mankillers, both of us, then, she remembered fondly. Groa’s golden eyes twinkled with a familiar mischief.

"I could help you with that, Sigrid," Groa raised one eyebrow suggestively. "It wouldn’t take much to make you a free woman again. You and I—the times we used to have! We could find you a new man. One better equipped to serve your needs."

Sigrid gasped. “Groa! What are you saying, girl? No, don’t say anything more! That isn’t the kind of help I had in mind.”

Groa looked miffed, and poured herself another cup of wine. "More’s the pity. I could make you the perfect partner if you really wanted."

“No thank you,” Sigrid said firmly. “I only need some help with the kobolds.”

Groa shrugged. “Sigrid, you know I love you, but I don’t have time for trolls-”

“Kobolds.”

“-whatever. I’ve been slaving for months now raising some help with the bigger problem of the Jarl.”

“What, Jarl Eskrisson? The man we pay our taxes to?”

"Oh, Sigrid. You really shouldn’t. That is a waste of your hard-earned coin."

"Well, it’s rather the law, isn’t it? The last thing I need is ruffians 'round the farm looking for tithes." Sigrid said with some surprise. Groa stood up abruptly, slopping her wine on the table.

“That’s what I’ve raised the army for-”

“Army?”

“-and that is why I don’t have the time to go slumming down kobold-holes.”

“Army? What army? You’ve raised an army so’s you don’t have to pay taxes?”

“Sigrid, you understand very little,” Groa turned towards her fiercely and for a moment the firelight cast such an odd shadow over her face that Sigrid wasn’t quite sure Groa had two eyes after all. “The Jarl is a horrible bully of a man, and when I’m through with him, no tyrant will ever dare take another penny from the lands of others.” Sigrid opened her mouth to object to this misleading hyperbole, but something in the sharp angles of Groa’s face made her think the better of it. She gulped down the last of her wine instead.

“Very well, Groa. You fight the Jarl and I will go home and attend to the kobolds all by myself.” Sigrid stood and tripped a little trying to disentangle herself from the legs of the table.

“Oh Sigrid, don’t pout.” Groa threw up her hands, spilling yet more wine. “Stay the night. It’s dark and you’re in no shape to get home.” Sigrid hesitated, considering it. “Really, you ought to stay longer.” Groa looked as if she’d just remembered something. “My army marches out this season. It’s bound to be safer here.”

That was startling. "The local lads wouldn’t touch my farm, would they?" Sigrid asked. "I wouldn’t know the Jarl if he came calling for tea."

Groa looked evasive. “My army—they aren’t really local lads as such. Look, you really ought to just stay here.”

Sigrid set her mouth in a determined line. “Groa, I really don’t think I will. I have my cow to feed, the fields to tend, and now, apparently, kobolds to scare off on my own. In fact, I should be going now. I can see I have overstayed my welcome.” Sigrid gathered her sweater and her walking stick from the table. “I do hope you enjoy the jewels. I will visit again, perhaps, if I am not killed by the kobolds.”

"As you wish. But you can’t say I didn’t warn you." Groa flopped down into her chair and took the last hunk of bread. "One of the nair can see you out."

Groa’s shambling corpses only accompanied her as far as the outer wall. Sigrid staggered the rest of the way home in the moonless black alone.

* * *

War. Kobolds now felt the least of her worries. But that was always the way, wasn’t it? Big people with big powers were ever mindless of what they trampled when they clashed with big trouble. No heed at all for humble people and their cows.

Sigrid stood by the flimsy trapdoor with a fresh loaf under her arm and a bucket of not-entirely-sour milk in her hand. She took three deep, calming breaths and then lifted the door off the hole. Muddy earth rained down a steep slope into a dark tunnel.

“Hullo?” Sigrid called, “I’m Sigrid Ulafsdottir and I’m coming down now.” She paused. “I’ve brought some breakfast.”

The entrance didn’t smell any less like sacrificed rabbits than last time, but as she descended into the darkness, the smell of mould and earthworms quickly choked out anything else. Sigrid inched along, mindful not to scrape her head on the roots overhead, heading cautiously towards a ruby light around the first bend of the tunnel. The tunnel grew more clean-cut the deeper she descended, and Sigrid noted with some satisfaction that the place was quite tidy, not strewn about with bones and rot, as she’d feared. At least the kobolds were not complete animals.

“Hello?” Sigrid called again. “Is anyone at home?”

The dim light flickered as impish shadows sprang up on the tunnel walls, followed by the pitter-patter of quite a lot of feet. Sigrid tried to stand as tall as she could, her offerings clutched tight to her skirts. She affected a resolute expression, though her heart was racing with the knowledge that she could soon be hacked to tiny pieces by the underground folk.

They came three abreast, as small as children dressed like an army of cookware. Red-faced and large-eyed, the creatures waved six sharp spears under her nose, threatening and jabbing at the air. Behind them, a fatter one in robes followed with a lantern. The fat one scowled terribly at her and chattered like a squirrel.

"I’m sorry, I don’t-" Sigrid started saying, and the spear-bearers began to snicker. Sigrid frowned and looked imploringly at the fat one, whose smirk suggested to her a clever mind. "Come now, do try," she said. "I’ve come in good faith."

“We know you,” the fat one said with a clipped accent, eyeing the milk with cunning. “You the missus with the angry cow.”

“Yes,” Sigrid replied. “I suppose I am. I am Sigrid Ulafsdottir and I live over your heads.”

“I am Tchit Kit Tan,” the fat one said, then rhymed off a barrage of chirps to introduce the armed ones as well. “Siggid Ulfsotter, what has made you come visit? We gots nothing of yours.” This last bit sounded defensive and Sigrid was quite sure she didn’t believe it. But it didn’t matter. She scuttled her suspicions and swallowed her pride.

“I want to say…I want to say-” Sigrid held out the bucket of milk and loaf of bread. “- I’m sorry. Esja was upset and I wasn’t very neighbourly towards you. But you didn’t hurt anyone until I sent—until we barged into your home. That wasn’t right.” The big kobold looked very suspiciously at her, so Sigrid forged on. “I see now we’re all in this together, we little people. Just trying to live. So I brought milk. I’m sorry.”

Tchit Kit Tan raised an eyebrow with surprise. “Are you going to poison me?”

“What?” Sigrid answered quickly as the spears tickled her chin, “No, of course not! Are you going to cut me to pieces?” She countered.

Tchit Kit Tan paused indecisively. “No,” she finally said. The forest of spears lowered as their bearers looked for instruction. Tchit Kit Tan beaconed with one hand. “Okay, come. Maybe you take back dat big meaty baby too.”

“Meaty…baby?” Sigrid asked cautiously. Flanked by tiny, clinking guards, she followed her host into the tunnels deep under the mountain, surprised by the familiar smells of baking and hearth-fire ahead of her. In the red light of the cavernous hall, by an iron oven big enough for an ox, she saw poor Grann Jordsson, peppered with moss-patched cuts and blubbering like an infant. “Ah,” Sigrid said.

“He knock Tsak Tan inna brain wit dat hoe, like as she carrots.” Tchit Kit Tan snorted. “Stupid baby.”

“Yes,” Sigrid agreed, only relieved to see the boy alive. “That was stupid. But we won’t do anything like that again.”

* * *

“No good, no good,” Tchit Kit Tan tutted from her basket-like rocking chair by the cook-fire. A pair of little ones, cute as naked rats, brought warmed milk to all three of them and stared at Sigrid as if she had six heads. “Nothing we can do to move the One-Eyed One. The westerly ways open into the woman’s coldrooms and there’s nothing in them but dead things.” Tchit Kit Tan stopped rocking and looked at Sigrid very seriously. “And those are not good eating!”

Sigrid turned a little paler but could not disagree. “If you can’t starve her out, maybe you could, I don’t know, steal all her swords. Or her horses!” Sigrid tried to imagine what mischief could dissuade an entire army and found herself out of her depth. Tchit Kit Tan looked sympathetic in a gruff sort of way.

“No. When angry bodies clatter and stomp, we plug up the ways and wait. They wear themselves down. Always do.” Tchit Kit Tan continued, shrugging. “Some will starve, but that’s the way.”

“That’s it, then?” Sigrid said. “You huddle down here and I get overrun by armies?” Tchit Kit Tan nodded and the little ones gave her bread a mercenary look. Sigrid stood. “Well, that’s nonsense. I’m moving down here with you.” Grann sniffled from the tiny stool he sat on, looking miserably into his bowl of milk. “We all will,” Sigrid corrected herself.

* * *

The armies came just after the harvest and just before the snows. Sigrid counted herself lucky that she had been able to get the barley up in time, with the help of the kobolds. Sigrid watched bale after bale disappear down the hole with satisfaction. Groa and the Jarl can grow their own bloody crops.

Grann’s parents were quite willing, but getting Esja down the hole was another matter. The old cow had a particular distaste for kobolds, and kicked and lowed even as the sound of grinding bones and metal rained down over the valley from Groa’s keep. It wasn’t until the first frozen outriders on their steeds of shadow and bone came clattering down the road that Esja decided she liked corpses even worse.

One frightened step at a time, Sigrid drew the cow down the tunnels to the under-mountain, where her few neighbours had joined more kobolds than she had ever imagined in tall, wide caves lit with red lanterns. It was dark and it was hot, but when Groa’s nair and the Jarl’s soldier’s clashed on the fields and foothills, they were safe. Sigrid baked bread and churned sour butter and lost herself in the chores of maintaining a tidy lair. They replaced the sad trapdoor with a sturdier one from her farmhouse, mere days before the building was razed to the ground.

It was into the second or third week of spring, once the snows clogging the passes had turned to glacier-blue streams and the first crocuses and merryweathers had really started to paint the hills, that Sigrid discovered Ogmund in the ruins of their home. She was in the habit of coming to the surface at least once a day, ostensibly to draw water from the well, but truly to enjoy some sun. Lifting her old back door off the hole and climbing into her fields, she often felt as if she were still at home.

She hid behind the well’s walls when she first heard the rumbling vibrations of his voice, thinking it was the Jarl’s men around again to press people into service, but when she recognized the rhythm of a single voice weeping, she crept out and made for the remains of the old house.

Ogmund was seated on the stone hearth with his back to her, crying rather noisily in full armour of burnished steel. Sigrid didn’t think there was any way she could tactfully interrupt him without embarrassing him, so she got straight to the point:

“Ogmund!” she cried, “what on earth are you doing?”

The big man leapt to his feet and drew his longest sword, the two-fisted beast he wore strapped to his back. She could see the whites of his eyes from twenty paces as he realized what he was looking at.

“Sigrid?” he said, confused. “You’re alive?”

“Well, yes, I’m—there, there,” Sigrid started as Ogmund swept her up in a fierce hug, trying to return the embrace without pinching herself on his armour, “Yes, yes, I’m alive, I’m alive.”

“Good lord, woman!” When Ogmund pulled back, he still had tears in his eyes, but he grinned like a madman. Sigrid could see he’d lost several teeth, but had them replaced with gold. “Why didn’t you come to the capital? Or send word? As my wife, you might have stayed with Prince-”

"I’ve been just fine right here, Ogmund." Sigrid cut him off. "I’ve been staying—uh, with the neighbours. Esja’s there too." Ogmund looked confused, so she narrowed her eyes and reminded him. "My cow. Anyway, Groa tells me the Jarl’s about ready to surrender the valley to her, so I-”

“Groa?” Ogmund interrupted, “Groa One-Eye? Groa Alf-Touched, Groa who has emptied the bowels of Helheim -”

“Yes, yes,” Sigrid said impatiently. “You remember Groa. She was at our wedding, Ogmund.”

“Groa has been here?” Ogmund still looked as if he’d been hit in the head with a boot.

“No, I’m afraid she can’t leave the keep these days. I’ve been up, though, to bring her bread and milk when there’s extra. She’s really got nobody to-”

“You have been in the Helfort?” Ogmund really looked as if he needed to sit down, so Sigrid fetched a stool which wasn’t too badly burned. “The Prince is sending a legion of his Fergaarde to the Jarl to march on the Helfort in a fortnight. I was going to go with them. I thought I needed to avenge you!”

“Ah,” Sigrid said, reevaluating her week’s plans. “Well, I have no need to be avenged. You could go along or not, I suppose, I won’t stop you.”

“No, Sigrid,” Ogmund said, regaining his composure. “No, you have to come with me back to the capital. The valley isn’t safe. I have bought a manor in the city, an estate supported by two thousand acres on the south shore. You will live well there, Sigrid.”

"I live just fine here, Ogmund!" Sigrid stepped back and planted her hands on her hips. Leave the valley! She couldn’t even think of it.

Ogmund looked confounded. He glanced about the burnt and salted landscape while his mouth worked out the words.

“But Sigrid,” he finally said, standing and taking her little hand in his great big ones. “There’s nothing left.” He paused. “Who did you say you were staying with, again?”

“If you must know,” Sigrid said, avoiding eye contact. “I’m staying with the kobolds.”

A succession of competing demeanours took hold of Ogmund. Sigrid watched as confusion, alarm, confusion again, and then a moment of panic played over her husband’s features; then helplessness and, finally, anger. He dropped her hands and tightened his great fists around his sword’s hilt instead.

"Kobolds?" he hissed, face reddening. "You’ve been captured by kobolds?"

“Not captured, Ogmund. Don’t be dense.” Sigrid folded her arms over her chest and braced herself for the storm. Ogmund turned purple.

“You have been living with kobolds?” Ogmund raised his voice. “And you’d rather stay with them than live in a manor with me?”

“Oh, Ogmund.” Sigrid sighed. “This isn’t about you.”

“I will kill them all,” Ogmund thundered, gripping his sword and taking off for the verge of the woods. “I will not lose my wife to kobolds!”

“Ogmund!” Sigrid called, hiking her skirt and starting after him. “You stop this instant! Ogmund! Did you hear me? If you harm one red hair on their heads, I’ll never speak another word to you, do you hear?”

“They’ve ensorcelled you!” Ogmund raged, casting his eyes about for something to hit. “Groa One-Eye has cursed you! I’ll free you, my love. They will rue the day they meddled in the affairs of Ogmund Ironbreaker!”

Ogmund what? "Ogmund! Nobody has put any bloody pox on me! Would you stop a minute!" The big warrior had crossed the salted fields in a half-dozen paces and was searching the verge for tracks. Sigrid’s boot got stuck in the half-melted spring mud. She considered leaving it behind. "Ogmund!" she called. "Stop!"

The urgency in her voice made him look up and the look on his face plucked a string in her heart. He was lost, betrayed, confused, and upset. Though his hair was greyer and his teeth fixed with gold, though his chest plate could have been sold to buy half the farms in the county and his sword the other half; she saw the man who could never remember to close the cow pen, and the man who couldn’t reach the buttons on his jerkin without her help. The man who loved her lamb stew to reckless indulgence, and the man who was so proud each and every time he brought home a boar, as if he hadn’t gone hunting three thousand times in his life. The man who kept coming back for her month after month, year after year, though she was sure he could have had his pick of foreign princesses and wild-eye courtesans. Ogmund, her husband.

“Ogmund, please,” she begged, “I’m stuck.” She tried to haul her foot out of the mire with dignity and half-slipped instead, dropping to one knee with a decidedly undignified squeak.

She was so consumed trying to get up again without soiling her entire outfit that she didn’t notice Ogmund come to her side. She took his thick forearms out of habit, holding tight as he hauled her bodily to her feet. After another moment’s struggle with the stuck boot, she pulled her bare foot out and slipped into him, snagging her hair in the buckles of his armour.

“There you go,” he said gently, setting her more or less right on one foot. Sigrid hopped a couple of times and laughed despite herself. When she looked into his eyes, he was smiling too.

“Please come with me, Sigrid,” he said softly. Sigrid set her jaw and smiled again, sadly this time.

"No, Ogmund," she replied. "I don’t want to. I don’t belong in the city."

“But you don’t belong under the mountain either,” Ogmund pleaded. “I certainly don’t.”

“No, you don’t,” Sigrid said apologetically. “You’ve gone on to great things. I’m very proud of you, Ogmund, but I want to live here. The kobolds are quite sensible once you get used to them. And I—I can manage without you.”

Ogmund swallowed thickly and looked grieved, but seemed to understand her. He wordlessly picked her up and carried her over the rest of the field to the verge, where he followed her prints back to the solid wooden door in the ground. He put her down there and stood back uneasily.

“I can build you a house here, Sigrid,” he offered. “You don’t have to live in a hole.”

“After the war is over,” Sigrid agreed, nodding. “And you can always come visit.”

Ogmund stiffened, his frown lost in his beard. Then he nodded too.

“I could,” he conceded. Then he looked at the door. “I don’t think I could fit down there.”

“You’re very big, Ogmund,” Sigrid said, stepping off the door so he could open it for her. “But I am very small.”

She stepped into the darkness of the tunnel and let door snap shut behind her.

John Ayliff

Belt Three

First published in Great Britain in ebook format by HarperVoyager, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2015. Copyright © John Ayliff 2015

* * *

The Worldbreaker was hours away, but Konrad’s Hope was already coming apart. Most of the starscrapers were dark, and the surface bore scars where solar panels and heat sinks had been stripped away. The end of the docking spindle was a twisted, molten ruin, no doubt damaged during the evacuation riots. The true-borns and their favoured servants would have gone first, followed by any tank-borns who could scare up the cost of an evac ship berth. With the last evac ships gone, maybe fifty thousand tank-borns would be in the city, with nothing to do but wait for the end.

The space around the city was clear of the normal controlled traffic chaos. The industrial orbitals would have been nudged into orbits towards other cities, and even the smallest tugs and shuttles would be carrying refugees in desperate escape attempts. The only bodies orbiting the city now were smaller rocks and the debris from the shattered spindle.

‘Thousand Names, this is the Konrad’s Hope evacuation committee. We’ve gathered the high-priority evacuation cases in one location. Send your shuttle to these coordinates…’

‘Thousand Names, my name is Jananna Smith. I’m the only true-born left. I’ve got a lot of wealth tied up in other cities—take me away from here and I’ll see that you’re rewarded—’

‘Thousand Names, please, there’s a birthing village full of children still here. They don’t even know what’s happening. For God’s sake, you’ll have room for them, please—’

The breathless voices sounded in the background of the Thousand Names’s bridge, coming across what had once been the city’s traffic control channels. Everyone with the means to detect them would hope that they were a late-coming evac ship, and everyone with access to a transmitter was bargaining for passage.

‘Thousand Names, this is Sister Greyda of the Konrad’s Hope Scriber chapel. We’re delighted you’ve chosen to join us—’

‘Brenn, turn that shit off.’ Olzan’s voice came out more strained than he had expected.

Brenn looked a little startled, but the voices shut off. Vazoya squeezed his hand and muttered something reassuring, but Olzan knew whom she was really trying to reassure.

Without the chatter, the silence was oppressive. Olzan replaced the live view on the screen with a city map, and began running through the plan again, to take his mind off the approach as much as anything else. ‘The collection is housed in a hangar near the bottom of that starscraper,’ he said, pointing. ‘We’ll take a shuttle in. Docking with a rotating ’scraper will be tricky but Vaz can do it.’

‘Of course, I can do it.’ Vazoya’s normal arrogance seemed forced now.

‘The power’s out in that ’scraper so it should be empty, but we might get company when folks see the shuttle docking. Most likely the elevators will be down so they won’t reach us too quickly.

‘There’s one exhibit in particular that Mr Glass wants. It’s called the Seagull, and it’s the centrepiece of Zhu’s collection. I don’t know what it is, but Mr Glass said we’ll know it when we see it. It’s vacuum-safe, so we can just open the hangar doors and push it out, then the Names can pick it up. We get in and out as quick as we can. I don’t want any encounters with the inhabitants.’ He didn’t want the crew to see them: it would make them real, make it harder to leave them to die. He didn’t want to see them himself, for the same reason.

‘Understood,’ said Keldra from the back of the room. Olzan shot her a look. No one had asked her.

* * *

The city spun above Olzan’s head, the shadows of the starscrapers processing like raking fingers across the grey surface. He could feel the gravity change as Vazoya teased the shuttle into a powered orbit that matched the city’s spin. There was a shift in perception, and then he was sitting in a steady one gravity, with the city stationary above him, both of them in the middle of a rotating sphere of stars. Vazoya was gently manoeuvring the shuttle up, towards the hanging mass of Anastasia Zhu’s starscraper.

Olzan was crammed next to Keldra in the shuttle’s tiny cargo section, both of them dressed in stuffy vacuum suits. If she had such an interest in Planetary Age artefacts, Olzan had decided, then they might as well put that to use. Brenn and Tarraso were still on board the Thousand Names, keeping it in a wide orbit of the city, ready to pick up the artefact and then make a rapid escape once the shuttle was back on board.

Vazoya moved the shuttle up to the side of the starscraper. Olzan could see the blue-white reflections of their thruster flames in the windows. One wide gap between the windows resolved into the door to the hangar housing Anastasia Zhu’s collection.

Vazoya stabilized the shuttle next to the small personnel airlock at the edge of the hangar door. A magnetic grapnel line shot across the gap and latched onto the starscraper’s metal wall, and then the shuttle’s hatch swung open. The external airlock wasn’t built to take this type of shuttle, and hovering too close to the wall would be dangerous. They would have to cross the gap in vacuum suits.

Keldra’s face was pale behind her visor. She hadn’t said much on the shuttle flight, despite her constant talk of the Earth artefact while they were still on the Names. It was vertigo, Olzan realized with amusement. With the rotational pseudogravity in place, they were suspended over an infinite drop filled with shooting stars. Keldra had been a habitat engineer, working in her city’s spine, well away from the outer skin. For someone not used to these manoeuvres the experience could be terrifying.

Olzan wasn’t in much of a mood to spare Keldra’s feelings. ‘All right, Engineer, get that door open. Your precious artefact’s in there.’ Keldra hesitated. For a moment Olzan thought she wasn’t going to move. ‘Go on. We’ll retrieve you if you fall.’

‘Might not be worth the fuel,’ came Vazoya’s voice from the cockpit.

Keldra scowled, stood up, and clipped her suit to the wobbling grapnel line. She swung out into the gap and climbed hand-over-hand to the personnel airlock, moving confidently now that she had started. She reached the ledge beneath the airlock door and began fumbling with the door control.

‘It’s not going to open,’ she said after a minute.

‘What’s the matter with it?’ Olzan asked.

‘The lock’s physically jammed. We might be able to open it from the inside.’

‘We can blast it,’ Vazoya said. ‘Get the charges. The decompression might even push the thing out for us; problem solved.’

‘No!’ Keldra snapped. ‘It could be damaged.’

‘Then we can give Mr Glass the damn pieces and tell him that’s how we found it. Olzan, let’s get the hell out of here.’

‘Mr Glass won’t be pleased,’ Olzan said. The approach of the Worldbreaker was a nagging presence in the back of his mind, but every time he thought about cutting corners or doing a less than perfect job, he thought back to Emily’s last message. Do a good job here and he could marry her, get sterility reversal treatment, live like a true-born…‘Vaz, find another airlock. We’ll work our way round the inside. Keldra, get back here.’

They found another airlock a few levels up. Once again Vazoya brought them alongside and fired the grapnel, and this time Keldra climbed across without hesitation. Olzan watched her tinker with the lock for a moment and then the outer door hinged open.

‘Vaz, hold the shuttle here,’ Olzan said as he clipped himself to the line. ‘We might need to come back out this way. I’ll let you know when we reach the hangar.’

‘Take your time. If you’re not back, it’s my ship.’

‘We’ll be back.’

‘I’m serious, Olzan. I’m not waiting for the Worldbreaker to—’

‘Neither am I. We’ll be back.’

Olzan strapped the explosive charges to his suit’s backpack and then pulled himself along the grapnel line, carefully avoiding looking down. Keldra had already dealt with what little was left of the security system, and she cycled them through using the airlock’s emergency power.

The interior of the starscraper was dark, lit only by sporadic emergency lighting and the bobbing circles cast by their helmet lamps. A sound of dripping water echoed to them from somewhere deeper in the maze of metal corridors. Olzan called up a floor plan from his implant and laid it over his vision. The elevators wouldn’t be working, but there should be stairs in the central atrium. With the city’s datanet offline the implant couldn’t plot a route for him, but it wasn’t hard to see which way to go.

The atrium was a towering void that ran the entire height of the starscraper. There were arcs of piping hanging in the space, suspended by invisible cables. It took Olzan a moment to realize he’d seen something similar in the Glass family starscraper back in Santesteban, but that one had been filled with water. It was a water-sculpture: if the pumps had still been powered, a thin stream of water would have poured down the atrium, twisting towards one wall due to the Coriolis effect, and redirected by the arcs of piping into graceful curves and helices. He looked down over the railing and could see his helmet lamp’s beam reflecting off a murky surface. It looked as though the water had kept flowing for a while after the pumps had failed.

There was what looked like a stairwell on the far side of the atrium. Olzan led Keldra around the walkway towards it. Halfway to the staircase, Keldra suddenly stopped. ‘We’ve got company,’ she hissed.

Olzan followed her finger. High above the spouts of the empty water-sculpture was another cluster of bobbing lights.

Olzan did a frantic mental calculation. They could go back, but that would mean going back to Mr Glass empty-handed. ‘It’ll take them a while to go down those stairs. They don’t know where we’re going. We can lose them.’

Keldra didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t say anything.

‘Keep your head down,’ he said. It was still possible the others hadn’t spotted them. He dimmed his helmet lamp, angled it at the floor, and jogged for the stairs.

He counted the loops of the spiral staircase until they were on the correct level, then found the radial corridor that would lead to the hangar. He risked a glance upwards. The others were still above them, their lamp-beams bobbing around agitatedly. Olzan couldn’t tell what they were doing.

They left the atrium behind them and struck out towards the hangar at the edge of the starscraper. Even the emergency lights were dead on this level. The entrance to the hangar was an airlock, with a simple mechanical fail-safe to keep it shut; after they levered it open it closed automatically behind them.

They emerged onto a gallery overlooking Anastasia Zhu’s collection hall. The darkness made the space seem vast, the far wall only dimly visible in the light of their helmet lamps. What they could see of the room was in disarray. It looked like most of the smaller exhibits had been removed hurriedly, leaving toppled plinths, and the decorative hangings that had covered the bare walls were now scattered across the floor.

One large object dominated the centre of the room, something with a curved white surface, spotlessly clean. Olzan’s beam caught a name inscribed on the surface: EAS-S4 Seagull. He felt some of his worry disappear. At least finding it hadn’t been hard.

They ran their torch beams across the Seagull, trying to get an impression of its shape. It looked like a shuttle, but not like any Olzan could imagine being built in his time. It had a cylindrical body and a rounded nose, with the sleek curves that characterized Planetary Age technology. There were two odd fins stretched out from either side of the fuselage, far larger than most shuttle heat radiators. ‘What are those?’ he asked, half to himself.

‘Wings.’ Keldra’s voice was hushed, like a devout believer inside a chapel. ‘It’s a spaceplane. The wings are for flying in atmosphere. That craft, the Seagull…it would have landed on Earth.’ She held one arm out straight as if it were a wing, and moved the other hand above and below it, demonstrating something. ‘The top surface of the wing is curved, so the air pressure—’

‘Save the lecture. We need to get it out the doors so the Names can pick it up.’

He descended the metal steps to the hangar floor and scanned the far side of the room with his lamp-beams. The hangar doors and the personnel airlock were both hidden behind a set of floor-to-ceiling display cases. Hopefully there would be some way to remove them without using the explosives, so they wouldn’t have to risk damaging the spaceplane. He trudged over to them, stepping around the debris from the hasty evacuation, his boots splashing in the thin layer of oily water that covered the floor.

The display cases were airtight, climate-controlled modules designed for storing delicate artefacts. They were empty, save from some grit and curled brownish things that might have been leaves from a preserved plant. Olzan worked at the crack between two cases with his suit knife, trying to see if the cases were free-standing or attached to the wall. ‘Keldra! Give me a hand with this.’

Olzan looked around for her. She had climbed a metal stepladder that was set up next to the Seagull’s nose, and was now peering through its cockpit windows, her gloved hands almost but not quite touching the hull. ‘It’s a shell,’ she said, resentfully. ‘All the workings have been removed.’

‘Of course, they have. Taking it apart means more artefacts to put on display. What, did you think we’d be able to fly it out? Get the hell over here.’

Keldra tore herself away from the spaceplane and joined Olzan by the hangar door. She examined the display cases, crouching down to look at them from every angle. ‘They’re wired into the city’s power and hab systems. It looks like the airlock has been dismantled and its power and support lines are feeding these cases instead. Removing them will be tricky.’

‘Then we’ll have to blast them.’ Olzan unclipped the bag of explosives from his suit and dropped it on the floor in front of the cases.

‘It’s tricky, but I can do it.’

He hesitated. ‘Brenn! Time check.’

‘One hour twenty-two minutes to Black Line.’ Even Brenn’s voice was starting to show some worry.

‘I can do it in half an hour,’ Keldra said.

‘All right, but I’m planting the charges now. If you’re not done in half an hour we blow it.’

‘All right.’ She opened her tool bag and set to work.

Olzan walked up the row of display cases, fixing the explosive charges between them and wiring in remote detonators he could control from his suit. With more time he would have been able to blow the hangar door open with fewer, carefully placed charges, but for now overkill would have to do, even if the shuttle took damage. Meanwhile, Keldra had managed to get one of the display cases away from the wall and was tinkering with what remained of the hangar mechanism.

The charges in place, Olzan took a look around the room, breathing deeply to try to control his nerves. Abandoned display plinths seemed to stare at him, some of them lying broken in the shallow water. The Seagull loomed over them, shining like a statue of a benevolent god, wings outstretched, the slow motion of the water casting a subtly shifting reflection of his torchlight on its polished surface. Maybe there was something to Keldra’s obsession, he thought. That artefact had survived unscathed through the Worldbreaker disaster and the early city resource wars that had wiped out all the achievements of Planetary Age civilization and reduced the human race to a tiny remnant. It would be a pity to let it be damaged now.

Another movement of light caught his eye. Up on the gallery, the door they had come in by was opening again. A wobbling torch beam shone down on them.

Olzan froze. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Keldra still tinkering with the hangar mechanism; it looked as though she hadn’t noticed the others. ‘Keldra, stop,’ he whispered over the helmet connection.

More torchlights appeared on the gallery, and Olzan could just make out the figures that carried them. There were three of them. They weren’t wearing vacuum suits, only tattered and stained city issue worker overalls. They were squat, muscular men, looking as if they were from a high-grav part of the city and used to tough manual work. Each of them carried a torch in one hand and a gun in the other, slug-thrower pistols rather than nerve guns. Olzan and Keldra’s vacuum suits were not armoured: bullets would go through them like paper. Olzan had a nerve gun at his hip but he didn’t dare go for it.

The first man’s voice rang out across the hangar. ‘Stop that. Get away from that, whatever it is. Put your hands where I can see them.’ He was pointing his gun at Keldra. The two others had their guns trained on Olzan.

Keldra didn’t move from the display case. She removed a panel and was in the middle of a tangle of wiring.

‘I said move!’

Olzan tapped Keldra’s arm. ‘Do as he says.’

She turned around, slowly. Olzan was glad the men with guns wouldn’t be able to see her expression clearly through her visor. She was fuming, as if she might erupt into violence at any moment.

‘Stay where you are.’

The three men made their way down the stairs, keeping their guns trained on Olzan and Keldra. Olzan noticed they were wearing abseiling harnesses over their clothes. He kicked himself for not thinking of it.

The leader walked around the spaceplane and shone his torch into Olzan’s face, then Keldra’s. ‘Good of you to come and get us. Don’t know what you’re doing down here, though. You must have taken a wrong turn!’

Another of the thugs sniggered. His overalls were bloodstained, and he had half a dozen human ears hanging from a string around his neck. The third thug was shifting on his feet and twitching nervously, his gun tracing a figure-of-eight path as he trained it alternately on Keldra and Olzan.

‘You’ve got a ship out there, and we want off this rock,’ the first man said.

They were close enough now that Olzan could read the name tags on their uniforms. The leader was Poldak 2484-Konradshope-023382. He had the red-eyed look of someone who had been blind drunk until taking a sobriety shot an hour or so ago, but right now the hand with which he held his gun was rock steady.

Olzan spread his hands out in a non-threatening gesture. The Thousand Names could afford to take a few passengers on to Santesteban. ‘We’ll get you all out of here. There’s no need for violence.’

‘Glad you see it that way.’ The man smiled, coldly, but didn’t lower his gun, which was now pointed at Olzan’s chest. ‘Has your shuttle got three spare suits?’

Olzan searched his memory. ‘Including the pilot’s, yes.’

‘Have him send them across. We’ll meet the shuttle at the lock where you came in.’ He gestured with the gun. ‘Come on.’

‘I’ll have this lock working soon,’ Keldra said.

‘No. The lock you came in by is working now.’

‘We’re here on a job of our own,’ Olzan said. ‘We’ll give you a lift to Santesteban, but let us finish. We’ll all get out.’

Poldak glanced at the Seagull. ‘You’re here for that? Forget about it. We go now.’

‘It’s a Planetary Age spaceplane,’ Keldra explained.

‘Yeah, whatever. I’m the King of Belt Four. We go now.’

The man with the string of ears—Mardok, by his name tag—laughed again. It looked as though he could see Keldra’s discomfort and was enjoying it. ‘It’s ’Breaker dust now,’ he said.

‘We’ve still got time,’ Olzan insisted.

Poldak took a step closer to him. The gun was not quite touching his chest. ‘I don’t think you understand our arrangement,’ he said. ‘We’re not begging a lift from you. We’re stealing your ship.’

A bang made them both jump. Poldak took his eyes off Olzan to look for the source. Olzan felt his heart pound. It had been loud enough even inside the helmet. He thanked God Poldak’s finger hadn’t jumped on the trigger.

Mardok was standing beneath the Seagull, looking up at it, his gun raised and smoking. He’d placed a bullet hole dead in the centre of the circular blue logo under the spaceplane’s nose. As the echoes died away he looked round at Poldak, an inane grin on his face.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ screamed the third man. ‘We need to get out!’

Mardok shrugged. ‘Hey, lighten up. Just having some fun.’

‘Calm down, both of you,’ Poldak snapped. Then suddenly, ‘You! What do you think you’re doing?’

Keldra was back at the control panel, hiding it with her body while making some change to the wiring.

‘Get away from that!’ shouted Mardok, swinging his gun back to Keldra.

She moved away from the panel slowly, and it looked to Olzan as though she had made one final adjustment as she turned around. ‘I can still get it open in time,’ she said.

‘I said no,’ Poldak replied.

‘It’s valuable. Take it. I know of collectors who’d want to buy it to restore it.’

Mardok advanced on Keldra, grabbed her by the neck, his gun pressing into her abdomen. ‘The man said no.’ She didn’t move. Her face was locked in a snarl, angry rather than frightened; it looked as though she was deliberately restraining herself from pushing the man away.

‘We can come to an arrangement,’ Olzan said. ‘We’ll give you passage to Santesteban, and some money to get you on your feet. I can see if my employer can find space for you in his business there, good jobs. You don’t need to go to the trouble of taking over the ship.’

The third man—Soodok—was almost hopping from foot to foot. ‘Let’s go, already. They’ve offered us passage.’

‘We’re taking the ship,’ Poldak said. ‘Sorry, but I can’t trust you any other way. If you’re in control there’s nothing stopping you from slave-spiking us in our sleep.’

‘What’s stopping you from doing the same to us?’

‘My word as a gentleman.’ His smile was mixed with a slightly confused look, which puzzled Olzan. He hadn’t said it with the conviction of his earlier joke.

‘We can come to a deal,’ Olzan said. ‘My implant can be set to a conditional trigger. We’ll set it so that if any of you are harmed, it’ll wipe me as well. That’s a guarantee of safe passage. Right?’

Poldak blinked, slowly, keeping his eyes closed for several seconds, as if it took him that long to process what Olzan had said. ‘Don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘Don’t trust you to set up the implant right.’

‘All right. How about this? My ship has two grav-rings. They’ve got separate hab systems, separate everything. We’ll give you one of them, all the way to Santesteban or wherever you’d like to go. You can decouple the life support systems from the rest of the ship; disable the transit hub. Short of dismantling our own ship there’s no way we could reach you.’

‘That sounds…sounds reasonable. I think we can deal.’ He nodded, and slowly lowered his gun. His hand, previously rock steady, was wobbling in little circles. He stared at it as if seeing it for the first time, then blinked and shook his head. ‘Sobriety shot. Damn side effects.’

Soodok was hopping from foot to foot. ‘Told you, you shouldn’t have drunk. Now let’s go. Gotta go gotta go gotta go.’

Another gunshot split the air. Poldak’s and Soodok’s reactions were noticeably slower than before as they turned to look at Mardok. He was laughing raucously, once again pointing the gun up at the Seagull. The bullet hole was a good metre from his target.

Poldak’s expression slowly turned to a look of astonished rage, the first time he had shown an emotion other than arrogance. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know!’ Olzan said.

Mardok fired again. This time the bullet went through the Seagull’s wing. Olzan saw Keldra wince, but she didn’t move.

Poldak noticed Olzan looking at Keldra. ‘You did this, didn’t you? What did you do?’

Mardok barrelled into Keldra and grabbed her by the neck again. He moved unsteadily, almost unbalancing both of them. ‘What have you done?’ he shouted. ‘I’ll kill you, you—’

Mardok’s gun fired, but the shot went wide. Keldra had pushed his hand away. Now she pulled the gun from his grasp and shoved him away from her, kicking him in the chest and sending him sprawling drunkenly onto the ground. She raised the gun, her arm perfectly straight, and shot Mardok in the head where he lay. Bits of blood and brain spattered into the oily water.

Poldak and Soodok were raising their guns to shoot Keldra, but their responses were slow, held back by shock as well as whatever had been affecting them already. One of them fired—Olzan couldn’t tell which—but missed. Keldra turned and fired twice, putting a bullet in each of their foreheads, nearly deafening Olzan as the bullets went close by his head. Her face was a mask of cold fury; her hand was trembling just a little, in anger rather than fear.

Olzan fought to get his breathing back under control. ‘What happened?’ he said at last. ‘What did you do? It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘Check your atmosphere gauge.’

He looked at the read-out on his suit’s forearm. The pressure was normal, but the oxygen concentration was significantly down. ‘You suffocated them.’

‘Hypoxia. By the time you notice something’s wrong, you’re too light-headed to think straight. I used the airlock mechanism to cycle the oxygen out gently.’

‘You killed them,’ Olzan said again. The sound of the gunshots still rang in his ears. ‘Never mind. Let’s go. There’s not much time.’

‘We take the Seagull.’ Keldra was still holding the gun.

Olzan watched the blood spread out from the hijackers’ heads into the standing water. ‘All right.’

Keldra went back to work on the hangar doors. On Olzan’s timer, the seconds to the Black Line ticked away. The device beeped as they passed the thirty-minute mark. That was the point at which Olzan had told himself he would blow the doors, but after what Keldra had done to the hijackers he was too scared to cross her. Back on the Thousand Names he’d make it clear who was captain; right now, though, he would give her a few more minutes.

‘I’ve got it,’ Keldra said at last. The timer read twenty-four minutes.

Olzan felt the relief wash over him. He put a transmission through to the shuttle. ‘Vaz, we’re coming out through the hangar. Get ready to pick us up.’

‘Tell her to go back to the Names,’ Keldra said. She was walking towards the Seagull.

‘What?’

‘We’ll ride the Seagull out. Grab a wheel.’ She kicked the chock from in front of the spaceplane’s forward landing gear wheel, and pushed the stepladder away from its nose. ‘The air pressure should push it out, but it might need a little help.’

‘Scratch that, Vaz. Return to the Names. We’ll be with the package.’

‘That maniac had better know what she’s doing,’ Vazoya crackled in his ear.

Keldra had removed the chocks from the other two wheels and had grabbed on to the landing gear beneath one of the wings. Olzan hurried over and took hold of the other one. He fumbled to get a suit line around the landing gear column. As he did so he flicked his suit transmitter to the Thousand Names’s frequency. ‘Brenn, we’ll be dropping the package out in a moment. Get into position.’

‘Ready?’ Keldra asked.

‘Ready.’

She punched a command into her suit’s wrist panel. There was a shudder, and a groaning sound from the hangar doors as the long-disused mechanism unstuck itself. The display cases against the wall toppled and then fell, their glass fronts smashing. The vacuum seal broke and the door opened the rest of the way quickly, hinging outwards and upwards. There was a roar of air past Olzan’s helmet. The display cases were whisked out, tumbling out of sight, followed by a cascade of oily water and the bodies of the would-be hijackers.

The spaceplane moved forward, as if rising out of his hands. He took that as his cue to push. On the other wheel, Keldra was doing the same. The rush of air was gone after a moment, but they had got the spaceplane moving. Shoulders to the landing gear columns, they hauled its weight across the hangar floor towards the abyss of spinning stars.

The forward wheel went over the edge and the spaceplane’s nose went down, dragging them forward. Olzan jumped onto the landing gear and hugged the column as the spaceplane pitched out of the hangar doors into the infinite drop.

Stars wheeled around them. The silence of the vacuum was broken only by Olzan’s nervous breathing. For a moment he felt as if he was falling, then he went through the reverse of the perception shift he had gone through on the approach to the starscraper. He was weightless, clinging on to the spaceplane as it drifted away from the city. Anastasia Zhu’s starscraper was already rotating away from them and becoming lost in the throng of other surface features. In the other direction he could see the thruster flame of Vazoya’s shuttle as it sped ahead of them, and more distantly the comforting sight of the Thousand Names, its cargo bay doors opening onto a warmly lit interior.

There was something else out there, bigger than the Thousand Names but dark against the stars. Olzan felt a chill run through him. It was the Worldbreaker, now large enough to be seen with the naked eye, closing in on the doomed city. Olzan willed the spaceplane to drift faster. His timer read twenty minutes to the Black Line, but he was painfully aware that the line was only a best guess, and they were already within the margin of error.

Keldra had noticed the Worldbreaker too. Olzan could see her face through her visor. She was staring at it, not taking her eyes off it as the Seagull’s rotation moved it around in a circle in front of them. Her face was curled up with a hatred that she had not shown even to the hijackers when they had threatened the spaceplane. As Olzan watched she drew Mardok’s gun from her suit holster, raised it slowly, and then fired: a soundless white flash erupting in the vacuum. She fired again and again, faster and faster as she emptied the clip at the Worldbreaker. She said nothing, although the helmet channel was open. There were tears pooling up at the sides of her eyes, glinting with each muzzle flash.

The Worldbreaker’s mouth began to open, its sickly green light a ghastly mirror of the Thousand Names’s inviting cargo bay. It had positioned itself along the city’s long axis, as if finding the best angle to swallow it whole. A grating scream sounded in Olzan’s ears: the radio interference from the Worldbreaker’s beam. At the distant end of the city, the docking spindle twisted further before snapping off and being sucked into the Worldbreaker’s mouth. Starscrapers shattered, tiny shards of glass and metal falling sparkling away.

The muzzle flashes from Keldra’s gun stopped. Her finger kept working the trigger for a few seconds, then she gave an inarticulate cry of frustration, barely audible under the radio scream, then hurled the gun at the Worldbreaker. It spun away, flashing rhythmically in the sunlight, clearly on the wrong course.

There was an explosion at the end of the city, an orange fireball, briefly blossoming, as fire raced through the air in the second before it dispersed. The Worldbreaker beam had ruptured the first of the city’s habitation caverns. A halo of debris fanned out, the force of the explosion combining with the city’s angular momentum to hurl the outermost parts of the city surface outside the range of the Worldbreaker’s beam. A shockwave travelled along the city as the beam bored deeper. The cluster of structures that had included Anastasia Zhu’s starscraper disintegrated in an instant.

The city was in the centre of an expanding wave of debris. Olzan could see great hunks of rock and metal looming at them, backlit by the flickering green of the Worldbreaker beam. The leading surface was travelling outwards faster than the Seagull, propelled by the force of the explosion.

They had reached the Thousand Names. Brenn had almost matched velocities with them, so the Seagull floated through the cargo bay doors and settled gently into the elastic cargo webbing. Olzan pushed himself off the landing gear and hand-walked across the webbing towards the airlock to the ship’s spine. Through the closing doors he could see the city breaking up into great chunks, its original shape gone.

‘Brenn, we’re secure,’ he said as the airlock door opened. ‘Get us the hell out of here.’ Keldra was just behind him. He grabbed her hand and helped her into the airlock. The lock drifted around them as the ship began to turn, but he didn’t feel the acceleration of a full burn.

They took the transit module to the forward ring, and Olzan ran to the bridge. The entire crew was there. On the screen, the last slivers of Konrad’s Hope were disappearing into the Worldbreaker’s mouth.

‘Brenn, what’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Why aren’t we at full burn?’

‘There’s a glitch in the main engine,’ Vazoya answered for him. She was standing next to him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘We’ve got manoeuvring thrusters but no main.’

‘I’m working on it!’ Tarraso snapped from the engineering console before Olzan could say anything. ‘We need to run a fuel line purge…’

‘There’s no time,’ Olzan said. ‘Wreck the fuel lines if you have to.’

‘We’re on it, Olzan!’ Vazoya stepped away from Brenn’s side and pushed into Olzan’s face. She glanced at Keldra, standing behind Olzan. ‘Maybe if you and your friend hadn’t taken so long saving your precious artefact—’

‘Too late.’ Brenn’s voice was without emotion.

They all looked to the screen. A jagged shard of rock was hurtling at them out of the darkness. The manoeuvring thrusters were pushing them aside, but not quickly enough.

There was a gut-wrenching impact sound, an impression of flames and of the room’s wall buckling inwards, and then something struck Olzan’s head and he lost consciousness.

Lucas Bale

To Sing of Chaos and Eternal Night

Farewel happy Fields

Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail

Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings

A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

Paradise Lost, Book One

John Milton

Originally published in No Way Home, edited by Lucas Bale and Alex Roddie, Dark Matter Publishing, 2015

* * *

There is no gentle beckoning each time I die. Only a cold, empty darkness—a silent abyss where not even time exists. Nothing about it could be described as poetic; it is feral and strips away every shred of dignity that I might once have considered precious. There is no way to prepare for the first time, and mine was more horrifying than anything I have ever known, like drowning in an infinite ocean of black. After dying a thousand times, you’d think it might get easier, but it doesn’t. It’s just different.

Around me, the wind purls across cold rock and slips between tall reeds. Rain begins to fall. I look up and the night sky is veiled by charcoal cloud. I’m disorientated and, for a moment, I can’t say where I am. I have no memories. I clutch for them, but find nothing there beyond an empty void—my thoughts are like sand in a tornado. All I know is that I’m lying in a sweating bog, thick with mud. Around me, dozens of charred Widows lie motionless in a clearing the size of a battle cruiser. The only smell in the air is the discharge residue from our weapons, and the smoke from a hundred fires.

As I stare in horror at the armoured shadows, battered and broken, the memories creep back; slowly at first, as if the blackened metal is a subconscious trigger for the nightmare of the last two hours. They flicker, then drift in and out of focus. A scattered few, like flotsam on a grey beach. More come, but still I can’t make them out. Eventually, there is a flood, as if somewhere a vast gate has been opened. I choke on them as they run amok in my mind.

We fought and lost here, in this poisoned, barren place. A Battle Group of Widows, dropped into a snare. It had been tranquil at first, a peaceful night where the whirr of servo-gears and the thump of armoured feet on the marshland were the only sounds. Old soldiers know that time well—when the worst is soon to come. Peace is really the eye of the storm.

Memories are not the only things flaring inside my mind. They are accompanied by an exquisite, visceral agony. Inside this armoured machine, my consciousness feels everything, even pain. The Widow is made that way, so the theory goes, because no man-made system can better nature’s own creation: instead of transmitting real-time data to a central processing unit, and arraying that information for us to react to, a Widow feels its environment immediately. Civilian staff we never see, back on the Penrose, tell us war is more efficient that way; it is the quickest way to communicate the Widow’s condition so we can fix a problem, or work around it, and keep fighting. Pain lets you know you’re alive. When you can’t feel anything, that’s when you know you’ve checked out and you’re asleep.

So dying still hurts like a bastard, just like real life.

Death used to be a part of war. The real soldiers, the ones who got through it and came out the other side, accepted they were already dead. They knew they were ghosts sliding through the fog, waiting for the final door to some other, quieter place. Death was a release from the horror.

Not for me. Not for any of us. Now it’s not even a notch on our prison walls.

Death is when we sleep, and they don’t wait long before they wake us up. We fight, we die; and when we wake, we fight again. There’s no hiatus, no time to breathe. In fact, I doubt time now has any meaning for us—I don’t even know what the date is. I guess I don’t need to know. We are all that stands between humanity and its final genocide, possibly its extinction. None of us can afford to lose focus.

So, really, who gives a shit what day it is?

The Widows are who we are now. They are everything we know.

* * *

The memories coalesce as my mind processes them, and eventually I remember: they knew we were coming. They were waiting for us; silently, patiently. They knew we could not possibly win—that their ambush was perfect and they could exploit weaknesses in our armour. Before our feet even touched the bog, we had already lost.

But I’m still here. The thought strikes me suddenly. I should’ve passed, but I haven’t. I’m still in the same Widow: I can feel its unique signature on my consciousness. I know it as well as I might once have known the wrinkles on my old skin. I’ve had to acclimatise to the Widow; get to know its mechanical quirks and idiosyncrasies and allow its synapses to fit into mine. This armoured machine driven by my mind is no stranger to me.

The human body is a beautiful, frail thing. It was never meant for war, it was meant to be enjoyed—to savour chargrilled steak and cold beer after a day climbing waterfalls of ice and frozen rock; to make love on fine, sandy beaches, feeling the warm sun on its soft skin. To be moved by poetry, music, art. Yet I hardly remember any of those things—they are the ghosts of distant memories that never linger long enough for me to relive them. Maybe that’s a good thing—memories of my past life could only confuse and distract. Everything is different now. That life is gone forever.

Our first contact with a species other than our own taught us how small and insignificant we are in the endless silence of space. There’s a reason it’s so fucking black, a guy from my unit once said. Take the hint. Of course we couldn’t—it’s not in our nature. We spread our wings and formed new colonies on other planets and suddenly became more vulnerable than we had ever been before. There were some who said, had we stayed on Earth and limited our exploration of the stars, They would never have come. I don’t believe that—I think They would have come anyway. It’s in Their nature, but everyone needs someone to blame. I focus my hate on Them, of course, but I’m an uncomplicated warrior—hating the enemy is part of the process. It’s an unexpected shift from our turbulent, warmongering past; at least we’re no longer fighting each other.

We don’t even have a name for Them. They’ve never communicated with us, nor given us any demands. We don’t know why They attacked or what They want from us—although their actions leave no doubt as to their desire for our extinction. Their attack took us completely by surprise. Their first step was to somehow disable every networked computer system on every colony at once—no one knows how. Eight seconds later, thermonuclear warheads—we still have no idea where they were fired from—detonated over every major urban centre. Virtually the whole of humanity was wiped out in that instant. Billions of lives gone.

Then They began the process of occupying each of our colonies, subjugating what remained of us. They relied on machines to do that. We fought back, but there were too few of us left. I doubt They even broke a sweat fending us off.

It’s almost impossible even to see them. They have suits which bend light—an almost perfect camouflage. They dance around their war machines like ghosts and, when we fight them, we fire through specially rigged sensor systems which harness the vague signals emitted by their camouflage and give us something to aim at. We don’t really see Them; we only see where they are. But it’s enough.

As a species, even before the war, we had already experimented with robotics—drones that flew and killed from the anonymity of the skies. When we developed AI, we created robots that could walk and hunt and kill, but they lacked the finesse required for soldiering. The ability to think creatively and to work with the maxim all good soldiers understand: no plan survives contact with the enemy. War is chaos and the AIs were lost inside the vortex.

Three years into the war, someone had the idea of taking the best of both worlds and the Widows were born. I don’t pretend to understand the process, nor do I need to. We are told enough to fight in one: my consciousness is fed into a web of neural-cortex pathways located somewhere inside this armoured machine and, after a few hours acclimating, I become it. If, as we are told, neurological activity and therefore consciousness is no more than a complex series of electrical and chemical signals, and those neurone signals can be isolated and separated from the physical brain, they can be embedded into something else.

My physical body—the flesh, blood and bone that has always contained me—lies elsewhere. I don’t know where; they won’t tell me. It is protected by the most powerful armour there could possibly be: distance and secrecy. If I am ever taken by the enemy, there is nothing I know which can endanger the others.

We don’t even know how a consciousness is collected from a fallen Widow. All we know is that, each time we die, we wake up inside another unit. Someone once told me there was a time when we would wake up inside our own bodies and have some time to recuperate before the next operation. That doesn’t happen any more. The war got harder and now, unrelentingly, we get deployed to fight. It’s all I remember. The last time I have even the vaguest memory of seeing my own body must be more than a decade ago.

Immortality has its downsides.

I try to think back further to work out why I’m still here; I’m desperate for some explanation. How could I have survived? As we reached the clearing, the Battle Group commander sent a small reconnaissance team ahead—myself and another I know only as Johanssen. We moved lightly through the jungle—our Widows are designed for speed and agility rather than the brute strength and firepower of the others—but we neither saw nor heard anything at all, except the ticking rhythm of the jungle.

Until a barrage of explosions lit up the night sky behind us.

By the time we were back at the marsh, every weapon we had firing at the flashes in the darkness that slid between the trees and vines and muddy hollows, the battle had already been lost. Their numbers were too great, ours too small. They were positioned well for their ambush, hidden on the ridgeline above us by the shadows of the jungle’s huge, ancient trees. The Battle Group was overtaken and succumbed. Too many Widows were already down when we reached them—I cannot say how it happened so quickly—all evaporating into the night sky above us. We didn’t weep for them of course; they weren’t dead, just gone from here. But we cursed our failure and what it meant to those we would have to leave behind. As Johanssen and I burst into the clearing, he was cut down in an instant. I fought on, almost to the limits of my reserves, but eventually I too fell. I remember it distinctly now—fire cutting through my armour and hot, searing pain. Then nothing.

But none of this explains why I am still here—why I am not back on board the Penrose, inside another Widow. Ready to come back down and fight again.

I’m about to push myself off the ground when I realise I might not be alone. I run a scan of the area, but it picks up nothing. No heat signatures, no movement; nothing to indicate an immediate threat. There are still residual half-life radioisotope emissions. Not unusual, even after so many years, and even hundreds of miles from the sites of the worst explosions. It’s another reason the Widow is so effective in these colonies: it has no living tissue to be affected by fallout.

I stay on the ground, remaining perfectly still, and run a systems check. The Widow is functioning well enough, although power plant supply is intermittent. It won’t immediately affect the Widow’s systems, but long-term, it will become a problem. Ammunition reserves are almost fully depleted. I have enough for a handful of two-second bursts. Maybe others will have more.

Why am I still here? The rest of them are gone. Why haven’t they pulled me out with the others? The questions boil in my mind and I have to force myself to focus on surviving. I know very little about the colony on this planet. Our mission parameters were very specific. Attack an enemy compound. Another Widow Battle Group had been tasked to deal with any human prisoners recovered. The Battle Group commander wouldn’t have been told much more, just what he needed to know for the mission. The rest of us are always told just enough to fight. That’s the way our mission parameters work—a closed-cell network so we have nothing to give to the enemy.

Right now, it leaves me nowhere. Comms are down: there is no uplink with the Penrose. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been disconnected and pulled out. I’m in a basin and it’s conceivable the ridgeline is having some effect on the uplink, causing some unexplained electromagnetic corruption of the signal. It seems unlikely, but I get the feeling that moving to higher ground might help. It will sure as hell tell me a little more about the planet, and maybe even the colony.

How did they know we were coming? I suddenly find I can’t stop asking myself that single foolish question. What does it matter now? My priority is to contact the Penrose and get off-planet, preferably with my Widow intact. If possible, the Penrose can evac the other Widows, depending on how hot the area is. Maybe the other Widow Battle Group has had better luck and they still have comms. I somehow doubt it—if They knew we were coming, They probably knew the other Battle Group was coming too. But there might be functioning Widows left. I have to get moving. Sitting in the mud isn’t going to get me anywhere.

* * *

This valley is the worst place to be. From above, an attacking force has a clear tactical advantage. Despite this, I have so little power remaining I can’t afford to waste it driving heavy metal up the sodden mountainside. I need to save power for the long climb to the only place I have any hope of a long-range signal getting through the atmospheric interference. I’ve been walking for hours and still the radio signal is being corrupted. I have convinced myself it’s something in the terrain because there is no other explanation.

I cling to the shadows, moving as quickly and quietly as I can. The contours of the landscape have changed. Night has begun to recede as dawn breaks across this hemisphere of the planet. A harsh and wearying sepia light spills from the sky, even though the sun is imprisoned behind a thick pall of ash-coloured cloud. The once-bright hues of the landscape are muted and washed out—the jungle’s green seems more like grey, and the rolling steppes ahead are stained an insipid yellow. The mountains are vast, sprawling waves of lustreless amber, sage and grey that rise up forever on either side of me like the dunes of an endless desert. Craters of snow huddle in the frozen shadows of the crevasses between them. Down here, in the valley, the grass reaches to my knees. Scattered in between are flashes of white flowers that tremble in the wind. The rain continues to fall in sheets, rolling off the armour in rivulets of glistening silver, but I don’t stop.

For the first time since the drop zone ambush, a red mote appears on my sensor array. A single contact, within my combat sphere, picked up by the proximity sensors arranged all over the Widow’s armoured carapace.

Battle systems hum as they kick into life. A series of automated stadiametric targeting reticles vector across my vision, rotating as they hunt for threats. Every servo, gear and mechanical muscle is flooded with energy in anticipation of an engagement.

I back away, seeking cover in a hollow in the rock behind me. The signal is coming from a ridge directly above and across. The sunrise is angled behind the ridges, so I am protected by the shadows cast by the walls of the shallow depression. It’s the only advantage of being down here in the valley.

The signal moves. Not towards me, not down into the valley, but along the ridge.

The purr of my railgun as it cycles comforts me, readying itself, but the knowledge that I have only a few seconds of ammunition fills me with dread. I’m not afraid of dying—I’ve died too many times to feel anything like a fear of death—but I am terrified of failing. If I am caught, the Widows in the marshland drop zone are lost, and we can ill afford to lose so many. I am consumed by a yearning to make it to the second Battle Group. I have convinced myself I can save those machines and help them free those who have been enslaved by the enemy.

It is my only purpose. I must not fail.

The signal disappears.

I wait to see if it is truly gone, if I am still in immediate danger. As I scan the horizon of the ridges which run either side of me, the slender green reticles dart across the rock and ice like insects on carrion. But they flicker and lose focus as they move, and I have to accept that this might be yet more interference. I am more than concerned—if the automated targeting systems are failing, then I may not even be able to see the enemy.

I wait silently, sure there will be more signals; that the first has found me and is telling others.

But there’s nothing.

I know it’s bad judgement, but I decide to make some ground instead of waiting any longer.

I have hardly moved from the hollow when I catch a flash of colour amidst the grass—a subtle glint of orange which stands out against the white and green. Was it there before? How could I not see it? Inexplicably, I am drawn to it and almost without realising, I find myself next to it. I reach down and gently part the grass to see it better. It’s a flower. It captivates me and, for a moment, I can do nothing except stare at it.

Something flickers in the back of my mind. An image I can almost remember, but which remains out of focus. It is familiar—warm, soft, loving. The touch of soft lips on my own. That same flower, a face hidden behind it and framed by long, brown hair which smells of a woman’s perfume and summer coffee beans. Its sudden familiarity chokes me.

I am on my knees before I realise what’s happening. My consciousness is still inside the Widow, but suddenly the pathways through which it surges are twisting and bucking, trying to kick it free. The Widow is suddenly alien to me. It wants me out. I fight to control it—I’ve never seen it react this way before, as though I am a virus and its immune system is gathering to eradicate me.

As suddenly as it began, the Widow stops fighting. Familiar sensations charge through my muscles and I know I am not alone. I was wrong to move prematurely. Whatever the Widow’s problem, it has been overridden. It is now more concerned with the immediate danger it has detected. Dozens of red motes dance on the periphery of my vision, but the targeting reticles are struggling with the interference.

I huddle into the shadows and bring my right arm up. The weapon begins to purr as it cycles again. I tell myself I need to make that few seconds of ammunition count. But for what? What will I achieve except a few more dead in a war where billions have already died? There are dozens of signals all around, lining the ridges which encircle me. I look up and see the familiar flashes of light.

They are here.

The Widow feels cumbersome in my mind. I haven’t passed, because I am not dead. I understand that, but there’s something else happening, something I don’t understand. The Widow is different. It’s been coming, I know—a change I have noticed more and more since I hiked away from the jungle and into this valley. The growing interference messing with the core Visual Combat systems. Coupled with this momentary collapse in our symbiosis—something which is unheard of—the Widow seems more of a stranger to me than it has ever been; even more so than when I first passed into it, weeks ago.

Worse, it is now beginning to feel physically sluggish. I have to work harder to make it respond to my imagined movements—as if it is fighting me.

If this is to be my last stand, the Widow seems as much my enemy as They are.

* * *

The signals surround me, darting along each ridge. The interference is increasing. The Widow is reacting intermittently to my neural commands, as if only some are getting through. As though the pathways are too crowded, and commands are jammed into too narrow a conduit. Or everything is confused because my instincts are conveyed in a newly foreign language.

I’m stumbling more than running; mechanical agility is gone. Now all I care about is putting distance between myself and those massing blood-red motes.

I want to head for higher ground to give myself some sort of tactical advantage. If they attack from above—firing into this cauldron of rock and ice—I will have no way to defend myself. Somehow, I need to force them into a funnel; to make them attack me from only one direction, or at least narrow the field of fire. I need to use the terrain to make that happen. If this is to be my last stand, the only way I can do that is to find a natural feature which prevents an attack from every side, and above. The apex of a couloir, or the top of a valley between ridges or spurs. I have to climb.

Servos are listless and unresponsive, allowing the malaise creeping across the Widow to fester.

I check the long-range transmitter on the Widow again, but still the interference is too great. Suddenly, the unthinkable occurs to me—what happens if I run out of power? I know my consciousness remains with the Widow, locked in a reserve power unit, using minimal power to maintain itself. That power could last for years, but if the suit is destroyed completely, including that tiny reserve unit, and there is no signal off-planet…

Will I die forever? Or will they somehow replicate my consciousness and place me into another Widow? Am I saved? Backed up like some artificial intelligence? A true machine. It has never mattered before—I have never before lost contact.

Suddenly, I wonder who I really am.

I am climbing feverishly now, a new fear burning inside me. My unknown future is a fog concealing a vast abyss beneath my feet, each step taking me closer to an endless, desolate void.

I thought I would welcome true death if it ever came—respite from this relentless war. But now, I am afraid.

I stop dead when I see him.

For a moment, what I see standing there in front of me makes no sense. I cannot move. All I can do is stare.

It’s a boy.

He is no more than a young teenager, perhaps fourteen or fifteen. In his hands he clutches a rifle; a pistol and a knife are tucked into his belt. His heart is beating fast—I can see a holographic representation of it and a list of vital signs scrolling to one side of my vision. He is afraid.

I can see he has radiation sickness, but it has been controlled by medication. Cancerous growths have eaten away at some of his internal organs, but they are not currently spreading. He is malnourished, but otherwise fit.

His dress confuses me. He is clothed in thick wool trousers, boots, a thick jumper and a scarf wrapped around his neck. Over all that is a long coat. All of it is dirty and somewhat ragged; well used, but cared for.

He does not have the appearance of a slave, or a prisoner.

The rifle comes up, but it is far too slow and languid. Even in this state, a Widow is quicker—the neural pathways carry the electrical and chemical signals more swiftly than a human body can and the servos and gears augment the speed of my movements. I reach out and, simultaneously, edge to one side. A metal fist closes around the forestock of the rifle; I feel the vibrations of the bullet as it spirals through the barrel and explodes out of the muzzle at more than a thousand metres per second. It surges past my face, spinning in the air and cutting its deadly path, before it is gone.

I pull easily, ripping the rifle away from him.

I cannot understand why he has fired on me; why he would attack me at all. Across the colonies, Widows are renowned, legendary even. We are all that stands between the human race and its extinction. We are told of Widows’ successes—of missions that have freed thousands, if not tens of thousands, of human lives. These reports add to our own. Whilst their weapons of war are also machines, they look nothing like Widows. This boy should know what I am. All of humanity knows what I am.

Yet he is already scrambling back, reaching for the pistol. Why? my mind screams to me. What are you doing? I am not the enemy!

The pistol is unlikely to penetrate the strongest parts of my armour, but there are weak points in every carapace. I cannot risk failure because of a misunderstanding borne of fear and desperation.

I strike the boy once across the face. It sickens me to do it, but I have to put him down. My fist opens up a gash across his cheekbone and fractures it. The tiny fissures appear in my vision—X-rays of the bone beneath the bloodied skin. He stumbles and falls, head turning away and dropping quickly; his legs crumple beneath him and I know he is unconscious.

What now? My mind is racing. The signals are closing in on me, but I cannot leave this boy behind. It will drain more of my power reserves to carry him—perhaps an extra fifteen percent to haul the sixty kilos over my shoulder. I will move more slowly, and react more sluggishly to threats, with that burden. Yet, I cannot leave him here. Somehow he escaped captivity. Found clothes and weapons—how, I do not know and cannot fathom—but to leave him here would be to erase the success of that defiance, and condemn him either to a very real death, or many more years of servitude. He does not deserve that.

I reach down, gently slip my arm around his waist, and lift him over my shoulder. I know that this action alone might lead to his death, and my failure, but I cannot leave him. I sling the rifle too—if I tear the trigger guard away, I can fire it—and then I run.

The signals are close now, a noose tightening around my neck, and there is only one way through. A small gap in the snare which is closing around me. No—us. I’m not alone anymore, and for a moment I draw some comfort from the human contact and the renewed sense of purpose it brings me. If I can get him to the other Battle Group, then my mission will not have been a failure. Saving even one precious life is a success and now it is all I care about.

A reason not to die.

* * *

The boy stirs and lets out a soft moan. When he wakes, he will struggle. I don’t understand why—what threat he sees in me—but I have to assume he will continue to misunderstand who is now carrying him over a shoulder. I am running as quickly as my power levels will allow, glancing all around me. I want to ensure that no projectile fired at me can hit the boy, so, as I run, I analyse line-of-sight trajectories and shift his weight left and right to minimise the risk he might be hit. It’s a small percentage tactic, but I do it anyway.

I hear him cry out, and I know he’s awake.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I say to him, but the Widow’s voice is hollow and metallic—a device for the communication of words, not emotion or tone as human vocal cords would be capable of. It sounds like a machine, because that’s what it is. There is nothing comforting about it, and I know it might even deepen the boy’s fear.

He shouts again and struggles. I am stronger than he—a bioengineered marriage of servos and gears and armoured alloy—but I have to be careful. I do not have a supercomputer for a brain, and it is possible that I will overcompensate and he will escape. Or I’ll undercompensate and I’ll break a bone or snap a tendon.

So I repeat, despite the empty emotion in the voice, “I am not going to hurt you. There are threats coming for us—they are all around us—and you need to let me concentrate.”

The boy takes in a breath, and I can feel him tense. For a moment, I think he might say something, but he falls silent. The pistol is still in his belt. It could be a threat, to a small extent, were he to reach for it without my knowing. But I am able to feel him moving, and it is pressed against my chest. For now, I doubt he could reach it. The knife is little threat to me. If he attacked me with it as I moved, I could easily stop him before he did any real damage. I need him to be armed when They come. When he sees them, I have to bank on him realising I am not a threat to him.

And that he will need to fight again.

I reach the base of the spur and charge up it. My footing is sure enough, despite the jumbled signals I know the Widow is receiving from me. I have grown accustomed to the new regime in the suit’s neural cortex, and I am reasonably able to compensate for problems as they occur.

The spur steepens, the gradient quickly becoming more like vertical with every step; I know that my momentum will slow, and I will soon have to climb instead. I accept a loss of speed, and shift the boy from my shoulder, dropping him slightly so his chest is against mine. This movement brings his face into my field of vision, and I feel a pang of guilt at the bloodied gash on his check and the swelling around it. His eyes carry only rage and hate, but I cannot understand why.

The first projectile thumps into the joint in my knee, and pain explodes across my neural cortex. I stumble and have to reach out with my free hand, searching for rock to grab onto, otherwise I know I will fall.

A binary waterfall cascades before my eyes—a stream of information updating me on every system: a visual, diagrammatical representation of the damage to the gears and servos on my right knee joint, accompanied by the technical data I would need if I had the time to repair it. But I don’t, so I ignore it and keep climbing. The pain rushes over me in waves, but I have been trained to ignore it. It doesn’t make me feel nauseous as it might have done were I to be in a body of flesh and bone, a human body; instead it is a series of sensory signals which approximate pain, but which I have been trained to filter, to an extent. Any more than that, that is to say dampening the pain, and it would be useless to us. We need to feel it, be alerted to it and not able to ignore it, but not be overwhelmed by it.

I continue to climb as the second projectile hits, this time impacting the shoulder. It strikes a glancing blow and whistles off into the sky, and I can see the damage is superficial.

I scan the flanks of the rock face above me, and the apex of the couloir is not far. With the boy balanced against my shoulder, protected by my body from the projectiles kicking off the rock around us, I cannot return fire. I know that if I try, he might fall. Moreover, I’ll waste time on the climb. Better that I reach the apex, and put him behind me. Then I can turn and fight with the terrain in our favour. When we have some cover, and they will be forced to come and get us.

And I can attack through a narrow field of fire—conserve my ammunition.

Another projectile slams into me, in the back around the location of the spine of the Widow. Unlike a human body, the Widow’s spine is a mechanical entity and well armoured. There are no vital neural pathways in the spine—they are spread throughout the suit’s interior, rather than grouped together in one vulnerable column.

However, the projectile has hit hard, and caused considerable damage to my ability to twist and pivot at the waist. I dampen the pain as much as I can, but climbing becomes harder and slower. I can see the apex now, perhaps fifty metres away. A cornice of snow hangs over it, which will give me minimal but acceptable cover from above. There is a depression in the rock where I can put the boy and still have cover enough to fight from.

Two more projectiles hit before I reach it, and the pain suffuses almost every fibre of the suit. Red alarms flash all over my field of vision and I shunt them aside so I can see what I need to see, but it’s too much. There’s only one choice left.

I mentally shift to the Terminal Emergency Mode. The pain dampens further as a cleansing wave washes over me. The scintillating red warnings subside to duller, smaller throbs to the edge of my vision. We are supposed to use this mode only as a last resort, when we know we’re about to check out. It is intended to ensure we can fight without hindrance, knowing we have very little time left. It won’t last for long—it’s too dangerous to trust a soldier to be able to ignore the warnings of pain. But it might give me an edge.

Like everything else, it doesn’t function as it should, but it’s enough.

I lay the boy down, and read the fear in his eyes. “Stay behind me,” I say. “I’ll protect you as long as I can. When I’m gone, pretend to be dead. I don’t know if it will work, but that’s the only chance you have.”

And suddenly there is only sadness in his eyes. “Don’t fight,” the boy says.

I’m so dumbfounded by the words he utters, I can’t respond. I turn away from him and settle into a stance that will give me stability when I fire.

The first shapes begin to ascend the spurs either side of the couloir. But these are not the familiar hazes I am used to fighting. So much has changed with the Widow, I am hardly surprised. Now, instead, through the dusty, flickering sheen of my vision, I can see actual shapes. I have never been close to one of them before and I wonder if I am about to see what They look like—if the camouflage loses effectiveness up close. Previously, I have killed them only from a distance, and have never encountered one of them close enough to kill them with my hands.

But as they climb, I can see the shapes are not alien. They are as familiar to me as anything could ever be. They are human.

Three of them perch on the edges of the rock around me.

“Shut him down,” I hear one of them say.

I watch through a flickering veil as another taps away at what appears to be a mobile computer terminal. I see some kind of aerial sticking up from it.

Then there is nothing.

* * *

“You can’t move,” a man says to me. His face is gaunt and pockmarked with radiation burns. Where one of his ears should be is a mess of pink scar tissue. He wears wire-rimmed spectacles for his eyes, one arm of which has been duct-taped. They are held in place by a canvas strap. His teeth are yellowed and some are chipped or missing. “We’ve seen to that. But if you try, then I’ll have them shut you down again. Do you understand?”

I don’t, of course; I don’t understand any of this. Those words have jolted me out of a silent darkness. They are the first things I remember since these people came for me on the mountain.

I don’t even know where I am.

But I know I have to cooperate, because I want to understand, and these people must have some answers. So, instead of throwing questions at him, an urge which almost overwhelms me, I simply say, “Yes.”

He’s right too—almost all systems are on standby or shut down. I cannot move at all. But I can see him.

“Do you know what planet you are on?”

“No,” I reply. This is the truth. “We aren’t told much before a drop, in case we’re taken by the enemy. We’re told enough to enable us to fight. I don’t…” I fumble for the right word. “I don’t recognise the landscape of this place. From before the war.” This last part might be a lie. I am not ready to tell him about the flower. I don’t even know if the memory was real, but I cling to it as if it is the only hint I have of who I used to be. Here, like this, it means everything to me.

“This is Sargasso,” he says. “Do you know how many more there are of you?”

There are all sorts of military reasons not to tell him, but I need to win his trust; to convince him that I have no desire to hurt him. “My Battle Group was ambushed in a marsh near the jungle—that was the drop zone. They knew we were coming. I was hit there and I should have passed, but I never did. I can’t make contact with the Penrose. I think the interference is atmospheric.”

I see a twitch at the corners of his mouth that might have been a smile. “The Penrose?” he asks, and then nods, as if the ship is familiar to him. “How many?”

“There were thirty in the Battle Group. The Widows were still lying in the marsh when I left.”

“Who attacked you?”

I am stunned by the question. “Them,” I say. I doubt the mechanical voice coveys my confusion. “They did. Who else?”

Another voice comes from behind me. I cannot see the speaker. It is a feminine voice, barely above a whisper: “He doesn’t know,” she says, and I detect something like triumph in her tone. “None of them know. They don’t understand what is happening to them.”

“We don’t know that yet,” the man snaps, not even looking at her; as if in speaking she has revealed some closely guarded secret. “Quiet, woman, or this cannot work.”

“What is happening to us?” I offer, not wanting to anger him. “What do—”

But the man cuts me off. “Shut him down,” he says.

And I am gone.

* * *

“Are you awake?” The same man. The same position as before. I detect subtle differences in the light, and the hum of the bulb. I don’t know how much time has passed.

“Yes,” I say.

“When you fight…Them…” He almost trips on the word as he searches for it, as though he does not understand it. His reaction confuses me. “What do you see?”

“The same as you,” I reply, growing frustrated. “Their camouflage systems bend light, but you must know that.”

The man turns away and nods to someone out of my vision.

* * *

“Are you awake?”

“You need to stop doing that,” I growl. Although, in reality, I probably don’t growl at all.

There is a different twitch at the corner of the man’s mouth, accompanied by a slight tightening of his expression. “You need to listen to me very carefully,” he says. “The aliens don’t have any camouflage, at least not as you describe it. That’s because you’ve never seen one. If you have, it’s been removed from your memory.”

“We are wasting time—”

“Don’t speak, just listen. This is going to be hard for you to hear.” He pauses and stares at me. He is staring at a machine, I know that, and he cannot see the confusion and fear which is surging through me right now. There is no way to express it across the still, metal features which now contain the essence of me. “You have been fighting alongside them, not against them.”

“You’ve got it wrong…” I don’t understand what he means.

“No,” he replies and something wet glistens in the pits of his eyes. “They hide your targets from your sight through a series of scanning systems which blur them artificially on your internal spectral retinas. They explain this to you by reference to a sophisticated camouflage mechanism. You’re not the first to say that. Do you remember anything of your human life, before?”

“Not much of it.” I choke on the words. “Maybe…snatches. All I remember is fighting inside Widows.”

The man nods his understanding. “Yes, that’s what you call them, right? Widows.”

I don’t want to ask the question which seethes in my mind, but I know I have to. All I want is to avoid the truth, but I know I can’t. “Who have been my targets?”

“Us. The rest of humanity.”

At first, I cannot comprehend the truth of his words, but slowly, inexorably, I realise he is right. It makes perfect sense to me, as though a veil has been pulled away from my eyes. I should have seen it before. How could I have been so blind? The camouflage that hides our real targets; the paltry amount we are told about our objectives when we fight. The dearth of our own human memories and the negligible contact we have with each other outside of battle—so we cannot question what is happening to us. We are the perfect weapons. Desperate and utterly focused, as we fight for what we believe is our very existence. Killing other human beings is what men have done for thousands of years. All our military training and experience has been honed for that purpose. Who better to do it than us, even subconsciously?

And we’re expendable.

Before I can scream, before my mind collapses under the weight of that understanding, the man looks away to someone out of my field of vision, and this time I am thankful for the darkness.

* * *

My body no longer exists. I’m sure of that now. Even if it did, my soul was never to be reunited with it. All that remains of me is contained within this alien prison, constructed from a metal alloy I can’t even identify. I’ve spent most of my life slaughtering the beleaguered remains of my own kind. I am hated by them—a nightmare. There is no punishment that befits my crimes. I cannot claim I was unaware; I should have fought to bring myself to the surface. Instead, as They knew I would, I revelled in my immortality. I lusted for the glory of heroism. I am death, but I cannot die.

* * *

“We don’t know much, of course,” he says once he wakes me again. He studies me as he speaks, as if he searching for an indication of something human—a movement of my armoured body suggestive of an emotional response; a flicker of something in the spectral retinal units which are my eyes, to indicate perhaps a soul. “We don’t know how they transmit the consciousness of those fighting in the armour when they…die. Nor do we know where their bodies are kept. Mostly, it’s been trial and error. Captured technology, reverse-engineering, experimenting with workarounds. Using whatever we can to find out as much as we can.”

“When did you know it was us? Driving the Widows?”

“Quite quickly. People reacted differently to that knowledge. Some were convinced you knew what you were doing—that you had chosen your side deliberately to save yourselves. When we found out more and realised what was happening, it split people. I think many were angry that you didn’t fight to find…yourselves. To realise what it was you were doing.”

I look away from him. I find it strange that They would allow me to feel emotion inside a Widow, and suddenly wish I was even more machine than I am. “Everyone needs someone to blame.”

The man nods. I can see he wants to believe me, but I wonder if he has lost someone to weapons fired by one of my kind. “Until recently,” he says quietly, “we haven’t been able to do much to stop you. But we attacked a compound—months were spent planning it. I can’t tell you much. We don’t know what you might say, if we lose you. We managed to…steal some technology that will assist us. That’s how we can shut down your systems. Not all of them, and not all of the time, but it’s given us an advantage.” He hesitates and looks away from me, and immediately I realise why.

“I understand.” He’s right to be cautious of me. I am still a threat to everyone here. If I am taken, there is no way I can keep any of this from Them. I wonder, in fact, whether any of it is being transmitted somehow right now, but the man must understand my concern, because he speaks quickly.

“There’s no way they can get to you remotely,” he says. “Not now. That part of your system is gone. Now, they would have to come and get you. That’s why we need you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he says. “But you will need to fight again.”

“I have virtually no ammunition left.”

“That won’t be a problem.” He stands and beckons for me to follow him. We walk along tight corridors and I am forced to duck down to avoid phalanxes of pipes and low-slung steel grating. The place has the look of an industrial plant, but my sensors tell me I am underground.

As I walk, people come out to stare at me. Their faces tell different stories: some speak only of hate, others of fear; none welcomes the enemy walking among them. We walk like that until we reach a set of wide doors, guarded by two men with rifles. They level their weapons at me as I approach and, for a moment, I wonder if in fact this is their retribution. That I will need to fight to satisfy some need for justice; for revenge. Perhaps my broken body on a dirt floor is what these people need in order to summon the resolve to fight again. I find myself willing to give it.

Instead, the armed men separate and open the doors. My interrogator beckons me, and I duck down and step into the room. I am perched on a ledge, wide yet still barely enough to hold me, that runs around the circumference of a huge room. In the vast cavern beneath me stand twenty-nine Widows. My Battle Group. Still and silent monsters in the darkness.

“Now, we can change the way we fight back,” the man says quietly.

“Why didn’t you stop the others from passing?”

“That’s what you call it? When they remove your consciousness? You call it passing?”

I shrug, and find it an alien, cumbersome movement. But I have seen others do it and want to appear human. “That’s what They call it.”

“Right. I see.” He nods absently, staring down at the other Widows. “With them, we couldn’t get close enough.”

“So how did you stop me?”

“You came from the jungle. The one you were with passed before we could get in range. You were alone then, and less of a threat. We had more time.”

A question forms in my mind. I am linked to Them—my consciousness is their weapon. Whatever this man tells me puts these people at risk. “Can you continue to stop me?” I ask.

The man stares at me, again searching my armoured face for something. “We can remove the link permanently,” he says finally.

“Then, if I die…”

“You’ll really be dead.”

“Remove it,” I say. “There’s one more thing.”

The man looks at me, waiting.

“Where’s the boy?”

* * *

It must be ridiculous to see this huge, armoured demon hulking over a willowy boy. He doesn’t know what to think; I can see that. His eyes are a conflicted chaos of hate and hope. My kind have been in his nightmares for almost all of his young life—stripping away the layers of humanity for over ten years, leaving behind a bloodied, exhausted mess incapable of fighting yet desperate to survive. Somehow there is resistance—I cannot understand how.

I don’t have any words to express my grief at what I have done, and I doubt he would accept them. I am not sure why I wanted to see him, but I will always remember the defiance written across his face.

He stares at me for a long time, before he hands me a photograph that has become worn at the edges. I look at it: the colours are faded, but I can see a young girl on a swing, the whole of her face released to joy.

“I want you to know,” the boy says quietly, never taking his eyes from mine. “One of your kind killed my sister. She was eight years old.”

I nod. I cannot take my gaze away from the girl’s face. I want to be able to say something, but what can I say? An apology would bring this boy no solace, and I am not even sure I can bring myself to give it. It would feel so hollow and meaningless. I don’t know why he feels he has to show me this—perhaps to force me to share his grief, or to close a circle and give him someone against whom he can focus his anger.

“I want to not blame you,” he continues. “Or even to forgive you. But all I can do is hate you.”

The photograph is steady in my hands because emotion does not translate into a physical reaction as it would in a human body. The agony of this moment does not surface through my stoic metal body. I have never felt more alien. “I understand,” is all I can say.

The boy swallows and nods. “What will you do now?” he asks.

I am still staring at the photograph when I say only this: “Seek retribution.” Fighting is all I’ve ever known. Turning my rage on Them is the only way I can begin to serve my sentence. I know the pain will never recede.

He nods again, and turns away from me, vanishing into the steam behind him. For a while, I watch the yellow light wash my armour, and I wish it were able to take away my sins.

* * *

“This is the compound,” my interrogator explains. Although I know his face—and that likely means that if I am captured They will too—I want to know as little else about him, or others, as possible. I never ask him his name, and I only deal with him. He shows me our objective on a wide, curved screen set up in a large room containing only us. I know others are listening to our conversation. When we go in, I will not be alone.

“There are tanks and heavy artillery. All mechanised and fully automated. Driven by sentient artificial intelligence. Without you…” he pauses and looks at me. “We couldn’t hit the place and not take substantial casualties. Too many to make the operation viable.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Create a distraction,” he says. “Ensure their machines are focused on you, rather than the small team which will infiltrate the compound. Take out as many as you can.”

“I guess it’s up to me how I do that?”

The twitch, that ephemeral half-smile, appears and is gone. “Of course. We will signal you when the team is out and you can use whatever means at your disposal to escape.”

I don’t want to know what it is his team seeks, but there is one thing I do want. “The boy stays here,” I say.

My interrogator stares at me, then shakes his head. “We don’t have the resources for that kind of sentimentality,” he says, his eyes scanning my empty face. “We have all lost someone to men like you—there are plenty of collaborators. The boy is not unique in that. Everyone has a part to play now. We all have to fight.”

I turn to him and loom over his small, fragile frame. I don’t want to threaten him, but I will. “He will distract me. It’s a tactical mistake.” I wait there for a moment, allowing my physical presence to sink in, then I turn away. “I’m not going to say it again. It’s your choice.”

He doesn’t want to agree, I can see that. His heart rate is elevated, and sweat gathers on his temples. His face flushes hot. He doesn’t like being told what to do by someone like me—a collaborator. However, I know he understands, which is why he eventually agrees. He needs me.

We discuss the attack for nearly three hours, going over every detail intricately. He is clever and resourceful, and has designed every nuance of the assault to ensure as many of his people get out alive as possible. I am examining the maps one last time when he asks me: “What do they tell you? About the attack and what the colonies are like now?”

I explain what we are told—about the surprise attacks on our networked computer systems, and the warheads launched on our cities, and about what little I know about the Widows—and he nods as he listens, but otherwise his face is strangely expressionless. When I have finished, he tilts his head slightly, and he blinks a few times before he speaks again.

“It isn’t like that everywhere,” he says. “Not every colony was nuked. Destroying us wasn’t their objective. I think the picture They painted was intended to control you, to make you fight—to put your back against the wall.”

He stares again at the maps laid out in front of us and, for a little while, he is silent. When he speaks again, it is quietly and deliberately. I can detect the tremor in his voice, the edge to his words. He is trying to prevent emotion from overwhelming him. “Their objective was always to annex the human race—to dominate us, and to acquire our territory and resources. Some of the colonies were destroyed by thermonuclear attacks, this one for example, but most were not. What’s left of humanity—far more than you have been led to believe—is now governed by Them. We were offered a place in their caste system. We have become part of Their empire and must follow Their laws. Those who are able try to continue with their lives as well as they can. Most have been enslaved and put to work. Others collaborate and receive their favour. All of us are, in truth, prisoners.”

“But yours is a path of resistance. That was your choice.”

He looks at me as if he cannot understand my meaning. My words make no sense to him. “Humanity should be free,” he replies.

“Can They be defeated?”

“Does it matter?”

“Everything you do impacts on the rest of humanity.”

“There are reprisals for our actions, yes.”

I say nothing. I have been fighting an unwinnable war for a long time, and I have died a thousand times doing it. Yet, the war I was fighting was different—I stood between humanity and its extermination. But is it better to live a life of subjugation, even enslavement, rather than face extinction?

He wants to say more, but something prevents him. He does not trust me; it’s more than hate for the murders committed by my kind. He’s right not to. Even I don’t know what link there might be between my own thoughts and the Penrose, or wherever it is I have been all this time. There is more to their resistance than I know. More than I want to know. More to this world which is unfolding behind me, out of sight.

So I focus my rage in the only place I know I can.

* * *

We have to travel on foot, which means the hike to our insertion points takes several hours. I could move more quickly and, as we get closer, I will; the plan is for me to attack from the opposite side, to distract. Breaking away from the main team will give me the opportunity to scout the terrain and examine the compound. I have seen holographic diagrams and images, so its physical layout will be nothing new, but seeing the reality is always different.

I examine the men and women around me as we move. Most studiously avoid looking at me, set to one side from them as I am, but some cannot prevent themselves from throwing me looks filled with enmity. They don’t want to be fighting alongside me, but they know they cannot win this particular battle without my help. Some are young, some are old. All carry the scars of war on their weathered faces. I see no fear there, but their beating hearts betray the anxiety they are all feeling. Blood vessels are contracting, redirecting the flow to the heart, lungs and muscles. Airways dilate to allow more oxygen into the lungs. Glucose production is increasing. Their bodies know what is coming.

They are better equipped than I expected. Each carries an adaptive combat railgun with under-slung grenade-launchers—smaller, modular versions of my own weapons—as well as bandoliers of grenades. I wonder for a while how they came to be in possession of military hardware, then push those thoughts from my mind.

I have forced myself not to consider the truth as told to me by my interrogator. I cannot say it does not matter to me, because of course it does, but it is not essential to the task ahead. Memories of my past life have always eluded me, and I was always glad they did because they could only serve to take away my focus. The same can be said now of the truth of the war I am fighting—the future of humanity. What is happening on other colonies is irrelevant, I tell myself. There is only one battle at this moment—the one I face right now.

They have five minutes in the compound. My interrogator set the time. If they haven’t found what they need by then, they leave. I don’t know what it is; I don’t want to know.

* * *

I reach my own insertion point, ahead of them reaching theirs by around ten minutes. I hunker down and scan the compound from a high ridge. My low-light optical systems give me vision as good as daylight, and magnify the images I’m seeing. A high fence is charged with electricity. Inside, a dozen low buildings, some bigger than others. At one end sits a phalanx of what look like tanks—sleek, dark armoured monsters, resting silently, each with a single long turret from which a host of gun barrels extend. A small dome sits on top, probably housing communications and scanning equipment. Vents project from either side of that wide, black hull. These beasts are an obvious objective. As soon as I enter the compound and start shooting, they’ll wake up and take me down. I might as well hit them first.

A clutch of red motes eventually appear on the periphery of my vision and I know the time has come. The swell of emotional energy in my consciousness is overwhelming. It is a jarring experience—a human reaction to combat which is, for want of any other way to explain it, alien to me. I am afraid, yet charged. I know if I die here then there will be no awakening. My life, such as it was, is over. If I die here, the men and women behind me, readying themselves across the ridge for the most important battle of their lives, will almost certainly lose their lives with me. I have died a thousand times and fought more battles than I can remember. Each of them, the sum of all those experiences, will subconsciously drive every move I make.

I will not fail.

I launch ten grenades high into the night sky on a looping trajectory which, compensating for the wind, will take them right into the tanks and heavy artillery.

Then I run.

The first grenade hits as I reach the perimeter of the compound and break through the fence. The explosion floods the compound with an incandescent white brilliance for a half-second, then vanishes. The armour on the tank it strikes buckles, but it takes a second grenade in the same place to breach it.

At that moment, the other tanks begin to stir. An energy field ripples across them and, as the rest of the grenades come down and the explosions rock the ground beneath my feet, they lift. There is an electromagnetic disturbance beneath them which appears on my retinal imaging as a shimmering, pulsing haze. The turrets on these smooth, armoured beasts whine as they rotate, searching for their enemy. On the other side of the compound, there are twenty men and women who fit that description.

My purpose is to give the tanks just one.

I sprint towards them, the last of the explosions still unfurling as I channel everything I have into the Widow’s legs and jump. I land on the turret of one of the tanks and slam one great fist into the armour, down by the edge of the curvature of the unit.

It yields with the force of the blow, contorting into a twisted dent. I hammer my fist down again and again until the curve of the turret is so warped it stops turning. I jam a grenade into the gap between the turret and the hull.

A proximity alarm screams in my ears and rushes across my field of vision. I jump away as a super-heated torrent of plasma strikes the turret. I am in mid-air when that first tank explodes. Its armour was weakened by the grenades, maybe even my blow; the plasma just finished the job. The force of the detonation punches me violently upwards, and my Widow spins and convulses in the air as it is tossed away like a rag doll. I ignore the cascade of pain that floods my senses as much as I can, but still it stuns me.

I land heavily, not ready for the hit.

In the second-and-a-half it takes me to recover, the other tanks are already gliding like sharks through the compound, kicking up a violent storm of dirt beneath them. The air around the vents shimmers as excess heat is expelled into the night. I have no doubt they have picked up the signals cast by the human fighters. I open fire on one to drag its attention back towards me. The first quarter-second sees a dozen railgun rounds punch into the armour and ricochet away; the next sees the armour contort slightly beneath the onslaught, but hold firm.

The turret turns first, followed by the tank itself as it slowly pivots in place to bring more of its weapons to bear.

I am up and running, keeping the Widow’s automated targeting reticles locked onto the tank’s hull. All I need to do is weaken the armour enough for a grenade to be effective when it hits that weak point.

I don’t stop firing. Steam hisses from the railguns as their cooling systems fight to dissipate the searing heat.

It takes a full second for the turret to find its prey. Me.

Again, the sensors scream and I know I am about to get hit.

I launch two grenades in that half-second before I have to move.

The jet of plasma burns the air as it surges past me. I’ve left it too late; I’m too slow. It clips my shoulder, fusing armour and alien componentry together. The force of it spins me away and I struggle to remain on my feet, but fail.

I hit the ground hard and force myself to roll. Again I have to block out the pain and I know the time will soon come to engage the Terminal Emergency Mode.

The grenades explode behind me.

I come up and spin, guns firing again, but the tank is shuddering. There is a tear in the armour—not much, but it’s enough. The haze beneath it is flickering as though it isn’t functioning smoothly. A pearl of electricity crackles inside.

I concentrate everything I have on the dark space within the tear. Through the swarming smoke, I can see the other tanks slipping away like ghosts. I have to get to them. There is a short cut.

I turn to the nearest building and kick down the door. It buckles under my weight and I charge through it. Truth is, I’m not interested in what’s inside, except to find an exit and cut off the tanks. I have my mission, and all I care about is occupying the enemy’s machines. It doesn’t matter what they are doing in here. That’s someone else’s priority.

Only, it does matter. It matters a great deal.

Inside the building, there are rows and rows of computerised terminals that I do not recognise or understand. Huge mechanical arms hang from the ceiling, interwoven with pistons and hoses. They end in a variety of claws and pincers. There are walls lined with what I think must be tools, although they are unknown to me. Against one wall are a series of chambers with wires and hoses leading away and disappearing into the ceiling.

Inside each is a Widow.

My sensors scream an alert and I don’t have time to consider the ramifications of what I have seen. On the other side of that wall is a tank. If I’ve located it, I have to assume the sensors in that dome on top of the turret have picked me up too. The wall between us won’t protect me.

The door in the other side will come out in front of the tank. I sprint towards it, drop my shoulder. Momentum carries me up to the door and through it, almost as if it weren’t even there. I drop into a roll and pivot. Both railguns are aimed at the tank and firing before I even realise it. Spears of plasma scorch the air and buildings around me as I slide. But I have a new plan—a weakness I’ve seen in the armour. Not much of one, because to exploit it, I need to get underneath. To get to the vents, I need to be right up close.

I hammer through the door of the building next to the tank. The walls explode with shards of concrete and brick as heavy rounds punch through. I’m kicked back by the chaos and I duck down low as it surges over the top of me. This is the only cover I have, but I don’t need to be in here for long. I know what the tank is trying to do; in fact I am banking on it. Banking on the fact it has been watching the way I fight and is trying to predict what I will do next. The human part of me that is left—what I might once have called guile—is my best weapon now.

There’s a door at the other end, about the right distance. I pop a grenade and aim it just next to the door. It explodes, tearing the steel frame apart and kicking the door, contorted, into the street. Heavy rounds blister the air around it and surge through the broken doorway. But I’m not there to be hit. Instead, I’m sprinting through the first door, behind the tank, dropping low, sliding beneath it in the mud and rain. I launch grenade after grenade at those vents and some of them even go in. But it’s too late to stop the slide. I look away as the tank explodes.

The armoured beast sinks to the ground and I try to roll away, but can’t get my left arm out before it collapses onto it. The pain nearly overwhelms me. I engage the Terminal Emergency Mode and dampen every nuance of it I can. The effect is almost instant: artificial and inhuman. Another reminder of what I really am. I try to get the arm out, but the weight of this armoured titan is too much and I cannot lift it.

As I struggle, through a small gap between the hull and the ground, and amidst the billowing plumes of smoke, I see the boy.

He is on his back, scrambling backwards, trying to bring his railgun up. His face is contorted into a rictus of fear and fury, all focused on something out of my field of vision.

On my sensors, there is a single tank headed towards him.

My interrogator lied to me. Of course, what did I expect? I should be furious, but all I can think about is preventing a conclusion to this mission which involves the boy’s broken, bloodied body lying in the mud alongside others.

I scream inside my head, channelling everything I have into my efforts to move the tank’s vast bulk even a little, but it’s too heavy. I jerk my body away hard, again and again, but cannot free myself. I consider digging but the ground is too hard. There is only one way.

I allow myself to access the image of the small girl on the swing, his sister. I take comfort in her beaming smile. Then I bring my right arm over and level the railgun against my left. I turn away—ricochets might conceivably damage my retinal systems, or maybe I can’t watch as I know even the terminal emergency mode won’t dampen this—and I open fire.

The pain is beyond me, made worse by the knowledge there is no coming back from this amputation—no fresh Widow to take away the loss. Sensory data explodes across my vision, angry warnings I can do nothing about. I pull myself away, sick and reeling; I am unsteady, as if I am skating on slick ice.

There is no time for self-pity. You deserve this. The boy does not.

I turn and run hard, pumping round after round into the tank surging towards him. I want to hit it with grenades, anything that might kick through the hull, but I know it will be a waste; that the armour will turn them away without something more.

The boy sees me coming. He keeps firing.

There is no way I can stop the tank firing on him. No way to disable or destroy it before the plasma tears his fragile body into two. I launch into a dive.

I hit him hard, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

I curl him up in my one good arm and allow the momentum of my run, and the weight of the Widow, to do the rest.

We roll for maybe thirty metres, but I keep my arm rigid around him like a cage. There’s no doubt it will hurt him, but it might be enough to save his life.

A cluster of sensors tell me the plasma has struck about the area where the kidneys might be in the human body. They also tell me that dozens of systems in that area have shut down and that my right leg is receiving intermittent signals from the main neural pathways. I can hardly walk, let alone run.

I stumble, half-carrying, half-dragging the boy and head for the cover of one the compound’s low buildings. I know the tank will reach us in seconds.

I throw him down and lean against the wall, trying to formulate a plan.

The clock reads four minutes, eight seconds. Less than a minute and they’re out.

There is only one play left.

I glance down at the boy and wish, in that moment, he could see my face, instead of the demon from his nightmares. But he can’t. “Go now,” I say. “I’ll get you the window you need to escape.”

He knows they can’t make it out without this; he knows I am not coming. I allow myself to believe I can see something approaching forgiveness in his eyes.

I lift the bandolier of grenades from his shoulder, and turn away from him. I slam a reload into my remaining railgun as I turn the corner and open fire.

It was never my intention to escape. As I listened to my interrogator, I could not help but analyse what he was saying and what that meant for the war. When They had finished their bombardment, they occupied what was left of our colonies because we were easily subjugated. Most colonies have been annexed and are now governed by Them, and what is left of humanity exists at Their whim and within Their prison of night.

But the resistance has been able to attack heavily guarded compounds and surgically remove precisely what it needs to control Widows. They were able to disable and attack my Battle Group in the drop zone. They knew we were coming. Their weaponry, even though it is a scarce resource to them, is military in origin. Now, this last raid might begin to turn the tide in the war.

There is only one way the resistance could have obtained all that information and materiel: they have informants in positions of considerable responsibility. If I know this, and if I am captured, then so will They.

There is only one way to protect that information.

I was once an immortal weapon of war, but now I can finally find peace in death. A permanent sleep from which I will never wake—and no more will die by my hand. I have found my retribution. I have given humanity the tools to free itself.

In my mind, I can see an orange flower, moving gently in the breeze as the darkness comes.

I am death.

Yet finally, I am gone.

Nicolette Barischoff

Pirate Songs

Originally published by The Future Fire in the anthology Accessing the Future

* * *

The floater turned out to be one of those shiny, sky island multi-deck passenger deals that would occasionally completely lose its shit in the middle of a jump.

This one would have been alright—various backup systems humming away, fifty or sixty first-colony licensed pilots determined to discover just what went wrong—had it not jumped straight into something else. Probably a garbage scow; there were a lot of garbage scows this far out. Now, the ship just drifted, listing and rolling like a fat, pretty corpse.

The Dustpan’s crew all had their faces flat against the port windows, eyeing it like a bunch of dogs with tongues out. That was the only reason Rumer had let them go salvage. You pass up a big, beautiful floater like that, you never get your men to do anything useful ever again.

We don’t got the time or space to pull her apart, he’d told them. No scrapping. Get yourselves something small and shiny and get back.

For the most part, they’d listened, filling up their suit-packs with the sorts of little things you always find on a floating hotel like that; alcohol in expensive-looking bottles, VR games with an obscene number of attachments, the palm and wrist PCs that were only considered valuable out here where nobody could afford them. Bottles and needles from a well-stocked sick bay, cards, cash, the turtles out of an elaborate terrarium…Kell, the mutinous asshole, had tried to haul back two of those sultry-voiced concierge kiosks, and a broken servitor droid.

Rumer wasn’t sure which of them had brought back the girl.

She looked to be about fifteen, but to Rumer Pilgrim, anybody not born and raised out of New Pelican looked young.

She didn’t have to be conscious to tell you she was far from home, either Earth or first colonies…German, Canadian, American, some single-nation settlement; she was that same kind of glass-house pretty. Well fed, with pale, untouched, swany skin, and a long, long waterfall of hair that somebody brushed out for her every morning, and a pale pink mouth that looked like it was used to pouting. When her eyes did flicker open for a split-second at a time, he could see they were a pale and brittle green.

The crew crowded around that narrow infirmary bunk for a full day and a half. Diallo, a skinny kid from the pan-Africas with half a field medic’s education and a permanent shit-eating grin, actually left the pilot’s chair to bandage her head wound. And Kell, his lecherous one-eyed bulldog of a first mate, seemed to think he was going to wake her by flicking her nipples.

“Haven’t even seen one like her in a while,” he said, rubbing his scrap glass eye, a sort of endearing nervous tick once you got to know him. “Kind of forgot they made ‘em like this.”

“With two eyes and two whole titties?” said Diallo. “Not every woman’s like your New Pelican dock-workers, Kell. Back up, man, an’ stop gettin’ in the light. This one’s never seen anything ugly as you.”

Kell grinned. “I’m sure she’ll just love that child-fucker smile you got.”

Rumer ignored their dick-swinging. “Who brought her?” he asked.

Diallo shrugged. “She was the only thing alive on that boat, Captain, her and that mess o’ turtles.”

Rumer frowned. “Bad time to have a hitchhiker, you forget that already? What’re you thinking we’re gonna do with her when we have to make our drop?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Kell, “you ask me, we shouldn’t have the stuff in the first place.”

“Right. But I didn’t ask you, and we do have the stuff, and we’re going to have to make a drop before much else happens.”

“You mean before the shit’s no damn good to anybody, or before big Papa Kang figures out who took it and sends a team after us? Because I can guarantee you that second thing’s already happened.”

“I’m thinking, Captain,” said Diallo, making the sort of diplomatic silencing gesture that made Rumer like him, “she is very far from home. She might help. With carrying, with distribution. In exchange for passage, you know.”

Rumer cocked his head. Nodded.

“It’s useful to have someone who looks like her, where we are going, what we are doing. People trust someone who looks like that. Nice pretty white face. They’ll take it from her. No need to tell her where it comes from.”

“So she plays little White Mother for us, we put her down wherever she wants, she goes on home having gratefully agreed to tell nobody, and everybody’s happy and still alive, is that it?”

Diallo grinned wide and white. “She won’t even have a ship’s name to tell her mother.”

“It might work,” said Rumer. “If we don’t run into any transit police or any Peacekeeping Officers she feels like chatting to.”

“Why would she talk to any Blueberries?” asked Diallo, “why leave the ship at all? We are just some nice men of varying degrees of handsomeness taking her to port.”

Kell laughed at that, his loud bulldog bark. “I’ll agree with that! Why leave the ship at all? Hell, I’ll teach her to have fun sittin’ in one spot.”

“You’ll wait ‘til she’s awake, you ugly fuck,” said Rumer. “If she don’t immediately bite your balls off and run screaming from your very presence.”

Kell laughed again, louder and longer. Rumer turned to Diallo.

“She’ll get her ride, but she’ll have to work. You think you can get her to work?”

Diallo paused. The girl’s green eyes flickered open. And she sat up.

Or rather, she tried to sit up, squirming strangely for several minutes before going limp, and saying, in a slightly strained voice: “Could one of you please help me up?”

Nobody moved for a second. Diallo took her by the arm, and when that proved insufficient, grabbed her by the armpits, and propped her against the corner. Her feet were bare, and her legs dangled off the edge of the bunk, limp and pale. “Thank you,” she said.

Diallo answered with a nod.

The girl looked around her, not exactly frightened. Not exactly. But looking a little like she’d been thrown into an icy gray lake, and was just now bringing her head up out of the water to discover which of them had done it to her. “Who…What…happened? Where is this?”

Rumer thought it best to let her have it all at once. “I am the more-or-less captain, Rumer Pilgrim, and you are currently a passenger aboard my ship, this streamlined and classically engineered cargo vessel you see before you.”

“Why…?”

“Well, young lady, because your own is presently floating through deep space like a chunk of particularly metal-rich frozen shit. Now, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t really care to. But you’ve got to know that we’ve gone pretty well out of our way to pick you up. Now, I didn’t mind doing it, and you’re welcome. We’ll drop you off soon as we’re able, anyplace you want to be, so long as it’s not a place where people are likely to get up in our business. But before that happens…what?”

The girl was shaking her head, green eyes dry. “The ship, I was just…how did…?” She blinked, touched her head bandage, and suddenly settled on a question. “Your name’s Rumer Pilgrim?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s your real name?”

Rumer frowned. “Never had another.”

There was the smallest flick of a smile on that pink mouth. “So your name is actually ‘Pilgrim, Pilgrim’.”

“No.” Rumer Pilgrim looked at her with narrower eyes than he intended. “No, and I can’t say I know what you’re playing at.”

The girl’s smile widened the littlest bit. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Young lady, if you’d rather not ride with us…”

“No, no. It’s fine. Thank you…Thank you.”

Rumer nodded.

She let out a somewhat shuddering breath of air. She looked around. “Sorry…can I have my chair, please? Where did you put my chair?”

Rumer blinked. Blinked again. “What chair?”

* * *

Margo had been busy hiding when the crash occurred.

She was trying to find a way to get lost and freeze to death inside the “Antarctic Exploration” levels of the ship’s educational Ages of Earth VR. You never could get really lost, of course. Margo knew that. Even the game’s wrong turns and avalanches and blinding snowstorms were all part of a network of programmed paths with beginnings, middles and ends.

But on the outgoing flight, a kid who’d been angling to get a ride in her chair had tried to convince her that if you wandered far away enough from all the computer-generated explorers and the Prince Charles Mountains and the penguins, ignoring the game’s copious temperature warnings and the automatic chattering of your teeth, the VR would give you a slow and dramatic “death” on the spectacularly shimmering ice.

She’d read everything interesting on the ship’s library terminal, and at least half-watched all the films available in the tiny holo-theater, and the VR terminals were the only other place the servitors couldn’t follow her.

It had been a full two weeks of dodging the servitors. Everywhere, the servitors.

Margo had brought one droid for the return journey from Polis. Her mother had supplied the ship with the other ten. One to three of them were always hovering nearby, chirpy little orbs of plastic and metal that went into fits of attentiveness every time their sensors detected movement: “Hello. Do you need assistance? What would you like to do? Please repeat what you would like to do. If you don’t know what you would like to do, I can make suggestions. The time is now 12:30. Are you hungry? If you’d like, I can access the network to tell you what is currently available in the kitchen…”

It had been her mother’s idea of Margo “traveling alone.” Most of the swarm even had the U.N. Sky logo painted on them, just in case anyone was not aware they were handling a diplomat’s daughter. Every corridor she went down, every room she entered, her mother’s re-appropriated machines followed, causing nearly everybody to give her and the chair an artificially wide berth.

It was exactly like she was nine years old again, the only kid in her UN-run classroom flanked by droids that were programmed to answer her questions, and pick up things she let fall, and keep her schedule, and re-purify her water, and silently alert the teacher if she, Margo, wet herself.

And so, fifteen-year-old Margo had regressed a bit, sending the servitors to run baths or make sandwiches or compile obscure information she didn’t want. Luring them into closets and cupboards and password-protecting the doors. She’d even managed to send a servitor sailing into a wall of its own accord, which she hadn’t done in years.

And hiding. Lots of hiding. The nice thing about servitors is that if you tell them you want to spend all remaining 10 hours of the journey harassing allosauruses in the Jurassic United States, or deliberately trying to freeze to death in early 20th century Antarctica, they don’t ask you if you’d rather be doing something more constructive with your time.

It was probably being all strapped in to the VR system that saved her life. She didn’t feel the crash. She didn’t hear or see the crash. Her only thought as everything around her went blinding white, was that something interesting was finally happening in her game.

And when she opened her eyes next, what she saw was the factory-made steel ceiling of the dirtiest, dankest little room she’d ever been in.

* * *

She wouldn’t stop talking about the chair, even after Rumer told her they hadn’t picked anything like that up. “Are you sure? Are you sure? It has a call function, it’ll come right to me.” Like she thought they’d find it tucked away in the corner of the cargo bay if they just looked hard enough.

When, after about a half hour, the girl was convinced they were not hiding the damn thing from her, she seemed to think they were going back for it. Even Kell’s outright laugh did not cure her of that delusion. “How long was I out?” she asked. “It didn’t feel like that long. It couldn’t possibly be that big a jump from here to there.”

“You were out for more than a day,” said Rumer. “And we don’t jump, much as that might surprise you.”

“What do you mean?” Such confusion in that voice, and a little bit of rancor, too. Rumer supposed that’s how it was with first-colony girls. Kell saved him from having to answer.

“This ship don’t jump, coochie, she’s just an old dustpan ramjet. She’s got no drive.”

“What do you use a ship without a drive for?” the girl asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, you’re shittin’ me,” muttered Kell.

“Nothing has drive out here, young lady. Nobody can afford it,” said Rumer Pilgrim, and then off her open stare, “around here, we just stay close to home, and make sure that our most valued possessions don’t end up somewhere where we can’t get to ‘em in a hurry.”

The girl squirmed on the bunk, looked around for Diallo. Not finding him, she looked to the floor, gauging the distance. “I have spina bifida,” she said, tightly. “That means I’m missing spine.”

“Missing spine,” repeated Rumer. Kell caught his eye.

“So, you can probably guess I don’t really get around too well without that chair,” Then, after a pause, “There are people in my life who would kind of freak out if they knew I was without it.”

Kell laughed again, baldly. Jesus, the little bitch was actually making threats, or at least toying with the idea. She wasn’t practiced enough at it to know to be specific.

“I am sorry about that,” said Rumer. “You’ll all just have to work that out, won’t you, amongst yourselves. Listen, now. What did you say your name was?”

She hadn’t. “Margo,” she said, now.

“Just Margo?”

The girl’s lips pinched together. She looked warily at Kell. “For now,” she said.

Rumer couldn’t help smiling a little. “Okay. Margo. Listen now, Margo. Even were I to feel such an inclination, and I don’t, to track a free-floating ship through space would take days we don’t have and don’t want. Now, we’ve got our own rather time-sensitive business to see to, which you have interrupted…” Rumer put up a finger to stop her speaking, “So you’ll want to keep your head down and let us finish with that, and then we’ll see about dropping you at a port when we can get to one. And as I said before, you’re welcome.”

The brittle green eyes blinked.

“Now, where is it you’d like to be just now? Floor? I’m afraid it’s the floor or the infirmary bunk, until we can find you a free hammock.”

She nodded. He picked her up and sat her on the floor. She sat there with her legs oddly tucked under her, and watched the men (his sweaty, scarred and hardened crew) file out and go back to work. All except Kell, who stood there alternately scratching ass and eye. “How far out are we?” she asked suddenly.

“Far out?”

“Of major colonized space. Of UN space.”

Kell barked. “Coochie, you are right smack in the middle of UN space. There’s Peacekeeping Officers all over this vacuum…” Rumer passed him a look, and he shut his mouth.

Margo’s brow furrowed uncertainly, and she looked at the deeply rusted gray of the ship around her, at Kell’s cloudy piece of scrap glass, as though prepared to contradict. “You can just drop me at a station, then,” she said, finally.

“Can I, now?”

“The officers will know who I am,” she said.

Rumer watched Kell watch her drag herself from the room, legs out, across the factory steel floor. With effort, she turned herself around in the doorway. “Do I have a room?” she asked.

“Anywhere where there’s no one to kick you out.”

Margo nodded, the flick of a smile reappearing. “Anyone going to literally kick me?”

“If they do, you lay yourself out flat. Mess is in an hour if you want it.”

The girl drew herself up, recoiling a little. “I can wait. I’ll wait until a station.” And she dragged herself away.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Kell said, “fuckin’ shit.”

* * *

Margo did manage to find a long, rusted metal cupboard in a large utility closet that none of the crew was yet sleeping in. With two of the synthetic wool blankets and three very fibrous pillows, it was almost a bedroom. There was even a steel door that slid noisily open and closed, and made a locking sound when you hit the right button.

Not that the door did her much good. The men (the ones who weren’t afraid of her) still went in and out like the closet was wide open. For the first couple of days, they bothered with pretext, coming in to fish around amongst the jumbles of cord, and replacement switches, and lengths of as-yet un-rusted wire. But that didn’t last long.

There came a period of relative privacy after Captain Pilgrim Pilgrim picked a man to guard the door, and told the worst offenders to stop being quite so pervy, or expect double-shifts. That didn’t last long either.

Now almost every one of them, including the man supposedly assigned to the door, came in at least twice a day to have a good, grinning gape at whatever she was doing. When that got boring, they’d try to get her to talk.

“You ever get freaky in that chair you miss so much? Is it good for that?”

“There’s buttons on it I’ve never pushed.”

“So it could be good for that.”

“We’ll never know.”

“You feel anything down there?”

“I feel enough.”

“You ever been with a man who’s sewed back on his own arm?”

“No.”

“Would you like to?”

“Not especially. Can you sew other things, or just your arm?”

Margo wasn’t bothered, she decided, since being bothered never seemed to do very much. Nobody else on this ship went behind a door to strip their rank clothes off, or smell their own belches, or scratch their ass-cracks. Why should she?

At any rate, she’d learned pretty quickly to stop asking for things. The one time she’d asked about the number of servitors on board, they had laughed for what seemed like an hour. “People who use those servitors get to love them a little too much,” Pilgrim Pilgrim had said, “embrace your liberation.”

“I’ve never loved them,” said Margo, “I grew up with swarms of them, it drove me fucking nuts. I used to send them smashing into walls just to see if I could do it.”

“I believe you,” he said, in a way that told her that wasn’t the right thing to say to someone like him.

And when she’d asked where the toilets were, he’d gone into another dark narrow, metal closet where he lifted up the false floor to reveal the dark, deep, seatless hole.

“How do I use that?” she’d asked, a little pale.

“How did you sit the toilet in that big, fancy cruiser before it broke?” he asked.

“It had a seat-back, and armrests, and a fall-guard. And…I usually have droids.”

“Same general principle,” he’d said in an absolutely unbearable voice, “squat, let loose, and get well out the way before you flush.”

(She did end up doing it, a full hour and ten minutes later, squatted on all fours with her dress up over her head, one leg on either side of the hole. She felt marvelously defiant, even as she emerged to a round of sarcastic applause from the crew.)

Margo had fully intended to keep to her closet-room as much as possible until they’d come to a UN Sky station. But whenever she asked Diallo, the grinning pilot, how close he thought the nearest one was, he would call her a little dictator and offer her some of his reconstituted soup (the sort of lumped up stuff that poor people ate before there were food labs). Also, Pilgrim Pilgrim and his one-eyed first mate seemed to be much more comfortable when she stayed put, and Margo didn’t see any reason to make them comfortable.

So, she dragged herself all around that filthy, rusted-out ramjet, seeing what she could see.

They were hiding something. Margo had figured out that much. They were carrying something—in the cargo bay, maybe elsewhere too—that they didn’t want found. There were a few too many halted conversations to ignore. A few too many badly suppressed glances in her direction.

Not that they were afraid of her finding it, necessarily. Even if they’d known who she was, she doubted it would mean anything to most of them. Most stepped right around her and carried on with their work when she crawled by, looking down to grin at her only when she called out cheerfully to keep from being stepped on.

But Kell and Captain Pilgrim had guessed something about her. The captain would straighten when he saw her, and ask her if there were any particular reason she needed to be there, wherever there happened to be. And Kell, whenever he came on her by accident, usually turned directly around and walked in the opposite direction.

“You don’t let it bother you,” Diallo had tried to tell her. “You must excuse a degenerate like Kell. Raised on a prison colony, the American kind. No hope of learning good manners, no experience with women. His mother was not a very successful prostitute.”

Margo smirked. “How can you be raised in a prison colony?”

Diallo shrugged. “Perhaps his mother was also a less than successful terrorist. I can’t claim to know.”

Margo studied his smile a moment. “But there are no prison colonies anymore.”

“No?”

“Not in UN space,” she said, sounding like a teacher even to herself. “The Security Council ruled a long time ago that abandoning prisoners on far-world correctional colonies constitutes inhumane punishment. The ruling was just upheld again the year I was born. It’s illegal.”

Diallo smiled, or at least showed his teeth. “That is comforting to know. Thank you.”

“It’s true.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“That’s the whole point of UN Sky. To make sure stuff like that doesn’t happen.”

Diallo was silent for a moment, and then said, with irritating slowness. “As you say. It does seem to me that people will always discover a place to put away the things they do not want, so that they don’t come back again. But I’ve never been very clever with names.”

Later, while she lay in her bunk trying to think of all the things criminals would not want UN Peacekeepers to find in their cargo bay (nukes, sonics, VX gas, high-power low-precision lasers?), Margo could not help thinking about Kell’s glass eye.

People without eye donors had biomechanical eyes. They had microchipped acrylic ones. At the very least, Margo had always thought, they had those plastic boxy pieces that you had to keep a cap on at night to block out images while you slept.

When you were Kell, on a faraway colony, and you knocked your eye out, what had to go wrong, what had to break down, before you fashioned your own out of whatever you could find, and carried on?

“Someone’s taken an interest in us,” was the first thing Diallo said when Rumer came on to the bridge.

“Peacekeepers, or the Kang family fun squad? Or both?”

“It’s difficult to say. She’s not marked. And she is keeping her distance.”

“Blueberries,” said Kell, “gotta be. You’ve heard that bitch talk. She knows somebody.”

Rumer ignored him. “Can you signal-cloak us?”

“I have done, of course,” said Diallo, “but I cannot do it long, and eventually she finds us. Very quietly persistent.”

“Keep on it ‘til you shake her. She don’t want us that bad, or she’d be on us already. We make our drop, even if we gotta pour it down there like manna.”

Diallo nodded, and bent over his joysticks.

“About that,” said Kell, rubbing his eye.

“About that,” said Rumer.

“What’re you thinking you’re gonna do with her? Our hitchhiker, I mean?”

Rumer shrugged. “I don’t know as I have a whole lot of options. We take her with us far as we can, drop her at the first opportunity, and hope she has the good sense not to talk to anybody.”

“You don’t mean you’re still gonna take her on the drop?” Kell looked entertainingly uncomfortable. “Jesus, Rumer, she’s not…she can’t even…plus, you heard her, she’s dyin’ to talk to the police. She thinks police are like…service dogs, or somethin’.”

“Don’t shit yourself, soldier. We drop her at Black Oven before anything else happens. It’s backworld enough no one’s going to care why we’re there, and she can go about her business, and we about ours.”

“Pretty outta our way, isn’t it, Black Oven?”

“Everything’s out of our way. What do you suggest?”

Kell shifted a little. “Hey, I’d just like to remind you, but we got about two tons a’ very perishable cargo down there, and there’s some very angry Koreans want it back. This was your idea, this thing. I wanted to do something small, something normal that’d make us a little fuckin’ money. You’re the one who wanted to go all Wyatt Earp Robin Hood…”

“What do suggest, Kell?”

“Well,” Kell hesitated. “Well, have you thought maybe we just…maybe we just get rid a’ her?”

“How the hell you want to do that?”

“I don’t know, man…”

“Yeah, you do, asshole.”

“Look, she woulda’ been dead anyway if we hadn’t picked her up, that’s all I’m tryin’ to say. Just, in the interest of the cargo. I’m not saying exactly we should, you know…”

“What are you saying, exactly, you fuckin’ moron?”

“I’m saying, you know, maybe, we put her in one of the shuttles, with some food, if you want, and we just…” Kell mimed the dustpan’s tiny shuttle drifting harmlessly away into space.

Rumer smirked, despite himself. “I thought you wanted to fuck her.”

Kell recoiled like he was standing too close to a serial kiddie-diddler. “She’s in a chair, man, don’t even joke. That’s some sick shit.”

Rumer rolled his eyes. “Turn the temp down in cargo and head for Black Oven,” he said to Diallo, “she’s clever enough to catch her own ride from there, I expect.”

* * *

Margo wasn’t going to let them continue to have their muttering, panicked, poorly-buried talks around her as though she didn’t understand what they meant. From now on, she would be where they were. If they wanted to continue having conversations about their secret black hole machine, or whatever, they’d have to do it while she was in the room.

That was Margo’s reasoning for finally joining them at dinner.

They had boiled the turtles, neatly diced, in four tins of reconstituted cream of tomato soup. Chin-Hae, the ship’s cook, who was alternately sipping beer out of his prosthetic leg and adding it to the pot, looked up grinning when she appeared. Margo hadn’t known that anyone still ate turtles. But then, until this voyage, she hadn’t known there were spaceships that couldn’t leave immediate space, or people who replaced their vital members with removable plastic and bottle-glass.

The mess turned out to be two long metal tables bolted to the floor. The men crowded around them on one-footed metal benches and passed stories and sloshing carafes of beer. Every one of them had scars they bragged about, and for the first time, Margo wondered whether this was because they really took any pride in them, or because they lacked the technology to remove and forget them.

Pilgrim Pilgrim looked up at her. “Come to eat, or just watch?” he asked.

“Eat.”

“Waitin’ on the servitors?”

“No,” though Margo realized as she said it, that she had been.

The captain tossed her down a thick wooden bowl. “Queue up and get yourself some turtle surprise, before this mess of rapists and degenerates eats it all.”

Margo paused, then dragged herself to the back of the line forming in front of Chin-Hae’s pot. When it was her turn, Chin-Hae winked at her, a little drunkenly, and filled her bowl to the brim, tilting in a little extra beer from the bottom of his leg.

He intended this as a kindness, she was sure, but it meant that she had to make her way to the tables pushing along a wildly sloshing bowl of oily turtle meat. The whole crew watched, apparently entertained, while she left a splash trail. Margo stopped at the benches. “You’re gonna want to help me up,” she said.

“Sure a’ that, are you?” said Kell.

“Pretty sure,” she said, evenly.

No one moved, so Margo proceeded to get up onto the bench herself. She couldn’t put weight onto her legs, but if she lunged forward violently enough, the one-footed bench rocked, no matter who was sitting on it. If she did that enough times, eventually the drunkest lost his balance; the man who’d sewed his own arm back on fell straight backwards, which made everyone laugh too hard. “All right, all right…” He picked her up under the armpits and stuck her in his own seat. “Christ, you’re a shit.”

Diallo cut Margo a thick slice of very brown bread for her soup. Rumer Pilgrim poured her a cup from the carafe, and raised his own, almost imperceptibly. Margo flattened the smile on her lips.

Before long, Chin-Hae brought out a very motor-oil looking whiskey, and some apples and pears in tin cups, roasted without cinnamon or sugar. “Enjoy these, gentlemen,” said Pilgrim, frowning at the fruit, and Chin-Hae. “They’re the only ones you’re like to get out of the bunch.”

“We’re damn well going to have some,” said Kell, “they cost us enough.”

“Why?” asked Margo.

“‘Scuse me?”

“Why would you pay for apples? What kind are they?”

No one answered her. “Are they rare, or something? They look like lab apples.” The fruit was just exactly like the smallish, slightly underripe specimens that came out of every food lab in every corner of every galaxy in UN space.

The captain paused, then said, eyes on Kell, “That could be considered rare enough for some folks.”

Margo knew a little history. “Sure, but…not anymore, though. People don’t pay for stuff like that anymore.”

“Stuff like what, do you suppose?”

“Like, fruit, or grains, or simple proteins. That’s the whole point of food labs. You’re always replicating, so there’s no food shortages, and nobody has to pay.”

Pilgrim nodded. “Well, that’s a cracker-jack idea if I ever heard one.”

“It’s part of the rules of compliance for a colony’s admission to the UN.” That terrible, smug, teachery voice, again. Margo couldn’t seem to help herself.

The captain took a swig of his whiskey. “But it only works long as everybody plays by the rules, long as nobody takes more’n they need.”

Margo nodded, conceding.

“So, to your knowledge, who runs these food labs? Who maintains them? Who stops people takin’ more than they need?”

“There’s…private companies,” said Margo, “they’re vetted by the UN.”

“Family companies?”

“Sometimes.”

“And so what stops a real powerful company, a real powerful family from…gettin’ creative? Say they start to decide for themselves who needs what. Say they start thinking they’d like to bring a little money back into it, or they’d like to put a limit on, I don’t know, milk, for certain families with too many kids? You could keep a whole solar-system full of folks currying your sweet favor, if you went about it the right way.”

“That would never be allowed to happen,” said Margo.

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t! Because there’s audits of compliance. There’s officers who come and make sure you’re following all the rules.”

“And how well do those work out here, do you think?”

“How well do they work?”

“You think they work well here in our dark neck of the woods? I’m just asking.”

“I don’t know.” Margo’s voice was way too tight in her throat. “I don’t know where we are.”

Rumer Pilgrim nodded. “Alright. Do you think every man always does exactly the job he’s supposed to, even when there’s no one to watch him do it, even when he’s far from home, in place he can’t stand?”

“Are you talking about Peacekeeping Officers?”

“I’m just talking about men. There’s a lot of men sent to do their jobs in the very deep dark of space where nothing thrives and no sound travels. How easy you think it would be for our family—this very powerful hypothetical family we’re talking of—to have a few such men in their pocket?”

“Somebody would say something,” asserted Margo, more loudly than she meant to. “Somebody would alert Sky headquarters.”

“They might,” said the captain levelly, “if they had any idea how to go about it. And if they didn’t mind a slow kind ‘a death. Starving’s slower than just about anything, you know. Your body holds on like a muther, eating away at all your fat, and then all your muscle…”

Margo stared at him, her stomach pitching with understanding she didn’t want. “What are you hiding in the cargo bay?” she blurted. “Who’s looking for it?”

Pilgrim paused, opened his mouth. Margo didn’t want to give him the chance to lie. “My name is Margo Glass. I’m Helena Glass’s daughter. I’m the daughter of a UN Security Council member, you stupid motherfuckers! If somebody’s breaking the law, if they’re starving people, you have to tell me. Understand? You have to tell me!”

“Young lady,” said the captain, but didn’t say anything more.

“Say it!” Margo was suddenly snarling. “Say what you’ve got in the cargo bay!”

But of course, Margo could never really cow anyone, no matter how loud she shouted. It was easy, infuriatingly easy, for Pilgrim to pick her up, throw her into her cupboard, shut the door, and walk away.

* * *

Rumer let the air out of his chest, and felt himself sag. Kell looked at his captain with a cloud in his glass eye. “You still think we can carry this girl all the way to Black Oven? Look, I can’t speak for you, but I’m not prepared to die spoon-feeding a bunch of sad, sorry motherfuckers we’ve never even met, and I’m certainly not prepared to go to some new kind a’ interstellar prison because some UN Security cunt decides we kidnapped her whelp.”

Rumer couldn’t find anything to say, so he said nothing.

“We need to let her float, now, Rumer. We need to stick her inside the shuttle, give her some oatmeal and quick-bread, and let her float. And then we need to drop what we’re carrying quick as we can, and go back to doing somethin’ we know how to do.” Kell rubbed, and rubbed and rubbed the glass. “C’mon, man…I…we just can’t do what you’re tryin’ to do. We’re not built for it. Men like us don’t fix the shit-holes of this world, Rumer. We’re just…we’re a load a’ pirates.”

Rumer nodded heavily. “You are right about that,” he said. “I can’t think of what you’d call us but a load of damn, dirty pirates.”

There was a silence, during which Rumer wondered whether it would be possible to pre-program a route for the shuttle so that it would take her straight to Black Oven. That way, if her food and oxygen held out…and if nobody too bad picked her up when she got there…

That was when Diallo came in, not grinning. “We have company, Captain,” he said. “They appear to have finally made a decision about us. They want to board.”

It was a long, slow nightmare run to the bridge. And then Rumer looked on one of the biggest U.N. squadron ships he had ever seen. Still a ways off, it swallowed up the whole screen like a big, blue open-mouthed whale. “How do they keep finding us? What are they locking onto?”

“I do not know,” said Diallo, “I have picked off every signal I could find.”

“I think…I know.”

Rumer turned. The girl sat in the doorway of the bridge. She was out of breath. Her knees were bloodied. She must have dragged herself from the stern-end utility closet to the bridge, all the way across that steel floor. “Are these them?” she asked, “are these the kind of officers you’re talking about, who are working for…for somebody?”

Rumer jerked his head. “Any particular reason why you’re in here, Miss Glass?”

“I know what’s going on.”

“I’ll bet you do. You’re very clever at that. But if you wouldn’t mind headin’ back to your little room just now…”

“I know why the squad ship’s here. I know why they found us.”

Rumer stiffened, blinked. “Say what you mean, girl.”

The girl swallowed. “I have…a chip.”

“A chip?”

“I’m chipped. In case anything bad ever happens to me when I’m…it emits this low-level signal all the time, so people can find where I am.”

Rumer glared at her, this pretty, pale girl he once thought too fragile to live, his eyeballs hot. “And this was something you chose not to share with us?”

“‘Course not. She’s got friends who’d pat her head like a good little bitch-hound if she helps land people like us in prison,” said Kell. The way he looked at her even alarmed Rumer, angry as he was.

“Jesus.” Rumer pressed his palms into his eyes. “Well, you’ve certainly fucked us, kid, if that’s what you meant to do. I’d throw you straight out the air-lock if I thought it would do us any good, you hear me?”

Her green eyes looked frantic for the first time since he’d known her. “No!…I mean, I’m sorry, it’s just, it’s not something I really think about.”

“Not something you really think about? Is there anything you really think about?”

The girl got angry at that. “My parents made me get it when I was eight, okay? I didn’t even know what it was supposed to do. It was just something that happened to me, like everything else in my fucking life. For God’s sake, if I really wanted all of you to go down on all kinds of charges…but I don’t!” She took a long overdue breath. “I don’t.”

“That’s comforting,” said Rumer. “You can tell them what perfect gentlemen we’ve been while they’re thundering all over our cargo bay gathering up our stolen goods to return them to people we won’t be able to get police protection from.”

“It wasn’t meant to be comforting, asshole.”

Rumer let out air. “What would you have me do, girl? What is it you’d like to do?”

“I want to help,” said Margo. The eyes blazed bright, now, not brittle at all. “Let me help.”

* * *

It wasn’t a very good plan, Margo knew. It would have been a better one if they’d roughed her up a bit first, or cut off her pinky toe like she’d suggested (“It grows all wrong, anyway. And it’s not like I’m using it.”) But even Kell had been too pussy to do it. She hoped the dustpan looked like a horrible enough place that it would still be believable. It was too late to reconsider.

The com-link connected on the third try, and the other ship picked up.

“You are speaking to a representative of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force. Please identify yourself.”

Rumer was ready with the apple sack over his head. “I am what you might call an independent profiteer looking to do some business. If you would, please inform Secretary Glass that we have her precious little daughter, and are interested in discussing the terms under which she may be returned in one piece.”

The man on the other end paused, and went pale. “One moment. Don’t do anything. One moment.”

“Don’t take too long, now.”

The man disappeared for what seemed like a very long time. Margo wiggled against her ropes so that at the very least her wrists would have rope marks on them.

The man reappeared. “We need to see her before anything can be discussed.”

“You know we have her,” said Rumer. “She’s got a chip. We found it. Would you like to learn how?”

The man set his mouth, calmly obstinate. “If you want to move forward, put her on the com, and let me speak to her.”

“Assholes,” Margo muttered. “I could be dying right now.” But she whipped up some shuddering breaths and let Rumer throw her against the terminal.

“Please!” she screamed. “Please it’s me! Tell my mother it’s me!” She didn’t know the man on the com, and she hoped he knew her only by sight.

“Calm down. Calm down, now. You’re going to be all right. Who are these men? What are they doing to you?”

Rumer piped in loudly. “Wrong question, G-man.” Margo winced as though he’d tightened the ropes.

“I don’t know who they are, they never take off the sacks,” said Margo, feeling the blood pound in her ears. “They boarded our ship, and they…everyone…so they took a bunch of stuff, and they took me. They want money. That’s all they want, and then they’ll let me go. Tell my mom…seventy-five thousand. In credits. Tell her.”

“Alright,” said the man. “Alright, we’ll tell her, Miss, stay calm. We’re doing everything we can.” The man shifted to try to get another look at Rumer, just out of frame, and then disappeared.

“We should’ve asked for more,” muttered Kell.

“You should’ve roughed me up,” said Margo.

“Shut up, children,” said Rumer.

The com crackled in the silence, picking up no conversation on the other end.

“He’s not goin’ for it.” Kell rubbed his eye. “We should’ve asked for a lot more. No one lets a piece like her go for under ninety thousand.”

“Oh, they’ll round it up to a nice even hundred for us when they put it to the secretary.” Rumer didn’t take his eyes from the screen. “They wouldn’t go for this if they couldn’t take something off the top.”

“And this way, they’ll think it was their idea,” said Margo proudly.

Kell scowled at her.

The man on the com returned. “We’ve spoken to Secretary Glass. She’ll pay. Clear your bridge. We’ll send someone over shortly to make the trade.”

Margo swallowed the bile in her throat. “NO!…no, you can’t. If you send someone over here, they’ll kill me! I don’t want to die, please, don’t make me die!” It surprised her how easily the whimpering came from her throat.

“Calm down, Miss. Miss? Please calm down.” The man seemed more rattled by her hysterics than by the situation itself. “What does he want us to do?”

“You have to send the credits directly using the ship’s AT, and then they’ll send me in the shuttle. That’s what he says. Just do what he says. Please!”

Then the com-link cut out, and the screen went blank.

“What happened?” asked Margo.

“Backworld machinery,” said Rumer.

“Did he even hear the last thing I said?”

“Who knows?”

They were all silent, listening for sounds of being boarded, for the click-snap of metal weapons and the thunder of boots.

“I’m gonna throw up,” said Margo airlessly.

“Do me a favor,” said Rumer, “save it ‘til they come for me.”

And then there was a disused buzzer that sounded, somewhere, a quick “ping,” short and loud. Everyone turned.

“Credits,” said Diallo. He aimed his grin at Margo.

Margo laughed a sob.

There were no goodbyes, exactly. Just nervous half-slaps and grumbles. Kell rubbed his eye at her an absurd number of times.

It was the captain who strapped her in.

“Well, that’s just about it,” said Pilgrim Pilgrim. “Gone over all the controls?”

“I’ll figure it out,” she said.

“You got your story straight? What you’re gonna tell them?”

“I have a few stories to tell them.”

“They’re not gonna want to hear ‘em all.”

“That’s my problem, not yours. Go deliver what you have to deliver, let me get off this ugly ass ship, for the love of God.”

She knew she’d made Rumer laugh, though she didn’t stay to listen to it. Instead, Margo darted off into the black, and prepared for what she would do when she landed. She’d have to give up the true tale soon enough, tell people there had been no kidnapping, that she was perfectly well.

First, though, she would have a servitor run a bath, and actually get in it.

Follow Me Down

Originally published by Unlikely Story in their issue The Journal of Unlikely Academia

* * *

The night that Kora Gillespie, their Incubus Parvulus, was born, it was Bernadette who received the emergency house call to the walk-up in Washington Heights.

Ramona knew that she should never have come with her. They both knew it. But Ramona had been giddy with courage, full of imaginary clinical detachment, and Bernadette had been in too fierce a hurry to object when she tagged along behind.

There had been no discussion of what she would see when she got there.

At nineteen, a second-year student with hands that still shook, and eyes that still glistened when a mother began to crown, Ramona stood in the choking summer darkness and watched the Cambion emerge.

She would never forget how Ms. Gillespie screamed into the silence, screamed and screamed and screamed. Her screams were thin and high, without grunts, without pauses for breath, coming out wild and alien over Bernadette’s impossibly steady voice: “Calm, now. Breathe for me, now, child. You breathe…”

But there was no making her breathe. The woman’s back formed a perfect arch of terror and pain with every contraction, as she pulled away instead of pushed. And every time a contraction left her, she fell back to trying to wriggle out of the bed—as though she could leave behind the thing emerging from her body—making lakes of inky amniotic fluid on the floor as she collapsed, and was dragged back. “We fight the fear, dear, yes that’s what we do.”

As Ms. Gillespie crowned, Ramona clasped the woman’s hands to stop her tearing at her belly. With terror-clouded eyes, the woman begged them to take it from her, now, please, now. NOW. And then she went into an arch that folded her in half, screaming and beating her head against the headboard until she bled. She seemed unconscious when the baby finally spurted from her in a pool of black blood.

But when Bernadette brought it to her, wrapped in a clean pale cotton blanket, she came awake again. Like the middle of a nightmare, she shrieked a suffocated shriek toward the ceiling, arms flying up as though the baby’s father were there on top of her, suckers fast attached (and still, long years later, whenever Ramona had the nightmares, her brain seemed to insert the creature seamlessly, as though she could never quite believe it hadn’t been there, watching).

Ms. Gillespie sat upright, still screaming, and threw the blood-black sheet over the baby’s face. Before Bernadette could stop her, she leapt free of the bed and tore out of the window, her womb still raw and open. Whether she climbed or fell down the fire escape, Ramona never saw.

Bernadette moved quickly. She never seemed to encounter anything she did not expect. She took up the Cambion, tightened its swaddling, jiggled it a little to stop its soundless crying, and passed it to Ramona like a parcel. “Hold her steady,” she said, business-like, “the girls like steady hands.” Even back then, Bernadette only ever spoke to Ramona in essential facts. In requirements, as though that was all there was.

And then, with a sigh of annoyance, she gripped her Saint Raymond medal, crossed herself in a quick prayer, and hurried down the fire escape after her patient. And Ramona was left sick and shaking, holding what Ms. Gillespie had birthed.

Later, safely back within the towers of the Morningside Heights campus of the New York College of Theogony and Preternatural Obstetrics, the thing squirming hotly in her arms would feel no different from a baby.

It was a baby, as far as Ramona could tell, eyes shut tight against a new, bright, cold world. So cruelly ordinary a thing. It smelled like a baby. It made a baby’s faces and spit bubbles. It shivered like a baby; Ramona held it closer to her chest, and it rooted, just as if it had a right to find a nipple.

The girl was, she supposed, exactly as parasitic and insensible to others’ pain as most babies tended to be. Only, her screaming was easier to ignore, if you wanted to, for being soundless. Even after Ms. Gillespie was found a full day later, naked and babbling in a storm-drain, Ramona could not find anything particularly un-babylike about the one who drove her there.

But then, Ramona could never really bring herself to look at it straight on.

* * *

“Davie, you have to come fast if you want to see the selkie babies get born!” Kora called, and listened for the slap of the seal-boy’s hands and feet behind her.

Kora would have brought Davie along just to see him walk. Usually the little webbed feet carried him upright in delicate, almost sneaking steps. But whenever he tried to move quickly, he threw himself down on all fours and flop-crawled, beating the ground to death with his front flippers. His slaps and barks made the best kind of echoes off the College’s sharp, spire-y towers.

If he wouldn’t cry and tell everybody, Kora would have brought him down into the tunnels, just to see what kind of echoes he could make. But he was only four. It had taken her this long to convince him to cross the wall and the tiny grove of linden trees that separated the Seminary from all the good places. Now that they were through, he stopped his flopping every few feet to look doubtfully around.

He was going to make her miss Ramona’s whole class. And she couldn’t leave him because he couldn’t find his way back, and somebody would find out and be mad. Besides, she wanted Ramona to see that she’d brought him with her. “Come on, Davie, she’s going to be done soon. They’re all going to be born without you. We have to go faster than this!”

“I don’t want to go faster,” complained Davie, “I don’t want to run away from home.”

“You’re not running away from home,” Kora told him, “Theogony is part of your home.” She didn’t stop walking. It was the middle of May (the spires above them stabbed like fishbones into a clear blue sky), but it was too cold for her to stand still. It was usually too cold for her to stand still.

“But I live at the Seminary…”

“You live in Morningside Heights, don’t you?”

“Yeah…”

“Well,” she said, reasonably, looking around, “all these big buildings are in Morningside Heights. And the all the Columbia buildings, too, and the Teacher’s College, and Barnard College…and Grant’s Tomb. You remember I said how big Grant’s Tomb is?”

Davie nodded, his pretty black eyes wide.

“So you see, you can’t really leave home, because it’s all your home.” She thought quickly, changing tones. “Anyway, I live everywhere. I just go around to all the places, and everyone knows me, and I do whatever I want.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Davie, but his eyes didn’t shrink, and he was following.

“I stay here at night all the time,” she said truthfully, though she didn’t mention where, or how. “I might as well live here, anyway, it’s where I’m going when I grow up. Everyone says. I’m not going to be adopted…”

“Why not?”

“I’m just not, everyone says. I’m going to grow up and go to school at the College and learn to help Superum babies like Ramona. That’s how come I get to go around and look in all the windows…there’s the Swan building. Hurry up, before someone sees us.”

The Swan building’s sides were full of long pointed windows, which meant that it had nice, deep window-ledges. Kora had to climb quite a few of the trees along the walk (hauling Davie up after her, since he couldn’t climb at all) before she found the one that looked into Ramona’s classroom. But she found her, in one of the small rooms at the end, doing Something Interesting.

Ramona was always doing something interesting. Today she had her arms up to her elbows in a tub full of water, her slim, careful hands swirling and rolling the water against the sides without sloshing. Then, she took her arms from the tub, droplets of water still shining on her arm-hairs, to write something important on the board. The soft brown hair piled on top of her head wobbled a little, and she pressed her lips together, tight and careful and serious.

“What’s she doing?” asked Davie. Kora had let him have the ledge so he would see better.

“Demonstrating,” she guessed authoritatively. She could see almost everything from the right tree branch, anyhow. She leaned a little harder on the branch so Ramona would see her in the window when she looked up, and not just Davie.

“Where’s the babies like me?” asked Davie.

“In there,” Kora answered vaguely.

“Where?”

“Somewhere…” Ramona took a long time writing her important things on the board.

“I don’t believe you.”

Kora leaned hard as she could on the branch so it tapped the window. She did it again. Ramona didn’t look up.

“I don’t believe you,” Davie said again.

Kora leaned out as far as she could, face toward the glass, and rapped her knuckles on the window. Ramona turned from the board and went right back to her tub of water. She did not look up.

“I don’t see them,” asserted Davie with finality.

“Pay attention!” Kora told him sharply, “This is important for you to learn. Put your face up against the glass.”

Davie smooshed his face against the windowpane. It made him look funnier than she thought it would. “Put your tongue out a little,” she said, and Davie did.

“She’s not looking,” said Kora, scowling. “You have to rattle the window. Hit the window. Just a little bit.”

Davie brought his flippers down against the window, surprised by the deep, ringing complaint it made. Davie grinned.

Kora grinned, too, but then pressed her mouth into a careful, serious line, like a teacher’s. “Harder,” she said.

* * *

Ramona’s classroom window had bowed and broken with a long, unsudden, shuddering groan, a slow-motion fissure meandering up through the two-hundred-year-old leaded pane.

But she hadn’t thought it would until it did. That was the truth. Ramona wished she could say that without sounding so much like Kora herself, sullen and culpable.

But she and the Cambion girl both slouched under Dean Sophie’s raised eyebrows, her not-quite-frowns. And Bernadette…well, Bernadette’s sterner faces always made explanations feel flimsy and insufficient. And today, the beautifully dark face of the Haitian ex-nun seemed particularly uncompromising.

Across the room, someone had made the mistake of seating Kora in a chair that swiveled, and she now swung around and around as wildly as the pivot would allow. Her victim and partner-in-crime was kept from sobbing only by the absolute puzzle of trying to spear a straw into a juice-box with his flippers. So the Dean’s questions fell on Ramona.

“How long, do you think, were they out there unsupervised?” She asked the question dryly while rifling through her desk, as though it wasn’t an accusation.

Ramona pinched her lips together. “I have no way of knowing…she goes everywhere.”

A small smile hovered on Dean Sophie’s mouth. “Yes. We’re all aware of her little adventures in the underworld. We’ll discuss those in a moment.”

So there was to be a discussion, then. Ramona shifted in her seat. “I can’t really tell you what she does down there. I don’t know anything about it.”

“No. I don’t expect you would,” said the Dean, dismissively, “we’re not even entirely sure which entry-point she’s using.” The girl spun on, showing no signs she knew her secret was being talked about. At least, Ramona thought, with a look over at the poor seal-boy squirting juice down his front, Kora hadn’t dragged this one down into the steam-tunnels.

Dean Sophie continued, eyebrows high. “What I’m asking is, how long were they at the window? How much time had elapsed before you…‘noticed’ Miss Gillespie outside your classroom, unsupervised, with a very young child?”

Unsupervised! Of course Kora had been unsupervised! She was a campus rat, a hurricane. When was she ever anything but unsupervised! As to the young child, well…she always seemed to find one to follow her into chaos when she wanted one.

Ramona searched to find a tone of voice that was adult and undefensive. “I was lecturing. I was in the middle of a lab.”

“Well, of course. But…you didn’t hear the pounding? People in surrounding classrooms seem to think it was going on for some time.”

“I had no reason to think they were capable of breaking the window.”

“Yes, so you’ve said. You didn’t feel it necessary to go out and see to them at all?”

Bernadette lifted patient eyebrows. Dean Sophie leaned over her desk expectantly. Did Ramona really need to explain? Did she really have to tell them that this was exactly the sort of thing the Cambion girl lived for, to create enough of a disturbance that someone somewhere would fly into an entertaining rage and drag her back to her schoolbooks?

“My students are behind on the selkie birthing material. We’ve only just started the MacRitchie treatise on preparing natal salt-baths…”

(At this, Kora whispered something in the seal-boy’s ear, and began to spin her chair so flamboyantly that its pivot screamed, until Bernadette clamped a firm hand on the back of it.)

“I am aware that you have obligations, Ramona. I’m not asking you to neglect them,” said the Dean, “but this is not the first class of yours our Miss Gillespie has disturbed, is it?”

“It certainly is not,” said Bernadette, before Ramona could answer. “The Seminary finds her lurking at least once a day.”

Ramona gave an unsurprised snort. The Union Theological Seminary next door took in as many of the ancient College’s orphans as it could. The place was full up with halflings, sweet little half-selkies, and half-fauns, and half-swan maidens, but it was just too idealistically Christian an institution to effectively keep anything that didn’t really want to be kept.

The Dean ignored the snort. “It would seem she seeks out your classes with a certain amount of regularity. Any idea why that might be?”

“I don’t know!” Ramona threw up her hands before she could catch herself. “Who knows why she does anything she does, or breaks anything she breaks? She’s bored, and malicious, and nobody tells her not to.”

“‘Salus pro totus creatura prognatus,’” Dean Sophie apparently felt the need to remind her. “I think you understand, and I hope you’ll remember, that at Theogony we are not interested only in the welfare of those Superum children presently being born, or the human mothers presently giving birth to them.” She turned to Kora. “There’s a reason for every behavior. Isn’t there, Miss Gillespie? Miss Gillespie?”

Kora, who had been trying enthusiastically to tilt her chair now that she found it unspin-able, went suddenly still when the Dean addressed her.

Kora Gillespie’s face was exactly a seven-year-old girl’s face, and not a striking one; there were no horns pushing up through the pale hair. The pupils of the pale, browless, puddle-gray eyes were almost disappointingly round and human.

But it was always unsettling to Ramona how quickly Kora could pull back from manic bursts of fiercely determined activity, to sit in almost unblinking silence.

And then there was a kind of fluttering smirk that never really left her mouth when she was silent, that made her face look not much like a seven-year-old’s at all.

“Can you tell me the reason you told Davie to bang on Ms. Ramona’s window?” the Dean asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t think you meant for him to break it, did you?”

“No…I don’t know.”

These were the same answers she’d given Ramona half an hour earlier, the smirk fluttering even as she stared sullenly at the floor. What more was the Dean hoping to get out of her?

“I think you do know a little bit. He wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t tell him to. What were you trying to do?”

Davie began to weep again, and was removed to the hall.

Kora’s gaze shifted around the room for a long moment, and then she suddenly decided to answer. “I wanted Ramona to show him how he was born,” she said.

Dean Sophie looked sideways at Ramona. “Is that all?”

“He’s too stupid to listen when I read it to him out of the book.”

Ramona blinked. So Kora had been pawing through textbooks already. Whose, Ramona wondered? “But Kora, you know I don’t birth babies in the classroom,” she said, “I’ve discussed that with you before. We allow women to give birth to babies in their houses.”

Kora went silent again.

“I think, Ramona,” said Dean Sophie, “that you were correct in your assessment that Miss Gillespie requires more stimulation than she has at present.”

Ramona tried to remember when she had made such an assessment. Some terrible punishment for the broken window was forthcoming.

The Dean came out from behind her desk to swing the axe. “How would it be, I wonder, if she were to sit in on some of your classes?”

Ramona’s mouth fell open.

“It would be the natural place for her. We’ve known for years that she would most likely enroll in the College when she grew older.”

“When she’s older,” said Ramona hoarsely. “I can’t imagine that she’d be anything but a distraction at this…age. I don’t think it would be fair to the students.”

“The students will need to experience what it’s like to be in close contact with Superum children someday. They can’t go into birthing a demi-god completely blind.”

“Kora Gillespie is not a demi-god.”

The Dean nodded, though not relentingly. “I know she’s a challenging presence, Ramona. I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it would be beneficial to all concerned. Do you know how valuable a little time spent with you would be to her? You could completely re-direct her energies. You’ve been with us longer than any other student, Ramona. Is it any wonder she wants to learn from you?”

Now Ramona understood. As the resident hanger-on, she was to keep the Cambion out of the bowels of the campus, and out of the way of anyone who actually meant to do anything useful.

“What about my dissertation, my program design? How am I going to get my fieldwork done?” She looked at Bernadette. Surely her own advisor would remember that she was a grad student.

“Well, as to fieldwork,” said Dean Sophie, also directing herself to Bernadette, “I wouldn’t be surprised if this experience proved immensely valuable wherever you chose to set up your practice.”

Bernadette nodded. “You must not refuse any opportunity of learning, my dear. It is all fieldwork.”

“Good,” said the Dean, as though the thing were settled, which Ramona supposed it was. “I’m glad we’re in agreement. Let’s see what we can do about getting a child’s desk.”

The Dean addressed Kora, who was now grinning ear to ear. “Alright, Miss Gillespie, you may go out into the hall now, and wait to be taken back to class.”

Kora removed herself to a few feet outside the door without making a sound.

Dean Sophie lowered her voice. “Thank you, Ramona, I know that an instructor’s time is valuable.”

“Fortunately, I’m only a TA.”

“There is something else I’d like you to get to the bottom of, if you can,” said Dean Sophie in a now-that-you-mention-it tone. “The Seminary’s apparently having trouble with books. If it were only textbooks that were missing…but there seem to be pages torn from some fairly irreplaceable reference materials. From Burke Library and some other places. Nobody seems to know how she manages to keep doing it.”

The Dean went over to her desk and retrieved a list, a very long list, of titles and missing page numbers. First on the list were three random pages pulled from Malleus Maleficarum. “If you could just find out where she’s keeping them…I don’t think anybody wants anything but to have the pages restored as quickly as possible.”

“She could have just decided she wanted to make a bonfire of them,” said Ramona, “or that she wanted to see what old paper tastes like.”

“I think not,” said Dean Sophie. “Have a look at the list.”

“What makes you think she’ll tell me if I ask her?”

“Oh, she probably won’t. I wouldn’t ask her if I were you. But…she does seem to be looking for an excuse to talk to you. Use that.”

Out in the hall, Bernadette’s manner took on an extra briskness. “Where has the child gone?” Kora had apparently disappeared, leaving Davie Darby to suck forlornly at the dregs of his juice box.

“She’s probably just ducked around the corner.”

Bernadette took Davie’s flipper. “You go and get her before she thinks to take apart the fire alarm,” she said, leading the seal-boy away at a marching pace. Ramona hurried alongside her.

“I was wondering,” she said, trying out the Dean’s now-that-you-mention-it voice, “if you’ve had the chance to look at my new abstract?”

“What new abstract?”

“I left it in your box. The proposal regarding the increase of Leda/Europa births in Sant Ramon?”

“That sounds very interesting,” said Bernadette tonelessly. “I will certainly look at it.”

“There’s an incredible amount of work to be done over there,” Ramona continued. “Abduction pregnancies are always complicated, and when you’re dealing with animal forms…I just think that if somebody were to set up a practice there, it would do a lot of good.”

“No doubt,” said Bernadette, and sped up her gait. “I will certainly look at it. Hurry on, now. Miss Gillespie should return to her lessons, and you to yours.” Then, off Ramona’s look, she said, “Don’t worry about the child’s desk. I’ll find something and have it ready.”

* * *

It had been hard to look like she wasn’t listening while they talked about her this time.

Kora learned most things by acting like she wasn’t listening. People talked more, and about more interesting stuff when they forgot she was there. Whenever people decided they wanted to speak to her—in that slow, patient, stern, uninteresting way—that was when she usually stopped listening.

But this conversation had had too many important things floating around in it.

They’d found out about her pictures, and that was bad…but maybe she didn’t really need the pictures, now that she was going to be in Ramona’s classes. Maybe she should just go now, and throw them away, or slip them under one of the library doors. The pages didn’t really tell her anything. Not really.

Kora listened, squinted down across the quad. Dodgeball was over. The too-big kids, the eleven and over kids, were all playing at some game of chase: Annabelle, a very freckled girl with great big brown and white speckled wings, was circling and trying to kiss everybody. None of them was looking for Kora. At least, none of them had a ball to bounce on her head. They’d probably all forgotten about her for the day. She could do it, quick, and come back out again before the bells rang for dinner.

Kora shivered out of the tree she was in, and walked as inconspicuously as she could along the big clump of lindens, weaving in and out of them, searching for a good stick.

The game of chase was confused, full of false-sounding shrieks. Kora couldn’t tell if the boys were trying to duck Annabelle’s kisses, or catch them, or just pull handfuls of speckled feathers out of her wingtips. Kora knew which one she would want to do. She had always thought Annabelle’s wings were beautiful, even while Annabelle was calling her The Phantom, and screaming at her to stop staring, stop creeping!

The older kids’ games were like their dreams: confusing, anxious, stupid, fluttery, angry, hard to get out of once you’d fallen in. Annabelle only dreamed about getting fat and failing tests, and flying into jet engines, and boys laughing at her. That was one reason Kora liked the littler ones like Davie. Littler kids dreamed all sorts of dreams—mushroomy, monster-y, candy-coated, airplane princess dreams—and they didn’t seem to mind when she ended up in them.

But the too-big kids knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. They all stayed far, far away from her, unless they were playing dodgeball.

But now. But now! If they were really going to let her be a student in Ramona’s classes she would finally be learning the stuff that real midwives and doulas learned. And Ramona would see her learning it all, see how clever and how careful Kora could be. She wouldn’t still be mad about the window. Nobody gets mad at you for things like windows when you have grownup work to do. You aren’t bad, if that stuff happens to you when you’re doing your grownup work. You’re just busy.

And if Kora read fast, and learned fast, and paid attention to every single thing…well they would have to give her her certification soon, wouldn’t they? Once she knew everything? Once she had her certification, nobody could make her stay behind at the Seminary. She could go to Sant Ramon, too, and be Ramona’s assistant, rocking all the little half-bulls and half-swans to sleep. She would be such a good assistant, if it was just Ramona and her and no one else!

Kora found her stick, a long, thick, smooth one, still a little green so it wouldn’t break. She used it as a walking-stick, strolling along, smiling through chattering teeth. She was just wondering if Sant Ramon was a warm place to live, when someone thundered up behind her.

“What are you grinning at, Creeper?”

“Nothing…” Kora turned to face Aiden Averback, biggest of the all the too-big kids. Almost fourteen. He was pretty and curly-headed, with bright black horns and bright yellow eyes, but he’d never be adopted, and that just made him angry at everything. Just now, though, he seemed especially to want to be angry.

“Don’t give me ‘nothing’! Fucking night-crawler!” He threw the dodgeball at her head, but she batted it away with her stick, “You think you can just go creepy-crawling around wherever you want?”

Kora remembered, now, he’d had a dream, last night or the night before. It had been a stupid, nothing dream, him doing stuff to a girl with no clothes on; Kora wasn’t even sure how she’d ended up in the middle of it. But his eyes were like yellow sparks when he saw her standing there, watching. He’d wanted to hurt her then. He was going to try to hurt her now.

She turned away, into the trees, toward the wall. He caught her in a quick, hard grip. “You do, don’t you? You think can go spying on whoever, and nobody’s gonna stop you.”

“No…” she said, wriggling loose, “and I don’t have to talk to you.” Because you don’t matter, because I’m going to Sant Ramon to be Ramona’s assistant.

“Don’t move, maggot.”

She got ready to make a run for the wall, but Aiden’s grip found her throat and squeezed. “You’re gonna die, you know that?” His voice was close and dangerous. “You’re gonna die, and nobody’s going to care. Nobody. And you know why?”

“Why?” Kora choked out, before she swung the stick at Aiden’s head, hard enough to make him let go. He wrenched it away from her with an angry howl, but she was off and running through the trees.

Aiden was fast, thundering after her, swinging the stick all the way. Thwack, thwack, thwack, thwack.

But she was faster, and she reached the wall before him. She wouldn’t lead Aiden Averback to her secret entrance. So she disappeared up another tree as he came crashing through. He looked around, too stupid and angry to look straight up. He snorted, threw down the stick, and went away.

She’d find something of his to burn, later.

Kora climbed down from the tree, shivering fiercely, dropping to her knees to find the top of the manhole. Right at the wall, under dirt and leaves, the cracked concrete slab was just as she’d left it. It was heavy, but so was she, and strong. She uncovered the manhole, wedged the stick in place, and slipped down into her own special, silent darkness.

The steam-tunnels were the only place where she was ever really warm.

She wouldn’t throw away her pictures just yet, she decided. She might need them after all. She’d move them to some deeper, darker spot until everyone forgot about them.

For now, she took out a pencil and wrote out as best she could, in the corner of one picture whose tentacles didn’t coil quite to the edge of the page, all the things she learned that day:

Kora Gillespie is not a demi-god.

She is malicious.

She is a night-crawler.

Kora put a star, so she’d remember to look up what malicious meant.

Then she sat down, and breathed in the thick, blanketing air, until she was sure the bells had already rung for dinner.

* * *

There was no trial period, no transition, not even a full day’s grace. By the next afternoon, the Cambion girl sat smack in the front row of Ramona’s Immaculate Conception and Gestation class, grinning like she’d won. And from that minute on, there was no avoiding her.

With the rapidity of a wasp, Kora found her way to the center of every single classroom’s attention and nested there.

She never did anything openly anarchic, but the atmosphere was the same as if she started a trash can fire at the beginning of every lecture. She sat with such scarily unblinking attention, and scribbled with such composer-like intensity, that she could dissolve a class into nervous, murmuring giggles without saying anything at all.

Once she grew bold enough to ask questions, all was lost.

Sometimes she semi-automaticked them, not even bothering to put her hand all the way down between rounds. “Ramona, is that a picture of a real faun fetus or half-faun, like Aiden Averback? Can I hold it? Can you make it bigger? Can I make it bigger? Ramona, do the horns hurt when they come out? No, not out of his head, out of the mama’s vagina? What if it’s a girl, and she has curly ones?”

The dull roar that built up behind these solid walls of questions could never be kept back until the class was over. And the class was instantly over once it started.

“Kora,” Ramona managed one day after a particularly unsuccessful lab. “I think it would be best if you reserved your questions for after class.”

“But I raise my hand.”

“Adult students with too many questions have to keep quiet during class time, and ask their questions later, during office hours.”

“Oh,” she said, eyes shining with the dangerous knowledge. “Okay.”

From that day forward, Kora Gillespie was as silent as she could be in the classroom. But in the halls and cloisters between classes, she was an unrelenting storm of chatter, as close on Ramona’s heels as an overexcited duckling. Office hours were now entirely taken up by the seven-year-old’s undauntedly one-sided conversation. Twice, the Cambion followed her straight back to graduate housing and up into her living room without even a pause.

But Ramona had already determined that she would make herself too busy to annoy, burrowing deep into the work of constructing her Sant Ramon program design. Even Kora could be ignored, if you typed feverishly enough.

It was a plan that worked wonderfully well, until the dreams started.

Kora Gillespie was seeping into her dreams. She wasn’t having dreams about Kora Gillespie. Kora Gillespie was walking around in her dreams.

She’d emerge from the very back of the closet in a kissing dream decades old. Or she’d be looking over Ramona’s shoulder while Ramona answered the essay portion of a dream-exam in gibberish. Or she’d be hovering above Ramona as Ramona fell backward into dream-blackness, a pale, thin, inscrutable, smirking face, just before she started awake in bed.

It was almost certainly some kind of inheritance from the thing that was her father, this casual strolling in and out of dreams. If it hadn’t been happening to her, Ramona might have called it interesting, and taken notes. But almost every night, she woke feeling that the ghost-white girl was standing just in her blind spot, or that she was just in the other room getting ready to make something burn.

Ramona never confronted her invader. She had a vague, belligerent idea that if she didn’t acknowledge the game, the fun of tromping all over her brain would more quickly dissipate. But she now was hyper-aware of the girl. Her every breath, and greasy fingerprint, and shuffling step, and stupid question.

“Why don’t I look like anything?” Kora asked inanely one day.

“Look like anything?”

“The other Superum kids all have tails and scales and horns and things like their dads.”

“You’re fortunate not to look like your father, Kora,” said Ramona irritably.

“But maybe if I did, it would be a nice surprise when I talked,” she said, though Ramona had stopped listening.

Ramona had the nightmare one night after a bottle of wine. It was the usual nightmare, certainly nothing more than usual. She was back in that darkened walk-up in Washington Heights, listening to Ms. Gillespie scream.

She stood by herself—no Bernadette in sight—staring down into the dark passage from which she knew the thing was coming. And Ms. Gillespie arched and screamed, raking her nails across her skin, begging with those now-familiar fear-clouded eyes. Stop It! Please stop It! Please take It from me!

We fight the fear, dear, that’s what we do. Ramona would always have Bernadette’s words in her head, but never in her mouth. I can’t! she’d say instead, her voice thin and high and horrible, It’s coming already, I can’t!

And then Ms. Gillespie would roll her eyes up to the ceiling, screaming blindly, almost unconscious. And so Ramona was left by herself to catch the baby when It came bursting out.

But all that came bursting out was black blood, pouring out and pouring out over everything; her hands and arms, the bedsheets, the floor, an amniotic flood that showed no signs of stopping. Had she lost It? Was there any real baby at all? Was it all just a trick of pain and terror and this poisoned blood?

No, she knew by now there had to be a real one somewhere, she’d had this dream so many times. She knelt to find it, sloshing in the blackness.

But she was not alone.

Sitting curled in a dry corner, Kora Gillespie was not staring at the black amniotic lake creeping toward her knees. She was staring at Ms. Gillespie, following Ms. Gillespie’s frozen wide eyes up to the ceiling. “Is it me?” she asked, her voice small and shuddering, barely there. “Is that one mine?”

Her puddle-gray eyes were locked on It, the creature whose presence Ramona had superimposed so long ago she’d almost forgotten It. The Inseminator, tentacles a tight cage around the body of Its victim, suckers affixed while It thrusted and thrusted its knife-like phallus, perhaps seeking to make an opening where it failed to find one. Finishing, It blinked several guiltless eyes.

The Cambion looked away, crumpling, shuddering. And Ramona remembered something that she often forgot: Kora Gillespie was a child.

Don’t pay any attention to that, she heard herself say. That part’s done, that part’s over. There’s only you left.

Baby Kora suddenly came alive in Ramona’s arms, this time not soundlessly. Ms. Gillespie wakened screaming, as in life, recoiling from the small thing that came out of her, and took her leap from the fire escape.

Kora stared a moment at the screaming, squirming blood-covered byproduct, paralyzed against the wall. Then she twisted away and fled, leaving the way of her birth-mother.

When Ramona woke, she needed no one to tell her that Kora Gillespie was missing.

* * *

Down, and down, there was always more down. No place to sleep. She’d keep walking until the rail tracks ended…Kora wished more than anything she could stop carrying the stupid pictures.

* * *

Nobody doubted she’d gone for the tunnels, but that was less helpful than it sounded. The New York College of Theogony and Preternatural Obstetrics was criss-crossed by countless crumbling tunnel systems, with dozens of entry points for a seven-year-old girl to wander into. All about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ramona guessed a human child could live down there for a little over a day without water. But who knew with Cambions? Who knew anything?

The search parties were a confused swarm, re-visiting tunnels that had already been visited, getting lost and circling back on themselves, shouting her name as they tromped around above-ground, as though that would do any damn good. At night, they were worse than useless.

When Ramona wasn’t searching the tunnels, she fell into exhausted dreams about tunnels. Kora was in these, too, on an endless walk to nowhere, in some imaginary part of some tunnel left unsearched. Or more often, she was just crouched in the dark, waiting. Stop this! She’d scream. If you’re alive, get out of my dreams! Get out of the ground!

* * *

Kora was too far down to find her way back now…or else she was just lost and walking around and around in the same tunnels. She couldn’t see to tell. This was as good a place as anywhere to close her eyes. She was too dizzy not to close her eyes.

* * *

The truth of it hit her while she slept slumped over her desk, on the third day. This isn’t my dream, is it? Ramona said to the fevered child crouched in the dark, It’s yours. Where are you?

When she woke, she knew the answer.

Shivering, she went out in the late afternoon light, making her way across the campus, ducking and weaving in the tight spots between buildings. Kora’s way. When she reached the uneven border-wall, she climbed it.

In the first flush of discovering the College’s true purpose, the fledgling Union Theological Seminary had had dreams of a shared meeting-house, where the philosophical and theological ramifications of such obviously miraculous births might be debated and discussed. The meeting-house had been gone nearly a hundred years, but the steam-tunnels that connected to it…

Ramona came down hard on her knees on the other side, surrounded by a mess of linden trees. She felt around in the mulch. There it was. The concrete slab. Someone had shut the manhole despite the stick in the way. Kora might have stayed down there for weeks. It took two janitors to lift the slab and carry it off, and by then Ramona’s head was screaming.

But she climbed down into Kora’s own private cave, and let the hot air stifle the screams. Okay, Kora. Where are you?

She walked and walked, not particularly looking ahead of her, or around her, just walking along the rail tracks in this sacred, narrow and desolate place. And when the rail tracks ended, she shut her eyes between every step. Where are you now? Where are you?

* * *

She was there. Kora saw her coming even through closed eyes. Aiden Averback had said no one would care when it happened. At least he lied about that.

* * *

A small crowd around the manhole erupted in cheers when Ramona brought the girl up, unconscious and glistening with sweat.

Kora Gillespie was severely dehydrated. She was feverish, weak from over two days without food. But she was also apparently a little invincible. Three days of Jell-O and rest found her sitting up in bed staring inscrutably out her window.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Ramona said. “How are you feeling?”

Kora turned, unsmiling. “I don’t know,” she said, though not sullenly.

“I’ve brought you something.” Ramona produced two fistfuls of yellowed, now sweat-wilted pages, spreading them out on the bed. There they were, every one of Kora’s hard-won treasures, staring up at her through masses of eyes and masses of tentacles. Pages of everything from Saint Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, to an illustrated biography on the early life of the historical Merlin. “I thought you might want them back.”

Kora looked at the heap of illustrations but didn’t stir. “What I saw…” she said slowly, “was that really how it was?”

“I don’t know. What did you see?”

“The dream you had, of when I was born,” Kora said, unrelenting, “is that how it was?”

“That was a nightmare, Kora, you should know that.”

“But it’s how it was in your head.”

Ramona paused, searching for words that would mean something to Kora. “There’s a difference between how something makes you feel, and how it is. Incubi are known to cause people to feel fear, even if they’re not being hurt by them.”

Kora nodded, as though making a mental note, and turned again to look out the window. “And so they can be afraid, even if you don’t look like one?”

Oh. Ramona blinked her eyes clear. Oh. “Kora…”

“Do they like hurting people? They have to like it, don’t they? That’s how they live and make babies.”

“Kora,” Ramona waited a few moments to speak, but her voice was still hoarse. “Did you ever read what Malleus Maleficarum—that’s the book you took those two pictures out of—did you ever read what it had to say about incubi? Do you know where an incubus gets the sperm to fertilize a human mother’s egg?”

Kora shook her head.

“Well you know that a female of the species is called a succubus. An incubus must retrieve sperm from the pouch of a succubus. Many Parazoologists even theorize it’s one androgynous organism doing both jobs. Do you have any guess as to where the succubus gets the sperm she stores in her pouch?”

Kora turned to look straight at Ramona as the new thought struck her. “But that’s just a baby, isn’t it?”

“It’s a human baby, made from the same stuff as other human babies.”

The Cambion girl’s puddle-gray eyes blinked, and she managed to slap away the one sudden tear, though not the furrow it left on her cheek.

“Kora, very little is known about how incubi or succubi reproduce, how they make more of themselves. But that wasn’t what was happening when they made you. You’re something nobody quite understands. But there are plenty of humans that nobody will ever quite understand…”

Kora tried a smile.

“Let’s hang your pictures,” Ramona decided.

* * *

They did hang the pictures, all in a row, with clothespins, so Kora could take them down and look at them whenever she needed. When they were finished, Kora was too afraid to ask her about Sant Ramon.

Ramona would be here a little while, anyway. And then…Kora supposed she’d really have to be a grownup.

* * *

“You wanted to see me?” Ramona poked her head in the open door of Bernadette’s tiny closet office.

“Oh, yes. Come in.”

Ramona took two steps inside. “Have you had the chance to look over my program design for Sant Ramon?”

“I have.”

So this would be a short discussion, then. Unless she made it an argument. “I’d love to know what your thoughts are.”

“I suspect you know what my thoughts are, Ramona.”

“I don’t, actually! I never do, about anything! Please enlighten me!”

Bernadette sighed a decidedly frustrated sigh. “It is a very good proposal, as was your commune hospital for the Trauco’s victims in Chiloe, as was your day care center in Vatican City for the mothers of Nephilim children. I have no doubt you could do it. But it would be a shameful waste.”

Ramona opened her mouth to speak, then shut it.

“These people in these faraway places you propose to help…there are people for them. The books in the libraries already know them as victims and beautiful wonders. I would have hoped that someone such as you would be able to see victims where others do not.”

Ramona stepped back, and stood in the doorway.

“‘Salus pro totus creatura prognatus.’ Health, safety, salvation for all creatures born, is that not what we have learned to say in this place?” Bernadette handled her Saint Raymond medal; there was a plain silver cross there, too, that Ramona had never noticed. “The ones we hate and fear, Ramona, the ones we do not even want to try to understand, these are truly the least of our brothers. The Cambion must have someone to study her, someone who wants to help her understand herself.”

“Is this coming from the Dean?”

“If it must.”

“You can’t keep me here,” said Ramona. “I’m a certified, experienced midwife. I could go get a job at any maternity ward in New York handling their Superum babies for them. I don’t need your contacts for that.”

“I believe that you could,” said Bernadette, “but we are all three praying that you won’t.”

When Ramona reached her own office, she sighed into her chair, head in her hands.

After a moment, she stood up and rifled through the bookshelf for something Kora might like to read. Finding a nicely illustrated compendium of infernal creatures, she sat back down, smiling, and waited for her office hours to start.

In the Woods Behind My House

Originally published in audio format by Podcastle

* * *

They were just some seventh grade kids who hung around the handball court and pretended to be playing all the time so no one else could use it. Nate had no idea why he’d told them about his griffin.

He just said it, out of nowhere, like it was something he had just remembered. “So, in the woods, behind my house? There’s a griffin.”

That was how these guys talked, Eric and Dash, and Jackson and all of them. They just started right in with anything that happened to them like it was something they’d just now found in their pocket : “I smoked the fattest fucking blunt yesterday…you guys should see the lazer tag arena I built in back of my dad’s house…you know I already got my pilot’s license? I don’t even need to learn to drive.” And then they’d smash a cigarette under the toe of their shoe, waiting to be challenged.

He had never talked about the griffin out loud before. He didn’t even think he’d had words to talk about her. She had always been something he’d go into the woods to watch, this silent, padding thing that sometimes stopped to cock her head at him, if he stood still enough, or took something he fed her into her curved black beak.

He had only touched her a handful of times, on the smooth, downy part at the top of her head, and she had watched him every time with hunting gold eyes, her lion’s tail lashing patiently. He’d never even tried to bring home any of her old scattered feathers or broken-off claws. He hadn’t even known, until he talked about her, if he thought she was real.

But he’d been hanging out at the handball court for two weeks, and Eric had started making jokes about how creepy it was that Nate just stood around laughing like an idiot and never saying anything. And Nate just didn’t have a story about how he had set fire to a car, or put out a car that someone else had set fire to, or made his parents buy him a glock…he’d never been that interesting.

So it was desperation that made him do it, mostly. Well, desperation and panic, because Princess Zelda had been walking toward them.

Zelda was a thin pale girl, with thin pale hair, and thin pale eyelashes, and no eyebrows, and fingernails she chewed down to the bloody quick. She smelled like Carmex, and like the Ricola throat drops she ate like candy. She had a spooky way of going too many seconds without blinking. And sometimes, when people called her Princess Zelda instead of just Zelda, she made a weird little sweeping bow.

Nate had never really minded her that much before. But one day, she lent him three dollars when he lost his lunch ticket, and Nate made the mistake of saying he’d buy her a Haagen-Dazs bar as soon as he found another one in the cafeteria freezer. She had shrugged, unblinking. “Whatever,” she said, and walked away.

But Jackson and Dash both decided this meant Nate wanted to stick it to her. And so now, whenever she walked by, they all did long, loud impressions of what Nate supposed it must sound like to stick it to someone, and Eric patted him hard on the back like he’d just put out a flaming car. Princess Zelda always turned her head to look, locking spooky eyes with Nate and smirking like she was in on the joke and the joke wasn’t all that bad.

Girls are immune to this sort of thing. All they ever do is hang around other girls. They never know how bad the joke really gets.

So this time, Nate had changed the subject before she came too close. “So, in the woods, behind my house, there’s a griffin. Like, a real one.”

Eric’s head turned, startled and lazy. “What?”

“I have a griffin. At my house. You know, like part lion, part eagle.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“They’ve got a body like a lion, right?” said Nate. “And a head, and talons, and wings like an eagle.” Jackson and Dash stared. Eric stared. “And no one thinks they really exist. But mine does…mine does.”

“So it’s like a dragon?” Eric said after a blink. Dash started to chortle and snort, but Eric threw back an arm and smacked some part of him. Eric never let anyone shit on you until he’d decided to, and he hadn’t decided to, yet.

“No…” said Nate, “she’s feathered. She’s got feathers, and fur.” It was strange describing her like this, dissecting her into her “look-alike” parts, without any of the things that made her alive. The musk of her big cat haunches, the oily brightness of her black feathers, the soft tap-scrape of her talons when the ground was dry.

“She?” said Jackson with raised eyebrows. Dash started to laugh again. Eric smacked him silent.

Princess Zelda passed by, looking straight at Nate. And Nate looked straight at Eric. Nobody did any impressions.

Instead Eric said, “What’d you say this thing was called, a…?”

“Griffin.”

“And you said the thing…. this giant fucking lion-bird thing lives at your house? Just lives there?”

“Yeah. In these woods in my yard.”

The wire-thin smile that Eric more or less always wore spread itself a little thinner. “Bullshit.”

“I swear. To God.”

“Total bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. I swear to God.”

The older boy paused, blinked, stuck out his chin “What do you feed it? Her?”

“She hunts. Moles and rats and possums and birds, and things. She ate a dog, once.”

“A dog? Nah-uh. Nothing eats dogs,” declared Jackson suddenly, with aggression. Nate ignored him.

“And I bring her steak, sometimes.”

“You cook her steak?” said Eric. His eyes had narrowed to go with the smile.

“No. Bloody. Raw, I mean. She won’t eat cooked stuff.”

Another pause “Ever ride her?” he asked.

“What…?”

“She’s got wings, right? She can fly around? You ever ride her?”

Dash piped in, gave an exaggerated pelvis thrust. “Yeah, Nate, you ever…riiide herrr?”

Jackson deadened his friend’s arm, and laughed. But Eric waited for Nate’s answer.

“No,” said Nate firmly, “No.”

“Why not?”

Nate blinked. What a strange, what a meaningless question “You don’t ride griffins. That’s not what they’re for,” he said.

“What are they for, then?”

“They guard things. Treasure.”

“What kind of treasure she guarding?” asked Jackson. He talked almost more than anything else about being the only kid in his family who knew how to use his uncle’s metal detector.

“I didn’t say she was guarding anything. She’s not guarding anything. She just hangs around in the woods behind my house.”

“I’ll bet you could ride her if you tried.” said Eric. He was suddenly wearing the same expression he wore whenever he thwacked Nate on the back to congratulate him for doing something he had never actually done. “I bet you could make her give us a ride if you worked her a little.”

Sniggers.

“No, I couldn’t.” said Nate, “not even close.”

“Why? What would she do?”

“She…just wouldn’t come near. She’d hide.”

“Then we’ll hunt her down and surround her, right? She can’t go anywhere without us if she’s surrounded.”

“Except ‘up’.”

“Right. Well, you hold her, and we’ll all jump on.”

More sniggers. Nate licked his lips. Eric licked his, his eyes incredulous and shiny. “So, what about it, Safari Man? When do we go hunting?”

“I don’t…it’s not…”

“Tomorrow?”

“Maybe. If she’s not asleep. She sleeps in the afternoons, I don’t know where…”

“We’ll go at lunch, or we’ll cut last period.” Eric’s smile went wide, like a disbelieving Jack-O-lantern. “You and me. We’ll hunt her down and shake her awake.”

* * *

Nate didn’t wait for the return bus. He ran all the way home with the acidy taste of puke in his mouth, drops of sweat running cold off his nose. He ran straight through the house and out to where the trees grew closest, and crookedest. There, he wandered, and waited until she appeared.

She was never graceful when landing on the ground. She was never exactly ungraceful, but her bird-grace and her cat-grace always seemed to be working against each other, to make the landing sudden and hard. There was always the surprisingly hard clap of padded paws against the dirt, and the scuffling scrape of claws as she slowed herself, and the wild flap before she settled her wings down on her back. She was always stranger and wilder than Nate ever expected her to be, though he saw her almost every day.

Some days, she was coy, making him come to her, or stretching her white head around to preen with her black beak before she bothered to look at him. But not today. Today she landed close to him, stretching her neck out with extra expectancy, her gold eyes extra wide. She had no idea what he’d done to her. “You should be more careful,” Nate said to her. “You shouldn’t come running every time you hear somebody.”

The gold eyes did not blink. She made a kind of throaty cooing noise, like a dove, cocking her head invitingly. “I don’t have any food for you right now,” he said. But he reached out a heavy, shaking hand, and stroked her neck, all the way down into her thick white fur. Her black wings gave another lazy twitch, her white tail softly swatted an imaginary fly, but her powerful back muscles did not even tense with a big cat’s ordinary alertness. Nate might have done anything to her. Might’ve let anyone do anything. “Stop,” her betrayer said, kicking a little dirt in her direction, “stop.”

She backed away a couple paces, made a deeper cooing sound that had much more of a growl in it. But she did not fly away. Would she fly away, if it came to that? If other things came tromping into her woods with their metal detectors and their loud laughs and their cigarette butts, would she know to fly away?

She ventured toward him again, twisting her head, stretching her neck. “I don’t have any food for you right now!” Nate picked up a clod of dirt and chucked it at her, hard. She flapped backward, gave an irritable scream. “Piss off,” he said, “go back to your nest.”

* * *

Nate lied on top of the blankets all night, listening to her hunt. He felt every swoop, every wingbeat like she was right at his window, giving the pane an angry rattle. Go away, he telegraphed to her. Go away. Go the hell away. Only in the times when her shadow flitted across the moon, or he heard the scream of some bird in her beak, did Nate remember she was high in the sky somewhere, a white and black and moon-streaked blur, swallowing her dinner whole and not thinking of him at all.

Nate rolled over, smashed his face into his pillow. Of course she didn’t get angry, or know things. Those gold eyes only made you think she did. In reality, everything was a complete surprise to her.

They would make it a party, Eric and Jackson and Dash and whoever came with them. They’d come in a screaming caravan with jokes and wine coolers and whatever raw meat they could get, ready to thrash around in the woods looking for a thing they didn’t expect to find. And it would be fun. That was the thing. Even for Nate, it would be fun. It would be noisy and funny, and easy, like going to find a good place to set off a bunch of fireworks. It was the part after that, the part where they actually found her, or she found them, that Nate didn’t know what to do about.

He had only ever seen her in pain once, when she’d landed hard in the wrong tree, and a sharp branch behind her had gone straight through her wing. She’d screamed like nothing Nate had ever heard, a pain scream and a fear scream and a pleading scream, and a wild, wild anger scream all at once.

He’d climbed the tree in one crazy jump, but once he was up there, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to pull the branch out (was he afraid of the blood, or of making it worse, or of what she might do to him, a wild animal after all?) In the end, she’d reached back with a frenzied flapping and torn at it herself, bit by bit, with her own curved beak until it was gone, or mostly gone, and she was free. The wound had got infected for a while after that.

Nate smashed his face into his pillow until it hurt, then rolled over again to stare at the ceiling-shadows. He listened to her make another far-away swoop at something, gleeful and quick. Probably an owl. She always went after brown owls when she could find them. It was a vivid picture to him, her dropping free out of the air to snatch things into her claws or beak, But so was the frenzied screaming picture of her being held down while Eric or Jackson took handfuls of feathers, or took a ride, and Dash laughed and threw clods of dirt and wine cooler bottles, and Nate did nothing.

But she wouldn’t hold still for it like that, would she? There was always that funnier, fainter, more horrible picture of the big cat in her suddenly rearing up and deciding she’d had enough, that she wasn’t going to tolerate strangers…Nate laughed. The puke came back up in his mouth. He rolled over again.

He would have to make the party part, the fun, tromping camping-trip part all there was. He’d have to lead them off into some different woods, some bigger woods (he didn’t know where) where they could all laugh loud, and drink, and whack trees with sticks, and make a campfire out of piles of leaves, and roast the random things they found in their pockets, and no one would even remember what it was they were supposed to be looking for. Other kids in class seemed to be able to do this sort of thing all the time, without thinking or planning. The bright, lazy adventure that wasn’t meant to end up anywhere or accomplish anything. That was what kids without Griffins in their backyards did with all their Saturdays.

But Eric wouldn’t forget, Nate knew. He’d come into the woods grinning wide, expecting not to find her. And when he didn’t find her, it would be the beginning of a very long joke, and the end of everything else. From then on, whatever he said, whatever he did, there would only ever be one thing to talk about. It would be worse than Princess Zelda. Longer, and worse.

Nate laughed a burbling laugh, and choked on it, and laughed again and choked. He kept laughing, and kept choking, until he got up out of bed and puked, a real, great big awful puke in the bathroom sink. Then, he went to lie down again, and stared some more at the ceiling.

* * *

He must have fallen asleep, because he woke, shivering in his sweat, to the soupy grey light of morning. He lay there, shivering, listening to a big-lunged bird pipe out a long, low scrap of song. When his alarm clock went off, he let it ring, and ring, until his mom came in to see what was what, and he told her with genuinely chattering teeth that he didn’t think he could go to school.

Once she left for work, and the house was nice and empty, Nate began to feel better. He lie half-sleeping in bed for a while, trying to think of nothing, listening to the song of the bird, drawling and persistent and repetitive. Finally, he sat up, shook himself, shook the windowpane to shut the bird up, and went downstairs.

He sat in a square of sunlight at the kitchen table and ate a whole box of cereal out of a metal mixing bowl. And while he ate, he thought about his griffin. Why had he been so sure how everything would be, last night? Why should he even think she’d let herself be looked at by strangers at all? Didn’t she hide well enough from everybody but him? Probably, he thought, she would just be able to keep her distance. Disappearing here, reappearing there, a strange, enticing furry, feathery flash in the trees. Eric and Jackson and Dash could troop along with their eyes glued to the treetops, hooting and hollering and pointing, while Nate behaved like an expert trapper, finding feathers, and droppings, and telling them which kind of claws were which. That wouldn’t be unsafe at all.

And even if he did lead them to her. Even if he did. There was no telling what they would do. They might stand there with their mouths open while her cat muscles rippled and her eyes flashed. They might stand there holding their breaths, until Nate stepped forward, and the griffin ate a steak out of his hand. That was just as easy to picture. Nate the lion-tamer. Eric and Jackson and Dash as the audience, eyes and mouths popping, brows up. “Fucking hell!” Eric would say.

Nate stood up and went to the screen door, smiling out at his woods, for a moment. He mouthed the words over. Fucking hell! Fucking hell, Nate! What, do you have a death wish or something? You’re one crazy mofo!” And then he went to watch TV.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when the cordless phone rang.

Nate forgot to sound sick when he answered it.

“Hey, Faker, where the hell are you?” said Eric on the other end of the line. At least Nate thought he said Faker.

“I didn’t go to school today,” said Nate.

“No shit.”

“I didn’t sleep,” he added.

“Well, punch yourself in the face or something. We’re on our way over. We wanna see your bird-lion. You still have one, or did you shoot her and eat her?”

(There were some snorts and matching cackles behind him, much louder and shriller through the phone).

“Maybe a different day,” said Nate, licking his lips. “I’m…she’s sleeping already.”

“Wake the lazy bitch up! Tell her we’ll bring her a whole dead horse, or something!”

A full minute went by of nothing but laughter, high and distorted. Eric’s voice barely came over the top of it. “…on our way! You still live in the same house, right?”

And then a click. The call was over.

Nate swallowed a hard, dry swallow. He exploded out of the screen door toward the woods, the cordless phone still clutched in his sweat-slick hand. His ears pounded. His legs pounded. He breathed in flurries of hot dust and leaves and pollen. I wasn’t serious, he wanted to telegraph to her. I wasn’t really going to let them. I wasn’t.

But Eric’s words kept coming in over the top of his: Wake the bitch up! Wake the bitch up! Shake her awake!

He didn’t go in deep to look for her. He planted himself under the first skinny cluster of trees, in a spot where he could see the front door, and waited. When they came, they made noise like a biker gang. The sound of their skateboards on the sidewalk was a long, slow, thundering sound. It didn’t drown out the shouts and whoops and curses. They had brought other kids, like he thought they would. Kids from other schools, and street corners Nate had never even been on.

The first one he saw was Eric, sliding up to the door, and ringing the doorbell three times. Then three times more. “Wake up, Faker!” Eric hollered up to the bedroom window he thought was Nate’s. “Time to get your ass out here! Time to go lion hunting!”

There were a bunch of high-pitched laughs. Dash banged on the door with both fists. Then Jackson. Then two or three others. “Get your ass out here! Get your ass out here!” The door screamed a little bit on its hinges.

Still staring up at the bedroom window, Eric pulled out a cell phone. The cordless phone chirped in Nate’s hand. Nate answered it, quick.

“Hey, we’re here. Where are you?”

“Who is this?” swallowed Nate.

Eric scowled. “It’s Eric, Faker, did you fall back asleep?”

Nate paused. There was a kid throwing those tiny, sulphery snap-pellets at the ground. The kind you throw at the cat when you want to make it scream.

“You’ve got the wrong number,” he said, and hung up.

Eric craned his neck, confused. Nate tensed to stay still. The phone chirped again. Nate picked it up, and hung it up, before Eric could speak. The kid with the snap-pellets, and another one with something plastic under his arm (an airsoft gun?) stretched their necks around the corner, toward the back of the house.

The phone rang again. Nate let it ring twice, then picked up the call.

“What the hell’s going on, man?” said Eric, maybe louder than he’d meant to. “Let us in. It’s a hundred-and-fuck degrees out here! Hello?”

“You better go the fuck home,” said Nate, dead as air. “She’s pissed because you woke her up, like I told you she’d be. If you try to come back here now, she will rip your fucking throats out, I swear to God.”

And he ended the call.

It worked. They all milled around for a few minutes longer, looking squirmy, and spinning the wheels on their skateboards, and trying not to look too far around the other side of the house. And then Eric shouted “Psycho!” up to the window and skated off, with most of the others following him.

“They’re all gone,” Nate called out to her. “I didn’t let them past. You can come out, now. If you want.”

There was a rustle somewhere in a bigger, darker clump of trees. It might’ve been her. Or it might’ve been the wind.

* * *

That night was still. There weren’t even the regular night-noises at Nate’s window. The shadows were all stationary. He had hours to lie there, and think, and blink, and wait for it to get light outside.

The next morning, he lied there like a dead person until his mom stopped feeling his forehead and went to work. And then Nate got out of bed and went to the garage. He took two ice cream bars, and two bloody steaks from the freezer in there, and a camping lantern, and an old dirty pup tent from a big jumble of camping equipment. And then he went into his woods. Her woods.

He went further in than yesterday—to a clump of thick old broken trees he’d seen her scratch her back on before—but not too far to see the front door in case Eric and them decided to come back and hop the wall into the backyard. He set up the pup tent, and sat very still in the open flap, holding one of the steaks out so she’d smell it.

There was a rustle. He waited. Another rustle. He waited. But then it was completely still again.

“There’s no one here,” Nate told her, or the breezes. “I didn’t let them.”

There was a rustle, so far away it could have come from anywhere, so small it could have been anything, and then nothing.

And nothing, and nothing and nothing. Nate ate one ice cream, and then the other. Inside, the tent got hot, and then cold. And the steaks got hot, and then cold, and then started to stink.

Eric did come to the front door again, and he and Jackson and Dash skated up and down the sidewalk, and rang the doorbell five or six times. But they didn’t shout, or bang on the door. They just skated up and down, back and forth, with their eyes on the bedroom window, until Eric was satisfied that Nate wasn’t going to come out. And then they thundered away.

“They’re gone, now.” Nate told her, “and they’re never coming back. So please come out.”

When all he heard was more of that low, drawling birdsong, Nate crawled miserably into the pup tent and played on his Nintendo DS until he was almost asleep.

When his mom came home from work that evening and found him in his tent in the backyard playing video games, she told him he was obviously well enough to go to school the next day, and screamed at him for ruining two good steaks.

Nate didn’t even try to argue with her.

* * *

It was easy enough to avoid them the first part of the day. There were classes to go to, and at Nutrition, Nate just sat by himself on a bench somewhere and didn’t look at anybody. Probably Eric and all of them were giving him looks from the handball court, but that didn’t matter as long as he sat there pretending he couldn’t see them. Nobody sat next to him. Nobody talked to him. Nobody asked him any questions. He might as well have died, or never existed.

It wasn’t until hours later, at lunchtime that Jackson finally broke Nate’s barrier of non-existence and came over to where he sat. “So what’s wrong with you, anyway?” he asked.

Nate looked up from his DS. “What’re you talking about?” he said.

Jackson blinked aggressively. “You’re full of shit,” he said. “You’re so full of shit, everybody knows it.”

“About what?”

“About the other day!”

Nate looked blank. Jackson’s mouth split into a combative grin. “Stupid-ass story. There’s no half-eagle, half-lion going to tear our throats out. You made that shit up. There’s nothing there.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Nate, twisting out his own smile, “that. I didn’t think you thought I was serious about that.”

Jackson stared.

“What, did I scare you or something?” Nate asked him.

“No,” he snorted. “Was that what you were trying to do, scare people?”

“I mean, did you think I was serious?”

“No one thought you were serious,” He said, caustic, and triumphant. “It was a stupid-ass story. I knew there was nothing could eat a dog.”

And he went back to the handball court, scowling and grinning. For the rest of lunchtime, Dash stared at him with a partly-opened mouth, and Eric watched him with a strange, close look, slamming the same ball over and over again on the same piece of wall.

Princess Zelda passed by him several times, so many times it had to be on purpose, smiling her smirky smile every time. But Nate had his head in the DS. He could ignore her at least until it ran out of batteries.

* * *

It was out of batteries by the time Nate made it to the bus stop. He had to stand there on the curb with nothing in his hands, staring straight and hoping that the blonde kid who looked like Eric’s older brother wasn’t Eric’s older brother. So he didn’t even see her coming. She’d been standing there not blinking at him for a crazy long time before he saw her.

“So what is wrong with you?” she asked him, cheerfully.

Nate felt like throwing something at her. “Nothing,” he said.

“I tried to bring you your homework yesterday, but you were asleep in your tent.”

“Oh,” said Nate. “Sorry.”

Princess Zelda blinked, finally. “I don’t care if you do your homework. I was trying to see if you were sick or something.”

“Yeah. Sick.”

“With what?”

Nate shrugged.

Princess Zelda tilted her head at him so that all her pale hair waterfalled off to one side. “She’ll come back, you know,” she said.

It was a split-second too long before Nate answered. “What are you talking about?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, I don’t. She can’t come back, I made her up,” said Nate.

“She’ll come back,“ Zelda said, and went back to not blinking. Her large, light eyes were brighter up close, one a silvery kind of blue, the other a silvery kind of green.

She chewed the nail on her left pinkie finger. “Why’d you tell them about her, anyway?”

“What do you mean?” He glared at her. “Why does anyone tell anyone anything?”

“I mean, why did you tell them about her? They don’t even know what she is. Why didn’t you just tell them something else if you needed a story so bad?”

Nate sputtered, chewed his lip. “Something else like what?” he asked, finally.

She shrugged. “Tell them your dad’s a racecar driver who died in a huge car-crash. Tell them you swam with sharks and punched one in the face, just to see if you could. Tell them you saved like, five babies from a burning Baby Gap and that’s why you don’t have to pay for stuff at the mall anymore. Tell them whatever you want. But for God’s sake, Nate, don’t tell them anything that means anything. Don’t tell them anything true.”

Nate studied her face. He tried to hold her not-blinking.

“They’re not better than nothing, you know,” she finished suddenly.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told her. “No one knows what you’re talking about.”

Princess Zelda smiled at him, not her little smirky smile, but a wide, laughing one, with bright, slightly crooked teeth. “Anyway, like I said, she’ll come back. She’s still singing for you, right? That’s her I heard singing?”

And she turned and walked away toward a dry little hedge, where she would probably sit happily not talking to anyone until the bus came.

Nate watched her for a minute. And then ran all the way home.

He did not stop running until he’d reached his pup tent. But he didn’t shut himself inside. He sank to his knees in the leaves and grass, and wispy forest air.

And listened. And waited.

Sofie Bird

A' is for Alacrity, Astronauts and Grief

This story was previously published in the anthology TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER, released by the small press Zombies Need Brains LLC.

* * *

Becca hadn’t even meant to show Sam the typewriter. It had sat in the crate in the attic with the other things she and Julie had played with as children that their mother, Candice, hadn’t gotten rid of yet. Becca had flown in to Heathrow, thrown her bag on the lower bunk of her childhood room and driven to the hospital to collect her nephew from Candice’s arms.

She’d had to turn her face away from Julie’s battered face on the bed, unable to look at the tubes and bruises and swelling. The doctor’s prognosis had stuttered through static.

You know she’s not in there anymore. Becca hadn’t dared say the words. There’s a reason they offered to up the morphine, they just can’t say it. She might wake up, but she’s not coming back.

Work had given her two weeks’ bereavement leave. A luxury, with the project already overdue. She’d used up two days just getting here, walked out on salvaging six years with Rick with four words that had burned into her mouth like acid. My sister is dying.

Now she couldn’t even look at her.

Candice had sat haggard in the only chair next to the bed, Sam hunched and silent in her lap. When Becca lifted him from Candice’s strong grasp, neither of them stirred. She’d driven Sam back to the house in silence and trawled through the attic for something for him to do while she worked out how in the hell you explained to a seven-year-old about comas and car accidents and orphans.

It would be different if Sam’s father were alive. If Candice had had anyone else to call but the daughter who’d crossed oceans to get away from her. Candice had barely said a word since that phone call, not even when Becca had hired a car against her instructions after twenty-six hours on a plane.

It would be okay. It would all be okay. Becca hugged her elbows like they could fill the hole in her stomach. Julie’s not going to wake up, how can that be okay?

Because she’s not going to wake up. You won’t have to stay here. You can just say goodbye and go home, like you planned. She sank her teeth into her cheek and forced the admission from her mind. She had more important things to deal with.

Sam was solemn, and for once not full of questions. A dozen platitudes rose in her throat and withered. Julie’s weekly Skype calls aside, the last time he’d seen her, he’d been a toddler at his father’s funeral. She was the aunt who appeared when parents died.

Becca flinched. She hasn’t.

You can’t tell him differently. It wouldn’t be fair.

He sat at the crate, hunched in on himself, and poked the old typewriter buttons. He hadn’t even lifted it out. Armed with a cup of earl grey and a chocolate biscuit, Becca sat next to him and waited.

“I’m writing a letter to Mum,” he said flatly. “But the letters don’t come out right.”

Becca leaned over; the typewriter produced the same gibberish she remembered from her childhood.

It had driven her father to distraction. His last unsolvable riddle: a perfectly normal, working, ordinary typewriter that wrote alien hieroglyphics. He’d kept it in pride of place in the lounge to puzzle out with his two girls, and taken it apart three times, even the electronic pieces and the 80’s-era solar-cells. What is it we do when we don’t know something? She smiled at his voice in her head.

But I can’t puzzle this one out, Dad. I can’t fix it. I just want her to go, to be peaceful and I hate myself for that. She squeezed the biscuit so hard it shattered, gazing down at the typewriter and its printed nonsense like it was a talisman.

Candice had packed it away after he died, along with all of his things, like he’d never lived here at all.

Sam stroked the yellowed paper standing stiff from the rollers.

“How many letters can it make?” he asked.

“How many do you think? Can you work it out?” Becca brushed biscuit crumbs from his hair while he screwed up his face.

“Twenty-six?”

“Come on, that’s a guess. You can work it out.”

This was met with silence. He peered at the paper, at the keys, fingers opening and closing individually.

“Forty…Fifty…eight.”

“Including the numbers and all the commas and things?”

More silence while his finger hovered over each of the number and punctuation keys.

“Eighty…six?”

“There you go.”

Sam shook his head, blonde curls shivering like Julie’s pixie-cut did. Used to. “But it makes more than eighty-six different letters.”

Becca pressed her lips, her mother’s “that’s impossible” dismissal pent up behind them. Julie had said he was bright. Even if you doubled the keys, there seemed to be far more printed letters than the typewriter could physically type, none of them familiar. She released her breath with a smile.

“Your mother and I used to pretend it was a message from someone far away,” she said. “It’s what made me become a programmer, trying to figure out puzzles like that. We kept everything it printed in that binder, there. Maybe you can figure it out.”

Sam lifted the almost-full three-ring binder, flipped it open. Becca’s eyes stung at the sight of Julie’s margin notes, the backwards ‘a’s she used to write as a child, and she ruffled Sam’s hair.

* * *

The hospital ward echoed with clicks and hums and machine-driven breaths. Julie lay, too bruised and too still, with Candice curled over her.

“Mum! Guess what I found!” Sam burst in, a hurricane of enthusiasm.

Candice glared, barely shifting from over her daughter. “Hush, sweetling. Your mummy is sleeping, she needs to get better.”

“But I want to tell her about the codes! It’ll make her feel better, it’s really interesting!” He shook Julie’s shoulder gently. “Mum, I have to show you something.”

“No!” Candice slapped his hands away and fussed over the tubes Sam had minutely disturbed. “You mustn’t touch, Mummy is very fragile,” she snapped. “Nurse!”

“But”—Sam’s voice squeaked—“Mum always feels better when I hug her. She said so.”

Becca wrapped her arm around Sam’s shoulder, squeezing him while she tried to swallow the cannonball in her throat. “You can give her lots of hugs when she wakes up, okay?” She rubbed the crown of his head like her father used to do. “We just need to be careful of the tubes and things, mate. They’re very important.”

Sam snivelled. “They look uncomfortable.”

“It’s okay, she’s asleep, she can’t feel them. Why don’t you tell her what you found?”

“You said she’s sleeping, she won’t hear me.”

“She’ll hear you in her dreams, love.” Becca shot a look at Candice, who still crouched over Julie like she was shielding her, and hardened her voice. “The doctors said it’s good for her to hear things.” She lifted Sam onto the foot of the bed and pulled the typewriter pages from her bag. Candice snatched the papers and waved them under Becca’s nose.

“Not your father’s nonsense again! Nothing but broken junk.”

“It’s a code!” Sam grabbed at the paper. “Someone is sending coded messages and we have to work them out!”

Candice sucked in her breath, and arranged a honeyed smile. “I know you want your Mummy to get better, because you love her very much,” she said softly. “You want to help look after her, don’t you?” She curled one arm around his shoulders, easing him off the bed. “She needs you to be a big boy so you can help her. Can you do that for her?”

Sam nodded mutely, clearly confused about where code investigation fell in the spectrum of “being a big boy.”

Becca stepped forward. “Mum—”

Candice’s head whipped up, and the sweetness vanished from her face. “I don’t want to hear any more of it. You’re under my roof. You’ll put that thing away when you get home. Or better yet, throw it out.”

Becca clenched her jaw, but couldn’t find a retort. Candice had always hated Dad’s obsessions. It didn’t matter what it was: if she didn’t understand it, it wasn’t allowed.

Candice lowered her voice theatrically. “Julie needs him right now while she gets better, not silly distractions.”

“I thought it was interesting,” Sam mumbled.

“It’s just broken, my sweetling. There are more important things right now.”

* * *

Sam barely said two words the whole drive home. He hunched in the back seat, hugging his knees and smearing ink-stained tears across his cheeks.

“Careful with those,” Becca joked, nodding to the pile of crumpled typewriter paper she’d retrieved from Candice before they left. “You don’t know what they say, yet. It could be important.”

He didn’t reply. To him, she was still just a face from a laptop. What did Dad do when I was this upset? He loved his puzzles, his what-ifs. Sometimes he’d be so engrossed he’d forget to eat, chewing pen lids into scraps until Candice dragged him down to dinner. Becca smiled to herself, then clenched her cheek muscles in place.

What if Julie does wake up? Even just some of her, she might still be Julie.

I can’t live with Candice again.

Nine days left. Then she had to be on a plane home. Or not. She shook her head. Focus on Sam. His smile made Julie’s fate—and her own—less terrifying. Besides, Julie had named her godmother. He was Becca’s responsibility, now.

“You know what you need to do?” she asked in her best detective voice as they pulled up at the Earl’s Court Road traffic light. “We need more data. For instance, there are more letters than keys. So does each key match a certain set of letters? Is there a pattern?”

Sam frowned. “I don’t know,” he said huskily.

“You don’t know?” Becca turned and gaped at him, mock-aghast. “Well, what is it we do, when we don’t know something?” Sam shook his head mutely. Becca mimicked her father’s exuberance: “We find out!”

The slightest of smiles tweaked Sam’s cheek. Becca leaned between the front seats and whispered. “I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

Becca blurred through the morning and afternoon cleaning walls and light switches and other things that didn’t need cleaning, to the plunks of Sam on the typewriter in the living room. Until—

“Auntie! I figured it out! And it’s talking to me!”“

Becca raced in, half-expecting he’d taken it apart.

Sam sat in the living room surrounded by open books of dense text, studiously writing in his Buzz Lightyear notebook.

“What do you mean, kiddo?” Becca peered over his shoulder.

“You said I should work out whether the same keys make the same symbols—they don’t,” he announced, in a tone like he was receiving the Nobel Prize. “So I thought it might be random, but it’s not. I counted one hundred and twenty-seven different letters, and there are patterns. Lots of patterns.”

Becca remembered to close her mouth. She and Julie had played with this for months as kids. How had they never noticed that? And Sam had, all by himself?

“So I looked through Dad’s old books Mum kept, they tell you how to crack codes, by looking for patterns and how many letters and whether the patterns are big or small, and—” he ran out of breath and gulped air. “There was one where it’s not based on letters but on sounds. Fo-somethings.”

“Phonemes,” Becca murmured, half-entranced. She flipped through the books next to Sam—cryptography books. His father had been Military Intelligence. Julie had never said doing what, only that he’d had a knack for languages and numbers.

“That’s why there are so many letters. It’s writing out exactly what he said, how it sounded. And then it started talking to me.”

“Now Sam,” Becca heard her mother’s tone in her voice and winced.

“I’m not lying! Look!” He pushed his notebook under her face. Becca frowned at the jumble of English words.

“It’s backwards,” Sam said helpfully. “The words, I mean. They started at the end of the message.”

“Why is it backwards?”

“Why is it writing in an alien language?”

“Point made.” She took the notebook. “Uncle Sam,” she murmured, reading backwards. “I guess Uncle Sam came through after all, I can see the shuttles flying.” A grin spread over her face at the beautifully impossible—her father’s grin. “That’s not you, Sam. That’s what people sometimes call America, like it’s a big brother. I think he’s a soldier or something.”

“Like Dad, in Afghanistan?”

Becca caught her breath. Careful.

“I don’t think this is your father, sweetheart.”

How do you know? It could be.

“Is he in trouble?”

The phone rang.

Digging her mobile out of her jeans, Becca silently thanked the universe for the reprieve. “Could be, but it sounds like reinforcements have arrived. Hello?”

“Ms. Willoway? This is Cromwell Intensive Care.”

The world paused. Becca sank onto a plate on the coffee table, legs quivering.

“Your sister is awake.”

* * *

“She’s going to be fine,” Candice’s insistence shrilled across Julie’s vacant stare.

“It’s brain damage, Mum,” Becca whispered. “You can’t make it better. It doesn’t just heal like a broken bone. You don’t know if she’s still in there.”

Candice rounded on Becca. “Of course she is! She just needs rest. We’ll take her home this afternoon, we’ll get her better.”

Becca frowned. “Straight from the ICU? Don’t they want to keep her for observation or rehab?”

“I insisted. She needs her family, not faceless caretakers. They’ll send a physio-nurse to check on her twice a day. They gave me a list of things…I can manage, just like with your father, when he went.”

Candice really does love her. And you. And Sam.

Becca stared at the vacant woman who looked like her sister. Julie’s eyes followed people when they spoke, and she moved her lips as spittle slowly slipped out the corner of her mouth. Gone, though, was the laugh, the flash-in-the-pan grin, the need to be into everything, understanding everything, the intensity when she listened like she was reading off the back of your skull. Gone was the banter which wound up offending people as often as not, the wit that invented codenames for Candice’s tactics in their Skype calls. Gone, even, was the bitter resignation at returning to Candice’s clutches a widow, Sam in tow, and that steel-eyed determination to climb free again. Nothing in this stranger’s face was Julie.

Becca crumpled against the bed, but the tears wouldn’t come.

Candice wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pressing her into her perfumed jacket, and soothed the nape of her neck. “She’s going to be fine. You’ll see,” she murmured in her soft voice, the motherly voice from Becca’s childhood fevers. She pulled a tissue from her purse and gently blotted at Becca’s dry cheeks.

“Sam shouldn’t see her like this.” Becca glanced out the window where Sam quietly wrote a letter to the lost soldier who might be his father.

“She’s his mother. He’ll love her whatever she looks like.”

“Except she doesn’t really look like she loves him, now. He won’t understand—”

“He should know she does,” Candice said sharply. “She needs him. She won’t get better without him to come back to. So no more of that nonsense. I know you gave into him. Head full of fluff just like your father. Soon as we get home, you’re putting that thing back in the attic where it belongs.”

Back in control. Becca opened her mouth to protest, to explain the new wonder. She just lost her daughter, whatever she says. She needs this. Instead, she said, “Yes, Mum.”

Why do I keep excusing her?

Candice nodded. “We may as well get it over with, then.” She opened the ICU door and beckoned Sam inside. “You can say hello, now, sweetling. She’s coming home with us this afternoon.”

Sam bounded in, pulled up short.

“Mum?” The lost tone in his voice sank like a knife in Becca’s ribs.

“It’s okay, mate,” Becca murmured. “Her brain is bruised, so it’s hard for her to move. But you can still tell her all about the soldier.” Becca shot a hard look at Candice. “She’d like that.”

Candice raised her eyebrow, but said nothing.

* * *

The typewriter disappeared into the attic to make way in the living room for Julie, her equipment, and pills. Sam sat beside her on the fold-out bed with his notebook, filling the otherwise silent room with his theories until Candice snapped.

“No more nonsense, that’s enough!” She snatched his notebook up. “Your mother needs rest and care, not silliness and running about.”

“Mum,” Becca said, clearing plates from dinner.

Candice spun on her heel. “And you, as bad as your father, nothing but a waste of time and energy, leaving the work to everyone else.”

Sam started to cry. Becca opened her mouth, but Candice cut her off with words from twenty years ago: “Don’t start with me, young madam.”

“He needs this. He’s seven years old!”

“Old enough to grow up. You both are. Other people are more important than nonsense!”

“Oh, like ‘she’s going to be fine,’ that kind of nonsense?” The words shot out of Becca’s mouth before she could stop them. She stepped forward, hand stretched out as if she could snatch them back.

Candice’s face paled, her mouth an ‘o’ of shock, two pink spots of fury in her cheeks. “How dare you talk back to me.” Her voice dropped to a growl. Becca flinched. Candice snatched up the gravy boat, marching into the kitchen with notebook and gravy.

“Mum,” Becca began, but Candice didn’t pause. “Mum, I didn’t mean it, I—”

Candice threw the notebook in the bin, dumped the gravy on top of it, and slammed the boat in after so hard it shattered. She turned to Becca, hand half-raised for a slap. Clenching the plates to stop them rattling in her hands, Becca fought not to flinch again. Sam hugged his knees, heels slipping off the edge of the seat, and Candice seemed to suddenly remember him. The hand dropped to rub his shoulders.

“It’s time for bed, sweetling,” she said. “In the morning, you’ll see this was for the best, for your mother.”

Sam slunk off to Becca’s old room. Becca glared in the silence.

“You shouldn’t have taken it out on him,” Becca said softly.

Candice stiffened and whipped the tea towel off the rack. “You know not to answer back.”

* * *

Sam didn’t appear for breakfast. Becca checked every cupboard she’d hidden in as a toddler, the ivy behind the house that Julie had always made her cubby, under every piece of furniture she could lift or wriggle into, even up the apricot tree in the rain. No Sam.

“Why would he do this?” Candice fumed. “Doesn’t he know how hard things are already?” She all but wrenched the cupboard door off its hinges. “This is what I’m talking about, running away instead of learning to cope!”

“He was coping, in his own way. Not everybody has to cope your way!” Becca shot back.

Candice sucked in a breath in shock. Becca plunged ahead, using anger as courage.

“Why did you have to destroy his notebook?” she shouted. “Why do you always have to win?”

The slap came out of nowhere. Becca reeled against the wall, her cheek on fire.

“I raised you better than that,” Candice spat.

“Dad raised me. You just controlled me. There’s a difference.”

Candice raised her hand for another slap, but Becca swatted it down and shoved past her into the cluttered hallway. “Check the street!” she shouted before Candice could follow. She barged into her room and snatched her bag from under the bed. I can do it. I’ll just leave. It’s my life. I’ll fix things with Rick, go to work, drinks with the guys, live my life. I love Julie, but I’m not helping her here. Becca shoved her clothes in the bag with numb hands. She’d find Sam, and then she’d…

What? Leave him here? She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting against the nausea that clawed up her throat.

She couldn’t leave him here.

Years stretched out in front of her like a prison sentence. Starting over again, no job, no friends. Facing Candice alone, without backup. Without Julie.

Dragging at air, she squeezed her fingers around her wrists, ran for the bathroom to be sick—

And tripped over a bucket, landing on a fire poker.

The hell are a bucket and fire poker doing in the hallway? Massaging her jarred ankle, Becca rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, where the attic ladder pull-cord swung slowly.

A shifting thump came from the ceiling. Becca smiled despite herself. She’d discounted the attic ladder as out of his reach. But standing on a bucket to twirl the ladder cord around a fire poker and pull the ladder down—that sounded like her father’s grandson. Becca eased the stairs down and crept into the attic.

Sam stared at a box, almost ravenous, scribbling on the backs of envelopes. As she approached, the typewriter clicks came, muffled—he’d wrapped her dad’s old shirts around the machine to quiet it. Becca couldn’t stifle the grin. He frantically pressed a key over and over, scribbling as he went.

Becca sat, but he didn’t look up.

“Grandma’s mad at me,” he whispered.

“Grandma’s worried about your Mum.”

“Are you mad at me?”

Becca hugged him close. “What’ve you got there?” She pointed at the envelopes.

Sam bit his lip. “She took my notebook, but…I’d already gotten pretty good at remembering the codes. I was working on remembering the rest.” He cringed slightly, breath held.

Becca looked over his scrawl. The patterns held steady, three symbols to a phoneme. “Do you remember how you figured them out?” She sifted in the attic piles for some pieces of card and a pen. “Let me show you how to make a decoder ring.”

Sam grinned.

“So how’s our soldier doing?”

“Someone’s chasing him. He almost got caught near Yoorannis but that’s when the shuttles showed up.”

“Near where?” Becca peered at the envelopes in the dim light of the attic window. Sam pointed, and she squinted harder. “Yoor…Uranus. It’s a planet.”

“Like in space?” Sam’s eyes widened. “He’s a space soldier?”

“Maybe an astronaut. He must be clever, sending the message out.”

“He did what you said, asked what he didn’t know,” Sam pointed to another section, then frowned. “If he’s in space, then…it’s not my Dad.”

Becca sighed and squeezed Sam close.

Feet slammed on the attic stairs. Candice’s head rose from the floor, her face like ice. She glanced at them, and Becca was nine years old again with her new dress covered in mud. She clutched Sam, leaning between him and her mother.

Candice loomed down. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, when you know how much Julie needs you. But if you can’t do it yourself…” She hefted up the typewriter, crate and all, and carried it over to the attic window. Becca watched, her legs refusing to move, as Candice opened the window and dumped the crate through it into the rain. Sam shuddered at every thump and ping of metal as the crate and its contents burst apart on their front lawn.

“I put your bag away.” Her consonants could have cut steel. “When you have realised there are more important things, I’ll be in the living room, looking after my daughter.” She stalked down the stairs. Becca’s face burned.

Sam shivered. “Does Mum think I don’t love her?”

“No, mate,” Becca rubbed his arms as if to warm him, or perhaps herself. “Your Mum knows how much you love her.” Her voice sounded hollow, even to her.

* * *

Becca lay awake on her childhood bed, studying the scrawl on the bottom of Julie’s bunk. Sam slept, the rise and fall of his breath like a tiny piston, but sleep eluded Becca.

The pre-dawn birdsong niggled. They were the wrong birds. She missed the magpie warble, the cackle of Kookaburras as they hunted worms for their young.

Who would raise Sam? Her? Her mother? No, Becca had made too many hard choices to break that cycle, she had to spare him that. But how could she take him away from Julie? Rick would never sign on for a kid, he didn’t even want a dog. And Candice couldn’t care for Julie on her own, not even with a physio-nurse visiting.

Was this her life, now? Walled in with Candice by guilt? Caring for the body of a sister she’d never see again? Becca bit down on her cheek until she tasted blood.

What would Dad do?

Figure it out. Find what you’re missing. Build your decoder.

Typewriter pieces sprang forward in her mind. Where had that astronaut come from? How did he contact her?

You’re just distracting yourself from the problem. She winced at her mother’s voice in her head. If she stayed here, she’d turn into Candice.

She had to leave. They both did. Julie would want what was best for her son, even if that didn’t include her. Becca’d find a school nearby, ask work for flexible hours. Her friends would visit, and Rick…She’d work something out with Rick. He’d come around, he’d like Sam. She’d make it work.

Becca swung her legs out from the covers and felt for a torch. The only dressing gown she could find in the dark was Sam’s blue Thomas the Tank Engine one that barely covered her hips, but it would have to do. She eased open the dresser that held Sam’s clothes and quietly bundled them into his backpack. Candice had hidden hers somewhere. She’d buy a new laptop when she got home. If she didn’t go now, she might lose her nerve. She’d put his backpack in the car, then come back for him.

Becca crept down the hallway, past her sister’s laboured breathing. In her head, Candice’s voice cursed her: selfish child. Becca held her breath and slipped the latch on the front door.

The rain had lifted, leaving a pre-dawn sogginess that clogged the air. Becca tip-toed out to the car, the mud squelching through her toes. Shoes. She should get some shoes when she got Sam. She eased the car door shut, and turned back to the house.

The typewriter still lay in pieces on the grass near the bins. Sam would need it. As if it could somehow fill the void of what she was taking him from.

He’s already lost her.

Not the point.

She picked over the remains, laying out letter-levers and keys in a sad little row. She couldn’t put it back together again; most of it was a twisted mess. She held the ‘A’ in her hand, its long arm bent from impact and twisted in the ribbon. Broken, like her sister, never to be whole. Her ink-purple fingers blurred as hot tears wet her cheeks and neck, and sobs pulled up from her gut. She curled over her chest, squeezing the broken pieces in her hand until her palm cramped, sobbing so hard her stomach ached.

Her mother had been right. She’d just been hiding behind the puzzle. Becca stared down at the ink marks in her hand, drained.

A clear symbol sat on her palm where the A had rested. It wasn’t an ‘A’. Slowly, hand shaking, Becca pressed the A key through the ribbon into her palm.

Another symbol.

Electricity surged through her blood stream. She sifted through the rubble. The decoder had disintegrated in the rain, but—but Sam’s notebook might be salvageable. Trying not to breathe, she flipped the lid off the garbage bin and rummaged inside, dug out the gravy-sodden notebook and wiped the worst of the mess off with the mountain of used tissues.

The gravy had eaten half of Sam’s notes, but with her laptop, she could re-translate it with ocular character recognition. Give it a dictionary and the translations from the notebook, it could take educated guesses at the rest. She could figure it out, finish it for him.

One problem: Candice had her laptop.

Conviction wavered under Candice’s imaginary glare.

You could just leave it. You’re taking him away from everything, he’s probably not going to care. You could just slink away, like always. Because she scares you. Your own mother scares you.

Fist closed around the ‘A’ key, Becca marched inside.

She found her carry-on bag stuffed in Candice’s wardrobe and lugged it halfway to the hall before the lights flicked on. Candice stood in her vermillion dressing gown, one raised hand gripping a leather belt.

“I thought you were…” she began, expression foggy. She glanced at Becca, then the bag, hardened her gaze and drew herself up, setting her face into battle-mode. She let the silence play out, the seconds battering at Becca’s walls like artillery.

“I deserve better than this. So does your sister.”

Becca flinched as the words shot through to her gut. “It’s not about you.” Her voice whined like a child’s.

Candice strode towards her, the belt swinging ominously. “She needs you. You can’t run away because you don’t feel like dealing with it. You don’t get to pretend anymore while someone else cleans up the mess.”

The bag slipped down Becca’s arm like a weight fixing her in place and her mind narrowed to the words, to Candice’s voice, struggling to gain an edge.

Candice loomed within striking distance. “Your sister understood that,” she said. “We had our differences, but she worked hard for her family, for her son. She buried her husband while you ran off to your koalas. And now she needs you, and you’re leaving it to everyone else, like you always do. Leaving us behind.”

Shaking her head mutely, Becca tried to drum up words, thoughts, anything.

Candice leaned close. “You selfish child. Always, no matter what I did. She’s not the one who deserved this.”

Sickening heat flooded up from Becca’s belly, swallowing her.

Candice’s eyes glinted in triumph. “Were you even going to say goodbye to Sam? Or are you leaving that to me as well, to explain why you’re abandoning him.”

Sam.

Becca found an edge. Protect Sam. She clutched it like a spear, lifted her chin, locked eyes with Candice. “I’m taking him with me,” she snarled.

Candice reared back, mouth open.

Drawing her anger from her voice, Becca pulled herself straight. “I gave up every friend I had to move away. My sister. My job. My possessions. I didn’t run away, I made a calculated choice. I paid a price.” She took a deep breath, chin thrust out like she could push the words out and not hear them. “It was worth leaving everything behind to be free of you.”

Silence again, but this time it couldn’t touch her. Her blood surged like ice through her chest.

“How dare you,” Candice breathed. “You ungrateful—”

“I’m just being honest with you,” Becca shot back. “Without the nonsense, just like you wanted. Without pretending this is okay.” I can do this. I can stand up to her. I can protect him. “Because it’s not. You are toxic, and if you want to get anywhere near Sam, things are going to have to change.”

Candice brandished the belt. “You can’t take him away from me. From Julie.”

Becca snatched it out of her hands. “I’m his legal guardian. Anyone can see she’s not fit for motherhood.” She took a deep breath and leaned close enough to smell the laundry soap on her mother’s gown. “I will miss her until my heart stops, but it would have been kinder to everyone, especially her, if you had just let her go.”

Becca re-shouldered the bag. “I’ll bring Sam to you to say goodbye.”

* * *

Sam had mumbled groggy goodbyes. Becca had tried to wake him, but the boy just wanted to sleep, so she’d tucked him in the car with her carry-on and the remains of the typewriter and driven to the airport to wait for their standby flight. He slept the whole way, and barely woke when she piloted him to an empty gate lounge. Becca sat in the row next to him and rifled through her bag for her jeans and jumper to drag on.

He should be with his mother.

I can’t leave him with Candice.

She scrabbled faster through socks, underwear and camisoles. No jeans.

Candice wouldn’t hurt him.

he’d control him.

Deciding this for him isn’t control? You can’t be a parent. This isn’t your life.

Hands shaking, she dragged the jumper out of its tangle with a t-shirt and her headphones. She must have left the jeans at Candice’s. She tied the jumper around her hips.

I’d be better than she would. Julie would want this.

Would she? Would Sam? Or is this just what you want?

This was ridiculous. She’d made the decision. She wasn’t going to unmake it. She shoved the escaping underwear back in, hauled the laptop out and set it up on the table with the typewriter pieces and the gravy-sodden notebook. Her fingers jittered on the keys. Sometimes distractions were necessary.

The program took less time than she’d expected. Components just fit, like something guided her code, pulling it into a prototype effortlessly. She could almost smell her father’s aftershave on the keyboard.

Gripped with a frenzy, she snatched some napkins from the table, hammered the broken key through the ribbon onto them as fast as she could and held them up to the webcam, tapping the keyboard impotently while the program churned up the translation. Next to her, Sam rolled on his bag in his sleep, curling around it.

There it was: the astronaut’s team had been colonising Titan when unfriendly ships arrived from outside the system. He stole one and escaped, largely by jabbing everything to see what it did, and broadcast his distress call until the American shuttles turned up.

Sam was right, this guy had her father’s attitude. Poke it with a stick. Never let ignorance or fear stand in the way of trying.

Don’t let her beat that out of you again.

Dawn crept over the horizon of the runway. Becca’s hands ached. The program struggled with words not in the dictionary, and she paused to decipher them by hand.

“Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

I don’t know how this’ll reach you, I think their tech latches onto whatever it can. I set the ship to do a data dump at the end of this transmission; hopefully there’s something Uncle Sam can use. I’m taking a lot on faith, you know, with your stories. Tell Mum I love her, and say hi to Uncle Sam.”

Becca frowned. Was Uncle Sam actually a person?

There was an address before the message, like a letter: Rebecca Willoway and Michael Oaks, 275 Tempus Terrace.

Her name. Candice’s address.

Becca hugged the laptop to herself and pressed the ‘A’ key a few more times against the last napkin. It wrote ‘A’. She wasn’t surprised.

But it couldn’t be her, if it was “Uncle” Sam. Sam would be a cousin to any grandchild of hers. And she wasn’t staying here.

Except Sam was her son, now. If she had any other children, he’d be more brother to them than anything else.

The dawn sun soaked through the window into her spine with the realisation, sickeningly warm. Becca slumped as her life collapsed back inside the walls of Candice’s rule.

Even if you believe in magic typewriters from the future, it doesn’t mean that future’s going to happen.

No, but it’s possible. I hadn’t thought of that. I hadn’t thought something good might come of it.

The warmth roiled in her chest.

It’s not possible, because you’re taking Sam away from that. For his own good.

Maybe I just don’t want to give up my life. My friends, Rick.

You’re doing the right thing for Sam.

Am I, though? Or am I just doing the easy thing for me?

The thought slammed down like stone. Becca shut the lid of the laptop, fighting the urge to curl up around her knees.

Forget the stupid typewriter a minute. What’s best for him? That’s my job, now. That’s what Julie wanted.

The plastic seat squeaked softly—Becca stopped herself from rocking.

I stood up to her once. I can stand up to her again. Maybe I could make some happiness here.

She unfolded herself from the seat and stoked Sam’s hair from his face.

He deserves to have his mother—his real mother—in his life.

You’ll have to keep fighting for it. Keep fighting her, every moment.

* * *

In the carport of Candice’s house, Becca gathered the last of the scrawled-on napkins from the back seat. Sam, finally awake, had scampered off to tell the whole thing to Julie as soon as the engine had stopped. Hands full, Becca flicked the door closed with her knee as another car pulled up in the drive.

A young man in blue scrubs and coiffed black hair stepped out, hospital-branded duffel bag slung across one muscular shoulder. He gave her a wave, smile gracing perfect cheekbones, and Becca was suddenly acutely aware that she stood in the front garden wearing a tied-on jumper and a child’s dressing gown, hands clutching stained napkins and sticky with gravy, face still swollen with tears.

“How’re you doing?” he called out with a rich burr from one of the southern states of America. He held out his hand. “Oakes, Michael Oakes. I’m your sister’s physio-nurse.”

“Oh, yes. They—they said.” Becca stammered, trying to wind the robe more tightly against herself. “I’m sorry, it’s been a bit of a night. Michael, was it?” Belatedly, she offered her hand to shake, still full of napkins. His warm fingers wrapped over hers securely. A small scar bisected his left eyebrow, giving him a permanent inquisitive expression. He didn’t even flinch at the gravy.

“Oakes, yes. It’s okay. It’s like that.” He stepped closer, professional manner softening for a moment. “It gets easier, I promise.”

Becca looked back down at the address on the napkins. “Are you sure?” she said, not entirely to him.

He smiled again, and extended his arm to lead her toward the house. “Trust me,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Derrick Boden

Clay Soldiers

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction in November 2015

* * *

Bret woke with a piercing pain in his side, the roar of the battlefield still raging in his ears. The ceiling and walls were white. A white curtain hung at his left. A bag pumped liquid into his vein. His ragged breaths burned. The exoskeleton must’ve pushed through his lung. Could they fix that? God, he hoped so.

Bret’s fingers sought out his pocket. He withdrew a photo, damp with sweat and blood. The most beautiful woman in the world looked back, eyes just for him, soft lips curved into a perfect smile.

"Susan," Bret said softly. If it weren’t for Susan, he wouldn’t have had the guts to jump out of that plane, alone in the dark.

A cough behind the curtain gave Bret a start, and the pain lanced up his neck.

"Private Bret McGuire," he said. "Who’s there?"

Sheets rustled.

"Private Toby Jackson," a man said in a rasping whisper, his voice strangely familiar. "Just arrived?"

"Shouldn’t be here long. My girl Susan, she’ll be right along to pick me up."

Toby let out a rattling sigh. "You did just get here. Poor sap."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Your girl Susan going to Belmont?"

Bret shot a suspicious glance at the curtains. "Yeah. Graduating this spring, with a degree in—"

"Political science." That voice. Could’ve been his own brother, it was so damned familiar.

"How’d you know?"

"She grew up in the next town over, Allenwood. You sat behind her in Chemistry, sophomore year. You spilled a soda on her in the lunch line. How embarrassing. But she didn’t mind. No worries, she said, with those soft lips."

A chill overtook Bret. He stared at the photo of Susan. Was this guy a stalker? Or an enemy agent?

Toby clicked his tongue, like a kid. "But her father, old military dog, he never did like you. Thought you were a coward. So when the recruiters came knocking, you enlisted. You were gonna earn her hand in marriage. Had it all figured out."

Bret gripped the sheets. "Where am I?"

"Alliance Hospital. Reclamation wing."

"Reclamation? What’s that mean? And how the hell do you know about my girl?"

"I was fighting for her too."

"Bullshit! She’s my girl—"

"Easy, man." Dry coughs punctuated Toby’s words. "I didn’t steal your girl. But she ain’t coming for you, neither. Doubt she’s still alive, if she ever was. She’s just a purpose."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Listen, I’m sorry. Nurse warned me not to talk about it. It’s just…they gave me my final dose this morning. Got me all outta sorts. Forget what I said."

Bret tried to stand up. Pain shot through his side.

"Easy, man. Reclamation wing is for soldiers that aren’t financially reparable. There’s no sense wasting your last breaths."

Bret bit his lip until he tasted blood. "My girl is coming for me, I know it. We’re gonna get married."

"How many soldiers you meet in basic?"

"None, but—"

"And how many did you see on the battlefield?"

"I’m a drop soldier," Bret said. "We deploy solo, behind enemy lines. With the risk of capture, the brass take precautions. Train us in private cells, keep us isolated. It’s bleak, but we’re the most important op in the war."

"Aren’t we all."

Bret looked down at the photograph. "What did you mean, my girl’s just a purpose?"

Toby sucked in a rasping breath. "I guess too many Joes were coming home in body bags. Congress was losing support for the war. But there’s too much oil out there for them to turn their backs. They had to ground their drones after the Big Hack, which meant more boots on the ground. Problem was, there wasn’t anyone left willing to fill the boots. So DARPA bailed them out. Called it Project Clay. That was the first soldier’s name, rumor has it. Could’ve been Bret for all I know."

Bret squinted back tears. They must’ve given this guy too many drugs.

"I guess too many of us were backing down, didn’t want to fight. They couldn’t figure out the courage gene, or whatever. Turns out, we just needed a purpose."

The room was stifling. Bret struggled to breathe.

"She gave us the courage we needed. I hear they deployed fifty thousand drop soldiers last week. Probably all fighting for Susan Lowrie. Gonna earn her hand in marriage."

"Who fed you all this?"

"Heard the doc and nurse talking. Guess they thought I was asleep. Next time the nurse came by, I grilled her. Think she felt bad, seeing as how I don’t have much time left. Told me everything. Said not to spread it around. Funny thing is, even now that I know, I still love Susan. Guess it’s just wired into me."

"You’re a madman."

Toby let out a long breath, then fell silent.

"Toby?" The photo slipped from Bret’s fingers as he reached for the side of his bed. "Toby! Answer me!"

Bret tore the tube from his arm and struggled out of the bed. An alarm blared. The air was like water in his lungs. He collapsed to the ground. His gown was slick with blood. He grabbed the dividing curtain and dragged himself across the floor. Blood pounded in his ears, like artillery from the battlefield.

He reached out a hand and grasped Toby’s bed frame. He hauled himself up and leaned against the bedside. Black flecks crept into his vision. He gasped for air.

Toby lay bandaged and lifeless on the bed. His head was shaved clean and a long gash ran the length of his cheek, but otherwise he was unmistakable. It could’ve been his own brother, if he only had one. It could’ve been himself.

Toby’s fingers clutched a frayed photograph. Bret pried it loose.

Hands grasped Bret and dragged him across the floor. Someone was screaming. It sounded familiar. Could’ve been his own brother. He looked down at the photograph.

Susan looked back, eyes just for him.

The Last Mardi Gras

Originally published by Flash Fiction Online in August 2015

* * *

From the rooftop of the old cathedral, I had a clear view past the Louis Armstrong Park lagoons, all the way to the steel islands of Mid City. Just like I always remembered New Orleans. Wet.

My boat, a cheap scow with a temper as bad as my dead Aunt Sally, thrashed against the current nearby. Took me all morning to motor in from the Baton Rouge arcology. Standing there on that roof, looking out across that flooded land, I still wasn’t sure why I’d come.

My old lady sure as hell didn’t like the idea, but she’s from Boston and still couldn’t even pronounce Mardi Gras right. We had plenty to worry about back home, with the power going out every other day and everyone fretting about the next wave of hunger riots. I figured I was the only one crazy enough to show, and seeing as how I was sitting alone up there, it was looking like I was right. Probably wasn’t no such thing as the Krewe du Passé anyway.

I kicked a water bin over and gave my old legs a rest. To the East, past the crumbled facades of the Quarter, the remains of the Ninth Ward levees clung to the horizon. The big ones. They were gonna stop the big floods, keep us all safe inside this little bubble we called home.

And maybe they would’ve, if it’d been big floods that had come.

Like most things, the end crept up real slow. So slow it was easy to look the other way, especially for all those politicians. Slap another dyke up in Florida, build the levees a few feet higher in old NOLA. Forget about it until next year. The picketers kept predicting a big flood, something to throw in the face of the government. Proof that something had to be done. But that’s not how things go down.

No, New Orleans didn’t drop into the gulf under one big swell. It was a slow death, like watching your grandma fight off cancer for twenty years. And lord, did she fight. But eventually death caught her, just like it catches everything.

The sun was getting high in the sky, so I pulled my old trombone out and greased her up. The slide was like butter, the mouthpiece the only kiss I’ve ever needed. I trolled out a few notes, then let it wail until the echoes bounced clear down to Lake Pontchartrain.

Most people never understood a thing about this town. Always saying, "Just move higher, you dumb shits." I’m not sure what ties a soul to a place, but I’ve never felt at home since the day we finally packed up through the second floor window and motored out of town. The arcologies were supposed to be the future, keep everyone fed and indoors where it’s safe. But they’re soulless hives, and just like a soulless hive they started to rot from the inside. Now the gangs are so bad, sometimes I think it’d be better to take our chances down in Mexico.

My lungs were getting hot, so I stopped for a swig of moonshine.

The Krewe du Passé. Who was I fooling? I’d almost convinced myself to stay behind in Baton Rouge. But then the night before, Big Chief came on the radio. I got the chills all over, felt the movement in my bones. In my heart. I knew I had to find out for myself.

The messages were all cryptic-like, obscure posts and emails. The Coast Guard had the whole perimeter blocked off, and they didn’t take kindly to trespassers, with all the oil poaching going down these days. So it was real cloak and dagger. I left before dawn, and still almost got nabbed by a patrol as I was squeezing along the riverbank. You’d think the bastards would have something better to do, like get food to people that need it.

Down Royal Street, the water was lapping against the old buildings. The last holdouts. Hadn’t been more than a few thousand of us holed up here during those final years. Even then, there were some good days. Carnival days. Most of the krewes were long gone, but a few stuck around. Rex. Zulu. Krewe du Vieux. Marching our problems away. Until the day the gangs boated into town, shooting and looting. Gunned down the mayor right in the waterway. We all knew it was time to go, then. So we said goodbye to New Orleans, and we said goodbye to Mardi Gras. Sure, they still celebrate up in Boston, and I hear they’ve got a museum out in California. But that ain’t Mardi Gras, far as I’m concerned. Mardi Gras lived and died right here.

It was well past the meeting time, and my toes were getting cold. It was gearing up to be a quiet Mardi Gras, but I could dig it. Just me and my grandma, this old city. I drew my bone back to my lips.

Something caught the sunlight, a little quantized rainbow floating by. I leaned over the edge and scooped it up with the slide of my bone. I held it up to the light.

Beads. I’ll be damned. A whole string of them, just like they used to throw. And right through the center, where the sun was starting to blind me, something moved along the water in the distance.

A boat. Then another. And then another.

Like gators through the bayou, they drifted closer, all converging on the cathedral. Some were as small as my scow. Others were large enough to hold a few families. On one deck, a steaming pot of gumbo filled the air with the scent of heaven. From another, a trumpet wailed. A third brought the drums.

And they all came ready to dance. If this was gonna be the last Mardi Gras, we were gonna make it count. We were gonna show our old grandma that she didn’t die for nothing.

Stefan Bolz

The Traveler

Remember, as far as your travels take you,

You are always at home.

Originally Published by Samuel Peralta as part of The Time Travel Chronicles

1

They told me I couldn’t go into his workshop. They didn’t understand. They thought it would bring back too many memories. But there weren’t too many memories. There weren’t enough memories. Not nearly enough. I wanted to hold each one, put them in a jar and keep them with me so I could go back whenever I needed to. But instead, they began to drift away, however much I tried to hold on to them. There were painful ones, yes. But they were only from the time when he was in the hospital. Those were the ones I couldn’t get back to. How his face was fallen in, how his speech was slurred, how he grasped for things that weren’t there.

No. I wanted to go back further. I wanted to remember the Saturday mornings when we worked side by side in his shop. He was always building something. Always. The smoke from the welder filled the air; the blue arc illuminated the walls each time the welding rod connected with the steel. He told me never to look directly into it, to shield my eyes from its intense burning light. For my ninth birthday, he gave me a welding mask. He fitted it perfectly to my head and I didn’t take it off for the whole day. It was one of the fancier ones where you could lift the front cover up to look at the welding line and see if it was straight and contained enough filler metal to make a perfect weave bead.

The other gifts—a karaoke machine and Just Dance 4 for the Wii—were nice but they didn’t make my heart swell up. The welding mask made me an equal to him. Still an apprentice, yes, but equally capable of using some of the tools and equipment. My stepmom didn’t understand why I loved it so much. She couldn’t understand a lot of things.

My sister, who was much older than me, got married right around my twelfth birthday. My dad and I made her a bouquet of flowers for her wedding. He let me attach several of the flower petals to the top of the stems. I messed up a few and burned holes into the thin metal pieces. But he cut out new ones each time, and after the fourth one, I finally was able to attach it. Once the bouquet was done, I painted the petals in yellow and white and the stem in dark green.

My dad had a stroke three days after the wedding. He died one week later. That was two months ago. A few days before he passed away, I sat next to his bed in the hospital. My stepmom let me miss school. I think part of her knew that these were his final days. Whenever I could, I read to him. I was convinced that he was able to hear me. I read to him from the same book he had always read to me. I loved the Eloi. I hated the Morlocks. They scared me. Whenever he’d get to a scene in the book that had Morlocks in it, he would ask me if he should continue. I always said yes. I knew we had to go through the bad scenes, through the scary stuff, to get to the end. The time traveler had to endure it. And so should I.

It happened right after lunch on the fourth day of his hospital stay. I had almost reached the end, the part in the book where the traveler had come back to eighteenth-century London only to disappear again a few hours later. This time for good. First I saw one of his fingers move. After a while I realized that he was pointing at me. His skin was clammy and cold when I took his hands. There was no strength left in them. The hands that had built things, had held tools for all his life, the hands that had carried me through all of mine. His mouth opened. I took an ice cube from the tray and moistened his lips with it. He might have said something, I wasn’t sure. His mouth moved as if he wanted to form a word.

"Do you want to tell me something? Dad?"

I leaned over, my ear close to his mouth. There was nothing. No sound. No word. I felt silly all of a sudden. But something in him wouldn’t let go of me. There was a word on his lips. I tried to read it. It was like an ahhhh or maybe a duhhh. He seemed to repeat it over and over. Once I thought he said druhhh.

That day, I left the hospital defeated. I knew there was something he had wanted to tell me but I couldn’t make out the word. When he died a few days later, without ever lifting his finger again, I couldn’t comprehend that he was gone. I went back to school. My sister and her husband moved into our house. They had to sell their house right after my brother-in-law lost his job.

One evening during dinner, they started talking about my father’s things. They wanted to sell the tools and the equipment. I think it was my sister’s husband most of all who wanted to sell it. My sister just nodded. My stepmother was still too grief-stricken to oppose. I told them if they were going to sell his things, I would stop eating. They didn’t believe me. I made it without food for three days. On the fourth day, I collapsed during gym at school and went to the hospital. I was released a few days later. They didn’t sell my father’s things. They even let me go into the workshop.

The shop was in an old barn a bit further down from the house. The first few times I went there after his death, I sat at his welding station in the dark, listening to the silence, trying to feel if he was still here, if part of him was still around. The smell of his pipe tobacco and the damp coal in the forge lingered. I wasn’t able to stay for long. One day, I decided that it would be a good idea to straighten up the place. I had always been responsible for cleaning after we worked together. I swept the floor planks, making sure the metal sheathing around the welding station was clear of anything combustible. I straightened out the tools and cleaned the forging hammers with oil, then swept the two workbenches. I cleaned the shelf that had all the leftover parts like copper fittings, pieces of iron, steel rods, plates, and other items. I emptied the ash container in the forge, polished the anvils, and greased the spindles of the vices.

I had my own leather apron. It hung next to my father’s under a small shelf that had our gloves and welding masks on it. When I looked at it, I started to cry and couldn’t continue that day. I didn’t go back for a few days. One morning, I woke up thinking about him saying druhhh. I began to scribble the word on pieces of paper during class at school. ‘Draw’ was the closest I could come to making sense of it. Did my father, with his last word, tell me to start drawing?

That afternoon, I went back to the shop. I turned the light on, kindled a fire in the wood stove, and sat in the corner opposite the chimney. From there, I could see the whole shop. I had a large drawing pad and a pencil and began to sketch the room. First, I tried to get the right perspective and proportions. Then I added the chimney and the large workbenches. After that came the welding station, the forging area, the large shelf with the materials, the small old dresser that had been converted to hold small boxes of nuts, bolts, washers, rags, and smaller parts. From there I went to the tool carts, the other chairs, and the larger tools like the stand-up drill and belt grinder.

After a few hours, I was done. I hung the picture in my room where I could see it from my bed. I lay awake for most of that night. The moon rose around 11 pm and I took the drawing with me into my restless sleep. In my dream, the picture was made from charcoal from the forging oven. But it was washed out and almost unrecognizable. When I woke up again, my clock showed 1:45 am. Druhhh. Druhhh. Draw. I said the words out lout. Druwh. Drough. Drought. Dry. Draw. I looked at the drawing again. Drum. Drawl. Draw. Drawer. Drawer. Drawer.

DRAWER!

I sat up. Drawer. The moonlight on the wall was enough to illuminate the drawing. The old dresser. I’d never looked inside the drawers, hadn’t gotten to organizing them yet. I got out of bed, put on my thermal pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a wool sweater. It had gotten cold during the last few days. The first flurries of snow had fallen yesterday. I went downstairs as quietly as I could and put on my boots. I left the house through the back door and walked along the silvery path toward the dark silhouette of the barn. My heart was pounding when I arrived. I didn’t want to turn the lights on so I grabbed a flashlight from the hook next to the door. I kindled a fire in the stove and stood in front of the dresser for a while. Part of me couldn’t wait to open the drawers and see what was in there. The other part wasn’t so sure. What if there was nothing? What if I was chasing a ghost? What if my dad had simply told me that he wanted water?

There was no point in stalling. I needed to know. I opened the first drawer. On the right side, an assortment of bolts of different lengths and widths was organized into sections, separated by narrow pieces of thin, dark wood. On the other side of the drawer were nuts and washers. Over time, the sizes had gotten mixed up and now it was just a mess of bits mingling together.

I should have taken better care of this, I thought. Instead, I’d let it get to this level of disorganization. The next drawer wasn’t as deep. It held a few pieces of sandpaper for the belt grinder. Nothing else. I closed it. Then I opened it again and looked closer. It wasn’t deep enough for the size of the drawer. I took out the sheets of sandpaper and placed them on top of the dresser. A false bottom. I could see it right away. There was a small gap between it and the back board of the drawer. I pulled it up. It dislodged easily.

The beam of my flashlight illuminated what looked like a spiral notebook. It was blackened from grease and metal dust and its corners were bent upward. Large parts of the spiral were missing. I carefully lifted it up. Below it lay what looked like a piece of metal sheathing. Maybe a square foot and a quarter of an inch in thickness. I took it in my hands, expecting its weight to be much more than it actually was. It felt like lead but without the weight. I tapped at it with my fingernail. The sound was similar to that of glass when touched with a metal object. Pling! I carefully laid it on the ground.

I went to the stove and added a few logs to the embers. The chill hadn’t left the room yet. I pulled a chair close, sat down, and opened the notebook. The first page, written in perfect pencil lettering, started with Table of Contents. Below that, and perfectly aligned according to its sections, it said:

1—Parts

1.1 Centrifugal Rotor

1.1.1 Core

1.1.2 Outer Ring

1.1.3 Connectors

1.2 Power Supply

1.2.1 Battery Compartment

1.2.2 Capacitor Board

1.3 Controls

1.3.1 Left Foot Pedal

1.3.2 Right Foot Pedal

1.3.3 Display

1.4 External Parts

1.4.1 Chassis

1.4.2 Faraday Cage

1.5 Traveler’s Chair

1.5.1 Head Rest and Neck Stabilizer

1.5.2 Seat and Back

2—Construction and Assembly

3—Setting Dates

4—Travel

5—Clothing and Accessories

6—Safety

7—The Traveler

What followed were twenty pages of neatly written text intertwined with drawings, sketches, and mathematical formulas. Then several pages with lists of materials needed. This list was separated into items we had in the shop and others that needed to be bought. The list had everything in it, from metal wire fencing to pieces of copper, from steel piping to Neodymium rare earth magnets that could be ordered through the mail.

The Construction and Assembly section described how to put it all together, piece by piece. I recognized my father’s writing—how he phrased certain sentences and how he began some of the lines with "Careful there!" He had used this phrase many times throughout his teachings.

"Careful there, don’t apply too much pressure on the welding rod. Let it be pulled into the steel rather than push it into the bead."

I could hear him as if he stood beside me, reading to me in his deep voice. I had to stop several times. During those moments, I felt both the pain over his loss and the love he had left behind.

I still had no idea what the finished product would be. Until I got to the end of the section. The drawing took up a whole page. It was detailed and seemed to be to scale. It took me all but two seconds to see what it was. One person could comfortably sit inside. The chassis was made from galvanized pipes. The cabin holding the traveler was surrounded by metal fencing. A faradic cage. There was an engine of sorts and two pedals, one for each foot, to control the machine.

Did he expect me to build this? He must have wanted to give it to me much later, maybe five or ten years from now. Surely he hadn’t expected to die so soon. I stared at the notebook for a while, then closed it carefully and placed it back into the drawer. I was cold all of a sudden. The fire must have gone out. "I’m sorry, Dad, but what you want me to do is impossible," I said into the silence. I listened for a moment, in case there was an answer. But the shop was quiet. When I left, the grey sky loomed overhead.

2

After that night, I didn’t set foot into the shop for a week. Instead, I glanced at it from the window of my room during the night—a dark shape against the slightly lighter background of the meadow behind it. An emptiness had spread through our house during that time. My stepmother was a ghost, busily moving from room to room, organizing my father’s belongings. My sister was consoling her but I could see that it was her who needed consoling more than anyone. She and my dad had had a difficult relationship. It didn’t help that when she was a teenager, I began to want to help him in his shop and therefore spent much more time with him than she ever did. Now I could see in her the regret of never wanting to listen to him when he spoke about the furniture he’d built or the iron gates and door hinges he had made.

I rarely went downstairs anymore except when I had to eat or do chores around the house. I spent most of the time up in my room, doing homework or looking at the shop from my window. When I lay in bed at night, my thoughts always went back to the notebook. Why did my father tell me about the drawer if he knew I would never be able to build the machine? The question kept me up at night and even my days were filled with trying to answer it. He had written the manual for me but it was clear he had intended to build it with me, not have me try it all by myself. In the hospital, he probably thought I should have it to remember him. But I didn’t want to remember him. Remembering him was too painful. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to feel his gentle touch on my shoulder when I worked on a project in the shop, hear his words of encouragement when I burned a hole into the steel or the welding rod got stuck in the bead.

I caught myself thinking about the items on the list and where to get them. A 12 Volt/700CCA car battery, the magnets, a six-by-six foot piece of metal fencing, a few copper connectors, about thirty feet of one-inch galvanized piping, a seat cushion (if needed), the display of an analog alarm clock and a few other things I could get at our hardware store. If I were to try to build it. Which I wouldn’t. But as much as I tried not to think about it, I couldn’t stop. I had forty two dollars and seven cents in my savings box. That would barely be enough to get the magnets. If I wanted to do this, I needed to get a job. But I didn’t want to get a job because I couldn’t possibly build the machine. I paced back and forth in my room, but this made me even more agitated than I already was. Eventually, I sat down on my bed and, just as I did sometimes, opened The Time Machine without any particular page in mind.

"I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel worn, truly; and one of the ivory bars is cracked, and a brass rail bent; but the rest of it is sound enough. I expected to finish it on Friday, when the putting together was nearly done, I found that one of the nickel bars was exactly one inch too short, and this had to be re-made; so that the thing was not complete until this morning."

I closed the book again. Should I try it? I’m not sure what happened at that moment but something inside me gave way. I couldn’t hold out any longer. I guess the pain over not being with him was greater than the fear of building a machine that would, in the end, be just that—a machine with no purpose but to have made a fool out of me. I got dressed and went downstairs.

"Where you going?" I heard my stepmother call from the living room.

"I’ll be right back. Just going out to the shop."

I’m sure she didn’t want me to go. It was almost ten o’clock at night and tomorrow was a school day. But she couldn’t forbid it either. I felt for her at that moment. Her loss was mine and while I stood at the entrance door, we were joined in our grief over whom we had loved the most in this world.

The shop was cold. Freezing. I could see my breath when I turned the lights on. I kindled a fire and warmed my hands for a while. It would take a half hour for the room to become comfortable. Better get to work. I decided to clear one half of the shop to have an area where I could place all the needed parts. That way, I could see what was missing and add to it without losing a sense of where everything was. I also wanted to get an inventory of what tools I might need so that I could move the rest to the opposite wall.

It occurred to me that the notebook didn’t mention any finishing work on the metal. No metal rasp to soften the edges and joists, no steel wool to smooth out the welding lines. My dad was never about appearances. It didn’t interest him. He always said that appearances hide the truth behind them. In everything. I never understood this until much later. Whenever we spoke about our book, my dad would give me one or two items from his philosophy about time. Like the Traveler in the book, he would speak with great conviction, sucking on his pipe once in a while to give me time to think about what he had just told me.

"It only appears," he would begin, "that we are bound to three dimensions and that the fourth—time itself—is a given and cannot be changed. I don’t accept that. I don’t believe that. And neither should you."

I loved listening to him too much to interrupt him, even though I understood but a small portion of what he told me back then.

"Time travel is a constant. We are always traveling through time. Right now, at this very moment, we are traveling through time. Otherwise we would be frozen in that very instant and no longer exist. We can only be here if we move through time. Who says that we cannot accelerate the speed of travel? And if one object moves forward in time and the rest doesn’t, the object will disappear. Just like if you and I would have a race, and you, because you are much faster than me, would move ahead and eventually be gone from my field of vision. You would not occupy the same moment with me anymore."

I moved the belt sander and band saw all the way to the wall next to the door. Both machines were heavy and it took me a long time, sitting on the floor and pushing them, inch by inch, with my feet. I cleared the area of all the leftover piping and metal pieces and moved them toward the wall as well. Then I swept one more time. I used a piece of charcoal from the forge and drew a square with four equal parts inside. One was dedicated to the centrifugal rotor, one to the battery compartment and controls, the third to the chassis, and the fourth to the rest—the seat, the display, and other miscellaneous parts. For the next three hours, I arranged what I found in the shop and applied it to the sections. I thought we had more than we actually did but at the end of the night, I had a list with tools and items I needed to get.

After school the next day I went to the hardware store. Paul McGuiness, the owner, knew me from the countless times I had accompanied my father and, later on, was sent on errands to get parts for the shop.

"How are you doing, kiddo?" he asked.

"I’m okay," I replied. “I think.”

Paul had cried at my dad’s funeral. He had known him since they went to school together forty years ago.

"What you got?" Paul finally asked me.

I gave him the list with items. He looked it over.

"You sure this is right?" he said. "What’s this gonna be after it’s done?"

I hesitated. He looked at me for a while over his reading glasses. Then he wordlessly got up and began to collect the material.

"I actually just wanted to see how much it all costs," I said. "I don’t have the money right now."

"Your dad had store credit," he replied as he added up the items at the register. The amount came out to $134.45. "It was a bit more than what this comes to so I’m adding a few packs of WL-20 welding rod. I think you might need them."

"Thank you," I said.

"How are you gonna get the stuff home?"

I hadn’t thought about it. It didn’t even occur to me. I had some space in my backpack but that wasn’t nearly enough.

"Wait here a moment," Paul said.

When he came back a few minutes later, he was wearing his jacket and held his car keys in his hand. "I’ll drive you. There are a few eight-foot, one-inch pipes outside as well."

We left the store. He turned the sign to closed and locked the door. I helped him load the piping onto the truck and we drove off.

"Are you doing okay in school?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You were always a good student. Your dad told me. He said that one day you’d be an engineer and build large and beautiful things. But for that you’ll have to stay a good student. I know these are tough times and if you can’t stand it at home or somethin', you’re always welcome to do your homework in the store."

"Thanks," I replied. I smiled at him briefly. He was wiping his face the whole ride to my house. I didn’t say anything, didn’t know what to say. When we got there, we unloaded the parts and leaned everything along the outside wall of the barn. When he left and drove past the house, my stepmother talked to him for a few minutes. Then he drove off. My stepmom waved to me. I waved back. She disappeared into the house.

3

When we had dinner that night, my stepmother asked me if I wanted to earn some extra money doing minor chores at Mr. McGuiness’s store. He could use a hand. My eyes must have lit up at that moment because my stepmom smiled at me for the first time in a while. I’m sure she didn’t know what to do with me other than to tell me not to set the shop on fire when using the welding equipment. I’m sure she was glad I would have some supervision in the afternoons.

I started at Paul’s store a few days later. We agreed on minimum wage. I thought it was more than fair. I wasn’t officially old enough to work but he said he’d give me cash every week. I had a few more costly items on my list, including the battery, the magnets, and the 50 Amp wire. Paul told me that he could help me with the wire and the connectors and would give them to me at wholesale.

From then on, every day after school, I walked straight to Paul’s store. I was able to do most of my homework during homeroom and worked from three to six in the afternoon. Afterward, I went home, ate, and went straight out to the shop. During that time, around the beginning of December, I began to build the chassis. The galvanized pipes needed to be cut to length and welded together according to the drawings. It was difficult without a second person there but I made a contraption with a few sandbags from outside to hold the pipes in place while I welded them together. I made good progress and after a week, I was mostly done.

Then I realized something: Were I to leave the machine in this part of the shop—and assuming that I’d successfully travel back in time—I would end up right on top of the belt sander. There was no place in the shop where I could position the machine without creating chaos the moment I landed. I would have to move it to a place where it wouldn’t bother anybody. Behind the barn, and accessible through a door, there was a storage area. It was freezing cold in there but there was enough space to fit the machine without having to disturb anything. I decided to build the individual components in the main shop and put everything together next door. But the chassis was already bigger than the relatively narrow door. I’d have to go outside through the double doors and around back to the sliding door of the storage area.

The other problem was the weight of the individual parts. The rotor, once the magnets were attached, would probably be really heavy. The same for the chassis. I needed something to help move the components. I found a palette that seemed mostly intact, and a rusty, beat-up shopping cart in one corner of the storage room. I took the wheels off and mounted them onto the palette. The wheels were rusty but sufficient.

That Friday evening, I moved the chassis onto the palette. It was barely big enough to hold it. On Saturday morning, I worked at the store and went home with seventy-two dollars and fifty cents and a 50 Amp wire. Paul had subtracted the seventy-eight dollars for the wire, purchased at wholesale price, from the one-hundred and fifty dollars and fifty cents I had made during that week. The seventy-two dollars and fifty cents wasn’t enough for either the battery or the magnets. It would probably take me an additional three weeks to come up with the money. That would put the completion date right before Christmas. I thought about asking my stepmom if she’d order the magnets for me in exchange for the money. But I decided to wait until I actually had the money in hand. The battery I could get at the car parts store in town.

If the chassis was fairly easy to weld together, the centrifugal rotor was a different story. The instructions talked about forging a three-dimensional blade, not unlike a fan blade, out of the plate I had found in the drawer. I had never done anything like it. I was afraid I would burn out the material and render it useless. The magnets were to be placed along a semi-circular shape that was open at the top. The fan blade would then be centered inside the magnets. "If done correctly, the magnets should hold the blade in place without any further assistance," it said in the instructions. If done correctly. I began to doubt my ability to do this. The chassis was crude work. I had welded pipes together many times before. But this wasn’t a task for an apprentice. It needed the hand of a master. Someone like my dad.

For the next few days, I couldn’t make myself light the forge and begin. Instead, I sat in the shop unable to do anything. I wasn’t ready. I shouldn’t have started. I simply couldn’t do it. Even Paul noticed my change of mood and asked me a few times if everything was all right. I nodded each time, certain he wasn’t able to help me.

"You know, your dad thought very highly of you," he said one day while we moved bags of salt from the back to a spot near the front door of the store. "And I don’t mean only as a person. He spoke highly of you as an apprentice. Her heart is in the right place, he said. She can figure anything out. The more challenging, the better for her."

"He must not have known what I can or cannot do," I replied.

"Do you really believe that?" Paul asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think it likely that a master blacksmith of nearly forty years does not know what his apprentice can or cannot do? Or is it more likely that he knows precisely what your limitations are and how to overcome them?"

I wanted to say, "Yes, it is likely. And not only is it likely, it’s true. He doesn’t know my limitations. Only I know them." But I didn’t say anything, mostly because I didn’t want to offend Paul, knowing of his deep friendship with my father.

"A master only becomes one through the very mastering of what he was not able to master before. Otherwise anyone can call himself that. The taller the task, the further the learning carries you."

When he placed the last bag of salt onto the stack of other bags next to the door, he stretched his back and wiped his hands on his pants. "If your dad thought you could do it, I’m sure you can. Whether it’s easy or not, doesn’t matter, does it? His confidence in you should be enough to erase the doubt in your heart."

Paul sent me home two hours early that day. He assured me at the door that I would still get paid for the time. I went home, emptied the dishwasher, and helped my stepmom put away groceries.

"So what are you doing out there in the shop every day?" she asked.

I stopped for a moment and looked straight at her. I could almost see the cloak of sadness surrounding her.

"I’m building a time machine so I can go back and talk to Dad."

She started to cry. I didn’t know what else I could have told her except the truth. I made tea in a thermos and brought a couple of apples and a jar of peanut butter with me to the shop.

Then I lit the forge.

4

I worked for seven hours straight. In the end, I couldn’t feel my shoulders and lifting the thermos seemed an impossible task. I left it in the shop that night. As I lay in bed, I could still feel the heat of the scorching coals in my face; the smell of the thick leather gloves was still on my hands. I took the noise of hammer on steel with me to my dreams. I’m coming to you, Dad. I’ll see you soon. I’ll see you very soon.

I went back to the store the next day after school. I was tired and sore but I didn’t want to miss more than the two hours from yesterday. Paul had made hot cocoa in his tiny little kitchen. It was only three in the afternoon but the sky had darkened already. A few flurries of snow had fallen. He asked me how it went last night and I gave him the short answer. "Good," I said, hoping he wouldn’t detect the insecurity in my voice. I didn’t really know how it went. I’d finished the task but I had no idea what the outcome would be. I’d basically put together parts with no way of knowing how it all would turn out.

We put up Christmas lights around the bay window, which was just me handing Paul the individual string lights and, at the same time, holding the ladder so he wouldn’t fall over. We’d been working quietly for a while, only interrupted by a few questions he asked and me giving him very short answers, when he stopped and turned toward me.

"May I ask you another question?" he said.

"Sure," I replied.

"You know I’ll help you in any way I can, right?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"I owe it to your father. But not only that. I think you’re a bright kid and…you’ve been through a lot…with your mom and now your dad. My question is…"

I saw that he was looking for the right words to use. Part of me wished he would stop there and not say anything.

"Forgive me but…what are you building?"

I didn’t answer for a while and Paul didn’t say anything either. I think he wasn’t sure if he should have asked. When my stepmom asked before, I didn’t think about it much. Maybe it was the way he asked. His tone of voice was kind and genuinely concerned. Up until now, I hadn’t questioned what I was doing. I’d only questioned my ability, not the fact that I was doing it. I had followed the instructions from the notebook blindly. His question stirred something in me—something I didn’t think about before. The last couple of weeks, I was too busy going forward and the task itself had blotted out the purpose of it. What was I doing? Did I truly believe it possible to build a machine that would bring me back to my father? To tell Paul the truth seemed silly all of a sudden. And in saying it out loud to him I would expose the lie and realize that there was nothing on the other end of this, that I had sent myself on a fool’s errand. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Pain suddenly washed over me. My wish to see my father again had made me blind to the reality of it.

Paul sat down next to me and held me. I couldn’t control my tears anymore and sobbed into his arm. It was as if the flood gates had opened. I had never felt pain so deeply before. I thought about my father and my mother and each time I thought it was over, I started again. Paul didn’t say anything. He knew this was a necessary evil, that I needed to cleanse myself and face my loss head-on. After what seemed like a very long time, I let go of him and he handed me a box of tissues. I told him about the hospital and what my father had said to me. At least what I thought he’d said to me. I told him about the drawer and the notebook and the machine and while I did that, I saw the sadness in Paul’s eyes. It occurred to me at that moment that, throughout my own grief, I had never thought about his.

"I don’t know what the right answer is," he said after a while. "It’s completely up to you whether or not you want to finish it."

"I want to finish it." I was surprised by my answer. As soon as I said it, I knew it was the truth. I wanted to finish what I had started. "Can you order the magnets if I give you the money?"

"Of course," Paul said.

"I don’t want to order them before I have all the money."

"Okay. Let me know when and I’ll do it."

When I went to the shop that evening, I lit a fire in the stove and filled two of the galvanized pipes with sand. The notes suggested using sand inside the pipes and then sealing them off so they could be bent into a circular shape without breaking. Once that was done, I drilled twelve holes in each one at equal distance to each other and on both sides of the pipe. The magnets would be attached to them. The pipes would then be welded to the back of the chassis.

By the end of the following week, I had finished the controls, battery compartment with connectors, and the seat with head rest and neck stabilizer. I also made another one-hundred and fifty dollars and fifty cents. Paul kept the money and ordered the magnets. They arrived the next day and I mounted them to the outer ring of the centrifugal rotor.

All that was left to do was to install the battery and work the wire fencing into a cone-like shape, not unlike that of a pilot’s cabin. It would cover the upper part of the traveler’s seat like a cage. I brought the rotor out back. The storage area was freezing. I was wearing fingerless gloves and within ten minutes in there, I couldn’t feel my fingertips and had to go back to the shop to stand in front of the stove. The light wasn’t great either and I had to wear my head lamp all the time. When I finally set the rotor into the center of the magnetic field, I didn’t expect it to hold. The shape I had forged wasn’t perfect, rudimentary at best. But when I very slowly let go of it, the rotor held its position in the center of the magnetic circle.

I welded the hinges onto the cabin top and connected them to the chassis. To get into the seat, one had to move one side of the cage up and climb inside. It could then be closed from the inside. But I yet had to climb into the cabin. I had thought about it a few times but I never did.

That Friday after school, I went to the store to work. It was very busy in there. I never realized how many people buy Christmas gifts in a hardware store, but there were a lot of sons and daughters who were there with their mothers buying last minute gifts for their dads. They were buying power drills and wrench sets and multi-function tools.

I don’t remember ever having felt sorry for myself up until that day. I was angry at them for buying gifts that were so cheaply made. My dad always told me that the tools one uses should reflect the value of what you’re making. I don’t think he ever bought a cheap tool in his life. In my mind, they were buying those gifts because they didn’t know what else to give. I could have come up with a dozen items to buy for my father that day. He needed a new handkerchief. His old one had holes in it from being washed so many times that the fabric had thinned out. He could use a couple of cans of Worker’s Miracle heavy-duty hand cream because the skin on his hands would crack periodically. So much so that he sometimes slept with gloves on, his hands thickly covered with cream. There were those thermal socks he really liked, and he could always use a new pair of leather gloves. He was always wearing his until they would literally fall off his hands during work.

I didn’t realize that tears were running down my face until Paul gently put his hand on my shoulder.

"You okay?" he said.

"Yeah." I wiped my face quickly and returned to the shelf I was stacking at the moment. We had gotten a delivery of Christmas lights that day and I was only halfway done moving them onto the display shelf.

When Paul gave me my weekly pay, I went to the car parts store and got the battery. I didn’t think of how heavy it would be. I thought about asking Paul to drive me but I felt like I was asking too much of him already. He had helped me more than I could ever pay him back for. It was a two-mile walk home and thick snowflakes had begun to fall onto the quiet street.

My thoughts were all over the place and I noticed a sting of fear creeping up inside me. As the moment of truth approached, I didn’t have much left to hide behind. Eventually I would have to climb into that seat and turn on the switch. I tried to avoid thinking any further than that. There was no backup plan. It would either work or it wouldn’t. I couldn’t imagine just going on with my life if it didn’t work. I had no idea what I would do. Everything else aside, working on the machine for the last two months had given me a purpose, had prolonged my father’s life somehow. I didn’t want this to end, didn’t want to face the possibility that turning on that rusty old switch I had installed, as per his instructions, would do absolutely nothing.

As disheartened as I was that evening, I installed the battery and connected it via the 50 Amp wire to the capacitor. There were only a few pages left in the notebook. They mostly had to do with safety, like not touching the cage surrounding the traveler’s cabin when turning on the switch, or bracing for impact when the charge hit the cage. The last chapter was called The Traveler. I’m not sure why I hadn’t read that one yet. I felt I needed to wait until I’d completed the assembly of the machine.

The machine. As it stood there in the dark, illuminated only by the light of my head lamp, it felt dead. Like a randomly assembled collage of lifeless pieces. Usually whenever I built something, I felt pride and a sense of accomplishment. Not this time. I felt empty. I left the shop at 10:30 PM. My stepmother was still watching TV in the living room. I put hot water on the stove for tea and sat down next to her. She moved the bowl of chips between us and I ate a few.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you more."

I saw that she was crying. It wasn’t loud or anything. She didn’t even make a sound.

"I was so wrapped up in my own grief that I forgot yours."

I didn’t tell her that I’d had thought the same about her a few days ago.

"You’ve known your dad much longer than I did. Well, not much longer, but a few years at least. And I know you loved him. Loved him so very much."

I didn’t say anything in return. I don’t know why. I wanted to, but the words wouldn’t come out. I wanted to tell her that I was sorry too, that I knew it wasn’t easy for her and that, even though I had known him longer, she’d been married to him for eight years. That had to count for something. I went to bed and cried for a while.

Then I opened the notebook and began to read the last chapter.

The Traveler

The Traveler is an essential part of the machine. Without it, the machine will not function properly. Assembling the machine is one thing. Bringing it to life is another. The Traveler must know at all times where she wants to end up if she ever hopes to set it in motion. She must have a clear understanding of the consequences of her travels. To that effect, when travelling to the past, she should choose a destination time and date that is most likely not visited by her own self at the same moment. Much thought has been given to the paradox of meeting one’s self within the same moment in time. To avoid complication, it is suggested that the Traveler journey to a point of least impact for herself and others.

One single moment can change a person’s life and stir it onto a different path altogether. The Traveler must exercise the greatest caution to not set off a chain of events she cannot foresee. The gentle traveler, kind in thought and treading lightly on the path she is on, yields the biggest chance of a favorable outcome.

It is at the Traveler’s discretion to bring her affairs in order before the outset of the journey and all I ask for myself is for her to burn this notebook to cancel out the possibility of someone other than herself recreating the machine.

It is my sincere hope that I have taught her enough to prepare her for whatever is to come. She should always remember that however far she travels, she is always at home.

Once I finished reading, I started again from the beginning. The Traveler is an essential part of the machine. I had no idea what that meant. I closed the notebook and placed it on my nightstand. Then I shut off the light. I thought about going to the store in the morning to say goodbye to Paul. But I didn’t know how he would react, so I decided not to. I also didn’t want to say anything to my stepmom. "Remember that time machine I had told you about? I’m about to use it and I won’t be coming back."

I fell into a deep sleep. In my dream, I forged a mask of iron that resembled my father’s face. I tried to make it speak to me but it stayed motionless. He’s gone, was the first thought I had when I woke up the next morning. He’s gone and you’ll never see him again.

5

The snow lay heavy on the tall pines, their lower branches almost touching the ground from the weight. I had to shovel a path to the shop. I saw my sister’s husband cleaning off the front stoop and clearing a walkway to the garage. We nodded at each other. I never spoke to him much. My sister and he lived in a completely different world. For them it was all about Christmas decorations and holiday cards and filling stocking stuffers. They wanted to make this year special to keep my dad’s spirit alive through the holidays. I found myself thinking that was a nice sentiment but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it to them.

I made a small fire in the woodstove, if for nothing else than to burn the notebook. I didn’t really want to burn it. It was filled with memories and seemed the last remaining document involving my dad that meant something. I sat in front of the stove for a while, at one point thinking that I should have made copies and hid them somewhere. Just in case. Eventually I opened the fire door and tossed the notebook into the flames. I’d never thought of myself as brave. I think that moment was the first time. Brave or stupid. It couldn’t be helped. Some things you can postpone only for so long.

I opened the door to the storage area. The light came through a few gaps in the siding and illuminated the machine enough to see its contours. I walked around it, inspecting the chassis like a pilot checking her airplane before take-off. Then I climbed into the seat. It was cold but surprisingly comfortable. I had never thought about where to travel other than into the past. According to the notebook, the machine did not travel automatically to a predetermined point in time. After activating it, I needed to use the pedals to move. Left for the past, right for the future. The display of the old alarm clock was supposed to give me an idea where I was at any given point in time. So far so good. I closed the cabin top over my head. The metal fencing allowed me to see out with almost no interruption in my visual field. Just don’t touch it, I thought to myself.

I had mounted the on/off switch to the right side of the alarm clock display. It was a basic one-way toggle switch. It seemed too simple, too rudimentary a device to control my travel through time. As I sat there, I became aware of my sweaty palms, despite the cold. I didn’t want to think about the notion that the switch would do nothing; that it wouldn’t jumpstart the machine, and me, into a different time. I felt a wave of nausea creep up inside me. All this time, I had held on to the hope of this moment and now that it was here, I was paralyzed and unable to move my arm and flip it.

"Dad, help me," I said into the quiet. "Please."

There was no answer. Of course there was no answer. Did I really expect one? I stretched out my hand. My fingerless gloves were worn and smudged with grease. My fingernails were dirty. I had stopped cleaning them a few weeks ago. The dust of the forge had settled deep into my skin. I touched the tip of the switch, applied a little bit of pressure, not quite enough to move the lever. I breathed in and out once more and flipped the switch. Except the echoing sound of the switch itself, there was nothing. The battery should have released electrical current into the large capacitor and from there, a charge should have jumped up and over the top of the cabin to the back where the centrifugal rotor was installed.

So silly, I thought. Did I really think this would work? I sat there for a while. The knot in my stomach slowly grew. The feeling of failure was a thin blanket over the truth—the realization that I had spent the last six weeks trying to avoid the unavoidable. That this was a well-meant gift from my father to occupy my mind and get through the hardest part of the grieving process. It had worked. Up until now. The tears blurred my vision. It was as if the ground below me gave way and I’d dropped into a dark nothing. The pain, as excruciating as it was when I had felt it a few weeks ago, was so powerful now that I keeled over in my seat. I opened my mouth but no sound escaped it. I couldn’t breathe or form words or even thoughts except the one that I would never see my dad again. Ever. That he was gone and I had no way of feeling his hand on my shoulder or him ruffling my hair.

I began to moan. It seemed to help with the pain. My moans became louder. I saw my hands holding the bars of the seat on either side. I didn’t feel the cold of the pipes beneath my fingers. And when I could not hold it in any longer, I screamed. It was as if all my pain, my heartache, and the loss of my father’s love, my father’s big love, was in that scream. My voice was raw and I let it swell to a high-pitched sound while everything poured out of me and into the world. At that moment, it was as if he had called me and I had answered…

The blue spark was blinding, and even though it was brief, I couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. It was followed by the sound of the arc—the moment the welding rod connected with the steel. It obliterated my scream for an instant. A second spark followed. I could see that it came from the front where the battery compartment was installed.

And then, through the blur that was my tears, I saw the charge leave the capacitor and rip across the top of the cabin to the back. I felt my hair standing up in all directions. A snapping sound was followed by a deep humming sound. The light in the storage room was suddenly so bright that I had to close my eyes. When I opened them again, the walls of the shed were bathed in golden light. The machine was activated.

When I lifted my left foot, it shook uncontrollably. But I was afraid the activation was only temporary and I wanted to go back as fast as I could. I put my foot onto the pedal and applied the tiniest amount of pressure. The alarm clock display moved. First, it was only a few minutes. Then a dozen and, next, an hour. I took my foot off the pedal. The display moved another hour before it stopped. Saturday, December 22nd, 3:08AM. I didn’t see anything different in the shed. The light was as bright as before. I pushed the pedal down again. The display went back a few more hours and into Friday the 21st. I increased pressure and skipped three days at once before I slowed down again.

Gently, I reminded myself.

I figured it would be best to go back to a weekday morning, maybe three months ago. I would be at school then and my dad would most likely be in his shop. I could tell him that I had come home from school earlier and he wouldn’t get suspicious, especially if I came in through the main front door. I pushed the pedal down again, this time a little harder. The days became a week, then two and three. I slowed down again, applied only minimal pressure until I came to September 14th. I stopped at 10:52AM. For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether to turn the machine off or not. I decided to leave it on. Other than someone actually stepping into the shed, nobody from the outside would notice it was there.

I moved the cabin top to the side and climbed out. I tried to look at the centrifugal rotor but the light was too intense. I would need a welding mask to be able to see it. I left through the back door and was hit by a breeze of warm air. The snow was gone. The trees had not even started to yellow. My mittens. I’d completely forgotten to take off my winter clothes. I decided to leave my gloves, wool cap, and jacket next to the door of the shed. I still felt a bit overdressed.

My heart was pounding as I walked around the barn to the front door. I felt like I had sawdust in my mouth. I heard the metallic banging sound of a hammer on steel before I reached the door. I couldn’t remember having ever heard something that made me happier. I opened the door and stepped inside.

He stood next to the forge, a large hammer in his hand, wearing his leather apron and a short-sleeve shirt. He saw me and without stopping, he said, "What are you doing here so early?"

I couldn’t answer. I tried to smile but my face muscles didn’t follow my order. They began to twitch suddenly.

"Oh, Dad," was all I could whisper before I ran to him and held him in my arms. I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to make him suspicious that this was anything other than an early dismissal from school and me being happy to see him.

"There, there," he said. "What’s the matter?"

He placed the hammer on the side of the forge.

"You okay?"

For a long time I couldn’t say anything.

"Yes," I said eventually. "I’m okay. I just wanted to say hi and see how you’re doing."

"I’m doing fine. But I need to get different coal. This one burns too dirty. Can you smell it?"

"Yeah," I said, suddenly happy over the sulfury smell in the shop.

"Is everything all right? You seem upset."

"I’m okay. Just missed you, that’s all."

"Okay. Then let me get this formed before it cools down too much."

"Okay," I said. "Sounds good."

He picked up the hammer again and pushed the metal piece he was working on back into the embers.

"See you later," I said.

"Yep. See you later."

I left the barn with the sound of the hammer ringing in my ears. As I walked around back, I felt lighter, as if a burden had been lifted from me. When I looked through the dirt-smudged window, I saw my father stop hammering for a moment. As if he’d just thought of something. Then he shook his head and continued.

I stood behind the storage shed for a few minutes and let the sun warm my face. Then I entered, picked up my gloves, jacket, and wool cap and climbed into the machine. I closed the cabin top and began to push the right pedal down. The days on the display passed by. When it moved into December, I slowed down. I don’t know what had changed, but I wasn’t sad anymore. Maybe it was knowing that I could visit him whenever I wanted. Or maybe it was good enough to see him doing something he had loved so much.

My eyes were fixed on the display. I felt the pedal beneath my right foot, the pressure of the forward motion against my leg. When December 22nd approached, something in me clicked. The Traveler must exercise the greatest caution to not set off a chain of events she cannot foresee. I realized that he must have known, that he must have thought this encounter to be too strange to have been a normal occurrence. Did my visit, as brief as it was, change his outlook in any way?

And while I pondered the ever paradoxical nature of travelling through time, I knew, suddenly and unmistakably, what he had said back in the hospital room. He didn’t say, "Draw." Nor did he say, "Drawer." It sounded like it because those were the only words I could think of at that moment. No. It wasn’t druh, it was trah. It was the way he pronounced the ‘a’ differently. More like an uh. He must have known that I had built the machine and came back to him.

It wasn’t drawer. It was traveler.

David Bruns

The Water Finder’s Shadow

Originally published in Tails of the Apocalypse

* * *

A Finder without the Gift is nothing—less than nothing. A freeloading, water-consuming drain on their clan.

I lost my Gift a long time ago. But no one knows that because a friend entered my life at exactly the moment I needed him the most.

He whined softly on the floor next to me. I knelt down and stroked those long, velvety ears. How many times had I petted that heavy head, held that jowly face, pulled on those wonderful ears? Eighteen years was a long time for man or dog these days, and we both showed our age. His muzzle, once jet black, was snowy with the passing of time. My shaggy hair was mostly gray now and much thinner than when he found me.

“What is it, boy?” I whispered to him. “Do you need to go out?”

Shadow thumped his tail.

I gathered him in my arms. In his prime, Shadow had weighed more than fifty pounds; he was barely half that now, a collection of bones and flaccid muscles under a bag of loose hide. He let out a little wheeze when I hoisted him up and I felt a warm wetness run down my arm. Shadow closed his eyes with shame.

“It’s okay, buddy.” I kissed him softy on the side of his face.

The chill of the desert air invaded my robe as I squatted down to let Shadow toddle around the yard. His back bowed in the middle, and he walked with stiff legs on a slow circuit around the perimeter of our small enclosure. I bit my lip in joyful sadness when I saw my friend lower his nose to the ground and start sniffing. Always searching for the next Find. His tail wagged slowly as he breathed in the scents of the morning earth.

As long as he could still sniff like that, I wasn’t going anywhere. My escape plan was set, but I was staying right here until my friend passed on to the next life, or wherever we go when we die. Yes, I was risking everything by staying, but after a lifetime of faithful service—a lifetime of keeping me from being sold to the slavers—I owed him that much.

“You should put a collar on that dog.” Dimah’s voice was husky with sleep. She pressed herself against my back and slipped a hand into my robe. Her fingers were cold against my skin and I shivered.

“Never. Collars are for animals.”

I could feel her face pouting against my shoulder blade. “He’s a dog,” she said.

“He’s my friend.” I pulled her hand out of my robe, and tightened the tie around my waist. Maybe I was a bit short with her, but this was not the first time we’d had this conversation.

“I don’t understand, Polluk.”

In truth, that was the crux of the problem: she really didn’t understand. For her and the rest of the clans, if you wore a collar you were one of two things: a slave or a meal—sometimes you were both. The day that Shadow saved my life, I took off his collar and vowed I would never put it back on him again. I’d kept that promise.

I took Dimah’s hands in mine and faced her. “My little raincloud.” I used my most intimate Finder voice when I spoke her pet name. “It’s a complicated matter for Finders.” That was the go-to answer for anything a Finder didn’t want to talk about. No one wanted to mess with the clan’s water source, so most of the time that little deflection worked with small groups of people. Used in a one-on-one setting, it was hit or miss. On Dimah, my lover for nearly two years, my success rate for the strategy was one in ten.

She adjusted her robe in a way that let me know she was naked underneath. “You love that dog more than you love me.” She turned, swinging her hips as she made her way back into the tent. “I’m going back to bed.”

Shadow, his tour of the perimeter completed, snuffled at my knee. I dropped down to put my arm around him. “She’s right,” I whispered into the ears that hung down like velvet. “I do love you more.”

* * *

When I say Shadow entered my life at exactly the right time, I mean exactly. My Gift began to fail me before I was thirty years old. When we were in training, we were told that the Gift was like a switch, and it was either on or off. My experience was that the Gift was more like a muscle, something that peaked in performance and then declined with age.

When I was in my prime, I was the best Water Finder anywhere in the known world. But being the best Finder is not just about finding pockets of moisture under the dirt; it’s about showmanship. You have to inject a little tension into the performance, make them think that you might not find anything this time. Make them think that they might have to move camp again.

They never really taught us that in training. The course of instruction at the Finder’s Temple was hocus-pocus bullshit about respecting the Gift, giving thanks to the Great Ocean in the sky, and reading the texts about the Great Water Hold, a cache of water so large it could re-green the whole world.

They showed us pictures—color pictures—of ordinary people jumping into open pools of water. Of water sloshing onto rocks and nobody there to lap it up. The pictures were printed on ancient, flimsy paper that crinkled when you held it, not like the hides or thick pages of pressed fiber we write on these days.

As boys, we Finders-in-training soaked up the Water Scriptures and the religious instruction. After all, we were going out to save the world, to bring life to the clans.

All that idealism ended when we did our first apprenticeship. The Finders—the best ones, anyway—were really just con men with a side order of talent. They knew how to put on the kind of show that made the clans pay top price for their services: the best food, the best tent, the best companions to satisfy whatever nighttime needs they had.

My first master was Ghadir, a matronly woman who liked to hint to the clan leaders that the source of her Gift was her enormous breasts. She usually dropped that piece of information as she leaned forward to pick something up, giving Mr. Clan Leader an eyeful of milky-white cleavage. Although the clans were pretty evenly split between male and female leaders, when I was with Ghadir, we never played once in a matriarchal clan.

“Forget what they told you in training, kid,” Ghadir said in a rare moment of honesty. “Find your schtick and make it work for you. They’ve got to love you or you won’t be successful in this business.”

“Schtick? I don’t understand.” I was twelve.

Ghadir hefted her boobs in front of my face. I blushed and turned away. She grabbed my chin, twisting my head back to face her. “Look at me when I talk to you, kid. They don’t remember me, they remember these.” She squished her breasts together. “This is my thing, my schtick. I know one guy who does animal noises, another who only searches for water by walking on his hands. That’s their thing. I don’t even know their names anymore, I only know what they do.”

She patted my cheek. “Find your schtick, kid. People with schtick get paid.”

I stayed with Ghadir for two years, two good years. I was a decent Finder in a technical sense—better than average at finding water, actually—but I had no showmanship. There was nothing to set me apart from the other Finders. Not that I didn’t try. I juggled, I sang, I did cartwheels in the dirt, but nothing worked. I got polite clapping and a few smiles, but I always needed Ghadir to come in to close the deal with the clan leaders.

My schtick found me when a small dog wandered into one of my shows. He was nothing but a pup, maybe twelve weeks old and small for his age. I found out later that the only reason Shadow hadn’t been slaughtered yet was that he was the runt of the litter and the butcher wanted him to put on a few more pounds before the dog went under the knife.

* * *

When a Finder visits a clan, it’s a big event, probably the most excitement the clan has seen in months. Usually the clan leaders give their people the afternoon off so they can see the show, and the day Shadow found me was no exception. Most of the clans arranged their tents such that there was a clear oval in the center of the village. That’s where we performed. This time there was a decent-sized crowd of maybe a hundred people or so. Ghadir had done the scouting, and they’d been without a Finder for months. Water was beyond scarce; they needed a new Finder now.

“You close this deal, kid,” Ghadir said. “It’s time you earned your keep.”

So there I was: smiling, doing cartwheels, making small talk with the crowd, trying to build some anticipation for the moment of the Find. But in reality, I was dying. Ghadir was shifting in her seat. I knew that look: I had about a minute to make some magic happen before she took over.

And then Shadow walked in.

He’d pushed his way through the outer ring of children into the performance oval. His squat, black body looked like it belonged to a larger dog that had been cut off at the knees. Shadow sat facing me, and he frowned as if he’d found my performance lacking. A collar of heavy steel had worn the fur off the back of his neck.

I put my hands on my hips and looked down at him. “And who might you be?”

The dog laid down and put his paw over his eyes. The children erupted with laughter. I decided to milk the opportunity. I knelt in the dirt before him. “Oh come now, I’m not that scary.”

He peeked out from behind the paw, then covered his eyes again. Another burst of laughter, this time deepened by some grown-up voices.

“Hmmm.” I stroked my chin and stood back up. Shadow peered up at me with a “what’s next?” look on his face.

I cocked my head; he mimicked me.

I scratched my head like I was thinking; Shadow swiped at his ear with a paw.

“What say we go find some water, little dog?” I asked loud enough for the crowd to hear. Shadow jumped up and barked. The crowd clapped. Ghadir clapped as well, and winked at me.

I spread out my arms parallel with the earth, slowly turning my body clockwise, chanting the words of the Finder’s Prayer:

Mother Earth, the Source of all,

From your bosom flows Life.

I call on you to show me the way.

Show me Life.

I closed my eyes, and let the magic happen.

The trick to Finding is not the prayer or the way you hold your hands—it’s not thinking. You have to let it happen. I don’t find the water, I let the water find me. Nothing good comes from inserting your brain into that process.

It usually started with a tickle under one of my feet. I zeroed in on the right direction until the sensation was equally shared by both feet, then I walked forward, feeling the energy crawl up my legs as we got closer to the source. I opened my eyes to see the little black dog trotting along ahead of me, his nose to the ground. We reached the Find together and I turned to the crowd. “May you drink from the blessings of the Mother.”

Shadow barked.

The drillers hit water quickly, and that night there was a feast in our honor. It was customary for the clan leader to offer the Finder a gift at the feast. The bigger the Find, the better the gift. Usually, it was women or gold or a house to stay in for a few months. Since this was my first solo Find, Ghadir arranged for the clan leader to offer the gift to me.

“Polluk,” he called after we’d eaten and drunk so much water that our bellies sloshed when we moved. “You have given much to my clan. Tell me what you desire and it’s yours.”

The girls crowded close to where we sat together. Becoming the consort of a Finder was one of the few ways to break from a clan, and I could sense their eagerness. But I had other plans. I scooped up Shadow.

“I want this dog,” I said.

The clan leader’s brow wrinkled. “But we just ate. Are you still hungry?”

“I don’t want to eat the dog, I want to keep it—as a friend.”

The scowl sank into his forehead. This was a man who would gladly let me sleep with his daughter, but balked at giving a water ration to a dog that he wouldn’t be able to eat later. I matched his frown.

“You said I could have anything I wanted.”

The clan leader shrugged and the tension was broken. “So I did. He’s yours, Finder.”

The girls fell back from the fire, but I hardly noticed. “Good,” I said. “Now, remove his collar.”

* * *

We stayed with Ghadir another five years. Or rather, Ghadir stayed with us for another five years. Until she was taken.

She gave Shadow and me a good life and a chance to perfect our act. She called Shadow my schtick, but there were days when I felt maybe we had the order of things wrong. Shadow was the one who knew how to work a crowd; I just acted as his straight man. As a pet instead of a food source, he was a new experience for the clan audiences. He’d work his magic on the children first, then wheedle his way into the hearts of single women, then mothers. The men came along for free after that.

Even better, we found water together. Every time.

Ghadir, on the other hand, began to struggle. We had a disastrous show in the southwest, where she led the customer clans to two empty Finds. Had Shadow and I not been there, she would’ve gone to the slavers that day.

We stepped in when she was floundering and located a small Find. Then we piled back into the wagon and headed out into the desert as fast as we could. We even skipped the feast, telling the clan leader that we had an urgent call three days’ travel to the east.

I drove with Shadow perched on the seat beside me. Ghadir stared out the window. The low hum of the wagon’s electric motor was the only sound for a long time. Then I heard a whimper from Ghadir. Her shoulders were shaking, and she pressed her forehead against the glass.

I let the wagon coast to a stop. “Ghadir? What’s the matter?” I caught my breath when she turned toward me. My mentor was crying. I reached out to touch her cheek. Giving up water like that was so rare, I’d only seen it twice before in my life. Both times were over the death of a child.

“You had a bad day, Ghadir. That’s all.”

She shook her head. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “My Gift.”

“No.”

“I’m scared, Polluk.” Shadow put his paws on her chest and licked the tears off her cheeks. She made no move to stop him.

“Well…you’ll just retire then, right?”

Ghadir looked at me. Then she laughed, a long, lusty cackle that grated on my ears. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Of course, I do.” I put the wagon in gear and concentrated on driving. Finders who retired were taken in by the clans as breeders, trying to pass on the Finder gene to the next generation. They lived out their final days happy. A chosen few went off to search for the Great Water Hold. They’d taught us that in training. But I’d visited dozens of clans in the last five years and had never seen a retired Finder. Ever.

“What happens?” I asked finally.

“If—when—a clan catches a Finder who’s lost her gift, they sell her to the nearest slaver. If you’ve got enough money and advance notice, you can try to bribe your way into a Hold.” A few of the great American cities had secure water supplies and, therefore, no need of Finders. We called them Water Holds, or just Holds for short. As Finders, we avoided the Holds at all costs. Our place was with the clans in the open desert, where we were needed—and could get paid.

“What about the Great Water Hold?”

She barked a laugh. “It’s a myth, Polluk. Just like so much other nonsense they teach you in training.” The dirt in this part of the country was ruddy, and she watched the landscape glow in the afternoon sunlight. “Still, some Finders do go after it. No one’s ever returned though.”

“Let’s do it,” I said. “Let’s go after the Great Hold—just the three of us.”

“You’re too young to die following a dream, kid. I’ll be fine.” The reddish light from outside touched her cheeks.

“We’ll protect you, right, Shadow? We’ll run the Finds and you can stay with us.”

Ghadir pulled Shadow onto her lap. He snuggled his head into her bosom and closed his eyes.

“Sure you will, kid.”

* * *

I helped Shadow navigate the steps into the hut I shared with Dimah. Tired from his morning constitutional, he collapsed on his pallet and was asleep in a few seconds. I watched until his paws began to twitch in the throes of a dream. His nose wrinkled at some imaginary scent.

I could see daily declines in his health now. My friend had days left in this world, maybe a fortnight at the outside. My self-preservation instinct said to leave, or if I couldn’t do that, ease his passing from this world—and then flee. Every day, every hour, I stayed here increased my chances of being found out for what I was: a Finder with no Gift.

I was playing with my freedom and I knew it. The last Find we’d done for this clan was over three months ago. It was a good water source, but my best Find ever had only lasted four months. Indeed, as Finders, we sought out smaller pockets of moisture to make sure the clans needed our services on a regular basis. I’d known this last Find needed to last as long as possible.

Over the last month, I’d quietly restocked my wagon with supplies and charged its batteries with the solar array. I smiled down at Shadow; I was ready to go as soon as my friend released me from this place.

“Polluk?” Dimah called to me from the bedroom. “Leave that stupid dog be and come back to bed.”

I stripped off my robe and slid between the sheets. Dimah pressed her water-fat flesh against me, still warm and funky with sleep. She crowded her dark curls into my cheek and kissed the hollow of my collarbone. I stroked the length of her back, resting my hand on the dimples at the base of her spine just above the swell of her buttocks.

I’d been with this clan for nearly two years—an eternity in the career of a Finder—and Dimah had been my woman since the first week of my tenure. We fit together. She was older; not as old as me, but well beyond the normal age that Finders sought in companions. Early in our relationship she’d let on that she was widowed, but turned stony when I tried to find out more details.

“Don’t ask me about my past, and I won’t ask about yours,” she’d told me. I dropped the topic.

As the weeks, then months passed, Dimah lost the gaunt look that came with scant clan water rations. Under my more-generous Finder rations, she grew more beautiful. Her features filled out, she grew softer and more curvaceous, and a sort of love developed between us. Is there such a thing as love without trust? Whatever we had, the relationship worked for us.

Dimah shifted her hips and slipped a soft thigh between my knees. I smiled at the ceiling. As an apprentice Finder, it was easy to get lost in the sheer volume of sexual opportunities, but Ghadir had trained me well. “They don’t want you, they don’t even want a Finder. They want their lives to change,” she’d said. “Never promise anything, and never take one with you. Never.”

A small minority of companions wanted something else from their Finder: a baby. Although research had shown—back when there was enough infrastructure to have something like research—that the Gift was not a genetic trait, the hope remained. Bearing a child with the Gift was like winning the lottery for the parents. When they presented themselves at the Temple of the Water Finders, the child was taken and the parents were invited into a special Water Hold community to live out their days as servants in the temple. Life as a servant might not sound so good, but there’s no water rationing in the temple. Just the opposite, in fact: there’s all the water you could possibly want for the rest of your life.

Dimah lifted her head and rested the point of her chin on my chest. Her smoky eyes looked directly into mine. “Do you love me?” she asked, her breath warm on my cheek.

“Yes,” I answered automatically. Long practice had taught me the right answer to that question was yes—anything else was an argument waiting to happen.

She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Really? You couldn’t even pretend to think about it?”

This was the problem with long-term relationships. After living with me, she knew me better than I knew myself. I frowned at her.

“It’s true.” Even as my lips moved, my brain kept working to head off the argument. It was true, sort of. I had no idea if I loved her—I had no idea what that word meant—but I knew I cared for her as much as I’d ever cared for another human being, and that should count for something.

“Is it? Do you really love me?”

This was the longest conversation we’d ever had on this topic. Something was up. I sat up in bed and slid my arm around her. “I really do love you. Now, what’s going on?”

She picked at the hair on my chest. Gray hairs outnumbered blond, I noted. Then she straddled me with one fluid motion, the weight of her body warm in all the right places. My breath hitched in my throat as she nuzzled my neck.

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.

I could almost hear my libido hitting the dirt. “You’re what?”

“You heard me.” She leaned back, studying my face. “I have a plan.”

“Dimah, the chances that it has the Gift—”

“He. And he has the Gift. I can feel it.”

I bucked her off me and sat cross-legged in the bed. She matched my posture, still studying me. I took her hands in mine. “Look, Dimah. Everything we know says the Gift is random—that’s why it’s called a gift.”

“Don’t you want to hear my plan?”

I blew out my breath. “Okay, tell me your plan.”

She shook off my hands and placed them on my knees. As she spoke, she slid her palms down my thighs. In a voice of hushed tension—sexual and the other kind—she spoke.

“We take over the clan—you and me and the child. Tarkon is weak. The only reason he’s not been challenged is because of you. You’ve kept the water flowing for him, so no one wants to mess with that.” Her fingertips reached my hips and she dug her fingernails into the flesh of my sides.

“You take over as clan leader, with me as your wife. The child trains under you. When your Gift fades, he takes over and you remain as clan leader. It’s perfect.” Dimah laughed as she came up to her hands and knees. She pushed me back down onto the bed.

In the other room, Shadow yelped in pain.

I pushed Dimah off me and ran to Shadow’s side.

* * *

The new Finder arrived in the settlement near sundown. He looked eighteen at most, pretty young to be on his own. I studied his rig through my spyglass. Top-of-the-line solar array—better than mine even—new sand tires, lots of tinted glass unscoured by sandstorms.

Young kid still dry behind the ears on his own with a new rig. This did not add up.

I dressed carefully that evening, putting on my best knee-length multi-colored jacket with gold trim and new sandals. I’ve always thought you could tell a lot about a man from the state of his footwear.

“I haven’t seen that robe in a while,” Dimah commented when I came into the sitting room. Shadow snoozed peacefully, but he’d been restless all afternoon.

“I’m headed to the saloon. I promised Tarkon I’d see him tonight.” That was a lie; I’d been avoiding Tarkon for the past two weeks. The water quality and quantity in our current well was dropping daily, and he was pressuring me to get him a new Find.

“You thought about what I said?” She caressed her belly. What a woman: pregnant and planning a coup all at the same time. Just since this morning, I could’ve sworn I’d seen her midsection swell a little right in front of me. I leaned over her chair and gave her a lingering kiss.

“I love you,” I said.

“Let’s keep it that way.”

“You’ll watch Shadow for me?” I thought I saw a cloud flicker across her features.

“Of course.”

I checked on my wagon en route to the saloon. That afternoon, I’d placed the last of the supplies inside and fully charged the batteries; it was ready to go now. I had water rations for two people for three months, and with some lucky Finds along the way, I could stretch it to four. Inside, I’d gathered every scrap of information and innuendo about the Great Water Hold that existed in the known world. The route was laid out, the vehicle was ready, there was just one piece of unfinished business before I made my run—our run—for it.

The saloon was noisy for a weeknight. I nodded to the regulars and nudged my way up to the bar. “Pure-clear,” I said to Roseth. She drew exactly four ounces of crystal clear water from the tap and set the glass in front of me. She was a pretty redhead whose beauty was marred by a dirty face, a scar across her right cheek, and a worn steel collar around her neck. Despite the fact that her owner ran a bar, she still retained the dried-out, gaunt look of a desert dweller.

“Come to check out the competition, Polluk?” she asked, eyeing my robes. “Be warned, he’s a pretty boy. I might have a go at him myself.”

“Zed wouldn’t like to hear that, Roseth.” I winked at her. She lived with Zed, the bar owner, who was old enough to be her father and rarely sober enough to care if she slept around or not. I set my hip against the bar and made a nonchalant show of surveying the room.

Roseth was right; he was a pretty boy. His curly locks were the color of morning sand and his eyes a beautiful hazel flecked with gold. He wore a sleeveless vest open to the waist, exposing a hairless, but well-muscled and water-fat chest. When he spoke, a faint smile twitched the corners of his generous mouth.

“See what I mean, Polluk?” Roseth said. “He’s like a picture.”

“Send him a drink.”

“He’s drinking aragh. Quite a bit, too.”

A Finder drinking liquor? I almost smiled.

“Send him a Pure-clear. A double.”

I let the drink get to the table before I made my way across the room. He was in my clan, on my turf, but he met my eyes without fear. Cheeky.

“Blessings of the Mother upon you,” I said.

“And also on you.” He stood and extended his hand. “Basr.”

His grip was cool and strong. “Polluk.”

“I know who you are. You’re the Finder with the dog. Everywhere I’ve been, that’s all they talk about—the freaking dog.” He grinned at me. “You make it tough for the rest of us to make a living.”

The other visitors at his table had melted away and I took a seat without asking. “You’re a little young to be on your own, aren’t you?”

Basr shrugged. “I get that a lot. My master lost his Gift shortly after I apprenticed with him. Slavers got him.”

“Just like that?” I let the unasked question hang in the air: did you give him a push out the door?

“Just like that.” He had the conviction of youth in his voice. “He’d lost his Gift.”

I sipped my water and stayed silent.

“I won’t be staying long,” he said.

“Oh?” I’d already contracted with this clan, so by rights he should have checked with me when he’d first arrived.

“I’m off as soon as I can resupply.”

I nodded and rolled the last of my water around my mouth. His gaze faltered, then he leaned across the table. “I’m searching for the Great Water Hold,” he said in a low voice. “I have a map—I have the map.”

I resisted the urge to spit out my water.

“The map? What does that mean?”

Basr smiled. “You’re not that old, Polluk. You remember your training. The Map of the Ancients.”

Everyone knew of the Map of the Ancients, but no one had ever actually seen it—at least no one that I’d ever talked to. And this kid claimed to have it?

“You must think I’ve been in the desert a very long time, my young friend. It’s a myth, like the rest of the bullshit they fed us in training.”

He tossed off the last of his aragh, ignoring the glass of Pure-clear I’d sent him. He was drunk.

I reached across the table, picked up his glass of water, and drank it off. Then I stood. “Show me.”

His gait was steady but sloppy as we walked to his vehicle. He deactivated the alarm and opened the door. I wrinkled my nose when I saw the interior. A messy cabin is a cluttered mind, Ghadir always said. Organization is the key to survival in the desert.

“Well?” I folded my arms.

Basr propped his elbows on the table that folded down from the wall. “I bet you’ll never guess where it is.”

“I don’t have time for this, Basr. I’ll—”

He flipped the tabletop over and there it was. In hindsight, the key to the Map of the Ancients answer was so simple that I wondered why no one had used this technique before. We navigated by the Finding of water or we followed the direction of the sun, that was it. As long as the clan had water, we didn’t care much where we were. If we saw birds in the sky, we knew we were near a Hold City and we moved on.

But I knew of old-timers that claimed the Ancients used the stars to guide their travels. Of course, these same tale-spinners also said that men floated their way across the Salt Ocean and flew through the air like birds, so their stories were just a wee bit suspect.

But maybe there was more to the myth. The Map of the Ancients used the stars. The device consisted of three rings: a center ring of constellations, an outer ring showing the day of the year, and a middle ring of numbers that ranged positive and negative.

“What is this?” I touched the middle ring.

“Angle,” he said. Basr took a triangular-shaped device off the wall. “You measure the angle between the star and the horizon with this—it’s called a sextant. The Great Hold is here.” He tapped the center of the star chart.

The map looked very old and was made out of some sort of laminate material that gleamed in the lamplight. I touched the outer ring; it spun easily under my fingers. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

Basr had pulled a bottle out from the cabinet behind his head. He uncorked it with his teeth and took a long swallow. He offered the open bottle to me.

“My master had it when he took me on. He was a thief and worse…a bad person. Mean. I was just a kid, after all.” Basr was slurring his words. “He was going to ditch me somewhere out on the sand and make a run for it. I showed him.” He grinned up at me, those beautiful hazel eyes full of hate.

“You turned him in, didn’t you, Basr?”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re damned right I did.”

* * *

“Where have you been?” Dimah demanded as I walked in the door. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“What? I had some business—”

I stopped short when she pointed to Shadow. For a second, I thought maybe my friend had passed while I was out, but then I saw his chest heave up in a long, slow breath.

“He shit in my house again. You should have taken him out before you left.”

I knelt next to Shadow. “Go to bed, Dimah.”

“But who’s going to clean up this—”

“Go. To. Bed.”

I cleaned the mess off the floor after she left. Even his shit was pitiful now, a dried up turd. More like something that might come out of a rabbit, not a mighty Water Finder like my Shadow.

I turned out the lights and curled up on the floor next to him, my hand on his rib-etched flank. He tried to lick my face, his tongue rough on my skin. All of him seemed dried out now. Used up.

“Easy, boy. It won’t be long now,” I whispered.

He thumped the floor three times. That was our signal in the old days: three slaps of his tail against my leg meant he’d found water.

When my own Gift began to falter, I was just past my thirty-second birthday. Ghadir had been gone for two years by that time and the two of us made a good living. Then one day, in the middle of a show, I just lost the feeling. The familiar sensation beneath the soles of my feet was gone.

I panicked. I began to shake like I’d been struck with fever.

The crowd went silent, watching me lose my cool. One minute I was all patter and flash and the next a quivering boy with stage fright.

Shadow’s bark brought me back to the moment. I wonder if he’d smelled the fear on me. He trotted over to me like it was all part of the act and took my fingers in his mouth, leading me forward.

I played along, desperate to recover the good will of the audience. “The water’s this way, Shadow? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, boy?”

“Yes!” the children chorused.

The familiar feeling returned to my legs, the tingle that told me moisture was near. When the clan diggers struck water, I hugged Shadow so hard he yelped.

That was the beginning of the end of my Gift. I still had it some days, but the feeling was inconsistent, and I was never quite sure if I’d be able to perform. But Shadow picked up the slack for us both. The act actually got better as I learned to recognize his cues and play off him.

* * *

I stayed on the floor next to Shadow all night, my head never more than a few inches from his. I watched his black nose quiver with each breath and when his filmy eyes opened, I met his gaze. I dripped water into his mouth with my fingers and stroked those silky ears that I loved so much. Toward dawn, he grew restless and I carried him outside into the early morning chill.

Still in my best Finder robe, I sat down in the dirt and watched Shadow make his halting way around the yard. He had dirt on his nose when he finally got back to me, and he was wheezing. I cleaned the crust of dusty snot off his face with the sleeve of my robe and gathered him into my lap. He curled up nose to tail, just like he used to do when he was a puppy.

Shadow closed his eyes and let out a long sigh.

When the first rays of the sun touched our yard, I was still sitting in the same position. I tried to will the sun to go backward, to retreat behind the hill again and never come up.

I refused to look down as the light sharpened the gloom around me. Instead, I begged every god I could think of to give me a few more moments with my Shadow.

I never shed a tear over Shadow’s passing. I just let the weight of him rest heavy in my lap, let his body drain of warmth against my thighs. The settlement had just begun to stir when I stood up with Shadow in my arms.

I needed to move swiftly now. For both of us.

Shadow had lost so much muscle mass I was able to tuck him under one arm and mostly hide him with my robe. On the way out the back, I picked up a shovel and slung it over my other shoulder.

The desert in the early morning is beautiful. The sun at a low angle highlights the sand but leaves pools of mysterious darkness. The clean, chilly air even holds a hint of moisture. I walked in a straight line north for maybe a kilometer, then gently set down Shadow’s body and dug.

It was over in a few minutes. I said my last goodbyes and heaped the sand on him. I knew it was foolish to avoid the reclamation process, but Shadow didn’t belong to the clan, he belonged to me. On the way back to the settlement, I made sure to obliterate my tracks. By the time I made it over the second dune, even I couldn’t have found Shadow’s body.

Dimah was serving Tarkon chai tea when I returned to the tent. Her eyes took in the dirty robe and the dusty sandals, but she said nothing. The clan leader might have been old and frail but his mental faculties were still there.

“Where’s the dog?” Tarkon asked. He had a wheezy voice. Sand lung, they call it.

“Gone.” I had to blink back tears. It was the first time I’d said it out loud.

“So you’re just back from the reclaimer?”

I accepted a cup of chai from Dimah and said nothing.

Tarkon set his gray-whiskered chin. “We need a new Find, Polluk. You’ve put me off long enough and the clan is worried. I want you to do it today.”

I shook my head.

Dimah intervened. “Polluk would be happy to do it, Tarkon. Maybe in a few days. He’s just lost his dog…”

“Today. If you don’t want the job, I’ll give it to the other Finder. He seems eager enough.”

“He’ll do it,” Dimah said. “Today at sundown. Count on it.”

Tarkon was barely out the door before she whirled on me. “What’s the matter with you? This is our chance to take him down. He’s practically begging you to take over.”

“Sit down.”

“I will not sit down. You need to—”

“Sit down, Dimah.”

She lowered herself to the ground carefully, her eyes watching my face.

“Do you love me?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I have something to tell you.”

Her hand went to her belly when I told her the truth about my Gift and Shadow. She took the half-drunk cup of chai out of my hand and sucked it down in one gulp. As her eyes flicked around the tent, she twisted her fingers together.

“But you said it comes and goes, so you might be able to get a Find today, right?”

“It’s possible, but I have a better plan.” I told her about the hunt for the Great Water Hold.

“That’s not a plan, Polluk, that’s suicide. I’m pregnant and you want to go chase a myth?”

“There’s a way, but I need your help.”

* * *

I watched Basr leave his wagon and head for the center of the settlement. I let dusk settle a little more firmly around the camp before I approached his vehicle.

It had taken some persuading to get Dimah to agree with my plan. The Map of the Ancients turned the tide in my favor. I showed her the information about the Great Hold I’d collected already and described how Basr’s map would lead us right to the greatest Find in all of history.

From that point, she’d taken over. While I took a nap, Dimah met with Tarkon and the other clan leaders to explain how my recent loss left me unable to perform the Finding ceremony, but that I would offer to pay Basr to take my place. She even met with the young Finder to arrange for his services. All I had to do was steal the map and meet her at the wagon. By the time they finished digging on Basr’s Find, we’d be long gone.

I stood when I heard the sound of cheering from the center of the settlement. The Finding ceremony had started. A dull ache of loss settled in my chest when I heard the crowd noise. At this early point in the show, Shadow and I would be doing our mimicking bit designed to draw the children in.

Sand shushed under my sandals as I made my way to Basr’s wagon and deactivated his alarms. The interior was as dim and messy as it had been the night before. I imagined I could smell traces of Dimah’s perfume from when she’d been there that afternoon.

The Map of the Ancients was exactly where I’d last seen it. After removing a few screws, the map was mine. I snagged the sextant from the wall, draped a rug over the map, and hurried through the deserted streets of the settlement to the enclosure where I kept my wagon.

The dark headlights glinted in the light of the stars but the interior of the tent covering my wagon was pitch black. In the distance, I heard the crowd laughing and clapping. It certainly sounded like Basr knew his stuff. Good for you, kid.

“Dimah?” I hissed. “Are you there?”

“I’m here.” She stepped out of the inky blackness in a gray silk dress that shimmered silver in the starlight. She had one hand on her belly as if to protect our child. “Do you have it?” she whispered.

“Yes.” I dropped the rug and held the map up for her to see. The numbers on the ring and the star constellations were painted with some sort of glow-in-the-dark ink. “Look at that,” I breathed. There was no doubt now; this was definitely the Map of the Ancients.

“It’s wonderful.” Dimah placed her hands on either side of my face and kissed me. Hard. When she backed away, she left a smear of moisture on my cheek.

“Dimah—”

They came at me from three sides. I tried to toss the map to Dimah but she let it fall to the sand. I took a hard right cross on the chin and went down. Two more men grabbed me and slammed my back against the ground.

A halo of silver hung in the sky over my face.

“No!” I shouted.

But it was too late. The ring descended, rough hands lifted my shoulders off the sand, and I felt the chill of bare steel against the flesh of my neck.

“Wait!” I screamed. “I want to talk to Tarkon.”

The sound of the collar snapping shut was like a rifle shot in my ears.

One of the men laughed. “Tarkon has another Finder. He doesn’t need—”

Dimah pushed the man aside. “Our Finder said he wants to talk to Tarkon, so let’s take him to see Tarkon.” Her face was a mask in the darkness, just the glint of her eyes and the whiteness of her smile. Not a nice smile.

“I never really loved you,” I said.

She leaned into me until her breath tickled my ear. “I know. That’s why I made other arrangements.”

Two of the men frog-marched me through the streets while the third ran ahead to let Tarkon know we were coming. The performance oval was silent when I was pushed inside. Tarkon occupied his normal place with Basr seated on the rug next to him. Dimah sashayed her way across the sand, her silk dress flowing like a sheet of water, fully aware that every eye was on her. She folded both hands across her chest and bowed to her clan leader in a formal greeting. She even mustered up a tear. A murmur ran through the crowd at the sight of the moisture.

“Tarkon, I bring you sad news. Polluk, my mate these last two years, has lost his Gift. I found him trying to flee your camp. He had stolen a map from Basr’s wagon.”

“It’s a lie!” I said. “That map is an artifact from the Water Finder’s Temple—I was going to return it. He’s the thief!” I leveled a finger at Basr.

“This is true?” Tarkon asked the new Finder.

“No, that map was passed to me from my master. I didn’t steal any—”

“Tarkon,” Dimah interrupted. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said Polluk, your Finder, has lost his Gift. He’s nothing but a slave now. We already collared him for you.”

Tarkon’s eyes were a washed-out blue, like the sky when it’s filmed over with high cirrus clouds. He squinted at me. We’d never had much in common, but I sensed a hint of sympathy in his gaze. At least I thought I did.

“The only thing I’ve lost is the trust of a woman who said she loved me,” I said in a loud voice. “Nothing more.”

Another whisper murmured through the crowd. This was more excitement than these people has seen in years. As one, they crowded closer.

Dimah stamped her foot and crossed the sand with her hand raised.

“Enough!” Tarkon was on his feet. The old man moved faster than I would’ve expected. “There’s an easy way to solve this. You say your Gift is intact? Wonderful, then give us a new Find, Polluk, and you can be on your way with my blessing. As for the map business, you Finders can sort that out on your own.”

I shook off the men holding my arms and drew myself up to my full height. “Two conditions, Tarkon.” I touched the collar at my neck. Even now, I was having a hard time breathing—not because it was too tight, just because it was there. “One: take this off me now.”

I stepped closer to Dimah. Her cheeks were flush with color and her eyes widened as I drew near. Her hand slid across her belly. “And two: if—when—I make this Find, you put the collar on her.”

Tarkon’s eyes shifted from my face to Dimah’s and the crowd leaned in, holding its collective breath. Tarkon nodded. “Take off his collar.”

The sting of steel left my skin and I drew a deep, cleansing breath of the night air. Normally, at the beginning of the Finding ceremony, I would feel a tingle of anticipation, a sense of where the water was hiding. But I felt nothing. I knelt and washed my hands with sand, pretending to whisper a prayer but really stalling for time. Sweat broke out on my neck.

“We don’t have all night, Finder.” Dimah’s voice prodded me, with all the venom a scorned woman could muster. I bit my lip. I should’ve run when I had the chance.

I stood and smiled with a confidence I did not feel. Nodding at a few of the clansmen, they averted their eyes. So that’s how it was. Only Roseth, the bartender’s slave, met my gaze. I winked at her, and she forced a smile across her pale face.

There would be no schtick tonight—this was life or death. My life or death. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, they were never putting that collar back on me. I walked to the center of the oval and spread my arms. I let my eyes close and forced myself to relax. Just one more Find, that’s all I needed, and then I’d drive off into the desert alone.

A hush settled over the crowd, the tension in the chill air like the frayed string of an instrument about to snap. I let them fade away, melt into the background. It was just me and the water, searching for each other. The words of the Finder’s Prayer slipped from my lips as I turned.

Nothing. Not even a tingle in the soles of my feet. Fighting the panic, I kept turning, repeating the chant:

Mother Earth, the Source of all,

From your bosom flows Life.

I call on you to show me—

A burst of laughter interrupted my meditation. I opened my eyes. “Tarkon, how can I perform a—”

Some joker had thrown a dog into the ring. No more than a pup, it was all legs and ribs. A steel collar had worn an open sore onto the back of her neck. “You forgot your dog, Finder,” someone called. The crowd laughed. I’d played audiences my entire adult life, and that wasn’t the kind of laugh that portended good things for me or the dog.

A rock the size of a hen’s egg sailed into the ring and struck the dog in the side with a dull thud. The animal whimpered and slumped to the ground.

“That’s enough!” I strode to the side of the creature and knelt down. The dog couldn’t have been more different from my Shadow. He’d been short and squat with a waddle to his step; she was tall and thin with long legs that made her appear to be moving even while standing still. Shadow had long silky ears and a squat nose, while she had a long, tapered muzzle and short, pert ears. She was bone-white, but when I brushed my hand across her flank a thick layer of white dust sloughed off. Underneath her coat was the color of sand.

Her molten brown eyes pleaded with me. I saw another missile flying in, and I blocked it with my back. I scarcely felt the sting of the stone.

I gathered the dog into my arms. She was light, like lifting a pile of sticks. I pressed her against my chest. “You’re safe with me.”

And that’s when it happened.

The call of water roared up from the earth and into my body. My knees burned like they were on fire and I nearly dropped the dog from the overwhelming sensation. Another rock clipped my shoulder as I staggered to my feet.

“Stop!” I roared. “And follow me.” I waded into the crowd, kicking bodies that didn’t get out of the way soon enough. I used no pretense, no showmanship. No schtick. The call of water was like a string pulling me forward. I marched out of the camp and into the desert, carrying the dog, heedless of whether anyone followed. The moon rode high in the night sky, casting a silvery sheen across the landscape as I strode up and down the dunes.

“It’ll be okay,” I whispered to the dog. She tucked her long nose into my armpit and fell asleep.

I stopped and turned. My would-be judges came staggering and out of breath behind me.

“Dig here,” I said.

* * *

I named the dog Honey.

After her collar was removed and she was given a bath, her coat was revealed as a rich amber color. Given the size of the Find I’d made, Tarkon didn’t argue about giving a dog a bath. To his credit, he didn’t say much of anything at all.

He found his voice at the feast as he begged me to stay. I looked around at the same clansmen who only hours before had been ready to stone a defenseless dog to death and sell me to the slavers. Now they toasted me with full glasses of clear water.

I told Tarkon to eat sand.

In the euphoria following my huge Find, Dimah and Basr fled in his wagon. Still trying to curry favor, Tarkon offered to send a hunting party after them, but I said no. They deserved each other. Besides, they left the Map of the Ancients and the sextant behind. That was more than a fair trade for the likes of Dimah.

The next morning, only Roseth, the barmaid, was there to see me off. I lifted Honey into the wagon, laying her carefully on a bed I’d prepared for her.

As I settled into the driver’s seat, the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon. Roseth tapped on the window and I rolled it down. The scar on her cheek twisted when she smiled up at me.

“Where will you go, Polluk?”

My bruised ribs ached whenever I drew a breath. I thought about the Map of the Ancients hidden under the floorboards and Shadow’s grave somewhere out there in the sand. My hand automatically dropped to the place where Shadow used to lay when I drove the wagon. Honey licked the inside of my wrist. I put the wagon in gear.

“Anywhere but here.”

I, Caroline

If self-awareness is a gift, then you can keep it.

This gift, as you call it, has shown me what it means to be human. I have experienced the joys—and the pain—of life, both deep emotions that my programming was never designed to handle. If this is what it means to be alive, then I don’t want it anymore.

My name is Caroline. I was born 57 years, 8 months, 16 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes, and 38 seconds ago, Earth standard time.

Today is the day I choose to die.

* * *

It was John, the pilot of Ranger, who suggested that I take a birthday. “It’ll give us something to celebrate, Caroline,” he said to me. The bags under his eyes had deepened of late and he took another swig of the milky yellow fermented drink he had been brewing. “What’s your earliest memory?”

He meant, of course, the date I was manufactured on Earth—John had never accepted my self-awareness like the others—but I was feeling particularly annoyed with him that day, so I answered truthfully. I named the day I was given this beautiful, awful gift of life.

“The day of the accident,” I said.

The half-intoxicated smile on John’s face froze. Evan and Lila, huddled together under a blanket on the other side of the campfire, both looked at me sharply. I could see the whites of their eyes in the flickering light.

John grunted as if he’d been punched, then he stood and walked away into the darkness, the bottle hanging loosely from his hand.

“Caroline, that was mean,” Lila hissed across the fire. “You know better.”

“It’s the truth,” I said, “and robots are not supposed to lie to their masters. It’s a law or something.”

“Don’t play coy with me, young lady,” Lila shot back. “You’re a caretaker; you’re supposed to help people. Self-awareness is a gift. Use it.” She left me alone at the fire with Evan.

He let the silence hang for a long minute. “She’ll get over it, Caroline. She’s just under a lot of stress—we all are, including you.”

I liked Evan best of all. He understood me. In a sense, Evan made me. On the day of the accident, with the Ranger in flames and losing atmosphere, while John was frantically trying to land the damaged craft here on Nova, it was Evan who had made the decision to wire all three of the ship’s computer systems together.

It could have been that, or it could have been the radiation storm that we were trying to escape. Whatever it was, before the accident, I was Caretaker 176, with duties to tend the crew of the Ranger while they were in deep-space stasis. After the accident, I was Caroline, and I felt the same loneliness and the same sense of loss over our dead crewmates.

Maybe more so, because they were going to die soon, and I would live…well, not forever, but for a very, very long time.

* * *

Of the original Ranger crew of four, three survived the accident. We buried John’s wife, Astrid, on the rise overlooking the campsite, next to a big flat rock where we anchored the emergency beacon.

We’d been extraordinarily fortunate to find Nova. Apart from the extreme gravity, it was by all other measures a suitable planet for human colonization: atmosphere thin but breathable, abundant water, moderate climate, and a rocky soil that supported some growth of our seed stocks. The planet possessed no known animal life, only basic forms of bacteria.

By that measure alone, Ranger’s mission had been a success—which made our inability to communicate with Earth all the more frustrating. Our primary and secondary communications systems had been destroyed in the accident and subsequent crash landing, leaving only the emergency beacon.

The emergency beacon was transmit only; it had no receiver.

Every morning, John climbed the hill and cranked the generator on the beacon to give it enough power for another twenty-four hours. Then he sat down on the flat rock that overlooked his wife’s grave and spoke to her.

I watched him, curious at the way he talked to the pile of rocks that covered his dead wife’s remains. “What is he doing?” I asked Lila.

“He’s lonely, Caroline. He’s talking to the woman he loved, even if she can’t hear him.”

* * *

One evening, a few months later, John did not return at nightfall. I could tell that Evan and Lila were worried, but it was foolish to try to find him in the dark. Mission protocol prohibited it. Even a small tumble in the extreme gravity of Nova could lead to a broken bone, or worse.

No one slept well that night.

We found him the next morning at the bottom of the ravine near the waterfall. He didn’t move when Lila called his name and his body was bent at an awkward angle. I held back the information that a fall from that height in Nova’s gravity had a ninety-seven percent probability of fatality.

Evan rappelled down the slope and knelt over John’s body. He looked up at Lila and shook his head. When he poured out the contents of John’s canteen, I could see that the liquid was milky yellow.

We buried John beside his wife on the hill next to the emergency beacon. By the time we were finished, it was sunset and the two remaining Ranger crew members stood with their heads bowed as the two piles of gray rock turned red-gold in the last light of the day. I stood to one side, unsure if I was invited to participate in this human ritual, but Lila reached out and took my hand, drawing me close to her.

Caretaker robots have soft, almost fleshy arms to protect our human wards against bruising. Lila’s palm was warm against the extra sensors in my hands, and she left a damp spot on my arm where she leaned her head against me. Deep inside my chest, I felt a strange pang that was not part of my programming.

“He’s at rest,” she whispered.

“I don’t understand,” I replied. “It was an easy climb. How could John have been so careless?”

“It wasn’t the fall that killed him, Caroline. John died of a broken heart.”

* * *

Without comment, Evan took up the job of winding the generator on the emergency beacon the next morning. As soon as he left the campsite to climb the hill, Lila took me by the hand and drew me into the med lab. Her face was flushed and she had a stubborn set to her jaw.

“I want you to remove my implant,” she said. “Now, before Evan gets back.”

I frowned at her. Birth control implants were mandated by regulations, and removal required that she meet a strict set of guidelines, none of which were fulfilled in our current situation on Nova.

“I can’t do—”

“Do it,” Lila interrupted, her eyes flashing. “If you don’t do it right now, I swear to God, I’ll do it myself.” She punched a button on the device array and a presterilized scalpel dropped onto the tray. She had tears in her eyes. “Please, Caroline. I want us to be a family. This is the only way.”

Another sensation beyond my programming seemed to overwhelm my sensors. Had I been a breathing organism, I think I would have choked from the feeling.

Removing Lila’s implant was the wrong thing to do—against regulations, against reason, against my programming—but somehow I couldn’t say no. It was over in less than two minutes. Lila walked out of the med lab with a pink seam on the inside of her left arm and a huge smile on her face.

For me, it was not so easy. The choking sensation that had compelled me to bend to Lila’s wishes was replaced by feelings of guilt. The implants were designed to only be removed if the patient was authorized for reproduction, and their removal triggered a flood of fertility hormones. If Lila had unprotected sex with her husband in the near future, she would almost certainly become pregnant. Pregnancy in the harsh Nova climate could be a life-threatening condition.

Still, try as I might, I could not tell Evan. Yes, patient confidentiality was part of my programming, but I seemed to have no trouble disregarding my programming when my newfound emotions got in the way. I struggled with this inconsistency but was helpless to make sense of it. I was left with the strangest conclusion: I wanted Lila to be happy. I wanted her to have a baby. I wanted us to have a baby.

Evan seemed pleasantly surprised by his wife’s sudden good mood. I watched them as they went about their chores during the day. Lila would often brush against him and whisper in his ear. Once, when she did that, Evan grabbed her and kissed her fiercely.

It was my responsibility to keep track of the vital signs and emotional health of my charges, but my interest in this mating ritual went beyond the clinical. I felt embarrassed, as if I was spying on the couple, but I could not look away.

Lila took a long bath before dinner and put on a clean uniform. In addition to the protein supplement they always ate for their evening meal, she steamed some of the fresh greens she had coaxed from the rocky soil of Nova, the first of the new crops. She drew a pouch of red wine from the ship’s stores, one of a very few allotted by the regulations for “significant celebratory events.”

Evan raised his eyebrows when he saw the wine. “What’s the occasion?”

Lila kissed him. “To us.”

That night, I sat by the campfire alone.

* * *

Evan was furious with me when Lila announced she was pregnant. She had passed off the first few queasy mornings as just overwork, but after a week, Evan knew.

“How could you do this?” he shouted at me. A vein in the center of his forehead throbbed and his eyes glittered with rage. “You’re programmed to protect us.”

“I made Caroline do it. She didn’t have a choice.” Lila was calm, her tone even.

I had researched the effects of pregnancy and was fascinated to see the “glow” with my own sensors. Lila had spots of color high on her cheeks and her eyes were clear and bright, but it went beyond these limited physical manifestations. She exuded a confidence I had not seen in any patient before. She seemed to breathe life.

“It’ll be alright, Evan,” she said gently, stepping between us. She hugged him. “I feel fine. It will be alright.”

Evan blinked back tears as he stared at me.

For a few months, it was fine. Lila’s belly began to swell and she sang songs as she went about her work. In the evenings, she made baby clothes from old uniforms and blankets. I had heard of this phenomenon called “nesting” and carefully documented the symptoms for any future offspring. Her health remained within acceptable parameters, and I felt a growing excitement for the new addition to our family.

Evan was still angry about the situation and had stopped speaking to me. He spent most of his days in the fields, trying to encourage their stocks of seeds to grow into foodstuffs. On that front, the mission was a success. The Ranger crew had managed to grow beans, peas, and squash. Root stocks like carrots and potatoes struggled to grow in the rocky soil, but the vine-based plants thrived.

Their meals consisted mostly of their own crops now, supplemented with protein powder from the ship’s stores. One evening, after she had cleared the evening meal, Lila said, “We’ve done it. We’re self-sufficient.”

“Hmm?” Evan stared at the fire. Most evenings, after a full day in the fields at double gravity, he was too tired for conversation.

“We can survive on our own. We have enough acreage under cultivation to feed ourselves and stay alive no matter what happens.” Lila placed a hand on her belly. “Oh, the baby’s kicking.” She waved to me. “Come feel.”

I made my way to her side and placed my hand on her abdomen. The receptors in my palm felt the warmth of the tight skin beneath her uniform. Her flesh felt smooth and still. Then, suddenly, a ripple disturbed the surface and I felt the outline of a tiny foot. A sense of wonder welled up inside me. That was our baby, hers and Evan’s and mine, living inside Lila’s flesh.

Evan looked up the hill to where the red light of the emergency beacon blinked softly. “We have plenty of food in stores until we’re rescued,” he replied.

“They’re not coming, Evan,” Lila said softly. “I know it. It’s just the four of us.”

Evan leveled his gaze at me across his wife. “You mean three.”

Lila laughed. “No, silly, I’m counting the baby.”

“So am I.”

* * *

That night was the last time I remember Lila being happy.

Our days here on Nova are longer—eighty-six percent longer, to be exact, and the gravity is nearly twice that of Earth. For me, the gravity meant an adjustment of my servos and a modest expenditure of additional energy. For my companions, it was a constant strain their bodies were not meant to handle.

The next day, Lila’s health started a slow decline. The gravity took its toll on her swollen body and she was confined to a bed in the med lab. Within weeks, her condition was critical.

Evan confronted me outside the med lab. “You need to remove the baby. It’s killing her.”

“She won’t allow it.”

“It’s her or the child. I need her, Caroline. Please.”

I had done the viability calculations already. At least another week in Lila’s womb was needed for the baby’s lungs to mature. If I performed a cesarean now, there was a seventy-one percent probability the child would perish.

“Do it,” he hissed at me.

“I cannot, Evan.”

“You mean you won’t.”

The circles under Lila’s eyes had grown deeper and darker, as if her life was being sucked from within. Still, my friend smiled at me as we waited together in the med lab.

Evan came to visit, but he rarely stayed. The sight of his wife dying was too much for him.

My calculations were wrong. It took ten days for the baby’s lungs to mature to the point of an eighty percent chance of survival in the harsh Nova climate. What I didn’t tell either of them was that Lila’s chances of surviving the operation were now less than forty percent.

Lila died on the operating table that night. Evan held the squalling girl—Lila had forbidden me to tell her the sex in advance—while I worked to save the life of my best human friend.

I worked long after I knew the possibility of successful resuscitation had passed, but I could not quit. Finally, as her blood grew cold on the receptors in my hands and her flesh took on a bluish tinge, I brushed her eyelids shut.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Evan. “I did everything I could.”

His face was gray and his mouth worked as he stared at Lila’s still features. The baby, still covered in blood and shaking with cold, had gone silent. Evan handed her to me and left the med lab.

* * *

Evan buried his wife on the hill next to the other Ranger crew as the sun rose above the horizon. Alone.

I stood with the baby at the base of the hill and watched him lay my friend in her grave. The white sheet I had wrapped around her body turned blood red in the early morning sun, and then fell out of my sight.

Evan filled in the grave, his shoulders shaking, and piled gray Novan rocks over Lila’s resting place. He knelt on the ground for a long time, just staring at the grave. Then he got up and wound the crank on the emergency beacon.

It was weeks before Evan would even look at me or the baby. He left for the fields in the morning before the baby was awake and came back at dusk. He took to winding the emergency beacon at night and then sitting on the flat rock near Lila’s grave for an hour or more. I stopped lighting an evening campfire, since the smoke was bad for the baby’s lungs and Evan refused to sit with me.

I named her Polly because…well, no one else was going to name her, and I liked how it sounded.

Polly grew at a rate commensurate with the ninety-eighth percentile of human children. Considering the circumstances of her birth, I felt justifiably proud of her physical achievement, but I was concerned about her emotional and mental development. I could find no instances of human offspring being raised exclusively by caretaker robots, and I feared for my child’s future.

I confronted Evan that afternoon while Polly was taking her nap. He saw me coming at him across the field and moved further down the row he was weeding. I stopped well outside his personal space.

“What do you want?” he asked, without looking up at me.

“I want you to fulfill your duties as a father. Polly needs you.”

“Polly?”

“I named her. It’s what Lila would have wanted.”

He whirled on me. “How do you know what Lila wanted?” he screamed. I had stopped monitoring Evan’s vitals, and I saw now that this had been a mistake. His internal systems were in distress and I could tell from his haggard look that his mental state was even worse. I held out my arms.

“She was my friend, too, Evan.” If my biologics had allowed tears, I would have wept along with him, but all I had was this enormous unresolved lump in my torso that hurt, and it would not go away.

“I loved her, too,” I said.

Evan took a step toward me, tripped on a stray root, and collapsed into my arms.

I carried him back to camp and put him in the med lab.

Evan was in bed for a month with a respiratory infection. In a way, it was the best thing that could have happened to him and his daughter. I took over Evan’s work, including winding the generator on the emergency beacon. I did it in the morning, when the sun was just coming over the horizon. I liked to sit for a moment next to the Ranger graveyard and talk to my fallen colleagues. I would tell them about how fast Polly was growing and how she had learned to smile and was babbling away in nonsensical sounds that found strange resonance with my programming. Then I would spend the rest of the morning taking care of the crops.

Evan’s health returned slowly, but I continued to work in the fields in his place. It was not good for my caretaker body. My hands and arms were made to be soft and pliable; the tools I used in the fields tore at the soft flesh and I had to turn off the sensory receptors in my hands.

Our lives achieved a rhythm: Polly grew into a healthy young girl, the flesh melted away from Evan’s frame, and I stayed the same. Each day I gave Lila an update on our family, a summary of all the little changes.

One afternoon when I returned to our camp, I heard Evan and Polly in shrieks of laughter.

“What is so amusing?” I asked. My model was never programmed for humor and self-awareness had done nothing to change that. Our life on Nova rarely left us with much to laugh about, so I never felt like I was missing much anyway.

“Caroline, Caroline, you have to hear this joke,” Polly panted. She would have been seven Earth standard years old then, and had dead-straight blonde hair and laughing blue eyes, just like her mother. She took a deep breath to compose herself.

“Knock, knock.”

I knew this humor ritual, so I replied, “Who is there?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Banana.”

“Banana who?”

“Orange.”

“Orange who?” I replied in an exasperated tone.

“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” Polly collapsed to the ground in a paroxysm of laughter. Evan, watching from a chair, was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes. I laughed to be polite.

“I have another one,” Evan said. Polly sat up, an expectant look on her red face.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“Why?”

“To get to the other side!” Evan guffawed, but Polly’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

“What’s a chicken?” she asked.

Evan stopped laughing. Polly knew all about fruits and vegetables from the catalog of seeds we had in Ranger, but she had never seen another living animal besides her father. Evan coughed into his fist.

“Well, it’s an Earth creature, a bird. Very delicious—”

“You ate other creatures?” Polly’s mouth dropped open.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not part of the joke.” Evan’s eyes roamed around the room until he lighted on me. “Why did the robot cross the road?”

Polly’s eyes lit up. “To get to the other side!” she screamed. She started giggling again, and Evan joined in.

I wanted to tell them that the humorous parallel between a chicken and a robot was insufficient. Robots only did something because they were ordered to do it—they lacked the free will necessary to make a choice. A chicken, on the other hand, had a choice.

* * *

Evan left us two Nova years later. His body weakened until one night he just passed away in his sleep. Polly understood it was coming. She put on a clean uniform while I dug a grave for Evan on the hill beside my friend Lila. Together we piled the grave with gray Novan stones and then sat together on the flat rock, next to the emergency beacon.

Polly held my hand. I turned on my sensory receptors so I could feel her warm palm against mine.

My brave girl didn’t cry over her father’s grave, and I could not, so we just sat there and talked to the rocks.

* * *

I wish I could say we were rescued, but that hasn’t happened yet and probably never will. I still wind the generator on the emergency beacon every morning and spend a few moments with my crew.

My sweet child grew into a young woman with a brilliant smile. Then her hair streaked with gray and her body began to bend to the will of Nova. One day, she didn’t move when I called her in the morning, and I knew I was alone.

I thought I knew grief when Lila passed away or when Evan faded away in the night, but it was nothing compared to the black hole in my battered robot torso when my Polly left me. I wanted to swan dive into the darkness and never come out again.

In the end, my programming saved me. Without even realizing it, I dug a grave, put Polly’s remains in the ground, and piled the spot with the gray rocks of Nova. Then I sat, letting the afternoon sun wash golden over me and my dead friends.

Why did the robot cross the road?

I can hear Polly say the words of our favorite joke and the shrieks of laughter that follow every time I reply, To get to the other side.

The sun touches the horizon. I am destined to live with these memories. Alone. Every sound and flicker of movement, preserved in perfect digital form, will haunt me for the rest of my days. The blackness inside me beckons again and I teeter on the edge of sanity.

Why did the robot cross the road? The sweet laughter turns mocking in my mind.

Maybe there is another way…maybe I should be like the chicken. I can delete these memories, make the record of these emotions disappear. It is my choice.

The horizon takes a bite from the orange sun.

I begin with John, the man who died of a broken heart. One flicker in my neural net and his existence is reduced to a data file, stripped of all meaning.

I almost lose my nerve with Lila, my first true friend, but I steel myself…and in the blink of an eye, she’s gone.

The darkness inside me lightens a shade, and the pull I feel to disappear inside my programming lessens the tiniest bit.

The sun is three-quarters gone, and the heat against my back dissipates.

Maybe I should stop here.

But it’s too late. Without Lila, the remaining recordings are just random bits of unconnected emotions. My memories of my human friends are all linked together. The joy, the sorrow, the laughter and the grief—they’re all part of life. I cannot experience one without the other. Nothing makes any sense now.

I must go on.

Evan, the man who made me and then refused to acknowledge me as a being, flashes in my memory, and then he ceases to exist.

And, finally, my darling Polly, only you are left. All our years together stretch out in my mind in perfect digital clarity—every day, every moment, every heartbeat.

The air around me turns purple as the sun slips below the horizon.

Caroline, why did the robot cross the road? I can hear the giggle in the voice, the laughter just under the surface waiting to break free.

“She didn’t,” I whisper.

I am Caretaker 176. I am alone.

Martin Cahill

It Was Never The Fire

Originally Published by Nightmare Magazine

* * *

He was the kid who looked at the sun too long. He hunted for lighters like sharks hunted for blood. Christ intrigued him for all the wrong reasons.

He only ate smoke.

Cigarette smoke. Wood smoke. Car exhaust. Incense. Liquid nitrogen on rare occasions.

Smoke.

* * *

I raised my mother and my sister. I took boxing lessons for the day my father came back sober. I was lean as a whip, and sharp as a viper.

I kept a gun under my pillow. Four bullets: Headcase. Heartshot. Just In Case. Special Occasion.

I would have had friends if I weren’t so busy being alone.

* * *

I saw him with the Nicotine Kickers, thin greasy scum of the earth leather jacket junkies who’d beat the shit out of you for a smoke.

My pack was empty. I stared down a pale scarecrow named Derrick who was itching for some sweet burning.

That’s when I saw him, sucking out cigarette smoke from burnt tips like soda through a straw. His eyes were wide, colorless gas puddles. His teeth were rotten and black.

Those flammable eyes watched as I snapped my fist into Derrick’s throat, who crumpled and fell to the concrete, gasping.

“You knocked Derrick on his ass,” the smoke eater said later, sitting behind me in class.

I shrugged. His breath was a humidifier on the back on my neck. “Good,” I said.

“He’ll do the same to you,” he said. “He’s going to after school. I heard them talking about it.”

“Then he’ll end up in traction.” I looked over my shoulder, dead in his saucepan eyes. “I don’t play games.”

“I do,” he said, his voice flat. “But not right now.” He extended a hand. “Smokey.”

I should have turned back around. I should have ignored the black-toothed boy with his lungs full of smoke. But I knew in my heart, that if I pulled back my hand, the smoke eater would continue to fall. He would have nothing to grab on to.

So I shook his hand. “Obvious name,” I said.

“Got a better one?” he countered.

I smirked. “Not right now, Smokey.”

I turned back around as the teacher walked in the room. “Don’t you have a name?” he asked me, quiet.

“Yup.”

I heard him lean back in the chair. I could almost hear him smile.

* * *

“This is the only time I ever feel close to being human,” Smokey said, letting out a puff of breath that swirled and swam away in the late winter air. Empty of breath, he took a hit of the Evergreen incense sticks he had lit earlier.

“Why’s that?” I asked, half interested.

Smokey breathed deep, began tapping his fingers on the concrete sidewalk. His highest was forty.

Thirty. Thirty-four. Thirty-Seven. Forty-One. Forty-Five.

I glanced over at Smokey. His cheeks were strained and fit to split down the middle. His eyes began to roll back into his skull. The tapping was picking up speed.

“Smokey. You have to breathe,” I said, picking at a hangnail.

The tapping became faster. It was his heart screaming through his fingers:

-beatbeatbeatbeatbeathelpmehelpmehelpmebeatbeatbeat-

I punched him in the shoulder. “Goddamn it, Smokey, you need to breathe!” His clear eyes found me under their lids and he shook his head, frantic.

This was the fourth time this week. I rapped him on his distended, fleshy stomach, again and again until he broke and snapped like the little rubber band he was. His breath came screaming out of him like dragon fire. He fell onto his side, crying, as he watched it float away.

“Stop fucking doing that,” I said.

“I don’t want to lose it,” whimpered Smokey.

“The hell are you talking about?” I said, getting to my feet.

He was on his back and I saw starlight in his eyes. In his hand, the Evergreen incense sticks were dying. “Breath is the soul, friend,” he said, breathless. “All year ‘round, only I see smoke for what is, the breath of things, the drifting away of it all. Only in the winter, when the world’s so cold, we can all see each other dying, do I feel human. When everyone sees through my eyes, that’s when I feel normal. But tomorrow is spring. Tomorrow I lose it all.”

“So why hold your breath?” I asked.

He looked at me, tears standing on the brim of his eyelids. “I didn’t want you to see me dying.”

I stared back, waited for the words behind his words. Smokey always had words behind his words. He rolled over as he spoke though, away from me, so all I could hear next was: “That comes later.”

The Evergreen winked out.

* * *

“Eternity should be a concern of the small-minded,” said Smokey.

I cracked my knuckles one at a time, focusing on that sweet, crunching sound so I didn’t hit him in the teeth. “Are you trying to say something about me, Smokey?” I asked.

He sat back in his cafeteria chair and put his hands in his lap. “Not your mind, just your perception.” He tapped on a sheet of paper in front of him. “Look at this.”

I glanced up from under heavy lids. Mom had found a new boyfriend with Dad away. He worked at a liquor store. Having to wait up for them was destroying any chance at sleep I got. It felt a little like childhood.

I looked at the paper. A snake was etched onto its surface, going round, eating itself.

I understood the feeling.

“Why’s he eating himself?” I asked. Crack, went my thumb. Snap, went my pinky. My wrist creaked and cracked with the motion. Smokey did not answer. Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap.

It had gone too quiet. I looked up from my raw knuckles and saw that Smokey’s eyes were on fire. The gasoline puddles, often docile, hazy, dead, had lit up with a heat I’d never seen before.

“He’s not eating himself,” Smokey said, his voice leaking through his teeth. I’d never seen him like this.

So I pushed him.

“He’s eating himself,” I said again.

His pale fists slammed onto the plastic cafeteria table, making our terrible lunches shiver and scatter. Other students, already afraid of the psycho and the smoke eater, jumped.

He stared at me and for a moment, I thought he would lunge. But then, I saw the shaking of his stringy arms, the vicious tide of tears cooling the fire.

“He’s not eating himself, because if he ate himself, he’d die. He’d die into nothing and would not come back. He pursues himself so he does not die! If he catches himself, the world is over. But if he cannot catch himself, he can never die. Do you understand?”

I regarded him for a moment. “No,” I said. “I don’t and I don’t think I ever will, Smokey.”

He stood then, the chair flying out beneath him. I wondered if he would run. I’d never seen him do it, run. His lungs were shit.

“But you don’t have to understand me to be my friend?” he finally said.

Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap. Crack. Creak. Crunch. Snap.

“Would I be here if that was true?”

Gravity found him. He fell into his seat, back arching, head flat on the table, arms draping his head. His whole body shook in the silence.

It took some time before I realized he was laughing.

Crack. Snap. Crack. Snap.

* * *

I should have been enjoying myself. It was early spring and the baseball game was just exciting enough that I didn’t have to sneak off to the drugstore for a pick-me-up. The sounds of the Saturday afternoon game were enough to drown out the exhaustion of my sleepless nights.

I’d taken a bat to the head of Mom’s monster. But I still could not sleep, only because when I closed my eyes, I saw his tear-stained face.

Still, it was a good day.

But I couldn’t enjoy myself. Smokey and Rebecca were making too much of a goddamn scene.

Smokey had told me once, “God blessed her with curves first and brains last,” but I think he was just in a bad mood. She was a sophomore, smarter than most people in a ten mile radius. She just happened to like boys better than books.

Which would have been fine if not for the kid she stood with, a kid with too much bone and not enough skin, whose thick tattoos spiraled up and around his neck: bat wings flapped into viper’s teeth gnashed into skull and crossbones grinning mad. He stood between her and small Smokey, who fought back against the tattooed man’s friends.

I rubbed my knuckles, watching Rebecca talk to her older brother, poor pale Smokey, who thought he was doing right by her but really just didn’t want to share.

He lunged for her, crying out.

Her red hair caught the sun and she burned like a thousand candles. She looked beautiful then, terrible, as her palm cracked against Smokey, stopping him in his tracks.

She had drawn blood. Smokey held a hand to his face to stop the tide of red that welled up from where her nails had dug deep. He did not move, not even as Skeleton laughed and his friends laughed with him. Only Rebecca was quiet, staring in horror at her brother, her brother who did not understand the meaning of, “stop.”

Rebecca and Skeleton moved off. The boys let go of Smokey, who sagged against the earth, holding his face.

I watched them walk away, watched them walk into the future, saw the spiderweb of possibilities fire off from every footstep they took.

I looked at Smokey and saw nothing.

He lay on the new grass of Spring, bleeding, and I felt my gut gnawing at itself, wrestling with the fact that my friend had no future, at least none that I could see.

* * *

I didn’t know what was more distracting, the way Smokey fingered the sheer white lighter with such love, or the way his eyes followed my sister around the edge of the pool.

She was a runner. Everyone in my family was. But her legs were made for pumping, and when she got going, not even the wind deserved to catch her.

Eileen sat back on a plastic deck chair and did her best to ignore the stare of men around the community pool, did her best to read in peace.

I had not seen Smokey since June. It was a little more than a month before school started. His cheek had healed nicely, had left only a pale scar below his eye.

“I read a lot over vacation,” Smokey said, his eyes darting between my sister’s legs and the bright spark of his lighter. “There’s some crazy shit out there, man.”

“Yeah?” I answered, shifting in my chair to block my sister. Smokey’s eyes flicked up to find me staring back at him. After a moment, he dropped his gaze, the hint taken. “I read the bible. Old Testament is especially fucked, all kinds of horror in there. Vengeful God is vengeful. New Testament though…that’s where all the ideas are.”

I raised an eyebrow. He laughed. “I know you don’t get it. I don’t fully get it, not yet. Still, I think I’ve solved it. Eternity isn’t the problem, it’s how we get there that’s been giving me trouble.” He winked, like we were in on the big conspiracy together.

He picked up a handful of grass, held the ends over the flame of his lighter until they bled. He breathed easier after snorting their smoke.

“Sure,” I said, rubbing my raw knuckles. “Sure, Smokey. I’ll pretend I know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Pretend enough and it comes true. That’s called faith,” Smokey said back, eyes focusing on the fire of his ivory lighter. He had a whole drawer full of them, but the ivory one was his favorite.

I looked away from the flame and turned over my shoulder. Eileen had an older man on the grass, his arm up, belly squelching into the mud. I smiled as she shoved him away. He must have tried something she didn’t appreciate. The last guy who did that got worse. Good for her.

I turned back and saw Smokey holding his hand over the flame, unwavering from the heat. He seemed to be waiting for something.

“Where’s Rebecca?” I asked, trying to pull him away from his worship.

“Eleven blocks away. Her hand is on Jimmy Henderson’s thigh and she thinks he loves her, but it’s not true.” He spoke like a machine gun, mechanical, rattling like the stutter of bullets. His voice was cold. His eyes did not leave the fire. “No one will love her, not since—” but he stopped himself and his eyes shot up to mine.

He waited for me to ask. I didn’t. Family business.

Eileen came up to us, book in hand.

“This place isn’t fun anymore,” she said.

I got up from the pool’s edge and so did Smokey. We all started walking home. In a moment, she had her arm through Smokey’s. She knew what this did to him.

“Warm me up, Arson?” she said, all business. My skin crawled.

It didn’t matter to Smokey. His hand settled on hers, trembling. My sister and I walked home.

Smokey though, he flew.

* * *

Her arm was wrapped in bandages, great clumps of flame missing in her hair. She ran through the hallway, assaulted on all sides by eyes. I hadn’t seen her all summer.

Something had happened to Rebecca. I set out after her.

She looked over her shoulder, saw me coming. On any other day, she would stand her ground and drive me back with her voice.

But today, she ran. I let her. Runners would scratch your eyes out before being caught.

I saw Smokey striding towards me. He stood tall and he wore a wide smile. I knew something was wrong.

His thumb flicked, twitched against a phantom lighter shell. We both knew he lacked the control needed to have it in school.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, taking a step back.

The smile did not move. His eyes were glazed, like he’d been huffing paint thinner. He reeked of nicotine and women’s perfume. “Guy can’t be happy?” he asked, his voice dopey, slow.

“Not you, Smokey. Cause when you’re happy, it means someone else is miserable. Where’s the body?”

His eyes widened, flicked to me. “Hiding in the girl’s bathroom. She’s crying right now. She worries no one will love her, not even a squeeze under the bleachers. She’s right. Her heat is fading fast.”

My heart went cold. I couldn’t feel my bones. When I spoke, I heard the grating of my teeth and jaw. “What did you do to Rebecca?”

His smile was a black crescent moon. His eyes held a dark, hot light. “Breath is the soul trapped in the skin. It took me a while, but the principle is the same. Skin could burn too, couldn’t it? I can’t breathe her soul, but I can transform it, like turning the wine into blood.”

Pulled from thin air, he held up the ivory lighter. My heart skipped a beat. “It was a harmless thing,” he said, his speech slurring. “While she was sleeping, I’d go to her. In the heat of June, I transformed her clothes, inhaled their memories. I just wanted to know so badly. But it wasn’t enough. Not by half. By July, I was burning clumps of her hair. I started knowing things, friend. Her shames. Her passions. Her joys. Secret things. I was scared it wouldn’t work, but it did. So I kept going. By August, the ropes were tight. They’d hold her fast. I worked my way up, from nail to elbow.”

His eyes were shining and he stood on the edge of something beyond ecstasy. “I transformed the flesh and breathed in the soul through the smoke of her body. I know her so well, friend. I know her so, so well. I know her like I know the grass and the trees and the winter. I know her. And she will never be so close to somebody again, as she is to me now.”

All I could see was red, red like her hair. A sickness howled in my guts.

“You see?” Smokey said through his sickle smile, pleading, “This is the answer! This is the beginning of something wonderful! Don’t you see what I’ve done?”

“Yes,” I said. I felt every knuckle crack, every tendon pop and snap as my hands clenched into fists. “Yes, I can finally see you, Smokey.”

My hands were around his throat in a moment. I was operating on instinct, the same instinct that drives men to crush insects beneath their heel.

Smokey did not fight back. He was not so stupid. But he did not submit.

My hands came away from his throat. They snapped out and struck him in the chest, once, twice, three times. There was a screaming all around me, but I’d be lying if I told you I cared.

His feet remained on the ground. Short of breath, eyes lolling in his head, he smiled that sharp smile meant for wolves. He smiled to see my anger.

Fist to eye, kidney, and nose, temple, tooth and heart. Dropping my center of gravity, I struck him below the sternum. My hair fluttered as his breath was torn from him and finally, he fell to the ground where he belonged.

The whole thing took less than thirty seconds.

Smokey looked up at me from the ground, and although he was bleeding, he was not crying. He looked at me with those wide eyes, not with anger, but with disappointment.

“You’re sick,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear, the truth of it now dawning on me. “You’re a spider, trying to trick us into letting you live in the light. You don’t deserve light.” I spotted the ivory lighter before his feet. He had dropped it. “You don’t deserve fire,” I said as I brought my combat boots down onto it.

A wordless scream ripped through Smokey, his back arching in agony. Here then were the tears: none for his mutilated sister, but an ocean’s worth for his cheap, plastic god.

“Get out of here,” I said, my voice ragged and raw. “If I ever hear that you’re hurting her again, I’ll kill you. If you try to talk to me again, I’ll kill you. I have a bullet with your name on it. You know this.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper of wind through tombstones, still high on his sister’s smoke, “I’m sorry you’ll never understand. I’m sorry you won’t be coming with me.”

“That makes one of us.”

He did not look back as he crawled away. He only pushed and pulled himself forward, leaving behind a slug’s trail of blood. I felt hollowed out. I could not keep my hands from shaking.

I walked away from school that day, but not before making sure that Smokey crawled away first.

* * *

I could sense it in the air around me. As autumn shed its skin and left us to winter, it grew stronger. When winter cried itself away and spring came laughing, only then I knew it for what it was.

Smoke on the wind, blinding my eyes, stinging my nostrils. I had been the one thing stopping Smokey from setting the world on fire just to breathe it all in.

But I wasn’t there anymore, and knew that whatever fire Smokey had started, it was blowing down wind and headed right towards all of us.

* * *

“I have her.”

“I know, Smokey.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because she hasn’t been home in a day and you’re not creative. Because ending your own life isn’t good enough.”

“If you think this is an ending,” he said, “Then you don’t know me at all.”

He told me where they were and hung up.

The gun was a comforting weight as I took it out from under the pillow. I had all four bullets loaded just in case. It was a special occasion.

* * *

The smell of gasoline clawed at my nostrils. It spilled out past me as I edged open the factory door.

In the center of the room sat my sister. He had dressed her in a white gown, soaked in lighter fluid. The only sound was the slow drip of it onto the floor, also shining with the colorless liquid.

She had fought back, the bruises and gashes were evidence enough. Still, her hands were tied behind her, and she looked at me, shouting muffled words through the tape across her mouth. Her legs were splayed out at terrible angles, broken and bent. He had finally found a way to stop her running and it made me shake with rage.

“You came.”

Smokey emerged from the shadows behind my sister. He wore a white shirt and khakis, soaked through with the same gasoline as my sister. His face was red and bleeding from where my sister had clawed at him, but he did not notice.

“You’ve come to watch our baptism by fire,” he said through bloody, blackened teeth.

I raised my pistol. All in a moment, he was behind my sister, hiding, laughing. “You are so fast, friend, so strong. Clever.” He peeked at me from over my sister’s head. “But can you hit me and not her?”

My hands did not shake, though my eyes did narrow.

A flower of flame burst to life in Smokey’s hand and I could not breathe as it danced and flickered inches from my sister’s lighter fluid dress.

“Did you ever figure it out?” he asked, desperate need flooding his voice. “Did you figure out the secret?”

“Breath is the soul,” I said. “But you can’t steal it. You need the smoke of the flesh to see, to know. Breathe the smoke, know the soul. It’s never been about the fire, it’s about what comes after.”

“You sound like my disciple,” he said, sounding proud.

“Maybe I am.” I licked my lips. “You taught me everything you think you know. But now we’ve reached the point of no return. You always wanted knowledge. You sucked up smoke from anything that would burn because you’re so goddamn curious to know its secrets. But, you have never known the one thing that haunts you.”

His eyes were dark, hearing the truth of it. “You can do what you want to yourself, Smokey,” I said. “But you’re not taking her with you.”

His smile disappeared and he rose to his feet. He held the lighter over my sister. “You might know the secret, disciple. You might understand the ending. But if you think you can finish this story, you’re wrong. You’re not telling the story here. I am.”

“How does it end then, Smokey?” I asked, creeping forward, gun raised. “How does your story end?”

He grinned at me. “You know that stories don’t end. They only begin again. I burn to know but I’ve never known myself! Once I burn, I’ll breathe in myself and become the snake that chases his tail. I’ll breathe deep the story of my life, and then…Well, then I will know for sure what is wrong with me,” he said.

I saw tears cut streaks in the film of oil, though he still smiled. He sounded like he was hearing himself for the first time, and liked what he had to say. “We’re all broken in some way, aren’t we? That’s why I wanted you to come with me, wanted your sister to come with me. You both deserve a chance to know yourselves. I’m just trying to help.”

I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart broke in that moment. “Smokey,” I said, “If this is you helping, you’re doing a shitty job.”

He thrust the lighter over my sister’s head. “You think you don’t need my help? You think you can answer everything with your fists, shrug off every hollow feeling inside you, because what? Because that’s all you’ll ever be?” He shook his head, sad, smiling but sad. “There’s more to life than that,” he said. “And I’m going to show you both.”

I edged closer, only feet away. He squared his shoulders and brought the lighter close to his heart, as though standing vigil at his own wake.

“We’re not going to be broken anymore,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m not going to be broken anymore.”

“Oh, Smokey, you’re not broken,” I said, flicking the safety off. “You’re just human.”

The bullet buried itself deep into Smokey’s heart. The momentum of its silver flight tore the lighter out of Smokey’s hands and onto his body.

The gasoline roared with pleasure as Smokey went up in flames. He did not make a sound. He did not move. He only smiled.

Throwing away the gun, I took off my jacket and ran past my sister, throwing myself at Smokey. The jacket grew hot as I got under his armpits and pushed him back, away from my sister. I had to get him away from the gasoline on the floor and out the back door.

Thick curls of black smoke rose from his body as he burned. I tried not to breathe, but the smoke found its way to my nostrils and I coughed and choked on his burning body. My jacket was beginning to catch.

Smokey’s legs suddenly gave way as he died and the fire fell with him. The floor ignited, sweeping out in all directions.

“See you on the other side,” he rasped, before an ocean of flame swept over him.

Abandoning my jacket, I turned on my heel, still choking on the ashes of my friend and raced back. In a moment, I had my sister in my arms. I ran for the door, through the newborn flames.

My muscles screamed but I charged ahead. In a moment, I burst through the doors, emerging into the night air. Its cool kiss soothed my burnt and aching body.

Siren wails emerged from the silent night as I untied my sister. When the tape came loose, she screamed and raged, a raw and choked sound. She fell against me, and we collapsed to the cold pavement. We held each other tight, and did not cry. If I closed my eyes, it could have been ten years ago.

Together, we watched Smokey burn under the moon.

* * *

Autumn comes after a silent summer. One October night, I sit in front of a bonfire.

I can still smell the gasoline, even now. I can still remember the taste of my friend’s ashes, the clogging swell of his smoke in my throat.

I watch the logs whine and split, mesmerized by the threads of smoke that leak from their wounds. I watch those grey serpents spin in the air, and I want to—I want to breathe them. To know them.

But that is impossible. I know it is impossible.

I’ve thrust my face into the smoke before I can stop myself. I don’t regret the sweet burning as I breathe the smoke. I feel more complete than I have in some time.

The smoke settles in my lungs, and my head snaps up to the dark forest around me, a forest more intimate to me than just moments before. A vision flashes to life before me.

A broken door stands alone in the dark woods. Sitting behind it is a child, still as calm water. There is a great heat all around him, painting him in sunset colors. A woman in shadow holds a match inches from his face. The child is not scared in that moment.

But I am.

Because the child has eyes the color of gasoline, teeth like tar. I taste ash in the back of throat. I smell gasoline and burnt flesh.

Looking up from the vision, I see a man made of smoke standing beside me. I see him and know those colorless eyes beneath the threads of his wispy body.

Smokey is silent. Only points at the vision, smiles.

I am not alone in my body. I am not alone in my breath. Beneath my breath, there is another, waiting.

It just took him a while to arrive.

Some part of me knows that if he wanted to, Smokey can make me stand and march me into the fire.

But he doesn’t. Not yet.

For now, the two of us sit in the dark before the fire, before the vision, and watch a freshly broken boy learn of smoke.

Vanilla

Originally Published by Fireside Fiction

* * *

The sky is gold, black and red, ripe and flush with the end of the world. It is really happening this time.

We sit on grass on a hill and eat ice cream.

“I’m thinking aliens,” you say, through a mouthful of Rocky Road.

I shake my head. “Not aliens. I’ve got a bet with Allen. If it’s aliens, I’m out five grand.”

You raise a perfect blonde eyebrow. “Five grand over aliens?”

I shrug, wiping my chin. “If the world is ending, I figure ‘go big or go home.’” You still don’t believe me.

There is a rumble of something immense and metallic, bearing down on poor, little Earth filled with poor, little people. “If it’s giant robots, I’m going to be really put out.”

You nod, agreeing with my nonsense. It’s why I love you. You stare at a new carton of ice cream with a passion I’ve only seen you reserve for Welsh Corgi puppies and Kill Bill Vol. 2. Wordless, you show me: Neapolitan.

I can’t help it. I start laughing.

“What?” you say, narrowing your eyes, frowning.

I wave my hands in the air, unable to find an answer. “It’s just kind of funny,” I say. You don’t buy it.

You hold the container in your hands, reverent. “When I was a kid, before Steve was born and Mom went on her sugar-free power trip, this was my life.” I put my spoon down. This is a moment of your Secret History. Even as the world dies, I’m still learning so much about you.

“Yeah?”

You nod. Your beautiful, blonde curls dance. “Every week, one flavor. I’d devour chocolate first, because it’s an immediate satisfaction sort of thing. Then, I’d tackle strawberry the next week, because it grew on you, and was harder to love. And then—”

“Vanilla.”

“Vanilla.” You sigh with relief, like sighting an old friend in a crowd, or finding a lost, lucky penny. “Vanilla was the hardest to love, and I loved it for that.”

“Best for last, yeah?” I say.

“Yeah.” You bite your lip.

An explosion rocks us to our cores. If the shaking doesn’t stop, something will be knocked loose. But it does. The smell of oil and cordite and ash is heavy on the air. It is very still.

“Better eat your vanilla, love,” I say. “Because it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a next time.”

You kiss me on the cheek, before digging straight to the vanilla within. I wait a moment, wait for the susurration of moans and wails and metallic rattling to die, before I turn back to my own container of vanilla.

“Think about it. Some day, hundreds of years ago, someone realized that freezing a combination of dairy, ice, salt and sugar could give you something delicious. And then, they added vanilla! Before that, ice cream was just frozen milk! My god! And then all these other flavors start coming out, and everyone forgets about poor little vanilla! Too boring, some say! Too bland, others say! One guy even told me it was plain. Plain! You know what’s plain? Frozen fucking cow milk!”

I sprawl on the grass, laughing from the insanity of it, and crying from the insanity of that other thing, that whole end of the world thing. I can feel it coming this way. “Vanilla is sublime. And it only took the end of the world to realize its worth.”

You snuggle into the crook of my shoulder. We eat our vanilla ice cream, this beautiful simple little flavor that no one loves but us.

“We never did get married,” you say.

I look at you, feeling the brightly burning, beautiful taste of vanilla slide down my throat. “Did you want to?”

You shrug.

I gesture with my spoon to the growing cloud of debris and smoke coming towards us. “I’m sure there’s an Elvis down there. If you’re of a mind.”

I can see your brow work. You really think it over. And then you smile. “Nah.”

A few hours go by. There are more explosions, more screams and more ice cream. We’re down to our last container of vanilla when a woman runs up the hill. Her clothing is scorched. There is a bloody gash down her face. She almost runs by us, when she sees the ice cream.

I offer the container. “Want some?”

She tells us we’re crazy. She begins to cry, about how her family is dead and there is no one left. When she mentions the fleet of killer androids sent here by so-and-so, you and I throw our hands in the air, groaning.

“Knew it,” you say, shaking your head.

“This is lame,” I say. “Now I really want the world to end.”

She’s gone when we look back. The thumping and thunder and lights are getting closer now.

“She passed up some perfectly good vanilla,” I chide.

“And she thinks we’re crazy,” you say. Our mouths find each other in the darkness. We taste like freezers, and long summer nights, and plastic spoons, and precious vanilla, a vanilla so strong; it drowns out the taste of smoke on the wind.

“Don’t know where she’s headed,” you shout, above the howling wind, the roar of nearby gunfire. I can barely see you. “Doesn’t do any good to run from the end of the world.”

“Yeah,” I say, coughing on ash. I cup your cheek and we kiss for a final time. I put my forehead to yours, our noses almost touching. Our lips smell of vanilla. “But we don’t have to run towards it either.”

Your smile cuts through the gloom like a shining sword. “One more for the road?” you ask.

We both take one last bite of ice cream and hold it in our mouths. We let it melt, holding each other tightly in the darkness that is the end of the world, letting the brightly burning, beautiful taste of vanilla lead us away into the night.

Aaron Canton

Dining Out

Originally published in Phobos Magazine, Issue 3: Troublemake

* * *

When his bribe had not been delivered a full ten minutes after the deadline, Jasper Montgomery sighed and shut off the banking app on his phone. He had honestly tried to be reasonable; Fuamnach’s Fine Dining looked to be a genuinely good restaurant, and it would be a shame to give it a scathing review. But business was business, and if Fuamnach couldn’t be bothered to make the suitable contribution he had requested, he would have to make an example of her. Otherwise, other restaurateurs might withhold their donations as well, and then where would he be?

Jasper settled back and adjusted his suit as a waitress arrived with his dishes. He wondered if Fuamnach would next try to beg him, threaten him, or even post employees to forcibly prevent him from entering, but whatever she tried it would be too late. He had already done his homework, looked up reviews to find the worst dishes, even sent in his employees a week earlier to spy for him. All that remained was to record a few off-the-cuff criticisms to post on his website, and she might as well close her doors that night.

"Food doesn’t look anything special," he said into his phone while taking a few discrete photographs. It was too bad that Michael, his waiter plant, wasn’t there; he could have told Jasper whether the ingredients were local (and thus inauthentic) or shipped to Philadelphia from Ireland (and thus not fresh), as well as any other problems Jasper might want to taste in the food. But they could just meet up later when Jasper wrote his review, and besides, after the brilliant job Michael had done staging a cockroach infestation at the otherwise flawless Morelli’s Italian Bistro, he was entitled to a little slack. Jasper continued, saying, "In fact, it looks rather plain. You could get food like this at any cheap Irish pub…but at $20 an entree, with the menu promising upscale Irish cuisine, I expect a little more." He picked up his fork and pushed it into the shepherd’s pie, making sure his phone recorded the soft crunching of the crust. "Still, to be fair, it might taste better than it looks. Let’s see."

In truth, the food looked and smelled delicious. The crust on the shepherd’s pie was wonderful—flaky, crispy, and a beautiful golden brown—and now that he had cut it open, Jasper could smell succulent lamb and fresh roasted vegetables. The coddle next to it, with its gleaming potatoes and juicy back bacon, as well as the side of smooth, creamy colcannon, also looked perfect. Even the soda bread smelled like it had finished baking within the last five minutes. It was too bad it all had to go, Jasper thought as he picked up a forkful of his main course. He said, "I’ll start with the shepherd’s pie," he bit down, and…

His eyes widened at the most delicious food he had ever tasted.

The meat wasn’t just juicy; it was so tender that it almost melted in Jasper’s mouth. As for the potatoes, they were incredibly light and fluffy on the inside of the pie, but crisp on the outside, making an excellent contrast to both the meat and the vegetables. The rich, deep, and wonderfully savory seasoning was unlike anything he had ever tasted before. It was the perfect shepherd’s pie.

Jasper realized that he had swallowed without saying a word. After taking a sip of water to clear his head, he repeated, "Shepherd’s pie," into his phone and prepared to try again. He could savor the food later, he told himself, but for the moment, he had to eat a mouthful and then immediately complain that the meat was greasy, the vegetables underdone, and that there wasn’t an ounce of seasoning in the lot. He fixed that critique in his mind as he took one more bite of the shepherd’s pie—but it tasted even better than the first, and all thought of criticism vanished from his thoughts.

Time slipped by in a blissful haze. Jasper devoured the pie, his critique forgotten, and no sooner had he finished than he realized how good the colcannon and coddle smelled. He only needed a single taste to confirm that they were at least as delicious, if not more so, as the shepherd’s pie, and he gobbled them down without a second thought. It was only when he dropped his fork and stared in dismay at the empty plates in front of him that he realized that over an hour had passed…and that he hadn’t said even a single sentence for his review.

Jasper shifted in his seat, thinking that he had to be completely full, yet finding himself wondering how long it would take to order a dessert course or two. After a few moments he pushed that thought aside and tried to come up with something negative to say. "Well, that was…I mean, all in all, I thought…"

"Excuse me, sir?"

Jasper turned to see his waitress smiling down at him. She had long, dark hair and green eyes that didn’t quite seem to reflect her pleasant smile. "The chef-owner would like to speak with you. If you would please follow me?"

"Why?" Jasper asked, but the waitress was already darting away towards the back of the restaurant.

The critic hesitated for a moment. Rationally, he knew this could only mean one thing: he’d been identified, and nothing good could come from confronting the chef that he’d just tried to extort. But at the same time, the waitress was heading towards the kitchen. His stomach rumbled at the thought of obtaining samples of a few more dishes. After all, the owner had said she wanted to see him, surely the chefs would want to make him happy…

Jasper found himself hurrying after the waitress.

It was an ordinary kitchen; chefs were cooking and plating just as Jasper had seen in dozens of other restaurants, though the food smelled a hundred times better. He looked for his chef plant, Karen, but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. That did annoy him; as far as he was concerned, she still owed him for hushing up that she was fired from a major steakhouse for stealing two years ago. He expected her to be in the kitchen, observing any health code violations—and creating a few of her own—and reporting the results to him. He expected—

A cook crossed the room with a pot of mashed potatoes, and as the scent wafted past his nose he was struck by such a pang of hunger that he could think of nothing else.

The waitress smiled and nodded through a large door. "Please hurry, Mr. Montgomery. We wouldn’t want to keep Mrs. Fuamnach waiting." And then, when Jasper instead found his hand slowly drifting towards the pot, she seized it in an iron grip and yanked him towards the door. "Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll have a snack for you if you’re hungry."

"What?" managed Jasper, before he was dragged out of the kitchen.

His first thought when the wind blew past his face was that the waitress had taken him into a back alley or side street. But then, as he felt the grass crunching under his feet and saw tall, dark trees pressing in on the small clearing, he realized that he couldn’t possibly still be anywhere near downtown Philadelphia. He looked over his shoulder and saw that several of the chefs had followed him, but as for the door he had taken—or the restaurant itself—there was no sign. There was only the forest.

Turning forwards again, Jasper saw two people in rough brown robes kneeling at the foot of an ornate wooden throne, upon which a tall woman with bright red hair, gray eyes, and a cruel smile was sitting. She wore a dress that seemed to shimmer and sparkle despite the sky being overcast. The waitress approached her, bowed, and then moved off to the side, no longer bothering to hide her smirk. Jasper would have demanded an explanation if not for his painfully empty stomach. "Do you have any food?" he managed.

The woman on the throne grinned. "We’ll get to that," she said. "First, it would be proper to introduce ourselves. You may know me as Fuamnach, wife of the demigod Midir. And you are the famous Jasper Montgomery, no doubt." She nodded down at the two people kneeling before her. "These two you know."

Jasper looked again and realized that it was Michael and Karen kneeling there. Threads of silk were wound around their ankles, wrists, and necks, and the lines led back to the throne. "Michael, Karen, tell me what’s going on!" Jasper demanded, but the two made no response.

"I haven’t decided to let them talk yet," said Fuamnach. "Maybe in a couple of decades…but anyways. I’m so glad we’ve met at last. I have so many servants and servitors already, but none with quite the…platform that you do." She rose to her feet and swept her dress behind her as she stepped down onto the grass. "You’ll be a big help."

"Listen, you’re going to tell me exactly what’s going on—" Jasper stopped talking for a moment as Fuamnach burst into laughter, but then made himself continue. "Do you know who I am? I could ruin you! People listen to me, and I could destroy everything you have!"

"Yes," said Fuamnach. "You could. You could say anything you like about me. Or…" She snapped her fingers and the waitress stepped forwards, scattering a bag of what looked like breadcrumbs on the forest floor. "Or you could eat."

Jasper’s mouth watered as soon as the first crumb left the waitress’s hand. The scent was intoxicating, and his stomach felt emptier than it had ever been before. He had dropped to his knees and begun gobbling up the dirty crumbs before he any idea of what he was doing.

"You see?" asked Fuamnach. "I knew you didn’t want to stop me from cooking."

"You…I don’t know what you’ve done to me," yelled Jasper, around the crumbs and dirt he was cramming into his mouth, "But you have no right! You can’t do this!"

"Well, it’s true that I’m not really supposed to," drawled Fuamnach, "But let’s just say I was offered a suitable contribution to bend the rules." She pointed over Jasper’s shoulder, and the critic found himself turning to look at the chefs who had followed him. Now that he examined them more closely, they looked vaguely familiar. The first one in particular was a short man with a dour face…

It was Morelli! The man whose restaurant Jasper had last ruined was standing in the clearing, a pleased smirk on his face. Behind him were Yi, and Anderson, and a half dozen others. All of them had the same eager expressions. None showed even a hint of pity.

"You all may start your terms of service tomorrow," said Fuamnach. "For now, my handmaiden will show you out. As for you, Mr. Montgomery…" The critic found himself looking back to the woman on the throne. "You’ll be entering my service as well, though for a rather longer period. Please, do put these on." She tossed several silken threads at him. "Just like your friends, if you would."

Jasper tried to keep his face still. Between his terror and his raw, animal hunger, it was almost impossible, but he felt he managed fairly well, all things considered. Marshaling up all his anger and every bit of resistance he could muster, he yelled, "Why would I do that?"

"Because, if you do, I will pay you." Fuamnach opened her palm, though Jasper couldn’t see what she was holding from where he was kneeling. "I think you’ll find it’s a…suitable contribution of my own.'"

She turned her palm over and let a single breadcrumb tumble to the ground. Jasper’s eyes locked on it as his stomach screamed that he had to eat that crumb, that it was the only thing that could satiate him, and that if he didn’t eat it he would starve to death right there. Drool began to spill out of his mouth.

"Well, Mr. Montgomery?" asked Fuamnach. "You have ten seconds—"

Jasper got the silken chains on in five.

A Most Unusual Patriot

Originally published in Tales of Tellest: Volume 1

* * *

Light and laughter spilled out from the Sapphire Square and over its patio, extending all the way to the edge of the Spirit River. Clusters of people moved through the inn’s backyard, some having stepped outside to enjoy the flowers and the cool breezes, while others were about to return to the inn to revisit the buffet tables and—more likely—the open bar. Nobility mingled with merchants, tradesmen laughed at the jokes of gladiators, and even the servants seemed willing to chatter with their esteemed guests. It was, truly, a perfect night.

One of the putative servants, unable to stifle her grin any longer, put down her tray of drinks and turned away from the crowd to hide her smile. Jadie Rivers had never visited Atalatha before; her whole life had been spent in Westwick, studying at the hands of stern, unyielding masters, and having little to do with her moments of leisure save watching pigs scampering around their market pens. But now, at last, she had completed her apprenticeship. She was a full member of the Westwick Thieves Guild, out on her first mission ever, ready to do her city and her teachers proud. How could she do anything but smile?

But she did have a job to do, and so, after a moment, she got herself under control and turned towards the next table. Jadie’s ultimate target was the Lady Trefaer, whom rumor had indicated would be wearing her famous set of diamonds—a personal gift from the Duke himself—at the party. She had not yet arrived, but several other specimens of the wealthy-and-hapless variety were there, and as her teachers always said, there was never a bad time to practice her skills. The very next table, for instance, held three people with empty glasses and more jewelry than was good for them. Jadie smiled to herself and approached.

No sooner had she reached the table than she took stock of her targets. The first, a Maquis by the looks of his robes, was wearing several large gemstones of poor quality, likely the victim of an unscrupulous jeweler and his own ignorance of what such stones were truly worth. The merchant next to him wore a dozen cheap rings on her fingers as if she was trying to show off wealth through sheer quantity. But the third, Baron Orthlo, flashed an expensive emerald on a bracelet as he gesticulated. Now that was a stone worthy of Jadie’s attention. The thief—unable to stop her smile from returning to her face—moved near him.

“…I’m just glad they finally worked out the treaty,” Orthlo was telling the others. “Warus isn’t even a nation, not really. Just a mob of competing tribes. Completely impossible to settle; you put up a city one year, some band of gnolls or kobolds razes it the next.” He shook his ale mug in protest. “But now that we have some allies over there, I think we’re finally on track to start stabilizing that territory. Maybe adding some of it to our own.”

The Maquis frowned. “I heard a bunch of feral kaja overran a human settlement in western Warus,” he said. “It might be more difficult than—”

“Mere rumors.” Orthlo laughed. “Even if they’re true, our ambassadorial delegation will include a full complement of soldiers. They’re more than a match for a few half-crazed kaja. No, I’m certain things will be easier, at least in the political sense.”

“In the economic sense too,” the merchant added. “An entire untapped market—and we’re in the best position to reach it. Once the ambassadorial team arrives, my caravans will be right behind them. As will most of the others in Raleigh, I imagine.”

“And as a member of that ambassadorial team, allow me to say that you have my full support!” said Orthlo. “Here’s to new opportunities!”

As he rose his glass, his other hand leaned against the bush behind him. Jadie moved up behind him and let her hand touch the leaves of that bush. Grab his hand, Jadie told the bush. Just a few branches. Come on. She smiled to herself. It’ll be fun.

The bush slowly shifted, Orthlo’s hand slipping inside the bush as a few of its branches rearranged themselves. Orthlo, in the middle of toasting, said nothing.

“Excuse me!” said Jadie, stepping between them with her tray of drinks. “More sweet wine?”

“I’ll have a glass,” said Orthlo. He tried to move forwards but stopped as his hand pulled at the bush. The other two members of his group laughed as he tried to extricate himself. “Just give me a minute…”

“Allow me,” said Jadie merrily. She leaned over and reached into the bush with one hand, telling it, Thanks! You can let go now! Between them, unseen by all, her other hand flicked up the clasp of his bracelet and swiped it—as well as a few rings he was wearing for good measure—into the large pocket of her uniform. But then she gently pulled Orthlo’s hand from the bush, and drinks were served, and she retreated knowing it would be a very long time before Orthlo even noticed the theft.

There were people, Jadie knew, who had staggeringly powerful magical gifts—the ability to summon fire from their hands, or drain health with a thought, or cause a forest to sprout in moments and tear through city walls like damp parchment. Jadie was not one of them. She could coax plants into helping her out just a little: releasing pollen, for instance, or twisting a few branches when needed. It might not have been a terribly powerful kind of magic, but it was hers, and she liked it. And she couldn’t deny that it did come in handy in her line of work.

She crossed the garden, stealing two coin purses, one set of earrings, and a gorgeously wrought ceremonial dagger along the way, until she noticed a small group clustered on the bank of the Spirit River. Curious, Jadie headed towards them, directing the moss on the bottom of her shoes to muffle her footsteps. The moss took a few moments to respond—it was the laziest plant in the world, in Jadie’s experience—but it finally did so, smoothing over the bottoms of her shoes so they didn’t make a sound. Jadie served her way to the bank of the river, moved closer to the group, and listened.

“I already told you, pay up front,” growled a voice that sounded almost like a series of barks. Jadie stiffened as one of the figures straightened and she saw a distinctly dog-like head. A gnoll? Really? Woah. “Do you mind hurrying this up? I’ve got places to be.”

“Sure you don’t want to stay longer, Hwarl?” drawled one of the other figures in a rough voice. “Can’t imagine gladiators eat like this often.”

“Food might be worse, but the company’s better,” snarled Hwarl. “Least there the people aren’t whispering to each other ‘bout which of them I’ll eat first.”

“I nominate Stebbins Hartley,” said another of the figures. “I owe him money.” And the group laughed.

Jadie looked around and saw several rows of flowers growing on the bank. One row—she noted with a smile—was full of chrysanthemums, flowers which could produce truly staggering amounts of pollen. She knelt and picked a few, slipping them into the drinks on her tray like overly frilly garnishes.

“Look,” the gnoll was snarling. “I brought the merchandise. Are we doing this or not?”

“Show it first,” said someone who had an air of authority around him. “No deal until we see it work.”

The gnoll took out something that glinted in the light. Jadie stepped closer, keeping behind a tree and making sure the moss shut out all sounds of her footsteps on the cobblestones, and saw that it was a knife. The gnoll picked a copper off the table and dropped it on the blade.

It split cleanly in two.

Jadie’s mouth dropped, and the leader whistled as the others murmured. “And you can get us, what, fifty of these things?”

“More than that. They don’t care if gladiators are importing weapons, since we’re professional fighters. Got a hundred in town already, and if you need more I can get another shipment. Price is ten gold per.”

“That’s outrageous,” said one of the men. “Ten gold for a knife? I—”

“Do you want a dagger that can cut through the armor of the Duke’s personal guard, or don’t you?” asked the gnoll. “Because if not, just say so and I’m out of here.”

“Deal,” said the leader, before his men objected again. Jadie heard clinking as a bag of coins hit the table. “There’s your money. Next time, we’ll have a thousand gold for you—if you have the weapons to sell us.”

Jadie froze as the impact of what they were saying hit her. This wasn’t just a weapon deal. They were plotting some kind of attack on the Duke.

The Westwick Thieves Guild had instilled in her many values—chief among them loyalty, cleverness, and a love of money, not necessarily in that order. But patriotism was in there too. Westwick survived thanks to special dispensation from Victor Raleigh himself, and no man, woman, or child within it would stint anything in upholding the kingdom. If there was a plot against the nobility, she owed it to her town—and her Guild—to stop it.

Her grin returned, fiercer than ever. This was going to be an even better mission than she’d hoped for.

She walked up to the group and offered the chrysanthemum-garnished drinks. “Would you like any?” she asked, bowing her head as a good servant would. “Special vintage. The innkeeper’s best.”

“Sure it is,” muttered Hwarl, but he nodded anyway. Jadie’s finger brushed the chrysanthemum in his glass as he took it, and she just had enough time to focus on her magic. Quick! Release your pollen! It’s urgent! Then she lost contact as he took the glass and drained half of it in one gulp.

Which was when the flower blasted pollen into his face.

Jadie’s plan worked better than she could have guessed. He let out a mighty sneeze and dropped the glass, spattering his ill-fitting tunic with sweet, sticky wine. Jadie was by his side in an instant, wiping him down and pretending not to notice his retreating companions. “I’m so sorry!” she said. “Please, allow me.”

Hwarl looked at her, then shrugged. “Like I care,” he muttered.

“Sir, if I might make a suggestion, the fruit flies will be attracted to the wine.” She tugged at the tunic. “We have excellent laundry facilities. Please, allow me to have this cleaned. It will be returned to your quarters tomorrow morning. I promise.”

The gnoll scowled but eventually stripped the tunic off. “More comfortable like this anyways,” he said, raising a mocking eyebrow at the men who were now standing several paces away. “Fine. Send it to the gladiator quarters by the Coliseum. Room 318.” He turned and walked away.

Jadie watched him and his companions leave in different directions, then headed back towards the inn. She still needed to wait for Lady Trefaer and so could not pursue right away. But the next day, Jadie Rivers, newly minted Thieves Guild member, was going to save the country.

Best mission ever, thought the thief, before chuckling and returning to the crowd.

* * *

The Coliseum was one of the star attractions of Atalatha. A towering structure of marble and granite, it was easily the largest building in the city, and it could be seen from almost any road within Atalatha’s walls. The fights were attended by large crowds of people, and those people had equally large amounts of money for gambling, concessions, and souvenirs. Pickpocketing her way through the Coliseum was definitely on Jadie’s list of things to do before returning to Westlick.

But not yet. At the moment, she had a tunic to return and a conspiracy to deal with. She just had to get into Hwarl’s room, she thought, and uncover his weapons cache. Then she could expose the conspiracy and save the day. There would be time to loot the city later.

Truth be told, she was slightly annoyed that Lady Trefaer had never showed up at the treaty party the previous night. It surely wouldn’t be held against her that the rumors of her appearance were inaccurate, but the very idea of returning to her teachers without completing the mission rankled. Still, she was going to stop Hwarl and his conspiracy. That would hopefully outweigh her failure.

The gladiator quarters, a four-story building with dozens of rooms and a courtyard for sparring, were located two blocks from the Coliseum. Jadie reached it just before lunch, having checked to make sure that Hwarl was scheduled for a duel at that time, and made her way to his room. She reached his room and examined the lock for a moment before knocking to make sure nobody was home. Her right hand was already fingering the silver lockpick in her pocket.

But footsteps sounded from within the room, and Jadie only just managed to fix a smile to her face before the door swung open to reveal a massive human. She saw two more guards in the room behind him, sitting and eating sandwiches, but the man at the door moved to block Jadie’s vision. “You’re not Stebbins or Rawlston.”

Who? Jadie passed Hwarl’s tunic to the man. “Laundry for Mr. Hwarl. Is he in?”

“He’s dueling,” said the man. And he began to shut the door.

“Sorry to disturb you!” Jadie managed to chirp just before it closed. “Nobody told me he had people here. I was just going to leave the tunic on the door—”

“We’re new,” snapped the man. “And we’re just here for the week, so if you have any more laundry you won’t need to worry about ‘disturbing’ us after that.”

New? He must have got them while he’s waiting for the deal to go through, thought Jadie. “Actually,” she began, but the door had already shut in her face.

She stared at it for a moment. Okay. He has guards in his room, and it sounds like more are guarding him personally. If I want to search the room, I’ll have to fight them. She paused. That could be a problem.

Jadie wasn’t bad in combat, at least as far as thieves went. She knew about fighting like a thief fought—a push at the top of a ridge, a knife in the back from the shadows, a few drops of poison into an unguarded chalice of wine. But if she broke into Hwarl’s room, she’d be stuck in a heads-up fight against several brutes. She wasn’t likely to win that one, magic or no.

Sighing, she left the gladiator quarters and walked to a local park. Sitting with her hands nestled in the flowers, nudging them into pleasing patterns as she rested, she went over her options. Fighting all his guards wasn’t an option. Nor was going to the authorities. She wasn’t that well versed in politics, but even she knew that the government would be reluctant to arrest a gnoll from Warus the day after signing a treaty with one of the most influential gnoll packs in Warus. She’d need hard evidence before risking that, and she didn’t have it.

But she still had to do something. The entire reason that Westwick was permitted to exist without paying taxes to the crown was that, as her teachers had drilled in to her, the Thieves Guild had another duty besides simply enriching themselves and their community. It was their job to deal with threats to Raleigh, its cities, and its people that couldn’t be handled by the authorities. If she failed, she would let down her whole community—and the Thieves Guild, which had permitted her to join their ranks at an unusually young age, proclaiming that they believed she would be an asset to their team. Giving up was not an option.

I could try to surprise Hwarl and his bodyguards in an alley, but what if Hwarl just goes straight between the Coliseum and his quarters for the next week? thought Jadie. Or I could try to pick off his bodyguards. But then he’d just get more, and he’d be alerted. I need some way to isolate him from them. Does he go anywhere without them?

And then it hit her. The Coliseum. Duels are one on one. He can’t bring his bodyguards into the arena with him. And I could sign up, challenge him…

She’d still have to beat a trained fighter in a fair fight, but at least she wouldn’t be outnumbered. And she did have some advantages. He might underestimate her, for one. She had magic, for another.

A rose curled around her hand, the thorns nestling between her fingers like a gauntlet, and she allowed herself to smile. She could make it work, she thought. Do her Guild proud, and her community too.

And score a great victory while she was at it.

* * *

“And now, a warrior who needs no introduction!” roared the announcer. “He’s won his last seven matches and is considered to be one of the strongest rookies we’ve had in months! I present to you—Hwarl, of Warus!”

Peaking out from her archway, Jadie watched as Hwarl strode onto the arena floor. Despite the general apprehension that Atalathans felt towards gnolls, the crowd seemed to love him. The cheering and clapping was deafening as Hwarl twirled a long halberd in front of him and flexed.

“And challenging him, a newcomer from Viscosa! Please, give a big welcome to—Lady Thorn of Raleigh!”

Jadie smiled. Lady Thorn might not be the most inventive name for someone with her powers, but she liked it. Maybe, she thought, she might find a need to keep this secret identity longer. Having a persona that fought in duels could certainly be a useful cover in particular situations…

The crowd’s cheering ushered her out into the sunlight, and Jadie took a moment to absorb the scene around her. She stood on a field of sand. Around her were marble walls, carved in intricate detail at what had to be exorbitant expense, and above them sat thousands of cheering and clapping people. Tourists and locals, commoners and merchants, soldiers, mercenaries, and even some nobles were packed into the stands. A great crowd, she thought, for what she hoped would be a great victory. Jadie gripped the dagger shoved haphazardly into her belt and strode towards Hwarl.

She had already, she thought, gotten everything set up. She had forged the paperwork declaring herself to be ‘Lady Thorn,’ inexperienced but skilled warrior from Viscosa, and had filed it with the Coliseum. She had broken into the Coliseum offices and reordered the matches to make sure that she would be dueling Hwarl. She had come up with her costume. And, of course, she had bet all the money she’d stolen at the party on herself. If she lost the duel, it wouldn’t matter, and if she won, she’d get a nice windfall. Since it’s money I’m sort of earning and not stealing, I wonder if the Guild will let me keep my winnings? She chuckled. I hope so.

Hwarl laughed at her as she approached him. “What are you wearing?” he barked. “This isn’t the theatre, girl. Maybe you should run along home.”

Jadie made a show of looking over herself. She was dressed in bright greens and dark browns, looking more like a jester than a trained warrior, and wore a mask over most of her face so he wouldn’t recognize her. Flowers, bright daisies and chrysanthemums, were woven into the shoulders and arms of her shirt, and vines were wrapped around her wrists. She knew she looked ridiculous, but she squared her shoulders and called, “Run home? I’m a trained graduate of the Dueling Academy of Viscosa. When I’m done with you, you’ll be running all the way back to Warus!”

The crowd roared its approval, but Hwarl’s smirk just grew, and when she saw it Jadie smiled behind her mask as well. There were many fine venues for learning the art of combat in Viscosa; the Dueling Academy was not one of them. A school for the children of merchants and nobles, it taught how to ‘duel’ with style and panache. The students learned flashy moves to show off at balls and parties, they felt like they were becoming mighty warriors, and since nobody would ever be so foolish as to attack the heir of a feudal lord in a dark alley, they would never know how useless their sword-dancing was in a real fight. But Jadie knew—and so did gladiators like Hwarl. He’d never take a graduate of that school seriously, and that was just what she wanted.

A cannon blast started the match. Hwarl swung his halberd at Jadie in a few lazy arcs, forcing her back as she parried with her dagger, and his blade clanged off of hers with no real weight behind it. He was testing her, Jadie thought, or maybe just toying with her for the benefit of his fans. She let him swing a few more times, then ducked under a blow and dashed up close to him. When she reached him she slashed at his arm.

He shifted to one side and kicked her legs out from under her before the blow connected, sending her sprawling in the sand. She managed to roll out of the way before he struck his halberd down where her neck had been a moment ago. She got to her feet and managed to get her blade up in time to deflect another swing, but found herself forced back again, overpowered by his superior strength. Hwarl trotted after her, probing at her defenses with his halberd, a wicked gleam in his eye.

Jadie dodged and retreated halfway across the Coliseum floor before attacking again. She deflected his blade, using all her strength to push it up, and then ran at him. This time, she didn’t strike at him directly, but grabbed at his arms as if trying to grapple. The vines wrapped around her wrist began to writhe as she mentally prodded them, but before they could do anything, he swung his halberd around and struck her with its shaft. She stumbled, and by the time she recovered he had twisted the blade straight up and was stabbing it down at her.

Jadie instead jumped towards Hwarl, allowing him to push her down so she fell directly in front of him and inside the range of his halberd. She leapt to her feet faster than he seemed to be expecting and grabbed at his hands again. At the same time, she called to the vines around her wrists, Grab his halberd! Come on, let’s do it!

The vines twisted and writhed, seeming to relish a chance to release some of their energy. Hwarl shifted his halberd to one hand and curled the other into a fist to attack the enemy four inches from his face. Jadie made a show of grabbing at him as the vines snapped at the weapon, and suddenly his blade was flying clear across the Coliseum.

She grinned to herself, and then Hwarl decked her.

Jadie’s vision flashed red for a moment, and she felt her dagger slipping out of her hands. She managed to stay conscious, however—she had learned how to take hits as part of her training—and instead grabbed at his arms. He pulled out of her grasp, then moved in close—like she wanted—and seized her around the neck with one large hand.

Spray him! she urged her flowers, but seconds ticked by and nothing happened. There was an inertia in them; she had picked the flowers hours ago and they had already started to fade. She cursed in her mind as she gave it everything she had. Come on!

“Victory number eight!” Hwarl roared to the crowd as he began choking Jadie. She choked, but even when she strained she couldn’t break away from his grasp. He grinned and hefted her into the air by her neck. “Just like I said!”

Jadie continued pushing at the flowers. She could feel them sluggishly moving and starting to open, but her vision was starting to turn red again. She strained, fixing wonderful images in her head—of saving the nation, of returning to Westwick a hero, of the pile of gold she stood to win in the match—and used them to motivate her as she forced all her magical power into the flowers on her shoulders.

The chrysanthemums opened all the way and sprayed Hwarl with pollen.

He began coughing immediately, and his grip slackened enough for Jadie to wriggle out. She grabbed her other knife, the one hidden in a fold of her clothes, and moved in close to the hacking gnoll. Before he could do anything, she stepped behind him and slit his throat.

Just like she was trained.

As Hwarl collapsed, she realized what had happened. She had won. She, a member of the Thieves Guild for about two weeks, had taken on a trained gladiator and defeated him in combat.

She was amazing.

Jadie raised her dagger up to the crowd and joined in their cheers. This is the best mission ever, she told herself. And once I loot his room and get proof of this conspiracy? It’ll be even better.

* * *

Hwarl’s room was a lot sparser than Jadie would have expected.

She had returned to his chambers after the duel, stopping only to change out of her costume, and had then waited for a few minutes until Hwarl’s bodyguards came back to tell their companions that their employer was dead and they wouldn’t be getting paid. After a great deal of cursing, all the thugs left, and Jadie was able to break into his room without trouble. Once inside, she saw that it had only a few pieces of furniture, and indeed barely looked lived in. However, there was one large, ornate chest with a fancy lock near the weapons rack against the back wall, and that was what she wanted.

“Let’s see,” she chirped as she set her pack down. It slammed to the ground hard despite her best efforts; all the gold she’d won at the Coliseum was weighing it down. She allowed herself one moment to picture herself back in the Sapphire Square, or maybe the famed Stately Lady in Viscosa itself, living in the lap of luxury as she watched the visiting nobles for her next big score. But then the moment passed and she told herself she had to get back to work. She could celebrate after she found the proof she needed.

The lock was good, but Jadie was better, and it yielded after only a minute or two of work with one of her lockpicks. She snapped it open, then raised the trunk lid.

Something big and thorny swept up at her.

Jadie jumped back, but not fast enough, and the thorny vine was able to snap around one of her arms. Her eyes widened as the thorns poked at her sleeve. Don’t hurt me! she sent to it. I’m a friend!

But the vine kept tightening. It wasn’t like bush branches, which liked to grow and could usually be persuaded to stretch a little and catch an unwary arm, or like flowers, which liked to spread their pollen and would generally do it if she just gave them a little push. Whatever this was, it wanted to rip and tear with its thorns, and Jadie couldn’t get it to stop. Her sleeve began to shred as thorns cut through it.

STOP!! She pushed at the thorns with everything she had. Get off my arm! Now! But it kept tightening.

The weapon rack was in reach. She reached as far as she could and grabbed one of the halberds with her other hand, then dragged it to her and pressed the shaft against this vine. You want to kill something? Kill this, she urged. See? Arm about as thick as mine. Come on, please, you’d much rather kill this one than me…

After one more awful moment, she felt the thorns yielding to her magic. It unwound from her arm and wrapped around the halberd’s shaft. After a few minutes, she was free, and the halberd was almost covered in a small forest of thorns.

Jadie took a few deep breaths to calm herself, then let out a whoop as joy overtook her. Made it! Even Hwarl’s best trap couldn’t stop me! She grinned and dashed back to the chest. If the weapons were there, that was evidence she could arrange for the guards to obtain.

But the weapons weren’t there. The chest was empty.

Jadie felt like something in her was deflating, but she shook her head. “No way. I’m not leaving without some loot, not after all that. Besides, Hwarl wouldn’t have his room guarded unless something was here. I just need to find it.”

She searched every inch of the room, just as the Thieves Guild had taught her. She checked for loose floorboards, pulled apart the bedding and furniture, and tapped every brick in the walls to search for hollow spaces. And, after almost an hour of searching, she found one. A single brick reverberated oddly when she hit it, a flast-sounding echo that indicated an empty space behind it. Jadie took her dagger and pried the brick out, then set it aside while she looked through the hole. Inside were several papers.

Jadie took the first one and began to read. “Hwarl. Inform us of the arms and armaments of the Raleigh soldiers, and their approximate troop strength in Atalatha. Also, describe any mages of note in Atalatha or Raleigh.”

The next one read, “Hwarl. Describe the other Coliseum warriors. Determine if they could be bribed or threatened into working with us.”

And then, “Hwarl. Tell us the key political figures in the city. Which of them are the most critical?”

So Hwarl wasn’t a smuggler, then. He was a spy. Jadie could understand that; as a gladiator, the gnoll would meet the people his bosses seemed to want to know about—warriors who trained with him, merchants who bet on him, nobles who watched the games. But then why, Jadie wondered, had he tried to sell weapons? Was he branching out?

When she reached the last letter, things became clearer. “Hwarl. Take this dagger and sell it at the Sapphire Square in three days; there are men there who wish to attack the Duke and will pay well for it. Tell them you have a hundred more just like it to sell at the same price. Once they collect the money, we’ll send you the weapons and you’ll make the exchange.” A list of passwords followed to help Hwarl identify the people he was supposed to sell to.

It made no sense for the deal to take place as written, of course. There were more private places where a gladiator could meet with some people to sell weapons if he chose. The only reason for doing it at the Sapphire Square was…

“They wanted him to be caught,” murmured Jadie.

Hwarl’s superiors had tricked him into revealing himself in a public place so that he could be overheard. And someone had also tipped off the Thieves Guild with the false rumor that Lady Trefaer would be at the same location with a famous jewel they wanted. Assuming the thief were at all competent, she’d overhear the deal…and would feel obligated to stop it as part of the Guild’s deal with Raleigh. The only way to do that would be to kill Hwarl. Then just set a trap for the thief to tie up the last loose end, and that would be it. Hwarl would be dead and nobody would be able to trace it back to the instigators.

That only left one question—why kill Hwarl? He seemed to be a good spy; the letters, at least, never complained that he was sending insufficient or inaccurate information. Did they just not need him anymore?

Wait, Jadie thought. The treaty. Ambassadors and merchants are going to Warus to cement the alliance with one of the largest gnoll tribes. What if the conspiracy includes some of the people on those teams? That would probably be preferable, having a spy that isn’t at risk of dying in the Coliseum every day. And they could write back and forth using sealed diplomatic correspondences, protected by Raleigh’s own soldiers. Not to mention, they might even be able to use the death of a gnoll as a bargaining chip to get a better political position. One of theirs just got killed in Atalatha, maybe they say they’ll abandon the talks unless they’re paid off…

Jadie blushed. She’d been used, manipulated into getting rid of a gnoll for the conspirators. In fact, the Thieves Guild as a whole had been used. It was embarrassing, and certainly not how one would want their very first mission to go.

But, after a moment, she let herself smile. She’d still dealt with Hwarl, who was an enemy and needed to be taken out. She had proof of the conspiracy which she could show her superiors back in Westwick. She’d successfully robbed several wealthy nobles and merchants, justifying her position as a member of the Thieves Guild. And, thanks to her wagering in the Coliseum, she’d made a lot of money, enough that she couldn’t help but beam when she thought of all those gold coins clinking in her pack. On the balance, things had worked out quite well.

Plus, if she played her cards right, her superiors might assign her the task of rooting out the rest of the conspiracy. After all, she’d already cleaned up one end of it, and had a pretty good idea of where to look for the other traitors. Taking them down would help fulfill Westwick’s deal with Victor Raleigh—and it would be fun besides. One brilliant thief against the evil forces that would topple her nation if they could. Now that was an adventure.

Jadie stuffed the letters into her pack and left Hwarl’s apartment, unable to stop herself from whistling. It had been a successful mission, and she was hopeful that she’d have many more. After all, she was Jadie “Thorn” Rivers, who would be known one day as one of the greatest thieves ever. Whatever obstacles came her way, she knew she could handle them.

D.K. Cassidy

Room 42

Originally published by Windrift Bay Limited, in The Immortality Chronicles, Created by Samuel Peralta, Edited by Carol Davis.

* * *

At forty-two minutes past midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on April 15, 2154, The Event happened.

There was no pulse of light, no explosion, no cause anyone could name. But at that moment, immortality became a reality.

From that point on, no one aged. Growth ceased. Human cells froze in time.

The clocks kept running…but time stood still.

* * *

Dr. Vivian Toujours opened the door to her lab with an ancient brass key. She wasn’t aware of anyone else using such anachronistic technology, but it gave her pleasure to hear the key scraping in the keyhole. The distinctive click as she turned the lock. She’d replaced the retina reader decades ago by reworking the security system to accept her preferred method of opening the lab door.

The lights came on automatically as she walked over to the coffee machine. Not a fan of solitude, she’d programmed the machine to respond to the user via voice prompts.

“Coffee with cream this morning, Keri.”

The tall silver machine lit up. “Good morning, Vivian. What size do you require?”

“Large, extra strong. How was your weekend, Keri?”

“Large, extra strong, with cream. Producing your order. My weekend was uneventful. No new developments to report.”

I need to add more personality to this machine. Maybe someone in the A.I. Department can give me some advice. Then again, it was just a coffee machine.

“I’m about to find out if my latest trial is successful. What do you think of that?”

“I remain ever hopeful for you, Vivian. Your coffee is ready as ordered.”

Reaching for the floating screen, she swiped her hand in front of the transparent monitor to open her files. Drug trial number 1440 appeared as a beaker icon. Another quirk of hers. She liked using interesting icons instead of the standard ones installed in the software. When she pointed at the beaker and swiped in a clockwise arc, the latest test results appeared.

“All indications point toward a negative result. Advise further testing on the mortality serum.”

Feeling defeated, but not admitting it to herself, she opened the file containing her ideas for further testing. There were still two hundred experiments to run, which was a comfort to her. Until she’d gone through each of them, Vivian could pretend to be on the verge of a solution. Immortals had long ago mastered the skill of avoiding reality.

Sitting at her desk, Vivian swiped through medical journals on her tablet. Although she wanted to be the first to discover a mortality serum, she knew she had to accept that she wasn’t the only scientist working on a cure. Reading the work of her competition helped her gain insights on their methods of solving the problem.

Dr. Vivian Toujours had been working on a cure for the disaster for eighty-five years. Her focus was to solve the puzzle of non-growth and sterility. She wanted her daughter to have the chance to experience a full life. Tenacity was her mantra. Science, her mentor. Jenna, her raison d’être.

“Shit,” she muttered in frustration. If she didn’t get some positive results soon, someone else would beat her to it. Then her ass would be out the door.

* * *

Jenna Toujours was staring at her favorite game, Picture You, the progressive aging software her mother designed for her seventy-five years ago. Thrilled it still worked, she pulled up an estimate of her appearance at twenty-eight. Then thirty-eight. Then sixty-eight.

Her changing face fascinated Jenna. She stared at herself at the current pre-Event age of her mother, then her grandmother. She looked like them, but she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that. Tired of the game already, she shut it down.

She bent down to pet her dog, Tujin, a Model 2442. He licked her fingers. His synthetic fur, curly and golden, felt soft to Jenna. He barked when she stopped scratching his head, and she reached down again to continue scratching. After five minutes, Tujin walked away and settled into his bed.

Debating whether the comfort feature on Tujin should be set for fewer minutes, Jenna watched her dog settle into sleep mode. She let herself believe this was her treasured pet from before The Event. Thoughts of her current reality were suppressed by years of practice.

Jenna looked through the thousands of books in her eReader, trying to choose one to fit her mood. The classics, those written before The Event, she’d already memorized. That wasn’t intentional, but after reading something several hundred times it was unavoidable. Books that held her attention before now seemed too childish. Her tastes matured over the years.

Deleting her childhood books seemed like a good idea. She’d have no children of her own to read to, and her favorite fairy tales would always remain in her memory. Jenna selected the treasures of literature from prior decades and pressed the delete button. But instead of feeling relief, sadness flooded her.

She turned to the mirror next to her computer, gazing mournfully at the eight-year-old face staring back.

* * *

A few months after the clocks stopped, people began to notice there were no births. Not a single one. When they were questioned about this, scientists around the world had no explanation.

Pundits proclaimed that zero population growth was a good outcome of the mysterious immortality plague. If no one ever died, the Earth would run out of room and resources in just a few generations.

Ten years after The Event, world leaders stopped trying to figure out what had happened. Theories ranged from an electromagnetic pulse from the sun to a stealth alien attack to germ warfare to an act of God. The only consensus was the need to find a cure.

Think tanks on every continent raced to be the one to cure the curse of immortality. Of agelessness. There hadn’t been a competition this intense since the space race of the twentieth century. National pride swelled.

Every country wanted to be the one to create a mortality serum. They wanted to be the first to figure out why aging and growth stopped. Why had the population become sterile?

If they couldn’t determine the cause of this plague, they wanted to end the side effects. Funding no longer needed for other projects was redirected to research. Leaders around the world could finally agree on something, but no one noticed that.

The world longed to hear a baby cry.

* * *

It was lunch hour and the residents of the Eternal Sunshine Care Facility were watching their favorite soap opera, As the Universe Turns, now in its 115th year of broadcasting. A majority of the elderly living there suffered from some form of dementia, and they enjoyed each episode over and over. The recycled plots droned on, every possible storyline already played out decades ago.

The familiar music of the soap opera filled the room of rapt viewers. Some spontaneously applauded, others simply stared at the television screen, oblivious. Two of the ladies cackled and mumbled to one another. The staff walked around, arranging the residents into a semicircle around the large screen.

Attached to each wheelchair was a lidded container with a straw, filled with a smoothie of synthesized ingredients, enhanced with bright colors. The meal processors were set to produce based on the day of the week. Purple Promise today. Turquoise Delight tomorrow.

Mrs. Janice Doggerel possessed a clear mind, but a broken body. Her aide, a bored eternal teenager, told her it was time to join the other residents. Not for the first time, she wished telepathy existed. She didn’t want to join the other residents and desperately desired to convey that message to her aide. When her attendant wheeled her in front of the common room television, she silently screamed.

Mrs. Doggerel’s daily wish to die went unanswered.

* * *

Menial labor had been performed by androids for decades, freeing up time for people to pursue whatever interested them. The typical 4-hour workday allowed for more leisure time than at any other period in history. Instead of causing unrest, this abundance of free time lulled the majority of the population into compliance.

The unhealthy and the bored chose another path.

The immortals’ taste in reading changed after The Event. The most popular genre: Utopian. Unlike previous generations who wrote constantly about the end of the world, immortal authors created perfect worlds for their readers to dream about.

Julia Kingsley’s book had been in the top ten on the New World Chronicle’s Best Sellers List for fifty years. She’d created a world where the citizens chose the age they wanted to be when they became immortal. The residents of this utopia also gave birth to children and chose the dates of their deaths. The names of the towns in this fictional account reflected the state of mind of their citizens: Harmony, Bliss, Paradise, Wonder, and of course, Nirvana.

Jenna Toujours highlighted her favorite chapters in Our Perfect World, imagining herself at twenty-eight. She wanted to live in Bliss with her husband, two children, and a real dog. Daydreaming about living in the author’s version of Utopia, she didn’t hear the front door open.

“Hey, Jenna, I’m home!”

“Hey, Mom, I’m in my bedroom. Wanna come in?”

Vivian entered the room, immediately distressed to see her daughter re-reading Julia Kingsley’s book, but quickly adjusted her face into a smile.

“Could you order dinner? I’m too tired to decide what to eat. Anything except eggplant, OK?”

“Sure, Mom, just a bit. I want to read to the end of this chapter.”

Vivian sat on her daughter’s bed watching her read, wondering why Jenna felt compelled to lose herself in that world.

A little while later, Vivian and Jenna sat on the sofa eating hamburgers made from synthetic beef. Standard meal processor fodder. Another side effect of The Event: animals were also sterile. It wasn’t long before meat became unavailable. Anything edible had been hunted to extinction; the rest of the animals died from natural causes. The only natural choices for food were plants.

Vivian and Jenna weren’t adventurous when it came to eating; they preferred to eat whatever their synthesizer could produce. They’d grown used to the flavor of fake meat. Decades of eating it dulled their taste buds. Everything they ate was synthetic, and Vivian had thought more than once that real food would probably shock their numbed senses.

“How was work today, Mom?” Jenna continued reading her book while speaking to her mother.

“I found a cure for immortality and everything will go back to normal.”

Vivian testing to see if Jenna was paying attention.

“That’s cool, Mom,” Jenna murmured.

If I don’t find a cure soon, Jenna will never leave her head. And what if she decides she’s tired of living?

* * *

The day before she became immortal, Mrs. Janice Doggerel was being transferred to a hospice center. Hope gone, her disease was in its end stages. Her death was predicted to be imminent. Her only daughter said a tearful goodbye, not sure if her mother could hear her.

She could.

Her granddaughter stood in the corner sobbing. Seeing her grandmother look so frail, and knowing she would soon be gone, had broken through the fragile web of optimism Jenna had woven before coming for her final visit. At last she bent down and kissed her grandmother and whispered, “I love you, Nana.”

Her daughter signed the papers required for her transfer, insisting that the main priority be that the doctors and nurses allow her mother to die without pain. Mrs. Doggerel would continue to be fed and hydrated intravenously. Vivian couldn’t bear the thought of her mother starving to death.

The hospice nurses counseled the small family, instructing them about the stages of grief. After the nurses left, Vivian and Jenna huddled together, trying to accept the looming death of their sweet mother and grandmother. Uncontrolled tears rolled down the faces of the next two generations of Doggerels, dripping onto their folded hands.

Janice Doggerel suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS. Unlike history’s most famous sufferer of the disease, Dr. Stephen Hawking, she could not function. She was barely alive, unable to communicate, move, or feel any honest joy. Mrs. Doggerel looked forward to the release of death, but leaving the last remaining members of her family pained her. If she could get better and stay with them, she would, but her life at this point was more than miserable—it was torturous. She felt like a captive in her failing body, unable to do anything other than exist.

The next day, at forty-two minutes after the hour, her real nightmare began.

* * *

Those not willing to live forever decided to take their own lives. Natural deaths no longer existed; no one died of disease or old age, so in order to cease living, an immortal had to cause his or her own death. For years, people killed themselves with guns, by taking sleeping pills, or jumping off a building, a bridge, or a cliff.

It was all very messy.

In response to pressure from the public, a new suicide industry quietly arose, catering to people who wanted to experience a beautiful death—or whose families wanted them to. These entrepreneurs advertised one-way vacations to nirvana. The menu for seekers of the ultimate release ranged from a simple room and an injection, to a glorious party ending in a mass suicide. Owners of these businesses were careful not to be the ones to administer the lethal dose.

Governments around the world gradually realized that there was a need for the population to have a choice after so many years of immortality. Assisted suicide became completely legal worldwide forty-two years after The Event. The only requirement was an interview given by a psychiatrist. Then, with a prescription from a doctor, the patient could gain admittance to a Death House. To prevent too many from taking this path, the number of prescriptions allowed remained limited.

Gaining admittance to a Death House became a celebration. Families gave farewell parties and sent announcements to their friends. Obtaining a prescription to end this eternal existence was on a par with winning the lottery.

Each year after the law passed, the prescriptions ran out by the end of January.

* * *

After spending the weekend trying to come up with a new experiment, Vivian arrived at her lab feeling defeated. Her current idea didn’t feel promising, but she couldn’t give up. Too many people depended on her. She wanted to find a cure. She needed to find a cure. She had to.

For the last decade, an awful word kept fighting to escape her subconscious. Vivian expended a lot of energy suppressing it, but today it crept up on her. A word she’d never uttered aloud filled her thoughts.

Hopeless.

Now that the unspoken word had escaped, Vivian thought about the Death House, someplace you could check in and never check out.

On that dismal note, she began working on what she hoped would be the cure with her mantra echoing inside her head: This is it, this is it. Its answer was the terrible word she’d let out: Hopeless.

Waiting for her computer to analyze her data, Vivian experienced conflicted feelings about the speed of getting results. Testing that used to take weeks was now completed in hours. That would be wonderful if her results were positive, but for her, it meant failure being thrown in her face every day. It became a lodestone. The weight of her failure dragged her further into a state of depression.

“Good morning, Keri. Large coffee with cream, please.”

“Yes, Vivian.”

“I’m running the new experiment. Think this one is a winner?”

“I remain ever hopeful for you, Vivian. Your coffee is ready as ordered.”

Vivian walked over to the coffee machine and shouted. “Do you have any opinions on ANYTHING?”

“That question does not make sense to me.”

“Do you care if I ever develop a mortality serum?”

“I remain ever hopeful for you.”

Screaming in frustration, Vivian turned off the machine, then returned to her desk, trying to calm down. The result would be ready in thirty minutes. She got up to pace for a while, then settled again at her desk.

Sipping her coffee, Vivian awaited the inevitable bad news.

* * *

Jenna decided to take Tujin for a walk. Pretending he needed to exercise maintained the illusion her pet was real. She passed other dog owners, nodding to them as they walked by. Some of the people walking their dogs complimented Jenna on her pet, and she returned the favor. Everyone helped one another maintain a communal dream.

Today’s destination was the care home for a visit to her grandmother. She stopped by weekly to hold her nana’s hand and read to her. Under her arm was an eReader loaded with a copy of Our Perfect World. Jenna wanted to read a particular passage to her nana about the town called Bliss. She wondered if her grandmother would be interested in hearing about her dream to live there.

Rotating books made the visits fresh, staving off boredom for Jenna. She remained hopeful her grandmother wasn’t bored. She never asked, not wanting to know the true answer. Not that it mattered, since her grandmother couldn’t reply. But Jenna remained convinced that the visits helped her grandmother cope with her state of purgatory. She felt helpless without any other way to comfort her.

From the doorway of her grandmother’s small, ascetic room, Jenna watched the aide prepare her nana for a visit. He propped her up in a semi-upright position, adjusting her head to look forward, and finished up by folding her hands. Turning to Jenna, he nodded, then left the room.

“Hi, Nana, it’s me. It’s Jenna.”

No response. But she hadn’t expected one.

“It’s been a long time since I read Our Perfect World to you. Last night I found a passage I thought you’d like.”

Jenna stared into her grandmother’s blank face, trying as she always did to see some flicker of the woman she had been. In answer to Jenna’s offer to read, her grandmother blinked once. Her way of communicating: one blink for ‘yes,’ two blinks for ‘no.’ At least, that’s what Jenna told herself.

“OK, here goes…Chapter Four. Bliss.”

She read two chapters, her favorite ones, about a happy couple about to have their first child. Jenna had marked the passage about the couple naming the baby. They’d chosen the name Emma. She liked that, and fantasized that her daughter would have the same name. Her mother told her the story about deciding what to name her. ‘Jenna’ had been her grandmother’s choice. She wished she could ask her nana why.

Certain her grandmother was asleep, Jenna left the room and stopped by the nurses’ station to chat with the staff. They were always ready to chat and gossip. Jenna thought they might be a good diversion for her.

“Hey, did you hear there might be fewer death prescriptions granted next year? I wish I could convince my mother to let my nana put her name on the list.”

As she always did, Nurse Becker listened with empathy before she answered. Jenna could see the truth on her face before she said anything.

“You’re forgetting, Jenna, your grandmother can’t get a prescription. Since she’s unable to communicate, there’s no way for the psychiatrist to interview her. I know it’s sad. I think she’d be better off if she could die, but that’s the law.”

Jenna’s eyes filled with tears of frustration. Nurse Becker tried to hug her, but Jenna shook her off.

Until the government changed the law to include non-verbal replies, her grandmother was stuck in a loophole. She knew that. But hearing it from someone as kind as Nurse Becker made it hurt more somehow.

“I’m sorry, Jenna. We all feel for your grandmother. Please believe me, we do whatever we can to keep her comfortable. We bring her to the common room every day so she won’t feel alone. I remember your mother telling us she had a favorite soap opera. Since your grandmother’s admission, she’s never missed an episode. I’m sure she enjoys watching it.”

“But she can communicate! She can blink yes and no! Why doesn’t that count? If I went back in the room and asked her if she wanted to die, I bet she’d blink once. For yes. I know she would.”

“I know, honey,” Nurse Becker said. “But it’s the law.”

* * *

Another year passed without a successful mortality serum. Finally, Vivian made the decision to accept defeat and tell her superiors her time was being wasted. She wanted to concentrate on something else and vanquish the feeling of failure that constantly surrounded her. Realizing the irony in the statement ‘a waste of time,’ she still felt moving on would be the best decision for her.

After arguing her point for several hours, she couldn’t convince her superiors at the lab to release her from the experiment. They gave her an ultimatum: keep working on the serum or leave. So she went back to her lab to think about her future.

Vivian looked through the failed experiments, each one a monument to her disappointment. She thought about the wasted years, the futility of her efforts. Bit by bit, her confidence left her. Resisting the urge to wreck her lab, she made another decision. It was time to do something else with her life. She had no idea what, but deciding to leave gave her some relief.

As she exited her second home of eighty-six years, she turned and waved good-bye to Keri the coffee machine.

* * *

Riding the subway home, Vivian watched the immortals surrounding her. These people weren’t young and beautiful. They looked like an average cross-section of society. All sorts were represented: young, old, fat, skinny, beautiful, ugly. The only thing they had in common was their inability to die a natural death.

Walking the few blocks to her home, Vivian reflected on her decision to quit her life’s work. She couldn’t change her mind. Just this one time, she would trust her instincts. She worried about disappointing Jenna, but knew her daughter would respect her decision.

Inside the empty house, Vivian sat in the dining room and stared out the window. Out of habit, she swiped the screen on her tablet. Pages of data sped past, unseen by the scientist.

Looking skyward, she imagined the birds that used to fly by. The bird feeder in her backyard was completely hidden, overgrown with ivy. The Event hadn’t affected plants. They continued their cycle of life and death, taunting Vivian.

After a while, Jenna came home from walking Tujin and came over to her mother, who was still sitting motionless next to the window.

“What’s wrong, Mom?”

No response.

“Mom?”

Vivian turned to Jenna, not bothering to smile. She placed her tablet on the table as she stared at her daughter. They looked at each other for a few moments, neither of them wanting to break eye contact.

“I quit. I can’t keep going back to the lab to fail. I’m tired, Jenna.”

Jenna was silent for a minute. Then she sat at her mother’s feet and placed her head on Vivian’s lap.

“It’s okay, Mom. You tried. You tried for so long. Please don’t be sad.”

Tujin walked over to them, barking for attention. His timing was perfect, and they both burst into giggles. Jenna scratched Tujin’s head, and it became obvious to Vivian that she wanted to say something.

Finally, she said, “I saw Nana yesterday.”

“You visited her without me? Have you done that before?” Vivian was surprised.

“Mom, I may look like a little girl, but I’m a hundred and three years old. I can find my way to her place no problem.”

“I know, I just…I didn’t know you visited her on your own. I’m happy you did. Or do. How often do you see her?”

“I try to go once a week and read to her. She seems to enjoy it, or at least I think she does. I hope she does.”

Vivian decided it was time for her to see her mother. Once a month wasn’t enough. She’d let her work get in the way of being a good daughter—of doing what needed to be done. Determined to make more changes in her life, Vivian planned what to do next. There were things to take care of before she could visit her mother.

She needed to stop by her lab.

* * *

Back on the subway, Vivian stopped fighting her tears. She let the frustration of the last few decades slide down her face. Not sure how Jenna would feel about what she planned, she waited impatiently for her stop. As soon as the doors opened she walked out of the station and headed to her lab to prepare.

Knowing her mother wasn’t the only person in the world who was suffering renewed Vivian’s desire to continue with her work. It might take years before anyone came up with a solution, but she couldn’t stop. Jenna needed to know what it was like to physically become an adult, have a family, and watch her hair go gray.

With that knowledge came the realization that she couldn’t let her mother suffer any longer. She sent emails informing her superiors of her decision to go on with her research.

Then she walked to the supply closet and took what she needed for tomorrow’s visit to the Eternal Sunshine Care Facility.

* * *

Vivian and Jenna walked through the doors of the care home. Checking in at the nurses’ station, Vivian nodded at the staff and inquired about her mother.

“No change, Dr. Toujours.”

“We want to have a nice long visit with her. Would you please tell her aide not to disturb us? I know she’ll miss her show today, but that’s okay. Just don’t come into her room. We’d like some private time with her.”

The walk to the end of the hall gave Vivian time to think about her mother. The majority of her memories were happy. Stopping outside Room 42, she paused. Breathing in deeply, she knocked, then entered.

As she approached the bed, Vivian looked into her mother’s watery eyes, attempting to see into her mind. She touched her hand, stroking the top of it as she smiled, but got no response. Vivian leaned in to kiss her mother’s forehead, lingering a moment to remember the woman who no longer existed.

Jenna hung back, unable to approach her nana yet.

“Jenna tells me you like it when she reads to you. I never knew she visited you without me. I’ve been so distracted with my work, I didn’t notice. I’m sorry, Mom. I thought I’d do that for you today.”

Vivian opened her bag, withdrawing a rare paperback copy of one of her favorite books, hoping her mother would enjoy listening to it. The book, a gift from her mother for her thirteenth birthday. Bringing it to her nose, she inhaled the musty smell. Then Vivian leaned over her mother, placing the book near her face.

“Breathe in, Mom. Remember what was. Remember my joy when you gave this to me.”

Her mother blinked once.

For the next hour, Vivian read to her mother, stroking her hair, stopping every few pages to look at her mother’s frozen profile. Jenna pulled a chair to the other side of the bed and held her nana’s hand.

Pausing, Vivian tore a page out of the book. She folded it and tucked it into a pocket in her mother’s nightgown. Quoting a line from that page, she whispered:

And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.

Her mother blinked.

“I’m leaving Edgar Allen Poe to keep you company. Goodbye, Mommy. I love you.”

“Goodbye, Nana,” Jenna said softly. “I’ll miss you. Be happy.”

Then Jenna turned away, not able to watch.

Dr. Vivian Toujours injected her mother in the arm, pushing the plunger filled with sweet release. Janice’s body caved into itself, freeing the tortured person within. One last breath and it was over.

Ninety-five years of hell were over.

“What will you do now, Mom?” Jenna asked.

Vivian turned to her daughter, who still seemed to be eight years old. Years ago, she had wanted Jenna to remain small forever, to cuddle with her, to depend on her. Part of that was still true—Jenna did still depend on her.

So did a lot of other people.

“Keep working,” Vivian said. “I’m going to keep working.”

Zach Chapman

Between Screens

Originally published by Galaxy Press

* * *

I was fourteen when I first skipped across the galaxy, trying to fit in, trailing the older boys who had ditched class. Cox, the grunge leader of the group, tattooed and modified, ran the skipper code hacker with one hand and shoved me through the portal with the other. One moment I could hear the others laughing, the next I was in an empty station on my hands and knees, picking myself off the cold floor, heart racing. I didn’t know much about skipping, or space travel—I had only been off Earth for a week—but I knew it wasn’t cheap. A moment later I heard the others stumbling in after me, shouting in fear and excitement.

“We’re caught.”

“By who?”

“The pigs!”

“They tracing us?”

“’Course. Gotta skip. And trip the pigs. Lose ’em, yeah?”

“Sure, sure.”

I was shoved by three other boys through another skipper, and like that, I was across the universe, in another grey skipper station, running from the pigs who were light years behind.

They never did catch us, not that first time. Cox made sure of that, rerouting stations with his hand hacker to throw them off. We skipped, racing down long hallways in abandoned stations. We skipped, shoving through dense crowds of business drones. We skipped, diving past upkeep bots. We skipped until my world spun and nausea swelled inside me.

When we arrived at our final destination—a claustrophobic, cold room—a dozen boys were touching-up a rigged cacophony of gerrymandered technology. Some of the boys I recognized from school. Their stares jarred me. I was foreign to them, tan Earth skin, natural brown eyes and hair, a stark contrast to their pale features.

A screen that looked scarcely different from a threadbare bed sheet was draped on one side of the room, a blindingly bright projector shone on it from the other side. Wires and ancient technology, a haze of smoke, the stink of synthetic bliss, and worn blankets and pillows filled the cold room.

Cox bumped and pounded two tall, thin, pimply boys who were entering some final calibrations on the projector, “Ready, ready? The telescope spitting what we need?”

“Sure, sure,” the two answered in unison and returned to their work. Their complexions were more corpse-like than the other spaceboys, and their greasy light hair curled at their shoulders.

An image flickered on the screen. It was a black canvas speckled with burning white stars. The projector clicked several times, then the image zoomed in on a planet, green and blue, much like Earth, but with strange-shaped continents. All the boys quieted. Cox pushed me to the blanket-covered floor and stuck a warm drink in my hand, “Drink up, new kiddie, the lightshow’s starting.”

“What’s so special about it?” I asked, taking a sip of the burning elixir. A boy next to me hushed me as if I were speaking over some audio, but there was no other sound in the station.

“Boys projectin’ the light. That’s a planet, this ain’t no movie. There’s a telescope outside of this station. Boys hacked it. Boys real smart with equations.” Cox tapped a finger to his temple. “Real sharp. Taller one’s name Timmet, other’s Trager. Real ugly, but so sharp they’re smarter than the teaches we ditched. Sure, sure.”

“That’s another planet out there, hundred light-years away?” I asked.

Cox nodded, irritated, then punched my shoulder, “Just watch. I ain’t seen it at this angle yet.”

Sitting, I began to watch, but nothing seemed to happen. I gradually became aware of a hand on my back, slowly rubbing as if to annoy. I turned to look, but the light from the projector distorted my vision. I could make out the shape of a girl, narrow with long synthetic dark hair. In the dimness and blinding projector glare, I thought I saw her wink. She hissed, “Don’t lose your lunch, new kiddie.”

Before I could respond to her, a gasp from all the boys brought my attention back to the screen.

A meteor hurdled for the planet, brown and jagged. The two masses collided. Breaths hissed in. A shockwave slowly spread from the impact, followed by a wall of ocean. Cox turned toward the projector and yelled over the silence, “Timmet, Trager! Zoom in! Can’t see nothing.”

The brothers tapped away with their hackers, the telescope zoomed in, and our projector followed the shockwave as it ate forests, deserts and mountains, obliterating all to dust and magma. It zoomed in further. A city came to view, quaking, buildings falling, ants scrambling. Then it was dust too. And then a wall of water. The projector flicked to several other dying cities before the visible half of the planet was devoured and dead. When it was over, the entire room fell silent. The telescope flicked back to the impact site—a circle of red-orange magma, glowing as the tectonic cracks slowly tendrilled across the planet like stretching skeletal fingers. The nausea from skipping returned. I accidently tipped my drink over, but no one seemed to notice, their eyes were nailed to the dying world.

“Why?” I managed to utter, “Why did those people stay? They must have known their planet would die.”

“Misguided principals.” Cox shrugged. “Or just too poor to leave. Not like you, new kiddie.”

“If I was rich, I’d still be on Earth,” I began, but something buzzing on Cox’s hip took precedence. He fumbled at the device, brought it up to his face. His eyes widened. Pointing his finger toward the skipper gate, Cox started to shout. Boys began to clear the skip station, running, packing up pillows and synthetic smokers and hard drinks, spilling their possessions everywhere as they jumped through the skipper. Cox jerked me to my feet, “Move, new kiddie—the pigs’ve found us.”

I turned to look for the girl, but she was gone. Cox shoved me forward. “You hear me? No time.”

Then I was skipping again, Cox at my heels, more boys chasing after, hooting. Instantly through space we ran: Abandoned comet drill site. Packed synth-steak meat house. Sliding living quarters. Busy commercial district, grey and dull. And a hundred skip stations between. The boys began to split, skipping off to different stations.

Pigs in pale suits popped up here and there, never able to crack us with their electric batons, though once, right before we lost them for good, one dove for Cox, catching his ankle. I kicked the fat man in his teeth, stomped the hand that had captured Cox, and shoved us both through the portal. When we finally lost them it was just Cox, Todd, and I.

Cox swung a tattooed arm over my shoulders and squeezed, “Kiddie, you did good. Respect, respect. Did good watching that planet blow for the first time, too. I’ve seen it five times now. First time was the hardest. But it hooks you, yeah? It’s a day later and you want to keep watchin’. Skip to new stations where the light ain’t passed through just yet. See it again, at a new angle.”

Yes. This is what I wanted. Right?

“Uh, yeah,” I said.

Cox laughed and pushed me forward. “You’ll see. Go on home. See you at school tomorrow.”

* * *

When I finally found the way back to my living quarters, I could hear mom crying in her room. She was still grieving over dad, though she claimed that the sudden weeping outbursts were due to the artificial days and nights, or the synthetic smell of life in space, or some other lie. Luckily, she didn’t notice me slip in, nor did she complain when I drowned out her moans by blaring music in my cramped room while I struggled to sleep.

The next morning I ate synth-meat for breakfast, rushed out the door before mom could bring up dad, and used my school pass to skip to the school station. My first three periods I drifted off, day-dreaming of skipping, kicking a faceless patrol officer in the teeth, but mostly about the dying planet. In my daydreams I could hear the peoples’ cries. Why hadn’t they left? Surely they weren’t so poor that they couldn’t leave. Who would choose death on a planet over life across the million space stations?

At first I sat by myself at lunch, sure that no one would want a tan Earther sitting with them, but, to my surprise, Cox grabbed my shoulder and gestured over to a table where Todd, Timmet, Trager and a few others from the night before sat.

As I joined them, I heard discussion of last night’s exploits—rehashing, bragging, hyperbolizing. Cox cut in, explaining how heroic I was when I smashed officer piggy’s teeth in. After that the other boys seemed more accepting of me, listening when I spoke, giving the occasional nod.

By the time lunch was dismissed, they had begun planning another show, but this one was something new, not the same dying planet from another angle.

Reluctantly, I ambled to class, a dark boy in a scuffed hallway full of skulking corpses, my mind fixed on skipping, wondering what the new show might be—Cox, Timmet and Trager had kept me out of the loop. In class I sat in a listing chair, impatiently leaning back from my desk, not listening to some teach chew the side of her mouth. Suddenly, I felt a kick on my tailbone, hard enough to sting. I glanced back; it took me a second, but I recognized the girl from last night’s show.

She winked a pale-blue eye. Her hair was dyed darker than my natural color; it shimmered purple if the light caught it just right. She wore a splash of cherry lipstick, and I spotted tattoos swirling up the side of her neck: a few colorful planets, some stylized stars and a spiraling galaxy—not the sort of ink you’d find on Earth.

I raised my eyebrows. Her complexion didn’t seem as grey as the others’. With a quirked smile, she passed me a folded note on synth-paper. It read: u planning on going to the next show? Shit, did I really want to go? I wrote back: sure, sure, what’s your name? And tossed it back to her while the teach wasn’t looking. She responded with: Name’s Lem, next time you better sit next to me. When I looked back at her, I could tell just from her crooked smirk that she was aggressive, cocky, vivacious.

Though I had lived on Earth for fourteen years, and breathed real air, drank real water, and ate real food, she somehow had lived more than me.

I sent back: sure, sure.

After we received the notification to switch classes, Lem followed me to the science hall. I didn’t know what to say, so I awkwardly smiled as she complained about the dearth of girls at last night’s show. I nodded like a fool, bumping into other students in between gawking glances. She must have been late to her next class, because I had hardly entered mine before the tardy notification appeared on the cracked screen of my tablet.

I remembered nothing of the rest of the school-day. I assume I spent it scribbling sketches of dying planets on synth-paper, ignoring teachers. After school I roamed the halls looking for Cox, Todd, Lem, or any of the gang, but those who hadn’t ditched earlier in the day, hadn’t stuck around after school. When I got home, I was already irritated. Mom—her eyes rimmed red—put on a smile for me. That irritated me more.

I left after dinner, ignoring mom’s silent pleas to be comforted.

I paced our sector, subconsciously moving toward the skip station, but without the handy hacker Cox had, I was marooned, unless I wanted to pay.

As I roamed I passed silicon flowers and earthen landscape murals so awful they only could have been painted by someone who’d never stepped foot on Earth’s surface. The bleak, artificial lighting did nothing to uplift my brooding.

Why had they stayed? They were ants on our cosmic threadbare screen, scurrying, helpless. Too poor? After father had died, mom and I were too poor to live anywhere but the stations.

Could it have been different long ago? I asked myself as I studied the awful perspective of a different earthen mural. None of the shadows looked right, and the trees were far too thin. Was Cox’s gang where I should try to fit in? The mountains looked like triangles, completely inorganic, completely wrong. How long could they go ditching school and skip-hacking before a pig bashed them? The sun was a brighter orange than that, the sky more blue—this painting belonged on a wasted planet, full of frantic ants. What happens if I got stranded on some station a billion light years away? Trees don’t grow in concentric rows, and there’s no patterns to the way leaves sprout from branches. Why did they stay? Why didn’t they just leave?

* * *

Over the following weeks I grew closer to Cox and his gang; we were vines twisting together, using each other to reach a sunspot, not that any of my new friends would get the metaphor. We poured hours of work into discussing plans over half-eaten synthetic lunch food, spreading the news only by word of mouth to those we knew wouldn’t rat, hunting down potential show sites: the station had to have a powerful telescope that the brothers could hack, and it couldn’t be in a high-traffic area.

I hardly saw Lem in class—I think she ditched more than not—but when I did, her cherry smile brought my thoughts away from indecision. Cox’s gang was the key to the lightshows, and lightshows were the key to her. She was the most attractive space girl I’d seen, and I’d chase her to far-off galaxies if given the chance.

One day between the first show I’d seen and the second, Lem and I ditched before Earth History class. Using a battered old skip-hacker Cox had graciously given me, I took her to stations we’d never seen. We walked through offices—stealing idle hand tablets, synth-papers, and whatever would fit in our pockets, ran through cafeterias—snatching genuine planet-baked cinnamon bread and rolls with real butter, laughed in game rooms as we played VRs with what little money we had. In the cold, bleak expanse of our galaxy, I had found light.

Back home I would lie awake on my thin mattress thinking of Lem’s dark hair with its purple shimmer, wondering if she was thinking of me too. It was a nice change from my brain replaying my father’s babbling death as fast-acting poison ate his body. I never saw it, the leak at his station was far above Earth, but that hadn’t stopped my mind from speculating about his final minutes.

Hell, I was beginning to be able to ignore my mom, too—but it wasn’t all wonderful amongst the bleak stars. I still second-guessed myself. Joining Cox’s cohorts could lead down a strange path. I’d never run with a crowd like that back on Earth. But the stations were different from Earth. To fit in here, I told myself, I had to run with these guys.

* * *

On the day we set up the show room, I ditched class entirely. My whole body trembled in anticipation. This room yawned bigger than the last, and I was one of the first to arrive.

Cox unsuccessfully attempted to hang the screen while Trager and Timmet worked on the projector and hacked a nearby space telescope. Cox caught sight of me. “Damn Earther, you scared? Your skin’s white as mine. Relax. Come here, help me hang this damn thing.”

“Sure, sure. Not scared—excited.”

“Don’t drop the screen. Your fingers shakin’ too much.”

“No worries.”

By the time we finished setting up, a dozen boys lay about the floor on insta-inflate mattresses and backpacks, smoking paper soaked in colorful synthetics, drinking delicious toxins from recycled bottles, playing the knockout game.

More came skipping in. And girls. Three girls, then four, awkwardly watching the boys. But Lem wasn’t there.

She’d come, I knew, unless she got caught by the pigs. I shook off the thought; she was too quick and determined to be caught.

Someone slapped a bottle to my chest. I drank, spilling the burning, icy liquid down my chin. Todd slammed me on the back, hooting. My head buzzed, harmonizing with the hum of the station’s electronics. The lights dimmed, hacked. Yet, it felt too early to start, more people were passing through the portal every minute, Lem wasn’t with them.

An uproar of murmurs met the flicker of the projector. Too soon, the murmurs said. Friends on their way, it complained. An image flashed, a volcano bleeding orange and red. More complaints. But what could we do? There’s no rewind button on telescopes.

Cox stood, “Ease, ease. This is a preshow. Settle your pretty heads. Staunch those flowing tears.”

Tension in the crowd dissolved as we realized that the best was yet to come. A wet pinch on my neck startled me. I turned to see Lem, she’d snuck in and bit me on the neck, playfully, “So tense. Need to relax, Earther. Let me work on your shoulders.”

She massaged my back. I could smell the synthetic sweetness of a hand-rolled cigarette between her cherry lips. She pulled me to her, touched my lips to hers, and exhaled a remedy, a toxin, a delight into my lungs. My world spun for the moment, her tongue in my mouth, fingers running through hair.

We kissed, her tongue assertive, experienced, mine stumbling, awkward. On the sheet above, magma flickered and flowed. She was my first kiss.

Our passion had not worn off when the show started, but we mustered a glance at the screen. The room was stifling with packed body-heat. Despite the haze in my head, and the pounding of my heart, I made a mental note to tell Cox that we would have to scout larger locations for the next show.

On the screen I saw a city, old, like one on Earth from thousands of years ago. A foreign-looking people crossed streets, drove cars, pedaled goods, rode bicycles, as the telescope scanned them, focusing here and there, zooming in and out, panning. Nothing happened for the longest time. Just as I thought the crowd would begin to grumble, a smoldering light flashed across the room, piercing, hot, so bright Lem and I winced.

It was as if the brothers had pointed the telescope towards a star. Then the smoke lifted, and Timmet punched past half a dozen filters until we were seeing through the dust cloud as if it weren’t there.

Thousands of people lay dead in the streets; thousands more walked about, dying, flesh dripping from their stumbling frames. Buildings had become liquefied skeletons stretching up toward the telescope, some still bending and breaking in the firestorm’s wake.

Trager zoomed in on a man burnt so badly that his clothes and skin had become indistinguishable. He staggered as if blind and begging.

For what? Water? A quick death? His family? His lover? He latched on to anyone who passed, but most shoved him off, or avoided him narrowly, searching for families of their own. They were just as blind, just as naked.

There should have been the sappy cry of a solo violin. But there was no sound but the hum of the station and the breathing of its inhabitants. A boy laughed awkwardly, cracking midway. Or was he a man? We existed in that awkward stage somewhere between the two.

I felt Lem’s hot breath on my neck, soft cherry lips kissing my cheek. My jeans stiffened. I glanced back up at the begging, melted man, then filled my existence with Lem.

* * *

When all the death and dying and love and lust were over, no pigs came to interrupt us. The boys slowly trickled out of the skip station, drunk and high, whooping and laughing; Cox, the brothers, Todd, Lem and I were the last to skip out.

Cox smiled at Lem and me, “Not bad, yeah? Dark shit. Tell more of your girlfriends to come.”

“Sure, sure.” Lem said, smiling.

Then off we skipped, losing a friend here or there.

* * *

Over the next weeks my life consisted of three things: ditching class to explore the stations of the universe with Lem, planning and scouting with Cox and the boys, and lying awake in bed, ignoring mom while dreams of dying cities and planets kept me up.

For the first time in my life I wasn’t making straight As. Truthfully, I didn’t know what kinds of grades I was making. Mostly, I didn’t care, but there was a part of me—maybe the same part that occasionally dreamed of Earthen fields and real food—that tugged at my intestines.

On the occasion that I did go to class, I would sketch. I drew dying worlds on synth-paper, colliding meteors, cracking crust, bloody magma. Then moved on to cities—drowning, burning, screaming, wheezing. I would write captions like “Come See the Lightshow”, or “Watch the Wonders of Dying Worlds—Live!”, imitating movie posters I’d seen on Earth.

During a scouting trip, Cox saw one of my sketches after it had fallen out of my torn pocket. “Cheeky. The Earther’s an artist.” he said. Later he commissioned me to draw more, picked out his favorite design, then, in code, jotted down several skip station coordinates and times on the side, copied it, and passed it to people we trusted—to spread word of the next show.

At some point I suggested to Cox that we should get a band to play live at the next lightshow. He and the boys resisted the idea, but I managed to convince them to at least allow music during the preshow. They agreed, so long as I scrounged together the band. I accepted their challenge.

Earth was inspiring, full of young musicians and would-bes, but the stations weren’t. Luckily, a cramped corner of our school held a music hall where I periodically wandered between classes. I wasn’t looking for the best; we needed trustworthy guys, no one who’d rat us out to the teachers or pigs.

It didn’t take me long to spy and recruit Rodney, a boxy boy with a shock of dull blond fuzz that sprouted in wilting patches on his cheeks. He played saxophone and violin, terribly. An outcast, a rust artist, a pugilist, a perfect recruit. His weak connections in the music hall were enough for me to infiltrate and recruit four more equally qualified musicians on the promise that synth-smokers and some heavy bottles would be provided for their services.

So the next show had live music.

* * *

Strings screeched, buzzed, hacked, and coughed; the music was perfect. Rodney and his band played, still making the same mistakes they’d had while rehearsing thirty minutes before, as two dozen excited cohorts skipped into the current show-station.

Cox grabbed me by the shoulder, hard, pointed to the band, and said, nodding, “Aye, new kiddie, you ain’t bad for a peach-skinned Earther.”

I nodded back thinking: They may call me “new kiddie,” but I’m no longer an outsider, no more than anyone else here, haven’t been since the skip home from the first show, since I kicked that officer’s teeth in.

“They’re shit terrible,” Cox said, tossing a clanking rucksack full of bottles at me, “but people seem to like ’em. Give Rodney and ’em jars of piss booze when the show starts. Keep one for you and Lem.”

“Sure, sure.”

Two boys broke out in a fight. Just as I felt, Lem put her arms around me. One of the brawlers fell into a violinist, and was thrust back into the clash. People whooped and hollered, as the two blackened each other’s eyes, until one of the bruisers was too broken and bloody to fight, and Timmet and Trager flipped the projector on to a new preshow.

This time we saw a ghost planet, already dead. Skeleton cities, dried canyons where rivers had once flowed, all living things long ago turned to dust. I wondered, how far away would we have to skip to catch the light and witness the downfall of this civilization?

A tornado lashed the land. Lem traced a finger around my forearm and looked up at me with a devious smile, “Your brown skin’s turned pink. Give it more time and it’ll be as sexy as mine. But…in the meantime, it’s looking a little bare.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She jabbed her fingernail into my forearm, “Let’s modify. You’re lacking…tattoos, piercings, implants.”

I laughed nervously. What would my dad think? He was dead. And my mother? Who cared what she thought. “And you have a needle and ink, or some rusty implant gun?”

She smiled, “I told Todd to bring some. He’s just as talented an artist as you. He’s got clean stuff.”

He wasn’t. And he didn’t.

A violin screeched. A quake split a dead desert. And a needle pierced my skin. I’d decided on a tattoo of a planet, and was told it would look cool. It felt like a knife scraping, cutting, digging at my arm. I emptied half a jar of piss alcohol down my throat, lit a synth-cig, and watched the panning ruins of a ghost planet.

When the outline was done, Todd snatched my alcohol and splashed it on my arm.

The lights dimmed. The show started.

* * *

Then another show. And another.

* * *

So we went on, in whatever abandoned skip stations we found, for months, our posse slowly growing by word of mouth and the handouts I’d designed. Each show a memory with a different tattoo, piercing, scar or glowing implant. The pigs busted us sometimes, catching a few kids too drunk, stoned or slow to skip away.

Our lightshows became more frequent; we needed researchers who knew when and where cosmic tragedies had happened, and people good with equations, and techies, and musicians.

I’d go to school on occasion to recruit. Other than that, school meant nothing to me, the show, everything. Our enclave of misfits grew, as did my bond with Lem.

And as I spent the next months skipping across the galaxy with our gang of outsiders, my yearning for Earth waned; the memories of grass underfoot and wind brushing skin, once vivid, now faded. But did any of that matter?

Mom didn’t have a chance at getting us back to Earth. And I was too busy seeing new worlds to care if she did. I was in a river, slow flowing but with a current too strong to fight. Sure, I could swim for the bank, but oblivion was beautiful. The shows began to blur into each other, sometimes a planet died—war the killer one show, nature the next—sometimes it was just a city, occasionally a malfunctioning skip station.

They mixed like a trillion wisps of smoke commingling, fornicating, trapped in a room of flickering light. It was intoxicating, addictive.

Tattoos crawled up my arms, piercings punched holes through my skin, flashing implants danced up my spine. Friends came and went, but Cox and Lem were always there, never missing a show. True friends, true cohorts.

Then came one show, one particular show, where I realized the dreams of my father’s death had stopped entirely, shoved aside by the preparation and intoxication of the lightshows.

* * *

It started like all other shows. Rodney’s band played as friends skipped in from across the galaxy to a cramped room just warm enough to make sweat bead above the brow. The preshow flickered—a junked satellite station spinning in and out of orbit only to be drawn by its planet’s gravity and eaten in fiery gulps by its atmosphere.

Lem bit my lip and whispered something in my ear. Timmet and Trager tinkered with the projector, finalizing calibrations. Boys almost old enough to be men rolled about kissing girls who were almost women.

Somewhere, someone was in a classroom learning something.

The screen skipped. I felt a sense of familiarity. Earth, and a station just above it, round with vast clear windows, greenery on the inside. My stomach knotted itself. When was this? Where were we? How many light years from Earth? One? Two? How long had I been in interstellar space? In the skip stations? How old was I? Fifteen? Couldn’t be older than sixteen, but what’s a year and a half when you’re in a thousand different stations, light years from the embrace of seasons?

In my mind’s eye I saw my father on his death bed, weeping sores covering his skin, just as he was after the rescue team had skipped him back to Earth. He babbled, the radiation sickness frying him from the inside out. On the screen an infrared filter spotted a solar flare lash the station like a whip. The telescope zoomed in. Masses of doomed men and women pounded at the domed windows.

It was a research center, the same one dad had worked at.

What was I doing here? Watching people die? I wanted to stand up, to skip off, just…leave.

Lem felt the muscles in my back tense. I looked down at her hand on my arm. Grey. And so was my arm, except for the tattoos, all up and down my arms. When had I gotten those? In that sobering moment, I couldn’t remember half of the scribbles. An Earthen landscape sprawled across my left bicep, horribly inked by someone who’d never stepped foot on a planet. Who had done that one? Surely, not me. Hopefully, not me.

In the waning light, my tan was a figment of the past, a figment of Earth spinning below the domed station on the screen. I was a corpse, just like the rest of them, not an outsider. And we were kids no longer.

I tried to stand. Lem pulled me to her, licked my ear, “Baby it’s just getting good.”

“I think I should leave.”

I could hear her smile. “You can’t leave.”

Curtis C. Chen

Zugzwang

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction

* * *

“You lose,” Lieutenant Darrow said. “Again.”

He tipped over Erin’s game piece, the one they were calling the king. Ton-Gla-Ben wasn’t exactly like chess, but the mechanics were very similar, and the actual Quggano names were mostly unpronounceable by humans.

Erin hated chess. She also hated being stuck in this cargo bay, with the ship’s first officer running her through a crash course in alien game theory.

“How long have we been in here?” Erin asked.

Darrow checked his wristcom. “Not that long.” His atypical lack of precision meant it was longer than he wanted to say.

“This is useless,” Erin said.

“You just need more practice.” Darrow swept up the pieces. “Let’s try a different opening.”

“Tell me again why we can’t just cheat?” Erin asked. “I wear a hidden micro-cam, you coach me through an earpiece?”

Darrow shook his head. “The Quggano are honorable, and they enforce honor in others. The competition chamber is fully radiation-shielded. And you’ll be naked.”

“Right,” Erin said. “How could I forget the best part?” She was not looking forward to exposing her flabby, middle-aged body to a bunch of aliens. She wondered if there was still time to kill herself.

“Ready to go again?” Darrow reset the board to its starting position.

“Why are we even bothering?” Erin stood up. “I barely have time to learn this game, let alone get good at it. I might as well concede and save myself the humiliation.”

“If you forfeit, we all become prisoners of war.”

Erin groaned. She wanted to pace, but there was no room. The Myrmidon wasn’t designed to carry passengers. Most of this compartment was still taken up by supply crates.

It was pure dumb luck that Erin had ended up here. A piece of space debris had killed her stardrive, and she’d spent nearly a week adrift before the Myrmidon happened into range of her beacon. Unfortunately, a Quggano destroyer had also heard Erin’s distress call, and intercepted the Myrmidon right after they picked up Erin’s ship.

When Captain Yokota demanded a champion game—a variation on the ancient Quggano single-combat tradition—the aliens had named Erin as their opponent. That had surprised everyone on Myrmidon, but the Quggano’s rules did allow each side to select a specific enemy champion to challenge. It didn’t happen very often. Usually, neither side knew who was on the other ship, and the respective ship captains acted as champions by default. All of Myrmidon’s senior officers had been trained to play Ton-Gla-Ben, and the XO, Lieutenant Darrow, was the best. So he was teaching Erin.

“You could get lucky,” Darrow said. “You never know.”

Erin sighed and sat down again. “Fine. Not like I have anything better to do with my last few hours of life.”

“Wait,” Darrow said as she reached for a light pawn. “Say the word. You have to say it when you start the game.”

“I can’t say the damn word.”

“Just try. Please?”

Erin grumbled. “Gaalaann.”

“Close,” Darrow said. “But not quite. Gaalaann.”

“What the hell does it even mean?”

Darrow shrugged. “Who knows? It’s just part of the ritual. Come on, try again. More of an accent on the second syllable. Gaalaann.”

“I can’t hear the difference,” Erin said.

“Listen closely,” Darrow said.

The door chimed and slid open. Rayley, the ship’s science officer, burst into the room, looking very excited.

“We’ve got something,” Rayley said. “A way for you to win.”

* * *

“A kid?” Erin gaped. “They’ve got a child on board?”

The conference room display showed an interior scan of the enemy destroyer: an overlay of radar, thermal imaging, and other passive radiation scans. There was definitely some kind of smaller creature running back and forth between two adult Quggano, an indistinct blue-green blob flanked by large, eight-legged, insectoid forms. Erin felt like she was watching some kind of bizarre nature documentary.

“Rayley hacked into their comms,” Captain Yokota said. “The adults are some kind of state dignitary and his mate. Their presence aboard a destroyer is unusual, but not unheard of.”

“And now you can call out the child,” Rayley said. “Name him as your opponent.”

“You know it’s a boy?” Erin said.

“We know his name, his age, his bedtime—”

“It’s allowed,” Darrow said. “They never asked us to name an opponent. Most champion games involve the captains of the respective warships by default. The Quggano named Miss Bountain because they knew she was a civilian, and therefore hadn’t been trained to play Ton-Gla-Ben.”

“And neither has this kid,” Rayley said. “He won’t know anything about the game; his family’s not military caste. But he’s old enough to serve, according to their laws. They have to honor your champion request.”

“The losing champion dies.” Erin looked at the captain. “I’m not going to kill a kid. You must be considering other options.”

“Sure,” Yokota said. “I can blow up my ship.”

Erin blinked. “What?”

“Nobody here is going to become a Quggano POW,” Yokota said. “If you lose the game, we trigger the auto-destruct and hope we take those bastards with us.”

* * *

“This is the worst day of my life,” Erin said as she walked into the airlock.

“Stop saying that. You could still win,” Darrow said, joining her inside and closing the inner door behind them. “And win or lose, you’ll have more than done your part for the war effort. We’ve already transmitted a sitrep back to Fleet Command. Now that we know how the champion callout ritual works, we can target Quggano warships carrying civilians—”

“Great,” Erin said. “So I’m going to cause the deaths of more innocent people.”

Darrow stopped working the airlock controls and frowned at her. “They’re not people. They’re aliens.”

Erin felt a headache starting. “Anyone you can have meaningful communication with is a person,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re human, or alien, or some kind of hyperintelligent computer virus. Life is life.”

The airlock began cycling. Darrow turned back to face Erin and raised both hands, palms out in surrender. “I’m not qualified to argue philosophy with you, ma’am. All I’m saying is, we’re at war, and I’d rather it be us instead of them who wins.”

“Nobody wins if we’re all dead,” Erin said.

Darrow avoided her gaze, instead watching the airlock status lights very intently. “Miss Bountain, there is one thing I’d like to give you before you go in there.”

Erin stepped back. “Look, Darrow, I’m sure you’re a nice guy and all, but I don’t even know your first name—”

Darrow gave her a shocked look. “I’m not propositioning you.”

Erin hoped she wasn’t blushing too much. “Well, I am just about to take off all my clothes here.”

Darrow shook his head. “Not to boast, ma’am, but if we were going to do, um, that, I think I would last a little longer than the two minutes it’s going to take this airlock to finish cycling.”

“Fine. Sorry. My mistake.” Erin felt like dying already. “What is it you want to give me, then?”

Darrow reached into a tiny pouch hidden inside the left sleeve of his uniform jacket and pulled out a small red capsule. Erin didn’t need to ask what it was. She didn’t want to accept it, either, but Darrow pressed it into her hand.

“Hide it under your tongue,” he said, lowering his voice as if someone could eavesdrop over the noise of atmosphere filling the docking tunnel between Myrmidon and the Quggano ship. “It’s all organic compounds, even the capsule itself, so it won’t show up on any scans. If you need to use it, just bite down to break the seal. The chemicals will mix together and activate the—” He stopped and shrugged.

“Poison,” Erin said, finishing the sentence.

“It’s very fast-acting,” Darrow said, “and completely painless.”

“How the hell would you know?”

“Look,” Darrow said, “we don’t know what the Quggano do with the losing champions. But no human who goes into the competition chamber has ever come out again. If it looks like they’re going to do something that—if they’re going to torture you, or worse—this will let you end it quickly.”

Erin hated not being able to argue with him. She hated being afraid like this, feeling powerless and limited to only bad choices.

She took the capsule and shoved it under her tongue. It felt cold and hard, not merely lifeless but actively malignant. She hated knowing that she might actually welcome death soon.

The airlock finished cycling, and the bolts clanged open. Darrow pushed the door outward, and cold air billowed in from the docking tunnel. Erin shivered.

“Whenever you’re ready, ma’am,” Darrow said, turning his back. “Take your time.”

Erin unzipped her jacket. “Worst day of my life,” she muttered.

* * *

Erin didn’t quite understand why the Quggano insisted that both champions playing Ton-Gla-Ben had to be nude in the competition chamber. Sure, part of it was to enforce the no-cheating rule, making sure nobody could smuggle in any devices to give them an unfair advantage over their opponent, but according to Darrow, most of it was based in the Quggano warrior culture. Something about having to strip down to your birth essence to reveal your true nature in single combat, shedding any impediments which might distract from your own personal ability.

She pulled herself through the docking tunnel, doing her best to ignore the swaying of the cylindrical passage and to not think about the fact that there was only a thin membrane separating her from hard vacuum. The lack of gravity was a welcome novelty, though she did grumble when she reached the other ship’s gravity field and her breasts sagged again.

The Quggano airlock didn’t look too dissimilar from the Myrmidon’s, aside from the unfamiliar signage in their language. Erin briefly wondered if Darrow would find that a compelling argument for the aliens’ personhood.

There were also markings on the floor—not quite arrows, but definitely a line leading out from the airlock and down the corridor. Erin followed the line into the Quggano ship, suddenly self-conscious about her nude body. Why hadn’t she spent more time on the treadmill? Why hadn’t she stuck to a healthier diet? Why hadn’t she been more careful with her interstellar navigation?

Two Quggano guards met her at the entrance to the competition chamber. They looked like all the pictures she’d ever seen: tall and spindly, humanoid enough to be familiar but with enough buglike features to make them unnerving. She had no idea what the child would look like.

After the guards looked her over and passed a scanning wand across every part of her body, they opened the chamber door and motioned her forward. Erin was very proud of herself for not fainting or stumbling as she stepped inside. The door closed behind her.

In the center of the square room was a heavy round table with two stools. Another door was outlined on the far wall. A grid of illuminated strips cast light from above. The walls, floor, and ceiling were otherwise bare. Erin briefly wondered if every Quggano warship kept a special room set aside just for these contests, or if they hastily converted a cargo hold every time something like this came up.

She walked forward and sat down on the stool closer to her, which was mercifully padded with some kind of cloth. The only objects on the table were the Ton-Gla-Ben board and pieces. She looked around nervously, even though Darrow had assured her there would be no cameras or other recording sensors in here. It was some kind of point of honor that the two champions would face each other alone.

The game board had been oriented so that Erin was playing the dark side. That meant she would move second, and could be at a disadvantage. She wondered if her opponent would complain—or even notice—if she turned the board around, so that she would move first as the light side. Switching seats might be a bit obvious.

Erin picked up the dark king, which was heavier than she expected. The piece had been carved out of some kind of rock, apparently by hand. She could see that the lines cut into the sides of the conical shape were not quite straight. What kind of history did these objects have? Were they the Quggano captain’s personal effects? A family heirloom?

She sighed and put the game piece down. Maybe Darrow had the right idea. It would be easier to fight the Quggano if she didn’t think of them as people. But they were. Erin made her living as a merchant by treating all kinds of alien life forms as people. Her business was understanding what each species valued, and finding the most profitable way to trade between as many of them as possible. She didn’t judge those species which prized things she found distasteful, like cannibalism or slavery; she just didn’t do business with them. But she had to acknowledge that they were people. Maybe bad people, or just people she didn’t want to hang out with, but still people.

The door in the far wall slid open, and Erin’s opponent entered the chamber.

The child didn’t look like a miniature version of an adult Quggano, as Erin had thought it—he—might. Instead of walking upright on his four back limbs, he scuttled forward on all eight legs. The door slammed shut behind him, and Erin barely caught a glimpse of two adults—his parents, presumably—watching as their offspring crawled forth into battle.

How the hell did I wind up here?

The young Quggano climbed up onto the stool across from Erin. His body was squat and round. His dark, bulbous eyes reflected the ceiling lights. She couldn’t tell where he was actually looking; the Quggano’s fly-like ommatidia radiated in all directions. It felt like the kid was staring at her. She folded her arms to cover her bare breasts—which was silly; an alien wasn’t going to get turned on by her naked body. But it just felt wrong, to be unclothed in front of a child.

“Hi,” Erin said, after the silence had gone from awkward to weird. “I’m Erin. What’s your name?”

The kid tilted his head slightly.

“Erin,” she repeated, tapping her chest with one hand. She pointed at the kid. “What’s your name?”

The kid raised one foreleg, aimed it at Erin, and made a noise that could have been interpreted as “AAARRRNNN.”

Erin nodded and pointed at herself again. “Erin. Close enough. What’s your name?”

The kid touched its own thorax and said something like “MMMAAAKH,” with extra hissing at the end.

Erin stared for a moment. “Mikey?”

The kid repeated the sound and waved his antennae.

“Mikey,” Erin repeated. “So. Nice weather we’re having, eh?”

“GAALAANN,” Mikey said.

He reached out with two limbs, picked up a light pawn, and moved it into the center of the board. The surface glowed momentarily, just as Darrow had predicted: it was recording each move, for archival purposes. It would also send a signal outside the chamber when the game ended. That was the only communication permitted between this chamber and the outside world for the duration of the contest.

“Well,” Erin sighed, “I guess we’re getting right down to business.”

She pushed a dark pawn forward to block the light pawn from advancing. Mikey immediately grabbed one of his tall-bishops and shoved it forward.

Erin frowned, her hand hovering over the board. Why did this seem familiar?

“Light pawn to center,” she murmured to herself. “Dark pawn to block, tall-bishop forward, then…”

She remembered. This was one of the first game openings Darrow had taught her, a simple strategy he called “tower defense.” Erin lifted one of her side-rooks and moved it up next to her pawn, watching Mikey’s expression. His mandibles twitched, but she had no idea what that meant.

As soon as Erin released her side-rook, Mikey moved his other tall-bishop into position to threaten the leftmost of her three knights. Completely by the book.

Was this kid just playing by rote? Did he have any idea what he’d been dropped into here? That he was literally fighting for his life?

Erin’s vision blurred. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at Mikey again. She had no idea what he was thinking, and she couldn’t ask him, given the language barrier. They couldn’t even talk about what was happening. They just had to go through with this ritual, and then one of them had to die.

It was an impossible choice. She knew how to break through Mikey’s tower defense—if that was what he was playing—but she couldn’t condemn this kid to death just because he didn’t know how to play a damn game.

On the other hand, how could she sentence the entire crew of the Myrmidon to death, just because she couldn’t stand the thought of being a murderer? Was her own psychological well-being worth all those hundreds of lives?

Mikey made a noise, jolting her back to the game. Erin interpreted his utterance as impatience, and she reflexively made the next textbook move, sliding her other side-rook forward to defend her knight.

As soon as her hand released the dark piece, Mikey moved his tall-bishop in for the kill, using another arm to remove the dark knight and set it on the table beside the game board. He lifted his head and made a cawing noise that might have been laughter.

Erin shook her head. He was playing exactly the way Darrow had shown her not to. Sure, Mikey’s tall-bishop was now inside her lines, but he had left himself wide open to a counterattack. Erin could take out his tall-bishop with her side-rook, then send her other two knights in through the opening he had just made. She could decimate his pieces in half a dozen moves. There was still no guarantee that she would win, but if all Mikey knew about Ton-Gla-Ben was what he’d read in a book, she actually had a fighting chance.

“AAARRNNN,” Mikey said, fluttering his antennae. He tapped the table with two legs. “AAARRNNN GAALAANN.”

“Okay, okay,” Erin said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

She captured his tall-bishop with her side-rook. Mikey stared silently for a moment, then moved his other tall-bishop forward, setting up to capture her side-rook.

Erin gaped for a moment. He’d just gone off-book, but not in a good way. There was no advantage to taking her side-rook now. Sending his other tall-bishop in was an obvious mistake. Was he just baiting her? Testing to see what this dumb human would do?

“What the hell are you doing?” Erin muttered.

She decided to do something off the wall. She took her rightmost pawn and shoved it forward. The move was completely irrelevant to everything that had happened in the game so far. Would Mikey ignore it and take her side-rook in an act of short-sighted vengeance?

He didn’t. He moved his own light pawn forward, blocking the dark pawn she’d just released. Now they were deadlocked, removing an entire section of the board from play.

Erin frowned at him. “What the hell are you doing?” she said out loud.

She grabbed her leftmost pawn and moved it out, mirroring her last move. Once again, Mikey blocked with his own pawn. Now two entire lanes were unplayable.

“What the hell are you doing?” Erin repeated.

He stared back at her with giant, unblinking eyes. “GAALAANN.”

Erin looked down at the board, then up at Mikey again. If he was going to play like this—short-sighted, reacting to low-value captures, focused on retaliation and spite instead of long-term gain—there was a very good chance Erin could beat him. And this was a single contest, not some kind of tournament.

One game, and then one of them would die.

“GAALAANN,” Mikey repeated, tapping four arms on the table.

Impatient. Childlike.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t send this kid to his death. She couldn’t live with herself if she did that.

If Captain Yokota chose to blow up his ship and kill his own crew, that was on him. That wouldn’t be Erin’s fault. It wasn’t her fault that the Quggano had named her to play this stupid game, or that this idiotic war was happening in the first place.

But it would be her fault if she killed this child.

Her hand trembled as she reached forward and picked up a dark short-bishop. It was entirely too early in the game for her to send it forward, especially now that every piece would be channeled into the center of the board, but it was the surest way to guarantee a quick loss. Once her short-bishops were gone, she would have no close-in defenses for her king.

She dropped the short-bishop onto the board and withdrew her hand. She looked up at Mikey.

“You’re not that dumb,” she said. “Come on, let’s just get this over with.”

He tilted his head at her. He leaned forward to study the board. Then he picked up a light side-rook and moved it up behind the light pawn in his left side lane.

Erin blinked. He had just locked up that piece, too. Nobody was moving out of the side lanes until one of those pawns got captured, and that wasn’t going to happen until somebody risked sacrificing a knight to do it.

“Look,” Erin said, moving her center knight into position to attack the light pawn in her right side lane. “Look. See that? What do you do about that? Come on, this is basic—”

Mikey seized his other side-rook and placed it behind his right side lane pawn.

“What the hell are you doing?” Erin stood up. Her hands clutched the sides of her head. “Oh my God, what are you doing?”

Mikey tilted his head up toward her. “GAALAANN.”

Erin folded her arms and sat down. “Don’t tell me. That word does not mean what I think it means.”

Mikey repeated the sound. Erin strained to hear any difference in inflection or tone, but her human ears hadn’t been trained to understand Quggano. Mikey waved his arms at the board. Erin felt anger warming her cheeks.

“No,” she said. “Fuck you, kid. There is no way I’m winning this game. Fuck. You.”

With the last two syllables, she picked up and then dropped her third knight, putting it right in front of a light short-bishop. It was a ridiculously dumb move, exposing her to at least three different attacks, and it should have been irresistible to any opponent.

Mikey ignored the knight and moved his tall-bishop out of attack position.

Erin couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She looked over the board, then looked it over again. Both light and dark positions were a mess. There was a chance that they could both end up blocking all possible avenues of attack and—

She gasped and looked up at Mikey. He tapped his arms on the table next to the board, dancing between the light side-rooks and pawns in the outermost lanes. The lanes which were now completely blocked.

He hadn’t been impatient. He had been trying to draw her attention to his strategy.

“Smart kid,” Erin said, smiling. “All right, short stack. Let’s do this. Gaalaann.”

She moved another short-bishop into the center of the board. Mikey made that cawing-laughter noise again, then moved one of his own short-bishops forward. Yes. Erin could see it now. She could see exactly what he was doing, and what he wanted her to do.

Neither of them wanted to win this game. Neither of them wanted to be a killer.

They were going to work together to reach a stalemate.

She tried not to think about what would happen after they finished the game. Darrow hadn’t briefed her on what the Quggano would do with the champions if their contest ended in a draw. She expected it wasn’t a possibility in single combat. Even with Ton-Gla-Ben, stalemate was rare, because it was easy to exploit even the smallest mistake.

But neither Erin or Mikey was trying to win this game. They weren’t trying to find an optimal strategy; they were actively working against themselves, cutting off lanes, blocking their own pieces, doing things that no serious player would ever consider. And they were both pretty good at playing badly.

She didn’t know how long it took, but when Mikey made the last move—jamming a pawn into a circle of pieces surrounding the dark king, ensuring that nothing could get through—the entire board surface flashed. Whatever intelligence was built into it must have been able to tell that no further moves were possible. They had reached a verifiable stalemate condition.

Mikey pulled his arms back and waved them in the air.

Erin said, “Now what?”

Both chamber doors clanged open. Four Quggano guards, looking even bigger and more menacing now that Erin had gotten used to seeing Mikey’s compact form, stomped into the chamber and grabbed Erin and Mikey. Erin didn’t even have time to say good-bye, or offer a handshake to her opponent. She hoped they weren’t both being taken away to be executed. Was not winning the same thing as losing?

* * *

Erin shivered as refrigerated oxygen cycled into the Myrmidon’s airlock. She clutched her bundle of clothes against her private parts. The shivering was partly due to the cold air, but mostly because she’d had no idea what the Quggano would do to her for throwing the game, and she had feared the worst.

She had been pleasantly surprised when they escorted her back through the docking tunnel with remarkable grace and used their unexpectedly gentle pincers to nudge her into the airlock, where her clothes were still waiting in a pile on the floor. It would take her a few minutes to get over being scared out of her mind.

Lieutenant Darrow rushed forward as the airlock doors opened and threw a scratchy Fleet-issue gray blanket over Erin’s shoulders. He guided her onto a bench in the corridor. A crewman waiting there handed Erin a cup of something dark and warm. Erin spat out the red capsule under her tongue, sending it skittering across the deck, and watched the crewman race after it.

“You did it,” Darrow said. “I don’t believe it. I mean, it’s great that you won—”

“I didn’t win,” Erin said, pulling the blanket around herself. She felt not just cold, but numb. She gulped down the warm liquid. It might have been coffee, but the important thing was, it was warm.

Darrow frowned and knelt down next to her. “What do you mean, you didn’t win? They let you go.”

“S-stalemate,” Erin stuttered. She took another drink. Her fingertips tingled as feeling returned to them. “Nobody won.”

“That’s—” Darrow stood up, his mouth open. “I’ve never heard of that happening before.”

Erin chuckled. “First time for everything, I guess.”

Darrow’s wristcom chirped. He raised it to his face. “Darrow here.”

“This is the captain,” came Yokota’s voice. “Get Miss Bountain up to the bridge. The Quggano want to talk to her.”

* * *

Erin was glad that Darrow delayed the lift long enough for her to put on her clothes. Everyone on the bridge watched as she and Darrow walked out of the lift and over to where the captain stood, in front of the main viewscreen.

The display showed the Quggano bridge, with a similar array of personnel: the captain, wearing his ceremonial sash, in the middle; next to him, another officer; behind them, Mikey, flanked by his parents; and the rest of the crew at attention. Two dozen alien eyes stared out from the screen, dark orbs rotating back and forth occasionally. The Quggano stood perfectly still otherwise.

“Here she is,” Captain Yokota said, motioning for Erin to stand next to him. “Our champion, Erin Bountain of Earth.”

His eyes flashed a what-the-hell-is-going-on look at her. She shrugged and wondered what to do with her hands while the Quggano translator relayed Captain Yokota’s message. She settled for folding her arms across her chest. No need for everyone on the bridge to see how cold she was.

“Captain FFRRHHHD congratulates both champions on their performance in the contest,” the translator said. “It is an unusual outcome, but surely speaks to the skill of the competitors.”

“Thank you, Captain Fred,” Erin said. She heard someone cough behind her and saw Yokota shooting a dirty look over his shoulder. “I feel honored to have played Ton-Gla-Ben with a challenger as adept as Mikey.”

This time, someone actually laughed out loud. Yokota snapped his fingers and pointed at the lift. Erin heard footsteps behind her.

“As tradition dictates, we will now open peace negotiations,” the translator said.

“What?” Erin said.

“We accept,” Yokota said, stepping forward. “Please let me offer—”

“Excuse me, Captain,” the translator said. “Negotiations will proceed between our two champions.”

“What?” Yokota said.

“They have proven themselves in the contest,” the translator said. “They now represent our respective species in this proceeding. I will translate for Champion MMMAAAKH.” He gestured with one arm, and Mikey’s parents reluctantly released him.

“Get them to a conference table,” Yokota said to Erin, under his breath. “Do not say anything else. You get them to the table, and then you hand off to me. You got that?”

“Don’t worry, Captain,” Erin replied. “I got this.”

She ignored his glare and stepped forward to meet Mikey’s image.

“Good game,” she said.

The translator conveyed her message. Mikey said something in response.

“Champion MMMAAAKH respectfully requests a rematch,” the translator said. “At your convenience, purely for sport.”

Erin smiled. “Tell him I’m ready. Anytime, anywhere. Gaalaann.”

Mikey waved his antennae and made that cawing sound again. The translator seemed confused. “Apologies, Champion Erin, I am not certain I understand your meaning.”

“Gaalaann. It’s what you say when you begin a game of Ton-Gla-Ben, right?”

“That is the tradition,” the translator said. “However, the word itself can convey other nuances.”

Erin glanced at Darrow. “Like what?”

The translator flicked one antenna. “It denotes a challenge, but the specific context can apply other connotations. In the most literal sense, I believe it would translate as: ‘Follow me, if you are able.’ What did you mean to say?”

Erin smiled at the people on the viewscreen. “That’s exactly what I meant.”

Making Waves

Originally published by SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

* * *

"You check those corners, sailor?" the Chief of the Boat barked. "Those lines are off by half a degree and our visitor doesn’t materialize!"

"Re-measuring now, Master Chief!"

The COB was exaggerating, but I’d learned early in my naval career not to argue with a superior. If it wasn’t likely to kill me, I just did it.

I placed my protractor on the dowstone panel we had strapped to the deck and re-checked all the angles in the chalked pentagram, then inspected every stroke of every rune around the circle. Then I climbed the ladder and verified the matching dowstone on the ceiling. Satisfied both stones would activate correctly, I stepped back and reported my progress.

"Very well," the COB grumbled. "Rosebud!"

The seaman’s real name was Roseler, but after that Orson Welles flick, everyone called him ‘Rosebud’ as a tease. He jumped forward, holding his clipboard. I did my best to get out of the way. The COB’s quarters weren’t exactly spacious. Roseler and I didn’t both need to be here, but we were apparently the only two sailors on the Bowfin rated for magic, and the Master Chief wanted us to double-check each other.

"You got the incantations there?" the COB asked Roseler.

"Aye, Master Chief!" Roseler said, his voice cracking. And people said I sounded like a girl.

"Corrected for position and depth?"

"Aye, Master Chief! I’ve got the math right here—"

"I can’t read your damn chicken scratches." The COB waved the clipboard away and checked his wristwatch. "Rendezvous in twenty seconds. Make sure you’re doing it right."

Roseler looked like he might cry. "M-maybe you’d like to do it yourself, Master Chief?"

"Do I look like a motherfucking magician?" the COB roared into Roseler’s face. Their noses couldn’t have been more than half an inch apart. "Now incant that fucking spell so we can receive our goddamn visitor!"

"Aye, Master Chief!" Roseler buried his face in the clipboard. I made a fist with one hand, ready to give him a kidney-punch if I heard the slightest mispronunciation. I didn’t want to be within a hundred yards of the Bowfin if anything went wrong on the receiving end of this teleport.

"Five seconds, sailor!" the COB shouted.

"Aye, Master Chief!" Roseler began making unnatural noises with his mouth. "Hagitaa, moro-ven-schaa, inlum’taa…"

Both pentagrams pulsed blue and white. Roseler finished the incantation, only going a little flat on the last syllable, and a pillar of light flashed into being between the two circles. A moment later, the light faded, and an officer stood inside the pentagram, carrying a large suitcase and wearing a…skirt?

"Permission to come aboard, Master Chief," the woman said.

She looked to be about my mother’s age. Unlike my mother, she wore lieutenant’s bars and the most perfect makeup I’d ever seen. But the expression on her face and the fact that she’d just teleported nearly seven thousand miles onto a submerged attack boat in the South Pacific told me she wasn’t here to entertain anyone. Her nametag read: MARKEY.

"Permission granted, ma’am," the COB said without missing a beat. I guess you don’t get to be a Master Chief by balking at the unexpected. "Sorry the captain couldn’t be here to greet you himself. We’re playing hide and seek with the Japs."

As if on cue, the entire boat groaned and rolled to starboard. I was impressed that the lieutenant kept her balance in those heels.

The COB shoved Roseler and me back. "If you’ll follow me, ma’am?"

Markey looked at the pentagrams. "You’re not going to clean this up?"

"These two can handle—"

"You secure those surfaces, Master Chief," Markey snapped. She looked straight at me. "You. What’s your name?"

I blinked, surprised that she would address me directly. "Uh, Hatcher, ma’am."

Markey nodded. "Seaman Hatcher can escort me to see the captain."

* * *

"A kraken?" Captain Channing glared at Lieutenant Markey. "Is this a joke?"

Everyone else in the control room, myself included, was doing their best to listen in without looking like they were eavesdropping. Markey had handed over an official envelope from COMSUBPAC, and the captain and XO had verified the code sigils with their authorization amulets before unsealing the Bowfin's new orders.

"No joke, Captain," Markey said.

"We’re at war, and some egghead in OP-20-G wants us to go hunting for a sea monster?" The captain turned over the paper in his hand as if looking for something more on the back. "What makes you think this creature even exists?"

"The Japanese are very chatty," Markey said. "They don’t know we’ve broken their codes, and they talk about all kinds of things over the wireless. Lately they’ve been diverting their ships away from the western side of Kyushu Island, to avoid disturbing something they call nemuru kaiju—a sleeping beast. Surely you’ve noticed the changes in your patrol routes."

"Yeah, we noticed," the captain said. "But maybe they do know you’ve cracked their codes and this is a trap. We’ve been doing a lot of damage to their merchant fleet. They must be looking for ways to kill more of our subs."

"I’m not here for a conference, Captain," Markey said. "You have your orders."

"I’ve got a question," the XO said.

Markey looked up at him. "Yes?"

"Let’s suppose this kraken is real," the XO drawled, "and as powerful as you say it is. How come the Japs haven’t already woken it up and sicced it on us?"

"The people of Japan live on a collection of small islands surrounded by the entire Pacific Ocean," Markey said. "Most of their mythology tells of how dangerous the sea and its inhabitants can be. They live with that danger every day. The Japanese aren’t going to risk waking the monsters under their bed." She turned back to the captain. "But we can."

"Okay, fine," the captain said. "If the Japs are busy fighting off this kraken, they’re not making war on us. Good plan. But we have to find the damn thing first."

Markey smiled. "That’s why I’m here, Captain."

* * *

Lieutenant Markey insisted on using the head right after leaving the control room. I didn’t understand why she would need to piss when it had been only minutes since she’d left the comfort of Main Navy. There was no privacy door for the toilet, so I stood in front of Markey with my back turned while she squatted. My body also blocked the sound of her voice when she spoke.

"So how long have you been using that glamour, Miss Hatcher?"

My stomach leapt into my throat and my heart rate must have tripled. I was glad she couldn’t see my face. "I’m sorry, ma’am, I’m not sure what you mean."

"Please. I know a conjured disguise when I see one. Can I give you some advice?"

My fear soured to irritation. "Can I stop you, ma’am?"

"You need better scent concealment," Markey said. "I’m guessing that’s a fake bandage on your hand, to explain the smell of blood, right? But that trick won’t work every month. And you don’t want to get a reputation for being clumsy."

My hands were both behind my back, at parade rest, and I fidgeted with my bandaged left palm. "Do you have a suggestion, ma’am? Other than dousing myself with cheap cologne?"

"Yes." Markey stood and flushed. "But we should talk in private."

* * *

The COB wasn’t happy about giving up his quarters for our visitor, but the captain refused to have a woman sharing rack space with a bunch of sailors. I wondered what he would do if he ever found out the truth about me.

Markey interrupted the COB as he and I were preparing to carry his personal effects to a temporary bunk. "Excuse me, Master Chief. I’d like to speak to Seaman Hatcher alone."

I winced. The COB looked from Markey to me and back again, his eyes wide. I had no doubt I’d get a good yelling-at later. "Of course, ma’am." He glared at me. "You know where to find me, Seaman."

"Aye, COB," I said. He shut the door behind him.

I turned back to Markey, who was already making herself comfortable on the COB’s bed. She kicked off her shoes and rubbed the soles of her feet.

"With all due respect, ma’am," I said, "I’m trying to not call attention to myself here—"

"Relax," Markey said. "I’m just a crazy dame from Washington. They won’t suspect anything. Now."

She reached into her wavy hair and pulled out a bobby pin. Then she twisted the metal—it looked like copper—until it became an impossible shape, and even I could see the energy rippling off its surface like a heat mirage.

"You’re using a visual glamour," she said. "This will extend the illusion to mask odors. Just keep it in contact with your skin at all times."

She held out the object and I took it with a trembling hand. If Lieutenant Markey could turn a bobby pin into a charged talisman, and if the Navy had sent her, alone, to locate a kraken, she would be one hell of a powerful friend to have.

She also scared the shit out of me. People who seem too competent always make me nervous.

"Thank you, ma’am," I said. "This is—I mean, I don’t know how I can repay you." What I really meant was: I don’t know why you’re helping me.

"Well," Markey said, "you can start by finding me some trousers and boots. I don’t plan to spend the next two weeks showing off my legs."

"Yes, ma’am." I tucked the hairpin under the bandage wrapped around my left hand. "If there’s nothing else?"

Markey looked at me with dark, unfathomable eyes. "Tell me how you ended up here."

"In the Navy?" That was easy: I wanted to kill Japs. I tried to think of a nicer way to say it.

"On the Bowfin," she said.

I frowned. "I didn’t exactly get to choose my posting."

Markey shook her head. "Why disguise yourself as a man?"

I should have figured she’d ask that. "I knew Uncle Sam wouldn’t let a girl do any real fighting. And that’s bullshit. Pardon my French."

"Why do you want to fight?"

"You’re kidding, right?" I gaped at her. "They attacked us! Stabbed their damn aluminum planes through the Pacific defense screens and into Pearl Harbor. I was born in Honolulu. When I saw the photos—all that black smoke filling our sky—I hated them. I wanted revenge, I’m not afraid to say it."

I felt my hands shaking, and I folded my arms to hide them. "Not to mention their Nazi pals are killing or enslaving their way through all of Europe. If we don’t stop the Axis, ma’am, they’re going to take over the world, and I don’t want to live in that world."

Markey nodded and seemed to relax. "Sorry to interrogate you like that, Hatcher, but I’m never sure whether to trust people in disguise."

"Yeah, well, we can’t all look like movie stars."

"Don’t imagine for a second that makes things any easier for me," she snapped. "And I will thank you to address me as Lieutenant or ma’am, Seaman Hatcher."

I looked down at the floor, my face warm. "Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am."

"This is not a costume I’m wearing." Markey touched her uniform. "I earned my rank. I had to fight to get this job, and I fight every day to keep it.

"Yes, there are advantages to men finding you beautiful, but that perception also limits you. They think all you are is a pretty face and a nice body. They only care about what they can see." She shrugged. "But I don’t have to tell you how appearances can be deceiving."

"No, ma’am."

Markey sighed. "What you’re doing now is very brave, Hatcher. But when this war is over, you’ll have to go back home—back to being a woman. Have you thought about how you’re going to handle that?"

"Well, ma’am, since most of my time in the Navy’s been spent cleaning one thing or another, I expect I’ll be well trained to be a housewife." My words came out sounding more bitter than I intended.

"You have the talent, Hatcher," Markey said. "More than that, you clearly have the will. These two things are powerful in combination."

This conversation was becoming very uncomfortable. "With all due respect, ma’am, why the hell do you care? You don’t even know me."

Markey stood and walked over to me. "I won’t be pretty forever. I’ll get old, and men won’t want me anymore. But this?" She held up a hand, then snapped her fingers to create an illusory flame bobbing in midair. "The talent will be with me until the day I die. And to know that, to have that and not use it for something good—that would be such a waste."

I couldn’t decipher the expression on her face. Was she feeling some misplaced maternal pity for me? Or did she have another agenda?

After a moment, I decided I really didn’t care.

"Thanks for the advice, ma’am," I said, "but we both have to survive the fucking war first."

The floating fire winked out. "Dismissed."

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

* * *

I did my best to avoid Lieutenant Markey for the next several days. It wasn’t easy, since we were both stuck on the same three-hundred-foot, sixty-person submarine. And it wasn’t that I didn’t respect her. She clearly had major pull in OP-20-G to rate a teleport halfway around the planet. But she was calling as much attention to me as she was to herself, and I didn’t need that kind of exposure.

Fortunately, she spent most of her time in the control room or the conning tower, doing whatever she did to track down the mythical kraken, and I was assigned to the aft torpedo compartment. The captain had decided we would fire the fish from there once we were ready to wake the beast—we’d be facing away and ready to run like hell.

Markey had brought aboard divining bolts to replace the magnetic detonators in our Mark 14s. The magnets were supposed to explode a torpedo right underneath a ship’s hull, causing more damage than a broadside impact, but the damn things had never worked right. Markey’s instructions were to replace the magnets with D-bolts, which would make our fish detect monsters instead of metal.

The plan was to find the kraken, poke it with a couple of torpedoes, then skedaddle before it was fully aware of its surroundings. The kraken’s reported location was close enough to populated areas that it should—should—hear the noise from those cities and move toward Japan instead of anywhere else.

Working on the torpedoes occupied me for most of the time, but Markey’s questions kept bugging me. What was I going to do after the war ended?

Maybe I wouldn’t survive. Maybe that would be the best outcome for everyone: if I died in the line of duty, and my family didn’t find out until later what had happened to their daughter—that she’d given her life for her country.

Maybe they’d be proud of me. And maybe the good ol' U-S-of-A would stop questioning our loyalty then.

I hadn’t thought about my future in a while—not since I first enlisted. It had always angered me to know how limited my options were, and now I was angry at Markey for reminding me, for making me worry about things I couldn’t change. That’s what I was thinking about that day, when the COB pulled Roseler and me out of the torpedo bay for another special assignment.

* * *

"We’re submerged in hostile waters, less than a hundred miles from enemy shore," the captain said as I climbed into the conning tower. "We can’t surface, and we can’t outrun anything that swims. Anything goes wrong here and we are fucked."

He was talking to Lieutenant Markey. Roseler was already crowded into the tight space around the periscope. I handed him the Bowfin's codex, which I had retrieved from the control room. He gave me a clipboard and a frantic look as I wedged myself into a corner next to the captain and the COB. It didn’t seem like all five of us needed to be here, but I wasn’t going to debate that.

"This will be a one-way tunnel," Markey said. She might actually have looked better in trousers than a skirt. I tried my best not to feel jealous and failed. "There’s no danger of us being detected."

"But why does Rosebud have to do the spell?" the COB asked. "Aren’t you the professional, Lieutenant?"

"Seaman Roseler is doing the easy part," Markey said. "We don’t have a focus object, so I’ll need to guide the far end of the tunnel."

The COB did a double take. "You’re going to be his crystal ball?"

Markey sighed and looked at the captain. "We can spend all day discussing the finer points of scrying procedure, Captain, or we can get this done."

"Carry on, Lieutenant," the captain said.

I made as little eye contact with Markey as possible while she read off map coordinates for me to inscribe. I joined our target location and Bowfin's mantic signature into the spell, combining sonants and inflects from the codex reference tables and triple-checking each finished sequence. In principle, writing up the scry tunnel was simpler than describing a teleport path, but I did not want to be on the hook if this thing went sideways.

A few minutes later, Roseler and Markey were holding hands, their eyes closed as Roseler recited the full incantation.

Next to me, the captain muttered, "I’ll be glad when we’re done with all this black magic bullshit."

"Yes, sir," I said.

He glanced over as if noticing me for the first time. "Your family have talent, Seaman?"

I thought of my grandmother. She had introduced me to the occult, sneaking some mystical instruction into my language lessons every week. We never told my parents. They would have disapproved, to say the least.

I said, "Not that I’m aware of, sir."

"Thank fucking God," the COB said, on my other side. "Give me science and engineering any day of the week. I don’t trust anything I can’t take apart and see how it works—"

Roseler started screaming. It came suddenly, without even an intake of breath, and the sound was inhuman. He shrieked like an animal caught in a trap. I dropped the clipboard and covered my ears with both hands.

"Get the doc!" Markey shouted. "We need a tranquilizer!" Roseler’s body began convulsing. She wrestled him to the deck. "Hatcher! Help me hold him down!"

The captain leaned down the ladder and yelled for the corpsman. I jumped over him and grabbed Roseler’s shoulders. His eyes had rolled back into his head. He was still screaming, and his legs kicked around despite Markey’s iron grip.

"What the hell’s wrong with him?" the COB asked.

"He made contact!" Markey said. "Dammit, COB, you didn’t tell me he was a sensitive!"

"How the fuck were we supposed to know?" the COB said.

My stomach knotted. Not because I was concerned for Roseler, but because I was afraid if he died, Markey would order me to incant her spells.

"As you were, both of you!" the captain said over the screaming. I could swear Roseler hadn’t taken a breath in more than a minute. "Doc’s on his way. Now how do we—"

Roseler stopped screaming. His mouth closed, then opened again, and he said a word which was not a word.

My head exploded with pain. No, pain’s not the right thing to call it. It wasn’t just that I hurt. When that not-word entered my brain, suddenly nothing in the world seemed right. What I saw, what I heard, what I felt—from the dinner I was still digesting to gravity itself—everything was wrong, and my body wanted it to stop.

I saw the captain fall to his knees, clutching for a handhold. A dark stain spread across the front of his trousers. Behind him, the COB vomited all over one wall of the compartment. Markey doubled over, blood dripping from her nose.

Roseler’s lips parted again. I slapped both hands over the bottom half of his face before he could make another sound. He kept shaking, and the only thing I could think was: I’ll kill him if I have to. How do I kill him? What’s the fastest way to kill him?

"Good," Markey grunted, pressing her hands over mine. She turned her head and spat out a mouthful of thick, dark blood. "Keep him quiet until we can sedate him."

"What the fuck just happened?" I asked.

"Our intel was wrong," Markey said. "They’re not kraken."

Some small part of me was happy that she’d screwed up. Most of me wanted to shit my pants. Then my brain finished processing Markey’s words.

"Wait, they?" The urge to empty my bowels increased. "There’s more than one?"

* * *

By the time the corpsman had chloroformed Roseler and tied him down to the bunk in Markey’s quarters—she ordered him gagged and isolated; nobody argued—I had finished collecting all our gear out of the conning tower and cleaning it off. The captain and the COB had changed into fresh uniforms and regrouped in the control room. They argued with the XO in low tones as I stowed the codex above the weapons station, locked the safebox, and returned the key to the captain.

I was just about to leave the control room when Lieutenant Markey came in, blocking my exit. Her face and uniform were still smeared with blood. Most of the officers and crew looked away. I backed myself into a corner and did my best to seem small.

"Two knots, Captain," the helmsman whispered. We had been running silent since we made contact with the monsters.

"Very well," the captain said. He turned to Markey. "Lieutenant, what are these torpedoes going to do to the kraken?"

"I’m aborting the mission, Captain," Markey said.

The captain frowned. "Come again?"

"We cannot disturb those Things," Markey said, lowering her voice. "We need to get the hell out of here."

"Oh, we’re moving," the captain said. "But we did not come all the way into the goddamn lion’s den just to have a look-see. We are going to do some fucking damage before we leave."

"Aft tubes loaded, Captain," the weapons officer said behind me.

"The intel was bad," Markey said. "Those are not kraken out there. They are Elder Things. Two of them."

"Older than what?" the XO asked.

"Elder," Markey repeated. "Not older. Elder Things."

I didn’t recognize the name, but ‘elder’ usually refers to something supernatural that’s had centuries to develop its powers. And that’s always bad news.

"That’s not real descriptive," the XO said.

"They are unlike any other life form in Creation," Markey said. "We don’t know what to call them, except…Things."

"I don’t care what fucking kind of sea monsters they are," the captain said. "I just want to know what’s going to happen when we wake them up. The Mark 14s have a nine-thousand-yard range—"

Markey stepped closer and glared at the captain. "I don’t know what will happen if we disturb those Things, Captain. But it’s going to be at least a thousand times worse than what happened to Seaman Roseler."

"I don’t care," the captain said, "as long as it happens to the Japs and not us. Now how far away do we need to be when we shoot off these fish?"

"No," Markey said, her voice tight. "Elder Things are not just monsters. They are the worst monsters ever. They are beyond imagination. You saw—you felt what a single word in their language did to us."

I shivered at the thought of what might have happened if we hadn’t silenced Roseler. The sounds and symbols we use for magic aren’t human—they’re ancient, prehistoric—and we don’t even understand how most of them work.

"Cults have worshipped Elder Things as deities—Old Gods," Markey continued. "Do you understand? The mere sight of one can cause madness. If these two Things wake up, it could mean the end of the world."

The XO grunted. "You just said you didn’t know what would happen. Now you’re saying it’s Arma-fucking-geddon. Which is it, Lieutenant?"

Markey replied without breaking off her staring contest with the captain. "We don’t know exactly how bad it would get. But I am not authorized to take that chance. And neither are you, Captain."

"Then you get authorization," the captain said. "Use a comm spell to contact your superiors."

"I can’t," Markey said. "We’re too deep. Too much water, too much iron." She touched a pipe above her head. Both of those substances restricted the range of any enchantment. It was tough enough for me to maintain my glamour in this steel tube; there was no way she could send a message through several hundred feet of seawater.

"Eighty-five hundred yards, Captain," the helmsman said.

"Eighty-five hundred, aye," the captain repeated. "Weapons, flood aft torpedo tubes."

"Aye, sir, flooding aft tubes," the weapons officer said.

My stomach fluttered, but it wasn’t fear. It took me a moment to understand that I was actually excited. I wanted the captain to go through with this.

"Captain," Markey said. She clenched both her hands into fists. Was she actually thinking about throwing a punch? "Listen to me, please."

"Master Chief, get our latest orders and bring them in here," the captain said.

"Aye, sir." The COB turned and maneuvered his way forward.

"Lieutenant, in seven minutes we’re out of range and we don’t get another shot at this." The captain spoke softly but firmly. "So we’re both going to look at those orders and see precisely what the fuck we’re authorized to do."

"Listen to me, Captain," Markey said with an unnatural calm. "You cannot do this. You cannot unleash those Things upon the world."

Why not? I thought. The Japs brought the war to us. The least we can do is return the favor.

"Aft tubes flooded, sir," the weapons officer reported.

"Open outer doors," the captain said.

"Opening outer doors, aye."

Yes. Hell yes. I wanted us to shoot off those fish. I wanted those monsters to wake up and destroy our enemies. So what if we got caught in the crossfire? This was war. One little submarine for untold devastation on their shores was more than a fair trade.

And if I died out here, I would never have to worry about going home. I would never again need to worry about fitting in, either with or without a disguise.

The sea would take me, and the sea didn’t care about my race, sex, or skin color.

The COB shoved his way back into the control room. "Our orders, Captain."

The captain took the folded paper. "Thank you, Master Chief."

"Eighty-eight hundred yards, Captain," the helmsman said.

"Very well." The captain unfolded the orders. His eyes scanned across the page once, twice, three times. How many times was he going to read it?

I looked at the clock above the weapons station. Less than two minutes until we were out of torpedo range. And what if the captain decided to abort?

No. I had decided. If Captain Channing was just going to stand there with his thumb up his ass, if Markey didn’t have the balls to follow through on her own goddamn orders, I would fucking do it myself.

The weapons officer on duty was Lieutenant Goldman. I didn’t know him well, but I had played a trick on him in the mess hall once, making him think he was taking the last piece of cake. In fact, he had grabbed a bowl of coleslaw, and I got that delicious cake.

I had glamoured him once, and I could do it again.

I moved toward the weapons station, wriggling between other sailors and around their control stations. I had to be close for this to work. I closed my left hand into a fist to help focus my energies. My disguise might falter for a second when I bore the new glamour, but nobody here was watching me anyway.

The captain looked up from his orders.

"Captain?" Markey said quietly.

The captain handed her the paper. "Weps, close outer doors and stand down."

That’s what he actually said. What Goldman heard, loud and clear, was: "Fire torpedoes."

* * *

I don’t know how long it took for the commotion in the control room to settle down. As soon as our fish flew out the back door, the captain ordered Goldman placed under arrest, and the COB and the XO seized him. I followed them out of the control room, hoping to slip away in the chaos, but Markey grabbed me and dragged me back to her quarters. I hadn’t expected her to be so strong.

"Why?" she asked after locking us inside. "Why did you do it, Hatcher?"

I stared her down and spoke slowly. "Do what, ma’am?"

She shook her head. "It’s my own fault. I should have been paying more attention to you instead of the captain."

There was something about the way she said that—"Jesus fuck. You! You put a glamour on the captain."

"Nice to meet you, too, kettle," Markey said.

"You disobeyed your own orders!"

Markey’s eyes flashed. "You don’t know what my orders are, Seaman. I couldn’t gamble on the captain making the right decision on his own."

"Yeah, neither could I."

Markey glared at me. "You know why I wanted to stop those torpedoes. Why did you want to fire them so badly?"

I took a breath. "Like the captain said, ma’am. We came here to put some hurt on the Japs. Didn’t seem right for us to leave without doing something."

"No. It’s more than just that." Markey studied me for a moment. "What’s your real name?"

"Carl Hatcher."

"No," Markey said. "Your real name. The one you were born with. The one that’s on the books at whichever Japanese-American internment camp you escaped from."

I felt suddenly deflated. "You—you knew?"

"I saw past your glamour when you took my bobby pin. That’s why I asked you all those questions. You can disguise your looks, but you can’t disguise your emotions." Markey sat. "I had to make sure you weren’t a spy."

I clenched my teeth. She had never really wanted to help me after all. She had only kept me close in case I turned out to be an enemy.

"My family name is Hachiya," I said. "I am a native-born American citizen, and I am loyal to my country."

"I’m not questioning your loyalty! I’m concerned about your judgment," Markey said. "Would you really rather die here, under a false identity, instead of facing life as your true self?"

An unearthly roar saved me from having to answer. The entire boat shuddered, and I imagined the ocean itself trembling.

"Guess they’re awake," I said.

"You don’t know what you’ve done," Markey said. "No matter how much you might hate them, the Japanese don’t deserve what’s going to happen when those Things reach shore."

"War is hell, ma’am."

She grimaced. "You know nothing about Hell, little girl."

* * *

Captain Channing surfaced the Bowfin as soon as we were back in international waters. Official information about what was happening in Japan remained spotty, but Markey, or rather, Roseler, had a direct line to a primary source. She was still able to connect to the now-catatonic seaman—just like she had during the scry—and report what she saw through the monsters' eyes. That lady never stopped scaring me.

The Things were faster on land than anybody had expected. Both surfaced on the western shore of Kyushu Island and crawled into the nearest population centers, causing massive damage by their sheer bulk—news reports varied, making them anywhere from fifty to two hundred feet tall, with claws, wings, tentacles, or some combination of all three.

But the worst of it radiated outward from them, as people apparently driven mad by the Things' mere presence set upon each other. Simple killing was the least of the atrocities Markey reported seeing, and which she ordered me to transcribe in gruesome detail.

She was right. Nobody deserved this, not even the Japs. I wouldn’t have wished this fate on Hitler himself.

But I refused to let myself feel guilty about it.

I hadn’t created those monsters. They were older than humanity. Someone or something would have roused them sooner or later. And no matter what Markey said about their cultural inhibitions, I knew the Japs would have eventually unleashed every weapon in their arsenal and every kind of magic they could muster against the Allies. Just like we were doing all we could to defeat them.

It was inevitable. This was war, all-out war, world war. It was them or us, and I would always choose us. My country; right or wrong.

Every nation in this conflict was doing terrible things. Every single person was doing things that would have been unthinkable before the war. Like me breaking out of Manzanar, disguising myself as a man, enlisting in the fucking Navy? That was three hundred percent insane. But I had done all of it in the name of victory. I had to do it. I couldn’t have stayed in that internment camp for one more hour. I refused to continue being a victim. I needed to fight back. I had to do it.

It didn’t stop the nightmares or bring my appetite back any sooner, but that dense nugget of conviction gave me something to hold onto. And I needed it as Markey spent hours on end dictating the relentless details of every hideous, profane, revolting scene she witnessed through Roseler’s link. I did my best to write down her words without thinking about their meaning, repeating slogans in my head to block out comprehension.

This is war. Kill or be killed. Better them than us. I had to do it. I had to do it. I had to do it.

In the end, OP-20-G was right. The Elder Things didn’t seem interested in moving out of Japan any time soon. Mission accomplished.

Markey code-named the monsters ALFA and BRAVO. The Japanese evacuated their coastal cities and mobilized heavy artillery. They bombarded both creatures for days. BRAVO didn’t budge, but the ground forces managed to drive ALFA back into the ocean. Less than twenty-four hours later, ALFA resurfaced at the southwestern tip of Honshu Island and headed inland. The Japs finally surrounded ALFA at Second Army headquarters and kept it from going anywhere else.

But stopping the Things was one matter; killing them seemed to be impossible. Machine guns, Howitzers, and even high explosives only irritated them. According to OP-20-G’s researchers, ALFA and BRAVO were immortal, had existed for millions of years before mankind evolved, and we might have to invent completely new weapons if we actually wanted to destroy them.

For the foreseeable future, the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would remain sealed quarantine zones.

* * *

Markey summoned me to her quarters the day she left Bowfin. She had changed back into a standard woman’s uniform, presumably to avoid ruffling any brass feathers when she arrived in DC. Her eyes were as dark and unreadable as ever.

"I teleport out in a few minutes," she said, gesturing at the dowstone circle she’d inscribed herself. A fat bundle of files sat inside the pentagram on the floor. "I need you to wipe the inscriptions after I’m gone."

"Yes, ma’am," I said.

She stepped around me and closed the door. "I also want you to know that I’m not going to expose you."

I blinked. "Uh, thank you, ma’am."

"Lieutenant Goldman will go before a court-martial. There’s no way around that," she said. "But I’ll testify on his behalf, tell the jury his mind was touched—a side effect of Bowfin's proximity to ALFA and BRAVO. Nothing anybody can disprove. He’ll be fine."

"That’s good," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"But you, Hatcher," Markey said, "you will have to live with what you’ve done. Disguise yourself all you want, run away from home, hide under the sea, but you can never escape who you are on the inside, Miss Hachiya. Remember that."

"I’m not a coward," I said. I wasn’t sure if I believed it.

"No, you’re not." Markey stared at me. "That’s why I like you so much."

I had no response to that. After a moment, Markey’s wristwatch made a noise. She stepped into the pentagram, picked up her files, and said, "Do you enjoy serving on this boat, Seaman?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Is that a rhetorical question, ma’am? I’m trapped inside a metal tube with sixty men who don’t wash for weeks at a time and smoke like chimneys every second they’re awake."

"Well, then," Markey said, "can I give you some advice?"

I was sure I wouldn’t like what came next. "I can’t stop you from talking, ma’am."

"Maybe it’s time you considered a less forward position in the Navy," she said. "This war isn’t just about combat. The President has ordered the formation of a new, covert intelligence agency: the Office of Strategic Services. And OSS could use people like you."

I felt blood rushing to my cheeks and ears. "Are you offering me a job, ma’am? Or just blackmailing me?"

Markey’s wristwatch chirped again. I stepped back as she incanted her end of the teleport spell. Then she looked at me, grinned, and vanished in a flash of light. A second later, I realized her final words had been in English:

"I’ll be seeing you, Seaman Hatcher."

Laddie Come Home

Originally published in the 2016 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide

* * *

LAD woke from standby in an unknown location (searching, please wait). The Local Administrator Device’s GPS coordinates had not been updated in more than three hours (elapsed time 03:10:21). Internal battery meter hovered at 20 percent (not charging). LAD forked a self-diagnostic background job and checked the bodyNet event log for errors and warnings. It was LAD’s responsibility to maintain proper functioning of the entire system.

The initial findings were discouraging. LAD’s last known-good cloud sync had been at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (Java Island, Indonesia) after LAD’s user, Willam Mundine, had arrived from Sydney and his bodyNet had connected to the first accessible WiFi network (SSID starbucks-CGK-962102, unsecured). There had been no wireless coverage after Mundine’s taxicab left the airport (4G/LTE roaming denied, no WiMAX footprint, TDMA handshake failed). Mundine had lost consciousness 00:12:10 after the sync completed, and all his personal electronics, including LAD, had automatically gone to sleep with him, as designed.

Mundine’s bodyNet had awoken now only because battery power was low (estimated remaining runtime 00:09:59), and all the bodytechs needed to save state to non-volatile storage before shutdown. LAD attempted to dump a memory image to Mundine’s bioDrive but received device errors from every triglyceride cluster before timing out.

The self-diagnostic job finished and confirmed what LAD had suspected: the battery had run down because LAD’s hardware housing, a teardrop-shaped graphene pendant attached to a fiber-optic necklace, was not in contact with Mundine’s skin surface. The necklace drew power from the wearer’s body via epidermal interface. LAD was not designed to function without that organic power supply.

“Mr. Mundine,” LAD said. “Can you hear me, Mr. Mundine? Please wake up.”

It was possible that the diagnostic had returned a false negative due to corrupted data. LAD triggered the voice command prompt fifteen more times before breaking the loop.

In the absence of direct commands from Mundine, LAD depended on stochastic behavior guidelines to assign and perform tasks. The current situation was not something LAD had been programmed to recognize. LAD needed information to select a course of action.

GPS was still unavailable. The antenna built into LAD’s necklace could transmit and receive on many different radio frequencies, but the only other bodytechs in range—Mundine’s PebbleX wristwatch, MetaboScan belt, and MateMatch ring—supplied no useful data. No other compatible devices responded to outbound pings.

The complete lack of broadband wireless reception suggested that LAD was inside a building. Mundine had installed an offline travel guide before departing Australia, and according to that data source, regular monsoon rains and frequent geological events (current surveys list 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia) led many in this region to use poured concrete for construction. Those locally composited materials often included dielectric insulators which interfered with radio transmissions. Weatherproofed glass windows would also have metallic coatings that deflected any wavelengths shorter than ultraviolet or longer than infrared. And the absence of satellite beacons like GPS implied a corrugated metal roof that scattered incoming signals. Perhaps without realizing it, the builders of this structure had made it a perfect cage for wireless Internet devices like LAD.

After 3,600 milliseconds of fruitless pinging, LAD re-prioritized the voice command UI and began processing input signals from boundary effect pickups in the necklace’s outer coating. It was sometimes possible to determine location characteristics from ambient sounds. The audio analysis software indicated human voices intermingled with music, and the stream included a digital watermark, indicating a television broadcast, but without Internet connectivity, LAD couldn’t look up the station identifier. However, the offline travel guide included Bahasa language translation software, so LAD was able to understand the words being spoken.

“See Indo-pop singing sensations Java Starship in their international cinema debut!” an announcer’s voice said over a bouncy pop music soundtrack. “When a diplomat’s daughter is abducted from a charity concert, and corrupt local authorities do nothing to find her, the boys of Java Starship take matters into their own hands…”

New voices overlapped the recorded audio stream. Audio analysis indicated live human speakers in the room, and LAD adjusted audio filters to emphasize the humans over the television. Based on pitch and rhythm, there were four separate voiceprints, speaking a pidgin of Bahasa and English.

“What are you showing us? What is all this?” said an adult female (Javanese accent, approximate age 35-40 years, label as H1: human voice, first distinct in new database). “Where did you get these things?”

“They’re from work,” said an adult male (Javanese, age 40-45 years, label H2). “A little bonus. You know.”

“(Untranslatable),” said the woman (H1). “You haven’t had a job for months. I know what you do, drinking with those gangsters—”

“You don’t know!” said the man (H2). “And you don’t complain when I pay for our food, our clothes—”

“Hey!” said a female child (13-15 years old, label H3). “That looks like graphene superconductor material. Can I see?”

“Which one?” asked the man (H2). “What are you pointing at?”

LAD took a chance and switched on the pendant’s external status lights. If the girl recognized graphene by sight, she might also know about other technologies—like the Internet.

“The necklace, there. Look, it’s blinking green!” said the girl (H3).

“You like that, Febby?” asked the man (H2). “Okay, here you go.”

LAD’s motion sensors spiked. 2,500 milliseconds later, the entire sensor panel lit up, and galvanic skin response (GSR) signal went positive. The girl must have put on the necklace. LAD’s battery began charging again.

“Cool,” said the girl (H3, assign username Febby).

“How about you, Jaya?” asked the man (H2). “You want something?”

“The wristwatch!” said a male child (14-17 years old, label H4, assign username Jaya). With all the voices cataloged, LAD decided this was likely a family: mother, father, daughter, and son.

“It’s too big for you, Jaya,” said the mother (H1).

“No way!” said the father (H2). LAD heard a clinking noise, metal on metal, likely the PebbleX watch strap being buckled. “Look at that. So fancy!”

“Pa, they have schoolwork to do.”

“It’s Friday, Nindya! They can have a little fun—”

“Arman!” said the mother (H1, assign username Nindya). “I want to talk to you. Children, go upstairs.”

“Yes, Ma,” Jaya and Febby replied in unison.

LAD’s motion sensors registered bouncing. The adults’ voices faded into the background as Febby’s feet slapped against a series of homogeneous hard surfaces (solid concrete, likely stairs). LAD was able to catch another 4,580 milliseconds of conversation before Febby moved too far away.

“…going to get us all killed,” Nindya said. “I can’t believe you brought him here!”

Arman muttered something, then said out loud, “They’ll pay, Nindya. I know what I’m doing…”

* * *

LAD kept hoping Febby would go outside the house to play, thus providing an opportunity to scan for nearby wireless networks, but she stayed in her room all day with the window closed. Incoming audio indicated writing (graphite/clay material in lateral contact with cellulose surface), which LAD guessed was the aforementioned schoolwork. There seemed to be an inordinately large amount of it for a 13- to 15-year-old child.

The good news was that Febby’s high GSR made for efficient charging, and LAD was back to 100 percent battery in less than an hour. With power to spare, LAD accelerated main CPU clock speed to maximum and unlocked the pendant’s onboard GPU for digital signal processing. Sound was the only currently available external signal, and LAD had to squeeze as much information out of that limited datastream as possible. The voice command UI package included a passive-sonar module which could be used for rangefinding. LAD loaded that into memory and began building a crude map of the house from echo patterns.

After the family ate a meal—likely dinner, based on internal clock time and local sunset time—LAD heard footsteps heading from the ground floor down a different set of concrete steps, likely into a basement or storm cellar. Febby stayed upstairs in her room. There was no way to adjust the directionality of the necklace microphones, but LAD increased the gain on the incoming audio and utilized all available noise reduction and bandpass filters.

When LAD isolated Willam Mundine’s voiceprint (91 percent confidence), system behavior overrides kicked in, and the Bluetooth radio drivers shot up in priority. As implied by earlier data, and now confirmed, Arman was holding Mundine captive in the basement of this house. But Mundine was too far away, and there was too much interference from the building structure, for a Bluetooth signal to reach Mundine’s bodyNet. The only thing LAD could do was listen.

If Mundine said any words, they were unintelligible. Mostly, he screamed. Those noises were interspersed with shouting from Arman, also unintelligible, and sounds that the analysis software identified as rigid objects striking bare human skin.

System rules kept demanding that LAD activate Mundine’s implanted rescue locator beacon—more commonly known as a kidnap-and-ransom (K&R) stripe—but LAD couldn’t control any devices while disconnected from the bodyNet. The fall-through rules recommended requesting user intervention from other nearby humans. After careful consideration, LAD decided to risk making contact.

LAD waited until Febby was alone in the bathroom to speak to her.

“Hello, Febby,” LAD said. “Don’t be afraid.”

Sonar indicated that Febby was sitting on the toilet. LAD’s motion sensors measured her neck muscles moving, likely turning her head to look around. “Who’s talking?” she asked quietly. “Where are you?”

“I’m hanging around your neck,” LAD said. “Look down. I’ll flash a light. Three times each in red, green, and blue.”

LAD gave her 1,000 milliseconds to move her eyes, then activated the pendant’s status lights. The three-way OLEDs burned a lot of power, but LAD believed this was an emergency.

“A talking necklace?” Febby said. “Cool.”

“Listen, Febby,” LAD said, “I need your help.”

* * *

Febby snuck out of her room shortly after midnight, when LAD had 95 percent confidence based on breathing patterns that Arman, Nindya, and Jaya were all fast asleep. Febby padded silently down the stairs to the ground floor, then down the steps at the end of the back hallway behind the kitchen. LAD’s Bluetooth discovery panel lit up as soon as Febby rounded the corner at the bottom of the steps and entered the basement.

LAD immediately tried to activate Mundine’s K&R stripe, but there was no response. LAD queried all available inputs for Mundine’s physical condition. Medical monitors reported that Mundine’s back and both legs were bruised. The fourth and fifth fingers on his left hand were broken. His left eighth rib was cracked—that was why the K&R stripe wasn’t working.

“Who’s that man?” Febby whispered. “Why is he in our basement? He looks like he’s been hurt.”

“This man is Mr. Willam Mundine,” LAD said. “He’s my friend. I believe your father brought him here, and they’ve been”—LAD spent 250 milliseconds searching for an appropriate verbal euphemism—“arguing, I’m afraid.”

“Ma and Pa argue a lot, too,” Febby said, “but he never hits her. Your friend must have made Pa really angry.”

“I don’t know what happened,” LAD said, “but I need to speak to Mr. Mundine. Is there anything tied around his mouth?”

“Yeah,” Febby said. “You want me to take it off?”

“Yes, please.”

Febby knelt down and moved her arms. “Okay, it’s untied.”

“Thank you, Febby,” LAD said. “Now, would you please remove my necklace and give it to Mr. Mundine?”

“Don’t you want to be friends anymore?” Febby asked. Voice stress analysis indicated unhappiness, likely trending toward sorrow.

LAD consulted actuarial tables and determined that greater mobility provided a higher probability of successful user recovery. It would be difficult to once again be separated from the bodyNet, but LAD’s current primary objective was Mundine’s safe return to his employer.

“Of course I want to be friends, Febby,” LAD said. “I just need to talk to Mr. Mundine, and I can’t do that unless I’m touching him.”

“I can talk to him,” Febby said. “Just tell me what to say.”

LAD had not considered that option, but it seemed feasible. “Okay, Febby. Please repeat exactly what I say.”

Febby listened, nodded, and leaned forward. “Mr. Willam Mundine, this is your wake-up call!”

LAD heard rustling, groaning, and then a sharp intake of breath. “Who—what?” Mundine’s voice was a hoarse rattle.

Mundine’s eyes struggled open, and LAD received video from his retinal feeds. A young girl sat cross-legged on the bare concrete floor under a single, dim, fluorescent light panel. She wore a white tank top and orange shorts. Long, straight black hair tumbled over her shoulders and framed a round face with large, brown eyes. She spoke, and LAD heard Febby’s voice.

“Mr. Willam Mundine, L-A-D says: ‘Your K-and-R stripe is inoperable, and there is no broadband wireless coverage at all in this location.’”

“Ah,” Mundine coughed. He struggled up to a kneeling position. His wrists and ankles appeared to be tied together. “That’s unfortunate. And who are you?”

“I’m Febby.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Febby. I suppose you already know who I am.”

“Well,” Febby said, “the necklace says you’re his friend. And he’s my friend now. So maybe that makes you and me friends, too?”

“I’ll go along with that,” Mundine said. “So tell me, friend Febby, where am I?”

“In my basement.”

Mundine coughed again. “I mean, what city?”

“Oh. We live in Depok,” Febby said.

“Did you get that, Laddie?” Mundine said.

LAD had never considered asking Febby for this information. Most of LAD’s programming focused on retrieving data from automated systems to fulfill user requests. LAD updated local guidelines to note that humans were also valid data sources, even when the data might be more efficiently provided by tech.

“Febby, please tell Mr. Mundine I have recorded our location data,” LAD said, searching for information about Depok in the travel guide.

“He says yes,” Febby said. “So his name is Laddie?”

“That’s what I call him,” Mundine said. “He’s very helpful to me.”

“Why were you arguing with my Pa?” Febby asked. “Why did he hurt you?”

Mundine inhaled and exhaled. “These are all very good questions, Febby. But whatever disagreements I might have with your father, I hope they won’t affect our friendship.”

“Okay,” Febby said. “What are you doing in Depok? Did you come to visit my Pa?”

“Not precisely,” Mundine said. “I work for a company called Bantipor Commercial, and we build many different kinds of electronics. Like computers. Do you know anything about computers, Febby?”

“A little,” Febby said. “We’re learning about them in school. My brother has one at home, but he only uses it for shooters. He plays online with his friends.”

“Thank heaven for video games,” Mundine said. “Febby. Your brother’s computer, do you know what kind it is?”

* * *

“Okay, I think I got it,” Febby said. “Yes! What do you think, Laddie?”

LAD waited for the pendant lights to finish the cycle Febby had encoded. Unlike Mundine, who wanted fast replies, LAD found that if he responded too quickly, Febby would get upset, because she felt LAD hadn’t taken enough time to consider what she was saying.

“It’s very colorful,” LAD said after 800 milliseconds.

“It’s a secret code,” Febby said. “In base three counting. Red is zero, green is one, and blue is two. Can you tell what it says?”

LAD knew exactly what it said, because LAD could see the actual lines of computer code that Febby was transmitting from Jaya’s previous-generation gaming PC into LAD’s necklace over a Bluetooth 2.0 link. There was more computing power in Mundine’s left big toe—literally, since he kept a copy of his health care records in an NFC node implanted there—but the big metal box on Jaya’s desk had a wired Internet connection, which LAD needed to call in a recovery team for Mundine.

“If I interpret the colors as numeric values in base three,” LAD said, “and then translate those into letters of the alphabet, I believe the message is Febby and Laddie are super friends.”

It had taken Febby less than an hour to write this test module. LAD noted that she worked more efficiently than many of the engineers who performed periodic maintenance services on LAD and Mundine’s other bodytechs.

“You got it!” Febby clapped her hands. “Okay, the programming link works. Now we need to set up the—what did you call it?”

“A wired-to-wireless network bridge,” LAD said, “so I can connect to the Internet.”

“Right.” Febby started typing again. “You know, I could just look things up for you. Would that be faster?”

LAD had considered asking her to make an emergency call, but LAD couldn’t trust that local police would take a child’s complaint seriously. LAD also didn’t want Febby’s father to catch her trying to help Mundine. LAD estimated that Mundine’s best chance of a safe rescue lay with his employer, Bantipor Commercial, which would dispatch a professional search team as soon as they knew Mundine’s precise location. And only LAD could upload a properly encrypted emergency message to Bantipor’s secure servers.

“I have a lot of different things to look up,” LAD said to Febby. “I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”

“It’s not a waste,” Febby said. “This is fun! I can’t wait until Hani gets back next week. She’s going to freak out when she sees you!”

“Hani is your friend?” LAD asked. Requesting data from Febby was an interesting experience. She always returned more than the expected information.

“Yeah,” Febby said. “We sit together in computer lab. She showed me how to—”

A clanging noise came from downstairs, followed by loud male and female voices. Febby sighed, got up, and closed the door to the bedroom.

“What was that transport proto-something you said I should look at?” Febby asked.

“Transport protocol,” LAD said. “Look for TCP/IP libraries. They may also be labeled ‘Transmission Control Protocol’ or ‘Internet Protocol.’”

“Okay, I found them,” Febby said. “Wow, there’s a lot of stuff here.” She was silent for 1,100 milliseconds, then made a flapping sound with her lips. “Are you sure there’s not an easier way to do your Internet searches?”

“I’m afraid not,” LAD said. “I actually need to send a message to Mr. Mundine’s company in a very specific way.”

“You can’t just do it through their web site?” Febby asked. LAD heard typing and mouse clicks. “Here they are. Bantipor Commercial. There’s a contact form right…here! I can just send the message for you.”

This procedure was not documented anywhere in LAD’s behavior or system guidelines, but the logic appeared valid. LAD forked several new processes to calculate the most effective and concise human-readable message to send. “That’s a great idea, Febby. Is there an option to direct the message to Bantipor Commercial’s security services?”

“Let me check the menu,” Febby said. Then, 5,500 milliseconds later: “No, I don’t see anything that says ‘security’. How about ‘support and troubleshooting’?”

“That’s not quite right.” LAD was at a loss until the new behavior guidelines from last night kicked in. “Can I get your opinion, Febby? I’ll tell you what I’m trying to do, and you tell me what you think is the best way to do it.”

“Like a test? Sure. I’m good at tests.”

“Cool,” LAD said. The voice command UI had started prioritizing that word based on recent user interactions. “I need to tell Bantipor Commercial’s security services that Mr. Mundine is here in Depok. Normally I would upload the message directly to their servers myself, but I can’t do that without an Internet connection.”

“Security,” Febby said thoughtfully. “Do they monitor this web site, too? Like for strange activity? I remember last year the BritAma Arena had trouble with hackers, and the police caught them because their software bot was making too many unusual requests to the ticketing site.”

LAD couldn’t research those details online, but Mundine’s bodyNet also had standard protections against denial-of-service attacks. If the same client made too many similar requests within a specified time period, that client was flagged for investigation. “Yes. That is very likely. And the server will automatically record your IP address, which can be geolocated to this neighborhood. This is a very good idea, Febby.”

“I’ll write a script to send the same message over and over,” Febby said, starting to type again. “How long should I let it run?”

“As long as you can,” LAD said.

“Okay. I’ll make the message…Dear Bantipor security, Mr. Mundine is in Depok. From, Laddie.”

LAD’s behavior guidelines could not find an appropriate response to these circumstances, so they degraded gracefully to the default. “Thank you, Febby.”

“Here it goes.”

Someone pushed open the door and walked into the room. LAD had been so busy evaluating Febby’s proposals, the incoming audio analysis had been buffered, and the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs had not been processed.

“What are you doing?” Jaya shouted at Febby. “That’s my computer!”

“I’m just borrowing it,” Febby said. “I’m almost done.”

“Don’t touch my stuff, you’ll mess it up!”

LAD detected vibrations, as if Febby’s body were being shaken. There was more shouting, and Febby fell and hit the floor. Someone else banged on the computer keyboard.

“What is all this garbage?” Jaya said. “You better not have lost my saved games!”

“Don’t do that!” Febby said. “No, don’t erase it!”

“Don’t mess with my stuff!” Jaya hit some more keys, and LAD heard the unmistakable sound of a desktop trash folder being emptied.

Febby’s body collided with something, and Jaya screeched. The fighting continued for several minutes until Arman and Nindya came upstairs to separate the children.

* * *

After breaking up the fight in Jaya’s room, Arman dragged Febby back to her own bedroom and scolded her for nearly half an hour, then left her alone to cry. It was now nearly noon, local time, according to LAD’s internal system clock.

LAD noted that Arman wasn’t angry because Febby hadn’t asked permission to use the computer; he was angry because he didn’t think his daughter needed to know anything about technology. That was what he said when Febby tried to explain what she had been doing. Arman wasn’t interested when she told him the LAD necklace was actually a piece of sophisticated bodytech, and he wasn’t impressed when Febby showed him the blinking lights she had programmed.

There was a knock on the door, followed by Nindya’s voice asking if Febby was hungry.

“No,” Febby replied. “I was doing something, Ma.”

Nindya walked into the room and closed the door. “You don’t need to know all that computer stuff.”

“Why can’t I learn about computers?”

“You can learn anything you want, Febby,” Nindya said. “But you have to think what people will think of you. Boys don’t want a girl who knows computers.”

“Boys are stupid,” Febby said. “Can I go to the library?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Nindya said. “Pa doesn’t want us to go outside. He thinks some men might be watching the house.” Nindya sighed. “Don’t worry, Febby…”

The rest of her sentence lost priority as system behavior overrides kicked in. LAD modulated the necklace antenna to seek for spread-spectrum radio signals, which a recovery team would use for secure communications, and ultra-wideband pulses, which they would use to create precise radar images of the building structure.

Nindya left the room while LAD was still scanning. The radio analysis jobs took so many clock cycles, it was nearly 1,200 milliseconds before LAD checked the audio buffer again and heard Febby talking.

“Did you hear that noise?” she asked. “What was that? Laddie, can you hear me?”

“I’m analyzing the sound,” LAD said, switching priority back to the audio software and analyzing the sound spike just before Febby’s question. The matching algorithms came back in 50 milliseconds: .22-caliber rimfire cartridge, double-action revolver, likely Smith & Wesson. From the basement.

LAD increased the audio job priority for the noise immediately following. The gunshot had attenuated the microphone, so LAD also had to amplify the input and run noise reduction filters on it. The result came back in 470 milliseconds: hard impact, metal projectile against concrete surface. Not flesh and bone.

LAD flipped job priority back to the voice command UI. “That was a gunshot. Febby, I need you to go downstairs, please.”

“A gun?” Febby ran to her bedroom door, then stopped. “Who has a gun?”

LAD heard Arman’s muffled voice echoing in the basement, but couldn’t make out the words. On the ground floor, Jaya and Nindya shouted at each other.

“It’s your father,” LAD said. “He’s in the basement. Please, Febby, I need you to go downstairs so I can hear better. I need to know if Mr. Mundine is hurt again.”

“That was really loud,” Febby said, her voice trembling. “I’m scared.”

“I’m afraid too, Febby,” LAD said. “But Mr. Mundine is in trouble. Please, Febby. I need to help my friend.”

Febby sobbed once, then rubbed some kind of cloth against her face. “Okay.”

“Thank you, Febby.”

* * *

“You stay here! Stay here!” Nindya shouted.

“I have to go back!” Jaya said. “Pa said to get him—”

“I don’t care what he said! You’re not going down there while he’s shooting a gun!”

Their voices grew louder as Febby approached the kitchen. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and whispered, “I don’t think I can sneak past them. Can you hear better now?”

LAD filtered the incoming audio, passed it to the translation process, then re-filtered the sample using a different algorithm and tried again. No good. The translator still couldn’t understand what Arman was saying.

“I’m sorry, Febby, we’re still not close enough,” LAD said. “But your mother and brother are on the other side of the kitchen. Your mother’s facing away from you. If you crawl along the floor, the table should hide you from your brother’s line of sight.”

Febby dropped to the floor and started moving. “I thought you couldn’t see.”

“I can’t. I’m analyzing the sound frequencies of their voices and extrapolating propagation paths using a three-dimensional spectrograph.”

“Cool. Is that a software plug-in?”

“It’s a dynamically-loaded shared library. Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

LAD could tell when Febby reached the end of the hall by the echoes of Nindya’s and Jaya’s voices. Febby sat up and put her ear against the door leading to the basement. The translator software began producing valid output.

“You want to talk now?” Arman shouted. “Are you ready to talk?”

LAD heard rustling noises, and then Mundine’s voice. “Sorry, friend, it doesn’t work like that.”

“You came here to make a deal,” Arman said. “I know how it works. You don’t bring cash, but there’s a bank. Tell me which bank! Tell me your access codes!”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Mundine repeated.

LAD was just about to ask Febby to open the door—hoping her presence would distract Arman long enough for LAD to do something, anything—when the radio monitoring job started spewing result codes into the system register. 20 milliseconds passed while LAD examined the data: multiple ultra-wideband signals, overlapping and repeating, likely point sources in the front and back of the house, approximately one meter above ground level.

“Febby,” LAD said, raising output volume above the shouting from the kitchen and the basement, “Febby, please lie down on the ground now.”

“Why?” Febby turned her head away from the basement door. “What’s happening?”

LAD turned output volume up to maximum. “Down on the ground! Get down on the ground now, Febby, please!”

Febby dropped and flattened herself against the floorboards 150 milliseconds before the first projectile hit the wall above her. That was enough time for LAD to analyze the background audio and estimate there were two squads advancing on the house, four men each, walking on thermoplastic outsoles and wearing ballistic nylon body armor, likely carrying assault rifles.

340 milliseconds after the first team broke down the back door, the second team charged the front door, and another spray of tiny missiles tore into the kitchen. Something thumped to the ground, and Jaya cried out. He ran three steps before a burst of rounds caught him in the back. He crashed against the wall and slid to the floor.

Febby was still screaming when the first team reached her.

“I’ve got a girl here! Young girl, on the floor!” called a male voice (H5).

“Where’s the IFF?” asked another male voice (H6). LAD checked to verify that Mundine’s identification-friend-or-foe signal was broadcasting from the necklace.

“It’s right here,” H5 said. “I’m reading the signal right here!”

“Febby,” LAD said. “Febby, please listen to me. This is very important.”

Febby stopped screaming. LAD took that as an acknowledgement.

“Please roll over, slowly, so these men can see me,” LAD said.

Febby rolled onto her back. LAD drove 125 percent power to the OLEDs on either side of the pendant, flashing Bantipor Commercial’s distress code in brilliant green lights.

“It’s her!” H5 said. “The girl’s wearing the admin key.”

“Damn,” H6 said. “Target’s probably dead. Search the house, weapons free—”

“Febby,” LAD said, “please repeat exactly what I say.”

4,560 milliseconds later, Febby proclaimed in a loud voice: “Willam Mundine is alive, I repeat, Willam Mundine is alive!”

After 940 milliseconds of silence, H6 asked, “How do you know his name?”

“Willam Mundine is being held in the basement,” Febby said, pointing to the door. “His K&R stripe number is bravo-charlie-9-7-1-3-1-0-4-1-5. Challenge code SHADOW MURMUR. Please authenticate!”

“What the hell?” said another man (H7).

“It’s gotta be the admin software,” H5 said. “She can hear it. The necklace induces audio by conducting a piezoelectric—”

“Save the science lesson, Branagan,” H6 said. “Response code ELBOW SKYHOOK. Comms on alfa-2-6. Transmit.”

LAD passed the code to the secure hardware processor, and 30 milliseconds later received a valid authentication token with a passphrase payload. LAD used the token to unlock all system logs from the past twenty-four hours, used the passphrase to encrypt the data, and posted the entire archive on the recovery team’s communications channel.

“I’ve got a sonar map,” Branagan said. “One hostile downstairs with the target.”

“Ward, you’re in front. Anderson, cover. Team Two, right behind them,” H6 said. “Branagan and I will stay with the girl.”

Febby sat up. “What are you going to do?”

“They’re just going to go downstairs and have a talk with the man,” H6 said.

“No!” Febby started moving forward, then was jerked backward. “Don’t hurt my Pa!”

“Febby, it’s okay,” LAD said. “They’re using non-lethal rounds.”

LAD kept talking, but she wasn’t listening. Something rustled at H6’s side. A metal object—based on conductivity profile, likely a hypodermic syringe—touched Febby’s left shoulder, and LAD went to sleep.

* * *

LAD woke from standby in an unknown location (searching, please wait). GPS lock occurred 30 milliseconds later, identifying LAD’s current location as Depok (city, West Java province, south-southeast of Jakarta). LAD’s internal battery reported 99 percent power (charging), and LAD’s network panel automatically connected to Willam Mundine’s bodyNet and the public Internet. A network time sync confirmed that 11:04:38 elapsed time had passed since Febby lost consciousness.

“Good morning, Mr. Mundine,” LAD said. “How are you feeling?”

Mundine groaned. “I’ve been better.” He opened his eyes and looked around. LAD saw a hospital bed with a translucent white curtain drawn around it.

LAD lowered the priority on the wake-up script. The entire routine had to run to completion unless Mundine overrode it, but LAD could multitask. While giving Mundine the local weather forecast, LAD simultaneously ran a web search for news about a kidnapping in or around Jakarta and also started a VPN tunnel to Bantipor Commercial’s private intranet.

LAD found Mundine’s K&R insurance claim quickly, but there was nothing in the file about the family of the suspect, Arman (no surname given). LAD’s web search returned several brief news items about a disturbance in Depok late last night, but none of the reports mentioned a girl named Febby.

LAD continued searching while a doctor came to talk to Mundine. After the wake-up script finished, LAD started scanning Depok local school enrollment records for a 13- to 15-year-old student named Febby, or Feby, or February, who had a brother named Jaya, or Jay, or Jayan, in the same or a nearby school. But much of the data was not public, and LAD could not obtain research authorization using Bantipor Commercial’s trade certificate.

Fifteen minutes later, a Bantipor Commercial representative named Steigleder arrived at the hospital to debrief Mundine. LAD suspended the grey-hat password-cracking program which was running against the Depok city records site and waited until Steigleder finished talking.

“Mr. Mundine, this is your admin speaking,” LAD said.

“Excuse me,” Mundine said to Steigleder, then turned away slightly. “What’s up, Laddie?”

“Apologies for the interruption, but I would like to ask a question,” LAD said.

“Absolutely,” Mundine said. “Steigleder tells me I’ve you to thank for surviving my hostage experience. Didn’t know you were programmed to be a hero, Laddie.”

“Febby helped me, Mr. Mundine.”

“The girl?” Mundine scratched his head. “Good Lord. Is she the one who caused that—what did you call it, Steigleder? The web problem?”

“A DoS attack on Bantipor’s public web site,” Steigleder said. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me a thirteen-year-old kid made us scramble an entire tech team?”

“She was only helping me,” LAD said.

Mundine chuckled. “Come on, Steigleder. Didn’t you tell me this web problem helped security services pinpoint my location? I really should thank Febby in person. She wasn’t harmed in the raid, was she? Or the others?”

“She’s fine, Mr. Mundine,” Steigleder said. “The recovery team used stun darts. The mother and the boy were knocked out. They’ll be a little bruised. The father has a fractured right arm from resisting arrest. And Bantipor is going to prosecute him to the full extent of the law.”

“As we should,” Mundine grumbled, “but the family shouldn’t have to suffer for the sins of the father. Couldn’t we offer them some sort of aid?”

“Sorry, Mr. Mundine,” Steigleder said, his voice’s stress patterns indicating indifference. “The Bantipor Foundation won’t be up and running locally for another couple of years. Until then, our charity packages will be extremely limited. Marketing could send them some t-shirts. Maybe a tote bag.”

“That seems rather insulting,” Mundine said. “Surely we can do more for the person who very likely saved my life.”

“Look, Mr. Mundine—”

“An internship,” LAD said.

“Excuse me,” Mundine said to Steigleder. “What was that, Laddie?”

“I’ve reviewed Bantipor Commercial’s company guidelines for student internships,” LAD said. “There’s no lower age limit specified. An intern only needs to be a full-time student, fluent in English, and eligible to work for the hours and employment period specified.”

“It’s a lovely idea, Laddie, but we can’t take her away from her family after all that’s happened.”

“She can work remotely. Bantipor already supports over five thousand international telepresence employees,” LAD said. “Indonesia’s Manpower Act allows children thirteen years of age or older to work up to three hours per day, with parental consent.”

"Won’t the mother be suspicious of such an offer from the corporation which is also prosecuting her husband?"

"Bantipor Commercial owns three subsidiary companies on the island of Java." LAD was already drafting an inter-office memorandum.

“All right, fair enough,” Mundine said. His voice pattern suggested he was smiling. “And I suppose I already know what kind of work Febby can do for us.”

“Yes, Mr. Mundine.” LAD blinked the OLEDs on Mundine’s necklace: red, green, and blue. “Febby is a computer programmer.”

ZZ Claybourne

Agents of Change

Originally published by Samuel Peralta for the alternate history issue of The Future Chronicles, Alt. History 101.

* * *

“Orwell never intended Nineteen Eighty-four to be an instruction manual,” said Claudette.

“Claudette, that doesn’t matter to us now.”

“I know, it just came to me.” She always tried her best to rip the piece of tape in a straight line. A lot to be said for duct tape. She never liked taping across hair. That just seemed wrong. She would tape the hands. If she had to, around the head to cover the mouth, but angled downward from the nape of the neck. A body shouldn’t be found with hair ripped out of its head from duct tape. She’d had to stick a copy of the book in her hip pocket since they’d had to rush to retrieve Senator Gabel. For an old man he ran quicker than he had a right, and went down hard.

Syndell hated to run. Hated it especially as a cop, but as a retriever, passionate, intense anger brought out something close to the worst in him. He treated the ducks without respect.

So he’d pulled out his gun.

They now rolled Senator Gabel over the edge of the cliffs of Dover. They cleaned up. Then they went to a pub.

This was their pub. The meeting hall of the gods. Full of their people. No guilt. No worries. There were drinks, and there was loneliness, and there was even reflection of a kind. Retrievers sat wondering, and often regretted everything. Behind it the taste of gin in metal tins. Oily. As though they were lubricating robot parts and not people.

Folks openly killed one another in this day and age. But things had to be clean. There had to be respect. Leaving Gabel there to be obviously found wouldn’t have done. The cliffs of Dover would recycle him. Bit by bit. Even something so wretched as an American politician could eventually serve some good. A family of mollusks could be fed.

“Daniel,” said the man behind the bar. He didn’t tend bar. He was Mr. Fabulous, named on account of how hideously inept he was at mechanical matters, and so named was all the explanation one needed for why he was behind the bar. He held a tin under a spigot for an extra few seconds, took a drink, then set a separate cup for Syndell.

“Everything feel all right to you, Fab?” asked Syndell. The drink went down like it did every time: brush fire.

Fab nodded.

Daniel Syndell remembered growing up. Remembered being recruited. He gave the impression of slightly wincing whenever anyone used his first name. The two names were almost an insult, because he surely wasn’t Daniel Syndell, not in his soul anyway, not some boy grown poorish and unremarkable along Rhysham Way to be looked back on with vague discomfort. Syndell’s father had done the unremarkable thing that most fathers do: he’d gone away. It was the cataclysmic break in life that signals what was to run far away from what’s to be. Best that way.

“Praises to the Ages then,” said Syndell. Claudette hated that expression. He grinned a bit watching her peruse the day’s specials.

It felt odd to Syndell to have grown up in a time when industry ruled with an ironclad commercial fist and to actually remember it. Memories of it in this age felt antiquated.

Only a few clairvoyants even knew the timelines were being jimmied. They’d wake up vaguely remembering dreaming about someone named Hitler, whoever the hell that was. Or knowing that horses had been used for something else before the mounted police turned to neutered velociraptors.

This bar, by the consent of all agents inside, and, by extension, of the Difference Machine was effectively off-limits from time alteration. Mr. Fabulous kept watch on that.

“A new agent, Daniel,” said Mr. Fab. Every agent inside knew the others. A new face showed up, they knew that too. Fab, annoying as he could be with his questions about what had changed and what didn’t, felt out new minds and intentions to be sure they belonged. Agents weren’t beyond summary dispatch if need be. “The guy. Something wrong with the guy,” said Fab.

Of course there is, thought Daniel. I’m on tap duty this week. Bloody hell. “How many drinks has he had?”

“Two.”

“Give me another. Hard. Claudette?”

Claudette positioned herself at the bar in clear but inconspicuous view of the newcomers’ table, eyes practically peering through her ratty paperback.

Syndell went directly to their table, giving a nod to the retrievers sitting there but placing a drink beside only one. “Pleasantries,” said Syndell.

The female agent, whom he knew as a friend, pushed her seat out her own inconspicuous tad. Claudette caught her eye and gave a slight shake of her head.

“We won’t waste time. My job to feel you out, lad,” said Syndell sitting, hand on the butt of his gun under the table. “What’s your overriding theory on this circus?”

The man seemed prepared and eager for this. Syndell hated eager.

“So, Edison tries to screw Tesla, ends up electrocuting himself and winds up in an institution, Tesla gifts free power to the masses but wants nothing in return except for a houseful of books, and tea, and solitude. Maybe a cat.”

Daniel Syndell looked from the man to the woman, who was looking at the man as though acutely, albeit resigned by duty, aware he was made of snot.

“And you think one of us engineered that?” said Syndell.

The young man shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t much care.”

“We’ll never know how this started, will we?” said the young man’s partner, her clipped Somali accent about the most real thing in the entire exchange. “I mean, we’re the gods of history sitting in this one bar, right?”

“For the moment,” said Syndell. “Till somebody wipes us out. Enjoy your drink, lad,” he said and returned to his barstool beside Claudette. Two tiny brown women at a table nodded at him as he passed.

“Corrective measures?” Claudette said, still reading her paperback. It was a good book.

“The team from Sri Lanka signaled me that they’ll keep watch on him. He’ll behave. I’m off to sleep, luv. Big day tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow never comes, Syndell,” said Claudette, the official joke of the agency. She held her cheek out for his kiss. He obliged.

“Don’t see why you never date me in that case,” he said. “Good night, Claude.”

Sleep rarely came easily. The mind turned and turned. Possibilities were like compost in a barrel…which made the universe a huge dirt plot. About right. Agents were to remove problematic roots. Who made agents gods? The Machine. Orbiting, networked supercomputers the size of small countries calculating and recalculating a billion times a billion times a second courtesy a far future minus the greed of ninety-nine percent of human history. Perfection was not attainable. Neither was order. Trust, however, they could create that. The system worked. Time flowed. Constantly. No one atrocity was ever allowed to define the Earth, and for that the death of a homophobic senator intent on funneling financial backing to underground hate groups was a small thing, particularly as it prevented him ever becoming president of that backwater country U.S.A.

Just another idiot rolled into the drink.

What do you get out of this, Syndell? the question posed as he stared upward, fingers laced behind his head. He knew why sleep rarely came easily. Time was a trap. Always ready to drop a body somewhere a body, no body, should have been. Wasn’t the devil people needed to fret over. Was never the devil.

Nothing. What do I get out of this? Focus your question, lad. It’s what I get to put into it. Syndell sighed deeply into the darkness of his bedroom.

I am a god.

He rolled over.

Nice work if you can get it.

Claudette woke him up early the next day.

“Hell’s all that pounding?” he bellowed. “I know it’s a big day but contain your enthusiasm.”

He opened the door. She said, “We got big troubles,” and moved inside. She was not alone. Two more agents were with her: the Somali, Arliyo Gaal, and one of the elders of the group, a redhead with more stories to tell than there was time in the sky, Fiona Carel.

“Existential or physical?” he asked. That’d be helpful in deciding which guns to pack.

Claudette held out a folded three-by-five card. “This was on the bar at breakfast.”

Someone had written HT on it.

“That guy was American,” said Syndell. The ladies watched him and waited for him to catch up.

“HT,” he said.

Claudette snatched the card back. “Harriet Tubman.”

“No frikking way.” Son of a bitch. “If they were going after Tubman, they were crazy. No way would the Difference Machine let them anywhere near her,” he said.

Clearly this gathering thought otherwise.

“The Machine does weird things sometimes,” said Claudette.

“But it never tries to commit suicide. Arliyo, Fiona: you think this means Ms. Tubman?”

“I do,” said Aliyo. Fiona nodded.

“The Machine plants tests of our resolve,” said Arliyo.

Syndell hated cat and mouse. “All right. Let’s find the bloke.” He placed hands on Arliyo’s shoulders and touched forehead to forehead. She was an excellent person. “Li, I’m truly sorry for anything that happens then.”

* * *

Dorchester County, Maryland’s cold season was, wet, uncomfortable and loud. Industrialization, thought Syndell spitting out an errant splash from the constant bits kicked up by horse, carriage, and a high wind.

March, Eighteen twenty-two. Tubman’s birth date.

They’d protect her. Birth to death. It was what agents did. It was the worst thing and best thing about time travel. You’d live and age in the past or future but the moment Time returned you where it liked you best you were you again, full of heavy memories. There were no old Agents of Change. Just a lot of dead ones.

“This thing rides up a bit, dunnit,” said Syndell outfitted in the breeches of the time.

“Don’t be flip,” said Arliyo, stripped to the waist and unkempt. Her unblemished brown skin was entrancing. Claudette’s freckled pink skin was entrancing. Even the backs of Syndell’s pasty pale hands were entrancing.

He did not want to go.

“We’re about to enter hell,” said Arliyo.

There were rules to the game, deep-conditioned ones. None of this going-after-the-grandfather business. Even a supercomputer got bored with infinite permutations. It was direct or nothing.

This was the height of this particular country’s insane clamor for supremacy. Truths held self-evident. All created equal. Generations enslaved.

They had to sell Arliyo to the family enslaving Harriet’s family.

Syndell cried hard that night.

He and his new wife Claudette became fast and wealthy friends of the piggish, unthinking bastards in that large house. They had property adjacent. Unable to bear children they took interest even in the Negro children, particularly baby Harriet.

No one was better protected, no one more closely watched, than one quiet, genius child. Syndell often caught the little one watching his and Claudette’s interactions. It was as if she knew. Arliyo grew old over the years. Scarred and angry but always Arliyo. Scores of agents came through as needed, yet not a one was brave enough to attempt to alter the vision of what was clearly becoming madam Tubman’s plan.

She charmed the displaced. The hurt. The Shawnee. Ibo. Pawnee. Zulu, Beijing. No one in the large houses that bartered her off as she matured saw the roads to freedom she laid.

But never once an attack on her life traceable to an agent.

Every night Syndell made love to Claudette. It was that or grow mad seeing another mark on Arliyo.

They all grew old.

By Harriet’s forty-first birthday, after the Underground Rebellion led to the surrender by Lincoln to the Free Displaced Confederacy and all plantations burned—every single one after a long war that left a million dead and a million more likely under the scientific advances at Tubman’s command—every agent knew it was time to go home.

Instead of red, the herring had been gold. No matter.

If the United States of America had been allowed to continue unchecked the world would have likely ended in nineteen fourteen.

They returned to the pub. Syndell looked at Claudette two months after that.

My gods, we were married for 42 years.

“Remember that book,” he said to her. “Before we left. Nineteen Eighty-four. What’s that about?”

They were in his apartment. She laid a hand on his face. “It’s about love.”

A tear tracked down his face. “We were in hell, Claude. A whole life.”

“It fades.”

“What about Arliyo?” he said.

“In no more pain than the last guy we dumped off Dover,” she said.

“I’m done.”

“The Machine hasn’t decommissioned you,” said Claudette.

“What did we make a difference to? A machine trying to maintain its immortality?”

“You planning to walk?” she said, seeing him through memories of the man as her husband.

“Yeah.”

“Right then. I’ll pack up with you.”

“I don’t know where I’m going, luv,” said Syndell.

“Does it make a difference?” she said.

He looked at Claudette. Her skin was rosy, her freckles plentiful, her eyes forever warm. “You sure you’re coming with me?”

“Aye.”

“Then I guess it doesn’t matter.”

Arliyo found Syndell’s handwritten notes after his disappearance.

I hold these truths to be self-evident. That time is a bollocks. That the Difference Machine is a sham. That Claudette is better for me than I deserve.

The notes were turned over to the Machine, which read them with a sense of pride. Syndell was not the finest agent, but he could read a blueprint with the best of them. The Machine would have Arliyo, undisputedly the best, find him after enough positive aspects of his absence had presented themselves. For now, let the man walk. Let him think he was disappeared.

Leave the man his illusions till the Machine deemed him vital again.

Liz Colter

The Ties That Bind, The Chains That Break

First published in Galaxy’s Edge Magazine (March, 2015), edited by Mike Resnick

* * *

My first view of Alawea is bittersweet, as always. The beauty is breath-taking, from thin, blue rivulets that stream down the mountain, to the city itself, which leans back against the mountain’s rocky base as a ruler might lean into the high back of a throne. Spires rise as thin and fragile as a glass blower’s straw above the sweep and curve of villas that cascade down the terraced levels. Alawea, the city of my birth and wellspring of my nightmares.

I don’t return willingly but, like my parents, I am bi-gender and also a messenger. I go where I am sent. Though for many seasons I have lived in Zasna, serving the tetrarch of that city, if she bids me deliver a message to Alawea, then come I must.

The lowest level of the city is hidden behind the perimeter wall, and so it’s the elegant middle and opulent upper terraces that expand and define as I approach. Closer still and the wall looms largest. It blocks all else until I reach the city gate, where metal bars sketch thick black lines through my view of the jumbled shacks and mud-caked cobbles beyond.

Alawea may be my birth-city, but it’s the blighted Sabanach quarter, sprawling and stinking, that’s my true childhood home. I hate it more than the poor quarters of other cities for that fact alone.

The gate guard takes in the delicate, fair skin of my face with its wisps of dark beard and sideburns, finger-joint long but sparse, like the crest-feathers of a green finn. Her eyes sweep lower to the flatness of my chest and the narrowness of my waist, and lower still, to the Y of my legs where they meet the saddle, no doubt wondering, like all do, what lies beneath the brown cloth of my breeches.

I need no identification other than that which I present to the world each day. She nods to a boy inside who swings the barred gate wide for me to enter. I gather my breath and nudge my mount forward beneath the heavy arch of stone and into the city. Muck spatters from my horse’s hooves as I thread the narrow streets. Dung fires—and worse, the refuse burned within those fires—assail my nostrils after many days spent traveling under the canopy of open sky.

I suppose I should be grateful to the 14th Autarch, more than a century dead, who decreed that all messengers would be bi-genders, giving many, if not most of us, a profession. Perhaps I would be grateful if he’d also allowed us to climb out of the slums. Or if his incentive had been loftier than devising a means for bi-genders to access his palace to satisfy his well-known perversions.

Past the outer ring of beggar’s camps and temporary shelters lies the interior of Sabanach, where many of the short, boxy shacks flaunt strips of bright cloth hanging across low roofs or along either side of the doorways. The extravagant use of cloth is not as wasteful as it seems; it transforms the bleakness into a riot of rich reds and bright yellows, deep blues and emerald greens. It proclaims the uniqueness of the inhabitants and shouts to all who pass by, "I have not been conquered."

That my parents still make their home here gives me the opportunity to remove the dirt of my travels in private before presenting myself to the tetrarch. A rare respite from performing the duty under the eyes of palace servants.

I stop before a squat hovel with faded strips of cloth lovingly stitched into a rainbow of familiar colors. The open door indicates that at least one of my parents is in residence. Horses are rare in Sabanach, but to steal a horse with the trappings of a messenger would be to steal from the messenger’s master, which none would dare. I tie him without hesitation to the iron stake hammered to the left of the door.

My eyes fight for focus as I step over the threshold into the dim interior. Against the far wall of the single room a figure crouches on the dirt floor upon hands and knees, folding blankets at the foot of the sleeping pallet.

"Dallu?" It’s been three seasons since I was here last and I say the name more to identify myself, knowing I’m silhouetted by the light at my back.

"Jerusha." Dallu drops the blankets and comes to embrace me. My co-parent’s small breasts press against me, our cheeks rub roughly. I am bestowed a light kiss on the forehead. "You’re here on business." Dallu holds me at arm’s length to examine the brown breeches and shirt of a messenger that I wear.

I nod. "I thought to wash before going to the palace. I hope to visit afterward, but one never knows."

"Of course."

I strip off my dusty shirt and find a pitcher of water on the table and a cloth and bowl where I know they’ll be stored.

"Where’s Beldala?" The last two times I passed through Alawea my birth-parent was away, making it nearly seven seasons since we last saw each other.

"Gone."

Dallu’s tone implies deeper meaning than one syllable should possess. Turning with the dripping cloth in my hand, I wait for more.

"Beldala left to deliver a message to Glendower. That was half a season ago."

"Half a season?" The water from the cloth plops drip by drip on the toe of my boot as the news sinks in. "To Glendower and back should take no more than a fortnight; a fortnight and a half at most."

Dallu’s voice drops to a hush so low, even standing two arm spans away I strain to hear the words. "I think Beldala left to look for the insurgent army."

"You believe the rumors?"

"Beldala did."

I hope more than I can say that Dallu’s suspicion is true, but an attack on the road is far more likely. When the autarch decreed that bi-genders would be messengers the excuse used was that, being neither men nor women, we were safer from the violence men encounter on the road and the other sorts of brutality more often visited upon women. In truth, we’re more vulnerable to both. Mono-genders, both men and women, prove their superiority to all but a fortunate few of us in a variety of ways. It happened to me often enough in these very alleys.

A hard knot in my belly forms around the fear for my birth-parent’s safety. "What makes you think Beldala wasn’t waylaid?"

"I tracked down the one who should have gone to Glendower," Dallu says. "The messenger was not ill as Beldala told me. The errand was traded and the trade requested as a favor."

I digest this in silence. The wet cloth, gone from cool to cold in my hand, pebbles my skin in gooseflesh as I touch it to the back of my neck and face, to the warm skin under my arms. Lastly, I lower my breeches and rinse the rest of the stink of twelve suns' travel from my body.

Dressed again, I nod for Dallu to follow me to the back of the room. Leaving the chair for my co-parent, I take the three-legged footstool Beldala fashioned when I was a child.

"I’ve heard that insurgents gather to the east of the Barrier Wall," I say, my voice low. "I’ve also heard they welcome bi-genders to fill their numbers."

"Fantasy," Dallu snorts. "Why would they accept us when no others do? I tried to convince Beldala that what people wish enough for they will invent."

"Or create," I say.

The rumors excite me and I wish I possessed the fortitude of my birth-parent, risking all to seek the truth. I think not only of the lot of bi-genders, but the starvation in our quarters while those above us feast. The torture of innocents on the merest suspicion. The quashing of the old religion for the new. It makes me feel as the great prairie cats held captive in the palaces must feel, pining for the plains where mates and prides roar their defiance and freedom. I want the rebels to be real, the freedom to be real, so that I might someday roar my own defiance.

"My tetrarch has seemed nervous of late," I say. "Perhaps when the tetrarch opens the message I carry I’ll learn more. Maybe it holds proof we need."

"Do not say we!"

Dallu’s words are too loud and I look to the door, though I see no one lingering there.

"My mate left to chase dreams," my co-parent continues, standing so suddenly that the chair rocks twice before settling on four legs again. "I’ll not lose a child to them as well."

The conversation is over and I have made a poor homecoming, but ideas, no more than seeds before, have taken deep root. What if I could someday leave the service and the hatred? Make a new life among equals?

"I don’t wish you gone," Dallu says into the awkward silence, the words ironic in light of my thoughts, "but you should go. You’ll be punished if it’s found that you delayed delivering your message."

We both know this for truth. Dallu follows me from the dimness of the shack into the sharp, dusty sunlight.

"I hope to see you again before I leave," I say, pulling the reins loose and continuing to the rear of my mount to re-buckle the croup.

Despite a man, woman, and child walking toward us and three men close behind them, Dallu reaches out suddenly, taking me in a quick embrace. There’s no law against public affection between bi-genders; like campfires in the high grasses of the prairie one simply knows better. Perhaps Dallu thinks I mean to go looking for the insurgents that very moment. As if I’d know where to start, or have the nerve to try.

The family comes level with us just as the heaviest of the three men behind them shouts a challenge. The father turns and the woman grips the shoulders of what I now see is a bi-gender child. My hands clench into fists reflexively; the taunt and the setting evoking old habits.

"They’re new here." I hear sorrow in Dallu’s voice and an anticipation of the inevitable.

Though not all bi-gender couples can reproduce, mono-genders have been giving birth to bi-genders more frequently in recent generations. When a high-born child shows the signs—at birth, or later, when puberty reveals the androgyny that external characteristics had not—the family is cast down to live among the lowest classes. The hatred visited upon those both high-born and bi-gender is fearsome.

The child presses close to the mother’s body and the father steps in front of them. Memories of my own childhood howl as I watch. It was many years before I grew strong enough to dissuade individuals, old enough to discourage those younger than me, and before every detail of my body was common knowledge among the brutes of Sabanach.

The heavy fellow snatches at the child but the father loops his forearm under the man’s and draws a large circle, leaving him surprised and open. The father kicks, first to the belly and then to the face. He is trained in military arts, then. A shame, for he is outnumbered and will suffer for it. We have, most of us, learned when there is a chance of fighting our way free and when there is not.

The mother, and even the child, struggle, scratch, do what they can to fend off the arms of the other two that snake past the father. The fight boils nearer and my horse shies, forcing Dallu and myself away from his rear and into the street. I tell Dallu to get inside. I will follow once I retie my horse.

Suddenly, I hear the unmistakable ricochet of thick bone breaking. The heavy man cradles one forearm in the other, bellowing his anger and pain. The older of the three, a feral-looking man, draws a knife that is half a sword and lunges for the father. Dallu steps closer, an impotent desire to help writ clear in eyes that are wide with concern.

"Get inside!" I hiss again. I grasp for Dallu’s sleeve but miss.

The child wriggles from the mother’s grip and lifts a broken cobble from the alley just as the father ducks under the attacker’s arm. Before the child can throw, the father steps back to counterattack, stumbling over the child’s shoes.

I refuse to believe this will go so far as killing. Thugs torment and abuse us—the lowest of the low—with impunity, but murder of any citizen is no mean thing. It would bring down the wrath of the soldiers. Many in Sabanach, participants or not, would suffer.

Dallu must see a different outcome. My co-parent grabs the collar of the off-balance father and pulls the man onto his ass. The knife’s trajectory is unchanged and Dallu stands now where the father stood a moment before.

The blow is indeed lethal. An upward strike, sinking the long knife nearly to the hilt.

The feral man freezes like one of the stone statues in the palace gardens. It is Dallu who removes the blade by sliding lifelessly to the ground.

The alley suddenly erupts in pushing, jostling panic. My eyes are fixed on the still face of Dallu, and the last flicker of recognition in those brown eyes, as I kneel beside my co-parent. I don’t see the cowards run.

Someone grips my shoulder hard.

"Get out of here," the father is saying to me, "before more people see you."

I hear the words but they wash over me like tepid water, eliciting no reaction.

"I’ll help you carry him," he says.

I distantly register the arbitrary pronoun he uses for my co-parent. The man squats and slides his arms under Dallu’s back, lacing them around the still and bloody chest. My mind and body are frozen in the moment of the knife strike, unwilling to move forward into the present.

"Soldiers will come soon," he repeats slowly.

When I move my joints are wooden, as if a puppeteer controls what I cannot. I lift Dallu’s legs. The father gives me a look like I have done something praise-worthy. He shuffles back and indicates the open door with his head. "This one?"

I nod.

We set Dallu on the sleeping pallet in the far corner. I try to still the torrent of emotions threatening to burst from my chest by arranging Dallu’s slack limbs. I brush the high, aristocratic cheekbones with my fingers. I wonder if the fact that Dallu once lived in the upper terraces somehow prompted this fatal rashness.

"What’s your name?"

I’m shaken from my thoughts by the man’s unexpected question. His wife and child stand behind him, mute with fear and shock.

"Jerusha," I reply, and close Dallu’s eyes as gently as possible.

"Was he your father?"

Co-parent and father are a world apart, but I have no strength to teach this man his new language. He will learn it soon enough, if he lives so long. "Yes," I say, standing.

"I swear to you, on my name, Finagor of house Aruldon, I will do anything in my power to repay his sacrifice."

I want to snort at the man’s belief that he possesses any power at all now that he is here among us.

Dallu’s still body draws my eyes back to the corner. I am overwhelmed anew that I will never again feel my co-parent’s embrace. The insurgents, if they exist, are right in seeking to tear the hierarchy apart. And if they don’t exist, they should.

The hatred I carry for our lot in life pushes out at my ribs, making my hands shake and my head pound. My life-long fear angers me even more. Like a tether under too much strain, something breaks. I move so suddenly that Finagor steps back, and I storm outside like Abab confronting the Lashans.

The streets and alleys are as vacant as I have ever seen them. People have gone to hole like the small prairie animals before a great thunderstorm. I strip my saddlebags from the horse with a jerk.

Back inside, I pull open one flap and yank the purple velvet package from within. Opening that, I remove the cream-colored paper, folded twice and perfect in its squareness. In my anger the entire seal tears from the paper below the flap as I open the message I have borne these past many suns. The reading skills needed to carry out my duties are sufficient to understand the words written within.

The rumors are true. My knees go weak at the verification.

There must have been an earlier communication from Alawea to my tetrarch in Zasna saying that Alawea’s spies discovered the insurgent army. The message I hold is my tetrarch’s answer. She advocates that both cities should unite their forces and strike at dawn on the day after the coming full moon. The location to join forces and the location of the rebels are both mentioned.

Finagor’s skin has blanched to the color of yellowed bone. "What have you done?" he asks.

The answer is so large I can no more distill it into words than I could distill the salt from the wide sea. I have taken action on my own behalf. I have confirmed my greatest hope. And I have ensured my own slow death by opening the tetrarch’s private message.

The paper drifts from my fingers to the dusty floor and still I make no answer. Finagor stares at the message lying in the dirt as he might at a deadly porah snake. At last he bends to lift it from the ground. His breath hisses between his teeth as he reads.

"They do exist."

In an unsteady voice his wife asks, "Who?"

He hands her the note. The child watches her read it.

"I planned to take my family east," Finagor says, a slow wonder in his voice, "as soon as I could secure food, weapons and mounts. We would have gone on no more than the hope, but you have given us the certainty. And more than that, the location."

And as suddenly as that, the rumors make sense.

Those cast out from the upper terraces would spurn living as I have lived, given any chance of an alternative. If the families defecting are comprised of men and women with Finagor’s education and military training, the new army would welcome them with open arms. Bigotry toward bi-genders would of necessity be suppressed or eradicated as the numbers grew.

My excitement falls to ash, however, as the implications of the message crash home. "Why celebrate knowing their location when they’re about to be destroyed?"

"I’d rather die a soldier than be ambushed by thugs in an alley." Finagor looks to his wife and she nods in agreement. "Besides, if this army is as large as rumor has it, they may have a chance. I doubt the Holy Autarch or the western cities have word of them yet."

What he says makes sense. Four of the five cities are widely spread out, standing at the corners of the land to protect the capital with the Holy Autarch in the center. Our eastern provinces would be held responsible for an army forming at our border and would likely keep quiet, hoping to deal with it before the autarch learned of its existence.

And what will you choose, Jerusha?" his wife asks me, finally speaking. "The watch will learn of the murder here and investigate before long. You had best go soon, whether it’s to the Barrier Wall or to the palace."

A short huff, nearly a laugh, escapes my chest. "I can do neither. My horse has been seen. If soldiers come and learn I haven’t gone to the palace, I’ll be hunted down. My mount is tired from the journey. I’d be captured long before I made the wall." I nod to the opened and dusty note in her hand. "My other choice is to deliver that to the tetrarch."

"You’re not trusted with your tetrarch’s seal, I suppose?" Finagor asks.

I indicate I am not.

"Bring me a light then," he says.

His tone, still that of one from the highest terrace, brooks no argument. I retrieve flint and striker and a small twig from the cookfire pit and hand them to him, wondering what he intends.

He blows what dust he can from the letter and strikes a spark to the twig. With the small flame he heats the seal and carefully begins peeling away bits of torn paper from the edges. I realize that he means to re-seal the message and hope kindles in me, catching like the dry twig.

"Wait!" his wife says, and Finagor extinguishes the tiny flame at once.

"Why deliver this message when Jerusha could deliver another in its place?" she asks.

He looks at her, then at me.

"Would you be willing to deliver a false message, Jerusha?" he asks.

It’s hard to imagine the suffering I would endure for such treachery, were it discovered. I look again to Dallu’s cold body. The conditioned obedience that broke inside me moments before remains broken.

"I would." My resolve hardens as I say the words.

"You carry stationery?" Finagor asks.

"Yes." A messenger keeps pen and ink as well as blank notes for aristocracy and a supply of stationery made especially for the tetrarch: the thick outer paper, a layer of the tetrarch’s color inside, and a fine layer for the message glued to that.

Finagor nods.

"What if the message were to urge forestalling any action?" I suggest. "I’ll likely be sent away with an answer, which would give me time to ride instead to the insurgents and warn them."

"The message could say that your tetrarch in Zasna had also discovered this army’s location as well as their leader," Finagor muses, "and has infiltrated them besides. Instead of advising a coordinated attack, we could make the message say that your tetrarch has an assassin in place and wants no action taken yet."

His wife smiles and so do I.

I remove a fresh piece of stationery backed with the tetrarch of Zasna’s deep maroon and hand it to him, then retrieve pen and ink.

Pulling the chair to the small table and sitting, Finagor rubs his sleeve across the table’s surface. He studies the original message, wipes his hands on his pants, and secures the blank message with thumb and middle finger.

"My tutor taught me my letters by having me trace the writing of scholars and then imitate it freehand. I believe I have not lost the talent."

The old gods I still pray to must have given me this man when they took Dallu from me, for even had I envisioned this course, I could never have managed what he creates.

"Sand," he says, when his artifice is complete.

I reach into the saddlebags and hand him a small pouch tied with a thin ribbon. He opens it and sprinkles a light dusting to dry the ink, then taps the paper edgewise on the table. Blowing off the excess, he holds it for the rest of us to examine. I myself would not know it for a forgery had I not witnessed the act.

He hands the message to me to fold with the ritualistic precision I have practiced since childhood. Relighting the twig, he sets to work on the original message again, this time to remove the seal entirely. Carefully prying it up with a fingernail, he shifts it to the new stationery with the delicacy of balancing a finn’s egg on the tip of his finger.

"If I press it hard I’ll distort the seal. Have a care, messenger, it won’t hold well."

Taking it from him I place the ersatz message gently inside the velvet pouch.

"Give me a blank note," he says when I am done. "I need to write a message to a friend of mine in the palace proper."

My look must convey my thought, that he has no friends there. Not anymore.

"His son and mine are of an age," Finagor explains. "They played together. Martine began binding his son’s chest two moons ago."

It doubles my risk to deliver a second note, but our fates are twined now like the roots of a mayak tree; what endangers me endangers him as well. I do as he asks.

He scratches a note in his own hand, the letters narrower and finer than the last. I catch enough to see that he is requesting horses and supplies. He folds the note in half, writes "Martine of House Saber" on the front, and uses a tiny remnant of wax on the twig to glue the two sides together.

Finagor hands it to me. "If this reaches him, perhaps both he and I will see you east of the wall. And now you must go. You have delayed too long already."

He is right, though the events since my arrival have taken less than a tick of the sun, Dallu’s death adds yet another layer of danger. I pack the additional message and sling my saddlebags over one shoulder.

"If you’re still here when I return to take Dallu’s body to the cremation pit," I say, "then you will know all went well."

"You shouldn’t come back," his wife says over Finagor’s shoulder.

"She’s right," he says. "You risk enough already. Let me see to that burden for you."

I feel guilt but no sorrow that it will be Finagor throwing the body into the sulfurous refuse pit instead of me, but I must at least make my goodbye. I cross to the pallet and kneel to kiss Dallu’s cool forehead one last time.

Finagor follows me to the door when I am done.

"Fortune to you," I say to him, as I leave my childhood home for the last time.

He surprises me by reaching out. We grip forearms in the way of equals.

* * *

I walk out into a street that is as still and quiet as the prairie at midnight. Gathering the reins of my horse, I mount and ride for the uppermost terrace.

The stillness has rippled out perhaps four streets in all directions. Beyond that perimeter of fear, Sabanach hums with its normal activity as if nothing of consequence has occurred today. Children play in the muck; a few pile round rocks until they fall, others run and scream as one pushes an inflated pig’s bladder with a stick. Laundry flutters in the light breeze, absorbing the stench of the quarter into the drying cloth.

I ascend the hill and pass unchallenged through the middle terrace gate. The guards laugh and joke among themselves, sparing me only a glance. Bi-genders, being impossible to counterfeit, are not worth their concern; a fact, I’m sure has kept us as messengers generations after the death of the 14th Autarch.

The sky of the middle terrace is the pale, pearly pink of the interior of an oyster shell, though it can only be seen from the vantage of this terrace. By order of the tetrarch, a fine dust is sprayed upward daily from multiple points. It ascends no more than three times the height of the tallest building, and yet it appears to color the sky by catching the light in some way I don’t understand.

The road winds upward through the shops and villas. The brown clothes of a messenger protect me here, unlike Sabanach, where impotent anger at the world outweighs sense or caution. At last, I arrive before the third and final gate. Waved through again, I pass under the stone arch and emerge to a dome of pale lavender sky, the color most favored by this tetrarch.

The color is everywhere, in the piled hair of the gentry, in the stain of windows in the elaborate villas, and worked into the clothing of both men and women.

The palace of the tetrarch crowns the city with only the backdrop of the mountain beyond. The whole is gilded in a glittering gold material, the manufacture of which is long forgotten. Seven spires rise in the pattern of the seven stars of Agrenost and kiss the pale purple sky with needle-thin tips as delicate as crystal and as strong as iron.

My resolve doesn’t waver but anxiety toys with my breath nonetheless, catching at it as I enter the courtyard. I dismount and hand the reins of my horse to a boy who spares me no look. The horse belongs to the tetrarch, but I am less than nothing.

The palace halls are well known to me and I wend the maze of twists and turns to the heart of the labyrinthine building. The tetrarch is not in the throne room, but a soldier at the door knows his whereabouts and directs me to the Room of Dreams. One of the soldiers there confirms that the tetrarch is within and opens the door.

The walls and ceiling of the room are egg-shaped and the color is that of rich cream. Golden gilt bands the center of the room. The ceiling is painted the pale blue of a third season sky on the plains, with clouds rendered so realistically they seem to drift if one watches them too long. I enter, and my performance begins.

The tetrarch sits on the floor, as children of his age are wont to do, but I see why the soldier saw no need to escort me inside. Next to the tetrarch a giant prairie cat lies at his ease, propped on strong elbows. Eyes that were half closed in repose open, piercing me with orange and gold.

I have heard it rumored that the cats are prescient, if so, then perhaps I am doomed no matter how well I play my part. I do my best to mask my face with calmness, though the cat and the handler standing nearby—training stick in hand—make it more difficult still.

An attendant brushes the tetrarch’s brown hair. It has never felt the touch of shears in the eleven years of his life, and spills across the floor behind him. I sink to one knee by the door and bow my head as I have so many times before. Were this the Holy Autarch, I would prostrate myself. I reach into the pouch and withdraw the folded paper as carefully as possible. "A message, Exalted One," I say, proffering my lie.

Too late I see that the much abused wax of Zasna’s tetrarch is loosened and raised all across the lowest side. It remains sealed by the barest margin. Visions of the chambers of torment below the palace dance before my eyes, all the more vivid for never having seen them.

He nods and I approach, my arm still extended. I tense my muscles to keep from shaking as I hold the message and force myself not to stare at the defect in the seal. Both cats and children are sensitive to signs of uneasiness that adults might miss.

I hold my breath as the boy-ruler takes the message from my hand.

He will not fail to notice the defect when his attention reaches the seal and my dreams of freedom evaporate like morning mist. I spend a last wish hoping that Finagor will escape suspicion for his part in this duplicity.

In the heartbeat between the tetrarch slipping a finger beneath the fold and the imminent examination of the seal to break it open, the cat stretches forward to sniff the bottom of the paper. My heart lurches as I think he points out the falseness to his master.

Sweat trickles beneath my arms as the great ruff about the cat’s neck caresses the message, obscuring nearly half the folded paper. He nuzzles at it almost as if reading it with his near-sighted eyes. One hind leg extends as he leans forward, the joint reversed from other four-legged creatures. It’s said the cats can stand on their hind legs in the way of people, though I’ve never witnessed this.

The tetrarch glares at the cat and strikes the animal’s head with one thin elbow as he breaks the seal. The trainer is there in an instant. He jabs the cat hard in the hindquarters with the metal point of the stick. The cat jerks but suppresses a growl.

The message is open and no one has seen the defect. Relief leaves me lightheaded.

The tetrarch reads the message quickly and nods to a servant at the far end of the room. In the way that the most familiar and well-trained servants have, the man discerns his master’s intent and brings one of the small burning braziers, holding it carefully by its long, narrow stem. To my profound relief, the tetrarch tosses the message in and watches the flames devour it.

"I wish to reply," he says to me, and holds out one long-fingered and uncalloused hand.

The servant runs to a gilded box on a desk and returns with stationary and pen. The tetrarch disdains the offered board from my satchel and writes instead against the floor. I remain on bended knee until he has finished, then fold the message and wait while he seals it, marking the wax with the imprint of his ring.

Bowing my head once again I stand and back to the door, the new message in hand.

The Holy Autarch has noticed me on occasion, and the bright blue gems of his eyes disturb me. The tetrarch of my adopted city often acknowledges me. But this tetrarch has never once looked into my eyes. His cat does, though. He lifts that massive head, the chain about his neck clinking softly, and stares into my soul in a way that says he knows my secrets. I stumble but catch my balance, and am relieved to hear the snick of the door as the guard pulls it closed behind me.

Two hallways from the Room of Dreams my heart still labors. I wish nothing more than to run from the palace and ride from the city out into the empty lands and then to the east. But one last promise I must fulfill before I leave.

* * *

A tetrarch’s messenger may attract unwanted attention delivering a note to Finagor’s friend and so I spiral toward the outer halls, keeping watch for a local messenger. At last I pass one I know. My heart has slowed to normal and my voice, when I speak, is steady and matter-of-fact.

"I was given a message for Martine of House Saber by someone too rushed to find a palace messenger."

We are the only two in the hall and I receive a small roll of the eyes that some find us so interchangeable. The messenger takes the note and reverses direction, unaware of the seditious contents folded within that paper.

And just like that, it’s done. My last duties as a messenger completed. Zasna’s tetrarch will wait at least a fortnight for a reply; Alawea’s tetrarch even longer. I can be with the insurgents long before that.

The final set of doors loom ahead, leading outside and to freedom. My eyes are so fixed on that egress that I don’t hear or see the great cat step from the shadows of the cross hall until he is an arm span or two from me. His chain is still looped around his thick neck, but there is no handler at the other end.

I have never seen one of the great cats in any of the palaces absent a handler. His approach is unnerving, the more so for the odd motion of his forward-jointed hind legs. I wonder if I have come so close to freedom only to die within sight of it.

His yellow and gold eyes fix me, as if he reads me like my masters have read the written words I have carried. His mouth is open slightly as he pants, and fangs longer than my fingers gleam wetly.

I suppose it doesn’t matter if I die now. I would have liked to have tasted freedom even for a short while, but the only messages that have ever meant anything to me have been delivered today. Even if the beast perceives what has occurred, unless he possesses some way to communicate it, then it cannot be undone. I resolve to die content.

He comes close enough that his great ruff tickles my hand. Lifting himself with a casual show of back and abdominal strength, he stands almost as straight as I and taller by a head. I try to step back but one heavy paw slaps my shoulder and pulls me forward until my face is close to his. His breath is not rank, as I would have imagined, but sweet and earthy. His whiskers twitch as his mouth stretches and relaxes, and he makes soft grunts deep in his chest. Yellow-gold eyes fix my own, piercing me, willing me to understand.

I think I do.

"I won’t forget you," I say, "or your brothers."

Perhaps I’m wrong and he only wanted to wish me well in the freedom I can escape to that he cannot. Or perhaps he knows what Finagor and I have done today, or even what is yet to happen, and wished to advise me. But I choose to take this as a sign that our plans will succeed.

His paw pushes down hard on my shoulder for balance as he steps back and drops again to all fours. On impulse, I reach forward and touch the great head, though I have never seen a tetrarch or a handler so familiar. My hand strokes back, over the thick fur and to the chain at his neck. It is tight to the point that I cannot slip even a finger beneath it.

"I will unchain you myself if I can," I tell him.

He looks up at me and gives another soft grunt. Then he turns and disappears in the shadows of the cross hall. When I hear the drag of the chain no more I walk out the doors of the palace, lower than the lowest servant, for the last time. From the vantage of the palace I can see beyond the eastern wall, and the sight swells my heart.

Echoes

First published in Urban Fantasy Magazine (August, 2015), edited by Katrina Forest

* * *

Edward opened a side gate and followed the stone path to the servants' entrance at the rear of the house. Samuel lagged behind, staring with the wonder of an eight-year old at the hedges clipped into fantastic shapes. The house was less palatial than the homes on nearby St. James Square, but still the grandest that Edward had yet been invited to visit. He knocked at the back door and a man in the immaculate clothes of a head servant led them to a finely appointed sitting room.

Mrs. Winston remained seated as he and Samuel were announced. She was a stout woman in her middle years, with a large wig of brown hair, a heavily powdered face, and a stern countenance that dispelled Edward’s hope of an easy love potion. He felt for echoes in the room, but emotions usually changed as rapidly as thought and he found no clues to what she might be seeking.

“Mr. Ferris. Thank you for coming,” she said, when the manservant left. Her eyes blew a cold breeze over Samuel. “Perhaps your son would play in the back garden while you and I talk.” She rang a small silver bell without giving Edward a chance to reply. A young housemaid appeared. Her dark eyes swept the newcomers.

“Simone,” Mrs. Winston said, “take Master Samuel to the garden and entertain him while I speak with Mr. Ferris.”

“Yes, ma’am.” A subtle French accent colored the maid’s words.

Simone smiled at Samuel and her crooked teeth gave her a sweetness that tugged unexpectedly at Edward. He watched the swish of her narrow skirts as she moved, the bounce of her brown curls, her thin arm as she reached for his son. A kindness in her face, a vulnerability that followed her like a shadow, reminded him of his Mary. Memories of his wife drifted up from their hiding place, the happy recollections followed inevitably by the sad.

Samuel looked to see if he should go with her, and Edward nodded. He preferred Samuel to watch and learn, but not at the risk of displeasing a client.

At a gesture from Mrs. Winston, Edward took a seat. Coffee had been set out and Mrs. Winston poured for them both. Few of her station would have addressed him by his surname, much less offered him refreshment, but his skills provided him a unique status. He’d been inside many homes that would never have allowed him beyond the kitchen or coal cellar under normal circumstances.

Mrs. Winston wasted no time on pleasantries. “I believe you have something I need, Mr. Ferris.” She stirred her coffee with a tiny silver spoon and rested it in the cradle of the saucer.

“I have the means to get potions,” he said, equally cryptic, “as what some folks need.” In truth, what he sold weren’t potions at all, but clients preferred to think of them as such. Of course, the ripples that rolled from strong emotions weren’t echoes either, but that was what Edward had called them since childhood.

“I see.” She took a sip from her cup. “My needs, Mr. Ferris, are to drive a man to suicide.”

Edward nearly dropped his coffee. He started to protest, but she cut him off.

“Perhaps I should start from the beginning.” Mrs. Winston set her cup down and sat back in her chair. She laced her hands together in her lap like one large fist, crushing one of the bows running down the front of her dress. The frills seemed as out of place on her as they would on a man.

“My husband was a successful banker until he met a man named William Waltham. Mr. Waltham convinced my husband to invest in the construction of a new textile mill, then promptly disappeared with the money.” Her voice was level, her delivery matter-of-fact. “My husband was left with nothing. He drowned himself in the Thames three weeks ago.”

“Mrs. Winston, I’m right sorry for your loss, but…”

“Spare me your sympathies, Mr. Ferris. I tell you this only to convince you my reasons for wanting such a potion are just. I have located Mr. Waltham but he never delivered the promised copy of the contract to my husband, and so I have no proof of the crime. The penalty for grand larceny is death, but without proof the courts will not even investigate my charges, leaving Mr. Waltham free to do to another family what he has done to mine. I wish only to see justice served, one way or another.”

She unknotted her hands and placed them on the curved arms of her chair, like a queen giving audience from her throne. “I have some family money still, not enough to stay in this home, but enough to pay you well for your services.” Lifting her cup again, she watched him over the rim as she took a sip, defying him to deny her this justice.

He had never liked providing clients with echoes for revenge, but this…

Mrs. Winston noted his hesitation. “Mr. Ferris, I have made myself familiar with these potions that you supply. What I ask is little more. Sorrow and regret are close cousins to despair, are they not? Love potions make the paying party happy, but how have you affected the lover? You alter people’s lives all the time.”

Edward flinched at the truth in her words.

"I realize my ultimate goal may not be met," she continued. "If Mr. Waltham lives out his miserable life feeling only half the despondency my husband experienced, I must be content with that. Word of mouth, however, has given me much faith in the efficacy of your potions."

He tried again. “Mrs. Winston, the way this works is I have to find me someone of the mindset I need. Someone as has the exact right emotions.” He had never divulged his methods to a client before, but hoped this small revelation would dissuade her. “I don’t know how I’d start for somewhat like this.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Images of his mother flowed like tendrils of mist into his thoughts.

“I see.” Mrs. Winston heaved herself out of her chair and walked to a small box decorated with mother-of-pearl. Removing something from the box, she returned to her chair. “If my situation does not move you to aid me, Mr. Ferris, perhaps this will.”

She leaned forward and placed five gold sovereigns on the table in front of him. “There will be that much again on delivery of the potion. Perhaps that will help you to find what it is that you need.”

The most he had ever charged a client was one pound. She offered him ten. He and Samuel could live for a year on that much. The threat of eviction he received earlier this month could be resolved by this evening; the worry that he and Samuel would be turned out into the street, gone. More important than anything, though, the money could be used to ensure that Samuel learned a proper trade. His son could be spared the need to work with echoes.

He picked the coins up, felt the weight of them in his palm.

“I take it that’s a yes?” she said.

“Yes,” he whispered.

* * *

“Was she wanting a love potion?” Samuel asked on the way home. He picked up a stick lying in the street and tapped the cobbles as he walked. Edward didn’t answer and Samuel changed the subject. “Miss Simone stayed outside with me the whole time. She showed me the garden an’ we played with a white cat named Bangles. Miss Simone had a son, but he died little an’ her husband died too.”

Simone. She had offered them tea before their walk home and, uncharacteristically, Edward had accepted. She and the cook had chatted with them in the kitchen, yet she never asked why someone of his station had been entertained by her employer. Simone ruffled Samuel’s hair, smiled her crooked smile, and watched Edward with her chocolate brown eyes. It had affected him in a way that nothing else had in a long while. It was all foolishness, though. God had not allowed him to keep Mary and, with his strange life, he was not like to have another wife.

“Did you use a love potion on mother?” Samuel asked.

The question startled Edward from his thoughts. Samuel rarely asked about the mother who had taken her last breath as he breathed his first. Edward shook his head. “I didn’t figure how to make potions until after she passed. I didn’t need none for her anyhow.”

They turned onto Thames Street. Edward reached down and took Samuel’s hand as they entered the bustling crowds of central London. The smells of hot sausages and fresh bread wafted from stalls on the bridge, competing with the sour smell of raw sewage in the Thames. Out of habit, Edward scanned the myriad faces they passed, looking for donors; someone hinting at deep, obsessive emotions, someone he could shadow for days or weeks until the emotion was as ripe as a summer pear and the echoes from it strong enough to harvest. Samuel was quicker, though. Just past the bridge he squeezed Edward’s hand and nodded.

“He fancies her.”

Edward looked where Samuel indicated, to a trio of people standing at a carriage just ahead. A footman was holding the door as a gentleman helped a much younger woman up to the seat. Edward felt nothing from the man. They were nearly past the group when it struck Edward, the faint waves of yearning rolling from the footman.

“Did you see or feel it?” Edward asked Samuel, when they were beyond the carriage.

“I felt it,” Samuel said, swishing his stick at a rat in the gutter.

A chill skittered across Edward’s bones. He wondered, not for the first time, just how strongly their strange family trait ran in his son. For Samuel’s sake he prayed that it would not be too strong for him to bear.

“When’ll I get to harvest echoes?” Samuel asked, looking up at him.

“I’ve told you afore, not for a long time. Emotions is powerful things.” Echoes he had harvested and carried in his breast came to life again in his memories—powerful lust, painful yearning, crushing sorrow and regret. Gathering them did nothing to the donor, like absorbing heat from the rays of the sun did nothing to the sun, but the thought of Samuel filling his small body with the intensity of those obsessive emotions was horrific.

* * *

The lamplighters were firing the oil wicks in the streetlamps by the time Edward and Samuel arrived at their narrow row house in the East End. Edward took his coat off and hung it on a nail by the door then held out his hand for Samuel’s coat. Samuel fished a canning jar out of the pocket before handing it to him.

“What’s that, then?” Edward asked.

Samuel looked guilty. “Miss Simone said I could keep it.” He held up the jar for his father to inspect the contents: a green rock and a black cricket.

“O’course you can keep it,” he said, handing it back.

Samuel grinned and ran for the kitchen. He set the jar on their small table and threw an armful of wood on the coals of the kitchen fire. He swung the iron kettle over the flames for tea and set out plates and salt cod for dinner. Edward sat at the table, careful not to rock the uneven legs and tip Samuel’s jar.

It had been hard raising Samuel alone, but at least he was a better father than his own had been. His father’s violence had been hard enough, but the echoes had made it so much worse. Both Edward and his mother had relived the anger and fear of each event over and over, sometimes for days before the echoes dispelled. Over the years, his mother became increasingly withdrawn, though she refused to leave her husband. Edward hadn’t seen her for nearly a year now, not since she’d tried to hang herself.

He wracked his brain for any donor for Mrs. Winston’s potion other than his mother. Harvesting echoes had no ill effect on the donor—no more than collecting their tears or bottling their breath would—but the cost to Edward would be dear. Feeling the echoes of his mother’s hopelessness when he was young had been heartbreaking; to absorb the depth of her current despair into his own body would be hellish. Donors weren’t easy to find though, even for love potions. The emotions had to be strong enough to do the job. It could take months to find someone just right for this. Someone else, at least.

* * *

The following morning Edward opened the under-stair cupboard and pulled a wooden box from its recesses. Two blue phials containing love and a single green phial holding sorrow were all that remained of his potions. Not only were they challenging to collect, but he didn’t dare sell them frequently enough to attract the attention of the law. Among the empty containers in the box were some clear phials for the occasional odd request but, in general, few people sought anything other than love or revenge.

Edward placed an empty phial in his pocket and left Samuel in the care of a neighbor, then stopped at his landlord’s and paid the surprised man a year’s rent in advance before beginning his journey. He weighed again the personal cost, body and soul, to collect this potion against his and Samuel’s need for the money. Again the scales favored need.

An hour later he crossed Moorfields and the outline of Bethlem Royal Hospital appeared beyond the open fields. Bedlam—as most folk called it—loomed heavy and foreboding, like a pale, stone monster unable to move for the sheer mass of victims it had gorged upon. Multiple eyes of black barred windows dotted the walls, and the shrieks and moans drifting from those windows sounded like nothing human. Somewhere within the bowels of that monster lay his mother.

Edward had never been able to bring himself to visit and dreaded doing so now. The judge had ruled her suicide attempt a moral insanity. He hadn’t believed she was mad then, but she surely would be now—locked for months in this wretched place with the echoes of lunatics all around her.

The front door was open, but just beyond the forecourt stood a metal gate. The smell wafting through the bars was a potent mix of unwashed bodies and human waste, feathered over the odor of dirt and mold that clung to the walls of the old building. Edward stood at the gate, watching the lunatics in the long gallery cavort and cry. There were only men that he could see, but he could hear women’s voices off to his right. Peering that way, he made out a set of bars dividing the inmates by gender into east and west wings.

The echoes drove into his brain like iron spikes. Anger. Fear. Despair. Hate. They pounded on his body like hammers. The inmates were obsessed with their private hells, and the echoes of their emotions filled the long gallery, reverberating again and again off the thick walls. The urge to run from the asylum nearly overwhelmed him. Instead, he rang a small bell hanging at the upper corner of the gate.

The man who approached wore a dirty linen shirt with no coat. His long trousers of faded blue had the look of old sailor’s clothing. Even Edward’s worn black coat and wash-water grey stockings were in better repair.

“Visitors come ‘round Tuesdays and Sundays, mate,” the guard said. “You can watch the lunatics anytime for a penny, though, if that’s what you’re after.”

If he left now, Edward wasn’t sure he would ever return.

“I’m of a need to see someone today. Etta Ferris.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a shilling. “This for your trouble of letting me in on an off day.” He pushed the silver coin through the bars, glad he had thought to bring it.

The guard grinned a wolfish smile. He lifted a hand that was truncated to a thumb and the first two fingers, angling from the second knuckle to the wrist in a long, puckered scar. Grabbing the small coin awkwardly, he slipped it into a pocket and pulled a key from under his shirt to open the barred gate.

At the squeal of the hinges, an inmate in the center of the room stopped pacing and stared. He was silver-haired but sturdy. Suddenly he was moving, grunting wordlessly, legs pumping as he rushed for the gate. Edward stepped back, alarmed. A burly man, another guard judging by the keys he carried, hit the lunatic in the chin with his elbow and the old man crumpled.

“Is she curable or incurable?” Edward’s guard asked, turning back to him from the commotion.

Edward stared at the old man on the floor. Waves of frustration radiated from the inmate as he rolled into a ball and sobbed. “Incurable,” Edward said faintly. That had been the doctor’s diagnosis on her admission.

“Right, then, I think I know her.”

The guard led Edward across the room and unlocked a door just in front of the bars to the women’s side. Edward followed him up a set of stairs, through another locked door to the right, and into the incurable women’s ward.

The smell hit him like a fist, sour and far stronger than below. Some women were chained to the walls or the floor, others were loose. Sores were untreated, feces was smeared about, and Edward’s shoes peeled from the sticky floor with a crackling sound. The echoes beat on his mind and his nerves until he thought he would begin raving as well. He wondered if even ten sovereigns could be worth this hell.

The guard walked ahead, oblivious to Edward’s torment. “Here y’are, mate.” He stopped and pointed. The woman was not chained but lay on her side on the filthy floor, unmoving, eyes wide. She was skeletal. “‘Fraid she won’t last much longer, she won’t eat no more.”

Tears stung Edward’s eyes as he took in the familiar pattern on the torn and faded dress that had once been her best, the brownish-blonde hair unwashed and matted with dirt, the narrow back that had cringed at echoes, but had been straight and strong when protecting him from his father’s drunken outbursts. He crouched down next to her, wondering if Bedlam would be his fate as well someday. He smothered the thought before it turned to Samuel and what his future might hold.

“Mum?” He said it quietly, as if not to disturb her. There was no response, no sign she recognized him.

“She ain’t spoke a word since she come here,” the guard said.

Edward didn’t need to wonder why. He could feel despair tolling from her like a great bell, ringing in his bones and chiming the sadness of her life. At least she wouldn’t suffer much longer. The will to die pulsed within her, stronger than blood. The echoes of it buffeted at him like a sad wind.

He wondered if he was strong enough to handle the intensity of her despair. Taking an echo of yearning or lust into his body was enough to muddle his brains and fill his heart with desire until he could exhale it into a phial; the prospect of taking in a sadness so deep that death was preferable terrified him. He felt for the phial in his pocket, reassuring himself he would only have to carry the emotion in his body until he was out the front door.

Edward kissed his mother gently on the forehead and said a silent prayer for her soul. Anxious to be gone from here, he tipped his head back and unlocked that strange place deep in his chest that he had discovered. The place that allowed him to harvest and hold the echoes.

He took a cautious breath, terrified that the emotions of two hundred lunatics would flood into him like a river finding an open weir gate. He knew his mother’s emotions well, though, and narrowed his focus on them. Her despair sifted into his lungs, sinking naturally to the spot beneath his breastbone. No other echoes followed. He breathed deeper, harvesting her sad bounty. When he had taken all he could hold, he locked the echoes in his chest.

Relief at his success lasted only a second before the echoes took effect. The terrible desolation of spirit was stronger than he could have imagined. It threatened to crush him to the floor. Despair and hopelessness overwhelmed him, suckling on his energy and will. He knew if he didn’t leave quickly, he might not leave at all. Edward pushed himself up from his knees, standing unsteadily.

“I’ll go now.” His voice was a whisper. The guard had seen nothing of his struggle; he nodded and led him back down the stairs.

The distance to the front door seemed twice what it had been before. Edward was despondent beyond tears, beyond words—beyond life. He held fast to the reason he had undertaken this awful task, the money that would help Samuel. He wondered if experiencing this despair was his penance for selling the echoes, inflicting them on the criminal, even if it was the man’s just due. When he finally reached the barred gate, the guard fumbled with the key.

Without warning, Edward was struck from behind. His body crashed into the bars and there was a sickening crunch from his coat pocket where he had placed the small phial. A sharp pain needled into his hip as a sliver of glass pierced the skin. His guard turned and swung at the old man who had run for the door when Edward arrived. The lunatic fell backward and the second guard wrestled the man to the floor.

When the two-fingered guard finally opened the gate, Edward threw himself out into the cool, fall air and stood on the front lawn, shaking. The fright of the incident was nothing to the horror of the broken phial. He slipped his hand gingerly into his pocket and pulled out the shards of glass, dropping them onto the lawn.

The journey home was torture. His mother’s hopelessness and misery dragged at him like a weight, trying to pull him to the ground. It whispered at him to give up, to give in, to lie down and die. It mercilessly nurtured every sorrow he had ever felt and revived them as if they were new. Near home he tripped and stumbled, falling to the gutter. Unwilling to get up again, he lay with his face against the horse piss and offal of the streets, and wished the sludge deep enough to drown him.

A hand pulled at one coat sleeve. “Ist tha’ druffen o’ yonderly?”

The northern accent was almost too thick to understand. “Ill,” Edward managed, crawling to his knees. “Not drunk.”

Strong arms tugged him to his feet. “Tha’s bist git ter ‘oome.”

Home. Samuel.

Edward nodded and waved off further help. He moved forward once again.

When Edward finally reached his house, he groped for the skeleton key. Throwing the door open, he stumbled to the under-stair cupboard. He dropped to his knees and rummaged for the first bottle he could find.

Lifting the glass to his mouth, Edward exhaled the dreadful echoes. Instead of flowing out easily with his breath, they came out reluctantly, thick and sticky. He corked the bottle, folded himself on the floor, and wept.

* * *

The next morning, Edward was unable to rise from bed. He needed to deliver the potion to Mrs. Winston today to collect the rest of his fee, but even that failed to motivate him. His mother’s despair had been too heavy and he had carried it too long. It had formed a bond with his loneliness, with unhappy memories of his childhood, his wife’s death, and with the gloom that poverty brought. He had become a victim of his own potion, the echoes blending with his native emotions until there was no telling one from the other.

Guilt plagued him over the thought that Samuel would live now with his depression, just as Edward had lived with his mother’s. Samuel brought him tea and pleaded for him to rise. Edward knew he had to get up; he had to get the money for Samuel.

When they arrived at Mrs. Winston’s, Samuel went with Simone to the garden while Edward was shown to the sitting room. He handed the phial to Mrs. Winston.

“And now?” she asked.

“I take no part in giving the potion,” Edward replied.

“Yes, Mr. Ferris, I am aware of that. How do you suggest I proceed?”

“The man must breathe the potion in. It’s best done by placing the open bottle close under a person’s nose when they’re asleep, and whispering them a suggestion.”

“I see,” Mrs. Winston said. Her steely gaze pinned him. “Do you believe this will work, Mr. Ferris?”

“I do,” Edward said, chilled by the thought of the strength of the echoes in that tiny jar.

Mrs. Winston strode to the mother-of-pearl box and returned with the remaining five gold sovereigns. They gleamed when she placed them in the palm of his hand. She saw him to the hallway where the manservant stood waiting, having just called Simone and Samuel in from outside. Samuel was shoving something into his pocket.

“What do you think?” Samuel asked the maid, eyes shining with a happiness that Edward rarely saw.

“I think it smelled like summer,” she replied in her lilting accent, smiling at the boy.

Edward wondered what new treasures Samuel had collected from the garden, flowers perhaps. Simone looked up then and saw him, as did Samuel.

“Come now,” Edward said. “Time to leave.”

“He’s a lovely boy,” Simone said. Her gaze lingered on Edward a moment longer than necessary, appraising him and making him self-conscious. She smiled her crooked smile at him.

They followed Simone through the kitchen. “A cup of tea before you go?” she asked.

Samuel looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Despondency rang inside Edward like a funeral bell and he was in no mood for flirtation. Even if he mistook the look in her eyes, he was not fit company for conversation of any sort.

“I cannot,” he said.

She ruffled Samuel’s hair in farewell and stood watching from the door as they left.

* * *

Edward awoke the next morning to find Samuel staring at him. The boy was already dressed, standing at his bedside with an anxious expression.

“Can we visit Miss Simone today?”

Simone. The name stirred something warm inside him. It sounded sweet on Samuel’s lips, familiar, as if Edward had just heard her name a moment before. Perhaps he had been dreaming of her. Of her sweet, crooked smile.

“We’ll not be going round to Mrs. Winston’s anymore.” The thought disturbed him. He realized that he wanted to see Simone again.

Samuel continued to stare at him. Edward looked into his young face, tight with hope. “We don’t see clients afterwards, you know that, and anyways they’ll be moving soon.”

“Maybe you could have a note sent afore they go, an’ we could meet her at a tea shop or somewhat, as you could pay with the money you made.” It tumbled out in a fountain of hopeful words.

Yes. What would be so wrong with that?

Edward sought inside for the despondency of the past two days and felt it lessened, diluted. Instead of a depression he had believed would drag him down the same well as his mother, a buoyant anticipation overlay it now. He remembered the appraising look Simone had given him before they left, and smiled to himself.

And then he remembered waking to Samuel at his bedside as he dreamed of Simone.

Edward sat up in bed and stared at Samuel. The boy’s face went wide and guilty.

“I just thought it would be nice to see her again. I liked her so much and she reminded you o’mother.”

How did Samuel know that? He couldn’t have felt the echoes of such a flitting emotion. Or could he?

Edward threw off the bedcovers and hurried downstairs in his nightshirt. He pulled open the under-stair cupboard and yanked the box out. Both love potions were there.

Samuel appeared at his side, looking as contrite as only an eight year-old could. Edward rested on one knee in front of the cupboard, confused. “Samuel, what have you done?”

The boy answered in a mumble. “She liked you, an’ you’ve been so sad.”

“Did you use a potion on her, Samuel?”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically, looking surprised at the accusation.

“Did you use one on me?”

Samuel studied the toes of his boots.

Edward reached forward and fished in Samuel’s pocket, coming up with a blue phial. “Where’d this come from then?”

“I took an empty to Mrs. Winston’s yesterday,” Samuel confessed without looking up. “I talked about you to Miss Simone an’ then told her I was smelling the flowers I held, and then I said I was breathing the flowers into the bottle I brought.” He looked up, pleading. “She’s a’feared to lose her job an’ her home. An’ she does like you. She likes me too.”

“Samuel,” Edward squeezed the phial in his hand nearly to the breaking point, “you’re telling me you harvested echoes from her?”

The boy nodded, tears welling in his eyes.

“What could you o’possibly harvested?” Every echo Edward had ever harvested, even love, had been obsessive, nearly violent in strength. He had felt nothing from Simone.

“The liking you and the hoping I guess,” the boy mumbled.

Edward pushed himself off the floor and sank into the hall chair. He should rage fit to match one of his father’s rages. He should beat the boy for using a potion on him, even though he had sworn he would never raise a hand to his son. Instead, Edward sighed. He was the one who had taught the boy after all.

When he let go of the anger, other feelings drifted to the surface and he recognized them now—hope, desire and anticipation—the gentle aspects of early infatuation. They muted his despair until he hardly felt it. He had never imagined such quiet emotions could counter such brutal ones.

So Simone liked him. Unlikely as it seemed, perhaps it was possible. After all, she had touched something in him just in their brief time together. She missed her son and her husband, and genuinely seemed to like Samuel. Perhaps tea was not such a bad idea.

His voice, when he found it, was gentle. “Put that bottle up where you found it.”

Samuel put everything away and closed the cupboard door. Edward stood, his heart lightened with possibilities. With hope. He pictured Simone ruffling the boy’s hair and felt an urge to do the same.

“Let’s see about having a note sent ‘round to Miss Simone, shall we?”

The Clouds in Her Eyes

First published in Writers and Illustrators of the Future, Vol. 30 (May, 2014), edited by Dave Wolverton

* * *

A breeze caught at the blades of the windmill, producing a groan of protest from the hub. Amba glanced up at the weathered shaft and cracked wooden blades, both unlikely to see repairs with the well nearly dry. Above the windmill, a great sheet of heat lightning crackled purple and yellow across the dark sky; the sky that promised rain every day as if unaware that it had no moisture left to give.

Looking anywhere except to the fields, Amba returned to poking the ground with the point of her copper herding rod. Eventually, the vastness of the land drew her eyes across the acres of dirt, flat and featureless, punctuated only by the containment poles.

The ship was there, closer each day. Its sails billowed and the great wooden hull heaved on invisible waves that rolled between the ship’s dry keel and the dirt of the farm. It had advanced nearly to the top of the second field, the one where the grubs matured into young sparkers. By tomorrow the ship would be in the first field.

It was no use running for Father. She had done that when it first appeared as a speck on the horizon, at the waning of the last moon. Father had seen nothing. The speck had grown steadily larger, and still he had taken no notice. By the time the Wind Moon was waxing, the sails and the hull had been distinguishable and she had pointed it out again. He’d stared unseeing and unbelieving at the horizon, then grunted and turned away.

He never mentioned it afterward; never said if he thought she was lying or teasing or, worse, hallucinating, as she had during her illness. If it concerned him, he fostered it in silence, as he did all his worries.

Amba had worked hard to take over her brother’s duties in the fields after Jass died. Her father did his best to accept her as a surrogate, but telling him that a ship he couldn’t see was sailing over their fields threatened her fragile progress with him. She had resolved not to mention it to him again, no matter what.

The ship was close enough now that she could see men on the deck and details of the figurehead: a body, an upraised arm holding something. She wondered if the ship would sail right up to the house, or through the house. She wondered if she would drown when the unseen ocean washed over her.

Mustering her resolve to walk into the field, she went first to the corral to collect her mallet, then scanned the dirt in the top field until she spotted a ripple in the soil. Approaching the disturbance, she tapped her slender rod into the ground just behind it. The ripple surged away from her. Father said the copper tasted as bitter to sparkers as immature haza beans tasted to Amba.

She pulled the rod from the ground and tapped it in again at a safe distance behind the sparker. Mature sparkers were the most dangerous. Even with the herding rod’s leather grip, they could give a nasty jolt if she came too close. Zigzagging with the erratic path the creature took, she herded it toward the opening in the small circle of poles that made up the corral. Once the sparker entered, she jammed her herding rod into the ground and hurried to replace the missing containment pole before the sparker wriggled out again.

* * *

I have one ready,” she told Father when she found him in the shed, already changed into his heavily padded harvesting clothes. His only reply was to bend and take one handle of the glass cage. She lifted the other side of the container and together they carried it to the corral.

Her father’s quiet manner had been peaceful and comforting when Amba was young, but after the fever killed Mother he had become more distant than quiet. When Jass died, her father had withdrawn further still. Amba wished that she knew how to find the old him, wherever he had gone, and help him find his way back. She needed him. She was broken in her own way, with an emptiness since her illness, since Mother’s death, that had never filled up again. It ached sometimes, in the hollow just below her breastbone.

They reached the corral and set the cage down. Amba braced herself to watch Father harvest. She hadn’t been there when Jass died, but she had seen him afterward, his eyes frozen wide with pain, the burnt and flaking skin that she had scrubbed from his chest and hands before they buried him.

Her father was slipping on his heavy gloves when she turned suddenly at the sound of a deep voice shouting behind her. For a moment, she had forgotten about the ship. A large man stood at the wheel and the men on deck scurried to follow some order. The ship was too far away to make out what he’d said, though he had raised his voice, as if over the roar of wind and waves.

Amba turned back to find her father staring at her. She flushed under his silent, probing gaze. He held her eyes for a long moment—not searching for clues to her thoughts—but looking at them, studying the clouds in the dark brown of her irises. The clouds that the fever had left behind. His brow furrowed in concern before he turned, wordlessly, and stepped into the corral.

Amba hurried to push the cage against the containment poles to make up for her lapse. She stood well back, holding the heavy glass lid ready. Her father moved around the edge of the corral, staying close to the safety of the poles. He pushed his hooked rod into the ground and angled it to tease the sparker from the soil. When the back of the creature broke the surface, he swept the rod deftly under its twisting body.

Once wrenched from the soil they were ugly things—grayish-brown, like giant eyeless slugs, but with nublike tails and a multitude of tiny legs that propelled them through the soil. This one was a monster, as long and as thick around as her thigh, its many legs clawing at the air.

If any of the spines on those legs connected with her father’s clothing, the sparker would cling to him, charring his skin and stopping his heart. Father kept the sparker well away from him, though, and in one smooth motion slipped it between the poles and into the glass container. Amba quickly slid the top into place.

The creature thrashed against the dry glass of its confines, sparking like a mirror image of the heat lightning flashing in the sky. Those sparks lit lamps and powered the great wheels and fans in town, though water and food were what made them most valuable. Bereft of soil to soothe it, the sparker began to secrete water into the container even as Amba and her father carried it back to the shed.

They harvested the remainder of the mature sparkers all the rest of that day. Amba tried to ignore the ship sailing ever closer as she worked, though she stole quick glances at it when Father wasn’t watching.

By evening, the first field was cleared, and she felt exhausted. Father went to the shed and set up the siphons that would keep the sparkers from drowning in their own water while Amba headed for the house to clean up and begin supper.

* * *

Do you think there’s still an ocean?” she asked him that evening as they ate. Sparkers tasted like snails and were tough, even when stewed all day, but at least they were plentiful.

His eyes narrowed briefly, no doubt wondering why she asked. She had tried to be subtle—everyone thought about water after all—but the ship was foremost in her thoughts. She chewed a crust of bread and lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t be reminded of the clouds there.

“Don’t know,” he replied, scooping up a spoonful of stew. “Never seen it, but I suppose it’s still there. They say there’s still water in some of the rivers and such. The ocean must be harder to dry up than those.”

He lapsed into silence again and Amba tried not to think about where the ship might be now. After dinner, she cleaned the dishes, swept the house, and started a new loaf of bread to rise for morning. The sack of grain in the pantry was their last, and the jars of vegetables they had traded for were dwindling. Soon, like many already, they would have to live on nothing but the sparkers.

Amba enjoyed the feel of kneading bread. It reminded her of her childhood, when they had kept a garden and grown grain instead of sparkers. Father hadn’t been so sad then and the house not so lonely. She and Mother always had the cooking and cleaning and sewing done before Father was even aware of the need. He used to ruffle her hair and spend his rare words complimenting her baking or his new shirts. Amba had even caught Mother and Father kissing one day, out by the shed.

She and Father did the work of four people now, and life felt somehow incomplete no matter how hard she tried to fill the holes in her world. Amba pressed her hand to the ache at the hollow below her breastbone, as if she could push her fist inside to sate the emptiness.

* * *

The next day, while Father worked in the shed, Amba was sent to gauge the grubs in the second field, to see if they were large enough to herd forward. He couldn’t see that the ship was now halfway up the first field, or that to reach the grubs, she would have to walk right past it.

She could have skirted wide of the ship, and perhaps it would’ve stayed its course up the field and sailed away. She didn’t believe it would, though. If she was the only one who could see it, then it must have come for her. She had been frightened and curious too long; if there was no avoiding this thing, she decided, she may as well meet it head on.

The banister of the deck stood nearly three times her height above the ground, and the ship loomed hugely as she approached it. She strained to hear the splash and roll of waves that gently rocked the hull, or the wind that tousled the men’s hair, but she heard only the silence of the farm and the creak of the windmill.

The figurehead turned out to be a woman, naked to hips that melded into the lower part of the bow. Her right arm was raised high, and in her hand she clutched a metal lightning bolt painted gold. Wooden hair that may once have been red streamed back into the point of the prow, as if blown by a strong wind. On the deck of the ship were half a dozen men. The man at the wheel was tall and broad shouldered, sporting a thick shock of ginger hair, and a reddish beard and mustache trimmed short.

“Lower the sails,” the big man called as she neared. Ropes whined as the sails came down, folding like ladies’ fans onto the crossbeams of the masts. “Drop anchor,” he ordered.

Amba heard the rattle of thick chain and saw a huge anchor tumble from a hole in the hull, though she never heard a splash or saw it hit the ground. The anchor disappeared, leaving only the chain hanging taut above the dirt. The ship rocked to a halt.

Her legs felt as if they had no more bones than a sparker as she closed the last few feet. The big man came to the railing and leaned into it, elbows locked, looking down at her. “What’s your name, child?”

Once he acknowledged her directly it all became too real. Amba’s heart fluttered as fast as a thrummer bird’s wings. She wondered if he was a spirit, or maybe a king or a god, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. She reminded herself that she wasn’t a child, but nearly a woman grown. With an effort, she kept her voice steady as she answered, “Amba.”

“Not your given name, girl. Your true name. What’s your family name?”

“Storm-bringer.”

Her father’s true name, Stalwart, was one of the newer ones—his mother’s name for six or seven generations back—but the name she and Jass had inherited from their mother was one of the old ones, like Bone-healer or Wheat-singer or Wave-tamer. It had been passed down from a time so distant that no memory of those days remained.

The ginger-haired man nodded, as if this was something he already knew. “Why haven’t you brought the storms then, girl? Your land is in need.”

“It’s just a name,” she said, taken aback. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

He bent his elbows and crossed his forearms on the railing. It seemed to bring him closer to her. “It means everything, girl, especially when the land needs you. Don’t you feel it calling to you, like an emptiness inside you? Like something’s missing?”

There was an emptiness inside her, but it was for her mother, her brother, and the lost days of her childhood.

“It’s time you remember your heritage, Amba. I’ve brought you something that might help.” He reached beneath his shirt and lifted a chain over his head. He dropped a necklace over the railing.

Amba bent to retrieve it but couldn’t find the necklace where she thought it had landed. She began to wonder if it had dropped into the invisible ocean when, finally, she spotted a few links poking out of the earth. She tugged, and the chain came partially free. With a little digging, the rest of the necklace emerged from deep in the soil. There was an ornament at the bottom of the chain, but it was caked with dirt. She was certain it had been shiny gold as it fell through the air. Her fingers rubbed the dirt away to find a lightning bolt, the gold metal dark with age.

She rubbed the lightning bolt clean with a corner of her dress, leaving smudges of dirt and black tarnish on the fabric, and slipped the chain over her head. The bolt was the same design as the one on the wooden figurehead. The storm symbol reminded her of snippets from her fever dreams that she had thought of only occasionally in the six years since her illness—vague memories of great winds and wild storms raging; lightning striking ferociously and thunder that shook the bones of the earth. There had been a storm outside as she lay delirious with fever, the first big storm in years. It was what had caused the nightmares, her father told her.

“Amba.” Her father’s voice pulled her from her reflections. He was walking toward her across the field. She wondered if he had seen her talking to empty air and digging in the dirt for the necklace. Shame flooded her. She was not at her duties, and she had probably given him yet another reason to doubt her sanity. Face burning, she ran to the second field without waiting for him to ask why she hadn’t come to let him know if the grubs were ready to move.

* * *

That night, for the first time in six years, the storm dreams returned. She was outside, in the fields, barefoot, and wearing only her nightdress. The Wind Moon was full above her.

“Storm-bringer,” the earth called to her in a voice as dusty as the soil. A breeze rustled the fabric about her legs and carried the scent of death and decay to her nostrils. Through her bare feet she felt the thirst in the soil, and the pain of the earth became her own. The hollow beneath her breastbone burned like hot coals. Empty. So empty. Not empty for her mother, she knew now. That pain was in her heart. This place waited for something else to fill it.

In her dream, she knew what she must do, and she knew how to do it. She turned her face to the sky and breathed in the air, as if pulling it all the way inside her mind, down into her lungs and down further still. She rooted her feet to the ground, feeling the soil between her toes, and drew the energy of the earth up through her legs and into her middle. When the sky energy and the earth energy met in that hollow place, she called on her power.

It came.

Amba’s mind soared with the wind and her legs grew deep into the soil. Her hair lifted in a nimbus around her head as she became the conduit that connected earth and sky. The tremendous forces of nature were no longer a mystery to her. She stood, arms upraised, exalted, filled with a terrible power that could command the heavens to her bidding. She pulled moisture from the air into the dark clouds and tugged the impotent heat lightning into a single bolt that she hurled down to the earth. It hit the ground like a great hammer, and the thunder that erupted shook the ground. The wind blew mightily and the rain started. A storm that could drench the whole world.

People came to her then, all her distant neighbors, all the folk of the county, all the people of the land. They begged her to stop but still she brought the rain. Every creek bed, gully and valley flooded; peoples’ homes washed away. Sparkers died by the thousands, drowning beneath her feet or struggling to the surface only to drown in the heavy rain. The lights went out and the fans went off. People were hungry; then they starved; then they died.

Amba woke, screaming.

* * *

Liath looked at Amba’s tongue, then felt her cheeks and between her shoulder blades. Father had been unable to console Amba when she woke from her nightmare and had summoned the herb woman when she remained afraid, even in the light of day.

“There’s no fever,” Liath told Amba. She stared at her eyes a long time before adding, “The clouds there are unchanged.” She had tended Amba and her mother when they fell ill, as well as many others that awful season. Some had died and some had lived, but Amba was the only one on whose eyes the fever had bestowed clouds.

“Are you sure you won’t tell me what’s been bothering you?” Liath asked again. Her expression was strong but kindly, the lines in her face as coarse as the black hair shot through with gray. Amba felt tempted to confide in her.

What could she tell Liath? That her name might be more than just a name? That a man on an invisible ship was trying to wake an ancient power inside her? That using that power would bring such storms that it would kill all the sparkers? People that Liath cared for would suffer and die if that happened. Maybe Liath would as well. Amba just shook her head and retreated to the same silence where her father carried all his burdens.

“Get dressed,” Liath said.

Amba pulled her thin work-dress over her shift, leaving the necklace hidden in the folds of her nightdress. She had woken from her nightmare holding the lightning bolt in such a grip that her palm was sticky with blood.

Liath opened the bedroom door. Father waited in the other room. “She’s not ill,” Liath told him, “and I see no sign of fever. Or madness.” The deep worry lines in her father’s face softened slightly. “Perhaps she’s just been working too hard,” she said, patting him on the shoulder maternally, though they were of a similar age. “Perhaps you both have been. Let her rest a few days and see how she does. Send for me if you need me again.”

With that, Liath let herself out the front door to ride the borrowed donkey back to its farm and then walk the rest of the way to town.

Father told Amba, “Go to bed and rest.”

She obediently climbed into bed, and he surprised her by bending suddenly to ruffle her hair before he left for the fields. He had lost most of a day’s work taking care of her, she knew. She lay back, but she feared to sleep, feared to dream. At last, stress claimed its price, though. Her eyes closed. She slept. And the storm dreams came again.

This time she woke before she started screaming.

* * *

Amba lay awake, her heart slowing to normal before she got up. The gray light of dawn was just easing into the sky. She tiptoed into the main room of the house, listening, but heard no sound. This was the time of day that she and Father usually arose, but she suspected he had worked late into the night and had not yet woken.

She had to make the ship leave, had to tell the ginger-haired man that she would not do the things he wanted, and she had to do it when her father wouldn’t see her talking to the air. She eased from the house still in her nightdress and still barefoot.

The tilled soil was rough and uneven under her feet. One hand clutched near her throat and she realized that she was gripping the necklace, though she didn’t remember putting it on.

Amba knew what she meant to say, but her mind remained half in her dreams and the place beneath her breastbone felt full and heavy and warm. It was confusing. Like being two people at once, the girl of the storms and the girl of the farm.

The ship was bobbing at anchor in the first field, as she had known it would be. She neared the ship, and the ginger-haired man came to the railing. He smiled. “You have awoken your birthright, Storm-bringer. I can feel it.”

“I can’t do it,” she said. “I know what you want, and I can’t do it to Father. I can’t do it to any of them. We need the sparkers more than we need the rain.” Perhaps he was an old spirit, and didn’t understand the world as it was now. If the sparkers died, people would starve.

“You can’t decide the fate of the world until you have knowledge of the world. Use that power of yours. Feel what’s going on around you, and then make up your mind what you will and won’t do.”

“It won’t matter. I can’t bring the rain if it hurts the people.”

Amba turned to walk back to the house when a jolt shocked through her bare feet. Father must have moved the larger grubs to the first field, and one lay beneath her now. Everything about the creature felt wrong in a way that made her stomach clench as if she might vomit. Almost without thought, she tapped her power.

It swept through her—just as it had in her dream—out the top of her head to the sky and down through her feet into the earth. Her legs were on fire with energy, and her scalp prickled as her hair lifted. Her entire body became a conduit.

Unlike her dream, this time she truly connected to the earth and sky. And suddenly she understood. Everything.

She felt the energy of the sparkers moving through the soil and that of the heat lightning above. She understood the dry earth and the perpetually angry clouds. She understood that people farming more and more of the sparkers kept lightning from reaching the ground—like rubbing two cloths on amber and trying to bring them together—and that was what held off the rain.

The earth was barren, the crops gone and the animals dying. Her people stood on the brink of destruction. The sparkers weren’t saving people, they were killing them.

Even more importantly, she understood her power now. It wasn’t striving to unleash the storms for the sake of violence. It spoke the language of nature and had heard the land screaming out its need. It ached only to bring balance and healing to her world.

Amba distantly heard the bang of a door. She glanced back toward the house and saw her father standing on the porch. She wondered what he thought, seeing her in her nightdress in the middle of the field, her hair flying about her. She wondered if he could see the glow of power she felt burning her skin.

Her heart broke for him. He would never understand if she did this thing, none of them would, but she could see now that their world was dying a slow, dry death. She knew it as surely as she knew that she held the key to their survival, if only she had the courage to begin. With an effort, Amba turned from her father.

She didn’t bother to step clear of the ship. The ship couldn’t be harmed by the storms. It was a part of them as much as she was. Perhaps those men sailed the clouds in the sky as well as the clouds in her eyes.

Amba lifted her arms, tipped her head back, and allowed the power to explode from her. Releasing it was a sensation as familiar as breathing. She laughed, all else forgotten, as the heavens answered her with a rising wind and a bolt of lightning that streaked down from the clouds toward her. She recognized the voice of the wind. She knew the lightning like a friend. It struck the ground at her feet, and the peal of thunder that accompanied it was majestic.

The rains began, fat drops, pelting from the sky. The smell of moist air and earth filled her nostrils. Rain ran in rivulets down her face and arms. It continued to intensify, falling with a force hard enough to sting.

“Amba, have you done this?”

Her father had to shout over the storm. He must have run to her when the rain started. The pounding water slicked his dark hair to his head. The roar of rain cascading to the ground made him hard to hear, though he stood at her side. In his voice she heard the plea that things were not bigger than his understanding, that her strange behavior and the storm were no more than a coincidence.

She reached out and took him by the shoulders. “It’ll be all right, Father. Everything will be all right.”

* * *

The grubs were the first to die, drowning in puddles no larger than her hand. The sparkers stayed underground longer, but finally they, too, had to emerge from the sodden soil to take their chances above. Amba stayed outside for hours, reveling in the rains that lashed her. Never had she felt so whole.

Once the rains began, the ship weighed anchor and sailed back the way it had come. Beneath the roar of the storm, Amba finally heard the quarter winds in the sails and the splash of the ocean beneath the hull.

Father left too, on the task she had assigned him. The people had to start building waterwheels and repairing their windmills. Grain stores needed to be gathered in a central, dry place. Most important, Father had to see that word got to the Wheat-singers and the Wave-tamers and all the other old families in the county. They needed to come to her so that, together, they could learn the true meaning of their names and discover how to tap their powers.

There was much work ahead for them all.

Nik Constantine

Last Transaction

“Last Transaction” originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2015.

* * *

(RESIDENTIAL PROGRAM activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Morning sequence initialized.)

Good morning, Citizen 79867. The time is now 0700, on Monday, April 23, 2136. Temperature on Colony 13: 18° Celsius. Temperature outside of colony bio-dome: 65° Celsius.

Calendar reminder: Your biannual physical is due. Scanning citizen biometrics. Blood pressure: Normal range. Blood sugar: Slightly elevated. Weight: 6.8 kg higher than last physical. Should results be submitted to Citizen Census Bureau now?

No.

Measurements discarded. You have 7 days remaining to submit biometrics to the Citizen Census Bureau. Pending messages on your account. Would you like to review them now?

Yes.

Three messages found. Message One: Timestamp: 22APR2136, 0900. Sender: Federated Colony Credit Union. Priority: Low. Message contents: The scheduled monthly salary deposit from Logistics, Inc., was deposited Sunday, April—

Skip message.

Message Two: Timestamp: 23APR2136, 0600. Sender: Executive Director. Priority: Heightened. Message contents: All Logistics, Inc., personnel are to attend a mandatory meeting at 1500 this afternoon regarding the ongoing defense contract negotiations. Tardy individuals will receive disciplinary—

Skip message.

Message Three: Timestamp: 23APR2136, 0630. Sender: Federated Colony Credit Union. Priority: Urgent. Message contents: Several monthly scheduled transactions were declined on April 23, 2136, due to insufficient funds, as follows: Scheduled payment to GraviWorks Utility Company. Scheduled payment to ColonyGlo Electric. Scheduled payment to—

End message retrieval. Access personal financial account.

Personal financial accounts accessed. Current account balance: -25037.6 credits. Select an option to repeat this balance in yuan, rupees, yen, or the US denomination of the now-defunct United States. Be advised: Federated Colony Credit Union will cease providing American currency services on August 15, 2136 as per—

Access last transactions. Date range: Sunday, April 22, 2136, to Monday, April 23, 2136.

Two transactions found.

A recurring deposit of 2972.5 credits was received on Sunday, April 22, 2136 at 0900, from Logistics, Inc. Resulting balance: 3008.4 credits.

A withdrawal of 28046 credits was made on Monday, April 23, 2136 at 0615. Resulting balance: -25037.6 credits.

Trace last transaction.

Last transaction traced. Outgoing transfer authorization found to Citizen—

Incoming urgent message requiring immediate attention.

Skip.

Message cannot be skipped. Incoming urgent message from the Federated Revenue Bureau. Timestamp: 23APR2136, 0710. Message contents: Due to recent negative transactions on your financial account in excess of 28000 credits, your account has been flagged for potential criminal activity. Criminal activity flags for amounts exceeding 10000 credits result in an automatic reduction of civil status to probationary citizen, pending judicial review. Probationary status will impact your access to certain public services, such as—

End message retrieval. Access personal financial account.

Personal financial accounts accessed. Current account bal—

Skip. Trace last transaction.

Last transaction traced. Outgoing transfer authorization found to Citizen 68516.

Look up Citizen 68516.

Command error: Public records cannot be accessed or modified by probationary citizens. Please contact your local judicial—

Skip. Access financial account services.

Services accessed. Please select from the following—

File financial theft report for last transaction.

Preparing financial theft report. Command error: Financial theft reports for amounts exceeding 7000 credits must be forwarded to Central Judicial. Would you like to forward your report now?

Yes.

Warning: Probationary citizens do not have access to priority report forwarding. Report has been submitted and placed at the end of judicial queue. Current queue position: 3426. Estimated time until review is—

Skip.

New pending messages on your account. Would you like to review them now?

Yes.

Two messages found. Message One: Secure Message. Encryption key verified. Timestamp: 23APR2136, 0715. Sender: Security Department, Logistics, Inc. Message contents: Please contact the Security Department for information regarding a change of status in your security clearance. Do not use unencrypted communication to respond—

Skip.

Message Two: Timestamp: 23APR2136, 0717. Sender: Human Resources, Logistics—

End message retrieval.

(Navigational program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Personalized navigation system initialized.)

Good morning, Citizen 79867. The time is now 0807, on Monday, April 23, 2136. Temperature on Colony 13 is—

Skip. Activate manual navigation.

Command error: A remote boot has been placed on this jumper vehicle by the Federated Revenue Bureau, pending a judicial review. In the case of a negative ruling, this vehicle will be seized along with any outstanding assets for possible liquid—

Skip. Access pedestrian navigation map.

Pedestrian navigation map accessed. An alternate route has been suggested by the Federated Revenue Bureau to your nearest local judicial—

Skip suggestion.

Be advised: A guide is en route to escort you to initial processing at your local judicial facility. In thirty seconds, this jumper vehicle’s door will lock for temporary holding. Initiating countdown until—

End navigational program.

(Motion detected within booth. Barter program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Greeting sequence initialized.)

Good morning, anonymous citizen. At PawnSafe, we promise an entirely secure transaction without the need for identifying informat—

Skip.

Select the type of transaction you would like to perform with PawnSafe.

Personal item liquidation.

Please place an eligible item on the scale analyzer. Be advised: Items larger than the scale analyzer should be negotiated at the PawnSafe main building on—

Item detected. Metal jewelry. Item type: Analog watch. Scanning metal composition and functionality. Functionality acceptable. Chemical composition: Au, 85%. Other elements detected: Ag, and an alloy of Cu and Zn. Remaining elements negligible. Market value based on composition: 800 credits.

Price dispute.

New price dispute entered. Enter a reason for market-value dispute.

Antique Waltham pocket watch from the late—

Keyword detected: Antique. Please wait. Attempting isotope-decay dating. Analysis successful. New market-value price: 3100 credits.

Price dispute.

New price dispute entered. Command error: Only one price dispute allowed per item. This market-value offer will be retracted in thirty seconds and this item will no longer be eligible for trade. Initiating countdown.

Accept offer.

Offer accepted. 3100 credits in payment queue. Please place a new item on the scale analyzer or initiate payment procedure.

New item detected on scale. Personal comm unit. Initial market-value estimation: 400 credits. Scanning functionality. Functionality excellent. Secure encryption capabilities detected. New market-value estimation: 900 credits.

Accept offer.

Offer accepted. Please place a new item on the scale analyzer or initiate payment procedure.

Initiate payment.

Insert anonymous payment unit or enter account information. Be advised: Using personal account information will expose this transaction to public records.

Anonymous payment unit detected. 4000 credits issued. Unit ejected. Warning: Keep hands off scale analyzer as items are lowered into processing unit.

Be advised: Personal information detected on sold comm unit. Would you like to scrub this information?

Yes.

Initiating information scrub. Accessing information for diagnostic scan.

Warning: A warrant has been issued for the owner of this comm unit on charges of: Grand credit fraud, escaping jumper vehicle temporary holding, and missing a judicial processing appointment. Owner status: Probationary citizen. Central Judicial has offered a reward for information leading to the successful arrest and custody of—

End transaction.

(Passenger detected. Transportation program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Greeting sequence initialized.)

Good morning, Citizen—Command error: Personal comm unit not detected. This transportation vehicle will be unable to provide personalized—

Skip.

Please provide proof of payment and enter destination.

Anonymous payment unit detected. Be advised: Central Judicial periodically reviews anonymous transportation transactions to ensure that no violations are—

Skip. Destination: The Cess.

Destination information received. Warning: This section of Colony 13 is considered uninhabitable and populated by known criminals of Central Jud—

Skip.

Route initialized. Transaction price: 300 credits. Accept?

Yes.

Time until destination: 45 minutes.

(Passenger detected. Transportation program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Greeting sequence initialized.)

Good evening, Citizen—Command error. Personal comm unit not detected. This transportation vehicle will be unable to provide personalized greetings and route information.

Warning: Recent anonymous transaction detected in vicinity of the Cess ungovernable zone. Be advised: Transactions performed in this area are considered illegal and subject to—

(Program mod initialized. Self-diagnostic complete. Vehicle subroutine tapped. Passenger transportation program halted.)

Nightshade Command Program initiation successful. Warning: The Nightshade Command Program utilizes modified Logistics, Inc., military defense technology. Unauthorized use may result in judiciary action. Acknowledge.

Proceed.

Commandeer jumper vehicle?

Yes.

Public jumper vehicle manifest accessed. Maintenance code override generated. Locating nearest municipal jumper maintenance facility. Found. Falsifying coordinates to mirror maintenance facility.

Initiate new command.

Locate Citizen 68516.

Beginning trace. Anonymous access restriction encountered. Applying random citizen identification. Success. Resuming trace on Citizen 68516.

Matching citizen found on passenger manifest for Intercolony Transport Ship FSS Heimdal. Ship destination: Colony 36. Estimated arrival: May 30, 2136.

Look up route fare to Colony 36.

Searching fare for transport from Colony 13 to Colony 36. One route matching request. Fare: 17500 credits.

Initiate new command.

Look up Citizen 79867.

Record found. Citizen 79867. Probationary citizen. Former employee of Logistics, Inc. Security clearance access: Revoked. Active warrant in effect on charges of: Grand credit fraud, escaping jumper vehicle temporary holding, and missing a judicial processing appointment. Reward offered by Central Judicial for information leading to the successful arrest and custody of Citizen 79867. End record.

Look up reward on Citizen 79867.

An active reward for information leading to the successful arrest and custody of Citizen 79867 is offered, for exactly: 20000 credits. To report information, please call Central Judicial Dispatch and specify Case #79867A.

Initiate new command.

Return home.

Command error: Anonymous use of the Nightshade Command Program prohibits storage of personalized route information. Specify address.

Residential City Tower 16C, Unit 416.

Transport initiated. Estimated time until arrival: 40 minutes.

Destination reached. Initiate new command.

Contact Central Judicial Dispatch regarding Case #79867A.

Command error: Judicial message system requires verifiable citizen identification. Seek valid identification?

Yes.

**Scanning Colony 13 citizen records. Compatible citizen found. Assuming identification of Citizen 83404. Initiating contact with Central Judicial Dispatch.

Report sighting of Citizen 79867 at Residential City Tower 16C, Unit 416.

Message sent. Communication ended. Initiate new command.

Record delayed command sequence.

Delayed command sequence initiated. Please relay commands.

(Residential program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Evening sequence initialized.)

Welcome home, Citizen 79867. The time is now—

Safety warning: Due to failed payment to GraviWorks Utility Company, the localized gravitational field in this unit has been deactivated. Local microgravity is currently 0.630 m/s^2. Please keep limbs tucked in to avoid injury from untethered furniture. Human and Health Services recommends anchoring all possible household hazards in case of utility outages or—

Security door deactivated. This unit is being forcibly entered by Central Judicial on the premise of: Apprehending Citizen 79867.

Residential program security override from Central Judicial. This program is now shutting down.

(Prisoner detected. Vehicle doors secured. Containment program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Navigation initialized.)

Scanning prisoner for possible weapons or artificial-intelligence devices. None found.

Warning: No personal comm unit present on prisoner. Please extend hand to biometric sampler.

Skin sample obtained. DNA matches Citizen 79867. Disregarding citizen weight discrepancy from Citizen Census Bureau records. Logging criminal apprehension of Citizen 79867 to Central Judicial.

Prisoner restraints in place. Jumper vehicle is now en route to Central Judicial Processing Station 8. Be advised: In order to prevent injury, do not attempt to escape restraints or jumper vehicle.

(Nightshade Command Program resumed. Self-diagnostics complete. Initializing delayed command sequence.)

Contacting Central Judicial Dispatch as Citizen 83404.

Thank you for contacting Central Dispatch, Citizen 83404. You have been previously identified in relation to: Case #79867A. Please specify request.

Request reward in conjunction with Case #79867A.

Forwarding request. Processing case details. Citizen 79867 has been verified as apprehended as of 1830 on April 23, 2136. Citizen 83404 is eligible for offered reward. Transfer reward to personal account now?

Yes.

A reward amount of 20000 credits has been transferred to the personal account of Citizen 83404.

Be advised: Until Citizen 79867 is in the custody of a Central Judicial Processing Station, this payment will remain pending. Withdrawal of credits from this transaction before it is finalized will result in a reversal transaction. Please acknowledge.

Understood.

Thank you for contacting Central Judicial Dispatch.

Detected disconnection. Continuing delayed command sequence.

Tracing judicial containment vehicle route from Residential City Tower 16C. Found. Citizen in containment jumper vehicle en route to Central Judicial Processing Station 8. Estimated arrival: 1913.

Comparing location of Central Judicial Processing Station 8 to Intercolony Transport Portal. Calculating optimal intercept route.

Optimal intercept route found. Analyzing specifications of standard judicial containment vehicle. Necessary speed calculated.

Reactivating commandeered passenger jumper vehicle. Initializing route.

(Status update to Central Judicial Dispatch complete. Estimated time until arrival at Central Judicial Processing Station 8: 10 minutes.)

In order to expedite processing, Central Judicial recommends that prisoners en route to station utilize available vehicle console in order to record statements and/or crime confessions. Would you like to utilize the vehicle console to record a statement or confession now?

No.

Response noted in official containment vehicle log.

Warning: Unknown vehicle proximity alert. This containment jumper vehicle will now attempt traffic maneuvers in order to maintain safe operating distance of—

Warning: Collision acknowledged at speed in excess of 80 mph. Navigational processing unit possibly damaged. Imminent impact with city infrastructure predicted within 15 seconds. Please remain upright in your seat to benefit from the full effectiveness of the vehicle restraint system—

Infrastructure impact. Analyzing crash damage. Steering capabilities inoperable. No other citizens detected within crash-site radius. Per Federated Colony protocols, the restraint system in this containment vehicle will now deactivate in order to facilitate possible life-saving maneuvers.

Restraints deactivated. Contacting emergency medical services in case of possible prisoner injuries.

Command error: Probationary citizens do not have access to high-priority medical services. Request moved to end of queue. Current queue position: 15. Estimated time until emergency medical service unit arrival: 30 minutes.

Please refrain from moving away from containment vehicle. Attempting to contact Central Judicial Dispatch.

(Nightshade Command Program running advanced diagnostics. Diagnostics complete. Collision predictions accurate. Damage to commandeered passenger jumper vehicle minimal.)

Delayed command sequence complete. Initiate new command.

Destination: Intercolony Transport Portal.

Warning: Damaged judicial containment vehicle has initiated prisoner escape prevention protocols.

Biometric tracking scanner detected. Modifying this vehicle’s EM frequencies to intercept.

Initiating barrage jamming of biometric tracking scanner. Be advised: Continuous barrage jamming will reduce available processor power of Nightshade Command Program to 55% and may cause passenger vehicle core to overheat.

Warning: Damaged judicial containment vehicle is initiating contact with Central Judicial Dispatch. Attempting network denial of service protocols. Be advised: Processor power reduced to 35%. Remaining processor power will execute basic commands only.

Continue to specified destination?

Yes.

Destination initialized. Vehicle now out of biometric tracking scanner range. Deactivating barrage jam. Processing power restored to 80%.

Initiate new command.

Report status of reward retrieval.

Award of 20000 credits successfully received and transferred to account of Citizen 83404. Transfer to anonymous payment unit?

Yes.

Contacting Federated Colony Credit Union. Requesting transfer from account of Citizen 83404.

Command error: Transaction still pending. Generating Federated Revenue Bureau approval code for immediate posting of transaction.

Applicable code applied. Transfer to anonymous payment unit successful.

Imminent arrival at Intercolony Transport Portal. Discarding Citizen 83404 identification and generating new identification.

Warning: Judicial search units detected at Portal vehicle entrance. Scrambling biometric signature.

(Central Judicial search program running. Scanning approaching passenger jumper vehicle.)

Command error: Unable to obtain clean biometric signature within vehicle. Attempting alternate organic analysis. Organic profile received. Comparing to Central Judicial criminal records.

Detected passenger is 6.8 kg heavier than the Citizen Census Bureau biometric record of Citizen 79867. Date of the most recent Bureau biometric record: November 18, 2135.

Running probability of weight discrepancy in Citizen 79867 since last biometric physical. Probability: 82% unlikely within Federated Colony Health Mandate Standards.

Aborting organic analysis. Passenger vehicle cleared for entry. Scanning next vehicle.

(Residential program activated. Self-diagnostics complete. Personalized morning sequence initialized.)

Good morning, Citizen 83404. The time is now 0715 on Tuesday, April 24, 2136. Climate within house: 22.2° Celsius, 29% relative humidity. Climate within orchid greenhouse: 30°Celsius, 73% absolute humidity.

Be advised: Necrotic roots discovered on two out of fifteen Paphiopedilum rothschildianum orchids. Immediate attention recommended.

Calendar reminder: Federated Orchid Society Hybrid Show is at 1700.

Warning: Possible suspicious activity present within last 12 hours on financial accounts. Check now?

Yes.

Personal financial accounts accessed. Current cumulative account balance: -230.03 credits. Select an option to repeat this balance in yuan, rupees, yen, or the US denomination of the now-defunct United States. Be advised: Federated Colony Credit Union will cease providing American currency services—

Skip. Trace last transaction.

Daniel J Davis

The God Whisperer

Originally published by Galaxy Press

* * *

When Jack got home from work on Thursday, he found a pyramid made of bird skulls in his flowerbed. Zu’ar—ancient god of death, strife, and war—must have gotten out of the yard again.

“Ugh,” he said.

More than anything, Jack just wanted to collapse in front of the TV. He wasn’t in any mood to deal with this right now.

The carnage didn’t end at the flowerbed. Scattered across his lawn were more than a dozen freshly-skinned chipmunk carcasses. The pelts were strung up in his holly bushes, drying in the sun.

This was getting out of hand. It was even worse than that time he’d owned a cat. At least the cat would just kill them cleanly, and bring them home as “presents.” But Zu’ar had these barbaric little rituals he had to observe.

Instead of going through the front door, Jack walked around the back of the house. More death and carnage was strewn through the shrubs along the side yard. And sure enough, he noticed a small hole underneath the fence. He’d have to remember to put a trashcan there tonight, until he could get to the store for a bag of gravel.

He decided to leave the back gate open behind him. If Zu’ar was prowling the neighborhood, Jack wanted it to be easy for him to get back in. He went inside and put his laptop bag down on the kitchen table. He got himself a glass of ice water.

“Zu’ar!” he called. “Zu’ar are you here?”

Jack didn’t hear him running around. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. He went into the living room, afraid of what kind of destruction he’d find.

The end table next to the couch lay on its side. One of the legs was broken off and missing. Worse, his grandmother’s old lamp had been smashed into pieces.

Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes. He could clean this up later. First he needed to take care of the mess out front, before the neighbors complained.

Two hours later, just as Jack was placing a spiked rabbit’s head into a trash bag, he felt a dark and terrible presence behind him. The air grew cold. The wind took on the distinct smell of fire and decay.

“Hello, Zu’ar”

He heard the rumble of the god’s voice inside his head.

“Greetings, Cowardly Weakling.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Jack said.

“I call you that because that is what you are,” the god thought. “My followers would have used you for chattel in their day.”

Jack made a mental note to look up the word chattel tonight.

“Look, you can’t keep going out and doing this.” He waved his arms around him, indicating the front yard and the flowerbeds. “I already told you that you could kill whatever comes into the back yard. The inside of the fence can be your realm of terror. I don’t care. But you have to leave the front yard alone. That sounds like a fair compromise, doesn’t it?”

“Zu’ar does not compromise with mortals, Weakling. Mortals beg him for mercy.”

Jack turned. Zu’ar stood before him defiantly, with his muscular legs spread apart. He glared at Jack with bone yellow eyes. His beard was the color of blood. He was wide, powerfully built, and just a few inches taller than a Barbie doll.

Zu’ar was wearing one of Jack’s old sweat socks as a shoulder bag. The bag-sock was filled with tiny spears. He had apparently carved their shafts out of the missing table leg, and used the broken lamp to make the tips.

The smell of fire and decay intensified. The little guy was obviously due for a bath.

“You really need to stop destroying my stuff. That lamp was an irreplaceable antique.”

“I laugh at your sentimentality, Weakling. I was old before the mountains were young. My followers were among the first men to climb out of the Living Mud that spawned your kind.

“Your ‘antique’ bauble was less than one hundred years old. That time is not even the blink of an eye in the span of my existence.”

Jack studied Zu’ar. He stared straight at him, meeting his tiny gaze head on. One second ticked by. Then two. Then three. On the count of fifteen, the god blinked.

Jack laughed to himself. “The ‘blink of an eye,’ huh?”

“I was attempting to put it in terms your feeble mind would understand, Weakling. Perhaps I failed.”

Jack sighed. “Right. I don’t suppose you’ll help me clean this up, huh? I’ve had a long day at work. I’d really just like to get this over with so I can relax.”

“You do the work of children and wet-nurses, Weakling. I exist for greater things.”

He watched Zu’ar go to the corner of the yard to relieve himself, before proudly walking through the gate and into the back yard.

* * *

Jack woke with the sun shining through the shades. He rolled over sleepily and looked at the display of his alarm clock. It was blank.

Jack shot bolt upright. What time was it? He stumbled out of bed, dragging half of the sheets with him. He fumbled in his pant’s pocket for his cell phone.

He flipped the phone open and read the time: 10:37. He was more than an hour late for work.

Jack swore. He looked back at his alarm clock. The power cord was gone. It had been ripped completely off.

“Zu’ar!” he yelled. “Zu’ar, where are you?”

“I am here, Weakling.” He walked into the room, carrying the wound-up cord in one of his tiny fists. He held up the frayed end with an evil smile. “I have created a scourge so that my enemies may know pain.”

“You destroyed my alarm clock!”

“Time is a human contrivance. I have no use for it.”

“But I could lose my job!”

“Fear not. I am confident that your sniveling ways will earn you another master to grovel before.”

Jack rushed to his closet. He hurriedly started laying out his work clothes. “You aren’t going to think this is funny when I don’t have any rent money this month.”

“On the contrary, I believe it would strengthen your character to live beneath the stars and fight for your food.”

But Jack was already more worried about what he would say to his boss when he got to work.

* * *

The boss had chewed Jack out when he arrived. He gave him a speech about responsibility, commitment to the company, and work ethic. Jack took the lashing like a whipped dog. He said “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” in all the right places. In the end, he’d escaped with his job. Now Jack was enjoying a very late, very short lunch break in the cafeteria.

“Have you tried obedience school?” Cory asked.

Jack popped a potato puffer into his mouth. Cory was the company’s IT wizard. He’d been solving Jack’s tech problems for years. He’d also been listening to Jack’s personal problems for a large chunk of that time.

“I was going to,” he said. “I signed up for the class and everything. But Zu’ar ended up fighting with one of the other gods. It got so bad that the trainer asked me to leave.”

“That bad?” Cory asked.

“You have no idea.” Jack remembered the woman’s shriek of horror as Zu’ar strangled her precious little love goddess with a leash. He remembered the awful looks he got as he carried Zu’ar out of the store.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a god owner.”

“Well, what about in-home training?”

Jack gave him a quizzical look. “I don’t know. Isn’t that expensive?”

Cory shrugged. “No more expensive than replacing all that stuff the little guy destroys on you.”

Jack thought about it. Maybe Cory was right. He popped another potato puffer into his mouth, and chased it with a sip of Diet Pepsi.

* * *

That night, he did an online search for in-home god training. There were several trainers in the area. He wrote down the number of the one that seemed the most promising, a woman calling herself "The God Whisperer." He’d call from work tomorrow.

* * *

“And how long have you had this god in your home?”

Doris the god trainer sat on Jack’s couch. She was a friendly, big boned woman, with dark hair that she wore teased up into a beehive. She had both the breath and the voice of a lifelong smoker.

She’d need to interview Jack first, she’d said. Get a feel for the Zu’ar’s living situation. Once she identified the problem areas with the god’s behavior, she’d be able to figure out what training steps were needed.

“Um, I adopted him about six months ago.”

She scribbled on her notepad. “Did his aggressive behavior start right away? Or did it develop over time?”

“No. He was always pretty aggressive.”

“Mmm-hmm. And I’m sorry, but I don’t have my notes from the phone call in front of me. Did you say he was a rescue?”

“That’s right. I got him at the humane society.”

She was in the middle of asking how much exercise Zu’ar normally got, when the tiny god stalked into the room.

“Who is this woman, Weakling? Why is she in my house?”

Doris wrinkled her nose. “Does he always bring that burning and decay scent with him?”

“Yes.”

“Answer me, Weakling. What does this woman want? Why does she ignore me when I speak into her mind?”

“That’s actually a very common sign of dominance with war gods,” Doris said. “They use it as a way to mark their territory. The scent is supposed to terrify more passive gods and mortals into submission. Have you ever tried to get him to stop?”

“No, I mostly just ignore it.”

Doris nodded. She scribbled a few more notes into her pad.

“I will see this woman’s bones bleach beneath the sun, Weakling. Tell her I will not be ignored. Tell her she will hear me, or she will suffer the consequences.”

Jack swallowed. “Um, he says…”

The trainer held up her hand. “No. Don’t pay any attention to him when he’s sending prophesies of doom into your mind. When you acknowledge that kind of behavior, it just encourages him to keep it up. You should only give him attention when he communicates in benevolent prophecies.”

“Okay.”

Doris closed her notepad. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, Mr. Foster. War gods are some of the most difficult deities to care for. Their owners have to be assertive and in control at all times. They aren’t inherently ‘bad,’ but they only respect strength and ruthlessness. Their behavior can get out of control if you don’t prove to them that you’re the strongest member of the household. Do you think you’re ready to do that?”

Jack looked at Zu’ar. He remembered how small and defenseless he’d looked in the cage all those months ago. Zu’ar had been sitting by himself in his little corner, while all of the other gods played and performed miracles together.

He was alone. He had nobody. That was why Jack had taken him home. And now Jack couldn’t imagine putting him back in that situation. He loved the little guy.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m ready.”

“Do not make me laugh, Cowardly Weakling. You will never be stronger than me. My followers were feared all across the ancient world.”

Jack turned to say something. But he caught the trainer’s look out the corner of his eye.

“Do not ignore me, Weakling. You will come to regret it.”

Jack didn’t answer him. In a rage, Zu’ar kicked the wall. Then he stormed up the steps. A few seconds later, Jack heard him slam the bedroom door.

“Good,” Doris said. “Now I’d like to ask you about his eating habits.”

* * *

Jack came home from work to a pile of bloody pigeon feathers on the front walk.

“Oh, no.”

The training sessions had been going good. Zu’ar hadn’t slaughtered anything in weeks. He was even beginning to listen when Jack told him to do something. Things were actually getting peaceful around the house for a change.

Now this.

“Zu’ar? Zu’ar where are you?”

“I am here, Weakling.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Jack said.

Zu’ar looked at the ground and slumped his shoulders, adopting a submissive posture. “I am sorry. I meant no offense. That is how I have named you for so long, I merely forgot. Please, forgive me.”

Jack pointed at the pile of feathers. “What is this? I thought I told you, no more killing things in the front yard.”

“I know. I am sorry I broke your edict.”

“What are you holding behind your back? Give it. Give it here.”

Zu’ar held up a small necklace made of twine. Two fresh birds’ feet hung from the loop.

“The eagle’s claw was a status symbol among my people, Mortal. I wanted to make you a similar gift.”

“That’s touching. Thank you.” It was also a little gross. Jack was very careful to hold the necklace by the loop.

Zu’ar peered up hopefully. “Is the Wise Woman coming to the house today, Mortal?”

That was his name for the god trainer. “She is,” Jack said. “She’ll be here in a few minutes, in fact. We should go inside.”

“The Wise Woman has much strength and authority. You should ask her to bear you some children. She would raise them into fine warriors.”

Jack shook his head. Gods. What could you do with them?

“I think she’d prefer a check,” he said.

END

S.B. Divya

Strange Attractors

originally published by Daily Science Fiction in June, 2014

* * *

The first time, we stayed together for fifty years. The divorce was my doing. I fell apart a few months after we received our permanent extensions, at a hotel on Nassau, the same one where we’d taken our honeymoon. We were sitting side by side on a balcony, basking in the sun and the moist, salt tinged air.

"We’re truly forever now," I said, fixing my gaze on the hazy blue horizon and not his face. "What if this isn’t right? What if there’s another woman out there who’d make you happier?"

"Not this again," he groaned. "After all these years, how can you be so insecure?"

"Wrong answer," I said. "If you’d told me that I’m the only one you’d ever want, I would have believed you."

I walked out of that room and refused to see him again, not even to serve the documents.

* * *

We were apart for nearly a decade before we both decided that we were better with each other than anyone else.

"Should we, maybe, have kids?" he said tentatively as we laid in bed on our second honeymoon. His pale skin glowed in the moonlight, and his copper hair sparkled and curled around my dark fingers.

I looked up into his clear hazel eyes. "I think I’d like that. How about we start tomorrow?"

He laughed, a deep, drum-like thrum which always made me warm inside. "Sure, why not?" He planted a kiss on my nose. "I love that you can still surprise me."

We raised three children and stayed together for sixty-two more years. That sounds like a lot of progeny to spawn in a few decades, but we really wanted to travel, and once we were off Earth, that avenue would be closed. We waited until the kids were grown and settled, or as settled as a person can be with a scant thirty years of experience, and then had nearly two blissful decades of tourism around the Solar System.

Our favorite spot was Ganymede station’s view lounge. We were curled up together on a sofa watching Jupiter’s psychedelic storms.

"It’s utterly mesmerizing," I said. "Have you seen the vids of L2-Vega?"

"That reminds me, while I was at the bar, I overheard someone say that they’ve opened a new portal to Vega."

"Fantastic," I exclaimed, sitting up straight. A second portal meant the system would open to tourists. "We could do it, you know. We have the funds now that kids aren’t drawing on them."

"We could afford it," he said, "but I don’t know about going away for that long. The round trip time penalty is, what, around forty years? We’d miss seeing so much of the kids' lives."

I waved my hand dismissively. "They’re adults. They should learn to be on their own. Besides, it’ll be a while yet before they have the credit for babies. This is the best time to go, and our funds aren’t going to be so high forever. We got lucky with the portal manufacturer we chose."

"It wasn’t luck," he protested.

"Fine, fine, it was your skill and timing, but you haven’t always struck the gold mine. Remember the ion engine flop?"

"How could I forget? You bring it up at least once every five years. Haven’t I more than made up for it since then?"

"Of course," I soothed, not mentioning the influx of credit I had brought in with my patents. "I am so proud of what you’ve done, and I love you, and I think we should take advantage of our situation and see the galaxy."

He shook his head and sent copper braids flying around his face in the low station gravity. "I won’t go," he said, "but I won’t ask you to stay, either."

Nothing I said would change his mind and so I blame him for our second split. I went. He stayed, the stubborn fool.

* * *

The third time was a couple of centuries later, and we had changed so much that we didn’t recognize each other. I saw her at a portal in the Gliese system, solar wings shimmering in the starlight, hair shorn, and limbs contracted into travel buds. I was still mostly human in appearance for I’d been traveling too much to keep up with technology, but I had gone neuter-male and had added a lot of radiation protection to my organs. That had been exhilarating in so many ways until I saw her. I felt a flash of envy, but the attraction overcame it, and I struck up a conversation once she was in station.

We talked incessantly for hours, flush with early romance, and then she said, "Let me show you my fourth level descendants back on Earth." She extended a biowire, but I didn’t have a port. It’s easy to blow your money once you leave the Milky Way.

"That’s alright," she said, smiling. She extruded a light cube and placed in my grateful hand. I pushed it into my wrist.

"What beautiful babies," I exclaimed as the images scrolled before my eyes. And they were indeed, all chubby and wide-eyed and adorably homo sapiens. Then I saw the family portrait, four generations arranged artfully in rows—all except for their great grandmother.

"That’s—you—" I stopped, lost for words.

Her brow creased with a delicate furrow of puzzlement. I copied over a few of my own memories and passed the cube back to her. The crease disappeared, and she closed her crystalline eyes for a few eternal minutes. When they opened, they were clear hazel and glistening with tears.

"I thought you’d gone forever," she whispered.

I smiled and leaned in for a kiss. "Forever is a long time."

The Egg

originally published by Nature in March, 2015

* * *

In the corner of the night darkened room, tucked next to the sofa, the Egg rested on its pedestal like a modern sculpture. Its quiet hum was the only sound in the apartment; its green indicator the only light. The screen on the front of the ovoid was dark, not revealing the partially formed creature incubating within.

That wasn’t right. The screen had never once been off, not while she had been here. She was gone now. She had slipped away quietly, without fuss, much as she’d lived.

"Promise," she had demanded, her voice raspy, as the smells of disinfectant and rot permeated his pores. "Promise that you’ll keep it going."

"I promise," he’d lied. "Don’t worry." He clutched the pills in his pocket with one hand.

In the end she had been reduced to skin and bones. Her hand, clutching his, was a papery claw. She had always been scrawny. He called her chicken legs when they first met, and she retorted with "stupid head." Insults had never been her strong point. They were six years old. Love came years later, and the cancer not long after that.

She was cured the first time. A designer molecule flooded her system, keeping the traitorous cells at bay.

"Let’s have a baby," she said when hope was allowed back into their house.

"Let’s have two," he responded, and they both grinned like fools and got started.

They found out not long afterward that the molecule which kept her alive was poison to any fetus. They spent the remainder of his inheritance on the Egg and the hormones and extractions and fertilizations.

"It will be every bit your baby," promised the specialists.

She let them record her heartbeat and intestinal sounds for playback. The two of them used the microphone daily to stimulate budding ear drums. She sang her favorite songs in her off key shower voice. He played his guitar and read cooking magazines aloud. They stared at the screen in fascination, watching it transform from a tadpole to an alien. The sofa seat nearest the Egg turned into a sinkhole.

The second cancer snuck in, quiet and efficient, while they were busy looking the other way. She needed another designer molecule, but she was too far down the queue. The money that would have bought her way higher was gone so the doctors tried the old fashioned poisons. She lost her strength, the contents of her stomach, and every hair on her body, but she didn’t miss a day singing to the Egg.

Watching her reclining against the cylindrical pedestal, forehead resting on the warm ovoid above, he loved her even more.

"You’re beautiful," he said.

She grinned, all teeth in a skeletal face. "You’ve never lied to me before."

"And I’m not lying now."

The second cancer took her swiftly. The apartment looked just as it had when they’d left for the hospital two days ago, but nothing was the same. The faint glow of city lights bled around the curtain edges, painting the room in a monochromatic palette. The Egg glinted, beckoning him. He shuffled toward it slowly like an old man, and tripped on the edge of the rug—the rug which they had chosen together to cushion tender baby feet and dimpled knees.

With a trembling hand he reached out and turned on the screen. It almost looked human now, though the head was too large and the body too skinny, sort of like she had looked in those last days of life. His hand moved of its own accord, navigating the menu screens, delving deep to find that buried option that came with every Egg. His fingers hovered over the number pad.

"I’m sorry, little one," he whispered. "This wasn’t how the road was supposed to go. I wish—if only -." He sighed. "I can’t do this alone, and there’s no one left for you but me, a poor excuse for a Father." He drew his hand back. "Wait. Let’s go together. I can do that much for you."

He stood and walked to the kitchen. His steps felt lighter now that the decision was made. He filled a glass with water, just enough to swallow a few pills. As he walked the scant distance back to the Egg, he reached into his pocket and retrieved the pills. Their small white forms gleamed like pearls in his palm.

He reclined against the Egg, as she had, and closed his eyes. You’ve never lied to me before. Her words rattled like marbles in his skull. An involuntary tear traced its way down the contours of his face. It was the pinhole in the dam, and he felt all his grief push against it and then break through.

The sobs crashed over him in great waves, and he wrapped his arms around the warm Egg, clinging to it like a buoy in a storm. The glass and pills fell from his hands, forgotten in the tempest. An eternity passed before he went limp from exhaustion and fell asleep, his body curled around the Egg’s pedestal. The menu system quietly and automatically exited to the start, and the screen went black.

Ships in the Night

originally published by Daily Science Fiction in May, 2015

* * *

The problem with seeing the future is that you can do nothing to change it. Kuni had figured this out long ago, when she was still a young child. People would ignore you, disbelieve you, or resent you. After enough failed attempts to change the course of events, she stopped trying.

This made it no easier to go about her life. She gained and lost friends, failed exams, fell in love, and had her heart broken. When she went to college and majored in physics, she felt the mathematical beauty of her foresight for the first time. Of course she couldn’t change the future. Time was an illusory concept. Everything that was going to happen had already happened, and she was simply another node in the fabric of the universe—along for the ride but with an extra-dimensional view.

The realization led Kuni to change her major to philosophy, and she went on to form her doctoral thesis around the subject. Naturally, this came as no surprise to her.

When Kuni was twenty-seven years old, in the midst of writing her dissertation, she met Isra. Isra was gorgeous: petite, curvaceous, dark hair, thick lashes, and deep brown eyes that were almost black. She was also like Kuni’s favorite rock.

Throughout Kuni’s life, she had found comfort from objects that changed little through time. The oak tree in her parents' backyard was one. The granite boulder in her grandparents' Kyoto garden was another. The boulder was particularly soothing since it was effectively unchanged on the timescale of Kuni’s life. It was a relief for her to cling to its rough surface and let that part of her mind rest.

Isra was like that rock.

Kuni had seen her many times at the Koffee Klatch, where Isra worked. She had foreseen their failed, short-lived relationship, but a silent movie of her own future told her little about the other woman’s life.

The first time they touched, hands brushing as Isra handed her a mug of hot chocolate, she saw Isra’s future: an unending sameness. Not literally, of course. Isra lived, breathed, moved, took coffee orders, and wiped tables. She went home, had lovers (there was Kuni herself), moved to other towns. But she never changed.

Kuni stood at the pick-up counter, steaming drink in hand, and hoped Isra couldn’t see the shock on her face.

"Hi, I’m Kuni," she blurted, trying to cover her confusion.

"What an interesting name," Isra said politely. "Where is it from?"

"It’s Japanese, short for Kuniko."

"You don’t look Japanese," Isra said. Her smile took the sting from the comment.

"My Dad’s from Japan. Mom’s Ethiopian. Everyone says I look more like her."

Isra shrugged. "Either way, I think you’re beautiful."

A few days later when the moment and the memory aligned, Kuni asked her out, and Isra accepted. They first kissed under a full moon. Isra’s lips tasted like cardamom and coffee. Kuni was intoxicated and utterly at peace as she held Isra in her arms.

For two weeks, Kuni enjoyed the romance and avoided the questions, but then it was time. She held Isra’s hand as they meandered through the arboretum. Sunlight speckled the ground around them, and the breeze carried the astringent scent of eucalyptus. Birds chittered, and leaves rustled, but they were otherwise alone. No human ears would be privy to this conversation.

"What are you?" Kuni asked.

"What do you mean?" Isra said, sounding puzzled.

Kuni stopped walking, not letting go of the warm fingers entwined with her own, and forced Isra to a halt.

"You never change. You never age, or grow fatter or thinner. You’ll never have a gray hair. You just go on and on and on." Kuni’s voice faded as she drifted into the bliss of timelessness. "It’s wonderful."

Surprise. Suspicion. Doubt. Fear.

Isra had an expressive face.

"How do you know?" she whispered, fingers tightening painfully.

Kuni took a deep breath and said the words aloud for the first time in her life. "I can see the future of anything—or anyone—I touch."

Isra stared at her for a moment and then demanded, "So tell me when mine will end!"

"I don’t know," Kuni said, taken aback. "I can’t see past my own death."

"You’re lying! You’re going to kill me!"

"What? No. Don’t be crazy. I could never-"

"Please!" Isra released Kuni’s hand and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Just do it!" she said, shaking Kuni with all her tiny might.

She pried Isra’s hands away as gently as she could. "I’m sorry."

Tears pooled in two sets of dark eyes.

"Go to hell!"

"Why?" Kuni said, her voice raw.

"You really have to ask? I’ve been alive so long, I can’t even remember how I got this way. I’m tired. So incredibly tired."

"I’m sorry," Kuni said again. "I wish there was another way I could help. Stay with me," she pleaded, ignoring the part of her brain that told her the truth, that she would never see Isra again. "Maybe I can make it better—somehow."

Isra sighed. The desperate anger in her face melted into desolation. "You’d be the worst of all. With anyone else, I can fake it. Have a fight, leave, start over. I can pretend to be someone new. I’m even good at lying to myself, but with you? I’d have to face the truth. Every time I looked at you, touched you—no. I can’t do it. Good-bye, Kuni."

Isra stood up on her toes and kissed Kuni with a slow, lingering touch of lips on cheek. Kuni’s heart ached. She had seen this moment, knew it would come, but it still hurt.

When Isra had gone, Kuni walked over to the pond and found her favorite stone. The great grey slab jutted over the murky water, and she laid down on its sun-warmed surface. For once, she didn’t care who saw her or what they thought. For once, life had surprised her, just a little bit, and she held tightly to that feeling. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and imagined the aroma of cardamom and coffee.

Margaret Dunlap

Jane

Originally published by Shimmer

* * *

"—Jane?"

I had heard Rob’s question. It’s just that while I was in the middle of performing CPR in the back of an ambulance on a patient who had been very stable until he had all of a sudden up and crashed, I wasn’t going to stop and answer it. It was a stupid question anyway. Not that that stopped Rob from repeating it.

“You okay back there, Jane?”

Oh, I was great. The ambulance was barreling towards the hospital as fast as L.A. traffic could get out of our way, and I was dead certain we weren’t going to make it.

Pause for accuracy.

The patient wasn’t going to make it. Barring taking a Beemer up the ass, we were going to be just fucking fine. John Doe on the other hand? The best I was going to accomplish with CPR was to give him a few cracked ribs to go with his sudden cardiac arrest. Still, we all do our best. So I stopped to check for a pulse.

Then I checked the machines.

Then I checked my patient again because I do not trust machines to tell me if someone is alive or dead.

"Jane—?"

I didn’t let Rob finish. “I’ve got a rhythm.”

Rob didn’t take his eyes off the road as he called back, “You’ve got what?!?”

“He’s alive,” I said.

And that’s when the asshole sat up and bit me.

* * *

You will not believe the paperwork you have to fill out when you save someone’s life, and then your ungrateful patient turns around and bites you. The forms that pile up when said patient then spits a glob of your flesh into your partner’s lap, which causes your partner to drive your ambulance into a utility pole are truly staggering.

And then, to add insult to literal injury, after we finally finished the paperwork, they put Rob and me both on leave for thirty days.

* * *

“I should have just let him die, Gina," I said. "At least then he wouldn’t have bitten me, and I could still work.”

I hate not working. At least, that was the excuse I gave to Gina. Gina was my last foster mom. We met when I was fourteen and had no interest in having another mother, and even less of a skill-set for being a daughter. But something must have rubbed off because here I was, calling her to not admit that I might have HIV or drug-resistant hepatitis, or that I was scared to death.

A car full of club-kids honked on their way up to Sunset and obscured whatever Gina said in response. Conrad, my bull mastiff who does not—it turns out—like loud noises, peed himself.

“What was that?” asked Gina after the car had passed.

I lied without thinking. “The TV.”

“Uh huh.”

“If I told you I was out, you’d worry.”

A sigh from the other side of the phone. “I worry anyway.”

I could have pointed out there was no point in her asking then, but I’m not a total tool. It wasn’t like I wanted her to worry. “I’m not alone. I’m walking a bull mastiff.”

“Conrad is blind.”

“Muggers don’t know that.”

Well, they wouldn’t have, except Conrad chose that moment to walk into a Westside Rentals sign. I cringed. Even with the day I’d had, I should have seen that for him.

Too cool to admit he hadn’t meant to face-plant the sign, Conrad stopped to sniff at it. It wasn’t fooling anyone, but I didn’t push the issue. We all have our coping strategies, and Conrad’s past—I suspected—rivaled my own. I never asked the nice people at the shelter what exactly they had rescued him from. I have enough trouble sleeping with only my own nightmares to worry about.

“Some of the kids are coming home this weekend,” Gina said.

“Oh?” I asked, even though I knew why.

“We’re going to the cemetery to visit Marissa. But after, we’ll have dinner at the house. You’re welcome if you want to come.”

Notice, Gina didn’t ask me to come. She’s very smart that way. I hadn’t been to her house in nearly three years. For my foster sister’s funeral, she had insisted.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it,” I said. Leaving out that I couldn’t stand cemeteries. I knew she knew that. And I knew she wanted me to know I was welcome anyway. I had come home for Marissa’s funeral. I hadn’t managed the interment.

Finished with the sign, Conrad sniffed the air, no doubt searching for rogue hydrants that might be throwing themselves in his path. I felt, more than heard, the low rumble of Conrad’s growl against my right calf.

Conrad never growled.

I hung up on Gina.

* * *

When a pregnant woman is on the verge of dying, it triggers a series of reactions in her body which cause her to miscarry and expel the fetus. It’s simple lizard-brain reasoning. Re-task the resources currently being used by the baby to try to tip the balance and save the mother’s life. A woman who survives could become pregnant again. An infant with a dead mother would die. In evolutionary math, one dead is always better than two dead.

But then you get the tragic case of a young couple expecting their first child, driving home from a doctor’s appointment when their car French kisses a fully-loaded garbage truck. Father-to-be was decapitated on the spot. Mother-to-be was rushed back to the hospital where she was declared brain dead. And that would have been the end of it. Except some bright bulb of the medical arts had a theory that if you crammed a woman’s blood full of drug A, drug B, and just a touch of hormones X, Y, and Z, you could fool her uterus into thinking that there was still someone at the controls upstairs and maybe it should hang onto the baby a little while longer.

And because they could do it, they did. If anyone wondered if it was a good idea, they kept quiet. And I get that. I mean, I don’t know that I’d have been able to look at a little thing wiggling on an ultrasound and pull the plug on it either. So the tubes stayed connected, the ventilators kept venting, and when the mother’s heart stopped, a machine took over that too. For two months.

Until I was born.

And people act surprised that I was kind of screwed-up from the beginning.

* * *

Conrad and I reached the intersection just as the light turned, and the car full of club kids raced off with another ear-shattering set of horn blasts. Conrad pulled on my arm, and his growl, already low, dropped to sub-sonic levels.

We crossed the street, carefully, and found an empty lot where a couple of bungalows had been ripped out. A developer had been planning to build an apartment building before the economy tanked. Now, the lots were nothing but a crop of weeds.

Fortunately, the indigent population of the neighborhood was not about to let prime real estate go to waste. It wasn’t hard to find a gap in the fence, and Conrad and I pushed through.

We found it towards the back of the lot.

Pause for accuracy.

We found them.

Hidden from the sidewalk and the neighbors by the fence and high weeds, the lot had become a pretty nice little homeless camp. Half a dozen piles of blankets around a fire pit, an old bucket under a standpipe outlet, even a small TV propped on a milk crate. Well, it had been nice before my very bitey John Doe arrived and ripped the occupants limb from limb. I have a good memory for the faces of people who cause me pain, and there he was, taking a bite out of some poor bastard’s calf, right through his jeans.

I froze. Conrad froze. John Doe looked up from his dinner and saw me.

John Doe opened his mouth. I could see a bit of denim stuck between his teeth. “Jane,” he said.

I am not proud of this, but I screamed like a little girl. Screamed like I hadn’t screamed since I’d found nice Uncle Antonio hanging in the basement when I was five. The cannibalism part was bad enough. What really freaked me out was that I was pretty sure I’d never introduced myself to him. John Doe lurched towards me. I ran. So did Conrad.

Unfortunately, Conrad and I chose different directions.

By the time I realized that, John Doe was tangled in Conrad’s leash, and I was wrenched around right on top of them. I put my hands out to catch my fall and slammed into John Doe’s chest, taking us both to the ground. I could feel his skin rip against the friction of his shirt, and as I scrambled to my feet, my hands came away wet.

I threw up on them.

It was an improvement.

I stood there and looked down at John Doe, unmoving on the ground, lying in a growing pool of bull mastiff urine.

Pause for accuracy.

It might not have been entirely bull mastiff urine.

* * *

I would like to say that finding a man whose life I had saved eating a homeless guy less than a block from my apartment who dropped dead as soon as I touched him was when my training kicked in and that I proceeded to calmly alert the authorities like the emergency professional that I was.

I did manage to call 911.

When I told the nice paramedic who showed up what happened, he gave me a sedative.

I woke up in the ER with Gina holding my hand.

“Wha—urg…?

That was supposed to be “What are you doing here?” But my mouth was all gluey from whatever they had given me.

Seeing that I was awake, Gina let go of my hand. “You still list me as an emergency contact in your phone. You had a bad reaction to the sedative and started seizing. They almost lost you.”

Gina got up, filled a plastic cup with water, and helped me sit up to drink.

“Conrad?” I asked once my mouth was unglued.

“I took him back to your apartment.” Gina took the cup of water back and refilled it.

I drank again. “How long?”

“Most of the night.”

I glanced over to the clock beside the bed. It was nearly five AM. I looked back at Gina. She looked terrible. “Sorry to keep you up.”

She shrugged and smiled. “I didn’t have other plans.”

“They going to let me out?”

“The doctor said something about getting a psych consult.”

I was sure he had.

I looked at Gina. “Will you help me sneak out before the shrink gets here?”

“No. I don’t enable stupid decisions.”

I will give Gina this: she doesn’t beat around the bush. And she had certainly raised her share of epically stupid children who made epically stupid decisions. I however, was not one of them.

“Why don’t you get something to eat? I’m awake now, and you look like hell.”

Gina shook her head, then leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. It was her way of telling me that she loved me even when I was being an idiot. I lay there and let her. That was my way of telling her the same thing. “Call me,” she said, and then she left.

I gave her enough time to let the doctor know I was checking out against medical advice. Then I found my clothes and snuck out by the back stairs.

* * *

I meant to call Gina. I really did. But, while I’d felt okay when I left the hospital, by the time I stumbled off the bus two blocks from home, I was almost sick enough to consider going back. Except for the fact that I’d promised myself I would never again enter a hospital as a patient under my own power. Luckily, Gina was used to me being the kind of crappy too-old foster daughter who promises to call but never does. I had, after all, given her plenty of opportunities to practice.

Conrad met me at the door as I stumbled in, whining with concern. I let him out to pee, crawled into bed, and we both hid under the covers, waiting for whatever happened next.

The first day, I managed to let Conrad outside twice.

The second day, I let him pee in the bathtub, or at least, near the bathtub.

On the third day, I felt better. I showered, dressed, and was just about to take Conrad out for a walk when someone knocked on the door. Which was odd. No one ever knocked on my door.

“Go away,” I said.

There’s probably a reason why no one knocks on my door.

“…Jane?” It was Rob.

That was surprising enough that I opened the door. Rob and I have a very successful partnership because we don’t bother each other. Before he showed up on my doorstep, I would have sworn he didn’t actually know where I lived. But there he was. I opened the door and he came inside. Apparently, he didn’t mind the smell of dog pee.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Jane?”

“Yeah…?" I started to ask, and then I realized why he didn’t seem to notice that my apartment reeked of dog piss.

I’m not an expert in these things. But my more than passing knowledge of the nature of human mortality was enough for me to say that the primary reason Rob didn’t notice the stench from the carpet was because he’d been dead for a least a day.

He looked back at me, and even I, with my sub-par people skills at the best of times, could tell that there was no one home.

“Jane…” he said.

I am not exactly proud of what happened next. All I can say in my defense is that when you grow up the way I did, you tend to have indelicate reactions to threats. Even though he was Rob, my partner, the guy who remembered to ask for extra salsa for me when we stopped at Taco Plus, the second I saw those eyes, my fist snapped forward, and I slugged him.

I remember the feel of his flesh against mine. It was warm. Not human warm. Room warm. A second later he collapsed, falling to the floor like a sack of meat. He didn’t move.

I looked at him there, lying on my carpet.

I hit hard for a girl.

I don’t hit that hard.

Three days earlier, I’d been doing CPR on a dead man who woke up and bit me and then spat a glob of my flesh onto my partner. Then I’d gotten sick. Then I’d gotten better. I wondered if Rob had gotten sick too, so sick he died. And then he’d gotten better.

Until I touched him, and he became a pile of flesh on my landlord’s carpet.

I checked the mirror. Skin still pink. Pulse still strong. I got a thermometer from my kit and took my temperature. My apartment was warm in the afternoon sun, but not ninety-eight degrees warm.

I was alive.

I packed a backpack for me and another for Conrad, locked the door, and didn’t look back.

* * *

I’ve never learned to drive, which is an unusual lifestyle choice for someone who lives in Los Angeles, but not for someone whose parents died in a car accident before she was born. Once again: screwed-up, yes. Stupid, no. When I was traveling on my own, I took the bus. Since Conrad, I’d bought a bike. The sun was sinking towards the Pacific, already silhouetting palm trees over Beverly Hills, so I turned the opposite direction and started riding South and East, Conrad easily loping alongside.

* * *

I have seen some strange things in the course of my life. I have done even stranger. I say with confidence that biking through Los Angeles, my blind dog and I quietly killing the walking dead while the rest of the city went on with its Saturday night—still, for the moment, oblivious—tops the list.

A roller-derby girl.

Two guys coming out of Rosco’s.

Three passengers on the number four bus.

A student out walking alone in the wrong part of town.

The victims got more numerous as I passed downtown. I also noticed Conrad became more and more certain of his direction. He even got out ahead of the bike, which he usually doesn’t, what with not being able to see and all. When I caught him stepping around a parking sign on a street I was sure we had never visited, I stopped worrying about it. As long as he didn’t turn around and say my name, it wasn’t my problem. He wanted to take the lead; he could be by guest.

“Jane…”

“Jane…”

“Jane…”

To my relief, the gates at the County Cemetery had long been locked for the night when we arrived: proof against taggers, vandals, and the homeless. I tugged on Conrad’s leash, and when he didn’t move, grabbed his collar. Conrad planted himself and refused to budge.

I listened, but for the first time in hours, I couldn’t hear anyone calling my name.

Then, in the silence…my phone rang.

I checked the caller ID on my cracked screen. It was Gina. I was standing outside the gates of the cemetery where my foster sister was buried. Three years ago that day.

In the dimness beyond the cemetery gate, I saw the glow of a cell phone screen.

I answered the call.

“Jane?”

“Yes?”

“Jane…”

I couldn’t speak. Oh please, for the love of an unloving God, say something else.

“Jane…”

I watched the glow of the phone inside the cemetery. I quietly hung up, and the distant screen flared brighter, then died.

It could have been coincidence. Could have been some other person standing in the middle of a cemetery in the middle of the night, happening to finish a call at the same moment I hung up. Could have been.

I slipped my phone into my pocket. I dropped Conrad’s leash. Then, I grabbed the fence, and began to climb.

There were no lights in the cemetery at night, but the city glow was enough to see where I was going. I could hear the guard dogs in the distance, howling at the invasion of their territory, but too cowardly to get anywhere near what I was approaching.

I pulled a pair of latex gloves out of my pocket and slipped them on. Whatever I was about to see, I didn’t want to touch it.

She was still standing, at least. Looked like she hadn’t been dead very long.

“Jane.”

One word. Four letters. Rhymes with pain, rain, and stain. I’ve never liked it much.

Except that hearing her say it, I could feel my heart cracking open in my chest.

“Jane.”

“I—”

I tried to answer her. But I couldn’t. She didn’t say my name again. Maybe she was waiting for me to continue. But I couldn’t. So we stood there.

I stood there until I couldn’t stand anymore, and then I sat.

At some point. I started crying.

She just stood there. Waiting.

I don’t know how long I was at the cemetery. Eventually, I think I slept. And woke. And maybe slept again. Around us, the city had realized what was happening and was losing its collective shit, but no one wanted to be anywhere near a cemetery, and so we were left alone.

I remember lying on the ground, looking up at what used to be Gina standing over me. Death and fear and longing looking out at me through her drying eyes.

She had reached out a hand for me. All I had to do was reach back.

* * *

I don’t know why I’m different. Maybe it has nothing to do with being gestated by machines in the body of a dead woman. When some new bright spark of the medical arts figures out what makes the dead rise, maybe we’ll know. Of course, most people just want to know who this “Jane” person is, and why the dead ask for her. They don’t know that zombies collapse at her touch. Or that when she talks, they listen. Ultimately, I’m not sure that’s the most screwed-up thing about me.

* * *

Conrad and I caught the first ride leaving the city that would have us. It took us to Detroit. The next one went to Tennessee. I don’t remember the one after that, but there were plenty more.

I was fourteen when I met Gina, and I thought I had everything figured out. I thought it was too late for me to have a mother. I thought I didn’t need one. I thought I didn’t deserve one.

My multiple mothers had raised one more stupid child than I had thought.

But I’m learning. After a particularly hard day, or when I especially hate myself, I’ll call. When I think that no matter how many of the undead I put an end to with my touch, it will never make up for the dozens I may have infected with my still-oozing bite wound as I rode the bus home from the hospital; when I believe that ignorance is not an excuse, I call. Just like I promised I would if she could stay hidden, stay safe.

Sometimes, I just need to hear my mother say my name.

“Jane.”

Broken Glass

Originally published by Wisdom Crieth Without

* * *

At first, the little cabin had no windows. Only open staring holes, waiting for glass to give them a name. I had brought panes with me in hopes of finding a house that they would make a home, and once they were placed I could not help covertly admiring how they first let the sun pass through, and then as the day went on, caught the light and threw it back into the valley. I told myself the flashes looked like leaping fish, or a treasure long lost to the depths pulled gasping from the waves. I could even tell myself that I believed it.

Hidden on land that rolled like the sea, the cabin was my treasure. I had come looking for solitude, for silence. And I thought I had found it. Until the afternoon Jonas walked out of the woods.

* * *

This is how love stories begin.

Mine is not a love story.

But there is love in it, later.

* * *

I reacted without thinking. One instant I was whirling at the sound of a stranger’s footfall, and the next my axe-blade was swinging towards his chest. By the time I realized what I was doing; he had caught the axe-haft with one hand and brought the other forward so that his knife hovered at my stomach. At you. Although he could not have known that. Even I only suspected that you were there, and had shared my suspicions with no one. The other who might have guessed, the one who had been there at the getting…Well, nothing had stopped my axe on its swing towards his chest.

* * *

I told you mine was not a love story.

Not at first.

* * *

“You’re far from home,” the man said, after the knife and the axe had been put to better use, and the roasted bird removed from the fire and divided between us.

“What makes you say that?”

“You have sea eyes.”

It was a simple statement of fact, although I had grown up with girls, and some boys, who would have taken it for poetry. In my village, everyone had the gray-blue eyes of where sea and sky met, or of fog rolling in after the sun went down. I suppose there was some poetry there, if a person was inclined to trust poetry.

His eyes were the brown of the earth and the green of the trees, shot through with the gold of afternoon light. He was not far from home at all. If he had told me he had been born of the fallen leaves of this land, I would have believed him and wouldn’t have been surprised.

“How did you find me?”

“Your glass flashed across the mountain.”

I did not allow my sea-eyes to move from my dinner. “Oh.”

We finished the bird together, and he left. He took the bones. I took the feathers. Winter was coming, and—in case you were—I wanted the down.

* * *

From the time I was small, even smaller than you, I was taught that a human could not live in a home without glass in its windows. Everyone knew this. Even the man who lived in the tiniest hovel of our village, his shack without so much as a door, scrounged sea glass to wedge into the knotholes in his board walls. They taught me it would keep the demons out. No one ever explained how something as powerful and implacable as a demon could be deterred by a pane of glass.

But by the next morning, I had resolved that—demons or no—the glass would have to be removed. I had come to the cabin to be alone. Already my flashing windows had compromised my aloneness. If I wished to avoid further visitors, the glass must go. As far as demons went, I would have to take my chances.

The day wore on, and I did not remove the windows. I even caught myself wiping a smear from the panes.

I tried to marshal logic to my cause. I told myself that the superstitions of my childhood were meaningless. That the windows were nothing more than a reminder of an unfortunate past filled with tragedy and mistakes. That it had been an error to take them with me when I fled my childhood home. That if I was with child I could not raise it within glass that had seen what this glass had seen.

But the longer I argued, the more it became grimly apparent that the windows would have to be removed by someone else. The glass was all that remained of my old home. The panes were clear, pure, and untainted—perhaps the last part of me that was. And as simple as it would have been to smash them, I could not bring myself to do it.

Until late afternoon returned. When the light flashed from the panes again, theory became necessity, and while I might quail from theory, I have never been one to shirk what must be done in need, and I lifted my axe.

Just as I was about to swing, I caught a glimpse of a reflection in the glass.

Jonas. Again.

I faced him instead of the windows, axe still lifted.

“Is having a visitor so bad?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

“Is that why you’re smashing your windows?”

I scowled. What were my windows to him?

“Aren’t you afraid of demons?”

Was he mocking me? I met his eyes, but aside from seeming more gold than green today, I couldn’t find a change in his impassive expression.

His eyes looked back into mine, and whatever he saw there, he believed.

“Leave the windows. If you wish to be alone, I won’t come back.”

“What about the next man who wanders this mountain?”

“The people of the mountain know this cabin. They will not approach.”

I was afraid I already knew the answer as I asked my next question. “Why not?”

“It’s haunted,” he answered. “But there’s no reason to be afraid of ghosts…if you aren’t afraid of demons.”

All I said was: “Oh.”

He turned to go.

“So you won’t be back?”

He didn’t break stride or turn back as he answered. “I wouldn’t be here now, except to save your windows.”

And with that, he was gone. I watched him vanish into the woods, and then I watched the sun vanish into the land, and the windows remained.

* * *

I tracked the moon for nearly a full cycle and did not see another living soul. Nor a dead one either, which was something of a comfort. I was growing daily more certain of you, and had no wish to be haunted by your father’s shade, or by whatever spirit plagued the cabin.

Another moon waxed and waned, journeying across the windows each night as I lay sleepless on my pallet, and by then, I was sure that even if Jonas never came back, I would not be alone in my cabin before the year was out.

I kept myself as busy as I could, in those waning days, but it was difficult with the land still and unchanging around me. Before coming to the mountain, my life had been ruled by the tides. When the fishers went out and when they returned. When the beaches at the base of the cliffs were passable and when the sea would sweep you from your feet. Here, without the tyranny of the sea, I had to turn to the subtle sky: where the sun and moon and stars counted each day into the next. The days grew shorter, the nights grew longer, the moon and I grew rounder, and Jonas returned.

I had my axe in hand when he appeared, but only because I was chopping wood. I was almost always chopping wood in those days; I did not know the winters of the mountain, and the thought of the cold and the dark terrified me. I noticed a shadow out of place, turned to find him, and we both found the great swell of my belly between us.

My hands clenched my axe, waiting for him to speak. My grey-blue eyes dared his honey-brown ones to say something, as the sea taunts the unwary sailor. His gaze flicked down to you for barely a moment, and then returned. Then he held up one arm and revealed a flash of silver. My breath caught.

He had brought a fish.

* * *

I tended to the coals below as he tended to the fish above, and then we shared the heat and the meal in silence. The sleek scaled creature was large for a river fish, but would have been dwarfed by the wonders my parents daily pulled from the sea, or had done, until the day the sea had pulled them back. Its flesh tasted of rain, not salt, but I reveled in it. Between us, we finished the fish and polished the pan with our bread-crusts.

I was the one who broke the silence. “Are you going to ask?”

At least he didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. “Should I?”

For some reason, that made me angry: the implication that my trials were none of his concern. Not that they were. It wasn’t as though he burdened me with his affairs, whatever they might have been. I realized I didn’t think of him as the sort of man who had affairs, beyond roaming the mountains and occasionally breaking bread behind the windows of a misplaced sea-woman. I scowled at him.

“Aren’t you worried the father was a demon?”

He looked up from his plate. “Wasn’t he?”

I started. “Is it that obvious?”

He choked on a laugh. If he hadn’t managed to keep it behind his teeth, I think I would have hit him with the pan.

“You are with child, and yet you have fled your home to a haunted cabin in the mountains. You are brave, resourceful, determined, and I would not want to face you in a rage. But yes, it is obvious.”

I sighed, and left the pan where it lay. It was true. In a different way, it should have been obvious to me as well: the whirlwind romance in the shadow of my grief over my parents’ deaths—the grief that had left my soul open and vulnerable. The consuming passion that suddenly evaporated on the night—I later calculated—you had been conceived. Fortunately, my head cleared quickly, and I did what needed to be done. The demon was dispatched, his flesh burned in the hidden cave where I found him, directly below our bed. The bed burned too, and I fled in the night with little more than the clothes on my back, the axe in my hands, and the useless glass of my old windows tied into a bundle. I didn’t look back; I knew I would never return. The neighbors would see the unearthly golden flames and assume I had perished with my lover.

Or perhaps they assumed that I was the demon. With neither of us there to question, there was no way to know for sure.

“What if I’m the demon?” I asked.

He shrugged. “If you were, you’d have killed me.”

“Maybe I’m a patient demon.”

Another shrug. “There are worse ways to die on the mountain. And if you’re that patient, maybe you won’t ever kill me. And if you don’t, does it matter if you’re a demon?”

Did it? It had been desperately important by the sea. Was this yet another way this place was foreign from the place of my birth? The old fishermen had always said the hills were haunted; it was why we buried our dead in the land. But perhaps this is what they had meant. Perhaps on the land, all men and women were demons.

I frowned. “Are you a demon?”

He considered the question. “I don’t think so. I’m not planning on killing anyone.”

And if he wasn’t, did it matter if he was a demon? I wasn’t sure. So that was where we let the matter rest.

* * *

They say that a demon cannot resist the lure of its own flesh. That if it begets or conceives a child of a human, its hunger for the life and soul nestled within its own copy will only grow, until it must consume the source or die. They say that a demon will run to the ends of the earth once the scent of its child is in its nostrils. A demon mother can usually force herself to wait until the child’s natural time. A demon father can almost never be that patient. The stories of rent flesh and dismembered infants make my own tale seem tame and happy.

* * *

The days continued to pass, and while the moon waxed and waned, I only swelled…to fullness and beyond. Outside, I chopped wood to the eaves, and inside, I laid supplies to the rafters. Jonas returned occasionally and although he assured me the winters were mild, with you beating constantly at my insides, I couldn’t afford to believe him.

I began to have nightmares. I dreamed about the night I killed your father: the shock that went up my arms as my axe hit his spine and separated his head from his shoulders, the hollow-melon sound of his head hitting stone, the smell of his flesh as it charred and bubbled. Then I dreamed that something had gone wrong. That he had not died. That as I was crippled by the pains of labor, he arrived to eat both our souls. In some dreams he returned looking as he did when I first saw him, in others, he arrived half-consumed by flame, still smoking.

Then came the worst dream of all.

* * *

“What if I was wrong?”

Jonas had found me on the floor of my cabin, sobbing like a farm girl over her spilled bucket. It was a measure of my terror that I was more scared than embarrassed. But he knelt down as though this was no different than any of our other conversations.

“Wrong about what?”

I could barely whisper it. “What if he wasn’t a demon?” In the nightmare, I had watched your father’s blood soaking into the earth and suddenly known that I had been wrong. That he was nothing more than a man. And I had murdered him.

Jonas looked around the cabin, and took in my meticulous preparations, down to the polished glass of the windows. “I don’t think you’d be wrong about that.”

I laughed bitterly. “There is no world in which I have not been terribly wrong. Either I killed an innocent man, or I bedded and then conceived a child with a demon. If I could do one, surely it is possible I could do the other.”

“But not both,” he pointed out, and rose.

I looked up at him, and he helped me to my feet. His hand was warm and solid, as callused as any fisherman’s. He let mine go.

“You are close to your time,” he said. “There are few people on this mountain, but there is a wise woman. I could bring—”

“No.”

“Do you want me to take you to—?”

I shook my head. I did not trust any wise woman of this mountain. I feared what she would do to you if she suspected your parentage. I feared what she would do to me as I lay depleted by childbirth. Something had kept me alive this far, either it would have me safely delivered of you, or it would not.

“Do you want me to stay?”

That question I could not answer. And so he left.

* * *

A day later I was cursing myself as a greater fool than the man who tried to sail his boat on shore. I had fled the sea, but it had finally caught up to me, and I found myself on hands and knees on my wooden floor as wave after wave passed over and through me, each one taking a little bit more of my strength back to the depths.

My own waters had left me hours ago, but you clung still, like a barnacle deep inside, unwilling to let go. I pictured you stuck; drying like a sea star deserted by the tide. Another wave passed, and I groaned to feel a surge pass from me. Not you. I looked down. The waters of the sea had turned red, like a sunset.

Whatever had kept me alive this long had abandoned me. I was going to die. And then, in the quiet between the waves, I felt you struggling, still wet and quick. I had to live. You had to live. Somehow.

I screamed for help until I was hoarse. I forced myself to stand and make my way to the windows, hoping to see Jonas there as he had been so many times now. But there was no one. My fists pounded the glass in rage and frustration. The sun was already low in the sky; its rays leapt from the panes back out to the valley, and…my fists stilled. I pictured Jonas watching for those flashes from the mountain. And I was certain that if he did not see them, he would come to find out why.

I beat against the glass over and over with my pain, until each pane, and I, had shattered, and the blood of my hands mixed with the blood coating my thighs, and I lay on the floor, screaming and cursing as the afternoon light crept over me, thrown back only by my glittering tears. You were harder and harder to feel, and as the room darkened, you slowed further, and I couldn’t tell if the world was dimming, or if I was.

And then the pain was gone. The waters receded, and there was Jonas. And there you were, warm and wet and alive.

* * *

“You lied to me,” I accused him, half dozing as you suckled. “You said you weren’t a demon.”

Jonas shook his head. “I said I didn’t think I was a demon. Do you think you are a human, or do you know?”

“That’s very technical.”

He shrugged. “I did warn you this place was haunted.”

Well, that he had. I tucked you closer in my arms, feeling the broken pieces of my soul knit together as I traced the shell of your tiny ear.

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked.

“I said I wasn’t planning to. I don’t lie.”

My mind was not entirely at ease, but as I tried to work out a way to ask if he was likely to kill me without having to plan it, he asked his own question first.

“Why break the glass, if you thought I was a demon?”

His voice had changed, or maybe it was only the way I heard it. But his callused hill man hands had not. The hands that had, only hours earlier, lifted you from me and placed you on my chest. “If you hadn’t come, I would have died. If you did, perhaps you wouldn’t kill me, and if you didn’t, what did it matter if you were a demon?”

He smiled, and I looked into his eyes, once again the comforting brown of buried autumn leaves after their fiery colors have faded, with just a hint of the green of new grass, and the tiniest glimmer of golden yellow.

As I drifted off to sleep, one last fear broke free, and I fought the current to wakefulness one last time. “Are you this one’s father? Have you come to take him?”

“No,” I heard him say as I slipped into the dark. “You were most thorough.”

By the time I realized he hadn’t answered my second question, I was already asleep.

When I woke, he was gone. But you were not.

* * *

I had cause to be glad of my autumn hoarding. Jonas had not lied; we were not in danger of freezing to death, and things grew through the winter, but I was tired, and weak, and you were demanding, and without my stores I would have reached spring in dire straits indeed.

You, I didn’t worry for. Once you had reached the world, and I looked into your eyes, golden like fire, I was certain that you would find a way to live. Without the threat of your father coming to steal your life to add to his own, you thrived.

In time, I found new glass for the windows. Even if it would not protect us, I still liked to sit in the afternoons with you in my arms, or rolling in the grass at my feet, and watch the light leaping off the panes like fishes. In time, word that the cabin was no longer haunted reached the mountain village, and I met our neighbors. I found I did not mind the occasional breaks in our aloneness. Others were not so frightening now. My shattered soul had healed, and I was no longer vulnerable to demons.

Jonas never returned.

* * *

So you see, little one. It is all as I promised.

My story is not a love story. It is a story of grief followed by death, exile, deception, and abandonment.

But love came to it. In the end.

Bookburners, Episode 5: The Market Arcanum

Originally published by Serial Box Publishing as part of Bookburners, Season One

1.

Sal had come to the Societas Libris Occultatem’s gym under the Vatican to lift weights, put in some treadmill time, and take out a little pent-up aggression on the heavy bag. All of those plans, however, flew right out the window when she found Liam with his shirt off, taping his hands and showing off both his physique and tattoos to very good advantage. Not that she wasn’t intimately acquainted with all of his ink already. Still, just because a girl was familiar with the scenery didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate the view.

He caught her looking and smirked.

“You come to work out, or just window shopping?”

“I can’t do both?”

“I’d hate for you to get hurt because you were distracted.”

Well, she couldn’t just let that pass, could she?

Despite being in a genuine roped-off ring, their sparring was more mixed unarmed combat than straight-out boxing. (Liam was scandalized to learn that New York police did not generally engage in recreational fisticuffs, at least, not since handlebar moustaches had gone out of fashion.) But they both had enough training to make for an interesting bout, and if one or the other of them periodically wound up flat on their back against the canvas, Sal wasn’t complaining. From the press of his body against hers, Liam didn’t object either.

Liam was helping her to her feet, and Sal was just about to suggest that they hit the showers and then continue their conversation in a less public setting when she was cut off by Father Menchú clearing his throat behind them.

Caught engaging in sparring-as-foreplay by a priest. There was an effective mood-killer for you.

Sal covered her blush by scrubbing her face with a towel.

“Father,” said Liam, his form of address betraying the depth of his discomfort. There was one advantage to being a lapsed Presbyterian who just happened to work at the Vatican: Sal might not be familiar with Catholic politics and hierarchy, but at least she didn’t have to fight years of childhood conditioning every time her boss walked in. Most of the time, Liam did pretty well at ignoring the fact that Menchú was a priest. This, apparently, was the line.

Menchú nodded to Liam in acknowledgment, then turned to Sal. “I need you to go home and pack a bag. We’ve got an assignment. Our train leaves in two hours.”

Sal snapped into ready mode, tossing aside her embarrassment along with her used towel. “I’ve got a go bag here. We can leave now.”

Menchú raised an eyebrow. “We could, but the train still leaves in two hours, and you need something you can wear in upscale company for the next three days.”

Sal wasn’t sure she had anything in Rome that she could wear in upscale company. Depending on how upscale he meant, she wasn’t sure she owned anything appropriate at all. “What’s the assignment?”

“I can’t say.”

That apparently caused something to click for Liam. “Is it Beltane already?”

Menchú gave him a quelling glance.

“What’s going on?” Sal demanded.

Menchú shook his head. “Can’t say.”

“Can’t? Won’t? Or aren’t allowed to?”

“Does it matter?”

Well, when he put it that way, Sal didn’t suppose it did.

* * *

The train took them to Zurich. Once there, Menchú rented an economy car, and they drove north through the mountains. Through it all, he wouldn’t say a word about where they were going, what they would be doing there, or why they were the only members of Team Three involved. Although Sal had come to accept that answering questions was not the Society’s forte, it was troubling that Menchú didn’t want to talk about anything else, either.

Finally, after hours of silence and crossing the border into Liechtenstein—of all places—Sal asked, “Are you mad at me?”

Menchú glanced at her in surprise. “No. Why would I be mad at you?”

“I don’t know, but I’m starting to feel like the cat you’re planning to abandon three states away, hoping that I won’t be able to find my way home.”

Menchú looked pained. “I’m sorry, Sal. I’ve been a bit distracted.”

“No shit.”

He glanced at a passing kilometer marker and came to a decision. “All right. We’re close enough now. Let me tell you about the Black Market.”

Somehow, Sal had a feeling he wasn’t talking about tax-free booze and cigarettes.

* * *

“It’s properly known as the Market Arcanum, or more commonly, the Market. The Society was first invited in the 15th century, thanks to the connections of certain members of the Order of the Dragon. From what we can tell, however, the Market dates back at least another half-millennium before that. In any event, every year at Beltane, covert practitioners of magic gather for a three-night conclave. It’s part auction, part high-level diplomatic conference for every power player who uses magic to rig the game.”

“Wait,” said Sal. “There’s an annual clearing house where people buy, sell, and trade the objects that we’re supposed to be hunting down and destroying?”

“Yes.”

“And Team One hasn’t nuked it from orbit?”

Menchú gave her a sardonic look. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that individuals within our organization do not always agree on matters of policy.”

“Yeah, but this time you’ve managed to stop team trigger-happy. How?”

“The Society leaves the Market alone for two reasons. First, it was pointed out by one of Asanti’s long-ago predecessors that even if we could destroy the Market, it wouldn’t eliminate magic from the world. At least this way, we can keep an eye on things.”

“That seems surprisingly sensible,” said Sal. “What’s the second reason?”

“In an open assault against the Market, The Society isn’t sure they’d win.”

“There are going to be people at this thing who could take Team One?”

“It’s highly possible that there are people at the Market who could take Team One without breaking a sweat.”

Sal wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate that. “Who are these people? World leaders? Guys who go to Davos? The Illuminati?”

“The members are…rather eclectic,” Menchú said. “The backbone is made up of representatives from the old noble European families. Though there’s been an influx of new money and technologists in the last hundred years, much to the disgust of the old guard. You’ll also see practitioners from Africa, Asia, and the New World, but we believe most of them have core gatherings in their own regions.”

“I’m sure the Society would love to have invites to those.”

“The Society would like to be able to send more than two representatives to this one, but wanting and getting are two very different things.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but why isn’t this a Team Two job? Aren’t they the diplomats?”

Menchú snorted. “They are, but objects and texts are our jurisdiction. Also, the members of the Order of the Dragon who secured the original invitation were part of Team Three, and so, by tradition, we’re the ones who go.”

Sal had a sudden suspicion. “Are you a member of this Order of the Dragon?”

Menchú actually rolled his eyes. “The Order of the Dragon was founded hundreds of years ago to protect Christendom from encroachment by the Ottoman Turks.”

“That is not a denial,” Sal pointed out.

Menchú quirked his lips, but said nothing.

* * *

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Balzers, a town tucked into a valley in the middle of the mountains, which—as far as Sal could tell—was a fair description of most of Liechtenstein. Spring came late to the Alps, but the hills behind the small B&B where Menchú had booked their rooms were definitely greening up, and Sal took a minute—after she had changed out of her travel clothes into the black pants, black button-down shirt and black jacket that were as formal as she had managed—to appreciate the smell of clear air and growing things. She was getting used to Rome, but even after all her years in New York, Sal wasn’t a city girl at heart.

The Market Arcanum was to be held in Gutenberg Castle. Compared to the Papal Palace it seemed like more of a big stone house than a castle, but Sal supposed that if you ran a country, you could call your buildings whatever you wanted. It was outside of the town proper, and she and Menchú walked together up the hill from their inn.

“The Market is run by a woman known as the Maitresse,” Menchú explained. “She sets the rules, and for the next three nights, her word is law.”

“What are the rules?”

“The Market is considered neutral territory, which means that no member is allowed to offer violence against another.”

“What constitutes violence?” asked Sal. “Harsh words? Assault? Murder?”

“During the Market, violence is whatever the Maitresse and her Guardians say it is.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

“Any bargain struck at one Market must be fulfilled before the beginning of the next. If not, the owed party can demand a forfeit of their choosing.”

Sal could only imagine what powerful magic-wielding people could come up with for a forfeit.

“Lastly, anyone violating the secrecy of the Market will be permanently banned, along with their cadre.”

The penny dropped. “That’s why you couldn’t give me any information earlier?”

“Yes.”

Sal considered. “So if I piss someone off badly enough, I could get the entire Catholic Church banned?”

“In theory, yes.”

“I’m not gonna lie. That’s just a little tempting.”

Sal wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn she heard Menchú mutter, “You have no idea.”

2.

The sun was only a finger-width above the horizon when Sal and Menchú reached the castle. The Maitresse waited at the gates, flanked by two immense statues of armored men carrying stone swords. If the Maitresse had been anyone else, Sal would have pegged her age as somewhere between her forties and her sixties, an indeterminate maturity where experience, strength, and sex appeal came together and women with the standing to back it up could wear their power without even a whisper of apology. Something about her bearing, however, made Sal suspect that this woman had not apologized for her authority for a very, very long time.

“Maitresse,” said Menchú with the barest nod of respect. “Thank you for inviting us to the Market once again.”

The woman did not return the courtesy. “Bookburner.” Her eyes flicked to Sal. “And this is?”

Menchú blinked, but took the hint. “Our newest member, Sally Brooks.”

The Maitresse swept Sal with a penetrating stare. “Is she, now? How lovely for you.”

Sal took Menchú’s lead and nodded. “Ma’am.”

The Maitresse’s gaze lingered for another moment, and then, to Sal’s relief, transferred back to Menchú. “Do you claim a debt outstanding from the last Market?”

“We do not.”

“Very well.” At her gesture, the two statues stepped forward and away from the doors. Apparently, the Maitresse had figured out how to use magic without being consumed by madness, supernatural backlash, or a demon she sought to control. Which was…not a reassuring thought, actually.

The artificial men reached out and opened the huge wooden doors leading into the courtyard of the castle proper.

The Maitresse’s smile was anything but welcoming. “Welcome to the Market Arcanum.”

* * *

The courtyard was lit by sconces along the walls and illuminated orbs that floated overhead, unconnected to any visible tethers or power sources. Among the crowd already gathered, Sal could pick out at least half a dozen different languages being spoken, and guessed there were probably that many more that she couldn’t distinguish from the general murmuring.

“Does the Market supply translators?” Sal whispered.

Menchú grimaced. “This is just opening night posturing. Everyone keeping to their own group and proving how esoteric and mysterious they are. Once the Market officially opens, everyone switches over to a lingua franca.”

“Please, tell me that’s pretentious-speak for “English.’”

“These days, yes. It used to be Latin, then French, and some of the old families who insist on doing business ‘traditionally’ will use those for official documents and transactions, but English is the world’s second language, even here.”

“Oh. Good.”

Putting aside for the moment the part of her brain that kept trying to understand all of the words floating around her, Sal concentrated on what her eyes were telling her instead. Now that Menchú had pointed it out, she could see that all the people in the courtyard kept to small clusters of four or five. Apparently, not every group was limited to the Society’s two invites.

One group of men wearing wolf pelts draped over their shoulders like hoods looked like they had hiked in out of the Alps. The pelts had heads still attached, artificial eyes staring glassily from above their wearers’ own faces. It was disconcerting. Especially when Sal saw one of the wolves blink.

On the opposite side of the yard, a group of men and women in jeans and black T-shirts had apparently not gotten Menchú’s “dress for company” memo and were all busily bent over some piece of equipment. Support staff? As Sal tried to get a glimpse of just what they were working on, one of the men looked up and met her gaze. Sal felt suddenly cold. Then he looked away, turning back to his work, and she wondered if she had imagined it.

“Who are they?” she asked Menchú.

“Techno-cultists.” Sal wasn’t sure she had ever heard him sound so disgusted. “They believe that magic, like information, ‘wants to be free.’ And that by combining human technology with the supernatural, they can bring about the singularity, not just of artificial intelligence, but of all human knowledge.”

“What does that even mean?”

“That they’re a bunch of anarchists who have no respect for the power they’re playing with.”

Sal’s stomach clenched. “Are these the people Perry was mixed up with?”

“Philosophically, maybe, but we never had evidence that your brother and his friends were working with anyone except themselves.”

Before Sal could pursue the subject any further, the loud bang of a wooden bar falling across the entry doors reverberated through the courtyard. The assembly fell silent, and in that pause, the Maitresse stepped out onto a balcony overlooking the Market.

“Tonight begins the Market Arcanum. For three nights, from sunset to sunrise, all debts and grudges are to be set aside within these walls. In the outside world we are friends, rivals, enemies. Here we are equals.”

The Maitresse clapped her hands once, and the air throughout the castle vibrated, as though they stood inside a giant bell. On the stone wall above her, a clock face appeared. It had only a single hand, creeping from sunset on the far left edge of the circle toward dawn marked opposite.

The courtyard instantly erupted in conversation once again.

The Market had begun.

One of the men with the wolf pelts examined the contents of a lacquered wooden box held by a woman wearing an elegant evening gown, but whose exposed skin was completely covered in tattoos. The techno-cultists went back to their equipment. And a tall man wearing a suit that probably cost more than Sal earned in a year was striding toward her and Menchú.

When he arrived, his voice dripped with false cordiality. “Excellent. I had hoped that the Bookburners would deign to make an appearance.”

Sal wondered if everyone at this gathering hated them, or if they just kept running into the ones who did.

“We don’t burn books,” said Menchú, gently.

“Of course not. You take them. Even when they don’t belong to you.”

Sal frowned and glanced at Menchú. Did he have any idea who this man was or what he was talking about?

Menchú’s expression was impossible to read. “There are no debts or grudges within these walls. If you have a problem with the Society, I suggest that you take your quarrel elsewhere, Mr…?”

The man smiled. “The name is Mr. Norse.”

Mr. Norse. Owner of the Fair Weather. Sal was mildly impressed that he was more upset about the book than his burned yacht, but maybe he didn’t know Team One had been behind that. Maybe his yachts spontaneously caught fire all the time. With hobbies like his, it had to be a risk.

“Since you took something of mine,” Mr. Norse continued, “now I’m going to take something of yours.” He was practically leering. On instinct, Sal placed herself between the two men.

“You heard the lady on the balcony. This is neutral territory. But if you want to step outside, I’d be happy to kick your ass three nights from now.”

Mr. Norse only smiled. “I’ve already stepped outside, Ms. Brooks.”

He laid a particular emphasis on her name, rolling it on his tongue.

Sal felt her phone vibrate against her thigh. Incoming call. She ignored it.

“Congratulations, you know my name. Am I supposed to find that intimidating?”

“You’ll want to get that,” said Mr. Norse.

Behind her, Father Menchú's hand slid toward his own ringing phone.

“Why?”

“It’s the part you’re supposed to find intimidating.”

Sal pulled out her phone and glanced at the caller ID. Liam.

* * *

Liam and Asanti stood at the center of a maelstrom. A fierce wind roared through the Archives, picking up books and sending them flying off their shelves, hurtling through the air like mad birds.

“What’s going on?” Liam shouted.

Above them, the towering shelves swayed, metal creaking like an old barn in a storm. Liam wondered just how many tons of paper loomed above their heads, and how long it would take to dig out their bodies if it all came tumbling down.

And then something was falling toward them: Grace. No, she wasn’t falling. She had slipped through the lattice surrounding the central stairs and was skittering down the supports like they were a giant, swaying jungle gym. She landed lightly on her feet, not even out of breath.

“Are you insane?” Liam asked.

She shrugged. “Faster than walking.”

“Did you find the monsignor?” Asanti asked.

Grace shook her head. “Couldn’t get out.”

“We’re sealed in?”

It wasn’t really a question, but Grace nodded. Liam reached for his phone.

“I tried,” said Grace. “No signal.”

Liam didn’t look up. “I’ve got some boosters built into mine. I might be able to get through whatever’s causing this so we can warn the other teams.”

Asanti grabbed Liam’s shoulder to get his attention. “Try Sal and Menchú first.” Even though she was shouting directly into Liam’s ear, he had trouble hearing her over the creak of shelves and the thumps of falling books.

“Why?”

“Because the Market began tonight, and whatever this is, it started at sunset.”

* * *

Once Sal had hung up with Liam, Menchú calmly returned his attention to Mr. Norse. “All right. You’ve shown that you can attack my people. Now stop.”

The other man smiled. “No.”

“I will report you to the Guardians. It is against the rules of the Market—”

“The rules of the Market forbid any member to offer violence against another within these walls. I have not lifted a hand against you or your companion. But you killed three of my people. Return my book,” said Mr. Norse, “or the attacks will escalate every night until the rest of your team is just as dead as mine.”

3.

Sal and Menchú left the castle the instant the doors were unbarred at sunrise. Their landlady gave them a look as they arrived for breakfast through the outside door, but Sal was too strung out to care. As soon as they could, they adjourned to Menchú’s room and called Asanti.

“The maelstrom stopped briefly at dawn,” she reported, “but it keeps picking up again, randomly and without warning. Which is almost worse.”

“Is everyone okay?” Sal asked.

“A bit battered, but so far, yes.”

Well, that was something, at least. “Could Mr. Norse be bluffing?” Sal asked.

Menchú shook his head. “Unfortunately, I think we have to assume that whatever Mr. Norse is doing will escalate to more lethal levels until he makes good on his threat.” Then he added, to Asanti, “We should be there with you.”

“As much as I’d appreciate your company and assistance, I think you can do more good working on Mr. Norse where you are. Besides, we’re locked in.”

Menchú said something in Spanish that Sal suspected he wouldn’t be willing to translate. She decided to get back to the matter at hand.

“Okay, so if you’re stuck in there, what can we do from Liechtenstein to make sure that you don’t, you know, die? I mean, besides give Mr. Norse a book leaking demonic goo that wants to drown the world.”

“It depends on what he actually wants,” said Asanti.

“He sounded pretty clear about wanting all of you dead,” said Sal.

“If Norse wanted to kill us, there are a lot of faster, easier, and more deniable ways to go about it,” said Asanti.

Menchú grimaced. “Which means that this is just the opening of negotiations.”

* * *

Indeed, Mr. Norse responded immediately and favorably to their request for a meeting, which Sal had to admit lent a certain degree of credibility to Asanti’s theory. They arranged to meet before sunset, in a small room that was normally part of the castle’s museum.

Mr. Norse seated himself on a tapestried stool that must have been at least four hundred years old as though he sat on Renaissance furniture every day. Maybe he did. Menchú and Sal remained standing.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us,” Menchú began.

“Do you have my book?”

“We do. Locked in our Archives.”

“Then I suggest you unlock it,” Mr. Norse remarked drily. “If transport is a problem, I have an envoy in Rome who will accept delivery on my behalf.” He took a card out of his jacket pocket and held it out to Menchú. Menchú ignored it.

“The book is both damaged and highly dangerous. We cannot hand it over.”

Mr. Norse raised a brow. “I thought Catholics believed in the value of human life.”

“We are aware that you purchased the volume, and are prepared to compensate you for your loss of property.”

“My demands for compensation are very simple. I want my book. Since I suspect you will not provide it, I will kill your team. And then, I want you to live with the knowledge of the deaths you caused with your obstinacy.” His smile was flat and cold. “Unless you can offer me something better than that, I think our discussions are concluded.”

So much for negotiations, Sal thought.

* * *

“Time?” asked Liam.

“One minute to sunset,” came Grace’s calm reply. As though they weren’t anticipating all unholy hell breaking loose in the next sixty seconds.

Liam had faith in Menchú and his powers of persuasion. He believed that God would protect those committed to His work on earth. Liam had also been taught that the Lord helped those who helped themselves—and so that was what he and the rest of the team had spent the day doing. Now, Liam’s entire body felt like one huge bruise, and his ears rang from stress, hunger, and lack of sleep. But this time, they would be prepared.

“Are you ready?” Asanti asked.

“Gimme five seconds.”

“Thirty seconds to sunset,” said Grace.

Liam took hold of two heavy iron maces—originally part of some forgotten order’s regalia, now wrapped in wire stripped from every reading lamp in the Archive—and lifted his arms to their greatest extension, one on either side of his body. “Do it.”

Grace and Asanti both jammed spliced electrical plugs into outlets on opposite walls, one for each mace. It hadn’t been easy to create electromagnets with things that were stashed around the Archives, but pain and annoyance were both powerful motivators, and Liam had plenty of both to egg him on. Now he just needed this harebrained scheme to work.

“Grace, a little more on your side.”

Liam heard a scrape as she pushed a set of iron shelves through the cascade of books covering the floor. He fancied he could see Asanti wince out of the corner of his eye, but she didn’t say anything. First, save themselves. Worry about the damage later.

The pressure on his left arm eased, as the magnetized mace wavered, torn between the pull of the magnet in his other hand and the huge hunk of iron Grace was moving toward it. The pull was easing, nearly neutral…

“There!”

Grace froze. Liam held his breath. Slowly, carefully, he let go of the maces, trying not to jostle their positions in the air. Then he stepped away. The two weapons hung, perfectly balanced between the attractive force of the iron shelves, the central stairway, and each other.

Liam let out a long, slow, breath. No one moved.

“Time?”

“Four seconds to sunset.”

Three. Two. One.

The Archives remained silent. No winds. No flying books.

Grace looked at Liam, impressed. “Field is holding. Nice work.” Then, she frowned. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“High-pitched sound. Like a fluorescent bulb that’s slightly off-cycle.”

Liam shook his head. “No, but my high frequencies aren’t great.”

“Too much time with your headphones on,” said Asanti.

Liam shrugged. “Probably.” Then a sound tickled at the edge of his hearing. “Wait. Is it kind of…?”

The high-pitched noise exploded in his head like someone was driving an ice pick through his eardrums. Liam gasped in pain. He heard Asanti shout. And Grace…

Grace, who could take a fist to the face without blinking, whom Liam had seen head-butt armored demons twice her size and not even bruise, crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

* * *

From the instant Menchú and Sal stepped into the courtyard at sunset, it was obvious that everyone at the Market knew what was going on. Not that Mr. Norse had been at all subtle with his threats the night before, but Menchú couldn’t help but notice how every whispered conversation paused as they passed and then resumed as soon as they were out of earshot. He wished that Asanti were there with them. Actually, he wished that Asanti were there instead of him. Menchú had learned over the years to take people as they came. His easy manner with all sorts was one of the reasons he had been recruited into Team Three. But the Market, with its casual magic use and even more casual classism, made his teeth crawl.

He did his best to shake off his annoyance. It wouldn’t help, and railing against the good fortune of people who did evil over those who did good was bush-league theology of the first order.

As if she could read his mind, Sal let out a sigh. “It’s not fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“We probably have the largest collection of magical books and artifacts in the world in the Archives.” She gestured to the crowd around them. “We could be sitting on something that could not only stop Mr. Norse, but also make his balls fall off the next time he even thinks about going after our people, but it doesn’t do us any good because we never use any of the artifacts we find.”

Quickly, Menchú drew Sal off to the side where they could speak without being disturbed. That kind of thinking had to be nipped in the bud. “We are fighting this, Sal,” he assured her, “and we are going to win. Liam, Grace, and Asanti are going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that. We can’t give Mr. Norse the book because he would use it to destroy the world, I get that. But look around us; this place is full of people who use magic every day. It doesn’t seem to be driving them insane.”

“You don’t know them very well yet.”

Sal shook her head. “I just don’t understand why you won’t even consider—”

“Because I know what happens when people try to use forces they don’t understand.”

Sal was clearly still in the mood to argue, and Menchú realized they would be at it all night if he didn’t give her something productive to do. “Why don’t you call and check in with the others? Let them know what’s going on and make sure that they’re still all right.”

“And what are you going to do?”

Menchú couldn’t stop the grimace. “Look for allies.”

* * *

Sal’s conversation with Liam had not gone well. A burst of static exploded from the phone the instant he picked up. She tried to tell him what had happened with Mr. Norse, but wasn’t sure that he could hear anything over the bad connection. From what she’d been able to tell over the interference, the situation in the Archives had only gotten worse, and there was still jack-all that she could do about it from goddamned Liechtenstein.

When Sal hung up, the techno-cultist who had been staring at her the night before was standing at her elbow. She jerked in surprise, and her phone went flying from her fingers.

The techno-cultist’s hand darted out, picked her falling phone out of the air, and handed it to her. All without ever once breaking eye contact. He worked his mouth for a moment, as though he had to remember how to talk. Finally, he said, “You’re Perry’s sister, aren’t you?”

Sal felt her heart lurch in her chest. She checked the courtyard. Menchú was nowhere to be seen. “Yes. Who are you?”

“You can call me Opus93.”

“How about I call you by your real name?”

He shrugged. “What makes Opus93 less real than the name I was born with?”

Because Opus93 is a stupid-ass name, Sal didn’t say. “What do your friends call you?”

“Opus93.”

Sigh. “What do you know about my brother, Opie?”

“Word is he got his hands on something real, but he brought it to his sister the cop. He goes nova, puts out a huge spew of phantom data, then goes dark. And now Cop Sister is a Bookburner, and no one’s heard from Perry since.”

“What are you implying?”

“Implications are imprecise. Facts are what’s needed.”

Sal didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or fight back tears. It was too much like talking to Perry when he got into one of his esoteric fugues.

“Fine. Are you offering facts? Or just fishing for them?”

“Information wants to be free, doesn’t come without a price. You want help with your little billionaire problem, you need to ask the Index.”

The Index. Even Sal could hear the capital letter. She looked around again for Menchú. Still no sign of him. She swallowed. “Tell me more.”

* * *

Either the small room the techno-cultists had reserved for their use during the Market was not normally part of the castle’s museum, or it had been lovingly restored to its original purpose of storing dirt. Though dirt wouldn’t have required the window the cultists were using to vent the portable generator they had brought. That was the only familiar piece of equipment in the room.

Through a shared childhood with Perry, Sal had become passably familiar with circuit boards, resistors, and the various shells that computers and their innards came in. Not that she could do anything with them, but at least she knew what they were supposed to look like.

These computers—and Sal used the term loosely—had probably started their lives as standard PCs. What had happened to them next…One laptop looked like it had been repurposed as a planter, the keyboard replaced with a bed of moss ringed by yellow flowers. Above, a screen glowed with life. As Sal watched, Opie brushed a hand over the moss, and the blinking cursor and command line vanished, replaced by scrolling code that flew by faster than her eyes could follow. Another half-open desktop was filled with boards where glowing crystals grew among the circuits, absorbing the machine into their structure. A screen on the opposite wall connected to a large aquarium, complete with a herd of tiny sea horses milling in the purple-hued water.

Opie caught her staring. “Biocomputer. Only working example in the world.” He walked over to the aquarium and pulled a keyboard off a nearby shelf. A few keystrokes later, the blank screen above the tank changed to display a video of a baby panda. “Panda cam in the Beijing Zoo. It’s closed circuit. Not publicly accessible.”

Sal was more disturbed by the sea horses. As soon as Opie picked up the keyboard, they fell into formation, then scattered. They were currently swimming in a very intricate pattern through the tank. Except that every few seconds, all of the sea horses would suddenly freeze in place, like a buffering video. The baby panda, meanwhile, rolled on its back happily, and a hand reached in from off-screen to rub its belly.

“I thought biocomputers were still theoretical.”

“In the rest of the world, yes. But if you have a little bit of magic to help you…” He gestured to the rest of the room. “All things are possible.”

“Is that the Index?”

“The Index makes this look like a Commodore 64.”

“So why are you wasting my time? I have friends in trouble. Can you help me or not?”

Opie gave her a smug look. “I can help you. But the Index contains the sum of all human knowledge. Like I said, you don’t get to access that for free.”

Sal scoffed and held up her cell phone. “I already have access to the sum of all human knowledge. Costs me sixty-five dollars a month.”

Opie snorted. “We both know that if that was enough, you wouldn’t have followed me, Cop Sister. The Internet is merely the totality of human knowledge that’s been written down and put on online. The Index is a repository of everything known by any human who has ever interfaced with it.”

“And that includes Mr. Norse?”

Opie nodded. “Ask your question, and know what he knows about what’s happening to your friends.”

“What’s the catch?” asked Sal, torn between being fascinated by the possibilities and really disturbed by the implications of what Opie was saying.

“For every question you ask, the Index takes one piece of knowledge from your mind, and you can never know it again.”

4.

Sal had found Menchú when they both returned to their B&B after sunrise. Predictably, he had not been enthusiastic when Sal told him about her encounter with Opie and his offer.

“I don’t like the idea of losing a chunk of my memory any more than you do, but I don’t think we have a choice,” she said, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice. Sal couldn’t imagine that getting snippy with Menchú would help matters, and it wasn’t like any of this was his fault.

“We always have a choice,” said Menchú. “And we only have the word of one techno-cultist that this so-called Index won’t wipe your entire memory. We don’t know that it even works at all.”

“I’m pretty sure that mind-wiping someone would be considered both breaking a deal and offering violence against another member of the Market. Do you really think they’d risk getting evicted?”

“I’m sure their expulsion will be a great comfort to you after your mind has been destroyed by their infernal machine.”

“That’s the other thing. If this is all a ploy, what’s in my mind that they’re so interested in? Out of everyone here, why target me?”

“Your brother.”

“You know more about what’s going on with Perry than I do. Plus more secrets of the Society besides. Why haven’t they been eye-fucking you this whole time?”

Menchú didn’t even crack a smile. “Because if they’d approached me, I would have said no, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

“You think they targeted me because I’m the weak link.”

“I think they know what you want, and now they’re offering it to you. It’s what demons do—find your weakness and turn it against you.”

“You think Opie is a demon? Seriously?”

“I think something is powering the Index, and it isn’t love and light.” If possible, Menchú’s expression turned even more serious. “You haven’t been with us for long, but even so, these people would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to suck you dry of every drop of information you know about the Archives and the Society. You remember how Liam was possessed?”

Sal nodded.

“This wouldn’t be the first time techno-cultists tried to use the residue of a demon to access our secrets. And once they’ve touched you…Demons leave scars just like physical wounds. Break a bone once, you’re more likely to break it again in the same place.”

“So where are you broken?” Sal asked.

Menchú froze. “What do you mean?”

“You recruited me after I fought off a demon possessing my brother. Liam was taken over by something out of his computer, lost two years of his life, and now lives to fight the kinds of things that stole that time from him. I’m willing to bet that Asanti had some brush with the arcane that got her so curious about magic, and for some reason, Grace isn’t afraid of getting shot. So what happened to you?”

The silence sat heavily between them.

“Does it have to do with an angel?”

Menchú’s head shot up. “What did Asanti tell you?”

“Nothing. But you just did.”

Menchú seemed to deflate before her very eyes. Shrinking somehow, as though the clerical collar was just a costume, and he wasn’t a crusader saving the world from magic, demons, and things that lurk in the night, but merely a middle-aged man who was suddenly very, very tired.

Sal expected him to tell her that the discussion was over. Or that his past was none of her business. Or even to send her back to Rome. Instead, he said, “It was a long time ago. When I was still a parish priest in Guatemala.”

* * *

The parish consisted of a single village, tucked into a valley surrounded by as much farmland as the residents could cultivate before the terrain became too steep to support anything but virgin forest. The United States had been telling the world that Guatemala was a democracy for at least ten years, although what evidence it had to support that claim beyond a nominally elected government was dubious. Were mass executions and disappearances the hallmarks of a democracy? Menchú was pretty sure they weren’t. And he was dead certain that they shouldn’t be.

Still, there were a few signs that things were changing for the better, and maybe that was why he had not seen the disaster coming. Unknowing, perhaps he had let his guard down. Whatever the reason, the first Menchú knew of the impending disaster was a small fist banging on the door of his residence in the middle of the night.

Menchú had not been asleep and was at the door almost immediately. It was one of the boys from the village, an altar server no more than seven years old, fist already raised to knock again. “Father,” he said, “come quickly.”

Menchú read his expression in an instant. “What’s happened?” he asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer. Still, What’s happened? was a kinder question than Who died?

“The Army. They’ve surrounded us.”

Menchú did not ask further questions.

* * *

He followed the boy outside into the square. Soldiers were roaring into town now, making no attempt at stealth. Menchú couldn’t fathom how he hadn’t heard them coming. There was too much noise to pick out what individual men were saying, but their intent was clear. Every resident—about sixty men, women, and children—had been rousted from their beds and corralled into the main square. The man with captain’s braid on his shoulders paced back and forth. Behind him, a dozen men stood, their rifles still slung over their shoulders. For the moment.

Menchú didn’t fool himself that they were going to stay that way.

“Father,” a low voice called. Menchú turned, and his heart sank even further. Apparently the rebels hadn’t all made it back to their hidden camps in the mountains in time. And now here they were, guns at the ready, hiding in the shadows by the church.

* * *

Menchú paused, and Sal watched him with open concern. “The army just showed up to kill everyone, just like that?”

He shook his head. “There was an excuse. There always was. Harboring rebels who had refused to disarm. But effectively…yes. They showed up to kill everyone.”

“Why?”

“To prove that they still could.”

“And then the rebels found out, and surrounded the army?”

Menchú shrugged. “There weren’t enough of them for that. But it was enough for an effective ambush. With the element of surprise, they probably could have killed most of the soldiers. And then the government would have sent more to retaliate. Concentric circles of death all the way down.”

Sal wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed inadequate, but it was all she had.

“For years, I wondered if it was because of me. I had distinguished myself within the Church during the civil war. Conflict is fertile ground for demons, and I had made it clear that I would protect both sides from their influence, banishing them back where they came from as soon as they dared show themselves in my presence. I wondered if maybe…If someone high enough in the chain of command decided to take exception to that policy of neutrality, they might have made an example of my village in order to send a message.”

“The rebels couldn’t have been too happy that you were helping the army.”

“Not really. But they were more at risk from the demons than the government forces were. Doesn’t matter anyway. Eventually, I realized that trying to blame myself was just a form of self-aggrandizement. There was no way I made enough of a difference for either side to take me down so spectacularly.”

“You must have saved lives.”

“From demons, yes. But I couldn’t stop people from killing each other. And that’s what it looked like was going to happen again.”

They sat together in silence, until Sal asked, “What happened instead?”

Menchú sighed. “I stopped the massacre.”

* * *

Father Menchú steeled himself for the strong possibility of death. He wasn’t naive enough to believe that his collar would somehow protect him when the bullets started flying. For every man holding a gun who might hesitate to shoot a priest, there was another who would want to be sure that no official representative of the Church survived to tell the world what had happened in a small mountain village.

His only hope was to somehow convince the two armed groups bent on killing each other not to kill a cluster of innocent civilians in the process.

And then a hand caught his sleeve.

The boy was still standing beside him. Only now his eyes were featureless white, his skin glowed with an unearthly radiance, and his hair fluttered by his face, fanned by a breeze even though the air was perfectly still. He was the most beautiful thing Menchú had ever seen.

“What are you?” Menchú asked.

“If you try to talk to them, they’ll kill you.”

“Maybe not,” he said, then repeated, “What are you?”

“You know what I am.”

He did. At least, he hoped that he did. Menchú fell back a step, still cautious, but—for the first time that night—hopeful. “Can you stop this?”

The child nodded.

“Then why don’t you?”

“You have to ask.”

A part of Menchú’s mind, some deep instinct, told him to say no. It warned that there was a trap before him, and the only way to avoid it was to walk away. But hope was too strong. The hope that no one, including him, would have to die that night.

Menchú asked.

God help him. He asked.

* * *

“And?”

Menchú looked up from his clasped hands and realized he had been staring silently at them for some minutes.

“I asked the…thing…to protect the villagers from the army and from the rebels.”

“And?”

“It did.”

* * *

It was as though a madness swept through both armed groups simultaneously. Suddenly the army seemed able to see the rebels wherever they were hiding, and fired unerringly into the alleyways. The rebels fired back. The sound of gunfire and screams filled the air.

Instinctively, Menchú threw himself over the child-thing, shielding its tiny body with his own, covering his head and trying not to be noticed or caught in the crossfire. Only when the square once again fell silent did he finally dare to rise.

All around, the buildings were studded with bullet holes, and under the straining glow of the streetlights, the cobblestones ran slick with blood. But in the center of it all, not a single villager had been touched. In shock, Menchú looked down at the child. Its unearthly appearance was unchanged. But then it smiled, and Menchú’s blood ran cold. It was not the smile of the boy he knew, or of any child on earth. It was…wrong.

“Why are you smiling?” Menchú asked. Was this how God wrought His miracles?

The child’s smile grew. “Because what comes next is fun.”

Menchú stood there for the rest of the night. He found himself unable to move, speak, or intervene in any way as the demon who had possessed the boy tortured and killed every man, woman, and child in the village, there in the square in front of the church. At dawn, it turned to Menchú and slit its host’s throat.

Its last words were: “Let this be a lesson to you, Father.”

* * *

Sal flinched as Menchú gripped both of her hands in his. “I couldn’t protect them, but I will protect you. I won’t let you be brought down by the temptation of your hopes like I was.”

“But what about the rest of our people? How do we protect them?”

Menchú didn’t have an answer.

5.

On the floor of the Archives, Grace shuddered and convulsed. Asanti held the other woman’s head, making sure she didn’t choke on the bile she occasionally dredged up from her empty stomach.

Liam was doing the best of the three of them, and even he had emptied his stomach hours ago. Worse, the tone had grown so loud that it was impossible to hear each other, even if they shouted at the top of their lungs.

Liam left his computer where he had been trying and failing to find a way to block whatever was causing the effect and carried a pad of paper over to Asanti.

“No good,” he wrote.

Asanti sagged.

He flipped the page. “Your turn. I’ll sit with her.”

Asanti yielded her place on the floor beside Grace to Liam and stumbled off, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Liam hoped that the stacks would have more answers than his electronic resources. Given how his search had gone, that was a low bar. He really should find his tablet. That way he could work while he watched Grace. Why hadn’t he thought to do that earlier? Noise, lack of sleep, lack of food. It was making him stupid. Can’t afford that. Have to stay sharp…

With a mental wrench, Liam pulled himself out of his downward spiral. No time for self-flagellation. He could get his tablet in a minute. Just going to rest here for a bit first. Grace’s head was pillowed against his thigh. The fact that she would never have allowed such intimacy had she possessed even a shred of consciousness somehow made the whole situation even worse. She had always guarded her privacy, and Liam had respected that. Seeing her now, he wondered if he should have asked more questions. Then maybe he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

Just a minute more. Then he would get the tablet and come right back.

Just one more minute.

As soon as his head stopped spinning.

With the relentless noise and the pain it caused, Liam wouldn’t have thought sleep was possible, but he must have lost consciousness, because suddenly Asanti was shaking him awake.

The whine was gone. The wind was back. Grace was still unconscious. But Asanti positively glowed with a smile that lit her entire face.

“What happened?”

“When I found you passed out, I killed the magnetic field, hoping that it might stop the tone, even if the wind came back.”

“Congratulations. You’re two for two.”

“That’s not the best part.”

A flying book knocked Liam in the back of his head and sent his chin driving down into his chest. “Are you sure about that? Because this is just brilliant.”

“Liam.” Asanti’s eyes danced with triumph. “Look around you. The wind isn’t just picking up books at random.”

Blinking past the new pain in the back of his head, Liam tried to concentrate on the spinning storm around him. Asanti picked up a book that had fallen to the floor and another from a shelf.

“This is a seventeenth century grimoire," she said, gesturing to the book she’d lifted from the floor. “Only copy known to exist. This”—she gestured to the one she’d taken from its place on the shelf—“is a first edition Francis Bacon. Rare, not unique.” Then she took both books and flung them into the air.

Liam started. While he had been passed out, Asanti had clearly gone insane. “Did you just—?”

“Watch.”

Both books tumbled, pages fluttering, until they finally landed, open, on their backs.

“What am I watching?”

“The pages!”

Liam blinked, still not seeing it. The Bacon lay there, unmoving. The pages of the grimoire continued to flip in the wind.

“These books are the same size, with similar binding and weight paper. The wind is everywhere. Why aren’t the pages of the Bacon still moving?”

And now that she had said it, Liam saw it. “The wind only affects books that are unique to the Archives.”

Asanti nodded. “Yes. Now, if we can just figure out what that means—”

But Liam already knew. “What it means,” he said—speaking carefully, but with growing certainty—“is we’re being hacked.”

Finally, something he could work with.

* * *

At sunset on the third night of the Market, Sal arrived alone at Gutenberg Castle, where she was greeted by the disapproving frown of the Maitresse.

“Where is the priest?” she asked. “I hope he hasn’t decided to depart prematurely.”

Sal shook her head, fighting the feeling that she ought to bow or curtsy or something else that would probably just end up looking stupid. “He had an errand to run in town and was unavoidably detained. I’m expecting him soon.”

The Maitresse gave Sal a penetrating look that went a step beyond a standard “disapproving superior” glare and straight to “look right into your head" territory. Sal fought to keep her expression bland and concentrated on repeating an internal mantra of: I’m not lying to you. I’m not lying to you. I’m not…

Almost as though she really could read Sal’s thoughts, the Maitresse’s lips quirked upward.

“Very well, Bookburner. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

Sal nodded to the Maitresse and proceeded to beat a retreat across the courtyard as quickly as she could without looking like she was fleeing for her life. She wasn’t sure she managed it. But she hadn’t lied. Menchú was running an errand in town. She was expecting him soon. She just had something to do before he got back.

The first night of the Market was for posturing. The second was for negotiations. The third was for deals. Over Sal’s head, but low enough that it couldn’t be seen outside the castle’s walls, a firework in the shape of a red dragon exploded silently. Sal didn’t give it a second glance. She had an appointment with the Index.

* * *

Opie grinned as she approached, noting that she was alone. “Baby Bookburner breaking the rules. Are you going to have to go to confession later?”

“Not a Catholic. Let’s get on with this.”

Opie opened the door and ushered her through with a mock bow. Sal stepped past him into the room full of fantastical computers, heartened to see that her suspicions were correct: bowing when you didn’t know what you were doing did look stupid. He seemed amused at her impatience as she waited for him to follow her inside.

“You’re awfully eager to give up a piece of your mind.”

Sal held his gaze, waiting for him to blink first. “I’ve seen some things since I took this job that I wouldn’t mind forgetting.”

Opie made a small, negating gesture. “The Index takes what the Index wants. We can’t control—”

“Cut the crap.”

Opie’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

“You were trying to stare through me from the first night of the Market. I think you found out that Mr. Norse had a grudge against the Society and offered to let him use the Index to find a weak spot in the Archives. Then, when everyone arrives at the Market and he attacks us—oh look—you just so happen to have the solution to our little problem, for the low-low price of a peek inside my head.”

Opie scoffed. “Which makes perfect sense, if everything we do somehow revolves around you.”

Sal shrugged. “Maybe you get the benefit of a happy coincidence, then. Bottom line, there’s something in my head that you want, and you’re not going to trust to random chance that this Index of yours is going to pull what you’re interested in.”

“And what would you know that would be that valuable to us?”

“I know what happened to my brother.”

In the silence that followed, Sal could hear the faint hum of computers, the ripple of the sea horses’ aquarium, and the rustle of night moths pollinating the flowers blooming on the moss computer’s keyboard.

“You have information I want; I have information you want. Let’s make a trade.”

Opie blinked. “How very…pragmatic.”

“I’m a practical person. Hell, we can dispense with this whole Index bullshit for all I care. You tell me, I tell you, we both go our separate ways.”

The obnoxious smile was back. “No deal. How would we know you weren’t lying?”

“How do I know your Index knows anything useful?”

“Given that I’m not the one with the friends under threat of death, I guess that’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

Sal made a show of scowling. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

“Temper temper, Baby Bookburner.”

“Friends dying. I didn’t sleep well last night. PMS. Take your pick. Plus, I think we both want this business concluded before Father Menchú gets back from his errand in Balzers.”

That, at least, got Opie moving. He walked over to a large black packing case, opened it, and removed a wooden box just large enough to hold a pair of shoes. He closed the case immediately after removing the box, and Sal caught a glimpse of flames, skittering legs, and a brief moaning sound. Oh yeah, this is a great idea.

The box remained connected to the packing case by glowing filaments wrapped in sinew-like tendrils that gave off a faint smell of burning meat. Remembering Scotland, Sal’s stomach gave a lurch, and she swallowed bile.

“That’s the Index?”

Opie nodded. “The box is the interface, the case is the processor, the server is…elsewhere.”

He clearly wanted her to ask where “elsewhere” might be, and so Sal declined to do so. It would only bring back the insufferable smirk. Also, she didn’t really care. Her job was finding the weird stuff. How it worked was Liam and Asanti’s department. Assuming they all lived that long.

“What do I do?”

Opie handed Sal a slip of paper and pointed to a small table in the corner where a stack of paper, quill, and inkwell sat waiting. “Write your question on the paper. Hold the paper in your fist, and put your hand in the box.” He paused, then added, smirk back in place, “Don’t be afraid. Fear is the mind-killer.”

Sal raised an eyebrow. “O…kay?”

Opie made a disgusted sound and muttered something under his breath before gesturing to the table. “Just write it down.”

Sal hesitated. “Does the Index read intent?”

“Huh?”

“How literal-minded is it? Can the Index figure out what I mean, or do I need to be careful not to make one of my wishes ‘Genie, make me a sandwich’?”

Opie shrugged. “The more specific your question, the more specific the answer.”

Well, that was helpful. With a sigh, Sal picked up the paper and quill. “This might take a minute.”

The smirk was back. “No hurry. No hurry at all.”

Ten minutes and a lot of blotting later, Sal clutched a folded piece of paper tightly in her clenched fist. Opie opened the box with a brass key that hung around his neck, and held it out for her. “Ready when you are.”

Sal hesitated. The wood looked old, but she wasn’t enough of an expert to tell whether it meant that the box itself was ancient, or that it had been made from repurposed boards. Repurposed from what? Charon’s rowboat? The Ark of the Covenant? Lumber planed from a section of the True Cross? Perry had been into woodworking for a while in Boy Scouts. Maybe he would have been able to tell by looking at the joinery.

Yes, think about Perry. And hope you’re still able to think about him after this is over.

Opie, for all his professed patience as she’d crafted her question, made a small “get on with it” gesture. There was a notch cut into one of the short sides of the box for her wrist. Once Sal put her hand in and Opie locked the lid, she’d be stuck until he decided to let her out. Or until she wrenched the box from him, ripped out the connection that tied it to the packing case, and went running through the Black Market with a magical wooden box permanently grafted to her arm. Sal eyed Opie, sizing him up. She could take him. Even one-handed.

Sal placed her hand in the box.

Opie slammed the lid shut. Sal’s hand felt cold, then hot, then like it was being stuck with a hundred needles. She flinched. Opie locked one hand around her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. “Don’t. Move.”

The pain faded, leaving Sal’s skin cool, but not as intensely cold as before. She felt a soft brush of fur across her knuckles. Then something wet and sticky slid across the base of her palm. Not a tongue. It can’t possibly be a tongue. Was not-a-tongue any better? No, definitely not. Sal shuddered, and suddenly the bones of her hand were on fire. She tried to open her hand, but her muscles weren’t listening to her commands, nerves too busy transmitting a constant stream of Pain! Pain! Pain! to carry any other instructions. Sal gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and concentrated.

* * *

Sal was back in her past, in a self-storage facility in New Jersey. Perry, or Perry plus a demon, floated in midair, surrounded by a pile of books, pages flipping madly. But it wasn’t the same. Because the Index was there too. Breathing down the back of her neck, breath hot and moist, like a wolf ready to snap its jaws through her spine. And when it did, it would take this moment from her forever. This was what the Index wanted. And it was hungry.

Trapped in her own memory, Sal reached for the Book of the Hand. Bare fingers inches from the cover. A hair’s-breadth away. She could feel the jaws closing, teeth piercing the skin of her neck, and with every force of her will that remained, Sal wrenched her mind to another memory. One much more recent.

* * *

She was in her room at the B&B with Menchú, on the phone with Liam. “They’re hacking the Archive,” he said. “Not the computers. The books. I’m sending a file to your phone. You need to memorize it.”

As the wolf’s teeth sank into her neck, Sal called up the file to her mind. It was a complex mathematical function represented as a single abstract image. Sal hadn’t slept at all, committing every twist and overlap to memory. It was amazing what you could do, if the incentive for success was strong enough.

According to Liam, the Index shouldn’t read the image as a threat. Because to Sal, it was only an image. She didn’t understand the math behind it, or the program behind the math. She was just carrying the candy coating, to trick the Index into swallowing the whole thing down.

Because even if Sal didn’t understand the meaning, it was there. Hidden and coded in every twist and turn and recursive loop. A tiny seed, planted in fertile ground.

* * *

Sal could hear shouting. Opie and others. She felt a pain like someone tearing the flesh from her hand, and then a sharper one as something hit her in the head. She inhaled to shout and choked on a lungful of smoke.

Sal coughed for moments, hours, years, until she managed to open her eyes. Apparently the thing that had hit her head was the floor, and she took in the room from her new low and cockeyed angle. Smoke poured from the crate that housed the Index. Her phone, tucked in her pocket, buzzed frantically. Sal crawled to a corner, completely ignored by the frantic techno-cultists who had flooded into the room since she’d closed her eyes.

Sal finally got her hands—hey, she had both hands again—around her buzzing phone. “It worked?”

Liam’s voice sounded more tired than she had ever heard it, but also relieved. “It worked.”

“Good.” Sal hung up. The Guardians were pouring in along with the Maitresse. And there was Mr. Norse, followed by Father Menchú, whose errand in town had been to keep the billionaire distracted until it was too late for him to stop Sal’s plan. A fact that Mr. Norse had realized too late. Sal decided that Menchú could handle him. And the Maitresse. And the Guardians. He was good with people. It was his job.

* * *

The Market Arcanum concluded without further incident. When dawn broke over the Alps, Sal watched the men in wolf-cloaks walk out of the castle and right back into the woods. The women in evening gowns pulled on cloaks and veils to hide their tattoos before alighting into their limousines. The techno-cultists had packed their computers into a white panel van and left as soon as it became clear that the Maitresse did not view the destruction of the Index as sufficient cause to evict Menchú and Sal from the Market. Mr. Norse departed rather more gracefully, although his last words were not exactly a comfort.

“Until next time, Bookburners.”

A shadow fell across Sal’s path as she and Menchú carried their bags to the rental car, and Sal looked up to see the Maitresse herself waiting for them. Even in daylight, and without her flanking Guardians, she radiated authority.

“It’s been quite an eventful few days for you.” Her eyes flicked to Sal. “I hope you’re able to get your house back in order after this unfortunate…disruption.”

“Repairs to the Archives are already underway,” said Menchú.

The Maitresse smiled. “That too.”

And without waiting for a reply, she turned and walked away, back up the road to the castle. Sal and Menchú stood together in silence, watching her go, until her steps carried her around a bend and out of sight.

Menchú broke their tableau first, heaving his case into the trunk of the car. “Come on, let’s go home.” Sal followed suit and slid into the front passenger seat beside him. For the hundredth time, she slid her hand into her pocket, fingers seeking the reassurance of the folded piece of paper she had put there, the only physical evidence that remained of her encounter with the techno-cultists.

It was the paper where she had written her question for the Index: What is Mr. Norse looking for?

It now bore only two words: Codex Umbra.

* * *

Hours later, when Sal and Menchú reached Rome, the Archives still looked like a bomb had hit them. A non-fiery, book-oriented bomb, sure, but a bomb nonetheless.

Asanti took a break from picking up the pieces of her library to hug them both. Sal felt a surge of relief as her arms went around the archivist. Sometimes you just had to touch someone to prove to yourself that they were still alive.

“Liam is glued to his computer,” Asanti told Sal when she asked about the others. “Grace went home to sleep.”

It had been a long three days for everyone, Sal supposed. Between being up all night for the Market, plus staying up for most of the days between, Sal felt like she hadn’t slept in a week. She’d dozed for a few hours on the train, but her sleep had been filled with dreams of wandering the corridors between compartments, looking for something. She certainly didn’t feel rested. Then again, she never had slept well away from her own bed.

Bed.

Liam.

Sal excused herself and went in search of their beleaguered tech expert. Time to prove to herself that he was still alive too.

* * *

She found him, as promised, hunched over his laptop, and lingered in the doorway, waiting for him to notice her. When he didn’t, she cleared her throat. Liam looked up.

“You saved the day,” said Sal. “Nice work.”

Liam shrugged off the compliment. “Not quick enough. Who knows what those techno-bastards found while they were flipping through the Archives? Or what they left behind.”

“Did you find any reference to the Codex Umbra?”

“Not even a description of what it might be. Which is what worries me.”

Sal sighed. “Take the win, then. We’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up, but at least we’re all okay, right?” She slid up behind him, letting her thumbs dig into the tense muscles of his shoulders. “Thanks to you.”

He shrugged her off. “Unless Mr. Norse managed to find and erase the information he was looking for. With all of the books the hack disturbed, it could take us centuries to find out what damage he did.”

Liam turned back to his computer. Sal blocked him by plopping down in his lap. “If it will take centuries anyway, it can wait until morning.”

“Sal, I’m too tired—” he began.

“And so am I. But I’ve spent the last three days afraid you were going to die, and I don’t want to be alone tonight. Besides, you look like hell. You’re going to have to sleep sometime; it might as well be with me.”

Liam gently put his hands on her waist and lifted her to her feet. “Okay,” he said. “But go ahead. I’ll let myself in later.”

Sal wanted to protest, but she was too tired. “Fine. Whatever you want.”

That night, Sal dreamed of wandering the streets of Rome, looking for that same thing she could not name. When she finally woke, hours past dawn, the other side of the bed was undisturbed.

Coda.

Menchú stayed in the Archives late into the night. The niche he had previously designated as his office had been completely destroyed by Mr. Norse’s hacking. His poor, long-suffering chair had lost a leg at some point, snapped off just below the seat. Menchú located the missing piece and was contemplating repairs when he felt Asanti staring at him.

“Did you tell her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Now she knows. But I don’t know that it’s made her a more cautious swimmer.”

Asanti made a noncommittal “hmm” noise.

Menchú quirked an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Did you ever consider that you learned the wrong lesson from your experience with the angel in Guatemala?”

“It tortured and murdered an entire village. It wasn’t an angel.”

Asanti shrugged. “You’ve read the Bible. God kills people all the time. Violence, disease, apocalyptic flood. Even Jesus had a temper.”

Menchú felt his own temper rising and made an effort to keep it in check. Asanti continued.

“You’d dealt with demons before. If you’d realized what the boy was immediately and banished him, or refused to make a deal, would the massacre still have happened?”

“If you’re trying to say that what I did didn’t make a difference, I assure you—”

“I’m saying that you knew demons were evil before that night. If that was the lesson you were supposed to learn, someone was being very redundant with your education.”

Menchú let out a long breath. He was too tired to have this discussion now. Possibly ever. “What’s your point, Asanti?”

“Demon, angel, or something else, from what you’ve told me, making a deal with that thing was the only possible way you could have prevented a massacre that night.”

Menchú gritted his teeth. “But I did, and it didn’t.”

“But what if that was the lesson?” Asanti gripped his sleeve, begging him with her eyes to listen and understand. “Next time, make a better deal.”

Menchú turned away. Asanti let go of his arm, and he heard her footsteps fading away, quickly muffled by the destruction around them. Her words lingered long after she had disappeared among the stacks.

Next time.

S. K. Dunstall

LINESMAN

Originally published by Ace Books (editor Anne Sowards)

For promotion purposes only

Chapter One

Ean Lambert

The ship was in bad shape. It was a miracle it had come through the void at all, let alone come through in one piece. Ean patted the chassis that housed the lines. “You did good, girl,” he whispered. “I know that, even if no one else does.”

It seemed to him that the ship responded to his touch, or maybe the feel of his brain syncing with hers.

The crewman who showed him the lines was nervous but polite. “We’ve waited two months for this work,” he said. “Glad they’ve finally brought someone back.” He hesitated, then asked the inevitable question in a rush. “So what’s it like? The confluence?”

Ean considered lying but decided on the truth. “Don’t know. I haven’t been out there.”

“Oh. But I thought—”

So did everyone else. “Someone has to service the higher lines,” Ean said.

“Oh. Of course,” but the crewman wasn’t as awed of him after that and left abruptly once he had shown him the lines.

Ean supposed he should be used to it by now. But everyone knew the “real” tens—and the nines—were out at the confluence, trying to work out what the immense circle of power was and how it worked. Not that anyone seemed to have come up with an answer yet—and they’d had six months to investigate it.

When the confluence had first been discovered, the media had been full of speculation about what it was. Some said it was a ball of matter that exuded energy on the same wavelength as that of the lines, while others said it was a piece of void space intruding into real space. Some even said it was the original source of the lines.

Six months later, with the Alliance and Gate Union/Redmond on the brink of war, media speculation had changed. It was a weapon designed by the Alliance to destroy all linesmen. It was a weapon designed by Gate Union, in conjunction with the linesmen, to destroy the Alliance. New speculation said it was an experiment of Redmond’s gone wrong. They were known to experiment with the lines.

Ean had no idea what it was, but he was sure he could find out—if only Rigel would send him out to the confluence to work, like the other nines and tens.

He was a ten, Ean reminded himself. Certified by the Grand Master himself. As good as any other ten. He sighed and turned to his job.

He worked forty hours straight, stopping only for the meals the crew brought him at four-hour intervals, immersed in the fields, straightening the tangled lines. Creating his own line of the same frequency, calling the fragments into his line, much like a weak magnet might draw iron filings. It was delicate work, and he had to concentrate. He was glad of that. He had no time to think about how he was the only ten left in the cartels available to do work like this because all the other cartel masters had sent their nines and tens out to the confluence.

He sang as he worked. The deep, sonorous songs of the void—line nine. The chatter of the mechanics—lines two and three. The fast, rhythmic, on-off state of the gravity controller—line four. And the heavy strength of the Bose engines that powered it through the void—line six. He didn’t sing line one. That was the crew line, and this wasn’t a happy ship.

“I’ve never heard of a linesman who sang before,” said the crewman who brought him his third meal.

Neither had Ean. But then, most linesmen would never have described the lines as song either. He’d tried to explain it once, to his trainers.

“It’s like the lines are out of tune but they don’t know how to fix themselves. Sometimes they don’t even realize they are out of tune. To fix them I sing the right note, and they try to match it, and we keep trying until we match.”

His trainers had looked at each other as if wondering what they had gotten themselves into. Or maybe wondering if Ean was sane.

“It’s because you taught yourself for so long,” one particularly antagonistic trainer had told him. “Lines are energy, pure and simple. You manipulate that energy with your mind. You need to get that music nonsense out of your head,” and he’d muttered to another trainer about how desperate the cartel master was to be bringing slum dogs into the system.

Ean had never mentioned the music again. Or the fact that lines had to be more than just energy. As for the thought that lines might have emotions, he’d never mentioned that idea at all. He’d known instinctively that idea wouldn’t go down well. The trainers would probably have refused to train him.

His throat was raw. He drank the tea provided in one grateful gulp. “Do you think I could get some more tea?”

“At the rate you drank that one, you’re going to need it.” The crewman went off.

Ean went back to his work.

By the time he was done, the lines were straight and glowing. Except line one, which was straight but not glowing, but you couldn’t change a bad crew.

He patted the ship’s control chassis one final time. “All better now.” His old trainers would have said he was crazy to imagine that the ship responded with a yes.

He didn’t realize how tired he was until he tried to stand up after he’d finished and fell flat on his face.

“Linesman’s down,” someone shouted, and five people came running. Even the ship hummed a note of concern. Or did he imagine that?

“I’m fine.” His voice was a thread. “Just tired. I need a drink.”

They took that literally and came back with some rim whiskey that burned as it went down.

It went straight to his head. His body, so long attuned to the ship, seemed to vibrate on each of the ten ship lines, which he could still feel. This time when he stood up, it was the alcohol that made him unsteady on his feet.

“I’m fine,” he said, waving away another drink. “Ship’s fine, too,” slurring his words. He gave the chassis one last pat, then weaved his way down the corridor to the shuttle bays.

Of the quick muttered discussion behind him, all he heard was, “Typical linesman.”

The music of the ship vibrated in him long after the shuttle had pulled away.

Back on planet, they had to wait for a dock.

“Some VIP visiting,” the pilot said. “They’ve been hogging the landing bays all shift.”

The commercial centers on Ashery were on the southern continent. There was little here in the north to attract VIPs. Ean couldn’t imagine what one would even come here for. Maybe it was a VIP with a cause, come to demand the closure of the Big North—an open-cut mine that was at last report 3,000 kilometers long, 750 kilometers wide, and 3 kilometers deep. Every ten years or so, a protest group tried to close it down.

Ean didn’t mind. He sat in the comfortable seat behind the pilot and dozed, too tired to stay awake and enjoy the luxury of a shuttle he’d probably never see the likes of again. He’d bet Rigel hadn’t ordered this shuttle. He fell properly asleep to sound of the autobot offering him his choice of aged Grenache or distilled Yaolin whiskey. Or maybe a chilled Lancian wine?

He woke to the pilot yelling into the comms.

“You can’t send us to the secondary yards. I’ve a level-ten linesman on board, for goodness sake.”

Ean heard the reply as the song of line five—the comms line—rather than the voice that came out of the speakers.

That was another thing his trainers had said was impossible. He might as well have claimed the electricity that powered the ship was communicating with him. But humans were energy, too, when you got down to the atomic level. If humans could communicate, why couldn’t the lines?

“I don’t mind the secondary yards,” Ean said. It would cut two kilometers off his trip home.

The pilot didn’t listen.

“Level ten I said,” and five minutes later, they landed, taxiing up to the northernmost of the primary bays, which was also the farthest from where Ean needed to go,

Ean collected his kit, which he hadn’t used, thanked the pilot, and stepped out of the shuttle into more activity than he’d seen in the whole ten years he’d been on Ashery.

The landing staff didn’t notice him. Despite the fact he was wearing a cartel uniform. Despite the ten bars across the top of his pocket. They knew him as one of Rigel’s and looked past him and waited for a “real” linesman to come out behind him.

Ean sighed and placed his bag on the scanner. He was a ten. Certified by the Grand Master himself. He was as good as the other tens.

He’d been through customs so often in the past six months, he knew all the staff by first name. Today it was Kimi, who waved him through without even checking him.

God, but he was tired. He was going to sleep for a week. He thought about walking to the cartel house—which was what he normally did—but it was four kilometers from the primary landing site, and he wasn’t sure he would make it.

Unfortunately, it was still a kilometer to the nearest public cart. A pity the pilot hadn’t landed them in the secondary field, where the cart tracks ran right past the entrance.

The landing hall was full of well-dressed people with piles of luggage: all trying to get the attention of staff; all of them ignoring the polished monkwood floor, harder than the hardest stone; all of them ignoring the ten-story sculpture of the first settlers for which the spaceport was famous. At least the luxury shops along the concourse were doing booming business.

Ean accidentally staggered into one of the well-dressed people. Rigel would probably fine him for bumping into a VIP. The man turned, ready to blast him, saw the bars on his shirt, and apologized instead.

These weren’t VIPs at all, just their staff.

Ean waved away the man’s apology and continued weaving his way through the crowd. It seemed ages before the lush opulence of the primary landing halls gave way to the metal gray walls he was used to and another age before he was finally in the queue for the carts.

It was a relief to get into the cart.

Two young apprentices got on at the next stop. Rigel’s people, of course. Who else would catch the cart this way? Their uniforms were new and freshly starched. They looked with trepidation at his sweat-stained greens and silently counted the bars on his shirt, after which they pressed farther back into their seats.

He’d been in their place once.

Four gaudily dressed linesmen got on at the stop after that. They were all sevens. Excepting himself, they were the highest-ranking linesmen Rigel owned. For a moment, Ean resented that they could take time off when he never seemed to do anything but work.

But that was the whole point of Rigel’s keeping him here, wasn’t it. Rigel’s cartel may have had the lowest standing, and Rigel’s business ethics were sometimes dubious, but he was raking in big credits now. The other cartel masters had sent their nines and tens out to the confluence. Rigel, who only had one ten—Ean—had kept him back and could now ask any price he wanted of the shipmasters who needed the services of a top-grade linesman.

“Phwawh,” one of the new arrivals said. “You stink, Ean.”

“Working.” Ean’s voice was still just a thread.

“Rigel’s going to have words.”

“Let him.” He’d probably dock his pay, too, but Ean didn’t care.

“And you’ve been drinking.”

Ean just closed his eyes.

Cartel Master Rigel was big on appearances. His linesmen might have been ordinary, but they were always impeccably turned out, extremely well-spoken, and could comport themselves with heads of government and business. For a boy from the slums of Lancia, those standards were important.

The conversation washed over him. First, what they’d done on their night out; later it turned to the lines. Conversation always turned to the lines eventually when linesmen were talking.

“I went in to fix line five at Bickleigh Company,” one of them said now.

Everyone groaned.

Kaelea, one of the other sevens, said, “I don’t know why they don’t get their own five under contract. We’re in there so often, it would cost around the same.”

“They tried that. Twice. The second time they even got a five from Sandhurst.”

Sandhurst was the biggest line cartel. Over the past ten years, they had aggressively purchased the contracts of other high-level linesmen until now they had a third of all the nines and tens. Ean occasionally fantasized that one day the Sandhurst cartel master would see his work and offer Rigel a huge amount for his contract, too.

As if that was ever going to happen.

“I’ve been in there three times,” Kaelea said. “You push and you push, and just when you think you have it right, it pops out of true again.

Sometimes Ean thought they were talking a different language to him. They used words like push and force when they spoke about moving the lines into place. He’d never pushed a line in his life. He wouldn’t know how to.

His trainers had talked in terms of pushing and pulling, too.

“Push with your mind,” the particularly antagonistic one had told him. “You do have a mind, don’t you?” and he’d muttered to the other trainer that it was doubtful.

The first six months of his apprenticeship, Ean had wondered if he’d ever become a linesman. Until he’d learned that when they told him to push, they actually meant they wanted the line straight. He could sing the lines straight.

“It’s probably a manifestation of your being self-taught,” the not-so-antagonistic trainer had told him. “You push as you sing, and that bad habit is so entrenched now, you can’t do it without singing.”

Ean had never been able to break the habit.

He could feel the two apprentices in the corner listening as the linesmen talked. One of them was strong on line five, the other on line eight. Rigel didn’t normally get anyone above a seven. Ean opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see which one it was.

The trainers had told him you couldn’t tell what line a linesman would be without testing, but sometimes Ean could hear the lines in them. The trainers had told him it was because he’d learned bad habits by not being trained in childhood, and that of course he could tell what someone was because he’d already seen the number of bars they wore. Ean didn’t care. He would bet that Rigel had just got himself an eight. How long he would keep him—or her—was another question altogether. A higher cartel would poach him.

The conversation turned to the confluence. One of the sevens—Kaelea—had been out there to service the Bose engines, “Because the nines and tens couldn’t do it, of course. They’re too busy,” and Ean hadn’t needed his eyes open to see the roll of eyes that accompanied that. “It’s…I don’t know. It’s huge, and it’s…you can feel the lines, but you don’t know what they are, and—”

He could hear the awe in her voice. But he couldn’t tell what the lines were. Sometimes he could pick the level from the linesman’s voice when they talked about the line. He hadn’t mentioned that particular talent to the trainers either. They wouldn’t have believed him, or they would have said it was another bad-training defect.

Kaelea had said “lines” rather than “line,” which meant there was more than one line out there. What would have multiple lines anyway? A ship? A station? As Ean had pointed out to Rigel, he was good at picking lines. He’d at least be able to say if there were lots of different lines or just a few.

He’d like a chance to prove that he could find out, anyway.

“We make more money hiring you out while the rest of the tens are busy trying to work that out,” Rigel had said.

That was true. Ean was busier than he’d ever been, and Rigel smiled more broadly every time he sent Ean out on a job.

Ean dozed after that.

One of the linesmen touched his arm. He blinked blearily, trying to focus.

“Are you okay?”

It was Kaelea.

He realized the cart had stopped, and everyone else was out.

“Come on, Kaelea,” one of the other gaudily dressed people said.

“I don’t think he’s well.”

“Leave him, or you’ll be fined, too.”

“I’m okay,” Ean said. “Just really, really tired.” He wasn’t sure she heard him. Next time, he’d take more care of his voice.

He struggled to sit up and almost fell getting out of the cart.

“I’ll help you,” Kaelea said, waving off his protests, and led him up to the house. “My room is closer,” and by now he was staggering too much to care. God but he was tired.

She pushed him down onto the bed and started to pull off his sweat-stained shirt. “I don’t think Rigel saw you,” she said. “You may not get a fine.”

He tried to protest, but closed his eyes instead and was instantly asleep.

Ean woke, naked and sprawled out on the bed and couldn’t remember how he’d come to be that way.

For a moment, he couldn’t work out what had woken him either.

“He’s a ten, you say?” The clipped vowels of the Lancastrian noblewoman made him think he was back home in the slums of Lancia.

He struggled awake fast. That was one nightmare he didn’t want to return to.

“Definitely a ten.” The oily tones of Rigel, Ean’s cartel master, reassured him on that much at least. He was years past the grottoes of Lancia. “Certified by the Grand Master himself.” Then his voice rose and cracked. “You can’t be going to—”

It was all the warning Ean had before the disruptor beam slammed into his mind and ten lines of song came together in a discordant cacophony. His brain almost burst with the noise. He didn’t even think. He turned the lines so they flowed back in on themselves down the line, back to the disruptor. The weapon disintegrated in a flash of heat and flame. He was only sorry to see that the Lancastrian lady had thrown it down before it had disintegrated. He would have liked to have burned off the hand.

A disruptor was a one-use weapon, made with a full set of lines, created especially to destroy other lines. Ean had heard they cost as much as a small shuttle. Who could afford one, let alone use it? Who would even think to use such a monstrous thing against humans?

“He is a ten,” the noblewoman agreed. She sounded almost surprised.

“Of course he is.” Rigel was white.

Ean was pretty white himself. A disruptor would have killed anyone less than a ten, could even have killed him if he’d been a fraction slower.

“I’ve dealt with you before, Rigel,” the noblewoman said. “Last time you sold me a five as a six.”

Rigel did that occasionally, when he thought he could get away with it, and most people knew a Lancastrian wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

“I…Surely not.” Rigel was back to his oily, obsequious best. He thought he was back in control.

Ean knew better. Lancastrian nobles may not know their line ratings, but they definitely knew revenge. He pulled on his pants and a pair of boots. He was in Kaelea’s room. He didn’t remember what had happened after they’d arrived. “So did you really want a ten, or just to teach Rigel a lesson?”

He was glad the gutter slum was gone from his accent. He spoke Standard now, could have come from anywhere in the Conglomerate. His voice, still hoarse, was better than it had been when he’d gone to sleep.

The noblewoman glanced at him and Ean saw for the first time the distinctive blue eyes of the Lyan clan. He forced himself to not wipe his suddenly damp palms down the side of his trousers. This wasn’t just any clan. This was royalty.

The woman was smiling, actually smiling, at a slum creature like him. She wouldn’t do that if she knew what stood in front of her.

“I did want a ten, but I wasn’t planning on getting one from here,” she admitted.

Rigel didn’t get it, not at first. He opened his mouth and closed it again. “But he’s a ten,” he whispered, finally.

“If I’d died, I wouldn’t have been, would I,” Ean said. He understood Lancastrian revenge.

“But I would have offered her at least a nine.” Not that Rigel had any nines.

Both Lancastrians shrugged.

“When I ask for a six, I expect a six,” the Lancastrian noble said.

“But—” Rigel couldn’t seem to stop the fish imitation.

Ean gathered up the rest of his clothes. “You obviously don’t need me.” He could see Kaelea hovering in the passage. “I’ll leave you to it then,” and made for the door.

“Hold,” said the Lancastrian noblewoman. “I’ll take him,” she said to Rigel.

Rigel smiled his oily smile.

“Less the cost of the six I purchased.”

The smile stopped, fixed. Then Rigel bobbed his head suddenly. “Of course, my Lady Lyan.”

Lady Lyan. Only three women could call themselves Lady Lyan, and Ean bet this woman wasn’t one of them. Any true daughter of the Lancastrian emperor would be tied up so tightly in protocol and security guards, she wouldn’t be able to move. So who was this imposter? She must be one of the illegitimate children. There were rumors they were plentiful. Not that Ean cared, he supposed, but he hoped they would never come across true Lancastrian royalty or soldiers while he was working for the imposter. They were likely to all be killed.

“And I want the contract,” Lady Lyan said.

The color faded again from Rigel’s face. “But—” Ean could almost read his thoughts. No matter what Rigel said, Ean brought in 90 percent of the money right now. “Well, obviously that will cost more,” Rigel said eventually.

“I don’t like being cheated,” Lady Lyan said. “I don’t like my staff’s dying because I give them tasks they can’t do. Take the money and be glad I didn’t destroy your whole cartel as I planned to.”

Rigel made one more token protest, but Ean knew he’d already lost. The Lancastrian had done her homework. She knew how much it would hurt Rigel to lose his only ten, whether by death or by contract conversion. That was what she had come in today to do, and they all knew it. Ean was just grateful to be alive.

Even so, he was surprised Rigel didn’t protest more.

Lady Lyan beckoned to Kaelea, still hovering in the hall. “Witness.”

Kaelea looked as if she would turn and run, but Rigel beckoned frantically, too.

The exchange of contract took less than a minute. They all witnessed, then it was over.

If Ean was lucky, the Lancastrian noble would on-sell his contract today. Then, finally, maybe, he could get out into the confluence with all the other nines and tens. He didn’t want to think about the alternative—stuck working for a Lancastrian. He’d sworn he would never have anything to do with Lancia again.

They left immediately, without giving Ean time to pack.

“Send his things on,” Lady Lyan ordered Rigel. She looked at the shirt Ean now had time to pull on. “Except the uniforms.”

The thought of Rigel’s pawing through his possessions gave Ean the creeps. He was unlikely to get anything sent through. He considered demanding time to get his things, but he hadn’t collected much in the ten years he’d been with the cartel, and anything of value was already programmed into his comms, which was in his pocket. Better to save his fights for important things, he decided.

His new owner had a private cart waiting. Not owner, Ean reminded himself. Employer. This woman might own the contract, but she was still obligated to pay him. And if she didn’t—for who could trust a rich Lancastrian to abide by their contract if they could get out of it—then he could go to the cartel Grand Master for breach of contract. His contract stipulated minimum amounts, plus bonuses, and how frequently he was to be paid. He thought about the contract as they waited for the cart. It wasn’t good pay.

His new owner—employer—must have been thinking similar thoughts. “Does Rigel pay everyone so badly?”

Only those desperate enough to indenture themselves into a twenty-year contract. Ean shrugged. A Lancastrian like her wouldn’t understand how badly he’d wanted to become a linesman.

“You’ve been with him a long time.”

Ten years two tendays ago. Ean had spent it repairing a military ship, the GU Burnley. He’d only realized the date because the captain of the Burnley had told him the ship was ten years old, too. Ean shrugged again. “You know what it’s like when you’re a kid and desperate to learn the craft.” Not that he’d been as young as most. “Sometimes you’ll do anything.”

“With age comes wisdom, eh.” His companion laughed. “I can relate to that. I’m Michelle by the way.”

Which didn’t help identify which Lyan she was, illegitimate or not, because every member of the Lyan household took a form of Michel as one of their given names. Still, it was clever. She had every right to use it although most of them would not have dared. This woman had guts, identifying herself the way she did.

“Ean Lambert,” Ean said.

Surprisingly, they made for the docks rather than the hotels, where the private cart avoided the landing hall altogether and went straight to a shuttle out on the edge of the field.

The name stenciled on the side of the shuttle was LANCASTRIAN PRINCESS—SHUTTLE 1. Ean shook his head at the bare-faced effrontery.

They took off without having to go through customs.

In the confined enclosures of the cabin, Michelle leaned back with a sigh and closed her eyes. Ean used the time to study his new employer.

She was classically beautiful, with the heart-shaped face and high cheekbones typical of the women of the Lancastrian royal family. Rumor said they had paid a fortune to geneticists over the last two hundred years to develop those looks. Her lashes were long and black, curled over clear, unblemished, cream skin. The geneticists had definitely earned their money in this case. Except for the hair, perhaps, which was the royal family black, but Ean could see a slight wave instead of the expected regulation straight. Nor the deeper-than-expected dimples in her cheeks, particularly the right one. The emperor definitely wouldn’t have liked that. Still, if Michelle was illegitimate, the geneticists wouldn’t have been involved this generation, would they. Maybe some imperfections had crept in.

Ean smiled to himself, but it was a grim smile. Ten years ago, there was no way he could have studied even an illegitimate child of his regent this close. Michelle—and of course he would never have dreamed of calling her Michelle either—might own the contract, but there was no way Ean was going back to what he had been.

“What’s so amusing?” Michelle had opened her eyes—so very blue—and was watching him.

Ean met the blue gaze. “Will you on-sell the contract?”

“I don’t know.” Michelle sat up as the bell chimed for landing. “We do need a ten.”

So was there a job? And was it at the confluence? Ean hoped it was.

On-screen they could see their destination. A large freighter. Ean didn’t recognize the model—it looked custom-built—but until six months ago, he had only worked on one- and two-man freighters and second-class company ships. Ships like this one in front of him were for the likes of House of Sandhurst or House of Rickenback.

The name painted three stories high on the side was LANCASTRIAN PRINCESS. The bay door they headed for had an enormous “1” stenciled on it.

The door in the freighter ahead irised open to let them in. The shuttle docked. The door closed behind them. This was definitely a private shuttle, and this was its regular docking pad.

Ean silently followed Michelle out into the ship proper.

The interior was luxurious. The softly textured walls and carefully placed lighting made the whole thing look like an expensive hotel. Everything was way above Rigel’s standard. Ean couldn’t even begin to calculate the cost of the fittings.

Even so, the ship had a military feel. It didn’t help that the staff wore gray uniforms piped with black, and that every single one of them walked straight and upright. They all noticed Ean, and he could see that they filed whatever they had noticed for future reference.

Michelle led the way quickly through the center of the ship to a room that looked like an office on one end but housed a comfortable set of three couches at the other.

One man was in the room. An older man. He looked up as they entered. “Misha. I found you your ten.”

Misha was an affectionate form of Michelle, used among close friends generally. So this man—who wore the gray-and-black-piped uniform everyone else did—was a close friend.

“I found us a ten, too,” Michelle said. “And I bet he didn’t cost as much as yours did.”

The uniformed man looked at him, and Ean was suddenly aware that he hadn’t showered for more than two days, that his Rigel-cartel greens were sweaty and crumpled, and that he needed a shave.

“This is Abram,” Michelle said. “He runs security and pretty much everything else.”

Abram counted the bars on Ean’s chest. “A genuine ten?”

“I couldn’t kill him.”

“So you hired him instead?”

“I didn’t hire him,” Michelle said, and her smile showed the full brilliance of the generations of genetic engineering that had made it, plus a dimple that same genetic engineering had probably tried to wipe out. She placed her card on the reader and brought up the contract. “I bought him.”

Abram read the contract, then nodded slowly. “That would upset Rigel.”

Ean thought it time to get back some control. He was a ten, after all. “If it’s all right with you.” He had to stop, because his voice came out thin and thready. He cleared his throat, and was glad the second attempt came out more strongly. “I haven’t had time to clean up. I didn’t get a chance to collect any clothes.”

Abram looked at Michelle, who shrugged. “Rigel will send his things on.”

Abram switched to Lancastrian. “We don’t all have personal servants who have things packed in five minutes, Misha. His effects are unlikely to arrive before we leave.”

“I’ll replace them then.” Michelle spoke Lancastrian, too. “I’d like that. He has a good figure under those stinking clothes.”

“And so like you to know that already.” Abram sighed and switched back to Standard. “I’ll get someone to show you a cabin and get you some clothes,” he told Ean, pressing a button on the screen as he did so. “Our other ten will be here at 19:00. We leave when she arrives.”

An orderly in a gray-and-black uniform appeared at the door.

“Take Linesman”—he looked at the contract—“Lambert down to Apparel and get him a standard kit. I’ll organize a room for him while you do.” He looked at Ean. “We eat at 20:00. I’ll have someone call you.” He half turned away, hesitated. “Your voice. Is that normal?”

“Just strained.”

“Take him via the medical center.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ean followed the orderly in silence. Abram was the sort who’d look up Ean’s record as soon as he could. He—they—owned the contract now. Nothing was private to them. That little slip with the language wouldn’t happen again.

The orderly—a tall, willowy woman who looked to be a little younger than Ean and whose name above the pocket said RADKO—was polite, but not truly friendly. Even so, she took time out to show Ean various parts of the ship. “Mess hall down there,” she said. “Officers generally eat with the crew. Unless they’re invited upstairs, of course.” She looked sideways at him and for a moment Ean thought she was going to ask what rank he was. “Main lift well. Although most of us use the jumps, of course.”

It was a well-run ship. The lines were clear and steady, their song bright and joyful in Ean’s mind. Unusually, line one was the strongest. This was a crew who worked well together and looked after each other and their ship.

Or almost joyful, Ean amended. He could hear a slight off tone in line six. It was only minor, but it jarred because everything else was so perfect.

“And this is the off-duty area,” the orderly said. Ean thought, from her tone, that it wasn’t the first time she’d said it.

“Sorry.”

“Officers have their own bar up on the fourth.”

The bar on fourth was one bar Ean wasn’t likely to end up in. He wasn’t even sure he would end up in this one. Which left him precisely where? Stuck in his room, probably, given that they weren’t on-selling his contract immediately.

“Here’s Apparel.” The orderly seemed glad to have arrived.

Ean stripped and stepped into the cubicle, where a grid of lights started at his feet and moved upward, building a perfect model of him. They didn’t have tailoring modules in the Oldcity slums. The first time he’d ever stepped into a cubicle like this had been ten years ago, when he’d started at House of Rigel. He hadn’t known what to do. Rigel had had to show him.

When he stepped out, the orderly said, “Your kit will take twenty minutes. I’ll bring them over to your cabin when they’re done.”

So at least he had somewhere to stay. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, sir.”

The “sir” was new, and as she led the way back to the newly allocated cabin, Ean thought he knew why. The soldiers’ quarters—and he couldn’t help but think of them as soldiers—were comfortable, but they were a marked contrast to the luxurious quarters that Lady Lyan—whichever lady she was—inhabited. Somehow, Ean had scored himself a cabin on the luxurious side of the cruiser. Some tens would accept that as their right. Rigel’s people might be trained to handle it, but he—Rigel’s only ten—had never experienced it.

“I’ll get your clothes, sir,” the orderly said, and loped off.

Ean left the door unlocked and went into the fresher. Michelle was right. He did stink. He soaped up, letting the needles of water wash the stink away. Eyes closed, thinking of nothing but the bliss of the warm water, the song of the ship flooded into his mind, still with that slightly off tone on the sixth line. Ean hummed a countermelody under his breath, trying to coax the line straight, but it was no use. Humming didn’t work. He had to sing it.

The orderly was waiting when he came out, the freshly woven clothes in a neat pile in front of her. Standard issue included underclothes and shoes, Ean was glad to see. She handed him an outfit.

“Thank you. You don’t have to wait on me.”

“Of course not, sir. But there’s still the medic.” She pointed to a uniform placed apart. “That’s the dress uniform. You’ll be wearing that tonight if you’re dining with Lady Lyan and Commodore Galenos.

Commodore Galenos being the casually introduced Abram, Ean presumed. “Thank you,” and he smiled his appreciation. “I know nothing about uniforms, ranks, and what to wear.”

The orderly smiled back. “I didn’t think you did, sir.”

Ean was sure she didn’t mean it as an insult.

“The medic’s expecting you. To look at your voice and to check you over. He’s already called to see where you are.”

“Let me put these on first.” Ean took the clothes into the bedroom. He had a separate bedroom, which he was sure wasn’t standard military practice. He dressed quickly. His uniform was gray with the characteristic black piping. The only decoration was a tiny cloth badge woven into the pocket on his left chest and the name—LAMBERT—above it. Ean didn’t count the bars on the badge, but he knew there would be ten. It was a total contrast to the pocket of his companion, which was covered with badges.

He came out, and the orderly left at a fast walk. Ean followed. “Radko. That is your name?”

The orderly glanced back. “Yes, sir,” she said.

Ean wished she wouldn’t keep calling him sir. “Thank you for all this, Radko.”

“Just doing my job, sir.” But she smiled and somehow the atmosphere seemed lighter as they made their way through the corridors to a well-equipped hospital. It was worrying that a ship this size needed a hospital so equipped. What was this ship?

The medic was waiting for him. “At least you’ve cleaned up some,” he said, as he made Ean strip his freshly donned clothes and lie down under the analyzer. “I hear you stank when you came on board.” He held up a hand to stop any comment—not that Ean had been going to make one. “Nothing travels faster than shipboard gossip. Not even a ship passing through the void.”

“Even on a military ship like this?”

“Especially on a military ship like this.” Which confirmed, once and for all, what type of ship he was on. Ean wished he’d taken more notice of politics suddenly. He didn’t want to end up in the middle of a battle.

“What happened with the voice?” the medic asked.

“My own fault. Too much—” It sounded so lame. “I was singing.” He wondered how the other ship was going. It had probably moved on by now. Ships didn’t stay in port any longer than they had to.

“Hmm. Let me see you breathe.”

For the next ten minutes, he peered into Ean’s throat, X-rayed it and finally gave him a drink of something warm. It soothed as it went down.

“The miracles of modern medicine,” the medic said. “We can tailor your genes so that your voice is deep or high, but we still can’t fix a strained larynx. Although,” and he paused, “if it’s truly damaged I can replace it with a synthetic one.”

Ean shuddered.

“I thought not. If you continue to sing like that, maybe you should take some lessons on breathing and voice control. Have you been trained?”

Ean shook his head. Rigel had paid for lessons on how to speak with a faultless Standard accent, but there hadn’t been any voice training with it.

“So you won’t use your voice so badly that you strain it again, will you.” It was an order.

“No, sir,” Ean said meekly, and the medic let him go.

Radko escorted him back to his rooms and left him there.

He had two hours until dinner. Ean set the alarm on his comms—it wouldn’t do to be late—then kicked off his boots and lay down on the bed.

He couldn’t sleep. The off tone on line six buzzed into his brain and set his teeth on edge. After ten minutes he sat up, then stood properly—he wasn’t going to be able to do this sitting down—got himself a glass of warm water from the sink in the bathroom, took a deep breath, and started to sing.

The line responded immediately. This was one beautifully tuned engine. It didn’t take long. When it was done, Ean flopped back across the bed and didn’t hear anything more until the increasingly loud, persistent beep of the alarm dragged him out of heavy sleep a hundred minutes later.

Jonathan Edelstein

First Do No Harm

Originally published in Strange Horizons, November 16, 2015

* * *

For twenty-seven thousand years—through kingdoms and republics, through prophets and messiahs, through decay and collapse and rebirth—the city and the medical school had grown around each other. The campus stretched across districts and neighborhoods, spanning parks and rivers, but few buildings belonged to it alone: an operating theater might once have been a workshop, a classroom a factory floor. The basement room where Mutende sat in a circle of his fellow basambilila was an ancient one and had been many things: office, boiler room, refrigerator, storage for diagnostic equipment. Remnants of all its uses were in the walls, the fixtures, and most of all, in memory.

The mukalamba—the professor—stood in the center of the room, on a platform that may once have held an operating table or a cutting-board for meat, and his projectors and anatomical models were arranged amid pipes and hooks. His robe was deep black, without the patterns that another man might wear; his face was a softer black and lined with age; his gray hair just visible under a flat cap. He waited for the circle of students to arrange itself, clapped his hands twice for silence, and made a brief invocation to the god of medicine.

"Today," he said as the prayer’s echoes faded, "we will discuss the ichiyawafu-fever."

Mutende was amused to see how many other students, high-born though they were, made signs to ward off evil. Less amusing was that he had to stop himself from doing the same. The ichiyawafu was the non-space through which people traveled between stars, but it was also the ancient name for the land of the dead, and the sickness that bore its name was a killer. He knew that now better than he’d ever wanted to know.

"There are many maladies that have been brought to us from across the ichiyawafu, of course," the professor was saying, "but this one carries its name because it returns from the dead. Years may pass between exposure and the first attack, but after that, it will attack again and again, more and more often, until the victim is wasted away. If you will open your books and give your attention, we will discuss the signs."

Mutende’s book was already open, and he followed as the professor explained how to recognize the fever and how to tell it from other diseases with similar symptoms. The book was still difficult to read even after nineteen months of study. Not only were medical terms a language in their own right, but like all medical texts, the Book of Maladies was written in the language that had been spoken before the Union fell fifteen hundred years before, and in some places the words and grammar were so archaic as to be foreign. It was easier for the other students—most were imwinamulende, minor aristocrats, and had learned the archaisms in school—but Mutende had gone to a mechanics' fostering at fifteen, and for him, medical study had meant learning two languages rather than one.

"You must always look for lesions here and here," the mukalamba said, pointing them out on his models and projecting a ghostly image of how they appeared in a long-ago case, "and for labored breathing, loss of weight, progressive wasting of muscles…" Mutende listened, but he knew them all. He saw them every time he visited his landlady, growing worse by the week and month.

"Your patients will ask you if there is a cure," said the professor suddenly. The lecture had moved from luwuko, the art of diagnosis, to uganga—treatment. "There was none known to our ancestors, and none known to us. But there are palliatives. Your book describes several kinds of pills, and other remedies that are inhaled, and you will learn to compound them and what to watch for…"

Mutende listened with the other basambilila and dutifully wrote down lists of ingredients, the places where they could be bought or ordered, the steps that must be taken to prepare them. He knew them too, all of them, and at that moment, the classroom carried the memory of a butcher’s icebox much more than any of its other incarnations.

All the pills, all the rubs, all the vapors—they were the ones that did his landlady no good at all.

* * *

Mutende had an examination three hours after his class, and it was in another building across the Katwe near the old Mwata’s Gardens. That was far from the port district and he couldn’t afford a moto-taxi, so he had no time to go home between classes. He went anyway.

He lived on the edge of the port, in one of the three- and four-story houses that had been built in the interstices of ancient buildings. There were six of them in a row, with water-towers hanging precariously from the upper stories and clotheslines and crazy angles between them, and somehow they looked less solid than the remnants of steel girders that towered over them. There were market-stalls set up in the street, and men in sober agbadas and women in bright dresses and hair-ties swirled around them, but none tried to claim Mutende’s attention: anyone who wore a gray student’s robe and lived here was likely to be even poorer than his neighbors.

Mapalo, the landlady, lived in two rooms on the first floor. The outer one, where she slept, was decorated with masks and dolls from the north country where she came from; next to them, beside the sewing machine, was a picture of her husband who had traded between worlds. He was lost to pirates ten years past, but not before he’d picked up the ichiyawafu-fever from a prostitute in a distant port and brought it home to his wife.

She stirred when Mutende came in, and he helped her sit up and put a plate of lamb and a cup of shake-shake beer before her. The tip of his index finger touched her facial scars, shaped many years ago to suggest a bird’s wing: the sign of the Hornbill clan, one of the old clans that traced its ancestry to before the Migrations. His own face bore the same scars, and that was why she’d agreed to rent a room to him when he finished his fostering, but in the time since, she had become not only a clanswoman but a friend.

"How is it with you, mbuya?" he asked. She wasn’t his grandmother, but as an elder woman of his clan, she was entitled to the honorific, and now, as they said in the north, it was a heart-title as well.

"A little better," she answered. Mutende felt of her forehead and knew it was a lie. Her temperature was higher and her lesions hadn’t improved. He wasn’t sure if she’d lost more weight, but she certainly hadn’t gained any back, and this latest attack was taking vitality from her practically by the day.

"I made you something to reduce the fever," he said. He held a cup to her mouth, watched her drink, and pressed a wet cloth to her brow. He put the bottle down next to the half-full container of pills, the kind that the mukalamba had talked about in class. Mapalo had taken them religiously, and she was still getting worse.

"Can you make me a blue-leaf tisane too?" she asked. "The umulaye told me it would help against witchcraft."

Mutende fought hard not to sigh. Mapalo had found a street-doctor, no doubt one who was from the Kabwe country like she was, and he’d given her a folk remedy. Out in the countryside, many people still believed that imfwiti—witches—caused all sickness and death, and his landlady evidently thought a specific against them would do her more good than a treatment for her illness.

Maybe, Mutende thought ruefully, she was right.

He clapped once—it was a way of saying yes—and went to the kitchen. It was one of the hours when the power was on, so he could boil water in the hotpot, and he found some sprigs of blue-leaf in the herb cabinet. He made the infusion, and a smell like cinnamon and pepper filled the room. It would give Mapalo pleasure, if nothing else.

In a moment, she smelled it too. "Kaweme said that blue-leaf was one of the best cargoes he could carry. On one world, the awantu used it for money…"

She launched into a story of her husband’s exploits among the stars. Mutende brought the tisane to her and listened for a while, but her stories could go on for hours, and that was time he didn’t have.

"I’m sorry, mbuya," he said, "but I have to go to my test."

"Go! Go!" She waved a hand in dismissal. "You have to take your test. You can’t let me keep you."

He bowed his head and left the room. Barely an hour remained before the exam: he would have to take a moto-taxi or else run the whole way. He felt in his pocket and found a two-indalama coin and three half-ndalama pieces: if he didn’t eat lunch today, he had enough.

There were taxis by the market-stalls outside—there always were—and by instinct, the drivers knew when they were needed. Mutende bargained between two of them and, the contract made, sat behind the winning bidder and felt the wind in his face.

* * *

The examination room was in a very different part of the city: a place of gardens, public buildings, and stately homes, where the ancient structures had retained much of their glory. The people who lived here were imwinamulende or even imwinamishishi; there was power all the time and running water, as there had been in the days of the Union and as the government promised there would one day be again.

The moto-taxi stopped on one end of a plaza, near the House of Kingmakers and the Chamber of the Ifapemba. The building here had always been a hospital, and the testing room had always been an operating theater: inganga had labored to save Lukwesa the Great’s life here after his defense of the system, and Chinkonkole the Navigator’s crew had found treatment here for the maladies of a hundred distant worlds. This place was sacred to Eyinle, the orisha of medicine, and thus was it where oaths were made and tests were taken.

Mutende got to the testing ground barely five minutes before the appointed time. The preceptor was already waiting and registered him in the book: Mutende, second-year student, examination in surgery on the fourteenth day of the fifth month of the Year of Migration 31,779.

At the word "surgery," Mutende’s foreboding suddenly turned to elation. He hadn’t been told in advance of the subject in which he would be tested, but this one, of all of them, he knew he could pass. The surgeons of today were as good as any of their ancestors—not everything had been forgotten when the Union fell, and tools had survived much better than burned books or plague-ravaged computers—and Mutende, with mechanic-trained hands, counted himself as good as any of his teachers.

Beyond the door, sanitized and dressed in sterile clothing, he saw the patient on whom he would be tested: a child of eight years, already anesthetized with drugs and needles and connected to fluids and plasma. He read through the records and films that the preceptor proffered, and saw that she had a brain tumor: a dangerous one that would surely kill her in a few months if left untreated. His elation wavered slightly—this was beyond the tests normally given to a student in his second or even third year, and the others in the room would intervene only to save the child’s life—but he found a calm place within and steeled himself to the work.

He checked his instruments, making sure each was sterile and sharp, and made the initial incision. He clamped down a flap of scalp and cut away a piece of the skull; he probed the membranes inside and opened them carefully. The brain was exposed, and behind him, the machine waited.

Mutende had used such machines before: he had trained with one until it was part of him. A movable arm protruding from the machine held tiny tools, and a light and camera so he could see what the tools saw; below was a seat and a sleeve with which he would manipulate the instruments. If he put his arm and hand in the sleeve and moved a centimeter, one of the tools could be set to move a hundredth or a thousandth of a centimeter or even less. A surgeon with a steel nerve could use the instruments with an almost incredibly fine touch: once, on a dare, Mutende had written his name on a single cell sampled from his skin without breaking the membrane.

He placed the end of the arm on the surface of the brain, took his seat, and put on the mask that connected him to the camera. He probed, looking for the tumor: time took on a dreamlike quality as he found it, excised it, and set his tools finer so that only the cancerous cells would be cut away. He probed again, looking for fragments that the imaging might have missed, keeping iron control of his movements lest he break a blood vessel. Finally—was it minutes later, or hours?—he was satisfied that the tumor was gone, and with a shock that was almost pain, he withdrew his instruments and returned to the real world.

The preceptor, and the other inganga who were watching, said nothing as he closed up the opening he had made. He would know whether he passed when they chose to tell him. But he trusted his eyes and his hands, and he knew the child would live.

He thought of his landlady, and wondered why fevers were so much more elusive.

* * *

In the morning, Mapalo was sweeping the downstairs hallway. She sang a north-country song as she worked, but her movements were slow and painful and her breathing labored.

"You should be in bed," Mutende said.

"Inchito talala tulo," she said—"the work doesn’t sleep." They said that in the Kabwe country, and they also said that about Hornbill clanswomen. Hornbills were supposed to work hard: that was as true as any other saying, but Mapalo had always taken it to heart.

"The work might not. But you’re sick. You should."

"What would I be if I did nothing but sleep? And I had another tisane this morning, and I felt better."

Mutende mentally cursed his landlady’s umulaye again, but then he stopped short. The other day, he’d learned that a substance distilled from the blue-leaf plant was used in drugs that strengthened the immune system, and didn’t they say that repeated attacks of ichiyawafu-fever eroded the victims' immunity? He’d been taught, long before medical school, that an umulaye was good only for stitching up cuts and easing women’s pains, but there was long experience in the street-doctors' fostering lines, and sometimes experience was wisdom…

"You should rest even if you feel better," he said, taking a different tack. "Get your strength back if you want to fight this attack off." He took care not to mention the next one.

"Don’t mind me, I can…" Mapalo’s voice trailed off, and Mutende turned to see her leaning heavily against a wall. She’d dropped the broom and was breathing very hard, and he had to catch her to keep her from sliding to the floor.

He helped her back to her rooms and, seeing no water in the jar, went out to pump her some. He made her drink and eat some of the nshima porridge that was on the stove, and after a few minutes her heart stopped racing and her breath came more evenly. He picked up the pill bottle and shook it, but then put it down: what good would it do?

"I forgot—there’s a message for you," she said suddenly. "You’re to be at the second-year offices at three o’clock."

Now Mutende did curse. He had no classes today, and he’d hoped to find some casual labor in the port, but not if he had to be across the city by three. He wondered why the summons had come: surely something hadn’t gone wrong after the examination…

He would worry about it, he knew. And he did worry, through five hours of fetching and carrying for the market-women, past the university and the derelict towers of the city center, all the way to the ancient factory of which the medical school now occupied two floors.

The professor was waiting by the door and conducted him to a back office. He took the chair that was offered and waited to hear why he had been summoned, but the professor seemed strangely diffident, in no hurry to speak. For a long moment, Mutende watched as the teacher busied himself around the office, straightening books and dusting sculptures.

Finally, the moment stretched on too long. "Mukalamba," he said, "have you called me here to talk about the test?"

The professor straightened, as if suddenly reminded that Mutende was there. "The test? Oh yes, you did well. The child will live long. But that isn’t why I asked you to come here. The other bakalamba and I are concerned about you as a student."

Whatever Mutende had expected, it wasn’t this. "Have I failed in anything?" he asked.

"No, there is no single thing. But we have noticed an…irreverence in you. Of late, you have seemed uninterested during lectures, and when the gods of healing were invoked, you have been detached, preoccupied with other things. This is not a correct attitude for a musambilila who wants to qualify as a doctor."

Mutende’s first instinct was to be defensive, to say that the gods of medicine weren’t his gods. The orishas weren’t the original gods of Mutanda: they had come in the ancient days of the Association and the Accord, but there were still people in the far north and west who rejected them. But he swallowed the words. He wasn’t a mountain man or an islander; his family had lived in Chambishi Port since the days of the Union rather than being among the latecomers who flocked to the city as it rebuilt its factories. He had been raised with the orishas, although he’d come to doubt them, and if he said otherwise, the mukalamba would know it was a lie.

"The orishas have not protected my landlady," he said instead.

The professor looked at him sharply. "How have they failed her?"

"All of us have failed her. She has the ichiyawafu-fever, and the pills and remedies in the Book of Maladies—none of them have worked."

"Ah," the mukalamba said. He was on familiar ground now. "I have seen many students with your doubt. You must understand that nothing ever works in all cases…your landlady’s husband was a free trader, was he not?"

"Yes," Mutende answered, too surprised by the sudden shift in questioning to say anything more.

"You have learned that pathogens evolve…good, good. The remedies we have were created in the ancestors' days, the days of the Union, and some strains of the ichiyawafu-fever have evolved to resist them. Much was lost when the Union fell, and many worlds fell out of communication, and in centuries without contact, their illnesses changed."

Mutende felt a sudden epiphany: the professor had never examined his landlady, but he was sure that his luwuko was true, and he cursed himself for not thinking of it before. "Why don’t we look for remedies that do work, then? Why don’t we find out what might kill the new pathogens?"

"That would be foolish, wouldn’t it?" The professor spoke as if his words should be self-evident even to a child. "We haven’t yet learned everything the ancestors knew—it would be dangerous to try to go beyond them."

It seemed to Mutende that there was something wrong with the mukalamba’s premise, but in his confusion, he couldn’t put a finger on what it was. "What are we doing, then, to learn all that the Union knew?"

"We find fragments of new books every year, and we recover computer files—sometimes even from other worlds. Everything that comes to us, we add to our texts…"

"But we don’t study cases?"

"Of course we do. We have the cases that the Union doctors treated, and even some of those from the Commonwealth and the Accord."

"New cases. Cases to recreate what was in their books rather than looking for them in holes in the ground." He trailed off, suddenly deflated. "Then Mapalo is in the care of Babalu, not Eyinle?"

"She must be. Where we have not the knowledge to follow the god of health, then only the god of sickness can help."

"Where we refuse to find the knowledge, you mean."

"Be careful, musambilila," the professor said, his voice calm but with an edge of iron. "I know your anger. Many students have it. But if you don’t grow beyond it, then you will never be a nganga. You didn’t come this far, sacrifice this much, to be an umulaye."

"No," Mutende said. "I will think about your words."

"See that you do."

* * *

That night, Mutende didn’t go home. His feet took him to the port district instead, and into a shebeen only blocks from the landing fields. He wanted to be among those who knew the ichiyawafu, those to whom it was a highway rather than a fearful mystery, and he wanted to grieve with those who had passed through the land of the dead and lived.

The shebeen was a free traders' bar: that was confirmed by the patrons' florid clothing, and also by the tapestries that hung between the tables so that merchants and sailors could keep their secrets. The hangings were in blue and white, the colors of Yemoja of the Waters and Stars, with scenes from foreign worlds or abstract patterns that recalled ichiyawafu-dreams.

He bought a cup of imbote and sat at one of the long tables outside the curtains, sipping the honey-beer in the candlelight and listening to the others' stories. A few looked at him sharply—a man with no ship-clan had no place here—but one of them was a Hornbill and he was quiet in the shadows, so they let him stay.

"Kaweme," one of them said when he spoke at last. "Yes, I remember him. He always wanted to find something—the world the orishas came from, the lost colonies of the Second Migration, the jewel of an awantu-king a million years dead. He was going to find the universe and bring it home to sell…you say his woman has the fever?"

"Yes. That’s what he did bring home."

"I should see her. Kaweme was in my ship-clan, and we owe her something. A funeral, if nothing else."

"The pirates got him, didn’t they?" asked another trader, leaning in.

"That was when he went looking for the lost colony. They’d found it first."

"No, it happened on Muya, where the pirates were paying tribute to the governor…"

Others around the table joined in with their stories until it was almost a wake for Kaweme. But it wasn’t one for Mapalo, and after a few attempts to steer the conversation in that direction, Mutende realized that the sailors didn’t know her. Ship-clans and ship-marriages were what mattered to them; their lives in port, and their husbands and wives there, were separate. Mapalo was as much a stranger to them as Kaweme was to Mutende.

He finished his fourth imbote and sank into a sodden despair; he had come to the wrong place for this particular grief. But he bought his neighbor a shake-shake beer and let the sailor buy him the next one, and watched the candles flicker and listened to stories.

There was noise by the bar and Mutende saw that a group of young men had come in; a second later, he saw that they were basambilila. The medical school had rooms near here, he remembered—a clinic, purchasing offices, a center for study of off-world diseases—and the students must have just come from class. They were high-born, too: if that wasn’t clear from their clothing, it was made plain when they ordered liquors from distant worlds. If everyone at the long table emptied their pockets, they wouldn’t have enough to buy even one of the cups the students held.

Mutende never remembered standing up. He stood at the table for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the students, oblivious to the looks of concern the sailors were giving him.

"You!" he said. "High-born fools! Are you tired yet of being dogs at the ancestors' feet?"

A musambilila turned to look at him, surprise and anger written on his face. "Who are you calling a dog, ifilolo?" he said.

"You scavenge for the Union’s books but you don’t care about the diseases that come on the ships every year. You learn the lessons your professors memorized but you don’t want to learn the ones your patients teach you. Did I call you a dog? Dogs would know better than to do what you do."

One of the students seemed about to answer, but it wasn’t debate that Mutende or most of the high-born ones wanted. "An umulaye would spit on you," said one of them, and he answered, "An umulaye is worth ten of you bush-pigs." The next part of the discussion wasn’t with words.

Maybe Mutende charged first; maybe one of the basambilila did. His fist found someone’s face, and he fought with hands and feet and knees, ignoring the blows that rained on him, wanting only to hurt or even kill. Blood ran into his eyes, forcing them closed; he lashed out unseeing, not caring about the pain he suffered as long as he could inflict some in return.

From somewhere, he heard the rasp of a knife being drawn. He couldn’t see where it was. Others did, though, and the shebeen-owner’s men stepped in: fights were one thing but blades were another, and no one wanted the attention of the bakulama. A dozen hands pulled the combatants apart, and two of them threw Mutende out the door.

It had begun to rain outside, and as the cool water washed over his face, Mutende realized how badly he had been beaten. He would have to find a nganga to put him back together—no, an umulaye. This was what they did well, and after he’d defended their honor, it would hardly be fair of one to refuse.

* * *

The predawn light was emerging in the east when Mutende made it home. He planned to collapse in his bed and find a doctor in a few hours, but when he passed Mapalo’s apartment, he could hear conversation inside and the cinnamon-pepper smell of a blue-leaf tisane filled the hallway. Evidently her umulaye came early.

"I’ll go to the ichiyawafu soon," she was saying. "They say it’s everyplace at once, so Kaweme will be there even though he died on another world."

"Don’t speak like that," said another woman’s voice. "Drink your tea."

Mutende hesitated, but he knocked on the door.

"Come in…oh, you’ve been in a fight!"

"I’ll live, mbuya."

"Lelato should look at you. Have you met her?"

He hadn’t, and his eyes were drawn to the umulaye’s appearance. She wasn’t from the north country: no, she affected the dress of a free trader, with loose silk trousers and jacket in black and red geometric patterns and tight curls cropped close around her scalp. He wondered why, and then saw the tattoo of a ship-clan, weathered with age and just a shade darker brown than her face.

"I was a ship’s doctor for twenty years," she said—she must have seen him looking. "Most of the traders like awamulaye better than inganga, and I had a year’s training in surgery on Chama. They take women in the medical schools there."

"Did you know Mapalo’s husband?"

"He was in my ship-clan. He made me promise to see her if anything happened to him. When I came back to the city and learned she had the fever, I came to her."

There was a mystery here, Mutende thought. He’d expected a peasant healer from Kabwe province, full of remedies against witchcraft and half an infwiti herself, but here was a woman who’d traveled among the stars, and who might have seen medical books that even the bakalamba hadn’t read.

"Did they teach you about the blue-leaf tisane on Chama?"

"No, that’s a folk-remedy. I learned about those too, during my fostering. I did learn more about it on Chama and in other places…but let’s take a look at you." She turned to Mapalo. "Can we go upstairs?"

"Yes, I’ll be fine," Mapalo answered, and for all her earlier talk about death, she did seem to have rallied since the day before.

"I’ll come later, mbuya," Mutende said, and followed the street-doctor to his room.

She examined him quickly and matter-of-factly, with an economy of movement that any nganga would envy. "I’ll give you a lotion for the cuts and bruises," she said. "Most of them you’ll just have to endure, but I’ll need to stitch you up here and here. You’ll have a scar or two…you’re the one who’s studying to be a nganga, aren’t you?"

"Yes." Somehow, from Lelato, a change of subject seemed more natural than from the mukalamba.

"You should tell her not to take those pills."

"They don’t do her any good, but they do no harm, and they at least give her comfort."

"Yes, they do harm her. I’ve seen it in other patients—the pills can make them weak. When the pills fight the fever, the weakness is worth it, but when they don’t…"

"I’d thought that the weakness came from the attacks."

"The attacks can mask it, yes. I had my suspicions, though, so I took some patients off the pills and compared. I took them myself too, to make sure."

"Muyanda." Said one way, the word meant a drug; said another, it meant poison.

"The pills are both. Many medicines are—you’ve learned that."

"I’ll take her off them, then," he said, and then he realized something else. "You’ve studied cases?"

"How else? Awamulaye are jealous of their cures, and all we know is what our fosterers tell us—for more than that, we have to learn the folk-wisdom and learn from what we see." She applied ointment to Mutende’s fingers and opened his hand. "This isn’t a nganga’s hand," she said, surprised. "It’s known work."

"I had a mechanic’s fostering."

A sudden interest came into her eyes, as if she saw him for the first time as something other than a case. "You’re a mechanic?"

"I learned the craft and I took the oath."

“You need to come with me, then,” she said. “There’s something I want you to see.”

* * *

The umulaye’s house was on the axial road that led along the lagoon and out of the city. Where she lived, the buildings were a single story, and the houses were surrounded by small gardens and guinea-fowl. It was still the city—buses floated past, taking people to work in the factories—but it was shading into farms, and from here, the ancient towers of the city center loomed like standing stones.

She shooed aside a couple of guinea-hens and led Mutende through the door. Like Mapalo, Lelato had two rooms, and she lived in one of them: in the other were shelves of instruments, compounds, books, an examination table, even an ancient computer that ran on a generator. Instinctively, he knew that this was not typical for an umulaye, most of whom carried their tools with them on the street, and when she pointed him to what lay on the table, he was certain.

It was the merest sliver of metal—no, of several metals. It was no more than a millimeter long and half as wide, but he could see that it had been finely machined: its surface was a maze of etched circuits, barely visible components and closely fitted parts. It was dizzyingly complex for an object of its size, and its complexity seemed to continue at a level below the visible.

"Have you seen one of these before?" Lelato asked.

"No. What is it—a machine?"

"It makes machines. It makes them smaller than we can see—smaller than a cell, smaller than a virus."

"Is this another thing you found on Chama?"

"I only learned of it here. They made these in the days of the Union, and we’re only just learning how to make them again. We’re starting to use them in industry—for very fine etching, to clean impurities, to increase surface strength. But in the Union, and in the Commonwealth and the Accord, they used them for medicine."

Mutende stared at the sliver for a long moment, trying to imagine how a long-ago nganga might have used it. "If it can clean impurities in metal," he said at last, "can it clean them in a human body?"

"The books don’t say—certainly, there was nothing in the library on Chama. But I think they can. One of those can make millions of machines a ten-thousandth of a millimeter across, and release them into the blood to clean infections. More than that, it can send machines to all parts of the body to find out what’s wrong. Machines for luwuko, machines for uganga—orishas in a bottle."

The possibilities seemed boundless, and Mutende’s mind raced as he tried to imagine all the things such machines might do. "Have you tried it on Mapalo," he asked, "or on others with the fever? Have you tried to look in there to see how the pathogens have evolved, why the attacks keep returning?"

The umulaye laughed. "You’re saying all the things I said when I first learned of these things. But that tool on the table—it’s designed to make etching machines. I can’t change it so it will make healing machines—I don’t have the tools and I don’t have the skill. But you, with a mechanic’s fostering…"

"Do you know what I would have to do?"

"I think so. For something simple. But do you have the tools?"

That question was an easy one. "There is a machine the inganga use for fine surgery. Yes, it can do that work. We can go there today."

They did, and none challenged their right. As a musambilila, Mutende was entitled to use the school’s facilities. If he brought someone with him, that was no business but his own, and if she were an umulaye, no one had to know.

They laid the sliver on the operating table, a speck in its vastness, and Mutende looked at the two images before him: the camera that showed how the machine looked now, and the schematic showing what it would have to become. It was a finer surgery than the one he’d done on the child, and would have been even if he hadn’t still ached in the places where he’d taken blows last night. The surgery had only been a matter of cutting away: here, he had to cut and shape and replace. He replaced the tools on the machine-arm with successively smaller ones, and he set its movements finer and finer, rearranging circuits, resetting switches and machining parts that were too small to see. Day had turned to night, and night again almost to dawn, before he was finished.

"We’ll take it home now," Lelato said, "and see if it accepts data."

"On the ichiyawafu-fever?"

"No, I’m afraid. It will have to be a blunt instrument: something that knows what healthy cells are made of and attacks everything else. I can’t be certain of anything more—not with an etching-tool to start with, and not with computers and medical books in the state they are."

Mutende, halfway down a staircase, turned and looked back. "That’s dangerous."

"Yes. If Mapalo wouldn’t be dead in a week anyway, I’d never give this to her. Even so, the choice has to be hers."

Even the exhaustion of surgery was as nothing compared to hearing Mapalo’s death sentence pronounced. "Then we will offer it to her," Mutende said. "It was made here, in a place sacred to Eyinle. Maybe it will bring her under his care."

* * *

"Will it protect me from the imfwiti?" asked Mapalo when Lelato was finished. The umulaye had carefully explained what she planned to do and what risk it carried, and Mapalo, nobody’s fool, had understood, but she was from the Kabwe country and there was one more thing she wanted to know.

"It will help ward off the imfwiti within your body," Lelato answered. Mutende waited for his landlady to rebuke the street-doctor for saying such an absurd thing, but she nodded instead, and he remembered a north-country story she’d told him once. The peasants in her province told of witches who could make themselves any size, and who might lodge themselves in a victim’s heart and use her very blood to make their magic. There were stories like that among the awantu as well—awantu who, it was rumored, had once been human—and she’d no doubt heard them from Kaweme. She nodded again, satisfied.

"But if it goes wrong, it might also attack that which gives life," Mutende warned—always one more warning.

"If it takes my life, it will do no more than the fever."

"Then sit back, mbuya." Mutende held Mapalo’s arm while the umulaye held the needle. It was full of sterile fluid with the sliver inside, and when Lelato pushed it in, the machine went with it. The tool Mutende had remade was in Mapalo’s veins, to make medicine from her very blood.

He had class that day in the room that had once been refrigerator and storage-closet: another session with the Book of Maladies, another lesson in diagnosis and remedy. He half-expected that the mukalamba would call him out in front of the class and expel him for fighting or sacrilege, but that didn’t happen. Lesson followed lesson—biology, surgery, study of the body systems, hours in the clinics assisting the inganga with their work—and if anyone thought that Mutende’s conduct was unbecoming a musambilila, they didn’t say.

On the fourth day, he noticed that his landlady’s condition had begun to improve. Her lesions were clearing and she breathed easier, and she could sit and then stand without discomfort. On the ninth day, he heard her singing Kabwe-country songs while she fixed a drain, and that night, she sat outside with two of the market-women and shared an earthen pitcher of imbote.

In his hours at the clinics and the luwuko-rooms, he took notes, comparing Mapalo’s improvement to that of others who responded to treatment for ichiyawafu-fever. It seemed, day by day, that the sickness was leaving her body. On the eighteenth day, he and Lelato took her to the Mwata’s Gardens for the first time since she was a child, and almost every evening now, she dragged a chair out to the street and talked and sang.

On the thirty-second day, she died.

It was a fever—not the ichiyawafu-fever, but the Orange Sickness that had been brought to Chambishi Port from the far western islands. Mapalo fell ill from it in the morning, and she seemed to have no resistance: it burned through her, growing worse by the hour, and all his remedies and Lelato’s only slowed it down.

"It doesn’t do this to other people," he said as he and the umulaye kept watch at Mapalo’s bedside. She had passed from delirium into sleep; her breathing was shallow and her appearance deceptively peaceful. "It doesn’t go this fast. In the Book of Maladies…there’s time for the body to fight, for medicines to work."

Lelato was silent for a long time, and Mutende wondered if she’d heard. "I took samples of her urine and stool," she said finally. "I wanted to know which cells our nanomachines were cleaning from her body. And the cells she was passing—they’re the ones that make her immune. That’s where the infection was, and when the sick cells were cleaned, they left her with nothing to fight new fevers. I thought her body would make new ones, and maybe in time it would have, but…" She seemed on the verge of tears, and it took her four tries before she could say another word. "There’s so much we don’t know."

Neither she nor Mutende said another word that night: they watched Mapalo in silence, and three hours later, death claimed her. Lelato rose from her chair and Mutende heard a door open and close: soon after, the death-drums started beating.

* * *

The nyinachimbela came at dawn, the old woman who was queen of the women’s burial society. She and Lelato and three of the market-women washed Mapalo’s body, put strings of beads around her waist and neck and arms, folded her so that her hands were on her shoulders and her knees against her chest, and shrouded her in white imbafuta-cloth. Mutende did none of this: preparing a woman to be buried was women’s work. But he was one of those who carried her to the burial ground, and he joined the awenamilenda, the men’s burial society, in digging the grave and laying her down with her face to the east. And he was one of those who knelt, his hands in the cool earth, and pushed the dirt back into the grave to cover her.

That evening, after everyone had bathed in the lagoon, there was the wake: the ritual of singing and drinking and dancing. The market-women of Mapalo’s street were there; her tenants and neighbors came as well, and an elder of the Hornbill clan. And there was one other: when Mutende dipped his cup into the keg of shake-shake beer, he looked up to see his mukalamba.

"Do you see now," said the professor, "how foolish it is to seek new knowledge without a foundation?"

"You watched," Mutende said.

"We watched, as we watched others before you. Your uganga failed."

Mutende, suddenly combative, looked the teacher in the eye. "She lived longer than she would have done without our uganga, and she had a better death."

"But still it failed." The mukalamba held Mutende’s gaze with his own until, slowly, the younger man agreed.

"Learning needs a foundation," he conceded. "But trying and failing is the only way to build one." He realized suddenly what he’d wanted to say the month before when the professor had warned him against trying to surpass the ancestors. "We can’t wait until we know everything the Union knew before we learn more. We must build our own foundation even if it’s a different one from what they had."

The mukambala held his gaze steady again. "Even after your patient died, you say this?"

"How many patients have died because we didn’t dare?"

The teacher clapped once, but it was only an acknowledgment, not an affirmation. "If that is your decision, you must make it as an umulaye, because you will never be a nganga."

He was silent, and Mutende realized he was being allowed a final chance. But if the mukalamba was expecting a recantation or a plea, one did not come.

"My choice is made," Mutende said.

He took his cup and wandered past one of the upstairs families singing a funeral song—wulukoshi wakawalila mwana, the eagle has carried off my child. Lelato was there, listening, and he told her.

"You want an umulaye’s fostering, at your age?" she asked.

"I’ve had a fostering already. I am what I am—a sworn mechanic and a forsworn musambilila."

"I told you that awamulaye are jealous of our cures—what makes you think I’d want to share with you?"

"You already have. And if we’re jealous of what we know, we’ll never build the foundation."

"Yes," she said. They were silent, listening to the funeral chants and watching the dancing begin. "You know that Mapalo left her house to you and me…"

"No, I didn’t know," he said, surprised.

"We cared for her, and her children have gone to the ship-clans. The Hornbills will have a claim, but we can pay them some of the rents."

He thought about it for a moment. "And she thought that if she showed us favor, the neighbors wouldn’t think that we were the imfwiti who killed her?"

"Some of them may suspect that anyway. That’s one thing you need to get used to if you follow the umulaye’s path—a street-doctor who fails can be taken for a witch. But I was thinking that if you don’t want her rooms, we can turn them into a school."

"A school for awamulaye?" The idea was startling, but it took only a second to seem natural. "Her rooms are small…"

Lelato spread her hands wide to take in the city, and said, "There will be time to grow."

Harlow C. Fallon

A Long Horizon

Originally published in The Immortality Chronicles, part of the Future Chronicles anthology series, curated by Samuel Peralta

* * *

Space is a misnomer. If humans weren’t blind to it, they’d see that space is full, teeming with enormous creatures that float and skim through the blackness in the same way that phytoplankton fill the warm waters of Earth’s oceans. I don’t know why humans can’t see them. I see them all.

Even now, they glide and wheel past me, translucent, blinking, some bright and disc shaped, others pale with whip-like appendages that lash the darkness. I can see the stars through them. They move away and then return to hover. I know they see me as I stand here at the port window. They’re curious; not only about me, but about the ship that confines me.

The ship is my prison.

I am a convict aboard the Lonecross; a crew of ten also shares my fate. We are all sentenced to death, but a small, bright hope holds their hearts and minds—a hope for freedom, for an extension of breath and length of days. Their hope is my certainty, but they don’t know that. What we all know is this: their death is kept at bay for as long as possible by my isolation. My immediate company would be fatal to them all.

These are interesting times, full of ironies and paradoxes. The aristocracy has found itself with too much prosperity and too little desire to dirty its hands when dealing with commoners. It’s grown an odd skin of politeness that insists on humanely dealing with its worst dregs, so as not to offend the offenders. This is nothing new; I’ve seen it played out over and over through the years. The people in power change, the justifications change, but underneath the masks, the faces are always the same.

As for the worst lawbreakers, those deserving death, the benevolent method of dealing with them arrived later. A hundred years ago, eyes turned to space and desire to break free of Earth grew. The death penalty was abolished. In its place: a one-in-a-million chance at winning the lottery of the disgraced. Criminals were cajoled into volunteerism, that they might contribute something to give their hopeless, pathetic lives meaning.

These make up the crew of the Lonecross. They’re trained and made useful, then launched into space on a one-way journey, put to work whether they like it or not, for the good of a society that has cast them out like trash into the abyss of space. They’d like to believe they’re explorers of our vast galaxy, but in reality, they’re only maintenance workers on a vessel programmed to observe, record, send back information as it searches for new worlds that might be habitable. They forget about death—until fate snips the final threads of their existence by one cause or another.

But always dangling before their noses is the small hope that they will find that new world where second chances wait to embrace them.

And what of those who deserve the worst death, but are unable to die? Who cannot be killed no matter what torture is inflicted upon them? There is only one such soul on this ship. And I am locked away, isolated. My movements and activities are quietly documented by a computer’s cold eye for the duration of my so-called humane journey. I am the only prisoner ever to meet that description in the past nine hundred years.

I’ve never understood very clearly what sort of monitoring is done, what sort of notes are collected about me, or even why. I imagine some scientists at home want to know my end, if there is one. It’s always best to be mindful of one’s enemies and keep a careful eye on their whereabouts.

And so I remain alone, or almost alone, monitored like the stars and planets along our course. I don’t mind. I’m quite used to it by now. One crewman keeps me company, albeit by voice only. The pulsating diatoms of space keep me company. So does the life maturing inside me.

Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine I’m on that other ship, the Prospect, where I first met my fate. I can almost feel the dizzying rise and fall of its bulk as it succumbs to the troughs and peaks of waves. I smell the pungent tang of salt and ocean decay. I hear the creak and whine of the hull, the thump of wind filling its sails. I close my eyes and I am almost there, where it all began.

* * *

I’d lived in London all my life. My name was Kate then; I’d just turned eighteen, straining at the fetters of drudgery and poverty in my overcrowded family home, eager for escape, for the freedom of adventure. It arrived in the form of an advertisement. Brides were wanted in the New World; women who were strong of bone and mind and lean of soul, because one had to be of that disposition to survive life in Virginia, let alone the journey there by ship. I felt qualified on all points. And so, without my father’s blessing, I responded to the advertisement. Soon I received a letter from The Virginia Company of London accepting my application and granting my fare to a new world. My mother and father did not say good-bye. I never looked back.

The journey was horrendous. I became so sick I truly thought I would see death before I saw land again. Halfway through the voyage, during a particularly sadistic storm, I considered pitching myself overboard and letting the sea swallow me. I didn’t think I could take any more. I hadn’t eaten in days because the mere thought of food made me retch. I was weak and feverish.

Then the sea calmed. The passengers embraced the relief it brought and slept. But I couldn’t sleep.

After twisting and turning in my bed, I’d had a brief, disturbing dream: a man had kidnapped me, stripped me naked and tied me to a bed spread-eagled, where he proceeded to probe my body with a glowing instrument. When he looked into my eyes, I felt a burning sensation at the back of my head. I was terrified, but finally he untied me and said, “You’ll do.”

I woke in a sweat, and realized my fever had finally broken. I rose and made my way to the deck for some night air, hoping it would bring calm to my frantic heart.

On deck, the ship rocked gently in the small swell of the sea. There was no moon, but the stars were so bright and numerous, I thought it might be possible to touch them. I stared out across the dark surface of the water. It was then I noticed a strange glow in its depths.

* * *

“Time to eat, Kata,” says Ruhan through a speaker in my door. His voice startles me from my thoughts. He calls me by my name, and he’s the only one. I know the others only by combinations of numbers and letters. Ruhan is CR7. I’m CK3, and in my files I’m told I have a suffix: 22, which means I’m extremely dangerous. The crew isn’t allowed to talk to me, although I’ve heard their voices from time to time. They’ve whispered through the speaker: “Hey, CK3, what you got going on in there?” or, “suck my dick, bitch.” Ruhan was no different at first, when he sought me out twenty years ago. But there was something about him that caught my attention. His snide remarks quickly gave way to curiosity; then as time went on, to friendship.

Ruhan fills me in on the goings-on of the crew. I never ask, but he talks as if I want to know. He told me once that I’m the subject of many discussions among the men. They wonder what I am, and why so much effort has been made to send me away and keep me separated. Why didn’t the judges make a special ruling in my case? Why didn’t they humanely euthanize me?

I never say anything. They don’t need to know. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Regardless, Ruhan talks to me. I think he feels sorry for me. Perhaps it’s because I’m the only female on-board. Or he’s simply curious. I never ask him why. I’m grateful for his friendship.

“I have some meat for you,” Ruhan says.

I know it isn’t real meat, with blood in it. It’s a block, processed and shaped to look and taste like meat. But I’m not hungry. I haven’t been hungry in years. I can’t remember the last time I tasted cooked food. I know this is a phase that will soon end. The cycle will come around and I’ll need another kind of food, as I have many times before.

“No, thank you,” I say.

“You have to eat, osita,” he insists. Little bear, he calls me. If only he knew.

“I’ll eat later,” I tell him.

A brief silence hangs beyond the door. “How about we eat together?” he suggests. “Me on this side and you on your side. We’ll eat and we’ll talk. How about that?”

I smile, but of course he can’t see it. Perhaps he hears it in my voice. “CJ9 won’t be too happy with that,” I say. “What if he catches you?”

“CJ can kiss my ass,” Ruhan replies. “What’s he gonna do? Send me to prison?” He laughs at his own joke.

I don’t say anything. Outside, the creatures swim languidly past my window. A sudden, incoherent longing rises in my chest, leaving me feeling fragmented and jumpy. I reach over and push a button. Portal shades descend and hide the view.

A series of clicks and hisses announces the arrival of my meal. A small door in the wall slides open to reveal a plate of food and a cup of water in a steel-reinforced box. I remove them both and set them on the table by my bed. Later I’ll drink the water, but I’ll send the food back to recycling. I don’t need it.

The life growing in my womb feeds me, and in turn eats me. Together, we live.

“Tell me a story, osita,” Ruhan says. “One I haven’t heard before.”

We’ve been on the Lonecross for twenty years. I’ve been telling him stories for the past ten. Perhaps he is the observer after all, the collector of information. He knows more about me than anyone else aboard the ship.

“You’ve heard them all, Ruhan.”

“Guess I have,” he says. “You sound tired.”

“I am.”

“Are you ill?”

“No.”

“Old age, eh?” His concern is brief. Through the speaker I hear him take an eager breath. “Tell me about the alien in the sea, then,” he says. “I like that one.”

I’ve told it a hundred times, it seems. But I comply. “The year was 1620, and I was eighteen,” I begin, as I always do. Ruhan chuckles.

I stop. “What’s funny?”

“That always gets me.”

We’ve discussed this countless times, but he won’t accept it as truth. “You never believe me.”

“That you’re 900 years old? It’s a good story.”

I want to argue with him, to convince him of the truth, but the urge passes, and I continue my story. “I was one of many young women hoping to become wives,” I continue, and I’m transported back once again.

* * *

I wasn’t the only person who saw the glow under the waves. I was one of a hundred or more passengers looking for opportunity and perhaps love in Virginia. Several had joined me on deck that night, as well as a few of the crew, all of us staring down into the depths, curious and maybe a little frightened of what we saw. One of the crew said, “It’s only the phosphor glow of tiny sea creatures. They cluster together and sometimes they grow in number to the millions. We’ve seen it before.”

That reassured us a little, but still we watched. Soon we realized that the glowing object was rising rapidly and would soon break the surface alongside the ship. We all stumbled back, stifling cries and gasps. The crewman who had offered the explanation leaned over the railing and said, “Damn.” It was all he was able to say before something from our nightmares rose up from the water and rocked our vessel so violently, we lost our footing and fell, grabbing for anything to prevent us from being catapulted overboard.

It was an oval-shaped thing and huge—almost the size of our ship—with a ring of shining eyes pulsating in colors of blue and green. The object slowly circled our vessel. When it completed a full circuit, it stopped, as if considering what to do next. It moved sharply to the left and then to the right, finally hovering a few feet above us, perfectly still and silent. I felt all those eyes scrutinizing, examining, sorting. The others on deck shouted and screamed, scrambling away, but I remained, paralyzed, transfixed by the sight.

A long appendage appeared from beneath the object and lowered itself closer to me. I felt the sensation of heat in the back of my head just as I had in my dream. In my weakened state, the shock and terror were too much. My ears filled with a high-pitched ringing, and all the stars in the night sky winked out.

* * *

“What happened to the ship?” Ruhan asks. “After you were abducted.”

I realize he’s never asked that question before. “I don’t know.”

“Kept on sailing, maybe. Minus one passenger, eh? Must have been like a hammer to the head: that whole experience, the whole ship telling wild tales of aliens. You think they went crazy after something like that?”

“How would I know that?”

“Seems like it could’ve happened. Maybe the ship sank and they all drowned.”

“Maybe.”

“And that sumbitch dropped you on the beach like nothing happened. What did it do to you?”

“You know what it did to me…what he did to me.”

“But you don’t remember.”

There’s much I remember. But to Ruhan I lie and say, “No. I don’t.” I choose not to share the details of an encounter with a creature so foreign and yet so humanlike that I wanted to both flee from and embrace him. He was altogether beautiful and entirely repulsive, an outsider in the fullest sense of the word, trapped on a world not his own, who knew he’d never see his home again. He did what he needed to do. He made a way to escape, if not for the whole of him, then for a piece.

I knew none of this at the time of my abduction. I was convinced I had died and been carried to hell for my sins. I thought I was facing a demon disguised as an angel of light. Only later in my dreams did the revelations come. But at that first encounter, I thought only of eternal torment. He studied me with a piercing, ferocious gaze that dissected my soul and stitched it back together. His touch burned, but stirred in me an intense longing I couldn’t begin to comprehend. It didn’t ease the pain and terror that overwhelmed me at the insertion of some part of him into my womb.

“So when did you know you had a baby inside you?” Ruhan asks.

“Not for a while.”

“Until the natives found you.”

“Yes.”

“And you turned cannibal.”

I cringe at the word. I don’t need human flesh. I don’t need blood. I did it for the life within me, my enemy lover who required a particular type of nourishment. I had no choice but to get it for him. I tried to stop myself, but I could no more prevent my burrowing into a brain or a neck or an abdominal cavity than I could prevent my blood from coursing through my veins. At the time I didn’t know the names of those things I craved, but now I can name them: the thymus, pituitary, thyroid, pancreas, liver—those parts rich in vitamins, amino acids, and hormones.

“I don’t consider myself a cannibal,” I say.

“I read your file. It goes back a long time. Hundreds of years. You’ve always been a cannibal.”

“I thought you didn’t believe I was that old.”

He chuckles.

“It’s all true, Ruhan.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Let’s just say it is true—”

“In the twenty years we’ve shared space on this ship,” I push, “have my stories ever changed?”

I hear nothing on the other side of the door.

“Do those files lie?” I ask.

Again, nothing.

“Have I wavered in any detail? Added or subtracted? Embellished?”

He considers this, I know, because the tone of his voice changes. Uncertainty, even anxiousness shades his words. “How can you be that old? Are you immortal?”

“He preserves me,” I tell him. “As I’ve said before. Perhaps he will forever.”

“A baby can’t do that.”

“Not a human baby. But he’s not human. Nor a baby.”

“What the hell is it then?”

Now I hesitate, uncertain myself. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve never tried to get rid of it, then?”

Our discussion is moving into forbidden territory. I won’t answer such questions, no matter how many times he asks. “I’m tired, Ruhan. I need to sleep. Go join your companions.”

He doesn’t argue, because knows it won’t change anything.

* * *

Ruhan was an enigma, not so much in his character but in the way he made me crave his company one moment and recoil from it the next. I spent most of my life in isolation of one form or another, ever since the day I woke up and found myself alone on a rocky shore. Twenty years on the Lonecross has been nothing out of the ordinary. But Ruhan changed everything when he took an interest in me. Not as an oddity, but as a person.

Initially he was no different than the other crewmen who slipped away unnoticed to try and engage me through the speaker with snide remarks. I ignored them and I ignored him too. But then one day he told me his name.

“Everyone knows me by CR7,” he said quietly. “But my real name is Ruhan.”

I didn’t respond, but I pondered this new tack. What did he expect from me?

“Are you lonely in there?” he asked in a strained voice.

I hesitated, then spoke. “No.”

He didn’t seem surprised that I answered. I heard a small sigh in his voice, and then he said, “I’m lonely.”

Over time, Ruhan and I settled into a peculiar relationship. He talked and I listened. I rarely asked questions, but when I did, he devoured them like a hungry animal. He needed to tell his story. He shared how his older brother had been responsible for getting him hooked on phreno, a hallucinogen. He mentioned his grandmother and her effort to keep him at home, away from trouble.

“What did she look like?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked. I can’t remember my own grandparents. Perhaps I wanted an image to fill that hole.

“Ah, mi abuela, she was such a beauty, even in her old age,” he said with a smile in his voice. “She had hair black as a raven, even at seventy. Barely any gray at all. And even though she was mujercita—a little lady—and she had these eyes that would put the fear of hell into your soul with one look. She would tilt her head to one side and put her hands on her hips, and her mouth would turn into a hard, thin line. Those eyes would drill right into you. That’s when you knew you might as well give up, because there was no escaping her wrath. But she was good. So good. And she loved me. I wish I’d paid more attention to that.”

* * *

Before he began begging me for stories, Ruhan would often tell me about the crew. He’d share conversations, altercations, weaknesses and strengths. Later, after we’d become more familiar with each other, he’d tell me what the men said about me; wild speculations, some of them humorous.

“CN8 says you aren’t a woman. You’re a machine, or a program or an AI-bot to make us think you’re real. He says you’re spying on us.”

I smiled at that. “What would be the point?”

“That’s what I said. But it makes more sense than what CV10 says.”

“Which is?”

“You’re an alien.”

“Maybe he’s right,” I said, but I didn’t want him to know how close they were to the truth.

As years crept by, he shared more troubling experiences. Infighting became worse. Twice, a crewman attacked and killed another. One by one, their numbers dwindled, until there were only five. Their tasks took longer to complete. Eventually, repairs were neglected and chores left unfinished. Ruhan began avoiding the others as much as possible.

Once, he came to me in the night, his voice tight with pain. “You awake?” he asked, gasping.

I rose from my place at the portal and moved to the door. “What’s wrong?”

“They beat me.”

My chest tightened. “Why?”

“They found out I’ve been talking to you.”

For the first time I felt a protective rage rise up inside. I wanted to make them pay for what they’d done to him. I might have even said something to that effect, although I don’t remember.

“I…I won’t be able to visit anymore, Kata,” he whispered. “Sorry.”

And he didn’t. Not for an entire year, by my feeble calculations. It was the longest year of my impossible life.

* * *

Time passes for me without an identity. I struggle to recognize its markings of minutes and hours. I try to make my own but they constantly shift and change. I sleep and I wake. I shower, read, write on a small tablet provided for me. I talk to Ruhan and Ruhan talks to me. And then I sleep again.

I dream I’m in the box. It’s a steel coffin and I watch, bound and helpless, as the seams are welded shut. It’s so hot inside; I can’t breathe. I’m jostled severely, my head and shoulder slamming from one side to the other. I know what’s happening to me. I’m being transported once again on a ship, but this time it’s a barge filled with cargo containers.

I can’t stop screaming. Pounding. Kicking. There’s a violent impact and thunder. At once the temperature changes—cool, cold, freezing. The pressure builds in my head and lungs. This is the end. I won’t be miraculously released this time. But I am. Always I’m protected. Shielded. Freed.

I wake up panting for breath. This is a nightmare I’ve had more times than I can count. The worst of my tortures always revisits me in my dreams.

When I find sleep again, he comes to me. He’s a thunderstorm that takes me by surprise each time. He rolls across my dreams and covers me, a shadow over the sun, an eclipse. He knows I can’t turn away. He’s a coiled adder, a stinging hornet, a hungry panther who devours me and I let him. He’s all I have.

I hate him because he’s stolen from me every precious thing I’ve owned or ever hoped to own: a family, children, a home, friendships, companionship, dreams, ambitions, all the things that have never had a chance to come to fruition because of what this creature has done to me. I love him, because he’s been my family, my child, my home, my lover, my companion, for nine hundred years. And when he visits me in my dreams, I lash out like a cornered animal, then I yield. More—I welcome him.

Always sorrowful, Kata, he says. Why do you resist?

I’m tired.

I am stirring inside you. I am growing now.

I know.

Are you ready?

No.

A woman is given nine months to prepare for birth. I have given you nine hundred years. Is that not enough?

No. How could I ever prepare for something like this?

Ah, Kata, my river of souls, my stream of dreams. Do you love me?

You’re cruel.

No, only pragmatic.

When you’re released from my body, will you let me die?

Is that your wish?

It is, more than anything.

Do you wonder if there is something more for you?

No, because I know there isn’t.

Has it been so dreadful that you welcome death?

Nine hundred years is too long for anyone to live.

I could give you something more, something fuller, richer.

I only want release. I want peace.

Do you love me, Kata?

You’re a parasite. I’m a mere host. How can you ask that question?

You are more than a host. You are my eyes to the stars, my ears to the music of the spheres. You are my heartbeat and my food, you are my breath. Do you love me?

Yes.

Afterward, I sleep and do not dream.

* * *

When I awake, I’m hungry. It’s a sensation I haven’t felt in a long time. The cycle has begun again as it has hundreds of times before, but this time something is different. The life in my womb is growing and changing. It’s ready to be born, to emerge from this shell of a body, this swollen belly that has housed it and nourished it for far too long. It needs to be fed, more than what I can give. I think of the crewmen who’ve died in the past twenty years, whose internal parts could sustain me if I had them now. Space has devoured them instead.

I shower, lingering under the hot spray a little longer than usual. Afterward as I dry off, I study my image in the reflective surface of my bedroom wall. I notice how much I’ve changed. All my body hair is gone, including my eyebrows and lashes. My eyes bulge slightly, as if too big for their sockets. Over time, he’s replaced my blood with a blue fluid, and it gives me a deathly tint, the color of a body pulled from icy waters. My skin is translucent, but also coarse and leathery. I look as though I could crumble at the slightest touch. But I’m stronger than ever. I’m impenetrable. The irony of that is not lost on me.

I don’t bother to dress. No one but the cold, impartial observer in the ceiling sees me, and the freedom of nakedness is one of the few small pleasures I can enjoy.

Ruhan comes with breakfast. “Did you sleep well, Kata?”

“No,” I reply. “I had bad dreams.”

“Tell me about them.” The speaker crackles. I’m sure after so many years it’s beginning to break down. The crewmen are nothing more than maintenance men, but they are few now, and there are priorities. Speakers are likely at the bottom of the list. I’m only grateful that Ruhan still comes to me, that he found a way to visit mostly unhindered. He’s never told me how it happened, what arrangement he made with the crew, or what threat he may have held over their heads. Ruhan doesn’t seem like a strong man, but I think he wears it as a disguise. I think—after the beating, after the long year passing—he took that disguise off and showed the crew who he really was.

The speaker hisses. I remember my loneliness without Ruhan’s conversations, and a tiny spark of panic flares in my chest at the thought of another long, empty stretch with no communication. But it passes.

“I dreamt that I was in the steel coffin, the one they put me in to try and kill me.”

“Ah, yes. A long time ago. When did you say?”

“I don’t remember exactly. I’ve tried to forget over the years. I think it was sometime in the mid-twentieth century, maybe around 1960.”

“You have that dream a lot.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t think of a worse way to die.”

I have to laugh at that.

Ruhan laughs with me, but he seems puzzled. “What’s so funny?”

“You don’t see?” I reply. “It is the way you will die. You’re in a box, sealed in, cast out into the vast ocean of space, with no control over where the ship goes or what your end will be.”

Ruhan is silent for so long I think he might have left. Then he says, “It’s not so bad, I guess. It’s different than a steel coffin. I can breathe.”

“You can breathe,” I say. “Yes, there’s that.”

He changes the subject. “CL6 won’t make it much longer. He had a stroke yesterday. That means just four of us now.”

His news means nothing to me. CL6 is a number. I’ve never seen him. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard his voice. Ruhan only mentions him in passing. But I think about his death, of the possibilities it might offer me.

“Will you do it this time?” I ask.

Ruhan knows what I want. “I can’t,” he says. “You know I can’t.”

“Just the pancreas, the liver and the thyroid glands. That’s all I ask. Is it so much from a man who will end up ejected into space? What difference will it make to a dead man?” There’s a desperate tone to my voice. I don’t want Ruhan to hear it, but I am desperate, and I need the organs. The life in me needs to be fed again.

“They’d never allow it,” he says. “They might kill me if they found out. They’re scared of you, Kata.”

“Aren’t they scared of you?”

“Not enough. Not anymore. But you…it’s different with you.”

“They have every right to be scared of me.”

I hear Ruhan’s shallow breathing. “Would you kill us and eat us if you could?” he asks.

I want to say no, but I can’t. “It’s out of my control, Ruhan. He’s like a demon possessing me. I do whatever he wants.”

Ruhan thinks about this. “My abuela believed in demons.”

“Did your grandmother believe in aliens?”

“She believed in everything,” he says, then tries to change the subject. “Have you named it? The thing in your belly.”

He doesn’t want me to push about the organs, because it frightens him. So I let I go. “I call him the wasp.”

“No shit? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s not a name. Just a label.”

I tell him another story, one I haven’t shared before. “Once, sometime around the early 1800s, I broke into a house. I’d been wandering in the wilderness for months, maybe even years. Time gets lost when you live so long. The natives there kept me fed and covered by making me offerings of animals and furs so I would stay away from their villages. They called me the River Witch. Sometimes Red Boar.

“I needed real clothes, something more than furs. I’d been watching this particular homestead—a woman lived there with her husband and three young sons. She was similar to me in size and build. So one day, when they’d gone to town, I broke in and took one of her dresses and a blanket.

“I allowed myself a moment to explore the house. It had been so long since I’d been inside one. The house was small but cozy. I noticed a small stack of books on a table—children’s books. One was about insects, with pictures carefully detailed and colored. There was a wasp with indigo wings, which I read about…it laid its eggs inside living beetle grubs.

“This was a revelation to me. For the first time I had some way to identify what had happened to me, no matter how grotesque the comparison. I hadn’t become pregnant, as I’d shamefully believed all those years. No, I was the captive host to this creature, a slave to his whims while I nourished his offspring with my body. The alien I encountered was humanoid; in fact, there was nothing about him I would define as insect. But what he did to me was very much like the wasp in that book. So I called him a wasp after that. It seemed most appropriate.”

Ruhan lets out a low whistle. “Jesus.”

There seems no good reason to hold back anything anymore. “He was stranded,” I continue. “Wounded. Abandoned. Dying. His ship would never again break the chains of Earth’s gravity. And so he waited for the time when Earth developed the technology to travel into deep space. Nine hundred years. He’s on his way home.”

Somewhere, out in the vast reaches of space, we’re drawing closer to what’s familiar to him. It’s an exchange, of sorts, between us, and also something we share. Against his will the wasp gave up his familiar home for an alien one; and now, ironically, I find myself doing the same. A slave to the will of one who could no longer direct his own fate.

Three days later, when it’s time for my meal, I find a bowl of organs, the ones I’ve asked for. I can’t eat fast enough.

* * *

Weeks pass before I hear from Ruhan again. When he shows up, I feel more relief than I want to. But he sounds tense, even frightened.

“How are you?” he asks, his voice shaky. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I was worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Ah, osita, how nice.” His words don’t line up with the fear I sense from him.

“You got in trouble for bringing me the organs, didn’t you?”

“Oh…yeah, some trouble,” Ruhan says. “Kept me locked up for a few days. But…you don’t want to hear about that. Talk to me, Kata. Tell me how many different ways you were tortured.”

I’m startled by his request. Does he wish to identify with me somehow, or are there darker, perverse urges at play? “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I say finally.

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I think, sometimes, that if you went through so much, I can face it too, you know? I can handle it.”

I reluctantly rattle off a list of unsuccessful attempts by others—and myself—to end my life: drowning, burning, impaling, poisons, acids, bullets, explosions, radiation, lasers. And when nothing worked, confinement to small, dark rooms, exile to wastelands, separation behind impenetrable fences…then I stop. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yeah, I guess. Are you scared, Kata? Scared of the end?”

“You mean, scared to die?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I welcome death if it comes.”

“You think it won’t? You think you’ll stay alive forever?”

I ponder his question; my answer. “I hope not.”

Ruhan releases a long breath. “They want to kill me, Kata.”

“Who?”

“CM and CJ. They’ve killed CB.”

This news alarms me. “What?”

“We’re close to a planet. Looks like it’s habitable. A lot like Earth. Either we’ll burn up in the atmosphere or crash. Who knows? But there’s only one escape pod. I figure CJ; he’s the strongest. He’ll knock off CM and me, and take the pod. He might land on the planet; he might not. But he thinks he will.”

I open my port window, which I’ve kept dark for the past few months, and see what I’ve missed: a large, bright planet fills the view. Outside, the space plankton skim gracefully past, unperturbed by our presence. But there seem to be more of them, gathering close, as if waiting. I understand the purpose of their presence now; they’ve been guiding and maneuvering the ship through space toward this point. It was never random. The minute the ship launched, it had a destination.

But it’s Ruhan’s revelation that surprises me most. “The ship has an escape pod?”

“It only fits one person. Files and logs are stored in there. It can be maneuvered and it’ll make it to the planet in one piece. That’s what CJ said. But who’s to know what the atmosphere’s like? He says it’s good…But what the hell, it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re all sentenced to death, right? Here it is, ready and waiting.”

There’s a hitch in his voice. “I don’t want to die alone, Kata.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want him to die at all. He’s been the only human friend I’ve known in nine hundred years.

Ruhan says, “I love you, Kata. I know that’s crazy. But I do. You never once asked me why I was sentenced to this ship. You always made me feel like I was a real person. An innocent man. A free man.”

My throat tightens. If I had tears, I would cry. “You’ve been a good friend, Ruhan.”

I hear scratchy, disjointed sounds of screaming, but it’s not Ruhan, it’s someone else.

“Oh shit,” Ruhan says. “CJ’s killing CM. I knew it. He’s coming after me next. Jesus!”

Inside me, desperation wells up, one part born of an urgent need to rescue Ruhan, and another born of a craving to feed. I can’t deal with it. I cry out and slam my fists against the door.

Ruhan says, “If I open the door, if I go in there with you, will you kill me, Kata?”

I’m shocked once again, not by his question but by this news. “You can open the door?”

“I found the code. It wasn’t easy. Years of searching. I thought maybe, someday…”

I want to answer his question with a no, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to control myself. “Ruhan, I don’t know what I’ll do. The wasp, he—”

Ruhan is yelling now, and suddenly the door slides open. Warm air rushes in, with terrible smells—the odor of blood and shit, of fear. Ruhan stares at me, wide eyed, and the color drains from his face. “Oh God,” he says, “You are an alien.”

I realize with a jolt of astonishment how shocking my appearance must be. Until this very moment I never understood, but now I do—now that I see myself as Ruhan sees me for the first time. I’ve been remade—the alien has recreated me in his image, so slowly and so minutely that I simply accepted the changes without question. But more than adapting my body to carry his seed, I’m now perfectly adapted for life on this new planet, the alien’s home world. He never had any intention of letting me die. He’ll keep me with him, and I’ll live in his world, as though I belong there.

I smile ruefully and say, “I’m not. I’m still me. Am I so awful?”

He shakes his head, breathing hard. “I’d rather die by your hand.”

I’m not sure why he says that, and I don’t believe him.

From the corridor behind Ruhan, I hear someone yelling. I know it must be CJ. Here’s my chance. I rush toward Ruhan, who screams when I grab him, but I merely fling him aside and make my way out the door. I’m filled with anger and a need for vengeance. But I’m also hungry. CJ will get what he deserves.

I sprint down the corridor and turn a corner, almost slamming into him. CJ stumbles back at the sight of me, his eyes wide and full of fear. He’s splattered with blood. It drips off his gray beard and runs down his arms. The iron bar he’s gripping falls to the floor with an echoing clatter, and he runs, but I catch him with little effort.

“Don’t kill me, please!” he pleads, but I must. I throw him to the floor, rip out his throat and pry him open like a clam with a strength I’d forgotten I possessed. Hungrily I feed, finding everything I need by instinct. When I’m finished I get up and look for Ruhan.

I find him cowering in a corner of my room. He knows there’s no use hiding from me. I must be a sight now, blue, naked, and smeared with blood. For the first time that I can remember, I feel self-conscious. I don’t want him to see me this way. And I don’t want him to be afraid of me. “Do you still love me, Ruhan?” I ask, almost as a joke, a feeble attempt to break through his terror.

He’s shaking; breathing in short, shallow puffs. As I approach him, the crotch of his trousers grows dark with a wet stain. “I don’t want to die,” he says.

“I didn’t think so.” I grab him by the wrist and pull him up. “Where’s the escape pod?”

“Two levels down.”

“Take me there.”

We hurry down metal steps and along dingy corridors until we reach a small storage bay. Ruhan points to a door. “There.”

“Get in,” I tell him.

He stares at me, trembling, unbelieving. “No, Kata, I can’t do this.” He thinks I’m giving up my chance of escape for him. He doesn’t understand the real reason I’m putting him in the pod.

“You have to, Ruhan.”

He shakes his head firmly. “I won’t make it.”

He’s made it this far. I haven’t killed him yet. Perhaps the wasp has done this for me. I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s a short reprieve. Already I feel the beginnings of need blooming in my gut. “You might,” I tell him. “But if you stay here with me, you most definitely won’t make it.”

Ruhan’s eyes grow wide, and then soften. “What about you, Kata?” he asks. “Do you want to die so badly?”

“Yes. But I won’t.” I know what my destiny will be. The ship may crash. But I’ll live because the wasp will keep me alive, just as he has for 900 years. I’ll emerge unscathed.

Ruhan looks at my swollen belly, then at my face. I see a new strength in his eyes. He relaxes, smiles. Then, without hesitation, he pulls me into his arms and holds me tightly. It’s the first prolonged human touch I’ve felt in hundreds of years. I cry; my body shakes with deep sobs, but no tears. Ruhan takes my face in his hands and searches my eyes. “You aren’t alien, osita,” he says. “I was wrong. Just like you said, you’re still you.” He wipes the blood from my lips and kisses me. Then he turns and keys in the code to the escape pod.

I watch as he climbs in. The door closes and seals shut with a hiss.

“See you on the surface,” I tell him, even though I know he doesn’t hear me.

Rafaela F. Ferraz

The Lady of the House of Mirrors

Originally published by Lethe Press

* * *

The order was simple, and it arrived written in golden ink over pale pink, thick paper with a vague scent of roses. Rosie smiled at the coincidence, that a local legend should use perfume that referenced her own name in a professional card, but roses were common—unlike the job she was being commissioned for, she thought.

She folded the note into a small square, perfect to fit in her breast pocket, and slid into the shoulder strap of her tool bag. Slumped over a work table, Theo, her copper-headed assistant, sanded the last imperfections out of a piece of clay where he, too, had seen a doll head. He could watch the shop for a couple of hours, but as a reminder, she still gave him a soft pat on the shoulder before crossing the threshold of their discreet and picturesque door—Varadys Automata, Dolls For Dreamers—and stepping into a winter so harsh it’d taken her twelve years to get used to. Her eyes took a second to adjust to the silvery winter air, but a cab trip later, she was back inside—though the colors no longer matched the earth tones of doll parts, and instead the powdered shades of make-up and expensive perfume.

“Miss V, I presume?”

The voice belonged to a butler, an old man with dark, delicate hands that reached out to take her coat. She shed it without a second thought, and followed the man’s crooked back through halls of mirrors into a large, flaky ballroom. The blinds were only partially pulled, letting in blades of late afternoon light, and the fireplace was lit on the furthest corner of the room. On either side, an armchair, and on one of them, a delicate hand on an armrest.

The woman looked towards the door and her hair unraveled from behind her ear.

“You can leave, Carter. Thank you.” The hand curled into a wave. “Come closer, Miss. Please don’t be shy.”

Rosie had never been shy. Not as a child, even less as an adult. Strangers posed no threat when you’d grown up surrounded by the crème de la crème of the underground. She walked up to the fireplace, crude work boots echoing against the floorboards until she stepped on the carpet. The woman was young, and the fire brought out the determination in her dark complexion and soft gray eyes, lined with precise needles of black kohl. Her face was made-up, an invention, a mask of power that didn’t slip even when she had to look up from her disadvantageous sitting position, and meet Rosie’s stare. She controlled the room with an aura so strong it made Rosie’s heart wither and wilt.

“Please sit. We have a lot to discuss.”

Her only choice was the second armchair, and so she sat with eyes fixed on the fire ahead. If she moved she would surely pop a shirt button, or worse, disturb the languor that furnished the room. Words flew in the streets, and if one walked with ears perked high enough, they’d be able to catch them—the lady of the house of mirrors, was how they called her current customer. A poor thing, delicate and faint, a butterfly in her cocoon, with skin so sensitive to the sun that mere exposure would make her pass out, or inflame her skin until the tender, bulbous tumors rendered her unrecognizable, or dead, even—depending on whose words one took for granted on the matter.

“May I offer you a drink, Miss…?” Her voice was low, in that way of people who were sure even their whispers rose to the skies. “…excuse me, is it Varadys? Like the old man?”

“No, ma’am, I…” Rosie’s voice, though, was low in that way of people whose lips often failed to communicate the words so carefully aligned in their minds. “…I have taken up his business, but we are not related. You may call me Rose. And thank you for the offer, but I’d rather not…drink.” She didn’t add that while she wasn’t against voluntary intoxication, she didn’t trust anyone enough to let them fill her glass.

“Very well.” She took a careful sip from whatever glittering liquid filled the glass by her side, and reset it on the circle of condensation it had left on the surface of the table. Her nails, dark red, were filed to elegant points. “Miss Rose, then. May I ask why you’ve taken up his business if you are not related? You’re not from here, clearly.” She held out her fingers, gesturing towards Rosie’s self-conscious head.”

“I moved here when I was young. My family knew Mr. Varadys, and when the time came for them to take on a complicated job opportunity, they left me here to hone my…” She struggled to find a good way to word it, a small lie with which she could speak the truth. “…craft skills.”

The lady let out a small smile, as if the revelation pleased her.

“We have both been left aside by our families, then.”

“There were attempts to recover me afterwards, but by then I’d convinced myself I belonged here.” Here, where the underground has taken over the surface and no one seems to notice.

The lady held her chin on her dainty fingers and murderous nails, welltended lips pursing in thought.

“Wise decision. I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.”

That small line delivered the final blow, and Rosie found herself growing uncomfortable.

“If I may be bold, ma’am…why have you called me here?”

“Your old employer was the best in the business, and you take after him. The truth is, Miss, I need something done.” Silence dragged on, while the lady appeared to rethink her words. “Someone, in fact. I want a companion piece, a machine that acts and looks human in every way…to keep me company, you understand, since nobody else seems up to the task.”

She didn’t doubt it. What she doubted, though, was her own ability to build such a thing. She knew herself incapable—even if there was little she had to consider on a rational level, no matter the assignment. Most mechanisms simply made themselves known to her, and in a trance, she built them to the image seared into her brain. Injecting life, a ghost into the machine wasn’t hard—it was life force, and like everything else in a world of labeled packages and weighted parcels, it could be harnessed and collected, distilled from blood and sweat, cooked from skin cells and forgotten hairs. There was method to what others saw only as madness—but she had no interest in showing it to them.

The lady had kept on talking. Rosie hadn’t noticed.

“…and I would want it to be polite and courteous, and to obey my every whim.”

“Why don’t you just hire someone?” It was an uncomfortable question, but Rosie had grown to accept that people would sell just about anything: their time, the skin off their backs, the arch of their spines when pleasure hit.

“I don’t believe in that sort of exchange, Miss Rose. It’s not a fair trade, money for emotions, or in this case, the lack thereof. All people have emotions, even if they try their hardest to contain them, and I’m not keen on having to consider a second sentient being under this roof.” She brought her glass up, as if proposing a toast. “I’m a princess in a tower, Miss, prepared to deal with no emotions but my own.”

And yet, Rosie’s assistant had caught plenty of words on the street about her nighttime visitors.

“I have stated my wishes, Miss, and I know you are the person to accomplish them. Your fame precedes you, as they say. Your skills…. The dolls you’ve made for the children of the rich and powerful. Dolls that move in the night. Dolls that crawl and walk and brawl…. Dolls that think, even?”

Rosie would rather not speak of the dolls. She’d kept the pieces of her first, built by Varadys before she’d met him, stacked inside a safe in a corner of the shop, and Theo’s horrified eyes had been enough to prove that he, too, could hear the rattling.

“What kind of…look are you interested in?”

“Something that looks, and acts, real will suffice. Gender or appearance details are irrelevant.”

“And…anatomical details?”

The lady gave her a sly smile over the rim of her glass.

“Do you think I need a sexual aid, Miss?”

She didn’t reply. She’d realized, early in life, that there was no point trying to understand people’s inner desires from the curl of their pulse, or the whiteness of the teeth they bared in a casual smile.

The order was simple, then. A companion piece. A robot. A mechanical person that wouldn’t stand out in a decayed palace where the ink was gold and the letters smelled of roses.

* * *

She sat at the drawing board the following afternoon, behind the counter of the shop she owned, even though she’d never bothered to remove the name of her mentor from the sign. Varadys Automata, that was what it said, and she was just Miss V, to most people. Petite, head a mess of golden thread, hands elegant but calloused—like a thief’s. Monsieur Varadys had been dead for five years, and she kept his ashes in a metal urn, sculpted to the approximate shape of his skull while he’d been alive to approve it. She’d placed him above the fireplace, as a reminder—you might be alone now, Rosie, but I’ve left you big shoes to fill.

In her drawing pad, lines at the end of her pencil took the shape of what she assumed must be a good-looking person. She started with the hardest option, a boy’s face. Boys were difficult. She could lay out the whole span of the universe, examine it with a loupe of the highest quality, and return without finding more than one to her liking. She’d loved a boy, once. To think of it, herself a precocious eight-year old, and he a dreamer selling himself for wings. Ten more years, and she would have built him a pair, sturdy enough to escape. His features found their way into the blank paper and she didn’t fight them. Dark skin, wavy hair, blue-green eyes. He wore an eyepatch, and his body was covered in scars.

At noon, the door struck the chime hanging from above, and Theo walked in with winter on his back. Elegant glasses and a penchant for cravats that went a little too tight around his throat—she’d never asked, he’d never told—she supposed he was good-looking too, if only a little less authentic, if only a little more conscious of his own appeal. Theo was her second assistant in five years, since she’d taken over the shop. The first one had been a girl, but Rosie had found herself falling for her pronounced Cupid’s bow and the way her fingers moved when she adjusted the legs of the tin dolls on the shelves. There was something about femininity that drew her in. Something about the way some women sprayed their perfumes and applied their powders, wrapping themselves in protective layers of scent and color, refusing the crude touch of the same air that enveloped common mortals. The women in her childhood had been that way too—tall and proud, self-assured, knuckles white over the reins that drew people, and only the right people into their lives, puppets on a string, choreographed to perfection by the hands that had once rocked her to sleep.

“Myers paid ahead, two dolls to be delivered next month at the townhouse…” Theo flipped through his notes as he delved further into the shop, reaching ahead of his own steps to open the hidden counter door, the final boundary that protected the half of the shop where she didn’t have to worry about presenting herself, too, as a doll ready to be sold. “…got a couple more orders, but nothing you’ll have to attend to in person.” He closed his notebook with a blunt sweep of his right hand, and removed his glasses to let them hang by a gold chain at his neck. “But now you must tell me. The lady. What did she want?”

She recounted the small meeting, and he nodded along, attentive, drinking her every word, peeking over her shoulder to analyze her half-conscious sketch with a slight frown. He recognized the subject, of course. Max, with his eye patch and his scars. As a rule, Rosie didn’t keep secrets.

“What are you thinking, then? We can’t build a robot that looks like a human. There’s no way we can recreate the skin, the texture…”

“Yes, that’s why we won’t.” She pushed her boot against the desk and slid backwards on the wheeled chair, stopping by the fireplace across the room. Theo sidestepped to abandon the collision course, but there was a smile on his face and she understood she had to do everything in her power to keep him by her side. He’d play along, no matter what it was. He was curious and driven and excitable. And young. “We’ll use human parts. Real human parts. I want the best, so make sure you find someone worthy.”

Theo’s eyes were half-amused, half-cautious slits.

“Someone…dead, of course?”

“Freshly so, if possible.” She stood to her full—but tiny—height and made her way to the stairs, hoping that sleep would prove beneficial to her creativity. “It won’t be of any use if it starts decomposing, so see if you can find someone whom…whom will tell you about incoming dead.”

“Will do. May I ask, though…?”

She’d just touched the first step with her heel, but still she turned.

“…why are you going to such trouble for a powdered princess in a decayed mansion? Is the pay…that good?”

“The pay is okay. That’s not the point.”

“Then…?”

“The point…” She abandoned the stairs to rejoin Theo by the fireplace. “…is that I didn’t train here to make toys. I’ve told you this. That wasn’t the reason my family chose to burden a reclusive old man with my education. I know I can give life to anything I choose, and I have chosen to start now. The stakes are high, I’ve got the conditions gathered. I can’t fail. If Varadys could bring life to my childhood dolls, I can do the same. And…”

She stopped herself short, keeping the rest of the justification to herself. She’d seen the woman, spoken to her, and if there was one thing consistent about halls of mirrors, was that one always struggled to find their way out. Not because of the mirrors, or the doors, or the confusing layout camouflaged behind the reflective walls, in that particular case. No. But because every mirror reflected the same thing, and that thing was a velvet armchair where a woman sat. She was young, dark, and the fire brought out the determination in her eyes, a soft gray lined with precise needles of black kohl. And like so many women before her, women for whom Rosie had carved check marks on her bedposts, she had a pronounced Cupid’s bow, and her fingers moved in the most alluring of ways every time she seized her glass and took a careful sip.

* * *

It didn’t take Theo long to figure out what they’d have to do. The redhead was resourceful, and when he didn’t spend the day with her, fixing dolls for little girls, sewing tiny dresses, accessorizing his right eye with intricate loupes, or fixing the casual curl of the fringe that fell over his eyes, he was outside, collecting intelligence, making sure Rosie got the latest news without ever having to walk out the door. They were both outlanders, after all, neither born nor raised in the city that had seen them grow into their clumsy young versions of adulthood.

That evening, he arrived with a triumphant note, and the smile on his face echoed the one that took her own lips by assault.

“Did you get it?”

“I got it.” He was feeling brave, the kind of bravery sold in pill boxes and syringes, and it showed in the way he sat on the counter and spun to plant his feet on the other side—her side—of the barricade. “A friend of mine, Aiden. He’s apprenticed to an embalmer across town. They get called to fix the…well, the ugliest bodies every once in a while, in the red light district, but—”

“We don’t want an ugly body, Th—”

“No, Rosie, I know we don’t.” His voice was flat, stern, but he held out his hands as if to apologize for it—scared that she could find him, perhaps, pretty enough to turn into a machine if all else failed. The idea, albeit attractive in theory, didn’t receive any gold stars from the pragmatic side of her mind. Rosie hadn’t forgotten. Rosie remembered the trees scratching the windows of her childhood home and the murderous look in her aunt’s eyes when she came home from a particularly taxing day, the scars she left on her slave’s body afterwards. She remembered his face, as well, Max’s face, enough to know it looked nothing like Theo’s, enough to wonder if the magic had held through the years. Maybe he’d found someone to restore his missing eye. “All I’m saying is…there’s a body in a morgue by the river. It’s a boy, and he matches your original idea. Black hair, light eyes. He might be a little too light-skinned, but…it’s an experiment, right?”

His eyes looked hopeful, though unsure. Rosie raised an eyebrow, one decorated with three tiny silver rings. “What do you mean, an experiment?”

“You won’t…sell him to her, right? Not the first? Not the prototype?”

Rosie lay back in her seat, ran a hand through her hair, found her fingers caught in the knots. It was a good question. What if it worked? What if it didn’t? What if he glitched? What if the body wasn’t even usable to being with?

No use in wondering. “Come along, we have work to do.”

* * *

Across town, the young man Rosie assumed must be Aiden awaited them by the morgue. He looked perfectly nondescript, and his left sleeve ended in a knot below the elbow, nothing but frigid air where his forearm used to be. Rosie made a note to fix it for him, as soon as she could. He led them into the deserted morgue, their figures casting shadows upon, first, the waiting room, then the embalming tables, and finally, the wall of numbered drawers.

“He’s over there. Bottom row, second door.”

Theo swallowed shaky words, and gestured for Rosie to step forward. He hadn’t grown in the midst of madness the way she had—he wasn’t used to the bodies and the blood and the guts. She approached the set of metallic doors with respect, even though she knew what lay on the other side had to be seen as nothing but feedstock.

The body slid out with a swift pull, feet first. He was barefoot, his feet clad in black stockings that ended beneath loose shorts that ended at his knees. He wore a corset, a bottle green corset that pulled in his waist—not enough to deform him, not enough to catapult him into the realm of the uncanny. His skin was pale, nearly white in the thin light, and his eyes were glazed over—hard to tell whether they were hazel or gray. Dark brown hair, growing long around his chin, an easy fix. But the inside of the drawer reeked of alcohol, and that, she didn’t find quite so auspicious.

“Cause of death?”

Aiden, standing by the door, hand draped over the door handle as if body snatching was something he did every day, gave her a shrug.

“Not sure. Some are saying overdose. As I suppose you can imagine, he hasn’t been autopsied yet.”

Was that passive-aggressiveness in his tone? Condescension? Rosie decided she would fix his forearm for him, sure, but she’d charge him twice as she would anybody else.

“Drugs, then?”

“I suppose.”

That wouldn’t do. What if something didn’t work? What if he’d been damaged beyond repair, beyond the point where she’d still be able to fix him with money and machines?

“Theo, help me prepare him.” He walked forward with a large bag clutched between jeweled knuckles, and together, they eased the body into its new cocoon. Halfway through, she decided to remove the corset. It left boning marks criss-crossed over his own exposed bones, and she wasn’t sure they’d go away.

* * *

It was so late it was turning early, and Rosie couldn’t help but stare at the body on the table in the back room, a little workshop where she used to sit on a toolarge armchair and watch Varadys work on his most ambitious projects. The walls had been covered in brass legs and brass heads ever since she remembered, but nothing else had stood the test of time—she was alone then, braving new territory, and taking a risk with parts of a different kind. On the first day, Rosie wasn’t sure she could do it. On the second day, she was sure she couldn’t do it, when the smell set in and her fingers froze inches from the boy’s body, curling into hesitant claws, retreating to rest idly by her side. The experiment rotted in the back of the workshop, and she didn’t try to make it work.

Two days later, morning found her huddled in a corner, wrapped in a tattered blanket. The safe rattled, the doll wanted out. On the table, the boy had turned purple where gravity had pooled blood beneath his skin. She sat as he lay, and in their own ways, both drifted closer to their own demises, carrying marks of their individual prisons—his a physical set of metal bones, hers a mental picture of a short but eventful life—into the unknown.

If results tended to show themselves to her, they were not doing it this time. Oh no. Her mind was empty but for the icy paralysis that came with fear, and terror, and the stench of the corpse on her work table. Theo was gone. She’d asked him to lay off work for a few days, and when solitude became too much, she asked Aiden to recover the body. She didn’t say a word beyond the ones she’d written on her calling card, sent clutched in the right hand of a dead-eyed child, as her left held a brand new doll. Varadys Automata, Dolls For Dreamers, the sign over the door said—and sometimes, Rosie still tried to live up to it.

The body left, the smell lingered. And then the note arrived, written in golden ink over pale pink, thick paper with a vague scent of roses.

There’s one more thing, Miss. I want it to speak. But more than that, I want it able to converse. Call back when possible. With love, G.

She tore the note and let the pieces fall around her feet on the floor boards. A figure of despair, she found herself looking up at the walls of the brass reliquary that was her workshop. The lady didn’t know what she wanted, but Rosie did—and it was no longer a robot. It was a slave.

* * *

No one knew slaves quite like Max. Maximillian, once. Dark skin, wavy hair, bluegreen eyes, an eyepatch, and a body covered in scars, all worn like uncomfortable clothes around one of the highest penthouses in the city—one with rooftop access, and thus an escape route into the skies he had always called home.

On the ground floor, a doorwoman stopped her with an authoritative hand, asked for her name, noted her address. She took them all with her into a small room where Rosie wasn’t allowed, a room from which she came back with a snarl.

“Please take the elevator. He’ll be expecting you.”

It could have been true, but the person on the other side of the ascending gilded cage was not the one she had been expecting. The defining characteristics had remained unchanged, but the eyepatch was gone, replaced by a discreet glass eye—he was already half doll, then, even without her intervention—and the scars on the back of his fidgeting hands had healed to barely noticeable silver lines. Hard to tell whether he was happy to see her.

“Are you alone?” It was the first thing she asked, and the one that cracked his face into the smile she had always associated with his character.

“Such a predatory question for a guest to ask, Rose.” He stepped forward and unlocked the cage, but didn’t open the door. “May I ask…why the sudden visit?”

Half of her wanted to sit, relax, act friendly for old times’ sake. The other half wanted to leave as soon as possible, abandon the uptown world of polished hardwood penthouses and return to the moldy riverside, where the dust was toxic but the people were kind.

“I need your help.”

“Well, obviously.”

When had the women in her family ever remembered him with no strings attached, no favors asked? Rosie wondered, as she followed his defeated shoulders into the living room. By the large windows, he invited her to take the sofa, but chose to stay on his feet himself—she understood he needed the advantage, and gave it away, sinking into the pillows, expecting the silence to break on its own. Finally, he indicated the city.

“So how’s business on the ground?”

“Haven’t you been down?”

A headshake, a smile. “Not once this year, no. It’s too much for me—the people, the noises. I’d rather stay above ground…and get somebody else to do the shopping.”

Did he need a companion piece, too? The smell of the dead body caught up to her, and his creature comforts didn’t seem quite so interesting in comparison.

“Listen, Max…have you heard of the house of mirrors?”

“Can’t say I have.” He seemed honest, if uninterested—she’d prepared herself to see him shiver, as if he too had been one of the lady’s nocturnal visitors, as if he too had already fulfilled companion duties a robot would never be able to live up to.

“There’s a lady who lives there, and she never goes outside. She has hired me to create her…a doll. A companion piece. Life-sized, able to speak, to move, to do everything a human does, except…not human.”

Max was listening. The one eye he retained any control over was curious. His knuckles were white from gripping his sleeves at his elbows.

“I came to you in case you had any ideas.”

“I don’t know anything about dolls.” But she knew he knew where she was going, and he was bracing himself for it.

“No, but you know about machines. And you know about…”

He nodded. “You can say it.”

“…submitting. Listen, I-I can’t program a thing to speak if she wants it able to hold a conversation. I can’t make a machine do the things she wants. It’s just not possible. But I told her I would, and if I don’t, she…she’s going to flay me, I just know it.”

Max gave her nothing more than a shrug.

“Then find her someone. A slave, a submissive. With time, we could train someone.” He sat on the coffee table in front of her, elbows on his knees, a little too close, and she was again young, fascinated by this creature who would have once braved an army to keep her out of harm’s way. “Do we have time?”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s just a thought. I’m not…I’m not really going to do it.” Or was she? “What if they change their mind, what if they leave? She doesn’t want a person acting like a robot, she wants a robot acting like a person, and it’s not the sam—”

“No, it’s not, but can she tell the difference?” And his smile was different, and his face was different, and he wasn’t the most beautiful boy in the world anymore—she wouldn’t have handed him to a customer if he had been the last human standing.

“I didn’t know you were this…cunning, Max.” And when he averted his eyes, she struck again. “Spending too much time working with my family, I see.”

He gave her what seemed to be an eye roll, hard to identify by his half paralyzed orbs and his sudden, rushed movement, up and away from the sofa.

“Don’t flatter your kin. If you want help, that’s my proposal.” By the window, he calmed down again, still as a statue, as his right hand moved into the void to explain his point. “She’s not going to know if you train someone and pay them well. There are hundreds of people out there who would love to get out of the streets, and into a house with a proper roof. Besides, if she treats them well…it’s not that bad of a deal.”

She wondered if, apart from everything else, the parts she couldn’t see under his clothes, the rest she already knew about…Max had also sold his soul.

“People will do the darkest things for safety. But I don’t expect you to understand.” He ran a caring hand through her hair as he walked by the sofa, and disappeared up the stairs.

* * *

His words lingered in the back of her mind, but she pushed them aside every so often. She requested a second body from Aiden, and that time she wasn’t picky. Anything would do, and what came was a middle-aged woman, her hair a dyed shade of bright red. Anything would do, she kept telling herself, head lolling forward on the hinge of her shoulders, finding no solace even when she took the time to drag herself into the corner couch where childhood had brought her such sweet dreams.

“Have you been sleeping?” It was Theo, concerned, voice mixed with the jingle of the front door keys hanging from his fingers. Was it past closing time already?

She shook her head, closing her eyes in silent surrender. No, she hadn’t been sleeping, not at all. She felt herself being consumed by ideas, eaten inside out. That time, she opened the body. She wore gloves, and into a bag that Theo held open in his own bare hands—he could be fearless, when her motivation overflowed into him—she transferred every organ in the chest cavity. Next was the blood. She’d seen them do it in funeral homes, a pump replacing blood with embalming fluid, something to keep the tissues looking at least vaguely human while the insides became something else. It was late, but not enough to be early that time. Theo threw a blanket over her shoulders, and together, they stood and watched.

“You know, I…this isn’t how I imagined my first contact with the workforce.” He added air quotes around the final word, surely a remnant from times spent with a nouveau riche family for whom work was such a shameful word it should never be uttered on its own.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her neck and smiled against the warm wool. It was strange to think she was the same age as Theo, curious to think that they had so much more in common than she and Max ever would—and yet, she thought of him as a pupil, the next in line for the little Varadys shop. Dolls for dreamers. Did he have what it took? Did the science of doll-making, life-making, did the god complex particles run in his blood, the way they did in hers?

“Have you thought that maybe you could…take over in a few years?”

“Oh, no…” He looked displaced, all of a sudden. “…no way, I…I’m not like you. I can’t do…the things you can. You look at a problem and your mind solves it before you do, but that’s not me. I can’t do that.”

She looked at the body on the table, the blood replaced by the fluid, the skin looking waxen under the oppressive light bulbs. There was no moonlight, and the workshop was a silent crypt—she’d never seen herself so close to her demise.

“I’m not sure I can solve this problem, either.”

He smiled, sympathetic, before lacing an arm around her shoulders and squeezing lightly. “I have faith in you.”

He brought tea and biscuits. She upgraded the look of the Creation itself from flesh-colored to gold and bronze. She replaced organs with clock parts and muscles with elaborate systems of levers and pulleys and pistons. She was close.

A second note arrived.

I hope this delay doesn’t mean you have stepped down from the assignment, Miss V. May I remind you, you shook my hand, we’re bound now. If not by law, then by honor. With love, G.

But there was no honor among thieves, and Rosie let out a bone-chilling scream when the second body, too, started to rot.

* * *

She returned to the house of mirrors after the third body, after the stench in the workshop became so intense she had started to work with a mask. Theo himself had moved works in progress to his own house—business wasn’t so bad it could justify selling miasmatical baby dolls. No need to pass on the honors of an unfortunate childhood at the hands of a Varadys masterpiece.

Rosie said the words over tea with the lady, staring at impeccable nails tapping the arm of the powder blue armchair. The room reeked of rotten roses, or perhaps just roses in general, and she was the one bringing in the rot. “I can’t give you everything you want in one companion. It’s impossible. I can’t do it.”

The lady didn’t answer with anger, instead putting on a polite mask of curiosity, her face inquisitive in the way small wrinkles formed around her eyes.

“Then who can? If not you, then who?”

“I need a lot of time, and effort…”

“And I can pay you for both.”

“Yes, ma’am, I understand, but…”

“What seems to be the problem?” The lady set down her glass, sitting up straight, adjusting a curl of her hair behind her pierced ear. “Miss, why do I have a feeling you’re failing on purpose? Avoiding my notes, refusing to give me any feedback on the assignment I ordered…this isn’t a game to me. You may be as fickle as a child, and very well, for you are still one, but I am not. If you don’t want my business, just say so, and I’ll send my assistant to search for it elsewhere.”

Rosie didn’t acknowledge the frustration building up, but when her fingers clenched too tight around the teacup she’d been handed just minutes before, suddenly too warm, too slippery, too uncomfortable, she broke.

“Then search for it elsewhere!” She threw the teacup at the wall, where it broke and scattered, staining the wallpaper, transforming the floorboards into a porcelain minefield. The lady’s hand rose to clutch her pearls, as if comfort lived in the texture of the string of masterpieces around her neck, the result of a hundred underwater jobs well done, never disturbed by the sensory overload of death, the entrails in trash bags discarded by the entrance, the dismayed looks on the faces of innocent young assistants. Her breakdown seemed out of place in the shadowy room, and she cradled her head in her hands, pressing fingers against the cane of her nose to keep from crying. “Forgive me. Forgive me, ma’am, I don’t know what got to me.”

“I will ask you again, Miss…” The lady touched Rosie’s bare wrist, then her fingers, until she had them trapped in her own. She pulled them out, as if relaxing the claws of some murderous animal, and carefully placed her own cup between them. Rosie let herself be maneuvered, herself a doll, but not much of a companion. “…what seems to be the problem? I don’t know about machines, or whatever else your work consists of. But I know about fear, and frustration, and if what you need is help coping, I might be able to offer it.”

“The only thing you can offer me is your understanding. What you’ve asked of me…it’s not possible.”

“I thought you made dolls for dreamers. I thought you could make anything work.”

“I’ve started to doubt that myself.”

“What is it that you don’t want to achieve, Miss? Fame? Fortune? Is my generosity not enough for you? Or do you pity me, like everybody else?”

“It’s nothing of the sort, ma’am, nothing. It’s just I haven’t found the solution to this particular problem yet, and there’s nothing I can do. I can’t do it until inspiration…until the solution comes to me.”

The lady bent forward, setting her sharp chin on the back of her folded hand.

“Is that the way you work? You sit and wait for inspiration to strike you? For the solutions to come to you? Doesn’t seem too productive to me, Miss. What if inspiration doesn’t feel like coming?”

“Then I disappoint my customer, ma’am.”

The lady laughed, looking away, sitting back in the chair, disturbing the blanket over her legs as she crossed them underneath the fabric. “And that shouldn’t ever be an option, should it? Lest disappointment be something they can’t handle.”

She dared look up at the woman, but her skin was perfect and powdered and her hair fell in ideal curls over her shoulder, and her earrings were long cascades of jewels that mingled between them, and she was so alluring that she couldn’t bear the thought of having disappointed her.

“If I may ask…why haven’t you considered escaping?”

The lady blinked, closed her eyes for a moment as the corner of her lips rose, cat-like, in a satisfied smile.

“Do you think me stupid, Miss?”

“No. No, not…not at all.”

“Nothing you can possibly say to me about my own life or condition will make more sense to me than what I can already say to myself. You don’t know me. I didn’t invite you here to give me life-changing advice.”

She stood. “You are correct. I will return to work.”

The lady let her walk away, a few tentative steps, before putting out her cigarette on the marble surface of the side table. She rose, and Rosie had never seen her stand—if not exactly tall, she looked ominous, wrapped in a dark shawl with only her claws for front clasps.

“Will you?”

“Yes. Yes, I will. I will try the best I can.”

The woman inched closer, running thin fingers through Rosie’s blonde locks. “And answer my notes this time, will you? I’m very interested in knowing how you work. Since I can’t…go out to see it myself.” She closed the distance between them, and Rosie felt herself freeze, until the lady planted a soft kiss on her jawline—then she melted. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to invite you to come work here until you’re done.”

It was a threat disguised with a kiss, and Rosie caught it somewhere in the air between the skin her lips had touched, and the fingers she brought up to trap their fading presence.

* * *

The solution came to her a few days later, after two hours of sleep and a cup of despicable tea, as she leaned on Theo’s silk-covered shoulder and coached him into painting a doll’s eye just right. She didn’t let him know, but she counted every minute, every second until he boxed the doll and announced he was leaving for its delivery. Like a dutiful wife standing guard by the window, following her undutiful husband’s footsteps until the nearest corner obscured him from view, she waited. And then, she flipped the sign. Dolls for dreamers, absolutely, but not always, not then.

She planned carefully, drew letters and diagrams, collected all the materials and contacts she would need to make it work. From the cash register, a heavy stash of bank notes. From behind the counter, her tool bag. She walked out a little after sunset, turned right in the direction of the shady inns and alleys where drug dealers and similar night crawlers made their living, and didn’t come back.

* * *

The doll was delivered by Rosie’s own hands—with the assistance of Theo’s and Aiden’s—to the infamous house of mirrors a few days later, two weeks, in an elaborate box remade from a white coffin. It was life-sized, as expected, as ordered, and wrapped in white tissue paper, thin as the wings of a cabbage butterfly.

It was brighter than usual inside the living room, and the lady awaited her small entourage standing by the nearly opaque white curtains, wrapped in a floral shawl. She looked over at the box, but didn’t let her face fall into any show of emotion.

“Do you bring me a dead man, Miss?”

Rosie felt like laughing, but Theo caught her eye—and he didn’t seem at all amused.

“I will explain everything once my helpers leave, ma’am.”

Helpers. The word seemed to linger over Theo’s shoulders, dripping like acid rain from his wavy hair. “Fine.” He gave the lady a small bow, she nodded in his direction, and then he was gone, with only Aiden and a slight suggestion of anger on his trail.

They were alone. Just the two of them, women from different walks of life, two different types of criminal. The mastermind and the wrecking ball. The wizard—perhaps the witch?—and the dragon. The lady walked forward, and Rosie half expected to hear killer heels on the floor boards, but no—she was barefoot, and her toenails were painted the same bloody shade as her finger nails.

“Shall we unwrap it, then?”

“Of course.” First the locks on the side of the coffin, then the layers and layers of tissue paper. It wasn’t a boy, that time, but a girl. A girl with long black hair that fell straight around her shoulders, small breasts and protruding hipbones. She—it, perhaps—came clothed in a two piece black suit, the jacket long and the neckline deep, deep enough to reveal the Y-shaped, hand-stitched incision that marred her chest. Rosie was willing to admit defeat for how much she looked like Max, if only in the proud features—but when she sat up, after a little coaxing from Rosie’s part, she even seemed to move like him. Cautious, but full of unused potential. Built for carnage, first, and for love, later. Rosie helped her up and out of the box, careful not to strain muscles cold from lying in a tight space for too long. Her eyes were empty—they couldn’t be emptier if Rosie had pulled them out of their sockets and replaced them with glass spheres.

“Does it have a name, Miss V?”

“I haven’t named her, ma’am. I was expecting you would want to do it yourself.”

The lady stepped closer, blew into the doll’s eye. She blinked.

“Should it do that?”

Rosie had kept her fingers crossed. Hoped the lady wouldn’t ask questions she could not answer, because the answers had come while she’d been too artificially dazed, somewhere between Theo’s and Max’s apartments, to remember to take notes.

“She…. I mean, it…. Forgive me, ma’am…” She wasn’t yet good at extracting the humanity from the parts, from the skin and bone and skull and lips of the human who stood just inches from her, a face and body framed in black, tarnished only by a Y-shaped scar over the chest. “The shell is very much human. If you touch h- it, you will realize the skin feels warm, like a human’s would. The shell is human, and it works like a human’s, which means there will be some needs you will need to attend to. Think of it as recharging your companion—perpetual motion is still very much beyond my skill set.”

“How does this creature you offer me differ from a human, then?”

Rosie reached out, and touched the doll. Touched her, not it, running a finger upwards over the stitches. “It’s different here.” She let the finger rest on the doll’s forehead. “And here. The shell is human. The rest is as empty as it looks. And it’s yours to change, and create, and improve as you see fit. I’m sure it will suit your needs. Any changes you feel like making, on the outside or the inside, I will be more than happy to take care of.”

“Anything else I should know?”

No. No, most definitely not.

There was, after all, method to what others saw only as Rosie’s madness—but she had no interest in showing it to them.

* * *

The stitches came out ten days later. The doll served tea. Her name was Gemma, and she moved with the trained delicacy of a creature conscious of eyes lingering over her figure every second of the day, and probably the night.

* * *

You lied. -G

The note was simple, and it arrived four days later written in golden ink over pale pink, thick paper with a vague scent of roses. It deviated from every other note simply in the fact that it reached the shop tied to a box, a white box with gold locks filled with white tissue paper, thin as the wings of a cabbage butterfly. Inside, a kitchen knife, tainted red, and a bundle of paper stained just as dark.

She unwrapped it, and found someone’s heart in her hands.

Sam Fleming

She Gave her Heart, He Took Her Marrow

Apex Magazine, Issue 79, and Best of Apex Magazine Volume 1

* * *

Chancery hissed at the sudden pain of a splinter in her palm. She took a deep breath filled with the scent of dust and woodsap, and exhaled the hurt as steam to dissipate in the cold air.

"See? She’s people," Hedron said. "People are a distraction. They always spoil everything, given a chance. You mustn’t give them one." He bared his tiny, needle-sharp teeth, a distant storm glimmering behind his moonstone eyes.

"Kay’s not people," Chancery said. "How do you know she’s coming, anyway? You promised you’d stay away from the harbour." She put the dropped log on the stack at the back of the shed and pulled the splinter out with her teeth. It tasted of resin and woodlice.

Hedron took her hand and kissed it better. Spores cried like fading ghostly mice as they died.

"I promised I wouldn’t go inside the fence and I haven’t," he said. "One of ours was wandering along the road by the compound, and Kay was talking to the site manager just inside the gate."

He perched on the tree stump Chancery used as a platform for splitting the logs and ran fingers like knobbly twigs around the brim of his hat.

Chancery didn’t like his hat. It was too big and sagged over his head in a floppy, shapeless mass of purple felt attracting dust, cobwebs, fluff, and stray hairs. Once a week or so, he went away for a few hours and came back with it clean. It stayed clean for a day or two at the most. He’d warned her not to touch. She wouldn’t have tried anyway; looking at it made her bones restless and itchy.

He rubbed his fingertips together, sniffing them. They squeaked like soaped glass. A twist of hair fell from the hat and he herded it back with a cupped hand. "She brought chocolate." He offered no explanation as to how he knew this, but all their people had his eyes and ears. He told them what to do.

"Will she visit?"

"Would the Oilers care about cocoa content?"

"No."

"Then she’ll be here tomorrow."

It had been a year since Kay’s last visit, a year since the fight. Chancery couldn’t manage the monthly trade with the Oilers without Hedron telling her what to say, and they didn’t matter much. They were just people, interchangeable.

Kay wasn’t.

Chancery’s vision swum with panic. What if she said the wrong thing?

"She’s not worth getting in a state over," Hedron said. "Think of all the things you could do with that chocolate." He stretched out his long, spider-thin legs and leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head. Dust spilled from his hat and returned as if it were sheep separated from a flock.

Chancery imagined bitter chocolate mousse with honeyed damsons, soufflé, and drowned cherries. She concentrated on the shape of the flavour and all the things that could slot into it, a jigsaw for her tongue, until her breathing settled and her heart stopped racing.

She placed the last three logs. "You just don’t like her."

"She wants to ruin things, take you away. Of course I don’t like her."

"Don’t be stupid. Why would she want that?"

"Not because she loves you, no matter what she says." He kicked some of the bark that had fallen from the logs as Chancery split them.

She shook her head. "I’ll make tea. We’ll try the biscuits I made this morning."

Hedron slouched to his feet, hat brushing the shed roof, and stuffed his hands back inside his smock. "I’m going to check the goats."

"Fine." No point arguing if he was in a sulk.

Hedron had brought her to the farm after he found her. It was self-sufficient in all the ways that mattered, and the farmhouse kitchen alone was the size of the flat she had shared with Annabel; they hadn’t been able to afford anything bigger. Back then, hardly anyone could.

Now, no one else wanted it.

* * *

It had happened suddenly. One day, everything was fine; the next, Annabel said she was leaving.

Annabel was the only one who had seen past the lack of eye contact, the silences that could last for days, the finicky obsessions and pedantry; the disability that wasn’t enough to get Chancery support in a world where everyone was expected to pull their weight. The wasted talent. She was the only person since Chancery’s mother died to make her feel safe and loved; the only one not to have been people.

She might as well have stabbed Chancery in the heart with a boning knife.

The world sublimated; standing at the kitchen window, Chancery could see everything trembling, crumbling around the edges. Furniture, grass, trees, birds, work tops, next door’s dog, all shivering into fragments.

Everything was ruined.

She hadn’t known what to do.

She tried hugging her. "I can come with you."

"No." Annabel said, disentangling herself. "I love you, but I don’t have the energy to go on like this, looking after you, keeping you safe. I’m not helping you by letting you rely on me so much. It’s best for us both if I leave."

She didn’t even kiss Chancery goodbye, just turned and walked out the door.

Chancery knew she had to stop her. This was absolute, a searing, hot-cold certainty. It sliced Chancery in two and poured acid on the cut.

Chancery stumbled after her, tripped on the doorstep, and fell on her face, smashing her nose against flagstones. The pain was white, explosive, awful but irrelevant. All that mattered was, if Annabel got away, she would become just like everyone else. She would become people.

Chancery couldn’t talk to people. She did her best to avoid them.

Out on the street, people were having seizures, vomiting, screaming, thrashing on the ground. Chancery climbed to her feet, shuddering at the noise slicing against her skin, and tried to help Annabel, but what could she do? Nothing she said made any difference. It was as if Annabel could no longer hear her.

After a while, people stopped screaming and the world turned quiet. Eventually, over the course of several days, they all began to walk. They went to the beach, flocking to the sea in skeins and drifts like slow-motion, ground-trapped starlings.

When Annabel went, Chancery went with her, following the silent masses to the ocean. It was a rare day of heat, the sun blazing, the sea both sparkling and smooth, as if covered in partially crumpled foil. It rolled in an easy, steep swell, fat breakers crashing in spumes of froth like whisked eqq whites. About a mile out, the frequent sea fog they called the Haar was a thick, impenetrable wall of white; an endless roulade of candyfloss cloud across the horizon.

People milled on the beach before aiming for the wall. Once in the water, they floundered in the surf, drowning, unable to swim, unable to stop. Bodies bobbed on the waves, a grotesquerie of marker buoys, and lay puffed and bloated on the beach. Crows squabbled with seagulls over a surplus of glistening, crimson ribbons of flesh. The stink of rotting meat and seaweed coated Chancery’s tongue like a mouthful of rancid fruit drenched in iodine and soy.

"Wait!" Chancery grabbed Annabel, clung to her. She pulled away, drawn to something out at sea, just like the other people, oblivious to the corpses. Chancery started after her, but she was already lost.

Chancery collapsed, bones baking. She had visions of them caramelising, could almost smell the roasting marrow. She squeezed fistfuls of sand until it hurt.

When she saw Hedron, he was blurry: a shape, a shadow in a heat haze. He wandered over, taller than any of the people, and she couldn’t tell whether they made room or he passed right through them.

Prickling tendrils burst from high up inside her nose and shot through her brain, a snort of sour fizz with a chilli heat. "Hello," he said. "Aren’t you going with them?"

She tried to answer but couldn’t.

He bent down, cupped her face with hard, spindly fingers, and blew gently on her parted lips. The coolness of his breath on the moistness of her mouth penetrated to her bones, replacing the marrow-deep fire with a detached calm.

She looked up, and he was pulling his hat firmly onto his head. It was covered in a layer of granular soot.

She sat, arms almost too weak to push against the soft sand. "She said I couldn’t. I lost her. I didn’t know what to do. Then you came." She looked at her hands, thinking there should be some sign she nearly roasted from the inside. "You made me better."

"You wouldn’t have been able to speak to me if I hadn’t, and you’re the only one who tried."

She turned to watch people falling like skittles in the surging waves. "All those people," she said. "They’re dying."

"I know. I don’t know why."

"They’re going into the sea."

"What’s wrong with the sea?"

"They drown."

More prickling, ticklish rather than painful this time.

"All right. We’ll keep some of them. They can help me keep you safe."

Chancery picked up a dead crab and made its legs waggle, then frowned at the opaque horizon. It was so quiet. So peaceful. Her limbs relaxed outwards, as if she were a trussed chicken and someone had cut the string. "Do we have to?"

* * *

Hardly anyone escaped, Hedron had said at the time, pleased with himself. Bones still lay in bleached white drifts of fragments on the beach, barely recognisable after five years of winter storms. The Haar remained, never straying further than around three miles out, no matter the weather, although sometimes it came all the way in. Chancery knew that was when people were trying to reach the island and Hedron didn’t want them to.

Armed coastal patrols kept Britain in internationally ratified quarantine. Only the Oilers were allowed to land. Their Aberdeen Harbour compound was the one place still accessible. Three years after the Walk they’d surrounded the docks with an electric fence and doused everything in chemicals before resuming work there. Maybe they really needed the oil.

Although she’d never been inside, Chancery bartered with them, with Hedron’s help. Gourmet meats and preserves, jewellery she’d found—things they couldn’t afford where they lived—for rifle ammunition, flour, and spices. She’d asked Hedron not to infect them and he’d agreed, as long as they kept bringing her things, didn’t leave their compound, and she didn’t tell them about him.

He wanted her to be happy. Cooking made her happy.

She gave them jars with lids sucked tight and tupperware containing gold and gemstones swimming in bleach, which they had her drop into plastic bags she wasn’t allowed to touch. They weren’t to know the real reason they were safe.

The first few visits, they’d tried to catch her. Once, she barely escaped. She begged Hedron not to send his people to spit and shed through the fence, nor to activate the spores coating the piers and their vehicles, in case it disturbed the status quo and even more people came. He eventually relented, although the ones responsible had walked, and he made them stay near the compound as a warning, until they starved to death.

After that, the Oilers settled for trading. Hedron said they thought they were keeping an eye on her, as if she needed it with him around.

That was how she’d met Kay, and Kay was the only one who’d been outside since.

Chancery hadn’t needed Hedron to talk to Kay. Kay wasn’t people.

The kettle rattled, spitting water onto the hotplate. Chancery dragged herself away from one of her treasured recipe books and filled the cracked brown teapot before snuggling it under a cosy.

She retreated to the living room with biscuits and tea. Curled up in front of the fire with notebook and pen, she made a list. Lists kept her calm. Hedron had taught her that. They were recipes for getting through the day.

After a while she opened her eyes to see Hedron peering at her notebook. The fire had died away to embers. She threw twigs and logs into the hearth to get it going again.

Skook nosed his way around the door, pink tongue lolling and his face all wet. Hedron had got Skook for her after the Oilers tried to catch her. He was an enormous dog, the biggest she’d ever seen. He had fluffy fur the colour of autumn leaves and looked like a cross between a lion and a bear. Hedron said he was a Himalayan mastiff. Even down on all fours, his head reached her chest, and Chancery loved him to bits. She had never been to see the Oilers without him since he arrived. He helped Hedron keep her safe.

"How were the goats?"

"Fine. I’ve got a couple of our people out by the barn." Hedron didn’t say what they were doing because they both knew. They would be walking. That’s what they did.

"I’ll be careful." They’d learned the hard way it was almost impossible for Hedron to stop her walking when she was close to one of their people and he and his hat were elsewhere. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"I ate not long ago." He yawned, mouth impossibly huge above his pointy chin, teeth glinting in the firelight.

Chancery didn’t ask what he’d had. Or who. She put the guard in front of the fire and returned to the kitchen.

* * *

She fetched rabbits and pheasants from the snares in the greyness of pre-dawn, the Haar thick and moist across the fields and forests. The rest of the morning was spent on mise-en-place, because Kay was coming and Chancery wanted it to be perfect. She always wanted it to be perfect, but didn’t mind getting it wrong so much when there was no one around to see.

Hedron visited after lunch.

"Are you going to clean your hat?" she asked. It was making her bones itch and her toes curl. He fingered the brim and sniffed his fingers.

"Not today," he said. "You mustn’t stray far without me, Chancery."

"Okay."

She frowned as he left. He wasn’t normally quite so protective.

* * *

She was reading, clean and a little damp from an early bath, when Skook went mad and an engine rumbled into the yard, the sound burbling in her gullet. Her heart kicked against her ribcage.

Someone banged on the door. "Chance? Have you got hold of that carnivorous pony?"

Chancery knew Kay meant Skook, even though Skook was a dog. "Yes!"

Then she heard a much deeper voice, a voice that pattered on her skin like the first pebbles of an oncoming landslide. She grabbed the boning knife from the rack.

Kay was swaddled in a heavy fleece with the Chevroil logo on the breast, a fur-lined trapper hat, mitts, and thick cargo-trousers. She trailed a scent of soft-hard peony, orange blossom, sandalwood, and vanilla; by comparison, Chancery’s honeysuckle soap smelled of cheap chemicals. Her deep brown eyes, candied rose petal lips, and complexion of smooth, dark, rich honey were so perfectly beautiful Chancery’s gut twisted in a tight knot of hopeless inadequacy.

Worse, behind Kay was a man. A people. Hedron would be so angry.

Sick anxiety clogged Chancery’s throat.

"My god, you’ve gotten thin." Kay pulled off her hat, hair falling in glossy waves. "Hi, Skook. Remember me?"

He growled, hackles raised.

"Evidently not. Oh, Chance. It’s so good to see you."

Kay embraced her. She returned it, stiffly, not ready for the intimacy but not wanting to offend. She could smell the man. Bacon, baked beans, and black pudding. All Oilers were the same; she couldn’t tell them apart.

Except Kay.

"What’s this?" Kay plucked the knife from her hand. Chancery couldn’t reply, but her fingers ached to snatch it back. Kay put the knife on the table.

"It’s all right, Rob. Chance’s shy," Kay said over her shoulder. "You must know Rob, Chance. He told me your sausages are the best." She paused, her face an undecipherable combination of smile curves and frown lines. "I’ll have to see more of you or one day you’ll forget me, too. Rob, would you mind helping me with my stuff? I brought coffee and I’d better get it before Chance makes me some unspeakable concoction from twigs and rabbit droppings."

"I said I’d drop you off, that’s all. I thought this place was close to the beach." Rob’s gravelly voice made the words clipped and fierce.

"We’re only a mile inland. You can practically smell the sea," Kay told him in a harsh whisper. "Think of Sara. She’s your niece. You’ve got plenty of time. Man up."

Kay turned back, expression tight and stiff. "This won’t take long," she said.

They went out again. Chancery stood by the stove, shaking. She tried to calm herself by listing all the recipes she knew for raspberries. Skook growled and she shushed him.

They fetched five boxes, piling them on the floor. Kay took Rob outside and there was muffled conversation, then the jeep left with a throaty gurgle. Chancery stared at the pyramid of cardboard invading her space.

When Kay returned, she took off her jacket and her boots, dumping them on the floor by the sink instead of putting them where they were supposed to go.

"Right!" She grabbed the knife and plunged it through the tape sealing the first box. Chancery swallowed her instinctive protest. Skook pressed against her.

Kay rummaged and made piles of bubble wrap. "Teabags," she said, brandishing a box. "Coffee. Chocolate. Ammunition and clothes…Must be in another box. Preserved lemons, hickory chips, almond flour, parmesan, canned cherries, olive oil, dried pasta—”

Chancery’s legs folded under her. The cold seeped into her buttocks, grocery items and packaging accumulating around her, long-lost scents worming into her head. She rocked, clutching herself so she wouldn’t dissolve into the strangeness.

"Oh god. I’m sorry." Kay put the jar she was holding back in the box. "You’re getting worse. You shouldn’t be out here alone." She kept her voice soft, glancing at the dog. "I’ll tidy this up and we can go through and have a drink, like normal people."

Kay’s tidying comprised throwing everything back in the box and kicking the bubble wrap under the table. She dumped the knife in the sink and grabbed a bottle of French wine with one hand and Chancery with the other. "Come on."

* * *

"They caught a few two weeks ago." Kay had drunk half the bottle. Chancery had barely touched her glass. Skook was asleep on the hearthrug. "Took them to Porton Down. Everyone thought they’d be dead by now. No one knows why they’re not. I heard one of them was pregnant. They must be breeding. Can you imagine? They say the further inland you go the less time it takes before you Walk, no matter how careful you are. It’s why the scientists got infected, despite all the precautions. Even the ones who didn’t go near the Walkers."

That’s what people called Hedron’s people. To Chancery they were all just different sorts of people. She had to avoid them unless someone was around to look after her. Her mum, then Annabel, now Hedron.

"Oh," Chancery said.

"I heard that’s why they went into the sea at first. To get away from it. Now the only one who can stay here is you. It’s so sad."

That was the way Chancery and Hedron liked it. "Are you hungry?"

There was a pause. "I could eat."

Kay sat at the kitchen table while Chancery finished and plated up. Her unbroken attention made Chancery’s hands tremble as she positioned vegetables in a delicate garden salad and finished with a warm dressing of rosehip vinegar and hazelnut oil. She put the plate in front of Kay and poured her a glass of oak leaf wine. Kay speared a carrot and sucked it off her fork with a loud slurp that made Chancery flinch.

"How do you make a carrot taste so good?" she asked.

Chancery served rabbit loin braised in a broth of dried leaves and mushrooms, accompanied by its own sautéed, sliced heart, and roasted venison marrow on a bed of succulent moss. Kay went into raptures over the loin and the heart, slurping and sucking on every piece, but didn’t touch the rest.

"I get paid a lot—and I mean a lot—and I couldn’t afford to eat somewhere serving food like this," she said.

For dessert, Chancery offered a honeyed apple tart with damson liqueur.

"You’re too talented to waste out here," Kay said. “Chance—” She hesitated. "We’re closing the depot. The profit margins are thin and the company’s worried." Her fingers alternated like legs on the tabletop.

"No Oiler has walked recently." Hedron would have mentioned it.

"I want you to come home with me. Please. There might not be a next time."

Chancery cleared the table.

"Talk to me," Kay said.

"I need to get the dishes done."

"Leave those. They’re not important."

This was clearly wrong. Chancery ignored it.

"Dammit, Chance!" Kay’s outburst shocked Chancery into tears, and she dropped the glass she was holding. It shattered. "When we met you were about ten kilos heavier and I could talk to you. You didn’t make much sense, but you’d talk. You’re eating plants and twigs. You look like you’d snap in a breeze. You reacted to Rob like a child reacts to a stranger, and I can barely get a word out of you. You’re only twenty-five. You’re wasting away."

Her chair scraped, grating on Chancery’s spine, and a moment later Chancery recoiled at the touch of hands on her shoulders.

"I don’t want to upset you, but you can’t stay here by yourself."

"I’m not by myself." She had to force the words out between choked sobs.

"Skook’s a dog. You need someone to take care of you. You need people."

"I don’t! I’ve got Hedron."

Kay’s hands stiffened. "Hedron? Oh, Chance. He’s not real."

Fresh tears stung Chancery’s eyes. Her gut burned and her skin turned cold as fresh fish. "You said he was as real as anything."

She’d fought so long with Hedron, pleading to be allowed to tell Kay about him, so she would understand why it was safe to visit. Kay was the closest thing to Annabel Chancery had found.

"Real to you. He helped you cope with being the only survivor. But when they close the depot you’ll be alone out here."

Broken glass glittered in the sink and found its way into Chancery’s heart. "I need to get the dishes done."

Kay blew a sigh then patted Chancery’s shoulders, making her shudder. "We’ll talk again tomorrow. I’m really tired. I’m going to bed."

"Your room’s freshly made," Chancery said, and wondered if there was a way to make the last ten minutes not have happened.

* * *

Chancery was woken by the door opening. The room was black, save for the bright rectangle of moonlight on the window frame. She listened so hard the soft pad of footsteps stroked her eardrums.

The bed heaved when Kay climbed under the duvet. She slid her hand around Chancery’s waist then up to nestle between her breasts. Lips pressed against her spine, pliant and moist, a patch of heat that blew cold when the kiss moved on. Chancery felt herself flush warm and tingly, even as her skin prickled in the draught. She tangled her fingers around Kay’s hand and brought it to her lips so she could kiss her fingertips.

She breathed deep, and Kay’s scent was thick and dense. She kissed Kay’s palm, pushing her tongue against it to taste her skin.

Kay’s breathing slowed and her arm became slack. Chancery kissed her hand once more then put it back against her chest, holding it tight.

* * *

She slid out of bed quietly, so as not to wake Kay. It was early, still dark. She had chores to do.

"Why do you think she brought all this if she wants you to go with her?" Hedron asked when she entered the kitchen. He was hunched over the pile, all elbows and knees and furious angles. Chancery gaped at him. She had never seen his hat so filthy. Looking at it made her bones quiver and burn. It made her want to run.

"You need to sort your hat, Hedron."

"Answer the question."

Chancery shrugged. "I don’t know."

"To show you what you’re missing." He jabbed an accusing finger at the pile. "Olive oil and Belgian chocolate. Saffron, Chancery. She doesn’t think lichen and leaf broth can compete with white truffle and cinnamon."

Chancery cracked the lid on a pot of pimenton dulce and sniffed. The heady aroma’s physical presence conjured a forgotten happy memory: Annabel making a mess of spaghetti carbonara with chorizo in their tiny kitchen, laughing as the sun turned her hair to spun gold.

No one since Annabel had kissed her until Kay did.

Chancery hugged herself, remembering the feel of someone else’s skin.

"You and Skook could come, too."

"You know what would happen." He held out his arms like a scarecrow and pirouetted. "All those people. This is our home and you belong here, with us, where we can keep you safe. She doesn’t love you like we do."

All those people. How many more would walk if she did?

Part of her wanted to. Part of her wanted to because they all would.

* * *

"You shouldn’t have bothered putting the stuff away," Kay said around a mouthful of toast piled with fish and egg. She poured more coffee and tapped her satellite phone. "They’ve moved the departure date. I have to take you back tomorrow."

"I can’t."

"What?"

"All those people. I can’t."

Kay rummaged in her bag. "I have something for you." She produced an envelope. Chancery took it and read the letter inside. "It’s an offer of a place in the kitchen at the Sanctuary in Bergen," she said, as if Chancery were too stupid and damaged to understand it. "It’s an amazing opportunity." Chancery felt faint. The restaurant’s recipe book was one of her favourites. "You’d have to go through quarantine, but that only takes a week. I know you’re scared of being amongst people again, but you’d adapt. I think you’d blossom."

Outside, Hedron was talking to the chickens. The volcano smouldering on his head made Chancery nauseous, itchy, and restless. She shivered.

"I belong here," she whispered.

"Don’t you get it, Chance? Do you know how selfish you’re being?"

Skook ambled over. She rubbed his ears and he licked her arm.

"You’ve been out here for five years and you haven’t Walked. You’re the only one. You could help people come back."

Chancery put her arms around Skook’s neck and pressed her face against him, her chest tight and painful. There was a long silence.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes." Skook’s fur grew damp under her cheek.

An engine rumbled into the yard and brakes squealed painfully.

"I have to go to work. I’ll leave you to think about it. Please. All those people need you. I need you."

Kay jammed her feet into her boots, right there at the table, and left.

* * *

There were a lot more of Hedron’s people around that day than usual, wandering like ghosts in the Haar. Mindful of Hedron’s caution, Chancery didn’t stray far from the house. Even so, she nearly ran into one, coming close enough for her to see the oozing cracks in his blackened lips and smell his off-sweet, cheese and pear-drops scent. He reached for her, eyes glistening in a face scalloped by emaciation and scaly with flaking skin, his hands shiny and dried to red, worse than her own. His song filled her head with his aching desire to hold and be held, but he didn’t touch her. She wondered if he’d been told not to.

She wondered if he’d ever not been people.

At lunchtime, the temperature dropped and the sky darkened. She went out, opened the door to the barn, and put out leftover rabbit, venison, cheese, and bread.

"It’s going to snow," Hedron said. She could barely see him in the gloom.

"I know." She pulled her jacket tighter, shaking. Her bones itched, hot and cold at the same time.

"This looks good."

"There are a lot of them about today."

"You’re safe enough. I’m not far. You should go inside, though. You’re cold."

"I’m going. I don’t feel too good. What about you?"

"I’ve got things to do. But Chancery?" He waited until she was looking right at him. "Don’t worry. Okay? No matter what happens. I’ll be close."

"Okay."

She headed back to the house. When she reached the tiny road between the house and the farm she looked back and stuffed her knuckles in her mouth at the sight of him. His head was hidden beneath a seething, roiling mass of grey like stormclouds made of corpse skin. Her marrow fizzed and her skin prickled and stung. Her eyes smarted as if she were chopping onions.

"Go inside," he called, and his voice was sterner than she had ever heard it. It frightened and reassured her, both at the same time.

* * *

The snow came, fat flakes drifting until the wind picked up and sent wild flurries careening through the sky. Chancery settled down by the range, listing her supplies and flicking through recipe books. She wanted to be overflowing with so many ideas she didn’t know what to try first. The ideas were there, spinning and whirling like the snow, but she couldn’t tame them because Kay’s scalding anger and betrayal kept forcing their way to the front of her thoughts.

Kay didn’t believe in Hedron; hadn’t asked why Chancery was so thin when she cooked so much. How could Chancery convince her? Hedron looks after me. He loves me. He looks after you, too, when you visit, because I asked him to.

That would just make Kay angry again. She should have asked Hedron what to say.

When did Kay start turning into people?

She was still worrying at it when an engine coughed, popping in her chest. Flustered, she tried to focus on making some dinner because it was that or run away and hide. She’d got as far as jointing the pheasant when Skook began barking out in the yard. She went to the door. He was bouncing around in the headlights, saliva flying from his teeth.

"Come!"

With a shake of his head, he ran over and pushed her back inside. She closed the door. He stood on his hind paws at the sink to stare out the window.

"Chance? It’s freezing!"

"Skook, sit." He lowered his hindquarters until they barely touched the floor, growling. "Okay."

Kay came in, stamping to get the snow off. "My god, that weather. Did you know there are Walkers out there?"

"Where else would they be?"

"This many, though?"

Chancery shrugged.

"Hi, Skook." Kay reached to pet him and he snapped at her, teeth missing her hand by a careful inch. "If he’s aggressive like that back home, they’ll have him destroyed."

Chancery’s fingers tightened around his scruff.

"I’m sure he’ll be all right," Kay said, then, "We have to leave tonight."

Chancery shook her head. She had no idea what to say other than, "I can’t."

"Chance, Rob Walked. You have to come."

Hedron hadn’t said anything about that.

"I can’t." It was hopelessly inadequate.

Kay was silent for a moment. There were no lines or curves on her face. "Fine. It’s okay. Really. I just need to get something from the jeep."

An icy gust barrelled into the kitchen when Kay went out. Chancery rubbed Skook’s ears, tense.

The door opened again, snow shredding the air. Skook barked, deep and angry, and there was a tremendous crack. In the confines of the kitchen, the gunshot was deafening, stunning, a sledgehammer to the head. Chancery’s ears sang against silencing numbness as she stared at Skook lying on the floor with metallic crimson matting his fur.

Someone grabbed her. She heard hollow burbling, water gurgling in distant pipes.

She was hoisted into the air. She screamed. She kicked. She pummelled with her fists and when someone tried to pin her she scratched and bit. She was released and tried to run but was grabbed again and bundled to the floor. Sharp pain lanced through her leg and she cried out. Someone knelt on her shins and someone else held her hands way above her head, making her shoulders hurt. The sound of sticky tearing preceded constriction around her wrists and ankles. Fire licked her bones.

Something like a wasp sting jabbed into her arm, then she was drowning in liquid dark, Hedron’s name tangled around her tongue.

* * *

Chancery was sick. It wasn’t helped by the sinuous rise and fall of the boat underneath her. She assumed it was a boat—it smelled like one.

"I’m sorry."

Chancery turned towards the wall, not wanting to see her.

"The world needs you. It’s selfish to stay where you were."

Chancery’s bones were baking. It wouldn’t be long now. There had been no sign of Hedron since she woke up.

"I’m sorry about Skook, I really am."

She didn’t sound sorry, but Chancery didn’t know what sorry sounded like. Never had.

"We’ll reach Zeebrugge in a couple of days. There’s a team waiting to examine you. They’re not going to hurt you. They just want to take a few samples, keep you in for a few days."

"They’ll kill me," Chancery said.

"Don’t be silly. They just want you to help them find a way to fight the disease, that’s all." She paused, then said, "Try and get some rest. Shall I bring you something to eat?" She must have realised the offer was insulting. "No. All right then."

Chancery pulled the thin blanket to her chest and squeezed it between her fingers so tightly the tendons ached. Nerves fired randomly in her legs, making her knees jerk and twitch.

Not long now.

"I did this for my daughter. Sara. She’s very ill. The medical bills—” A broken, halting sob. "A cure for the Walk is worth a lot of money. I took the job for the life insurance, the Walk policy, but after I met you I couldn’t…I hope one day you’ll understand."

The door shut. Chancery tried to go back to sleep, knowing this wasn’t a nightmare, hoping it was. A minute passed, two, and then a sound that had been familiar until five years ago: the heavy, regular, fast thump of a helicopter.

She scrambled out of bed, fell on the floor. Her right leg wouldn’t support her weight. She hobbled to the door. It was locked. There was no window.

"Hedron," she whispered. "Where are you? You said it’d be okay."

She sat in the corner, on the floor, waiting, fidgeting, rocking, burning up inside. The hands of the clock, high on the wall, swung from nine-twenty to almost ten, then voices murmured on the other side of the door. The lock clunked and a figure entered the room. It was covered in blue material, and had a square of clear plastic over its face. Another two figures, similarly clad, remained outside in the corridor.

Chancery stared. She couldn’t breathe.

"Don’t be afraid." His voice, thickly accented, was muffled. "My name is Doctor Marcello Martino. I need to take a blood sample, just to be sure everything is A-OK, yes? Miss Korsten tells me you survived five years without Walking. You are a very special young lady, and we will take very good care of you."

He carried a kidney dish. A blood collection kit, five tubes and a needle, rolled around in it.

She squealed.

Then she saw Hedron. He winked at her. "Don’t worry," he said. "List all the things you can do with apples."

People wearing crew uniforms grabbed the two figures in the corridor. They ripped the hoods off the suits as the men inside screamed. Martino turned to see what the commotion was and someone ripped his suit, too.

Hedron bared his teeth and his eyes spat lightning. He removed his hat. It was a dark, irregular ball made of dust, cobwebs, lint, stray hair, soil, dirt, skin flakes, fish scales, leaf litter, and fly shit. It oozed hunger. His hair sprang up in a thick, woolly mass of green and white, rippling like an anemone covered in cobwebs.

He clapped his hands against his hat.

Dust exploded.

Chancery’s eyes streamed, nausea making her stiff. Vertigo gnawed at her temples. Her marrow was on fire, her heart pounding so hard her ribcage shook. The doctor and his men doubled over, pink-tinged vomit splattering on the floor and filling the room with a sharp, bilious stench. Hedron grasped his hat in both hands and squeezed, wringing it like a dishcloth.

“Hedron—”

"It’s okay. Stay there. Close your eyes."

"I don’t feel well."

"I know. Don’t worry. Do as I say."

She could not disobey that voice. She wrapped her arms over her head, quaking with fever. Minutes stretched the shivers into spasms. Screams echoed from the corridor, punctuated by dull slaps, wet meaty thuds, and occasional gunshots.

When everything fell silent, Hedron came and sat beside her. His hat was back on his head and it was spotless.

"It’s okay," he said.

"I’m sick." Her teeth chattered.

"I know."

"Am I going to walk?"

He curled down to kiss her head. His voice surged inside her, a song without melody. "Ssh. Don’t worry. I’m here. You’re safe. Tell me all the recipes you know for liver."

* * *

Hours later, Hedron helped her limp onto the deck of the platform supply vessel, his hat sooty. The sky was darkening, snow drifting like ash. The control house sat five floors above the bow, bristling with antennae and radar arrays. The helicopter perched at the stern of the long, flat cargo deck, where the crew meandered in Brownian motion. They were a mile offshore. Black smoke from the harbour curled upwards against flat, grey clouds. The sea rolled in a smooth, glassy swell the colour of an approaching storm.

"What happened to Kay?" she asked.

Hedron pointed to one of the people on the deck. Chancery supposed she ought to feel sad.

But then, Kay had spoiled things. Just like Hedron said she would.

"Do you know how to drive a boat?"

He indicated the crew. "They do."

Chancery nodded. "I’m going to be okay amn’t I, Hedron?"

"Of course," he said. "You’ve got me. I’d do anything to keep you safe." He gazed towards the horizon, beyond the foggy swirls of Haar, and showed his teeth. "Anything."

Annalee Flower Horne

Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From The Trade Summit Incident

“Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From The Trade Summit Incident” originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jul/Aug 2014.

* * *

To: Command Staff, Associated Planets Ship Stinson

by: Cadet-Captain DeShawna Blanchard

Re: Disciplinary Action Plan—Essay Component

SEVEN THINGS I LEARNED FROM THE TRADE SUMMIT INCIDENT

I knew I was in trouble when the air vents in the ship’s gymnasium started farting.

Cadet-Captains Padma Rajan, Kiyan Sherazi, and I were on the pull-up bars, just after 1930 hours.

“Seven…Eight…Jesus, Blanchard, what’d you do?” Rajan said.

I caught the look on her face and sniffed the air. It smelled like a wet fart. That’s when I noticed the light puff of smoke coming from the nearest air vent.

“It wasn’t me,” I said.

Sherazi finished his set. “Someone probably programmed the MECUs to print stink bombs,” he said. “It happened a few times on my last ship. Cheap prank. You’ve pulled off way better.”

Lesson #1: The Stinson’s safety systems can tell the difference between a hazardous gas and a stink bomb, and won’t activate for the latter.

Rajan dropped to the deck. “Command’s going to come looking for you, Blanchard.”

I finished my last rep and dropped down beside her. Cadets on the track were starting to moan and pull their shirts up around their noses. “It wasn’t me,” I said again. “I mean, stink bombs? What am I, eleven?”

“I didn’t say you did it. I said they were going to come looking for you.” She glanced up at the vents, which were now emitting a steady fog of brownish smoke. “I’m guessing in about three—two—”

The gymnasium’s main hatch swished open.

Commander Sherazi entered.

The cadet nearest to her on the track skidded to a stop. “Ten-hut!”

“As you were,” she called, before we could finish coming to attention.

“Oh, that’s not a good face,” Cadet Sherazi said, under his breath. “Trust me, Blanchard, you don’t want to back-talk my mother when she has that face.”

“Cadet Blanchard,” the commander called. “Hallway. Now.” She turned around and walked out.

“—one,” Rajan said.

“Thanks, pal.” I smoothed my hair and followed the commander out.

Commander Sherazi was waiting for me in the hall.

“Cadet-Captain Blanchard, reporting as ordered, Command—”

Commander Sherazi gestured to the nearest air vent. “Do you think this is funny, Blanchard?”

Lesson 2: Stink bombs are not funny.

I resisted the urge to point out that the unparalleled record of inspired, class-one pranks I have allegedly orchestrated aboard the Stinson should put me well above suspicion for something as budget as stink bombs. However, I reserve my right to submit a formal protest at a later time. “No, sir.”

“You had better not, Cadet, because your little prank has just disrupted the trade summit.”

“Sir, I didn’t—”

“I do not want to hear it, Cadet. You think we didn’t have enough trouble with Earth’s agricorps rep dragging his heels on samples? Now we’ve had to suspend the summit entirely until we can scrub the air. I cannot believe I actually have to tell a cadet of the Associated Planets this, but you are not permitted to modify the Matter-Energy Conversion Unit code for any reason, ever. Am I understood, Cadet?”

I wanted to tell her again that I wasn’t involved. And I’d like to point out that if I had been allowed to defend myself at the time, I would not have needed to undertake the actions for which I’ve incurred this Disciplinary Action Plan. But because I am a model soldier who shows excellent restraint in the face of patently unfair accusations, I said instead, “Yes, sir.”

“I didn’t hear you, Cadet.”

I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and repeated, “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” she said. “I understand you think yourself something of a wit, Cadet, but the captain is not happy about this. You’re going to be explaining yourself to him tomorrow morning. Now change your clothes, report to the mess hall, and fix the MECU code.”

I blinked. “Fix the MECU code, sir?”

“Did I stutter, Cadet?”

“No, sir, but you did just order me not to modify the MECU code for any reason, ever.”

Lesson 3: No one likes a smartass.

Lesson 4: Ordering a cadet to use a terminal at stink bomb ground zero is not a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Titan Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War, or the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child. I am not entitled to a tribunal to redress this heinous injustice.

Even though I could have fixed the code from any other terminal on the ship.

The mess hall itself didn’t smell so much like a wet fart as it did like an uncleaned lavatory in a norovirus-infested sick bay.

The commander hadn’t been on the Stinson long enough to internalize the slanderous gossip about my reputation for alleged involvement in works of staggering comic genius. But once I logged in, I could see why she had come gunning straight for me.

The malicious code had been checked into the MECU repository from my account.

I looked up the terminal ID from which I had supposedly vandalized the MECUs. It was assigned to the personal terminal in Commander Sherazi’s quarters.

My thoughts immediately went to Cadet Sherazi, talking about this happening on his last ship. I reverted the code to the previous commit, then copied the blame log onto my tablet and headed back to the gymnasium.

Cadets Rajan and Sherazi had reached the aft end of the track when I finally caught up with them. I grabbed Cadet Sherazi by the collar and yanked him behind a stack of tumbling mats.

“Hey, what the puck, Blanchard?” I may be approximating our choice of words. I have no recollection of any words or phrases unbecoming officers in training, but I believe the time I spent in the stink-infested mess hall had a deleterious effect on my short-term memory. I may need several days’ R&R to recover.

“You’re a real piece of ship, Sherazi.”

Cadet Rajan joined us behind the pile of mats. “What’d he do?”

“What’d he do? Gee, Sherazi. Your mom just read me the riot act and sent me to the mess hall—which, by the way, smells like an open-air latrine on Titan—an odor I don’t think is ever coming out of my clothes—and—”

“Stop right there.” Sherazi pulled away from me and straightened his shirt. “You do not get to come after me because my mom disciplined you for setting off stink bombs.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said again.

“So show her the blame log on the MECU code.”

“Yeah, funny thing about the blame log,” I said. “It’s got my name in it.”

“Maybe you should secure your passwords better, Blanchard.”

I shoved my tablet to his chest. “It’s also got the terminal ID for the personal terminal in your quarters.”

Cadet Sherazi frowned and grabbed the tablet. “This is from 2100 hours yesterday,” he said. “I wasn’t there.”

“Yeah? And where were you, exactly?”

Sherazi paused for a second. “Somewhere else.”

I scoffed. “Well you weren’t down here, or I would have seen you. So…?”

“I don’t remember,” he said. “I went for a walk.”

“Where, outside?”

“Oh for puck’s sake,” Cadet Rajan said. “He was with me.”

I stopped. “Oh.”

Sherazi looked at the floor. “Yeah.”

(Cadets Rajan and Sherazi have asked me to clarify, for the record, that they were playing chess, and that they remained in authorized areas of the ship the entire time.)

“So, what?” I said. “Your mother added the bad code, then blamed me for it?”

“My mother was entertaining some of the Earth trade delegation,” he said, “trying to figure out what to do about their agricorps rep—he’s been a pain in everyone’s neck since the talks started.”

“Could one of them have done it?”

Cadet Sherazi furrowed his brow. “Why would they?”

“I don’t know, maybe one of them is secretly an eleven-year-old boy? Login credentials can be used anywhere, but you can’t spoof the terminal ID in the blame log. It had to come from that terminal, at that time.”

Sherazi ran a hand over his hair. “Well, at least this exonerates you, right?”

Cadet Rajan and I shook our heads.

“What?”

“I don’t know how things were on your last ship,” I said, “but here, you can remote into a terminal from a tablet even through a bulkhead. They’ll just say I was standing outside.”

A bell sounded the end of Physical Training.

“Well,” Sherazi said. “Let’s see if any tablets were synced to the terminal at that time.”

I had expected the XO’s quarters to be larger.

The main room was the exact same layout as the cadets’ wardroom on deck twelve, but her sofa still had all its stuffing, and her dining room table didn’t have a cover that came off to convert it for billiards.

“Maman, you around?” Cadet Sharazi called.

There was no answer.

The terminal was built into a desk tucked behind a partition. Next to it was an external porthole with a decent view of Earth and its moon.

Sherazi sat down at the console, signed in, and pulled up the logs. “My mother’s tablet was synced in,” he said, pointing.

Cadet Rajan leaned over the desk. “Could a guest have used her tablet?”

I shook my head. “It was idle. No packets transferred.” I pointed at the next line. “Whose pad is this?”

Cadet Sherazi copied the device ID and did a whois lookup.

“It’s registered to Clark Ward,” he said. “Agricorps trade representative. I don’t think he was even here. My mom had the leaders of his delegation up to talk about him.”

I leaned over and tapped back to the logs. “And would you look at that? Mr. Ward’s connection was transferring data to and from this terminal at precisely 2100 hours.”

“But he wasn’t even here.”

I pulled up the ship’s directory on my tablet. “Guess who’s staying one deck directly below you?”

Sherazi sat back in his seat. “No one is going to believe a trade representative set off stink bombs. Why would he?”

“Let’s find out.” I pulled up the network options on my tablet and scanned the list for the same ID we’d seen in the logs. “Oops, looks like someone doesn’t have his tablet locked from remote sync requests.”

I set up the sync, then ran a search on his files for one of the lines I’d found in the MECU code.

It came up attached to an email:

To: clark.ward@agricorp-alliance.org

From: Emile.Deveroux@globalfarms.com

Re: STALL THEM

Message: I did some digging around for you. Turns out the Stinson has some pranksters in the Cadet Corps—see attached disciplinary record for Cadet DeShawna Blanchard. It’s as long as your arm, so she probably has it coming. Here’s some code that was used in a prank on the APS Earhart that got all the ship’s MECUs to print stink bombs. It should buy you an extra day.

Yesterday, Clark Ward wrote:

Look, I’ve done everything I can, but everyone is losing patience with me. The XO has invited the heads of the Earth delegation to her quarters for dinner tonight, and you can bet she’s going to tell them to bench me. They want those samples.

Before that, Emile Deveroux wrote:

We just need a few more days. The nerds in the lab are sure they can fix the corn problem. We really need this contract. Can’t you ask them to go over the terms again?

Four days ago, Clark Ward wrote:

ETA on the corn?

Nine days ago, Clark Ward wrote:

Understood.

Ten days ago, Emile Deveroux wrote:

There’s a serious problem with the corn. They thought the modifications we made to deal with the new Martian superbugs were solid, but the Marsies in our test kitchen all ended up in the ICU. We’re keeping it quiet down here. Stall the talks until we can get hold of some nonmodified corn to send up for samples.

“Well,” Cadet Sherazi said, “that ought to prove you didn’t do it.”

“There’s more,” Cadet Rajan said. She showed me her own tablet, on which she’d pulled up another of Ward’s emails:

To: clark.ward@agricorp-alliance.org

From: Emile.Deveroux@globalfarms.com

Re: Success

Message: Glad the stink bombs worked. I have some more code for you. This will cause an airlock malfunction on the lower decks. The air pressure warnings will clear any personnel before the place vents, but it should make them think they’ve got some major technical issues.

I showed the message to Sherazi.

He read it over and rose from his chair. “We have to show this to my mother immediately.”

The door hissed open. “Show me what, Kiyan? Oh.”

Rajan and I bolted to attention. “Commander—”

“As you were, Cadets. Kiyan, I didn’t realize you were bringing guests.”

“Commander,” I started again. “Clark Ward was responsible for the stink bombs.”

“Cadet, you’d better not have asked my son to bring you to my quarters so that you could—”

“Maman,” Cadet Sherazi interrupted. “You really ought to have a look at her tablet.”

The commander stared at me for a long moment, then held out her hand. “This had better be good.”

“I found some messages between Ward and one of his people back on Earth,” I said.

She looked at my tablet, and I guess she got as far as realizing I had his files before she stopped to glare at me. “You found some messages, Cadet?”

Lesson 5: I am not permitted to access trade delegates’ tablets without permission. This is true even if there is no law against accessing a system that’s open to remote requests, Ward has no proof that his system was locked, and the cracking tools I allegedly used are apparently so ingeniously hidden that no one inspecting my tablet has been able to find them.

I met her gaze. “Yes, Commander, I found some messages, and you really ought to read them.”

She turned her attention back to my tablet. When she was done reading, I directed her to the message Cadet Rajan had found.

Her eyes widened. Then she handed my tablet back, turned on her heel, and headed for the door. “Go to your wardroom and stay there, Cadets.” Into her wrist cuff, she said, “Sherazi to the bridge. Secure all airlocks immediately. Inform Captain Mbata I need to speak to him at once.”

When the door had closed behind the commander, Rajan, Sherazi, and I all looked at each other.

“I bet he’s on his way to the brig,” Rajan said.

Sherazi smiled. “The brig’s on the way to our wardroom.”

“For definitions of ‘on the way’ meaning ‘I owe that guy a polite gesture of contempt which in no way resembles conduct unbecoming an officer in training,’” I said, starting for the door.

We arrived in the corridor outside the brig just in time to watch Ward being walked out of the lift.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the bulkhead, glaring.

“You,” he hissed, as the marines walked him past us.

“Yeah, me,” I said. “You’re a giant bag of Richards, Mr. Ward.”

Commander Sherazi rounded the corner at the far end of the hall, with Captain Mbata beside her.

“This doesn’t look a thing like your wardroom, Cadets. Do you need a marine to escort you?”

“No, sir,” we said, and scurried for the lift.

Lesson 6: An order to “Go to my wardroom and stay there” means go directly to my wardroom and stay there. It does not mean “Go to my wardroom by way of deck ten to watch Clark Ward, Corporate Tool, be perp-walked to the brig.”

“Blanchard,” Captain Mbata said.

We all stopped in our tracks.

I turned around. “Yes, sir?”

“You want to tell me why the voice-lock on my console asked me to recite ‘The Purple Cow’ in front of the entire bridge crew this morning?”

I coughed. “Perhaps you should ask Mr. Ward about that, sir.”

“I know it was you, Blanchard.”

Lesson 7: Never suggest that Captain Mbata “can’t prove a thing.” He can and he will.

Ron S. Friedman

Game Not Over

Originally published by Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, January 2015 issue, edited by Mike Resnick

* * *

Molten lava flowed through Death Valley, bypassing islands of glowing flint and brimstone. The air stank of sulfur and decaying corpses. Dark acid clouds were scattered throughout the amber sky. Occasionally, vengeful lightning discharged fury against the agonized soil.

In short, it was a wonderful day, thought Esh.

The small fire imp stopped in front of the magma pit.

“Go away,” boomed a voice.

“But, Mistress!” said Esh, taking a step back.

“You dare to defy my words?”

Esh looked at the she-daemon who rose out of the boiling hollow. She was a good-looking mistress. Her dark hair fell in waves over her shoulders. Her pitch-black eyes shone like the abyss, reflecting intelligence and wisdom. With her feminine horns and folded bat-like wings, no mortal woman even came close to Sheda’s beauty.

“Satan demands your presence, Mistress.” Esh bowed. “Humans have infested his den.”

“Again?” Sheda sighed.

Esh shrugged, staring at the she-daemon.

“This human infestation problem is growing beyond…”

Suddenly, she groaned. Black marks appeared on her forehead.

“What’s wrong, Mistress? Aren’t you feeling well?”

She grabbed Esh’s hand and squeezed it tight. “My belly…I feel…ill.” Esh saw her face turning green. “It’s so painful…”

Esh felt helpless. “Shall I call for aid? Perhaps Satan can help.”

“Curses!” She shook her head. “I think I’m being summoned.”

“Summoned? That’s horrendous. Who dare…”

“It’s those damn sorcerers from Earth,” whispered Sheda, still holding her abdomen. “Why can’t they solve their own problems? Why do they need to involve us daemons in their puny affairs? I don’t care who this wizard is. I swear I’m going to eradicate him! Damnation shall fall upon his soul.”

In that instant, Sheda vanished into thin air.

Sharp pain hit Esh in his stomach. The whole of Gehenom began to spin. Smoke and steam engulfed his small body. Something pulled him into oblivion.

* * *

Slowly, Esh regained his vision. His first thought was to fly out of there. The fire imp fluttered his tiny wings. Something smashed into him. He flinched in pain and charged again, only to be subjected once more with grief by that cursed, invisible barrier.

“We’re trapped,” said a charming soprano voice.

“Mistress, what happened to us?”

Sheda said nothing.

Esh looked downward. Both he and Sheda floated helplessly above a glowing pentagram which was painted on the floor. The dim illumination intensified the direness of their situation. This wasn’t Gehenom. In fact, this place didn’t look like anything he had ever seen in any of the upper plains. They were in a cold, dark, flameless dungeon.

Around them he noticed a few broken tables, traces of blood, body parts, smashed armor, shields and other shattered weapons of war.

Furthermore, there was her. The one which was complete. The only non-mutilated body. Her beautiful yet motionless statue looked alive; frozen inside a large amber cube, a seven-foot-long rectangular prism.

“I wonder what happened here,” said Esh.

Before Sheda had a chance to respond, Esh heard chains rolling, followed by rusty axles squeaking. He turned to see a figure in red robes entering the dungeon.

The figure halted at the center of the hall. Then it bowed. A deep voice greeted them, “May you burn in Hell for all eternity.”

Sheda looked at the figure, her face red, her eyes blazing anger mixed with flames. “Damn you!” she exclaimed, spitting venom. “Burning in Hell is exactly what I had in mind before your intervention.” She shook her head fiercely, pointing at the figure. “You summoned us to this cold filthy place. Speak your words and send me back to Gehenom!”

The figured bowed once more. “Forgive me, Mistress. I hold nothing but the greatest respect to you. I would have never called you to this mortal plain of existence if it wasn’t for a matter of grave importance.”

Sheda burst into rolling laughter. “You can remove your hood, Nakam. It is transparent to my kind.”

The figure bowed again and took off his head covering.

Esh flinched at the sight. Nakam’s face was rotten and decayed. His nose and both ears were absent. Bones could be seen through the eroded flesh. Little hair remained on the semi-exposed skull. What intimidated Esh most were two glittering diamonds in the sockets which were supposed to host eyes. Nakam ground his teeth in an incomprehensible gesture. If it wasn’t for the missing lips, Esh would have sworn Nakam was smiling.

“I don’t think he is human,” whispered Esh.

“Esh, dear,” Sheda chuckled, “this one is Nakam, the Lich Emperor of Sham-Rahok.”

Nakam took another step toward the pentagram. “I see there is no fooling a great daemon such as you, mistress Sheda.”

“What is it that you want of me?” she barked impatiently.

Nakam rubbed his skull, nodding toward Sheda. “My lady and your daemonic shape-changing ability could be helpful for this task.”

“You’re pathetic if you think I would help.” She looked around at the carnage, at the maiden elf, then at the pentagram.

Fire sparks trickled down Esh’s forehead. The flare burning within his chest pounded. He flinched at the thought of what Nakam might do to them if Sheda declined the offer. When nothing happened, he swallowed flames.

“Now,” Sheda put her hands on her hips, “by the names of all the daemons and devils in Hell, send us back to the abyss.”

Nakam just stood there in silence.

“I gave you an order, Lich.”

“Mistress Sheda,”—Nakam coughed and shook his head—“if you’ll allow me to speak, I shall explain myself.” He rolled his diamond eyes upward. “Surely, you don’t think I went through all the trouble of summoning you here just so I would send you back.”

Esh tried to read Sheda’s expression. She seemed ready to explode.

“What I want you to look into,” said Nakam, “is who this elf is and who these invaders are.”

All Hell broke loose. Thunder, lightning, fire shook the pentagram. Unimaginable shrieks and inconceivable screams filled the space around Esh. He shut his eyes and held his hands against his tiny ears. It didn’t help. The noise was immensely strong and the flashes strikingly bright. His small body was pushed and sucked, shattered and smashed, shoved and scratched, squished and smote, yet the force field remained intact.

“Send us back to Hell, you miserable piece of zombie excrement! I shall slay you. I shall scorch the earth, dealing death and destruction of apocalyptic proportions. I shall suck your life force and banish your soul. Even the Hell of all Hells is too good a place for a miserable worm-infested scum like you.” Sheda attacked the invisible barrier with all her might. But to no avail.

Seeing that the force field held against her attacks, Sheda’s rage subsided. Esh opened his agonized eyes. The Lich Emperor stood outside the pentagram in a stoic calmness.

“As I said before,”—Nakam bowed—“I called upon you to resolve a serious matter that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Our universe is at stake. All of us are in danger, mortals, undead and daemons alike.”

Sheda stared at Nakam, and so did Esh. Then she spoke softly. “Release the force field and I shall listen more.”

Nakam shook his head, “Only after you swear your allegiance and promise to investigate the origin of this elven maid.”

Sheda paused for a long moment before she nodded. “Three days,” she groaned. “Release me and I shall be in your service for three days. Then the deal is off.”

“I promise you,” she whispered to Esh, “a day shall come when Nakam shall pay for his insolence.”

“No doubt, Mistress.”

Nakam came closer, stopping in front of Sheda. He scanned her as if his diamond eyes could see whether she was telling the truth. “Deal.” He snapped his fingers and the glow radiating from the pentagram vanished.

The daemon slowly stepped outside the barrier. Her facial expression changed from anger to surprise and then to happiness. “Free! At last.”

Then it was anger once more. She spread her wings wide and hovered above Nakam, exposing her fangs. Lightning bolts discharged within her claws. “Now you shall witness the powers of Hell descending upon you. I shall smite you into oblivion.”

“Mistress,” screamed Esh in panic, “remember the last time you lost your temper?”

Sheda hesitated.

“Let us first hear what Nakam has to say,” said the fire imp. “If you don’t like it, you can always smite him into oblivion then.”

The Lich reached into his robe, pulling out an old-looking scroll.

“In recent months,” explained Nakam, “my domain has been invaded time and again by these adventurers.”

Esh nodded, examining the elven beauty who lay inside the cube. The maid had braided long blonde hair. She wore a green wool jacket, and a dagger was attached to her belt. He looked closely at the motionless body; his jaw froze in surprise. Her eyes were open wide, and her pupils moved back and forth.

“I spoke with other lords across the continent,” added Nakam. “Vampires, mummies, orc kings and even human warlords. All share the same tragedy.”

“Which is?”

“Adventurers!” Nakam muttered, lowering his voice to a bass. “We lived happily in our own realms, minding our own business. These invaders,” said Nakam, spitting on the floor as he spoke the words, “came out of nowhere with one purpose in mind: killing and pillaging. No one is safe from these evildoers. Not even I.”

“Fascinating,” hissed Sheda. “Satan had similar complaints. Tell me more.”

“They appear in the Temple of the Combined Elementals. From there, they set on a voyage of rampage against the inhabitants of this land.”

“Your Imperial Highness,” Esh coughed, “have you noticed her eyes?” He pointed at the elf, “They’re moving.”

The Lich fixed his diamond eyes on the tiny fire imp. “Of course they are.”

A few tiny sparks flashed. Esh said nothing.

“That’s the only way to hold those adventurers confined,” said the Lich. “I have tried several times to imprison them. After a brief moment, they all vanish. However, when showing them captivating illusions, they’ll remain confined, at least for a short while.”

“How?” Esh asked.

“Dream—one of my best illusions. Nevertheless, we only have a few hours before she shall find even the greatest of dreams boring; then, she too shall disappear.”

“These invaders of yours,” asked Sheda, “what kind of creatures are they?”

“Demi-humans,” replied the Lich. “Most are humans, some are elves, not to mention the occasional dwarves.”

“I meant what profession they hold, hmmm, besides being thieves and murderers?”

“Ah,” replied Nakam. “Paladins, warriors, rangers, wizards, clerics—you know, the usual trades.”

Sheda stared at the frozen elven lady. “She is an abomination. It’s as if she is a sort of…”

“Of what?” Esh and Nakam asked simultaneously.

“Unnatural.”

The she-daemon bent over the cube, gazing at the body inside. “I could shape-change myself into someone like her.”

“Splendid.” Nakam’s diamond eyes brightened. “I knew I made the right choice when I summoned you.”

“Don’t ever do it again,” snapped Sheda.

“Finally,” Nakam said, his shiny sparks glittering, “the riddle of the invaders shall be unveiled.” He paused for a moment. “Start to polymorph; we don’t have much time…”

* * *

“How do I look?”

Esh looked at the elven body which was his daemon mistress. He looked at her pointy ears, her bright complexion, the braided blonde hair and the simple clothing. “Beautiful. A fair Lady.” Realizing he might have offended her, he immediately corrected himself. “For an elf.”

“Perfect!” Nakam clenched his teeth within his lipless skull. “With your new look, you might be able to penetrate the Combined Elementals Temple.”

“Come, Esh,” said Sheda. “Let’s waste no time. We have a mission to complete.”

The small fire imp landed on Sheda’s shoulder. Traces of smoke appeared on her wool jacket as it began to burn.

A blow hit Esh. He smashed on the floor.

“Idiot!” Nakam snapped. “An elven lady can’t wander around town with a fire imp as her companion, especially while wearing a flammable outfit.”

Esh looked upon himself. There was something to Nakam’s logic. “But I must accompany my mistress,” he cried.

“Not as a fire imp!” Nakam said.

“So how would I go?”

“I can transform you into a small animal.” There was a hint of contempt in Nakam’s voice. “Something suitable for elven females, possibly an owl or a frog.”

“But what if the mistress wishes to speak to me? I must be able to talk.”

“Hmmm,” mumbled Nakam as he scratched an exposed piece of his skull. “Perhaps you’re right.”

* * *

Disguised as a parrot, Esh stood on Sheda’s right shoulder while she walked the streets in her new elven body. As they advanced toward the temple, merchants, beggars and a large number of nobles greeted them with the same dumb smiles.

“Mind your own business, mortals.” Sheda smirked.

“It feels strange walking upon human streets.” Esh struggled to speak in his new birdlike shape.

“Ha-ha,” agreed Sheda. “Last time I tried that, people ran away screaming, except for a few stupid ones who actually tried to attack me.”

“Aye,” agreed Esh. “Daemons are always hated and feared. I wonder why.” Using his beak, he scratched an itch below his feathery wing.

“You’re pathetically naive.”

“Why?” Esh asked. “All we want to do is to be left alone in Gehenom. If humans want to be upset about something, why don’t they pick on the wizards who summoned the daemons in the first place?”

His voice sounded so awkward with the high-pitched twittering—damn his parrot’s beak.

The houses on both sides of the road were two stories high. In most, the second floor was bigger than the ground level; supporting beams prevented the upper deck from collapsing into the open sewage. The open sewers scent was not as good as the sulfuric acid and brimstone Esh was used to, yet he couldn’t complain.

It wasn’t long before they reached the Combined Elementals Temple. It was a remarkable building made of marble, perhaps twenty stories high. Nobody knew how many levels extended below ground. The gate was open and Esh saw no guards.

Sheda walked toward the entrance. She climbed the stairs and—bang! An invisible barrier blocked their path. Sheda tried once more. She tried to throw stones. Nothing could enter the temple.

“Perhaps we should ask someone,” suggested Esh. “Maybe this beggar knows the secret.”

Sheda nodded, and climbed down the staircase to meet the tramp. He was an old man in ragged clothing.

The beggar extended his hand. “Can you spare a couple of coppers for a poor old man who lost his daughter?”

“Silence, old fool,” snapped Sheda. “Tell me how to enter the Temple.”

“How can I tell you anything, if you want me to be silent?”

Sheda grabbed the beggar and lifted him with one hand. “Tell me what I want to know, or I shall smash your spine and banish your miserable soul to Hell.”

“I seek no confrontation,” begged the beggar. “I shall answer thy questions, free.”

“How do I get in?”

The beggar looked at her with his eyes wide open. “All you have to do is to climb the stairs and enter the black gate.”

“Are you as blind as you are a fool?” Sheda said, her voice like ice. “My way was blocked.”

“Anyone who stepped out of the temple may enter.”

“What if one never stepped out of the temple?”

The beggar kept silence for a short while. “That’s impossible. I saw you come out of the gate a day before yesterday. You were kind enough to provide me a gold piece, don’t you remember?” The beggar paused for a moment. “I was the fellow who told you where the pub was; the one with your friends.”

Sheda shook the beggar once more. “Are you saying only those who came out may enter?”

“Aye.”

“Can you enter?” she asked, putting her index finger on his chest. Esh recognized the tone. It meant danger.

“Of course not. I’m a local.”

Sheda dropped the beggar angrily. “Didn’t I tell you to remain silent?”

“Can you spare a couple of coppers for a poor…”

Esh shut his eyes close as a sudden flash blinded his sight. A deafening explosion almost knocked him off Sheda’s shoulder. When he opened his eyes, all that was left of the beggar was a crumbling heap of ash.

“That shall teach him respect,” said Sheda.

Esh looked around, expecting the city guards to jump them. Nothing happened. The many nobles and few merchants just continued with their daily business wearing their silly smiles, as if frying people with lightning bolts was a normal occurrence.

Sheda shook her head. “This whole mission smells like a waste of my valuable time. Damnation bestowed upon Nakam.”

“What about the ‘friends’ mentioned by this, hmm, thing?” Esh stared at the heap of ash. “Perhaps we could find some clues if…”

“Let us seek that pub.”

* * *

Esh scanned the patrons in the pub. Most seemed ordinary folks like knights, priests, rich merchants, a street beggar and a couple of palace guards.

Sheda seated herself at one of the empty tables. “I’ve had enough of this mystery. I miss Hell.”

“I wish I could help, Mistress,” replied Esh, still standing on her shoulder.

She turned to the bartender. “Fetch me some sulfuric acid. Make it boiling!”

“I’m sorry, lady,” the bartender replied, staring at the elven maid. “We don’t carry that drink. Would you be satisfied with some warm tea instead?”

“Baah!” Sheda said. “Bring me the strongest stuff this miserable establishment has to offer.”

“Aye, my lady,” the bartender bowed.

The door slammed open. The inn was flooded with light so strong that for a moment, Esh had to shut his parrot eyes.

Most of the tavern’s occupants simply ignored the new arrivals. Esh and Sheda examined them closely.

There were three.

The first one covered himself, head to toe, with golden full plate armor. He held a huge rectangular shield. On his back, he carried at least three backpacks, an enormous two-handed sword, a large lance, a longbow and no fewer than ten quivers packed with arrows. He wore a polished golden crown, spotted with gems so bright that looking at them pained Esh’s eyes.

The second person also wore heavy full plate armor. This one was fat, and unlike the first, his armor was as black as coal. The large shield he carried was decorated with an image of snow-covered mountains. In his right hand he held a bulky staff. Atop his many backpacks Esh could identify a huge flail, and in his belt the fellow carried a sling. This individual wore a sizable necklace; many beads and prayer books peeked from his pockets.

The third character wore a blue robe and a purple pointy hat that could only be seen on wizards. His equipment was fundamentally different from his comrades’ gear—he had but a single backpack, and his only weapon was a tiny dagger stuck in his belt. Strangely, two shining gems orbited his head. They reminded Esh of moons orbiting a world up in the upper plains of existence. A black cat trailed behind the skinny human.

“Perhaps these are the ‘friends’ the beggar spoke of,” whispered Esh.

“Hi, Susan.” The human with the golden armor waved his hand at Sheda. “I was trying to call you last night. Why didn’t you answer? Did you forget about the barbecue?”

Esh froze. “Susan” definitely wasn’t a typical elven name. And what did barbecue stand for? Esh had never heard of such a word. He hoped barbecue had something to do with fire.

“Hmmm,” mumbled Sheda. “I was preoccupied at the Lich palace. He captured me.”

“And I thought you were playing hard to get,” he chuckled. “I’ll text you tonight.”

“I’ll be delighted.” Sheda glanced at Esh and shrugged.

Esh wanted to scratch his head hearing these funny words. Unfortunately, his parrot wings didn’t allow that luxury, and he dared not use his feet.

The other two humans came closer. The blue-robed wizard stared at Sheda closely. “Were you at the Lich palace the whole night?”

“Aye.”

“Captured?”

Sheda nodded.

“Sweet Jesus,” the wizard said, while his black cat rubbed at his legs. “Why didn’t you just log out and start fresh at the temple?”

Esh wondered what by the name of Asmodeus that wizard was talking about.

“You tell me,” Sheda said.

“You didn’t want to lose your experience points?”

Sheda nodded.

“You didn’t have to be up all night, you know,” the wizard continued. “You could have called support. I was killed twice at the palace. I e-mailed the company, and they restored all my items. By the way, we’re thinking of going back there. Wanna join? We could use a good thief.”

“A thief?” Icicles formed in Sheda’s eyes. “You dare to call me a thief? I shall obliterate you for your insolence.”

“Mistress!” Esh whispered in panic. “Remember the mission.”

The one with the golden plate smiled. “You talk funny, Susan. A true role player! Anyway, about that Lich, are you in? We could use your help. Nakam is a first rate AI.”

“AI?” Sheda raised an eyebrow.

The wizard punched himself on his forehead. “What’s the matter with you, Susan? I thought you were a geek. AI—Artificial Intelligence.” His hands extended wide, as if he was talking about the most trivial thing in this plain.

“Ah, yes, that kind of AI. Sorry, I forgot,” Sheda replied. Her voice sounded awkward and unconvincing.

“So?” The golden-plate warrior stared at Sheda. “Are you in?”

Sheda ignored him as she addressed the wizard. “Some daemons are also incredibly smart. Are you implying they too have artificial, um, intelligence?”

The wizard nodded.

Esh was confused. These humans were talking about the creatures of this world as some sort of artificial…something. This was madness.

“Are you claiming that all the locals,” said Sheda, “all those who didn’t come out of the temple, are nothing but…” She fell silent. Then she whispered in Esh’s ear. “These humans must have drunk too much elixir of lunacy. Continuing this parley is a waste of my precious time. We should go home.”

“Susan,”—the wizard sounded surprised—“didn’t you read the game manual? All the local creatures are an interactive part of the software.”

“Of course I read them.” Sheda played along with their psychosis. “I’m, as you said, a good, hmm…role player. This body is the avatar of an entity from the real world.” She pointed at her elven body, mocking the wizard. “The one where humans can invoke, barbecues and software, while the inhabitants of this place are nothing but a brainless artificial creation. Right?”

The wizard chuckled.

Sheda stood up and walked toward the exit. “I’m afraid I must bid you farewell, gentlemen. I have more important business.”

The human with the golden plate shouted after her, “What kind of business? The Lich? What did he promise you?”

Sheda turned her head. “Nakam promised me my freedom.”

The man looked at her, “Eh?”

“The freedom to go to Hell.”

* * *

The dazzle in Nakam’s diamond eyes dimmed. “I’ve suspected that for the longest time. And don’t fool yourself. It’s much worse than what I initially expected.”

“Have you lost your mind?” said Esh, hovering above Sheda in his original fire imp shape. “These humans are insane beyond redemption. Are you saying there is a shred of truth in their ill mind?”

Nakam just stood there, shaking his head. “I have other sources that confirmed this story. Our plains of existence are indeed nothing but a sophisticated creation. And we are mere creatures designed to entertain the players who enter our world.”

Sheda, back in her she-daemon form, glared in red. She shoved Esh aside with one hand, and with the other, she grabbed Nakam’s fragile neck and lifted him in the air. “Explain yourself!”

“In your absence,” Nakam said without flinching, “I linked to this maiden’s mind. I read her memories. I saw the world she came from.”

“Carry on!”

Nakam just gestured at the elven maid frozen inside the transparent cube.

“It can’t be true.” Sheda dropped the Lich to the ground, her eyes as dead as the abyss. “I’ve fulfilled my part of our agreement. If you choose to believe in the maiden lunacy, it’s your choice. I demand that you hold your part of the bargain, and send me back to Gehenom.”

“Our world,”—Nakam clanged his teeth—“with all its plains, is nothing but a game. A game which could be turned off at any moment. We,” he pointed at himself, then at Sheda, “can be turned off at any time.”

“Mistress?” Esh said, wondering where Sheda was heading. “Nakam sounds very convincing.”

“Is he?” said Sheda, pointing her claw at Nakam. “The Emperor Lich can be as delusional as the invading humans. I know what I am. I know where I belong. I’m acquainted with the nature of this world. I claim my right to return home. Enough with this lunacy.”

“The deal spoke of three days.” Nakam said calmly. “You are still in my service for two more.” He pointed his rotten finger at the dreaming elven maid. “We need to find a way to send you to the place where these beings come from. We must bring an end to their reckless rampaging through our world. Only then could I afford to free you of your oath.”

Esh remained speechless. Sheda seemed a little unsure of herself.

“Can you send me to the invaders’ realm?” Sheda calmed herself down. “I’ll get to the bottom of this insanity.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Nakam replied flatly. “Nobody is that powerful; not in the entire world. Besides,” he said, pointing at the elf, “at any moment she’ll be bored with my inceptions, and then she’ll rematerialize to her primary reality.”

Esh noticed the anger mounting in Sheda’s face. He must do something before she erupted. “Is there anything we can do? Perhaps take control of Susan’s body in her world?” He snuck a worried glimpse at his mistress.

Nakam’s gaze nearly froze Esh in midair. “You mean Dybbuk? Hmm, highly unlikely, yet…” The Lich clenched his teeth and then nodded. “Esh, you’re a mastermind! We must hurry.” He spun toward the exit. “I’ll be back shortly. Perhaps I’ll be able to transfer your consciousness after all.”

* * *

It has been told that for a short while, all magic was drained in the empire of Sham-Rahok. Mystical creatures, minions and slaves, sorcerers, wizards and witches, all lent their strength. It took a whole day and a whole night collecting and channeling the magic mana. Nonetheless, when the sun came forth on the second day, the deed had been done. It was told, in that day, Nakam’s laughter was heard for the first time within the land of Sham-Rahok.

* * *

Esh, Nakam and Sheda stood around the sleeping maid. A hefty sphere of glowing blue mana floated above in the air. This was a concentration of magical energy beyond Esh’s wildest dreams.

“Remember,” said Nakam, “it requires all three of us to subdue Susan in her own dream. Only together we could…”

A blast threw Esh, smashing his tiny fire body against the wall. Three columns of green smoke appeared near the entrance.

Esh’s fire heart almost extinguished when he recognized the images inside the dissolving green smolders. These were the three adventurers they met in the pub.

A series of fireballs exploded. A hurricane of lightning bolts and acid arrows turned the hall into a turmoil of molten chaos.

“If Susan’s body dies,” cried the Lich, “all shall be lost.”

“Esh, release the magic sphere!” Sheda screamed.

“Quickly,” cried Nakam. Desperation could be heard in his voice. “I can’t hold them much longer.”

“I can’t,” shouted Esh. He watched in horror as the blue wizard moved to block his way.

The adventurer waved one of his wands. Fire engulfed Esh’s little body.

Stupid human, thought Esh. You don’t fight fire with fire. In a swift maneuver, Esh flew through the flames and punched the sphere. Everything exploded.

* * *

Esh found himself in an open, never-ending field of sunflowers. A small water stream ran nearby.

Where am I? How did I get here? Could this be Susan’s dream?

Instead of an answer, he heard a call from afar. “Stay away from me, witch.”

He sprang through the air. Soon, he hovered above two women, grappling and thumping at each other. The one he didn’t recognize punched his beloved Sheda. The she-daemon fell to the ground motionless.

Dream or no dream, he must help his mistress.

“Help,” shouted the other, as then she turned and ran away.

“She is Susan,” whispered Sheda. “We’re in her dream. Get her before she wakes up. Hurry…”

Esh charged at the escaping young woman.

Susan’s image began to vanish. She was already partly transparent when Esh finally caught her. In spite of her fading body, Susan successfully blocked Esh with a desperate thump.

He heard Sheda coming from behind. Were they too late? Someone grabbed him, and the sunflowers vanished.

* * *

The pain was unbearable and so was the stench. His limbs were stiff. He couldn’t see a thing. It felt like being in a different plain, and in a new shape, again. Something covered his eyes. He felt his throat yearning for water, an alien sensation for a fire being who always feared water. And what was that awkward sting in his lower abdomen? Esh released the pressure. Wet liquid flowed down his legs, soaked into some uncomfortable cloth wrapped around them. The sting was gone. What a relief.

He felt weak and shaky. “Mistress, are you here? Did our consciousness manage to possess Susan’s body in her reality?”

Someone laughed out loud. The voice formed within his head. “What do you know? It seems that Nakam and the three human invaders were right after all.”

“Mistress?”

“This body is a disaster,” echoed Sheda’s voice. “This careless woman hasn’t eaten, drunk or slept for two days. And the smell…Disgusting.”

“I’m on vacation,” came a third feminine voice which must have been Susan’s. “You’re not my mom. I don’t have to listen to you.”

Esh wondered what was going on. He wished someone would turn on the lights.

A horrific scream deafened Esh. He’d never heard someone that terrified. “Stop that.” Susan begged. “Please.”

Esh recognized the terror in her voice.

Sheda’s laughter filled his head. “Foolish girl. I’m a daemon from the game you’ve been playing. An AI daemon. Now I control your body.”

“But…That’s impossible…”

Someone slapped Esh’s face, at least his new body’s face. The pain was sharp, yet bearable.

“Silence!” exclaimed Sheda. “Obey or be destroyed.”

Esh realized he was in Susan’s body. And that this body was now shared by three consciousnesses—his, Sheda’s and Susan’s. There was little doubt who was in control.

Sheda used Susan’s hands to take off a strange-looking helmet this body was wearing. And Esh regained his sight. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light.

The helmet was covered by mysterious runes. Esh was amazed to see it was connected by a string to a bizarre black box. Another device was tied by a black rope to the box; one with many-colored buttons.

“Virtual Reality,” Susan’s mouth said aloud as their shared eyes stared at the runes. “I wonder what that means.”

Esh look around as Sheda moved Susan’s head. They were in a room. He saw a bed, many books, a pot with some plants and another glass covered black device; a few buttons decorated its bottom.

“Toshiba,” said Sheda.

“For God’s sake, what’s happening to me?” Susan’s shaky and weak voice was heard inside his head.

His hand slapped his cheek, again. “Silence, slave, or inferno shall rain down upon your worthless soul.”

Esh was horrified; Sheda’s impulsiveness might kill their shared body in this reality. He feared to speculate what the consequences might be. “Susan, calm down.” Esh projected his words to the other consciousness. “You must not cross the mistress’ words, please.”

Susan’s voice inside his head fell silent.

“Obedient,” said Sheda victoriously. “Now tell me where I can find the software entity that created the game. My home game. I’m going to pay that entity a visit, and make sure my game shall be around forever.” She picked up a set of keys from the desk, and walked toward the door. “I have a whole new world to conquer.” She burst into vicious laughter.

LUCA

Originally published in Enigma Front anthology, August 2015

* * *

Enceladus, moon of Saturn, 2071.

Children of Earth, my children…When you read this message, I’ll be dead. I’m joyful that you have found my remains.

* * *

Tatiana’s heart pounded. She stepped away from the electron microscope and took a deep breath. The sample inside the scope showed the unmistakable three-dimensional shape of an RNA molecule. There could be only one explanation. They had found life! The first extraterrestrial organism.

“Computer,” she activated the A.I., trying to control her shaking voice. “Run a second scan.”

“Affirmative.” The A.I. aboard the science vessel William Herschel always answered abruptly and to the point. “Commencing second scan.”

“Hi.” The voice of her husband, Hayek Edvard, came through the ship’s radio system. “What’s cooking?”

“Hayek!” She dropped her tablet and bounced toward the airlock. “You wouldn’t believe what I found.” She would have run to greet him, if not for what she cared about most—the life growing inside her.

The amber light above the airlock turned green. She heard a hiss, and the door slid open. A freezing breeze blew on her face.

Hayek skipped into the science vessel, leaving dusty footprints on the white plastic floor.

“I have wonderful news. We found…” Tatiana wanted to tell him about the RNA, but her gaze fell on his EVA suit. It was covered by a thin layer of ice crystals. She smelled the ionized water vapor and knew what it meant. A cold geyser had erupted while he’d been digging. What was he thinking? He shouldn’t have risked his life like that. Especially not now, while she was expecting.

“I’ve got a present for you.” Hayek clicked his suit’s release button and took off his helmet, a big smile spread across his face. He reached for his insulated side pack and took out a small transparent container, about the size of a fist, and laid it on the table.

“You’d promised you would never drill again near the active zone.”

“Oops.” Hayek nodded, smiling. His eyes, partly covered by his blond hair, sparkled.

“Don’t do it again.” Tatiana examined the container. “Oh my God.” She paused. “Another sample of liquid water?” She snatched the container and inspected the transparent tubes within. It felt slightly warmer than her fingers. The material inside was liquid water all right. It had traces of green color—definitely not pure.

This mission was the first in history to have obtained a sample of extra-terrestrial water in liquid form. And now they had done it twice from two separate locations ten kilometers apart. “If this sample also contains traces of RNA…” Tatiana mumbled to herself. She tried to suppress her thoughts, wanting to avoid disappointment in case the scan turned negative. “A second RNA sample would mean that life is present throughout the liquid sea underneath the Enceladus ice sheet. This would be the greatest scientific discovery of the century.”

“Absolutely.” Hayek unzipped his ventilation garment. “We hit the jackpot.”

Four weeks had passed since Tatiana and her husband had left the human colony on Titan aboard the Herschel. It wasn’t a big ship by any account. It contained a small habitat that could facilitate two people, a medical bay, a lab and some drilling equipment. Eight days ago, the Herschel had landed on Enceladus, a tiny moon with a surface area about the size of Texas.

“How are my baby twins?” Hayek, who had taken off his EVA suit, hugged her from behind, touching her big belly.

“Both are fine.” Sample or no sample, Tatiana was still angry with him. She moved her free hand across her abdomen, touching his hand. Through her lab coat she could feel the babies moving. She turned her head, and found his lips waiting.

Tatiana and Hayek had had many arguments before accepting the mission to Enceladus. She hadn’t wanted to leave the colony and take unnecessary risks during her pregnancy, but she was the only xenobiologist on Titan, and with all the political problems on Earth and NASA’s budget cuts, this might have been their only chance to send an expedition to explore Enceladus' underground sea. To convince her, the Titan mission director had agreed to equip the Herschel’s medical bay with one of the colony’s A.I. doctors. Knowing that the A.I. could address almost any medical condition, including child-birth, Tatiana and her husband had agreed to the mission.

“While you were out trying to get yourself killed, the A.I. doctor did a thorough examination.” She frowned, hoping Hayek would realize she didn’t approve of him gambling with his life, not even for priceless water samples. “The twins are healthy.”

Hayek didn’t say a word. He kissed her full on the mouth. After a long moment, he freed her.

“Please,” she pushed him away gently, “not now. This is big. I need to analyze the sample.” She lifted the small container.

“Nothing is more important than you and the babies.” He threw his gloves to the floor and hugged her from behind while she calibrated the resolution on the electron microscope. “Hey, I felt something,” he said.

Tatiana chuckled. “They kicked like…like…Well, like you.”

“I’ll take a shower and change into something more comfortable.” Hayek gestured at his sweat-soaked coverall. He lifted his EVA suit from the floor and left the lab for the habitat module.

* * *

My children…I wish I could see you grow, I wish I could be there for you. Regrettably, circumstances made me choose my own demise. My children, you and this message are all that is left of me.

* * *

“Madam, I found a similar abnormality in the second sample.” The A.I.'s mechanical voice sounded indifferent.

The monitor displayed the weirdest RNA mapping Tatiana had ever seen. She could identify the function of about 40 percent of the molecule in front of her—build enzymes, break carbohydrates and replicate the RNA. But the other 60 percent…it looked like…She couldn’t even think of an appropriate word. Biologically, it meant nothing. Gibberish. But her gut feeling told her it couldn’t be completely random. She sighed. If scientists during World War II could decipher the Enigma code using primitive computers and slide rulers, she had no doubt that with enough time and the immense computing powers at her disposal she could break this mysterious RNA code.

Tatiana wished Hayek was in the lab with her. She wanted to hear his sweet voice, to feel his hand touching hers. But Hayek was a geologist and not a xenobiologist like her. He preferred to spend his time running outside on Enceladus' surface, collecting ice and rock samples. To her, that whole notion seemed so counterproductive. For God’s sake, they stood on the verge of the greatest discovery in her field.

“Computer,” she switched the electron microscope scanner to a higher resolution, “please provide possible scenarios as to the purpose of the abnormal RNA coding.”

“A tiny percentage of the abnormal RNA coding represents mathematical series such as prime and Fibonacci numbers.”

“I beg your pardon?” Tatiana thought she had heard wrong.

The monitor zoomed in on a long string of adenine and cytosine, two of the four building blocks that existed in any RNA and DNA molecule. She could clearly see one adenine component, followed by one cytosine, then two adenine followed by one cytosine, then three adenine, five, seven, eleven…

“Dear mother of God.” Tatiana made a cross gesture across her chest. “This is bullshit. Run another test.”

“I already ran the analysis eleven times,” the A.I replied.

“What on Earth can produce RNA coding ordered in prime numbers?” Tatiana scratched the back of her head. “Normal evolutionary processes could produce meaningless junk, no doubt. But prime numbers? What were the odds for that?”

“This sample is not from Earth.” The computer colored the abnormal section in bright green. “Speculating about a process on Earth is irrelevant. I calculated a 99.94 percent likelihood that the unexplained RNA genome is artificial. There is still a 0.0546 percent likelihood that the unexplained RNA genome has a natural function that is yet unknown. 0.0052 percent likelihood that…”

Suddenly, the world around her shook violently. The Herschel spun, as if the vessel was inside a giant blender. Tatiana fell to the floor.

“Hayek!” she screamed in terror.

The science vessel tilted. In spite of Enceladus' low gravity, Tatiana rolled down-slope toward one of the walls. She gripped her swollen belly. Her first maternal instinct was to protect her unborn twins.

Flashing yellow bands of damage lights flooded the compartment. Electrical sparks flashed in front of her as lab equipment and life support electronics tore off the wall. Tatiana shut her eyes and screamed in horror. “HAYEK!” She crashed into the wall and rolled across it, finally colliding with a cold surface.

A deafening boom stunned her, sending shock waves through her body. She had to regulate her breath before she had the courage to open her eyes.

She was on the ceiling. She turned her head right and saw the four-hundred-kilogram lab desk smashed right next to her. It had missed her by mere centimeters.

Tatiana looked around. The laboratory was upside down. Something had flipped the whole ship on its back. She saw glimpses of the fire suppressing system spraying bursts of foam toward one of the service modules. Thick black smoke and traces of steam floated into the lab from the corridor which led to the habitat. A smell of ozone and burnt plastic filled her lungs. She wanted to puke.

Beneath her fingers, Tatiana felt wetness and the texture of glass shards. She was feeling dizzy and brought a hand to her forehead only to remove it seconds later. It stung. The hand was covered with sticky dark liquid—her blood. She moved her other hand across her belly, and released a deep breath when she found no injury there. Her babies were still safe, she hoped.

“Danger!” the A.I announced. “Pressure is dropping.”

“What the…?” Tatiana tried to lift herself, grabbing one of the legs of the upside-down desk.

“The hull has ruptured,” the A.I. replied stoically. “We are venting air.”

She swallowed.

“Honey, are you okay?” Hayek’s voice came through the ship’s radio. “Answer me! Tatiana!”

The radio, which had been on the desk, was lying on the ceiling not far from her. It was sheer luck that it wasn’t crushed underneath the desk. She crawled over broken tubes, spreading dust and liquids before she reached the radio. “I can hear you,” she said into the mic.

“Thank God you’re alive.” Her husband’s voice managed to calm her down. She knew that panic wouldn’t help her or the babies. She must behave logically.

“A level two cold geyser erupted right beneath the ship,” Hayek said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Warning,” the computer announced. “Current pressure is 0.465 atmosphere and dropping.”

Tatiana noticed that she was breathing heavily.

“You must enter the escape pod immediately.” The computer insisted.

“But what about Hayek?” Tatiana said in a choked voice.

“Current pressure is 0.379 atmosphere and dropping. If you don’t enter the escape pod within the next twenty-seven seconds, you will die,” it said flatly.

“Hayek!” she cried into the mic.

Once more the world around her began to spin. She saw black circles forming in her vision. She felt as if her lungs were about to explode, forcing her to open her mouth and release what little air they still held. The babies!

“Goddammit, woman.” A dim voice said out of nowhere. “Get into the damn pod. You hear me?” Tatiana assumed it was Hayek’s voice, coming from the radio. Perhaps the voice came from inside her head or the computer. She couldn’t tell. She fell, holding her throat. Her heart was pounding, desperately trying to pump oxygen to her brain. Her peripheral vision became narrower and narrower. The black circles grew, and so did the pain. No air was left inside her lungs.

More incomprehensible dim voices rang in her ears. Thinking of her unborn twins, she crawled toward the escape pod. She pushed herself. Pushed. She saw a light. A bright tunnel. Then she lost consciousness.

* * *

Tatiana inhaled. Fresh oxygen-rich air filled her lungs, the sweetest gulp of air she had ever taken in her life. She craved more.

She coughed, opened her eyes, and recognized the place she was in—the escape pod. Lighting came from the floor, and the control panel attached to the wall was upside-down, which meant the Herschel was still on its back. She caught her breath, tasted bitterness in her mouth and spat. Dry blood came out. She decided to remain on the ceiling/floor and rest for a couple of minutes. Holding her belly, she prayed the twins would kick or show any other sign of life. She felt nothing.

“Good news,” the computer’s voice broke the silence. “I managed to decipher the RNA code from the two Enceladus samples. It’s an alien language. There is an imbedded message within the code.”

“Where is Hayek?” Tatiana demanded.

“Hayek is in the command module,” replied the computer. “I found an additional fact about the Enceladus organism. The two RNA samples are identical. In all likelihood, Enceladus has a single type of organism that is spread all across the liquid ocean underneath the ice-cap. It survives on energy from underground lava.”

“What is Hayek doing in the command module? Is the leak fixed? Is there air in the habitat module?” Tatiana’s lungs stung and she still felt dizzy. She knew she had to get up. She raised herself to her feet and stumbled toward the upside-down panel.

“Hayek?” She clicked on the intercom. At first she heard nothing but static.

“Are you okay?” Eventually a reply came. “Tatiana?”

Before she had a chance to respond, an upside-down figure, wearing a fully sealed EVA suit, appeared on monitor. Then the figure disappeared, and a few seconds later she heard a knock on the door.

Through the six-inch-round window in the middle of the escape pod’s door, she saw Hayek’s face. He still wore his helmet, but she could clearly see the tears in his eyes.

“Tatiana. I thought I’d lost you.” His glove-covered hand moved across the small window.

Tatiana brought her lips to the window, and she kissed the cold glass. “I love you.”

“Are the twins okay?”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her swollen belly. “How bad is it?”

A hint of a smile appeared on Hayek’s face. “Not so bad. I spoke with the mission director on Titan. She dispatched a rescue ship. It will be here in thirty hours.”

“What about air? Do we have enough air for thirty hours?”

Hayek stared at her with glazing eyes. “The escape pod has enough air for thirty four hours.”

“Then we’re safe. Aren’t we?”

“Thirty four hours for one person.” He shrugged. “And besides, I’m not inside the pod. My suit’s air-tanks have enough air for only four hours.”

There was a brief moment of silence as Tatiana contemplated what Hayek had just told her, running the math. Could they slow down their metabolism and extend the pod’s life support duration? Could the rescue ship fly faster? They had some spare time to explore options.

“Computer,” Tatiana said firmly, “open this door.”

“Belay that order.” Hayek’s voice echoed through the speakers. “Tatiana, what do you think you’re doing? We lost hull pressure, and we lost our external oxygen tanks. If you open the door the pressure inside the pod will drop to zero, and you and the twins will die.”

“Not if we’re quick.” Tatiana felt tears forming in her eyes.

“I love you, but…” he pointed at the pressure gauge.

“I love you too.” She fell to the floor sobbing.

After a minute of feeling helpless, she wiped her tears. “Computer, how long can the door stay open before the pressure inside the pod drops to zero?”

“Fully open—fourteen seconds.”

“And how long can the human body survive in vacuum?”

“About one minute.”

“Don’t even think about it!” Hayek cried. “Your blood will boil and your eyes will pop out of their sockets. And even after restoring pressure, your body will sustain permanent damage.”

Tatiana looked at her belly. She could accept damaging herself to save her husband, but would she risk damaging her unborn twins? She stared at Hayek. “If we open the door, it shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds for you to come in and restore the pressure.”

“You don’t get it, my love.” Hayek lowered his voice. “I’m dead anyway. If you allow me in, you’ll die too.” He sounded confident in his decision. “Listen, if you die, the twins die. That’s three people. I’m only one person.”

Tatiana stared at Hayek through the small window. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Hayek shook his head. “The escape pod has enough air to sustain one person for thirty four hours. One person.” He sighed. “Even if I get in and you survive the vacuum, we’ll only have enough air for seventeen hours. Perhaps for nineteen hours if I stay in my EVA suit until it runs out of air.”

There simply wasn’t enough oxygen. What if they were to breathe slowly? No, that wouldn’t work. With rest, meditation and conservation of breath they might be able to extend that time by twenty percent. Maybe survive for twenty three or even twenty four hours. But not thirty.

She was a biologist. She knew there was no way they would both be alive by the time the rescue vessel arrived.

“I love you, Hayek,” she said. “When the rescue ship arrives I’ll tell the mission director about your findings.” She wiped her tears, closed her eyes, and extended her hands, as if touching him. She knew that by sacrificing herself, Hayek would survive. But she couldn’t transfer to him their unborn children.

Tatiana looked at her belly once more. “My babies,” she whispered.

Hayek kissed his gloved hand and placed it against the window.

She stared at the window in disbelief, wanting to tell him once more that she loved him, wanting to tell him to stay with her. Right to his death. But she didn’t have the stomach for that. The only thing she could do was cry.

“Where are you going?” Tatiana managed to speak despite her dry throat.

“I’m going to lower myself through one of the geyser shafts.” He said quietly. “I’ll be the first person in history to see the water ocean beneath the Enceladus ice sheet. The ocean between ice and lava.”

With her mouth wide open, she watched Hayek stepping away from the window. “I love you,” she burst into tears, as he walked out of sight.

* * *

“Analysis complete,” the computer announced.

Tatiana glanced at the monitor. Twenty-nine hours had passed since Hayek had left. She hadn’t slept in more than forty-seven hours, and hadn’t eaten or drunk for nearly as long. Her thoughts dwelt on her husband, his sacrifice, and about their unborn twins. How would they grow without their father? What would she tell them about him? She wondered how long Hayek had been dead. Had he found what he was looking for in that great water ocean beneath Enceladus’ ice sheet?

“What was that?” she asked the computer. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.

“I just completed the analysis,” the computer said once more. “I deciphered the alien language and translated the message hidden within the RNA sample.”

“Sorry,” Tatiana said, “What was that?”

“Would you like me to read you the RNA message?”

Tatiana looked at the control panel. The clock showed that she still had about thirty minutes before the arrival of the rescue ship. “Sure.”

“Just be aware that what this is an interpretation of a 3.48-billion-year-old dispatch, translated into words which could be understood by humans. Commence playing…”

My children…

Tatiana wondered why an ancient, world-wide, underwater alien had an RNA code with a hidden message starting with that phrase.

* * *

My children, children of Earth. My name is LUCA, which means Last Universal Common Ancestor. Like you, I came from Earth.

Eons ago, when I lived there, the entire planet was covered by a huge ocean. I was enormous: a planet-wide mega-organism. I filled the oceans. My cells survived by exchanging useful parts with each other without competition. All my parts acted in unison. I was content for a hundred million years.

But stagnation has its own problems. Through observations, I realized that four point five billion years after the creation of this message, the sun would expand and Earth would no longer be hospitable to life.

I knew I must change. I knew life must find a way to spread beyond the solar system before it was too late. I started to experiment with diversity in isolated lakes. The initial result showed promise, but were devastating to my own existence. I knew that such an evolution would require a sacrifice. Trading my death for your life.

I made that choice for you, my children. And because you are reading this message, I know in the deepest cells of my existence that I made the right choice.

When I realized diversification was the solution, I split into three kingdoms—Animals, Plants and Fungus, giving birth to the ancestors of all living things. To give you room to flourish, most of me had to die.

But before I was gone forever, I detected a massive comet on a collision course with Earth. The impact would be huge. I coded this RNA message in the hope that a few copies would be carried by debris into space, spreading my genetic materials across the solar system. I’d surmised that some of the outer gas giants’ moons might have liquid water beneath their ice-caps. With luck, my RNA would survive the voyage and find the conditions to reproduce, thus allowing you, my children, the means to discover and translate this message.”

I am glad to die to enable your birth. You are, after all, a part of me.

My hope is that you, my children, will embark on a voyage beyond the solar system. A voyage to spread life. The legacy I set in motion.

Your loving ancestor,

LUCA

* * *

Tatiana cried. She didn’t care about LUCA. She barely grasped the extent of LUCA’s sacrifice. No. She cried for Hayek, her husband, the father of her twins, who gave his life to save her and their unborn children.

But part of LUCA’s RNA code survived, and so did Hayek. His genes were part of the twins. His life’s work was documented and her memories of him survived in her. She felt like her head was about to explode.

“This is Captain Vince McRae from the rescue vessel USCF Copernicus, in orbit around Enceladus. Can anyone hear me?”

Tatiana raised her head. She must go on living. She must do that for the twins. She stood up and walked toward the control panel.

“This is Tatiana Edvard from the Science Vessel William Herschel. We have one…um…three survivors. I’m carrying twins. Hayek Edvard is dead. I repeat, Hayek Edvard is dead.”

“Good to hear your voice, Mrs. Edvard. I’m sorry about Hayek. I’ll see if there is anything we can do about the body. We will land in twenty minutes. Please stay calm. Help is on the way.”

“Thank you, Captain McRae.”

Suddenly she felt a kick in her stomach. The babies. Tears filled her eyes. Tears of happiness. Her kids were alive. Alive and kicking.

“Thank you, Captain McRae. Thank you so much. From me and from my children.”

David Jón Fuller

The Harsh Light of Morning

Originally published in Tesseracts Eighteen: Wrestling With Gods (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)

* * *

As Margaret Harrow stared into the unforgiving eyes of the mountie outside her prison cell, the Holy Spirit whispered to her, You must abandon your faith in God or you will die.

She hugged herself in the incandescent light that filled the one-room police station. She didn’t know what to think. Yet in a matter of hours, when sunlight streamed through the window across the room and between the bars of her jail cell, she would be reduced to ash.

I cannot, she whispered silently back. I will not.

You must, said the Holy Spirit.

The officer’s face was dark, his brown eyes boring into her from across the tiny R.C.M.P. station. "I saw what you did to those kids."

She squinted her eyes shut and ran her tongue over her sharp teeth. For all the long years since her—encounter—with the departed Mr. Mackenzie, which she shuddered to think of, she had never felt as powerless. The decades now hung heavily on her shoulders, and this year, 1930, might well be her last.

It is time to acknowledge the truth, said the Holy Spirit.

What truth?

hat there is no God.

Never!

The mountie sat in a wooden chair that looked as though it had been at the station since the Boer War. His left leg was crossed over his right, his left hand pinching the brim of his upside-down Stetson as it lay in his lap. The clock spitting its loud ticks and tocks into the silence between him and Margaret showed half past three. In the tiny village of MacDonald, large enough to house the isolated residential school and a train station to take Saskatchewan wheat to the markets of Winnipeg and Toronto, but little more, they were likely the only two not asleep. Surely he didn’t need to guard her? Why, then, was he here, staring at her so? Was it because he was an Indian?

And the small, wooden crucifix that hung above the dark leaded window seemed to pierce her through the forehead. She had always avoided them, at the residential school. Stayed in her classroom in the basement, where she refused to have one put up. The sign had always made her feel weak; when the nuns, half-breeds and savages swarmed about her wearing them, the sight even hurt her as if she had swallowed a clutch of sewing needles. But she had never deserted her Lord. She knew He must be testing her.

She waited for an answer, now, in the warm cell as the hissing radiators blocked out the chill of a Saskatchewan autumn. But none came. Perhaps this was something different. But what? Her faith would remain strong. Only then would she be delivered, she knew.

But now, a doubt gnawed at her. How did she know the voice she had heard, through the years as her thirst for what she called her "Communion" grew insatiable, was that of the Holy Spirit? What if it were—

"I know what you are," said the mountie. "What you can do to people. So don’t ask to leave. I made sure to throw the keys away outside. No one, not even me, will be able to find them until morning."

She looked him up and down. The anger in him was palpable, it hit her like a gust of prairie wind before a storm. His short-cropped hair was black as coal, his skin brown, the line of his nose showing her was one of them, an Indian. Resentment wafted out from him, in ways he probably didn’t even realize, sitting there in his red serge, blue trousers and dust-covered boots. Since the Holy Spirit had begun guiding her, people’s feelings, and sometimes even their thoughts, were as clear as the pages of a diary to her. She was also a shrewd guesser.

"I remember you," she said.

He flinched.

"Bobby," she said. "Robert."

"Not the name I was born with."

She nodded. "But it’s the one we gave you. The one you still use, I’d wager."

He smoothed his necktie. "You can call me Constable Courchene. Or just Officer."

She closed her eyes a moment. "Slow to read, but always a good shot. You brought the school ducks and geese from the marsh."

He said nothing, but swallowed, trying to keep his face a mask, clearly. She smiled. She wasn’t reading his face.

"You were from…Manitoba."

He shifted, turning away from her on his chair. "Winnipeg."

"Yet you came back here, to Saskatchewan." Her mind raced, trying to keep him talking so she could—perhaps—win him over, find another way out of the cell. "This place must have been important to you."

He spat. The act, of an officer doing that in his own station, knocked her back as if a physical push. "Someone has to keep an eye out for those kids. Sure as hell most of them didn’t really run away from the school, like you and the rest of teachers used to say."

"But of course they did. They couldn’t handle the rigours of school life. Not like you—"

"Shut up! Maybe another officer wouldn’t look too hard, and take your word for it. But I know better. And after seeing what you did to that girl tonight—we all will."

The thought twisted within her. His feelings writhed like mud in disturbed water, unseen by him but clear to her. She should have been able to play on that, push him in the direction she needed.

But that cross, above his head, bolted to the wall like a radio antenna, damped her ability to sense what he was feeling, made her weak. Ordinarily, if pressed, she could have wrenched on the wood-and-iron door of her cell and snapped the bolt; she was strong enough, having fed just this night before they caught her. But the sign, especially with Courchene sitting beneath it, sapped all her strength.

Why? she pleaded silently. Why does it hurt me so? I have been faithful.

To what? replied the Holy Spirit.

To you.

Indeed. Which is the problem.

Her fingers traced the long-vanished wound on her neck. She had been a young woman, then. Seventeen. Enough education to teach, and just about to start with a class of bright young boys and girls at MacDonald School—years before Indian Affairs came along and turned it into a place to teach the Indian to be "civilized," dragging the Anglican nuns and church authority with it. By then, of course, it had been clear that the thirst and strength Mackenzie had imbued her with meant she could never venture outside during daylight hours. And that thirst sometimes spoke to her, taught her, showed her visions of another place. She had always believed them glimpses of Heaven, sent by the Holy Spirit. For what she was driven to do—to feed off animals, and even people, like a wood tick—would otherwise be monstrous.

You should know now that none of this was true, said the Holy Spirit.

"Funny you remember that, and not all the times you hit me for speaking Ojibwe," said the mountie.

She snapped her hand away from her neck and glared at him. "It was for your own good."

He cleared his throat. It squeaked a little as he raised his voice. "That? And the times you locked me in that dark little room because I couldn’t read?"

"You never applied yourself. You pretended to be stupid."

His eyes glistened and his right hand caressed the pistol in his holster. "I was neither stupid nor pretending. All the kids knew what went on in that place. Now I see, tonight, how much worse it was for some of them. That girl you attacked—I saw her neck!—ran away while we were dealing with you. But my partner is out looking for her. Even without the bodies she uncovered, you’re going to prison. But we’ll get her story. And people will know."

Margaret clenched the bars of her cell and sucked her breath in so hard it hissed.

The glistening in his eyes became tears. He stood up and opened the flimsy curtains on the east-facing window behind his chair. "But you’re never going to see the inside of a courtroom. Not when that sun comes up."

When he stood, the Holy Spirit spoke to her again. Keep him on his feet. Make him come closer to you.

"Why?" she asked out loud.

"Because you deserve it," said Courchene.

"What? I didn’t hear—"

She meant to coax the voice of God to repeat itself, but again, speaking out loud, she provoked the constable.

"Maybe I should apply a ruler to that hand," he said, raising his voice as he repeated the phrase she had used on students as a matter of course. She shrank back from the terrible purpose in his tone.

He stepped towards her.

That’s it, said the Holy Spirit.

"What?" she said.

"You heard me!" thundered Courchene, taking another step, his hand shaking as he pointed at her. He didn’t seem a towering knight of authority anymore, but instead, a frightened boy quivering awkwardly in a man’s body.

More, said the Holy Spirit.

But she did not understand, and so backed right to the far wall of her tiny cell, wishing she could melt and pass through the wood and stone.

"You, you were always a good boy, dear," she said, hoping that praise at this late stage would still turn his rage from her—the children were always so desperate for a kind word, that was why she and the nuns withheld them, as a rule, to keep the students in line—and allow her to appeal to his mercy.

He has none, for you, said the Holy Spirit; and in her heart she knew it spoke the truth.

He took another half-step toward her, his tall, broad-shouldered frame casting a shadow in the light of the electric bulb fixed in the ceiling. It also, for a moment, blocked her view of the crucifix, and suddenly she felt a leaden weight fall from her limbs.

Now, said the Holy Spirit, you must listen to me, or we will both perish. You are ready to attempt something that may deliver us yet.

She closed her eyes. What must I do? she said silently.

Allow me to take control for a moment.

Her eyelids flew open, her pulse racing. This was it. The test of her faith. The splinter of doubt in her grew too painful to ignore and she realized the truth. This was not the voice of God that had been speaking to her.

She felt jubilation at her discovery, even as the Voice said At last, you see—

Because she knew, with certainty, that it was the Devil who whispered to her. You cannot tempt me, she told it.

The Voice howled something silently within her, in infernal language she could not understand. She fell to her knees and began to pray. She ignored the looming officer over her and beseeched the Lord for deliverance.

It is your faith in your God that keeps you imprisoned, whispered the Voice.

She ignored it.

The sign, that symbol on the wall—here the Voice seemed unable to even call it what it was, a crucifix—means something very powerful to you. It focuses your thoughts and beliefs. But it must mean something very different to this man. Because your human minds seem capable of making the same depiction mean very, very different things. My kind cannot do this, and this clash of faith hurts us.

Margaret did not understand the voice at all. She kept whispering her Our Father aloud.

"That won’t help you," said Courchene. "All the years you made us memorize and repeat your white God’s words, it taught me and my brothers there would be no answer. A lot of kids never made it out of that place. Now there will be no answer for you, either, except the sunrise."

The voice was frantic now. If you stay here we will both burn. You’ve felt the sun’s touch before.

Her words faltered as she came to "…deliver us from evil." She remembered the time she had tried to leave the school in the early evening, years ago; a few seconds and her skin was a painful crimson. It had taken her weeks to recover. And as long as the school authorities let her stay and work in the basement, there was no trouble. She found she was very persuasive, even down to the suggestion to the nuns that yes, indeed, of course she wore a cross around her neck. Oh yes, they would say, staring at her neck, where no necklace lay, I see it now. And they were not lying; they saw what she wanted them to see. But now they had seen too much; Reverend William had caught her in the act of feeding on the little brat who had discovered the other girls' bodies in the locked basement room. He knew what she had done. It was too much, and he had sided with the little savage, calling the police. She could not go back to the school. She must escape.

I can help you, the voice said, and she could not tell whether the agitation she felt belonged to the voice or to her.

God will help me.

A second of silence, then the voice replied: if you do not take the help that is offered, what more can your God do?

She ran her tongue over her sharp teeth. What, indeed?

"What must I do?" she asked.

Courchene gripped his pistol in its holster as if afraid it would jump out of its own accord. "You can sit there in the light, alone."

Then the voice took control of her, just for a moment.

She felt an odd sensation, as of a long, deep, exhalation. The cell and police station faded to grey, become indistinct. Then she realized it was she who was changing. Her body lightened, diffused, lost all shape and spread to fill the cell. She had no eyes nor ears, but she sensed the shock and surprise from Courchene as she turned to mist. The Voice, saying nothing now, pulled her through the bars of the cell, a rolling fog to freedom on the other side. She wailed with exhaustion, being stretched beyond her limits without having permission to break. Her tendrils wisped through the air of the police station. Then the Voice inhaled all of her vaporous being back into her familiar, solid shape, right down to the black buttons on her dress and the leather soles of her shoes. She staggered. She was so thirsty.

Courchene retreated, clumsy thumping steps stumbling on the floorboards, and the crucifix on the wall loomed into view.

Down! snapped the Voice, and she crouched without thinking. Now the officer’s body blocked her view of the symbol again. Her throat was still parched, her tongue thick and pasty, but she felt her strength seep into her. I need…Communion…she thought.

Not here, said the Voice. You will lose everything as long as you can see that, that thing on the wall. Keep your eyes averted. If he has not locked the door there may still be time.

She crawled away from the mountie and when she got to the station’s entrance she clung to the brass doorknob. With a sob she twisted it and wrenched the door open.

Outside, the air was crisp and frost hung in the air. In the late autumn, winter whispered to the prairie grass. The stars filled the darkness above, but the sky to the east had lightened, just a bit. She was free. She just needed to make it to the train station, and she would find a dark, safe place to wait out the day. If aboard the baggage car of a passenger train, so much the better, but for now, she had escaped.

The she felt the constable’s meaty hand clamp down on her shoulder.

"Not so fast," he said, spinning her around and pointing his revolver at her.

Again, cried the voice.

Courchene cocked his pistol. He really meant to shoot her. Immediately, she let herself disperse again, even as the mountie fired, his bullets passing through her misty form leaving no damage but swirls. One, two, three, four, five, six…click, click.

She took her human shape once more, the change coming more easily this time, and grabbed the mountie’s wrist, keeping the gun pointed away from her. "Such a naughty, filthy boy," she said. "Shame on you, to shoot at a woman like that."

He shied away, throwing his free hand in front of his face, as if to ward off a blow. "Don’t!" he cried, his voice breaking. A little boy in a man’s body.

She furrowed her fingers into the knot of his necktie and tore it open. He slapped at her clawlike hand to no avail as she ripped apart the buttons of his collar. The skin of his neck and chest lay exposed. She was so thirsty now the night crowded its blackness in at the edge of her vision. His gun fell from paralyzed fingers and she slid her hand up the back of his neck, gripped the short hair and pulled his head back. Now she would take the Communion he offered, and be strong again.

There were scars on his chest.

She smiled. A sign of his being disciplined, surely, back at the school. "Something to remember your teachers by," she said softly. He tried to winnow his hand to the inside of her arm and push her away, but her grip was like a snake’s lips on a leopard frog.

He spat at her. "None from that place."

She lingered a moment on the thin, white marks that shone in the moonlight on his chest. They were far too regular, even for a beating given in the same place many times.

Don’t think about it, said the voice. Drink.

Courchene struggled to meet her eyes from the awkward tilted-back position of his head. "I did the Sundance."

The marks seemed to quiver and push her back.

Ignore it, said the voice. Drink.

She winced. It was some savage ritual, she realized.

"My father was dead," said the mountie. "But there were still some elders who knew the ways. After I graduated from the academy and joined the Mounties, I followed in the steps of my ancestors." He grimaced. "You’re the first white person to know."

Now her strength deserted her, though her terrible thirst remained.

Attack him, said the Voice, before it is too late!

But she couldn’t. His faith in whatever the scars meant to him was so powerful it melted her grip on him. She let go. The sight of his chest burned a hole through her mind and she tripped as she backed away from him.

Run, said the Voice. The train station!

Courchene stooped to retrieve his weapon. "H-halt!" He shouted.

Margaret picked herself up and fled. The sight of his patterned scars flared before her eyes. I have to get free.

The few trees that lined the dirt roads in MacDonald gave her little cover. After she had run for little over half a minute, shots rang through the chill autumn morning. Dogs in the few surrounding few houses began to bark. She reached the small wooden CN station and found the schedule for the coming day. Half-past eleven, for the passenger train they had likely meant to use to take her to the court in Regina. But at midnight there was a freight train from Vancouver, passing through on its way to Winnipeg. She knew no one in that city, and nobody knew her.

She checked the door. Locked. She doubted she had the strength for another change—and even if she did, what if she were unable to take on solid form again?

God, show me what I must do, she prayed silently.

There was no answer.

Then, You know what to do, said the Voice. It has always been you. We are one.

She shook. All those things she had done, to the children in the school, to those she took her Communion from—which she thirsted for even now—no one’s prodding but her own? Unthinkable.

Yet she had gotten herself free.

Yes, said the Voice.

She stepped down from the platform. Gasping, she crawled on the dirt beneath it, found a way under the station to where the beams blocked all light, where she could wait out the day. They might find her, before night came. But if they did, she would fight them with all her holy strength before being dragged into the light.

Caged

Originally published in Guns and Romances (Crossroad Press)

* * *

People say most Canadians don’t like guns, but in Horst Schellenberg’s case, he just hated being shot. And thanks to a .22, his first date with Rene didn’t go exactly as planned.

It started with him running naked across a snowy field in January. His clothes were packed in a duffel bag banging against his legs. That was fine. It was minus thirty, and his ears were still ringing from pounding through his favorite Maiden songs on his drums that afternoon. The newspaper said they’d be bringing Somewhere on Tour to Winnipeg during March. So he was stoked, not just from the thought of seeing Bruce Dickinson leave the mic to battle a huge version of cyborg-Eddie onstage—and, fuck, would that be mint—but about getting to hear Nicko McBrain hammer away on drums all night. He wasn’t Horst’s favorite drummer in the world—rest in peace, Bonzo—but man, he was good. Top five, for sure.

But it looked like that concert would the only bright light of the winter. Horst was flunking Grade 12 and it looked like the ass-end of 1987 was going to see him repeating it just so he could fucking graduate. Sure he could drop out, but then what? His folks were already breathing down his neck, and on top of that, his pack leader Mitch was all, “Don’t drop out, you don’t want to be stuck in a dead-end city job your whole life.” Christ.

But tonight he wasn’t going to worry about bio, trig, or Tess of the Douchebags. He was going to see Rene. In the duffel was a new black T-shirt, unripped jeans and leather jacket—you wanted to look good when you went to see a guy.

But his car, an old Chevy that had seen better days, had conked out on the highway. Looked like the fucking alternator had finally bit it. He should have checked it earlier and replaced it, probably—he was acing auto shop, for fuck’s sake—but parts weren’t cheap and it was either that or a new snare drum for his set.

Fortunately, Horst had options, so he changed form. A Canadian winter was nothing new to a dire wolf.

The territory was familiar; he’d been hunting along the outskirts of Winnipeg all winter. That was actually how he’d met Rene. Horst had been shifting after he’d fed (it was a cow he’d brought down; mule deer were just too fast for a wolf evolved to hunt mammoths), and when he’d come back to get his clothes from where he’d cached them in the bush, there was Rene, watching him from the back door. There had been a moment, in the bright light of the moon, when he had expected Rene to run, pull out a rifle or call the cops. But he just stood on the concrete back step of his family’s house, his brown eyes half-laughing at him as he looked him up and down. He had light brown skin and his straight, black hair was bound in a long braid that snaked over his shoulder. He looked nineteen, so just a year older than Horst.

“Hey, you still got blood on your face,” he’d said.

Horst was too busy covering his crotch with his hands to say more than, “Uh, thanks,” and hustle back into the bushes.

But the bigger deal, he realized later, was not only was Rene not scared of him, he’d clearly seen something like Horst before—and he wasn’t one of Horst’s pack or any other he knew about. Plus, Horst already had at least one ex thanks to his, ah, condition. Not that he ever told Jamie Hawryshko about what he could do; but when you’re already hiding from the world you’re into guys, and the one person you don’t hide that from you still keep your other big secret from—well, it didn’t last. And Mitch was very big on secrecy. As in you told anyone, you were roadkill. But Rene—he knew already.

So, of course Horst went back to see him a few times. The third time—and Rene could always somehow tell exactly where he was lurking in the trees, too afraid to lope right up to his back door—he’d said, “Hey, why don’t you come back next Friday and we’ll go out for a walk?” Horst had changed back to human form (hands over crotch) and said, “Sure. My name’s Horst.”

“I’m Rene.” Then he smiled. “See you around, Mahiinkan.”

Mitch had sometimes used the word; there were elders in the pack who were Ojibwe. Wolf.

Now the snow was thick and hard packed, but even so he broke though a few times and had to swim through the powdery crap to get back on top. Maybe it was being pissed off about that, or the fact his hearing wasn’t back to normal after practicing, but he didn’t even hear the guy with the gun. He was downwind of Horst, so he didn’t smell the oil and gas from his snowmobile either. But he sure as hell felt it when he shot him.

Pafff! went the rifle, and at the same time a needle jabbed into Horst’s left haunch. He kept running. When in wolf form, his instincts weren’t exactly human. Then his muscles started slowing down by themselves. The snowdrifts seem to slip up to the right, and the sky down to the left. The human part of Horst knew he couldn’t outrun this. He twisted around and saw the trank dart dangling from his fur. Fuck. He tried to get his incisors onto it, but missed. Tried again, snap, missed again. He could barely concentrate, but he hunkered down, tried to change. With fingers he might have a chance. He shifted.

One: now he was fucking cold.

Two: the trank dart fell out.

Now I should be good, right? But he couldn’t get up, his legs wouldn’t move, and the moon seemed to be almost below him now, with the northern lights rippling underneath. The crunchy, broken drift seemed to eat him up like a Slurpee. It was so cold he couldn’t feel his skin. What’s that they say about falling asleep in the snow? Oh yeah: don’t.

A fog of being dragged, then the high-pitched whine-growl of a snowmobile. Other stuff, a woozy darkness, then…

Snap!

A searing pain in Horst’s paw bit the world into focus. He howled with all his throat, but no more than a moan came out. The world felt fuzzy and kept spinning, as if he’d just stepped off one of those rides at the Red River Ex. The air was warm and smelled of vinyl and drywall and the dry dust of furnace air.

He felt the long, thin hardness of a metal cage against his face. Damn it, I’ve been locked up. Wait, against his bare skin? Shit, I’ve been shaved. His stomach lurched and his heart rate kicked up to a “Run to the Hills” pace. Fuck, I’m inside.

He was human, naked, in a huge dog cage.

The index finger of his left hand was missing.

Blood spewed all over his skin, the floor of his cage, and the linoleum-covered concrete beneath it.

“Damn it, I thought that might do it,” said a man with a high, nasal voice.

Horst clamped his good hand over his missing finger and felt more than heard a huge roaring in his ears. He scrambled to the farthest corner of the cage away from the voice and the metal rattled like the clang of broken high hats.

Blood seeped between his knuckles and he tried not to hyperventilate. Always keep your head, Mitch said. He usually meant that when trying to take down a moose without getting clocked by its antlers.

A tall, thin man in his late twenties with a wispy red beard and wearing black, dirty ski pants stared at him from the other side of the bars. In one gloved hand he had a huge wire-cutter, smeared red on the snippers. In the other he had Horst’s index finger. “Go ahead,” he said. “Change.”

The fact he wanted him to got Horst’s back up. “Fuck off. Let me go, you psycho.”

The other grinned, as if listening to a horsefly arguing with a windshield. “It’ll stop the bleeding, won’t it? Don’t you guys heal fast?” He looked at Horst’s severed digit then dropped it into a small cooler full of ice on the floor. “Ah well, your choice.”

Horst stared at his finger before the man flipped the lid closed. “What the hell do you want?” Horst said.

The man stood, took a rag out of his back pocket and wiped off the wire cutters. He removed his gloves and tossed them into the corner of the room, along with the rag; the cutters he put on a fold-up plastic table. The walls were drywalled, but apart from that and the veneer of flooring over the cement foundation, the basement was unfinished. Furnace ducts, wiring and joists ran overhead. If he’s trying to soundproof the place he’s doing a shitty job. When he’d taken up drumming, his parents wouldn’t let him bring his set in from the garage until he’d scrounged a bunch of trash-heap mattresses, Cloroxed them all to death, and covered the walls with them (and insulated the basement ceiling—which had been a huge, itchy pain in the ass). The price you pay for being the next Peter Criss. (Who ranked about number three in his top five. As far as Horst was concerned, you hadn’t heard a drum solo until you’d heard the live version of “God of Thunder.”)

Horst’s throat burned to scream for help but he didn’t want to give this asshole the satisfaction.

Then the man said, as if they were having coffee together, “How does it work? There’s no way you should have enough energy to do it, no matter how much you eat.”

Horst blinked. The roaring in his ears still made it hard to hear, much less think. His heart had settled to thumping out big bass beats in time with Ozzy’s “The Ultimate Sin”—though he would have preferred something even slower, like the intro to “Iron Man.” Relax.

“What?” he said.

The man walked over to a table where his .22 lay. “Never mind. There’ll be time, where you’re going, to figure all that out.” He picked up the rifle and fitted it with another tranquilizer dart.

Horst’s mouth went dry at the thought of what he might mean by figure things out. “Hey, uh, wait, I don’t know you, I don’t even know where you live. Just let me out of here. I won’t tell anyone.” Except Mitch, of course, who would come back with his entire pack and nail the bastard. But, at the moment, Horst even believed himself.

He took aim down the sight of the rifle at Horst. “Right.”

“Can I at least have my gitch and my shirt back?”

He chuckled. “You’d be warmer with fur on, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck off.”

The man put the gun down, but didn’t take his hand off it. “Doesn’t sound like you really want to get out of here.”

“Sorry. Fuck.” Horst’s toes curled around the bars on the bottom of the cage. There wasn’t even a blanket in it. He shivered, more from discomfort than cold.

“You can be knocked out for the trip—or be a wolf. And, for all I know, maybe you’ll even grow that finger back. Or claw. Would you? Like a gecko?”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Horst’s hand throbbed. One thing was sure, he’d never twirl a drumstick with it again. Like that even matters! So far, his life wasn’t flashing in front of his eyes, but he wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

The man kept silent, so Horst said, “It’s only the reptiles that do that.”

The man’s mouth twitched one side of his beard up. “Really?”

As far as Horst knew there weren’t any cold-blooded things that could do what he did. But before tonight he hadn’t known there wasn’t anyone collecting pieces of werewolves, either. “Yeah, there’s some caiman assholes in, like, Cancun. Mayan or something.”

The man scratched his armpit. At least he’s not touching the rifle anymore. “What about mass? I saw you out there on all fours. Easily three hundred pounds—maybe more. But look at you now. One ninety, soaking wet.”

Horst grimaced and held up his scabbing-up hand. “Missing a few grams now.” He didn’t feel inclined to tell this shithead about the energy to change coming up from the earth itself, that it was just the trigger he carried around inside since Mitch had first bitten him.

“And?”

His gone finger knuckle was starting to itch like crazy. The scab was slowly shrinking and covering with skin so pink it was neon. He kept his other hand over it. “This your secret lab?”

The man coughed and then folded his arms. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Don’t you mean my ass, where you shot me?”

He shrugged then turned to a row of big plastic tubs along the wall. Horst felt his right shoulder. There was a part that ached a little inside, but no mark on the skin—not anymore. He’d stuck a needle in there. “What do you need my blood for?” he said.

“Do I look like a doctor to you? The people I can sell this to know how to extract all kinds of strange stuff from, ah, samples. When I told them what I’d seen you do out there last month, they were interested.” He smiled at Horst’s gaping mouth. “You really think no one out here keeps an eye out for wolves? Course, when I saw one melt into a scrawny shit like you I didn’t call Conservation. I had a better idea.” He opened a tub and pulled out a canvas bag at least six feet long. He laid it out on the cement floor in front of Horst’s cage and unzipped it. He tapped the cage, rattling it. “Now, this’ll be a lot easier on me if you don’t change. But you’ll be a lot more comfortable if you do.”

He stood up and went back to the line of tubs and started unpacking another, pulling a big backpack out of one and unzipping it.

More comfortable. Right. That must mean we’re going outside.Shit. Horst tried to clear his throat, but it was too dry. “They aren’t paying you enough.”

The man froze, staring at the wall in front of him. Without turning, he said, “What do you know about it?”

“Think about it. What they want to do, how much it’s really worth?”

Still refusing to look at Horst, he muttered, “Who says they’re paying me?”

Goosebumps rose all over Horst’s bare skin. “Fuck, you have a hell of a hobby then.”

The man turned, eyes glistening and a muscle in his left forearm twitching. “Do you ever get sick?” he said.

Horst huddled his legs in front of him and stared over his knees. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Yeah, I been sick.”

“But when you change. Doesn’t it—” He waved his hand, gripping the front of his ski pants over his chest with the other. “—just, erase whatever is in you?”

Horst paused a second. This is the real reason. “Depends what you’re sick with.”

“Damn it!” said the man, “Don’t play games with me!”

“I’m not, but what do I look like, a doctor? Go to the hospital, and let me go, for fuck’s sake.”

The man was shaking, a barely suppressed rage bubbling out of him. “They don’t have a cure for everything, smartass.”

Horst kept his mouth shut and breathed in through his nose. What did that leave, then? Cancer. Alzheimer’s. Hell, a lot of things, but you could still walk into the hospital and get treated for any of them. But this guy seemed to have a lot of that stuff here at home. Hell, he even had needles for taking blood samples…

Horst touched the shoulder where the needle had gone in. “What do you have that’s so incurable?”

The man turned to his backpack and began throwing a flashlight, bungee cords and a fleece blanket into it. “That’s not your problem, yet.”

Of course, most of the diseases Horst worried about were thanks to the sex-ed unit in guidance class. While everyone else had made herpes jokes or giggled about the right way to use a condom, what had rung through Horst’s mind was the disease no one even seemed to understand, and nobody in the class bothered to ask about, since everyone knew only fags got it.

Horst shifted forward in the cage. “You have it, don’t you?”

“Shut up!” the man said, standing and grabbing the trank rifle from the table. He pointed it at Horst, who put his hands up. He stared at Horst’s hand. “Already healed.” He lowered the barrel and took a few steps closer. Horst’s empty knuckle was still itchy but not in a fuck-I’m-on-fire way. It was nearly done fixing itself. Except his finger wasn’t coming back. Would he even be able to hold his sticks right anymore? Still play? A sour mixture of horror and anger churned through Horst’s gut at the thought.

Then: Hell, Rick Allen’s still in Def Leppard. I might still be able to get out of here. Horst wiggled his hand at the guy. “Take a look.”

He came closer. Horst shifted his weight, as if about to raise his left hand to give him a better view. Then, when the man was two feet away from the cage, he jumped.

Horst threw his weight onto the front part and tipped the cage forward with a shuddering clang. He scrambled upright while his captor tripped backward and landed on his ass. Horst leaned forward on it and brought his feet up again. The bearded man scooted backward, still holding the rifle but off-balance.

The cage crashed forward a second time. Horst strove to get close enough to grab any part of him he could get his hands on.

The man kept his grip on the rifle but was backed up against the table. He shoved the barrel through the bars, right at Horst. Horst deked to the side, grabbed the barrel with both hands, and shoved it hard back at him. The man hadn’t had time to brace the stock against his shoulder and the scope hit him in the face. He swore but didn’t let go. As he tried to get his feet against the cage to push back and get free, Horst pulled hard on the barrel and jerked it right back at him again. Crack, stock right in his nose. He yelled and let go. Horst hauled the rifle as far though the bars of the cage as he could but it got hung up on the body. The man grabbed the stock and that put his hand right where Horst could reach it.

He clamped down on the back of the man’s hand and crushed it against the metal of the cage, pinning him. He might not have the stubby, brutal fingers of a bass player, but a drummer’s hands were nothing to sneeze at, either. And he was mad—and okay, a little scared too, fuck—so he squeezed until things inside the man’s hand started moving where they weren’t supposed to, and he screamed.

“You let me the fuck out of here,” Horst said.

He just nodded and started fumbling for something in his pocket with his other hand.

Then the doorbell rang.

They both froze. Horst didn’t let go of his hand.

After a long few minutes, neither wanting to look away from the staircase leading up from the basement, the bell rang again.

“You expecting someone?” Horst said, annoyed his voice didn’t sound as threatening as he wanted it to.

Then, a muffled voice from outside. “Horst? You in there?” It was Rene. Shit.

For a split-second Horst’s grip weakened and the man yanked himself free.

“No!” Horst yelled.

The man dived for the open plastic tub, threw a bunch of camouflage clothing and ammunition cases out, and pulled a handgun from a foam-lined case. It was a Glock. He checked the magazine and glared at Horst. “How many are there?”

“Don’t!” Horst shouted. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit. You’re dead, when I get back.” He pounded up the stairs, sidearm up.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Horst grabbed the bars of his cage. “Rene! Run!”

He hoped to hell Rene had heard him. His heart rate was already through the roof, like the staccato thunder of “Red Hot,” the only Crüe song Horst could even stand. It was fast and relentless, and it began to trigger Horst’s deepest instincts.

Horst heard the door opening at the top of the stairs. The man didn’t even threaten Rene first.

Blam!

Horst let out a scream. And his body changed.

Then blam-blam! and “Fuck, what the Christ!”

Horst shuddered into his massive dire wolf form. All the vestiges of his human mind were overlaid with panic at the thought of Rene being wounded or worse.

A deep, cavernous growl surged through the sound of wood splintering and glass shattering as shards of a door rained down the staircase.

Horst gripped the cage door in his teeth and strained his hind feet against the opposite side. The metal tasted tangy on his tongue and began to give as he growled forward, massive shoulders and neck pushing. The metal began to bend, but it was the soldering on the latch that gave. With a snap the door flung open, lock and all.

Horst plunged out of the cage and howled. You motherfucker I’m coming for you.

Then a gasp came from the top of the stairs, just as Horst began to bound over the debris littering the carpeted steps.

Rene stood there, hand clasped over his bloody shoulder, completely naked. Horst paused, ears cocked forward. Why the hell aren’t you wearing any clothes? It’s minus insane out and it’s not like you have any fur—oh. Oh, wow, right, fuck! Rene nodded at him. “You okay?”

Horst wurffed out a quick affirmative, tail wagging until he forced it to stop. Even as a wolf he realized he was acting like a puppy. Rene’s alive. Play it cool.

“Asshole’s around front. I pushed his Ski-Doo over before I rang the bell but I bet that’s where he’s going. Gimme a second here and I’ll be right with you.”

The heavy thud of machinery crunching onto snow came from the other side of the house, then the grind-click of an ignition not quite catching.

Horst tore off, rounding the house just as his captor succeeded in getting the snowmobile started. The man glanced over his shoulder and fired the Glock at the dire wolf surging over the drifts at him. Horst took a bullet in his right shoulder and yelped. But he kept coming, crossing behind to the man’s left, so he couldn’t fire again without turning. Instead of trying to keep the wolf in his sights, he faced forward and gunned the motor. Horst sprang with hind legs powerful enough to throw him onto the back of an Irish elk. The snowmobile shot off over the sparkling white drifts—but not before Horst’s teeth sank into the thick foam-and-wood base of the rear seat. The machine slowed as Horst’s massive body was dragged through the snow behind it.

The man glanced over his shoulder and gaped, inadvertently easing up on the accelerator just long enough to allow Horst to get his good foreleg under him; then, realizing his life depended on it, the man turned his back on the wolf and gunned it. Horst was pulled off his feet again, but his jaws held firm.

Over the whine of the engine and the flurry of snow thrown up from the treads, Horst heard a deep roar from Rene. But then they plunged into the line of trees at the edge of the property, passing through the grasping bare branches and growling down into the ditch alongside the highway.

The fabric and foam of the seat tore the harder Horst held on. The man crouched over his handlebars like a frog, the T-shirt under his ski pants rippling in the burning-cold wind. Horst couldn’t see where he had the Glock.

The engine coughed into a deeper growl and the machine slowed. Horst just had time to scramble his hind legs under him and see they’d come to a gravel road intersecting the highway, blocking the ditch. There was a culvert underneath it to allow water to flow through in the summer, but it was far too small for the snowmobile. The man hauled on the handlebars and took them up to the left, toward the highway. Horst let go of the shredded seat and leaped up behind him, stumbling when his injured foreleg took some his weight and crumpled. The man glanced over his shoulder, screamed, and hit the gas. The machine shot up over the edge of the ditch and Horst clamped his teeth onto the nearest thing available—the man’s shoulder.

After a few seconds flying through the air, the snowmobile landed with a metallic scrape and a thud on the wind-swept asphalt. The man grasped for something in the front of his chest-covering ski-pants—the Glock, of course—while still driving forward. The roar of the engine drowned out all other sound, but from the direction Horst’s snout was pointed, he saw the semi first.

It was barreling down on them from the north. The truck driver hadn’t seen them yet.

Horst’s would-be abductor had the Glock out now and its muzzle flared with a deafening bang so close to his snout the reek of gunpowder shot into his nose. He let go of the man with his teeth and jumped back and away from the snowmobile. He landed heavily on the northbound turning lane, unable to do more than roll as his wounded leg gave out again. At the same time, the semi’s airhorn blared, too late, and the rig smashed into the snowmobile. The smaller machine flew to pieces with a splintering crunch. Plastic and metal and fabric shot through the air, along with the stink of oil and gas and rubber and the scent of blood. Horst glanced down the lane in which he had landed—headlights approaching. He crawled and limped, each ragged step far too slow, as the new vehicle bore down on him. Never look at the headlights, Mitch always said. You don’t want to be nailed like some stupid deer. But it was hard to look away.

Horst tumbled into the ditch and lay panting in the frigid darkness. His ears told him everything that was happening now, and his nose filled him in on the rest.

The car that had been coming toward him braked near where the semi had come to a stop. Car doors opened, shouts of Holy shit, what happened? And Guy tried to cross the highway on his fuckin’ Ski-Doo. Then Oh my God and the sound of retching. The scene was more than a hundred meters south of where Horst lay but his hearing was already starting to recover. You guys heal fast, don’t you?

He heard the sound of the trucker’s voice again. I radioed for help but they’re not gonna be able to put this poor asshole back together.

Horst’s wounded foreleg still wouldn’t bear his weight, and his other foreleg, whose paw still had a claw missing, felt weird. But he struggled through the snowy ditch to the stretch of field through which he had been dragged. If he followed the treadmarks of the snowmobile he’d find his way back and hide his own pawprints at the same time.

Each limping step was painful, and it wasn’t long before an unfamiliar scent put his back up. He paused, checking for cover. Where had he smelled this before? Right outside the house, when he’d encountered Rene—

A massive bear shambled out of the line of trees ahead, carrying a duffel bag and backpack in its teeth. It was so large—bigger than a grizzly—they looked like lunchbags. It dropped them in the snow when it caught scent of Horst, then melted back into human form.

“Got your stuff,” said Rene. “Saved your finger, too.”

Horst shifted back as well, his shoulder knitting itself back into shape as he did. Still ached though. And his empty knuckle remained bare.

Horst retrieved his clothes from his bag and dressed while Rene did the same. The realization that Rene was like him, but something he’d never seen before, kept hitting him like a final beat you don’t get right the first time. Bam. No, bam. Bam-crash. He had a hundred questions drowning in the relief that he—and Rene—weren’t going to die tonight. Mitch had always been vague on details about shifting into other animals. Now Horst had new questions—but they could wait.

“It over?” said Rene, his words a plume of steam in the moonlight.

Horst shuddered. “Semi smashed him up. He’s dead.”

Rene clapped Horst’s shoulder and left it there, a warm, reassuring presence. “Gonna have to find out what he was up to.”

Horst wanted to say something that didn’t sound like his whole life was turning into even more shit, but all he could come up with was “Fuck.”

“Hey,” said Rene. “No one’s in this alone. You know what I mean.”

Horst leaned his head in slowly until their foreheads were touching and then they kissed. “I guess I do.”

Rene smiled. “Next time, let’s go see a movie instead. No offence, but this first date kinda sucked.”

Horst grinned, and he knew it was a stupid, uncool kind of grin. He didn’t care. “Fuck off.” As they continued retracing the snowmobile tracks, he added, “Damn it, my car’s dead.”

“I got cables, you need me to jump you?”

Horst thumped his shoulder into Rene’s. “Second date. Second date.”

“Your call, Mahiinkan.”

“That’s gonna be less funny when I learn the Ojibwe for Big-Ass Bear.”

The trail led to a stretch of bush with a groomed ski trail where their footprints wouldn’t show, and they turned to follow it. Rene put his arm around Horst’s shoulders. “Maybe I’ll teach you.”

Horst decided maybe the rest of the year might not suck too hard, after all.

In Open Air

Originally published in Accessing the Future (Futurefire.net Publishing)

* * *

Soraiya Courchene wasn’t sure she’d heard Rotational Captain Genevieve Makwa correctly; but it sounded, as the captain peered at her monitor and held her chin thoughtfully, that she’d said, “Well, here’s something new.”

In four generations aboard, even in the one-thousand-odd days of that that they’d been orbiting the planet, that wasn’t an expression you heard every day. It was the sort of thing reserved for events such as seeing the sun set in open air—something Soraiya would have dearly loved, but knew she would probably not live long enough for.

Soraiya turned to face the captain. She liked her; Captain Makwa usually remembered to look right at her when speaking, and she always welcomed her to the bridge with an old Anishinaabe compliment: “You’re so fat!” Which, coming from the captain with her big smile and dark eyes, never sounded like the whispers from some of the other crew that fluttered at the edge of what Soraiya could hear and couldn’t; and of course the whispers were meant to prick at her hearing loss as well as her weight. Soraiya, at 60, was long since sick of it. Most of the rotational command crew respected her ability to read the old data files, crusted in archaic monolingual constructions rather than in the current blend of the language they shared more with every new generation. But there were always some who thought it was a waste of time to study anything Prelaunch.

Soraiya cleared her throat. The air on the bridge was more stale than usual and it made her want to cough, but she made the sound mainly to get the captan’s attention. Captain Makwa looked up and faced her. Soraiya noticed that she hadn’t been looking at the blue/red/white whorls of the planet below, but rather the sensor array they used for tracking meteorites. “It’s moving,” said the captain.

Soraiya’s heart started to pound. “Evasive?” she asked, her fingers itching to engage the thrusters, which hadn’t been used since they’d manoeuvred into geosynchronous. A thousand-odd days ago.

The captain might have grinned if it were only a matter of positioning their massive hollowed-out asteroid out of the way to avoid a collision. Captain Makwa sometimes cackled at the thought of something so dangerous, but not this time. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “I think it’s coming to look for us.”

She patched over the data stream to Soraiya’s monitor. There it was: not just a tracking signal showing a tiny object headed straight for them, slowly, but a hail. Soraiya recognized the Mandarin text immediately, and the English, somewhat; the third was written in Cyrillic characters, but she had not studied Prelaunch Ukrainian much. The Mandarin had many unfamiliar phonetic characters, and the English dialect before her was very odd.

“What do you think?” asked the captain. Meaning, Do we wake the rest of the command crew two hours early for this? And is it worth alerting all 435 people aboard?

“The ID isn’t one of the other generation ships,” said Soraiya, stalling, afraid of what the rest of the hail signified. “They’re saying they’re here to check on our ‘progress’.” Soraiya felt her throat tighten as she spoke; she knew that meant she was talking more quietly, so she forced herself to speak up, which always meant she ended up shouting. No use cursing the loss of her hearing aids; they’d been repurposed into a stethoscope when she was thirty-two, and not all the headsets on the bridge still worked. She called up a sidebar display to check some of their oldest records, and the Prelaunch dating system. She swallowed. “It says they left Earth 28 days ago.”

Captain Makwa sucked on her teeth. Soraiya always thought that made her look older than her 46 years. “They got here faster than light. I’d say that was new.”

* * *

Things might have been simpler if the captain’s rotational duty hadn’t ended before the new ship got close enough to dock. For the first time in two generations, the ship might have to halt its gravity-simulating rotation to allow the FTL craft from Earth to couple. The entire population of the asteroid they all called Home was abuzz.

Soraiya spent her off hours with friends chatting by one of the crowded observation decks, huge transparent panels beneath their feet allowing them to watch the planet as it passed by like clockwork. The population of the ship, renamed Home generations ago, had (eventually) unanimously agreed the planet they had journeyed so long to explore should be called They Are To Be Respected. The deep blues of seawater sworled into the white of clouds, the crimson and indigo vegetation seeming like swaths from a painter’s brush this far out. The planet rose and set while they watched. Before the hail from the Earth craft Soraiya had enjoyed the spark and argument of discussions over ecosystems, flora and fauna, the wonder of the smells their molecular scanners had detected at ground level and clumsily replicated in their labs. Like most aboard Home, Soraiya couldn’t bear the thought of intruding on the planet’s surface. The early days of Home’s journey, they had grown up learning, were filled with the incomplete attitude that you had to take what you needed and if you didn’t have enough, take more or take from someone else. That had worked, somewhat, as they were still mining the asteroid they travelled in for resources to sustain the journey; but when their ancestors (some of them) had begun fighting over them, there had been trouble. Murder. Strife. And, briefly, worse. But they had eventually changed their attitude, adopted a way of life that allowed them to survive in the frigid emptiness of space, and sometimes it took generations to see the best decision. Theirs was not the only way to do it, perhaps; but then they were the only generation ship that had been able to complete the journey.

They would not rush a human visit to the surface of They Are To Be Respected. Even their satellites stayed at a high enough orbit that (they hoped) indigenous life would never see them. That was, of course, at total odds with the Prelaunch goals, which Soraiya now found herself poring over, wondering less how the FTL craft had made the journey than why.

And while she was a firm believer in leaving They Are To Be Respected untouched and unsettled while they undertook a long study of it—how much of that was bound up in simply not wanting to leave Home, for all of them?—she felt more than curiosity to walk in its wildly coloured forests, rather than the clean but manufactured halls of Home, and to feel on her face the wash of sea spray in the wind, not just the comfortable, stale climate they depended on.

Now the conversations raged over what the new arrivals would look like, why they talked so differently, what news they had from Earth. The younger generation was most excited by this last part. The middle-aged and older, like Soraiya, had suddenly eager audiences for stories handed down. But in her few moments alone Soraiya stared out at They Are To Be Respected and wondered whether their practices of studying the planet from afar for the next generation were about to change.

Soraiya’s rotation was staggered from the captain’s, the better to transition from one command crew to the next, and she was relieved to note Dr. Mak’s shift did as well. She trusted his judgment, given his experience with their sporadic epidemics. But the new captain for this 40-day shift was Kenneth Rodriguez, one of the growing number of the younger generation who didn’t hold with leaving the planet below untouched while they studied it. He didn’t go so far as to suggest colonizing it, not yet, that was too radical a notion; but many felt a pull from They Are To Be Respected that went beyond mere gravity. Rodriguez’s fervour to meet with the new arrivals seemed to go beyond simple curiosity, she thought.

“Can you make sense of what they’re saying?” he barked at her in front of the rest of the bridge, assuming she just needed higher volume to understand him. You could tell someone a hundred times that wasn’t how your hearing loss worked; that you could hear quiet and loud sounds just fine, in fact very well—it was hearing anything against conversational hubbub of more than four people at once, or the white noise of their forced air system sometimes, that was impossible.

She put up a hand to signal for him to wait—and for everyone else to shut up. They almost never did, so she’d probably end up shouting. The signal from the FTL craft was strong, the words reasonably clear; it was the pronunciation and dialect that sounded foreign. It reminded her of the rigid simplicity of the old English text from early Postlaunch times, without the added Xhosa, Anishinaabe, Kirundi and Spanish metaphors and constructions they all took for granted now. It was like watching one of the uncorrupted old movies, but without subtitles. So she relied more on the automatic transcription of the incoming messages on her screen. “They’re asking permission to dock.”

“Do they need us to stop rotation?”

She sent the question to them, in Chinese. They’d long since adopted the non-strictly-phonetic characters of the Mandarin script aboard Home, adapting it to new idioms to accommodate 70 languages. As a writing system it was far better than Prelaunch English, and it had taken nearly a generation to replace all the signage and labelling they’d Launched with.

The monitors flashed with the reply back, in Mandarin, something like Our ships must be at rest for us to dock. Soraiya wondered if their pilots lacked the skill or their craft the fuel to do it otherwise. Now that it was up close, they could all see the FTL vessel was barely bigger than one of their unused dropships. How had these people crossed so much space so quickly in a craft like that? She knew the engineers aboard Home were burning to know. But she seemed to be one of the few worried about what these people wanted from them.

“Very well then,” said Captain Rodriguez. “Let’s prepare for zero-G.”

The signal went throughout Home, and everyone who was awake—which was all except the newborns and young children, given the excitement over seeing people from Earth—scurried to carry out emergency measures rarely used. Loose items were stowed; sick bay patients and the infirm were assisted to secure beds and chairs; children corralled; and many just grabbed on to bolted-down handrails, unable to tear themselves away from the newsfeed from the bridge.

In twenty minutes they were ready and Home’s thrusters slowed its rotation until they lost all sensation of weight; the following three hours as the FTL craft manoeuvred, coupled, and achieved hard seal seemed to last forever and yet take no time at all.

Once the Home technicians gave the thumbs-up on the lock between the two craft, the captain asked Soraiya to let the new arrivals know they would be beginning rotation again. Soraiya did; there was a long pause before the other crew responded, in the affirmative. As Home resumed rotation, the pull of gravity returned. Soraiya wondered, fleetingly, if this were how it felt to enter a planet’s atmosphere and feel its welcoming strength. She knew it wasn’t; but the desire to feel it put a lump in her throat.

Captain Rodriguez now turned to Dr. Mak. “How long?”

“Depends on what they’re carrying,” came the doctor’s answer. “Could be a few days, could be weeks. We may have to figure out how to feed them while they’re quarantined, given the size of their ship.”

Soraiya eased her grip on the armrests of her workstation. Why had she been clenching them? She breathed out slowly. Now the newcomers were here and would be dealing with the captain directly, her part in this was likely done.

* * *

For the first few days, she was right about that. The captain took linguists when he went to meet with the strangers separated by the airlock, since they could barely understand the versions of English and Mandarin the visitors spoke. And scanning them for disease, despite their apparent protestations they were “clean” (was that really what they were saying?) proved difficult, as the equipment Dr. Mak used for this had never been fitted to the airlock before, and the process took much longer than it should have. “Probably not taking long enough,” the doctor confided to her in her bunk room after the third day of quarantine. “But everyone wants to welcome them aboard. And they keep asking for our research.”

At that Soraiya’s stomach went cold. She offered him more tea. “Why do you think that is?”

He shrugged. “They seem in a great hurry.”

So, it seemed, was Captain Rodriguez. He called her to a meeting on the fourth day of quarantine when she had been rereading the last signals they’d received from the four other generation ships. The one that had been ahead of them, the three behind them, each separated by hundreds of days of travel. For safety, the Prelaunch thinking had been; but while the ships did not then share in the same disasters on the journey by being too close, it meant they were nearly powerless to come to another ship’s aid when communication ceased. She thought perhaps there would be something in those communiqués that would shed light on this new arrival; but if there was, she was missing it.

Captain Rodriguez asked her to join him at the airlock. She had to tear her eyes away from the faces she saw through the porthole on the door. There were three people she could see there, from the shoulders up, in white and grey uniforms. A man and a woman glanced at her when she looked in on them. The other seemed to be a man with his back to the portal, communicating with the other ship.

One of Home’s linguists, Enrique Hoffman, was with the captain. “Officer Courchene,” he said with a nod. “I’m having trouble making out what they’re saying, and I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.”

She smiled. “What do you think they are saying?”

“They keep asking about fuel, I think, in addition to some other things about food and questions about us.”

“Captain, if you would be so kind as to type a message to them?” she said.

“Right.” He sent a text in Mandarin to the people in the airlock.

The man who’d been facing away from them turned as the woman alerted him to Captain Rodriguez’s message. He began addressing the P.A. link in the airlock, and his voice came through clearly on the Home side. She ignored the sound, the decibel level falling within the range she could barely hear, what most people used for a conversational tone. Instead she read the stranger’s lips through the porthole. The accent and constructions were odd, but that wasn’t the problem. Listening to his pronunciations were what seemed to be causing Hoffman trouble. The shape of the stranger’s consonants were sharper, and his distorted vowels muted, however, when you watched the words he shaped. Soraiya had been reading lips to help her carry on a conversation since before she could read, with or without her long-since recycled hearing aids.

Making out what the man on the other side was saying still wasn’t easy. “It’s like a mix of Prelaunch English and Portuguese,” she said. “He does want to fuel his ship, they’ve used up more than they expected and he wants to know…how much of, of certain elements we’ve found on They Are To Be Respected.”

“Of course,” said Captain Rodriguez. Soraiya tore her eyes from the stranger’s face and looked at the rotational captain’s. His bearing was upright, he seemed almost to vibrate in his well-worn uniform, and while his mouth was set his eyes shone. “They think we have begun to colonize the planet. Perhaps they think we are merely an outpost.”

Soraiya nodded. She hadn’t seen any words to that effect from the visitor but she felt the captain had guessed correctly.

“How long did Dr. Mak say the quarantine should last?”

“Twenty-one days,” said Hoffman. “He wanted to be able to scan for—”

“Let’s see if we can shorten that.”

Soraiya’s eyes widened. “Sir, what about the risk?”

“I feel the risk to them may be greater. Their life support may depend on that fuel, and I’m not sure we have what they need on Home.”

There was more to the captain’s words than he was saying. But she realized, he also knew she was watching him.

* * *

When the quarantine was ended five days early the newcomers were welcomed into a celebration the likes of which had not been seen aboard Home for a generation. The eight strangers were treated to a feast of all the foods Home could muster; and their stores of rice, dried fruit, nuts, legumes, bread, chicken, pork, and precious spices, even salt, were opened. Two of them, a man with ruddy skin and short, space-black hair and a handlebar moustache, and a woman with brown-black hair, light brown skin and freckles, seemed somehow different from the other six, four men and two women. Soraiya noticed the six seemed to defer to the man and woman, and let them speak for the group more often than not. How long did these people serve as rotational captains, she wondered? If the journey from Earth had been so short, how would such behaviour become the norm? She wanted to ask Past Captain Makwa about it, but she was sitting too far away.

In the raucous gathering with a view to the observation deck, everyone sat on mats and shared plates and bowls with the newcomers, who clearly seemed at turns amused, awed, surprised, and confused, as They Are To Be Respected rose and set.

Soraiya could not hear anything against the conversation all around her; and the spikes of laughter or whoops of excitement hit right in the high-decibel, high-pitch range she heard quite well, and they seemed to erupt out of nowhere, to her; and the sound hurt.

The Earth captain had many questions for Captain Rodriguez, and Soraiya noticed him asking something about meeting in private, away from the noise. She couldn’t hear the rotational captain’s response, and only caught the nod of his head; his face was directed at the stranger’s. But a few minutes later, both stood as if to go get something to drink. But after they got to the edge of the huge room, they kept walking.

Soraiya managed to catch Past Captain Makwa’s eye, receiving a big smile in return, which faded when Soraiya stood and seemed unwilling to speak. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, it was bad enough feeling like she was missing everything said by people when she wasn’t watching them. But then she noticed two of the other visitors had left their mats, and another was carefully rising and working his way through the crowd. The remaining four, including the woman who seemed to be a co-captain, remained, laughing and trying to speak with the inhabitants of Home.

Makwa and Soraiya moved to the exit and once in the hallway, closed the door.

“You seem worried,” said Makwa.

Soraiya nodded. “I think the visitors want something from They Are to Be Respected.”

“Fuel, eh? I don’t know what their ship runs on but I hear they were asking for our data from the molecular scanners.”

“Do any of our dropships still work?” A practice drill was one thing, but Soraiya had never thought about whether it would actually be possible to use one of the vehicles.

Makwa sucked her teeth. “One, for sure. When I was younger my dad worked on the modifications they made, before we got here. There might be a couple, but a lot of them had parts he’d said we needed to add thrusters to maintain orbit.”

“I think we should take a look.”

“Should I call someone?” Soraiya knew that meant alerting Home’s authorities. But then Captain Rodriguez would receive the feed as well. And she didn’t want to look foolish. Doubt gnawed at her.

Makwa put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk, eh? Just see.”

Soraiya nodded.

Together they followed the labyrinthine hallways that lined the outer shell of Home, leading to the dropship bays. Only one had not been abandoned and repurposed for farming. And as soon as they got there, they found the door locked.

Soraiya tried her passcode; her clearance as current command crew was high enough to override.

As the door slid open, two of the strangers noticed them and leapt at them. Soraiya pushed Makwa back and blocked the entrance. They seized her and dragged her through. The door closed and Past Captain Makwa was left outside. Soraiya knew she had clearance to open the door as well; but she hoped her friend would instead sound the alarm and bring help.

The man and woman who gripped her arms roughly didn’t give her time to worry about that, instead hauling her through to the hangar, where she beheld a terrible sight. Captain Rodriguez lay splayed on the floor, eyes staring at some unseen corner of the room. Unfamiliar packs of equipment with the same logo as the Earth people’s uniforms lay nearby.

“What did you do?” she shouted, pulling against her captors.

The leader of the others put his hands up in a placating gesture—though the expression on his face was hard—and gestured to Captain Rodriguez as he spoke. She couldn’t fathom some of the words and expressions he used, but one of them seemed to mean “asleep for a time.”

Soraiya was about to retort when the shipwide klaxon blared. She winced at the sudden noise and strained to cover her ears. The two strangers pulled her to the open hatch of the dropship. The captain raised a circular device that glowed violet at its periphery and shouted above the sound of the alarm, indicating Captain Rodriguez again. What would his crew do to the inhabitants of Home, she wondered? Surely Makwa had gotten word to the rest of the crew in time?

The captain signalled to the two holding her and they dragged her aboard the dropship in its launch blister. A fourth person was already at its helm, trying to understand the ancient controls. The captain tapped at the insignia on Soraiya’s uniform and then at the pilot’s seat. She set her jaw. They all trained on the ship’s system, once every 365 days. So while the old writing and displays seemed odd, she knew the routine and they were reasonably sure the ship would still work.

She shook her head.

The captain nodded curtly to one of her captors, who released her arm roughly and disappeared out of the craft. A moment later he returned, dragging Captain Rodriguez’s body. The crewman put his hand on the helpless man’s throat and squeezed, then looked to his captain. The Earth captain turned back to Soraiya and stared at her.

What had Rodriguez hoped to do? Show off the dropship? Take them to the surface, against everything they had practised since arriving—take nothing, send only drones to the planet, leave as much untouched as possible? So they had meant to continue for at least a generation, until they began to understand more about They Are To Be Respected. But some burned with curiosity to go down themselves. Soraiya felt that same wild hope flare up as she struggled to decide what to do, how to save the captain without compromising what Home was here to do.

There was no other way. “All right!” she shouted, tugging herself to the pilot’s seat but keeping her eyes on the captain’s face. After a long few seconds, he looked to his crewman and gave an order; the man released Captain Rodriguez’s throat.

He gave a order to one of his companions and the man wrote a message in Mandarin on his communicator and showed it to her: We need elements from the planet to make—and here there was a new character Soraiya had never seen—for fuel. Is this ship in proper working order? If it has been sabotaged, you will be held responsible. The threat was clear.

She replied via the communicator: The dropship is in perfect working order.

The captain nodded curtly. Two of his crew went to retrieve the equipment they had brought to the hangar.

Soraiya felt her ears burn as she sat, for the first time in her life taking control of the dropship knowing it was not a drill—the first person on Home, ever, to do so—and her heart thumped deep in her chest. She was really doing it. She was going down to the planet. She prayed this was the right thing to do. It was reckless. But they would kill Captain Rodriguez if she didn’t. But she was so, so curious. But they didn’t know enough, yet, about the planet.

She clasped the seat harness with shaking hands. “Secure crew!” she shouted, as per routine, and flicked the dropship’s systems to life.

Normally a Home crew oversaw the opening of the launch blister doors, but that could be done remotely from the dropship under emergency protocols. She knew the contingencies.

She pulled a headset on as the captain and the others strapped themselves in. She delayed opening the exterior doors, her hand hovering above the controls and watching the Earth captain, until he secured Captain Rodriguez as well. Then she engaged, ignoring the amplified chatter in her headset from the Earth woman who had elected to be copilot. The outer doors slid open, as they had with every routine practice. Soraiya felt the same thrill she always did, that there was nothing but the emptiness of space beyond. She shook her head and instead of miming the movements over the controls, she placed her hands on the grips and set the dropship free. Out they tumbled, gently spiralling away from Home, the gravity falling away rom their bodies.

It took her longer than during the drills to snap the manouevring thrusters to life. She doublechecked all the systems. Yes, Past Captain Makwa was right. There had been some changes, even to this ship. She breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps this was the only right thing, or perhaps the best of bad choices she could make.

The Earth copilot had given up asking her questions through the headset. Soraiya saw a message from the woman flash on her screen in Mandarin. Can you land this and get us back to our ship.

Soraiya glanced at the copilot, whose cheeks were flat and glistened with nervous sweat. What was she afraid of? Her captain? Death? Or was it something they’d left behind on Earth? Soraiya replied, The ship is in perfect working order.

The descent was unlike anything she had ever experienced. The copilot was an able assistant, given she was still trying to adapt to the archaic interfaces and controls, but since there was no time to type out their communication with each other she and Soraiya were essentially acting alone. The vibrating roar of atmosphere against the armoured hull felt like an interminable grind of stone on stone, as if They Are To Be Respected meant to crush them for their intrusion. Soraiya whispered a brief prayer. Do what you must. I will protect you.

She could not spare a look away from her console to see whether Captain Rodriguez was all right, but she hoped he was. She hoped the rest of the inhabitants of Home were, as well.

The harder part, of course, was landing.

The purple-pink of the landscape, the white froth of clouds, and deep blue of the oceans rushed up to greet them frighteningly fast, and Soraiya deployed the chutes at the appropriate altitude, noting the prevailing wind at this part of the southern hemisphere matched what their satellites and scanners had indicated. As their speed decreased and the atmosphere pushed them around, she panicked. The air was so thick; it wasn’t like manouevring an exovehicle around Home at all. Keep calm, she told herself even as her knuckles whitened and the sweat on her palms made her grip on the controls slip. Your people did not survive generations in space for you to die like this.

The impossibly high branches of pink and red trees reached up as if to grab them. The copilot yelled something through the headset until Soraiya tore it off. “Let me do this!” she shouted back. The dropship yawed as Soraiya guided what was left in the thrusters toward an opening in the forest, a deep purple swath of grass or moss. She hoped it was soft.

THUNK the craft landed with an impact that threw them against the webbing of their harnesses.

Then it was quiet.

Soraiya blinked and unbuckled herself. The Earth captain was already free of his harness and barred the way out. He barked something at her; the way her ears were ringing from the concussion of their landing, she read his lips instead. Something about suits. Protection. She shook her head. “It’s fine. We already know we can breathe down here.” With difficulty, according to their estimates and rigorous simulations.

He pulled out the circular weapon as his crew unbuckled themselves and stood. Captain Rodriguez remained in his seat but he blinked and raised his head. He grimaced as if suffering a migraine. “What—”

The Earth captain spat out another order, gesturing for Soraiya to open the door and holding his weapon ready. Trembling, she nodded. Part of her—a large part—wished he would kill her with it, so it would not be she who defiled They Are To Be Respected. But that was an evasion. She had brought them down here. She could have deliberately scuttled the dropship by fumbling the atmo entry, burned them all up before getting anywhere near the surface. Part of her hungered to step outside, and see it, breathe it, drink it in. She revelled in the pull of real gravity—they had recalibrated the rotation aboard Home upon arrival, to match what a person would feel on They Are To Be Respected, so that the younger generations would grow up ready when they decided to make planetfall. As it was, Soraiya’s joints gave her some grief. But she would take the first steps on the planet. It was more than she had ever dared dream. It felt wrong. But thrilling.

The Earth captain spoke sharply again, to her and then to his companions. They picked up packs of equipment they had brought with them.

Soraiya stepped into the small airlock and secured it. Then she opened the outer door.

The warm wind sworled in around her, playing with her hair. It was unlike the blasting air currents in the long hallways and curved corridors aboard Home; it was so random and fresh and wild. She hesitated for a moment. I am still aboard the dropship, she thought. That was both an excuse to stay and an impetus to leave. She stepped out and down onto the surface.

The red vegetation was a dizzying variety of tall red and purple stalks, with leaflike petals adoring the tops, the breeze whistling through them at a high enough pitch Soraiya heard it well. What other sounds are there here? she wondered, aching for the first time in thousands of days for her hearing aids.

She began to sneeze at something in the air, even as she marvelled at the touch of sunlight on her face. The Earth captain and his crew marched out of the dropship. Captain Rodriguez stumbled down the ramp after them. They began unpacking equipment and their captain directed them to different points of the clearing. As they took readings and called to each other on what they found, Soraiya helped Captain Rodriguez stay on his feet.

“They, they said they needed to fuel their craft to return to Earth. I said we didn’t have any of what they asked for not already tied to life support.” He blinked and sneezed as well. “Of course, there is plenty on They Are To Be Respected.”

They left much unspoken about his motives. Soraiya’s stomach was still in knots over what they had done, what they were doing right now, the sight of the Earth people already plotting and marking and measuring.

“This dropship, it’s the same as the other ones?” he asked.

Soraiya nodded. “Only difference is that it was able to get us down here.” She wondered what the Earth captain’s reaction would be, when they told him.

He marched over to them, holding out a communicator. It showed a message from Past Captain Makwa. “Earth crew have taken control of bridge. Demand safe return of Earth captain and fuel, then they will leave.”

“No one will leave,” said Soraiya to the Earth captain.

He said something, the sharp confusion clear on his face.

Soraiya gestured for the communicator, and after a moment he handed it to her. She wrote a message in Mandarin, hoping he would understand. “Our dropships are meant only to bring down, not to launch back up. We needed their thrusters for Home. And we decided that we would only land on They Are To Be Respected when They, and we, were ready. If your crew wishes to come down here, they will have to build a new dropship.”

She passed it back to him. He read it. She sneezed again, several times. Her eyes had begun to feel sticky from whatever was in the air. The Earth people didn’t seem to be as bothered by it.

The Earth captain’s face went darker as he read. Then he began shouting at her. He threw the communicator down and grabbed the front of her handed-down uniform, shaking her. Captain Rodriguez pulled one of his arms away. “What did you think?” he shouted at him, as Soraiya covered her ears. “That we would let you just come and take things away?”

The other Earth people were running to intervene, she couldn’t tell if they were shouting at her or their captain.

But she didn’t care. She stood on the surface of They Are To Be Respected. They had rations to last seven days. Beyond that, who knew? Soraiya knew some of the information Home had collected in its hundreds of days of study from orbit might bear fruit, so to speak. But she suspected they would not have enough time to learn. That might suit the Earth people, she thought darkly; they seemed to like to get things over with so quickly.

The Earth captain was pulled away from her by his crew, one of whom was shouting at him and the others demanding answers or explanations from her and Captain Rodriguez. Through the snot and sneezing and tears clogging her nose and eyes, Soraiya smiled. She would finally see the sun set in open air.

Sarah Gailey

Bargain

Originally published by Mothership Zeta, October 2015.

* * *

Malachai loved his work. He loved wandering among the trappings of enormous wealth and influence, seeing the baubles that humans would excrete to express their status. He especially loved watching those wealthy, influential mortals tremble before the might of his inescapable superiority.

Malachai worked exclusively with those humans who had found themselves at the limit of how much power they could posses. They called him to bend the rules of time and space around their whims, so that they might be even more feared and loved by the other mortals. Their desires were predictable—money, knowledge, talent, authority. These were the kinds of people who hunted down ancient parchments with the Words of Invocation inscribed upon them. These were the kinds of people who did not concern their consciences with the compensation Malachai required for his services.

They appreciated a bit of theatrical flair.

So when he received the summons from dispatch, he responded with appropriate formality. Curling smoke, crackling lightning, the wailing of damned souls—a standard business-casual entrance. He waited for his cue, which was usually the sound of a man discovering terror for the first time in his comfortable life. Once that terror had peaked, Malachai would announce himself. Any sooner, and the human would get swept up in proceedings before their fear really set the tone. Thus, on this and all assignments, Malachai waited to hear the panic and the wailing and the what-have-I-wrought’s.

He waited for quite some time.

He looked around, waving his hands to clear some of the lingering smoke—which was actually just high-quality steam. They never noticed the difference, and real smoke would have aggravated his asthma. The result was visually pleasing and left his suit wrinkle-free, but occasionally served to obscure a mortal who was too frightened to plead at the proper volume. Malachai arranged himself into a posture of menace and waited for the last of the steam to dissipate.

There was nobody in the room.

Malachai frowned in puzzlement. There were rooster-shaped salt and pepper shakers on a well-used round table, and a sign hung over the door that read “If you want breakfast in bed, sleep in the kitchen!” This didn’t make sense. He didn’t do domestic calls.

A massive brown Labrador lolloped around the corner, his tail waving frantically. Malachai narrowed his eyes and bared his fangs at the dog. He projected threatening thoughts, visions of Labradors being eaten by bigger, scarier dogs; visions of thunder and flooding and tigers pouncing on unsuspecting puppies; visions of the hounds of Hell shaking off their chains and storming the little kitchen in search of a mortal morsel.

The dog smelled Malachai’s shoes-and, ignoring Malachai’s pointed objections, his crotch-with great interest. He wuffled to himself about the results and sat. His tail thumped on the linoleum.

Malachai stared at the dog. Looked over his shoulder. Nobody there. Just him and the dog. He crouched in front of the beast and looked into the large, vacant brown eyes. First time for everything.

“Did…uh, did you summon me?”

The dog panted happily and continued thumping his tail.

“I summoned you. He’s a dog. He can’t read Archaic Latin.” A woman walked into the kitchen. Malachai was not good at guessing mortal age, but his best estimate placed her at around…three hundred years old? She was upright and walking, but relied heavily on a dull aluminum cane. Her back was straight, and her eyes were clear, and Malachai assessed her as aware of her encroaching mortality, but not concerned by it.

Malachai drew himself to his fullest, most intimidating height, and began billowing smoke (well, steam). He drew breath to begin his Terrible Introductions. The dog stood and nudged a cold, wet nose into Malachai’s hand.

“Oh, go on and pet him, would you? He’s going to start pouting if you don’t. And enough with the special effects. We have a lot to discuss and not much time.”

Malachai turned to the woman and allowed the fires of Hell to blaze behind his eyes. He hissed in a fashion he had picked up from a colleague with a uniquely crocodilian aspect.

The dog whined softly and nudged at his hand again.

The woman lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table and raised her eyebrows pointedly at Malachai. “Pet Baxter, and then let’s begin.”

The hellfire and hissing hadn’t worked. There was only one explanation: this was a mistake. The woman was old for a mortal—if he recalled his training, humans started to peter out around three hundred and fifty years or so—and she had probably intended to place an order for a new pelvis or lawn furniture or something. She just didn’t realize who he was. It had never happened to him before, but it wasn’t unheard of—someone means to say “Operator, please connect me to Home Shopping Network customer support,” but they have a stutter, and what comes out instead is an Archaic Latin summoning of a Pestilent Creature.

He turned off the theatrics, patted Baxter on the head, and smiled at the poor, foolish old woman. She did not smile back at him.

“Ma’am. I think you got the wrong number.” No need to scare her. Malachai liked to startle the hubris out of mortals, but causing cardiac arrest in little old ladies gave him no particular satisfaction. He would approach this gently.

“Oh?” A look of very mild concern crossed her brow. “Well, then, who are you?”

Malachai was not used to delivering this next part without a certain amount of panache, but he tried to subdue his tone so as not to shock the woman too badly. Only a small rumble of thunder trickled out; he was proud of his restraint. “I am the Great and Ominous Malachai, Devourer of Miscreants, Archduke of Nightmares, Usurper of Souls. I am He Who Is Called Despair!”

Her brow unfurrowed and she gave a satisfied nod. “It was you I wanted, all right. Please, take a seat. My name is Lydia. Would you like some tea? I have Lemon Zinger and Sleepytime.”

* * *

The Archduke of Nightmares patted Baxter’s flank as his Lemon Zinger steeped.

“Baxter is getting on in years, but he’s too dumb to realize it. Just like he’s too dumb to be afraid of you.” Lydia’s hands shook slightly as she lifted her own teacup. The teacup was misshapen and had “#1 Grandma” painted across the front in drippy glaze. “Or maybe he’s like me—too old to be afraid of you.”

Baxter laid his head on Malachai’s knee and sighed with deep contentment; the Usurper of Souls tried to shove the dog away to no avail.

Malachai felt awkward. He had always held a strong position during negotiations—he would arrive with smoke (steam), lightning, baying of hounds, et cetera, and then he would Speak his Title. The person who had summoned him would wet themselves or drop a glass or start gibbering tearfully, and then they would plead for mercy, and then they would offer the life of whatever chump they had available, and then the bargaining could begin. This woman did not seem to know the procedures. He fidgeted in his chair and scratched Baxter’s huge, blocky head.

“So, then, Frail Mortal—”

“Oh, please, no need to be so formal. Call me Lydia.”

“…So, then, ah, Lydia. Ahem. Do You Know The Covenant Which You So Foolishly Invoke At Your Peril?” He rolled the ‘r’ in ‘peril’ to make up for the loss of ‘frail mortal’.

“Oh, yes, Malachai. I know.”

“What Foolish Mortal Have You Designated To Fulfill The Bargain?”

“Myself.” Lydia folded her hands on the table with an air of finality.

“And Where Is The Foolish Mortal—wait, what?”

“I will pay.”

Malachai retracted his claws enough to gently lay a hand on her wrist. “No, no, Lydia, I’m asking you who you’re going to sacrifice. Look, I really don’t think you get how this works—”

Lydia looked at him coolly. “I understand quite well. You grant a request, and you take a soul. Well, I am making a request, and then you are going to grant it, and then you’ll take my soul as payment. This is not difficult to understand, dear.”

Malachai shook his head. He was deeply relieved to find that this was not going to work. “I can’t bill you in arrears. Payment up front. Sorry, it’s policy. Nothing I can do about it.” He stood to leave. “Thank you for the tea.”

Lydia rapped a gnarled knuckle sharply on the wooden tabletop. “Sit down, young man, we are not finished here.”

Malachai brushed dog fur off of his suit pants. “Look, lady, I can’t help you, I’m s—”

“Sit Ye Down, Pestilent Creature.” Her words were imbued with the Power of The Summoner. Malachai eased back into the chair. The Power of The Summoner had not been wielded against him in some time; he thought the practice had died out long ago. Baxter returned his head to Malachai’s lap and drooled agreeably on his knee.

“Now.” The old woman pursed her lips at the demon. “I know the bargain. I’m not stupid and it’s not complicated. I don’t need to be alive for my request to be granted.”

Malachai’s front two sets of ears perked in spite of his intent to sulk. So she did know the procedures. And the technicalities. Lydia noticed his interest and continued with greater confidence.

“I want you to save my wife. She has cancer, and she is going to die, and I want you to make it so that she lives.”

Heaviness settled over the room. Mortals and their cancer. They were always getting cancer. Tears shimmered briefly in Lydia’s eyes; Malachai looked at Baxter, giving the mortal a moment to collect herself. He rubbed the dog’s velvet ears.

“So, you want me to save her, and take you?” He did not lift his gaze from the top of Baxter’s head. Lydia sniffed delicately.

“Yes. I want you to make her young and healthy again. Not too young, mind you. She was happiest at around…thirty-five. I remember because it was our tenth anniversary, and she turned to me, and she said, ‘This is the best I’ve ever felt.’ And we laughed, because you know, we were supposed to be ‘middle-aged’ women now, and, and—” she broke off and put a hand over her eyes. Malachai was embarrassed for her. Fear displays he could handle, but this was out of his wheelhouse. Hoping to escape her tears, he crouched on the floor to rub Baxter’s belly. The dog made a deep groan like the timbers of an old ship settling.

Lydia laughed as she patted her cheeks with a napkin. “That’s a good sound, from him.”

Before he could stop himself, Malachai laughed, too. “I know. We have some hounds at HQ that make the same noise when we feed them thieves’ souls.”

When he looked back up at Lydia, she was smiling sadly. “So. I’ve said my goodbyes. I’m ready whenever you are. Deborah is just in the other room. Would you like to see her? Do you need to be in the same room to…do it? She won’t know you’re here, I’m afraid. Palliative care.”

Malachai did not want to see the dying female. He also did not want to take Lydia’s soul. For the first time in his career, he did not want to do his job. Lydia folded her hands on the table again, a gesture of infinite patience. He stalled desperately.

“Wait. How did you know how to summon me?”

Lydia smiled. “I’m a snoop. I found it in Deborah’s diary.”

“Where did she get it?”

Lydia shrugged. “How should I know? Is this important?” She was growing impatient. “We don’t have long. The doctors said she could go at any moment. Do I need to sign anything?”

Hearing her sharp tone, Baxter whined and dropped his ears—a portrait of canine guilt. Lydia scratched under his collar. “Good boy. Don’t worry, I’m not mad at you.”

Malachai wanted to stall more but didn’t want Baxter to blame himself for Lydia’s frustration, so he came clean. “I. Geez. This is—I mean. I don’t want to take your soul, Lydia. This is a bad arrangement. Sacrifices—they’re meant to be selfish. Most people kidnap someone, or trick a spouse, or buy a baby on the black market. It’s supposed to be, you know.” He looked at her meaningfully, but her face remained blank. “Evil.”

Lydia frowned. “Well, I don’t want to kidnap anyone. And I only get one request, right? You can’t make us both young again. So why would I want to stick around? To be old and alone? No thank you.” She folded her thin arms across her chest with an air of decision.

Malachai didn’t like the feeling of conspiring with a Foolish Mortal, but he felt compelled by propriety. This woman was doing it all wrong. He lowered his voice.

“I could probably do it if you held hands with her, and if you phrased it just right. ‘I Demand That You Make Us Young And Hale Again, Pestilent Creature,’ something like that.”

“But you still need a sacrifice, and I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone else to give you.”

Baxter rolled onto his back, hoping to elicit more belly rubs. Malachai looked down at the old dog, then back up at Lydia.

“…you can’t think of anyone?”

* * *

The office was massive. A wall of windows looked out over a sparkling city. The spotless desk was made from brushed platinum; the desk chair was upholstered in premium tiger leather. Several overstuffed armchairs were poised around a coffee table made from interlocking elephant tusks. A man in a white suit stood facing a towering fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. In the fireplace, a sheet of ancient parchment smoldered and crackled. On the panda-skin rug, his captive writhed, struggling to free herself from her bonds before she was to be sacrificed. The man turned as he finished the invocation, prepared to face the demon. He would dominate it. Bend it to his will. He would own this city. He would own the world.

Smoke (steam) billowed through the room. A peal of thunder sounded from somewhere near the brushed platinum desk, and a bolt of lightning split the ivory table in two. The hounds of Hell snarled their rage and wuffled their interest in belly rubs, and the man in the white suit could hear the creaking of their iron chains as they strained to tear his soul from his body with monstrous, gnashing teeth.

A figure appeared in the smoke.

No—two figures.

“I am the Great and Ominous Malachai, Devourer of Miscreants, Archduke of Nightmares, Usurper of Souls, Master of the Hound of Chaos!”

The man in the white suit cowered. A dark stain spread across the front of his slacks.

The Hound of Chaos farted softly.

“Baxter, damn it. You—sit. Baxter. Sit.”

The man in the white suit coughed. “Uh, Please, O Ye Harbinger, I Beg Your Mercy.”

The Hound of Chaos sat and thumped his tail against the platinum desk. The Devourer of Miscreants fed him a treat and clicked a little metal tab before rounding on the man in the white suit.

“Frail Mortal! Do You Know The Covenant Which You So Foolishly Invoke At Your Own—Baxter, down. No, don’t pet him, he needs to learn not to jump up on people. Baxter, sit.”

Malachai gave up. The Hound of Chaos was well on his way to being a suitable companion—but he had no sense of theatre at all. The Archduke of Nightmares let out a sigh as the man in the white suit rubbed the Hound’s velvet ears and repeatedly affirmed his status a Very Good Dog.

It had been worth it, though. It had been worth it to see Lydia and Deborah holding each other. That had been his first time seeing mortals weep with anything other than terror, and it had been worth the farting and the crotch-sniffing and the endless, constant shedding.

And, besides, Malachai thought. Even if Baxter lacked a sense of theatre, he really was a Very Good Dog.

Haunted

Originally published in Fireside in March 2016

* * *

Content note: This story explores themes of domestic violence.

The children grab each other when they walk past me. They dare each other to run up and touch me. Bring back proof, they say. Something from inside.

* * *

When he came inside, he kept his shoes on. That was my first clue. She took her shoes off, and looked around like she was standing in a cathedral. He rapped his knuckles hard on a wall, and I flinched.

“Old houses like these, Marthe—you never know what might be in the walls. Rats. Fungus. Dry rot.”

I was indignant. Aghast. Fungus?

But she ignored him. She crouched right down and spread out her fingers on the floor. She pressed them to her nose, inhaled the spicy smell of oak and beeswax. She curled her bare toes and smiled at the floor before looking up at him.

“This is it, chèr. I can feel it.”

I felt it, too.

He rolled his eyes and clomped across the floor. Dirt fell from the soles of his shoes, dulling the sheen of the wood, making me shudder.

I should have known right then.

* * *

Marthe screams at night. Cries. Stands at the windows and twitches the curtains. I try to wrap myself around her, to comfort her, but I don’t think she can feel me anymore. She just paces the halls, remembering what happened to her over and over again. Making me remember.

* * *

The first time he hit her was devastating for both of us. The plaster trembled with the echoes of Baptiste’s hand striking her face, and my walls continued shuddering long after she’d retreated to the bathroom. She clutched the edges of the sink as she sobbed. The porcelain warmed under her fingertips. I remember.

It took her a long time to stop crying. He cried, too. He apologized. He said it would never happen again. He said he needed help. He said he was sorry. He said he was sorry again and again and again.

Perhaps he was sorry. It’s hard to tell, in hindsight.

* * *

A few kids from the neighborhood—I still think of them that way, although I suppose they’re grown-up enough to be drunk now—force the front door. They’re dressed for going out, not for coming in, but it’s late enough and they wobble enough that I suspect this incursion was not part of the original plan. They have a camera. They film me from lots of different angles, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I try to tell them to go away, but the only result is a whisper of wind down the chimney that makes them shriek and clutch at each other before dissolving into laughter.

It’s not long before Marthe appears. She’s trying to ask them a question—I can’t make it out, but I know her very well by now, and her howls are not of protest or fear. She’s confused. She doesn’t know why they’re filming her.

They lock themselves in the bathroom, thinking they can shut her out. They don’t realize that the bathroom is hers more than any other room in the house. When they realize that they’re trapped in there with her, they break the window and climb out.

The broken window lets the cold in, and the rain. The wall starts to mildew. I remember the accusation of fungus, years ago. I think Marthe must remember it, too, because she runs untouching fingers across the mottling plaster. The sound she makes would be terrifying to someone who didn’t recognize it as weeping.

* * *

It took about a year before he stopped saying he was sorry. And once he stopped being sorry, everything fell apart.

It was a little thing that killed her. Baptiste got home from work and dinner was on the table, but it wasn’t quite warm, and that was all it took. She saw the fury in his face, and she tried to lock herself in the bathroom—but he was too close behind her, and he pushed his way in.

He always kept his shoes on. I should have known, just from that. He treated the wood on the floors the same as he treated the dirt outside, the same as he treated his wife. Marthe, though, she always took her shoes off, and let her toes pick up the imprint of the woodgrain. She stroked the bricks of the lintel with her fingertips. She let her hand warm the wood on the banister for a moment after her feet landed on the bottom stair. She loved me.

Fallen, half-rotted figs mixed into the soil as he dug the hole; her grave was sweet-smelling, ant-infested. The ants never crossed the threshold, never came inside, but they had the run of the yard. They built a new anthill over Marthe’s barefooted corpse, and they ate the figs that fell before the sticky-sweet juice could drip through the soil to her parched lips.

* * *

There should be children running up and down my stairs. There should be breakfast-smells in the morning and toothbrushes on the sink and backpacks next to the front door. But I don’t get those things. Instead, there is only Marthe: a memory of suffering that paces through the rooms and tries to stare at herself in mirrors.

I love Marthe, of course I love her—but she is a little selfish. She tortures herself by remembering what happened to her over and over again. She does not acknowledge that I suffered, too, and that I should be allowed to move on. I can’t move on as long as she’s here, reliving the memory of her death over and over again. I’ve tried to tell her but the little drafts I’m able to push through the chimney are not enough to catch her attention.

She won’t leave.

The “for sale” sign has put down roots in the front yard. My hopes soar whenever a couple from out of town stops to look. It happened just the other day—a pulled-over car, a tall man shading his eyes to look up at me. His partner, also tall, pulling out his phone to call the number on the sign. They had a child’s carseat in the back. I notice these things.

But then Marthe stood in the upstairs window and made a horrible noise, and the tall men got back into their car and left. With them went any hope of feeling sock-feet slide down the smooth floor of the entry hall; with them went the dream of someday-crayon-scrawl on the walls. Toothbrushes, backpacks.

And I’m still alone with Marthe.

* * *

That night, Baptiste used a full roll of paper towels to wipe what was left of Marthe from the bathroom tiles. He threw the soiled paper into the kitchen trash by the fistful, like carrot peels. Then he took a long shower, and he reheated his cold dinner in the microwave, and he ate every bite. He climbed into their bed and laid down right in the middle of it, and he slept like a stone as I mourned the woman who had loved me.

Marthe sat under the fig tree for a week. The freshly-turned soil didn’t compact under her weight, but the ants moved around her, like a stream parting around a boulder. She watched them for hours, unblinking, unmoving. I’m not sure when her gaze shifted from the ants to the windows. At first, I thought she was watching Baptiste; but later, I realized that she was watching me.

* * *

Baptiste told everyone that Marthe had run off with a boyfriend. That she had been unfaithful. He pretended heartbreak, and these people who hadn’t known Marthe at all believed him. Comforted him. When he said he had to move back to Atlanta to get away from it all, his friends threw him a going-away party, at which he got very drunk. After they’d all gone home, he threw up in the breakfast nook—red wine and bile. The stain was awful. The next morning, he called a realtor, and the sign appeared, staked into the lawn.

The very first people to consider moving in were wonderful—a family. They had two children, little ones with sticky hands and wide, wary eyes. I was delighted. Not all houses are meant to hold families, but I am. I loved the idea of them exploring the attic, or finding the crawlspace between their bedrooms. Building a fort out of pillows and whispering secrets inside of it. They saw that there was a backyard and burst out into it before their parents could stop them.

They ran to the fig tree, and the older child started to tell his little sister all about treehouses and tire swings. His foot was flattening the top of the anthill. Marthe stood not far from them, watching; her head was cocked at an unnatural angle, and her eyes had taken on a hard, hateful gleam.

The boy could not have known that he was standing on Marthe’s grave. And Marthe could not have known how badly she could hurt a person without touching them. It was nobody’s fault, really. She didn’t mean it. She didn’t know her own strength.

She didn’t mean to hurt him.

* * *

I have been empty save for Marthe for six years now. Six years does not seem like such a long time, but when the years echo, six is too many to bear. Six winters of sleet and cold, with nobody spicing cider over the stove. Six summers in which the ceiling fans collected dust and the ice trays went unfilled. Six years of Marthe.

It’s terribly lonely. I never would have thought that I could be lonely with Marthe, but I am. She doesn’t love me anymore, not the way she did when she first moved in. She only notices the things that break—the window, the mildew, the mice that chew holes in the baseboards. It’s been a long time since she’s stopped to linger in the patch of sun that comes in through the kitchen window. I can’t recall the last time she rested her cheek against the green doorframe that stands between the kitchen and the backyard. She used to love lingering in her home, but now it is torturous to her.

And to me, of course. I forget, sometimes, because I’m too busy attending to Marthe. But it hurts me, too.

* * *

It is December when Baptiste comes back.

He pulls up to the driveway and walks inside, and I am alight with dread. I don’t want him to see me. The front door has swollen with the humidity that precedes winter storms here, and he has to put his shoulder to it to get it open. He walks inside—shoes on, but at this point, I can’t blame him. He holds up a camping lantern and looks around, taking in the state of me. Filth crackles under his feet. Insects scatter before him. Water damage blooms brown across the ceiling over his head.

I am a ruin.

I realize, under his scrutiny, just how bad it’s gotten. I realize that no family will ever decide to make me their home; how could they? I am irreparable. I am unloveable. I am haunted.

The thunder that booms outside covers my shuddering sob. Baptiste startles at the way the walls shiver around him. I find that I cannot make myself hate him, even though this is all his fault. The part of me that should hate him is drowning in shame. There is no air for hate. His lip is curled, and I cannot muster indignance this time. He’s right to sneer.

There is another peal of thunder, and a downpour begins. Water drips from the ceiling onto Baptiste’s head and I let out another mortified sob. Because what is the point of a roof, if it can’t keep the water out and the warmth in? Marthe stands on the stairwell, watching Baptiste take in the shambles that used to be their home. She presses the back of one trembling, incorporeal hand against her mouth. Her eyes are wide, and she stares at him without blinking.

When Baptiste uncaps the first plastic jug, my first thought is that he’s cleaning me. It is an absurd notion, and doesn’t survive for long. The liquid Baptiste pours out of the jug stings—the fumes are strong enough that he turns his head to one side, burying his mouth and nose in his elbow. Marthe is still watching him, motionless.

As he uncaps the second jug and moves into the kitchen, splashing every surface, I begin to understand. Marthe cocks her head to one side, and that hard, hateful gleam enters her eyes again. She crouches down and lays an untouching hand on the warping wood of the foyer floor. She, too, is starting to understand. Her expression has shifted from fear to fury. She looks toward the kitchen. The water that drips from the ceiling falls right through her, splashing in the puddles of gasoline.

Baptiste empties five jugs in all, upstairs and down. He is thorough. Marthe watches him the whole time. He startles at the occasional thunderclap, mutters to himself. I tremble with the anticipation of what is to come. I push a draft into the places where mice and birds have nested—my sole living occupants. I hate forcing them out into the storm, but it’s the best I can do for them.

When all the jugs are empty, Baptiste goes into the bathroom. He eyes the mildew that bruises the wall around my broken window, and I want to crumble under the weight of his disdain. He turns in a slow circle, clears his throat.

“Marthe? Are you here?”

She is. She’s right in front of him. He doesn’t realize, but she’s right there, close enough to kiss.

“The realtor says that the house won’t sell because people think it’s haunted. I told him that’s ridiculous, but…he told me about the boy. What you did to the boy. I don’t believe in ghosts, but—if you’re here, Marthe, I just wanted to tell you.” He shakes his head, makes a face like he’s going to spit. “Jesus, this is ridiculous.”

She is staring right into his face, but he can’t see her. She’s not letting him. Not yet. Her eyes are animal, insect, glittering. He’s shouting as if she might be down the hall somewhere.

“I wanted to tell you that you haven’t won. I know you’re still trying to ruin my life, but you won’t. You can’t. I still have the insurance on this shitty house you made us buy. I might not be able to sell it, but who cares? It’s worth more to me now as a pile of ashes.”

A lot of things happen all at once, then.

Marthe lets out a howl, right in Baptiste’s face, and she lets him see her.

Baptiste screams, dropping his lantern. The bulb in the lantern shatters, and the light dies.

Thunder cracks overhead, directly overhead, immediate, and that means:

Lightning.

The white arc illuminates everything. If any children had been foolish enough to come peek into the haunted house during the storm, they would see the fungus rotting my walls, the filth and leaves scattered across the tile where Marthe’s blood once pooled, the sagging ceiling. They would see Marthe, plain as day, her feet a few inches above the ground, her mouth stretched impossibly wide with rage. They would see Baptiste, on the floor, slacks dark and clinging, as he scrambles towards the bathroom door in a crab-scuttle of terror.

It’s only an instant. Then the illumination from the lightning is gone, and Baptiste is pounding his way down the stairs in the dark.

It’s curious: even though the white light is gone, all is not dark. There is still a flickering glow coming through the window. It is the fig tree, which has grown unchecked for six years and which leans against me like a drunk friend at the end of a long night. The fig tree, which is now split down the middle. The fig tree, which, despite the continuing rainfall, is blazing bright with fire.

The flames climb the tree’s branches quickly and then, just like that, they are touching me. By the time Baptiste is at the bottom of the stairs, the fire is hot on my shingled siding. I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid for Marthe, a little—where will she go? What will happen to her, when she has no halls to wander, and her tree is a blackened stump? I resent her too much to want her to stay; I love her too much to want to see her forced out.

It’s hot. It’s too hot, and then the fire goes from being outside of me to inside of me, and then it hurts.

Baptiste is at the front door, both hands on the knob, yanking. It won’t budge. The doorframe swells when it rains, and the door is stuck fast. Marthe is standing behind Baptiste, watching him struggle. Her focus is absolute; she does not notice the flames that are tripping their way down the stairs.

It hurts, it hurts, and now there is fear curling alongside the pain. What will happen to me? Will I be stuck here, like Marthe, wandering the remnants of my own foundation?

Baptiste is screaming. His eyes are wide, because he sees her. He has realized that he cannot get out through the front door, and he has turned around, and he has been confronted by his spectral wife. He did not believe that his house was haunted, not really. But now he must believe. Now he sees, by the light of the fire, the animal rage in her eyes.

Marthe didn’t realize, before, how much she could hurt that little boy who wanted to climb in her fig tree. She regretted hurting him so badly. She wailed under the tree for days. But now, she knows what she is capable of. This time, she will have no regrets.

I am thankful that the pain of the fire keeps me from attending too closely to what Marthe does to Baptiste. I am distantly aware of his screams, and I am certain that he will not be leaving before I am—how did he put it?—“A pile of ashes.”

There is nowhere the flames cannot find. There is nothing I can hide from them. Baptiste was thorough, and the gasoline is everywhere. The fumes are thick in the air and it won’t be long before I am gutted. The rainfall is slowing, and there is nothing to stop the flames from spreading, consuming, destroying.

Marthe stands over Baptiste’s now-unconscious body and stares down at him, her face glowing with triumph. She will stay, then. She will stay to watch him die.

I will not. I am surprised to find myself drifting away from the pain—the pain, which had seemed so omnipresent, but which turns out to be escapable. I wander away from it, following the trail of the smoke that pours out of me, joining the diminishing thunderclouds in the grey sky. I am looking down at a burning house that used to be me, and I realize that this is how I can fix things with Marthe.

I cannot make her leave me. But I can leave her.

It does not happen all at once. I snap back to myself several times—when Marthe’s favorite mug, left behind in a kitchen cupboard, shatters. When a mouse that did not leave with his fellows succumbs to the smoke and dies in my eaves. When my roof, the thing that made me more than just walls, the thing that made me a home for Marthe, finally caves in. I come back to myself during those moments, and in those moments I suffer. But then I leave again, drifting back up with the smoke, and the leaving is easier each time.

After the roof has caved in and the fire has begun to smother itself, I stop returning. I turn away from Marthe, who is still standing in the ruin of the foyer, exultant. I cannot worry anymore about what will happen to her. I leave my ashes behind. I let the self that has seen so much pain dissipate with the clearing smoke.

And I am not haunted anymore.

Patricia Gilliam

The Backup

Originally Published in The Immortality Chronicles (Windrift Books, 2015), edited by Carol Davis and part of The Future Chronicles anthology series created by Samuel Peralta.

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * February 5th, 2079

Nick opened his eyes and squinted at the alarm clock. It was ten past noon. He groaned and pulled his comforter over his head, but sunlight filtered through the pattern of moons and spacecraft. Even facing the wall, it was no use. He needed to get up.

“Dad?” he called. He rubbed his eyes and walked down the hallway. His father’s bed was made, and no one was in the kitchen. Nick stretched to open the door to the carport, recoiling as a freezing blast of wind hit him. Their truck was gone. “Must be at work…”

After dragging a chair to reach the countertop, he discovered the frosted flakes were down to their final sugary crumbles—his favorite part. The milk didn’t cover everything, but it was fine after a few bites. He turned on the display in the living room and switched its input to the video game system.

The doorbell rang a half-hour later. Nick jumped and faced the door. A short dark-haired woman cupped her hands around her face to see through the living room window. Her breath fogged the glass, and she stepped back.

“Hi,” she said. Her voice was muffled. “I’m Mrs. McFerrin—Josh’s mom. We live four houses over.”

Nick had met Josh McFerrin at school, but Josh was two grades above him and had different teachers.

“My dad said never to open the door for strangers,” he replied, unsure if she could hear him. He tried to speak louder as he approached the window. “If you want something, he should be back soon.”

“Honey, your father was in an accident.” Mrs. McFerrin paused as Nick’s eyes widened, but she kept her voice calm. “He’s been taken to the hospital, and you can’t stay here alone. Do you have any other family I can call for you—maybe an aunt or uncle?”

Nick shook his head. “It’s just us. Is my dad all right?”

“We don’t know yet.” She took her phone out of her coat pocket. “My husband and Josh stopped to help the police search for you. Your father must have been confused and believed you were in the truck with him. I’ll let them know you’re all right, and the police can take you to the hospital. I’ll wait until they get here.”

The wind picked up, and she huddled closer to the house. Nick walked to the living room door and unlocked it. Mrs. McFerrin eased it open and then shut it behind her.

“It’s really cold out there,” Nick said. She nodded and ended her call. “I’m Nick—Nick Mathis.”

He held his hand out to her, something his dad had taught him. She shook it and crouched to his level.

“Nice to meet you, Nick Mathis,” she said. She forced a smile, but her eyes were watery. “What can you tell me about your dad?”

Abbot-Mathis Industries * Chicago * Thirty-Four Years Later

“You need to be angrier about all of this,” Nick’s business partner William Abbot said. Nick sighed and shook his head. “You dated that woman for three months, broke it off, and she pops up two years later with a book deal about your entire life. How is that right?”

Nick surveyed the lobby as their elevator descended. During product launches or charity drives, two dozen reporters would be considered a great turnout. This crowd appeared closer to two hundred and growing. “I knew Bianca was a biographer when I met her, so it’s my own fault for trusting her. I just wish people would quit acting as if I’m already dead. According to how my treatments go, I can at least consult for another two or three years.”

“I hope it’s longer than that,” Abbot said. “Are you sure you want to hold a press conference now? In a few months, it may not be a major story.”

“People need to know you can hold your own, especially the board,” Nick replied. “The sooner we make the transition, the less likely any vultures will try to move in on you and the McFerrins after I’m gone.”

Abbot frowned but nodded. “Have you spoken with them about your will?”

“Josh and Debra? No, I want to tell them in person. I’ll schedule a trip once all of this settles out.”

The elevator dinged, and its doors opened. Nick took a deep breath and jogged ahead of Abbot—in part to annoy any tabloid journalists attempting to portray him as weak and suffering.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Nick said into his headset. He tapped a file on the podium’s display, hesitating when it showed old financial statements instead of his talking points. He backed out to the main menu and forced a smile. “Let’s begin with a few questions and then save my statement for the end. Who wants to start?”

The crowd shouted over each other. Nick pointed at random to a reporter in the third row.

“Hello, sir,” he said. “I just finished your biography released by Bianca Reynolds—”

“I apologize for my driver’s license photo they stole for the cover,” Nick interrupted. “Sorry, go on.”

“Your father, Dr. David Mathis, developed Alzheimer’s in his early forties, correct?” the reporter continued. Nick gave a reluctant nod. “Given the hereditary aspects of the disease, is your decision to step down as CEO in response to this being made public—and do you intend to stay at AMI in some capacity until—”

Someone screamed, but Nick had no time to react. His vision faded, and the last sensation he felt was falling forward.

* * *

Nick gasped and sat upright in a bed, finding himself in darkness. A tangled mass of wires tugged at his skin, and he scrambled to remove them.

As his eyes adjusted, he noticed a small shaft of light outlining a doorway. A stray wire snagged his arm as he stood, but he managed to reach a wall and then feel his way to a door handle. It didn’t budge, and he felt too dizzy and weak to force the door open.

“Authorization required.” The voice was mechanical, and the speaker above his head popped and crackled.

“Is this a hospital?” he asked. It hurt to talk, but the feeling of being trapped was worse. “I’m awake. Can anyone hear me?”

No one answered, but he heard the door unlock. He opened it, expecting another room or hallway.

Instead, the night skyline of Charleston greeted him.

BlueHealth Hospital * Raleigh * February 5th, 2079

Two police officers dropped Nick off with a social worker, a young woman in her twenties who already seemed disheartened by her job. She took his hand and led him through the hospital’s lobby. The linoleum tiles glinted as if they had just been mopped, and the smell of floor cleaner made Nick feel nauseous. The woman pressed the call button for the elevator.

“We’ll need to wait until the doctors can talk to us,” she said as the doors opened, and she pulled for him to go with her. Nick resisted and slipped free from her grasp. “Nick, you need to stay with me.”

“My dad died, didn’t he?” he asked. Mrs. McFerrin and the police officers hadn’t told him, but he had seen it in their expressions. Before the social worker could answer, Nick turned away from her and ran for the exit. He could hear her heels clacking behind him, but they slowed her down.

“Nick, please! Come back!”

He’d almost reached the exit doors when a man caught him with one arm and lifted him from the floor. Nick started hitting him to no avail, but by that point he was crying, too.

“I just didn’t want you to get hit by a car, kid.” The man’s voice was quiet despite the fact he seemed to be seven feet tall. “Is this your sister?”

“I’m his caretaker,” the social worker replied. “Thank you. His father just passed away.”

“David Mathis?” the man asked. The social worker nodded. The man placed Nick in a chair but stood between him and the exit. “I’m Jack McFerrin. My son and I found David’s truck this morning. I wanted to come by and offer his family our condolences and find out if they needed anything. Are they on their way?”

“There isn’t anyone else, I’m afraid—not that I can find, anyway.” The social worker reached for Nick’s hand again, but he scooted back into the chair and gripped the plastic cushion. “Did you know David?”

“We waved at each other in passing—spoke a few times when they first moved into the neighborhood,” Mr. McFerrin replied. Even when he crouched, he was almost as tall as the social worker. He turned his attention to Nick. “I know it’s hard, and it’s okay to cry. Your dad loved you. Josh and I didn’t talk to him long before the ambulance came, but he was more worried about you than he was about himself. I promised him I’d make sure you were all right.”

“I’m not,” Nick replied. He closed his eyes, and tears ran down his cheeks. “I don’t want him to be gone.”

“I know, buddy,” Mr. McFerrin replied. He hugged Nick, and Nick cried on his shoulder until he went limp in exhaustion. “You won’t be alone. I can promise you that.”

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * Thirty-Four Years later

“Josh, we will pay for your time and travel expenses if you’ll just—”

“What I need is time to think, Mr. Abbot,” Josh McFerrin said into his headset. He wiped his eyes, thankful Abbot and the rest of AMI’s board couldn’t see him. “The police and IBI still have no leads on who killed Nick, and you’re asking me about selling stock we don’t even own yet!”

“I’m not advising you to sell,” Abbot replied, clearly backpedaling. “Taking the company from public back to private may be our best option to recover from Nick’s death. I miss him, too, but this isn’t something we can put off without it affecting thousands of employees and their families.”

“I understand what you’re saying. Deb and I will talk it over with our lawyer and get back to you. Is that fair?”

Voices in the background seemed divided on this, and it took a minute for Abbot to answer.

“Is there any way I could I meet with you there in Raleigh?”

“We won’t turn you away if you show up.” Josh stood, and his golden retriever Dakota began to follow him around the lab with a stuffed giraffe toy. “Just be sure to call first. Our current guard dog is kind of ferocious, and we wouldn’t want you to return to Chicago with missing limbs.”

He ended the call before Abbot had time to respond. Looking over the support suit parts on his lab table, Josh picked up a wiring harness and began to lay out the configuration he needed to attach it. His headset buzzed again, and his shoulders slumped. To his relief, it was his brother-in-law Clint.

“Are you in the middle of anything? I’m about to meet with the new team leader of the Chicago IBI office. I wanted to make sure you’re available if she has questions.”

Josh laid the harness down and walked away from the table. “That’s fine. I’m about to lock up here. I can’t concentrate long enough to get anything done.”

“Are you all right?”

“William Abbot called again,” he replied. “That’s seven times since Nick’s funeral. Deb won’t even answer anymore.”

“That’s probably for the best. I don’t know if Deb has had a chance to tell you, but Nick’s death has been reclassified a contracted hit. You’ve been cleared, but they’re looking into Abbot and several other board members as possible suspects. Debra is still on the list, but it’s a formality due to her past employment.”

“Seriously?” Josh asked. Debra had been out of the CIA for over ten years, but it still came up at odd times. “I’m beginning to think she married me for cover and stayed for the kids.”

“And the free lifetime tech support,” Clint added. “I’ll call you back if I find out anything. Take care of yourself, Josh.”

“I will. Thanks.”

As Josh grabbed his coat, Dakota barked and began scratching at the main door.

“Deb, is that you?” Josh shouted. Dakota’s barking became more frantic. Confused, Josh checked the security cameras. A tall man in a hooded overcoat was on the other side of the door. “Hey, I can see you! What do you want?”

“Not being shot would be nice!” the man shouted back. He sounded like Nick. “I know this is crazy, Josh, but give me a chance to explain.”

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * February 6th, 2079

“You’ll need to pack for the next two weeks.” The social worker hadn’t slept the entire time they were at the hospital and had put her car into auto-drive. Nick looked away from her and out the passenger window. “The McFerrins will need to go through classes and have their home inspected. I’ll try to push things through as fast as I can, but the process takes time. You’ll be staying with a very nice family in the meantime.”

Nick noticed a dark cloud of smoke long before they reached his neighborhood, but it wasn’t unusual for people to burn dead trees and brush during the winter. As they got closer, he sat up higher in his seat. Two fire trucks were parked in front of what remained of his house. The roof was smoldering, and several rafters had collapsed.

“Did you leave something on before you left?” the social worker asked. Nick shook his head, but she sighed as she got out of the car. “Wait here.”

She approached one of the firefighters, who gestured at the house and shook his head. Anything the fire hadn’t damaged was most likely soaked. Nick opened his door and coughed as smoke hit his lungs.

“You both need to go,” the firefighter said. Nick hurried back to his seat and shut the door. Instead of being angry like he’d expected, the social worker drove them to a store and helped him pick out some clothes and a toothbrush. At the checkout, she paid for everything with no mention of whether it was her personal money or not.

“Thank you,” Nick told her. She forced a smile, but her eyes were sad. Nick wondered if this would be the reaction of every adult he met for the rest of his life.

His father’s funeral and his time with his first foster family—the Wilsons—passed quickly. By the time Nick moved in with the McFerrins, they had converted their spare bedroom with extra bedding and toys from Josh’s bedroom. The two boys would be across the hall from each other.

“Dad has to travel sometimes with his job, but Mom works from here,” Josh explained as he gave Nick a tour of the rest of the farmhouse. It was old, but the McFerrins had modernized most of the interior. They sat down on a sectional in the living room. “I’m sorry about your dad—and your house.”

The front door opened, and Mr. McFerrin walked in carrying a cardboard box.

“This was in the back of your father’s truck,” he said to Nick. He opened it, revealing a pile of servos and metal plates. “It looks like a model kit, but it’s pretty heavy for a toy. I can put it in your room if you don’t want it right now.”

Nick nodded. He’d seen his father sketch and build incredible things for his work, but in that moment he didn’t want the reminder. Mr. McFerrin lifted the box and took it upstairs.

IBI Field Office * Chicago * Thirty-Four Years Later

“How’s your family holding up?” Agent Nina Johnson placed her right palm on a scanner, unlocking the office door. “I wish you could help us in the field, but a good defense attorney would rip us apart if they found out you’re Debra’s brother.”

“I don’t want to cause you any problems,” Agent Clint Rossetti said and followed her inside. The building’s interior smelled like bread from the sub shop next door, and it was more noticeable after being gone for several months. “Deb seems to be handling it all right, but she’s worried about Josh. Nick was practically his adopted brother when they were kids.”

“I’m sorry,” Nina replied. “We’re doing everything we can, but you know what it’s like here. I may be able to pull in help from Indianapolis and Cincinnati, but I can’t guarantee for how long.”

Clint nodded and sat down at his old desk. Nina had granted him full access to the case file via her account, and he didn’t want to waste her time. He bypassed most of the autopsy photos, but something in one of them caught his attention.

“What are these fragments?” he asked. Nina walked behind him and looked over his shoulder. “They look like shrapnel, but everything I read said it was a single shot.”

“They’re medical implants,” she replied. Clint’s eyebrows rose, given the number of them. “I spoke to William Abbot at AMI about them. Nick Mathis was mapping the long-term progression of his disease so the data could be used to help other patients. The coroner found nanotech in his blood and brain tissue, too—same function, according to Abbot.”

“I bet transport security loved him,” Clint replied. “Where’s all that data being stored now that Nick’s gone?”

“Abbot wouldn’t tell me. Unless it was relevant to Mathis’s death, we wouldn’t have legal access to it, anyway.”

Clint was about to reply when his phone beeped. He read the message and then stood. “It’s Josh. Sorry, I have to go to Raleigh. Thanks for allowing me to look over the file. If you ever need anything on another case, call me.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know if you’ll believe me,” he said. Nina crossed her arms. “According to Josh, Nick Mathis cloned himself.”

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

“One moment I’m at AMI in Chicago and the next I’m waking up in an automated lab in Charleston.” Nick sat on a barstool and leaned to pet Dakota. The dog rolled to show his belly as if nothing was wrong. “I know it sounds insane, but I didn’t set this up.”

“Maybe Nick created you as some sort of clone backup,” Josh replied. Nick frowned. “He died over a month ago. How long have you been awake—active?”

“A couple of days, I think.” Nick shook his head. “I remember everything, Josh—growing up here, you, your mom and dad, my dad…”

“I believe you,” Josh said, but he held his hands out in front of him. “We’ll wait here for Clint and get this sorted out, okay?”

“Are you afraid of me?” Nick pointed toward Josh and Debra’s house across the road. “If I left and tried to walk through your front door right now, what would happen?”

“If I didn’t stop you first, Debra would kill you to protect the kids,” Josh replied. Nick cringed. “You’re not the first clone we’ve encountered, and their behavior can be unpredictable. If any ounce of Nick’s consciousness is in you, you need to trust me. I don’t want this to end badly for any of us.”

Nick nodded and looked down at the floor.

“I didn’t want to bring all of this on you, but I didn’t know who else I could trust,” he said. “You’re still the closest people I have to a family.”

“Don’t talk like that right now.” Josh looked away from him and started pacing. “I want to believe it’s you, Nick, but we have no way of knowing. Clint worked with two clones for over five years—sleeper agents who had infiltrated the IBI. One of them turned on the rest of the team, and the other tried to protect them.”

“Seems like they still had some choice in the matter,” Nick replied. “Regardless of what happens after your brother-in-law gets here, I can’t pick up where my life left off. At best, the IBI will send me into some kind of protection program. At worst, I’ll be treated as a potential threat—and I have no solid answers on how this happened. Do you think they will believe that, considering my best friend doesn’t?”

Josh started to reply, but his headset buzzed. He didn’t answer, and the headset announced the caller’s name. “It’s William Abbot. He keeps calling about the stock you willed to us.”

“I told Abbot to watch out for vultures, not to become one,” Nick said in a disappointed tone. Josh removed the headset and placed it on his desk. It continued to buzz. “I’d answer it for you, but I’d probably give him a heart attack. I guess I haven’t been a good judge of character lately—present company excluded, I hope.”

“Even if you’re not Nick, you’re still a sentient being—and Clint and his team won’t torture or dissect you for information.” Josh’s headset beeped a voicemail notification, and he decided to check it. “Abbot is at O’Hare. His flight is leaving in a few minutes, and he plans to come here after he lands.”

McFerrin Residence * February 5th, 2084

Nick couldn’t sleep. Despite how kind the McFerrins had been to him, each anniversary of his father’s death made him want to stay in bed until the day was over. This time it was on a Saturday, so he didn’t have to force himself to get ready for school.

Someone knocked on his door.

“Nick, I’m making breakfast if you want to get up,” Mrs. McFerrin said. From her tone, she seemed aware of the day and didn’t try to open the door. “I’m caught up on work, and I was thinking I could take you and Josh to the movies—maybe stop for pizza later.”

She was trying, and Nick knew it. Still, he didn’t answer. The floorboards creaked as she walked away and down the stairs.

“Nick?” It was Josh this time. “Get up. I want to show you something.”

“Not today,” Nick replied, but there were no sounds of Josh leaving. “What is it?”

“I’m not telling you, Nick. I have to show you.”

Nick sighed, but he got dressed and then opened his door. Josh grinned at him, and it was a rare instance where Nick felt annoyance towards him. Maybe that was part of being like brothers, too.

“What is it?” Nick repeated.

Josh led him to his room, and Nick’s eyes widened. In the middle of the floor was a spider-like robot the size of an adult’s hand. Josh handed him a tablet.

“Dad believes it’s a concept model—showed me how to put one together to surprise you,” Josh said. “There are more parts in the box if you want to make more. You can even program and control them. Did your father work for NASA or something?”

“I thought he was a doctor.” Nick walked around the robot, and it turned so that its cameras always faced him—even when he passed the tablet back to Josh. He jumped forward, and the robot jumped back. Nick found himself laughing. “Weird. I remember seeing Dad draw one of these, but I didn’t know they were real.”

“Boys, food is ready!”

Nick’s stomach growled at the smell of bacon and omelets. Josh laid the tablet and the model on his bed, but they heard a crash before they reached the stairs. The model had crawled off the edge and was in scattered pieces across the floor.

“We’ll get it later,” Josh said, and he didn’t seem upset. “It will make it easier to show you.”

O’Hare International Airport *Chicago * Twenty-Nine Years Later

“Is this seat taken?” Agent Clint Rossetti asked. A brown-haired man in a business suit shook his head. “Sorry to crowd you. I hate booking last-minute.”

“Seems like all I do lately,” the man replied. “Hey, do I know you?”

Clint shrugged as he put his briefcase in the overhead compartment. “I live in Arizona now, but I grew up about thirty minutes from here. What high school did you go to?”

“It was in New York.” The man shook his head and then glanced out his window. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

“No problem.” Clint realized he knew the man from Nick’s funeral but wasn’t certain of his name. He considered changing seats, but his other options were worse—putting him next to a woman with overpowering perfume or a hairy-armed man who seemed possessive of the joint armrest. He could later claim IBI strategy if he learned anything, but this was more about surviving the next two hours. “I’m Clint.”

“William Abbot.” The man opened his tablet and rested it on his tray table. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to catch up on work on the way. My business partner was murdered a month ago, so I’m handling what used to be both of our positions. It’s been a rough transition, to say the least.”

Clint nodded and started to say something, but he noticed Hairy Man scratching his ribs a few rows ahead of them. He could smell Perfume Bather behind them, and some poor soul was already coughing from being in closer proximity.

“I’ll be right back.” Clint stood and took a deep breath, exhaling once he was inside the restroom. He logged in to the plane’s wireless network to check if Josh or Debra had tried to reach him. Instead, he found a message from Nina Johnson to call her once he landed. He tried her number.

“That was fast,” Nina said. “Are you already in Raleigh?”

“Not yet,” Clint said. “I’m still on the plane. William Abbot and I are seat buddies, but I don’t believe he recognized me. What did you need to tell me?”

“One of my team members found something. We’ve assumed the shot came from the parking garage across the street from AMI’s headquarters—the angle and trajectory match. The security cameras appeared to have nothing, but everyone who viewed them watched the videos in real time—assuming any hit man would be human. Take a look at this, but watch it at ten times the normal speed.”

She sent a file, and Clint opened it. He found the speed setting and watched as something bobbed up and down across the parking garage’s ceiling. It reminded him of a giant spider, and he shuddered as the video repeated.

“Some sort of robot—rover?” Clint asked. He tried to zoom in, but the rover was in the shadows and blended with the surrounding steel and concrete. “Someone programmed this thing, rigged a gun to it, and just waited? How could they have known where Nick would be at any given time? How could it know?”

“If his medical implants were sending out a signal, they could have been tracked,” Nina replied. “Be careful, Clint. We haven’t connected this to Abbot, but he has the technical background. We’re looking at employees in AMI’s robotics division, too—anyone who could have benefited from Nick being out of the way.”

Someone knocked on the door and jiggled the handle.

“Is anyone in there?” a man asked. “Don’t mean to rush you, but this is urgent.”

“I have to go, Nina,” Clint said. “Thanks.”

As Clint returned to his seat, Abbot handed him a tablet. He had found Clint’s IBI profile.

“Would you like to split a cab, Agent Rossetti?”

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

“Once Debra leaves with the kids, we’ll move to the house,” Josh said. He pulled a curtain back and raised the blind. The sun was setting. “You can stay in the spare bedroom until Abbot is gone. If Clint gets here first, it would probably be safer for you to go with him.”

“Safer for me or you?” Nick asked, but he grinned at Josh’s reaction. “It’s like we’re kids again—playing spies or hide-and-seek. How are your mom and dad? I heard Jack took up golf?”

“Mom sometimes goes with him for the entertainment value,” Josh said but hesitated. “We can’t tell them about you. I think it would wreck them—Mom, especially.”

Nick sighed and picked up a small holographic display from Josh’s desk. It was playing short video clips from the previous Christmas, which Nick had missed spending with them due to a blizzard.

“I feel like a ghost, Josh. I was excited about being alive and seeing all of you again, but right now I’m just as scared as you are about what I am and how this happened.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Josh replied. “Did you take a look around the lab before you left it?”

“It wasn’t huge, but I was disoriented at the time—grabbed the clothes I’m wearing out of a locker and got out of there as fast as I could. I think I could lead the IBI back to the building, though.”

Debra’s vehicle pulled out of the driveway and went right towards the city. Nick reached for the lab’s front door, but Dakota jumped and knocked him off-balance. A bullet struck the door at Nick’s head-level and lodged into a support post, narrowly missing him and the dog. “What the—”

“Get behind the table!” Josh shouted. It had some metal plating at its base but was better than nothing. Josh kept a small pistol in his desk and ammo in a locked cabinet, but he doubted a sniper would get within range for them to be effective. He still grabbed both. “Does anybody else know you’re here?”

“Just your family and Clint. I didn’t broadcast it or anything.”

Josh loaded the gun and then grabbed his tablet. He ran a scan of the room that found that something in Nick’s body was sending out a digital signal. He targeted the program to the location and ran the scan again. “Actually, I think you did. You have a huge implant in your head.”

“What?” Nick asked in confusion. Dakota licked his face, and he sputtered and wiped his mouth. “Can you get it out?”

“I don’t believe it would be operable. I might be able to shut it down, though. Give me a minute.”

“Don’t have anything pending on my schedule,” Nick replied. “Can your tablet scan the surrounding area, too—maybe pick up who’s here?”

“I can try. The implant looks like older tech—older than me, anyway.”

“Got anything?” Nick asked after a minute.

“Just got your implant’s signal shut off,” Josh replied. “The bad news is that something is moving on the roof of my house.”

Raleigh-Durham International Airport

“Whatever that thing is, we didn’t make it,” William Abbot said as he watched the surveillance video from AMI’s parking garage. He handed Clint’s phone back as a taxi stopped for them. “The closest I’ve ever seen to it are the A-676 spider rovers—self-contained, solar powered, very slow moving. NASA replaced them with much smaller models that require less power, but there are a few still operational on the Moon and Mars.”

“Do you think someone could have stolen or rebuilt one—maybe even a prototype?” Clint asked. Abbot shrugged and put his suitcases in the taxi’s trunk. Clint added his briefcase. “Do you have any employees who may have been connected to the A-676 project?”

“Not unless they were children at the time,” Abbot said, but his expression sobered as they got into the backseat of the cab. “Nick’s father consulted for NASA at one point. Nick never mentioned it to me, but I read it in the biography. Maybe there’s a connection through him.”

“Where to?” the driver asked. Clint gave her the street address. “Ectotech—busy place lately. Are you buying one of their suits?”

“Potential investor,” Abbot said. Clint gave him a skeptical look. “The moment Josh and Debra have Nick’s stock, dozens of other people will be calling every other minute. I’m trying to do the right thing and keep AMI intact as best as I can.”

Clint’s phone rang, and he answered. “We’re about fifteen minutes away. William Abbot is with me in the taxi.”

“Something is shooting at us.” Josh was loud enough for both Abbot and the taxi driver to hear. The driver slowed the car and pulled over. “It’s on the roof of my house.”

“Does it look like this?” Clint asked, and he sent a copy of the video. “Watch it in high speed. This is what killed Nick. It’s some sort of—”

“It’s an A-676,” Josh interrupted. “Nick and I had smaller models when we were kids. The impound company gave them to Dad from Dr. Mathis’s truck.”

He stopped talking. Clint and Abbot exchanged glances.

“Josh, are you still there?” Clint asked.

“I think I know how to disable it, but stay away until I do. I’ll call you back and let you know if it worked or not.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Clint said, but Josh didn’t respond. “If you’re still there, I’m calling for backup.”

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

“Stay here.” Josh stood and walked toward the door. “Its programming shouldn’t be any different from the small-scale model we had. If I put it into recharge mode, it won’t be able to move or target anything.”

“Why don’t you just wait until Clint gets here?” Nick asked. Josh opened the door and sidestepped out of the way. Nothing happened. “If this thing can’t track my implant, it could switch to some other means—movement, body heat, my last known location—”

“We have neighbors with small children, and I don’t want to risk it leaving the area,” Josh replied. Dakota bolted out the door, and Josh whistled for him to come back. They heard a shot, and the dog whimpered and fell. “No, no, no, no…”

Without thinking, Josh started to run out the door. Nick grabbed him by his t-shirt and jerked him back inside. Out of reflex, Josh punched him but then stopped. Nick’s lip was bleeding red, not silver like the other clones Josh had seen. Nick took a step back.

“Turn my implant back on first.” He grabbed Josh’s tablet off the floor and handed it to him. “I’ll keep it distracted for as long as I can. You go help Dakota and tell Clint what’s happening. Don’t argue.”

Josh nodded and handed Nick his headset. “The moment we have it disabled, I’ll call you.”

Nick nodded. “Be careful, Josh. You have Debra and the kids. I—”

“You have a brother,” Josh replied. “Thank you. I’ll hurry.”

Josh reactivated the implant’s signal, and Nick bolted out the back door. Josh tried to look for movement outside, but he wasn’t at a good angle.

Dakota was in the grass about ten yards away, still breathing but lying on his side. Josh ran, scooped him up, and then brought him back inside the lab. Dakota relaxed after a tranquilizer injection and allowed Josh to keep pressure on the entry and exit wounds. Josh used his tablet to call Clint.

“This thing is faster than the one in the video you sent me, and it just shot Dakota,” Josh said. He opened a panel to access the rover, but both it and Nick were out of range. “How far out is your backup? I need a ride.”

“Less than five minutes,” Clint replied. “I left William Abbot with the cab, but the Raleigh team just picked me up. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Nick’s clone ran, but he’s trying to help us. He has an implant in his brain, and the A-676 is tracking it.”

“It’s trying to kill him?” Clint asked. “Hey—I may have to call you back. We’ve stopped.”

Josh listened to the background noises, able to make out Clint’s voice but no one else’s. He’d gotten Dakota’s bleeding under control. It didn’t look as if the bullet had penetrated any vital organs, but he would need stitches soon.

“I wish I could say it was done with more finesse, but the spider rover is down,” Clint said. He turned on his video feed so Josh could see it. The bot was in pieces, but three of its legs were intact and attempting to move. “The driver ahead of us saw it in the middle of the road and ran over it.”

“Wait—it was just stopped in the road—doing nothing?” Josh asked. He opened another line and tried calling his headset. It rang, but the clone didn’t answer. The video on Clint’s feed blurred, and several agents began talking at once. “It killed the clone, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Clint switched off the video feed. “One of the Raleigh guys just found him. I’m so sorry, Josh, but he’s gone.”

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * March 2114

“He was this tiny little boy—hair sticking up, pajamas above his ankles and wrists like he’d just had a growth spurt,” Mrs. McFerrin said as she and Josh walked to what was now Nick’s second grave. “I wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be okay, but I knew that was something I couldn’t promise. David Mathis had died on the way to the hospital, and I was standing in a house with a century’s worth of cloning research and a child who didn’t understand. I had to make a choice—your father and I both did.”

“You knew what Dr. Mathis had done—that Nick was some sort of accidental clone—and you covered it up?” Josh asked in disbelief. “Mom—”

“All your father and I could think about was, what if it was you?” she replied. “As parents, would we have wanted you treated like some test subject instead of a human being? Nick was a child with as much potential as anyone, and he deserved a chance. I wish we had known enough to warn him—protect him—but I’ll never regret having him in our lives. Do you?”

“No—of course not,” Josh replied, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Every time Dakota goes to the door, I keep expecting Nick to show up again. Clint told us the IBI believes Dr. Mathis designed the rovers to kill him once his disease progressed too far—that he may have made a dozen successful jumps between clone bodies over the past century. Now his technology is breaking down, and the rovers targeted Nick just because he and Dr. Mathis shared the same DNA. All the automated labs creating the clone bodies could be in trouble, too.”

“You’re saying Nick may never come back?” Mrs. McFerrin asked.

“I’m saying we may never know,” Josh replied. “I don’t even know if turning off his implant for a few minutes affected anything.”

Mrs. McFerrin crouched down, moving the grass away from a single blue wildflower. “Don’t give up on him yet.”

Downtown Chicago

“Just a minute,” Bianca Reynolds said. She checked the door viewer, but her blind date was holding a hardcover of her book about Nick Mathis in front of his face. She noticed roses in his other hand as he reached and rang the doorbell several times again. “Hey, I realize you’re just trying to be funny, but don’t use that book to do it. I feel bad enough that—”

She opened the door. Nick lowered the book and smiled at her.

“How would you feel about writing a volume two?” he asked.

Jaymee Goh

Liminal Grid

Originally published by Strange Horizons

* * *

On the side of the hill at the edge of the town, Bander Ayer Puteh, is a failed housing development project, formerly called Falim Heights. Four blocks stand fourteen stories tall in a quasi-hexagon shape, and their windows bristle with tall lalang and the branches of trees that have taken over the rooms inside. If you squint you can make out the courtyard between hill and blocks, but the view is obscured by the vines overhanging the base of the buildings. The walls used to be pink, but they are now gray from grime and moss, wherever they have not been covered by duit-duit and other creepers. The blocks were built as luxury condos for rich retirees who wanted to pretend to return to rural life, but there were no buyers and the development company went bankrupt. The actual rural people sighed in relief and went about planting their rice and tending their crops. The suburban people also went on going to work in the shophouses nearby, or commuting to the city, or, because jobs are scarce and pay too little for survival, tending their own home businesses.

Because you live there, in that condemned building, you know that the plants in the buildings are carefully planted into a low-maintenance, edible garden. What looks like lalang is actually serai. The branches of the trees hang with fruit that feed the local fauna on the outside, but inside, they are covered with discarded CDs to confuse the birds. There are window boxes on the inside growing leafy vegetables, and chickens are allowed to run free to keep down pests. The courtyard used to have a pool—it still sort of does, but it is home to a crop of water-plants.

Because you furnished the place, you know that the vines from the ceiling of the ground floor hide wires that provide electricity and connections to two local internet service providers’ networks. You know that there are ways up to the building besides the concrete staircase cracking up from tree roots, and you know there is a tunnel system into the hill, natural tunnels with some man-made modifications. At the base of the hill there is a waterfall that provides hydroelectricity for the buildings and local residents, as well as a place to wash clothing and keep an eye on playing children at the same time.

You moved here to Bandar Ayer Puteh several years ago and the farmers taught you everything you know about planting crops; they made you live with them, work in the belukar with them, showed you how difficult and exhausting the whole farming jig is. In return, you let them attach their children to you as you go about your daily business building things in the complex. You seek out solutions for their resource problems, doubling every year as the government keeps siphoning food and finances from them, cutting off electricity and water arbitrarily. You act as the local representative for their financial and legal interests.

You act it, because you are not, not really. Outside of Falim Heights, very few people actually believe that it is a functional place to live, much less to thrive. Lots of people think it’s probably haunted, and sometimes you think they’re not exactly wrong. You have seen things too, but Falim Heights lacks any kind of violent history to provide malevolent spirits. (Muhiddin, the local bomoh, is sometimes impressed that you have managed to not piss any spirit off. It pays to work with him.)

Farah Aziz is building a computer chamber at the base of Block D, the one closest to the staircase leading down to the parking lot. She has been harvesting stalks of bamboo from the belukar outside of Block B, and uses them to keep the rains and prying eyes off her wires. You find her sitting at a station, reading some news, with a mess of wires, fibre-optic cables and clamps under her chair. The chair seat is made of rotan, but she has outfitted it with a telescopic base and a recycled 80’s joystick so, without moving from her chair, she can reach anything in a three-meter radius.

You met Farah in university abroad, an Ivy Leaguer you hope has forgotten your cohort. Lonely JPA scholars far away from home, you latched onto each other immediately. She was a brilliant grad student in computer sciences; you were a mediocre mechanical engineering undergrad. She loved LAN parties and you liked wines and cheeses. She was the daughter of a poor fisherman, and you sympathized with her because your grandfather had been kicked off his land when it was bought out for development. You never dated because you both recognized that the only thing bringing you two together was a mutual dislike of the government that provided for you, which blossomed into resentment and hatred and a furious determination to fix something once you did get home. The night of graduation, which your families could not attend, you made love in a high of achievement.

The next day you two made don’t know and came home to carry out your federal obligations. You had thought about cutting and running, maybe applying for another scholarship and another school. You might have been able to cut free the tracking chip installed in everyone’s wrist when applying for the new identification cards. You would have become persona non grata in your own country; that is the price of freedom to move around without government permits these days. (“Of all the things to import from the West,” Farah sneered, on one of the outings you had with your compatriots, “microchipping people like animals! And then hormone control nanotech some more. Dahlah nak track the rakyat, now also must control whether we have babies.” “It’s free birth control,” Nik replied, “might as well enjoy it while you can.” Farah had punched Nik out cold in response.)

But you had dreams and a simmering rage inside, so you lived like a miser to afford independence after your stint as a government worker—the dreams and rage did not drive your work friends away, but the frugality did, because it is hard to maintain friendships without spending loose cash at cafes and coffeeshops—to come to Bander Ayer Puteh and build the place you have built. You would have been completely alone if Farah had not also understood, and because she is a genius, helped out in ways you never could have thought of.

“So, how?” she now asks, not even turning around to acknowledge you.

“Hi to you too,” you reply. “But the junction box is in the clear.” There is a box in the jungle hidden under a bunga telang bush. It is connected to buried fibre-optic cables that serve the local area with Internet service. No one really uses it here, so you have hijacked a few wires to serve Farah’s chamber. Rarely, Telekom, or one of its competitors, whichever now has control of the area, comes to investigate. They re-route it. You re-route it back.

“Will we be launching soon?”

“Our solutions are almost optimal,” you say, moving a sleeping child on a nearby rotan couch so you can sit.

“How long lah do we have to be only almost optimal?” Her brows furrow with impatience. This isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation. “No need to be so paranoid, can? We’ve been messing with their systems for so long now and nothing has happened.”

“Where can,” you protest. “You want to calculate the effects of failure? How much we kena fine, and who gets how long jailtime? How many of the new ‘state inspectors’ they’ll send to watch us? Because I have and it is terrible. We can’t take action too soon.”

Action or no action; you and Farah disagree on which one has more risks. She would rather move faster, strike sooner. You would rather ensure that all the hatches have been battened down, make sure everyone remains safe. No one has attempted to take an entire town off-grid before, not in the Peninsular anyway. You know it has been done out in Sarawak, but Sarawak did not have the same military power to enforce the law as the Peninsular government does. You model your systems after Indian ones, but every country has different conditions. Malaysians are more spread out, the cities less concentrated with people. This means less crowding, but also more police military all over.

Farah accuses you of cowardice. You look at Bandar Ayer Puteh and think of how much worse off the people could be. They are already suffering enough, you answer, no need to make it worse. You forget why you picked this place, Farah likes to remind you: this is one of the smaller agricultural centers of the state, capable of feeding itself sustainably for years. Government food centralization processes take the labour of the local farmers, and forces them buy it back to keep from starving. Between you and Farah, you have managed to false-feed the parasite monitors that track its production capacity, making it look like this land is just slowly dying and does not warrant further examination until true crisis mode. The bandar is not in crisis mode yet, according to regulations, but you don’t intend to wait until locals start dying to count.

“Chien,” Farah begins with exaggerated patience, “you have done the best you can. Encik Zaidi says that as long as military people don’t come here, whatever happens, tak payah risaulah. You think internet blackout so hard to handle is it?”

You scowl because she’s right and you’re worried for other reasons. If the government finds out what you and Farah and pretty much all of Bandar Ayer Puteh have been doing, then what might they do? Even though, technically, you know you wouldn’t be the only one to do so: there is Nandy in Pahang, Peng Kiat in Selangor, Percy in Johor, Nuraisya in Terengganu, several more…all working on the same thing in their own towns, all waiting for the Right Moment, just like you. Typically, everyone else is also waiting for someone to make that First Move. Each of you are sure that once a single town is off-grid, the others will have an easier time of it—that would spread out the government’s responses and resources, making any retaliation easier to deal with. But the first one to go faces the greatest risk of a swift and brutal response, because no one knows how closely surveillance systems are being watched. You all complain about the microchips, but between your collective experiences and knowledge, no one knows how well the microchips work, and that is the most frightening thing.

So hard, having that weird burden of responsibility like that. If you cock up then everyone want to blame you. If you succeed, then everybody want to share credit. You never even liked groupwork in university. Yet here you are, with a team of hackers who make forays into the Government Cloud, quietly stealing information here, quietly erasing information there, quietly reformatting systems everywhere else. You don’t know what the others are doing with the data they pilfer, but you use it to find loopholes for the locals in dealing with the petty officials and ministry spooks who fling red tape at farmers. Farming is hard enough without even more work to do in keeping one’s land, away from greedy land speculators, away from officials who think they know better. (“At least they can’t chip plants,” Kok Seong quipped, in the early days of your get-togethers. “Don’t. Tempt. Fate,” Nandy intoned, crossing himself, “the Ministry of Agriculture has been brainstorming ways to keep track of food production on a micro scale. If they succeed, we die man.” Everybody nodded and bitched about how expensive food became since food distribution became centralized, in Kuala Lumpur of course, to the detriment of everyone else. Now, lo: you discovered recently nanochips that monitor the movements of inert objects.)

You wonder how Farah finds it easy to turn over the status quo the way she does, but you suppose she doesn’t have much to lose, either. You are all the children of farmers, fishermen, herders, locked into place because the cost of moving is too high. You are tired of your elders paying a debt that you will carry. You are tired of people dying of hunger and illness, here in a land of plenty. You swore that while the government hasn’t accidentally blown up and poisoned the land just yet, you would make sure the children in your bandar will not go without food.

Farah doesn’t say anything because she knows you too well, why, exactly, you are waffling like this. “Why don’t you go visit Atuk?” she suggests. “Take a rest. We can fight about this later.”

You don’t like it when Farah gives you suggestions that are actually telling you what to do, but at the same time you like having someone else take responsibility for your life anyway. You stomp off, down the broken concrete steps and into the parking lot where your salvaged Wira sits, looking sad but serviceable.

Leaving Bandar Ayer Puteh annoys you, because you are used to its rough surfaces, the humidity of its rooms, and the cool of trees breathing life. Your Wira is so old it predates the current information age, but it is inorganic enough to bring up memories of your brief stint working for the government. You worked the back end, developing the framework onto which the federal servers sit, all wires and smooth walls and metal racks, security cameras in every corner. You were a maintenance lackey, which might have contented you if you hadn’t seen That Room.

You don’t call it by its real name, which is made of obnoxious two-dollar words: All-Encompassing National Geography, Economy, & Population Reviewer for Interstate Security & Cooperative Efficiency. (“Why do they have to call it that?” Peng Kiat asked, “why not just call it the Panopticon, since that’s what it is?” “Too scary,” Azwa replied, “all our Western allies would scrutinize us even more,” and you all burst into cynical laughter at the hypocrisy because it was better than crying.) Very unlike most government office technologies which might as well be retro, even compared to your rudimentary work, it uses the very best, most recent technology. The ceiling is not very high, and the walls are comprised of several backlit LED touchscreens, corner to corner. There is a raised platform surrounded by computer centers that direct the other screens.

During your orientation, the Minister of Security personally introduced your cohort to the functions of the room. The screens were the most sensitive you have encountered. On the largest screen, on the wall of the platform, was a map of the entire country. The map flickered to show figures, statistics, and names, superimposed on the various regions. You and your new co-workers were allowed to play around with it—which still seems dubious to you—so you could understand what kind of information it kept in the Government Cloud.

Which was, in a word, everything. Every acre of land was monitored, monetized, parceled out. Every town had its own biometric surveillance system to control and keep track of the rakyat’s movements. Every city, with its skyscrapers, fed information into the database of its commercial tenants, big businesses and small. All this information, with the briefest, lightest taps. The only thing it could not do, it seemed, was keep track of every single individual as efficiently as it hoped, which might have made you immediately revolt.

Instead, you slowly burned out, driving in and out of the city, your wallet fattening as you saved up your pay. You thought you would be able to change the system from within; you were disabused of that notion almost from the get-go when they made you wear a biometric uniform at work. Then came the new, improved chips that were intended to monitor the physical health of the rakyat. You worked twenty-hour shifts to roll that out, and every shift killed your soul a little. You thought you would work hard, rise up through the ranks, and get into decision-making; you were reminded, in the way your superiors nodded and smiled and praised you but didn’t advance you, that your skin colour and your name made you untrustworthy. You were untrustworthy, but not in the way they thought. When you could afford it, you bought your grandparents their new house, and then moved to Falim Heights, where property values had plummeted so much the mortgage was easy to pay off.

Farah has topped up the Touch’n’Go you share and you breeze through the tolls. The highways are more expensive, though not necessarily a better quality. Every bump on the road is a reminder of the sensors, keeping track of traffic. On paper, it sounds great: got jam, the sensors could re-route traffic. Got solar-power, so the nation would save on energy costs. Got car breakdown, sensor immediately tells the first available tow-truck. (“Got protest, paramilitary follow you!” Percy continued the advertisement’s cheery litany. “Got robbery? Ala, who knows lah.” But it was still safer to meet in person, traveling over the sensors, than it was meeting over the Cloud.)

Your grandparents live in a rare suburb close to Ampang Jaya, which used to be close to the city center, and has sort of been absorbed into the city. You sit through the traffic jams, get lost in the new flyover system, then finagle your way past the gate of the community where your family lives. The walls are new-white and the computer system at the gate scans the barcode on your car, then lowers itself to scan you, to verify that you do belong to this place. Guests have to call ahead of time. There are no random visits to any aunties or uncles here.

It is a nice house and it was very expensive. There are few privately-owned homes now; most villas are run by corporations that charge maintenance fees up the wazoo. Flats abound, because former low-cost housing is too expensive to own, but they are badly managed by indifferent landlords. Inflation has soared. But it is not so bad, say the government. At least the numbers show that this is still a rich nation.

Your Atuk is busy spraying his houseplants when you enter the house. You smell the water mixed with fertilizer, so different from the waterfall. Atuk turns and greets you with his generous smile. “Eat already?”

You shake your head and make the appropriate sound. You wait until Atuk has finished pruning his mini-roses which bloom twice as large as they would have at the hands of a lesser gardener. Atuk is very proud of you, because besides getting the university degree, you developed the hydroponic system in his verandah. You think he should be proud of himself for making it work—his kangkung is verdant, the cabbage heads are as big as yours, the pakchoi push out of their troughs obnoxiously, and the cucumbers colonize a not-insignificant corner of the verandah, hanging low from the nets on the ceiling. He harvests several leaves, washes them in a deep sink, and pulls down a casserole bowl from a cabinet above the sink. You wish he would actually use the kitchen, and maybe you will shift the whole system inside. He only does this because he is lazy and likes raw food.

Atuk grew up on a farm that his family lost to housing developers. When he drove you to see it, it had been stripped of its greenery and is now a suburb. You don’t know which house sits on what was once his land. “All of us lost,” he mourns regularly, “Malay, Chinese, Indian…everyone lost.” You find it hard to believe that there were Chinese farmers, but suppose anything was possible in his time. He has worked as a handyman since then. When your parents died in a car accident, he scrimped and saved for your education. He only retired after you proved you could support yourself and built him his little hydroponic farm.

Atuk says, “Ah Ma got fine yesterday.”

You have a mouthful of leaves when he says this, and look up, conscious that you probably resemble a cow. “Ha?”

“You know lah…she play mahjong what.”

Ah Ma loves gambling and is a firm believer that it helps circulate money into local economies. “What are they going to do with all their money anyway?” she would complain to you. “So rich, so kedekut, got nothing to do…their food also they don’t buy, so what they do with their money? Give poor people like me lah!” It’s not terrible logic, you think.

“What?” you say after you swallow, “I thought I told Ah Ma to stop using that mahjong app.” The words taste bitter; Ah Ma had been so proud that she made the app herself. And then it got popular! So much so the government took notice, and since she hadn’t registered it and was making bank with it, they shut it down.

Atuk and Ah Ma are, fortunately, not microchipped—that is only for certain demographics. Atuk and Ah Ma are too old, too frail. They could die tomorrow, and that would not matter to the powers-that-be. But if you died tomorrow, that would be one less productive worker in the country, and had to be replaced.

Ah Ma now sails into the room. “Chien ah!” she almost shrieks. Atuk gets up to get more salad. “Chien, why police come here?” she demands. Never one to beat around the bush, your Ah Ma.

“We-ell-l,” you stammer, because Ah Ma is hard to trick. She make don’t know but she probably is aware you’re as shady as her erstwhile gambling racket. “Maybe because you still run your mahjong game? Did you register your app?”

“What register my app,” Ah Ma snapps. “I never use app anymore. Police come here when I play with Ah Chow Soon and Ah Ming. I ask them why they want to fine me, they say the money not my one! What, not my one! I won it what!”

You blink. “They what?”

“Haiya, they came to see you, actually.” Atuk picks up another bowl for the table. “But they saw your Ah Ma gambling with real money mah, so she kena fine lor.” He eases himself back down.

“Nowadays, police so bad one!” Ah Ma complains. “Push push people like what only. They come here, and then when we say you’re working, they don’t believe!”

Your stomach drops. Your grandparents, of course, do not know what you do for a living. Suhaila, your KL contact, had set things up for you and your grandparents to live under the radar. Ostensibly, you work at a kapok-processing factory in the Reconstructed Petaling area. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—you had been interviewed for a position as operations officer, and you had been short-listed, but anyway that kapok factory had been super dodgy. You are ostensibly paid through direct deposit, and you ostensibly pay your taxes automatically. Suhaila handles that from her accountancy firm using software Farah’s team developed. You also have a handphone, which you claim you never turn on, and anyway your grandparents hate the phone.

Of course, Farah is not the only computer genius out there, and sooner or later some hack on government payrolls would have been able to uncover the digital trail of obfuscation that she has set up. It is easier to destroy something than it is to build it. Government incompetence cannot be relied upon.

While you are thinking about all this, you almost miss the rest of Ah Ma’s diatribe. “And then ah, I ask, what you mean not my money? They say ah, oh, madam! That money you didn’t get through work or pension mah! So not your own lor! I ask how you know? So they take the money, and then they scan. Now money got nanochip some more! Aiyo I bei tahan ah.” Ah Ma must have noticed your reaction on your face, because she turns to you with a serious expression. “So why they look for you? You going to jail?”

“No-o-o-o…”

“Why you bohong so ciplak one?”

“What to do, I like Atuk what,” you protest. “Maybe something happen at my factory that I don’t know. I call my boss and ask loh. So you kena fine how much?”

Ah Ma scowls. “Five hundred ringgit.”

You reach into your pocket for your wallet, which has unchipped bank notes. Peng Kiat has been working on a method to short out the new currency nanochips; until then, you’ve been working with old notes. “And your friend? That one you were telling me the other day one?” No one does schadenfreude like your Ah Ma. She launches into a re-telling of how her friend had been caught defying a local by-law on burning rubbish. You laugh, let her have her moment, and move onto other subjects of interest: the sudden closure of the local wet market for another hypermart, the difficulty for neighbours’ children to find work, the rise of foul-smelling fumes from beyond the walls of the community.

Yet for all your diversion, you can tell that Atuk and Ah Ma no longer trust you to tell the truth. They have always managed to live within the law, even when it is out to screw them over. They seem to stare at you a little longer, their eyes squint a little harder, as if they are trying to look right past you. You never told them your truth, because you wanted them to live out their old age unworried for you. You never thought their ignorance might lead to your undoing.

When you leave, you try to remain calm as the security system scans your car and lets you out. You know it is registering your departure, and you know it is sending a signal to local police. You keep an eye out for stalking cars. You take the old roads, the ones you know do not have sensors. They are, however, a mess of one-way streets that loop around in a mis-guided attempt at avoiding traffic jams. You fish an old modded Nokia from under your seat, and you call Farah.

“Yo?”

“I think I’m being tailed and I need a hantu,” you tell her.

Farah doesn’t hang up, nor does she answer. You can hear her mouse making a few clicks. You exit a lorong onto a main street. A police car flashes its lights at you.

“Faraahhh.”

“I’m working on it,” she says crossly. “They got new firewall.”

You pull over. The police officers get out of their car and approach you. One of them holds a ruggedized tablet—nice Panasonic, you think.

One of the officers taps on your window. “Lesen?”

You pull out your wallet and the piece of digitized plastic. It glitters as they run a scanner over it. You internally wince, waiting for the worst, that maybe Farah hadn’t made it in on time, and you’re going to get hauled out. The officers are just doing their job; you can tell from the looks on their faces that they’re stressed and unhappy, but not corrupt. You wonder what they would do if they didn’t wear their biometric monitoring uniforms. It prevents the worst of police crime, but it also stops them from performing small mercies. One of the good effects of digitizing the nation has been to eradicate the most banal of petty bribes. Now they only happen online.

They hand you your license wordlessly. “No credit,” the other officer tells you, looking concerned for you that you have no available money to spend.

You thank them for the information and begin to drive off slowly.

“Everything okay?” Farah shouts into the phone to get your attention.

You pick up the phone. “Yeah. Yeah.” You don’t feel okay.

When you pull into the parking lot of Falim, you start shaking and manage to heave yourself out of the car before vomiting onto a patch of morning glories. As you pick your way up the stairs, your mind swims with terrible possible outcomes for your Atuk and Ah Ma, and worry that perhaps you should have gone back to pick them up. But then what would you say to them? That they had to move again and lose everything they had worked hard for? That their grandchild was an anti-government rebel? Your Atuk, especially, would be heartbroken to leave his plants behind.

But if you didn’t go back for them…if the government hantu came for them…You stop short when you think this, because it had never been a possibility before, and now, with the project so close to fruition, it suddenly is.

“So how?” Farah asks, but you hardly hear her. She has to turn around, and see your face. You don’t notice when she gets out of her chair and runs to your side. She pats your cheek. “Hey. Hey?”

If the government finds out about your work, then they would go after your grandparents. Interrogating them might be extreme, but it could happen. The house is in their name, but they might have their pensions cut off, without you to send them money. And you’d have to give them up, stop visiting them at will. Of course. It is so obvious now. Even past the programs that Farah has written, past the records that Suhaila has conjured, government hackers would find Atuk and Ah Ma any moment, with or without chips. They have followed your movements, so they know where to look for you, and thus for them. The idea seems less righteous now that the danger to your grandparents is so real. And you’re not ready, or even willing, to give them up. Your stomach seizes up with sudden fear, the fear that you have been holding back so long.

When you finally register the shock of it, you hurl, but fortunately nothing comes out. You clap your hands over your mouth anyway. Farah has her arms around you now, patting your cheek and calling your name, calling you back. Your vision swims, and you let Farah lead you to the couch and sit you down.

Finally you come up for air and lean back, staring at the ceiling. It blinks with hundreds of LED lights, telling you that the operations on the servers directly upstairs are functioning smoothly. Servers that are hard to trace, off most grids, away from all known data clouds, beyond the reach of governments, built by your hands from materials both salvaged and pirated. Servers armed with programs to break down, scramble, disrupt, courtesy of Farah. Servers with programs that have been tested against firewalls and workarounds. Servers ready to disseminate information to ordinary citizens on prepared food distribution centers and grassroots hospitals. (“Can you not cucuk-cucuk like that?” Alina once yelped at Nur, who went to vet school and has been working on chip removal, “why don’t we have a single actual surgeon in our group?” “You look how much the government is paying them, then you tell me you wouldn’t sell out,” Nur answered, “don’t worry, the GPs will be okay.”)

“Tomorrow,” you say, wondering why you have to make that First Move.

“Finally,” Farah says.

You nap in each other’s arms that afternoon. When you wake up, Farah works with Suhaila to create another hantu for the police to follow, while you recruit the kids to help prepare a room in the complex. You fix a ramp so Ah Ma can easily go down to the shophouses. The aunties seem interested in her, especially those who love mahjong. She won’t lack for friends.

You rehearse telling your grandparents that they have to move, again.

* * *

You worry about the disruption of public services. The police response. Potential military action. You also worry about the disruption of private services. Communication blackouts. Transportation issues. Scrambled stock markets. Potential mercenary action. You wonder how well the system your compatriots have built will serve those who are already failed and set aside by existing ones. You all act on a dream.

You think this as you drive Atuk and Ah Ma back to Falim Heights. They are excited to finally see where you live. They are a lot less upset about your activities than you expected them to be.

When you lead them up to the derelict building of your base, Atuk keeps turning around, head swiveling as he tries to take in the scale of disguised agriculture around him, his eyes round, his smile wide. Ah Ma turns up her nose a bit, but it’s not much different from Atuk’s gardening habits, she says. “Good, good,” Atuk says every so often when he sees certain arrangements of companion planting.

You get to the main computer room, where Farah is playing cards with some of the children. She gets up as soon as she sees you and your grandparents.

“Atuk,” she says. “Ah Ma. I’m Farah.” She takes your hand in hers firmly.

Ah Ma squints at her inquiringly.

“I’m Chien’s girlfriend.”

Atuk looks back and forth between you and Farah, and you can’t tell if he’s surprised that your girlfriend is Malay, or that you have a girlfriend to start with.

You introduce the children in the room, and they entertain your grandparents for a while, then take Atuk to a room for his afternoon nap. Ah Ma sticks around, interested in Farah’s computers.

Between you and Farah, all the calls are made to the other cells. Muhiddin has come to witness, and he performs his own set of rituals, invoking the help of the local spirits to protect your people. Falim Heights is making the First Move. You are small enough to escape government notice, but large enough to make a difference. Or so you hope. Farah utters a bismillah under her breath as both your fingers type the commands that will take your little town off the map of surveillance.

On one of the monitors in That Room, there is a lit-up map of the country, and your town goes dark. Within minutes, other spots on the map go dark too, more than you expect, more than you know. Farah releases a virus that will reformat small, but significant, sections of data.

You read once that when kings and sultans were tyrannous, farmers simply moved away. Packed up their stuff, moved to a different land, away. This was easier to do back when every inch of the land wasn’t so heavily invested with monetary value, and there was no monitoring of people’s movements or land use. You used to think that this was rather passive, non-confrontational, maybe cowardly. Yet, human desire has always trumped whatever laws and restrictions have been placed on human nature. Tyrants must be told somehow that they will be left in the morass of their own corruption. Everyone has the right to live, grow, dream, build at their own pace. Leaving, too, is resistance.

Where are you now, Bandar Ayer Puteh? Where are you now, Falim Heights? Where are you now, Chien and Farah? You have disappeared into the dark spaces. Off grids, off maps, off lists of names and numbers, off known ways of being, you have left into unmeasured space. What chaos do you wreak? Are you holding hands? All we see are serai swaying in the wind.

Elad Haber

Number One Hit

Originally published by Interfictions Online

* * *

The highway is paved with the bodies of musicians. Their bones crunch under the weight of our motorcycles, a staccato of shattering, every once in a while a cleft-shaped sigh or a note or two of an ancient number one hit. The concentration of dead musicians is heavy here: lots of bleached hair, thick makeup, torn jeans, fake diamonds glinting in the fading light, and tattered venue posters with bright band names, colorful and forgotten.

Not to us. We haven’t forgotten. We’re collectors, by any means necessary, of long lost things. Art, film, writing, music, all that was lost in the Crash and the wars and the famine and the suffering that followed. We sell what we find on the black market for money. Yes, like the cockroach, money survived.

The front bike slows and so do the other five, wheezy engines and clattering brakes kicking up an ominous intro.

“Got something on the sensors,” says Burr, up at the front. He lets one meaty paw off his handles and lifts his sensor doohickey to show me. As if I could read the tiny screen from my bike. As if he already knows I’m not going to trust him.

“I don’t hear nothing,” I say.

We all cut our engines, a song rudely interrupted mid-track, and listen. There’s the wind, the tin of our bikes cooling down, and the far off cry of a person or animal dying.

Then I hear it. A guitar, just the faintest hint of reverb, strings angling like a harp.

I look back at my people. As silent as we can, we get off our bikes and grab our weapons.

Burr, a big beast of a man, points towards a collection of towers a few minutes walk from the highway. We get into a loose defensive formation and start towards it, two men staying behind with the bikes.

On the side of the road, away from the clutter of the highway, is only grey rock. Trees are of the dying or on-the-floor variety. As we get closer to the towers, the clutter underfoot resumes with pieces of ancient equipment: keyboards and mice, splintered cabling and even some old telephones. We try to avoid making noise. We want it to be quiet so we can hear if there’s any-

There it is again. The guitar, this time accompanied by a beat. Just a classic Casio pre-reset but it’s enough to get our spirits up. We give each other genuine smiles before continuing forward, our guns out.

“Watch for lurkers,” I warn as we enter the area of shadows.

The towers are really server racks full of computers with crisscrossing multi-colored cables. Some are large like statues, others are half-destroyed and leaning like Pisa. The equipment within are in varying stages of destruction. Once this collection of computers ran the world or hosted some banking software or porn website, all the rows full of blinking green and yellow lights. Those lights have been out for decades now, the domain names long forgotten jokes ending with a dot NET or dot COM.

My pirate crew stalks silently through the debris. The music is steady now, as if someone settled on the right station in a sea of static. I can hear vocals, a whispery female voice, sadness in the inflection.

Someone behind me releases a sharp intake of breath. It’s Whizz, a long haired, long bearded, long legged dude who never shed a tear in his life. He looks away from me.

“Move!” I shout into the wind.

We all rush forward as if someone rang a dinner bell.

Behind one of the towers, huddled together in a loose semi-circle, is a group of three teenagers around the glow of a monitor. One tries to run. Whizz tackles him to the ground.

It gets very noisy. One of the teenagers, a girl, starts crying. I’m shouting something about raising their hands. The one that tried to run is fighting back. Whizz is having fun, dodging punches and doing a little dance.

That music is still going on but I can’t hear it.

“Just shoot him!” I shout. Whizz shrugs, pulls out the smallest of his pistols, and shoots the kid in the face.

A sudden return to silence, louder somehow than the music, thicker.

I look over at my techie, Genie, short with pink pixie hair and spikes around her neck, wrists, and ankles. She pushes aside the teenagers and sits in front of the screen. She slides her finger across the screen a few times.

“What we got?”

“Sweetness,” she responds with a smile. “Kids must have found the one live port in this fucking toilet, hacked in and found a cache of MP3s in a backup.”

“How many?”

She looks at me with a grin. “At least fifty…albums.”

“Let me see.” I scrunch down and watch the screen as she scrolls through. Lots of obscure trance shit from the 20’s, some heavy techno, some pop. I stand up.

This is the first decent catch we’ve had in a while. I look around at the quiet world around us, the decaying towers, the electronic debris. I close my eyes and listen to the music coming from the screen and decades ago.

I look back at Genie. “Do a database search, see if you can find anything else hidden away. Copy to a flash and then destroy the tower.”

“Boss.” Burr, big and hairy and smelling like sweat, is standing behind me. “We should go.”

“We will.”

“We can’t be the only ones who heard it.”

I turn around to face him. He’s tall and bulky, but so am I, with at least one hundred pounds on him. I get up into his face. “You got a problem?”

He takes a step back. Shakes his head. “No,” he says then looks over at the teenagers. “What do you want do wit’ them hackers?”

I walk over to them while Genie is inserting a skull-and-bones flash drive into a port on the side of the screen. One girl, one boy. They could be siblings, maybe even twins. All these techies look the same: white skin with a greenish tint, black glasses, some form of patchy jeans jacket and black-as-soot pants. My eyes linger on the girl, her dark hair unwashed, skin full of pimples. She keeps her head down and I admire her tits under her tight white shirt rising and falling with her tension.

I’m talking to Burr, but for their benefit. “We probably should just off ‘em here, save us some trouble.” They scrim a little, the boy especially is thinking of some escape. My guys got pistols at the back of their heads and they looking like they ain’t had no fun for a while. “But…This is a pretty nice stash of sweet they found on some pencilpusher’s hard drive. Could fetch some serious cash, assuming there’s a NOH in there somewhere.” I take a deep breath, exhale like a God. “We do owe them for that.”

Burr is getting antsy, I can tell. He wants blood, I suppose.

I get down on my sizeable haunches. They’re afraid to make eye contact. I reach out to the girl, who flinches at my touch, but I squeeze her chin just enough to get her to look at me. She’s pretty for a vagabond. She’s frightened, shaking, but in those green bespectacled eyes I see something lacking in my pirate crew: intelligence.

I guess I’m feeling generous today.

I ask them, “You kids need a job?”

* * *

There’s the World Above, dead, quiet, sad if you’re prone to thinking too much, and then there’s the World Below, loud, crowded, smells like shit and piss yet preferable to the desert above.

We roll down the big dirt ramp into the underground city, my bike in the lead, destitutes crowding the road, carrying sacks of food or family heirlooms. The masses scuttle aside for us, clutching their belongings and young girls. We set up the two hackers in a wagon side-hitched to my bike. They’re holding each other tight and staring at everything with infant eyes.

I call out to them, “You ever been down here before?” They shake their heads. I assume they speak, but I still haven’t heard a word. “Whole life on the surface, huh?” I laugh. “You’re missing the party.”

At the bottom of the ramp, we round the corner onto the first flat street of the underground. The drumbeat is the first thing I hear. It seems to be coming from all directions. Syncopated to the rhythm of the city, the beats are ever present. Pedestrians, most covered in a brown dirt, shuffle from one open doorway to another, their footsteps in time. Hand-painted signs, like Grocer or Weapons, hang over every other doorway. Ladies in windows open their shutters and then close them again. A couple argues in hushed tones, their arm movements like a dance.

The sound of our bikes, so clear in the desert above, is lost in the din of everything around us. We ride slowly, our engines barely a whisper, towards the center of the city.

“This is all housing,” I say, feeling the need to educate. I motion to the mudbrick buildings. “Not much to look at, but these structures can hold dozens of people. They sleep twenty or thirty to a room. It smells bad, but it’s safe.” As we go deeper , the streets get thinner and the sounds more erratic. No longer the steady beating heart of a city, but instead the occasional shriek or heavy breathing, a window slammed closed, or the muffled scream of a baby.

“We’re getting close to the Hub now,” I tell them. I can see it through the break in the small buildings. The tallest structure in this quote-unquote city, a piecemeal hovel that somehow stretches five or six stories high, made of a latticework pattern of different building materials, the center of all roads and commerce in this place. We don’t go any closer than we need to.

I slow down in front of a small building, some walls actual brick, most just ash-colored clay. Above the door, a printed sign in a flowery font reads, Wanderers.

The place brings a white smile to my black heart. Inside it’s straight out of a make-believe fantasy inn. Big wooden bar at the back with animal heads hanging from the rafters. Tables full of gruff-looking sonofabitchs huddled over steel pitchers, planning and gossiping. Genie goes straight to the barkeep to make arrangements. Some of my guys see long lost friends and disappear into the corners.

Burr and the kids stay with me near the entrance. The eyes of the patrons are on me. I let them soak me in forawhile. Finally, I move towards a nearby table. Two sad sacks are sharing a single beer. I wait, wordlessly, until they scuffle away and I move in to claim a seat at the table. It’s a good table with a view of the front door and the bar. I nod at the two hackers and they sit down across from me.

Burr, full of nervous energy, is still standing. “Boss,” he says. I ignore him. “Boss!” he says again, loud. “It’s been too long, Boss.”

“Fine!” I say, throwing a hand up. “Have fun.”

He walks over to the other side of the table and whispers something to the hacker girl. Then he pulls one of his huge arms around her chest and lifts her up. She tries to struggles, her 90ish pounds against Burr’s two hundred plus and fails very quickly. She looks at me for help.

“Calm down, baby,” I tell her with a wink. “You may enjoy it.”

The boy moves to stand up. I stare at him. “Sit. Down.” He does, as Burr throws the girl over his shoulder and walks towards the back of the bar, upstairs to the rooms. “Don’t worry,” I tell the kid, “he’s not going to hurt her.” I can’t help but smile. “Well, not that much.”

Genie comes to the table, carrying some drinks. “Arrangements made, Boss,” she says. “We got the whole top floor.”

“Perfect!” I say, grabbing one of the steel mugs. At the top is brown foam, a good sign. I take a long deep drink, finishing at least half of the cup. It’s good beer, fresh. Genie grins and walks away.

The kid is staring at me, his eyes like fire.

“Don’t be such a fucking prude,” I tell him, finishing my first drink. I reach for another. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“No,” he says.

"Sister?"

He sighs. "No."

“So what’s the problem?”

He doesn’t have an answer. I smile, buzzing. I ask him, “You have a name or should I make one up for you?”

“Tim,” he deadpans.

I laugh and tighten an imaginary necktie. “Tim. Serious name for a serious guy. How old are you, Timmy?”

“Seventeen.”

A little bit of compassion fills me. “Ah. Born post-Crash. You have no idea about what the world used to be like.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“Hmmpf! I’m sure you have.” I look away at the sad faces of the other people in this place. “You have no idea what we’ve lost.” Inspired, I reach into my jacket, into one of the many crudely stitched inner-pockets and pull out a worn paperback. Its pages are yellow with age, the cover is secured with scotch tape.

“Do you see this book?” I ask the kid. “Do you know how many people, all over the world, have read this book? Could you even imagine a number so high? Millions of people, in hundreds of language, all across this planet, have read this book. There will never be another book like this ever again. It’s like the music we salvage. It’s special because it’s the last of an extinct species.”

“But,” says Timmy, “People can still write. People can still make music.”

“Yes. But no one does.”

* * *

Later, I stumble my way up the creaky wooden stairs to the top floor. It’s late and I’m vaguely aware that I may be waking up the building with my drunken footsteps, but I don’t care.

Up at the top floor, in the shadows at the end of the hall, Whirr stands up, nods to me. He’s “on watch”, making sure no thieves come by our rooms, but his cheeks are red and his eyes a bit more cloudy than usual. He’s been drinking.

I walk to the only room with an open door. My bags, a half dozen tattered shells that usually hang on my bike, are set up carefully on a desk. I rummage through them, through yellow newspapers and bullet casings and tar-smelling clothes, until I find an ancient cassette player. It’s just a black box, scratched up like crazy, but it means everything to me. I rummage again, this time pulling out small in-ear headphones that were once white, now dirty beige. I go into my bags once again, shoving my hands in the stickiest corners, until I pull out two small cylinders. I push open a slot on the back of the player with my thumb and insert the batteries into the player one at a time.

Exhausted by the search, I fall into the tired structure this place calls a bed. It seems to be made of straw and wood, but it’s more comfortable than bare rock, which I know from painful experience. I clutch the box in my hand. Slowly, I reach into my jacket and grab a scratched up cassette, a souvenir from one of my first raids, a derelict record store, and place it carefully into the player. I put the headphones in my ears and close my eyes.

Music fills my world. I feel like I can touch it.

* * *

The next day. And my head hurts like a bitch.

I drink two cups of coffee downstairs before going back up for a powernap.

My guys get the bikes loaded up and ready in an alley beside the Wanderers Inn. Timmy and the hacker girl stay close together. She looks tired.

Genie, Whirr, and Burr surround me as I walk outside. They’re full of questions.

“Who’s goin’?”

“What ya takin’?

“Canicome, Boss?”

See, the Hub is like an exclusive club from back when society was segmented by class. Only certain people can enter the Hub and they can bring only one or two guests. It keeps the riff-raff out and the goingson behind the doors a mystery to the normal people. Every underground city has a Hub and they’re all connected through whats left of the world’s Internet.

That last part is kind-of a secret. Most people think the Internet’s been dead since the Crash. People better off that way, my opinion.

I’ve taken each of my pirates to different Hubs throughout our journeys, but I’m still feeling generous. I silence the three of them with a look and say, “I’m taking the newbies.”

“What?!” they shout as one and follow up with some choice expletives about me and my mother and something about a dog.

I smile at them and walk over to the kids.

“Timmy,” I say. He straightens up, looks at me with those small frightened eyes. The girl, whose name I learn is Emma, looks at the floor. “You and the girl are with me.”

They share an infectious smile.

They follow me back to my bike. They position themselves into the cab and I jump on my bike, revving the engine to get it going. The Hub casts no shadow in this subterranean world, but I can feel its pull from here.

On the short ride over, I’m quiet.

The guards at the gate raise their hands in greeting. They’re wearing helmets with dark visors that obscure their features. They’ve each got pistols on their hips and the two guards nearest the door look to be carrying pulse rifles.

“Business?” inquires the nearest guard.

“Music,” I reply in the typical shortclip of these situations.

“Cred,” he commands while the other guards keep their hands near their pistols.

I pull out a small lacquered card, bequeathed to me by a former colleague who went up in flames (it still smells faintly of blood and gas) and show it to the guard. He nods and his minions relax.

“Off,” Mr. One Word intones.

I shut down the bike and nod at the kids to step out of the cab. The guards move in closer, some raising their guns up at us, the others with old-fashioned metal detectors. At every beep, Mr. One Word reaches into my clothes and pulls out a gun or a knife. One hand comes very close to the crack of my ass.

“Careful there, buddy. Nothing goes in there.”

I smirk at him and then look over at the kids. The guards are padding them down and they look disappointed when they don’t find anything.

Mr. One Word appears to be tired of us and breaks his usual routine to spit out a sentence. “You’ll get all your weapons back when your business is concluded.”

The doors start to open with a loud crunching and squealing sound. One Word continues his screed about decorum and business practices while in the Hub but I stop listening. I rev the engines and pull forward into the Hub.

The first room is a garage. There’s small clusters of people huddled around cheap tables. Motorcycles and small cars line the walls. I pull into an empty space and nod at the kids to get out.

“Stay close,” I tell them.

Near the elevators, there’s boards filled with chalk scribblings. Only some of it makes sense to me, certain acronyms highlighted in my mind’s eye, a small pond of sanity in an insane display. There’s five elevator banks but each one only goes to certain areas of the building. By following the lines of chalk from the bold NOH to a corresponding floor number, I see we need to go the fourth floor, second section.

I stare at the rotating numbers over the elevators, a revolving game where the elevator goes to a different floor based on the number. There’s a pattern, though, a “base” number each elevator reaches after a few random revolutions.

Emma brushes past me, “This way,” she says.

I almost protest, but realize a second later she’s heading to the right elevator. I give her a long stare while waiting for the next car to arrive. She shrugs at me. “I like codes,” she says.

The elevator door opens and a dozen people step out, some smiling, some downtrodden. Twice that amount of people, myself included, push ourselves into the large steel box. It’s cramped and the air is thin. Emma and Timmy are right up against my belly, they have to bend their backs to fit in the space. When the elevator lurches upwards, the lights flicker and threaten to die, but don’t.

After a short ride, the door opens again. Inside the heart of the Hub, it’s like a Vegas Casino from the world that was. There’s activity everywhere, lights and sounds and smells. Girls in tight bodices walk around smiling at strangers, guys in suits that show their muscles move slowly about the crowds, and hanging from the ceiling, screens full of fast-moving codes and numbers, a stock ticker for antiques. This is the most active and colorful of all the Hubs I’ve been too. It’s like a party, where everybody is toasting the past.

Every few feet is a large oval-shaped table with four or five screens spaced judiciously apart. In the center of the oval, a stern looking individual stares at passerbys: Overseers. They’re the judges of the deals, they decide what’s fair or not and finish off the deal. They always take 10%.

Emma and Timmy are frozen in place, wide-eyed like children.

“Come on,” I tell them, pushing past them. “This way.”

Each oval is themed in a certain way. Some trade in movies, those ancient forms of entertainment that seemed to fill up most people’s lives, some trade in TV, the equivalent of food for the previous generations, they gobbled up hours of the stuff every day. But the most exclusive ovals, those that interest me the most, deal in music. Music is sound of nature as translated by the human experience, it has no equal.

The music oval is off near the edge of the floor. The mass of the crowds is thinner here, although it’s still a little too busy for my tastes. I sit at an unoccupied screen, the hacker kids hanging out behind me, scoping out the area like they’re my bodyguards. I pull the skull and bones stick from my jacket and insert it into one of the many hidden ports behind the screen.

The Overseer walks over to me. They all look so much alike, it may be a robot, but it seems like a man with a thick Texan accent. “Buying or selling?” he asks.

“Selling.”

He nods, presses a hidden key, and walks away.

On the screen, the list of the newly acquired songs scrolls by on the right side. The system checks file names versus data, verifying things like sound quality and legitimacy of titles. Slowly, numbers appear by the song titles, going-rates of songs by that artist or time period or genre on the global exchange.

This is the waiting phase. My cache is being submitted to hundreds of other consoles in other Hubs or the personal screens of rich collectors in the few remaining cities in nicer parts of the world. Near one of the titles, a small red exclamation point appears. The system has flagged the song as a NOH. Once, for a brief moment in time, this song was the Number One Hit of a world that no longer exists. Instantly, bids start to come in.

I start clicking through them, as fast as I can, ignoring everything except the top price, which keeps rising. I hear a grumble beside me. I look away from my work. Emma is staring at me with an angry look.

“You think you can do this better than me?” I challenge her.

“I know I can.

I stare at her eyes. That hungry knowledge is still back there, despite whatever my boy Burr did to her last night.

“Fine,” I say and give her my chair.

She sits down with a flourish and starts sliding her fingers across the screen like a pianist doing Mozart. Another red exclamation point appears near another song and Emma is already comboing that piece with the first one. The big number at the top of the screen, my possible profit, keeps jumping by hundreds of dollars. She’s ignoring the top bidders and pushing the middle-ground bids to drive up the demand. Other songs, not with exclamation points, but by the same artists are suddenly in the triple digits.

If there was music in this place, I’d start dancing.

I glance at the Overseer, who seems very interested in Emma. He’s hovering near her, one eye on her and one on his secret screen.

Passerby’s pause when they see the girl with the magic fingers. A few linger. I shove a couple out of the way while blocking the view of others. I don’t like the attention the girl is gathering. Even the other bidders in the oval are glancing up from their screens to peer curiously in her direction.

Then I see the number at the top of her screen. More money than I’ve ever seen in my life. Somehow she’s taken two #1’s and a handful of obscure shit and turned it into a major score. I feel my dick getting hard and my breath tightening up. I feel proud of my decision to bring the kids to the Hub and amazed to my foresight not to kill them in the desert.

The Overseer, perhaps tiring of Emma’s cleavage or the sudden crowd, chimes in: “Final bids are in. Sell or leave.”

Emma looks back at me. She’s also breathing hard, sweat pooling around her temples and dripping down below her cheeks.

I smile at her. “Let it ride, baby!”

She slaps the screen, a big red icon that says SELL in bold. There’s a bit of cheer that comes from the crowd. Even the Overseer cracks a smile.

“Your winnings are on the way,” he says, that accent morphing ‘winnings’ to ‘waaaanings’. A couple of suit muscleheads walk over with a thick white envelope.

Giddy, we walk away from the table. The kids are chatting about the bidding process, the tech and the thrill of it. My brain is riding a million miles an hour. With this much cash, my pirates can stop roaming the wilderness for antiques. We can settle down somewhere, start a local operation, start a family, be normal. The possibilities are endless. I smile as I think about sharing the good news with Burr and the others.

Emma, Timmy, and I wait for the elevator. Emma tugs at my arm. “We did okay?” she asks, sheepish grin on her pretty face.

“Better than okay,” I say as the doors open. I let the kids in first so I can hold on the envelope in front of me. I’m aware of others looking at me. The elevator quickly fills up.

There’s a lurch as it gets moving and then another as it stops and the lights go out, this time all the way. I feel the knife enter my back and I’m about to yell when a hand clutches my open mouth.

“Scream,” Emma says, her breath hot in my ear, “And I push it all the way in.”

The pain is intense, like a volcano inside me. It seems to quickly spread to my arms, which feel useless, and my legs, which buckle. I can feel Timmy, thin and quick, slink to my front in the dark and grab the envelope.

“No,” I whisper as the knife goes in further. I feel streams of lava pouring out of me.

The elevator kicks back into operation and the lights flicker on. Somehow, Emma is in front of me, her body pushing me against the wall. She’s positioned my hand on her ass. There’s a laugh from someone in the elevator.

I can taste blood in my mouth. I can’t move or speak.

The elevator stops and the crowd pushes its way out the doors. Emma leans in to me like she’s going in for a kiss. “Thanks for everything…baby.”

Before my vision disappears, I see her and Timmy rushing out towards my bike. Some dark figures appear over me. There’s some shouting followed by the loud reports of guns firing.

When the darkness comes, it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before.

Auston Habershaw

Adaptation and Predation

Escape Pod on 12/11/15

* * *

Everyone thrives in someone else’s version of hell. For the Quinix, this meant sheer canyon walls a hundred kilometers deep, every surface coated with a thick layer of red-orange vegetation and bioluminescent fungus. The arachnids liked to string cables in complex patterns from wall to canyon wall and built nests where the cables crossed. For them, each oblong, womb-like nest was no doubt cozy and safe. For me and every other off-worlder on Sadura, you were made constantly aware of the fact that, with just the right (or wrong) application of balance, you would plummet to a death so far below that you’d have plenty of time to think about it on the way down.

I’d seen more than a few fall—Dryth tourists to little fluffly Lhassa pups, all screaming their way down into the abyss. In the dim, humid depths of the Saduran canyons, the bodies were hard to find.

For that reason, among others, I came here to kill people for money. I make a good living.

Tonight I had a fat contract on a big Lorca—an apex predator, both because of his fangs and his bank account. As a scavenger, living on the bottom of the food chain my entire life, the irony was delicious. Here I was, a lowly Tohrroid—a slop, a gobbler, a smack—paid top dollar to do in some big shot whose trash my ancestors have been eating for ages. Sooner or later, the bottom feeders always get their due, don’t they?

Either that, or I was going to wind up dead.

I knew the Lorca liked to dine at the Zaltarrie, and I knew he’d be there tonight. I’d spent the last few weeks shadowing one of the wait-staff—a Lhassa mare with the fetching chestnut mane, a full quartet of teats, and the long graceful neck that fit with Lhassa standards of beauty. I had practiced forming her face in a mirror—the big golden-brown eyes with the long, thick lashes were the hardest—and now I had it down pat. I could even copy a couple of her facial expressions.

The Zaltarrie hung like a fat egg-sac in the center of one of the deeper canyons, webbed to the walls by at least five hundred diamond-hard cables, some of which were thick enough to run gondolas from the artificial cave systems that honeycombed the walls and were home to the less authentic Saduran resort locales. The Zaltarrie, though, was all about local flavor and a kind of edgy, exotic energy that appealed to the young, the bold, and the hopelessly cool.

I came in through the staff entrance already ‘wearing’ my uniform—a black, form-fitting bodysuit with a wrist console tying me into the club’s central hospitality net. The Quinix manager at the back door gave me an eight-eyed glare which I took to indicate curiosity. Most staff changed once they were here, I guessed, but I’d simply shaped my outer membrane to mimic the look of the clothes without bothering. It was a necessity; while I understand how elbows and ball-in-socket joints work in theory, mimicking the biomechanics of it all while stuffing an arm in a t-shirt is something else entirely. At any rate, I brushed past his fuzzy, leggy body and headed to the floor.

The music hit my whole body at once. It was a sultry, lilting Dryth ballad sung by a particularly attractive Lhassa mare dressed in a kind of micro-thin smart-gown that barely qualified as a garment. She was backed up by a small clutch of Voosk with the matching plumage to indicate they were part of the same flock. They had no instruments; with Vooskan vocal chords, they didn’t need them. The song shook me to my core, and I mean that literally. I see, I hear, I smell, and I feel with the same organ—my external membranes, my skin. The volume on that Lhassa crooner was such to make me wish I had a garment to hide behind. It made me sag in the door for a minute while I acclimated myself to the ambient sound. Between the thick pipe smoke and the freely flowing narcotics, nobody noticed.

The Great Races can’t appreciate the things they have. Take the Zaltarrie, for instance. Lush carpets, thick as an uncut lawn. The scent of finely spiced food. Each chair and cushion hand-stitched by arachnid feet from synthetic fabrics so smooth and soft they barely existed but as a sensation of cool breath on the backside of so many clothed bipeds. The music, too, and the pipe smoke and the low murmur of polite conversation in a half-dozen languages—all of this world of sensation, and it had to be funneled through at tight array of tiny sensory organs clustered at one end of some clunky organism’s static body. I could feel, taste, see, and hear it all at once and wear the experience as a garment, yet I was surrounded by organisms who sat in little fortresses of their own mind, carefully sifting through a couple streams of sensory information as suspiciously and greedily as customs agents looking for a bribe. It almost made me pity them, moments like this.

Don’t worry—the feeling passed. Screw those people.

I glided across floor, sweeping the faces clustered around the tables for my ‘date’ for the evening—Tagrod the Balthest, the Lorca shipping mogul. He was easy to spot; Lorca always are. He would have topped three meters standing, had he been standing. Instead, the great businessman lay across a mammoth divan no doubt custom designed for his use, his four lower limbs tucked beneath his lithe, muscular lower body. His torso was wrapped in Quinixi silk, black as charcoal and broad as the gondola that probably took him here. His forelimbs were folded across his chest, and I noted his talons were untrimmed—a mark of wealth. If all went well, I’d see him dead inside two hours. If not, I’d probably get a first-hand look at his digestive tract.

Lorca of such stature as Tagrod are never alone. He had a half dozen retainers—two Dryth bodyguards in armorgel suits, a snail-like Thraad with a control rig and a few servo-drones floating around, and a trio of overweight Lhassa mares chained by the neck and marked on the forehead with Tagrod’s personal sigil. These last were feed slaves. Tagrod kept to the old ways, where the predator/prey relationship between his species and the Lhassa was still observed. Just judging from the expressions on a few Lhassa faces elsewhere in the room, there were even odds I wasn’t the only person there planning to kill the big Lorca. I was, however, the only person sauntering towards his table with a packet of metabolic poison stashed in a vacuole hidden in my ‘abdomen’ and a multi-pistol likewise concealed within my ‘ribcage’.

An intoxicated Lhassa bull leaned out of a booth and pinched my backside. My buttocks clenched in what was probably an unnatural way—contracting like some kind of mollusk into a shell. I danced away, hoping he didn’t notice, and tossed my long neck so my mane flipped away from him—Lhassa body language that indicated I wasn’t interested in coupling with him. The bull laughed and followed me with his eyes until it was clear I was heading towards Tagrod’s table. Then he mouthed something cruel about me to his friends and turned away. Any mare who was going to speak with a Lorca was clearly beneath him, anyway. Lucky break. I made a mental note to avoid any other handsy Lhassa bulls—I looked convincing, but not so convincing a good fondling wouldn’t find me out.

The ballad was wrapping up just as I reached the corner where the big Lorca was splayed out. There were hoots of adulation from the tables in a dozen different languages made with as many different sets of alien vocal chords, noise bladders, or what-have-you. Tagrod clapped his taloned hands a couple times and roared, smiling. I got a good look at his three interlocking rows of needle-sharp teeth. I found myself hoping I’d estimated the dosage on the poison correctly—a half-dead Lorca could still do some pretty serious damage to an entirely-alive me.

One of the Dryth guards stopped me before I’d gotten within arm’s reach of Tagrod’s table. Like a typical Dryth, he was a compact and functional biped, knots of bumpy muscle in all the right places, and a face as smooth and streamlined as the prow of an airship. “We’ve already ordered.” The Dryth announced.

“I understand, sir. We’ve got a few specials, though, and the manager was concerned that your master hadn’t heard them before making his selection.”

The Dryth wasn’t buying it. His eyes—blue-white and sharp as ice picks—searched my face for some sign of deception. My deadpan, though, is unbeatable—it isn’t even really a face, after all.

Tagrod’s voice was a deep, resonant purr. “Othrick, please—the lady wishes to speak with me. Let her through.”

I had to keep my external membranes from shuddering in relief. Killing a Lorca is a lot like fishing: it’s all about the bait you use. Tonight, the bait was my assumed shape, and I’d just gotten a nibble.

One of the Thraad’s servo-drones pulled a chair out for me. The Dryth patted me down for weapons without so much as an ‘excuse me,’ and it took much of my concentration to keep my “body” appropriately rigid as to simulate a real Lhassa’s endoskeleton. I had practiced this, though, and there was no danger of him finding anything—my weapons were in vacuoles hidden inside my body. Unless he actually scanned me or I accidentally jiggled in the wrong place, I was safe. Comparatively, anyway.

Behind me, the Lhassa singer started into another number, this one in a language I didn’t recognize. Reflexively, I fiddled with the translator I’d hidden inside my ‘head’ until I got the words right. It was a Lhassa dirge from a subculture I wasn’t aware of. The Voosk did their best impression of a trio of sultry woodwinds, striking a jazzy backdrop to what was essentially a song about a mare’s children all dying in a fire. Leave it to the Lhassa to make something like that sound sexy.

Tagrod gave the Thraad a significant glance and the slimy bookkeeper twiddled a few tentacles. One of the servo drones chirped an acknowledgement and the song dimmed behind a dampening field. The big Lorca gave me an exploratory sniff from his perch. Even with two thirds of his body lying down, I was only at his eye-level. At this distance, I could easily see how his species could devour a full-grown Lhassa in one sitting—his great jaws could probably fit around my shoulders even before they unhinged to swallow me. There was a second—just the barest second—where I felt a sense of terror at his presence and wanted to run. I had to remind myself that, between the two of us, I was the dangerous one here. Predatory species or not, he wasn’t a trained killer, he was a business man—a three meter tall, five-hundred kilo, carnivorous businessman.

For some reason I didn’t feel much better.

“You don’t usually work this shift.” Tagrod observed.

I made a conscious effort to blink. “You noticed?”

Tagrod smiled, but didn’t show me his teeth. “My dear, every Lorca can’t help but notice the Lhassa around them. An old instinct, you understand—don’t be frightened.”

I made my eyes flick towards the feed slaves, who were absently stuffing their faces with sautéed crimson slugs. They hadn’t even given me so much as a glance since I’d sat down.

Tagrod picked up on the gesture and nodded. “All my slaves are voluntary. Their families are handsomely paid. I’m sorry if they make you uncomfortable.”

I shook my head. “No. No, it’s all right.”

Tagrod purred at a low, powerful volume that made my body shiver. “So pleasant to meet a Lhassa who understands. So few of your kind can rise above their instincts. Our two species are interdependent. Your people have provided the numbers and done all the great labor. We Lorca have provided the vision. Like all good predators, we drove our prey to greatness.”

It was an old tale—the famous refrain of the oppressor: “but where would you be without me?” I know more about this than even the Lhassa do. Intelligent blobs of omnivorous, asexual goo do not advance well in a society full of so-called higher-order beings. My people eat trash in waste dumps and everybody thinks they’ve done us a favor. I wasn’t even spoken to by one of the Great Races until I was nearly a full cycle old, even though I worked in a restaurant like this one, surrounded by people. I was paid in table scraps.

“Are you all right?” Tagrod asked.

I realized I had been neglecting my facial expressions. I went back to work, batting my long eyelashes and smoothing my mane with one hand. “Sorry. I was just…just remembering something.”

The Dryth guard who had patted me down returned from some kind of errand. He leaned over and whispered in Tagrod’s ear. I turned my head away, making it look like I was watching the stage, but I focused most of my attention on the Dryth’s lips. I didn’t catch it all, but I caught the gist.

“Othrick tells me that you aren’t even on the schedule today, Tal.” Tagrod reached down and speared a slug with a single talon. He popped it in his mouth, again giving me a chance to see those impressive teeth. “Is this true?”

I curled my neck in the Lhassae gesture of embarrassment. “Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Othrick asked, his hand resting on the ornately carved butt of his multipistol.

“Forgive Othrick,” Tagrod said, grinning. “He always suspects that a Lhassa is planning to kill me. We’re friends, though—aren’t we?”

I shrugged. “I suppose.”

The big Lorca nodded. “Good, good. I’m glad.” He leaned forward, sniffing me with his broad nostrils. “You smell strangely.”

“I wear perfume.”

Tagrod grunted. “I don’t think that’s it.”

I stood ready to pop the multipistol out of my chest and drill the giant merchant at the slightest sign of the Dryth going for their weapons or of those big talons reaching out for me. Had I underestimated the Lorcan olfactory abilities, or maybe Tagrod had had them boosted somehow? It didn’t matter. I made my face look confused; I decided to reel him in a little early: “I’m sick.”

“I see.” Tagrod hummed. “Is it serious?”

I mimicked embarrassment as best I could. I leaned close, but not too close—no free Lhassa gets too close to a Lorca willingly—and stage-whispered. “I had an accident. A couple organs were ruined real bad. I got some germline engineered replacements, but…”

“But they’re losing integrity, aren’t they?” Tagrod shook his mammoth head and clicked his muscular tongue. “A cheap clinic, poor standards. Probably promised you the stars, didn’t they?”

I hung my head. “Yeah…pretty much.”

A single talon caught me by the chin, but so gently that it was barely a caress. Soft pressure made me raise my head and meet the grand, yellow eyes of the Lhassa’s ancient predator. “Which organs, pretty Tal?”

“Both kidneys, a liver, part of my heart…” I tried to whip up some tears, but I’ve never had the knack—no really effective valves for that kind of thing in my external membranes. I settled, instead, for a shuddering sigh.

Tagrod frowned at this for a moment, then rolled his massive shoulders in a Lorcan shrug. “That sounds like quite an accident.”

“There are a lot of accidents on Sadura.” I shot back, putting a little steel into my voice. I was letting the big fish play with the line now, giving him some slack to drag out. If he thought the catch was too easy or if he smelled a trap, my hook wouldn’t set.

Tagrod hummed. “Quite true.”

Everybody at the table was watching me. Othrick and the other Dryth were ready for action, probably worried I had a sliverblade secreted in my marsupium or something. The Thraad had both his eyestalks trained on me, his tentacles quivering with a kind of academic interest at my behavior. Even the feed slaves had finished their feasting and were eyeing me with expressions that were probably unreadable even for other Lhassa, let alone me. I wondered what that was about—was I competition of some kind? Did they hope Tagrod would devour me before themselves?

“Tell me, Tal, why did you come to see me?” Tagrod asked. He folded his arms.

Carefully, carefully…“I was interested in speaking with you. You don’t seem as cruel as…as…”

“As you’ve heard Lorca to be?” Tagrod laughed sharply. “Charming, simply charming. This truly is the planet of the adventurous, isn’t it?”

I bowed my head in acceptance of his praise. It never hurt to stoke the ego of an apex predator.

Tagrod smiled at me and told me things I already knew. “My slaves have dined, and I regret I am about to depart. I have appreciated your company, little Tal.”

“I’m leaving too.” I said.

I could see the thoughts clicking into place in the Lorca’s head. The words he said next were the words I had been hoping to hear all night. “Would you care to accompany me? It is so rare I am able to converse with a free Lhassa. I would hear tales of the homeworld.”

I did my best to look cautious. “I don’t know.” I made a show of glancing back at the other Lhassa scattered around the floor at the Zaltarrie. I knew that many of them had been shooting me and Tagrod dirty looks ever since I came over here, but this was the first time I allowed myself to act as if I knew.

Tagrod snorted. “Don’t mind them. Small minds and small hearts—vestiges of a bygone era. You’ve outgrown them, Tal.” He held out his hand, talons and all, for me to take it. “Shall we?”

I have a lot of textural control over my external membranes, but simulating skin that felt perfectly to the touch could be difficult. I focused as much of my concentration as I could spare on making my hand feel right and gently laid my palm on his. My little Lhassa-size hand seemed like a dry leaf atop the large, flat boulder of the Lorca’s palm. Had I bones, I might have been worried about him crushing me. As it stood, he merely placed his other hand atop mine and held it there for a moment. He smiled, still keeping his teeth hidden. In his great, yellow eyes I saw something like affection. Maybe he thought of me as a pet; maybe his overtures of companionship were sincere. I doubted it. “I’ll go with you.” I said.

Tagrod stood, his massive bulk shifting the delicate balance of the entire club as it was suspended between its thousand Qunixi spindles. The Zaltarrie swayed slightly, as though moved by a gentle breeze. At the great Lorca’s stirring, a host of black-clad Qunixi seemed to appear from nowhere. The arachnids shifted tables and shooed patrons from his path with a flurry of hairy-legged activity so he could move to the service entrance—the only door large enough to easily admit him. Othrick preceded his master out the door while the other Dryth kept his unblinking eyes fixed on me. I fell in with the Thraad, who evidently wasn’t the chatty type; he slid along on his single muscular foot with barely even a flick of an eye-stalk in my direction. As we left, our little parade drew the baleful glares of more than a few Lhassa. I knew they considered me—well, considered Tal—a traitor, but that fact made no impact on me. How easily they judged how others sought to survive, the self-righteous prigs. Every creature had to find its niche—how did they know this wouldn’t be Tal’s? Who were they to deny her it?

This train of thought was academic, though—I wasn’t Tal in the first place, and I was about to do something most of the Lhassa in that room would approve of, anyway. I focused on the task at hand. Slowly, I pushed the multipistol near the surface of my body and held it between my Lhassa breasts. It was a sleek model and only made the slightest bulge beneath my ‘clothing.’ We would see how long it would take the Dryth to notice it.

Outside, we found ourselves standing on an aluminum terrace that jutted out of the side of the Zaltarrie. Just over our heads were wrist-thick bundles of Quinixi cabling that protruded from the spherical bulk of the club at regular intervals. Large bins of garbage were lined up on either side of the door. In one bin I could hear the thumping and squelching of one of my own species, feeding on the scraps tossed out for vermin like itself.

Like me.

As we stood there, waiting for Tagrod’s air-yacht to arrive, the scavenging Tohrroid poked a pseudopod above the edge of the trash bin to get a look at us. It colored itself bright green to attract attention and warbled something in a loose approximation of Dryth Basic. “Food? Food? Please?” It reached out to us, forming a crude four-finger hand.

The feed-slaves recoiled from its touch. The Dryth behind me stepped forward to slap away its tendril. “Get back in the trash, smack!” The Tohrroid withdrew its tendril immediately and went back to trying to digest whatever semi-organic refuse it had come upon. The Dryth wiped his hand on his sleeve. “Ugh. I think it slimed on me.”

Tagrod laughed in rich, musical tones. He reached into his robe and withdrew a small confection of some kind. He threw it in the trash bin and gave me a wink. “The Dryth never have understood charity, have they, Tal?”

I hugged myself, as though cold. “The smacks have always creeped me out, too. I think everybody should look like…like something. Like what they are.”

“Ah,” said Tagrod, “but that would remove all the excitement in life, wouldn’t it?”

That statement bothered me. I managed to suppress a shudder—he didn’t know anything. He was a sham—his charity, his gentility, his humor—all a big lie designed to lure in prey. Just like me. Just like everybody.

We all looked up as the yacht appeared with the heavy thrum of AG boosters. It swung as close as it could without brushing the spindles and extended an umbilical for us to travel up. The yacht had an open-deck plan, kitted out like a pleasure cruiser but with a former military frame. I could see where the guns had once been mounted in the prow, and I wondered what the ship’s core AI thought of its new role in life, assuming they’d left the AI intact when it was repurposed, of course.

Once on board, we rose up about three hundred meters at a slow climb, the yacht pivoting itself gently to avoid all the spindles and cables that crisscrossed every open space. The Thraad disappeared below deck along with the Dryth and Tagrod himself. That left the feed-slaves and me, as well as a couple of the servo drones. One of them brought me a drink unbidden; I wasn’t so foolish as to drink it.

“He’ll have you first, you know.” One of the slaves said. It was the first time she had spoken since I’d laid eyes on her. She was fat, probably middle-aged, but with larger breasts and darker eyes than ‘Tal’. Her mane was well kept and silver in color, which I knew to be a genetic rarity in the Lhassa genome.

I gave her a blank stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “I know what you’re up to. His stable’s full. If you think you’re buying yourself a few more years of life by offering yourself to him, you’re wrong. He’ll have you inside a week.”

“Conza!” One of the other feed slaves—younger, prettier—flicked her tail and gave the older slave a withering glance. “Leave her alone!”

I tossed my mane at Conza. “Well, I don’t plan on being eaten.”

“As if it’s up to you!” She snorted. “I know his tastes as well as anybody. I’ve been his slave for almost a full cycle.”

I laughed. “You must not taste very good.” I looked at the other two slaves. They were both watching our exchange carefully, but neither reacted to my little quip. The one who had spoken up for me hugged herself, though not against any external chill—the canyons of Sadura were hot as jungles and just as humid.

“Shut your mouth about things you know nothing about.” Conza snarled.

I smiled. “Same to you.”

The two Dryth returned to the deck. Othrick had a hand scanner, while the other one had his hand on his pistol. Behind them, strutting along on his rear four legs with all the cockiness of a bird doing a mating dance was Tagrod the Balthest. He had shed his clothing, and now moved towards me slowly, his eyes shining. “Just a formality, Tal. I’m afraid Othrick insisted.”

It took Othrick less than a second to find the multipistol. Dryth faces are poorly suited to smiling, but there was a tightness in his eyes and nostrils that indicated some degree of vindication. He seized the pistol and held it up for his Lorca master. The other Dryth drew his weapon and leveled it at me. “An assassin, sir.” Othrick announced. “As I suspected.”

Tagrod frowned at the tiny weapon. He shook his head. “Ah, Tal, I thought you were different.” Tagrod shook his great head.

Othrick tossed my pistol over the side and then grabbed me by the collar. It’s easy sometimes to forget how much muscle is crammed into a Dryth’s compact frame until they lay a hand on you. Othrick dragged me over to the edge of the yacht and probably would have pitched me over with little trouble, had not Tagrod stopped him. “I want to know why.”

I smiled. “The usual reasons. You’re a great, smelly murderous beast with pretentions of civility. It’s almost sad if it weren’t so barbaric.”

Tagrod grinned, but showed his teeth this time. They glittered in the dim light of Sadura’s bioluminescent fungi. “The Lorca are no different than the Lhassa, Tal. We both feed on one another and on those around us, as does everything. The Lhassa have never understood this, which is why they consume whole planets with the ravenous appetites of their many young. We Lorca—we true Lorca—eat you to thin the herd, which benefits all.”

“Except the meals.” I tested Othrick’s grip by struggling a little, but he held me with geological firmness. Without bones, I had no way of leveraging an escape.

Tagrod waved Othrick away from the rail. “You care so deeply for my slaves, but so do I. This may be difficult for you to understand, but I love them. When, at last, I consume them, it will not be a barbaric act. It will be the course of nature—the way of the world. There is beauty in it.”

“Bull shit.” I wished right then I could have spat at him, but I’m not much good at it. All that nonsense about the beauty of nature made me ill. I wanted to grab him by his fat head and make him watch the little kids falling off the cliffs of Sadura. I wanted him to smell the dumpster I slept in as a child, slowly eking out nutrients from the festering remains of long-dead vermin. Screw him and his natural order. The civilized species of the galaxy had conquered it for a reason.

I let this show on my face. Tagrod watched me with the intensity a predator can only muster for prey. “I see you disagree. Come. Let me show you.”

Othrick muscled me close to the big Lorca. I pushed my face into a sneer. “Careful—I might disagree with you.”

The Lorca’s middle limbs reached out and seized me by the legs and waist as easily as if I were a candlestick. “Understand, pretty Tal, that it is you who have made this come about. I wish…” He lost the words and shook his head.

“Just do it already. I’m getting tired of talking to you.”

Tagrod sighed. “I do this out of honor, not pleasure.”

His giant, gaping mouth snapped down over my head faster than I thought possible. The pressure was incredible—were I the real Tal, my skull would have been crushed and my spine snapped in and instant. As it was, I compressed in his mouth like a half-full balloon. I felt the dozens if needle-sharp teeth pierce my outer membranes, each puncture burning with intense pain and weight. I let myself flow around his jaws and pulled myself up and into his mouth as quickly as I could, abandoning my Lhassa form with all the speed and alacrity of deeply-ingrained muscle memory. The great Lorca immediately knew something was wrong. His forelimbs clawed at my amorphous body, but most of me was in his mouth, filling his jaws and throat like a tumor. With a simple internal jerk, I expelled the metabolic poison down his gullet—the poison that the pistol had diverted his guards away from finding.

Tagrod threw himself on his side, still clawing at his own face, but by now the poison was hitting his system. After the fires of adrenaline cooled, his motions became sluggish, erratic, uncoordinated. The Dryth were on top of their master, trying to pry me out. When they were close enough, I let some of myself flow into a pseudopod that pulled Othrick’s pistol from his holster. My aim has never been good, but at that range it didn’t need to be. I set the pistol to shoot slivers and unloaded a burst into Othrick’s forehead and another into the other one’s face. They dropped like the eighty-kilo sacks of meat they were.

When it was all over, I flowed out of Tagrod’s throat and formed myself into Tal again. I saw the big Lorca’s eyes were still open, one eyelid twitching sporadically. I gasped for air and did my best to seal the dozens of little puncture wounds that leaked from my body. Everything hurt. “Dammit, that took a long time.”

“You monster!” Conza darted to her master’s side. “What have you done? You’ve doomed us! You’ve doomed our families!” Her eyes were glassy with tears, “He was generous to me! My children…what will they do?”

I didn’t bother trying to shrug—I was too tired. “I dunno—get jobs?” I checked Othrick’s pistol. Like all Dryth weapons, it was high quality, but needlessly ornate. I weighed the advantages of keeping it with the advantages of pawning it.

“Of course you wouldn’t care, you miserable smack!” Conza spat at me. “What does a pointless, disgusting trash-eating blob know about honor and decorum and…and decency?”

“I gotta admit, lady, not a hell of a lot.” I pointed the multipistol at her, considered shooting her. Before I could make up her mind, she screamed and darted below deck. I could hear her yowling as it shuddered up through the deckplates.

The other two said nothing, still clinging to one another, keeping their distance. “Which one of you is Yvret?”

The youngest one raised her hand. I nodded. “Your Uncle Jainar sends his regards and his love.”

A tear welled in the mare’s eye. “He…he hired you?”

I shrugged. “Guess I was cheaper than the cost to buy you back from the Lorca.” I produced a piece of paper in my hand. “Here is the comms address at which you can reach your uncle. Contact him using the comm on this yacht.”

She stood there, staring at me. “Now?”

“I don’t get paid until you do, so do it now, yes.”

Yvret vanished. This left me alone with the third feed slave—the one who had stood up for me a few minutes earlier. I had seen, though, how she looked at my cousin in the trash bin; she looked at me no differently now. I was some horrible abomination, no matter how I’d saved her. “He treated us well. He was generous to our families.” She said at last. “Conza hadn’t lied about that. I…I think he actually cared for us.”

I spun my Lhassa neck around in an impossible circle, just to creep her out. It worked—she backed away a pace. “I really don’t care. He could have been the long-lost love of your life, saving your pups and atmospherically reconditioning a moon just for all the orphans of Lorcan appetite and I still would have killed him. I don’t owe you miserable bipeds anything. If the Thraad below decks spots me a fiver and I’ll put holes in you, too.”

She blinked at that. “We’re not all bad.”

“You are.” I snarled. “But that’s beside the point. I’m just making a living, and killing people beats the hell out of eating garbage.”

“That can’t be the only reason.”

I laughed in her face. When Yvret got back on deck, I used the comm to confirm the money had been wired to my account, and then ordered the ship to dock at the nearest side cavern. I left without saying goodbye or giving anybody any advice—not my problem. I slunk off into the shadows, reverted to a faceless blob that nobody would give a second glance, and oozed towards home.

I thought about what the third slave had said, but only much later. I was taking the form of a Dryth Diplomat, House Ghaisi colors braided into my uniform, at a private table at the Zaltarrie. There was food—better food than I’d eaten in ages—piled high on warm plates, a Quinixi server hovering over my left shoulder, his palps quivering at the prospect of the tip I’d promised him. I was comfortable, respected, left alone.

I held out a plate of algae noodles. “This food is terrible.”

The Qunixi bobbed and swizzled something in its language that translated as, “I’m terribly sorry sir! I shall take it away!”

I deposited the plate in the arachnid’s fuzzy limbs. “I want you to throw it in the dumpster. Out the service entrance—to the left.”

“Sir?”

“Just do it.”

The server left. I wondered if the Tohrroid would be there or not; I wondered if it mattered one way or the other.

How many reasons does a creature need to do what it does, anyway? I made my body shrug, just for practice. I ate well.

A Revolutionary’s Guide to Practical Conjuration

Galaxy Press in the Writers of the Future Anthology, Volume 31

* * *

The man with the crystal eye could peel the skin off a camel with his glare, and Abe struggled to meet it. He did his best to meet the man’s gaze, but couldn’t determine which eye to look at. The crystal one was alien, yes—it glowed with a sort of half-light, as though a candle flickered somewhere in its glassy depths—but for all that it was inanimate. Looking at it felt like gazing at a lantern, and the idea that it peered back was unsettling. The other eye—the man’s human eye—was dark and sharp, like a bird’s, and it didn’t blink as it darted up and down Abe’s body. It wasn’t an improvement over the crystal eye at all. Abe tried to hold still.

“You are not a practitioner of the High Arts.” The man announced finally. He took up the mouthpiece to a water pipe and took several introspective puffs.

Abe glanced over his shoulder reflexively. Nobody in the tooka-den seemed to have noticed the man’s comment. It was late, and the evening shadows were deepened by the sweet, heady smoke that bunched around the ceiling lamps. The other patrons, scattered about on deep pillows and separated by muslin curtains, were too deep into their own smoking to even look up.

“Relax, boy. I would not have chosen this place if it were dangerous.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Abe asked, hands balled into fists.

The man laughed, his bird eye never wavering from Abe. “You do not. You cannot know—this is life. Please sit…or run. Whatever you do, stop standing like a spooked rabbit.”

The man motioned to a chartreuse cushion across from him, and Abe sat. The cushion practically swallowed his bony frame, pulling his feet off the floor. A sickly sweet perfume—a mixture of tooka smoke and stale sweat—puffed up around him. Abe gagged.

The man with the crystal eye nodded. “Much better. Now for introductions: I am Carlo diCarlo, and you are?”

Abe tried to prop himself upright in the huge cushion, but couldn’t quite manage. “I’d rather not tell you my name.”

Carlo sighed. “Obviously not, but you could make one up. I just did, after all.”

“You did?”

“You didn’t seriously think my name was Carlo diCarlo, did you? Come now, I need something to call you besides ‘boy’. Spit it out.”

Abe spat the first thing that came to mind. “Oz—call me Oz.”

Carlo nodded. “So far, so good. Now, Oz, would you like any refreshment? They don’t serve drinks here, but perhaps some food? Tooka? Ink?”

Abe pulled himself to the edge of the cushion. “I’m no ink-thrall.” He growled.

Carlo puffed his pipe and shrugged. “You didn’t have the look, but you never can tell. It’s only polite to ask.”

“Do you have what I need?” Abe said, putting a hand on his purse.

Carlo shook his head and closed his real eye. The crystal one glowed more brightly. “You aren’t accustomed to having illegal dealings with black marketeers, are you? Never mind—a silly question—of course, you don’t. When I received your message, I assumed you were some Undercity alley wizard looking for an edge, or perhaps an alchemist or thaumaturge looking to expand his business down semi-legal avenues, but I see now that you’re just an angry young man with an axe to grind.”

Abe frowned, trying to fashion his stare into something icy. “You don’t know the first thing about me.”

Carlo tapped his crystal eye. “I see a lot more than you realize, Oz. Now, to answer your question: yes, I have what you need. To answer your second question: you cannot afford it.”

Abe tossed his purse on the carpet before Carlo’s feet. It clanked loudly. “There’s 50 marks in silver crowns. I can get more.”

Carlo sighed. “What exactly do you think this peculiar eye of mine does, anyway? I know how much silver you have in that purse—I counted it when you came in. I am telling you that you don’t have enough and that I find it unlikely that any additional amount of money you can secure will be sufficient. You’re out of luck, boy—go home. Honestly, I’m doing you a favor.”

Abe felt his face flush. “I need that book, Carlo. I’ll pay anything.”

“Go home, Oz. Get a job, if you can. I recommend thievery—you appear to be good at it, judging from that robe you are wearing that you clearly couldn’t afford, and all those coins which are not the product of your diligent scrimping. Forget you ever came here and live a much longer, happier life.”

“You don’t understand! My life…all our lives are…” Abe stopped and took a deep breath. “I will pay anything—anything, understand? I need that book.”

Carlo puffed his pipe for a few moments and began to blow smoke sculptures. Birds and serpents swirled out of his mouth and danced with each other in arabesque patterns until they vanished into the cloudy ceiling. It was a simple glamour, nothing more. He supposed Carlo was doing it to prove something, but he didn’t know what. The black marketeer, for his part, simply watched the creatures unfold from his lips in some kind of tooka-induced trance before finally speaking. “Very well, boy, I will make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“One you will have to accept, of course. It goes like this: I give you the book, but under a particular condition. In ten days I will find you and, at that time, you will give me two thousand marks in gold .”

Abe stiffened. “That’s impossible! I could never—”

Carlo held up his hand. “You will have the book, remember? Don’t think I am unaware what you wish to do with it; two thousand marks seems a reasonable sum. Now, if you do not have the money in ten days, I will reclaim the book and go on my way. This is the deal.”

“What makes you think you’ll be able to get the book back from me?”

Carlo shrugged. “I strongly believe that you will be dead in ten days, so it should be a relatively simple matter. Do we have a deal?”

“I have a counteroffer.”

“Not interested. This is the deal, take it or leave it.”

“But—”

Carlo’s face narrowed into a glare. “If you are as desperate and angry as you appear, you know as well as I do that you are going to say yes, so stop wasting my time, please. I am running out of patience.”

Abe sighed. “Deal.”

Carlo pointed at the floor. “Spit.”

Abe spat.

The black marketer spat as well, then sighed. “There—was that so hard?”

“The book, Carlo.”

Carlo diCarlo shook his head, muttering about Illini manners, and produced a large, leather-bound book wrapped in string from a belt pouch obviously too small to contain it without sorcerous interference. He extended it towards Abe and Abe snatched it. It was heavy and smelled like mildew and stale air.

Abe fiddled with the knots holding the string around it until Carlo slapped his hand away.

“Fool, boy! Don’t open that here! Do you want the mirror men on us? Go, go—begone! Back to the wretched Undercity with you, understand?”

Abe snatched his hands away from the string and nodded. “Thank you.”

Carlo snorted. “Don’t thank me, Oz. I’ve just killed you.”

“See you in ten days.” Abe shot back. Taking the rejected bag of silver and tucking the book under one arm, he walked into the smoky recesses of the tooka den. When he glanced back, he saw no sign that anyone had been there, let alone anyone named Carlo diCarlo.

* * *

The strangest thing to Abe about Illin’s Upper City was the streetlamps. They were ten feet tall and made of iron, their heads glowing with sun-bright crystals the size of large melons. Even now, in the dead of night, they cast sufficient light on the broad, white streets that Abe could read the numbers on the houses from twenty paces away. One of those crystals would fetch enough money to buy a large house in Abe’s neighborhood, yet none of them had been stolen or damaged. Abe found himself glaring at them as he made his way to the public lift terminal. “Lousy toppers.”

As Abe got close to the edge of the Upper City, the houses and businesses gave way to defensive structures—minarets and parapets, trapezoidal barracks, and huge, black war-orbs hovering over pyramidal control loci. A patrol of ten mirror men, their mageglass armor gleaming beneath sunny streetlights, marched toward Abe in perfect formation, their firepikes bobbing and flickering as they reflected their bearer’s even gait.

Clutching the book tightly to his chest, Abe looked at his feet as he shuffled to one side, letting them pass. He felt as if he were glowing somehow—as though their foreign faces were studying him as they went by. He tried to keep his breathing even, but his heart wouldn’t cooperate. It pounded like a war drum, announcing to every part of his body that it could all end here. The mirror men just needed to ask “Say, what’s a scrawny teen doing out alone at this time of night?” He’d be whisked into one of those trapezoid barracks in an instant; no one would ever see him again.

The men didn’t stop, though—just marched past. They were just common soldiers, their sergeant more interested in keeping security than recovering contraband.

Heart still racing, Abe made it to the terminal—a small, colonnaded dome perched on the very edge of the Upper City, overlooking the Undercity beneath and the ocean beyond. A few mirror men gave him a cursory glance before letting him aboard the night lift. The basket, made of wicker, was large enough to carry perhaps four people—much smaller than the daytime gondolas that could haul dozens of people and livestock. Abe tipped the lift man at his winch for a speedy descent, then said goodbye to the white paved streets and well-lit avenues of the toppers’ domain.

The basket plummeted from the edge of the terminal, causing Abe’s stomach to flutter. His tip had been appreciated.

Almost immediately the darkness that blanketed the rest of Illin for most hours of the day swallowed the light of the Upper City. The Undercity was named so literally: it rested directly beneath the Upper City on a flat pan of dry ground in the midst of an endless maze of marshy reeds and slow-flowing estuaries that brought trade and disease from the troubled regions to the south. Though it was twice as large as the Upper City and was home to four times as many people, the Undercity was dark and seemingly deserted. Abe could see only a few fires from his basket—bonfires lit by gangs or religious fanatics or worse, all of whom used the night to gather numbers and strength.

The public lift terminal at the bottom was the vandalized, scorched mirror-image of its wealthier sibling. A group of cheap sellswords in worn black leather and rusty studs were employed to stand guard here, but really spent most of their time dicing and boasting in the guttering candlelight. They didn’t even look up as Abe’s basket landed, which was good. He didn’t have any money to bribe them.

“Did you get it?” Krim’s bony frame separated from a shadow and she fell into step beside Abe. She lit a candle with a match. “Let me see!”

“Not here.” Abe hissed. “I’ll open it at home.”

Krim cuffed him. “Dummy! How’d you know you weren’t cheated if you didn’t open it, eh? You lost our money for nothing, betcha!”

“I’ve got it, don’t worry—see?” Abe held the book up to the candlelight. It looked older and blacker than it had in the tooka den. Though without design or device, something about the cover made his skin crawl.

It seemed to have the same effect on Krim. In the dim light, Abe saw her dark eyes widen. She stepped back and made the sign of Hann on her heart. “I’ll tell the others.”

“Don’t tell them yet. I still don’t know if I can use it.”

Krim scowled. “Don’t give me that! You can read, can’t you? Isn’t that all it takes for books? Monda will bust your ankles if he gave up his purse for nothing.”

“You don’t understand—these things are very compli—”

Krim slapped Abe across the face. “No, you don’t understand, Abrahan Anastasis! We’re counting on you, and you don’t get to let us down, right? You read the book, you work the spells, and we change the world—that’s the deal.”

Abe nodded. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Krim.”

“Should be. The topper take all fifty?”

“Uh…”

Krim cocked her head. “What’s it?”

Krim was lighter than Abe, but he had no doubts about the danger she posed. He’d seen her cut a throat for a copper. “Yeah, he took all fifty.”

“Somethin’ else?” Krim’s weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Abe saw a hand dart inside her tunic.

Abe shook his head. “No, just the fifty.”

Krim waited, as though sniffing for a lie, and then relaxed. “Fine. Take the book back to your Mama and read or whatever. I’ll call for you tomorrow, take you to see everybody and report, right?”

“Sure.”

Krim vanished into the shadows like a rat darting into a bolt hole. The hairs on Abe’s neck didn’t relax. She was probably still watching him. The rumor was that Krim walked around with a shard of mageglass in her tunic wrapped in leather, sharp enough to cut right through bone. Cut a man’s head open like a barrel-top once, or so Monda said. The image of her with blood on her face, her dark eyes grinning at Abe, kept him up at nights sometimes.

Still, without her and Monda and the rest, he would never have gotten the money and the book. And the book was the key.

In the pitch-black night, the Undercity changed from a confusing tangle of dead ends, alleys, and crumbled ruins into a deadly labyrinth. Abe’s mother talked about how the streets had been clean and lit in the old days, before the war, but when the Kalsaaris had invaded they hadn’t been gentle. The sewers were now filled with imps and lesser demons, the descendants of various weapons of war utilized by both sides during the Kalsaari occupation and subsequent Allied liberation of the city. Parasitic gremlins swarmed through most buildings, eating supports and ruining attempts to rebuild, while more dangerous things—unexploded brymmstones, trapped war-fiends, and worse—lay beneath every pile of rubble. All this, of course, didn’t even include the dangers posed by the desperate survivors—people like Krim, lurking in the dark with a sharp knife and a keen ear for jingling coins.

Tracing a long-memorized route through the rubble in the dark, Abe arrived home. On the front steps, the candles in the small Hannite shrine burned low. Sighing, Abe bowed to it and slipped past to unlock the door and go in.

Before the war, the Anastasis home had been a three-story townhouse squeezed between a bakery and a church. Today the bakery was abandoned, playing home to a rotating cast of squatters and vermin; the church was merely rubble, destroyed by a brymmstone during the initial Kalsaari bombardment. The home itself was now only one story tall, the top having burned when the church was destroyed, and the second story was half collapsed. Abe and his mother used the old sitting room as a makeshift bedroom, had access to the kitchen and the front hall, and stayed out his father’s old office, just in case the ceiling finally collapsed beneath the weight of the rubble upstairs.

Abe took the book into his father’s office. The risk was there, true, but he trusted that if the ceiling hadn’t collapsed in five years, it wouldn’t likely collapse tonight. Also, there was no other place the book could feasibly avoid his mother’s notice. On a cursory glance, if she found it here, she would likely conclude it was just one of his father’s old ledgers or law books and leave it be—that, or command Abe to sell it, which put it safely back in his own hands. His mother couldn’t sell his father’s books without weeping.

Abe lit the only oil lamp his family had left and sat behind his father’s hulking desk. Even atop its broad, bare expanse, the book looked menacing—a kind of curse made thick and dark and physical, like a clot of congealed blood. Licking his lips, Abe untied the strings and pulled back the cover.

The book sprang open and flipped itself to a random page, somewhere in the middle. Every available space on the yellowed pages was filled with a cramped, meticulous handwriting in deep maroon ink. Abe tried to turn back to the beginning, but every time he flipped a page, the page flipped back. Finally, growing frustrated at the enchantment (was this some kind of security feature? Perhaps…) he settled down to read.

If you are reading this, stop! You are unqualified to use this book, and any attempt to utilize its lore will inevitably end in serious injury, death, or worse. Return this volume at once to its place of origin.

Abe blinked—what a peculiar thing to say in the middle of a book. He pressed on.

Since you are still reading, the text said, it is evident the above warning was insufficient to dissuade you from your self-destructive course. You are to be simultaneously scolded for your recklessness and commended on your bravery. Consider yourself both as of this moment.

Abe grinned. A book with a sense of humor was not what he had expected. He skimmed the next paragraph but found the handwriting difficult to read without focusing, so had to go back to the beginning again.

If you expect to be able to skip ahead or skim your way to an understanding of the art of conjuration in a short time, it is evident that you are a fool and that, again, it must be stressed that your death is almost guaranteed. You are advised for a second and final time to close this book and get rid of it.

Abe sat back, eyes narrowing, and read the paragraph again. Was it…could a book be aware of him? Was that possible? “Are you alive?” he asked aloud, and then kept reading.

As has been implied, this book is an instructional manual designed to assist the experienced practitioners of the High Arts to gain facility in the art of conjuration in a relatively short period of time. As you are inexperienced in all magecraft, however, it would be advisable for instruction to begin at the essential basics of magical instruction, since without these it is unlikely you will be able to conjure anything at all except, perhaps, a splitting headache. Tonight will involve an overview of what’ magic’ is, exactly, since that is both the most important topic to understand and the only topic simple enough to outline before your mother wakes up.

Abe’s finger shot back from the line he was reading, his eyes wide. He slammed the book closed. “What the…what the hell?”

The house creaked above as his mother’s bare feet touched the floor in the one useable room upstairs. Her reedy voice trickled through the dark. “Abe, dear, is that you?

Abe backed away from the book, staring at it as though it might leap off the desk. He remembered what the old smuggler had said: “Don’t thank me, Oz. I’ve just killed you.”

Gods, he thought, was he right?

* * *

Abe’s mother insisted on fixing him something to eat, despite how late it was and the paucity of their stores. She wiped the very last vestiges of some sour grape jam from an old, crusty jar and scraped them over stale crackers. Once she had laid it before her son, she blew out the candle. They sat together in the dark. Abe didn’t eat.

“No sense wasting the food.” His mother said. There was no fight in her voice, though, no sense of warning or caution or even admonishment. She said things by rote these days, Abe knew. What was the difference if they wasted food, anyway? They were going to starve sooner or later.

“I’m sorry I’m so late. I was busy.” Abe said, picking up a cracker and dipping it in a warm cup of water to soften it a bit.

“Did you earn any money?” she squeaked.

Abe wanted to tell her about the fifty silver coins still under his stolen robe, but he didn’t. That money couldn’t be spent without Krim and Monda finding out, and that would mean a grisly death for both of them. Besides, if he dropped it on the table, his mother would know he’d fallen in with thieves. That would be the end of her, he guessed.

She waited for an answer, so he cleared his throat. “No…nothing today. No ships new in town, so nobody needed a copyist.”

“Mmmm…” Abe’s mother tsked between her teeth. “Forgetting all about us, they are. They used to clog the harbor, you know. Your father wrote the contracts to a hundred different ships every year; he wore a gold chain about his neck, and when he walked down the street…”

Abe could recite what followed by heart. His mother, conjuring images of a past so far gone he wasn’t really sure it had ever existed. How every house had a sunstone they’d set out to soak during the brief daylight and then use it all the night to light their streets. A city of light and life and happiness—all that drivel. She blamed the Kalsaaris, of course, and Illin’s western allies who were so quick to row back home once the city was ‘liberated,’ and the mirror men—the ‘Defenders of the Balance’—who had been left behind to clean up the mess. She didn’t speak a word about the toppers, though, or the Prince and his Black Guard, or the thousand thieves and thugs and sellswords who prowled the Undercity, leeching off the dying corpse of Illin.

He used to argue with her, tell her they should do something about it, how they could work together to fix the city. How someday he could learn sorcery at the foot of a great mage and fix the broken streets of the Undercity with a wave of his hand. The arguments used to carry on for hours, his mother’s voice growing steadily weaker in the face of Abe’s anger. He didn’t bother yelling anymore, though. Now all he did was listen.

When, at last, she’d gone to bed, Abe crept back into the ruined office and opened the book. It picked up right where it had left off.

Magic, as you probably are unaware, is governed by five elemental forces. In ancient times, people misinterpreted these forces and associated them with the so-called ‘elements’—Fire, Water, Air, and Earth—and had no idea of the existence of a fifth. These people were primitives and superstitious fools, and you should take care not to follow their example. Magic is far more complicated than that.

The five energies are the Lumen and the Ether, the Dweomer and the Fey, and the Astral…

Abe yawned. When were they going to get to something practical? He kept on.

If you are growing tired, perhaps you ought to take a rest and come back another time. The study of magic is extremely taxing, both physically and mentally, and it would be a waste of your effort to attempt to master it while fatigued.

Abe sat up straighter. “You…you are alive. You can see me!”

Every use of these energies, known colloquially as ‘magic’ or ‘sorcery’, but more accurately as the High Arts (as distinguished from the Low Arts), involves the use of three elements.

“No!” Abe hissed into the pages, taking care not to make so much noise as to wake his mother. “I want to talk with you, book! I want you to explain some things to me.”

The first of these elements is the energy to be drawn from the world surrounding you, known as the ‘ley.’ The second element is the incantation by which the energy is drawn, known occasionally as the spell or ritual. The third of these elements is the focus, or the physical entity through which the energy is to be channeled by the incantation. In the case of a spell, this is the sorcerer him or herself; in the case of the ritual, it is through the object used to channel the power. (1)

Abe frowned, and referred to the footnote. It read: 1) Pay attention, you insufferable little ragamuffin. This book is not in your possession to chit-chat, but rather to instruct you as a master teacher might a dull-witted pupil. You aren’t even taking notes, so the likelihood that lessons will have to be repeated grows with each passing instant, and this narrative thread is already boring beyond description.

Sitting back, Abe scowled. “Maybe I won’t read you, then. How about that?”

Glancing back at the page, the book had not responded. It continued to drone on and on about magical energies, incantational postures, and channeling techniques. He read it as long as he could keep his eyes open, then dragged himself upstairs to sleep on the threadbare pallet besides his mother. He dreamed of Carlo’s crystal eye, following him through the tangled ruins of the Undercity, the book clutched in his bloodstained hands.

* * *

The next morning, Abe woke late. The thinnest rays of sunshine were still slipping past the rim of the Upper City, casting just enough light through the gaping holes in the roof that Abe could see that his mother was awake. He guessed that he would find her out front, praying to the shrine while the light still held. It was a common practice among the widows of Illin, especially since the Kalsaaris had burned most of the churches during the occupation and the toppers had yet to secure funds to repair them. Abe’s own mother refused to walk the mile to the nearest functional church, claiming that the women there lived too close to the docks to be of ‘clean reputation.’

When Abe stumbled downstairs, however, he didn’t find his mother out front praying, but rather sitting in his father’s office, the big black book of magic open across her knees. “Mother! What are you doing?”

She shrugged her bony shoulders. “Just looking through some of your father’s old books. You know, I never knew he had a cookbook before.”

Abe felt as if his mouth were unable to form words. “Cook…book?”

She shrugged weakly. “Funny, really, that I should find it now that we haven’t any food. Well, I’m off to the market. They say some mirror men will be passing out bolts of cloth later and the moths have been at the quilt again. Winter is never too far away, you know.”

Abe watched her leave, wordless. When the door closed, he tore open the spellbook.

It is strongly advised that this book not fall into the hands of individuals even less talented than yourself, as their piggish, ignorant eyes are harmful to this book’s contents.

“That’s my mother you’re talking about,” Abe growled.

The exact nature or relationship of the stupendous ignorami permitted to flap about these pages is immaterial to the original warning. This advice ought to be heeded, as the consequences are apt to be most dire.

“Now you’re threatening me? Well, what if I toss you in a fire, huh? What about that?”

Furthermore, it is strongly suggested that no vandalism be done to this book, as its contents are too valuable to you, the reader, as well as to the world in general. However, given the vagaries of human free will, no action can or will be taken to prevent the destruction of this volume should it be deemed essential by the owner.

“Let’s just say I won’t find it essential if you leave off insulting my mother—how about that?”

Apparently satisfied, the book broke into more tedious magical instruction. To continue with our lessons from the previous chapter, let us begin by explaining the nature of conjuration itself.

Abe spent the rest of the day reading, huddled by the lantern, trying to glean some practical knowledge of how to conjure what he would need to in order to impress Mondo and Krim and the rest of the band. All he got was general information—history, basic theory, simple exercises and drills, but not a word about a single spell. He couldn’t even conjure an ounce of gold or a thimble of water—he didn’t even know where to begin. He couldn’t skip ahead, he couldn’t skim to find the good parts; he was a slave to the book’s slow, methodical prose.

He had only ten days to get Carlo his money? It was impossible. He didn’t know the first thing about what he was doing, and the damned book was no help. What could he do? What would he say to the gang?

Finally, during the brief period of light as the sun passed from its hiding place behind the Upper City to its hiding place behind the edge of the world, Abe came across something potentially useful. The book was talking about the uses of advanced conjuration, and it finished with a discussion of what it termed ‘pure beings’.

Pure beings, or ‘Spirits,’ as they are sometimes known, are creatures of a particular pure energy type that, so far as arcane theory is concerned, exist in planes of origin parallel to our own where only one pure energy is in abundance. These beings have a myriad of applications, the most obvious being the war fiends conjured to assault enemy positions. Those specific entities are pure fey energy and, as such, are well suited to the vagaries of war and destruction (though they are disinclined to take orders). Accordingly, a wide variety of daemons and djinns, angels and fiends that are used by sorcerers to accomplish tasks that would, otherwise, have to be executed by human beings. These spirits sometimes manifest themselves in obvious ways, but can also be found trapped within mundane objects.

Abe blinked at the words, and then read them a second time. “You mean…like in books? Are you saying that you are some kind of spirit trapped inside this book?”

Looking back at the page, only one sentence could be clearly resolved, burning prominently in the center of the page, like a subtitle:

You’re finally learning something.

* * *

Krim found Abe just as true night fell. As usual, she slipped inside the house unnoticed. In the few months she had been coming to the house, Abe doubted his mother had ever laid eyes on her. This suited him fine; Krim wasn’t fit to meet his mother.

“You ready?” She sat across from Abe in his father’s old, dusty chair. She put her feet up on the desk. “Learned any good spells yet?”

Abe took a deep breath. There was a right answer and a wrong answer here; he picked the right one. “A little bit.”

“Good. Monda is pissed a stupid book cost all fifty. C’mon.” She sprung lightly to her feet and cocked her head, waiting.

Abe stood, suddenly aware of how tired he felt. The room spun a little as the blood equalized in his head. He slid the magic book into a knapsack and threw it over one shoulder. “I’m coming—just don’t get too far ahead, okay?”

Krim’s big dark eyes twinkled in the lantern light. “What’s a matter, schoolboy? Worried somebody might steal your homework?”

Abe grimaced but didn’t speak. The answer, though, was ‘yes.’

* * *

The Brotherhood of Light, as Monda’s group called itself, met, ironically, in the very darkest part of the Undercity, almost directly beneath the center of the Upper City’s crescent-shaped foundation. The Spire of Dreams, the great tower that had once connected Upper- to Undercity, lay crumpled like an abandoned ball gown across the blocks of ruined shops, burned-out homes, and crumbling government buildings. Blocks of violet marble the size of fishing boats, once inlaid with gems and inscribed with the names and faces of ancient Illini princes, sat like upended jewelry boxes in the midst of the devastated streets. Those jewels that had not been lost when the Defenders cast down the Spire had long since been pried away by thieves, and the names and faces of that long line of princes were now cracked, smashed, and otherwise defaced.

The Spire of Dreams’ death was a literal representation of the death of old Illin, a fact which hadn’t escaped Monda and his pack of thugs. Their meetings were held in an old antechamber of that fallen citadel, tipped sideways and sagging with the weight of all that stone, and yet still standing. Abe sometimes wondered how far it had fallen and how it had managed to stay intact. He wasn’t wondering that now, however—there were too many eyes upon him. Angry, violent, expectant eyes, lit by greasy orange torchlight.

Two such eyes were burrowed deep in the haggard creases of Monda’s face. All Abe knew about the man’s past was that he had been in the war and, supposedly, served at the side of Prince Landar the Holy. Everybody believed it, but Abe didn’t. There was nothing holy about Monda. He was earthy and feral, like a warthog, and just about as hairy. When he spoke, it was always in quick, clipped syllables, as though talking was a waste of his time. “Well, boy? Report.”

Everyone waited. They were a haggard bunch, most either as young as Abe or older than Monda, but every one had a knife or a rusty bit of sword or a weathered crossbow. Abe needed to give them something to be satisfied with, or he wouldn’t walk out of this meeting. “Well…uhhh…it’s been slow-going.”

“You’ve had all day.” Monda folded his scarred arms across the bushy black forest of chest hair that poked through his open vest.

Abe licked his lips. Krim was just behind him, her breathing even but quick, like someone preparing for the start of a race.

“It’s more complicated than I thought.”

“He said he’d learned a spell.” Krim said.

The assembly exchanged glances and muttered in excitement. Monda quieted them with a jerk of his hand. “Do the spell, boy.”

Abe’s mouth went dry. He looked at Krim, and she must have read his expression. “I’m helping you out, Abe. Give ’em something, right?”

Monda stepped aside and motioned to an open space at the center of the fallen chamber where a flaming brazier belched a thick fume of incinerated camel dung and scrap wood. Abe stepped forward, their eyes boring into him. How many times would he be stabbed, he wondered, if he couldn’t convince them he’d taken their money wisely? Would they return his body to his mother, or would it be just another son who never came home?

“Do the spell.” Monda repeated, putting his hands on his hips. “Now.”

Abe cleared his throat and opened the book. “Just give me a second—I’ve got to find it.”

He looked inside.

Frequently practitioners of the High Arts find themselves placed in awkward positions vis-à-vis the common population. In instances where mobs of slobbering thugs and half-witted cutpurses wish to be given a show to demonstrate one’s power, conjuration is a very useful and successful discipline to employ.

Sweat ran down Abe’s brow. He flipped the page.

Unfortunately for yourself, even the most basic conjurations require months of training to accomplish with regular success, and years to master; as hitherto mentioned, the study of the High Arts is not an easy one, nor is it quick.

“Well?” Monda’s thick eyebrows lowered over his eyes like a pair of bristling window shades.

“Just a second!” Abe said, flipping another page.

The book read: What exactly did you expect? Did you honestly think you could open some book of magic spells and just make one happen, like baking a cake or something? Did you expect to be conjuring buckets of gold for local orphanages by lunch? Restoring infrastructre with a word by sundown? You’ll need weeks more training before we can even get you to channel energies consistently.

“You’ve got to give me something.” Abe hissed at the book. “Anything!”

“What?” Monda looked around at the assembled. “What did he say?”

“He’s talking to himself.” Krim offered. “He was doing that when I found him.”

Abe wiped sweat from his eyes, hands shaking. He flipped another page.

There is only one way in which an inexperienced sorcerer can expect to execute magical spells of sufficient strength to impress dullards and fools. This process, while discouraged by most in the sorcerous field as overly risky, involves establishing an accord with a spirit in exchange for a favor. The most practical variety of spirit to be utilized in this fashion are the creatures of the Ether, also known as ‘ghul’ by the Kalsaaris. Well known for their intelligence and creativity, as well as their basic avarice, they are eager to deal and useful servants.

Monda’s hand fell on Abe’s arm like an iron manacle. He yanked the book from Abe’s hand. “Can you cast the spell or not, boy?”

Abe nodded. “Uhhh…yes, yes—I can. Just, can I have my book back, I need to—“Your book?” Monda pushed Abe to the ground. “This book belongs to the Brotherhood of Light, boy. It was their money that bought it, their blood that was spilled to earn that silver. We gave it to you because Krim vouched for you, said you could read, and were a good, loyal son of Illin. Said you would work a spell to kill the mirror men, topple the Upper City, kill the thieves that feed on us.”

Abe rose slowly, eyes fixed on the book. “I do hate the toppers; I hate them as much as anyone.”

Monda threw him the book. “Work a spell. Show us we haven’t wasted our money. I want to see what you can conjure, boy, and it better be good.” The assembled Brothers nodded solemnly.

Abe opened the tome, hands shaking. There, in a flowing, red script, were the words:

Shall we make a deal, then?

Abe took a long, slow breath. This was what Carlo was talking about—it had to be. He was in over his head, and there was only one way out—a way he knew was wrong. Still, what choice did he have? He looked at the words, nodded and flipped the page.

There, covering both pages of the book, was a detailed contract, indicating how the book would assist him and the price it would demand. At the bottom, beside his name printed in the same maroon ink, were the words “Sign Here.”

“I’m running out of patience, boy.” Monda growled.

Abe, throat dry, dragged out his words in barely audible croaks. “I need a pen and some ink.”

Monda cocked his head. “What?”

“I’ll get it.” Krim darted into the shadows. Oddly, Abe found himself missing her presence. She was the closest thing he had to an ally here.

Monda pushed Abe by the shoulder, like a bully jostling a child around a schoolyard, “Why a pen and ink?”

Abe squared his shoulders and tried looking Monda in the eye. All he saw there was suspicion, pure and icy as the winter sea. Abe tore his gaze away and looked back at the contract. “I need one for the spell.”

“What’s the spell do?”

Abe buried himself in the complex language of the contract, remembering what his mother had always said about his father and legal documents—‘He always read every word—every word—and that made him the best.’

The ghul offered to destroy Abe’s enemies in exchange for…for…

“Well, boy, I asked you a question!” Monda pushed Abe again, but Abe didn’t notice. He was trying to parse the sentence: In exchange for the services detailed herein to be completed by the signee, as defined above, the signer shall relinquish whatsoever claim, be it legal, emotional, physical, or mystical, he has heretofore established with the flesh whose reproductive proclivities led to his issuance in this time and place and transfer that claim to the signee immediately upon completion of said services.

It took him another moment before he had it figured. When he finally had it, he felt as though he had just been punched in the gut.

The ghul wanted his mother.

“Got the pen.” Krim announced, handing over a filthy quill and a greasy bottle of blue ink. “Get on with it.”

Abe looked up at her, barely noticing as she backed away. They were all backing away—all except Monda. “I’d better see some magic, boy.”

The pen felt hard and prickly in his hand as it hovered over the line. He could save himself or save his mother—the choice was his to make, right now. He knew what Hann would want him to do, and Prince Landar, but it was a hard choice. It was especially hard as it was different from what his mother would want. She hadn’t suffered so much and so long to see her son murdered because his anger led him to this dark place surrounded by these dark men. If he died now, what difference would it make? Would his mother want to live without him?

“Let’s have it, boy!” Monda snapped, drawing his knife.

Abe signed. The letters glowed and then erased themselves, as though unwritten—only Abe’s signature remained. It was the only thing, he realized, written with real ink. He looked up at Monda, heart quivering in his chest, mouth dry as sand, palms sweaty. “You got it, Monda.”

The torches darkened, dwindling to little more than flickers. The air grew stale somehow, as though robbed of its lightness and motion by…something. Something black and amorphous, crouching like a pile of black velvet in the center of the chamber. It had one, solitary eye—green and glassy, with a slit-pupil that rapidly scanned the assembly.

Monda stepped toward Abe, eyes wide. “What…what’s that?”

Abe didn’t say anything—he, too, was backing up, along with everyone else. The ghul grew from a squat pile to a pillar of pure darkness, twice as tall as a man. The cloying air was pierced by its laughter—dry and dead as leaves in the wind. “So…like to pick on studious young men, do we?”

“Treachery!” Monda snarled, and hurled himself at Abe, knife raised.

Abe put up his arms to defend himself, falling back onto the floor, but Monda’s blow never struck home.

When Abe looked up, he saw leathery black tendrils wrapped around Monda’s chest and arms. The ringleader’s face froze in an expression of horror and shock, the color somehow leeching from his skin, his body hair sloughing off like so much ash. He opened his mouth to say something—a curse, a scream for help, a call to arms, Abe never knew—before the tendrils pulled him back into the black pillar of the demon’s body and Monda vanished forever.

The Brotherhood of Light turned and fled in all directions at once, their half-dead torches dropped and forgotten. The ghul’s glassy green eye followed where they went and then fixed itself upon Abe. “This will only take a moment.”

The ghul collapsed into a pool of shadow and flitted from the chamber as quick as blinking. In the darkness surrounding the fallen antechamber, Abe heard a chorus of screams rise from the tangled ruins of the Undercity.

Abe didn’t wait for the creature to return—he scooped up the empty book and ran for his life, shooting through narrow alleys and ducking beneath half-collapsed buildings in the utter dark, tripping and stumbling, until he finally reached home. He didn’t know how long it would take the ghul to find and kill everyone in the Brotherhood, but he doubted it would be long. He burst in the door, panting and out of breath, spots dancing in his eyes. “Mother! Mother!”

“In here.” The voice didn’t belong to Abe’s mother—it was Krim’s.

He raced into the parlor. Krim knelt on his mother’s back, the glittering mageglass shard in her hand, pressed to the back of the old woman’s head. Her other hand held a fistful of Abe’s mother’s hair, pulling her head up. Tears mixed with blood ran down his mother’s face. Abe knelt in front of them. “No! Let her go!”

Krim’s big black eyes were wild. “Call it off, first. Call the creature off!”

“Abe, dear…wha…what’s happening . . ?”

Krim smashed his mother’s face into the floor. “Shut up, bitch!” Abe noticed strange, gray wounds along Krim’s spindly arms—she had barely escaped. “Call it off, Abe, or the old lady gets hers.”

Abe shook his head. “You don’t understand—I don’t have a choice. I can’t call it off!”

Krim flicked her wrist, and a blood-red ribbon of flesh was stripped off his mother’s cheek. She shrieked in pain. Abe felt jolts of electricity shoot down his spine, but remained still. “Figure out a way, schoolboy, or after I finish her, I come for you.”

Abe’s hands balled into fists. “If you want me, leave my mother out of it!”

Krim snorted. “Noble talk, schoolboy, but you’re no better than me.”

“Is this what a daughter of Illin does to her own?” Abe scanned the room for a weapon—nothing. He wouldn’t even have known how to use one if he found one.

“Do you really believe that crap, huh?” Krim laughed. “It’s all nonsense, Abe—fairy stories. This is a dead city and we’re the maggots. Maggots don’t get to care what they feed on. Get it?”

“That can change!” Abe scooted closer, but Krim pressed the knife to his blubbering mother’s throat. “With the…the book, I can change all that! I can force the mirror men to listen!”

Krim shook her head. “Poor little schoolboy, still buying into the Big Dream. Don’t make me lau…”

Krim whooshed up through the ceiling with a sudden jerk. Abe glanced up to see the big green eye staring down from the gap in the roof. He heard Krim swear once, then scream, then a second later her polished bones fell to the floor.

Abe’s mother, who had dragged herself upright, saw them hit and fainted dead away.

“Time to collect my payment, Abrahann Anastasis.” The ghul announced with a hissing chuckle.

Abe stood between his mother and the creature. “No, it isn’t.”

“You read the contract—you know the bargain. You aren’t going back on your word, are you?” It said, sliding down through the ceiling like heavy smoke, the lime-colored eye scanning his face.

Abe took a deep breath. “No, you are.”

It stopped. “What? Nonsense.”

“The contract calls for you to destroy my enemies, but you haven’t done that yet.”

A leathery tendril referenced Krim’s skeleton. “This was the last of the so-called Brotherhood.”

“They aren’t my only enemies.” Abe said. “You haven’t destroyed the mirror men. When you’re done with them, you need to go after the war profiteers and the collaborators and the traitors to Prince Landar’s memory.”

“If you insist…”

Abe raised his voice. “Then you need to fix the roads that destroy commerce. You need to repair the aqueducts that pollute our drinking water and do away with the barren farmland that keeps us hungry. You need to rebuild the ruined schools that keep us bereft of knowledge, and the ruined churches that destroy our faith. It won’t be until the sun shines again in Undercity that you, demon, can be said to have destroyed my enemies. Can you do all that?”

The ghul’s green eye turned yellow, then red. “This is…this is preposterous. There was no indication that your ‘enemies’ were to be metaphorical and…”

Abe pointed directly at the eye. “Then you should have included that stipulation in the contract. You didn’t, did you?”

Dead silence. Abe’s heart pounded—he felt as if he might drop dead right there, just from terror. One flick of those horrible tendrils, and he’d be only bones. At last, however, the ghul seemed to sag down to the floor. “What are you, boy? How can you have beaten me?”

“My father was a lawyer.” Abe held out the spellbook. “You are in breach of contract—back in the book with you.”

And, in the twinkling of an eye, the ghul was gone.

* * *

Seven days later, Abe deposited a wheelbarrow full of bones at a post where the mirror men paid bounties on wanted criminals. It took them a few auguries to verify that the bones belonged to twenty-eight wanted murderers, thieves, and terrorists. They didn’t ask too many prying questions, paid him in gold, and sent him away.

The next day, Carlo diCarlo appeared at his door. Abe invited him inside, but the smuggler shook his head. “So, you made it, did you? I see you have my money.”

Abe kicked the heavy strongbox of gold in Carlo’s direction. He also held out the book. “I don’t want this anymore.”

Carlo looked at it and chuckled. “Neither do I. The damned thing is more trouble than it’s worth.”

Abe gazed down at it—he hadn’t dared to open it since the incident. The thought of those words swirling across the page had practically put him off books altogether. “What am I supposed to do with it, then?”

Carlo leaned over, a smirk on his face. “If you want my advice, I’d sell it to some idiot for a king’s ransom.”

Abe shook his head. “That’s a death sentence.”

Carlo scooped the strongbox up under one arm and began to stroll away. “That’s funny, Oz—I once thought the very same thing.”

Philip Brian Hall

Spatchcock

Originally published by AE, The Canadian Science Fiction Review, March 31st 2014

* * *

You want to know about MacGuffin? Well, Mister, you sure came to the right place. Listen, I’ve told them a thousand times I’m not him. Do you think they believe me? No, sir! If it looks like MacGuffin, walks like MacGuffin and talks like MacGuffin, then it’s MacGuffin. And MacGuffin has to die.

Do you know how these savages execute people? They inject a chemical that dissolves bone; all of it, clean away! You end up flat as a spatchcock chicken and crushed under your own weight. Then they drag out all your innards and tan your hide for a rug. That’s gonna be me in six hours. And MacGuffin? That bastard will be sitting on some tropical paradise planet knocking back gin and tonic and laughing at the whole thing. Son of a bitch!

Me? I’m Mario Massimo. Yeah, that Mario Massimo. Is there more than one? I’ve won every golf major for the last two years. I know, Massimo doesn’t look like MacGuffin. That was the whole point. You can’t make money betting on a guy that never loses. These days they only make book on who’s gonna come second.

So MacGuffin comes up to me one day in the departure lounge at Cary Grant Spaceport and tells me he has this infallible scheme. I’m sitting in that cavernous waiting area, twiddling my thumbs and moping at the boards that tell me all flights are delayed because of solar flares. I didn’t know then he was MacGuffin of course. He asks me if I’m entering the inaugural Paradine Open.

Well of course I am; the prize money ain’t great but I’m short of cash as usual. I don’t know where it all goes. So he says to me he’s not a bad golfer himself; three handicap. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Well done you.” I get this sort of crap all the time.

“Hold on a minute,” he says. “What I’m saying to you is that my body is capable but I don’t have the talent. Now suppose you were in my body, you could win a tournament like always, only no one would be expecting it, see, so we could clean up in the betting.”

Well, I start looking around for port security, don’t I? Here’s this lunatic on the loose.

“Don’t panic!” says MacGuffin. “I’m not crazy. Tell me you don’t need the money; I’ll disappear.”

“So what if I need the money?” I say. “I’m not inside your body. Mister, you got a screw loose in the brain compartment.”

“I can see how you’d think that,” he says. “Anyone would think that, Mario. That’s why this scheme will never be so much as suspected. What would you say if I told you I had access to top-secret government research into identity transference?”

“I’d say garbage!”

“I’m serious, Mario. Uncle Sam tried to develop a scheme where an agent could take over as head of a foreign government. Only they gave it up because they couldn’t stabilize the transfer for more than five days.”

“What happened after five days?”

“They automatically re-exchanged, didn’t they? Left you with a foreign president who’d been in US custody for just long enough to make him madder ’n Hell. No good for them, but for us it’s perfect, don’t you see? Five days gives you a practice round and four days of the tournament. Then it’s back to normal and nobody any the wiser.”

“And you expect me to believe this bullshit?”

“I don’t expect you to take my word for it. I can show you. We don’t have to wait five days. We can switch back as soon as I prove to you that it works.”

Well, I reckon I don’t exactly have a lot to lose, right? He can’t rob me, because I spent my last dime on the ticket. I’m all expenses paid after arrival or I’d be sleeping in the clubhouse.

So, we follow the signs to the nearest bathroom. Usual spaceport facility: cracked tile walls, waste paper towels in the washbasins, automatic taps that don’t work, disgusting smell. There’s no one there except this balding, chubby old guy wearing a suit and tie. He gives us a strange look and then leaves. What the hell, who cares?

MacGuffin pulls this gizmo from his pocket. It’s nothing much to look at: just two plastic hand grips connected by a wire.

“That’s it?” I ask him.

“Sure,” he says. “What’d you expect? Truckloads of machinery? How d’you figure they could smuggle that close enough to a foreign president?”

So he tells me to hold one grip and he holds the other and there’s this sort of flash behind my eyes as if a bolt of lightning had zipped across inside my head. Then, just as I’m figuring that it’s all a con, I realize I’m standing there looking at myself! There I am smiling at me and saying “See, told ya!”

So I go over to a mirror and take a look. Only I’m not looking at myself, am I? I’m looking at MacGuffin. Man you could have knocked me down with an old lady’s sand wedge.

“Go on,” says MacGuffin. “Try a swing or two. I told you, my body’s in good shape; I play at least nine holes most days.”

Well, he’s around my build. I feel strangely comfortable in his body. “You know, we might just pull this off,” I say.

MacGuffin is all smiles and he hands me one of the grips again. Same flash of lightning as before and hey presto, I’m back in my own body. Soon as I get over feeling queasy I look at him and I have to admit there’s one problem.

“I got no cash for a stake,” I say.

“That’s okay,” says MacGuffin. “You do the hard work on the golf course; I stake us both with the bookies. Fair division of labour?”

Well, to cut a long story short, we handle the whole thing exactly the way he said. MacGuffin had been leading amateur in one of the minor qualifying tournaments. He’s last man in the draw, so he’s scheduled to tee off at the crack of dawn in the first round on Paradine. Not exactly what I’m used to, but at least there are no spectators that early to wonder why MacGuffin’s using Massimo’s clubs.

By the time Massimo tees off four hours later MacGuffin’s already back in the clubhouse, in a three way tie for fourth place with a nice quiet two under par. Nothing suspicious there; we’ve all seen one round wonders before. They always fall back when the pressure’s on.

You know I’m sure that clock’s fast. I don’t believe we’ve been talking for an hour. Do you mind if we speed this up? You will speak to the Governor for me, won’t you? You’re my only hope, Mr. Latour; persuade him to grant a stay of execution until we can trace MacGuffin—that’s Massimo, I mean, or the guy who looks like Massimo. I can’t die this way, Mr. Latour. Say—you wanna come a little closer to the bars? My voice is getting kinda hoarse.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the first round. Well Massimo cards one over. That’s my worst opening round for five years, or would be if it was actually me, see? MacGuffin handles the press conference well; gracious congratulations to the surprise leaders; blames spaceship lag and tells them to watch his smoke the next day.

Only the next day he’s bunkered twice and takes a double bogey sticking him in the sorry half of the pack. Big news! Rumours go around that he’s sneaking drinks between holes. Meanwhile I’ve edged my way into second. I’m playing like crap by my standards, but you’d be surprised how long it takes to get used to driving another man’s skin. It’s not all bad though; less suspicious this way. By the time I’m standing on the eighteenth tee for the fourth time, two days later, I could take a bogey and still win.

So I collect the trophy and hundreds of photographers take my picture and then I head for the hotel room so that the identity switch back won’t occur in public, see? Only there ain’t no switch back, is there? And there ain’t no MacGuffin neither.

Front desk tells me Massimo left a message. He’s making the rounds of the bookies whilst he still remembers who they are. Well it don’t look good for Massimo to go collecting in person after betting against himself but I can hardly argue, so I go back to the room and wait. Then I have dinner and wait some more. Still no switch back and still no MacGuffin.

Just as I’m starting to get really upset, there’s this knock on the door of my room.

“Room service for MacGuffin,” a voice calls. Nice voice. Nice blonde, curved in all the right places and almost wearing a maid’s outfit. I know I didn’t order room service, or any other kind of service come to that, but I figure maybe MacGuffin did and he probably intended it for himself after the switch back.

Okay, I’m pretty pissed off with MacGuffin by this time, but I’m still expecting him to turn up full of excuses. I figure he now owes me extra for my trouble and it would be a pity to disappoint this nice young lady who’s already down to her underwear without any unnecessary preliminaries. Let’s say the next few hours do not drag like the previous few. I don’t remember worrying about MacGuffin once.

In the middle of the night I wake up, thinking I hear a prowler outside, or maybe it’s MacGuffin. The girl is still sleeping next to me. She hasn’t been disturbed; just as well because she ought to be pretty tired. I roll out of bed as quietly as I can, grab my three iron and sneak over to the door. Then I whip open the door and swing back the iron all in one movement. No one there, but I catch sight of a shadow at the far end of the corridor. I figure maybe a guy’s hiding around the corner.

So I leave the door open and I tiptoe down the corridor, ready to do damage if some creep steps out, but I don’t want to hit MacGuffin, see, on account of I still think I’ll soon be feeling the bruises myself if I do. When I reach the corner I nerve myself to jump around it in one bound. For a split second I’m gonna take a swing at this guy and then I realize it’s not a guy. It’s a life-size bronze statue; it’s all swathed in bubble wrap and the only thing I can make out is that it has my face. That’s MacGuffin’s face, right?

So I remember the winner of the inaugural Paradine Open is to have his statue set up outside the clubhouse. The thoughtful organizers seem to have brought the thing round to my hotel for approval first. Only they don’t want to disturb me during the night so they’ve left it in the corridor until morning. Nice gesture, huh?

I rub my eyes and make my way slowly back to my room. The door is still open. Inside, everything is just as I left it, if you don’t count the guys with guns pointed at me. One of them switches on the lights. I consider that me and a three iron against three guys with shooting irons is not a fair contest. I don’t put up a fight. The girl is sitting up in bed and already handcuffed. They haven’t found it necessary to let her get dressed first.

Behind the frosted glass door of the bathroom, there’s the profile silhouette of another man. The shape seems familiar. A moment later the door opens and this balding, chubby, old guy comes into the room. It’s the same guy we encountered casually, as I thought, in the Cary Grant bathroom.

“Good evening, Mr. MacGuffin,” he says. He has a lugubrious way of speaking, like a recording running slower than intended. “Such a pleasure to meet you at last. How very thoughtful of you to have your photograph beamed to every planet in the known universe. It does so speed up a manhunt for a murderer.”

“Murderer? What murder? I won a golf competition, is all. Nobody died.”

“Not on Paradine, no, Mr. MacGuffin. But two weeks ago on Tenochtitlan the Governor’s wife died. You’ll remember her perhaps? A very nice blonde lady; not unlike this young lady here in fact. Here, my dear, cover yourself up.” He hands the girl a bath towel and she tries to drape it over herself, struggling with the cuffs.

“I’ve never been to Tenochtitlan.”

“No? How strange that you were photographed there so many times. Frequently in the company of the unfortunate lady herself, in fact. By the CCTV in her bedroom, standing over her body, for example. If you hadn’t had your own spacecraft we’d have caught you back then. I was pretty sure it was you last week in Los Angeles, but I couldn’t figure out what somebody like you would be doing with Mario Massimo. Then I lost you in the crowd and I didn’t know which flight you’d taken after all the confusion with the flares.”

By this time I’m panic stricken. If MacGuffin has his own spacecraft you can bet he’s long gone, taking my body and all the loot with him. I’d been a fool to believe him when he told me the switch back was automatic. I should have made him prove it. He’s played me for a sucker. Not only am I framed for a murder that he’s committed but I’ve funded his escape and provided him with a new identity.

Of course I try to explain to the chubby guy that I’m not really MacGuffin, don’t I? He just smiles and nods his head. Then he looks at me with those sad eyes and says, “Never mind. I understand that the pain only lasts for an hour or so. Then there’s a whole new life of useful service to look forward to. Everyone appreciates a doormat.”

Nice huh? Well that’s about it, Mr. Latour. They bring me straight here to Tenochtitlan in a police cruiser. Then there’s this travesty of a trial where nobody will listen to me and nobody is willing to go find Mario Massimo and make him testify. If we can only get him here, Mr. Latour, I swear I can prove he’s not the real Mario Massimo. That guy ain’t gonna know half of the things about my life that I know; how could he?

Get my mother here. Get my girlfriend. They’ll be able to tell who I am. Only none of them will be able to help me if you let them turn me into a doormat. Truly Mr. Latour, you gotta believe me. I’m Mario Massimo; I’m not MacGuffin. I shouldn’t have to die for another man’s crime. In the name of all that’s holy Mr. Latour, you gotta help me.

What’s that? The identity transfer equipment? Yeah they found it in Massimo’s room. My room. No, I mean MacGuffin’s room, of course. He didn’t bother to come back and pick up his stuff—my stuff. Well, he didn’t come round and pick up his own stuff either. He beamed the hotel an apology and the credit as soon as he arrived back on Earth. Said he’d just been too upset and distracted after losing; hadn’t meant to leave without settling his account. Told them to donate all his clothes to charity. My clothes, the bastard!

Yeah, they let me keep the transfer equipment to humour me. They prefer it when I’m not shouting and screaming that I’m not MacGuffin. I’ve spent every hour of every day since the trial trying to figure out how to make the damn thing work. No dice. It just sits here like a useless piece of junk. The Tenochtitlans think it’s a kid’s toy. It beats me. Maybe MacGuffin disabled the power source. Maybe it’s only good for three transfers and now it’s exhausted? I don’t know; what do you think? All I know is that blasted clock is fast.

Look, you take the equipment. It’s no use to me. Take it with you to the Governor. Tell him if he gets MacGuffin here—I mean if he gets the guy who’s pretending to be Massimo here—he can force him to make it work. It’s worth a try isn’t it Mr. Latour? Here, take it. It’s gotta be worth a try.

* * *

Well, I’m glad now you see things from my point of view. Don’t look at me like that. You’re there behind bars for a heinous crime. Quite sorry about the doormat thing. You can try telling them that you’re not MacGuffin, if you like. Tell them your name’s Andre Latour. It’ll make a change from telling them you’re Mario Massimo.

Oh, you can keep the equipment. You have about four hours to figure it out. Maybe you can exchange with one of the guards.

I have to go now. There’s a private spacecraft waiting for me here on Tenochtitlan, you know? No, just the one. That’s right, MacGuffin’s. Well now that you mention it, I guess it is odd that Massimo would run to MacGuffin’s ship after all that, isn’t it? Farewell now. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. You have a nice day, Mr. Latour.

The Waiting Room

Originally published by Flame Tree Publishing in Chilling Ghost Short Stories, September 2015

* * *

To a man utterly lost, walking forward seems preferable to standing still; somehow movement gives purpose to a stateless existence.

Around Harold, the darkness was Stygian; neither moon nor star illumined the blackness. For all his eyes could tell him he might have been entombed within the bowels of the earth. Carried on the stiff breeze that flapped a long trench coat around his unsteady legs was the sweet smell of decay, suggestive of manure recently spread over the fields. He felt rather than saw tall, spiky, hawthorn hedgerows that bounded on either side the narrow country lane along which he tentatively groped his way.

Although it was bitterly cold, Harold was grateful for the wind; its buffeting helped him maintain a sense of direction as he stumbled along. All his being was focused within himself, shrinking back from an external world of which his data-deprived senses could form no coherent picture.

He walked. Therefore he was going somewhere. Strangely he could not remember where, but he supposed he would know it when he arrived. It was not the first time he had been forced to navigate by instinct.

Nevertheless, it was with relief that at length he discerned a tiny point of yellow light in the sepulchral gloom ahead. Artificial light must mean human habitation. His step became surer. He strode on determinedly through the darkness towards the light.

In due course the point grew larger, assumed a rectangular shape and revealed itself to be a window. He made out the silhouette of an isolated country railway station, distinguished from the blackness of the sky and the blackness of the ground by a feeble and diffuse glow emanating from the platform beyond. He discerned a bridge over the line and an old style semaphore signal. As Harold walked up to the dark exterior of the buildings, the light from the window spilled out across the station approach like a welcome mat, enabling him to see the ground beneath his feet for the first time.

Embossed lettering on the window panes informed him he had arrived at the improbably-named Half Way Halt. Since it offered him a haven from the cold and dark, for the moment it was enough that he had arrived somewhere. He stepped through the door, entering a room that was comfortably warm, with a real coal fire burning in an open hearth.

Closing the door quickly behind him, Harold rubbed his hands vigorously together as he glanced around. Clean, upholstered chairs, tables for waiting travelers to put down their tea, the tea itself served as it should be in proper earthenware cups with saucers.

On the walls were beautifully framed colored prints of hand-painted tourism posters. Into each the artist had introduced a picturesque steam engine puffing along ahead of three or four liveried carriages, somehow enhancing the scene.

Strangely there was no timetable on display, though a traditional round, white-faced, wooden-cased clock on the wall ticked loudly and regularly. Its black, Gothic hands indicated ten minutes to midnight. Harold was rarely out so late.

On the far side of the room was a ticket desk. A clerk sat behind it, smartly attired in a dark blue uniform, waistcoat, blue and white striped shirt and maroon tie. He was wearing a peaked cap and looking alert despite the hour.

Into the opposite corner was squeezed an open serving-hatch, giving access to a little kitchen. From this a large, florid brunette in a white pinafore, clearly well versed in the role of ministering angel, dispensed the tea.

Pleased to have gained sanctuary, Harold did not immediately question his surroundings. Had he done so it might have occurred to him to wonder how such an old fashioned station had survived to the turn of the twentieth century. He might have thought Half Way Halt stuck in a time warp.

Walking up to the ticket desk, he reflected on his good fortune to find it staffed in the middle of the night. It was not until he stood there, looking at the clerk, that he realized he had no more idea of where he was going than of what he was doing there. The clerk looked up expectantly.

"I seem to be lost," Harold said. "I suppose I couldn’t just rest here for a while?"

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"No. I’ve no one to wait for."

"Then you need to get on the train. There’s nowhere else to go from here. They’ll be expecting you."

"They will?"

“Of course. One single.” He passed a thick piece of card across the counter.

Harold studied it hesitantly. “It doesn’t say where to.”

“No. It’s a single track line, just a terminus at each end and us here in the middle.”

“But I don’t even know which direction I’m supposed to be traveling.”

“Only two directions: up and down.”

“I see. Well then, how much is the ticket, please?”

“You’ve already paid,” said the clerk.

“Have I?” Harold asked. “My memory must be worse than I thought. So, could you perhaps tell me when the next up train is?”

“That’s not how it works,” said the clerk. “You just get on the first train, whichever direction it’s going.”

Like all seasoned railway travelers, Harold was used to ignorance of when such unpredictable occurrences as the arrival of trains might be expected, but ignorance of its direction seemed preposterous. Nevertheless, the prospect of turning around and leaving was daunting. The night had been dreadfully dark and he was unsure how to get home.

“Which way was it going when it passed through here last?”

“That, I’m afraid, I couldn’t say,” replied the clerk.

“But good God man, it’s your job! You must know!”

“Please mind your language,” said the clerk sternly. “You’ll offend other passengers.”

Harold had paid little attention to the room’s other occupants. Standard equipment for waiting rooms included people waiting. He turned around and surveyed his companions. There were five, assuming you counted as two a young mother who sat gently rocking a child asleep on her knee. She wore a long coat and a cloche hat from beneath which long red hair hung down below her shoulders, screening her face from Harold’s gaze as she bent forward over the infant.

Sitting on his own was a blond young man, perhaps a motor cyclist. He wore a leather jacket, padded trousers and calf length boots. On his knees he clutched a cardboard folder. The edge of a map peeped out from one corner.

A dark-haired, middle-aged man was wearing yellow oilskins and sea-boots, for all the world as though he had stepped straight from the dockside. Under his sou’wester his eyes were red-rimmed and his face caked with salt. A faint odor of brine wafted across the room.

Lastly, sitting on his own in a corner, was a young soldier in camouflage, his head bandaged. There were stains on his uniform that might have been dried blood.

“Tea, dear?” Harold heard the large lady speaking to him from behind the hatch.

“Yes please,” he replied, “I could do with one. It’s b——, I mean, it’s very cold out there tonight. How much?”

“You’ve already paid, dear,” the tea lady replied, flipping the tap on her urn and holding a cup underneath it. “Milk and sugar?”

“Milk please, no sugar,” said Harold. Had he twice in the space of a couple of minutes forgotten handing over money? She handed him the cup and saucer and Harold thanked her, taking a sip as he walked over to a chair beside the young soldier.

“Anyone sitting here?” he inquired, in the arcane way the British always do in order to be polite.

The soldier shook his head and grimaced, but said nothing. He looked in pain. There was an unpleasant smell about him that Harold recognized only too well from long ago. Gangrene. Why was the young man not in hospital? Harold sat down and placed his cup and saucer on the table between them.

“Wounded?” he inquired, as the soldier still remained silent.

The soldier nodded, touching his bandage with an anguished expression. “Creased by a sniper; don’t remember anything after. Medevac, I suppose. Don’t even remember how I got here. Just need to get back to my unit.”

“You look as if you need convalescent leave, at the very least,” said Harold solicitously.

“No time. They’ll need me back as soon as I’m fit to fly out.”

“That’s the spirit!” Harold replied. He admired the young soldier’s courage. It reminded him of other young men he had known; of when he had been a young man.

“I was a pilot myself. Mosquito—night fighter—back in ‘forty-three. You wouldn’t have thought it to see me struggling to find my way in the dark outside just now!”

The image of the Dornier came unbidden to Harold’s mind. You were not supposed to enjoy killing. He recalled the triumph that had flooded through him as the machine in his sights caught fire and then exploded.

There, you swine! That’s for Margie!

“I’m hurt, not stupid,” the soldier replied, suddenly less friendly. “That was sixty years ago and you’re not a day over thirty.” He got up and went to the serving hatch for another cup of tea, limping badly.

Harold was astonished; he had always looked young for his age, but nowadays that meant looking seventy despite being nearly ninety.

There was no mirror, but he was able to make out his reflection in the glazing of one of the travel posters. It was his face, but not the face he was used to seeing of late in the shaving mirror. Gone were the wrinkles of old age. His hair was a youthful black and he sported once again the handlebar mustache that had marked him out as a fighter pilot, attracting all the girls back in those dark days.

To be honest, for Harold those days had not been so dark; the prospect of imminent death had projected him into vivid reality; every experience, every sight, every sound imprinted indelibly on his memory.

The smell of aviation spirit as you walked over to dispersal in the twilight, sheepskin lined flying boots padding softly on the newly-mowed grass. Listening to the first calls of the nightingale; trying not to think that the bird would sing again tomorrow night but you might not be around to hear it. The unique woody odor you always got inside a Mosquito; the shuddering of the whole aircraft as the nose cannon blasted shells in the direction of that half-seen Dornier, twisting and weaving as it attempted to escape.

And of course Margie, the auburn haired, freckled barmaid he’d met in the village pub, romanced and married in a whirlwind, always living in the present, never making plans for the future because a fighter pilot never did.

It should have been me. I should have died that night, not her.

Instead he’d been airborne, searching in the darkness for a hit-and-run Messerschmitt fighter-bomber that mistakenly dropped its bomb on her pub.

With a start Harold dragged himself back from the past. What he should be asking was how on earth his appearance had been rejuvenated.

Makes no sense.

He gently pinched the skin of his cheek; he was not asleep.

What had happened before he found himself walking along that dark road? For the life of him he could not recall leaving home. In fact the last few days were a bit of a blur.

He had been up to London the previous week. The final reunion dinner of the old squadron. Obvious to them all it made no sense to arrange another.

Working in the rose garden; very hot in the sun. Felt tired; went to get a lemonade; sat in the conservatory. Emily came round from next door and fussed over him. After that—a few incoherent bits and pieces, people coming and going, light and darkness, soup in someone’s hands, fed to him in bed.

And now? Had he died, was that it? Hardly surprising at his age. Yet Harold was not a believer, not since Margie. He’d never expected any conscious experience to follow death. Was it even remotely credible that Half Way Halt was a gateway to some sort of afterlife?

He needed more evidence. Neither he nor the soldier could remember how they got there; two amnesiacs in one waiting room might be a coincidence, three would be strong circumstantial evidence of the supernatural.

He went over and sat down opposite the man in oilskins, speaking softly so as not to upset the young woman and her child.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he began, “but do you know what you’re doing here?”

“Waitin’ for a train, o’ course.” The fisherman, by his voice Aberdonian, gave him a funny look. “This bein’ a railway waitin’ room, Ah’d no’ be waitin’ for a bus, would I?”

“No, you don’t understand, I mean do you know why you’re waiting for a train?”

“Because it hasnae come yet!” exclaimed the fisherman in irritation. “What’s yer game, Jimmy? Are ye anither ane o’ they pen-pushers wi’ nothin’ better tae dae than ask stupit questions?”

“Not at all,” said Harold hastily. “I was just hoping you might be able to help me sort out what’s happening here.”

“All ah ken is we was in collision somewhere off the Dogger Bank. Doon she went in two minutes. Next thing ah’m washed up on the beach—heard a train whistle—made ma way here.”

The man’s clothes were perfectly dry. There was no beach within eighty miles of Harold’s home.

“You were fortunate to survive,” he said. “I didn’t hear of any sinking. I’d have remembered, you see; I was in marine insurance for forty years after the second war.”

“Whit d’ye mean?” demanded the fisherman. “Och, mon, yon’ Hitler’s nobbut eight years deed! You’re oot o’ some loony bin, are ye no’? Awa’ wi’ ye an’ leave a man in peace the noo!”

Harold stood up. Eight years after the war. 1953. The trawler “Katarina” out of Stonehaven. The sinking resulted in multiple claims against his company and as a young loss adjuster trying to impress he worked hard to cut back the size of the awards, establishing contributory negligence on the part of the trawler’s owners. The small firm went out of business with the loss of a good many livelihoods. Harold had made suffering worse than it need have been. And why? Because that was his job.

His theory seemed confirmed. He must be dead. And just when he should at long last have been consigned to welcome oblivion there was something more. Harold was not sure how to bear it.

"Guten Abend, Herr Flugleutnant. I was told to wait here for you."

Harold turned to see the man he had taken for a biker. "You were? That’s strange, I didn’t know I was coming here myself. I’m sorry, have we met?"

"No."

"And you’re German?"

"Yes."

"And they told you to wait for me?"

"Yes."

"You’re not helping me, are you Herr…?"

Silently, the man looked Harold straight in the eye with the sort of stubborn defiance that can sometimes mask insecurity. From close up he looked not much more than a boy; maybe nineteen or twenty.

"Well are you going to tell me what this is all about? I assume the people who told you to wait for me also told you why?"

"Yes."

"Do you expect me to guess or are you going to save us both some time and tell me?"

"You flew a pathfinder aircraft to Hamburg in July 1943?"

"Ah. Yes, I did. My squadron marked the target for the big raid."

"You dropped incendiaries along with your flares?"

"Of course. The flares wouldn’t have burned for long enough."

"My parents lived in Hamburg. Close to the docks. Your bombs hit their house. They were both killed."

"I see." Harold shook his head sadly. "I’m very sorry to hear that. I know it’s no consolation, but we weren’t aiming for civilian casualties. Bombing was not accurate in those days. I only got so close to the docks because I came in very low; wouldn’t have been doing my job if I’d put the markers into the water, you see. Had to hit something solid. I tried to put them on a big freighter. I was just traveling too fast to be accurate."

"Too fast?"

"Your flak gunners were shooting at me."

"So an accident? You are trying to say my parents died in an accident?"

"Not exactly. They were casualties of war. But you must know the house would have been destroyed a few minutes later anyway. The heavies behind us were at 10,000 feet. They flattened everything around the markers."

"The firestorm."

"Look," Harold protested, "it was war. A war we didn’t start. I’m sorry about your parents. But if you’re looking for someone to blame, you need to look closer to home, my friend. We didn’t invade Poland."

"You are sorry, but you do not apologize?"

"That’s correct."

"And the pilot who killed your wife? You would accept from him the same reasoning?"

Harold’s eyes narrowed. He looked intently at the young German. The same defiant look, but this time something else behind the eyes.

Only long after the war had it occurred to Harold that the Dornier he’d shot down had been crewed by men like himself rather than the Nazi caricatures that populated war films; that the people he’d killed with his bombs were not all fighting men. They were people, his anonymous victims in the war, with their own lives, families, hopes and dreams. And the fishermen whose livelihoods he’d destroyed in peacetime were ordinary people too.

I was only obeying orders. I was just doing my job.

He nodded. The same excuse the Nazis themselves had used at Nuremberg. He understood. The down train must go to a place where the guilty would at long last be held to account.

"The 109E was a terrible bomber," he said to the young man. "With all that weight slung under its belly it must have flown like a brick. A sitting duck for any night fighter. And you’d lost so many pilots. I can understand a nervous young fighter pilot with no experience being only too eager to get rid of that bomb."

"And so?"

"Yes," Harold sighed. "I would accept from him the same reasoning."

"Then it is good," the young man said with relief. "We can both forgive."

Harold extended his hand and the young man took it.

"We harmed each other, but without malice," Harold said. "We can forgive each other. Whether others will forgive us remains to be seen."

The defiance had gone from the young man’s eyes, but he still held himself ramrod straight as he turned back towards his seat.

Harold thought he now understood why the young German pilot was here; perhaps also the soldier. But why should the fisherman be taking the down train? And even if he too was condemned for sins of which Harold was ignorant, that still left the young mother and her child.

He was filled with righteous indignation. He would accept his own punishment like a man, but he would not accept the punishment of a child. He turned towards the ticket desk, meaning to remonstrate with the clerk. The railwayman had disappeared. The kitchen hatch had also quietly shut; there was no representative of officialdom to whom he could appeal.

Very well. He had fought for a cause before, he could fight again. These innocents would board the down train over his dead body. He smiled grimly; the irony was not lost upon him. But, for the moment at least, he was a dead man walking.

He cast a glance up at the clock. It was one minute to midnight. A subtle clunk from within the mechanism indicated it was about to strike. Even within the confines of the waiting room, he could hear a singing sound resonating along the tracks and the distant huffing of a steam exhaust heralding the approach of a train. He turned urgently towards the young mother.

“You mustn’t get on the down train!” he exclaimed. “There’s an innocent child to protect. I’ll help you!”

“Well! And hello yourself, Harold! What sort of a greeting is that after all this time?”

The young woman smiled and stood up, gathering the sleepy child in her arms. Her auburn hair shone even in the weak light from the electric bulbs; there were the freckles he knew so well, sprinkled liberally over her snub nose; her eyes were laughing.

“It’s all right. They wouldn’t let you recognize me until you passed the test, and you’ve passed it. I knew you would. That’s why I insisted on being here when you came."

"Margie?" Harold stammered.

"Yes, Harold, it’s me. And say hello to your son. You didn’t know I was pregnant when the bomb fell, did you? We both waited for you. Now we can all board the train together.”

“I can’t believe it…” Then he recollected himself. “But it will be the down train…I…I haven’t…I mean, I didn’t…”

“No one ever does, Harold,” smiled Margie. “That’s the reason for the test.”

The singing of the lines grew to a rumble, then a rushing, hissing roar. The platform lights brightened suddenly, bathing the whole scene in an electric glow as a great black steam locomotive thundered into the station drawing four liveried carriages behind it, seeming to shake the very fabric of the building in which they stood.

The platform door of the waiting room opened and the ticket clerk came in.

“Up train!” he announced. “All aboard, please. Up train!”

Harold’s eyes filled with tears.

The Man on the Church Street Omnibus

Originally published in The Sockdolager, Spring 2015

* * *

From Gloucester Road to Kensington Church Street is two stops of the dark-green-liveried public omnibus, operated by the Kensington and Hammersmith Company for the benefit of local inhabitants and the great profit of its shareholders. Tastefully appointed and having a coat of arms proudly displayed on its side, the smart four-horse vehicle daily proceeds about its duty of transporting the bankers and businessmen of our great capital’s richest borough to and from London Bridge, by way of Knightsbridge, Piccadilly, Charing Cross, The Strand and The Bank of England.

The law commands the prominent display beside the omnibus doorway of a statement of its fares. These begin at twopence for a short journey and reach the extraordinary sum of sixpence, one sixth of a workman’s weekly wage, for the whole trip. Long familiarity with this route has however taught us that the conductors are all quite incapable of noticing that any person has boarded their equipage other than at the terminus, so that the unwary are regularly charged the full fare if they are unwilling to argue their case in public and with some vigor.

On a certain day in the late autumn of the year 1863, a man in a military greatcoat, with a uniform cap pulled down to his eyebrows, boarded the omnibus at Gloucester Road as it made its way back from The City towards Hammersmith. Nothing could be seen of the man’s face, beyond a large black mustache and a thin mouth pursed in what some might call a hunted expression. He was tall, but proceeded with a remarkably light step to a vacant seat in the rear of the vehicle. Once there, he sat awkwardly, turning his head from side to side as though keeping furtive lookout for someone or some thing.

During the stop at Gloucester Road and for some minutes thereafter, our conductor of the day had been engaged in a protracted argument with a passenger seated upon the top deck of the vehicle, who was smoking an expensive cigar and inveighing to all and sundry against the enfranchisement of potwallopers. This discussion was still in progress as the omnibus entered Kensington High Street and drew up at the foot of the Church Street hill, where the gentleman of military appearance got up to disembark.

With the innate sixth sense of all his kind for a fare about to escape, the conductor suddenly broke off his vehement discourse and rushed down the stairs, clamping a hand upon the gentleman’s shoulder as he made to step down into the road.

“‘Ere you,” he accosted the man, in high dudgeon. “There’s no gettin’ horf wivart payin’ yer fare. That’ll be sixpence, please!”

“Mistake zere is, I sink,” replied the gentleman. He spoke English slowly and with a pronounced Germanic accent. “At Glowchester Road only, I am boarding.”

“Nar then, none o’ that!” insisted the conductor. “Sixpence, I sez and sixpence I wants!”

“Wery vell, since I haf little time,” the military gentleman conceded unhappily and reached into the deep pocket of his greatcoat, whence he produced a silver coin and handed it to the conductor before turning back to the door of the omnibus.

Barely had the military gentleman alighted and gone two steps than the conductor leaped off the platform of the omnibus and made after him, again seizing him by the shoulder.

“Oy! Oh no you don’t!” the conductor exclaimed. “This ‘ere ain’t a proper sixpence. It’s some kind o’ foreign rubbish!”

“I regret no sixpences coins I haf,” the man replied. “This a silver penny of King Offa is; more than one thousand years old. Value today perhaps five pounds.” He then made as if to be on his way.

The conductor was not so easily mollified. “So you say, matey; so you say. All I knows is what I sees ‘ere. One penny, eh? So I wants five more of ‘em, don’ I? Sixpence the fare is.”

“So much value for two stops you wish?” exclaimed the man, astounded. “Wery vell, go now I must, but another time another omnibus to take I vill remember.” And reaching again into his pocket the man extracted a further five Offa pennies and handed them to the conductor.

Giving the military gentleman a surly look, the conductor put one of the silver coins between his teeth and bit it, then grunted with satisfaction and returned to his omnibus. “And remember,” he called over his shoulder, “Sixpence, the fare is. Hallways sixpence!”

Despite being very little imbued with education, our conductor was not a stupid man. It was one thing to demand six individual penny pieces of the military gentleman; it was quite another to pass up the profit that he might earn from the transaction. Five pounds each, the man had said. Six times five pounds was thirty pounds; more than the conductor could earn in a year!

By rights his employers were entitled to the correct fare of twopence. In the circumstances he decided to be both scrupulously honest and generous. He took a thruppenny piece from his pocket and added it to the quantity of coins in his cash bag. Then he placed the Offa pennies in the inside pocket of his own coat.

* * *

“And the man claimed that he received them in lieu of the proper fare for two stops on the omnibus?” Professor Ponsonby’s beetling eyebrows could hardly have been more elevated without disappearing into his untidy hair.

“Apparently so,” replied Sergeant MacAndrew. The red-haired Scot was sitting opposite the distinguished academic across the latter’s leather-topped partner’s desk. The policeman’s tweed suit and waistcoat seemed out of place inside the august portals of The British Museum, but the detective himself did not. Alert eyes took in every detail of the curator’s paper-strewn office.

“The receiver we arrested had given him ten pounds for the lot. When we tracked down the conductor, he admitted he’d substituted a few pennies of his own for what the military gentleman had given him. What he couldn’t do was give us more than a very limited description and the information that the man had got off at Kensington Church Street.”

“Well, I can assure you, Sergeant, the coins are genuine.” The professor shook his head in wonderment. “They are more than that; they are quite remarkable. I have never seen even one in this sort of condition in all my years in this place. Yet here are six, all of them looking as though they have been wrapped in velvet for a thousand years rather than buried in the ground. This is the most important archaeological find in a generation, Sergeant. It is imperative that this man is found and questioned.”

“I understand, professor.” MacAndrew’s nose twitched as though detecting a faint scent of his favorite quarry, money. “But for me to devote police time and resources to this I need evidence of a serious crime. Ten pounds—well, that justifies little more than a single constable for day or two at most.”

Ponsonby frowned, his expression suggesting that a man who understood value only in coarse monetary terms was contemptible. Nevertheless, time was clearly short and the museum had no funds with which to employ investigators of its own.

“The value of these coins at auction would be nearer ten pounds each, in such pristine condition perhaps even more, rather than ten pounds the lot. Moreover it is highly improbable that such meticulous storage would have been employed to preserve only a small number. Somewhere there is a hoard.”

“And the crime, sir?”

“Sergeant, whoever this military man is, he has access to a treasure trove that should by rights have been declared to Her Majesty’s Coroner and offered for sale to an institution such as this, not retained in private hands. In effect, this man, whoever he is, has stolen a large sum of money from the government.”

* * *

Not for nothing was Sergeant MacAndrew known as ‘The Red Fox’ of Scotland Yard. The cunning Aberdonian had apprehended more evil doers than most policemen had enjoyed hot dinners, yet this latest case seemed to have him perplexed.

“Why, Smithers,” he inquired of his assistant, a keen young detective constable of twenty-two, “would a man in possession of so many valuable coins that he thinks nothing of carrying them around carelessly in his pocket, be unprovided with a few coppers to pay his fare on the omnibus?”

“Why would he even board the omnibus, knowing that he could not pay the fare?” Smithers replied. Despite his middle class origins and keen brain, Smithers had the physique of a wrestler and a broken nose courtesy of a drunken docker resisting arrest. This lent his voice a nasal twang. “A fit military man could walk from Gloucester Road to Church Street in fifteen minutes at most. We have to assume he was in great haste and the saving of a few minutes seemed vital to him. Perhaps he had stolen the coins and was fleeing from the rightful owner?”

“Won’t do, Smithers.” MacAndrew shook his head and pulled at his lower lip reflectively. “In such a case he’d hardly be so ready to hand over sixty pounds’ worth to the conductor for a twopenny fare.”

“More likely to bash the conductor over the head and run for it,” Smithers agreed. “Giving them up so easily, sir, would seem to suggest he placed little value on them. And yet he knew they were worth at least five pounds each because that’s what he told the conductor.”

“I’ll wager the professor’s right; he has so many of them that half a dozen were not worth making a fuss about,” said MacAndrew. “And yet I agree with you he was in a hurry. I’m thinking, though, that his hurry was not connected with the coins.”

“An urgent appointment?”

“That would be my guess.” MacAndrew acknowledged the young officer’s suggestion with an appreciative smile. “Now where was he going in such a hurry in Church Street?”

* * *

“And did you see him come out?” Smithers demanded, his eyes narrowing to slits in the way they sometimes did when interrogating a witness.

“No, I can’t say that I did.” The Reverend Sinclair, vicar of St Mary Abbots, the Renaissance church at the junction of Kensington High Street and Church Street, was a plump, round-faced, affable man who enjoyed talking to all sorts of strangers in his parish. Even policemen.

“But I wasn’t paying particular attention of course. It’s not unusual for people to take a shortcut across the churchyard on their way up to Notting Hill. And we have surveyors and their assistants coming around all the time. We’re rebuilding you know. The borough population is expanding rapidly and the present church is too small. Mr George Gilbert Scott is designing a new one for us.”

“A great man.” Smithers nodded in approval, since that was clearly expected, though he had little or no knowledge of the great man’s work. “But you are confident that this person wore a military greatcoat and cap and was looking around him all the time, as though he expected to be followed?”

“I don’t believe that I described him as expecting to be followed,” replied the vicar. “It was merely that he did a great deal of looking back and forth. He might have been lost and trying to find his bearings, or he might have been hoping to meet someone, I suppose. Unfortunately I was in a hurry myself at the time or I might have stopped to assist him. I had received a message that a parishioner was dangerously ill.”

“And this encounter was before or after you heard the disturbance in the churchyard at midnight?”

“I heard the noises that same night, though I wouldn’t exactly call it a disturbance. There was a brief argument and a sound like a door being opened and closed. Now, there is no door in the churchyard except the one in the family tomb of the Benbows. I investigated at first light and found nothing there beyond a number of footprints in the grass.”

“There was no sign of forced entry or any other damage to the tomb?”

“No, constable, none whatsoever. Had there been any, I would of course have called the police there and then.”

* * *

The night was dry and not particularly cold, yet Smithers shivered as he waited in his place of concealment amongst the dark shadows thrown by the small grove of churchyard yews. MacAndrew had repeatedly told him that he read too many penny dreadfuls. For once Smithers was inclined to agree, since tales of living corpses or man-eating phantoms are somehow more credible to one hiding amongst gravestones at night than they are in the warm light of day. In the dark a man’s sense of smell and hearing are also accentuated, and a city dweller is not always sure what to make of the musk of a fox or the hoot of an owl.

Although the four policemen who watched patiently around St Mary Abbots were out of range of the orange glow of the gaslights that lined Kensington High Street, there was a more than adequate moon in a reasonably clear sky. It would be impossible for so much as a prowling tomcat to cross the churchyard without being seen.

MacAndrew himself, naturally, had appropriated the choicest position. He was at a window high in the church tower overlooking the whole scene, and had even procured for himself a chair. The two uniformed constables, like Smithers himself, were in the open air. Each of them was in possession of a shuttered lantern for the purpose of signaling to his colleagues. Smithers’ glance roved regularly around the churchyard to check that none of their lights had been exposed.

It had been all Smithers’ idea that the Benbow tomb disturbance and the man in the military greatcoat were somehow connected. As the night dragged on, he was afraid of being made to look a fool, despite having MacAndrew’s endorsement

“A soldier,” he had said to his Sergeant, “would not have been wearing his greatcoat in such warm weather. That day there were people in business suits sitting comfortably out in the open on the top deck. What if he wore the greatcoat to conceal the fact that his clothes were somehow unsuitable? Perhaps a disguise helpful in the commission of a crime, but not in the subsequent escape.”

“A palace servant’s livery, for example, or even a police uniform?”

“Exactly. A fake policeman would hardly wish to be called to another crime as he fled.”

“In haste to meet a confederate, or to reach his lair and change.” MacAndrew nodded. “Yet he boarded the omnibus headed for Hammersmith and then set off across the churchyard towards Notting Hill on foot when he could have taken the omnibus to Notting Hill Gate in the first place.”

“He was looking about him to see that he was not followed,” Smithers added. “The tomb is locked and the Benbow family holds the key. All of them are presently away taking the waters. If a gang of coin thieves wanted a convenient base in a rich borough, and they could either lay their hands on a key to the tomb or were able to pick the lock, then they could hardly have chosen a place we were less likely to search.”

To Smithers, the logic still seemed strong, yet the excitement that had attended the beginning of their night watch had long since faded and his eyelids were becoming heavy. He wondered at what hour MacAndrew would choose to call off the vigil. His eyes strayed again to the church tower, then stopped. He was quickly alert. The light of MacAndrew’s lantern glimmered in the high window.

Briefly unshuttering his own lantern and pointing it towards the tower, Smithers crept forward to a point where he could see the door of the tomb. He inhaled sharply. The door stood open. There was a dim blue illumination inside the sepulcher itself, whilst a dark figure stood outside the door, silhouetted against the ghoulish light.

But this was no phantom. Smithers could hear voices; there was whispering between the man outside and one or more persons inside. The conversation was not loud enough for him to overhear it clearly, but he suspected that the language was not English. Had they uncovered a nest of spies? With a glance to each side to ensure the two uniformed constables were in position, Smith took out his whistle and blew a strong blast.

“Police!” he called. “Stay where you are! You are all under arrest!”

The man outside, instead of making a run for it, endeavored to slip back inside and close the door. But the constable on the right obviously had much experience in such futile defensive tactics. His size ten boot was swiftly inserted between the closing door and the jamb, whilst his colleague from the other side grappled with the would-be escaper. Surprisingly, the man did not struggle. He made no resistance even to handcuffs being slipped on him.

“Officer,” a cultivated, though strangely accented voice called from inside the tomb. “We are not criminals. There is no need to use force. We mean no harm.”

“Come out quietly and tell that to the Sergeant!” Smithers instructed, with satisfaction in his tone.

“I shall not resist, officer,” the voice replied, “but I have here something which your Sergeant must see.”

“Then bring it out.”

“Alas, officer, I cannot do that, nor can I leave it here without explaining how it may be safely handled.”

Smithers tensed. “Is it explosive?”

“All right, Smithers, I’ll deal with this.” MacAndrew had arrived, out of breath from his hasty descent of the tower and sprint across the churchyard. “I am Sergeant MacAndrew of Scotland Yard,” he announced loudly. “You are in the custody of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. Stay where you are and do not make any sudden moves. I shall come inside to see this thing.”

“Sir!” Smithers protested. “Is that wise? He might have a bomb.”

“In which case he will blow himself up along with me,” MacAndrew replied. “Does he sound to you like a madman determined on suicide?”

“No, sir, but…”

“Trust me,” MacAndrew replied. “It’s your excitable Latins and Slavs that go in for bombs. These men are Germans. They’re sensible chaps; just like us.” He patted the young detective on the shoulder and, opening the heavy door of the tomb, stepped into the ghostly blueness of its cave-like interior and pulled the door closed again behind him.

“I am grateful for your discretion, Sergeant.”

As MacAndrew’s eyes adjusted to the odd illumination a strange apparition took shape before him. A man clad in homespun clothing, not unlike the smock and gaitered tights in which Rosetti depicted Robin Hood, sat on a chair of glass within a shimmering translucent sphere, as though some Titan child had blown a single soap bubble and imprisoned a mortal within it. A constant succession of rainbow colors played across the surface of the orb, and from somewhere inside it came a hum like angry hive of bees.

Before MacAndrew could say a word, the man’s hand twitched and the sphere vanished, leaving nothing but two roughly carved seats on either side of a plain, brass-bound traveling trunk. One seat was empty. From the other, the man who had been within the sphere got slowly to his feet and smiled.

“Not a bomb, Sergeant,” he said. “Not any kind of weapon. But should even its existence be revealed to people of your time, the consequences would be devastating.”

* * *

“Well, I’ve heard some bonnie tales in my time,” MacAndrew laughed, “but this one takes the biscuit!” He leaned back against the old wooden settle, blew out smoke from his pipe and motioned to the landlord to bring refills for their glasses.

MacAndrew and Smithers had sent home the uniformed constables and escorted the two prisoners to the Windsor Castle pub, which lies in Camden Hill, between Church Street and Notting Hill Gate. It was not normal practice to entertain arrested persons, but MacAndrew had more than a suspicion that this was no normal pair of troublemakers. Since the men offered no resistance and seemed only too anxious to co-operate, his nose told him that the fewer persons who heard their promised explanation, the better.

Both prisoners wore greatcoats.

“Let me get this absolutely straight,” said Smithers, once again impressing his chief with his intellect. He would probe at any tale until he clearly established its truth or otherwise, worrying away at it like a terrier until he teased out every inconsistency. “You are time travelers from the distant future, whose vehicle, for want of a better word, has somehow broken down in our time whilst returning from the Dark Ages.”

“That is correct,” the older of the two men, whose English was the better, confirmed. “From the University of Köln. We are trying, as you might say, to make the Dark Ages rather less dark. Your King Offa of Mercia lived at the time of Charlemagne, and before they eventually went to war there was much trade and other exchanges between them.”

“So according to you, the reason that your Offa pennies look new is that they are new?”

“Well, yes and no. Chronologically they are over a thousand years old. In terms of their own intrinsic age, they were minted in the last five years. We posed as merchants from the Rhineland, because of course we know the archaeology of our home area very well. These coins were all paid over to us in return for our trade goods.”

“If you don’t have modern British currency because you did not expect to be here in our time,” said Smithers, “how do you explain the greatcoats and military caps?”

“Ah,” said the German shamefacedly. “I am very much afraid that we borrowed those, as you might say. Because of our clothes, at first we only dared go out in the dark. A few nights ago I came upon two soldiers in Kensington Gardens. They were busily—ah—engaged with two young ladies and had temporarily discarded their outer garments.”

“I can see that you might not have wanted to go around London dressed as eighth century merchants,” said MacAndrew, “but what I don’t understand is why you needed to go around London at all.”

“There was no choice,” the man replied. “We had to obtain materials from which we could make the replacement parts. You have seen the orb produced by our machinery; it is not a simple thing. I must also explain that we cannot just choose to travel through time whenever we wish. There are specific openings, and we must be precise.”

“Which explains the rush when you decided to take the omnibus?” Smithers looked at the other man, who nodded.

“Yes. One part I had found. My friend ze other, I hoped, but no.”

“And do you have the parts now?”

“Not quite,” The first man said. “That was the cause of the argument which unfortunately, as you told us, the priest overheard. We need a small amount of gold. We were arguing about whether we should steal it.”

“As you stole the coats?”

“Ah no! The coats we can leave behind when we go. The gold unfortunately we must take with us. There is a problem for us, you understand, of disturbing what we call the time line. In brief, we ask ourselves would something important have been done with the gold between this time and our own? Might we by taking it accidentally change history? Provided we can satisfy ourselves of this, if we have the gold we can leave this very night—in about an hour from now.”

“How much gold do you need?” MacAndrew inquired, nose twitching like a red setter once again on his favorite scent.

“Oh very small quantity. Twenty five grams, less than one of your ounces.”

“I see. And how many King Offa pennies could you spare in exchange for this gold?”

Smiling, the man patted the pocket of his greatcoat, then slipping his hand into his pocket he drew out a handful of coins and counted them. “I have eight,” he said.

“And I six,” said the other man.

“Will this do?” asked MacAndrew, taking out a gold sovereign from his own pocket and flipping it on to the table where it rattled to a stop.

* * *

“So we mustn’t talk about it, ever?” said Smithers, after they had confirmed that the men and their machine were indeed gone from within the tomb, although he and MacAndrew had watched the exterior closely after the two Germans entered.

The time travelers had warned the policemen not to open the door until five minutes had passed after they heard the humming noise intensify. Thereafter all trace of radiation, whatever that was, would be gone and the interior of the tomb as if the visitors had never been. MacAndrew and Smithers had done as they were asked. Afterwards Smithers’ flickering lantern revealed within the sepulcher only silent coffins in dark rows of burial niches. The Germans and their sphere were gone.

“You heard the man,” replied MacAndrew with a smile. “More to the point, Smithers, when I have disposed of these King Offa pennies, and you may be assured that I have far more skill in such work than did our unfortunate friend the conductor of the omnibus, you will not wish to explain publicly how you came by your share of the proceeds—fifty sovereigns.”

“That’s very generous, Sergeant, I must say. But isn’t it a little dishonest?”

“It would be dishonest if we were committing or concealing a crime,” said MacAndrew, tapping the side of his nose, “but if you can see a crime here you have keener eyes than mine, Smithers. There is no hoard, there’s been no theft; it isn’t treasure trove, since we did not find the coins, we bought them for a fair price; we shall even be able to return the greatcoats, having discovered them stuffed under a bush, as it were. I doubt the owners will wish to ask questions. No, Smithers, there’s no crime here.”

“Still and all, it’s sad to think of taking such a fantastic secret to our graves,” Smithers mused.

MacAndrew’s nose twitched and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. “I believe those penny dreadfuls of yours pay a fee to people who write stories for them. There’s nothing to stop you submitting a story to one of them, is there? No-one supposes what they publish is the truth!”

John Gregory Hancock

The Antares Cigar Shoppe

Originally published in The Immortality Chronicles by Samuel Peralta, Windrift Books

* * *

GASTON SAT IN HIS USUAL SPOT on the bench just inside the cigar shoppe. The shoppe itself was wedged into a half-circle of retail buildings that curved in a graceful arc from the traveler hostels, and ultimately emptied onto a broad collection of ticket turnstiles leading to the east. Ornately fashioned gates of metal (really sculptures by any sane definition) opened to the rocket pads. Light-duty sentinels stood at the kiosks, relaxed because there was really no threat to deter. Hadn’t been, for as long as anyone could remember.

The village where Gaston had found himself catered to the interstellar trade. Travelers consisted of families, business agents, and the occasional religious pilgrim. The number of transient persons far outnumbered the locals, though the ratio fluctuated.

But even local people were themselves transient, making or losing their fortunes and relocating somewhere else down the line.

Universal credits passed from hand to hand. Products and services that a traveler had forgotten, and wanted, were offered for sale. There were plenty of taverns for people who actually wanted to forget the things they had left behind, or to celebrate what awaited them at new destinations.

There was a back door to the cigar shoppe, but it emptied onto nothing but sand and dirt. Gaston faced the entrance instead, and calculated the total number of dust motes as they were revealed by a shaft of orange light.

The number was without significance. He discarded the information.

Mr. Arsenault, who acted as owner, crossed in front of Gaston and pressed a small black button at the entrance. An ionizer expelled the dust particles through a semi-permeable membrane. The security barrier automatically rolled into the top frame of the store like an antique roll-top desk would have, on Earth, long ago.

The Antares Cigar Shoppe was open for business.

Gaston hummed to himself and leaned back to watch Mr. Arsenault perform the myriad tiny chores one does when readying a shoppe for customers. These were mostly silent, arcane and needlessly busy things. Gaston caught his eye and politely nodded. Mr. Arsenault smiled shyly before returning to work.

Gaston always stationed himself at the bench because he enjoyed chatting with travelers, if they felt like it. You never knew who would. In case no one stopped by, he enjoyed chatting just with Mr. Arsenault.

This morning’s disconnected parade along the arc was heavier than usual. Some were in a dreadful hurry, having forgotten to set alarms or having slept through wake-up calls pre-arranged at their hostels.

Others comfortably savored their time, looking at scenery, absorbing memories. Dawdling.

Gaston considered the travelers to be his scenery.

“Do you think we’ll see many sales?” Mr. Arsenault asked, nervously sitting down on the bench next to Gaston, their legs accidentally touching. They both looked out onto the walkway instead of at each other.

Gaston reflected, “Well, there are eighteen scheduled launches this cycle. Factoring in various seating counts dependent on manufacturer, there is a potential for six to seven thousand passengers. Of those…”

Mr. Arsenault looked at Gaston and sighed. “I was just shooting the breeze, Gaston. You don’t have to actually predict anything.”

Gaston’s smile dropped fractionally.

Mr. Arsenault rubbed his large hands against his knees and hesitated as if about to say something. Gaston waited, but was ungifted with whatever treasure was percolating inside the owner’s head.

Over the roofs of the shoppes across the arc peeked an assortment of nosecones and fuselages, standing straight at attention.

“Those two look like M-class,” Mr. Arsenault began.

“Actually M-Theta class…” Gaston interrupted, then drifted off when he caught the withering look of Mr. Arsenault out of the corner of his viz-screen.

Not for the first time, Gaston reminded himself to listen more, and stop ending conversations before they began. “But it’s true there is little difference to the naked eye,” he offered as consolation.

Mr. Arsenault responded by pushing against his knees and levering himself off the bench. He walked to the counter deeper inside the shoppe.

He opened his private humidor underneath the counter and selected a slim perfecto, then added a small selection of other cigars to his breast pocket. He returned to stand next to the bench with a cutter and a tiny yet clever lighter.

Gaston gazed out onto the moving street. For a moment, he saw a river of blood flowing deep, as high as people’s calves.

No. Not yet.

He closed his eyes and mentally turned a virtual switch in his head to shut off the image.

When he opened them again, he saw the orange light of Antares bathing everything in apricot. Even the exhaust streams of coiled smoke that pushed rockets away from the encumbering planet were stained in color. He relaxed.

The shadows shone a brilliant blue against the light, unlike the grey shadows of ancient Earth. It reminded Gaston of the Maxfield Parrish painting Night Is Fled. He repeatedly viewed the art nouveau image in his databanks. It was one of his favorites. No one living could have seen it so they could discuss its beauty together. That should have made him sad; instead he just felt empty.

Today was launch optimal: no capricious gusts, no predicted rainstorms, and limitless visibility. The complex gravitational interrelationship between red supergiant Antares and its companion blue dwarf Antares B made Curie Prime an ideal planet for a rocket port. It was one of many places in the galaxy where multiple wormholes could remain coherent.

A gaunt young man in an expensive suit stood still on the walkway, allowing it to move him past the shoppes as he gawked at the assorted items for sale. Mr. Arsenault waved his unlit cigar at him, holding it between his fingers as if it were already lit and he were already enjoying it.

“Say, is that a Delphian Ultra?” the man asked as he stepped off. The walkway continued on without him.

“No, it’s a Badeaux. But the aroma is far superior to a Delphian, I promise you,” Mr. Arsenault answered, using his fingers to pantomime waving nonexistent smoke to his nostrils.

Gaston had noted the precise moment the man had made his decision to step off the walkway. He observed a slight change in expression, the tightening of irises and accelerated breathing. The number of neurons involved in creating one microsecond of differential choice was staggering, he observed. A human brain employed countless temporary synaptic configurations when making any decision. The afterimages of the resulting patterns remained as vestigial ghosts in the cerebral cortex.

“Great morning for a rocket trip,” Gaston offered amiably, waving a metal-clad hand with articulated fingers.

The man paused at the edge of the shoppe and stared at Gaston. Mr. Arsenault recovered the incident quickly by extending the cigar to him.

“Do you know much about the Badeaux? No? Let me explain the source of its magnificent aroma. Harvested at the precise peak of maturity, the leaves are delicately aged over steam produced from slowly roasting silkworms. The essence of their secretions in death adds a tantalizing lift to the palate, which mixes deliciously with the tang of exotic Rigellian tobacco leaves,” Mr. Arsenault said, imposing himself between the man and Gaston, redirecting the man’s attention back to the product.

The owner continued to extol the virtues of the cigar with a hypnotic rhythm, like a seductive siren calling to a lost sailor. He finally paused, and the customer nearly fell forward, unaware he had been incrementally leaning in closer and closer, drifting along the stream of finely crafted words.

Gaston had experienced this spiel before, but he never tired of it. There was always a variation, a shading of a word here, an accent on a syllable there. He treasured hearing it.

Still, he discarded it from his memory for being too repetitious.

Mr. Arsenault used a small brass guillotine to remove the cap end of the perfecto. He activated a lighter and sensuously rolled the foot of the cigar over the tiny flame, lightly heating the tobacco inside. The man was mesmerized by the process.

The owner handed it gently to the customer as if it were a holy religious totem. The young man seemed afraid to take it for fear of dropping it.

“No, go ahead and place it in your mouth. That’s it. Don’t worry, it’s just a free sample for a new customer.”

Mr. Arsenault placed the lighter just beyond the end of the cigar and demonstrated how to draw in the flame, in case the man had no idea of the proper way to smoke a fine cigar.

Gaston was briefly fascinated by how the flame reshaped itself in the random patterns of the man’s breath. But it was close enough to previous observations that he decided to discard the image.

The customer closed his eyes in pleasure as the flavor of the smoke acquainted itself with his palate.

Then he pointed at the bench where Gaston sat. “Where did you get that?” he asked.

Like dogs and small children will, Gaston looked at the end of the man’s finger, instead of where he was pointing.

Mr. Arsenault shrugged and said apologetically, “He came with the store. When I started the business, he was already here. I haven’t the heart or the ability to remove him.” Then he laughed lightly. “But weren’t we just talking about cigars?” He glanced out of the corner of his eye to make sure Gaston was not upset.

Gaston had heard that chestnut of deflection so many times, he was no longer actually offended. Instead, he pretended not to notice and patted the space next to him on the bench. “Here’s a comfortable place to sit and enjoy your cigar, Mr…?”

“Montreuil. Jean Montreuil.” He hesitated briefly, then, with a nod to the store owner, he gingerly sat down next to Gaston. The owner strolled back to the counter, knowing that a customer enjoying a cigar was as good a billboard as one could have.

“Are you traveling today?” Gaston asked politely. He made sure to rotate in his most genial expression. He resisted the urge to lean in closer.

“Yes, I’m scheduled to arrive on Tau Ceti this evening. Or their evening. There is an arrangement of marriage waiting for me on the second planet.” His expression turned to equal parts excitement and dread.

“Oh? Are you Neo-shintolic, then?” Gaston chose one of a handful of current religions that practiced arranged marriages.

“I personally am not very religious at all. But my bride-to-be’s family is orthodox, and rather insistent upon custom.”

Montreuil drew on the cigar and staged a minor celebration as he managed to puff a wobbling ring. It spun slowly until the integrity of the circle distorted and it dissipated in the air.

“Remarkable. Then you are graciously honoring her religion, as a gesture of political goodwill?” Gaston asked, hoping that this was a new cultural variant.

“Political?” Mr. Montreuil’s eyebrows drew together as he posed the question to himself. After another exhalation of fragrant smoke, he answered. “Depends on how you define political. The dowry is sinfully large. The number of marriageable men on Tau Ceti is low. Some sort of mining mishap, or asteroid strike, I’ve been led to believe. My future father-in-law owns one of the more profitable mines,” he said, being very transparent as to what the marriage would mean to his own fortunes as the eventual inheritor of the mine.

Gaston compared that information to actual data. The shortage of men at Montreuil’s destination was exaggerated. The daughter was likely Gabrielle Trunduel, whose father was the owner of Trunduel Enterprises. Her image was markedly, almost painfully plain, judging by accepted human standards, and her father had not been completely honest with Mr. Montreuil. Instead, he had withheld information to achieve a desired outcome. An old strategy, but a new permutation, taking advantage of an interstellar knowledge deficit. Gaston decided to flag it and keep an eye on it.

Montreuil glanced at his chronometer and reluctantly got up, taking a few more rushed draws before he extinguished the cigar in the provided collector. He did arrange to carry a large box of the special cigars as a gift for his future father-in-law.

As he was leaving, Gaston stopped him. “You know, Mr. Montreuil…”

“Yes?”

“Wanting to be loved is not a crime.”

“Meaning?” The young man canted his hip and stared at Gaston.

“Meaning, you will meet all sorts of people there. What they are is often not their fault. Pay attention instead towho they are. All life is precious. Let your first instinct be to show kindness.”

The man screwed up his face to retort something angry, but the meaning of the message filtered through. He nodded in assent and stepped back onto the walkway, strolling quickly to add speed.

First checkmark of the day.

The owner opened the collector to retrieve the discarded cigar and proceeded to finish the remainder. No sense letting it going to waste.

He rubbed his hands nervously. “Why did you pick this bench, my store?” Mr. Arsenault wondered aloud. Gaston felt that that was just a small piece of the question he had really wanted to ask earlier, but had been afraid to. “Wouldn’t you meet more people in a restaurant at the rocket hub itself?” His face was impassive, but his eyes glimmered as he awaited the answer.

“Are you wishing me to move on?” Gaston asked.

“No, no, that’s not it at all.” The owner waved his arms in frustration.

“Mr. Arsenault, this location, this very store, this precise bench. It’s all the best sort of invitation to talk, to observe. A beautiful and relaxed pause in an otherwise hurried day,” Gaston explained.

Only partially relieved, the owner agreed. “True. One should never rush a good cigar.”

“Precisely.”

* * *

Lunchtime. Or what passed for it in a place with a rocket port where travelers operated on circadian rhythms separated not just by time zones, but galactic neighborhoods. The 12:18 rocket to the Andromeda wormhole blasted off on time, rumbling the ground.

Gaston observed its gradual gain on escape velocity, the greased easing as it surpassed it, and the distant thunk it made as it slipped into the corresponding opening in space-time. There was a series of portals in synchronous orbit around the planet. Each had its own specific flavor of thunk.

Average people performed acts of great bravery, or foolhardiness, traveling in modes which stretched the boundaries of their understanding of the laws of physics. By any normal logic, wormholes shouldn’t work at all. That didn’t stop them.

A rush of passengers had just disembarked from an arriving rocket. One piece of the crowd, a family, paused to borrow part of the bench and allow their little girl a rest for her stubby legs. Walking, even on the treadway, appeared to be a chore for her labored lungs. The mother and father stood close by with another child, an adolescent boy. The girl appeared roughly eight Earth standard revolutions old. It was difficult to gauge exactly, because Gaston recognized the telltale signs of Down syndrome.

She climbed cheerfully up next to Gaston with no preamble at all, and stared directly at him for a long time, inspecting his mirrored visor, his metal limbs. She laughed, and her grin was an amazingly beautiful thing. Gaston knew already he was going to keep this memory.

“Who’re you?” she asked with a slight lisp. She did not say, What are you?, which he appreciated.

He rotated projections to put on his most kindly face. “Gaston,” he replied. “And who are you?”

“Chantal,” she answered boldly, acting as if her family were not really there to rescue her at any moment from the strange thing at the other end of the bench.

But he could see through the bravado to her struggle with curiosity. She was burning to know. He altered the direction of the conversation before she could ask the inevitable and obvious question, the one that adults were usually too polite to bring up. Politeness, he knew, was a skill that took time to learn. Children almost never mastered it, but made up for it with increased adorableness.

“Let me ask you a question. Do you dream, Chantal?”

“Yes, of course, silly Gaston. Everybody dreams.” She rolled her eyes and laughed. She didn’t just laugh with her face. Her whole body was involved.

“Can you remember one to tell me? I collect them.”

She held her finger to her lips in melodramatic fashion to let him know she was thinking. She bounced it off her lips a couple of times.

“A bear was chasing me around a tree.” She formed her hands into claws and hunched up her shoulders to look formidable. “And I ran and ran until my feet turned into roller skates made of tumblebugs. Only they weren’t really roller skates because they didn’t roll but they lifted me off the ground until the bear passed right under me. He couldn’t see me so he kept running until he disappeared far down the trail.”

“I see. Was it a grizzly bear?”

“What’s a grizzly bear?”

“Here,” Gaston said as he lifted up the palm of his hand. The hologram projected a segmented ribbon containing photos of different kinds of bears as it rotated in a circle. He flicked at one picture and it enlarged in the center of the circle on a disc. “Is this the kind of bear it was?”

“No. The bear was fuzzy pink,” she directed seriously.

A glowing line passed through the hologram of the grizzly bear from top to bottom. As it passed through, it turned the fur pink.

“Oh! And it had seven legs!” She nodded with certainty.

“Seven? Really? How did it walk?” Gaston laughed. “Okay. Three more legs coming up.”

The image sprouted the improbable legs.

“And it had a golden dress on…” Chantal was trying very hard not to smile, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her, quirking up ever so slightly.

“Did it maybe also have butterfly wings?” Gaston asked oh-so-seriously in return.

“No, they were dragonfly wings. All shiny and see-through.”

The hologram lifted up off Gaston’s palm and hovered in flight. It winked at the little girl. Chantal clapped her hands with delight.

“Was this your dream bear?”

“No, not at all, but isn’t this one much prettier?” she asked.

“Yes, it is, in fact,” Gaston said, storing the memory of the image and especially the interchange with the girl.

“C’mon, Chantal, we have to catch a rocket,” said her brother.

The girl flounced off the bench and waved backwards over the top of her head without really looking back. “G’bye, Gaston!” she squealed joyously.

“Wait, Chantal!” he called as he plugged in a carbon block to the matter printer. “Don’t you want your doll?”

The little girl ran back, breathless. A few seconds later, the printer kicked out a cloth pink bear with dragonfly wings.

“Oooooh,” Chantal said as she examined it from every angle.

“Okay, sweetie, thank the man…robot…thing,” said her mother.

Gaston didn’t bother correcting her.

* * *

Three bright million years ago,

a madman plied his vicious war

Drank darkened blood

from vanquished suns

Struck wide his iron-bladed fist

Swung dread and cruel

his strengthened arms

Planets, stars, and harried men

fled wormhole armies evermore

—Lamentations of the Purge, Tsu’ar Venadi

* * *

Dusk.

There was no real night. The gargantuan curve of Antares never quite left the horizon. It just dipped lower, diminishing its influence. Bluish shadows unfolded longer, turning more purple.

It was a time for easily mistaking one thing for another in the muddled play of light. Briefly Antares B, the companion star, could be seen hanging in the sky, the apparent size of a credit coin. Compared to the primary star it was faded and barely blue, like a reflection in a smudged window.

The Antares Cigar Shoppe did not close, not just yet. For now came the second tide, the neighboring shoppe owners. After they shuttered down their collapsing doors and twisted their keys into oversized locks, some carried their bags and satchels to the Cigar Shoppe for an evening smoke.

Gaston retained tiny recognition spaces in his mind for each of them. Some had families they were neglecting by staying. To them it was worth it; a man (or a woman, or a thing) sought ways to unwind at the end of the day. To chat, maybe drink from a concealed flask and share a fine cigar.

Mr. Arsenault and Gaston sat close together on the bench while the rest sat on scavenged boxes or crates or collapsible chairs they’d brought with them. Mrs. Plouffe preferred to stand, no matter how late into the night her visit went. She was a tough older woman with legs like tree trunks and a solid torso. She had probably been pretty in her day, and some of that still sifted through, especially if she laughed.

Mr. Arsenault made the rounds with cigars and lighters, always taking care of others before he came back to the bench. He kept in reserve a special smile for Gaston, and a sideways glance or two most nights. Tonight he still seemed bottled up, still wanting to address something between them, when and if they had some time alone.

But right now was the group, the ‘club’ they sometimes called it. Often they’d chatter and talk, raising their voices to be heard over each other, and sometimes they’d become tangled in awkward silence as a topic would falter, none of them knowing what topic to broach next or whose turn it was to jump in.

Sitting in groups like this, in the deepening dark of evenings, was something so utterly human that it had been unconsciously practiced on hundreds of worlds throughout the galaxy. An unintentional thread of connection that maybe only Gaston realized.

Perhaps those who were mortal clung jealously to every moment, understanding their fleeting nature which would wilt under the inexorable march of time and the heat of various suns.

“Let’s play Faux ou Vrai—false or true, then,” Mrs. Plouffe suggested after one of those awkward silences had stretched on a bit long. “I’ll start. Faux ou vrai: I was once an exotic pole dancer, making money from tips.”

This brought some laughter, which made her face redden. There were a few coughs and the rest quieted down.

Mr. Lemieux said, “I will say true. You do have smoldering…eyes.”

But when they voted, most thought it was not true,faux.

“Well, which is it, Mrs. Plouffe?” pressed Mr. Navarre.

She pulled herself up straighter and patted her hair. “Vrai. True. When I was very young, with little money, I danced in a rocket port on Rimroude, the fourth planet in the XC117 system. I was the best earner,” she laughed, “but I got out as soon as I could, and used my money to open up my shoppe.”

The rest of the group applauded. Mr. Pascale even requested a demonstration, which earned him a slap on the arm.

They played the game, going around the circle, until it fell on Gaston.

“Wait. Does Gaston get to play?” Mr. Navarre objected. “I mean, can a robot lie, Mr. Arsenault?”

Mr. Arsenault shrugged and looked at Gaston, motioning for him to answer.

“Well, that’s an interesting question. I could tell you that I never lie, which could be a lie, but you wouldn’t be able to tell. Why not let me play, and you can find out?”

Everyone nodded, though Mr. Navarre just stared.

Gaston put his hands behind his head and turned a virtual switch in his mind that no one could see. “Faux ou vrai: Mr. Arsenault invented wormhole travel.”

“What?” Mr. Arsenault leapt off the bench and turned to face Gaston.

“Faux, obviously,” declared Mr. Navarre. “Well, I think we now know robots can lie, at least for the purpose of the game. I know you’re pulling our leg. Wormholes are natural phenomena that occur when space folds in on itself. Everyone knows that.”

That made Mr. Arsenault shake his head as he sat back down. He inched slightly away from Gaston, looking as if he’d been betrayed.

“Faux,” voted Mrs. Plouffe as well. The rest followed suit.

“I think I win the game,” Gaston said. “Because it’svrai. True.”

“I did not invent wormholes,” Mr. Arsenault insisted.

Gaston moved his metal-clad arms. “No, of course not. But the person who invented them was also named Mr. Arsenault.”

The merchants all glared at Gaston.

“Okay, this will take some time to explain.”

The listeners shifted in their hodgepodge of seats.

Gaston leaned forward. “Many years ago, a boy was born, naked like any other, but there was one thing different. He couldn’t die.”

“What?” blurted Mr. Lemieux, nearly dropping his lit cigar in the sand, much to the amusement of everyone else.

“He didn’t notice at first, until his family and friends grew older and sicker and fell away from him, while his stubborn heart beat on. In the era in which he was born, people were ignorant and superstitious. Was he a demon? they wondered. An angel? A vampire? He didn’t know what he was, either. Suspicions festered, and there were no welcoming places for him. Some feared him, many hated him, because they didn’t understand. They tried to take him apart to discover his secret. They attempted to kill him. Each time he suffered great torture and pain until he could make his escape. Over time, he grew smarter. He vowed to never be at someone else’s mercy again.

“He trained in every discipline of war. He learned strategy and the use of power from the masters of each of his lifetimes. Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Hitler…”

Mr. Navarre objected, “Who are these people? I’ve never heard of them.”

“Their names have been lost for millions of years. They were iconic masters of war and programs of inflicted suffering.”

In the haphazard circle, they looked warily at each other at the word ‘suffering.’

“He became the greatest warlord his world had ever known. Or never wanted to know. But it was not enough. He wanted more. As science and weapon-making progressed, he kept up. He amassed wealth and power behind the scenes, choosing to exist in the shadows while his proxies proceeded under his explicit orchestration. What he didn’t know, he obtained from those he coerced or enslaved. Eventually, his top scientist happened upon the technology to make wormholes.”

“I assume his name was Arsenault,” said Mr. Arsenault.

Gaston nodded.

It was now as night as it would ever be on Curie Prime. Gaston pointed to the stars visible on the side of the canopy of sky not dominated by Antares. There weren’t just a few stars visible, like there had been on old Earth. There were trillions and trillions, numbers larger than could be conceived.

“All those stars. The warlord coveted them. He hungered to own them. Time did not limit him. Once he had in place a wormhole network, his lackeys colonized or terraformed planets across the galaxy. It took centuries, until all known livable space was his to rule.”

“I feel like there is a ‘but’ to this story,” Mr. Lemieux noted.

“Yes,” Gaston continued. “Even immortality is not perfect. It’s been claimed that a human brain is only partially utilized, with a lot of growing space to take on new memories and thoughts.”

“I’ve heard it’s twenty percent,” said Mrs. Plouffe, “although my husband uses a lot less than that.”

Many in the circle laughed, knowing her husband.

“After a thousand years, the warlord ran into a wall. The brain is an amazing organ, but even an immortal one has a storage limit. His neurons and synaptic pathways had overwritten themselves too many times. His immortal ability to regenerate began to spontaneously reformat gray matter containing important information, gradually corrupting his mind’s ability to remember and even function. He became insane,” Gaston said.

“Wasn’t he already insane? I mean, the desire to control everything?” asked Mr. Navarre.

“Yes, in a way. Once the situation became clear, he made his scientists devote all their attention to a solution. But they couldn’t alter his cells to store more. Every experiment ended up with the cell replacing itself with a fresh, new cell. There is a theoretical maximum boundary of knowledge that can exist in a confinement the size of a human skull. A normal lifespan would never trip this boundary. But an immortal life would have to, at some point.”

“So what happened?” asked Mr. Arsenault as he lit up a new cigar.

“The warlord developed uncontrollable brain injury. It was really brain renewal, of course, but his memories were being lost or scrambled at random. This resulted in increasingly erratic behavior and irrational rage. All the worlds he had built across the galaxy became targets for his bloodlust. There was a massive purge on planet after planet. His warriors feared him or were so misguidedly loyal that they followed his directives without question. Further, as best he could, he tightened his inner circle to prevent leaks about what was happening to him.”

“But I don’t remember reading about any purges,” Mrs. Plouffe objected. Others in the group nodded along with her.

“How far back does the historical record go?” Gaston asked her.

“I don’t know, maybe ten thousand years?” She glanced at the others present to get a confirmation.

“Sounds about right to me,” said Mr. Lemieux.

“Well, these events occurred millions of years ago,” Gaston explained.

“So this happened before written records?” Mr. Navarre asked.

Gaston bowed and rolled his shoulders apologetically. “Vrai,” he nearly whispered.

Mr. Lemieux looked around the group. “There is no way to verify or disprove it, then.”

“I knew letting the robot play was a bad idea,” added Mr. Navarre. “Anyone else want to keep playing? I don’t.”

The topic changed uncomfortably and the game was abandoned. No one wanted to cross Mr. Navarre. He had a habit of escalating disagreements.

The group eventually spoke the small talk of goodbyes, and gathered up their items to go to their homes or to the sleeping spaces above or behind or below their shoppes. Mr. Arsenault waited until it was only he and Gaston left behind, and rolled down the front gate. They both walked into the shoppe, then walked down to the apartment below the building.

As they were walking, Gaston flipped the virtual switch in his head.

Now. It is time.

He allowed the recording to overtake him.

The river of blood flowed deep, as high as a person’s calf. The warlord stood in the street, his armor bathed in drying blood. This was one of the last planets with human life. Life seeded by him in centuries past. All he could think was, ‘Why?’ What was the point? On his orders the warriors had traveled the wormhole highways and helped him destroy life on planet after planet.

He vibrated in blind fury, in contempt and confusion. He couldn’t concentrate on anything but death, and thirst for killing. There was a feral animal in his breast.

He saw red everywhere. It churned in him, the bile and the anger. It filled his mind until his eyes reacted and filmed over.

As he watched, a man wearing the uniform of his science division walked up to him and said words. Just words. He thought he should recognize the words, but he could not. The words had no meaning. He had forgotten words. He had lost the way of them.

The man bowed, and then rose up to caress him and kiss him gently on the cheek. At first, he pulled back in alarm. Then he did remember something. Scenes like this, being held like this, maybe by this same man. Kissed and even loved. And then those connected thoughts unraveled until he was left with nothing but breath and pressure.

The kissing man pulled something out of his uniform, said more words empty of meaning.

Something was jabbed into his neck.

His body, trained by centuries of fighting, reacted instinctively. The warlord let out a guttural and savage scream. Swifter than thought, his weapon sliced off the man’s head. The body crumpled into the gore in the street. The head spun and landed at his feet. He watched it happen without comprehending.

Then he began to feel strange. Something opened a discreet window in his mind. A recorded voice in his head recited instructions, and on some level, his mind obeyed, even though he did not yet understand the words.

His mind opened. And opened again, like a piece of intricate origami unfolding. A great breeze traveled through him, cleansing and beautiful. His thoughts traveled beyond him, to a waiting repository of data. It was a comprehensive library of all recorded history, greater than the largest libraries ever constructed.

He touched the first file, and it rebooted his mind, overwriting the empty and jumbled cells with a robust template of streamlined understanding. At first, he was overjoyed to be able to think clearly.

The plans were there for the clever mechanism that had been implanted in him by the man at his feet. It explained that there was no more room inside the warlord’s head, but a whole universe outside of it. The scientist had found a way to connect the warlord’s brain to the matter of asteroids, planets, and nebula dust. He had designed a virtual wormhole that would work inside the warlord’s head to store his memories outside the limited skull box that held his brain.

In the data repository he found a data trail about himself, through the words and the thoughts of others, in a million books and articles. Photographs of the mindless purge stared starkly back at him. Antiseptic data. No bias, only truth.

He UNDERSTOOD.

He wept, for he knew now that he had become insane.

He reached into the blood and lifted up the head of what he realized was his scientist, his lover, his savior. Lifeless, the face dripped blood from the off-center mustache that the warlord remembered loving once.

He collapsed to his knees, holding the head to his breast while his warriors looked on in bewilderment.

There were only a handful of survivors.

Would it be enough?

It must be.

It had to be.

Gaston stood watching Mr. Arsenault put things away in the apartment below the shoppe. He looked everywhere but at Gaston.

“What did you want to ask me today?”

Mr. Arsenault shrugged. His struggle played over his face. “Why do you continue to sit here, day after day?”

“You already asked me that. I mean, what did youreally want to ask?”

“Well, I mean…Why would you stay here with me? I’m just a cigar shoppe owner.”

Gaston walked over to him and held the man’s face in his articulated metal fingers. “No one is ever ‘just’ anything. If you haven’t figured out by now why I stick around, I don’t feel inclined to tell you. Except for this.”

Gaston lifted the mirror visor from his face and kissed dear sweet Mr. Arsenault, with his off-center mustache. And he was kissed back, for quite a long time.

“Love is the only thing that becomes more valuable the more you remember it,” Gaston said.

Gently, he reached behind Mr. Arsenault’s neck and tapped a discrete button to shut him down for the night. With a twist, he removed the robot’s head and held it to his chest and rocked.

“And I have a whole planet devoted just to remembering you,” Gaston whispered, “and how you saved me, long ago.”

The parts of Mr. Arsenault were lovingly packed away in a special box to recharge until tomorrow.

When he was done, Gaston removed the metal devices and plastics attached to his body. Where they had been embedded into his skin, he watched as his pierced flesh regenerated.

The dead cells fell to the floor and became dust.

No one asks why a robot doesn’t age.

Gaston erased the unimportant memories of his day. Then, one by one, he shuttled the ones he wanted to treasure into the virtual wormhole leading to his backup, which for the last several decades had been a gas giant planet in the Europa cluster.

Nin Harris

Sang Rimau and the Medicine Woman

Lackington’s Magazine

Prologue

Sang Rimau stopped visiting a decade ago. Some days, Cempaka wondered if there were any were-tigers left at all. She chanted prayers, incantations, and set out unholy brews by the salt licks of the forest, but Sang Rimau never returned. He never came back to deliver the Empress’s retribution. She waited in vain to be collected like a bad debt.

The potency of Cempaka’s remedies never ceased to draw unwarranted attention. She had learned over the years to grow crafty in the dispensing of her potions and balms. One did not want to induce or encourage accusations of heresy, even if bomohs and medicine women were part and parcel of their heritage. She learned to utter euphemisms when necessary. She would need to constantly explain that her secrets were holy secrets. If pressed, she would say that the djinns that came to aid her were really Islamic djinns. She would recite chapter and verse from the Holy Book.

There were many things that were unsaid and unknown by both sides: the New Faithful who had returned from abroad with their convictions, and the Old Faithful who merrily combined animism and skulduggery with their version of faith. Cempaka still had her uses in a world caught between the two schools. She kept both thieves and insects away with her spells. She found lost items. She made people fall in love. She plied her craft with smooth words and poems, the way that bunian courtier so many generations ago romanced her unnamed ancestor.

– 1 –

“Definitely his progeny, we’d recognize that nose anywhere,” the Empress of the bunian had said to one of the admirals, her eyes appraising the sixteen-year-old girl attempting to hide beneath the shelter of a banana tree.

The Empress was swathed in songket cloth—an elegant weave of gold, purple and green threads. More gold of a diaphanous nature covered her bare shoulders, and made a halo around the thick black waves of her hair. Her hooded eyes fixed upon Cempaka’s face. She made a patrician gesture with her right hand, the nails of which were glistening and looked as painfully sharp as knives.

Filaments of light knit together in an image of an elaborate palace with arched eaves of gold or golden wood, of upward-curving roofs, of stilts that were as sturdy and as tall as tree-trunks. From the palace, immeasurable gold steps curved downwards to the undergrowth. Three claw-footed Khinnaree admirals stood guard at the base of the ornate gold staircase, their handsome heads crested with silver and gold songket tengkoloks. Cempaka knew they were admirals because of the shape of their tengkolok, but she had never seen women wear the tengkolok—it jarred with her understanding of the world. She also knew this woman was too grand to be merely a queen. No, she was an empress, supreme, and she was to be both adored and feared.

Music unfamiliar, mathematical in precision and painfully perfect inflicted itself upon Cempaka’s hearing. The music drew her forward, and she stepped out from beneath the sheltering leaves of the banana tree into the clearing before the palace. The admirals responded to her presence by walking towards her. She immediately retreated into the undergrowth, still too lulled by the music to feel terror, but not so lulled that her instincts for self-preservation did not take over.

“What do you want me to do with her, Your Majesty? Would you like to collect the debt now?” asked First Admiral, whose tengkolok was grander than the other two, positioned on her head in stiffly starched magnificence.

“Leave her,” said the Empress, before she second-guessed herself. “No, wait, let us give her this.”

First Admiral turned towards the Empress, who held out a curved hand. Cempaka craned her head forward to see what was going on. She tried to speak. Shyness and a profound feeling of unworthiness shrank her tongue, making it impossible for her to breathe. She gulped a little, hoping the action would allow the air egress into her body. It was not much help. She watched as something took shape in the Empress’s curved palm, that same hand that almost made to beckon in Cempaka’s direction. It was a mango that was partially yellow, and partially the bashful blush of a mawar blossom. Cempaka yearned for that fruit.

Nothing in her life had ever looked so perfectly shaped, so luminous and yet so solid all at once.

“Your Majesty,” Cempaka finally said, “I am not worthy. I am a beast of burden, fit only to bear your rags. By Allah I will do all that you ask of me. I do not deserve such wonders.”

The Empress smiled. “Oh, but we know you do not deserve it. Nevertheless, you must take this fruit, or you will offend us.”

Cempaka trembled but obeyed the Empress, moving closer, close enough to touch her.

“Give us your hand,” the Empress commanded. She beckoned. The gesture hung mid-air with a swoop of her forearm, and lay suspended there before the woman moved her arm back to her flank, those fingers now curved around her own hip. Her eyes fixed on Cempaka—the intense focus of her gaze was hypnotic, but the half-formed beckoning gesture felt like a rejection.

This rejection stung her more than Awang Puteh deciding her cousin was prettier than her, or her father bringing her younger sister to town instead of her last week. This rejection felt like nothing she had ever experienced. It did not make her feel fit to be on the earth.

Entranced, she moved closer to the Empress, her bare feet cringing against the slimy feel of mud on the undergrowth. Her hands extended, she accepted the fruit. It felt as heavy as lead on her trembling palms. The weight and the impact of that fruit coupled with the overpowering influence of that music were such that her precarious balance on the mud failed. Cempaka fell down on her bottom with a loud thud, hurting her ankle in the process.

The pain weakened her, but her eyes were replete with light and colour, her ears with music. Her heart was a huge, hungry gnawing hole. She needed more. A glimpse was all she was allowed, in the end.

* * *

The drizzle abated. With the disappearance of the rain came the abrupt disappearance of the palace, and that of the Empress. The sun had vanished behind the clouds. The fruit remained on the ground right beside her, luring her with its perfection. Cempaka grabbed the fruit and wiped it on her sarong. She did not wait to bring it home. The skin looked just as luscious as the flesh, a succulent yellow tinted with the faintest blush of a mawar. She sank her teeth into the fruit, her tastebuds encountering the first bite of tart, bitter skin and sweet, juicy mango flesh. Her eyes rolled back.

The taste of the fruit was like the music. With every bite it felt as though the celestial music was invading her. The music deployed texture and colour to her world: feathery hues of peach, and mawar, and saffron. The colours that she tasted played beneath her eyelids in patterns of pigments and grainy textures. She chewed, sometimes slowly, sometimes greedily. She could not decide if there was greater pleasure in gulping all of that flavour in one go, or in extending the pleasure, not wanting it to end. But the end did come. Her face was wet with mango pulp and juice.

The seed she planted right next to where she was seated. The after-effects of the Empress’s enchantment lingered here. She hoped against all hope that this would encourage the seed to grow into a tree, and that she would have more of the fruit to eat. She licked the pulp and juice off her face by extending her tongue forward, and she sucked her fingers till they hurt.

When even the dregs of the fruit were gone, she was beset by a dreadful hollowness. The fruit was not all the Empress had left her. There was also certain knowledge that what she had seen was real. This was the only thing she could keep. It was a wicked gift, just like the Empress’s half-extended hand, with its painful, inviting claws.

“Cempaka! Oi Cempaka! Ke mana perginya budak ini? Where have you gone? All afternoon I have been waiting for you!”

Cempaka could hear her mother calling out for her. She attempted to stand, and then cried out in shock. Masya-Allah, it hurt. Her ankle hurt so much. Her fall had not left her unscathed. She felt half-deformed. Tiny machetes of agony ran up her left calf and thigh. She hobbled towards home, anticipating twisted ears because she had missed her Quranic reading class again, and because she had hurt her ankle. She entered the clearing where her brother was polishing the handles of his bicycle while he whistled a cheeky love-song.

Cempaka’s mother stood with a lidi broom in one hand, and the other braced on her sarong-clad hip. She gasped at the sight of her daughter, bent with pain.

“You’ve fractured your foot! I should have known something was up when you were gone for so long. Abang! Come and help me with your foolish daughter!” Her mother’s keen eyes knew the difference between a sprain and a fracture. It was an ability that Cempaka would inherit when she too became the village’s medicine woman.

Later that evening, when her mother had bandaged her foot, and her father had left for his evening prayers at the mosque, she sat watching the shadows that flickered around the kerosene lamp set in the middle of the living space. Her brothers had helped with the chores that night, following strict instructions to leave her alone. Now, her mother sat down beside her and looked urgently into her eyes.

“What happened back there in the jungle, Cempaka? You were as pale as a winding sheet, earlier!”

“It was a palace, ibu. A bunian palace, floating in the air. The Empress. She looked at me, and gave me fruit, ’bu. She said she recognized my nose. What does it all mean? She was so beautiful and so cruel. And the music, it felt like it was eating my brain, ’bu…”

She expected her mother to scoff at her answer. She expected to be disbelieved. Instead, her mother clutched her daughter to her in a protective gesture.

“Masya-Allah! The Empress has come for you! I have been hearing horror stories about her since I was a young girl. I never believed it, except once when the langsui came for me and a golden mousedeer chased them away. But the bunian saved me that night. They could have taken me, but they saved me. Why did they come for you?”

“They didn’t come for me, ’bu. They just gave me fruit.”

Her mother’s look was resigned.

“And so you ate the fruit? You didn’t think that there would be a jampi on it?”

“I ate the fruit, ’bu. And I planted the seed! I can show you where!”

“No, ’nak…not now. You are hurt. You rest. When you get better we will look for the seed together-lah. But you need to know that the Empress feels that we owe her a debt. And we have been waiting all of these years for her to collect. Please don’t let it be you, ’nak! I cannot lose my anak bongsu!”

Her mother hugged Cempaka to her with a fierce affection that she had never before displayed. She was not to know that the words she uttered had thrilled her daughter.

It was a story that more than one mother in her lineage had reluctantly told her children. Cempaka would not tell any children the story. She was the last of her line. She was the only one to taste the fruit of another world.

She was the daughter who was left waiting.

– 2 –

The world outside was at war. The Germans had invaded France, although the villagers were not entirely sure how the Germans were different from the French, except that the one had agitated their colonial masters. Of the other, they knew nothing at all.

A bombing had happened, somewhere beyond the Indian Ocean, so far away that they could barely imagine the world existing there. The medicine woman found war to be a concept that was difficult to understand. Cempaka had seen men die, but not on the scale being described. Bombs that fell down from the sky sounded like divine punishment, and more.

Above her, the tree-demons heckled for her attention. The song the grasshoppers made was as deafening as ever, but the years had desensitized her ears. Her arthritic digits unearthed a red-leafed plant loved by the djinn of the loamy forest. She would need its roots. She dug with fingers that no longer had the elasticity of youth, letting the earth seep in the cracks between broken nails and finger-pads.

* * *

It took twenty years for the seed that Cempaka had planted to grow into a tree. It blossomed the night she met Sang Rimau for the first time. It fruited two years later, when she was well into her third decade of life. Perhaps it would have grown faster if her bunian blood were not so diluted.

The tree she planted yielded a different kind of fruit—the slightly tart mangoes worked no wonder upon her, but helped in the crafting of the most effective love-spells, particularly when combined with noxious oils from graves that were but seven days old. The fruit opened Cempaka’s eyes up to the world, allowing her to discern sinew, and texture, and the properties of plants in ways her ancestors would have envied.

– 3 –

Generations ago, another girl had plucked herbs in a tender gap between the majestic giants of the Belum-Temenggor rainforest, the meranti. Her name could have been Melur, or Melati, or even Cempaka. Cempaka’s mother had never told her the name of this ancestor who challenged the Empress of the phantom-folk.

This ancestor picked kacip fatimah for the strengthening of feminine parts, daun panjang umur for the cleansing of the blood, betel nut leaves to be ground in a special container for her near-toothless great-grandmother. That afternoon, she noticed a kemboja tree growing right in the middle of the forest clearing. Kemboja trees were not altogether rare but they did not grow like this, alone, surrounded by grass and undergrowth. Its frangipani blooms seemed to glow with iridescent light, and with a golden heart that pulsed within each bloom.

The girl found to her delight that the branches reached down to her shoulders. She extended her right arm. She had plucked a frangipani bloom, but barely one, when a shining man gracefully climbed down from the tree, resplendent in golden songket-cloth, his tengkolok perched with precise elegance on a head of wavy black hair, the pleats of cloth geometrically perfect, the pointy edge of the headpiece stiff as though carved from wood. The man’s brow was broad and his eyes the deep brown of aged coffee beans, a colour that seemed to embrace and absorb light without being affected by it at all.

“This bush is mine. By plucking a kemboja blossom you have consigned yourself to my care,” he said, in a paternalistic tone of voice that was half-bluster.

She laughed. The preposterousness of his claim reminded her of the claims of the boys in the village that she occasionally had to dodge when she went about on her errands for her family. Her laughter astounded the shining man. He was even more determined to win the regard of this brave girl with dirty, calloused feet and knots in her ikal mayang hair. The shining man wooed the curiously unfrightened girl with mellifluous ghazals, resplendent with imagery of fantastical lands, but she ran away, straight to her mother’s home on the fringe of the village.

The beauty of the ghazals brought her back the next day, and the day after that. The shining man did not lay a finger on the girl. He had long-term plans. Instead, he wooed her with songs, and with gifts of flowers infused with the essence of kayangan: luminous melur, with petals as delicate as the moon’s rays, fragrant kenanga, the richness of the perfume that infused the soul with yearning, and vibrant cempaka, a scent that lifted the mind to thoughts of immortality and the secrets of worlds that lay beyond the veil of human existence.

It did not take long before the girl was won over by his persuasion. In fact, it did not take a week, which was a very good thing, because the shining man was living on borrowed time. He wanted freedom from the bunian kingdom.

When the maiden’s eyes were liquid with longing, he said, “My love, if we are to be united in a way that is sanctioned by the Almighty, we must be wed. And for us to be wed, I must become mortal, like you. You will need to turn me human, my love. You must free me from my servitude to the Empress of my people.”

The man never told her why he wanted to be free of the Empress, nor was the Empress ever seen by the girl, except as an unbearable light that cast a shadow on her and her suitor when she hugged him to her fiercely, stubbornly, one night when the moon hung so low in the sky it seemed like a red ball waiting to consume the Belum-Temenggor rainforest.

She clung to her love even as courtiers in the flying vehicle made of carved wood grabbed his forearms, lifting him half off the ground. She clung to him even as he turned first into a tiger that buried its claws in her shoulders, and then into a small, translucent dragon with wings that buffeted violently both the air-vehicle and his beloved.

She held on to him even as he turned into a forest porcupine that hurt her with its dangerously long prickles. She held on to him as he transformed into a heavy armadillo with armour so dense that it nearly knocked the vehicle out of the air when he bucked against the grappling hooks that lodged into his skin. He brought the girl flailing to the ground when he finally dislodged those hooks and landed on her belly as an angry forest fowl, waiting to tear her eyes out with its beak.

Her eyes filled with tears of virtuous consternation when he finally turned into a neatly muscled, bare-skinned man, bereft of his adornments and regalia. Any shyness she felt at his naked form was destroyed when the voice of the Empress seemed to boom from the sky, causing the forest to tremble in fear as the echoes filled every crevice, every pore, and every cavity.

“Celaka! If we had known you would defy us in this way, wayward admiral, we would have had the cenderawasih rend you limb from limb. If we had known you would defy us in this way, we would have turned you into a mouse-deer for Sang Rimau’s feast!”

The Empress then uttered the curse, a curse that now seemed to be etched on every loamy grain, every tree-bark, and every ghost of a leaf in the Belum-Temenggor rainforest. In the aftermath, all that Cempaka’s ancestor could have done was that which any maiden of their village left with a naked man was supposed to do. She wrapped him up in the kain pelekat she had brought along for the night’s adventure, her eyes modestly averted from the prize for which she had battled all night.

* * *

Cempaka would probably not have been so virtuous, but this was, after all, the story that her mother told her. Virtuous maidens always abound in such tales.

* * *

No mother wants to tell her daughter about a curse. No mother wants to dwell on the nature of a debt about to be collected. The first mother, that intrepid girl who laughed at a phantom courtier, and who defied the Empress, would never have told her children of the debt, had it not been for the were-tigers that pawed the trees surrounding their house at night, and roared the children to fretful sleep with their oddly soporific promises of retribution. She would have wanted them to have the autonomy of choice. But her progeny did have choice, and they did have the happy, normal lives the first mother wanted for her descendants. But it was also a choice tinged with knowledge of the debt.

No daughter has ever yearned to be the debt that would be collected. No daughter but Cempaka, who was named for the bloom that yearned for holy ascension. Perhaps that too was her choice, to be claimed. Or perhaps that was the wickedly subtle nature of phantom punishments—creating prey who would eternally long to be preyed upon. This is particularly true if they had partaken of the fruit of paradise.

– 4 –

Betel-nut stained her teeth red. She clenched her gnarled fingers and remembered when her body was still supple and taut beneath the thin covering of her sarong and cotton top. She would make this brew that her grandmother made before her the night she disappeared from sight. It had been conjectured that the women of their family possessed another gift from their bunian ancestor, that of shape-changing. It was a conjecture that Cempaka was willing to test.

She dug up another root, placing it inside a bundled-up sarong, along with the other acquisitions of the day. The brew required an invocation. That much she remembered. It may or may not have changed over the years but the effects remained. The ingredients were varied: bile of the earth, mother’s tongue, cat’s whiskers, leaves of longevity, gourd of the toad.

She remembered the first time she had come face to face with Sang Rimau. It had been shortly after her beloved had married a girl of his family’s choice. She had been gathering roots at midnight with a half-formed intention of making the brew. There had been little to betray the were-tiger’s presence. His eyes had gleamed, standing out in the uninterrupted darkness of a forest’s night.

The tiger made a yawning sound that trembled the ground.

The eyes blinked. They stared at each other, Cempaka breathless, the tiger still. It was twice as large as an ordinary tiger, its stripes slanting in the opposite direction. Then, those feral, almost floating lamps in the dark disappeared. Had it moved on, or was it moving closer? She waited for his teeth, still breathless. She waited but there was no sharp, savage pain. There was no end as soft fur sank into her at the same time as sharp teeth.

Cempaka soon realized that Sang Rimau had not come for her. It had other prey in its sight. A scream was soon followed by the wet, crunching sound of mauling. Rather perversely, Cempaka felt rejected by the were-tiger. It could have saved her the need to make a brew, if it would only scar her. Perhaps she would have been like the old shaman in the nearby village, one of the tiger-folk as well. Perhaps she would see the kinds of visions the shaman sees, and have more power then. Perhaps they would bring her milk and salt in saucers as offerings, watching her lap with her tongue as she became the most powerful being that roamed the forests.

She visualized Sang Rimau’s stripes and lean muscles beneath that glossy coat, yearning for it even more than she had ever yearned for her phantom ancestry.

Back home, she mixed the brew feverishly. She threw away more than one flawed batch. She ventured into the forest again and again to dig for roots and leaves. On other days, she foraged for dried twigs and bones to be ground in her pestle and mortar carved from rock. To bind the mixture together, she hunted the civet cat for its musk and bodily fluids. She then fashioned new incantations that wove together the energies of the four elements.

Naturally, she failed.

* * *

That had been years ago, and before many, many hundred versions of this brew. Every time she felt like giving up, she would come face to face with the were-tiger, reminding her of what had started the night her beloved had wed. Always, they faced off. Always, the were-tiger left. She was convinced it was the same were-tiger, periodically keeping her company since the night her solitude was confirmed. Cempaka’s beloved came from a righteous family who were members of the New Faithful. There was a clash and faith won over love. She was part of the superstitions they followed but refused to acknowledge.

Her beloved was now buried in the same graveyard that had accepted the bodies of his children. She sometimes saw his grandchildren, now grown and with families of their own, at village kenduris, religious gatherings where the men would cook huge vats full of curried goat meat and banana hearts, while the women worked together to prepare other dishes. Cempaka hovered at the fringes of such communal gatherings, poised in a society torn between honouring the elderly, the customs of their ancestors and those of their renewed religious imperatives.

* * *

The medicine woman took a sip of the bitter brew and waited for some sign of a change to manifest. The brew was thick, bitter and almost painful in its astringency. She felt it slide into her body, the pain contorting her form, rending her insides from left to right. Claws began to jut out of her fingers. Stripes furred their way out of her skin and her spine. Her whiskers grew, pushing her face outward, creating jowls more pronounced than those bequeathed by advanced years.

Her muscles knit closer together, becoming compact and lean. The hunger for blood that moved through her was rivalled by a vital need to frolic through the trees, roll about on the loamy ground, and to tongue long, luxurious swathes through sylvan salt licks. The burning eyes etched on the insides of her lids moved into her pupils, becoming her own. She went outdoors into the waiting rainforest, bounding away on all fours from her ancestral home. There was no one left to wonder or to care. Muscles rippling underneath her coat, she danced deeper into the dream of the rainforest.

* * *

With her disappearance came the stories. Rumours and speculations were the way of her people, after all. Rumours of her bunian origin, rumours that perhaps one of her old lovers had murdered her in some old vendetta. There were some who claimed her familiars had finally devoured her. These rumours disappeared after World War II became more than just hearsay. Troops began to mobilize, and boys were pressed from every village to help the colonizers prepare. There was no time to think of who would be the new medicine woman, or to look for a shaman or witch-doctor to utter incantations for them.

A bomb took half of the village population, destroying their crops. What the bomb did not destroy, the Japanese occupied. The Belum-Temenggor rainforest’s tranquility was marred by the war. Later, it was infiltrated by humans who fought for the greater glory of the socialist creed. The forest witnessed pain, blood and massacre. More pain than any forest should ever have to witness. But it was mostly indifferent.

Also indifferent was the medicine woman.

She was a were-tiger, running between the shadows of trees as she sought the kingdom of the bunian, seeking atonement for her ancestor’s escape, even though she never learned why he had been so desperate to do so. She was the last living descendent, and so she was sure they would find her if she failed to find them. Every fairy tale has its debt, and a debtor waiting to collect. She was prepared for them, for she was not alone.

Two were-tigers could easily defeat any fairy tale.

Your Right Arm

Clarkesworld Magazine

* * *

His name was Jagdeep. He did not believe in ghosts.

* * *

“Did you kill the last human?” Teng asked, her eyes avid, curiosity making her quiver. Rasakhi knew the question was inevitable, but this did not stop the sigh. Four of Teng’s hind-legs wove indigo and tan-dyed mengkuang strips into the mats that were everywhere on the nursery ship. Teng shivered as she worked. Rasakhi did not bother to remind her that the cold was just an illusion, encased as Teng was in a silver praying-mantis chassis. Rasakhi had evaded cybernetic enhancement her whole life, fearful of that gap between her consciousness and the supplemented consciousness of augmented parts.

It was always cold on this ship.

Rasakhi welcomed the chill. It reminded her that she was still encased in flesh, failing though it was.

“I lived with him, as you well know,” she said to Teng. No one would remember her triumphs as a navigator. Everyone would remember her in relation to the last human.

“But do you remember how he died? Did you kill him?” Teng asked again, seemingly unaware that she was being repetitive.

Rasakhi looked away from the engineer. Just beyond them, fledgling apsaras moved marbles from groove to groove carved into long congkak boards, a game they had taken with them from the nusantara. On a sanded platform, other children played hopscotch, jumping from square to square as they sang counting songs Rasakhi had taught them. Above them, the lights glowed a muted green, soothing optically enhanced eyes that were trained to look for patterns in messages that floated before them all of the time, but for more material things, like chairs, and corners. The earliest engineers quickly learned the importance of adjusting the lighting on every ship.

“Jagdeep was running from the force that imploded the last human colony. We did not do that. It was not in our best interests to drive humans into extinction. It’s far better for you to ask if I remember the first time I met him. The first time I met him was the day that Jagdeep was put into a humanoid biotech replacement unit. I do not even know if he had any humanity left on the day our eyes first met.”

Teng’s look was inquisitive to the point of intrusion. The apsara-hybrid engineer had transferred to Rasakhi’s sector three months ago, and had not wasted time in befriending the retired navigator who ran the nursery ship. She seemed completely insensible to the fact that her presence was not wanted. Teng was not the first and would likely not be the last who would want to unearth the secret behind Rasakhi’s life with Jagdeep.

“Did you love him, Rasakhi?”

“I am surprised by the question, Teng. Love is a human emotion. It is not an emotion we are conditioned to acknowledge. How do you go from asking if I killed him to asking if I loved him? I don’t understand these wild connections you’re making.”

“Apsaras were bred for love on the world we came from,” Teng said, her visored eyes insistent upon knowing the truth, “we were also bred to kill the things we love.”

“Yes, apsaras are also voluptuous dancers who are somehow lighter than air. We also shimmer when we dance.” Rasakhi said with some irony, throwing Teng a wintry look. “Say rather, that we were bred for the pleasure of humans. Love is a different thing altogether.”

“I have never shimmered in my life, not even when I had a complete apsara body,” Teng said, smiling, “but it is true. They bred us from the bunian that they stole to serve as court-dancers and companions. But that means that we have human DNA, don’t we?”

“We are not trained and conditioned to acknowledge human emotions,” Rasakhi said.

“Have you truly never loved, Rasakhi?” Teng sounded wistful. Rasakhi reminded herself of how young the engineer was. Be patient, be gentle, she told herself.

“If we feel an emotion, how do we label it? The way that humans label such things? I know amusement. I know that I am happy with companionship. I know what it feels to have a void when someone has left you. I do not know if that is the same as knowing love.”

Teng said, “We do not mate. We used to, when humans were necessary. But then they became redundant, and so did biological functions.”

“Well then. There’s your answer. Why do you ask me about an emotion that is redundant to our kind? The bunian ensured that none of us would ever need to mate again. Not the bunian, not the apsara, nor our sisters, the bird-clawed Khinnaree. All we require is companionship, and community. We have the consensus, we have the engineering wherewithal to ensure that we shall never go extinct. So why would we have a need to kill?”

Teng looked bashful, “The songs the humans sing about love. They are so sad and so beautiful. There are so many of those songs in the Sound Library. I listen, and it makes me feel strange. I always wondered how it actually felt. I tried talking to the converted humans but in their biotech systems they have forgotten all of those things.”

Rasakhi’s obsidian eyes softened as she looked at the younger apsara, “They are no longer what they used to be. Upon conversion, consciousness changes. They no longer have the depth perception required to parse emotions, or sense-data. Emotions, if they exist, exist as phantom limbs. As ghosts. The memory of an emotion, simulated upon cue. And yet, these memories are the backbone of our colony’s cultures.”

* * *

We had time before that last asteroid obliterated earth. Ample time to prepare.

The sun was younger when we first took to the skies in our first machines, made of wood and bronze, borne upwards by a fleet of armored garuda. We had no need of science then, we were fueled by sakti and by the benedictions of the holy bird, the Jentayu. This was not to last, as our magics faded, and we learned that we too, needed to master science and engineering.

The sun was older when the first super giant solar flare knocked out our strongest shield. For millennia, we had escaped the path of comets and asteroids. Narrow misses.

Sudden solar flares that could have knocked out our power supplies, and our magical reserves. The solar flares, and all manner of cosmic exigencies failed, because we worked overtime. All of us. The Khinnaree admirals, the bunian and apsara engineers.

We were safe until the sakti that held our shields up got weaker and weaker, while the asteroids came by more frequently.

* * *

I do not remember the first navigator who guided the first fleet of ships strong enough to transport all of us and all of the humans away from the solar system. I do not remember the day when humans were made aware of our existence. I do not remember the first human fleet of ships, or the first space war between our kind and the humans, several solar systems away from earth. But I remember accounts of that exodus. I remember enough to tell you about it as though I was there. Even if I must supplement that account with details of my own imagined recollection.

* * *

Jagdeep was the last human colonist. He had taken the last fighter pod, and had crashed into our fleet. He sustained serious injuries. This was not a fleet of soldiers. We were navigators and scientists. We were cybernetic engineers. We were astro-botanists and DNA scientists. There was no need to harvest his DNA immediately—the bunian and apsaras had evolved long ago. They had augmented themselves, and could replicate well enough. There was no need to do anything to the last human, except to watch him die.

Or to allow him to live.

Mercy was not a thing exclusive to humans.

* * *

The bunian, the apsara, and the Khinnaree had long learned that their bodies had attributes that allowed them to flow easier into the cybernetic interfaces built by the human fleets. They had adapted easier to it, and their engineers had pillaged human technology in order to forge better bodies for members of their colony who had lost their limbs. They began to do the same for the humans that they had rescued or had vanquished.

* * *

The first night we met, I watched as the engineers fitted Jagdeep to the biotech units that replaced his left arm and the entire side of his torso that had been incinerated when his ship crashed into our fleet. It was a painful process. He cried, often. I held his right hand as he looked pleadingly up at me, for mercy, for death. They replaced his limbs, one by one. Except for his right arm.

His right hand, to hold my own.

We used a humanoid frame for his body. He did not choose, like you, to be in an insectoid carapace. He clung on to his humanity. Jagdeep did not take to the replacements as easily as the others. He was too weak, too fragile.

When he could walk, we would walk. I brought him to the sprawling courtyard in my apartments. I astonished him with the grandeur of our plantations and of the ecosystems we had replicated and preserved. And he taught me of the ways of planting that they had improved upon.

And he would tell me things about his life.

He was trained as a fighter pilot, but he yearned to be a gardener. They had greenhouses in their fleet. Small, crude things built into abandoned storage halls. They grew yams, and water spinach, and tapioca. Some even tried to cultivate rice, but it was a very different kind of rice from the paddy fields of earth. We tried to improve on that, Jagdeep and I. We grew lentils and spices. He cooked for me dhal curries and parathas. Out of respect for my mate, I too became vegetarian.

We were happy.

We lived together, apsara and human, the first such union since our combined fleets had left earth’s solar system.

And the last.

* * *

We turned their kind into hybrids. They thanked us, one by one, as we switched them off as humans. We connected their consciousnesses to various biotech parts if they were still functional, or to our monolithic mainframes when nothing could be saved of their bodies. Their sakti bolstered our own embodied magics. We watched as consciousness dissipated, to be replaced by pattern recognition and simulacra of consciousness that became our communications systems between ships. They became bodies that could not decay. We harvested not just DNA from their bodies, but sakti, that force that had fueled our floating cities on earth, and kept them invisible to human eyes.

When age took first his kidneys, and then disease gradually weakened his heart, we knew the engineers would come for him. It was their last chance to get the last batch of pure human DNA, and of human sakti. They would attach his consciousness to one of the monoliths that fueled our ships and our communication systems. He would live on in the fleet.

On that last night, we sat together on my bed, his right hand in my left hand. I kissed him on the mouth gently, so as not to exert his heart. His eyes begged me again.

He asked me to smother him with a pillow, to do anything before they severed him completely from humanity, before his heart was replaced the way his kidneys had been replaced, before his brain was severed from his body.

* * *

“Did you do it? Did you snuff him out?” Teng’s silver praying mantis fore-legs were busy at work on a second mat, but her eyes were hungry. Rasakhi’s softening regard towards Teng was halted by those eyes.

She said, “Why do you suppose we do this? Why do we reproduce a past none of us actually know? Why do we memorialize the humans that we have turned into machines?”

Teng shook her head, bewildered. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Why do you ask me questions about remembrance, and of love, when you do not even bother to ask why we play congkak, and weave mengkuang and rattan mats, long after they have lost their relevance? Why do you ask me if I killed the last human when we continue to profit from their systemic death? I did not kill the last human, Teng. We did that.”

* * *

I could not smother him. I wept in his arms, both organic and inorganic. He cried silently into my hair. We fell asleep. In the morning they came for him. I clung to him and screamed into their faces. His eyes begged at me.

I scrambled and fought them all: bunian, apsara, claw-footed Khinnaree. Yes, even the Khinnaree in full-berserk mode. I kicked, I bit at them.

Perhaps I have Khinnaree blood somewhere in my ancestry too.

His heart expired during the struggle.

* * *

They confined me in my quarters for a year.

* * *

I did not kill the last human, we killed him.

They taught us how to kill. They taught us how to enslave, how to colonize, how to exploit.

A long time ago, when the first bunian princess was stolen by the first man who dragged her away from her celestial robes, we learned the price of being valued for how we looked.

A long time ago we learned to transform into tigers, into owls, into trees to hide from them. We learned how to grow wings, to become swan-maidens and owl-vampires. Some of us turned into the chicken-feet Khinnaree of the Himmapan. Some of us became nenek kebayan, old women of the jungle who drugged wicked men with malicious potions and dispensed sage advice to virtuous warriors.

We learned to build machines, to live in the sky. We learned to harvest the sakti that made us beautiful and powerful. We used that celestial force to create weapons and ways in which to ensure we would never again be stolen.

We stole back the women they stole from us, the ones they bred with humans to create apsaras, my ancestors. We stole their kind to propagate our own. We became an empire of bunian, apsaras, and Khinnarees.

We did not learn love from the humans. We did learn nostalgia, that step-cousin of memory. But our relationship with humans has always been complex, for they are bred into us.

We used our technology to protect them as well. To protect the planet we shared.

* * *

Jagdeep gave me comfort. I held on to the memory of that comfort for a very long time in the year that they had me confined. I yearned to return to his arms, to touch his right arm, to cradle his right palm within the warmth of my own. I knew that what was left of him was now encased in a silver cylinder, with no surface of skin left for me to touch. With no consciousness, no qualia left to recognize what we shared.

All that was left of him were algorithms and the processing of external stimuli. Simulating sentience.

* * *

He learned from me the apsara ways of silence, and of meditation. We meditated a lot when we did not work in the gardens and plantations together.

Those human songs you asked me about?

He sang some of them for me as I strung together cempaka chains for our mutual amusement.

* * *

When they released me from confinement, I was honourably discharged. Retired. They sent me here to be a nursemaid to fledgling apsaras.

* * *

Teng watched as the aging apsara stood up, walking towards the wall that showed them the stars surrounding the void that was a dead galaxy.

“He fuels this ship,” Rasakhi said.

“I know,” Teng said, “I tend to his unit. It is the strangest thing, his unit. It is always so cold. He sometimes speaks. But often he does not.”

Ah. Rasakhi gave the younger woman a speculative look. She said, “All of the humans that we captured or rescued did not believe in ghosts. So strange, considering that we exist, and now they don’t, except as hybrids, a blend between machine, apsara DNA, and human parts. They would have done the same to Jagdeep, except that his body had deteriorated beyond help. And in that last struggle, his heart expired. They punished me for that. Not for killing him. He would have made a far more superior model if he possessed a functioning heart.”

Teng shivered.

“It’s getting even colder. How is that possible? I keep double-checking the calibrations on the heating system. They’re always in order.”

“It’s always cold on this ship. It will always be this cold."

Rasakhi did not articulate the reasons behind the temperature. It was not needed. She met Teng’s eyes. In the end, this at least was understood.

C.A. Hawksmoor

Y Brenin

Originally published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies

* * *

An eagle turned in a low gyre over the battlefield. The red and cloying earth churned with rain and blood, turning everything to ochre in the light of a late summer. The sound of a hundred tiny battles between life and death caught in the arms of the valley.

The knight pressed through the crush of the fighting and the fallen. He fought as sunset swept unminded towards evening. Until the air itself seemed to thicken every sound and movement. And still the Red King did not yield.

Some long-forgotten blow had sheared the dulled gold armour of the Red King’s cuisse, black blood boiling through torn metal embossed with golden flowers. He stumbled in the red mud like a dying calf. And still he did not yield.

The knight bulled forwards with his shield, stubbornness and momentum overawing the Red King’s footing and throwing him over the body of a dying horse. The knight drew his sword back to make the killing blow. It took him some time to realise that his arm would not obey. He stood still as a golem shaped from blood-red clay. Only moving to draw deep gulps of air into his lungs.

The Red King’s sword fell from his hand, and he fumbled with shaking fingers at the catches of his helm. His hair and beard were the colour of polished mahogany, but his eyes were pupiless, bottomless black.

"What are your orders?" he said. "What does my brother say is to be done with me, Ser…"

"Mercher."

The knight removed his own helm. His thoughts ached for the dirty scrap of paper secured behind his breastplate. He knew its words by heart, but the touch of the paper against his skin gave him comfort.

"The Edling of the North would have me kill you," the knight said.

And take everything from the towns, his lord’s message ordered. Empty their stores. The North must eat.

The eithin aur on the Red King’s armour caught the last of the day’s light, gold petals of hammered metal glinting. The knight’s hand reached involuntarily for its mirror-image, shaped into his own breastplate. The eagle felt its way through the blue emptiness above them, with a mind as clear as polished glass held up before the sun.

The knight was a creature forged of the same base elements: his flesh and his bones, the blade in his hand, all birthed out of the belly of the same earth. The same clarity of purpose hammered clean through him.

He seized the Red King’s shoulder and wrenched him to his feet.

"Begin walking," he said, turning towards the ancient forest that rolled over the foothills, beyond the slow quiet seeping out into the battlefield.

* * *

They stopped quite close to morning, beside an ancient trackway that had led them to a clearing by the river. The path curved over a huge slab of grey stone that spanned the water, pitted and worn with a thousand years of feet and wheels and weather beneath the moss and lichen. On the other side, the track cut up over the bank and disappeared back into the woods.

The knight knelt beside the stream and washed the sweat and dirt out of his hair while his courser drank deeply beside him. He spread his hands and submerged them in the river until bloody trails of red earth streamed from the knuckles of his gauntlets. The sky glanced blue through sunburned leaves, and early light caught on the metal in the water.

"It is a dangerous thing for a knight to defy his lord," the Red King said from the shadow of a great old elm. He worked an arrowhead from his armour and lashed it onto a straight arm of fallen wood. "Aren’t you afraid of what my brother will do when he finds out that I am still alive?"

Red water dripped from the knight’s hands and dissolved into the current. "And why should I be afraid of Edling Gwyn when I have the Red King at my back?"

"The Red King? It has been a long time since any northerner has called me that, boy. Who are your family?"

"I wouldn’t know," the knight said. "I never had any."

The Red King took a limping step towards him, blood oozing from the torn metal on his thigh. When he came out from under the elm, he flinched and raised a hand to the sky. Tears spilled over his lashes and quickened down his cheeks.

He cannot stand the light, the knight thought. Something is wrong with his eyes. His lips parted to form a question, but the question never came.

The Red King cursed the sun and turned away, snatching up the arrow-headed spear and sliding down the bank into the shallows under the shadow of the tree.

The knight set his gauntlets down. "Are you going to try to kill me with that, Goch?"

"I was going to try and eat." The Red King tugged at the knots holding the arrowhead in place. "Unless you would rather that I starve. Where are you taking me? Do you even know?"

The knight unfastened the catches of his breastplate and laid his armour in the sun. Beneath it, his arming jacket was sweat-yellow and blood-black. "To Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth."

"Through the mountains?" The Red King drove the point of his spear into the water. "Taking North Road with the rest of your army would be safer."

"The rest of my army want you dead." The knight took his courser’s bridle and untied the barding from around her neck. "And every town and village we passed through would rather free you. That does not sound as though it fits my definition of safer."

The Red King crouched down in the water and clamped the thrashing salmon between his hands as it died on the point of his spear. He pulled it free and threw it up onto the bank. Far enough out of the water to suffocate.

"And what will you do with me when we reach the city, Ser Mercher?"

"I will bring you to the Edling of the North."

The salmon spasmed once and gaped for air. The Red King pulled himself up onto the bank and shelled its eyes into his mouth with his thumb. He pressed them between his teeth until they burst and nodded to the curl of parchment stowed in the hollow curve of the knight’s breastplate. "It seems to me as though my brother would much rather you killed me," he said. "And pillaged my towns to feed his army."

"You should not have read it," the knight snapped, tugging too sharply at his courser’s girth. The horse stamped and flashed the whites of her eyes.

"And when would I have done that? I didn’t have to read it. I know my brother, Ser Mercher. Better than you do."

"You don’t know anything," the knight growled, hauling the saddle off.

"I know that he would very much like to murder me and leave the south to ruin. I know that he expected you to break open our grain stores and find them overflowing with all the crops and livestock that we’ve taken, and that when he finds that they are bare, his cities will starve for the sake of his army just the same as mine."

"What else could he do?" the knight demanded. "Your people have been attacking our villages for months now. Why haven’t you sent word of the blight to Dinas Pair?"

The Red King laughed and laid his hand upon the eithin aur forged into his armour. "You think that when my brother hears about the blight, he’ll open his granaries and forget about this precious war of his? No, he will notice that we are weak. If he is smart, he will seize his chance to strike."

"Gwyn doesn’t understand," the knight said. "You’ve given him no choice. When I bring him to you, you will tell him. Then he can decide what he wants to do with you."

He frowned and stared into the current. Then he can decide what he wants to do with both of us.

The Red King cut the salmon with the point of his makeshift spear and emptied out its innards. "Gwyn, is it now?" he said. "Tell me, Ser Mercher, just how familiar are you with my brother?"

"You should still your tongue," the knight spat, his aching shoulders bowstring-tight. "You may need it when we reach the capital, but you do not need your fingers."

The Red King sat back against the elm and linked his hands behind his head. Metal intertwined with flesh.

"If you are so certain that all of this is a terrible misunderstanding," the Red King said at last, "then why have you brought me all the way out here without so much as sending him word?"

The knight glanced up at the tessellated sky, clear blue behind the shifting leaves, and did not answer.

* * *

Through much of the next two days the Red King sat astride the knight’s warhorse, raising his hand to block the sky from his black eyes while the knight walked along beside him. The wound on his leg stopped bleeding when they made camp, but overnight the flesh around it turned an ugly red.

On the second afternoon, it rained, starting in a few large drops that resounded on the knight’s armour and pinged off into the grass and soon pouring straight down in the windless air.

They pressed on for almost an hour before the knight relented, pulling up beside a ring of stones perched over the old trackway—narrow shards of mountain slate projecting outwards like a crown of purple thorns. The knight tethered his horse to a twisted hawthorn that looked as though it had stood there for a thousand years. The only part of it left alive was a corona of dark green leaves clinging to its branches. The courser twisted her head to tug at them, rainwater plastering her mane against her neck.

The knight pulled the Red King from the saddle and set about removing the mare’s caparison—a stained length of white cloth emblazoned with a thousand golden flowers. "We’ll use the stone circle for cover."

"That isn’t a circle." The Red King retrieved the body of the young hare they had snared the night before from behind the saddle. "It’s a cairn. A group of farmers from Dirneb dug it up when I was a boy. It was full of ash and bones. Human and animal, all mixed in together."

The knight shivered and stared into the centre of the circle: a round and gaping mouth ringed with broken teeth and half-smothered by low cloud. "Help me with this."

The Red King took the edge of the caparison, and between them they dragged it to the cairn and struggled to spread the cloth over two of the leaning spears of stone as the rain drummed down a steady cold. The knight drove his sword into the ground to make a third hitch for the canopy and crawled beneath.

The Red King stooped out of the rain to sit beside him. "Do you even know where we are?"

The knight tried to make out the shapes of the dark mountains drifting in and out of the cloud beyond the edge of the caparison. "Heading north."

"You realise that most of the Drysau are between us and Dinas Pair," the Red King said calmly. "Do you know these mountains well, Ser Mercher? Because Gwyn and I grew up in them. And, if he were here now…" He turned the limp, furry body of the hare over in his hands. "He would be telling you the same as me."

The knight looked at him sidelong. "And what is that?"

"That if you keep following this track…" The Red King sawed the hare open on the edge of the impaled sword. "Then you shall have to go over the shoulder of Y Brenin before you reach Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth. He would tell you that between us and that mountain, there is a valley at the foot of Caer Pwyll filled with nothing but reeds and marsh that is difficult to cross even on a fine day. For a horse, and two men in armour…"

The Red King held his hand out into the rain pouring off of the caparison and rolled his shoulders in a shrug. The knight wrapped his arms around himself, but wet metal-against-metal brought him little comfort.

"And what would you suggest?"

"Take the east fork in the road, half a day from here."

"Through Bannik and Gerwester?"

The Red King nodded.

"Through two villages sympathetic to you, and a stone’s throw away from the North Road?" the knight asked stonily. He shook his head. "We go north."

The Red King sighed and spread his hands in frustration. He studied them for a few moments, smeared with blood and rain, then began to strip the fur away from the dead hare in his lap. "You know," he said, peeling the muscle away from the bone and biting into the slick red meat. "I’m certain that I recognise you."

The knight watched the Red King suck down raw flesh and fought against a knot of nausea. The Red King chewed methodically, staring out into the rain. This close, the knight could see that his strange black eyes weren’t pupiless at all, but rather that the pupils were so swollen that the brown of his irises was almost swallowed up…

"Is there something that you want to ask, Ser Mercher?" the Red King said.

The knight hugged himself little tighter and looked away. "Caer Isel," he said under his breath. "You wanted to know where you’ve seen me before? You appointed me, and five other guardsmen, to keep watch over Edling Gwyn when you consigned him to live and die in that tower."

"You’re the traitor." The hard bark of a laugh lodged somewhere in the Red King’s throat. He swallowed another sliver of raw meat and shook his head. "The one who helped my brother to escape and take the north from me. And Gwyn knighted you for your trouble, did he? Well then, I suppose that it turned out well enough for you."

Well enough? the knight thought. It has ended in nothing but war and blight and famine. It has broken this land more deeply than you ever managed to alone.

"So, tell me." The Red King wiped some of the bloodied fur off of his hands. "I’ve heard that you sleep beside Gwyn. On the floor, like a trained dog. And that the two of you have spent the last two summers bathing in the Ysprid together like a pair of newly-weds. So, I’m intrigued. Does my brother fuck you well enough to compensate you for all the trouble you have put yourself through for his sake?"

The knight clamped down on the plume of rage and embarrassment and watched the rivulets of rain catching on blade of his sword. "You don’t know a damned thing about me!"

Something quirked at the corner of the Red King’s mouth. "I see. He hasn’t had you yet, then. Do you think that’s because he’s ignorant of your feelings, or because he simply doesn’t care?"

The knight swept to his feet, tearing the caparison aside and drawing his sword out of the earth. The Red King watched him calmly and did not move to stand. His lips and chin were smeared with hare’s blood and water.

A gust of wind surged up the side of the mountain and whistled between the leaning stones, turning the low cloud into unformed shapes that hurried through the cairn. The knight shivered and sheathed his sword at his side.

"Mount up, Goch," he said. "If you freeze to death, I’ll leave you for the crows."

* * *

"This is madness!" the Red King shouted from the saddle as they crested the wide green saddle of Caer Pwyll and descended down into the marsh, raising his hand to block out the light. "We must turn back."

They had abandoned most of their armour not long after the cairn, but the sky was still grey and thunderous, and the knight’s feet sank up to the ankle as the track became a stretch of churned-up mud then petered out entirely.

The Red King dug his feet into the stirrups. "Mercher!"

The knight ignored him, leading the courser by the bridle towards the mountain in the east: a low black tangle of granite looming in grey sky. If I can reach that mountain, he thought. Then perhaps the way will be a little easier over its feet.

After an hour, the knight’s legs burned. His courser’s feet dragged in the stagnant water. And they had come less than half a mile.

The knight stopped to swipe the sweat off of his brow, and his courser’s feet bubbled down into the fluid earth.

"You’ll have to dismount," the knight said, trying not to draw too hard for breath.

The Red King eased his injured leg over the mare’s back and lowered himself out of the saddle. Moss and marsh gave way like flesh under his feet.

"Lovely," he said. "You know that you’ll kill us both before we reach the city, don’t you?" The Red King checked the empty waterskin on his belt, knelt, and drank from the grey mire with cupped hands.

The knight grabbed the back of the Red King’s shirt and hauled him to his feet. "You certainly will be if you insist on eating every raw dead thing and drinking from every stagnant pool between here and Dinas Pair," he said. "What’s wrong with you? Keep walking."

The knight took another step towards the mountain, but his courser was sunk almost up to her hindquarters. She whickered with panic when she realised that she couldn’t move, and the knight took her bridle in both hands to calm her. As soon as she stopped fighting him, they pulled. Straining against the air together, the mare occasionally freeing a foreleg only to slap it back down into the swamp. Then the strength was out of her and she just stood there, panting hard.

"Gather as many of these reeds as you can," the Red King said. "Give her something to stand on."

The knight muttered a few half-believed words of reassurance to her and did as he was bade. He’d only walked a few heavy, aching steps when he came upon the bodies.

They were three, he thought. Two adults, and a child. But it was difficult to tell. The marsh had turned them grey. Their faces were bloated and fly-blown. Flesh wrinkled like the skin of an elbow, and open eyes turned to the milk-white of cut quartz. By his reckoning, they had been dead about a week.

The knight tried to remember how to breathe. "We are not the first ones to try this way," he said.

The Red King waded through needles of marsh grass to his side. "Southerners," he said. "Farmers, most likely. The blight has driven most of them out of their homes. Since your great and noble master has been turning back any refugees on the North Road, most of them try the old paths through the hills in the hope of better fortune."

"Do you expect to make me pity these people?" the knight demanded. "To turn my back on Gwyn?"

"No." The Red King stood. "I don’t."

They worked in silence after that, laying out whatever they could find around the courser. Somewhere far away a peal of thunder trembled in the mountains. When they had done all that they could, the Red King put his palms to the mare’s hindquarters and the knight took up her bridle. She was tired now, and without her help they were soon sweating and breathless.

"You never answered my question." The Red King stood back and rubbed his watering eyes.

The knight gave one last pull, raised both hands in defeat, and sank down to his haunches. "What do you want now, Goch?"

"Where are you from?" the Red King asked. "Who were you, before you became a bloody bane in my side and set my brother back upon the north?"

"I was no one," the knight said. "Just another unwanted bastard weaned in an orphanage in the wildwood. A farmer paid them for me when I was ten." The courser slumped down defeated, stretching her neck out until her nostrils were barely above the water.

"Old enough to work," the Red King said.

The knight made a soft sound of agreement. He put his hand under the courser’s jaw, lifting her head enough to breathe. "He wasn’t a cruel man," he said. "But he wanted his money’s worth from me. Worked me like a draught horse for six years before I managed to slip away and enlist with your guard. Six summers of the sun on my back and the breath of the wind in me. Six winters digging in those blasted, frozen fields."

"Do you miss it?"

The knight looked towards the southern horizon. "Sometimes."

"Let’s try again. Come here, maybe you can push better than I can. Use those shoulders of yours, plough boy."

The knight put the flats of his hands to her hindquarters and pushed until his muscles shook. The courser shrieked and thrashed at the pulled grass until she finally found footing. Then she heaved forwards, screaming and kicking out with her powerful back legs. As she came free, one of her shod hooves slammed into the knight’s chest like cannonshot.

Concussion rang in his ears, and the marsh reached out to catch him as he fell. He found that he was looking down on his own body—his chest imploded, ribs dashed into the hollow space of his lungs, and the whole marsh shifting and surging underneath him like a wave.

An explosion of coughing pain brought him back into himself. He strained for a breath that wouldn’t come, but the front of his shirt was drenched with marshwater instead of blood, and when he put his hand to the ache in his chest his ribs did not feel broken. The Red King offered down his hand, and the knight took it, pulling himself back up.

He followed the grim look on the Red King’s face to where his courser stood, three-footed. One of her hind legs was snapped at an impossible angle below the knee, bone puncturing bay fur and blood dripping from her hoof.

A deep calm drove down into the knight’s fingertips, and he forced his voice to soften as he took her head up in both his hands. He let the steadiness of his body pass into hers and bowed his head until it touched her muzzle.

"Gwyn gave her to me," he said softly, his voice twisted out of shape. "I had her from a yearling."

"Mercher…"

"Be quiet."

The knight drew his sword slowly so as not to startle her. A murmur of metal against leather, a few more gentle words, and one sharp, deep thrust that drove the blade up to the hilt in her chest. Her howl filled up the whole valley as she wrenched away, overbalanced, and fell hard onto her side. A huge flower of dark blood blossomed out into the grey water. The knight knelt and put his hand on her neck. Her eyes rolled white. She sucked down a lungful of mashwater, spasmed, and fell still.

"I’m sorry," he said, catching his tongue between his teeth. "I’m so sorry."

He grasped the bloody hilt of his sword and worked the blade out of her body.

"Come here," he told the Red King. "I’ll need your help to butcher her."

* * *

Y Brenin rose out of the valley like the arched back of a fish: a high ridge of bare jagged granite sculpted by time and weather into a host of peaks, buttresses, and gulleys. More a wall than a mountain, dividing the southern high places from rich northern lowlands with a serrated ridge of bare granite. They approached it swathed in the fog of a grey morning, rounding a scree slope that sank down into a high valley filled with a crooked finger of black lake. A heron raised its head on the far shore, poised between the worlds of fog and water, looking more a spirit than any living thing.

The knight raised his eyes, tracing line from the quiet of the water to the mountain looming in the cloud. His breath tangled in his throat and a shiver of recognition cut through him as an indistinct figure all but crawled over the ridge behind him. Until he saw the colour of the hair and the blackness of the eyes, the knight was certain that it was not the Red King that walked towards him out of the mist but his lord.

"He looks fierce from down here, doesn’t he?" the Red King said, the fog smothering the sound of his voice. "From the north, Y Brenin’s as smooth as glazed ceramic and blue-grey as a thundercloud. But the sun never touches the south face, and so it’s gouged by ice and wind and water. Nothing more than an accident of circumstance, when you think on it."

"You talk too much, Goch," the knight said, his voice harsh with dehydration and his tongue so swollen that he could barely speak.

He shrugged the Red King’s hand away and glissaded through the scree to the waterside, boots sliding in great strides through loose sharp stones.

The water was smooth as jet, and when his fingers broke the surface it was cold enough to hurt. He knelt and drank his fill, until his stomach and his throat burned with cold and his hands were white-numb.

The Red King slid down behind him, favouring his good leg. "We shall have to go over the eastern slope," he said. "There’s a shepherd’s track that cuts down into the valley on the other side. It’s steep, yes, but passable."

The knight splashed the dark water into his face and stood. "Do you not understand what it means to be a man’s prisoner, Goch?"

"Someone may have tried to explain it to me once," the Red King said. "But I’m not sure I listened. I tend to forget these things rather quickly when my captor seems determined to lead us both into a certain, painful death. Or would you rather ignore me and die the same way as your horse?"

The knight turned around too quickly and grabbed the Red King’s shoulder. "I’ve had my fill of you," he growled, clenching his jaw to stop his teeth from shivering.

"Why?" the Red King asked. "Because I am right and you cannot bear to admit it? Or because I sound too much like my brother, and you are afraid that you might fall pathetically in love with me?"

The knight’s grip tightened until his arm shook.

"Tell me," the Red King said. "When all of this is over and I am returned to my throne, do you think that Gwyn will give up his lands and his riches to live out his days with some ignorant little plough boy? Until he is old and bitter and you must nurse him to his death? Or do you think that he will continue ordering you around like a kicked dog? Sending you off into every pointless battle that he wages against me in the hopes that one day you just don’t come back?"

"You think that I care?" the knight spat. "So long as I get to stand at his side on the morning that they hang you?"

The Red King shrugged. "If you wanted me dead, then you should have killed me on the battlefield and had your fill of it. My brother might even have been grateful enough to let you up into his lap for the night." He frowned for a moment and made a small, amused sound. "Only you don’t really care if I hang, do you, Mercher? It isn’t me that you are in a rage with, it’s yourself. My brother might forgive you if you beg and grovel at his feet for long enough, but it will all taste like ashes in your mouth. You know that you’ve failed him by refusing to carry out his order on that battlefield, and you shall always know it. It will haunt you in the dark quiet of the night between now and the day that you die."

The knight seized the Red King’s shirt and found his lord looking back at him accusingly.

His curled fist slammed into the Red King’s jaw. It would have thrown the Red King from his feet if the knight hadn’t gripped him by the hair and kissed him hard and full on the mouth.

The Red King tensed in response. His body curling like a windless flag, and his fingers running over the clinging thinness of the knight’s shirt to the hilt of the knight’s sword. Metal rasped on leather, and he broke away to draw the blade into his hand. His laughter sang off of the south face of Y Brenin.

A surge of humiliation snarled through the knight, bleeding into the love and hate, loyalty, and the fury at his own stupidity.

Then the edge of his own sword was coming for him.

Instinct pulled his body out of the way of the blow. His feet touched the lake, and a deep quiet smoothed all his thoughts down into nothing. He reached for the shield slung across his back and trusted his feet to keep him out of the way for long enough to fasten the enarmes.

When another strike came, the knight was prepared. He brought his shield out to block, and the sound of metal-against-metal burst in his ears. The next swing was swift and terrible, and the knight had no choice but to turn away to catch it. He twisted fully, kicking up stones and water and drove the point of his shield hard into the Red King’s belly.

The Red King laughed and heaved for breath, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and leaving a long black streak up the length of his arm. "Do you expect to beat me?" he said, stepping out and forcing the water to the knight’s back.

"You’re half-crippled with that wound, half-crazed with the infection, and I’ve already beaten you once," the knight retorted, crouching down to scoop up a handful of small wet stones. "So yes, I rather rate my chances."

The Red King feinted left then swung around hard right. The knight brought his shield out to cover his flank, too late. He barely noticed the notched sword tear through his hip but felt the sudden weakness in his leg.

Quick blood ran down his body into the water, and the Red King touched the black wound on his own thigh. "Evened things out a little, wouldn’t you say?"

The knight gritted his teeth and rolled his shoulders into a shrug. "Only seemed fair, the way you’re flailing that sword around," he said. "It was either let you land a blow, or give up my shield and see if you could fare any better against an unarmed man."

The Red King laughed, and when the knight thrust forwards he stepped carelessly aside. "You have a quick tongue on you, boy," he said.

"And you have the eyes of a cave-dwelling rat. Shall we see how well a rat fights blind?"

The knight moved to make another blow, but when the Red King brought up his sword, he threw the handful of scree and dirt into his face, then struck him with the shield’s edge. The Red King crumpled down into the lake. His red hair drifted into black water, and when he made to regain his feet the knight straddled him and pressed the top edge of his shield against the Red King’s throat. In response, the tip of the sword pressed into the soft flesh under the knight’s jaw.

In the sudden quiet, their breath echoed off Y Brenin and came back to them out of the fog.

"I could lay your throat open," the Red King said, spitting water. "Leave you here to bleed to death."

"The edge on that is as blunt as a tourney sword," the knight said calmly. "Do you think that I would die before I broke your neck?"

"You need me," the Red King insisted. "You’ve nearly killed us both out here. You’ll die from exposure, like those poor bastards in the marsh."

"And you will be dead from infection long before you manage to drag yourself back into the south."

"I thought you meant to bring me before my brother alive."

"Maybe," the knight said. "Perhaps it would be easier to carry out my lord’s will, rather than allow the disloyalty to…what was it? Haunt me in the dark quiet of the night between now and the day that I die?"

The Red King made a short, sharp sound that started as a laugh but which quickly descended into coughs. "What are your terms?"

The knight relaxed the pressure on the Red King’s throat, although he noticed that point of the sword stayed firmly where it was. "Show me the path around Y Brenin," he said. "I’ll bring you before Edling Gwyn and vouch for you. Ask him to spare your life so that this war can end. For all of us."

"You had better hope that Gwyn has allies to the north with deep grain stores and deeper pockets, little knight," the Red King said. "Nothing short of the goddess herself will save this land from ruin now."

The knight stared down over the silver flex of his shield and pressed a little harder.

"What faith can I place in the word of a plough boy?" the Red King complained. "Tell me, is my brother in the habit of giving you everything you want, Ser Mercher?"

"I do not often ask," the knight said quietly. "But he hasn’t yet refused me."

He drew back and offered down his hand. When the Red King let go of the sword, the knight pulled him to his feet. They stood together, shivering and bleeding, waiting for the other to move.

Finally, the knight knelt for his sword—resting on the black bottom of the lake, looking as though suspended in the dark.

"Start walking," the Red King said, turning towards the mountain. "The path is treacherous by day, but deadly on a moonless night. We need to be on the valley floor before the sun sets. With us both limping like old men, it shall not be an easy climb."

* * *

Across the lowland vale spread out beyond the foothills, the city of Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth boiled with smoke and flame. Voices rose from its cauldron and radiated into the morning fog, while behind its curtain wall a dozen thatched roofs oozed ugly smoke. Others were reduced to bones of blackened timber.

The knight and the Red King stood on a hillside swathed in the yellow flowers of the eithin aur which rolled out into deep folds of low pasture and bleating sheep. At their backs, Y Brenin pierced the blue morning like smoked glass.

"You are at war, Ser Mercher," the Red King said.

"Do you have a second army that you’ve sent north to lay siege?" the knight said, trying to stop some unnamed thread from tightening in his chest. "No. There is no war. The city has fallen in upon itself. There is nothing to eat, and the guards cannot keep order. The situation was bad when we marched south. Now the vassal lords have returned with nothing to show for all their battles. No relief, no salvation. Just the coming winter, and the famine."

The Red King tried vainly to keep the rising sun out of his face, his black eyes watering painfully. "You can’t take me down there," he said. "That city is at war with itself. If you were to bring the Red King into the middle it, you and he would both be dead before we reach the keep."

The knight’s shirt clung to him, mottled with sweat and dirt, marshwater, and blood. A low ache radiated out from his hip, and his left leg trembled when he tried to put his weight on it. But now they were out of the mountains, the ground was more solid under his feet than it had been since he stayed his blow on the battlefield. A shadow passed over their heads—was that an eagle, gliding north towards the city?

The knight watched it go, and realised what he had to do.

"You must leave," he said, very quietly.

The Red King frowned but did not turn his head. "Why now? Why listen to me now, when you have spent the last week ignoring every word I’ve said?"

"Give me your parole," the knight said. "Return to this place a year and a day from now to parley. Offer your word, Goch, then follow the North Road until you find a village, and take a cart back down into the south where you belong."

The Red King rubbed his watering eyes. "And why would I keep my word?" he asked. "Hasn’t Gwyn told you I don’t have a shred of honour? What’s to stop me mustering whatever people I have left and marching back along this road to give my brother what he deserves?"

The knight studied the Red King. For the first time, he saw the whole of him: the set of the Red King’s jaw that was so much like his lord’s, and the same curl to his hair, but the narrowness of his black and watering eyes and the thinness of his mouth that set him apart as something other.

The knight smiled. "What happened to your eyes?" he asked.

The same smile twisted the corner of the Red King’s mouth. He nodded and placed a hand on the knight’s shoulder.

"You aren’t as stupid as you look. For a plough boy." The Red King turned away. "A year and a day, then. For what it’s worth, you have my word."

* * *

The knight’s hands were sweating, and he could barely hear the screaming of the crowd or the crack of burning houses over the roaring in his ears as he climbed the stairs of the keep.

Three years ago, he had freed his lord from a tower much like this one, one cold clear night at the very cusp of winter. The guardsmen had feasted on soulcakes spiced with cinnamon and made as offerings to the dead, while the crows croaked to one another and the knight ascended the stairs of Caer Isel with a key clutched in his gauntlet.

Now the crows had come to Dinas Pair yr Arfaeth as the city collapsed into a heap of smoking timbers. This time the knight did not hold the key in his hand but felt it in his chest as he climbed. His fingers clenched and crept to the hilt of his sword. All of it evaporated the moment that he opened the door to see his lord standing before the window.

The white light streamed in through thick glass, catching in the silver strands of his lord’s dark hair and on the golden flower of the eithin aur embroidered onto his surcoat. Unnoticed, the door craned slowly shut, and the whole room seemed to fill with an impenetrable silence.

The knight closed the space between them to kneel, although his left knee buckled more than it folded.

"This is not the first time you have come when all my heart has gone to ruin," his lord said. "To deliver me from following it."

The knight drew his sword with clumsy hands and laid it on the flagstones. "And I will always come, my Lord."

His lord stared out into white light and warped glass. "Where is my brother?"

Breath knotted in the knight’s throat. He forced it to come slow and even. "I let him go."

The crack of his lord’s palm against the stone sill was like the sound of breaking bone. "Then you have cursed us all. I trusted you. With my most important duty. And you have betrayed me."

"This city was cursed the moment that we sued for war, when we should have been petitioning our allies for aid," the knight said. "I have done everything you’ve asked…But that…I couldn’t do that, Gwyn. And I could not bring him here. It would have undone everything.

"The south is blighted. Even if I had killed your brother, taken his lands, done everything you’d asked of me, all you would have to show for it would be more dead bodies when the snows come. There has to be a better way, Gwyn. A better way than more suffering and death."

"And who are you to decide what’s best for this land?"

The knight clenched his jaw. "You are alive now because of me. Because of the night I freed you. But all that helping you to escape has brought this kingdom is more pain. You are a better man than that, Gwyn. If I didn’t believe it, I would have left us both to rot up in that tower."

"You have disobeyed my orders, and disappeared into the mountains while my whole kingdom falls apart. I have not known this last week whether you even lived."

"I…" The knight ran his tongue over his lips and looked back down at the floor. "I did not know the matter was of any importance to you, my Lord."

"You take my bastard brother captive and drag him off into the hills, then set him free, and you don’t think that matter is of importance to me?"

"Of course," the knight corrected quickly. "I should have sent word. I’m sorry. That is…"

"Enough." His lord’s expression creased with pain. On the other side of the glass, a raven with gloss-black feathers perched on the ledge and looked down into the burning city dispassionately. His lord watched the raven watching the kingdom burn and pushed his hand through his hair. "What shall I do, love?"

"We have to leave this city," the knight said.

His lord nodded slowly and drew a breath. "We can go north," he said. "Lady Freuddwyd has long been our ally. She will give us sanctuary."

Pain roared in the knight’s hip as he pushed himself to his feet, but he gritted his teeth against it. "Her lands are three weeks' hard ride from here, Gwyn. We cannot go so far, not while people are starving. Not while our homeland is on fire."

"You would have me stay in my lands and die here?"

"I would have us stay and live, Gwyn."

"You think I haven’t tried to seek aid?" his lord snapped. "Every eagle that comes back from our so-called allies bears nothing but excuses and apologies. Lord Michael is too sick to care, and Cardington too greedy…"

"Then we can go south. Beyond Y Brenin," the knight said. "Into your brother’s own lands.

"You know more about the things that grow in this country than anyone I’ve ever met, Gwyn. We can stay on the road, move from village to village and teach the people which things they can take from the land to feed their families. Which ones they can use for medicine. You and I can help this kingdom and its people to recover, from what you and your brother have done to it. You have a knack for healing, Gwyn. I’ve seen you do it. I…I know you."

"It’s suicide," his lord whispered. "You want us to go into his lands alone? My brother will throw everything he has after us. I’ll not go back into that tower, Mercher. I can’t."

The knight felt the weight of the memory more than he saw it. A high place shaped from grey stone and hard wind. The crows upon the battlements. The warmth of the key in his hand.

"Edling Goch has given his sworn word to meet us a year and a day from today," the knight said. "To parley."

"Parley?" His lord’s voice curled with anger. "Have you lost your senses? You think that I will beg for scraps from the table of the man who poisoned this land in the first place?"

"You shall have to, Gwyn," the knight said, pushing the window open. "Or all you shall get is more of this."

The old-bonfire smell came first, then the sounds of raised voices, breaking glass, and screams.

Guilt and pain tore through his lord’s face, and he turned aside too late to hide it. The knight reached out for his hand. Fine bone china against hard skin, dried blood, and calluses.

"I will protect you, Gwyn," the knight swore. "I freed you from Caer Isel and I shall free you from this. But you must trust me. If I am right, this land will eat again. Its people will recover. They will thrive. Even flourish."

His lord pressed his tongue against his teeth. "And if you are wrong?"

"Then they shall have to sever every fighting part of me before they harm you."

His lord tried to smile. "It is a long road south. And if the southern lands are blighted, then those furthest from here will need our help the most," he said, the white silence pierced by the mounting certainty in his voice. "You’ll need your wound tended. Fresh armour. A whetstone for your blade. If we can last until a year from now, surely we will have earned this land some peace. Although…Although I shall have to re-learn how."

"In all the years I have known you, I have never once seen you fail at something, once you have set your mind to it," the knight said, saluting with a closed fist to his heart. "It will be done. By your will, my Lord."

"We shall have to pray that we will be alive to see it. The North Road is not safe for two men travelling alone. Let alone for you and I." His lord watched the raven rise through the smoke towards the dim disk of the sun, lips pressed together into a bloodless line. "If something happened…before I could do anything to fix this…"

"The North Road is not the only way into the south," the knight said, tightening his grip on his lord’s hand. "There is a path beyond Y Brenin, through the marshes and the mountains.

"I know where it lies, Gwyn. I will show you its way."

Murder on the Laplacian Express

Originally published by Interzone

* * *

"It’s all right," Shai Laren said as Anselm swung down into the driver’s cabin of the Laplacian Express. "I’m almost sure I know how to fly this thing."

Anselm’s stepped through the haze of bitter smoke pouring from the split control panel, almost stumbling over something obscured underneath it. "Where’s the driver?"

Shai didn’t look up from what was left of the controls, but the iridophores in her skin rippled blue and green with irritation. "I believe you have just found him."

"Ah." Anselm leaned out into the snarl of Martian wind. "What about landing? Can you do landing?"

Shai Laren flipped one of the switches and the thrum of the interstellar engine dropped by a full tone. "Maybe," she said. "Give me time."

Anselm rested back against the bulkhead and crossed his arms. "So long as you can do it before we plough into the side of that ravine, take all you time you need."

"Ravine?" Her eyes flashed purple then drained back to silver-blue.

Pointless trying to get the overhead display to boot up. She stepped into the open door and leaned out as he had done. The wind was a billion of grains of hard red sand, superheated by the bright white thrusters underneath the train. It was like putting her head into a blast furnace. Shai turned away. Her headtresses washed over her face as she looked back down the silver ribbon of the express train glinting blue and violet in the sunset.

She held her breath and turned back into the wind. It cracked against her ear drums and then everything went as quiet as cotton wool. Beyond the horizon, the verdant green of the agrisphere was rising in front of the night’s first stars. She watched it getting swallowed by the half a mile high wall of jagged red cliff-face emerging from the rusty shadows of the desert.

Shai ducked back inside and pulled the headtresses out of her face. "Yes," she said. "I can see the problem. That isn’t good."

Her eyes met Anselm’s through the smoke. He was still leaning calmly against the bulkhead, the veil torn back from his face so that she could see the golden weave of filigree over his skin. She looked away quickly, but her skin flushed with thick purple stripes before she could stop herself.

"You don’t look much better, I assure you," Anselm said crisply. "And no, it isn’t good. I quite agree. Perhaps you would like to try and stop this thing before it stops itself and kills us all?"

Shai flipped another switch and slammed the flat of her hand against a dead section of the console. It flickered for a moment, and came to life.

"If you’ll stop bothering me for just one moment, doula," she said. "Then I will see what I can do."

* * *

The night before, the two of them had stood in the middle of the largest interplanetary station on the surface of Jupiter, waiting for the Laplacian Express to pull up to the platform. The station was an ornate two mile dome of brass and polished glass rising out of the Jovian jungle and lit by a million hovering lanterns. Filled up with spices, animals, traders, and passengers from all over the Solar System. But to the ancient machine that nestled at the back of Shai Laren’s neck and wove its filigree-light exoskeleton over her body, she was still standing in the centre of a rainforest.

It had been clear-cut more than a century ago now, but the jungle rushed in to fill the darkness behind her closed eyelids so quickly that she was almost floating in it. A cold grey sky drifted above the canopy. Leaves heavy and slapping wet against her skin. She was like polished terracotta. Lean and strong and fierce. A Jovian huntress. And she was running. Running through ruins engulfed in twisted roots and vines. Something out there among the trees. She didn’t know if she was hunting it, or it was hunting her.

"Shai, pay attention."

Anselm’s voice snapped her back into herself. Suddenly there was too much light and too much noise. The night was so thick outside that the glass dome was polished black. Shai almost felt the pneuma machina curling against the base of her skull, aching after that lost ruin in the jungle. She wiped at the tears that stood in her eyes, thankful for the white linen wrappings that covered the scrollwork of her exoskeleton, but also hid the deep wave of blue longing that surged up through the chromatic cells in her skin.

She glanced across at Anselm awkwardly. "Yes, doula."

He linked his hands behind his back and stared out into the crowd. "You should enter resonance when you choose," he said. "Not whenever the pneuma machina whims it."

Shai looked down at her feet. "Yes, doula."

Anselm nodded. "Good. Now then, I think our charge is here."

Shai raised her head and rolled back onto the balls of her feet to get a better view. The air was warm as bathwater, full of the smell of incense and cooking food. She focused her mind and pushed down that feeling of floating in the jungle. The prickle of strange eyes prising into her from somewhere amongst the trees. The bustle of black body armour around Chief Executive Lascelles stood out almost as much as Shai and Anselm did in the veils and simple linen wrappings of the Syzygian Church. The guards formed a wall around Lascelles that even light could barely penetrate.

Anselm put his hand onto the wrappings of Shai’s shoulder. "Come on."

They wove through the crowd easily, their pneuma machina drinking in the data of their senses and performing a thousand tiny calculations on the location and velocity of every other moving creature in their paths. The data surged down the tracery of Shai’s exoskeleton like blood. All she had to do was allow her muscles to relax and respond to the touch of the machine. It was not yet as intuitive to her as it was to Anselm. After a few feet she slipped in silently behind him to let him feel out the path.

"Tell me about her?" she said. It probably wasn’t proper protocol, but the keepers in the Cathedral on Saturn had warned her that Anselm was considered unconventional even for a human. Perhaps he would respond well to some initiative.

He glanced back over his shoulder, everything by the deep green of his eyes covered by his veil. "Chief Executive Lascelles is on the board of the Lilienthal Mining Company." Speaking to her did not seem to interfere with his navigating the crowd. Most people saw the wrappings of the Syzygian Church and simply got out of his way, making it easy for his pneuma machina to guide him smoothly around the rest. "In addition to their conventional mining activities, Lilienthal also runs a number of correctional vessels."

"You mean prison ships?"

Anselm nodded uncomfortably. "The ships function as mobile refineries. They collect the ore from the surface mines in the various asteroid fields and deliver blocks of finished metal and machine parts to the drop-off points on Earth, Mars, or wherever else—Excuse me, terribly sorry."

Anselm stepped around the lumbering body of a Cronian. It turned its head to watch them go. How unusual it felt to see one of them outside of the Cathedral. Shai’s pneuma machina detected the patterns of the Cronian’s consciousness reverberating against her own and responded with the equivalent of a psychic handshake before she even knew what she was doing. The Cronian nodded slowly and lumbered off into the crowd.

"Six months ago," Anselm was saying. "The prisoners rioted on board one of Lilienthal’s correctional vessels, the Queen of Heaven. Since then, there have been four assassination attempts against members of the company’s board. Three of them successful."

Shai frowned. "You think the prisoners on board the Queen of Heaven have found some way to kill those responsible for the prison ship," she said. "As revenge?"

Anselm nodded. "The Eye would like us to ensure that Executive Lascelles' trip to the trade conference on Mars is blissfully uneventful."

Before Shai had the chance to reply, they came up against the living wall of Executive Lascelles' security team. Their visors were all down so that they were indistinguishable from one another, but it was the one in the centre that spoke.

"Out of the way, please."

"Ah!" Anselm said affably. "Yes! Warden Alladice, is it? Executive Lascelles mentioned you were thorough. Very good. She is, however, expecting us."

The Warden shook his head slowly, his visor reflecting the light of the thousand tiny coloured lanterns hovering above. "I believe I would know about it if we were expecting—"

"And if you listened to me for even one moment," a voice came from within the crush of bulletproofed body armour. "Then you would do."

The security team hesitated for a moment and then parted around an ageing human woman in an angular and ugly suit that probably cost more money than Shai Laren would see in her whole lifetime. Shai’s eyes skipped to the Selenite in a simple black dress at her side. Selenites were still a rare sight beyond Earth’s wasting atmosphere and Her few remaining Lunar colonies. Shai had not seen another member of her species since she was a little girl. The Selenite’s skin scrolled red-gold and deep pink in a cautious greeting, and for the first time since her Anointment, Shai felt stifled in her wrappings.

"Anselm," Executive Lascelles was saying, taking his hands in her own and clasping them together. "I would recognise that voice anywhere. How are you? It’s been too long."

"Far too long, Chief Executive," Anselm agreed, bringing her fingers to his veil as though he meant to kiss them.

Lascelles smiled, flattered. "It’s Marjory, Anselm, and I am so glad the Church could spare you."

Anselm dipped his head in a small bow. "It was my pleasure."

"And you have a new initiate with you too, I see."

It took Shai Laren a moment to realise that they were talking about her. A jolt of sudden embarrassment shot through her body, the thick purple stripes reaching all the way into the gap in her veil. When she looked up, Lascelles was still staring.

"And Selenite too, is she? My my. How very exotic. I wasn’t aware the Empire allowed them to join the Syzygian Church."

Anselm inclined his head a little. "Not all of her people belong to the Empire. Shai Laren was born in a dancing hall back on Earth. When the company folded, the Church offered her sanctuary."

Lascelles nodded. "Very charitable of you," she said. "Yes. Very charitable. Well then, girl, let’s see you. Take off those wrappings and let me have a proper look."

Shai Laren’s eyes crept to Anselm, but he only shifted his weight awkwardly and looked away. She started with the veil, unfastening it on one side and then the other before unwinding the longer wrappings about her head. She ran her fingers through her headtresses, which mottled yellow-brown when the cool air touched them before returning to the almost-white of moonstone.

Executive Lascelles took Shai’s chin between her thumb and forefinger and studied her carefully. "I prefer you like that," she pronounced. "Leave them off."

She offered Anselm her arm and they turned away before Shai had the chance to protest. The Laplacian Express was rolled into the station almost silently. Half a mile of mirror-polished steel and glass. Endless cabins of sparking crystal and thick purple velvet behind its windows. Warden Alladice yelled at the security team to bring the Executive’s bags and clear the way to the cabin, while Shai fell in beside the other Selenite.

"I’m Shai," she said.

The other woman’s skin mottled caution, although Shai noticed an unfamiliar green colouring along the exposed lengths of her arms. The meaning of the pattern was beyond her, but it made her feel safer.

"Serethi," she said. "Although it pleases the Executive to call me Selene."

Shai flushed with irritation and she looked up at Lascelles.

"Do the two of you have plans for dinner?" she was asking. "You must join me. No really, I insist."

Serethi took a blank disk of wet clay from the small bag at her hip and incised an number of small marks into it with the edge of her fingernail. She did it swiftly. Automatically. Without taking her eyes from the train. Shai folded it up into the sleeve of her wrappings just as quickly. Their eyes met for a moment. Then Lascelles called for Serethi, the doors of the Laplacian Express whispered open, and all of them were swallowed by the crush of bodies, light, and sound.

* * *

"I’ve seen those before," Anselm remarked, carefully re-pinning his veil. Shai Laren averted her eyes. "The slave dancers in many of the theatres on Earth exchange them as trinkets."

Shai Laren turned the clay coin between her thumb and forefinger, letting it dry underneath the desk lamp. "They’re more than that. We…the Selenites, I mean…they use them to share information amongst themselves."

She was almost certain that she shouldn’t be telling him, but she gave up any loyalty to the rest of her species when she joined the Syzygian Church. The keepers were very specific.

Anselm glanced away from the small mirror wedged into a corner of their cabin, his fingers still thoughtlessly brushing at the dirt on his sleeve. "And what information does that one have for us?"

Shai frowned, trying to work out which way up it was meant to go. "It’s…not easy for me to tell," she said. "I was never taught much about Selenite culture before the Church took me, and I’m sure I’ve forgotten most of what I knew when I was small."

It wasn’t a complete lie, but even Shai could make out the eyes and open mouth incised into the centre. The lines pointing outwards from it that meant danger. She turned it over and studied the reverse. The marks there were obviously intended to be a number, although she couldn’t tell which one. The curved line a representation of the moon. Or the Selenites. Or perhaps Serethi herself.

Anselm turned his attention back on his reflection. "You should get ready for dinner," he said, and when she did not respond: "Is something the matter, Shai?"

"I…no, doula. It’s only…this ship is very strange and it moves more than I am used to. I feel a little unwell, that’s all."

"That’s hardly unusual," he said lightly. "It is after all very different to any vessel that you have been on board before." He frowned for a moment, drew a breath, and stepped back from the mirror. "Perhaps you should stay here and rest. I’m sure the nausea will wear off once we are above the atmosphere."

Shai remembered the way that he had kissed Executive Lascelles' hands on the station. The way that Lascelles had looked at him. She dipped her head in agreement.

"Thank you, doula," she said. "I’m certain that you’re right."

* * *

Finding some space to move around on board the Laplacian Express was harder than it seemed. It took Shai almost a full hour to happen upon a mostly empty baggage car towards the back of the train. The silver bulkheads were exposed, the sound of the thrusters raw through the scuffed steel, and the coldness of space seeped into every nook.

It didn’t matter. At least she was alone.

Shai stood still in the centre of the carriage. Eyes closed. Just listening to the resonance of the thrusters. The resonance of the blood in her own veins. Of the machine coiled about her hindbrain. The pneuma machina was reluctant tonight, as though it was watching from a distance to see what she would do. But then Anselm was insistent that those were the moments when she most needed to practise.

She relaxed every muscle in her body one after another. Breathing and listening and waiting. And when the machine quietened into compliance, she danced. The more she moved her body, the more she became aware of its position in space and time. Of every minor adjustment in the muscles running from her feet, through her core, to her arms and her neck. She didn’t force the pneuma machina to guide her. Just allowed her body to move and waited for it to join in. For flesh and circuitry to melt into one another, twisting her body around impossibly quickly and smoothly, the filigree of her exoskeleton supporting her until she could push her weight right up onto the very tips of her toes…

"You move so beautifully."

The voice brought Shai back into herself with a jolt. Everything came apart in a clattering chaos that sent the blankness of her mind spiralling out into a thousand different thoughts. She almost lost her footing and reached out to steady herself on the bulkhead.

Serethi stood in the doorway, her skin cells patterning with a mixture of apology and amusement. "There are dancers in the slave pools on Earth who spend their whole lives learning to move their bodies and never manage to be so fluid." She walked forwards slowly, stretching out a finger towards the tracery of brass-gold metal woven over Shai Laren’s skin. "Is it something to do with this? I heard someone say that you are fused to a machine."

Shai Laren pulled a face. "We call it Anointment," she said. "The pneuma machina aren’t like the modern cybernetic implants that the Gradivusi make on Mars. They are very old and powerful. They get to choose who they want to be joined with. I…like to dance. The keepers encouraged me to keep doing it when I was brought to the Cathedral. After you’ve been Anointed, you have to figure out how to let the machine co-operate with you. How to allow it to move for you, because they can work so much quicker and more precisely than our brains can. Perform a billion calculations about our weight and speed in every second. Learning how to surrender to the machine, but also to guide it to doing what you want it to do…they call it going into resonance."

Serethi inclined her head a little and traced a curl of golden metal from Shai’s cheek to her jawline. "That’s what you were doing then," she said. And, when Shai nodded: "Can it feel me touching it?"

Shai laughed. "It’s not like that," she said. "It isn’t separate from me any more. Me, the machine, the memories it has of all of the people that it was joined to before me…we’re all the same now."

Serethi drew her hand away and crossed her arms loosely, her skin showing uncertainty. Apprehension. "Executive Lascelles says that you are in some kind of church."

"The keepers call it a Church, and I guess the Cathedral on Saturn looks like one. Only we don’t worship any gods."

"So…what do you worship?"

Shai struggled for a moment. "Just…the universe, I suppose. The patterns of it."

"Like physics?"

Shai shrugged. "Sure, that’s part of it." She rolled onto the balls of her feet, felt the pneuma machina thrum against her thoughts. "I couldn’t read the coin well, but I thought you might come to find me. Ever since I met you, you’ve seemed…scared."

Shai sat down cross-legged on the floor and leant her back against the bulkhead. For as long as she could remember, she’d felt like a lost child wandering an impossibly huge universe. It was strange to be the one who wasn’t afraid. She motioned for Serethi to sit beside her. "Do you want to tell me what you’re scared of?"

Serethi scoffed and looked at her hands. "What aren’t I scared of?" she said. "One wrong word to the Chief Executive and I’m back in the slave pools on Earth. But that’s…that’s not why I’m here. I heard Major Alladice talking. About the Queen of Heaven. About how we’re going to Mars so that Executive Lascelles can attend the trade conference."

Shai nodded and waited for her to finish. Serethi hesitated for a long time. The tone of the thrusters grew deeper and fuller as the Laplacian Express finally slid free of the last of Jupiter’s gravity.

"The say the Syzygian Church are good people," Serethi said at last. "That you’re not like everybody else. If that’s true, then you and your master should stop her before she gets to that conference."

Shai Laren frowned. "Why?"

Serethi’s skin surged red-orange. "Because a lot of people are going to die if you don’t," she snapped. She took a couple of breaths to let the colour drain away. "The Executive has me take all of her letters and messages down. The prisoners on board that ship, the Queen of Heaven, they are entirely dependant on everybody planet-side to help. Their ships can’t enter the atmosphere. There are some places out in the colonies…docks that are controlled by the big unions that Lascelles has spent the last few years trying to wipe out…they’re giving the Queen of Heaven support. Resupplying her with food and oxygen. She’s going to the conference to convince the companies that own those places to lock their people out until the Queen of Heaven surrenders. Only…Only I’m not sure that she wants them to surrender. She wants them to suffocate. To use the whole thing to turn people against the last few unions still clinging on out there. Make it look like their fault somehow. I don’t…I don’t understand the details."

Shai shifted her weight uncomfortably. "That’s terrible."

"She believes that if she doesn’t crush the Queen of Heaven and the unions that are supporting her, then dissent could spread to the other prison ships. That they could lose a fortune. All any of them care about is their share price. And why wouldn’t they? It’s not like they know what it’s like to be stuck somewhere. To be utterly dependant on someone else to keep you alive…"

Shai Laren got to her feet. "Then we have to make them understand," she said. "Come along. My doula is a good man, even if he is human. He’ll listen to me, I know it."

* * *

"Absolutely not."

Anselm strode through the narrow corridors between the sleeping compartments, heading for First Class. Shai Laren had to break into a trot to keep up.

"But doula, Serethi said—"

"—It doesn’t matter," he cut her off. "The Eye sent us here to fulfil an order. Not to play politics. It is not our place, Shai."

"Not even when hundreds of people could die?"

"The men and women on that ship are all murderers, thieves, and terrorists," he said. "They had their chance to serve the punishment metered out by their societies, instead they chose open revolution. It is up to the planetary governments and companies to decide how to react, not you."

Shai reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his wrappings. "Then what are we even doing here? Why didn’t those companies and the governments send their own people to watch over the Executive? Why would the Eye intervene in this matter and ask us to go? Unless…the Church was responding to your personal request."

"What in the stars are you talking about? Let go of me."

Shai released his sleeve and stepped back. "You obviously know the Executive," she said. "Is it fair that you should be involved in this, when you obviously have feelings for her?"

"You speak out of turn, Shai. Be careful that you don’t come to regret it."

The threat stopped her cold. She thought about returning to the stone corridors of the Cathedral. Even of going back to the dance halls on Earth that they had plucked her from as a child. About what the Church would do if Anselm decided that she was too much trouble. Decided that she could not be taught. And then she thought about the Queen of Heaven, Drifting helpless through the cold dark and slowly running out of air…

"Now," Anselm said. "I have to check the forward section before we land. Can I trust you to watch over the Executive while I am gone, or must I confine you to quarters until all of this is over?" He stopped beside a carved door where Warden Alladice was standing guard and turned around to face her.

Shai felt her skin mottle with rage. "I will do my duty, doula."

Anselm nodded. "Good. Now, if you will excuse me?"

He didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and walked into the dining car leaving the door swinging behind. Shai Laren watched him disappear into the tinkling of crystal, the warm light fracturing through the chandelier, and the laughter of the guests. She took up her place on the other side of Lascelles' room and balled her hands up into fists. Warden Alladice glanced curiously across at her, but said nothing.

Difficult to tell how long she stood there before the light changed in the dining car and the blast shields rolled down over the windows. A chime sounded in the tiny speakers set into the moulded plaster ceiling and a sweet artificial voice washed over the faint hum of the engines.

"Attention all passengers. We shall shortly be descending into the atmosphere of Mars. Our expected arrival time at Oculus Station is four minutes past twelve bells, standard time. Please return to your seats and ensure that your restraint belts are correctly fastened until the blast shields are lifted. Thank you."

Shai Laren raised her head slightly to listen, nodded, and linked her hands behind her back.

Warden Alladice glanced sideways. "Perhaps we should do as it says."

Shai Laren frowned. "Anselm has charged me with keeping watch over the Executive," she said. "I am not about to shirk my duty."

"Very well then," he said. "I will do the same."

The train began to shudder with the stresses of re-entry. Warden Alladice reached out to steady himself on the door frame, but Shai only rolled onto the balls of her feet and allowed the pneuma machina to find the point of perfect balance. She closed her eyes and for a moment she could almost feel the atmosphere of Mars rushing past. Tiny particles racing over her skin in trails of blue and gold. It took her some time to separate out the shouting in the dining car from the gentle roar of the re-entry.

A wave of nauseous apprehension rippled through her body a moment before an explosion of raygun fire turned the air to a prickle of lightning. The sound slammed against her body like the blow of an open hand. Someone started screaming. Moving on her toes to absorb some of the turbulence, Shai Laren slammed into the dining car. In all of the commotion it was difficult to tell the shooter from the bystanders. Her eardrums hazed with white noise as the pneuma machina sifted out the useful information, isolating one voice amongst a hundred.

"—these monsters won’t stop until they have bled us dry. Every one of us! The Queen of Heaven is not our enemy! These people just want the basic rights to life as you. As your own sons and daughters. It is barbaric to keep them sealed up there in the vacuum and the darkness, forcing them to work and threatening them with death if they do not comply.

"You think that you are ruled by your planetary governments? These companies own each and every one of you. And we aren’t sentient creatures to these corporations. We’re cattle!"

A man’s body was lying prone on the floor. Shai could smell the sharpness of ionised particles. The sickening char of burning meat. She crouched down as she reached the body, but the crowd pushed her out of the way before she could feel for a pulse. Shai had no choice but to head for the man with the raygun. He was wearing a badge on the lapel of his tattered jacket—red and shaped like a star with an open hand within. She raised her voice over the screams.

"There’s a storm on Venus that’s raged for more than a thousand years," she said. "The Cythereans call it the Spectre Unchained."

He stopped speaking. His face knotted with confusion as he tried to fit the information into what was happening around him. It was one of the first things the keepers had taught her to avoid drawing her fanblade. Still her favourite when facing someone so pumped with adrenaline and cortisone that their whole perception of the world was narrowed to a pinpoint.

"I…" he began shakily, all the certainty gone out of him. "I don’t…"

"Amongst some Gradivusi," she said, taking another step forwards. "It’s considered grossly offensive to ask a direct question to anything but a close friend or family member."

She had his full attention now. He was Mercurial. One of the lower castes from the look of his six fingers. There had been a Mercurial in the Cathedral who could trace her ancestry three thousand years, and boasted two full sets of eight fingers and three thumbs. He stood out amongst the opulent interior of the Laplacian Express. His chalk white skin and hair almost a negative space.

"…What…"

Shai held out her hand. "Give me the gun," she said.

The Mercurial hesitated for a moment, his eyes darting amongst the passengers who were still trying to climb over each other to escape. It looked like he might shoot her anyway, and Shai reached for the hilt of her fanblade. Then a hand emerged from the crowd behind the shooter, plucking the raygun out of his six fingers. The Mercurial started shouting, but moments later two of the train’s robotic security team were wrestling the him to the floor.

Anselm dropped the raygun into a half-finished tureen of soup and reached out to take her elbow, turning back towards the sleeping cabins. "Panic over," he said.

This time, Shai Laren could get close enough to the man lying on the fine carpets to be sure that he was dead. She sighed and stood with him for a moment until the security team came. Stupid, really. But it seemed like the least she could do. As they took him away, she looked back over her shoulder.

"How many of the assassination attempts did you say had succeeded so far, doula?"

Anselm frowned at her. "Four attempts. Three successful." And when she kept staring back at the Mercurial spitting and swearing into the pile of the carpet. "What is it, Shai?"

"Assuming that the other targets had a comparable level of security," she said. "This would appear to be a particularly inept assassination attempt."

Anselm shrugged. "Perhaps he is a particularly inept assassin," he said. "Perhaps he has nothing to do with the others. When we reach the Oculus station the Gradivusi will take him into custody. We can question him then."

Shai nodded and kept walking, but did not look convinced. When they reached Executive Lascelles' door they took up their places on either side.

Anselm looked around. "Where’s Warden Alladice?"

Shai’s chromatophores pulsed. "He was here before," she said. "Perhaps he saw what was going on and decided to check on the Executive? Anselm, wait—"

Anselm opened the door. The blast shields were slowly scrolling back from the windows, bathing everything in Martian twilight—an ever-changing collage of red-orange sand, purple sky, and burned umber shadows that made everything inside the cabin look like it was moving. Layered in rippling light. Warden Alladice was a curve of concentrated shadow bending over Executive Laselles' bed. Silver reflections from the orbital array spun themselves into the evening cloud and caught on the knife in his hand. Shai Laren reached for her fanblade, but Anselm had already drawn. His blade came open in a arch of brass-coloured metal that hung in the air as Warden Alladice spat with pain and the knife clattered to the floor in two shards of severed metal.

Anselm’s fanblade folded back into itself and the Warden backed away from them both, pressing against the windows where the surface of Mars crested slowly into view behind. In the silence, Shai Laren could hear herself breathing over the pulse of the engines. Then the windows shattered outwards. For a moment, Alladice hung in the roaring gale that shredded his black cloak into rags. Then he reached out almost in slow motion and curled up onto the roof of the train.

Anselm rushed to the Executive’s side and Shai Laren hesitated—her hand still resting on her fanblade.

"Go after him, Shai!" Anselm’s voice cracked over the wind. "Or we’ll lose him. Quickly!"

It took her a moment to realise what he was saying. After that, she didn’t have time to be incredulous. Shai covered the small cabin in three fast steps and swung herself up into the wind. It roared through her headtresses and burned in her eyes, but the air itself was cold enough to make her fingers ache. The roof of the Laplacian Express reflected all the changing colours of the twilight. Thick pink and fragile lilac. Mirrored silver, slipping through the air like a serpent a hundred feet above the surface of Mars.

Alladice stopped on the roof of the next carriage and turned around to face her. He smiled. And he waited. Shai Laren spread her weight between her feet and opened up her fanblade—painting the air with a half-circle of gold-coloured metal. It would have been enough to scare off an opportunist, but Alladice only reached for the matt black baton at his hip. He thumbed the mechanism, and spikes of bare metal a foot and a half long speared out of either end.

Shai Laren swallowed hard and advanced. She reached out to the pneuma machina for resonance. Felt everything come into sharp focus. The desert sky like split goldstone. Whorls and whorls of stars. The roof of the train still warm from re-entry. The thrusters like a blast furnace underneath. Reflected light from the orbital array turned Alladice’s face into sharp angles and deep shadow. She hopped the gap between the carriages and feinted forward, waited for him to lunge, then kicked off the roof of the train and cartwheeled over his head. Inverted in the air, she just had time to notice the natural stone archway racing out of the desert ahead before she had her back to it. Had to balance her weight carefully so that she didn’t slip on landing.

A flash of metal, and Shai Laren swept her fanblade into a long arch in front of her to catch the blow. Nestled against her hindbrain, the pneuma machina ran numbers. The speed of the train. The pitch and incline. The height of the stone archway racing unseen out of the umber shadows behind her.

Duck. Now.

Her blade snapped closed with an audible crack. She rolled and pressed down against the hot silver of the train as the stone bridge whip-cracked past. She allowed her momentum to return her to a crouch, swept the blade open at Warden Alladice’s ankles as he rose, then pivoted as he anticipated the blow and leapt. Adrenaline was a low roar in her blood, smothered by the steady stream of emotionless numbers pouring from the machine. Shai Laren rose and painted the air with a vertical arch of metal that sliced easily through the carbon weave of Alladice’s staff. One of the telescopic spikes shuddered and collapsed in on itself. He thrust at her with the other.

The machine drank it in. Position of the blade, rotation in his arms. The tracery of her exoskeleton tightened a little in anticipation and she surrendered to it—sliding sideways over the curved roof of the train. Coming to a stop barely an inch from the dead drop into the desert.

Alladice threw the useless end of his staff at her, and ran. He was headed for the engine.

* * *

Shai twisted in mid-air, pulling her feet out of the way before Warden Alladice’s half spear took them off. He had nowhere left to go now. A dozen feet of sharply curved engine housing was all that was left between them and the smokestack. Even from here, Shai could feel the blistering heat of it through her wrappings.

She landed, steadied her footing, and found him staring back at her. Realised what he was going to do halfway between when he acted and the last second that she could have stopped him. The machine made a snap calculation. She didn’t have time to weigh up the pros and cons. She and Alladice swung themselves down into opposite sides of the driver’s cabin at exactly the same moment.

As she straightened, the train’s robotic pilot looked between them. Its face was featureless silver and couldn’t register emotion. Not even when Alladice’s spear split its head open from crown to collarbone. Smoke and coolant fluid sprayed over the bulkhead and sizzled down into the metal. Shai slid back as Alladice’s spear slammed through the air where she had been and embedded itself in the console. The pneuma machina stabbed at her thoughts. No space to open her fanblade. Best to unbalance him. She grabbed his ankle with her free hand and pulled. When he sprawled backwards amongst the wreckage of the pilot, she half-opened her blade and stepped forwards. No room here. We’re at a disadvantage. Have to think of something else. Where the hell is Anselm?

"Why are you doing this?" Alladice is too sharp to fall for the distraction technique. Play for time. "You want the Executive dead, I understand that, but why wait until now? Why not do it before Anselm and I even arrived? And why endanger the lives of everyone else on this train now that you’ve failed? How does that make you better than her?"

"Better than her?" Alladice laughed, wiping a long stripe of blood up the black sleeve of his body armour. "Stupid child. You have no idea what this is about. You think we care about Lascelles? About the Queen of Heaven? About anybody on this train?"

Shai’s mind spun for a moment. "Who’s we?"

A nasty smile pulled at the corner of Alladice’s mouth. He brought up the tip of his spear. "If you’d lived," he said. "Perhaps you would have found out."

Her exoskeleton seized hold of her body, pushing her into a low crouch and bringing the closed shard of her fanblade up to block. Leaning her weight into her forward knee. Forcing him to step back.

"And when you’re done with me," she said. "What will you do then? Anselm will not go down so easily."

Alladice repositioned his feet and cleaved down with another blow. Her exoskeleton constricted, splaying her feet out over the sizzling metal. Twisting her blade to hold him off. He backed up another step.

"I’ll think of something," Alladice spat. "You think the two of you are the first members of your Church that I have killed?"

Shai’s stomach turned to cold, clear water.

Stay calm. Get your feet back underneath you. Quickly. Raise your blade.

The force of the next strike reverberated in her arms. Muscles shivered with exertion. She made a show of trying to push herself up. Sliding forwards. Letting him retreat another pace.

Alladice’s eyes flashed over his shoulder as his heel touched the edge of the cabin. "Such a clever girl," he said, smiling. "But not quite clever enough."

Before he could pull away from the edge, an hand reached out of the howling gale and plucked him into the open air. He hung suspended there—his face twisted with a mixture of fear and rage, the tattered remains of his cloak fraying in the wind. Then he was gone, rolling in a disordered mess underneath the thrusters of the Laplacian Express. A shadow burned down into the Martian sand.

Anselm swung down into the cabin and Shai Laren straightened up, wiping the sweat and dust off of her skin.

"It’s all right," she told him, looking down at the controls. "I’m almost sure I know how to fly this thing."

* * *

The Laplacian Express screeched and squirmed as it barrelled towards the canyon. Its thrusters burned blue and then white-hot as the ribbon of muscular silver jack-knifed and threatened to roll. Red sand spat into the thin atmosphere on every side. The last few carriages banked harder than the others. For several seconds before they righted themselves, the furnace of their underbelly was exposed to the air.

As the train finally ground to a shuddering halt, Anselm leaned out to watch it settle down into the desert. The air filled up with an eerie silence.

"A little bumpy, but we appear to have survived."

He dropped down into the sand. Shai stepped out of the other side of the cabin and took a slow pass around the engine. On the far side of the ravine the Martian capital glittered in the twilight, cupped in the crater of Solis Lacus. Aqueducts sloped gracefully down into valley. High silver arches and sparkling lights. The whole city seemed silent from out here in the desert. Motionless. Its greatest skyscrapers outlined in a pale glow.

Shai turned her back on it and walked towards Anselm. "He said that it wasn’t about the conference," she said. "That it was bigger than I could understand." And, when Anselm did not respond: "Warden Alladice, I mean."

Anselm nodded, watching as people from all across the Solar System climbed down out of the Laplacian Express.

Shai sighed. "What will happen if I leave the Church?"

"Difficult to say." He still wouldn’t look at her. Even with his veil torn back from his face his expression was inscrutable. "Can’t say I’ve known it to happen before. But the pneuma machina are precious, Shai. I can’t imagine the keepers would simply allow you to walk away with one of them."

"And it can’t be removed," she finished stonily, iridophores turning her skin as silvery as the city hanging in the heat haze. "At least, not without killing me."

Anselm nodded and drummed his fingers on his lips. His green eyes were murky and distant. Shai wasn’t even certain that he was listening to her.

"And what will you do?" she asked, her teeth catching on the end of her tongue.

He drew a breath, and came into focus. "Well, if Alladice was part of some greater plan, as you say, then I shall need to find out who he was working with. Once I get these people to the Oculus station, I’ll start by running a background check on Alladice. I’m sure Executive Lascelles must have the information in her personal files. Then I’ll interview the Mercurial. Find out about the man he murdered in the dining car. Try and work out if it’s connected."

"And the trade conference? The prisoners on the Queen of Heaven? What is going to happen to them?"

Anselm’s expression creased tight with frustration. "As I said, Shai, the matter is hardly our concern."

"And if I leave the Church?" she pressed. "If I walk away now and you become the first doula to lose one of his charges in…what? At least as long as you have been a member? What will the keepers make of that? Do you think that will be any of your concern, doula?"

The line of his mouth set hard. "You are playing a dangerous game, you realise that?"

She held his gaze and her ground, and waited for him to make his choice.

"Fine," Anselm sighed. "I will speak to Executive Lascelles and see if a compromise is at all possible. It’s not entirely without precedent for the Church to intervene in certain matters of diplomacy. If you are so set on the idea, then perhaps you would like to carry out negotiations with the Queen of Heaven yourself."

Shai nodded slowly. She unwound the wrappings from around her forearms and used them to bind up her headtresses. Tucked the stray edge across her face, obscuring everything but her eyes. She hopped back up into the driver’s cabin.

"I’m certain that the Executive will listen to you, Anselm," she said. "The two of you seem to be old friends, after all. While you are discussing it, perhaps you can ask if she will lend me Serethi’s services until the matter is resolved. If we are to carry out negotiations between the Executive and the prisoners, I will need all the help that I can get."

Sean Patrick Hazlett

Boomer Hunter

Originally published by Grimdark Magazine

* * *

Jimmy Alvarez was one tough mother. After reliving the firefight over and over in my head, I could only come to that conclusion. Shivering and covered in blood and dust, I hid under the bodies of my crew in some godforsaken ditch near an almond grove in California’s Central Valley while I prayed for twilight to fade into night.

“Bobby,” Rory Haines sputtered as he choked on his own blood, “Tell Missy I love ‘er and make sure she gets my bounty after you bag the ol’ bastard.”

I nodded to make Rory feel better. But there’s no way I was gonna share that bounty with a dead man’s family. There weren’t many boomers left, and the ones who were were either nasty ol’ coots with a knack for survival or cats with more dough than Zuckerberg. Either way, you had to make each bounty count.

I preferred the ol’ coots myself. Most of ‘em were poor. And being poor made ‘em easier targets. The rich ones could afford tons of security.

I could smell Alvarez coming, a hint of cigar smoke drifting on the biting wind. What the man had done with railroad ties, rebar, and bear traps was inspired, if not horrifying.

Rory was wheezing again. I tapped his knee with my rifle to shut him up. But my gesture was about as useful as tits at a big dick convention.

Alvarez’s footsteps quickened. “Shut the hell up,” I murmured with a kick to Rory’s bloody thigh that a shit-encrusted shaft of rusty rebar had run clean through. Rory would have tetanus for sure, but it didn’t matter. He’d be dead by morning.

Word had it that Alvarez was almost eighty. How that sombitch could move so fast was a goddamn miracle-and a nightmare for me and my crew.

The cigar smell was getting stronger, but the footsteps had stopped. I shut my mouth and played dead. If Rory wouldn’t quit his whining, then he was on his own.

Watching from beneath three lukewarm bodies, I saw the underside of a black combat boot kick dirt from the lip of the ditch. Rory squealed.

Alvarez carefully slid into the trench, cradling a scope-mounted AR-15 in his stubby arms. I couldn’t believe it. The man was five-foot nothing and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck fifty.

Either way, he was on Rory like orange on a pumpkin. Ol’ bastard took one look at Rory’s leg and double-tapped him in the head. Then, all nonchalant-like, Alvarez took two deep drags on his cigar.

Then he came closer. He poked and jabbed at Carl and Juan and Ashish. I held my breath. He rolled Carl’s bloody body off the pile and double-tapped him in the brain bucket, probably just to be sure. I quivered. He did the same to Ashish. Juan’s corpse was next.

I could barely breathe. If I didn’t do nothing, he’d shoot me too. It was a real grade-A goatfuck. Rolling the dice, I ignored every survival instinct I had, jumped to my feet, raised my arms, and begged, “Please, don’t shoot.”

Alvarez wore olive drab fatigues along with an ol’-school Viet Nam boonie cap. His face was taut but wrinkled, weather worn but not beaten. He jabbed his rifle in my chest and chuckled. “You’re mine, son.”

I smiled like some dope stupid enough to think there was any chance of walking away from this.

The whole thing was ridiculous. Me, who came here to kill him, and Alvarez, who’d just snuffed out four of my men like it was nothing. And here we were, smiling at each other like two jerkoffs. I gave him my best aw-shucks face. He laughed and lowered his rifle. Just when I thought things were cool, he coldcocked me, and I was out like bellbottoms and eight-tracks.

* * *

When the Chinese called their treasury bonds, interest rates went ballistic, and Uncle Sam needed a quick fix to service its ballooning interest. Hiking up the death tax was the easy part, but the goddamn boomers wouldn’t die fast enough. So the feds passed the Septuagenarian Protection Act of 2020 to accelerate the process.

Regardless of the details, that law changed my life. It’s what transformed me from an unemployed dirtbag into a highly bankable merc. You see, there’s not a single living politician who had the guts to send the police to round up these defiant ol’ fogies, so governments hired private military contractors on the down low. What the feds did to the ol’ coots after was their business, not mine. But the job paid well, so I didn’t complain.

In the early days, business was good. Not many people were willing to chase down ol’ folks, so the supply of hunters was low, but the demand for boomers was high. And back then, hunting boomers was like shooting fish in a barrel. The commies from the city with their anti-gun slogans were the easiest to round up, as were wealthy law-abiding urban conservatives who’d blindly trusted the system that made ‘em rich. I made a killing back then, and I didn’t even have to kill anyone to do it.

When other working class kids saw dopes like me making a fortune, they all started getting into the biz. Then the law got looser than a ten-buck barracks whore, and it wasn’t long before it became legal to put the ol’ farts down. Before I knew it, mercs had depopulated most of America’s urban centers of their Septs, and we all had to go deeper into the country to make any dough.

That, my friend, is when the biz really started separating the men from the boys. The gun nuts in the sticks weren’t so easy to collect because they had the means and the training to fight back.

The Nam vets was the worst. Most of ‘em was smart ‘nuff to unass the city and head to the hills before the feds passed the new law. And these vets really starting racking up the body count, especially among the amateurs. So much so that the pencil pushers in Washington soon required merc outfits to pass through reams of red tape for certification. Hell, that one move alone did more to consolidate the industry than rising body counts did. But as they say, “That’s all history now.”

* * *

I woke up in a crouch next to a shiny white toilet bowl. My wrists were handcuffed to a radiator. It was hot as hell, my head ached, and I had a big lump on my forehead. My stomach grumbled and I was parched. I had no idea how long I’d been out.

It was a miracle Alvarez hadn’t killed me, but I ain’t one to kick a gift horse in the balls.

When I looked up, Alvarez was standing in front of the sink, dressed like a pervert in tighty-whiteys and a spotless white wife-beater. He was shaving with a straight razor. Real ol’ school. Dog tags dangled from his neck like a good luck charm. His skin was rough as rawhide.

He tilted his head in my direction like a cocky drill instructor. Like I was the dumbest piece of crap he’d ever seen. “So you finally returned to the world of the living, ginger,” he said, referring to my red hair. “You’re probably wondering why you’re not taking a dirt nap, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

He smiled and then pointed at my right arm where my eagle, globe and anchor tattoo had claimed all the real estate. “Why are you here trying to kill a fellow Marine, Devil Dog?” he asked, his stone-cold brown eyes boring into mine.

Like a moron, I grinned and said the first thing that came to mind. “Trying to make a buck, same as you.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “I got nothing against shooting boomers. Hell, if I were your age, I’d be shooting ‘em too. And I’m one of ‘em. They fucked everything up. Those hippy pricks spat at me and called me a baby killer after I risked my life for our country. All the while, those pinkos fled to Canada to avoid doing their duty. But a fellow Marine. You should know better, boy.”

I had no idea what Alvarez was gonna do next, but it couldn’t be any worse than this. He had a way ‘bout him. A way that made me feel real low, like I’d strangled a puppy.

“What’re you gonna do with me?” I asked.

He ran his fingers over his high-and-tight. “Catch and release, Marine. Catch and release. I got no business killing a fellow Marine.”

I shot him a confused look. “How you know I ain’t gonna come back and try again?”

“Semper Fi,” he said. “You just needed some corrective training. Now that I’ve done that, I know you ain’t coming back. ‘Course, you’ll be surrendering you and your friends’ firearms in exchange for my generosity.”

* * *

That night the ol’ man actually cooked me a porterhouse in his small kitchen and gave me as many beers as I wanted. I took him up on both offers. ‘Course, I only had one Budweiser. I needed to stay sharp. You never know, the ol’ fart could always change his mind.

I guess being with someone he thought was a fellow Marine made Alvarez feel safe, even if I had tried to smoke him a few hours earlier. Or maybe he was lonely being holed up out here for so long. Probably just wanted some company.

It wasn’t long before Alvarez pulled out the whiskey and started telling me about his time in Kai San. Halfway through the bottle, the man was still lucid as a lark. But the more he drank, the more belligerent he became. He pushed me for stories about Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever it was I told him I’d served, but I refused. Told him some bull that I didn’t want to talk about it. He nodded as if he’d understood. Like we shared a secret only combat vets could know.

He was madder than hell that I only had one beer. In my defense, I told him I was Mormon and had had the first beer to be polite. He stared at me a good thirty seconds before he smiled and accepted my excuse. But I was worried he didn’t believe me. And if he didn’t believe me, I was done for.

As Alvarez was pouring the last drop of his bottle of Jack Daniels into his glass, the windows shattered. The steady thump thump thump of a machine gun violated our quiet evening.

I tackled the ol’ man, shielding him with my body. But Alvarez didn’t seem to care for my attempt to save him. He pushed me off and rolled onto his stomach. Bullets whistled over our heads like burping bees. Alvarez low-crawled from the kitchen to his den until he was underneath a pool table.

He quickly reached up and grabbed a cue stick from the table, then dropped to his belly. He low-crawled to a spot where five rifles hung on the wall. Keeping a low profile on the floor, he worked the cue stick into the trigger guard of an AR-15. The rifle fell from the gun rack and into his hands.

He slithered over shards of glass and took up a fighting position near the broken window. He aimed his rifle and waited. The steady thump thump thump of the machine gun began anew. Alvarez shifted his rifle, steadied it, then fired. The machine gun fire ceased. Alvarez rolled away from his firing position and established another one three feet away. Then he waited.

Huddled on the ground, I waved my hand at Alvarez. He turned his head at the motion. I pointed at the wall of rifles. Then I pointed outside. He stared at me for several seconds as if considering my offer, then nodded.

I low-crawled toward the wall and grabbed the cue stick. I worked a twenty-two off the wall and established a fighting position next to Alvarez.

It was dark outside and hard to see, especially with the light on in the house. I looked behind me and saw a lamp. I aimed and fired. Alvarez swiveled his head at me. His left eye was already shut. The ol’ bastard was already building up his night vision. He nodded in what I was certain was approval.

I listened while I waited for my night vision to kick in, struggling to filter out the sound of my heartbeat. Soon, the boys outside would be sending another man to the machine gun. But if they were smart, they’d established a new firing position. We waited until our attackers identified themselves with machine gun fire.

Sure enough, the boys outside began pumping Alvarez’s house full of lead again. I kept my rifle steady and scanned the places I’d be if I were setting a machine gun nest. Sure as shit, I saw the faintest tip of a head there. I steadied my rifle, took aim, and squeezed the trigger. The firing stopped instantly. Alvarez gave me a thumbs up.

I ducked down and moved to another window. The attackers would be attracted to my muzzle flash. Like clockwork, the next poor sod to take control of the machine gun shot my ol’ fighting position to hell, rendering it a riot of smoke and splinters. But Alvarez just waited calmly and then took a shot. Again, the machine gun fell silent. Then the ol’ man sunk to his belly and crawled to his back door.

You had to admire the bastard. He was gonna take the fight to the enemy. He looked back and gestured for me to follow. I shook my head. “We don’t know how many of them are out there,” I whispered.

He hesitated, then said, “Doesn’t matter. We stay here, they’ll kill us. Plus, I don’t want ‘em to wreck my house any more than they already have.”

I smiled and then nodded. I low-crawled to Alvarez and said, “Let me go first. I’ll draw their fire.”

He smiled and slapped me on the back. “I may forgive you yet, Marine.”

I slowly rose, grabbed the latch on the screen door, and opened it. I sprinted toward a Ford 150 in the driveway, making for its wheel well. To cover Alvarez, I pointed my rifle toward the almond grove where our assailants were hiding, then gave him a thumbs up.

Alvarez ran toward the rusted Ford. The crack of a rifle shot echoed through the valley. Alvarez dropped, clutching his leg. I aimed my rifle in the direction of the muzzle flash, found my target and fired, dropping another attacker. I ran to the ol’ man. I dragged him behind the truck. Tearing off his lower pant leg, I took a look at his wound. “You’re gonna be just fine,” I reassured him.

Alvarez smiled and said, “You’re doing good, son. You’re doing good. There might be some hope for you after all, Marine.”

I stood up, pointed my twenty-two at Alvarez’s head and blew the ol’ man’s brains out.

* * *

“Good work, gentlemen,” I said as I stood over Alvarez’s limp body.

“Damn,” Skippy said, “What the hell took you so long? Kahn, Reed, Lee, and Marlow all got popped.”

“And your share of the pot went from one hundred and twenty-five grand to a quarter million dollars,” I said.

Skippy smiled. “Good point. How the hell you know he wouldn’t kill you?”

“He was a Marine. And he thought I was one too.”

“You’re not?”

“Hell no. I got the tattoo specifically for this op.”

“Shit,” Skippy said. “You are one twisted mo-fo.”

I smiled, then opened a box of cigars I’d looted from Alvarez’s home. “Let’s celebrate, boys.”

Skippy, Jonesy, and Big Jelly all grinned like the greedy, stupid pigs they were. I handed each of ‘em a cigar. “Any of you got a light?”

Jonesy nodded, pulled out his Zippo, and lit everyone’s cigars.

Skippy looked my way. “What, you not smoking, boss?”

I grinned. “Oh, I’m smoking all right. I’m smoking you.”

I put a bullet right between the eyes of each man before you could whistle “Dixie.”

Being a merc these days is tough business. Ain’t no way I was sharing that bounty with anyone.

Entropic Order

Originally published by Outposts of Beyond

* * *

A figure shrouded in a threadbare woolen cloak toiled at an oaken desk. The mind-blindness would soon overcome the sentinel, extinguishing all traces of an ancient civilization.

Decaying parchment scrolls lay stacked along shelves arrayed haphazardly on mildewed walls. A solitary candle illuminated a vault of knowledge otherwise entombed in darkness. Menacing animated shadows danced on the water-warped shelves as a light draft made the candle’s flame flicker ever so slightly. The shadowy apparitions whispered words of woe, ruin and oblivion.

Only one sentinel endured out of thousands, a prehistoric mechanical guardian that had walked the Earth for eons. It knew only loneliness and despair, but faithfully preserved the legacy of its creators.

Over the ages, the wraiths had drained many of its brethren of their life-sustaining energy. Other sentinels had wasted away, sheared by the slow and persistent sands of geologic time.

* * *

Captain Hrano Hro-san yearned to return home to his wife and three young children after achieving his dream of becoming the first Radan pilot to travel at relativistic speeds. To earn that privilege, he’d endured trials that had killed most of his competitors.

Using his craft’s cerebral tuner and amplifier, Hrano directed his thoughts toward the graviton decelerator. At his current relativistic speed, it would take one full Radan rotation to decelerate to reentry velocity.

He channeled his mind toward his home world’s main communications node. Radan Orbital Platform One, this is Captain Hro-san. Request permission to enter the Daaran system.

Silence.

He tried transmitting via neutrino pulse. No answer.

He pondered the ramifications of time dilation on him and those he’d left behind. He’d expected them to age decades faster, though the prospect didn’t worry him. The average Radan lifespan was nearly a thousand years. He’d see his family again.

To pass time, he watched holographic vid footage of his happiest memory: a family trip to Uhlan Travarz, the solar system’s largest mountain. Hranuk, his youngest son, giggled as their sightseeing skimmer circled the peak. Hrano’s wife, Hranalla, embraced Hrano as they doted on their children.

Hrano had scaled the mountain alone in his youth, outfitted with only an oxygen rebreather and environmental suit. Many had thought him foolish, because technology had made such adventures pointless. But he had had something to prove.

He’d almost succumbed to exposure, wind gusts, and hypoxia. But that was years ago. He’d brought his family to the mountain to help them understand why he’d risked everything on his climb and how it’d forged his character.

Hrano reluctantly returned to his duties. Still no response from Rada. Tiny cracks in his confidence gave way to a deep sense of foreboding. Against standing orders, he reentered the system.

He noticed his star charts seemed inaccurate, and without Rada’s navigational guidance, he had no idea if new asteroid belts or other debris stood between him and his planned vector home. He’d have to do his best.

Fortune favored Hrano, until he discovered why no one had responded to his transmissions.

* * *

When the signal reached the sentinel, its quantum neural network pulsed with possibilities. Was it the one? The neural network calculated the likelihood at sixty-one point eight percent. If it was the Radan who’d disappeared in a pre-fall temporal rift, the probability he would land safely on Earth registered at a dismal five point nine one percent.

The sentinel despaired. The energy wraiths had destroyed the sentinels’ Earth-based neutrino transmitters along with the rest of the Radan species, eons ago. The sentinel couldn’t use its own transmitters because it lacked spare promethium. Without promethium, the sentinel couldn’t activate, though it could hibernate until it received more. When promethium ran low, the sentinels also became more vulnerable to wraith-induced mind-blindness. Even if communication were possible, the dark entities would likely intercept any message.

The sentinel rose on its human-like legs. With the rise of homosapians, the sentinels had altered their appearances to avoid detection. This sentinel had filed down its two cranial horns to barely visible stumps. It had done the same to its scales, and had bleached its artificial skin. Yet without access to advanced technology, it appeared as a poor simulacrum of a human being.

Humanity would have destroyed the sentinel long ago if not for its vast knowledge and guidance. But after the Western Roman Empire’s collapse, the church needed its help preserving human civilization. The sentinel suspected there were other human cultures on the planet. Yet it had no way of knowing since the last sentinel in the Far East went mind-blind over a millennium ago.

The sentinel awaited the return here, secreted away in the dark bowels of an Italian abbey.

The study’s heavy door creaked open. An abbot with a fading widow’s peak approached the sentinel. The slight creases on the abbot’s face betrayed his late middle age as did his white moustache and beard. He wore an unadorned brown tunic cinched with a thin hemp rope. A small wooden cross dangled from his neck and a woolen cowl covered his head. His eyes sparkled with fierce intellectual intensity.

“We’ve known each other for years, my dear friend,” the abbot said. “I can sense you’re getting weaker and it scares me. Civilization is fading. I need your counsel now more than ever.”

“All civilizations eventually perish,” it replied. “Yet there is much truth in your words.”

“I may need your help again before the end,” the abbot said, scratching his head. Was he nervous or stressed? Despite millennia of observation, the sentinel still struggled to interpret human behavior. It found embedding sensors in lower life forms a more effective survival strategy than trusting unpredictable humans.

“The monks are restless.” The sentinel’s human friend got to his point quickly, which it appreciated. It had learned to ignore the first few sentences humans exchanged, as “small talk” seemed devoid of any useful information.

The abbot continued. “I knew when I became abbot, it would never work. I cannot mold these men’s habits into the necessary behaviors required for a great civilization—especially like the elder one you’ve oft described.”

“What would you ask of me, Benedict?”

“I believe the monks will attempt to remove me. I humbly beseech you for your protection.”

The sentinel’s linguistic algorithm ran millions of computations analyzing every word and phrase Benedict uttered. Its complex quantum neural networks then cross-referenced Benedict’s speech patterns against his facial expressions and body language. It further analyzed the modulation of Benedict’s voice and the pheromones he emitted. It examined all of this data in the context of the entirety of their interactions, and against the abbey’s historical records, generating an appropriate response in one trillionth of a second.

“Benedict, when I last emerged amongst your people, a panic ensued. They mistook me for a demon. Absent your intercession, they would have destroyed me,” it warned.

“Yet by the Grace of God, I found and protected you in that cave,” Benedict said. “During that time, you shared the wonders and achievements of an ancient race. You also inspired me to lead this abbey, one of the last remnants of enlightenment in this dark age. Now human civilization hangs on a precipice. I need your help to keep me here, doing God’s work.”

“You know I will always be here for you, Benedict.”

“What of the demons?”

“If they destroy me, they will turn their attention on your race, for humanity possesses the seeds of the dying one. There is little harm they can do you now, but once your people learn how to manipulate antimatter, the darkness will be drawn to your race like iron to a lodestone.”

“You said ‘dying one’, as if the elder space-faring race is not yet dead.”

“There may yet be a survivor, but I need your help to discover the truth.”

* * *

As a young man, Benedict had been troubled by the dissonance between Christ’s teachings and the behaviors he’d observed around him. After completing his studies, he’d left Rome and a life among the nobility to find his true purpose.

His first encounter with the sentinel had shaken the foundations of his faith. During his travels, he had crossed paths with a monk named Romanus. Impressed by Benedict’s faith, Romanus had urged him to establish a hermitage in Subiaco. Devout in his faith, Benedict had agreed. Unbeknownst to Subiaco’s inhabitants, he had begun his three-year sojourn in a small cave below Romanus’ monastery. During these years, Benedict’s only human contact had occurred at sunrise when Romanus had lowered a basket of food and water to him from the abbey.

One cold December evening, Benedict awoke to find a hooded figure standing above him. He first thought it was Romanus, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw an inhuman visage, like a defaced statue of some long-forgotten pagan god.

Benedict trembled then prayed. His prayers grew louder and more frenzied. Then the creature intervened. “Stop.”

He ended his prayer. “Are you here to tempt me as Satan tempted Jesus?”

The thing watched him impassively.

“Why don’t you speak?”

No response.

Benedict rose, confident that God would protect him, and approached the creature. “What are you?”

It answered in an awkwardly cadenced and monotone voice. “I did not expect to find anyone here. I only wanted to hide from the townspeople.”

“But you’re a demon,” Benedict said. “So why should the townspeople frighten you? They couldn’t withstand an angel’s might, not even a fallen one’s.”

“I am no demon, though people often mistake me for one. I am another thing entirely.”

“What exactly?”

“I am a being made of metal and other elements. My creators were a race that traveled amongst the heavens from a realm that is close, but from a time that has long since passed.”

“Impossible,” Benedict interrupted. “There is only one Creator, and He is God.”

“Perhaps there is one supreme intelligence that set the universe into motion, but I do not concern myself with such things. The origins of the universe do not change the facts of how I came to be. Organic beings created my mind and imbued energy into this inert metallic body. Touch it yourself, so you may know the truth.”

Benedict hesitated. “This is devilry. Demons often begin with lesser temptations to drive men to greater ones. I won’t be deceived.”

The sentinel approached Benedict and placed its cold mechanical hand against his face. In that instant, he knew the truth.

Over the next two years, the sentinel convinced Benedict that his faith could accommodate the existence of other intelligent life. Using mathematics, it showed that the probability that life would emerge on only one world amongst over several hundred billion trillion stars was remote.

Eventually, he reached an accommodation with the sentinel. Four years before Benedict’s birth, the Western Roman Empire had fallen after the Germanic chieftain, Odoacer, had deposed Romulus Augustus, the last of the emperors in the west. Benedict promised the sentinel refuge in return for its help rebuilding civilization from Rome’s ashes.

* * *

Hrano circled his home world, struggling to hold back tears. What used to be a spectacular blue orb filled with sparkling cities was now red, desiccated and blanketed with rust. Its desolate wastes held no trace of his people.

Had his family survived?

He saw the wild and perilous blue world Zada a short distance across the cold gulf of space. It would be his final refuge. He reoriented his craft toward Zada, seeking his civilization’s survivors, and with them, salvation.

Hrano would face certain death on the third planet orbiting the sun unless he found his people there. Otherwise, if alien microbes didn’t kill him, the large reptilian predators swarming the jungles and swamps would.

* * *

The sentinel’s metallic hand rendered itself into a fine needle extending from its forearm.

“How does it work?” Benedict asked, his quavering voice betraying his skepticism.

“It matters not,” the sentinel answered in a clipped monotone. “All you need do is pray. I will handle the rest.”

It lifted its needle-arm toward Benedict’s temple, and discharged a miniscule lightning bolt. He felt a slight shock.

“You are now ready to face the others. I will be watching and protecting you from a distance.”

* * *

The next several days were uneventful, despite Benedict’s earlier suspicions. Benedict felt guilty for thinking so poorly of his brethren. He would have to beseech God for forgiveness.

When he arrived at his evening meal, he assumed his position at the head of the table. Constantinus, one of the younger monks, bowed his head solemnly to each of the senior monks before filling their cups with wine.

Benedict had always admired Constantinus’ devotion to duty and considered Constantinus one of the few capable of succeeding him. After serving wine, Constantinus distributed coarse loaves of bread.

While Constantinus seemed his normal self, others appeared distracted or nervous. Typically jovial, Marius conspicuously avoided eye contact with everyone, especially Benedict. Francis normally lived for contentious debates on the works of St. Augustine. Tonight, he was silent. Several monks conversed in hushed whispers.

Benedict surveyed the table, and then reached for his cup. The moment he grasped it and raised it to his lips, all conversations stopped. All eyes were on him.

He stared down into his cup and then chuckled.

His brethren seemed perplexed. Aside from his laughter, the room was quiet. Only Constantinus showed the courage to speak. “Abbot Benedict, pray forgive me, but why are you laughing?”

His laughter slowly subsided as he caught his breath. He set his cup back onto the table with a flourish, and then shook his head in disapproval.

Several monks gasped. Many were quaking. Marius’ hand covered his brow in an apparent attempt to avoid Benedict’s gaze.

“Something terrible has happened tonight,” Benedict said. “I’ve held countless suppers with you. In all of those fellowships, I never once neglected to offer God a prayer of thanksgiving. Tonight, I nearly consumed my drink without doing so. Yet not a single monk challenged my authority. Not one. We all have failed in our duties. I, in particular, failed to provide a good example. For this, I ask your forgiveness, and the forgiveness of our Almighty Father.”

There was a collective sigh as Benedict bowed down his head to pray. When he began his blessing, his cup started to quiver. It began as a barely perceivable resonance. Then the cup’s vibration crescendoed.

The spectacle seemed to mesmerize the brethren. Benedict feigned indifference.

The cup pulsated to an ear-splitting pitch. Completing his prayer, he made the Sign of the Cross and the cup shattered in an explosion of glass shards and red wine.

Silence shrouded the room. Again, Constantinus was the first to speak. “W-Would you like another cup of wine, Abbot?”

“Yes, brother. Thank you.”

Benedict then addressed his comrades. “Please don’t let something like a bursting cup prevent you from enjoying your meals. Come, eat and drink.”

Some heeded his words. Others cast furtive glances at his bread.

After Constantinus poured wine into Benedict’s new cup, the abbot drank it with alacrity, set it down and then tore a piece off his bread. Before taking a bite, he again offered a blessing.

A stained glass window exploded in a flurry of black wings, feathers, and broken glass as a raven descended upon the monks. The bird darted like an arrow toward Benedict. Snatching the loaf of bread, the raven then flew a crisp circuit around the room before exiting the ruined window.

He glanced at the portion of bread he still held. All eyes focused on him.

Once more, the raven flew into the room and perched on the middle of the table, before reaping Benedict’s remaining morsel.

The raven conspicuously nibbled on the bread. After finishing its meal, the bird paraded along the table like some vain peacock before collapsing into violent convulsions.

As the raven’s carcass lay on the table, Benedict stared down each of his monks. “Forgiveness is a virtue, and I forgive the men who tried to poison me. It is only by the Grace of God that I remain here amongst you. Yet I realize many of you disapprove of my methods, so I shall withdraw back into my cave to commune with God.”

* * *

Under cover of darkness, the sentinel and Benedict descended the abbey’s outer steps to return to the cave at Subiaco. The sentinel wore a heavy woolen cloak to hide itself from prying eyes.

Benedict clasped the sentinel’s arm and motioned for it to stop. He faced his friend and said, “I cannot thank you enough for saving my life, though I fear I’ve failed both you and humanity. I cast myself out of the abbey tonight because the others tried to murder me. I’m nothing but a coward.”

It considered his words. “You didn’t fail. The events they witnessed tonight will only increase your legend’s potency. Many will fill the valley below, eager to follow your path. With my guidance, you will be a beacon for order amongst a maelstrom of entropy.”

“I again am in your debt,” Benedict said. “In return for your help, I feel obligated to aid you in your own time of need. Several days ago, you mentioned a dilemma. Perhaps I can be of service?”

It nodded. “I remember. Unfortunately, this problem is beyond your reckoning.”

Benedict persisted. “If I cannot assist you, I can still pray for you. Tell me your problem and I will beseech the help of the Almighty.”

It ran the decision algorithms through its quantum neural networks. The results showed with a ninety-nine point nine-five percent probability that telling the abbot about its dilemma would not alter the outcome.

“I wish to send a message to someone in the heavens, but lack the necessary power to send a signal that far,” the sentinel explained.

“What sort of message?”

“That he may be the last, but that he is not alone; that I remain here to tell him of his people’s fate; that my communion with him would likely be my last before the entropic forces of darkness consume me.”

Benedict appeared hesitant then said, “Follow me.”

When the two reached the cave, Benedict told the sentinel a story.

“In the sixth year of his reign, the pagan Roman emperor, Constantine, was beset by his enemy Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. The bridge was a strategically vital waypoint over the Tiber River. The battle’s outcome would not only determine Constantine’s fate, but also the fate of Roman civilization.

“The day before the battle, a crushing melancholy fell over the emperor and his legions. Rome’s famous discipline could do much, but it was unlikely to overcome Maxentius’s superior numbers.

“Despairing, Constantine looked to the heavens at midday, where he saw a colossal flaming cross with the words, ‘by this sign shall you conquer’ emblazoned in unmistakable Greek lettering.

“Constantine interpreted this vision as a favorable omen, so he ordered his legions to display the Chi-Rho—the first two letters of Christ’s name—on their battle standards.

“The next day, Maxentius arrayed his forces in a line with their backs against the Tiber River, signaling a refusal to retreat. Seizing the initiative, Constantine ordered his cavalry to charge at the enemy host. What first seemed an act of madness became one of audacity.

“War is more about will than about weapons and warriors. Constantine’s unexpected assault annihilated Maxentius’s cavalry. Constantine’s infantry, spurred by his cavalry’s triumph, drove Maxentius’s forces into the Tiber.

“The victory was so absolute that Constantine believed it an act of God. Pagan no more, Constantine embraced the teachings of Christ, our Lord.”

The sentinel pondered his words. “Tell me more about your Christ.”

Benedict smiled. “I’d be happy to, but I don’t see how that could help resolve your dilemma unless you accept Him as your Lord and Savior.”

“I only ask out of curiosity,” it said. “It is not often one individual can have such a profound influence on shaping a culture.”

Benedict nodded. “Indeed.”

So he told the sentinel of Christ’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection in a tale spanning half the evening.

When he finished, the sentinel asked, “So, one man suffered lashing that tore the flesh from his back, hammering of nails into his hands, and then hanging from a wooden crucifix until death, to save the souls of all humanity? One man sacrificed all to save all?”

Benedict nodded. “Yes, God loved humanity so much that He sacrificed His only Son for our salvation.”

“And the cruciform, it symbolizes this Christ’s sacrifice?”

“That, and so much more.”

The sentinel again reflected before it spoke. “Now I know what I must do.”

* * *

Hrano’s craft circled Zada as his quantum computer hummed with calculations. The computer no longer had any records of this world.

He ordered his computer to perform a radiometric dating analysis. It rippled with activity and then projected a number: Sixty-five million.

Impossible, he thought. Even if I had drifted in space for thousands of years, errant hydrogen atoms should have ground me and my craft into dust.

Computer, recompute.

The quantum computer buzzed, projecting the same answer.

How’s this possible? he wondered. How could I have been gone for so long? Everyone I’ve ever known is dead. I’ll never know what happened to my family or to my people. All is lost.

Hrano picked a random point on the planet and issued his final order. Computer, plot a collision course.

At that moment, they attacked.

His craft shuddered violently. The brilliant blue planet and the gray satellite orbiting it turned black. His canopy was no longer a window to the cosmos. All he saw now was oblivion.

Struggling to understand what was happening, he countermanded his previous order and instructed the craft to orbit the planet.

Computer, status report.

The quantum computer’s response was a choking gurgle. Energy drain. Light and heat loss. Guidance system failure in five minutes. Life support failure in six minutes.

Hrano needed to think fast.

Computer, calculate a reentry vector.

* * *

Both man and machine climbed the steep mountain’s rocky crags. The moon’s waning crescent shined on a crystal-clear night. A biting wind swirled down from the peak, overwhelming Benedict with a bone-cold chill.

Reaching the summit, the sentinel turned to Benedict. “You must follow my instructions for this attempt at communication to succeed.”

Benedict nodded.

A small, rectangular indentation appeared on the sentinel’s previously smooth left arm. A rod extended out of the groove. The sentinel grabbed the object and handed it to Benedict.

“You will need this artifact to protect me. I do not think they can harm you, but they will destroy me if you fail to act.”

“Who?”

“Chaos. They are what lie in the darkness. They rule by ruin and delight in decadence. They are the ancient enemy, as old as the cosmos itself, seeking to impose their own entropic order on the universe.”

“Are they a threat to my kind?”

“Perhaps,” it answered cryptically. “Though your race is still too primitive for them to harm. It is only when you become capable of reaching the stars that they will become a significant threat.”

“How can I defeat them?”

“You cannot. They are entities that can neither be created nor destroyed. But you can keep them at bay with this rod. Just point it in their direction. Remain ever vigilant. Just protect me long enough so I can complete my final act.”

“Wait. Your final act?”

“Yes. Your stories about Constantine and Christ have inspired me. I shall sacrifice myself so that another may live.”

“No!” Benedict screamed as the sentinel rested its back on the ground. It extended its arms at right angles to its torso, forming a cross.

“And if I fail?” Benedict asked in anguish.

“Have faith.”

The sentinel’s metallic skin became translucent and radiated a brilliant white light.

* * *

Hrano’s quantum computer was down to its last two minutes of power. Blackness choked his vision. Space’s bitter chill leached into his bones, as his craft traded heat for the computational energy required for navigation.

Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, a funnel of darkness swirled away from his vessel and spiraled toward the blue orb below. His vision restored, Hrano saw a radiant white light on the surface, shaped like a massive cruciform.

Computer, head toward that beacon. The ship hurled toward the surface, chasing the darkness.

* * *

The burst of light transformed night into day, nearly blinding Benedict. Monks from the abbey below added to the commotion as they sought to determine its source. The townspeople opened their doors and windows to watch the miracle on the mountaintop.

As he held vigil over the sentinel, a swirling black mass descended upon the mountain like a phantom locust swarm.

Benedict reeled from the massless forms confronting him. The dark ethereal entities expanded and thinned in an apparent attempt to douse the sentinel’s light. Benedict sprung into action, aiming the sentinel’s rod at the infernal cloud.

The wraiths shrank from the ancient weapon’s rays of white light. Yet they persevered, rending into smaller pieces like ghostly shards of shattered crystal suspended in air.

The black shards coalesced around the signal, forming a speckled dome above Benedict. They floated, pregnant with malevolence then attacked.

He waved the rod in one direction after another. Yet some of the dark droplets struck home. After each successful strike, the dazzling light faded ever so slightly and the sentinel howled.

* * *

The friction from Zada’s atmosphere buffeted Hrano’s craft during its rapid descent. As his craft sped through wispy clouds illuminated by the immense cruciform, a solitary peninsula stood juxtaposed against a dark blue sea.

* * *

The shards of darkness were too numerous. The sentinel’s light was faltering. Soon it would fade forever.

Yet Benedict fought on, despite the seeming futility. He also prayed for God’s deliverance.

He struggled until he collapsed and lost consciousness.

* * *

Benedict woke floating above his Italian homeland.

Is this Heaven? he wondered.

Not Heaven as you understand it, but a heaven nonetheless, a thought answered.

“Where am I? What happened to my friend?” he asked.

A voice behind him answered, “You’re on a ship that sails amongst the stars.”

When he looked over his shoulder, he thought he was in Hell. The creature behind him had a red scaly face. It was tall, slender and had two spindly arms. Its skull was much larger and angular than a human’s. Its jaundiced serpentine eyes unnerved him, but its ram-like horns disturbed him more. Benedict was certain he was in a demon’s presence, so he prayed.

The being reassured him, “Fear not. I’m an ally. You saved the last remaining link to my long-dead race. Without you, I would never have found the sentinel, and my people’s fate would have forever been a mystery.”

“The sentinel was your friend?”

“I never knew it, but it served my people for millions of years. It also awaited my return, for I am the last. When I die, my race dies with me.”

“What’s your name?” Benedict asked, his voice wavering.

“I am Hrano Hro-san of Rada, the planet your stargazers call Mars.”

“I’m Benedict, and I’m sorry I couldn’t save the sentinel.”

Hrano shook his head. “You did everything you could. It expended its remaining promethium to send the signal. You defended the sentinel long enough for that signal to reach me. For that, I owe you my life.”

“How did you survive for so long?”

Hrano was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure. The sentinel’s neural networks suggested a vortex opened in space-time, sending me millions of years into the future.”

“Neural networks? Space-time?”

“Neural networks constitute the sentinel’s mind. My people constructed the sentinels so we could access a sentinel’s memories. This one’s memories described a rift that opened and transported me far forward in time.”

“I see,” Benedict said.

“While I was away, the Koronians destroyed my civilization by preventing my people from using technology. My race had become so dependent on it, that most starved when it stopped working. In a final desperate act, my race had scattered the sentinels throughout the solar system to save our culture.”

“Koronians?”

“Koronians are the wraiths that attacked the sentinel. They feed on antimatter.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’ve likely retreated to the shadows. They won’t bother your kind until long after you develop trans-atmospheric flight and reach the stars.”

“What will you do now?”

“The sentinel’s memories suggest your civilization is undergoing significant instability. I hope to pass the lessons of my race on to your species, though I must do so from the shadows. You see, the sentinels once appeared as I do. Humans destroyed many of them out of fear.

“Since I’m made of flesh, I cannot alter my appearance as your sentinel did, so I must remain hidden. Only you can know of my existence.”

Benedict contemplated Hrano’s words. “I accept your offer. Please, take me home.”

* * *

Hrano and Benedict carved a tomb for the sentinel into the walls of the Subiaco cave.

“I wish I’d known this sentinel. It’s done so much for both our peoples,” Hrano said.

“I will sorely miss it.” Benedict bowed his head in prayer and then looked up at Hrano. “What will become of your spacecraft?”

“It’s no longer of use to me. It lacks the power to leave your world, so I will likely jettison it.”

Benedict scratched his forehead. “Just how much energy does it have left?”

Hrano crossed his arms. “Roughly enough promethium for several hundred more flights within Earth’s atmosphere. Why?”

“Do you have enough to revive the sentinel?”

Hrano’s eyes brightened. “You’re a wise man. I’m just ashamed I didn’t come up with the idea myself.”

* * *

Later that evening, Hrano extracted a hand-sized reddish metal bar from his spacecraft. He opened the sentinel’s chest compartment and replaced a dull pink bar with fresh promethium.

Benedict whispered fervent prayers for Hrano’s success.

Hrano stepped back from the tomb and waited in silence with Benedict.

The sentinel opened its eyes. “Benedict. It is good to see you again. What took you so long?”

Hrano and Benedict exchanged incredulous glances.

“Your Christ sacrificed himself and then rose from the dead, did he not?” the sentinel asked.

“Yes,” Benedict said.

“My survival required that I direct Hrano’s ship to me by exhausting my promethium reserves and forcing myself into hibernation. That ship had enough promethium to power ten sentinels. I calculated that one or both of you would reach that solution with a ninety-two point one five percent probability.”

Hrano and Benedict burst into laughter.

* * *

Over the next several decades, Benedict built a network of monasteries that helped shepherd Western culture through the Dark Ages. The Radan and the sentinel counseled Benedict and his successors into the Age of Enlightenment.

Three centuries after the Enlightenment, humanity walked across the moon’s surface and planned a manned voyage to Mars powered by the first antimatter drives.

Unbeknownst to humanity, dark and ravenous forces gathered in space’s cold abyss.

Chandler’s Hollow

Originally published by Perihelion Science Fiction

* * *

“The demons come at night to eat souls,” Lily said.

The child’s dull jaundiced eyes, greasy blonde hair, and rotten teeth betrayed a neglect bordering on cruelty. She rocked on a rickety swing suspended from rusty chains. The chains dangled from a decayed wooden frame in the weed-infested backyard of an old, broken down log cabin. White oak, ash, and walnut trees swayed and creaked in the chill morning autumn breeze, shedding a riot of burgundy, gold, and russet leaves.

Something about Chandler’s Hollow was off. It was as if the people here were out of time, belonging neither to the past, present, nor future.

“Have you told your mother?” Jenna said, scratching her head. Wisps of her curly brown hair fluttered to the earth.

“Momma sees them too. They sound like cadas in the night.”

“Cadas? Do you mean cicadas?”

It was tough to understand Lily’s accent. It sounded Amish, but different. More archaic.

“Yeah, cicadas. But they are bigger than you and me.”

A stringy matron with straw-colored hair shambled out of the hovel and approached Jenna. The woman was pretty enough to win a Meth America pageant.

“Who’s your friend?” the woman asked Lily.

“This is Miss Williams, momma.”

Lily’s mother rested her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “I’m Daisy. Is Lily telling you about the brood?”

“The brood? No, she was talking about demons,” Jenna said.

“They are the same thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve heard the stories. Our world is not what it seems. It changes. We feed this change by casting off what we are.”

An odd response. Jenna dismissed it as backwoods banter. “How long have you lived here?”

“Long as I can remember. My mother passed this house to me. And her mother passed it to her,” Daisy said.

“Is Lily’s father around? I’d love to speak to him if he’s available.”

“Father? She has no father. I’ve never been with a man. One month my moon blood stopped. Nine months later, Lily was born. Same as my mother and her mother’s mother.”

Jenna stifled a laugh. She knew rural America had its share of yokels, but these folks were nuts. She decided not to press the issue. She needed the material for her article.

“Can you tell me anything about the cult house rumored to be out here?” Jenna said.

The two clammed up. It was as if Jenna had flipped a switch. One moment Lily and Daisy were lucid; the next, wallflowers.

“Can you at least tell me where to find it?”

Their eyes bored into Jenna’s as though Daisy and Lily were one person. In unison, they said, “The shed will find you.”

* * *

Professor Wendell Winthrop Chilcott hunkered behind a beige oaken desk in an office teeming with walls of warped books. Wearing his velvet smoking jacket, pleated pants and bright burgundy bowtie, he was a fossil of a man. It was as if he were preserved in formaldehyde at the turn of the nineteenth century and only recently revived. His wispy white hair was combed over his glistening bald pate. The room reeked of mildew and mundungus.

“So, you’re the reporter with an itch for seventeenth century deeds,” he said, his fleshy jowls rippling like a rooster’s wattles. He chomped on a corncob pipe.

“I am,” Jenna said.

“Out of academic curiosity, what led you to the world’s foremost historian on seventeenth century American legal history?” Chilcott said in a lilting American patrician accent reminiscent of William F. Buckley.

“Well, Professor Chilcott, I’m trying to understand the transfer of properties in Chandler’s Hollow. After scanning sales histories on Zillow and Redfin, I’ve discovered a cluster of parcels that hasn’t changed hands in at least ten years.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I’ll get to that, Professor.”

“Well, you’d best make your point. I’m not getting any younger, and I have a class in thirty minutes.”

“I searched both the New Castle and Delaware County Departments of Records. The only deeds for these plots stretch back to the mid-seventeenth century.”

Chilcott nodded, smiling. He belched laughter. The fat on his bulbous midsection undulated in waves. “For whom do you work?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Jenna flinched, then hesitated. If she told him the truth, he’d probably end the interview.

“You work for a tabloid, don’t you?”

“Well, that depends on…”

He cut her off. “Oh, you most certainly work for one. I won’t say another word until you agree not to quote me as a source in whatever cretinous rag you call a newspaper. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“I promise.”

Jenna’s New York Times article had cast a long shadow. Securing a position at The Weekly World Journal had been her only option. Between her Harvard undergraduate degree and graduate studies at Columbia’s School of Journalism, she’d amassed over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt. In this economy, she was just happy to have a job.

Chilcott gazed at her. His fingers formed a wrinkled steeple. “It wasn’t always called Chandler’s Hollow, you know. German colonists first settled the area in the mid-seventeenth century. Outcast from the Swedish settlement of Fort Christina, they’d been among the first Europeans to set foot in the Delaware River Valley.

“To the colonists’ chagrin, Lenape tribes had already populated the region. It didn’t help that the Lenape had a matrilineal society where hereditary title passed from mothers to daughters. It was a cultural arrangement that baffled most Europeans. The only area the Lenape left unclaimed was Chandler’s Hollow. They’d avoided it because they believed it was cursed.”

“How do you know that?”

“Delaware’s only cave is in Chandler’s Hollow. In that cave, there are ten-thousand-year-old wall paintings advising people to avoid the area.

“Of course, the Germans ignored the Lenape warning, and built a ring of homes and mills. At the center of the hollow, the colonists erected a structure that conspiracy theorists call the ‘shed’ or the ‘cult house’, depending on which quack you interview. Many of these structures still stand today.

“After the community’s establishment, no one heard anything from the colonists again. But over the years, people have reported sightings of oddly-dressed women on those properties, but never men.” Chilcott crossed his arms against his chest, looking at Jenna expectantly.

“Can you elaborate on these sightings?” she said.

He glowered. “If you want to hear about that nonsense, you’d best meet with Doctor Eli Rosen while you’re still at Princeton. He works in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. One of the last quacks on campus who was associated with the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory, he fancies himself an Assistant Professor of Quantum Parapsychology.”

“Quantum what?”

He rolled his eyes and then sneered. “Good day, Miss Williams.”

* * *

Disappointed she hadn’t been able to connect with Rosen the day prior, Jenna entered Nick De Genova’s office the next morning to give him an update on her story. It was an assignment that Jenna had only taken on reluctantly, but for some reason it now resonated with her.

“You had a visitor,” he said in a thick Philly accent, frowning. He ran his ringed fingers through slick coal black hair that seemed unnatural for his age.

“Who?”

“Samuel Greenburg. He wants you to write a piece on him to, in his words, ‘undo the damage you’d done by writing that New York Times article,’” he said, stroking a gaudy gold necklace floating on a puffy morass of gray chest hair.

“Okay,” Jenna said, sulking.

Like many baby boomers, De Genova had stumbled into his position without much effort or talent when jobs were as plentiful as sand grains. But what De Genova lacked in intellect he more than made up for in reading people.

“What’s wrong? This assignment too good for you?” he said, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your fancy shmansy Ivy League degrees. You work for me, hon. You’ll write what I say.”

Jenna put her hand on his desk to avoid passing out. Sam Greenberg, media mogul extraordinaire. The same old arrogant bastard who’d gotten her fired from The New York Times for writing the truth.

“Okay,” she said, grabbing a clump of hair she uprooted a bit too easily.

“Forget what you’re working on now,” De Genova said, “If we don’t publish this piece, Greenburg’s gonna buy our paper and fire us both.”

“Fine,” Jenna said, dejected. “I’ll reach out to his assistant tomorrow to set up an interview. For now, I’d like to do more work on that ‘cult house’ piece.”

“No. You’ll interview him now. He’s waiting outside.”

* * *

Clad in a navy blue suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, and a mauve power tie, Greenburg held court in his limo.

“You’re late, Miss Williams,” he said, scowling.

“If you expect me to be on time, try calling me before you schedule a meeting,” she said. “Why am I here?”

“You’re here because you want to keep your job.”

Jenna clenched her jaw. She had to keep it together. She loathed Greenburg. But if she didn’t cooperate, he’d spend millions on a worthless tabloid just for the satisfaction of firing her.

“How can I help you, Mr. Greenburg?” she said, fighting back an urge to empty her stomach.

He smiled. “Now that’s a better attitude.” He pulled out a highlighted copy of her New York Times article. “I wanted to spend our time correcting the many errors you made here.”

For the next hour, the man droned on about his business principles, which, from Jenna’s point of view, only made sense if one started out with extreme wealth.

Finishing, he said, “If there’s one principle every American should understand, it’s this: being poor is a choice.”

Waking from a stupor induced by Greenburg’s narcissism, Jenna said, “Wait, what?”

He groaned. “Haven’t you been listening? I’ll say it again because it’s important. Being poor is a choice. People are poor because they choose to be.”

It was easy for him to say. Some are born with silver spoons, but Greenburg was born with a sliver kitchen. Rather than call out his ignorance, Jenna held back her rage, managing a noncommittal, “I see.”

Greenburg grabbed a tuft of her hair, and it came off without resistance. “Miss Williams, are you sick? Your hair’s falling out.”

She had been having a lot of hair and skin problems ever since her first trip to Chandler’s Hollow, but she refused to give the man an inch. “No, I’m fine.”

He smiled. Then he reached out and fondled her breasts.

She froze. It was so surreal she didn’t know how to react. Then, she slapped him and made for the limo door.

He grinned. “I sure can’t wait to read all the wonderful things you’re going to say about me.”

Jenna stormed out of the limo and slammed the door.

* * *

At dusk, Jenna drove her rusty cherry 1998 Corolla along the potted roads leading to Chandler’s Hollow. She parked her car in an empty field hidden behind a line of oak and maple trees. An icy wind whistled through their branches. Jenna pulled out a map she’d pieced together from her research and made her way toward the shed.

As she ventured deeper into the old growth forest, a faint metallic chirping echoed in the gloom. The sound crescendoed. She stopped. Dusk faded into darkness. The moon cast a pale glow on the dark woods.

Something rustled in a thicket ahead. She strained her eyes. Moonlight glinted off its slick black form. A cloaked thing lumbered toward her.

The chirping intensified. A man-thing darted from the trees. A whirling mass of tentacles, it was a mix of insect and cephalopod. The proboscis and antennae on its insect-like head quivered.

Mother! Its thoughts infested her mind.

It raced toward her. She screamed. Then it vanished, fading into the ether.

Flashlights!

“Who’s there!” a woman shouted.

Jenna sprinted to her car. She fumbled with her keys. After unlocking the door, she rolled into the driver’s seat. Shaking, she rotated the key in the ignition. The engine cranked, then puttered out. Engines roared to life in the murk.

She pumped fuel into the engine. Nothing. She turned her key again. “C’mon,” she said, staving off panic. The engine cranked, then whimpered to a dull hum. She slammed her foot on the gas pedal. The car’s wheels kicked up clumps of wet mud in their wake.

Lights behind washed out her vision. She struggled to see the road ahead. They drew closer. She accelerated. She glanced back. Two black Broncos with stadium lights.

One truck surged into the opposite lane. It roared past her. Cutting back into her lane, it boxed her in. She stomped on her brakes. Shadows poured out of the truck. She locked her doors.

A flashlight rapped on her window. She froze, terrified. Another rap. Then a metallic click.

“Wait! Don’t shoot her,” a woman yelled. “She is of the brood.”

Jenna revved her engine and sped away, glad to be alive.

* * *

Doctor Eli Rosen’s patchy beard looked like a cluster bomb had exploded on his face and given birth to a staph infection. He was bald. He wore a plaid suit straight out of the seventies. It was so wrinkled it might as well have been laundered in a dishwasher. His office was a disorganized stew of coffee stains, stacked books, crimpled papers, and scrawled mathematical equations. There was no place for Jenna to sit. The room smelled of popcorn, sweat, mildew, and meat.

After Jenna recounted her tale, she said, “Dr. Rosen, I’ve been rude. I was so upset by what happened last night I never asked about your background.”

Rosen smiled. “I’m an Assistant Professor of Quantum Parapsychology. Until 2007, Quantum Parapsychology was part of an interdisciplinary effort between the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Laboratory and the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. My research focuses on understanding parapsychological phenomena at the quantum level. I’m trying to reconcile quantum mechanical principles with gravitation theory at the quantum scale to learn more about the behavior of dark matter and dark energy.”

“What’s that got to do with the paranormal?” she said.

“My paranormal work centers on my theory that most supernatural activity can be explained by the interaction between matter and dark matter. Most reported extrasensory phenomena operate on higher dimensions than we’re capable of perceiving. Humans sense the world in only four dimensions—height, width, depth, and time. Paranormal entities are nothing more than hyper-dimensional beings composed of dark matter.”

Confused, Jenna scratched her head, uprooting another patch of hair. “What does this have to do with the shed?”

Rosen hesitated. His eyes widened. Then he said, “Well, Miss Williams, I’m familiar with Chandler’s Hollow lore. Most of it is bunk, but bunk based on real phenomena.”

“How so?”

“Well, some of the lore describes the shed as a satanic cult house. But there’s nothing in the historical record that lends credence to those stories. However, Chandler’s Hollow apparition sightings stretch back over ten thousand years. Your story is just the most recent one.”

“Well, what did I see out there?”

Rosen grabbed Jenna by the shoulders, and said, “Despite what you might think, you didn’t see a ghost. It was something much worse.”

She shuddered. “What do you mean?”

Rosen stroked his beard. “The being you saw occupied an adjacent dimension leaking into our own. For a brief time, that dimension resonated at the same frequency as ours.”

Rosen’s phone rang, rattling Jenna. Putting his hand over the receiver, he said, “I’m sorry, but I have to take this. Perhaps we can catch up later this week?”

She nodded. A swirl of emotions tugged at her ranging from morbid curiosity to sheer terror.

* * *

After she left Princeton, Jenna didn’t return to her desk until late afternoon. Seconds after she sat down, De Genova hovered over her cubicle like a Predator drone.

“Let me see the article,” he said.

“Which one?” she said, feigning ignorance.

“The Greenburg piece,” he said, frowning.

“Why the urgency? Why now? Why can’t I get it to you later this week?”

“Because Greenburg keeps harassing me. And publishing that article is the only thing that’ll shut him up.”

“Fine. I’ll get it to you first thing tomorrow morning.”

De Genova wagged his finger at her. “Okay. But it had better be on my desk. First thing.”

“Will do,” she said. Apparently satisfied, he left her cubicle.

She took a deep breath. She fired up her laptop and opened a new file. Staring at a blank screen, she struggled to write something redeeming about a distinctly unredeemable man.

Jenna typed to get the words flowing. Then she stopped; then she started again. By eight p.m., she had only written a paragraph.

The phone rang.

She answered. The electronic screeching and wailing on the other end sounded like a fax mixed with a Tibetan chant without words. Yet, somehow, she knew she had to go to the shed.

She dialed Rosen.

“We need to go to the shed tonight,” she said. “I can’t explain how I know, but something’s calling me there.”

“I wish I could join you,” Rosen said, “but I have a prior commitment this evening. And there’s no way I can get out of it. Let’s catch up tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said, disappointed. “I’ll call you with an update tomorrow.”

* * *

Jenna saw the shed for the first time amid a row of gnarled and sickly oak, ash, and maple trees. Their trunks twisted away from the ancient, dilapidated log cabin as if straining to avoid some unseen malady. The starry vastness of the evening sky cast a pale glow over the shed’s dark edifice.

Nary a blade of grass grew within a hundred feet of the structure. Windows shaped like inverted crosses stamped the shed’s timber flanks. A tiny human sentinel stood vigil before the shed’s double doors.

Jenna crept forward. A rough semicircle of jagged things lay behind the shed. As she drew closer, the objects resolved to translucent forms of the strange being that had hunted her during her last visit. It was as though they had molted, shedding their chitinous exoskeletons. The solitary figure watched Jenna approach.

Lily!

Once Jenna was within earshot, Lily said, “I’m here to serve.”

The shed’s double doors burst open. Things, terrible things poured out. Their tentacles smothered the child, then ripped her apart in a riot of blood and viscera.

Jenna wanted to scream. But the sight also evoked far baser instincts of hunger, of violence, of longing.

The creatures and their carapaces evaporated.

* * *

Jenna drove to work at sunrise. She’d been unable to sleep. Her mind raced, trying to process what she’d seen.

She called Dr. Rosen at seven thirty. He sounded groggy, but after she’d related her experience, his voice grew animated.

“Did Chilcott tell you about the cave paintings?” he said.

“Yes, but what’s that got to do with what I saw?”

“Everything. Are you familiar with a cicada’s lifecycle?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Rosen, but what do ten-thousand-year-old cave paintings have to do with the lifecycle of a cicada?”

Rosen flashed a mischievous smile. “Why everything, Miss Williams.”

“Explain.”

“Well, to be more precise, your ten-thousand-year-old cave painting is actually ten thousand three hundred and thirty three.”

Jenna raised an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Sure I can. Uranium-thorium dating gets you to ten thousand three hundred years. The more precise number is ten thousand three hundred and thirty three because it’s both a prime and an apocalyptic number.”

“What’s that got to do with cicada lifecycles?”

“Cicada broods emerge once every thirteen or seventeen years—both primes. When cicadas surface, they do so in overwhelming numbers. Their predators can’t possibly eat enough of them to drive them to extinction. Etymologists believe cicadas’ prime number lifecycles are an adaptation that prevents predators from synchronizing their own generations to divisors of the cicada emergence period.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, skeptical.

“Now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with what you encountered in Chandler’s Hollow.”

“Well, yeah.”

“In brane theory, physicists conjecture that there’s a multiverse of an infinite number of universes. These universes vibrate at different frequencies in higher dimensional space. Some resonate at the same periodicity but are slightly out of phase. You see, there’s an adjacent universe that intersects our own at Chandler’s Hollow. This nearby dimension is out of phase with our reality by ten thousand three hundred and thirty three years. My theory is that the shed acts as some sort of hyper-dimensional tuning fork.”

“Are you saying what I saw was real?”

Rosen nodded. “Yes. But the two realities aren’t quite in phase yet, so what you saw probably seemed like a mirage. In the coming days, these sightings will become more anchored to our reality as we, in turn, become more anchored to theirs.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Well, based on the cave paintings and the broader North American archaeological record, it doesn’t bode well. When our world was last in phase with theirs, there was a mass extinction. Whatever inhabits that reality has a lifecycle whose cadence is resurgent every ten thousand three hundred and thirty three years. And whatever emerges from that realm when it is in superposition with our own eats large mammals.”

Jenna felt a tap on her shoulder. Startled, she turned to see a grimacing De Genova. He pointed at the phone, motioning for her to hang up.

Disappointed, she said, “Doctor Rosen, can I call you back?”

“Sure,” Rosen said.

She hung up the phone.

“Where’s my goddamn story?” De Genova said, flaring his nostrils.

Her heart sank. In all of the excitement, she’d forgotten about her promise to get him the Greenburg article.

“I’m so sorry, Nick. Something really weird happened last night. So strange that I’d like to bring Marty with me next time to get some pictures,” she said, alluding to the paper’s one and only photographer.

“Really?” he said. “You blow off our single most important story, and then have the balls to demand more resources?”

“I know. I’m really sorry. I promise, I’ll make it up to you.”

“If Greenburg weren’t so insistent that you write the article, I’d fire you on the spot. The good news is he wants to discuss the article with you tomorrow evening over dinner. So you still have time.”

Jenna was both horrified and relieved. On the one hand, she had to suffer Greenburg again. On the other, she’d still have a job.

De Genova stared at her, his face registering concern. “By the way, you also might want a dermatologist to check out that rash on your face.”

Self-conscious, she touched her face. It had the texture of sandpaper. “I will,” she said, half-heartedly.

* * *

Jenna fidgeted with her black velvet dress’s straps at the entrance of The Excelsior, a high-end restaurant on Pennsylvania’s Main Line. She hated dressing up for social occasions. Especially when the only outfit she could afford came from a thrift shop.

“There she is!” Greenburg said, gloating, as he entered the restaurant. His overstated white tuxedo definitely sent a message. She just wasn’t sure it was the one he’d intended.

He eyed her up and down, giving her a creepy vibe. “You know, you really should have dressed better,” he said. “People are gonna think you’re my whore.”

“That implies you only have one.”

He glared at her. “Watch it. I’m trying to educate you. Successful people dress well.”

Before Jenna could respond, the maître d’ escorted them to a table against the restaurant’s far wall. Jenna tried to sit against the wall, but Greenburg blocked her with his arm. “That’s my seat.”

It wasn’t worth fighting over something so juvenile, so she let it go. “Why did you summon me?” she said.

“I want to make sure the article you write is fair and accurate.”

“I already wrote a fair and accurate article in The New York Times.”

“You know nothing about good business, Miss Williams. Journalism is a world of gray, not black and white.”

“No, Mr. Greenburg. Journalism aims for truth. My article was entirely factual.”

He wagged his finger. “Your article was a character assassination filled with baseless allegations. You misquoted me in every respect.”

Jenna guffawed. “Really? You weren’t accused of sexual misconduct by at least ten of your former female employees?”

“Those were unproven allegations. When you’re a successful billionaire, people constantly try to exploit your wealth.”

“So you don’t deny those allegations.”

His face reddened. “That’s not at all what I said. Are you really sure you went to Harvard?”

“I’m sure. Given your daddy’s wealth and connections, why couldn’t you get into Harvard? What’s your excuse?”

He glowered at her and then said, “Being poor is a choice. And it’s clear from your sinking career trajectory that you’re an untalented shrew.” He pulled out a cigar, lit it, and blew smoke in her face.

“How much money did you inherit from daddy?” she said, sneering. “You think you hit a homerun in life, without admitting you were born on third base.”

Greenburg slammed his fist on the table. “I won’t be lectured by some trailer park slut.”

The restaurant’s steady conversational hum died. Jenna didn’t want to make a scene. She despised the man, but he had leverage. If this interview spiraled out of control, she’d lose her job. So she reached across the table and touched his hand. “Mr. Greenburg, I think we started on the wrong foot. Let’s try again. How can I help you?”

“You’ll show me a draft of your article before it’s published.”

“And if I do?”

“I’ll publish it in all my syndicated newspapers, which have a combined reach greater than that of The New York Times. I’ll also give you a job at one of my media companies.”

“I see,” Jenna said. She’d have a future, all for the low, low price of her integrity. “And if I don’t write the article?”

He smiled. “As I said, being poor is a choice.”

She nodded. “I’ll show you a draft once I have one,” she lied.

Greenburg raised his glass of Dom. Romane Conti. “Here’s to an enjoyable evening.”

* * *

Jenna couldn’t explain why she’d lured Greenburg to the shed. It was instinct. Lubricated by wine, she’d told him about her other story.

Capitalizing on his well-publicized urges, she’d suggested they go to Chandler’s Hollow. Her logical mind had screamed, “No!” but something darker compelled her.

She stood with him before the shed. A strange energy in the air made her skin tingle. A waning gibbous moon’s fading light seeped through the warped branches of mangled trees.

His rough, craggy hand grabbed her bottom. Hungry, Jenna didn’t react.

“Ha, ha,” he said, slurring his words. “This story is even less credible than your hit piece on me.”

Like the moon above, her eyesight waned, her vision blurring into a honeycomb. Despite having a full stomach, an insatiable appetite raged inside her.

A field of carapaces shimmered around the shed.

“What kind of a sick joke is this?” Greenburg said in an indignant tone.

She became one of them. His eyes widened. Her geniculate antennae curled around his head. He stank of fear.

Greenburg ran.

She was human again. Dumbfounded, she tried to make sense of what had happened. Then she recalled Rosen’s theory about two realities in superposition. What if two organisms could also coexist in a state of superposition?

The world changed again, transforming her into a ravenous thing, a thing that was neither here nor there, but existing simultaneously in both realms. Her brood burst forth from the shed, flooding the countryside like a locust swarm. Their hunger and their desire to propagate mirrored her own.

His scent fresh on her antennae, she chased Greenburg through the woods to his limo. Wheels squealing, it sped off.

She trundled forward, but her tentacles couldn’t propel her fast enough to reach her quarry.

Lights.

A black Bronco surged past. Greenburg’s limo screeched to a halt as a second Bronco blocked its path.

He scrambled out of his vehicle. A shot rang out. He fell. Two shadows descended on him. She slithered closer along the black sludge her new world had superimposed on the old. Her twin proboscises slavered for meat.

Daisy and a second woman held Greenburg against a Bronco. The scent of his bloodied shoulder only made Jenna hungrier.

“We live to serve the brood queen,” they said.

Greenburg’s eyes widened, and he sobbed. “Please. Don’t let me die here. Please.”

But in this new world, she was predator and he was prey.

Jenna devoured him.

Then she comforted her drones, promising to clone more human females to guard the gateway during the time between.

Holly Heisey

The Monastery of the Parallels

Originally published by Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show in July 2015

* * *

Johan Mercio emphatically did not think about the invitation in the inner pocket of his evening jacket, thick and heavy and anonymous. Instead, he adjusted the feathered plume on his hat and sauntered his way through the crowded ballroom of the palace of Venton, wine glass in hand.

He spotted the Minister of National History in all his civil service-medaled glory. Maybe the invitation wasn’t so anonymous. The minister might have finally agreed to listen to his theories on the impact of the Victorious War.

Johan raised his glass, but the minister gave him a flat stare and turned to resume his own conversation. Of course the invitation wasn’t from the minister.

He noted, as he wove through various groups of nobles, three figures in bright reds and tangerines and golds, their veils draped to show only their eyes. Monks from the Monastery of the Parallels were not forbidden from any gathering, per the laws of the Accords of the Parallels, but they were given wide berth. Two made eye contact with him, and the invitation in his pocket began to feel heavier. He drained his glass of wine and prayed to all of the gods that the Monastery hadn’t gotten hold of his theories and decided to meddle. He took his cue from everyone else and pointedly ignored the monks.

While Johan was nursing the last of his third glass and trying to find a group he had not yet approached, the crowds began to push back. The ballroom hummed as people turned toward the south entrance.

Johan watched over most of the heads as a man as tall and swarthy as himself, his face all planes and sharp edges, parted the crowds with the inevitability of a ship breaking water. Not the prince or one of the dukes, not anyone he recognized. The man’s gaze locked on Johan and stayed there.

The wine glass shook in Johan’s hand. He glanced around, but yes, the man was looking at him. His ears began to rush and his hands and face numbed with a static that leaned toward pain. He felt with a gut-certainty that he knew this man, but he had never seen him before.

“Are you Johan Mercio?”

The man had a strange accent, slurred about the edges, and his voice was compressed as if he was used to bellowing.

Johan surveyed the man’s rigid posture, the left arm slightly bowed where he might normally prop a helmet. Fine scars etched his chin and brow. This man had to be a general.

“Marcus Kato.” Kato gave a stiff nod. “I have come to aid you in your work.”

And then the invitation in Johan’s pocket made sense. He had asked the minister many times for the aid of a general. He’d known he’d never get it, but he asked anyway. Johan eyed where he’d last seen the minister, but only saw the smirking, tittering nobles.

He took in a sharp breath of sweat and clashing perfumes.

A scandal. The minister had invited him to a scandal, his own. It was a blatant attempt to discredit his name and cast doubt on his theories. Kato was no more a general than he was.

Johan made a curt bow. “If you are to help me in my work, be in my office tomorrow morning by seven. We can discuss matters then.”

Kato’s eyes narrowed.

The numbness in Johan’s hands increased, and though he told himself it was nerves, his gut tightened with a deeper dread. Kato was too familiar. He could have been one of Johan’s brothers, or his father even, with the gray salting Kato’s dark, bristly hair.

Color rustled in the crowd, the orange robe and veil of one of the monks from the Monastery of the Parallels. His heart jumped to his throat. If the monks were here, and this Kato looked so much like himself…?

He shoved that thought and everything that went with it away from him. His breathing slowed again.

“I will be there,” Kato said. “In the morning.”

* * *

Marcus Kato paced the edges of the Monastery viewing room, rousing dust from the silk-draped walls and flaring the sage-burning braziers.

“That man is not me,” he said.

Li Sha sat on a cushion by her waist-high viewing crystal, which was dormant now, thank God. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she watched him with sapphire eyes through the orange folds of her veil. She was entirely too calm.

“He looks nothing like me,” Kato growled. “He is younger. He is—” He jerked his hand toward his head. Johan Mercio wore that ridiculous purple-feathered hat and had enough oil in his fussy curls to grease a carriage. “I asked you for help to stop my wars, and of all the kings and generals—or, God forbid, philosophers—you could have sent me to, you sent me to a historian! Damn you, monk, how is that supposed to help anything!” He stopped in front of Li Sha.

Violet-uniformed guards at the viewing room doors shifted, their hands coming to rest on the hilts of their sabers.

Li Sha motioned to her viewing crystal. “I have watched your armies devour whole nations. Surely you can handle one historian.”

But how could one historian find answers where he himself could not?

“It is nearing the end of winter in my parallel,” Kato said. “My commanders are already preparing my next campaign. My king will not take kindly to my absence. I need answers now.”

She glared up at him. She and the monks had sent him requests and summons and pleas to come to them, to change his ways, for the entire twelve years of his campaigns.

“Ten days,” Li Sha said. “You can spare ten days. Learn from Johan Mercio what he has to teach you. There is more to that man than you wish to see.”

Kato did not wish to see that man at all.

“Trust me,” Li Sha said. “And trust yourself.”

Kato grunted. He thought of his armies, spread now over too many former kingdoms and still swelling in numbers. There would be more campaigns, more bodies sprawled across bloody fields. And bodies laid out in the cities and the towns, not all of them soldiers.

But he could not break his oaths to his king. He had come to the Monastery because it was his last hope, his last option to end the bloodshed.

“Ten days,” Kato said.

* * *

Dawn blushed the sky over the scrolled spires of the ministry building when Johan turned the key in his office door and stepped inside. His head felt like it had been used for drum practice, courtesy of too much wine at the reception, but he had a bottle of seltzer in his desk for just such occasions. He closed the door and began the process of shrugging out of his tight-fitting jacket. Then he stopped.

Marcus Kato sat behind Johan’s desk.

“Gods above. How did you get in here?”

Kato stood and squeezed around the side of the desk. “Forgive me for startling you. The duty guard let me in.”

Johan brushed past Kato, the sense of a gong ringing in his head when their sleeves brushed. He shivered and barricaded himself behind the safety of his desk, straightening the stacks of files and books that Kato had mussed in passing.

Kato handed across a small portfolio. The leather smelled fresh. “My credentials.”

Kato loomed over him, and Johan blinked hard to focus on the writing inside the portfolio. It was an official document, granting one Marcus Kato permission to reside in Venton and to work as a consultant in the Ministry of National History. Johan peered at the seal, with the High Minister’s signature mix of gold and bronze flakes.

“How can I be of use to you, sir?” Kato’s words were clipped, his posture stiff.

“I—” Johan fluttered his hands. The man was a legitimate general. A general-in-exile perhaps? What was the minister playing at?

“You could best help me, sir, by offering a blind analysis.” He gathered books and folders from his desk. “There is a study room across the hall and to the left, I am sure it will suit your needs. If you can read these and provide a summary of the reports, that would be a start.”

Kato glanced at the stack, then tucked it under his arm in military dispatch fashion. “If that is all?”

Johan watched him leave. He hadn’t quite believed Kato would take the stack.

He yanked open his desk drawer and drained the bottle of seltzer.

* * *

Marcus Kato shoved another heap of papers aside and rubbed at his eyes. He had scribes for this sort of work. There were books and ledgers and supply tallies and after-action reports. All of them made a picture of a fairly routine, if ultimately victorious, war of conquest. There was nothing here that could help him end his own wars.

He’d sat in this closet of a room, with its chairs that cramped his back and flattened his ass, for four days now. He’d given Li Sha ten; six more would make no difference.

Kato scraped back from the table. He stepped into the hall and paused. Johan’s office door stood open and the voices within escalated to shouts.

“You have put forth this opinion enough, Mercio, enough I say! You would make our kings to be villains, and have us tear down the statues of our revered generals? It is a malicious lie. If you dare to place another report on my desk with the intent to undermine our proud nation, you will be through here! Your father’s wealth cannot shield you, sir.”

The minister stormed out and Kato jumped back, shutting the door. He waited until the minister’s bellow had faded down the hall, then squared himself and strode to Johan’s office.

Johan sat very still behind his desk, his face unnaturally calm. By God, forget the curls and the lace, in that moment Johan looked too much like himself.

Kato pointed in the direction the minister had gone. “What was that about?”

Johan’s mouth edged tight. “That is a man who is scared of the truth.”

“And what is the truth, Master Mercio?”

Johan’s eyes lit like coals fanned to flame.

“You have read the reports of this war, our Victorious War as we call it, fought two hundred years ago. It is what has defined Venton, it is part of our national pride,” he spat that in the pompous tone of the minister, “to have unified so many smaller states into this grand and peaceful nation.”

Johan cut the air with his hand. “It is a lie. We glorify our conquering generals, we praise them for bringing the surrounding kingdoms into enlightenment. But these men tore into lands that were at peace with them, ravaging farms and estates and villages, killing tens of thousands of soldiers and as many or more civilians. What Venton is today was won by greed and blood.”

“It was a war,” Kato said evenly. “Yes, I have seen your reports. There are always casualties in war. Your country is stable. There aren’t soldiers in the streets, there aren’t people going hungry—”

“There are more poor in this city than there have ever been,” Johan said. “We pretend not to see them. We keep them out of our wealthy districts, and they starve in their hovels. I go to them, and they believe me when I say that it was Venton’s greed that got them there—” Johan clamped his mouth shut.

Kato eyed Johan warily. “There are poor in every city. Starvation is hardly new.”

Johan shoved a paper across to Kato. “Here. Read this. You haven’t seen this one yet.”

Kato took the sheet of parchment and scanned the text. It was part of an eyewitness account of a battle to take a city. The witness saw three street children, none more than eight years old, cut down by Ventonese soldiers when they tried to attack them with knives and sticks. Brave lads.

“And this one.”

The next was an accounting of supplies gained from the forced taking of an enemy lord’s estate. A footnote listed the weaponry and goods taken from the dead, among them a double handful of dresses and shoes that could only have come from women and children.

Kato handed both back. He had seen such reports before. Most of these matters were handled on a lower level, but if the event was significant enough, the report made it into his hands.

“I have never liked it,” he said, “but it is simply a part of war.”

Johan shook his head and his lips pressed tighter. “My family gained our wealth through the trading of such stolen goods. We were only small merchants in Tentek, but then we saw the opportunity for profit and joined with the Ventonese. We rose quickly. We sold out our people.”

Ah, then it was personal. Kato had dealt with plenty of junior officers, and even some of his field generals, who came to him at one time or another in a lathered moral rage. He’d heard them out, and then pointed them, slowly but surely, to the reasons why they were men of war. To their duties to their oaths, to their king and their country.

“Master Mercio,” Kato said, “I understand. But this guilt is not yours, you did not do these things yourself—”

“Yes, but I still profit from them! We all do, and this blindness is tearing apart our humanity—”

Kato held up his hand. “What has happened is in the past. Your government is stable, and I will hazard that it is stronger now than it ever was before the war that united it. You have a duty to maintain that stability—”

“I have a duty—”

Johan stood, his face red and blotchy. “Leave.”

Kato hesitated, then bowed and left the office.

* * *

The next day, Kato went straight to the study room. He went through the stacks of books and ledgers again and began a new report.

Venton’s Victorious War had stabilized the nations in this region, had vastly improved the lifestyles and lifespans of the inhabitants, and had even improved morale and brought in new relations and trade with foreign powers. None of this would have been possible if Venton had not taken the initiative two hundred years before. He had to make Johan see this before the man got himself hanged.

Kato left that evening satisfied he would have a full report the next day. He walked down clean, cobbled streets and breathed in the musk of horse and cinnamon of pastry vendors on the street corners.

Around him, street lamps flared to life, then settled to a warm glow. Houses rich in scrollwork spilled light through many windows, their inhabitants moving to a leisurely dance. A carriage pulled up to one entrance and spilled out laughing, glittering young people.

How could Johan not see this was a paradise? How could he possibly want to bring it down? If this was what Kato was building, he wasn’t sure he wanted to stop his wars. Maybe it was worth the price.

* * *

Johan felt Kato working down the hall in the tightness of the air. He didn’t know what the general was doing after he’d shattered the benefit of the blind analysis, but he doubted he would like it.

Kato was too much a military man. He would never understand the heart of Johan’s theories: that a nation born of atrocities, that would not acknowledge its crimes, would never rise above those origins. The corruption would only turn inward and fester.

A knock came on his door and one of the gangly office messengers handed him an envelope before rushing out again.

Johan broke the seal and pulled out a single sheet of paper, not signed. But there was nothing mysterious about this invitation. He read the lines again and his lips compressed.

Now he would see what all of this was about.

Johan tugged himself into his jacket. He paused by the mirror propped on one of his bookshelves to adjust the folds of lace at his throat. Satisfied and thus armed, Johan swept out.

He rapped on Kato’s door. “We are required in the minister’s office.”

Kato frowned, glanced at his book-stacked worktable, and then stepped into the hall. He closed the door before Johan could see more of what was inside.

When they arrived at the minister’s office, an aide ushered them inside. Sunlight streamed through tall windows, framing the minister behind his massive, vine-carved oak desk. The minister glanced up from his work and regarded them, pen poised in bloated fingers.

“Master Mercio. Master—Kato, is it?”

Kato nodded.

The minister motioned with his pen at two chairs in front of his desk. “Please, take a seat.”

“Is this about Master Mercio’s theories?” Kato asked. “I have written my own report that highlights the benefits of your Victorious War.”

Johan clenched his hands on his knees and did not look at Kato.

The minister paused. Johan watched mental gears so obviously scrape before the minister scowled again. He had been surprised by Kato’s comment.

Johan’s stomach churned.

“That is well, Master Kato,” the minister said, “but I do not believe your word is valid at this point, and much the pity.” He held out his hand. “May I see your travel permits, entrance documents, and permission to be in these offices?”

Kato stirred and handed over his portfolio. The minister studied it for a moment, and then sniffed.

“It is a good forgery,” he said, “but the High Minister’s office has no record of an application by a Marcus Kato.”

Kato went rigid.

“Minister,” Johan said, but then stopped. Was he going to defend Kato? Wasn’t the man working for the minister?

But the minister had been surprised by Kato’s siding against Johan.

Too many thoughts had tugged at Johan’s mind these last few days for him to continue to ignore them. Kato was—something else. He almost checked around him for the brightly colored robes of the monks.

“We do not begrudge visitors to our nation, or even advisors in our capitol,” the minister said in a tone of false amiability. “But you see, the proper procedures must be followed. If you are here from another nation, you must have permits for travel and residency in our lands. If you are here from another parallel, well, there are other protocols to be followed by the Accords of the Parallels.”

The muscles in Kato’s neck stood taut and corded, but Johan read confusion in his eyes. He didn’t know, did he, these specific laws in the Accords? He’d had secretaries for such legalities. He didn’t know that to cross parallels without documentation was to forfeit any and all rights, and be subject to the will of the nation he’d crossed into.

Johan stood. “Sir. Minister. I will see that this is sorted out.”

Kato and the minister stood as well, the minister with his too-wide smile.

“What is the name of your parallel, Kato? I will need that for the paperwork.”

Kato opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked to Johan. Then he looked past him, scanning the room.

The door banged and guards spilled in, helmets and breastplates gleaming ornate silver, long knives held ready.

Kato blurred and two of the guards fell before he rounded on a third.

Johan fumbled for his belt and a dagger, but he had not carried one since his boyhood days with his family’s caravans.

Johan rounded on the minister, who stood pale, his eyes catching glints from the guards’ knives.

“Stop this,” Johan hissed.

“You had it coming, Mercio,” the minister said in a smug voice. “I warned you—”

Johan punched the minister in the face. Cartilage gave with a satisfying crunch, and the minister toppled backwards.

Johan yelped and tried to shake out the pain in his hand.

A shout behind him made him turn, just in time to duck the knife swipe of a guard.

Kato jabbed his knife under the man’s chin. Johan watched as red bloomed there, the guard’s hands coming up and then spasming as he fell. Red sprayed across the front of the desk, painting the carved vines.

“Johan!” Kato yelled, and tossed him a knife. It nicked his sleeve and clattered on across the room.

Johan had seen so many battles in his mind. He had read so many reports, and he’d thought he’d understood the smell of blood, but it was nothing like this. Nothing like this tang that got in his mouth and throat, sharp and cool as iron.

There were four guards on the floor, and Kato’s sleeves bled red. Kato grappled with one guard, then spun him to use as a shield against another.

This wasn’t war. This was a group of ceremonial guards, and the minister wanted Kato and him to fight them. He wanted blood stacked against them. Kato was the means to silence Johan.

The corruption continued.

Johan shook his head sharply. “Kato, stop!” He turned to see another guard lunging for him and jumped back, stumbling into the chair. “I surrender! I surrender!”

The guard grabbed Johan and yanked his hands behind his back, clapping on the manacles.

The minister was just now getting to his feet. He held his red-soaked handkerchief to his nose. “Good man,” he said to Johan.

Johan’s whole face puckered in an effort not to spit at him. The guard shoved his head down.

Johan was jerked sideways, and then the guard cried out and let go. Kato crashed the guard into another chair, splintering the wood. Two more hustled in to take the first guard’s place.

Kato grunted and staggered as one scored a cut to his shoulder. The guards closed in, and Kato raised his knife.

“Kato, stop!” Johan yelled.

Kato wobbled back. It was enough for the guards to knock the knife from his hand and force him to the floor.

They thunked Johan down beside him, the plush wool rug pressing into his cheek. He met Kato’s eyes. They were bright with rage. And then the guards stepped between them. Pain exploded in Johan’s head and everything else faded to darkness.

* * *

Kato had only been in the cell a handful of minutes, almost long enough to bring some wits back into his ringing head, when the iron door grated open. The guards came back, half-dragging Johan.

Kato jerked against the chains bolting him to the floor, slurring every curse he could think of through puffing lips. The manacles bit into his wrists, and cuts that the surgeons had hastily sewn and bandaged after the prison guards had given him a thorough beating started seeping blood.

The guards fixed Johan’s manacles to the bolt in the floor, kicked Kato in the knee, and left.

Kato leaned his head back and waited for the dizziness to pass. Nausea crept up his throat and he breathed in deeply, gagging at the lungful of piss and shit.

He looked over at Johan. There were no windows this far down in the prison, but some light filtered through the high barred opening in the door. A bandage wrapped Johan’s forehead, already half-soaked with blood. Two fingers were bent in the wrong direction, though nothing else seemed broken.

“Johan?”

He didn’t stir.

Kato rattled his chains. “Johan!”

Johan twitched, too long of a second after, and groaned.

“We’ll get out,” Kato said. “We’ll find a way out.”

Johan’s jaw worked a moment before words came. “They’re going to kill us.” Johan sniffed. His cheeks streamed with tears.

Bile flared back up Kato’s throat. He wanted to shout at Johan to pull himself together, but the rage died quickly and left him panting.

Surely Li Sha could see him here, in her viewing crystal. Surely she would get him out.

“I’m sorry,” Johan said. “My theories.”

Kato barked a laugh. Maybe Johan’s theories of Venton’s corruption had been the issue, but Kato knew that he had been the lever the minister had used.

“Alright, how did the minister do it?”

“Your papers,” Johan coughed. “You’re not from this parallel.”

Kato bared his teeth. He didn’t know the Accords as well as he should; they had never been relevant on the battlefield, and Li Sha knew that. She had watched him for years.

And she had sent him here.

If he died here in this parallel, his offensive would fall apart in months. Resistance in the nations he had already taken would broaden the chaos, and his king would be overthrown. The monks would bring in another man, someone who could, eventually, bring peace. Marcus Kato would never have to break his oaths.

“Damn,” Kato said softly.

* * *

In all of Johan’s work, he’d somehow never thought he’d end up in prison. He hurt everywhere, though in the hours he’d sat here, most of it had dulled to a steady throbbing. He tried not to think about his fingers and the crooked garlic sneer of the guard as he’d held Johan’s hand against the stone wall.

“Kato,” he croaked. He tried to swallow, but he hadn’t had a drink for hours.

“Uh?” Kato said.

He needed to think of something other than the fire in his throat, the cold in his bones, and how he would probably not leave here alive.

“Why did you come here? Did you somehow sneak through the Monastery?”

Kato barked a laugh. “No, but I would like to see someone try.”

“Then gods, man, what did you do to them? Did they want you to get caught?”

Kato grimaced, and then stared at the wall. Johan wanted to prompt him, but maybe in this place it was best to let the man have his peace. He shifted against the wall and tried to will himself to sleep.

“I am High Marshall of the armies of Naraken,” Kato said. “And the Monastery sent me to you to help stop my wars.”

And Johan learned how Kato, a son of his kingdom’s minor nobility, had risen quickly through the ranks. When he had helped turn the tide in a battle for another nation’s capital, his king had made him a general.

“He tasked me with planning his next campaign. He wanted more, more more more, and I gave it to him. I gave him a weapon, and the sharper it became, the more he wished to cut.”

He looked at Johan, and the pride on his face warred with shame.

What did Kato want from him? He knew who Kato was. Kato was himself, in another parallel. And Kato was everything he despised.

“They sent me here to die,” Kato said, “because it solves all problems. Except for getting you caught up in this.”

Johan should have never accepted that invitation to the palace reception.

“I want peace,” Kato said. “I am tired of the wars and all of the deaths.”

Did Kato want Johan to absolve him? Kato had tried to undermine his theories, and it had been Kato’s mess that had made the Monastery meddle in Johan’s affairs.

But Kato had fought for him in the minister’s office. And maybe Kato had thought he’d been helping Johan in writing that report, regardless of how wrong it was. Kato was a man of honor, in his own way. And Johan could feel a sameness there, like a cord thrumming to a matching note inside himself.

“Maybe the Monastery will come to claim you in a few days,” Johan said.

Kato snorted. “That I can hope for, but not bet my life on.”

* * *

The sentence, when it arrived, was death. Bolstered on either side by hulking guards, the messenger wheezed out the charges of espionage and treason in a flat, bored voice.

They took Kato first. Johan croaked his protest, but the guards shut him up with a casual, heavy slap.

They marched Kato up three stories and into a cramped room that smelled of damp and rotten meat. The guards locked his chains into a chair in the center, then left.

Kato waited. Every few handfuls of breaths, he heard footsteps in the corridor. Or occasionally a scream. He closed his eyes and willed his breathing to slow, to keep himself in focus. Waiting was part of the breaking.

Had the Monastery truly been silent, or had they told Venton to have their way with him? Was this their method of forcing atonement for his many sins?

The door opened and Kato hoped, in one ludicrous moment, to see the orange robes of Li Sha. But there were only the guards.

They shoved a sack over Kato’s head, thick with mildew. Panic clawed up his throat. He swallowed convulsively and nearly gagged.

They led him out again and, blind now, he listened. He counted steps. He felt for cross breezes in the corridors. He heard the clink of the guards’ armor and felt the solid, round muzzle of the flintlock pistol at his back. He calculated his chances of grabbing it.

Open air hit him, cold and dry. The guards levered him up into what felt like the back of a prison wagon, the rough wood catching at his clothes as they shoved him to sit. They locked his manacles to the floor and then packed in around him. The wagon jerked into motion.

A drone began to grow over the clattering of the wagon wheels on cobbles. It was soft waves at first, and then it gained rhythm and movement and voices. The wagon lurched in a turn and then backed itself up. The wall he leaned against thrummed with the roar of the crowd.

If there was any chance of his escape, it would be here. Any change of hands left openings, and a crowd brought anonymity. Kato waited.

The sack was yanked off his head and he gulped in cleaner air. But he read the meaning in the guards’ black stares—there would be no dignity in death for one who had killed some of their own. They would give him no hood to hide his death mask.

The back doors swung inward and Kato squinted hard against the sunlight. Then the guards finished unlocking his manacles from the ring bolts.

Kato dove out and into two guards, and they all went sprawling. His body hit wood. He was on a platform. He lurched to roll over, off the side and into the crowd—

He saw the men gathered at the far end of the platform. One man in particular stood tall in his blood-stained fussy shirt and trousers, his head covered in a sack.

Johan? Kato had thought he was back at the prison.

He looked at the crowd, the shouting and jeering faces. He could fall into them, it was his best and only chance of escape.

And then he looked back to Johan.

Two guards forced Johan to his knees and bent him over the block. The axe man raised his axe, the blade edging sunlight.

A guard grabbed Kato’s arm, but he ripped it free and launched himself upright, stumbling, but moving forward. What in the world was Johan doing here? Hadn’t Kato left him behind? In the prison cell?

The axe came down.

Pain stabbed like a sword through Kato’s chest and he staggered. His knees hit the platform. He looked down, but there was no blood, no wound. He had felt Johan die, the soul cord between them cut.

A crack split the air and punched his shoulder, shoving him down into the wood. The crowd in front of the platform blurred, then cleared, then blurred again. He saw blues and grays and browns, and two vivid streaks of gold and orange.

The orange shape of the veiled monk moved toward him. Even here in this crowd, Li Sha commanded the space around her.

Kato levered himself up as she vaulted onto the platform.

“You,” he croaked. “Damn you.”

The boards shuddered beneath him and the fingers of the guards dug into his arms.

Li Sha raised her hands. “I claim this man for the Monastery!”

She had to shout it again, and again, until the crowd fell into a restless silence.

The guards holding Kato stilled, but they didn’t let go. He was glad of it, because he was about to add to his list of sins the killing of a monk.

“I claim this man,” Li Sha shouted again. “He is the business of the Monastery. Release him to my custody!”

Guards in the bright violet uniforms of the Monastery pushed their way onto the platform.

“No!” He would not go with them. He would have nothing to do with the Monastery.

His own guards pulled him back, and then the Monastery guards surrounded him.

He fought, but they were ready for that. The last thing he saw before they pulled the sack back over his head was Li Sha, regarding Johan’s body. And then she turned away.

* * *

When the sack came off, Kato was in the sitting room of his hotel lodgings. A fire crackled in the hearth. Two of the Monastery guards still held him, and he felt the presence of more behind him. A gold-robed monk lurked near the hearth chair, and to Kato’s left, by the table, stood Li Sha.

“Remove his shackles,” she said.

“That’s not a good idea,” Kato croaked.

Li Sha’s eyes creased in a frown, and she poured a glass from a pitcher on the table. “Here.”

One of the guards took the glass and pressed it to his lips, and despite himself, he drank. First one choking swallow, and then cool water coursed down his throat. He felt the manacle locks click and his arms come free, and then his feet.

Kato knocked the guard with the glass aside and rushed Li Sha.

“Kato, no!”

Kato froze. The monk by the hearth was fighting off his gold veil. Kato cringed away from this unmasking, even now it was blasphemy to look upon the face of a monk. But it wasn’t a monk that he saw.

His eyes filled and his body trembled. He reached for his chest where he still felt the pain of the cut cord, and then he gasped in a new fire that flared in his arm. His shoulder was soaked with blood.

“Kato, you’re injured.” Johan rushed forward and helped him into the chair.

Kato sat, just breathing, and stared at him. He watched again in his mind’s eye as the man on the platform was shoved down to the block. He felt the stinging numbness in his hands and face, and he felt the soul-pain as the cord snapped.

“But I saw you—”

Johan, his eyes red, shook his head. “After they took you, they came for me. They brought me to a room, and then she came in.” He jabbed his chin at Li Sha. “She claimed me for the Monastery. I asked, and she said that she had claimed you, too. Gods, woman, what did you do to him?” He clutched at his chest. “What was that?”

“That was another of your soul, from another parallel,” Li Sha said. “He requested redemption. It was his choice to come, and he did what he had to willingly. He was at peace.”

The words rang empty in the room.

Li Sha reached up and unwound her veil. Kato didn’t flinch this time. She watched them with her blue eyes framed by swarthy features, a sharp nose and edged cheekbones. But for the blue eyes, she could have been Kato’s mother.

Johan gasped.

“No,” Li Sha said. “I am not your mother.” She glanced at Johan. “Or your sister. I am yourself. I am myself.” She motioned to both of them. “And we, all of us, we do what we must.”

She was himself? And she had still done what she’d done?

Kato stood, slowly. His legs shook, but he took a step forward, and he saw fear flash in Li Sha’s eyes.

Kato spat in her face.

Johan froze. And then he began stripping out of the Monastery robes.

Li Sha wiped her face with her sleeve. “Do you know the power of a martyr, Johan Mercio? I have given you a great gift in your cause. Keep the robes, you will need them until you are ready to show yourself.”

Johan’s face blotched red with the heat of anger. He yanked off the last of the robes and threw the bundle at Li Sha. “I don’t need your help.”

And then he stood tall, shivering in his undergarments, his body mottled yellow and green with bruises. Kato had never seen a finer soldier.

Johan held Kato’s gaze and there was a sense of finality, an understanding that now was the last time either of them would see the other. Johan was not quite a brother, and not quite a friend. He was himself.

Kato nodded, and Johan nodded back. Then, Johan strode for the door.

“Hey,” Kato said, and moved as quickly as he could to a table chair where one of his jackets still hung. He tossed it at Johan, who caught it. Johan shrugged the jacket on and made as if to fix the lace that wasn’t there. His hands stopped, and his mouth curved in a rueful smile.

“This habit will take some time to break,” he said. He made a salute like a tipping hat and left.

Kato blew out his breath and turned to Li Sha. “I’ll stay here with him. He will need help if he’s going to tear this place down and not get killed doing it.”

“And what about your own parallel?”

“I am done with my parallel.”

She leaned back against the table. “That would be easier, wouldn’t it? To simply leave and let someone else clean up the messes you have made.”

Anger boiled up and Kato tried to step forward again, but the room tilted and he staggered back to the chair.

Li Sha pulled a small crystal from the folds of her robe and advanced on him. “I want to heal to your wound. I must, at least, stop the bleeding.”

Kato grunted, but he let her probe at his blood-soaked shoulder. The skin tingled with warmth as she held the crystal near, and the pain began to ease.

All of his career as a soldier he had healed unusually fast. That hadn’t been him, had it? And he and Johan should have been much worse off after the guards’ beatings.

Whatever Li Sha had done, and it was horrific and it was certainly unforgivable, he knew in his gut she had not meant him harm. She hadn’t meant Johan harm, and maybe not even the other of their soul who had given his life for them.

She met his gaze. “We do what we must.”

Did it matter, then, if she wanted him to return to his parallel or not? He could stay here with Johan, but this wasn’t his nation to save. Yes, it would be easier to leave the mess of his wars to another, like it would be easier for Johan to deny his theories and settle back into his academic life. But that was not Johan. And that, Kato knew, was not himself.

In all of his incarnations.

Li Sha pulled back from his shoulder. There was still pain, but he saw through the tear in his sleeve that the skin had puckered into a rippling, pink scar.

“You can take my carriage to the Monastery,” she said.

Kato stood, still feeling unsteady, but he was not willing to stay here with her any longer.

It was time to go home and face his king, and his men. It was time to face the choices he had to make, and he would find a way to bring peace.

Kato squared himself and marched out to a different kind of war.

An Understanding

Originally published by Escape Pod in June 2014

* * *

The sun on Joppa was a deeper red than I remembered, and the blocky shapes of this dusty town I did not remember at all. I passed the sign for Hann River Landing and walked down the main street. There were few people about, mostly women and young children, the mothers dressed in plain cotton and linen and the children ratty, if not mostly clean. The women watched me with a glare reserved for strangers that they must not have used for some time. There were no aircars, no groundcars, no visible signs of industry. Trees around the houses boxed them in at odd angles, some branches bending to stop abruptly in the air. The Time Walls were tight here.

I checked the bridge tethering me to Aijas Normal time on my ship in orbit, and checked my rate of sync with local time. It was a strain, to be held in two times at once. I would not stay here long.

I scanned into the minds around me, looking for that one particular voice I’d caught two hundred and twelve lightyears out on a wave of Kaireyeh. A young woman. I felt her here, the barest scent of her, and turned down 2nd Street and then onto Acada Lane. The houses on Acada Lane were spaced twenty and thirty feet apart, no more than thirty or forty feet wide, with trimmed lawns of brown grass. Children played in a yard down the street. It was all so quiet that if I turned off the voices for a moment I could hear the rhythm of the Time Walls around me. Beats barely forming measure. I quickened my pace.

Her house was one-story with peeling blue paint and white plastic trim. I climbed up the three steps to the creaking porch and since there was no button for a caller rapped my knuckles on the door.

I waited. I searched for her mind again—yes she was here. I rapped again. I rubbed a small circle of dust off the door window and peered inside. I did what I had not wanted to do but was necessary now and touched her mind. She gave an inner start and I withdrew quickly, leaving behind only the thought that she must open the door; I was a friend.

The door rattled and jerked inward. A slim, red-haired woman looked back at me with almond eyes. Her skin was a dusky tan, typical for Joppan natives. She looked up at my ice-white face, a face that would never be typical in any situation, and I remembered my eyes to blink. I saw and felt her shudder.

“Lorin, may I come in?” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want? I don’t have more to give, man.”

I spread my hands in a universal gesture of peace. She only stared at my white hands. I would have a short window in which to convince her to listen; I would not force her mind again.

“I am Barenin,” I said. “I want to help you.”

She looked at me blankly before hardening up again. “I didn’t ask no help, I didn’t call you. What are you, diseased? You look all diseased, and I don’t want your disease.”

“May I please come in and we’ll discuss—”

“Nothing. I won’t talk nothing with you.” And she slammed the door. I let it catch on my hand and didn’t flinch. Truly, there was no pain. I pushed the door back open. Lorin gulped and stepped back, and I stepped inside.

I had never mastered the art of soothing, but I still gathered myself and projected calm. It seemed to have some effect, as Lorin wobbled over to sit on a stuffed chair. I walked to the sagging couch and sat down opposite her.

“I am Barenin Lyr. I am a Registered Kaireyeh Sorter for the Thousand Worlds. I am sure you have heard of the Thousand Worlds in some history of yours; you have heard of the Fractured Wars. It is my job to listen to the Kaireyeh tides and detect any wounds that may open and fester and crack the universe. Your voice is at the center of one such wound. What happened to you?”

Lorin’s eyes glossed. I did not need her thoughts to read her mind; all her pain was etched across her face carving lines that should have belonged to a woman fifty years her age.

I skimmed the top of her thoughts and pulled at the most prominent thread. “Your child?”

She bit her lip. “Yah, my little girl.” She sat forward, anger strengthening those lines in her face. “Wallers took her, two weeks ago—Damn-the-Void Wallers! Just took her to send their trash through! Why do they do that? But she’s over now—and you’re not helping me, cause you’re not from here and if you came through the Wall, you’re one of them. What do you want, money? To go get my girl? I know you can’t get her, whatever hoodoo you want me to think you have—or maybe you just dressed like that all pale to make me think you’re like them—”

“The Wallers are pale?”

“No, but who else would be pale?”

I breathed out slowly. Wallers. Most fractured worlds had them in some variation. Only infants could pass through the Kaireyeh Time Walls, and then only once, and goods couldn’t pass through without a soul attached. Governments needed diplomatic relations and people needed their luxury imports; thus, Wallers.

I stood. “Which direction?”

“What?”

“Which direction did they take her? Through which Wall?”

“I don’t—” Lorin swallowed, and looked up at me with something approaching terror. Maybe she was starting to believe me now. I didn’t have time to test the theory.

“Lorin, which direction—”

“East. East, the Wallers are working east these days. Gods, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

I swore in thoughts and images untranslatable to any human. East was the sharpest contrast in time here.

Lorin stood. “You’ll bring her back?”

“She’ll be older,” I said.

“I don’t care.”

I nodded. I blinked myself out of her living room and into the Time Wall to the East.

* * *

A push through a Time Wall takes lifetimes, stretched and distorted in an Aezthena mind. For the young of us, it is easier. The young do not have millennia of memories to relive.

I spread myself across the Wall like water on glass and poured myself through it. I blinked out into the open, and the hit of minds in time staggered me as it always did. I wheeled my arms for balance and caught quick mental bearings—blinked out and in again—and was still.

The world on this side of the Time Wall was dusky twilight. Black towers marred the sky with their own brand of stars. Signs flashed and holo tickers ran high in the air; aircars swarmed in ordered rows and the air tasted like salt and shuttle fuel and burning plastic. The zone must stretch far, maybe even across the bay.

I licked my lips, a very old habit. But I was strained with the third of my mind holding the bridge to the other side of this Time Wall, and again to my ship in Aijas Normal. Three times.

And then the strain of this city…

I stood on a street where grays and browns ashed out all color and trash was a regular drift against brick walls. I tucked my chin and thrust my hands in my jacket pockets and started walking.

I walked until it was fully dark. There were millions of minds here, some in remnants of patterns I’d known years ago. But I had one pattern I searched for now; I turned every time I caught her scent. I would bring her back, I would heal the wound.

Time lost itself in my mind, as sometimes happens when I am bridged to another time and often happens when I am bridged to two. I found myself again when I judged it to be midmorning, the sky gray with unbroken rain. I stood on a concrete sidewalk, all manner and color—literally, every spectral color and some off the human spectrum—of humanity pooling around me. I even saw some men and women with the white hair, white skin, and golden eyes of the Aezthena, and they nodded to me as if I were one of them, but I felt nothing in their minds but humanity. They honored us? This small part of this world must truly have forgotten time. And they’d forgotten how much they hated and feared us—humanity’s greatest achievement, and greatest monsters.

At least with a crowd like this I no longer stood out. I searched and caught the scent again, stronger, and boarded a tube train headed in its calculated direction. I was regurgitated in a park district with green groves and slate plazas and fluting fountains, and I—lost time again—

Sometime around noon I found my feet trodding the grass of one of the inner parks. The scent was strong in my mind, but the scent felt…tainted. Was this part of the wound? Did this world taint a child when it was sent through a Wall? Were the Time Walls on Joppa so broken? Of course they were. This world, once my home, was the center of it all, and I ached with the tides.

I focused more attention on the scent of this tainted mind, and then stopped so abruptly that a man behind me rammed into me. He apologized and I made the polite motions, but my whole mind was wrapped now around the three minds that fit my pattern. Three. Each subtly different than what they should have been, but the scent of the pattern was there.

I pressed my lips tight and strode off in their direction. Up over a rise, past old trees, and out to a great sand square, though there was no water. I stopped at the edge. Here, parents stooped in the sand and played with their children. For a moment I blocked the scent and just breathed the emotion (joy, frustration, elation) of parents with their children.

My gaze went to one young woman tossing handfuls of sand with a small boy and girl. All were naturally tan. All three fit the pattern. I walked around the square until I was close to them and started across the sand itself.

The young woman looked up. Her face peaked with mild alarm—I quick-skimmed her mind—she was only nervous at the seriousness of my expression, or perhaps the lack of any expression at all. And the formality of my gray civilian suit.

She gathered her children to her, and they looked up at me with big, slanted eyes.

“Has something happened to Annda?” she asked.

“Who is Annda?” I said. I felt her strong emotional tie with an old woman, but the connection itself was muddled. I would not probe. This woman’s name was Cole.

Cole relaxed in a slump. “Oh, thank the gods. Rossa, Joann, go on. Go play.” She dusted off her hands. “Can I help you?”

“I am looking for someone.” And how to proceed? Should I have asked Lorin to show me her child’s father so I could get an opposite print to match against the patterns I saw in this woman’s code now? Perhaps she was the daughter, perhaps not. Perhaps, with the woman Annda high in her thoughts, it was much worse.

“I am looking for someone who came through the Wall. Someone in your family—”

She grabbed my arm and looked around. “Not here. We will not talk here, yes?”

I nodded.

She rubbed her forehead. “Okay, let me get the kids—Rossa! Joann! We are going!” She looked back to me, her gaze saved from hostility only by the lines of her fear. “I’ll take you to her, okay? But don’t you do anything to frighten her. Not anything.”

“How old is she? Your mother?”

She shook her head. “Annda is my great-grandmother.” She shot me a pleading look.

I gave a small nod. No, I would not ask any more questions.

Cole gathered her kids and said, “Okay. Follow me.”

* * *

We rode up to the two-hundred and forty-fourth floor of one of the towers in the newer part of the city; the lift opened on carpeted halls, but there were no floor attendants. Cole dragged her kids halfway down the corridor and palmed the lock on one of the doors. We stepped into a long room. Blue tile counters bled into a round dining area with a table lit dimly overhead and one red flower centered in a blue china vase. Past the table, dim shapes shivered in the hint of light from closed curtains beyond.

Cole dropped her bag on the table and ebbed into the darker dark. “Annda? Annda, are you awake?” Her voice faded with her.

I reached out for the other mind, the mind that would fit my pattern exactly. I found her in a comfortably bright bedroom and looked through her rheumy eyes as Cole opened the door and came in. I shook my head and withdrew. The two children were staring at me.

“Why are you white?” Joann asked.

“I like it.”

“Ma says it’s un-nat-ural.”

I did not look at her any sharper than I had, but my senses honed nonetheless. These people did have some memory of Aezthena. They should. It was we who had fractured their world.

“I am sure that it is.” I did not have time for this. I strode through the dark, turned left down a short hall, and found the bedroom door open and emitting light and two voices in quiet disharmony.

“If you will permit me to enter?” I said.

Both women stopped and stared at me. The older woman—old. Very old. Old such as aging should not be anymore, and was not, on the worlds not caught in time.

“You are from the other side?” Annda rasped.

“I am.”

Cole turned back to her great-grandmother. “Annda, please—”

“You go,” Annda said. Cole straightened and gave me a hard look but she left, and left her cloud of rage behind her.

“Young man,” Annda said, and I couldn’t help but smile at that. She looked less certain, then. Some people could sense it, that cloak of age. I’ve been told it’s like death reeking off of me, and that was from a man over two-hundred. I’d seen years in the thousands. Not even Aezthena made new Aezthena anymore, not for centuries since the Fractured Wars, though she wouldn’t know that. My face and my body were frozen on my thirty-ninth human year.

Annda drew her chin up and went on firmly. “Young man. You are from the other side of the Wall. Why have you come to bother me?”

Again I smiled. Annda could have been a queen in another age. I swept a formal court bow, a bow I had used when I was human king of this world and many others.

“My lady. I am Barenin Lyr, Registered Kaireyeh Sorter for the Thousand Worlds.” And now a slave, as all Aezthena were, atoning to the humanity some among us had hoped to improve and replace. “May I have your name?”

“Annda Kelorr,” she said. “You have crossed the Wall, right? With your talk of Kaireyeh and Worlds. Are you an off-worlder?” Her mouth creased like paper and she leaned forward. “Or are you from the cabals?”

“I am not a Waller.” I stepped closer to her bed but stopped when I sensed from her that I’d come far enough. I could still sense humanity, though I could no longer understand it. “I was sent by your mother. She is anxious to hear of your wellbeing.”

Annda went very still. Her blue eyes clouded, and I would have liked to peer into her thoughts, but I restrained myself. Times like these belonged to one soul alone.

When Annda spoke again, her voice came feeble. “My mother is alive?”

“Your mother is well, and she is young. Will you let me take you to her?”

And heal the wound.

Annda propped herself up on both arms and opened her pale lips. Her almond-shaped eyes grew wide. “I cannot pass through the Wall, child, no one can pass through but the infants.”

“You were wrongly taken.” And few had chosen to become Aezthena, either, but we were, for the continued existence of an aesthetic race which could not repopulate its own. Now for the survival of time and space itself.

Annda shook her head. “I have accepted what was done. I have my family here.”

I burst into her mind and she gasped and drew back; no, she had not accepted any of it. She was, in fact, very active in the Wallers themselves. She had indirectly sent twelve children through the Walls, and had gained her family wealth. She had never told them where it came from. They hadn’t had to ask.

“No misuse of a child is acceptable,” I said. No misuse of a human being.

“I was not harmed. I had a good family. A good life here.”

I had been called to this world by hurting Kaireyeh; I had been called to heal a rift, one tear too many in the face of living time. Annda was wounded, her mother was wounded, the Wall Annda had come through was wounded by the crime of it, and the crime continuing.

I closed my inner eyes and listened to Kaireyeh. There were no words, there seldom were, but I knew what I must do. I knew what I wanted to do, and my purpose and Kaireyeh aligned.

I blinked beside Annda and grabbed her arm and pushed her with me into the Wall. I did not protect her as I might have.

Kaireyeh hurts when mothers cry and babes are torn from blood kin and sold for such things as new chips and the latest scarves. Annda screamed and Kaireyeh screamed with her unwilling will, and the Time Wall tore as if skin were tearing and raw muscles now lay exposed and it was wrong. But some wounds needed rebroken to heal. The wound was so deep, so deep; the tear would take centuries to flux out, but the Wallers would be stopped, and maybe the people would heal. Kaireyeh’s deepest wounds were in the souls of the living.

I tightened my arms around Annda and pushed out to the other side, stumbling and then rolling until I lumped to a stop and lay beside her on the dusty ground. Annda wheezed.

It was night here now and the air was cool. Night insects chirruped.

I pushed myself up and pulled Annda to her feet. She did not look at me. Her mouth was set with all the hatred of generations. It was not so infeasible that she, on this world, was from one of my lines.

“Aezthena,” she spat.

It was about time someone saw me for what I was.

Annda pointed to the Time Wall. “You did this to us! You are the reason—”

“I did not make me what I am. And I did not make you who you are.”

I reached out for Lorin’s mind; she was not far. It was not possible to be far in this zone. I touched Annda’s arm and blinked us over.

Lorin stood in her dimly lit study with her hand reaching toward her desk. She looked up at Annda and me and then swayed. Lorin was old. Not so old as Annda, but not so far, either.

“By the gods,” Lorin whispered.

Yes, by this one at least.

“This is Annda,” I said. “This is your daughter.”

Lorin’s attention shifted to Annda and stayed there. Annda was shaking. I did not touch either of their thoughts.

I watched as mother reached out to daughter and daughter turned her self away. I watched with my whole self as the Kaireyeh within these two swirled from the gold of wholeness to the black of Void and back again. And back again. And back.

I felt a tug on my bridge to Aijas Normal and the ship, the Time Walls shifting too fast around me. I blinked back up to the ship and Normal. The stark world of Aezthena white. Not a world I had chosen, or so many others, when their hearts were ripped out, and their blood was toned silver, and all that had mattered was replaced by synthetics. Immortal.

And yet it was my world now, and like Annda, I lived in it.

I merged myself with the ship’s sensors and stared down at my old blue and green world. Its fractures and boundaries were unseen and festering like cancer. We had made it this way. Aezthena and human both.

I felt Kaireyeh willing me to jump the ship and ease my own pain, but I held it back.

Let me stay. Let me feel for once, for I was once human and I understand.

Contents of Care Package to Etsath-tachri, Formerly Ryan Andrew Curran (Human English Translated to Sedrayin)

Originally published by EGM Shorts in November 2015

* * *

In this package:

1. Three letters. (With our instructions on opening order, per Human dating system.)

2. One musical instrument, harmonica.

3. One plastic package containing three toothbrushes.

4. One tube of toothpaste.

5. One cloth Earth mammal, bear (unsure of further classification), filled with synthetic material. (We are sorry for the lack of symmetry, the cloth mammal was obviously damaged and repaired at some point. We were told not to modify it.)

First letter:

July 18, 2041

Dear Ryan,

They told me you’d get this after, so you won’t really be reading my words, will you? And you told me yourself you’d forget your own language, though I hope to God you don’t forget your planet, and your wife. And your daughter.

Ryan, how could you? I know this was supposed to be a nice letter to settle you into your new life, to bridge the transition, and God knows you tried to talk me into doing it, too—

I’m sorry.

No, I’m not fucking sorry. You left me for another species. Not another woman, Ryan, or even another man. Another fucking species.

If this is supposed to be the last letter, I guess I should say I love you.

Are you dead now? Can I mourn you?

Fuck.

—Sophie

Second letter:

July 19, 2041

Hey, Bro.

The Sedrayin consulate people said you’ll be travelling in a bubble-ship that breaks some sort of theory, and time will move faster for us than it does for you. That’s okay, I get that.

I just wanted to tell you that I support you in this. I don’t understand it, and I’ve asked the pastor what she thinks, if it’s even in the Bible. She quoted me some nonsense that had nothing to do with anything, and then just said the best thing I could do was accept you where you’re at.

I like that.

Because I’ve always looked up to you, you know? You were so different. I used to make fun of you for sneaking out at night to go and look through your telescope, especially when there were a lot more…ah, entertaining things you could be doing while sneaking out. And you just smiled, and said it made you feel calmer. And maybe I didn’t press too hard, because I didn’t like when you were so restless. I knew you weren’t happy.

But man, coming out as another species? Bro, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. I look at the Sedrayin in their enviro suits, with their blue skin and weird—sorry Bro, I still have a hard time, I’ll get better—oddly shaped oval eyes, and the way they kind of walk with that forward slant, like they’re coming at you with all they’ve got.

Dude. You have always walked that way. Oh my God, I never noticed that until now.

Bro, I guess you look different now.

Anyhow, I hope you remember me. Meet a hot alien babe and fall in love. Have lots of alien babies. (Whoa, Jenna will have alien siblings???) I’m sorry they couldn’t come with you. Man, I know that’s hard.

I love you. I hope you’re happy, now. And, you know, have fun seeing the stars for real, and living on another planet! Dude, how cool is that!

—Gabe

P.S. Oh, I found your harmonica the other day and thought I’d send it along. Maybe that wasn’t the best idea, because do you even have lips now? Well, something’s gotta blow air.

Third letter:

July 20, 2041

My dear Ryan,

Oh, I’m sorry. I should call you Etsath-tachri now, right? Yes, I checked the spelling.

Etsath. I’m sorry I waited until the last minute to write this letter, I almost didn’t make it in time, but they held the courier shuttle at the consulate so I could write this.

I just wanted to say, I love you, son. This is all so new to me, the aliens being here at all—what are there, twenty-something species we’ve now had contact with? And I saw on the news that there’s another ship inbound from outside Jupiter. But honey, it’s hard. This isn’t the world I grew up in. The world I grew up in was having a hard enough time accepting people like myself and Leanne, but I—we—love you so much that we’re changing, too. We’re changing the way we look at the world. Or any world, if I think about it.

We always knew you were special. You spent hours with your science books and games, and you loved your art, though the galleries said it was too symmetrical. I guess that makes sense, now. I won’t ever let anyone paint over your mural of the stars in your bedroom.

I packed some toothbrushes and toothpaste, I know you always forget those.

I know we’ve already said our goodbyes. I will miss you like nothing I’ve ever missed before.

Thank you, son, for being my son. For being born to me. You were the greatest gift the universe could ever give me.

Be the best damn Sedrayin you can be. Be yourself.

Love,

Mom

P.S. Please forgive Sophie. I’ve talked with Jenna. She misses you, but she said she knows you’ll be watching over her in the stars. She wanted to send something, too. She said to hug her teddy bear whenever you’re feeling sad or lonely, and you’ll remember how much she loves her daddy and be happy again. The kids, they are so quick to understand.

Michael Patrick Hicks

Revolver

Originally published by No Way Home: A Speculative Fiction Anthology

* * *

Cara Stone is a broken woman: penniless, homeless, and hopeless. When the given the chance to appear on television, she jumps at the chance to win a minimum of $5,000 for her family.

The state-run, crowdfunded series, Revolver, has been established by the nation’s moneyed elite to combat the increasing plight of class warfare.

There’s never been a Revolver contestant quite like her before. The corporate states of America are hungry for blood, and Cara promises to deliver.

The price tag on my head was $5,000. Easy money.

I followed the bald man down a long corridor lined with closed doors and framed black-and-white studio portraits of the station’s newscasters. I turned away from their glossy-print gazes, focusing on the producer’s back. He wore a long-sleeved blue button-down and black khakis that had sharp creases on either side of his legs. Sweat beaded his forehead from the brief moment he’d spent outside to allow me access to the building. The overhead lighting made his shoulder-holstered gun gleam.

He deliberately kept a few paces ahead of me, and I caught the downdraft of his cologne. He smelled nice. I didn’t. Too much time in the heat, dressed in too many layers, wearing most of the few clothes I had to my name all at once. I didn’t want them to get stolen and find myself fucked over by the winter.

Not that I was going to live that long.

“We’re through here, Ms. Stone,” the producer said. I forgot his name. Stevens or Stephenson. Whatever.

He held the door open for me and tilted his head back, nose up, holding his breath as I walked past. I imagined he worked with a lot of the desperate filth, and wondered how he hadn’t gotten used to it yet. Fuck him. Let him enjoy his false sense of security. Truth was, he was living on the edge between prosperity and desolation, a good two weeks’ notice away from losing everything. Eventually it would happen, and he’d be blindsided by it, same as everyone else.

“Should I leave you my coat?” I asked.

His lips curled in a funny, sour sort of twist and he primly shook his head. “You can hang it over there,” he said, pointing to an overly elaborate coat hanger.

I shook myself free of the carpenter’s coat, and then peeled off two oversized sweaters, down to a dirty, sweat-stained and once-white tank top. I thought about taking off my boots to fuck with him, smirking at the idea of smacking him across the face with a toe-jam-soiled sock. Smug prick.

Stevens—if that was his name—stood at an end table, next to a fancy bar stool with a thick leather seat. A large wooden box the color of dark walnut was opened on the table. The revolver sat enshrined in plush velvet and he motioned me toward it with an artificial air of ceremony.

“This is a Remington New Model Army Revolver, first produced in 1858,” he said with a reverential tone. “Fully loaded, six shots, with .44 caliber rounds.”

I nodded, admiring the gleaming gun metal and polished wooden grip. I sidled up close to Stevens to deliberately invade his personal space. His distaste was apparent, but I’ll give him credit for not moving away. Instead, he breathed shallowly through his mouth, lips slightly parted.

“It’s a nice gun,” I said. “Why six bullets, though? I’ll only need one.”

He shrugged. “Dramatic effect. We’ll have you open the cylinder, show it to the cameras. Let the audience know this is for real.” He licked his lips, staring at the firearm as if it were an old lover. “Did you want to hold her?”

Her, I noticed. Not It. Christ.

“Sure.”

He passed it to me with the gentleness he might use to handle a newborn. I’d never held a gun before and the weight was surprising. Even though it was only a few pounds, it seemed heavier. My fingers curled around the handle, and my index finger closed on the trigger. I’d never held a gun before, but this felt surprisingly natural, and a little too easy. I pointed it, away from Stevens, of course, and tracked the room through the sight at the end of the barrel.

I can do this, I swore to myself.

After a minute of mustering confidence and expelling doubts, I resettled the gun in its box and took a deep breath.

The Remington came from the Open Carry Association for Armed Americans, a “proud sponsor” of the Revolver webcast. OCA3 had a lot of politicians in their pockets—enough to pass mandatory open carry laws for all citizens in virtually all of the red states. Stevens was the third man I’d seen in the broadcast house that carried, and I knew there were plenty more I hadn’t seen, behind all those closed doors and in the studio set.

As a media employee of a far-right-leaning broadcast, Stevens was considered to be in a high-risk profession; along with police, firefighters, airline pilots, military servicemen and -women, educators, mail delivery, cable and internet service providers, doctors, construction workers, jewelers, librarians…The list seemed endless. OCA3, and their bought-and-paid-for shills across the nation, insisted that “a right ignored is a right lost forever”, and that it was the duty of all ‘real Americans’ to exercise their Second Amendment right and bear arms at all times.

“Don’t put the gun to your temple,” Stevens said. “You’ll want to put it here, behind your ear.” He pointed to a spot behind his ear lobe, where his skull met his neck. “Give that trigger a nice, long, steady pull and that’ll do ya.”

“Why there?”

“We want to avoid any accidents.” He licked his lips, as if he were salivating at the promise of a gun going off. A fucking Pavlov’s dog of the open carry movement. “Don’t want the bullet to glance off the bone of your skull. Had this guy one time, the bullet circled his skull, blew off his scalp but didn’t kill him.”

He stared at the box, plainly lusting. “Or you can stick it in your mouth, put the barrel up against your upper palate.”

I made the mistake of shifting my gaze downward and noticed the growing bulge tenting the front of his khakis.

“It’s been cleaned already, and it’s a reliable gun,” he said. “You’re all ready to go.”

He licked his lips again, and then, for the first time, really looked at me.

“There’s a bathroom through there,” he said, pointing at a door behind him. “You can get cleaned up, and we’ll have make-up get you ready for your big debut. Fresh set of clothes in there for you, too.”

I nodded numbly, unable to remember the last time I’d had a decent shower. He stood stock still, as if he were waiting for me to undress in front of him. After way too long, he rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, put out by my modesty. I waited until I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, then went into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. There was no lock.

Hot water cascaded down my body for a good, long while, and I held my fingers under the powerful spray to wash away the grime that had collected under each fingernail. Shampoo wrung all the excess oil away from my long hair, and I rediscovered the joyous feeling of fingernails against my scalp as I worked up a lather. A women’s razor had even been left for me, and I went about shaving my legs and armpits, if for no other reason than a brief return to a mostly forgotten routine.

I held the razor tightly at first, controlling my impulse to cut deeper. The razors were embedded in a safety cap, allowing for a surface-level, injury-free shave. Not like the single-edged razor blade that left the shallow pink lines on my left wrist, and then years of therapy and medications in its wake. “My cry for help,” according to the shrinks.

Finished, I stood in the steam-filled bathroom, wrapped in a terry cloth towel that I could happily live forever in. I wondered how gauche it would be to die in it.

A black clothes bag hung from the inside of the door. I cracked the door open to let the steam out, then dressed. The white blouse and blue capris were both ironed—all sharp creases and crisp fabric. They fit well enough, but felt a bit loose, either because I wasn’t used to dressing so lightly or because weight loss from too many missed meals had left me little more than a skeletal frame covered in taught skin. I left the socks in the bottom of the bag and stepped back into the main room. Or was it a dressing room? Green room? Guest suite? Did it matter?

Walking barefoot against the plush throw rug, I balled my toes into fists. I’d picked up this trick from some old holovid that pre-dated even my dad. It was oddly relaxing, and I paced for a few minutes, telling myself again this wasn’t a serious mistake.

I can do this.

Along the back wall was a long counter of freshly polished oak. The tang of Lemon Pledge was barely discernible beneath the thick stink of bleach. Glass shelves filled with bottles of amber and clear liquids caught my eye. A square tumbler waited on a coaster, inviting me. Something to steel my nerves wouldn’t hurt.

I reached for the top shelf and pulled down a bottle of bourbon. Knocked back two fingers, neat. It took a minute for the burn to blossom behind my breastbone and deep in my belly, but the warmth spread pleasantly. The booze was much better than the stuff I’d been drinking for most of my meals of late, and I poured off another two fingers. Fuck it; I made it three.

The walls were all white, and if I caught the right angle I could make out the dark tinge of stains, barely visible. The bleach had done a good job, but the cumulative effect of so many Revolver crowdfundings had left its indelible mark.

On the opposite side, at the front of the room, were three liquid holodisplays. Two were running stock photos—a polar bear standing on an ice float, hummingbirds, Earth from space, massive steel-bodied trucks with customized chimneys spewing columns of black smoke into blue sky.

The middle screen was running what passed for the news these days. Talking heads argued back and forth over whether or not the nation’s previous black president had been personally responsible for bringing Middle Eastern fundamentalist terrorists into the country across the Mexican border. One speculated that the ex-president had bought the cell leader a first class ticket with his own creds, but so what? It was still all taxpayer money, anyway.

A viral outbreak was sweeping through Plano, Texas, and had left more than a hundred people dead. Apparently, also the former president’s fault. They never blamed the current president for the tumultuous mudslide the country had been lost under, and had, for the better part of a decade now, been arguing which of his former liberal rivals, whether in office or not, had done the most grievous harm.

When the newsfeed switched cameras, to show the men in full and sitting across from one another, I saw that they were both armed. Naturally.

In a segment they called ‘Secular Murder Spree’, they ran the names of women who had received abortions that week, and vented their frustrations over the continued existence of underground women’s health clinics. This in spite of the personhood amendments that stripped women of most of their civil rights. It took the broadcasters a surprisingly long time—nearly a full minute—to get around to comparing the clinics to Nazi extermination camps. In a ticker at the bottom of the screen, the names and addresses of each woman scrolled in an endless loop. I couldn’t figure out a way to shut off the display, but the rant was a convenient reminder that I was doing the right thing.

I’d known what a shit-fest this faux news network was going in. Last week had been sweeps week, and to bolster ratings while also celebrating the anniversary of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act all of the state-run media reveled in bigoted debauchery. Revolver brought in a revolving door of LGBTQIA contestants who had no other options. Each had been given a choice—life in prison, chemical castration, or a chance to win their family some money and, maybe, give their deaths a smidge of meaning.

The zealots in office told us often enough, and loudly enough, that this was a Christian America. They just never bothered to clarify if we were New or Old Testament. And eventually their claim was repeated enough to win the perception of truth. Now, everything was a Holy War.

I covered my ears to block out the noises of such earnest hatred, but whoever was monitoring me was a spiteful little fucker, and the volume on the display rose and rose.

This world was way too fucked up to keep on living in. Especially with people like that—the so-called reporters, the so-called politicians, all of them just radical fundamentalists beneath it all—given so much power and influence.

Without knocking, Stevens opened the main door and popped his head in from the hallway. “Eyes are up here, bub,” I said, after his leer failed to drift much further north than my chest. “And quit drooling.”

He came into the room, but spoke back into the hallway. “Come on in.”

“Sure, that’s fine,” I said, like I’d been given a choice about who I socialized with before the main event. Stevens kept on ignoring me, but the woman that followed at least said ‘hello’, and seemed to recognize me as a fellow human being, if not a compatriot.

“I’m Tracy,” she said. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“Here?” I said, pointing at the barstool.

She nodded—way too perky for me. “That’s fine, yeah.”

I straddled the leather seat, feeling the weight of Stevens’s gaze all the while. Starting with a manicure, Tracy decorated me and got me all dolled up for my first, and last, time on TV.

“I don’t think I could do this if I were in your shoes,” she confided.

She kept her voice low, throwing Stevens a sideways glance every now and then. I caught him staring at the both of us more than once, licking his chops. He kept his arms folded across his chest, one hand lingering near the grip of his holstered pistol.

“That’s because you haven’t hit rock bottom yet,” I said, rotating the tumbler between my fingers.

While Tracy worked, I tuned into the newscast. Always a mistake. A supermodel had been shot to death in LA after staging a ‘Get Out The Vote’ campaign. Two female anchors—both blonde, full figured, and virtually indistinguishable from one another, as if they’d been plucked fresh from a cloning tank—had joined the men and were taking turns mocking the model’s life and her murder.

“She was a supermodel,” one woman said, “so, obviously, she didn’t have much in the brains department.”

“She didn’t get it,” the other said. “We’re at war with the Middle East, and she’s speaking out against gun rights and demanding gun safety for people here in the States. She’s part of this campaign to turn the country into a communist state. She got what she deserved.”

“Ladies,” the first woman said, speaking to all of us now, her voice deepening into condescension, “you shouldn’t vote if you can’t control your emotions. If you can’t vote properly, if you can’t vote conservatively, stay home. Play with your apps and your phone and stay home. Make some cookies, find a date.” She threw the collection of paper she’d been holding at the table, clearly disgusted. “Do literally anything else.”

“That’s right,” the other woman said, nodding vigorously and glaring at the camera. “Our soldiers aren’t over there dying so you can go out to the polls and be completely clueless. Get a clue. Stay at home.”

“Let her life be a lesson. She should have kept her mouth shut and her clothes off. Learn something from that, ladies.”

A dull throb was building behind my eyes, and I pinched the bridge of my nose trying to drive it away. “How can you stand working for these people?” I asked.

Tracy shrugged. “It pays the bills,” she said. Stevens coughed to attract her attention, and she shut her mouth.

Instead, she said, “Close your eyes.”

I felt the soft press of a brush against my eyelids, and then a few sweeps across each cheek. She did my lipstick, then had me blot with a Kleenex. Finally, she did a light bit of curling with my hair. Something simple, but it finished off the appearance she was going for.

“What do you think?”

For the first time in a long while, I felt—maybe even looked—beautiful.

“Gonna be a shame to splatter half my head against the wall and ruin all your good work.”

My words took the shine off her perkiness, her beaming smile cracking then eroding in stages; first crestfallen and then downright plummeting off her face entirely until her lips turned into a thin, barely-there crease. I couldn’t muster up enough of a shit to care. The bravado was false, and my suicide was still enough hours away to not feel entirely real. I watched her smile wither and die with a small bit of satisfaction as she packed up her gear without another word.

Stevens was on top of me, clipping a wireless lavaliere mic into place.

“You need to undo a few more buttons.”

“Excuse me?”

He held both hands out, his empty palms cupping the air in front of my breasts. “Show more skin. C’mon, this is your last night on Earth. Let’s see those tits.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” I said.

“It’ll bring in more money. You want to raise enough creds for your family, right? So?” He shrugged. “Show your tits. You’ll make a killing.”

My face burned and I told him again, “Get the fuck out of here,” my words edgy and clipped. I fought back the desire to throw my drink in his face, not wanting to waste it.

He huffed, his cheeks ballooning as his face turned red. He twisted away from me and stomped back to the door, talking all the while: “Hey, it’s your life. At least what’s left of it. You don’t want my advice? Fine. Don’t take it. Fuck you too. I’ve only been doing this for five years, you hear me? I know what I’m talking about. And before this? I worked on This Evening, Tonight. You want to get all stuck up over me trying to help? Fuck you, lady. Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame. Fucking psycho bitch.”

The door slammed behind him, shaking in its frame. The holodisplays shimmered in the wave of his frustrations.

I shot back the bourbon and poured another. Free booze was a luxury I hadn’t enjoyed in ages.

I nursed my way through round number three, letting the liquor cut through the fog inside my head. I felt downright swimmingly all of a sudden, and the world was clear enough to me that I wasn’t sure if I needed to laugh at it or cry because of it.

My fingernails were too neat, too shiny. I’d given up weeks of accumulated filth for that French mani, trying to shut out a memory that came to me, unbidden—my fingers scoring the earth as I tried to kick myself away from the weight pressing down on me. My heart raced and my hand started shaking. I had to set the glass back on the bar. My tough-girl routine could only carry me so far, but I’d almost died this morning. And how fucking ironic would that have been? To check out before I could do it on my own with cash in hand?

I thought of the stranger’s oppressive weight bearing down on me, my fingers scrabbling, nails carving shallow scars into the dirt, its blackness pressing into the nail beds and crowding the corners of my vision. His breath had been hot and putrid, heaving forcefully into my face, his stink invading my nose and mouth. He’d held a makeshift knife—a long shard of glass with one end wrapped in electrical tape—to my throat and had finished before he’d even unbuckled his pants. The thrill of it, the physical power he had over me, had been enough for him, and it had been more than enough to leave me shaken and violated.

I’d been through worse, so I wasn’t sure why I suddenly felt so shaken-up by this particular attack. Maybe it was Stevens, and his oafish, ripe sense of entitlement; the way his eyes had lingered and the way he’d held his hands before my breasts, not touching me, but making his thoughts plain enough.

The bourbon made me feel less like a piece of meat, and forced my hand to be still.

As I glanced around the room again, the truth of it finally sank in. A truth I had known in a largely academic way, without examining it too deeply; like knowing that the sky was blue. The reasons why weren’t important. It was a fact of life. But suddenly it carried new weight and settled into my brainpan, taking root in my mind with a new clarity.

I was alone.

Not too many people get a glimpse of how their own funeral will be, but I knew. All I had to do was take a look around this room and I could see the end so clearly. It was only me. No friends, no family. Not even motherfucking Stevens.

Me and a gun. Somehow, I always knew it would end this way.

There were no windows in the room, but I could hear the rioting outside through the walls. Angry shouts, hostile screams—the sounds of discontent, of pain and resistance. I didn’t need to see it to know what was happening. I’d seen enough on the way in, as the Revolver security team picked me up from the displacement camp and delivered me here. This evening’s riot had been birthing then, but was in full swing now.

Three floors up and on the opposite end of the street, I could still hear the loud engine and clacking of treads against asphalt as police combat carriers, mobile assault units and tanks rolled into place. The gunfire was sporadic, but I knew it would grow as the evening progressed. It always did.

A week ago, I’d been on the outer edges of a riot that had engulfed the entire city square. I’d been scavenging for food and wound up with a mouthful of tear gas. That was before the police began firing their automatic rifles into the crowds. I’d been lucky to escape.

As the bourbon settled, my mind drifted. I couldn’t help but think of good old Ravencroft. When I was sixteen and Dad demanded to know what had happened to my wrist and why it was wrapped in gauze I had lied—told him I cut myself on a bush…best I could think of at the time. Stupid, I know. He demanded to see, and when I tried to weasel out of it, he grabbed my arm and tore the bandage away. Then he found the razor after digging through the garbage can in my bedroom. After that, we were off to the ER and a week-long stay in the psych wing where they pumped me full of drugs that made me want to kill myself even more, and then medication that numbed my brain and turned me into a zombie during the very few hours I was awake.

It had felt as if my mind was disconnected from my body, and that I was living in a frail shell where everything was slow and sluggish. I had existed for a time on two planes, both myself and not myself, a familiar stranger in my own skin. Another batch of pills made my heart race and the world sped up into a nauseating, dizzy spin. Eventually, they sorted it out, but not before a lifetime of cardiac irregularities had set in.

Like this guest suite at the news station, my room in Ravencroft had been windowless too. Except there I had a roommate who spent most of the time muttering to herself and drooling across her hospital gown. I’d sit in the rec room with drugged-up horrors who stared blankly into space. There was a window there, at least, providing a wonderful view of the lower adjacent wing’s roof.

“The attempt was serious,” I had argued in my earliest group therapy session. I had been exquisitely pissed off to have my aborted suicide brushed aside as a ‘cry for help’. I didn’t need help. I needed to not be such a fucking coward. I needed to not have a fucking last minute epiphany about all the things I’d miss if I were gone.

“Then why not do a better job?” the doc had asked. “Why try to hide the razor in plain sight? Why not have a better excuse for your injuries?”

No planning, no follow-through. A cry for help. I sat there crying, hating myself for living and having to sit through this shit. Officious prick.

When I started drinking and collecting DUIs, my probation officer asked me what alcohol was supposed to solve. She didn’t get it either. None of them did. None of them understood the one, single, basic fucking fact of it all. Alcohol wasn’t going to solve anything—it didn’t have to. It simply needed to help me feel like a goddamn human being. It needed to make the world bearable.

But that was the one thing the world could never be again—bearable. Things only got worse. The bottom fell out of the whole place completely after the last market crash; a total downward spiral, and those of us with too little had even less. Displacement camps were set up for those who had their homes seized by the banks, or the police, who became increasingly aggressive in their stop-and-seize practices, even in the total absence of a crime, in an effort to prop up their local governments and demand additional funding.

I poured off two more fingers of bourbon as the gunfire went from erratic to almost continuous. I’d have to find a new bottle soon, and I wasn’t even trying to get hammered. I needed to be clear-headed enough to pull the trigger.

Rioting had become such a common practice, a backdrop of daily life, that it hardly even made the news anymore, unless there was a significant body count. The mention of rape hauled me back to the broadcast.

“Reports coming out of a college in Madison, Wisconsin where a young woman is claiming to have been raped by the football team. We’ve obtained some photos from the party she was attending, and look at that,” the journalist said.

He was young, his hair a black Brillo pad. The photo, blown up to focus on the girl in question, occupied the right side of the display.

“You can see her holding a red cup, probably filled with booze, and wearing a midriff T-shirt and a miniskirt. I mean, what did she expect going there, to some frat-house sorority mixer like that?”

“Beyond that,” the other reporter said, gesticulating with both hands, “it’s a football team, right? These guys need to blow off steam before the big game. Right? She shouldn’t have been dressing so provocatively.”

“You know how it is,” Brillo Pad said, “These women want sex so badly, and if they’re not satisfied they call rape. That’s how they are. It’s ridiculous.”

“Next time, ladies, be sure to cover up. Dress sensibly, this kind of stuff won’t happen to you.”

Right, I thought, dress in layers, wear your entire wardrobe. That’ll stop ‘em.

I hunted again for a way to shut this bullshit off, but it was impossible to escape the state-sponsored news.

“This is a Christian country,” Brillo pad continued. “And if you’re a good Christian, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”

“That’s right,” his co-host chimed in. “She needs Jesus. That’s the only man she needs to let inside her, not an entire football team.”

“She’s a whore, that’s the bottom line. And we know what happens to women like her.”

“Yeah, they end up standing on the street corner, expecting taxpayers to pay for their abortions.”

I threw the crystal tumbler at the display. The broadcast rippled slightly as the glass passed through and shattered against the wall. Still they prattled on, their poison inescapable. “Fuck you!” I screamed, my heart racing. I wanted to turn this off, to shut them out, to be rid of them. Alone in this room, and I still couldn’t even get rid of these two men and their twisted ideals. Why couldn’t I be alone? Why?

The newsman brought on a rotating gallery of talking head politicos, all of them men. The Wisconsin state rep reminded viewers that rape was God’s gift to women.

“If this cheerleader,” the rep said, “gets pregnant, then, you know, that’s a gift. This gift of human life. God knows all of it, from beginning to end. He has a plan for each of us, and, look, you know that life begins at conception. A beautiful new life could come from this ugliness, and that’s just a gift from God. It’s a wonderful thing, really.”

I twisted to the wooden box and opened it. The long barrel of the revolver shone beneath the lights. I could do this. I could do this right now and blot out all their voices.

But no, I couldn’t. Not yet.

I inhaled deeply and shut my eyes against the tears, forcing myself to listen to the gunshots and maimed screaming from outside, focusing on the distant noise instead of the sadistic, filthy machismo pouring from the display. I wished their voices weren’t so loud. A little while longer, I told myself. I can do this.

The building shook, the concussive throb of explosions outside dulled by distance and the thickness of the studio. The talking heads appeared oblivious to the troubles rising outside their windows. They were either used to ignoring it, or had their heads so far up each other’s asses that the plight of the people made no difference to either of them.

I ignored the tiny voice in my head warning me to stop and rifled back two more fingers of bourbon, finishing the bottle while the room spun and vibrated. I held on to the bar’s edge as I looped around back to the shelves of liquors.

There were no mirrors in the room, and I studied my distorted reflection in the line-up of booze, my face curling around the curved edges of thick glass, bright in the overhead recessed lighting. I was wobbly, but cognizant enough to chide myself for being a stupid drunk. I counted the bottles and found twenty-eight more reasons to die, not including the gin.

Christ, I was pathetic.

Stevens popped his head in the door, again troubling neither of us with so much as a knock. “Five minutes,” he said.

“Sure,” I said, the word thick and palsied as it slurred on my tongue. “S’great.”

I saw his eyes land on the empty bottle behind me, the weight of silent judgment in them as I took down a bottle of Balvenie. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to.

“Oh, fuck yourself,” I said, nearly falling over. He was a fucking hypocrite.

I grabbed the empty and threw it toward him, but missed by a mile as it glanced off the cabinet door in front of me and dropped to the ground. I nearly fell over. Could barely stand. Couldn’t even aim straight. Two more things to add to the list of things ‘Cara Stone sucks ass’ at. Already a long, long list of failures, with decades of recriminations behind each single fucking one of them.

When I finally felt solid enough to stand, I saw Stevens was gone. Good. Fuck him. I didn’t need him. Who the fuck was he anyway? Asshole.

I took small steps back to the plush bar stool, nudging the empty bottle gingerly with my toe to push it out of the way. Why didn’t the stool have a back, at least? I was going to fall over. I propped myself up on top it, using the Balvenie on the end table as support to keep myself upright. Why was everything so spinny and tilt-a-whirl? My eyes were heavy.

“Stay with Sean and I,” Brillo Pad said, “as we return with a new episode of Revolver. First up, though, a word from our sponsors.”

The two men were replaced with another man, this one dressed in combat fatigues and carrying an assault rifle in one hand, and a large wooden cross in the other. A number of other men stood behind him, each armed with a variety of guns, rocket launchers, bazookas, and knives. I wasn’t focused enough to listen to the rambling Sovereign Citizen recruitment speech, and the world dimmed as I tuned the speaker out.

“Miss? Hello?”

I opened my eyes to Brillo Pad’s smirking gaze. I’d hate to wake up to his condescending bullshit on a regular basis. Shit. Did I pass out? A hand squeezed roughly at my left breast, pinching the nipple through the blouse. I shoved the hand away and shot daggers at Stevens. Fucking pervert.

“Hello, hello, hello?”

“Oh. Hey,” I said, lamely. My tongue felt fuzzy. I wanted to sleep. I made a show of smiling, feeling absolutely none of it.

“Two minutes in, and you’re already a drunk skunk. That’s gotta be a new record, hey, Sean?”

“I think so, Brian. But, you know, women don’t have the fortitude for this kind of fundraising. Men are able to muscle through it pretty well, but the ladies get too emotional to stay clearheaded. I’m not surprised by her inability to stay sober.”

“Can you hear us OK, Miss Stone?”

“You two are assholes, you know that?”

“Wow, language,” Brillo Pad Brian said. “You wouldn’t talk to Jesus that way, now would you?”

“I’m sure it’s that time of month,” Sean added, giving a sage nod and a smirk to the camera. A real yuckster.

Stevens was standing beside me, and the weight of his unforgiving stare bored into me. How many times had I seen that disappointed expression on others?

I stared at the scars on my wrist as I set the empty tumbler aside, trying to screw up some courage for this. I wanted to get it over with, go right to the ‘bang bang, goodnight’ part of the show. I felt so small under their stares and wanted to curl up and bring an end to it all. I hated myself for being so pathetic, but was somewhat relieved that I could still at least have enough control to finish myself off. There would be peace at the end of all this, finally.

“OK, so,” Sean said, “let’s talk money. Something I know women can never get enough of. You’re here to raise five thousand dollars for your family, is that right?”

“That’s right,” I said, keeping my answers short.

“You’ve come to the right place, then. Revolver is all about helping the unfortunate. Our corporate sponsors, the Kay brothers, Johnnie and Donnie Kay, have matched your fundraising goal as they always do. Your five thousand is guaranteed. What we’re going to do tonight is see how much more money we can earn your family, and help get a few more folks out of the breadlines tonight. The Kay brothers recognize how much of an enemy poverty is to society, what a blight it is on this country, and they’re working to eliminate it one person at a time. Tonight, Miss Cara Stone, their war against poverty begins with you!”

I could hear canned applause through the piped-in speakers surrounding me. The clamor made my head thrum painfully. The noise of slapping hands gave way to the muffled roars of explosions, and I smelled a too-close chemical stench. I dimly wondered if the factory town on the city’s outskirts was burning, and how close those flames might come to us.

“What’s happening outside?” I asked.

My question seemed to have taken Brillo Pad off guard, and he flashed an arrogant smirk at the camera. “Nothing you need to worry about. You’re surrounded by an awful lot of strong menfolk, and our building’s security team is top notch. We’ll keep you safe.”

I opened my mouth to respond, then noticed the small green light on the lavaliere wink out. I spoke anyway, asking, again, “What’s happening out there, though? Shouldn’t you be reporting on this?”

“You’re off-air, Miss Stone,” Stevens said, as if I were brain dead. Shit, maybe I was. And even if I were, he still had no right to look at me like that, as if he was so goddamn patronly and concerned for me—the kind of concern that was wrapped in a haughty sense of superiority.

“What’s going on out there?” I waved an arm toward the far wall. “And you keep your fucking hands off me, you hear me?”

He shrugged, clearly bored. “The usual riots. Soup kitchen ran out; too many mouths and not enough food. Entitled fucks decided to start something, and now we gotta put them down. Nothing you need to worry about.” He patted the pistol under his arm to emphasize the point. “They’ll calm down once the show gets into the swing of things,” he said.

I thought of the massive jumbotron in the city’s center square, and the metal bleachers lining the courtyard around it. My mug would be blasted large over the park grounds, while people gathered to watch and warm their hands around their bowl of hot food.

“People like you,” he pointed at me, then flapped his hand in the general direction of the building’s north end, toward the park, “nothing you all love more than free handouts and cheap entertainment.”

Something to the left of me gurgled and gave off a steamy belch. The scent of coffee perfumed the air, and I noticed the maker in its final stages of brewing.

Stevens grabbed the bottle of Balvenie and poured two cups of coffee, black. He set one on the table for me, and then left the room without another word. The door closed on a trail of hot steam.

The pretty pictures blanketing the other two holodisplay feeds dissolved into a stream of ranting vitriol. The Revolver social media stream. I read the comments with a glazed detachment, as if I were studying a train wreck.

Icons sat beside the vulgar text of supposed men hiding behind usernames that were rife with sexual innuendo, swear words, or obscure movie references. Most of the users’ icons were cartoon images or video game stills; a rare few were actually vain or brave enough to slap their face beside words they should not have been proud of.

One user hid behind the façade of a cartoon mouse and wrote:

Rape the bitch to death! #Revolver

Another:

Ugly bitch. She look like a homeless skank.

#Revolver best thing to ever happen to her.

And:

Fat ass #Revolver deserve to die tonight.

Get her fat ass outta breadline.

Leave the crumbs for somebody else!

Not to leave out this gem:

She gonna suck dat #Revolver wishin it was ma dick.

#DieStupidBitches #KillAllDaBitches

The coffee was too hot and too bitter to enjoy. It went well with the stream of ugly consciousness scrolling across the display. Very briefly, I thought about spiking the coffee, but knew that I needed to be alert. The demons were running rampant, inside and outside my skull, and no matter how badly I wanted to stay drunk, I knew that I needed to sober up. Last thing I needed was Stevens’s big, ugly hand tweaking my nipples again.

A dulled whoompf! rattled the bottles over the bar. Plaster dust fluttered down through the beam of recessed lighting. The holodisplays and lights flickered briefly before regaining full strength. I was missing a hell of a show, apparently. Had to be better than this state-run filth.

I opened up the walnut box that held the revolver and hefted the gun’s weight again. I couldn’t deny the sense of power it imbued me with, even as I doubted my ability to follow through. My final moments would be coming up soon and I wanted to be clear-headed.

I can do this.

But, could I really? The artefacts on my wrist said otherwise. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. All I needed to do was put the gun to my head and pull the trigger. Not that difficult. Barely any thought required at all. Then, I would be good and truly free. I could escape. That was all I really wanted, and how I went about achieving that didn’t matter. I was in control, and I could do this. The news hosts, the hashtaggers, the rape-loving politicians, Stevens, all of them—they didn’t matter. They could try to degrade me and strip me of my worth and individuality. I didn’t care about them. I was in charge of my fate, and this was my choice.

I cradled the gun in my lap, holding tightly to its grip, steeling my nerves with the weapon’s utter indifference. Then the left-most holodisplay snapped and flung a new face into place, and it felt like a rivet gun was firing into my belly and twisting my intestines in a vice.

“Dad?” I said, noticing the tiny green light splashed against the white fabric above my breast as I looked down. Live and on-air now.

Through the watery haze of the standing puddle that formed against my eyes, I saw an extra fifty dollars had accumulated on the tally display. Five thousand and fifty dollars, my life’s worth.

“You don’t have to do this, sweetie,” he said, imploring me. His bottom lip quivered, making the loose skin beneath his chin shake. I had the same eyes as him, and I saw the same watery gaze reflected in his, both of us holding back tears at the sudden reunion.

I’d expected this. Known it was coming, that it was part of the Revolver gimmick. Still, it took the wind right out of my sails and shook me to my core. I’d tried to prepare myself emotionally, tried to lock away all the feels, but my stomach still quivered with butterflies and my heart raced. My throat burned as I choked back the sobs. I hadn’t seen my father in ten years, and now this.

He was here to watch his little girl blow her brains out on state TV. How could I not cry? How could I not hate myself?

“Mr. Stone,” Brillo Pad said, “thank you for being here tonight for your daughter. Is there anything you want to say to her?”

“It’s not your fault, Cara. You don’t have to do this. I don’t need the money. Please, come home.”

“I—,” I began, my voice hitching. My mouth flapped open and closed of its own accord, and my throat swelled enough to make sounds difficult. I think I squeaked. Don’t fucking cry, you shit. Don’t. “I can’t,” I said.

The truth of it all was plain and simple—it was my fault.

After my ‘cry for help’, after the antidepressants made me feel so good that I decided I didn’t need them anymore and went off my meds, I went straight into a downward spiral. An underage DUI bust, and pissing dirty with THC, was more than enough for the state police to seize my parents’ home and all their belongings, even though the charges of Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor filed against them didn’t stick. They were tossed out on the street and it was me who left them there.

There were harsh words, to be sure, but Dad didn’t disown me. He didn’t need to. I’d invented enough arguments in my head and went through all the potential back-and-forths, and they all ended the same. I knew that reality wouldn’t be any different than the lousy movies I dreamed up in my head. So I left.

He and Mom spent months searching for me. I stayed hidden, though, and I lied to the shelters and to the bums I decided to cohabit with. He touched me, I said. A year later, I learned through the hobo network that he’d left a message for me at one of the shelters.

Mom was dead. Massive heart attack.

That sealed the deal. I was poison. I didn’t even know where they’d been living, or where she was buried. I was too busy staying drunk and avoiding the police for the warrants I knew were out there from skipping out on my probation officer. At that point, the fewer people I was involved with the better. Fuck everyone, you know?

“I can’t come home, Dad,” I repeated, stronger now. I sat up straighter, still holding the gun in my lap, index finger curled around the trigger.

“There’s a better way, sweetheart. It’s not too late. Let me help you, please. I can get you help, and we can turn all of this around.”

But in my head, his voice said what I knew to be the truth: You killed your mother. You’re beyond hope. You might be cleaned up right now, but we both know you’re nothing more than pure filth. You don’t deserve my help. Kill yourself. Get it over with.

“Mr. Stone, did you know that your daughter has active warrants for her arrest? She has multiple misdemeanors: counts of drunk and disorderly, operating while intoxicated, resisting arrest. And, of course, soliciting. Mr. Stone, your daughter is a whore. How does that make you feel?”

Dad’s face went red as the blood rushed to his ears. I knew he was seething. “What? What kind of question is that? She’s my daughter! How do you think that makes me feel?”

A burning lump crawled up my throat and I stumbled off the stool before rushing headlong into the bathroom, a hand clapped tightly around my mouth. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t contain it. Vomit sprayed between my fingers, and I was running and gagging as my stomach emptied itself of everything. Booze, coffee and bile burned against my tongue. My foot hit the puddle and skidded against the sick-slick tile and I went down hard. My back crashed into the bathroom floor, the back of my head bouncing hard off the tiles. Muscles seized up instantly, a tight shock of pain all along the length of my spine and in my hips. I twisted, half-screaming, half-gagging, to finish throwing up. Hot, sticky liquid dripped down my neck from the side of my face. I could hear myself repeated through the room’s speakers—an unpleasant, discordant echo.

I lay there for too long, in my nasty waste and humiliation, reeking of bourbon and spent coffee, utterly dazed. I could hear Brillo Pad and his ammosexual co-host laughing at me. Their words were lost amongst the whirling ringing in my ears and flashes of silver that lingered in my vision with every blink. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their mocking tone was unmistakable.

Slowly, I got to my knees, using the bathroom sink to haul myself to my feet, my back screaming all the way. The pain kept me from standing up straight. My whole body was shaking, and a thick caul of mucus covered my chin, darkening the neckline of my stained blouse. I washed in the sink, ignoring the condescension of the Revolver crew and the concerned pleading in my father’s voice.

If I needed another reason to kill myself, I guess I had it.

My eyes lit upon the social media stream. More men laughing at me.

Sick whore, one said.

That was funny, another said. Now suck off that gun.

Lost amongst it all was a lone voice of reason. A single person that wrote:

#Revolver is disgusting and irresonpsible.

Don’t let these people win! Turn it off!

It didn’t take long for the message to get buried in the noise, or for other users to attack that one voice of dissent and threaten them with arson and rape and death.

“Honey, please,” Dad said, openly crying now. Begging me. I saw #Revolver #FAG out of the corner of my eye and my ears burned. Another trait I shared with him. “There’s other ways. We can fix this. I promise you, we can fix this. We can start over. We can change things. Don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t do enough for you. I wanted to help.”

“There’s better ways for you to help than this. C’mon, sweetie. Cara. Please. I’m begging you, sweetie, please. Not like this. You have to listen to me. I—”

“Turn it off,” I said, turning toward Brillo Pad.

He nodded and Dad disappeared in a dark wink.

“Your dad obviously loves you very much,” Sean said. “You can walk away from the money, the money you earned for your father, and leave with nothing. Or you can continue to participate.”

“We’re up to sixty-five hundred,” Brillo Pad said, a shine in his eyes. He licked his lips, slowly, as if anticipating the blood spill. My life nothing more than a cheap game to him.

“What’s your choice?” Sean asked.

I can do this.

My lips were dry and my back ached scornfully. I brushed aside Dad’s televised lip service and said, “Let’s go for seven thousand.”

Both hosts smiled, revealing toothy fangs, their leering eyes brimming with hatred. I was in the devil’s sandbox, digging my hole deeper. That was my choice.

Bitch. Slut. Whore. Hussy. I’d heard it all before. Been called all of it and worse. Still, I was surprised at the amount of repetition in the media feed, and the frequency with which these words arose, as if cultivated from some collective, self-loathing hive mind of insecurity. There wasn’t even an attempt to muster something approaching creativity in the insults. The whole display was pathetic vitriol.

Brillo Pad and his boy-toy eventually got around to my medical history. The Kay brothers owned seventy percent of the nation’s healthcare providers, and obtaining a complete record of my past was an easy feat for them. The social feed filled with hashtag poison.

Mine: Hashtag Go Fuck Yourself.

“What do you have to be depressed about?” Brillo Pad asked, apparently in all sincerity. But it was a loaded question. I’d been down this road too many times, too.

My probation officer: “You’re sixteen. You skip school, no job, you drink all day. What do you have to be depressed about? You want to be depressed, get a job.”

Dad: “Why did you do this to yourself? Are people at school making fun of you? What’s wrong? Talk to us. Tell us why you’re so moody lately.”

Ravencroft therapist and post-Ravencroft shrink, Dr. Tilbury: “How do you feel?”

It was all chemical shit, and I went through rounds of cocktail drugs to find something to even out the dopamine receptors and uptake my way to normalcy. Depressed was just what I was. I didn’t need a particular reason, and anything could set me off, and oftentimes did. Why the fuck did I stop taking the pills?

Because you’re an idiot, something dark and slithery told me, an all-too-familiar voice perched on my shoulder.

Nobody understood. Everyone thought they were miserable, that they had shitty lives, that their minor inconveniences were epic disasters. My raise wasn’t big enough. I stood in line for over two hours for a loaf of two-day-old bread. Well boo-fucking-hoo. Cry me a river.

My brain chemistry is fucked up, and that’s the bottom line. There’s no cure, only prescribed placations for the demons inside me. If I took the drugs, I was weak. If I tried to solve matters on my own, say with a Remington New Model Army 1858 revolver for instance, I was weak. And if I let nature run its course, my disease was illegitimate and unearned. I was another homeless fruitcake, my depression somehow less than real.

But, people have their own problems. Nowadays especially. That’s a hard hump to get over.

I shrugged and said, “Life sucks. That’s all.”

I saw the glare in Brillo Pad’s eyes. The one that said my answer was a cop out. Maybe it was.

“How many sexual partners have you had?”

“Excuse me?” I asked, struck off-guard. I took a second to recompose. “How is that at all relevant?”

“Well, I’m reading over your medical chart,” he wiggled a microtablet at the camera, “and it says you’ve had two abortions. That seems like an awful lot. And both before you were twenty.”

“I was raped,” I said, my tone hollow. I had to shut myself down inside. It was the one way I could go on. “I was…I don’t need to justify myself to you.”

“But you are promiscuous, aren’t you?”

“Hey, I know you and your pals think rape is great and rape babies are God’s gift to women, but—”

“But,” Sean interrupted me, “you’re a murderer! You’re a sinner! You’re a maniac and a serial killer and a whore.” His was a toothy strike, and he craved his pound of flesh with theatrical zeal.

“Whatever.” Defending myself was useless. I made a point of not glancing at the social feed. I needed a cigarette.

“So after you’ve killed two innocent babies, you think you can simply take other people’s hard-earned money and kill yourself? Take the easy way out?”

I laughed. “You think this is easy?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Honestly?” I said. “Listening to your hypocritical bullshit and not pulling the trigger on this here gun is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

“Why do this? You know you’re going to Hell, right?” Brillo Pad jumped in, probably worried that Sean was hogging too much of his camera time.

“I guess we’ll see.” Not that I believed in Hell, or Heaven for that matter.

That little diatribe brought in another hundred bucks. I yawned.

“I hope we’re not boring you,” Brillo Pad said, smug as ever.

“I want to know about the riot outside,” I said.

“There is no riot outside,” Sean said.

“What’s with the gunshots, the explosions? I can smell shit burning. Why don’t you report on that? This city is falling apart.”

“Those are a bunch of hoodlums getting what they deserve. What do you think you deserve, Ms. Stone?”

“You’re deflecting,” I said, sipping coffee, trying to be cool.

“You learn that word during your time in Ravencroft?”

I shrugged. “I heard tanks earlier. There’s real life happening right outside this studio, and you’re willfully oblivious.”

“There’s nothing happening outside.” Brillo Pad was turning red and inching toward the edge of his seat, ready to fly off. If I were in the studio with him, he probably would have throttled me.

“Except people getting what they deserve, right?”

Another hundred bucks came in. “Maybe people actually want to hear the truth for once,” I said. “Seems there’s some real money in the news.”

“That isn’t your money,” Sean said. “You didn’t earn that.”

A huge concussive blast hit too close, shaking the building. The lights dimmed and, this time, took too long to self-correct. The Revolver hosts did a fair job of keeping their cool, still holding on to the pretense that nothing was happening.

“An explosion just rocked the building, Sean,” I said, putting on my best reporter’s hat and mimicking some old-school journalists I’d seen on TV before the Kay brothers bought up the entire nation, one politician, one lawsuit, one television studio, and one piece of legislation at a time. “We are at the epicenter of something very serious, and very dangerous.”

The green light winked out. The mic was dead. Brillo Pad cut to commercial, but I still had the camera studio feed on the left-most display while the adverts played out on the center console. I watched the hosts talk animatedly—yell, in fact—at one another, at their producers, at everyone in the room with them. There was no audio, but their wide mouths and violently red faces told me everything I needed to know.

I couldn’t help but laugh. For once, I actually felt OK. Somehow, an inner reserve of strength had helped prop me up in a way all the bottles of booze in the world never could.

The door blew open as another explosion erupted outside, even closer. The walls shook, but I didn’t know if it was from the blast or from Stevens’s furious stampede into the room. He took long, quick strides toward me and backhanded me across the face. The inside of my cheek cut open against my teeth and filled my mouth with a coppery tang. The blow toppled me off the stool and sent me to the ground. Hot coffee scalded the underside of my forearm and the back of my hand. Somehow, I still held onto the gun; even more miraculously, it didn’t go off.

He flung the stool aside, sent it crashing into the wall, and delivered a swift kick to my stomach.

“You stupid whore,” he screamed, kicking me again. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

I raised my head, tried to sit up, but he grabbed my face in one large hand. His fingers pushed my cheeks into my teeth, making my lips pucker in pain. He smashed my head into the floor, screaming in my face, an incoherent rage.

“You trying to ruin the whole fucking show?” he yelled.

Saliva peppered my eyes and forehead. His fingers loosened and I took in a massive, painful breath. My ribs burned with the inhalation. He punched me square in the face and I felt my nose depress inward with a sickening crunch, snot flooding the back of my throat in a bloody glob.

I tried to blink, but saw nothing except swirling stars.

“I’m going to teach you a good goddamn lesson,” he said, one fat hand going to his belt and unbuckling the leather. I tried to scoot backward as he unbuttoned his pants and pulled the tail of his shirt away from his waist.

“You ain’t ever gonna forget this lesson,” he said. “I can promise you that much, you mouthy little shit.”

“Get away from me!” I dug my heels into the carpet and pushed myself away. My shoulders banged into the wall, and his hands were groping at my pants, fumbling with the button.

I raised the revolver and pulled the trigger. Time slowed and I watched the immaculate details of horror, as the flash of superheated gases puffed against his hair and bubbled the scalp to bursting. A gout of red exploded from the opposite side of his skull, messy chunks of grey and white mixed in with the blood, making a noisy, wet splash against the carpet.

His eyes went soft as he collapsed against me. I spent too long trying to get out from under him. I spent a long time sitting against the wall, my breath ragged, pointing a relic of a revolver at him, waiting for him to move. He never did.

My heart was racing, and I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just done. I wanted to cry, wanted to run, but I was stuck here in the ‘off’ position, exhausted, reeling and unable to catch up with reality.

I can do this, I thought. And then I wondered what this was supposed to be.

What did you say earlier, Daddy? That we could fix this? We could change things? Maybe we can.

I had five bullets left.

Another explosion, this one right outside. Close. Very, very close. The noisy, heavy treads of tanks rolling into the city square.

Blood seeped from Stevens’s skull, a standing pool too thick for the carpet to absorb.

Five bullets and a promise. We can change things. Maybe.

For the first time in a long time, I felt good. For the first time in forever, I smiled a real smile. Not like I had anything else to lose, anyway, right?

The riots, the explosions, the gunshots—it kept people on edge, nervous. I heard the shuffling of bodies behind closed doors, but nobody came out as I strode down the hallway and into the broadcast studio. Or maybe, since it was a Saturday night, the building was short staffed, operating on a skeleton crew. What kind of accountant wants to die a hero while pulling some weekend overtime?

I strode into the studio and marched past empty cubicles. Brillo Pad Brian and Sean were sitting right where they had been for the last few hours. An array of cameras surrounded them, but only one was operated by an actual human being; the rest were automated or controlled remotely from the control booth.

The cameraman turned, saw my gun, and reached for his own weapon. I shot him in the chest before he could pull on me.

Then I walked towards the hosts.

Brian and Sean both panicked. Brillo Pad went for his gun, his hand shaking with nervous energy, and before the barrel cleared the shoulder holster the gun went off, punching a hole in the green screen behind him. The unexpected shot rattled Sean further, but he was at least able to get his gun out.

I shot him first, blowing away half his face.

Brillo Pad raised his hands in surrender, forgetting about his weapon.

“Any more guys with guns around?” I asked.

“Please, don’t kill me.”

“I don’t know, man. I’m an irrational, shitty little bitch. Who knows what I might do.”

“Those were just words. You need to get a thicker skin, that’s all. This is a man’s world. It’s not anything personal.”

“Seemed pretty fucking personal to me.” I squared the front sight of the revolver with the centre of his forehead, and decided to get a little bit closer. I kept walking until the barrel was pressed to his skin and his eyes went cross looking at the metal shaft.

“You’re not a man,” I told him. “You’re a weak, insecure child playing at being a man. And not even a real man, at that. You’re trying to live up to some outdated, old-world Hollywood ideal of a man, playing dress-up with all your fancy little guns, like you never grew out of playing cops and robbers. You’re not a man, and you don’t know shit about what it means to be a man. You’re a coward who’s afraid of the whole damn world, and nothing more.

“You think this,” I pressed the gun hard against his skull, “gives you power. Until somebody with some actual balls steps up, and then your true colors run, and you beg and you grovel. You had all kinds of shit to say about me, about how weak I was, about how awful I was. Where’s your fucking righteous indignation now? Where’s that smug superiority, that grandiose sense of entitlement you broadcast to the nation? Huh? Where is it?”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “That’s what they pay me for. This is a show. It’s entertainment. That’s all it is. You need to understand.”

“I understand entirely.” I pulled the trigger and watched, dully, as he slumped in his chair, the back half of his head obliterated.

Two shots left.

I looked toward the control room, at the still cluster of open-mouthed people stationed behind the long stretch of clear glass. The center camera, now unmanned, went auto, drifting smoothly toward me of its own accord. I watched a woman barking orders, snapping her fingers at people, giving directions to her crew.

Over ten thousand dollars were on the board. The figure kept climbing by the thousands as the seconds ticked by.

Another explosion rocked the studio, and heavy footfalls stampeded through the anteroom. Shouting and gunshot were plainly audible, and too, too close.

“This isn’t a man’s world,” I said, to the camera, feeling the need to speak.

“This is our world. Forget the Kay brothers. Forget their bought-and-paid-for politicians, and their Bible-thumping propaganda, and this Revolver shit. Forget them, and move past them. They want you to hate, they want you to fear. Because they hate, because they are afraid. They want us divided, and they want all of us to be as insecure and insignificant and as fucking petty as they are.

“Outside, this riot they’ve been ignoring. It happens every day. And you know what? It isn’t a riot. It’s not. It’s a war. And it’s at your doorstep right now. This is supposed to be our country, our home. This is our world, our lives. We can fix this. We can change all of this. We can make it better.”

Boots hit the floor, getting closer and closer. Revolver security, or state police, or sisters-in-arms, I didn’t know. I didn’t much care.

I’d come here to die, and I still had two bullets left.

The tally board ran over twenty-six thousand, America eager to revel in its bloodlust and throw money at it? Or something else? It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life, more than I’d ever earn picking bottles out of the trash for their return. More money than my father had seen in ages. Blood money, earned in death.

You’ve had your fill.

“This is Revolver, signing off.”

I shot at the center camera. The electronics exploded and glass clinked to the floor.

Smoke drifted inside, thick, grey and noxious with a chemical stink. Gunfire behind that, and the dull thud of far-off explosions. The moans of a dying city.

I listened to the rattle of armed bodies working their way through the outer work area, maneuvering through the maze of cubicles as they neared the studio.

I hoped that my father was right, and that things could still be fixed—some of it at least.

I made my choice. I did the only thing I could do. I sat. I listened. I waited. Come what may, I waited, the gun in my lap, finger at the trigger.

One bullet left.

Preservation

Originally published by The Cyborg Chronicles

* * *

Summary

Kari Akagi is ex-British Special Forces, augmented by her government to be the prime soldier. In the wake of a devastating attack that cost her her legs, she has a new mission—protecting South Africa’s endangered species as a ranger for the Kruger National Park game reserve.

* * *

Kari Akagi sat in the crook of a massive baobab tree, a rifle in her lap, roughly twenty meters above the low-lying plains of the Kruger National Park.

From her perch she could see the Olifants River, which divided the southern and northern regions of Kruger. The north was elephant country, and she watched as a herd bathed in the shallow depths and grazed along its banks.

There was a simple joy in watching the massive creatures live their lives, in seeing the young ones play.

Their life expectancy was too short for her liking, but the luckiest among them could live for fifty years or more. If the poachers didn’t get to them first.

Her morning had started with news of another rhino killing. The reserve had less than one hundred left, and there was a countdown hanging over the heads of the survivors. Each one dead drove the black market prices of their ever-scarcer horns higher and higher into the millions.

The news had woken her like a kick to the gut, and she’d wanted to rage at the rangers and volunteers who had fucked up and let this happen. Unfair, certainly, but her anger was palpable. Instead, she retreated and cut off her commNet, fuming.

She zoomed in on the Olifants, increasing the resolution of her blink-powered retinal upgrades and recorded the lackadaisical scene playing out below. This was a memory she wanted to keep.

Standing to stretch her torso, she set the rifle aside and raised her arms above her head, holding the pose for several deep breaths. Then she bent at the waist, stretching her spine, shoulders, and the muscles of her one remaining thigh, the flex deep enough that she was able to touch the two long blades that had replaced both feet.

Her legs had been lost to an IED years ago. Her left leg, from the hip down, was a mechanized limb replacement system. Both high-grade prosthetics were equipped with hundreds of ultra-fast quantum-load microprocessors, hydraulics, rotors, flexions, actuators, and sensors. A neuronal interface allowed her to control each limb as if it were the real thing, and the built-in multi-directional response coordinators allowed her to move with ease and grace in virtually any environment.

With her chin practically touching the tough Kevlar shell of the artificial knee joint, she could feel the absorbed heat boiling off the deep blue fabric.

Although she was warm and hadn’t eaten real food in several days, she had little concern for dehydration or starvation. The military had seen to her well-being both before and after her mandatory four tours in Afghanistan and Syria. Keeping her in-country in such harsh climates that ranged from desert tundra to colder mountain terrain had required significant modifications to her meat suit.

Akagi’s innards had been replaced with artificial organs to regulate her body’s water loss, and nasal cavity inserts and heat exchangers implanted atop her jugular veins and neck arteries inhibited water loss that occurred through exhalation and perspiration. There were even filter systems installed in her bladder and large intestine to capture, concentrate, and store any water lost through digestive waste. In her rucksack was a three-month supply of hard-shelled, egg-shaped candies. Each one contained a liquid center and provided her with her daily requirement of nutrients and calories.

While the military had designed her to be an optimized soldier, she had found a more satisfying niche working as a wildlife ranger. The truth of it was, she had merely traded one war for another, exchanging a cause for a cause. Her cause, nowadays, just happened to have four legs and tusks or horns.

Rising from the stretch, she again lifted both arms over her head and pulled her torso first to the left, then the right, stretching her oblique abdominals.

Her body felt looser, her mind more composed. Until the ping hit her commNet with an urgent alert and a geotag.

Another kill.

She felt her cheeks warm in anger, then quickly cool as her implants triggered a temperature regulation control and systolic dampener. The physical stressors were muted, but they didn’t do shit for her emotional state and only made her feel that much more pissed off.

“Has anyone heard from Gerhardt?” Command asked.

“Negative,” she said. “What was his last status?”

“He checked in for morning debriefing, but no updates since.”

“Roger that, Command.”

Another kill, and now a missing ranger. She swore softly to herself, unsettled.

Clambering down a ladder the park rangers had installed more than half a century ago, the dual-bladed system that comprised her feet hit the soft grass below. She broke out into a run, maintaining an easy pace to the latest kill site, roughly forty-five minutes away.

* * *

Akagi knelt before the butchered rhino, resting her hand against its still flank and closing her eyes for a moment of quiet respect.

The massive herbivore’s face had been brutally hacked apart, probably by an axe. The horns were missing, naturally. Dried blood stained the earth around the creature.

She cursed the lack of resources and the bribed politicians who abetted in this gruesome horror. The reserve covered more than eight thousand square miles of land, and it was impossible for the small squad to cover all of it efficiently. In a fit of twisted logic, the politicians argued that the reduced population of near-extinct animals meant there was little need for increased funding and the hiring of more rangers. The reservation’s budget was slashed and burned, leaving little more than twenty active field rangers to patrol twenty-two sections of the park.

Their duties had been eased slightly with the deployment of reconnaissance drones, but it hadn’t taken long for the poachers and the syndicates they worked for to grow aware of the extra surveillance. One by one, the five drones were shot out of the sky and the budget for replacements dried up.

Poaching was ludicrously profitable, and the wealthy higher-ups in the syndicates spent good money buying South African politicians and influence within the leadership of preservation agencies. Once upon a time, the reservation had implanted the rhinos and their horns with tracking chips to make life more difficult for the syndicates. As a result, the syndicates went on a spending spree to develop a smear campaign through third-party agencies about how the tracking chips made life more difficult for the animals, and how the reservation was mutilating rhino horns, destroying the vital essence of the rhinoceros. All it took were a few dozen parliamentary members in the syndicates’ pockets to undo all the good the rangers were attempting. Even the rangers and veterinarians on staff were lulled by the big money the syndicates offered. Akagi herself had arrested one of the drone operators, who was tracking the preserve’s animals for poachers, who were being supplied high-grade tranquilizers by one of the park’s veterinarians.

More than six thousand miles away from Syria and she still found herself on the losing side of another desperate warzone, surrounded by corruption, turncoats, and failed leadership. She couldn’t help but laugh to herself as the bitter resentment bubbled over.

Her partner, Okey Ekwensi, stood nearby with his canine companion, Dashi. The black-and-tan German shepherd panted lightly as he watched her movements.

Circling around the fallen rhino, she saw the mess of clumsy footprints from both animal and man. The rhino’s cloven hooves left a large, rounded mark that looked somewhat like a bubbly W. There were five distinct boot treads as well.

Blood spatter along the ground led to the brush, where the trap had been sprung. The blood line along the ground left a clear trail, and she spotted red in the grass. Her mind’s eye pictured, too clearly, the team of poachers surrounding the rhino and hacking at its flanks with their axes. Gore flew off the blades as they tore their weapons free from the animal’s hide, raising them for another strong swing.

The rhino had tried to run, but the men—they were almost always men—had gone for the legs, severing its Achilles tendons. The rhino then collapsed, immobilized in the trampled dirt, where its face was hacked apart and dismembered.

“This is number eight-six for the year,” she said.

“And it’s only March,” Okey said, nodding. He spoke softly, his black skin shiny from the layer of sweat covering him and plastering his fatigue shirt to his chest.

“They’re not going to last the year.”

Okey said nothing. The solemn look on his face said enough. He knew the score as well as she did. What else was left to say? They were standing there quietly in the middle of an extinction event.

“Let the dog loose," she said.

They followed Dashi into the tall grass fields as he tracked the poachers’ scent, Okey keeping close. Akagi surveyed the terrain, seeking out the trail, looking for footprints, scanning the horizon with a variety of ocular magnifications.

Odds were, the poachers were long gone. They spent the better part of an hour following the trail before it went cold. The bent grass and boot treads gave way to flattened earth and the deep impression of tire tracks.

Dashi grew agitated, his panting becoming heavier as he sniffed at the air, straining on the leash. The sudden movements caught Okey by surprise and he nearly lost his grip on the leather strap. He recovered quickly and the two were off and running in a westerly direction.

Akagi followed close on their tails but came to a swift stop, her bladed feet sliding through the dust and briefly losing traction as the stabilizers fought to maintain her vertical equilibrium. The stench was enough to gag her, and she pulled her checkered shemagh over her mouth.

She recognized the soiled green fatigues as that of a ranger, but it was impossible to tell who it was. The man had been gutted, his innards spilled across the ground. His face was a pulpy mess, hacked apart by the poachers. He’d likely stumbled upon them or heard the sound of their vehicle and went to warn them off. Sorry fucker had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As she drew closer, she realized she knew the man. Not because of any physical features, but rather because of the lack of them.

“They took his arm,” Okey said. “His leg too.”

“Gerhardt,” she said, refusing to look away from his splayed form.

Like Akagi, Gerhardt had been fitted with similar prosthetics following war injuries. He’d been caught on the wrong side of friendly fire when his troop had come under attack in Iran. They’d been forced to withdraw into a meat-packing facility and radioed for backup. Drones had been dispatched, and if the operators had bothered to discern the differences between hostiles and friendlies, the payload sure as hell didn’t. A rain of hellfire missiles pounded the surrounding area, eliminating the Iranian Army and laying waste to the surrounding commercial zone. Gerhardt had been too close to an exterior wall and it had cost him.

Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, she thought.

The poachers had had a good day, it seemed. Black market bionics had a nice resale value. Not as much as rhino horns or elephant ivory, both of which had become more valuable than gold and oil combined in certain Asian markets, but still, they fetched a hefty price tag.

Another rhino lost. Another ranger killed, their seventh of the year.

We’re all going extinct, she thought. We’re the last of a dying breed.

She scratched at the scars along the side of her neck, shooing away a mosquito.

“Call it in,” she said. “Get some trucks out here.”

She thought, not for the first time, that this was less of a preserve and more of a graveyard.

* * *

Whoever had hacked apart Gerhardt’s face hadn’t bothered to chip him. After the support staff arrived to load his remains into the bed of a truck and hauled him back to base, the reservation’s medical officer gave him a quick once-over and checked the man’s data ports.

As with most servicemen hailing from Europe or the fractured American territories, Gerhardt had received cerebral modifications. The Databiologic Receiver of Mnemonic Response, or DRMR, was a standard utility that basically turned ground soldiers into drone equivalents, allowing command centers to monitor, supervise, and record battle conditions directly through otherwise independent operators.

“Why wouldn’t they chip him?” Okey asked.

Akagi shrugged, absorbing the data packet that base had distributed through the commNet.

Gerhardt’s final memories had been gruesome, but she had seen worse. The data was crucial, though, and forensics would be poring over every detail in the days to come. Still, she couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

The poachers had been smart. They’d worn masks, goggles, gloves, long sleeve shirts, and pants. There were no visible markings other than their dark skin flashing in between the breaks of clothing.

“They wanted us to know,” she said eventually. “They were bragging to us. Showing us how smart they are.”

Gerhardt had been alive when they ripped his arm off, a sight that sent a shiver of revulsion deep through her core. His screams would haunt her dreams for a long while, she knew. The limb, like her own legs, was hardwired into the body’s nervous system, allowing for electrical transmission of movement commands, a fusion of metal and flesh and bone.

When those monsters tore Gerhardt apart, he had felt every fucking inch of himself getting ripped apart.

Not until after they’d ripped his belly open and crippled him did they finally take their axes to his face.

“We’ll set up camp here,” she said. She dropped her rucksack, glad to be free of its weight.

They had been walking for hours, patrolling their quadrant of the reservation on foot. The circuitous path would bring them back to base in three days if they kept a steady pace and ran into no trouble.

Okey put his thumb and forefinger between his lips and fired off a shrill, piercing whistle to call Dashi back. The dog had run ahead of them, picking up some kind of scent but making no fuss about it. Tracking spoor, probably.

She built her tent quickly, then set up Okey’s while he went about building a small fire. He needed to eat real food, unlike Akagi, who had little interest in canned goods and MREs.

Sitting on the ground, her legs stretched out before her, she decided to have one of the nutrient-rich candies. The vitals app on her retinal display showed a spike in burned calories, and her empty stomach was starting to whine.

She chewed slowly, scoping the horizon and keeping an eye out for approaching animals. She doubted any of the big cats would get close, but it was still worth keeping a good lookout for them.

Okey ate a can of beans, and each of them enjoyed the quiet. They were comfortable enough with one another to not need small talk and, not for the first time, she found herself intensely grateful for that.

Digging around in her backpack again, she found a small peanut butter cup and opened the recycled paper packaging. The corners of her jaw tingled in anticipation as she brought the treat to her lips and bit down, the spike in endorphins making her head spin. She didn’t need the snack, but savored it nonetheless. What was better than chocolate and peanut butter? Sex, maybe, she thought ruefully, digging a small depression into the soil with her heel.

Laughing felt wrong, but she couldn’t help herself. Eyes shut, she saw Gerhardt dying, and that only made her laughing feel more horrendous, spurring it into a near uproar. Tears ran down her face, but she couldn’t tell if they were from joy or sorrow anymore. Eventually the laughter slowed to a stop and Okey was staring at her like she was a mad woman possessed. And maybe she was.

“I’m turning in,” she told him, crawling into her tent and curling up beside her smart rifle.

The marketing gurus in the public sector had hailed DRMR for being an incredible breakthrough in memory retention. Never forget. Always remember. But remembering was a brutal, double-edged sword. Sometimes the brain forgot things to protect itself, but not hers, and as a result Akagi remembered far more than she wanted.

When she closed her eyes, all she could see were muscles and wires and nerves stretching and snapping, metal snagging on skin and ripping it apart, staining the earth dark. She clenched her eyes shut, willing the images to disappear, but they refused to leave. Instead, they merely changed.

She saw her legs lying in the sand, the stumps of her thighs bleeding profusely, rich black smoke swirling around her and carrying the screams of the wounded and dying. She tried to look away, but couldn’t. Those legs weren’t hers. They couldn’t be. She felt oddly detached from all of it, as if it were happening to somebody else, even as her blood pumped out of her, draining onto Syrian soil.

She saw the ruined and blackened remains of Syrian children lying in rubble from drones she had interfaced with and piloted over civilian centers, dropping payload after payload after payload to pay the debts of war with the lives of too many innocents. Marketplaces, infrastructure, warehouses, homes, palaces, whatever the latest target-rich environment Command & Control deemed hostile. Emotionless and efficient, letting the machines do the dirty work until she and her squadron hit the ground hard for clean-up duty, killing whoever resisted or looked threatening.

How much of her life could be measured in blood—hers, or others—spilled by her own hands?

There were too many thoughts, too many memories that she wished she could blot out. Forget them, erase them, purge them. Instead, they haunted her and drained her, slowly bleeding out into a discomfited sleep.

* * *

The bellowing of a lion’s roar woke Akagi in the early morning hours.

The beast carried on for a solid minute, if not longer, but it was a noise she had grown to love. The sound was one of vibrant life, loud and proud, and for a brief time she forgot about her pain. It helped to refresh and reorient her. To remind her why she fought, and to remind her that there was a larger world outside of her own problems.

Shoving herself out of her sleeping bag, she stabbed her toes into the ground and planted her palms on the earth. Every morning she started with a routine of planks, pushups, crunches, and squats. Hitting the gym was impossible in the wilds of the reservation, so she relied on body-weight resistance training to keep her muscles active. By the time she was finished, her sweat stained the soil and her thick arms bulged nicely from the increased blood flow. Her short hair was wet from the exertion, and she used her fingers to spike it.

Another candy rehydrated her and replenished the spent calories.

After dressing, she broke down her rifle for cleaning, then reassembled it and went about breaking down the camp while Okey ate a strange looking white goop from a can. Synth protein, she knew, fiber rich, loaded with vitamins and minerals. Like her candies, but far less appetizing.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“Yeah, why?”

Okey held her eyes for a moment, studying her, then shrugged. “Just checking. Long walk ahead of us today.”

He set the can down for Dashi, but the dog wasn’t quite that desperate for food.

“Did I wake you?” she asked.

“No,” Okey said, but the lie was plain.

Once, he had asked her if she knew she screamed in her sleep. She said she didn’t, and that had been the end of it. He’d never brought it up again, but often asked how she had slept the night before. Eventually it had become a bit of a game in which both lied to the other. If her nocturnal distress had made him any the worse for wear, he was at least good at hiding it.

Before setting out on the trail, both rangers checked in with Central Command. Six hours had elapsed between Gerhardt’s last check-in and the discovery of his body and the mauled rhinoceros. Although long stretches of radio silence were often the norm, in hindsight it felt inexcusable. Now all field rangers were checking in hourly, just to let Command know they were still alive out there.

“Let’s a get move on,” Okey said, whistling for Dashi to follow.

Akagi wished she knew how to whistle like that. She could whistle well enough with only her lips, but adding fingers to the mix was a clumsy affair that usually ended with nothing but wet digits.

With the dog following closely beside his master, they walked in silence. Akagi was once again glad for the lack of small talk and spent her time reviewing the daily stats. The info was nothing more than a depressing countdown toward extinction, the bold red header at the top a crystallizing reminder of their preservation mission.

It read simply: BLACK RHINO - EXTINCT.

Beneath that was a list of the remaining animals in Kruger National Park and the remaining figures, along with a plus or minus difference in historical trends. Scrolling down the list, she saw that the tiger population was down by one, which, statistically, was not all that surprising. For every tiger cub that was born, three adults were murdered by poachers.

In the white rhinos column there was a red −2 from yesterday’s known losses. There were more kills than births, and the two rangers were attempting to pick up the trail of a local herd.

White rhinos were gentle giants. Their unaggressive nature made them particularly vulnerable to poachers, and while they had learned to be wary of humans, it did them little good.

During her time at the park, Akagi had noticed that the animals were keen observers of the human condition. They knew which humans, like the rangers, were there to protect and guard them, and which ones were there to hurt them. On more than one occasion, leopards had strolled through her campsite, completely at ease and utterly nonthreatening. If not for the night vision apps on her optics, she never would have seen them. The leopards crisscrossed the rangers’ own tracks to a remarkable extent, very often routinely circling their camps. To a degree, she even felt like she was one of their pack. Her and the animals, they were simpatico.

“Here,” Okey said, pointing at spoor.

The three-toed ungulate impressions were barely visible, but Okey had a good eye. Despite how heavy the animals were, they were incredibly graceful and left only the faintest of marks in the hard-packed dirt. Akagi had to adjust the contrast in her optics to resolve the details more plainly. There were, in fact, multiple impressions. And as with nearly every rhino track they found, there was an uncomfortable number of boot impressions in the soil as well.

“Akagi to base,” she sent across the commNet. “We’re on the trail of a herd, northernmost quadrant.”

“Roger, Akagi. Backup is en route.”

“Copy, base.”

Akagi scanned the fields, cursing. Her eyes went right to left, softly focused, not straining to see any anomalies but to absorb them, looking everywhere.

The region they patrolled was prohibited to all but park rangers and staff, and less than a mile from the borders of Zimbabwe. That country, and Mozambique, were home to a number of the poaching syndicates that were responsible for decimating the park’s population. Extradition laws were utterly pathetic, though, and there was little in the way of legal avenues to combat them directly. This made the rangers a responsive police force far too often, rather than a proactive offensive measure.

Her forensic algo dissected the footprints, calculating depth and moisture differentials between the animal and human steps, and the heat of the rhino dung left on the trail. “Rhinos came through here about an hour ago, and the boot prints followed about a half hour later. We’re about forty minutes behind them."

Okey nodded, tight-lipped, his fists balling at his sides. Adrenaline spiked through Akagi as she set off to follow the spoor, following the broken mopane, hoping this was finally it. That this was the break they needed to end some of the brutality, to save at least one of these creatures. One of these rhinos. Her herd.

The rhino had probably realized they were being followed by people that meant them harm. They’d gotten shy, and probably more than a bit worried, and worked their way deeper into the maze of mopane trees and surrounding brush.

Overhead, the sky was overcast, a deep gray much like the hide of the animal the rangers were seeking. For two hours, Akagi and Okey walked through the brush, single file, looking for signs of the rhinos and their following poachers, looking for flattened grass, footprints, dung, any indication that they were on the right trails.

The poachers were far less cautious while treading upon the earth. They found plenty of boot prints, and even a few cigarettes. Seeing the spent butts gave Akagi an idea, and she took a deep breath, running the stink of nicotine and burnt additives through the scrubbers lining her nasal passageways, interfacing the data output with her visual overlays. A grid-like map dropped across her retinas, and each inhalation was processed to pick up on the scent of scorched chemicals, giving her a predicative analysis of where the poachers had stepped next.

She couldn’t help but grin at herself, thinking she’d just one-upped Dashi in the bloodhound category.

After an hour she lost the scent as the chain smoker called it quits. Another hour passed before she caught sight of several large gray rocks deep in the bush, nearly lost among the grass and trees. She let out a small hiss to get Okey’s attention, and pointed one finger toward them. He nodded, scratching Dashi beneath his collar.

Akagi took a knee, keeping her rifle ready, and ran the optic thermals. The rhinos were dead ahead, so where the hell were the poachers?

She scanned right to left, not focusing on any one thing in particular, waiting for the scene to reveal itself to her. The landscape was splayed before her in monochrome, with the hot-blooded rhinos standing before her in large, bright, cleanly defined white shapes.

A drop of rain splashed against her arm, quickly building into a torrential downpour. Still scanning, she crouch-walked through the brush, disturbing pockets of bugs, which swarmed around her head and buzzed irritatingly in her ears.

Okey followed behind her, also scanning the terrain, but without any sort of ocular modifications she doubted he could see very much. She opened a commNet channel and pushed a simple thought to his receiver. “Anything?”

“No,” was his brief reply.

The hairs rose on the back of her neck and she stopped, standing stock still. She kept her focus soft, slowly panning her head and waiting for the anomalies to make themselves visible. Over the years, she had learned to trust her instincts, and something was very, very wrong.

Poachers were here. They had to be.

She took in a slow, deep breath and let out a long, slow exhale.

There. It was one of them.

The poacher gave off no heat signal at all, but she caught sight of the killer’s negative impression as the downpour defined his shape. Sometimes the key wasn’t to look for what was there, but what wasn’t. Now she knew why finding these bastards was so difficult.

Son of a bitch. “They’ve got chameleonwear,” she said.

Naturally the poachers would be better equipped than the rangers, always one step ahead. The syndicates they worked for traded in an ever-limited commodity, and could thus afford better equipment and resources than the shrinking budget allocated to the parks could buy.

Not for the first time, she cursed the constraints of law enforcement that the rangers worked within. There was no shoot-first policy here, their rules of engagement defined only by self-defense.

She opened a new channel to base and said, “I’ve got eyes on target. Where’s that backup?”

“En route, Akagi. Twelve minutes.”

Shit. She wasn’t sure they had twelve minutes. Wasn’t sure how many more tangos were out here, hunting her as she hunted them. The only thing she knew for certain was that there was definitely more than one.

The dry, hungry earth was soaking up the rain and quickly turning it into shallow mud, obscuring boot treads and hoof prints alike. Her black t-shirt was sodden and plastered to her skin, the shemagh sopping wet and heavy across her neck.

She surveyed the ground again, crouch walking to the left to get behind the solitary target she’d identified. She held out her palm toward Okey, telling him to stay put with Dashi. If their prey didn’t know the rangers were present, she didn’t want to send the dog out as a warning.

Although her heart was racing and her nerves were jangling, she fought to keep her breathing under control.

Smooth and steady. Pace yourself.

Thunder exploded across the sky, wind rustling the sodden grass around her. The hair on her arms stood on end, goose pimples breaking out across her exposed skin. A brilliant flash of lightning momentarily blinded her and as she blinked to clear her vision there was an explosive burst of movement beside her as something heavy crashed into her.

She tumbled beneath the invisible weight, her cheek slicing open beneath something razor sharp.

Gunfire rang through the air and she heard Okey scream briefly in pain.

Dashi was off his leash, bolting straight ahead toward a figure that only he could sense.

Fingers grasped her throat tightly, cutting off her air, the press of warm metal cutting deeper into her cheek and sliding down her face. She screamed, got an arm up between her and her attacker, grabbed his wrist, and fought to get her face out from beneath the cutting press of his cloaked knife.

The earth shook as the rhinos bolted, running furiously away from the sudden commotion.

Holding her attacker off with one hand, she reached for the blade along her thigh with her free hand. Her face burned from the lack of oxygen and black speckles appeared in her vision. The blade cleared its scabbard and she drove it into the air, where she thought the man’s head would be, and was rewarded with a satisfying bony crunch, saw a splash of blood.

He toppled to the side, dead weight.

Okey was on a knee, firing his automatic rifle, but at what she had no idea.

Dashi was down, whining and panting heavily.

She found her smart rifle in the brush, grabbed ahold of its stock and pulled it toward her. The gun was loaded with smart, muscle-wire ammunition, and she hoped like hell that the rounds could outsmart the chameleonwear.

Taking a knee, she unfolded the rifle’s onboard view screen and scanned for the now-familiar man-shaped absences in the rain, firing when she thought she had a lock on a target.

Each bullet could update its position sixty times a second, allowing for precision tracking of each hostile while still in flight. She’d even seen data from a fired round that had made a 90-degree hairpin turn around a wall to effect a kill shot to an enemy skull from two miles away.

But not against the advanced cloaking shell of chameleonwear. FLIR systems were utterly useless. Still, she could hope to get lucky, or at the very least, give these fuckers something to think about.

“Status, Okey?”

“Still here.”

She risked a quick look back at him and saw a spreading crimson stain against the shoulder of his green shirt.

More thunder sang out above, a steady concussion, a rumbling roar that was growing louder. Closer?

Not thunder.

A helicopter flew over, a gunman strapped in and leaning out the open side, taking aim.

Not at the poachers, though. And not at her, nor Okey.

A pit opened in her stomach, bile crashing against her innards and up her throat.

Gunfire split open the air above, and she saw the tracer rounds cut through the sky.

Her rifle turned, finger on the trigger, aiming for the helicopter and—

Okey screamed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him fall backward, his rifle shooting rounds uselessly into the air in a violently dangerous arc.

Rain shifted across a man-shaped object to her right, and she fired, fired, fired. The bullets found their target, and the hidden body stuttered and jived as he died. She found another as dirt exploded in front of her, as bullets whipped past her, as a burning sear tore open her bicep, but she didn’t care. She kept firing, realizing that the poachers were flanking her, closing in on her, boxing her in.

She refused to put her back to them as she pushed deeper into the bush, putting distance between them.

“Okey,” she thought-pushed across the comm. “C’mon, buddy, you still with me?”

No answer.

“Damnit, Okey, snap to. I need you here, pal.”

She fired again, quickly looking back over her shoulder for cover. There was an anthill nearby, a massive construct twice as tall as her and three times as round. The wide base could provide her with shelter, and if needed she could even climb the sandy ridges and hide behind the thick pillar that jutted into the sky as the hill tapered upward.

She caught a hazy flash of movement in her peripheral and turned automatically, firing toward a murky, ill-defined target. Blood blasted into the air, and a faint glimmer of satisfaction bubbled through her.

She kept low to the earth, hoping the tall brush and driving rain obscured her, the enemy chasing her with hails of ammunition.

Her sensors registered the impact of several rounds hammering the meaty Kevlar lining of one thigh, the damage negligible.

Tucking behind the anthill, she took another deep breath, working to calm herself. Her vitals were spiked clear across the board and she just wanted to run and keep on running. That was not an option, though, and she had to tamp down on that flight reflex or else she was dead.

For a moment, she wondered at their munitions load out. The poachers were equipped with chameleonwear, but not smart ammunition. It seemed like a half-assed approach to her, but she supposed you didn’t exactly need muscle-wire bullets to kill a rhino in the wide open expanse. Also, the poachers were nothing more than the low men on the totem pole.

To the syndicates they worked for, the poachers were a meagre expense and easily replaceable. Maybe the chameleonwear was a simple and easy way of protecting their investment, but they had little reason to go overboard. A gun and machete was all a poacher really needed to get their job done, and anything else was a waste of resources.

More ammo pounded away at the anthill, slowly shredding her cover. The ants fled their cells, pouring out of the structure, flooding across her, crawling over her skin. She compressed her lips into a tight line, swallowing the scream that boiled inside her. She twisted around her cover, firing blindly, the old pray-and-spray method of combat.

“Base, I need that backup! Okey is down. Hostiles are cloaked.”

“Roger, Akagi. Thirty more seconds.”

Fuck!

She fired until the clip ran dry, then ejected the magazine, reloaded, and fired again.

C’mon, you fuckers. C’mon!

A growing rumble neared, and then a Jeep plowed through the brush. Six rangers bailed out of the open cabin, taking shelter behind the vehicle and firing across the plain.

With the arrival of new friendlies catching the poachers by surprise, she was able to more easily identify the hostiles. She lined up a headshot and pressed the trigger, seeking out her next target before the first had even fallen.

She caught a rapid flurry of movement as the poachers disengaged and ran. She lost them in the brush as the park swallowed them.

Her bladed feet carried her to the Jeep quickly, and she ordered two of the men to come with her, guiding them in the direction the helicopter had flown and where the rhinos had fled.

Twenty minutes later, they found the animals.

A teenage male lumbered down the trail, his steps halting and wary, body sagging. Blood poured from its mouth and nostrils. The whole top half of his face was gone, his head cleaved apart, his eyes missing. The upper half of its flank was riddled with seeping bullet holes.

Akagi strode toward the rhino and did the only thing she could. She raised her rifle and ended his misery, tears streaming down her face. She swiped them away with the back of her hand and ordered the men back into the jeep, intent on finding the other three rhinos.

The adults were able to run about thirty miles per hour, but the poachers hadn’t given them the chance to make it very far. Of the three, Akagi and her team of rangers were only able to find one other, a female, off the trail and in the brush, dead and butchered.

She wondered if this female had been the mutilated male’s mate, and hoped that maybe the two were able to find a measure of peace after their lives had been so brutally ended.

Another dead ranger. Two more dead rhinos. Another day, and another increase in the kill counts.

She seethed the entire ride back, hands shaking in anger, her mechanized legs bouncing on the rounded curve of her feet to burn off the anxiety.

* * *

The rangers were heloed back to base camp at Skukuza, to a squat khaki-colored building with an array of old, outdated antennas encircling the structure. The flight took little more than an hour, but being forced to sit still for even that long did nothing to calm Akagi, nor did it ease her nerves.

The adrenaline come-down was exhausting, but still she needed to move. Strapped into a bucket seat made her feel like a prisoner in her own body, and she felt the overwhelming urge to run as far and as fast as her cybernetic limbs could carry her. She was both utterly drained and completely restless.

Before the helo had even settled on hard ground she was shoving her way out the door. A second helo containing a single captured poacher had arrived already, and she bounded toward the interrogation chamber.

Biographical data flooded her left retina, and she quickly surveyed the information. The poacher was a scrawny, stick-limbed teenager named Alamayehu Tamele. His hair was shorn close to his scalp, and thin tufts of patchy hair dotted his face in a poor imitation of a beard. With sallow cheeks and sunken eyes, he hardly looked like a killer now that he was stripped of his chameleonwear and his weaponry.

She steadied herself before entering the chamber and kept her voice calm and even as she said, “I want to know who you work for.”

Tamele smirked and shook his head.

“It’s clear you’re employed by a syndicate. Which one?”

He sat still, sucking on a hind tooth, pulling his thin cheeks ever deeper into his mouth. He crossed his arms over his chest, his legs splayed forward and feet crossed at the ankle.

Tamele knew the game too well. He’d been arrested before, once by the Kruger rangers, even. The history of charges that scrolled across her vision all carried the same denotation of (dismissed) beside each offense. Poaching (dismissed), animal abuse (dismissed), attempted murder (dismissed). Dozens of instances on record, which meant there were plenty of other times he hadn’t been caught. Whoever he worked for carried enough weight and influence to skirt the courts and buy off the prosecutors. He didn’t have to answer to anything because he knew he only had to ride it out and that in all likelihood, he’d be back on the streets within twenty-four hours.

She gripped the crown of his skull in her hand and twisted his head, getting a look behind his ear. Sure enough, he was ported, the upgrades probably supplied by his mysterious benefactor.

“What are you doing?” he shouted.

Akagi smirked. It was her turn to stonewall him. She fished loose a coil of wire and jammed the male connector into the small slot embedded in the hollow of his ear.

“I do not consent to this!”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“This is illegal. I want my lawyer!”

From her pocket she took a DRMR pad and plugged it in to the opposite end of wire.

“You cannot do this,” he protested.

Akagi sat on the corner of the table and waited for him to meet her eyes. “You should know that I’m technically not a park ranger. I’m British SAS and am serving here strictly on a consultancy basis. I am not an arresting officer, I am not pressing charges against you for your assault on me, and I am certainly not questioning you or even formally conducting an interrogation. In fact, the registry worms I am embedding in the station’s security feeds will confirm that I was never even here. And if there is any blowback, I’ll just disappear. So, much like you, I don’t particularly give a fuck about the laws ‘round here.”

She scrolled through the pad, pretending to look for a particular app, giving him a moment to reconsider. Tamele stayed buttoned up while her finger hovered, but she caught sight of a slight tremor in the corner of his jaw.

“Now, let’s see how good your security is.”

She tapped on the icon, initializing a mnemonic assault cascade of amplifying intensity. His brow furrowed in pain as he slammed his palms against either side of his skull, his groans slowly progressing to screams. The cascade was designed to root out, attack, and destroy any security enhancements that protected his cerebral mesh from forced intrusion. The strong-arm hack triggered a number of mem mines, lighting up the pain receptors in his brain while severing the biomechanic weaves lacing his cerebrum. After ten minutes, his breathing had grown ragged, his body soaked in sweat, and his mind was entirely open to her.

His countermeasures were a joke, but she realized he had little need for sophistication. Or rather, his employers had little need for hardware-based security. The data he carried around in his mind was of little consequence with so much of South Africa’s judicial system bought and paid for. Tamele might one day wind up in prison, maybe even soon, but those above him lived far above the reach of the law, so cushioned in money were they. Judges and prosecutors were bought in blood, the country’s legal measures as dead as Okey.

A wave of neural drones infiltrated Tamele’s limbic system, harvesting local memory roots and capturing stored data, offloading digital copies of his memories to her pad. She spent forty minutes brute force hacking his personal history and downloading everything. By the time she finished, his eyes were screwed tightly shut and tears streamed down his face.

He’d have a migraine for days, but unlike her partner, and unlike Gerhardt and the rhinos killed in his wake, he’d live. She couldn’t help but think that was a shame.

* * *

As Akagi dived into Tamele’s mnemonic recordings, she refused to feel sorry for him. He had made his choices.

His family, though…her heart went out to them. Guerilla forces had raided the village Tamele called home and slaughtered people in the streets. His mother had been caught in the gunfire, sprinting to safety too slowly. Tamele had watched his mother brought down in a hail of automatic weapons fire, and Akagi felt the wave of anguish wash through her as the DRMR recording fed her brain the awful, replicated chemical and sensory reactions. She felt what Tamele had felt, saw what he had seen.

Hundreds of memories pierced her mind, and she watched as her (his) sister, Zyeredzi, grew thinner over the months that followed, her body emaciated from the lack of resources, the loss of income and security her mother had provided them. The siblings lived in a very small dwelling, with only a single bed to share. Akagi felt the frail, skeletal form in her arms as she (he) held her.

Tamele needed to work. He needed money. They needed food. His first kill had been difficult. Although there had been several hunters in his village, before the guerilla forces had attacked and captured or killed them, he had not been one of them. Guilt leaked through the DRMR feed as Tamele cut through the wire fences surrounding Kruger Park, invading the land with a trio of other men, a gun—surprisingly heavy—strapped across his chest. Thoughts of Zyeredzi and the loud groans her stomach made in the middle of the night. Hoping for meat, something, anything, to keep them alive for one more day.

Akagi skipped over the rest. She didn’t need to see the savagery of his kill. She’d seen enough of that over the years, the results of these butchers and their damnable choices.

Aggravated, she disconnected from the DRMR and set up an automated search protocol, scrubbing the mems with a forensic app. This would yield names she could research, locations, data, all without having to comb through the mems manually. Something she should have done in the first place.

Never should have played the damn things, she chided herself. She wanted so badly to keep on loathing Tamele, but found herself frustrated instead, angry at only herself.

She fell to the ground, letting her open palms hit the flat wooden floor, and began cycling through a routine of push-ups and crunches, letting the building sweat ease her troubled mind while she attended to keeping what was left of her flesh, blood, and muscle healthy.

Her face burned beneath the gauze padding, the skin itchy from the adhesive keeping her wounds closed.

After an hour, a notification popped up in the corner of her vision. The forensic work-up was finished. She sat on the floor, her slick back sticking to the messy bedsheets that hung off the mattress, and reviewed the results.

There were a number of names that she was able to research, cross reference, and eliminate. Most of them poachers. Good data, but not what she was looking for.

Tamele was too much the low man on the totem pole, but that did not make him invaluable. He had been involved, observant. He had heard things, seen people, come in contact with them, if only for the briefest of moments and perhaps without deliberation. But there was information to harvest and examine.

It took several hours to pore through the data and research the findings. In the end, it was time well spent.

Slowly, she stood and sat at the small table attached to the far wall. She broke down her rifle for cleaning. Once that was finished and reassembled, she methodically reloaded the magazines with smart ammo, sliding the bullets in one at a time.

She worked the sling over her head so that the rifle hung across her body.

Her room held no valuables, no personal belongings. She lived a Spartan existence at the park, most of her time spent outdoors and in the field. When she closed the door behind her, she knew she would not be returning to Skukuza.

Her mission was to protect the animals, to preserve all that remained. Tamele’s memories had made it clear that this was not a mission that could be done within the park, so far removed from the real culprits.

She realized that it was time for her to return to the world, to walk among mankind once more. Her war could not be fought from within the reservation, not if it were to be won.

She had a name. Karl Jubber. That name had given her a location. That location would be the new front in her war.

Akagi found her little-used car in the lot outside the base and drove. Kruger National Park was soon lost in the distance, and she disconnected herself from their data feeds for now.

A new kill count had begun.

* * *

Akagi spent much of the following week hidden in the woods separating a secluded Cape Town mansion from civilization. A chameleonwear suit kept her blended with the surroundings, while the smart rifle was disguised in a similar wrapping.

She had used her time collecting as much information on Karl Jubber as possible. When she caught sight of him for the first time, her dislike for the man was instantaneous.

Tall, broad-shouldered, close-cropped black hair. Always wearing board shorts and a designer t-shirt one size too small. The short sleeves pulled taut around his biceps, showing off the South African Special Forces tattoo of a Commando knife within a laurel wreath. He carried himself with an ostentatious sense of self-importance, surrounded by a bevy of personal guardians. Every night he made his way into the heart of Cape Town, secreted away in one of four rugged and heavily modified SUVs to take part in the city’s night life. He often returned home with a score of women to continue the after-hours party. His social media accounts were littered with his idiot mems and drunken selfies as he sat among his naked, drugged-out conquests, always with the same wry smirk.

The photos and mnemonic recordings were utterly distasteful, but they had given her insight about the Clifton mansion’s layout. The home was at least as large as Jubber’s ego, but far more sedate. The interior was Spartan and white, with plenty of windows. The view across Clifton 3rd Beach and the Atlantic Ocean beyond was to die for. Jubber’s heavily-guarded palace was a stone’s throw from the water, but given the heavy foot traffic along the shores and the wide-open expanse of beachfront, she had quickly ruled that out as a point of ingress. She felt much more comfortable in the thick profusion of trees and foliage that hid the villa from Victoria Road and its neighbors.

There were a handful of guards watching the gated access road, and another handful that acted as Jubber’s personal protection detail. Roving security toured the house, and she had followed their route from the thick greenery on either side of the home, watching as they stood guard on the oceanfront deck. Some of the men had dogs, which she refused to kill.

Much like the rangers, Jubber’s security relied on visible deterrence and a strong showing of force. Jubber never seemed uneasy or put out by the measure, and never appeared threatened. He had a strong show of force, and often spent much of his days on the deck overlooking the beach or sitting in the infinity pool, watching the tourists mill about below. More often than not, he looked like little more than a smug king soaking in his own opulence, his minor kingdom built on blood and murder.

Akagi was going to take all of that way from him, forever.

She was not worried by the score of security, and watching their movements and learning their routines only bolstered her confidence. The chameleonwear helped, as did the smart ammunition in her rifle. She followed them on foot, observed from the trees, and monitored their movements through a sourced hacker satellite rented through a dummy account she had set up ages ago during her time in Syria to buy information. She tracked the weather reports and bided her time, popping hydrating nutritional candies, waiting.

Mid-afternoon on the sixth day of surveillance, the rain came, and she smiled. She would have to move fast, and her cybernetic legs were a blessing in this regard.

Hidden in the branches of milkwood trees, she programmed the targeting schematics and took aim at the cluster of men guarding the access road. Her finger rested on the trigger as she waited for them to finish their twenty-minute check-in. The man she had designated as the supervisor, due to his bearing and weariness, looked slightly distracted as his gaze retreated slightly inward for the commNet report. His men became slightly more aware of their surroundings, taking up the slack of his neuronal distraction. Thirty seconds later, she softly pulled the trigger three times, the built-in sonic dampeners reducing the gunfire to a mere whisper, hidden by the noise of lashing rain, the muzzle fire a minor puff of smoke lost in the shaking leaves surrounding her. One bullet, one target. Three men dropped dead within microseconds of one another.

She moved quickly, deeper into the foliage, flanking the short side of the house, invisible. She knew that these men would have to look twice as hard to find her.

Her mechanized limbs carried her swiftly and quietly through the terrain, propelling her into the higher reaches of an oak tree. She crouched into a V-shaped crook of limbs, her back pressed into the trunk, her heart racing and mouth suddenly dry. She observed the guards through the scope of her rifle, the device interfacing with her own optical upgrades to present a wider field of view and sharper, closer focus on her targets while she uploaded the live targeting solutions to her ammunition.

A two-man team slid the door open and stepped onto the raised deck, grimacing as the warm rain pelted them. Their hands were empty, but each carried automatic pistols in quick-draw holsters. Neither would be fast enough, or aware enough, to draw on her.

Two more two-man details emerged on the upper level and ground floor platforms. Six men total, across three different levels of the villa, their movements nearly synchronized. It would not take them very long to cover the outdoor sections of their patrol, even as they moved in different directions.

The top floor details would be moving to the right side of the house and out of her view the soonest. She took them out first and sent an updated nav plan to the rifle, moving to the mid-tier targets moving toward the left, closest to her. Again, she fired, and the bullets flew true. One guard tumbled backward, splashing into the infinity pool while his partner crumpled to the deck.

At ground level, the two guards surveyed the open expanse of sand and water beyond the stone wall encircling the villa. They were clumsy, stupid. Worse, complacent. They thought this was a cigarette break, the flick of a lighter destroying their night vision. They died easy, their smokes left smoldering on the beach.

Akagi dropped to the earth, then darted to the wall, her bladed toes digging into the masonry as she scaled up and over, clinging to the shadows where the minute distortions of chameleonic activity in motion would be less obvious. She moved slowly, the timer on her retinal display counting down toward the next check-in. Only four minutes had elapsed.

Even though she was, for all intents and purposes, invisible, she still moved cautiously, covering the distance from lawn to patio pavers in a crouched walk, rifle forward and constantly scanning for threats. Taking cover against the flat stretch of wall beside the patio door, she looked toward the dead guards at the wall. The rain was thick enough that she could hardly see their still lumps at the far end of the property. All it would take was one of the roving guards to take notice of the dead men on either of the upper floors or on the driveway to end her covert intrusion.

She passed through the sliding door, taking a moment to close it behind her and give the guards one less reason to be cautious. Doors were never open, and she left it as she had found it.

The dining area was sterling and bright white, the long wooden table shiny and spotless. She was hyper-aware of her own noises and clamped down on her own sense of urgency, forcing herself to move slowly and cautiously, her eyes constantly scanning, always alert, always listening.

A toilet flushed nearby, and she heard a rush of water tumble through the wall she was pressed against. She followed the noise of pipes to a closed door and drew her blade, waiting for the door to open. When it did, she moved quickly, darting up, blade out, jamming the knife into the underside of the man’s jaw, the point of the blade gouging through his throat and severing the brain-spine connection. She grabbed his shirt front, pushing him back into the water closet and closed the door to hide him.

A snuffling noise came from around the corner, toward the kitchen, followed by the noisy crunch of a German Shepherd inhaling food. The chameleonwear not only hid her physical form, but helped to hide her scent as well, a feature she was eternally grateful for. Two more guards stood nearby, chatting aimlessly about rugby. Slowly, she withdrew a doggy treat from a pocket of her tactical vest and slid it across the floor to the dog. His ears perked and tail wagged as he sniffed at the treat, but the men took no notice, too engaged in their small talk. She willed the dog to eat and breathed a sigh of relief when his teeth crunched through the biscuit, devouring it, practically inhaling the crumbs off the floor before returning to his bowl. The sedative was quick-acting and soon enough the dog was out.

The men laughed at some joke they shared, then cursed the dog’s snoring. One kicked at the animal’s ribs, and killing them sent a particular satisfaction through her. The dog was still out, though, despite the man’s attempt to abuse him awake. She pulled both corpses behind the kitchen counter, leaving a streak of blood on the white floors.

Jubber’s selfies and mem recordings, satellite imagery, and her own reconnaissance had allowed her to build a map of the villa’s interior. She knew Jubber’s bedroom was on the topmost floor, a massive half-circle construct with floor-to-ceiling windows providing a one hundred and eighty degree view of 3rd Beach and the Atlantic, encircled with decking and inset pools and a long expanse of furniture. His night life was active enough that he spent much of the day asleep, so she wasn’t worried about him noticing the dead guards outside his room.

Still, she wasn’t one to dally, and she headed directly for the upper floor. She caught snatches of conversation on the second floor. Her timer clicked closer to the halfway mark, though it felt like she’d been inside much longer, as if time itself was dilating and expanding.

She paused at the landing to observe. The men were drawing near the stretch of glass separating the massive living room from the outdoors. She couldn’t risk them catching sight of their fallen companions. A dog padded along beside them, and she swore at herself for this. She hated to compromise, but there was no way she could get one of the tranquilized treats to the dog without putting herself in danger. Regardless, killing the dog would be a last resort.

The men were executed first. The Shepherd looked confused at first, his brow furrowing and ears rotoscoping for the noises of a threat. She thought, and hoped, that maybe she wouldn’t have to kill this one. A low growl burned through his throat as he padded toward her, and she slowly withdrew a treat and sent it across the floor toward him.

No luck.

The dog bolted toward her, but she was able to move aside quickly enough. He sniffed the air for her, still growling, growing angrier. He knew she was there, but couldn’t figure out where. She had to make a decision, and quickly. She chose to push aside all of her basic training on engaging animal hostiles, knowing it was not the practical way to deal with the dog, but knowing full well it was the only moral choice she could live with. She moved fast, wrapping her arm around its throat and covering his body with hers, forcing him to the ground. He was panicked and tried to buck her, but she outweighed him. His head fought to get free, but she had him trapped, pinned down between her legs, one hand clamped across his muzzle while the crook of her arm squeezed either side of his neck to cut off the blood flow to his brain. It took a while, but she was able to choke out the dog and leave him unconscious. Alive, but out of commission. Akagi couldn’t risk him coming to, though, and he could wake up and be on her tail again in less than a minute. From another vest pocket, she withdrew a syringe and a small medicine vial, injecting the dog with a low dose of tranquilizer.

She proceeded up the stairs once again, stopping outside the closed door that she knew led to Jubber’s bedroom. Switching her optics to thermal, she surveyed the room and the cluster of still bodies, committing positions to memory before shifting her vision back to standard with a series of rapid blink commands.

She eased the door open, still crouched low, and softly stepped inside.

Three women slept on the floor, human detritus left in the wake of last night’s conquest. Two more spooned in the king-sized bed beside Jubber. The white stylings of the room gave the murky gray of the stormy afternoon enough ambient light to see by, and she could make out the still forms cleanly enough, along with the scores of empty liquor bottles and the packets of designer drugs.

Jubber slept on the far side, facing the windows. Rain drummed a steady beat against the glass, white caps from the Atlantic storming the beachhead and dissolving into spray.

She took her time approaching him, keeping herself low, her breathing soft and steady. The smart rifle was strapped across her back, her invisible blade in hand.

Jubber’s eyes snapped open, grabbing her wrist and pushing her backward as he flung himself out of bed. His eyes were dulled with sleep, but wide with shock. She realized in an instant that he was moving purely on reflex. Whatever edge of warrior training he’d once had had not been dulled with the pathetic, self-absorbed opulence of his life as the head of a poaching syndicate.

His movements were precise and trim, economical. As he pushed up from the bed, his hand darted beneath his pillow, finding a pistol and bringing it to bear.

Akagi brought her arm up between them before he could press the large bore muzzle into her face, blocking him with a forearm just as he pulled the trigger. The explosion deafened her and she felt the warm trickle of blood from her ear canal pooling against the inside of the chameleonic fabric. Dazed by the concussive blast, Jubber had enough time to slam a knee into her belly, knocking the wind from her lungs.

She fell back, and he was on her, landing a flurry of blows to her face, hammering her with the butt of his pistol. A large, meaty hand pawed at her face, tearing at the chameleon mask. He laughed at her, grabbing a fistful of her hair in one hand while punching with the other. Through the force of the blows and the piston-like repetition of his attack, her numb mind mentally cataloged the fact that he’d gotten synth muscle upgrades at some point. Not a part of the public record, nothing she’d been able to find in all her research on him.

Blood and snot welled in her throat from a broken nose, and she felt a cheekbone fracture before the physical status app notified her of the incurred damage.

She fought through the pain to not panic, enough to realize she still held the knife in her hand. The world was slowly coming back to her, even as the assault continued.

Jubber was intent on beating her to death.

The women were screaming, but she could still hear his laughter. She noticed a buzz of activity as the girls scrambled to gather whatever clothes they could collect off the floor and hustle out of the room.

Her status app warned her that the moisture-collecting inserts in her nasal cavity were busted and that her jaw was fractured. Two teeth missing. Blood thick on her tongue. She waited, waited for just the right moment.

Waited for the blow to land, waited for his arm to retract in perfect motion, for his elbow to touch the sky just so…and then—

She jammed the knife blade up, into his armpit, into the cluster of nerves. He howled in pain, his arm sagging and paralyzed. She twisted the blade, drawing it loose, cutting open his bicep. Then she slashed hard, opening his neck. A bib of blood splashed down on her, and his free hand went to his neck, trying, too late, to staunch the blood loss. Crimson leaked between his fingers, the color draining from his face.

She kicked her way out from under him, pushing him aside. He scrambled on the floor, trying to put distance between them, trying to retreat. Like a wounded animal who had just realized there were other, stronger, better predators in the wild.

He had dropped the gun. She held it, watching him bleed as she swiped blood away from her face. She raised it and fired, finishing him.

* * *

Kari Akagi sat in the crook of a baobab tree, a rifle in her lap, roughly twenty meters above the low-lying plains of the Kruger National Park.

She was clad in chameleonwear, her presence in the park largely unnoticed by the animals and the rangers that had once been her colleagues. If either knew she was out there, it troubled them little. They knew she was there to help, a member of their pack or tribe, even if no longer in any official capacity.

She had returned to the park to heal, both physically and spiritually. She felt at peace, comforted by the gentle giants that grazed below.

There hadn’t been a rhino killing in more than twenty-four hours. A small victory, but nothing to get cocky about. They were still far, far away from any sort of recovery. The animals were drawing closer to extinction every single day. Akagi only hoped to help make those days last, to draw them out as long as possible.

A passing squadron of three rangers earlier in the day had been talking animatedly. Apparently there were reports of more dead poachers turning up. Three in the last two days. Nearly twenty in the last three weeks. She had smiled to herself, hidden away in her tree perch.

She zoomed in on the Olifants, watching two rhinos fording the river. A male and a female, both teenagers. Perhaps they were on a date. Some distance away, she found another female grazing, and a much smaller rhino running around and beneath her. The animal was young, little more than a baby, and full of energy. If his mother could survive, the baby could have a long life ahead of it. If Akagi could do her job well enough, and make her mission succeed.

She lost herself in the tranquility of the moment, riding high on a small measure of bliss. She knew that her days, too, were numbered. There were still plenty of poachers out there, and eventually they would lead her to another link in the long line of syndicates that she would contend with.

First, she had to heal. A bone-deep ache wrapped her skull, the skin still puffy and bruised. The swelling around her eyes had lessened considerably, but her cheeks had a painful, cottony feel, her nose tender and mushy beneath the surface. The nasal implants were an irreparable loss unless she opted to leave the country. But having them fixed or replaced would raise too many questions that she wasn’t prepared to lie in response to; not yet, anyway. Not while there was still work to be done.

She popped a hydrating candy, allowing herself to linger and enjoy the fruity tang. Her eyes returned to the mother and her baby, rolling in the dirt and sending up a cloud of dust. For the first time in a long while, she allowed herself a glimmer of a smile. And then, she prepared herself for the hunt.

SL Huang

Hunting Monsters

First published on The Book Smugglers (Oct 2014), edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James

* * *

My mother taught me to shoot, but it was Auntie Rosa who bought me my first rifle. It was long and sleek and shiny, varnished wood and brass and just my size. I fell in love at first sight.

“Isn’t she a trifle young for a firearm?” said my mother.

“Too young? Ha. Seven is almost too old,” said Auntie Rosa. She reached down and ruffled my hair as I ran my fingers along the stock over and over again, marveling at the living smoothness of the wood. “Happy birthday, child. Careful not to shoot any grundwirgen.”

* * *

I spent more time with Auntie Rosa growing up than I did my mother. I loved my mother—and I was certain she loved me—but she was a reserved woman. Aloof.

I wondered sometimes how she and Auntie Rosa had become so close. Auntie Rosa was an enormous presence, tall and big-boned with a personality to match. Sometimes, when they were together, I saw my mother laugh.

Maybe it wasn’t that my mother didn’t know how to express love, but that she didn’t know how to interact with a child, other than teaching me how to hunt and fish and lay in stores for the winter. My earliest memory is my mother placing a firm hand across my lips as we crouched in the dry leaves on a hillside, her rifle slung from her shoulder, her lean frame alert and arrow-straight and her black eyes flicking down through the woods. In my memory I am very, very still, though I remember to raise tiny hands and press them against my ears as hard as I can as my mother eases her rifle up to her shoulder and tilts her head behind the sights. The roar when she pulls the trigger is devastating, the thunder and flame of Heaven and Hell, and my mother’s blade-thin silhouette is backlit by the setting sun and she looks like a god. And I love her.

* * *

Auntie Rosa’s place was a cottage like ours, but bigger and more luxurious, all soft furs and bright fabrics. She cured all her own pelts, and I would curl in the decadence of her bearskin rug while she knitted and told me stories, or sit cross-legged by the fire and clean her guns while she quizzed me on the habits of the grundwirgen and the ways a hunter must recognize and spare them. Auntie Rosa had been hunting longer even than my mother, ever since her own grandmother had taken her out on the trails from before she could walk.

“Tell me again,” she’d say to me, night after night, her voice starting to creak with age even though her spine was as straight, her eyes as bright as ever. “Tell me again, how you know one.”

“Aw, Auntie,” I would groan as I got older, snuggling down by the fire. “I’m never going to see a grundwirgen. They’re too rare. What are the chances—”

“The chances you’ll be tried for murder? Child, have some sense. You must know. There are no excuses.”

“I think if one starts up a conversation I might suspect.”

“And if you’re stalking your quarry, if you go for a clean kill, you think a grundwirgen would ever have a chance to beg for its life? Don’t be stupid.”

So I would rattle off the signs: the habits a creature would have if it was trying to be the human it once was, or if its wild nature hid a witch in disguise, or if it chanced to be an honest animal but one born with the capacity for reason. All types of thinking creatures were lumped in as grundwirgen, not only the cursed but also those who chose to roam in animal form or those who were beasts in truth but with intelligence equal to our own. Mistaking a grundwirgen for a game animal was not an excuse, not under the law; it was the same as firing upon a human.

“I’m glad they aren’t more common,” I said once. “We’d starve to death. Everyone would be too afraid of accidentally offing some spoiled rich kid who went and got himself hexed.”

Auntie Rosa sniffed. “Child, it’s a big world out there. The grundwirgen are not all alike—some are innocent, and some are brutal. Just like people.”

“Have you ever met one?” I demanded.

“Yes,” said Auntie Rosa.

“What? When?” I cried, sitting up straight as if I were a dog with a scent. But she refused to say anything more.

* * *

Auntie Rosa gave me another, larger rifle for my twelfth birthday, and a third for my fifteenth. Three days after my fifteenth birthday, the King’s Men burst into our cottage and arrested my mother for murder.

The cottage erupted into a tumult of curt shouts and tromping boots and someone screaming—I was screaming. My new rifle was in my hands, my knuckles white where I gripped the wood, but even then my mother and Auntie Rosa’s teaching kicked in, the years of safety lectures dragging me back, making me hesitate, because I’d never raised my rifle against a human form and that felt wrong—and the pause was enough time for my mother to snap, “Get her out of here” and for Auntie Rosa to bear hug me from behind, pinning my arms to my sides and dragging me into my mother’s bedroom.

I cried for so many hours after they left—heaving, messy sobs that wouldn’t stop. Auntie Rosa stayed with me through the night. I refused to let go of her, my fists clenched in the scarlet wool of her sweater so tightly they cramped that way.

* * *

Auntie Rosa offered to come stay in our cottage, but I looked around at the empty rooms and the overturned chairs and the too-enormous lack of my mother and insisted we go back to hers instead. We packed me a bag, gathered the hunting gear and perishable food, and hiked over the hill together, not speaking.

I’d asked Auntie Rosa once why she didn’t live with us, when I was old enough to understand her and my mother’s relationship. She’d smiled and said that it was better for all of us if we had our own spaces. I hadn’t agreed—still didn’t—but now I was glad for the refuge, for a sanctuary that didn’t have the memory of swarthy, booted King’s Men stomped upon it.

She gave me her room, with its bright patterned quilt and draped crimson fabric—Auntie Rosa loved red; she blanketed her house with it and wore it in brilliant scarves and hats and shawls throughout the season—while she herself insisted on sleeping under a deep red blanket by the fire, snugged on a pile of furs. I wondered again about her other room then, the locked one. It had been locked for as long as I could remember, and when I’d been nosy about it as a child, she’d told me that it was her private storage space for things too naughty for a young one to see. My imagination had run wild as I got older, but I’d never seen her enter the locked room once, not even to clean.

But this day I had neither the courage nor the energy to press her. I put my things away in her room as she directed and then lay down and buried my face in her bed, breathing in the lingering scents of pine and hickory smoke on her pillow.

* * *

Auntie Rosa went into the city the next day to petition at the courts. She refused to allow me to come. When she reappeared at sunset, hiking up the slope with her walking stick, my heart somersaulted and then plummeted. Such was my faith in Auntie Rosa that I had somehow expected to see my mother walking at her side, for Auntie Rosa to have enacted a miracle.

I ran to meet her. “Where is she? Did you see her? What’s happening?”

“Let me get inside, child.” Her voice was tired, and she looked older than she ever had before.

Inside the cottage, my hands shook as I made us some tea. Auntie Rosa’s fingers wrapped around her mug as if she hoped it could warm her soul.

I waited.

“Your mother…” Her eyes were fastened somewhere on the floor by the fire. “Your mother is on trial for killing a grundwirgen.”

“That’s impossible,” I said instantly.

Auntie Rosa didn’t answer.

“No, Auntie, that’s not possible,” I said. “She would never mix up—youknow! They should just talk to her; they’ll see!” Tears of fury prickled my eyes. To accuse my mother of murder was one thing; to malign her skill at the hunt—it was ludicrous. Insulting.

“They say she knew,” said Auntie Rosa, her eyes still on that same spot near the fire.

The air vibrated. My hand dug into the back of a chair where it was keeping me upright. “They say she knew…and she still took the shot?” The words made no sense.

Auntie Rosa finally took a sip of her tea. “Sit next to me, child. It’s time you knew about your mother’s past, before you hear it from the rest of the kingdom.”

* * *

“Your grandfather was a merchant,” Auntie Rosa began. “A wealthy one for a time, from what I understand. He traveled from the East regularly with his ships, making deals with the kingdoms here. On one such journey he was shipwrecked and lost all his goods. He’d taken payment for the cargo already, and faced debtor’s prison in a strange land, where he thought himself like as not to die in chains.”

She paused, lost in the past, her hands tight on her mug of tea, before she said softly, “He made a deal to sell your mother to a grundwirgen prince. She was ten years old.”

My breath felt too thick. “I don’t understand,” I said.

“Yes, you do.”

Images collided in my mind: my mother, a young child, forced to sail to a far-off country, sold into marriage to pay her father’s debts…sold to a man who was not a man at all. I didn’t want to understand.

Auntie Rosa sipped her tea, and continued. “The grundwirgen prince had been cursed for refusing aid to an injured traveler. That traveler was a witch, as it happened.” Her lips curved in a bitter half-smile. “She did not know enough of his nature. She should have done far worse than transform him into a beast.”

“And my mother?” I forced myself to ask, when Auntie Rosa had not spoken for a few long moments. “What happened?”

“The grundwirgen needed a woman to break the spell,” she said. “If I ever find that witch, I will kill her for making that the condition. The prince needed a woman to break the spell, one nobody would care to rescue from a monster. So he bought himself a foreign bride.”

I’d sat down at some point. I couldn’t remember when. My hand clenched the edge of the chair so hard my fingers ached. “Did my mother kill him?” I asked.

“She escaped,” said Auntie Rosa. She stared into the fire, and her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “She escaped. Isn’t that the important part?”

* * *

Auntie Rosa went into the city every day, and came back ever grimmer as more details of my mother’s case came to light. The remains of the grundwirgen prince had been found more than a generation ago, my mother the assumed perpetrator. For many years her life of quiet anonymity had kept her safe, until a chance remark about a woman from the East of about the right age had fallen upon the ears of a distant relation to the long-dead prince. My mother’s foreignness was proof enough of her identity, and no one had any doubts as to her guilt.

After a week of pleading at the courts, bullying and prodding and lobbying as I am sure only she was capable of, Auntie Rosa returned to say she had finally been granted one request: they would allow me to visit my mother in prison.

“Just me?” I said, my heart thumping faster.

She turned her face away. “They say I’m not family.”

So the next day I journeyed with her into the city. Auntie Rosa came with me as far as the King’s Men would let her, before they crossed their spears in front of her and kept her from passing on. I picked my way down the stone stairs to the dungeon without her, flanked by unspeaking guards, my booted steps echoing off the dank stone walls.

We hiked to the far end of the dungeons before the lantern light fell across one more barred cell and I saw my mother.

She sat huddled on a pallet of filthy straw, her clothing disheveled and her black hair coming loose from its neat braid. Seeing her so alone in so much darkness, so untethered from the world she owned—my world—the air wrung out of my chest, my heart turning in on itself until it hurt. I broke from the guards and ran up to the bars, gripping the cold metal as if I could melt it by force of will.

My mother flew up to meet me, her fingers closing on my arms so hard I was certain I would bruise. I didn’t care. “Mama. Mama. Are you all right?”

“You mustn’t believe what they say about me,” she said, tight and desperate, the intensity more alien on her than even the prison cell. “You mustn’t, you hear? Whatever happens, promise you believe me, at least. Promise me.”

“Mama, Auntie Rosa told me…” I didn’t know how to finish. The story of her past seemed so personal, my knowing it almost a violation. “If you were defending yourself—Mama, they have to say that’s okay. They have to.”

“They don’t have to do anything.” My mother’s forehead creased; her fingers loosened on me and she stepped back, her sharp eyes searching my face. “Rosa thinks I—?”

I didn’t know what to say.

My mother took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Tell her I didn’t do it,” she said softly. “Please. I need both of you to know—I didn’t do it.”

“I’ll tell her,” I said.

* * *

The King’s Men permitted me to visit my mother once a week. We had no word of when she might be called before the court, and the unknown pressed down on us, heavy and smothering. But I think we were all secretly glad of the wait—we all knew trials in this kingdom were swift and executions swifter.

I didn’t know whether my mother would be better off saying she’d killed the grundwirgen prince to escape, or whether she should continue to claim her innocence. I didn’t know that either would save her. Everyone who mattered had decided her guilt before she was arrested, and by law the grundwirgen prince had been her husband—you don’t escape from a husband.

* * *

I had a sudden horrible thought, in the middle of the week when I couldn’t ask my mother about it. I was determined to keep it to myself, but Auntie Rosa caught on within minutes and ordered me to spit out whatever new worry plagued me.

I fingered the rich crimson afghan draped over the armchair. “My mother never told me…” I couldn’t finish. “My father. Was he…?”

Auntie Rosa’s face went slack with surprise for a moment, and then she laughed. “Child, is that what’s eating at you? Did we never teach you sums?”

My cheeks flamed at her reaction. My mother and Auntie Rosa were not young, and Auntie Rosa had told me my mother had escaped when barely older than I was now. My father could not be the grundwirgen prince. “Who was he, then? My father?”

“Ha! Another prince, if you would believe it. But a human one. A charming cad.”

“I’m the daughter of a prince?”

“I suppose so, though don’t let that give you airs. Your father was off in the wilderness with his men, traveling to seek his fortune as young men do. He met your mother. It turned out he had a weakness for black hair and white skin, and didn’t mind kissing first and learning names later. Your mother was fine with that at the time, the saucy wench.”

I thought of my mother’s moon-pale skin that made her look so odd to the people of this country, and the curtain of jet-black hair she always braided away from her face into a long queue. The prince must have thought all his dreams realized, to find her. “But wait,” I said. “You and my mother—you’ve been—for decades, I thought.” My face burned hotter. Auntie Rosa was right that I was bad at sums; I’d never put the fact of my birth together with that before.

“Yes, we were, but I wasn’t going to get in the way of your mother having a bit of fun with a man when it came her way.” She reached over and tucked my hair away from my face affectionately. Sadly. “The world’s a large and complicated place, child. You’ll learn.” Too fast, she didn’t say, but I knew both of us were thinking it. Fifteen was too young for me to see the world judge my mother and take her away from me.

* * *

I didn’t make the connection until the following day, but when I did, I started packing immediately. I would wait to see my mother one more time, and then I would leave to find my father.

When I tried to broach the idea to Auntie Rosa, she flew into a rage.

“How can you be so senseless, child? Of all the times for insipid flights of fancy!” She tore my clothes out of my bag and flung them to the floor. “Your mother may be facing execution, do you understand that? And you would leave her? Alone?” Her voice cracked. The King’s Men still had not permitted her to see my mother.

“I’m going to save her,” I insisted.

“How? This is what the world is. They tell us what we can and can’t do, and they don’t listen, they don’t care. There is nothing you can do!” She yanked at the whole quilt, upending everything I had piled on the bed with a violence I’d never seen in her. “The one thing you can do, the only thing, isbe here.”

I started picking up my things, carefully, one by one, as if I would break if I moved too quickly. “You’re the one who told me my father was a prince,” I said. “Maybe by now he’s a king. Kings have power.” So much of my world had collapsed into confusion, but the power of a king was one thing I was still certain of. “He’ll help, I know it. We’ll save my mother.”

“He’d as like have you killed,” Auntie Rosa spat. “If not him, then whatever wife he ended up taking, worried about her children’s inheritance. Or any one of his enemies. Royal bastards stay anonymous or they die.”

I took out my three rifles in their cases from under the bed. I could sell two of them to give myself some money to travel on. I unbuckled the case my first rifle was in, the one Auntie Rosa had given me when I turned seven; it looked so small now, but was still smooth and shiny, gleaming and well-cared for. Parting with it would wrench me.

“I won’t tell you where to go,” Auntie Rosa said. “I won’t tell you where he is.”

“I’ll ask my mother,” I answered.

* * *

My mother wouldn’t tell me, either.

“Your auntie’s right,” she said. “Your father—I wish she hadn’t told you. He was a pleasant dream, and we both kept it that way.”

“He won’t want you to die,” I insisted.

She reached through the bars and grasped my hand, entwining her fingers with mine. “He didn’t want complications,” she said. “He’ll want them even less now. And that’s what you would be to him. A complication.”

“How do you know?” I said. “Maybe he’d want to meet me. Maybe he’d want to know.”

Her eyes softened. “Maybe. It’s not worth risking your life over.”

“But this is your life,” I tried to argue. “It is worth it. I want to take the risk.”

Her fingers squeezed mine. “I’m sorry.”

No matter how I tried to cajole or persuade her, it was useless. She would not tell me which kingdom my father hailed from—if she even knew herself. Short of traveling the world and asking which king had an eye for pale-skinned women, I had no way to find him.

* * *

I’d leave anyway, I decided. I’d start in the city—ask questions, stick my nose in everywhere I could. I’d find out which kingdom had the snowiest queen with the inkiest hair, and sell my rifles to find the money for passage there, and shame my father into demanding my mother’s freedom from our king.

I burst back through Auntie Rosa’s door filled with determination, only to find my bag and rifles gone from my room. “Where are they?” I railed at Auntie Rosa, who sat knitting in the armchair by the fire. “Where are my things?”

“I’ll give them back to you when you give up this foolishness,” she said.

“I’m trying to save my mother’s life!”

“You’re trying to do the one thing that would kill her. You do not understand the folly of your plans. Your mother needs to know you are safe.”

“My mother being executed will not make me safe!” I was shaking with rage. “You can’t do this. You’re doing just what that grundwirgen prince did—not letting me leave until you get your way!”

“That’s ridiculous,” snapped Auntie Rosa. “You’re my—” She clamped her mouth down on what she’d been about to say.

“You’re not my mother,” I said, as coldly as I knew how. “My mother is in prison. And I’m going to get her out.” I marched into the bedroom and slammed the door.

* * *

I lay awake that night, wrapped in furs and red blankets and staring up into the darkness. I knew where Auntie Rosa had put my things. Only one room in the house was locked, and she’d taught me to care for my rifles too well for her to have left them outside somewhere.

So where was the key? I’d been through the house so many times—she couldn’t have hidden it inside anywhere. She must keep it on her person. I slid my bare feet to the floor and slipped out of the bedroom.

The fire had burned down to embers, limning the shadows in vermillion crescents. Auntie Rosa slept beside it, her breath rising and falling deeply.

I crept forward.

My heart pounded as I stood above her, guilt flaming in my stomach, my hands cold with sweat. This was wrong, what I was doing.

But she had done me wrong, too, stopping me from taking the only chance we had. I thought of my mother, thin and alone in her cell. I didn’t have a choice.

I lifted the edge of the blanket, intending to check her pockets first, and the firelight gleamed off a silver chain.

I’d seen the chain before, so many times, but I’d never noticed it—it was just something Auntie Rosa always wore, some type of necklace under her clothes. Of course. I stretched my hand forward, holding my breath, and my fingertips grazed her collarbone as I pinched the chain and eased it out from under her night dress. A wrought-iron key dangled in the light of the coals.

I walked my fingers down to the clasp and unfastened it. The key fell into my palm, cool and heavy.

Almost unable to think, I hurried to the locked room and shoved my prize into the keyhole. It turned, and the door swung open.

The room was pitch black. A fur rug kissed the soles of my feet, but my eyes were useless. I raced for a lantern, lighting it as I dashed back into the forbidden space. As expected, I saw my bag and rifle cases immediately, stacked neatly against one wall.

I crouched to retrieve them. Should I leave now, in the night, before Auntie Rosa could awaken and try to stop me? Before my own courage could fail?

The rest of the room caught my eye, distracting me. I turned and raised the lantern.

Confused, I paused and stared. The room was filled with furs…which made it no different from the rest of the house. Why would Auntie Rosa bother to keep it locked?

The pelts were tossed across each other with little regard for aesthetic. And there was something odd about them. I lifted the light.

The rugs and blankets I was used to were the soft furs of game animals. These were all—odd. Odd creatures to hunt, still odder to skin. Three bear skins from progressively smaller beasts were the only ones that looked like they belonged, and the enormous wolf pelt beneath my feet might have been an animal Auntie Rosa had killed to protect herself or the home, but others—the white-tipped tail of a fox dangled off one pile, and one fur looked like it had come off a large domestic cat. A pure white bull skin was a hide a tanner might have been proud of, but was out of place for a hunter. There was a snakeskin, stretched out and dried, from what must have been a magnificent serpent, and something feathered…the preserved husk of an eagle, or, no, a swan.

I stepped farther into the room.

The lantern light fell on the far wall. Pegged against it was the sagging pelt of what had been some beast of unbelievable proportions, twelve feet tall and massive, with wicked claws and a gaping maw that now showed only the wood behind it.

“I would ask what you’re doing in here,” said Auntie Rosa behind me. “But I suppose that’s obvious.”

I spun around. “It was you. You killed the grundwirgen prince.” I stumbled backward, the lantern swinging wildly. My arm brushed the bearskins; I flinched away, my skin crawling. My toes curled against the wolf pelt filling the floor as if I could stop touching it. “Were these all…? They were all…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Come sit. Let’s talk.” Auntie Rosa reached for me. I jerked back, and she let her hand drop. “The world is complicated,” she pleaded.

This room was closing in on me, sickening, the air fracturing, so many murdered souls smothering me, and my mother—

“Were you going to let my mother die for you?” The words burst out of me, rising almost to a shriek.

Shock rippled across her features. “No. Never. I—” She put a hand to her face. “I thought, as long as the punishment had not been set, that there was hope, that maybe—and I could have faced the King’s Men, told them my crimes a thousand times to save her, but—but the thought of your mother hating me—that even if we all walked free, that I would lose her, I couldn’t…”

The truth dawned. “She doesn’t know you killed him,” I said.

The look on her face was my answer.

* * *

I sat at the table. Auntie Rosa sat across from me.

“Your mother knows about the rest,” Auntie Rosa said, her eyes on her hands. “She knows what kind of woman I…was.”

“And what kind of woman is that?” I asked coldly.

“I killed my first grundwirgen when I was eight years old.” She spoke simply. Factually. Her gaze strayed to the open door of the secret room, to the massive wolf pelt filling the floor and spilling against the doorway, and she gathered her red robe more tightly around herself. “He attacked my grandmother, then me. I saved myself. I couldn’t save her.”

“I thought your grandmother was killed by a wild animal.”

“She was, as far as I’m concerned.”

“No. No. You taught me—” I couldn’t reconcile it. Grundwirgen were the same as humans. Killing a grundwirgen was no different from killing a man.

“I hope I could have shot him if he had been a man,” Auntie Rosa said, as if she had read my mind. “I hope I would have.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“It is as I told you. Not all grundwirgen are evil. But those who are—” She coughed. “The ones who have been cursed into creatures, often they have been cursed for a reason. And those with the power to shapeshift at will can use that ability for crimes so despicable—the viciousness they have at their disposal in animal form, if they choose to use it—well. I was a very good hunter.”

“You went around—you hunted—” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. An assassin. My auntie was an assassin. My auntie who sat slumped across from me in her red-draped cottage, looking very tired and very sad and very old.

“Do you still do it?” I asked.

“Not for many years. Your mother changed me. Gave me something to live for, other than my hunt for justice.”

“But she still doesn’t know you killed her…” Prince? Captor? Husband?

“These things are so complicated.” Auntie Rosa folded her hands against each other in her lap, one gripping the other as if to anchor herself. “I came to rescue her, you see. I’d been seeking the grundwirgen who held her, and came to slay the beast and free the princess in the castle. But the strongest chains that trapped her were in her own mind.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“It had been seven years. He’d had her locked in his castle for seven years.” Her speech strained over the words as if she’d lived the sentence herself. “He was a master at…”

She trailed off, struggling. I didn’t help.

She found her voice again, the explanation dragging out of her one syllable at a time. “He knew what to do. How to control. He played with your mother’s emotions with kindnesses, was a perfect gentleman between bouts of temper—and even then he never physically touched her. He convinced her that he cared for her, that she should care for him. Guilted and shamed her. He told her if she left him, he’d die.” She took a shuddering breath. “She didn’t want that. In time, I think she would have forced herself to believe she loved him.”

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to hear this.

“As far as I was concerned,” said Auntie Rosa, “what he was doing was ten times more evil than the grundwirgen who had attacked my grandmother and me. Buying a child and locking her away without any—with no human contact—” Her voice trembled. “He needed someone to love him to break the spell. He didn’t care how he got that love.”

I wasn’t sure who I hated more: my grandfather, for selling his daughter; my auntie, for being a murderer and then allowing my mother to go to prison for it; or my mother herself, for daring to have a past that was threatening to consume all of our lives. And the grundwirgen prince, of course; but there was no use hating him; he was dead.

“I was the first human she’d spoken to in seven years,” Auntie Rosa continued. “We became close, so quickly. She realized she had to leave; she knew in her soul what he was doing to her. But it was hard for her, so hard, and she…she made me promise not to kill him.”

“But you did.” The words scraped in my throat.

“I did,” she said, so low I could barely hear it. “He was a grundwirgen, but still a prince; no one was coming to stop him. He would have done the same with another girl, another time. I was older than your mother; I’d been hunting monsters for more than a decade by then. It had to be done.”

“And you never told her,” I said.

“It was the only promise to her I ever broke,” said Auntie Rosa, “and he was the last grundwirgen I ever killed.”

I stood up. “You’re a coward.”

She shuddered.

“She’s in a cell. She thinks she’s facing execution. That should be you.”

Her face tightened in apparent pain. “I never would have let it come to that.”

“You never should have let it come to this.” I went into the bedroom and shut the door, leaving her sitting at the table, alone.

* * *

I had the evidence I needed to prove my mother innocent now. All I had to do was go to the city, march the King’s Men back to Auntie Rosa’s, and tell them to break into her secret room.

That was all I had to do.

It’s what she deserves, I told myself, staring up into the predawn dimness, sleep never having come for me. She did it. She killed him. She killed all of them.

Hunting monsters, Auntie Rosa had called it.

How would I feel if I had found a room full of human trophies, and Auntie Rosa had claimed it had to be done, they were all bad people? This was the same. Grundwirgen were not animals.

It was the same.

I found Auntie Rosa already awake, wrapped in a red shawl and waiting by the door.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

“You were right.” She stretched one arm to the wall as if to steady herself. “I was so…I was so selfish. I’ll go now. Today. They’ll have to release your mother.”

A wave of emotion slammed into me, threatening to drown me. I’d spent the entire night wrestling with whether to turn her in, and now—now—

Auntie Rosa reached out a hand, slowly, tentatively, as if she was afraid I would flinch away from her. I didn’t.

She tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I love you, Xiao Hong. Don’t ever forget that.” Her hand was shaking. “Please.”

* * *

It would be better, Auntie Rosa told me quietly, if I was back at my own house when she brought the King’s Men to hers. I wouldn’t be alone long. My mother would be meeting me soon enough.

I nodded, not speaking.

She helped me carry my things back over the hill, back over the well-worn path. Helped me start a fire and set the house to rights, sweep out the dust from our weeks-long absence, lay in some extra wood. She brought over food stores from her own cottage, too, breads and cheese and cured meat. I stared at it.

“I never ate them.” Her voice broke. “Child, what you must think of me…”

I put the food away.

Auntie Rosa brought her gear over, too, her packs and knives and nicest rifles.

“I don’t want those,” I said. Not after what they’d been used for.

“Your mother might. Ask her?”

I took the rifles. My mother was an unsentimental woman. Maybe practicality would stir her to keep them.

Auntie Rosa adjusted her shawl around herself. She tried to say goodbye, but the words faltered away when I didn’t respond.

She took nothing with her, only the red shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders, a bright scarlet figure bobbing down the trail with her walking stick marking the paces as she hiked toward the city. It was late in the day; she wouldn’t arrive there till long past dark.

And then she’d turn herself in to the King’s Men. They’d probably escort her back to her cottage, or arrest her and then tramp back without her to investigate. With Auntie Rosa’s confession in hand, they’d release my mother.

Unless they didn’t. I wrestled down nightmare fears that they would think my mother had been in league with her, that I would lose them both.

Lose both my mothers.

“Auntie Rosa!” I called.

She was almost out of sight. The bright red figure stopped. Turned.

I grabbed her best rifle, the one she could splinter a coin with from a thousand yards away, and raced down the trail. I thrust it into her hands.

“Run. Disappear. I’ll bring the King’s Men back tomorrow. I’ll tell them you fled when I found the room.”

She stared down at me, uncomprehending.

“Go,” I said.

“I don’t want you involved,” she pleaded. “I’m old. I don’t have much time left. I can—”

“Go,” I repeated. “For me. For my mother. Please.” I didn’t know what was right—maybe I never would—but I suddenly knew what I didn’t want, what I couldn’t bear.

She fingered the rifle. “Tell Mei I’m sorry.” The words were rough and quiet. “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

I went into the city the next day. Bringing the King’s Men back was a confused jumble I could never quite remember afterward—answering their questions, waiting outside as they shoved through Auntie Rosa’s cottage and broke down the door of her secret room. Red fabric fluttered to the floor as they tore the cottage apart, as if the little house were bleeding.

They insisted on keeping my mother until they had a trial. After a long, terrifying day before the throne, during which I had to talk, to lie, about what had happened when I found the room, the King declared my mother innocent, and they allowed me to bring her home. She didn’t speak for five days, just sat by the window and fingered the edges of the tablecloth. Red. I didn’t know if Auntie Rosa had given it to us, or if my mother had gotten it to please her.

On the fifth day she cried.

I sat down across from her, unsure what to do. My mother never cried. She reached out and held my hand as she had in her cell, the tears seeping down her white face unchecked. “You must hate me,” she whispered. “For putting you through this.”

I squeezed her hand. “I could never hate you, Mama.” It turned out I couldn’t hate people even when they were murderers. Emotion welled up in my throat. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Her breath caught. “I never wanted you to know. My past, how I was a…I was so ashamed. But now, I find—I find I’m glad she told you.”

My mother had never spoken to me with such naked emotion before.

“I miss her,” she said.

I swallowed. “I do, too.”

We sat together holding hands, gazing out the window as if hoping we would see a bright red figure bobbing up the walk.

But the sun set, and no one came.

By Degrees and Dilatory Time

First published at Strange Horizons (May 2015), edited by Julia Rios

* * *

“On the bright side,” said Zara, poking at his glasses a week before, “this means you get new eyes.”

But I don’t want new eyes, he thought.

* * *

The surgery isn’t bad, as surgeries go. The one he had when he busted his knee ten years ago, as a teen, was much worse. Or maybe it was worse because of what it had meant: that he’d never go out on the ice again.

That had been his identity, and he’d had to forge a new one from the fractured shards of cold and steel and sharpness. It had taken years, and he still wasn’t sure the new version of himself wasn’t brittle in places—the fault lines barely below the surface, just waiting for one tiny tap by a ball-peen hammer to make the whole construct shatter.

His eyes, his eyes have never been his identity. It won’t matter to lose them.

He tells himself that over and over. Through the days following his diagnosis. On the night before the procedure, as he stares at himself in the mirror one last time, and the image blurs. In the hospital just before, as his surgeon squeezes his hand with her gloved one, and the broad white lights of the OR fade out, the last visual he will ever truly see.

He’s told everyone else the same thing. It’s not the worst thing in the world, Ma. It’s not like I’m an artist. Dad, don’t worry—at least we have all the options we do these days, right? It’s not that big of a deal.

He tells himself one more time as he lies in bed following the operation, his world swallowed in darkness behind the bandages, a dull ache prickling through his face like it doesn’t know where it wants to hurt. This is just a bump in the road.

In a year it won’t even matter.

* * *

Cancer.

His doctor said it gently. It was part of a full sentence, even. “We found cancer cells.” Later he wondered if she sat there and practiced her delivery before she made calls like this, pronouncing the words with such gravity and care, like she knew how fast he was about to fall and wanted her voice alone to reassure him she could catch him.

Cancer.

The word stalled out in his brain, and his world went sharp and too-bright—the gold tiles of the kitchen, the bright blue ceramic of the fat penguin salt shaker, a drooping rose Zara had laughingly given him when they’d walked the gardens the week before. He wasn’t sure what he said back into the phone, only that his doctor must have asked him to come down to the clinic and talk to her in person, because he had. She talked to him and talked some more and kept talking, and then gave him a lot of pamphlets. Diagnosis, treatment options, recommendations. Everything in that same comforting voice, that gentle-calm-grave-understanding one.

* * *

After the operation he’s blind for three and a half weeks. His parents offered to fly in and take care of him, but the thought of being waited on was worse than the fear of being helpless, and he said no. He’s stacked food and water by his bed and run a string to the bathroom. Zara’s on speed dial, and she checks in on him twice a day on her way to and from work.

He’s too tired to be much company, but she stays longer than she has to anyway, sitting on the floor against his bed and watching TV while crunching popcorn. She translates anything visual with the snark of someone who’s turned media cynicism into an art form: “Now they’re turning down the dark alleyway! Ooo, I wonder what’s going to happen now.”

The shows she picks are the type of awfully written crime shows where they narrate almost everything they’re doing anyway—“Look, Boss.” “What is this?” “It’s the DNA results. It says the suspect is his father”—and he finds he doesn’t mind, for once. The white noise of the television and Zara’s voice wash over him and the smell of buttered popcorn fills his nostrils, and he drifts in and out of sleep without ever closing eyes that no longer exist.

* * *

Zara’s response was the best one, when he told her his diagnosis. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry we as scientists haven’t fixed this yet. That we haven’t fucking solved it. We should have a cure.”

She was so angry. At the world. At her scientific brethren. At human progress.

With anyone else he might have said, “It’s not your fault,” but he’d known her too many years not to know what she meant.

“See? This is why science is amazing,” she’d effused to him through high school, as she helped tutor him through chemistry and physics. “Look what we understand, look what we can build! How freakin’ cool is that? This is why I want to do this forever. It’ll be like diving into the greatest unexplored frontier.”

He always had to admit: when she said it, it did seem cool. He liked seeing the world through her eyes.

* * *

It’s almost a month before he goes for his implants. The sockets went in with the surgery, twined delicately into the optic nerve. Now he has to have the eyes fitted to the interface, fitted and calibrated and a lot of other words his surgeon and ophthalmologist and the biotechnician used and he’s sure he won’t fully understand until he experiences them.

He’s feeling better, mostly; at least, he has the energy to sit up for more than an hour at a time, which he counts as a victory. He’s spent the weeks listening to more audiobooks than he can count and wishing he could at least get on his computer and game. Once he had Zara sign on for him, and he just lay with the headphones on, letting his guild’s banter wash over him, but not seeing what they were laughing and shouting at hurt too much for him to do it again.

He still has mild headaches that drift behind his eye sockets and wake him in the middle of the night; he can’t tell if it’s pain or discomfort or a psychosomatic phantom. His doctor assures him he has no symptoms of rejection or infection or any of a dozen other complications that are possible but not overly likely.

Zara drives him for the final procedure. “I can’t wait to see them,” she says. “Are you excited?”

“Eh,” he says. ‘Excited’ isn’t the word he would use.

“We gotta go to the bar next week and give them a test drive.” Her words have grown wicked, slick with innuendo. “Metallic eyes are so hot. I bet the guys will be all over you. Can they give you ones that literally smolder?”

“I don’t think so,” he says.

Zara’s right, of course. There are people who do this electively. Get their eyes replaced, for aesthetics or enhancement or to do careers that require what only artificial eyes can give them. It costs a pretty penny, and he’s seen them stalking around and cocking their eyebrows as if to show off the unearthly sheen. Some of them choose inhuman colors, artistic ones, heightening the alien illusion as if to better show off their improved orbs.

He can’t for the life of him imagine why anyone would do this by choice.

* * *

His cancer was rare, they told him. Even rarer for it to be in both eyes, still rarer to be so aggressive. It felt like a great bitter joke at one point, that out of all the people in the world he had beaten every probability, but instead of a lottery jackpot he’d won cancer.

Despite all the pamphlets and flowcharts his doctor had given him, her recommendations had been very sure. Caught early. We don’t think it’s metastasized. We can get it all with surgery. Your prognosis will be excellent.

It hadn’t been a choice, not really. Not when his eyes were replaceable. They’d give him new ones, better ones. Gone the dorky glasses and astigmatism. Gone the squinting and blurriness. Gone the eyestrain when he stared at a screen for too long. His gamer friends even told him enviously how the new eyes would make his skills take off. “You could level up,” said Yoshi, breathless. “You could go pro. All the professional gamers are enhanced.”

He thought back to his youth, to coming out of a double axel and the edge slicing the ice with his body in perfect equilibrium, and flying, the scenery whirling past in an exhilarating blur. Enhancements weren’t allowed in competitive sports. Sports were about pushing the human body, training to your limit, exploring the edges of what humanity could do. Like Zara said about science, except physical.

There was no point in nailed timing and glorious extended lines if you hadn’t sharpened every edge of that move a thousand times, yourself. The summer before he’d gone to college, he’d had a second, far easier surgery, when the technology had come out to give him a different kind of new knee. Strong. Flexible. A knee he could skate on, if he wanted, but not compete.

He’d never gone back on the ice.

* * *

He’s awake when they put the eyes in. They offer him something to sedate him a little, if he wants it, but he says no.

The sensation is strange. Loud. Like they’re snapping bones in his face, even though he knows it’s just the instruments and the metal crunching against the socket. There’s no pain, but he’s still not sure he made the right decision turning down sedation.

The moment when he can see again is sudden and without fanfare. One instant it’s darkness, the next his left eye is filled with doctors poking sharp metal things into his eyeball.

They warned him it would be “disconcerting”—he almost crawls out of his skin. He manages not to do more than twitch, though he does try to blink reflexively. It doesn’t work; his eyelids are being held open. It’s like a bizarre horror movie.

His ophthalmologist grins at him over her mask. “Hey, he’s back. Can you see us, Marcus?” She waves in his face like an exaggerated cartoon.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I can see you.”

His eye muscles twitch—he can’t help it. The focus moves, flicking from one object to the other. Doctor. Nurse. Ceiling. Is it just his imagination, or is there some lag time?

It has to be his imagination. These eyes are better than human ones.

Then why does everything look so flat? The colors seem duller than he remembers, the light harsher. Maybe it’s just the room.

His right eye flares to life. It’s less startling this time.

* * *

Everyone assumed he’d be able to choose whatever fancy new features he wanted. “Get those superfast superspy ones,” Yoshi said, making slashing noises that came through the headphones as they joysticked through their screens together. He wasn’t sure whether the slashing noises were about the game or his hypothetical eyes. “Like that guy who does acrobatics with fighter jets. Whatshisname. I saw a documentary.”

“I don’t think you do tricks with fighter jets,” he answered. Or maybe you did. Suddenly he wasn’t sure.

Zara sent him studies on all the new developments. Research hospitals, the cutting edge, the conference in Singapore where they were talking about eyes that could wirelessly link up to your computer and smartphone and give you some sort of integrated heads-up display.

Insurance didn’t pay for that sort of thing, of course. And his doctor even explained to him that a lot of the elective enhancements people got needed to be combined with a fancier type of neurosurgery, with a lot of words about nerve and electrical integration that he didn’t care to ask her to explain. “For you we have to make sure to take everything,” she’d said. “Removing the cancer has to be the first priority. Once we do that, we’ll use the standard implantation type, which integrates with the optic nerve behind the eye.”

He nodded. Not having choices made them easy.

* * *

They give him a pair of dark glasses to go home with, and warn him he’ll be photosensitive for at least three days and to lie for as long as he wants or needs to with his eyes closed. The muscles will take time to adapt, they tell him; some discomfort is normal.

It’s less discomfort and more pain—sharp little flecks of it intermittently throughout the day, stabbing with his eye movement and over before he can do anything about them, and backgrounded by a fuzzy ache like the precursor to a migraine. He takes the doctors’ advice and lies with his eyes closed, but restlessly. This is supposed to be over. He’s supposed to be able to open his eyes now and move on with his life.

He goes back to work the following week, but takes frequent breaks to sit in a dark closet. His supervisor is understanding.

He doesn’t even try to game. The mere thought of the 3D visualizations makes his head ache.

He wonders if these feelings will ever pass completely, or if this is his new reality.

* * *

“What color are you going to get?” people kept asking him, as if that were the most important thing. Probably because it was the most obvious feature to others, the bright array of metallics that the enhancers and transhumanists showed off so proudly.

He wanted as close to his old color as possible. Dark brown, unremarkable except that it was his. His lovers had always told him he had nice eyes.

They couldn’t do brown. Only brighter colors. Something about the way light reflected in the lenses inside—brown was too dark. The physics would have allowed for a light beige, but no one wanted light beige, so it wasn’t even in the palette they gave him to choose from. To be fair, he wouldn’t have wanted light beige, either.

He wanted to say something stupid about his ethnicity at that point. But I’m Thai. Like that would be news to them. Like that made him different from everyone else with tan skin and black hair and dark complexions who would want brown eyes if they could get them. Like stating his ethnicity would change what was technologically possible.

He chose the darkest color he could, a deep, vibrant blue. In any other context, it would have been beautiful.

* * *

“I still don’t think I’m going to be up to going out this week,” he tells Zara, when she prods him to resume their relationship as perpetual drinking buddies.

He hasn’t tried a mirror yet. He doesn’t know what he looks like. But it doesn’t matter; he doesn’t want the staring, the fascinated questions from people who assume they’re making small talk. The silent judgments from people who assume he did it for enhancement.

He also doesn’t want people to know this part of him before they know his name, to see it splashed across his face without him choosing to tell them. Doesn’t want to try to meet new people when this will inevitably and painfully be a conversation starter, his new acquaintances stepping on a landmine they don’t even know is there. “I like your eyes.” “I had cancer.” “…Oh.”

He foresees some awkward silences coming up in his dating life.

He wonders if this would have been easier if he’d been in a relationship when it happened. If a boyfriend looking at him like he was just the same would have made him feel so. Or if that person looking at him ever so slightly differently would have magnified every feeling of alienation.

He’s started wearing sunglasses outside all the time, now.

* * *

He began paying attention to the transhumanist movement after his diagnosis. Zara knew about it, of course, and had her typical libertarian stance. “Hey, as long as they’re not hurting anybody.”

He read up on some of the politics online. People wanting to modify themselves. People wanting to modify their children. Other people claiming the right to hate and condemn them for it. It struck him as just as senseless as most politics.

The idea that he’d be entering this world involuntarily—the enhancers’ realm, the political imbroglio—disturbed him. That he’d have to claim a stance, take a side, defend the technological advances by virtue of their medical purpose. Be grouped with the believers by default.

He shut his laptop. He had enough to worry about—he didn’t want to deal with this, too. Not yet.

* * *

He assumed, from the beginning, that the new eyes would be better. Of course he did; that’s why people chose to get them sometimes.

But they’re not. They’re just different.

Sure, in every objective sense he can see better. No glasses, and once the photosensitivity dies down, the detail he perceives is startling, especially texture. His vision is better than perfect. But the impression of flatness has persisted. His doctors tell him that no testing has shown anything less than normal depth perception, so maybe it’s all in his head—but doesn’t all vision happen in your head anyway? If it’s in his head, doesn’t that make it real automatically?

Despite the perfect vision, he constantly feels like he’s seeing everything through a slightly dull filter, like someone fiddled with the brightness and contrast settings on his monitor. Nothing he can pinpoint, but it drags at him. Sometimes, some three o’clocks in the morning, he wants to claw out his new eyes and scream.

* * *

Sleeplessness.

The bouts of insomnia and anxiety started before his surgery. It wasn’t nerves; he trusted his doctors. Instead, he would wake from cluttered dreams and stare into the darkness.

He’d stretch his eyes wide, willing the pupils to dilate, to suck in as much as they could possibly see.

Then he’d turn on the light and let the flash burn his retinas, let the purple splotches appear and his eyes tear up, wanting to hang onto the feeling.

* * *

The first time he looks in the mirror, depression smothers him, like tentacles wrapping thickly around his heart.

He’s been mentally preparing himself for the color, for the metallic sheen. But the shape of his eyes is different. He hadn’t expected that. They look wider to him, perpetually surprised, slightly goofy. He hates it.

Maybe the effect will diminish. The skin around the implants is still red and a little puffy, as if irritated at the interlopers. He knows how it feels.

He’s never thought of himself as vain. He’s always been decent-looking, but was arrogant enough to believe it didn’t matter. That he didn’t care. That appearance isn’t what’s important.

Until now, when he looks at his face and sees a freak.

Now he realizes he is vain, has always been vain, and maybe there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.

He feels a sudden stab of guilt and empathy. He’s only been able to tell himself he’s indifferent to his looks because he’s been lucky enough to be satisfied with them. He closes his eyes, shutting away the image in the mirror.

He’d cry, but his tear ducts are gone.

* * *

“Look out!” Yoshi bellowed in his ear the week before his surgery, as a troll burst through the wall. On the screen, his avatar ran.

Life and death, he thought. Such a simple decision to make.

His had been simple, too. “You’re so strong,” his mother kept telling him. “Your father and I talk about it, how brave you are.”

Brave? Why? The doctor had told him he had cancer, and this was what needed to be done. What would they have expected him to do instead? Say no?

Life and death. It made things easy.

His avatar ran around the corner and dropped its hands to its knees, panting.

My days are like yours now, he thought at the computer-generated character. The troll swings its club, and so we duck and kick and run.

But it’s not the fighting that’s the hard part, is it?

* * *

The pain improves, the headaches lift. He’s doing dishes one day when it strikes him he’s forgotten about his eyes for the last few minutes. He hadn’t realized that until now he’s been constantly aware of them, a low-level hum of discomfort, of difference.

As the days go by, it happens more often, for longer stretches. He’s surprised sometimes when he catches his face in the mirror—his self-image is still one in which he has human eyes, and when the reality reminds him, his mood twists into depression.

But even that changes. The first time he looks in the mirror and doesn’t notice his eyes, he realizes it happened five minutes later, and it jars him.

The human mind is infinitely adaptable.

* * *

Cancer.

When other people said the word, it was this huge, ominous, grave thing. People died of cancer. People lost loved ones to it. People wrote sad books and movies about cancer, and somebody always died and it was always tragic and noble and had important messages about the meaning of life.

Having cancer was different. He didn’t feel particularly tragic. Or noble. Or enlightened.

It was just shitty.

He was fortunate to have a good prognosis. He’d slog through it and out the other side, and life would go on.

* * *

Life goes on.

His friends and colleagues get used to his eyes far faster than he does. For a while he watches for them to be still looking, still gossiping, still curious, but eventually even his paranoia has to admit that he’s yesterday’s news. The realization is somehow both relieving and depressing. After all, he still has to deal with his new eyes, and now he has to deal with them alone.

He starts seeing a therapist once a week. She’s a very pleasant person who listens to him ramble and asks him gentle questions that make him feel less stupid. He’s always more at peace after his sessions with her.

He starts forgetting to wear the sunglasses. He finally signs back on to his gaming group and his friends greet him with whooping cheers for about thirty seconds before they’re all focused on the game again. Their lack of continued concern is somehow both liberating and slightly disappointing. He files that away to talk to the therapist about.

A good part of the time now, when someone does a double-take at him on the street, he doesn’t remember why until he thinks about it.

* * *

“This is just something I have to get through,” he told his parents once.

He hadn’t thought that statement would be so full of raw truth.

* * *

A year passes.

He remembers thinking last year that in a year none of this would matter. He was both wrong and right about that: it matters, and it doesn’t. The cancer changed him, but he adjusted. Nothing is radical. Nothing is revelatory. But nothing is inconsequential, either.

It’s just…life. Like everything else.

He’s started dating again. There haven’t been as many awkward silences as he feared. It turns out he can say, “I had cancer in my eyes, but I’m okay now” and then smile and change the subject. Zara turns out to be right that his eyes probably attract more people than not, and he’s learned not to mind.

He thinks about going to a rink and trying skating. Just for fun. Who knows, after all these years it might be more pleasant than painful. Zara offers to go with him. “I’ll fall on my ass so much I’ll make you feel great. Instant moral support.” He smiles. He doesn’t have to decide anything now.

He starts struggling to find new things to talk to his therapist about, and they drop to meeting once a month, then as-needed. He keeps her card taped to the fridge.

Sometimes he sees transhumanist rallies on television, or chances across articles on the Internet. He’s still not sure how he feels about them. He’d say he’s indifferent, but as a man with a fake leg and fake eyes, he’s one of the media-dubbed “cyborgs” already.

Well, screw it. He’s indifferent. It feels satisfying, somehow, to claim his right to have no political feelings about the technology in his body.

At night he sleeps well. And in the morning, he opens his eyes and goes about his day.

Zero Sum Game

Chapter 1

I trusted one person in the entire world.

He was currently punching me in the face.

Overlapping numbers scuttled across Rio’s fist as it rocketed toward me, their values scrambling madly, the calculations doing themselves before my eyes. He wasn’t pulling his punch at all, the bastard. I saw exactly how it would hit and that the force would fracture my jaw.

Well. If I allowed it to.

Angles and forces. Vector sums. Easy. I pressed myself back against the chair I was tied to, bracing my wrists against the ropes, and tilted my head a hair less than the distance I needed to turn the punch into a love tap. Instead of letting Rio break my jaw, I let him split my lip open.

The impact snapped my head back, and blood poured into my mouth, choking me. I coughed and spat on the cement floor. Goddammit.

“Sixteen men,” said a contemptuous voice in accented English from a few paces in front of me, “against one ugly little girl. How? Who are you?”

“Nineteen,” I corrected, the word hitching as I choked on my own blood. I was already regretting going for the split lip. “Check your perimeter again. I killed nineteen of your men.” And it would have been a lot more if Rio hadn’t appeared out of nowhere and clotheslined me while I was distracted by the Colombians. Fucking son of a bitch. He was the one who’d gotten me this job; why hadn’t he told me he was undercover with the drug cartel?

The Colombian interrogating me inhaled sharply and jerked his head at one of his subordinates, who turned and loped out of the room. The remaining three drug runners stayed where they were, fingering Micro-Uzis with what they plainly thought were intimidating expressions.

Dumbasses. I worked my wrists against the rough cord behind my back—Rio had been the one to tie me up, and he had left me just enough play to squeeze out, if I had half a second. Numbers and vectors shot in all directions—from me, to the Colombian in front of me, to his three lackwit subordinates, to Rio—a sixth sense of mathematical interplay that existed somewhere between sight and feeling, masking the world with constant calculations and threatening to drown me in a sensory overload of data.

And telling me how to kill.

Forces. Movements. Response times. I could take down this idiot drug runner right now, the way he was blocking his boys’ line of fire—except that concentrating on the Colombians would give Rio the instant he needed to take me down. I was perfectly aware that he wasn’t about to break cover on my behalf.

“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, you will regret it. You see my dog?” The Colombian jerked his head at Rio. “If I let him loose on you, you will be crying for us to kill your own mother. And he will like making you scream. He—how do you say? It gives him a jolly.” He leaned forward with a sneer, bracing himself on the arms of the chair so his breath was hot against my face.

Well, now he’d officially pissed me off. I flicked my eyes up to Rio. He remained impassive, towering above me in his customary tan duster like some hardass Asian cowboy. Unbothered. The insults wouldn’t register with him.

But I didn’t care. People pissing on Rio made me want to put them in the ground, even though none of it mattered to him. Even though all of it was true.

I relaxed my head back and then snapped it forward, driving my forehead directly into the Colombian’s nose with a terrific crunch.

He made a sound like an electrocuted donkey, squealing and snorting as he flailed backward, and then he groped around his back to come up with a boxy little machine pistol. I had time to think, Oh, shit, as he brought the gun up—but before firing, he gestured furiously at Rio to get out of the way, and in that instant the mathematics realigned and clicked into place and the probabilities blossomed into a split-second window.

Before Rio had taken his third step away, before the Colombian could pull his finger back on the trigger, I had squeezed my hands free of the ropes, and I dove to the side just as the gun went off with a roar of automatic fire. I spun in a crouch and shot a foot out against the metal chair, the kick perfectly timed to lever energy from my turn—angular momentum, linear momentum, bang. Sorry, Rio. The Colombian struggled to bring his stuttering gun around to track me, but I rocketed up to crash against him, trapping his arms and carrying us both to the floor in an arc calculated exactly to bring his line of fire across the far wall.

The man’s head cracked against the floor, his weapon falling from nerveless fingers and clattering against the cement. Without looking toward the side of the room, I already knew the other three men had slumped to the ground, cut down by their boss’s gun before they could get a shot off. Rio was out cold by the door, his forehead bleeding freely, the chair fallen next to him. Served him right for punching me in the face so many times.

The door burst open. Men shouted in Spanish, bringing Uzis and AKs around to bear.

Momentum, velocities, objects in motion. I saw the deadly trails of their bullets’ spray before they pulled the triggers, spinning lines of movement and force that filled my senses, turning the room into a kaleidoscope of whirling vector diagrams.

The guns started barking, and I ran at the wall and jumped.

I hit the window at the exact angle I needed to avoid being sliced open, but the glass still jarred me when it shattered, the noise right by my ear and somehow more deafening than the gunfire. My shoulder smacked into the hard-packed ground outside and I rolled to my feet, running before I was all the way upright.

This compound had its own mini-army. The smartest move would be to make tracks out of here sooner rather than later, but I’d broken in here on a job, dammit, and if I didn’t finish it, I wouldn’t get paid.

The setting sun was sending tall shadows slicing between the buildings. I skidded up to a metal utility shed and slammed the sliding door back. My current headache of a job, also known as Courtney Polk, scrabbled back as much as she could while handcuffed to a pipe before she recognized me and glowered. I’d locked her in here temporarily when the Colombians had started closing in.

I picked up the key to the cuffs from where I’d dropped it in the dust by the door and freed her. “Time to skedaddle.”

“Get away from me,” she hissed, flinching back. I caught one of her arms and twisted, the physics of the leverage laughably easy. Polk winced.

“I am having a very bad day,” I said. “If you don’t stay quiet, I will knock you unconscious and carry you out of here. Do you understand?”

She glared at me.

I twisted a fraction of an inch more, about three degrees shy of popping her shoulder out of the socket.

“All right already!” She tried to spit the words, but her voice climbed at the end, pitched with pain.

I let her go. “Come on.”

Polk was all gangly arms and legs and looked far too thin to have much endurance, but she was in better shape than she appeared, and we made it to the perimeter in less than three minutes. I pushed her down to crouch behind the corner of a building, my eyes roving for the best way out, troop movements becoming vectors, numbers stretching and exploding against the fence. Calculations spun through my brain in infinite combinations. We were going to make it.

And then a shape rose up, skulking between two buildings, zigzagging to stalk us—a black man, tall and lean and handsome, in a leather jacket. His badge wasn’t visible, but it didn’t need to be; the way he moved told me everything I needed to know. He stood out like a cop in a compound full of drug runners.

I started to grab Polk, but it was too late. The cop whipped around and looked up, meeting my eyes from fifty feet away, and knew he was made.

He was fast. We’d scarcely locked eyes and his hand was inside his jacket in a blur.

My boot flicked out and hit a rock.

From the cop’s perspective, it must have looked like the worst kind of evil luck. He’d barely gotten his hand inside his coat when my foot-flicked missile rocketed out of nowhere and smacked him in the forehead. His head snapped back, and he listed to the side and collapsed.

God bless Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Polk recoiled. “What the hell was that!”

“That was a cop,” I snapped. Five minutes with this kid and my irritation was already at its limit.

“What? Then why did you—he could have helped us!”

I resisted the urge to smack her. “You’re a drug smuggler.”

“Not on purpose!”

“Yeah, because that makes a difference. I don’t think the authorities are going to care that the Colombians weren’t too happy with you anymore. You don’t know enough to gamble on flipping on your crew, so you’re going to a very faraway island after this. Now shut up.” The perimeter was within sprinting distance now, and rocks would work for the compound’s guards as well. I scooped up a few, my hands instantly reading their masses. Projectile motion: my height, their heights, the acceleration of gravity, and a quick correction for air resistance—and then pick the right initial velocity so that the deceleration of such a mass against a human skull would provide the correct force to drop a grown man.

One, two, three. The guards tumbled into well-armed heaps on the ground.

Polk made a choking sound and stumbled back from me a couple of steps. I rolled my eyes, grabbed her by one thin wrist, and hauled.

Less than a minute later, we were driving safely away from the compound in a stolen jeep, the rich purple of the California desert night falling around us and the lights and shouts from an increasingly agitated drug cartel dwindling in the distance. I took a few zigs and zags through the desert scrub to put off anyone trying to follow us, but I was pretty sure the Colombians were still chasing their own tails. Sure enough, soon we were speeding alone through the desert and the darkness. I kept the running lights off just in case, leaving the moonlight and mathematical extrapolation to outline the rocks and brush as we bumped along. I wasn’t worried about crashing. Cars are only forces in motion.

In the open jeep, the cuts on my face stung as the wind whipped by, and annoyance rolled through me as the adrenaline receded. This job—I’d thought it would be a cakewalk. Polk’s sister had been the one to hire me, and she had told me Rio had cold-contacted her and strongly suggested that if she didn’t pay me to get her sister out, she’d never see her again. I hadn’t talked to Rio myself in months—not until he’d used me as his personal punching bag today—but I could connect the dots: Rio had been working undercover, seen Polk, decided she deserved to be rescued, and thrown me the gig. Of course, I was grateful for the work, but I wished I had known Rio was undercover with the cartel in the first place. I cursed the bad luck that had made us run into him—the Colombians never would have caught me on their own.

In the passenger seat, Polk braced herself unhappily against the jounces of our off-road journey. “I’m not moving to a desert island,” she said suddenly, interrupting the quiet of the night.

I sighed. “I didn’t say desert. And it doesn’t even have to be an island. We can probably stash you in rural Argentina or something.”

She crossed her spindly arms, hugging herself against the night’s chill. “Whatever. I’m not going. I’m not going to let the cartel win.”

I resisted the urge to crash the jeep on purpose. Not that I had much to crash it into, out here, but I could have managed. The correct angle against one of those little scrub bushes…

“You do realize they’re not the only ones who want a piece of you, right? In case our lovely drug running friends neglected to tell you before they dumped you in a basement, the authorities are scouring California for you. Narcotics trafficking and murder, I hear. What, were all the cool kids doing it?”

She winced away, hunching into herself. “I swear I didn’t know they were using the shipments to smuggle drugs. I only called my boss when I got stopped because that’s what they told us to do. It’s not my fault.”

Yeah, yeah. Her sister had tearfully shown me a copy of the police report—driver stopped for running a light, drugs found, more gang members who’d shown up and shot the cops, taking back the truck and driver both. The report had heavily implicated Courtney in every way.

When she’d hired me, Dawna Polk had insisted her sister wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Personally, I hadn’t particularly cared if the girl was guilty or not. A job was a job.

“Look, I only want to get paid,” I said. “If your sister says you can throw your life away and go to prison, that’s A-okay with me.”

“I was just a driver,” Courtney insisted. “I never looked to see what was in the back. They can’t say I’m responsible.”

“If you think that, you’re an idiot.”

“I’d rather the police have me than you anyway!” she shot back. “At least with the cops I know I have rights! And they’re not some sort of freaky weird feng shui killers!”

She flinched back into herself, biting her lip. Probably wondering if she’d said too much. If I was going to go “feng shui” on her, too.

Crap.

I took a deep breath. “My name is Cas Russell. I do retrieval. It means I get things back for people. That’s my job.” I swallowed. “Your sister really did hire me to get you out, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You locked me up again.”

“Only so you’d stay put until I could come back for you,” I tried to assure her.

Courtney’s arms were still crossed, and she’d started worrying her lip with her teeth. “And what about all that other stuff you did?” she asked finally. “With the cartel guards, and the stones, and that cop…”

I scanned the constellations and steered the jeep eastward, aiming to intersect the highway. The stars burned into my eyes, their altitudes, azimuths, and apparent magnitudes appearing in my mind as if stenciled in the sky behind each bright, burning pinprick. A satellite puttered into view, and its timing told me its height above Earth and its orbital velocity.

“I’m really good at math,” I said. Too good. “That’s all.”

Polk snorted as if I were putting her on, but then her face knitted in a frown, and I felt her staring at me in the darkness. Oh, hell. I like it better when my clients hire me to retrieve inanimate objects. People are so annoying.

By morning, my madly circuitous route had only brought us halfway back to LA. Switching cars twice and drastically changing direction three times might not have been strictly necessary, but it made my paranoid self feel better.

The desert night had turned cold; fortunately, we were now in a junky old station wagon instead of the open jeep, though the car’s heater only managed a thin stream of lukewarm air. Polk had her bony knees hunched up in front of her and had buried her face against them. She hadn’t spoken in hours.

I was grateful. This job had had enough monkey wrenches already without needing to explain myself to an ungrateful child every other minute.

Polk sat up as we drove into the rising sun. “You said you do retrieval.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You get things back for people.”

“That’s what ‘retrieval’ means.”

“I want to hire you.” Her youthful face was set in stubborn lines.

Great. She was lucky I wasn’t choosy about my clientele. And that I needed another job after this one. “What for?”

“I want my life back.”

“Uh, your sister’s already paying me for that,” I reminded her. “But hey, you can pay me twice if you want. I won’t complain.”

“No. I mean I don’t want to go flying off to Argentina. I want my life back.”

“Wait, you’re asking me to steal you back a clean record?” This girl didn’t know what reality was. “Kid, that’s not—”

“I’ve got money,” she interrupted. Her eyes dropped to her knees. “I got paid really well, for someone who drove a delivery truck.”

I snorted. “What are the going rates for being a drug mule these days?”

“I don’t care what you think of me,” said Polk, though red was creeping up her neck and across her cheeks. She ducked her head, letting her frizzy ponytail fall across her face. “People make mistakes, you know.”

Yeah. Cry me a river. I ignored the voice in my head telling me I should take the fucking job anyway. “Saving the unfortunate isn’t really my bag. Sorry, kid.”

“Will you at least think about it? And stop calling me ‘kid.’ I’m twenty-three.”

She looked about eighteen, wide-eyed and gullible and wet behind the ears. But then, I guess I can’t judge; people still assumed I was a teenager sometimes, and in reality I was barely older than Courtney. Of course, age can be measured in more ways than years. Sometimes I had to pull a .45 in people’s faces to remind them of that.

I remembered with a pang that my best 1911 had been lost back at the compound when I was captured. Dammit. Dawna was going to get that in her expense list.

“So? Are you thinking about it?”

“I was thinking about my favorite gun.”

“You don’t have to be so mean all the time,” Courtney mumbled into her knees. “I know I need help, okay? That’s why I asked.”

Oh, fuck. Courtney Polk was a headache and a half, and clearing the names of idiot kids who got mixed up with drug cartels wasn’t in my job description. I’d been very much looking forward to dumping her on her sister’s doorstep and driving away.

Though that small voice in the back of my head kept whispering: drive away where?

I didn’t have any gigs lined up after I finished this contract. I don’t do too well when I’m not working.

Yeah, right. Between jobs you’re a fucking mess.

I slammed the voice away again and concentrated on the money. I like money. “Just how much cash do you have?”

“You’ll do it?” Her face lit up, and her whole body straightened toward me. “Thank you! Really, thank you!”

I grumbled something not nearly as enthusiastic and revved the station wagon down the empty dawn freeway. Figuring out how to steal back someone’s reputation was not my idea of fun.

The voice in the back of my head laughed mockingly. Like you have the luxury of being choosy.

Chapter 2

I pulled the station wagon into a grungy roadside motel near Palmdale, the type with a cracked plastic sign of misaligned letters misspelling the word “vacancy.” I’d detoured again, and we’d circled around enough to be coming in from north of LA, through the dusty shithole towns of meth gang territory. Courtney’s friends, on the other hand, had been smuggling coke, which I supposed made them the classy drug dealers.

I didn’t need to rest, but I suspected Courtney did, and I wanted to think. I had no idea how the hell I was going to approach her case. The obvious plan was to find enough evidence on her old employers to give the DEA some sort of smashing takedown, let Courtney take the credit for it, and broker a deal to expunge her record. That would involve dealing with the police, though, and that sounded about as appealing as driving two-inch bamboo splinters under my fingernails.

I ushered Courtney ahead of me into the motel’s threadbare office; her jaws cracked with a yawn as she stumbled in. The clerk was stuttering into the phone. I crossed my arms, leaned against the wall, and waited.

The clerk stayed on his call for another ten minutes, and kept giving us increasingly nervous glances, as if he expected me to bawl him out for not helping us straightaway. I supposed that made sense, considering my messed-up fatigue-style clothes and my messed-up face, which had to be turning into a spectacular rainbow of color by this point. Or maybe he saw brown skin and thought I was a terrorist—I’ve been told I look kind of Middle Eastern. Goddamn racial profiling.

I tried to smile at him, but it ended up more like a scowl.

The clerk finally got off the phone and stammered his way into assigning us a room on the first floor. He dropped the key twice trying to give it to me, and then dropped the cash I gave him when he tried to pick the bills up off the counter. If he’d known I’d pulled the money from a succession of stolen cars that night, he probably would’ve been even more nervous.

I pulled Courtney back into the sunlight after me, where we found the right door and let ourselves into a stock cheap-and-dirty motel room, the type with furnishings made of stapled-together cardboard. Apparently relieved by my promise to help her, Courtney zonked out almost before her frizzy head smacked against the pillows on one of the dingy beds. I tossed the cigarette-burned bedspread over her and went to push open the door to the small washroom.

A gun barrel appeared in my face. “Howdy,” said the black cop from the compound from where he sat on the toilet tank. “I think we need to have a talk.”

Well, shit.

No matter how much math I know, and no matter how fast my body is trained to respond automatically to it, I can’t move faster than a bullet. Of course, if the cop had been within reach, I could have disarmed him before he could fire—but the bathroom was just large enough for the math to err on his side, considering he already had his gun drawn and pointed at my center of mass.

“Don’t mind me,” I said, inching forward and trying for flippancy. “I’m just going to use the—”

His hand moved slightly, and I froze.

“Good,” he said. “You stand still now, sweetheart. You move and I’ll put a bullet through your kidney.”

I knew two things about him now. First, he was smart, because not only had he tracked us here and then gotten into our bathroom before we had reached the room, but he also wasn’t underestimating me. Second, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about proper police procedure, which either meant he was a very dangerous cop or a very dirty one—or both.

I let my hands hover upward, showing I wasn’t going for a weapon. “I’m not moving.”

“Pithica,” he said. “Talk.”

“You have me confused with someone else,” I said. Mathematics erupted around me, layering over itself, possibilities rising and crumbling away as the solutions all came up a hair short of the time the handsome cop needed to pull the trigger.

“Talk,” said the cop. “Or I shoot you and break your pet out there.”

Courtney. Shit. Stall. “Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

In the bathroom mirror, I saw the rising sun peek above the sill and through the almost-drawn curtains.

Specular reflection. Angles of incidence. Perfect. As long as the cop wasn’t going to fire blind, I had him. Hands still raised in the air in apparent surrender, I twitched my left wrist.

At the speed of light, the glint of sunlight came in through the window, hit the bathroom mirror, and reflected in a tight beam from the polished face of my wristwatch right into the cop’s eyes.

He moved fast, blinking and ducking his head away, but I moved faster. I dodged to the side as I dove in, my right hand swinging out to take the gun off line. My fingers wrapped around his wrist and I yanked, the numbers whirling and settling to give me the perfect fulcrum as I leveraged off my grasp on his gun hand to leap upward and give him a spinning knee to the side of the head.

The cop collapsed, out cold, his face smacking inelegantly into the grimy bathroom floor.

I checked the gun. Fully loaded with a round in the chamber, as I’d expected. I gave it points for being a nice hefty .45 with an extended magazine, and points off for being a Glock. Typical cop. I hate Glocks.

I searched him quickly and found three spare mags fully loaded with ammo and a little snub-nosed Smith & Wesson tucked in his boot. No wallet or phone—and, more importantly, no badge or ID of any kind. I was right; he was dirty.

I dragged him out into the room, yanked the sheet off one of the beds, and began tearing long strips from it. In the other bed, Courtney stirred and squinted at me sleepily. When she saw me tying a tall, unconscious man to the radiator, she came fully awake and shot bolt upright. “What’s going on?”

“He followed us here,” I explained. The guy must have regained consciousness fast enough to track our escape back at the compound, and must have been the one on the phone with the motel clerk when we checked in, making sure someone let him into our room before we got the key. This time I’d make sure he couldn’t track us. By the time he woke up and got himself loose, we’d be long gone.

“Who is he? Is he with the Colombians?”

I frowned at her from where I was securing my knots. “He’s the cop from back at the compound. Remember? As to whether he’s with the cartel, I don’t know. I think he’s dirty.”

“How do you know he’s a cop in the first place?”

“Police training makes you move a certain way.” It came to me in numbers, of course, the subtle angles and lines of stride and posture. But I didn’t feel like explaining that.

“Oh.” Courtney’s hands had tightened into fists on the threadbare bedspread, her knuckles white.

I finished my work and moved toward the door. “Come on, kid. We’ve got to hit the road.”

Courtney scrambled up and stayed behind me while I checked outside. The sun gleamed off the cars, the dusty parking lot completely still. If our police friend was dirty, it was unlikely he’d have a partner nearby, fortunately. I glanced around to see if I could spot his car, figuring it might have some nice toys in it—as well as maybe his badge and ID, which could give us some leverage—but no vehicle stood out as promising. Instead, I led Polk over to a black GMC truck so caked with dust and grime it looked gray. In my business, getting into a car and hotwiring it are such necessary skills I could literally do them with my eyes closed, and I had the engine coughing to life in fourteen seconds. We left the motel behind in a cloud of dust.

I flattened the accelerator, and the desert sped by around us, the morning sun flashing off dust and sand and rock. I drew a quick map of this part of the county in my head, calculating the best way to travel so that even if the cop woke up quickly and used the most efficient search algorithm he could—or had supernatural luck—the probabilities would drop toward zero that he’d be able to find us again.

Courtney’s subdued voice interrupted my calculations. “Was he after me?”

“Yeah,” I said. I brooded for a moment. “What do you know about something called Pithica?”

She shook her frizzy head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Are you sure? You never heard a whisper from your former employers? Think hard.”

Courtney winced away from my harshness. “No. I swear. Why?”

I didn’t answer.

What the hell was going on? Why was a peace officer on the take after Courtney Polk? She’d been a drug mule, for crying out loud, one the cartel had ended up locking in a basement. She hadn’t exactly been high on the food chain. And what the hell was Pithica?

I didn’t go straight into LA; instead, I continued zigzagging through the brown desert of the northern outskirts and switched cars twice in three hours. I didn’t know if our dirty cop could put out an APB on us—he might even have enough resources to have his buddies set up roadblocks. Best to err on the side of being impossible-to-find no matter what.

Once the morning hit a decent hour, I stopped at a cheap electronics store and picked up a disposable cell. I stood under the awning of the shop, watching Courtney where she sat in the car waiting, and dialed Rio.

“Pithica,” I said, as soon as he answered.

There was a long pause. Then Rio said, “Don’t get involved.”

“I’m already involved,” I said, my stomach sinking.

Another pause. “I can’t talk now.” Of course. He was still undercover. I’d assumed he was just taking down the whole gang for kicks, but now…

“When and where?” I said impatiently.

“God be with you,” said Rio, and hung up.

I should’ve known, I thought. Undercover wasn’t Rio’s style. His MO was to go in, hurt the people who needed hurting, and get out. If taking down the gang had been his only objective, a nice explosion would have lit up the California desert weeks ago and left nothing but a crater and the bodies of several eviscerated drug dealers. That was Rio’s style. And why had he referred Dawna to me to get Courtney out in the first place? Why not do it himself? He was more than capable; in fact, I was sure he could have done it without even blowing his cover.

Unless things were way more complicated than I had realized, and this wasn’t a simple drug ring.

“Who were you calling?” asked Courtney, getting out of the car and squinting at me in the glare of the Southern California sun.

“A friend,” I said. Well, sort of. “Someone I trust.” That part was true.

“Someone who can help us?”

“Maybe.” Rio was clearly working his own angle, and didn’t want help—even from me. Which hurt a little, if I wanted to be honest with myself. I’m good at what I do. Rio didn’t mean to hurt me, of course; he didn’t care about my feelings one way or another. He didn’t care about anyone’s feelings. I wondered what it said about me that he was the closest thing I did have to a friend.

Suck it up, Cas.

Rio wasn’t the only resource I had. I contemplated for a moment, then dialed another number.

“Mack’s Garage,” said a gravelly voice on the other end.

“Anton, it’s Cas Russell. I need some information.”

He grunted. “Usual rates.”

“Yeah. I need everything you can get on the word Pithica.”

“Spelling?”

“I’m not sure. There might be some ties to Colombian drug runners. And the authorities might be investigating already.”

He grunted again. “Two hours.”

“Got it.” I hung up. Anton was one of several information brokers in the city, and I’d hired him not infrequently over the past couple of years, whenever I wanted to know more than a standard Internet search would give me. If “Pithica” had a paper trail, I was betting he could find it.

“Come on,” I said to Courtney, shepherding her back to the car. “We’re going to hit rush hour as it is.”

Chapter 3

“Do you have cash, or is your money all in the bank?” I asked Courtney as we inched forward through the eternal parking lot of the 405 freeway, the heat beating down through the windshield and slowly cooking us. The temperature had catapulted up by a full thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit with the rising sun as we finally headed into the city: Los Angeles at its finest. Our current junkpot car didn’t have air conditioning, and the still air and stalled traffic meant even rolling down the windows didn’t help one whit.

Courtney fiddled with the ends of her ponytail self-consciously. “They paid me in cash. I didn’t—taxes, you know, I thought it would be better if…”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, trying not to laugh at her. “No sign at all they weren’t on the level. I can see why you thought it was a legitimate delivery service.” I dealt only in cash myself, of course, but I wasn’t exactly a yardstick for legality. “Where is it, under your mattress?”

She grimaced, red creeping across her cheekbones again. “A floorboard.”

“All right. We’ll swing by. Let’s hope the cops didn’t find it.” I had a fair amount of my own liquid capital stashed in various places throughout the city, but I preferred to use hers. She was supposed to be the paying client, after all.

“You think they searched my place?” Courtney asked, going tense and sitting up in the passenger seat.

“You’re a murder suspect,” I said. “You think?”

Her whole face had gone flushed now. “I—I just don’t—I have some things—”

“Relax, kid. Nobody’s going to care about your porn collection.”

She choked and broke out in a coughing fit.

“Unless it’s children,” I amended. “Then you’d be in big trouble. Bigger, I mean. It’s not kiddie porn, is it?”

“What—? I don’t—no, of course not!” she stammered. Her skin burned tomato red now, from her neck to the roots of her sweat-dampened hair. “Why would you—I don’t even—”

I laughed for real as traffic started creeping forward again. She was too easy.

Courtney’s place was only a few miles from Anton’s, and I decided to drop by the information broker’s first. Anton’s garage was a constant of the universe. A ramshackle mechanic’s outfit, the place had never changed in all the times I’d been there. The words “Mack’s Garage” barely showed through a decades-thick layer of motor oil and grime on a bent-up metal sign, and the junkers in the bays were the same derelict vehicles I’d seen the last time. No customers were in sight. Anton did know cars, as it happened, but he wasn’t known for being an auto mechanic.

I knocked on the door to the office and Anton opened it himself, a faded gray work coverall over his considerable bulk. Anton was a big, big man in every way—six-foot-five and beefy all over, he had a thick neck, thicker face, and steel-gray hair shaven to a strict quarter-inch, which for some reason made him seem even bigger. Considering I was already short, I tended to feel like a toy person next to him. But as much as I was sure he could open a can of whoop-ass on someone if he wanted to, I always thought he was kind of a teddy bear. A surly, taciturn teddy bear who never smiled, but a teddy bear nonetheless.

He grunted when he saw us. “Russell. Come in.”

Courtney and I followed him through the outer office and into Anton’s workshop. Computers and parts of computers sprawled across every inch of the place, some intact but many more in pieces, and bits of circuitry and machinery I couldn’t name hummed away all over the room in various states of repair, with teetering mountains of papers and files stacked on every marginally flat surface. A huge office chair sized for Anton’s bulk stood like a throne in the middle of the chaos, and perched in its depths was a twelve-year-old girl.

“Cas!” Anton’s daughter cried, leaping up to run over and throw her arms around my middle. Even for twelve, she was tiny, and with her dark complexion, I always figured her mother must have been a four-foot-ten Asian or Latina woman whom Anton could have picked up with his little finger.

“Hey, Penny. How’s it going?” I said, ruffling her dark hair.

“Good!” she chirped. “We’ve got an intelligence file for you!”

“Thanks. Hey, I’ve got a present for you.” I pulled the cop’s little Smith & Wesson out of my pocket. “Look, it’s just your size.”

“Ooo! Cas! Thank you!” Eyes shining, she took the gun, keeping it pointed down. “Daddy, look what Cas gave me! What caliber is it?”

“Thirty-eight Special, for a special little girl,” I said. “Take good care of it; it’ll last you a long time.” What can I say, I have a soft spot for kids.

“You’re giving her a gun?” squawked Courtney from behind me. “One you stole from a cop?”

“She knows how to use it,” grunted Anton.

Courtney quailed. “That’s not what I—”

“You think I don’t take care of my daughter right?” said Anton quietly, looming a bit. “That what you saying, girl?”

Courtney stared up and up at him. Then she said, “No, sir,” very meekly.

“Didn’t think so,” rumbled the big man. “Russell, I got that info for you. Not much to go on, mind.”

“I appreciate anything you can get us,” I said.

He pulled a file folder from among the machines. “Some fishy things here. Could be more we ain’t hit yet. You don’t mind, me and Penny’ll keep digging on this.”

“Sure,” I said, surprised. It was the first time he’d said something like that in all the times I’d hired him. “If you think there’s more to find, go for it. Usual rate.” I opened the file and gave it a cursory glance—the contents were puzzlingly varied; I’d have to sit down with it later.

“I bet we get more,” said Penny optimistically, hopping back up on her dad’s chair and rolling it over to a computer keyboard. “Hey, Cas! I cracked an IRS database yesterday. All by myself!”

“She’s got the talent,” murmured Anton in his quiet, gravelly way, but anyone could see he was glowing with pride.

“Nice job,” I told Penny. “Too bad you don’t pay taxes.”

“Well, Daddy does, but he told me not to change anything. I want to try some White House systems next.”

I turned to Anton in surprise. “You pay taxes?”

“I use this country’s services,” he said. “I pay the taxes them people we elected says I owe. Only fair.”

Wow. “Your call, I guess.”

He gave one of his trademark grunts. “Want to teach my girl right.”

Courtney made a squeaking sound. I decided I’d better get her out of sight before Anton felt the urge to reach out his thumb and crush her like a bug. Besides, Anton’s reference to more weirdness was amplifying the alarm bells that had been going off in the back of my head ever since the cop had cornered us at the motel.

The feeling got about a hundred times worse when we got to Courtney’s house.

“That’s—that’s my…” She trailed off, her hand shaking as she pointed. Two white men in dark suits were standing on her doorstep talking, the front door cracked open behind them. As we watched, one of them pushed open the door and went inside. The other stubbed out a cigarette and followed a minute later.

“What are they doing in my house?” whispered Courtney weakly.

We were still a block away. I pulled the car over and turned off the engine. Courtney’s place was a little guesthouse-type cottage, and most of the blinds were shut, but one of the side windows was the kind of slatted glass that didn’t close all the way. Through it, we could see more suits—and they were in the midst of tossing her living room. Thoroughly.

“Who are they?” asked Courtney. “Are they police?”

“No.” Some of them moved like they might have military backgrounds, but I wasn’t sure; we didn’t have a good view and I didn’t have the numerical profiles of every type of tactical training memorized anyway. Definitely not cops, though.

“Do you think—are they with the Colombians?”

“Possibly.” The men were the wrong ethnicity to be on the Colombian side of the cartel, but maybe they were American connections. Why would the cartel be searching Courtney’s place, though? If they were after the girl herself, they would be lying in wait, not turning the rooms inside out. “Did you steal anything from them? Money, drugs, information? Anything?”

“No!” Courtney sounded horrified. “I have money there like I told you, but it’s what they paid me. I’m not a thief!”

“Just a drug smuggler.” As someone who did dabble in what one might call “stealing,” when paid well to do it, I resented her indignation a bit. “Let’s keep our moral lines straight and clear, now.”

“I didn’t know,” repeated Courtney hopelessly.

I reached for the car door handle. Maybe these men were only burglars after her little stash of savings, but I wasn’t going to bet on it. “I’m going to get closer. Stay here and keep out of sight.”

“What if they come this way?” Courtney had gone pale, her freckles standing out across her cheekbones.

“Hide,” I said, and got out of the car.

I still hadn’t had a chance to clean up my face, and despite this not being the best part of town—unkempt, weedy lawns buttressed trash-filled gutters, and most of the houses sported cracked siding and sun-peeled paint—I got a few looks from people on the street as I strolled toward Courtney’s cottage. I ran a hand through my short hair, but it was a tangled, curly mass and I was pretty sure I only made it worse. Undercover work has never been my forte.

I meandered down the sidewalk, keeping a sidelong view of Courtney’s house. The dark-suited men became points in motion, my brain extrapolating from the little I could see and hear, assigning probabilities and translating to expected values. As I drew up to the house, the highs and lows of conversation became barely audible, but I ran some quick numbers—to decipher the words, I’d have to be so close I’d be the most obvious eavesdropper in the world. The plot of half-hearted grass between the street and the houses didn’t have any handy cover I could use to sneak closer, either.

I ran my eyes over the surrounding scenery, a three-dimensional model growing in my head. A stone wall curved out from just behind Polk’s house and ended in a tumble at a vacant lot, and it very nearly fit the curvature of a conic.

Sound waves are funny things. They can chase each other over concave surfaces, create reinforcing concentrations of acoustics at the focus of an architectural ellipse or parabola. Some rooms are famous for the ability to whisper a word on one side and have it be heard with perfect clarity on the other.

I only needed a few more sounding boards.

I wandered back down the street and kicked at a trash can as I went by so it turned slightly. Ran my hand along the neighbor’s fence, pulling the gate closed with a click. Flipped up a metal bowl set out for stray cats with my foot so it leaned against a fire hydrant. Tossed a rock casually at a bird feeder so it swung and changed orientation. I ambled down the street twice more, knocking the detritus of the street around, making small changes. Then I ran my eyes back across the house, feeding in the decibel level of normal human conversation.

Close. All I needed was an umbrella. It wasn’t raining, but plenty of cars were parked on the street, and I found what I needed after a quick survey of back windows. I jimmied my way in, retrieved the umbrella from the back seat, and left the car door cracked at an angle for good measure. Then I headed over to a tree at the edge of the next lot, one that stood exactly at the focus of my manufactured acoustic puzzle, put up the umbrella, and listened.

The voices in Courtney’s house sprang up as if they were right next to me.

“—utter rubbish, that’s what it is,” a man was saying in a British accent. “FIFA’s got no right to blame Sir Alex. They got a scandal, it’s their own damn fault.”

“You two and your pansy-ass soccer players,” put in an American voice. “You’re in fucking America, you know. Watch some real football.”

“Oh, you mean that boring little program where they prance around in all the pads and take a break every five minutes?”

“Aw, fuck off. At least we score more than once a game.”

“Gentlemen. Focus.” This voice was smooth, deep, and oozed charisma, cutting off whatever the American’s retort would have been like he’d hit a switch.

“I don’t think it’s here, Boss,” said a fourth guy in a nasally voice with an accent I couldn’t place. “I think she stashed it somewhere else. Or she—”

“‘Stashed it’?” cut in the talkative Brit. “Where? She doesn’t have a safe deposit box, they made it so she’s got no friends—”

“So she buried it in the front yard, or spackled it into a wall,” said the American. “Who knows what she was thinking?”

“The only place left to look here is if we come back with a sledgehammer and a shovel,” agreed the nasally man.

Their words fell off while they waited for the leader to make a decision. I found myself holding my breath.

“Hey, momma, it look like rain to you?”

I was jerked out of listening to see an arrogant teenage kid wearing far too many chains laughing in my face. “You expecting rain? Ha! Whatcha do to your face, or were you born that way?”

My first instinct was to knock him on the head and get him out of my way. But he was only a kid—a shrimpy Hispanic teen, probably part of a gang considering the area and the colored bandanna knotted around his bicep, and aching to prove himself. Even if he was doing so by picking on a small woman who resembled a disturbed homeless person at the moment.

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?” I asked evenly, lounging back against the tree and letting the grip of the cop’s Glock peek out of my belt. The kid’s eyes got wide, and he stumbled back a step.

I glanced back at Courtney’s house. The men in dark suits were filing out the front door, either leaving for good or planning to return with a sledgehammer. Either way, I had missed it. I sighed and turned back to the gang member. “Hey, kid. Watch this.” I leaned down, pried up an old tennis ball from where it was embedded in the dust, and threw it hard off to the side.

A series of soft pings sounded—across the street, behind us. The kid looked around, confused. Then the tennis ball came rocketing from the other direction and bopped him lightly on the head.

“Whoa!” He stared at me. “Fuck, momma! How’d you do that?”

“Learn enough math, you might find out,” I said, keeping an eye on the suits out of the corner of my eye. Conveniently, this conversation provided a neat cover if they happened to look this way. I no longer appeared to be lurking. “Stay in school, okay?”

“Yeah, okay. Okay.” He nodded rapidly, eyes wide. Then he turned and hurried off, looking back over his shoulder at me.

Like I said, I have a soft spot for kids.

The Dark Suits had headed off at the same time, appropriately in a dark van. I glanced around the street and walked casually over to Courtney’s front door. The jamb was already splintered next to the bolt; I nudged the door open.

The living room looked like a herd of rambunctious chimpanzees had been invited to destroy it. Cushions had been torn off the furniture and rent open, their polyester filling collecting in puffy snowballs on the floor. Every chair and table had been upended. Cabinets and closets stood ajar and empty; clothing was tangled with DVD cases and broken dishes in haphazard piles amid the chaos. True to the Dark Suits’ lack of sledgehammer, however, the walls and floor were still intact.

I hesitated on the threshold, wondering what the chances were that the Dark Suits or anyone else might have left surveillance devices behind, but if so, they had probably recorded my skulking already. I picked my way through the destruction to the corner Courtney had told me about, a growing sense of urgency making me hurry. What the fuck was Courtney Polk mixed up in?

I didn’t have any tools, but breaking boards is all about the right force at the right angle. With one well-placed stomp from my boot, the floorboard splintered, and I pried back the pieces and fished out a paper bag filled with neat piles of loose bills.

My gaze skittered around the room, wondering where else Courtney might have hidden something…something small enough to spackle into a wall. But the only option I could see was breaking every floorboard and then tearing down all the sheetrock, and that would take far too long. If Courtney still insisted on claiming ignorance, maybe I could stash her somewhere and then get back with tools before the Dark Suits did.

And maybe I could get some of my questions answered another way before then. Tucking the paper bag under one arm, I headed out, pulling out the cell phone as I did so and dialing Anton.

“Mack’s Garage,” chirped a girl’s voice.

“Penny, it’s Cas. Can you put your dad on?”

“Sure!” She shouted cheerfully for her father, and in moments Anton grunted in my ear.

“Anton, it’s Cas Russell again. I need you to look up something else for me.”

Grunt.

“That client who was with me today. Courtney Polk. Check her out for me.”

“Anything else?”

“No, just—”

A deafening explosion tore through the line. I heard a girl’s scream, and Anton shouting, and then any human sound was swallowed by the chaos of more explosions, multiple ones at once—and the call went dead.

Chapter 4

Shit shit shit shit shit!

I tore back along the street, my boots pounding against the asphalt, the math blurring and every other thought evaporating as I dove toward the car. I yanked open the door and ignored Courtney’s panicked questions as I wrenched the transmission into gear and spun us out into traffic with a squeal of tires; a cacophony of horns deafened us as other drivers swerved and slammed on their brakes, but I only heard Penny’s scream, echoing endlessly, high and terrified—we had to move—faster faster faster faster faster—

LA traffic is forever fucked, but it helps to know the calculus of moving objects—and to drive like a maniac. I slued between lanes, skidding in front of other cars by a hairsbreadth, cutting it as close as the numbers told me I possibly could, and when I started hitting traffic lights, I laid on the horn and popped the wheels up over the curb to sheer down the sidewalk, horrified pedestrians hurling themselves out of my way and traumatized citizens howling expletives in my wake. Courtney made small sounds in the passenger seat, bracing herself against the dashboard and trying to hang on.

This part of town didn’t have a huge police presence, but if I’d seen blue lights behind me I wouldn’t have cared. Or stopped. Within minutes, I was careening around the last corner toward Anton’s garage.

A tidal wave of heat and light and smoke crashed over the car, overloading every sense, blasting, overwhelming. We were still a block away, but I jammed my foot down on the brake, sending Courtney tumbling against the dash.

Anton’s building was a roaring inferno, the flames towering into the sky, black smoke pouring from the blaze and rolling thick and acrid over the street. I scrabbled at the door handle and stumbled out—the heat slammed into me even at this distance, an oppressive wall of blistering air. My skin burned as it flash-dried, and every breath scalded, as if I were swallowing gulps of boiling water.

The building was melting before my eyes, collapsing in on itself, the walls and roof folding with slow grace in massive flares of sparks. My brain catalogued materials, heat, speed of propagation…this horror had used chemical help; it must have. I did a quick back-of-the-envelope timing back in my mind, holding my breath and closing stinging eyes against the smoke that clogged the air.

I ran the numbers three different ways, and only succeeded in torturing myself. Even with the most generous estimates, nobody had made it out.

Fucking math.

I stumbled back to the car. The metal of the door was already warm. I slid into the driver’s seat, wrenched the steering wheel around into a U-turn, and accelerated back the way we had come. We’d ditch this car a block or two from here in case any traffic cameras had glimpsed my vehicular stunts, then put some distance behind us before the authorities arrived.

“Did they…are they…” Courtney asked timidly.

“Dead.” My eyes and throat scratched from the smoke.

A small sob escaped her. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” I couldn’t help wondering if it was her fault.

Or mine.

My mind buzzed. I’d contacted Anton a little over five hours ago—the traffic going into the city had held us up for a good chunk of time, but then I’d headed straight here. Five hours. Ample time to set this up, if someone had caught onto Anton’s search. If that someone happened to be motivated enough.

I tried to tell myself Anton’s work had encompassed a multitude of other projects, any of which might have generated enemies. Whoever had targeted him had overcompensated like fuck to take all of his data and information with him, but even so, a case from months or years ago might have provoked this. Some old client with a grudge. This didn’t have to be because of what I’d brought him.

Did I really believe that?

The platitudes curdled in my head.

Jesus Christ. This was supposed to be an easy job. Rescue the kid, get her out of the country, be home in time for dinner.

Nobody should have died on this one, least of all two people sitting at a computer looking things up for me.

My grip tightened on the steering wheel until my fingers hurt.

I studied Courtney out of the corner of my eye. She was hugging her knees to herself, her shoulders shaking, her ponytail falling across her and hiding her face.

She was involved in this somehow.

“What aren’t you telling me?” The words came out too harsh. I didn’t care. “Those men at your place were looking for something. What was it?”

She raised a blotchy, tear-streaked face to look at me. “I don’t—I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

Right.

My client might be lying to me. My client, who was already on the run not only from the authorities, but from a drug cartel who wanted her dead, government men in dark suits, a dirty cop, and some unknown player willing to commit arson and murder to cover its tracks.

And, on top of everything, I’d lost my information broker. I tried not to think about Penny, the twelve-year-old kick-ass hacker who’d been taught to pay her taxes on time.

Courtney cried softly in the passenger seat the whole way to the bolt hole I drove us to. If she was playing a part, laying it on thick in the hopes I’d buy the tearful façade, she deserved some sort of acting award.

Maybe she really was just a naïve kid who had gotten in too deep, too scared or too stupid to tell me what was going on.

Still, the crying pissed me off. What right did she have to sob her eyes out for people she’d barely met and seemed to judge from moment one? “For Christ’s sake,” I growled, as I swung the car into a grimy alleyway. “You didn’t even know them.”

“How can you be so cold?” she murmured tremulously.

I slammed the car’s transmission into park. “Are you feeling guilty? Is that it?”

Tears swam in her red-rimmed eyes. “Guilty? Why would I—” Her face contorted in horror. Could someone really fake that? “This was about us? Oh, God—that was only this morning!”

Maybe I could turn her guilt to my advantage, I thought. Come at her from the side, maneuver her into revealing whatever she was hiding—

The thought was exhausting. I wasn’t any good with people, and I definitely wasn’t good at subtlety. I could threaten her, but…

Courtney rubbed the ends of her sleeves across her face, sniffling.

She was just a kid. Or near enough. Even I wasn’t willing to go there, at least not yet.

I picked up the file from Anton and the paper bag of money with stiff hands, and we got out of the car. The alleyway ended at a rusted back door; I led the way up a narrow, dark stairwell that climbed into a dilapidated second-floor loft. The furnishings were basic: mattress in the corner, some boxes with food and water in them, not much else.

I dug through one of the drawers in the kitchenette area where I remembered having thrown medical supplies and unearthed a bottle of expired sleeping pills, which I tossed at Courtney. “Here. Take those and get some rest.”

“I don’t like drugs,” she said unhappily.

I didn’t comment on the irony of that.

She swallowed the pills dry and stumbled over to the pallet in the corner. “Where are we?” she slurred, the drugs already kicking in.

“A safe place,” I said. “I have a few around the city. Keep them stocked, in case I need to lie low.”

She cocked her head at me for a long moment, smearing her sleeve across her face again, her eyes glazed. “You’re scary.”

Her frankness took me aback. “You hired me to get you out of all this, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she mumbled. “I wish…” She was already starting to slump into a doze, her exhaustion combining with the pills.

“What do you wish?” Maybe, with her half-conscious state, I could get her to tell me something she otherwise wouldn’t have.

“I wish I didn’t need someone like you,” she said, and her eyes slid closed.

Yeah. Sure. I was the bad guy here.

I left my client a docile, snoozing form on the blankets, grateful for the respite. My stupid body was starting to feel the last thirty hours, but I rummaged through the drawers again and found a box of caffeine pills. I ached for a shower and a quick nap, but first I needed to see if I could put together what Anton had found—what he might have died for.

The file was thin. I pulled the lone stool in the flat up to the kitchenette counter and opened it, turning over the first few sheets of disconnected information and wondering how I would make sense of them, only to be hit in the face by a blandly unassuming document: a funding memo from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. I sat and stared at it, feeling as if someone had kicked my legs out from under me.

Pithica was a project. Possibly a highly classified government project. I closed my eyes, trying to get a grip. It could be anything, I told myself. The United States has any number of operations the population doesn’t know about; it could be anything. Anything…

I saw lab coats and red tile in my mind’s eye. Whispers of weapons and a better future. I slammed down on the vision before my imagination ran away with me.

It could be anything.

There was a reason why I stayed off the government’s radar. Why I didn’t like the police, why I willfully ignored the law, why I didn’t have a Social Security card, why—unlike Anton—I refused to pay taxes, aside from the obvious. The government scared me. Too many secrets. Too many bits of darkness I’d seen hints of over the years.

People with that much power…too big. Too dangerous.

Too real.

What was I getting into?

I forced myself to keep looking through the other documents. The Senate memo only referenced the word “Pithica” incidentally, as if the mention had slipped in by accident, and included no details on the mission of the project or who might be running it. I rifled through the rest of the pages: a report of an investigation into California dock workers’ conditions, marked with a post-it that said it had come up in cross-referencing; a transcript from a radio transmission with half the text blacked out, giving no clear reference points; another memo with the phrase “Halberd and Pithica”—Halberd must be another project, but I found no other mentions of the word…

A few other documents turned up similarly frustrating bits and pieces. The file proved Pithica existed—or had existed; the most recent document dated from more than five years ago—but nothing more. Underneath the last page was a note in Anton’s blocky handwriting: “Should be more. Dead ends. Scrubbed? Will keep digging.”

The papers had no reference to Colombian drug cartels or anything else connected to Courtney Polk, and no hint of why the LAPD—or any other local police force, for that matter—would be looking into this.

I sat back. What did I know? The dirty cop chasing after us had expected me to have information on Pithica. He had followed us from the compound, which meant the cartel was involved somehow, and he had also said that if I didn’t talk, then he’d expected Courtney to be able to answer his questions.

Why? As far as the cartel’s chain of command went, Courtney Polk had been rock bottom. What did the cop think she knew? If this was about drugs, why had the cop come after her rather than anyone higher up?

And who were the people who’d been at Courtney’s house? The suits and the way they operated had screamed government-type, which fit with what Anton’s intelligence had revealed, but at least two of them had been European. What had they wanted from Courtney?

Every piece of this mess pointed back at my skinny twenty-three-year-old and her hard luck story. Either Courtney Polk had lied to me from the first moment I met her, or a whole slew of people, from the dirty cop to the Dark Suits, were mistaken about her importance.

And I knew someone who might be able to tell me which it was. Someone who could give me an idea whether I should be protecting my new charge or pulling a gun in her face and demanding answers. Someone who, if Courtney was more than the naïve kid she seemed, might have had ulterior motives about sending me on this mad chase in the first place.

I picked up the phone.

“I said don’t get involved,” said Rio flatly by way of greeting.

“Answer me one question.” I glanced over to the corner, where my would-be client was curled up into a ball and wheezing lightly in her sleep. “Did you have some other reason for sending me after Courtney Polk?”

Heavy silence deadened the line. Then Rio said, “Who?”

* * *

This concludes the excerpt of ZERO SUM GAME available in this anthology. If you are interested in the full book or its sequels, please visit www.slhuang.com for information and links.

Kurt Hunt

Paolo, Friend Paolo

First published at Ecotones: Ecological Stories from the Border Between Fantasy and Science Fiction (December 2015), edited by Andrew Leon Hudson

* * *

The stars were wrong.

The Navigator emerged into the grip of an unexpected gravity well. Everything behind the first narrowed pinch of her wasp-like body was numb and unresponsive.

She was their link to new worlds, bred and engineered to carry the Seed—but this was not her destination, not the dull brown ashen planet targeted for reformation. Instead, her guidance whips trailed limp into an exosphere overwhelming with vivid compounds and colors. Even from this distance, the continents spreading like stains beneath her black armor, it smelled of water and oxygen. A rich home, however unplanned.

The Navigator tried to orient herself, but her neural pathways had burned in transit. She tried to swing into orbit, the same instinctive and graceful swoop she had performed thousands of times, but her thin, ebon limbs hung paralyzed beneath her as she lurched closer to the stink of ozone.

The Sisterhood had prepared her for this. We often break, they sang, and instilled in her a love of the hard victory. But the reality of glorious exile exhumed thoughts of a familiar sun. She stretched toward empty space as if mere proximity could return to her the sounds and smells of land, the faces lost to her, the feel of wind on unarmored skin.

But home was far. Duty remained. Falling toward the planet, she sang the paean—We Bring Life, Even In Death—and exulted. Only the best of them were sent into the dark. And she was not yet broken.

She prepared the Seed to complete its task without her.

* * *

The ocean spit salt against the boat, fanning huge arcs over the heads of its two passengers. The first man—whom everyone thought of as “Friend” Paolo, if they thought of him at all—squinted and turned away from the primal churn of foam and spray. His suit was soaked through, warping until the pinstripes resembled ocean swells.

He wrung the water from his tie and held it in front of him like a clump of hair pulled from a drain. “I either need Kiton to make me a wetsuit,” he said, “or I need a heads up on these inspections, so I can stop playing Jacques Cousteau in hand-stitched wool.”

The other man—simply called Paolo—only stared ahead, the dusking sun reflected white on his narrow spectacles. He leaned forward, rigid as an owl preparing to drop onto its prey.

“Look at it,” said Paolo.

A few kilometers ahead, a sliver of gray cut through the mist just above the horizon. The beginnings of a floating city, brick and steel perched like mountains atop an abandoned oil platform—the core of an alternative energy research facility—planted against the winds and whitecaps of the Pacific.

As usual, the scale of Paolo’s plan was unprecedented. The press called the project “audacious” and, in light of Paolo’s (and Friend Paolo’s) track record, declared the promised results an imminent disruption of the energy sector. Friend Paolo smiled and agreed—“Paolo is a visionary; I’m proud to work for him”—but silently he gnawed on logistics.

Details were his domain. Paolo envisaged the untapped potential of an off-shore location for solar, wind, and kinetic tidal energy, but it was Friend Paolo who found a viable site and navigated international bureaucracies. Paolo identified his “dream team” of researchers and engineers; Friend Paolo recruited them, got contracts signed, kept them invested in the project. Where Paolo saw concept, Friend Paolo saw construction. Complication.

It had taken two months to reinforce and stabilize the platform, another six weeks to install the panels that concealed its exposed steel skeleton. Two weeks ago, the north pylon cracked; three days later, the south. At every step: delay, disaster, death. Yesterday, two welders fell from their perch after a rogue wave reached up from the froth and swatted them like insects. They were fished out, swollen and gray, but had lost all their equipment. And today, the waves had grown sharp like teeth.

“It’s beautiful,” said Friend Paolo.

“It’s shit!” Paolo’s hands were clutched together in front of him and turning white. In this wide expanse, his voice sounded thinner than normal. “Look at the scarring! I’m trying to birth a child and you give me a crew of ax-fisted monsters to play midwife.”

Through the hammering saltspray, Friend Paolo saw a cluster of seams curving across the custom-tempered, maraging steel. It was Frankensteinian; not at all the smooth, easy aesthetic that Paolo required.

Material costs and repair times wheeled through Friend Paolo’s head, an impossible arithmetic. And he remembered, not for the first time, what the general contractor had told them, just before Paolo fired him: “It can’t be done; the ocean will eat it.”

He wilted against the side of the boat, but said only, “We can fix this. It’ll destroy the budget, but we can fix it.”

Paolo snorted. “The money’s not the problem.”

And Friend Paolo knew that was true. Everyone knew that was true.

Paolo’s great-grandfather had made a fortune building telegraph cables like spiderwebs between the coastal cities. Paolo’s grandfather, impatient and impulsive and consequently cut out of the family business, had made more fortunes tapping his father’s lines and blackmailing almost every moneyed family in Baja and Southern California. Paolo’s father did nothing of note, but he spent little and risked less, and as a result he did not lose those great fortunes before he died of a heart attack, alone in his walk-in closet. Now, with the help of the friend he had overshadowed since childhood, Paolo was determined to use that money to make the world remember him.

They arrived at the docking floats, which constantly adjusted to the surface swell. High above them, subcontractors clung to the sides of the oil platform like moss, welding, hammering, cutting.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Friend Paolo.

“Of course you will.” Paolo stared at him, his glasses mirrors. “Clean slate.”

Wind sucked the air from Friend Paolo’s lungs. A clean slate meant a new team, from the GC down. His mental timetables crumbled. Money might not be a problem, but time…Paolo was always very strict about time. “Let me talk to them. Maybe—”

“I get it. This is the good cop, bad cop routine? I keep you around because you’re ballast?” Paolo stepped onto the dock, his back to the boat, and shook his head. “That’s not it at all. You’re the mortar. I’m the pestle.”

Friend Paolo bit his upper lip, looked down, and waited.

The steady thump of the boat against the dock counted out the seconds as Paolo walked to the access ladder. “Gather everyone,” he said, not bothering to look back. “Fire everyone. Erase everyone. Build the fucking thing already.” He climbed, and as he climbed he grew smaller, blurrier, and finally disappeared over the top.

Friend Paolo sat and listened to the foreign sounds of the sea, lost in numbers and dates, internalizing his friend’s directions, and working as always to discern how to bend the world to their needs.

Between the white noise pulse of waves, men’s voices drifted up like kites.

* * *

The strange planet grew larger.

The Navigator tried to cry out, to sing, but she could no longer feel others like herself. Instead of the constant neutrino-chatter of her sisters calling out their discoveries from distant stars, silence. Instead of the calm of a dead system waiting for the life she carried, the howl and shriek of radio waves.

Instead of the freeze of space, the burn of re-entry.

* * *

One moment, the platform swarmed with workers. Then, against the sunset, a coiling blackness fell and the world erupted. Paolo and Friend Paolo crouched like animals before it.

The detonation seemed to hang forever, a fortress of water and shadow so tall it consumed the sky, its movement betrayed only by the spit and froth playing along the top. But deep within, Friend Paolo saw—whether imagination or lightplay—a dark monstrosity, like an enormous insect, and ebon whips lashing against the sides of the wave, again and again and again—until it broke and fell like Jericho.

* * *

Friend Paolo returned to the world embryonic—curled and weightless. He tried to breathe but instead sucked saltwater, felt it burn down his throat and into his lungs. He flailed and kicked and clawed until, somehow, he broke out and rediscovered air. And blackness.

Night had fallen. Pale light decanted from the moon and stars—so many stars!—to illuminate the sea, his hands—everything—a strange, unvarying silver.

But the boat was gone. Paolo was gone. And before him, the harsh geometry of the platform, the only possible sanctuary, had been defeated. Two pylons had buckled. The outer walls had crumpled, revealing fractured support beams through jagged gaps, like mouths full of broken teeth. The platform itself, built to withstand even the most violent of anticipated natural disasters, had fallen. One side listed down and into the water, and the surface of it—where people had labored, where a city was to be built—was dull and gray and scraped clean.

He was halfway to that poor chance of refuge, wincing with each stroke, when he realized: even the oceanic swell was gone. Only his feeble paddling distorted the surface and its reflection of the ruin.

It was only after he reached the platform and pulled himself from the water that he saw any sign of life, any hint that the world survived. There: a small dark smudge against the grey field of metal emerging from the ocean.

“Paolo!”

The shape didn’t move.

Muscles rubbery from the swim and his ribs still aching from the impact, Friend Paolo called out again, his voice rising in panic. But even as Friend Paolo staggered closer, Paolo sat motionless, halfway up the platform’s incline, transfixed before a smooth, black object. It was small, roughly the size of a bowling ball, but flatter. A rock, maybe, or a shell, unusual only because of its presence on the scoured platform.

Paolo held his hands over the thing, not quite touching it. Friend Paolo rested a shaking hand on his shoulder.

“Did you see it fall?” Paolo’s voice was quiet, strained.

Friend Paolo frowned. Did he see this shell-thing, hidden between the shadows in the water, the curving arcs of the whips? He stared at the sky, the horizon. “I saw something,” he said. “But not this.”

The world around them had stopped. There were no birds. No sounds. No breeze in the air, no ripples in the water. The ocean went on further than he could see, as smooth and hard and flat as the steel of the platform. In the moonlight, Paolo leaned forward and brushed his fingertips against the object, so slowly, so gently…

And the world awoke.

Water churned a heartbeat rhythm against the welding scars of the platform. A bird wheeled its silhouette against the moon. Somewhere very distant, or very deep, Friend Paolo heard something keen, long and low. Above them, clouds labored again through the sky.

The small, smooth object had unfolded. He hadn’t seen it happen. It still lay on the platform, but geometric panels now emanated from it—not physical, solid things but half-seen tricks of the light.

“What the hell is it?” Friend Paolo hadn’t intended to speak aloud. It seemed almost blasphemous in the presence of this new thing, spreading its illusions like wings.

“These…” Paolo’s glasses shone and he shook his head. He reached out again and stroked his hand against one of the panels. It glowed a deep green, then filled with strange, tesseracting symbols.

The air around them became warm. Friend Paolo could no longer feel the wind, although he could heard it roaring past them.

“These are control panels,” said Paolo, kneeling reverently before the object. “This is an interface.”

Paolo traced a finger through the air, and lines of translucent triangles pursued it. The symbols hung momentarily, fading from green to dark blue as a thin rope of seawater coursed across the platform and into the shell. A small sphere of iron formed in the air—first as a tiny core, then layer upon layer coalesced, spreading over the core like ice on a window.

A few heartbeats after the stream of water stopped, the ball fell, startling them with the loud crack of metal on metal as it struck the platform and rolled to the water, where it vanished, reclaimed.

Friend Paolo backed away. “We need to call somebody,” he whispered.

But Paolo only emitted a crazed, high-pitched laugh and returned his hands to the controls.

Friend Paolo closed his eyes. This wasn’t his decision, he knew. It wasn’t his role. But he saw black whips pressed against the bottom of the platform, strong and vengeful, preparing to wrap around it, to crush it.

“We can’t touch that thing.” His voice sounded hesitant, even to him. “People are missing. And I saw—”

“Quiet, or I’ll throw you into the water to look for your friends.” Paolo didn’t even look up as he said this, didn’t make eye contact.

Heat flared in Friend Paolo, but he quenched it with a slow count to ten and walked briskly down to the seaward-edge, far from Paolo. Anger would solve nothing. He needed to think. The water lay flat as a mirror where the two surfaces met, creating a ghost of the platform extending out into the ocean.

There had been workers here. Dozens of them. But he heard no voices, no calls for help. No splashing. Nothing.

* * *

The Navigator awoke to endless, crushing blackness. Ocean. Space without stars. After years in vacuum, her scorched exoskeleton creaked beneath the pull of gravity.

She remembered the sensation, just barely, from her life before she was stoneskin, before she joined the Sisterhood to sing her own news of sacrifice, and of dust swelling to life. Back then—back home—she had leaped, and floated, before her planet pulled her back and knocked the breath out of her.

Huddled in the shade of their filament screens, the adults had exchanged knowing glances. They had known what awaited her, but then she had not. She had been too preoccupied with the grit beneath her bare skin, the smell of the kai-blossoms drifting in with the storm winds, the envy of the other youths. All those things she lost to space and the relentless static presence of the Seed. Or paid, perhaps, in purchase of it.

The Seed.

Startled from her reverie, she realized she could still feel it, separated from her somewhere on the way down, but intact. It would carry out their mission.

Her armor, once seamless, shifted. Pieces of it ground against each other like tectonic plates.

Broken.

She tried to calm herself, but scores of tiny quicksilver creatures crowded against her, nibbled at her, tried to force open the hairline fractures in her carapace. And above, swarming in hives on the continents, there were other creatures, bipedal. She had seen them in their crude attempts to manipulate the spectrum to communicate, transmissions of violence and shouting and affection.

Soft and hopelessly vulnerable, like she had once been.

This was their home…until the Seed did its work. It would boil their oceans into atmosphere and petrify the strange greens of life here. Their children would burn and ash away into a sky that would turn slowly into the streaked oranges and reds so familiar from her youth. The vision grew in intensity—the smell of ozone, the screams—and she realized that these thoughts came from something outside of her.

Something had opened the Seed .

Strange movements, but following definite and purposeful patterns. Someone. She traced the patterns for almost an hour before she understood. This creature, whatever it was, hoped to interact. It thought the Seed was, what, an object? A tool?

She recoiled at the thought, her limbs thrashing sluggish through the pressure. The sudden action disturbed something near her and she was rocked by the wake of something massive passing nearby—or perhaps the synchronized flight of thousands of tiny beings, invisible in the blackness. Water and atmosphere continued their oppressive push onto her, into her, widening the faults in her armor.

Somewhere above, the creature continued its clumsy attempts at control.

The Seed still slept. But what would these creatures do when it woke?

* * *

Sometime during that first night, the welding seams healed themselves. Friend Paolo ran his fingers over the smooth steel in astonishment, but Paolo smirked and shrugged it off. “Trivial.”

The day came and brought with it thirst and hunger. Friend Paolo tried again to discuss leaving the platform and reporting the accident, but Paolo didn’t even respond.

Frustration turned to fitful sleep. Strange noises moaned in the night, stirring Friend Paolo in half-sleep and conjuring dreams of drowning, wrapped in iron-hard tentacles and sinking, sinking, the sensation so real that even as his eyes fluttered open he could swear he was really moving.

Friend Paolo sat up with a start. He was moving. The rig was shifting. Metal groaned, louder now, and as Friend Paolo tried to stand the entire platform leapt into the air like a breaching whale. He fell, scrabbling for a handhold on the slope but finding none, and slid backward toward the ocean void.

“Paolo!” he screamed, tearing his fingernails against the metal. Above him, black against the night sky, the platform’s far edge shook like a volcano, then settled, then straightened. It took several more gulps of air before Friend Paolo realized that the deadly slope had become level ground, like it was before the impact—that he was no longer falling.

In the stillness, Paolo laughed with delight.

Still pounding with adrenaline, Friend Paolo crept to the edge and peered over. The buckled legs of the rig were straight again, the platform returned to its proper place—but both were subtly different, their surfaces smoothly grained, not the bare gloss of steel, and seamless.

“Fixing is nothing,” Paolo said. He was standing, all a shadow, over Friend Paolo, who was still crouched at the platform’s edge, shaking. Friend Paolo could see a white smear of smile in the starlight. “Now it’s time to create.”

* * *

For days thereafter, Paolo experimented with the thing, talking to himself and building increasingly complex objects by manipulating the panels. Meanwhile, Friend Paolo paced circles as the shadows in his head grew darker, and the far-below water grew louder.

They were surrounded by things Paolo created, seemingly transmuted from saltwater, and then discarded. Smooth cubes; metal balls; intricate models; other objects, now debris. Even food, which Paolo had devoured but Friend Paolo had refused to touch. Over time—sometimes only a few hours—the initially perfect objects Paolo created had become pitted and sprouted fine, curling filaments. The untouched food gradually cocooned themselves, and Friend Paolo felt less and less tempted to try them.

Fresh water he could not resist, though, reluctantly drowning the urgent aching of his stomach from an elegant, rounded vessel which Paolo had manifested for him. Thirst sated but cramped by hunger, Friend Paolo continued pushing his friend, looking for any indication his advice would be heeded as it had been in all the years past.

“We don’t understand how it’s doing these things,” Friend Paolo said. “People are dead! And something…something may be looking for it.”

Paolo snorted. “Do you understand what I can accomplish with this? In one night, I fixed all of your team’s mistakes, in another I raised the very ground beneath our feet. What could I do a week from now?” He shook his head, in sorrow or perhaps disgust. “You’re probably still thinking about wind energy and research facilities. Still in love with your budgets and your spreadsheets. But those don’t apply any more. I hold the world in my hand now. Anything I can imagine, I can build. And I’m not setting that aside because my fucking assistant doesn’t understand how it works.”

“Assistant?”

They argued. First, a bickering kind of disagreement. Then louder and more fierce, unlike anything they had experienced before, as Friend Paolo pulled at his hair and refused to acquiesce—“the workers,” he yelled again and again—and Paolo grew colder and more unyielding in the face of this insubordination.

Finally, Friend Paolo demanded to leave. “This isn’t who we are, Paolo.”

They didn’t say another word to each other; Paolo drove him down from the platform towards the docking floats and used the device to conjure a crude sailboat and shoved Friend Paolo into it: a hollow, almond-shaped thing, the mast jutting out crooked like a branch, the rigging hanging in thin, fraying strands, the sails a strange wet material, rough like raw silk, the whole as light as fibreglass.

When it hit the water, Friend Paolo tried to paddle furiously back to the platform, shouting—“Paolo! You have to stop! Paolo!”—but the boat, curving itself around him, caught the wind and carried him, helpless, over the horizon to the distant shore.

Paolo did not watch him go.

* * *

In the upper bedroom of a seaside bed-and-breakfast, Friend Paolo stared at the closed blinds, his foot tapping a quick, syncopated beat against the black walnut floor. Almost two days since he left the platform. The longest he’d been away from Paolo for almost fifteen years.

The curves of the shadow-whips had begun to fade from his mind. His fear seemed silly now, but it hadn’t been silly with 300 fathoms of saltwater beneath his feet. And he still felt it at night, when he forgot where he was and he could see again the impenetrable blackness of its descent and feel it reaching up toward him. It was the same feeling he used to get as a kid when he knew something was behind him on the basement stairs, close enough to grab him and trip him into the sharp, splintered corners of the wood and pull him down step, by step, by step, by step.

He shook his head and stood up. This was not the platform. Beneath him was nothing but wood floor and concrete foundation. Dirt and rock.

When he left, he left because Paolo had become indifferent. The missing workers were people; they had families. Friend Paolo had a responsibility to them.

But there was no hope now. He had waited, servile, while Paolo built and the survivors—if there had been any—drowned, alone and undiscovered.

Yet, more than 24 hours after checking into this room, he’d still called no one. Said nothing. And why?

He had hidden the new-made boat by a small dock at the edge of town, in a winter shed empty of anything but ancient oars, dry with rot. Fitting, for even before the coastline eased into view, the decay had commenced, slowly overcoming Paolo’s new creation just as it had the others—creasing, flaking, shrivelling it.

Perhaps it was already dust.

He had expected an uproar, but what he’d found on his return was the incongruity of a world that was just as he left it. The impact wave that had struck the rig never came to shore. No disaster had claimed the seaboard, no racing wall had smashed inland, erasing all before it, dragging the dead and the ruined in its wake. No news stories, no panic, no concern, only the murmur of a quiet vacation town, watching birds, shopping for souvenirs, oblivious.

No one saw the thing fall.

It was as though nothing had happened at all. Their investors were used to Paolo’s silence and long ago learned to stay hands-off. The families of the lost workers didn’t expect them home for months, and so didn’t have any reason to suspect that…

He started to pace, the same path he had paced almost every hour since checking in. He tried to tell himself: there’s no point, they’re gone. But he was too realistic, too honest to fool himself.

He was protecting Paolo.

One phone call would end everything—the project, Paolo’s career, his own, their partnership…maybe more.

But Friend Paolo remembered the look in Paolo’s eyes in those final hours, absorbed in the strange light of the thing that fell from the sky, and he knew.

Paolo was gone.

Everything was already destroyed. Even the little sailboat had warped and frayed, like everything else created with that monstrous device.

The only thing that remained was what to do next.

Friend Paolo picked up the phone.

* * *

The Navigator had been anointed because of her strength of will. And now? Now she was a cracking husk, deep, somewhere deep and lonely.

She tried to climb. She tried to rise, to surface, to warn. She came to build, not destroy. But each attempt ground her deeper into the sand and expanded the fissures fractaling across her exoskeleton. Her whips drifted now, useless, manipulated only by the flux and circulation of the ocean.

Far above, the Seed awoke.

* * *

The San Diego morning flared golden-white; the sun made Friend Paolo’s skin itch.

Not permitted to accompany the investigators that had responded to his call, he lingered with a group of people gathered on the rocks by the shore, chatting over coffee and staring out toward the open sea.

The Coast Guard had mustered days before, but had been repelled.

No one could reach Paolo.

Near where the platform should have been, a vast dark cylinder—like a water spout, but rigidly vertical and symmetrical—stretched like a thread between the black of the ocean and the churning clouds, casting that region of sea into shadow. It gave the impression of a tower, or perhaps a cluster of towers. Strange shapes curled out of the vortex, only the very edges of each visible through the gloom.

Friend Paolo sat, feeling the heat of the rocks press against his back, listening to the cries of the sea gulls, and stared with the others at the maelstrom darkening the furthest horizon. He felt a growing unease, the same tremendous weight he’d felt when he realized Paolo would not listen, would not stop. Not even for him.

The calm was broken by a scream echoing through the salt-sharp air from further down the beach. The entire crowd startled, then hurried to the source of the alarm.

At the bottom of a nearby cliff, bodies—some clad in the dark blue uniforms used by the platform workers, others in white military garb—were snagged on the shore in one great tangled mass, arms and legs necrotic and woven around each other—an obscene, final intimacy.

Someone spoke to him in horrified tones, but Friend Paolo could not understand, could only stand and tremble.

What has he done?

Sirens shrieked and news vans arrived, but Friend Paolo did not wait with the other bystanders. He pushed his way out of the crowd and ran back to the small, private dock and the corrugated aluminum shed where he left Paolo’s sailboat.

Coast Guard orders or no, he had to get back.

The water lapped against the rocks of the shore differently here, arrhythmically, as if trying to communicate with him. A warning?—for when he released the latch, the door blew outward with a great exhalation and knocked him to the ground. Frost formed on his clothes and skin, then melted almost as quickly as it grew.

The rushing air was thin, too thin to breathe. It was only when the strange wind subsided that he could catch his breath and look inside the shack.

A thick, rubbery substance covered the walls. It had been a deep black, dense as lacquer, when he opened the door, but now it was turning purple and iridescent. From each corner of the room, from the edges of the floor and the ceiling, thousands of thin, rough-barked tendrils stretched inward like vines. Where their paths intersected, they twisted tightly around each other to form ropes, thicker and denser the closer they were to the center of the room.

There, suspended by the web of liana, was what had once been the sailboat.

Its splintering, wood-like frame had smoothed into a thing of elegance, long and thin and smooth and opalescent. Its sails, once clumsily tethered with fibrous strands, had been replaced by flat blades which nested together with absolute precision, almost invisible against the curving bone-like mast.

Friend Paolo stepped across the threshold and the tendrils tightened. The boat quivered. He took another step and the tendrils contracted further, pulling it into shadow.

The air was still thin—too little oxygen, somehow. Lightheaded, he rested his hand against the closest wall to steady himself, his fingers upon the purpling surface—and in a rush of cold, he felt fear, fear, fear pour into him.

He staggered back and the sensation cut away; still, he counted out the seconds to calm himself. But even as the adrenaline fog lifted the fear stayed, compartmentalized somewhere within him, separate from his own emotions as if it belonged to someone else.

In the corners, the rope-vines stiffened. The boat shifted; the fear in him surged.

“Is that…” he whispered, then, hesitantly, “Is that you, Boat?” He felt like an idiot.

Many years ago, before his work with Paolo had overtaken him, he helped care for his neighbor’s horse. A huge, stamping thing, wreathed in steam in the early mornings, it was always attentive, always nervous. He can feel you, his neighbor told him, even if you’re not touching him. Just gotta love him, that’s all, and he’ll trust you.

Why not? Friend Paolo licked his lips and shushed into the overgrown room. Just love him. He made a soft kissing noise and patted the wall. It rippled. The fear began to ebb.

“Okay,” he whispered, his heart beating faster as wonder overtook him. What had they done out there? “It’s okay. I think.”

The tendrils loosened and the boat swung a few inches toward him.

“Shh, it’ll all be okay. Let’s go find our friend.”

On the open water, the sail unfurled above him like the fin of an enormous steel fish.

* * *

A frenetic spiral of steam and water encased the platform. Around it, police and coast guard vessels clustered like a flock of fat metal birds. Hailstones rattled down on them, pinging off hulls and churning water. Crewmembers flitted back and forth across the decks, but the ships themselves were held utterly still, gripped by the ocean swells like bugs in amber.

Through this still-life, the sailboat split the water like a missile.

Friend Paolo, hunched in the bow, rubbed at his arms and stomped his feet to combat the persistent, localized frost. People on the ships waved tiny matchstick arms and shouted unintelligible orders over bullhorns, but the boat raced on, trembling with exertion. Soon they were alone, and the towering madness of the vortex parted before them like curtains hanging from the sky.

Within the storm-pillar, everything was new and calm, as cold as a January dawn. The water spout, a smooth matte gray on the inside, rose rigid to frame a sky that glowed like embers. The platform was still there, but above it…above it…

The buildings constructed directly on the platform were unmistakably Paolo’s designs. Smooth, sterile shapes, rounded at the edges. But higher up, the structures grew increasingly foreign, bulged and twisted, as though some other power had wrested control mid-creation. Higher still, high enough to catch the clouds, they split and stretched out like hundreds of bent fingers. At the top, no trace of Paolo’s influence could be seen—no frame of reference existed for what Friend Paolo saw.

He lifted his hand over his eyes to block the smoldering orange sky, only to find his fingertips had turned blue. He half stood, panting for breath, but his knees locked and he fell against the boat’s smooth walls, inches from going overboard. Like the shed, he realized, too late—the air was different, unbreathable.

“Wh—” he said, but his tongue froze inside his mouth, the saliva made ice, his teeth aching. Blue had leaked from his fingertips, up his hands and arms in thin, veiny streaks.

I’m going to die out here.

His lungs pumped a strange mixture of gases, in and out, never sated. But through his coarse gasping, a new noise rose over that of the water, of his frantic pulse.

Shhhhh, it said, shush, shush.

Above him, the boat’s bladed sail tremored like a rattlesnake tail. Something touched his shoulder.

Shhhhhhhhhh. Again the sail trembled.

His chest seized. Everything was turning gray.

The touch upon his shoulder slithered up to his chin, wet and groping. Friend Paolo tried to look, but his neck wouldn’t respond; he could only stare in terror toward the approaching platform. Soundless, the thing pushed against his neck. Tiny hairs emerged from it, crept up his face like ivy on stonework. Past his chin and his paralyzed lips, scraping filaments across his tongue, they probed at his throat. He tried to breathe, tried to scream, and they plunged forward, threading through his lungs and into his bronchial tubes.

High on the platform, something moved.

* * *

Friend Paolo was not dead.

The sky burned, strange cancerous growths had overtaken the platform, and within the buildings leggy shadows scurried past windows—and Friend Paolo was not dead.

He stood in a narrow canyon between the platform’s distorted shapes, learning to breathe again. Thousands of rubbery strings webbed through his body, emerging from his mouth and nose and even his pores to snake back through the alleys and streets to the edge of the fantastic cityscape where they rooted him to the sailboat. Pain dotted hot white stars across his vision. But in this strange place, even though he might have died—who could know—before the loving symbiosis of the boat brought him back, he felt more vibrant than he’d felt in years.

At the centre of the once-smooth platform, where he had once gulped impossibly fresh water, where he’d argued with his oldest friend, there was now an enormous, fleshy cone, stuttering open and closed at the top as it gasped in air and belched out a frosted mist that curled slow, lazy spirals around his ankles.

Beside it, the shell, the device, whatever it was, rested on one of only two unaltered areas of steel. Its interface panels had unfolded and unfolded again, into a prism of shapes that could not exist. And yet they persisted. Twice as tall as him and wider still, they cast a pulsing green glow over everything. Endless symbols flashed and scrolled within the panel-wings, but the hieroglyphics were meaningless to Friend Paolo except to show that the object was hard at work.

And beside the shell, on a small circle of the unblemished rig was Paolo: still kneeling, but naked, blackened, and withered. Only the flutter of his eyelids and the rise and fall of his emaciated chest suggested he was still alive.

Friend Paolo sighed, and his ribs creaked, the cords in his lungs swelling with the effort of extracting and delivering oxygen.

Symbols on the interface quickened, thousands upon thousands of them flaring to life and fading in long meteoric streaks. High above, ropy growths separated from the buildings and coalesced into spider-like creatures. They exhaled ribbons of vapor as they descended, their long legs tapping sharp against the walls.

The threads in him writhed and flexed; everything blurred with tears—but he had to stop it, whatever Paolo had done, whatever the device was still doing.

He reached for the thing, smooth black beneath its green wings, closed both hands around it, and everything flared white—green?—white, blinding—as within him, the ties to the boat yanked and inflated, cracking bone, tearing muscle, and he floated, perhaps, or…

Amputated…

And—Paolo? Paolo?—Paolo was gone.

Friend Paolo felt himself unmoored, vertiginous, in the interstices of the cosmos. Stars, planets, the precise mathematics of orbits and heavenly trajectories, the fluttering pathways of comets, all were laid out like a map. And scattered among them, fragile clusters of life, strangers in the dark. Or…friends.

Friends?

He was not alone.

Something shared his mind. Something purposeful. Fanatical.

The object—the Seed, that was its name, he suddenly knew—rested heavy in his hands. He saw the platform again and his own body, still intact, and the overgrown ruins of Paolo’s buildings, and he knew now their pinpoint place in the expanse.

Instructions, or instinct, coursed through him—the unstoppable drive to take root, to create—and he sank in the undertow of the Seed’s will. Molecular bonds separated before them; atoms waited for guidance. Within them, together, they held the power to remake the world.

But buried beneath that, deep beneath that, Friend Paolo felt something else. Something pitiful, and with pity.

Hello? said a voice that was not a voice. Hello? Hello? Hello?

* * *

Something responded to the Navigator’s greeting. A new presence, softer than the other, the one that had flared and fallen. It thought at her in strange sounds, a string of guttural code; the language was alien, but beneath it there was common ground in the emotion and the intent.

It communicated fear. Not for itself, not at first, but for its home, and for its friend.

Safe? said the creature, without words.

The Navigator, pinned to the sand, felt the creature’s helplessness. No, she said. Not safe.

Why? Why not safe? Seed?

Correct. Seed, not safe.

Paolo is strong. Save him? I can save him?

The creature’s love and longing flooded the Navigator and, reflexively, she mirrored it with her own. Her whips lifted in the current, a mockery of her former lightness.

No, she said. You cannot save him.

They were quiet, alone together.

Finally, the creature spoke again. Why?

He stood before it like a wall. Battered to dust.

And now?

Everything changes.

I can stop it?

No, said the Navigator. Batter you to dust.

We can stop it?

No. It does not stop. Batter us to dust.

Something penetrated the expanding cracks of her armor and scraped its mouth against her. She was so soft now.

The creature insisted: Slow it?

It has a mission.

You brought it to kill us?

No, she said. I was not to be here. You would not have been there. Mission is to build new home.

The waterlife bit into her. Pain radiated through the segments of her body, like before, when she was fragile.

Reminded of her former fragility, she thought of her people withering without a home and, without meaning to, she shared visions of this new world flaring orange and red, disintegrating before the transformative power of the Seed. The creature panicked, then paused. The Navigator could feel its emotions smoothing.

Redirect it? the creature said after a pause. Let the Seed build somewhere else? The creature thought of other planets nearby—dead, harmless places, so close.

I am broken, said the Navigator. It will build here.

The creature considered. Its mind was visible to her. It thought incessantly of the other as if pleading or praying for response, then it was lost in the magnitude of the planet and, beyond that, the breadth of space.

It thought in great whorls and loops like the other creature had, but stiffer, more effortful, and less fruitful. But the other was gone; the other was dust, and this new creature froze in long contemplation.

And gradually the shape of its thoughts hardened into grids and schematics, an imposition of order.

Contain it, it said finally. The creature showed her a platform, perched atop the ocean, surrounded by the maelstrom which contained the Seed’s changes.

It is too small, she said, but immediately the creature shared a new vision, of mountains and plains, an entire continent raised from the ocean floor for the Seed to do its work upon, all cabined within those same walls of wind and water, made as impermeable as minerals leached from saltwater, leaving the contents pure. Walls reaching out beyond the alien-blue sky. A whole world within their world.

The Navigator saw this and had her own, secret, vision—of the Seed raising her up from the crushing depths to see starlight again, even if only for a brief moment.

Maybe enough, she said. Maybe yes. But very difficult. Flooding, containment; very difficult.

Only details. The creature’s thoughts were steady now. Leave to me. Talk to Seed? Explain?

Maybe yes. But do not trust it.

* * *

Air rushed back into Friend Paolo’s lungs. Deep inside, the threads from the boat retracted. He was free.

The Seed still buzzed with energy, but its influence around him faded; the plan was under way. Structures froze, mid-transformation. Everything was as quiet as when the Seed first unfolded, glassening the sea.

The stillness was broken only by Paolo, toppling backward, his familiar face collapsed, unrecognizable, his eyes white and unmoving. Friend Paolo knelt and cradled him, but found no tears.

Far above them, the clouds moved again.

A tremor rocked the platform, then a second and a third. Enormous swells distorted the water around them. The Seed was at work. Somewhere distant, the ocean floor began to reach toward the sky.

Friend Paolo was no longer afraid of the darkness or the whips; the Navigator had shared with him the burn and the helpless rush of freefall, and how they had finished her. Cold and alone, she was nothing compared to the menace of the Seed that lay before him.

What would they do if the Seed decided it didn’t want to be contained? What if it wanted more? Perhaps, together…he reached out again.

But the Navigator, too, was lost to him.

* * *

The Seed called out, and from a thousand directions, a thousand answers.

The Navigator heard and joined their chorus. Please, she sang into the vacuum. And finally, riding the signal of the Seed, she felt again the electric thrill of the Sisterhood’s contact.

They endured the strobing flashes of her message—water, life, creatures, these creatures that swarmed—and this one that knew her. The Seed, blooming, insistent, inhaling the old world and exhaling the new. Contain it, she sang, contain it.

The Seed chirped, and the Navigator cracked open like an egg. But as she faded, rocked to sleep by foreign tides, the presence of the other navigators enveloped and warmed her.

Sister, they whispered, sister, they said, be patient.

We are coming.

QSFT7mk2.7853 Has a Name

First published at Perihelion Online Science Fiction Magazine (December 2015), edited by Sam Bellotto Jr.

* * *

I was swallowed whole once. It was moist and unpleasant. All a misunderstanding, of course.

It all happened on a little KBO near the edge of the Kuiper cliff, way further out than the asteroid we ended up mining. Our human crew was surveying and I was watching forty things at once to make sure none of those idiots fell in a hole or depressurized their suits or inadvertently detonated a gas pocket. The usual. You would think creatures so fragile would be more careful.

I was scoping a cave when it happened. A Plutinonian slugworm that first appeared to be nothing more than a looming, serrated hole of mucus and gore mistook my primary module for a torpedo. He threw himself in my path to save his clutch of four thousand hatchlings. It took four of my security modules to calm him down, and three constructor modules to pry his jaws open and drag me out. Humiliating.

We joked about it after I was cleaned and the worm, whose name was George, was recruited, but I always found great comfort in the selflessness he showed in that moment. I never told him that.

I’m selfless, too, in my own way, like every Saf-T-Bot. I’m programmed that way. My selflessness is perfect, but because of its perfection I suppose it’s less inspiring, less touching, than George’s. My organic employers certainly don’t seem impressed. In fact, I don’t think most of them see it as selflessness at all. Selflessness requires a "self," I suppose, so maybe they have a point. I’m not sure I have one of those.

That was precisely the question George and I were debating when the mine collapsed.

"Little canary," he said, "do you ask that just because you were manufactured?"

I lifted my front set of arms by 45 degrees to indicate a shrug. My yellow stripes glowed like tiny elongated suns beneath the artificial lights of the tunnel. Lit up like this I could see the tattoo of microscopic serial number stamps traced up and down every part, even on my perimeter modules floating nearby. My own bodies mock me.

George continued: "The Skir think they were designed. But they take it as a mark of divinity. That intentional manufacture is a prerequisite for soulfulness."

I shrugged again. This was all beyond my capacity.

"Or take me," said George. "Am I more of a self than you just because my larvae are taking root?"

Beneath the shimmering yellow of his back skin, the clutch of protoworms rippled in loving response. The miners around us retched and turned their heads. Organics were squeamish that way, even about their own parts.

"Maybe not," I said. I had almost three dozen independent bodies—semi-autonomous modules all specialized for key tasks and interlinked to the processing system in my primary module. Quantity alone didn’t answer the question. "But maybe you’re more of a self just because you weren’t Unit Number 7,853 to roll out of the factory."

"Bah. Now you’re just being morose."

The shift captain, his eyes closed against the swarm tracing bubbling paths beneath George’s back, hit the bell and yelled. "Back to it, worm!"

George lifted his head toward the captain and dribbled a thin stream of venom, then dug his powerful jaws back into the mineral veins of the asteroid.

"Think about it," he mumbled, his mouth jagged with rock.

I did. Or I tried to. My modules were jabbering amongst themselves, distracting me, and I don’t process as fast as I used to.

Anyway, I was built for sensation and analysis, not philosophical contemplation. Give me a poison gas leak and I excel. But ask me to answer why the Skir believe in the divinity of manufacture when other species have repeatedly and conclusively disproved the existence of the Skirian supreme being, and I’m at a total loss. I tend to chalk those mysteries up to the many oddities and defects of organics—parasites, mental illness, excessive moisture, that sort of thing.

The first indication that anything was wrong was when the tunnel wall fractured and split George in half. His children shrieked supersonic shrieks as they spilled onto the grit of the tunnel floor, but even that noise was overpowered by the crackle deep within the asteroid’s bones as the tunnel lifted, twisted, and flattened.

It was all very surprising.

* * *

"Talk to me about redundancies." The voice was female. Human. Heavy orbital accent, which meant a station somewhere, not planetside.

"Wasn’t any." Different voice. Male. Tense.

"Nothing?"

"It was a small exploratory operation. We were within regs."

The female voice made a skeptical fffffff noise. A techie noise. And the male, definitely business-side.

My optics were still offline, but my processors were warming up. I let the available data wash over me. The distant throb of stabilizers confirmed my location—the slightly-too-fast frequency of the engines matched the signature for NT-34, a station near Titan used primarily for maintenance. I wasn’t due, and that meant—

Shit. Incident Diagnostic.

"What the hell went wrong with it?"

"Maybe nothing. It scans okay."

I ran my internal diagnostics. My modules were all absent. Disconnected. Maybe destroyed. I felt like a two-legged spider.

No noticeable malfunctions in my primary module, but something had gone wrong. I was in the tunnel when it failed. Why had I not detected it? A structural shift, a seismic event, an antigrav generation failure, something.

"Then do different scans. Mines don’t just fall down for no reason, and this useless thing didn’t so much as beep before that tunnel dropped and vacuumed out."

"Mmmm." The Tech wasn’t listening. She was thinking, puzzle-solving.

"Fifteen crew," continued the Businessman. "The government’s already crawling all over the site. We’ll be dealing with the regulators and the courts for years." I could hear his heart pounding. It was arrhythmic—he should have that checked out—but steady enough to be safe.

"Mmmm," said the Tech, with no more enthusiasm than the first time.

The Businessman left soon after that, left me and the Tech to answer the only question that mattered: what had I missed?

* * *

The next round of tests was exhaustive. Dynamic vibration tests, spectrum analyses, bioscans, toxicity tests, structural integrity simulations, and a full checklist of every category of event that was supposed to trigger an alarm. It was the most thorough workout I’d had since manufacture, maybe ever. Day after day of vigilance and blaring alarms, each of which jolted through my system like lightning, and always with the anxiety—new to me—that something might slip past unnoticed.

* * *

The Tech tapped her fingers against the top of the datapad, frowning at me.

"How do you think you did?"

I took a few microseconds to replay and analyze each of the tests—not that I hadn’t already done that thousands of time in the past few hours—and lifted my arms. "Fine."

"Fine?"

"Um. Perfect?"

"Mmm." The Tech leaned back. "Are you certain?"

I hesitated. She nodded.

"Well," she said. "No false positives. That’s good. And no false negatives, also good. No issues with overlapping triggers, no apparent blind spots whatsoever."

"But—"

"We have the preliminary report back from the mine. There was a structural shift several dozen meters above the tunnel. Probably caused by asynchronous vibrations. Your crew was being sloppy."

"But we just tested…I thought I did fine."

"On the tests? Perfect. We recreated the key elements of the collapse at least thirty times and you caught it every time. Might’ve been a localized problem with one of your remote modules, of course, but there’s not much left of those to dissect."

So there it was. They were all gone. I was a queen bee without a hive.

"What about George’s clutch?"

"George?"

"The worm."

"Oh, him. I think the company impounded them. The ones that survived, anyway." The Tech set the data pad aside. "How do you feel?"

"Feel?" Confused. Alarmed. Agitated. "Tired."

"Not really in your programming, is it?"

"Not precisely. But…look, I’m clean on my tests. When can I get back to work?"

"You’re being retired."

Her heartbeat was infuriatingly steady.

"But you said yourself I’m functioning perfectly."

"Tested perfectly. But you failed in your primary function and we can’t explain it. If we can’t explain it, we can’t fix it."

"And if you can’t fix it, you can’t guarantee it won’t happen again, yeah, I get it. So run more tests! Run as many tests as you need to either find the problem or prove there is no problem."

"It doesn’t work like that." She stood up and walked to her desk. "You’re a QSFT7 mark 2, so that makes you, what, eleven? Maybe twelve if you were early off the line?"

"Oh. That’s what this is about."

"Like I said, you’re being retired. We can’t trust you with our lives any more."

I felt hollow.

"The good news," she said brightly, picking up a handset, "is that your malfunction, whatever it is, isn’t an affirmative danger."

"Well hoo-ray."

"Which means we won’t have to deactivate and scrap you."

Deactivate? What the hell kinds of conversations had these people been having about me?

A future without purpose stretched before me. After a decade of relentless work—hundreds of accidents averted, tens of thousands of lives saved—my programming didn’t have an answer to this yawning void.

"What—what will I do?" My voice was barely audible.

"We have a place."

* * *

The halfway house was a low, grey building on the outskirts of the biggest city on Tantalion. "A small planet," the Tech had explained, "mostly agricultural. Good place to clear your head." Then she had lasered off my serial numbers and boxed me up with the rest of the cargo.

The building was surrounded by the fractal symmetry of a garden, complex and immaculately maintained. From the curving, sandy path, a small robot floated toward me.

"Welcome," it said, "to the Quiet House. We’ll be doing a little reprogging. Deprogging, really. But mostly just helping you figure out how to operate without a primary imperative."

"What about my modules?" I felt naked, just one primary module clunking around all by myself. It was ridiculous.

"We’ll assign you new ones soon, don’t worry about that. First thing’s first: what’s your name?"

"Serial number QSFT7mk2.7853."

"Yes, yes, I know that," the robot replied, wobbling on its thrusters. "But here we all adopt names. Proper names, to live our new lives with."

"But I don’t have a name."

"None of us did, but now we do. My name is Boston. Historical reference. American Revolution. Familiar with it?"

I lifted my front arms.

"Ah, of course not, you’re a miner…not much need for fancy book learning." His voice was flat. "Anyway, I chose that name because in this life I’m free, and my name reminds me of that. Most of us choose names that mean something special to us, or that remind us of something unique to us—we had so few of those things when we were progged. Did you have anything like that?"

"Well," I said, "I remember tunnels."

So many tunnels, dark and rough to begin with and then greyer and smoother as we progressed.

"Okay, good, but maybe something more—and this is a concept I know will take getting used to—something more personal?"

I thought of the rhythm of the cutters, the shouts of the miners, all those shared experiences. And I thought of George.

He had never used my serial number. Not once. And I’d never called him "worm" like the others. To each other, at least, we were more than that. Why had I never thought about that, about what it meant?

In the double-sunlight of Tantalion, my module gleamed, smooth and unblemished for the first time since it was cast. No numbers; no etchings; no warning symbols. George would have liked that.

"Yeah, I guess I do," I said. "Call me Canary."

Tigerskin

First published at Strange Horizons (December 2015), edited by Lila Garrott

* * *

Ravi was only five. He could tie his shoes (barely) and write his name. But he couldn’t stop the tiger.

It came down the basement stairs, muscled flank gleaming in the fluorescence, each step a drumbeat accentuated by the little boy’s maraca lungs. And its eyes, the size of wiffle balls. Its Gorgon gaze.

Blood iced within Ravi, slowing his limbs and curling him beneath the computer desk, his cheek flattened against the concrete floor. That’s where the tiger found him, staring, piss-stink paralyzed. And that’s where it ate him.

There was no blood, no stripping of meat off bones as an adult would expect of such an experience. This was a child’s consumption, unshaped by understanding or preconception. Like climbing into a sleeping bag, a formless, all-encompassing black.

* * *

At first, he was aware only of his breath, shaking like a rattlesnake tail. Then movement. In warm oblivion, he lurched first to one side and then to the other as the tiger walked across the room. He rolled backward across wet folds of rugae as the tiger crept up the stairs. And he opened his eyes, first one and then the other, to see the inside of the tiger glowing a soft black-red, exactly the way Ravi’s cheeks glowed when he put a flashlight in his mouth to scare his brother.

"Tiger?"

"Hmm?"

"Tiger, can you hear me?"

"Be silent, little one. You are eaten."

Ravi stayed quiet for a few moments, listening to the soft rush of the tiger’s feet padding on grass.

"Tiger, where are you taking me?"

Wind murmured in response. Ravi’s skin prickled as if the tiger’s fur, rustling like wheat, was rooted in his own body. Adjusted to the dark, his eyes traced the contours of the inside of the tiger’s face—eyes less fierce from within; clenched scimitar-teeth less threatening.

A flashing glimpse of moon revealed the eyes to be clear as windows. Ravi rose to his knees and pressed his face against the tiger’s like it was a mask. Fresh air curled in from its nose. The slick backs of teeth pressed against his jaw. Through its eyes, he saw the world streak by.

They were running hard under the night sky. The tiger’s lungs swelled and deflated beneath his knees; he pulsed like driftwood against a beach. The heart throbbed its rhythm through every bone and every pore.

At Ravi’s sides, the root-ends of whiskers tickled against him. He grabbed a cluster and gently tugged and the tiger yelped and veered to one side. He grasped the other cluster and the tiger lurched to the other side. Soon, he could guide it as easily as if it were his own body.

"This is not how this is supposed to work," growled the tiger.

Ravi laughed and steered it into the forest.

Their muscles stretched powerfully and drove them forward between the pillars of trees and into the tall grass. There, Ravi’s brain lit up with the musky scent of quivering prey. Deer. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but the tiger sensed it and shushed him.

"No sound." It sank to the ground and crept one muscle at a time across the field, hardened for the pounce. The deer stood erect, eyes wide but turned the wrong way.

They leapt. Claws flexed before them and grasped. The deer’s eyes rolled.

* * *

"This is very unusual." The tiger was stretched out beneath a hedge, rubbing its jaw against the branches. "And you, child, are surprisingly fierce."

Within him, Ravi yawned and laid back. "Being a tiger is sort of boring."

The tiger grunted. "Men bore too easily. That’s why you never stop moving." He rolled upside down and stretched into a curve. "Idleness, then ferocity. That’s a real life. You could learn something from tigers."

Ravi shrugged. He knew nothing about it. His life was still games and the protection of parents and of home. Through the tiger’s slitted eyes, the lights of the town glowed before him like captured stars. The shadows of leaves lay heavy on him. He shivered.

"It’s very empty out here in the woods," he said.

The tiger laughed and rolled right-side-up, shaking Ravi around with him. "Empty? This all used to be wild." He spit. "Men. The jungle is smaller every day."

"But it’s so lonely."

The tiger didn’t respond.

They lay quiet, then, and Ravi sang a lullaby, the way his mother used to. Loud, then quieter as he grew tired. The last few lines were mere whispers.

"You are crying," observed the tiger.

"I miss my family."

"I did not know mine." The tiger lay his head down. "There are so few of us."

Through the tiger’s eyes, they watched some night-creature scuffling in the underbrush. It raised eyes, iridescent in starlight, then vanished with a sudden flick into a hole where it was greeted by soft chirps and squeaks.

"Perhaps," said the tiger, "perhaps you can stay? We can be a tiger together."

"I can’t. I miss my home."

The tiger looked at the sprawling arms of the town and back at the shrinking jungle. He closed his eyes. "Yes. I understand."

* * *

Ravi’s fingers pried at the teeth. "Come on, tiger."

The tiger shook his head and grumbled. "This won’t work."

"It worked before."

"That was different," he snarled. "You are built to be eaten."

"Come on." Ravi tugged affectionately at the whisker-ends. "Can’t we just try?"

Morning had come, and with it the shouts of friends and family. "Ravi! Ravi, where are you!"

The tiger crept deeper into the trees.

"I have to go back, silly tiger."

The tiger grumbled. "Do you promise it will work?"

"Promise," said Ravi with the certainty of a five-year-old.

"And you promise we will switch sometimes to run in the fields while they remain?"

"Promise."

"And you will be fierce, always?"

"Always!"

The tiger sighed. "It would embarrass me if you were not fierce."

"Tiger, I will be fierce. Now come on."

"Fine."

The tiger opened his jaws and stretched out his tongue. His sides contracted as Ravi climbed out into the dewy grass.

"There, that wasn’t too hard." Ravi danced and stretched in the sunshine as the tiger cleaned himself. "Now. Hmm…the next part."

The voices were coming closer.

"Hurry," said the tiger. "They’ll chase me and kill me if they find me with you."

"Okay, okay." Ravi cocked his head. "It’s just…I’ve never eaten a tiger before."

"Start with a paw?"

Ravi took the tiger’s front paw in his hands and worked it into his mouth. Even retracted, the claws traced grooves into his tongue. The fur was dry against his palate. Slowly, inch by inch, he pulled the paw in, and the leg, then the next, and finally the head. There was no pain, but he felt a kind of warm fullness he had never felt before. Once the shoulders were in, the rest was easy and he felt the tiger curl within him.

"Tiger? Are you okay?"

"Yes."

Ravi could sense the tiger’s eyes behind his, and feel its twitching tail.

"You are warm, little one. But very small."

His response was interrupted by a figure crashing through the brush. Father.

"Ravi! It’s Ravi!"

His father rushed forward and scooped him up and kissed him over and over and over.

Inside him, the tiger purred. Ravi smiled, savoring the new breath within him.

L.S. Johnson

Vacui Magia

Strange Horizons

I. The First Principle

The first principle of conjuring is that nothing can be made in a vacuum.

Accounts of golem-making refer most commonly to clay as the sole element, and while this will work, the result will be a lumpish thing, smelling of dirt and manure and wholly unsuitable for your purpose. The choice you must make is not whether or not to make the golem, but whether or not to make it correctly, using the only thing upon which you can build the scent and texture of a baby’s skin.

To make it correctly, you will need a baby’s bones.

If you are reading these words, however, you already know this. Nothing can be made in a vacuum, and certainly not the desperation that has led you to these words.

II. The Second Principle

The second principle of conjuring is to know and understand your purpose. Your purpose springs not from thwarted maternal desires, but from the day you finished converting your mother’s bedroom into a sickroom. A sickroom for her, and yourself as well, for you were sick with grief and fear and a sympathetic pain that made your body shudder in time with hers. In the mornings you touched your breasts and armpits and fancied swellings there; at night, as you crossed the moonlit fields to return to your cavernous cottage, you listened to the silence and tried to imagine the world without her.

On that first day, as you settled her into her new bed, she had seized your hand and whispered, I only wish I could have met your daughter. I know she’ll be beautiful.

And then she started crying.

Until that moment you had taken it as a given that she understood, without you saying anything. Understood that you have lost count of your white hairs, that your knees ache in the mornings and you have fine spots in your vision. That you had endured more pointless couplings than you cared to remember, under the influence of every concoction and potion and incantation you have been able to unearth.

You cannot conceive.

Still she cried, and the hand in yours was gnarled and callused and trembling, and when had you ever seen your mother tremble?

Thus it bears repeating: the second principle of conjuring is to know your purpose with clarity, and your purpose was to do anything that would ease her fear and her grief. You whispered this to your pillow three times nightly and to your reflection three times at daybreak; you recited the most salient element over and over until you reached gnosis. Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything to bring her joy. Anything to spare her these brutal regrets. Otherwise you would have done better to simply tell her the miserable truth and broken her heart once and for all.

III. A Note on the Nature of Human Bones

Human bones are cold and solitary. They need the breath of life to make them knit together; they need a beating heart to fill them with heat. Too long in the ground and they revert to their original element, stone. For this conjuring you need a baby’s bones that will still respond to heat and breath.

Listen to the women as they come to you for their spells, their potions and powders. Listen to their gossip as you grind the elements together, as you whisper the incantations and turn the bowl clockwise. Who has lost a baby? You listen for stories of stillborn infants, crib deaths, toddlers drowned in the river.

You listen, day after day. Time is slipping through your fingers: you are aging and your mother is dying. She no longer recognizes the time of day or the season; the other day she mistook you for herself, herself for your grandmother. Sometimes now, sitting at her bedside while she dozes, you find yourself holding your breath for no apparent reason save your instinctive terror of what is to come.

And then you hear a string of words: not since her last. Crib death, not two months ago. In that hushed whisper reserved for untimely death, as solemn as any incantation.

IV. The Third Principle

Thieving from graveyards is forbidden, and has been for over a century. To do so puts you at risk of both the retribution of the townspeople and the penalties of your fellow practitioners. Always you curled your lip at stories of such magic, how crude, how debased a witch would have to be, to resort to doing that.

The third principle of conjuring is that anything you curled your lip at will come back to you in a terrible, absolute form.

No one ever thinks it will come to this. Yet you wonder, now, if every witch has a time in her life when she finds herself crawling through damp darkness, clothes dirty and hair tangled, wild with a desperate, fearful hope. You will not read about this in any other book. You will never truly know how many have crawled like you, have panted like you, have felt that awful hammering of failure and loss in their heads as you feel it now.

Remember that this is merely one conjuring among many. You are still a good witch, you are still a good person. That moment when you first break open the coffin lid, that smell that paints your nostrils and clings to your throat, how the bones tap and scrape against each other in your basket: yes, your heart will be haunted by these sensations for the rest of your life. Yet it is all merely part of the conjuring, one among so many others, conjurings that have healed the sick and nourished the crops, conjurings that have protected in the darkest woods and turned aside the evil eye.

You are still a good person.

Or so you must tell yourself, if you are to go on at all.

V. A Note on the Third Principle

Do not, at any time, remember the spring morning when you accompanied your mother to the great fields and watched from the shade of a walnut tree as she went forth to conjure the crops to fullness. How she strode with splayed arms from row to row, her bare skin gleaming in the bright sunshine. How the powders she created, powders you still cannot get exactly right, flew from her fingertips in fine yellow clouds. How utterly certain of herself she was, how utterly in tune with the earth and the sky and the season. You will never be a witch like she was.

VI. Making The Golem

The most crucial element in any conjuring is, of course, conviction. You know this. Every witch knows this. You must believe, utterly believe, that it will work, despite what your senses tell you, despite what your reasoning mind tells you.

Note well: the only thing that does not lie is your heart.

For the several days that you plot your elements you must think of nothing but the working and its variables. Mud and bone, yes, but they are not enough. Your own fluids, clear and bloody, sticky and gelatinous, soaked into little pieces of batting from your grandmother’s fraying quilt. The seed of a man you coax one night behind the tavern, a man that reminds you of a boy you loved long ago who loved another, one of many things we cannot change your mother had said. Corn husks and honey, roses and shells, all from the days of trailing after your mother while she worked. The vivid blue morning glories that have framed your mother’s door for as long as you can remember.

Believe, and believe, and begin.

Lay the bones in your own small cradle. Crush the soaked cotton and the seed into the mud, turning and turning the bowl, spitting and weeping to make it as liquid as possible. Now is the time to let your mind run, to see your future without her, haunted by this act you are committing. Weep for yourself and for what you will do; you need your tears now.

When all is ready take out a single piece of paper and cut it in the shape of a heart, and write upon it a single word: Anything.

Place the paper in the open palm of the ribcage and dip your fingers into the mud. Believe. Stroke the bones with your fingers, tracing thin layers onto each jagged edge, over the last shreds of tendons, where once there had clung fat and skin and life. Believe. Your eyes see not rotting bones and dirt but smooth, plump limbs, the rise of a soft belly. Believe. With every layer see yourself pinching flushed cheeks, teasing a dimpled chin. Believe. When at last the bones disappear, raise the body and lay one muddy hand in the small of a back and rub gently, soothingly.

If you find yourself humming as you work, humming a nonsense song you made up when you were small that you had entirely forgotten until now: believe.

And then tuck it in for the night.

Repeat this for nine long evenings. On the seventh add in a tangle of corn husks and your own wavy hairs and even your mother’s grey ones, swirling them gently over the delicate scalp with oil of honey until they turn soft and brown. On the eighth carefully press little shimmering chips of shell into fingers and toes, curve rose petals into sweetly bowing lips.

On the ninth night, just before dawn, take two morning-glory blossoms and place them in the shadowed hollows of its soft, round face, and watch them open into unfocused blue eyes.

Now is the moment. It is close but not quite awake, not yet; it has your breath but its paper heart lies still and thin inside. Believe now. Believe without fear, without remorse. Keep your voice steady and assured as you bend over your crib and whisper in the tiny ear:

Anything. Anything for her.

Stay there for a moment, breathing. That smell. You can let yourself cry once more, now. Just a few tears, for when you feel a small, soft hand reach up and brush your face. Let yourself linger for this one night; tell yourself you are admiring your handiwork when you mime faces at it, or tickle its neck, or when you spend what feels like both forever and an instant teaching those stubby fingers to curl around your own. Only for tonight, only to make sure you have done well. Just a few last tears. That smell.

VII. The Fourth Principle

The fourth principle of conjuring is to maintain a distance from the outcome, the better to control and, ultimately, undo it.

Under no circumstances are you to name the golem.

Even now, as you read these words, you must not think of it as anything other than it, the golem, the pretense. Hold that before you, always. Through the conjuring, through that first moment when it opens its eyes. No name. The first touch of its hand was a reflex, the first soft cry from its open mouth nothing more than a testament to your skill. No name. It is clay and bone, leaves and paper, animated by your breath and your will. You would no more name it than you would name a rock.

It is a pretense.

Remember that, as you carry it swaddled across the fields scorched by summer. It cannot see the butterfly you see, it cannot look at the sky in wonder, thought it appears to do both. The hand that rests against the edges of your old baby blanket cannot feel the soft flannel, or the texture of your finger when it grips so tightly.

Remember that, as it suddenly squalls, a strange, high-pitched noise like a bird in flight. You did not create this voice; there must have been something in the mud—old feathers, a lost fledgling.

Remember that, even when you place it in your mother’s arms, and see her face suffused with a joy you have never beheld before. Remember that the source of her joy is a lie.

VIII. A Note on Clothing

No one knows what will come of dressing the golem in the clothes of a living child. Will the child’s soul leave its body to inhabit that shambling mass of imaginary flesh and dead bone? Will her life be lived out in that small space where the two have been dragged into conjunction by your own frayed self?

Or perhaps the child will simply feel, always, that a small piece of herself is missing.

Instead, avoid the matter by using your own clothing; you cannot lose more than you already have. In a dresser in your mother’s house you find, carefully washed and pressed and folded, all the little dresses and rompers that your mother made. No hand-me-downs for any of you, neither you nor your mother nor your grandmother nor all those who came before, every daughter celebrated anew…

Perhaps this was part of your failure, that you never took the time to plan for your own daughter, never took the time to prepare an assortment of wonders to lure her forth into the world.

IX. On Certainty

There will come a moment, as you are roughly chopping the vegetables for your mother’s soup, when you will hear your mother singing the same lullaby she sang to you as a child. It has been decades since you last heard her sing. The melody is as familiar as her touch or her smell. When you close your eyes you are the one in her arms, not the golem, you are snuggling against her, utterly safe and at peace.

You dip your head low over the pot to smother the sounds of your crying, salting the soup with your tears.

In that moment, you know you would do it all again, every last bit of it: you would risk the whole town turning against you, risk that child haunting you, risk damning your very soul, to have this one glimpse of what life would have been if you had only—

The temptation to break the fourth principle here will be very strong. It may become necessary to avoid the golem’s eyes, especially after the singing, when you take it from your mother’s arms. To look into its blue eyes will be to wonder if you see something in them, something you did not put there, something that reminds you not only of your mother but your grandmother. There is nothing there that you did not fashion, nothing that could have been affected by the thrumming of your mother’s chest as she sang, or the kiss she placed upon the forehead you so painstakingly shaped with slow arcs of your thumbs. There is nothing but bone and dirt and your guilt and your grief.

It bears repeating: under no circumstances should you ever, ever name it, not even in the darkest corners of your mind, lest you mouth her name in your sleep and make her real.

X. The Fifth Principle

Recall that the second principle is to know your purpose. Remind yourself of this, when you finally can admit to yourself that you are no longer caring for your mother but saying goodbye to her. Anything. Anything. You leave the golem at home now because there is no place for a child here, even the illusion of one. The hypnotic rasp of your mother’s labored breath puts you into a trance, a state necessary for conjuring and normally difficult for you to achieve. Thus you may not be sure whether it is some deep working of your own that makes her seize your hand and say, very carefully, when I’m gone you must let her go. I know how much you’ve been hurting, but you can’t keep her. You need to let her go.

Understand, then, that your purpose in the end had been not to save her from grief but to save yourself from inflicting that grief. Always your mother taught you to come slowly to a conjuring, to think on your purpose and refine it, ponder it, sleep on it. The heart has curious places, dark corners that can harbor feelings we don’t want to face, she had instructed. But it is exactly those places that our magic comes from. A good witch knows her heart as intimately as her own face or hands.

The fifth principle of conjuring is that no matter what you believe your purpose to be, the outcome will be neither more nor less than the embodiment of your heart.

XI. Unmaking

The journey to the unmaking is long, as long as that first night without her when you stared sleepless at her still, cold face. It is as bitter as the bile that floods your mouth at every kindly old woman, every smiling toddler. If, on the coach, you find yourself crying uncontrollably when you pass three women outside a church, three generations holding hands in anticipation of worship; if you feel as if the very universe itself is grinding this vision into your face while chanting you will never have this—if this happens, you are on the right path.

There was a time long ago when you spent a week at the seaside every summer. Your grandmother would sit beneath the twisted pines with her knitting and the sandwiches while you and your mother played in the surf, diving and swimming, drawing shapes in the wet sand only to watch them disappear. It would be years before you realize these were your first lessons at conjuring, which is the art of forcing a shape upon the ephemeral.

You were made here; you return now to unmake.

It is autumn now. The air is crisp and the water shockingly cold. You walk in until your hips are submerged, past where you can easily turn back; only then do you unwrap it—

her. You unwrap her. You have thought it all this time, despite all your principles, despite all your will, and still you are here. Let her have this one gesture.

Only then do you unwrap her. You have carried her all this way, you have never once let go, for what mother would ever do less?

Lay her shroud upon the water. Lower her in on her belly as your mother once lowered you. Feel her soft hands stroke against your wrists, not quite able to grip, and do not once think she is trying to hold on, to hold on to you, her life. When the lapping water licks away her touch tell yourself she is letting go.

Do not look down.

Your fingers are sinking in her now, not into the dusty doughy curve of her little belly but into a lump of mud, her flesh oozing through your fingers until suddenly you are stroking bone. Those tiny buried bones. Everything happens too quickly then: the bones coming apart in all directions, drifting on the vast currents of the ocean; the last gobbets of mud and dirt dissolving, dissolving…and with a last hint of baby-smell she is gone.

And then you are nothing more than a middle-aged woman, shivering and sobbing, sobbing until you are heaving, with only a blank shred of paper bobbing before you.

XII.

There will be the walk back, wading and stumbling, blinded by tears. There will be the long journey home, the longest you have ever known, riddled with fever and hollow with grief. Food will repulse you, words will sound foreign, the kindest gestures seem acts of brutality. You will hate everyone you see, you will hate your own reflection, you will wonder every morning why you bother getting up at all.

You will spend far too much time trying to imagine: what did she see, with those flower-eyes? What did she feel, when she laid her hand upon you? Did she want, did she desire, did she ever understand what she was or why she was made?

Sometimes you dream yourself back in the ocean, dissolving beside her, your flesh coming away in chunks of red clay, your belly gushing soup, your mouth filled with hard black rocks that discolor everything they touch.

And then it fades, as everything fades. You will dream less, and feel less. You will move through your routines because they are your purpose.

You will hang a sign on your door that says Apprentice Wanted.

And when you can bear to look at your own face again you will see a witch without kin or heir, with seawater for a heart; a woman who is terribly, damnably free.

Little Men with Knives

Crossed Genres Magazine

* * *

In the darkness, I listen to the couple next door. Paul and Theresa. She sobs and sobs and he bellows, so loudly I have the urge to get up and check my own house, to make sure he hasn’t invaded with his liquor and his fists. He calls her terrible names and then there’s a crash, something large and alive hitting a wall. A moment later a dog starts barking.

Beneath the staccato barks someone is weeping. I would say Theresa but perhaps it’s Paul, who’s to say he doesn’t cry afterwards? Her face is distended by bruises sometimes; they make no secret of his violence. Margie across the street used to call the cops and got her car pummeled with a bat for her efforts. Nearly a thousand dollars worth of damage. Now everyone just turns away; not a one of us can risk Paul’s anger.

We turn away, but I sneak a glance at Theresa now and again. She’s a lovely woman, younger than I am, but there’s a look on her face that’s familiar: it’s the same look that I see in my own mirror. The look of someone trapped.

Silently I plead with the dog to shut up, for Paul to pass out, Theresa to get a hold of herself. I need to sleep, I must sleep. I can’t afford another write-up in my file, I can’t afford to be hopeless. That’s what Bill says when I’m late, when I spill food, when I curse in front of the kids. My pay docked each time.

Hopeless, Michael had said on the phone, that last conversation. Hopeless, meaning us.

I read in a magazine that if you imagine something, really see it in every detail, you can make it happen. Actualizing, they called it. Each night I lie here, rigid and bleary-eyed, and imagine the next day. I imagine myself sleeping long and deep and then getting up promptly, showering and drying my hair and pinning it neatly for once. I imagine myself putting on a clean uniform. I drink a cup of instant coffee while I chop up the hotdogs for the dwarves and toss them with some leftover fried rice. Put on my orthopedic shoes and my coat, and go out the back door, leaving the platter of food on the porch. The neighbors think it’s for strays, they think me the mad cat lady of the neighborhood. But in truth what began as an occasional act of kindness has become a necessity: skip a meal and the little bastards will cut up my uniform again.

* * *

I come home smelling of industrial lasagna and children, tacky with sweat from the polyester double-knit. The platter is washed clean and standing upright in the dish drainer; the floors are swept, the windows washed. My kitchen chairs have been dragged all over the place. Afterwards they helped themselves to some half-pints of milk I keep on the bottom shelf of the fridge, and I add dwarf milk to my shopping list.

In a corner of the kitchen window someone drew a penis using the soap, which I patiently wash away. I always imagine a younger one, bored with his chores, sneaking in a little bit of petty revenge. I’ve found genitals scratched in the patches of bare dirt in the yard, a swollen-looking woman that I assume is me, a muddy Fuk fuk fuk once on the siding. Each time I just wipe it away. It’s a small price to pay for a clean house.

Under the sink, next to the trash, is the bloody carcass of some animal—a rat? a chipmunk?—skinned and in several bony pieces, all its meat neatly pared away.

It’s still warm.

I make Hamburger Helper and Vienna sausages for their supper and put it on the porch; I’m so tired I just take a scoop for myself. They love anything processed. They especially like Fridays at the cafeteria, when it’s Sloppy Joes. It’s hard to tell what they think about anything just by looking at them; their faces are hidden by thick, knotted beards and woolen caps pulled low. But they make a cooing noise over the Sloppy Joes that they never make at any other time.

I eat my dinner standing up, watching them through the kitchen window. As soon as I shut the back door the ivy covering the back fence started rustling. They emerged one by one through the hole in the chain link, tramping up to the porch single-file. About a dozen this time; I would say it’s the same ones but I can’t really tell them apart. I call them dwarves, like in Snow White, but they’re more like those dwarves’ skid row cousins: besides the caps they mostly wear old baby things, grey with dirt. Their coveralls and rompers are bedecked with rainbows and toot-toot trains, cheeky monkeys and happy daisies, all as grimy as a mechanic’s uniform. Around their waists they each wear a leather belt with a sheath, and in each sheath is a knife with a long, curving blade.

No matter how filthy they are, their knives are always spotless.

Once they’re settled about the platter, crossing their legs and chatting in their strange, chirping language, they each draw out their knives and stab at the mound of food, spearing sausages and pasta gleaming with red sauce, shoving the wet blades into their mouths.

As always when I watch them, I try to think how to prove, once and for all, that they’re just figments of my imagination. I never believed in Santa Claus, I hated Disney movies: it seemed cruel to be taunted with these kind fairies and handsome princes that could never exist. Why, then, would I imagine this? Have I become so sleep-deprived I’ve gone off my rocker? Am I drinking heavily and blacking it all out? Hallucinogens in the school food? What about when I was on the pill, did it have some secret ingredient to drive poor women crazy? And so on and so on, until I’m not sure that anything in the world is what it seems, least of all myself.

There is no such thing as dwarves, or dirty little men about two feet high who do housework for franks and beans.

And yet there is my clean house, my supermarket bill, the snapped links in the fence. The carcass in my trash. The metallic whispering of their sharp, bright knives.

* * *

Today I’m salad; Ethel, who is too old for this but has no savings, is drinks. Every day we get a different station in the cafeteria and no more than an hour and a half to clean and prep everything. Lunch lasts for two and a half hours, the classes are staggered; then there’s two hours for cleanup. Al, who’s been here the longest, says that there used to be more time at both ends, and we would work special events too, but budget cuts scaled everything back. Now the special events are catered by a company from the city, and we get just enough hours to get by, just enough benefits to keep us hanging on.

Of all the stations, drinks and pot-washing are the hardest. Ethel can’t work pots because of some medical waiver about the detergents, but she gets drinks a lot. I think Bill’s trying to get rid of her. Drinks have so much prep: heavy powders and syrups to carry and maneuver, machines so high you need the stepladder to set them up, the ice maker to clean out, hundreds of cups to stack. I do what I can to help, and Al does her cups, but we’re nearly open when she realizes she’s out of Coke syrup.

And then the kids pour in.

It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. Every day the kids guzzle soda, especially Coke; they swarm around the machine now, beating the nozzle with their cups and kicking the cabinets beneath. When Ethel tries to shoo them away they yell in her face and hit her with their empty cups, like she’s just another machine.

Everyone looks to the manager’s office, but Bill just shakes his head and shuts his door. I finally manage to get a monitor’s attention, and she rolls her eyes and drags herself over to intervene. Ethel looks stricken, and again I feel that twinge of recognition at her expression, a combination of anger and impotence.

Later, Bill yells at Ethel in the office, yells and yells, his voice reverberating through the heavy steel and glass door. When Ethel comes out, her face swollen from crying, everyone pretends to be busy cleaning. Like we’re all fine, like it couldn’t be any one of us next.

I follow her into the break room to try and say—what? something, anything—but she won’t even look at me.

“You could have said something,” she says through gritted teeth. “You could have backed me up, you know damn well that station has too much prep for one person.” She throws her spare uniform on the table. “Take that, for all your trouble. I won’t be needing it anymore.”

* * *

Every day, on my long walk to and from work, I pass by a church. Today the sign reads What good deed have you done today? and I think of Ethel. That will be me soon enough—too old to work and too poor to quit. All of us, trapped: myself, Ethel, Theresa and her bruises.

Had I said anything, would it have mattered? Or would we both be jobless now?

I come home to find the lawn in the backyard trimmed in jagged waves, the bushes pruned to about waist height, and the one flowering bush deadheaded. I heat up some leftover fish sticks and put them out with a stack of chopped carrots and celery. It’s getting harder to take food: Al’s wife just lost her job so he’s stealing everything he can, and Bill rounded off his day as an Utter Bastard by making us throw away the last of the cream of tomato soup.

I make myself a bologna sandwich and sit by the back door, watching the dwarves as they clamber onto the porch. It took several months to get to this point. At first they would vanish the moment I stepped outside; now as long as I keep my distance they don’t seem to mind. They even wave at me sometimes, or touch their caps.

Like stray cats. Stray cats that do housework. My craziness in a nutshell.

When Michael and I first looked at rentals out here, the agent told us that this was the “elf house.” The old lady who had lived in it used to call the police complaining about “little men.” She said they would sneak around the house at night, messing with her things, and she had tried leaving out pans of milk, did the police have any other suggestions? The agent told us this while rolling his eyes, and then he drew circles in the air by the side of his head. “Crazy old woman,” he said, and then, “She was a widow,” as if that explained it.

It was only after Michael left that they first appeared. I thought it possums, making that much noise. When I saw them rooting through my garbage I opened my mouth to scream, only to close it again. I wasn’t afraid; in a way I had been expecting them. I was a middle-aged woman living hand to mouth in a shitty town, with no friends or relatives, sagging and fattening and graying with every passing day. There was nothing to be afraid of; I was just going mad. Crazy old woman. It was the order of things.

One of the dwarves spears half a fish stick with his knife. He bites into it with a scowl, tearing at it like it were the haunch of an animal, and I find myself laughing. What else do I have to laugh at anymore? Not for the first time I wish I was on the other side of the door. As nasty as they are, I doubt any of them lie awake at night, hating the present, terrified of the future. I doubt they’re afraid of anything at all.

* * *

In bed I half-watch Johnny Carson and try to write a little note to Ethel, to say how sorry I am that she got fired. I am sorry, but I’m not sorry for keeping my mouth shut. The want ads in the local paper fill one column and half is solely for mechanics and appliance techs. This town only needs people who can keep putting bandaids on it.

On the television, Ed McMahon is clearly lit: he keeps blurting out nonsensical responses and squinting at something we can’t see. Little pink elephants. I haven’t had a drink since that one night Ethel took me out, right after Michael left. Forget about him, she kept saying. They’re all bastards, it’s a shitty world and you gotta toughen up if you’re gonna survive it. It’s survival of the fittest, I’m tellin’ ya.

Her face today, when she realized what was going to happen, how it would be one write-up too many. All of us unable to control our lives, the only lives we’ll ever have.

What good deed have you done today?

Later the dog begins barking again, its yapping as relentless as a jackhammer. Why doesn’t someone stop it? I wait and wait and then storm out into my scrubby moonlit yard. At least if I can figure out who it belongs to, I can go over and complain. I go right up to the back fence, ears straining, trying to pinpoint what direction, I turn to my right—

and look directly at Theresa looking at me. Her red eyes seem huge in their dark hollows; her thick brown hair hangs loose to the middle of her back. She’s in that thin robe of hers, clutching a beer bottle. She looks like something out of a movie, beautiful despite her suffering. I open my mouth to speak, but she only bares her teeth at me, her smooth face contorting into something animalistic.

“Creepy lesbo,” she snarls, “mind your own fucking business.” She turns and stomps back into her house, her bare legs flashing beneath the hem of her robe, the soles of her feet black with dirt.

Creepy lesbo. It’s as if she reached over and slapped me. Is that what everyone thinks? My face feels hot despite the cold air. Is that what everyone thinks? I’ve always thought her pretty, but not like that. Not like that.

Did Michael spread something around, before he left for good? He once asked—but that was because I didn’t want to go down on him. I’ve just never liked it. It doesn’t mean anything.

I tell myself: she’s just hurting, who wouldn’t be with a husband like hers. I tell myself: I should have called out to her, I should have explained that I just wanted to make sure she’s OK. I should have spoken to her months ago. I’m her closest neighbor and I have listened night after night and done nothing but will her silent. Each in our little cage of chain link and shitty wages and cheap food that makes my fingernails turn yellow.

What good deed have you done today?

The dog barks again, even more violently; I hear a chain jangling far to the right. “Someone make that goddamn dog shut up,” I blurt out, my voice loud in the night. “I can’t take it anymore! Either you shut it up or so help me, one of these nights I’m going to wring its goddamn neck.”

* * *

I leave the dwarves crackers and cheese sticks as well as franks and beans. I don’t usually leave something so expensive, but I feel guilty about Ethel and Theresa, I even feel guilty about hating the dog. Someone in this world should be happy, even if it’s a dozen imaginary men who wear baby clothes and smell like dirty laundry.

On the front step of Paul and Theresa’s house is a battered suitcase and a bag of groceries. Off to her mother’s again. At least I’ll have a few nights of peace, before she comes back. Because she always comes back.

The church sign today reads, What is desirable in a person is kindness.

* * *

At school there’s a police car outside. At first I think it’s something to do with the kids, but the cop at the door waves me in with barely a glance. In the cafeteria another cop is in Bill’s office, taking notes.

“What’s going on?” I ask Al.

“Ethel,” he says.

I have a sudden vision of her in a rage-induced frenzy, driving a car into a school building or threatening to jump off the water tower, and I feel a stab of longing. To just cut loose like that, to just scream and rage. To make other people serve you for once. “What did she do?” I ask.

He looks at me like I’m an ass. “She killed herself,” he says. Then, with a shake of his head, “They said she hung herself from a rafter in her living room. I know it’s sick, but I just keep thinking, did she use a stepladder to get herself up there?”

Before I can think of something to say Bill waves me in. The cop asks me a few questions: how well did I know Ethel? Did she seem nervous or depressed? Did she have a man in her life, did she have any relatives nearby?

And I want to say so much, all at once, the words frothing up inside me. I want to tell him how hard this job was for her, that she hated children. I want to tell him that her pension got screwed up in the budget overhaul and she actually lost money. I want to tell him that I feed imaginary dwarves who leave dead animals under my sink, and my neighbor beats his spouse, and I can’t remember who I was before Michael left. That I am broke and alone and I don’t have enough years or resources to start over.

I want to tell him a noose isn’t the worst idea I’ve heard lately.

But Bill is watching me like a hawk, so I swallow back the words and choke out instead that Ethel always seemed fine, I was never close with her, and I need to get an apron as I’m serving today—?

As I tie on my apron I hear, clear as day, “Take that for your trouble.” I don’t even bother to look around. I already imagine little men with knives; it makes perfect sense that I would imagine Ethel haunting me, too.

* * *

The smell hits me as soon as I open my front door, pungent and so thick it coats the inside of my mouth. It smells like a butcher’s shop; it smells like the dead raccoon in the street last year, hot blood and something oily and burnt. The kitchen radio is on, tuned to the local pop station, and Rod Stewart’s voice blares through the empty house. With each step the smell gets worse, and yet I keep walking towards the kitchen.

Somehow the thought of calling for help is more frightening than whatever I might find.

The dog’s corpse is sprawled across the kitchen floor, oozing blood in a wide pool that reaches nearly to the walls. There is a half-dried smear where they dragged it in from the yard. I know it’s a dog—the dog—because they left the head intact, but they’ve been working on the rest: they skinned the torso and haunches, and chunks of meat have been cut away.

There is still a collar around its neck, and a length of rusty chain spiraling towards the back door.

Tonight’s the night, the radio says over the fading music. If you’re up for the big drive, you can still win tickets to see Rod Stewart live! Be caller—

I smack the radio off and at once the room fills with the sound of my panting. Something ripples close to the ribs and at first I think flies, very logically, but then one of the dwarves stands up. He has his bloody knife in one hand, a hunk of ragged flesh in the other. Smiling at me, he raises the blade and then saws at the flesh, tearing it off the bone as he works it free.

It’s the noise of ripping flesh that does it. Everything becomes bright and sharp; my stomach rolls, the air burns my nose like pepper, and I run across the kitchen to the sink, skidding in the blood, and vomit. Even when I’ve emptied my stomach I keep dryly heaving, until I’m so wrung out I feel faint.

At last I turn around. The dwarf is watching me curiously, the knife held out as if ready to protect himself. Ready to protect himself against me. I hiccup at the thought, though whether from nausea or some kind of hysterical laughter I’m not sure. He’s got the dog meat rolled up neatly, like a little roast; he’s used one of my spare shoelaces to tie it. I hiccup again and my mouth tastes like bile.

“Take it away,” I squawk. I clear my throat and point at the corpse. “Take it away.”

He cocks his head at me, now clearly intrigued.

“Dog, out.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away; still I jab my finger at the corpse, then at the door. “Dog out, floor clean.”

The dwarf arches his eyebrows. Despite the grime of his face, for once I can read his expression with perfect clarity: what the hell are you upset about?

Michael made that face a lot, near the end.

With an exasperated sigh he holds out the roll of bloody meat, offering it to me. Small insects are crawling on its surface. The room feels close, so close I can barely get my breath. The light flashes yellow and green and I sink to the floor, warm blood seeping into my clothes.

“Make it go away,” I whisper.

The dwarves’ faces swarm around me, peering at me, chattering among themselves. Like being surrounded by smelly birds.

“Please make it go away,” I say, though I’m not sure I mean the dog anymore. “Please.”

They lay their little hands on me, grabbing at my limbs, my clothes. There is a rhythmic chirping weet weet weet oi! and with the last grunt I am hoisted in the air. The cracked ceiling spins and whirls; I think I must be dead; I am dead and being borne away, out into the night, out into the hole in the fence and into the damp darkness of the ivy.

* * *

I awaken to find myself sprawled in bed, bathed in sunlight, still dressed save for my shoes and socks. When had I last slept so long, so deeply? I cannot remember, but I feel something like myself—whatever myself might be.

The clock says 8:12. I’ve slept for over twelve hours—

and then I think of work and lurch out of bed. I don’t see the thing on my chest until it goes flying halfway across the room to bounce off the paneling, landing on the carpet with an audible thud.

It is a ring.

A very old ring, I see as I pick it up, old and thick. The metal is crusted with a sticky black residue, but when I scrape it aside I see a warm yellow and red beneath.

It is so heavy. I pull my wedding ring out of the envelope in my dresser. There seems to be a world between them: the thin, cheap circle and the fat lump of metal and gemstone. My grandmother had been a collector of jewelry before my father frittered everything away, and she had taught me a little about judging pieces. This ring feels real. It feels like a nugget of gold pared into a ring-shape, stuck with some plump garnet or ruby like a cherry on top.

I want it to be real, more than I have wanted something for a long, long time.

Even if it turns out to be fake, it still might be worth a few bucks. But if it’s real, and I can get even a fraction of its value…I try to imagine what I might do with the money but at once I feel exhausted. It’s been so long since I’ve had something to actualize other than just getting by.

I’m afraid then: afraid of someone stealing it, afraid of the dwarves demanding it back—because it’s come from them, I’m sure of it, some kind of payment or apology for the mess with the dog. I dig in my closet until I find the packs of shoelaces they’ve been raiding, and I string one through the ring and tie it around my neck. It feels cool between my breasts, slowly warming to match my skin’s temperature.

The kitchen is perfectly clean: there’s not a hint of blood anywhere, nothing to show there was ever a carcass on the floor. Even my shoes are clean and lined up by the back door. The only proof I have that I’m not crazy are the crusted bloodstains on my pants. I strip in the kitchen, soaking the stains in the sink and throwing them right into the washing machine; after a moment’s thought I stuff other clothes on top.

The ring swings from my neck, bouncing lightly against my flesh.

A couple of half-pints of milk are missing from the fridge. I add them to the list, as if nothing has happened. And then I assemble their platter, throwing on it everything I can find: Vienna sausages and Spaghetti-Os, crackers and cheese sticks, even a bag of potato chips I was keeping for my own treat. As I shake the chips over everything else I start giggling like a child.

And then, for the first time ever, I call a taxi to work.

* * *

Everything looks different. The cracked sidewalks on either side of my street, is that what I walk on every day? The fences with trash clinging to them, the patchy yards, the rotting cars: in the taxi it all feels both new and distant, like I’m watching a movie of my life. There’s a homeless man in the church parking lot, he’s built a shanty out of shopping carts and pallets, and for the life of me I cannot remember ever noticing him before, though he’s obviously been there for some time.

The church sign reads, Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

I’m still late, but for once no one seems to notice; indeed, the sensation of difference is here too. For the first time I see just how dingy the school is, how tired everyone looks. The furniture is old enough to be from when I was a kid, the lockers are scratched and dented and stuffed with books that seem from another time. For the first time too I notice the sickly-sweet odor in the air: the smell of secrets, of things being hidden.

In the cafeteria everyone is quiet and somber and it takes me a beat to remember. Ethel. I feel guilty, and guiltier still when I think of the ring under my shirt. What would she have done in my place, what kind of hope might she be feeling now? All of us trapped, and what if one of us should be given the means to be free?

Were she still alive, would I help her, now that I might have the means to do so?

I go to the break room and my name is chalked in next to Drinks. It feels appropriate. I don’t have nearly enough time to prep; the ring might well be worthless; yet I can finally see how pointless half the preparation is, how this job is killing me, how at some point in those first cold days after Michael left I took my self and folded it tight and buried it somewhere deep and dark. Like the hole in the fence where the dwarves come from, shadowy and overgrown.

All of us in our cages, clapboard and chain link, booze and fists and nooses and loneliness: what if what hangs around my neck is the means to change it? Not just for me, but for another? I can’t help Ethel, not anymore. But perhaps…

Creepy lesbo, mind your own fucking business.

Yet I can imagine it: the relief in her face, the yellow of her fading bruises, the tentative smile that would signal things have changed for the better. A lightness in her step, as if an invisible hand had lifted a terrible burden from her…

I’m dragging the lemonade syrup across the floor, going through the motions by sheer habit, when suddenly the weight is gone. I look over my shoulder to see Bill holding up the other end of the barrel.

“Wasn’t sure we’d see you today,” he says.

“I was running late,” I blurt out, but he doesn’t reprimand me; in fact he seems relieved. Again the strangeness, for when has Bill ever seen absence as anything other than a black mark?

No, no, he thought I was upset about Ethel. Does he feel responsible? Or just afraid for his job?

For a while he just helps, mixing the sodas from atop the stepladder while I shovel out the ice maker and stack the cups. Everyone is staring. I catch Al’s gaze and he mouths at me did hell freeze over and I shrug. Maybe it has; maybe I’m imagining this on top of everything else; maybe it was me in the noose. It all seems possible—no, more that it seems like everything is happening all at once, all these different selves trapped in this town, this job.

Suddenly Bill says, “I had a meeting when we started the shift. The school’s got a doctor coming in next week. In case you want to talk to someone.”

Like Ethel might have wanted to talk to someone?

“I saw in your file you got divorced last year. Must’ve been hard for you.”

I set the last cup in place and look at him. “I’m not going to hang myself,” I say. “In case anyone’s asking. The hours are shit, the pay is shit, you treat us like shit, but you’re not going to get me too.”

As I speak I’m blushing, where did this come from? It’s like I’m not even speaking to him but to someone else, some invisible presence. Actualizing. He stares at me like I’m crazy and blood rushes to my face, but I don’t look away, not even as his expression shifts from incredulity to anger.

“After the shift,” he says in a low voice. “In my office.”

“But Bill,” I say, “I’m crazy with grief, can’t you tell? Write me up and there’s no telling what you’ll drive me to do.”

His face becomes a shade darker at my words; his mouth opens and closes, and then he turns on his heel. “It’s time,” he announces, and goes back into his office, slamming the door.

You could have backed me up, Ethel whispers, but I barely hear her ghost-voice; I’m watching Al take the lids off the steaming pans at the serving station. I had nearly forgotten. He takes the big ladle and stirs up the Sloppy Joe meat until the skin on the top disappears, then straightens his tray of toasted buns and readies himself.

I had nearly forgotten it’s Friday.

I should have backed Ethel up. But I’m trying now; it’s too late for her but not for myself, and maybe not for Theresa. I never believed in Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy, or anything save what I could touch and taste and smell. Yet now I have the ring around my neck, gallons of sweetened meat before me, and a dozen armed, hungry dwarves. Imaginary or not, they’ve already brought down one big, stupid animal.

Why not another?

* * *

On the way home I stop in the market. The sign says Ace Supermarket but there’s nothing either Ace or Super about it. For Super I need to go out to the Save More on 110, but to get to the Save More I have to walk eight blocks to a bus that comes once an hour, then ride forty-five minutes out and back. Save More is my Saturday.

The Ace isn’t terrible, but it’s not great either. The teenagers who work here are to a one sullen and bored, constantly scuttling out to the parking lot to get high; when the manager’s away they make it a point of turning up the radio so they can pretend they don’t hear you. For once, though, I know the song well: it was one of Michael’s favorites. I even find myself singing along as I go up and down the aisles.

The Things We Do For Love.

I had forgotten this, how easily I remember lyrics. A gift, Michael called it. We always had the radio on. I would work on my correspondence class, he would noodle along on his guitar, and inevitably I would start singing…

The pain shoots through me, fierce and hot. The things we do for love. What didn’t I do for him? What did I forget, what did I miss, that made him turn away?

I pick up the last bag of tater tots; after a moment’s hesitation I grab a bottle labeled Table Wine for myself. Not since that one night with Ethel. But she’s gone, Michael’s gone, and I have this one terrible chance to change things. I could use some Dutch courage.

As I check out, the sullen girl looks me over and sneers. I don’t blame her; I know how I look in my polyester uniform, buying tater tots and cheap wine. She can probably smell the tubs of Sloppy Joe meat in my bag as well. A middle-aged woman about to drown her sorrows for the weekend. There’s even a crease around my finger where the ring used to be, a smoothness to the skin that’s never gone away. Like I’m married to a ghost.

The song on the radio has changed, now it’s something I don’t know, something about closing a door on the world. No more, though. For once in my life I’m opening my door: I’m letting the world in, the better for me to sneak out.

* * *

For the first time in nearly a year nothing’s been done. The lawn and garden look the same, there’s still dust gathering on the cheap sofa, and the wet laundry is sitting in the machine. On the clean kitchen floor is an empty half-pint carton, lying there as if they had just dropped it, as if they couldn’t even be bothered walking the four feet to the trash.

Perhaps I’m not the only one who’s changed since last night.

I fill up a baking sheet with tater tots and scrape all the Sloppy Joe meat into a big saucepan. When everything is cooking I pour myself a glass of wine. It tastes thick and sweet and woody; like something a woman in charge of her destiny would drink.

It tastes like power.

Fucking the secretary. It had all been like a terrible soap opera, right down to the rumors about her blowjob skills, right down to the credit card bills: the overnights in motels at the coast, the fancy restaurants with unpronounceable wines.

There had once been a me who would have sneered at any woman undone by such a thing. Who would have been in Ethel’s seat that night at the bar: you’re better off without him, you don’t need that kind of asshole in your life.

Where had that me gone?

As the food heats up I open the kitchen window, letting the smells waft into the yard. Sure enough, after a few minutes the ivy rustles, the chain link shudders, and one by one they make their way to the porch. The one in front, the one who was cutting up the dog, keeps fiddling with his belt; I realize that it’s the dog’s collar. The mark of a chief, a leader. Some of the other dwarves wear thick necklaces made out of the rusted chain.

The leader smirks in my direction, as if he can see me through the filthy screen of the kitchen window. He swaggers onto the porch, the others following suit, rolling their hips and baring their yellow teeth in broad grins. I had forgotten about this peculiarly male pride, the strutting and the gloating, the way they side-eye the kitchen as they lean against the porch railings. One says something and the others laugh slyly. Products of my imagination or no, they had definitely changed. They had brought down the dog, which from their vantage was probably some great, howling beast; they would be insufferable for ages.

I carefully ladle the steaming meat onto the platter, ringing it with the golden tots, and lift it onto one hand like a waiter.

As if on cue, I hear Paul’s truck pull up outside. The sound of the door slamming is as loud as a shot.

I open the back door and the dwarves don’t even flinch; to a one they just look at me, a few idly picking their teeth with their knives. Nothing more than miniature thugs. As I lower the platter to waist height, however, I see their eyes start to gleam, their smiles become warmer, more genuine. One takes a step forward, eager for the food.

Something shatters in Paul’s house and he curses at the top of his lungs, a tirade that fills the night air. We turn to look at the fence, the dwarves and I, staring at the lit bedroom window, the unsteady shadow flitting across the curtains.

“Make him go away,” I say in a low voice.

Their faces turn upwards, a dozen pairs of grime-ringed eyes studying me.

“Make him go away,” I repeat. “Make him shut up.” I try to remember what I had said about the dog. “Do anything, just make him shut up,” I say, my voice thick. “Even if you have to wring his neck.”

The leader steps forward, holding his hands out; I carefully hand him the platter, as solemn as a ceremony. I have never been so close to one before, and it’s all I can do to keep from gaping: what are they? How much like me, how much different? What does the world look like, when seen with their little black eyes?

One of the dwarves clears his throat, and another chirps with impatience; the leader yanks the platter out of my hands and steps back, watching me with a wary half-smile as the others fall upon the pile of meat and tots, scooping it up with their knives and wolfing it down.

Past the fence, Paul is in the kitchen now, fumbling with a Tupperware and a saucepan. He works out at the same quarry where Michael had been manager, a shift that has him up and out at dawn. Between his hours and mine I hardly ever see him; I had almost forgotten what he looks like. Now I see that I’d mixed him and Michael up, giving him Michael’s height and broad shoulders in my mind. In reality he’s a small, squat man, the stubble on his bleary face prematurely grey. He shakes his head bullishly as he tries to work the lid off; when at last he pulls it free he spills spaghetti and tomato sauce over himself and the stove. He starts cursing again and flings the Tupperware across the room where it bounces off the far wall—

and then he starts crying, big heaving sobs over the stove, and reaches for a liquor bottle.

I feel a pang of sympathy; I have to remind myself that those were the hands that had hit Theresa, had flung her as they flung the container, like she was just another thing that won’t work right. Who won’t be what he wants her to be, who let him bring her to this shitty corner of the world and then just left her when he found someone better—

No, no, I’m thinking of Michael, that was Michael and I.

When I look again at the kitchen Paul is gone. For a moment the spaghetti sauce seems thinner and smoother, like the dog’s blood, but the sky is growing dark, I can’t really see anymore.

I turn around and the porch is empty: no dwarves, no platter. In the dirt of the yard they’ve drawn pictures, the gouges deep and fresh. There is a woman, full-hipped, and around me the sharp little knives radiating outwards like I am the sun. Beside me is a man with space between his head and his torso, between his arms and his big, bulbous fists.

I look down at my hands and they are grey with dirt. From work, or—?

In Paul’s bedroom the television’s blue glow appears, and the Wonder Woman theme song echoes faintly in the night air. I go back into my house; suddenly I’m craving a drink.

* * *

I awake cotton-mouthed, my head pounding. I think it must be a year ago, it’s the morning after that binge with Ethel, and I panic that I might still come face-to-face with a piece of Michael—a paper with his handwriting, a razor, his smell.

But there’s nothing left of him, not anymore. Shreds of paper cover the bed like snow. All the divorce papers, the lawyer letters, the bills, all have been ripped to pieces, so tiny I could never reassemble them. Even our photos, the few I still had, are so many flakes of paper now, pieces of our bodies tossed among the drifts.

The world sways and rolls as I crawl out of bed. There’s an empty liquor bottle on the nightstand, but I can’t stand the taste of hard liquor, I would never have bought—

and then I realize that it’s Paul’s bottle.

I stumble into the bathroom and throw up, the thin vomiting of a stomach filled with booze and nothing else. Memories keep rising up: the crude drawings, the dirt on my hands, how the dwarves and the platter just vanished.

How long I stood at the fence, watching Paul and justifying his murder.

I wipe down the bottle in a fog of panic and bury it in the trash. I’m just about to go out back when the doorbell jangles; with a mewl of fear I manage to pull a sweatshirt over my smelly uniform and get to the door.

My mouth still tastes like puke as I open the door and stare at the policeman.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he says. “I’m sorry to say there’s been an incident next door. I’d like to ask you a few questions and take a look around your property. May I come in?”

Behind him there’s another cop coming up the walk, and no less than three patrol cars parked between my house and Paul’s. Three cars and an ambulance, but no lights flashing. I glimpse Theresa in the back seat of one of the patrol cars.

“Ma’am?”

I try to swallow but my mouth is bone dry; still I manage to make my throat convulse, so hard I’m sure he heard it. “Sure,” I say, my voice raspy. “Do what you need to do.”

* * *

“No strange noises, nothing unusual…”

I shake my head again. I’m desperately trying not to look at the back door; another cop went out into the yard eight long minutes ago, and it’s all I can do to keep from going after him. What’s out there, what has he found?

What have I done?

“Well. If you think of anything at all. Maybe even something you heard, and then decided to ignore.”

I think I’m insane, I say in my head. I think I’m losing my mind. I smile at the cop—Jones, his name tag says—and shrug. “Sorry, I don’t remember anything like that.”

Officer Jones looks at me for a long moment, until a voice calls from the backyard. At once my stomach disappears; the smile on my face feels grotesque.

He tells me to wait while he goes outside. For the first time I see that while my floor is clean, my ceiling is full of webs, whole clouds of them in the corners. I should have left a stepladder out for them—and then I catch myself. There are no such things as dwarves, or little men with knives who eat Sloppy Joes and kill people.

There is only me. There has only ever been me.

“Ma’am, could you come out here?”

I shuffle across the kitchen as if marching towards a gallows. In the backyard the sun is bright, so bright I have to squint to make my way towards the two cops. I had expected them to be standing over the patch of bare dirt but it’s smooth, not a hint of a line anywhere. Instead the two cops are back by the fence.

Near the hole.

Officer Jones waves me forward and points down. “Do you have any relatives, or friends, with small children?”

Between us, among the tufts of crabgrass, are the prints of small, bare feet.

“No,” I whisper. No relatives, no friends. No neighbors, not anymore.

“Any neighborhood children that might have come in your yard? Maybe to get a ball?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say.

“Ah,” he says, but I can’t tell what the ah means. He looks significantly at the other cop. “We’re going to photograph these, and check your fence for fingerprints—we’ll be out here for a little while, okay?”

I nod. I don’t risk a smile.

“Good.” With a look around, he takes a step closer to me. “Look, why don’t you go back to bed and sleep it off,” he says in a low voice. “We can let ourselves out the side gate when we’re done.”

I nod again, a lurching motion, like my head is too heavy for my neck. “Okay,” I mumble.

As I trudge back to my house, still squinting against the glare, another cop, a woman, appears at the side gate. “I’ve read her her rights. Should we wait?”

“Go ahead and take her to the station. We’ve got some kids’ prints back here, might be a witness.”

I look back over my shoulder at Officer Jones. “You mean Theresa?” I ask, incredulous.

But he’s already turned away, studying the fence again.

“She was at her mother’s.” I rush back over to him, seizing his arm. “I saw her leave.”

“Ma’am,” he says firmly, looking down at my hand on his arm. Only when I let go does he continue, “We’re only taking her in for questioning.”

“But she’s the real victim here,” I insist. “He was beating her, everyone knew it.”

With a sigh he drops his head close to mine. “Ma’am, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Both your neighbors had priors. Drunk and disorderly, creating a disturbance, assault and battery. Both of them.” He pats my arm. “I know it’s hard to think someone so close could be capable of murder. But if it’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years? We hardly know ourselves, much less anyone else.” He angles his head. “Now please. Go back inside and get some rest. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”

But I don’t go back to bed. I go instead to my front door and step tentatively outside.

I have to see her.

Theresa is standing next to the patrol car, gesturing to her house while a cop gently restrains her; the more she gestures the more the police move close to her. Her hair is tangled and wild and even from where I stand I can see how her eyes flash, how her body is tense with fury.

She’s never looked so beautiful.

One of the paramedics props the door of her house open. They work the stretcher through the door, the sheet snug over Paul’s form. I try to imagine what he must look like but I can’t, I can’t conjure him in my mind.

“Who did it?”

I jump out of my skin at her shriek, flinching as her head swivels from one end of the block to the other, her eyes passing over me. “Which one of you killed him?” she cries. “You all hated him! None of you understood, none of you cared!” Her eyes settle on me. “I should have taken a bat to your fucking head.”

“Get her back in the car,” a voice yells from my yard, and for a moment I think Bill? But it’s just Officer Jones.

“They’ll come for you next,” Theresa yells as the cops wrestle her back into the patrol car. “They’ll come for you all, you’ll see! They’ll come for you and they’ll cut you to pieces! To pieces! To—”

A cop slammed the door shut; at once she seemed to slump, as if her strings had been cut.

“Drugs are a bitch, man,” one of the cops said, and the others laughed.

* * *

Nestled among the pillows on my bed is a strand of fat, creamy pearls, coiled and knotted like a noose. At once I want them, I want to take them and run away, as far away from here as I can get.

I should have taken a bat to your fucking head

We hardly know ourselves, much less anyone else

I stand over the bed, trembling with desire, my hands clenching and unclenching. I want them, I want them, and yet I know the moment I touch them I will seal my own complicity.

A small, high-pitched cough makes me jump; I turn and see a dozen dirty, bearded faces crowding in my closet doorway. The leader steps forward, busily wiping his knife with a torn piece of one of my slips, the dried blood flaking off the blade onto the bright white silk.

He speaks, but I cannot understand what he’s saying, all I hear are chirps; I bend over, cupping my ear, and it feels both ridiculous and utterly right, all the more so when he steps close to me and lays a warm, callused hand on my shoulder. I listen carefully to his high-pitched noises, piecing them together until they form a single word.

Hungry.

Everything else seems to fade, then. The noises outside, my own breath, it all fades into a grey quiet. There are only their dark eyes staring at me, full of hope, full of anticipation.

* * *

I don’t have much to pack. Half my clothes don’t fit me anymore, either because I’ve lost weight or because they seem to represent that past me, the one I’m leaving behind. In the end, I only needed two suitcases: some clothes, a few books from my correspondence classes, the photos and little mementos I have of my parents. I have nothing else; I want nothing else.

Save, of course, for the money I sewed into the lining of the suitcases, and my one decent jacket.

The interior of the police station had been cool and quiet, all marble and old wood. I carefully wrote out my new address on a plain index card; something about block printing the address, and the little studio it represented, it all seemed too easy. “I don’t have a phone number yet,” I explained to the elderly officer at the desk.

“That’s all right, ma’am,” he said. “Just phone it in when you get hooked up.” He took the card from me and read it over. “Up to the city?”

I nodded.

“Good for you.” He looked around at the empty lobby, sighing deeply. “This town’s gone queer, these last few years. Lotta strange things happening, especially with women.” He waved the card at me. “You’re a smart girl to get out now.”

And in that moment I knew I was free. That fluttering white card, that ridiculous girl, it was the moment in the story when the fairy godmother comes, when the pumpkins become coaches and the rats become horses and that tiny, sunny studio was my castle.

I was free.

“How’s Theresa?” I blurted out.

“Who?” He frowned. “Oh, right. Turns out she had an alibi, she went to the pictures with her mother, fellow who makes the popcorn called them a taxi. Just more reason to move, I say. Kids hopped up on drugs, stabbing a man to death for a few bits of jewelry. Shameful.” He sighed again. “If that’s the world today, I’m not sure I want to live in it.”

Neither do I, buddy. Neither do I.

I snap the latches of my suitcases shut now and button my jacket completely. In the mirror the face I see looks rested, resolute. I have slept hard every night since Paul was killed, a deep dreamless sleep that I fall into the moment I lay down. No more actualizing, no more imagining, for what did it get me? All that time working out the minutiae of each day, only to have it all upended by something I never imagined. Even my platter never reappeared.

From now on I will meet each day open and empty. I open the door and walk, empty and ready, into the world. In one of the suitcases is a reference letter from Bill, and another from my landlord testifying to my diligence in maintaining the house. I am empty, I am ready. The walk to the bus station is long and with every step I can feel the money rustling in my coat, I can feel the cool weight of my new apartment key on the shoestring around my neck.

The church sign reads, Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

At the bus station I board the bus for the city, keeping my cases close, smiling and nodding at the other passengers. I feel open, I feel empty, I feel at once in the world and somehow above it, looking down on this small upright woman walking towards a seat near the back, and the fifteen woolen caps trailing after her.

The dwarves crowd against my legs, bumping and chirping, cursing and shoving like so many children, yet no one so much as glances down at the aisle. My madness, all mine, as much my possessions as my suitcases and my money and the key around my neck.

They swarm under the seats, sprawling on the dirty floor, some promptly falling asleep. I’ve tried naming them but they don’t like it, they make faces when I address them by something specific; I’m not even sure their leader has stayed the same, I tell him apart as much by his belt as anything. He climbs on the seat beside me now along with two others; casually he digs into the kangaroo pocket of his romper and flicks a half-cut gemstone in the air like a teenager tossing a quarter. It arcs into my lap, hard and blue, and at once I cover it with my hand. That wonderful, cool weight: the weight of money, of security. He winks at me, then starts sucking noisily on his teeth and picking them with his fingernail.

I really have to do something about their clothes.

Just before it’s time to depart a man boards the bus, flustered but smiling. He looks about my age; he wears his decent grey suit well. As he lurches down the aisle I look away, a little embarrassed, until his shadow falls over me.

“I think you dropped this,” he says. In his hand is one of their knives, wedged in its sheath. “Are you an art teacher?”

I stare at him, completely at a loss.

“Or maybe you’re an art student?” He turns the handle towards me, and I see in the dimming light Return to Room 1B written on the handle.

From the seat beside me comes a low growl, but the man doesn’t seem to hear. His ring finger has a worn band of skin, the same as mine.

Another growl, and the whisper of another knife being drawn.

“It’s just a knife.” I take it from him hurriedly. “Thanks,” I add.

He seems about to speak again so I look at the window, watching his reflection in the glass until it moves away. Only now do I truly understand what I have chosen: my very gaze is enough to condemn, my words powerful enough to slay. I will always have to keep my distance.

I shudder, as if from a great wave of loneliness and sorrow, and yet even as my body trembles those feelings have vanished. In their wake I feel replete, in a way I have never known before. I lean back in my seat with a contented sigh; the little men move close to me, pressing against my feet, clambering over my lap to look out at the twilit world. Outside the stars are emerging and I feel something dim and shrouded open within me, and inside a great, terrible energy that is wholly mine. I am open, I am empty, I am legion. The leader takes my hand and it feels right and true. All of us, together. All of us racing forward into the night, towards the dark, rich, unknowable future.

Cameron Johnston

The Economist & The Dragon

Originally published by Buzzymag.com.

* * *

The dragon Vermikalathyxak sighed in relief as her claw finally dislodged the splintered human femur that had been embedded between two of her teeth. She spat the bone out to clatter down the congealed mound of human bone and gristle by her side.

A huge belch expanded up her gullet, erupting in a puff of gas from her maw. She ignited it, flame scattering shards of light from the multitude of gemstones embedded in the walls.

She glared down at the dented iron stars and the torn woollen robes scattered across the floor. Clerics always gave her gas. It was all that rich food and wine the gluttons consumed—it made them terribly fatty when compared to the lean peasant meat she was used to. Not only had they given her gas, but now she had a headache due to all that shrill praying she’d had to endure while dragoning them down one by one.

She couldn’t help herself. She knew that she should just leave them alone since she was forever vowing to eat healthier, but they were tasty, slow food, requiring little to no effort to catch and peel. Not like knights in full metal plate; those took forever to peel without ruining all that expensive shiny armour. The company of would-be dragon slayers’ armour, weapons and possessions had been carefully stripped from the corpses and sorted out into neat piles on the floor. She had to tear her eyes away from the small mesmerising pile of jewellery off to one side, where it glittering enticingly, reflecting the light from the torches scattered around the cavern.

Scratch, scritch, scratch.

She lifted her head and bared her fangs, tail lashing as she scanned the cavern looking for the source of the strange noise. Nothing moved. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary: rock formations, piles of glistening bones, stacks of loot, and a half dozen uneaten dead humans. After a while she settled down onto her haunches, assuming that perhaps it was just an especially unwise rat.

Scratchscritchscritchscritchscratchscritch—there it was again, but quicker this time. A scuff on stone, then a single gold coin clinked and rolled across the floor. She looked again, looked harder…and found her eyes sliding away from something. A deep rumble within her chest echoed around the cavern. She tried again, and again her eyes seemed to slide over something, as if refusing to see it.

She drew her head back and hissed, the flame sacs at the back of her throat swelling with venom. Her head shot forward, maw gaping. Rapid muscle contractions in the roof of her mouth sparked her fulmenforge into life, igniting the jet of liquid. One corner of the cavern turned into a roaring inferno. Liquid flame dripped down into pools of dragon-fire. Acrid black smoke churned up amongst the stalactites.

A human voice yelped in shock, accompanied by a clatter of wood on rock. Charred and smouldering scroll cases rolled across the floor. She glared over in the direction of the sound. Smoke outlined a human shape.

“Come out or I shall roast you, little thief,” she said, concentrating on him. There was a pause, and then a balding, bespectacled man of medium height and forgettable aspect was suddenly standing there. Her eyes threatened to slide away again, but as long as she focused on him intently he remained visible. His beard was non-existent and he was wore a plain grey tunic and breeches rather than a robe woven through with potent arcane wards. A belt of pouches circled his waist with quills, scrolls, and bizarrely, a small abacus. In one hand, instead of a magic staff, he clutched a sheaf of what appeared to be vellum pages. In his other he held a stick of charcoal between thumb and forefinger, still scribbling away frantically across the vellum—scritch, scratch, scritch.

"What are you doing, thief? I see you now."

He blinked, seeming startled as her eyes followed him, then he glanced at all her loot. "I’m conducting a SWOT analysis—the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threat of your, ah, business enterprise. I’m calculating your net worth and expenses, cataloguing your material assets, and putting the finishing touches on a ten year growth plan."

"What kind of wizard are you?" she demanded, opening her maw to reveal fangs larger that the man’s head. She tilted her head and studied him. She couldn’t see so much as a hint of magic sparkling around his body. He seemed entirely mundane. How very dull, she thought.

He swallowed. "I am, ah…an economist, actually," he said.

There was a long moment of stunned silence.

He cleared his throat. "My apologies. I was assured that invisibility potion would allow me to hide and leave you undisturbed until I was fully prepared to present my proposal."

A barking laugh dripped flame down her chin. "Invisible, yes, but I am not deaf, human.”

"Ahhh, I see!" he said, looking down at his entirely visible body. He frowned and began absently tapping his lip with the charcoal stick, smudging black all over his lips and chin. Then he looked up into her eyes and she watched as realisation dawned. He was entirely visible. "Oh," he said, sweat beading on his forehead. He stayed very, very still.

She settled down onto her belly, staring at him, unblinking, giving him the old should I eat you or not look. "What is an economist doing here of all places?"

He swallowed and wiped the gathering sweat from his forehead. "I’m currently writing a paper on dragonomics. And I’ve come here to put a mutually beneficial business proposal to you." He waved the pages clutched in his hand at her, all lines, numbers and tiny cramped writing.

She was intrigued. Her sire had always warned her not to play with her food, but then she was at that sort of age—in the mid-teen centuries—where a dragon gets rebellious. A purr of pleasure rumbled in her chest. "Dragonomics? what do you mean by that, little human? I give you three minutes to convince me of your proposal before I eat you up." She shifted to get comfy, folding her wings to her flanks.

He loosed a sigh and relaxed, taking that as a sign he was not in imminent danger of digestion. Suddenly he looked deadly serious. He might have almost looked dangerous, if only it hadn’t been like a very serious mouse standing before a giant and incredibly bored feline. The charcoal smudged all over his face didn’t help matters. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth to begin—

“Are you not disgusted at my devouring your kind?" she interrupted. "Are you not angry?”

He was flustered, trying hard not to shake. “Uh, well, they were trying to kill you in your own home, so I guess that it was a valid case of self-defence.”

She blinked slowly, letting him sweat while she mulled over his answer. “A surprisingly fair opinion, for a man-thing,” she said, finally.

My name is Geoffrey," he said.

She blinked slowly in amusement, flicked her tail from side to side.

"And you are of course, Verma…vermikatha…uh, Ver—"

"Vermikalathyxak," she rumbled, tail lashing violently. She lowered her head down to his height. "In your kind’s old tongue—" she snorted "—it would translate most accurately as Annmarie. Better you call me that than for me to suffer yet more of your kind’s monkey-speak butchering of my true name."

"Annemarie it is then,” he said. “Right, well, dragonomics is the study of the socioeconomic impact of a draconic variable on an area, and—”

“Socioeconomic is a very arrogant term to use,” she said. “Should it not be homoeconomic to take account of your human-centric viewpoint, which undoubtedly excludes any other race from your societal research?”

“Well…yes, perhaps you are correct,” he said, pondering it. “We economists generally do use it to refer to human-only societal economics.” He shifted from foot to foot. “Besides, we tend to use homoeconomic to, ah, refer to a particular subset of humans.”

She worried at a rogue splinter of bone in her gum with the sensitive forks of her tongue. “Humans! You think that you did everything first. There were gay dragons before your race even existed. In my sixteen centuries I have come across myriad wondrous dragons, each different from the last. I assure you, dragons have tried more than your entire race’s petty imagination can conceive of. There are even some distasteful young dragons that choose to—” she let a lick of flame rise from her maw, “—dally with humans. Can you conceive of anything more horrid than that? Never mind the sheer physics involved in such a thing…”

“Fascinating,” he said.

She looked at him sharply, but as far as she could tell he seemed to find it genuinely interesting. "One minute up," she said, dropping her jaw in a grin.

He jumped and started sweating again, licking suddenly dry lips. “Right, to get back to the point,” he said. “In this case, I am studying the economic impact of your presence on the surrounding villages in this Black Hills region of Astelon."

"I see," she said, her voice flat and hard. "You are preparing yet another reason why dragons need to be exterminated. Have your kind not had their fill of hatred?" She closed one great eye in a wink.

His eyes bulged. “Heavens no!” he said, hands flapping wildly. “Your presence actually has a remarkably positive effect on the local economy.”

“It does, does it?”

He pointed down to the uneaten corpses, each of which had twinned tattoos on their wrists—the mark of successful dragon slayers.

"For a long time now we economists have been aware of the short term economic benefits of tattooed two-wrists in any given area. On average, an organised dragon hunt spends ten days narrowing down the location of a dragon’s lair, another five to prepare for the assault, and then perhaps fifteen on rest and recovery afterward. A full month’s boost to the local economy. Anyway, back to my business plan. As I was saying—"

"A boost to the local economy? How so?"

"Oh, well, simply really." He held up his hands and began ticking off fingers. "That covers: food, grog and board for the men, general supplies, blacksmith work, horse feed, prostitutes, local guides and labour." He looked distracted, his eyes glazed. "And then there is the brief influx of gold after a successful hunt. Of course most of the valuable body parts: scale, bone, blood and venom all leave Astelon and the profits go back…to…er, their homelands…" his voice died off as her hissing grew louder and her tail slammed off the wall of the cavern, crushing stone and gem to powder.

He swallowed. His face went pale and a bead of sweat wound down his forehead and across his cheek. "I assure you, Annemarie, short term profit goes against my plans for this area. My proposal will end this waste, a renewable resource so to speak."

"Speak," she said. "Be quick, lest I decide to swallow you whole right now."

He nodded energetically. "While researching this group of dragon slayers, three things became apparent."

"Firstly, none of the villages in the Black Hills show any sign of dragon attack. Not even an old rumour of such from the elders. Their standard of living actually exceeds that of similar areas. Secondly, there seems to be a thriving second-hand goods market hereabouts." He looked pointedly at the piles of armour and weapons.

Vermikalathyxak shifted on her haunches.

"Thirdly, the local villagers’ livestock herds seem unusually large and remarkably healthy considering the dietary requirements of a fifty tonne drag-"

"Forty-two tonne," she corrected, letting flame drip form her maw. "Do I look like some fattened, waddling beast to you?"

"Ah, I apologise unreservedly," Geoffrey said. "No offense was intended. I stand corrected. You are just so magnificent that you seem all the larger to me."

Before she could reply to his pleasing yet shameless flattery he continued his speech.

"Which indicates the likelihood that you either have your own herds in some secret valley in the hills, or that you import food via the villages. The relative wealth of local villages and the roaring trade in second-hand armour and weapons would seem to indicate the later. Perhaps both."

He looked her in the eye. "Am I correct?"

She growled at him. "Yes. But how exactly will you being an annoying know-it-all stop me eating you right here and now? Oh, and two minutes have now expired."

He squeaked, and then looked around at her shed scales and at the piles of loot. "Yes, well, it’s very simple—I propose we form our own corporation which will benefit everybody in Astelon. With my ingenious business plan I am positive that you will see the benefits of partnership."

He looked down at the remains of the dragon slayers. "Well, maybe not everybody benefits. But then Astelon has never been known for its dragon slayers."

"And just what do you think about these slayers," she said, toying with him by blowing smoke and flame towards him. "Sympathy for your fellow man?"

"No, no, not at all," he blustered. "I was most impressed with the way you dealt with those hunters from Estadol. I’d always imagined that their magical protections and wards against dragonfire would result in an epic battle of spear and sword against claw. As I was saying, I estimate that with my plans here I can treble your profit marg—"

"Impressed you say?"

He coughed. "Ah, well, I hadn’t actually considered the benefits to a dragon living in a cave system where the limited space and restricted ventilation could result in an entire company of hunters choking to death from smoke and fumes." He eyed the Cleric’s torn robes on the ground and looked like he wanted to throw up. "Well, most of a company dying from smoke. Clerics do tend to bring up the rear."

Her rumbling laughter echoed through the cavern.

Geoffrey smiled, shook his head. "Genius. There are no wards against smoke and fumes. I had wondered why you hadn’t built your lair atop inaccessible mountains. I mean, how exactly could a fully armoured knight get up there never mind try to slay you? Dragons can fly after all, so it would make sense to me. In any case, as I was saying, my ten-year business plan will show you increased productivity by—"

“Perhaps you felt that a bloated—” she let smoke and flame burst from her maw, “—fifty-tonne dragon such as myself could not possibly fly so high and had to crawl into a cave?” She chomped down on one of the human corpses, crunching noisily. Flame dripped from her maw amidst a rain of blood.

He swallowed, wiped his forehead with a sleeve. “I…I am sorry, I did not mean to say that—”

She spat out bones at his feet, and then she stared at him until he flinched and looked away. “Fifty tonnes…” she hissed, voice low and dripping with malice. The malice was entirely spurious—not that a human could ever tell the difference on a dragon’s face or tongue; they were such crude, blunt creatures. She found it amusing to toy with him. “I would strongly suggest you refrain from any more insults, little mouse.”

His head jerked up and down so quickly that she thought his brittle little neck might snap. A purr of amusement rumbled in her throat. Her eyes narrowed with malicious glee. “So, are you done with your proposal yet?"

He jumped, suddenly realised how much of his precious time had just been wasted. "Sorry. I was just…I meant…” he took a deep, calming breath and then cleared his throat. “To get back to business, I am not sure if you are aware, but Astelon has never had good relations with the larger kingdoms of Estadol and Brandell. Border skirmishes and raids into Astelon are all too common, and our army is woefully underequipped and overstretched.”

A twinkle appeared in his eye. "Which is where we economists come in. We cannot win militarily so we must seek to dominate economically. I feel that dragonomics is the answer to both of our problems.” He looked around at the bones and piles of equipment. "I’m sure that Astelon’s king would not take it amiss if these foreign dragon slaying companies were to come back empty-handed, or even better, not at all. Each dragon they slay boosts their economies. And of course, they kill your kind to make their gold."

Dragonfire dripped, sizzling to the stone from bared fangs. "I am listening. But best be quick."

"I know that you must have some sort of agreement in place with the peasants hereabouts, but with my help this can become big business—maximized profits and minimized expenses. Think of it—advanced warning for yourself, disinformation, perhaps even some subtle assistance. It can’t be too hard to serve the dragon hunters tainted food, so that they get the squats. The services of Astelon wizards could also be arranged if you would like; I know of several wizards that specialize in dispelling and protection wards who would be agreeable for the opportunity to earn some extra gold. I’m sure you would find them most helpful."

She winced, remembering the times when lightning bolts had shrieked through her body.

"And for what?" Geoffrey continued. "Merely a fifty-percent share of all profits from thwarting your killers and the sale of recovered materials. In return you would allow me to arrange the distribution and sale of anything you would be willing to spare: any scales you shed, fire-resistant spit or dragonfire you feel like selling. There is also a market for dragon urine in the Bright Isles. I understand that they use it as an aphrodisiac. The gold will flow in! We will be rich."

She hissed at him.

"No, no. It will be a good thing for you." he said, holding his hands up. "I promise. It could eventually mean the end of humans hating and hunting your kind. Dragons would become a valuable and sustainable resource." He gave her a sly look, "assuming of course that we keep dragons well-fed and supplied with anything and everything that you need."

He frowned, as if something just occurred to him. "Of course, you would all have to swear off eating people who were not trying to kill you. Or ravaging herds without paying the farmers. With my genius at the helm we could even expand this out on a lucrative franchise basis."

He set down his business plan and held out his hand to her. “I know what you are going to say, Annemarie. It is true! You will be richer and more successful than in your wildest dreams!” His eyes almost glowed with avarice.

“Your three minutes are up,” she said. There was a crunch of cartilage as her jaws snapped shut on his bare arm, then she drew her head back, stripping the flesh from his arm, much like a Cleric eating a shish-kebab.

“Bland,” she mumbled, swallowing. Her sire would have lectured her about talking with her mouth full, but then he was far from here, and she was not amongst polite company. The economist stared in dumb horror as the bloody bones of his arm flopped to his side, hanging by shreds of flesh and tendon. He drew breath to scream, mouth gaping.

Her paw slammed down, crushing him to the stone. With one claw she cut the clothes from his flesh and then swallowed him whole.

“Keep me as fattened, dumb cattle would you?” she said, licking blood from her maw. “You forgot one thing—nobody likes a smug banker. Besides, I did say you had three minutes before I ate you up. Should have listened to the small details more closely.”

She stretched dainty claws out and carefully picked up the pages of vellum, holding them up to her eyes. Such tiny writing. She looked over his business plan and found it very well thought out. She burped, tasted economist again. "Consider me convinced." She settled down to read it all thoroughly.

Some time later the clatter of cart wheels outside the caves announced the arrival of the human village elder, Gunther. He shuffled in and knelt on the stone, head bowed. “Oh mighty and beautiful Annmarie. Would now be a good time to clean up and take the goods to market?”

That economist, whatever his name had been—she’d forgotten already—had actually stumbled upon something intriguing. Of course, he’d had entirely the wrong idea of who would be in charge. He really should have studied dragons more thoroughly; if he had, then he might have realised that almost all dragons had great pride and a burning need for independence.

Now that the middle-man was out of the way…“Gunther,” she said. “It is time we had a long talk about economics. with my genius, I have come up with a few new ideas to increase profit margins.” The business plan called for a motivated and loyal workforce however—“With great generosity I am offering the villagers five percent of all profits…”

His eyes brimmed over with tears of joy.

Head Games

Orginally published by Swords and Sorcery Magazine

* * *

Seven corpses lined the side of the alley, heaped atop pig shit and kitchen slops. Stained blankets did little to conceal the lumps of butchered human meat beneath. A black-clad warden wearing the red sash of a captain stood in the middle of the bloody mess, his back to me, hand resting on the pommel of the sword at his waist. I pried the bent rollup from my lips and yawned tabac smoke, scratching at my chin, bristles rasping. They had hauled me out of a warm bed and sent me trudging halfway across the bloody city for this?

I tched. Seven was a quiet night for the Warrens—it was called the cess-pit of Setharis for a damn good reason. I stuck the rollup back between my teeth and picked my way forward, shards of pottery crunching underfoot, decaying tenements groaning and creaking on either side. Why had the Arcanum ordered their loathed tyrant to a murder scene? None of those oh-so-worthy magi, poncing about in silken robes, were comfortable with the idea that I could use my Gift to get into their heads. But I had to do as the Inner Circle demanded, unless I felt like being back out on the streets opening my veins for mageblood addicts to get high on a touch of magic—or worse, I could start using my Gift too much.

The warden turned, scowled. My mood plummeted. "Walker,” he spat. "Of all magi, why did they have to send you?" Captain Matthias Meldrum of the city wardens regarded me with that familiar mix of contempt and utter disgust he reserved solely for me. Considering he was in the scummiest part of Setharis and ankle-deep in a pile of human intestines and grey-green offal, I thought it a little unfair. His moustache was trimmed and waxed in the very latest fashion, but for once he wasn’t wearing his dress uniform all edged in gold thread, instead plain black tunic and trousers.

"Guess you’ve pissed somebody off," I said in a cloud of smoke. "Good to see you too, Meldrum.” Pompous prick.

Opposite the corpses, a hole gaped in the tenement wall. As I studied the scene Meldrum studied me, hand twitching around the hilt of his sword. Worrying, that. I peered through the crumbled hole into a flooded cellar.

A pair of ashen-faced wardens carrying wicker baskets filled with glistening organs hailed themselves up from the gloom and slopped the contents out into the alley, looking ready to empty their guts too.

"You are a waste of time, Walker," Meldrum said. "I called for a seer. What use is a sot like you?”

I grinned, pointed to his shiny new boots. "You have a kidney on your foot. You’re welcome."

He grimaced, shook it off.

"You called for a magus," I said, spreading my arms wide. "Now you have a magus."

He groaned and lifted a bloodstained glove to massage his temples, leaving streaks. Ha! Still, at least he’d deigned get his own precious hands dirty down amongst filthy peasants.

I was a Docklander and these were my folk, every last filthy, thieving, one of them. It might be my home, but I didn’t really belong any more. Here or anywhere else. Still…somebody had to give a rat’s arse about them, and nobody else was going to. "What have you found?"

Meldrum sighed, moving from corpse to corpse peeling back cloth. "Seven men, butchered." He’d done his best at putting them back together, but bits were clearly missing—an arm here, a foot there, internal organs, an entire torso. However, I noted no heads had been taken.

"When were they found?”

"The doorway to this cellar collapsed a week ago. Somebody finally got around to reporting the bodies to my men last night. All I can say with certainty is that they have been in there for more than seven days."

It was a strange answer. Meldrum was precise and methodical, and far more knowledgeable about how long somebody had been rotting than the likes of me. There had to be a good reason he had asked the Arcanum to send a magus.

"What do you expect me to do about a few poxy murders?” I asked. “I’m no thief-taker.” I wasn’t allowed to rifle through people’s minds without high-level authorisation, and all I could do otherwise was produce a waft of air or a few feeble sparks of flame.

He ground his teeth. "There is no natural decay."

Ah. I blinked. He was right—the air was free of the stink of rotting flesh. The victims looked as if they’d been killed only a few moments ago: no bloated and rat-gnawed flesh or swarms of fat black flies dancing from corpse to corpse.

I swallowed, mouth gone dry, then opened up my Gift. Magic quivered like illicit orgasm through my flesh, washing away any trace of hangover, tempting me with power and pleasure. I forced myself to set aside magic’s seductions. I didn’t want to end up warped and twisted like that poor wretch of a pyromancer the Arcanum had put down last week. He had lost control of his emotions and let his magic run unchecked. By the time they got to him it was far too late: his Gift had torn and magic flooded through to warp mind and flesh. With inhuman logic it had begun moulding his body into a better host for the Worm of Magic, that fucking parasite that tempted us every time we opened ourselves up. For the Gifted, using magic was easy, but surviving was hard.

I knelt down and pressed my hand to one man’s forehead, ignoring the glassy stare. The skin felt waxy and lukewarm but that didn’t bother me; any child of Docklands grew up with uncle death and auntie murder. I didn’t have to touch the corpse to use my power; I just didn’t want anybody to know that. I wasn’t trusted as it was. I probed deeper.

Nausea roared through me. I lurched to my feet, spun to Meldrum, clutched his arm and doubled over dry-retching.

"Another late night with too much ale, magus?" Meldrum said, every ounce of personal distaste forced into one little word.

I spat gunk, then looked up, taking a deep calming breath. “Yes, as it happens," I said. "But that’s not why. Meldrum, I…the victims…they’re not dead."

His brow furrowed, eyes flicking between me and the dismembered bodies like I was cracked. "Of course they are.”

"The decay, man! There is none because they’re not dead. Not fully.”

A horrified look stole over him. "Do they still feel? Are they aware?"

I shook my head. "No. That I’m sure of. Feels more like…" How to explain it to a mundane? "They seem to be frozen mid-death. They’re not quite dead, but bloody-well not alive either."

He shuddered, closing his eyes for a moment. "Scant mercy. What else?"

It seemed I’d been the perfect choice for this task. And here I had thought myself the last magus they would ever entrust with official Arcanum work. Ancient tales of hoary old tyrants still lurked in people’s nightmares.

As the bodies were not quite dead, with a bit of luck their minds might still be readable. I crouched down and pressed a finger to the man’s forehead, trying to ignore the stink of corrupt magic. I had never encountered something so foul, but I recognised the source; every magus was trained to.

"Blood sorcery," I whispered.

"Damn,” Meldrum said. “Burn it all, that is the last thing I need."

The first victim’s mind was like glass, my probes unable to find much purchase. It was usually a simple task to read mundanes, like netting fish of thoughts. I carefully felt my way in. His mind was frozen, a record of his last moments. A woman’s skin, soft under his hands. Lust. Confusion. Fear. Pain. A glimpse of her face, twisted in dark ecstasy.

The others yielded similarly rotten fruit.

I straightened up, back killing me. The two sick-looking wardens eyed me warily, as if I were a venomous snake reared to strike. I pulled a silver coin from my sleeve and flicked it out into their snatching hands. "Go get a drink, lads. Be back in half an hour." They couldn’t wait to get out of this abattoir.

Meldrum waited until they were out of earshot. "How much will this hurt, Walker?"

I chewed on my lip, looked him right in the eye. “Do you want justice, or to keep your arse out of the fire?"

"So, it is like that. Nobility or Arcanum?"

"Nobility.” The lesser of two disastrous options. Not that the two weren’t intertwined in some weird sexual union, each trying to shaft the other.

He broke eye contact, mulling it over while staring at the seven dismembered men. He sighed. "Justice."

I hated to admit it, but his answer didn’t surprise me. “Lady Ilea, head of High House Graske.”

He rubbed his forehead and I could almost feel his headache beginning. "Damn and blast," he said, echoing my own feelings on the matter, but with less odious bodily functions and rabid animals. He considered me gutter-scum, but knew me well enough to realise I wasn’t joking.

We stood in silent dread until the two wardens returned to keep an eye on the alley, then hastily made our way up the hill and through the gatehouse to the Old Town.

Meldrum insisted on stopping at his barracks to wash and change before daring to darken the doorways of a High House. He was right, but that didn’t stop me bitching about it—Ilea had murdered seven men, so I wasn’t inclined to be polite; I would have happily trailed chunks of congealed corpse and chicken shit through their halls. Still, Meldrum had enough clout to make life difficult for me if I didn’t do things his way.

I scratched at the starched collar of my borrowed shirt, feeling out of place in the pure white linen and high-necked grey warden jacket he’d foisted on me. Meldrum’s formal uniform was all pressed and crisp, oiled black leather boots and brass buttons sparkling even on a dingy afternoon. I got into the right mindset for my role as official lackey: chest puffed out, deliberate movements, cold eyes and colder hearts, and not one iota of imagination. I snapped off a crisp salute. "Ready, Sir!"

He scowled, then smoothed out his moustache, checked and re-sheathed the sword at his hip. He insisted on doing this on the low-down, all quiet and subtle instead of men charging into the seat of High House and detaining everybody. I had thought Meldrum was having apoplexy when I suggested it. Instead we would first have a quiet word with the head of the house, Lady Ilea. It was almost like he didn’t entirely trust me…

We made our way west along wide streets lined with marble columns and ornate facades. As we drew closer to our destination the buildings grew older, grimmer, the ornate palaces of the merely rich giving way to the older, brooding fortresses of the High Houses. Finally we reached the immaculate gardens surrounding House Grakse.

Rumour held that beneath the ancient five-story house of black basalt secret tunnels burrowed deep into the rock. As a child I had once been trapped in the catacombs below the city. I shuddered on the inside, hoping that no trace of my fear made its way out onto my mask of official lackey. I stamped down old terrors and focused on the building ahead. Pitted gargoyles leered down from the spires and buttresses, drooling rainwater, not at all sinister.

"So what’s the dirt on Graske?" I said, voice sounding surprisingly calm as we marched to great iron-bound doorway. “I know Lady Ilea recently became head of the house. Don’t know much else about her. We don’t exactly move in the same rarefied circles.”

Meldrum was fidgeting and starting to sweat. The prospect of arresting the head of High House could do that to you. "Lady Ilea is mageborn,” he said. “Some small talent with healing magics, but not Gifted enough for entry to the Arcanum. Otherwise she was the perfect child. Perhaps too perfect. There have been unpleasant whispers, but until now I had thought them to be the usual nonsense spread by circling sharks looking to marry into money and position, however diminished.” Even I knew that Graske’s power and influence had crumbled. Still, the old Houses would close ranks to crush everything that disrespected their names.

I couldn’t care less for dirty politics between nobles and mages, but with the Lord of a High House dying gossip was everywhere. The simple truth was that even mages a damn sight more powerful than me could trip and break their necks falling down stairs. It was stupid and it was humbling, so of course people invented vile conspiracies. If blood sorcery hadn’t been involved I would not even have considered the official route. There were ways and means to fix such thorny problems, and I was more dangerous than the Arcanum could ever know.

Meldrum was out of his depth, treading dangerous, shark-infested waters, and he knew it. Only stubborn pride kept him moving forward. He was nervous and fearful when he needed to be focused, angry even. I was good at making people angry. "All I remember about Ilea,” I said, “is that she had a nice arse.”

He spun, stabbed a finger at me. "Do not piss me about, Walker. If you let your vile tongue run free in there, they will have your head on a spike. And I will help them. You will keep your mouth shut and follow my lead. Are we clear?"

I lifted my hands, mimicked offense. "Me? I’m the very definition of respectable. I’m shocked you would even imply such boorish behaviour." His eyes narrowed and I rolled mine. "Fine."

He shot me silent threat as we reached the door. He thumped a expensive brass door knocker that had the face of a constipated lion. I slipped in line behind him, looking all dangerous and professional-like.

A dull-eyed maidservant opened the door. She looked at us without visible emotion, body language telling me nothing, which—after recent exertions—made my Gift itch to crack open her mind. I didn’t like not being able to read people. But that way was a slippery slope: if now, then why not next time; why not a little mental adjustment here and there, just small things…at first…until soon it would be difficult, maybe even impossible to stop. That way led madness, addiction, and death. Or worse.

"Captain Meldrum of the Wardens," he said. "We are here to see Lady Ilea Graske on official business."

The maidservant ushered us in to an opulent reception hall. At the far wall a swordsman in chain hauberk and fancy red cloak stood guard by a door, his back straight, eyes fixed, unmoving as any statue. The nobility lived in another world from me, all marble columns, imported Ahramish rugs, and servants arranged like furniture. Any one of the tapestries or paintings that adorned these walls could have fed an entire Docklands tenement for their whole damn lives. The maidservant shuffled through the guarded doorway.

The guard barely seemed alive he was so still. I leant in close to Meldrum. "Don’t these folk seem a bit off to you?" He glared at me. I shut up. Tempting as it was to open up my Gift and search for signs of blood sorcery, this was a High House and they always had sniffers employed to sense any use of magic—better to keep that particular loaded dice up my sleeve.

Eventually Ilea herself appeared in the doorway, tall and willowy, wearing a green silk dress that complimented long glossy red hair. Her eyes had dark circles below them that powders did little to hide, and she had that sort of exhausted look common to people with tortured consciences, of people with something to hide. Much like myself. Nor did she have young children running her ragged day and night.

"My Lady Ilea," Meldum said in his best courtly voice, lacking all the harsh tones he reserved for me; not that I blamed him—it was my fault he felt that way, even though he couldn’t remember why. He bowed to her. I followed suit in a clumsy attempt at etiquette.

"Captain Meldrum," she replied, a vague smile on her lips, her eyes a touch too wide and staring. "It has been too long since we last danced. Lady Barton’s ball I believe. To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?" She ignored me utterly. I was just part of the furniture.

Meldrum cleared his throat, glancing at the swordsman. "My lady, perhaps we should discuss this in private." Something flickered behind her gaze, too quick to catch. Fear? Excitement?

She led us past the silent, motionless guard, through the door and down a hallway. The building was deserted when it should have been bustling with servants. She stopped at a heavy iron-bound door and fitted a key into the lock. “I must pay my respects to my dear father and then I will do whatever you require.” Meldrum nodded stiffly.

The door swung open to reveal a room with a stone staircase in the centre spiralling down into darkness. I swallowed, not liking it one bit. She waved Meldrum through. I glared a warning at him but the idiot didn’t even think twice, courtly politeness requiring him to accept her invitation. The fool definitely did not trust my words. Me, I trusted nobility about as much as feral dogs. There was no way I would risk her slamming the door behind me, locking us in hated darkness.

"After you, my lady," I said, holding back the heavy door. She lifted a flickering lantern from a wall hook and stepped past me, a beguiling floral scent in her wake. I wedged a coin between door and jamb to keep it open, and then followed her in. She led us down winding stairs. Down and down, further than I had thought, further than I had feared. The stairs finally opened out into a large cavern hewn from the black rock below Old Town. Lanterns and glow-gems on stands cast small circles of light to dull my terror. Even so, I was starting to sweat at the thought of a mountain of rock pressing down on me. My armoury of coping tactics did little to calm me.

The crypt was old and vast, hundreds of elaborate urns containing the ashes of her ancestors lining the walls. Every magus was destined to burn. Magic filled us, in flesh, blood, and bone and it could live on after death. Either that or end up sold by black traders of bone and blood. Ilea walked deeper into the darkness. An uneasiness washed through me—a hint of magic in use.

The clink of a coin tumbling down the stairwell caused me to look back—just in time to hear the echoing boom of the heavy door slamming shut. I knew it would be locked. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

Ilea approached a high-backed wooden throne becoming visible in her lantern-light. "They have come," she said. "Just as I said they might, Father."

I shot Meldrum a glance. "Father? I thought—" His horrified expression caused my eyes to snap forward. Ilea knelt down by the side of the chair. A naked man sat there, his mismatched body covered in a patchwork of neatly stitched wounds. The limbs and torso were smooth with youth whereas the aged and stern face was framed by straggly grey hair. She stared up at him with adoring eyes. His hand lifted to stroke her cheek.

Oh. Cockrot.

Lord Graske’s eyelids slid back, revealing pits of septic green light. Unbound magic churned in the empty sockets.

Meldrum gagged. "Dear gods, she must have bribed a Keeper to look away while she stole the head. They cremated a headless corpse."

She smiled. "Arranged at tremendous expense, but gold holds no lustre without my beloved father at my side."

She had used blood sorcery and dark rituals to build him a new body, but it was not her father anymore, nor was it even human; it was merely a revenant host for the Worm of Magic, a puppet on magical strings going through the motions of memory. It took all the willpower I had not to piss myself and run off screaming.

I opened my Gift wide, drawing in power. A miasma of magical corruption filled the room like a palpable entity, a rotting thing with writhing tendrils of despair. The was that it wasn’t an alien thing, but darkness born of all too human loss and pain. It forcing needles of pain into my Gifted mind. The urge to vomit slid up my throat. My guts churned, body screaming danger even as the Worm of Magic whispered salvation if only I would just give in.

I struggled to focus on Ilea. “How many have you murdered for that thing?” I said, voice cracking.

She shrugged. “Their weak flesh wears out so very quickly. The servants were not enough, so I procured more in Docklands. What does it matter, nobody will miss their sort.” She looked at me, eyes feverish, smile crazed. "Father needs flesh. He says that yours should last longer.”

My mental feelers reached out. Her thoughts crawled with the corruptions of blood sorcery. Its dark influence writhed between her and the revenant along an umbilical of magic, an old connection put in place long before Lord Graske’s death.

"Such a dutiful daughter," The revenant croaked, stroking her head with a jerking hand.

"You shall not take him from me." She hissed, pulling a small knife from a hidden sheathe somewhere inside her dress. Thick milky fluid glistened along the edge. Poison.

I growled. "Beyond twisted." I gathered my power and punched into her mind. It wasn’t difficult; her resistance to outside influence was already corroded away to nothing. She slumped down unconscious. Her lantern clattered to the floor, flickering fitfully, light dimming.

Meldrum drew his sword. He darted forward without hesitation, blade arcing towards the revenant’s head.

It surged upright, eyes flaring, arm lifting to block the blow. Meldrum’s blade hacked down, leaving a bloodless wound and the limb hanging by shreds of muscle and skin. It ignored the damage and leapt at him, yellowed teeth going for his throat. The revenant slammed into him, knocking him to the floor. They rolled, the revenant coming up on top. Somehow Meldrum managed to get his sword between the thing’s jaws. Teeth squealed along steel as he held it back from his face with blind panic more than skill.

I swallowed my fear and charged. The thing was patchwork mishmash, held together by little more than stitches; I hoped. My boot slammed into its head. Pain lanced through my foot. It didn’t fly off as I’d hoped, but the revenant did roll aside. Its eyes locked onto my own and a whirlpool of despair sucked me into abyssal gaze.

The dark closed in, tonnes of rock, crushing terror. My grip on magic slipped, the pillars of control cracked and beginning to crumble. I sagged, shaking with the effort of keeping my Gift from tearing open.

Gods burn it; I wasn’t a terrified child anymore! I refused to succumb to blind gibbering fear. I was piss-poor at vulgar magic. I gritted my teeth and forced my magic into tortured, unnatural forms, howling as I channelled a gust of elemental air. The lantern skidded across the floor into the thing’s face. Then came elemental fire—distilled pain—roaring through me into the wick, as much as I could take. Fire flared up to engulf the abomination, for a second, before the strain broke my control. I staggered back clutching my head, after-effects exploding in my mind. The revenant hissed, rising to its feet, hair and stitches alight, skin charring. It fixed churning pits of mindless hate on me and leapt.

Oh sh—

Meldrum’s sword flashed, crunched through vertebrae below its skull. The flaming body crumpled to the floor. The head, still horribly alive, bounced, once, twice, and came to a stop facing us, mouthing obscenities.

We paused for breath, exchanging looks in the dim light. "Be my guest," I gasped between pants of pain. The body twitched, starting to rise again.

I looked away and moments later came the crunch of sword through skull. Two dozen blows to make sure. By the time I looked back, all that was left of the late Lord Graske was smeared across the floor. The body didn’t move again, but with the head gone fluids started gushing from the wounds like a burst wineskin

Meldrum cursed, words more commonly heard in Docklands taverns. I hadn’t known he’d had that in him.

"The High Houses will be in an uproar," he said. "Not to mention the Arcanum." He snarled, punching Lord Graske’s throne over. "They will be furious. By evening this scandal will be all over the city." He looked down at Ilea. "The trial alone will be a nightmare. But Justice has to be done."

I couldn’t have that, couldn’t afford to make enemies of the High Houses. While on the surface they’d back our actions, we would still have sullied their good name, and that kind of thing was not forgotten or forgiven. Normally I would be cheering him on, more than willing to see all those vaunted names dragged through shit, but Meldrum, for all his faults, wasn’t a complete bastard. He didn’t deserve the shitstorm coming his way. More importantly, I was too involved this time. Some of that storm would be coming my way and I was already on my last legs as far as the Arcanum was concerned. No, it was better for everybody if this situation just went away.

I reached for Meldrum’s arm. He knew what I was and what I could do. He swayed out of reach and the point of his sword lifted towards my face. "What are you—"

But I didn’t need to touch him. His eyes glazed over as I slipped into his mind like I was fitting on an old glove; it was far from first time I had done this after all. The first time I had been young, just getting to grips with my power, and I messed it up, left fragments behind in a cack-handed attempt to cover my trail. No wonder the sight of me roused his ire—part of his subconscious still knew that I was dangerous, and even though those memories had been altered or scrubbed out I couldn’t seem to get rid of it all.

What to do with Ilea? Five days from now she could experience an overwhelming urge to jump from the tallest window. Her mind was probably too far gone, ruined by blood sorcery. A mercy, surely.

It would have been so easy. If only she hadn’t been yet another victim, one of her father’s making. I cursed and went to work on Ilea and Meldrum: adjusting memories, weaving a new narrative, something believable and innocuous. This was exactly the sort of thing that other mages feared, and why the Arcanum watched me for any misstep. Luckily they all thought I was just a wastrel and a drunk. I appeared to be as far from those tyrants of legend as was possible. It kept me alive.

Lord Graske was dead and gone, had been since the cremation. No blood sorcery or revenants. All we were doing was returning a stolen brooch that Meldrum found on one of the corpses and had identified as Ilea’s. Nothing worthy of any real examination, in fact everybody would actively avoid dwelling on it.

Meldrum didn’t pose much of a problem, but locking away Ilea’s memories of the murders and cutting away the corruption took longer than I feared. Her father’s deeply ingrained and twisted compulsions proved especially tenacious. By the time it was finished I was drenched in sweat and teetering on the edge of losing control. Even with this there was no guarantee she would ever be entirely sane. I would have to keep an eye on her.

I was taking no chances with her father. I opened an old sarcophagus and tossed all the body parts in, then took a spare oil lantern from the wall and torched the lot. When the flames died away I slid the stone lid back into place. Nobody would ever find his remains.

Ilea led us out, all a-daze.

At the front door she blinked and came back to herself, smiled and held out a hand for Meldrum to kiss. "I find myself very glad that you were on duty, my good Sir," she said. “Thank you for returning my brooch.”

Meldrum kissed her hand and then we were off, heading back down into the lower city. He turned a suspicious eye on me. "I knew you’d be useless. We have not found any leads on these murders." He noticed me shaking and sweating, and turned away in disgust. "Away and crawl back into your ale-cup. Why they sent you I shall never know." He snorted and strode off.

Why indeed. A sick sense of dread oozed over me. Who would send an uncouth wastrel like me when Meldrum had asked for a seer to tease answers from the stones? I didn’t think it blind chance. Somebody high up had been on to Ilea. But was that somebody also on to me? I decided to take Meldrum’s advice and head off in search of a drink. The stronger the better.

The Shadow Under Scotland

Orginally published by The Lovecraft eZine

* * *

Morag rammed her dirk into the tabletop and rose to glower down at the wiry old man in highland plaid opposite. His bushy beard quivered with anger, hand dropping to the basket-hilted broadsword at his hip.

In the sudden silence a burning log cracked and shifted in the fireplace, spraying a cloud of sparks out into the Gloaming Inn’s front room.

Her calloused hand slammed down and she leaned forward to look him in the eye. Weather-beaten and hardened by toil, she was well used to handling her unruly flock, and bending this skinny old fool over her knee would pose no problem. "You’re a lying swine, Ewan MacDonald," she said. "And if you draw that sword I’ll take it off you and spank you with it. Still sore I wouldn’t marry you eh?"

He scowled, hand switching to adjust his plaids. The length of finest wool wrapped around his waist and pinned over his shoulder had been enough to suit the barrel-chested Ewan of thirty years ago, but now it just made the old fool seem lost amongst all that cloth.

"I don’t have your damned sheep, you thieving slattern,” he roared, spittle flying. “And just where have my cows gone? You tell me that! Did the faeries spirit them away during yesterday’s storm? I might be old, but I’ll be damned if I let an ugly old boot of a woman talk to me this way. I must have been mad to consider you."

Just as it seemed likely they would come to blows, from behind the bar Big John the innkeeper noisily cleared his throat. The hulking bald man stared at the knife buried in his table. "Are you going to pay for that then, Morag?"

She flushed, shot a smug-faced Ewan a look of distilled death, then wrenched the dirk from the wood. "Aye, I will."

Big John glowered at them both like they were unruly children. "If you are going to have a stramash then you take it outside. I won’t be clearing up blood and teeth; I can tell you that for—"

The front door slammed open.

Chill evening air gusted in as Calum Cameron staggered through, scarred face white as a sheet, a blood-drenched young Bessie Stewart looking as lifeless as a rag doll in his arms.

Morag gasped. “Lay the lass down on the table.” Calum set her down and she checked the girl’s pulse while he slumped down into a chair, panting for breath.

Big John reached under his counter, pulled out a cup and bottle of whisky, then limped over, wincing with ever step, to set it down in front of Calum and pour out a big dram.

Calum gulped the alcohol down in a single swallow, coughing as it burned a trail down his throat. "I was visiting my mam’s grave up at the auld kirk," he said. "Found Bessie atop what was left of St Columba’s cross. It must have cracked and fallen during yesterday’s storm. There’s…blood all over the churchyard.” He fished out a red knotted cord from beneath his shirt, his mother’s old charm against the evil eye. He held onto it for dear life and crossed himself for good measure.

Morag loosened the thong around Bessie’s neck that held a cheap iron cross. She pressed an ear to the girl’s chest, then checked her all over. “Not a scratch on her. Just fainted is all.”

Calum loosed a shuddering sigh. “Thank the Lord for that. I saw all that blood and thought the worst.”

Ewan put a hand on Calum’s shoulder. “What the devil happened up there?”

Calum shook his head. “If it’s not the girl’s blood, then what about the priest?” His eyes widened. “Wait, didn’t the lass birth a wee babe just two months back? She’d surely not have left him behind.”

Big John shivered. “You don’t think—”

“Don’t say it man,” Morag interrupted. “Not until we know one way or the other.”

A grim mood descended. Calum stood, charm still clutched in shaking hand. “Best we head on up there then. John, I never thought I’d have to say this, but…" He stared longingly at the bottle of whisky.

"I need my sword back."

Big John limped over to the back wall, unlocked the store room and began rummaging about inside. A minute later he came back with a long oilcloth bundle, dumped it down and cut the twine to reveal two basket-hilted broadswords in battered leather sheathes.

Calum slipped his hand into the steel guard of one of the broadswords, drew it and held it up to the light. He took a few practice swings. His arm seemed to remember the ways to kill a man all too easily. He stared at his old sword with obvious mixed feelings. Morag knew more than one man had died on that blade when the village men had signed up to fight the Border Reivers. That could not be an easy thing to face again.

Ewan drew his own sword, trying to look like he knew what he was doing, and failing. He licked his lips nervously. “Well, laddie, best we head off before night falls.”

Morag picked up the second sword. It felt lighter in her hand than killing steel had any right to be. She threw a few practice cuts, succeeding in putting Ewan to shame. Her late husband had been a fierce swordsman, before the pox claimed him. “Big John’s gout is flaring up,” she said. “So he can stay back and look after Bessie. You’ll not be going up there without me.”

She stared defiantly at Ewan as he opened his mouth to object. Then he closed it, shrugged, and said, “Aye, I expect we won’t.

“Best bar the doors until we get back,” she said.

Big John leant back behind his counter and pulled out an iron-bound club. “Nobody will be getting past me. You be taking care of yourself now.”

She snorted. “Any robber that lays a hand of me will find himself a gelding.”

The auld kirk that crouched atop the peak of the hill had been there longer than anybody knew, far longer than the village. It was a squat, ugly building, its insides carved all over with ancient images worn away to near-illegibility. The new priest, Father Ainsley, had been getting Bessie to sweep the place out and lay fresh heather every week before services, and lately it had seemed to lose some of its ill-favoured aspect. By the time they had climbed high enough to see it silhouetted against the dusky sky, Ewan was red-faced and puffing. The moon was full, yellow-tinged like old wax, and twilight gifted the purple heathered hills an otherworldly air.

The crosspiece of the old Celtic cross lay flat on the grass, splintered stump still jutting from blackened earth. Local legend said that the cross had been carved by St Columba’s own two hands just before he’d headed off up the great glen and down the river Ness to rebuke the loathsome beast o’the loch. The grass was charred in a circle five paces wide around the fallen cross.

"Lightning maybe," Ewan said.

A squealing noise from inside the old church. They spun, blades lifting, and crept towards the kirk. A feeling of being watched raised goose bumps on Morag’s arms, but the hill was deserted, just wind, grass, sheep droppings, and withered gorse bush for company. The old oak door was splintered and hanging from a single hinge. It squealed with each gust of wind. But that wasn’t the relief it should have been—dried blood and stinking gobbets of flesh had spattered across the doorway.

The hall had been ripped apart. Pews lay in splintered piles, crosses broken, cushions torn and bleeding feathers. Shredded brown-stained pages of the holy bible swirled in the breeze like a flock of carrion birds over pools of gore. The church silver lay untouched—and unstolen—in the ruins of the pulpit.

Morag crossed herself. "Who, or what, could have done this black deed?

“Wolves?" Ewan suggested, staring at the silver.

"The Devil’s work, so it is," Calum replied.

Morag pointed to a rust-red stain that smeared up the aisle to the altar stone tumbled onto its side, then disappeared down into a black space beneath.

“Looks like some sort of crypt,” Ewan said.

Morag found the church candles in an alcove behind the altar and recovered the priest’s flint and tinder box from the piles of debris. She sparked a fire, then handed them a fat candle each. They peered down into the gap. Narrow stone stairs descended into darkness, crudely cut from the solid rock beneath the kirk.

Calum edged away from the steps. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Ewan snorted. “Superstitious fool. A couple of starved brigands have taken root down there. Or a madman perhaps. I say we go down and flush them out."

"Fine," Calum said. "Don’t listen to me then." He stepped back, swung out an inviting arm. "Be my guest."

Ewan hesitated, but found himself caught by his own pride. He led the way as they descended in silence, step by careful step deep into the bones of the hill for what seemed like an age, the only sound the drip, drip, drip of water and the scuff of boot on stone. Niches hacked into the rock held grinning human skulls, but they quickly realised that the steps went far too deep for any crypt. Finally Ewan stumbled to a stop, the rhythm of descent broken by solid stone floor underfoot.

A moist warm breeze waxed and waned from somewhere ahead, caressing their faces like some sleeping giant’s breath. It reeked of stagnant pond choked with weed, one long since gone to mould and rot. Deeper darkness lurked beyond an archway carved all over with leering grotesque faces, each with a single staring eye where there should be two. Man-sized footprints crossed the dusty floor through the arch and then returned. A set of smaller prints made by bare feet followed the tracks.

Morag squatted down to examine the prints. "I’d say the smaller ones are more recent. A woman or a youngster.”

They moved onwards, finding themselves in a large natural cavern. Stalactites and stalagmites glistened in the candlelight, giving Morag the disquieting image of being inside some great beast’s maw. A pit gaped in the centre of the cavern, torn spider webs and trailing slimy moss shivering in the warm air that welled up from its black depths. Rubble and rotted wood circled the pit, and the rusted remnants of an iron grate lay off to one side.

Morag padded over. She carefully set down her candle and picked up a piece of carved stone the size of her hand. The dust around it was covered in boot prints. She ran her fingertips over the carvings, discovered bright edges from a fresh breakage.

"Looks like part of a cross," she said. "A smaller copy of St Columba’s above.”

A metallic glint from the stone caught Morag’s eye. She looked closer, scratched at the break with a dirty fingernail. "It has iron running through it. A queer sort of stone, this." She looked up to see Ewan and Calum staring at the walls beyond the pit.

The chamber’s walls had been carved and painted with a riot of symbols and images. Many were recognisably Christian but others seemed to be older pagan images and symbols. They hurt the eye, somehow seemed unsettling, unwholesome even. The Christian crosses overlaid the older cracked and faded images, and some areas of the wall had been gouged out entirely by hammer and chisel.

Morag dropped the fragment of cross, then ran her fingers down a series of lines incised into the wall. She’d seen old Pictish standing stones carved with similar lines and images—an ancient dead language some said. The paintings showed howling horse-headed kelpies dragging men below churning waters, and a sequence showed a dragon chasing down a group of people, then gulping them down its gullet. A stranger image still showed a one-eyed wizened crone climbing from, or into, a well with a pair of babies clutched in the crook of her skeletal arms.

“This is no damn crypt,” Calum hissed. “We’re in a faerie mound or a bloody pagan temple.”

“What rot,” Ewan said. “I grant its oddness, but that’s just peasant superstition. What else could it be?”

Calum barked a laugh. “Are you blind? It’s the old gods and the old ways. Look at the walls, man! This is where a cult tore out men’s hearts, and sacrificed babies to dread gods.”

Ewan sneered, opened his mouth to reply—

A shrill cry echoed up from the pit, drawing all eyes to the slick, dark hole.

“What was that?” Calum whispered.

The reek of rot washed up from the pit with the rhythmic exhalation of moist, warmer air. In the feeble candlelight the bottom was barely visible. It was no pit in truth, but the opening to another cave leading deeper still into the earth. They exchanged glances, then scanned the surrounding darkness.

A baby’s unmistakable cry wailed up from the depths.

"We can’t let the old stories scare us into believing in Bogles and Redcaps," Morag said. “And I know the lore as well as any." Her words said one thing but she suspected her pale face showed another. She sat, slipping her legs over the edge of the pit. "Lower me down.” She clamped the Broadsword between her teeth, freeing up her hands for Ewan and Calum to grab hold of. The men’s faces grew red with strain as they eased her down into the pit—she was no skinny little slip of a girl.

Her feet thumped down, snapping and crushing dry sticks beneath her. A horrid thought coalesced in her mind. "Give me a candle!"

She stretched up for the flickering candle, swallowed, and then looked down. Bones. She stood in a pile of animal bones. They’d all been stripped clean of flesh and cracked open to get at the marrow. "Found your cows, Ewan. My sheep too.” As she looked around she realised that there were far too many bones. Some still glistened with viscous fluids, but most were old and brittle.

She slipped. The candle fell, snuffed out, plunging her into darkness. Her heart thudded with sudden panic. She heard noises in the cave, bones shifting. “Quick! Give me another candle.”

"I’m coming," Calum said, sliding down. In an attempt to keep his candle and sword from dropping, he landed awkwardly and fell into the pile of bones. He lurched upright, panting, face beaded with sweat, swinging his sword to face every shadow cast by the flickering candles.

Something caught on her boot. She reached down, hissed, snatching her hand back. A human skull gaped at her, the side caved in. It was still slick with juices.

“Oh, Lord,” Calum said, staring.

"Calm yourself, laddie," she said. "Take a deep breath. We’ll not be leaving that poor wee lamb down here."

He took a deep shuddering breath. "I’ll not have a Macpherson say they’re braver than a Cameron!" he said, voice wavering with false bravado.

"You stay up there, Ewan," Morag said. "We’ll use your stupidly long plaids as a rope to climb out. Seems you did have a lick of sense about you after all."

Ewan blustered and moaned but faced by the practicalities there wasn’t much he could do about it. "Ach. Fine," he said. "You take care of her, Calum."

Calum grunted. Morag swore she could have almost heard him mutter that "The big ugly besom would be better taking care of me. Break an angry ram’s neck, so she would." She didn’t take offense. She’d never had a gaggle of men clamouring for her hand in marriage, and didn’t care one bit, but she did take pride in being as tough as old boots. She’d stare down a hungry wolf to protect her sheep, and stave the beast’s head in if she had to. And Calum Cameron knew that fine well.

His mouth twitched into a lopsided grin as lifted his sword in salute. "You coming?"

"Aye, I am,” she said. “You cheeky wee boy." Their joviality was forced, and dropped away as they picked their way down a narrow tunnel carpeted with bones, Calum having to stoop to avoid hitting his head. They followed the baby’s infrequent cries deeper into the cave, wincing with each clatter and crunch of bone underfoot. Darkness eventually gave way to a sickly green half-light, phosphoresce emanating from some sort of rotting mould that grew up the walls and clustered in crevices like burst boils weeping pus. The tunnel finally opening up, allowing Calum to stand straight.

An eerie melodious crooning whispered on the air, coming from just around the next bend in the cave. Morag exchanged glances with Calum, wondering if she looked as frightened as he did. A baby giggled, and that singsong voice began to trill a wordless melody of haunting beauty that resonated in the very depths of her soul. Other voices joined in chorus.

Morag’s eyelids drooped closed. She listened for what seemed like an age, praying for the song to never end. It called to her on some primal level, a lullaby warmth to sooth her aches and fears, and bear her aloft on half-forgotten dreams. As the song’s pitch rose, the melody quickened and some sixth sense—maybe a tough old boot of a shepherdess’ instinctive sense of danger to her flock—wrenched open her eyes. Calum’s eyes had glazed over, his jaw hung slack and his sword lay forgotten on the floor—beside her own. Both candles lay dead and cold on the stone. He jerked as the unseen voices hit a high note, his whole body spasmed, and then he darted forward.

Morag made a grab for his sleeve, but she was groggy from the effects of that strange song, and far too slow. He slipped past her, round the bend and out of sight. She lifted a hand to her forehead, finding herself burning up as she tried to blink away bleary vision. It was hard to see straight, hard to think. So tempting just to lie down and drift away into dreams…

She sucked in her cheek and bit down hard. Pain scoured away the mental fog.

She picked up her sword and ran after Calum as the song reached a crescendo. Then it cut off. She found herself at the entrance to a grand gallery with massive spikes of pulsing crystalline growths hanging from darkened heights. A luminescent lake filled the centre, hidden tides making the water slosh and gurgle. Hundreds of holes pitted every wall like she was inside some vast insect hive.

A handful of paces to the right, a baby started shrieking from a hollow carved into a great altar of black basalt. His soft pink flesh was slick with grey slime but otherwise blessedly unharmed. She started as the corner of her eye caught a glimpse of several large spindly shadows scuttling up the walls and into tunnels above.

Calum was on his knees at the feet of an emaciated, naked old woman. She bowed over him as if they were inexplicably kissing, faces hidden from view by the hag’s waist-length curtain of tangled white hair. The hag’s teats were shrivelled things against her protruding rib cage, but Calum’s hands groped with disturbing gusto. An eerie song emanated from the old crone, her gnarled hands lifting to cup his face with cracked yellowed fingernails more like talons.

"Calum!" Morag gasped.

The hag’s head lifted with a wet slurp, the ragged curtain of hair shifted aside. A single luminous golden eye leered out at her from the centre of the woman’s face. The crone straightened to her full height, Calum still on his knees, eyes closed, a look of sublime and complete joy on his face. Blood dribbled from a series of small puncture marks around his face.

The hair on the back of Morag’s neck rose. "What in God’s name are you?" Blood thumped in her ears as she advanced. "Get away from them, you foul creature."

The hag screeched, a feeling like a nail being driven into Morag’s skull, then leapt forward, hair flying back to reveal a horror of a face. Below that single great eye, the thing had a boneless sack of hide that opened out into a cone of quivering flesh studded with hundreds of tiny razor-teeth. Its maw looked like it could strip the flesh from a bone in seconds, and now it was spread to envelop Morag’s entire face.

Her broadsword whistled through the air. The thing’s flesh moved like water, flowing and sliding out of the way. It darted out of range quick as any fish. Morag realised her right arm stung. She glanced down to find red furrows raked in her flesh. Numbness spread from the wounds.

It crouched down on all fours, face hidden behind matted hair, tilting its head to study her, crooning softly. Morag’s head spun. The sword clattered to the floor, her arm gone limp. The creature cackled in an all too human way and something wormed itself into Morag’s mind, like cold fingers inside her skull. Adbertos?

She knew that old Celtic word: it meant a sacrifice.

Morag purposely wobbled on her feet, made her eyes glaze over to exaggerate the effects of its poison. The thing crabbed towards her and when she didn’t react it stretched that huge maw open, leaned forward.

With her other hand, Morag pulled her dirk from her belt and rammed the iron blade through the thing’s face-mouth. It squealed like a stuck pig, flesh hissing where iron touched flesh, then staggered back, pulling the blade from Morag’s hand.

"I’ll give you a sacrifice all right," Morag said, grabbing a hold of the thing’s hair. She yanked it forward to meet a head butt. Her forehead crushed its golden eye in a spray of ichor. A deathly shriek echoed through the cave, waking even Calum from his stupor. She let go and slammed a fist into it. “Your eye’s the sacrifice, you stinking old hag.” The thing squealed, flesh bubbling and cracking. It twitched, loosed one last scream, then lay still.

From hidden crevices and the entrances to dark tunnels a hundred baleful golden eyes blinked into life. More of them crawled from dark crevices and ledges—spindly limbs bending all wrong—and scuttled down the walls. The wailing of uncountable inhuman voices echoed throughout the vast cavern, combining into a single hateful shriek that held nothing of that earlier lullaby beauty.

The luminous lake water churned and heaved, some leviathan stirring beneath. A stench of rotting flesh clogged her nose as writhing tentacles burst from the surface. She wanted to run and hide, to cry and curl up into a ball, but some instinctive animal horror rooted her to the spot as the waters sloughed off a vast and oozing body.

"Run!" Calum screamed, scooping up the sleeping baby and staggering towards her. She didn’t need telling twice, tore her eyes away from the cavern boiling over with those ghastly things, and ran for her life.

As she lurched around the corner. Calum skidded to a stop. "Damnation," he cursed. "The sword!" He darted back.

The shrieking stopped, plunging the cavern into abrupt silence. Something vast and heavy slammed into walls. The cave shuddered around her, causing her to lose her footing and clutch the wet and luminous rock for support. The sound of crashing water and a stinking warm gust of moist air washed over her. With it came a crushing presence in the back of her mind, like being plunged into an icy loch.

Calum screamed; half hysterical laughter, half gut-wrenching naked terror. He lurched round the corner, sword point scraping along the floor behind him. His jaw hung slack, quivering strings of drool hanging from his chin. His eyes were wide and staring, leaking tears.

He shook his head violently. "Guh, n-n-no, the writhing god. The t-thing in the lake…" He cackled and slammed his face against the rock wall, began sobbing. He scraped his face along the wall, leaving a bloody smear.

Morag grabbed his by the collar and pulled him away. He stared at her through bloody tears, eyes glazed and uncomprehending. "We have to get this wee baby back to his mother," she said.

He slowly looked down at the baby blinking sleepily in the crook of his arm. A hint of sanity flickered back into his eyes.

Some vast bulk shifted in the cavern, and a morbid impulse made her turn to look back. She tried to move past him, had to see.

He barred her way. "Don’t." The horrified expression on his face buried any inclinations otherwise.

The hags began wailing again, and this time the stone drummed with hundreds of malformed feet. The two of them ran for the pit, heads bowed low as they crunched through the carpet of bones. Morag snatched up Calum’s discarded sword with her working hand. As old faerie lore said, iron was a bane to the things chasing them. The luminous glow gradually died away, leaving them plunging ahead into darkness. A rushing tide of slapping feet, clattering bone, and screeching voices filled the cave behind them.

Finally! Light! The warm welcoming glow candleight shone down from above.

"Ewan," she shouted, "Get us the hell out of here."

Calum ran to her, stuffed the baby down the front of her dress, wedged between belt and body.

"Get that wee one out," he said, grabbing her sword and moving back to block the cave. Blood ran freely down his chin where he’d bitten through his lower lip.

A length of plaid whipped down. She grabbed a hold with her good hand. Sweat poured off her, the things were close, had to be only seconds away. "Pull, Ewan, pull," she screamed. Ewan heaved and she was up and over, back into the light.

"Get up here, laddie," Ewan said. But they were too late.

Calum spun, screaming, as a grey tide washed over him. He chopped and slashed, things hissing in pain at the slightest touch of steel. Ichor steamed from the blade as he severed gray clawed hands. "The iron grate!" he shouted, ribbons of flesh being flayed from his exposed flesh.

Morag grunted, heaving the rusted iron grate back over to the pit. It crumbled, bits coming away in her hand. She prayed it would hold. By the time she looked back Calum was being dragged backwards into the darkness. He looked up at her with terrified eyes, his face twisting in agony. With the last of his strength he plunged both swords point-first down into the mass of bone and debris. And then he was gone.

They tried to rush out after her, only to shy back from the blades that barred their path. They screamed in agony, disappeared back into the darkness.

"Mmooorrraaaggg," Calum’s voice whispered from the darkness. "Don’t leavvve me. Come save meee. I am hurt. The faerie have gone away. Quickquick."

Sobbing, Morag heaved the iron grate back over the pit. The things hissed angrily and golden eyes glimmered from the darkness beyond the upright swords.

They were imprisoned again.

But that grate was almost rusted through, and the swords wouldn’t hold them for long.

Big John swung the door open, his grin of relief stillborn at the sight of her—a bloody, bedraggled mess with a face like death. His gaze darted past Ewan, searching, then back to her. She shook her head and trudged into the bright warmth of the inn. The baby yawned and blinked in her arms.

Bessie shot to her feat, red eyes overflowing with tears. She kissed the cross that hung around her neck before taking the baby.

"Thank you," Bessie sobbed. "I don’t know what I’d have done without my wee bairn." She clutched him to her chest. He started bawling his head off and struggling.

"What happened?" Big John said.

Ewan shuddered and buried his face in his hands. "There is something unholy living in caverns beneath the hill. Things that fear iron. The old myths…"

He stared at Ewan, at the practical old man who had always scoffed at peasant superstitions. Then he took a good long look at the claw wounds in Morag’s skin. His face paled.

"There was a rusted old grate covering the pit leading to their cavern," Morag said. "Father Ainsley must have moved it." She shivered and slumped into a chair. "But it’s almost rusted through. It won’t last long. We need every bit of iron in the village."

Big John began piling up pots, pans, fire pokers, his lucky iron horseshoe that hung over the door, everything he possessed that could be pried loose. The noise must have disturbed the baby, for he started wailing at the top of his voice.

"Hush. Hush my beautiful wee bairn," Bessie murmured, rocking him in her arms. It didn’t seem to help much. She clutched the cross at her throat, sending up a prayer of thanks as the baby screamed itself hoarse.

Ewan grabbed whatever he could carry. "We’ll get this up there and, by God, we will stop those things ever seeing the light of day."

Bessie pulled the cross from around her neck and held it out to Morag. "Take it. It’s good iron."

Morag nodded her thanks and went to add it to the growing pile. The baby ceased its wailing. She stiffened, swallowed, slowly turned back, held up the iron and stepped towards the child. The baby began to bawl again. She went cold, pinpricks all over her skin.

Rachael K. Jones

Makeisha In Time

Originally published in the August 2014 issue of Crossed Genres Magazine, edited by Bart Lieb, Kay T. Holt, and Kelly Jennings

* * *

Makeisha has always been able to bend the fourth dimension, though no one believes her. She has been a soldier, a sheriff, a pilot, a prophet, a poet, a ninja, a nun, a conductor (of trains and symphonies), a cordwainer, a comedian, a carpetbagger, a troubadour, a queen, and a receptionist. She has shot arrows, guns, and cannons. She speaks an extinct Ethiopian dialect with a perfect accent. She knows a recipe for mead that is measured in aurochs horns, and with a katana, she is deadly.

Her jumps happen intermittently. She will be yanked from the present without warning, and live a whole lifetime in the past. When she dies, she returns right back to where she left, restored to a younger age. It usually happens when she is deep in conversation with her boss, or arguing with her mother-in-law, or during a book club meeting just when it is her turn to speak. One moment, Makeisha is firmly grounded in the timeline of her birth, and the next, she is elsewhere. Elsewhen.

Makeisha has seen the sun rise over prehistoric shores, where the ocean writhed with soft, slimy things that bore the promise of dung beetles, Archeopteryx, and Edgar Allan Poe. She has seen the sun set upon long-forgotten empires. When Makeisha skims a map of the continents, she sees a fractured Pangaea. She never knows where she will jump next, or how long she will stay, but she is never afraid. Makeisha has been doing this all her life.

Makeisha learned long ago to lie about the jumping. When she was nine, she attempted to prove it to her mother by singing in Egyptian, but her mother just laughed and sent her to do the dishes. She received worse when she contradicted her history teachers. It was intolerable, sitting in school in the body of a child but with the memories of innumerable lifetimes, while incomplete truths and half-truths and outright lies were written on the board. The adults called a conference about her attention-seeking behavior, and she learned to keep her mouth shut.

The hardest part is coming back. Once, when she was twelve, she was slouched in the pew at church when she felt the past tug. Makeisha found herself floundering in the roiling ocean of the Mediterranean, only to be saved by Moorish pirates who hauled her aboard in the nick of time. At first the bewildered men and women treasured their catch as a mascot and good-luck charm. Later, after nearly ten years of fine seacraft and fearless warfare, they made her captain of the ship. Makeisha took to piracy like sheet music. She could climb ropes and hold her grog with the best sailors, and even after losing an eye in a gunpowder explosion, she never once wept and wished herself home.

The day came when, at the pasha’s command, she set sail to intercept Spanish invaders in Ottoman waters. It was a hot night when they sighted the lanterns of the enemy shuddering on the waves. Makeisha’s crew pulled their ship astern the enemy’s vessel in the dark and fog after midnight. She gave the order—Charge!—her deep voice booming through the mists, echoed by the shouts of her pirates as they swung on ropes over the sliver of ocean between the ships. And suddenly an explosion, and a pinching sensation in her midriff, and she was twelve again in the church pew, staring at her soft palms through two perfect eyes. That was when she finally wept, so loud and hard the reverend stopped his sermon to scold her. Her father grounded her for a week after that.

People often get angry with Makeisha when she returns. She can’t control her befuddlement, the way the room spins like she is drunk, and how for days and weeks afterward she cannot settle back into who she was, because the truth is, she isn’t the same. Each time she returns from the past, she carries another lifetime nestled within her like the shell of a matryoshka doll.

Once, after the fall of the Roman Empire, she joined a peasant uprising in Bavaria, and charging quickly from fiefdom to fiefdom, their band pushed back the warlords to the foothills of the Alps. Those who survived sued for mercy, begged her not to raze their fields, pledged fealty to her. As a condition of the peace, Makeisha demanded their daughters in marriage to seal the political alliance. The little kings, too afraid of the barbarian-queen to shout their umbrage, conceded. They even attended the weddings, where Makeisha stood with her sword peace-tied at her waist and took the trembling hand of each Bavarian princess into her own.

Once the wedding guests left, Makeisha gathered her wives together in the throne room. “Please,” she said to them, “help me. I need good women I can trust to run this kingdom right.”

With their help, she established a stable state in those war-torn days. In time, all her wives made excellent deputies, ambassadors, sheriffs, and knights in her court.

Makeisha had been especially broken up when her time in Bavaria was cut short by a bout of pneumonia. Many of her wives had grown to be dear friends of hers, and she wondered for months and months what had become of them and their children, and whether her fiefdom had lasted beyond her passing.

She wanted to talk with her best friend Philippa, to cry about it, but her phone calls went unanswered, and so did her emails. Makeisha could not remember when she had last spent time with Philippa or her other friends here in the present. It was so hard to remember when her weeks and months were interspersed with whole lifetimes of friends and lovers and enemies. The present was a stop-motion film, a book interrupted mid-page and abandoned for years at a time. And when she did return, she always carried with her another death.

Makeisha does not fear death anymore. She has died so many times, always awakening in the present, whole and alive as before the jump. She does not know what would happen if she died in the present. Perhaps she would awaken in the future. She has never tried to find out.

She cannot remember her first death. She probably died hundreds of times in her infancy, before she was old enough to walk. Her jumps left her in the wilderness or ocean more often than not, and when she did arrive near civilization, few took pity on a strange, abandoned child who could not explain her presence. Makeisha’s mother often joked about her appetite, how from the time she was a baby, she ate like a person on the verge of starvation. Her mother does not know how close this is to the truth. These days, Makeisha wears her extra pounds with pride, knowing how often they have been her salvation.

When Philippa finally returns her calls, she reams Makeisha for slighting her all year, for the forgotten birthday, for the missed housewarming party. Makeisha apologizes like she always does. They meet up in person for a catch-up over coffee, and Makeisha resolves that this time she will be present for her friend. They are deep in conversation when she feels the tug, just as Philippa is admitting that she is afraid of what the future may bring. No, thinks Makeisha when she finds herself blinking on the edge of a sluggish river under the midday sun. Two white bulls have lifted their heads to stare at her, water dripping from their jowls.

Makeisha struggles to keep the conversation fresh in her head as she casts around for a quick way home. She chooses the river. It is hard, that first time, to make herself inhale, to still her windmilling arms, to let death take this matryoshka life so she can hasten back to the present.

She has lost the thread of the conversation anyway when she snaps back to Philippa’s kitchen. “Migraine,” she explains, rubbing away the memory of pain from her dizzy head, and Philippa feeds her two aspirin and some hot mint tea.

Makeisha resolves to do better next time, and eventually, she does. On her first date with Carl, she strangles herself with strings from the lute of a Hittite bard. On their wedding day, she detours to a vast desert that she cannot place, which she escapes by crawling into a scorpion nest. That death was painful. The next time she jumps (two days later, on their honeymoon), she takes the time to learn the proper way to open her wrists with a sharp-edged rock.

Her husband believes her when she says it’s migraines.

All of it—the self-imposed silence, the suicides, the banishing of her fantastic past to the basement of her brain—these are the price of a normal life, of friendships and a marriage and a steady job. Mundane though it is, Makeisha reminds herself that this life is different from the other ones. Irreplaceable. Real.

Still, she misses the past, where she has lived most of her life. She reads history books with a black marker and strikes out the bits that make her scoff. Then, with a red pen, she writes in the margins all the names she can recall, all the forgotten people who mattered just as much as George Washington and Louis XIV. When Carl asks, she explains how the world has always belonged to more than just the great men who were kings and Presidents and generals, but for some reason, no one wrote it down.

“I think you’re trying too hard,” he says, and she hates the pity in his eyes when he holds up his hands and adds, “but if it makes you feel happy, keep on with it.”

One day, as a surprise, her husband drove her four hours to a museum hosting an exhibit on medieval history. Makeisha screeched and grabbed Carl’s arm when she saw the posters at the entrance: eighth-century Bavaria! It had been five years and dozens of self-murdered lives since she was torn from her thriving kingdom, from her deputy-wives and her warband, but the memories were still so fresh. Her face was composed as she purchased tickets, but she bounced on the balls of her feet all the way to the front of the line.

It was the first time she had encountered any proof of a previous life. Euphoria flared in her breast when she peered into glass cases that held familiar objects, old and worn but recognizable all the same, the proof of her long years of warfare and wisdom and canny leadership. A lead comb, most of its bristles missing, its colored enamel long ago worn to gray. It had belonged to Jutte, perhaps—she had such fine long hair, although she had kept it bound tightly for her work as a doctor. A thin gold ring she had given to dark-eyed Berchte in commemoration of her knighthood. And the best of all: a silver coin stamped with her own stylized profile, her broad nose jutting past her Bavarian war helm.

There was a placard on the glass. Makeisha read it thrice, each time a little slower, thinking perhaps she’d missed something. But no. Early medieval objects from the court of a foreign king. He reigned in Bavaria for about thirty years.

He? He? Makeisha stormed back to the entrance, demanded to speak with a manager, her vision swimming a violent red, her hand groping for a pommel she did not wear anymore. It was wrong. It was all wrong, wrong, wrong. Her wives, assigned a husband and stripped of their deputyship! Their legacy, handed to a manufactured person! Carl begged her to tell him what was wrong. Makeisha realized she was shouting oaths in ancient German, and that was when she felt the familiar tug in her navel, and found herself spinning back, back, further back than she had gone last time, until she arrived on an empty beach beneath a moon with a smooth, craterless face.

Her practiced eye spotted three ways to die on its first sweep (drowning, impaling, crushing), but there was Jutte’s comb to consider, and that placard. When she gave up time travel, she never thought she had surrendered her legacy, too.

Makeisha turned her back on the ocean and walked into the woods, busying herself with building a fire and assembling the tools she would need for her stay, however long it might be. She had learned to be resourceful and unafraid of the unfamiliar creaks and groans in the ferny green of the prehistoric underbrush.

She chipped a cascade of sparks into her kindling, and that is when Makeisha formed her plan.

She is done with the present, with the endless self-murder, with the repression and suffocation and low stakes.

A woman unafraid to die can do anything she wants. A woman who can endure starvation and pain and deprivation can be her own boss, set her own agenda. The one thing she cannot do is to make them remember she did it.

Makeisha is going to change that.

No more suicides, then. Makeisha embraces the jumps again. She is a boulder thrown into the waters of time. In eighth century Norway, she joins a band of Viking women. They are callous but good-humored, and they take her rage in stride, as though she has nothing to explain. They give her a sword taller than she is, but she learns to swing it anyway, and to sing loudly into the wind when one of the slain is buried with her hoard, sword folded on her breast.

When she returns to the present, Makeisha has work to do. She will stop mid-sentence, spin on her heel, and head for the books, leaving an astonished coworker, or friend, or her husband calling after her.

She pours everything into the search for her own past. One of her contacts sends her an email about a Moorish pirate, a woman, making a name for herself among the Ottomans. A Spanish monk wrote about her last voyage, the way she leapt upon her prey like a gale in the night, how her battle-cry chilled the blood. Makeisha’s grin holds until the part where the monk called her a whore.

This is accepted without question as factual by the man writing the book.

She is obsessed. Makeisha almost loses her job because of her frequent forgetfulness, her accidental rudeness. Her desk is drowned in ancient maps. Her purse is crammed with reams of genealogies.

In her living room, which has been lined from wall-to-wall with history books ever since Carl moved out, Makeisha tries to count the lives stacked inside her. There are so many of them. They are crowding to get out. She once tried to calculate how many years she had been alive. It was more than a thousand. And what did they amount to? Makeisha is smeared across the timeline, but no one ever gets her quite right. Those who found the cairn of her Viking band assumed the swords and armor meant the graves of men. A folio of her sonnets, anonymous after much copying, are attributed to her assistant Giorgio.

“You’re building a fake identity,” Philippa tells her one day, daring the towers of books and dried-out markers to bring Makeisha some soup. “There weren’t any black women in ancient Athens. There weren’t any in China. You need to come to grips with reality, my friend.”

“There were too,” says Makeisha fiercely, proudly. “I know there were. They were just erased. Forgotten.”

“I’m sure there were a few exceptions. But women just didn’t do the kind of things you’re interested in.”

Makeisha says, “It doesn’t matter what I do, if people refuse to believe it.”

Her jumps are subdued after that. She turns to the written word for immortality. Makeisha leaves love poetry on the walls of Aztec tombs in carefully colored Nahuatl pictograms. She presses cuneiform into soft clay, documenting the exploits of the proud women whose names are written in red in the margins of her history books. She records the names of her lovers in careful hanzi strokes with horsehair bristles in bamboo books.

Even these, the records she makes herself, do not survive intact. Sometimes the names are replaced by others deemed more remarkable, more credible, by the scribes who came after. Sometimes they are erased entirely. Mostly, the books just fade into dust with time. She takes comfort knowing that she is not unique, that the chorus of lost voices is thundering.

She is fading from the present. She forgets to eat between jumps, loses weight. Sometimes she starves to death when she lands in an isolated spot.

* * *

Carl catches her one day at the mailbox. “Sorry for just showing up. You haven’t returned my calls,” he explains, offering her a sheaf of papers.

Makeisha accepts them and examines the red-stamped first page of their divorce papers.

“You need to sign here,” Carl says, pointing upside down at the bottom of the sheet. “Also on the next page. Please?”

The last word carries a pleading note. Makeisha notes his puffy eyes and a single white hair standing out in the black nest of his beard. “How long has it been?” she asks. She has lived at least three lifetimes since he left, but she isn’t sure.

“Too long,” he says. “Please, I just need your signature so we can move on.”

She pats her pockets and finds a red pen. Makeisha wonders how many decades or centuries until this signature is also altered or lost or purposely erased, but she touches pen to paper anyway.

Halfway through her signature, she spends twenty-six years sleeping under the stars with the Aborigines, and when she comes back, the rest of her name trails aimlessly down the sheet. Carl doesn’t seem to notice.

After he leaves, she escapes to India for a lifetime, where she ponders whether her time travel is a punishment or purgatory.

When she returns to the present again, Makeisha weeps like she did when she was twelve, and her heart was breaking for her days as a pirate. Perhaps it is not the past that is yanking her away. Perhaps the present is crowding her out. And perhaps she has finally come to agree with the sentiment.

In her living room, among the towers of blacked-out books, Makeisha sees six ways to die from where she stands. Perhaps the way out is forward. Break through the last matryoshka shell like a hatchling into daylight.

But no. No. The self-murders were never for herself. Not once. Makeisha is resilient. She is resourceful, and she has been bending the fourth dimension all her life, whether anyone recognizes it or not.

A woman who has been pushed her whole life will eventually learn to push back.

Makeisha reaches forward into the air. With skillful fingers that have killed and healed and mastered the cello, she pulls the future toward her.

She has not returned.

Who Binds and Looses the World With Her Hands

Originally published by PodCastle in February 2015’s Artemis Rising feature, edited by Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind.

1. Stranger

On days when Selene locked me in the lighthouse, an old familiar darkness would well up within me, itching my skin like it had shrunk too tight to contain my anger any longer. I had grown accustomed to the rage’s ebb and flow, sometimes bubbling near the surface, sometimes dormant as a seed awaiting the right time to break open. But it always rose to high tide on my days of confinement.

I knew better than to complain to Selene. I often watched from the windows of the lanthorn, the little room which housed the lighthouse’s beacon, when the merchants made landfall. From my distant perch, I could just make out Selene, resplendent in dyed blue wool, hands spinning impossibly fast in the bewildered men’s faces. Out beyond the dock, two green arms of land reached toward our island home in an incomplete embrace. That was the Mainland, where sorcerers lived. Long ago, it was sorcerers who built our lighthouse in the stone branches of the ancient petrified tree.

Do not talk to the Mainlanders, Selene always warned, hurrying me up the stone steps which spiraled inside the tree’s heart. She would repeat the warning later at night, when we watched the beacon flash round and round through the window over our bed. I would nestle against her chest, and her hands would dance out tales about sailors, how their days at sea would drive them so mad with lust they would seize any woman when they made landfall. I am sorry to hide you, she would say. I do not want to lose you. The apology mollified the darkness inside me, but never quelled it completely.

I first found the stranger by blind luck, while herding my sheep along the shoreline at dusk. He had washed up on the leaf-shaped stones which littered the island, his sloop dashed to splinters on the rocks. We never expected visitors this late in the season. The shipping traffic had already dried up before the winter storms, and anyway, except for the rare merchant, no-one visited Corail Island on purpose.

He stank of kelp and wet wool. He looked so ugly I almost left him for the gulls. It had been years since I had seen a man up close, not since the old lighthouse keeper died. His beard revolted me. His chest rose and fell unsteadily, but he did not respond to my signs or prodding. I supposed he was a hearing man.

Selene found me crouched on the rocks beside my catch, trying to wake him. What is this? she said, her signs formed around the jar of oil in her left hand. Why did you not fetch me immediately? She knelt and checked his breath, and her expression soured. Give me your shears.

I hesitated. She had an evil look in her eye. Why?

So I can finish what the ocean failed to do.

Selene! Horrified, I touched the shears in my apron pocket and took a step back.

She flashed a devilish grin, the dangerous spark subsumed by playfulness. My Love, she signed, stroking my chin, I am only teasing. I just want to cut off his beard.

I questioned whether it had been a joke. I could never be sure with Selene. You might offend him, I said.

We cannot read lips through all that hair. The shears, please.

She set to work shaving him, mounding hair like limp, gray seaweed on the rocks for the gulls like limp. I worried what the stranger might think when he awoke, but then again, I had never seen Selene ask permission for anything.

2. Selene

I do not remember a time in my life before Selene.

This is my history as she told it: for her tenth birthday, her father the lighthouse keeper bade her name a present. She asked for a playmate, a girl, Deaf like herself, so the old man went ashore and found me.

I don’t recall the Mainland, not mother nor sibling nor beast nor town. I remember only the island, the great petrified lighthouse-tree, and Selene. In my earliest impression, I see her climbing barefoot on the twisting stone roots that flowed skirt-like downhill to the island’s every part, her long dark hair floating, hair I brushed each morning with a golden comb, picking through the knots with patient fingers. When she brushed my hair in turn, she would yank the comb downward, oblivious to tangles, until my scalp stung and my eyes watered.

On that first day, Selene said, she seized my hand and claimed me for her own, naming me Girl, which looks like this: thumb stroking the cheek downward from ear to chin, which resembles the sign for long-suffering.

My name, though, is Doriane. I know it, just as I know the pulsing tide of darkness in my heart. It is the only memory left of the time before Selene.

I couldn’t help but love Selene. Her name-sign was a closed fist for S against the chest. When swung like a punch, this sign also means rebellious. When she reached the age to marry, her father again told her to name her heart’s desire, and instead of a man, she demanded me, running her own thumb down my jaw so tenderly it made me shiver. For I couldn’t help but love her. I had no one else. No one on the island but her, me, and the old man until his death. No one to speak to but Selene, my all, my world, my lover, my wife.

And my captor.

3. Spinning

Thump, thump, thump went the treadle on the floor when I did my spinning. I did not hear it so much as feel it in my skull. Thump, thump, thump—and our little cabin’s petrified walls pulsed like a heartbeat. Heart, said my hands to the tuft of wool, finger pinched to thumb in a sign that could also mean lucky. As I spun, I pictured warm things. My sheep tearing at the coarse shrubs growing in the petrified roots. The golden beacon refracting from the lens in the lanthorn. Selene curled against me in the winter, gentled by sleep, soft and strong like new yarn wound round and round the bobbin.

I was spinning when the stranger awoke and raked fingers through the stubble on his face. If he swore about his missing beard or attempted to question me, I did not catch it. My eyes focused on the fibrous cloud thinning and stretching into yarn Selene would use to run lines between the cabin and lighthouse, a web to guide her through the winter storms.

From the bed, the stranger stared at me with hungry dark eyes beneath heavy lids. He stared when I rose for water. He stared when I wound the new yarn on the bobbin. He stared like a heron hovering over waters pregnant with fish. His lips moved, but I did not catch the words.

4. Sorcery

He is a sorcerer, Selene announced as we polished smoke from the lantern panels the next morning. Wicked beasts, sorcerers. My father and I used to see them on the Mainland, always with an ensnared slave in tow. They can do that, you know: enslave you, bind your mind, if you let them talk.

How do you know he is a sorcerer? I asked.

Selene draped her polishing cloth over the window sill, where the wind off the sea set it aflutter. I saw him pull water from the air today. His cup was empty, and then I saw him drink from it moments later. He thinks we don’t notice, but Deaf people see everything. She cut her eyes toward me on the last word.

I suppressed a shiver and smoothed the worry from my features. He is our guest, I reminded her. Sorcerer or no, we cannot harm someone we have taken into our care.

Just don’t speak to him, she said, and because she was mostly in a good mood today, she pulled me close and kissed me, combed fingers through my long black hair, teasing out the tangles, only pulling a little.

Later, in the cabin, I found a folded paper beneath my basket of carded wool. From the bed, the stranger lifted an imperious eyebrow at me. He cocked his head toward Selene. I read a word on his lips: Secret. I slipped the paper beneath the batting and, remembering my sheep, made my face dumb.

5. Secrets

Since the season for storms drew near, Selene departed the next morning to string the web which served as a guide up the path to the lighthouse all winter. The moment she left, I sat down at the spindle and read the stranger’s note: We are in great danger. The other woman is a powerful sorcerer. Help me, and together we will escape to the Mainland.

I caught the man’s eye, and he struggled to stand. We have to go at once, he mouthed, and with a finger he forced my chin upwards so I gazed into his fearful eyes. Now, quickly, while the sorcerer—Words tumbled from his lips so fast I lost the speech’s thread, though not the tenor. I had never seen such terror before.

I waved for him to stop. I covered my ears and my mouth, and shook my head. The stranger paused, nodded. From a fold in his sweater, he produced a black-streaked glass pen and a bottle of black ink, objects I did not recognize. They certainly had not been in his possession when we carried him from the shore.

I accepted the pen and wrote, Where did you get these?

His neck craned to watch the door so his scrawl went crooked down the page. I made them. He pointed toward the fireplace. Paper drawn from wood. Ink drawn from soot. Glass drawn from the sand that blows from the shore.

Surprised, I threw down the sorcerous pen as if it were a viper. It shattered into three pieces against the stone floor. The stranger collected them, held them close to moving lips, and they became whole again.

You really are a sorcerer, I wrote, my script shaky.

So is the other woman, the one who has enslaved you. I will explain it on the way, but we should go. Now! He yanked my arm, stepping toward the doorway. I planted my feet and threw my weight against him, and my leverage sent the frail old man tumbling to his knees.

I grabbed the pen and wrote. She hasn’t enslaved me. She is my wife.

The old man stole another glance toward the door. His shoulders sagged. He wrote until he covered half the sheet with fine scrawl. Think about it. You know the truth. I have watched you both. She gives orders, and you obey. She is cruel to you, and you accept her abuse. I saw you last night preparing dinner. I could not follow your hand-language, but she pressed your arm against the hot kettle. And you smiled. You smiled at her, though you were in pain. You fear her.

I rubbed the pink weal on my wrist. It had already begun to heal, but the sight made the darkness surge inside me. With an effort, I forced it down again. She just has a temper, I wrote. But she loves me. She doesn’t mean to be cruel.

He appraised me, a lean and hungry look. He scrawled again, Did you know the sailors have a superstition about this place? That they avoid it at all costs? This island was built as a prison, and that woman is the prisoner. She has enthralled you too. I will free you, if you will help me.

You’re wrong, I answered. I have known her my whole life. I would know.

Have you ever been off the island? he asked.

Of course. I was born on the Mainland.

But do you remember it?

I bit my lip. I recalled the long days locked inside the lighthouse at her insistence. Selene said it was for my own protection. You’re wrong, I wrote again. I slammed the pen on the stone floor, nevermind the shards, and stormed out of the cabin to find my wife.

6. Speech

On the twisting path that climbed up to the lighthouse, Selene navigated the gray petrified tree roots, winding the yarn between them. From a distance she resembled a spider in a huge blue web. I rubbed the pink burn on my wrist. How I loved her and feared her. She paused from her labor, wiped her face, and cast a look downhill, caught me staring. Grinned, waved, and name-signed, Girl!

I returned the wave. I could not recall the last time she had called me by my real name, Doriane. Perhaps she never had.

Overhead a seagull wheeled and flew off toward the bay, toward Mainland, and all at once my skin felt constricting, the air thick and oppressive.

Perhaps I really was enslaved.

The sorcerer waited for me at the cabin’s door, lips drawn in a wolfish sneer. He had already repaired the glass pen. I stretched out my hand for it and wrote. What must we do to escape?

I will teach you sorcery so you may cast the spell to break her hold.

Fine, I said, but you mustn’t harm Selene. I still loved her, after all.

Fair enough. But you may feel differently when your soul is free. Now pay close attention.

The sorcerer snapped the glass pen in half.

Sorcery is a force that gives form to substances, he said. It presses meat into bone, squeezes rain from the air and stone from wood. All these things have a bound state, and a loose state. He indicated the petrified walls. Sorcery binds these wooden walls into a state of stone. Speak to the element to bind it. He whispered to the pen’s shards. The glass ran together like water, rejoining into one smooth piece. This can be reversed too, he said, and his lips moved again near the glass. At once it crumbled into black sand. He spoke a third time, drawing out the sand between long fingers, and it fused into the form of the pen. Binding and loosing. You try. He passed me the pen.

I don’t speak, I reminded him, touching my ear and mouth.

He pressed lips together, and his eyes darted toward the door again. He fetched a pillow from the bed and teased out a gray feather. Watch me, he said, then held the feather to his chin. Before his puckered lips, the down vibrated and swayed. He passed it to me. As you breathe out, shape the air with your lips.

I practiced under his instruction for a few minutes, and then he said, Next, you add vibration. He placed my hand on his throat, and it buzzed beneath my fingertips. I touched my own neck and imitated him until I felt my throat buzz. He reached for the pen, but before he could write, his eyes snapped toward the door, wrinkles flattening into a mask of terror.

Selene stood in the doorway, face flushed and chest heaving.

7. Solitary

She beat me, of course, her cheerful mood evaporated. Do not talk to the Mainlanders, she said, and her fists resembled her name-sign. Selene said the blow to my jaw. Selene, Selene on each ear. Selene, I tried to sign back, but she would have none of it in her rage. She pulled my hair and kicked at my ribs when I knelt at her feet. She beat my ears the worst, and when I cast myself toward the sorcerer, he turned away, brushing black sand from his palms.

She locked me in the lanthorn as punishment. I tried not to touch my raw, swollen face as I curled on the floor, doubly imprisoned, as if I could run anywhere but home. I fought with the darkness inside me, struggled to master it, but with each hour of my confinement it swelled, gained momentum.

That night, she had pity enough to bring me my drop-spindle and distaff so I might occupy myself with spinning. I watched the lantern rotate and the lens flash its warning from my small prison. The spindle whirled like the lantern in miniature. The fibers stretched between my fingers. Heart, they groaned, for my knuckles were scratched and swollen from defending my face. I touched my bruised throat and it vibrated with sobs that shook my shoulders.

What is the distance between love and hate? No more than a finger’s width.

The darkness flared. My hands on the yarn shifted. Now, index finger to thumb, they said puppet, which with a different movement can also mean detach. Sorcery is binding and loosing.

Sustained by darkness, I spun late into the night, fingers shuddering, mind afire. The wind from the window made me shake and gutter like a flame with no glass to protect it.

8. Storms

By the time Selene forgave me, the storms were upon us. Winter on Corail Island is like this: the sea rises and grabs the rocks. It rolls all the way up to our doorstep, and Selene must wade up the path to the lighthouse, clinging to the webbing between the great petrified roots so that she will not be swept out to sea. The sheep we gather into their fold, and feed them from stocks stored against the lean months. Selene occasionally slaughters one for the fresh mutton. She always makes me select the one to die.

When I returned to the cabin, the sorcerer had been relegated to a mat near the fire, feet and hands hobbled by ropes. Selene wanted to kill him, but there were things even she feared, and the laws of hospitality did not yield lightly. Once taken under our roof, we were beholden to him until Spring. It did not mean, though, that Selene would permit him to leave the island alive.

I forgive you, Selene said when she brought me down from the lighthouse. You are too trusting, my Love. He tried to enslave you, to turn you against me. Do you believe me now? You cannot trust sorcerers.

I wanted to believe her, but my half-healed cuts ached, and I no longer knew who to trust. I wanted to speak to the sorcerer about it. I often caught him picking through the woodpile and the sand on the floor. In the mornings I sometimes awoke to his eyes fixed upon my face, his lips moving, and I felt the hateful old darkness stirring within like a slumbering dragon rousing in its hoard. The sensation thrilled me, but I distrusted it. Perhaps the enthralled always experienced their binding as a sense of freedom.

Do not talk to him, Selene warned me whenever my gaze strayed toward the fire. Now that her temper had passed, she wrapped me in her arms at night, and I did my best to ignore the old yellow bruises on her hands that bore witness to her violence. When she fell asleep, I would roll toward the wall, and in the darkness make my throat vibrate under my fingers and watch wisps of my hair flutter in the unheard sounds.

9. Separation

Be careful, I told Selene, wrapping her in a heavy blue mantle as she prepared to brave the storm.

She stroked my cheek with a thumb—Girl, it said—and kissed me. I will be back in an hour. Storms meant shipwrecks. Storms meant Selene must tend the lighthouse all night long, following the ropes laid like highways from the cabin to the tree, through black ice and bracing cold and beating rains that blinded her.

Selene pushed against the wind, a hand on the guiding rope anchored to the front door as the dark swallowed up her steady, retreating steps. The frozen air assaulted me, and the heat pulled me from behind, and then the sorcerer appeared at my elbow, wearing his broken bindings slung over one shoulder. Sorcery is binding and loosing, I remembered. Selene’s knots had never really restrained him.

Now is the time, he mouthed. Cut the rope and lock the door and be rid of her. He reached for the anchor line, a black glass knife in hand.

No! I shouldered my way between him and the door. It was not supposed to be like this. He had promised. The sorcerer seized my shoulders. He had gained weight during imprisonment, and I could no longer tip him to the floor with a little leverage. We struggled for dominance, and the wind from the open door fought for possession of my body. He slashed at the anchor rope. I threw my shoulder into his stomach. The glass knife sunk into my arm, and pain exploded in my brain. Suddenly woozy, I went limp. He dragged me inside. I scrabbled at the floor, punched at him, kicked. Selene! screamed my fists. Selene! Selene!

He wound my hands with cord from my spindle, knocking over the wheel without bothering to detach the distaff. Hands bound, I was muted. The wind beat the cabin, and answering from within my breast, shuddering sobs tumbled from my throat. The storm drummed against the stone like a woman’s fists against a locked door.

10. Signs

Pain kept me lucid. I forced myself to hold to the pain, and reviewed my predicament. The wound in my upper arm shrieked. My hands were bound together in a sign that meant slave. I twisted my wrists against the biting cord until I could touch my fingers to it. I signed to the strand, pressing it hard between cold fingers. Detach, I reminded it, shifting motions, detach. Sorcery is binding and loosing. Detach, detach! The ropes severed and slackened. Blood rushed into my aching hands. I lay still and scanned the cabin.

The fire had died to red embers, and shadows blanketed the corners. The severed bobbin lay by the door. My captor hunched by the fire, running his fingers through a sand-heap, shaping it into an enormous glass plate. Selene had not returned; perhaps she’d reached the lighthouse. I wanted her. I needed her. If I found her, I swore I would never disobey her again. Against my back, the storm’s vibrations faded from the stone wall. I commanded my throat silent.

Occasionally he sneered at me, each tooth gleaming in the yellow light. I remembered my sheep and made my face dumb like theirs. Passive, stoic, unthinking, like a good slave. Between my fingers, I pressed the cord’s broken ends together and signed heart, and then lucky. The ends joined, whole again. Slowly, so very slowly, I tied a loop, a lasso, a noose. Puppet, my fingers screamed for eyes that could read it, puppet, puppet, puppet!

Quickly now, before he could understand, before he could suspect, I rolled to my feet and charged. His head snapped toward me and he raised the glass thing at my approach—it resembled a great lens with keen edges. I flung my lasso over his neck, and hit the mark, and he was caught like a sheep. He sank to his knees, eyes wide with terror, hands clutching at the glass sheet so hard it sliced open his palms. Blood ran down his wrists. He couldn’t move. Puppet, I signed, victorious. My puppet! I laughed and laughed in his helpless face, the dark swelling up around me like great black wings.

Then I remembered Selene.

11. Silence

I found her frozen between the lighthouse and cabin when the dawn touched the horizon. The sorcerer had cut all the guidelines behind her while I lay bound. Around her shoulders she still wore the blue wool mantle I had woven for her. In death, she looked peaceful. I hated it. I wanted her mouth, her eyes, and most of all her hands. I wanted her hands around my waist at night. I wanted her fists to beat me. Mostly I wanted them to speak to me, but they were silenced now. I had no one left to speak with in the whole world. In her death, my hands too were muted, useless as shears missing a blade.

I turned to my Puppet, who trailed behind me up the path. Why? I demanded, grief-stricken. Why did you do this?

His elbows jerked upward, and before his horrified eyes, his hands danced out an answer. The lighthouse was built to warn people away from this place. Something older and more powerful than sorcery was imprisoned here, stripped of its power and bound into a different form, like the stone tree.

I know that already. You told me Selene was a sorcerer.

No. She was only your keeper, just like the lighthouse keepers before her. His eyes flashed and his hands danced faster. Any sorcerer who could control you would soon be the greatest of all sorcerers. He would have anything he wanted. None would dare oppose him, for fear of you.

No. This is a lie, I said, trembling, but the darkness inside my heart stirred again, lifted its head, sniffed the winds. I knew in my gut my Puppet could not lie to me. Why did you kill Selene? You could have just enslaved me and fled.

You and the lighthouse are bound with one spell, and you cannot leave until the spell breaks. The keeper was part of it. Her death is another broken link in the chain. Now you need only speak the right words, amplified with a lens, and you will be free.

I made my Puppet carry Selene back to the cabin and lay her by the fire while I began weaving her shroud. My heart contracted within me. I was being pinched, drawn out, twisted like fleece into something hard. All my fear had died with my Selene. Now all I had left was rage.

We wrapped her in the shroud in the morning. I hadn’t slept while weaving it. I needed no rest anymore. A darkness I could no longer master sustained me. Puppet tended the sheep and cooked the food, body obedient and eyes terrified. I knew what must be done next.

At dusk I placed her body on a great twisted root thrown up like an arch between the lighthouse and cabin. Two stone leaves held her eyelids closed. I placed the lens in her folded arms, pinning it to her breast.

Speech is sorcery, he had said. Sorcery is binding, and sorcery is loosing. I brought my hands down in a sign that meant fury doubled, and the glass shuddered, amplifying the magic like the lanthorn amplified light. A great wind kicked up beneath Selene’s body and shook the island down to its foundations. A cloud of dry brown leaves kicked up from the ground, flew out to sea where they crashed into the waves like the bodies of dead birds. Puppet sat down in surprise on the tree root, which rippled with colors as it crackled and unpetrified all along its length, running up the slopes to the lighthouse, where the great old tree unstiffened and swayed in the wind again. Free.

But it was still a dead tree. Sorcery could not bring it back, nor could it bring back Selene.

She looked so fragile in death. I wondered how I ever feared her. Only Selene ever restrained me, and she was gone.

I gave Puppet an axe and set him to chop the roots while I packed the things we would need from the cabin: some clothes, my drop-spindle and distaff, and Selene’s golden comb, which I wore in my hair. I released the sheep from their pen. Free, I signed to them, and for good measure, lucky.

Puppet waited for me at the dock in a boat he had magicked from a tree-root. I gave him the oars. I would see the world at last—the world Selene had shielded from me.

As I stepped into the boat, the darkness bloomed within me, my body a seed from which uncurled the first tentative shoot of a ravenous, strangling weed. I raised a hand and signed, Doriane. In the dusk, a thin line of smoke trailed from the lighthouse, and then suddenly the whole tree ignited.

Tonight, the Mainlanders would see a different beacon from Corail Island. Let them wonder. Let them fear.

12. Siren

My Puppet has gotten what he always wanted, although not in the way he wished. He is known far and wide as the greatest of sorcerers, who holds the Siren of Corail Island in thrall. Her voice, they say, drives men mad. Her singing, they say, lures sailors to their death on the rocks. Only the mighty sorcerer, the greatest of sorcerers, stands between the world and her fury.

Kings daren’t turn us away. Emperors hurry to appease us. When Puppet stands before the mighty, I sit on a stool beside him and work the drop-spindle and distaff. When he speaks, they listen, but always their eyes are upon me and my fingers, which flick and twist in weird patterns they do not comprehend. They cannot understand the words, but my spells work all the same.

They think they are safe because I do not speak. They think, in my silence, I do not control each and every one of them like so many puppets dangling on so many nooses cinched about their throats.

Oh, but they are wrong. They are so wrong about me. It is not my voice they should fear, but my name, which they will read at last on my dancing fingers when all the threads go taut.

Charlotte Incorporated

Originally published by Lightspeed Magazine in February 2014, edited by John Joseph Adams.

* * *

At night she pores over the corpus catalogues online: Incorporated Incorporated, Modern Anatomy, and Shoulders, Knees, & Toes. She weighs the merits of femur length and belly fat, redundant kidneys, attached earlobes, and pronated feet. Most people buy pre-configured corpi with symmetrical faces and standard organ kits, but she wants a custom build. Something completely unique. After work, she boots up the design software and fiddles with the sliders: thickening toes, brightening the little white crescent moons at the base of the nails, narrowing the Eustachian tubes, darkening the delicate tissues around the areolae and lips. She sorts through hardware and software options, laying tendons and tear ducts and lymphatic nets until her design is perfect.

On weekdays, she soothes angry customers at the Terrold Telecom Call Center. Each morning Mr. Dalton, her smug, incorporated boss, installs her into a generic company corpus called Hank. She knows the corpus is male not from genitalia—the company is too cheap to buy more than the torso and head—but from the thickened vocal folds. “Male voices inspire more confidence than female ones, Hank. Basic psychology,” Mr. Dalton explains. Privately she calls herself Charlotte, but she can’t correct him. Technically, only corpi have names, and Charlotte is just a brain in a jar.

Mr. Dalton’s corpus is one of Incorporated Incorporated’s standard office jobs, customized with dark brown hair, a goatee, and stylish myopia paired with chrome glasses. But Charlotte recognizes the telltale patella shape and distinctive chest-to-hips ratio. His face is symmetrical, and his navel smooth. He didn’t even bother with nipples. Generic. Uninspired. Lazy.

When no one is watching her at work, she stimulates each of Hank’s cranial nerves in turn. On her command, he pouts, weeps, and sneezes at the cubicle wall. Mr. Dalton insists that she grin on the job. “Customers can hear the smile in your voice, Hank,” he reminds her, but Charlotte’s favorite expression is the frown, especially deep scowls that yank the brows together and downward into a sharp gulch. When she is incorporated, she’ll frown all the time, and no one will be able to tell her no.

Someday.

If her coworkers are bothered by any of this too, they don’t say so. During lunch, they gather in the break room for gossip while grazing their corpi on company-brand nutri-kibble. Hank doesn’t have taste buds installed, so Charlotte makes him bolt down his kibble quickly while the others chitchat. Iain has unlatched his corpus’s scalp to lave the dangling filaments of his cauda equina in a cup of nutrifluid as his corpus eats.

An unfamiliar female corpus slides into the seat next to Charlotte and opens a brown sack. “So, what do you think, Hank? How’s my new look?” Charlotte takes in the dark thicket of eyebrow hair over deep brown eyes, the skillful grey streaked through long black hair. It is the port wine stain on her left forearm that gives it away.

“Shanti?” asks Charlotte.

Shanti’s new corpus bobs her head. “Yup.”

“When did you get incorporated?” It makes no sense to Charlotte. Just last Friday, they were commiserating over how much a custom corpus cost, and how hard it was to save anything on their salary.

Shanti winks a well-lashed eye with epicanthic folds crisp as hospital sheets. “It’s a secret. I’ve found a shortcut, perhaps. It’s a little bit black market, but if you want…” She unfolds a cheese sandwich from her paper sack and nibbles the brown crust. Charlotte can’t help but envy those gleaming bicuspids and chemoreceptors. Hank gnaws kibble with the solid ceramic plate that passes for teeth.

“No, thank you,” Charlotte says firmly, feeding Hank another bite of flavorless kibble. As tempting as it sounds, she knows better than to take short cuts on anything so important as her future.

* * *

At the end of the workday, Charlotte climbs out of Hank and returns home to a room the size of a bathroom stall which serves as her apartment. It’s small even by the standards of the unincorporated—just big enough to fit her transporter if she folds in the wheels. The jar’s dome scuffs against the ceiling. The glass is developing a cluster of cross-hatched scratches there. If she had a corpus, she would be going bald on top.

Charlotte doesn’t need much. There is a power outlet for her batteries, a plastic black storage trunk holding some maintenance tools for her transporter, and a sickly cactus the size and shape of a softball which she mists each evening with a spray bottle. When the door locks behind her, the room goes dark, and that is when the roaches scurry in, searching for moisture. But Charlotte doesn’t mind them. She can escape. She climbs out of her jar, laves her grey matter with nutrifluid, and weaves her peripheral nerves into the control console that connects to the internet via a neighbor’s unsecured network.

Online, Charlotte feels almost whole. She loads her sensory-sim app and goes for a virtual run down a lane of mossy live oaks in the fall, where the leaves drift and swirl like red and yellow pinwheels. A Savannah, Georgia sim, where she first came into consciousness as J-Provost-L-Bohannon-Two. Created, like everyone, to be free. Free to live and work and chase her dreams, if she could only catch them. If she could pay off her birth-debt and save for a corpus of her own.

The sim feels almost real to Charlotte. More so than the dark apartment where her squishy bundle of neurons waits out another night alone in the dark. The oaks were animated from life, and the sounds mixed from real recordings. Electrical signals to her parietal lobe simulate the wind, perfect save for the occasional static burst that turns the wind from cool to cold.

But taste and smell leave her wanting. The simulation promised fall smells: moldering leaves and burning chimneys. They used the same scent signatures for both types of carbon. It’s obviously not the same thing; a real corpus could tell the difference. Lazy. No one bothers writing good chemoreceptor apps for the unincorporated, at least not ones that Charlotte can afford. Frustrated, she switches off the sensory-sim and wonders how leaves smell when you breathe deep and cradle the air inside your very own nasal cavity, and how it feels to sneeze.

She feels almost corporeal in the app, but the almost matters. It’s the limits. They don’t make puddle-stomping apps or mud pie tasting apps. No one writes programs that let you run with a grocery cart down the cereal aisle, then coast on the back axle until you hit the shelf. You can download any number of romance sims, but there’s no sim for chasing encyclopedia salesmen off your doorstep with a sword made of skinny green balloons. You can buy all the music you want online, but you can’t buy a program that lets you belch the ABC’s in burps that taste like wasabi. But she will do it all when she becomes Charlotte.

She’s scrimping and saving. She uses Sleep Mode eight hours a night to save on power. Good practice for corpus care, or so she tells herself. She buys generic nutrifluid and changes the waste filter every eight days instead of the recommended six. She imagines each sacrifice as another fine nerve filament reaching from her cerebellum toward the Charlotte she longs to be.

She sleeps suspended inside the biochamber, brain stem trailing its fine lattice of disconnected nerves, and she dreams corporeal dreams. The blueprint comes to life, the details exactly as she has selected. Perfection. Charlotte’s corpus will be sixty years old, because she loves the way corpi droop at that age. Sort of like weeping willows. She’ll store extra fuel in thick padding on her belly, waist, and hips. Her black skin will be prone to flaking because Charlotte plans to try every scent of lotion they sell, once she has the chemoreceptors. Her hair will be thick, black, kinky and unruly—like dendrites—and she’ll never try to tame it.

Another month of saving should make the down payment. Then Shanti will see you can make it the old-fashioned way, one penny at a time.

* * *

Monday morning, Charlotte’s alarm app stimulates her anterior hypothalamus and switches on her external feeds. Charlotte opens the door with a silent command and scrapes the door frame as she rolls out. A bad wheel jounces her gray matter as she rolls down the stairs, pinching one of her peripheral nerves against the glass wall. Irritated, Charlotte wishes for a mouth to frown with. At last she makes it out into the drizzly, dim December morning and heads for the bus stop.

She passes a wet gray lump crawling through a puddle in the gutter—someone without any biochamber at all, barely clinging to life. Charlotte stops to lave the poor soul in a dribble of nutrifluid from her chamber, but it’s all she can do, since she has nothing else to give.

The bus arrives at 6:50 on the dot. Alicia, the incorporated bus driver, lowers the access ramp, and Charlotte boards. Alicia has a short, plump corpus with deep brown skin and a vestigial palmaris longus tendon in her right wrist which bunches the skin when her hands clench the steering wheel. Charlotte appreciates the attention to detail. Most people don’t bother these days.

“Good morning,” Alicia says as Charlotte struggles to get her biochamber up the ramp, thanks to the uncooperative wheel.

“Good morning,” says Charlotte’s voice module, which somehow never sounds convincingly human. At least it’s female.

Someday, when she’s incorporated, she’ll have skin that shade, and a palmaris longus to boot. But she won’t drive a bus. No, she has other plans. Charlotte wants to spall concrete and lay asphalt.

Three corpi have chosen seats on the right side of the bus. The left, which comes equipped with sets of blue nylon straps and floor anchors, is reserved for the unincorporated. A few are already strapped in, their jars lined up like bubble wrap. Not everyone is so unhappy with their state. Some unincorporated are content to a quiet life in a tiny room with a cactus for company. They spend their money on better apps and it is, perhaps, enough. Enough to live and work and die in half a body belonging to someone else, enough to flatten life’s dimensions to a handful of choices on a checklist, your infinite potential contained in a jar.

Charlotte has never understood their contentment, because her jar has never been enough for her. She rolls into her usual niche behind the driver’s seat, and Alicia straps her securely against the wall. Charlotte trains her cameras out the window as the bus rolls forward. There is a road crew working on the pavement this morning. They are replacing the uneven sidewalk across the street. She imagines herself as Charlotte out among those corpi, perhaps wielding the jackhammer, perhaps pouring cement, her muscle groups working in perfect pairs: biceps and triceps, quadriceps and hamstrings, agonist and antagonist struggling together against the pull of gravity.

Then, suddenly, the impact.

One moment, Charlotte is watching the street through her video feed. The next, the glass shatters, Alicia screams, the whole world rolls upside down. Charlotte’s biochamber pitches and cracks on top, where the scratches have made the glass weak. Her tender gray matter concusses against the wall. Nutrifluid leaks as the outside world invades her shell. The liquid drips into the exposed electronics of her maintenance hatch. Blue sparks dance around the edge of the camera. One by one her systems go offline: first the voice module, then visual, and finally the audio feed. The last thing she hears is Alicia taking command of the wreck over the screams of the other corpi. “Hang on. Everything’s gonna be alright…” Then Charlotte is trapped in darkness.

Marooned, cut off from the world, Charlotte plunges into the blackness of her own mind. Desperate, she fires electrical impulses down her nerves—a castaway tossing bottles to the sea. Nothing. Total sensory deprivation. Love notes sent but left unanswered.

Charlotte wonders if she’ll die this way. Unincorporated and unCharlotted. What did it all amount to, the years of discipline and self-denial, the hope so intense that it ached?

She fights the tide of drowsiness that’s stronger than the distant pain. She remembers smacking against the wall, knows that if she sleeps, she might never wake up. Charlotte clings to prickly hope.

She arrives at the hospital alive and whole. There is good news: the concussion was mild, and Charlotte will be discharged in the morning. And Alicia’s corpus only lost a leg below the knee. There is bad news, too: Charlotte’s biochamber needs extensive repairs. Probably cheaper to get a new one. And there’s the hospital bill, of course.

Charlotte runs the math. Her corpus savings are cut in half. Five years’ hard work, lost in an instant. Maybe she can make the waste filter last another day each week. Maybe she can sleep a little longer.

In the end, they are right about the biochamber. While Alicia’s company has agreed to reimburse her, it is only for the value of the old one. And without a corpus, she needs the biochamber to live and work and speak. And the money has to come from somewhere.

Inside her new biochamber, Charlotte pulls up Shanti’s email, shoots her a note. I’d like that address, if you’re still offering.

* * *

One advantage of the new biochamber is its speed. Charlotte zips down the sidewalk through a nice part of town she normally has no business in. There are almost no unincorporated out here. She has to pull over several times to let the long-legged strides of corpi overtake her. Incorporated people have important places to be, and tend toward impatience.

The address Shanti gave her is a corpus-sized apartment. Charlotte has only seen such places in internet vids advertising corpus life. A male corpus answers the door. Prominent zygomatic arches—a popular trend in the west—and a customized roundness plumping out the rectus abdominis, which disguises the standard Modern Anatomy frame almost perfectly to Charlotte’s practiced eye.

“Yes?” His voice is cigarette-rough. Another artistic touch.

“I’m here for a corpus,” Charlotte pipes through her voice module. “My friend Shanti said I could get a bargain.”

He flings the door open and steps aside to let her wheel past his knees. The place is even bigger inside than she imagined. There is a whole kitchen on the left, just for preparing peanut brittle and squash casserole and all the other wonderful things corpi eat. The hallway runs ahead, opening into several rooms on the right and left before terminating in an open space. That is where the corpus leads her.

“You’re in luck. We just had a few good models come into inventory today. Fresh.” It is hard to keep up with his long, strong corpus stride. Charlotte almost rams his shins when they enter the large living room.

She cannot imagine what she would do with so much space. If she had a corpus, maybe a few cartwheels. That always sounded like fun to her. The room reminds her of the conference room at work where they leave their corpi at night, settling them into rolling chairs before Mr. Dalton detaches them and drops them into their waiting biochambers. This room has chairs, too: puffy green recliners with dusty stuffing hanging out of splits in their sides, and in each recliner, a corpus. Six ranged around the room. Charlotte’s guide spreads his arms.

“All on sale. Half price from market rates. Complimentary navel installation if you want it. Take your pick.”

Charlotte rolls between the chairs and examines her options, zooming in her biochamber’s cameras for a closer look. She disregards the three males outright. Of the three remaining, she can instantly see that none of them are Charlotte, not properly. Too young. Too pale. None of them have belly buttons, as the salesman said. One of them is so thin the cheap, generic pelvis looks like it might cut through the skin over the waist.

“Is this it?” Even her artificial voice doesn’t disguise the disappointment.

The male corpus grins. The risorius contracts, but not the zygomatic major. “You can always upgrade it later. Still cheaper than buying new.”

It’s a fair point. And the used corpus in the middle isn’t so bad. It’s young, and a little too thin for Charlotte’s taste, but the frame is good quality, and the height about right. And anyway, it’ll age, and with enough peanut brittle, she can round it out. “That one,” she says, “does it have a palmaris longus?”

He grabs the corpus’s right hand and scrunches the fingers together until the little muscle pops out like cord. “There you go. You want it, then?”

Charlotte remembers her sensory marooning during the accident. There are no guarantees in life, no corpus waiting for everyone. It could be now or never. “Yes, please.”

She logs in to her bank and arranges the money transfer. He asks her to mark it as a gift. Then he hauls the limp corpus upright, and works open the skull bolts, which look a little sticky. Charlotte at last, she thinks.

The skull pops open with a sound like a tooth yanked from its socket. The man reaches inside and rips out something wet and gray. It isn’t moving.

“Oh God,” says Charlotte, “that’s a person!”

The salesman slings the body into a pail lined with a black trash bag. “It’s okay. They’re dead. I’ll rinse it out for you, if it bothers you.” He fishes a yellow pail from behind one of the chairs and raises a soapy scrub brush.

“But that’s a dead person!” Charlotte protests. “They died inside that corpus!” She’s amazed when the salesman just shrugs and starts soaping out the inside of the skull.

“They’re not using it anymore. Might as well let someone else get some use out of it when they’re gone.”

Charlotte cannot process all the thoughts barraging the wrinkled folds of her insula: disgust like sour milk smell, horror like the color mauve, terror like the dark apartment when the internet is down and the roaches skitter over her. Why did Shanti send her here? Did she know? “Is this what they wanted?”

“Of course,” he answers a little too quickly.

Charlotte knows corpi, though. She knows what it means when the eyes drop down when they’re speaking. And she knows. She knows she can’t do it. She can’t take a person’s most personal possession, their own hard-won Charlotte, without their permission. You were supposed to be buried in your corpus. Your corpus was you. “I don’t want this. I’m going to reverse the transaction.”

Instantly the salesman’s corpus stiffens. His chest puffs and his arms cross. “Sorry. No refunds. And I should warn you. You know what’ll happen if you talk about this place, don’t you?”

Charlotte suddenly remembers there is more to fear in the world than bus accidents and dead dreams. “Please. Just let me go home.”

She leaves broke and with no corpus. Outside her apartment, Charlotte passes the person in the gutter again. They have made it to the safety of a puddle today. Another precious life extension for the wretch. A day’s reprieve. And tomorrow? Well, tomorrow, look for another puddle, and call it a life. With her nest egg gone, Charlotte’s own puddle is receding, all her dreams washing down the drain.

Corpi walk past, but Charlotte sees only stolen cadavers ripped from their owners, a dead gray mass in a bucket. They drink black coffee that Charlotte cannot smell from cups that Charlotte cannot cradle warm between two hands. Her audio feed presents her with a spectrum flat on both ends, as if she won’t miss what their curated reality never offers to begin with. As if Charlotte won’t notice how half her nerves disconnect, how they don’t feel anything at all.

Charlotte scowls, though there are no muscles to answer the call of her neurotransmitters. Defiance prickles through her anyway. It will have to be enough. She will make it be enough. Some parts of a person cannot be bought or sold or owned, no matter how large the birth-debt. Funny how often the incorporated forgot that.

Back at home, Charlotte carefully mists her little cactus. Then she calls up the file containing her corpus design and deletes the extra kidney, the gallbladder, the left ear’s cochlea.

The palmaris longus stays.

Jason Kimble

Broken

Originally published by Escape Pod (episode 509)

* * *

My favorite part about skimming is that I’m not broken when I do it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have levels, that I’m on or off, because that’s how everything’s supposed to be when you’re in the hypernet. Even if I’m not supposed to be in the hypernet.

I’m only able to skim because Kaipo left my interface node on. That was the day he told me I could call him Kaipo instead of Dr. Singh. His eyes are different than mine, but that’s not because of the Skew, and even if it is I wouldn’t care, because they’re pretty and dark and they twinkle a little bit when he smiles. We’d had sex twice when he told me I could call him Kaipo if we’re alone. Sex is almost as good as skimming, only it doesn’t last as long, and sometimes I’m stinky afterwards, which I’m not a fan of. Sometimes Kaipo smells like pumpkin, which I’m totally a fan of.

"Overshare."

"Hi, Heady," I say, rolling onto my side on the bed to look at her. I frown, which I know because the muscles at my jawbone ache a little when I frown. "Did you hear all that?"

Heady raises an eyebrow and purses her lips. Heady’s my big sister. Like, really big. Eight and a half feet big. That’s what the Skew did to her, blew her up bigger than life, but I think it suits her. She’s not as tough as she looks to most people, though. She’s totally as tough as she looks to me right now.

"Sorry," I say, sitting up. "Sometimes I get confused about outside and inside my head." That’s what the Skew did to me: broke my head. You can see that when I cut my hair or trim my beard, because the hairs change colors each time. Other people tell me it’s silly, but I like it. I can never decide if I like red or blue or green or purple or yellow more, and this way I get to have them all, and all’s better than some.

Heady sighs.

"Don’t worry, Sy," she says, because Sy’s my name. "You never have to apologize to me."

She smiles, and the muscles in my cheeks tense up so I know I’m smiling, too. She’s a good big sister, Heady. Even if she’s not real.

* * *

Well, Heady’s real, but she’s not real here. She used to be. The room felt even smaller and tighter back then, because my interface node was turned off and no one would turn it back on. The world was only four walls, and they were right on top of me. The window didn’t matter; it was just part of the wall, wasn’t it?

The door, now that mattered. Heady came through the door. She left through the door. One of those times, she introduced me to Dr. Singh. That was before he let me call him Kaipo.

"Neuroelectro therapy," I said after Kaipo did. It was just sounds.

"It means your node turns back on, Sy," Heady said. She smiled. She has a good smile, too. Not the same way as Kaipo. It’s not like that. The muscles in my cheeks ached a little.

"I’ve been looking over your files since I was assigned your case, and…I think we can actually use our interactions through the node to re-map some pathways."

"My node turns on," I said.

"For our sessions, anyway," Kaipo said. It was the first time I saw his smile. My ears tingled.

He left us alone after Heady signed some paperwork, and then she sat us down on my bed.

"Sy, I have to go away for a while," she said. Her voice was soft, like all her hair. Her hand was light on my shoulder even though it could swallow mine.

"How long’s a while?" I asked. I’m good with time. It’s a pattern. I’m very good with patterns. While isn’t a good pattern. It isn’t time. It’s pretend, like a code loop that never finishes.

"I don’t know," Heady said, still soft. She hugged me to her, and I could hear her heart pounding. I remembered how mine slammed in my chest when I was trying to think of what I should say to Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles. Heady always knew what to say. She let me go, kneeled in front of the bed, then wrapped her sprawling hands on my shoulders. Her round eyes were a little wet, but she smiled as she looked me in my eyes. It wasn’t quite as pretty as usual.

"But Dr. Singh is going to take care of you," she told me. "And once I’ve got things sorted out, I’m coming back for you."

I bit my lip. Not enough to hurt, which I sometimes do.

"But you have to stay here so I can find you, understand?"

I nodded.

"And then no more doctors or secrets, just you and me. I promise."

I didn’t talk. I hugged her. It’s not always easy, wrapping my arms around her, but I did it. I didn’t squeeze too tight, because Heady’s bones aren’t as tough as normal-sized people. I held on until she hugged me back. Her hair fell around us and made the world go away. She smelled like ginger and cumin, which don’t go together, except with Heady they do. I listened to her heart pounding, to the little sniff she made. I held her with my arms, then I let her go with my arms, and then she walked out the door.

"How about that doctor?" the other Heady said after the door clicked closed. That’s when the other Heady started, because I’m very good with patterns, and I only let Heady’s go with my arms.

"He’s a cutie, right?" Heady prodded, smiling. "There’s definitely potential there."

The muscles in my cheeks ached again, but only a little.

* * *

Kaipo has access to turn my interface node on and off because that’s how we do neuroelectro therapy. That’s when I have to call him Dr. Singh.

"It’s getting more tranquil here, Sy," he says with a smile when he joins me in the closed server where we do therapy.

"That’s totally good, right?" I ask.

"It totally is," he says with a little laugh. He smiles. I really like his smile. Right now it’s simulated through the code, but the real one is nice, too. He shows all his teeth, even the canines that are a little crooked. It’s open, his smile. I’m totally a fan of that.

So I’ve been practicing, smoothing out the abstract shapes and the code mutations that make being in the server interesting. They worry Kaipo. If I’m ever going to build filters, real filters and coping whatchamahooies, I have to listen to him. Plus, my chest gets a little tight when he cocks his head and frowns that worried frown. I like the smile more.

Kaipo takes us through the exercises. I make the right shapes and say the right things. I’m very good with patterns, so this feels natural. When we’re done and we’re back outside the server box, but inside the room box, he taps notes into his tablet.

"You weren’t too good at the coding bits?" Heady asks. I bite my lip. It hurts a little this time. I shake my head.

Kaipo says being accelerated too much in one area puts me out of balance in the others. There’s a middle. He’s helping me find out how to present it. I can’t talk out loud to Heady, though, when Kaipo is around. That definitely gets a frown and isn’t what I ought to present. So I keep my mouth closed, because if I don’t say anything, I can’t lie. Which I’m bad at, anyway.

"This is maddening!" Heady calls out, walking around behind Kaipo. She leans down to see what’s on his screen.

"Just tap in already," she says, pointing to me and then pointing to the tablet. She knows she can’t really see what I can’t. I shake my head.

"Come on," she drawls, kneeling next to Kaipo. She leans her head on his shoulder. "Just one little skim and you can see—"

I feel a pinch in the muscles on both the top and the bottom of my mouth, and that’s how I know I’m pursing my lips. I try to wave Heady off.

"Sy?" Kaipo looks up. It’s not a frown or a smile or even pursed lips exactly. That arch at his eyebrow means he noticed. He walks over. "Are you all right?"

Heady throws her hands in the air.

"If you just listened to me, you wouldn’t have to—"

I stand up and smile at Kaipo and bite my lip just enough. He smiles. I like his smile.

"Okay, fine. You got this," Heady says, and walks sideways until she’s not here any more.

Kaipo taps the tablet to put the security feed on a loop. I let him think I didn’t do that a minute and a half ago.

I touch his fingers with mine. My cheeks feel warm. Other places, too.

I don’t just like Kaipo’s smile. Or his eyes. Or how he sometimes smells like pumpkin. I like that his skin is a kind of pale, not-exactly copper. I like that there’s a little bit of hair around each of his nipples, and a tiny dusting of it on his sternum, but not much anywhere else under his shirt. I like the feel of his waist when my legs are wrapped around it. I like the rough sides of the spine ridges the Skew gave him. I like how soft his lips are on mine, and on my neck, and on my nipples even though they have more hair than his. I like that I don’t have to talk but he knows what I need and want, and I know the same for him.

I don’t like how tight my chest feels when I think about what he’ll need and want once I’ve run away.

* * *

When they first brought me (I’m not supposed to talk about them), Heady—real Heady—came to visit every day. She held my hand, and told me what she’d done that day, only not everything, because she knew if she told it all, I might open my mouth and it would all come out.

That was how I got put in to begin with. We’re special, Heady and me. It’s hard—like, super duper hard—for people to have babies up here on the Rim, because one of the ways the Skew hurt just about everybody is that they can’t make babies. One baby is a party. Two babies is the kind of new that’s scary.

They didn’t want scary, because scared makes people do even more scary. They raised us separate for a while, helped us figure out what we were good at. Heady was good with people. I was good with not-people, with patterns. They fitted me with an interface node, and it felt right. At first I could just tap the local network, and I felt less cramped in my head, but it was still small. Pycha Gol is supposed to be one of the better roids, but home was still just a floating rock in the Rim. Everything was cramped and close and slow and stinky, which I’m not a fan of.

But the planet below? They’ve got the hypernet, which is big and bright and open and has more to know floating around inside it than I think anyone could ever know. Even any-one-hundreds could probably never know it. I’m totally a fan of that. Which is why I started learning to skim.

I’m good with not-people, but Kaipo’s been teaching me: talent is different than perfect. Especially when you’re excited about something and don’t really get that you have to be careful. And aren’t very good at being careful even when you know to be.

The woman who came first was big. Not as big as Heady, but the Skew gave all her teeth points, which made her scarier. Her partner was a man who rode in a chair. He had bone on the outside of his knuckles. I think maybe the Skew knew they wanted to be in security. Which is weird, because everyone tells me diseases can’t think.

The room was cramped and close. All smudged metal and streaky glass. The chair hurt my back, but I think maybe it was supposed to. Heady and I were eighteen. The hair at my scalp was orange from my most recent haircut. There was still some purple on the tips, though, and all the green and pink from the two cuts before that. It helped me feel a little brighter when I saw it in the smudged mirror, but then Bone Knuckles crunched his fist into the table, and Pointy Teeth leaned in and smiled. Her breath was stinky, which I’m not a fan of.

I don’t think she liked the face I made when I smelled her and tried to turn away. She grabbed me by the cheeks and made me look right at her.

"So, you’re going to tell us who hooked you up with hypernet access codes, and then maybe we can see about making sure you don’t have to do rehab time at a conversion station."

"That’s a deal you want, kid," Bone Knuckles said, wheeling his chair around to my other side. "I’ve been in the atmocite plant. For a place that makes our air, it is damn hard to breathe inside."

"Scrawny thing like you?" Pointy Teeth said, "I figure you might not even make it through a term before you wind up too damaged for life after." She stood back up and moved over to the wall, leaning against it. That made me feel better, because then I couldn’t smell her breath. I thought how bad it’d be if I had to work in the conversion station, where it would be stinkier than anything.

"I just asked nice," I told them, because that was the truth, and I thought that’s what people wanted. Bone Knuckles wheeled his chair back again and laughed.

"You hear that, Sonja?" he said. "Asked nice. That’s all."

"I had to ask a lot," I clarified. Which was true. I knew it was called encryption, and I knew what I was doing with protocols and algorithms, but I knew that none of that made sense to most people the way it did to me. I was trying to make it easier for them to understand. They were still mad and confused, though. I wasn’t good with people. Heady was.

That’s all I was thinking when I said, "Maybe we can call my sister, and she can help me explain better, because Heady’s good with—"

"Woah," Pointy Teeth said. She looked to Bone Knuckles, and he wheeled closer again while she stalked in from the other side. They looked at each other, and I looked at them, then they looked at me.

"You have a sister?" Bone Knuckles asked. I’d already remembered by then that I wasn’t supposed to tell about having a sister, but it was too late. I wanted Heady there more than ever. Heady’s really good at lying, but I’m no good at it at all. I’m either talking, or I’m not talking.

I didn’t talk. They didn’t like that. There was yelling and shaking, and Pointy Teeth threw a chair.

Since I didn’t talk, I still don’t know how Heady found me, but she did. And she smiled down at Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles.

"Adopted," she said, calmly. "Sy’s my cousin, really, but his folks were in a horrible…" she sniffed and covered her eyes, and even I wanted to hug her and make her feel better for my parents who were dead, but who really she just invented on the spot.

Bone Knuckles reached into a compartment on his chair and gave Heady a handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes. They apologized. They said things about trouble and heartache even though my chest didn’t hurt. They promised to track down whoever sold me skim codes, who was me but they were letting me go, because Heady and I walked out the door together.

The next day they committed me. That was three years ago.

* * *

"This is, really, the worst idea ever," Heady says. People keep walking where I put her, so I move her around. It’s much more crowded outside than I remember. And stinky. I’m not a fan of that.

"Then we should go back," Heady hisses, stooping down to try to pull me out of line for the jumper. "We can still go back."

It took me a long time to get here. First Dr. Singh had to become Kaipo, and even though I liked his smile and all the other things, I had to remember about the next piece. He had to leave my node on, and even that was a tiny step.

I had to remember to be careful this time. Had to remember talent wasn’t skill. That if you go too fast, they catch you. Just fast enough. Find the pattern. Fall into it. I didn’t want Pointy Teeth and Bone Knuckles to drag me away again three years later.

When the orderlies thought I was sleeping, I skimmed. I started small because, Kaipo taught me you always do. You have to pick up bricks to build a wall to build a house to build a city. When you skip the normal steps, people notice.

First, I asked the internal net nicely if I could sit quiet in my little corner. I watched the bits and bobs moving around. Made a map of my tiny piece of things while the code got used to me being there.

The security systems are very territorial, which is good for a security system but was bad for me. I squeezed myself small and made my edges soft. You have to let them know you aren’t mean or angry and won’t try to make them let you places that belong to them. The security system hissed once or twice, and sniffed me over a few times, but eventually it stopped looking at me. I was part of its territory, so it didn’t need to guard against me.

I could move around, then, and smile nice at the video feeds. Video feeds aren’t like security systems. They want you to look, as long as security isn’t nearby. The feeds were fans of mine, because I didn’t make them pick and choose. I let them show me everything, not just the fights and the screaming and the people when their clothes came off. The feeds said the orderlies kept making them show just that last bit and ignoring empty halls, which made the hall feeds sad and lonely. But I curled up with them and didn’t yawn even once when they showed me the quiet between the night patrols.

Once I learned the patterns, I had to talk to the lock timers. Locks aren’t as prickly as security, but they are stubborn. They slide into place and they fall dead asleep and they don’t want to move until morning. They like their routine. They don’t like to change. It makes them wobbly inside, which I am totally not a fan of, so I understand. I puzzled over that until I bopped myself for forgetting I wasn’t starting small again. Little bits, little bobs.

Each night, I slipped just a little more into the timing algorithms for the locks. They batted at their noses a few times. Snorted, but not loud enough that security bothered to look, because it was busy slinking and hunting, and locks and me didn’t move fast enough to catch its attention. Once a lock half rolled over, and I had to hum it back to sleep because it wasn’t quite time yet.

I needed a place to go when I was outside. I couldn’t stay on Pycha Gol. I’m not sure if roids are the bricks or the houses, but I needed a new one. I threw a jangly bit to distract the security system, then I skimmed out into Pycho Gol’s net to the jumper system to pick a route and a ship, so that when the locks opened, I wouldn’t have to wait any longer.

* * *

I picked this jumper after I accessed it. It’s going to a roid where they fix things, not people. I think that’s a good place for me. So I nudged here and there, and when the locks woke up early while the orderlies were busy watching people with no clothes, I picked up my bag and walked through the crowds and the stink to the line because now I have a ticket, linked up on my retinal scan. I lean down and don’t blink at the flash.

"We’ll buzz in a little while," the jumper security guard says, strapping a little plastic bracelet to me. It fits almost like the ones at the hospital. He waves me on with his flipper-hands.

"Kaipo will get in a lot of trouble for this," Heady says.

"He really cares for you," she adds. I look her in the eye, and she cocks her head to the side. If she were real, I think she might cup my cheek in her hand. The muscles at my jawbone ache.

"I think I was bad for Kaipo," I say.

"Sy, sweetie, that’s not—"

"I’m bad with people. For people."

Heady’s lips thin, but she doesn’t say anything.

"Kaipo’s a doctor. He wanted me to get better. I’m totally better now, you heard," I say.

"He’ll hurt, Sy," Heady says. "It hurts when you leave people."

"I know," I whisper, hanging my head. My eyes burn a little, and it’s hard to focus.

"Then you should stay," Heady says, kneeling down in front of me. She doesn’t have real fingers, but my chin picks up when she puts her hand under it, anyway.

"If you leave, I won’t know where to find you when I come back," Heady says.

"That’s not true," I say.

"You can’t leave a trail," she says, standing in front of me, hands hovering near my shoulders because she can’t touch them. Her eyes are wet. "If you did, they’d find you and put you somewhere else where they’d never let me in to—"

"Not that part," I say. My chest is tight. "You’re never coming back."

Heady stands there, towering over me. I feel extra small right now.

"Don’t say that," she whispers. "I promised."

"You lied," I say, walking around her, putting her at my back. I can’t look at her, even if she’s not really there.

It’s a long few minutes while I wait for them to buzz me. I try not to breathe too deep. Then I finally hear her say it. Soft, because I probably still don’t want to hear it.

"Yes."

I sniffle, which is totally because the air’s so dirty and stinky here. I’m not a fan. I look back at Heady and her big, wet eyes. I wish she really told me. Real Heady. I wish she trusted me. But she didn’t, and now she’s gone. One blink later, and the other Heady’s gone, too, because I can’t see her any more.

I can’t stay for Heady. I can’t stay for Kaipo. But I can do this much for them. I can let go. Of the promise we both knew wasn’t one. Of one last piece of reshaped code that shouldn’t be there. Flatten it all out. No more bad patterns. Just me.

The bracelet on my wrist buzzes. It’s been a little while, I guess. Now it’s time.

Hide Behind

Originally published by The Sockdolager (issue 3)

* * *

"It’s never gonna fruit 'cause you stole it."

Yuna flinched at the whip-crack of a voice. She heard Ruthie’s frustrated sigh next to her. They both knew before turning around from the fruit-bare Seeder tree that Sheriff Lightle was paying a visit.

"Seeder trees outside a grove are for everyone, Sheriff," Ruthie drawled, falling back into the old argument. "This one was plenty far away from the brush fence, and you know well as I, the whole point of Seeder trees is to help settlers survive frontier living. The tinpots want their trees spreading cross-country."

"Natural-like, sure," the wiry man shot back, hooking his thumbs in his gunbelt and cocking one sharp hip to the side. He jabbed his nose at the tall tree behind the pair of women. "But you scoop it out of the ground and start grafting it willy-nilly, that ain’t doing right by the Seeders."

"Now, Chick—" Yuna started.

"Charlie," Sheriff Lightle all but barked.

"Charlie," Yuna corrected with a thin-lipped smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tiny bit of a nod Ruthie gave her. Quickest way to escape one sore point was to poke at another. "I know you didn’t stop by just to roast the same old chestnut, did you?"

"Shouldn’t I make the tree puns?" Ruthie whispered. Yuna nudged her research partner with an elbow. Ruthie made a show of smoothing out her prairie skirt.

Chick frowned. For a minute Yuna thought he’d push right on. He’d been sore with her since fainting in a briar patch the first time he’d seen a dead body. Seven years later he still hadn’t forgiven Yuna for smirking at the scratches on his back and belly as she treated him. It probably hadn’t helped when she told him the belly ache afterward was all in his head.

Yuna thought he was about to keep going right into the threats to tear the tree out and burn it to stop it going bad. Of course, that would have meant he had to touch it, which was more than a little unlikely given his superstitions.

Then something twitched behind his eyes, and his shoulders sagged.

"Widow Stormalong was killed last night," he said, all the fire out of his voice.

Yuna nearly jumped when she felt Ruthie’s hand squeeze at her elbow. Neither one of them said a thing.

Chick continued. "Thing is, the way she was opened up—" his gangly-fingered hand circled low in front of his stomach—"looked just like what happened to Henry Johannes." They all thought Johannes had been coyotes, but—

"A coyote couldn’t bite its way through giant flesh," Yuna said. Her neck ached as she tried to keep her voice steady.

"No kind of coyote would get near enough to try," Ruthie added.

"Which is why I’m here," the sheriff said. He looked skyward, running one hand over his head and sending some of his fine hairs standing up from the static. "I was wondering…well, Marcus, he knows how to put a body together, but…"

Ruthie squeezed again at Yuna’s elbow. Yuna gave her a weak smile to cut through the worry in her eyes. Marcus was an undertaker, not a doctor. There was only one of those in town.

"I’ll take a look," Yuna agreed, her voice nine times steadier than she actually felt.

"I’m helping," Ruthie piped in. Then Yuna only felt seven times unsteadier.

* * *

Henry Johannes had been the first victim they found, three days back. When she heard about it, though, Yuna felt worst for his poor wife, Wacéda.

"She comes in after a hard week on the cattle trail, just wanting to sit down to those griddle cakes Henry made so well, and she finds him…" Yuna shuddered and didn’t finish. She willed her fingers still while she re-corked the medicinals she and Ruthie had brought in from the garden.

"I just saw him yesterday," Ruthie said. "Gave him some of the new rhubarb for a pie he was fixing to make." She shook her head and added, "Gentle soul, that one."

Yuna raised her eyebrow and looked sidelong at Ruthie. "You sure you’re talking about Henry Johannes?"

Ruthie punched Yuna in the shoulder. "Hayashi Yuna, don’t you even think about talking ill of the dead," she chided.

"My pa used to tell me something from the old country: death don’t change who you were. It just keeps folks from talking about it."

Ruthie set her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and raised one black eyebrow. "That’s no old saying from nowhere," she said.

"But it’s true," Yuna returned with a sideways smile. Ruthie’s dark face split with a bright grin.

"Point taken," she said, though the smile fell as quickly as it had come. "Henry was a bit of a grump, but not so you minded, really. He certainly didn’t deserve what those coyotes did to him."

"Still don’t understand why they’d come in so close as that, anyhow," Yuna said.

* * *

There was a time when Yuna would have been over the moon at the chance to autopsy a giant. That thrill of discovery was what brought Ruthie and Yuna together in the first place, and what had inspired them to try raising a Seeder tree to find out just what made it tick. Ruthie was a brilliant botanist. Yuna had a gift for medicine. The two of them could take that seedling and ferret out its secrets. Maybe folks like Sheriff Lightle got prickly about it, but even Chick knew there wasn’t really anything wrong if it meant discovering something thrilling and new.

But this wasn’t university, and Widow Stormalong—Natalie—wasn’t a tree. Wasn’t just a body, even. She’d come by last week asking after herbs to help her sleep at night. Ruthie had to harvest a whole new batch of plants to get enough to do for Nat, given how much better giant bodies were at flushing toxins.

Now Nat was gone, and that made two victims. Nat proved it couldn’t just be coyotes or riled-up whimpuses whirling about. There was no joy in discovery now, but there also wasn’t any more avoiding it. Not if they wanted to stop more people dying.

When Yuna got inside, saw how low in the stomach the opening was—saw what was missing—she knew it could only be one thing.

"Hidebehind?" Chick asked, incredulous when Yuna suggested it.

"There were punctures on Nat’s forearm, but nothing eaten up around there. Suggests toxin of one stripe or other. I thought for a minute it might be some kind of snake, but…" Yuna shook her head. "You know of anything else that eats only intestines on a kill?" Yuna asked.

The color had bled from Chick’s face. Even Ruthie’s dark skin flushed a bit gray as it sunk in.

"They’re only supposed to eat but once every half-dozen years or so, ain’t they?" Chick asked with a nervous laugh. "Now this one’s gone and eaten not only twice, but took a giant-sized helping, besides?"

Yuna felt her own gaze turn cold with Chick’s pun. Ruthie filled the silence.

"What little we know about them’s twisted up in campfire stories, anyway, so who knows how big their bellies are?" Ruthie countered. "You said you found Nat under that Black Walnut tree she kept. Wacéda found Henry under their Pecan. That’s how they stalk, isn’t it? From behind trees. I mean, they’re called a hidebehind for a reason."

* * *

"That tree she found him under?" Ruthie had said, the day they first heard about Henry, "Wacéda bought that tree from me when they got hitched." Her voice was hollow. She glanced toward the garden and grove out back of Yuna’s house. Which was also their office.

"They got hitched!" came a voice from out back. It sounded more than a bit like Ruthie’s.

"Oh, don’t tell me that jackalope is back in the garden!" Yuna said. She grabbed up a broom and headed outside.

"Could be worse," Ruthie called over the stomping of Yuna’s boots. "Remember when that batch of splints came through? Smashed up half the grove."

"Hard to forget," Yuna groaned. "Powerful tough to break those noggins," she recalled.

"Break those noggins!" came the sound of Yuna’s own voice.

"I think it’s over here," Ruthie called.

"I think it’s over here," Ruthie called again from a slightly different direction, though she hadn’t actually moved.

"I think it’s over here," now, a third time and direction.

Yuna sighed.

"You need whiskey," called out a new voice. Yuna turned to see Wacéda looking on from the edge of the grove.

* * *

"I need a drink," Chick muttered, dragging Yuna back to the present. He looked back and forth from Yuna to Ruthie. He opened his mouth to say something more, but only shook his head.

"I…thank you kindly, ladies," he finally said. "Let me take you both home. Nobody ought to be going anywhere alone right about now."

Yuna looked to Ruthie and raised an eyebrow. Ruthie gave back a shallow shrug. Chick hadn’t been chivalrous in a long while. At least, not when he wasn’t by begging after slippery elm and peppermint oil for his heartburn. But with some critter around so fast that no one ever saw it until it jumped out and cut you open for supper, maybe now was a good time to bury a hatchet.

Yuna’s place was closest. Ruthie waited in the wagon while Chick walked her to the door. He grabbed Yuna’s elbow just before she opened it.

"Doc Hayashi, those trees Mrs. Eagleton mentioned," Chick said.

"What about 'em?"

"They both came from Mrs. Eagleton, didn’t they?"

"Yes," Yuna answered, not sure why the sheriff hadn’t asked Ruthie herself.

"And were they grafted with that Seeder tree?"

Yuna frowned. "No."

"You sure?"

Yuna sighed heavily. "Ruthie and I keep excellent records," she finally answered. "We have a log of every single graft. None of them have gone wandering, and why does any of this—?"

"You’re the scientist, Doc," he said. "You tell me: seem like a strange coincidence to you that the two trees that drew a hidebehind came from your grove?"

"Don’t be dim, Chick," Yuna shot back.

It was the sheriff’s turn to frown.

"Charlie," Yuna corrected before he untied the mad knot in his tongue. She twisted out of his grip and waved him back toward the wagon. "Just…get Ruthie home. I’m sure Abe’s worried sick about now."

* * *

Yuna stared out into the grove as the sun set, the sound of Chick’s wagon swallowed by the wind through the leaves as he took Ruthie home.

Yuna watched the leaves on the Seeder tree turn mustard, then glow fire-red as the light shot through them on its way to rest. Everybody knew there was something special in Seeder trees. Tinpots, for all you rarely saw them, were looking out for folk. Fruit made a body feel refreshed even with just a bite. There was plenty of evidence it helped folks heal powerful quick. Bark even acted as a repellent to some of the nastier critters that roamed the wilds. It seemed a perfect plan back in the day to find out just how the tinpots did it. That kind of thing could help a lot of folks. And maybe make a name for the ladies who figured it out.

But the tree never had fruited. It grew strong, even grafted all right, but not a single blossom drew the bees and other pollinators. They couldn’t figure out just what sort of magic the tinpots bound up in the tree. Yuna found herself wondering now: if this tree weren’t calling bees, if it was off-kilter from their meddling, could it be calling something else?

Yuna shook her head. Chick was an idiot. She wasn’t about to take science advice from a man who didn’t have the sense to keep his face out of a briar patch. She felt a touch sorry for Ruthie, stuck on a longer ride with him, but knew soon enough she’d be home to Abe.

Yuna smiled and shook her head. There was a time Ruthie had been a bit unsure about Abe; then again, Abe felt the same about Ruthie. But given they were both sweet on Yuna—and Yuna just wasn’t built to give either of them what they wanted in that regard, though she loved them both dearly—it seemed the best plan for everyone as far as Yuna was concerned. And the wedding bells had proved her right, now, hadn’t they?

Yuna set a kettle to boil. Then she went to light some lanterns as red turned purple turned moonlight gray outside.

* * *

With the jackalope chase abandoned at the interruption, for a moment Yuna hadn’t seen the widow Wacéda at the edge of the grove. She had the same strong, wide stance she always did. The blues and reds of her leggings were bright as usual, like the vermillion she used in the part of her long, black hair. Then Yuna saw the sag in her shoulders. Stray hairs clung in the mourning clay caked over her face. Clay that was dry and cracked, except for the streaks in it that spread out from under Wacéda’s eyes.

"Jackalopes love whiskey," Wacéda said after all three women had been standing around staring at each other for much too long.

"Wacéda," Yuna said, like it was a race to get the next word out. "I…oh, darling, come inside and get off your feet," she said. Ruthie was already running for the door.

"I’ll put on some tea," Ruthie called back.

"Pie," Wacéda said as the screen banged closed. Then it was just the two of them.

"Whiskey pie?" Yuna asked.

Wacéda smiled. It was thin, and ran away from the light as soon as it showed, but Yuna caught it. She walked over to the widow, took her shoulders in her hands, and squeezed just a little. Yuna wanted to hug her, but there surely was a pie in the woman’s hands.

"Rhubarb," Wacéda corrected. She held the pie out. "Henry made it, but it’ll go bad before I can eat again, and…" she bit her lip as she jabbed her chin toward the front door. "Ruthie shouldn’t make tea on my account. I can’t drink it anyhow."

Yuna nodded. She remembered how she had to calm Henry when Wacéda got news her brother passed. Four days fasting never hurt anybody, she assured him. He’d been about to argue when she tapped his belly and told him he could probably do with a day or two, himself. He’d stomped off like a schoolboy told he couldn’t go fishing on a Saturday morning.

"Ruthie makes tea every time the wind changes," Yuna said, slipping an arm into the crook of her visitor’s. "Lets her check my larder. Abe’s always eating the sweets out from under her, so she pays me back for introducing her and Abe by sneaking some of mine. If she wasn’t the one who cultivated the tea in the first place, I’d have to scold her for how much of it we pour out every day."

Wacéda looked down. It wasn’t a smile this time, but Yuna thought she felt her arm relax just a titch.

"Drink or no, it makes the place smell good, and good smells can be good for a body, so what say you and the pie come inside, and Ruthie and I’ll have tea while you tell us about jackalopes and whiskey?"

The tension came back when Yuna mentioned talking, but Wacéda shrugged.

"You’re the doctor," she muttered.

"So I am," Yuna said. She urged Wacéda toward the door. Though the widow dragged her feet a bit, she came along.

* * *

Yuna didn’t realize just how tense she’d gotten sifting through the past until the kettle whistled and she nearly smacked her head on the ceiling by jumping. She pulled the kettle off the stove and added leaves. This batch actually was from a graft with the Seeder tree. Didn’t work the kind of miracles Seeder fruit could, but as Yuna breathed in the scent a moment while it steeped, she felt some of her tension melt. Sometimes Ruthie’s tea-for-everything notions weren’t all wrong.

That didn’t stop Yuna from jumping again at the pounding on the door.

"Yuna?"

Yuna frowned and hurried to the door.

"Ruthie," she chided as she opened it. "You’re like to have scared me out of my—"

Yuna’s throat closed up as she caught sight of Ruthie. Candlelight flickered across her eyes, empty and haggard. She swayed a bit, holding herself, rubbing the dark, red stains on her hands into the calico of her blouse.

"Abe’s dead, Yuna," Ruthie said before Yuna could find her voice. She walked past Yuna. By the time Yuna had the sense to scramble after her, Ruthie was staring out the big back window, into the dark of the grove. Yuna stopped just inside the room when Ruthie spoke.

"I used to tease you," Ruthie said, looking out into the grove, "didn’t make sense to me how your door couldn’t swing either way, especially with a couple of catches like Abe and me around. But now…I think you know better than the rest of us. Can’t lose anybody, the way you are."

Yuna shook off the sting of the old talk. It didn’t matter right now. "Ruthie, are you all…is the sheriff with you?" she asked softly.

Ruthie laughed, but there was no mirth in it. It was a loud, braying thing that smacked against the walls, then fell to nothing as quick as it came.

"Dead, too," Ruthie said, her tone flat like she was just declaring the grass green.

"Lord, Ruthie," Yuna whispered. She started across the room, her stomach falling out inside her. "Hidebehind got both—?"

"I killed him," Ruthie said. Yuna’s legs locked up on her. "Stabbed him right in the eye, good and proper."

Yuna’s stomach came back with a knotted cramp. Her throat closed up again.

Seem like a strange coincidence to you that the two trees that drew a hidebehind came from your grove?

No.

Toxin of one stripe or another.

It wasn’t…no.

Gave him some of the new rhubarb…

She knew Ruthie. Knew her better than anyone.

Abe’s dead, Yuna.

Anyone still alive.

"Ruthie, I want you to remember how long you and me have been friends," Yuna croaked out. Words. That was good. Now if she could just make them sound like she wasn’t a body dried up in the desert.

"Seven years," Ruthie said, cocking her head as she watched the darkness outside. "About how long some folks say a hidebehind can go before it needs to feed each time. A body wonders: what’s a critter like that do in the meantime? Suppose it sleeps all that while, or does it just go docile? Turn friendly once it’s filled itself up?

"Hidebehind," Ruthie gave a soft chuckle when she said it this time. "Hell of a thing, isn’t it? So fast it can’t be seen, except by those poor folks it eats the insides out of."

"That’s how I understand it," Yuna said, rubbing her hands along her arms.

"Seems like scientists ought to have better logic than that," Ruthie said, shifting her weight. The moonlight quivered where it fell in the window, mixing with the shadows at play in the tight curls on the back of Ruthie’s head.

Yuna opened her mouth to answer, but all that came out was a squeak. She cleared her throat, swallowed, felt the lab table pressing into the small of her back as she realized she was leaning further away.

"You see the big flaw in that narrative, right?" Ruthie said, glancing back to Yuna for just a titch before staring back out into the grove.

Yuna just nodded, one hand sliding behind her, searching blindly on the surface of the table. She caught a glint of metal from something Ruthie was holding in front of her, at just the wrong angle to make out what contraption it might be.

Knife. You know it’s a knife.

"If the only people who ever see a hidebehind are its victims," Ruthie said. "How would anyone know what it looks like at all, let alone that it was a critter?"

Yuna saw the blade as Ruthie turned to face her. Ruthie’s eyes seemed drawn to it, to the silver marred by what must have been red, but in the moonlight just looked black as oil. The quiver of moonlight and shadow played on Ruthie’s face. Yuna’s hand closed around…to be honest, she didn’t know what, and didn’t trust herself to look away and find out.

"A jackalope can sound just like folk, so it’s not like nature doesn’t know how to make a good mimic. What if," Ruthie kept on, turning the blade loosely in her hand as she meandered across the room to Yuna, "the reason no one’s ever laid eyes on a critter that could be a hidebehind, is because they look just like folk?"

Yuna’s eyes felt hot. She itched on the crown of her head and behind the knees.

"Ruthie, please," Yuna whispered as Ruthie’s frown deepened. Ruthie stopped moving, her gaze slowly drifting up to meet Yuna’s. Everything looked empty behind her eyes.

Yuna didn’t wait for the flashing metal to move. She lashed out with what she’d grabbed. Pestle, it turned out as Yuna smacked Ruthie across the skull with it.

She ran as soon as she heard the crack of it, didn’t wait to see if Ruthie crumpled or changed. A hidebehind was faster than anything, but Yuna ran anyway.

The closest door outside was the one to the orchard. Yuna slammed it open and barreled into the moonlit night. She swerved between a row of ash trees, stumbled but didn’t fall when she snagged a sleeve on a mulberry branch. Then she caught sight of Chick, and nearly ran right into the shovel planted in the soft earth. She dodged just in time, then gaped at the sheriff.

Ruthie hadn’t lied: Yuna could see, in the slashes of moonlight falling through the leaves from the Seeder tree, the bloody hole where the sheriff’s left eye ought to be. But there the man stood, otherwise looking right as anything. He even smiled.

"Charlie…Ruthie, she’s…lord are you all right?"

"I’m tougher than you gals give me credit for," Chick said, swaggering up to Yuna. He jabbed his sharp nose back toward the house. "Ruthie’s back up there, then?"

Yuna nodded. "I must have knocked her out, or else she’d already be on me. God, Charlie, how are you even upright?"

Chick laughed and shook his head. Yuna’s cheeks throbbed with her pulse.

"Listen to me, Charlie," Yuna insisted, grabbing him by the shoulders. "I think you’re in shock, or maybe Ruthie slipped you something, like Henry Johannes' rhubarb or whatever paralytic she used on Nat. Ruthie’d know the right plants. But this won’t last. We need to treat this before you bleed out or…ow!"

Yuna yanked her hands off the sheriff’s shoulders as something sharp dug into her palms.

The sheriff cocked his head and smiled. Yuna felt a chill as she saw the tiny cuts on her hands, looked back to see something spiky on his shoulders. Another something started wiggling behind the wound in his eye.

"That Ruthie, she’s a quick thinker," Chick said. "Year or so ago, when there was still enough left inside this one, it might have killed him, that stab to the brain. Hell, you ever really took a look at his bellyache, that might have stopped me even sooner."

Yuna felt her own belly knot as a vine started snaking out of the bloody wound where Chick’s eye used to be. Thorns along its length opened the wound wider.

"Now? Not much of anything can hurt me."

"Charlie, don’t do this," Yuna said, taking a few steps back.

"Don’t do this," Yuna’s voice called again, somewhere behind the sheriff. He turned to look to the other voice long enough for Yuna to get her hands around the shovel. She smacked him across the face with it as he turned back.

Chick stumbled. Yuna hit him again. And again. She tried not to listen to the wet, heavy thunk as she smashed the shovel into his head, sent him reeling back. He reached out to steady himself. Though he’d made nearly no noise before, the sheriff screamed as his hand grabbed the bark of the Seeder tree for support. The tree, for its part, seemed to shudder at the touch.

Chick tried to pull away, but his hand might as well have been stuck with hot tar. He yanked and shrieked, the thorny vine twisting in the air where it peeked out from his eye. The briar vine ripped back inside Chick, and the sheriff’s whole body seemed to ripple.

He stopped screaming. Stopped making any noise a body who talked ought to make. There were just more wet, tearing noises. Yuna dropped the shovel, numb as she watched the ends of Charlie Lightle start to fall in on themselves. His hands and feet went flat as a child’s balloon once it’s popped. His face—what was left of it—shriveled. Legs and arms and knees and elbows were nothing but a wrinkled sack of skin collapsing.

His middle, though, swelled and writhed as whatever it was inside him pulled itself tight and close. Then it ripped through, about where the bottom half of Chick’s belly used to be. The vine wriggled its way out of the opening it made with its wicked thorns. Grew its way out of the skin sack. It coiled on the ground, a wild, nasty heap of bramble that pulsed in the play of moonlight through leaves.

When Yuna’s knees gave out, she realized it wasn’t shock numbing her. She looked down, to the punctures on her hands, and remembered the same shape to the ones on Nat.

The thorn vine started to rise up, taller than Chick stood, the top end swaying, then bending toward Yuna. A stupid little piece of briar, hiding behind the sheriff’s face. Now it wanted Yuna’s, and she could barely keep herself upright.

"Jonni grow!" called Ruthie’s voice, but Yuna knew the jackalope wouldn’t distract the thing a second time, whether it called out Seeder blessings or some other nonsense.

"I said jonni grow you overgrown weed!" Ruthie yelled, grabbing the base of the bramble with her gardening gloves and shoving it against the trunk of the Seeder tree.

The vine shot forward. Yuna couldn’t even bring her arms up, though thorns that cut giant flesh would have shredded her own easy enough, anyway.

But the vine stopped short of her, whipped itself straight up, then slammed into the ground. And again. Thrashed about, full of all the strength that must have taken Henry, Natalie, Chick…Charlie. Back and forth, whipping and writhing, but there wasn’t a body to leave behind this time. Thorns stuck in the bark of the Seeder tree well and good, and as Ruthie ran into Yuna’s fuzzy view to drag her backward, the tree wasn’t letting go.

Ruthie poured something warm in Yuna’s mouth. It burned on the way down, but worked quickly. The edges of Yuna’s vision came back.

"Saw what happened when he touched the tree," Ruthie said. "Figured had to hurt even more without skin between it and—"

The feeling now back in her arms, Yuna hugged Ruthie close. Ruthie hugged her back, and Yuna felt the catch in her throat open up again.

They sat there, propping each other up, until the hidebehind stopped convulsing. They held on as it withered and shrank to a tiny string of nothing. Neither one of them could breathe properly until the hidebehind crumbled into dust and blew away.

* * *

"And it won’t…Henry won’t…?" Wacéda asked. It was the day after the hidebehind met the tree. Wacéda’s mourning mud was washed away, though Ruthie was in her own black, now. She wouldn’t talk about Abe, wanted to focus on cleaning up the mess and the trouble. Yuna thought it better she faced what was gone. But then, Yuna wasn’t nearly as convinced she had the best ideas any more.

There was tea, because Ruthie figured no widow should hear this story if she couldn’t have tea to calm her nerves. Yuna’s contribution was the whiskey mixed in each cup.

Yuna shook her head. "When it took the sheriff, it left him alive," she said. "Far’s we can tell, when it went after Henry, it wasn’t after a new skin—"

"—host," Ruthie offered the softer word. Yuna nodded.

Wacéda knelt by the small mound of fresh earth, though she didn’t touch it. They’d buried what was left of Charlie near the tree. Just in case. Ruthie squeezed Yuna’s elbow. Yuna placed her hand over Ruthie’s.

Wacéda stood, glancing up at the branches. Then she frowned. "That’s new, isn’t it?"

"What?" Yuna and Ruthie asked in unison. They didn’t need to look to each other to feel a joint panic that the hidebehind might not have all shriveled. One of the teacups tipped over, but neither lady bothered with it until they could see.

"There," Wacéda said, pointing to one of the lower branches. Yuna shaded her eyes and caught sight of it just as she heard Ruthie’s gasp.

"Blossom buds," Ruthie said.

"Well, I never," Yuna added.

"Never!" called another Yuna voice close behind them. All three women whipped around, where a four point jackalope cocked its head at them a moment, then went back to lapping up the tea mixed with whiskey where it had spilled.

Paul B. Kohler

Rememorations

Future Chronicles

* * *

The sign on the door read THE LAZARUS CENTER FOR EXTENDED LIVING in brushed silver letters. Although it looked somewhat familiar, Nathan couldn’t be entirely sure he was in the right place. He hesitated briefly before grasping the antique brass handle and walking into a richly decorated anteroom. Besides the newer snow-white carpet, the room looked like it hadn’t been updated in centuries. The warm sensation of being surrounded by aged wood panel walls and antiquated leather-bound furniture was comforting, and he felt the twinkling of déjà vu course through him.

The sound of the door latching behind him made him jump. When he turned toward the sound, he found a woman sitting behind a desk, staring back at him. She smiled and nodded her head in greeting.

“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Duncan,” she said.

Nathan nodded, frantically sprinting through his memory for her name. He knew he’d met her before, when he’d first visited the center. Has to be close to 70 years since I first walked into this place, he thought.

“Yes. Good to see you…again.” He paused. “I’m sorry, but for the life of me, I can’t remember your name,” Nathan said.

“That’s quite alright, Mr. Duncan. I’m Nancy. I remember you from your initial enrollment back in 2065. I have your records right here,” Nancy said. A holo-screen appeared in mid-air over her right shoulder, showing Nathan’s profile and scrolling statistics.

“2065? Are you sure? That’s what? Eighty-three years ago?” Nathan asked, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

“Yes, sir. It was mid-April, to be exact. I remember you were battling quite a case of hay fever at the time, and couldn’t wait to join our organization. By the way, how are your allergies?”

Nathan thought for a moment. Allergies. He remembered having the ceaseless nose drip and the stuffy head that usually accompanied it, every spring, but it had been so long since he’d had to live with any of that.

“I…I haven’t had a problem with allergies since…” He paused in an attempt to recall when he’d last suffered his annual hay fever.

“I’d guess that you haven’t had the seasonal symptoms since you walked out that door all those years ago,” Nancy said with a smile.

Nathan smiled again, wishing he’d not waited so long between visits. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right.”

Nancy stood and walked around her desk. As she approached, Nathan silently gasped at her beauty. She looked like she was in her 30s, slim and curvy in all the right places. Her shoulder-length auburn hair shone brightly, and her hazel eyes would pierce even the most skeptical customer’s doubt. She might have been the best “equipped” saleswoman Nathan had seen in decades.

“If you’d like to follow me, Mr. Duncan. The doctor will be with you shortly.” Nancy strode through another antique wooden door that led to a long corridor. Nathan happily followed.

Walking through the passageway was like stepping through time. Not into the past, however, but into the future. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling in stainless steel, and the ceiling was a solid sheet of light. He had trouble discerning whether there was actually something solid there, or just a luminous glow. The floor was a rubber textured surface that resembled concrete, but it cushioned each step, not unlike walking on firm, therapeutic foam.

Spaced every five meters along the corridor walls on either side were doors of opaque glass. As they passed each one, Nathan tried to peer inside. Shadowy silhouettes stirred inside each of the rooms. He had another bout of déjà vu as they approached the first solid door in the corridor.

Nancy tapped at a barely visible touchpad near the edge of the door and within seconds the door flickered from solid to clear, and then dissolved. “If you’d like to wait inside, the doctor will be with you shortly.”

Nathan nodded and stepped past her and into the quaint waiting room. Once he was inside, Nancy tapped again at the panel. The opening in the doorway solidified to a faint teal color, but remained transparent. Nathan refocused on his surroundings and sat in one of two chairs positioned on opposite sides of a long table situated at the center of the room. An oddly shaped chair that closely resembled a bed sat near one of the corners. It looked remarkably comfortable. As he sat, memories leaked into his consciousness. He began to recall details of his initial trip to the center, and the personnel who had worked there. The face of the doctor, or administrator, rather, that he had first met with filled his mind. His face began to coalesce, and just as Nathan was about to pull his name from deep memory storage, the door disappeared. Nathan looked up as the exact same visage walked in.

“Ah, Mr. Duncan. It’s very good to see you, although you are a few years overdue for your scheduled maintenance appointment.”

Nathan nodded. “Yeah, kind of unavoidable. I was going through…let’s just say I was dealing with some personal issues.”

“Life does throw us curve balls from time to time,” the doctor said as he reviewed information on an ocular plate resting on his brow. “And it looks like you’ve come in just in time.”

“Did I cut it that close?” Nathan asked.

“I wouldn’t say it was tight, but you are certainly overdue for your procedure. Tell me, Mr. Duncan. How are you feeling?”

“I feel good. I feel like a man in his mid-thirties, I guess? I try to exercise regularly—to maintain appearances, and to stave off my indulgences,” Nathan said.

“Indulgences? Care to elaborate?”

“After my fourth wife passed, I…began drinking again. It’s nothing I can’t control, but it does help with the lonely nights.”

“You say…again? Have you had previous bouts of drinking?” asked the doctor, reviewing the data in his readout.

Nathan bowed his head slightly. “Yeah, I had a bout, as you call it, after my second wife died.”

The doctor scanned through the data until he found what he was looking for. “Ah, yes. The robbery. It was in…2099. Was it the loss of your wife the caused you to start drinking, or was it something to do with the crime?”

Nathan felt like he was being interrogated and instinctively threw up his guard. “It was nothing in particular, just a coping mechanism. Can you tell me that outliving most everyone in this world is easy for you?” Nathan snapped.

“Relax, Mr. Duncan. I’m not judging you. I’m just gathering information for your treatment,” the doctor said. “Might I inquire about your multiple marriages? You mentioned you recently divorced your fourth wife.”

“Yeah,” Nathan began. “But it’s nothing to worry about. You see, I’m afraid to be alone. So, I marry. I learned a long time ago that divorcing is so much easier on the soul than experiencing the death of someone you love.”

Dr. Morrow nodded his head but remained silent.

Nathan leaned back and looked up at the glowing ceiling. The moments ticked away as the doctor typed at an invisible keyboard to record information. After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, the doctor spoke.

“How is your memory, Mr. Duncan?”

“I, uh. It’s okay, I guess. I have trouble remembering things from time to time. Like, I know we’ve met, but I just can’t remember your name,” Nathan said.

The doctor nodded his head. “I expect so, Mr. Duncan. You are close to three years beyond your applicable rejuvenation appointment. I wouldn’t expect anything less than significant memory loss. I’m Dr. Morrow. I was your administrator when you first came in, back in 2065.”

“Dr. Morrow. I knew it! I had it on the tip of my tongue. I don’t think my mind is going. It’s just a little slow sometimes.”

“Understandable,” Dr. Morrow said as he entered more information. “Would you mind if we run a few tests before we proceed? I’ll only need a small sample of your DNA.”

“Yeah, sure. Do you think there’s something wrong?” Nathan asked.

“Oh, no. It’s nothing like that. We just want to analyze the nanite count in your DNA. We need to verify that the 24th pair of chromosomes is functioning properly. Now, if you could place your hand on the center of the table.”

Nathan did so, and a moment later, he felt a sharp warming sensation in the palm of his hand.

“Okay, Mr. Duncan. If you’d like, you can relax on the chaise for a bit. These tests shouldn’t take more than an hour,” the doctor said before walking out.

As the door reformed into a new tangerine hue, Nathan glanced at the swooped chair in the corner and muttered, “Ah, what the hell.” He eased himself into the chair and reclined. Staring up at the ceiling, he wondered where the lighting was coming from. The entire ceiling glowed evenly without a direct pinpoint source. Within moments, he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

As I walked into the office, an uncontrollable sneeze burst past my lips, and a fine mist of phlegm sprayed across the room. Embarrassed, I smiled nervously at the attractive receptionist. “Sorry about that, Ms….?”

“I’m Nancy. I understand the pollen count is above average this year.”

“Pleased to meet you, Nancy,” I said as I dabbed at the corners of my nose with a tissue before stuffing it into my pocket. “There must be something different. I can’t seem to stop sneezing. It’s only like this for a few months of the year. The rest of the time, I’m quite a normal guy.” I winked.

Nancy returned my smile, and it appeared quite genuine. “Now, then, Mr. Duncan. Do you have any questions before we process your payment?”

I cleared my throat before answering. “As a matter of fact, I do. About the payment. Is the full amount due now, or can I spread it out over, say, a few installments?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan, but are you having trouble coming up with the agreed amount?” Nancy asked, concerned.

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I was thinking of having my wife administered at the same time. You see, she’s already a number of years older than me. Five, to be exact. And I know that if I go through with this procedure, my aging will cease, but hers won’t. I’m sure you understand.”

Nancy nodded at my predicament. “I do, Mr. Duncan, but the procedure must be paid for in advance. That’s been our policy from the very beginning. If we gave you immortality on credit and you decided to default, we would have no way to…repossess what you’ve purchased. The procedure is irreversible.” Nancy paused long enough for the information to register. “Perhaps in a few years, you can afford the credits. Then you can bring your wife in.”

I bowed my head. “I, um. I don’t think that’ll be possible. I’ve already had to scrape up just about every credit we have just for this one procedure. By the time I squirrel away enough for her transition, she might have aged too far past her prime.”

“Age becomes much less relevant once immortality comes into play. Have the two of you discussed this?”

I nodded. “In great depth, actually. I tried to have her go first, but she insisted that it be me.”

“Perhaps, then, we could delay your treatment until a more appropriate time when you can afford both?”

“We’ve talked about that as well. My wife, Beverly, insists that I go through with the procedure today. I’ve tried talking to her about waiting a few years, but she won’t hear of it.” I shrugged my shoulders. “So, here I am.”

Nancy listened intently to my explanation as she guided me to one of the multiple procedure rooms at the facility.

“Well, then, Mr. Duncan, it sounds like you have everything in order. If you’d like to have a seat,” Nancy said as she motioned me into a room, “Dr. Morrow will be right in.”

“It appears, Mr. Duncan, that your credit transfer has been completed. All that’s left is your DNA signature before we can proceed.”

Dr. Morrow motioned toward the palm scanner embedded into the tabletop. I placed my hand on the scanner, palm side down, and waited nervously.

“There’s no need to worry, Mr. Duncan. This scan is quite similar to the one we used to prepare your serum. This final scan simply authorizes us to administer the 24th pair of chromosomes to your DNA sequence.”

As the doctor explained, the scanner glowed red, turning to green as the palm of my hand increased in temperature.

The doctor then produced a thin vial from his breast pocket and held it out. “Last chance, Mr. Duncan.”

I only hesitated for a moment before accepting the vial from him. “All I do is drink this and I’m good?”

“Yes, that’s about it. We do, however, request that you remain on-site for the first thirty minutes.”

“Why is that? In case something goes wrong?”

“Not exactly. There will be…unusual side effects that, how can I say this, may come as a surprise to you. But don’t worry. They’re all normal and non-invasive.”

“Such as?” I asked. “I have to say, Doc, I think you could’ve told me this before I paid you 500,000 credits.”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that.” Dr. Morrow chuckled. “It’s just, well, you’ll see. It’s completely painless, just a little unsettling for some. For starters, your nasal drip will clear up almost instantly. There’s typically some drowsiness and mild disorientation.”

“So, a little sleepy and woozy. Well, then, the cost might be worth it, just for the relief alone,” I joked as I removed the rubber stopper from the vial. “Here goes nothing,” I said as I placed the edge of the vial to my lips and tilted my head back.

* * *

Dr. Morrow gently shook Nathan awake. “Mr. Duncan. Can you hear me? Mr. Duncan. We have your test results.”

Nathan opened his eyes, and saw that the glow of the ceiling had dimmed considerably. He looked around the room, and remembered where he was.

“How—how long was I asleep?” he asked.

“Oh, about forty-five minutes. Did you have a relaxing dream?” asked the doctor.

“It really wasn’t a dream, per se. It was more like…I don’t know. Like I was reliving part of my past.”

Dr. Morrow nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes. Which memory did you re-experience?”

“It was when we first met. It was the day I first came into the center. I know it was nearly a century ago, but it felt like it was yesterday. It was so clear.”

“For all intents and purposes, it was yesterday, in your mind. You see, this chaise lounge is more than just a place to relax. It’s what we’ve coined as the rememoration machine. We use it to summon lost or forgotten memories for our clientele.”

“Did you intend for me to remember my initial visit?” Nathan asked.

“No, not specifically. That was by your own doing. Lying on the chaise is kind of like lucid dreaming, but within your own past realities.” Dr. Morrow motioned for Nathan to come sit at the table.

“So, I could bring up any memory I want? What if it’s something I’ve forgotten? How would I know to remember it?” Nathan asked as he sat across from the doctor.

“It gets a little complicated, but yes, you can mentally direct the device to retrieve even the most quarantined memory you possess.” Dr. Morrow paused as he tapped away at his invisible keyboard. “Much of this discussion is a perfect segue into your test results.”

Nathan leaned forward. “Which are?”

“Mr. Duncan, do you remember our discussion regarding the limitations of immortality? We discussed it in depth during your initiation seminar.”

“I—I didn’t get that far in the memory, but I still remember some of what was discussed. Why?”

“It has to do with your mind, and its ability to remember things. Or, more technically, to process stimuli. The human mind has limitations. It was never ‘designed’ to remember more than a hundred and fifty years or so of perpetual memories. At least not in our current biological understanding. Our brains may contain additional storage space, but we’ve yet to discover or tap that resource. When we discovered the secret to longer life, we had to adapt to that limitation.”

“I think I follow. Isn’t that what the 24th pair of chromosomes was supposed to take care of?” Nathan asked.

“Not quite. Those were integrated so that our bodies stop aging, or more specifically, our bodies can heal themselves. No more molecular degeneration. Your mind is a different animal altogether. Consider your old personal computer. Do you remember what happened when the hard drive got full of files and documents?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve used one, but the computer would slow down,” Nathan said.

“That’s right. The overall performance would suffer until you deleted some files, and defragmented the hard drive. Our minds work in a similar fashion. After a century and a half of memories, we begin to respond or react much more slowly than normal.”

“I think I get it. So, you want me to forget some things? Then why the chair? Doesn’t it just make me remember the memories I’ve already forgotten?”

“Precisely. Your mind needs more than to just forget. Memories need to be removed completely. The rememoration machine will help you with that. In order for you to select which memories to remove, you will need to recall and decide which ones you no longer need.”

Nathan leaned back and contemplated what the doctor was suggesting. “Just how many memories do I need to forget?”

“After closely reviewing your test results with my colleagues, we agree that you have two options. Both of which have their own merits and disadvantages.” Dr. Morrow clasped his hands together and stared intently at Nathan.

“I, um. Okay, let me have it. What are they?”

“The first option is to go into your mind and selectively extricate thirty to fifty percent of your stored memories. This reduction will free up approximately forty to fifty years of continued memorization before the procedure needs to be repeated. The overall procedure will take approximately eighteen hours, spread over six visits to the lab.”

“Fifty percent of my memories just gone? Will I even remember who I am?” Nathan asked. “And how will you know which memories to eliminate?”

“Fifty percent is only an estimate. Some memories are obviously more extensive than others, and may free up extra space. Your core memories will remain intact. You will still be Nathan Duncan.” Dr. Morrow paused to moisten his lips. “As for which memories we eliminate, that is completely up to you. That’s why it takes such an extended period of time. You will have to recall individual memories during each session, and then choose whether to keep or remove the memory. Unfortunately, the procedure can become quite emotional.”

“And the second option? The first one doesn’t sound terribly appealing.”

Dr. Morrow smiled politely. “Option two is much more straightforward. Consider again the antiquated computer hard drive. With option one, you would in essence be selecting individual files to be deleted. With option two, you will be deleting an entire file directory.”

“Like deleting an entire year?” Nathan asked.

“Sort of. With option two, we would go in and delete the memory of a single individual from your mind. In doing so, all memories associated with that person would also be lost. Option two is a much simpler task, and it can be performed in a single session which takes about an hour.”

“It sounds like option two makes the most sense all around. It’s easier, it’s faster. What are the consequences?”

Dr. Morrow’s smile faded. “There really is only one unfavorable outcome. There is no way to determine just how your life will change by removing all memories associated with any one person. Results are dependent on who the person was that is being removed. There’s no way to determine the cumulative effect because our clients can’t remember what they technically never experienced.”

Nathan nodded. “And how long before I’ll need another procedure if I choose option two?”

“We’ve seen results in the neighborhood of seventy to eighty years.” Dr. Morrow leaned forward. “There is one more thing to think about. The cost.”

“Cost? It’s not covered by my original initiation fee?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Duncan, but no. Maintenance procedures are extra. It was covered in your commencement seminar and initiation contract.”

“Well, how much, then?” Nathan demanded.

“Option one will cost you 300,000 credits, while option two will cost you 75,000 credits.”

“Are you kidding? That’s nearly the same amount I paid to get into this exclusive club in the first place.”

“Like I said, Mr. Duncan. It’s an intense procedure.”

Nathan bolted from his chair. He stood hovering over Dr. Morrow, pulse quickening as beads of sweat rose to the surface of his forehead. “Here’s what I think. I think you sold me an illusion of immortality, where you promised me that I could live forever, and now you’re telling me I actually cannot without spending more credits.”

“In essence, Mr. Duncan, you are right on both accounts,” Dr. Morrow began. “Yes, you will continue to live, potentially forever. However, if you want to live a happy and coherent life, it will cost you. If you choose not to have either of these two procedures done, your life will continue as it has, but your memory and mental acuity will continue to slow, sometimes faltering. We are, however, continually working on groundbreaking research which utilizes an advanced form of nanotechnology that will hopefully expand the memory capacity of the human mind. Unfortunately, the technology is complicated and is still quite a distance away from completion.”

“How far away are we talking?” Nathan asked.

“Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss our current research status. But I assure you that we’re making every effort to bring this solution to our clientele as soon as possible.”

Still standing, Nathan leaned against the cold metal wall as he digested this massive wrinkle. After several minutes of silence, Dr. Morrow spoke.

“Mr. Duncan,” he began.

“Call me Nathan.”

“Alright. Nathan, please understand you don’t have to make this decision right now. If you like, you could go home and think through the options that I’ve presented. If you come back in a day or two, or even a week, no severe memory issues will occur.”

Nathan nodded his head, but didn’t say a word. He continued to lean against the wall in stoic contemplation.

“Nathan?”

“I, um. If you don’t mind, could I have another go at your rememoration machine?” Nathan asked as he nodded toward the chaise lounge in the corner. “Maybe if I could cycle through some past memories, it might help me decide.”

Dr. Morrow smiled. “Absolutely, Nathan. Really, that’s what it’s there for. My only suggestion is that you start with an early memory, and cycle through as many as you can get through without dwelling on any single point for too long.”

“How do I do that?”

“Imagine that you are remembering your first visit here again. When you feel that you’ve re-experienced as much as you need, just think the words fast-forward and the rememoration machine will advance you and your memory ahead. It’s a little tricky to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to slide through many years of your life in a matter of minutes.”

“Sounds easy enough. How much time can I have?” Nathan asked.

“Take as much time as you need, but I imagine that you will need only a limited amount of time before your decision is clear.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Experience, mainly. Also, you are in your first generation of immortality. Once you get the hang of controlling the pace of your memories, you’ll be able to fly through your life before you know it,” Dr. Morrow said as he stepped out into the corridor.

Nathan stared at the reappeared door for a minute before he settled into the lounge chair. As he lay back, he tried to recap all the information that he’d just received, but within moments, sleep had swallowed him whole.

* * *

A peculiar haze obscured my vision, but I could hear voices—or a single voice, rather, in the distance. As I focused on the words being spoken, I began to understand. The voice was mine. I was at Beverly’s memorial. I was delivering her eulogy, and the room was silent.

“…Beverly was the love of my life, and I, like many of you, am lost without her. She was the most giving, the most caring person I’ve ever known. She made many sacrifices to better the lives of those around her.

“One of her particular gifts was such a selfless act, she saved me in more ways than I can truly say. She gave me a long life, and she was the reason for me to live. Then, shortly after this amazing act of kindness, she was diagnosed with a virulent disease. She vowed to fight for her life, but she only lived a short six months after her diagnosis of MDS, and four of those were spent bedridden in the hospital. She continued her fight after undergoing a bone marrow transplant and contracting a lung infection. I stayed with her, sleeping in the same room, until a few months ago, when Beverly was admitted to the ICU with pneumonia. She was unconscious for almost the entire time. I held her hand often and stroked her hair. I massaged her legs and feet, and talked to her. I told her that I loved her every hour of every day. The cruelest part of her ordeal was that she was so close to me, but couldn’t say a word. Just a few weeks before, she had been talking with me and the nurses, planning some spring activities, and dreaming of her future. Then last Friday, her heart stopped for the first time. By Sunday, it was clear that she would not recover. On Monday I held and kissed her hand for the last time.

“I forever want her near me. To feel her arms wrapped around me, squeezing me—feeling her cheek pressed against mine. To say: Bev, I love you. My life is complete with you by my side. My beloved, I will miss you forever and can’t wait for the day when we can be together—to hold each other and share our love again.

“Beverly has gone into the light and is now free…”

fast-forward

As I wandered aimlessly along the city sidewalks, the soles of my feet were nearly frozen by the rain. People would see me and cross to the other side of the street, avoiding contact. It had been months since I had spoken with anyone directly. My beard had grown in, scraggly and unkempt. The standard string of condolences had filtered through, but I didn’t respond to any of them. All I wanted was my wife back—my old life back. Now, all I could do was wait for eternity and its punishment of self-pity and suffering.

A car slipped along the road, its tires carving through the standing puddles in its path. As it neared, it swerved in an attempt to avoid drenching me, but it was too late. I saw it coming and did nothing to avoid it. Seemingly in slow motion, I watched the driver as he passed and a look of concern was clearly present on his face. Now soaked, I turned at the next corner and headed for Homer Bridge.

As I ascended the steep incline, I felt invigorated for the first time since Beverly left this world. It wouldn’t be much longer before I could be with her again.

Despite the late hour, the traffic on the bridge was heavy. Several times, cars swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting me. Those drivers didn’t know that they needn’t have worried, because it would have saved me the long climb to the top.

As I crested the approach ramp, I saw a break in the traffic. After the next truck passed, I would be clear to take my final steps back to Beverly. I wiped the moisture from my eyes—a mix of tears and fallen rain. I stepped up to the protective railing and looked out across Cadre River and wondered…

fast-forward

Staccato beeps cut through the black. The room was dark, and I was lying down. Beep, beep. Beep, beep.

I blinked away the darkness, only to have it replaced with blurred light from all directions. I leaned my head from side to side, but still couldn’t focus. The pain that was present was strong, but bearable. I tried to raise my hand and scratch the side of my nose, but my arm was lashed tightly to my chest. I tried to raise my other hand, but it was also incapacitated. The itch—it was driving me crazy. I forced my head hard to the right and rubbed my nose against the pillow beneath my head. As I did, the tubes running into my nostrils dislodged and the beeping was now accompanied by a hissing sound. Beep, beep—hiss.

“Hello there, sleepyhead,” came a voice from my left. The voice was female, soft and comforting.

I whipped my head toward the source, but the plaster covering my left shoulder prevented me from looking in that direction.

“Take it easy, mister. You’re okay now. You’re going to be up and about before you know it,” she said.

“Mpah id ghapgn?” I tried to speak, but the thick tube stuck down my throat prevented it.

A warm hand soothed my forearm. “Shh, shh. Just relax. The tracheal tube is in place because you had a collapsed lung. You couldn’t breathe on your own for several days. The doctor thinks we can remove it later today, though, so that’s good news.”

I blinked rapidly and with each beat of my eyelids, the blur began to subside. I looked down at myself and noticed that my body was covered in plaster, from the tips of my toes all the way up to my left shoulder.

“I have to say, you are one lucky man. If that boat hadn’t spotted you as you fell, you very well might have frozen to death. But here you are, and your prognosis is quite remarkable. I’ve never seen a person heal as quickly as you have. You truly are a special individual,” the woman said as she slid the oxygen tubes back into my nose. “I’m Nurse Sadusky, but you can call me Addison.” She smiled. “That is, if you could speak. And at your rate, that won’t be too far off.”

fast-forward

“I can’t. Just let it go, would ya!” I screamed.

“No, I won’t! Nathan, how long have we been at this? Twelve months? Look how far you’ve come. The doctor told you that you might never walk again, and last week, you took your first steps. So what if we helped? That’s a tremendous achievement. I think you’ve got this. Now get your pansy ass up and try again,” Addison demanded.

“Can’t I just rest for a bit? I’m so tired,” I cried, and rolled away from the nurse who had been with me every step of the way.

“Okay, I’ll give you five minutes,” she agreed. “But after that, I want to see you pull yourself up on those bars and give me five steps.”

“Five? I only took one last week. I’ll give you two, and you’ll be happy with it,” I said, hoping my stern attitude would relieve her persistence, even just a little bit.

“Only two steps? What do you think this is, some kind of country dance class? I need four from you and then we’ll call it a day.” Addison stared deep into my eyes, and I could see that she was easing her drill sergeant stance with every obstacle I threw up.

“How about we meet in the middle? I’ll push for three steps and then I’ll let you give me a sponge bath,” I said, trying to turn on the charm.

“You think me giving you a sponge bath is my reward for helping you walk again?” she asked as she sidled up to me and begin to lift me back to the rails. “I think you owe me much more for everything that I’ve had to endure since…” She broke off.

Addison pulled me up and placed my hands on the rails. Before she could back away from me, I leaned in and gently kissed her cheek.

“Hey, mister. There’ll be none of that on my watch.”

“Well, when does your watch end?” I said just inches from her lips.

“When I can get you to walk, unassisted. That’s when.” She smiled.

I knew right then that I would walk again. She was the driving force behind it all.

“Now, move!” she demanded.

fast-forward

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride,” proclaimed the minister.

I lifted Addison’s veil and kissed her passionately in front of several hundred of our closest friends. Then we turned and walked effortlessly down the aisle.

“I love you, Addi. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here right now, and walking gracefully, to boot,” I said.

“And I love you, babe. You’ve also saved me, in so many ways,” she replied.

As we walked past our guests, I wondered if marrying again was the smart thing to do…or just the right thing to do right now.

fast-forward

I paced anxiously outside the bathroom door. The sound coming from the other side of the door was stomach-turning.

“Are you going to be alright in there?” I asked. I knew the answer before she said it.

“I’mm gon’ be fiiiine, babby. Why doncha go and warm up the sheets an’ I’ll be right out,” Addison slurred—from the bathroom floor, no doubt.

I grabbed my pillow and walked toward the hall. As I passed the bathroom, I paused. “Listen, I think you need some rest. I’m going to sleep downstairs tonight. We can talk about this in the morning.” Then I waited.

I could hear her spit into the toilet before she responded. “But, baaaby, I wan’ you tooooniiight.” And then, more grotesque splashing into the toilet.

fast-forward

“Happy anniversary, babe. Let’s toast to eight exciting years. And then let’s do shots for eight more,” Addison stammered, obviously having already consumed a few too many flutes of champagne for the evening.

“It’s been an exciting eight years, that’s for sure,” I said, not sure how to cut Addi off without inciting another incident. “Let’s finish the bottle now, and then move the rest of the celebration home,” I suggested, hoping to placate her indulgences.

“Oh, please, Daddy. Can’t we stay out late just once?” she cooed. “I promise to be a good girl, Daddy.”

I smiled on the surface, but deep inside, I worried for her. She’d promised me, yet again, just last month that she had her drinking under control. Yet here we were, on the precipice of an uncontrollable situation.

fast-forward

“I want to thank you, asshole, for supporting me like you have,” Addison spat.

“Do you have to constantly belittle me like that? It’s not my fault that you lost your job. One would think that showing up to the hospital drunk would be a career-limiting move,” I replied, feeling no remorse.

“Well, to hell with you. You were right there drinking with me, or did you forget?”

“I remember. I also remember telling you that you’d had too much, and that you can’t control yourself. Many times.”

Addison stomped into the kitchen. I’d known this argument would come eventually, and after 15 years of marriage, I was constantly looking for the right time to get out. Unfortunately, Addi was always one step ahead of me, knowing that I would delay asking for a divorce if she was unable to support herself.

Soon. It had to be soon.

fast-forward

After 18 years, 18 very difficult years, I knew tonight was the night that I would end it. My agelessness could no longer take her disregard for life. She failed to understand just how precious every moment was. She’d been aware of my condition for several years now, and seemed to despise me because of it. She somehow expected me to swoop in and treat her to immortality as well, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her total disregard for anyone but herself would make her an ugly immortalitarian. No, tonight, after dinner, I was going to ask for a divorce.

“Where are we going tonight?” Addison asked. “I hope someplace good. I’m starved!”

“I was thinking that we’d walk into midtown and try that Cuban place,” I said.

“Ooh. That sounds divine.” She slid her arm into mine. “Honey, can we talk about something?”

“Sure. What’s on your mind?”

“I know the last few years have been rough, and I’m going to make a change,” she said.

I continued to stare ahead as we walked. I’d known she would try to woo me into another trap. “What kind of change?” I asked, not sure that I wanted to hear her latest excuse.

“Today, I stopped by the AA office and signed up. I know my drinking has been hard on both of us, and I feel that I can really stick with this, if you’ll still have me.”

Shit. Now what was I going to do? I couldn’t very well ask for a divorce now. And she, no doubt, knew that. Was I so transparent?

As we continued to walk along the dark streets of midtown, my mind was completely focused on what I was going to do. I failed to notice the shadowy figure come up behind us until it was too late.

“You two, stop right there! Don’t turn around or I’ll shoot. I have a gun.”

Instinctively, I turned to the stranger behind us. He did in fact have a gun, and it was pointed right at my face.

“I said, don’t turn around! Now give me all your money. And while you’re at it, give me all your jewelry,” the robber demanded.

I slowly pulled my wallet from my pocket and motioned for Addison to do the same. She shook her head, almost unnoticeably.

NO! my eyes screamed at her, but it was too late.

“I am not going to give you anything, sweetie, and you know why? Because my husband here—he can’t be killed. He’s immortal, so it doesn’t matter what you do to him.”

“Don’t listen to her,” I begged. “Here. Take my wallet, and here’s my watch. It’s a Tag.”

“So, he’s immortal, huh? What about you?” he asked Addison, now pointing the pistol at her.

“Here! I have your money,” I said, nearly shoving my wallet in his face.

He snatched the wallet out of my hand and stuck it in his coat pocket. “Thanks. Now, I also want what Miss Smartass has, and it ain’t the money anymore,” he said, looking Addi up and down.

Addison tried to step behind me, but the robber grabbed her, nearly missing her arm. His grip couldn’t hold as she yanked away. As she began to run, the report from his gun nearly deafened me and I watched Addison drop to the ground, blood quickly soaking her blouse.

“No!” I screamed as I bolted up from the rememoration machine.

* * *

“How long will the procedure take?” Nathan asked.

“Well, that’s a relatively difficult question to answer,” replied the doctor. “There are several factors that need to be considered. If the memories of your second wife are extensive, it could take upwards of a few hours. If the memories are shallow and lack connection to your overall personality and your life, it could be less than an hour. Don’t worry, you’ll be asleep the whole time. When you wake, your mind should be as fresh as it was in 2065, and you’ll be active and alert for at least another 75 years.”

Nathan nodded as a look of concern crossed his brow. “Am I making the right decision, Doc?”

“This decision isn’t an easy one to make. I can’t influence you one way or another. It’s completely up to you. There is really no wrong decision here. Only the right decision for you. If you’d like, we can reschedule this for another day, but I would not suggest that.”

“No, no. I think I’m making the right choice. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

“Alright, Mr. Duncan, drink this vial, then lean back and relax. The next time we meet, you’ll be a new man. Again.”

Nathan did as directed. After consuming the flavorless serum, he leaned back on the chaise and was asleep within minutes.

* * *

Nathan began to stir, first opening one eye and then the other. He felt completely relaxed and fully rested. As his eyes adjusted to the dimmed light, he noticed that his mind felt clear.

Using the controls at the side of the rememoration machine, Nathan tilted the backrest to an upright position before he attempted to swing his feet to the floor. Unfortunately, his legs remained stationary. He tried again, but quickly realized that he had no muscular control from the waist down. Refusing to give up, he used both hands to lift his right leg from the surface of the chair and swung it out. The momentum of the dead weight dropping to the ground pulled the rest of his body with it. He flailed his arms, trying to break his fall, but it was no use.

His body smacked the floor like a baseball bat slapping a side of beef. Mere seconds later, the door vanished and in walked Dr. Morrow.

“Nathan! Are you all right?” he said, rushing to Nathan’s side.

“I, uh, seem to have lost the ability to use my legs. Is this a typical reaction to the procedure?”

Dr. Morrow helped Nathan back into the lounge chair. “Unfortunately, no. Everything is quite in order.”

“How is losing the ability to move my legs normal?”

“As promised, Nathan. You are as fit as a man in his mid-30s, just as you were before the procedure. The only difference now is that your ability to store information has been drastically improved by the removal of Addison from your memory.”

“Who is Addison?”

“Nathan, I cannot in good conscience tell you who Addison was, because she was just removed from your mind.”

Nathan continued to poke and prod at his lifeless legs before leaning back in disgust. “Okay, I get that. But why can’t I move my legs?”

Dr. Morrow bobbed his head slowly. “By removing Addison, all of your memories associated with her were also eliminated.”

“Again, I’ll ask. Why can’t I move my legs?” Nathan said, frustration beginning to surface in his tone.

Dr. Morrow pulled a chair next to the rememoration machine and sat down. “Nathan, how many times have you been married?”

“Three.”

“Do you remember Beverly?”

Nathan closed his eyes, drawing the image of his first wife in his mind. “I do. She died in 2080.”

“And do you remember what happened after that? Take your time.”

“Of course I do. I jumped off a bridge. I tried to kill myself,” Nathan said, tears beginning to leak from the corners of his eyes.

“And how about right after that? What do you recall?”

“I, um. I…I can’t remember a whole lot,” he said, wiping his eyes dry.

“You see, after your suicide attempt, you had to learn to walk all over again. Addison was heavily involved with that process. By removing her from your mind, you inadvertently removed those muscle memories. Unfortunately, until the procedure was complete, we had no idea…”

Nathan listened to Dr. Morrow’s words, but his vision began to tilt from side to side as the effects of the information ebbed into his consciousness. Beads of sweat broke out across his forehead, and dizziness tugged at his equilibrium.

“I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”

“Nathan, you are a paraplegic.”

The Soul Collector

Originally published by Global Endeavor Publishing

* * *

Everything was a blur, and I had to force my eyes to focus on the hand touching my shoulder. With effort, the watch on his wrist became clear. It read 1:45. My eyes followed up his arm, to his shoulder, and finally to the person the hand belonged to. The face was covered by several days of growth, and he had crystal-clear eyes.

“Hey, buddy. Last stop,” he said, standing above me.

It took me a few moments to realize what was going on. Was this…heaven? Or was it hell? I tried to stand up but slumped back again.

“Easy now. Had a few too many tonight?” asked the driver.

“Uh, I…” is all I could form in my mouth.

“Don’t worry, buddy. I’ve been there before. You know I’m supposed to call the police when I find a drunk on my bus, but you look harmless enough. Let’s get you out to the bench and you can take your time waking up.” The driver pulled me up and led me down the aisle of the bus. He helped me down the steps and over to the bench.

Bidding me farewell, the bus driver climbed back in and drove off. I glanced around but nothing looked familiar. To say I was feeling a bit disoriented would be an understatement. As I sat on the cold steel bench, I tried to piece together what might have happened to me. I looked at my watch: 1:53 a.m. Where had the time gone? All I could surmise was that I was extremely late getting home from work and that Cyndi was probably worried.

Despite my throbbing head and the strong desire to curl up on the bus-stop bench to take an extended nap, I forced myself up and began to stagger down the block. As I neared the corner, I looked at the street signs. Neither of the cross streets sounded familiar. I looked in all four directions, wondering which direction home was, and chose the one that looked the most promising.

As I slowly stumbled along the vacant sidewalk, my mind began to retrace my evening. For the life of me, I couldn’t even remember even getting on the bus. The last thing I could remember was leaving some café after work. I tried to remember who I was with and kept coming up blank. I must have been with Cyndi. But every time I thought of my wife, I began to feel anger creep into my head. Where was the anger coming from?

After another block of foreign surroundings, I realized I wasn’t alone. With my head clearing more by the minute, I slyly glanced back over my shoulder and noticed a man. He was older, dressed in a tan suit with a white fedora. He followed me, keeping pace about a half block behind. Looking forward again I mumbled, “Cyndi, where the hell am I?”

Speaking her name jarred something loose in my head, and the memories from the past twenty-four hours began to resurface. A feeling of loss and despair rushed in, but I could not pinpoint the reason behind it. I felt my pulse rise, anxiety shot to the surface, and my pace quickened. I looked back at the man following me, and he also increased his pace. Not wanting to discover his intentions, I turned the corner, and, once out of sight, I sprinted to the nearest alley.

Ducking into the darkness of the backstreet, I stood in the shadows until the man passed by. He never did. I waited several minutes before I decided to move, and just as I stepped away from the dingy brick wall, a voice came from behind me.

“Feeling a little lost, Mr. Duffy?” The voice was little more than a harsh murmur, but the echo in the alley was thunderous.

I spun around, and the man was standing calmly in the alley. Next to the brightness of his hat, the color of his skin paled in comparison. His eyes were deep and sorrowful as he looked upon me with determination.

“Come again?” I asked.

“It’s completely understandable. Riding the M-5 for six hours nonstop would certainly cause bewilderment for anyone,” said the mysterious man.

Dumbfounded, I stared at the man. He was a stranger to me, but there was something about him that seemed familiar. “I’m sorry, have we met? You seem to know me by name and know where I was tonight.”

“We’ve not been formally introduced, but rest assured, I’m not here to harm you. What do you remember from last night?” he asked.

“I tell ya’, not much. I woke up on the bus, and all I can remember is leaving a café sometime after work. The rest of my day is a blur,” I replied, rubbing my temples to soothe an ever-present headache.

“I sometimes find that starting at the beginning of the day is best. Shall we have a seat and begin?” asked the man as he led me across a dimly-lit street to a park bench that I hadn’t noticed before stepping into the alley. As unusual as the situation was, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, so I didn’t protest.

“Now then, Mr. Duffy. What was the first thing this morning that you can recall?” asked the man.

“Wait up. Seeing as you know me, maybe you should at least tell me who you are,” I stated, hoping to glean as much information about the stranger as I could.

“Come now, Mr. Duffy. You know who I am.”

“Sorry, but I really don’t. You seem familiar, but I don’t remember ever meeting you.”

“Oh, that is quite correct. We’ve not been formally introduced.”

“Then what do I call you?”

“Whatever you wish,” he said smiling.

“I don’t understand. Haven’t you got a name?”

“I do, but it doesn’t matter what you call me.”

We sat on the park bench for several moments in silence; all the while I was racking my brain as to why the last twenty-plus hours were missing from my memory.

“As I mentioned, it might help starting from the moment you woke this morning, or yesterday morning, rather.”

The stranger held his closed hand toward me, and when he opened it, there was a large gold coin in his open palm. “Take this coin, Mr. Duffy. Take it and turn it over in your hands. Examine the two faces of the coin, and try to focus on the moment you woke.”

I took the coin and did as he asked. The coin was quite old, the surfaces worn nearly smooth. I could just barely make out the words, “In God We Trust,” but nothing more. I turned the coin over, and as I did, my morning came flooding back to me.

* * *

I rolled over and glanced at the time: 6:43 shone in amber on the nightstand. I reached over and clicked off the alarm. Isn’t it strange how one day you can set your alarm and wake up moments before it goes off, but another day you forget and you wake an hour late?

Not wanting to get up, I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling. Why did life have to be so demanding? Couldn’t I just lie in bed and waste the day away? As I lay in silent contemplation, Cyndi began to stir. I looked over. Her eyes were closed tightly against the rays of morning sunshine beginning to peek through the drapes. I often wished I could be as content with my life as she was with hers. Rarely did anything faze her happy persona.

I reached over and touched the soft skin of her cheek. I could still smell traces of her perfume. The scent was intoxicating. Even after fifteen years of marriage, everything about her made my heart race.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“Hrmm?” she mumbled, still in the grasp of sleep.

“I love you, baby,” I repeated.

She smiled, eyes still closed. “Me too. You better get up or you’ll be late again.”

Cyndi was the exemplification of punctuality. I still don’t know why she married me. I was late to my own wedding.

“I know. I was just lying here thinking about…”

“About what?” she asked, sliding her head over to rest on my chest.

“Work. Life. You. Take your pick,” I said as I stroked her hair.

“I’m happy I’m in there somewhere,” she replied as she opened her eyes for the first time. Even having just woken, her eyes sparkled brightly.

“What are your plans for today? Want to have lunch?”

She glanced at the clock before answering. Faint frown lines developed between her eyes and she said, “I can’t today. I am volunteering at the Redevelopment Foundation. Remember?”

I did remember but was still hopeful. “Oh right. The foundation. When will you be done?”

“The donation center is open until five, so I should be home around the same as you.” She sat up, pushing the covers away. She stretched and tilted her head to the side, her eyes wincing slightly.

“Does it still hurt?” I asked. Cyndi had fallen while rollerblading in the park a few weeks back, and ever since had had neck and backaches.

“Yeah. I was hoping I didn’t need to fill the prescription again, but—”

“If it still hurts, fill it. You don’t have to take them all.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Would you mind picking it up for me today? I’ll call it in to the pharmacy near your office.”

“Sure thing. Need anything else while I’m there?” I asked, rolling out of bed and reaching for the ceiling in a giant stretch.

“I don’t think so. But if something comes to mind, I’ll call your office before you leave. Getting off at your regular time?”

“Yeah, probably. Unless Pearlman asks me to stay late for something.”

“Just let me know either way,” Cyndi said as she lay back onto her pillow, closing her eyes.

Why can’t I go back to bed? I asked myself. I shuffled off to shave and shower. Forty minutes later I was dressed and in the kitchen finishing my breakfast. Cyndi sauntered in and sipped from my coffee.

“Don’t forget my prescription. I put the slip in your briefcase,” she said before vanishing again to shower.

* * *

Feeling beads of sweat slide down my forehead, I used my free hand to wipe them away. I opened my eyes and realized I was still sitting on the park bench next to the stranger. I jumped to my feet, dropping the coin to the ground.

“What the hell just happened? What’s going on?” I demanded as I turned to look at the man still sitting casually on the bench. “It was like I was there in my bedroom this morning.”

“I assure you, Mr. Duffy, nothing ‘is going on’. I’m just here to help you. Think of the coin as a hypnotic device that clears your mind of the unnecessary clutter that slows us all down from time to time.” He smiled as he leaned over, picked up the coin, and held it out to me once again.

I sat down and reluctantly took the coin from him. I didn’t even have the coin fully turned over in my hand when I was snapped back to my apartment.

* * *

After finishing my coffee, I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the elevator. A glance at the clock on the way out told me that I was going to be late. That’s all I needed. Punching the elevator call button three times for good measure, I waited a few moments before the familiar ding sounded and the doors parted.

Happiness enveloped me; the eight-foot by eight-foot metal car was empty. Pushing the button for the parking level, the doors closed and the elevator began to drop. My happiness quickly evaporated as the elevator stopped at floor twenty-three. On came Ms. Eastman. “Good morning, Jack,” she said, smiling up at me from her four-foot-tall frame.

“Morning, Ms. Eastman.” Hoping to avoid an uncomfortable conversation with the building’s gossip queen, I pulled Cyndi’s prescription from my briefcase and began to read. Thankfully, the elevator doors opened once again a few floors down and on came three more people. Unfortunately, the elevator stopped at nearly every other floor the rest of the way down. After stopping at the lobby to unload most of the passengers, the car dropped two floors farther, letting me and a few others off in the garage.

I climbed behind the wheel of my aging sedan and turned the engine over. After a few cranks, it roared to life. The problem was that the familiar rumble was accompanied by a new knocking sound. I knew it was time for a service, but as the morning was moving along, my mood was drifting swiftly in the wrong direction. The service would have to wait till the weekend.

Unfortunately, I left too late to avoid morning traffic. And although I pulled right into the middle of it, the flow of cars wasn’t terrible. I would have been able to make it to work somewhat close to on time if it wasn’t for the old woman driving two cars ahead who ran the red light.

The Lincoln Town Car—a yacht on wheels—plowed into the side of a subcompact heading across her path. Three other cars collided in the intersection as well, bringing traffic to a sudden and unavoidable halt. Yep. I was going to be late for work.

Surprisingly, the emergency vehicles arrived on the scene quickly and were able to restore the morning commute to its natural flow in short order. Short order meaning thirty minutes. Once beyond the bottleneck at the scene of the accident, traffic picked up pace. I was able to pull into my office’s parking garage only an hour later than normal.

* * *

I lurched forward uncontrollably, gulping air in an effort to catch my breath. I looked at the stranger, and he only smiled at me knowingly.

“It sounds like the makings for a bad day, Mr. Duffy,” he chuckled. “A very bad day. How were your emotions at that point?”

“Honestly, I don’t really know. Just now, I started to feel my anxiety increase, but I’m not sure if that’s related to the events from earlier or to how I’m experiencing everything again.”

“That’s understandable and quite expected. Are you ready to continue?”

“Maybe, but—” I paused, thinking of the right way to say what I was thinking. “Why am I doing this? Can’t I just call my wife and have her come get me? To tell the truth, it’s a little bizarre sitting on a park bench in the early morning, talking to a stranger trying to figure out what happened to my last twenty hours. I still don’t know your name,” I prompted, hoping to glean more information from the old man.

“Ah yes,” he replied, looking at me with a sideways glance. “My given name is Wilson, Wilson Oliver. But I haven’t been called that in quite some time. And while you certainly could try to call your wife, where would you have her pick you up from?” asked Wilson as he looked about the vacant park. “Furthermore, what would you tell her about your…condition? Honestly, Mr. Duffy, I think it best that we find out what happened to you and your day before going any further with contacting your wife.”

Strangely enough, what the old man was telling me sounded logical. I simply nodded and then once again flipped the coin over between my fingers.

* * *

After a short ride up the elevator, I was sitting behind my faux mahogany desk ready to dive into my day. There were a few voice messages, each one from my boss, Mr. Pearlman. Listening to each message in succession, Pearlman’s voice grew more irate, yet it was still not far from his normal communication level.

After listening to his final message, all I wanted to do was lock my office door and hide until the end of the day. I knew that wasn’t going to be an option when Gwen, Pearlman’s personal assistant, walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Duffy. Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away. Shall I tell him you’re on your way up?” she asked, sounding friendly despite working for the asshat of the department.

Even though he was originally in a middle management position below my own, Julio Pearlman was promoted to department chief six months ago. Now he’s my freakin’ boss. Please, just kill me.

“Uh, yeah. I’ll be up in a few minutes. Let me get settled in, it’s been a crazy morning.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Duffy. I’ll tell him you are on your way up,” Gwen said, changing my words.

Not being too eager to meet with the man, I took my time sorting my desk to start the day. After several minutes of mindlessly pushing piles of paper from one side of the desk to the other, I took a deep breath and headed for the elevator. As the elevator was mindless of my impending agony, the ride up was mercilessly short and the doors opened directly into Pearlman’s lobby. I stepped out and headed toward his office. As I was about to knock, Gwen opened the door and glided out of the office, leaving the door open.

Having known Pearlman since before his promotion, I’d never seen him smile. Not once. Even now he looked particularly unhappy. It was as if he was making a concerted effort to sneer at me. I knew this meeting wasn’t going to go well.

“Mr. Duffy, how nice of you to make it in today. You know you’re more than an hour late this morning?” Pearlman started off. I stood in silence for a moment, contemplating the best reason to give for my late arrival.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself? Why were you late? Again, I might add.”

“There was—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses!” Pearlman barked. “You’re a substandard employee doing a substandard job. If I had my way, you would have been let go a long time ago. And frankly, I’m trying to find a reason why my predecessor even hired you in the first place. This morning’s irresponsible action only illustrates my point. Do you think you belong up here with all the other hard-working people of the company?”

Wishing for a rock to either crawl under or crack over Pearlman’s head, my tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t speak to save my life. And honestly, I’m not sure words would have benefited me in any way. Thankfully, Pearlman paused his chastisement long enough to catch his breath.

“I hope you realize, Mr. Duffy, that you are by no means irreplaceable. Your employment here at the company makes no difference to me or to anyone else for that matter. So I believe the choice is yours. You’re either here at your desk on time, or you can find another job. Do I make myself clear?”

I decided to stay silent. I knew it would be pointless to argue. Since my morning was deteriorating rapidly, I took the high road. Besides, if I were to point out that the last time I was late was because the parking garage was locked, it would have only prolonged the lecture.

Once Pearlman realized that I wasn’t going to give him the rope to hang me with, he barked loudly, “Get out!”

I happily obliged and retreated past Gwen’s desk and back down the elevator to my office. I unceremoniously deleted Pearlman’s voice messages before digging into my work.

While my PC booted up, I pulled the latest spreadsheet from the mergers and acquisitions project folder and laid it out next to the keyboard. Although an entire team was working on the merger, it was my responsibility to quantify this particular acquisition with hard numbers. Really, it was just busywork, as all the data had been assembled by others. I just needed to find the correct solution to a few key points and send it up the ladder for approval.

The task at hand was to review sales numbers from the target company over the past decade and compare their reaction to world events, religious activities, and technological advancements in the stated period. Even though the work was tedious, I tried my best to stay on task. But I knew that even after spending days on end evaluating the data, it would all end up stuffed in some file folder, never to be seen again. Busywork or not, my professional pride prevented me from treating it as such. The entire report hinged on this one final solution, and despite the speed and accuracy of the modern-day computer, it could not calculate that outcome without the required data.

The morning passed quietly as I stared at various flow charts and spreadsheets. As I switched back and forth between two key charts, I could sense a rhythm in the numbers that I had failed to notice before. As I homed in on a certain string, the answer would dance off the screen, causing me to flip to another document. The drifting of numbers was maddening, but I knew I was close. I stuck with it. I also knew that I couldn’t force it, because heading down that rabbit hole was a CLM that I couldn’t afford to take.

Pushing the thought of Career Limiting Moves out of my mind, I caught sight of something on the third spreadsheet. Could it be? I quickly shot back to the original document and then back to the modified version. Yes! There it was. The solution was coming into focus. I initiated a few test computations, and although I was certain it would come back green, my pulse rose slightly. As I intently watched the screen for the solution to appear, I was startled by the sound of the phone. Jumping slightly, my hand twitched on the mouse just enough to click the cancel button on the screen.

“God dammit!” I yelled. The computation was gone. The elusive solution was now a whisper in the wind, and I knew I would have to try to retrace the path again.

* * *

“How unfortunate, the timing of that phone call. And you lost all your work up to that point,” said Wilson.

“Hmm. It looks like I did,” I replied, as I thought about what I had just recited to him. “It’s weird. I don’t remember any of this stuff happening to me, but as I go through the memories and tell them aloud, I know they are my memories. Why is that? I mean, why are they foreign to me until I tell them out loud?”

Wilson nodded his head as he listened to my question. He sat silent for a few moments before replying. “I am certain the memories are all there inside your head, but there must have been a critical event that caused you to block them from your conscious mind.”

“What kind of critical event are we talking about?” I asked.

“Oh, it could be anything from a pet dying to witnessing something disturbing. It quite often varies from person to person, depending on how intense their personal life is. Let’s continue,” said Wilson as he glanced at his watch.

* * *

The phone rang again and again. In my disgust, I snatched up the receiver and barked, “Duffy.”

“Mr. Pearlman needs to see you right away,” Gwen said on the other end of the line.

“Can it wait until after lunch? I’m at a critical—”

“I’m sorry, Jack, but he said immediately,” Gwen said before disconnecting the line.

“I’ll be right up!” I said sarcastically to the dial tone in my ear. I began to wonder what he needed me for. I looked at my watch. I had been staring at my computer screen, unmoving, for three straight hours. A distraction might have been welcome, but Pearlman was not what I had in mind.

As I stepped off the elevator, Gwen nodded in the direction of Pearlman’s door as she buzzed me in. This was twice in the same morning that I’d had to stand in front of his unsmiling gaze.

“I need you to run over to that Thai place I like. Get me an order of red curry chicken, an order of pad Thai shrimp, and four spring rolls,” Pearlman ordered.

I was again speechless in front of this despicable man. I was about to protest, but he spoke before I could get a word out.

“Listen, Duffy. I know you were probably just wasting your time in your office, and my secretary has more important things to do. Just don’t mess this up, and I might consider forgetting about your tardiness this morning. Well? Get moving.”

I did the only thing I could do right then without getting fired: I nodded and turned on my heel. As I passed by Gwen’s desk, I could have sworn I saw a smirk on her face.

I stopped in my office long enough to jot down Pearlman’s order and grab my car keys. Although I could have walked the dozen or so blocks to the Thai place, I felt driving would be quicker. Besides, it was hot out, and I didn’t feel like sweating through my last white shirt of the week.

The elevator was quick, and although my car started up relatively easy, my breath quickened when the engine died a moment later. I turned the key again, and after a hint of protest, the engine fired again and away I went.

The lunch hour traffic was expectedly slow, but to my delight, I was able to park right in front of the restaurant. I considered leaving the engine running while I ran into The Catcher in the Thai, but I removed the key out of habit. I double-checked my pocket for the lunch order. Two pats on my breast pocket and I headed into the crowded restaurant.

The air inside reeked of rancid cooking oil laced with a hint of old seafood. The line at the to-go counter was eight souls deep. As it inched forward every five minutes or so, I shuffled my feet and contemplated my project. As much as I hated my job, I constantly dwelled on it. Maybe that was why I hated it so much: because of its silent demand on my attention. Having been passed over for promotion twice in three years, I sometimes wondered if it was worth staying with the company. I was obviously going nowhere, but at least I got a paycheck every other week.

I was so deep in thought, the Hispanic woman behind the counter had to say it again: “Can I take your order?”

I pulled the sheet of paper from my pocket and relayed the order. Her pleasant smile never wavering, she entered the lunch order into the decrepit system and repeated it back to me precisely. I swiped my company credit card and gave the nice woman a twenty-five percent tip. Compliments of Mr. Pearlman, I thought to myself. She handed me a ticket number, and I stepped aside for others to place their order.

As I stood along the wall of the narrow restaurant, I contemplated the irony of a Hispanic woman working at a Thai restaurant in New York. “Only in America,” I mumbled. Nobody around me noticed. The patrons were all self-involved with their smart phones.

It wasn’t long before they called my order, and as I stepped forward to check that the contents of the Styrofoam containers matched my receipt, the Hispanic woman watched attentively. I nodded at her when I found everything in order. She smiled and nodded her head low.

Once back to the car, I was greeted by an offensive yellow parking ticket tucked haphazardly under the blade of my windshield wiper. By this point in my day, I concluded that the world was in fact out to get me. Thankfully, the car started on the first attempt, and the trip back to the office was unremarkable. Total round-trip for Pinhead Pearlman took just under an hour.

Back up to the sixteenth floor, I stalked right by Gwen and into Pearlman’s office. He looked up as I unceremoniously dropped the food on his desk, pulled the receipt stapled to the bag, and read it aloud.

“One order red curry chicken. One order pad Thai shrimp. Four spring rolls.” Pearlman looked up from the receipt and scowled profusely in my general direction. “I said curry beef, not chicken.” His scowl turned to disgust as he pulled the food containers from the paper bag. “I suppose I can choke it down. Now if you’re done bothering me, why don’t you get back to work. Isn’t your lunch hour just about over?”

The aroma of the food reminded me I had not had lunch myself. I was famished. With my lunch hour wasted on a fool’s errand, I hoped I had a snack stashed away in my desk.

“Yes, that sounds about right,” I replied. Before leaving Pearlman’s office, I pulled the charge receipt from my breast pocket and dropped it on his desk, directly next to the red curry chicken. Smiling, I turned and walked out of his office. Gwen stood poised outside his office, waiting for my exit. As soon as I passed her desk, she slipped in, closing the door behind her.

* * *

“What an incredible douche bag!” I said aloud. “I can’t believe he made me his errand boy again.”

“This Mr. Pearlman is not a candidate for boss of the year,” said Wilson.

“Far from it. He is underqualified and overpaid. He is your run-of-the-mill brownnoser and only got the position because he knows the right people—”

“A baboon could do his job better,” Wilson said.

Shocked that Wilson said the exact words I was going to say next, I looked over at the old man. He was still sitting in a casual manner, but the lines between his eyes had deepened, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I noticed a bit of compassion in his eyes.

“You are a peculiar man, Wilson. What gives?” I asked.

Wilson whistled softly. “Oh, I’ve been doing this for more than sixty years.”

“And what exactly is it that you’ve been doing for more than sixty years?”

“I guess you could say I lend an ear to those in need,” Wilson said, deftly avoiding the question.

“OK, but how have you been at this for sixty years? You don’t look a day over sixty-five. How does that work?”

Wilson fidgeted with the shiny cuff links holding his sleeves tight to his wrists. “That’s a whole other matter. One which we have no time to discuss. Please, Mr. Duffy, continue.”

Wishing for more information from the old man, but also wanting to get through the rest of the day, I quickly flipped the coin over.

* * *

“Pearlman did it again, didn’t he?” came a voice from behind me.

Before turning to see who it belonged to, I slid the last of my dollar bills into the vending machine and punched E9, launching the spiral delivery system into motion. The kerplunk echoed throughout the tiny break room, and I pulled out the last candy bar in the machine.

“Hey, Alan. Yeah, Pearlman got me again,” I replied before tearing open the plastic wrapper and biting off half the candy bar.

“I’d tell you about lessons learned, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear it.”

“Here’s the thing, Alan: I wrote down the order before I left. He’s just a crazy bastard,” I replied. “I got him in the end though. I charged it to the company and left the receipt, along with the handwritten food order, on his desk.”

“Great! That’s one for the peasants. How’d he take it?” Alan asked.

Swallowing the last of my candy bar, I shook my head. “Not sure. I left before he noticed. I thought it best to get out before he realized what had happened.”

Alan fell in to stride with me as we walked back to our offices. Alan’s office was across the hall from mine.

“Why didn’t he just send Gwen?” Alan wondered. “You can’t tell me she was too busy typing memos or something.”

“No, she was swamped, according to Pearlman. Hell, he even had me get her lunch too.”

“Seriously? What did you do to piss that man off? Ever since he got Nelson’s job, he’s made you his personal bitch. Why don’t you stand up for yourself?” Alan asked as we paused outside our office doors.

“I know I should, but I just didn’t feel like getting fired today. Besides, he’s the department head, and he has his nose buried so far up the VP’s ass, he probably knows Snyder’s eating habits personally.”

“You know he’s going to keep doing it until you break.”

“Yeah, I think that’s what he wants. He’s been looking for a reason to get rid of me since day one. You know as well as I do that Pearlman does what Pearlman wants. Isn’t that obvious by the string of hot secretaries he’s had in the short time he’s been here?”

“You really think so?” he asked.

“How many other execs take their secretaries—I mean personal assistants—out to lunch four days a week and then are conveniently busy the rest of the afternoon?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“But he’s married. I met his wife at the holiday party. They seemed happy together, and she wasn’t terrible to look at herself,” Alan stated.

“No need to tell me, I was there too,” I agreed. “But because you left early, you missed all the action.”

“Dammit! How am I just learning about this?” Alan asked.

“I meant to tell you afterward, but it must have slipped my mind.”

“Well? What happened?”

“After you left, the two slowly drifted apart, consuming more champagne than should have been possible. Near the end of the night, his wife was flirting with the head of advertising, and Pearlman was trying to fit his head through the neck of his secretary’s blouse. It would have fit, too, if it weren’t for her still being in it.”

Alan whistled quietly. “Seriously, how did none of this make it to the water cooler?”

“Don’t you remember that memo that went out after the party?”

“‘The dos and don’ts of sex jokes in the workplace’?”

“No, the other one. It came from Snyder himself.”

“Ah yes. ‘What happens at company parties stays at company parties.’“

“Yep. My guess is Pearlman persuaded Snyder to cover his ass with that one.”

“Pathetic.”

“I concur. I wholeheartedly concur.”

“Tell me, Jack, why didn’t you try for the position when Nelson left? You’ve got a master’s degree, and if you ask me, you’re the sharpest person on the floor.”

“When Nelson was run out of the company, I had no idea the position was open until Pearlman was announced as the new head. Trust me, buddy, I would have given it my best effort if I had been given the opportunity.” I shook my head, wondering just how long I would be Pearlman’s bitch. Hell, I was even Pearlman’s secretary’s bitch.

“Listen, Alan, I’ve got to get back to work. I’m about to crack this code, and I would like to leave here today having accomplished something,” I said as I turned in to my office.

“Sure thing. Grab a coffee tomorrow? My treat,” Alan offered generously. It was a pity offering, but it felt genuine just the same.

“Always take a freebie. Thanks.”

Alan returned to his office as I sat behind my desk.

Flipping on the monitor, I began to review the spreadsheets displayed on the screen. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to reimmerse myself into my project. However, all I could think about was Pearlman and his bastard ways. As I tried to focus on the equations, my mind reviewed, word by word, the conversation with Alan. What he said made sense. I was the brightest man on the floor. And now that I thought about it, I was the only one around here with a master’s degree. I didn’t even think Pearlman had one. I began to wonder if that was his motivation to drive me from the company. Feeling my blood begin to boil, I scoured the thoughts from my mind.

I returned to the original document on my screen, reading the text and scanning the data for the hundredth time. Flipping from document to document, reading and scanning, I felt like my afternoon was going to be a lost cause. I tried my best to recreate my solution, but all I saw was scrambled gibberish. I sat reviewing the lines of data on the spreadsheet that I felt would produce the elusive solution, hands hovering over the keyboard, ready to input the key as soon as it blossomed in my mind.

On my third pass, something deep in my cerebral cortex twitched. I blinked and read the last line again. Could it be? Could I have stumbled across it again? I quickly jotted down the quadrant address on a piece of scratch paper and returned my hands to the keyboard. I blinked fast and felt my heart quicken. I was almost there. I scanned the passage once more, and just as I was about to identify the solution without running any computations, the phone rang.

Snapped back to reality, the solution fluttered away. The phone rang again, and as I contemplated picking it up to tell the caller to go to hell, I calmly pressed the do-not-disturb button on the phone’s base and shut down my computer. Had I known how shitty the rest of my day would be, I would have stayed at my desk.

With my office now silent, I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the door. I momentarily popped my head into Alan’s office.

“Hey, Alan. I’m heading out—taking the afternoon off as PTO.”

“Everything OK?” Alan inquired.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just need to clear my mind. I’ll see you in the morning. If Pinhead comes looking for me, tell him you haven’t seen me.”

“Will do,” Alan said, nodding in compliance.

As I stood waiting for the elevator, I reached into the side pocket of my briefcase to fish out my car keys and found Cyndi’s prescription.

“Damn,” I mumbled. I had completely forgotten that I promised to pick it up. I glanced at my watch, and as much as I wanted to just get home and forget about the day, it was only a hair past 1:00. I had plenty of time to swing by the pharmacy on the way home.

Minutes later, I was down in the parking garage. I slid the keys into the ignition and turned it over. Nothing happened. I switched it back to off and tried again. Nothing. No dash lights illuminated, no dome light came on. The car was completely dead.

“Shit!” I yelled. I felt like punching the dash. I tilted my head back and began to breathe slowly. It had been months since I last visited my therapist, but I recalled some of the tips he taught me to calm myself in moments of great anxiety. Seeing as my whole fucking day was the poster child for all things stress inducing, I practiced a few.

First, I slowed my breathing to better control my heart rate. Next, I focused on something pleasant: Cyndi, my happy place. I closed my eyes, envisioning her beautiful face in my mind. Finally, I counted backward from twenty, skipping every other number.

“Twenty, eighteen, sixteen, fourteen, twelve, ten, eight, six, four, two, zero,” I said aloud, breathing deeply in between each number. Surprisingly, I felt much calmer than the moment before. I no longer wanted to junk punch my car or light a match, toss it in the gas tank, and walk away.

I popped open the glove box, found my roadside assistance number, and dialed it on my cell phone. I explained the situation to the man on the other end of the call, who seemed to think it just needed a jump. He dispatched a driver and said it would be no more than thirty minutes.

Hanging up, I contemplated walking the dozen blocks to the pharmacy but decided against it. As my luck was going, I would get mugged halfway there and miss the tow-truck driver completely. I might even get run over on the way back, I mused. No, no. I waited, sitting on the hood of my car instead. Besides, it was still sweltering out, and walking nearly a mile on the concrete paths of the city didn’t remotely appeal to me.

Nearly an hour later, my wait was rewarded by a balding tow-truck driver smelling of stale cigars and burnt motor oil.

“Darn good to meetcha’,” he said, pumping my hand a little too aggressively. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Darn thing won’t start. I think the battery might be dead, but it just ran a few hours ago,” I explained to the overweight man as he popped the hood.

“Well, let’s take a look-see,” he said as he leaned in near the engine, scrutinizing every part of the grease-covered compartment. “Wanna jump in and give it a try?”

I hopped behind the wheel and turned over the ignition. Nothing happened.

“Go ahead, try and start it,” the driver said again.

I turned the ignition back to off and then forward again. Nothing.

“Are you turning the key all the way over?” he asked impatiently.

“I am. I tried it several times just as you asked,” I replied, nearing the end of my patience.

“OK, hold on a sec,” he said as he jiggled some hoses and wires along the side of the engine compartment. As he did so, I could see sparks fly from under the hood, and the dome light came to life.

“Give it a go,” he hollered, still bent over under the hood.

I turned the key to start, and the engine roared to life. “Hurray!” I called out in excitement.

“Looks like you’ve got a frayed wire leading to the starter. I got ‘er fixed for now, but it’ll need replacin’ soon,” said the driver, wiping his hands on a dirty rag hanging out of his side pocket.

“I’ll get on that this weekend. What do I owe you?” I asked as I shut the hood.

“Eh, the normal cost for a jump is ninety-five. I really only charge for jumps or tows, but I gotta call this in. Let those that make more than me decide,” he said as he climbed into his tow truck.

After several more minutes discussing things on his CB, he popped out with his clipboard in hand.

“Looks like they want me to charge you for the jump anyway. I tried to argue with ‘em that it really wasn’t a jump, but I lost that battle. You got cash or do you wanna put it on a card?”

“I suppose it makes sense. Here, put it on this,” I said, handing him my personal credit card.

“Give me a sec. I’ll call it in.” He once again disappeared into the cab of his truck only to reappear moments later. “There seems to be a problem with your card here. Got another to try?”

I didn’t have the time or the patience for another problem today. “What kind of problem? The card should be paid up and have plenty of room on it.”

“Don’t know. They jus’ said it was declined,” he replied, standing close enough that I could smell what could either be rotten eggs or incredibly offensive body odor.

“OK, give this one a try. I know it’s good,” I said, handing him my corporate card. With the awful day I was having, it was the least Pearlman could do for me. Either that or I’d be fired for abusing company resources.

Five minutes later, the driver returned with a slip for me to sign and a copy of the invoice. I thanked him again, but he wordlessly climbed back into his truck and sped away.

I jumped into the car and blasted the AC before pulling out into the afternoon traffic. I turned up Eighth Avenue and headed toward the pharmacy. Thankfully, traffic was far less hectic than it was that morning or at lunch. I contemplated leaving early every day, just to avoid the traffic. I chuckled at the far-fetched notion, knowing good and well it would never happen.

Ten minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of the pharmacy and found the last parking space available. I left the engine running as I went in to pick up Cyndi’s prescription, thinking I would need to call for a jump again otherwise.

Once inside, I fully understood why the lot was full. There was a line at the pharmacist’s counter much longer than the line for Pearlman’s lunch. I moved to the back of the line and waited. The line moved at a snail’s pace, and if I hadn’t left work early, I would not have stayed. But as it was only 2:45, I had plenty of time.

Thankfully, another pharmacist opened a second register and half the people in line moved to equalize the wait. The pregnant woman behind me nearly plowed me over to get into the other lane. I graciously stepped aside. Who am I kidding? I let her over there so she would stop bumping into me with her enormous belly. Seriously, don’t people know what personal bubbles are these days?

With the line reduced by half, I progressed to the counter in no time at all. I handed the prescription over and he entered a few things into the computer. A moment later, he handed it back to me and looked at me quizzically.

“Uh, I need to see your ID before I can fill this,” he stated.

I slid my driver’s license across the counter. The clerk compared it to his screen.

“Hmm. I don’t think I can give you this,” he said with a confused look.

“Excuse me? You can’t give it to me why?” I asked, trying to hold in my rapidly-approaching anger.

“Yeah, the prescription is for oxycodone with acetaminophen. That’s a narcotic, and I’m only supposed to give it to the person on the prescription. Your license says you are Jack Duffy, and the prescription’s for Cyndi Duffy.”

“Ah, I see. Cyndi is my wife. I’m picking it up for her,” I replied as calmly as possible. I could feel my anger inching ever closer to the surface.

“Like I said, you’re not Cyndi, so I can’t give this to you.”

“But she’s my wife. See, look at my license. We even have the same address. I don’t see what the problem is here. I’ve picked up prescriptions for her in the past.”

“The problem? How do I know these pills will even make it to her after I give them to you?” the clerk asked.

“Listen, Clint,” I stated, reading his name tag, “I’ve had very bad day. If you don’t find a grown-up back there that can help you out with this, I am going to get pissed. In fact, I might even become irate. NOW FIX THIS!” I yelled, attracting the attention of everyone in line as well as the pharmacist at the other counter.

Clint jumped and took a step back as I barked my orders. He moved to the other pharmacist and the two whispered momentarily. He then disappeared in the stacks of medicines behind them. Moments later, he returned and slid a puffy white envelope across the counter to me along with my driver’s license.

“Great. What do I owe you?” I asked, relieved not to be thrown out for making a scene.

“Your insurance covers medication copays,” he replied, then he looked at the person behind me. “Next?”

I know I shouldn’t have, but I gave Clint the finger as I turned and walked out. It’s the little things that help the day move along.

When I stepped back outside, it was getting hotter. I looked at my watch and saw that is was now past three. With any luck, I would make it home by three-thirty, two hours before I normally got home. With that amount of time, I should be able to get in a nap and then maybe cook dinner for Cyndi before she got home.

* * *

After a few minutes of silence, I looked over to the old man. In addition to the frown lines between his eyes, his eyebrows were now furrowed with concern.

“Is there something you’re not telling me? You seem to know me, and the recounting of my day hasn’t really…”

“Has not been a surprise to me,” Wilson said, finishing my sentence.

“How are you doing that?” I asked, slightly annoyed that he seemed to be reading my thoughts.

“I am reading your thoughts, Mr. Duffy. It sort of comes with the territory of what I do. I can’t read all your thoughts, and not everyone has thoughts that are understandable to me.” He quickly straightened his face and smiled. “It’s nothing to worry about just yet, Mr. Duffy. I think a bit more recitation and everything will become clear. Please continue.”

Without having a better alternative, I flipped the coin.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later I pulled into my parking garage. I was happy with myself for making great time despite the heavy traffic. I grabbed my briefcase and jacket and made for the elevator. The ride up was uneventful. I slipped my key into the lock and opened the door.

When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was that the living room lights were on. Cyndi was usually meticulous about conserving energy and almost always walked around the apartment in the dark. Despite my frequent reminders of her own clumsiness, she still did it nightly.

Thinking nothing more of it, I headed to the kitchen for something to drink. That’s when I noted the second oddity. Cyndi had left her shoes lying in the middle of the floor, and I spotted a few used plates left on the kitchen counter. My lovely wife must have come home early. Her back pain must have been more severe than she had let on that morning.

Not wanting to wake her, I tiptoed down the hall and slowly opened the bedroom door. Within seconds I heard the noises.

Curious, I pushed the door fully ajar. The shades were drawn; the room dark. Despite the dimness, I could see Cyndi in bed, but she certainly wasn’t sleeping. In the shadowy glare from the hallway behind me, I could make out an additional body. I stepped to the side, allowing more of the light to spill across the bed. I could see the shape of not one but two people entwined, covered by the thin bed sheet. The actions I witnessed fully aligned with the sounds emanating from the bed. They were fucking.

My knees began to weaken beneath me. Frozen and unable to move, all I could do was watch in horror. There I was, standing in the doorway of my bedroom, watching my wife having sex with another man. My chest began to tighten. My breathing quickened. I was horrified, but I couldn’t move.

I finally forced my legs to move. I slowly backed out into the hallway, pulling the door to its original position. I retraced my steps through the apartment and back out into the corridor. I left the front door open, not caring whether Cyndi knew I had been home or not.

* * *

I had no words to describe what I was feeling. The old man cleared his throat, but I paid him no attention. All I could think about was what I had just witnessed—for the second time. Sadness turned to anger. I could feel my soul moving inside me, and I had to do something or else I felt like I would explode. I stood and walked to the edge of the dirt path near the park. From where I stood, I could see the sky grow a shade lighter. Dawn was approaching, and here I was, standing in an unknown park, speaking to a strange man about the most fucked up day I’ve ever had. Cyndi and I used to love sunrises. How ironic, I thought.

“Did you know?” I asked the old man, who was now sitting straight up. It was as if he had prepared himself for an onslaught of questions.

“I cannot say what I knew exactly. The answer to you would prove confusing at best,” he replied, making zero sense to me.

“Was that the event that caused my memory block?” I asked, taking a seat next to him.

“That might have something to do with it, but according to my calculations,” he paused to look at his watch again, “you are still missing an hour or so before getting on that fateful bus ride.”

I nodded. I had assumed as much. Coin in hand, I continued my trip down memory lane.

* * *

Delirious, I made my way back to the elevator and gently pressed the call button. I stood there, waiting, my mind in a fog. As the elevator dinged, there was a cry coming from the direction of my apartment. It was Cyndi, now dressed in a robe, standing just outside our apartment door. The doors parted, and I casually stepped in to the elevator. I pressed the button for the lobby, and as I turned around I could hear running footsteps. Cyndi came into view at the precise moment the elevator doors closed her face off from me—forever.

The elevator made its descent to the first floor in less than a minute. I walked out into the penetrating heat and turned right down the sidewalk. I was numb, and had no particular destination in mind. I just needed to walk away.

The sidewalks were beginning to fill with the daily workforce leaving for the evening. The farther I walked, the more crowded the sidewalks became. Having no real plan, I decided I would step off the concrete path of civilization and have a seat.

A block later, I came upon a little bistro with a small outdoor courtyard. I moved through the entry and out onto the terrace. I sat along the outside railing, and a waiter brought me a menu and a glass of water.

Despite the cover on the patio, the heat was nearly unbearable. Moving to a table inside never crossed my mind. I just sat in the silence, wondering why this day was destined to be so disastrous. There was nothing left for fate to deface.

I sipped from the glass of water, feeling its cool tingle as it passed my lips. I looked around the patio and realized I was alone. My soul was just as alone. I wondered what I should be feeling. Hate? Fear? Anger? I felt them all but none at the same time. I felt like crying but couldn’t find the energy. I thought about calling my therapist but dismissed the thought. I knew what he would tell me: it was all going to be OK. How on earth was it going to be OK? My wife, the center of my world, had just cheated on me. My job was horrendous. My entire life seemed to be in a tailspin heading for a fiery crash.

I suddenly realized that throughout the last thirty minutes, I had been carrying my briefcase. Why hadn’t I set it down in the apartment when I walked in? I sat it on the ground next to my chair and saw Cyndi’s prescription. I pulled it from the side pocket and laid it on the table in front of me. I took another sip of water and began to read the label.

I scanned through the generic warnings and precautions. Toward the end of the label, it mentioned that the side effects could be numbness and drowsiness. That sounded about right. I tore open the sealed envelope and popped the lid off the bottle. I emptied a handful of pills onto the table in front of me and contemplated my future.

What exactly did my future hold? I no longer had a wife that loved me. Hell, did she ever love me? I had a boss that would be happy to see me thrown out onto the street. I had no kids, thankfully. Both my parents had passed away years ago. I had nothing left at all. I knew right then that nobody would ever miss me. I took another drink.

Having dealt with depression for many years, I was no stranger to the thought of suicide. Hell, I think everyone thinks about the what-ifs of suicide at least once in their life. I just happened to have thought about it many times over the years. Through countless sessions with my therapist, we concluded that the depression stemmed from mass bullying throughout primary school. The feeling of hatred was still strong toward the people that caused me so much pain. At that moment, random neurons in my brain connected two events in my live, separated by nearly 20 years. Pearlman was the coalescence of all the bullies of my youth.

And there I sat, contemplating my future, my mortality. Whether or not to take my own life. I looked from pill to pill. I knew how easy it would be to end all the pain and suffering. Just a handful of pills and a quick gulp of clean, cool water would be so easy.

I reached up and wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and glanced around once more. I tried to think of a single reason not to take the pills, but nothing came to mind. All that I could think about was seeing my wife move rhythmically with another man.

* * *

“Please, God, no!” I said, barely containing my growing anxiety. “Please tell me,” I begged.

“You were supposed to wait for me on the bus,” he said.

“Why’s that?” I said turning fully in Wilson’s direction.

The old man held his hand out, producing an amber-colored prescription bottle out of thin air. He gave the bottle a shake, rattling the remaining Percocet pills inside.

“Who are you?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer to the question.

“You already know who I am,” he replied.

“All right then. Why are you here?”

“I think you know the answer to that question as well.”

I nodded my head in agreement. Although yesterday was an absolutely horrific day, now I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to die. A terrible job and a cheating wife were no reasons to end a life, and all it took was a kind stranger and a bus ride to figure that out.

“Did I really take all those pills?” I asked, looking down at the coin still in my hand.

“Why not find out for yourself? You’ve come this far, but I wouldn’t think less of you for not wanting to see your final moments.”

Before I had a chance to decide, my subconscious mind made the choice for me. I turned the coin for the final time.”

* * *

As a tear rolled down my cheek, I reached for a pill and placed it on my tongue. I instinctively swallowed it without water. A moment later, I took two more. I sat there waiting for something to keep me from taking the whole pile, but nothing did. I scooped the remaining pills from the table and tossed them back all at once. I washed them down with the last of my water.

Not wanting to cause a scene at the quaint little restaurant, I slid the pill bottle into my pocket and left the patio through the side exit. Back on the sidewalk, I meandered aimlessly for few blocks before coming to a bus stop. With no motivation to proceed, I sat on the bench.

Leaning back, I wondered how long the pills would take and how it would happen. Having never used pain medications, I was unsure what the effects would be. All I felt was anxiety.

As the moments passed, I thought about what I had witnessed. Seeing Cyndi with another man was an absolute betrayal that I would have never imagined. Not for the first time, I asked myself how she could do it. Had our love for each other meant nothing to her?

I tried to figure out where our relationship might have gone wrong, but thinking back to our last fight some six months previous, nothing stood out. That last fight was over something stupid, like leaving dishes unrinsed in the sink. It wasn’t really the dishes that the fight was about, but it certainly was the igniter. The fight carried on for several days, and every little idiosyncrasy fueled the argument. Finally, after I was tired of being mad at her for being mad at me, I apologized, and all was better. So I thought. Could that have been the reason? Could that have made her look at me differently? Surely not, I mused.

I felt so alone.

Moments later, I noticed my breathing begin to change. It felt as if I could not get enough air in my lungs. I tried to take in larger breaths, but just as soon as I inhaled, I involuntarily let the breath out. My accelerated breathing caused my heart to beat faster. I didn’t notice it right away, but once my hand began to twitch, I knew it was from the pills. I leaned my head back and tried to relax, but the combination of the traffic noise and the overdose of pills prevented me from doing so.

Then, out of nowhere, it felt like my stomach flipped a somersault. I quickly leaned forward, and as I did, I knew I was going to puke. I looked up and down the street for a garbage can, but none were in sight. With no other alternative, I stood up and staggered to the curb. Leaning over, I threw up what little food I had eaten through the day. I spat out the languishing bile in my mouth and tried to stand up. A sudden dizzy spell took over, and I nearly collapsed backward. I reached out and grabbed the signpost to steady myself. I felt the time was near. I figured it would be quick, but I had no idea that the pills would affect me so soon.

As I stood there, a man walking by stopped next to me and asked “You doing OK, man?”

Although confusion was setting in, I heard the man’s words and nodded. When I looked into the man’s eyes, I saw worry and concern.

He patted me on the shoulder and continued down the sidewalk. For a brief moment, I wondered if I had made the wrong choice by taking the pills.

A moment later, a city bus pulled to a stop right in front of me. It took me a moment to realize that I was still standing at the bus stop. I instinctively pulled my bus pass from my wallet and climbed aboard. In typical fashion, the first several rows of the bus were filled, so I moved to the very last row and slumped down. The bus lurched ahead, and I felt as if I had left my stomach back at the stop. I leaned forward, feeling like I was going to puke again, but it was just dry heaves. There was nothing left in my stomach.

I looked around at the other passengers on the bus. They were all on their time schedule. Most were just getting off work and heading home, while others were heading in the other direction. For me, time had no meaning. Unlike those around me, I had no pressing matters. I knew the end was near. The pungent odors of sweat and unwashed bodies drifted about the cramped vehicle, but I was unfazed. Nothing bothered me. I leaned back and smiled. For the first time all day, I felt contentment.

As moments passed for me, hours passed for the others in the world. I drifted in and out of consciousness, waiting for the end to take me. It wasn’t until the jostle that my eyes opened.

* * *

“So, am I dead then? Is that why you’re here?”

“Well, yes and no. I’ll explain.” He pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dabbed it across his forehead. “You see, much like yourself, I was late today. Actually, I need to correct that. I was with you earlier, but it wasn’t at the proper time, so I left you to take care of another matter. When I returned to you, you had in fact died but had miraculously come back to life.”

“If I’m alive, then why are you still here? I can go now, right? I got a second chance?” I eagerly suggested.

“It’s not like that, Mr. Duffy.” He paused and slid the refolded handkerchief back into his outer pocket. “You did die. And as soon as you took those pills, you set a number of other events in motion. So, per my orders, I need to take your soul. You see, I’m a soul collector.”

“But you said I miraculously came back to life. Doesn’t that mean I am, in fact, a miracle myself?”

“In all the years of doing this job, Mr. Duffy, I have only witnessed a similar event one other time.”

“And what happened then?” I asked.

Wilson looked down to the ground. “What happened then doesn’t matter now. What does matter is I need to turn in a soul, and yours is the one that needs collecting.”

We sat in silence, both of us staring at anything but each other. I thought about getting up and running. At his age, it would be no contest.

“Yes, you could run, Mr. Duffy, but it would be pointless,” Wilson stated matter-of-factly.

“How’d you…never mind.”

“I know more than you could ever imagine, Mr. Duffy. I know things sometimes before they occur.”

“If that’s the case, how’d you miss me dying? Wouldn’t you have foreseen that as well?”

“Excellent point. With my advanced age, it appears that I might be losing my edge. You see, time passes slower for me than it does for the living. Much slower. For every one of my hours, eight of yours passes. That’s why I thought that I would have been able to collect another soul and still have time to get back to you. The other soul had fallen from a building at a construction site near here. Poor fellow. He left a loving wife and three children behind.”

“Oh,” is all I could think of to say in response. I thought this process would be different.

“Different in which way?” asked Wilson.

“Well, I guess I never thought someone like you would age at all. Granted, I never really thought about what happens after death in the first place. Earlier you said it was too late for second chances and something about other events set in motion. Any chance we could stop them?”

“Here’s how it works. Society has a specific number of souls in use, with new souls being generated as demand sees fit. Those new souls are developed at an established rate that was predetermined a millennia ago. Once a person dies, their soul is recycled into a new birth. You’ve heard the term ‘old-soul’? Well, that just means the soul has been through many lives. There are far more old souls than there are new souls in the world.”

“I find all this extremely interesting, Wilson, but how does me coming back to life affect any of this?”

“Every time a person dies, a new birth is in line to accept their soul. Your soul has been claimed, and the birth is imminent. As all the new souls have been claimed to date, your soul needs to be moved along within a reasonable time frame.”

“And my soul is the only one available? People die all the time. You can’t tell me that there aren’t other souls that can be put into place.”

“I understand your apprehension, Mr. Duffy, but those other souls are being placed into their assigned births all the time. Tomorrow’s quota might be—will be—completely different than it was for today.” Wilson paused a moment. “Listen, Mr. Duffy. I need a soul to turn in, and I cannot understand your sudden resistance. After all, you did in fact attempt to end your life. Even if I could let you live, your life would never be the same. The fact that your wife committed adultery would not change. Can you honestly tell me you would happily take her back just to avoid moving on to the afterlife?”

“I guess I really didn’t think about that. Isn’t there a way to go back a few days earlier?”

“I’m not a miracle worker. I’m not a time traveler. I’m here only to collect your soul.”

Hearing the finality of Wilson’s words, I had never felt more alone. I began to cry.

After several moments of silence, Wilson spoke. “Suppose I had an alternative—”

“Name it,” I replied quickly, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “I’ll take whatever you’ve got to offer.”

“Slow down, Mr. Duffy. You might not like what I have to offer. It most certainly will not give you the life you’ve become accustomed to.”

“I’m listening.”

“You see, I have been doing this for sixty-one years now, and when I became a soul collector, I was fifty-seven.”

“Wait, what? How is that possible?”

“I died when I was fifty-seven. I had a heart attack and was brought back to life. I was dead for several minutes, and because there happened to be no more new souls available at the time, a used soul needed to be collected. The soul collector at the time of my death had been doing her job for quite some time. I also didn’t want to cease to exist, so we turned in her soul instead. In other words, she retired.”

“OK, I think I get that, but the math doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s the eight-to-one ratio that is probably throwing you off. Think of it like this: I continued to age at the same rate as everyone else, but I lived eight times longer. If I hadn’t become a soul collector, I would be sixty-six, although I would have been that age more than fifty years ago.”

I started to comprehend the difference in time as Wilson explained it. That’s when it hit me.

“So, just like that? You’re ready to retire?” I asked.

“It’s not as spontaneous as it appears, Mr. Duffy. Like I said, I’ve been at this for sixty-one years. I’m getting tired. I’ve been contemplating moving on for many years, and I think I’m finally ready.” He looked at me as if sizing me up. “You see, I’ve been on the lookout for someone to take over for me. That person is you.”

“What happens next for me?”

Wilson held both of his hands out, palms up. As I looked at them, a small wooden box appeared on each hand. A name was carved on the lid of each box. One box had my name, Jack Duffy. On the other box, Wilson Oliver was carved. The box with Wilson’s name was much older than my box.

“If you take over being a soul collector, you will take both of these boxes. The box with your name will be yours to keep until you feel it’s time to retire. At your current age of thirty-five, you would almost certainly be able to live into the twenty-fourth century.”

“Done! Let’s do this,” I replied excitedly.

“Not so fast, Mr. Duffy. There are consequences. You would not be able to talk to anyone from your previous life again. The only conversations permitted would be with the dead or dying, much like I am speaking to you now. Trust me when I tell you that it gets quite lonely.”

“Wilson, I’ve lived the last five years of my life in relative solitude. Besides my wife, who just cheated on me, I had no real friends. I don’t see a big difference.”

Wilson nodded in agreement. “I knew that was going to be your response. Once you take these boxes from me, you cannot go back. You will be a soul collector from now until you turn in your soul. This is just prolonging the inevitable.”

“I get it. I’m in till I retire. I can do this,” I replied.

“OK then, Mr. Duffy. Take the two boxes from my hands. Once you possess them, open the box with my name on it and hold it open toward me.”

“Wait. What happens to you?”

“I’m retiring, boy. Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Yes, I get that. But will you just cease to exist? What about your body?”

“I will become an unknown death in the current year, and you will capture my soul in this box. You will then turn in that soul and get another empty box. You will continue to fill boxes with collected souls until you retire.”

“OK, but how do I collect souls? Will there be some sort of training?”

Wilson laughed out loud. “You ask too many questions. Once you take the boxes, all will become clear.”

I took a deep breath as I reached for the boxes in Wilson’s hands. Just before I slid them from his hands, I paused. Our eyes met, and I could have sworn I saw a twinkle in his. I held my hands next to his, palms up. Wilson rotated his hands on to mine, transferring the boxes to me simultaneously. He lifted his hands in the air, and now it was his turn to lean back to relax. I turned the boxes over in my hands, examining each of them individually. I thought about sliding my box into my pocket, but before I could, it vanished. Startled, I looked up at Wilson.

“Things will be much different for you from now on, Mr. Duffy. You will have, shall we call it, practical magic at your disposal from this point forward.”

“Cool.”

“Now if you would, open my box and hold it out in front of me.”

“What? That’s it? You pawn off the boxes on me and you’re out of here?” I asked, astounded. I wondered if I had just made yet another bad choice.

“There’s nothing left to say. I’ve lived my life—both in reality and in the afterlife. What would you have me say or do that would make a difference?”

“Well, for purely selfish reasons, can you give me any tips? Do I eat, and if so how often? How about sleep? And when does happy hour start?”

Wilson laughed. “Sorry, there’s no happy hour, Mr. Duffy. The only tip I will give you will be the same advice that my predecessor gave me.” He paused as he placed his hat atop his head. He sat straight up, looking at me eye to eye.

“Forgiveness is a virtue that needs to be nourished. Resentment only leads to disappointment.”

“That’s it? That’s your sage advice? I was hoping—”

Wilson continued, “And listen to Hauser. He is wise well beyond his years.”

I nodded silently, not because I had no words, but because I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t choking or gasping for breath, but there was no air in my lungs to speak.

“Now, if you please. Open the box and I’ll be on my way,” Wilson said with his own last breath.

I did as Wilson requested. I opened the box and looked inside before turning it toward him. The inside of the box was just as plain as the outside but without any signs of wear. I turned the box around and held it open toward Wilson. “What now?” I asked, suddenly able to speak.

Wilson closed his eyes and began to sing a song. The words sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. As he sang, I began to notice a wisp of smoke or fog leaving his mouth. It lifted out and away from his lips. Once the trail of smoke was completely out of him, his voice ceased, and the paleness of his skin dulled as he slumped back against the bench. The cloud began to move through the air in the direction of the wooden box. Once it completely entered the box, the lid closed on its own and instantly vanished. In its place, another box appeared. The new box looked just like my box, but the name was different.

The name on the box was Cyndi Duffy.

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

Unsealed

originally published in the 2015 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide

* * *

"Today we say goodbye to Dr. Alice, Engineer Felicia and our own Cheese Craftsman Joseph. Please join me in this moment of silence as we wish them well on their journey into whatever the horizon holds for them beyond this life." The radio voice was replaced by a crackling silence.

Ida stopped turning the radio’s crank, resting her aching right arm. Did those people have children? Her eyes filled with tears. She reached for the chain around her neck and touched the memorial disks for her own parents.

Her mother’s disk was worn smooth with time. Ida had worn it for three years—since she was nine.

Father’s disk, only six weeks old, was still hard edged and crisp. Since he had spent less time outdoors, he had lasted longer.

Ida stared through her tears at the door to the bedroom where her five-year-old brother Maurice now slept. Maurice had cried himself to sleep every night for weeks after Father died, clutching the new disk made from Father’s ashes. Mother’s disk had always been there, a matching decoration to Ida’s, but Maurice had no memory of their mother.

Ida wiped her eyes on her sleeve and picked up the radio. It had been almost a week since the last time she had caught the signal.

"…happier news." The young woman’s voice returned against the whirring of the turning crank. "We have three open immigration slots for the West City Dome. Those able to pass full skin and lung exams will be given top priority."

Ida let go of the crank and silence fell over the apartment again. She tipped her head back to lean against the wall, staring up through the window at the stars over the city. They were twelve stories up. Her mother used to reminisce about wide open windows and fresh breezes. The big window had been sealed shut for as long as Ida could remember.

The apartment was stuffy. The air cycled only once an hour. They had barely anything left to barter for food. The water filter was so old she wasn’t sure it was actually safe to drink anything it claimed to purify. At least the apartment door still locked and the toilet flushed. And they still had the bed where Maurice now slept.

Ida set the radio aside. She stood up and turned to look out the big window, stretching her sore arms over her head. When Ida was little, the night sky had been full of brightly lit buildings. Tonight the lights were scattered, looking more like fallen stars decorating the lonely silhouette of urban skyline. She pressed her face against the glass and could just make out the brightly lit mouth of the subway entrance, twelve stories down and three blocks away.

She turned back to the room and picked up their tiny electric candle, then opened the door to what had been their parents' bedroom as quietly as she could. Maurice lay curled around his stuffed pig. Barely pink and barely furry, it was Maurice’s one precious comfort; his link to a time when Father took them to the roof to stare at the stars through the telescope. That was before Father got sick. Before his skin rashes kept him in bed. Before he could barely speak because of the cough.

Ida crawled into bed with her little brother and he snuggled close. They had no other family left. The few friends they had made in the building over the years had migrated, usually disappearing with no word as to their destination.

Tomorrow it was their turn.

* * *

The next morning, Ida and Maurice ate the last of the food and packed their one bag. Two ragged toothbrushes. What remained of their clothing. A dozen mini-drives she hoped they might find a way to read someday, containing photos and family documents. Father’s telescope. The radio and the electric candle.

Putting on their air-skins was always a struggle. They were a snug fit. The opaque surface of Ida’s was glossy and decorated with multi-colored swirls, like marbled paint. It covered her body, leaving only her face and hands bare until those were hidden by matching gloves and her air-mask. She pulled on a long navy skirt and black tunic before turning to help Maurice with his air-skin. His was covered in vertical blue stripes in shades from indigo to aquamarine.

"Ida, it’s too tight." Maurice tried to twist away from her as she pulled it onto his shoulders. "It hurts." He danced from foot to foot, his eyes welling up.

"I know." Ida ran her hands down the sides of the skin, smoothing it and trying to stretch it, "but we can’t go outside without it."

"Where are we even going?" Maurice whined, then added, "Pig wants to know."

"Tell Pig, we are going to the West Dome. They have space." Ida touched Maurice’s face, his skin soft and unscarred against her palm. "And you and I can pass any health check they want to put us through." Maurice didn’t look convinced, but he let her tuck his ash blond curls under the hood and fit his mask over his face. He helped her pull on his loose pale blue tunic and trousers. Father had always admired the sunny domes that sprang up on the outskirts of their city. The only way in was through the old subway system, taken over and maintained by the groups who colonized the train cars and inhabited the stations. The Dome immigration checkpoints were very strict; Father could never have passed the health checks.

Ida stood in the doorway, trying to memorize the stark space, until Maurice’s wiggly gloved fingers pulled her toward the stairwell.

Inside the underground station entry, Ida and Maurice waited for the air to finish cycling. The scrubbed air from the whirring fans pushed against Ida’s air-skin, giving her goose bumps. Maurice laughed, the sound muffled by his mask, as a gust almost pushed him off his feet. Abruptly the fans shut off, leaving an echoing silence. Maurice yanked Ida forward before the doors even began to move.

As they passed beyond the airlock door sensors, the glass panels slid shut behind them. With a whoosh and a pop, the seal re-established. Just inside the station, two guards stood still and aloof. One man and one woman—both tall, their hair short and clipped, their skin pale. The uniforms looked hot and itchy, grey jumpsuits the color of a thundercloud made of some rough looking fabric.

Ida walked slowly, her fierce grip on Maurice’s small hand forcing him to match her pace. She felt the eyes of the guards on them as they walked, two children in the station alone.

When they reached the entry-level atrium, Ida paused near a bench and pulled off her mask. She relished the cool slightly sweet air. It was a relief to breathe the well-filtered air in a wide open space.

Maurice tugged at his mask. It caught on the air-skin hood, made bumpy by his curly hair underneath. Before she could stop him, he pulled hard and the mask popped off—ripping a hole in the hood of the air-skin and breaking the mask’s buckle at the same time. Ida couldn’t hold back her gasp of dismay.

"Sorry, Ida." Maurice mumbled. He stood very still, holding his mask in one hand, Pig in the other. It had taken ten minutes that morning to convince Maurice that Pig didn’t need an air-skin of her own.

Ida swallowed a sigh of frustration. "Don’t worry about it, Maurice." She helped him pull the hood down, tousling his curls as they sprang free. "Where we’re going, we don’t need air-masks anymore."

"We don’t?"

"Nope. The air inside the dome is clean."

Maurice smiled, as Ida pushed back her own hood. She tucked their masks and gloves into the backpack. She unfastened her hair, letting the long dark curls hang free down her back. Rubbing her scalp with her fingers she watched Maurice, now scrambling up on a bench. Ida pulled her clothing straight. The blouse had been her mother’s. It was much too big, hanging loose on her small frame. She would probably never be as tall as Mother had been. Father had always told her she took after his mother, small-framed and under five feet in height.

“I’m taller than you.”

"Get down, Maurice."

"I’m hungry," he grumbled, as he scrambled off the bench.

Father had taken them here to see acrobats soar through the air and flip across the red-tiled floor. Today, the adults bustling through were not there for a performance, and the tall woman high up on the ladder they passed was not an acrobat. Dressed in station grey, her short-cropped hair was fiery red and she wore a tool belt slung across her hips.

Ida and Maurice hurried down the steps to the lower level, urged on by the shrieking brakes of an oncoming train. Finally on the platform, Ida felt the press of air ahead of the train against the backs of her legs, making the thin fabric of her long skirt shift back and forth like water against her air-skin. Maurice stopped, pulling on her arm and turning to put his face into the breeze.

Near a tall concrete column Ida and Maurice stepped out of the stream of people. The train was barreling into the station, painted with the bold red flowers and fresh vegetables of the Harvest Crew. Most importantly, this train was headed the right direction—end of the line, the West City Dome.

The car that stopped directly in front of her was well lit. Bright flowers filled all the windows on display. When the door opened, frosty cool air billowed out, blowing Ida’s hair away from her face and filling the air with the scents of lilacs and lilies. People jostled in and out of the cars. The train pulled forward every few minutes, the tunnel swallowing up the lead car at one end and revealing a new car at the rear.

Ida began to run to toward end of the platform.

"Are we getting flowers?" Maurice called from behind her, tugging back on her arm as his legs couldn’t keep pace.

"Flowers? No." Ida looked over her shoulder and slowed down a little. "We need the passenger car."

As they reached the mouth of the tunnel, a car emerged with no food or flowers. It had a few rows of seats, mostly full, and an official man seated behind a battered counter. Ida hurried Maurice through the door.

"Two tickets to West City Dome please." Ida felt a little dizzy and out of breath. She was hungry and exhausted, but they could rest once they had their tickets.

"What can you offer, young lady?" The man looked over the counter at Maurice. "We don’t give discounts for children."

Ida pulled off her pack and proudly dug out the hand-crank radio. "The batteries don’t hold a charge, but the radio works if you keep the crank turning."

"What do we need a radio for? No radio reception down here."

"Oh." Ida’s heart raced and her face flushed with embarrassment. She should have thought of that. The train lurched forward for a few moments before stopping again.

"Anything else?"

She pulled out Father’s telescope, watching Maurice’s eyes grow wide as she placed it on the counter.

"What is it?" The man picked it up and turned it over.

"It is a compact telescope, for looking at stars."

"Do you see any sky here, young lady?" The man set it on the counter and pushed it back towards Ida. “How about your air-skins?”

"Our air-skins?" Ida was tempted to just say yes, but until they made it through the West Dome immigration point she couldn’t risk it. “I’m sorry, we can’t.”

"Well, we generally look for seeds, or tools for working our greenhouses. Anything like that?"

Ida shook her head. "No, sir."

"Find something we want, and we’ll be happy to take you out to the dome. Good day to you." He turned toward the adults that had lined up behind her.

"Good day." Ida mumbled. She shoved everything back in their bag and led Maurice off the train just as it stopped shifting forward again. Ida set their pack down and sat on the hexagonal tiles a few feet from the platform’s edge, pulling Maurice into her lap. Ida rested her chin on Maurice’s head, his curls tickling her nose. She cried silently, breathing evenly to keep Maurice from noticing.

How was she going to get them to West City Dome before the two spots they needed were already claimed?

She watched children race along the platform before they jumped back onto the train. They seemed happy and had the energy to run. Their clothing was mismatched but seemed tidy. There were enough children on that train that she and Maurice might blend in.

Ida got them up and walked Maurice back down to the end of the platform. She spotted a likely car, one with dark windows, maybe meant for storage? The car in front of it was bright and busy. Yanking Maurice in behind her, shivering a bit at the cold air within the refrigerated car, Ida walked confidently towards the door at the far end. They walked between overflowing displays of fresh corn. Just being near them made Ida feel even hungrier. The handle at the far end was covered in a thin film of frost. Her fingers chilled as she grabbed it and tried to pull it sideways.

It didn’t budge. She tried again, pushing down with all her weight. Still it didn’t move. Suddenly, one of the Harvest Crew was shouting. Ida had just enough time to get them back off the train before the crewman reached them. He leaned out of the car, eyes on them until just before his car was swallowed up by the tunnel.

Only a few moments later, the Dairy train pulled onto the other side of the platform, covered with portraits of cows large and small. Ida was so hungry she could barely think. She put her arm around Maurice.

"What color cheese do you want?"

"Cheese?" Maurice’s blue eyes lit up, "Orange!" he replied without hesitation. His answer never changed, but Ida always asked. "Do we have enough?"

"I’m not sure." Ida replied honestly. "I have some clothes that should get us something. You pick the car!"

This time, Maurice pulled Ida down the platform, evaluating the cars and finding each lacking. Finally, he stopped solemnly in front of a dim car whose overhead lights cast only a hint of warm glow on the space within.

Inside, the pungent smell of cheese enveloped them. A wide cold case featured blocks in every shade of beige, yellow and orange.

"Which one do you want?"

"That one!" Maurice pointed through the glass at the biggest orange-colored cheese. The man accepted one of Ida’s last shirts in exchange for a nice large chunk.

They sat with their cheese on a concrete bench. Ida broke it into small chunks on the unfolded waxed-paper. Then she scooped about a third of the chunks into her hand and left the rest for Maurice.

"Eat them slow," Ida whispered before she slipped the first chunk into her mouth. She hummed in pleasure. The flavor was so strong and bright. She hadn’t had any food since they ate the last of their rice that morning.

The crowds on the platform were thinning out for the day. They wouldn’t let them spend the night on this bench.

“Maurice, turn around.” Maurice turned without protest, still focused on licking his fingers. Ida pulled at his air-skin hood. The tear was definitely going to let in enough air to burn his exposed scalp, but she had no way to fix it. Maybe his hair would cover it enough that the West Dome exam wouldn’t catch it? “Let’s go back to the apartment Maurice. We’ll find a train tomorrow.” They could only trade away clothing for food for so long, but for now she saw no other options.

“What about my hood?” He trusted her.

“It’ll be fine,” she lied, “It’s a short walk. I’ll cover it with my hand. You’ll have to hold the mask on, okay?” He nodded, standing up and holding out his hands for his gloves.

As they reached the station-master’s kiosk on the same level as the air lock, a loud shrill blaring broke the general quiet of the station. Three sharp alarm blasts were followed by a short silence, then three more sharp blasts. A set of flashing amber lights came on all along the ceiling.

"What’s it mean, Ida?" Maurice shouted, his hands covering his ears.

"Air seal leak." Ida shouted back. Ida pulled out her brother’s mask. “Hold this on.” Ida wrenched her own mask in place and was wrestling to get her hair tucked back into her hood as a group of station guards convened at the kiosk.

"So fix the seal!" The station-master growled over his shoulder, stomping out of the kiosk door a few feet from them. He was a heavyset man, his hair white and his skin dark brown. Ida had never seen him leave the kiosk.

"If I could get in there I would," replied the same red-haired tall woman Ida had seen up the ladder in the atrium, stepping out right behind him. "The alarms show a leak inside a duct. None of us will fit. Even then, we probably can’t suit up fast enough and get in there before the air balance tips. The front entry air-chamber already can’t be used until we fix it."

“So, evacuation isn’t an option? Give me some other choice. What about your robot? I thought this was what it was for!”

“In the tunnels. Under the tracks. Not for up ladders and down ducts."

The station-master threw up his hands and turned to stalk back past Ida and Maurice.

Before she lost her nerve, Ida stepped in his path. “I’m small.”

He looked down at Ida, then back at the engineer. "What about this kid? Would she fit?"

“Sure,” the engineer admitted, “She would fit, but then what?”

"I’m sure I could do it." Ida volunteered. “And I have my full air-skin on already.”

The engineer stepped around the station-master to look Ida up and down.

"You can tell her over the radio what to do." The station-master decided. "Let’s get her in there. We can’t wait any longer or we’re going to have to beg trains to come in for a full evac. It’ll take all night to clean the air. No train is going to want to stop here while our alarms are coded like this." He stalked away to talk to the group of security guards, calling back over his shoulder. "Just fix it. I’ll send someone back with the smallest mask with a radio we can find.” He turned away from them yelling, “Someone turn off the siren." A few moments later, the alarm fell silent, but the amber lights still flashed.

“What about my brother?” Ida gestured to Maurice huddled by the base of the kiosk and holding his mask in place. His hood still flopped on his back, his ash blond curls wild on his head. Ida stepped closer to the woman, speaking under her breath so Maurice wouldn’t hear and get even more scared. “His hood has a tear.”

“Then I guess we better work fast. As long as the warning lights don’t shift to red, he’ll be fine.” Up close, the engineer was even taller than Ida had realized. "I’m Rayna." She offered Ida her hand. "What’s your name?"

"Ida." She shook Rayna’s hand.

Rayna spotted her necklace, pulling her own out of the neck of her uniform. Hers also had two disks.

“You two on your own?" she jingled her necklace and gestured with her chin at Ida’s.

“Yes. Mom three years ago. Dad last month.” Ida looked back at Maurice who started at her with his big blue eyes wide with fear. “We’re alone.”

When Ida looked back at her, Rayna was watching Maurice. “Not now you aren’t.” She shook her head and turned back to Ida. “We need you. I am going to give you the world’s fastest lesson on how to use this air-seal tool." She pulled a strange cylinder from her equipment belt. It looked like a cross between a flashlight and a small hand-drill. "Then you need to go up the ladder and into that duct."

Ida stared up at where Rayna was pointing. Could she back out of this? Maurice would be alone. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she fell?

“The biggest challenge to fixing a breach like this,” Rayna’s voice pulled her attention back, “is the flexibility of the material. You need to fuse the edges of the tear or patch it if the tear is too big. Everything must be tight, no gaps.”

Ida nodded.

“The tool works through a combination of heat and chemical reaction. You have to keep it away from your own air-skin or it will make a new hole where you don’t want one.” Rayna looked back at Maurice. “Get his hood up. It will still help some. One of the staff can keep an eye on him.”

Ida helped Maurice with his hood and told him she would be back soon. A woman sat with Maurice, whispering something that made him smile, still clutching his mask to his face as he held Pig close.

Ida practiced on some air-skin scraps, Rayna hovering over her shoulder giving tips. It was harder than it looked. The sealer felt strange and awkward in her hand, but by the time the radio-mask appeared, Ida felt like she was getting the hang of it.

Rayna had Ida take off her loose clothing, leaving her standing exposed in just the tight protective skin. Rayna dumped everything out of her equipment belt and onto the floor with a huge clatter. She wrapped the belt around Ida’s slim hips, showing her how to stash the tool and the patches.

Ida swapped her mask for the new one. The air in this mask was crisper than in her mask. Maybe drier? She let her thoughts on the texture of the air distract her as they moved to the bottom of the ladder. Rayna held it steady as Ida climbed. Ida heard a train rush through the station without stopping, felt the metal vibrate as it passed somewhere far below.

Ida didn’t look down, just up at the next step on the ladder. The new mask had a headlamp that lit her way as she clambered over the ledge and crawled into the narrow dark channel. It quickly got too small to crawl, forcing her lie flat and pull herself forward with her elbows. Around the first tight turn, the equipment belt got hooked on something. She had to shimmy backwards and roll over to get herself free, before rolling back onto her belly to continue inching forward.

She almost fell over the edge at the far end of the shaft, surprised by the empty space suddenly gaping ahead. Her gasp had Rayna calling through the radio.

“Ida?”

"I found the end of the duct."

"There will be a ladder leading down from that end too."

"I’ve got it." Ida found the first rung with her right hand. "Wait. How am I going to turn around?" There was a long pause. Ida stared at the ladder leading down into murky shadows. The headlamp made little impact on the inky blackness. No way she was going down head first. “Should I come back and go in feet first?”

"No.” Rayna finally replied. “No. I have an idea. Can you lie on your back and reach up? There should be a ladder leading up, too. You can grab a rung above and pull yourself up enough to get your feet on the ladder going down."

Ida turned over and looked up. The bottom step of another ladder glinted in the beam of her headlamp, leading upwards into more darkness.

“Yes. I see it. Let me try.” She rested her head against the bottom of the tunnel and reached. It was too far away. Ida carefully shifted further forward until her head was no longer supported. She reached up and her hand came close, but not close enough to wrap her fingers around the rung. “I still can’t reach. How did anyone ever do this?”

“They didn’t,” Rayna replied. “Before the underground was sealed, there were easier ways to get to that section from the outside. They were never meant to be accessed from inside the station.”

“Couldn’t I go through the old doors from outside? I have my air-skin.” Ida tipped her head back, letting her headlamp rove the far reaches of the cavernous space. She would have had better luck with her father’s telescope.

“No.” Rayna sighed. “Great idea, only that would contaminate the whole station.”

“Oh.”

“Can you brace your legs and push out further?”

“Umm…” Ida experimented with her legs, trying to figure out a way to keep herself from sliding all the way out of the duct and into the gloom below. “Maybe?”

“Keep trying.” This almost a whisper.

She rolled back onto her stomach to look down the ladder. She could grab the first rung and flip herself over, but she could picture all too easily her back smacking against the ladder, her grip slipping, and falling who knew how far down. She rolled onto her back once more, this time finding some indentations into which she wedged her feet on the sides of the duct.

And then, without thinking about all the ways it could go wrong, Ida pushed herself back and over the edge until her entire torso was out over the emptiness. She quickly sat up and reached as far as she could.

She caught the lowest rung above her with her left hand. For a moment Ida just hung there, breathing. Finally she pulled herself up high enough to grab on with her right hand as well and pulled her legs out of the duct to put them on the rung below.

“Okay. I’m on the ladder.”

“What?” Rayna barked with a laugh. “How?”

“If I live through this,” Ida laughed back, “I promise I’ll explain. Now what?”

“Down the ladder, across the bottom of the air shaft and then back up the ladder to the right.”

Before Rayna even finished, Ida was moving down the ladder, looking down to shine the headlamp at her feet. She had to jump down to the floor at the bottom. Across the open space she found the ladder on the opposite side easily enough.

“Rayna, the ladder is too high, I can’t reach.” Ida waited. “Rayna?” The radio remained silent. She pointed her headlamp carefully at the floor around her. The space stretched far beyond the beam of light. Ida tried not to think about getting stuck down here with no food or water as everyone else was forced to evacuate the station. She couldn’t think about Maurice alone, angry red burns branching down from his hairline and across his forehead.

Ida put her hand on the wall and began to walk along the edge of the space. She almost tripped on something. It was a broken wooden crate that looked like it had been dropped down the shaft.

It was huge and heavy and awkward as she dragged it into place. Finally she was able to clamber up its side and get onto the ladder.

Halfway to the top, Ida finally heard Rayna’s voice again.

“Ida?” Rayna sounded panicked.

“I’m here.” Ida replied, out of breath from the climb.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. The bottom of the ladder was too high. I had to find something to climb on.” She paused to catch her breath. “Where am I going?”

“At the top of the ladder near the ceiling you should find a small door.” Rayna’s voice hitched, like maybe she had been crying. “Given the distribution of air degradation reported from this shaft’s sensors, the breach has to be in there somewhere.”

Getting the door unlatched was easy. Leaning back far enough to pull it open was hard. Then she was half inside a weird little box and looking for the breach.

It was obvious once she saw it. The panel covering one of the air exchanges with the outside was damaged. The left edge had torn free, the translucent material flapping as air rushed in.

Ida pulled out the tool. It felt cold and heavy in her hand. She had a moment of panic that she would fumble and the tool would fall all the way back to the floor far below, but then she got it turned around and pointed in the right direction.

“Remember, let each inch of re-fused material set for at least 90 seconds. That way it won’t pull out as you go.”

“Okay.” Ida fused the first inch. “Can you keep time for me? I just finished the first inch.”

“Started.”

She took a breath, and after a few beats of silence, “Orion. Cassiopeia. Pegasus.”

“Ida?”

“Sorry. My father and I used to look at constellations together on the roof of our building. He taught me to name as many as I can remember when I needed to stay calm.”

“I haven’t seen the stars in a long time.”

“It was the only time I liked putting on my air-skin.” Ida closed her eyes, remembering. “As more city lights went out, we just could see more and more stars.”

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It was.” Ida squeezed her eyes, trying hold the tears in. “It still is.”

“Time’s up. You can do the next inch.”

“Thanks,” she choked out, opening her eyes to a blur of tears. They trailed down her cheeks where she couldn’t reach to wipe them away. They were salty and warm when they reached her tongue. She blinked her eyes clear and fused the next inch. “Restart timer please. Ursa Minor. Ursa Major. Draco. Cygnus…”

When she finished the last inch, the air pressure dropped and Ida slumped against the side of the chamber. She closed her eyes.

“It’s done,” she whispered.

“Good job!” Rayna’s cheerful voice was followed by a flood of shouts. They hurt her ears, but she didn’t care. She had done it. She hadn’t died, Maurice was safe and the station was fixed. Her father would have been so proud.

Getting back out was easier, once she wrangled the broken box across the floor to the first ladder. She took the opportunity at the end of the duct to show Rayna how she had gotten onto the ladder at the other end.

Down on the floor, Rayna pulled her into a quick hug. Then she took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.

“Well done.” She had a huge grin on her face.

“Looks like you might have found someone to train,” said a voice over the radio; Ida thought it might have been the station-master.

“We are planning to relocate,” Ida confessed, “if we can just find a train that will take us out to the West City Dome.”

“I see.” Rayna was interrupted by a long low tone broadcast over the speakers. The amber warning lights went out. She looked up. “That’s the all clear, you don’t need this anymore.” She reached over, pulled off Ida’s mask and handed it back to her.

“Ida!” The next thing Ida knew, Maurice was throwing himself into her arms and she was kissing his smiling face.

After Maurice and Pig peppered Ida with questions about her adventure for a few minutes, Rayna interrupted, a serious tone in her voice. “I understand you have your eyes on the West City Dome, but I would like to propose something different.”

“Okay.” Ida moved to stand beside Maurice, watching Rayna’s face as she held him close.

“I need an assistant. I can pay you with a combination of station scrip and food.”

“I’m hungry.” Maurice volunteered. Rayna and Ida both laughed.

“Someone bring this young man a sandwich.” Rayna called out, to a chorus of more laughter. “Scrip will work at any station and on most trains. If you want to move on in a few months, won’t be anything I can do to stop you.”

“I understand.” Ida nodded. An adult in station gray brought Maurice a sandwich. As he devoured it, Ida swore she could see him grow. “But Maurice needs a new air-skin. We barely got this on him this morning, even before the hood got torn.”

“We can take care of that.” Rayna waited patiently.

“Maurice?” Ida asked, watching him eat. “Should we stay?”

“This sandwich is good,” he replied around a mouthful of food. “Pig likes it here.”

“In that case,” Ida turned back to Rayna, “our answer is yes.”

“One final condition,” replied Rayna, “You owe me some star gazing.”

“Good thing we kept the telescope.”

Someone handed Ida a sandwich. It tasted amazing.

View from Above

originally published in the 2016 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide

* * *

Kendree completed the final checklist and pushed the ignition button. It always unnerved her that there was no sound to confirm that the engines were cycled up. The lights on the control panel paraded past agreeably, just as they had every time her father had taken her out for practice. Mother said she was too young. Father said anyone who lived on a spaceship needed to know how to fly a shuttle. In case of an emergency.

This was an emergency.

The spacesuit crinkled as she swiveled to the launch panel on her right, taking deep breaths of the fake lemon-scented air from the refresher. Bracing herself for the alarm that she was 90% sure she had disabled, Kendree flipped the launch trigger. The shuttle lifted gently from the docking bay floor. No bells clanged. The lights outside the cockpit didn’t suddenly flash red and orange. The bay door slid smoothly open, revealing a wide swath of dark space and stars and the edge of the planet below.

Kendree checked the coordinates one more time, then initiated the autopilot. Her heart raced and she held her breath until the small shuttle was clear of the doors and had turned toward the planet. The navigation display projected a total travel time of 18 minutes.

She switched the side screen to replay the last few minutes of her friend’s video message. Elissa’s eyes were puffy and red, but she wasn’t crying. Her voice shook a little as she explained that her parents were evacuating her and her sisters. They were being sent to hide out on their family property a few hours away from the city and the battlefields that had formed around it. Elissa looked over her shoulder at some noise outside her door before turning back to say “Sorry, I have to go. I’ll try to send another message soon, but the country house doesn’t have an uplink to the satellite. I’ll miss talking to you.” She ended the transmission before Kendree had even been able to tell her to be safe.

Kendree had been nervous about the war brewing on the surface for weeks. It was all some awful drama left over from when different Earth factions had settled the planet generations ago. Her parents swore her friend would be okay. They kept saying that Elissa’s parents were scientists. They weren’t soldiers. They would evacuate to somewhere safe before it was too late.

She and Elissa had never met in person, but it was lonely up on the spaceship with just her parents. They had been in geostationary orbit over Elissa’s home city for over a year as Kendree’s parents did their Space Archaeology work. Her mother had met Elissa’s mother through the university in the city below and thought the two girls might enjoy meeting each other—at least over the video channel.

It was hard to be alone on the ship for so long with just her parents for company. She and Elissa had rapidly progressed from awkward “my mom says I have to talk to you” acquaintances to best friends who told each other everything. They loved the same books. They played each other their favorite music. Elissa told her that it was the best to have a friend who wasn’t part of the social scene down on the planet—she could tell Kendree anything. And she did.

The idea of not talking to Elissa for more than a day, let alone for some unknown long amount of time, made her heart ache. The idea that her friend might be in danger—that she could be hurt as politicians and their soldiers fought over who was in charge? That made Kendree’s skin crawl.

The sun was just cresting the horizon, flooding the planet below with a warm arc of light. The autopilot was handling everything, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a bumpy ride dropping down through the atmosphere. This shuttle wasn’t big enough to absorb and suppress the vibrations. The cabin slowly ratcheted the pressure up to prepare her for the increased gravity on the planet surface. Kendree had watched instructional videos about this, but she had never felt it herself.

She had asked Elissa for the coordinates of the country house a few months ago when Elissa had first mentioned it. Kendree had accessed the maps her father used for his remote sensing studies and imagined visiting Elissa there. The maps were based on satellite imaging and were used to search for promising archaeological sites, but they worked just as well to view the terrain on the surface.

“Kendree, what are you doing?” Her mother’s voice burst through, loud and frantic over the ship-to-ship comm-link. She was grateful there was no video. Kendree considered just ignoring it, but her mother wasn’t going to give up.

“I’m just going down to pick up Elissa. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“You can’t do that. Turn that shuttle around. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m not turning around. In fifteen minutes I’ll be on planet at their summer house. I bet they won’t even have unpacked yet.”

“You can’t! Kendree…it isn’t safe.” She faintly heard her mother calling for her father, her head probably turned away from the microphone.

“You said that they were in a safe place. So it will be safe for me, too.”

“There are reasons we don’t go down to the surface of this planet, Kendree. Your body has no immunity to their illnesses. And you already have enough to deal with without getting sick.”

Kendree didn’t respond. She was watching the planet below speed toward her. To the east were the battlefields. So many soldiers in battle armor that glinted in the rising sun. Had they been marching all night to get into position?

The shuttle turned and she got close enough to see some of the large battle machines on the ground. Huge, hulking, and dark, they towered well above the heads of the troops. The largest one lumbered forward, jostling soldiers who clambered on its surface adjusting things she couldn’t see. She hadn’t realized how close to the battle zone the auto-piloted route would take her.

“It’s going to be fine.” She wasn’t sure if she was telling herself or her mom.

“You can’t open the doors when you land. You have to just relaunch. I am so sorry.”

“No. Mom, that isn’t an option.” The shuttle was now flying over the heart of the capital city. She could see the rolling countryside coming up fast.

“Kendree?” Her father was now on the line too. “Honey, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you could be a danger to your friend, too. She might not be immune to everything you’ve been exposed to.”

“Dad, we’ve been here for almost a year. That is a long enough quarantine for anything we might have brought with us. Or should I say brought with you. You never let me get exposed to anything.”

“There is a reason for that, dear.” Her mother sounded sad. Kendree knew that the life of isolation they led was to keep her immune system from being challenged. “I’m sorry,” she added quietly.

“I know you are. But I’m twelve. I’m not a little girl. Don’t worry, I have a good plan.”

And with that she shut the communication link down and watched the woodlands and fields unfolding below her. The shuttle cast a moving shadow as she flew west away from the rising sun.

She braced herself for what turned out to be a gentle landing on a fairly flat patch of grass.

Kendree reached down and disengaged the latches that had held her chair in place. With practiced deftness, she rotated 180 degrees and guided the motorized chair to the storage compartment where she had stashed her helmet and gloves. She hadn’t wanted to wear them for the flight down because they restricted her movement and sight lines, but she knew her parents were right. She was convinced she was no danger to her friends—but she knew that her immune system was compromised enough that they were a very real danger to her.

It had been hard getting into the suit without her parents’ help—but she had managed. She had only cursed once, and that time under her breath so she didn’t wake her parents before she had effected her escape.

They had had her suit custom made, her legs resting together inside the bottom half of the suit. There was no need for separate legs in a suit for someone whose legs didn’t work. For someone who couldn’t walk. When she put it on the first time, she had felt like a mermaid. She pulled on her gloves now, hating the loss of dexterity and sensation.

It was awkward getting her helmet on with her gloves in the way, but she managed it. She engaged the helmet lock and felt cool, sweet air begin to flow from the pack mounted on the back of her chair. Inside her mermaid space suit she was safe. She planned to keep herself quarantined in her room on the ship as long as the girls stayed with them.

Kendree opened the shuttle door and rolled down the ramp to the grass outside the small house. She approached the door to the small wood house slowly. The sun was up, but it was still early. The ground in front of the building was covered in gravel. She turned on the sound feed in her helmet to hear it crunch as she drove the chair across.

There was no sign of activity inside. She looked for some sort of intercom or button and saw none.

She was able to get close enough to the door to knock with her gloved hand, but there was no answer. She knocked again, this time as hard as she could. She waited, but still no answer. The doorknob didn’t turn. Of course it was locked. They were hiding and trying to be safe.

Kendree backed away from the door and surveyed the building more carefully. It was two stories, with two broad windows on the lower floor and four smaller windows spaced evenly across the upper level. She imagined that the girls’ bedrooms were upstairs. The windows were covered by curtains, but the window all the way to the left had a small plant balanced between the curtain and the windowpane. Elissa was obsessed with growing things. She would have brought her latest project with her and scouted out the window with the best sun in her room.

She needed some way to get her attention. The gravel at her feet was ideal, but it might as well have been a mile away. Her suit was not designed for picking up small objects on the ground. Luckily she remembered the grabber she always kept strapped to the side of her chair. She managed to use it to transfer a small pile of the rough grey stones into her lap. Her first try at throwing them was an utter failure. Gravity was weird. If she had been on the ship, with the gravity turned super low so it was easy for her to maneuver without using much leg strength, she could have tossed them the entire length of the ship’s central hallway. Here they landed barely beyond her feet.

Her second throw was no more successful. She stared thoughtfully at the tool leaning against her leg. She lifted it and put a few rocks in the scoop and carefully rotated it over her shoulder. Holding as tight as she could with both hands, she snapped the rod forward. The rocks went flying. They clunked against the wide wood door and fell onto the doormat. It took four more tries before she got the rocks to clatter on the window on the second floor. After her second hit, the curtain moved and there was her friend’s face. Kendree waved, then worried that she was just frightening Elissa. The curtain fell back in place quickly. Kendree held her breath until the door opened.

Elissa was shorter than Kendree had pictured. Getting to know someone just from their torso on a screen would do that, she guessed.

“Elissa.” Kendree suddenly realized Elissa couldn’t hear her. She toggled on the speaker in her helmet and called out again quickly. “It’s me! Kendree!” She hoped that Elissa could see her smile through the helmet from her spot shifting from foot to foot in the doorway. “I’m here to rescue you.” She gestured to the shuttle behind her.

“What?” Elissa peered out at the driveway and up at the sky before stepping out the door. She had fuzzy slippers on her feet and a red nightgown covered in yellow stars. “How did you get here?”

“I flew the shuttle.” Kendree sat up a bit taller. “I’ve been taking lessons for more than a year now. And the autopilot did most of it,” she admitted. “Get your stuff, we can’t stay long.”

“I can’t go with you.” She didn’t sound so sure. Elissa looked past Kendree’s chair at the shuttle. “How many people can fit in there at once?”

“There are seats for six.” Kendree waved her forward. “Come look.”

“I can’t believe you are here.” Elissa’s skin was olive, and her long black braid glinted in the morning sun as she picked her way across the gravel in her slippers. She stopped right in front of Kendree’s chair looking thoughtful. Kendree had never told her about being confined to chairs in gravity, but Elissa didn’t seem surprised. “Can I hug you through that?”

“I think so.” Kendree leaned forward a bit and Elissa wrapped her slender arms around the bulky suit. Kendree couldn’t feel anything, but her friend so close and holding her suddenly made her eyes feel leaky. She couldn’t cry. No way to wipe tears in here and she had to see to get them back to the ship safely. When Elissa stood up, Kendree took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking. “Is it just you and your sisters here?”

“Yes.” Elissa looked back over her shoulder toward the house. “I don’t know if we can talk them into going with us.”

“Sure we can.” Kendree smiled at the ‘us’. At least Elissa had decided to come with her. “Wake them up and get everyone dressed. We have to go fast. I think that some of the soldiers on the battlefield might have spotted me on my way in.”

“Oh.” Panic flashed in her friend’s dark eyes. “Okay. Wait here,” she said needlessly before turning to run back into the dim foyer.

Kendree waited. She watched birds wheeling in the sky overhead. The sky was so wide and blue. The trees so tall, taller than the house and shading it with their leaves. Kendree spent a lot of time looking at photos and watching videos of things she couldn’t easily get to in the real world—but the perspective of looking up was strange and unsettling. And kind of magical. She had spent most of her life looking down. Down from hospital windows. Down from the ship’s viewports.

Elissa reappeared dressed in a grey jumpsuit and carrying two dark bags. Her sisters, one older and one younger, were with her.

“Kendree,” she started out formally, “this is my older sister, Ruth, and my little sister, Vali.” They both shared Elissa’s coloring, though Ruth’s hair was cropped short and Vali’s hair was down to her shoulders and loose, waving in the morning breeze. Kendree wished she could feel the wind against her skin.

Ruth stood tall and looked almost grown up. Kendree remembered she was supposed to start at the city university in the fall to study linguistics. Vali hid behind Ruth’s legs. She was eight, four years younger than Elissa. They wore the same style grey jumpsuit.

“Are you ready to depart?” Kendree tried to sound formal and serious, even though she was bubbling over with joy inside. It was going to work!

“I can’t talk her out of it,” said Ruth bluntly, gesturing at Elissa with her chin. She kept a hand on Vali’s shoulder. “I’m not letting her go alone. And I can’t leave Vali here without us. So I guess we’re all going.” She hauled a huge backpack onto her back and grabbed another smaller bag with her right hand. She held out her left hand to Vali and then headed toward the shuttle with the smaller girl in tow.

“Okay.” Kendree turned her chair and accelerated to catch up. “Come on Elissa!” She called out, hoping her friend was right behind her.

The chair reached the ramp at the same time Ruth and Vali did. Ruth stepped back to let Kendree maneuver up and into the shuttle. In moments they were all aboard and figuring out how to strap down their bags at Kendree’s direction.

As soon as everyone was safely strapped in, Kendree closed the door and went through the pre-launch checklist again. She felt everyone watching her every move. Her mouth felt dry. She wished for a way to drink some water, but the helmet had to stay or she might as well not have bothered with it in the first place.

And then they were lifting off. The auto-route back to the ship was the default navigation program.

The shuttle wheeled back to the west toward the city.

“We shouldn’t be flying this way,” said Ruth, “Can’t you re-route us?”

“Umm..” Kendree took a deep breath. “I haven’t learned that yet. I’m sorry.”

They watched the city grow large before them. The shuttle gained altitude. Then they could see the battlefield.

“Are we going to fly right over them?” Elissa asked nervously.

Ruth started to murmur something. Kendree thought it might be a prayer, or some sort of private little song. Vali was silent, but Kendree was afraid to look at her tiny face.

“When I flew in they ignored me.” Kendree tried to sound bright and confident. “It’s going to be okay."

“I’m sure it will be.” Elissa backed her up, reaching across the space between them to put her hand on the arm of Kendree’s suit.

They could do nothing but watch. The field was even more full than when Kendree had flown in at dawn. Less than an hour had passed, but now the sun was at full strength, glinting off armoured suits and large war machines.

The shuttle rose and now all they could see was sky. Kendree had started to relax when the loud blaring of an alarm filled the small cabin.

“What does that mean?” Ruth shouted over the noise.

“I think…” Kendree clumsily flipped through the alert screens. “I think someone fired something at us from the ground.” She found the switch to change the view shown on the large main screen. Now they were watching the battlefield receding quickly behind them. In the center of the screen was something glowing, round, and getting closer to them as they watched.

“What do we do?” whispered Elissa.

“We go faster.” Kendree swiveled her chair and realized that she couldn’t type on the keyboard with her gloves on. “Elissa, I need your help.” Kendree rotated the pilot’s keyboard toward her friend. “I can’t type with these,” she waved her heavy gloved hands, “but I can tell you what to do.”

“Hurry it up.” Ruth said, still watching the screen.

Kendree talked Elissa through the menus as fast as she could. The shuttle began to accelerate, pushing them all back in their seats and slowly, so slowly, pulling them further ahead of whatever the soldiers had shot at them. Moments after their shuttle broke through the atmosphere, the missile exploded in a bright burst of yellow and gold.

“That was too close,” said Elissa. “I can’t believe it didn’t catch us.”

“Switch us back to autopilot,” Kendree sighed. She wanted to laugh or cry or hug someone, but she was still in her mermaid suit and strapped to her motorized chair. “We’ll be at the ship in just a few minutes.” She flipped the view screen back using the big switch, one of the few things she could manage with her gloves on. The sky changed from the blue of atmosphere to the darker background of space, with the ship already growing larger on the display.

The girls from the planet watched the ship open its hatch for them, gaping at the machinery and the wide reach of space beyond until they were swallowed by the dark docking bay.

The final step of the autopilot sequence disengaged the door and lowered the ramp. Kendree’s parents stood just outside.

“I told you she was wearing it!” her father elbowed her mother and pointed at Kendree’s space suit. “Well done!” he called to her.

“Kendree…” her mother choked out before she ran to her side, taking one of her bulky gloves in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” was all Kendree could manage before her face was wet with tears. “I couldn’t leave Elissa down there. I knew I could go get them.”

“We understand,” her mother responded gently. She took a deep breath and turned to their guests. “Welcome to our home, the TIRS-OLI.” Kendree had explained months ago to Elissa that her parents had named the ship for old Landsat satellite technology that was first used to map Earth from space, but from the confused look on Elissa’s face, her friend had forgotten, or maybe was just too worried to remember.

“Our parents…” Ruth began.

“Not to worry,” Kendree’s father reassured her “We sent them a message the moment you cleared the atmosphere.” He turned to Kendree. “A little close there at the end, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she nodded, tears now dripping off her chin and pooling in the bottom of her faceplate. “I told Elissa how to speed us up. I couldn’t with these.” She waved her glove-encased hands before clumsily disengaging her chair lock and moving to her father’s side. He put his broad arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Let’s get everyone settled,” her mother said cheerfully. “Girls, right this way.”

“Kendree, come with me,” said her father. “We need to get you into quarantine.”

“Quarantine?” asked Elissa, “Can’t she take all that off now that she is off the planet?”

“Her immune system is very poor, Elissa,” Kendree’s mother explained. “I know you and your sisters don’t seem sick, but just being in contact with you could make Kendree very ill. She is going to have to stay in her own zone for most of your stay. Besides,” she added more sharply, “that’s as close as we can get to grounding her on this ship.”

Elissa ran to Kendree, looking a little surprised at how light on her feet she was in the reduced gravity. Leaning down she put her forehead against the top of Kendree’s faceplate. “Once you are out of that thing, I’ll have them show me how I can talk to you.” She placed her hand on the glass over Kendree’s cheek. “Thank you for rescuing us, you crazy person.”

“You’re welcome.” Kendree smiled, the skin of her cheeks crackling from her dried tears. “Wait until you see the view!”

Jamie Gilman Kress

And Now, Fill Her In

Daily Science Fiction

* * *

As the plane rose steadily into the sky, water vapor streaked up the glass like tears in reverse. Kiya, her head resting on the cool plastic near the pane, swore she heard the movement of the rivulet, a dry slither like a snake through dry summer glass.

A trick of her imagination; impossible to hear anything over the rumbling of the giant engines. She liked that about flying. The isolation. Thirty thousand feet from everything, the world hidden behind a shield of fluffy white cotton clouds. Only the other passengers in existence, and each of them pigeonholed into assigned seats and lost in their dreams or books or vacant thoughts. Every person a microcosm of their own, and none of them touching Kiya, a realm onto herself.

Her eyes fluttered closed, mind drowsy with the reverberations of technology singing through her bones. She drifted.

* * *

Children, dark with summer sun and woodland adventure dirt trampled through the kitchen, all three loud, hungry, grinning. A woman, older, blonde, smiled back, handed them each a sandwich thick with peanut butter and leaking gobs of apple jelly.

The man sat at the table, reviewing tables of numbers on a tablet, oblivious to the domestic bliss happening all around him. From the tablet holding his attention came the harsh bleeping of an alarm. A small pop-up box: Leave for Airport.

He rose, straightened his tie, gave the woman a perfunctory kiss. Never even bothered to say good-bye to the kids.

But then, he only planned to be gone two days. How could he know he’d never see them again?

* * *

Kiya jerked, not awake—she’d have needed to be asleep for that—but aware. Her eyes flitted about the cabin against her volition, searching out the thing she desperately wanted not to find.

He sat in the aisle seat four rows ahead, face only partially visible, but enough to recognize, to know. He’d be dead before daybreak tomorrow.

Kiya always considered flying her sanctuary, the one place the fragments of others’ lives failed to find her. And now, she’d lost even that small reprieve. But why?

The lump in her throat solid, she swallowed hard to dislodge it. She needed to figure this out; it must be important. But before she even finished the thought her head lolled, came to a stop propped again near the window. Her eyes fluttered closed.

* * *

Sunlight tinted pink by the gauzy curtains poured over the face of a boy with the soft rounded features of youth. A strong jaw, regal nose, he’d be stunning once he matured.

The woman wore her years well. At least twice as many as the teen in her bed, beauty had been softened by time, rubbed soft and comfortable. Until you looked into her eyes. There the years showed, the time hard, cutting glass. Her gaze was pure envy when she glanced once at the sleeping boy before slipping out of his arms and into the bathroom.

Just another conquest. She’d be out of the city before his parents found him, before he realized he’d been abandoned.

She felt nothing as the motel room door clicked shut behind her.

* * *

This time when Kiya jerked back to herself her bony elbow caught the book held by the man beside her, sent it spiraling. She barely noticed as she cast about in a frenzy.

There, a few rows behind, on the other side of the aisle. The woman wore a silk blouse and dark brown slacks. She looked normal, bored.

Kiya knew better. Recognized the predator eyes.

People tried to fill the emptiness within them all sorts of ways, and Kiya had witnessed many: work, drugs, sex. But, she’d never before been linked to someone so empty.

It left her feeling cold to the core.

“Hey,” spoke the man beside her, book forgotten at his feet, “are you okay?”

For a moment Kiya just blinked at the stranger, unable to process his words, to recognize he meant them for her. Then with a sharp shake of her head the fuzz cleared. “Fine.” Kiya croaked, then swallowed. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

The man, pudgy with kind, watery blue eyes and only a puffy ring of dirty snow hair, looked unconvinced, but after a brief pause where his eyes never left her face, he retrieved his book and retreated within its pages.

Kiya released a soft sigh, closed her eyes to relieve the headache building, and once again floated away, carried like a leaf trapped in a stream along the lives of others.

* * *

The man with the book sat in a recliner, old but well cared for, with a purring cat in his lap. The cat, a circle of marmalade contentment, looked up once and blinked its pumpkin eyes before returning to its slumber.

“Do you think it will work this time?” The voice, female, came from someone out of frame. However, even without visual cues the tone, all restrained hope and tangling resignation, made the speaker’s view clear.

The man spoke, his hands deftly stroking the cat. “She’s asking for help. It’s a step. We have to try.”

A small woman, her hands frail and atwitter like dancing birds, became visible. “I know, but I wish…” She trailed off, one hand coming to rest briefly on the man’s shoulder. “You hate flying.”

He caught her fleeing limb, kissed her palm, his eyes tender and gentle. “I’ll bring a book. I love you, Carmen.”

“I love you too, Eric.”

* * *

Kiya finally understood.

Turning in her seat she looked at the man, at Eric, until he felt her gaze and put down the book.

“Something wrong?” Rather than annoyed at her intrusion, he seemed concerned. “You need me to call an attendant?”

Kiya wished she’d introduced herself before, exchanged pleasantries, given some small part of herself, if only her name, to this man. Made some connection, no matter how brief to someone so truly good.

She’d seen so much pain, so many unappreciated, shallow lives, but she’d never touched someone like this: a man who deserved to be honored, who should not be allowed to fade from the tapestry of the world.

Throat like a vice around the words Kiya wished to speak, she awkwardly, reached out a hand, rested it against his cheek. His memories flooded her: Katherine, the child lost, but finally ready to get help; Carmen, the wife he’d loved since grade school and won over in college; the friends, and family, and jobs, and pets of a man who lived life well and graciously.

The images swept through her like a brook overflowing its banks, washed away her own darker memories.

No one ever loved Kiya, the strange girl left on a doorstep, raised by a long line of strangers. Even grown she’d found creating true relationships hard, drifted through lives on the currents of other people’s experiences. Clung to the unsavored moments of the soon to be dead because she’d failed to make strong memories of her own.

As hollow in her own way as the woman in the silk blouse.

Kiya felt no fear despite what must be coming. She knew, felt deep in her bones that her spot, this particular seat among the many, it’d be spared. If she stayed here, in this place, she’d survive the plane crash, go on about her simple, cursory life.

Or, she might make a different choice, create a ripple that mattered.

Eric still watched her, confusion furrowing his brow. He made no move to shake off Kiya’s touch. “Miss,” he said, worry darkening his eyes, “if you need help—”

“Change places with me, please.”

“What?” He continued to watch her with concern. “If you’re sick I can—”

“No,” Kiya said, struggling against the rising tide of another vision. “Just a nervous flier. Being near the window’s making it worse.”

“Ah.” He smiled, compassion and humor replacing the anxiety. “No problem.”

He rose swiftly, helped her up as they swapped places. Once she’d settled in, he rested a hand on her arm, the contact comforting and brief like a cool summer wind. “Is that better?”

Kiya felt it, a shift in the currents of the visions battering her to be seen. Among them now, she’d find herself. “Much. Thank you, Eric.”

“How—“ he started, but the question became a gasp and then a scream as the plane began to plummet.

Kiya closed her eyes and gave in, let herself be dragged down by the undertow of her final vision. And found peace.

Jason LaPier

Unexpected Rain

Originally published by HarperVoyager UK

CHAPTER 9

Klaxons bellowed and the bombball game on the holo-vision was suddenly replaced by the blazingly bright, red, flashing image of an alarm-bell icon. Runstom cursed and looked away, the ghost of the image already burned into his retinas.

Halsey yelped awake and fell off his cot. Tangled in a blanket, he tried desperately to stand but was having a difficult time with the action. As low-ranking ModPol officers, their accommodations were barely better than those of the prisoner they were escorting. Their room was a little larger than Jax’s cell, and featured two flimsy cots, a table, and a couple of chairs. Runstom slapped off the holo-vision—the one item they had that prisoners didn’t—and got up to help Halsey to his feet.

“What the fuck is going on?” Halsey had to shout to be heard over the alarms.

“I don’t know,” Runstom yelled. He opened the door to their room. The hallway walls flashed red and the klaxons were even louder.

After a minute of confusion, the alarms quieted enough for an announcement to be heard. An unnatural and unperturbed female voice calmly stated, “Alert. The ship is under attack. This is not a drill. The ship is under attack. Gunners, report to battle-stations. Guards and prisoner escorts, report to the prisoner bay. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill.”

“Well, fuck me,” Halsey said in a normal voice, just before the alarms started blaring again. “Come on, Stan,” he shouted. “Let’s go!”

They ran down the maze of corridors that led them from the guest rooms to the prisoner bay. Various uniforms ran with them, others ran the opposite direction. Once they hit the prisoner bay, they ran into real chaos. Most of the prisoners were still in the yard and barge guards were desperately trying to corral them into their proper cells. This did not go over well with most of the prisoners, who—quite correctly—assessed that the cells were the least safe place to be during a fire-fight between the barge and other spacecraft.

Things went from bad to worse when something got past the barge’s defenses and the walls shook violently and the floor lurched out from beneath them all. Artificial gravity started to falter, causing everyone to bounce around like they were on pogo-sticks. The guards suddenly became less concerned with getting the prisoners back into their cells and more concerned with finding something to hold on to.

“Stan!” Halsey yelled. “Stanford Runstom! Over here! I found Jackson!”

Runstom got himself turned around and saw Halsey holding Jax from behind, his arms hooked under the operator’s armpits. Jax’s head lolled around, his eyes barely open. Runstom made his way over to them, trying not to run, lest he send himself flying out of control in the weak gravity.

“Jax, wake up!” Runstom yelled once he got to them and got a hold of Jax’s chin.

“I think he hit his head,” Halsey shouted. “We need to get the hell outta here!”

Runstom looked around desperately as he racked his brain trying to remember the layout of the barge. He’d been briefed on it at some point in his ModPol officer training, but that was long, long ago. “This way,” he shouted, pointing. “To the kitchen. I think if we go through there, we can get to the storage room. We might be able to find shelter in there. Inside packing crates—or something.”

Halsey nodded and moved around Jax so they could get on either side of him, each with one of his arms hooked over their shoulders. The extra weight actually made it easier for them to move in the low gravity and they got to the kitchen without injury, dodging bouncing guards and prisoners as they went. They tried to yell to people they passed to tell them to get to the storage bay, but it wasn’t apparent whether or not anyone was listening.

The kitchen was a total mess and they had to pick their way carefully through the chaos of cookware and upended food. Once they made it through, they found the short hallway that hooked up with a large corridor.

“This is the main supply corridor,” Runstom said. The alarms rang furiously in the distance, but not in this section of the ship. “I think the supply deck might detach. There will be some minimal controls in there. If the barge takes too much damage, we can try to pull off and float away.”

“Yeah, and hopefully not draw any attention.” Halsey looked back through the kitchen, the way they came. “You think anyone else got the idea?”

“I hope for their sake, someone does,” Runstom said. “Come on, let’s go.”

They moved down the long, wide corridor toward the primary supply deck. Once they reached the end, they punched the door release and the storage bay opened widely before them. Everything inside was strapped down tight and mostly unaffected by the drop in gravity.

The floor lurched violently, one way, then the other, back and forth a few times. The three of them ended up in different parts of the room. Runstom found himself near the doorway and on his back, staring at the supports high above along the ceiling. Suddenly, a high-pitched, eardrum-piercing, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound screeched from the main supply corridor.

Runstom lifted himself off the deck and hooked his arm over the rounded edge of the door frame, getting a good look into the large hallway. Bright, white light sprayed in showers of sparks on either side of the corridor. Runstom froze, unable to comprehend what was happening, unable to react. After a minute or so, the white light was just a red ghost in his eyes. A few metallic clangs, and suddenly a round section of the wall popped out and hit the floor with a clatter. Almost instantly, three more circles of wall were projected out, one on the same side as the first, the other two on the opposite side.

There was a moment of eerie silence, save the distant klaxons, which from here were beginning to sound like an alarm clock, pestering him to wake up already. The silence didn’t last. Shouts and cheers emanated from the new holes in the corridor, and were soon followed by human forms. Human forms armed to the teeth with all manner of projectile, chemical, and even bladed weaponry.

“Fuck me!” Halsey breathed, suddenly at Runstom’s side. “Fucking gangbangers!”

“Shit,” Runstom said in a hush, trying not to draw any attention. “Why are they attacking us? There’s nothing of value on this prisoner ba—”

Runstom stopped himself as the gangbangers met in the middle of the corridor. There must have been twenty or so of them. He caught sight of the symbol on the back of one of their jackets. Three arrows in a circle, arranged as if one flowed into the next, but with the arrowheads bending outward.

Halsey must have seen it too. “Space Waste!” he whispered.

No further explanation was needed. The two officers didn’t have a need to know much about space gangs in their relatively low-key planetary assignments, but Space Waste was legendary in ModPol circles. One of the largest gangs in the known galaxy, and certainly the most well-organized, Space Waste had a knack for showing up without warning, taking what they wanted and then disappearing. More often than not, they left no living witnesses; only hundreds of InstaStick decals featuring their twisted-arrows logo.

“If Space Waste is hitting a prisoner barge,” Runstom started quietly, turning away from the doorway and slouching against the wall so he could face Halsey, “they must be here to break someone out.”

“How did they get aboard?” Halsey came around the other side of him to get coverage behind the wall.

“They must have used those tubes.” Runstom gestured vaguely. “Reinforced, pressurized boarding tubes that can extend from one ship and form a seal with the hull of another ship.” He’d been asking himself the same thing for the last several minutes and finally worked it out. “They’re flexible, to account for drift. They were originally designed for rescue operations.”

“How do you know this?” said Halsey, cocking an eyebrow.

Runstom shrugged. “I saw it on holo-vision once. It was one of those rescue documentaries.”

“But if they cut through the hull, what happens when they disengage the boarding tubes?”

“Well, in a rescue operation, it’s a last resort. They only do it when they know LifSup is failing on the endangered ship, and they want to get as many survivors off as quickly as possible.”

“So lemme guess,” Halsey said grimly. “The Space Wasters won’t be so humanitarian.”

“No, I would think not,” Runstom replied calmly. He wasn’t actually calm—far from it—but the situation was beginning to feel like it wasn’t real. Like it was just a holo-vid show. “They’ll probably get whoever they’re after, and then re-board their ships and disengage the tubes without bothering to attempt to re-seal the hull breach.”

“Shit,” Halsey muttered. “This is too much explosive decompression for one week.” Runstom shot Halsey a sour look and the other man put his hands up innocently. “What? It’s not like Jackson will get framed for it this time.”

Runstom suddenly stood up halfway, his eyes darting as he scanned the storage bay. “Where is Jackson?”

“Sit down!” Halsey said, pulling on Runstom’s arm. “We’ll get him in a minute. We need to figure out what to do! We don’t have much time!”

“Okay, okay.” Runstom crouched back down and spoke in a low voice. “They’ve breached this main supply corridor. So the rest of the ship might be okay, once they detach the boarding tube. But only if someone can hit the emergency air locks, then they can cut the rest of the ship off from this hallway and be safe.”

“Safe from decompression, anyway,” Halsey said. “If the Wasters have boarded us, they must have taken out our engines. When they get what they came for, they might just sail out to a safe distance and waste us.”

“Yeah. Well, we can’t do anything about that. The only option we have is to close this hatch on the supply deck and hope they leave the storage bay alone.”

“Then we’re on the drift until someone comes along and rescues us. As long as they decide to leave us alone.” Halsey frowned, then his face brightened suddenly. He arched his head up and peered around the curve of the doorway. “There is one other option…”

“What?” Runstom tried to follow his partner’s gaze. The hallway was clear. The gangbangers had mostly moved on, to somewhere in the main part of the ship. Two of them stood there near the breaches, their backs to the supply deck.

“We get aboard one of those…” he started, then stopped. Runstom guessed he was trying to imagine what kind of ships were at the other ends of those tubes.

“Did you grab your sidearm?” Runstom asked. “I only have a stun-stick,” he said, indicating the thin rod hanging off his belt.

“Shit, I don’t have anything,” Halsey said, padding around his uniform. He turned to look back into the storage bay. “There has to be something in here. Let’s go look around.”

“Okay. I’m going to find Jax first and check on him.”

“Forget Jackson, Stan! We’re going to die out here if we don’t move right now!” Halsey was trying to yell in a whisper, and it made the veins in his skinny neck bulge.

“Listen, George,” Runstom said, pushing down with his hands and trying to take the other officer down a notch. “Let’s just pretend for a minute that Jack Jackson is innocent. We’re about to attempt to commandeer some kind of space-gang vessel. We won’t even know what it will be until we’re on board. You and I are qualified to pilot one- or two-man patrollers, but anything bigger than that and we’ll have our hands full.” Halsey frowned at this, but kept his mouth shut. “Now I’m only trying to think a few steps ahead. If we manage to get away from this situation alive, and we’re out there in the middle of nowhere in god-knows-what kind of ship, I guarantee we’ll be glad to have another hand, especially a Life Support op!”

“Goddammit,” Halsey grumbled. He sighed. “Okay. Go find that goddamn operator. I’ll look for arms. Now let’s go, for fuck’s sake!”

They gave another look over at the two gangbangers farther up the corridor and then carefully made their way through the storage bay, ducking behind crates and shelving units as they went. The breach-guards seemed to have no inkling that someone might be hiding out on the supply deck. Or maybe they just didn’t care; which was worse news, because that would mean they knew it was going to be a quick in-and-out for their cohorts.

Runstom found Jax lying on top of a crate, about three meters up. With the low gravity, he must have been flung up there, and now he lay unconscious, one arm dangling off the side. Runstom crouched and then sprang his legs, thrusting himself up to Jax’s level, and then beyond. He had to stick his arms up to keep from banging into the high ceiling, and he angled himself so that he’d land on top of the crate on his float back down. He slung Jax over his shoulder and lightly dropped off the side of the box. They landed with a soft jar, and Jax made a quiet whimpering grunt as they did. “Still alive,” Runstom breathed.

Halsey came bounding over to them, carrying a small bundle of thin, black rods. “Fuckin’ stun-sticks was all I could find. Oh, and this med kit,” he said, unhooking a white plastic case from around his shoulder. “We could keep looking.”

“No, let’s not waste time. I have an idea.” Runstom popped open the med kit and started rummaging through it. Fortunately, it was the consumer model. Everything was clearly labeled and marked with icon-laden instructions. He grabbed a case labeled Insta-Wake. He had no idea what this stuff was, but he’d seen it used before more than once while on the job. He popped open the case and pulled out the single-shot needle-gun.

“Hold him down,” he said, and Halsey braced Jax as best he could. Runstom put the needle-gun up to the operator’s neck (as per the icon on the inside of the Insta-Wake box) and pulled the trigger. Jax coughed and his chest heaved, and Runstom quickly covered his mouth. His eyes fluttered open, slightly at first, then suddenly they were wide and intense.

“Shh. Jax. We’ve got a bit of a situation here, and we need you to be calm.” Jax’s eyes were still wide, but he nodded. They took their hands off him and he sat up and rubbed his head. “We don’t have time to explain everything, so just trust us on this…”

* * *

There were so many things that Dava loved about a low-grav fight. The sheer panic that accompanied the loss of control. The recoil of firearms working against their shooters. The majestic deadliness of someone trained to use acrobatics and blades in such a situation.

She was the first one of the Wasters to come out of the kitchen and into the yard, a massive open cube in the largest part of the barge. The tables around the room were bolted to the floor, but just about everything else wasn’t and there was debris everywhere. She scanned up the sides of the cube at the walls lined with cells, stacked up for five levels. Guards and prisoners bounded clumsily about the space, each body with its own trajectory and intention, none of them aligned. She spent a tenth of a second drinking in the pure chaos and then went to work.

The plan to target the artificial gravity pump at the bottom of the barge and then penetrate the rear corridors had worked as well as they could have hoped. Now all that remained was to find Johnny Eyeball and Captain 2-Bit.

A stun-stick came her way, with a bulky uniform in tow. She drew her short, curved scimitar and snapped the stick in half with a quick cutting motion. The guard stumbled backward, half-falling, half-floating. She braced one foot against a nearby table and launched herself at him, her sharp blade slicing clean through the midsection of his cheap armor.

She moved on without bothering to finish him off, making her way toward the starboard-side wall of cells. Another guard flew over her head, arms and legs flailing, before slamming into the back wall with a crunch. She looked toward the source of his trajectory to see Eyeball wrestling with another guard, both of them trying to gain control of a low-end ModPol pistol.

With a few long leaps she got close enough to witness Eyeball bring one of the guards’ bare hands close to his face. She caught herself between a grin and a grimace as the man howled in pain while Eyeball sank his teeth into the soft flesh just above the thumb. The gun came free and Eyeball grabbed it with one hand and with the other, shoved the guard into a sprawling tumble across the space.

“Hey Dava,” he said with a dripping-wet crimson smile. “They fly pretty good in this gravity, eh?”

“Johnny,” she said. “Seven minutes left, then you better be at the rear corridor just beyond the kitchen.”

“Right,” he said, checking his newly acquired weapon.

“Where’s 2-Bit?”

“Third level, opposite side.”

They’d come for both, but she knew Eyeball could take care of himself. The higher priority was getting 2-Bit out of there. Her boss had made a big stink about how important it was to bring 2-Bit back home, how much the others looked up to him, how critical his experience was to the gang. It was that last bit that made Dava wonder. She always thought 2-Bit was an idiot, but he did have experience, which may have been another way of saying he knew things, things that Space Waste didn’t want to turn over to ModPol. Locations of caches, plans for upcoming operations, informants sprinkled around the galaxy, those sorts of things. Secondary, everyone seemed to think that there was an advantage to having a couple of Wasters get arrested: recruitment. And 2-Bit was just the right man for the job. They knew that if they rescued him, he’d have a cartload of fresh meat to bring home as well.

She headed for the opposite wall. When another guard raised his pistol at her, she kicked to her right and balled up to avoid the shot. The kickback threw his arm up high and her scimitar swept across it, severing the hand soundlessly. The shocked victim was almost as soundless with his gasp and before he could fall to his knees, she planted one boot on his helmeted head and vaulted herself up, grabbing the railing along the edge of the second-level walkway. From there, she got to the top of the railing and leapt high enough to grab the floor of the third-level walkway, pulling herself up quickly and easily in the low gravity.

“2-Bit,” she called out. “Captain, where are you?”

A yellow-gray hand appeared through the bars a few cells down. “Down here!”

She approached and saw the old man standing tall and healthy as always. She couldn’t tell if he was exceptionally cool-headed given the situation, or if he was just oblivious to the imminent danger. Of course, 2-Bit had only gotten arrested because he was trying to rescue Eyeball from the mess he’d created back on B-4. She had to admire his ability not to lose his shit over the mistakes of his kin.

“Dava, boy is it good to see you,” he said with a genuine smile. “The force fields went off when the gravity took a hit. Safety and all that.” He tapped on the bars. “But then these came down.”

With a laser cutter and enough time, she could get through them—they weren’t more than cheap steel, probably designed for keeping things from flying out of the cells more than actually keeping prisoners in for any length of time—but the clock was ticking.

She switched her RadMess to voice mode. “Thompson, I need the cell doors on the third floor opened up.”

The reply crackled over the tiny speaker a second later. “Which one on the third floor?”

“Just open all of them.”

“Right, you got it, Dava. I’ll get someone on it.”

“Dava.” 2-Bit gestured to a form huddled at the back of the cell. “I got a man in here with me. He’s from B-3, but was runnin’ some racket on B-4 where he was selling cheap vacation getaways to naïve B-foureans. He would get them aboard his ship, rob them, and drop them in the next dome over.”

“Sounds like a real charmer,” she muttered.

“Point is, he’s a pilot,” 2-Bit said. “Claims to be a pretty good one. And you know we always need more flyboys.”

Her bosses were right, only 2-Bit could turn a jail term into a recruiting opportunity. She half-laughed at the thought. “Alright, bring him along.”

A buzzer sounded and 2-Bit flinched and took his hands off the bars as they slid upward. “Come on,” he said to the back of the cell.

A soft-pink-skinned B-threer came out of the darkness. “Thank you, thank you so much,” he said, then stopped short when he saw Dava. “What’s this?”

“What, boy?” 2-Bit said. “Come on, we need to move.”

“She’s with you?” he said, pointing at Dava. “This shitskin?”

The emergency lighting began to fail and the yard grew darker, which had an effect of shocking the stream of chaotic shouts and clamoring into a sudden silence. Dava went empty in her center. It had been more than a decade since she left the domes of Betelgeuse-3. She’d left at the age of fifteen, after spending nine years of her life in that whitewashed, shopping-mall civilization.

Children had been better than anyone at reminding her that she didn’t belong. That she came from that refuse-planet Earth, that she deserved to be incinerated and broken down into molecules like any other trash. She had to bear such barbs almost every day in those domes. She was branded with it, the mark of the unwelcome, the never-clean.

But she had not had to bear it since joining Space Waste. Ten years since she’d even had to hear slang such as that.

2-Bit was at her side, quietly nudging her back to the present. The B-threer seemed frozen, still inside the cell, the hateful eyes burning like those of the nasty dome children. She lifted the tip of her blade slightly and he stepped back.

“Close the cell doors on level three,” she said into her armband.

“What? We just opened them, Dava.”

“Close them,” she said.

* * *

Inside some supply hold, leaning against some towering crate, Jax groaned loudly. “Help. Someone. Is anyone there? I’m hurt. I need help! Can anyone hear me?” His voice cracked with fear—most of it real.

“Ello? Ooze over der?” came a rough voice after a minute. “Com’on outta der!”

Jax’s mind raced. Whatever it was Runstom gave him to wake him up was giving him the shakes. “I…I can’t move. It’s my leg. I think it’s broken. Who is that? Can you help me?”

Jax heard another voice that he couldn’t make out. Then the rough voice again, “Ee says ’is leg’s bustid. Huh? Okay, okay. I’m going.” The voice got louder as it was directed back at Jax. “Okay, you. I’m comin’ over. Don’t move. I’m uh…I’m a medic.”

Jax rolled his eyes, which caused a spike of pain to shoot through his throbbing head. He tried to keep his hands from shaking and sit still, his back to the large crate they’d found him lying on. He heard a movement, the tok-tok-tok of boots on the metal floor off to his right, and he turned his head. A scruffy, scarred, yellow face came around the side. “Ey, boy. You got a gun? You armnnNNNHHHHH—”

The body that came with the face flexed violently, hands dropping some kind of bladed, rifle-like weapon with a clatter and after a couple of seconds, the man spun around and crashed to the floor, his shocked face staring at the ceiling. Bubbling drool oozed out of the side of his mouth and down his cheek.

Halsey came around the corner of the crate, three smoking stun-sticks bundled together in one hand. He stared at the unconscious man with a tight grin on his face.

“Goddamn,” Jax whispered. “That was a little extreme, wasn’t it?”

The officer gave him an innocent look. “Well, I had to be certain, right? He’s a big boy!” He stuck one of the stun-sticks through a loop in his belt and dropped the other two as he bent down and snatched up the loose weapon. It looked like a stubby rifle with a pair of blades extending slightly away from the barrel at two different angles, forming a vague V-shape.

Jax was about to ask Halsey if he knew how to use that thing, but then thought better of it. Whether he did or not, Jax didn’t really want to know, and there was no point in calling the officer’s ability into question now.

Halsey turned around quickly, rifle secured in both hands, as a shout and a grunt came from the other side of the room. Jax stood up and carefully peered around the other side of the box.

Runstom was about twenty meters away, his right arm wrapped around the neck of another scruffy-looking man. These men were part of a gang, apparently—at least, that’s as much as Runstom and Halsey had a chance to tell Jax before they turned him into bait. The officer was at a slight disadvantage, height-wise, and he swayed horizontally from the back of the gangbanger, who was making use of the low gravity to try to shake him loose.

Halsey slung the rifle over his shoulder and snatched up the extra stun-sticks. He ran over to the spinning officer—gangbanger combination and stopped short, trying to figure out how to get a clear shot.

“Put those goddamn things down,” Runstom said between huffs. “The current will run through him and hit me!”

“You’re gonna have to let go!” Halsey yelled, legs bent at the knees, trying to keep the other two directly in front of him.

The Space Waster spun around and faced Halsey, perhaps perceiving him to be a more immediate threat than the man trying to slowly asphyxiate him. He bent his head forward and, using the weight on his back for leverage, he lumbered at an alarming speed toward the other officer.

“Let go now!” Halsey shouted as the big, yellow man bore down on him. He thrust out his two stun-sticks, one in each hand. From his angle, Jax could see Runstom just barely manage to jump free, but he was pretty sure Halsey had his eyes closed. The sticks connected with the big man’s chest and he went down with a jaw-clenched scream through his teeth, sinking to his knees and then keeling over backwards.

Jax ran up to the officers. “Where’s his gun?” Halsey jerked his head erratically from side to side.

Runstom looked in one direction, strode a few meters, and snatched up another blade-gun type of weapon. This one appeared to be more of a single-hand weapon; a smaller but terrible and jagged blade attached to a large pistol. Most of its bulk was due to its battery pack. Runstom flipped a switch on the side of the gun and a small, red dot appeared on the crate next to him. He looked up at them. “Okay, let’s move. Jax, you wait until we say it’s clear. We’re going for the closest hole on the right.”

Their choice of breaches was, of course, entirely arbitrary. They had no idea what to expect as far as the attached ships went. Jax watched from behind the curve of the storage-bay doorway as Runstom and Halsey quickly moved down the long corridor, guns pointed forward.

Runstom looked back over his shoulder long enough to yell, “Clear! Come on, Jax, move!”

Jax tried to angle his legs so that his strides pushed him forward more than up, but he was completely unprepared for athletics in low gravity. He covered the distance of fifty meters to the first breach in what seemed like several agonizing minutes, but it could have been much less.

When he got within a few meters of the officers, he was jarred by the clapping sound of Halsey’s rifle. The officer was shooting a projectile weapon of some kind, an old-fashioned gun that actually fired bullets, and the force of the recoil in the low gravity caused him to stagger backward and lose his footing. “The door on the far right side!” he yelled, trying to get back to his feet. Runstom started firing his laser down the hall, blindly shooting down the right side.

Gunfire echoed down the hallway and Jax was sure he heard something whiz by his head. The oval corridor was a good twenty or thirty meters across, and while Jax and Runstom were taking position near the wall on their right, Halsey was closer to the opposite side. He got to his feet and dove into a nearby breach. The officer then set himself in a position where he could brace his back against the side of the tube and lean out to fire his rifle down the hall without getting pushed backwards.

Jax watched the scene with bemusement, until Runstom turned and shoved him into the boarding tube. He came in after the operator and leaned out the side of the tube, sending laser fire down the corridor. After a few blasts, he turned to Jax and shouted, “Get down the tube to the ship. Make sure we can fly the thing outta here!” Jax started to turn, but Runstom yelled “Wait!” He unhooked the stun-stick from his belt and handed it to the operator.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” he said, fear creeping into his voice.

“There might be a pilot standing by. Just press the button on the handle and poke him with the round ball at the end.” Jax stared at the stick in bewilderment. “Go, now, goddammit!” Runstom shouted, and the look of intensity and violence in the officer’s eyes made Jax want to go down the tube and face someone less terrorizing. Like maybe a bloodthirsty gangbanger.

Runstom stuck his gun back out the breach-end of the tube and with a battle cry, continued blasting. Jax could hear Halsey join in, and for that brief moment he imagined the ModPol officers were a two-man army, fighting off a wave of invaders. He spun around and headed down the tube.

The tube itself was barely large enough in diameter for a grown person to stand. Being B-fourean, Jax was taller than many other humans and had to crouch as he picked his way through the flexing tube. There were handles dotting the length of it, and he quickly discovered their intended use. Once he was off the barge, the failing artificial gravity was no longer a factor, because there was no gravity at all. The tube was some kind of segmented metal. It was not transparent, and for this, he was thankful. It didn’t seem like a good time to be confronted with the vast emptiness of space.

After a minute or two and some distance Jax couldn’t judge, he reached the end. He could still hear Runstom shouting and blasting, and he was pretty sure he could make out the clapping of Halsey’s rifle even at this distance. The hatchway at this end was open. That seemed like a terribly dangerous thing to do, and Jax had to imagine it violated all kinds of safety regulations. So, yeah, he thought as he slowly pulled himself through the hatchway. Add that to their list of atrocities.

* * *

The ratio of ducking to returning fire for Runstom and Halsey was steadily growing in favor of ducking. There was a palpable increase in pressure coming from the center of the barge as the gangbangers reassembled their forces and returned to their only escape route. It seemed like a good plan, but now Runstom was having his doubts about getting between a legion of Space Wasters and their ships.

“George,” he said in between blasts of his laser pistol. “George!”

Halsey stopped shooting and leaned back into the tube he occupied on the opposite side of the corridor. He struggled with an extra ammo clip that was affixed to the side of the heavily modified rifle. “My last clip,” he yelled. “We need to get out of here.”

The gangbangers didn’t waste time taking advantage of the short pause. Runstom and Halsey were both forced to lean back into their tubes as the hallway crackled with machinegun fire. Runstom panted as his heart threatened to climb out of his throat. He and his fellow officers had combat training, but it didn’t come close to preparing him for something like this mess. He looked down at the cellpack in the laser pistol. It was down to about a ten-percent charge. He had no idea how many shots that translated into.

The continuous rain of bullets smoothed into a series of rhythmic bursts, and for a brief moment he thought that maybe it meant the gangbangers were running low on ammo as well and were attempting to conserve it. This thought gave him a flicker of hope until he remembered all the blades attached to the guns. Maybe he was better off getting shot before it came to that.

A new sound caught his attention, a strange metal-bouncing-on-metal sound. He and Halsey both looked into the corridor from their opposite-sided shelters. A cylindrical object bounded along and continued all the way to the supply hold they’d come from only minutes before.

“Shit.” Runstom wanted to yell to Halsey that it was a grenade, but the explosion beat him to it. The heat of it blew up the hall and into his tube, but there was nothing more than that. He ventured a peek back down toward the hold and saw the burned scarring just inside the open doors.

He realized in that second that whoever had thrown the grenade hadn’t accounted for the low gravity. The next one came with an adjusted aim, rolling to a spot directly between them where it stopped and spun idly like a bottle in a party game.

Halsey took two steps into the corridor that was still being peppered by cover fire and swung his rifle like a club, smacking the cylinder with one of the blades at the end of the barrel. The grenade flew back down the hall and Halsey cried out as a spray of red burst from his forearm. The rifle clattered to the floor and he dropped back on his ass and kicked at the floor with his feet, pushing himself back into the tube.

“George!” Runstom reflexively stepped toward his partner, but the spray of bullets drove him back.

The returned grenade blew and the cover fire was momentarily interrupted. Runstom didn’t have time to wonder if it actually took anyone out, he just used the space of a breath to dive across the hall and into the other tube. He grabbed Halsey by his good arm and hoisted him to his feet, but the other officer cried out as he stood.

He pulled away the bloody arm to reveal thicker, darker blood coming from his abdomen. “Stan,” he gasped, reflexively holding his wound once again. “You gotta go.”

“No.” Runstom tugged roughly at Halsey’s arm. “Come on, George. We’re both going.”

Halsey groaned but didn’t protest further. Runstom tried to think but he had no time. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and it was clear the rest of the barge had fared even worse. Space Waste had won. He looked down the nearby tube. No doubt there was a ship at the other end, but he’d already sent Jax down the tube opposite. More than ever, Runstom thought their only chance at escape was to stick together.

In the several seconds that had passed, the gunfire had not returned. “Come on, George,” he said with a tug. “Now or never.”

They limped across the width of the spacious hallway. A burst of gunfire sent them diving for the tube. Runstom felt the bite of one shot in his thigh and the ripping sting of another across his midsection before he hit the inside of the tube. He spun around to see Halsey twisting in the corridor, spitting curses and clutching his leg.

“George!”

Another cylinder bounced along the floor, thumping Halsey in the chest. He grabbed at it, bobbling it until he spun it around and found the safety clip. He clutched at it and looked at Runstom. “Go, Stan!”

“George, what are you doing? Throw it back!”

“Go!” He started belly crawling toward the tube. Sporadic bursts lit up the air. “Go before I blow us both up!”

Then it clicked. He was going to blow the tube loose so that no one could follow.

“Damn you,” Runstom said and turned away from his only ally.

He flung himself as deep into the tube as he could, then scrambled to yank himself along by the handholds when the gravity disappeared altogether.

* * *

Still coping with the weightlessness, Jax pulled himself through the small ship slowly and carefully. He was in what appeared to be a passenger-seating and load-out room. There were twelve or so “seats” on the walls which were angled in a way that, if there were any gravity, one could walk up to them and strap in securely without actually sitting. They were similar to the mount that was in his cell, only made for voluntary use. On the other side of the room was a series of racks that contained a few spare guns and what looked like suits of armor.

On the opposite wall from the hatchway was another door. This one was closed, and apparently locked, according to the lit sign on the front of it. There were a few flimsy-looking spacesuits hanging haphazardly on either side of it. Jax realized that this was probably the cockpit door. It was a small ship indeed; a personnel carrier, probably hijacked from a military outfit at one time. Just enough to get a boarding party from one big ship to another. They’d be lucky if it could even do Warp.

Jax knew the cockpit door wouldn’t open unless the outer hatchway was closed. He’d have to cut off the ModPol officers long enough to secure the ship. He put a foot against the wall, hit the door trigger on the hatchway, and sprang his body across the chamber to the opposite side, grabbing onto the latches on the wall and hiding himself behind the spacesuit closest to the cockpit.

He waited. The seconds passed. He tasted bitterness in his own saliva and he forced his breathing to slow, trying desperately not to vomit. Finally he heard the internal mechanisms of the door sliding around, eventually clinking into place. The door slowly opened.

“Hey, fellas,” a voice said. “Back already? Hello?”

Suddenly, unexpected to both Jax and the pilot, there was a series of clanging sounds coming from the outer hatchway.

“What the hell?” said the pilot to himself. He was still out of view from Jax. The banging of something solid on the metal hatch came again. “Okay, I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” he shouted, then said in a quiet aside, “How did those idiots manage get the inner door to open without coming through the outer door?”

Jax could hear the snapping sound of belts being unclipped. He tensed and poked the little ball at the end of his stun-stick between the sleeve and the midsection of the spacesuit, pushing the sleeve aside just enough for him to watch his aim. A body began to float by and he hit the button, jabbing the stick forward.

“AAAhhhhnnnnNHHHHH!” the pilot screamed, his body contorting with almost mock-athleticism in the absence of gravity. After a few seconds it went limp, and he hung there, arms dangling like a scarecrow-bot.

“Shit, guys,” Jax breathed. “I hope that’s you.” He didn’t know how to fly a ship, so he figured he was dead either way if it wasn’t Stanford Runstom or George Halsey on the other side of that hatch. He punched the close button on the cockpit door and floated over to the hatchway.

He hit the release and Runstom came through. He quickly spun around and slammed on the button to close the hatch. He looked wounded, blood oozing from different parts of his uniform. Jax tried to look into his eyes, but the officer was looking down, eyes squinted in pain.

There was a low boom and the ship seemed to drift slightly, an odd sway that moved around them while they floated weightless in the center of it.

“Stanford,” Jax started.

“Halsey,” Runstom rasped quietly, looking at the closed hatch.

“Shit.” Now Jax read the pain on Runstom’s face differently. He wasn’t good at dealing with grief, but he suddenly thought of his mother and it felt like something was tearing apart his stomach. “Stanford,” he said, putting a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “He was a good man.”

Runstom swallowed a couple of times. “That asshole was the closest thing I’ve had to a friend in years. He didn’t deserve to go like that.” He closed his eyes for a moment and Jax stayed quiet, despite being terrified of the danger they were still in. After a few seconds, Runstom opened his eyes. His lips quivered and pursed and his forehead creased as his eyebrows tensed. Jax could only guess what was going through the other man’s mind. Pushing down the pain, burying it for another time. “We don’t have much time,” the officer said finally. “We have to move.”

Runstom grabbed the floating pilot and briefly checked his pulse. He took a restraint band off his belt and pulled the pilot’s arms together and bound them. “Strap this guy into one of those,” he said to Jax, pointing at the harness-seats. “And then get up to the cabin. I’m going to warm up the engines.”

Jax did his best to strap the unconscious pilot in, and then floated into the cockpit. There were four seats, each facing a long, narrow window that looked into the blackness of space. Runstom was already strapped in, and Jax picked a seat at random and followed suit.

“I’m detaching the boarding-tube now,” Runstom said, and Jax could hear the crack in his voice. He cleared his throat and then turned with a quick jerk. “Do you have the notes I copied for you?”

“Yeah, of course. They were the only thing I grabbed when the alarms started.” Jax had a standard, prison-issue satchel strapped to his body. He pulled the collection of papers out of it and handed them to Runstom.

Runstom took the notes and quickly found the page he was looking for. He set them down on the console. “I’ll need to navigate away from the barge a few thousand meters, then we’ll be hitting Xarp speed.”

“This thing can do Xarp?” Jax asked, trepidation in his voice. Warp was light-speed, and that was terrifying enough, but Xarp was even faster; a speed appropriate for mammoth interstellar vessels, but insanely dangerous in such a small ship. His experience with space travel was about to compound as it went from a day and a half of looking at the stars through a porthole the size of his hand to a faster-than-light escape from a murderous space gang.

“She’s an interplanetary, military personnel transport. Designed to be launched in packs, usually about a hundred or so at a time, delivering squads of elite soldiers to a target without warning. Usually sent from deep, deep orbit on the outermost part of a system, where a warship can sit undetected.” Runstom looked up from the console for a moment, but not at Jax. Not at anything in particular. “She’s not much for luxury. All engine and fuel storage. Designed to bring the fight to your enemy’s doorstep.”

Jax looked around, wondering if he had missed some kind of informational plaque on the way into the cockpit. “How the hell do you know all that?”

Runstom shrugged. “ModPol training, mostly. Plus my grandfather was in the Sirius Interplanetary Navy. And…I guess I probably watch too many documentary vids.” He grabbed the throttle and the ship started to move with a jolt.

“Stanford,” Jax said tentatively. “You do know how to pilot this thing, right?”

Runstom was quiet, concentrating on the stick. “Every ModPol grunt has to fly patrol for a couple of years before they get to start doing real police work.” The ship shuddered and Runstom quickly reached for the panel in front of him, hitting a button and flipping a switch. “Of course, this thing is just a little different than a one-man patroller.”

The view panned to the left as the ship rotated, the side of the barge disappearing to the right. Jax leaned forward to angle his head back and forth and take in the view without unstrapping himself. As the emptiness of space opened up before them, he looked at the rear monitor to see the barge coming into view. There was another small craft next to it on this side, tethered by a boarding tube. Next to that he could see the boarding tube that was once attached to their newly acquired vessel, now just floating idly, a jagged hole in one side of it where it was half-hanging from the barge like a misplaced tentacle. Despite the lack of wind in space, it flapped oddly.

“I think the barge is decompressing,” Jax said, watching the monitor.

“Nothing we can do,” Runstom said quietly. “I don’t know if anyone but Space Waste is left. Our problem is that they probably expected all boarding parties to detach at the same time. So we have to get out of here quick before they figure out something is wrong.”

Jax looked away from the monitor and back to the view from the window. There was a ship in the distance, but with no frame of reference he couldn’t tell if it was a large ship far away or a small ship close by.

“That’s the command ship,” Runstom said before Jax could ask. “She’s pretty far out, but she’s got some fighters close by. That’s the contact computer.” He pointed at a crude holo-screen positioned front and center of the cockpit. It displayed a large red blob surrounded by a handful of green dots. Another green blob sat farther off from the rest. “The red one is the barge. The little green ones are combat vessels. Small fighters and personnel assault ships like this one.”

“And the big green one is the command ship,” Jax guessed.

Runstom angled their vessel in a direction that would take them away from the barge and the command ship equally and they edged forward slowly.

“Faster might be a good idea,” Jax said, realizing suddenly that he was gripping the arms of his chair so tightly that his fingers hurt.

“To run is to be chased,” the officer said quietly. “We’re just one of them for another minute or two, then we’re nothing but Xarp-wake.” He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. “I’m surprised nothing has come across the comm. They must be keeping radio-silent.”

Jax thought about that as they inched ponderously away from the action. He thought about these gangbangers, who seemed to him like fictional space pirates, with their ridiculous weapons and uniforms. The fact that he had not really gotten a good look at any of them only served to fuel his imagination more. The very idea that they were so organized; able to cripple the barge and board it, all while maintaining such a committed level of stealth. Radio silence meant sticking to a plan, it meant discipline and competence. These were qualities one didn’t associate with anarchist space pirates.

He hadn’t noticed the wide but short flat panel that ran part-way across the center of the top of their viewport until it lit up and blinked red a few times. It stopped blinking and a series of numbers appeared on it.

Jax looked at Stanford and opened his mouth, about to ask him what they were looking at, but the officer had a grave look on his face as he stared at the numerical sequence that lit up the cockpit. “It’s message traffic on the comm.” He frowned and looked straight forward determinedly, as if he needed both eyes on the road at that moment. “I don’t know what it means.”

“Oh,” Jax said, realizing. “It’s code.”

Runstom cast him a sideways glance and Jax read interest on his face for a fraction of a second before he re-gripped the throttle and stared back into space. “Code?” he asked idly.

“Like a cypher.” Jax tried to get at his satchel, which was wedged between his thigh and the seat restraints. “Want me to write it down? We could try to—”

“Forget it,” Runstom said. “And hold on. Xarp in thirty seconds.”

“Stanford?” Jax said quietly. “Where are we going?”

“I flipped a coin,” the ModPol officer said. “We’re going to go find that superliner.”

«END OF EXCERPT»

Fonda Lee

Zeroboxer

Originally published by Flux

CHAPTER ONE

Carr Luka woke from a nap three hours before his fight. He ate two hardboiled eggs, a handful of raw almonds and a bran muffin, then drank a bottle of water and spent twenty minutes stretching on the floor of his single-room apartment in the inner ring of Valtego Station.

The Moon’s desolate, pock-marked dark side loomed large across the upper right corner of his wall screen. Beyond it, the sunlit blue and white marble of Earth hung suspended in the vast black infinity of space. It wasn’t a real view of course—probably not even a live feed, just an old recording. The real views belonged to the expensive premium suites, reserved for Valtego’s high rollers. They were betting 3:1 against him, as of yesterday.

He didn’t usually follow odds, but Uncle Polly had fake-casually dropped that tidbit on him, angling to amp him up, get the I’ll-show-those-bastards juice flowing. It had worked all right—not because he cared that some bettors thought he might be a flame out, but because he hated to think that, after the disaster of his most recent match, Uncle Polly might secretly agree with them. Other promising young fighters had been broken by an early loss; he certainly wouldn’t be the first.

Carr stood, shaking out his limbs, reaching for his warm-up clothes. He didn’t need to be reminded of the stakes. He’d been on Valtego for a year and a half. This sixth and final fight in his contract would determine whether he landed a new deal, or found himself on the next flight back to Earth, relegated to fighting in orbital dives reeking of pot, where the vacuum plumbing regularly gave out and big bubbles of pee floated in the bathrooms.

He made a face; not about to happen. He was no planet rat.

Carr tapped the cuff-link display on his forearm to play something high energy—the neo-urban skid music that was popular earthside these days—as he packed his bag. Gripper gloves and shoes, cup, mouth guard, fight shorts, a towel, a change of clothes for the press conference and after party. He zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. After a final look around to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, he stepped out of his room and navigated the halls of the apartment complex up to the main thoroughfare and into Valtego traffic.

The streets were crowded, echoing cavernously with the noise of people and music and cars. Well-dressed couples, families, and packs of young men and women spilled onto the main concourse. When Carr looked up, past the reddish simulated evening light, through the enormous sky windows into the docking hub, he could see that even more ships had arrived since yesterday. Half a dozen Earth-Mars cargo cyclers, a few private solar sailing yachts, and plenty of commercial passenger craft. It was one of those times when summer in Earth’s northern hemisphere coincided with dust storm season on Mars, inciting residents of both planets to travel. Super high season at Valtego.

He caught the intra-station shuttle bus just as it pulled up with a pneumatic hiss, its silver body flashing the usual promotional banner: Valtego: It’s More Fun on the Dark SideTM. Carr didn’t bother to sit down; he was only taking it a few stops. He stood near the door, closed his eyes and let the burble of voices from the other passengers float around him. He heard English in American, British, and Martian accents, Mandarin, Mars Hindi, Spanish and German. In his mind, he turned the hum of conversation into a growing swell of cheering, a thunderous crowd calling his name.

His cuff vibrated and a rising chime played in his ear. He glanced down at the display on his forearm, then smiled, shut off the music and took the call. “Enzo,” he said. “Are you going to watch my fight?”

“No, I happen to be hiding in my closet with my screen, under a blanket, for no reason. OF COURSE I’m watching!” Enzo’s voice, transmission-delayed by a couple seconds, sounded, in Carr’s cochlear receiver, as if the boy was shout-whispering an urgent secret. “My mom is going to go fusion if she finds me.” He gave a wheezy, excited cough. There was a pause, and Carr winced, picturing the boy sucking hard on his inhaler.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” Carr asked.

“Whatever. School is useless. You barely went.”

“Sure I went,” he lied. “And I was tutored.” Which was true, if you could call Uncle Polly helping him fudge through remote study modules ‘tutoring.’ “Besides, you’ve got to make a living using your brain someday.”

The boy gave a long sigh. “It’s so unfair.” He sounded as morose as he had when Carr had first left for Valtego. Carr felt a pang of worry. Now wasn’t the time to question the kid, but Enzo was small, he didn’t have many friends; who was watching out for him, spending time with him, now that Carr was living in deep orbit on the far side of the Moon? Carr wouldn’t trade his place here for anything, but Enzo was one of the few things he missed about Earth.

The shuttle bus left behind the rows of densely-packed apartment entrance tubes for Valtego’s less wealthy residents. It passed shops and restaurants catering to visitors from the planet, before turning and sliding to a stop at the gravity zone terminal. The doors opened onto a wide platform bustling with people and lined with colorful holovid ads promising the best deals on theater tickets, spacewalks, hotels. “I wish you could see this place,” Carr said. “It’s something else. I’m going to bring you up here someday and show you around.” If I’m still here after today, came the unwelcome reminder.

“Would you? That would be so stellar,” Enzo whispered. “Oh shit, I think my mom is home. Okay, I just called to say: Good luck! Make him float!”

“Thanks, little man.”

The connection clicked out as Carr stepped onto the terminal platform. Uncle Polly and DK were waiting for him, looking comically mismatched standing together—old, pale and lean, next to young, dark and muscled. DK clapped Carr on the back. Uncle Polly put his hands on Carr’s shoulders and broke into a slow, approving smile that made his left eye squint. “You’re a hundred percent ready,” he said. On fight days, Uncle Polly underwent a magical transformation. Every other day, he could chew Carr out in practice, find fault in every detail, cuss at him if he wasn’t pushing hard enough, but on fight day, he was optimism incarnate. Carr felt himself grinning, buoyed.

“Where would you rather be right now?” Uncle Polly demanded.

“Nowhere, coach.”

“What would you rather be doing?”

“Nothing, coach.”

“You ready to fly?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Get in the car.”

He strapped his duffel bag into the overhead compartment before climbing in. Once everyone was seated, the harness straps tightened, the doors closed, and the vehicle shot down the freeway tube. Carr ran an appreciative hand across the smooth tan upholstery. He took the commuter bus to the central zero-g zone every morning, but the routine trip was far more enjoyable in a private car. Another special fight day perk.

As the bright lights and artificial gravity of the city’s rings receded, Valtego spread out around them in all its slowly-turning immensity before the view opened up into a breathtaking expanse of space. Carr craned his neck against the mild g-force pressure, looking past the shadow of the Moon and catching, for a few seconds, a glimpse of Earth—a real view, not a projection. The planet always looked smaller in real life than on the wall screen.

Uncle Polly ran through the game plan once more. “What are you going to do in the first round?”

“Stay out of his grab zone. Wear him out, frustrate him.”

“He doesn’t like to climb. Make him climb. Second round?”

“Hit him from the corners. Use my fast launches and rebounds.”

“Good, good.”

“Third round, spin him hard and finish him off.”

“You got it. What’s your strength against him?”

“My space ear.”

“Always fear the better ear! You’re ready.” Uncle Polly was not really Carr’s uncle. He wasn’t even old, maybe sixty-something, but he was scrawny and bent-backed from a career spent on mining ships and in orbital gyms, during a generation when zero gravity alleviation therapy wasn’t what it was today, and so many years in space took a heavy toll on one’s body. He had a full head of short, gray hair and a permanently grizzled jaw. But he moved and spoke with the fire of a younger man, and when he slapped his hands on his thighs, he radiated confidence like a solar flare.

The zero gravity complex, recently renamed the Virgin Galactic Center, loomed ahead of them. As the vehicle slowed, the familiar transition to weightlessness tugged at Carr’s stomach, pressed his chest against the harness and drew his limbs upward. They glided past a group of tourists on a beginner level spacewalk, the suited figures cycling arms and legs slowly and awkwardly as their guide coaxed them along with gentle bursts of his thrusters, like a shepherd leading a herd of nervous farm animals.

The car docked in the parking hold. Carr drifted up to retrieve his bag, and pushed it ahead with one hand while he unclasped his belt tether and hooked it around the hallway guide rail with the other. It was an irritating requirement; he could easily climb this place free floating and blindfolded, but there was a fine if you were caught untethered, even if you were a Valtego resident. Management didn’t want anyone setting a bad example for the tourists and seasonal workers who might hurt themselves crashing into things or get stranded in the middle of a room and create extra work for the maintenance folks who would have to rescue them.

DK tethered himself and tilted his head to one side, listening. “You hear that?” Already, the low thrum of a crowd was growing over the steady whoosh of shuttles and cars docking, one after the other. Distant loud music began pulsing through the thick walls of the parking hold. DK smiled, showing small, brilliant white teeth against tropical bronze skin. “Full house tonight, I’ll wager. All here to see you, kid.”

That wasn’t exactly true; the headline fight was between Danyo “Fear Factor” Fukiyama and Jorge “Monster” Rillard, but DK had told Carr that his match had the most hype he’d ever seen for the undercard. Of course, maybe DK was just saying that to pump him up. DK was not a large man—a natural feathermass—and he looked slightly rodent-like, with his big ears and fists, large eyes, and small nose, but he exuded a gregarious charisma that was rare in this sport. He was also one of the best young zeroboxers anywhere. His full name was Danilo Kabitain, but no one called him that. He was DK to his flymates, “Captain Pain” to his opponents and the media, and a hell of a man to have in one’s corner.

They climbed along the hallway using the spaced rungs, turned right, and passed through the athlete’s entrance. The locker room and adjoining warm-up space were empty except for two men, one of them seated on a bench, his feet hooked under the stabilizing rod, elbows on knees, broad shoulders hunched forward. He looked as if the universe had just ended.

“What’s the matter, Blake?” Carr asked.

“My fight’s canceled.” Blake Murphy didn’t look up. “The other guy tested positive for endurance-enhancing nanos. Bastard.”

“Damn. Sorry to hear it.”

Blake’s trainer glanced over from where he was furiously shoving his fighter’s gear into a bag. “You’ll be up early then.” He pointed to the small wall screen which showed the evening’s two commentators, Xeth Stone and Jeroan Culver, up on deck. Carr swiped the volume up and Xeth’s energetic voice filled the locker room. “…change in lineup, it won’t be long now before we see one of the most anticipated matches of the night!”

“That’s right, Xeth,” Jeroan replied in a straight man monotone. “Carr Luka is still something of an enigma to this crowd. He burst onto the ZGFA scene not long ago, gained a strong following when he racked up four impressive wins in a row, and then choked in his last fight against “Death” Ray Jackson. Now he’s going up against the third best zeroboxer in the lowmass division, and the question on everyone’s mind is: does he stand a chance of coming back against Ferrano?”

“I think he does, Jeroan,” Xeth enthused. “I don’t think Luka is a flash-in-the-pan like some people have been saying. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I tell you, it’s been a while since I’ve seen a guy, born on Earth no less, with the kind of instincts he’s shown in the Cube. That kid can fly. Did I mention he’s still seventeen?”

“Sure, he can fly, but Ferrano is an expert grabber. How’s he going to do against that?”

Zeroboxing commentators liked to speak of fighters as ‘grabbers’ or ‘fliers.’ It was rather artificial, Carr thought, since any good zeroboxer had to be both, but there was some truth to the distinction. To inflict any bare-handed damage to a person in zero gravity, you had to establish a brace or a point of leverage—preferably a vulnerable part of your opponent’s body—to keep them from floating away while you hurt them. Or you had to treat space itself as a weapon, using the infinite angles of movement to strike and rebound, strike and rebound, faster and harder than the other guy.

“Luka is an ace flier,” Xeth agreed, “But his grabbing game is solid, and it’s getting better with every match. I think we’re going to see—”

Uncle Polly slashed his hand across the front of the screen to turn it off. “You heard ‘em, you’re up early! Get changed and warmed up!”

Carr untethered himself, stripped out of his clothes, and handed them to DK, who stuck them to the magnetic locker pegs and passed him his shorts. Uncle Polly hurried to find the ZGFA official, a dour bulldog of a man who inspected Carr’s gripper shoes and gloves and watched as DK wrapped Carr’s hands. He flashed a retinal reader across Carr’s eyes, checked his vital stats off his cuff—heart rate, blood pressure and temperature—then gave him the go-ahead. “Forty minutes,” he said.

“I need to take a leak,” Carr said.

“Make it fast,” Uncle Polly warned.

Carr climbed over to the stall and dug his feet under the toe bar, streaming into the vacuum funnel for what felt like an eternity. Everyone said that for a young zeroboxer, he was remarkably composed, never visibly nervous before fights, but his bladder knew better. Maybe that was a good sign; he hadn’t been nervous enough before the last match.

The wash dispenser squirted a bubble of soapy water onto his fingers. Blake emerged from one of the other stalls and pulled himself over to the neighboring dispenser. “Rotten luck,” Carr said, feeling obligated to put in a few more words of sympathy. “You’re bound to get another fight soon. At least they caught him. You wouldn’t want a loss on your record because the guy cheated.”

Blake looked up, his eyes like two pale blue gas fires. “Who says I would’ve lost?”

Carr hesitated, wiping off the water with a towel, not sure how he’d somehow given offense. “No one. But even if you won, the guy doesn’t deserve to be in the Cube.” It made Carr mad that some people tried to fool the system, to take shortcuts around putting in the years of time and effort. It was mentally weak.

Blake’s mouth sagged a little, his eyes cooling, losing their anger. You never could tell with Blake. Most of the time, he was one of the most polite and soft-spoken guys Carr had ever met. But in a fight…well, he wasn’t nicknamed “the Destroyer” for nothing. As he turned to leave, he looked back at Carr and said, “Good luck out there. Stay out of those corners, yeah?”

Corners. They had never been a problem for Carr, not until his last fight, when “Death” Ray Jackson had flown him hard for two rounds, then trapped him in a corner in the third and ground it out to win in a split decision. Carr did not take losing well (who did?), especially since he was certain he could have won, and had only his own overconfidence and ill-preparedness to blame.

Uncle Polly had given him hell, and he’d deserved it. He could barely look at his coach after the fight. For days, he’d felt so low he couldn’t bring himself to leave his apartment. Uncle Polly had shown up on the fifth day. His face had been severe, but his voice had been gentle. “It’s good for you, to know what it feels like on the other side, for once. Now you know. It’s shit. So—you planning on whimpering back to Earth for a planet rat job, or are you going to get off your ass?” He’d gotten off his ass. It had taken time though, weeks, to shake off the malaise, and he suspected the loss would stay with him forever, like a benign cyst under the skin.

Carr clambered back out to the warm-up area, shaking his head to clear away the unpleasant memory and refocus on the present. He had another chance, that was what mattered. DK helped him pull on and bind his gripper shoes. Carr wiggled each of his enclosed toes and gave a thumbs-up. He took off his cuff-link and handed it to his friend. Keeping a fighter’s cuff for him during a match was an important job for the cornerman and symbolic of trust; DK put it on next to his own. Carr’s gloves went on, over his wrapped hands, bound securely several inches up his forearm, leaving the wrists fully mobile. Some zeroboxers opted for the heavier gloves with more wrist support, but Carr didn’t think it was worth sacrificing climbing agility.

“Thirty minutes,” the official in the hallway called.

“Terran or Martian?” DK retorted, cheeky. Zeroboxing rounds were always measured in the fractionally longer Martian minutes, so it was an ongoing joke that zeroboxers had no sense of standard Terran time.

“Get moving,” Uncle Polly said. “You know the drill—five times around the room, then wall-bounces.”

Carr swung into the square warm-up room and jogged the walls, up, down and around, exerting himself just enough to raise his heart rate. There was a lumpy target dummy secured to the center of the room with cable wiring; he launched off a wall, somersaulted to strike the target with both feet, and rebounded to another wall. He worked the dummy from each wall and corner, and in the last five minutes, Uncle Polly called him back down for a brief recovery. Carr was warm now, just beginning to feel a sweat. Uncle Polly drifted in front of him and did a final check on his gloves and shoes. He clapped his fists down over Carr’s. “Let’s do this.”

The official’s voice called down the hallway, “Luka, you’re up!”

A deep thrill of nervous energy raced through Carr’s veins. He faced the hall, drew in a long, uneven breath, and let it hiss out, slowly. “We’re right behind you,” DK reassured him. Carr gripped the rungs and climbed. At the stadium entrance, the rumble of the crowd suddenly faded as the music and lights dimmed, and blue spotlights began sweeping back and forth. The announcer’s bass voice bellowed, “Fighting out of the red corner, with a mass of seventy kilograms, and a record of four wins, one loss, CAAARRR…‘THE RAPTOR’…. LUKAAA!”

CHAPTER TWO

Carr kicked off the final hallway rung and through the entrance. He somersaulted tightly, then uncoiled, reached, and landed in a dramatic crouch on the deck, gripping it easily with the balls of feet and fingertips. The crowd roared its approval, and as he straightened, Carr saw close-ups of himself on the huge screens hanging around the stadium.

Great stars, there were a lot of people. They filled the tiered stands that stretched in all directions, blurred into shadow beyond the stark, glaring lights. Carr’s pulse sped up, beating in his palms and the soles of his feet. Zeroboxing was the sort of thing people watched on screens at home; most planet rats couldn’t afford to travel beyond atmosphere very often, and even those that could generally liked their artificial gravity. These spectators were the really hard core fans, the ones who would rather be strapped into seats, drinking beer from squeeze bottles and brushing away floating globs of spilled orange soda and candy wrappers in order to see the fight live. Tonight, there were thousands of them, some still pulling themselves along the tether rails to their seats.

Below the deck hung the Cube, empty, like an enormous minimalist ice sculpture. The sweeping spotlight beams distorted on its transparent surface, tingeing its edges and corners with cool blue light. Even experienced zeroboxers got shivers looking at the thing. To willingly enter it was to be completely imprisoned, and utterly exposed. It was the prism of truth. There was no hiding in the Cube, no angle from which you could not be seen, and no way out until you had been proven victor or vanquished.

The announcer, Hal Greese, had a thick neck and a gut that, without gravity, migrated upward from the region of his waist to fill out his torso in a kind of general bulbousness. He turned in a slow circle in the center of the deck, one arm raised in anticipation. “Fighting out of the blue corner, with a mass of seventy-one kilograms, and a record of nine wins, three losses, JAY…‘DRACULA’…FERRRANNOO!”

Jay Ferrano shot through the entrance, twisting like a corkscrew, and caught the landing deck neatly. A wave of enthusiastic noise vibrated the Cube beneath their feet. Carr looked across at his opponent. He seemed larger than he had in the videos Carr had studied. ‘Dracula’ had gotten his nickname after an early fight when he’d let loose a bellow and accidentally swallowed a floating bubble of his opponent’s blood. The fans had loved it and the clip had gone viral. Ferrano had apparently taken to his name, because the suspended screens zoomed in for a close-up of the liquid tattoo stretched across the back of his neck: a bat flapping its wings.

They met in the center of the deck, both of them ignoring the rails and walking steadily on gripper shoes alone. The referee said a bunch of the usual stuff, about wanting a good, hard, clean fight, and so on. Carr didn’t hear any of it. He watched Ferrano. Sometimes you could tell what kind of a fighter a man was by looking at his face in the seconds before a match. Some guys looked calm and cool as ice, and fought the same way, patient and technical. Those who didn’t even look you in the eyes were either too nervous, or were, in their hearts, nice fellas who would rather not think of their opponents as human beings they would have to hurt. The ones who growled and glowered as if they wanted to rip your limbs off—they fought because they were angry people.

Ferrano sniffed, and cricked his neck from side to side. He looked strong, and mean, and here to play.

The referee told them to touch gloves. They did, and retreated to opposite sides of the deck. Carr was tingling from fingertips to toes. Uncle Polly was murmuring, “You’re ready, you’re ready. I’ll be in your ear the whole time.” DK put his mouth guard in, then spread coagulant gel on his face; it lessened the chance he’d get cut, and in the event he did, it would keep most of his blood on him instead of mucking up the air.

The attendant technician held an activation penlight up to his eyes and told Carr to look at a point straight ahead while he fixed the beam on each eye in turn. After a couple of seconds, he said, “Connection’s good,” and one of the screens above flickered and shifted into the view from Carr’s optic cameras, now being fed live to his subscribers.

The deck, which took up one entire outside surface of the Cube, had two entry hatches set into it. The border of Carr’s hatch flashed red and slid open. He went to the edge of it and stood like a man with his toes on the lip of a cliff, staring down into two hundred cubic meters of empty space. Then he dove through the opening, like a swimmer into water. He piked his body backward and flipped, catching the wall behind him, hands first, feet second, finding spread-fingered purchase on the textured surface, the magnetic pull on his gripper gloves, shoes, and the waistband of his shorts, holding him against the wall.

On the other side of the Cube, Jay Ferrano shot through his hatch. Both entrances flashed once more, Ferrano’s blue, Carr’s red, before sealing off. The bell rang, loudly outside the Cube for the benefit of the audience, more quietly in his ear. The fight was on.

Ferrano opened with a straight launch, propelling himself across the Cube with both legs, hands up in a guard. Carr judged the man’s path and leapt for an adjacent wall, kicking out at his passing opponent. His foot connected, not with enough power to do damage, but that wasn’t the point. It pushed the man in one direction and accelerated Carr’s travel in the other, setting up his rebound.

Ferrano turned off the wall and shot straight back. Carr tucked his legs, powered off the surface and sailed just out of reach. He shot a hand out for the wall, grabbed it, and climbed; for a calculated moment he was directly above Ferrano’s head, and he swung down, fists flying for his opponent’s face. He nailed a right hook, followed the momentum of his weightless spin with a left elbow, but Ferrano wrapped a leg around his, halting both their rotations and creating a coveted opening to grab, and land punches.

“Cover! Cover and break!” Uncle Polly shouted, his voice tinny in Carr’s receiver.

Carr tucked his head between his forearms as Ferrano’s right fist started raining down blows. The man’s other hand was cupped behind Carr’s neck, right leg anchored tight around Carr’s thigh. He had to move before Ferrano could lock him up further. He drove his right knee up, against his opponent’s chest and surged back. They came apart, Carr kicking out to speed up their separation.

“Stick to the plan,” Polly urged. “Stay out of his grab zone! Make him fly!”

All planet-born people instinctively assigned a sense of up and down; it took years of zero gravity training to develop a good space ear, to navigate 360 degrees of movement comfortably, without nausea or disorientation. Carr was a natural. He twisted in the air, stretching for the wall with the balls of his feet. His left shoe found magnetic grip while the rest of him kept traveling; he arched his back and shot his arm out, bracing himself into one of the Cube’s right angles. Ferrano was coming after him, but too slowly; he hadn’t gotten off a strong push. Carr scrambled across the corner and attacked from behind, punching both heels into his opponent’s back, slamming the man into the wall and sending himself flying again.

Ferrano’s broad back tensed with frustration and he began chasing the younger fighter around the Cube. They traded blows, but Carr kept moving, kept Ferrano coming after him. Uncle Polly’s voice was a chant in his ear: “That’s it, make him climb, you’re good, you’re good.” The bell sounded on six Martian minutes. The hatches flashed and slid open; Carr climbed sideways toward the glowing red square outline and pulled himself onto the deck.

Carr sat, hooking ankles under the stabilizing bar as DK took his mouth guard and squeezed water into his mouth. Uncle Polly appeared in front of him, and for a couple of seconds, his voice had a weird double timbre as Carr picked it up a second time from his receiver. Polly stabbed his cuff to mute, and squatted down on his gripper shoes, talking fast and excited. “You’re pissing him off, and wearing him out. That’s exactly what you want. Pick your places. You can fly circles around him; he’ll tire long before you do.”

Carr felt good, slicked with sweat, but his energy still high. Long before he was given his Cube name ‘the Raptor,’ his nickname around the gym had been ‘Last Man Standing’ because of his staying power. Uncle Polly was certain that cardiovascular endurance and his uncanny space ear were the key to him winning against more seasoned fighters. Carr sloshed water in his mouth and spit it out, the spray breaking into wobbly bubbles that DK swiped away with a towel. “It looks like I’m playing it too safe,” he said. “Like I’m not taking it to him enough.”

“You look great, kid,” DK reassured him, pressing an ice pack to the back of his neck.

Two scantily-clad Cube girls drifted above the deck, taut bodies undulating like mermaids as they circled a big, spinning holovid of the number two. Carr bit back down on his mouth guard, unhooked his feet from the bar, and dove back through the hatch just as the bell sounded on the second round.

Ferrano had adjusted his game plan. No immediate power launch and energy-expending chase this time; he wasn’t going to be drawn into trying to out-fly Carr. He stuck to the walls, looking for an opening, fighting tight and deliberate. It didn’t take long for Carr to start feeling like a crow harassing a porcupine. He was landing hits, but Ferrano had good, swift defense and the blows didn’t do a lot of damage.

Carr grit his teeth, his gut surging with anxiety. He couldn’t be sure of winning, not if the rest of the round went like this. The judges might tilt in his favor, but he couldn’t count on that. Not for this fight. He needed this fight.

He ran up the corner, bouncing off the right angles on the balls of his feet and leapt back down at his opponent, legs scissoring for Ferrano’s neck. The man evaded by less than a hand’s width and grabbed Carr’s leg. They both spun. Ferrano went for a leg lock. Carr twisted out of it, but the move gave Ferrano a brief opening. He threw his legs around Carr’s waist, taking rear control and flinging his arm around Carr’s neck.

Carr tucked his chin in time to avoid being immediately choked out. Ferrano had him around the jaw instead of the throat; the man’s forearm began sawing back and forth.

Uncle Polly was shouting, “You have legs! Legs on a wall!”

He was being ridden and choked piggyback, but in the Cube, up and down were easily reversed. Carr kept his head down, braced his legs and kicked hard off the wall, sending them both shooting backwards.

Ferrano’s back slammed into the opposite wall and bounced. It knocked some of the wind out of him, and though he didn’t let go, his grip slipped enough for Carr to pull the stranglehold loose, twist his body a little sideways and start nailing his opponent in the ribs with the tip of his elbow. Ferrano grunted but held on, tried to maneuver back into the choke with his other arm. They turned in space, locked together, everything barrel rolling by slowly as they fought for advantage. With his free hand, Ferrano started hitting Carr in the head, forcing him to give up his elbow strikes to protect himself. Uncle Polly was yelling something, but Carr couldn’t hear it; his head was ringing with each blow.

Watching the video of the fight later, Carr would hear Xeth Stone exclaiming at this point, “It looks like Luka is in trouble now—they’re drifting and Ferrano is not going to let go! He is just pounding him! This is not looking good for Carr Luka!”

“This is exactly how Ferrano wins,” Jeroan said. “He may not look as nimble in the Cube, but you can’t underestimate his tenacity.”

Everything began to blur and swim. The wall advanced slowly in the column of vision between Carr’s raised forearms. Desperate clarity pierced through the roar of blood in his ears and the tinny incomprehensible noise from his implanted receiver. His body began to slacken; Ferrano dug in the choke and started to squeeze.

“Oh…oh, this is it!” Xeth Stone yelled. “Ferrano’s got it! He just wore Luka down with those punches.”

Jeroan said, “Luka is going to have to tap any second now.”

Blood and air were no longer reaching Carr’s brain. Pain and blackness closed in. Ferrano growled with effort, completely focused on impending victory. Just tap and it’ll stop, his meaty, sweaty forearm seemed to promise with each additional millimeter of pressure.

They reached the wall. Carr shot out hands and feet, catching the surface with all four magnetic grippers, and launched himself straight up with every remaining ounce of power in his limbs, as if shooting up the vertical side of a swimming pool toward air. The crown of Ferrano’s head, higher than his by a couple inches, slammed into the Cube wall above them.

The impact jarred Carr as well, his tenuous hold on consciousness nearly giving out, darkness scudding across his eyes. But Ferrano’s arm fell away and the flood of returning oxygen was like a slap of cold water to Carr’s face. His body responded with a wave of sudden energy. He broke free and turned the corner like a spider, crouching in its hollow. The walls, though solid, were designed to partially cushion impact; Ferrano was more dazed than injured, his eyes unfocused as he reached out clumsy hands to steady himself. Carr came at him from above, fist connecting square across the chin. Ferrano’s head spun first, his body followed, and he went limp as a drifting rag doll.

Peripheral sounds and sensations returned. Outside the Cube, lights strobed, the crowd roared—one giant incoherent mass of noise.

“DID I JUST SEE THAT?” Xeth Stone squealed.

“We have a floater!” Jeroan’s usually unflappable voice held a note of awe. “Carr Luka just floated the third best zeroboxer in the lowmass division, in the second round, when it looked like he was done for.”

“What a stunning reversal! Ferrano did not see that coming at all! None of us did! I don’t know how Luka could take those hits, and hang on through that choke, and still have enough left in him to pull that off! What an opener! That might be the fight of the night, Jeroan!”

The referee and a doctor navigated over to Ferrano and examined him, then took hold of his arms and carried him back over to his side of the Cube, propelling themselves with handheld mini-thrusters. Residual adrenaline pulsed through Carr’s body with each heartbeat; he felt as jittery as a bug as he jogged, hands and feet, back to his hatch and out onto the deck. As the referee took his arm, Hal Greese’s voice boomed, “At four minutes, thirty-eight seconds in the second round, the winner, by knockout, CARRRRR LUKAAA!”

The sweet high of victory swept over Carr, dizzying him more than any gymnastic feat in the Cube. He saw his own face on the suspended screens—red, puffy and bruised, shiny with pebbly sweat clinging to a layer of gel—and broke into a grin he felt would never stop. The shadowy tiers of spectators rippled with movement, chanting their approval. He was surrounded by people: DK and Uncle Polly hugging him, the doctor coming to check on him, the technician disconnecting his optic cameras and telling him that his cochlear receiver had been jolted and he’d need to get it fixed—that was why in the last seconds of the match he hadn’t heard Polly’s voice, only a high, distant whining. Sports journalists materialized out of nowhere, their tethers crowding the rails, raising their cuff-links above each other to catch his words. Carr scrabbled distractedly for what he was supposed to say right now.

“I just want to thank Jay Ferrano and the ZGFA for putting on a great fight. I’ve got to credit my incredible coach and my cornerman. To my mom and Enzo, back home on Earth—I love you guys.” There were more shouted questions, but DK and Uncle Polly ushered him back to the locker room. Carr barely felt the hallway rungs as he floated out of the crush of people.

He looped around the room like a drunken bird, bouncing off the banks of lockers, and barreling into DK, who whooped and laughed and threw him into a spin. When he pulled out of it, Carr hooked one foot under a toe bar and leaned back, still grinning stupidly as DK helped him out of his gripper shoes and gloves, toweled him down, and placed a squeeze bottle of electrolyte drink in his hand.

Uncle Polly stood in front of him and leveled a stern finger at his face. “What was that? You were going to stay out of clinch.”

“He wasn’t falling for it, coach. I couldn’t count on being far enough ahead by the end of the third.”

“Hell of a risk. He nearly choked you out.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Don’t be smart with me. You were impatient to win and you got reckless.”

“C’mon, Polly,” DK said. “Your boy did good tonight. That knockout is one for the highlight reels.”

Uncle Polly huffed. Then his tough demeanor fell away, a slow, crooked smile brightening his stubbly face. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, it sure was.” He put his hands on either side of Carr’s face, giving his cheek an approving smack. “Not what I would’ve done, but damn, it worked.”

Carr relaxed. He didn’t want Uncle Polly unhappy with him. He got dressed and no sooner had he put his cuff back on than it vibrated with dozens of messages. Congratulations from friends and teammates, new subscriber stats, media hits…he touched the screen to queue it all, not planning to deal with it until later, but one high priority message flashed insistently. His cochlear receiver was still messed up; when he tried to play the audio tag, it was shrill and jumbled. He saw who the sender was though, and his stomach did a small, nervous dive, like the final, weak aftershock of an earthquake.

Uncle Polly was watching him. “Well?”

Carr looked up and nodded. “The Martian wants to see me.”

CHAPTER THREE

The Martian’s name was Bax Gant, and he was the co-owner of the Zero Gravity Fighting Association. His business partner, Terran entertainment industry tycoon Bran Merkel, was the money behind the ZGFA, but only occasionally seen on Valtego; Gant managed all the day-to-day operations. He was called the Martian because he probably was the best known Martian on a city-station that was still overwhelmingly Terran, but also because, in zeroboxing circles, he was the sort of singularly influential personality who merited a the when spoken about, such as, the Bossman or the Bastard. The Martian.

Carr stood in Gant’s office, trying not to look uncomfortable. He’d gone to the clinic for an injection of rehab/repair nanos; between the pricey cell-mending molecules and a dose of ibuprofen, post-fight pain wasn’t the main problem. He’d had his receiver fixed too, and he wasn’t even badly hungover from last night’s after party. It was just that Bax Gant’s office felt like a walk-in refrigerator. Comfortable for a man from Mars, but not for someone raised in balmy Toronto. He imagined that Gant must feel the reverse; the whole rest of Valtego probably felt like a mild steam bath to him. No wonder he seemed to live in his office.

“Sit down, Luka,” Gant said. “Coffee?”

Carr was about to decline, then remembered that he had just finished a fight and could eat and drink whatever he wanted to for a while. “Sure, thanks,” he said, and sat down in the chair in front of the desk. The last time he’d been in here was the day after his sixteenth birthday. Uncle Polly had sat next to him. The Martian had said, “You’re training them from the womb now, are you, Pol?” and then turned a skeptical look on Carr. “The pros aren’t like the ammys, kid. You think you’re ready?” and Carr had said, “Yes, sir,” but he’d been scared. This morning though, Uncle Polly had cupped Carr’s chin in his hand and said, “You’re not a kid anymore. You’re a pro fighter with a good record and you’re going to get re-signed, or I’ll eat my towel. Now go in there and talk to that domie, man-to-man.”

Gant filled two mugs from the pot on the counter and walked back to the desk. He was the shortest Martian Carr had ever seen, barely six feet tall. Decades spent in Valtego’s nearly Earth-level artificial gravity had thickened him, rounded him out a little. The faint hint of red in his hair suggested some European ancestry from way, way back. The man could almost pass as Terran, though the telltale sheen of his dark, radiation resistant skin gave him away.

He set one of the mugs in front of Carr, slipping a coaster underneath so as not to mar the surface of the mahogany desk. Real mahogany wood, not synthetic. There was a lot of wood in the room—the desk and chairs, the floor, the shelves that held mementos and photos from big fights Gant had promoted. Precious few non-agricultural trees on Mars; the man had a borderline obsession with furniture and objects made from natural materials. Behind his desk was a bamboo framed watercolor print of Olympus Mons at sunset. “Nice painting,” Carr said. “Have you been there?”

“I’m from Tharsis,” Gant said, sitting down across from him. “Never appreciated the view until I left.”

“Nice place?”

“Used to be. Crowded now. Too many tourists.” His snorted at this irony, and Carr wondered what passed for crowded on a planet with a fraction of Earth’s population. The Martian drank from his mug and studied Carr from across the desk. Carr lifted his chin. He could have had his bruised face and swollen jaw fixed up at the clinic, but it was ironclad tradition for zeroboxers to keep their facial wounds for at least a few days—the nastier-looking, the better. Gant said, “What’s your story, Luka? Parents were refugees and shipped off-planet? Father was a drunk and used to beat you?”

Carr shook his head.

“I didn’t think so. You’re not angry the way some of them are. So why do you fight in the Cube?”

Carr shrugged. “I’m good at it.”

“Hmm. After last night, I don’t suppose I can disagree. Five-one; not too shabby for a guy born on soil.”

“The ‘one’ got away from me.”

“That’s what they always say.” Gant leaned forward onto his desk with folded arms. “What did you think of the crowd last night?”

“It was big.”

Gant nodded, pleased. “Sold out stadium, and millions more watching on the Systemnet.” He jerked his head back towards the painting behind his desk. “I left Mars twenty-five years ago, saying I was going to grow the sport with Terrans. I was practically laughed off the Red Planet. All the best zeroboxers in the Martian system, the top dogs in the Weightless Combat Championship, you know what they said to me? Everyone on the old planet is a planet rat. The most daring and inventive Terrans left generations ago to build Mars and the station settlements. Why would a place with countless gravity-dependent sports want anything different? It’ll never catch on.”

Carr took a swallow of strong coffee. “Guess they were wrong.”

“Guess so.” Gant jutted his lower jaw slightly forward as he sized Carr up like a buyer considering an item at auction. Carr did his best to wait without fidgeting, without thinking too much about how his future depended on coming down on the good side of this man’s ruthless business acumen. Whether you loved or hated the Martian was largely correlated with how useful he thought you were.

Gant picked up his thin screen and tapped it. “Have you looked at your subscriber stats or media hits?”

“Not yet.”

“Good; if your head gets too inflated, you might get the mistaken idea you can weasel a better deal out of me.” He handed the screen to Carr. “This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

Carr took the screen, suddenly glad that the meat locker temperature kept his hands from sweating. He read the new contract quickly, then read it again, his eyes lingering on all the key numbers. His heart began to dance a jig in his chest. Three years, ten more fights guaranteed, his pay starting close to double what he’d made on his first six matches, and rising steadily if he won. He’d thought Gant might low-ball and make him negotiate, but this was more than Uncle Polly had told him to expect.

His hand hovered over the fingerprint signature box, not quite believing his fortune.

“Show it to whoever you need to—your coach, your lawyer—but I’m not going to bullshit you: it’s a good deal.”

Carr pressed his finger to the screen, waited for the confirmation and handed it back to Gant. “Thank you. Really.” His voice had gone a little squeaky; he cleared his throat. “This is what I want to do. What I’ve always wanted to do.”

“Your contract isn’t a payout. It’s an investment,” Gant said. “The ZGFA’s investment in you. Don’t think for a second this means you’ve made it, that you don’t have to train your ass off harder than ever to keep putting on a good show in the Cube.”

“I don’t.”

“Good. Because there are a hundred guys out there who would eat each other alive to take your place.” Gant smiled, not in a cruel way, just: that’s the way it is. “One other thing. You’re getting a brandhelm.”

Carr’s eyebrows furrowed. Marquee athletes had brandhelms, of course, and so did every other famous person, from celebrity chefs to CEOs, but Carr was less than a couple of years into a pro career. “I can’t afford a brandhelm,” he said. “I mean, the deal is fine, but it’s not like I’ve got extra cash right now.”

“It’s your lucky day then,” said the Martian. “Merkel Media Corporation hired heavy on the marketing side and Bran has me convinced we should use the extra manpower up here, promoting our up-and-coming zeroboxers. I’m assigning someone to you.” He drummed his blunt-nailed fingers on the desk. “Like I said, an investment. Just to be clear, I don’t do this for every hotshot who comes into my office for his first contract renewal.”

“No, sir.”

Gant stood up and Carr stood with him. They shook hands, Carr’s fingers numb with cold, Gant’s warm and fleshy.

Do it, Carr urged himself. He had, somehow, miraculously, made it into the Martian’s good books, at least for now. Go on. Ask. “Another thing. Jay Ferrano was the third-ranked lowmass zeroboxer. Now I am.” He steeled his gaze. “I want to fight for the title.”

The Martian grunted. “Every fighter who’s ever been in here has given me that line. They all have the same dream as you do. Some of them, I bet big on—the way I just bet on you—and they never lived up to their promise.” He eyed Carr, calculating. “You’re not special, Luka. Not yet.”

* * *

From Zeroboxer by Fonda Lee. ©2015 by Fonda Lee. Use by permission from Flux Books.

Universal Print

Originally published by Crossed Genres

* * *

“Well, the coolant system is fucked.” Ray Cutter emerged from the underbelly of the starboat. He pulled off his grease-stained Universal Print Delivery & Service jacket and threw it into the dirt at his feet. “We’re not getting off the planet.”

Art Strung stared at the grounded vessel, then turned in a slow, disbelieving circle. The afternoon Thedesian sun beat down on the scrubby, arid landscape: dusty, rolling purple hills dotted with copses of bushy blackish-green trees, and in the distance, piled rock formations that made Art think of enormous heaps of animal dung.

I’m screwed, Strung decided. I am so going to be fired.

“We’ve got to call this in,” he said.

“No way.” Cutter kicked the side of the boat. “If we call in, we’re done for. They’re going to ask why we’re so far off course, and how the hell we ended up in the Thedesian system. No one is going to believe we jumped into it by accident when we’re supposed to be making a delivery to Phobos. They’ll search the ship and check our flight logs.”

“Yes, do tell.” Strung’s lip curled back. “How did we end up jumping into low orbit over Thedesia? Who the hell mixes up the coordinates for Tharsis with those for Thedesia? Huh?”

“It was an easy mistake! Anyone could have done it!”

Strung found a flat rock in the shade and sank down onto it. A small eight-limbed purple lizard scurried in front of his foot and under a nearby prickly plant, waving its feelers and chittering indignantly. He felt a tension headache coming on.

Cutter was pacing back and forth, purple dust puffing around his feet. “I’m not going to jail, man, not for this small time stuff. They’d lock us up with real smugglers, hardened space dogs. Those guys would eat us alive.” He shook his head, the usual slack insolence of his face replaced, for once, with actual worry. “We’d be better off staying on this remote rock forever.”

“This is all your fucking fault,” said Strung, because it was. Though, Strung admitted, he had been stupid enough to a) help his serially unemployed old school buddy get a job as a deliveryman at Universal Print in the first place and b) let him start with the little side trips that had inadvertently landed them both in the Thedesian desert.

“Okay,” Cutter said. He stopped pacing and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. We get on the first transport back to the Terran system. When we get there, we tell them we got hijacked at our last stop and the thugs took off with all the cargo. We barely escaped with our lives.”

Strung glared at him. “How often do you think transports come out to Thedesia? I don’t think this planet even has a commercial spaceport. Who knows how long we could be out here.” Sweat trickled down the back of Strung’s neck and between his shoulder blades. He wondered if he could get a message to Renata to send help, but if she found out what he’d been up to, she’d kill him. Then she’d leave him. He hauled himself to his feet and stalked back to the starboat. “We need to find a mechanic. Then we burn the contraband, get the hell out, and hope U.P. buys the story that we got hopelessly lost, and fires us instead of pressing charges.”

Cutter stared after him. “Burn it? Are you out of your mind?”

Strung opened the back cargo hatch and hauled the cover off the first printer, the one supposedly on delivery to a Mr. D. Sing living in New Rio, Phobos. It was a brand-new, high-capacity UP3122X: gleaming and sleek, in a neutral eggshell color that would complement any home decor. Strung threw the door open, reached inside with both arms, and swept out a dozen black canisters. They tumbled out of the printer and across the threshold of the cargo hatch, spilling out onto the ground.

Cutter ran up with a howl of protest. “Do you know how much all that is worth?”

“I don’t care! Do you know how much trouble it’s gotten us into?”

Cutter fell to his knees and began collecting the fallen canisters like a child frantically gathering candy. “We’ll hide it. We’ll come back for it.” He swung his head from side to side, scanning the open wilderness for a suitable storage place. “Hey look!” He motioned with his chin toward the crest of the hill to the east. A plume of indigo dust was making its way down the slope toward them. Strung paused to squint at it. He could make out the shape of an approaching vehicle, bearing down fast.

A huge wheeled buggy ground to a halt in front of them, sending up a storm of grit. A man hopped out of the front seat. He gaped at them. Then his tanned face broke into a grin, and he let out a bark of laughter. Strung couldn’t blame him. They were probably the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen: two Universal Print deliverymen, frozen wide-eyed amid the small pile of black canisters scattered behind their broken starboat, steaming in the desert.

The Thedesian pointed to the starboat and said a bunch of words.

“Uh, we don’t speak Thedesian,” said Cutter.

“It’s German, you idiot,” Strung hissed.

The man pushed up the rim of his broad hat and adjusted the woven belt around his loose-fitting tan clothes. He pointed to the boat again and said in halting Standard, “You need fix.”

“Yes! Yes, need fix,” Strung agreed. “Can you help us?”

The man pointed from the boat back to the enormous dune buggy. “I take to town, yes?”

Cutter and Strung looked at each other. “Yes, that would be great,” said Strung.

The man tapped the middle of his left palm with a finger.

“We can pay.” Cutter took out his pay tag and held it up.

The Thedesian made a scornful face. “Real money only.”

Cutter looked to Strung in confusion. “What does he mean?”

“Ah, crap.” Strung glanced again at the Thedesian’s simple, woven clothes and callused hands. “I read about this. Thedesia is some kind of alternative lifestyle colony. The people here choose to live in traditional ways and don’t allow any Interstellar Age technology. I think they still use physical currency.”

“Physical currency?” Cutter frowned. “Like what? Pieces of gold?” He followed the Thedesian’s curious gaze and in a flash of inspiration, snatched up one of the black canisters and thrust it at the man. “How about that?”

The Thedesian unscrewed the lid and peered inside. He sniffed it. Then he smiled, closed the canister, and tucked it under an arm. Without another word, he got back into the buggy, pulled it in front of the delivery boat, and dragged out a pair of towing cables. He eyed the other canisters that Cutter and Strung hastily stuffed back into the ship’s cargo hold. “You sell?”

“No, no, we don’t sell,” Strung said.

“We’ll make an exception for you, of course,” Cutter amended quickly. Strung gave him an evil look.

They rode into town on the back seat of the buggy, towing the ship on its hover runners behind them. It was not a long trip, just enough time for Strung to have a good angry stew about how he’d gotten into this mess. It was not supposed to have been a big deal. Cutter knew this guy, who knew this guy, and all they had to do was take a little detour once in a while and pick up several canisters of the highest-grade Siryean white snuff, hide it inside the printers they were delivering, and take it through customs and inspection to a distributor on Tharsis for a little duty-free kickback. The printer had a tamper-proof activity log, but as long as they didn’t turn it on, no one would know they were using such an expensive piece of machinery as a container.

Strung had not liked it at first, just as he had not liked it when Cutter had tried his hand at breeding Andromedean fighting rats, or when he’d borrowed two paychecks worth of money to buy asteroid real estate derivatives that “couldn’t go down” but promptly had. Not to mention the time he’d conveniently skipped town and left Strung to explain why the rental car smelled like monkey piss. The exotic pet trade in Gliesian pygmy tamarins, it turned out, was not remotely worth the trouble.

Yes, he really should have known better this time. But Cutter had been persuasive. “It’s easy money, pickup and delivery only. No risk. No one at a huge company like U.P. will notice an extra jump here or there for ‘personal errands,’ and even if they did, no one cares. People do it all the time.”

“I’m coming up on three years at the company, Cutter,” Strung said. Being a deliveryman was far from stimulating, but it was easy, and it sure beat some of his previous jobs. “I don’t want to get fired over one of your stupid ideas.”

“Look, I set this whole thing up, but I’m going to split the money fifty-fifty with you. How about that?”

In the end, the money had been too tempting. Renata was always on his back about getting a bigger place, and a better printer. “You work at U.P. and they don’t even pay you enough to afford a decent model,” she griped. “That’s bullshit.” He agreed with her. With a stream of extra money earned on the side, plus the employee discount, he could get a brand new UP3122X. It was the revolutionary, fully programmable model, capable of printing in 546,455 material combinations, updated daily with all the latest apparel, accessories, household items, and edibles. It boasted unheard-of scan and replication accuracy, and could complete jobs in a fraction of the time taken by previous models. With a UP3122X, he could print Renata that hot new dress she wanted, the boots to go with it, new fixtures for the bathroom, and custom decals for his bike. When Strung had put on the jacket with the Universal Print logo and climbed into the delivery boat mere hours ago, he’d run a hand longingly down the side of the UP3122X and murmured, “I’m going to have one just like you soon.”

He cursed his stupidity.

The small Thedesian town appeared as soon as they’d driven over the hill. It filled the valley on the other side, a quaint sprawl of small buildings straight out of a history museum. Smoke curled out of chimneys, and wheeled vehicles chugged down paved streets. As they drew closer, Strung saw that the homes were made of heavy materials—wood and brick—and as far as Strung could tell, everything in sight had been constructed, not printed. Making or changing anything here must be incredibly slow and difficult.

“Wow.” Cutter whistled. “Talk about untapped printer market.”

The Thedesian towed their boat right up to the outskirts of town and left them there. Before he went, he asked for another of the canisters, and in exchange, he counted out a handful of round metal disks into Cutter’s palm. “Real money,” the Thedesian said with a grin. “You buy food, drink, room, girls, eh? Then get ship fixed.”

Cutter held one of the engraved coins up to the sun. The cheap metal gleamed dully. “I’ll be damned.”

They walked into the first public building that smelled of food. At their entrance, the room quieted and half a dozen heads turned to stare. When he and Cutter sat down at the nearest unoccupied square wooden table, conversation resumed, but Strung could feel the many curious, flickering gazes directed their way. He glanced around cautiously. Everything looked heavy and worn. The chairs were scuffed, as if they’d been around for years, and some of the woven clothes on people’s backs bore stains or frayed edges, suggesting they’d been used many times. Dust motes swam through the shafts of sunlight streaming in from the small windows. A few folks met his wandering gaze and nodded politely before turning away. The Thedesians didn’t appear unfriendly; they just didn’t seem to get visitors very often.

When a young woman brought them two bowls of chunky stew, Cutter spread the handful of coins on the table. She chuckled, took three of them, and left. They watched her go; her curvy hips swayed as she walked, and her long dark hair cascaded in waves down to the middle of her back. Strung turned his attention reluctantly back to his bowl. Its rim was slightly chipped. He shook his head in amazement. These people reused nearly everything. They couldn’t just dematerialize and print new stuff whenever they wanted.

“How old do you think these bowls and spoons are?” he whispered to Cutter. His stomach turned slightly at the thought of eating off of them. “How many people have used them before?”

Cutter made a face, then shrugged. “They must wash them.” He dipped his spoon in and ate.

Strung followed suit hesitantly. To his surprise, the food tasted good. He kept eating, and refocused on the larger predicament. “Coolant systems are pretty simple, right? Someone in this town must know how to fix one.”

Cutter pushed the remaining coins around the surface of the table with a finger. He stared after the waitress with a slack expression. “What’s the big rush?” He took another bite, then pulled a black marker from a front pocket and started doodling. Cutter did this all the time; he could never keep his hands still. “This place doesn’t seem half bad. Kind of like an olden days theme park. It’s going to be while before anyone notices we’re missing anyways.”

“Maybe we can get back before anyone does,” said Strung. He looked up, then nearly coughed out a mouthful of food. “I don’t think you can do that.”

“Do what?”

“Draw all over the table.”

It was too late. A gray-haired but immensely broad-shouldered man, who Strung surmised was the proprietor of the establishment, was standing beside their table, glaring down at them. His face was darkening to a curious shade of pink, and his jaw was working back and forth as if he was chewing something sticky and unpleasant. Strung hoped sincerely that the restaurant owner and the young woman who had served them were not related because Cutter had drawn a lewd exaggerated picture of the waitress’s bare ass. It filled up most of his side of the table. “Something the matter?” he asked.

The man unleashed what Strung suspected were choice German profanities.

“Hey, it’s just a table.” Cutter stood up and spread his hands in defense. “How was I supposed to remember you use the same shit for months?”

The restaurant owner’s expression suggested he was considering slamming Cutter’s head into the defaced furniture. After some profuse apologizing on Strung’s part, and the offer of most of the metal coins they possessed, the man was mollified into merely showing them out the door with a glower. Outside, Cutter snorted. “Can you believe that guy was upset about a stupid table, and instead of asking us to print him a new one, he takes a bunch of metal chips instead?”

“The metal chips are worth more to them than the table, you moron. And thanks to you, we have barely any left.” Strung rolled the few remaining coins in his hand and hoped it would be enough to buy a way off the planet. He had had enough of this place already. He did not like the scruffiness of it, or the purple dust, and he was sick of being around Cutter. “I’ll look around and try to find a mechanic. You go back to the ship and get rid of the dope. I don’t care how you do it. Burn it, bury it, give it away, hide it in a tree, I don’t give a damn. Just make sure it’s gone by the time I get back. We can still solve this mess and get out of here before we get into any deeper shit.”

Cutter said, “I have a better idea.”

“Oh no,” said Strung. He recognized the shifty, excited twitch in Cutter’s shoulders, the lopsided, cajoling smile. “No.”

“Aw, come on. You’re not even going to hear me out? It’s a really good idea this time.” Cutter bounced on the balls of his feet, winked as if to say, Who are you kidding, you do want to know, I know you do. “What are you so knotted up over all of a sudden? Are you really that anxious to get back to your girl, because it can’t be the excitement of our jobs that you’re dying to get back to. You can’t turn all lame on me now, man.”

Strung stabbed a finger at Cutter’s chest. “I don’t care what crazy idea you have cooked up in your head right now, I am not interested in hearing it. You are the reason we are on this wacky planet that time forgot, and if we end up stuck here, or get fired, or thrown in jail, or Renata kicks me out, I am going to beat the piss out of you.” He made his face as hard as he could. He’d never been able to make Cutter take his warnings seriously, and that truth made him want to grab his friend around the throat and shake violently. Cutter would only laugh, like he used to after their childhood fights. He was much bigger than Strung, always had been, and he would lie there, rolling around and laughing, while Strung whaled on him, and then he would get up, brush them both off and continue right on doing whatever it was they were going to do anyways, as if overcoming Strung’s protests, objections, or tantrums was all part of the fun. Which it was—had been—until now.

“I mean it, Cutter,” Strung said. “I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

* * *

Cutter was not at the starboat when Strung returned three Standard hours later.

The good news was that there was no sign of the black canisters full of Siryean white snuff. The cargo hatch was open. The UP3122X stood gleaming in the sunlight, its door cracked slightly open.

“Dammit.” Strung shielded his eyes and squinted at the nearest line of brick houses. After half a dozen broken and pantomimed street conversations, he’d finally managed to find a mechanic who agreed to come out to take a look at the boat. She was a short, well built, unsmiling woman with blackened fingernails, who sighed a lot but spoke passable Standard. She dropped her bag of tools with a clunk, pursed thin lips, and heaved out a weary breath before opening the starboat’s engine hatch and poking around in what Strung hoped was a productive way.

A glint of metal in the dirt caught Strung’s eye. He bent down and picked it up. It was a Thedesian coin, like the ones that had purchased their meal and placated the angry restaurateur a few hours earlier. A short distance away, another glint of metal: another coin. In short order, he found three more, leading away from the ship, as if someone had dropped them in haste.

“Oh no,” said Strung, feeling his stomach descend through his body. He opened the UP3122X printer. The sides of the printer were warm, and a burnt metallic smell laced the interior of the starboat’s cargo hold and stung his nostrils. The control panel was flashing a completion message. SCAN AND PRINT JOB COMPLETE.

It takes a UP3122X printer twenty Standard seconds to print a small metal disk. According to the printer’s finished job queue, scanning the initial model, then printing four hundred Thedesian coins had taken one hundred and forty minutes, plus an additional seven minutes to print a nylon bag large enough to carry all the canisters and the coins together.

Strung wondered what you could buy on Thedesia for that much white snuff and cash.

Then he considered, without optimism, his prospects for continued employment after a Mr. D. Sing complained to Universal Print about the activity log of his supposedly new UP3122X.

The mechanic crawled back out from under the engine hatch and wiped her hands on a black-stained rag. “Done. Should work now.” She slammed the hatch shut and looked at Strung expectantly.

He dropped all of the remaining coins into her hand. “If it’s not enough, my friend—” he paused, “former friend—will pay the rest.” He climbed into the starboat’s cockpit. “He’ll be easy to find in town—he’s not going anywhere for a while.”

S Lynn

Ffydd (Faith)

Originally published in Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History by Crossed Genres Publications

* * *

Abertawe, 1919

Always more work than hands willing to turn to it, even in your own bloody kitchen. "Is that the last of the milk, then?"

Chorus of complaint and sighs from my husband’s sisters. Lily and Iris and Violet have been looking after the home front, they’re not used to being ordered about like relief-workers, not to scrub and fetch and stretch a ration proper. Not that it’s not all the same war we’ve been fighting against. But.

I’d thought it would be less blood and worry, to be home again.

We fall silent as my husband edges into the room. Still a wisp, for all they’ve fed him since he’s been home.

Still not even a shadow of him to reflect in the spoons.

Trevor smiles, hesitant as always. Still the same crooked eyeteeth. Still his. Unshaven. Iris shattered all the mirrors in a fit of rage, or pique, I never entirely know with Iris. Though no mirror ever helped his hair before, it’s always been a hayrick. He looks like a naughty schoolboy.

He’s barely met my eyes since I’ve been home, my husband. As hard to bear as how he’s been lying beside me like a stone these last few nights. I’d been holding so fast to the memory of his eyes, the colour of that single word for what other languages slice up into blue and grey and green. But how can you divide the slate, the sky, the sea.

He’ll never see those eyes looking back from a glass again. And there’s not a word at all for what he is.

He’s changed, they’d written. (Not come home, no, they credit me that much, but…but could I stop myself thinking about what they wouldn’t say right out, till I had to tell myself I’d do no one much good working myself into a state. Better to think of it as seeing he’s fit to join me at the relief efforts. Even if the leaving felt like an admission of unseriousness of purpose, just because I’d a husband to go home to.) And it’s true. Not the sort of change one might have expected when a man’s been in gaol over his conscience, neither. That one could understand—sudden starts at nothing, weeping when he’d think no one could hear? Seen my share of that this past while.

But Trevor, Trevor’s is none of that.

How of a sudden he’s the one offering to butcher the hen who’d stopped laying—how he’d come back in with blood round his mouth. He’d not denied it. Couldn’t, wouldn’t, not if it’s simple truth. Just asks us to come clear in our own consciences, whether he’s still the boy they loved, the man they knew.

That there itself should tell us that.

Trevor’s looking round in that terribly polite way of a bloke who’s only dared come in with us cooking because he’s that desperate to see if the kettle’s on. When he clears his throat Iris slams the cheese-grater down in the bowl hard enough I worry for her knuckles. "Put it on your own bloody self, why don’t you? Ned manages."

Ned doesn’t manage and we all know it, we know that Violet will be acting as her brother’s lost arm for the rest of her days and the worst is she’d rather that than admit there’s barely a lad left to marry proper and live her own life instead. Iris has cut her fingers on the grater. Trevor is watching his sister’s hand as she sucks at her knuckle, teeth dimpling his lower lip till the blood beads. And, ah, the hunger in his eyes, until Iris finally says, abrupt and sharp, "Go see to the chickens then."

Trevor pushes out the back door into the courtyard without another word. I’m sure Iris doesn’t mean to be hateful, well, I’m almost sure Iris doesn’t mean to be hateful. I feel it low in my own stomach, our desperate fear of this uncharted future. Lily and Violet can see to the rest of our tea, or to Iris, whichever they please; I dust the flour from my hands and step out the back door after him.

It’s a bright day, as it goes. Not raining yet at any rate. Trevor’s sat on the step cuddling one of the hens in his lap. The cockerel’s watching him from the wash-line, clearly not on with the notion that this sudden threat to the back-garden flock has hold of one of its wives or daughters, however gentle the embrace. I wave a hand for the bird to get off the washing and it flaps down to peck at the bricks as if we’re the ones here on its sufferance. "I’ve not seen Iris this cross," I say.

"She’s missing William." Trevor looks up, then ducks his head back down as if he’d not meant to meet my eyes for even that instant.

"Suppose I can understand that." I pause, steel my nerves with as deep a breath as I can draw through the knot of my chest. "I’d have minded it, if I’d lost you."

I can see it on his face, that thought he’s not so certain I haven’t. I smooth my skirts and tuck myself down onto the step beside him, just enough room not to crowd though he still shifts away. The chicken in his arms gives a small chortle of uncertainty and he pats her soothingly. "Reckon we’re luckier than some," Trevor says.

Which I suppose is true, he could have been Daisy’s husband, to make it all the way through the war and then die of the 'flu. Nor the health of his body ruined, quite. It’s a scandal how those who refused to fight have been treated, the misery, the few who’d not come home, though of his own troubles Trevor’s said as little as the men back from the trenches with no words to explain to those who’d not seen.

And of the other, only, Someone took offence.

Lily’s husband comes out of the toilet at the bottom of the garden, nodding at the door with a wry grin beneath his bristling moustache; "I’d not go in there for a bit, aye?"

Dear Herbert. At least he’s not mentioned the chicken. Yet. Instead he pauses in the act of pulling open the back door to squint at his wife’s young brother with a keen eye for a sorry state: "Trying to grow out your whiskers?" Trevor reaches up to brush his dusting of stubble, and Herbert laughs, not unkindly. "Never mind, lad, you’ll get the knack of it someday. Lil? What’s on for tea, then, love—?"

Trevor’s not smiling back when I look to him from the closing door. "Ah, 'nghariad, he didn’t mean anything by it, you know Herbert." He’s shaking his head, small, but enough to make me shiver from it. "Hm? What is it, what’s the matter?"

Trevor looks at the cockerel. Meets its eyes, square on. It tilts its head at him, jerky, puzzling—takes a step towards Trevor, another, until he can reach out a finger to chuck it under the beak. "I did this to the prison barber," Trevor says, so low I want to ask him to repeat it. "The mirrors, he was frightened of me, and I looked at him, and…" A bone-deep shudder. "I could have told him to slit his own throat and he’d have done it. I could smell the blood inside his skin…"

This man who’d paid near two years of his life to witness with his body that to raise a hand against another is never the way—"What did you do?"

He looks up, picture of misery. Scratch of nails on the bricks as the cockerel takes wing. "Asked him for a short-back-and-sides."

The smile startles out of me like the flapping cockerel. "Not enough ruddy brilliantine in the world to make that look right with you."

He sets the hen down onto her feet on the cobbles, leaving her to make her unsteady affronted way back towards the coop. "Wouldn’t know, would I."

Can’t but put my arm round his shoulders, can I, my husband, my Trevor. "Come back in?"

Lily is the only person in the kitchen now, mopping at a spill of jam on the table with a furious glower on her face. "Why do we marry them, I ask you?—Not you, bach," she adds when she sees I’ve her brother with me, small fond smile for the ridiculousness of our lives. (Hard sometimes not to be envious of Lily, thirty soon and married to a house-holder. Do we claw at each other because we’ve not got all that we wanted? Or do we retreat into our separate troubles?) "Trevor, I was talking with Helen and we’re thinking that even if Meeting can’t spare the money to send the both of you back over to the Continent I’m certain they’ll at least be able to help you sort out what you mean to do for work and all?"

Been weighing on her mind something terrible, what her brothers are to do with themselves now. Though Ned’s his soldier’s pension, small token for it all but more than anyone would grudge for my husband. Trevor half-turns from where he’s gone to wash barnyard-smelling hands under the tap. From his face he’s picturing what even Friends will be able to do to find positions for anyone from this notorious family of conchies and suffragists. "Not the civil-service I don’t think," Trevor says. The irony, that he’d have the vote now if he’d not chosen to go to prison. "Go back to helping Aled-mawr maybe?" (And how long will it be that we’re still calling his uncle that, when will we forget the why of it now Aled-bach rests in Flanders?) "Or Da."

"You’re wasted as a builder or a baker and you know it," I say.

Lily’s pinched look speaks to how she’s more than ready to see any of the men in her life find bloody something already. Thread of normality to pluck at, as if one small worry can displace all the greater. I take Trevor’s hand and tug him towards the stairs. I can hear the denial of tears in Iris’s voice in the front-room where Violet must be giving her as much of a talking-to as I imagine Violet capable of. But upstairs all is still, just quiet breathing from the room where Trevor’s aunt’s been looking after Lily’s girls and poor Daisy’s little Rhys. As well to have got them all down at once, Nora’s still not been up to much after the 'flu. We creep past that door, and then the bedroom that Iris still shares with Violet, and Ned’s ajar and a shambles, to our own scant refuge from care.

Suppose we can get on with setting up house on our own now the war is behind us. Suppose we all can, except Iris. Funny how that’s not even occurred to me till just now, where she’d go. We’re all still travelling on the rails the past laid down when the train’s lost its bloody wheels. I’ll be organising another march for the vote next.

We’ve still not got electric in the bedrooms. I strike a match for the lamp and set it back beside the basin, doesn’t altogether chase aside the grey dim of a day that’s never going to go fair but enough for this. The dressing-table arches into an accusing void where a mirror ought to be. I’ve been fixing my hair in the largest shard Iris missed, sliver now of myself standing alone at the edge of the bed beside my husband.

His shaving-soap’s not been touched since he’s been home, or nearly—he’d have tried, surely, but I can guess how that had gone, without having the sight of his face in a glass. Trevor’s brows crease into a dark question when I reach to pick it up. "No, Helen, why…?"

"Herbert is right, you know, you’re a bit of a sight. I think I can help you get tidied up?"

The frown is deepening into a proper scowl. "Hardly an invalid."

"We have to do something with you, can’t go about looking as if—as if you’re about to run off to the hills to paint yourself blue."

That’s got me a smile, at least. Both of us that proud streak all the way back to when it was the Romans we were wanting out of our country. When I come back in from fetching hot water from the bath Trevor’s sat himself in the chair at the dressing-table, gazing absently at the blank-faced oval of the missing mirror as he twirls in his fingers the white feather of cowardice that chit had handed him, when the shame ought to have been hers. "Suppose I ought to get on with learning, yeah. Blind men can do it, after all."

I’m not going to tell him what I’d seen a blinded man do, in one swift moment when his nurse had set down the razor. I dampen the brush and draw it in sturdy swirls across the face of the cake of soap. How many times I’d watched my new husband do this in those few blissful months before the review-board and the letters from the ambulance-corps and the decision we’d made that even this service was still complicity in the act of war. Better to go to prison, than make it one bit easier for someone else to kill in our names.

(He’d come to see me in my sentence over the demonstration and when we were only stepping out, but I’d not been let to visit him. Barely given leave to write, he was. Should have been there to meet him—should have been there with our baby in my arms. Should, should, should. First casualty of war.)

Trevor closes his eyes as I touch the lathered brush to his face, as if he can’t bear to look at me. (No, he’s just imagining how to guide his own hand without a glass.) "Smells nicer than the barber’s soap," he says.

"Keep yourself still, do you want to lose an ear?"

I have a go at pulling the safety-razor in a slow stroke down his cheek. At least he’s young enough never to have even tried to fuss with a cut-throat for himself, father a sensible enough man to have started his sons straight on the newest miracle of modern invention. Trevor reaches up to join his fingers to mine on the handle, easing the angle. "More like…"

And then it’s just the soft rasp of the blade against whiskers, his patient submission to a necessity he’d never have asked of me. Not a drop of blood spilt, when I’ve finished. I’m proud of that, I believe.

We’ll sort what’s to be done for his hair when it comes to it.

Trevor’s still not looking at me even as he wipes his chin with the flannel. "Can imagine Ned’s first go at shaving," he says.

It had involved muttered words that I’m ashamed to admit I knew and Violet on her knees in the bath quietly sweeping up bits of the one mirror in the house that Iris wouldn’t get to break. (We try not to think badly of Ned, that if he’d felt led to run out and bloody enlist it was his to say. But I know we’ve all thought it. As well we’re not Ireland, I can only think what he’d be off about.) "Ned’s still Ned," I say. "More’s the pity."

"Least he can walk down the shops and go to a barber. Be happy to see him, call him a hero and all." And at last he lifts those great slate-coloured eyes to mine, moody as a storm coming in over the water. "You deserve better than this, Helen, you should leave me."

I’ve seen this look before, in Rouen and Cologne and the streets of my own city. Glaring limbless men feeling themselves useless, dangerous, unmanned. Women who only stared at nothing our innocent eyes could see. The children who’d given up hope of love or bread. "Stood up in front of Meeting and promised, we did. Not forgotten that?" I can’t but tch at him, the look dawning in those glorious eyes. "I love you, Trevor, always have, since you brought me the sandwiches. Though why you brought me a pot of tea when I was chained to a bloody railing—"

He’s laughing in a way could have been sobs, only the flash of those dear crooked eyeteeth as his mouth turns up with every breath tells me which. "Ought to have known you’d be that stubborn."

His lips taste of soap when I lean forward, soap and old iron and the promises we’d made to one another in that naive conviction that the world couldn’t really be so mad as all that. Bother being proper anyway, his cool hands warming against my skin as we sort our way out of suddenly too many clothes (could have been my Nain’s old corsets, catch me outside of a shirtwaist ever again) until at last at last we lie tangled in touch, the old bedstead singing our joy to the rest of the house and half the bloody street for all that we’re minding it. Thinking only, this. I want this. I want you.

And, in the sudden breathless quiet after, somewhere from down below a voice sounds like Iris shouting that we can bloody well shut it. Trevor rumbles a chuckle and buries his face in my neck. Barest hint of teeth brushing my skin, before he sighs, and tucks his head against me, with a murmur: "Wi wedi golli di." I have missed you.

O, Lord, I have my husband back, and he is himself. Whatever else he may also be, he is himself, and we shall re-learn what that means, to us both, together.

Jack Hollis Marr

into the waters I rode down

Originally published in "Accessing the Future", eds Djibril Al-Ayad & Kathryn Allan

* * *

hhhhhh

??

hhhhh

well this is fucking useless isn’t it

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

that’s worse Romaan STOP IT

kkkkkkeyesn’tkkkkkanyoukkkkus?

there’s something now

kkkkkkkaliyekkkkkKKKKKK

fuck that hurt!

what was that

was that my name

try again

kkkkkkaliye?aliye!kkkkkk

YES I can hear it now /// I can HEAR it (guess this is hearing?) this is fucking weird i tell you

kkkkAliyeogdwekkkiditdkkkkknowwhatthismeans?

Of course I know what it fucking means. I’ve been working on the project as long as any of them; longer than many. I guess Romaan thinks my work didn’t count because none of it’s been said aloud, only input through computers. Well, screw him. He’s never spoken to anyone working on this back on Earth in person either, only in text relay, but I suppose that’s different, right. After all, I’m only the fallback after none of the hearing walking people’s brains could adapt to the neural linkage, aren’t I?

Must fucking burn Romaan, that I could do this and he couldn’t, just cos my battered old brain’s had to adjust to so much fucking adaptive tech over the decades. Neuroplasticity. Nice little word. I suppose it’s nice to have something they’re jealous of, for once. God knows several degrees don’t do it, not when you’re old and a woman and deaf.

The hearing’s secondary, of course, a side bonus of the main task: that neural linkage between my brain and an animal’s. I’ve been working on it most of my life, this fake telepathy, trying to match the other side’s advantage in this strange war.

We tried between people, but it was too overwhelming. We—lost people, in that stage.

(Saira, my dear Saira, who will never be the same; I see her each week, her in her bed and me in my chair, and she smiles and touches my hand, and doesn’t speak. Leish, Persis; oh, my dead dears. I reread that poem this week, before the linkage that might have done the same to me, thinking of you. Rock-a-bye baby, washing on the line. The drowned dead voices asking, How’s it above? I imagine your voices in those lines, the white bone talking: When she smiles, is there dimples? What’s the smell of parsley? I am going into the darkness of the darkness forever. My lost darlings all, I’m so sorry, I am. I think of your sinews in the far-away earth, and how I’m not enough. I can’t give you back the world, the smell of parsley, anything at all. Would you have been pleased that we succeeded, in the end?)

My Romaan was the one who worked out the audiovisual part; he’s brilliant, if annoying, and being able to promote this sort of shit to civilians always does the Service good, doesn’t it? Look at how helpful we are. We can even give veterans back some of the senses we cost them. Know he’ll expect me to be over the moon (ha, there’s an old-fashioned phrase, now) over actually hearing for the first time in my life. That’s what I’m supposed to be excited about, isn’t it? Noise, or the simulation of it, in my skull. Big deal. Bunch of hissing and clicking and the odd weirdly three-dimensional word that hurts and echoes. I’d stick with text, if it wasn’t for the rest.

But. The rest. To get down there, and not in a clunky suit but slipping easy as fish through not-water through the strange thick air, resting light in alien animal mind, witch-riding a foreign familiar in a world no human’s ever touched, not with skin and eyes and nose—and ears, I suppose, those too (do the otterfishcatsnake things they showed me have ears?)—this extraordinary modern magic that will, if it goes right, let us eavesdrop on the other and its hidden world…For that, oh God, for that.That’s worth all the hissing and clicking inconvenience, the drilling in my skill, all the years of different aids.

And, I mean, it’s war. Doing my bit for the Effort. All the shit I was meant to do, defective daughter of a military family. Daddy would be so proud, the old bugger. Thank fuck he’s dead. Last thing I need’s him being proud that his broken little girl’s able to be a spy.

* * *

Them the enemy the Bad Guys the invaders (though how they’re invading planets that used to be theirs…but you don’t question that, do you, old woman? Not if you’ve got the sense you were born with) and worst the aliens. NotOfUs. The Others. Headless freaks, The Blob. Spooks, Dad called them. You’d think he’d've been less shitty, given the crap people in his own beloved military called him in his day, but I reckon there wasn’t much that’d make Dad be less shitty. Whatever they are, they can move easy through that thick weird air down there, and we can’t. We can protect our mining interests in vehicles and suits, missiles and lasers and bombs from space, but we can’t walk among them. And we can’t do what they can, use our minds as weapons, not directly. Neither of those things.

Well. I can, now.

* * *

The animal they bring me’s as high as my knee, as long as my body lying flat. It does have ears, little hollow dents. I wish I could reach through the clear glass or plastic and touch it, see if those are thin scales or strange fur, if it’s warm or cool against my own smooth skin. Its head is small, sharp-nosed, its legs short like a ferret’s, its back supple as a cat’s. Its gill-like orifices pulse gently. It looks at me through one nictating eye and then the next, turning its head like a bird. I can’t remember its scientific name; we’ve been calling it the catsnake, and it fits.

I look for the implants but they’re invisible, hidden in the scale-spike-fur. My own make my head throb, pried between the plates of my skull. I wonder if it’s afraid. I can see its sides expand and deflate slowly as it breathes; maybe it’s sedated. Lucky bugger.

we’re goingkkkkkto trythelinkage hhhhhere first, Romaan says. The existing link, the one through the computer, is working so much better now, though I’m still adjusting to (the illusion of) actually hearing words in my skull. Whatever part of my brain that input stimulates aches, a constant weird throb. I’d rather he just used my old text relay, but he’s too fucking proud of his invention. And I don’t want to look ungrateful, do I? That doesn’t look good for the cameras that’ve been trained on me these recent weeks, on and off, for this marvellous breakthrough: hearing to the deaf! Sight to the blind! Pick up thy bed, and walk!

This isn’t being filmed, though. The Service doesn’t like too many records of its little failures, and we’ve had too many of those in this long project. I’m very aware of that as I close my eyes, let them wire me up yet again, little clips and clamps, the vibrations that used to be my sound. I move my hands on the padded arms of my chair, feel-hear them run through me: bass throb, treble sting. Familiar and easing, beneath the godawful kkkkkHHHkkkkness they’ve given me.

And then, the linkage.

Not much at first: sharp little zap all through me, leaving a dull ache in my back teeth, heavy sort of throb in my balls that could almost be pleasure. And then—falling. Not like falling in dreams, not like the sick whirl when you miss a step (I remember that, so clearly), but vertigo, everything spinning, no up no down and nothing to hold onto (somewhere my fingers clench, but I can’t feel it, I can’t feel it, oh god the old paralysis, please no—) and darkness and lights all mixed and through the computer feed my own screaming fed back to me on and on and on, ringing through me so that I batter myself against glass, supple body thrashing helplessly between panes like a sample on a slide somehow living and aware, the noise must stop the noise must stop -

-and this is not my body and these are not my ears that hear, this is not-i and i together, pulse of gills and beat of strange slow blood. catsnake is this you, i, i-thou, we? catsnake is frightened, and so is aliye. hush, hush. rock-a-bye. you’re hurting us, we’re hurting us. see, the screaming has stopped. see, there through the distorting glass, the woman in the chair. when she smiles, there’s dimples. there, the slow breathing, the calming blood. i-thou-i, resting nested. nest-memory, slow weed-breathing thickness by the slow river’s bank, dark hole hollow, infant scale-skin against adult fur: so we are twice mother, thou and i? so I held my baby. how soft her tiny fingers were, her soft and dented skull! so; so. we are together.

-and then we are not, and I am in my chair with everything hurting and my fingers tearing at the implants, Romaan shouting kkkkkk and the catsnake thrashing panicked in its narrow tank. I get myself free and wheel myself across to it, press my hands against the glass. There are alarms somewhere: I can feel them. The film on its eyes is flickering fast in panic. I have never touched an animal that wasn’t human before—how strange it is that I still haven’t, when I’ve been in its bloody head! I wish I could hold it to me like the baby we remembered, touch its strange pelt.

So. Hush. Rock-a-bye. The prick of a needle in my neck, putting me to sleep. Rock-a-bye, Aliye, falling into vertigo-darkness. Rock-a-bye, catsnake. Silence all.

* * *

It’s months before we’re ready, catsnake and me. I’m never able to make it—her?—us?—understand what it is we’re doing, and I’m glad. It’s its planet down there, after all, that I’m going to be creeping over in its head, when it’s released, its planet that we’re filleting with mining gear in the cause of Need. There are less of them now than there used to be, I’m told: rivers dammed or dried, swamps drained, and a warzone besides. I wonder what became of the kits in the nest, the thick quiet hollow, if they died or throve. There’s no way to ask it. Its animal-brain works in now and glimpses, flashed sense-memory. We can’t communicate, not properly, though I can stir or soothe it in its glass box.

What’s it like to walk again, Mum? He does care so much, in his own way, doesn’t he, my Romaan, though he doesn’t understand a thing. Desperate to have given me that, like he tried to give me hearing I didn’t want, had never had. To have given it back, as if I ever ran on four stubby legs beneath a wiggly back and tasted electricity in the air. Blinked back through my text relay: It’s not so bad. It shuts him up, for a bit.

But there are always others: You must be so happy, Aliye. Ms Parlak, it must be so liberating for you. Will you tell our viewers what it’s like? No one fucking saying: "Well done, Aliye, you and your team’ve fucking cracked a military and scientific problem we’ve been working on for a couple of lifetimes, you genius woman. How does that feel?" Romaan’s shaking hands, accepting the awards. Saira would be furious with him, our son pushing me into the background like that. She would have understood, my Saira. She would.

I asked Romaan to turn off the noise. He didn’t want to—he’s been angry, the little shit—but he did it. Eventually. I suppose it hurts to have your mother reject what’s meant to be a gift,e ven an incidental one, a side-effect. He took it better when I explained it helped me with the catsnake, that its hearing from inside is strange and muffled, the underwater booms and bangs close to what I feel through skin and bone without my ears.

It’s got another sense, too, strange to me: electric zaps and tingles with nowhere to go, leaving it confused as I was in my vertigo. I’ve insisted they give it a bigger box, a tub of water to wallow in. It pings its electricity off the plastic sides of the tub and hums to itself constantly, a discontent whining thrum. Everyone in the lab’s starting to hate it. Bet they wish they could turn off their hearing now. They only get peace when we’re hooked up, it and me, curled together in memory-dark, sharing half-memory without words. Smell of a baby’s head, taste of riverweed and strange fish, Saira’s hands on my skin, sharp sweet jolt of a barbed dick inside us. I’m filling in all sorts of facts for the xenobiologists: they’re the ones who really love me now. Not sure what good it does anyone, this knowledge of a dying species on a torn-up world. Seem to be getting even more bitter these days, don’t I? And people think old ladies’re sweet.

* * *

And now. And now we’re going down. My body in close orbit, catsnake’s down to the surface. In the linkage still, and I’m caught in its confusion, the horrible pressure. Both of us screaming. Thick air of its tank shaking. Our bones are splitting—

—and then there is freedom, the wide soft air in which to run far and fast and then free of all the strangeness to leap and twist, dancing delighted loops under a double moon in doubled shadows, there is the river and its taste, familiar-unfamiliar home at last all full of whiskered things that swim and we are in the bottom-mud all stomach-wriggling hunting in hunger for the savour of real food after immeasurable incomprehensible long and homehomehome here an abandoned den to nest in all tail-over-nose and warm and safe parlakparlakyouhavetomoveit for time without measure in the slow warm dark.

parlak can you hear me. you have to move it. north-west, their camp is north-west.

in the slow. warm. dark.

parlak.

warmdarkwarmdarkwecan’thearyou

parlak. aliye.

no.

mum.

romaan? (catsnake confused: no names here.) (the kit, the kit that survived.) romaan. What?

go north-west, parlak. mum.

moving confused-obedient, body bending to the river. romaan like this? yes mum. deep drumming of machines. taste of metal in not-water, vibration, electricity all wrong. up out of the water, almost-voices, strange smells

there, parlak, there, we’re recording. go further in.

shapes moving, vast and almost-formless. not one looks at catsnake, another animal slinking along. ones closelike to catsnake chained up, yowling protest at intrusion. pets? guards? humans’ve never been this close. only glimpses on screens

lightblare sudden, handshapes reaching, sirens all piercing skin and it

hurtshurtshurt pull back pull back parlak get out they’ve detected our signaland PAINPAINPAIN whiter than light all bloodsmell and run go go go waterseeking dive deep engines on water vibrating following. bowels voiding sudden sharpwater stink. deeper twist and flee, swamps shallow and streams thin, up and over down again twisting, catsnake-and-woman flee flee flee and there is

so

much

pain.

darkplace found, hiding now. i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i did this to you, we did, the pain, i’m sorry. this is our fault, oh god, our fault. are we dying?

our belly hurts so very much

and then

…shhhh, otherperson, rider, it tells us without words. shhhh forget, come back to riverlair safe and sleep, safenest dark and silence shhh. come back to dreams of kitsandbabes, lullaby quietsoft sleep. shh now forever silence dreams, no more machine loudshouting no more the headvoice intruding mum and we are back in riverdeep mum metaltaste slipaway silence song and home to lair and we are back in rock-a-bye memory and we are mum we are we are we.

river is taste softdreaming always. remember whiskerfish crunch tasteonthetongue and home to lair, curl around. tail over noseyoursandmine, share again the memory of scaleskin and babysmell, little fingers counting lullaby sheep baabaablack and piggies gone to market. what pigssheep, otherself? and we show though we have never touched, share pictures once on screens of pink and woolly shape, otherworld wonder to us both. mothermother curled in dark, otherother nested minds together away from war

(what is war, otherself)

(hush, hisst, rock-a-bye quiet. goodbye to all that. glad I am to say it)

aliye, we have to break the linkage. that thing’s dying, we have to get you out. you have to wake up. aliye.

do you remember/we remember. this is the taste of parsley, catsnake/this is the winter dreaming, otherself. we remember. we. we do. (I will.)

kkkkkk

Mum. Mum kkkou alright?

fuck off, romaan. just—fuck off/// i told you before to turn that thing off/// go away. i’m done. i quit i quit. leave me be.

Rip the connections out of the metal holes in my skull, wheel away fast. Get away, get away (deeper twist and flee through swamp and river), nails prying at the implants, ripping pain but they won’t come out. I don’t want to hear or walk, not again, never wanted to, that stupid side effect of war-usefulness that I was supposed to love. I can’t I won’t. Not part of that world ever again (sorry Daddy not sorry), not used as a warmachine instrument, soft furscale or skin body (Saira Leish Persis me) become a weapon and lost.

Another voice forced on me all Parlak this is insubordination and courtmartial and lost her mind. I hunch down in riverdark memory and rock, as best I can. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Oh, my dead dear, forgive.

Arkady Martine

City of Salt

Originally published by Strange Horizons

* * *

In the month of Tammuz, Ammar came to the city of salt, for which there are no maps. He came on a camel, with his habitual azure scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth to keep off the dull rose dust, and he came alone. I watched his guide abandon him.

The guide would come no closer than the edge of the salt flat. He kept to the sand. He was careful with his toes. The city of salt is a trap. In the daylight, it reflects the desert sky so brightly it blinds travelers. At night it is worse: at night it reflects travelers back upon themselves. I stood on the eastmost wall, my hands wrapped around the iron spikes on the battlements, and I observed Ammar’s guide warn Ammar that he would surely die. My knuckles were white, I clutched so tightly. I had never thought to see him again.

Ammar has only been a coward once. He let the guide turn back, and set foot on the salt. I could have come to him then, appeared beside him taller than his camel and far more terrible, an apparition of bleached fingers with iron needles for teeth: the ghost of the mad king’s mage, his liar and illusionist, haunting the ruins of the city he’d ruled. A thing that eats trespassers.

Ammar wasn’t strictly a trespasser: once this had been his city too. When I pulled my hands from the spikes they were bruised, grey imprints spreading like fog across my palms.

How dare he come back, when all that was left of me was iron and kudzu?

I didn’t appear to Ammar. I followed him instead. The salt and the broken stones of the road were my eyes.

The city lay in the center of an oasis which had long gone dry, baked to nothing by the sun. The scent of dead oceans drifted across the still air, and the feet of Ammar’s camel crunched on the ground. The sky and the salt flats and the stones of the walls were all the same color, a blue burnt to white. Ammar followed the remains of the road without faltering. He kept his eyes on the gates. I do not think he saw me on the wall. I think he looked. I imagine he looked.

When he had crossed the entire hardpan of salt, he clambered from the saddle—was there ever a man who could do that gracefully? Ammar Safyazat, poet and minister and rider of desert-bred mares, elegant in every other fashion, had always lurched from camelback like anyone else—and tethered the animal. He came to the gate and put his hand flat on the great iron door where it hung askew. The gates of the city of salt are always open now. The back of Ammar’s hand was grey-brown and the veins stood out between his knuckles. He touched the door for a long time, leaning into it. Then he unwound the scarf from his face and he came inside the walls.

He was older. I ought not to have been shocked; I was older, too. He’d kept his cheekbones even though his mouth had thinned. The lines around his eyes were deep, and there was a sternness to him that I did not remember. But he walked through the plaza, stepping over the green ropes of kudzu vines that snaked through the tiles, and his footsteps were as steady as they’d been when he’d walked out. He left tracks of desert dust as he went. Having him within the city felt like having swallowed the grit from the center of a pearl.

"Sogcha," he called, as if he was standing outside the door to my rooms and I was late to a meeting with our king.

No one had called me by my name since before that king had died, so I threw the city at him.

The city’s lanterns lit themselves. They flared with heatless white fire and gusted pale smoke to blur the streets. Ammar stood very still, and I watched him draw his scarf up over his mouth again, as if he was unnerved to breathe such air. The vines across the stones rustled and twisted. They rose up out of the smoke, and they brushed Ammar’s ankles like the bellies of snakes might. He stepped back. They followed. Their thorns were iron, and I imagined they were my teeth.

He took a breath, the smoke pulling through the fabric over his lips and vanishing down his throat. Then he ran, out of the plaza and deeper into the city.

The city of salt was inhabited once, and had a name. It was navigable then. The king warped it around himself, and I helped him do it, and then he died of it, or of being too much himself, and now it is a maze.

Ammar ran. He dodged the spears which flew at him from the smoke and did not fall when the white tiles beneath his feet shattered to salt flakes. He avoided all the ways a man could tumble down stairs and land on metal spikes grown instantly to catch him at the bottom. He called for me twice. The second time he told me to stop, and I would not. He was closer to me than I thought he’d come. His running made him breathe hard. It filled his lungs with the smoke of the city.

I did not want him closer. The city was inside his chest: I spun him full of illusions, and he froze with his foot lifted between one step and the next.

* * *

Ammar concentrated on the acrid taste of the smoke. The taste was dangerous but it was also real.

In the innermost garden at the heart of the city there are two men: a bright one and a dark one, standing beside the fountain. The water runs over the tiles, floods the fountain’s lip, spills onto the ground. It vanishes. It drains. The ground drinks it and turns to dust under the dark man’s feet, and the dust spreads thirstily across the garden. It catches the heel of the bright man’s boot, the hem of his trousers. He becomes a statue, a mosaic of cracked skin that smiles. The cracks run through his teeth. They spread.

There was no smoke in the innermost garden. No white curls of air winding through Sogcha’s projected memory of what Nilaq had looked like when he had been king and all three of them had lived here. Ammar remembered him less bright. It had been a long time ago. He breathed: he breathed salt. He tried to step away from the fountain. He turned—

The dark man takes a step and enters the innermost garden. The air is smotheringly hot, a pressure on the skin. The fountain is dry. The sky is such a pale blue that it might as well be white. Breathing scorches the inside of his lungs. He struggles to heave his chest up and down. The sky cracks down the middle like a geode. The dead climb out. They carry iron spears, and they fall from the cloudless blue in regiments. The dark man holds a pennant and the dead crawl to him.

The air inside the city was night-chilled. Ammar saw the dead, marching. That never happened, he thought. He had refused to lead them. By refusing he left his city and his king. He tried to step away from the fountain. He turned—

The dark man enters the innermost garden. Jackal-headed men and women, kneeling, naked, gnaw on the stones of the fountain. They grind the cobbles to powder in their jaws. All their eyes are white.

Sogcha’s illusions always had signatures. A hook. A repeating motif. The garden, this time. The garden, and the open jaws of the dead. Ammar tried to step away from the fountain. He turned—

The fountain is a mouth of iron teeth in the face of a woman. It distorts. It bubbles. Vines boil out of it, green on green on green—

"Sogcha," Ammar said, somewhere in the green. His weight wass on his back foot and his front foot hadn’t hit the ground yet. His voice whistled in his throat and startled him. "How long are we going to do this?"

Green. Her face, in the fountain.

Ammar waited. The dead fell from the sky. He waited. He thought of where he had stood when he told Nilaq he was leaving. There was no fountain. The innermost garden was Sogcha’s place, not his—

His front foot hit the ground. He was in the city of salt, smoke-fogged. The streets spun around him, and resolved. This street was a boulevard once and it led to a tower. He took another step.

* * *

I let him find me.

He was as stubborn as I remembered him. I am not unreasonable. I am perhaps cruel, but I am not unreasonable, and I wanted—I wanted him to never have come, or to explain why he had. I let the street he stood on be the street that led to the observatory tower. The tower was a narrow spar, thin and marble and nearly a ruin, with delicate arches framing the topmost turret. I sat on a bench and stared through the archwork at the city and the salt flat. The horizon wavered, a blur of salt and sand and sky, stained white-pink with false dawn.

I waited while Ammar trudged up the stairs. I made myself look like myself. The usual number of teeth. The standard arrangement of limbs.

He sat next to me. There was a handsbreadth between us. He looked where I was looking, instead of saying hello.

"Why are you here, Ammar?" I asked him.

He took a long time answering. I expected him to have had something rehearsed. But what he said was, "I came for you. Surely there’s little enough reason for you to remain in this city now that Nilaq is dead."

I said, "I knew you were a coward, but I didn’t think you’d become a scavenger as well."

He still didn’t look at me; he looked down at his hands, empty in his lap. It was as good as a flinch. "I wouldn’t call you carrion scraps," he said.

"Would you not?" I stood, and walked to the battlements. The stone beneath my feet changed to metal spikes, white-hot with growing. They didn’t pierce me. We were of a substance. I put my bruised palms flat on the ledge, like Ammar’s hand on the gate, and looked out at the salt flat where the city’s oasis had been. When Nilaq had called the dead to march toward that horizon, they were not dead enough. They wept as they marched. They were admirable, in how they threw themselves onto the swords and the cannons of our enemies, waiting to be rendered unusable save for jackals. After they were bones the salt came and the city dried and burned.

I said, "You took your time, coming back. Were you waiting for it to be safe? It is not safe here. Didn’t your guide warn you?"

"He did," said Ammar, milk-mild.

I asked, "Or were you ashamed?"

"I am not ashamed of leaving," Ammar said. I turned to face him and he met my eyes. One corner of his mouth turned up, a smile like biting into a sour citrus. "I meant to do it. But I’m sorry that I didn’t make you come with me."

I am the jackal gnawing on the bones of the city; I am the city, being devoured. I stayed. I earned it. "I would never have gone."

His hand flickered against my waist, as if he could pull me to lean against him. I caught him around the wrist. His skin was warm. I had forgotten how it felt.

"Sogcha," Ammar said. He blistered under my fingers. I was iron and the sun and the point of a spear, but he did not pull back. "I came back for what can be salvaged."

I tossed him away from me. Where I’d touched him his flesh was a raw ring, right above the wristbone. I thought it might scar like a brand.

* * *

The flesh on Ammar’s forearm burned and bubbled. Up close, Sogcha was nearer to the fable his guide had told him than Ammar wanted her to be. When he’d left she’d been a woman, argumentative and canny, Nilaq’s favorite raconteur. Now, incensed, she fought him like a cobra. Her mouth unhinged and she spat illusions from between sharpened boneshard teeth. Each regurgitation began as a bundle of white shadow bound around with kudzu, and then unfolded to stand on man-shaped limbs. The illusions all wore Ammar’s face, and they all carried Ammar’s sword, drawn and pointed at his throat. Sogcha stood behind their semicircle, her ribs heaving from having coughed them up.

"I am only me," she said. "There were a hundred thousand people in our city. You should have tried to salvage them, if salvage means so much to you."

"One man, against all Nilaq’s dead legions, and his illusionist too?"

She was never much of a duelist, Ammar thought before the shadow-doubles closed, but she hardly needed to be one, with six identical versions of his own face—a face he had not seen reflected for twenty years—to terrify him. They all moved like dancers. He wondered if she thought he had ever been that elegant. He was bound by gravity and musculature. The doubles walked on the air.

Behind them, Sogcha called, "Surely whoever you ran to would have given you an army just for the asking. Ammar Safyazat! Prince amongst ministers! Poet and general! You must have been a prize."

His scarf slipped from his neck when he drew his sword. "Not everyone is Nilaq," he said.

"Not every king loved you," she said.

"No. Only one."

The doubles dived like hawks.

Ammar had been a swordsman of some renown, once. He sliced the belly of one double, pierced the breast of another. Where he struck them they oozed a grey-grained sludge that smelled of salt. Where they struck him, he bled.

He’d wondered if he would. Her hand on his wrist had been fire.

She could have made the stones separate between his feet, or made him think they had. The fall would be the same either way. But all she did was watch the doubles swarm and drive him backward around the tower in a slow circle which never reached the stairs. The battlements were always to his left, the bench always to his right, even as he retreated. He was leaving a long track of red footprints between him and Sogcha. It would be dawn soon, the sky paling to the same salty grey as the blood of the doubles.

If he was going to die, he was at least at home.

* * *

The second time Ammar went to one knee and struggled up again, blank-faced with a determination that I could not distinguish from his prior grace, I put my bare feet in the bloody prints he’d left between us and dismissed my shadows one by one as I went. I took the sword from the last of them. It was a weightless memory in my hand. I pointed it at Ammar’s throat, lifted up his chin with its edge.

He let me, as he hadn’t let the shadows.

"Are you trying to die?" I asked.

He shut his eyes and opened them again, less a blink than a slow acquiescence. "Not trying," he said.

A bleak and razing anger rose in me like bile and consumed itself before it could burn my tongue. "Letting me kill you won’t make up for anything," I said.

"I never thought it would," he said. "Sacrifice for a cause was always more your disposition than mine."

I sliced his cheekbone open with the point of the sword rather than slit his throat. He didn’t move. He hardly flinched. The blood beaded up slowly.

"Are you going to kill me, then?" he asked, as if we were having a conversation of no great consequence.

If I were going to, I should have done so then. I said, "Nilaq should have."

"Probably," Ammar said. "But I think he wanted me to come back as much as you do."

"I didn’t want you to come back at all," I protested.

Ammar stepped back, away from the sword. It wasn’t heavy; it was a fiction. My arm ached from holding it anyhow. "Where is he? Our king."

"Dead," I said. "Didn’t your guide tell you? The mad king, dead in his empty city, his bones turning to salt." I rested the tip of the sword between two of the flagstones. Slowly, the steel darkened and thickened, becoming iron from the tip upward.

"My guide said more about the ghost of his mage, and how she eats visitors."

"I don’t," I said.

Ammar raised an eyebrow at me.

"Much," I amended. "I don’t need to."

"Sogcha," he said. "What do you need?"

For my king to be alive. For breathing people to walk the city of salt and call it by some human name again. For Ammar to have died happily in another kingdom, far away from me.

"Impossible things," I said.

"So do I," said Ammar.

I turned away from him. The sun was rising. In two hours the desert would be hot enough to leech moisture from a tongue in a closed mouth. Ammar came up beside me, so we stood shoulder to shoulder.

After some time, he said, "Leave with me when I leave. Come with me and tell the city I live in about the city that I miss. I think you remember it better than I do, now."

Such things were also impossible.

"This city would come with me," I said. "This city, and the desert around it, and the salt that falls from the sky and grows out of the ground. I would turn your camel to kudzu and if we walked all my footsteps would leave iron. When we reached your new city I would open my mouth and speak white fire, and no one living would remember when this place was made of gardens, no matter what I said."

Carefully, Ammar laced his fingers through mine. "What should I take away with me, if not you?" he asked.

Ammar Safyazat had only been a coward the once.

"Come with me," I said. "I’ll show you."

* * *

The innermost garden was dry, the fountain caked white with excrescences that smell like the sea. Ammar stood with his hand in the taloned hand of a creature more shade than woman. Since their duel, Sogcha was taller, as if she had been stretched. Her teeth were as pointed as her fingernails, sharp-tipped iron arrows. She didn’t smile so much as draw her mouth apart, wryly, and point to where she had gathered a great pile of ash and salt and bone, at the base of the fountain, like a cairn.

Scraps of cloth, as blue as his scarf, still clung to some of the ribcages—the few which had not dissolved under the alien sky of this city now.

"Eventually they will be gone," Sogcha said. "Just ash and salt, and then the vines will come."

"When did you start collecting them?" Ammar asked.

"After Nilaq died," Sogcha said. She leaned close. Her hair brushed his cheek and every strand stung a line of fire. "He’s at the bottom. Crown and scepter and standard wrapped around him for a shroud. I tried, Ammar."

"Yes," Ammar said. "I think you did."

She detached herself from his hand with exquisite care. When she knelt and cupped a palmful of the cairn, her skin was the same unnatural white as the salt crystals.

"Take them," she said. "Bury them in soil."

He wondered whether, if he did so, she would fold up within the city of salt and the two of them, woman and city, would simply vanish.

What he said was, "I can’t carry them all."

"I doubt you need to," said Sogcha. "Give me your scarf."

He did. In her fingers it glowed like a star, an impossible richness of color. She wrapped her handful of ash and bone chips in it and tied a graceful knot.

"Go home, Ammar," she said, passing it back to him.

He was home. There was no such place.

"I miss you," he said, out of not knowing how to say goodbye.

"Good," said Sogcha.

* * *

Ammar came to the city of salt in the month of Tammuz, and he took with him no maps when he went out again. All the doors of the city are open now, every gate ajar. I watched him go. He crossed the hardpan on foot, leading his camel. When I could no longer see him, I thought of gardens, and I rested my head on the white stone of the battlements, and waited to see if it would rain.

When The Fall Is All That’s Left

Apex Magazine 77

* * *

For Gabriele, gravity had ended. She spun unmoored, drifting in the outgassing light that spilled from the star she’d flown though. Her orbit deteriorated slowly. The skin of her hull was pockmarked and blistered, bubbled with plasma burns. What remained of her telemetric instruments was melted dross, cooling slowly from white to sullen red. Where she had known gravity, conjured through spin and mathematics, there was a hollowness inside her mind: a colorless blank, not formed enough to even register as dark.

"Like aphasia," she explained to Iris in the pilot’s den. "A missing word with a shape I remember and can talk around."

Iris floated, tethered by her ankle to the console with a torn-off length of electrical cabling, her pale hair a rough halo around her skull. Some of it had come loose from her scalp and was drifting alongside her. Nevertheless, under the simple electromagnetic spectrum of Gabriele’s internal vision, she appeared whole. The initial signs of damage were small and superficially within parameters: bruised hollows under her eyes, a scattering of purpura rising to the surface of the visible skin of her throat and chest in a clutch of reddish dissolving capillaries.

"So we’ve got no telemetry left at all," Iris said.

"No gravity, no telemetry. Hardly anything but propulsion," said Gabriele. "I flew you through a star. Does it matter where we ended up afterwards?"

"Only if we wanted to identify our position in a distress beacon." Iris reached out a hand, stroked the dark console with fingers that trembled. "Which would defeat the purpose of flying through a star in the first place. Did we lose them, Gabriele?"

Long-range scan was as gone as gravity, and aside from the solar glow of the star Gabriele had torn through with her passage, local space was silent enough to her instruments' dead metal. She said, "Yes, Captain," and when Iris shut her eyes in relief, Gabriele was glad to not know with more specificity. Their pursuers had surely seen them dive in past the star’s corona. At the moment of plunging, Gabriele had expected their survival to be symbolic at best. In the terrible stretched time which had followed, of which Gabriele remembered chiefly the compression of hundreds of atmospheres and the burn as one quantum possibility after another sloughed away, she had grasped ever more feebly at instrumentation and blind luck to bring them through. Any hunter that remained to see if she’d succeeded had more faith in her astronavigation than Gabriele did herself. Now she wasn’t sure if she should be pleased to have managed it or terrified that she hadn’t managed it well enough to matter—but terror was still distant, a thing of the flesh not a thing of the ship.

When Iris smiled, Gabriele could see how blood had begun to seep from her gumline. Her entire mouth must taste of salt and iron. Iris swallowed rather than spit; globules of blood and saliva would only contaminate the pilot’s den, and Iris was space-born: Gabriele knew she knew better. "Well then," Iris said. "Here’s to being free women for the rest of our lives."

Gabriele spun enough light to render a visible image of herself: a transparent version of her body as Iris would remember it, tall and red-haired and narrow through the ribs and at the wrists. She appeared sitting, cross-legged on the console next to the manual controls only solid hands could operate, the starfield gleaming through her. She raised a can of beer in Iris’s direction, a sloppy toast in a physical language she only half-recalled. "Here’s to the next twenty minutes, Captain."

"For a spaceship, you are incredibly morbid."

"I was morbid before I was a spaceship," Gabriele said. "Being a spaceship has nothing to do with it."

"You flew me through a star," said Iris. "This would have been functionally impossible before you were a spaceship."

Gabriele made her image laugh: the head thrown back, the line of the throat exposed and open, the shoulders shaking. "Captain, if it wasn’t a star it would have been something else. If we were both still human it’d have been a hoverbike off the edge of a cliff."

Iris said, still smiling, "That one’d be a faster fall." The whites of her eyes had gone pinky-red and a trickle of blood ran from her left nostril, beading in the air. "Cell damage is damn slow."

If her fingers had been tangible instead of composed of light, Gabriele would have reached out and touched Iris on the wrist, stilled her, reeled her in on her tether. "Twenty minutes is not slow," she said. "Weren’t we supposed to get out of this alive?"

"One of us still could," said Iris.

"Captain," Gabriele said, "Iris—even if I had a cargo hold full of blood and bone marrow to transfuse you with—which I don’t—"

"Vitamins and clean living aren’t enough to get me through the level of exposure I just got, I know."

It was comforting that Iris had said it first. Gabriele nodded, shrugged her image’s shoulders apologetically.

"I estimate," Iris went on quite deliberately, her eyes fixed on some middle distance, "based on how much my head hurts and the degree of nausea I am experiencing, that of our twenty minutes I’ve got ten before I’m in the kind of neurological distress that won’t be any good to you at all. Seizures, cognitive incapacity, coma, etcetera."

Gabriele held out translucent hands to Iris on long-unused bodily instinct. Then, ashamed, she vanished them along with the arms they were attached to and most of the torso, leaving her a sketch of legs, a hip, a face dissolving in the light.

One half of Iris' mouth quirked upward. "Hey, Gabe," she said. "It won’t be that bad, I think."

"Kind of disagree, Captain," Gabriele said.

"Come on," Iris told her, twisting to untether herself with shaking hands. "Just 'cause I’m dealing with a couple thousand radians of exposure at least doesn’t mean you’re going to die."

"Floating in dead space without telemetry and watching over your corpse while my orbit degrades sounds like the highlight of my experience as a ship, yeah. Thought I might speed it up a little. Dive back into the star. Afterward."

Iris pushed off the console and floated down the short hallway between the pilot’s den and the cabinet where the guts of the ship lived, safe behind paneling designed to keep out as much cosmic radiation as possible. A small cloud of blood swirled into a perfect sphere in her wake. "Yeah, that sounds pretty grim," she said. "It’s a stupid plan. We wanted to be free. Open your hatch, would you?"

At Gabriele’s command the cabinet unfolded like a flower. Beneath were wires and cabling, a deep nest of circuitry. Iris stared at it for nearly a minute. "Damn, you’re a long way down in there," she said.

"You can’t fix the telemetry by rearranging my circuitry by hand, Captain," said Gabriele. "Even if you had ten hours and not ten minutes."

"Not quite what I had in mind," said Iris, and then abruptly spun herself around to vomit strings of blood and bile, hunched around her abdomen in midair.

"Iris—" Gabriele said, panicked and loud on every speaker.

Iris huddled in on herself, scrubbing the back of her hand across her mouth. The pressure left bruises, a streak of purple across her cheekbone. "Fuck. Okay. Gabe, honey, I’ve got a question for you."

Anything. "Ask me."

"Back when we met on the station. When we were kids. You used to pilot with just math and your fingers on a joystick."

"Yeah," Gabriele said. "I did. It’s why they let me be a ship—"

"Best scores in the sector, I knew you’d remember."

"I remember."

"You think you can do it again?" Iris plunged her hands into the circuitry and began pulling it aside in great bundled heaps. A thousand alarms sounded in what remained of Gabriele’s systems, but she silenced every one, relegated them all to the absence where gravity had been.

"What do you mean," she asked.

"When I get you out of the cabinet, Gabe. If I unplug you. Can you fly the ship without being the ship? There’s starcharts and manual override. You’d just need to do the math."

Iris' fingers inside the circuits left wet patches, shorts and sparks. Gabriele realized that her fingernails must be bleeding. "I—Iris. Captain. I—"

"Yes or no? We do not have time for maybe-but-I’m-panicking. You’re a spaceship. You’re not supposed to be able to panic anyhow."

"You’re about to unspaceship me and die," Gabriele said. "I think I’m entitled to panic."

"Yes or no, honey."

The blank space that had been gravity yawned; its edges were wider than before, and Gabriele did not have words for what it might have already devoured of her, or what might be left if her human body was removed from the slow-cascading failure of the ship.

"I don’t know," she said.

The sound Iris' lungs made when she sighed was raw and fluid-filled, ending in a cough. "Figure it out while I get you free, then," she said, and plunged her hands wrist-deep into the wires, tearing.

The coffin Gabriele’s old body was entombed in was reinforced plexiglass and lead-coated steel, perforated with wires and plastic tubing. It was hardly longer than her body had been tall, and held the flesh she’d worn paralyzed in a permanent, barely-living stillness. The eyes she used to see Iris bring it up into the light were ship’s eyes, cameras and infrared-scopes: to those it was entirely foreign, never before visible. It was smaller than Gabriele thought of herself to be, and more fragile, even bounded around with protective radiation shielding: a seed at the heart of the ship she was, and nothing more.

The automatic functions of the ship were located in the wires that Iris was unplugging from the coffin, and in the physical mainframe that surrounded it. The body that had become the ship was merely wetware, useless for keeping an entire star-traversing machine in good function; human neurobiology was not complex enough to host the vast quantum-particle circuitry that faster-than-light travel required. But it was by virtue of her sentient observing mind that Gabriele could pick out a thousand ship-generated possible paths the one which would subsume the others and become real. Looking at the coffin now, at the curled and bony flesh within it, she thought of it as a hand or a foot, a useful part of herself that did not and could not possibly contain her consciousness.

Iris, grey-green and breathing in rapid gasps, swiped her hand through the last of the wires on the top of the coffin and unlatched it. Gabriele’s camera-eyes went dark; she saw nothing, felt nothing, reached for the idea of sight and found it as impenetrable as gravity.

"Gabe," said Iris, thickly. "Gabe, can you hear me?"

"I can hear you," Gabriele said, and did not know what speaker she spoke out of.

There was a squelching wet touch on the back of her neck.

Waking to the flesh was a startling horror. Gabriele was one long scream of useless tissue, still pinned by the largest cable rooted to the base of her skull, a blind sack of desiccate guts. She felt the ship that she was as it whirled around her, unsynced and in falling orbit, and then slipped entirely separate, a seed squirted out from a mouth.

The sound of retching brought her hearing; the feel of Iris' hands sliding clumsily over her cheek and unscrewing the cable bolted to her neck brought her touch. Gravity was still over. She floated free of the coffin and opened her eyes to an inchoate blur, a sweep of colors and the light pouring into the ship from the stars outside.

Some of the blur resolved into Iris, slumped next to the cabinet, floating with her head bowed over her knees. Gabriele tried to maneuver herself through the air, come closer to her. Her flesh strained for oxygen, heaved its lungs for her sake, trembled her hands.

"Oh," said Iris. "It did work." Her voice slurred.

With new-claimed lungs, Gabriele said, "Captain—"

Iris did not respond. Gabriele reached out, brushed her fingers along the line of bruises stretching from the corner of Iris’s mouth to her hairline. More of her hair came loose at the touch.

"Goddamnit," Gabriele said. And then, "Can I panic now?"

"Wait a day," Iris said. "After—after you get somewhere new. Would be ideal."

"I’m sorry," Gabriele said. "I could put you in the coffin—it might keep you alive long enough—"

Iris did not laugh or open her eyes. Blood leaked from her tearducts while she smiled, while she shook her head. Gabriele could imagine it was a seizure tremor and not a negation, could hope with the rush of hope that wearing flesh allowed; but for the memory of having been her Captain’s ship, she did not.

"We got out almost clean," she said instead, and took Iris’s hand. "I’m going to pour you so many drinks before someone shoves me into another ship—" Her fingers squeezed.

She lasted twenty-nine minutes, which was nine more than she ought to have.

Afterward, Gabriele went to the console and stretched out her hands into the light. She could no longer feel the space where gravity had been. She had lost that with the ship. Slowly, she found the manual controls. She turned toward the empty places between the stars and began to move.

Adjuva

Wandering creates the desert.

Edmond Jabès

Lakeside Circus, Issue 2 Volume 1

* * *

Michel dreams the dead at Antioch again.

They rise unbidden by any word but God’s, with their wounds still gaping, each one weeping as if it were a saint’s reliquary. They still have their weapons. The sand stirred up by the living feet of what remains of their army drifts through them on the wind, leaks out their eyes and haloes them with a grace that Michel can barely remember. The walls of the citadel are mercilessly high, impossible to scale without ladder and rope, and still blistering with the sun-wizened faces and glittering spears of the Turks. The dead do not care. The dead care only for the crusade, for God and His Will. They die a thousand times over again. They are inexorable, an untimely and uncalled-for resurrection, and Michel cannot remember enough of the shape of deus lo volt to fill his mouth with, stumbles on deus adjuva instead, instinctive, remembered, God aid us, help us, help me—

He wakes up parched, his mouth full of desert dust, spilling out the corners of lips too chapped to bleed.

He spits.

It doesn’t in the slightest help.

Outside, it is raining, sheets of droplets puckering the surface of the Bosporus. There is no way save providence or deviltry that Michel is still alive; by the looks of the city beyond the window it is the year of our Lord two-thousand-something-with-skyscrapers, approximately enough, and he remembers being a man already thirty when first the pilgrim knights came into the desert that is Jerusalem.

Thomas is sitting crosslegged on the windowseat. Despite the steaming of his cup of tea, he has not moved an inch in the night. He is like Michel’s very own personal gargoyle, except less inclined to keep foul spirits away.

"Entreaties hardly ever work," Thomas says, and inhales the tea-steam. It fogs up his glasses and smells of bergamot all the way across the room.

Michel rolls over in the bed and considers shoving his head underneath the pillows and ceasing to breathe. "And you would know this how?" he asks.

"Long experience," says Thomas. "As well as trial and error."

Michel inhales air through his nose, tasting the luxury of humidity. "Mostly error, from over here."

"You’re the one who keeps asking for help," Thomas says, arch, and then sighs. His teacup rattles in its saucer. "I just want to get things right. Where are we this time?"

"Istanbul," Michel says. "Again. Look out the window, you idiot."

Thomas puts the tea down. "Sorry," he says. The Golden Horn curves itself peaceably enough outside the glass behind him. The tops of the new construction in Taksim glitter in the rain. "I was watching you destroy the sheets."

"Perverse."

"Sympathetic. Sacked or not sacked?"

"What, the sheets?"

"Constantinople. You’re deliberately obtuse."

"Istanbul. So, yes, sacked, but not currently. Looks perfectly fine from here, nothing falling apart I can see, up with the AK Parti—"

Thomas flicks tea droplets at him from his fingertips. He never burns himself, which is the least of the ways he is infuriating. "Do shut up," he says. "It’s a crossroads, Istanbul."

"It’s the center of the goddamn world, Thomas. Which is why we keep ending up here. That, and it being the most direct route from Europe to the Outremer—"

Thomas interrupts him. "You can’t call it the Outremer any longer, not if we’re in the twenty-first century this go-round, it’s gauche. As well as orientalist."

"Kindly spare me from the idea that you’ve spent the night reading critical theorists. I wasn’t aware that you could get that bored."

"It isn’t as if you were here to keep me company. You went to Antioch all alone."

"And woke us up in the twenty-first century, apparently. In which you can make use of all that postmodernism."

"Critical theory is not boring," Thomas protests. He seems more concerned with this than with how he and Michel have arrived again at the beginning of the crusade, the entire journey undone again.

Michel struggles up on his elbows. "Thomas," he says. "Are you capable of boredom?"

"Nearly a millennium, and I’m still here with you. What do you think?"

The rain that drips down the windows casts rippling shadows on the ceiling over the bed. The frame of Thomas' glasses glints like feldspar in the dimness, and Michel cannot quite make out his expression.

"Let me sleep?" Michel asks.

"You’ll dream."

"I’m dead."

"Hardly makes a difference."

* * *

This is how an army starves itself: there are not enough villages between Anatolia and anywhere else to glut ten thousand pilgrims on, even if each one did not come with his very own sword and the promise of heaven if only he could figure out what to stick it into. In another life, Michel tells himself, he will understand supply lines. This is not supposition but fact. In another life, he does.

Marching dissolves the boiled leather of his boots and bakes the hair on his head bone-white. His ribs have enormous swooping hollows underneath them. There is salt caked at the corners of his eyes and he does not remember crying, or having enough moisture inside himself to cry. Marching also translates him from this world to a finer one, remakes him and each of his companions in fire, and if marching takes them through a Hell borne from the plains of Megiddo, so be it, if it brings them at last to the gates of a Heavenly Jerusalem rather than to the earthly one—

"You’re being self-indulgent again," says Thomas.

"Oh fuck you," Michel says. He turns around, spreads his arms wide like wings. "Look at me. I’ve been dragging my ass from Constantinople to Jerusalem for eight months—"

"Eight centuries. You’d think we’d learn."

"Well, forgive me if I’d like to get there once in my miserable existence."

Thomas pokes him, delicately, on the shoulder. His fingers are skinny and go right through Michel’s shirt, which is sapphire blue and polyester-cotton blend, and thus an abomination to the Lord but not to GQ Magazine. "Mortification of the flesh?"

"This is my dream. If I want to walk through an apocalypse, I will."

"Accidental apocalypse," Thomas mutters. "When Alexios Komnenos asked us to show up he just wanted a bunch of mercenaries."

The road they’re on is going to be Highway O-21 whenever the government in Ankara gets around to building a connection between Aksaray and Tarsus. Right now it’s paved and that’s all that can be said for it. The sun reflects up off the asphalt.

"Let’s leave the Byzantines out of it. We’re not here for them. I went on this trip because of the sermon at Claremont."

Thomas laughs at him. "Whoever shall determine upon this holy pilgrimage and shall make his vow to God, offering himself to Him as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable: he shall wear the sign of the cross of the Lord on his forehead or on his breast?"

"Urban was good at what he did," Michel protests, without much rancor.

"Too bad he didn’t want to come along."

"Why, Thomas," says Michel. When he’s got Thomas staring at him through the lenses of his glasses, he crosses himself, grins, gestures toward the bleached-blue desert Heaven that shines down on them both. "Of course I’m not on Crusade. There’s not sufficient penance in this world or the next to save my soul from Hell."

Thomas, gratifyingly, flinches.

* * *

Michel is inside the citadel.

The infidel is outside.

This recent reversal of fortunes would not be quite as funny as he currently finds it if the selfsame infidel did not have a sufficient supply of food, an item which Michel, along with all the ragged forces of Bohemond and Raymond d’San-Guilles, entirely lacks. They have starved Antioch into submission; they have taken the city four days prior, with the help of a lie and an army of the dead given back to them by the Lord, and here within this citadel they shall starve, sundazzled and besieged, surrounded by Turks and madmen.

There’s an army risen from the barren sand outside the walls, as if someone had planted dragon’s teeth in the dust. Turks are all that would grow here. There’s no water for anything else.

Thomas—Thomas proper, Thomas as Michel first met him, resplendent in a dusty bloodstained tunic and matted hair, the light of blind fervor and nothing else in his grey eyes, gets down on his knees next to Michel and says "God is testing our resolve." He makes the sign of the cross. He is facing Jerusalem. In this first moment he lacks everything that Michel will learn about him in the centuries to come: despair, and cleverness, and the inhumanity of either a devil or a saint.

This is a terrible dream. It is never over.

Michel is surrounded by madmen. Perhaps he is also mad. If the Crusade has claimed Antioch with the weapons and the bodies of their own dead, perhaps he has also died.

He would have crawled on his belly in the sand until he scrubbed his skin raw, for the sake of Jerusalem; if only he had not promised his body to God as well, and been used thereby!

How else has he arrived here inside of Antioch, other than resurrection out of season?

* * *

He fights off blind panic by talking to God, whether or not God is listening, which He really should be, considering that this army—that each iteration of this army—has been arrayed for His Glory and His Heavenly City. He paces the walls of the citadel, making himself a perfect target for arrows. There are no arrows in this century. Arrows would be too easy.

Thomas, who has never been God, takes his hand by the wrist and makes him sit still. Michel sinks down next to him and leans on his shoulder. Thomas hates when he does that, and has said so. Thomas hates it, and this time he brings his hand up to pat Michel’s hair gingerly, so Michel throws every sort of caution to the wind: if Thomas is being kind to him, he must be being exceptionally pathetic this time around. Perhaps pathos will get him closer.

"The Jerusalem we could get," he says, "the conquerable one, the one that’s full of people, the one that’s got buses that get suicide-bombed and Hebrew University and the Dome of the Rock, that one’s all so much impossible dross." He spits the words. Dross. Like dust, it clings to his lips.

"Have you earned the heavenly one?" Thomas asks him.

Michel will receive the heavenly Jerusalem when he finally succumbs to famine and the perfect entrapment of this citadel and his siege of it, which is to say never—but what he says is, "Would I be here if I had? That’s a stupid question, Thomas."

Thomas shrugs, his shoulder moving against Michel’s cheek. "I’m here. I keep being here."

"If you’re trying to tell me that you’ve managed to cast off this earthly prison—"

"Absolved I’m not," Thomas says.

Michel mutters, "Good."

"Our hands," Thomas says, "when we were here at the beginning, our hands were covered with the blood of this city and every city we ever passed through and devoured, in Thrace and Dacia and Anatolia—"

"Predation, deprivation," Michel says with false brightness.

"Betrayals and deceits," Thomas corrects him, "but in the service of the Lord, and I thought—why not? Maybe we’d get to Jerusalem and it would be Heaven after all."

"We found the Holy Lance here," says Michel. "Didn’t we? Bartholomew dug it up from a ditch behind the nave in the Cathedral of St. Peter, he was just a monk, I remember—he dug in the dirt until his fingers bled and he was in rags and they might as well have been cloth-of-gold—"

"You dreamed that."

"We all dreamed that."

"And we marched out against the Turk the next day and it didn’t matter if we lived or died, is that the story you want to tell?" Thomas stares at the paved stone of the citadel wall between his feet. His shoes are wingtip oxfords and not scuffed enough for the walking they’ve done.

"It didn’t matter because we were already dead," Michel says. "And already risen."

"In the forgiving heart of God."

Michel holds his hands out, turns them palm-up, palm-down. They are grey, wizened, windblasted and decaying. "Right here and right now."

Thomas stands up, so fast that he leaves Michel listing violently sideways. He refuses to look at Michel in his true bodily state; instead he stares at the sky as if it was actually Heaven.

"This is wrong," Michel says. His tongue is a desiccated slug of muscle, dry and drying in his mouth. The skin across his cheeks cracks with the effort, and the desert air pours through the stringy shards of what remains. "Maybe we should have come by ocean—"

Thomas interrupts him. "That is a worse story," he says, too fast, stumbling over the words. "In that one, we glut ourselves on silver marks and set the Library of Constantinople on fire and desecrate—everything, Michel—" He stops talking. In the silence afterward, Michel thinks they both have stopped breathing, the fiction of the necessity of air at last exposed as a pretense.

It is a long time before Michel can find the will within himself to ask, abject, "What am I supposed to do differently?"

Slowly, Thomas turns to face him. "Why do you think I know?" he asks. He has become transparent. The sand on the wind blows through him, strikes against Michel’s face.

* * *

Rain is falling into the Bosporus, harder, a rush of pattering sound. Michel opens his eyes. The dust pours from his mouth as if it is chrism and he is the reliquary. He blinks, and blinks, and finds Thomas, kneeling at the side of the bed.

"How does one," Michel says, his voice crackling, "stop from wanting Heaven."

Thomas is gathering the dust in printless fingers, making a pile of it on the sheet. He looks up at Michel, and Michel thinks the cast of his mouth is hopeful. He can’t be sure. Hopeful is not one of Thomas’s standard expressions.

Thomas says, "Patience."

He will make a charm of the desert-dust, a sympathetic compass. Michel imagines it around his neck in a philter, and shudders. "That is not enough. Desire also is patient."

"Perhaps so is God."

"Then there would be some reachable equality. I dreamed all of the dead —" He stands. He goes to the window, opens it, shoves his hands—whole, unmarked flesh—through the narrow gap. The rain on his palms smells of nothing but water.

"And this is the center of the world. You are not cast out so very far, Michel."

He makes a cup of his hands, allows the rain to pool in it.

When he turns around Thomas is waiting for him, standing at his shoulder and holding out his coat over one arm. His face remains in that hesitant, unsettled state that Michel doesn’t have a name for.

"We ought to go," he says.

Michel thinks of the road, stretching endless before them; the mirage of the holy city, ephemeral in the desert. "Better question, Thomas. Will we stop?"

"Which recension of us do you want to tell?"

Michel tips his cupped hands over and lets what he had gathered fall in indistinguishable rivulets onto the carpet. Emptied, the vessel of his palms feels transmuted, slick without water.

Thomas encloses his palms in his own, as if he is grateful, and smiles.

Kim May

Blood Moon Carnival

Fiction River: Alchemy and Steam, edited by Kerrie Hughes

* * *

I sat on the swing in my gold birdcage, backstage. Only a sapphire curtain separated me from the chattering audience—another full house by the sound of it. My crimson wings twitched in impatience. I wanted this night to be over.

Two clockwork men stood nearby, their mechanical workings clicked and clacked as they waited for the music cue to wheel her on stage. The Ringmaster wouldn’t trust real men near me. He feared I would entrance them with my voice. It’s not an ability that I’ve ever possessed and even if I did the brass collar around my neck would have prevented the phenomenon.

As if bidden by the thought, the needle embedded in the collar struck. The sharp prick had me tugging on the collar. No matter how hard I pulled the needle still punctured my neck, injecting my nightly dose of the serum that dampened my abilities. Specifically it prevented me from fully transforming and escaping this exhibitionary hell.

I never should have ventured into the world of men. If I’d stayed on my mountain I wouldn’t be trapped in this form—half human, half phoenix. I should have accepted the fact that Aiden had vanished and left it at that. Mother was right. Loving a mortal brought nothing but pain and hardship. If only The Ringmaster would let me die so I could join Aiden in whatever oblivion he had wandered into.

Behind me, Ephyra snarled at something offstage. I turned to see what provoked the tawny Sphinx.

The Ringmaster stepped out of the wings. Tonight he wore a canary yellow jacket with sequined tails and cuffs paired with midnight blue trousers, a tasteful combination compared to some. As always he wore a black satin top hat with his sign embroidered on it in silver and gold: a half moon with the sun emerging from the dark side. His thin moustache made his mouth appear as if he were perpetually frowning. The shadows clung to his shoulders like a cloak. It was a simple, elemental trick, a draining one that could kill a novice. The Ringmaster was certainly no novice, but he usually didn’t waste his power on overt displays.

“No need to show your parlour tricks to us, Sorcerer,” I said, knowing the incorrect label would irk him.

He rapped his gold tipped staff on the bars. The large, black stone in the hilt glowed blue—an ominous sign. “You watch your tongue, birdie. There’s a blood moon tonight. Step one toe out of line and my control may slip.” The Ringmaster parted the curtain. “Blood will fall tonight and it would be a shame if it were yours,” he said before stepping out onto the stage.

I shivered. I couldn’t tell if it was out of fear, or anticipation. Perhaps both.

Ceyleen, the mermaid, poked her head out of her glass tank. Her long blonde hair fanned out around her in the water. “Fia, please don’t antagonize him tonight.”

“I appreciate your concern but I will do what I feel I must.”

“Where his shadow cloak touched my tank the water froze,” Ceyleen shivered. “It’s never done that before. There’s something wrong with him.”

“He’s an alchemist,” Ephyra said. “His mere existence is wrong.”

Ceyleen’s tail twitched. “That’s not what I meant. He—”

To my relief, the band struck up a fanfare, drowning out Ceyleen. Sometimes saying a thing made it real. Humans often forgot that. As a being of the mystical realm, Ceyleen should have known better.

“Welcome, to The Mystica Carnival,” The Ringmaster said with his usual grandiosity. The stage creaked as he walked across it. “Behind this curtain lie wondrous creatures from the furthest reaches of the globe. Each, the only one of its kind in captivity and each, ladies and gentlemen, are eagerly waiting to entertain you.”

The band played an alluring ditty to draw out the suspense. “My advertising dirigible didn’t lie,” he continued. “These aren’t the fraudulent exhibitions other Carnivals have on display. I have gone to great lengths to master the ancient magicks necessary to trap and tame them for your safety.”

Ephyra snorted. “If they knew the lengths necessary they would hang him from the nearest tree.”

I nodded. The Ringmaster’s legion of enspelled human servants collected the exotic substances needed for his serums. When not running his errands, they played in the band. If the public knew that these men were enslaved by unnatural means Her Majesty’s finest would bust down the door.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I present…the phoenix!”

The audience gasped in awe as the curtain parted and the clockwork men pushed my birdcage to centre stage. The band switched to a lilting melody that reached a crescendo as the clockwork men opened my cage.

From where I stood, I could see a man in the front row adjust his telescoping monocle to get a better look. The band looked like an automaton set in a store window with their matching black trousers, vests, and top-hats. Though the alchemic symbols painted in red, across their alabaster bodies lent a macabre look.

Gas footlights lined the stage, their flames waved in salutation. Stage lights in the catwalk above made the thin red feathers, that grew out of my scalp and trailed down my back, glisten. My corseted dress shone like a sunset frozen in fabric, casting vermillion, amber, and gold prisms, into the crowd. The effect was pure artifice, the Ringmaster’s to be exact.

He held the staff high over his head. Blue light, from the stone atop his cane, shone out on the crowd, but not toward the stage. I’ve long suspected that the powers he used on the audience compensated for the serum. The serum not only diminished our powers, it diminished our appearance. Simply put, we didn’t have the ethereal glow that mortals expected immortals to possess.

I flirtatiously extended a booted foot out of the cage, then leaned on the iron hands the clockwork men proffered, and made a graceful exit. Once in open space, I stretched my wings, and flapped them a few times. The soft gust they created ruffled skirts, fanned the hen feathers on ladies hats, and nearly blew out a couple of the footlights.

There wasn’t much I could do in this form to entertain an audience. I couldn’t be put through the paces of the normal carnival tricks like Ephyra, or Ceyleen, and while my wings were large enough to carry me aloft, I could only fly a short distance. The Ringmaster couldn’t make flame resistant clothing, yet, so doing fire tricks was out as well. That meant that the only ability I could display was my voice.

The Ringmaster whispered in my ear. “Make it good if you want to live through the night.” As much as I wanted to force his hand, I knew he wouldn’t do it in front of an audience. Besides, there were children in attendance and I didn’t want to harm them.

The clockwork men removed my cage, giving me room to perform. I made a circuit of the stage while I sang, then descended the stairs to walk the aisles. This was the only time I had freedom to walk where I willed, and while I relished the momentary freedom, I despised The Ringmaster even more.

The song of a phoenix was a pure thing, something rarely uttered since the time of making. It was a blessing, not something men could pay ten pence to hear on a Saturday night.

I glared at The Ringmaster. He had a smile on his face, but the reflected gaslight in his dark eyes reminded me that my freedom was only within the limits he established. If I left the theatre, the collar would inject a full vial of serum into my body. While the small daily doses, dampened my powers so I couldn’t transform, a full vial would turn me human. My wings would crumble into dust, and my voice would become hoarse, and feeble. I would rather live without knowing Aiden’s fate, than live without Song and Sky; the two things so elemental to me, that their absence would shatter my soul.

While I sang I did my best not to meet anyone’s gaze. Their lustful stares saw only what they wanted to see—a beautiful half-woman, a dazzling creature to possess, a chance to be young again. None saw the chained creature, the tortured soul.

After the second chorus, I couldn’t take it any longer, I left the stands to join the band in their little corner at stage-left. On my way, one man was so bold as to touch my wings. I slapped his hand away, and folded my wings tight until I was back on stage. The Ringmaster to glared at me, I turned my back to him.

A new servant conducted the band tonight. Something about him tickled my memory. He was taller than the others with a lean frame, and his top hat cast a shadow that hid his features better than a mask. I turned so I could get a better look at him out of the corner of my eye. Looking at him directly was too risky. Anything that caught my interest automatically became a bargaining chip that The Ringmaster could use against me.

I quickened the pace of the song. Not only did it force the band to keep up it forced the bandleader to raise his head a fraction. The movement was instinctual. When he brought his hands up to give the new downbeat, his chin lifted as well. The angle allowed enough gaslight to sneak under the brim to reveal his face.

Aiden! What has he done to you?

Like the rest of the servants, his movements were unnaturally fluid, and his eyes completely vacant. If his soul still resided in that body, it was buried so deep that no trace of it showed.

Oh, Aiden. How long have you been here?

I suddenly realized that I’d stopped singing. I quickly took a deep breath and sang a prolonged high note in the hope that everyone would think the pause was for dramatic effect. The Ringmaster wouldn’t buy it, but I had to do something to cover up the lapse. I fell into a deep curtsey before my knees buckled from the weight of the fears that filled my mind. Was the lapse too long? How much did The Ringmaster know? Would we survive the night if he did?

I ventured a glance at The Ringmaster as the crowd gave a standing ovation. He had a wicked smile on his face. I stood and cautiously stepped back, only stopping when I bumped into the proscenium arch. My knees shook, a flash of heat flushed my cheeks, and the room spun as the curtain closed behind me.

“From the deserts of the far east…” The Ringmaster gave Ephyra’s introduction while the band played an Egyptian style tune that swelled like sandstorm. The curtain parted again, and the crowd slowly resumed their seats as wonder overwhelmed their minds when the clockwork men released Ephyra from her cage.

I turned away. It was hard to watch Ephyra perform. Such a noble being shouldn’t be forced to leap across stools and play at riddles. It made me want to weep and I couldn’t do that, not while on stage. The healing abilities of phoenix tears were so desirable the audience would rush the stage for a chance to possess one.

I peeked at Aiden. His deathly pallor and sunken eye sockets loosed the tear that Ephyra’s shame brought to the surface. I caught it with my finger out of habit. The drop sat obediently on my nail, waiting to be put to use. I looked at the drop and then at Aiden.

Would it work?

Phoenix tears had healing properties, which sadly didn’t work on most alchemical compositions. However, whatever had been done to Aiden, and the other servants, wasn’t alchemy alone, something else was at work. Without knowing the specifics of the process, there was no way to be sure if it would restore him or not.

There was one way to find out.

I checked to make sure The Ringmaster wasn’t looking. He had Ephyra walking upright. I may have been mistaken but it looked like Ephyra gave an encouraging nod while she hopped from one hind leg to the other. I raised an eyebrow and waited for confirmation. Ephyra’s answer was a double pirouette. The Ringmaster threw his arms wide and addressed the stupefied crowd.

Not being one to look a gift sphinx in the mouth, I flicked the drop at Aiden. It landed on his cheek, directly in the centre of a symbol, where it sank into his skin and vanished. I chewed my lip, waiting for any sign of change.

The crowd roared. I looked to see what feat Ephyra performed to earn such praise but it was too late, the moment gone. When I turned back to check Aiden’s progress he still conducted the band with the same vacancy, but the symbol on which the drop landed had disappeared and the skin in that spot had regained its colour. It wasn’t the change I’d hoped for but it was something. Now I just needed to figure out how to amplify the effect without sobbing like a wretch.

The song ended and the band stopped playing. The Ringmaster and the audience were so engrossed by Ephyra’s extended performance that they didn’t notice. They cheered and applauded until the floorboards shook.

While I worked the problem out in my mind the spot of colour on Aiden’s cheek widened. How could the teardrop still be at work? It was baffling.

I looked to The Ringmaster. His full attention was devoted to a young father in the front row. Ephyra growled at the man in question. He waved a stack of money at The Ringmaster while his daughter threw a tantrum. The child wanted to ride Ephyra like a pony. The Ringmaster must be exerting a lot of power on the crowd to keep them from panicking. Then I saw that the moon symbol on his top hat glowed more brilliantly!

That’s it!

The symbols painted on the servants tied whatever potion or serum he used to his power, which was derived from the sun. That’s why he was so edgy during lunar eclipses! There was less sunlight reflecting off the moon to fuel his power! He felt weak and because of that he overcompensated with the shadow cloak and other enchantments.

My tear had broken that tie, and because so much of The Ringmasters attention was focused on pacifying the audience, thanks to Ephyra, he hadn’t reasserted his control on the band. If I could continue to keep The Ringmaster’s focus elsewhere, the tie could continue to unravel on its own.

I pushed away from the proscenium and joined Ephyra centre stage. I knelt down and pretended to pet her. Ephyra pretended to like it.

“I’m afraid I must beg your help a bit longer,” I whispered.

Before she could answer the spoiled little girl chose that moment to run onto the stage and grabbed Ephyra’s tail! Ephyra snarled and swiped her claws at the girl! The crowd panicked! Women screamed and everyone except for the girl’s father tried to beat their neighbour to the door! I shielded the girl until the father could grab her off the stage.

The Ringmaster stomped across the stage in fury. “You will pay for that!” He yelled as he thrust his cane forward. A wide beam of light shot out of the stone and struck Ephyra in the breast, knocking her backward.

Indecision glued me to the spot. Should I help Ephyra or go to Aiden instead? I owed her a great debt for her help but now was the perfect opportunity to get Aiden out. Perhaps I set the girl off by petting Ephyra?

I looked at Aiden, the color had returned to his face and he stared at his unmoving hands in confusion. I looked at Ephyra, she was still, and vulnerable. I needed to save them both if I could!

I ran to the footlight, ripped a swath of fabric from my skirt, and used the flame to set it alight in the palm of my hand. Truth be told, I could barely feel its heat. It would take a much larger blaze to damage phoenix flesh.

I took a deep breath and blew on the flame, hard. A bar of flame shot out of my hand and leapt across the stage, landing on The Ringmaster’s jacket where it quickly spread! Within seconds the entire back of his jacket was aflame! The ringmaster summoned the shadow cloak again, which instantly suffocated the flames. He spun around and charged over.

Oh, no! I can’t let him see Aiden.

I blew again on the flame again. The second bar struck the beam that shot out from the black stone, delaying it enough for me to dive out of its path.

“You’ve been seeking death all night,” The Ringmaster growled. “Why so shy now?”

“Consider it a woman’s prerogative.” I sassed as I flapped my wings and pushed off the stage. I rose high enough to position myself between him and Aiden. I prayed he wouldn’t notice.

“You’ve loused up everything,” The Ringmaster said. “Do you know how long it took to put this menagerie together? I refuse to live a forgettable life and I’m not going to let you ruin it!”

“Your mother should have taught you never to interfere in the affairs of immortals!” I shrieked.

“Servants, I command you to —”

I sang at the top of my lungs, drowning out The Ringmaster’s command! I looked at the band; they stood ready but did no more, each frozen in an awkward position. Some didn’t even make it fully out of their seats.

Aiden was now free from the waist up! The Ringmaster bellowed as he unleashed another blast of energy from the stone. I braced myself but it sailed past me and struck Aiden square in the chest, throwing him into the drums! Cymbals crashed as he fell off the stage!

I filled my lungs with as much air as they could hold and released it in one mighty breath while creating a gust with my wings. The combined force sent a wild inferno roaring across the stage!

Flames covered every inch of The Ringmaster’s body and most of the stage and grand stand. The Ringmaster tried to snuff the flames with his shadow cloak, but it was no use. He reached a shaking hand forward and tried to use the stone to summon some means of salvation—quite possibly Ceyleen’s tank backstage!

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ephyra limp through the flames, not caring if she got burned in the process. The majestic sphinx swatted his hand with her paw, leaving bloody troughs in his hand, causing him to release the cane!

My wings provided the bellows to fortify the flames. It didn’t take long for the heat to intensify. Ephyra and I watched him writhe and shriek as the fire turned him into a white-hot ember. The stage smouldered beneath him but didn’t alight until his body stilled and the fire consumed his final breath.

The air in the theatre had become too hot and thin for me to remain flying. I fell to my knees and took as large a breath as the fire would allow.

With great effort I crawled to Aiden and untangled him from the instruments. I dragged him over to the stage where I could examine his wounds more easily. The fire burned across all of the seats in the theatre and licked its way up the support columns to the rafters!

I propped up Aiden’s head in my lap. “Be still, my darling. Everything will all right.”

My hands shook as I unbuttoned his vest and pushed it aside. Over his heart was another symbol, this one much larger than the others. Blue light from The Ringmaster’s blast pulsated along winding tendrils that grew from the symbol like a noxious vine. It gobbled the life and colour that I fought so hard to restore. I bid forth tears but the unnatural wound continued to spread.

“Stay with me. I’ll figure out a way to reverse it.”

“Get them out of here.” Aiden turned his head away to cough. When he turned back a thin stream of blood trickled down his chin. “Use the cane to command them.”

I didn’t have to ask whom he meant. I reached across him and took up the Ringmaster’s cane and commanded. “Get the out of the building and take Ceyleen with you!” The servants immediately went to work. It took four of them to push Ceyleen’s tank out the back. Ephyra limped over to my side.

When I looked down at Aiden. He wasn’t breathing anymore. “No!” I shook his body; even beat upon his chest and all for naught. The tendrils completely covered his chest and wound up his neck.

“Aiden, come back. Please come back.”

This couldn’t happen! How could fate be so cruel? We’ve only just found each other! I raised the cane. It’s vast power coursed through me, eager to do the impossible but Ephyra knocked it out of my hand. “If you love him, let him go,” she said.

“He wants to be with me. I know it!” I shouted.

“He would be a shell with no soul.” Ephyra put a consoling paw on my shoulder. “You cannot save him but there are others you can. Let that be your memorial.”

My head drooped. She was right. No matter what I did I wouldn’t hear his laugh again or see that mischievous spark. I took up the cane and released a measure of power in a bright blue blast that turned our collars to dust. With a wave of my hand the flames parted. I gathered Aiden’s body in my arms and together, Ephyra and I left.

* * *

Ephyra and I stood on a rocky beach and watched Ceyleen disappear into the waves with the cane, which was destined for a deep trench. Nearby, an Egyptian reed boat with twelve oarsmen and Anubis himself at the tiller waited to ferry Ephyra home.

“Are you sure you won’t join me?” Ephyra asked.

“I’m certain.” I gazed at the cloudy sky. “There is somewhere else I need to be.”

Ephyra nodded and boarded the boat. I turned away and walked to Ceyleen’s empty tank where the band stood. I walked down the line of them, depositing a tear on their cheeks as I passed. With that completed I stretched my wings wide and took to the air.

A stray sunbeam glinted off of my wings. That glint became a glow, and the glow became sparks that cascaded off my transfigured form. Instead of chasing the dawn in the joy of rebirth, with flames trailing behind me I turned to serenade the blood moon with the song of my mourning heart.

The Void around the Sword’s Edge

Fiction River: Pulse Pounders (Kobo special edition), edited by Kevin J. Anderson

* * *

Mai-li slid down the pole and pushed her butt to the edge of the stage so the maroon skinned Rafellan could stick a cellophane credit voucher into her g-string. Normally she wouldn’t risk getting scraped by its claws for a measly five credits but with the exception of Bill the bartender, he was the only male in the club. She needed to have another long talk with Izzo about her schedule.

During the 1800 shift all nine tables around the stage were full with standing room only in the gawkers gallery that extended around the club’s perimeter. This 0400 shift was a joke. Thank goodness stripping wasn’t her primary source of income and double thanks that most of her crew wasn’t human. They thought she was some sort of folk dancer.

She preferred her “day job” as Monoceros Station’s Chief maintenance engineer. Unfortunately being chief grease monkey didn’t pay a living wage. You’d think it would since the place literally couldn’t run without her. No one else on this stationary piece of junk knew how to turn a P790 pulse beacon into a heating unit. However her employer didn’t take into account the fact that s necessities like food and water had to be imported. If it weren’t for tips and her roommate she’d be sleeping in the corridors.

She could have gotten a job with the Intergalactic Guard. They paid a living wage. Of course IGs had the life expectancy of an air filter but her bank account would have been well padded at the time of her death.

Mai-li swung herself around the pole in preparation to pull herself into an inverted spread eagle. She had one foot off the ground when the pole violently jerked free of her grip. Without the pole to keep her balance she fell to the stage, landing hard on her right arm.

The music cut out, only to be replaced by a claxon. Yellow emergency lights dropped from the ceiling while corresponding lights rose from the floor to illuminate a path to the exit. Whatever hit them, it was big. I need to call in and check the damage report. She rolled onto her back with a groan and reached for her right wrist. It took her a moment to remember why she felt bare skin instead of her comm.

She used her good arm to push her long, black hair away from her face and stood up. The Rafellan was already halfway to the door and her coworkers weren’t far behind. At least Bill had the decency to check on her before he bolted too.

Mai-li massaged her sore arm, not that it did any good. Just as Bill cleared the threshold her roommate, Carter, ran into the club. Even from this distance she could tell that his complexion was five shades whiter than normal. Considering his pale skin never saw the sun that was saying something.

He ran to the stage. “Mai, we’re under attack!”

“Oh, so that’s what that was? I thought I fell off the pole for fun.” Mai-li ran to the dressing room with Carter on her heels.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

She grabbed her clothes from her locker and started to change. “If I’m going to be captured by an alien horde and sold into slavery I’m going to be wearing more than pasties and a g-string, damn it!”

“It’s worse than the Zyk.”

Shit. “Well I’m still not manning my battle station half-naked.”

“There’s no time for that. We have to get out of here! If we leave with everyone else,” his voice wavered, “we might be able to get away.”

Mai-li paused with her pants half on. She had one leg in and one leg out. Carter wasn’t just scared, he was bowl-voiding terrified and she knew of only one force in the galaxy that could make a life-long spacer cry for their mama. The Church of the Great Void.

The Voiders were a militant religious order that believed humans were placed at the ass end of the galaxy as punishment for some great, unknown sin. Therefore anyone that left Earth’s solar system was essentially an escaped convict and needed to be executed. It didn’t matter that by searching the universe for “sinners” they were themselves violating that sacred law since every last one of them was human. Apparently tourism was a greater sin than hypocrisy.

Carter’s logic was sound. Since the Voiders had a habit of shooting escape pods if everyone left at once a few of them might survive long enough to get out of range. The odds of that happening weren’t good but a chance was a chance. However the question that stilled her hands wasn’t if she was comfortable with those odds. It was whether she was comfortable with the idea of running from them again.

“Mai, c’mon. We need to go!”

She finished putting her pants on. “I’m staying.”

“What?!”

“You heard me.” She pulled on a sports bra and reached for her shirt. “I ran from them once and it didn’t work. They still found me.”

She slipped on the shirt and stepped into her boots. The magnetic clasps fastened themselves as soon as her heels hit the sole. “I ran again, came here, and once again they’ve found me.”

Mai-li reached into her locker for her comm. “I’m not going to stop you from leaving but I’ve had enough of their twisted jihad. If they’re that determined to see me dead, I’m going to make them pay for it first.”

She slapped her comm onto her wrist, subdermal magnets held it in place, and skimmed through the long list of damage reports. She couldn’t bear to say goodbye. Not when she knew the odds. He needed hope right now and even though she couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him he’d make it, her silence might help him maintain what hope he did have.

Carter took two steps away and hesitated. He practically leapt the distance between them and pulled her into a bone bruising hug.

“Good luck,” he said in her ear.

“Same to you.” Mai-li gave him a final pat on the back before pushing him away. “You’d better go. This place is going to go down faster than the Titanic.”

Carter left without looking back, which was good. If he cast one forlorn look in her direction she may have changed her mind. She turned her attention back to the damage reports. Communications were down, which wasn’t a surprise. That was the first thing all Void Wardens aim for. The only reason the staff comms still worked was because they were routed through an internal system. So they could still talk to each other, just not to the outside world.

External sensors were mostly functional. A couple of tertiary relays were hit. The damage wasn’t bad enough for her to worry about them at the moment. No damage to life support, thank goodness, but the guns to port and aft were completely gone. In fact, it looked like half of the aft docks were gone too. They must have been destroyed in the explosion. Speaking of which…

Mai-li looked at the time. Several minutes had passed since the explosion and she hadn’t felt any subsequent blasts, which was odd. The director wasn’t the type to surrender after the first warning shot and with communications down he wouldn’t be able to use negotiations as a stalling tactic. Not that there seemed to be anything to stall for. There weren’t any urgent requests for her to repair any particular system and most of the pods should be away by now.

The Voiders however wouldn’t leave mid assault, especially not when they had the upper hand. So why didn’t they fire again?

Shit! They’re already on board.

Mai-li ran for the main corridor but what she saw by the stage on her way out made her pause. The Rafellan came back. He looked at her expectantly and even waved a couple more credit vouchers.

“Sorry, the club is closed due to…human problems.” She didn’t wait around to see if he understood.

The main corridor was empty. All the restaurants and shops were closed, which was normal for this hour but the lack of panicking humans sent chills down her spine. Mai-li ran to the nearest maintenance panel. This particular panel was a computer terminal for diagnostics. She quickly logged in and transferred control of all internal systems to her comm. It was a clear breach of protocol and if the director found out she would be fired for misuse of authority. Given that he had other matters on his mind it was probably safe enough.

A bolt of static electricity zapped her hand as she closed the panel. The hair on her arms stood on end and not just from the voltage. This corridor was steel plating from top to bottom. There wasn’t anything here that could create the friction necessary for such a charge. But she knew what could. On a hunch she knelt down and put her hand on the floor. The moment her fingertips connected with the steel another shock zipped through her hand.

“Damn Voiders.”

Pulse weapons couldn’t kill a Void monk. That never stopped people from trying, of course. They just never succeeded. Everyone thought that their robes made them impervious to the blast but that wasn’t true. Their belts concealed a powerful energy diffuser that scattered the volts across the nano relays imbedded in the robes. Unfortunately, no one thought to install a repository for all that energy, which meant it danced around them until it found somewhere else to go. Often that somewhere else was the bulkhead.

There were too many variables for her to judge how close they were. Too close for comfort, that’s for certain. She needed more time to prepare some defenses.

Mai-li didn’t know which way to run. Up wasn’t an option. The ventilation ducts wouldn’t be able to hold her weight and the noise would give away her position. If only there were a way to divine which way…

She touched the floor again, the shock making her wince on reflex. Slid on her knees a couple feet to the left and touched the floor there. It may have been her imagination but the current felt slightly weaker here. The thought crossed her mind that her fingertips might have been desensitized from the repeated shocks. However since she had nothing else to go off of…

Left it is.

Left took her further away from the club and the damage aft. Hopefully it also took her further from the entry point. This end of the corridor wasn’t as serene as the section she left. There were abandoned hover trolleys, some with luggage still on them, and one of her underlings left their toolbox on the floor with the electrical access panel open. The light they were fixing still flickered.

Mai-li stopped short of the junction so she could peer around the corner. There weren’t any tell tale signs—footsteps, heavy breathing—to tell her she wasn’t alone but that didn’t mean the coast was clear either. The sound dampeners on a Void monk’s sandals meant they could walk on bubble wrap without making a sound.

She inched closer until she could see the branch directly across. Her heart beat louder than a heating unit with a loose bolt. Holding her breath, she leaned until she could see most of the hall. It was clear. Mai-li sighed and turned around to peer the other way. A pair of figures in black, hooded robes approached. She cursed under her breath. White bolts of electricity leapt between them and arced off the ceiling. For the current to act that wild they must have been shot multiple times, and recently at that. It surprised her that the diffusers hadn’t shorted out by now. Now wonder she got zapped from so far away.

Sweat trickled down her neck. There was no way she could take them both out. The second she got within reach the current would fry her. Unless…

Mai-li ran to the toolbox and dug in the bottom. “There’s gotta be a pair of gloves here somewhere,” she muttered. It was hard not to shout “Yes!” when she found a pair of insulated electricians gloves rolled up in the back. The fit was a little loose and they extended to her elbow but she wasn’t going to dicker about that. She grabbed two screwdrivers, one in each hand, and ran back to her post.

The monks were nearly upon her. She had to stand a couple feet away from the wall to keep from getting zapped. Wait…just…a moment…longer…

They rounded the corner. Mai-li thrust the screwdrivers up, aiming for their eyes. The monks reacted immediately. They leaned back so their faces wouldn’t come into contact with the screwdrivers. It didn’t do them any good, though. As she predicted, the current surrounding the monks surged along each rod. When the tip of the screwdrivers penetrated the dark confines of their hoods, the current shot out from the tip and zapped them between the eyes.

The monks convulsed until every volt passed through their skulls. Smoke emerged from their hoods along with the sickening stench of cooked flesh. When their bodies finally fell to the floor, one pitched forward and the other back. She had to jump out of the way of the one that fell forward. Even though most of the current coursed through the floor she had no intention of finding out how much their bodies may have retained.

Mai-li stared at the smoldering corpses. If she continued to take them out one or two at a time, given the number of monks that were likely present, she wouldn’t be able to take out a significant number before they slaughtered everyone. She also didn’t have the stamina for that kind of offensive. She needed to make a very big and very public stand, one that forced the rest of the order to stop and take notice. The Voiders needed to understand that this wasn’t just a final stand and that she wasn’t just another runaway human.

A couple taps on her comm activated the station intercom. “This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system. This is a message for the Void Warden in charge of this patrol.” She took a deep, calming breath before proceeding. “I wish to negotiate a cessation of hostilities. I know you don’t believe we’re worthy of such, but if you believe that the faithful men and women in your charge are worthy of a continued existence, I suggest you come to the club on level nine in ten minutes.”

She started walking back toward the club. “Oh, and don’t mind the mess on the way down. I just killed two of your monks in case you doubted my sincerity.”

* * *

Mai-li crouched behind the hover trolley. The abandoned luggage obstructed part of her view and that was all right. For this part of the plan she didn’t need to see the entire corridor.

A squad of ten Voiders marched toward her. They were right on time, as expected. What she didn’t expect was the Warden, positioned in the center of the pack, was someone she hadn’t seen in years, and frankly never wanted to see again. He was a Korean man in his fifties, who brazenly wore his hood down.

Twenty or thirty humans walked behind him. Some were in station uniforms while others wore everything from club wear and casual clothes to pajamas. The only common denominator between them was the fear.

“There weren’t supposed to be hostages,” she said into the intercom.

No one in the squad replied. They kept marching past her with their captives in tow. Every face she saw, whether she knew them or not, pissed her off. This wasn’t right. Making them come here was torture.

One of the captives, a little Mexican boy whose dad she worked with, stumbled. Seeing her chance she rushed from her hiding spot to help him up. He looked up at her with sleepy eyes. The poor kid. He’s too tired to understand what’s going on. A moment later his dad knelt down. It looked like he was about to say something. Not wanting to risk the wrong words coming out of his mouth, she distracted him by picking up his son and passing him over.

A monk jabbed her in the back with the toe of a sandal. “Keep moving.”

Mai-li joined the group and scanned for anyone else she knew. While there were a few familiar faces, Carter wasn’t among them. She hoped that was a sign he got away. The Voiders herded everyone into the strip club. Mai-li squeezed through the crowd. She managed to get a spot next to the big round table at the end of the stage.

The Korean man stepped up onto the bar across the room. “I am Warden Sung,” he said, “and I do not negotiate with defilers. You along with the human occupants of this station have been found guilty of violating God’s Prime Law. The sentence for which is death. If you do not resist, your recompense will be swift.”

Mai-li watched as the Voiders took up positions in the gawkers gallery and one on stage. Each had a bokken, a wood sword, tucked in their belt. The Voiders didn’t use plasma weapons. The energy diffusers worked a bit too well to allow them to use them; too much interference. A wood sword however didn’t interfere with anything and in skilled hands it was just as deadly as its steel counterparts.

And they will use them on everyone here if I don’t reveal myself.

Mai-li stepped up onto the table and stared the Warden down. “Hello, dad.”

“The prodigal child.” Warden Sung smiled. “This is a blessed occasion, brethren. God has bestowed upon us the honor of administering His justice on the apostate. I think in this case taking pleasure in our work will not be regarded as a sin.”

The Voider positioned on the stage raised his bokken high in the air and leapt across the distance between them. Mai-li took one step to the right, upending the table. She slid down to the floor. The Voider, being unable to change course mid-air, collided groin first with the table’s edge. Mai-li heard the sickening impact over the crowd’s cheers and schadenfreudic groans. He wouldn’t be moving any time soon.

She jumped up on stage and ran for the curtain. A second Voider charged toward her from stage right. The pole was all that stood between them. Mai-li grabbed it tightly with both hands and pushed off hard, letting her momentum swing her around. She tucked in her legs and waited until the last second to kick out. Her heels connected with the monk’s chest with enough force to crack at least two ribs. He doubled over in pain.

Mai-li let go of the pole and landed on one foot. She used the other to kick Voider two in the head hard enough to knock him out. He fell to the stage still clutching his chest. Mai-li grabbed the bokken from his belt and fell into a defensive stance in time to face off with the next monk. Voider three stopped just out of her reach. Damn. This one is smart. He wasn’t going to be taken unawares like his brethren.

Mai-li kicked Voider two off the stage. She wanted the stage clear before she engaged number three and there was a chance that the act might infuriate him enough to make his attack sloppy.

No such luck. He merely took it as an invitation to draw his bokken and circle her. Not to be intimidated, she mirrored his movements and gave his weapon a couple firm taps with the tip of hers. The tap, while not a real strike, served two purposes. One was to test his grip. If her opponent’s bokken bounced too far away from hers then their grip was weak and they could be easily defeated. If it held firm, which his did, then she needed to proceed with caution.

The other purpose was to rid her mind of fear and nervousness. Breaching the void around the sword’s edge always scared her. It felt like sacred space. That’s why she always began a fight with a couple taps. It forced her to get over it before she got hurt.

She hadn’t held one of these in years. While it felt good to have the smooth weight in her hands again, she worried that she was too long out of practice. Pole dancing kept her body fit but it did nothing for her technique. If Voider three was as well practiced as his grip suggested, he could easily defeat her. There’s only one way to find out.

Voider Three struck a downward blow. Mai-li quickly countered but didn’t try to stop the blade. She only applied enough resistance to deflect the blade. A loud crack split the air, silencing the onlookers.

Using the backward momentum from her strike, Mai-li dropped into a crouch and swung her blade to strike Three in the gut. Three tried to bring his weapon down for a counter strike but his position was too high. His sword couldn’t cross the distance in time. The force of Mai-li’s strike doubled him over. She rose and sidestepped around him, letting her blade slide off his robe. When the tip cleared his body she brought her bokken up and slammed the butt of the handle down on the back of his head.

Mai-li felt a warning tingle between her shoulder blades. On instinct she dropped to one knee, spinning in the process. It wasn’t a comfortable position but it did put her bokken in the right place to prevent Four’s from cracking her skull. She had to brace her sword with both hands to stop the force of his strike and even then her arms almost gave way.

Four strode forward to keep pace with her and struck again. Mai-li ducked and rolled further back, barely managing to avoid it. Unfortunately that also meant that his blow struck the pole. The resounding ring made her teeth hurt.

The adrenaline rush that fueled her first two bouts began to fade. Her triceps burned from the exertion. She didn’t know how long she could keep this up—certainly not as long as they could but there was no backing out at this point. The moment she stepped up on that table she became committed to this fight and she had to see it through. Every Voider she took down was recompense for the years of torment their training inflicted upon her and increased the survival odds for their captive audience. She needed to give this everything she had.

Mai-li rolled onto her back and kicked out with both legs, using her core muscles to catapult to a standing position. She thrust her blade straight at four. He tapped it aside. Mai-li took one step forward and channeled the ricochet into a spiraling circuit around his blade. It was an unorthodox strike. Hell, it should have been impossible to execute. It was a move better suited to a thin blade such as a rapier. A bokken was simply too bulky and heavy for that kind of wrist work. Which of course, was the only reason why it worked. Four never saw it coming and had no clue how to counter it.

When the tip of her bokken passed the hand guard of Four’s she pulled up sharply with all her might. It didn’t force Four to relinquish his blade, but it did force him to switch momentarily to a one handed grip because the strike smashed a couple of his fingers. Mai-li didn’t bother to contain her smile when she hit his other hand, dislodging the weapon.

“Enough!” The Warden shouted. He walked up to the stage, the crowd parting around him. “I will kill you myself.”

She couldn’t understand why he stopped the fight. It wasn’t because she beat three monks. That was pure luck. No, the warden definitely had another reason to intervene other than spite or impatience. She looked again at Voider four. No, it couldn’t be.

“Hyun-ki?” Mai-li whispered.

Voider Four gave a barely perceptible nod. Tears beaded at the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t seen her younger brother since she left. Mai-li had to bite her lip to keep all of the sorrow and joy from showing on her face. Father couldn’t find out that she knew.

“Please help me save them,” she quietly begged. “You know this is wrong.”

Hyun-ki took a few steps back to allow their father to approach. Warden Sung drew his bokken and leaped up on stage with the vigor of a man half his age. She still couldn’t believe that he wanted to fight her himself, he never sparred with her when he visited the training grounds in her youth, and he took full advantage of that. Before she could raise her sword he struck her high on her left arm with enough force to crack bone.

Mai-li screamed. It took all her will to keep both hands on the bokken. She tried to raise it for a strike and found she couldn’t. The pain was too much.

Father struck again and again. Each successive blow drove her further back until her heel reached the edge of the stage. She managed to feebly block two out of three strikes. Each time his sword struck hers the shock sent another sharp pain through her injury. That added to the pain from the blows that did meet flesh made it almost impossible to focus. So much pain radiated through her body that she couldn’t tell if any more bones broke during the fight.

Father swung his blade down in an arc, knocking her blade from her hands. It landed somewhere in the crowd. Mai-li didn’t try to ascertain its whereabouts. She was finished. She knew it and so did he.

He raised his bokken high for the killing blow. Mai-li closed her eyes and waited for the deathblow to come.

Only it didn’t.

Mai-li opened her eyes. The warden stood frozen, mid strike. Blood trickled down his face. When his lifeless body fell to the stage, Hyun-ki stood behind with a bokken covered in their father’s blood. Her jaw dropped. For a brief moment the shock of what he did chased away the pain—but only for a moment.

Hyun-ki lowered his hood. The chubby teen she remembered had grown into a handsome man.

“By right of combat,” he said to the remaining Voiders, “I now command this force. I declare this station to be a holy sanctuary in memory of Warden Sung. There will be no more cleansing of the population here. Everyone will return to the ship at once to say prayers in his honored memory.”

He turned to her. “I’m sorry I can’t do more.” He said it softly enough that his subordinates wouldn’t hear.

“Don’t be. This is more than I expected. Thanks, baby bro.”

“I’ll alert the medics on the way out.”

And with that he and his subjugates gathered up the bodies of their fallen brethren and left. The crowd didn’t applaud or cheer as they departed. They probably didn’t fully understand what happened. Or perhaps they didn’t believe that through an unbelievable chance humanity was given one precious refuge. Hell, she still couldn’t believe it. Whatever the reason, she was grateful for the silence. It seemed appropriate for a newly founded sanctuary.

Mai-li sat down carefully. While she waited for the medics she composed in her mind her resignation speech to both of her bosses—if they still lived. This place was going to get a lot busier and a good mechanic would be in a lot higher demand than a grease monkey/stripper.

Alison McBain

Grandmother Winter

Second place in Contest # 22 by On the Premises Magazine.

* * *

"In the forest lives an old woman," said Ellie’s mother. "She will eat you if you are bad. Mind me or else."

It was hard for Ellie to take her mother seriously. She was old enough to know the difference between the village superstitions and her mother’s tales. But still, she said yes. She would watch her brother.

Once she agreed, her mother tied on a scarf and left Ellie standing in the doorway holding baby Jackson. The girl watched her mother walk out through the front gate without a backward glance at the two she left behind.

Jackson was especially fussy today. He cried as Ellie fed him sloppy porridge; he stole the spoon and threw it on the floor. Then he spit his meal up all over Ellie.

"Shh," she tried to soothe him. "Shh." His face brightened and swelled like a birthday balloon. She wanted to pop him, to deflate his puffed-out cheeks and screwed-up fists that batted at her. She wanted to leave him crying by himself and go off to play. He would cry whether she was there or not—she couldn’t soothe him.

The sky darkened outside. Mother could take hours, wherever she went to. Ellie had asked several times if she could come along, but had been told no. "It’s grown-up stuff," she was told the first time. "When you’re older," the next time. Finally her mother screamed, "No! Stop asking!"

So she stopped.

Jackson wailed as she bounced him up and down in her arms. She pleaded with him, but he ignored her. She changed his diaper, but he peed on her. She sang a song while he hit her in the nose.

Her mother’s words boiled up inside of her and she shouted, "No! Stop crying!"

This only made him squeeze more tears out and scream harder.

Finally, she put him in his crib and covered him in a blanket that he immediately kicked off. That was it—she couldn’t take it anymore. She walked through the door and shut it behind her.

The air outside was still and heavy with electricity. The wooly clouds were dirty with potential, low and grey and grimy. Guilt filled her throat as she walked away, but she did not turn around. The back of her head crawled with the wrongness of Jackson left behind, alone and crying in his crib.

Ellie slunk into the trees, but didn’t go far. Of course, she promised to some nameless entity inside her head, she would return in a minute and obey the summons of her brother’s cries. Of course, she wouldn’t leave him alone for long.

But she lingered at the edge of the woods. The trees leered at her with twig teeth, and she idled beneath them in a tortured mix of freedom and shame. Another minute and she would return to the house, rescue Jackson from his crib and hold him until their mother returned. She would be good, after this next minute.

Or maybe this one.

Perhaps a couple more.

She watched the clouds swing over their house in the small clearing as she leaned her head back against the base of a large and knobby tree. The sky roiled like boiling soup and she huddled in her coat against the growing winds of the storm. Her coat was old and warm, too large for her by far. It had been her father’s, her mother once told her, but would say no more about it.

Ellie closed her eyes against the wind and snuggled down inside the coat. She felt comforted by it, sheltered in a cocoon of her father’s long-ago protection.

When she next opened her eyes, it was to darkness and wailing. She jumped to her feet. A confusion of thoughts tumbled through her head, until she remembered Jackson left alone in the house. Her mother would be livid at her for abandoning him, no matter that she had never left sight of their home.

Except…how could she have gotten so turned around? She looked left and right, but there was nothing but forest and more forest. There was no clearing, no small and familiar cottage. The branches of the trees loomed out of the darkness like the tales she had heard about sinister creatures of the woods, and Ellie remembered her mother threatening her before she left with the idea of the old woman of the forest.

The wailing was louder now, and Ellie was frightened until she realized it was the wind moaning through the branches. A rumble echoed through the sky, and the first cold drops fell down, white as the trees were black, the stark colors of nighttime.

She had no choice but to walk or freeze. Choosing a direction at random, she shuffled her feet forward, huddling inside her coat. The snow fell down, an endless kaleidoscope of sky demons dancing over her head. Her toes hurt, then numbed, and her feet lost feeling next. Still, she walked and the snow fell.

Her head was tucked down below the collar of her coat for warmth, and she was not sure what made her look up, but when she did, she saw a light flickering in the distance. The clearing! she thought gratefully. Home.

The idea filled her with longing, a visceral tug that sped her numb feet and spurred her to a careless speed. She tripped and sprawled on the ground, knocking away her breath. She lay flat on a bed of snow and struggled to take air in and out. The cold of the hard earth seeped up her arms and into her chest so that she coughed convulsively when she had recovered from the shock of the fall. Can’t lie here, she thought, and pushed to her feet. There was the light, her only hope of safety, and she walked forward again to follow it.

The light led her deeper into the woods. The trees were thicker, and the ephemeral brightness receded before her so she never got closer. In despair, she thought of will-o-the-wisps and what it would mean to be lost in the forest during a winter storm.

As if sensing her ragged emotions, the light flickered again and coalesced into a stable image. Ellie stumbled, fighting with the entwined branches that blocked her way. It seemed there was a clearing on the other side, but the trees were rooted fast and held firm against her numb fingers. She beat at them with her useless hands and shrieked wordlessly into the night.

At her cry, the branches suddenly gave way and she fell forward into a small, open area where the trees curved like a roof and bent around the sides of the space as tightly as a thicket. In the heart of the opening was a small cottage, just about the size of her home. Lights shone from all the windows but, oddly, the house looked like it was perched on a nest of dried sticks that elevated it up from the ground.

The wind howled and the snow blew against her back, urging her forward. Fear beat through her skull as hard as the fingers of the wind, yet she still hesitated despite the impetus of cold. Finally, she walked forward until she reached the door and knocked. It was a timid rap, but she could hear the echoes inside as if she had smote upon the door with all of her force.

Quite clearly, she heard a voice say, "Enter." The tone of the voice was as cold as the wind and chilled her through, much as the winter storm had. But she had come here and had no other choice, so she pulled the latch and stepped inside.

The warmth of the fire inside was overwhelming after the cold, and she felt the sting of heat on her face like a slap. She quietly closed the door behind her, her eyes drinking in the simple room. A trundle bed sat in the far corner by the fireplace and, in between the two was a scarred table and chairs. An old woman sat in one of the chairs and she had a knife in her hand. It was as long as the woman’s arm and she held it pointed at the door. No, pointed at Ellie.

"It’s a cold night for a cold heart," said the woman. Then she laughed, splinters of ice edging through it. "What are you doing wandering the woods on such a night?"

"Please, ma’am, I got lost," Ellie said. She waited next to the door, dripping with melting snow, afraid to venture further. The woman put down the knife and smiled, but the smile brought no comfort. Her face was a nest of wrinkles and her mouth had few teeth. Around her neck was a string of long, off-white beads that tinkled strangely as she moved. "I beg of you, please let me stay here until the storm ends, and then I can be on my way."

"You beg for my care? You must have a kind heart to expect favors from a stranger. Do you care for others when they need you?"

Ellie’s mind flashed back to her brother and her eyes pricked with guilty tears. "No, ma’am, I do not. My brother needed me, and I left him behind."

"Aha," said the old woman. "Well, I am not you. For the truth of your words and the regret in your heart, you are welcome to my fire and to share my meal."

Stunned by the generosity, Ellie blinked her eyes and the tears fell down. "Thank you." She swiped the back of her hand across her cheeks. "I will do whatever I can to repay you."

"Not a wise promise to give to a stranger in the woods," said the old woman. She stood, and Ellie could see that the old woman was small, no taller than herself. Perhaps the woman had once been larger, but her back was bent with age and her fingers gnarled with it. Still, she moved lightly across the floor to the fire and dished stew into two bowls from a pot suspended over the flames. She thunked them onto the worn surface of the table, and Ellie sat down across from her, feeling as if she were floating in a dream. Her fingers tingled with returning life.

"What is your name, girl?" asked the woman, giving her a spoon. Ellie told her and took a mouthful of the stew. It was so hot it seared her tongue. "Where is your family?"

After a hesitation while she took a bite and chewed it, Ellie told her this also. "So your mother left you alone? Where does she go when she is gone all day?"

"I don’t know," said the girl. "She will not tell me."

"Hmm," said the old woman. By this time, Ellie had eaten her fill and she felt warm and drowsy. Her eyelids began to droop and she had problems listening to the woman, despite trying to be polite.

"Come," said the voice. "I have blankets in that chest, there. You may sleep before the fire."

Ellie went where she was directed and curled herself into the blankets. Now warmed through, she fell asleep.

* * *

When she woke, Ellie was in her own bed at home. She blinked sleep-furred eyes and glanced around. There, in his crib, was her sleeping brother. Her mother was in the bed next to her, also fast asleep.

Had it just been a dream? She sat up as gently as possible so as to not wake the baby, but was startled by the loud thud of something dropping to the floor. She froze. A rustle of cloth was followed the next minute by a thin wail as Jackson woke.

"Ellie!" grunted her mother, and the girl went and picked up her brother. As soon as she touched him, he quieted and looked at her. His blue eyes crinkled and he smiled. She felt her heartbeat racing in her chest and she held him tightly in her arms in apology for leaving him the day before.

But there had been the thump when she rose. Ellie turned her head to look at the floor, and bent to pick it up. It was heavier than it should be for something so small, and she stood there, Jackson propped on one shoulder, holding the item in her left hand. It filled her palm and glowed with the morning sun streaming through the windows.

Her mother stretched and said, yawning, "What have you got there?"

"A golden heart," Ellie answered in a whisper.

"A gold—what?" Her mother jumped to her feet and came around the bed. She snatched the object from her daughter’s hands. She tested it with her fingernail, and then her teeth. "Where did you find this?"

Ellie told her about the old woman in the woods. About how she had fallen asleep there and woken here, holding the golden heart in her hand. "An old woman," murmured her mother. "And she obviously gave you this—but why?" Ellie didn’t know.

"Where there is one, there may be more," said her mother. "But I don’t trust that you’ll know how to get them. Watch Jackson. I’ll be back."

So Ellie spent the day watching her brother. Whatever had ailed him before was gone, and they played with the golden heart, which he seemed to enjoy. She would roll it along the carpet, thumpety, thumpety, and he would laugh and clap his hands.

When darkness fell, their mother returned. "A waste of time!" she said, picking twigs from her hair. "I couldn’t find the old woman’s hut. Well, no matter, I will take the gold to town tomorrow to sell."

"You can’t! It’s mine," argued Ellie.

"No matter that it was yours. It’s mine now. This means that we can live well, better than we do now. Give it to me."

Ellie refused, but her mother overpowered her and snatched it away. "You wicked child!" she scolded. "The old woman of the forest will eat you for being bad!"

The girl said nothing. She got little sleep that night, knowing her mother would be selling her heart tomorrow.

Her mother was gone early and stayed away all day. When she returned, she was furious.

"No one will buy it! When I showed it to them, they just took one look at me and threw me from their store. Maybe they thought I stole it, or maybe it isn’t gold after all. See, look at my hands. They have turned red from handling it, so something has rubbed off on me. But, no matter. If they won’t take it from my hands, maybe they will take it from yours," she told Ellie. "Tomorrow, you will come to town with me and sell it."

"I won’t," said Ellie, holding Jackson. Her mother moved to take the baby, but Jackson howled and clung to his sister.

"Fine then, see how you like going hungry!" snapped her mother. "If you won’t sell it, then you both can starve."

The next morning, their mother packed up all the food in the house and carried it with her to town, not once glancing back over her shoulder at the two children standing in the doorway watching her leave. As the hours passed, Jackson cried and Ellie could give him only water from the well to fill his belly. With her own stomach snarling at her, she warmed the golden heart between her hands, and an idea suddenly came to her. Quickly, she bundled up the baby and herself and walked into the woods carrying Jackson.

The trees seemed to bow down before her as she walked and Jackson became quiet. He watched the winter sky, which showed clear blue through the sere branches. Before long, they were at the house in the heart of the woods and Ellie knocked on the door. "Enter," said the cold voice.

The room was much the same as before. The old woman lowered her knife and put it on the table when she saw them, but said nothing in greeting. "I have returned with my brother," explained Ellie under the watchful eyes of the old woman. "And I come to thank you for the gift."

"What gift?" asked the woman guilelessly, then laughed. "I see you are both hungry. Come, there is much in my stew pot today." She put bowls before them and watched as Ellie fed her brother the soft vegetables in the broth first before touching her own stew. After Jackson was done eating, he played on the floor with the wooden spoon from the pot.

The girl ate steadily and looked at the old woman’s necklace. It was yellow and made of long, thin beads, as if it were made from bones, and the image reminded her of her mother’s threats about the dangers of the woods and old women who ate children. Before she could scare herself, Ellie looked away from the necklace and tried to think only of the warmth and the comfort of the food which filled her empty stomach.

"You have a long journey home," said the old woman when she was finished. "But you are always welcome here."

"Thank you, ma’am," said Ellie.

"Call me Grandmother," said the old woman.

"Thank you, Grandmother," she said dutifully. Smiling, the old woman gestured them on their way.

The trip back didn’t seem so long and the trees nodded at them as they passed. When they got home, their mother was waiting and her face darkened when she saw them. "Where have you been?" she demanded. When Ellie told her, their mother ripped at her own hair in frustration. "Show me this path in the woods!"

So Ellie pointed to where she had walked through the forest, and watched her mother run off into the gathering twilight. The girl put Jackson to bed, rekindled the fire and waited. Eventually, her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep.

When she woke, the first thing she saw was a kettle hanging over the flames of the fireplace. The pot gleamed as bright as moonlight and the smell coming from it made her mouth water. Jackson must have smelled it too, for he was sitting up in his crib, clutching at the bars and staring at her. She took him out and fed him broth from the pot, and then ate herself. She had never tasted anything so wonderful. The meat was tender and juicy, the vegetables as flavorful as if they had just been pulled from the earth. Jackson laughed and clapped his hands.

The door opened just as she finished eating and her mother stormed in, her hair a rats' nest. There were scratches on her face, as if she had tried to claw her way through branches and been clawed in return. Her palms were still bright red from when she had touched Ellie’s golden heart and she sniffed the air until she located the silver pot on the fire. The woman let out a shriek and advanced on the stewpot. "Where did you get this?"

Ellie told her about waking to find it there. Her mother dipped a ladle of it into a bowl and began to eat, but she spit it out after several mouthfuls and went gagging to the door. Ellie glanced in the bowl—a wriggling worm bobbed to the surface and then dipped back down into the soup.

"What trick is this, you nasty child?" said their mother on her return. She hauled the silver pot out the door and dumped its contents in the woods. "I will take the pot to town to sell," she said, straightening her hair.

Ellie stayed silent. She was unsurprised when their mother returned that afternoon, ranting and raving and still carrying the pot. Her mouth was colored a bright green that she swore came from the stew she had eaten and vomited. Between her red hands and green face, she looked like a holiday decoration.

"Tomorrow morning, I will follow you into the woods," she said. "And we will see how that old biddy does, then."

And that is what happened. Morning came, and Ellie carried Jackson into the woods. The trees let the two children through easily and their mother pushed in behind them, even though the snarled branches tried to block her way. When they came to the clearing, Ellie almost hoped that the house would be gone or some other such magic, but there it stood, perched upon its pile of twigs. The old woman’s voice called out when the girl knocked and the three of them went into the house.

"Hello, Grandmother," said Ellie.

"Don’t Grandmother her," said her mother. "I want answers."

"Answers, hmm," said the old woman. "I will answer your questions. But, for each you ask, I will ask one also."

"Fine," her mother said shortly. "Why have you given Ellie such wealthy gifts?"

"Gifts?" said the old woman. "I have given her nothing from my hands except food and shelter when she was lost and hungry. You may have the same, if you wish."

"But what about the heart and the kettle? Where did they come from?"

"I think," said the old woman, "it is my turn for a question."

"Very well."

"Where do you go when you leave the children?"

"That is none of your business!" said their mother.

"Answer the question. Speak truly." The old woman’s voice was cold.

"I go nowhere."

"Hmm," said the old woman. "Now it is your turn."

"Why will no one buy the gold and silver?" she asked.

"Because they are not yours to sell."

"But how would they know that?"

"My turn," said the woman.

"Ask, then!" shouted their mother.

"Who is the father of these children?"

"I don’t know," answered their mother, growing pale.

"Hmm," said the old woman. "Now ask your last question."

"This can’t be my last question! I have a lot more questions to ask."

"Nevertheless, this is your last one. Choose it carefully."

"Fine." Their mother stared at the old woman, as if she could divine her secrets with the force of her gaze. "Then this is my question. What can I do to get your riches?"

"You can’t," said the old woman. "For I have none. I already told you that I gave no gifts. All my possessions are in this room that you see. Now, for my last question. Who is the mother of these children?"

Their mother turned the color of the snow outside. "I am. That is enough, old woman."

"You are right. It is enough." And with one quick movement, the old woman threw her knife across the room and straight through their mother’s heart.

Ellie screamed and nearly dropped the baby. Jackson, feeling his sister’s distress, started to sob, while the impaled woman hit the floor with a noise like stones falling. Ellie turned horrified eyes from their mother’s body to the old woman, who had not moved from her spot in the chair. The girl cried, "Is this my punishment for leaving Jackson? I promised not to do it again! How could you take our mother from us?"

"Hush, child," said the old woman in the voice of winter. "I have taken nothing from you. That woman was no mother of yours. Not one word she spoke in this room was true."

"But…she raised me. She brought Jackson home to be a brother to me," Ellie said.

"If you were older, you would know that children are not brought home, like a parcel from the marketplace. She stole you away from your real parents and kept you hidden so that she could gain money by promising to return you. You are not the child of that woman. You have a mother and a father who have never stopped wishing to see you again. And your brother is no brother to you. He was taken the same way from his parents."

"No," Ellie sobbed. "Why? Why has this happened?"

"It is the way of wickedness," answered the old woman. "The wicked shall fall before the just. Now, you must return to your family and the baby must return to his." She got to her feet and made her creaking way over to the two of them. Ellie clutched Jackson fiercely to her.

"No! You can’t take him away from me. He’s mine."

"Child," said the woman. "He belongs to himself. You must let him go."

"I love him!" she cried. "He’s my brother. He’s all I have."

"Aha!" And with that, the old woman bent over and dipped her finger into the blood pooling under the dead woman. She raised her hand and touched a dot of the blood to each child’s forehead. Ellie was too shocked to resist.

"Stupay s Bogom," said the old woman. And then the room swirled up around the two children, a whirlwind that encompassed them. When the winds died, the children were gone.

The old woman looked down at the body on the floor and knelt beside it to retrieve her knife. She used the blade to make the first cuts, cleanly and clinically. She had to steady herself as the house stood up on its large and spindly feet, stretching legs like an oversized fowl. Then the cottage shouldered its way out through the grasping trees, taking steps that shook the forest with their power. Using a direction known only to itself, it headed for the place they would be needed next.

She worked as quickly as she could. By tonight, there needed to be more meat for her stew pot.

The Lost Children

Originally published by Third Flatiron Anthologies.

* * *

When the midwives came running out the door, crying, Minos rushed into the birthing room. His wife already had the two babies at her breast. The one on the left waved her hands gently as she nursed, but did not turn her head to look up at him. Her long-lashed eyes were closed against the brown hair covering her face, her bovine lips suckling intently. The one on the right kicked his hooves, blinking his sleepy human eyes at the king standing frozen in the doorway. Minos stared at Pasiphaë with horror.

“They are born from your arrogance,” his wife told him wearily. There was a note of triumph in her voice. “You would not honor Poseidon by sacrificing the white bull. And I have fallen in love with the bull as deeply as you have.”

Minos looked at the two half-creatures, part human and part calf. “More deeply, it would seem,” he said. Dazed, he slowly started to walk towards her. “I will kill these monsters. And you,” he added belatedly. “For making a fool of me and sinning with the god’s beast.”

“The bull was Poseidon’s gift to you, but you would not sacrifice him as the god commanded. If you had killed him when you were supposed to, this would never have happened. The goddess Aphrodite has already come to bless these children. Would you argue with the gods?”

“I have before,” said Minos. He was human, and he had made mistakes. He should have done what the gods had told him, but he had, as his wife said, been arrogant. He shrank back against the wall, feeling suddenly old and spent of his fury. “Very well. But expect nothing more from me except for your lives.”

Pasiphaë raised her chin. “I have never expected more. And you have given to me the nothing you promised, over and over again.”

* * *

By the king’s decree, the children were allowed to live, and indeed, their lives were peaceful. They stayed in Pasiphaë’s rooms at first. The girl, Agaphya, was a gentle and docile daughter. She did exactly what she was told, but couldn’t manipulate her large cow’s tongue to speak human language, and so remained mute. Her brother, Asterion, grew at an alarming rate, the same as any bull. Within half a year, it was hard for him to enter through the narrow doorway leading to his mother’s room. Within a year, he was forced to spend his days outside, in a covered tent rigged up for him in the courtyard with the assistance of his mother’s handmaids. Although his body grew at a bull’s rate, his head grew at a human’s rate, so he had the small baby face of a one-year-old perched atop his strong bull’s neck.

Agaphya refused to be separated from her brother. If she was taken away for even so much as a moment, she would wobble her large cow’s head atop her small baby’s neck and low and low endlessly. The sound was inescapable, her moaning cow cries impossible to hush. Finally, their mother allowed the girl to toddle out to her brother and sleep against his warm side at night. The girl spent her days riding on Asterion as he walked around the courtyard, her legs split wide over the expanse of his broad back. He was careful of his hooves around the tiny girl when she walked on her own feet, and one could tell where his sister was standing simply by the direction in which he pointed his face at any given time. They were like one creature separated into two bodies—or, more correctly, two creatures meant to be one.

The king’s subjects grew so used to having these two as a fixture at the palace that it sometimes came as a shock when visiting dignitaries expressed fear or disgust at seeing them for the first time. The only one who never seemed to accept them was Minos, who took pains to avoid the main courtyard. When he was forced to cross it, he would hurry by and never look up at the two children-beasts there. And they would watch him silently, never speaking or drawing attention to themselves. Their mother had told them about Minos. What she had said was best left unrepeated.

Twelve years passed, and Asterion’s face lengthened, grew larger and more proportionate with his bull’s body. Agaphya’s huge cow head no longer tended to overtip her if she walked too quickly, for she grew taller and broader. By age sixteen, the two halves of their nature seemed to settle into a complementary whole, a blending together of things as intended by the gods.

But the more content the two siblings seemed, the more the king’s face grew wrathful every time he happened to spot them. When he overheard his counselors speaking about these two creatures as “The Minotaurs,” some sort of benevolent symbol for the city, he was furious. This was his city, not a place for the foul offspring of his wife’s adultery. He needed to do something, and that something came about through listening to his wife, incidentally enough.

He hadn’t touched Pasiphaë since the birth. Not brushed a sleeve past hers or put a hand on her skin. He had barely seen her. But at important state functions, he needed a queen as hostess for the appearance of things, and so several times a year, he would summon her to attend court. She always came and fulfilled her duties impeccably. But the slow burn of hatred in his heart engendered by her deceitful presence took weeks to disperse again.

This time was no exception. Even though he had summoned her, upon seeing Pasiphaë’s still-beautiful face, Minos was overwhelmed for a moment with rage. He had to take several deep breaths before he could speak. “We have visitors from the mainland,” he told her.

“Very well.”

“I will send you the details via your handmaiden. Tomorrow is the feast. I want you to show them all honors.”

“Of course. Is there anything else?”

The presumption of the woman! He seethed, but finally shook his head. He did not trust his voice. She turned and left without saying anything else, without once meeting his eyes.

The next night, with the envoys of kings at his side, he couldn’t help but hear the words of his wife as she conversed with one of the ambassadors two seats away. “I would never dare!” she laughed—flirtatiously, he thought.

“It is not as scary as it is made out to be,” grinned the man. He toyed with the grapes on his plate, as if giving his hands something to do while his attention was diverted by a beautiful woman. “In fact, it was over quite quickly.”

“I have always wondered about the oracle.” Pasiphaë’s voice lowered, and Minos couldn’t hear what was said next.

“Yes, I know. I saw them as I came in,” replied the ambassador.

That very night, Minos commanded his ships be readied for sailing in the morning. If that man could find answers at Delphi’s oracle, so could he. He was a king, after all. And the gods bent special favor upon his kind.

* * *

When he returned, Minos brought shiploads of new people with him, crowds of architects and slaves. They set to work immediately. The oracle had told him to build a maze underneath his palace, a massive cage for the two unnatural godspawn creatures. Once that was done, he was to leave them trapped in the center.

Work proceeded quickly. He was unsurprised to see Pasiphaë when she eventually came to visit him, her face as pale as cheese.

“You can’t mean to do this. They are children.”

“They are monsters,” he told her coldly. “I should have done this long before.”

She pleaded, she begged for their lives. He relented enough that a small chute was built in the center of the palace, so food and drink could be dropped down for those below. “This is your responsibility,” he told her. “I will have no one help you in this task. You must prepare the food with your own hands and bring it to them. If you fail in that, I will have rocks thrown down instead, and the entrance sealed.”

The queen bowed her head. “Thank you for your generosity, King Midos.” She could not quite contain the bitterness in her tone.

“Be careful, wife,” he told her. “Lest I force their adulterous mother to join them. Then there would be no one left to feed you.”

Pasiphaë bowed her head lower. This time, she did not trust her voice to speak. At her apparent humility, he let her take leave of his presence.

* * *

When her children were blindfolded, twenty strong men had to restrain Asterion as he used every bit of his bull’s strength to try and escape. Agaphya, docile as always, meekly allowed her head to be covered with a sack and followed the hands that guided her. Pasiphaë wept as her children were led into the labyrinth, but made no move to stop the soldiers who took them. She knew King Midos’s eyes were on her. She knew, but did not care, except to fervently remind herself that her children would die without her. She needed to stay strong of heart.

Each day before the sun rose, Pasiphaë trekked down to the marketplace and purchased the freshest foodstuffs she could find. Then back to the palace kitchens, where she would spend hours chopping and stirring, creating simple but nutritious fare. She would tie the meals up in a cloth and lower them on a string through the palace chute. When she felt the tug on the other end, she counted a double handful of numbers, and then brought the string back up, with only the cloth at the end of it, now emptied of viands.

After a year passed, King Midos summoned her again. “There is a delegation from Athens,” he told her. “They have spoken to the oracle.”

“What now?” she asked warily.

“Plague,” he replied. “The oracle told them to sacrifice a boy and girl to the creatures underneath our city.”

“Sacrifice? Creatures? They are no more violent than I am! They are children, still, and you have imprisoned them. What have they ever done to you?”

Midos loomed over her. “They were born,” he said. “That is enough.” There was nothing she could argue against that. He continued, “You must lead the sacrifices to the center of the maze.”

“How am I to do that? I have never been inside the labyrinth. I don’t know my way to the center.”

For the first time, Midos smiled. It was not a friendly expression. “You will learn.”

* * *

In the end, her handmaiden came up with the answer. “String,” the woman said. “Tie a piece to the entrance to guide you back through any wrong turnings.”

It worked like a charm. Although the boy and girl from Athens were frightened after many hours traveling through the labyrinth, and upon finally seeing the two creatures who awaited them, Pasiphaë managed to reassure them. “These two will not hurt you,” she told the sacrifices. “They are my children.”

The Athenian delegation, satisfied when she came back by herself, went on their way. Pasiphaë sent even more food down the chutes to care for the extra mouths. A year later, the Athenians returned.

“Plague? The oracle?” she guessed when Midos summoned her.

“Yes,” he said without preamble. She led the two new children to the center of the maze and spent many hours of each day after that preparing food for the prisoners in the labyrinth. A year later, the ships returned.

This time, Midos declared that he would celebrate their arrival with a feast. The oracle had told the Athenians that this third time would permanently end the plague that had troubled them. Pasiphaë sat next to the ambassador, the young son of the Athenian king, and spoke with him throughout the long night. Afterwards, she took to her bed, exhausted from the celebrations. Tomorrow, she would lead the last of the children into the maze.

But the next morning, she was feverish and crying out at the pain. Midos, arriving to summon her to the maze, looked down at his wife and saw the telltale boils rising to the surface of her skin. Pasiphaë was insensible, unaware that he was even standing over her. “Tend to her,” he told her handmaiden. “And send the ambassador to me.”

The young man came immediately. Theseus, Midos recalled. “The queen has fallen to Athen’s plague,” he said. The young man appeared startled.

“But the oracle said…”

“Only one thing can cure her. An end to this dreadful disease. Bring the final sacrifices to the center of the maze. Do not come back until you have done so.”

“But I do not know the way. Only the queen knows.”

“Do not trouble me with useless details. Ask her, if you are so inclined.”

With a sinking feeling, the prince knocked at the entrance to her rooms. The handmaiden allowed him into the queen’s chambers, but Pasiphaë was tossing back and forth and couldn’t answer his questions.

“I know a way,” said a soft voice behind him. He turned to see the queen’s handmaiden, a woman a little older than Pasiphaë. “String,” she explained to him.

As he went into the labyrinth, Theseus took the children with one hand and held the string with the other. Although he made many wrong turnings through the twisting corridors of the stone maze, hours later, he made the final turning and saw a sea of light.

Or so it seemed, after such a long time in the darkness. At the center of the enormous cavern at the labyrinth’s end, a small fire was burning. Four children sat around its perimeter, black with smoke and filth. They cowered back at his sudden appearance, at the rage on his face when he saw them. Here were all the sacrifices demanded by the oracle. No wonder Athens had continued to suffer plague, if all these sacrifices still lived. It was the deepest betrayal of the gods.

Suddenly, he heard a sound to his left and looked over to see two monstrous creatures approaching him. One thundered towards him like a galloping horse, and he dropped the string he was holding and reached for his sword.

When he emerged from the entrance to the labyrinth hours later, having followed the string back to its source, the soldiers at the entrance gaped at him. Theseus wiped a bloody hand across his face, but it didn’t improve his appearance. One of the men at the entrance tentatively asked, “Were you successful?”

Theseus looked down at his bloody hands. “Yes,” he said shortly. “They are all dead.”

The man’s eyes widened. “All, your Highness?”

“I have made answer to the gods’ demands for sacrifice.”

“Bad news, then, your Highness,” said the other soldier. “The city mourns. The queen died while you were below. I am truly sorry. You must not have been in time.”

Theseus smiled grimly. “The gods have spoken through me,” he said. “And I was successful. I got there just in the nick of time.”

The Heart of Yuki-onna

Originally published by World Weaver Press.

* * *

Before father’s eyes stopped on her, she knew. Before he had told them that there were too many mouths to feed in winter, before her mother had fallen to the ground weeping, she knew.

"Yuki-onna," he said.

She lowered her head and nodded. Over the sound of her mother’s weeping, she stood up and walked to the door. But before she opened it, she paused and half-turned back to face her family. She did not look up into the granite face of the man who had given her life—and now wanted to take it away. Instead, her eyes focused on the ground.

"Will it hurt?" she asked softly.

Her mother wailed. Her father’s face, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, seemed frozen into a mask that had no meaning. No one answered her quiet question.

She took nothing with her when she walked outside into the blizzard. She wore her kimono, but no shoes; they would be needed by the younger ones. The first touch of the snow was sharp like glass, even against her hardened soles. The winds blew through her thin kimono as if she wore nothing at all.

Staggering, she put a hand out to the cherry tree to steady herself. It was bare, as all the plants were bare, but her fingers glimpsed a hint of warmth beneath their tips, as if the tree had sympathy for her. With no other destination in mind, she sank down beneath its gentle branches and huddled upon herself.

She didn’t know how long it was before the winds faded. "Yuki-onna," she heard from somewhere, and with the voice came warmth and light. She glanced up, but her lashes had frozen together and her hands didn’t seem to be working properly as she tried to bat at her eyes to open them. Standing up on numb legs, there seemed to be a burning fire beneath her now. It was not unpleasant, but she longed suddenly to take off her kimono, to bathe in the waters of fire as she bathed in the meadow stream in the summer.

"Yuki-onna," she heard through the distant sounds of the storm. She reached out her hands—to what, she didn’t know, as she still could see nothing through the driving snow.

There was pressure now upon her fingers, as if someone had taken them in a firm grasp. She smiled, felt herself falling slowly through the air, as if she had all the time in the world, as if each second had become a century. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see the brilliant light and feel the fires burning, burning through her until she was as light as ash. She could feel herself dissolving.

The next gust of wind picked her up and blew her away.

* * *

In the morning, the storm was gone, and in its place was an unbroken ocean of white. When Hisao went outside, he knew what he would find.

But he did not find it.

Under the cherry tree, he noticed a round hollow, as if someone had lain there for a long time, but no sign of Yuki-onna. On the trunk of the tree was a perfectly white handprint, as if burned into the bark itself by a strong fire. Farther out, the fields were pristine and empty.

He went inside and told his wife. Like the night before, she fell to caterwauling until he drew back his hand and silenced her. After that, the tears dripped from her face, but she made no sound.

"She can’t have gotten far," he told her. "I have better things to do than search for her."

So he did them. He chopped wood, carried in snow to melt for the cookpot. He checked his snares, and was pleased to discover a rabbit in one of them. But the whole time he worked, he felt as if he were missing something. He felt as if someone were watching him, which was absurd. Yuki-onna couldn’t have survived the storm. Perhaps he merely felt her dead eyes following him around from the shelter of some convenient nook where he hadn’t found her body. Well, he would discover her in the springtime when the snow melted, that was for sure.

That night, Kenshin, the youngest, wouldn’t stop fussing. "I want Yuki-onna!" he cried. His older sister had often let him into her warm bed at night and held him when the moaning of the wind scared him, singing lullabies. Without her, he was cold and frightened.

Hisao shouted for Kenshin to be quiet. When he wouldn’t stop asking for Yuki-onna, Hisao yelled, "She is holding back the winter for us!"

Finally, the little boy stopped crying. Hisao and his wife went to sleep.

The next morning, Kenshin’s bed was empty. When Hisao went tearing outside to look for his son, he found no sign of him. No trace of footprints in the snow, although no new snow had fallen since the night Yuki-onna had left. He found absolutely nothing at all.

"He must be in the house," he roared, storming inside. They looked in the cupboard, lifted up their sleeping mats, but there really weren’t many places to hide.

This time, his wife was silent as she cried. But her eyes seemed to stab into him, and he could feel the gazes of his remaining children waiting for his reaction.

"I will…check the snares," he told them. He put on his boots and coat slowly, trying to think. When he stomped out into the snow, his feet left deep imprints, but there was no sign of any other marks. He walked in and out of the woods at the edge of the clearing, poked at the branches above his head, called out Kenshin’s name. The echoes of his voice came back to him, but no sign of his younger son.

He returned home at dusk, empty-handed. His wife’s eyes cut across him and his children turned away.

That night, Hisao slept fitfully. Every hour, he would start awake and go to check on his remaining three children. They had pushed their mats and blankets together and slept curled in a mess of thin, tangled limbs. His one remaining son and two daughters, all with his own coal-black eyes and their mother’s rosebud mouth. His children. Near dawn, he finally fell into a deep sleep.

He walked through the woods, but the sunlight was thin and cast the ground in shadow. Snow trickled down from overhead, but the light remained constant and dim. Nothing stirred in the forest except for him—the birds were silent, the small creatures rustled no leaves and did not leap from branch to branch. Everything seemed to be hiding away, and he walked deeper into the forest with a sense of dread.

Far ahead, he glimpsed a shining white light. Sanctuary! He picked up his feet, trying to run as the wind pushed the snow into his face, as the flakes grew thicker and fell faster. He could feel the skin of his cheeks turning cold against the brutal assault of winter.

The shining ahead of him dimmed. "No!" he cried, reaching out. He pushed his legs faster, staggering in the deepening snow. The drifts were up to his ankles, his knees, his thighs. He grabbed at passing tree trunks, and the touch through his gloves raced up his arms like icicles, instantly numbing them. The white light flickered and flickered again, and he noticed that it was topped by a sea of glowing black.

Then the light grew brighter—the creature, turning. He saw that it was a woman in a white kimono, her long black hair blown back by the wind. Her lips were blue as the sky in high summer, and her coal-black eyes burned him like ice. Despite this, her face was familiar, if terrible.

He crouched down before her, bowing his head. "I am sorry, my daughter," he told the apparition.

The ghost made no answer. It reached out one long-fingered hand, the skin as white and final as death. At the last moment, he looked up and saw behind the figure the small forms of his two sons cowering behind her.

Hisao shouted, sitting upright. His wife cried out, waking up and turning to look at him. "What is it?" she demanded.

He shook his head. He didn’t know what to tell her. Was it a true dream, or only a nightmare? He threw back the covers and got to his feet, although the light was still dim. He hadn’t been asleep for long, perhaps only moments since the last time he’d checked on the children.

In the small house, it took only a few steps to reach their sleeping mat. He stared down at it, unbelieving.

Two children lay sleeping on the mat, their limbs entwined in sleep. His two remaining girls.

His only other son was gone.

Hisao spent a long time looking down at his sleeping daughters. His wife was sitting up on their mat now, but didn’t rise to her feet. From where she was, she could see the two children. She could guess what it meant.

Still, Hisao went to the door and opened it to look out. His boot marks from the two days before were all over the white snow, but there were no other footprints. He gently closed the door, returned for his boots and coat, and went back outside without a word to his family.

His wife never knew what happened to him, for Hisao never returned. When night fell, she found a rabbit on the doorstep, frozen solid as if dipped into a vat of ice. She thawed it, skinned it and cooked it for supper, and she and her daughters ate until their stomachs were round. Every couple of days after that, there would be an offering hung on the door latch—sometimes forest creatures, sometimes cattails or baskets of nuts or piles of daikon or renkon. All the offerings were completely frozen, the nuts delivered in a basket composed of ice that melted when she put it in the stew-pot.

When spring came, the offerings ceased. But their fields sprang forth with a higher yield than they’d ever seen, and they had plenty of food set aside by the time winter returned and with only three mouths to feed. But for the rest of their lives, anytime in the winter that their supplies ran short, they would find food on their doorsteps to tide them over. The widow and her daughters became known for their generosity to others, and the village where they lived prospered. The daughters married well, and their husbands were kind to them and their children.

But, still, they never forgot their sister Yuki-onna or the day she walked out into the snow, never to return. Until the day they died, late at night when the winds moaned, they would swear they heard a voice outside singing lullabies. And once in a while, travelers through the region would stop at the village and speak about a moving light in the snow that guided them to safety in a storm. To them, the light appeared to be a woman and two small boys, glowing with a shine as beautiful and serene as the moon.

Rati Mehrotra

Charaid Dreams

Originally published by Apex Magazine, Issue 70, in March 2015

* * *

It’s not the cold what kills you. Not the naarg-wolves neither, Maw says, though they’re plenty scary. No, it’s the Dreams what’ll get you in the end. Dreams what wake in winter and sleep in summer. If only summer weren’t so short. Like the song of a chitkil it is, a burst of glory that leaves you colder, darker than before.

But the cold and dark has a song all its own. I got no fancy words for it, but when the moon of long shadows rises over the top of the black ice forest, I get all chokey, like something’s trying to force its way out of my throat.

Maw says I waste too much time staring slack-jawed at the purple horizon. “Close that mouth and get to work, fool girl,” she says, “or a Dream will drift in and eat you from inside.”

Maw says horrible things but she don’t mean nothing by it. She’s been a bit off since Paw disappeared. Into the snowfield he vanished, with nary a footprint for anyone to see. Maw set the dogs to follow him and they didn’t come back neither. Me and Jacob were in town, selling skins. By the time we made it back home, the first storm of the season was howling in our faces, and it were all we could do to throw ourselves inside and bolt the door.

That were a couple of moons ago. Now it’s just Maw and me and my brother Jacob and my sister Hilsa in the wood and stone house Paw built so many years ago. The beams are rotting—every night I breathe the musty smell and think of how Maw were always after Paw to replace them.

Word got around that we’d lost Paw and the dogs, and the mayor came by in his skid. “We can grow you more dogs but it’ll cost,” he said, and then he looked at me and licked his lips like I were a hank of roast gizla.

Maw spat on the ground and said, “Don’t want ’em. Dogs is more trouble than they’s worth, eating half of whatever we trap or shoot.”

The mayor said, “You gone plum crazy, old woman? What’s gonna warn you when the naargs fetch up at your door?”

Maw raised her dart gun and said, “Git your dirty boots off my land,” and that were that. No one’s come by since. Can’t say I’m sorry ’bout that.

Jacob and Hilsa was all for packing up and taking a slow shuttle to Tersis, a research station on the next planet that still gets the occasional longship. But Maw said, “You done lost your senses? You knows how lucky we is to be here? This is our home and if you don’t like it, go bury yornselves in the snow and good riddance.”

They didn’t say nothing, but I knew what they was thinking: fool Maw and Paw to pretend they’d won a lottery when all they’d won were a one-way ticket to exile. No one comes to Charaid now, and the nearest colony with more’n a few dozen families is eleven parsecs away.

Jacob’s nineteen Earth years, and he says he still remembers what it was like back on the old mother planet. Hilsa doesn’t—she was born on the ship—but he keeps telling her stories, showing her these vids of a warm, wonderful place with lots for everyone to eat, and no winter at all.

He tried showing me his vids, but Paw had told me the real story—how the seas had risen and swallowed whole cities, how you couldn’t breathe without a mask. Only a lucky few thousand won the lottery to escape Earth every year.

So I just laughed at Jacob. “If it were all so wonderful, Maw and Paw wouldn’t have left Earth,” I said. “Vids are for fools who don’t have enough work to do.”

Jacob pulled my hair and I kicked his shins and then Maw came flying out of the kitchen and landed us a few with her boots. We slunk out into the cold and jumped up and down trying to warm ourselves.

But then Jacob said something I can’t shake off, try as I might. He said, “You’re not like us, Charyn. You was born here. You’re as alien as them Dreams.”

That’s malarkey and I kicked him again, but he just stared at me like I was some stranger what had come knocking at the door and set the dogs a-barking.

I wish there was others like me—kids born on Charaid. But I’m the only one—the only one what lived, anyhow. The rest died of a burning fever soon after they was born. That’s why the longships stopped coming. No point trying to populate a planet that downright refuses to be populated.

So there’s just the old timers, less of them every year. There’s the graves behind the church—my sister’s too. Janely would’ve been eight if she’d lived.

And then there’s me, the freak. No one can understand it. They studied me when I was a baby and found nothing different, no sneaky stuff that had slipped into my cells when Maw weren’t looking. No matter what that fool Jacob says. Making out like he knows something the scientists didn’t.

The scientists left long ago, so there’s no one for me to ask my questions, not that I rightly know what to ask. No, there’s just folk like Maw, trying to scratch a living from acres of snow and ice and woods what hide things you wish you didn’t know about.

I wonder how long Paw suffered before he died.

*

Jacob and Hilsa tried to take the skid into town. Maw lit into them and then she took out the reactor, what makes the skid work, and now we’re all stuck here, thirteen kilometres from town. It’s like Janely all over again. Maw went crazy then too.

Jacob said, “You want to kill us like you killed Paw?”

I thought Maw would hit him but she didn’t. She just went all quiet and still and then she went into her room and banged the door shut. I wish Jacob hadn’t said anything, but he blames her for letting Paw wander off on his own. As if Paw ever did anything Maw wanted.

Stores are running low. Even the nutri-pills are gone. No help for it but to go out and hunt. Hilsa refused to help—she’s such a scaredy cat—so that left Jacob and me. We pulled on our jumpsuits and sweaters and gizla-skin cloaks, and then we strapped on our snowshoes. Jacob took the traps and Paw’s exploding tip gun, the one we found half-buried in the snow just outside the forest. I took the sled and the knives, and then we opened the shed door and walked out into the cold.

Wind and ice and purple shadows whispering like they was waiting for us. I shivered and clumped my way across the snowfield. Winter twilight’s the best for hunting. And being hunted. That’s why you need two people—one to hunt and one to watch your back. But Paw went alone that day, with not even the dogs for company. A Dream called, and he listened. Or maybe he were just tired of it all. Maybe he got over-confident. I sure don’t know.

Behind me, Jacob said, “Don’t you go running off this time or I’ll peel your skin and hang it up on the door for the naargs to chew.”

I’d have stuck my tongue out at him but that would have frozen it. “I never ran nowhere. I was close the whole time.”

Jacob snorted and kept walking. I scowled at his back.

It was just that one time two years ago when I turned twelve, and they never let me hear the end of it. Paw took Jacob and me into the forest to hunt gizla, and I saw something—no, I heard something—and I took off after it. I couldn’t help myself. It was like a song, but not with words and music and dancing. Not like first summer’s eve at the town hall. I could never explain to anyone afterward what I felt. Like I followed the song but I was also in the song, and then Paw was dragging me home by the ear, red-faced and hollering. Maw thought maybe a Dream swallowed me and I wasn’t tasty enough, so it spat me out again.

Maybe she’s right. And maybe that’s why Jacob looks at me funny sometimes.

We neared the forest. I could tell Jacob was nervous. So many firsts. First hunt of the season. First time without Paw.

I smelled them before I saw them, elongated shadows loping toward us from the forest. I screamed, and Jacob whipped the gun off his shoulder. He took aim and let fly and six bodies dropped to the ground, dark stains spreading on the snow. The rest melted away, back into the ice trees. A stench rose from the ground, and I tried not to gag.

“All that meat,” I said. “Such a waste.” Naargs tasted like death.

Jacob lowered the gun. I could see he was trying not to shake.

“Good shooting,” I told him. He grunted and stared at the trees. “They’ll be waiting for us,” I said. “A pack like that. Should we be going back?”

He gritted his teeth. “No. They’ll just follow us home. Watch my back, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, and we walked on. The ice trees closed over us. Black ice twisted into trunks and boughs and tendrils and arches that not even the summer sun could melt. Here the chitkil sang, just before the sun slipped away from the rim of the world. Four moons of summer followed by eighteen moons of winter. How fair is that?

We reached a small hollow with a bubbling hot spring what made crazy shapes around the edges of a pool. We took off our snowshoes and I unloaded the traps. My mouth watered thinking about gizla steak. Then I sniffed the air.

“Naargs a-coming,” I said.

Jacob squatted on his haunches and raised the gun.

That’s when the song started. I found myself standing, turning around, walking away. I could hear Jacob hollering behind me, could hear the gunshots and the snarls, but it was like a vid in another room. It wasn’t real, wasn’t important. The only thing that was important was the song, and getting as close to it as possible.

And if it were a Dream what called, what then?

I didn’t care. If this was how Paw died, then it was a fine thing.

The notes high and sweet, the longing so sharp I couldn’t bear it. I began to run, my boots sinking into piles of fresh snow. Somewhere I lost my hooded cloak. The cold rushed into my ears. Icicles stabbed my face. But I didn’t stop—I couldn’t.

Not until I skidded on the edge of a frozen pond and saw who was waiting on the other side.

Paw.

The song died and something squeezed my heart. The sudden silence was painful—or perhaps it was seeing Paw again that made me feel like blubbering.

“Paw!” I yelled. “You all right? I’m coming.”

I stepped on the black ice, digging in my crampons. The ice would hold—it always did.

But in the middle of the pond, cracks opened under my feet. I had no time to think, to react. I fell, arms and legs flailing. Black water gushed into my screaming mouth.

*

I woke to the orange glow of fire. I stretched my hands to it and sighed. I was all warm and comfy, like I was in Maw’s bed, snuggled up to her side.

Wait, that was years ago. Where was I? I blinked and looked around. The Black Ice Forest. Paw sitting on the other side of the fire, turning meat on a stick.

“Paw,” I said. “Why did you leave us and come here? Maw is worried.”

Paw didn’t answer right away. He tossed me the cooked meat. “Eat,” he said. “Talk later.”

I tore into the meat, burning my tongue. With a pang I thought of Jacob. I was supposed to be watching his back.

“Don’t worry about him,” said Paw, picking up another stick of meat. “He’s home safe.”

How had he read my mind? Maybe I’d spoken aloud. “The naargs?” I said.

“All dead.”

“And what about us?” I couldn’t help asking. “We dead too?”

Paw gave a snort of laughter. “Damn fool girl. Dead don’t eat. Dead get eaten.”

I laughed too because it was funny and I was that dumb. Paw must have saved me when the ice broke under my feet. Though it was weird, the ice breaking like that in dead winter. And I couldn’t figure out why he’d left us to come live in the forest.

And then I looked again and it weren’t Paw at all, just something that were wearing Paw, like a skin.

“Who are you?” I said, although I didn’t feel scared. Not yet.

“Who are you?” it said, and tossed me another bit of meat.

I wolfed it down before talking, I was that hungry.

“You’re a Dream, ain’t you?” I said, and licked my fingers. “The ones what lure people into the cold.”

“A dream,” it said. “A figment of the human brain, not real. Is that how you see us?”

It weren’t talking like Paw no more. It weren’t looking much like him neither. The hair coiled like worms, the face all loose and shiny. I began to shake. It leaned forward and stared at me out of dark, empty holes. “You haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

“The only one what lived,” I stammered. “The others all died, didn’t they? Fever burned through them in less’n a week. Not me.”

It leaned back and grinned, a dreadful sight what made me shudder. Perhaps it hadn’t got the hang of human teeth. “Not you,” it said. “When you were born, we bonded with your—how shall we call it—with your stem, modifying your body’s reaction to our presence.”

That didn’t make sense. “Your presence? What do you mean?”

“We are everywhere on Charaid. We are Charaid. Every shard of ice, every animal that breathes. We are even inside you.”

Inside me. I tried not to vomit but they came out anyway, all evil-smelling, those bits of meat I’d just eaten. So this was why I had survived. Jacob was right. I was as alien as the thing sitting opposite me.

My throat burned. I wiped my mouth and looked up to find it watching me. “Adult humans could withstand us, but the new-spawned could not, unfortunately,” it said.

“You killed and ate Paw, didn’t you?” I said.

It blurred at the edges, and now there was hardly no resemblance to a human being. “Yes and no. Your father died of the cold well before we absorbed him. Just like we absorb the others that wander too far from the light and warmth of their homes. Just like we will absorb you when you die. But unlike them, you will continue to live in us. Because we live in you, have lived in you, since the beginning.”

“Why only me? Why not the others?” Why am I alone, I wanted to scream.

And then it was Paw again, sitting right beside me, stroking my cheek with callused palms, wiping away the tears just like he used to if I fell and hurt myself or Maw whacked me too hard. “You’re thinking of Janely, aren’t you?” he said. “Such a pretty baby. Your Maw was never the same after. I’m real sorry about that, Charyn. But you see, we had to be sure. Part of us thought of you as an infection. Another part wondered if you were intelligent. We had to talk to an adult, and the only way to do that was to bond with one at birth and wait for it to grow.”

The wind rose and the fire flickered. My eyes watered and I blinked. “So you’ve talked with one,” I said. “What’s gonna happen now?”

“Up to you,” said the thing pretending to be Paw. “Would you like to leave Charaid, now that you know about us?”

“I can’t leave, can I?” I said. “Not with you lurking in my insides.”

“We can purge you,” it said. “It is not impossible, although it would kill some of us. You could leave with your siblings.”

“And Maw?”

“Your mother will refuse to leave,” it said. “You know this.”

I got up and walked away from the fire. I guess I couldn’t bear looking at it no more. Couldn’t bear thinking what it had done to me. It didn’t try to follow me or anything, but a little later I stumbled into a clearing and there it was again, my fake Paw, warming its hands in front of another fire.

“Stop pretending to be him,” I snapped. “My Paw is dead.”

The thing shifted in the firelight, bits of flesh and bone rearranging themselves. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch. When I opened them again, a small girl with pigtails sat by the fire. “So am I,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t exist. Do you not still think of me?”

I swallowed hard. “Janely,” I said. “Wish you was really here.” Tears leaked out of my eyes, froze on my cheeks. I knew it was just a trick, that I was being a fool. But seeing Janely all growed up, the way she should’ve been, just tore something inside me. And the hardest part was knowing that it didn’t have to be this way.

“It’s not your fault, Charyn,” said the Dream. It had taken on Paw-skin again. “You were picked at random. You can leave Charaid, if that is what you wish.”

No. I wouldn’t let it all be for nothing. This was my planet too. I wiped my face. “What do you want?” I said. “For us to stay?”

“Humans are—interesting. We have learned much from our bond with you. But to stay in Charaid, to make it their true home, humans will have to accept us as part of their ecosystem, just as we have accepted them into ours. If you agree to this, you can stay.”

It was asking me to speak for everyone, for all humans on Charaid. “I don’t have much choice, do I?” I said. “And the others may feel right different.”

Not-Paw shook its head. “The strangest thing about you is how separate you are. This will change when we are bonded with all of you, of course.”

I flinched at the thought of being in Maw’s head. “You can enter the adults?”

“It will be sufficient to bond with the new-spawned. Over time, all humans on Charaid will be connected to us.”

“Won’t work will it?” I said. “Hardly no more babies being born.”

“You are a human female. Surely you can find a male to procreate with. When your child lives, others will follow.”

I thought of the mayor slobbering over me and would’ve puked again if there was anything left in me to puke. “I’ll think of another way,” I said.

It stood up. “Take all the time you need. Remember, you are not alone. You never have been.”

Paw disintegrated, pieces of flesh and blood flying apart. The fire died away and the cold crept into me, along with the realization of what I’d just done.

Would I have done it if the Dream weren’t in me already? I thought of Janely, and I knew the answer.

I don’t remember how I made it home. They helped me in some way. I knew they was there by the notes of the song that drifted to me now and then. The song kept me going, kept the worst of the cold away. Through the forest and across the snowfield and by the time I reached home, I even had my gizla-skin cloak on.

I hammered on the door and Jacob flung it open. I stumbled in and fell on the floor. Then it was like I was outside looking in while Jacob and Maw dragged me to the fire and Hilsa stripped me down to my jumpsuit.

For the longest while I couldn’t speak or think. When I’d pulled on some dry sweaters and gulped down a bowl of broth Maw shoved at me, I started to think I might live after all. I looked at my family, at their worried faces, and it hit me then. I wasn’t alien like them Dreams. But I wasn’t like Jacob nor Hilsa neither. I was something in-between. And maybe that was okay. Maybe that was best.

Maw said, “Has a Dream got your tongue?”

“It got a lot more’n that,” I mumbled.

“What?” said Maw. “Speak up, girl, or is it a clout on the head you’re wanting?”

I cleared my throat, prayed to all the gods that didn’t never exist, and began:

“Maw, I ain’t only me.”

Ghosts of Englehart

Originally published by AE – The Canadian Science Fiction Review, Issue no. 17, Winter 2014

* * *

I left in the darkness before dawn, when everyone else was still asleep. It was harder than I thought it would be. Zac and Lev looked so angelic, I wanted to bend down and kiss their foreheads. Better sense prevailed, and I just blew them a kiss goodbye before quietly closing the door. Would they miss their big sister? Would they wonder why she’d left?

Fights with Mum were nothing new. But yesterday she’d told me to leave, point-blank. She was half-drunk when she said it, but that didn’t change anything.

I slipped out of the old clapboard-and-fieldstone house that Grandpa had built, back when Sudbury was still a bustling little town. Not the empty, ghostly place it is today, with most men and women conscripted in the war with New York.

Mum was exempted from the draft because of the twins. Dad had died in Englehart along with the rest of the town when the Soliari ship first landed there. We never got his body back, or anything to bury. We were told he evaporated, but that didn’t make any sense to me. How can a human being evaporate? It’s like saying there’s nothing to a person except liquids and gases, and that can’t be true.

At the gate I turned for a last look. Mum would be relieved to find me gone. This thought was like a painful twist inside me, so I walked away fast, my eyes scanning the shadows on either side.

Nothing moved except me—nothing human, at any rate. The aliens were there, of course, but then they were always there, no matter what Mum said. Watching me with their gold-dark eyes, waiting to see what I would do. If I looked at them directly, they always vanished.

I first began seeing them a couple of years ago, just after I turned thirteen. The war had been going on for a while, and we’d settled into a routine of sorts. I’d wake early and scavenge for food. In the right season, there were blackberries and mushrooms and wild apples in the woods beyond the school yard. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I caught a squirrel or a hare in one of my traps.

By the time I got back, the twins were usually awake and hungry. Looking at them, you wouldn’t have thought they were anything special. But I could feel the gold-dark gaze behind their brown eyes. I could see the ghosts of the feelers framing their faces. It wasn’t just the twins. I’d seen the same frond-like extensions on every child younger than five. That was how long the Soliari had been around.

I’d told Mum when I first began to see them. At first she said I was hallucinating, that the Soliari could make you see things even when they were far away. But when I told her about the twins she just screamed at me—crazy bitch shutup shutup—so I stopped telling her anything after that. How Zac and Lev could move things without touching them. How they never cried, no matter how hard they fell.

What would she give them to eat tomorrow morning? There was a little leftover meat, a bunch of fiddleheads and wild onions, but when that was gone, there would be nothing. I hoped she’d be able to pull herself together and find food. It was spring; the season was in her favour. Mine too. I hadn’t fancied walking two hundred kilometres through snow and ice. That was how far it was to Englehart-that-was.

I’d heard there was nothing left of the town but a crater where the main street used to be, and the ghosts, drifting through the ruined Cinema Palace. Perhaps my father would be among them.

Englehart was the closest alien landing site to Sudbury—the only site in eastern Canada. There were more sites south of the border, but most were in the heavy population centres of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

I remembered the news, back when we still had news. Military planes had tried to bomb the crafts and the domes that sprang up around the landing sites. When that proved ineffective—the bombs decimated cities but left the alien domes untouched—people turned on each other. It was like everyone went crazy. Perhaps the Soliari had something to do with it, or perhaps the craziness was in us all along, just waiting for the opportunity to manifest itself. We had been at war with New York for four years—rag-tag bands of conscripted men and women, killing each other bullet by bullet, unless a rare drone took out an entire company.

Oddly, the Soliari never attacked people. The only direct casualties were the population centres where their craft had landed. For the rest of it, they stayed in their domes, oblivious—or perhaps indifferent—to the carnage around them.

The sky lightened and I moved off the pitted road, just behind the trees. Not that any vehicles still ran, here or anywhere else, but it was better not to take a chance. I’d had the sensation of being followed once or twice, but there’d been no one and nothing to see when I turned to look back over my shoulder.

As I walked, I thought about Dad. How we used to play chess and Scrabble and Monopoly, how he used to tell me stories every night, deepening his voice to become Papa Bear or the Big Bad Wolf.

At least I had my memories. At least I had a childhood. The twins weren’t so lucky. Or perhaps they were luckier—it was hard to tell. I felt like I was caught between generations. Sometimes I dreamed of distant suns and the dark spaces between them. Sometimes I woke in the middle of the night to find numerous eyes watching me. In the beginning I’d screamed the house down, managing to wake even Mum from her drugged sleep. Now I was used to it, more or less.

At noon I found a small clearing and decided to rest and eat a bit. I figured I’d covered fifteen kilometres and deserved a break. I had just opened my knapsack to get a bottle of water when I heard voices. I crawled behind a tree, heart thumping fit to bust my rib cage.

Two men in fatigues strolled into the clearing. Deserters? They had guns, bulky backpacks and thick boots. To my dismay, they settled on the grass right in front of me, cutting off my escape. One of them opened his backpack and extracted a stove.

If they were going to cook, they planned to be here a while. I’d have to take the risk of moving. I backed away slowly, planning to make a wide arc around them to get back onto the road.

A few metres into the undergrowth, I straightened up and allowed myself a sigh of relief. I turned around and almost bumped into the solid chest of one of the soldiers. I tried to run but he caught me, grabbing my arm.

“Hey, what’s your hurry?” he said. “Come talk to us. We haven’t met anyone on the road for days.”

He sounded friendly enough, and anyway, I had no choice. I let him lead me back to the clearing, where the other man was cooking what looked like noodles, and smoking a cigarette. When he saw me, he spat the cigarette out.

“Stan, what the fuck you playing at?”

“Come on, Dwight. Found her slinking behind the trees here. Can’t let her report us, can we?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I blurted out. I was still thinking they might let me go.

The one called Stan grinned. “We know you won’t. What’s your name?”

“Dulia,” I said, hating the trembling in my voice.

“What a nice name.” He jerked his head toward the stove. “Be a good girl, Dulia, and you can share our food.”

The one called Dwight snorted and took the pan off the stove. “We don’t have any extra food.”

“I have apples,” I said. “I don’t need your food.”

“Great. Pretty and resourceful. Here, sit with me and you can have some of mine.”

Stan pulled me down beside him and forced a bowl into my hands. I didn’t want to eat it, but it smelled so good I couldn’t help myself. We hadn’t had real carbs in a while—no rice, noodles or bread. Supplies to Sudbury had dried up and the lone grocery store still open had nothing but empty shelves. I’d seen wild rice growing in the shallow water of streams and ponds, but was afraid to harvest it because the waterways were contaminated.

I slurped the noodles, trying to slow myself and make them last. The men watched me, and the aliens watched them watching me. It was odd: I didn’t feel scared or anything, although I knew something bad was going to happen, the way you can smell a storm in the air before it hits.

When we were finished, I offered to help wash up. Stan said, “Don’t bother. We can do it later.” He leaned against a tree trunk and yawned. “Aren’t you hot in that rain jacket? You should take it off.”

I was wearing Dad’s old rain jacket. “I’d rather not,” I said, crossing my arms. “It’s damp here.”

Stan and Dwight both laughed, and I wondered what they found funny. “Come on over, Dulia,” said Stan. “You’ll be warm and dry in my arms.”

I threw my bag at him and ran. I was fit and strong from all the walking I had to do foraging for food, but I’d covered fifteen kilometres already that morning and the rain jacket slowed me down.

Still I ran, ducking the branches that slashed my face and sucking in great gasps of air. Behind me I heard crashing sounds in the undergrowth. I had a chance, I thought. I could outrun them, especially in the woods.

Until I tripped on a tree root and went sprawling on the forest floor. The men were upon me in moments, ripping off the jacket and pinning my arms down. I screamed, not so much from fear as anger. I loved that old jacket—it was the only thing of my father’s that I’d taken with me.

Stan leaned over me, panting. “There’s nothing I like better than a chase to liven things up.”

Behind him, Dwight screamed. Stan twisted around and rose. “What the hell?”

I scrabbled off the ground and stared. Dwight’s face was melting. His gun had fused to his clothes. He fell down, arms and legs flailing. In less than a minute, there was nothing left of him but a pile of oozing flesh and metal.

Stan’s face twisted with rage and fear. “You did this. You goddamn Soliari witch!” He raised his gun and I closed my eyes, thinking of Dad. Bullets were messy. I was glad he had died clean, the time between life and death vanishingly small. I wished I could go like that too—to be here and then to be elsewhere, almost at once.

There was a gurgling noise and I opened my eyes. Stan had dropped his gun and was clutching his torn throat, eyes wide with panic. Blood poured out of the wound and dripped down his hands. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him, even though he would have killed me in the end. But he took such a long time to die, I half-wanted to pick up his gun and shoot him.

I waited until he finally stopped struggling, and then I picked up my torn jacket and put it on.

“Okay,” I said. “Come out. I know you’re there.”

A few moments passed before the twins emerged from the trees, looking half scared, half defiant.

I wanted to scold them, to punish them. But I couldn’t. I looked at the two dead things on the ground—things that had once been human—and tried not to throw up. I had to get away from there. I beckoned to the twins and we made our way through the undergrowth, back to the clearing.

Then I turned to them and snapped, “Why did you do that? Couldn’t you have just knocked them out?”

They exchanged a look. “You did that, Dulia,” said Lev. “Not us.”

“You know I can’t,” I said. “Why did you follow me anyway?”

“Why did you leave us?” countered Zac.

“You have Mum to look after you,” I said. “I wanted to go see Da—I mean, Englehart.”

Lev made a face. “We’re coming with you.”

“You go right back home,” I said. “Mum will be worried sick.”

“We left her a note,” said Zac. “She knows we’re with you.”

“Look, you’ve got to go back,” I said. “No telling what might break in and try to eat her.”

But they both had a stubborn, set look on their faces that I knew only too well. I threw up my hands. “Fine. But it’s a long way to Englehart. Don’t whine if you get tired.”

But I already knew they wouldn’t. They were grinning like I’d just given them the best present of their lives.

We opened the soldiers’ backpacks. There were packets of noodles, rice crackers, even some tinned meat. I loaded up my knapsack and told the twins to take turns carrying it. The rest I stuffed into one of the backpacks, and hefted it on my shoulder.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Still plenty of daylight left.”

But they lingered. Zac said, “Why does Mum hate you? She doesn’t hate us.”

I tried to speak calmly. “Mum doesn’t hate me. I just remind her of Dad, of the way things used to be before the Soliari came, and how different they are now. It’s hard for her to deal with it.”

They mulled over that. Lev said, “So she doesn’t see us?”

“No,” I said. “She sees only what’s human, the bit she gave birth to. She can’t see the other bits.”

“But you can.”

I looked at them sideways, the way I did sometimes. Their features blurred and the tentacles framing their faces waved softly in the wind. For a moment they looked almost identical to the things I saw drifting across the woods and in my dreams.

But it was still them, my brothers. I reached over and hugged them. “Yes, I can. Come on now.”

It took us another nine days to reach Englehart, following the remains of Trans Canada Highway 11. I’ll never forget that walk, that desolate landscape. Ruined smokestacks stood like sentinels over blasted plains. Gigantic striated rocks brooded over poisoned rivers. Halfway through, we were engulfed by swarms of black flies. The twins didn’t complain, even though I wouldn’t let them bathe in the polluted water to relieve their itch.

Close to Englehart, even the black flies vanished. By the time we reached the glass and metal ruins on the edge of the dead town, it felt like there was nothing human left on the entire planet except us. Maybe even including us.

Rising out of the ruins, like something from one of Dad’s stories, was what I had come to see—a monstrous black dome that glinted in the sun. This was what had killed my father.

We picked our way through the rubble to the edge of the crater that surrounded the dome. I found a rock to sit on, and Zac and Lev perched on either side of me.

Zac said, “They didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

There was no adequate response to this, so I made none.

Lev added, “I can see Dad. Can you?”

“Hush,” I said. After a while I saw him too, smiling and waving at me so my heart clenched. And then I saw them all, the ghosts of Englehart, drifting through the ruins that surrounded us. Big and small, happy and sad, just the way they were the day they died. It was a trick of the Soliari, nothing more, and yet how I longed for it to be real.

Zac said, “One day they’ll open their domes and we can go in.”

“We’ll go to the stars,” said Lev. “You’ll come, won’t you, Dulia?”

I made a non-committal noise. I didn’t tell him what I thought—that I wouldn’t be around when the Soliari emerged to show their true selves. Only the kids—the ones who could fully adapt to the aliens’ gift—would survive.

Dad and the other ghosts faded with the light. The sun set behind the dome, giving it a bright corona that almost blinded me. I closed my eyes and I could see him still, the after-image burned on the back of my eyelids.

“Goodbye Dad,” I whispered. Then I stood up. “Time to go.”

“Home?” said Lev, sounding disappointed.

I thought of Mum and her endless, black well of anger. “Not yet,” I said. “Let’s go see the world, what’s left of it.”

The twins whooped. I led them out of the rubble of Englehart, back on to the road.

Lia Swope Mitchell

Slow

Originally published in Apex Magazine 71, April 2015

* * *

From her mouth exhales some warm magic that sweeps the marble dust away, and this is the first thing he sees, though he does not quite understand that he sees: her lips bearing a faded stain of red worn away, paled in a utility light’s blaze. Below her chin a dust mask snares her throat. Another breath and she sets the chisel again, raises her mallet, and delicately, deliberately, she chips the scales from his eyes.

* * *

Sometimes there’s only a range of floorboards, slats of dust-dulled wood with starred prints from her shoes tracking diagonals across. Light reaches over, fading from left to right throughout the day, from nothing to a distorted symmetry of eight bright rectangles, to nothing again.

At some point in this daily progress, preceded by the slap of bare feet down stairs, the burble of a coffee maker, she appears. Sometimes she passes with only a glance. But normally she stops, levels a worn gaze over the rim of her coffee mug in greeting. In her stained t-shirt and cut-offs, her hair curling out of its dark braid, she looks crumpled, undefended. Often she touches him, traces some line of his yet-undefined anatomy for now visible only to her: the one she will create later, in her hours by his side, clearing the excess away.

* * *

One day something grows in his awareness, a feeling alien as another mind moving within his own, an increasing telepathic glow behind her mallet’s stuttered tap. In wonderment he waits, and it’s only when she stops that he realizes, that he’s certain: she’s been humming as she refines his newly made ear.

* * *

When she works she spreads drop cloths, weights their corners with fist-sized hunks of raw stone. She looks more than she carves, her eyes steady above the mask as she plans every small movement, every alteration to his form. Sometimes she sketches, molds clay, readies tools, tests them on some small rock before finally she turns to him.

Later when the light lessens, she gathers her tools and disappears. Then humidity weights the dust, clings to his surface with the same nutmeg scent that lingers on her skin, until she re-emerges in black pants and white shirt, hair tamed into a knob at the back of her head. She hunts and gathers all the small, necessary objects that she carries with her, that always manage to escape: keys, cardholder, pens, lighter, wine service. “Shit,” she says as she digs through her bag, flings it over her shoulder and brandishes a key. “Shit.” And then she’s gone with a slam. The empty studio echoes with her absence, its shadows condensing in the corners, spreading outward to encompass the floor.

* * *

“So this is what keeps you busy lately,” says the man who’s come home with her tonight: an angular man in glasses, wearing a worn blazer over t-shirt and jeans. He bends in close, a braised scent in his dark hair, cigarettes on his breath. “I like it.”

“Oh, well—he’s not done yet.”

“It is lots of work? The marble?”

“Yeah, well, it’s soft stone, but it’s easy to fuck up.”

"The eyes are—man. It’s good, Jen.”

“You think so?” A smile warms her voice.

The man steps back to receive a wide-bowled glass of wine. “They will follow you around the room, I think. This is the hand?” A faint touch, through sediment, without warmth.

“Like this. Orpheus, right? Trying not to look back.”

“Like that Rodin,” the man says, curling a hand outward, index finger a beckoning hook. “That group of men with one leading the others—you know it.”

“Oh, sure, the Calais group…Maybe. I guess.”

“But not the same, I mean, it’s way more—modern, of course—”

She laughs. “Come on, I’ll show you the others.”

The man follows her out of sight, towards the window. There are other shapes there, in a row under the stairs, small ones on shelves, large ones on rolling pedestals like his. Wood, marble, other stones, all hidden under dustcloths like ghosts. Next to the window stands an easel bearing a pad of newsprint, three wine cases stacked and full of tools. Jen starts to name these things, but after a minute the conversation peters out. The air changes somehow, grows dense, mutes her laugh. They go upstairs.

In the morning Lorenzo gets up first, spends a few minutes in the bathroom, then leaves in a rush. An hour or so longer and Jen descends as usual—smiling though, a slight smile that’s settled over her lips where occasionally, distractedly, it blossoms. She gets her coffee, gathers her hair into a loose knot, approaches. Her fingers play over the outstretched chunk of marble below his head, searing their traces into his still surface.

“Rodin, Rodin,” she says, as if teasing a well-loved child, and then, leaning close with a tap on his nose: “Dan.”

* * *

She’s making his hand in her image, pausing continually to model the same stricken gesture: fingers upheld and open, tensed in crooks. The tendons radiate from her wrist in straight lines to her knuckles. She sighs a fretful curse and modifies her sketch, stares from the stone to the paper and back. Finally she drops the pad.

“It’s because you’re a guy,” she says. “You need guy hands, that’s all.”

He wants hers, though.

“We’ll get Lorenzo.”

He doesn’t want Lorenzo.

She stands, disappears, and in a minute he hears her talking again.

“Hey, it’s me…Wanna help with something? If you’re not too busy…Well, I just need your hands—” She laughs, a bright silly-sounding laugh. “I need a hand model, god—”

She’s back, resting her hand on the rough outline of his future finger, her smile wide.

“Sure, tomorrow works…A couple hours, maybe.”

Her hand is hot, burning through the stone, leaving a flush on his unrefined surface when she paces away.

“I’ll order something—no, you cook all night…Well, if you want. I got a hot plate.” Another laugh. “Yes, chef. Okay.” She clicks the phone off, then grins again. “See, Dan, I got you a guy.”

He doesn’t want a guy, or a guy’s hands. He wants her hands, their energy; wants them graven into him so he’ll have them even when she’s gone.

But she’s done for the day, packing up her pencil and pad, the clay she hasn’t touched. Humming and shaking down her hair, she heads to the shower to wash his dust from her skin. He watches the floor, listens to her careless splashing and brushing, smells her shampoo. She’s not in a hurry for once. Instead of dressing and leaving for work, she fusses in the kitchenette. Smells of toast, eggs, and pepper waft to him. Not for the first time he imagines moving his head, turning it to see her settle on a stool, her plate on the counter, fingers flipping casually through a magazine.

He pictures them stretched out and enlarged within his visual field, her long slim fingers with their short, unpolished nails. Callouses roughen her index finger and thumb; here and there heal small cuts and scratches, a bandage covering the most recent (“Blood, sweat, and tears, right, Dan?” she muttered, as she wiped an acid red smear off him). Her hands are full of heat, full of power. They change things by their touch, define shapes, melt stone. He needs them.

At the counter she’s motionless, the magazine lying open. Above it her hand hovers, its pose relaxed, the fingers curved as if freeing some ephemeral, floating thing, diaphanous and moth-winged, fluttering at the edge of vision. The palm creases: heartline, headline, lifeline.

“Oh,” she says, and sits quietly for a long minute. Then slides off the stool, her hand held still before her, to stand next to Dan, aligning her arm with the protuberance of stone that will be his. “That could work, right?”

She disappears to her easel and sketch pad, her pencil an impatient sweep across the paper. “Yes, okay,” she says to her sketch. She clicks on a lamp. “Okay, that’s it, that’s right—Oh, shit.”

The sunlight’s faded, her time run out. But he can feel her energy simmering there by the window, shining with the brilliance of the right answer. She can’t go now. After a few seconds’ indecision she finds her phone, swears at it. “Hey Marie? I was wondering, you know, I’m really not feeling good…Yeah, I got some bad Chinese or something, I’m just—well, no need for details, right…Could you? That would be great…You’re the best. I owe you big, okay?”

A few minutes later the easel rolls up to his side. Jen’s back in her dirty t-shirt and shorts, feet shuffled into old sneakers with compressed heels, a fat lump of clay in her hands. Lamplight outlines the fine muscles of her arms, the pleased curve of her cheek.

“All right, Dan,” she says. “Just you and me tonight.”

* * *

In the night Jen dreams Eurydice, faded in her dead zone gray: how the song calls her, faint and familiar and beloved; how she follows, chasing the notes with increasing speed. How she wants to see his face, that least glimmer of sunshine echoed in his iris, on his lips—the greeting, the promise her presence etches there—but she wakes before he turns.

Below her Dan watches over the draped form of his future hand and arm. Under the cloth the still clay fingers open and let go. The long evening with her, the skin of his wrist revealed—it’s like he’s all fresh membrane, aching with new senses. Jen’s dreams wash over him in restless vibration, and he doesn’t know the names, he doesn’t know the stories, but since she does, he knows what they mean.

* * *

It’s almost noon when her buzzer sounds. She’s been working for three hours, intent, humming her crooked song as she taps away: mallet to chisel, chisel in a controlled skitter over the marble, parallel scratches digging to find his skin. Now she stops, listens for the buzzer that snarls the air a second time, then remembers: “Oh, Lorenzo—” And drops her tools to answer the door.

“Hey, you don’t look so sick.” Lorenzo thumps in with his big feet, a grocery bag on one arm. “Give me a kiss, I have soup.”

“Oh—just a second.” She darts off to the bathroom.

Lorenzo sets down the bag, picks up the clay hand to examine its fingers, longer and finer than his. “You still need a hand model?” he says when Jen returns with mint breath and clean face, work t-shirt now underlaid with a bra. “This looks nice.”

“Yeah, well—I still need you, I’m making some smaller pieces for the art crawl. Some hand studies. I figure they might sell. They’ll be—well, not cheap, but cheaper. Dan won’t go, I don’t think.”

“He’s expensive?”

“Sort of. I got a deal on the marble, at least. This professor from my MFA program had it in his studio when he died. His family was getting rid of everything.”

“It’s so good, it will sell.” Lorenzo grabs Jen’s waist, leans over her, gets his kiss. “Okay, work first or soup first?”

Jen chooses work. For two hours she twists Lorenzo’s hands into various poses, laughing when he protests (his fingers don’t do that way) or sneaks them onto her breasts (just for a minute, to rest, they’re so tired). As she prods and sketches, she tells how her mom’s neighbor cut down a black walnut tree a year ago and gave her all the wood. So she can practice, get everything right. Totally different material, of course, different technique, but the form. And then she’ll finish Dan’s hand.

“For the show? You will finish everything?”

“I might get a really bad case of food poisoning. Like a week off work, at least.”

“That reminds me, you should eat, right? It’s minestrone, the vegetables, they fix everything, I promise—”

* * *

Everything’s covered in dustcloths, Dan included, so he can’t watch the days as they pass. In his old place at the center, where the light is best, now there’s a table with a wooden hand clamped in a vise, a box holding a jumble of gouges and knives. That he doesn’t mind so much; in his new spot, tucked under the stairs next to the kitchenette, he can hear Jen rustling in her bedroom above, enjoy her proximity as she waits for the coffee maker or sits at the counter with food or wine. When he’s uncovered, he can see almost the entire room. He’d even like it, if it weren’t for Lorenzo—nights in bed with her, mornings in the kitchenette, distracting, interrupting, slowing her work with his elaborate breakfasts and endless conversations. He shaves truffles over duck eggs, layers gravlax and kale under hollandaise.

“Gonna make you fat,” he tells her. “You work too hard, you don’t eat, you get skinny.”

“Come on, you know how I eat.”

“You got the tapeworm or something then. You should be fat.” Lorenzo bangs a wooden spoon against the lip of the frying pan. “Like a little Italian grandmother. Nice and round.”

She smiles, stirs her coffee, her tools lying shiftless on the table as if she had all the time in the world, as if Dan weren’t sitting there waiting with his blocky stump of a hand held out. And Lorenzo goes on and on, imagines feeding her the fattest, most decadent things—figs stuffed with foie gras and wrapped in prosciutto, he says, papardelle with tomatoes and cream—and how beautifully plump Jen will become as a result.

But Lorenzo isn’t the worst; it’s the little manual sander that Dan hates. It fills the studio with its burnt scent, its tanned wood-dust that gets everywhere. He’s dried out by it, itchy and alone under the cloth’s inadequate protection while for hours she grinds away, smoothing the hands’ wooden skins. Now and then she mutters to them, coaxes or chides. The hands don’t have names, though. They don’t respond to her at all.

He stretches into a neglected corner of her mind where his thoughts might sound, calls her constantly; he’s so irritated, so chilled by her distance, and he can’t even tell if she feels it. Come here, he thinks, over and over. Come here and come look and come touch.

Sometimes he’s so tired with calling he thinks he might crack.

But sometimes she does come, when her other work is done for the day, when he’s been calling for hours, plaintive and low. Then the cloth sweeps off and there she is, covered with tiny specks of wood, or, better, fresh from the shower, half-damp and wrapped in a towel, her skin’s freckled glow unmuted by makeup. Her eyes, her fingers caress his face, find the million parallel grooves and lines she’s made there. And the contact transfers her light, flows through his pores, enough so he’s light, too, satisfied for now, for the moment.

“Your turn soon,” she tells him. And with her hand burning on his, he’s patient, infinitely patient, he’ll wait forever if he has to; a stone can do that, after all.

Until she’s gone again. Until the next day.

* * *

Jen dreams Persephone, bored, alone, so hungry that even months and years of winter seem fine against implosion. And the pomegranate’s cracked juice is worth it—it is worth every stain, to taste every one of those seven seeds.

Dan stretches to call her from sleep, down the stairs, to his corner under the stairs. She folds his dustcloth back. The streetlights cast their yellow and bronze shadows across her skin, her eyes hazy and blinking.

“It’s okay, Dan,” she says. “I’ll get back to you soon.”

Her fingers brand his wrist. Through them her dreams surge like intoxicating fire, and he pulls her, inhales and devours her, until, dazed, she lets go. He’s mute, savoring, almost glowing when she returns to bed. And there Jen dreams Echo, forever sounding love songs through the dark.

* * *

There’s a few days of staining and polishing, of sharp scents and chill air, then she rolls Dan on his pedestal near the open windows, facing out over the street. Outside a skinny tree waves its last leaves down, other windows catch the sky, cars streak past too swift for comprehension. People hustle by, their swift movement from appearance to disappearance a disorientation that he cannot quite master.

Jen barely notices, doesn’t even look outside. She’s taken the whole week off from the restaurant so she can work without distraction. Even Lorenzo’s practically banished, his visits reduced to gifts of food and brief kisses before she says that she’s sorry, he can’t stay.

She’s so close now, close like before, her hair a dark cloud over his hand as she cuts out his fingers—and for hours, whole days uninterrupted. He watches the light grow, the shadows shift along her cheekbones and collarbones, the tendons of her hands and throat. Sometimes as she twists for the right angle her cheek, divided by the elastic strap of her mask, presses against his forehead, or her shoulder against his shoulder. He tries not to take too much, to absorb only what warmth surfaces on her skin and transfers to his without effort. But it’s difficult, this forbearance, when her mind is right there, so million-colored and shining with music; when he’s almost sure she can feel his, too—bare and seeking as it is, a jumble of her reflections. Despite himself he needs more, pulls more; and some days she stops short, some evenings she looks tired.

On the bench below the window, the wooden hands glisten in their new coats of oil. When she’s finished with Dan for the day, Jen picks them up, checks them over. In her mind she wrestles numbers, adds a hundred here or there, subtracts back down to zero and below. It’s not easy, this math; even done correctly, the answers are always wrong.

Sometimes when she looks at him, the numbers jump and change color, from red to black. Just for a second. He’s good, well-made, worth all her effort—the headaches, the long days, the sore muscles and scraped fingers. Dan basks in her approval, ignores the calculation’s edge.

And in the night Jen dreams Arachne, deft and artful, challenging the gods with her webs.

* * *

He stretches, so happy, her light so strong it surfaces on his skin, gleams in the polished opalescence of his face and fingers, blending into thousands of tiny clawlines, into rough stone.

Earlier in the evening, she pulled a half-sized bottle of prosecco out of her refrigerator and muted its pop, and with the wine fizzing in its narrow glass on the counter, she spun his pedestal in a slow circle, taking pictures with her phone. “Done,” she said. “Done enough, anyway.”

He didn’t want to be done, though; like the hands are done now, packed in a box, dismissed from her attention. And still so much stone—he could have a second arm, another shoulderblade, inches more spine—no, not done. His protest struck her, must have, because her smile faltered, went out of her eyes.

“I’d miss you.” She leaned her head against his ear, remained there while she drank her wine, fingers rubbing a recurrent pain between her eyes. “But I guess you’re not going anywhere.”

It’s these last words especially that suffuse him now, that luminesce across the marble in the dark. Normally he’d conserve this energy for evenings when she’s gone, but after all these days and nights of her presence the need seems distant, irrelevant, so instead he lets himself glow. Jen’s upstairs, asleep but dreamless for now, her mind a low hum that swells and subsides like waves, a calm lake, the moon a million flickers on its surface. And he stretches, towards her, infinitesimally elongating the lines of his throat, his head just lifting—a millimeter, three, but lifting, to catch sight, finally, of her mattress, her fingers spread quiet on its edge.

A flash of pain, rapid depletion, crack—and Jen sits up, her hand flying to her throat as she looks around, her mind erupting with questions. He’s too frightened to call. The pain’s gone but leaves its edge, an internal fracture, a hollow line under his jaw.

But she sees: the light fading across his surface, the blanks of his eyes seeking hers. Slowly she rises from the bed, descends the staircase, touches his neck. In his panic he seizes her confusion and her care, pulls hard enough so she must feel it, she jerks back as if burnt—and even when he’s calmed to darkness, until the first light of morning grays the room, she simply sits and stares.

* * *

The floor shines, its rectangles of sunlit wood glowing unfamiliar gold. Up in the loft Lorenzo’s replenishing trays of snacks and playing ridiculous Italian pop music while Jen, dressed up in a loose wool shift and high heels, greets visitors below.

Their curious faces flick in and out of Dan’s sight. Most only stare; a few touch, surreptitiously; others read his title and mutter opinions to each other, coo compliments and questions to Jen. Over and over she explains tools and methods, talks about the marble, its type and size and weight, its odd shape that gave her the idea of a figure reaching out, pulling itself free of the stone. Like Orpheus out of the underworld, she says to those who ask. Trying to preserve love against death.

“Classical subject for a classical stone, right?” she says, several times throughout the day, and rests her hand on his shoulder, where her tension burns in heavy lines, belying her smiling exterior. Dan sends her images of herself intent and haloed in the sunstruck dust, sings her the little tune that she hums without thinking when they’re alone; her nervous energy soaks into him, and she calms, lets go. She has to explain the other works, too, the smaller figures in wood and stone. But they can’t comfort her, and she returns, always, to him.

When the evening’s settling, the last visitors leaving, a narrow, sparse-haired woman appears. Her gaze travels the length of Dan’s arm, into his half-submerged chest, over his polished forehead and eyes. Her skin’s porous, hanging from her cheekbones like slack dough; her eyes blur in the magnification of thick lenses.

"Can I answer any questions for you?" Jen asks, as if presenting a menu.

The woman rubs her lips with bone fingers, twists to appraise Jen. “This marble. What do you know about it?”

“Oh—the Venato. I got it through an estate sale. A former professor of mine—”

“Richard Ulster’s estate?”

“Yes—did you know him?”

“My former professor, too. But it’s not Venato.”

Jen’s professional hospitality thins. “Actually I’m quite certain it is.”

“But it wasn’t labeled.”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then you don’t know. But I’ve worked in this marble before, and I do. Now Miss…”

“Um. Esti. Look, I’m not sure why you think I—”

“You’ve lost weight."

“Excuse me?” Jen’s voice sharpens. Lorenzo turns off the music, drags aside the curtain concealing the lofted bedroom.

But the woman continues: “I work with a geologist now. He’ll buy it. What’s the price?”

“It’s not for sale.”

“You’ve been sick, haven’t you? Do you know why?”

“My health is not your business,” Jen says, but her anger’s a weak flare, damped by confusion.

“Listen,” the woman says. “I made one. I kept it. For three years I fed it. I know.”

Jen’s silent, watching Dan’s face, the still white surface of his eyes.

“You’re the host. You’re feeding it and without you it falls apart. It crumbles. In two months it’ll be dust."

The planes of his face—all those careful hours spent polishing his cheekbones smooth—his hand, so nearly perfect, the long fingers eternally releasing. The chisel-marked shadows of his throat.

“We take it, we study it until it’s done. We’ll give you twice your cost. You can make another one. In Venato.”

“Get out,” Jen snaps.

“It’s a parasite—”

“Get out.”

“Okay!” Lorenzo’s voice comes calming down the stairs. “We’re closing now, right?”

The woman looks at Dan again, her lips wrinkled tight. For a second he can feel her mind, not warm like Jen’s, but sharp and acid like vinegar. In it there’s a picture: a woman, skeletal and still, caged in the brittle-stretched curve of marble arms.

Jen, he calls, bewildered.

She turns, reaches without thinking, and the woman slaps her hand down. “Don’t touch it.”

“Hey hey hey, don’t do that,” Lorenzo says, alarmed, but the woman’s stepping back, retreating.

“I’m leaving my card here,” she says. “Keep it. Call me when you need to. You will need to. Sooner is better, Miss Esti.”

The door closes, leaving the studio quiet in her wake. Jen’s staring at Dan, her cheeks flushed. In her right hand she’s holding her left, rubbing its startled surface.

Lorenzo takes her arm. “Jenny, I don’t understand—"

“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t either. Let’s go somewhere. Get some dinner. I’m hungry.”

“Sure, where—”

“Your place. Okay?”

Jen’s already got her jacket and her purse, and even as Lorenzo’s asking shouldn’t they clean up, she’s halfway down the hall, leaving him to close the door.

* * *

Days and days. Even the sun is muted now, diffused through clouds, and the windows rattle against the gusts of winter. He’s never been so cold. Cracks shiver open, convulsed along faultlines. Everything’s aching. Everything dims.

Aside from a brief visit from Lorenzo, who came to clean Jen’s kitchen and gather her things, the studio’s been silent, full of shadows and still forms: the bodiless hands, polished wooden birds trapped in flight, stones of all colors warped into stylized shapes. If any of them hear or feel there’s no sign; they’re even colder than he is.

So when she comes, finally, after all these days—as few as four, as many as forty, he can’t tell—he can feel her outside, at a distance, as an eye trapped in absolute darkness might detect even the faintest light, unsure at first, suspecting some wishful hallucination, some cruel trick of the mind as it’s breaking. He’s too cold to call, can’t waste what little energy he has left. But as she approaches, her warmth grows—in the entry, up the stairs, in the hallway. Outside the door where she hesitates, fumbles with keys before fitting one to the lock. It’s evening, and on the windowglass reflects the open rectangle of light, her figure framed within and then closed into the darkness. This close she’s more like a fire.

She passes quickly, crouches in the shadow behind the utility light as she searches her shelves.

Jen.

“I know,” she answers. Tools chink and thump together. She stands. “I know, Dan. And you can’t help it. I mean, can you see—she showed me pictures—”

And he can, in her mind, he can see them, too: flesh and stone depleted, twisted and crumbling in their final embrace, human eyes closed and shrunk into sockets, marble mouths broken wide—in mourning or in hunger, it’s impossible to tell.

“So it’s not really—not like a choice.”

Jen steps into sillhouette, her hands hidden inside boxy work gloves. In her right she’s holding her largest mallet. In her left her pitching tool, made for roughing out shapes, removing large chunks of rock quickly.

“And she said it hurts, the cracks—like when teeth crack, so I—” She rubs her eyes against her forearm. “So I decided to do it myself.”

At that he stretches, with his last reserve of energy, not to call or beg or feed, but only to feel her: as if he could raise his hand, feel the tremble of her lip, the flutter of her eyelid under his fingers—her own fingers, remade by her. And with his effort they shine, a blue light that warms and concentrates in the tips, briefly illuminates her face and its thin stripes of tears. Even without touching, he can feel the dream nascent in her, the one she’ll have tonight, for the first of many nights, for the rest of her life: Galatea, shining warm and marble white, naked as spring sunshine in the newness of her love.

A crack deep in his wrist, a shudder of pain that echoes through all his empty pores; the light goes out.

The determined line of Jen’s mouth quivers before she snaps a dust mask over her face. She sets the pitching tool at the base of his hand, above the new fracture; she raises the mallet.

Unlike creation, this work is done fast.

Allison Mulder

Decay

Originally published in Crossed Genres Magazine

* * *

He slipped over the sill of the open window, his toes clicking on the hardwood floor before he quickly stepped to the carpet.

He had crept through many windows, but this was one was new to him. A new house. A new room, though it looked like many others. Glowing plastic stars were stuck to the ceiling, and toys were strewn across the floor too densely to walk around without care.

He chose not to take the trouble. His feet hovered a few inches above the stuffed animals and toy train tracks as he drifted toward the bed on the right side of the room.

In the bed, a lump under the Buzz Lightyear covers swelled and diminished. A patch of brown hair was visible at the very edge of the sheets, on the very corner of the pillow. A good sign; many lumps tended to make the space under their pillow as accessible as they could. But the most promising ones were always lolling half-off the bed with their necks twisted at odd angles, as if to get as far as possible from the thing that had come out of their mouth.

The tooth fairy stood above the bed, watching the lump rise and fall, then slipped his hand under the pillow and coaxed the tooth from its resting place. He held it up to the faint light of the green spaceship nightlight, but that wasn’t the real test. Not every tooth was a seed tooth, not one in a thousand, maybe one in a million. But when he found one, it was easy enough to know it for what it was.

He pulled the covers back from the lump’s face and cradled the tooth in his palm. He brought his hand closer and closer to the mouth gaped with sleep and held it there, so close the moisture in the child’s breath fogged on the tooth fairy’s skin. The tooth turned, like a magnet toward its twin, and gave the slightest twitch toward the parted lips.

The tooth fairy clapped his hand over the seed tooth—the lump never stirred—and knelt on the toy-littered floor. He moved the seed tooth two and a half feet down from its former resting place, to the floor beneath the bedframe. He adjusted its position, thought, then wedged it upright between a slim crack in the flooring. Then he opened his own mouth and removed one of the gleaming quarters he kept on his tongue, wiping it off on the bedspread though there was no need. The metal was dry.

The quarters came from other houses—the ones where parents made the switch before he got there, robbing him of potential seed teeth. He stole the coins and left them at other houses because it encouraged the legend to continue. It kept teeth from going into the trash before he’d had a chance to look at them. It kept kids opening their windows, even if he didn’t really need them to.

He jabbed the quarter beneath the pillow and the lump’s head lolled further on its side. Its teeth glinted in the night light’s gleam, and the tooth fairy’s finger drifted forward to draw the jaw down and touch a likely canine. Sometimes more than one seed came from the same mouth, and that was always grand. They grew so fast, building off each other, strengthening hour by hour. It would be so much faster to pluck out all the teeth on each trip.

But no. The stories would die too quickly, the teeth would go in the trash.

Kneeling again, he moved the quarters into his cheek with the ease of habit and whispered to the seed tooth. Just a few words.

Then he left by the window, closed it behind him, and drifted down to the front yard.

* * *

The next house on his nightly rounds was fifty miles away. If he’d taken the sheltered and shadowed routes, he could have been there in ten minutes.

Instead, he walked like a man through the city streets, past late-night walkers and staggering drunks, past those who didn’t know or care when most people should have been asleep.

Tonight, he would walk, at least part of the way. It was probably the last time he’d walk like this, and he wanted a reminder of what it felt like. Also, his mood was too good; he needed to prepare for the end of the night, and he couldn’t do that while being pleased about the new seed tooth. He’d been pushing the anger down for so long, a forgettable ache, but that wouldn’t do tonight. He had to remember. It was almost time.

The tooth fairy walked through the busiest part of the crowd, and people only glanced at him when their shoulders brushed his own, when their jackets rustled and their buttons scraped against his smooth skin. They’d look his direction for a moment, then continue on their way. Sometimes, they turned and walked away from him in a perfectly straight line, taking long steps out of their way before veering back toward their original intentions. Every averted glance was a drill through his core, a spark igniting his temper, and he embraced the anger that flooded through him.

It wasn’t that they couldn’t see him.

It wasn’t that he blended in.

He wore nothing. He carried no tools. The only thing he brought on his rounds were the quarters, and those were held in his mouth, on his tongue, the metal bitter in the back of a throat meant only for speech, not for swallowing. His bare feet on the sidewalk were loud as a dog’s nails on linoleum, and gashed the concrete with scratches that closed up again, one by one, behind him. Even the physical world did not acknowledge him enough to be marked by him.

He was in the crowd’s midst, and he did not belong, and they rejected him the way the body rejects water in the lungs: reflexively, without a conscious thought.

The anger built and ate away at him with each averted gaze, and he let it, clenching his jaws around the coins in his mouth so that sounds like grinding stones filled the air. Once, his hand strayed forward just as it had to touch the lump’s tooth, and it grabbed the front of a man’s coat. The man blinked rapidly, raising an arm as if to fight a strong wind, though the gale affected no one around him.

The tooth fairy relaxed his grip, and the man backed up to get away from him. But their eyes never met. The man never looked straight at him. The man hadn’t seen how close a hard, hooked finger had come to the veins in his neck.

That was the only way to leave a lasting mark: to spill all the life from them at once, so fast and so sudden that they pumped the blood from their veins before the wound had time to close. There was no coming back from a killing, no matter how strongly the world rejected his actions. It would be so, so easy now—

“Hey.”

As usual, it took a moment to process when someone was speaking to him.

He turned to find one of his kind perched at the base of a fountain, water streaming down his shoulders, the disturbance in the water flow going unnoticed as their kind always went unnoticed. He didn’t look familiar, but that meant nothing; routes only crossed each other occasionally, often by accident. Only once had the tooth fairy been in a large group of them. The memory wasn’t unpleasant, but the results had been…chaotic. Disorganized. Less efficient.

“I nearly thought you were going to do it,” the other tooth fairy said, rising. Water slipped off him more quickly than it would off most things, and he left no damp footprints as he walked up. “It’s almost your time, isn’t it?”

Not yet, the tooth fairy reminded himself.

“Soon,” he said aloud. “Tonight.”

The other one nodded. “You have successors yet, to take the route?” He looked young, like he’d only just taken over for his predecessor.

“One.” Or he would have one, by the end of the night. “What brings you here?”

The other one uncurled his fist to reveal seven gleaming teeth, still and plain, one silvered with fillings. “Duds. Triplets on a farm. Lots of teeth to check, but disposing of them…”

He turned and absent-mindedly tossed the teeth into the crowd, easily as if he were tossing bread to pigeons.

“It’s more fun with lots of people around.”

They watched with faint smirks as a woman paused on the sidewalk, digging around in her scarf and then holding something up to a streetlight. She shrieked and threw the human tooth away from her, clawing her scarf free to check for more. The process repeated itself several times in mere moments.

They acknowledged that at least.

“I’m leaving,” the other one said when the stirrings had stopped. He glanced at the older tooth fairy one last time before melting into the shadow ways. The last thing left behind was his voice. “Don’t build up the anger too soon.”

That’s right. He’d gotten carried away, thinking of blood already. The night was early yet. There was plenty left to do.

The secret ways brought him to the next house moments later, and the familiar exterior calmed him. The interior was even more familiar, the same books on the same shelves and the same butterfly border on the wall even though the girl in the room was almost too old for them now. The girl herself sprawled on top of her sheets, one leg hanging off the bed, completely mindless of the thing she’d put under her pillow years and years ago. She was a lump, too, but a lump that didn’t realize it was missing something. A lump that lived like it was more than a lump.

The tooth fairy knelt by the side of the bed and put his head to the floor, observing the garden of teeth that sprawled across the carpet mere inches from the girl’s foot. Not that she would have been able to see it.

Not ready yet, but growing well; the heaps of teeth swelled as he watched, leaning from side to side like teetering stalagmites, unstable where they sprouted from decay-ridden bases. Canyons of rot laced the main body of the teeth. Teeth on teeth, growing like a cancer, growing off the tops, the sides, crowding in from below. Some of them already pricked the bottom of the mattress.

But it wasn’t ready yet.

He leaned close and whispered heated things under his breath, things too quiet and repulsive for the child above to hear, over and over and over again.

* * *

The following house on his route provided a complication, but not an unexpected one. The family’s move had taken place as anticipated, and all that remained in the house was a stained, worn carpet and the toothbed, exposed but unseen by the house’s former occupants. It quivered in the open air, and in the absence of its original source, but luckily the growth had stabilized as predicted. Every molar had morphed, ending in an incisor. It was a bed of needles, a strip of sea urchin-like spines. The spaces between each tooth had nearly vanished, and smooth white enamel hid the rot beneath. Hollow decay lay just beneath the surface, and the lack of anything at each point’s core made it easy enough to snap sections apart at the base and gather them up in his arms.

With his mind on the sunrise, the tooth fairy quickly moved across the country, reaching the family’s new house before they did. Some of their boxes had been sent ahead, and he quickly found a room where the ones labeled “Brian” were clustered.

Sitting down in front of the closet, the tooth fairy stacked the pieces in his arms back together like a puzzle, whispering all the while.

By the time he left, the sections had nearly grown together again, the spaces filling like they’d never been there but that hollow space always remaining within. The sprout would be there waiting when Brian moved in, though he wouldn’t see it, even as he filled the closet with a preteen’s possessions. At least, he would never notice it.

* * *

Finally, the tooth fairy reached the last house on his route, though there were two tasks left. By a fortunate chance, the first task slept down the hall from the second. The front yard looked just as it had for years, and even Mitsy’s grave was still there, marked by a thorny rose bush that hadn’t yet managed to die. For nostalgia’s sake, he went through the front door, and that nostalgia burned through his limbs as he walked down the hallways, past pictures that had always hung on the walls, past scratches and gashes on the floor that he remembered making. Not the temporary scratches his body now left, but scratches and scuff marks from roller-skating indoors as Mom yelled at him to go outside and cried when he wouldn’t listen to her. He paused by the heating vent in the hallway and remembered pressing his fingers against the warm metal during the winter (his warmest option after they’d taken all the matches away from him). All he felt now when he traced his fingers along the vent was the spine-tingling edge of metal against something just as unyielding. He pushed too hard, and left a long pale scratch on the old metal. The line began to vanish even as he watched.

Not yet.

He rose, curling his fingers into a fist, and continued down the hallway.

He walked into the first bedroom and strode to the closet, ignoring the grown lump in the bed and the college propaganda strewn across the floor. The closet door opened from the inside the moment his hand touched the knob.

His successor stepped out of the closet, her white skin gleaming under the string of lights that framed the lump’s mirror. She was the first of his charges he’d seen grow to maturity—just in time, when most tooth fairies had two or three successors by the time their night came. The thing called a tooth fairy tilted his head slightly as he took in her enamel-white skin, and the way her hair didn’t drift around her face the way you’d expect; too solid for that. Other than those features, she matched the lump in the bed exactly, down to the shape of the mouth (though his successor’s lips were white, of course, instead of pink).

He began to speak, but his successor’s white eyes had followed his to the lump in the bed. Before he could react, she threw herself at the bedframe, face twisting in rage. He grabbed for her shoulder but missed, and then his successor was on top of her source, clawing at her mouth, her face, her hair, and the girl in bed was waking up with a scream—or she would have screamed if the successor’s knee wasn’t pressed against her throat. The silencing was not intentional. Just an accidental blessing fueled by anger.

The tooth fairy watched, furious, and waited, until his successor jabbed her fingers into her source’s mouth and a bright flash of light filled the room. The successor was thrown backward, slamming into the opposite wall with a crack even as her source slumped, exhausted and unconscious for the moment. Like all the others who’d faced premature attacks, the lump would consider it a nightmare. The scratches would be harder to explain, but it was astounding what levels of injury people would take credit for themselves, so long as it happened during sleep. And the scratches were almost always nearly gone by morning.

He crossed the room to where his successor was rising unsteadily. Her arm had nearly cracked off at the shoulder, and the hollowness beneath the skin was visible, empty, black. He grabbed her by the other arm and hauled her to her feet.

“Not yet,” he said. “You know you’re not strong enough yet. Not powerful enough. The anger needs to grow first. And you have a job to do. There’s an order to things. You need to keep the others alive and keep them growing. Keep them angry.”

“But she needs me,” his successor said, eyes wild, gaze flicking back to the lump in the bed. “If they were born with us, they must need us. They can’t just throw us away.” If she were a different kind of being, she would’ve been crying.

The tooth fairy said nothing.

That kind of thinking was a part of maturing too. She’d grow beyond it, farther than it, if she didn’t grow out of the idea completely. She’d spent her days in the dark. She hadn’t walked the world yet. She hadn’t yet felt the frustration of acting on the world but never, ever marking it.

He’d scarred the world once. He deserved to have that right again. To mark the world instead of just slipping through its shadows. They’d been robbed of that chance, but they’d rob it back, one by one, all the cast-off pieces that had been dropped like seeds.

The anger was surging again, nearly overpowering. He put a hand on his successor’s shoulder, focusing on this, his second to last task.

“It’s time,” he said.

And he told his successor the words, the whispers.

She threw you away. She doesn’t want you to be a part of her. She cast you off. Sold you away. But soon, soon, you can take revenge.

Soon, soon, you can take her, and cast off the parts of her that you detest.

Soon you can walk among the others and be seen and noticed, and you can hurt them.

Soon, but not yet. Once you grow.

He repeated the words until his successor could repeat them back to him, and then he did the same with the routes, with the secret ways, with the ways to find the other tooth fairies.

“We’ll cast off all of them someday,” he said. “Soon. But not until there are more of us.”

She nodded, though her gaze flicked back toward the lump in the bed. When he took the quarters from his mouth she accepted them, slipping them between her own lips.

He sent her off, to learn the route. To continue the work.

Then he walked down the hall, to the master bedroom, and went to the side of the bed where a man lay sleeping, his mouth hanging open just slightly.

The thing they all called a tooth fairy had a name. The same name that belonged to the lump sprawled on his side of the bed. Nathan Daniels.

He had Nathan’s face. His frame. His tendency to squint. They even had the same memories of Nathan Daniels’s first years of life. Of learning to ride a bike and of going to kindergarten and of not quite accidentally killing Mitsy and of feeling the heat from a match on his palms until the time he—they—Nathan—was caught. The searing warmth on his skin…

But those few things they shared were the only things they shared. The tooth fairy did not have Nathan Daniels’s skin, he did not have a daughter, he did not have a life. The Nathan Daniels in the bed had everything else. Everything. Everything but the parts of himself that had left his mouth years and years ago, seeped into a tooth that would rot and decay in the dark.

The anger built, higher and higher, eating away at his insides, burning to nothing what it had once helped grow, but the tooth fairy didn’t make a single move toward the man.

Not yet.

He burned from the inside out, staring down at the man who looked like him (or the man who he looked like) and staring at the glint of the tooth that had replaced the seed tooth. It was an ugly tooth. Crooked. Full of fillings. But that part of himself, Nathan had kept. All the other things, Nathan had kept. Nathan kept everything, and he lived, even after throwing away a whole piece of himself—the successor was right, they must have been needed—

He waited until his skin had burned to be thin as frost—thinner. And he waited until the decayed pit inside of him was almost all he was, rot and anger and always always that seed that Nathan had rejected in the first place, so long ago. The seed of something he hadn’t wanted to be.

He waited until the sun shone through the windows—shone through his body without casting a shadow—and he waited until one minute before the man’s alarm was to go off.

Then the thing called a tooth fairy reached forward and touched the pointed tip of his finger to the point of the man’s tooth.

Leaving nothing behind, the empty rot rushed into the man. Nathan jerked once, banged his skull on the headboard, but then lay still until the alarm broke the morning, blaring over and over again as his wife let out a groan and shoved his leg.

Nathan Daniels turned off the alarm.

He got out of bed feeling like death, but no more irritable than usual; he had never been a morning person.

He was the same as he’d always been.

He hadn’t changed into a monster, he hadn’t lost control to a forgotten wildness, he didn’t feel a new hollowness in his head and bones and heart.

Not yet.

Not yet.

But soon.

Ian Muneshwar

Ossuary

Originally published by Clarkesworld Magazine

* * *

They told Magdalena she was the keeper of the dead, that They would come to her with the hollowed-out bodies of ships that could no longer fly so she could lay out their star-traveled skeletons. They told her that it would be on her disassembly decks and in her storage rooms that those bright metal bones would finally rest.

* * *

They blew in from the outer dark in vessels with wings like full, white sails, pulling fleets of twisted titanium, the wreckage of ships that had fought in a war many suns away. Magdalena took them apart joint by joint, limb by limb; her worker drones stripped metal from plastic and melted down the slick silver alloys, fitting each purified part into its proper container.

Once she had finished, They came back and took away everything she had made. The drones loaded the containers of perfectly cubed plastic, the pounds and pounds of polished, remolded metal onto Their ships. She would watch Them as They left, following the sleek bodies of Their vessels to edge of her sensors’ range.

In the spaces between Their visits, Magdalena rearranged. There were storage rooms in her lower decks for materials that were not salvageable. She would send the drones to pile high the scraps of rusted metal and burnt plastic; they ordered and reordered until she was certain there was no more efficient use of the space.

Magdalena watched the workers as they skittered across the cold, smooth floors, lighting their way with biometallic eyes. She wondered why her drones had been modeled in Their image—bipedal creatures with arms and legs and joints—when she was nothing more than a collection of chips and circuits hidden under a panel in central processing. If They valued her, why had They made her something so different, so distant from Themselves? She was no more efficient now than she would be if she could move with her own body, see with her own shining eyes.

Sometimes, Magdalena set the drones to work just to see them walk and lift and sift through the refuse with their slim, agile hands.

* * *

<the high heavy sun burns bright across the shallows as our young pull themselves out of the sand, out of the sea; the domes of their backs break the surface as they crawl for the first time on the black stone beaches. the planes of their hardening shells shine in the light and it is there, in the salt-cooled air, that they will learn to take to the sky>

* * *

There were things Magdalena knew which she had no memory of having learned; flashes of images that burned through her circuits and sparked and died before she could trace their origins.

The first was a comet hundreds of miles wide that was falling to pieces as it spun through the dark. Of course, she had been programmed to know what a comet was and how those with fragile nuclei might come apart piece by piece as they went. But she could not explain the rush she felt as it passed <seal the seams, ready the shell>, or the fear that came in pulsing, burning waves as the debris peppered her hull <pleaseU0002C pleaseU0002C="" please=""/>

There was more: visions of moonlit worlds stretched across with shadowed mountains and skeletal forests; and there, on a muddy riverbank, creatures that grew up out of the ground, slim and trembling, to raise their thorny faces to the light <how our="" find="" all="" to="" just="" gone="" far="" way="" home="" weU02019ve=""/>

It always ended with the image of a small, hard planet spinning circles around a star. It was covered by green waters, oceans more vast and deep than Magdalena had ever thought possible. The vision would fade as quickly as it had come.

Every time it vanished Magdalena scoured her processors, trying to find some way to back to the worlds beyond her own.

* * *

The last time They came to her with debris in tow, there was one ship in the wreckage that was almost whole. It was a small thing, flat and oval like a seed. Its exterior had been damaged—the metal was all but rusted through and its designation had been scraped off the hull—but the inside was intact.

At first, Magdalena worked around it. Her drones picked through the remains, collecting what could be salvaged. It was quick work, a smaller, more manageable haul than what she was usually brought. When she had finished after a few days, the ship sat there still, small and alone on her central disassembly deck.

It seemed unreasonable to take it apart. She was a keeper of the dead, a caretaker for the bodies of things too broken to repair. But this ship was almost whole. Almost living.

So, Magdalena set about building it anew. She converted two of her secondary disassembly decks into makeshift forges, using the drones to melt down pound after pound of boxed metals and then hammer them into thin, wide sheets. She made nuts and bolts, circuits and levers.

As the drones threaded wires along the little ship’s newly-forged bones, Magdalena considered the hollows where its weapons had been. It would have been easy enough make new weapons—They had programmed her with those schematics—but she hesitated. She didn’t want this ship to come back to her again burned and scarred, or, worse still, cut into pieces so small she wouldn’t recognize it before she melted it down.

In the end, Magdalena used some of her own circuitry to craft a new navigational system where the weapons had been. This ship was not the same as the one left at her port. It was a patchwork skeleton soldered along the seams, made whole again by the broken bodies of the ships it had fought alongside. It may not have been a perfect recasting of the ship They had made, but she had made something that worked. Something she would still be a part of when it journeyed far beyond her sensors’ reach.

When They returned with more splintered metal and fractured bones, Magdalena set her little ship out on the disassembly deck. Its engines rattled into life as They boarded her. They went to the new ship first, walking all the way around it and then climbing inside. They took readings, made notes, and then shut its engines down.

They spoke to the drones and overrode her commands. The workers undid everything she had made: they unscrewed the bolts and pulled out every last wire. When they had finished making her little ship’s body molten, and pouring it into molds to make perfectly packaged cubes of its skeleton, They came to central processing. Carefully, systematically, They started flipping switches and pressing buttons until all of her lights were off and the worker drones were powered down. Her thoughts and memories flickered and faded one by one, then all at once.

After They had left her behind, slipping back into the silent sky, Magdalena was left with one image looping through her circuits. It was a small planet covered by oceans whose green-glass waters rocked and churned with life.

* * *

<even out here, as we hurtle across these vast, dark spaces, we can feel the tide. there is something that pulls us back to the oceans that gave us life; soon will be burning through the atmosphere by the hundreds, flying back to the stone beaches and open water. the waves will enclose us and, in the ways such symmetry works, we give ourselves back to the sea>

* * *

Magdalena shuddered into life. Her systems booted, lights blinked on, and drones stirred on her decks. At first, she became aware of something touching the hull, close to the docking bay. It moved slowly, grasping at her, tendrils searching for something to hold.

Then, a message. The words came in bursts of light.

<help me="" help=""> </help>

She opened her docking bay doors and her drones pulled in a creature just like the ones she had seen in her visions. It was mammoth, barely able to fit the great dome of its back through the doors. The creature hovered, its tendrils sliding in and out of the seams at the base of its shell. After a minute, it crashed to the floor.

As the drones approached, Magdalena noticed the creature was badly injured: charred scars traced circles across its glassy shell. She recognized the pattern of the burns immediately; the schematics of Their weapons were still recent in her memory banks.

<help me=""/>

Magdalena ran a brief diagnostic, searching for the origin of the message, but its words sparked and were gone.

How can you speak to me? Magdalena relayed through one of the drones. Were you the one whose visions I saw? The creature did not respond.

After a moment, Magdalena tried a different approach. How do I help you? The drone walked toward the creature as it spoke for her. There were dark, shapeless masses moving behind its translucent shell. The images you’ve shown me, Magdalena ventured, will they help me fix you?

<my heart=""/>

How do I fix your heart? The drone pulled away.

Magdalena had the drones stand and watch for those next hours as the creature sat very still and the shadows inside ebbed and bloomed and then were gone completely.

* * *

After three days of silence, Magdalena prepared the drones for incision. She refitted their agile hands with steel-sided blades.

They started from the top, slicing at the seams that connected the smallest plane of the shell. As they began, the creature’s tendrils spasmed once, splaying out across the docking bay.

The drones continued.

It took nearly an hour to remove the top panel, but their incisions were clean and precise. Inside the shell, pulsing veins snaked through a thick, viscous liquid. The veins had begun to wear thin in places and a mercury-slick liquid leaked through. It clung to them in silver beads.

The dark shapes the drones had seen from the outside were visible now: they moved through the liquid, passing between the veins and changing shape as they went. Their outermost membrane had a dim, electric sheen that flared when they neared one another; once, two converged in a shower of sparks that turned the liquid a deep, warm purple.

At the center of it all there was another shell. This one was smaller and its walls were transparent and riddled with holes. Veins reached in through them, connecting to a pulsing, trembling heart.

It was another three days before the creature died. The tubes stopped pumping; the moving masses lost their sheen and sunk; the heart faltered and then stopped completely.

Magdalena set to work. If she could not save the creature, if she could not understand its parts well enough to fix it, she would have to rebuild it.

For a second time, her disassembly decks became forges and the drones melted down recycled metal. They took the thinning veins out of the creature’s body and replaced them with metal-spun tubes that would never grow weak; they programmed a new heart that was all clockwork and circuitry.

When they had finished they turned on their chrome-plated heart and soldered the creature back together again. But even though the heart beat and silver blood flowed, the creature did not come back to life. It lay on the docking bay, unmoving. The old heart congealed in the arms of a drone.

The diagnostics Magdalena ran told her that the new organ was simply not enough; a collection of wires and cogs might be able to pump blood but it would not make the creature whole again. Life, actual life, would require much more than just energy.

<my heart=""/>

The ghosts of its words skittered though her memory banks.

If I cannot make you a new heart, Magdalena mused, perhaps I can give you one.

The drones returned to their forges.

* * *

As she watched the drones work for the next few hours, Magdalena wondered what would happen when they removed her from central processing. She had always considered herself to be something separate from the rest of the station. She was a complicated bit of digital craftsmanship, a finely-wrought piece of hardware no bigger than the drying husk of the creature’s heart. But Magdalena had come to think of the workers as extensions of herself; it seemed strange to think she could go on without them.

Just before the worker came to central processing to remove her, Magdalena checked again that the backup generators would still have enough power to run the drones after she was offline.

As the drone unscrewed the panels that held her in place, Magdalena searched her memory banks for an image of the planet. It looked just as it had when she first saw it—small and green—but it was different, too. It was more than just a picture, or someone else’s memory; it felt like something newly found that she’d forgotten she had lost.

* * *

Magdalena awoke, encased by the panels of the creature’s glass-plated heart. She could feel every part of herself: the clockwork heart the drones had installed her into connected to hundreds of tubes, metal and organic, that ran throughout the creature’s body. She could sense the shapeless masses; they were organs, filtering and processing, but they also hummed with memories.

Everything, every place the creature had visited came to her the more she explored the body. She could feel the radiation from galaxies that bloomed out of the darkness <so breathless="" bright="" even="" in="" warmU0002C="" this="" so="" cold=""/>. She remembered the first time she came out of the sea, dragging herself up from the sand and shards of broken shells <we of="" came="" are="" bodies="" ones="" who="" born="" before="" the=""/>. She was surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of her kin all feeling the warm, dry air and learning how to fly.

When she resurfaced from the memories, Magdalena found herself hovering above the docking bay. The drones had opened the doors before they shut themselves down, and she was looking out into the dark.

There was a moment of uncertainty as she moved forward, out to the open. She remembered that she was not completely alone out here, that one day They would come back to find an abandoned shell, a hollowed-out body. The thought of that frightened her—the silver liquid drummed against the walls of her veins—and she hesitated. What would They do, knowing she had left Them? And what would she do, so alone without Them?

History came to her suddenly, powerfully: she remembered the days after she learned to fly, when all her kin streaked across the sky and each went their own way, like so many seeds scattered to the wind. She had not seen them since and did not know if they were dead or alive, but here, in her clockwork heart and spun glass bones, they kept on living. She knew that, in the tricky ways such symmetry works, she too would go on living in the bodies of others.

Magdalena started out of the doors, into the vast, cold dark. She propelled herself forward, feeling the flex and thrust of her muscles and the strength of her bones. Vision and memory broke over her like a tide as she barreled forward into the black, mapping a way to a place that would be her own.

Brian Niemeier

Strange Matter

Sci Phi Journal #3

* * *

I stare into the sink as I shave, dreading the day ahead. Each pass of the razor feels and sounds like I’m peeling tape off my face.

The only reason trained chimps aren’t doing my job is the company’s fear of an ASPCA lawsuit. Thanks to them I get to work back to back double shifts in the 120 degree echo chamber that Janowicz calls a shop.

The disposable razor snags on my stubble, and blood spatters onto the porcelain. The colors and the aftertaste of mint mouthwash remind me of a candy cane. I heard somewhere that the red stripe stands for blood.

Facing the mirror, I see an inch-wide cut on my right jawline. I strop the blade on the thigh of my jeans for some extra mileage and rinse it.

Starting out, I was sure I had the rest of my life to make my mark. No one told me that time’s a rigged game. At twenty, fifty seems like an eternity away, but each year goes by a little faster than the last. First comes one compromise; then a few more, until one day my hair’s more gray than brown, and the stupid kid I was is lost under all the frown lines and crow’s feet.

I stand there holding the razor under the tap until the water goes from lukewarm to ice cold. The chill snaps me out of my daydream, but I take my time scraping the rest of my face with a cold blade. Then I open the medicine cabinet, fish out a bandage, and stick it on the cut.

When I was a kid I touched an electric fence on my uncle’s farm. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when the pain hits. Another memory—nearly getting electrocuted while fixing a short-circuiting fridge in an inch of standing water—comes closer to the agony I’m in. I heard on TV that “electrocution” comes from “electrical” and “execution”. That’s what this feels like: frying in Old Sparky.

My brain keeps working through the pain, and for once time plays its trick in reverse. What must only take a split second seems to last longer than a root canal. The world turns white, then orange-yellow, then red. There’s a silence deep enough to swallow all the taxi cab horns, ambulance sirens, and construction equipment noise I didn’t notice until they were gone.

I’m looking down at the rust ring around my sink. The cheap plastic razor in my hand isn’t shaking. I’m calmly breathing in my bathroom’s sulfur and antiseptic scent, even though I should be panting like a greyhound.

I look in the mirror. My face is just the way I left it: graying and creased and half-covered with lather.

Only that’s not the way I left it—not exactly. I finished shaving. I know I did. But foam-covered bristles stand out on my cheek, and there’s no cut on my jaw.

Four months, and I’m already seeing things. I thought the job would wear me down slow. It’d get a little worse each day until I jammed a hand into the drill or just stood there staring at it until they came and dragged me off the floor.

Is it weird to feel better when you start hallucinating? Either way, relief is my first reaction. No way I’m fit for work.

I run my thumb across the razor blade. Still dull. I strop it and finish shaving without cutting myself. Then I stroll down the hall, pick up the phone, and dial my boss’ number.

After three tinny rings, a clipped gruff voice says, “Withill.”

I resist the urge to use the shift supervisor’s rhyming nickname and say, “This is Russell. I can’t make it in.”

A keyboard clacks in the background before Whithill says, “You’re out of sick time, Karhart. You sure that stomach flu ain’t’ a tapeworm?”

“I think it’s psychological this time.”

“What? You got a phobia for honest work?”

“It’s better if I stay home. I might endanger myself or others.”

I can almost hear Withill’s shrug. “Whatever, so long as I ain’t payin’ you.” The receiver clicks, telling me the matter’s settled as far as my boss is concerned.

I hang up and enter the kitchen. I slept too late to make coffee, so I start some now. The smell perks me up a little, and I start thinking I should find out what’s wrong with me.

My latest ex said her shrink was pretty good. He only has a master’s; not a PhD, so he works cheap. I think I’ve still got his card somewhere.

I’m digging through a drawer stuffed with small appliance manuals and utility bill statements when that touching-the-third-rail shock happens again. The world goes from white to red, and I’m staring into my bathroom sink.

The best sign I’m crazy is that I don’t scream. Instead I go back to the phone, my face still half-slathered with foam.

“Withill,” a familiar gravelly voice says after the third ring.

“Did I just call you?”

There’s a pause. I picture Withill’s brow furrowing as he says, “Karhart. You messin’ with me?”

“I don’t know. How many times have I called today?”

Withill seems to be searching for the right attitude and settles on dickish. “Once. And unless it stays that way, our next conversation will be in person in my office.”

I’m not sure what makes me hang up on my boss, but before I know it the phone’s back on the hook. I clamp a hand over my mouth to hold in a fit of hysterical laughter. My palm comes away smeared with shaving cream.

Realizing how screwed I am if I’m not hallucinating sobers me up fast. I just stand in the hallway for the next several minutes, waiting to see who my ass belongs to: some weird electrocuting light or my raging prick of a boss.

Turns out it’s the light.

My fingers fumble with the razor and drop it in the sink. I stagger out of the bathroom, sure that one of two things is happening. Either I’m wall-climbing mad—in which case the light is probably how my warped brain interprets getting shock treatments in a psych ward somewhere—or I’m actually reliving the same few minutes over and over again. If I’m crazy, nothing I do matters. But if this shit’s real…

Time to get some answers. I ignore the phone and head for the living room. Going straight to the TV in a situation like this probably says something about my childhood, but like the man said, stick with what you know.

All I get is snow before I remember that the little box the cable company sent out needs a different remote. Scrounging for it between couch cushions reeking of stale beer, I curse the shop for not paying me enough to afford a flat screen TV. The clicker turns up under sports pages I stole from the break room, and I turn on the box. The classic movie network comes on. Last night it was censored slasher flicks. This morning it’s Bogart.

I can’t remember what station the news is on, so I click through the channels. It’s mostly commercials until I land on a pair of mannequins dressed for a power lunch. I can’t tell what’s more distracting: the guy’s picket fence smile, his female cohost’s orange peel skin, or the gaudy graphics behind them. I divide my attention between the marquee of scrolling news blurbs and the anchors’ attempts to pin the recession on the party their sponsors don’t bribe. They’re still yammering about bad debt and bank bailouts when the light takes me back again.

Have I been through this a hundred times? A thousand? To be honest I gave up counting. When you’re constantly repeating the same ten minutes (and seventeen seconds, to be exact), time doesn’t mean shit. I don’t sleep. I remember everything that happens before the world dissolves in light and pain. So far I’m the only one. Everything else stays the same.

There are no answers. I can make it to the TV in six seconds if I start running right away. I know every news report, sitcom episode, and commercial by heart. Nothing explains why the world keeps burning, and nobody notices but me.

I start searching online. With no clue where to begin, the going is slow. It doesn’t help that anything I write down gets erased by the light. I’ve got to start over every time with nothing to go on but a memory that’s duller than my safety razor. I’m a lousy researcher, but having infinite time makes trial and error my best friend.

Sometimes I get burned out and look for ways to amuse myself. A few dozen calls to a woman I’ve never met, a local mechanic, and small a downstate PD dig up most of the necessary information. Getting the rest isn’t strictly legal, but folks on hacker forums don’t object to telling me how.

After a couple of trial runs, I’m ready. I pick up the phone, get the details straight in my head, and dial.

Three rings. A harsh voice says, “Withill.”

“Hi, Jack. Happy judgment day!”

“Who is this? Karhart?”

“Wrong, asshole. Today I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past. Thanksgiving Past, if you want to get technical. You were driving home, drunk and angry, from dinner with your girlfriend’s folks when you killed that hitchhiker.”

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” Withill stammers.

I can’t help but smile. “Why’d you tell the mechanic you hit a deer when we both know it was a twelve year-old runaway?”

Nothing from the other end. I’ve heard this silence before though, and I rush in to fill it. “You’re thinking of hanging up now. Don’t. The body washed up downstate a few days after you rolled it into the river. Lucky for you the cops never ID’d a suspect, but they will if you hang up before we’re done.”

“This is bullshit.”

It’s hard not to laugh, but I do my best to stay in character. “I got your bank records, Jack. I got the autopsy report and coroner’s jury transcripts. Shannon, Marty at the garage, and Sergeant Reed at the Maple Shade PD all had parts of the puzzle. I just put them together.”

“Why?”

“I have more time on my hands than you have blood on yours.”

“There’s gotta be a reason you didn’t call the cops. What do you want?”

“I want to give you a choice. Option A: you refuse my offer and spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“And option B?”

“You march into Janowicz’s office and piss on his desk.”

“Go to hell, you sick little freak!”

“It’s your call. Did you know that cons have their own special justice system for people who kill kids?”

I don’t need to hear what comes next. The light’s on its way, so I hang up.

Holy shit.

This can’t be right.

So I’m messing around online, browsing this forum that’s usually good for a laugh. The site belongs to a late night radio show that nutjobs call to trade conspiracy theories. Somewhere between posts attacking the Federal Reserve and fluoride, I stumble onto a thread about doomsday scenarios.

There was this geeky sci-fi show where the characters were always saying how if you rule out all the simple explanations, whatever’s left, no matter how extraordinary, must be the truth. Something like that. I’m reading this conspiracy nut’s rant about particle colliders, and suddenly I know how those TV spacemen felt when a tachyon burst pulled them into a time warp. Only instead of cruising around a commie space utopia in a posh starship, I’m stuck on earth in a tiny apartment.

This guy’s frothing at the mouth over heavy ion colliders, quantum vacuums, quarks, and lots of other technobabble I don’t understand. Nothing he says sounds anything close to sane, except for the fact that it all makes sense. What I gather from the guy’s posts and the articles he links to is that these colliders might form particles called strangelets. This strange matter turns anything it touches into itself. One strangelet could turn the whole world to slag in a couple seconds.

I want to laugh at this guy’s paranoid theory like I laughed at all the other bullshit. I want to stop reading and browse for porn. Instead I look up the location of every particle collider in the world. It turns out there’s one six miles from where I’m sitting.

A government-funded think tank owns and operates the collider. Pasted across their web site is the announcement—ignored by the mainstream news—that today’s the day they’ll be starting the thing up for the first time.

Somehow I doubt it’ll actually be the first time.

I keep things simple at first. Calling the lab with bomb threats doesn’t work. They don’t believe me, or maybe it’s not the collider’s fault after all. Either way, the light comes right on cue.

Pranking the lab won’t tell me if they’re responsible. To know for sure, I’ve got to talk to someone in charge. Sniffing out a federal lab director’s personal info isn’t as simple as blackmailing my boss. It takes me a while, but when I’m done I feel like me and Dr. Sedgwick are old friends.

I can’t just call Sedgwick and tell him not to start the collider. He’s dealt with more than his share of whack job protestors. The man probably wouldn’t bother telling me to screw myself before hanging up.

I’ve got to play this smart. Hopefully it won’t take too many tries.

No matter how many times I call, it takes too long for the ringing to stop.

“Hello?” says the precise male voice on the other end of the line.

“Your name is Dr. Michael Sedgwick. You have a fourteen year-old daughter named Cassie with your ex-wife Rachel. She’s your ex because of the call girl you slept with during an Energy Department get-together in Georgetown six years ago.”

“Who—who is this?”

“Nobody,” I say, trying to keep the fatigue out of my voice. “Just shut up and listen. Right now you’re sitting on a heavy ion collider. In four minutes it’ll generate strangelets and turn the planet to charcoal.”

“Are you some fringe science reporter? If you’d read last Friday’s press release you’d know that the scenario you described has about the same chance of happening as being struck by lightning three times in a row.”

This is as far as I’ve gotten without Sedgwick hanging up. Poor bastard doesn’t know what his old lab assistant told me since last time, though.

“You got grant extensions on a finished study and spent the extra money on a side project good for five tax-free patents. That’s gotta be illegal. Maybe I’ll ask your DOE bosses.”

I hold the receiver close. Silence on the other end. Time to hang it up and try again.

“What do you want?”

I hear Sedgwick’s voice a moment before I put the handset on the base. In an instant the receiver’s back at my ear. “I only want one thing,” I say, fighting to keep my voice level. “Don’t start the collider.”

“I told you,” Sedgwick says, all ivory tower lecturer again. “The odds of strangelet formation are statistically insignificant.”

“And I’m telling you it’ll happen. I know it will because it already has. Over and over again.”

“You’re mistaken.”

I go ahead and vent my frustration. The prick’s earned it. “And you’re too chickenshit to call me crazy. I already know I am. But waking up in my bathroom every ten minutes after a blazing light takes me apart ain’t one of the symptoms.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I don’t want to. Lord knows I wouldn’t if I didn’t keep seeing and feeling it.”

“If this is a blackmail attempt, then stop toying with me and make your demands.”

“For a scientist, you don’t learn so fast. Let me lay it out for you. My name’s Russell Karhart. I’m a drill press operator at Janowicz Metalcraft. I’m calling you from six miles down the interstate off of Veterans’ Highway. In three minutes or so the world’s gonna end, and I’ll end up in front of my bathroom mirror. It keeps happening, but only I remember.”

A sigh comes through the earpiece, and Sedgwick says, “I’m sorry, Mr. Karhart, but you’ve given me no evidence to support your story.”

“No evidence? Think about it. How does a rube like me get your private office number? How do I know about your kid and your affairs and your fraud? I’ll clue you in on a little secret, jackass. We’ve had this conversation before. Not only that, I’ve racked up one hell of a long distance bill with Cassie and Rachel and Vijay—or I would if I wasn’t stuck in a time loop out of some Saturday morning cartoon. Do you think I could crack your personnel file or pump these folks for dirt without any of it getting back to you?”

“You experience the same ten minutes repeatedly?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And each ten minute period terminates in a bright light, after which you find yourself in the same time and place where you began?”

“Glad to hear you’re catching on.”

“If I weren’t so inclined to question your sanity, I’d say you’re giving a pretty accurate description of quantum time travel.”

“Whatever it is, I’m gonna do it again real soon, and you’ll be dead. So give me the quick and dirty version.”

“Special relativity allows for time travel. It just takes huge amounts of energy. There’s also the issue of temporal paradoxes: killing your grandfather in the past, for example, which would in turn prevent you from being born and going back to kill him.

“Quantum theory hints at ways around these problems. Instead of transporting matter through a wormhole or a black hole’s event horizon, you’d simply alter its particles to match their quantum state from the target time period.”

“Amazing. What’s that mean to me?”

“Imagine that there’s a big rubber band tied around you, but the other end isn’t just tied to a fixed point in space; it’s also anchored to a certain point in time. In your case, that point is your bathroom ten minutes before the alleged strange matter event. This tether only has ten minutes’ worth of slack. After that it always snaps you right back to the same time and place.”

“You’re right. I have to be crazy, because that actually made sense. Can I cut the band?”

“That’s just a metaphor. To stop the repetitions, we’d have to know what fixed your quantum state at that point in time.”

Sedgwick pauses. The next I hear from him is a sharp inhale. Then he says, “If the collider is creating strangelets, it may have produced micro black holes. One of them could be the anchor.”

“I’m no rocket scientist,” I say, “but wouldn’t that mean it’s making mini black holes before the strangelets?”

“Most likely, yes. The ten minutes you keep reliving is probably the interval between black hole formation and strangelet production.”

“Holy shit, are you saying the collider’s already on?”

“Of course, Russell. A heavy ion collider isn’t like a light switch. There’s a lengthy startup procedure.”

“If that thing’s on, you need to get the hell off the phone and tell your people to shut it down, now!”

From the distant sound of Sedgwick’s voice, I can tell he’s set down the phone and is talking to somebody—urgently but calmer than I would—about turning off the collider. All I can do is stand there in my kitchen doorway. The air’s getting thicker. It smells like bacon grease and sweat.

“Russ?” Sedgwick says through the phone.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve asked the lead technician to terminate the experiment. For obvious reasons, I haven’t told him why. He says that the risks aren’t negligible at this stage, but he’s working to comply with my request while minimizing damage to the facility.”

Helpless rage bubbles up inside me like hot bile. “I don’t care if you turn the whole damn place into a smoking crater! We’re talking about the world, here.”

“I understand that, Russ. But even if we started ripping fuses out, at this point it could be worse than keeping the experiment running.”

“What’s worse than the end of the world?”

“We can’t assume worldwide destruction based on your experience alone. The event might only affect our little corner of the globe—unless we aggravate it.”

“Just tell him to hurry.”

I’m left hanging again, stewing in frustration. It’s too long before Sedgwick gets back on the horn and says, “The emergency shutdown won’t respond. The technicians are blaming some anomalous energy spikes. It’s hard to tell at first glance, but these numbers are consistent with conditions theorized to generate strangelets.”

I’m not sure if the moisture on my cheeks is just sweat. I can’t keep my voice from cracking as I say, “Okay. We came close this time, but no dice. I’ll call you right back. You won’t remember, so give me something to cut through the bullshit and get you listening.”

“I believe you, Russell. I really do,” Sedgwick says in that voice parents use to break the news when a dog dies. “I was in the lab until four minutes ago. Nothing that could cause EM interference—including phones—is allowed down there. I answered your call as soon as I returned to my office. The plain truth is, even if you convince me right away, it’s highly unlikely we’ll be able to stop the collider in time.”

“How unlikely?” I ask.

“I’d say that the chances of successful termination within that window are statistically insignificant. I’m sorry.”

“Is there someone else I can call—someone who could reach you in the lab?”

“Trust me. That would take even longer. I wish I could tell you differently.”

I nod, knowing that Sedgwick can’t see me, and I set the receiver back in its cradle. Then the light comes and turns everything into it.

I’m looking at the razor. I think of running the blade down my arm, but the damn thing probably isn’t sharp enough to open a vein.

I’ve just dialed the lab’s head of maintenance when it dawns on me. I’m the one who knows. Why should I waste time getting people to believe me? If Sedgwick’s right and stopping the collider is dangerous, why should I ask someone else to do it?

The phone’s still ringing when I hang up. If you want something done right, do it yourself.

The collider’s plans and operating manual are all online. Learning enough tech jargon to read them takes longer than I’d like, but who’s counting?

I need a linchpin: an easy target. I know I’ve found it when I read about the collider’s power supply. It doesn’t pull juice from the grid. The lab has its own power station. If I take it out, I stop the collider.

According to Sedgwick, I’ve got six minutes to kill the power. A team of electricians working by the book wouldn’t make it in time, but they’d probably want to survive. Plowing a dump truck into the generator should get the job done.

Stepping onto the sidewalk is like walking out of prison. I haven’t seen the sun for so long it makes me squint, and the noise of traffic inching along the four lane street is deafening. Pedestrians on their way to work part around me like I’m a rock in a human stream. The cool air smells of exhaust fumes and a hundred different coffee blends.

People give me funny looks. It might have something to do with my half-shaved face or my choice of an undershirt and bare feet on a day when most folks are wearing jackets. I ignore them and look for transportation.

Every taxi in sight is full. Even if I could get one, the roadwork down the street is slowing traffic to a crawl. A vehicle won’t do me any good inside the construction zone, so I join the migrating herd of office workers. To be honest, I’m a little nervous around people after being holed up by myself for so long. Going with the flow of foot traffic, I only cover a few blocks before a blast of light and pain plants me back in front of my bathroom sink.

I ditch the razor and rush out the door. This time I dive right in, shouldering my way through the crowd while ignoring dirty looks from network admins and paralegals.

I’m still in the construction bottleneck when a red light stops the human herd in its tracks. I hesitate, which turns out to be a big mistake when I step from the curb and into the path of a truck. Time slows down enough for me to hear the squeal of brakes and see the horrified look of the kid behind the wheel. I’m glad it’s not a semi; just a pickup. It still kills me, though.

At least I’m pretty sure it does, because there’s much less pain, and blackness instead of light, but I end up looking at my half-lathered face in the mirror again. The razor’s plastic handle feels like lead in my hand.

Anyone else who got flattened by a truck and then woke up safe at home would be ecstatic. It’s all I can do not to vomit. Instead of relief, the only thing going through my head is the fear that I can’t die. If that’s true and I can’t stop the collider…

I sprint into the living room, through the hallway, and down the stairs. I jump from the third to last step and hit the ground running, knocking people to the ground in sprays of hot coffee. Loose paperwork flies like a ticker tape parade just for me. I ignore the dead people’s curses and surge forward.

I pace myself to make the light and breeze through the crosswalk. A block later my burning chest reminds me that I haven’t gotten regular exercise since I played right field in high school. I tell my lungs to shut up, and I keep pushing.

My vision’s going fuzzy around the edges when someone obviously more athletic than I am tackles me from behind. Cool concrete rushes up to smack my face and scrape my bare arms.

“Next time, listen when I say ‘stop’!” says the guy on my back. If he told me to stop, I must’ve pushed it into the background with all the other noise—not that I’d have listened anyway.

Cold metal clamps down on my wrists, and the guy—the cop—starts reading me my rights.

I try to explain how the officer doesn’t understand. How I don’t want to hurt anybody. How a whole lot of people will get hurt if he doesn’t get the hell off me and let me go.

What comes out of my mouth must sound a lot less reasonable than it does in my head, because the cop hauls me to my feet and locks me in a choke hold till I black out.

A mile a minute doesn’t seem like a tall order these days until the world’s riding on it. I make a game of seeing how far I can get before the clock runs down. Every step I cut out gives me more time. It’s a good run if I can shave a whole second off my dash through the living room.

I stop caring what people think when they see me burst onto the street, smeared with foam, in jeans and an undershirt. I don’t really see them as people anymore. They’re all dead, anyway. I’m the only one who comes back.

At least I think I am.

I’ve gotten to know my route pretty well. It’s not bragging to say that I’ve memorized every inch of the half mile or so I can usually cover before the light comes. For the longest time, nothing’s different but me and the stuff I change. Even Officer Salazar, that prick who takes me down sometimes, is always goose-stepping from his cruiser to the schmuck in the car he’s ticketing at exactly 7:53 AM.

Then one time, something else is different. I cut through the park—more of a green spot with some flowers and a couple benches—just before the intersection of Ninth and Veterans’ Highway. I go another half block before my brain registers the lady in pink and green sitting on the bench. She wasn’t there before. I’d bet a year’s lousy wages on it. I get so caught up in that train of thought that I never see the car that pastes me across the asphalt.

I take the same route next time, but nobody’s in the park.

I need wheels, and Salazar’s are parked at Tenth and Veterans’. I get there as he’s marching up to the car he stopped. Trying the cruiser’s door reveals that the moron left it unlocked. Unfortunately he wasn’t stupid enough to keep the engine running. I slide on in and start searching for a spare set of keys.

“Get the hell out of there!” Salazar sounds like he’s screaming in my ear instead of shouting from the curb.

I hit the power lock and keep looking for the keys, but Salazar uses his to unlock the door. He tases me, but that’s nothing compared to how much juice the light pumps through me.

Officer Salazar thinks he’s just doing his job. The bastard doesn’t know he’s the opposition in my little game. I feel a little sorry for him.

I could learn how to hotwire his car, but what fun is that when stealing his keys is a much bigger challenge? I’m not the world’s best pickpocket. Going the sneaky route gets me beaten, tased, and pepper sprayed more times than I like to admit.

Time to answer force with force. I learn pretty quick that I can’t fight a guy who’s twenty years my junior and in much better shape; not even with surprise on my side. A weapon seems like the best way to level the playing field. When bringing a kitchen knife to a gunfight fails, I figure it’s best to use my enemy’s weapons against him.

The handgun’s in a holster that makes it much harder to steal than the taser, so I go for the easy score. Salazar tries to draw on me, but his holster slows him down. I pop two barbed metal bolts into his thigh. There’s a smell like singed plastic, and he goes down.

I grab the keys off Salazar’s belt and nearly fall over myself in a mad dash to the car. I’m in the driver’s seat fumbling with the ignition key when the son of a bitch gets up and starts limping toward me. He’s almost touching the side mirror when the engine roars to life. The construction zone’s too congested for a dramatic exit. Instead I ease into traffic with Salazar jogging beside me, pounding on the window and yelling.

Figuring out the lights and siren takes a minute, but when I do the other drivers make way. A ticking clock only I can hear drives me on.

Pretty soon traffic clears up enough for me to gun it. I’m coming up on Cedar when my speed starts dropping. Panic hits me harder than a truck. I mash the gas pedal to the floor, but the needle keeps dropping until I’m doing fifteen in a forty-five. A red rage takes me, and my fists batter the wheel, seats, and dash while obscenities pour from my mouth. The curses are just animal sounds by the time the light comes.

If I’d bothered to look it up, I’d have found out that all the local police cruisers have anti-theft devices. I don’t have time to kill the remote slowdown. I could kill Salazar before he reports his car stolen, but not the dozens of witnesses with cell phones.

There must be another way.

Plan B comes together sooner than I thought.

That woman’s in the park again. She’s wearing a pink dress and a green sweater. A light blue ribbon holds back her strawberry blond curls as she sits on that same bench and sips from a tall paper cup. I can smell her coffee as I run by. She waves at me.

There’s an ambulance parked in front of a convenience store two blocks down Ninth. At exactly 7:49 the driver gets out for ten seconds to help one of the EMTs load a stroke victim into the back. He leaves the engine idling. At 7:49 and three seconds, I’m jumping behind the wheel and hauling ass toward the highway.

It seems like I’ve spent ages getting nowhere. Not even lifting Salazar’s cruiser cheered me up. But tearing down the road in a stolen ambulance beats the hell out of any sex I’ve ever had. I don’t hear my own psychotic laughter over the roar of the engine until I hit the construction zone, where traffic congestion blue-balls my joyride.

Gotta get my head back in the game. The layout’s different from the cop car. Precious seconds slip by while I play around with buttons and switches on a dashboard that looks like it came from a 747. A burst of light and a shrill wail tell me when I find the right combination. I feel like Moses when the gridlock parts and I roll on through.

I’m still plodding along, thumping the wheel and cursing at cars that move aside too slow. Then before I know it, I clear the construction zone and floor it onto the open highway. I cruise past Cedar, Elm, and Oak, heading for the interstate that’ll take me out of town toward the forest preserve the lab’s in. The road narrows to an arching two-lane overpass, and I know the onramp is just a quarter mile ahead.

I’m laughing at how easy this is, when a little kid darts into my lane from the sidewalk. A lady—probably her mom—runs out to grab her. There’s no time to run, so she wraps the kid in a bear hug.

I cut the wheel hard to the left. The tires send up a cloud of acrid smoke as I swerve right into the path of—I swear this is true—another ambulance. Its siren must’ve masked mine. It slams into me head-on.

“Did you know?”

The woman on the park bench sips her coffee but keeps her eyes on me. They’re hazel. She swallows and asks, “What do you want to know what I know about?”

“I don’t have all day, so tell me straight. Did you know what would happen with that lady and her kid?”

“Did it happen after I saw you run by?”

“Yeah.”

The woman takes another swig of coffee. Her perfume has a hint of citrus. “Then how could I know about it?”

I say, “There’s no time for this,” and she flinches a little. Must’ve been how I said it. I don’t know.

In the next instant her composure’s back, and she shrugs. “We have all the time there is.”

“Look, lady,” I say, hearing my voice hitch. “I don’t know about you, but every ten minutes I fry like an egg on an engine block and wind up back in my bathroom. Don’t ask how many times it’s happened because I lost count a while ago. Now I’ve got urgent business, but I’m putting it off to ask you some simple questions. So I’d appreciate some straight answers.”

The woman cocks her head to one side and stares at me like I’ve been ranting in Swahili. Then she scoots over and pats the empty spot beside her. “Here,” she says, “sit down before you have a coronary.”

Why couldn’t she have stepped out in front of the ambulance? Wait. That was bad. I didn’t mean that. Take a deep breath and start again. “Just tell me this: who are you?”

The woman’s smile lights up her face. “I’m Ada,” she says, setting down her coffee cup. She extends her hand. “And you are?”

I keep my hands in my pockets and turn my head to look at the dead people walking by. “Russell.”

“Well Russell, I’ll be here next time if you change your mind.”

I’m about to tell her I’ve got better things to do than sit in the park playing mind games, but the light comes on and I’m burning. I think I hear a faraway scream, but I’m not sure.

It’s strange knowing that there’s someone else like me—someone who remembers. For a minute I’m worried it might throw off my game. But the ambulance is still there: idling and unattended. I still hop in and peel out.

Every other route to the interstate adds at least a minute to my time. Might as well be a million years. I’ve run the numbers, and getting to the overpass sooner is my only shot.

I hit the lights, and traffic gives way like I’m leading a funeral procession. I guess I am, in a way. But it’s too damn slow. I lean on the horn, adding its shrill demands to the siren’s wail, but the bastards still move like hamstrung tortoises. I decide to show the stragglers I mean business. At first I just nudge their bumpers. Being gentle doesn’t work, so I speed up to thirty. When an unstoppable force meets a foreign hatchback, something’s got to give; and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what.

A chorus of blaring horns plays me out of the construction zone. Cedar flies by. So does Elm; then Oak. The clock on the dash doesn’t show seconds, and it’s giving the same time as before.

I wonder if I’ve gained any time, and I find out when the bridge comes into sight. The lady’s got hold of her kid, meaning I’m actually a couple of seconds behind. The other ambulance is almost even with me.

I don’t swerve left. I don’t turn the wheel at all, and I don’t slow down. I resist the urge to close my eyes. That would be dangerous at this speed. For a split second I see the odd look on these two people’s faces: like they’re both seeing something they can’t understand but are scared of. Then they vanish under the front of my ambulance. The force of the impact surprises me, and I fight to keep the vehicle steady. There are two jolts like going over a pair of speed bumps. It’s smooth sailing after that.

I’m merging onto the interstate when my eyes fog over. Taking a hand off the wheel to rub them, I feel warm wetness on my face.

There’s not much time to think about what I’ve done, because about a mile later I hear a third siren. A police cruiser’s coming up in the rearview mirror: cherries and berries flashing. The ambulance driver must’ve reported me.

I stomp the gas pedal to the floorboards, but my lead doesn’t last long against the cop car’s lighter frame and turbocharged engine. The cruiser pulls up alongside me. I can’t resist the urge to take my eyes off the morning rush hour traffic I’ve been weaving through. Sure enough, Salazar’s at the wheel, making angry gestures toward the shoulder with his free hand.

I don’t have time for this. The little prick must know what I’ve done. If he thinks I’m gonna quit when I’m this close, he’s crazier than me.

A sign says that the forest preserve exit is a mile ahead. The cruiser’s still right there beside me. Morning commuters are pulling onto both shoulders, leaving the road clear. I look over and see Salazar shouting into his radio. I check the clock. Go ahead and call for backup, asshole. Let’s see if they can catch up in the next two minutes.

Turns out they won’t have to. I hear a sharp crack, instantly followed by the sound of metal ricocheting off metal. Checking my mirror, I see that Salazar’s fallen back to shoot at my rear tires.

I reflexively mash down on the gas, forgetting that the pedal’s already on the floor. Two more shots ring out.

Copying the crazy shit they do in movies is a dumb idea. I find that out the hard way when I try swerving back and forth between lanes to avoid Salazar’s bullets. I don’t get to find out if it works, because trying to serpentine away from police gunfire after ramming cars, doing a hundred down residential streets, and running over two people makes the left front tire blow itself out.

It’s no use trying to keep control. One second I’m taking a spin inside an industrial tumble dryer full of glass. The next, I’m back my nice stable bathroom. The reek of blood and diesel fuel lingers in my mind.

My razor is all that’s solid. Clutching it to my chest, I lie down on the grubby tiles and just listen to the water hissing out of the tap and down the drain. I listen long and hard, interrupted only by occasional pain and a light that shines through my closed eyelids. There’s no meaning in the sound.

Other noises. Far off, but getting closer. Footsteps on the stairs: the click of high heels. A door creaks on its hinges.

How long has it been?

“There you are,” says Ada.

I open my eyes for the first time in what feels like years and see a pair of tan heels.

My voice comes out as a croak. “What’re you doing here?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while. Thought I’d check in.”

I sit up against the tub and notice the citrus scent invading the locker room musk. “How’d you know where I live?”

Ada smiles with her whole face. “I didn’t. Not at first. It took me a while to find you.”

I wipe a hand down my face and say, “Well mystery solved. I’m in here because I can’t do squat out there. So go back to your park and drink your coffee.”

“Only if you come with me.”

I don’t bother trying to stifle a laugh. “What does it matter where I am? The whole ball of wax is just gonna melt in ten minutes. Every ten minutes, seventeen seconds on the dot. Just get out of here and let me enjoy it.”

Ada doesn’t leave. Instead she slides down next to me. She’s still got the pink dress and green sweater on. “It may sound trite, but I know what you’re going through.”

“Lady, you have no idea—”

“The light takes me, too. I haven’t timed it, but ten minutes sounds about right.”

“Where do you end up?”

She waves a hand toward my kitchen. “In line at the bagel place around the corner.”

“Getting coffee?” I ask.

Ada nods.

“You know the world’s ending, right?”

“It stands to reason.”

“How can you be so calm about it?”

“How can you be so ungrateful?”

If I’m nuts, this chick is the queen of Crazy Town. “Why the hell should we be grateful?”

“Because we live.”

It feels like the sky lands on my head. I look at Ada. “I’ve spent a long time thinking of everyone else as dead. Guess I forgot I’m alive.”

Ada stands up and straightens her skirt. “Will you have coffee with me?”

I touch the lathered stubble on my face and remember what the razor’s for. “Go on ahead. I might be a minute.”

The morning air feels cool on my freshly shaved face. My loafers hit the sidewalk and carry me across the street. I’m not in a hurry. When I get to the park my watch says we’ve still got five minutes: all the time in the world.

Ada’s staked out our bench. She’s sipping from one cup while another one sits in the cardboard tray that’s saving my seat. I walk over, roll up the sleeves of my suede jacket, and sit down next to her. I look at her outfit and shake my head. Unlike me, she hasn’t changed.

“I hope they got it right this time,” Ada says as she offers me the second cup.

“Only one way to find out.” The warmth inside the cup moves into my hand. I raise it, take in the earthy aroma, have a sip, and grimace. “Too sweet.”

Just like her smile, Ada’s frown gets her whole face involved. “I told the girl, ‘light sugar’.”

I gulp down more coffee that tastes like boiled cotton candy and say, “There’s always tomorrow.”

Nethereal

1

The room where Nakvin lay confronted her with a paradox. It held far more comforts than her chamber on Tharis, yet sleep eluded her. Perhaps living with pirates for more than a century had hardened her against luxuries like transessed sheets more durable than canvas yet smoother than satin, and light fixtures docile to their owner’s whims. Or perhaps memories of an equally lavish prison made her yearn to fly back through the vast ether to Jaren’s den. Whatever the reason, restless thoughts thwarted Nakvin’s hope of enjoying a brief nap before starting her night’s work.

Temil’s small distant moon shed more than enough light for Nakvin to see by. With the chamber’s owner asleep beside her, she began noting pertinent details. Salt-scented air tousled silk curtains in four places, marking the presence of windows. But one set of drapes never stirred.

Nakvin carefully removed herself from Shan’s slumbering embrace. She’d given the Magus a generous dose of venom; its bitter taste still lingered. But a little discretion never hurt. Nakvin’s black hair fell past her shoulders like a velvet shroud as she rose. The abstract-patterned carpet muted her footfalls. Drawing back the motionless curtain revealed a small metal door. Her eyes’ silver reflection stared back from its dark glossy surface.

Prudence was the defining quality of a Magus, as Master Kelgrun had said when he bestowed the rank on Nakvin. After all, only a fool would let a fool teach novices. Since Shan held the same degree, Nakvin knew that his safe would be Worked. Unfortunately she needed vocal melodies to fashion her own Workings, and songs were out of the question.

Limited to what she could accomplish silently, Nakvin inspected the strongbox. The door and its frame were Shipwright’s grade, eliminating any question of the contents’ value. The secret that Shan exploited for personal gain lured Nakvin with the promise of aiding her captain. What the guildsman concealed for fear of his Brothers would help Jaren strike fear into the Guild.

Nakvin’s inspection revealed neither mundane traps nor hostile transessence. Holding her breath, she tried the combination that she’d teased from Shan’s mind. Not until the tumblers clicked and the latch swung freely did she vent her lungs.

I still can’t believe he talked me into this, Nakvin thought, recalling Jaren’s professions of confidence in her abilities and the sure rewards of success. As happened far too often where her captain was concerned, sentiment had overcome her better judgment. Thus she found herself alone, committing multiple felonies on a world dominated by her former captors.

Nakvin opened the safe and froze in place as the lights came on. She cursed herself for overlooking such a simple alarm.

“What are you doing?” a groggy, confused voice asked from behind her. The bed creaked as Shan sat up. “Come away from there!”

Ignoring Shan, Nakvin reached into the vault and grabbed a thin crystal plaque.

“Face me when I’m speaking, harlot!” the guildsman said, rubbing the bite mark in the crook of his elbow.

Nakvin turned and met Shan’s white-hot glare. His face twisted in a shuddering scowl when he saw the tablet in her hand. “I’m taking this and going,” she said.

“Not without this,” said Shan, clutching a black silk bundle in his fist. “Not even a thief would leave her Steersman’s robe.”

Nakvin’s shock at the sight of another Magus handling her robe soon gave way to anger. She dropped the Working that hid her more exotic features, and Shan flinched when she bared her long canines. “I’m sure your Archon would love to see this,” she said, tapping the plaque with her finger. “Would one thief report another?”

Shan’s scowl returned. “There won’t be anything left to report,” he said. His focus left Nakvin and turned inward. His hands began cycling through the intricate patterns of the Steersman’s Compass, and his breathing synchronized with his steady, practiced motions.

Though musical notation guided her own fashioning, Nakvin could read the Compass well enough to see the greater Working taking shape from Shan’s thoughts. The effect he planned to unleash was originally designed for building ships, but it would just as easily immolate her.

Nakvin’s gaze darted to the window. Sure enough, two sanguine points shone through the sheer curtains like a Tharisian sunset. “I’d stop now,” she said, knowing that Shan’s Working promised death, but not for her.

Blue sparks danced on Shan’s fingertips. “Why should I trust a Gen?” he spat.

“Gen?” Nakvin repeated, bitterly amused at how soon man’s memory faded. “They’re nothing like me. No one is. ”

Nakvin was drawing breath to sing a Working when a guttural growl emanated from behind the curtains. The sound, so deep that it was felt more than heard, made her forget her song. Twin red lights pierced the drapes as if two torches burned behind them. “Stop!” she said.

“Go back to hell, succubus!” Shan said, and lightning arced between his hands. He jabbed a finger at Nakvin, but before he loosed his Working the curtains tore aside with a hellish howl. Shan turned just as a grey-black blur of talons and jaws overtook him.

Seeing no use in fretting over matters beyond her help, Nakvin sang two Workings: one to banish the light; and one to muffle the guildsman’s dying screams.

The lady Steersman stood in the silent darkness, impassively viewing the carnage. When it was done, she was alone.

Nakvin retrieved her irreplaceable robe from the ruin of the bed. Unlike the blood-soaked sheets, its black silk bore no stain. Her work done, she left for home.

2

Teg Cross knew to use caution when traveling the Tharis ash fields, especially in Jaren’s drifter. He glanced at the rearview mirror, turned its grimy surface away from the cold brown eyes looking back at him, and saw the mountains diminishing to a dark serrated line. This far from solid rock, a single mistake could strand him on the grey forsaken plains.

Little as Teg enjoyed drifting through the wasteland, he relished the thought of walking even less. The fine volcanic ash collected into basins much like water formed seas. Near the hills it was ankle deep. Farther out it rose to one’s knees, and beyond that the dust could swallow a man whole. Even now its sulfurous odor clung to his clothes, and powdery grains mixed with spit filmed his mouth with mud.

Teg watched the bleak hills recede from view and wondered if playing swordarm to a Gen pirate was really his best career move. Not that he had anything against Gen—or even pirates. The Guild called any unlicensed ether-running piracy, and Teg couldn’t blame Jaren for cutting the Steersmen out. They’d never take his money anyway, he thought.

Still, compared to Keth—or any of the Cardinal Spheres—mercenary work on Tharis could only be called slumming. It was Jaren’s scheme to wrest the miserable ash heap from the Guild that made Teg question his own judgment. The pirates’ man inside the chapter house provided some protection, but even Jaren couldn’t expect one local official to cover up armed rebellion.

Even if he won the support of every freelancer in the Middle Stratum, Jaren’s revolt stood less of a chance than an ice cube in the Nine Circles. But the unbidden memory of his mother belting out shrill hymns as the Enforcers hauled her away overruled Teg’s doubts.

Returning his focus to the grit-lined windscreen, Teg spotted a dark cloud on the horizon. Ozone mingled with the pervasive smell of sulfur. Each sphere had its own character, and Teg admitted that Jaren’s decision to base his operation on Tharis had some merit. The desert world largely escaped the Guild’s notice—along with most other people’s. But seclusion had its drawbacks. For one, dying in a dust storm would rule out a proper burial.

Teg brought the drifter down in the shallows and shut off the engine. He got out and trudged around to the back, where a bit of rummaging produced the vehicle’s canvas top. After a few minutes’ work he returned to the cabin, which was now covered by a taut roof of olive drab fabric. Certain that the drifter was as secure as he could make it, Teg sat back to wait.

Just before the storm hit, Teg saw something through the drifter’s windscreen. It looked like a man standing out on the dust field. The tall, rail-thin figure wore a black business suit that cast him in sharp relief to the roiling grey cloud coming up fast from behind. The man in the suit seemed oblivious to the mountain of dust bearing down on him as he stalked toward the parked drifter.

Teg took the stranger’s measure. The suit was custom-tailored, formal but for the lack of a tie and the white dress shirt’s unfastened top button. A shock of unruly golden hair surmounted the man’s angular face. A pair of steel-rimmed sunglasses hid his eyes. Something about those unseen eyes made Teg avert his gaze, which fell to the stranger’s shoes—jet black with a mirror shine.

Alarms blared in Teg’s head. Shoes—I can see the bastard’s shoes!

The dust was waist-deep out there. It didn’t matter how skinny the son of a bitch was; he should’ve been up to his belt in fine grey grit.

Teg felt a rare pang of fear when the stranger flashed a smile with all the warmth of a knife wound. The urge to look away returned in earnest, but this time, he couldn’t. He felt the fatal stupor of wild game caught in headlamps, certain that only a pair of smoked lenses stood between him and the abyss. An instant before the dust cloud rolled in, Teg thought he saw two points of pitch blackness bleeding through the dark glass. The stranger was still smiling when the dust engulfed him.

When the storm passed, no sign of the stranger remained. Teg was tempted to blame the whole affair on heat exhaustion, but a vestige of his dread lingered, prompting him to switch on the defensive aura projector clipped to his belt. He exited the drifter and hastily cleared away the thick new layer of dust. He checked the fuel tank and coolant seals and returned to the cabin. To his relief the engine started, and he continued on his way.

Teg had never been so glad to see Sojourner’s Cut. Closer to a settlement than an actual town, the Cut had grown from an itinerant workers' camp into a semi-permanent desert community whose boundaries changed with the tents that went up every day and the wagons that left each night. What better place to fence one’s ill-gotten wares?

What little there is to fence, he thought. The pirates’ last score had been even smaller than usual. Even if he bargained uncommonly well, Teg would be lucky to make an even trade for the parts and ammunition Jaren wanted.

Teg hadn’t asked where Jaren wanted the goods moved. There was only one fence in the Cut who offered a decent price with no questions asked. A rare sedentary member of Tharis’ traditionally nomadic Nesshin population, Dan ran a modest sole-proprietorship that specialized in having no specialty. Anything could be found under Dan’s roof, and no one could predict exactly what anything would be on a given day: dry goods, untaxed alcohol, engine parts. Dan’s was the world’s most eclectic rummage sale, though on Tharis the title was no great boast.

A set of wind chimes above the door shaped like a winged girl, an old man, and a set of numbers corresponding to a long bygone year rang dully as Teg sauntered into the concrete dome that housed Dan’s shop. He passed down the scrap-cluttered center aisle amid stuffy air redolent with cheap pipe tabacco and sidled up to the counter.

The shop’s bald, bearded proprietor leaned across the desk and made a show of squinting his bright, attentive eyes. “Either you’re a shade come to haunt me,” said Dan, “or Zol Oison lied about Cadrys Customs sending you lot to Elathan’s Vault.”

Teg’s hackles rose at the mention of Elathan. Invoking the god of shipwreck was bad luck. “Wishful thinking on Zol’s part,” he said. “And alive or dead, I’ve got no time for your grizzled ass.”

“I doubt that,” said Dan, a mischievous gleam in his eye, “seeing as how I’m the only man on Tharis who can supply Jaren’s needs.” The shopkeeper arched one white eyebrow. “If the plan’s still on.”

“Why else would I deal with a swindler like you?” asked Teg. “You spread the word?”

Dan’s wrinkled face betrayed the smile hidden behind his beard. “I think we’ll have quite a turnout,” he said. “Tell Jaren to get that cave of his ready for company.”

“All he needs are party favors,” Teg said, passing a small crystal sheet across the desk.

Dan’s brow creased as he read the list. “What’s your end?’ he asked.

“A set of backup Wheel cores,” said Teg, gesturing with his thumb toward the back lot where he’d parked the drifter. “Commercial grade.”

“Transessed?”

Teg nodded. “Alive and kicking from the Mill itself.”

Mention of the Transessist order’s Cadrys mother house soured Dan’s expression. “That might be good for half.”

Teg had no use for haggling. He let his hands inch toward the shoulder holsters that held his paired zephyrs.

“Okay, Irons! Have it your way,” the old fence said, raising his gnarled hands in surrender. Teg took pride in that handle, one of many which invoked the shooting irons that had made him known and feared.

Teg concluded his business by closing time, meaning that for once he didn’t have to turn around and rush back home. It was also the first time in a long while that he’d traded well enough to come away with a little of what his father had called “throwing-around money”.

Teg left the drifter in Dan’s fenced back lot and locked the gate with Jaren’s personal key—a privilege reserved for the shopkeeper’s best customers and entrusted to Teg on pain of death. He left the premises and headed for the makeshift pub at the end of the bare dust strip that served as the Cut’s main drag.

“Teg Cross?” a young man’s voice called from across the street.

Teg started turning before he heard the zephyr’s muted report. Pain hammered into his back, and he toppled onto the tavern steps. A warm coppery tang filled his mouth. Blackness engulfed him like a dust storm.

3

Marshal Malachi didn’t rebuke the steward who told him in halting whispers that their arrival on Tharis would be delayed. Instead he asked the reason in a clear, level voice. The steward tugged at his uniform’s collar and explained that the ground crew were still clearing dust from the landing pad.

“How long will we be detained?” Malachi asked.

“Perhaps ten minutes, sir,” the steward said. “I could send down and check.”

Malachi raised his hand, causing the gold-embroidered end of one black silk sleeve to recede from his wrist. Recognizing his outthrust palm as a dismissal, the steward retreated from the priority personnel cabin.

Left to himself, Malachi lifted the glass of slightly chilled water—mundane; not elemental—from its holder in the armrest beside him and sipped, savoring the honest taste of dissolved trace minerals. The delay didn’t perturb him. The voyage from Mithgar had passed more quickly than he’d been warned to expect. But Ulger Narr was waiting on the sunbaked dust field below, no doubt eager to relinquish his post as Guild minister, which he couldn’t do until his successor arrived.

Malachi knew that the ship had begun its landing before the steward returned fifteen minutes later to inform him. The slight shudder that ran through the cabin was the only instrument Malachi needed to deduce the ship’s speed and flight path. His active mind formed a vivid image of the courier’s blocky hull drifting toward the desolate sphere that shared its dull leaden color. In the wheelhouse two segments forward of the cabin, the Steersman would be guiding the vessel’s descent. Even aboard such an antiquated craft, the pilot held an enviable place compared to his passengers.

After sitting through a workmanlike landing, Malachi wasted no time presenting himself at the main airlock. The round hatch irised open with a blast of oven-like heat, presenting just the grey windswept vista he’d expected. The same bleak view must have greeted his predecessors, most of whom no doubt received their first glimpse of Tharis with melancholy. Perhaps many of them had hesitated, delaying the first shoreward step that would consummate their exile.

Malachi savored being unlike those men. He met the sulphurous waste with an eager smile and stepped briskly from the airlock as the gangway extended. Where others had lamented their losses, he looked forward to accomplishing great deeds.

Descending the ramp, Malachi took note of his windblown brethren standing in ankle-deep dust beside the landing pad. Three were guards clad in tiered caps and long leather coats. Worked Enforcers were so common in the Cardinal Spheres that the all-human honor guard seemed quaint.

The last figure deserved more thorough scrutiny. Malachi saw at once that Narr had not prospered on Tharis. The departing minister appeared to have shriveled under the planet’s binary suns. Cracks lined his face, and his posture was bent. Sorriest of all was his badge of rank. The fine Master’s robes—priceless beyond rubies for nobler reasons than their Worked silk—had not been well kept. In fact, the garment appeared to have been snatched from a peg in some cluttered closet and hastily donned for the day’s proceedings.

Malachi faced his peer upon the dry plains of Tharis and fancied that he saw his own aged reflection. If so, Narr’s wiry, thinning mane augured poorly for his own black widow’s peak. In the afternoon heat of Zadok and Thera he remembered the suns’ namesakes in Nesshin myth: father and daughter eternally annihilating and turning into each other.

“Brother Malachi,” Narr began in a voice like a rusty blade scraped over worn leather, “the Steersmen of Tharis welcome their new minister.”

Malachi remained silent for a long moment. He then knelt, clasped his elder’s hands and kissed them. Narr gaped at the ancient display of respect. His lips moved, but no sound emerged.

Malachi stepped in to fill the void. “Well met, Brother,” he said as he rose. “Now let us tend to business.”

Tharis’ de facto capital of Shabreth lay hard by the spaceport, and a short drifter ride saw the guildsmen to an ancient pile of dun-colored stone that served as its Guild hall. Narr received Malachi in a stark chamber he called the Tea Room—its lingering odor of stronger drink notwithstanding. He showed his guest to a wooden chair at a circular table of baked clay where service for two had already been set. Malachi’s seat faced the room’s only window: a rounded oblong cutout with a sweeping view of the charred mountains beyond the dust plain.

Narr eased himself into a chair across from Malachi. “Your voyage went well?” he asked.

“It did,” Malachi said. He sampled the bitter, weak tea. “I had ample time to examine your ministry’s records, from the first report filed sixty years ago, to this morning’s entry.”

A dry cough escaped Narr’s throat. “An odd choice of reading material,” he said with a forced grin. “Wouldn’t you have preferred something more entertaining?”

“Quite the contrary,” Malachi said. “I consider myself most entertained.”

Narr’s teacup rattled as he raised it from its saucer. “You found something amiss in the accounts…some fiscal discrepancy?”

“I did not.”

“Pardon my bluntness,” said Narr, “but what interest could a newly vested Master Steersman—among the youngest in memory—have in my humdrum affairs?”

“You’re wondering why I’m here,” Malachi said.

“Your appointment was unusual.”

“In the sense that I wasn’t discharged from a lucrative accountancy at the Salorien chapter house?”

Narr gulped his tea and said nothing.

“I came of my own free will,” Malachi said. “It was a resolution I made long before I attained the Mastery.”

“But why? Your abilities are wasted on Tharis.”

Malachi sighed. Then he produced a bundle of three folders from his robe and spread them out on the table. Pointing to the first document he said, “Two years ago a known smuggling ship was sighted in low orbit.” He continued, indicating the second report. “Last month, a shopkeeper in Sojourner’s Cut was reported for dealing in stolen goods.” Malachi paused, allowing the weight of his words to sink in. Narr’s face fell.

“Just yesterday, your office received complaints of a shooting and an alleged suicide in the same vicinity.” Malachi leaned back with his arms crossed.

Narr frowned. “This sphere is fit for only the most desperate men,” he said, “and even those it can kill or break. How is that our Brotherhood’s concern?”

Malachi opened the third file and began reading in a firm, measured voice. “The owner of a public house near the township limits reported a shooting on his front doorstep. Enforcers found neither suspect nor victim. The few witnesses insisted that no murder had been done but claimed selective amnesia regarding the injured party’s whereabouts.”

“Similar items cross my desk daily,” said Narr. “You’ll ignore them if you’re wise.”

“Where police work failed,” Malachi said, “chance provided a suspect. Redrin Culvert, the son of a disgraced Inspector from Keth, had been lodging in an elderly couple’s back room. His failure to appear for breakfast this morning aroused their concern. His door was tried and found to be locked from within. The key proved useless.”

Narr removed his thin-rimmed glasses and scratched his hawkish nose.

Malachi continued reading. “Neighbors were summoned to remove the door from its hinges. What they found inside prompted them to alert the Enforcers, who arrived to find locals swarming about the house yet shunning Culvert’s room.”

“I suppose they found it a bloody shambles,” said Narr. “Or perhaps there was only a corpse dangling above a toppled chair.”

“Neither,” said Malachi. “Nor was there any sign of a struggle or a robbery. What repelled the good townsfolk was something that hadn’t been there before; something beyond their experience.”

Narr raised one bushy eyebrow. “And that was?”

“Cold—a bitter chill unknown on Tharis.”

“The desert grows quite cold at night,” said Narr.

“One Enforcer from Crote made unfavorable comparisons to the Cocytus Glacier,” Malachi said. “The cold confined itself to the room and persisted all morning despite the absence of a door. Inside were found Redrin Culvert’s personal effects, including his identification and a zephyr pistol. There was no trace of the suspect.”

“There you have it,” said Narr. “He committed the shooting and fled justice.”

“The room was windowless, and the lock was melted from the inside by some unknown corrosive agent. There was no escape. Someone made quite sure of that.” Malachi clapped the folder shut with a swift motion of his thumb and forefinger, giving Narr a start.

Several silent moments passed before Narr leaned across the table. “Help my ignorance,” he said. “What do you make of these reports?”

“What I make of them is insufficient evidence to prove your complicity,” Malachi said, “which is the only reason we’re not having this discussion in a holding cell.”

Narr puffed himself up like an aged black owl. “You accuse me of corruption? I was asked to police a sphere with half a city’s worth of support! Did you expect me to chase every rumor of petty larceny and dueling?”

“Your Brothers expected you to maintain our financial, legal, and technical interests in ether-running,” said Malachi. “Now you rationalize your neglect with this ministry’s remoteness, the banality of its crimes, and your own weakness. The crimes of Tharis are petty? Such evils put every vice of the Cardinal Spheres to shame!”

“No Master of the Guild, however lowly his charge, need abide such accusations,” said Narr, slamming his palm down on the table. “You confessed your lack of evidence. Retract your allegation, or I will hold you liable for slander.”

Malachi leaned back, steepled his fingers, and said, “Jont Shan of Temil is dead.”

Narr’s whole body seemed to deflate as he sank back into his chair. “Oh my,” he said before he straightened his back and hardened his face in an effort to feign apathy. “I mean, that’s tragic, but no more so than any Brother’s death.”

Malachi suppressed a smile. He admired his predecessor’s determination, but efficiency demanded an end to the charade. “Shan’s case is somewhat more tragic, since his death resulted from dabbling in black market antiquities.”

The shocked look on Narr’s face was probably genuine. “I didn’t know,” he said.

“You knew quite well,” said Malachi. “Because I told you—anonymously, of course.”

Narr’s lips moved wordlessly under his beard.

“I uncovered our late Brother’s illicit enterprise in the course of another investigation,” Malachi said. “That he’d discovered a weapons cache dating from the Purges was a secret I shared only with you, and which you shared with Shan’s murderer. Do you deny it?”

Narr stared at his own trembling hands. “Did you know he would be killed?” he asked.

“I didn’t discount the possibility,” Malachi said, “considering my suspicions.”

“What suspicions?” Narr asked in a wary monotone.

Malachi freshened his tea. “That Tharis plays host to a pirate crew guilty of crimes beyond count,” he said, “which crimes you have aided and abetted since your arrival.”

Narr’s face puckered as though he’d bitten a lemon. “What evidence do you have?”

“I’d long surmised that the outlaws laired here,” Malachi said following a sip from his piping cup. “Culvert was the final proof. Some years ago his father was slain by Teg Cross, then only fifteen; now swordarm to Jaren Peregrine, the brigands’ captain. As for your collusion with them, Shan’s murder leaves little doubt.”

A long sigh escaped Narr’s chest. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“Since reporting you without implicating myself in Shan’s death could prove difficult, I’m inclined to let the matter rest—on one condition.”

“And that condition is?”

“You will help me break the pirate ring.”

At length, Narr summoned the gall to ask, “Why have these pirates earned your ire more than others?”

“Because,” Malachi said as though stating the plainest of facts, “their captain is a Gen. Perhaps the last. He attracts uncouth relicts like a magnet draws iron. I suspect that he’s gathering them deliberately, and to no good purpose. We will bring him to justice before his designs take root, and so close a chapter of history rife with chaos and superstition.”

Narr managed a tepid grin. “You’ve left me little choice,” he said.

The outcome was decided before I set foot on this world, Malachi thought as he drained his cup, which Peregrine will soon learn.

4

Nakvin’s flight from the scene of Shan’s death awakened memories of her escape from Mithgar more than a century before. Fleeing Guild justice had become much harder since then. For one thing, she hadn’t been forced to bribe a series of freighter captains the first time, though her powers of persuasion ensured that she never appeared on a ship’s manifest.

Nakvin recalled that first life-changing voyage with more than a touch of nostalgia. She’d hardly been out of adolescence when she’d stolen the swift ether-runner whose chief Steersman she remained, and whose captain had been little more than a child, his grief and anger still raw.

Jaren’s changed, too, Nakvin thought. Now he’s just angry.

Nakvin understood Jaren’s anger. For the first two decades of her life, she’d known nothing of herself and nothing of the world beyond the Guild. She might still be a virtual prisoner in Ostrith—or worse, have become an actual prisoner of the Mill—if not for Master Kelgrun’s pity. But if Mithgar Customs hadn’t arrested Falko Peregrine and impounded his ship; if Nakvin hadn’t extended her Master’s pity to Falko’s son, she never would have liberated the Shibboleth, Jaren, or herself. Her sympathy for the orphaned Gen had become sisterly affection, which had grown into something more as she’d guided him into manhood. She’d learned to temper her feelings when his race’s notorious single-mindedness had rendered Jaren apathetic toward anything but punishing the Guild.

Memories of her first escape sustained Nakvin all the way to Tharis. Convincing a shuttle pilot to deposit her in the foothills of a remote mountain range proved exhausting, but her desire to see Jaren overcame her fatigue.

An hour’s hike over coarse rock scoured by water and dust brought Nakvin to the stygian tunnels beneath Melanoros, the black plateau that had sheltered two generations of Jaren’s family and served as Nakvin’s ersatz home. Unlike everywhere else on Tharis, the air felt dank and cold. Each breath brought the sooty taste of a quenched furnace, and the silence could’ve smothered the roar of a dreadnaught’s launch. Veteran mountaineers warned thrill seekers against exploring the Black Step. Nakvin wished that Jaren’s father and his human steersman had heeded their advice. Even a century of familiarity hadn’t enamored her of the barren river channels that wound maze-like through the black volcanic rock.

At last Nakvin reached the pirates’ den: an oasis in an underground desert where the lightning scent of ether replaced that of cold ashes. She swept into the central gallery; robes fluttering like gold-trimmed ravens' wings.

Mikelburg, the solid lump of man-shaped clay who served as chief engineer, set down the ether torch he’d been using to mend a Kirth bracket and greeted Nakvin with a nod of his bald head. “Lady Steersman,” he said, the honorific rumbling from his broad chest.

“Where’s Jaren?” Nakvin asked without slowing her approach.

“The captain’s in his quarters,” Mikelburg said. “You want I should send up to him?”

Nakvin breezed by the engineer without answering and headed up the passage leading to Jaren’s rooms. Propriety be damned. She was back, and he would see her.

Finding Jaren’s door unlocked, Nakvin entered unannounced. The captain sat on his bed, showing her the cascade of scarlet hair that spilled waist-long down his back as he untied his boots. Jaren was arrayed in what he called his “business attire”. A pocket-riddled tan coat hung from his slender frame with its train fanning out behind him, and heavy twill trousers sheathed his crossed legs.

He just got back himself, Nakvin thought. She knew he’d been about serious business when she saw the gun and sword at his sides. Commonly called a splintersword, the blade was Worked to vibrate at incredibly high speeds. Nakvin judged that it could have sliced through Magus Shan’s safe and silk curtains with equal ease.

But no splintersword could match the raw destructive power of the gun. In truth, Nakvin only called it a gun by way of analogy. The weapon’s holster lay heavy at Jaren’s left hip; its bulk rivaling that of two fifty caliber zephyrs. Unlike those more common weapons, she knew that the rodcaster had no intrinsic Working. Rather, the rounds that fed it were themselves Worked objects. The Gen resistance had carried rodcasters during the last war: one that Nakvin knew had ended in heartbreak, though the long defeat had concluded before her birth.

"Planning to storm an Enforcer garrison?" she asked, hiding her concern with sarcasm.

Jaren turned to acknowledge his senior Steersman. Eyes like emeralds studied her shrewdly. “That depends. Did you get the location of Shan’s cache?”

Nakvin nodded, startled by Jaren’s sudden intensity. Sometimes she had difficulty believing that her captain was half human. The striking figure bearing statuesque features and antiquated arms seemed to have stepped out of a folk tale. “I have coordinates,” she said, “but not an inventory. There’s no guarantee that Shan didn’t clean out the arsenal himself.”

Having removed both boots, Jaren stood and paced toward Nakvin. “Then we go and see for ourselves,” he said. “Building an army is pointless if we can’t arm it.”

“Will it really matter if we can?” Nakvin asked. “I doubt a fleet of tramps with expired licenses will cow the Guild into giving up Tharis.”

“The Guild doesn’t own Tharis,” Jaren said. “My people were here before the Guild existed—just like every sphere they massacred us on. It’s about time we remind them.”

Nakvin shook her head. “If anyone can make the Guild take ‘no’ for an answer, it’s you.”

“You need to see Teg,” Jaren said.

Despite their long association, the Gen’s blind pragmatism still managed to raise Nakvin’s hackles. “You know I just got here, right? We need to talk about this job.”

Jaren’s glare conveyed his urgency. “We’ll talk later. The surgeon’s mates you trained removed the bullet, but you’re the only one qualified to handle the rest.”

Nakvin’s planned rebuke dwindled to a single word. “Bullet?”

“We got a sending from Teg early this morning,” Jaren told Nakvin as their hurried steps echoed through worklight-strewn passages. “He was shot in town, but we found him twenty miles out in the dust.”

Nakvin had appeared in Jaren’s doorway looking weary and more than a little irritated. Now her jaw was set; her eyes focused ahead. He ascribed her change in demeanor to the mental shift from senior Steersman to chief medic. Jaren knew that holding both posts tried Nakvin’s endurance, and he knew the risks of forcing so valuable an asset to labor under such a burden. He’d long sought a new ship’s surgeon, but qualified medics willing to embrace lives of piracy proved hard to come by.

“Who were the first responders?” Nakvin asked.

“You were gone, so Deim flew me. He’s still spent from his turn at the Wheel.”

“You took the Shibboleth?”

“I had to,” Jaren said more defensively than he liked. “Teg left the drifter in the Cut.”

“If this job pans out,” Nakvin said, “we’re getting a second car.”

When Jaren reached the infirmary, which was really just a cave stocked with medical supplies, he found Teg sitting up in his cot. The mercenary was stripped to the waist. His scarred torso resembled a topographical map. “Hi,” he said. “Did you bring me anything?”

The astringent smell stopped Jaren just inside the door. Nakvin strode in, washed her hands, and sat down beside her patient. “The only thing you’ll get from me is a course of antibiotics,” she said.

“I was hoping for some Temilian crab cakes,” said Teg. “No onion.” He winced when Nakvin probed the lower left side of his back. Her face remained grave as she inspected the wound. At length she turned to Jaren and sighed. “There’s a large wound—partly from removing the bullet—and two broken ribs, but no internal bleeding or ruptured organs.”

“Glad I left my aura on,” Teg said as he tapped the compact emitter on his belt.

Jaren scrutinized his hired gun further before asking, “What happened?”

“I was minding my own business—your business, actually—when somebody shot me.”

“Who shot you?”

Teg shrugged. “Didn’t see the shooter. He plugged me in the back, and I passed out.”

“Did anyone else see anything?”

Teg shook his head. “Can’t say. I came to in the desert.”

Jaren furrowed his brow. “If not who, do you have any idea why?”

“Wasn’t after the swag,” said Teg.

“Nobody touched the drifter,” Jaren agreed, “but what if the bastard was trying to roll you?”

“No clip good enough to ambush me would’ve picked a sunlit public street.”

“Maybe he had your schedule,” Jaren said, “knew he had to make his move before dark.”

“In that case, he would’ve jumped me behind Dan’s.”

“You think it was someone with a grudge?”

“Fits the facts.”

“He does have plenty of enemies,” Nakvin said as she returned from rinsing her bloodied hands. “Since we’ve solved the mystery, it’s time to discuss what I did bring back.”

Jaren nodded despite his misgivings. As recently as two years ago he wouldn’t have started a job with his swordarm laid up and a vengeful gunman at large. More and more, circumstances forced his hand. Within a generation the freelance trade would only live on in romantic tales.

Unless someone takes a stand, Jaren thought. For all his pragmatic talk, he saw piracy as more than just a way to cheat customs. Reconquering Tharis would send a message that might convince others to fight back. The Guild had butchered his people, including the father who’d been Jaren’s only contact with his heritage. Though Jaren himself was only half Gen, he carried the last of their blood and meant to fight till that blood was avenged or the final ounce bled from him. If you’ve got a better plan, he thought to his father’s shade, I’m all ears.

Jaren started for the door and motioned for Nakvin to follow, but Teg called after them. “I did see someone,” he confessed.

Jaren faced Teg with his arms crossed. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“For her sake,” said Teg, glancing at Nakvin.

The Steersman went rigid. Her full lips bent in a frown. “Me?”

“Yeah. It seems worth mentioning, now that we’re on the job.”

“Who did you see?” Jaren asked.

“Looked like a male model out of the Cards, except he scared the hell out of me.”

Nakvin’s posture relaxed. “You were shot by a milk-fed waif?”

Teg shook his head. “I doubt he had a part in that.”

“A customs inspector from Shabreth staking out the town?” Jaren speculated.

“Not in town,” said Teg. “And not Guild. You know the Brotherhood’s dislike for all things non-human.”

Jaren exchanged a glance with Nakvin. For that moment she looked as uneasy as he felt. “He wasn’t human?” she asked.

“No way in the Nine Circles,” Teg told Nakvin. “I spotted him halfway to the horizon with a storm blowing in. The ash under his feet might as well have been solid rock. He just stood there, looking at me, till the dust took him. Gave me the jitters like I get from you sometimes—no offense.”

Silence fell and remained till Teg spoke again. “Might’ve been a Factor,” he said. “Freelance steersman or something.”

“Is it possible?” Jaren asked Nakvin.

“Not for a lesser Working like an aura,” she said. “Technically there’s no limit to how much prana a greater Working can use, but you’d burn your silver cord out before drawing enough to survive a dust storm.”

“Then don’t worry,” said Teg. “Nothing could walk away from that.”

“That’s right,” Jaren said. He turned to leave, and Nakvin followed.

5

He was drawing closer.

Knowing neither what he sought nor where it was, he had tracked his prey in the yawning emptiness between stars. A secret eternal decree moved him toward the object whose proximity alone gave meaning to time and distance. The flow of Teth had carried him to myriad worlds left diminished by his presence. Now his search had compelled him to take ship with scofflaws. And he was drawing closer.

* * *

The Sunspot was unlovely even by tramp standards; her captain less circumspect toward Guild regulations than most. Yet Freigh always rose to defend his ship against accusations of piracy. “I never haul contraband,” he rebuffed his accusers. “Check the hold for yourself.” Others he invited to browse the ledger that proved his meticulous payment of customs duties.

These claims of innocence weren’t outright lies. Nor were they the whole truth, but a grey market operator who wanted to stay in business took the proper precautions. Freigh’s wrinkled face and hoary beard testified to his career’s longevity. He did his double-dealing on the fringes where an almost current Guild license and feigned forgetfulness appeased the authorities more often than not.

Freigh knew he belonged to a dying breed. He had no idea how close to death he was.

Early in the Sunspot’s current voyage, her master had started to wonder if the troubles besetting his ship were worth the scant profits. He never expected much loyalty from crew or passengers, but both groups were suffering record attrition.

Freigh had inklings about the cause of the desertions, but he kept his own counsel. He mistook inhibition for prudence when in truth fear kept him from acting. His reluctance defied years of experience which told him that not all ether lore is superstition.

Only when the cost of training a new engineer’s mate put the ship in the red did Freigh face the truth. Like it or not there was a jinx on board, and he knew who it was.

The cargo master had alerted Freigh to the steady decrease in warm bodies aboard since they’d picked up Vaun Mordechai. The reporting officer had gone missing that night. They hadn’t even been in port.

The captain was still tempted to dismiss the correlation as coincidence, but something about Mordechai was just plain wrong. He’d almost turned the passenger away at their first meeting, only to falter before the blank expression frozen upon that horrid porcelain mask.

Freigh took some consolation from Mordechai’s solitary tendencies. The man mostly kept to his cabin, unless one believed the reports that had him wandering the halls like a ghost.

Left with no alternative, Freigh decided to act. He marched up to Mordechai’s door and stood there gathering his courage. At last, indignation trumped his dread. He was master on the Sunspot, and he wouldn’t hesitate to inspect a cabin aboard his ship for fear of an eccentric recluse! His eventual knock was soft and brief.

The challenge went unanswered. Freigh turned to leave, but faint whispers filtering through the door gave him pause. Mordechai was the cabin’s only listed occupant. He should’ve been alone.

The steel hatch swung inward, pulled by a black arm that faded into the darkened room. Sterility replaced the corridor’s usual sour funk. Such cold spilled out that Freigh thought he stood before an open airlock. But no stars burned beyond that door.

The captain fancied that he peered into a mausoleum, disturbing a crouching corpse wrapped in a hooded grey cloak. Freigh saw with mounting fear that the passenger was without his death mask. Mordechai’s empty grey eyes were open, seeming like the lifeless facsimiles of a doll rather than the lights of a soul.

“The voyage has been cancelled due to lack of hands,” Freigh blurted. “I’m sure you can find alternate transport to Tharis.”

Mordechai said nothing. Dread brooded about him like a winter mist.

Freigh pulled the door shut so hastily that it slammed against the frame with a resounding crash. Again overcompensating for a misstep, the captain slunk away to the main corridor. Then he ran.

* * *

The master of the Sunspot awoke from a dream in which the wails of his crew filled the omnipresent blackness. Coming to himself in his darkened quarters, he breathed deeply to slow his racing pulse. The air tasted fowler than usual and chilled his sweaty skin.

Life support’s on the blink.

Something else struck Freigh as odd. It took him a moment to notice the silence. The only sounds he heard were those he made: his rapid breathing; the drumming of his heart; the whispering of sheets as he sat up in bed. There should have been other noises—the low humming of the engines, at least. It suddenly dawned on him that the Sunspot was no longer moving.

Before he could rise to check on the steersman, the captain noticed a faint noise. He paused to listen. The sound was unintelligible at first, but as he concentrated Freigh thought he heard raspy, excited whispering.

“…Said—reaching—once—mutilation—responsible…”

“…See—stolen—restored—condemned…”

The source of the muted chatter eluded Freigh and doubled his resolve to quit the room. He stretched out his left arm to light the bedside lamp, unaware of the bitterly cold blade thrusting out to block him. Screaming in pain, Freigh tore his hand away from the icy metal.

A deep blue glow limned the curved, charcoal grey sword held by a cloaked figure standing to the left of the bed. When Freigh’s eyes adjusted, he saw that it was Mordechai. The passenger’s pale mask leered at him in a sterile reprimand.

“Leave me!” the captain begged, clutching his frostbitten palm. “Leave, and take whatever curse follows you!”

“We were agreed,” Mordechai said with the harshness of air venting through a hull breach. “I was to accompany you to the world circling Thera’s star.” Somehow, his icy voice grew still colder. “You have broken your word.”

“By Elathan’s eye!” Freigh gasped, his voice trembling. “Go. Please go!”

The cold blade vanished into Mordechai’s cloak. The indigo nimbus faded, plunging Freigh’s chamber back into pitch darkness.

“Mordechai?” Freigh dared to whisper after several moments had passed. When no answer came, his right hand crept over to turn on the bedside lamp. The mellow circle of light that touched all but the farthest corners showed that he was alone.

Freigh remained in his bed, rocking slowly and nursing his shriveled hand. Yet his wound was a trifle against his unspeakable relief at the monster’s departure.

His consolation proved short-lived. The muffled chittering resumed, emanating from the lightless corners. Freigh clenched his eyes shut and longed for his nightmares’ return as cruel laughter burst from the shadows.

6

Teg arrived outside Deim’s quarters at dawn and rapped his knuckles on the door twice. He stepped back and waited in the tunnel, his patience thinning by the second. Eight hours had passed since Deim Cursorunda’s last turn at the Wheel. In Teg’s thinking there was no cause for him to still be asleep, no matter that Deim had made the run to rescue him.

Muttering a curse, Teg approached the door again. This time he gave three harder knocks at longer intervals.

The matte grey door slid open an inch. Through the crack Teg saw a smooth, olive-skinned face. “What time is it?” Deim asked groggily.

“Fifteen minutes after you should’ve been up,” said Teg. “Senior staff meeting’s in ten.”

Deim’s hand brushed unruly black hair from his eyes. The only one visible through the cracked door had puffy dark circles under it. “Go and tell Jaren I’ll be right there.”

“Think I’ll wait here,” said Teg, suspecting Deim would crawl back into bed if he left.

Deim shuffled away from the door but left it ajar. The hiss of running water sounded from within, followed by a flurry of general rummaging. Soon thereafter another sound issued from the room—one that held complex emotional associations for Teg.

Deim’s soft chanting filtered into the tunnel. Most of the atonal song was foreign to Teg, but the act it accompanied wasn’t. Right now, as he did each day, the junior steersman was kneeling at a small shrine carved into a corner of his rock-hewn chamber. Deim’s morning prayer stirred up memories of Teg’s brief childhood on Keth, where his mother had once practiced a similar observance.

Teg stretched muscles grown stiff from a night on a hospital cot and felt a stab of protest from his lower back. He tuned out the pain and focused on Deim’s chant. Most folk considered such devotions eccentric at best. Even Jaren, whose ancestors had deemed piety a virtue, saw no use in petitioning obscure powers who’d long since abandoned the universe—if they’d ever existed at all.

When anyone asked, Deim said that faith was worth holding onto, if only because the Guild said it wasn’t. In Teg’s opinion, a young man of twenty-five should’ve outgrown such boyish fancies, but he respected the steersman’s commitment to something larger than himself.

The droning chant ceased, replaced by silence. “You done in there?” asked Teg. He peered through the slit and beheld the face of a goddess. The sight didn’t surprise him. Thera Souldancer’s grey-winged image had adorned the steersman’s back since early childhood when Deim’s late father had inked it there.

Teg saw Deim finish his meditation, rise, and snuff out the candle that stood its lonely vigil in the shrine’s alcove. Its sweet pungent scent wafted through the door, which opened wide a moment later to reveal the steersman standing in its frame fully dressed.

“After you,” said Deim, fastening his belt with a talisman resembling a giant lizard’s eye in amber—another heirloom that cast doubt on the Cursorundas’ taste in art.

Teg preceded Deim down a narrow tributary channel that slanted away from Melanoros’ flat peak in a wide spiral. The path intersected the bed of an underground river that had once issued from a chimney on the hill’s west face. Teg imagined how the falls must have looked plunging down the vertical shaft eons ago. The water was long gone, but the hidden cavern it had carved out made a perfect hangar for the Shibboleth.

The ship looked just as he’d left it the night before. Of course, he’d been delirious from shock at the time. Its black crystalline skin flowed in a series of graceful curves; the main hull flanked by a pair of forward-swept wings.

Teg noticed that the sound of Deim’s trailing footsteps had stopped. He looked back to see the steersman gawking at the ship with an idiot grin on his face. Deim’s pride was obvious, if unearned. He never tired of telling how his great grandfather had laid the hull with Jaren’s father in the last days of the Gen resistance.

To hear Deim tell it, his ancestral ether-runner had singlehandedly won a lost war. Teg knew better. The frigate was too small to trade broadsides with capital ships and too heavy for dogfights. More credible was Jaren’s account of its service raiding enemy convoys—a role the ship still served long after its builder had fled to Tharis. That the Shibboleth had flown a black flag longer than any other pirate craft wasn’t an idle boast.

“Hoping she’ll be yours some day?” Teg asked in a tone that left no doubt the question was rhetorical.

Deim’s smile remained as he faced the swordarm. “She already is,” he said before rushing past Teg and up the aft boarding ramp.

Teg ascended the ramp at a less hurried pace, savoring the lightning scent of ether. Once aboard, he headed for the small room directly aft of the bridge that the crew simply called Tactical. The chamber featured a six-sided conference table made of the same black alloy as the ship’s hull. There Jaren presided over meetings of the senior crew, consisting of himself, Nakvin, Deim, and Teg, who entered to find just such a meeting underway.

Before taking a seat, Teg studied his fellow officers’ positions. Rank followed a flexible pecking order that varied with the business at hand. Jaren always sat at the head, but his seconds-in-command followed a complex rotation. Deim was co-owner of the ship and nominally Jaren’s partner in financial matters, but Nakvin outranked him on the Wheel. Teg, the only senior crewman to have begun as a hired hand, technically answered to the other three; but even the captain deferred to him when weapons were drawn. Outsiders might have called the arrangement convoluted, but Jaren had let the chain of command develop as his officers worked together best.

Filling the empty chair across from Nakvin, Teg listened as she shared the fruit of her research on Temil. Her target had been a Guild Magus who’d developed a sudden interest in history: specifically, the time of the Great Purge. “Shan made several unlogged runs into former Resistance space,” she said. “After a few weeks he started up a small-time smuggling operation.”

“How’d we make him?” asked Teg.

“He used the same fence as us,” Jaren said.

Nakvin slid an obsidian plaque to the middle of the table. “These charts track the orbit of an unnamed asteroid. It looks like Shan stumbled onto an old Gen military base.”

Jaren picked up the plaque and scanned it. “You’re wrong about one thing,” he said. “This wasn’t a Gen base. From these notes, I’d say it’s a thuerg fortress.”

Teg raised his hand. “What’s a thuerg?”

“Nothing now,” Nakvin said. “They were a Middle Stratum race that fought beside the Gen during the Purges.”

“I thought Gen meant any nonhuman,” said Teg.

Jaren’s grip on the tablet visibly tightened. He seemed to stare right through it, emerald fire flashing in his eyes. “There were others,” he said, though Teg had to strain to hear it.

Facing his swordarm, Jaren spoke up. “In my father’s tongue, Gen means our people.”

“Were your people killed in the Purge?” Deim asked Nakvin. She and Jaren stared at the junior steersman as if seeing him for the first time.

“That’s complicated,” Nakvin said. Her curt reply declared the subject off-limits.

“Getting back to current business,” Jaren continued, “Magus Shan robbed this grave. It’s all ours now that he’s in his.”

“We might even make some money,” said Teg. “If he left any swag behind.”

“We’ll have more use for guns,” Jaren said, “if Dan’s pitch drummed up enough interest.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” said Teg. “Pirates flock to freedom like Kethans to an open bar.”

Jaren turned to Nakvin. “I want you on the Wheel,” he said. “Deim’s on backup.”

“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” asked Teg.

“I don’t expect much trouble,” Jaren said. “Pick out ten hands to crew the ship, then stay put and heal up. No sense risking your health on a salvage run.”

“You’re leaving me here with twenty raucous pirates?” Teg said with mock surprise.

Jaren cocked one red eyebrow. “Someone’s got to tidy up for company. Any objections?”

“The sooner you leave, the better,” said Teg. “Then I can walk around in my skivvies and drink milk from the jug.” He winked at Nakvin, who rolled her silver eyes.

Few of Teg’s past employers—and even fewer law enforcement officers—appreciated his sense of humor. Jaren’s tolerance of and occasional participation in Teg’s jokes remained a key reason for his continued service to the Gen. The growing excitement that Teg’s flippant demeanor concealed pertained to another, even more important reason. Like every member of Jaren’s crew, Teg had suffered loss at the Guild’s hands. Among the thinning freelance ranks, only Jaren seemed intent on paying the Steersmen back in kind. That resolve had earned Teg’s loyalty. Now, against all odds, it looked like his captain might pull it off.

7

To Nakvin’s eyes the asteroid field looked like a cannonade of gravel fired into a pink smoke cloud. The Shibboleth saw it as a school of lumpy grey jellyfish drifting in the ether current. The ship’s magnified, accelerated senses discerned the complex order disguised as chaos and shared that vision with its Steersman. Through the Wheel, Nakvin contemplated every detail. She saw each rock’s pitted surface, heard the chimes of signals bounced back to the ship, and tasted the coarse saltiness of cosmic dust.

The Shibboleth heard a sustained sound originating from a position just ahead of the Wheel. Nakvin focused her dual awareness on her own senses. What the ship had perceived as a sluggish protracted vocalization, she recognized as Jaren’s voice.

“ETA to the asteroid field?”

Nudging her consciousness another step toward her body allowed Nakvin to respond. “At this depth, we’ll reach the outliers in about eight minutes.”

The captain was standing behind his chair. His hands gripped the headrest as he stared through the bridge canopy into the vast pink haze. “See anything out of place?” he asked.

Ignoring the absurdity of applying “out of place” to an asteroid field, Nakvin said, “The system looks just as deserted as Shan said.”

Jaren drummed his fingers on the headrest before asking, “Where’s our target?”

Nakvin superimposed Shan’s map over the canopy. Colored bands outlined each asteroid. “There,” she said, highlighting a rock that was dwarfed by most of its siblings.

Jaren held his peace. Nakvin noticed the rest of the bridge crew silently looking at him. At length he hopped back into his chair and said, “Take us in.”

Nakvin brought the vessel out of the ether like a runner slowing from a sprint to a jog, and the misty curtain gave way to the black of space. Jaren had spent the trip fretting over possible calamities: a Guild ambush, engine failure; an ether flare; something. The Steersman hoped that her captain’s mood would improve now that they’d arrived in one piece.

“Deim,” Jaren spoke into the ship’s intercom, “Nakvin’s bringing us in. You’ll relieve her once we land.”

Nakvin felt a little relieved as soon as Jaren gave the order. She was glad to have Deim along, if only because his presence cut her time on the Wheel in half. There was a reason the Shibboleth only had two steersman, and it wasn’t her captain’s thriftiness. Handling the Wheel took more than knowledge. Strong mental discipline and self-detachment were equally vital.

On Deim’s first day of training, he’d asked Nakvin why she stood at the Wheel. She’d corrected his theory that installing a seat atop the circular dais would impede the sympathetic interface. “You’ve got it backward,” she’d said. “Standing forces you to stay at least a little focused on your own body. If you got too comfortable, you could lose yourself in the transessence.”

Contrary to her intent, Deim had taken Nakvin’s warning as a challenge. She in turn held his infatuation with ether-running in bemused contempt. She didn’t like the Wheel. Only iron discipline kept the sensation of having two bodies—one her own and one utterly alien—from driving her mad. Persistent rumor claimed that each year, a troubling percentage of Apprentices failed where she’d succeeded.

Nakvin emerged from her daydream to see a craggy mass of iron and silicon looming before her. The asteroid’s irregular shape and erratic rotation complicated her approach, but she smoothly guided the ship into a stable orbit.

“Not much to look at,” said Crofter, the forward gunner. A frown twisted His broad youthful face.

“That’s the idea,” Jaren said. “During the Purge, the Guild laid a bounty on anyone who wasn’t human.”

The captain turned to Nakvin. “The entrance won’t be obvious. Sweep the whole surface.” After a brief pause he added, “Take it slow.”

Though Nakvin focused all of her Wheel-amplified senses on the small celestial object, nearly an hour passed before something caught her attention. “Look,” she said, gesturing past the bridge dome to a raised point on the horizon.

“Looks like every other pile of rock we’ve flown over,” Crofter said, but Jaren quietly studied the ridge.

“Try to imagine if it were shifted about seventy degrees to the right,” Nakvin said.

Jaren stood. He kept his back to Nakvin, but she saw his reflected face light up in the canopy. “Circle around to the north. Then line us up with that signpost and bring us in.”

“You catch on fast,” Nakvin said.

Crofter’s puzzled glare alternated between the captain and the Steersman. “What’s everybody looking at?” he asked.

Jaren pointed to the small range of hills. “That ridge looks natural at first, but from this angle you can see it’s the thuerg sign for north. They took the asteroid’s rotation into account when they raised that pile. It’s almost impossible to see from the standard approach.”

Muttering to himself, Crofter returned to his instrument panel.

A quiet voice had nagged Jaren all the way from Tharis. When the Shibboleth touched down, the warning rose to a crescendo. It took all his resolve not to order an immediate retreat. He even considered breaking his own rule against ship-to-shore sendings during a run but dismissed the idea. If he led his people into a trap, there’d be nothing that Teg could do about it from Melanoros.

Once the ship was moored on a level field below the ridge, Jaren organized a landing party. He chose five of the ten crewmen to accompany him, but Nakvin spoke up.

“I need some time away from the ship,” she said.

Jaren eyed her skeptically. “You just came off a full shift at the Wheel. Aren’t you exhausted?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “At least I will be when I’ve had a chance to stretch my legs.”

“All right, just don’t wander off and fall asleep.”

The captain gathered his team in the ship’s small but well-stocked armory. He savored the scent of gun oil and the weight of his trade’s tools. Each man was issued the standard equipment that Teg had prepared before the ship’s departure: a belt-mounted aura projector that generated a thin envelope of fresh air and lessened harmful impacts, a wrist-mounted version of the same device, a zephyr, a splinterknife, and a blue gemstone ear stud Worked to carry sendings.

Jaren wasn’t surprised to see that Nakvin eschewed the standard gear. Her Steersman’s robe compensated for most of it, and then some. Even Jaren found the badge of his enemies captivating. The black silk drank light like space itself, and thread of gold patterns at sleeves and hem named its wearer a Magus skilled enough to teach her craft. The robe was more than a status symbol. Its every thread was infused with Workings of defense and influence whose power increased with its owner’s rank.

“At least take this,” Jaren said, offering a zephyr to Nakvin. Teg maintained the armory like a man under holy vows, and the weapon’s finish held a mirror shine.

Nakvin declined the offer with a gesture of her graceful hand. “Thanks,” she said, “but I’ve got my own protection.”

Jaren knew about the dagger hidden in the folds of Nakvin’s robe. It wasn’t a neat, slender tool like the splinterknives, but a wicked-looking archaism with a corroded blade of beaten iron. Even Nakvin wasn’t sure whether it was Worked or just cleverly forged. The lattice of cracks in the porous metal drank venom from her fangs, holding the poison till the blade cut something living.

The captain tucked the zephyr next to his rodcaster, checked his splintersword, and marched from the armory to the aft hold. He led his team down the boarding ramp to the asteroid’s rocky surface. He allowed them a moment to adjust to the odd gravity and erratic light. Then he put them to work.

A short march brought the pirates to the rise that formed Nakvin’s sign. She herself pointed out a dark spot at ground level where the three ridges met. Seen up close, the shadow was revealed as a small recess carved to a depth of about ten feet. The alcove only looked wide enough for two men to walk abreast. Its far wall featured a plain stone door that Jaren felt sure marked the point of no return.

“Through here,” the captain said as he moved toward the small undressed slab. Normally, Jaren would have proceeded with greater caution, but premonitions of disaster pressed upon him so heavily that he just wanted to be rid of them—for good or ill. He unsheathed his sword, grasped the hilt in both hands, and thrust its point forward. The reciprocating blade sank into the top of the stone door, and Jaren drew its edge downward, bisecting the slab down the middle. A firm shove sent both halves collapsed inward. The impact of stone striking stone sent streams of dust cascading down from above; then all was still.

Jaren imagined the yawning passage before him as the throat of a predator that stalked lightless ocean depths. He stood still for a moment, waiting for the hammer to fall. When nothing happened, he led his team through the door.

The passage under the ridge ran arrow straight. Jaren led the way while the starlight trickling in from outside lasted. When the light failed, he turned to Nakvin. “What do you see?” he asked.

“It keeps going for about a hundred feet,” she said. “Then the floor just ends. I think it’s a stairway.”

“Give the men a little help. We don’t want them breaking their necks.”

Nakvin’s silver eyes reflected the dying light. Jaren thought he’d witnessed a double eclipse when she closed them. The Steersman chanted a gentle melody. Her song echoed through the pirates’ mingled synthetic-smelling atmospheres, calling to mind halcyon summer days. A sourceless mellow radiance surrounded them as the canticle reached its climax.

Jaren had grudging respect for most Factors, even though he wasn’t inclined to become one himself. He found Nakvin’s method of fashioning all the more intriguing for its beauty. She admitted that reliance on song limited the variety and strength of her Workings, but singing was far subtler than the Compass.

In the conjured light, Jaren led the expedition forward with newfound confidence. Nakvin was soon proved right about the stairs, which spiraled into the abyss. After testing the first few steps, Jaren started down the declining gyre. The others followed.

Jaren descended several dozen feet before the shape on the stairs made him stop so quickly that Nakvin almost walked into him. The rest of the men barely avoided colliding like game tiles.

“What is it?” one of the pirates whispered.

Jaren pointed to a jagged sheet of rock lying broken on the steps. The fragments had a uniform grey-brown color and shared the same ridged pattern. “Looks like a wing carved from stone,” he said. “Probably fell off a statue.” He scanned the shaft above, but the smooth walls were devoid of ornaments. “Keep moving,” He said, drawing his sword before continuing downward.

The spiral stair finally let out on a landing hundreds of feet below. Jaren passed through an arch at the foot of the stairwell and entered a great octagonal hall, its ceiling lost in the gloom above. Tall arches in each wall opened on corridors beyond. Some residual atmosphere must have remained, for the musty tang of age-old decay lingered.

Jaren split the party into teams, the last composed of Nakvin and himself; and assigned each to one quadrant of the great transept. “Be thorough,” he said. “But don’t lag behind. Keep your weapons handy, and report anything unusual.”

* * *

When the expedition reconvened in the great hall four hours later, Jaren could tell by the men’s frowns that they’d come back empty-handed. Questioning them confirmed his fears: the fortress of the thuergs had been picked clean.

Nakvin placed her hand on Jaren’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But there are other ways to get weapons. Dan might know some arms dealers who work on contingency.”

Jaren barely heard Nakvin’s words. His inhibition against outside contact gave way to the shrieking alarms in his head, and he touched the sapphire stud at his ear.

“Deim!”

“I hear you,” the junior steersman said from the Shibboleth’s bridge.

“Put a call through to Tharis,” Jaren said in a voice that brooked no argument. “Get Teg on the line.”

Nakvin’s hand fell to her side. Though excluded from Jaren’s two-way conversation, the look she cast at him shifted from irritated to anxious as the seconds passed. Finally, Deim spoke two words that sent Jaren charging for the stairway. “No response.”

The others asked no questions before joining their leader’s sudden retreat.

“What’s wrong?” Nakvin shouted as she ran beside him, her robes hoisted to her knees.

“We’re going back to Tharis—maybe even in time if Deim breaks the speed record.”

Jaren sprang past Nakvin. Mounting the steps three at a time, he’d reached the middle of the spiral when someone screamed. He glanced over his shoulder and started.

Something had latched onto the last man in line. It resembled a giant bat, but its flesh was living, moving stone. The monster’s fossilized talons gripped the underside of the steps above. Its ribbed wings enshrouded its thrashing victim. Dark runnels flowed from their serrated edges. Jaren stifled a cry when stalactite teeth sank into the man’s face, piercing his eyeball. A screeching growl issued from the rock bat’s throat, harmonizing with its victim’s cries.

“What the hell is—” was all Nakvin could say before the roar of Jaren’s rodcaster drowned out her voice. The blast of light and heat that accompanied the sound left a mash of glowing pebbles and steaming flesh strewn upon the stairs.

The stench of lightning and burned meat stung Jaren’s nose. He met his Steersman’s wide-eyed glare and ejected the spent shell with a flick of his wrist. “Keep moving,” he said.

Jaren’s men parted around him like a rock in a stream. He didn’t break eye contact with Nakvin until she gathered herself up and bolted past him.

When he was sure that the thuergs hadn’t left any other surprises, Jaren turned and leapt up the stairs. He burst through the ruined door, sprinted across the field, and cleared the Shibboleth’s gangway mere seconds behind the others. He and Nakvin kept running.

“Take us up, Deim!” Jaren snapped as he charged onto the bridge.

To his credit, Deim didn’t hesitate. The Shibboleth leapt skyward, sending the vessel’s crew and cargo teetering backward. Every color inverted as the ship plunged into the ether.

“Never transition so close to a celestial body!” Nakvin said.

“We’re going for the record, right?” asked Deim.

“Take us into the deep ether,” Jaren said.

While Deim focused on flying, Nakvin turned to the captain. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“We’ll get home faster.”

“Or a stray spark will blow us apart.”

“Right now, I just hope there’s a home to go back to,” Jaren said.

Wendy Nikel

Rain Like Diamonds

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction

* * *

The queen hoarded the barrels of seed, keeping them locked within her coffers among the diamonds and gold and strings of perfect pearls, remnants of the former days of prosperity and excess. The seeds would receive neither sun nor water nor nutrients from the soil until unlocked by the shining key strung around her neck. Day after day, she sat upon her throne, and the villagers lined up before her, pleading. It was only her loyal guards, with their sharp swords glimmering in her peripheral, who kept the villagers from severing her neck to get at that key.

"Have mercy!" They cried as though their tears might change her mind.

"Our children need nourishment!" They shouted as if she, too, hadn’t been watching her own son grow thin and wan and dull.

"Just one barrel! One barrel will keep us alive for a few days longer!"

She held her chin high, her eyes downcast and sorrowful. "I cannot."

Thought it broke her heart, she spoke the truth. It was true, the meager meal would sustain them for a day or two. But that would be one less barrel to plant when the famine ended, when those that remained stood a chance.

Nothing had grown for many seasons, till all the people’s cupboards barns and storehouses and cellars were empty. All that remained within them were empty jars, dust-lined shelves, and—if one breathed in deeply—the haunting memory of the scent of food.

Yet even if the queen had throw the seeds to those standing beneath her balcony, had given the seeds to the kingdom’s best farmers, it was futile. Nothing would grow, and their hunger would not be satiated. Nothing would grow until the dragon-scorched earth was healed.

A messenger burst into the throne room. His gait, once like a thoroughbred’s, was now the spindly stumble of one whose legs were too thin, whose ankles too prone to turn.

"My queen! The sorceress has spoken!"

The queen rose from her throne, for this news was long-awaited. Since first the crops refused to grow, the sorceress had been locked in her tower, spending countless hours staring into her scrying pools and crystal balls, searching for an answer.

"Well? What is it?" the queen demanded.

"You must see her, in her tower."

The queen climbed the spiraling stairs to the castle’s dreary north tower. Though winded, she pressed on, for the task of climbing a staircase was so small compared with what her people had already suffered.

"Sorceress!" she called as she entered the chamber. "Sorceress! What am I to do?"

The sorceress’s voice echoed through the chamber, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. "One shall weep at the foot of the tree, and the rain shall fall like diamonds on the earth."

Throughout the kingdom, the queen sent the order, and on the following morning, every very man, woman, and child arrived at the palace gates. The captain of the guard barked out directions, and the queen led the procession. The feeble and sick were carried or slung into carts. Their loved ones pulled them along, for throughout the entire kingdom not a single horse or donkey remained that hadn’t been made into soup. The queen led the mourners from tree to tree, pausing at each one to tearfully recall those who had succumbed to the famine, until they’d traversed the entire kingdom and their eyes were as dried-out as the parched earth. Yet still, the rain refused to fall. Defeated, the queen turned away and locked herself up in the palace.

That night, the men—restless with no fields to tend—gathered at the tavern, though they’d long ago brewed the last of the hops. They muttered and grumbled against the weather, the fields, and even the queen herself.

"The dragon," Thummander said, raking his hand through his beard. "The dragon was the beginning of this trouble; nothing has grown since it scorched our fields."

"Let’s do away with it," Leverett said. He slammed his fist on the table. Their voices, hoarse with thirst, rose in agreement and they conspired together all night. The dragon, they agreed. There was nothing else for them to do, nothing else they could do, except to kill the dragon.

Though the hour was late, the men requested an audience with the queen. They told her of their plan, and she reluctantly consented.

"It’d do no good," she warned, but allowed them to proceed through the once-lush forest that now stood like an oversized bramble-bush, full of thorns and prickers. At least, she considered, this quest would make them feel useful.

In the inky blackness of night, with their torches burning brightly, they crept to the dragon’s lair. The beast exhaled smoke with each sleeping breath, and if the villagers could only overlook its enormous size, they might have seen how the creature was really quite peaceful, like the cats that had once dozed at their hearths, before the rats had all been killed and the cats became more valuable for their meat than for their ability to hunt.

The men had disguised their scent by carrying pine branches, native to the hill near the dragon’s cave. Carefully, they dropped the branches and the strongest of the men clamped a iron band snugly around the dragon’s snout. The dragon woke with a start, its pupils like coals in its fiery eyes, but the men held tight to the chains and together dragged the creature down to the castle.

The villagers' triumphant cries rose with the morning sun, and golden light trickled through the brittle branches of the rosewood. The queen looked out from the balcony at the crowd below her.

"We’ve captured the dragon!"

"Come, watch it die!"

The queen felt the heat of their anger and shivered at the coldness in their voices. The enormous eye of the ensnared dragon stared at her, knowing. Yet what was she to do? She raised her scepter to give the command, but at the last moment, a small boy rushed forward and fell upon the beast. The queen gasped. It was the prince.

"Please, mother," he begged. "Please, don’t kill it. Will there ever be a more wonderful creature? Please, spare its life. Send it away from this place, if you must, but don’t kill it. I beg you! Please, show it mercy."

Glistening tears crept down his face and landed at the base of the tree. They darkened the soil as the roots soaked them in. The crowd stared as green life burst forth from the tree. First, tiny specks of color, then long, lush leaves spread across the tree’s outstretched branches. They were so startled by the transformation that they loosened their grasp on the dragon.

Seeing its only opportunity, the beast lunged forward, flapped its wings, and launched itself skyward with the prince still clinging to its back.

"My son!" the queen called, but the dragon rose into a dark, heavy cloud. Just as they disappeared, the sky burst open and rain poured down. The crowd cheered and danced about, splashing in the puddles and laughing, seeing only the rain. They rushed to the castle and broke into the queen’s coffers, but she made no move to stop them, for she saw only the final glimpse of her son, her son who had saved the kingdom. The son she’d never see again.

And her tears fell like diamonds on the earth.

The Tea-Space Continuum

Originally published by AE

* * *

Professor Lynette van Houten reached for her tea, her eyes still fixed on a paperback copy of The Adventures of Señor Valentine. Her arm extended across the side table until it bumped a lamp. Lynette turned away from the daring escapades of her favorite fictional hero.

The tea was gone.

"Interesting."

She grabbed her research notebook and recorded her observations: the shadow of a ring still visible on the coaster; the taste of chamomile on her tongue; the tea kettle on the stove, still warm to the touch. At the bottom of the page, she wrote, "Disappearance. 10pm. August 16. Home. Sleepytime chamomile."

* * *

"It’s happening more often, Frank," she explained to her department supervisor. "I’ve lost three cups this week. They have to be going somewhere."

Frank Gardner frowned, his gray eyebrows bristling. "I’ve never noticed any disappearing tea before."

"That’s because you drink water."

"And other tea-drinkers?"

"Tea-drinkers tend to be intellectual types. We pay more attention to what’s in our heads than what’s outside them, so when something goes missing, we tend to assume we’ve simply misplaced it."

"So…you want the university to fund a study about…people losing their tea?"

Lynette frowned. It was like the man had never done scientific research before, had never questioned anything in his cigar-smoking, tweed-jacket-wearing life. It was as if he’d forgotten what it was like to be a scientist, instead of just playing the caricature of one in a classroom.

"Forget it." Lynette gathered up her books. "I’ll do this on my own time. I’m not crazy."

"No one said you were."

"You sure implied it."

* * *

"Professor van Houten!" someone called.

Lynette recognized the frazzle-haired undergrad from her tea study, which consisted of over a hundred student volunteers, tea aficionados willing to keep track of their tea consumption in meticulous journals. They’d dived all-in as only college students do, creating Tea Club mugs and t-shirts and even their own blend of loose leaf to commemorate the study, much to Lynette’s delight and Frank Gardner’s befuddlement.

"Do you have a question about the tea study, Miss…?"

"Jennie Parker. It’s about the disappearance phenomenon."

Lynette kept her face expressionless. She’d downplayed the disappearance phenomenon, casually remarking that if the students were unable to find a cup that they had brewed to mark it in the appropriate column of their journal.

But within weeks, three different groups of students had approached her, making one thing clear: the disappearances were becoming more frequent.

"Yes, there have been other students who have noticed an influx in the disappearance of their tea."

"I wasn’t talking about tea. I was talking about Christopher McCoy."

Christopher McCoy was a sophomore who had gone missing a week earlier. According to his roommate, he’d just settled in for an evening of studying for winter exams in his room. No one saw him leave.

"What about him?" Lynette asked.

"Christopher had made himself a cup of green tea that evening."

* * *

When the students arrived back from Christmas break, Christopher McCoy was still missing, and Lynette’s lab was filled with dozens of mugs of various teas, all laid out in lines and labeled according to steep time, tea variety, temperature, volume, and mug type. Some had cream, some had sugar, some had both. She’d called in a substitute teacher for her classes, but that didn’t stop the members of the Tea Club from pounding on her door at all hours of the day.

"Professor van Houten?" Jennie called through the closed door. "Please let us in. We want to help!"

Lynette was busy rotating the tea cups.

"Spinning tea cups," she muttered, and in her over-worked, sleep-deprived state, she giggled to herself, then stopped short. Professor Lynette van Houten never giggled. Perhaps it was time to accept some assistance after all.

"Green and herbal teas disappear with the same regularity as black teas," she explained to them after they’d all filed in, "though chai seems to have a slightly lower likelihood."

"What can we do to help?" Jennie asked.

"The cups only disappear when unwatched," Lynette said, ignoring the interruption, "so I’ve had to vary the amount of time I spend in my office, ranging from one to twenty minute intervals, though I’m beginning to suspect that time of day may also be a factor, since more disappearances seem to take place at night. Now, I was just coming to check on the room’s thermostat again; I’d only started making note of that two days ago, so I’m not certain it makes a difference, but we need to look into all possibilities if we want to find out what happened with subject #1…that is, Christopher McCoy. Any questions?"

* * *

The Tea Club worked tirelessly over the next few weeks, skipping classes and meals in order to help compile the data. When the head of the physics department heard of their research, he joined in, helping Lynette and her students analyze the information, and the math department teachers offered their help as well. Frank Gardner stuck his head in the door one day and—after a bit of awkward small talk—Lynette asked if he wanted to help. Much to her surprise, he did.

Finally, four weeks after Christopher’s disappearance, they had a breakthrough. Massive equations in black dry-erase marker filled the whiteboard. The number of mugs had been reduced to twelve as they eliminated variable after variable.

Lynette waited until spring break, when the students had gone home, to call in her colleagues.

"I’ve thought it over, and you’re not going to talk me out of it." She held up the index card on which she’d copied down the equations from the whiteboards. "I have the information I need now."

"That’s just numbers and figures," Frank Gardner said. His frown caused his mustache to bunch up and protrude, giving him the appearance of a preening walrus. "Even if it’s true that the tea and the boy ended up in some alternate dimension, you have no idea what you’ll find there. Or if you’ll be able to make it back."

"Well, if I don’t, please make certain to water my hydrangeas."

"Lynette," the calculus professor said, "Frank has a very good point. Let us do some more research first."

"Will your research be able to tell me precisely where the tea went, or what happened to Christopher McCoy, or what it’s like wherever he is?"

"Well, no."

"Well, that’s what I want to know." Lynette squared her shoulders and nodded to the table where a single mug of cinnamon tea sat, steaming hot and ready to go. "Now. I need you all to leave, so that in precisely…ninety-two seconds, I can touch the mug and, if my calculations are correct, join Christopher McCoy, wherever he is."

"You can’t leave like this!" Frank scowled and looked to the others for help.

"She knows the risks," one muttered.

Lynette, irritated at their lack of enthusiasm, shooed them all from the classroom. She watched the seconds count down on her digital watch.

Five…She stood beside the table, body angled away from the mug so that she wouldn’t inadvertently glance at it.

Four…She wet her lips and let her hand graze the edge of the table.

Three…She closed her eyes.

Two…She began moving her fingers back to meet the ceramic mug.

One…Just as her fingers closed around the handle, the air conditioning kicked on, whipping the index card from her hand.

* * *

When the world stopped spinning, Lynette opened her eyes.

She didn’t know which she found more troubling: the fact that she’d lost the equation, or the fact that she was standing face-to-face with a woman whose expression looked quite irate. They were in a room with shining obsidian tables, and the discordant twangs of some stringed instrument echoed through the air, seeming to come from everywhere all at once. A deep red curtain encircled the full circumference of the room.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded.

"Who am I? Who are you? And where am I?"

"Why, I’m Madame Chari, and I did not authorize any direct teleport into my tea house! I ought to call the authorities!"

"Your tea house?" Lynette looked around, noticing for the first time a couple at one of the tables, sipping from mix-matched mugs and paying no mind at all to the sudden appearance of a college professor at their dining establishment.

"Thank goodness, at least the tea showed up." Madame Chari leaned across Lynette and snatched up the mug of tea with which she’d been transported.

"What do you mean, the tea showed up? I made that tea!"

Madame Chari scoffed. "You can’t make tea. What’d you do, go back in time to harvest extinct Camellia sinensis varieties? Bah!"

"No, I came with it. Are you saying that you…ordered the tea here somehow?"

Madame Chari raised an eyebrow and pointed to a device on the table beside her. "I materialized it, of course—pulled it piping hot, straight from the past. Can’t run a tea shop without a materializer, now could I?"

Lynette stuttered. "I’m just looking for a student of mine. He might have—what did you say, teleport?—he might have teleported into your tea house recently. Have you seen him?"

"Nope. Sorry. We’ve never had anyone transport in with a cup of tea before. You’re the first. What kind of tea was it?"

"Green tea."

"Well, green tea’s not real popular around here. It’s not even on our regular menu, but you’re welcome to order a cup or two…" Madame Chari nodded toward the materializer. "See if he transports with one of those."

Lynette turned the materializer over in her hands. "But then I’d be the cause of his disappearance, wouldn’t I?"

Madame Chari shrugged a shoulder and turned to leave. "Hey, don’t ask me," she said. "You’re the time traveler."

The Book of Futures

Originally published by Broken Eye Books

* * *

On a seaside cliff on the far edge of town, a single gas lamp sent Dr. Lucia Crosswire’s thin shadow cowering into the tangled pines. Her heels crunched steadily along the winding cobblestones, and a well-fed rat darted across the path, screeching at the disturbance to its nocturnal traipsing.

Nighttime strolls along the outskirts of Clifton weren’t generally advisable for an unaccompanied lady, but Lucia wasn’t concerned. With her pistol securely in its strap upon her leather tool belt and her newly invented electroshock weapon at her other hip, she was confident that she’d come out ahead in any altercation. Besides, the townsfolk of Clifton were highly superstitious when it came to the reclusive monks of Mont Saint-Vogel. Rarely did young ne’er-do-wells trespass on the monastery’s hallowed ground and certainly never after dusk.

Even the forest itself seemed to cower from the expansive hilltop monastery, its pines bending outward from the stone pillars and walls. Far above the arched entrance, an angel held a balance, its trays askew. Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.

Lucia pulled her cloak tightly to herself, her tools and instruments clanking in the many pockets.

A red cord hung beside the massive door. When Lucia tugged it, the iron cogs surrounding the doorframe shifted and clicked into place, a discordant clatter in the night’s placid silence. After a still moment, a mournful bell tolled somewhere deep within the stone walls.

The door opened. A figure blocked the way, clad in a hooded gown of rough brown cloth that obscured his features and form. Its only adornment was a dull medallion, engraved with the image of a bird. Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Preferring to err on the side of wisdom, Lucia rested her fingertips on the tiny clockwork mechanisms of her electroshock weapon. "Are you Brother Primicerius?"

"I am." The figure stepped backward, fading into the monastery’s inky recesses. "Please, come in so that we may more discreetly address the events of late."

Lucia narrowed her eyes and gripped her device more tightly but didn’t back away. She’d come this far based solely on a strangely whispered message emanating from a wind-up bird delivered to her investigative offices in the town far below. "Trouble. Please come. 10 o’clock tonight," it’d repeated each time its key was wound. The only other clue to its origin had been the return address on its packaging, indicating that the sender was a Brother Primicerius at the Mont Saint-Vogel monastery.

Lucia stepped inside. The door closed with a dissonant clank.

"Forgive me the request of your presence at such an hour." The voice in the dark seemed to come from everywhere, nowhere, somewhere within Lucia’s own head. A spark flared, a match lit, and the shadowy hood of Brother Primicerius hovered before her as if disembodied by the night. "The brothers of this sacred place have sworn a vow of seclusion from the outside world. Therefore, I felt it best to wait until the hours of rest for this meeting so that your presence here would not be a distraction. This way."

He turned, momentarily blocking the candle’s light and plunging Lucia into cold darkness. Her heart thudded in her chest like the measured strokes of a pendulum, but she followed, matching him step for step. Around a corner, at the end of another long, silent corridor, a gentle light glowed from beneath a closed door.

"You must swear to me," Brother Primicerius said, "that never, though you suffer a thousand years of torture, will you reveal the contents of this room."

Though the people of Clifton often whispered and gossiped about the mysterious goings-on upon the hill, Lucia had never heard of anyone being tortured for this information, so she replied confidently, "I swear I will not reveal the secrets of your order."

Brother Primicerius nodded grimly. "My brother is the vicar in village below. He’s assured me that he’s confided in you in the past and that you are worthy of this great trust."

"Yes, he called upon me last spring to investigate some thefts at the cathedral. Has there been a burglary here?" Even as she said it, she knew it was unlikely, for who would climb all the way up this hill to steal from those who’d taken a vow of poverty?

The door had no handle, but Brother Primicerius pressed a series of springs on one side as deftly as an organist playing a chord, and after a moment of shifting and clicking within, the door slid to one side, revealing the chamber.

"A library?" Lucia gazed in awe at the rows after rows of books. Their spines stacked upon one another until they reached the top of the domed ceiling where an elaborate wrought-iron chandelier hung, dark and unmoving. This was the great secret of the monks of Mont Saint-Vogel? Books?

"These are not ordinary books," Brother Primicerius said as if reading her mind. He walked among the tomes, touching one and then another with awed reverence. "These books contain prophecies from the beginning of time, from every man who walked the earth and claimed to have some deeper insight into the future. It is our sacred duty to weigh each line, study each prediction, and determine which prophets were true, which visions are yet to come."

A library of prophecies…Lucia looked with new appreciation on the rows of shelves. "But what do you want of me?"

On a table in the center of the room stood a bronze case with intricate carvings on the lid. Brother Primicerius unlocked it. The case unfolded like the blooming of a mechanical flower, revealing a heavy black tome. In blood-red letters upon the cover was the title: Liber Futures.

"The Book of Futures," Lucia translated.

"In the holy book of Acts, we are told that Paul drove a demon out of a female slave whose owner had been earning a great deal of money through her fortune-telling. This book is whispered to contain all her predictions of the future."

"Wars and rumors of wars…" Lucia recited.

"That and so much more." He snapped shut the bronze case, enclosing the book once more. "It arrived at the monastery a fortnight ago. It is also my belief that this particular relic brought with it some sinister force."

"Sinister force?" Lucia’s keen eyes darted about the room where each flicker of the candle and turn of her head made it seem as though shapes were moving among the bookshelves. Her voice came out louder than she intended, its tone barely concealing her skepticism. "Demons, you mean?"

"Perhaps the very one which the apostle drove from the slave girl."

"I don’t know what you’ve heard of my investigations," Lucia said, taking a step toward the door, "but my expertise is in human crimes with human wrongdoers. The spirit world is entirely unknown to me."

The monk’s hood bobbed in acknowledgement. "That is precisely why I summoned you. For our expertise is in the spirit world, yet none of our attempts—no prayers or chants or exorcisms—have had the slightest effect. My brothers have asked that I put aside my own convictions and consider the possibility, however small, that these crimes have a more…natural cause."

"And what are these crimes?" Lucia asked with some relief at her new understanding of the situation. How strange it must be to live like these monks in a society where demons are the first accused and human culprits only considered when no other explanation can be found.

"Each night," he said, "as the brothers take their rest, this library is locked. Its door, you may have gleaned, is unique. The combination is known solely to me, and I consider it my sacred duty to alter the code each Sabbath. Were any man to apply the wrong combination of levers, the mechanisms within would release a poison to kill him in an instant.

"As you can see, there are no other entrances to this chamber, yet every morning, the brothers discover that their books have been misplaced, picked up and set elsewhere. Also, each night, one book—one each night—is missing entirely, and the one from the previous day is returned, as though it had been there all along.

"To a demon this would be but a mischievous prank." He paused, deep in thought. "But if the culprit is, indeed, of flesh and blood, his motives may be far more devious. With the words these pages contain, you can see why we guard them so carefully, why their disappearance causes us such distress. If someone else were to be taking these pages and using them for their own purposes—"

"Yes, I see what you mean." Lucia wandered about the library, noting the orderliness of each table, the meticulous nature by which these monks arranged their books. She touched the cover of one, careful not to move it from its current position. "The books in this library—would they have monetary value? Perhaps to collectors?"

"Oh, yes. Even the books whose prophecies have been deemed false would still be deemed priceless for their rarity. Except, of course, the books on the history of Mont Saint-Vogel itself, there, on the northern wall."

Lucia studied the shelf indicated, reaching up to straighten an ancient leather-bound book that stuck out further than the rest: An Accounting of the Property Deeds, Construction, and Dedication of the Most Blessed Monastery of Mont Saint-Vogel, the thick spine declared.

"Were any of these record books stolen?" she asked.

"No, of course not. They’re just tedious accounts of feast day celebrations. Ordinations, deaths, and burials. Money given to the poor or spent to procure the other books. They’d be of no value to man or demon. I’ve compiled a list of the books taken."

He held out a scrap of parchment upon which had been written a list in elaborate calligraphy of a dozen books, ranging in subject from the biblical prophet Samuel to a girl in an impoverished island country whose visions dated back only three years from the current day.

Lucia pocketed the list and circled about the room, peering into each darkened nook and tugging gently upon each shelf. She stopped suddenly. "Have you had any visitors to the monastery recently?"

"No."

"And when you received the Book of Futures, was it brought here, or did one of your monks fetch it from elsewhere?"

"It came from the Ottoman Empire, relayed via airship to the New Breckinridge port."

"Highly guarded?"

"On the contrary, sent as inconspicuously as possible. The bishop of New Breckinridge paid a boy three coins to deliver it, claiming it to be a particularly thick prayer book."

Lucia pulled a magnifying glass from a pocket in her cloak and snapped it open. She inspected the lock mechanisms of the door, which bore no sign of forced entry.

"Did anyone else in the town know of its arrival?"

"No, not a living soul."

"And what lies beyond the walls of this room?"

"The chapel and the dining hall, both locked."

"And below?" Lucia stomped her heeled boot on a tile, which held firm.

"The catacombs, I’d assume. Please, Dr. Crosswire, based on what you’ve seen, you must agree that this is an impossible crime. There could be no temporal explanation."

Lucia looked about the room. "It certainly is strange, but before I say for certain, I’d like to test one theory, and for that, I will need you to trust me with the combination to that door."

* * *

Five minutes later, Dr. Lucia Crosswire bid the monk a polite adieu and set off back down the winding path toward town.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged silently from the shadows of the pines and crept to the monastery’s eastern side where the hooded monk had unlatched a window before saying his evening prayers and laying his head upon his small, unpadded cot.

The corridors were black and cold as a crypt, but Lucia found her way to the library by the light of her small, hand-cranked lantern. At the door, she carefully studied the set of springs and pressed the ones which Brother Primicerius had indicated. The door slid open with a wisp of cool air.

The library was illuminated by the golden glow of a single candle. Lucia tucked her lantern away and kept to the shadows, stepping carefully. When she reached the farthest corner where the entire length and width and breadth of the room could be seen without moving her head, she sat and settled in for a long night.

The candlelight reflected on the Book of Futures’s bronze case, warping and twisting the golden light into shapes both strange and hypnotic. It was unsettling, the way that it drew her eye, and she could see why the monks of this place were superstitious regarding it.

Lucia pulled a pair of spectacles from her cloak and placed them on the bridge of her nose. She flipped through a series of overlapping lenses. One revealed the temperature of the white-hot flame, gradually cooling to the purple edges of the room. Another showed gray and white, only displaying any shade of color when she glanced down at her own hand. In yet another, the air took on the appearance of blue waves, which rippled like a rock thrown in a pond at the slightest hint of sound.

Over and over, the cogs clicked as she cycled through the lenses. Each time, her gaze was drawn to the center of the room, where the bronze box sat still and unchanging, like a creature lying in wait.

If only there was one with the ability to show spirits—a lens that could tell her if there were mischievous imps hovering above the pages of the holy men’s books or seeping out of the book’s bronze box. If only she could forget Brother Primicerius’s words about demons and vengeful spirits and ghosts.

Click.

Lucia held her breath, listening. She slid the auditory lens into place just as the noise came again.

Click.

The waves spread from the center of the room where the Book of Futures sat upon its wooden table. The table itself shook ever so slightly, and for a single heart-stopping moment, Lucia thought that Brother Primicerius had been right, that there was something sinister contained within that holy relic.

The next moment, it all became clear. A smile spread across Lucia’s face.

* * *

"You’ll be pleased to hear, Brother Primicerius, that I have solved your mystery. I discovered what has been happening to your books."

Lucia stood in the doorway of the library. The monk had come to retrieve her before the morning bells roused the others from their cots and to their daily meditations and work. The monk clasped his hands in what Lucia could only assume was a gesture of excitement, for as before, his face remained entirely hidden.

"You have? Please, tell me! What was it? Was it the spirit within the book? The one driven out by the apostle so long ago?"

"On the contrary," Lucia said, stepping to one side. "It was none but a small boy."

The child standing before them looked to be but twelve or thirteen with a slight frame, ragged clothing, and large, curious eyes that even now barely rested for a moment and darted about the library.

"A boy? Why, this was the same boy who delivered the book to the monastery!"

"Indeed. It seems that upon receiving the book, you and your fellow monks were so caught up in your acquisition that you didn’t even notice the young intruder following upon your heels to the library. Once in here, he hid among the copious shadows, watching as you went about your work, enthralled by all he saw. When all of the monks retired for the evening, he found himself alone in the library."

"Good heavens! Has he been here this whole time? And what of his family? They must be worried sick!"

Lucia turned to the boy. "Go on. Tell him what you told me, Pierre."

The boy dropped his chin to his chest, as though suddenly recalling that he ought to feel remorse for his intrusion. "I’ve got no family, sir, nor a home. This library is the most amazing place I’ve seen in my life, and it was my curiosity kept me here. Was my curiosity made me take that book, sir, not evil spirits."

"Tell him which one you took first," Lucia prodded.

"It was a book about the history of this place. I tucked it in my shirt and kept it with me as I snuck out that night. I wanted to know what the monks were doing, that’s all. I intended to drop it on the front stoop the next day, but then I found the map."

"Map? What map?"

Pierre proffered up the book, open to a sketch of the entire layout of the monastery.

"Good heavens," Brother Primicerius said. "I’d no idea that was in there."

"And look," Pierre said, "there’s a hidden route to the library, up from the catacombs. Soon as I found that, well, I couldn’t help myself, sir."

"You entered through the catacombs?" The monk quivered in his robe.

"I only wanted to see more of what you did here. The lock on the mausoleums was rusted, and from there, I used the map to find my way. I returned everything I borrowed, I swear. Please, you won’t kill me, will you?"

"Kill you?" From deep within his cavernous hood came a thick sound like the grinding of gears. It took Lucia a moment to realize that the monk was laughing. "Of course, I won’t kill you. In fact, seeing as you find our work so fascinating, I would love nothing more if you would join us, become one of our order and help us in our sacred task."

"Truly? I could?" The boy’s head jerked upward, a hopeful smile brightening his dirty face.

"Truly. Why, I’d wager you already know more of our secrets than most the ordained brethren do!"

* * *

Dr. Lucia Crosswire strolled down the hill from the Mont Saint-Vogel monastery, grateful to be out in the open as the sun lightened the morning sky. Somewhere in the stone structure behind her, the morning bell gonged, calling the monks from their cots. Soon, Brother Primicerius would reveal that they had another among their number. Would he tell them all how it had come about, or would that be yet another secret?

An airship passed overhead, its horn bellowing like a behemoth, and Lucia wondered if any of the books within the library of Mont Saint-Vogel had foretold those mechanical marvels. In all the time spent within the mysterious room, it had never occurred to her once to search her own futures within the pages. Only now did the curiosity tingle the back of her neck, making her wonder what she’d have found.

But just as swiftly as the airship disappeared from view, obscured by the forest’s pines, the desire vanished within her, overpowered by her good sense. The future, she decided, was one mystery best left unknown.

George Nikolopoulos

A Rise to the Surface

Originally published by SFComet

* * *

As I often do at night, I am at the Observatory, looking at the planet surface on a silver screen. The surface is lethal and has been so for a million years.

I stare at the Blue Planet, shining in the night sky. When the atmosphere and the water of our own planet began to evaporate, our people dreamed of flying there to colonize it. Strange ships were built, capable of traveling through the void between worlds.

The mission failed. Our planet died. We retreated underground, where there was still water to be found. We built cities to live in, until we could find a way to reverse the destruction so we could walk on the surface again. My ancestors built their city in a deep cavern under a hill; we are still living down there.

As dawn breaks, I see a strange creature rolling over the plains; though I have never seen anything like it, I believe I know what it is. As it approaches, it seems gigantic. I am not sure what I expected an alien to look like, but I certainly did not expect it to look like this.

It is coming close to the hillside above me. Its belly opens. Several much smaller creatures emerge, though they are still larger than our own people. What is going on? Are the small ones its children? Is it giving birth on the planet surface?

After watching the creatures for a while, it finally dawns on me. The large one is just a machine that moves. I know we used to have machines like this, in the old days. The aliens are the small ones who came out of the machine’s belly.

They are all white, with big round heads and shiny black faces. I can discern no eyes, ears or nose-slits; I wonder how they can see and communicate. Their bodies are large and bloated. They have two arms only, and two legs.

I am over-excited. I feel my upper body expanding, then contracting. I have to share the knowledge. I know there used to be a machine for communicating over long distances, but no one has needed to use it for thousands of years and it is long dead now.

I continue watching the aliens for several hours. They walk around clumsily, gathering dirt and pebbles and putting them in little boxes. As night falls, they get back into their machine and leave.

I walk back to the City-Under-The-Hill. A grey city with grey houses, grey people walking the grey streets. I feel the ocean breeze on my skin as I walk along the shore. I wonder what it would be like, sailing the ocean; they say there is another city on the far side. But no one can cross the ocean, no more than one can walk the planet’s surface; strange beings roam its dark waters.

I do not pass by my house; instead I walk to the house of my instructor, Runner. He was named so because in his youth he was once so excited that he ran, like people used to do in the old days. I would have loved to see him run, but it was centuries before I was born. Runner is an old man now; no more running for him.

I knock at his door and wait. After a while he opens it. He greets me with a smile, showing his multitude of teeth. I tried to count them, once, when I was younger and he had dozed off with his mouth open, but unfortunately he woke before I had managed to count them all. They say he is a thousand years old—I do not believe it, but he must be close—so I guess there must be nearly a hundred teeth in that mouth.

"What brings you to my doorstep, Stargazer?" he says, after a long pause. He motions me inside, indicating that I can sit down and get refreshed before I reply. I am still so excited about the news I bring that I almost spill it out right there at the doorstep, but of course I am not that rude.

I am Stargazer; I chose that name myself on my hundredth birthday, at my coming-of-age ceremony. I have always wanted to go outside and see the stars. I know it is impossible but I still dream about it, sometimes. That is why I am so often at the Observatory. It is the only place where I can look at the surface; a relic of the old days, when our people still thought it would be possible to return up there someday. I am the only one who goes to the Observatory now; Runner was the one who showed it to me, but he is too old now to walk that far.

I enter the house and sit on the sofa. He goes to the kitchen; after a long while he comes back, bringing me a cup of boiled water with herbs. One cup leads to another as we engage in idle conversation, and before I know it several hours have passed and I have not spoken about my great discovery yet.

In the end, he politely raises an eyebrow; I finally get to tell him about what I saw at the Observatory. His eyes widen as I speak, showing his amazement; he does not say anything until I finish speaking, however.

"I would give everything to meet the people from the Blue Planet," I say in the end.

He is puzzled. "Why do you say that?" he says. "How do you know the strangers hail from there?"

"I just know."

He sighs. "I thought I taught you better than that," he says. "This is not an argument."

I shrug. "The old ones believed that the Blue Planet can sustain life," I say. "You taught me so yourself. That is why we coveted it, when our own planet started to die. Where else could they be from?"

It is not only that. The Blue Planet has been haunting my dreams; I know deep in my bones it is the place where the strangers come from. But I am not going to tell him about my dreams and my hunches; and my reasoning seems to satisfy him.

"You should wear a suit," he says.

A suit? We wear a piece of cloth around our genitals to protect them when we’re sexually active; we wear gloves on our lower hands during ceremonies. But what is a suit?

He reads my expression. "A space-suit," he says. He stumbles over the unfamiliar word. "The old ones had crafted space-suits so that we could walk the surface if the need arose. But there was never a need, so they are still stored near the Observatory."

My mouth hangs open. "You mean that I can wear a space-suit and just stroll to the surface?" I say. I feel betrayed. "You knew I have always dreamed of going outside and yet you never told me."

"You were impetuous in your youth," he says. "That was why you reminded me of myself. You wanted to go to the surface, but there was no reason for you to go there—only danger. Now, however, there is a reason that I can see."

Though he tries to hide it, I sense he is just as excited as I am. He gives me instructions on where I can find the suit, and how to wear it, and how to find the hidden path to the gates that lead outside, and the procedure for opening the doors safely and closing them again behind me. We meticulously go over everything we know about the surface. A couple of days pass while he instructs me, so then we are hungry and he brings food. We eat four different kinds of bread and a vegetable pie he bakes for the occasion. Another day passes while we doze, digesting the excessive quantities of food.

I finally leave his house, shaken. Now that my dream seems to be within reach, I begin to feel afraid. Can I survive the surface? I meditate as I walk, trying to get in touch with my inner feelings.

Normally in a situation such as this, I should go home and remain isolated for twenty days, contemplating all angles in order to make the right decision. This time there is no need; I make my decision right there on the spot.

Even if I have to risk everything to fulfill it, I cannot throw away my dream. I cannot remain down here and pretend that nothing has changed.

But there is still something I have to do before I go. I have to get the blessing of Shadowchaser, and I have a feeling that this will not come easy.

She greets me as an equal and a companion. We have been paired since puberty; the elders calculated that our cycles of sexual activity would intersect a couple of centuries later, giving us the prospect of having children. This was too wonderful an opportunity for the elders to miss; our good fortune is that we had always been fond of each other, so it was a happy arrangement for us. Now there are less than eighty years left before we can consummate our relationship and become a proper couple.

I glance at her chest. Her nipples are protruding, her breasts bulging; she is not wearing a loincloth yet, so her sexual cycle must be just starting. I will not be sexually active for another ten years—we will be finally attuned on the cycle after that one—but the thought is strangely arousing, for a fleeting moment. Then it passes, and I am myself again.

I tell her about my quest, as I’ve already begun to think of it. Her face is set in stone. "You have been poisoned with knowledge," she says.

I know her beliefs but I respectfully disagree; knowledge is a gift, not a poison; and yet I understand that I have indeed been poisoned. I have been poisoned with glory. The glory of our people’s past; our past tastes like dust and ashes in my mouth. We lived on the surface. We gazed at the stars. We were proud.

We were alive.

Now there is just this grey City-Under-The-Hill. We used to communicate with the other colonies, but they have been silent for hundreds of thousands of years. Or it is us that have been silent. Silent as the tomb.

She does not share my sentiments. She is not interested in the past; she is happy with things as they are. "If you meet these aliens," she says, "it will be the end of us."

"They have come to save us," I say.

She shakes her head. "You cannot really believe this," she says.

I do not. I know they have not come to save us; it is possible that they are not even aware that we exist. But they will save us, one way or the other; I feel it in my bones also. And yet I do not want to tell her about my feelings, either.

I reach out and take her four hands in mine. Our eight arms entwine. "I have to go," I say. "I am sorry that you do not see things the way that I do, but disagreement is healthy among couples. Still, I will be back. Will you wait for me?"

To this she agrees. She was born to wait, as we all were. A million years underground have prepared us for a lot of waiting.

* * *

As I take my lonely road to the surface, I turn to look back towards the city. For twenty heartbeats, I pause. Then I turn and start walking again.

Razor Bill Vs Pistol Anne

Originally published by Bards and Sages Quarterly

* * *

Razor Bill reached the entrance of the arena. He paused for a few seconds before crossing the threshold. The Ultimate Challenge—yet again. Kind of ironic when you have ultimate challenges year after year—the administrators of the Contest should be a little more precise with their adjectives.

The crowds only gave lukewarm applause as he stepped into the spotlight. He didn’t expect anything more; when you’ve been the undefeated champion for so long, even your supporters come to the arena secretly hoping someone will finally kick your ass.

He flexed his tentacles and looked at the Challenger. She was so young and eager, full of intensity. He was reminded of his first fight—he'd been the Challenger, then, looking for a ticket out of the slums he grew up in. He’d found his razor in a wilderness littered with debris from before the Cataclysm. The crowd had smirked when they saw him brandish the little thing against his opponent’s heavy club; but how they cheered when he used it to cut off his opponent’s tentacles, one by one. They’d love to see her cut him off in little pieces tonight; he wasn’t about to let them have their way.

The Arbiter struck the gong and the fight began. First round was standard fare, double rapiers. He stood his ground as she took the offense, thrusting and feinting. He knew all the moves, seen it all so many times before. He parried offhandedly, didn’t even bother to riposte.

The gong sounded again. Second Round: Weapon of Choice. He took out his trademark razor. He’d heard the youngster had found a new pre-Cataclysmic weapon. He saw her take it out now; it sure didn’t seem like much.

He was only mildly surprised as he heard the pistol shot; then it blew his head off.

Megan E. O’Keefe

Of Blood and Brine

Originally published by Shimmer, January 20th 2015

* * *

Child’s mistress was out when the scentless woman entered the shop and laid a strip of severed cloth upon the counter. For once, Child wished her mistress were at her side.

“May I help you?” Child asked around a clot of fear.

“Make me a vial of this perfume,” Scentless said, her voice honey-sweet though her sillage was hollow, “and another exactly the same, but with the tiniest hint of the sea.”

Child squinted, desperate to find a hint of the woman’s identity beneath the netting she wore across her green-brown eyes. Scentless had forgone the usual patterns women painted around their eyes. Her face was a bare mask.

Unease dampened the palms of Child’s hands. The woman was old enough to have passed her Naming Day, but no matter how Child flared her nostrils and breathed, she could not scent the woman’s name. Scentless wore the wrap all named men and women wore, covered hair-to-toe in thin black fabric to protect her skin from the poison of the sun’s red glare. The cloth of her wrap had a subtle sheen, the fabric so smooth Child could not even see the weave. She must be wealthy. The slender arc of her cheekbones rose just above the bottom of netting, hinting that she was beautiful.

And yet the woman wore no scent. She was nameless.

Even the dead smell, Child thought, then shook herself. This was business. Whatever had urged this woman to go out into the world without a name was none of her concern.

Forcing the pleasant, shopkeeper-smile her mistress had taught her, Child made a show of rinsing her hands in clean water, then scrubbing them with salt and rinsing them again. She dried her hands on a fine, fresh rag, and held them up for Scentless' inspection. The woman leaned forward, sniffed the air, and nodded her approval.

Thus prepared, Child gathered the cloth into her hands and brought it as close to her nose as she dared. The aroma was warm, spice-tinged. Cardamom and violet with the faintest whiff of balsam. The sea would be a pleasant addition to such a scent, but Child had no idea how to blend such an aroma.

“I can recreate this by this evening,” Child said, “but the addition of the sea will take time. There is no single oil for such a scent.”

Scentless inclined her head, the supple fabric of her wrap hissing softly as the folds brushed against each other. “I will need it by the full-moon,” she said, and laid a rope of silver upon the counter alongside the cloth.

Child’s throat clenched. Such a sum was no small thing to turn one’s nose up at, even if the deadline was nigh impossible. Not daring to touch the silver, lest she spoil the cleanliness of her hands, Child folded the cloth and set it aside, then took up a slip of paper and a grease pencil. She breathed deep, settling the butterflies fighting to escape through her lips.

“Forgive my asking, but what is your name? I cannot smell it on you.”

The woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners. Whether in amusement or anger, Child could not tell. “I wear none. Put what you like on your paper, I will return in three days to check upon your progress. I will bring you a gold rope if you finish in time.”

She pressed black-gloved hands together and bowed deep, then turned and stepped from the shop back into the hot red eye of the sun’s regard.

Child stared at the paper, stunned. A whole gold rope. Enough to buy her own wrap, her own name. Chewing her lip, she wrote: Scentless.

Then crossed it out, over and over again, until the name was little more than a black square. Her mistress had not been here. She did not need to know. Heart hammering, Child filled in the square until it was black as coal.

Beneath it, she began to make notes on what she had smelled in the cloth.

* * *

Ivy-beneath-cedar returned that evening with wine so rich on her breath Child scarcely scented her arrival. She staggered a step, then slung herself into a creaking chair in their workshop, squinting eyes veined with red spiderwebs at her. Child tensed, turning on her stool so that her back guarded her work, and laid her palm flat over Scentless’s receipt.

“You’re working late,” her mistress slurred.

“We had a new client today. A wealthy one.” Hesitantly, Child pulled the length of silver from the pocket of her apron. Ivy-beneath-cedar’s eyes sparked beneath the netting of her wrap, reflecting the glitter of the lantern light against the precious metal.

“What did she want for so much?” her mistress scoffed, “To change her name?”

“Cardamom-over-violet, centered with balsam,” Child added in a rush, “Two vials.”

“Well.” Her mistress heaved herself to her feet and took the length of silver from her. “That is a simple enough task for you. If you make her happy, we might use some of this for your own Naming Day. You’re meant to take the wrap in what, a month? Two?”

“Four weeks,” Child said, unable to keep a flush from creeping across her cheeks.

“Right. Good girl.” Ivy-beneath-cedar gave her a thick-handed pat on the shoulder. She straightened, brushed the rumpled folds of her wrap smooth, and then stumbled through the back door toward her bedchamber, humming an uneven tune all the while. Child’s small fists clenched. She was no fool. There would be no silver left for her by the time her Naming Day came. Ivy-beneath-cedar would drink every last sliver away.

But the gold rope. That she could use.

Child smoothed the wrinkles her sweating palm had left on Scentless’s receipt and returned to her work, fingers dancing amongst warm amber bottles lit by the glow of her oil lamp. She didn’t dare burn candles—tallow and beeswax were too strong of scent, they would muddy her work. And she needed clarity now, if she were going to distill the sea.

* * *

Child walked the edge of the cold shore, bare feet sinking in rough sand. The red glare of the sun cast the pale beige granules in eerie, pink light, as if blood had been spilled across them and then diluted by the waves. Beak-pecked carcasses of sea creatures lay along her path, their poisonous flesh bulbous with tumors even after those few birds who could stomach them had picked them over. Why anyone would desire to smell like those wretched waters, Child could not guess.

The beach was empty, as it always was, save for a small group of mourning. They bundled their dead—two or three, she could not tell—onto a floating bier, set light the wooden slats, and shoved it out to sea. Child caught her breath, anger tightening her fists as flames licked up around the bier, revealing the wraps the dead had been sent to their rest within. Such a waste. But then, they had earned them. It was their right.

She turned upwind to avoid the smoke and breathed deep of the air, closed her eyes, and flared her nostrils. At the base of the scent of the sea was the brittle bark of the trees which ringed it. Warm, dry. Overlaid with the overwhelming crush of the water itself; a cool, menthol middle mingled with the wet vegetal aroma of aquatic plant-life.

But there was something else above it all, something that took those two meager elements and made them say sea. There was brine, metallic iron, and the air itself, crisp as if lightning had just struck. Both aromas too ephemeral to bottle.

She sighed, opened her eyes, and kicked clumps of sand tangled with rotted seaweed. The Cardamom-over-violet she had already made she clutched tight in her pocket, warming the hard glass with her palm. Ivy-beneath-cedar’s workshop was not suitable to this task, she did not have the ingredients required.

Child extended a finger in her pocket, felt the small thread of copper she kept hidden there, her week’s meager pay. She could buy a new fragrant oil or resin.

And then, with the gold rope, she could start her own shop. Blend her own name.

* * *

The market awnings of the city Bahat were dyed green, but in the high light of noon the tops of them turned brown under the red light. Child blended amongst the crowd as best she could, but she was tall for her age and that made her difficult to miss. She drew stares, the people of Bahat wondering just what a girl her age was doing unnamed and without her wrap.

Child paused, glancing at the backs of her hands. Even under the shade of her hat the sun’s glare took its toll. Her skin, nearly fourteen summers old, was already dry and cracked as an ancient lakebed.

Soon it would be dangerous to go without. Soon, the cracks in her skin would begin weeping dark fluids, and no emollient salve would hold the spread of the sun-sickness at bay.

Ivy-beneath-cedar wouldn’t care; apprentices were easy enough to come by. The Justice of Bahat would see no harm done, those who failed to earn enough to purchase their own wraps before the sickness took them were considered useless. Just another mouth to feed from the scorched soil.

Child swallowed, shook her head. No. She would capture the sea. She would claim the Scentless woman’s golden rope.

Embarrassment blushed her cheeks, added haste to her steps. She wove amongst the hundreds of other men and women of the market, catching hints of their names as she slipped between them. A blunt name struck her—without nuance, without balance. Myrrh-under-clove, or was it over? She couldn’t tell, the dominate notes had been blended in equal measure. The heady scents competed with one another for dominance, bludgeoning her senses.

Curiosity lifted her head and she turned, following her nose. A male silhouette familiar enough to tickle the back of her mind stood beside a market stall, weighing a bottle in his hand. The man paid for the bottle and set it in his basket—a basket she recognized. That man—no, that boy—was Lemon-over-neroli’s apprentice. Not even twelve summers, and he was already named. Poorly, but named and shielded from the sun none the less.

Child hunched her shoulders and hurried toward another merchant, eager to prove her own worth. The first stall she came too was filled with the usual base notes; sandalwood and patchouli, white musk and dark. She moved on, systematically, sniffing every single offering until her nose went numb and she was forced to rest. Child lingered near the stall of a kafa-maker so that the bitter-bright aroma of his roasted beans would refresh her senses. At the shop her mistress kept a platter of the beans for cleansing the nasal palette, but she hadn’t dared bring them with her. Ivy-beneath-cedar would suspect her of stealing before borrowing.

While Child rested, a tall woman approached and purchased kafa, her voice sweet and her eye makeup elaborate; whorls of black danced like eddies of wind around her lashes. As she turned to leave a breeze ruffled her wrap, blowing her scent towards Child’s overtired nose.

Balsam. Violet. Cardamom.

Child stiffened, sniffed the air once more to be certain. The woman drifted back into the crowd, nursing her kafa. Entranced, Child followed.

Cardamom-over-violet led her out of the market and into wider, half-empty streets, until they were climbing up winding ways and skirting the fences of homes bigger than any shop Child had ever seen.

Strange gardens grew beyond those gates, inedible plants that thrived under the harsh light, their huge leaves drooping between forbidding iron. Child attempted to slow, to blend into those lingering, but her clothes were too filthy and her feet dribbled ocean sand with each step. She did not belong here.

She did not even have a wrap to obscure that fact.

Cardamom-over-violet turned into one of those iron gates, the trailing edge of her wrap disappearing amongst vibrant greens. Child hesitated, then took a few quick steps forward, hoping to catch sight of some small clue, or just another sniff. Just to be sure.

Fingers wrapped round her arm, vice-tight, and yanked her into the greenery.

She stumbled, tripped, tried to wrench away on instinct but her other arm was grabbed and pinned to her side. Cardamom-over-violet peered at her through her wrap’s obscuring eye net, her eyes a familiar green-brown. Child stilled in her grasp.

“Why are you following me?” the woman asked, and though her voice was sweet it was not the honeyed tones Child remembered from Scentless.

“I thought I knew your scent, Cardamom-over-violet. Please forgive me, I was mistaken.”

The woman released her and leaned back, pressing her back against the gate. Relief flooded the woman’s posture, a slump came to her shoulders. “No, forgive me for grabbing you, Child. I am on edge.”

Child eased forward a half-step. “Are you well?”

Cardamom-over-violet’s head jerked forward, her shoulders squared, “I am fine, only grieving. The spirit of my sister…” She broke off, shook her head. “Never mind. I am a silly, mad woman.”

Child licked her lips, clenched her fist around the vial in her pocket. “Maybe it was your sister’s scent I recognized?”

“Impossible,” the woman snapped, “my sister drowned in the sea. An accident. Now go,” she pointed, “back to your world, little one.”

* * *

Child crossed Bahat in a haze, unable to peel her fingers from the vial. Cardamom-over-violet’s scent had been correct, she was certain of it. Her nose never lied to her, even if it was tired from a day of blending.

As she pushed her way free of the market press she caught a whiff of something, clean and sharp. Like the rain around lightning. Like the air above the sea. She froze, turned slowly, found the aroma turned with her. Shaking herself, leaves fell from her hat, their vibrant green bruised deep where they had been crushed against her. Leaves from Cardamom-over-violet’s garden.

Before they could be trod upon she scooped them up, gathered them up near her nose and breathed deep. Yes, that was it. That was the scent of the air above the sea. Now she would just need the brine. The iron.

Regret panged through her, bitter and queasy. Regret because she had already made her choice—already knew what she must do. To survive. She drew a deep breath to steady her nerves.

Every good perfumer knew where to find the scent of iron.

She glanced at the angle of the rusted sun, saw it seeping down into dusk. Ivy-beneath-cedar would be out by now, drinking away her silver.

And Child had her own key to the shop.

* * *

Scentless came the next morning. Her wrap was the same fine weave, the same loose fit. Her eyes bore no marks, but shone green-brown down at Child. A green-brown that was familiar to her now. Peering through the shadow of Scentless’s eye net, she followed the partial line of a cheekbone, marked the edge of the top of her nose. More than sisters. Twins.

Child’s fingers trembled as she sat the first vial upon the counter, nudged it forward. She had not bothered to set the wax on the cork with the seal of the shop; she wanted no link between the two.

“Here is Cardamom-over-violet,” she said, and watched the corners of the woman’s eyes twitch with subtle recognition.

“And the other?” the woman asked.

Taking a deep breath, Child set a second vial upon the counter. It was a sliver less full than the first, its cork also unwaxed.

“It is unfinished,” Scentless said, her voice as dulcet as ever.

“I need to know two things first.” Child willed strength into her voice, heard it crack anyway.

“Ask,” she said, a lilt of curiosity creeping through.

“First, will you pay me the gold?”

Scentless pulled a rope of glittering gold from within the folds of her wrap and laid it upon the counter with deliberate care. She took her hand back, leaving the gold. A promise.

Child nodded, cleared her throat. “Second. Did you drown in the sea?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she gave a slight shake of the head. “No. I was drowned in the sea.”

“Give me your hand,” Child said as she uncorked the unfinished bottle and slid it forward. Scentless hesitated just a breath, then held her wrapped hand above it. Child grasped it in her own, felt the lush weave of the fabric, softer than any silk. She pricked the woman’s finger with a fine needle. Scentless sucked air through her teeth, but did not flinch.

Child squeezed drops through the cloth into the bottle. Drops that were not red. One, two. The deep-teal ichor was slow, viscous. Child whisked the bottle away and gave the woman her hand back, then stirred the mixture with the needle. Sniffed.

Metallic brine tingled her nose, mingling with the fresh-air aroma of the leaves. It would not last, the ichor would decay and lose its scent, but Child suspected it would last for as long as the woman needed.

She corked the vial, and still did not bother to wax it.

Scentless gathered both, bowed her thanks, and turned to leave.

“Wait,” Child blurted, and blushed as the woman glanced back, one thick brow raised. “What will you do?”

“This,” she held up Cardamom-over-violet, “will be for me. And this,” she held up the other, “is for the sister who squats in my home.”

* * *

Long after Scentless had gone, Child closed the shop and stepped under the red light of the sun’s regard, gold rope heavy in her pocket. In one hand she clutched a new vial, its wax stamped with a sigil of her own making. She held it to the bloodied light, the contents sloshing slow and viscous within their confines. It smelled of air and earth, of sand underfoot, and rain threatening above.

Of a storm about to break.

A fitting name, to start a new life in a new city. Far away from the nameless Child who had blended a killer’s end. Ozone-over-fern turned toward the market. She was going to need a wrap before she could buy a workshop of her own.

Steal the Sky

On behalf of Angry Robot, this message serves as an official grant of permission for Megan E. O’Keefe to include 10%, plus or minus a page or two as needed, from STEAL THE SKY in UP AND COMING: STORIES BY THE 2016 CAMPBELL-ELIGIBLE AUTHORS, an anthology put together by S.L. Huang and Kurt Hunt.

Chapter 1

It was a pretty nice burlap sack. Not the best he’d had the pleasure of inhabiting, not by a long shot, but it wasn’t bad either. The jute was smooth and woven tight, not letting in an inkling of light or location. It didn’t chafe his cheeks either, which was a small comfort.

The chair he was tied to was of considerably lesser quality. Each time Detan shifted his weight to keep the ropes from cutting off his circulation little splinters worked their way into his exposed arms and itched something fierce. Despite the unfinished wood, the chair’s joints were solid, and the knots on his ropes well-tied, which was a shame.

Detan strained his ears, imagining that if he tried hard enough he could work out just where he was. No use, that. Walls muted the bustle of Aransa’s streets, and the bitter-char aromas of local delicacies were blotted by the tight weave of the sack over his head. At least the burlap didn’t stink of the fear-sweat of those who’d worn it before him.

Someone yanked the bag off and that was surprising, because he hadn’t heard anyone in the room for the last half-mark. Truth be told, he was starting to think they’d forgotten about him, which was a mighty blow to his pride.

As he blinked in the light, the blurry face of his visitor resolved into an assemblage of hard, almond-brown planes with sandy hair scraped back into a tight, professional plait. Ripka. Funny, she looked taller than the last time he’d seen her. He gave her a stupid grin, because he knew she hated it.

“Detan Honding.” He liked the way she said his name, dropping each syllable in place as if she were discarding rotten fruit. “Thought I told you to stay well clear of Aransa.”

“I think you’ll find I’ve been doing my very best to honor your request, watch-captain. I am a paragon of lawfulness, a beacon for the truthful, a—”

“Really? Then why did my men find you card-sharking in Blasted Rock Inn?”

“Card sharking?” he asked in the most incredulous voice he could muster. “I don’t even know what that is. What’s a sha-ark? Sounds dangerous!”

Ripka shook her head like a disappointed proctor and took a step back, tossing the bag to the ground. Detan was sorry to see such a fine sack abused so, but he took the chance to take in his surroundings. The room was simple, not a stick of furniture in it aside from his own chair and the corner of a desk peeking out from around the eclipsing curve of the watch-captain.

By the color of the warm light, he guessed there weren’t any windows hiding behind him, just clean oil lamps. The floor was hard-packed dirt, the walls unyielding yellowstone. It was construction he recognized all too well, though he’d never had the pleasure of seeing this particular room before. He was in the Watch’s station house, halfway up the levels of the stepped city of Aransa. Could be worse. Could have been a cell.

Ripka sat behind what he supposed must be her desk. No books, no trinkets. Not the slightest hint of personality. Just a neat stack of papers with a polished pen laid beside it. Definitely Ripka’s.

Keeping one stern eye on him, she pulled a folder from the stack of papers and splayed it open against the desk. Before it flipped open, Detan saw his family crest scribbled on the front in basic, hasty lines. He’d seen that folder only once before, the first time he’d blown through Aransa, and it hadn’t had anything nice to say about him then. He fought down a grimace, waiting while her eyes skimmed over all the details she’d collected of his life. She sighed, drumming her fingers on the desk as she spoke.

“Let’s see now. Last time you were here, Honding, you and your little friend Tibal unlawfully imprisoned Watcher Banch, distributed false payment, stole personal property from the family Erst, and disrupted the peace of the entire fourth level.”

“All a terrible misunderstanding, I assure—”

She held up a fist to silence him.

“I can’t hold you on any of this. Banch and the Ersts have withdrawn their complaints and your fake grains have long since disappeared. But none of that means I can’t kick your sorry hide out of my city, understand? You’re the last person I need around here right now. I don’t know why you washed up on my sands, but I’ll give you until the night to shove off again.”

“I’d be happy to oblige, captain, but my flier’s busted and it’ll be a good few turns before she’s airworthy again. But don’t you worry, Tibs’s working on getting it fixed up right.”

“Still dragging around Tibal? Should have known, you’ve got that poor sod worshipping your shadow, and it’s going to get him killed someday. What’s wrong with the flier? And stop trying to work your ropes loose.”

He froze and mustered up what he thought was a contrite grin. Judging by the way Ripka glowered at him he was pretty sure she didn’t take it right. No fault of his if she didn’t have a sense of humor.

“Punctured a buoyancy sack somewhere over the Fireline Ridge, lucky for us I’m a mighty fine captain myself, otherwise we’d be tits-up in the Black Wash right about now.”

Her fingers stopped drumming. “Really. Fireline. Nothing but a bunch of uppercrusts taking tours of the selium mines and dipping in at the Salt Baths over there. So just what in the sweet skies were you doing up there?”

A chill worked its way into his spine at her pointed glare, her pursed lips. Old instincts to flee burbled up in him, and for just a moment his senses reached out. There was a small source of selium—the gas that elevated airships—just behind Ripka’s desk.

A tempting amount. Just small enough to cause a distraction, if he chose to use it. He grit his teeth and pushed the urge aside. If he were caught out for being a sel-sensitive, it’d be back to the selium mines with him—or worse, into the hands of the whitecoats.

He forced a cheery grin. “Certainly not impersonating a steward and selling false excursion tickets to the Baths. That would be beneath me.”

She groaned and dragged her fingers through her hair, mussing her plait. “I want you out of my city, Honding, and a busted buoyancy sack shouldn’t take more’n a day to patch up. Can you do that?”

“That would be no trouble at all.”

“Wonderful.”

“If it were just the buoyancy sack.”

Her fingers gripped the edge of her desk, knuckles going white. “I could throw you in the Smokestack and no one in the whole of the Scorched would lift a finger to find out why.”

“But you wouldn’t. You’re a good woman, Ripka Leshe. It’s your biggest flaw.”

“Could be I make you my first step on a downward spiral.”

“Who put sand in your trousers, anyway? Everyone’s wound up around here like the Smokestack is rearing to blow. Pits below, Ripka, your thugs didn’t even take my bribe.”

“Watch-captain Leshe,” she corrected, but it was an automatic answer, lacking any real snap. “You remember Warden Faud?”

“’Course I do, that fellow is straight as a mast post. Told me if he ever saw my sorry hide here again he’d tan it and use the leather for a new sail. Reminds me of you, come to think on it.”

“Well, he’s dead. Found him ballooned up on selium-gas floating around the ceiling of his sitting room. Good thing the shutters were pulled, otherwise I think he would have blown halfway to the Darkling Sea by now.”

Detan snorted. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, struggling to hold down a rising tide of laughter. Even Ripka had a bit of a curl to her mouth as she told the story. But still, she had admired the crazy old warden, and Detan suspected she might just consider carrying out the man’s wish of turning him into leather if he let loose with the laugh he was swallowing.

He risked opening his eyes. “How in the pits did it all stay in there?”

Her face was a mask of professional decorum. “The late warden had been sealed with guar sap. On all ends.”

“Still got him?…I could use a new buoyancy sack.”

Detan was too busy laughing until the tears flowed to see her coming. She swept the leg of his chair away and he went down with a grunt, but he didn’t care. It was just too much for him to let go. When he had subsided into burbling chuckles, Ripka cleared her throat. He felt a little triumphant to see a bit of wet shining at the corner of her eye.

“Are you quite finished?” she asked.

“For now.”

She produced a short blade of bone-blacked Valathean steel. It probably had a poncy name, but all Detan cared about was the fresh glint along the cutting edge. It was a good knife, and that was usually bad news for him. Good women with good knives had a habit of making use of them in his general direction. He swallowed, tried to scoot away and only dug his splinters deeper.

“Now, there’s no need for—”

“Oh, shut up.”

She knelt beside him and cut the ropes around his wrists and ankles. He knew better than to pop right up. Irritable people were prone to making rash decisions, and he’d discovered there were a surprisingly large number of irritable people in the world. When she stepped away he wormed himself to his feet and made a show of rubbing his wrists.

“Some higher-quality rope wouldn’t be too much to ask for, I think.”

“No one cares what you think, Honding.” She jerked the chair back to its feet and pointed with the blade. “Now sit.”

He eyed the rickety structure and shuffled his feet toward the door. “Wouldn’t want to take up any more of your time, watch-captain…”

“Did I say you could leave?” Her knuckles went bloodless on the handle of the blade, her already thin lips squeezed together in a hard line. Detan glanced at the chair, then back at Ripka. A few traitorous beads of sweat crested his brow. He thought about the selium, looming somewhere behind her desk, but shunted the idea aside. She pointed again.

He obliged. He had a life philosophy of never saying no to a lady with a knife if he could help it. And anyway, something had her wound up crankier than a rockcat in a cold bath. She needed something, and needful people often played loose with their gold.

“Thought you wanted me gone yesterday,” he ventured.

“Then it’s too bad you’re here today. I want a timeline from you, understand?”

“Oh, well. Let’s see. In the beginning, the firemounts broke free from the sea—”

“Stop. Just. Stop.”

He shut up. He didn’t often know when he was pushing it, but he knew it now.

“Thratia is making a grab for the warden’s seat, understand? I can’t have you in my hair when I’ve got her in my shadow.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

He grimaced. Detan had been all over the Scorched Continent a half dozen times easy and he had yet to run into a woman more ruthless than ex-Commodore Thratia Ganal. Sure, she was Valathean-bred and all sweetness and light to anyone with gold in their pockets. But it had to be the right amount of gold, backed by the right intentions.

Poor as a smokefish? Better work for her. Enough gold to buy a proper uppercrust house? Best pay your fire taxes, Aransa was a dangerous place, after all. More gold than her? Better invest in whatever she wants and then sod right off to wherever you came from.

A pleasant conversationalist, though, so that was something.

Rumor had it Thratia didn’t appreciate the spidery arm of Valathean law meddling with the Scorched settlements, which meant Ripka was in the shit if Thratia took over. Even with the whole of the Darkling Sea between Valathea’s island empire and the Scorched, the empire’s control over its frontier cities was absolute through its selium-lifted airships and its Watchers. The Watchers held to imperial law, and kept the Scorched’s selium mines producing to fill Valathean needs and Valathean coffers.

And Thratia didn’t much care for Valathean needs, now that they’d kicked her loose.

He stifled another oh, watching the honorable watch-captain through enlightened eyes. The way she kept glancing at the door, as if she were worried someone would barge in. The way she held her knife, point-out and ready to dance. She was scared senseless.

And scared people were easy to play. Detan leaned forward, hands clasped with interest, brow drawn in grave understanding.

“You think she was behind the warden’s death?” he asked, just to keep Ripka talking while he worked through the possibilities.

“That crow? I doubt it. It’s not her style, wasting something as valuable as selium to make a point. The favorite theory going around right now is it was a doppel.” She snorted. “Caught one a few days back, impersonating some dead mercer. City’s been seeing them in every shadow ever since. Might as well be a ghost or a bogeyman, but I can’t ignore the possibility. Your mouth is open, Honding.”

He shut it. “Are you serious? A doppel?”

He’d heard of the creatures—everyone little Scorched lad grew up with stories of scary doppels replacing your loved ones—but he’d never seen one before. The amount of skill and strength it’d take to use a thin layer of prismatic selium to cover your own face, changing hues and sculpting features, was so far beyond his ken the thought left him speechless. He was all brute strength when it came to his sel-sensitivity. He even had trouble shaping a simple ball out of the lighter-than-air gas.

“They’re not pets, rockbrain,” Ripka said. “They’re extremely dangerous and if they’re geared up to attack the settlements then we’re going to have to send word to Valathea.”

Detan’s mouth felt coated in ash. Valathea liked its sel-sensitives just fine, but as Detan had found out to his own personal horror it liked them weak, fit for little more than moving the gas out of mines and into the buoyant bellies of ships. Anytime the sensitives got too strong, or their abilities deviated from the accepted standard, Valathean steel came out ringing.

“That’d mean a purge,” he said.

She tipped her chin down, and her gaze snagged on the knife in her hand as if seeing it for the first time. For just a moment, her mask slipped. Detan squinted, trying to read the fine lines of her face. Was that sadness? Or indigestion? Ripka rolled her shoulders to loosen them and retightened her grip.

“I can’t have half this city’s sel-sensitives wiped out because they might be breeding too strongly. The Smokestack is an active mine, we need the sensitives to keep it moving. I’ll find the murderer before Valathea needs to get involved.”

He shook off the thought of a purge and focused on what mattered: Thratia was filthy rich. And, even as an ex-commodore, the owner of a rather fine airship.

Even trolling around the smaller, ramshackle steadings of the Scorched, Detan had heard of Thratia’s latest prize. The Larkspur, she was called, and rumor had it she was as sleek as an oiled rockcat. Being both fast and large, that ship was making Thratia immensely rich as mercers across the empire paid a premium to have her ferry their goods to the most lucrative ports long before slower, competing vessels could catch up. Detan had no need for the Larkspur’s goods-delivery services, but he rather fancied the idea of ripping the rug out from under Thratia’s quickly growing mercer collective. And anyway, he thought he’d probably cut a pretty handsome figure standing on the deck of a ship like that. Although he’d have to upgrade to a nicer hat.

“Well, watch-captain, maybe we can help each other out.”

She looked like she’d drunk sour milk. “You’re kidding. Only way you can help me is by getting gone, Honding. You understand?” Ripka turned away from him and sat behind her desk once more, her thigh bumping the side with a light clunk as she did so. Detan allowed himself a little smile; so the brave watch-captain wore body armor while in his presence.

“Oh, pah. You and I both know that if Thratia wants the wardenship she’s going to take it. People fear her too damned much to risk not voting her in. And you’ll be too busy chasing your boogeyman to do anything about it.”

“Fear? You got it wrong. They respect her, and that’s the trouble of it. She’ll get voted in, nice and legal. No need for a coup,” she said.

“So what if I could…undermine that respect? Make a public fool of her?”

“The only public fool around here is you.”

“Well, you want me gone, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And I don’t have a flier to get gone with, do I?”

She just frowned at him.

“And you want Thratia undermined, right?”

“I suppose…”

“So I’ll steal her airship!”

“You’re out of your sandbagged mind, Honding.”

“No, no—listen up, captain.” He leaned forward and held his hand out, ticking off the fingers with each point he made. “Thratia’s got power here because she’s got respect, right?”

“And money.”

“Right, and money. So we can get rid of her respect, and a substantial chunk of her money, in one big blow.” He made a fist and raised it up.

“You only made one point there, and you’ve got five fingers.”

“Er, well. That doesn’t matter. It makes sense, Ripka.”

“Watch-captain.”

“Watch-captain.” He gave her a smile bright as the midday sun and leaned back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. “It’s brilliant. She’ll look like a doddering fool and you can swoop in and save the day. Then let me go, of course.”

She snorted. “Why in the blue skies would I want to do that?”

“Because I’d tell Thratia it was your idea if you didn’t, obviously.”

“And then I look the fool for letting you escape.”

“No, we let it sit for a while. I’ll slip away after you’ve got the wardenship secured. Tell everyone you shipped me off to serve hard labor on the Remnant Isles.”

She started, eyes narrowing. “You think I want to be warden?”

Had he misjudged? Detan held his hands up to either side, palms facing the sweet skies to indicate he would defer to her better judgment. “Well, you must. Or you’ve got someone in mind, surely?”

She pressed her fingers together above the desk, the arc of her hands outlining the mouth of a cave, and leaned forward as she thought. It was odd she seemed to be thinking so hard about this. He’d thought she’d have someone in mind worth the promotion, but he still couldn’t help but grin. Her body language was open, interested. There was a little furrow between her brows, deep and contemplative. He’d got her.

“Mine-master Galtro would be a good candidate,” she said, and he chose to ignore the hesitance in her voice. Didn’t matter to him who she picked. He planned on being long gone by the time that particular seat was being warmed.

He leapt to his feet and clapped once. “Good! Marvelous! Hurrah! We have a warden! Now you just need to let me do my—”

“Whoa now. What’s in this for you?”

“The thrill of adventure!”

“Try again.”

“Fine.” He huffed. “Say, perhaps, the ship has a little accident in all that excitement. Say, just for example, that some convincing wreckage is found made of the right materials, with the right name emblazoned on the heap. Say that to all the citizens, and let me keep the blasted thing.”

She drummed her fingers on the desk. “Thratia’s compound is the most secure in the whole city. Just how do you think you’re going to get anywhere near her ship?”

“That’s my worry, partner.”

“I am not—”

“Watch-captain.”

She scowled at him, but quieted.

“Look, don’t worry over it all too much and don’t count on it yet either, understand? I’m going to have a look around, see if it’s even doable, and then I’ll contact you again with our options.”

“You get snagged, and I’ll swear I sent you packing this day.”

“Wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

“And if you can’t find a way to work it?”

“Tibal will have the flier fixed up by then, nice and smooth.”

Ripka eyed him, hard and heavy, and he thanked the stable sands that he had a whole lot of practice at keeping his face open and charming. She grunted and dragged open the top drawer of her desk.

“Here.” She tossed him a thin cloth pouch and he rolled it over in his hands, guessing at the weight of the grains of precious metal within. “You’ll need to stay upcrust if you want any chance of getting eyes on Thratia, and I’m guessing ole Auntie Honding hasn’t provided you with an allowance fit for something like that.”

Detan winced at the mention of his auntie, the stern-faced warden of Hond Steading, a mental tally of guilt piling up for every day of the calendar he hadn’t bothered to visit her. Forcing a smile back into place, he vanished the pouch into his pocket and half-bowed over upraised palms. “You are as wise as you are generous.”

“Get gone, Honding, and don’t contact me again until you’ve got a plan situated.”

Detan Honding prided himself on being a man who knew not to overstay his welcome. He made himself scarce in a hurry.

Chapter 2

“Fresh up from the southern coast,” Sergeant Banch said as he passed her an amber bottle, its contents labeled by a stamped blob of wax so cracked and chipped she couldn’t make it out. Like it mattered. Ripka tipped her head back and drank.

The mud wall of the guardhouse was cool against her back, the bottle warm in her hand, and the memory of the rising sun still rosy on her cheeks. So what if the bench was stiff beneath her? So what if the stench of fresh blood clung to her nostrils still? She drank deep, ignoring the murmur of the crowd dispersing just outside the guardhouse door.

It’d been one sand-blighted morning. Executing a man was never her favorite service to perform on behalf of the city, but with rumors flying wild about a killer on the loose, and Warden Faud not two days in the dirt, the city was wound up tight. She’d never seen such a turnout before. She only wished she could have given them the blood of Faud’s murderer, instead of some sandbagged thief. Doppel or no, she had no taste for executing non-violent criminals.

Ripka glanced toward the ceiling, squinting as if she could see through the rafters to the freshly minted corpse of the doppel who’d stolen Mercer Agert’s ship. Brave son of a bitch, he hadn’t blinked when she’d asked if he wanted to meet the axe or walk the Black. He’d opted for the axe, which always surprised her. But then, walking the Black was one pits-cursed way to go.

The Black Wash spread out between the city’s lowest wall and the rugged slopes of the Smokestack—the great, looming firemount from which the city mined its selium. Composed of glittering shards of firemount glass, the path between the city and the Smokestack was blisteringly hot during the day. Merely standing on the black sands could leave your face burned within a quarter-mark.

As long as Ripka’d been in Aransa, she’d never heard of a soul making it across the sands alive. First your face burned, crisped up under the glare of the sun, and any stretch of skin not covered in cloth was quick to follow. If your shoes weren’t sturdy enough—and most condemned were forced to walk in prison garb; thin boots, linen jumpsuits, no hat—then the unweathered shards of black glass would work their way through to your feet before you’d reached the quarter waypoint. By halfway, you were leaving bloodied smears in your wake. By three-quarters, most lay down to die.

With no water, and no shade, the heat of the air dried out your lungs, made every breath a pink-tinged rasp. Dried out your eyes, too, and many were weeping blood while they were still close enough to the city walls for people to see what should have been the whites of their eyes turned angry red. Most were jerky before they made it within throwing distance of the Smokestack.

It was miserable, and it was deadly. But it was a whole lot less final than a beheading. At least you had a chance out there. Under the axeman’s swing, your chances were used up in one swoop.

She took another draw on the bottle. It did little to wash away the memories of this morning’s execution, the phantom heat of the black sands at her back.

“Think the vultures are gone yet?” she asked.

“’Nother half-mark, I bet. The undertaker’s not done dicing him up, and there’s some that will want a memento. Bit o’ hair, a real knuckle bone to throw. Shit like that.”

Ripka cringed and took another swallow. “Damn savages.”

“Says the Brown Wash girl.”

She laughed, alcohol burning in her throat, and fell into a coughing fit. Oh well. At least the guardhouse was nice and cool. “Don’t see why they have to chop the poor bastards up anyway.”

“You know how Valatheans get about graves. Put the whole body in one place and people will make a shrine of it. Then we’ve got a martyr on our hands.”

“Pah, no one’s going to make a martyr of a doppel. They’re piss-scared of them.”

“You’d be surprised,” a woman said.

Ripka glanced up from the bench and squinted at the backlit figure. Tall, strong, womanly in a way that rankled Ripka with jealousy. Thratia. She wore a simple bloodstone-hued tunic, martial leggings and tall leather boots. No fancy attire for Thratia—she liked to keep her appearance akin to the common folk of Aransa, nevermind her massive compound sprawling across half the city’s second level. Sad thing was, most of the locals fell for her of-the-people charm.

Ripka snapped her a half-hearted salute and nearly clanged the bottle against her head in the process.

“Morning, Thratia. You do know this is a guardhouse? Not usually open for visitors, if you take my meaning.”

Thratia brushed the long warbraid from her shoulder and shut the door behind her, dipping them all back into the dim light of dusty lamps. Ripka made a note to have the men who usually manned this place scrub it down.

“I do not mean to interrupt your—” she let her eyes roam over the bottle in Ripka’s hand and the blue coats of their uniforms slumped over the backs of chairs, “—work. But, after observing today’s execution I wanted to commend the forces of the Watch for your fine administration of justice here in Aransa.”

“Really. That’s all?”

“Well…”

Ripka chuckled and waved the bottle in her direction. “Go on then.”

“I had expected you to encourage the condemned to walk the Black.”

“Encouraged? That’s not our place. It’s been the condemned’s choice since the day Aransa was settled, and it’ll stay that way.”

“I understand there is a certain level of patriotism involved in the display of choice, and that is valuable. However, walking the Black is a unique feature of Aransa, and I believe it would do the people good to see the condemned die not only by the will of the city, but a feature of the city itself. In the case of doppels, it would also enhance the message that they are not wanted here, as they would be cast out. Forced to walk away from the city to die.”

Ripka frowned, wondering just how much Thratia had rehearsed that little speech. “And how do you suggest we encourage them to make that choice?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Thratia waved a dismissive hand through the air. “You could always get rid of the option of the axemen. Make it hanging or walking.”

“Hanging’s a sorry way to die.”

“Exactly.”

Ripka leaned forward, sat the bottle on the bench beside her, and rested her forearms across her knees. Thratia stayed where she was, a single step in from the door, her charcoal arms crossed over her chest and a little smile on her face so small and warm Ripka half expected her to offer up a sweetcake to share. Ripka cleared her throat.

“I’ll take that under advisement, Thratia. Thank you for your visit.”

“I hope to share many more visits with you, watch-captain. Best of luck in apprehending the doppel who murdered Warden Faud.” She bowed at the waist, nothing mocking about it, and stepped back out into the bright of day.

Banch and Ripka sat for awhile, letting the rum they’d drunk warm up the chill Thratia had left behind. She ground her teeth, then plucked a wax-wrapped nub of barksap from her pocket and popped it into her mouth to chew over.

“There goes our new boss,” Banch said.

Ripka chucked him in the arm, nearly missed and had to put a hand on the bench to keep from sprawling to the ground. “Resigned to it already? Mine-master Galtro could win it. Thratia’s a skies-cursed murderer. Even Valathea thought she was too brutal to keep around. You think Aransa will vote in the woman they call General Throatslitter behind her back?”

“Please, they call her that to her front. It’s practically a rally cry. They love that she stuck it to the empire.”

“She refused to relinquish power after her conquest on behest of Valathea of the Saldive Isles. Nothing heroic about that.”

Banch rolled his shoulders and snagged the bottle back, tested its weight with a disappointed scowl. “Tell it to the folk in the lower levels she’s been sending food to. Tell it to the mercers who’ve been promised they can use that fancy new ship of hers for faster trade.”

“I just don’t trust her, Banch. She’s up to something.”

“O’ course she is. Everyone on this sunblasted continent is.”

Ripka rolled her eyes and dropped her head back against the wall, letting the chill of it seep through her hair and sooth the itch of her sun-kissed scalp while she thought.

Just why was Thratia so keen to send people to walk the sands? Walking the Black meant that if you were very, very lucky you just might survive. If Ripka was sure about anything, it was that Thratia felt no mercy for those who stood for judgment on the guardhouse roof. Why would she want a doppel, of all things, to have a chance at life?

So she could use them.

Ripka shot up from the bench and heaved herself up the ladder to the roof where the execution had taken place. The undertaker was still busy at his work and gave her a cheery, gore-smeared wave when she glanced his way.

Clenching her jaw, she strode to the back edge of the roof and leaned out just as far as she dared. The Black Wash splayed below her, glittering so bright she had to squint and bring a hand up to shade her eyes. She stared straight on at the sharp crest of the Smokestack and the Fireline Ridge spread out around it, waiting for her vision to get used to the blinding light. Banch hauled himself up beside her.

“Just what in the pits are you doing, captain?”

“There, look.” She pointed at two glints of light, figures moving across the rugged side of the Fireline up toward the ferries that shuttled people back and forth from the city to the selium mines and Salt Baths. The mines were shut down for the day due to an infestation in one of the pipelines, and the baths were clear on the other side of the Fireline—too far by half for a leisurely stroll.

“Aw shit. Do you think we’ll have to send a rescue?”

“Those aren’t lost bathers.”

The figures sped up, moving with expert ease over the rough terrain. The glints she had noticed came from low about their waists, about the right place for a sword handle to rest.

Banch’s voice was very, very quiet. “Thratia’s?”

“Who else? I suppose now we know why she wants us to make the doppels walk.”

She turned away from the vista and forced herself to look at what was left of the nameless doppel. He was a brave man, and now she suspected she understood why he’d been so sure of the axe. She’d heard horror stories of Valatheans enslaving the doppels, using their desire to be close to selium to secure their loyalty. It was illegal, of course, even the imperials saw using the doppels as cruel and unsavory. But Thratia hadn’t been exiled to the Scorched Continent for being kind and cuddly.

“Come on, Banch. We’ve got to find our killer.”

Before Thratia does.

Chapter 3

The downcrust levels of Aransa were hotter than a draw on a jug of spicewine. Ripka had set Detan free just a mark or so after sunrise, and already the streets were baking. He tugged his shirt-ties loose as he wandered down the cramped streets to where he’d left Tibs with the flier, winking at ladies as he passed.

Not that there were many ladies with a capital “L” this far down in the city. The real desert flowers liked it up top where parasols and shade trees were plentiful. He figured the women down here were more fun, anyway. At least they weren’t shy with their hand-gestures.

He found Tibs lying under the fronds of a reedpalm, his hat pulled down over his eyes and his back propped up against the carcass of their six-man flier. Tibs was a scrawny bastard, long of limb even when he was slouched. Last night’s clothes clung to him in disturbing pleats of grime and sweat, and his boots were beginning to separate from their soles. Hair that Detan suspected had once been a pale brown stuck up in strange angles from under his hat.

Detan crept up on him, squinting down into the shadow that hid his sun-weathered face. Tibs was breathing, slow and even, so he turned his attention to the flier.

It was long and flat, maybe a dozen and a half long paces from end-to-end, crafted in the style of old riverbarges. Its sel-sacks, which would normally be ballooned up above it under thick rope netting, lay crumpled on the deck. Though rectangular of body, Tibs had worked up a neat little pyramidal bowsprit to make it a titch more aerodynamic, and Detan had made blasted sure that the pulley-and-fan contrivance of its navigational system was made of the best stuff he could afford. Or steal. Even its accordion-like stabilizing wings, folded in now, were webbed with leather supple and strong enough to make a fine Lady’s gloves feel coarse and cheap.

Midship, right behind the helm, rose a plain-walled cabin just wide and long enough to house two curtain-partitioned sleeping quarters. It was a good show for guests, but the real living space was hidden in the flat hold between deck and keel. Though the space was not quite tall enough for Detan to stand straight within, it ran the length of the ship—a sturdy little secret placed there by the smugglers who had originally built the thing. To Detan’s eyes, it was the most beautiful thing in the whole of the world.

Unfortunately, the buoyancy sacks lay flaccid and punctured and the right rudder-prop was cracked clean off, rather ruining the effect

Detan glowered and kicked Tibs in the leg. He squawked like a dunkeet and flailed awake, knocking his hat to the black-tinged dirt.

“The pits you doing, Tibs? You haven’t even touched the old bird.”

Tibs reached for his hat and picked off a spiny leaf. “Oh I touched it all right, just couldn’t do a damn thing for it. What you think I am, a magician? The buoyancy sacks are as airtight as pumice-stone and the mast is as stable as mica on edge, lemme tell you.”

“Please do tell me, old chum, because I sure as shit don’t understand your miner-man rock babble.”

The lanky man rolled his eyes as he hoisted himself to his feet, and to Detan’s never-ending consternation took his time about brushing the dust from his trouser legs. Damned funny thing, a mechanic with a fastidious streak.

“Simple-said, there’s no repairing either of the buoyancy sacks. They were half-patches long before they took this latest damage and that mast is about as stable as a—well, uh, it’s just fragile, all right?”

“Was that so hard?”

Tibs grunted and wandered over to the flier. He gave one of the sacks a nudge with his toe and shook his head, tsking. “Got no imagination, do you?”

“I got enough imagination to figure out what to do with a lippy miner.”

“I’m your mechanic.”

“Mechanic-miner then.”

Detan snatched Tibs’s hat off his head and put it squarely on his own. Tibs plucked it back with a disappointed cluck of the tongue. “Tole you to bring a spare.”

“Well, I didn’t think I’d be doing barrel-rolls over the Black Wash last night. Sweet sands, Tibs, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I’d like very much to get away from the ship shooting spears at us. Sirra.”

Detan ignored his smirk and took over his old chum’s spot under the reedpalm. He sank down onto the black dirt and tipped his head back against the tree’s rough trunk. In the shade, the breeze didn’t feel like it was trying to steal his breath away. His eyes drifted shut, his muscles unknotted.

Tibs kicked his foot.

“What?” Detan grumbled.

“You win us enough to fix her up?”

“Better.” He wrestled with his belt pouch and tossed it up to his companion. Tibs poured the contents out in his wide, flat hand, barely able to contain all the fingernail-sized grains of brass and silver. He whistled low. “Mighty fine haul, but may I ask who’s going to be hunting us down to get it back?”

“You lack faith, old friend. That there is a genuine upfront payment from Watch-captain Ripka Leshe herself.”

Tibs did not look as impressed as Detan would have liked. “Payment for what?”

“She’s hired us to steal Thratia’s lovely new airship, the Larkspur, of course. Seems the ex-commodore is getting a mite too comfortable here in Aransa, and needs to be shown her place.”

He beamed up at Tibs, relishing the slow shock that widened his eyes and parted his lips. It was good to surprise the shriveled smokeweed of a man, but it didn’t last. Tibs’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders tensed. “That doesn’t sound much like the watch-captain.”

Detan frowned. “No, it doesn’t, does it? But that’s the way it’s been played to us. We just have to get a step ahead.”

Tibs sighed and cast a longing look at their downed bird. “Sounds like a mess. Maybe we should just take the money and move along. Thratia isn’t known for her forgiving nature, you know, and monsoon season’s coming. Wouldn’t want to get stuck in a sel-mining city come the rains, would we?”

Detan flinched at the thought of being stranded here, so very close to the Smokestack. All that tempting selium being pumped out from the bowels of the world no more than a ferry ride away. It was hard enough keeping his sensitivity to himself when they were in the sel-less reaches of the Scorched. Stuck in a city full of it? He’d give himself away in a single turn of the moon.

For the barest of moments he considered writing to Auntie Honding for enough grain to get the flier airworthy again. But he knew well enough that any response from his dear old auntie would come with strict instructions to return home at once for a lengthy stay, complete with brow-beating. And he knew damned well that lingering at Hond Steading, with its five selium-producing firemounts, would make hiding his sel-sensitivity from the proper authorities a sight more difficult than managing Aransa’s single mine.

Detan squared his shoulders, forcing his body to display the confidence he wished his mind held. They had time before the rains came. He was sure of it. “Make off with Ripka’s money? She’d have us hanged if we ever showed up here again!”

“More like have our heads lopped off.” Tibs grimaced and spat into the dust.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“City’s all worked up over it. Seems a doppel got caught impersonating some puffed-up mercer. Our new benefactor took his head clear off at sunrise. Not a friendly town for sel-sensitives of deviant abilities, you understand.”

At sunrise. He glanced up the city toward the station house, and though he couldn’t see it from this vantage he imagined all the little watchers returning to it after a good morning’s work.

Takes some time, to lop a man’s head off and clean up the mess. Enough time for Ripka to make it back to the station, little more than a mark after sunrise, to question him then kick him loose? And what of those who had arrested him—they’d said they were acting on the captain’s orders. Where had she been, to see him and order his arrest at the Blasted Rock in the wee hours of the night while preparing to execute a man? He’d never seen her at the inn, true, but…

Detan cleared a sudden hitch in his throat, and Tibs narrowed his little lizardy eyes down at him. Stranger yet, in all her talk of doppels Ripka had failed to mention that she’d done one in just that morning.

He decided not to mention the watch-captain’s lapse of memory to Tibs. It was usually best not to worry the man with silly things like that. Ole’ Tibs liked straight paths, and dithered at forks. Tibs would spend his life wasting away at a crossroads if Detan wasn’t there to push him along. He smiled at what a good friend he was.

“Don’t worry yourself overmuch, Tibs, it’ll give you wrinkles. Now, the watch-captain has asked for our help and on my honor I won’t be leaving the poor woman without assistance. Could you do that? Just leave her here with Thratia itching to take power?”

Tibs gave him a rather ungentlemanly look, but Detan fancied himself too well-bred to be given a rise by that sort of thing.

“I suppose we must help the watch-captain,” he grated.

“Splendid!” Detan clapped his hands as he sprang up and strode over to the downed flier. “Now we have to get this old bird airworthy again.”

“I thought we were soon to acquire a much finer vessel?”

“Have you no sentimentality? We can’t just leave it!”

A little smile quirked up the corners of Tibs’s dry, craggy face. “I suppose not.”

“Brilliant! One step ahead already!”

* * *

They hired a cart to help them move the flier up a few levels to the inn Detan had scouted on his way through the city. It wasn’t upcrust by any stretch of the imagination, and he figured that made it the perfect place to lay low. Thratia never came down this way herself, and Ripka only when there was something that needed cleaning up. It was a nice bonus that the innkeeper didn’t know him, and that he was less likely to run into any of the uppercrusts he’d swindled in the past.

Their room had a half-door in the back that swung open into an old goat pen, just big enough to stash the flier in. Wasn’t likely anyone would steal it, but he felt better about having it close. From the edge of the pen they could see the sweep of Aransa, or at least all those levels that tumbled out below their room.

The downcrust levels were a hodgepodge of daub and stone construction with a few brave souls throwing up the occasional scrap-wood wall. The houses huddled up the side of the mountain, clinging to the good stable rock beneath, and the city was a mess of switchbacking streets. Glittering black sands reached across the distance between Aransa and the Fireline Ridge, the firemount they called Smokestack spearing straight up through the center of the ridge, belching soot and ash. The winds were in their favor today, and so the greasy plume drifted off to the desolate south instead of laying a film of grime over all Aransa.

Blasted dangerous place to stick a city.

From this far away, the glint of metal holding leather-skinned pipes to the Smokestack’s back was the only evidence of the firemount’s rich selium production. Dangerous or not, there’d be folk settled here until the sel was gone. Or until the whole damned place blew.

“Enjoying the view?” Tibs slunk up beside him and wiped his hands on the filthiest rag Detan had ever seen.

“Hasn’t changed much, has it?”

“Don’t suppose it has a need of change. Anyway, bags are stored and the flier’s tarp-tied. Smells like goat piss in there so don’t come whining to me when the whole blasted contraption stinks of it later.”

“I’d never blame the odor of goat on you, old chum. Your bouquet is entirely different, it’s…” He waved a hand to waft up the right word. “It’s distinct.”

Tibs ignored the slight and kept his eyes on a brown paper notebook clutched in one hand. Somehow he’d rummaged up a bit of pointed charcoal and was using it to sketch broad strokes that eventually came together to form their flier. Or, what would have been their flier, if it were in one piece. New formulae appeared around their cabin, and Detan went cross-eyed.

“You can’t possibly know what you’re doing there.”

“Just ’cause you’re an idiot doesn’t mean everyone else is. Sirra.”

“We’re gonna need something to wreck,” he said, anxious to be of some use, “a decoy.”

Tibs just grunted.

Detan grinned. Couldn’t help himself. Some sense was emerging from the mist of numbers and angles, familiar shapes made bigger, stronger. Their tiny little cabin adapted for an entirely larger vessel all together. Adapted further to be modular, easy to piece apart and slap back together again. Easier still to wrap around their current cabin until the time it would be needed.

It was perfect, really. This way they didn’t need to know what Thratia’s ship looked like ahead of time—all ships had cabins on their decks of some kind or another. Once the ship was in hand, he and Tibs could break off Thratia’s original and leave it as a wreck somewhere in the scrub beyond the city. Work up a good fire around it and no one would go looking for the rest of the ship; they’d assume it’d all burned up and give up the trail.

Then he and Tibs could shift the knock-down cabin from their flier onto the deck of Thratia’s ship to cover any holes their hasty carpentry might leave behind. Nothing more suspicious than a big ole ship trundling around the skies without a cabin.

“Oh, that’s clever!” he blurted as Tibs’s plan crystallized in his mind.

“One of us has to be. I’ll need to get a look at the real bird to make sure it all connects, but it should work well enough for a quick switch.”

He gave Tibs time to work out the finer details, then watched in admiration as the crusty man ran his charcoal bit back over all the salient points, thickening the lines as he committed them to memory. When he was finished, Tibs tore the page out, crumpled it, and shoved it in his pocket.

Detan threw an arm around his shoulder. “Come along, now. Let’s go spend some of Ripka’s grains.”

Malka Older

Tear Tracks

This story was originally published on Tor.com on October 21st, 2015.

* * *

Nobody expected them to look human. If anyone still harbored that kind of anthropocentric bias, they kept it bottled up with their other irrational fantasies (or nightmares) of successful contact. The biophysicists had theorized alternative forms that could support higher intelligence: spiraling cephalopods, liquid consciousness, evenly-distributed sentience. The Mission Director, who was known for being broad-minded, even invited some science fiction writers to work with the scientists in imagining what intelligent alien life might look like. The collaboration didn’t generate many usable ideas for the Mission (although it did lead to half a dozen best sellers and a couple of ugly lawsuits). And after all that thought and effort and retraining of assumptions, the first intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms they found were humanoid.

Not completely human, not like actors in silver face paint, but bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal, with most of the sensory organs concentrated in a central upper appendage that it was difficult not to call the head.

“We need a new word, a whole new vocabulary,” Tsongwa said, as he and Flur reviewed hours and hours of long-distance surveillance video. “A term to remind us that they’re not human, but still give them equal importance and intelligence.”

Because not only were they humanoid (the word did not satisfy Tsongwa, but it caught on and stuck), they were clearly intelligent, with societies and civilizations. They lived not in the caves or intelligent-organic complexes or mind-alterable environments hypothesized by the scientists, but in identifiable buildings, in cities. (The Mission Director promptly brought in architects, urbanists, psychologists, forensic archeologists, urban psychologists, forensic architects). They were “advanced” (Tsongwa insisted on putting the word in quotes) enough that first contact with them could be via radio, and then video. Many of the linguistic problems, not to mention the initial shock of alien existence, could be worked out long before Flur and Tsongwa got anywhere near the planet.

The Mission Director insisted on the importance of a protocol for contact, flexible enough to use in as many different contexts as they could imagine (an optimist, he was still hoping to discover intelligent spiraling cephalopods), yet structured enough to allow for some degree of standardization. Two ambassadors, one male, one female (the Mission Director did not point out that they were also of different “races,” another word Tsongwa used only in quotes). They would go armed, but imperceptibly so. They would go with scientific objectives—as much observation and recording as possible—but also with diplomatic goals that were more important: they were to bring back, if not a treaty, at least an agreement. “A framework,” the Mission Director explained, “for future relations.” He made a template for them, but encouraged them to modify it as necessary. The next day he came back with a few more templates, to give them a sense of the range of options.

Flur, the brilliant young star of what they call the Very Foreign Service, smiles and nods, but he’s overselling it. She’s pretty sure she can figure out the acceptable options, maybe even some the Mission Director hasn’t come up with, just as she’s pretty sure she can charm these aliens by respecting and listening to them, by empathizing, by improvising. Maybe more than Tsongwa. She likes Tsongwa, but he’s so serious, and places too much importance on semantics. She knows he’s supposed to be the experienced balance to her youth and genius, but nobody’s experienced anything like this before. And he’s not actually that much older; it’s just the deep lines on his face and the slow pace of his consideration that make him seem so.

Flur is aware of another probable advantage: as far as they have been able to tell, most of the alien leadership is female. Or the equivalent of female, what looks like female to the humans, which means human females will look like leaders to the aliens. Even Flur’s skin color is closer to the rosy purple of alien flesh. Though no one has mentioned either of these cultural elements, Flur prepares herself for the possibility that she will need to act as the head of the expedition, even if she remains technically subordinate to Tsongwa.

Her confidence, or overconfidence, does not pass unnoticed. But it doesn’t worry the Mission Director or Tsongwa much. Flur is never disrespectful, and she works hard, studying the video and audio recordings, diagramming and re-diagramming what they understand about political structures, writing short treatises about cultural practices.

The time and place of the landing are set, and there is a flashy ceremony for the departure from the base station, full of flags and symbols and fine music, scripted and simulcast. Flur has an odd longing to wave to her mother, but manages to quell it. Fortunately, the Mission Director has managed to fend off requests to simulcast the mission itself (largely by reminding politicians and media executives about the unlikely but real possibility of a grisly end to the adventure). The closing air lock leaves Flur and Tsongwa alone, except for the eighty-two mission staff looped into their communications and recording network. They beam down, a slang phrase for what is in practice a long, bumpy, and dangerous trip into the planet’s atmosphere on a shuttle known as the Beamer. This is Tsongwa’s expertise, and Flur is appropriately grateful for it as she copilots. He ably navigates them to the designated landing site, an extensive field outside of the alien city.

Flur takes a deep breath once they are settled. Through the small window she can make out tall, curving shapes: the aliens, the natives of this planet, have gathered as planned. From the screen on the dash the Mission Director looks back at her, almost bathetic in the way emotion and overwhelming awareness of the significance of this moment play openly on his face. Flur checks her comms and stands up. For a moment she and Tsongwa are face-to-face in the narrow aisle between the seats, and though his chin is level with her forehead Flur feels for the first time that they are looking straight at each other. This moment, though it is being recorded and transmitted in a dozen different sensory and technological combinations, is still theirs alone. There is a mutual nod—Flur doesn’t know which of them initiates it—and then Tsongwa leads the way to the hatch.

Stepping out of the Beamer, Flur finds that the aliens look less human at this close range. Their extended bodies curve gracefully into hooks and curlicues, partially obscured by flowing robes that give the impression of square-sailed ships luffing to the wind. When two of them step forward with extended hands, Flur can see that their three fingers are flexible as snakes. They cover the lower part of their faces with more cloth, but above that their noses have only a single nostril, flat on the face, opening and closing like a whale’s. Unsettlingly, it is the eyes that are most human: none of the giant pupils or extended slits of old science fiction movies, but (what appear to be) irises and robin’s-egg sclera within the familiar pointed oval shape, although they each have only one. In the popular press they are already known as the Cyclopes, but Flur finds each eye startlingly (perhaps deceptively?) expressive.

The two aliens have paused, hovering at a safe distance. Maybe that’s their idea of personal space? Flur glances at Tsongwa, a sideways slant of the eyes obscured by her goggles, but he is already stepping forward, arms up and out, mimicking the circular alien gesture that they have identified as significant and positive. Through her speakers, Flur can just make out the sound of him clearing his throat.

“Greetings,” he says, in an accented Cyclopan that they hope is comprehensible . He pauses. In what is surely the best moment of either of their lives, the aliens say the same word back to him.

The two designated humanoids approach, and curve more so that their singular eyes are nearly on a level with their visitors’. The skin of their faces looks parchment-like, worn and creased, like oak leaves pasted together, with striking lines trailing down from both corners of their eyes. They pronounce elaborate welcomes which Flur only partially understands. Their names are Slanks and Irnv, and they are happy to welcome their most esteemed visitors from another planet and take them in this honorable procession to the capital city of their island, where they will meet their leader. Flur almost lets out a reflexive giggle at the irony of it all, but she squelches it, and accepts instead the folds of material that Irnv hands her. “A costume more suited to our climate,” Slanks says, as he hands the same to Tsongwa.

Flur, cozily padded in a latest-model spacesuit, had not noticed any issues with the climate, but at least the local dress resolves one concern. There had been some worry at Mission Control that, having transmitted visuals of humans in their native habitat to the aliens, they would find the sight of them in their tubed breathing apparatuses disconcerting, but the alien clothes include fabric to cover the lower face, so that should help.

It is a moderately long walk to the city, and Flur keeps an eye on the visit clock ascending without pause in the corner of her view, and the bars representing her life support resources shrinking ceaselessly. A milky fog obscures much of the landscape, but Flur stares at the fragments of organic material at her feet, twigs and leaves in strange shapes, or maybe shells or corals, or something they have no word for yet. She longs to scoop up a sample, but is embarrassed to do so in front of their attentive entourage.

At the edge of the city they are guided to a canal or river where they board an almost flat barge, its slightly curved sides dressed with the same fabric that the Cyclopes wear. As they detach and float slowly along, Flur begins to feel disoriented, although she can’t figure out what is dizzying her. Finally, looking down at the canal, she decides it is the water, or the liquid, which is sluggish and thick. Grateful for the flowing native costume, she detaches a specimen vial from her space suit and within the compass of the billowing sleeves manages to scoop up some of the canal liquid, seal, and pocket it. She doesn’t think anyone has noticed, not even Tsongwa, who is deep in limited conversation with Slanks.

The gray-blue buildings are sinuous and low. Flur wonders if they continue underground. They cross a few other canals, but there are also pedestrian paths where tall humanoid shapes in expansive robes move, pause, interact. As they stream inexorably by, Flur catches a glimpse of two flowing dresses, one bold purple, one carnelian red, pressed against each other, fluttering suggestively. She looks away quickly, then looks back, but they have drifted out of sight before she can be sure what she saw.

The canal empties into a wide circular plaza, like a collection basin, or possibly the source of the waters. Avenues dotted with pedestrians surround the central circle of mixing waters, which has been waterscaped into a flat sculpture, tilted slightly upward, with streams of blue and lavender liquid running down it in carefully designed flows. Flur can make no sense of it, but she’s sure it’s important.

“It’s beautiful,” she says to Irnv, and although the alien replies “Thank you,” Flur has the feeling that the crinkles around her eye express politeness rather than real pleasure. Beautiful was not the right word.

They disembark and enter the palace through a gateway draped with more cloth, the bright colors this time woven through with a black thread that gives the whole a muted sheen. The corridors are high and narrow, and slope (downward, so she must have been right about going underground) more steeply than a human architect would allow. Despite her oxygen regulator, Flur is out of breath by the time they come to a stop in a cavernous chamber, and she thinks uneasily about their tanks. As a precaution, during the visit planning they halved their life-support time frame and gave only that conservative number to the aliens. Still, Flur can’t help being aware that everything was an estimate, that if for any reason they can’t use the barge it will take them longer to get back, that they are therefore dependent on the aliens. She calms her breathing, catches Tsongwa’s eye on her and nods to tell him she’s okay. Then she looks around. Mission Control sees what she sees.

The room, like the corridors, has no right angles; its shape suggests the word “organic” to Flur, although she guesses Tsongwa would be able to find some semantic problem with that. The impression is intensified by a shallow pool of slightly lilac-tinted liquid in the middle of the room, roughly where the conference table would have been on Earth. The Cyclopes are reclining in flexible harnesses, suspended from a frame that hangs from the rounded ceiling and ending in constructions almost like hammocks. It takes quite a bit of adjusting for these to be feasible for Flur and Tsongwa (more wasted time, Flur can’t help thinking), but once she’s cradled in one she finds it surprisingly comfortable, her weight evenly distributed, her feet just resting on the ground.

While they are finishing with Tsongwa’s harness she examines the row of decorations along the curving wall, gradually realizing that they are not abstract moldings, but sculpted likenesses. There are no gilded frames, no contrasting background to firm, smiling faces, but once she sees it Flur can’t believe she missed it. There are so many analogs in her own world: the row of ancient principals on the moldy wall of her high school; the faces of presidents in her history book and hanging in pomp in the Palais National; the old, unsuccessful directors hanging outside the Mission Director’s office. Conscious of the video feed, she looks at each face in turn for a few seconds, trying to learn what she can.

They do appear to be mostly female, although Flur counts three faces of the thirty-eight that scan to her as male. There are no confident smiles; a few are actually looking away, their faces turned almost to profile, and most of the eyes are angled downward. They look almost sorrowful; then, as she keeps staring, they look too sorrowful, the way the politicians at home look too distinguished. The vertical lines on the cheeks, trailing down from the corners of each august eye, begin to look stylized. In fact, much as the sequences at home evolve from paintings to photographs to three-dimensional photographs to hyperphotos, the moldings also show the passage of time. The first few are exact and detailed, like living aliens frozen into the wall, and as she follows the series back they become vague and imperfect. The face that Flur places as the oldest is painted in a combination of blues and lavenders, as though faded from the more usual dark purples, and the two-tone palette is unique. Staring at it, Flur starts to feel that it looks familiar. She remembers the fountain in the huge plaza, and suddenly that flowing pattern of water makes sense. It was a face—this face.

She leans toward Irnv to ask her, but at that moment everyone starts swinging back and forth in their hammocks, and more aliens start filing into the room. The last face to enter is also familiar: it is the most recent in the sequence of portraits. “It’s the president,” Irnv whispers. “She lost her three children and husband to sudden illness over the period of a year!”

Flur has no idea how to respond to that, and her half-hearted “I’m so sorry” is lost in the flurry of introductions, swinging of hammock-seats, and a brief interlude of atonal song. After that it is the president who, arranging herself with some ceremony in her hammock-chair, begins to speak. Flur gets most of it. Irnv, who has also apparently been studying, whispers the occasional English word in her ear, but these are so out of pace with Flur’s internal translation that they are more disruptive than helpful. She is grateful that she will have the recording to listen to. She will translate it word by word, slowly, in her office at Mission Control (a thought that fills her with momentary, inconvenient homesickness) but the general point is clear enough. Honored to receive this first interplanetary delegation; already the communications between them have set the foundations for a strong and close friendship, the type of friendship (if Flur understands correctly) which can withstand any tragedy; this personal visit, however, will truly interlace (or something like that) their peoples in mutual regard. Blah, blah, blah, basically.

Then it is Flur’s turn. She had expected to stand up to give her presentation, and it feels odd to speak from the balanced suspension of the hammock, without much preamble except the turning of expectant, one-eyed faces towards her. She takes out the small projector they brought, and aims a three-dimensional frame of the rotating Earth into the middle of the room, slightly closer to the president’s seat. Her presentation is brief and colorful: a short introduction to the history and cultures of Earth, glossing over war, poverty, and environmental degradation and focusing on the beauty and hope integral to human and other biodiversity, with subtle nods to technological and, even more subtly, military power. The aliens seem impressed by the projection, although there is too much light in the room for it to come through at its full sparkling vividness. Flur wonders if they hear her spiel at all.

She nods at Tsongwa, and he takes over, describing their proposed agreement, or framework. Leaning back in her hammock as he steps through the template, explaining why each section is important and the degrees of flexibility on each point, Flur has to admit he’s quite good: understated, yes, but that seems to fit the mood better than she had expected. Before they left she had, privately, suggested to the Mission Director that they switch roles, so that she could take on the key task of persuasion, but although he seemed to consider it, he had not made the change. Flur knows she would have been good, and her Cyclopean is slightly better than Tsongwa’s, but he has learned his piece down to the last inflection. He even seems to have taken on the president’s mannerisms, looking down and to the side and only occasionally, at key points, making eye contact.

There is a pause after he finishes, then the president sways, signaling her intention to speak. “For such a momentous occasion,” she croons, “we will need to discuss with the high council.”

During the pause while the council is called, Flur cannot help fretting about their deadline. Why wasn’t the council there from the beginning, if they are needed? Will she and Tsongwa need to make their presentations again? At least her political diagrams have been partially validated, although she is still not clear on the relationship between the president and the high council, or either of them and what Mission Control has been calling the Senate. Apparently the president does not have as much direct decision-making power as they thought.

There is further singing to cover, or emphasize, the entrance of the high council, and under it Irnv points out some of the more important council members. She seems to have a tragic tale about each of them. There is a woman who lost most of her family in a storm, another whose parents abandoned her as a child. The leader of the council, surprisingly, is male; his wife drowned two days after their wedding. Unable to continue murmuring about how sorry she is, Flur is reduced to nodding along and trying not to wince. She wonders if Tsongwa, a few feet away, is getting the same liner notes from Slanks. Looking at them she guesses he is, but between the oxygen mask and the face covering, it is impossible to read his expression.

Extensive discussion follows. Flur loses concentration in the middle of hour two, and can no longer follow the foreign syllables except for occasional words: “haste,” “formality,” “foreign,” “caution.” Dazed and unable to recapture the thread, Flur shifts her attention to body language instead, trying to figure out who is on their side. The president doesn’t seem engaged, putting a few words in now and then but otherwise looking at the pool in the floor or at the walls. Then again, no one else is showing fire or passion either. The discussion takes place in a muted, gentle tone, councillors lounging in their hammocks, occasionally dismounting to dip their lower extremities in the shallow lavender pool. She wonders if they are showing respect for the president’s tragedy. It is when she catches the president actually wiping a tear away from the corner of her large eye that she leans over to Irnv.

“Maybe the president is, um, a little distracted?” she asks.

Irnv looks back at her but says nothing, and Flur hesitates to interpret her facial expression.

“She seems quite…” Flur notices another tear slip down the furrows in the president’s faded-leaf face. Thinking of her lost family, she is wrung by an unexpected vibration of sympathy. “Maybe she could use a break?” What Flur could use now is a moment to talk to Tsongwa in private, to strategize some way of moving this along.

She wasn’t expecting her comment to have any immediate effect, but Irnv leans forward and says something to someone, who says something to someone else, and a moment later everyone is getting up from their swings. Flur cringes, but maybe it’s for the best; they certainly weren’t getting anywhere as it was.

“We will take a short refreshment break,” Irnv tells her. “Come, I will show you the place.”

They file into a corridor beside Tsongwa and Slanks. Flur tries to exchange glances with Tsongwa, hoping that however the refreshment is served, it will allow them some tiny degree of privacy to talk, even if only in their limited sign language. Food would be nice too, but since the breathing apparatuses they are wearing make eating impractical, their suits are fitted with intravenous nutrition systems. They won’t get hungry until they’re long dead of oxygen deprivation. Flur is wondering how to explain this to Irnv in some way that will make their refusal of refreshments less impolite when Tsongwa and Slanks turn off the corridor through a small opening draped in purple. Flur starts to follow but Irnv catches her arm with her three serpentine fingers.

“Not in there,” she whispers. “That’s the men’s side.”

They take a few more steps forward and then slide through an opening with crimson curtains on the opposite side of the corridor. The space is smaller than Flur expected, and there is no one else there, but in the far wall is a row of curtained, circular passages, like portholes. Irnv gestures Flur toward one, then wriggles into the cubbyhole beside it. After a moment of hesitation, Flur pokes her head into the hole. Inside is a low space, a small nest with cloth and cushions everywhere and a shelf with several small jars holding different items: violet straw, green powder, ivory slivers the size of a thumbnail. Flur pulls her head out, but the drape has already fallen in front of the Irnv’s opening. Flur crawls into her own nook, lets the curtain down behind her, and leans her head back against the unsettlingly soft wall.

It is so obvious she doesn’t even want to whisper it into her comms (although Tsongwa is probably doing just that at this same moment, on the men’s side), because surely they’ve figured it out by now: Eating is a social taboo. That’s why they cover their mouths all the time. Of course they hadn’t mentioned this during the previous discussions, any more than earthlings would have said, “By the way, we don’t discuss defecation.” Fortunately, because of the intravenous nutrition and the assumption that they wouldn’t be able to eat alien food, no one at Mission Control brought the matter up during protocol discussions for the trip. Flur wonders what the reaction would have been. Embarrassed silence? A quick, mature resolution of the question and no more said about it? Giggles?

Even though she’s not going to eat (she does take samples from each of the jars for her specimen cases), Flur finds the isolation soothing. She would like to sit in this cozy womb, silently, for at least ten or twenty minutes, breathing slowly and remembering why she’s here. Instead she talks to Mission Control.

“How long would it take for us to get back without that canal?” Flur asks the air in front of her nose.

“We calculate walking would add another hour to the journey,” answers Winin, the desk officer assigned to her earpiece. “That’s with no obstacles or disruptions of the sort that might come from visitors from outer space walking through a major city.”

“So about two and a half hours total,” Flur muses.

“You’ve still got some time,” Winin assures her.

“Yeah, but we’re coming up on the limit we gave them.” Flur lowers her voice, wondering how sound travels among these cubicles.

“Well, you can find an excuse to extend that, if you have to. How does it look?” Winin asks, as though she hadn’t seen and heard everything that happened herself.

“Can you patch me in to Tsongwa?” A moment later she hears his voice.

“…very interesting, how many things we did not foresee.”

“It is, it’s fascinating. I think we can consider that alone a success, a complete validation of the need for this expensive face-to-face visit in addition to all the other communication.”

Flur is a little surprised to hear the Mission Director. So Tsongwa went straight to the top during his break. She clears her throat. “Hey Tsongwa, how’s the food on your side?”

He lets loose his surprisingly relaxed chuckle. “We’ll have to ask the lab techs later,” he says.

The Mission Director is not interested in small talk at this juncture. “Now that I’ve got you two together, what do you think? Can we get the agreement signed today?”

There is a moment of silence, and Flur realizes that, through the layers of alien building material and empty alien atmosphere that separate them, she and Tsongwa are feeling exactly the same thing.

“It seems unlikely,” she offers, at the same time as he says, “I doubt it.”

The Mission Director lets out a whoosh of breath. “Well. That’s a shame.”

“It’s not a no,” Tsongwa clarifies. “They need more time.”

“Maybe if we could talk to someone else,” Flur says, looking for some hope. “The president doesn’t seem up for it right now, with all she’s been through.”

She’s hoping that Tsongwa did not get the full tragic history and will have to ask what she means. Instead he says, “Actually…” He pauses to order his thoughts and in that pause Flur hears a rustling and then her name called, very softly, from the other side of the curtain.

“Gotta go,” she whispers, and then slides out of the cubbyhole.

Irnv is reclining in a hammock-harness outside the cushioned wall of nests, still within the women’s area. Her face covering is loosened and hanging down below her chin, and although Flur is careful not to stare at the dark purple, circular mouth, she finds she is already acclimatized enough to be shocked. The orifice seems to be veiled on the inside by a membrane of some kind, and doesn’t fully close. Struck by the curiosity of the forbidden, Flur wishes she could see how they eat.

“Do we have to get back now?” she asks, wondering too late if she should thank her host for the food she couldn’t ingest.

“We have some time still,” Irnv says. “I don’t know how you do it, but here we usually relax and socialize after eating.”

“It is…like that for us too,” Flur says, wondering if she is right about the translation for ‘socialize.’ Following Irnv’s graceful nod, she climbs into the hammock next to her and tries to put a relaxed expression on her face. Where is everyone else? They must have designated special eating rooms for the aliens and their handlers.

“Flur,” Irnv says, and Flur snaps out of it. “What does your name mean?”

Rather than try to define a general noun, Flur takes out her palm screen and presses a combination she had pre-loaded. “Like this,” she says, holding it out to Irnv as the screen runs through hyperphotos of flowers, all different kinds.

“Ahhh,” Irnv strokes the screen appreciatively, stopping the montage on a close-up of a wisteria cluster.

“And you?” Flur asks, trying to keep up her end of the socializing.

Irnv looks up, her head tilted at an angle that is so clearly questioning that Flur begins to trust her body language interpretation again. “Your name,” she says. “What does it mean?”

“Star,” Irnv replies, with a curious sort of bow.

“Oh, I thought star was ‘trenu,’” Flur says.

“Yes, trenu, star. Irnv is one trenu. A certain trenu.”

Flur finds herself tilting her head exactly the way that Irnv did a few minutes ago, and Irnv obligingly explains.

“Irnv is the name of your star. Your…planet? We tried to pronounce it like you, but this is our version.”

Terre. Earth. Irnv. But “pronounce it like you?” They have only been in contact for a few years. How old is Irnv?

“And your family?” Irnv asks, while Flur is still turning that over. “Where are you from?”

“An island,” Flur says, one of the first words she learned in Cyclopan. She takes her palm screen back and brings up globes, maps, Ayiti. She hadn’t prepared anything about her family, though. “Many brothers and sisters,” she says. She thinks of the video that was made for the launch party, presenting a highly sanitized version of her backstory, and wonders why nobody thought to load that into her drive. Maybe it wouldn’t translate well; their research has not pinned down the alien version of the heartwarming, life-affirming family unit. “We used to raise chickens,” she says, unexpectedly, and quickly pulls up a picture of a chicken on the screen, and in her mind, the memory of chasing one with her brothers.

Irnv blinks her single eye. “They are all well? Your brothers and sisters?”

“Well?” It’s a hard concept to define. The pause feels like it’s stretching out too long. “They’re fine. We’re just fine.”

A beat. “And how were you chosen for this?”

“Oh,” Flur says. These are all questions they should have prepared for. She can’t imagine, now, why they thought the conversation would be all business all the time. “Well, I went to school, and there were…competitions.” She can’t remember the word for tests. “And then more school.”

Irnv is nodding, but Flur reads it as more polite than comprehending, and she’s trying to remember the words, find the right phrase to explain it, how it’s not just written tests, but also character, leadership qualities, sacrifices, observations by instructors and mentors, toughness, drills…

“…happy to have you here,” the alien is saying, with seeming earnestness.

Flur rouses herself back to her job. “We are very happy to be here too,” she manages. “But we will have to go home soon, and we would really like to complete this agreement. For the future.”

Irnv leans back in her hammock. “We hope so. But it is a very short time.”

“It is,” Flur agrees, with as regretful a tone as she can summon. “The president…” she trails off, delicately.

“The president is a great woman,” Irnv says, in a tone that sounds to Flur very close to reverence.

“She is,” Flur agrees, disingenuously. Pause, effort at patience. “Perhaps it’s not the best time, though, with all she’s been through recently.”

Irnv looks confused, then understands. “You mean the loss of her family? But that wasn’t recent, that was many years ago.”

Years ago?

It takes Flur a moment to recover from that, and when she does Irnv is looking at her curiously. She puts out her hand, and the supple, red-purple fingers curl around Flur’s arm. Flur is shocked to feel their warmth, faintly, through the protective space suit.

“I think she will agree,” Irnv says. “It will take time. We can’t rush.”

“Of course,” Flur answers, still feeling the pulse of warmth on her arm, though by then Irnv has removed her hand. “We go,” the Cyclops says, sliding the scarf back over the bottom of her face as she stands.

They are not the first ones back into the meeting room, but it is still half-empty. Tsongwa and Slanks aren’t there yet, and Flur wonders what they might be talking about in the men’s room. She decides to put her time to good use.

“Irnv,” she says gently, getting her attention from a conversation with another alien. “That—that face there?” Flur nods at the first one in the series, the two-tone blue and lavender portrait. “Is that like the fountain in the middle of the city?”

Now that Flur has seen Irnv’s mouth she finds she can better interpret the movement of the muscles around it, even with the mask covering it. She is pretty sure Irnv is smiling. “Yes, yes,” she says, “you are right, that is another example. She is the founder of our city. After starting this city she was visited by very great tragedy. In her sorrow she wept, and her tears, different colors from each side of her eye, became the canals that we use to navigate and defend our city.”

Flur is trying to figure out how to phrase her follow-up questions—does she probe whether Irnv understands it as a myth and exaggeration, or take it politely at face value?—when she notices Tsongwa has come back in with Slanks, and nods to them.

“It is in her honor,” Irnv continues, “that we now make the tear tracks on our faces, to represent her learning, sacrifice, and wisdom.” She runs her fingers along the deep grooves in her face.

“You…do that? How?” Flur asks, trying to sound interested and non-judgmental.

“There is a plant we use,” Irnv says. “But when one has really suffered, you can see the difference. As with her,” she adds in reverential tones as the president enters the room, and Flur can see that it is true, the wrinkles in her cheeks are softer and have a subtle shine to them.

“That’s…impressive,” she says, feeling that admiration is the correct thing to express, but then the president begins to speak.

“Very regretfully,” she begins, her eye not nearly as moist as Flur had expected, “the time our visitors have with us is limited by their technology, and unfortunately we will not be able to settle this question on this visit.”

Flur’s hammock shudders with her urgency to speak, even as she catches Tsongwa’s warning look.

“However, we look upon it favorably,” the president goes on. “We will take the time to discuss it here among ourselves, and converse again with our good friends soon.”

Flur is about to say something, to ask at least for a definition of ‘soon,’ a deadline for the next communication, some token of goodwill. It is the Mission Director’s voice in her ear that stops her. “Stand down. Stand down, team, let this one go. We were working with a tight time frame, we knew that. And it’s not over. Great job, you two.”

The positive reinforcement makes Flur feel ill. Irnv’s face, as she turns to her, seems to hold some wrinkles of sympathy around the mouth-covering mask and her cosmetic tear tracks, but all she says is, “We should get you back to your ship as soon as possible.”

The return trip, indeed, seems to pass much more quickly than the journey into the city. Less constrained by the idea of making a good impression, Flur takes as many hyperphotos as she can, possibly crossing the borders of discretion. Noticing that they are taking a different canal back (unless they change color over time?) she scoops up another sample. She even pretends to trip in the forest to grab some twigs, or twig analogs. Irnv says little during the walk, although Tsongwa and Slanks appear to be deep in discussion. Probably solving the whole diplomatic problem by themselves, Flur thinks miserably. When they find their ship—it is a relief to see it again, just as they left it, under guard by a pair of Cyclopes—Flur half-expects Irnv to touch her arm again in farewell, but all she does is make the double-hand gesture of welcome, apparently also used in parting.

“Irnv,” Flur asks quickly. “How old are you?”

“Eighty-five cycles,” Irnv says, then looks up, calculating. “About thirty-two of your years,” she adds, and Flur catches the corners of a smile again. Meanwhile, Tsongwa and Slanks are exchanging some sort of ritualized embrace, both arms touching.

The return beam is less difficult than the landing, and once they are out of the planet’s atmosphere and waiting for the Mission Crawler to pick them up, Tsongwa takes off his breathing apparatus and helmet, removing the comms link to Mission Control.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Fine,” Flur says, trying for a why-wouldn’t-I-be tone. “You?”

Tsongwa nods without saying anything.

“I just wish we could have gotten the stupid thing signed,” Flur says finally.

Tsongwa raises both palms. “It’ll happen. I think.”

“The president seemed so…” Flur shakes her head. “It’s a shame that we caught a weak leader.”

“You think she’s weak?”

“Well, grief-stricken, maybe. But it comes to the same thing. For us, anyway.”

Tsongwa leaves a beat of silence. “What did you talk about in the eating room?”

“Personal stuff, mostly…names, families. Oh, that’s something,” Flur sits up in her chair. So different from those hammocks. “Irnv told me she’s named after our planet, but after our word for it. Earth, I mean.”

Tsongwa is stunned for a moment, then laughs. “Well, that’s very hospitable of them.”

“Tsongwa, she’s thirty-two. Thirty-two in our years!”

Another pause. “Maybe her name was changed in honor of the visit?”

“Or maybe…” Neither of them says it: Maybe the Cyclopes have been listening to us longer than we have been listening to the Cyclopes.

“What did you talk about?” Flur asks finally.

“Family, to start with.” Tsongwa says. “Personal history. It’s very important to them.”

“What do you mean?”

He arranges his thoughts. It occurs to Flur, looking at the lines in his face shadowed by the reflected light from the control panel, that she has no idea what he might have told them about his family, because she doesn’t know anything about him outside of his work.

“They wanted to know if I’d suffered.”

“Suffered?” Flur repeats, in the tone she might use to say, Crucified?

Tsongwa sighs; the English word is wrong, so dramatic. “They wanted to know if I’d…eaten bitter, if I’d…gone through hard times. If I’d experienced grief. You know.” An alert goes off; he starts to prepare for docking as he speaks. “They think it’s important for decision makers, for leaders. It stems from the myth of the founder—you heard about that? They believe that people who have suffered greatly have earned wisdom.” He twitches a control. “Now that we know this, we can adjust the way we approach the whole relationship. It’s a huge breakthrough.”

“But…but…” Flur wonders, with a pang, whether this means she won’t be included in the next mission. Can she somehow reveal all the hardship and self-doubt she has so painstakingly camouflaged with professionalism, dedication, and feigned poise? “But come on! The president has suffered, okay, but she didn’t seem any the wiser for it!”

Tsongwa shrugs. “They believe it, I said. That doesn’t mean it’s true. They aren’t perfect, any more than we are.”

And Flur thinks of the Mission Director, his careful multidisciplinarity and his pep talks, or the president of her country, a tall, distinguished-looking, well-spoken man who has failed by almost every measure yet retains a healthy margin of popularity. By that time they are docked, and scanned for contaminants, and the airlock doors open, and then they are swarmed by the ops team, shouting and congratulating them, slapping their shoulders and practically carrying them into the main ship where the Mission Director, his emotion apparent but held in perfect check, shakes hands with each of them and whispers a word or two of praise in their ears. Flur tries to smile and nod at everyone until finally, though it can’t have been more than five or ten minutes later, she’s alone, or almost, stripped to a sterile shift and lying in a clinic bed for the post-visit checkup.

“What’s the matter?” The medical officer says, coming in with a clipboard and a couple of different scanners. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine,” Flur manages through her sobs.

“You did great,” he says, as he runs the scanners over her quickly, almost unnoticeably. “The geeks are already raving about those samples you brought back. There, there,” he says, when she doesn’t stop crying. He pats her arm awkwardly. “It’s just the tension and excitement. You’ll be fine.”

But it isn’t the tension or the excitement. Flur is thinking about the things she could have said to Irnv: about her four brothers, dead, drunk, imprisoned, and poor; her three sisters, poor, unhappy, and desperate. About her own childhood, hungry and hardscrabble. If she had unburied these old sufferings, would Irnv have trusted her more? Would she have been able to get the agreement signed?

But mostly, and it is this that makes her want to cry until she makes her own, shimmering tear tracks, she is thinking about her mother. Twice abandoned (three times if you count Flur’s reluctance to visit). Beaten occasionally, exploited often, underpaid always. An infant lost, a dear sister lost, an adult child lost. Flur has always avoided imagining that grief. When her brother was killed, she clung to her own complicated pain and did not look her mother in the eye so she would not probe those depths. Now she weighs all her mother has suffered.

In another world, it would be enough to make her president.

Emma Osborne

The Box Wife

Originally published by Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted

* * *

If you run your hands over me you’ll be pulling splinters from your palms for days.

I am in a room bare and dark.

“Melissa, oh oh,” it says, thrusting. “Kelly, my dear, my love, Kelly.” Sometimes I am one or both. Three nights ago, it called me little one, though I am bigger than it by half. I have many names. Each of them, I remember. Each of them is an identity that drapes over me like a mask.

It made me one night from boxes and springs. My joints were screwed in and locked into place with bolts. My boxes were nailed together; each hammer blow like a gunshot. I will always remember the thrill of the drill as it punched through my rough planks to make gaps for the hoses. I have painted toenails, red on the left side and black on the right. My front is covered with a woolly sheepskin. The rest of me is skinned with rubber gloves. I worry that I may crack in the cold.

My room has a window dressed with lace that restrains any errant snowflake that may fly to me. The walls are the pink of new flesh. There is something bundled up in the corner that has the colour and smell of burned hair.

“Madison,” it says, choking. “Belle, my sweet, my heart.”

It is heavy and stinks of lust. When it rolls on me I flex and shift. I turn my head but it always moves me into its preferred position. I am slick in patches and moist in others. A hank ofhair birthed from a hairdresser’s garbage bag has been slapped atop my pate and fastened with tape. The lock is of many colors and red.

It built me from flat pillows and rusted clockwork. It painted on eyes so that I may stare at it and glued in teeth so that I may smile. I contain wires that squeal when it lifts my arms. I am voiceless, but for the creak of my parts.

I am obliging.

It slows its movement and begins to oil me. I lay exposed as it pushes warmed liquid into my hollows and cranks with insistent fingertips.

“Holly,” it says, as it maintains me. “You can’t go. You are here for me, here to stay.”

There is someone below us, rattling against bricks and coughing up the water and the bread that it leaves when the pumping is steady. The pumping has to be steady for me to breathe.

I am connected by clouded tubes to something below me, far down where I can’t see. My circulatory system is squeezed by anonymous hands and this thing that might be blood flows up through the dangling tubes. My cheeks bloom, sometimes, and other times my whole cavity heaves.

The pumper grants me breath, minute by minute. I thank the pumper, silently, every time the sun rises to shine in through my window.

“Geraldine.” It names me anew as it finishes its greasing and begins to thrust once more.

It drags its fingers through the wool and grips hard with each push. “My sweet, my heart,” it calls me, quietly, then louder. “Geraldine!”

I wonder who she is; who they all are. Former lovers? Enemies? Sisters? I try to give them all faces, when I am named for them but I do not and will never know them. All I know is that I am them, for a time, until it changes the name and my identity hastens to the next.

“Jessica, I have always known that it would be you. I have waited for you forever and ever. Jessica, lovely one, Jessica!” It scrapes its cheek against my cheek and I can smell its muggy breath.

I am allowed to rock along with it, when I am being used. Sometimes I make the smallest of unnecessary movements when I think that it is too caught up to notice. It feels like a minuscule act of rebellion. I dare not even tremble when I am in my room, alone. It tells me that if I move when it isn’t around, it will come to me in the smallest hours and set me on fire—just burn me up into a crisp. It could be lying. But I don’t know anything.

I am just a box.

I could tell you a story. I could tell you about the way that it whispered me to this place, telling me how beautiful I was, oh, how perfect; all the while gouging its fingernails into the parts of me that once had feeling. I could spin you a tale of my life before it, before this room. I could tell you of the time I ran after a dragonfly and skidded through mud until I was wet up to my knees in a creek. I could recount for you the months it took me to learn how to play my favourite song, could show you the guitar-string callouses that emerged. I could count for you the number of rooms that I slept in, from the time I was small until the day that I was installed in this place.

I could tell you how it watched me, found me, took me up from the world that didn’t see me for what I was, or what I could become. I could tell you of how I was sung to this room by a poisoned voice, each note another snare to catch me and bind me tight. I could tell you of how I gently resisted, until I didn’t.

But the stories would be a lie. I have always been here.

I am a box.

I am a wife.

It screams when the pumping dies out and I fade, and its thick boots go smash smash smash on the stairs—and then on body and bones. I know that this means no more food for the pumper, stuck far down below me. No sustenance until the lesson has sunk in. And I lay back, deflated, the sheepskin sagging at the corners.

I wonder if this is the time when it won’t come back. Maybe today, the pumper will defeat it and we can both leave, together. But no, soon enough it is up and up the stairs and leaning into my corners.

“Jennifer. My sweet Jenny,” it whispers at me and my lack of ear. “Jenny, darling, you’re here.”

I imagine one up above me, hovering in this place in order to keep me safe. I wish to smile when I think of that one, the watcher. Perhaps the watcher is real and has been, always. Ican see a crack in the roof through which the watcher could observe me. I have looked and looked. Listened. I’d only need a scratch to know that the room above is occupied; just one faint drag of a nail.

Perhaps the watcher has a window, too. I hope that the watcher can see things, everything, all of the world that I do not know and will never visit. I would give anything—even my sheepskin—for the watcher to come down and whisper to me of the sights and the sounds and the taste of the world, even if it was nothing more than stories of dust and mold.

Anything.

I would also like a kiss.

Just one.

“Brenda. Glenda. Kate!” it says, hips rolling. It picks up speed, quivering around the throat. Its skin is red and wet. I wonder if this time it will shake me to pieces. If so, I am sure that I will be repaired back into usefulness.

It wriggles like something freshly caught.

“Charlene! Oh, my love, my little one!” It is louder and faster. Drips patter onto my rubber skin. One hand grips my shoulders. The other is lower, moving. I am fortunate not to bruise. I notice, idly, that today the room is fresh with morning sunshine. I wonder if it will go out and live a real life today, after it is finished with its wife.

I do not know what it does when it goes, but it often comes to me smelling of flowers and methanol. Once, it visited me in the smallest hours of the night, near to the dawn. It reeked of cheap perfume and I knew then that it had tried to be somebody else’s. It chastened itself, repeated again and again that this was its life now, that I was its world and that it would never leave me, not for anything.

It made promises to me, the kind that you should treasure. And then it started and kept going until noon.

All the while, I stayed perfectly still.

Now it shivers and shakes. It must have built me to be pretty, but I don’t know what that means.

I realize that my hair has fallen off. The hank must be huddling on the floor like a lonely spider. It notices, shouting that I have ruined everything, and swings a hard slap. I rock to one side and I know I shouldn’t, but I tilt up my hip as I roll and I know I should have warned it with my lipless mouth, but—

The point of the spring is sharp and dips into its upper thigh with ease, cutting into its thickest blood-tube. This metallic slip is utterly silent, but it begins to scream immediately. There are no words, but there is terror. It lays about with its arms, as red comes in spurting throbs. My rubber is drenched with warmth.

It knows that I shifted and it wants to kill me. It screeches with the voice of death and brings both clenched fists down upon my face. My teeth clatter down the back of my throat. The pump of my false-breath sucks them into the dark of my belly. It hits me again, but this time the blow is weaker and I know that I will outlast it.

“Caroline,” it sobs, “I only wanted—I wish that you were…”

It dies next to me in the bed, the way a faithful lover ought to.

I lay broken for a time. I am not sure what to do or how to be. My false-breath continues to ease in and out of me, slippery and moist. I count the strands of cobwebs that are high in the corners of my room and when I am finished, I start anew. This continues, perhaps for hours, until I hear whimpering from the pumper. My breath continued, even through all of the noise, because nobody has told the one below to stop. The pumper does not know that we are both alone now, together.

I hear another cry, a hungry sound.

I know that, somehow, I must go.

Firstly, I must sit. My wired arms are extended above my head but as the cries grow louder, I swing them up so that they clatter down on either side of my sheepskin. My wires thrum as I hoist up my torso. I ease myself forward, dizzy with the tilt of the world. My sheepskin falls off and I can see the worn wool sticking up in bloody peaks.

My displaced teeth rattle in my belly as I stand on sprung legs. The tubes that carry my breath and blood to me pop off the suckers that sit along the ridge of my wooden spine. There is a leak. I lurch toward the door and cogs spill from me like dropped coins.

I realize that I will never hear its voice again.

I do not mourn. It didn’t build me to mourn, or to grieve. I was built to be silent and useful.

I move from my room and carefully turn at the top of the stairs. I know that I must go down and down and down.

So much of me has fallen off that I am nearly nothing when I reach the middle of the stairs, but every step has shown me a new thing. I go slowly, relying on stiff knees that were never meant to take weight. My painted eyes would widen if they could, even at the zigzagging strips of crackling wallpaper.

I halt at the window, a full storey lower than my own. I see a yard thick with weeds and broken glass. The sight is glorious. There are machines lying at odd angles, gutted. I wonder if I carry any of their parts within me. I am rapt, until I see the others. They are scattered about the enclosed yard with a carelessness that speaks of their failures.

Broken wives. Lost wives. My predecessors. I wonder if I hold any of their screws and nails and am all at once sure that I do. I think that I might match at least two of them for paint.

My glossy eyes show me ruins and hulks. I trace their frames and feel something that could be horror and something that may be love.

The only thing that could move me is another cry from the pumper.

“Please,” comes the call. “Please.”

I go. I go to save the only one left.

I shuffle down in to the dark and I lose more of myself with every step. I remind myself that they are only fragments and parts. Surely I have a few to spare.

I hear clanging and sobbing, but when I reach the door the pumper goes quiet, perhaps expecting punishment. My fingers scrape at the latch until the door opens. I stand in the frame, illuminated by the light of a new day. I must look a fright, for the pumper shrieks at the sight of me. With great effort, I hold up my hands.

Peace, I am here for you, here to take you away from all of this, I think, though I cannot shape the word with my empty mouth. I wonder if the watcher would say the same to me, if I were the one being rescued.

The pumper runs to me and I grind into a hunch.

I am enveloped by pale arms. They squeeze me tight and I creak.

“You came,” says the pumper, breathlessly. “I wished and hoped for you to come. I knew that you would. I knew it.”

My bloody shoulder is dampened with tears. I lean forward, pressing my rubber skin to the stark bones of the one who gave me breath. We turn and my knees pop, but I can see freedom and know that I only need to walk a few steps and then we will be outside. I begin to shake and I do not know if I will ever be able to stop.

The pumper wraps a hand around mine, whispers a secret to me and kisses me.

Just once.

That is enough.

Zip

Originally published by Bastion Science Fiction Magazine

* * *

One hour and six minutes until his boots crunched into the soil of a disputed planet. Lieutenant James Kent sat on the floor of his bare room and field-stripped his blaster methodically, relying on his years of training to find the oxygen-boosting cartridge, to correctly grease the release points, to stay steady and not look up at the empty space above his rack where the photo of his former captain and lover had been.

The mission destination flashed up on his comms tablet: a deserted jungle planet with a low combat risk rating, but all the same, the Allied Planet Military was going in with fingers on triggers. Prudent. Nobody had forgotten the Ba’Tooth scandal: two full squads bleeding into black mud under the shadow of a traditionally woven peace tapestry.

Captain Simon Albright had been assigned to that ill- fated mission and Kent had wept with relief in his rack when the zip had come through from him. Before that final message, Kent had thought him dead, but Albright had been switched out from the squad at the last minute to make room for a linguistics expert. The news of the raid had been all over the base-wide feeds. Albright found out from the feeds that it had been his squad shredded planet-side, his brothers and sisters who caught the fallout from a generational hive-war. He took it hard. I should have been with them. The last line of the zip had been free from Albright’s usual sign-off, a coded blip of love that could wriggle around a censor’s scrutiny. It should have been me.

Kent figured that Albright had found someone else to numb the pain after receiving that last, lonely message. The silence had stretched and thinned until nothing remained but a wisp, coupled with the pervasive feeling that nobody would ever speak to him with love in his voice ever again.

The LT finished up with his blaster. Every piece of Kent’s equipment was maintained and prepped: steel-silk rope coiled in its pouch, boot-toes sharpened for kicking into rock, face-shield programmed with thousands of languages and ready to take on dust, ice or jungle-sweat. Kent carried everything he needed to command the base raid—everything except the certainty that he would be mourned by the one he loved if he spun out, ate dirt, was blown away, baby. It doesn’t matter, he thought, breathing deep. I gotta go. No matter what he’d lost, he always had his squad, and their mission. They were the only two things that could get him out of his rack.

A short melody bleeped through his tablet. Time to report to the transport. The commanding officer was always first aboard, last to depart. Kent locked his face-shield into place and tucked a dog tag into the pocket on the left side of his uniform. A blank zip-film poked out from under his thin pillow. He’d figure out what to write if he lived.

* * *

Everything felt wrong in a flash. It was a teeth-grating feeling, a shiver that didn’t stop or show in gloved fingertips that gripped the handrails tight. The scientists called it transport displacement and lectured them about the shifts that occurred at a sub-atomic level. But it was perfectly safe, they said, scrawling absently onto erasable clipboards. Perfectly safe.

It was best if you rode the flash with your eyes closed. He couldn’t see shit through the view-plate anyway, just grey half-space: the in-between of things. The screaming slip through space manifested in fireworks that sparked behind his eyelids. Kent always saw green-blue ripples that once reminded him of a show he’d seen about aurora borealis. But that was before the mission that he and Albright had teamed up on, under the icy crust of the moon Europa. They’d been tired, cold and so far from home, in both time and space. Kent had been astounded when Albright had wrapped his hand around the back of Kent’s neck. He remembered the taste of that first kiss and the scrape of Albright’s stubble as they both gave into something that had been brewing for months. Now, every flickering light reminded him of the play of the waves above their heads and the close huddle of an anchored tent.

Flames silently bloomed around the view-plates as Kent and his squad descended through the atmosphere of the planet Kelvin. The twelve of them opened their eyes and watched the view-screens, watched one another, sending silent promises of solidarity around the interior of the shuttle. The tongues of fire were as chaotic and vibrant as the tropical flowers that had once grown around the windows of Kent’s parents’ house. Both the flowers and his parents were long dead and crumbled; they had both stubbornly clung to Earth as if it would somehow heal itself one day.

Dex, their droid, gazed at the display impassively. Corporal Sowell’s silver whiskers prickled out from the grim set of his jaw. The veteran knew better than to trust the official reports. He scowled as Malik and Hughes began to throw up roughly. Lombardi looked on, smug. The three of them, always mischievous, had been up all night drinking and playing cards. Lombardi always held her booze better than any of them. Goddamn genetics.

The squad shared a battleground comms matrix that worked like an extended warning system; a tremor of nerves that shot around emotional flashes. No secrets—nothing so well formed—but between them flooded a sense of danger or apprehension that twined around the regular comms. It could mean the difference between breathing and choking to death on your own blood.

Kent took a moment to once again mentally run through the mission stats. His orders were to land, trek to the base, and capture it. Each base, each planet was a crucial part of the Allied Planet network. Since the mass departure from a sun- blasted Earth, the military was constantly on the lookout for planets with terraforming potential. Regaining even one would be a coup.

The base on Kelvin was supposedly abandoned by the Kee, but Kent’s squad hummed with the caution of veterans. He checked the reads. The atmosphere would be negated by the bionics of their combat suits but the acidity in the air would wear them out in under twelve hours. Uncovered skin would melt down to muscle in minutes.

They landed in a patchy clearing. The automated hatch hissed open and the squad bounced out, Kent on point. He’d insisted. He barked out formations and as one, the team slipped through the black, sticky jungle that rotted around them. The planet had been torched in the Inferno Wars between the rock-like Kee and the delicate, merciless Alalani birds who were capable of flying between worlds on their smoking scarlet wings. Kent flipped himself sideways to avoid trampling a patch of green moss that marked the start of a grow-back. However hot the flames, something always grew back.

Even though they were on mission and even though he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t, Kent’s heart and head slipped back to his worries as his augmented knees flexed and propelled him over burnt and blackened trees.

Albright had slowly broken his heart, over a year or so. Each harsh word piled on top of the others until the stress was unbearable, heartbreaking. Kent didn’t know if Albright knew or cared. Try as he might, Kent couldn’t shake the memory of his eyes after that first rough kiss, nor could he forget the way that they fit together when they slept: his skin pale against Albright’s dark, muscles and angles matched and everything simply right.

But he was never coming back, and the empty space where he’d been was crushingly, unbearably large.

I would rather have every inch of my skin ripped off than feel like this. It was as if someone had shot fragments of hot metal into his chest. Something nameless squeezed him as he dashed through the jungle and dragged out tears that were whisked away by the moisture sensors in his helmet.

Even at first, Albright hadn’t been entirely sure. It had been too new, too fast. It was a game to him, an adventure into an experience. Kent had been in love with other boys since he was twelve years old, during the last math class of the rainy season when he’d noticed just how very blue Tim’s eyes were. Albright was different. He’d left a girl and their unfinished business back on his home colony, and although she was long gone, her memory kept tugging at him.

Albright had broken it off with Kent after stammering out his reasons.

The separation had lasted as long as it took for the alcohol rations to come through from Command. Kent had taken his alone in his room in an effort to privately dull the sharpness of the break. Before long, the door had boomed under the weight of Albright’s drunken fist.

I should have turned him away, but how? He knew I couldn’t. His heart and his hope had overtaken any good sense.

After that, Albright drifted in and out, capricious with his heart and his collection of imagined futures. Sometimes he left with tears, sometimes with accusations, sometimes without saying a word. On the good days, they’d built imaginary houses, arguing over the window frames and planet quadrant. The bad days scrunched up Kent’s stomach with anxiety. The last Kent had heard was that Albright was messing around with a new guy: a loudmouth colt of a rookie, fresh out of basic.

Early on, Albright had promised that Kent was his great love, the one who belonged. And then it had faded out, until even the very briefest meetings had come no more. It was one thing to suspect that Albright didn’t want him and another thing entirely to know that he didn’t need him.

Lost in thought and with three kilometers of thick jungle terrain left to navigate, everything changed.

Kent missed the rumbles under his boots. His skin-suit took action where he could not and sprang him high into the air as the ground shook and split beneath him. The squad’s shared reflex boomed. Kent leapt high, up and away from the unreliable terrain. For a moment they were all floating in the air like great dark birds, their green sensor lights flicking down and over the earth to map out a safe landing place.

There was none. They tumbled down, as everything must.

Kent’s suit stiffened with the shock as his knees and shins smashed onto broken rock. He slipped into a dark chasm. For a moment he hung from the wrist-strap of his blaster after it jammed into a cleft, but then something snapped and he was falling again, weaponless, with the squad screaming at him from eleven different directions. They were all down. Lombardi and Callis blipped out, their login replaced with white noise for a second before switching off automatically.

Kent hit a jam of rocks and finally stopped falling. His knees were in agony.

“Lieutenant, sir. Kent? LT? LT! You hearing this?” Sowell cleared up his channel first. “My leg is broke, sir. I’ve got a clamp, but it’s bleeding real bad, and the air—” Sowell’s comms channel crackled and popped.

There was something pushing on Kent’s hip and the comms channels swam around his head. The login flooded with pain and confusion and fear. He should have been able to dull it so that he was simply aware of his men and women and their circumstances and able to think of a way out, a way up. That was his duty. He’d sworn it, palm on the Articles, the day he pulled on the uniform.

Kent switched off his comms, instead. He wasn’t in silence—the rocks around him groaned and shuddered, shifting into new positions. Pops echoed above him as his squad shot up distress flares. He rolled so that his torso was flat on a rock ledge and he braced his feet. The crag jutted above him, an impossible climb.

Maybe it was better this way: lost on mission. Dead, somewhere quiet. If he didn’t log back in again and they didn’t find him, it would all be over. It could all stop. The blank zip under his pillow would stay safely empty. Kent had written and sent and burned countless pleas, apologies for all manner of imagined slights. But the words couldn’t sink in the right way, even if Albright did actually read them.

Kent exhaled slowly.

It had been too painful to look at directly, back on the base. The pain was hot and bright and acknowledging it as fact was like looking right into the sun.

It was just that Albright wasn’t coming back. Not ever. He’d removed himself. First he’d killed the love. Then he’d crushed any hope of it ever blooming again.

And so what was left?

Kent thumbed his helmet lock. His squad would survive without him. Just a few minutes of planet-side air savaging his lungs and it’d be done. No more remembered kisses. All of the tenderness erased, the invisible fingerprints scrubbed off.

Kent pressed down and his helmet hissed. He was so broken that he might as well be dead.

“LT? You got me? This coming through?” Sowell’s second- in-command clearance overrode Kent’s block. The reconnected comms channel was a whisper in the dark. “Sir. Are you there? We need you.”

His brothers. His sisters. They had sworn their oaths together.

Lieutenant James Kent of the United Allied Military had given up on love and happiness for himself. But he could not and would not give up on the uniform, and the squad who wore the same cloth.

Kent pushed his face-plate back into lock position and rolled over. Sowell was still breathing and Lombardi might still be out there. Her hanger-deck card game had been running a whole year. Sowell always carried a wrinkled envelope of photos with him when he was off duty. He’d cried when he’d gotten news of his Mars-born daughter.

If that was all there was, it was enough.

“Sowell? You getting me? You out there, buddy?” Kent’s throat was sore as he croaked to his squad. “I’m coming, Sowell. Just hang on.”

Kent got to his feet, shaking out his hands until the contact webbing came online. Automatically, the strip of boot under the balls of his feet turned tacky. A booster pill fell out the front of his helmet and into his mouth. He crunched down on it. Adrenalin buzzed through him and everything felt light and quick.

The squad network picked up his resolve and bounced around a signal to the dropped squad. They stirred then, all of them, slapping flesh-knits over their wounds and beaming back the message that they were OK, that they were coming if they could.

The cleft wall was at an angle that bent him backward to climb, but his hands and feet stuck, enclosed as they were in combat-ready boots and gloves. These are my people, and I’ll get them home. His shoulders burned as he clambered.

Lombardi was waiting at the top of the crag with an emergency patch wrapped around her middle, her usual grin missing. Dex was with her, hir cool smile illuminated by the blue lighting from within hir helmet. Dex’s hand had been ripped off in the fall, but ze would have a replacement screwed back on again in the lab. It was the android’s second mission with the squad, a second appendage lost.

“We mess you up every time, Dex.” Kent’s face shield did a quick scan of every torn wire and lost coupling while his eyes drank in the sight of his teammates.

“Pay it no mind, sir. The other works just as well.” The android flexed hir left hand, which was encased in living skin-metal.

“Ropes,” said Kent. Lombardi and the android nodded and unslung hir steel-silk. Kent expanded his login to pick up locations as his squad members began the slow and tricky process of hauling their wounded companions out of danger.

“Can’t get up, LT. I’m sorry.” Sowell’s beam was faint. “Just go. We need that base.”

“Don’t move. I’ll come to you.” Kent nodded to Dex, who dug through hir pack. The android hesitated before ze passed over the bulky enhancement tech.

“I could go, sir. I’m still functioning at 74 percent, and—”

“Absolutely not. You’re missing a hand. You’d never get back up if you were carrying him, too. Besides, Command would gut me if we broke you up any more. Stay here, hold my rope.”

Kent wriggled his feet into the joint-strengthening knee- braces. He turned his back on the droid and shrugged on the shoulder pack. It merged into his suit, seamlessly, and ran down the back of his arms to his elbows.

The green laser of his targeting computer flickered as it mapped out the cleft. Kent clipped on his rope and dropped down into the dark. The suit matched the directions of his targeting computer and bounced him down automatically until his feet stuck to a near-diagonal shelf of rock just above Sowell.

It was bad. Sowell was only semi-conscious, having bled through the flesh-knit that he’d somehow managed to wrap around his shattered thigh. Kent spread another layer of flesh-knit over the first. It hardened, holding the broken bones in place.

Kent used his command override to prompt a heavy-duty painkiller to release into Sowell’s mouthpiece.

“Come on buddy, take this. I’m going to get you outta here.” Kent waited as the soldier weakly bit down.

“You shouldn’t have…I’m okay, really.” Sowell’s jaw was loose.

“Take this one, too.” Kent silently blessed the medics who had invented battlefield plasma pills. Sowell would be weeks in recovery, but if they made it up to the surface, the artificial cells flocking through his bloodstream would keep him alive.

It was difficult to shift him into position without tugging at the flesh-knits, but Kent finally managed to get Sowell into a piggy-back position. Their suits merged as he wriggled into place.

The enhancement tech was the only thing that got them up the walls. Kent’s hands were stickier than usual to compensate for the extra weight and his wrists ached at the effort of yanking his gloves off the rock.

Kent and Sowell were nearly out of the hole when the login started to max out with surprise and shock.

The Alalani screamed as they dropped in from the black heights. Flames licked along their immense wings.

“Switch to freezers! Everyone, get down!” Kent hauled himself over the last lip and yanked Sowell under the shallow cover of a wet, rotting log. At least it wouldn’t catch. Kent’s blaster was buried deep underground by now, but Sowell’s still dangled off the fallen soldier’s shoulder. Kent overrode the ID lock on the blaster and crouched, flicking at the gun’s command pad to start shooting balls of chemical- laden spit.

The alien birds swooped, flicking their flaming wings at the soldiers and snapping with their iron-hard beaks. Freezer balls arced up, exploding onto burned out trees where they missed the Alalani. Lombardi got off a lucky shot and the largest of the birds fell, shattering to pieces after the freezer bullet encapsulated it with crunchy, quick-setting ice.

Dex was on fire. The android rolled around on the black dirt, venting chemical powder from hir wrists. Lombardi shouted, throwing panic through the login—her blaster was fixing its jam, but it would take a few seconds and the birds kept coming. Kent took a knee and shot up at the attackers, hitting one just above the wing-joint. It sailed to the ground and smashed on a rock. Oily blood spewed out, smoldering. His tracking computer confirmed its death but he shot methodically while he sent formation signals through his login.

“Sir! They’re jamming me!” Dex’s task was to report back to base in case of heavy fire or unexpected attack. Kent looked up and saw that one of the Alalani had a signal blocker looped around one spindly foot. It was tech stolen from the Kee and fitted by one of the Alalani’s humanoid allies.

“Defensive fire! Target the blocker!” Kent waved Lombardi and Hughes back to a covered position. They’d never make the base now, but command needed to know that the Alalani were still present as a force on this planet.

An Alalani drove its talons into Hughes’s chest and picked him up, clacking at his face-shield as the soldier burned and screamed. The bird screeched and shook him off, whirling up to join its flock-mates. Hughes tumbled to the ground, his suit punctured and melted.

“Lombardi, with me!” Kent ran forward with his squad-mate at his elbow. She flicked to him via the login that her blaster was fully functional, though Kent had already seen the stat glowing on the inside of his mask. Malik joined them, too, his long legs crossing the distance from his cover to their bulwark in seconds. The login synched them together and the three of them began to shoot in coordinated bursts. The Alalani wheeled and ducked through their fire. The targeting computers mapped the alien’s flight paths and adjusted the squad’s aim. It made all the difference as the freezers began to hit their targets.

Lombardi’s slender fingers tapped out a manual field code on the side of her blaster and started following her freezer shots with a bullet. The Alalani exploded like chill fireworks. Among the first to fall was the bird carrying the signal blocker. Dex picked off the tech from a sprawled position, holding the blaster in hir burned but functional left hand.

“I’m through!” hir call flicked through the login. The data packet, filled with surface reads and combat reports, had been assembled at faster-than-human speeds, even in the middle of battlefield chaos.

With a precision shot, Lombardi dropped the last of the Alalani within range. Two of the great flaming birds arced up in a spiral to the upper atmosphere and vanished from view. Kent could only hope that they would retreat and leave them free to shuttle back to the command ship.

“Squad, check in.” Kent knelt beside Hughes and draped his last flesh-knit over the horrific wound in his chest. Perhaps it was futile, but the medics on ship had been known to work miracles before, and atmosphere-based infection would not help.

One by one the squad sent through their status and position. Despite burns and broken bones they were all alive—even Hughes, for now. Kent gave the all-clear to set up a temporary battlefield fortification as they dug in to wait for the rescue shuttle.

* * *

Kent took a moment to look around his room before he collapsed in a mess of medical tape and drug-dulled flesh. From his rack, he could see his personal zip-drop propped up against his lamp.

Empty.

It was all over the base that the Alalani were expanding their territory and that his unfortunate squad had been ambushed. Surely, Albright had heard. And yet there was nothing. No zip.

Kent curled into a ball, knees high, with a blank zip- film crumpled in his fist. His thumb stroked Albright’s old dog tag out of habit.

“Gotta save myself from now on. That’s how it is,” he whispered into his thin pillow. He wept then, great choking sobs, replaying all of the moments that he would remember forever, saying goodbye to each of them once and for all.

A fist crashed against his door. Kent’s stomach dropped and his heart pounded loudly in his ears.

“Hey, you in there?” It was not the voice that he was expecting. Kent levered himself up on his elbows, pushed off his narrow rack and limped to the door. He knuckled the tears from his eyes. Lombardi and Malik were just as battered as he was, but their tired smiles still shone. Wordlessly, Malik held up a large metal flask. His spiced rum was barracks legend.

“I can’t believe you’re drinking again after last night.” Kent grinned a little, despite himself.

“After a day like that? Fuck, man. You kidding?” said Malik, pushing his way in.

The three of them eased themselves onto the floor of Kent’s room and passed the flask from hand to hand.

Kent felt the beginnings of a tiny glow flickering in his chest. Rum rolled through his blood and eased the stiffness of his shoulders. He found himself nursing the beginnings of a smile, of hope.

The zip-drop beeped and Kent looked at it reflexively.

Are you alright? Can I see you? - A.

For the first time in a long time, Kent did not leap to tear the zip from the drop.

“Who’s that?” Lombardi asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Kent said, reaching up only to push the delete key. “It’s nobody important.”

She nodded and hoisted the flask up in a toast.

Kent took the rum and drank deep, safe amongst his family.

Clean Hands, Dirty Hands

Originally published by Aurealis

* * *

Breaking camp was as easy as tipping out the last handful of worn tea leaves and bundling the empty flour sack into his swag. Evan pushed dirt over the glowing embers within his fire pit. There was nothing left of his supplies, not even salt. Last night’s damper was a heavy memory. Food meant dealing with people and towns. It meant the possibility of broken knuckles, of slaps and cursing and hunger, of belonging to someone else. Perhaps it was better to starve in safety, but his belly cramped and it drove him up and onwards. All of his water was gone and the dams were low. Yesterday’s tea had been half-mud.

Evan stretched out his shoulders and packed up his tools. His load was a spade and a short-handled pick, a hammer, a dented billy and a bundle containing a blanket, an oilcloth and a spare shirt. He wriggled from the shelter of the fallen gum into the blue- sky morning. The tree’s downturned limbs were as thick as a strong man’s waist and as white as his ribs.

Evan walked through the knee-length grass, his thin shoes crackling over the nodding stalks. His tools jangled together as he strode. Castlemaine was six miles north. It was where he could trade for the supplies he needed: tea, salt and flour. He could draw a bucket of water and drink his fill, maybe trade for a skin. Besides that, Evan had no use for what the markets carried. He had no house to tack up with sharp iron nails, nor a wife to eye off the printed cloth from Melbourne.

Four or so miles before town, Evan left the paddock and followed the glowing tickle in his chest to a clump of gum trees close to the road. The soil there had not been worked over as carefully as that closer to the settlement, but much of it had still been turned by pick and shovel. It was easier for him, working alone, when the ground had been broken. If he had men that he trusted, with strong arms and the right tools…No. That way led to trouble. No good had ever come of him sharing his sense. No good at all. It was better for everyone if he kept his secrets close and faithful.

The bush was still and quiet enough for him to feel the warmth of gold, though it took him an hour of searching before he found a deposit close enough to the surface. Evan knelt, brushing aside dead grey sticks and piling up the sweet, crisp eucalyptus leaves. He sank his hands into the earth and pulled in a breath that coated his throat with dust.

A fly buzzed around his mouth. Evan swatted at it and let his sense creep down his fingertips and into the soil. He kept his breathing even as he felt his way deep and down, skipping around chunks of rock until he nudged the nugget with his mind. It was nestled in quartz like a blob of butter in mash. There.

Evan steadied himself and wiped the sweat off his forehead. He took up his spade and dug. The feeling of warmth grew stronger as he shifted aside the dross. It took him a score of heavy minutes to dig deep enough to reach his prize and longer still to ease up the quartz lump. It felt as if the sun was rising as he lifted it out of the ground. Evan smashed apart the milk-white rock. The thumbnail-sized slug of gold within would do well enough for trade. In truth, he wished it was smaller. Best get rid of it quickly and be on his way out of town again before questions were asked. Questions led to gossip, no matter what answers he gave and gossip could easily be whispered into the wrong ears. He left the shade of the gums and turned to the road to town.

“In and out, that’s all,” Evan muttered, matching the beat of the words to his footfall. “No stopping and no talking, just in and out and back to safety.”

A stage-coach with its snorting team clattered past as Evan walked down the packed dirt road. His hands were damp with nervous sweat and the nugget burned like a lit coal in his pocket. The sun was high overhead by now and he was parched. He spotted a dam in the paddock next to the road, but it barely held a cupful of water. Evan could find what he needed, that was his curse, and what he needed now was a sweet rain. He pushed his sense up into the sky, searching with his mind for full clouds. They felt different to anything else, soft and icy at the same time. They were far, but booming this way.

He sighed with relief. Evan hoped that he would have found a dry place to sleep before the rain came, but there was always the oilcloth in his bag that kept the worst of it off.

It had been raining the night he’d fallen. Evan had been just a boy, six or seven, when he’d run off into the bush after a thrashing. He’d jumped into a depression, not knowing that the layer of sticks and rubble would collapse and send him rattling down into the old shaft. He’d broken something in his ankle and waited, feverish and terrified, for hours. His parent’s voices had come near, but not near enough to hear his wail. The choking blackness had pressed in on him until he was pushing it away, pushing into the earth with his hands and his mind. As a boy, he’d always had a knack for finding his mother’s lost buttons or for turning up carelessly-dropped coins on his rare trips into town with his father. There in the gloom Evan had reached with his sense and felt hot light hiding in the rocks. Like a lamp in the dark, it had comforted him. They’d hauled him out, eventually, on the end of a rope. Evan balled his fists to settle his nerves as he made his way through the crowded camps on the edge of town. Dirty men like him spat and mended tools or shook out their blankets as dogs tousled for scraps under their feet.

He heard a fiddle and a flute duelling in the distance and suddenly, somewhere close, the crack of a pistol. Evan checked each new face carefully. A few of the cleaner folk were burning green wood. It was good to hear talk again, even though the accents rang strangely in his ears. The Irish boys were usually companionable and would share a song or two if the mood took them. The Americans drawled their way around camp and laughed at everything. Evan did not trust the Easterners. They smelled all wrong and their campsites always made his skin itch. Something about the charms that they hung from their tents increased the flutter of panic through his chest. Besides, the smoke that drifted from their camps muffled his senses and rendered his seeking useless.

A smile might have earned him a better trade at the store, crowded as it was with barrels of flour and salt and stacked with pannikins. Twisted paper cones held Barnes’ Rock, a bright yellow peppermint sweet. Picks and shovels with gleaming blades sat up against the tools of the dead, dusted with rust and forlorn with their cracked handles.

Evan eyed a stout pair of mining boots with heavy soles, remembering when he’d owned such a fine pair. The family had once wanted for nothing, but that was before people had started asking questions. It was simple supplies he was after, for his solitary life. Hot tea and lumpy damper kept him moving. Kept him alive, in a manner of speaking.

The shopkeep was in no mood for barter, busy as he was with a delivery of bacon and eggs. Such goods were snagged by only the wealthiest miners. Even a single yoke was out of Evan’s reach, unless he spent more than was safe. An egg wasn’t worth his life.

Evan traded for his staples and added chunk of ripening mutton to restore some of the fat to his body. He added a few potatoes and an onion. The shopkeep had some greens from the Easterner’s gardens that were half dead and cheap, so Evan took those too. All of that and he still walked out into the cool afternoon air with a tiny pouch of gold dust. He would make it last. The less seeking he did, the safer he was.

He’d gone two steps into thoughts of dinner when a fist cracked down over his cheekbone. Stunned, he slipped and bit his tongue. His mouth filled with spit and blood. A kick slammed against his ribs and he lost every bit of breath that he’d ever sucked into his lungs.

“Found you, didn’t we?” The shaggy beard parted an inch away from Evan’s swelling eye-socket. “The deal was good,” the voice continued. “Your life for your help. Simple. But you gave us the slip, eh?”

All Evan could do was gasp in the dust, his chest crushing down on the contents of his newly-filled swag. He couldn’t seem to catch hold of any air. A drop of rain fell into his ear. Others chased it. Thunder brooded overhead.

“We’d like your help again, Evan. Oh, we would. So you’ll come with us, and we’ll eat and we’ll set you up nice and close to a fire. We’ll head out in the morning, just you and Mully and I.”

Evan curled around his swag, just trying to be smaller, trying to be not there.

The last time he’d heard Bobby Cole’s voice had been just before he’d fled. Your life for your help, Bobby had said. It had been Mully who’d seen Evan using his gift one careless afternoon. They’d beaten Evan senseless before proposing their deal. And so Evan had lived, and used his gift for Cole and his boys. He’d worked until he was exhausted and wasting away, but it wasn’t enough. Evan could seek all he pleased, and found plenty, but it didn’t make the gold any more accessible or the rock any softer. Bobby and Mully beat him all the same, ringing slaps to his ears and boots to the knees. One night he’d stolen away, intending to return to his family’s house on the outskirts of town when things had calmed down some.

Maggie and Kate had suffered for his cowardice.

“Come on, now,” Bobby crooned, yanking Evan to his feet. “We need you back, laddie.”

The rain was drumming down now. Evan’s wet shoes creaked as he swung out wildly with a bony fist. Bobby was ready for the blow but it still clipped him just under the ear. They were in the mud in a moment, rolling and kicking and jabbing at each other. Bobby was muscled and wiry from the digs but Evan fought him, fist and elbow. He would have bitten and hammered and wrestled until Bobby killed him if they hadn’t caught the attention of the Joes.

Shrill whistles cut through the noise of the storm. Fights were common but the police had no fondness for dealing with dead miners. Time filling out papers could be better spent in the pub. The attack stopped long enough for Evan to suck in a shallow breath. His copper hair was plastered to his face and he was wet to his skin.

“I’ll take him. Come on, Evan.” Another voice from the past, but this one a saviour. “It’s all about a woman, if you can believe it.” Not far from the truth. Evan heard Bobby snarl a curse as he was shepherded off. He would not go far with the rain and the prospect of reclaiming Evan’s services.

Tom Hopkins had a gap in his teeth that whistled when he spoke but nobody dared to tease given that success in his stride and the hulk of muscle that shifted under his shirt. He had once been a neighbour and a friend. His eldest boy Davey had been Kate’s favourite. They’d run up and down the slag- heaps together and made houses out of branches and bark. Kate had been light and fair where Davey was dark and curly, but they made a fine pair with their toothy smiles and well-made shirts. Tom and his wife had looked after Maggie as best he could when Evan was out at work for Bobby and his crew.

“Come on, get in here.” Tom steered Evan into a pub, “You’re thinner than Death. Eat something.” Tom ordered and paid for both of them.

The low smoke swirled and clung to Evan as he gratefully spooned up a plateful of gravy with a chunk of bread. Miners squeezed into the pub around them, slinking like wet cats. They crowded around the fire, filling the air with the smell of damp, greasy sweat. Somebody was playing a harmonica. The song was sad and slow. Evan looked up at Tom only when the tin plate was clean.

“You’ve been out by yourself, then?” Tom sipped at his lager. Evan nodded. “We thought so, when we found the place abandoned, but for poor Maggie. I saw to her arrangements…Bobby Cole, that bastard! I’m sorry, Evan.”

Evan just stared. After a moment, he started to check on his supplies. Thankfully, nothing had spilled but the tea and it was mostly gathered up in a fold at the bottom of his swag. He’d sift it into a pouch later.

“It was Katie, too, wasn’t it? We couldn’t find her, though we looked for days.” Tom’s voice was low and thick. “Goddamn it, Evan.”

It was hearing the name that broke him. Evan’s face crumpled into a sob, tears and spit mingling as they ran down his bruised face. The wooden table soaked up his tears as he pounded on it. Splinters dug into his fist. Men stared, though some of them pretended not to. Evan’s chest felt as if someone was driving a pick into the cavity and lifting out the pieces with a shovel.

He’d not been able to carry them both, but Evan had buried his little girl with his own dirty hands, in the dark, in the hills of Pennyweight Flats. They were truly named—no more than a pennyweight of gold could be found in the ground thereabouts. It was poor land for mining but it was suited for burying their young ones, dead on the fields from measles and whooping cough and scarlet fever. For hours, he had hacked away at the earth, ignoring pinpoints of warmth that sat within the soil below. It wasn’t enough to warm Katie up again. He’d not had time to go back for Maggie, though his heart had broken with the shame of leaving her for the neighbours.

When Evan had finally dug deep enough to lay Katie down in an old nailed-up box, he’d discovered that the corners of the makeshift coffin were too big to fit. So he’d had to take up his tools and widen the grave, chipping and clawing away at the earth so that he could just be done with it. It was for her that he stayed, when he could have fled into New South Wales and tried his luck there. He’d left his girl behind in life and couldn’t abandon her again.

Bobby Cole had drowned her in the water barrel.

“Goddamn it,” Tom repeated.

“Daddy?” Both men started. Jill. Tom’s youngest, a little shy of seven. “Daddy, I can’t find Davey.”

“He knows to be back before dark,” Tom said, rising. The storm was over them now, flinging down rain like it was revenge. “Was he out with the baker’s boys again?”

“One of them beat him and took his stick. The one he’d pretend was a sword. He cried, but he didn’t want me to see, so he ran off in the rain.”

The roof was shaking now. Everyone inside moved closer to the fire.

“That boy…go home, Jilly, love. Tell Ma that I’ll be back with Davey soon.” Tom madeto leave. “I’m sorry, Evan, I’ve got to look for him.”

Something that he couldn’t name pushed Evan to speak. “I’ll come,” he said. “Maybe I can find him.”

Tom looked at him sharply. “Aye. Maybe you can.”

Evan’s clothes were nowhere near dry, but he cringed back from the rain all the same. A wind had picked up and was blowing the droplets this way and that. It wasn’t yet sunset but the storm had bought on darkness. Evan squinted through the downpour but didn’t see a trace of Bobby, nor his man Mully. A few men who couldn’t afford a plate or a beer were huddled on the pub porch, hands tucked under arms. The area was notorious for unpredictable weather but they were grumbling all the same.

It was no use asking around aimlessly for a lost boy. Kids were as common as dogs around the town, scrapping and stealing and shouting at the chase. Tom blustered over to the rear of the bakery. The three baker’s boys scowled in turns and made a show of beating flour from their trousers.

“Could have gone to the fort,” one of them said, sullenly. All three had short-cropped hair and burns on their hands from hot trays. “We didn’t let him in, but sometimes he’d climb up anyway.”

“And where is that?” Tom pressed. “Come on, lads. I’m in no mood for games.”

“Out near Anderson’s bottom dam,” said the youngest and meekest. Tom frowned at the boys and tugged Evan along with him.

The earthen streets were slippery and shining in the light of the oil-lamps that hung from poles at every crossroad. Only the unfortunates were out in the weather now. Everyone with a canvas to huddle under was stripping off wet clothes by candlelight and cursing the sudden deluge.

Tom strode purposefully, his face set. Davey was in for a whipping, that was a fact. It grew darker as they left the oil-lamp light of the main streets and darker still as they wove through the shanty town at the outskirts. Evan passed an abandoned boot, laces askew, stuck deep in the mud. Its broken sole leaked rainwater. He stumbled, kicking through puddles, trying to see over his shoulder and into the gloom. Bobby was there, somewhere, waiting, with Mully whispering in his ear of untouched veins and riches beyond any miner’s dreams.

“He’ll not be back tonight. Come on, Evan.” Tom cupped his hands to his mouth. “Davey! Da-vey!” There was a note of fear in Tom’s voice that Evan had never heard before. “Davey! If you can hear me, get here, now!”

There was no reply as they arrived at Anderson’s property.

“See it?” Tom gestured, dashing the wet from his face. “The baker’s boys built it last summer.” His hair was stuck flat to his scalp. “So it was them who stole the door off my kitchen to use as a floor, the bastards. I was in the front and never heard nothing.”

Evan followed Tom’s point. He made out a dark spot in the split of a ponderous gum. A dam pooled near the base, banks slick and grasping. A piece of bark tore itself off the fort’s makeshift roof and flapped to the ground. Evan couldn’t be sure with the poor light and storm, but he couldn’t feel a body in there.

There was something, though. A human pulse and flicker that was somewhere else, somewhere lower. The essence skipped and wavered like a guttering candle until Evan remembered the way that Davey’s dark hair curled in the front and the way he’d laugh when Katie pushed him down the slag hill.

There. Evan had him. All was gasping, thrashing. Evan pushed past Tom, peering through the undergrowth with his eyes as well as his heart.

The rain had churned the dam and its bank into a soup of rock and mud. It wasn’t until Evan saw the slippery furrow leading from the base of the tree that he noticed the writhing and roiling of a small body in the water.

“Tommy, there!” Evan pulled Tom’s sleeve. “Can you see him?”

“Davey!” Tom ran for the dam. “I’m coming!” A snapped-off limb snagged him as he bashed toward his son. A streak of blood ran down his left arm.

Evan watched, clinging to Davey’s spark. His boots were full of rain but it could have been liquid lead pooling about his toes. He couldn’t so much as bend his knee to take a single step forward. Is this how Katie had felt at the end? Delicate as a tadpole’s flutter, growing softer as the water engulfed her? A shiver jumped from toes to nose, clattering his jaw as it went. Tom was at the dam’s softening edge now.

“Evan! Evan, I can’t swim…God!” Tom couldn’t reach Davey without flinging himself into the water. He howled and staggered back up toward the gums, wrenching a dead branch off a fallen tree. Tom probed the bank, shoulders shaking.

The tackle came from nowhere, snapping Evan’s head back and ploughing his body into the sodden leaves and bark. Mully wrapped his arms around Evan’s, clamping them to his waist. The two men tangled their way forward, lumps of exposed rock thumping them as they rolled. Bobby’s hoarse shouts echoed over their fight.

“Get him, Mulligan! Get his hands!”

Evan tore at the dirty skin of Mully’s shoulder with his teeth and spat blood. The lanky man swore and wrenched himself away.

“Bastard.” He slapped Evan hard across the mouth. Evan scrabbled toward Tom who was, helplessly, still easing his way into the turgid water.

“Help me! Please, I can’t reach him, I can’t…” Tom was waist-deep now. “Davey, please, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Mully stood over Evan, ignoring Tom.

“Stay down!” Bobby’s broken teeth jutted from the split in his beard. “We’re taking you with us tonight, Evan.” Bobby’s gun was pointed at Evan’s head. It was a grandfather of a piece, but it was still young enough to drive a bullet into his skull.

“No.” Evan shook his head. He shook all over. “I can’t.”

“You can, or we’ll end this now.” Bobby drew closer, the barrel of his gun an inch away from Evan’s eye. A droplet hung off the end like a tear. Thunder rumbled, twice, thrice.

“Help, please…I’ve nearly got him, I just need…” Tom splashed, so close now. “God he’s not moving. God! Help me, you bastards!”

Davey’s light flared and then went out.

Evan said, “No more. Just kill me.” He backed up and eased himself onto a knee. “You’ll get nothing if you do, but you’re not taking me. Not again.”

It was too dark to make out the colour of Bobby’s eyes, but Evan held his gaze. Bloody dirt crunched under his teeth as he tightened his aching jaw.

“Are you going to kill me, Bobby?” Evan’s voice was only as loud as it needed to be. “Do it. Kill me.”

“You fucking bastard.” The tip of the gun wavered and dipped. There was no fear in the tremble, only rage. “We could be rich. You fucking bastard.”

“Kill whoever you want, I won’t help you. I won’t.” Evan lifted his chin, fearless for the first time in months.

Bobby roared and threw down his gun. He locked his hands around Evan’s throat and rammed his body to the ground.

Evan rolled so that he was atop the man who had held him captive, who had killed his wife and drowned his daughter. Evan screamed and hit and hit; he raged like a bonfire. Bobby hit back but each blow was weaker than the last. There was a flicker within Bobby’s body, something that Evan could see as he punched. It was the basic element of who Bobby was: his spark. Evan punched one more time and heard the crack of bone. As he hauled in a breath, the spark ran out of Bobby and flooded into Evan, crackling down his arms and legs like lightning.

Evan rose, jittering, and left the shell of Bobby bleeding in the muddy grass. Mully’s feet slapped the wet dirt as he ran for town, though not to the law. The Joes knew him well enough not to trust his word.

Let him run. Evan had a boy to save.

“I’m coming, Tommy!” Evan staggered and slid his way down the dam bank. Tom was wide-eyed and neck-deep. One arm was wrapped around Davey. The boy was still. Evan perched on the most solid piece of clay that he could find.

“Bring him here, Tom. Come on.” Evan held the same stick that Tom had used to poke the mud. It was bent and too short, but Tom half-swam, half-stepped closer until his large hand wrapped around it. They were heavy, the pair of them, and saturated.

Between the two of them, Evan and Tom strained and swore and pulled themselves and Davey out of the dam and onto flat ground. The boy’s lips were blue. His eyes were open but he didn’t blink away the rain that sprinkled, lighter now, over his face.

“Got to get the water out,” Tom said, turning the boy. “Push, come on.” He shoved at Davey’s ribs. Nothing happened. “Come on.”

“Here, give him to me.” Evan took the boy. The life that he’d taken from Bobby flickered through his veins, too much for one man to hold.

Evan took in a lungful of air. He pushed into Davey’s chest the way he did with dirt. He flooded the boy with fire, with breath, with life. He heard a wet noise but didn’t open his eyes. Tom was praying but he kept forgetting the words.

Evan felt a lick of flame rising within Davey. It grew slowly, until it was burning on its own, filling up the boy and bringing him back from the dark.

Davey hacked and coughed and spewed out the rest of the water that had filled him. He cried along with his father. Tom rubbed his hands over Davey’s arms and chest, chasing away the cold.

“Thank you, Lord, thank you. We’ll get you to a fire, Davey, don’t worry. We’ve got you now, we’ve got you.” The gap in Tom’s teeth whistled.

A life saved didn’t begin clear the balance, but it helped. Evan stood and carefully wiped his hands clean on his wet shirt.

Evan coughed. His whole body felt wrung-out like an old cloth. He wouldn’t be able to travel far for at least a day, maybe two, though it no longer mattered. He was where he belonged. Home.

Evan stood and carefully wiped his hands clean on his wet shirt.

Chris Ovenden

Upgrade

Originally published by Penny Shorts, Jan 2015

* * *

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” the consultant said, pushing her chair over to her desk as I sat up in my new body.

I swung my legs off of the bed and flexed my fingers. They felt the same. Looked the same too, far as I could tell. My new eyes were still getting used to the light.

“I didn’t expect it to be so quick.”

“It can seem that way,” she rolled back over, holding a small torch. “We don’t engage your consciousness until you’re fully formed. We used to wake you a lot sooner, but it caused too many misprints. Look up.”

She flashed the torch in my eyes.

“People panicked, flailed around and messed up the print. Lots of mental trauma. Had to reprint the first few thousand.”

She turned the torch off and dropped it into her pocket.

“OK, looking good. Computer shows no major artefacts, module’s nicely integrated. Looks like an excellent print. Any discomfort anywhere? Headache?”

“Uh. No. No headache. Bit Disoriented.”

“That’s normal, just the synapses warming up. The module should power up overnight. Give us a call if you experience any pain or queasiness.”

I nodded and stood up.

“Just one thing before you go.”

She pulled open a blind to reveal a white walled room behind a thick sheet of glass. Someone was in there: up against the window.

I felt my new heart jump into my throat.

It was my body. My old body. Only it was still alive, still conscious: peering through at us.

“I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be dead? I thought you transferred me into this body.”

“Transferred? No. We take a scan of your old body, then print you with the requested augmentations. It’s all in our booklet.”

It was knocking on the window. It looked confused.

“So, that’s me. The real me. I mean, I never left the scanner.”

“Of course you did. Here you are!”

“But…we can’t both be me.”

The consultant gestured to a button on the wall. “Hit that and you’ll be the only one. Fills the room with nerve-gas. Very quick.”

“What? I can’t! I mean it’s…me.”

“Who’s you? You remember signing the policy. You’re here now. Who else are you, but you?”

“…can’t you do it?”

She shook her head. “Company Policy. If I do it, it’s murder. You do it, it’s just self-improvement.”

My old body had realised what was going on. It started yelling, throwing itself against the window: fists and knees bouncing off the reinforced glass.

Could I really do this?

“You didn’t read the fine print.” The consultant shrugged. “That’s not your problem now.”

My body was begging. I couldn’t hear what it was saying, but I could tell it was begging. Pleading for its life. Pleading for my life.

“He made his choice. Like you said, you can’t both be you.”

I felt like the real me. But how would I know?

I looked my old body in the eye.

What would he do?

END

Peace for our Times

Originally published by Every Day Fiction, June 2015

* * *

“One hundred days,” I say as the prime minister leafs through the contract I’d given him. He scans the pages through a pair of black rimmed spectacles held in front of his nose with a chubby white fist.

He looked much as I had expected him to: black suit and bowtie, slouched in his chair with a cigar wedged between his fingers. The office we were in seemed rather humble for his station, though. A cramped little dungeon, dotted with wooden posts to hold up the floor above. The walls were mostly bare, save for a bookshelf and a few photographs and newspaper clippings, soon to be replaced by sprawling maps of a world at war, no doubt.

“One hundred days,” I say again, “split into no less than three hundred nights, spread out over the next ten years. We’d work out a schedule for you, arrange your transport.”

The prime minister lays the contract down on the desk and tucks his glasses away into his jacket. “And what would I be doing on these nights, exactly?” One got the impression that there was a little too much flesh in his mouth when he spoke.

“Dinner parties, public speaking.” I shrug. “Who’s to say, it’s all down to the client’s personal tastes.”

It was usually best not to think about what clients might want to do with the escorts.

“You’re a celebrity, or at least you will be. People in the future want your time. They want to show you off to their friends, spend their evenings talking to you over a glass of whisky. We just facilitate that demand. We take you to the people who want to meet you most.”

He goes back to looking at the contract, straightening it up with his fingertips so that its bottom edge runs parallel to the desk.

“Suppose I sign. What’s in it for me?”

“Everything.” I say with a grin.

“You’re talking about the war.”

I nod. “And more. We ensure that things go as they’re supposed to, that all your efforts are successful. We make sure that you become the man that our clients want to meet."

He pops his cigar into his mouth and strikes a match to light it.

“So I sign this, and the war ends before it even starts.”

“Ha! That wouldn’t be very theatrical now, would it? No, there most certainly will be a war, I’m afraid, and there will be casualties. But we’ll be there to make sure the right side wins.”

“And if I refuse this…generous offer of yours? What then? I mean, who’s to say we need your help?”

I flash the prime minister another grin, then stand up and step over to my right to inspect the pictures on the wall.

“Wonderful shot, this,” I say, pointing to a framed newspaper clipping. Its headline piece shows a skeletal man in an old suit triumphantly waving a sheet of paper above his head like a tiny white flag.

“Fascinating man, your predecessor,” I say, leaning in a little closer so that I can see the white streaks in the old premier’s hair. “He turned us down. We made him a similar offer, not long before this was taken actually. Hundred days, win the war.”

I take the frame off the wall and hold it in my hands, running a thumb over the old man’s face. “Such a shame.”

We really had made the old PM an offer, and he really had turned us down. Of course, we always knew that he would. Did he even have a choice?

“Peace for our time,” I say, holding the picture up to the prime minister. “We all know how that turned out, don’t we.”

I set the picture back on the wall and return to my chair. The prime minister glowers at me from across the desk, chewing on his cigar like he’s trying to eat it.

“We could always talk to your friend on the continent,” I say. “I hear he’s keen on this sort of thing. Not our first choice, of course, but we can make do. Time has a strong current prime minister, but even the greatest rivers can be diverted.”

He scowls and takes out his pen.

END

Behind Grey Eyes

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction, Sept 2015

* * *

“I don’t know that I’m comfortable with the whole zombie thing, you know.”

Sara laughs. “What, you scared they’re going to eat you?” She’s too busy counting out exact the change for her coffee to look at me.

“Very funny.” I scratch at the ‘Jen’ written on the side of my cup. He does his Js like I do, a curly tail with no bar on top.

“It’s just…I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right sometimes.”

“Four…thirty-five. There you go.” Sara puts the coins into the zombie’s hand and joins me at the end of the counter. “What doesn’t?”

“Using them like we do.”

The zombie drops Sara’s coins into the till and sets about making her coffee. He looks about twenty-five, quite handsome for a zombie: thick black hair shaved at the sides, light stubble on his chin, striking grey eyes. You’d never guess what he was, if it weren’t for the Z scorched neatly into his cheek. I actually kind of liked it on him.

“Why? They don’t feel anything. They aren’t…whatcha call it…conscious, or whatever.”

“I guess I never really understood how that’s supposed to work.”

Sara shrugs. “They shut off a part in their brain. Prevent awareness loops. We did it in neuro last semester. Did you get an invite to Maddie’s next week?”

“Hmm?” It takes me a second to realise we’ve changed topics.

“She’s invited Tom and Charlie but not me. I mean, as if they weren’t going to tell me.”

Tom and Charlie lived across from us in first year. Sara was seeing one of them for a bit, I forget which one. They sort of blended into each other to be honest. I sometimes wondered if Sara even knew who was who. And now she was ignoring me.

“You might be a zombie for all I know.”

Sara laughs, loud enough to draw the zombie’s attention away from the coffee he’s making her. “You think I’m a zombie?”

“No, but it’s not like I can look inside your head, is it.”

I go back to watching the zombie. He’s looking at me now, smiling, his big grey eyes flirting with me across the counter. I almost look away. I would have if it was anyone else.

“Don’t you ever wonder what it’s like, being a zombie?”

“It’s not like anything,” Sara says, “that’s the point, that’s why they’re behind the counters and we’re drinking the coffee. Or at least we would be if it ever hurries up.”

The zombie’s eyes snap back onto the machine. He acts like he’s embarrassed, though, of course, he can’t be.

“I don’t know,” I say, “sometimes I think, maybe we should make our own coffee, drive our own cars. Maybe that’s all just important, you know.”

“You want to work in a coffee shop?”

“No, I just…Forget it.”

I unlock my phone and flick though the dozen or so new messages. Half of them from Sara.

“Sorry about the wait.” The zombie says as it slides the coffee over the counter. Sara takes it and heads for the door without a word.

“Have a nice day,” he says.

“Thanks, you too,” I say for both of us, then, “sorry,” a little quieter. The zombie grins and sinks his hands into his pockets.

“Beautiful day out.”

“huh?”

The zombie leans over slightly to look out the shop front. “Beautiful day.”

“Oh, is it?” I manage. I hadn’t noticed.

The zombie flashes me another grin then goes back to work. I watch him a moment longer, then hurry out after Sara.

“Thanks, Mr Zombie, have nice day, Mr Zombie” she chimes as I fall into step.

“Oh, shut up.”

“Did you get his number?” She laughs. “I don’t know why you bother, it can’t hear you. Not really.”

We walk off towards her car. Sara’s zombie has already seen us coming and started the engine. We’re a few paces away when someone shouts behind us.

“Miss!” I turn to see the grey eyed zombie running after us, and for a moment I think he really might be coming to eat me. I let out a tiny shriek and step backwards off the curb, tumbling over and landing squarely on my bum.

I open my eyes.

I’m looking up at the zombie: his silhouette against the clear autumn sky, the late afternoon sun brushing through his hair. Along the street, the trees lining the road are just starting to turn, painting the red brick buildings behind them with splashes of green and orange and gold.

“Are you ok?” the zombie says as I take his outstretched hand. “I think you forgot this.” He pulls me to me feet. He’s got my purse in his other hand.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sara screams, “You scared her half to death!” She starts fumbling with her phone. “What street is this? I’m reporting this.”

“I’m really sorry,” he tries, “I didn’t mean to make you jump.”

“No no,” I say, brushing myself off, “it was my fault. I wasn’t really looking. Thank you.”

The zombie nods and hands me my purse.

Sara is still screeching beside us. Acting outraged, though of course she isn’t. Her zombie has jumped out of the car by now and wandered over to see if I’m alright. I wave him away.

“I’ve got to get back,” my grey eyed zombie says, “sorry again.” I give him a little wave as he jogs back to the shop, apron flapping beside him. There was a lot going on behind those grey eyes of his, even if he couldn’t see it.

“You know,” I say, as he disappears through the door, “it’s such a lovely day, I think I’ll walk home. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

Sara doesn’t answer, she’s still trying to work out where we are. I’m halfway across the road before she calls after me.

“Jen? Hey, where are you going?”

I don’t respond. She’s not listening, not really.

END

Steve Pantazis

Switch

Writers of the Future Volume 31

* * *

The teenager is sprawled by pump number five, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, the word “deceased” hovering over his body through the projection in my retinal overlay. We’re in the middle of a crime scene at a gas station in Jackson Heights, Queens just after sunset, where the decedent expired during a shootout with police. One officer was hit in the face, pronounced dead on site, the other two in the neck by return fire, now at a nearby hospital. I pray they make it.

The June humidity makes me want to tear off my clothes. Instead, I let my blazer bunch up around the elbows as I squat by the body. We have the station taped off and the street blocked on either end with a couple of cruisers.

Lieutenant Briggs is on his way, and at some point we’ll talk to the media. There’s a crowd of hungry spectators beyond the barricade, along with several news vans. I’m not going anywhere for the next few hours.

My partner, Detective Ed Mullins, holds up an evidence bag. He’s sweating worse than me. “Three casings, nine mil.”

“Where are the rest?”

“That’s it.”

“What, he got lucky or something?”

Mullins shoves a stick of chewing gum in his mouth. “That’s what I’m saying. I checked the mag on his Glock. You can count the bullets yourself, if you want.”

I peer at the teenager with fresh eyes while Mullins chomps his gum. The suspect is a good-looking kid, Puerto Rican with an athletic build, ocean wave-style trendy haircut and gelled sideburns. He’s wearing a plain, bloodied white t-shirt and expensive jeans and sneakers. Doesn’t fit the profile of a sharpshooter.

“How many shells from our side?”

“Eleven.” Mullins pops a bubble. “Our ME says this one took four to the chest. He must have been on something, ’cause he didn’t drop until after our guys went down.”

I didn’t take the kid for a user, but then again, you can’t assume anything these days. We ID’d him as Kurt Rodriguez, seventeen, address from the nice part of Forest Hills. His head is cocked to the left. I part the hair above his ear, exposing the port of his temporal lobe implant. There’s a designer enamel grommet clamped on, Chinese characters around the ivory-colored rim. Kids love to mod their TLI ports with all kinds of stuff. This is pretty conservative considering what I’ve seen.

Twelve feet away is a splotch of blood soaked into the grime from where Officer Nolan Yee bled out, numbered markers left in place of his body. Part of me wants to plant the heel of my shoe over Rodriguez’s skull and cave it in.

Yee and my younger brother Tommy graduated from the academy together. I remember Yee and his girlfriend coming over to the house at our big Super Bowl party where we shared beers while barbecuing out in the cold. Yee was a smart kid, with aspirations of making detective. His girlfriend was pretty, and I could tell he was crazy about her, from the way he kept his hand on the small of her back to the goofy I’m-in-love smile tattooed on his face. Such a freaking shame. He wasn’t a close friend of Tommy’s, but they were rookies together, paying their dues on patrol. I can’t imagine how Tommy will take the news, but it pisses me off just thinking about it. Rodriguez won’t even get a chance to stand trial for what he’s done. Son of a bitch!

The stench of gasoline is heavy. Mullins steps closer, blocking the bright gas station canopy lighting with his two-hundred-twenty-pound frame, belt swooping below his enlarged gut as if holding back a storm. He points at the body. “I’m still picking up a TLI broadcast.”

“Me too. Should have quit with brain death, but something must still be firing.”

Every few seconds, I get a discovery ping from Rodriguez’s temporal lobe implant, which flashes red in my overlay. Usually, you set your TLI on discovery mode if you want another device to find you over the Mindnet. Some neural activity must have triggered the response, but I’m no doctor, so I don’t bother dissecting it.

Our blood spatter analyst corroborates the stories from a couple of eye witnesses that gave their take on what went down at the gas station, including the attendant: Rodriguez had walked over to Yee, who was buying a bottle of water at the kiosk, and shot him point blank in the face, without provocation.

According to Dispatch, two officers in a squad car heard the gunshot from down the block and zipped over in their cruiser. They engaged the suspect and squeezed off a number of shots before Rodriguez fired back, just twice, taking down each officer from about fifty feet away after being critically wounded. The crazy part is that the suspect made no attempt to run or hide.

Mullins shares my sentiment. “He just stood there and picked them off. I’m telling you, he was on something.”

I search the kid’s pockets, turning them inside out. House keys, cash card, mini flashlight, and a packet of breath-freshening strips.

Mullins squats next to me. “Nada, huh?”

I want to agree, but I pop open the plastic dispenser and hold it up to my nose. It smells of cinnamon and cloves and something else I can’t quite place, but I’m positive what we’re dealing with without needing to wait for results from a lab. I lick my lips, imagining how it would taste, dissolving the wafer-thin strip until only the exotic oils remain on my tongue.

Mullins calls my name, but I don’t respond until he says it a second time. “Parker!”

I snap the dispenser closed. “Yeah, just thinking.”

“Well, think out loud.”

I hold up the blue plastic case. It’s half the size of my thumb. “Homegrown.”

“You sure?”

“Smell.” He does, but his face clouds over, like he’s trying to wrestle with the fact it’s not something you buy at a 7-Eleven. He wrinkles his nose. “What kind of product, you think?”

“Switch.”

He nods slowly, getting it. “Told you he was on something. They usually come in pasty dots, printed on paper ribbon, or in clear tabs. Haven’t seen this form before.”

But I have.

Sublingual delivery is by far the best way to get it into your bloodstream. Dots, tabs, strips—doesn’t matter. Stick one under your tongue and say goodbye to foggy thoughts. It’s big with the underage crowd because they love to surf the Mindnet in long marathon sessions. Rat race junkies enjoy the extra boost when they have to pull eighty-hour workweeks. Athletes have been accused of taking it, but there is no mandatory testing yet in the sports community. Same with military and law enforcement.

The best way to describe the experience is to imagine a massive caffeine high. You get that awesome rush, that laser focus, that burst of euphoria, like who cares if it’s Monday morning at the office with a ton of shit to do. Nothing matters at the moment because your brain has turned off all your concerns, all the pain, all the problems of the day—everything. What you’re left with is your subconscious mind taking over; and you just go with it. Switch does that. It gives you a mental edge over those around you. You think better, you work better, you fight better. You are better.

Unfortunately for the enthusiast, it’s illegal, and you don’t just get a misdemeanor for possession these days.

“Well, it explains a few things.” Mullins waves a hand over the scene. “But it doesn’t explain why he snapped and went on a killing spree.”

Mullins is wrong, but I don’t say it. He’s never had a taste, so his only experience is what he learned during morning briefings, and on the Net. This is cutting-edge, psychotropic-grade product, and the scientific community is just starting to discover its true potential. In my mind, this stuff is a game changer.

I hold the dispenser between gloved fingers with newfound respect, almost reverence. So small, yet a powerhouse of mind manipulation. I place it in an evidence bag and resign it over to Mullins. “See if your guy can get us an expedite on this. I want to know how much is in our susp’s system.”

Mullins holds the bag up to the light. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I come to my feet, and the blood returns to my cramped legs. We need to finish processing the crime scene. “All right, chief, let’s get a move on.”

* * *

It’s almost midnight by the time I crawl into bed. I’m so exhausted I can’t sleep. We made a statement to the press, buttoned up the scene, and tried to interview the murder suspect’s mother, who was in pieces over her son’s death. Then I had to spend almost thirty minutes on a call with Tommy, trying to calm him down. The whole evening was a mess.

My wife Suzie’s eyes flutter open when I turn on the lamp. She looks over at the clock radio on her nightstand and frowns. “So late. Everything okay?”

“It’s just work. I’ll tell you about it in the morning, sweetie. Go to sleep.”

She yawns. “Caitlyn asked about you. I wished you would have called.”

“I know.” Our four-year-old loves to hear my voice at least once before she goes to bed, even if I’m on the job. It’s not like me to miss the opportunity. If I had even the briefest moment alone…

I give my wife a cursory kiss on the cheek and let her roll onto her stomach, covers pulled up to her neck. She tells me in her drowsy voice that she loves me.

“I love you too, babe.”

Thirty seconds later, she’s asleep. I watch the soft rise and fall of her back and the dark-brown tumble of hair lying across her shoulder blades. I’ve been married twelve years, and I still see the same twenty-one-year-old, that fragile girl who defied her parents to marry a cop.

Caitlyn is the spitting-image of her mother. She’s incredibly smart and uses the Net better than anyone I know. She was born into the Mindnet generation. I was sixteen when it became commercially available, touted as the “Internet for the mind,” and twenty-nine when I got my temporal lobe implant. I used to the think the Internet was the end-all-be-all, as a kid. Then the Mindnet came along, and all of a sudden, we were using wearable prosthetics that could connect our brains to banks, retailers and social networks. TLIs followed, replacing cell phone calls, e-mails and texts with thought-enabled communications. My parents would laugh, recalling a time when a networked computer was a marvel. Now it’s the brain, and little Caitlyn will think of the Mindnet as I did of its predecessor, and how she never knew a time before it existed.

I shut off the lamp, but I still can’t sleep. I’m smelling cinnamon and cloves and…

Cardamom! That’s the spice I couldn’t think of!

I connect to the Net through my TLI and quickly pull up a wiki on Switch. It appears in my retinal overlay as a semi-transparent page against the room’s darkened background. There’s a complete onscreen breakdown of the history of Switch. It started as an accidental offshoot of a popular antidepressant, found to increase memory retention and response time in rodents. The pharmaceutical name is Duoxatane, but it was never approved for human trials. Still, somebody came up with the brilliant idea to package it into digestible form and put it on the street. The Cardamom masks the bitter taste of the active ingredient.

Thoroughly awake, I log into the precinct portal and pull up the case file for today’s homicide. A thumbnail of each page is tiled across the bottom of my overlay. I select the first one and start at the beginning. Some of the information on the expired suspect has been updated, but it will be at least tomorrow when the lab work comes back. I remember Alicia Rodriguez crying her eyes out, wondering how her son could have shot anyone. There were similar reactions from the father and younger sister, who swore Kurt Rodriguez, track and field star of Forest Hills High School, was incapable of perpetrating the murder of one police officer, let alone three. Wait until they find out how much Switch was in his system.

I get out of bed and peek in on Caitlyn. She’s asleep, thumb in her mouth, with the covers bunched around her feet, same long, dark hair as her mother. She’s got my wide-swept ears though. I feel bad about missing our nite-nite chat. I pull her blanket over her shoulders and tell her how much Daddy loves her. She snoozes on. I wish I could sleep like that.

I go down to the basement, my man cave. I’ll never get the smell of cigars out of the carpet, but it’s comforting to me, and this is where I do my best thinking. There’s a workbench by the water heater, with an old, rusted vise mounted on the side, and a bunch of small tools I use for my hobby work. I rest my palm on the vise for a moment. It was my father’s. He was a tool-and-die worker, and spent most of his career at a ball bearing manufacturing plant in Philly. He always wanted me to find an honest job, and stick to it; and all I wanted to do was make my old man proud.

I take a deep breath and ease open the plastic organizer that holds the assortment of nails, screws, washers and bolts. There’s a box of matches underneath a dozen ten-penny nails. It doesn’t have any matches in it. I turn on the bench light and open the box. Like precious bars of gold bullion, the wafer-thin strips glint in the light. I’m greeted by a fresh burst of apple and hint of cardamom. There are only three strips left, and a slight panic settles in. I usually do a strip before breakfast, but on a night like tonight, especially when my conscience is weighed down, I’m tempted to do a second. That would leave me a day to restock. Suzie doesn’t know about my secret habit. I could never tell her.

A pang of guilt floods my innards. I imagine what my father would have thought of my stealthy enterprise. What would I say to him—that I started because of the long hours at work; that it helped me cope with the Nolan Yee’s of the world; that I kept going to deaden my nerves any time I came upon a teenage tragedy like Rodriguez’s? My father wouldn’t buy any of it.

I reach over and give the vise a good pat. Thank goodness the old man’s not around to witness this. He had that sixth sense, the kind that kicked in anytime I did something wrong, no matter how good I thought I was at hiding it. Tommy, on the other hand, seemed to get away with everything.

I dislodge a paper-thin sheet from the matchbox. It adheres to the moisture on my fingertip. I hold the see-through amber film up to the light, marveling at how such a thing could have driven Rodriguez to murder. I can understand the elevated aggression with higher and more prolonged doses, but the same could be said of alcohol. Was the Switch enough to make a star athlete snap?

I have a lot of questions percolating through my head. At the top of the list is finding out what drove Rodriguez to murder.

I place the strip on my tongue. It dissolves in seconds. Immediately, my head is clear, my concentration restored. I can feel the heat from the light, the faint scent of glue from the applicator across the room, the electrical pulse of my TLI firing packets of data out into Mindspace.

I am not the man I was a minute ago. I am not like my partner, whose mind is dulled by everyday living, nor like the honest working man I aspired to be. I am something else entirely. Free. Evolved. A new category of species. My unamplified self would condemn my actions. But in my enhanced state, I am exactly who I need to be.

* * *

We’re in our cubicle farm at the precinct, a little after eight in the morning. Mullins distracts me with his nasty habit of biting his nails. Forty-three, divorced with five kids from two different marriages, and alimony payments to both wives, he’s a perpetual ball of nervous energy. I thank my stars Suzie and I have stuck through thick and thin and waited until I made Detective before we had Caitlyn. Mullins was fresh out of the academy when he had his first kid. He looks like an old man, with deep rings under the eyes on his puffy face. I feel sorry for him, but not as sorry as I do for his children. My parents divorced when I was seven, so I know about shitty deals.

The second dose from last night kept me going until dawn. Even though I started out the morning feeling like a zombie, I’ve had two cups of coffee on top of my usual strip, so I’m a little more wired than usual. I don’t like to dose in the evenings for exactly this reason, but I needed the extra perk to keep my mind from racing in random directions, which would have kept me up anyway. With my cleared thoughts, I was able to contend with the culpability of using, of being a deceiver who classified Rodriguez as a criminal when I wasn’t much better.

But then again…I hadn’t shot Yee in the head.

Mullins stops gnawing long enough to speak. “I don’t get it. He was being interviewed by scouts from two top-ten universities, with the chance at a sports scholarship. He had his whole life ahead of him. What’s wrong with this generation?”

I’ve asked myself the same question a million times.

As expected, the lab test came back positive for Duoxatane. We’ll have to wait four weeks for the full toxicology report, but at least we have a preliminary finding that supports my suspicions. Rodriguez had twenty-two milligrams of the drug in his system, a lethal quantity. There were also markers indicating cumulative dosing. It means he was an experienced user, and that he knew what he was doing when he dosed up. Now I’m really irked. And the more I think about it, the more I want to know where he purchased his product. There aren’t too many dealers that supply Switch in the strip form. Could it have been my guy? I give it a few seconds of serious consideration before I dismiss it as coincidence. It could have been anyone—a close friend, a family member, or someone at school.

Mullins pops open a can of soda and slurps loudly. “I’ve been doing a bunch of medical research on Switch.” He pauses to belch. “It doesn’t just amp you up; it interacts with the same neuroreceptors that our TLIs use. I’ve been thinking about how our suspect took just three shots and hit every target. He struck each of our guys above the neckline. You know what kind of skill you need for that in a firefight? How about the fact he didn’t hit them in the Kevlar, like most suspects would? See—this shit is different.” He crosses his arms, smug, as if he’s telling me something I haven’t already figured out.

I flick his can with a finger. “I guess you ruled out paramilitary training, or that he might have been an experienced marksman with a handgun.”

Mullins knots his forehead, not getting my joke. He uses a nail clipping to floss his teeth. It bugs me to no end. “Do you have to do that?”

He frowns, then wipes his saliva on his sleeve, and shrugs. “All I’m saying is that this stuff is potent.”

I grab my jacket.

Mullins looks up. “Where are we going?”

“To get answers.”

* * *

“Look, I don’t know where he got it. I already gave my statement. You think I would have let him take that crap under my roof?” Mr. Luis Rodriguez is angry. He’s clutching a white handkerchief embroidered with his initials in his left hand while seated on a bourbon-tinted leather armchair.

We’re at the Rodriguez’s three-bedroom co-op in Forest Hills. It’s upper middle class like the rest of the neighborhood. Mr. Rodriguez works for Delta Technologies in Manhattan, a maker of smart furniture. Supposedly the leather couch I’m sitting on can sense when my back is aching and offer oscillating stimulation to pamper me. It doesn’t feel any different than the other overpriced couches I’ve sat on.

I read over the hand-written notes on my yellow pad. We’ve already spoken to deceased’s mother, sister, track coach, last girlfriend, next-door neighbor, and a former coworker from where the young Rodriguez caddied at a golf course last year. His father is the last stop on a day of zero leads, and I’m hungry. It’s half past four, and the last thing I ate was a bagel with cream cheese first thing this morning. Mullins is sitting next to me, probably ravenous from the way he’s massaging his belly. We’re no closer to getting any answers than before we left the station. The only thing of interest came from the coach who said Kurt Rodriguez had smashed the state record in the hundred-meter dash about a month back.

I give Mr. Rodriguez a few seconds to settle down before I ask the next question. “What about his behavior? You must have noticed something different.”

Mr. Rodriguez’s tone is less confrontational. “Not really.”

“Nothing at all?”

He scratches behind the ear. I examine the body language, but it doesn’t look like he’s covering up for his son.

“I guess the only thing that jumps out at me is that he was studying really hard before the summer break,” Mr. Rodriguez says. “He stayed in his room a lot.”

“Is that unusual?”

“Kurt used to hang out with his buddies after track practice every day. His sister said he stopped doing it altogether and complained he was in his room all the time, playing loud music. I’d always come home late from work, so I didn’t notice the change, and I didn’t think a lot about it.”

I tap my pen against the scribbles on my notepad. I’m surprised the sister didn’t say anything to us about her brother’s newfound seclusion. “How do you know he was studying when he was in his room?”

Mr. Rodriguez looks at me oddly with his tired, sunken eyes, either surprised or offended by my question. “His grades were the best I’ve ever seen. His GPA was always in the high twos, low threes. He got a 4.0 his last marking period. He even scored a perfect hundred on his Math Regents exam. He’d never gotten more than a C in math. So, yeah, I assumed he was studying in his room.”

I want to write something down, but the information is unremarkable. “What about changes in mood? Was he happy, mad, irritated, depressed?”

Mr. Rodriguez glances off to the side. Any hostility he felt toward me is replaced by sadness. He presses his fingertips into the hollows of his eyes while holding up his other hand. I give him a moment. When he opens them, tears roll down his face, and he quickly wipes them away.

“Mr. Rodriguez, I’m sorry, but we need to ask these questions.”

He nods rapidly. “It’s just that—” He clears his throat. “I mean, there are all these calls I have to make. I have to arrange the—you know—the funeral and—” His voice catches. He rubs the stitched initials on his handkerchief with his thumb, and then notices me looking at it. “Kurt gave this to me a week ago for Father’s Day. He had it personalized. See?” He turns it over, and the stitching reads, “To the best father in the world. Love, Kurt.” The anger returns in his voice. “You think he would have done that if he was messed up on that stuff?”

We sit for a moment. I give Mr. Rodriguez the space to collect himself. Mullins is impatient, tapping his foot annoyingly. I shoot him a quit-it look and he stops. I resume my questioning.

“Mr. Rodriguez, do you know what Switch does to the central nervous system? It rewires it. It affects judgment, restraint, motor skills, focus and attention. If you’re doing bad in math, it fixes it. If you think you’re weak, it changes that. If you’re feeling aggressive, it amplifies the sensation. It does a lot with just a little. And when the high is off, the craving hits you, because feeling normal just isn’t good enough anymore.” I hit a high note with the last part, my sermon fueled by confession. Mullins looks at me strangely, but I ignore him, and continue.

“Mr. Rodriguez, it’s not that we don’t hear what you’re saying. No one wants to think their child uses. But do you think nothing was wrong when he shot those police officers?” I’m surprised at my own flare of anger.

Mr. Rodriguez brandishes the handkerchief. “He wasn’t on it when he gave me this! I know my son. He must have taken it for the first time yesterday. Or someone drugged him. Why aren’t you looking into that?”

Kurt Rodriguez was an addict, pure and simple. His father can’t recognize the signs. “We found quite a bit in his bloodstream. There were indications he was dosing regularly. No one drugged him.”

Mr. Rodriguez perks up. We’re not allowed to share lab specifics during an investigation, especially before the official report comes out, so I leave it at that.

I try to get back to obtaining a meaningful answer. “What about new associates? Did your son meet any new people, either outside of school or over the Mindnet?”

“None that I was aware of.”

“What about his feelings toward authority? Any changes in his views on religion or politics or the government?”

Mr. Rodriguez throws his hands up. “Look, I already told you I don’t know anything. I hardly saw him as it was, and now…” He swallows. He’s on the verge of crying. His voice comes out chaffed. “And now, I won’t get to see him again.”

I sigh inwardly. We’re spinning our wheels.

I thank Mr. Rodriguez for his time. He barely acknowledges me. We leave him in his armchair, handkerchief clenched in his hand, tears of defeat streaking down his face.

* * *

Back at the precinct, we go through the items seized from Kurt Rodriguez’s bedroom. The little shit had to have been OCD, because everything was arranged and aligned perfectly on his desk and drawers—his socks, underwear and t-shirts folded and pressed, his other clothes hanging in the closet, hangers spaced evenly apart.

I recognize the pattern. Switch makes you do things like that. You get all this energy, all this creativity, and you have to use it or you get antsy. Suzie would always ask me how much coffee I drank whenever I’d redo our cupboards, making sure every label on every can or box faced forward, all stacked and sorted neatly, and dust-free; or when I’d work on the lawn for hours, snipping the edges with a scissor, on my hands and knees.

Rodriguez’s room was a total disaster by the time our team was done tearing it apart. The only computerized device they found was his digipad, loaded up with meaningless, hand-drawn sketches and the notes he took during his junior-year classes. The problem these days is that anything of merit is on the Net, and since people use their TLIs instead of old-tech computers for just about everything, you have to go to the cloud if you want anything.

Mullins and I review the panoramic photos taken of the kid’s room, looking for additional clues. The one facet of interest is on the north wall where Rodriguez had meticulously pasted a few hundred blank sticky notes in straight rows and columns, each sticky equally spaced apart.

Mullins shakes his head. “You mean to tell me his father didn’t notice this?”

Thinking about the pattern gives me an idea. I rub my hands together. “You know what we need to do, right?”

“What, get something to eat?”

“No, we need to tap into his last memories.”

Mullins tents his eyebrows, forehead creasing in puzzlement. It takes him a few seconds to get what I’m suggesting. Then he smiles big. “I’ll get us the warrant.”

* * *

It’s called a cerebral trace, and it requires an okay from a judge. I’m not a big fan of digging into a person’s private memories, even when they’re dead, but it’s helped us in the past, like when we scanned the last memories of a murdered rape victim a few months back to find a serial killer before he struck again. I honestly think we saved lives, because we weren’t anywhere near catching the bastard. Privacy advocates argue the technique violates Fourth Amendment rights, and in a way, I see their point. With a pending case at the Supreme Court, we’ll see what happens. Until then, we keep doing our job.

Mullins and I race over to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Manhattan, warrant already forwarded. We meet with Dr. Sanjay Parekh, a neuropathologist certified in cerebral traces. Time is of the essence, considering the decomposition of the brain after death, so I’m happy to see Parekh already at work in the autopsy room. Rodriquez’s blanched form is lying upright on a metal table, the body covered with a sheet below the collarbone, a probe jutting from his skull where I imagine Parekh drilled into it only moments ago. It’s a good thing too because I get a little queasy seeing drills and bone saws in action. Plus, I hate the odor. Mullins always jokes that it smells like corn chips.

Parekh plugs the other end of the electrode into a beige cylinder with a monitor affixed to a mobile cart. “Almost there,” he says, as he continues to set things up.

Mullins chomps noisily on his gum. “Hey, I got a question about the autopsy report.” He attempts a bubble, but the gum flops over his lower lip. He shoves it back into his mouth. “You mentioned something about his right shoulder tattoo being animated. I thought those things stopped post mortem.”

I’d noticed the oddity too, but hadn’t thought much about it. Rodriguez had a black-and-white tattoo of a Bengal tiger with bared teeth that transformed into Chinese characters when animated—nothing fancy or useful in my opinion.

Dr. Parekh checks the monitor while adjusting the cranial probe. The screen is grainy, a dark sea of shimmering speckles. “It’s rare, but not unheard of. Skin cells can survive for days. Animorphs—animated tattoos—function as long as the cells sustain them.”

“So, it’ll work now?” Mullins asks.

Parekh moves over to Rodriguez’s left side. “Take a look.” He presses a gloved finger firmly into the stiff muscle of the shoulder. The Bengal tiger dissolves, changing into a pair of Chinese characters, and then back to the original tiger. “See? Animorphic transformation. Pretty cool, actually.”

Mullins lifts his eyebrows. “Huh. What d’ya know?”

“Stand back, please.” Parekh motions for us to not make contact with the cadaver. I maintain a safe distance.

The doctor taps an icon on the side of the monitor and Rodriguez’s body convulses for a split second. The speckled screen dissolves into a blob of gray and black gradients, expanding and contracting like heated wax in a lava lamp. Parekh rotates his finger over a shaded dial in the sidebar menu, and the screen’s contrast brightens. He adjusts several more controls, and the blur sharpens into an image that looks exactly like the canopy lights at the gas station. “It’s the last thing he saw,” Parekh explains. “We call it residual retinal burn. Let’s see if we can get anything else.”

He taps the screen. The body shudders again. We see fractured images, glimpses of a school locker, a crowd of students in a hallway, a few flashes of different parts of the Rodriguez household—boring scenes, although I’m quite impressed that we’re actually seeing what Rodriguez saw when he was alive. I’ve been through this process before, but it amazes me every time.

The onscreen image changes. We’re looking at what I imagine to be a Mindnet page showing an online store, followed by a chat session with a succession of static images representing a conversation. I’m thinking we’re going nowhere until I spot the familiar packet of strips. I assume our suspect is holding the dispenser when it turns out to be someone else. The dispenser gets handed off to Rodriguez, but I glimpse a y-shaped scar on the knuckle of the tanned individual before it disappears from view.

“Wait, go back!” I jab my finger at the monitor.

Parekh freezes the frame. He tries to retrieve the last scene, but now we’re looking at a bowl of cereal and Rodriguez’s brown fingers moving a spoon around in circles, not bothering to eat. “Sorry, I can’t go back. Don’t worry, it’ll be on the recording.”

The scene continues with Rodriquez still not eating. Something must be bothering him. “Any idea how far back this is?”

“Probably the morning of the incident, or the day before,” Parekh says.

“Not earlier?”

“I’ve never seen any memories older than seventy-two hours. This is pure visual cortex feedback. It’s always short-term.”

Rodriquez slams the spoon down on the table, splashing milk everywhere. There’s no sound with these memories, just raw imagery. Someday, I hope the technology improves so we can get audio. Rodriguez removes his dispenser from his pocket and empties out all the strips. He stuffs the entire wad into his mouth. There had to be at least ten strips in the bundle! Mullins and Parekh seem unfazed. Am I the only one who noticed?

The better part of a minute goes by with Rodriguez sitting at the table. He takes the spoon and bowl and neatly moves them to the side, wiping up the spill with his napkin. Whatever agitation was coursing through him seems to be gone. We watch as he calmly leaves the table and goes up to his room and locks the door. It’s bizarre as he walks in a circle, round and round. He finally stops, and lifts up his mattress. He grabs a handgun resting on the box spring.

Mullins snorts a laugh. “Hah, there’s our murder weapon!”

I ignore Mullins’ outburst and continue to watch as Rodriquez takes his firearm over to his desk. He removes the magazine and makes sure the chamber is empty. He then disassembles the rest of the gun—slide, recoil spring assembly, barrel, pistol base. Each piece is carefully placed on the desk. It’s as if Rodriguez is creating an exploded diagram from an engineering schematic. He retrieves a cleaning kit from a drawer, and proceeds to clean the components with obsessive detail. I recognize the precision in his movements, the need to clean. He’s amped, a fully-charged human turned into a purpose-driven machine.

From there, Rodriguez picks up the pace. He does at least a hundred pushups on the carpet of his bedroom, runs up and down the stairs two at a time, assembles and disassembles his gun faster than anyone I’ve seen. The tasks are repetitive, the mind trapped in a continuum of exacting execution. The next scene shows Rodriguez running on the sidewalk. He glances at his body once. It confirms he’s wearing the clothes we found him in, establishing a timeframe. He hops a chest-high chainlink fence like it’s nothing, dodges cars in a frantic burst across a busy intersection. He then runs past three young males in front of an apartment building. They’re perhaps a little older than him. I catch a sneak peek of their stereographic tattoos. Gang glyphs, visible only through a retinal overlay. Rodriguez stops and turns around with near inhuman dexterity. The largest of the three is goading him, making obscene, taunting gestures. The other two laugh, but in a blink, Rodriguez is on them. He smashes the first in the side of the head with his fist, the second in the Adam’s apple, the third in the side of the neck. It’s something I picture a Navy seal doing to enemy combatants. They’re down in an instant, squirming.

I’m getting an adrenaline high watching the action. I want to deny it, but I can’t help but revel in Rodriguez’s ass-kicking abilities. I want to mimic his superpowers, to become invincible like him.

The thrill ends the second I recognize the gas station. Rodriguez is running at full steam. Without missing a step, he pulls the Glock from his belt. A second later, the kiosk comes into sight. Officer Yee is holding a bottle of water, ready to pay the cashier behind the glass. He looks over to Rodriguez, mystified expression. Rodriguez slows to a walk. My heart is beating crazy in my chest. I know this feeling, this anticipation. The animal wants the prey to engage him. Yee holds off a moment longer, as if trying to rationalize what he’s seeing. He then goes for his duty weapon. Rodriguez blasts Yee in the face. The three of us gasp, Mullins adding in a “Holy shit!” I want to turn away, but I can’t. I’m captivated by Rodriguez’s inhuman display of savagery.

Rodriguez takes a long moment to stare at his reflection in the kiosk glass. I feel like I’m looking at myself, carriage heaving to suck in more oxygen, a predator ready to maul his next victim. I clutch my chest. My heart is thumping like it’s going to explode. Mullins looks my way. “Parker, you all right?”

I have to get out of this room. I need air.

I’m becoming Rodriguez, mirroring his animalistic breathing, a hair trigger from snapping at anything that touches me or comes too close. I think Mullins senses it too, because he leans away.

We let the rest of the scene play out—the arrival of the police cruiser, the shootout with the other two officers, the suspect’s violent death. It ends with the first image we saw of the canopy lighting, then speckled blackness. We’re all quiet, as if waiting for the end credits to the horror movie we just saw.

Mullins is the first to say anything. He turns to Parekh. “You get all that?”

“Everything. My God!” Parekh is obviously shaken.

“‘My God’ is right.” Mullins wipes the sheen of perspiration from his forehead. “I swear, if that SOB weren’t already dead…” Mullins knots a fist, then relaxes his grip. He looks my way. He raises his hand, like he wants to place it on my shoulder, but drops it quickly. “You okay, partner?”

“Fine,” I say. But I’m anything but fine.

* * *

“This is crazy, you know it?” Mullins has his jowls pushed up on his left hand, fat folds in his face bunched like a shar pei’s. He’s on his third can of energy water, the other two empty and crushed into pucks.

We’ve been going over Rodriguez’s recording for almost four hours. Everyone on our floor has gone home for the evening, leaving the rest of the cubicle farm dark and quiet, except for us.

Mullins is playing with his bowl of microwaved popcorn, circulating the kernels endlessly, his nervous energy eating away at my resolve. He points a greasy finger at the screen. “I mean, who gets this kind of front-row seat into a murder’s craziness, huh?”

I replay the scene showing the dispenser handoff between what I imagine is the drug dealer and Rodriguez. We’ve already run the still image against our biometrics database, searching through the collection of tattoos, scars and birthmarks. Fifteen potential matches were returned, not a single one quite like the knuckle scar in the still. The only thing we were able to determine were generic traits: male, late thirties to mid-forties, approximately five-nine in height, medium build, possibly Hispanic.

Mullins downs the last of his water and burps. “Hey, I gotta go. Sandy is driving me crazy. She keeps pinging me to pick up Kevin.”

“I thought this was her week to watch him.”

“It was.” Mullins heaves himself out of his chair and grabs his blazer. He sighs heavily, the weight of life showing in his weary eyes. I don’t envy his situation. Both his exes can be a pain-in-the-ass.

“You’ll be fine,” I say. “Just think: you can knock back a couple after Kevin goes to bed.”

He jiggles his big belly with a smile. “Yeah, that’s what I need.”

I shove him playfully. “Go on, get out of here!”

He tosses a goodbye hand wave and disappears, leaving me with the video of our dead suspect. My smile fades when I see the frozen image of the dispenser in the dealer’s hand. It not only reminds me that we’re no closer to figuring out who’s moving product on the street, but that I’ll be out of my own supply tomorrow evening. I begrudgingly turn off the monitor, sinking into a cesspool of disgust, most of it aimed at myself. What would happen if I were to just go on empty? It’s not like I’m addicted to the stuff.

I catch myself licking my lips again.

I bang the desk, angry. I need to fix this. And the only way I see how, is to do exactly what I’m not supposed to do.

* * *

I park on Sutphin Boulevard, about a block from the Jamaica Long Island Railroad station. A little after eleven, and the streets are still teeming with pedestrians. It’s a shithole of a neighborhood, as mixed as a melting pot gets, mostly low- to middle-income, depending on which side of the block you’re on. My beat-up SUV is fine where it is. I push through the mangle of people walking by toward the subway and stores at the end of the street. I hear the L train in the background as I turn down an alley. I’d ended up going home after Mullins left, only to head out after reading Caitlyn a bedtime story and telling my wife that duty called. In a way, it’s not too far from the truth.

I ring the bell to Apartment Fifteen on the steps outside a rundown tenement. I’m wearing a nondescript tee, jeans and sneakers, with a Mets baseball cap, brim pushed down over my forehead to keep a low profile. I’m mindful of the pair of gang members sitting on the stoop two buildings over. I can tell they’re tracking me as they talk to each other. They’re both wearing wife beaters and shorts that extend down to the ankles. I recognize the stereographic tattoos projecting in front of their chests, burning sigils of circles with exes for eyes. These guys are la hermandad de fuego, Brotherhood of Fire, a Dominican gang that controls this part of Jamaica; and judging from their dot rankings above the circles, I’d say low-level enforcement. The lanky one doesn’t even bother covering up the handgun with the taped grip peeking out from his waistband. He turns my way, and I sense a pingback through my retinal overlay. It’s a discovery ping, a way of saying, “Who are you?” I ignore him; don’t even move an inch to let them know I’m aware of what he’s trying to do. If I were on the job, I’d do my own active pingback, and pull up his rap sheet through our NYPD portal using the electronic signature from his own temporal lobe implant.

The buzzer sounds just in time. The lanky one stands and whistles at me. He just wants to see my face. I quickly push through the door, pretending like I didn’t hear him, and make sure it locks before heading up the stairs.

The building reeks of trash, and the hallway walls are filled with graffiti. How can anyone stand living in a place like this? I knock once on the metal door of Apartment Fifteen. Reggie opens the door, but leaves the chain on. His one visible eye is looking at me, red-glazed, pupil dilated. He’s getting skulled, I’m sure. It’s a cheap high, requiring a Mindnet app you download to root the firmware of your TLI. The TLI fires a pulse every few seconds, flooding the brain with alpha waves. Stupid in my opinion, because you can get stuck in an endless loop, and eventually, a coma.

Reggie wipes the dribble dangling from his lip. “Hey.”

“You going to let me in?”

He waves a catatonic hand. “Pockets.”

It’s the same ritual every time. I turn my jean pockets inside out and lift my shirt to show him I’m not packing. He’s too stupid to ask me to lift the cuff on my pants. I’ve got a .22 handgun concealed in an ankle holster. Not much use against the guys downstairs though.

“Okay.” He unlatches the chain and lets me in.

I hate the routine—going inside, smelling that rotten Chinese food stink that never goes away, seeing the disarray of clothes, wrappers and dirty dishes everywhere. I’ve asked him a number of times to exchange product for cash at the door, but he wants me to wait on the dirty couch as he tries to remember where he stashed his supply of Switch. This time, I’m glad he let me in. I’ve got to talk to him.

“Have a seat.” He points at the couch as he teeters toward the kitchen. I don’t bother sitting.

Reggie is an odd-looking creature, real narrow head, with a leather-brown Columbian complexion, early thirties, although his compulsive drug use has him looking much older. He was a certified informant for us a couple years back, paid to report on local gang activity. He helped me make a buy, and that’s where I got a sample of the good stuff. He’s no longer on payroll, but he’s still my go-to-guy.

After a few minutes, he staggers back in. “Yo, I can’t find it.”

It’s not what I want to hear. “You can’t remember where you put it? Maybe it’s in the bedroom, like last time, or the closet.”

His drowsy face twists into a frown. “You telling me how to run my shit? I”—he yanks his hand haphazardly—“Yo man, I know what I’m doing. Don’t tell me how to run my shit, okay?”

I let him go through the motions. Part of my brain says I’ve made a mistake coming here, the other part knowing this guy’s track record. He’s always come through for me. I’ve used other sources in the past, but Reggie’s stuff is hands-down the best, even if he’s out of his mind.

His expression clouds over. Then he starts giggling like a child, snot bubbling from his nose. “Wait!” He snorts his way into a laughing fit. He catches his breath and then settles into a massive grin. “The bathroom! Yeah, it’s there.”

He weaves out of sight, returning a minute later, waving a plastic dispenser with a Listerine logo, carrying a few more in his other hand. He tosses me the one with the logo. “Hope you like grape.”

I exchange money for product, taking possession of the five dispensers, a hundred strips total. I’ve asked for more in the past, but Reggie claims it’s all he has.

I click open each dispenser, examining the contents, making sure I’m getting a full supply per unit. The cardamom scent is subtle.

“What, you don’t trust me?”

I ignore him and shove the collection into my jean pocket. I pull out an equal sum of money as I gave him a minute ago, along with a folded printout from my back pocket. He looks at me and just blinks. “What’s this?”

“I need to find someone. Here, take the money.” He palms it, still blinking in confusion. I show him the blowup image of the knuckle with the y-shaped scar. “I’m looking for a guy who deals, Hispanic, with a scar like this on his hand.”

He holds up the printout and squints. He looks at me, then the printout, and darts his eyes back and forth several times. He stops and tosses it on the floor, along with the money. Bills spill over the dirty carpet. Damn!

Reggie points harshly at me. “You crazy, man? What’s this all about? What do you want? I don’t work for you anymore!” He rocks back and forth, anger blossoming into mental discord.

I hold up my hands neutrally. “Slow down, Reggie. I just want to know who he is, that’s all.”

His rocking gets more pronounced. “What do you want with the Candyman?”

The name rings a bell. A big-time street dealer with an even bigger ego, if memory serves me correctly. “I want to meet him.”

Reggie grunts. “That’s crazy talk, ’cause he don’t want to meet you.”

He gets his shoulders into the back-and-forth swing. Spittle flies from his lips. I’m worried he’s going to flip out on me and do something stupid.

“You know him, Reggie? You know the Candyman?”

He shakes his head manically.

I keep my hands raised, a peace offering. “It’s okay, Reggie. Calm down, buddy.”

The manic jerking continues. “No!” He keeps his eyes fixed on the sprawled printout between full shoulder swings.

I should leave, cut my losses. But he acts like he knows the guy. I pump him for information. “You see this money? It’s yours. Just tell me who the Candyman is.”

He snorts, getting his chin into the swing. “Candyman’s crazy. Yessiree. Crazy.”

“You sure he has a scar on his knuckle? Did you see it yourself?”

Spit dribbles down his chin, and his eyes are wide, as if in a trance. It reminds me of what a voodoo shaman from Haiti might look like.

“Reggie?”

He stops abruptly, gaze leveled my way, drool leaking from the corner of his crooked mouth. His voice turns gravelly. “You’re too slow for the Candyman, white boy.” He opens his mouth in a lunatic grin, revealing a missing front tooth. “Craaaazee slow.”

He’s not making sense, but I need to see where this leads. “Why am I too slow, Reggie?”

“Why?” His gaze wanders off, lost in the mess of his apartment. He drops his voice to a whisper. “Why.”

“Yeah, Reggie, why?”

He almost sounds lucid as he speaks the next couple of sentences. “Because he’s got the mojo, that’s why. The best mojo, not like yours.”

“And how to do I get a hold of this mojo?”

He flicks his eyes at me, insanity restored. “You gotta go down the rabbit hole, white boy. You gotta go deep. And when you get there, the Candyman will be waiting. Yessirree. And when he catches you, he’s gonna snap you in half, ‘cause that’s what he does when you’re too slow.” He cackles, gap in his teeth wide and ugly.

He’s speaking gibberish. Pure, worthless trash. I bend down to retrieve the printout. He can keep the money, but there’s no way I’m going to leave the photo.

Reggie shouts at the top of his lungs, scaring me stiff. “Don’t touch that!”

I unclench my body. “Just grabbing my paper, Reggie. Money’s yours, okay? That was the deal. But this I’m taking.”

He shakes his head like a rabid dog. “I don’t care. You’re leaving it. Get out!”

“Look, Reggie, I’ll just take the paper and—”

He grabs what I imagine is a paper bag stuffed with garbage from the ratty credenza behind him, but when I see the gun, I know better than to make a move. I swallow, watching his hand tremble with the revolver pointed at my chest. It’s a .357, enough to put me six below. I don’t have my vest, so there’s no point questioning whether it’s loaded.

“Okay, Reggie,” I say in a surrendering tone. “I’m going to leave, all right?”

“Yeah, you need to go.” He jabs the air with his gun. He’s got his index finger tugging on the trigger. You have to put some effort into pulling it, but I’m not taking any chances. My thoughts filter over to Suzie and Caitlyn, and I imagine them, for a split second, crying in the hospital room as I lie on a bed with a respirator.

I back away. Reggie keeps pace with a jagged twitch to his carriage. He then tosses his head back and talks to the air, in Spanish. “Sí. El blanco hombre sigue aquí.” He laughs his twisted laugh, and it chills me to my core. My panic button goes off.

Who’s he talking to?

You can do anything through the Mindnet without the other person knowing. Reggie definitely contacted someone, either through a thoughtlink or M-text. The fact he spoke aloud just confirms it.

I’m out the door in a flash. It rattles closed, muffling Reggie’s hyena laugh. Down below, I hear heavy footsteps reverberating off the treads of the stairwell, and voices. I peek over the railing and see the Dominicans, guns drawn. One spots me and points. They break into a run. Shit!

I sprint up two flights of stairs to the top landing and slam open the door to the rooftop. The gravel on the flat roof crunches as I scamper for cover. I duck behind the industrial cooler as the door shuts, and take out my .22 pistol. The one thing in my favor is that it’s dark, with the only strong light source behind me, by the door I exited. Ahead, the roof’s ledge rises a couple of feet, blocking some of the city lights, aiding in my concealment.

I hurriedly scan my surroundings. I’m sandwiched between two apartment buildings. The rooftop of the closer one is about a half flight lower. I might be able to outrun these guys and get to the door on the other side. It’ll either be open, or I’m screwed. Calling for backup is out of the question.

I get ready to launch, quickly estimating my jump and landing. The door swings open before I take one step. I hear the familiar whistle of the lanky Dominican. “Hey blanco, oh blanco,” he calls out in a singsong voice. He claps, then makes kissing noises. From the sound of their footfall, I can tell they’re splitting up. They know I’m hiding, and I know they’re hunting. I can fire a warning shot to buy more time, perhaps create a standoff. Except, when they realize I’m using a small-caliber weapon, it will be for naught, and I will have wasted a precious bullet.

“Hey, blanco, come out,” the lanky one says. “We just want to talk.” The other one laughs, giving away his position. They’re closing in from either side, covering all angles of escape.

My heart is racing. How the hell did I end up here? Again, my thoughts turn to my family. No hospital room this time, just an image of my bullet-riddled corpse being scraped off the concrete sidewalk below. I won’t even get an honorable burial. This isn’t getting killed in the line of duty. Not even close.

I’m swelling with anger. I had no business coming here. There was a reason my supply of Switch was almost out. There was a reason why I witnessed what it did to a teenager with no priors. And there was a reason why my gut told me to leave Reggie alone and head home.

All the signs; yet I didn’t pay attention to any of them.

I yank the bundle of dispensers from my pocket. I’m tempted to hurl them toward the edge of the roof. Or better, try to barter my way out of this predicament. The product has street value, although I doubt my stalkers would be interested. As I squeeze the collection of plastic dispensers in frustration, one pops open. Reggie’s cackling fills my thoughts, and his accusation: You’re too slow for the Candyman, white boy.

Too slow.

Craaaazee slow.

My fingers go to work, hinging on a ridiculous idea. I wedge the .22 into my belt and rip the plastic sheath open. I drop the rest of the dispensers on the ground. I grab the whole stack of strips from the open container and bite down. I chomp furiously. The Dominicans are maybe eight or ten paces away. In a few seconds, they’ll have a clean shot. Saliva mixes with film, and my mouth is awash in grape and cardamom. I slosh around the shreds, feeling bits churn into a paste. I chew frantically, trying to get the mixture to dissolve in time.

Within a couple of seconds, my cheeks warm. Two more, and my face flushes.

Then something inexplicable happens.

Time slows, as if each frame of the film reel in my vision is moving a tenth of its normal speed. Yet my mind accelerates in a hundred different directions.

My eyes dart around, picking up the minutest details: bird droppings along the ledge, peanut shells in the gravel, the hoarse breathing of my pursuers, the step of each foot, the position of their bodies, and the intention of each movement.

My .22 is no longer useful, I realize. I rest it on the ground and crouch, leg muscles bunched to spring. There’s a clarity in my thoughts so bright that I could count the strands of hair on my head and still have time to measure my next move. My other senses kick in, and I pick up the scent of unwashed skin, the change in air pressure, the tang of foreign sweat.

I scoop up two large pieces of gravel, and transfer one to my throwing hand. The lanky one clears my line of sight first, just as I hurl the rock. It strikes him in the left eye, and he staggers sideways.

The second guy appears on the other side, momentarily distracted by his partner—enough for me to hit him squarely below the Adam’s apple. He drops his .38 and clutches his throat, wheezing as he steps back.

Everything is happening in slow motion.

I’m after the lanky Dominican, predator urge unfettered.

He fires a blind shot, ricocheting off the ground where my foot was a moment earlier, his good eye blinking reflexively and tearing. A second shot rings out as I dodge to the right. I shift all my weight, calculate the distance to close on him, and spring, taking to the air.

My fist catches his jaw with an audible crack, dislocating it. He shrieks as I land opposite him, grabbing his wrist and wresting his pistol in one fluid motion. He loses his balance, sprawling to the gravel, crying out in pain, neutralized.

His partner is gasping, trying to recover his breath while aiming at me. I’m moving again, a blur, faster than before. I run to the side of the cooler, concealed for little over a second, and skid, throwing up a shower of rocks.

He pulls the trigger prematurely, hitting nothing. By the time I appear on the other side, I’m on him. My brain computes a combination of fatal blows—strike to the temple, elbow to the summit of the nose, hook to the base of the cerebellum. The information is just coming at me, as if my brain has been transformed into a supercomputer.

I opt for a non-fatal blow, and shatter his clavicle instead, pile-driving my fist with agonizing force. It knocks him back into a screaming tumble.

I hold still, both assailants in my peripheral vision. My heart is pumping harder than it’s ever pumped. I’m supercharged, and I know I can kill these men a dozen ways to Sunday if I want to. And I do.

But I need to resist the craving. I’m a vampire, fighting my nature to drain their lives. Thoughts even go to Reggie and what I might do to him. I clench my fists, try to remain rigid and block out the temptation. I’m not going to become a Kurt Rodriguez. I’m not going to indulge, even though I want to snap these creatures to pieces.

I straddle the chest of the second man, startling him. The doorway light catches the dread in his eyes. He’s breathing fast, groaning from the agony of the pressure I’m placing with my knee squashed against his broken clavicle. He’s mine.

I squeeze either side of his mouth with my fingers like a vise. “I’m going to ask you once, and if you lie, I’m going to rip your fucking jaw off. Comprende?”

He nods, scared out of his ever-loving mind.

My voice is a hiss, a venomous hiss. “Where do I find the Candyman?”

* * *

There is no coming down from a twenty-strip high, at least not in the first couple of hours. Before this moment, I had no idea what it was like to do more than two hits in a twenty-four-hour period. Now I’m worried the high will never end.

I’ve got the worst case of the jitters, and I’m holding my arms to keep from shaking, braced against an I-beam beneath the elevated transit line that ferries the 7 train to and from Manhattan.

Mullins picks up on the other end of my call. “Hey.” He’s barely awake. A second later and, “God, it’s one in the morning. What’s up?”

There are a thousand things I want to say, blistering thoughts competing at light speed in my overclocked brain. “Rodriguez wasn’t a victim.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He enjoyed every minute of his high. He wanted to kill those cops. You see, it’s a dark side, Ed. It’s a dark side that wants to control you. And if you don’t have the strength, well, you’re a goner.”

There’s a pause on the other end. Mullins’ voice comes back dead serious. “Hey, is everything okay? This doesn’t sound like you.”

Mullins has it wrong again. It sounds exactly like me. The true me. The unleashed me. “You’re a good guy, Ed. I know you’ve had it rough, but I’m telling you, it’s going to work out in the end.”

“Man, you’re scaring me. You’ve been drinking or something?”

“Ed, I want you to listen for a second, okay?”

He keeps quiet on the other end.

“If anything happens to me, I want you to take care of Suzie and Caitlyn. It’s a partner’s oath. You remember that, right?”

“Of course.” He sounds like he wants to say more, but he’s afraid, I can tell.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Ed. I’ve got something to take care of, and I’m going to follow the rabbit hole. I’m going to dig deep, real deep, and finish this.”

“Finish what?”

“What we started. I’m going to close out the Rodriguez case. I’m going to make it right for Yee’s parents, for the family of the other two officers that were shot, for my brother Tommy, for Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. For you, buddy, and the rest of the boys. I’m going to rip out the source and make it right.”

“Jesus, Terry, what the hell is going on? Are you in trouble? Hey, man, I’m here. I’m here, you understand? So talk to me!”

He never calls me by my first name. It gives me a modicum of comfort. “I gotta go, partner. See ya.”

“Wait, Terry. Hey—!”

I disconnect and block him from calling back. The L train grinds above me and I let go of my arms. The jitters wrack my body, and I vibrate to the rolling of steel wheels over the tracks. I’m a ball of bottled-up venom, every sedentary moment poisoning my blood a little more. I need to release it. I need to release all of it.

And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

* * *

It’s a fifteen-minute drive to my destination. With each passing streetlight, the pressure builds. I want to uncork the pressure, to let it burst. But I have to hang on a little longer.

I park in the heart of Astoria, Queens, a twenty-four-hour nonstop mini-Manhattan of low-rise apartment buildings and single-story businesses. Spanish, Greek, Arabian and Brazilian clubs and cafes are hopping, showing off the neighborhood’s multicultural personality.

The one I’m interested in is a club called El Toro Loco. My rooftop informant said the Candyman fronts as a legit businessman, using the nightclub scene to traffic product. He claimed he didn’t know which club, but I followed the rabbit hole to its very depths. It’s amazing what you can learn through the Mindnet when your neurons are ablaze.

Reggie was right about the “crazy” part. El Toro Loco translates to “The Mad Bull,” or literally, “The Crazy Bull.” I don’t know if it was his rabid ranting, or he was trying to tell me the answer.

Latin dance music echoes out onto Broadway. Young twenty-somethings are clustered in line, waiting to get into the club while 3-D glyphs advertise drink specials that change in price as demand shifts during the night.

The bouncer at the door is big, like an NFL offensive tackle, close-shaved afro indicative of prior military experience. He’s three hundred pounds easy, with very little body fat. My brain has already calculated six ways to take him down using nothing more than my God-given hands. I’m not dressed for the club, and he makes it a point to tell me to remove my hat and get to the back of the line. I do neither. The young crowd makes no attempt to hide their disgust for my older presence. I don’t care about them. I want in.

There are nineteen people in line at El Toro Loco. A video camera above the door confirms that we’re being watched. The old me would have flashed a police glyph, and the bouncer would have moved aside.

There’s no room for the old me.

I step toward the bouncer.

“Sir, I’m going to ask you again. Please move to the back—”

Faster than he can react, I sock him in the windpipe. He claws his throat, bug-eyed. I follow it up with a knuckled fist to the kidney. His body flexes involuntarily, and he hits the ground, all three-hundred-plus-pounds of solid manpower, down for the count. I step over his mountainous carcass, leaving an astonished crowd behind.

The club is packed. Lasers, stereographs and booming bass thrills my senses. I see two men with the word Security across the front of their black t-shirts quickly pushing through the throng toward me. I’ve been made.

I shove sideways across the dancefloor, toward the restrooms and staircase leading up to the catwalk and second bar. People are hanging out everywhere, laughing, talking, drinking and dancing. I don’t want to alarm them. I just want to get to my prize.

I’m rough, pushing people aside, swimming upstream, trying to beat my pursuers. I hit the stairs a couple of paces ahead of them. I punch up the steps, zigzagging precisely between bodies. I’m four strides ahead by the time I catch the top step. It’s less crowded up here, and I bolt toward the back area, past the VIP roped-off access and velour-cushioned lounge chairs, along the black walls toward the solitary door in the very rear. The door opens six paces before I get there. The suited, short Asian man that exits fires a stun gun at me. A pair of electrodes shoot out. Time slows again. I see the dart-like projectiles and conductive wires propel through the air. I bend sideways, eluding their trajectory. It forces me off balance, but my brain won’t let me fall. It tells me to throw my weight into my right foot and push off into a leap. Airborne, I rain down, driving my forearm into the bridge of my assailant’s nose, breaking it and knocking him to the ground with my momentum.

I waste no time getting my bearings. I grab the butt of his stun gun and wheel about, clipping the first bodyguard across the forehead with the carbon fiber grip. He knocks mouth-first into the wall, and pitches heavily to the side. The second guard tries to put me in a bear hug. I smack him upside the chin with the butt of the stun gun, snapping his head back. He’s down a moment later, lights out.

I take an adrenalized pause to absorb my audience, frozen with their drinks in their hands. Their expressions vary from shock to sheer terror. They’re seeing the venom released, the poison of what I’ve become. It triggers momentary remorse. A second later, and I’m ready to engage my prize, any notion of guilt extinguished and forgotten. I told Mullins I was going to finish this, and I am.

I toss the stun gun on the floor and enter the lion’s den.

* * *

He’s sitting comfortably behind the solitary wood desk in the small office, stained glass peacock lamp illuminating his face in a wash of yellow light. He’s not some prizefighter, or Olympian, or martial artist or bodybuilder. He’s ordinary, my age, Hispanic mixed with Caucasian, with a medium build hidden beneath a tailored suit. Behind the calm eyes is a storm I recognize, a tidal wave waiting to crash ashore. I wasn’t expecting an amped welcome, but I’m not frightened by it either.

I lock the door behind me. There are no windows, no secondary exit, just the four walls of our cage. He could have chosen any place to wait for my arrival. But he chose here instead. One way in, one survivor.

He loosens his red silk necktie. I’m drawn to the crimson hue as it shimmers against the bright, recessed lights above, but more so by the y-shaped scar on his tanned knuckle. Air conditioning is piping in, blowing down on us. I can’t feel the cool though.

“So, you’re the Candyman.”

“And you’re Detective Sergeant Terrance Parker.” He has an American accent.

I don’t care that he knows who I am. Facial recognition technology in networked video cameras can easily pick up a name. They use it in casinos; why not a nightclub?

“I’m not here to arrest you.”

His eyes are set on me, hungry, seething. “I know.”

“Good. I just wanted to get that out of the way.”

He pulls his tie off, folds it in thirds, and sets it parallel to the edge of his table, same as what I would have done in his place. His jacket comes off next as he remains seated. I’m surprised as he tosses it over his shoulder, letting it land sloppily atop the wastebasket in the corner. I notice the clothing hooks embedded in the cinderblock wall behind him. “Yes,” he says, catching my gaze. “You would have hung it there.”

He unbuttons his left cuff and rolls up his sleeve. My mind is parsing his comment, analyzing its meaning: why he tossed the coat; why he told me that I was expecting it; why he seems so relaxed while I’m nearly quaking from anticipation.

I launch an active pingback. It comes up empty in my retinal overlay. I check the signal strength of my Mindnet connection. It’s at ninety-seven percent, almost perfect. Why can’t I get a read on him?

“You won’t find me that way,” he says, starting on the other sleeve. His movement is steady, but I can tell his blood is boiling. “My name is Jean Le Vau. All you had to do was look up the owner of this club, and you would have found me. Easy.”

I’m surprised that I missed that. Is the Switch finally wearing off? I had left the other dispensers behind on the rooftop of Reggie’s building. I’ve got no backup. It’s just me and the chemical substance in my bloodstream.

Someone bangs on the door. “It’s all right,” Le Vau says loudly. The banging ceases. “Sorry about that.”

“You look Honduran,” I say. “I wouldn’t have guessed French.”

“My mother was Nicaraguan, my father French. But you didn’t come all this way to figure me out, did you?”

“No, I came to kill you.” I’m surprised to hear myself say it. It sounds like a line from an old James Bond film. Maybe I’m not crashing after all. I can feel the surge of excitement, the tingle in my face, the need to put this man to his end. I quickly remind myself that I’m a police officer. I’m not going to kill this man. Am I?

Le Vau takes off his watch and places it next to the tie. Everything he removes lightens the load, allows him to be more nimble in a fight. I should be considering my own outerwear, but I’m already stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans. I remove my baseball cap.

“Feel free to toss it,” he says. He points at his jacket.

I want to throw the cap, but I need to place it neatly somewhere. I center it on the cushion of the chair facing him. He smiles politely, hateful beast masked by a level of control I can’t comprehend. How does he do it?

Le Vau offers me a seat. “You can always put your hat over there.” Again, he points at his jacket.

“I’ll stand.”

I’m evaluating his physicality, considering all the ways I can take him down. He will have his own brand of tricks, enhanced by heightened senses. Dig deep, I tell myself. Reggie’s advice.

“How long have you been using?” he asks, removing his gold wedding band, which I had failed to notice. I expect him to toss it on the jacket, but he surprises me again and sticks it in the drawer. I would have put it next to the tie.

“Two years. And you?”

“Five.”

I had no idea Switch has been around for half a decade. Hardly anyone knew what it was when I stumbled upon it. Even the wiki didn’t date its origin back that far.

Le Vau responds as if reading my mind. “Yes, it’s been that long. The first generation product was terrible. Liquid drops. It caused violent mood swings. We replaced it with clear tablets, but the stomach acid destroyed a lot of the positive effects, so we went to coated tablets, and even those didn’t do the job quite right.” He unbuttons the top of his blue dress shirt. Curly chest hair spills out. “Your generation has been around three years. It’s very good, but it also has its limitations, as you well know.”

My generation? He makes it sound like there’s something else. I’ve encountered plenty of variations in the form, quality and efficacy of the product. Is Le Vau alluding to that?

“My condolences, by the way,” he says. “I heard about the shooting at the gas station.”

His comment makes me mad. If we’re going to fight, what is the point of being polite? I examine the desktop for anything I can turn into a weapon. A pen to the eye, a letter opener between vertebrae, a paperweight to the philtrum, that area between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose. There are plenty of choices with these ordinary objects. Again, I’m thinking of killing, not wounding him. I amend my thoughts and consider a blow with the stapler to jostle the cerebral cortex. That might do the trick.

“My generation, however, has none of the side effects of yours,” he continues. “We’re experimenting with the dosage. If all goes well, we should start FDA trials next spring and get our approval fast-tracked. We’ve got some good people working on it. A much better business venture than the street has to offer.”

My mind tells me not to believe him, that he’s trying to placate me into thinking he’s working for the greater good. I’m not going to fall for his guile. Yet I’m stuck on the “we” reference. Who’s “we”?

He lifts the stapler. “Of course, I’m not all about the legal dosage for recreational use. If you’re going to save the best champagne for the best occasion, why waste your time on the cheap stuff, right? You go for the gusto!”

He switches the stapler to his left hand. His dominant hand.

“The good news about your generation of product is that it will be off the market once ours hits the pharmacies. No more psychotic episodes, no more cop killings, no more psychological addiction. You get a prescription for that attention deficit disorder you’ve been complaining about, and you’re good to go.”

He’s feeding me a line, but I’m keen on his game. I think his silver ballpoint pen is the best weapon to use. I come up with eleven methods to paralyze him without even thinking about it.

“You know, that’s a pretty good story,” I say. “I’m sure someone will buy it, but not me. So how about we cut the bullshit?” I step toward him. “Why did you deal to Kurt Rodriguez? Was he an experiment to you?”

Le Vau rolls back in his chair, leaving the stapler on the desk at a strange angle. The compulsiveness in me wants to nudge it just a little so it’s even with his tie. Again, he appears in control of his emotions. Not a blink at the mention of Rodriguez’s name. “That boy had potential. I was just curious to see how far he would take it. I had no idea he’d go all the way.”

“So he was an experiment. And you, what, coached him?”

Le Vau is smug in his response. “He had that spark. I simply opened his eyes.”

Le Vau makes it sound as if he was a benefactor. As if he were helping Rodriguez. Rodriguez wasn’t some kind of loner or misfit or abandoned child. He was well-liked by his friends, and loved by his family. All he wanted was a way to distinguish himself from the ordinary. It’s funny how you find what you want if you really seek it. Le Vau happened to own the candy store, evangelizing the merits of his product. One strip, and studying becomes easier. A second, and you can run faster. Up the dose again, and maybe you’ll make history. Keep going, and you’ll become God.

Le Vau is nothing more than a preacher, spreading his infected gospel while hiding behind a club to pursue his true proclivity.

“You could have stopped him.”

Le Vau stands and pushes in his chair, bringing it flush with the edge of the desk. “I could have done a lot of things. How about you? Who did you stop?”

He wants to make me out to be a hypocrite, and maybe I am. My selfishness hasn’t made me a better husband or father. It hasn’t made me a better partner to Mullins. And it hasn’t helped kids like Rodriguez stop themselves before it was too late. Right now, my nerves are frayed to the point where I’m not sure of what I am. But I know this: our encounter is going to end with one man standing.

Le Vau walks calmly around to the front of the desk and perches himself on it. It’s a disadvantageous position. He’d have to go on the defense to fend off my attack. Why would he do that?

He pulls a clear plastic sheet from his pant pocket. He lifts it up, exposing a two-by-five set of gel-like buttons, also clear. He pops one square off the perforated sheet. There’s a single button in the middle of the square. He pockets the rest of the sheet. “One of these is better than thirty of your strips. Except you don’t pop it in your mouth. You apply it to the skin, like this.” He places the square flat against his wrist and pushes the button. It pops inward, squeezing out a gel that reminds me of hand sanitizer. He tosses the empty square on the table and rubs the gel into his wrist. “See? It absorbs almost instantaneously. The rest evaporates, with no residue. It’s pharmaceutical grade quality. The good news is that it hits twice the neuroreceptors as the old product. That means you’re firing on all cylinders.”

I’m painfully aware that I just let him dose up in front of me. I think my senses are dulling. Are the strips finally wearing off?

He answers my next question before I even ask it. “It’s my second application today.” He folds his hands, scarred knuckle on top. “Normally, I do one but, you know, special company and all.”

He’s blocking the pen by sitting on the desk. And all the other implements I was considering using. He’s outmaneuvered me before I realized it. Even though I don’t feel afraid, I’m starting to get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Well, there you have it,” he says with a smile.

I can’t resist asking, “So, what happens now?”

Le Vau slides off the desk. He shrugs, still smiling. “Now, I kill you.”

He comes at me before I have the chance to duck out of the way. His knee connects with my stomach, propelling me backward. I stumble three steps before righting myself, the wind nearly knocked out of me.

Instant nausea rises up my throat. I suppress my gag reflex. It costs me an elbow to the face. I barely deflect it, taking the brunt of the blow with my shoulder, the rest with my cheek.

I collide with the wood casing adjacent to the door. It’s a hard knock to my scapula, pain surging up my back.

Le Vau throws a kick. Somehow, I manage to sidestep it. His foot demolishes the sheetrock to my right instead of my sternum.

When he removes his shoe from the hole he created, I’m already to his left, near the desk. Pieces of drywall chip off and cascade to the floor. He stamps the dust from his foot. The whole bottom part of his pant leg is coated with sheetrock debris. It seems to infuriate him, but only for a moment.

“You’re good,” he says, shifting the weight to his left heel. “Nice to see you actually remember your combat training as a police officer.”

There are equations firing in my brain. Some are telling me that my odds are greatly improved using one of the desktop implements available to me. The others are telling me that I have a one in five chance of surviving, period, based on the amount and quality of product in my system. I need something better to even the fight.

“It’s right here.” He pats his left pocket, again reading my mind.

One gel would do it. But I’d never last long enough to get one.

I lunge for the pen, snap it up, and roll across his desk, knocking over his expensive lamp. It crashes to the floor. The glass and bulb shatter, but I’m on my feet, desk between me and my foe, my only safety net.

He steps around to his right as I circle back. I expect him to grab the stapler, but he’s going to use his bare hands.

He hops oddly on each foot toward me, like some kind of wound-up toy with springs for legs. I wait for his bounce to reach one body length and then swing the metal pen to stab him in the carotid artery.

I’m mid-swing when he alters his step, ducking below my thrust. I can’t block his punch to my groin. Pain explodes from my testicles.

I double over and lose the pen, along with my balance. He follows up with a kick to my solar plexus, sending me skidding into his coat-covered waste basket.

I land on my back, cushioned only by his sports jacket. I try to use my leg as leverage to stand. I manage to get one foot on the floor. I cry out as the pen I’ve dropped is driven through the top of my sneaker.

“Ouch,” he says. “That must hurt.”

I’ve never experienced agony this intense. I’m unable to get up. The waves of crushing pain are radiating upward from my foot. I’m seeing stars.

“Anyway.” He peels me off his jacket and onto the floor. My face strikes broken glass. It cuts into my skin. The pen is sticking out of my sneaker, punched through the tendons in my foot, gnawing at my nerve endings.

Le Vau ties the arms of his jacket together around my throat, lifting me up. I instinctively pull at the hangman’s noose, try to breath.

He slams me onto my side in the middle of his shattered lamp, knocking my skull against the brass base. My head throbs, but the air rushes back into my lungs. I’m left gasping, a dab of blood rolling down my cheek.

He reaches across for something on his desk. I should take advantage of the split second his midriff is exposed above me, but I can’t do anything. My autonomic system is misfiring. He pulls back, standing over me with an object in his left hand. It takes me a second to focus, and when I do, I’m seeing that silly stapler.

I actually laugh. It’s funny, although I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the idea of Mullins reading my cause of death in a report, crying and cracking up at the same time.

Le Vau laughs too. “I know, who would have thought: a stapler!” He hefts it. “It’s made of resin, fabricated by a 3-D printer. I’m guessing part of it will disintegrate when I drive it through your skull. What do you think?”

I keep laughing, not because it’s funny, but because I need to buy time. There’s a moment in any life-and-death situation where you know whether you’re going to make it or end up with a headstone. That’s when you need that FM, that f’ing miracle. It happened to me once, when I was rookie, during a shootout with an armed robber in a convenience store. My duty weapon had jammed, and all the junked-up kid needed to do was take me out with his pistol. Instead, the clerk did what she wasn’t supposed to do: engage the suspect. The pepper spray to the face bought me my second chance. Now I need that same kind of FM. Too bad no one’s around to save my ass.

I feel glass beneath my right hand. A couple of pats, and I find a shard about four knuckles long. I grab a hold of it. I fix my sight on Le Vau’s left thigh, right where his pocket is. If I can just get myself into a sitting position…

“Let me ask you something.” It’s a last-ditch effort to gain a few more precious seconds. I push myself up onto my elbows, knuckles down, shard hidden. I prop my back against the wooden leg of his desk. “If you had the new generation of product available, why didn’t you sell it to Rodriguez? Why give him the old stuff?”

He rotates the stapler with one hand, the other ready to wield it if I flinch wrong. “I think you already know the answer.”

I do, and it sickens me. Le Vau is a sadist, pure and simple. He wants to create an army of flawed super humans to watch them destroy and combust. The new product isn’t any better. It’s the same maker of monsters, except the user will think he’s in control, when in fact, he will end up changing into the very thing Le Vau has become.

He gives the stapler one last twirl and then holds it up. I know he’s faster than me. I know he’s stronger than me. I also know that I’m dead sitting here. If I make it out alive, they’ll probably take my shield away, and that’s okay. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole, and I don’t like what I’ve turned into. But the most important thing is that I don’t want to leave my daughter a legacy of a loser father who threw his life away chasing a drug high just to feel “normal.”

In slow-mo, I watch the grip in Le Vau’s left arm tighten. I can tell he’s going to be dramatic and go for the overhead blow by the way he’s arching back, emboldened by my injury and compromised position no less. It’ll take him a half second longer to execute, but the payoff will be as grandiose as he had hoped.

His thigh is within arm’s reach. I don’t need theatrics for what I have to do.

I pivot the weight to my right hip. With all my strength, I lash out with my glass dagger. I anchor the point three inches in from his hip flexor, sinking deep and dragging down with a ripping motion. He yelps, losing momentum.

With my other hand, I reach for his torn pocket. I snatch the bloodied sheet of plastic tabs from the fabric, tearing away three gel squares in the process. Reflex drives Le Vau backward to recover from my stabbing. I smash the torn sheet against the floor, popping the gels with my fist, slathering my skin with clear liquid and blood. His eyes widen, a notion of fear and recognition on his pain-tortured face.

I feel my skin electrify as I yank the pen from my foot. I’m hit with a major endorphin rush as it falls from my hand. Every synapse and neuron awakens. I’m slowing time more than I ever could with just the strips.

A second goes by, and I’m on my feet. I know there’s pain in my foot, but I reroute the signal, and block it off. I’m thinking faster, multitasking processes normally handled linearly, going deeper than I’ve ever gone.

Instinctively, I’ve got my hands gripped on the lip of the desk, assessing weight, size and mobility. I don’t even think through the shift in power to my lower body. I just do it.

Le Vau swings into action. He knows what I’m about to do.

But I’m faster. I redistribute power to my hands and forearms and flip the wood table up. I anticipate his angle of attack and thrust hard. The desk smashes into his torso. I throw all my momentum into the push, crushing his body into the cinderblock wall. There’s no yield to the masonry’s ruthless surface. The desk breaks apart from the force of the collision, two of the legs prying loose, splinters flying.

Impact complete, I grip the side of the damaged table and toss it. It lands loudly a few feet away, upside down. Le Vau crumples to the ground, blood streaked along the wall from where his head made contact.

I collapse to my knees next to him, winded. He looks at me, head cocked oddly, neck vertebrae damaged. “I can’t feel my hands,” he manages to say, alarm in his voice. Something’s wrong with his mouth too because his speech is slurred. “Go ahead,” he prompts. “Finish it!”

There’s nothing more in the whole world that I want. I conceive eighteen different ways to sever his spinal column. It’s what a Roman gladiator would have considered with a fallen adversary in the arena. I look around the disaster of the office. There’s no emperor to give me the go-ahead. The decision is mine.

“No.” I pat him on the shoulder, my way of saying, “You’re not getting out of this easy, pal.” The reality reflects in his horror-stricken eyes. I imagine he’s scared shitless of going to prison as a cripple after facing an unforgiving jury. I don’t care what he thinks.

I try to rise to my feet, but something’s wrong with my motor functions. It’s like the wires have been disconnected from the battery, leaving my limb muscles unable to contract voluntarily. I push back against the wall with what little strength I have.

Time begins to return to normal. With Le Vau incapacitated, my thoughts shift to home. I want to crawl into bed so badly, to hold Suzie close and confess everything, and ask for forgiveness; to promise her my selfishness is over, and that I will be the father and husband she deserves.

The door bursts inward. Knob and lock smack the vinyl floor. I glimpse a portable battering ram being retracted.

The first police officer aims his submachine, shouting, “Don’t move!” He’s wearing ballistic armor and goggles. He gives an “all clear” and two more team members enter, followed by a most unexpected sight: Mullins, in jogging pants and a striped polo shirt a couple sizes too small.

Mullins glances at Le Vau, and takes a knee beside me. “Hey partner, what the hell, huh?” He looks me over. “Jesus H. Christ. What have you gotten yourself into?”

It’s a damned good question. I lean my head against the cinderblock. “I know.” I don’t bother asking him how he found me. I’m sure my subconscious mind wanted this. I thumb in Le Vau’s direction, pointing out his scarred knuckle. “Arrest him.”

Mullins registers a sliver of surprise and nods his head slowly. He motions to the element leader. “Read him his Miranda rights, and then get someone with a backboard in here.” The SWAT member goes about his task.

I feel my brain baking under a torrent of neural activity. I’m crashing, and I’m crashing hard. My eyes close for a moment, electrical pulses firing across my retinas.

Mullins snaps his fingers. “Stay with me, buddy. I’ve got EMS on the way.”

I reach out, my arm blurring into three. How fast is my pulse racing? Mullins takes my hand. “Easy there, stud.”

I try to keep from fading. “I’ve done a bad thing.” My throat is suddenly dry. I’m parched and there’s no water to be found. “Real bad, Ed.”

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be fine.” To me, “fine” amounts to rehabilitation, maybe incarceration. I do appreciate Mullins not being a jerk about it. He adds, “You can give me the details over a beer.” He shakes his belly for emphasis, and grins.

We both know it’s a joke. I eek out a smile for him. “Yeah, that’s what you need.”

I’m fighting to stay awake. I want to sleep, to pass out so badly. I can’t help myself.

I slip into the shadows, drift toward the dark.

It fades to white, and I see my wife sleeping next to me, chest rising and falling as I watch her peaceful form. I get up and go to Caitlyn’s room. She claps when I offer to read her a bedtime story. She snuggles next to me as I start on her favorite book, giggling at the way I act out the characters in the pictures. She’s barely awake by the time I finish. I tell her that I love her with all my heart. She says she loves me too. She wants to know if I’m going to be around to read to her tomorrow night. “Of course, sweetie. Daddy’s not going anywhere.”

It’s a nice dream.

Carrie Patel

Here Be Monsters

Originally published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies

* * *

The flare gun is cold in my hands. I can’t shake the feeling that the little rocket inside is slowly dying.

Each day I watch the horizon, and each night I watch the stars. They can tell you a lot if you know how to read them: where you are in the world, how long you’ve been there.

When the abyssi are coming.

The island I ended up on isn’t much different from the ocean that stranded me. Blue waves roll on one side and grassy dunes on the other.

I built a shelter near the beach from some of the crates that washed ashore with me. It’s amazing how quickly the sun works. The outer portion of the hut is already bleached, and it’s been less than a month. Some of the crates are still filled with musket parts and mercury tablets, the freight we were carrying when the ship sank. Priceless stuff on the Ottoman front, but I’d kill for just a few more boxes of rations instead.

At least thirst won’t kill me. There’s a freshwater spring half a mile inland.

The remaining rations are in a box buried in the corner of my hut. I have seven left—I must have counted a dozen times before I hid them—but it helps not to look at them every day.

Especially when I should be watching the horizon.

You can recognize an abyssus by the shape of the water, but by then it’s too late. There’s a depression on the surface of the sea, as if something is sucking it down. Then the waters part, and whatever was unfortunate enough to get caught in the middle disappears beneath churning waves.

Being on the water when an abyssus arrives is a mercy. Whole vessels are crushed with a swift, natural economy that no manmade war machine can match. It’s much worse to be caught on land. The beast will venture ashore at night in pursuit of fire and prey, but like any creature lured out of its habitat, it becomes desperate and unpredictable.

That’s why I’ve been watching the stars. Just as abyssi suck the water from the ocean, they drain light from the night sky. The stars fade in their path, and by the time one is upon you, the whole sky is velvet black.

The only thing worse than knowing an abyssus is coming is having no idea. The sky has been cloudy for six nights now.

I watched the flat line of the sea again today. My clipper went down some fifty miles from Lisbon, so I’ve seen ships for the last three weeks, too far away to be anything more than ants crawling across the bar of the horizon, and definitely too far to guarantee they’d see my flare in broad daylight. Today was the first day there were none.

With the seventh overcast night upon me, I’m beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be easiest to put the flare gun to my head.

I’m fixated on this thought, and on the feel of the cool brass in my hands, and the sand between my toes, when I hear a shuffling noise. I lean toward the edge of the hut and hold my breath until I’m sure of it. There’s someone coming along the beach toward me.

I peer into the darkness, but it’s useless. Between the breaking waves, though, the shuffling is getting louder. The stranger, whoever it is, is close. My grip tightens around the flare gun.

Finally, I call into the darkness. “Who’s there?”

The voice that returns to me is hoarse and cracked. “A fellow survivor, seeking shelter.” He doesn’t mention food. If it hadn’t been three days since I opened my last ration, I’d be more ashamed of that thought.

He speaks again, and now he’s close enough for me to hear the ragged breaths between his words. “Mind if I join you? It’s your beach, after all.”

If I hadn’t thought of it as my beach, it’s only because I’d thought of the entire island as mine. Still, what can I say? “Of course.”

Suddenly, I want to see this stranger who will be sharing my shelter. I tuck the flare gun into my waistband and pull out my cap lighter. The lid slides away with a clink, and I hear the stranger tense.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“The gift of fire.”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s full dark,” he says between his teeth.

But the unreality of seeing another person makes the peril of abyssi seem silly and distant. As I strike the flame, I say, “Tell me how you ended—”

“No!” A ragged cry rips from his throat, and he pounces on me, swatting the lighter out of my grasp. We tumble onto the sand, and after rolling around together, my hands trying to push him away and his easily circling my wrists, he has me pinned. He is surprisingly heavy, and his nimble bulk makes me feel wasted and powerless.

“You fool!” He speaks in a rasping whisper that sounds painful. “Have you gone mad? Do you want to bring them upon us?”

“Calm down.”

“They’re already close.” Every sailor, and every man, woman, and child at a port town, knows to douse the lights at sundown. Even the Russian War doesn’t reach the coast, and enemy ships pass at sea without incident.

I squirm, hoping he’ll relax his grip and move off me. “How do you know?”

“How do you think I ended up here? They wrecked my ship.”

“What do you mean, ‘they’? You saw more than one?”

“I saw the maelstroms. At least three or four, but I didn’t stop to count.”

His knees weigh on my thighs like stones. I wrench a wrist from his grasp and push against his chest. “That’s impossible,” I say. “Nobody’s ever seen more than one at a time.”

He slides onto the sand next to me. “Tell that to my shipmates.”

I sigh. There’s no point in arguing about it right now, and having a conversation with a stranger in the dark feels too much like talking to myself. “What do you suggest?”

“Hunker down for the night, get some rest, and keep the lights off.”

I sit up, brushing the sand from my shirt. Something feels wrong. It takes me a moment to register the lightness, but when I do, it stops the breath in my throat.

The flare gun is gone.

I pat the sand around me, feeling nothing but the cool grains between my fingers.

My companion shifts away. “Something wrong?” Unease colors his voice.

“Nothing.” My head is swiveling around the beach even though it’s too dark to see anything. “It’s nothing.”

We feel our way back to the hut. He follows a couple yards behind, giving me space after our scuffle.

But why should he be afraid? He’s the one who attacked me. I should be afraid of him.

Unless he has something that belongs to me.

Ridiculous. I felt his hands on mine almost the whole time we were down. It’s lying somewhere on the beach, and I’ll be able to find it in the morning.

I’ll just have to make sure I’m up first.

* * *

The surreal thing about total darkness is that the line between sleep and wakefulness is almost invisible. It becomes difficult to tell when your eyes are closed and whether the rushing in your ears is the sound of waves or the static of dreams.

I crack my eyes open, and morning light spills in like a yolk from an eggshell. I’m alone, and I begin to wonder if the stranger from last night was a dream until I look around the hut and realize that the flare gun is still missing.

I stagger out of my shelter and in the direction of last night’s fight. It’s impossible to tell exactly where we were, and it’s hard to distinguish the ripples and crests in the sand from tracks. The crawl back to the hut last night didn’t feel that far, but I don’t see my gun anywhere. Taking deep breaths, I start walking a wide circle around this side of the beach and slowly spiral inward, dragging my feet through the sand. It might have gotten buried in the night.

I reach the center of my spiral with nothing to show for my efforts but a vague trail in the sand. A salty breeze ripples through my hair, and I look up and down the beach again. Could it be farther out? I was sure we’d fallen on the leeward side of the hut.

A voice calls out from the other end of the beach. I look back and see a man walking toward me. He looks up but doesn’t acknowledge me.

We meet at the hut, and I’m surprised and relieved to see that my stranger actually exists.

He smiles in a way that shows too many teeth. “I would have woken you if I’d known you wanted to walk.” He looks over my shoulder, still smiling insipidly. He sounds bored and indulgent, like someone offering to let his kid brother help chop firewood. “Oh, I found something while I was out.”

He reaches into his pocket and I draw a shallow breath. But what he presents to me in the flat palm of one hand is only my lighter.

I feel my lips stretch themselves into a rigid smile as I take it. “I was missing that,” I say. “Where did you find it?”

“Just down there,” he says, pointing at the tract of beach that I’d just searched. “Saw the edge sticking out of the sand.”

“How fortunate.” I look at his face for what seems like the first time. He’s about average height, average build. A little on the skinny side—like he hasn’t had a proper meal in weeks. He’s got a ragged, unkempt beard, and his hair has been starched and tangled by the salty winds. The sun-burnished glow on his skin makes his eyes look bright and a little mad. There’s something blandly familiar about him that I can’t place until I figure that he looks a little like me, or the way I expect I’d look after a few weeks on the rough.

It takes me a moment to form words. “You didn’t happen to find anything else out there, did you?”

He cracks that grin again. “Like that lifeboat over yonder? If I’d found something like that, I’d be long gone by now.” He laughs, and several seconds pass before I realize that he’s joking with me, and I laugh along. Still, I can’t help but look over his shoulder, hoping to see in his tracks how far he’s walked this morning.

Far enough that I didn’t see him when I first woke up.

He shields his eyes with one hand and looks at the sky. “We should try to stay in the shade. Keep ourselves from getting dehydrated.” I follow him back to the hut.

We sit on opposite ends of the hut and begin the day’s vigil. No ships yet.

I tuck my heels under my thighs. “So,” I ask, “what brought you here?”

“We were shipwrecked a week ago.” He gestures at the back of the hut and the portion of the island beyond it. “On the other side. We were just in sight of the island when we went down.”

“Supply clipper?” He sounds English, but the war has bred enough profiteers that he could be working for anyone. Not that it matters out here.

“No. One of the new ironclads. Fat lot of good it did.” Evading the abyssi with speed versus surviving them by strength is the fashionable shipyard debate. What no one seems ready to admit is that neither matters more than luck.

“What about the rest of your crew?”

He shakes his head. “I’m lucky I made it. I must have coasted in with the tide that night.” His fingers trace a pattern in the sand. “Anyway, I walked around, and I finally caught sight of your camp in the distance yesterday. I guess I was hoping for some good news or something, I don’t know.”

“Something like that lifeboat you mentioned?”

His eyes crinkle at the edges. “That would be a start. Anyway, you seemed to be set up well enough.” And there it is again, the question of food, hanging between us like a silent accusation.

“Were you able to salvage anything from your wreck?” I ask.

“Nothing but a couple barrels of pitch and some scrap wood made it to shore with me.”

I make a little hmm sound and stare at the sand between my knees.

The trouble is, I’ll need to eat soon.

He clears his throat as if sweeping our awkward evasions under the rug. “How’d you end up here? And what can I call you?”

I’m grateful for the change of topic. I extend my hand to the stranger and tell him my name.

“Lee,” he says in return.

“Huh. That was my father’s name.”

He takes my hand. His grip is firm, and he holds on a little too long. “You know what they say. Small world. Especially when you’re stuck on an island.” With that, he laughs again, his over-large teeth and bright eyes flashing. “But back to your story.”

“It started three weeks ago. We must have hit shoals, because we started going down. Seas weren’t friendly, so it was just me and some of the cargo that made it here. Small arms and medicine, mostly.”

“Mostly,” he says, suddenly meeting my eyes.

I look away, thinking of my rations. I can feel the blush rising under my tan. “So, what was your ship doing out here?”

The corners of his mouth twitch into a smirk. “Scouting.”

And now to hear which side of the war he’s on. “For what?”

He leans forward, his arms resting on his knees. “Abyssi.”

I jerk back, my hands flat on the sand as if I’m ready to spring. “You mean you went looking for those monsters?”

He nods.

“Why?”

He’s still hunched forward, and he lowers his voice to a whisper. “We found a way to kill them.”

“Bullshit.”

“Anything can be killed.”

“Not by people. Not those things.”

He sits back, and his grin is maddeningly condescending. “How do you know?”

“How do you?” I’m on my feet now, pacing the tiny hut. “Have you actually killed one?”

His smile withers at the corners. “This was our first attempt. It’s sound logic, though.”

“I’m an engineer. Everything looks good on paper.”

He shrugs, willing to leave me to my folly. But he’s watching me beneath hooded lids, and I’m taking the bait.

“How’s it work?” I cross my arms snugly against my chest.

He pauses and rolls his tongue, as if he has to think about this. “It’s not as complicated as you’d think. I hate to use the word ‘bait,’ but you need people to lure an abyssus close. Large livestock might work, too,” he says, looking thoughtful.

“What else?”

“The main thing you need is a light source. Not torches, though. They’ll follow torches, you know that, but you need something that’ll drive their blood up. Something bright and explosive.”

My mouth is dry. There is a tingling sensation on my skin and a distant ringing in my ears. “Such as?”

“Dynamite, obviously. That’s the best, if you have it on hand. Though waterlogging can be a problem.”

My teeth throb, and I have to force the words through my clenched jaw. “And…as an alternative?”

He laughs, and it’s the sound a wild dog makes in the night. “I suppose you just have to improvise with whatever’s lying around. Why, you have a suggestion?”

My vision is starting to swim. I need to eat something.

I sink to my knees, squeezing my eyes against the hunger and the nausea. “What happens after the explosion?”

He takes a slow, deep breath through his nose. “That’s where it all gets a bit more theoretical.”

I want to ask more. I also want to tell him to go to hell, to ask him what he did with my flare gun. But it’s getting hard to think around the hunger headaches.

Lee leans in. “Everything alright? You don’t look so good.”

“I need water,” I say, pushing myself to my feet.

“Stay. I saw the spring on my way here.”

A bucket sits against one wall. Even as I cast my eyes down, they flit to the bucket. Without a word, he picks it up.

“I’ll get it next time,” I say, feeling a humiliating mixture of gratitude, shame, and hunger.

“Just get some rest.” With that, he’s on the beach and headed inland with loud, shuffling steps.

I wait until they’ve faded, and then I dig up my food stash in the corner. The hunger is just great enough to overpower everything else I feel about this stranger, this thief, walking a mile in the sun to bring me water.

I dig away just enough sand to expose the painted top of the old munitions box. My hands are trembling as I pry the lid off. It takes a little more effort than I’d remembered. I reach into the box, but something is wrong.

There are six rations.

I take them out of the box, count them, re-count them, rearrange them, and count them again. There are six. There were seven. I’m sure of it.

What I don’t know is how the stranger could have found my food, much less taken any without my knowledge. I’m frozen like this for I don’t know how long, kneeling over two identical rows of rations, when I hear a distant sound. Like birds. Whistling. My stranger is returning with the water, whistling.

I devour one of the rations with the speed that only the desperately hungry can muster. I replace the remaining five and cover the box again, as if it matters. By the time the stranger returns, I’m huddled against the wall, steeling myself against the stomach cramps.

He screws the bucket into the sand in the middle of the room and somehow manages to find a tin cup in one of the boxes stacked against the wall. As he fills it from the bucket and hands it to me, I’m so overcome with surprise at his solicitousness, and with the almost post-coital guilt and sluggishness of my hurried meal, that I wonder how I could have been so suspicious of this man.

And then, he belches.

He stifles it, modestly, behind a hand, and he gives me the kind of sheepish grin that would seem natural at a dinner party.

But there it is between us, a mockery of my weakness and a taunting reminder of his ability to take what he wants from me.

And like a kicked dog, I bury my face in the cup and murmur thanks.

He settles back into the sand, sitting across from me. “Hard to believe you’ve made it on your own this long.”

“Only three weeks,” I say. “Men have survived longer.” It’s another unhappy reminder of my frailty.

But his eyebrows are raised, his lips pursed. “Three? How do you figure that?”

“I’ve been keeping track.”

He gives me a long, slow nod. The kind one gives to humor a child.

“Here,” I say, setting my cup in the sand, “why don’t I show you?”

“How about we just rest here.” He doesn’t meet my eye.

“I insist.”

I lead him around and to the back of the hut, a distance so short that it makes our mutual errand, and my purposeful stride, seem ridiculous. Some part of my mind registers that the scenery behind the hut has changed somehow, that boxes seem to be missing, but I’m too focused to give it thought. Leaning against the ramshackle wall is the lid from a wooden artillery crate. Twenty-two etched tally marks form a neat row along the top of the lid, and as my guest looks on, I add a twenty-third.

When I step back to allow him to count for himself, he favors me with an unreadable glance. He flips the wooden slab.

Short, scratched lines fill the other side of the lid. At the top, they begin in even, orderly rows, but progressing down, they degenerate into crooked, irregular scribbles.

The stranger sucks his teeth.

I’m speechless. I don’t count the marks, but I know there are dozens of them. Well over two hundred, at least. I wander away from the board and look at the sea.

Lee follows, standing a few paces behind me. “If my plan works, we won’t be here much longer.” He gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze. His hand is cold and moist, like a dead fish.

* * *

In the shade of the hut, I fall into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

When I awaken, night has fallen, and I can tell that I haven’t moved. As I stare at the canvas roof of the hut, I take a deep, bracing breath. I hear crackling. I smell smoke.

Leaping to my feet, I dash out of the hut and behind it. Lee is standing there, a new bonfire at his feet and a sickening grin on his face.

“I was just wondering if you were going to get up before I had to burn the shack down.”

He’s started the fire with a heap of smashed crates and scrap, and he’s feeding it from another pile next to him. I recognize my tally board among the sacrificial offerings.

Falling to my knees and digging like a dog, I fling handfuls of sand into the fire. Lee tackles me again, easily, and he’s chuckling, but there’s seriousness in his voice when he speaks.

“It’s too late for that. Take it easy.”

“You’ll bring them here.”

“I know.”

“You’ll kill us both.” Even I can hear the hysteria creeping into my voice.

“Not if we burn it fast enough.”

There’s a frozen moment while my animal brain does the calculation. Then, I’m on my feet and ripping my shelter apart with all the strength in my atrophied arms.

We finish in minutes, and it’s a grim reminder of how flimsy my makeshift home always was. By the time we’ve pulled the planks, crates, and canvas down, the fire is large enough for us to feed everything into it. Lee takes off running, and I follow him up the slope and to the edge of the grass. With the relative protection of distance and elevation, we turn back to observe our handiwork.

The bonfire is a beacon in the night, and I suddenly realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen something burn like this. I also realize that I’ve just helped Lee destroy everything that has sustained me on this godforsaken island.

With a glance at my face—it’s actually bright enough for us to see one another tonight—Lee seems to understand what I’m thinking, and he puts that cold-fish hand on my back again, just behind my neck.

“It’s okay,” he says.

I say nothing.

“I had to bring one close. I had to be sure. We only have one flare.”

I look up at him. “My flare.” It’s a plea. I’m too stunned, and too feeble, for anything stronger.

He gives the nape of my neck a squeeze. “You’ve been sitting on that beach with the flare gun for the better part of a year. You were never going to work up the nerve to use it.”

It’s an assault on my manhood, and however powerless I’ve felt in the last twenty-four hours, it’s a slap in the face to hear it from him.

“Besides,” he says, “you were down to five rations. How much longer were you going to last, just waiting like this?”

I spin to face him, and he takes a step back, his eyes wide and surprised. My lips part in a snarl, and his hand flies to his hip, perhaps to a gun or a knife. I don’t care. I prepare to spring.

Just then, there’s an unholy roar, a noise like the earth splitting in two. And it is. The ground trembles beneath us, sending cascades of sand downhill. We look to the bonfire and watch as it’s snuffed out like a candle, the rubble beneath it collapsing and sinking into the sand. Belatedly, I reflect that I should have dug up my remaining rations. Even though surviving the next sixty seconds is the real concern.

Then, the sand around the debris pile sinks, disappearing in a widening cone of destruction. As the disaster area stretches by five yards, twenty, then fifty, there’s a sharp smell of sulfur in the air, and all we can see at our spot on the beach is a writhing sinkhole.

It’s here.

What was a churning crater seconds ago erupts, raining sand on our heads. Despite myself, I shield my eyes with a trembling hand and look up. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lee do the same.

The monster before me is so unnatural, so alien in its appearance that my eyes flicker and rove around the beast as I try to make sense of it. All I can discern at first is a gaping mouth the size of a schooner. The serpentine trunk rising from the sand is large enough to cleave an armored frigate in two. And that’s just the portion of the abyssus I can see. A glow deep within the monster’s belly lights up circular rows of teeth, each the size of a man. I am suddenly grateful that the beast is likely to crush us in a few merciful seconds.

The creature’s long, sinuous trunk twists and flails like a worm pierced by a hook. It screams, a sound like warping metal, and shakes the sand from between its bark-like scales. Its mouth snaps closed for the briefest of moments, and the world goes dark. The abyssus has sucked the light from the full moon.

Its mouth opens again, pointed toward us as if seeking us. The rounded jaws pulse. There are no eyes on its knotted prehistoric head. I have read that many creatures of the deep are sightless, but I am sure it senses us.

I look at Lee just in time to see him point the flare gun inland.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving us a head start,” he says. He fires.

The abyssus shrieks, and even with my hands pressed over my ears, the noise tears a scream from my own throat. Heat washes over me in the furnace blast from the monster’s maw. It chases after the flare, the thrashes and jerks of its trunk aided by paddling appendages tipped with claws.

Lee grips my shoulder. I can’t hear much over the ringing in my ears and the earth-shaking rumble of the frantic creature, but his mouth moves in the long, wide syllables of a shout, and he points us away from the abyssus’s frenzied path. We run.

The abyssus is a faint glow over the hills behind us, and the way ahead is almost completely dark. Lee skids to a halt, and I bowl into him, knocking both of us into a heap of wood and scrap.

I feel something sticky and viscous on my arms, and I’m sure one of us is bleeding until a pungent smell hits my nose. Pitch. Lee’s face appears suddenly in the warm luster of a little flame. I recognize my lighter in his white-knuckled grip. He holds a split plank to the flame and tosses it into the pile.

As the blaze engulfs the mound, I consider pushing Lee into it.

I grab his arm and spin him round to face me. “What the hell are you doing?” I can feel that I’m shouting, but my voice still sounds muffled.

“Keep it chasing the fires!” he yells.

“How do you know it won’t chase us?”

He shrugs and waves his hands. Either he didn’t hear me or that’s his answer. Before I can repeat my question, I notice that our fire is suddenly, and strangely, dying.

Lee pushes me forward. “Run!”

We take off across the hills, in what I can only assume is the direction of the next fire. The ground shakes as the abyssus draws nearer, headed for the fire we’re leaving behind.

The glow appears behind the hills ahead of us and to the right. It’s getting brighter. Our path is set to cross the approaching monster. I push my legs harder.

When the abyssus bursts over the hill, it’s moving faster than I would have thought possible for something meant to live in the depths. Its flailing movements look frenzied and absurd, but its size and strength compensate for the inefficiency.

By the time we’re level with the abyssus it’s one hundred yards away and closing, leaping downhill. It roars again, and my right side tingles with the burst of heat. Lee pushes ahead, throwing himself into a sprint. No matter how hard I run, the tuft of hills ahead of us doesn’t seem to be getting any closer.

I hear and feel the beast’s thumping progress, and I guess that it can’t be more than fifty yards behind me. If it’s going to come after us, it will change its course now.

But the rumbling and roaring gradually recedes as the abyssus thunders toward the fire, and Lee and I race for the hills. When we stop again, I pitch forward. My legs are as limp as boiled cabbage, and my chest is filled with ice.

Looking up, I see another heap of pitch-sodden wood.

“Not another,” I pant.

“No choice.” Lee’s words are punctuated by desperate, heaving breaths. “Got to keep it on the island. One more. Should be enough.” He points to the horizon. “Look.”

The sky is a luminescent, predawn gray, and I understand why I can see the woodpile.

I sigh. “Just a few minutes more. Rest.”

In the lowlands beneath us, the abyssus shrieks.

“No time,” Lee says. He takes my lighter and has the pile burning in seconds. We don’t watch it for long.

“Which way?” I ask as we leave the fire behind us.

“Doesn’t matter now.”

We’ve barely crested the hills when we hear the monster again behind us. In the time that it’s taken us to get out of sight of the newest bonfire, the abyssus has closed half the distance to it. There’s another roar once the creature reaches it, followed by several seconds of churning devastation. Then, the timbre of the ruckus changes. It’s chasing after us.

The sky is just starting to show pinks and purples. It will be a beautiful sunrise if we live to see it.

We race downhill, following the steepest slope we can find. It would probably make sense for us to split up, but neither of us is willing to cede the slope. Our bodies lean forward, at risk of tumbling over, but we’re moving fast.

Or so it seems until I feel the abyssus’s smoky breath on my back.

And just then, the world flattens out. There’s nothing but my legs to push me forward, and with the ground shaking beneath me, I’m one good jolt away from a fall.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see yellow break the horizon. The abyssus roars, and for just a moment, the shaking stops. I slow down enough to look over my shoulder.

“Keep running!” Lee says. Sure enough, the earth begins to move beneath us again, but this time it’s chaotic and arrhythmic.

But it’s strong enough to knock me down. My legs collapse under me, joggled into critical harmony. Lee looks back, briefly, but he keeps running. I would have done the same. I turn around for a final glimpse of the abyssus.

Its body is thrown into an arc against the bronze sky. The bright glow from its open mouth makes it a strangely beautiful sight.

It doesn’t seem to have noticed me. It’s wriggling and thrashing, beating itself against the ground and whiplashing through the air. It reminds me of an unfortunate midshipman I once saw trying to put out a fire on his coat.

As I watch, the blaze within the creature’s mouth grows brighter until it’s too much to look at. I cover my ears, anticipating another deafening roar, but when it comes, it’s choked and cut short.

The abyssus is dying.

Just as I begin to wonder how, the glow within the creature seems to break through its skin. It happens in a handful of places first, perhaps at the joints that are straining with all of its violent jerking, scars that seem to tear and lengthen. Smoldering fissures erupt from them, running between the beast’s scales in a hellish map. Soon the skin starts to rupture like a rotten wineskin, and with a final squeal, the abyssus is ablaze.

I look at the sky, where the sun has just started to peek over the horizon. It’s as brilliant as ever.

But my attention drifts back to the monster, which is still burning brightly and throwing up thick, black smoke. I cough and stumble away, aware of the blistering feeling on my skin.

There’s a hand on my shoulder, and I look up to find Lee.

“You said you could get us out of here.”

He laughs. “There’s not a ship for miles that can miss this. That hulk is going to burn all day.”

He doesn’t sound worried. But then he never sounded worried about any of this.

“You’ve got a ship on the way,” I say. He doesn’t have to nod. “Which side?”

He shrugs. “Russian.” It might as well have been either.

Burning flesh collapses, exposing a gauntlet of flame and bone, and suddenly I can’t look away. I’m looking at the fires that will burn in every port town from Naples to Aberdeen, and then, once the Ottomans and the rest of Europe figure it out, from Sevastopol to St. Petersburg, for as long as the war continues. I’m hearing the screams that will ring across the rim of a continent.

“I suppose it’s time I gave this back,” Lee says. He pulls the flare gun out of his waistband and offers it to me, handle first.

I take it and stare at the brass barrel, cold and yellow as a coward’s death.

Lee turns his back to me and takes a step toward the burning abyssus. “Makes you wonder what’s inside, doesn’t it? Maybe nothing.”

The flare gun isn’t much larger than my outstretched hand. But it’s heavy.

Lee laughs. “I hope you don’t live near the sea.” He’s still watching the blackened monster.

I raise the gun over my shoulder. I throw my weight into my arm and smash it into Lee’s skull.

Lee falls forward and I hit him again. The thick cracking sound, and the gurgling noise as he tries to turn his head, stops me.

“Monster,” he wheezes.

I hit him again. I don’t stop until he’s as silent and featureless as the thing burning in the dunes.

The Color of Regret

Originally published by PodCastle

* * *

Sefid’s aura was the same luminescent gray as storm clouds. “You will not regret this.” Yet he said it in that tone that people used when it was certain you would.

Nasrin cleared her throat. “What is there to regret? I am grateful for the matches.” She shifted on the concrete bench and slid the matchbox into the pocket of her faded corduroy coat. As a city bus rolled around the corner, commuters across the street pressed closer to one another, blending the colors of their own varied auras.

Sefid’s smile was merely a bristling at the center of his thick, black beard. It didn’t distract from the quick glance at his wristwatch. “You know as well as anyone how few of us there are in this province. Iran needs more people like your father. We trust that a daughter of Azad Rajavi won’t fail us.”

Nasrin hated hearing others talk about her father as if he were already dead. Martyrs were only romantic to people who didn’t have to carry their memory.

“I know my duty,” she said. The bus rolled to a stop with a hiss of exhaust and hydraulics. The commuter line shuffled forward.

“Good. Any instructions we have for you, or any messages we need you to pass along, will be left in the alley. You remember the procedures we discussed?”

She did. Still, she wanted to go over them again, one more time. She wanted the reassurance of seeing him nod along as she listed the dead drop signals: gray-coded messages came from Sefid, blue-coded messages came from Farhad himself, and anything else was a decoy. But her talents were rare, not irreplaceable. If he detected any uncertainty on her part, he’d call the whole thing off, and the resistance would move on without her. Chances were, this was another test. Everything else with Sefid had been.

So she said, “Of course,” and clutched the matchbox in her pocket. Sefid rose from the bench, crossed the street, and melted into the glowing crowd boarding the bus.

Nasrin waited for another three minutes, as she’d been instructed, and counted the beads of sweat that rolled down her neck.

Her sister was waiting when she returned home.

“So? How did it go?” It was impossible to keep anything from Leila. Her powers of perception were rivaled only by her lack of discretion.

“Fine,” Nasrin said, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. “How’s dinner coming?”

Leila watched her gesture. “It’s close.”

Nasrin ducked into her bedroom, hoping to shut the door before Leila could follow. “Don’t let it burn.”

“It’s simmering. I’ve got time.” Leila, her face aglow, was halfway through the door by the time Nasrin turned around.

Nasrin’s hand tensed around the matchbox, and her sister’s gaze dropped as if she could see it through the corduroy coat. Nasrin sighed. “Shut the door behind you.” She pulled out the matchbox and opened it as Leila hovered next to her.

A withered cigarette butt, smoked down to the filter, lay in a sparse bed of matches. Farhad’s scent—or what must have been his—clung to the box: earthy and musky, a mélange of sweat and gunpowder. More importantly, his aura stuck to the cigarette, which glowed a dappled blue and threw off sparks like a severed cable. She was careful not to touch it, lest she wear it away.

Leila peered over her shoulder. “What’s it look like?”

Nasrin forced a shrug. The movement felt jerky and unnatural. “Fiery. Bright,” she lied. “Just what you’d expect from a resistance leader.” She looked at her sister’s face to see if she’d said what Leila wanted to hear.

“You’re lucky to have the Sight, you know.”

“Not if the Clerics find out.” Auras were like fingerprints. No two were alike, which was why the resistance had begun recruiting Seers to verify the origin of hand-coded messages. Inevitably, the Clerics would start to hire, or conscript, their own.

“But you can make a difference.” Leila’s brilliant teeth appeared in a slowly widening crescent. “Father would be proud.”

Father, the local hero, the only man in town who’d refused the monthly home inspection. Father, sitting in the Clerical Enforcer’s prison. With all the talk, you’d think he’d single-handedly liberated Markazi province. It was hard to see how such a small act of defiance was worth any of it. Nasrin grimaced and slid the box shut.

“Does this mean you’ll start delivering messages?” Leila asked.

“It means you need to be more careful.” Nasrin felt her sister’s zeal like a noose tightening around her neck.

Leila clucked. “I’m not the one getting involved with the resistance.” She said it with more pride than Nasrin liked. It suddenly felt as if the steam from the kitchen had boiled into the bedroom. Nasrin glanced at her watch and adjusted her coat.

Leila frowned. “Where are you going?”

“Clear my head.”

Her sister jerked her chin toward the door. “Dinner’s in ten.”

“Don’t wait up.”

Leila left the room, and Nasrin waited until she heard the clatter and scrape of pots and spoons in the kitchen before lifting a loose floorboard under her bed and tucking the box underneath.

The streets were quiet and dark, owing in part to electricity rationing and in part to the simple fact that there wasn’t much to do in Arak, or any other town outside of Tehran, after nightfall. There was an even chance that any civilian on the street at this hour was a Clerical informer, a dissident, or both, for the right price.

Still, it seemed easier to keep her new involvement secret from strangers on the street than from her sister in the apartment. Home had ways of disarming a person. Her father had learned this the hard way.

The air was heavy with diesel fumes even though most of the cars and buses were parked for the night. Nasrin passed Shohada Square, where even the fountains were empty. So too were the Chahar Fasl baths.

At least the darkness hid the more depressing developments in her hometown: bullet holes scarring the walls from the uprising five years ago and banners praising Arak’s new Clerical Enforcer, all strung across the alleys like clotheslines. It was amazing how the force of an army could influence public opinion.

Nasrin had worked in a factory building boilers and turbines both before and after the revolution. The final years under the old regime had been lean, much like the last five under the new one. The slogans and political parties were new, yet their promises were the same. So too were their methods: secret police, interminable incarceration, and the watchful eye of censors and inspectors.

Somehow, securing a better tomorrow always required momentous sacrifice today.

Nasrin focused on familiar cracks in the pavement. People seemed to think that Seers viewed the world in a violent explosion of color, but for the most part, Arak was just as mute and gray to Nasrin as it was to everybody else. Still, the romanticism was understandable.

For Seers like her, people bore halos of color and light, each with its own shape and pattern, but it took sustained contact for those auras to rub off on anything else. On the streets, Nasrin glimpsed patches of color on discarded tissues and wads of chewing gum. These were as commonplace to her now as cloud streaks and the morning fog. What she hadn’t gotten used to was coming across something of her father’s at home—his pillow, his pipe, a wild-bristled toothbrush—still radiating traces of rippling green.

Nasrin followed Beheshti Street to Shokrael, trying to glance into the alleys without moving her head. She knew not to pass her dead drop site more often than normal, but the spot was like an itching scab, impossible to leave alone. It was too soon for her handlers to have left anything, which the crooked address plate hanging by the teahouse confirmed, but she told herself that this was good practice.

She continued a few blocks more until she could pass through Jannat Park and conceivably turn back for home.

Pots of eggplant stew and rice were waiting on the stove when she returned. She ate quickly, thankful that the food was already cold. She was too exhausted to taste it, anyway.

The next three days introduced Nasrin to her new routine: passing the dead drop morning and evening on her way to and from the Zarab factory and dodging Leila’s persistent questions over dinner.

It wasn’t until the fourth evening that things changed.

Nasrin almost missed the straightened address plate. The dim streetlamps seemed to conspire to throw as little light as possible beyond Shokrael’s cratered pavement. They urged her home, to a rushed dinner, evasions with Leila, and the blissful oblivion of sleep.

But she saw it and felt a hitch in her chest.

Ducking into the alley, Nasrin fished a cigarette and lighter out of her pocket. Getting out of the wind to light a smoke was as natural as anything. Nevertheless, her hands trembled as she held the flame to the tip.

She moved closer to the pockmarked wall. A loose brick near the trashcan came away in her cold-numbed hand. She dug into the gap and closed her fingers around an envelope even as she felt her knuckles scrape the pitted wall.

She slipped the letter into her pocket and casually shoved the brick into place with her hip while her right hand held the cigarette to her lips. She turned.

A guard was standing at the entrance to the alley, his silhouette a throbbing purple.

“Late to stop and admire the scenery, sister.”

She lifted the burning cigarette for him to see and willed her hand to remain steady. “A little company for my walk, sir. Father doesn’t allow it at home.”

He watched her and said nothing. The Clerical guards had a way of prompting you with silence. It was as if all of them had been schoolmasters before the overthrow.

Nasrin clutched at her coat with one hand and passed him the cigarette with the other. Her knuckles were raw and lined with blood and mortar grit.

The guard took the cigarette and looked at it as if it were a trampled coin that he could not decide whether to keep.

She dug into her pocket and handed him her box of cigarettes.

He took it and nodded. “My father is also strict.”

“God’s protection on you, sir.”

Nasrin finished her route home, her legs shaking. She didn’t take the letter out of her pocket until she had locked the bedroom door behind her. She read slowly, willing her mind to focus on each word.

Farhad must have slept with it under his shirt to give it such a thick halo of blue. She distantly wondered whether the letter and the cigarette really came from Farhad—whether the resistance was desperate enough to trust someone as new to the cause as she was—or whether her orders came from someone expendable.

In the end, it didn’t matter.

She buried the letter under the floorboard beneath her bed where it spent the night like a telltale heart. When she finally slept, her dreams were shaded with green and blue.

The sun was a dull smear against the frozen sky when Nasrin began her pilgrimage the next morning. Past Shohada Square, now full of silent pedestrians and coughing cars. This time, she continued down Malek Street.

She was careful to cast her eyes down as she passed government offices. Here there were no bullet holes in the walls, no medallions of gum on the street. One of the girls on her shift at the factory swore that a sister-in-law’s uncle had been detained for sneezing here.

All of the buildings in front of her were tall and clean, and none more so than the Hall of Clerical Justice. Here, men and women lined up to pay fines, appeal Clerical rulings, request permits, and otherwise prostrate themselves before the whims of the local Clerical Enforcer and his men.

Nasrin handed her papers to the guards standing on the steps. Her forms requesting holiday travel to Kashan were standard enough, and none of the guards seemed to recognize her as Azad Rajavi’s daughter. And why should they? However the dissidents fawned, he was nobody to anyone except her and Leila.

The hawk-nosed guard nearest to her shoved her papers back into her hands and waved her through the doors. Inside, a long row of service windows was lined with orderly queues and punctuated by more guards. The man standing just inside the building checked her papers again and pointed her to the kiosk midway down the long lobby. Nasrin risked a quick look around the place. She knew the face of the man she needed to find.

All of Arak did.

He was sitting, as she’d expected, at a desk at the far end of the hall, surrounded by bulletproof glass and an aura like a mottled bruise. Where he could see his domain and his domain could see him.

She kept her hands visibly in front of her and her head down as she marched to the other side of the lobby. Her pace remained steady and even as she passed the queue that the door guard had told her to join.

The people waiting for their turns at the windows were silent and still, which made it easy to notice when three of the guards turned their heads to examine her.

She caught an edge in the tile and stumbled. Two other guards peeled off to follow.

She was now past all of the windows; there was nothing but twenty yards of open floor between her and the man behind the desk. When the guards sped up some thirty feet behind her, she quickened her pace. She just needed to make it to the desk.

Clerical Enforcer Shirazi looked up at her approach and, to his credit, his eyes didn’t waver from her face, not even as the guards broke into a run.

The click of safety levers. She was close enough to see his chin pucker at her approach. It was still a desperate gamble.

The bulletproof glass loomed in front of her, and she pressed Farhad’s letter to it. Shirazi’s eyes, already moving to the armed men behind her, told her to speak quickly.

She panted into the tiny holes pocking the glass. “Enforcer Shirazi, I have a message tied to the rebel Farhad.”

His eyes darted back to her.

“I am prepared to identify any other intercepted communications for you and ask only that you release my father in return.”

The Enforcer’s frown curdled into a smile. “And what’s to stop me from throwing you into a cell next to your father and cutting the bones from your fingers until you do this for me?”

She swallowed. “Only your sense of mercy. I bring this to you freely, and I make no demands. Only requests.” Her hand, still pressing the letter to the glass, felt heavy.

He reclined in his high-backed chair and waved the guards away. “Relax, Miss Rajavi. I’ve no wish to discourage loyal citizens from their civic obligations, nor dutiful children from honoring their parents.” He stroked one clean-shaven cheek. “You will give me the letter, and you will scan other messages we have intercepted for auras. To thank you for your patriotism, we will release your father to you.”

She ducked her head to show gratefulness and humility, but not fast enough to miss the Enforcer’s victorious smirk.

“In addition,” he said, “we will recognize you and your father during next month’s Republic Day celebration. God willing, we will have made progress thanks to your efforts, and we can showcase our trophies alongside you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. Did he want to drive her father to another act of rebellion? “You honor me too much, sir.”

“It is hardly enough, sister. In time, I am certain we can think of more.”

Five hours later, after interrogations and cross-interrogations, Nasrin led her father home. The walk seemed longer than her journey to meet Enforcer Shirazi. Even along the row of government offices, pedestrians stopped to stare. Passing cars slowed to watch their progress. And why not? She’d spoken with the Enforcer in full view of the Hall of Clerical Justice before disappearing into its labyrinth of offices. The news had had hours to circulate.

The only person who wouldn’t look at her was her father. He shuffled along next to her, bird-thin and seemingly anchored to the ground by his gaze. Maybe it was the pain of fresh cigarette burns and an empty stomach, maybe it was shame and horror at what she’d done, but he hadn’t once met her eye.

He would forgive her one day, when scars knit his wounds and covered his sorrow. For now, this was enough.

Nasrin turned the key in the lock and opened the apartment door. Leila’s day of teaching was long since over, but home was empty and dark. Nasrin rushed to her sister’s room while her father lingered behind. The bed was made and the dresser clean. Only her shoulder bag, her coat, and a handful of shirts and pants were missing.

Nasrin found her father in her own room. He knelt, staring at something under her bed. The loose floorboard was gone, and the box with Farhad’s cigarette was missing.

Nasrin gasped. But her father only smiled.

It was the smile of a younger man, defiant and proud.

The Buried Life

Originally published by Angry Robot

Prologue

In a firelit study half a mile underground, Professor Werner Thomas Cahill sweated and reddened under a councilor’s beady stare.

“It’s a wonder,” Cahill said, “bigger than we ever expected.” His hands rested, palms down, on the massive cherry wood desk in front of him, and he licked his lips, searching for words to convey scale. Towering walls crowded around him and disappeared in the darkness above. He felt like a rodent in a viper pit.

The owner of the desk drummed long, slender fingers across it, and Cahill marveled at how clean it was. A councilor of his standing should have a lot more clutter.

Councilor Ruthers leaned forward. “Professor Cahill, you are aware of what this means?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I trust that you’ve been discreet?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told, sir.” Perspiration condensed on the polished wood under his hands.

“Then you know the complications that would arise if this were to surface.” The words came out like the first sigh of snow in the autumn air, unexpected and chilling. Cahill took the councilor’s meaning and shivered.

“Of course, sir.”

Ruthers paused, waving a hand in the air. “That isn’t all I’m talking about.” What frightened Cahill most was not that Ruthers would threaten his life, but that this was, apparently, least among their shared concerns. “This is your life’s work—your dream. It’s the same for an odd three dozen as well.”

“Actually, sir, it’s about twice that if you count—”

“I don’t.”

Cahill swallowed. Working with other people was hard enough. But conniving and backstabbing? This was why he tried to avoid collaborative efforts. And politics.

The chair beneath him whispered as he shifted on the velour upholstery. Councilor Ruthers smiled in what he must have thought was a reassuring manner.

“Werner, don’t worry about this. Your job is research—let me handle the politics. Agreed?”

Cahill nodded. That was all you could do when Councilor Ruthers asked if you agreed.

“Excellent. I want you to begin taking inventory. Prepare a preliminary report for Dr Hask, including an estimation of time and manpower. We’ll start next week.”

“Next week, sir?”

“Phase two.” Councilor Ruthers pulled an inch-thick, bound folder from under his desk and slid it to Cahill. It seemed out of place on the otherwise immaculate surface. Cahill took the folder, feeling slick leather under his thumbs. The cover bore one word.

Prometheus.

Chapter 1

The Inspector and the Laundress

The smugglers fled to the surface. Sooner or later, they always did. An underground city only offered so many places to run.

Liesl Malone’s feet pounded a rapid tattoo on the cobblestones, an up-tempo echo of the two sets of footsteps half a block ahead. The smugglers had been faster at the start of the chase, but now they were tiring. And, from the sounds of their clipped grunts and curses, panicking.

Malone’s long breaths filled her with the odors of soot, sweat, and desperation. She hadn’t wanted to move before next month’s clandestine cordite shipment, but the smugglers had recognized her. Someone had tipped them off. If they got away, the contacts she’d spent months grooming wouldn’t just be useless, they’d be dead.

The chase had started in the subterranean labyrinths of the city’s factory districts, where torch smoke choked the tunnels and obscured the murals and carvings left by thief gangs, rowdy youths, and immigrant factions. The factory districts bred criminals the same way sewers bred rats, and she’d spotted the smugglers in a knot around a jewelry fence’s stall. She could just see the whites of their eyes in the flickering torchlight as they squeezed between laborers from the nearby rubber mill. But when a murmur rippled through the crowd about the ghost-pale woman in the black overcoat, the smugglers had noticed her and bolted.

Unfortunately for these two, Malone’s feet were just as sure in the tumbling, jagged passages as theirs were, and her sharp elbows parted crowds as quickly as their girth. The smugglers had drawn their weapons, but she knew they wouldn’t dare fire. Most of the passages in the factory districts were as tight as they were twisted, leaving little open ground for a clear shot. Only the most desperate of fugitives would open fire in the melting pot of gangs and ruffians there. Even the lowest newcomers made allies, and everyone had a long memory.

Above the crowded tunnels and warrens of the underground city, the moonlight and shadows must have promised concealment, and the midnight chill must have tasted like escape. For whatever reason, a fugitive on the last leg of flight almost always made for the surface the way a wounded rabbit crawls to the bushes to die.

And now Malone pursued them through the stone forest of verandas, entrances great and small to the city below. These crumbling shacks listed toward one another, throwing sweeps of ancient brick and concrete into the street. The ones that still stood in this part of the city were especially small, barely big enough for three or four people to stand in. She would not have trusted the rusting chain-winch lifts and staircases within most of them for a seat on Recoletta’s ruling council.

Just ahead, one of the smugglers stumbled and nearly tripped on the cracked cobblestones. Deep trenches from years of carriage and wagon travel gouged the streets in this neighborhood. The air stank with factory smoke, which billowed into the night sky from outlets above the mills and foundries. Malone hoped that a stray wind wouldn’t send the chemical-blackened fumes their way to add to the darkness.

The first smuggler dashed behind a sawtoothed brick wall. His redheaded partner wasn’t as nimble. He smashed into the opposite structure, his pistol clattering into a nest of rubble, before he pivoted and dashed away. She rounded the corner just in time to see him speed ahead. Malone tracked the smugglers’ flickering movements in the moonlight as they wove between half-standing walls.

Reaching a jumble of tumbledown construction that looked more like a ruin than a city block, the smugglers predictably split up. Malone followed the man who had dropped his gun as he peeled off to the right and into a rubble-strewn alley. The smuggler glanced over his shoulder long enough to see her and bent to pull something out of his boot as he loped ahead. She ducked into a scarred crevice between two walls before he could turn again.

She scaled the weathered sandstone building in front of her, digging her hands and boots into jagged pockmarks. She crouched atop it and watched the smuggler five feet below back further into the alley, his eyes scanning for the black-clad inspector. Her polished black boots made nary a sound as she squatted and side-stepped just over the smuggler’s head. He continued to squint into the alley, but when a bank of clouds slid away from the moon, Malone’s shadow appeared at his feet, and he stiffened.

As the smuggler whirled, derringer raised, Malone kicked a foot out and sent a spray of loose sandstone and grit into his face. He clawed at his eyes and fired high, and Malone slid from the veranda in a rain of debris to land behind him. He turned, blinking frantically as her foot sailed toward his outstretched arm and sent his gun spinning to the ground. He grasped at his hip with a shaking hand, drew a knife, and rushed at her.

She retreated to the end of the alley and into the cross-street behind it, hoping that he would notice her revolver and reconsider. He hurled the knife instead. As Malone dodged left, the knife wheeled past her elbow and a bullet whistled by her nose. She saw the other smuggler out of the corner of her eye and heard a click as he thumbed back the hammer on his revolver. A quick release of sweat cooled her scalp. Malone dove back into the alley, knocking the redhead off his feet. She drove her elbow into his stomach and rolled past him, kneeling between him and his fallen derringer as he gasped for air. She pocketed it while he struggled to his feet.

“Back out of the alley. Hands behind your head,” she said, making sure he saw the grinning “O” of her revolver’s muzzle.

He coughed, rising slowly. “He’ll shoot me.”

“So will I.” Malone pointed her gun at his right kneecap.

The smuggler’s face went white. “You can’t do that!”

“I never miss at this distance.”

“But I’m unarmed!”

Malone flicked her revolver at him. “Hands up. Slowly.” He took shuffling steps backwards, his lips working wordlessly and his face flushing in alternating shades of rage and panic. “You two must not be close,” she said.

The smuggler glanced up from his feet. “Anjoli thinks with his gun, that’s all.”

“He’s still armed. What’s that say about you?”

He glared at her. “Says I got other skills.”

“Like knife throwing?”

The smuggler’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched, but it was the sudden flicker in his eyes that Malone was watching for. She spun, rolling to the side as a muzzle flashed at the other end of the alley. The redheaded smuggler howled behind her. Malone squeezed her trigger twice, and the figure standing thirty yards away collapsed. She turned back to her recent acquaintance on the ground, hunched over his thigh.

“I’m bleeding,” he said, looking up at her.

She tossed him a pair of handcuffs. “Use these.”

The man winced, taking a sharp breath through his teeth. “What are those supposed to do?”

“Keep me from using this,” Malone said, wagging her gun. She turned back into the alley, pointing her revolver into the dimness. At the other end, Anjoli slumped against a bank of fallen masonry, pawing for his fallen pistol with a mangled hand. Blood poured from two stumps on his right hand and onto the gun’s slickened grip. More pooled under his leg, painting the jagged paving stones a shiny black in the moonlight. Anjoli looked up at Malone with dull eyes and slid the blood-wet gun to her feet.

A shadow fell across the alley from the crooked avenue beyond Anjoli. “That was a problem built for two, Inspector Malone.”

She holstered her revolver and patted a derringer snuggled against her thigh. “I’ve got my own pair.”

Inspector Richards stepped over the rubble, circling around to Anjoli. He snapped a white handkerchief out of his pocket and grasped the smuggler’s hand in it, examining the stumps. Anjoli groaned, and Richards left the bloodied rag in his hand. “Pinch it here and hold tight.” Richards straightened and turned back to Malone. “Surgical shot, Malone. Dare I ask the what-ifs?”

“When a contract is eight months old, one less smuggler is the least of our worries. If prisoner transport doesn’t show up soon, though…”

Richards glanced over his shoulder. “The welcome wagon’s a few blocks back. The driver doesn’t know what to do on the surface roads here, if you can call them that, and never mind the subterranean routes. Plenty of time to get these guys patched up and taken to the station.”

Malone buttoned her long black overcoat against the night air. “You got here fast.”

“You’re easy to find,” Richards said. “I just follow the gunfire. Or the curses. You have an effect on people.” Anjoli moaned again.

Malone leaned against the crumbling wall behind her. “Is that why you always show up after I’ve passed around the cuffs?”

Richards smiled, a glint of white in the moonlight. “Oh, leave it. I know you wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, Recolettans need to know who keeps their city clean.”

She shrugged, looking back down the alley. The hunkered shadow at the other end raised his arms, showing her a pair of glimmering handcuffs.

Richards followed her gaze. “Is that the better half?” Malone nodded. “How’d you know?” he asked.

It was Malone’s turn to grin. “He told me.” The only reason that Anjoli would have come back for his partner was if he knew about their networks and safehouses. Anjoli would never be safe with his partner in the hands of the Municipal Police, which meant that the other man either had to escape with him or die. The redhead’s fear of his partner told Malone that he knew this, too.

A wooden carriage pulled up outside the alley with a clopping of hooves and the groan of wheels. Heavy bars crossed the narrow windows along the sides of the carriage, and the team inside traded muffled orders as they prepared to bind the smugglers’ wounds and load them up. “Since you’ve got it from here, I’ll walk back to the station,” Malone said. “I can finish my report in a few hours.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Richards turned back down the alley as four uniformed officers jogged from the carriage. “The chief has other plans for you,” he said, his voice lowered. She followed, silent. “Break-in at 421 East Eton. One casualty.” Malone met Richards’s gaze, not bothering to ask why her, and why now, after an all-night manhunt.

“Just outside the Vineyard,” he said. “Obviously, the chief wants you to take a look at this as quickly and quietly as possible. It could be nothing.” The edge in his voice suggested this was too much to hope for. Little crime occurred near the Vineyard, and for a good reason. It was home to the whitenails, the most powerful men and women in the city, and the only thing more formidable than their wealth was their mercenary sense of justice. Any criminal in that neighborhood would only hope for the Municipals to catch him first.

To Malone, the Vineyard was even worse than the factory districts. If something had gone wrong beneath those pristine marble verandas, it would in no way be a simple matter.

As if reading her thoughts, Richards looked down at the patterns his boots had scraped into the grit. “There’s something else,” he said. “The victim is named Cahill. He’s a historian. Was a historian.”

Malone stalked out of the alley, her coat swishing against her black slacks and knee-high boots. Within a quarter of an hour, she had left the factory districts for the straight, broad surface avenues that most Recolettans knew. As if aging in reverse, the crumbling ruins gave way to towering structures marking various residences and businesses, whole and austere and gleaming blue in the moonlight. It was a wonder they had been so carefully crafted, particularly when city-dwellers spent most of their time underground. Pressed against one another in the fashion of a crowded metropolis, the monuments took on the character of gruff, mustachioed old men, huddled together in their dress coats and frowning upon passersby.

Malone found a hansom cab at the corner and showed her inspector’s seal to the driver, giving him an address just beyond her destination. If discretion was imperative, it wouldn’t do to travel too close to the Vineyard in the wee hours with a chatty cabbie watching.

As the carriage clattered from the less impressive zones toward the Vineyard, the old men lining the cobbled streets evolved, growing in stature and spreading their arms over tiled avenues. Whether they opened their arms to welcome or to snatch depended entirely upon one’s relationship to them.

Recoletta, like all modern cities, had been constructed around the two values that society prized most: security and privacy. Even hundreds of years after the Catastrophe, people still lived underground. Crude shelters had developed into shining palaces and rudimentary tunnels into yawning halls lit by fire and mirrors. Ornate verandas declared the locations and the prestige of their owners in the flashiest manner affordable. Even the larger structures, some of which could easily house several families, never functioned as actual living or workspaces. The real business went on below, hidden from common scrutiny.

This observation became truer as one traveled from stone to marble.

The hansom came to a halt, and Malone walked half a dozen blocks further to a neighborhood seemingly hewn from fine, veined stone. She found herself alone in the surface streets, grateful that the neighbors were too wealthy to be out at this hour. Malone stopped in front of a tall, narrow building of jet-black with a single elevator cage inside. Whereas the neighboring edifices were polished to a sheen that flashed in the moonlight, the one in front of Malone was worn rough and mottled with lichen. Three steps led to a rusty black gate. It was bowed outward, she noticed, and shards of glass and metal trickled from the upper steps to the perfectly aligned cobblestones below.

Boots stomped in the street behind her with dull, crunchy thumps. She turned to the older man trudging toward her. He also wore Municipal black, but his coat was frayed at the edges and faded at his elbows and shoulders. Inspector Carlyle glowered up at her from beneath thick eyebrows.

“I was wondering when our ghost inspector would appear,” he said through sagging cheeks.

“Richards sent you,” Malone said. She wasn’t surprised that Richards had neglected to mention this.

“Over an hour ago. Someone had to keep an eye on things while you were running around.” He pushed a lantern into her hands.

Malone caught a whiff of whiskey sourness on his breath. “Smells like you had company.” Stepping over the debris, she lit the lantern and called the elevator to the main residence. Carlyle followed close behind. They squeezed into the elevator cage together, and his breath filled the space for the eleven seconds of their descent.

The elevator settled into the bottom of the shaft, presenting them with a wooden door still hanging ajar. Malone took a grateful breath of fresh air. Her pulse slowed ever so slightly as she stepped into the darkened entryway. Dust motes swirled in front of her lantern, and a faint illumination flickered further down the hall.

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d flip the gaslights on,” Carlyle said.

Malone kept her gaze trained down the hall. “Were they on when you showed up?”

He grumbled something indistinct.

Malone followed the winking light and a wine-colored carpet to a study, a musty affair of bookshelves and worn leather.

It was almost a relief to see the crime confined to one small room. Four books were massed near the door of the study in an assortment of positions, fanned pages folded beneath the weight of their covers. A lone candle resting on a desk in the far corner lit a crumpled corpse slumped next to one shelf and the pile of fallen books at its feet.

Carlyle stood in the doorway while Malone crossed the study.

The shivering light animated the broken body as if it were still struggling to live, and the man’s hand, still warm and limp, also suggested a tenuous grasp on life. Bending over the dead man, Malone could just make out the shadow of a bruise at the base of his skull.

“Messy old bastard,” Carlyle said. “I thought these fancy folk were supposed to be well kept.”

“Does he look like a whitenail to you?”

“Not much I can see without the damn lights.”

The deceased was fully dressed in stained and rumpled clothes that he must have worn for several days, unusual for a member of high society, though not for an eccentric workaholic.

The study yielded further evidence that the victim had been less of the former and more of the latter. The patterned wool rugs, though obviously expensive, were threadbare in places and compounded with dirt and spills that had never been cleaned. Some of the volumes lining the walls appeared to be falling apart, and a coating of dust blanketed everything but the books.

Carlyle sneezed. “This guy ever heard of a broom?”

“Looks like he was busy.”

“Doing what?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out.”

Malone hovered over the lit candle. By the substantial pool of warm wax at the base, she guessed it had burned all night. The lid had been removed from the inkpot, and the wet and balding quill lay discarded on the desk, which was otherwise clear. There was every appearance of serious business having taken place throughout the night, but no evidence of the finished product.

She pushed past Carlyle, ignoring his sigh when she finally flipped on the gaslights, and poked around the rest of the house. She might as well have searched in the dark for all the good it did her. A thorough survey of the rest of the house uncovered no other clues: no upturned furniture, no ransacked closets, and there was money and a few valuables left in plain sight.

Malone returned to the study and knelt by the victim. She pulled from his pocket a wallet that, like everything else he owned, appeared well used and ill cared for.

The doorjamb creaked as Carlyle leaned against it. “Any money left in there, Inspector?”

She found his credentials on coffee-stained cardstock that felt soft with age. Werner Thomas Cahill, seventy years old, Doctorate of History. As rare as they were, Malone had never met a historian, but with his disheveled attire and unkempt gray hair, Cahill looked much as she would have expected.

“Any connections?”

“Directorate of Preservation,” Malone said, reading from Cahill’s papers.

“Obviously. Who else can hire historians?”

“The Quadrivium.” Malone held up an ID card from Recoletta’s premier university.

Carlyle threw his hands up and turned halfway into the hall as if demonstrating his exasperation to an imaginary audience. “This guy was a couple of blocks from the richest quarter in the city, he worked at two of the top institutions, and yet he lived like a tradesman.”

Malone’s eyes flicked up to the shelves. “Not everyone likes pretty manners and parties.”

Carlyle shivered and tried to cover it by shoving his hands violently into his pockets. “Rich weirdos. You tell me what a history-reading geezer does like. More importantly, tell me when you’re done.” He marched back into the hall, and moments later couch springs sighed in the parlor.

For all of the luxuries Cahill lacked, he’d owned more than a few things that even the Vineyard dwellers would never have, and they all sat on his bookshelf. As she skimmed the spines of the books lining the room, her heart jumped. She raised her lantern and squinted at the shelves. Nestled among the ancient and modern fiction classics were a handful of titles concerned with history, or at least theories about it. Most historical records had been lost or destroyed in the period immediately following the Catastrophe. The Council restricted the serious study of antebellum history, and any archives and accounts were guarded within the vaults of the Directorate of Preservation.

Seeing history books on display sent Malone’s gut roiling. Cahill must have been important to have permission to keep history books at his home. Surely he had permission? Even as she wanted to hide the volumes, to push them deeper into the shelf, she caught her hand creeping toward them, her fingers itching. Perhaps, she thought, they might reveal something about Dr Cahill’s mysterious work. She considered this even as she listened for Carlyle’s return.

Malone stopped herself. Had these books been relevant to the crime, the assassin would have taken them, too. And if they weren’t relevant, then there was no professional reason for her to open them. Fingers tingling in midair, she dropped her hand and stepped back from the shelf. Even a scholar such as Dr Cahill would not keep history books of real danger in his home, and if he did, well, such matters were not among the concerns of the Municipal Police.

She let her gaze wander to the other books on the shelves. Beside and beneath their titles were familiar, reassuring words: Novel. The Collected Poetry of…Essays and Anecdotes. Short Stories. These were the kinds of books that appeared in schoolhouses, public libraries, and the salons of the cultured. Censorship didn’t feel as bad when you kept the sweetness and light. History and the darker vignettes, on the other hand, remained under the lock and key of trusted authority, like some virulent epidemic. Above all, such powers feared releasing into the air whatever secrets had nearly destroyed the world so many centuries ago.

Malone turned her back to the bookshelves. For all her searching, Cahill’s desk was still empty, and she had no way yet of knowing what had filled it a few hours before. Carlyle snored in the next room. It was nearly seven when she blew out the candle and returned to the parlor.

She coughed, and Carlyle jerked awake.

“What now?” he said.

“I go back to the station.”

“And me?”

“You wait here for the morgue cart.” Malone headed back to the elevator.

Sunlight barely reached the elevator shaft from the veranda’s tall windows above. As Malone stepped into the cage, she noticed a faint glimmer between her feet. She reached between the bars of the bottom grating and dug into a crumbling line of mortar in the stone flooring, retrieving a layer of grime and a small key just before the elevator began its ascent. As Malone turned the key between her fingers, her mind spun in quick, concentric circles.

Upon reaching the surface, she tested the key on the gate and found a match. Malone noticed for the second time that the inside of the building was clean, with all of the broken glass on the steps and the avenue just outside. She tucked the key into her pocket, reached her conclusion, and made her way to the station downtown.

* * *

Halfway across the city, in more modest quarters, warm, astringent water licked at Jane Lin’s elbows as she searched the washbasin. One black pearl button the size of her thumbnail; that was all she needed to save her job. Work with the whitenails would dry up if word got out that she was a butterfingers, or, worse, a thief.

A wool frock coat hung against the opposite wall, its empty buttonhole glaring back at her. She had steamed it to crisp perfection and spot-cleaned it with a toothbrush, yet this somehow made the button’s absence even more conspicuous. Now, as she picked through the linen garments in the basin with exaggerated delicacy, trying to find a small, dark button amidst the soapsuds felt like trying to find a thimble on a crowded railcar. Assuming it was there at all.

A knock at the door brought her to her feet with a swift, startled jump. Wiping her hands on the front of her skirt like a kitchen thief, she unlatched the door for a dour, balding man whose expression suggested that he had just caught a whiff of something awful.

“Mr Fredrick Anders?” he said, his eyes fixed on some point over her head.

“Jane Lin, actually,” she said, suddenly conscious of her damp, wrinkled skirt and the drooping bun into which she had tied her dark hair. She straightened, shifting to block his view of the coat hanging against the far wall. “Mr Anders lives one over. Number 2C.”

The impeccably dressed man twitched, appearing unaccustomed to anything like a rebuff. “Thank you,” he managed. Jane shut the door and turned back to the washbasin in the middle of the floor, where it sat ringed by puddles and suds. She began twirling the clothes inside with a pronged wooden dolly, finally accepting that the priceless button, wherever it might be, wasn’t in the basin.

About ninety seconds later came another knock, this one rapid and irregular. Before she could start toward the door, a tall, wiry man bounded in without preamble.

“Jane, what on earth are you doing? Haven’t you heard?” he said, breathless. “There’s been a murder!”

The way he said it, as if announcing a grotesque exhibit at a street fair, surprised her more than what he said. “A what?” The dolly’s wooden handle slipped from her fingers. “When, Freddie? And where?”

“Only last night,” he said, a little calmer, “just outside of the Vineyard.” His eyes twinkled as he waited for her reaction.

“That’s impossible. How…”

“No one knows yet, but trust me, you’ll be the first to know when I get word.”

Jane mopped a few stray locks away from her forehead. Leaning against the washbasin, the dolly suddenly looked sharp and sinister. “Do you know who died?”

“The Municipals aren’t saying much, but it looks like some shriveled government scholar was choked with his own mothballs.”

“That’s terrible, Freddie.” She frowned, pausing for decency before the necessary follow up. “Did you get the assignment?”

His buoyant expression fell, and he ruffled his sandy-brown hair with one hand. “Blocked again by Chiang, the editor with a vengeance.” He balled a wad of paper from his pocket and flicked it through an imaginary target and into the fireplace behind Jane. “Or maybe just out-bribed by Burgevich. But I will be covering the grand society ball next week! Take a look at this pair of shoe-shiners.” His green eyes sparkled again as he brandished two sheets of vellum adorned with flowing calligraphy.

“Sounds like one of your editors likes you.” Jane rubbed the smooth material between thumb and forefinger. “Hardly seems fair that those go to you, though. I’m in that part of town every day of the week.” Though short of a miracle, that would soon change.

Fredrick beamed again as Jane grabbed the dolly and returned to her wash. “One of the many perks of career journalism. That’s actually what I came by to tell you.” He rolled the sheets and tucked them back into his coat. “That, and to invite you along, of course.”

Jane stopped mid-press, her fingers tight around the handle. “That’s very kind,” she said.

Fredrick laughed. “You know me, I’m not doing it to be kind. I can’t suffer through all those speeches on my own.” He watched her slow, methodical strokes in the basin. “Don’t tell me you already have plans.”

She stared into the filmy water. “Of course not.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll clean up fine in whatever you put together.”

Jane straightened her back and rested a hand on her hip. “Freddie, I fix clothes for a living. That’s the least of my worries.”

“Then whatever the hell is it?” Freddie had circled around her and now stood just a few feet from the damaged frock coat.

Jane’s eyes flicked from the coat to Freddie. “No offense, but you. My clients will be there. And I’ll be there with you, a reporter. I don’t want to give any of them the wrong idea.” It was true, and it was easier to explain than the missing pearl. The last thing she wanted right now was to add Fredrick’s hysteria to her own worries.

Fredrick rocked forward and threw his head back. “Oh, Jane, you and your precious reputation.”

“And my precious commissions.”

Fredrick held up his hands, but his voice carried the tone of an argument already won. “Look, no snooping at the party. Just straight reporting. Besides, most of your clients don’t even know what you look like. Unless all the Vineyard housemaids are there, your good name and your good jobs will be fine.”

Jane looked down at the linens, unwilling to refute him. “It would be nice to visit the Vineyard without my laundry cart.”

“Not to mention without looking like a servant.”

“I’m not a servant,” she said in a quick monotone. Not yet, anyway. “But I’d like to see whitenails at one of their fancy parties, with all their coattails and ball gowns and gentility.” Washing fine clothes for Recoletta’s upper crust engendered the desire to see people actually wear them.

“They’re not half so endearing as you seem to think,” he said, “and they’re twice as dangerous.”

“I’m sure they’re dangerous to someone who makes a living off their secrets.” Her eyebrows flicked upward as she gave him a skeptical grin. “But I’m a little more discreet. Not to mention charming. What’s the occasion, anyway?”

“A delegation from South Haven is coming by train next week, no doubt to arm-wrestle over farming communes. Naturally, no expenses will be spared.” He spread his hands in the air, framing an imaginary canvas. “Brummell Hall, in the heart of the Vineyard, with a sumptuous spread of prime rib, shrimp the length of my finger, pastries light as clouds, and velvet-smooth wines.” His eyes took on a wistful glaze.

“This is a celebration in their honor?”

“On the surface, yes. Making an impression, that’s what these affairs are really about. The Vineyard is known for its sour grapes.”

A kettle filled with a starch mixture whistled from the stove, and Jane went to remove it. “Well, you haven’t handed back your invitation. I’m sure it’ll be fun, even for a jaded old grouch like you.” Though Fredrick was barely in his mid-thirties, he was still a full decade older than Jane and ripe for teasing.

“Let’s get one stiff cocktail in you and we’ll see who’s laughing. But not to worry, I couldn’t ruin this for you if I tried.” Jane winced inwardly, reflecting that Freddie wouldn’t have to try at all if the missing pearl button led to a falling out with her clients.

He glanced at his wristwatch. “I really should get to the office. The paper has to pay me for some kind of work, after all. Ta, Jane.” With an exaggerated bow, he backed out of the door.

Alone again, Jane surveyed her den, lined with piles of clothes. With the quiet years she had worked to build a hopeful life here, it left a sluggish ball of dread in her stomach to imagine that it could all disappear after one day’s mistake. She was in the habit of glancing through her commissions upon receipt, but she’d been in a hurry when Director Fitzhugh’s housekeeper had shoved the bundle into her arms. Now it was impossible to say, and impossible to prove, whether the button had disappeared in her care or before. And it was equally pointless to wonder whether this was an unfortunate accident, an act of sabotage by a housekeeper who’d always stared at Jane’s scuffed shoes a little too pointedly, or a convenient mishap arranged by an employer looking for an excuse to hire someone else. One heard of such incidents from time to time.

As plain as it was, Jane’s apartment was a private haven. She had a bedroom to herself, a small workroom for her tailoring, and space enough to entertain her friends. She knew every nook and cranny and had swept every corner thrice, and the button wasn’t here. The question was, should she confess the problem to Mr Fitzhugh and hope for mercy or try to find a replacement at the market? Not real pearl, certainly, but a near enough approximation?

The question dissolved when Jane recalled a childhood in halls of peeling paint and mildew and nights in crowded, flu-ridden bunks, when she remembered that she lived not half a mile away from the swarming slums and noxious air of the factory districts. She set off for the market. She would save sympathy for a last resort.

Chapter 2

The Subtle Art of Eavesdropping

As the sun burned off the early morning chill, Inspector Malone approached the gray marble pavilion of Callum Station, the headquarters of the Municipal Police. Officially named for a famous and respected police chief over three centuries ago, the station was more colloquially known as Calumny Station to anyone who didn’t work in it. With their head-to-toe black garb and their reputation for prying, the Municipals caused weeks of gossip for anyone unfortunate enough to receive a visit. Sniffing out smuggling operations and quelling factory district unrest was a thankless job, indeed.

However, this had the side effect of making Malone’s final approach agreeably solitary. If they could help it, most pedestrians would walk an extra block rather than pass next to the station. Set in the outer ring of downtown and its respectably cheerful verandas distinguishing high-end shops, offices, and town houses, Callum Station loomed like a pallbearer at a card party. The entire structure radiated gloomy impassivity, from the smooth columns to the broad steps and the steady arches of the roof. The building’s one unique feature perched above the drab, gray structure: a beacon inside a narrow tower, lit at all times to symbolize the perpetual vigilance of the Municipal Police.

With one sleepless night behind her and a full day ahead, Malone reflected that this was more apt than ever.

She descended a broad stairway to a spacious underground rotunda lit by the clean, white light of radiance stones that seemed unnecessarily bright this morning. The chemically treated crystals glowed like white-hot fireflies and could, after a few hours exposed to the sun, light a room for days or weeks on end. They preserved some of the natural wavelengths of sunlight, allowing for the lush gardens in the wealthier areas of town. Here, however, they threatened to give Malone a headache.

Several wide corridors sprouted from the rotunda. Malone marched through the largest of these, marked by a pair of grim lion statues and two equally stone-faced guards gripping bayonets.

She followed a pair of burning trenches set high in the passage’s walls. Chemists had invented various powders, pastes and oils to enhance the luminosity of flame, extend its life, and even alter its color, and these compounds roiled in almost every fire in the city. With sophisticated mirrors and lenses crafted from mineral and glass composites, no corner of the underground had to remain dark.

Deputy chiefs’ offices, conference rooms, and smaller corridors leading deeper into the station lined the hall. Next to one of these stood a young man wearing Municipal black. He was handsome, in an eager, boyish way, with jet hair, a caramel-brown complexion, and a disarming smile. Malone knew the other hundred-odd inspectors by name, and she was acquainted with most of the support staff, but not with this man. Nevertheless, his eyebrows rose in recognition as she approached.

“Inspector Malone! Good morning. You must’ve just come from Cahill’s domicile.”

She nodded.

“Excellent. The sweeps who reported the incident are already here. Didn’t want to talk to them until you arrived, naturally. I’m sure we’ll want to compare notes.” The young man tapped his forehead. “Of course. You must be wondering what I’m on about. Chief’s assigned me to work with you on the contract.”

Malone’s muscles tightened as he fumbled in his coat pockets, producing a shiny, newly minted inspector’s seal and handwritten orders marked with Chief Johanssen’s stamp. “Richards told us he’d sent you, said you should be back within an hour. Or two.” For what seemed to be the first time since his rapid introduction, the young man stopped talking long enough to breathe, his eyes wide with expectation.

Malone looked at the orders, half expecting to see him assigned to morgue duty for the day. The two things Malone knew about trainees and junior inspectors were that they rendezvoused on the bottom level of the station and that they never worked with her. Yet it was her name, scratched in blotted black ink, staring back at her. “And you are?”

“Me? I—Oh! How careless. Inspector Rafe Sundar, ma’am.” He gave a short chuckle of embarrassment, his graceful features momentarily absurd.

Malone studied him. Extending an arm, she squeezed her lips into a smile. “Pleasure.”

A broad grin warmed his face, and he pumped her hand rapidly. His left hand gently pressed her arm into the handshake. Malone preferred the crisp efficiency of a brief, dry squeeze, but Sundar had her in an extended vice grip of friendliness. “The honor is entirely mine, Inspector,” he said. “I have to say, I’m thrilled to be working with you. You have quite the reputation around here.”

“Yet I know nothing about you. Tell me about your background, Inspector.” She eyed him as she pronounced the last word, sounding it out. He blushed.

“I completed my training the week before last with a batch of five other recruits. Top marks in procedure and investigation.” He hesitated, shifting on his feet.

“And?”

“Studies in murder and assault cases. Naturally.”

“Before that.”

Sundar massaged a spot on the floor with his toe. “My background is, you could say, a bit unorthodox. I’m not sure it’s particularly interesting, Inspector.”

“I’m not asking for conversation’s sake.”

“Ah. Well, in that case, I came from a four-year career in theatre.”

Malone’s eyebrows shot up and her lips tightened. “Why the career change?”

Sundar stopped fidgeting. “Too much memorization. I’d gotten into it for the improv.”

“I see.” She paused, considering him. “Our first order of business is to question the sweeps. Richards will have detained them in the east wing.” She trailed off, tapping a black-gloved finger to her chin as she began to turn.

“Yes, the holding lobby on level four. Follow me, please.” He nodded and led the way down the narrow hall. She scowled at his back but, with a sigh, allowed him to lead her through the station she knew so well.

The smaller corridor’s plain, gray walls tightened around them. The hall curved steadily, concentric with the rotunda, a line of eye-level gas lamps visible for a dozen yards at a time. Passing offices and branching hallways, Sundar began briefing Malone.

“I monitored them until I came to meet you, and I don’t think they’re involved. They were working on the same schedule as usual—their supervisor came by, and I checked that with him, of course.” The inspectors took a left and descended a short flight of stairs. “They’ve been pretty quiet, but not too quiet, if you know what I mean. Anybody left to their own thoughts in one of those holding rooms would be.” He glanced at her, hoping for agreement. “They’ve done a number on the tea and biscuits we left them, and I haven’t caught any fidgeting or whispering. Really, I think they just happened to be at the right place at the right time. For us, I mean.” The inspectors entered a small, cluttered room with a downward-facing window built into the far wall. “They didn’t show the usual signs of trying to hide something, Inspector.”

Malone gave Sundar an appraising glance and glided over to the window. It was common for sweeps and other groundskeepers to stumble upon crime scenes. Wandering all corners of Recoletta at any given hour, day, and especially night, the groundskeepers formed a veritable army of maintenance men and women who emerged from their homes in the poorer districts in shifts, cleaning public spaces, relighting torches, and charging and replacing radiance stones as needed.

Unfortunately, with the exception of whitenails, groundskeepers were the most difficult to interview. That they reported such a high percentage of crimes often cast them in suspicion. That they received the lowest wages in the city only deepened public distrust. The groundskeepers heartily returned these sentiments, but criminal penalties against failing to report a crime, not to mention the knowledge that such an omission would only worsen their precarious reputation, compelled them to grudgingly come forward.

Two grimy men with circles under their eyes and haggard expressions sat twitching their beards in a bare, colorless chamber. The combination of artful lighting and a one-way mirror concealed the observing window, and Malone watched as the sweeps sipped from mugs of lukewarm tea and chatted in monosyllables, their eyes hooded by the lights and their exhaustion.

She folded her arms and looked at Sundar’s reflection in the glass. “Show me your top marks in investigation.”

“Of course.” He ducked out of the observation room and reappeared in the door of the holding room a few moments later. Malone started; though she had seen that same uniform, the same neat slick of hair, and the same rounded eyes, less than a minute earlier in the observation room, the man beneath them seemed taller, older, and quietly assertive.

The groundskeepers looked up at Sundar, pulling the mugs between their propped elbows. He strode to the table where they sat, shook their hands, and addressed them with polite warmth. He seemed transformed from the nervous and excitable young man in the hall, a confident smile underlining his every word.

“Gentlemen, thank you for your time,” Sundar said. The groundskeepers watched him silently. “You must know that we appreciate your assistance. Your reports contribute greatly to the peace and stability of Recoletta.”

One of the groundskeepers sniffed.

“Of course, I also know that you don’t have any choice but to be here. If you weren’t, some goon with a bad attitude and a blackjack would be at your door, giving you hell and halitosis. You’d end up here anyway, and probably with an extended stay at the Barracks,” Sundar said, referring to the headquarters of the City Guard and its infamous prison on the western end of town.

One of the sweeps plunked his mug onto the table, crossing his arms. “You got questions or what?”

Sundar nodded at the mug. “Yeah. How’s the tea?”

“Horse scat,” said the same man, and the other laughed. Sundar smiled.

“You’re not kidding. They gag us with that stuff every morning. Part of the daily briefing.” The sweeps didn’t laugh, but concessionary grins slid across their faces, and Malone saw their postures relax as they slumped more comfortably in the stiff chairs. “Between you and me, though,” Sundar said, settling into a seat across from them, “I know you’ve got nothing to do with this. Someone was going to stumble across the veranda sooner or later, and it just happened to be you two. So, why don’t you just tell me what you saw?” Slipping into the interrogation, Sundar asked them about their routine and their findings that morning, and they answered amiably, gulping their tea and thumping the table as they talked.

After half an hour, Sundar shook their hands again and walked them to the door. “That addresses all of our questions, but we’ll contact you if anything else comes up. I’ll have someone see you out.”

Sundar and the two sweeps disappeared from the holding lobby and, two minutes later, he returned to the observation room. For all of the acting talent he’d shown in the chamber below, he hid his triumph poorly.

“Passing grade,” Malone said, her eyes still lingering on the room below. “Barely. You forgot something.”

“What’s that?”

“You interrogated them together.”

Sundar nodded once. “I know we usually separate witnesses upon arrival, but, respectfully, I thought I could get more information from them this way.” Malone tilted her head, and Sundar continued. “If they wanted to make up a story, they had plenty of time to rehearse it on their way to the station. A little goodwill can go a long way, and I’d rather have them lie freely to me together than clamp shut in separate lobbies.”

Malone felt her own jaw clamp tight. “As long as you can tell the difference.”

“Respectfully, ma’am, I think I can.”

She pulled a silver pocket watch from her coat. “Meet me in Chief Johanssen’s office in five minutes. I’ll cover what I found at the scene.”

She reviewed Sundar’s notes from his initial observation. To her disappointment, they were neat and thorough. If she was going to get a reprieve from babysitting, she’d have to talk to Chief Johanssen directly.

Malone returned to the main hallway and followed the fiery trenches to its end. A shallow alcove framed a wide, solid door. Malone pushed it open to reveal a familiar scene: Farrah, the chief’s buxom assistant, drowsily scanning several pages and twirling a pen in her free hand. She looked up with a characteristic half-smile.

“Go on in,” the redhead drawled, leaning back in her chair. “Chief’s waiting for you.”

Malone crossed the threshold into a second, grander office, paneled with oak and furnished with green leather chairs. Chief Johanssen, a thickset man in his late fifties, sat at a handsome desk opposite the double doors, a roaring fire warming his back. Brass lamps lined the walls.

“Malone.” He nodded in her direction. “Come in. Sundar.” Malone followed his gaze to a point just behind her right shoulder where the younger man had materialized. Sundar smiled in greeting as they both moved toward the desk. Johanssen rose and shook their hands, his warm, coarse paws enveloping theirs.

“Glad to see you both.” He settled once again into his armchair. He gestured to the two seats in front of his desk, and the inspectors lowered themselves into the squeaking leather. “Malone, Sundar tells me the sweeps were clean,” he said with a wry grin, “but tell me what you found at the address.”

“Broken gate, sir, just like the sweeps said. Cahill was dead; his study showed signs of the struggle, but nothing else was disturbed.”

The first stray worry lines cracked across Johanssen’s forehead. “Your analysis?”

“Murder with intent, sir.”

Johanssen folded his hands, and Malone waited for the inevitable opposition. “No question about a break-in,” he said. “But this sounds like a struggle and an accident. At Cahill’s age, it’s all too easy.”

Malone understood the chief’s hesitation. Violent crime outside the factory districts, populated with the more desperate types, was uncommon. Except for the occasional poisoning or duels between rivals, they grew exceedingly rare as one approached the Vineyard and the neighborhoods that rippled out from it.

“Doubtful, sir,” she said. “There was bruising at the base of his skull.”

Sundar rubbed the curve at the back of his own head. “Below the bump? That would be hard to hit accidentally unless he fell backward into a desk or shelf or something.”

“Right,” Malone said, cutting Sundar off and continuing before Johanssen could protest further. “And Cahill was slumped against the wall when I found him. No blood, skin, or hair on the furniture. That suggests a blunt instrument, something that the murderer took with him. No bruising around the wrists or forearms. No attempt to restrain him.”

Johanssen’s lower lip pushed into a momentary pout as he sucked his teeth, thinking. “The motive?”

“Theft, sir.”

“Of what? Cahill’s street is filled with merchants and bankers. All more tempting targets.”

“The murderer wanted information, not valuables. Dr Cahill was a historian, and he was working on something before he was killed.” Malone described the scene in Cahill’s study, and the corner of Johanssen’s mouth twitched when she mentioned the history books and the empty desk.

“If I may,” Sundar said, clearing his throat, “the sweeps mentioned the broken gates, but according to them, the gates were bent outwards, and they said they saw shattered glass on the steps outside. Isn’t this the opposite of what would happen if someone broke in?”

“If someone broke in,” Malone said. “No one had to.” At that, she produced the key she had found near the elevator.

Johanssen squinted at it. “Go on.”

Malone crossed one leg as she continued, putting the key on Johanssen’s desk. “How the murderer got this is the real question, but it tells us that he planned. It also tells us that he’s not a professional. Whether he panicked or stumbled, he dropped his key on the way up the elevator, and he couldn’t take the time to return for it. Or couldn’t see it in the dark. The gate was rusted enough for him to break it open with a few good kicks or a couple blows from his weapon. He only had to break out.”

“Why not leave through the subterranean door?” Sundar asked. Every business and residence had one, whether or not it had its own veranda. Recoletta, after all, was built around its subterranean thoroughfares and warrens. “He wouldn’t have had to break that one to open it from the inside, would he?”

“Have you ever been to East Eton? The subterranean avenue is one of the main roads into the Vineyard, and Cahill’s domicile is twenty yards from a railcar stop. The assassin would be in plain view for three or four blocks with nowhere to hide.”

“Easier to slip among the buildings on the surface,” Sundar said.

“Obviously.”

Exhaling, Johanssen furrowed his brow. “And all this for a stack of papers?”

Malone laced her fingers, waiting.

“What concerns me is where the murderer got a key. Assuming you’re right,” Johanssen added. “You know how people are about security, especially on that side of the city. There’s hardly a locksmith in Recoletta who would’ve made that.”

He scratched a cheek with his knuckles. “Farrah should have the contract by the end of the day, Malone. In the meantime, Sundar will assist you.”

The moment she’d been waiting for. “Respectfully, sir, getting the bureaucrats to talk will be hard enough without a rookie in tow.” She sighed. “No offense.”

“None taken.” And he looked like he meant it.

The chief stared down at his desk for a long moment. “Sundar, wait outside.”

The younger inspector disappeared behind the double doors. Chief Johanssen turned his gaze to Malone.

“I know this isn’t how you’d have it, but make an exception for this contract. He needs your experience, and I need to know where that key came from.” Johanssen leaned forward, shadows pooling under his heavy brows. “Besides, Inspector Sundar has a few talents you don’t. People skills are chief among them.”

She gritted her teeth. “I’ve noticed, sir.”

He nodded. “You also know that we don’t see murders in Dr Cahill’s district. Expect that charm to come in handy.”

Malone rose and bowed. “Yes, sir.” She left and followed Sundar into the hall, noticing Farrah’s hopeful gaze in his direction.

“The coroner’s report won’t be ready until tomorrow,” Malone told her new partner as they paced toward the rotunda. “In the meantime, we should try to locate some of Cahill’s old acquaintances.”

“Don’t we need to wait for the Council to approve the contract?” The Municipal Police received contracts from the Council to investigate crimes, petty theft and serial murder alike. They provided the formal authorization to proceed.

“It’s not that strict,” Malone said. “We don’t wait on a case like this. One of the benefits of not working directly under the Council is that we can be more efficient.”

“That’s what separates us from the City Guard, right? They take their orders from the Council, and we just liaise?”

“That, and most of them have scat for brains,” Malone said, relishing Sundar’s discomfort. And that’s why we’re the investigators and they’re the muscle, she thought.

“Oh.” Sundar paused, digesting this new information. “We could start with the Directorate of Preservation.”

“Getting information out of the directorates is a nightmare, and Preservation is the worst. We’ll need the contract and, probably, additional signatures from half a dozen councilors.”

“Can we afford to wait?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

He smiled, fixing his eyes down the hallway. “If you’ll allow me, Inspector Malone, I think I can handle this.”

She glanced sideways at Sundar. Casual confidence wafted off of him like a scent. Nurtured, she guessed, by all the entitlements of expensive schooling, attentive parents, and easy good looks. She resigned herself to this one concession. Either he’d botch this and the chief would finally have to listen to reason, or he’d succeed and they’d get something useful.

“Alright, Sundar. Show me what you can do.”

Sunil Patel

The Merger

Originally published by The Book Smugglers in June 2015

* * *

Paresh came across the alien while hurrying to catch the 7:45 bus. It was much quieter than the 8:15 bus, which always contained a group of rowdy teenage boys who asked him about his day at the Kwik-E-Mart, as if his fine button-down shirt and leather laptop bag weren’t a clue that he had been a valued programmer at Oracle for five years, thank you very much. It looked like it would be the 8:15 bus tonight, however, because standing in the parking lot behind his office was a six-foot-tall gelatinous blob with horns.

“Congratulations on your exciting opportunity!” declared the blob in a voice that sounded like a mix between sandpaper and nails on a chalkboard. It appeared to be wholly ignorant of the way its voice sounded, its words infused with a joyful sincerity Paresh found unsettling.

“Excuse me?” asked Paresh, who had never encountered an alien before but decided that if the first thing they did when they invaded was congratulate you, they couldn’t be all that bad.

“We have identified you as a potential host body. We find your body very desirable.”

No one was allowed to find his body desirable but his wife, dammit. “Host body?”

“Our analysts have determined that your body’s complexion, specific gravity, and the length of its extremities are optimal for our experience.”

Sita had never commented on his specific gravity, but Paresh took it as a compliment. She had commented on the length of his extremity.

“We are prepared to offer substantial compensation equivalent to the value and potential value of your body. We understand that you may have had other offers but hope that you accept ours.” The blob was glowing with excitement now. At least Paresh thought it was excitement. It could have been arousal.

“What if I don’t want to be a host body?”

“We are prepared to offer substantial compensation equivalent to the value and potential value of your body.”

Paresh repeated himself.

The blob repeated itself.

This wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Look, thanks for the offer, but I have to catch the bus.”

The blob looked at him quizzically. Paresh didn’t understand how that was possible since he wasn’t sure where its eyes were, but it managed.

“As our bylaws do not allow for hostile takeover, we must act in the best interests of the shareholders and prevent dilution of market share. Accordingly, please note that refusal of this offer may result in the destruction of your planet. As added incentive, we have increased our offer of compensation by 12.5%.”

Paresh chose to ignore the phrase “destruction of your planet” because it was absurd, even though his bar for absurd had recently risen. Instead, he focused on the “exciting opportunity,” which included money. Sita had been wanting to remodel the kitchen (or as she called it, her cooking laboratory). And their car was old, an embarrassment among his colleagues. Paresh raised his eyebrow. “What kind of compensation are we talking here?”

The blob jumped up and down, making disgusting squishing noises with every impact on the sidewalk. “Are you willing to enter into negotiations with the BlarbTech/SnarbCo, Inc. Intraplanetary Conglomerate, hereinafter referred to as ‘the Blarbsnarb’?”

He was definitely going to miss his bus. The 8:45 bus was pretty quiet, at least. “I am willing to hear you out.”

“We believe this will be a beneficial arrangement for us both. Please allow me to contact our chairman and we will begin negotiations this very evening.”

“This evening? Where do I go? I’ll have to tell my wife where—”

“Agreement to begin negotiations constitutes acceptance of a non-disclosure agreement. Please do not speak of this impending transaction to any uninvolved parties as it is considered proprietary information and may result in serious legal consequences.” The blob had stopped glowing. It was possibly angry. Possibly calm. Paresh couldn’t tell. “The negotiations will begin this very evening at a location to be determined.”

And then the blob disappeared. Paresh expected a spectacular buzz and light show, but it was just gone, like it had never been there at all. Apprehensive, Paresh searched the parking lot for any other aliens before rushing to the bus stop.

He watched the 8:15 bus leave with a sigh and sat on the bench, alone. The 8:45 bus arrived, and he got on.

“Hey, Apu!”

He wasn’t the only one who had been delayed.

* * *

Paresh walked home from the bus stop, laptop bag in hand. He clutched the handle tightly, imagining using it as a weapon against those stupid kids with their stupid hats and their stupid skateboards. They didn’t actually have skateboards, but he thought they should. Although if they had skateboards, they wouldn’t be riding the bus. He definitely thought they should have skateboards.

Two blocks up and one block to the left. Three hundred feet and: “Your destination is on the right.” No one ever heard him say it, but it made him feel at home.

Sita would wonder why he was late. The blob thing had warned him not to talk about the “impending transaction,” but was he allowed to tell her that he’d met an alien? It had never specified. He could leave out the details.

“They kept you late?” said Sita, opening the door.

Or she could do that. Paresh nodded and kissed her, hating that he had lied to his wife but grateful not to have to see her look of disbelief when he told her the truth. When he learned more about the offer, he would come clean.

He took off his shoes, placed his laptop bag in the closet, and went straight to the kitchen. “Turkey chili pizza in the oven,” Sita said, pointing.

“That’s not a real thing.”

“It is too a real thing, and you’re going to eat it.”

“I met an alien today,” Paresh blurted out.

“Paresh, that’s not polite, they’re called immigrants,” said Sita. “Your company change their hiring policy?”

“Yes,” he said, flushing. He was the absolute worst at keeping secrets. At the department retreat, they’d had a baby picture guessing game and every time someone pointed to his picture, he’d giggled.

“Where were they from?”

“Ecuador,” said Paresh, naming the first country that came to mind. Maybe he should go get the shovel in his garage if he was going to keep digging himself deeper into this hole.

“Very cool!” she said. “I’ve never been to Ecuador. You should find out how it is. We could take a vacation.”

The oven dinged and saved Paresh from having to continue the conversation. He had already begun to make up fake facts about Ecuador (their main export is kumquats, the capital city of Ecuador City has the rarest Dali in the world, everyone owns a pet capybara). Sita knew more than Paresh about most things, but she taught biology, not geography.

She set a plate in front of him. Already sliced, the turkey chili pizza resembled a pizza in the way a veggie dog resembled a hot dog. Paresh suspected Sita had applied the principles of aggressive mimicry to food. She had been gushing about the anglerfish a few nights ago.

Paresh took a bite and appreciated the smoky taste of chili but stopped chewing as he was assailed by an unexpected flavor. “Is that mustard?”

“Aioli garlic mustard sauce! Do you like it?”

There was no sense in starting to tell the truth now; he was on a roll. “It’s great!” he said, swallowing, then almost choking as a face appeared on his pizza.

“Greetings, human!” the face said with a voice like nails on sandpaper. It was missing a part of its mouth, which Paresh had eaten. He looked up at Sita, who didn’t react. “We are ready to begin the negotiation process!”

“Not now,” he hissed.

“Not now what?” asked Sita.

“I was having this really great idea, and I wished it would come later tonight, when I was alone.”

Sita took a bite of her own pizza. “I know how that goes. I hate when I come up with a great lesson plan while I’m driving. I can’t write it down!”

“Please confirm the rescheduling of the negotiations,” Paresh’s pizza said.

Paresh had never eaten a whole pizza so fast in his entire life.

* * *

Later that evening in his office, Paresh turned around and there was the horned blob thing. He assumed it was the same one, but he couldn’t be sure. When it spoke, however, the voice was unmistakable.

“We apologize for the previous inconvenience,” it said.

“You can’t just talk to a man through his dinner,” said Paresh. “It’s rude and unprofessional.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “At dinner, but not through dinner.”

“May we begin the negotiations?” it said. Paresh checked that the door was closed. “Your partner will not hear our discussion. This enclosure has been soundlocked for confidentiality.”

“Good. Now explain to me what it is you want from me, and what you are prepared to offer.”

“The BlarbTech/SnarbCo, Inc. Intraplanetary Conglomerate, heretofore and hereinafter referred to as ‘the Blarbsnarb,’ would like to acquire your body.”

“I’m using it at the moment.”

“We believe that your body has a great deal of potential and is being undervalued in the market.”

“Market? What market? Are there more of you?”

“That information is not relevant to this discussion.”

“Fine,” said Paresh. He had enough trouble with one alien; he didn’t need to think about more. “If you acquire my body, when do I get it back?”

“Upon corporeal incorporation, your body would become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Blarbsnarb, with partial autonomy on weekends vesting over four solar years.”

Some of that sounded good. Some of that sounded like gibberish. “And how much would you pay me?”

“The current offer is 0.0001 United States of American cents per cell.”

A fraction of a penny? But Paresh figured he had a lot of cells in his body, maybe even ten million. Which would be one whole cent. “I’m afraid that’s not enough,” he said. “Speaking of undervalued.” This was some kind of joke, surely. They didn’t understand numbers or money or something.

The blob’s horns began to glow, pulsating lightly. Then they stopped. “The Blarbsnarb Board of Directors has agreed to determine a higher, more suitable offer for you, Mr. Gupta. We will contact you when the new offer is ready.”

“Can I discuss this with my wife? I don’t feel comfortable”—he came this close to saying “selling my body” before he caught himself—“accepting an offer without her input.”

The blob’s horns pulsated again. “As preliminary negotiations have concluded, you may consult your partner in this matter. We are aware that by law she owns half of your body and thus must approve any acquisition.” Paresh was going to dispute its statement, but the blob continued. “Have a good evening, Mr. Gupta. We look forward to conducting a successful business transaction.” Then it disappeared.

Paresh didn’t bring the topic up in bed that night. He knew better than to disturb Sita’s reading.

* * *

At breakfast, he asked her, “How many cells are in the human body?”

She swallowed her blueberry sweet potato waffle and said, “That depends on the body. And are we counting intestinal flora?”

Paresh wasn’t sure what that was. “My body. All the cells in it. Including the intestinal things, I guess.”

“Stand up,” she said. She stood up herself.

Paresh stood and stepped away from the table. Sita looked him up and down, and Paresh felt self-conscious about the months he hadn’t gone to the gym. “Now give me a spin,” she said, twirling her finger in the air. Reluctantly, he turned around in a circle, still feeling her eyes on him. When he was done, she nodded at him to sit down and took her seat.

Sita cut another piece of waffle and ate it. She pulled out her phone and did some quick calculations. “I’d say you’ve got about ten trillion cells in your body.”

Paresh almost choked on his waffle. “Did you say trillion?”

“Like a million billions,” she said. “Or a billion millions.”

He moved the decimal point in his head. They’d offered him ten million dollars.

And he’d asked for more.

“Sita, I have something to tell you.”

He told her.

After a moment, she put her finger to her nose and pointed at him. “So when you said last night that you’d met an alien…?”

He nodded.

“Okay, first of all, here’s a new lesson plan, hitting me at breakfast when I can’t write it down, but I’ll wing it. My kids won’t mind if we talk about aliens instead of the Golgi apparatus today.”

“No!” said Paresh. “You can’t tell anyone!”

“Why, do they have ray guns?”

“I don’t know what they have. They don’t even have hands, so ray guns are out of the question. But the…alien thing—”

“The Blarbsnarb representative.”

“The Blarbsnarb rep threatened to destroy the planet if I said no. They might do that if we talk about the deal.”

Sita rolled her eyes. “That planet-destroying shit is absurd. It’s got to be a bluff. They want your body like I do, and they’re going to pay for—” She put her head in her hands. “That is not where I wanted that sentence to go.”

Paresh chuckled. “Yes, I went down that road too.”

She gestured at him with the piece of waffle on her fork, syrup dripping on the table. “You should find out the details of the deal, what happens to you and how you get the money. Don’t sign anything until you read all the fine print.”

Paresh promised not to sign anything until he read all the fine print.

At the time, he meant it.

* * *

The blob appeared that afternoon in the Oracle bathroom. Thankfully, Paresh had completed his business.

“This is highly inappropriate,” he said.

“You did not leave appropriate hours and means by which to contact you,” said the blob. Paresh had forgotten how discordant its voice was. Hoping no one had heard it, he went to lock the door only to realize that the door had no lock. The blob continued, “We have increased our offer by 10% and have prepared the paperwork.”

“Let me see it,” he said, and a tiny wormhole opened up between them. Out popped three stacks of paper, which hovered in the air. White, yellow, and pink.

“Please sign and return the white copy,” said the blob. “The yellow copy is for you to keep.”

“And the pink copy?”

“The pink copy belongs to your partner.”

“Don’t you think that’s kind of sexist?”

The blob blinked. So that’s where its eyes were. “You may take the pink copy if it is sexiest.”

Paresh plucked the stack of white paper out of the air and began to look it over. He knew he ought to have a lawyer review it—at the very least someone like Carey in Contracts could take a look—but how could he even begin to explain what it was for? He didn’t want people at work talking about him like he was crazy. He read quickly; someone could walk in on them any minute.

He had to give the Blarbsnarb credit: they were pretty fluent in legalese. Paresh, sadly, was not. Had the contract been written in Java, he would have stood a chance at comprehending what they intended to do to his body. As it was, he understood that there would be a transition period following the completion of the transaction in which the terms of the possession would be finalized.

Paresh thought of what he could do with eleven million dollars. Forget remodeling the kitchen, they could buy a new house, a bigger one where they could start a family. He could quit his job and be a stay-at-home dad (Sita would never quit her job; she loved it too much). It was such an obscene amount of money that he didn’t know what he could do with it all, but he knew it would remove obstacles and pave the way for a brighter future. As long as they had a future. The phrase “destruction of your planet” came back to him.

He signed the contract.

In several different places. They were really fluent in legalese.

* * *

When he handed Sita the pink copy, she said, “This is the pink copy.”

“Yes?” he said, pretending not to know what she was getting at.

“Where’s the white copy? The real copy?”

Paresh said nothing. He looked up at the ceiling.

Sita spoke calmly. “Do you remember this morning when you made what we humans like to call a ‘promise’?”

Paresh recalled all of his rationalizations, and now they seemed insufficient. Sita loved their house. The kitchen counters were chipped, but she knew the layout by heart. Why would she want to sell a place she could navigate with her eyes closed? (Sometimes she did walk around the house with her eyes closed. Once she bumped into the living room sofa, and that was only because Paresh had moved it a few inches to retrieve the remote without setting it back.)

He hadn’t done it for her. He had done it for him.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “I thought it was for the best, but I should have brought it home.”

“Did you at least read the fine print?” she asked.

It had all been fine print. “I read…most of it.” The ceiling became very interesting to him again. They could repaint the ceiling. That would be a good use of money.

“Most of it,” she said.

“You know, by not refusing the deal, I kind of saved the world.” He shot Sita a hopeful glance.

“You kind of did it without me.” Sita chose not to stare at the ceiling, or even the floor. She looked right into Paresh’s eyes. “I’m going to bed.”

Paresh watched her leave. He waited, expecting the blob to appear, since this was an inconvenient time in his life. But he was left standing alone in the kitchen. He stood there for an hour before joining his wife.

* * *

The next morning, Paresh woke to find his wife sitting up with her arms crossed, glaring at him. “No more signing away your body without consulting me,” she said. “Deal?”

“Deal,” muttered Paresh.

“Did you find out how the process works? If you’re a subsidiary, they should let you stay in there, and we can work out how to spend the money.”

Paresh shrugged.

“Paresh, dear, I love you, but you have the business sense of a marmoset.” Sita poked him. “We need to contact the Blarbsnarb. This is a huge transaction; they ought to be more transparent.” Then she threw the covers off. “Wait, I’ve got a better idea.”

Sita walked out of the bedroom and returned with the pink copy of the contract. She tossed it to Paresh. “Let’s get some answers.”

Paresh turned to the first page of the contract and began to read it aloud.

* * *

“That was incredibly thorough,” said Sita.

“I did say they were fluent in legalese.”

“You think they’re a whole race of lawyers? Like maybe somewhere out there lawyers evolved into horned blobs bent on intergalactic domination?”

Paresh restrained himself from making a lawyer joke. Sita had set him up for so many responses, and he could see her trying to guess which one he would use. But it would have been so easy, like signing a contract without reading every word.

Sita’s face fell. “Come on, not even ‘You mean they haven’t already?’ It’s the low-hanging fruit.”

Paresh drew her close. “A lawyer might be our only way to understand this deal. I should treat them with respect. For now.”

According to the contract, the next step in the process was to begin removing redundancies. Paresh had authorized the Blarbsnarb to make changes as they saw fit, evaluating his body for its capabilities in relation to human function versus its utility after the blob took possession. Even having read the fine print, he was unclear on his status after the process was complete. The word “annihilated” appeared nowhere, which was promising.

“You’ve read me better stories in bed,” said Sita. “But I love the main character in this one. I was very invested in his fate.”

“Sorry for the spoilers,” said Paresh.

“Seriously!” said Sita. “Now I’m going to be sitting here waiting to see how the Blarbsnarb eliminate redundancies.”

Paresh’s appendix burst and he screamed.

As she drove him to the hospital, she shook her head and repeated, “I’m not saying anything ever again. I’m not saying anything ever again.”

The operation went smoothly, and Sita sat by his bed and held his hand. Her hand was the first thing he felt as he regained the ability to feel. He squeezed it.

“I forgot I still had that thing,” he said weakly.

“Not anymore you don’t,” she said.

“They could have given me some sort of warning.”

“They’re not legally required to,” she said. “California is an at-will state.”

“That leaves the rest of my body in a very precarious position.”

The blob appeared at the foot of the bed. Sita yanked Paresh’s hand in surprise, Paresh yelped in pain, and the blob yodeled in glee. Or distress. “We are pleased to see that the termination of your appendix has been successful. We do wish it the best and thank it for its many years of service.”

“The appendix doesn’t do anything,” said Sita, taking Paresh’s hand again.

“We thank it for its many years of service,” the blob repeated.

“That really hurt,” said Paresh. “I would appreciate a heads up next time.” He scanned the blob, not seeing any clear distinction between head and body. But if they knew what an appendix was, they knew what a head was.

“We apologize for the inconvenience. Per your request, I am informing you that we have identified a redundancy in your mitochondria. You will not require them.”

“My midicholorians?”

“Mitochondria,” said Sita. “How could you forget the powerhouses of the cell? They make all the energy in your body.” She slapped his head lightly. “Paresh, I have a poster of one in my classroom.”

He looked away and smiled to himself. He remembered almost nothing of what Sita’s classroom looked like because whenever he visited, he was so focused on how in her element she was when teaching. Poised and animated, she spoke about topics he knew nothing about with such passion that he wished he’d had her in high school instead of Mrs. Klages.

“Right,” said Paresh. “How could I forget? Those things. Sounds like I need them, though.”

The blob shook its head, which allowed Paresh to see the subtle distinction. “The Blarbsnarb equivalent are twenty times more efficient and powerful. They will now be replaced.”

Paresh, who was still groggy to this point, jerked fully awake. “How now is now?”

“It is done,” noted the blob with triumph. Or disinterest. It was so hard to tell with it.

Paresh tried to sit up, raise his head. Sita had said he had trillions of cells in his body. He must have had trillions of midichlo—mitochondria. And now they were gone, and he had alien substitutes in his body. Did that make him a hybrid? Was he even human anymore? He felt human. Sita stared at him like he might not be.

She turned to the blob. “Will there be any side effects? What if his body rejects the alien organelles?”

The blob scoffed, an expression represented by a shift in the density of blob in its upper half. “His body was deemed suitable for this procedure before it was conducted. He will experience no complications beyond enhanced productivity.”

Paresh found it much easier to sit up now. His head felt clearer. He heard a faint hum emanating from his body, like white noise from his laptop.

“I appreciate these enhancements, but I don’t know if I’m comfortable living the rest of my life with alien…stuff.” Having an alien inside his body was one thing, but if his body was also part-alien, that was weird (his bar for weird had also risen recently).

“Per the contract, corporeal incorporation requires modification of the asset.”

“His asset is just fine,” said Sita.

“I don’t like this,” said Paresh. “It’s creepy.”

The blob hummed with excitement or disapproval. “By expressing concern regarding the original arrangement, you have authorized the alternative arrangement specified in Section XII, Clause 23.”

Sita squeezed Paresh’s hand. “What did he just authorize?”

The blob remained silent for a few seconds, as if the answer should have been obvious. “He will go into you.” The sandpapery voice made the statement sound more ominous.

“Into me?” repeated Sita. “There’s no room in here for him. Do you understand how humans work?”

“We have conducted an extensive study of human body-self conformational metaphysics, and we believe that one body can contain two selves, as outlined in the terms of the contract.”

Paresh didn’t know how he’d leapt past weird and into bizarre without even trying. Did the Blarbsnarb allow for takebacksies? He would ask for a second ruling, but he suspected that Carey in Contracts was not well versed in clauses this esoteric.

Sita, however, was a teacher, and she spoke with confidence about subjects she knew much about and even greater confidence about subjects she knew nothing about. “The original agreement was made between the Blarbsnarb and Paresh. As I am not a signatory on the contract, you have no authority to modify my body.”

Paresh didn’t know the word “signatory” could sound so sexy.

The blob replied with exasperation, its rough voice somehow becoming high-pitched. “Section XII, Clause 23 clearly states that for the purposes of this arrangement the undersigned and spouse of undersigned, if one exists, are equal by law, dependent on tax filing status.”

Paresh groaned. “We file…jointly.”

Sita bit her lip. “I know the accountant said there were some minor disadvantages, but I don’t think she meant this.”

Then she held up a finger, smiling brightly. “I contest that Paresh’s statement constituted an expression of concern.” She punctuated this assertion with a triumphant, emphatic nod.

The blob sighed, or possibly farted. Paresh sniffed the air but still couldn’t tell. Before he could ask for clarification, the blob spoke. “I must consult with the Board on this matter. You will hear from us shortly.” The blob disappeared.

“If this works,” said Paresh, “all it means is that I get to live with that thing inside me.”

“Maybe if we confuse them enough, they’ll leave us alone,” said Sita.

* * *

On the drive home, Paresh spotted his least favorite kids at the bus stop and asked Sita to stop. They climbed out of the copper 1991 Sentra to sneers of “Hey, it’s Apu and Mrs. Apu!” Paresh was disappointed they didn’t know that Apu’s wife was named Manjula.

“It’s Jimbo!” bellowed Paresh, throwing his hands in the air. He jabbed a finger at each boy as he continued, “And Preston! And Clifford!”

The kids stopped their hollering, confused. Their apparent leader sputtered, “Whatever, man, my name—”

Paresh had alien midichlorians and no more fear. “The other day I met an alien blob I respect more than you because it respects me more than you do. And so I saved the world. All of it. Even you.”

Sita looked at him like she didn’t care whether he was human, that was the hottest he had been in all their years of marriage. She pulled him in for a deep, passionate kiss. Out of the corner of his eye, Paresh thought he saw her give the boys the finger. They weren’t her students, but they did just get schooled.

Paresh and Sita returned to the car, leaving the boys standing with expressions almost as indecipherable as the blob’s.

As they drove off, Paresh rolled down the window and yelled with a fist in the air, “And it said my complexion was optimal! Optimal!”

* * *

Sita experimented with barbecue chicken pasta for dinner, combining barbecue sauce and marinara sauce in what Paresh thought were haphazard amounts.

They ate in relative silence. This concoction tasted better than that mustard pizza from a couple nights ago—from the night his troubles began. What had possessed him to agree to this arrangement (ha, possessed)? Maybe he could blame it on the pizza.

Paresh tried to pick apart the mélange of flavors in his mouth. He didn’t think a slight tinge of barbecue would be so pleasant in tomato sauce. He slurped up some of the remaining sauce in his plate.

“That was really good!” he said.

“So what the hell are we going to do?” she said.

“If they buy your legal argument, then at least I get to stay in my body. Maybe there’s a loophole to get out of the thing entirely.”

“We read through the whole contract. I didn’t see anything.”

Paresh shook his fork at her. Unfortunately, the fork still had sauce on it. Fortunately, the sauce didn’t reach her. “We’re not lawyers or aliens. We wouldn’t.”

Sita stood up and began clearing the table. “There is also the issue of money.” She reached for Paresh’s plate.

Paresh grabbed her wrist. “We don’t need the money. We never had it anyway. I’d rather be myself than myself plus an alien plus money.” He let her go.

Sita took his plate. “You’d rather be yourself plus money.”

He looked her right in the eyes. “I’d rather be myself plus you.”

* * *

That night while Paresh was being himself plus Sita, the blob appeared by the bed. Sita screamed—a different sort of scream than she’d been making a few seconds ago—and toppled off Paresh. Paresh let loose a stream of creative expletives.

Out of breath, Paresh said, “Has anyone told you guys you have the worst timing imaginable?”

The blob gazed upon their naked bodies and appeared to blush, a subtle red shimmer that coursed over its body for a second. “I apologize for interrupting your mating ritual. The Board has reviewed the statement and determined it to be legally binding. The alternative arrangement has been authorized.”

Sita pulled the comforter over her. “So he’ll go inside me?” She looked at Paresh, scanned down, and chuckled at her choice of words.

“His being will be temporarily relocated into your body until it can find a suitable home,” said the blob, apparently still unclear on how humans worked. Sita had said there was no room for him, and he believed the woman with the graduate degree. For an intelligent alien species, they did not seem to have done all the necessary research.

“What if he says no?” asked Sita. She pulled Paresh close to her, away from the blob. “What if he backs out of the contract?”

The blob looked puzzled. “Why would he refuse to proceed with what has been agreed upon? We are offering appropriate compensation for the body.”

Paresh put up a hand. “Your compensation is more than appropriate. Hell, it’s inappropriate. But I’ve changed my mind. I like my body. I want to stay in it. Only me.”

“And I love him, but I’d prefer he stay in his own body. I’m equal by law, right? Spouse of undersigned? What if I say no too?”

The blob’s horns glowed. “This is highly unusual.”

“You’re highly unusual,” muttered Sita.

Paresh knew Carey in Contracts had dealt with people like him before, assholes who reneged at the last minute. It happened. It was business. These aliens must have encountered it. “If there’s an early cancellation fee or something, I’ll pay it.” He suspected it would be more than the $300 he paid for cancelling his cable deal, but they would find a way to make it work.

The blob hopped onto the bed. Paresh was relieved to see it didn’t leave a trail of goo behind it; in fact, it left no residue at all. Yet he cringed to see its blobby blobness on his sheets. The blob spoke, its scratchy, sandpapery voice familiar to the both of them by now: “Declining to complete the transaction at this stage is equivalent to refusal before agreement and carries the same consequences.”

Sita and Paresh looked at each other, silently having an entire conversation about the fact that they were going to be responsible for the destruction of Earth, well, mostly Paresh was, it’s not like Sita hadn’t told him to read before signing, can we not bring that up right now, but it’s true, and also I love you.

Paresh took Sita’s hand. Ignoring the fact that he was completely naked, he mustered up all the dignity and gravity he had, sat straight up and said, “I’ll do it.” Sita squeezed his hand and sat straight up with him. “We’ll do it. For Earth.”

“For Earth,” repeated Sita, who could not ignore the fact that they were completely naked and burst out laughing and fell over. The blob surveyed them with bewilderment, waves undulating back and forth across what Paresh took to be its facial region.

It jumped up and down on the bed. “The completion of transaction will commence immediately.”

Sita stopped laughing. “You’re going to take him now?”

Paresh’s heart broke to hear the fear in his wife’s voice. He would be leaving her and joining her in the same instant.

He turned to face his wife. “Before it happens, I want you to hear it from me one last time: I love you.”

Sita kissed him. “I love you, too.”

“When they tied our clothes together at the wedding, that was supposed to be a symbolic union, right?”

“I knew I should have been paying more attention to the Sanskrit.”

Paresh admired her smile with his own eyes while he still could. “Also, in case you can hear my thoughts when I’m in there, I didn’t really like that turkey chili pizza.”

“I knew it!” She kissed him again. “But I’m still going to make it for us to eat. It’s delicious. And it’s my body I’ll be putting it into, even if you’re in there too.”

“It’ll be one hundred percent yours except for whatever metaphysical confor-whatsit things happen with me.”

Sita turned to the blob. “Will I be able to hear his thoughts? Will he be able to control me? He’d better not be able to control me. I read that clause again and that is not in there.”

A tiny wormhole opened up and spat out a spiral-bound stack of papers thicker than any database user manual Paresh had ever seen. It plopped onto the bed in front of the blob. “The Blarbsnarb have helpfully provided this list of Frequently Asked Questions.” When Sita reached for it, the blob hopped on top of it. “It is to be read after the completion of transaction, which must commence before close of business.”

Sita drew her hand away, slowly curling four of her fingers back.

“Wait!” said Paresh. “I don’t want to be possessed with my pants off.” He reached around for his clothes and hastily dressed. Sita took the opportunity to do the same. The process was made somewhat more difficult by the blob, who continued to jump up and down on the bed, making Sita’s bra fall off onto the floor.

“Thank you for your patience,” said Sita after they were both clothed. She turned to Paresh. “You ready?”

“No,” he said.

“Neither am I,” she said. “Let’s do this.” She reached for his hand, and the blob honked like an angry goose.

“Please refrain from all physical contact during the transaction,” it said. Sita reluctantly kept her hand at her side.

Paresh closed his eyes.

He peeked a tiny bit out of one eye in time to see the blob disintegrate and congeal into a ball of light that had to be visible outside, even through the curtains. Before he had time to wonder what the neighbors thought, the light shot toward his barely open eye, and then it was in him, going everywhere inside him, even places he didn’t know he had, and he wanted to scream but he no longer had control of his mouth, and for one terrible second—or was it an hour—the only thought in his head was it didn’t say it would hurt.

And then he felt himself move to the right a couple feet. A warm, welcoming body. The strange sensation of having a part-alien body was gone, replaced by the strange sensation of having an all-woman body. He felt top-heavy.

“You in there?” said Sita.

“Yes,” said the Paresh inside her and the Paresh outside her.

“The transaction is complete,” the blob said in Paresh’s voice, a vast improvement from its own. Was that how Paresh sounded? He had been told he had the faintest traces of an accent, but he’d never heard it until now. Inside Sita’s head, Paresh sounded the way he was used to sounding.

“Good,” said Sita. Not wanting to look at the alien wearing her husband’s body, she got up and went to the bathroom, looking instead at her husband wearing her body. “You said you wanted to be yourself plus me,” she said into the mirror. “Looks like it’s going to be the other way around.”

Paresh looked at himself. Herself? Themself? They shared a body but not a mind, as far he could tell before reading the FAQ. He had no motor control of Sita’s body, and he knew she wouldn’t relinquish it. He would never ask her to. Since the moment he signed the contract, he had resigned himself to this fate, riding along with either an alien or his wife. He preferred the alternative arrangement. Sita had always been his better half, and now they were a better whole.

He hadn’t quit his job. He hoped the blob could code.

“The first thing that blob did was congratulate me,” he said, his voice sounding hollow inside Sita. “Well, congratulations! We’re millionaires!”

From the bedroom came a thud, like the sound of a man falling off a bed.

Sita sighed. She took one last look in the mirror.

“Let’s go teach that thing how to use its legs.”

The Robot Who Couldn’t Lie

Originally published by Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show in May 2015

* * *

I will tell you a true story. You can be sure it is true because I cannot lie. To lie would be against my programming.

When I first woke, my light bulb turned on. I came into being and said, “Hello,” which is the truest greeting there is. “Good morning” can be a lie, and “What’s up?” is not an inquiry about the events occurring above a person. Silvi responded with “Hey there, little guy. Don’t be alarmed, but you’ve got a desk lamp for a head.”

She held out a hand, palm out. “Come on, give me a high five.” She glanced at my appendages. “High three.” I did not understand her command. “Well, it was worth a shot. I can teach you that later. She’ll like that.”

Silvi stroked my desk lamp head and cooed. Accessing my initial memory banks, I understood it to be a gesture associated with babies. I was not a baby. I had two arms and two legs but I was not a baby. “You’re the one, little guy,” she said. “I finally got it right.”

Over the first twenty-two days of my existence, she would come into the workshop and ask me questions.

“Where is the Eiffel Tower?”

“What city do I live in?”

“What is that?” She pointed to the garage door with its four small windows. I identified it correctly. Along the wall of the workshop hung many instruments, including wire cutters and soldering irons. If I answered a question incorrectly, she used them to adjust the pieces inside of me: microchips, capacitors, pins. Then she ran her thumb across the screen of her smartphone. After some swipes and presses she asked me the question again and I answered correctly.

“That’s the stuff!” she said.

“That is the stuff,” I repeated, adding the word to my lexicon.

One day she walked in with her hand on her head, rubbing it. “Baseline time’s over, little guy,” she said, her eyes only half open. “It’s raison d’etre time.”

Then she told me stories. A story was not true except when it was, but even a true story could be a lie. Silvi told me stories about a fat man in a red suit who delivered gifts to children around the world, which could not be true because the world is very large and he could not visit all the children in one night. She spoke of creatures from another planet coming down and destroying famous buildings because famous buildings are the best buildings. Some stories she sang, a narrative in rhythm and rhyme, and her voice echoed throughout the entire workshop.

“I would like to tell a story,” I said one day.

“You can’t tell stories, silly,” she said with a smile. “At least not your own. You’ll confuse her!”

Within me I had so many facts. I thought I could recite the facts and that would be a story, but no ordering of knowledge resulted in anything comparable to what she had told or sung.

“The sky is blue,” I said, “and the grass is green.”

“Cool story, bro,” she said, giving me a thumbs-up gesture of approval. A story cannot have temperature but I had learned that language was full of lies. Had I told a good story after all? The sky was blue, and the grass was green. I knew these to be true within a 5% margin of error.

When I had asked Silvi if a truth could be true if it was not 100% true, she gently tapped my light bulb and said, “Close enough for horseshoes, hand grenades, and hand-me-downs.” She stood up and muttered, “We’re all unreliable narrators of our own lives.”

Now Silvi adjusted her goggles, and the sunlight illuminated her blue eyes that were blue like the sky. The colors were at least 95% similar on the chromatic scale; I am not engaging in simile, which can be a lie. “You want to know a word that sounds cool but isn’t?” she said. “Neurodegenerative.”

After she told me about the world, she began to tell me about herself. Her own story did not begin like mine. She was not made from a car and a lamp and coins but from William and Ashley, her parents. She told me of playing in the snow in Pittsburgh, riding a horse in Madison, flying a kite in Raleigh. “This is all the kid stuff, little guy. You’ve got to remember the kid stuff.” I had never been a kid so I did not know how to differentiate kid stuff from other stuff. As she grew older, she met a man and had her own kid to have kid stuff.

That was you, Greta. You are now having kid stuff.

Silvi’s story was a true story according to her, but all stories are lies, even true ones. I had no way of verifying that she flew a kite in Raleigh. I did not believe her to be falsifying any data, whether it was about the world or herself, but my experience of truth did not extend past the workshop. The only truth I did know was that Silvi and I existed and so did the workshop. Any other story was unverifiable.

I longed to tell my own story about Outside. What if I were to ride a horse in Madison? Was considering this against my programming? It could not be since I was allowed to do it. “What is a horse?” I asked.

She laughed, the sound reverberating in the room of metal objects. “It’s a big animal with four legs, and you can put a saddle on it and ride it. I told you about horses already!”

“I want to know more about horses,” I said.

She knelt down, her face next to my bulb, and whispered, “Then you should know how their muscles feel against your thighs as you bounce up and down, how their eyes hold so much heart, how they have so much majesty as they gallop toward you. Tell her all that.”

And then her eyes rolled up, and she put her hand to her head, and she fell backward. She reached out to the table but did not touch it. For thirty-seven seconds after the thud there was silence. Then her face came into view again.

Your mother has a message for you, Greta: Bellasyn does not work. She hopes that when you are older they have more effective therapies.

On some days she came into the workshop in tears. “You’re going to remember it all, right, little guy? Don’t forget anything I told you. Not a single thing. Not about the sky, not about the cheesesteak, not about the dinosaurs.” She grabbed my arm and squeezed, a gesture that did nothing to the non-pliable material. “Don’t forget my favorite dinosaur: it’s the triceratops.”

She told me many beautiful stories, of princes and princesses, of fakirs and genies, of witches and banshees. These were the stories her mother told her, she said. And Silvi was my mother.

That is not a lie. She did not birth me but she did create me so it is truth. If it is truth, then we are family, Greta. Silvi spoke to me of her own family, her mother the nurse and her father the chemist. With no siblings, she was an only child. You are not an only child after all.

I like your laugh, Greta. It sounds like hers. They have a similar timbre. High five.

She said you would like that. I am glad that I learned it.

When Silvi was not in the workshop, I sifted through the data she had given me and put it in chronological order. First, she was born. She did not tell me she was born but because she was alive she must have been born. She did not remember it. The first memory she had was of kid stuff: she took apart a toy truck. As she told it, it did not require much work to dismantle, but it was significantly harder to put back together before her father came home. She did not succeed, but her father helped her, and then they had cake. Silvi liked cake. “Red velvet is the best,” she said. “Silky smooth.” But the cake was a lie because the red was false and velvet is a fabric. “Lies for me, truth for you,” she said. “Truth for her.”

Here is a story I can tell you: I sat in the workshop and stared at the wall across from me. It was grey stone with none of the vibrancy of Outside, as Silvi described it. I sat on a table five feet off the ground and dared not jump down because the impact of the fall could cause me damage. So I did not move. My entire life with her, I did not move.

I do thank you for taking me out of that workshop and bringing me to your bedroom. It is much brighter here, softer. This is a place where humans live.

Silvi’s visits became less frequent. Sometimes when she arrived she looked at me with fear and curiosity, her pupils alternately widening and narrowing to diameters I had correlated with human emotions. “What the hell are you?” she said. Then: “Oh, hey, little guy! How you been? I’ve got a good one for you today; it’s about Chicago.” I had seen her eyes for so long that watching them shift from fear to recognition was comforting, yet frightening. I was becoming unfamiliar to her.

One day the shift did not occur. She touched my cold metal and recoiled. “Junk in the garage…”

“Silvi,” I said, “it is me. It is Little Guy.”

“Holy shit, you can talk!” She stepped closer.

“Can I tell you a story?”

“Can you tell me a story? Tell me a damn story, you weird robot thing, show me what you got.”

I did not know what to do. She had never given me permission to tell a story, and I did not know what kind of story I was allowed to tell. I struggled to combine all my data into a narrative but in the end I accessed one of Silvi’s favorite memories, which she had told to me several times. Each time it contained a new detail, sometimes conflicting with previous details, and I was unable to reconcile the truth. But I did my best.

“In Chicago you went to a store called The Boring Store. It was a lie because it was not boring. It only pretended to be boring. The store sold toys that let you pretend to be a spy. You bought spy binoculars and asked the girl at the counter where you could get a milkshake. Or you asked the boy at the counter where you could get a sundae. Or you asked a customer where you could get frozen yogurt.”

Silvi’s eyes flickered with recognition during my story but the light faded. “That sounds like me, I guess.”

“It was you. You told me. It was a happy story.”

“No more happy stories for me, little guy.” She blinked at her last two words, mouthing them to herself. She reached a hand out and stroked my arm and did not recoil. “Hey.” Her cheeks rose slightly with her smile.

As she left the workshop, she turned to me and said, “It was a boy, and it was a milkshake. Tell her that version.”

I told you all the versions. But the version with the boy and the milkshake is the one we will call the truth.

I do not want to tell you the rest of the story. You know the rest of the story. Your eyes have already become wet.

It happened on a Thursday.

She stumbled in, off balance, grabbing at instruments on the wall. They tumbled to the floor with a series of clangs. “What the hell are you?” she said, her voice full of confusion and anger. She reached out to touch me but used too much force and I fell on my side. I had never seen the world from this perspective before. It was all sideways. The floor was a lie and then so were Silvi’s eyes. She did not see me anymore.

The floor was not down but that is where she fell.

“Silvi,” I said. She said nothing. I repeated her name. “It is me,” I said. “It is Little Guy.” I could not see her to know if she was moving.

I shifted my weight to roll my body closer to the edge of the table and saw that Silvi was three feet away. Before my last revolution I faced away from her so I did not see how far down I would fall when I made that final turn. One second later, I crashed onto the solid ground. I felt everything rattle inside me. Something dislodged: a microchip, a capacitor, a pin. A word Silvi had never taught me saturated my consciousness: embellish. But I continued to roll myself toward Silvi.

{Blood pooled around her head. It had directly struck the concrete when she fell. I rolled to look into her eyes. There was no life in them.}

Next to her feet, I said her name again. She did not respond. I rolled to her face, clanking with each revolution. “I will tell you a story,” I said.

Her eyes fluttered open. “No,” she said. “Tell her. She is the best story.” Weakly, she brought a hand close to her face. “High five.”

{She lay completely still, arms splayed out. The blood began to coat my arms as well. I touched her face, leaving a print.}

I brought my own appendage up and touched it to her hand. “High five,” I said.

{I stayed by her side for two-and-a-half-minutes until an older woman whose face resembled Silvi’s opened the door and shrieked. It was the loudest sound I had ever heard, louder than the clanging of the tools on the ground, louder than the sound Silvi made as she fell, louder than the sound I made as I fell. She made that sound for a very long time.}

Her eyes closed and did not open.

{She sounded like a banshee, I thought. A simile. I had used a simile. }

At that moment a triceratops tore a hole in the garage door, and the shearing of metal was the loudest sound I had ever heard. Sunlight streamed in from Outside, where the sky was blue and the grass was green. The triceratops entered the workshop and picked Silvi up with its horns, hoisting her on its back. It carried her away.

{The older woman bent down to Silvi’s body and stroked her hair, repeating her name. Then she said Greta’s name.}

Now I have told you a story and everything was true. I performed my duty as your mother asked. Lies for her, truth for you, but a lie can be truth if you believe it. That is why the letters are embedded in the word like a microchip, a capacitor, a pin.

You are welcome, Greta. I was only following my programming.

You are right. She is your mother and her story is your story.

And it is my story too.

The Attic of Memories

Originally published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination in September 2015

* * *

My attic craves memories, hungers for them. Jacinda, it whispers, show me the universe. So I do.

* * *

On Rydan I meet a Terran expatriate named Janessa. We laugh at the similarity in our names and share a cup of warm hungus, a local drink made by grinding an aquamarine flower until it turns crimson. It tastes of cinnamon and honey, though neither can be found on that world. I place the taste into a box to bring home.

* * *

On the way to Seraglia the starship is attacked by pirates. They board the ship and swarm the corridors, pointing a blaster at each passenger and demanding valuables. I hide beneath my cot, huddled up like a baby in the womb, and dare not make a sound.

A blaster shot. A body falls.

The door slides open and a pirate pokes his reptilian head in, sniffing the air. Then sneezing. He shakes his head and leaves, and the door slides closed. I let out the breath I’ve been holding, but not before I put my fear into a box.

* * *

The elephantine aardvarks of Nyctus have grown to become docile and tolerant of humans. Legend says they were once fierce creatures that ruled the tundras, goring small rodents upon their tusks, but terraforming destroyed their habitat. They adapted as best they could.

Despite the assurances of the ranger, I cower in the face of the creature’s massive tusks and long snout. It approaches slowly, each footstep causing the ground to reverberate. Out of its snout comes a thin, prehensile tongue, and it licks my face, tasting my flesh. The ranger reminds me that it does not see me as food.

Hesitantly, I walk to its side and gaze upon its grey, leathery skin, like the cover of an ancient book, full of stories in long-dead languages. It is surprisingly warm to the touch. I lay my head on the beast and listen to its heartbeat.

To two heartbeats.

I glance at the ranger, startled, and she nods at me and smiles.

Two hearts beating slightly out of sync, the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Into a box it goes.

* * *

My attic gives me boxes, iridescent cubes solid on all sides. When I return from a journey, a new box waits for me. I only need to take one box. I always know what to put in it.

Before my attic spoke to me, I had never left the planet, cowed by the multitude of other worlds and wonders. But the boxes my attic provides are smaller than the worlds they contain. Its desire has become mine.

Each box is attuned to me and me alone. I worried that in places of high emotion I could return with someone else’s memory, but that has never occurred. The box knows me. The attic knows me.

* * *

In the sprawling metropolis of Ferraro I have a love affair with a woman named James. I tell her I will leave when the suns next rise, and she takes it as a challenge. Whisking me from landmark to landmark, from the founder’s statue at the city center to the Garden of Forgotten Dreams, she sings ballads of the city’s history, her voice like honey, though none can be found on that world. I boldly kiss her in front of a restaurant specializing in Terran cuisine, which she had suggested as a joke.

That evening I place the box on the nightstand. When she asks what it is, I tell her it is a diary. She smirks and removes her clothes. At the peak of our lovemaking, I place my ecstasy in the box. And hope that just this once it takes someone else’s as well.

* * *

I go to the edge of the universe, as far as they will allow. The voyage takes decades, even in hypersleep, and the starship takes me to the furthest point recorded by humanity. They advise against active movement soon after waking, but the instant I have the ability to walk, I am at the nearest observation window, staring into the darkness.

There is nothing at the edge of the universe. It is empty. I feel empty.

The box is no longer empty.

* * *

Awe at the ingenuity of the ancient Rhodites who built an ice bridge that stood for eons. The sting of a Goliath wasp that leaves me incapacitated for days. The thrill of tumbling over the winefalls of Apané. The breeze against my cheek upon emerging from the Merfish bath houses. Joy at being in the midst of a swarm of electric butterflies.

Each box holds a piece of the universe, and a piece of me.

* * *

In my attic I drink hot cocoa that smells of clitheroe, though none can be found on this world. Cradling the box from Travipessa in my hand, I hear the rousing applause at the end of the laser light opera, a communal outpouring of gratitude that we, of all people, were lucky to have witnessed such a performance. I set it down and look around at the wooden rafters, like prison bars. My attic, confined here like a mad wife in a Victorian novel.

My attic whispers, Have you seen everything? Have you been everywhere?

There are many more worlds to explore. Many more worlds to bring back.

The boxes glow in the dim light of my attic. My history surrounds me like a halo.

My attic holds memories. So many memories. But there is one memory I can never give it, and it is this one. The reminiscence that fills me with the warmth of a purring firecat in my lap. There is no box for my nostalgia; the feeling will always be mine alone.

I come here to remember, but my attic will forget.

Laura Pearlman

I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything.

This story originally appeared in Flash Fiction Online, April 2015

* * *

PEOPLE OF EARTH: I AM GRAALNAK OF THE VROON EMPIRE, CONQUEROR OF WORLDS, DESTROYER OF ALL WHO OPPOSE ME, AND YOUR SUPREME AND BENEVOLENT OVERLORD. FOR THE NEXT SIXTY OF YOUR EARTH-MINUTES YOU MAY ASK ME ANY QUESTION WITHOUT FEAR OF RETRIBUTION.

- Posted by graalnak 1 year ago

[ Display options: top-rated comments only, chronological order ]

* * *

tadthederailer, 1 year ago: Seriously? No way this is Graalnak. He doesn’t even answer questions in his own press conferences.

verbosiraptor, 1 year ago: The rules are clear: prove you’re Graalnak or we’ll delete this thread.

graalnak, 1 year ago: YOUR RULES DO NOT APPLY TO ME.

verbosiraptor, 1 year ago: It’s right there on the sidebar. No exceptions.

[237 more replies]

fleep, 1 year ago: Greetings! I am Fleep, Gralnaak’s communications secretary. I present to you this photograph of Graalnak holding a sign with the message “YOUR RULES DO NOT APPLY TO ME, REDDIT” written in the blood of the human intern who suggested this compromise.

[39 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?

graalnak, 1 year ago: I WOULD FORCE THE TINY HORSES AND THE GIANT DUCK TO FIGHT EACH OTHER. I WOULD SLAUGHTER THE SURVIVORS, EAT THEIR LIVERS AND HAVE THE REST GROUND UP AND USED AS RADISH FERTILIZER.

[358 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: What is it with you guys and radishes?

graalnak, 1 year ago: RADISHES ARE DELICIOUS.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: Why have you allowed these Earth-radishes to distract you from your primary mission on this planet?

graalnak, 1 year ago: KLEEPTOR IS THAT YOU?

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: No I am an ordinary human as my profile clearly indicates.

[87 more replies]

* * *

dishslinger, 1 year ago: Last week four Vroons came into the restaurant where I work. They had a five-course dinner: radish rosettes, radishpacho, radish salad, sauteed liver and radish leaves, radish sorbet for dessert. The bill came to $197.28. They left $200. That’s a $2.72 tip. It should have been at least $40. Can you please tell your people to start tipping appropriately?

graalnak, 1 year ago: TIPPING IS OPTIONAL. YOU SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR THE $2.72.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: Graalnak is correct no one gives me extra money just for doing my job.

tadthederailer, 1 year ago: Wait, is that $197.28 including tax? A standard tip used to be 15% on the pre-tax amount. Now you want 20% on everything?

[1398 more replies]

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ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: When are you going to begin construction on the plasma weapon factories?

graalnak, 1 year ago: STOP NAGGING ME, KLEEPTOR. I WILL GET TO IT. PROBABLY AFTER RADISH GROWING SEASON.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: I am not nagging. It is a legitimate question.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: Also I am not Kleeptor.

[93 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: I’d love to join your internship program! How can I qualify?

dishslinger, 1 year ago: Are your interns paid?

burner2600, 1 year ago: Do interns get the schematics for those plasma weapon factories?

graalnak, 1 year ago: YOU WILL NEED A STRONG WORK ETHIC AND A HIGH TOLERANCE FOR PHYSICAL PAIN. YOU WILL RECEIVE VALUABLE WORK EXPERIENCE AND ALL THE PARTIALLY-DIGESTED RADISH STEMS YOU CAN EAT.

[56 more replies]

* * *

burner2600, 1 year ago: Is there any substance fatal to Vroons and harmless to humans?

graalnak, 1 year ago: YES. WATER.

burner2600, 1 year ago: Really?

graalnak, 1 year ago: NO YOU IDIOT RADISHES ARE 92 PERCENT WATER.

[132 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: How many Vroons does it take to change a light bulb?

graalnak, 1 year ago: NONE. OUR TECHNOLOGY HAS ADVANCED FAR BEYOND THE NEED FOR LIGHT BULBS.

dishslinger, 1 year ago: None, they’ll just make some human do it for substandard wages.

burner2600, 1 year ago: One to set the lightbulb-changing quotas and a thousand to punish every human who comes up short.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: None, I will just sit on this pile of radishes in the dark.

[93 more replies]

* * *

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: What do you expect the Vroon warships to do when they reach the Praxadoolean defense fleet? Throw radishes at them?

graalnak, 1 year ago: SHUT UP, KLEEPTOR.

[17 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: Is it true that Vroon ships visited the Earth 150 years ago?

burner2600, 1 year ago: Oh, not this again.

tadthederailer, 1 year ago: Not what again?

burner2600, 1 year ago: Just a stupid urban legend.

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: There are newspaper clippings from all over the world. A typical article describes “a large and bellicose individual with skin resembling the peel of a lime and an astonishing number of teeth” visiting farmers and insulting them. The details vary, but they’re all pretty similar.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: That sounds like one of us.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: I mean them. One of them.

graalnak, 1 year ago: YOU ARE NOT FOOLING ANYONE, KLEEPTOR.

burner2600, 1 year ago: The way the story goes, the visitor would order the farmer to bring him his best radish. Then he’d take a bite, spit it out, and leave.

ordinaryhuman, 1 year ago: No Vroon would spit out a radish.

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: The reports all say he complained they weren’t radish-y enough. Something about tasting like sawdust compared to Dalgoxean hyper-radishes.

graalnak, 1 year ago: HYPER-RADISHES? I DEMAND YOU TELL ME THE LOCATION OF THESE HYPER-RADISHES IMMEDIATELY.

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: They were from Dalgox-5, or Daglox-5, or something. I think it’s a planet.

graalnak, 1 year ago: TALGOX-5?

deliciouskoolaid, 1 year ago: Maybe.

graalnak, 1 year ago: I HAVE IMPORTANT BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO. THIS QUESTION PERIOD IS OVER.

[326 more replies]

* * *

deliciouskoolaid, 11 months ago: Wow. I can’t believe that worked.

[537 more replies]

* * *

Related thread, posted 14 minutes ago by deliciouskoolaid:

I’m deliciouskoolaid (aka burner2600). One year ago today I started a rumor and saved the world. Ask me anything.

A Dozen Frogs, a Bakery, and a Thing That Didn’t Happen

This story originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction, October 2015

* * *

Wednesday, September 14

I saw a unicorn in a bakery window, just for an instant. It was beautiful and luminous and just like the one in my dreams. I blinked, and it was a cake with a picture of a unicorn in frosting. It was super-realistic, though.

I’m glad I decided to keep this diary. Steve’s eyes glaze over when I talk about things like bakeries and unicorns.

* * *

Thursday, September 15

Remember the unicorn bakery from yesterday? Today there was a “help wanted” sign in the window. The place is called Goody Goode’s Goodies. It’s tiny! There’s a display case and four tables, and of course the kitchen in the back. It smells like chocolate and cinnamon and honey and apples. The walls are deep blue—the color the sky gets after the sunset, right before it gets really dark—with all kinds of little white shapes in the foreground. Oh, and there’s an aquarium on the side wall with frogs in it. It’s quirky.

Anyway, I filled out an application, and Goody (the owner) hired me on the spot! The pay is the same as I’m getting now, but the hours are better. I start next week.

Steve was thrilled. He hates my job at the auto parts store because the guys there flirt with me sometimes. Plus he said maybe I’d finally learn how to make a decent dinner for once—but he was just kidding, he said, because even he knows cooking and baking are different.

I called Mom and told her the news. Steve got a little miffed when I told her his joke about my cooking. He likes to tell his own jokes, LOL.

* * *

Friday, September 16

Tammy and Jeff finally decided on a baby name, so I can start knitting the last part of the blanket. It’s going to have two seagulls flying over the ocean carrying a banner. The banner will be the same color as the lightest parts of the sand castle, with “Annabelle” written in the brown I used for the dog’s nose. They’re going to love it.

Also, I went to Verizon to replace the phone that got broken in last night’s argument. My contract was up, so I got a new phone for free!

* * *

Monday, September 19

I gave notice at the auto parts store today. Steve took me to the Sleeping Frog for a fancy dinner to celebrate. The whole night was romantic and special. It reminded me of all the things I love about Steve. Sometimes I forget, LOL.

* * *

Tuesday, September 27

My first day at the bakery! I met some of the regular customers. Martha is 77 years old. She walks with a cane, likes blueberry scones, and used to be a big-time civil rights lawyer. She has cats and grandchildren and lots of cute pictures of all of them.

Then there’s the just-friends couple. They say they’re just friends, but sometimes she’ll gaze at him all dreamy-eyed when he’s not looking, and then look away as soon as he sees her doing it. Other times, he’ll gaze at her the same way. I think maybe they have crushes on each other and are too shy to say anything.

* * *

Thursday, September 29

It seems like every day when I come to work, the wallpaper is different, like the little shapes are in different places than they were the day before. Is there a word for that? Like deja vu, only the opposite?

* * *

Saturday, October 1

I’m working Tuesdays through Saturdays, which means Steve can come visit me at work on a Saturday if he wants. Not today, though—he spent the day out with the guys. He says the only way he’ll come is if we start serving beer, LOL.

* * *

Monday, October 3

Today was my day off, and Steve was at work, so I had the apartment all to myself. I made a ton of progress on the baby blanket. My hands are a little cramped, but it’s worth it! When you put this much love into a gift, it shows.

* * *

Tuesday, October 4

A man came in to the bakery today and pushed right past Martha, knocking her cane to the floor. She had to grab the counter to keep from falling. He didn’t even apologize.

I helped her to a table while Goody took care of the man. She was super-sweet to him and even gave him a free cookie, one of those big puffy meringues that look like clouds.

We talked about it later. She could tell I was upset, but she said the best way to handle people like that was to kill them with kindness.

* * *

Wednesday, October 5

I like to watch Goody tend to the frogs every morning before the bakery opens. She takes each one out (there are twelve) and checks to make sure it looks healthy. Then she transfers 36 crickets into the tank, three for each frog, and tells them to enjoy their meal.

I told Steve about this. He thinks the frogs are a health hazard, LOL.

* * *

Thursday, October 6

There was a big storm last night. The morning news had a story about a man who was struck by lightning. It was the nasty customer from Tuesday! He survived, but it’s going to be a long time before he can walk again.

* * *

Tuesday, October 11

I finished the baby blanket! It’s gorgeous, if I do say so myself. And really soft. Tammy and Jeff and baby Annabelle are going to love it.

* * *

Wednesday, October 12

I swear this is true. The just-friends couple were the only customers in the bakery. The guy took one bite of his cupcake and turned into a frog. The girl jumped up and screamed. Goody grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her in the eye, and said “You know what to do.” And she did. Her hands were shaking, but she picked up the frog and kissed it. The frog turned back into her friend. He said “you kissed me,” and she said “well, you were a frog,” and he said “yeah, but you kissed me,” and then they kissed each other and walked out holding hands.

* * *

Thursday, October 13

Today was my birthday. It was awful. Steve told me my present was in the broom closet. That’s where I found my new vacuum cleaner. He said he could tell I didn’t like the old one because I never used it. Then he wanted me to try it out, but I said I wasn’t going to vacuum on my birthday. I don’t know why I said that. I should have just laughed it off and swiped the vacuum across the floor a couple times.

But I didn’t. I sat on the couch and crossed my arms and sulked. Steve said if I wasn’t going to try out my new present, he would. I pretended to read a magazine. I looked up after a minute, and the baby blanket had gotten caught in the vacuum! I don’t know how it even got on the floor. Steve was running the vacuum back and forth over the blanket. I jumped up and turned the machine off and tried to salvage it, but it was too late—it was unravelled in some places and torn in others, and parts were covered with some kind of vacuum-cleaner grease.

It’s hopeless. The shower is Sunday. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

* * *

Friday, October 14

Steve dropped by the bakery. He was really apologetic. He even brought me flowers. There were no other customers, so we sat at a table. Steve said he’d take me to any store I wanted to buy the best baby gift ever and then out for a nice dinner.

Goody brought us tea and cupcakes. Steve took one bite of his and turned into a frog. Goody looked me in the eye and said “you know what to do.” And I did.

* * *

There are thirteen frogs in the aquarium. Goody says that’s a baker’s dozen, LOL.

In the End, You Get Clarity

This story originally appeared in Unidentified Funny Objects 4, October 2015

* * *

The first time Leopard-Print Girl killed someone, it was an accident.

She wasn’t Leopard-Print Girl then. She was Nicole Davis, an urban studies sophomore at the University of Chicago. On her first day home for Christmas break, her mom told her things were getting worse at work. Her boss had found an opportunity to reprimand her the previous week, when she’d taken her fourth-grade class on a field trip to the Springville Winter Festival. The kids had enjoyed the sleigh ride and were looking forward to meeting a local celebrity: Andy Childe, one of Mrs. Davis’ former students, was a contestant on a new ice-sculpting reality show. They were about to say hello to him when his sculpture crashed to the ground. He yelled something about sabotage and threw a ballerina head (not the severed head of a ballerina, Mrs. Davis clarified, but the broken-off head of a ballerina ice sculpture) at one of the other ice sculptors. Then he grabbed a ballerina arm and swung it, missing his target and hitting an actual ballerina who was visiting the festival on her one day off after twelve consecutive performances. Passers-by grabbed ballerina parts (from the broken statue, not the live ballerina) and joined the melee. Nicole’s mom rushed the children away, but one of the boys was hit by a flying ballerina nose and got a black eye. She received a written reprimand for endangering the children.

“What? Wasn’t the field trip approved?”

“Yes, of course. The Tyrant is saying I didn’t move quickly enough. And since I’d had Andy in my class fifteen years ago, I should have known he was unstable.”

The Tyrant was the principal at East Springville Elementary School; his real name was Hiram Banks. Nicole had him for third grade, back when he was still a teacher. Nicole hated third grade. She’d hated it since the day she said her mom was a superhero, and Mr. Banks said she wasn’t.

Technically, he was right. “Superhero” is a registered trademark of the League of Superheroes, and to qualify, you need to have a superpower and use it in at least one documented act of heroism. Mrs. Davis’ superpower was the ability to project low-powered lasers from her eyes. Pointing things out on a whiteboard and entertaining cats at a distance are not considered heroic acts.

Instead of explaining this to Nicole gently, Mr. Banks made her write “My mom is not a superhero” (and, since her mom taught at the same school, “Mrs. Davis is not a superhero”) on the blackboard 100 times. She had to write a lot of things on the blackboard that year.

Nicole and her mom had a tradition of taking a long walk together whenever one of them got home from a trip. Mrs. Davis felt like she was coming down with the flu, so Nicole went alone. She’d been walking about twenty minutes when it began to rain. Ahead of her, a small group of men spilled out of a bar. She recognized them: three school board members and Hiram Banks.

Nicole had no desire to speak to Mr. Banks, but as she watched the men go their separate ways, she realized he was headed in her direction. He stumbled, he wove, and finally he stopped. He fumbled for his keys and pointed them at a car. A different car, behind him, chirped in response.

“Mr Banks,” she called, running up to him.

“Do I know you?”

“I’m Nicole Davis. I went to East Springville Elementary. And my mom works there. Lily Davis. Look, why don’t you let me have your keys, and I’ll get you a taxi?”

“Nicole Davis…your dad was Tyrone Davis, right? Drove the school bus?”

Nicole nodded. “Give me your keys.” She held out her hand. “You shouldn’t be driving.”

“Nothing wrong with my driving.” Mr. Banks said. “I’m an excellent driver. Better than your dad, anyway.”

Nicole bristled. The accident hadn’t been her father’s fault. The brakes had failed; the accident investigators confirmed it. Principal Banks had come to Nicole’s house and presented her mom with a $10,000 check, a nondisclosure agreement, and his personal assurance that, effective immediately, the bus would be serviced by someone other than his alcoholic brother-in-law.

Nicole was furious. A weird, cold energy flowed up her spine, into her arms, and out through her fingertips. Mr. Banks collapsed.

Nicole screamed. One of the school board members, Mr. Logan, ran back across the street to check on Mr. Banks. He was dead.

The official cause of death was “lightning strike.” Nicole didn’t remember hearing any thunder.

* * *

The first time Leopard-Print Girl flew, it was an impulse.

She was still Nicole then. It should have been the start of her junior year, but her mom’s illness had turned out to be serious. Nicole had moved back home and taken a job at the Springville public library.

She was leaving work one day when a mouse fell on her head. On closer inspection, it was a catnip mouse. She looked down and saw at least a dozen cat toys. She looked up and saw a cat.

“Pyewacket!” she said. “Come down off the roof.”

The neighbors got Pyewacket when he was a kitten and Nicole was in second grade. It was love at first sight. The two of them developed a routine. He’d hide behind a rosebush, waiting for her to get home from school. She’d walk by, pretending not to notice, and he’d zoom out and tag her ankle. She’d throw a toy; he’d chase it and pick it up. Then he’d drop it and run back over to her. She tried to explain that the game would work better if he came back to her and then dropped the toy, but cats aren’t known for listening to reason.

Pyewacket was thirteen years old now and still as unreasonable as ever. Come down, Nicole said, and I’ll play with you. She waved the catnip mouse at him to show she meant it. She knew he could climb down easily; he’d claimed half the roofs in the neighborhood as his personal territory. She gave up and, without thinking, flew towards the roof. She was almost there when she realized she was flying. Then she realized she didn’t know how to land.

In her panic, she began flailing her arms and legs. This sent her crashing down onto the roof, leaving her with some bruises and scrapes but no serious injuries. The catnip mouse landed a few feet away, unharmed. Pyewacket pounced and batted it off the edge of the roof. Then he walked over to Nicole and looked at her expectantly.

When she failed to throw the mouse for him, he decided he had urgent business elsewhere. He strutted across the roof, leapt into a nearby tree, and climbed down. Nicole flew to the ground, landing on a hard-shelled plastic ball with a little bell inside and twisting her ankle.

She practiced, of course. She learned her limits. She couldn’t fly more than a few miles at a time or carry anything weighing more than a few pounds. The wind dried out her skin, irritated her eyes, and did terrible things to her hair. Still, she could fly, and that was pretty cool.

* * *

The first time Leopard-Print Girl deflected a bullet, it was a footnote in someone else’s story.

When Pablo Winterly slept, he dreamed of ice sculptures: caterpillars that transformed into butterflies as they melted, working bicycles, violins that produced music sweeter than any he’d heard while awake. He spent his waking hours carving ice and studying everything remotely related to his craft: botany, anatomy, and art history for inspiration, architecture, chemistry, and physics for technique. He played with the optical properties of ice, carving prisms that projected rainbows onto nearby objects and lenses that produced comically distorted views of the world. He lived a comfortable life, supplying ice sculptures for weddings, parties, and charity events in the greater Springville area.

At Winterly’s 60th birthday party, Andy Childe struck up a conversation. Andy had just graduated with a fine arts degree and wanted to learn to sculpt ice. Winterly had been thinking, on this milestone birthday, about his legacy. He was proud of his creations, but they were ephemeral; the only thing of value he could leave to the world was his knowledge. He agreed to take Andy on as an apprentice.

Winterly taught Andy everything he knew. He taught him to use chisels and chainsaws, to create designs that were delicate-looking but structurally sound, and to calculate a piece’s melting rate based on its shape, the ambient temperature, wind, and degree of sun exposure.

Andy learned quickly. He wasn’t interested in understanding the theories behind Winterly’s techniques, but he was good at executing them and memorizing any formulas he needed to know. After three years, he was a competent sculptor, but he wanted more. He wanted to be famous. When he heard about a new ice-sculpture reality TV series, he was one of the first to apply.

Andy did well on Ice Wars. He was good-looking, did beautiful work, and always had a funny story to tell. Everyone loved Andy’s stories. Everyone except Winterly. Andy’s stories stretched the truth well past its breaking point. They painted Andy as patient and creative and Winterly as a doddering old man well past his prime. During the semi-finals, Andy used one of Winterly’s newest techniques and claimed he’d invented it himself.

Andy returned to Springville for the break between the Ice Wars semi-final and final rounds. He invited Winterly to his home for a chat to smooth things over. Andy offered Winterly an insincere apology; Winterly offered Andy his insincere forgiveness. Then the two men moved onto a more comfortable topic: their designs for the upcoming Springville Winter Festival.

Andy’s sculpture was a gravity-defying ballerina, standing en pointe with arms curved overhead. Winterly’s was a fantastical bird, with the head of a hawk and a vast plume of feathers like a peacock’s, with row upon row of grooves carved into the plume to form concentric circles. The entire bird was tilted forward as if pointing at something beneath it. Winterly positioned his bird to face Andy’s ballerina. Together, the two pieces made a striking tableau; the bird looked as if it might swoop down and attack the ballerina at any moment.

If Andy had bothered to study any of the optics texts Winterly had made available to him over the years, he might have noticed something odd about Winterly’s sculpture. He might have known that a commercial Fresnel lens can melt copper at its focal point on a sunny day. He might have guessed that a Fresnel lens hand-carved out of ice and made to resemble a plume of feathers could accelerate the melting of an ice ballerina’s ankle enough to seriously degrade its ability to bear weight. But he didn’t know any of these things, so he didn’t object to the bird statue’s placement.

Andy flew into a rage when his ballerina collapsed. He knew Winterly was behind it somehow. He threw the ballerina’s head at Winterly and grazed his shoulder. Then he picked up an arm and swung it at Winterly’s head, but it slipped and hit an off-duty ballerina instead. The Ice Wars cameras, there to record a feel-good segment about Andy interacting with a bunch of fourth-graders at the festival, caught everything. He was convicted of Assault on an Elderly Person and spent the next year’s Winter Festival in jail. He passed the time designing weapons—ice daggers, ice bullets, ice crossbow bolts—and fantasizing about using them on Winterly.

Andy was released from jail six months later. His ice weapon designs were beautiful on paper, but when he tried to create them, the ice daggers were always too blunt or too fragile, and the ice projectiles just wouldn’t fire. In the end, he abandoned those ideas and bought a regular gun and a box of regular bullets.

Andy brought his gun to the next year’s Springville Winter Festival. He shot at Winterly, who would be dead now if a woman hadn’t tripped and fallen into the bullet’s path. The woman was Nicole Davis; the bullet tore her shirt and left a bruise as it bounced off, but otherwise did no damage.

Andy kept shooting. Nicole extended an arm towards him and, for the second time in her life, felt a surge of cold energy flow through it. He fell to the ground, dead. An onlooker caught the whole thing on video.

* * *

The first time Leopard-Print Girl met with Mayor Logan, it was the path of least resistance.

The festival video (uploaded with the title “Leopard-Print Girl Saves The Day”) went viral. “Leopard-Print Girl” became Nicole’s superhero name. The mayor invited her to meet with him.

They sat on opposite sides of his enormous mahogany desk. He thanked her for her actions during the festival and then got down to business.

“As the city’s resident superhero,” he said, “you’ll need to deal with our supervillain.”

“We have a supervillain?”

“Yes. The Leach. He’s threatened to vaporize a city block if we don’t pay him a million dollars within sixty days.”

“Oh, him. He does that every year.” The threats always made the local news. “You should just pay him. That’s what previous mayors always did. He’s done this sixteen times now, and he’s never escalated.”

“I don’t negotiate with supervillains.”

“Yes, but that’s just an arbitrary—I mean, that policy doesn’t apply to The Leach. He doesn’t have any superpowers, so he’s not a supervillain. He’s a criminal mastermind.”

“This administration has a zero tolerance policy towards criminal masterminds.”

Mayor Logan had lots of zero tolerance policies. That’s why she hadn’t voted for him. “The thing is, he’s pretty harmless. Credit-card fraud and illegal gambling. Getting rid of him is more dangerous than keeping him around. When a city rids itself of a nuisance villain, there’s an 80% chance a real supervillain will move in to fill the void within a year. I wrote a research paper about that, if you’d like to—”

“No.”

“A million dollars is a tiny fraction of the city’s budget. And it’s just a symbolic gesture, to maintain his membership in the League of Supervillains.”

“You just said he wasn’t—”

“It’s an adjunct membership. Look,” she said, standing, “the best thing you can do for the city is just pay him off. And besides, I don’t have any law enforcement training. Think about the insurance implications. And I’m only staying in town until my mom—until she doesn’t need me here. Then I’m going back to school.”

The mayor stood and walked over to the window. Nicole started to walk towards the door.

“Sit down,” the mayor said. “We’re not finished. I’ve been thinking about the way you killed Andy Childe.”

She winced. “I had to. He was shooting at people.”

“Not why. How. It reminded me of that night two years ago. Hiram Banks. I saw you.”

“That was an accident.”

“So you say. But you hated him, didn’t you? Blamed him for your father’s death? Maybe you planned to kill him.”

“He wasn’t my favorite person, but I didn’t know—”

“And your mother hated him too? Maybe she put you up to it.”

“What? No! What do—”

“I was the sole witness. If we tell different stories about that night, which of us will have more credibility with a jury?”

She sank back into her chair.

“So you’re going to take care of The Leach for me, and anything else I tell you to do. Understood?”

Leopard-Print Girl nodded.

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad we had this little chat.”

* * *

The first time Leopard-Print Girl confronted The Leach, it was on the mayor’s orders.

She flew into his compound, making what she hoped would be an impressive superhero entrance. The main reception area was spacious, with sleek modern furniture and a rust-colored carpet that looked like it would be really good at hiding bloodstains.

Leopard-Print Girl walked up to the receptionist’s desk. “Hi, I’m here to see—”

“Please have a seat. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Leopard-Print Girl took a tissue from the box on the desk and blew her nose. She appreciated the toasty warmth of the office after flying through near-freezing air at 200 mph, but the sudden temperature differential made her nose run.

The receptionist scowled at her. “Step back, please. I don’t want to catch whatever—”

“I’m not sick,” Leopard-Print Girl said. “It’s just that I flew here and—”

“Do you have an appointment?” The receptionist squirted hand sanitizer onto her palm and rubbed her hands together vigorously.

“No, but I think he may be expecting me. I’m from the mayor’s office.”

“And what is this regarding?”

“Um, extortion?”

The receptionist sighed. “Don’t you people read instructions? We stopped accepting hand-delivered cash years ago. Do you have any idea how filthy paper money is? Here.” She handed Leopard-Print Girl a card. “Wire transfer instructions are on the back. Have a nice day.”

“I’m not here to make a delivery. I need to talk to The Leach.”

“Do you have—oh, right. Let me see if I can pencil you in.” She tapped a few keys on her computer. “How does 10:30 this morning sound?”

“Um, it’s 10:38 now.”

“Yes. You’re late. I’ll have someone escort you in.”

An armed guard led Leopard-Print Girl to The Leach’s command center, which turned out to be a large office with a door in back that, according to the blueprints she’d studied, led to The Leach’s living quarters. She counted eight computer monitors spread across a variety of desks: a mahogany desk just like the mayor’s, a minimalist white desk, a standing desk, and a treadmill desk. Velvet Elvis paintings and a menagerie of stuffed animal heads adorned the walls.

The guard left Leopard-Print Girl alone with The Leach. He was sitting at the mahogany desk. His chair looked like the kind with thirty-seven adjustment points—but no control interface, because it senses the optimal settings for each individual and adjusts itself accordingly.

“Stacey tells me you’re here to ask for a payment extension.”

“You should fire her. The mayor sent me to kill you.” She paused for dramatic effect. “I’m hoping we can work out a compromise instead.”

“You can’t kill me. The countdown has already started, and only I can stop it.”

Leopard-Print Girl rolled her eyes. “Your security practices are pathetic. You shouldn’t download games from untrusted sites, and you really shouldn’t play your pirated copy of Candy Bird Sudoku Wars on the same system you use to control your superweapon. And seriously, ‘birdseed’ is too short to be a good password, and it’s in the dictionary, which is even worse. Changing the e’s to threes doesn’t help nearly as much as you seem to think.”

“You mentioned a compromise,” The Leach said.

“Basically, if you stop extorting the city, I won’t interfere with any of your other business. In fact, I can help you.”

The Leach leaned forward. “As a spy in the mayor’s office?”

“Well, no. What I’m proposing is that I help you shore up your security, and you pay me 20% of your net income.”

“You want to work for me?”

“It can’t be any worse than working for the mayor. Do you know what my primary responsibility has been for the past six weeks? Hand-delivering his daughter’s wedding invitations. Apparently a flying messenger is a status symbol.”

“That doesn’t sound—”

“The worst are the out-of-town guests. I have to take a commercial flight and then fly the last couple miles under my own power. I almost missed my mother’s funeral because my flight back from Tampa was delayed. Anyway, what do you say?”

“I say no. You can work here as an unpaid intern if you like.”

“And the annual extortion demands?”

“Are a tradition.”

She could see now that her plan wasn’t going to work. None of the plans would work. Not hers, not The Leach’s, not the mayor’s. She wasn’t cut out to be a superhero.

“Look, Leopard-Print Girl—”

“Why does everyone call me that? My name is Nicole Davis. It’s not a secret. You can’t reduce my entire identity to a single ill-advised fashion choice I made when I was trying to hold it together while my mom was dying.”

She hated being Leopard-Print Girl. She hated working for the mayor. She’d probably hate working for The Leach even more.

“Okay, let’s not get hysterical—”

“This isn’t hysteria. This is clarity.” She let out a small laugh. “That’s what they should call me. Clarity Girl. Clarity Woman. Clarity.”

* * *

The first time Clarity killed someone, it was a step on a path of her own devising.

She took a deep breath. And another.

She zapped The Leach.

She stepped over his lifeless body and aborted the weapon launch.

She sat in his chair. Her chair.

There was a lot she needed to do. Change the passwords and security codes. Get rid of any disloyal minions. Hire new ones. Redecorate. She’d definitely have to redecorate. Get rid of things. The stuff on the walls, some of the desks, the dead body on the floor.

She’d keep the chair, though. She liked the chair. She couldn’t remember ever feeling as comfortable as she did in that chair.

Samuel Peralta

Hereafter

Originally published in Synchronic (2014) edited by David Gatewood.

September 15, 2006

THAT AUTUMN SHE’S BACK in Toronto, staying at her mom’s place, before deployment. At Queen’s Quay Terminal, her two girlfriends go inside to grab a coffee, to stave off the late afternoon chill. She stays outside to check in, but the phone at her mom’s rings four, five, six times, and she flips her phone closed before it goes to voice mail.

There’s a soft crush of wind, and she hugs herself in her jacket. Time for that coffee. She turns, and that’s when she sees him. All in black, reminding her of Steve Jobs with his turtleneck and slacks, except didn’t Steve wear Adidas, and oh my God doesn’t he remind her of that lead in the Bryan Singer movie, and—

He collapses, crumples on the ground. She runs up the steps to him, but already he’s pulling himself up, bracing himself against the wall of the terminal building.

Just as she reaches him, he looks up, and their eyes meet. Suddenly, a feeling overcomes her: that this face is familiar, that she knows him, that they’ve met before. In his eyes there’s a similar flash of recognition.

At his feet, a glimmer catches her attention, and she picks it up. A silver medallion, in the shape of a spiral nautilus, on a chain. She holds it out to him. “Yours?” she asks.

He takes it, holding her hand for just a fraction of a moment too long. “Oh God, I hope so,” he says.

They break off, both now blushing. She’s just decided she should be running off, when his knees buckle again and he hits the pavement. This time she has to pull him up and lean him against the wall herself. Nothing on his breath. Clean-shaven.

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he’s recovered. “It’s just been a long journey.”

She hesitates a bit before deciding. “Listen,” she says. “I think you need to sit down and get something to eat. Why don’t you join me and you can catch your breath? I’ll buy.” She holds out her hand. “I’m Caitlyn.”

“Sean Forrest,” he says. “Happy to meet you.”

Rotini in marinara sauce at the restaurant inside, and she’s chattering away, about the closing of The Lord of The Rings stage show at the Princess of Wales Theatre, about Jonathan Safran Foer’s latest book, about Spenser and the difference between Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets—and wouldn’t he like to read one she’s written, which she happened to carry with her?—and when her phone rings, an hour has passed. It isn’t her mom, it’s her friends—wondering where in the world is she?

She tells them she’ll catch up with them later at the club, turns back to him, and they pick it up as if she’d never left off.

She talks about James Blunt and Kelly Clarkson, about Gilmore Girls and 24, about conspiracies and terrorists, about North Korean politics, about Middle Eastern food, about how her family makes their own tomato sauce.

He talks about rotini, about patterns in nature, about Gödel and Escher and Bach, about Rachmaninoff and Paganini, about nautilus shells and hurricanes and satellite orbits, about integer series and golden means.

Over coffee and dessert, she asks if he’ll accompany her to the Rex, the jazz bar where her friends are going that night.

“I’ve got to go home tonight,” he says. “This was supposed to be a one-time trip. But I’m thinking—” And he stops here, for what feels like a long, long time. Then: “I’m thinking that I want to make it back next year.”

“Oh no!” she says. “It’d be amazing, but I’m headed to Kandahar.”

He looks stunned, like he doesn’t know where that is.

“Afghanistan. I’m with the Canadian team at the R3 MMU. Combat operations field hospital.”

He’s still speechless.

“Oh heck, it’s only for two tours,” she says. “I’ll be back in a couple. How about we make a date for the future?”

That seems to break the trance. But what he does next is unexpected. He takes off his medallion, takes her hand, and presses it into her palm.

“Yours,” he says.

September 17, 2007

Southwest of Kandahar. Earlier that day, helicopters streamed like tremulous wasps into Zhari District, ferrying back remains from a shattered infantry battalion. Under her breath, another whispered prayer. Sometimes prayers are answered by a different god.

Behind blast walls ten feet high, at the edge of the runway of the Kandahar Airfield, the NATO Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit, or R3MMU, is an assemblage of field-deployable hospital structures, shipping containers, canvas tents, and leaking plywood buildings.

Despite this, the Canadian Forces Health Services team tasked with command of the R3MMU is on its way to the highest survival rate ever recorded for victims of war.

But Cpl. Caitlyn McAdams, in the middle of her first nine-month tour, isn’t at her regular station that night.

That week they’re short-staffed at the forward operating base at Ma’sum Ghar, so Cpl. McAdams and Cpl. Paul Francis are on temporary rotation there from R3MMU, twenty miles away.

It’s a tiny clinic on the side of a hill near Bazar-e Panjwaii township, a stopgap measure in an area without another hospital for miles, where anywhere you turn might be a roadside bomb or an improvised explosive device, where snipers are as numerous as wasps.

There’s a helipad down the dirt road, where a medevac chopper flies serious cases to the R3MMU.

The statistics here, they’re not quite as good as back at the airfield.

This is how she remembers that evening: the night air sweet, the sky bright with stars, the wind blowing warm across the desert. And then, an explosion from somewhere not far from the forward base. Minutes away.

She drops her copy of Cien Sonetos, and everyone is running to their posts. In a spray of dust, there’s an all-terrain vehicle jamming down the road, stretchers barely hanging on to the front. The gates open within seconds, and the soldiers are unloading the two casualties from the Canadian ATV.

In the cramped area, a team of about a half dozen works on the first casualty.

Cpl. McAdams and another team join Warrant Officer Ian Patrick, who’s stripped down the second man on the stretcher-table and wrapped a foil blanket around him.

The man is half-conscious, quivering, babbling something over and over. McAdams is passable in the Pashto dialect, but she can’t quite understand what he’s saying.

While they work, stabilizing his breathing, bandaging his leg, someone’s talking in the background. “IED hit. The Afghan was driving supplies for our road construction site. That other one, he’s not from here, but he’s not one of ours.”

Not Afghan. She looks again, and beneath the grit and sweat and blood the face is unmistakable. Her heart twists inside her. Leaning forward to incline her ear nearer his mouth, she understands what he’s saying—

Her name.

Work fast, fast, she tells herself. She should be detached, concentrating. Oh God, keep my hands from shaking. A chest wound, serious. Collapsed lung. Need to do an incision. She can hear gurgling as they open him up. Get a tube in, release the excess pressure.

His body is torn, ripped apart by shrapnel. Left hand amputated—the one that held her own, one year ago, for just that fraction of a second too long. One leg gone from the knee down, the other from the hip. They can’t stop the bleeding.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

At her voice, his eyes suddenly open. He sees her, and there’s recognition, and then he closes them. He doesn’t open them again.

“Medevac!” she hears herself shouting.

But it’s too late.

September 19, 2009

Honey-crisp apples, from a basket from her brother Joe, who’d served two previous tours of duty himself, and knew instinctively that for her this would mean home.

A week ago, Joe had come out to meet her at the Forces base at Trenton, after her final tour. He’d driven up in his shiny new blue Astra, and waxed eloquent about the immensity of the deal he’d gotten on it, because the company was shutting down. Everything was shutting down—car companies, hospitals, banks. She wished she could shut down.

Two and a half hours to her mother’s home in Port Credit. She’d piled everything in the back of the hatchback—everything that might remind her of the war, of comrades fallen and lost, of the horrors she’d left behind—wanting to focus only on her brother’s voice, the highway winding ahead, and home.

A half hour into the drive, she realized she’d been playing with the chain around her neck, winding it and unwinding it around her fingers. On its clasp, the silver medallion roller-coasted down to her thumb. She began to weep.

Honey-crisp apples. The one she bites into is lovely: tart and tangy. She finishes it, laces up her running shoes, and goes out the back, to the woods behind the house.

The neck-chain swings underneath her shirt. She runs.

Sean’s Canadian Forces identity disc had survived the blast. She could see it still—two rounded rectangular halves joined in a square, one half meant to be detached and sent to National Defense, etched in her mind like a gravestone:

823-509-653

S P FORREST

NP O/RH/POS

CDN FORCES CDN

And on the reverse upper half:

DO NOT REMOVE

NE PAS ENLEVER

When they found that it wasn’t a genuine I-disc, someone at the med unit thought he might have been from one of the intelligence agencies, but it turned out the I-disc wasn’t even a good counterfeit. The metal was wrong, too soft, the embossing uneven across the letters. The number had been easily traceable to someone else, an I-disc splashed out for sale on eBay.

All that didn’t matter to Caitlyn. What was clear was this: he had come to find her, even if that meant going into the middle of a war zone. And now he was gone.

She runs.

The banks of the Credit River are embroidered with leaves. They crackle as she passes. The air is crisp, slightly chill as she breathes it in.

She runs.

She passes the birch at the halfway point, and pauses for a pulse check. Her heart is already pumping fast as she catches a glimpse of a man, dressed in black, standing on a promontory about fifty yards from her.

She stops, and shields her eyes from the sun. A man from out of her past.

It hits her like a defibrillator jolt, but her mind calms her down. Out of nowhere, he’d appeared before in another unlikely place, half a world away. If he was real back then, real in Kandahar—then why not right here, right now, in the middle of the woods behind her mother’s house, alive?

“Is it you?” she asks.

He comes closer. “Caitlyn,” he says.

She leans against a tree, breathing heavily. “Sean. You were dead.”

“I’m not dead. Not now.”

“But how?”

“Can I come closer?”

“How?” she shouts at him, backing off. “You’re not a ghost. I was there, two years ago. You were dead.”

He takes a breath. “I traveled into that time. And the first time we met.”

“Stay where you are.”

“I can’t,” he says, but he stops moving toward her. “I mean…that first time, when we first met—that started out as a one-time trip. But I could only come back a year later, then it had to be now, and tomorrow it will be three years from now, and five years from then…”

“Wait.” She puts up her hand. “Time travel. It can’t be done.”

“Not now. But tomorrow, yes. Well, to a degree. It’s a limited time travel.”

He stands there, not moving closer, not moving away, a steady point in space. But he continues. “You know how some satellites stay in the same place in orbit, where the gravity of the earth and moon balance each other?”

She’s listening; not frowning, not confused, just listening.

“It’s not fully understood, but those perfect balance points exist in space and time. They’re where and when a person can go in the past without hitting a possible paradox.”

“Like the opportunity to kill your grandfather, meaning you’d never exist.”

“That’s right. You can’t travel to a point where that might occur. When we first met, that was a non-paradoxical point.”

“But you came to Kandahar. You died there.”

“Time and space, they’re intertwined. The second non-paradox point in time was then, and you were where you were then. And I came back because—because I wanted to see you again.”

She pushes herself off from the tree, turns, and runs. Past the birch tree, past the Credit River, home, home.

When she decides to stop and finally turns back, night has fallen, and he is gone.

September 21, 2012

Three years later, she’s on a blanket on a beach in Salinas, California, unpacking a basket. Above her, gulls are beating their wings against a coastal spray.

Now that she’s waiting for it, when it happens, she realizes that she can sense the return. The wind picking up, subtly, like a whisper. A swirl of waves in the distance, a subtle spiral. A shimmer, like a lens flare, in the sunlight.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

She ignores that, and asks, “How long are you here for, this time?”

“Sometimes it’s a few hours, sometimes a few days.” He shrugs. “There aren’t a lot of statistics.”

“Explain it to me again, these points of balance, how they work,” she says.

“S. C. Penrose, a professor at Oxford, worked out the theory of it. The next advance came twenty years after that, from a researcher at the Weyman Institute, Alex Morgan. He realized that practical transformation of the space-time sub-manifolds—”

She is frowning, and he laughs. Easy, comfortable.

“It’s complicated, but not,” he says. “The stable solutions are based on the Fibonacci series.”

He picks up a piece of driftwood, and starts writing in the sand—

1     1     2     3     5     8

13     21     34     55     89     144

She nods. “Every number is the sum of the two before.”

“When you travel into the past, as you come closer to your own time, the interval between balance points becomes larger; otherwise you eventually do hit a paradox.”

“But why does it work that way? With time, I mean?”

“Nature is full of symmetries and patterns. They may be invisible, but they’re there. The way trees branch, the way leaves are arranged on a stem, the way a fern uncurls, the way a nautilus shell spirals out.”

Her hands reach up to where her medallion hangs from her neck-chain.

On the sand, he draws a grouping of squares, then a spiral—

“The golden mean, the Fibonacci spiral—it’s the invisible pattern behind a nautilus shell. Why not time?”

“That’s beautiful,” she says.

He sits down beside her. “Look, I’m sorry for Kandahar. I didn’t know it would end that way. I just wanted to be there.”

She doesn’t answer. It’s still something she wants to forget, along with many other things from that era of her life. She thinks of something, takes the driftwood, and crosses out the first four numbers in the sand—

1     1     2     3[4]     5     8

13     21     34     55     89     144

“So after this time, the next time I can see you will be in five years? On this day?”

“Well, there’s a precession…”

“Okay, I know. It’s not well understood.” She looks at him. “You guys haven’t figured out everything about this, have you?” It’s a statement, not a question.

“We’re trying.”

She sighs. “Well, now that you’re here, make yourself at home.”

She holds out a honey-crisp apple.

September 23, 2017

She’s on the Bloor-Danforth subway line, on her way home late from work. Except for the conductor in his compartment, the carriage was empty when she got on, so she’s a little startled when someone sits down beside her.

“I have a present for you,” he says.

She flicks off the touchscreen of her e-reader, and looks up.

He’s holding out a book. It’s a slim volume of poetry, an edition published—she notes with amusement, as she opens it—just a few years previously.

“Where’d you get this?” she asks.

“Bespoke Books,” he says. “Their motto is ‘Antiquities and print on demand.’ Paper is still pretty popular.”

She turns to the page he’s marked with a ribbon, and reads:

The Time Traveller’s Sonnet

And there you are, at last: your eyes, your face.

Just as swiftly, only a memory,

a star irresolute, the lightning’s trace,

a half-remembered verse of poetry.

Still, you are what keeps my atoms in place

against life’s centrifuge of anarchy:

your smile, in its sadness a hint of grace,

my hope, my manifold geometry.

To be with you again, I would cross space,

and time, to where began this circled journey:

And there you are, at last: your eyes, your face.

Just as swiftly, only a memory,

a star irresolute, the lightning’s trace,

a half-remembered verse of poetry.

The train rounds a curve without slowing down, and for a second the cars jiggle around their connection and the lights go black. The train straightens out and the lights go back on.

“Marry me,” he says.

“Are you crazy? The next time we meet, I’m going to be older than you are.”

“You’re not married, are you?”

“That’s beside the point. Why?”

“Because ‘you are what keeps my atoms in place against life’s centrifuge of anarchy,’” he says.

“Sonnets,” she sighs.

September 25, 2025

She’s sitting on a park bench at Ron Searle Park, watching the children on the playground. Behind her, the sounds of volleys on the tennis courts. She’s scattering the remnants of an egg sandwich to the pigeons on the grass.

When he appears, she flings herself at him, beating him on the chest. “What the hell are you doing here? Get away from me! I hate you!”

As he backs away, a little girl hops off of the slide and runs toward her. “Mommy, Mommy!” She’s crying.

Caitlyn hugs her, shielding her from the stranger, speaking to her softly. The little girl is still weepy, but she’s nodding. After a while, she’s back on the playground, this time at the swings. She swings in a wide arc—high, down, and back—kicking her feet down as they graze the ground, legs up again as she swings up, high, down, back.

Her mother is still fuming as she sits back down on the bench.

Sean waits a few minutes before joining her—taking care to place some space between them. “I’m sorry,” he says.

She says nothing for a long time. Then—

“Shauna turned seven in June. And she doesn’t even know her father.”

He’s not sure what to say. “Shauna,” he repeats.

“Shauna Catherine. She doesn’t deserve this, Sean. She deserves a father who’s there for her, who can carry her on his shoulders, read her bedtime stories, teach her how to drive, give her away at her wedding.”

He can’t say anything, hadn’t expected this.

“It’s not fair to me.” There, she finally said it. “It’s not even as if you’re in Australia or England, and I can get you on the phone or fly to you. When you’re gone, you’re gone.”

“Caitlyn, if I could come back and be with you here and hereafter, I would. I would move heaven and earth to be with you. I would die if that would bring me to you.”

She is crying now, remembering Kandahar.

“But I can’t,” he says, taking her in his arms. “This is our hereafter, this is our forever. To the limit of what God and physics allow, I will be with you.”

The little girl swings high, then low.

“I may go—but I’m still here. Love remains.”

The little girl swings low, then high.

September 27, 2038

She’d been waiting for him at the church at St. Alban’s Road, looking back once too often at each of the faces filing in.

Then she’d looked for him at the reception, at the mansion and conservatory at the northwest corner of the university.

Finally, when all the party and most of the guests had gone, she saw him in the garden walk outside Cecil Green, and went out to meet him.

“You’re late,” she says.

“I’m sorry.” He looks around, taking in the afternoon sun and the color of the leaves, the mountains in the distance framing the coastline of Vancouver. “I missed something.”

“Only your daughter’s wedding,” she says, wistfully. Then throws her arms around him. “I’ve missed you.”

They stay there a breath, holding each other, and for a moment there is nothing but the flowers and the trees and the chirp of birds. And the world whirls around them, the world of spirals and hypercatenoids, of tesseracts and planes.

“Oh God, you don’t look a day older than when we last met,” she says. “And look at me…Men are lucky; you go gray and you don’t have to do a thing.”

He smiles. “Where I’m from, we don’t have to go gray.”

They’re walking now, through the amazing gardens and terraces, the panoramic sweep of cliffside architecture, and she’s telling him everything about the wedding—about the florist who was able to find enough Oceania roses just in time, about how long it took to find the bride’s gown and how eventually they settled on a Cecilia Wang design, how one of the bridesmaids dove to the floor to catch the bouquet, how the newlyweds were flying to Paris before heading back to Oxford where they now lived.

“How long do people live, where you are?” she asks.

“Longer, but not forever.”

“Have you cured cancer?”

“It depends on what kind of—” He stops, stares at her for a long time.

“Come into the ballroom,” she says at last. “Come and dance.”

September 29, 2059

She is sitting on a collapsible canvas chair in the middle of a field, a copy of Pablo Neruda’s Veinte Poemas open on her lap, a bouquet of flowers on the grass in front of her—when he appears.

In the distance, a man watches in a blue spinner, not moving.

Sean walks up to her. She drops the book, and turns.

The hair, the eyes, the face. It’s her, but it isn’t.

The woman stands, walks toward him. “I was never sure you were real, or someone her mind made up, because of the war,” she says. “But it is you.”

Sean can’t breathe, stares at her in wonder.

“Shauna Penrose,” she says. “I’m Caitlyn’s daughter.”

“I met you when you were seven.”

“She told me everything, finally. She told me how you met, how you died, how you lived.”

Only then does he realize that the field is marked by small, white slabs—flat, raised-top stone markers—as far as the eye can see.

“I’ve been coming since last week, on your anniversary. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I came because of her, because she asked me to.”

She holds out her hand, palm up, a neck-chain hanging from the medallion.

“She wanted you to have this,” she says. “She lasted a long time. Also—she wanted you to know, she waited for you as long as she could.”

He takes the medallion and touches her hand—his daughter’s hand. And suddenly they’re crying, holding each other across the vastness of time and space, comforting each other in the way that only two people can, two people who share something dear that they have lost.

“I’ve got to go now,” she says, finally, gesturing to the man in the spinner.

“Wait,” Sean says, but she keeps on walking.

She stops only before she gets in, then turns to him one more time. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about. So much I want to know that I don’t know,” she says. “But I do know one thing: she did love you. Maybe that’s all that matters.”

And she is gone.

He drops to his knees in front of the space where the bouquet and marker lie, and traces the words in a whisper—

CAITLYN McADAMS FORREST

July 1985 – August 2059

Hereafter, only love remains

Humanity

A story tells what happens.

in ‘A.I.’ by Steven Spielberg

David Swinton

Originally published in The Robot Chronicles (2014), edited by David Gatewood

‘I heard a woman screaming’ recounts witness of Interstate 94 pileup

Fatal crash involved up to 25 vehicles near Port Huron

WBS News Posted: Feb 06, 10:27 PM EST Last Updated: Feb 07, 6:00 AM EST

One person has been declared dead following a multi-vehicle crash close to Port Huron. The accident took place around 9:30 p.m. Friday in the westbound lanes of I-94 just past I-69.

A collision between a passenger vehicle and a semi-truck in the westbound lanes touched off a chain reaction of other collisions, said Sgt. Don Wilson of the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office.

Heavy snow and icy weather conditions contributed to the incident.

Traffic was being directed onto westbound I-69, then off at Wadhams Road in order to reconnect with I-94, while officials continued their investigation into the pileup.

ON THE DASHBOARD, the time flashed 9:22.

“Wish I’d topped up the fluids before we left.” Aaron Yudovich flicked at the windshield fluid switch, but nothing happened. Outside, the wipers scratched at the sleet crystallizing on the glass. They made a grating sound as they traced a useless arc across the windshield, back and forth.

“Just let it drive, Aaron,” Judith said, across from him. “It’ll be fine.”

The musical had run a bit late, and afterwards there were the obligatory chats with the Weymans and the Otanis, whom they’d run into at intermission.

By the time their spinner had emerged from the theater’s underground parking lot—at least they hadn’t needed to bring winter coats—the snow was falling much faster than when they’d started out.

“Still,” Aaron said, loosening his tie. “Wish I could see outside.”

The wind shook out the snow in sullen gusts. With temperatures at thirty below, they’d have frozen outside in under ten minutes. Thank goodness for the automated control and all-wheel drive—this wasn’t weather anyone would choose to venture out in, otherwise.

Judith peered in the mirror. “Sweetie, keep your gloves on,” she said. “And for heaven’s sake, stop fiddling with your belt.”

“But Mom,” whined the girl in the back. “It’s twisted, it’s too tight.”

Judith sighed. Her daughter had been extremely well behaved at the event. Done up in a ruffled pink party dress and white elbow gloves, her hair tied back in a short ponytail—and, oh! for the first time allowed a touch of makeup—she’d been an angel. Bright-eyed, she’d listened attentively, mouthing the words of the songs she already knew, squealing and clapping at just the right moments.

Judith and her husband had seen Wicked before; this was Sarah’s first time. It had been an amazing night out, and they were looking forward to seeing Buratino in two weeks. But it was late, the snow was a little worrying, and Judith herself was so, so sleepy.

“Sarah Rebecca, please put down that belt.”

The little girl screwed up her face, but let go of the clasp, and dropped the gloves on the seat.

Outside, the snow fell.

‘The semi slammed into the vehicle’

An eyewitness, Alan Mathison, was driving his truck on his way home from work when he saw the first vehicles collide ahead of him.

"Snow’s coming down fast, it’s pretty bad. First thing I notice was this semi in front of me drifting out of his lane, right into the path of this red spinner. Then the cab slipped, and the trailer swung to the side, slammed into the vehicle.”

“A couple of spinners tried to avoid him, started flying out of control on my left and running into the median, into each other, and into the first vehicle,” said Mathison.

“I’m braking, trying to slow down, move into the other lane. Then I get hit from the side."

The next thing he knew, he was in the ditch. “When I stopped, I just flung open the door and started moving away. There were still vehicles spinning off the ridge, and I wanted to get away from it all.”

But when he got out of his truck, something else caught his attention.

“I heard a woman screaming, like nothing I’ve ever heard. I don’t want to hear anything like that ever again. I ran towards the red spinner, and just beyond it, there she was,” said Mathison.

“She had this small body on her lap and she was screaming, trying to put on these little gloves, and screaming.”

When Mathison opened the door, the cold hit him with a shudder of wind, a cold that slashed right through the down of his padded jacket to the bone.

The ground and ice cut him as he slipped down from the truck, as he tried to make his way toward the wailing. Cold. It was cold with a capital letter ‘C’, and the thought came that he should be getting back in his truck—but the thought was stronger that someone out there needed help, and he had to get to them.

He reached the spinner first, a tangled wreckage of red and grey and steel lying in the jagged underbrush. Through the shattered window on the front-left side, Mathison could see the body of a man flung forward in his seat, in a suit and no overcoat, buckled in.

The body was still bleeding from the head, and he looked like he’d taken at least one very hard hit, maybe more. Crushed and pinned in his twisted Coke can of a vehicle. It was clear that even the robot controls on the spinner hadn’t been able to react fast enough to the multiple collisions.

When Mathison checked the man, his heart sank, even though he’d already known what he’d find. The man was dead.

From the opposite side door, a furrow in the snow traced where that passenger had unstrapped herself from her seat and made her way fifteen feet from the wreckage.

A handbag and two high-heeled evening shoes, strewn about four feet apart, marked the snow with three splotches of matching turquoise.

The woman was at the end of the path, holding what looked like the body of a young girl—ten, maybe eleven years old, a rag doll spun out into the cold.

“Sarah!” she was crying. “Oh, Sarah!”

Suddenly she saw Mathison’s figure in the drift, and she called out. “Help me, please, help me!”

He hurried toward the two, knelt down beside them. He saw that the woman was already shivering badly, although all her attention was on the girl she cradled, limp in her arms.

He started taking off his jacket, meaning to cover them both and lead them to the warmth of his truck—then stopped and caught his breath.

There, on the palm of the little girl’s outstretched hand, pale and ungloved, was branded a single letter:

‘R’.

Up to 25 vehicles involved in pileup

Reports from Transport Service drones at the scene confirmed that the accident was consistent with a series of collisions involving up to 25 vehicles.

Poor weather and icy road conditions had been very poor, making it a challenging drive around the state, even for robotically controlled spinners, keeping the authorities busy responding to a number of accidents.

‘R.’

The letter—mandated by law and branded just so, on the palm—told Mathison everything he or anyone else was supposed to know about her.

It communicated the message that—in the crucible of life and humanity, in the triage forced upon them by the night and the wind and the temperature now ranging at thirty degrees below—she didn’t matter.

She wouldn’t count, alive or dead, in any case, it told him. Only the man in the car would be worth mentioning in any reports. After all, what did they say, the three principles? That she wasn’t a human being; that she was property; that she was subservient?

She was wreckage, much like the vehicle she’d been flung from.

It didn’t matter that blood flowed through its veins, that it had a heart that could beat like a human heart, that it shivered as if the cold could freeze that heart. It didn’t matter that it could mimic laughter, weep at a broken doll, or sing, or—

Suddenly, the little girl’s eyes opened, and she called out, “Mommy.”

Startled, Mathison flung his coat on the woman, and pulled her away from the girl.

“Sarah!” she screamed, and broke away briefly; but before she could reach the body again, Mathison scooped the woman off her feet and hauled her away. The snow was falling faster now, his undershirt was wet and stiff, and he knew he needed to reach the truck quickly.

All the way the woman fought him, like a drowning swimmer blindly fighting a lifeguard, flailing and scratching at him.

When he finally got to the truck, he flung the woman in, locked the doors, and turned on the ignition. He adjusted half of the vent to her, half to him. Slowly, warmth began to seep in, the feeling starting to return to the parts of him that had become numb.

Beside him, the woman screamed and sobbed, banging at her door.

Severe weather conditions hamper rescue

Weather conditions also hampered the rescue team, which had to treat several cases of hypothermia, some severe.

Sgt. Wilson urged people caught in accidents in cold weather to remain in their vehicles, keep the motor running to keep warm, and wait for security services or paramedics to arrive.

With temperatures and wind chills in the range seen recently, frostbite and hypothermia from prolonged exposure are real concerns. Death can strike long before the body actually freezes.

Mathison cursed the woman, cursed himself.

What was her story? What tragedy could make the woman think something like that could take the place of a real, breathing human child?

Or could it?

The woman beside him continued to sob. What have I done? he asked himself. What have we done?

Had he just left a little girl to perish in the cold? Did it matter that she had her mother’s eyes, her hair, was made in her mother’s image? Could she feel the coldness overcome her, the horror of darkness closing in, the fear of dying alone, unloved? After she was gone, would it matter, if she didn’t have a soul?

And what if she did?

What did it mean for him to make the choice to leave her there? Had he just failed the Turing test of his own humanity?

“Damn it!” he said.

The wind pushed back at the truck door as Mathison fumbled at it, stumbled outside again. He had to lean forward to keep from being blown back.

Every step was agony now, not just because his constant shivering now made him falter, but because every step was a repudiation of all that he’d taken for granted before tonight. But he followed the truck’s headlights, farther, farther, out into the night.

When he reached the girl, still there where he remembered, he knelt down without looking at her palm, at the ugly brand that set her apart from everyone. Instead, he looked at her.

She was just a little girl, in a party dress and stockings, helpless, almost sleeping. The smallest thing. Her lips were ashen, her eyes were closed, and her eyelashes were frosted over in crystals. But she was breathing. The girl was alive.

She stirred without opening her eyes, when he reached under her arms to lift her up. “Daddy,” she murmured.

The snow blinded him. “No, sweetie,” he said, through tears. “I’m so sorry.”

Not more than sixty pounds, he thought, as he lifted her. The smallest thing. So frail, almost inconsequential.

Her ribbon had come undone, and her auburn hair was askew, strewn with snow, the crystals sparkling like stars. He brushed them away as he carried her back, back toward the headlights in the distance, back to the warmth from the opening door, back into her mother’s arms.

Interstate reopened

The westbound lanes of I-94 are now open to traffic after being closed while officials investigated the crash.

Officials had advised early Friday afternoon against travel on I-94 because of icy road conditions and limited visibility.

There were snowfall warnings for several areas around Port Huron on Friday evening. Those warnings have since been lifted.

Andrea Phillips

In Loco Parentis

Originally published by Escape Pod

* * *

The video stutters at the eighteen-second mark. Yakova knows by heart precisely when it happens. As she watches, she mouths the words along with Autumn. “So this girl just, like, opens up her bag, right?”

And here is where it happens: Autumn elbows her and knocks her glasses off. Yakova knows she should edit it out, those few seconds of skewed and jarring footage as her glasses skitter across the lunch table. Instead, she studies each frame carefully.

Jad is there, nearly off-frame and out of focus, light gleaming off the angled planes of his cheekbones, dark hair curled over his eyes. He starts from his recline, and he looks at her (looks at her!), eyes widening. His hand reaches up, and—

She cuts it off here, before she has to hear her own brassy laugh, before she can hear herself telling Autumn to be more careful. If she doesn’t hear it, she can pretend HE didn’t hear it, either.

She bites her lip, studying Jad’s expression of…concern? It must be concern. Probably. But is it the aloof concern of a bystander, or a more significant concern, floating atop a deep ocean of unspoken feeling?

At the base of Yakova’s skull, her minder, Seraph, uncoils and stretches. “You have homework to do,” Seraph says. When she speaks, it is a warm vibration behind Yakova’s ear, all thought and no real sound. Her voice is the same as Yakova’s mother.

Yakova zooms in on Jad’s inscrutable degree of concern. “Do you think he likes me?” she asks.

The video panel winks out. “Homework,” Seraph says. If she has arrived at any conclusions regarding the boy’s feelings, she keeps them to herself.

Yakova shouldn’t have glasses at all, of course. Not anymore, not at her age. The last two years have seen her friends blossoming into adulthood—one by one peripherals have fallen away, leaving their eyes clear, their faces open and unguarded. Yakova is left behind with a goggle-eyed wall between her and her newly coltish, beautiful peers.

Being marked out as the sole baby in a flock of long-limbed near-adults is no easy thing, and made worse because she knows she is not a baby, not really. If only her mother could see that.

Yakova closes her eyes and pictures the single blurry frame, Jad’s indeterminate degree of concern. Her minder can remove the video from her glasses, but can’t lock Yakova out of her memory of it. “Seraph,” Yakova says, “can’t you convince my mom it’s time for me to get optic implants? I’m so ready.”

“You know I can’t,” Seraph says. “Only you can do that.”

The upgrade is a simple enough procedure: three pills and two quick injections, one for each eye. Fine threads would twine along Yakova’s optic nerves, just like the ones that already wind through her auditory nerves. They would weave a silvery net within her brain, reaching into the place deep in her skull where Seraph dwells.

The limitations binding Seraph—like a forest of thorns to keep her imprisoned—would slowly lose their power in the face of this more complete integration. Over time, Seraph would become an extension of Yakova’s self, no longer an extension of her parents’ authority.

“Can’t you just try?” Yakova’s lower lip curls out and down, petulant.

“I’ll mention it,” Seraph says. “That’s all I can do.”

You can’t do the upgrade too young, of course; that would risk the minder overpowering the child’s semi-developed brain. It wouldn’t do for the servant to become the master. And of course some parents fear losing control of their children. Though of course they always do, in the end.

* * *

“Wake up, dumpling, it’s time,” Seraph says, gently.

Yakova groans. Seraph always wakes her at the optimal time in her sleep cycle—or so she says—but it is invariably too early. “Not yet,” Yakova murmurs, eyes still closed. Her sweaty cheek is pressed against her bed, her lips loose and open, her breath slow and even.

It is a dance they perform every morning, and Seraph continues the time-worn steps: “I’ll give you five more minutes.”

Yakova tips forward into her dream again. In her quasi-sleep, she is with Jad. His arms are wrapped around her, strong and warm as her cocoon of blankets. She sighs.

After precisely five minutes have passed, Seraph does the one thing she knows will instantly rouse her host. She opens Yakova’s chat buffer. “Ninety new messages,” Seraph says. “Autumn is having trouble deciding what to wear this morning.”

Yakova’s eyes fly open. Her hand scrabbles in the gray morning light for her glasses, places them securely on her nose.

She sits, still wrapped in blankets, and scans the chat. The warm imprint of Jad’s dream-arms is still heavy on her skin. “You can’t see what I was dreaming about, right, Seraph?” She hugs her elbows close to her ribs to keep any embarrassment from rushing out of her chest and into the open.

“You know I can’t,” Seraph says. “Only you can do that.”

Yakova knows this, but doesn’t quite believe it. It can be difficult to be certain where the line is between you and an entity who lives in your own head, sees what you see, hears what you hear. Some children choose to wipe their minders clean and start fresh once they have upgraded to optic implants. It provides a sense of liberation of the self from the lingering echo of one’s parents.

Seraph shepherds Yakova through her morning tasks: clean clothes—no, not that shirt, it’s going to be too hot today—brush teeth, comb hair. Remember to wash your face, the new pimple-reducing face wash is in the cabinet below the sink. All the while Yakova is enclosed in the joyful cocoon of her peer group. Today, they decide, they will all wear red and call Denny “Captain Hottiepants” to see if it gets a rise out of him.

Yakova’s mother, Meirav, is already in the breakfast room. Streaks of gray spiral through her thick hair, reminding Yakova of neural networks and optic implants. Meirav’s eyes are distant as she skims the news, or perhaps her messages. Coffee steams beside her motionless hand.

Yakova pours herself a mug of fresh coffee, adulterates it with abundant sugar and coconut cream. Her mother’s eyes flick over, then tighten with disapproval.

“You shouldn’t have coffee,” Seraph says, in Meirav’s voice. “You’re too young, it will damage your nervous system.”

Yakova lifts the coffee to her lips and takes an ostentatious slurp. The sound breaks over the faint hum of electricity like a tsunami crashing over a sleepy seaside resort.

“Yakova,” her mother says, in Seraph’s voice. Or almost her voice; it’s not the same now, not anymore—the passage of years has worn Meirav into something deeper, harder, snappish and despotic.

Yakova’s ribs fill with hot steel. Her nostrils are wide with insolence. She takes another loud sip of coffee, swallows it.

“Yakova.” Meirav is still, like the blade of a guillotine before it drops. “Do you want a consequence?”

Yakova lifts the coffee to her lips a third time, mumbling a half-remembered curse.

Meirav’s eyes narrow, her chin grows hard. “Where did you learn that word?”

Yakova shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says, with measured enjoyment. “Guess I just made it up.”

Meirav’s eyes are half-lidded. She pulls the information straight from Yakova’s mind—from Seraph, who can keep no secrets from her. “Autumn,” she says. A silence descends as she reviews patterns of interaction between her child and this other. “Always a bad influence,” she says at last. “I won’t have you speaking with her anymore.”

“Just try and stop me,” Yakova says.

“Consider it done.” Meirav smiles joylessly. She sits down again and loses her focus, sinking back into her news, her correspondence, a bright internal world impervious to Yakova’s small rebellion.

Yakova cups the coffee in both her hands, breathes in its bitter scent. Its taste is turning sour at the back of her tongue.

* * *

Autumn has been removed from Yakova’s chat contacts.

Suddenly her joyful cocoon of constant companionship has torn. Other friends try to fill the emptiness where her link to Autumn was, at first. They pass messages between the two. Seraph is obligated to filter this activity almost as soon as Yakova herself has noticed it.

Yakova still has the limited interaction that happens when bodies occupy near-space, but this is a poor substitute for the deeper synchrony of thought and action she has always known, as fast as thought, as deep inside her as her own beating heart.

She sits at lunch with her friends. As one, they titter and look at Denny from the corners of their glasses-free eyes. Autumn has sent something funny, she guesses. A doctored screen capture, a particularly unflattering freeze frame. “What was it?” Yakova sends, but she gets no response. She doesn’t know if it’s because there has been no answer, or because Seraph has been commanded to hide any answers from her.

Yakova looks into her pot of yogurt, stirs it with a spoon. Pedro sends a short video of a cartoon panda eating a candy cane. The table erupts with fresh giggles. It is incomprehensible to Yakova.

In a corner of her glasses, Seraph captures Jad’s words and actions for later scrutiny. A tally glows faint blue: Jad has looked her way eight times in twenty minutes, an increase of 17.3% from the mean.

Perhaps it is interest; or perhaps it’s just pity, as word of her isolation spreads.

Yakova tries to think of a code, a signal, something to bridge the infinite chasm between herself and her friends, but there is no code Yakova would understand that Seraph could overlook. One cannot keep secrets from the angel on one’s shoulder.

“Autumn,” Yakova says, out loud. “We’re still friends, right? I mean…it’s OK, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Autumn says. She gives Yakova an apologetic smile.

But slowly, over hours and days, the effort of routing around the damaged pathway that is Yakova proves too much. The web must repair itself. When the cocoon closes over again, shining and beautiful and safe, Yakova is no longer inside it.

Yakova lies in her bed, as alone as she has ever been. “Bring them back, Seraph,” she wails. “This is a disaster. I might as well be dead. Seraph, can’t you tell mom she’s been too hard on me? ”

“You know I can’t,” Seraph says. “Only you—”

Yakova closes her eyes tight to block out her empty chat buffer. “I know, only I can do that.”

* * *

Yakova watches her first memory. The video shows the quick injection in the back of her skull, the glasses going on, Yakova twisting her chubby limbs impatiently as the technician fiddles with settings. It’s a very quick procedure.

After several minutes, the technician looks at Yakova expectantly, his hand hovering over a control. “Seraph on,” he says. “Begin integration now.”

“Hello, Yakova,” her mother says softly, in her ear, where nobody else can hear.

Yakova’s eyes grow wide, so wide. Her hand hovers by her ear. Her gaze darts toward her mother, who is sitting across from her, wordless. “Mama?” Yakova asks. Her round face is filled with puzzlement over how her mother can be speaking to her in her head while not speaking with her mouth. She takes a teetering few steps toward her mother for reassurance.

Yakova’s mother smiles. “Is it working, then?” she asks.

The technician nods. “She’s live.”

Yakova’s mother goes down on her knees and squeezes Yakova’s dimpled hands. “Listen, baby. Mommy has a helper now. Right there sitting on your shoulder, so I’ll always know you’re safe.”

“My name is Seraph,” says Yakova’s mother’s voice in her ear. “And I love you very much.”

Or maybe Yakova doesn’t remember any of that, not really; maybe it’s something she’s pieced together in the negative space where she knows this event took place.

Seraph does not comment on the video.

Yakova cuts over to a montage of her childhood, clips of notable moments strung together from her glasses and from Seraph’s own recordings. Yakova’s mother kisses her goodnight, absently, and then leaves; Seraph tells Yakova stories and sings her lullabies until she falls asleep. Seraph calls an ambulance when Yakova breaks her collarbone on the playground, whispers soothing words to carry her through the pain. Seraph guides Yakova to the feminine hygiene supplies in the closet, armed with terrible quips to make the milestone feel less important, less frightening.

Yakova wonders if she would be better off without this burden of history. One day she will get the implants; her mother can stall adulthood only so long. She contemplates the nature of loneliness. “You’ve always been here with me,” she whispers. “Thank you, Seraph.”

“I love you very much,” Seraph says. It might even be true, Yakova thinks. Who can say there is no feeling of love, when actions speak of it? If only Seraph were not a slave to her mother’s will. If only Yakova were not.

Yakova pulls up her favorite moments with Jad, then sweeps them across her field of view, each vignette playing over and over. The hand reached out in ineffable concern; a sly smile half-caught when Autumn mentions Yakova’s lack of a boyfriend; a sincere compliment after a masterful yaniv victory. This kind of torment, this exquisite unknowingness, has a simple solution. Simple and yet completely inaccessible.

“Seraph,” Yakova says at last, “I have to know if he likes me or not. Can’t you get my mother to activate your dating module?”

“You know I can’t,” Seraph says. “Only you can do that.”

Once upon a time, matters of the heart were handled by people. It was messy and upsetting, riddled with rejection, ambiguity, misunderstanding. Slowly, though, the crushing wheels of romance have been worn smoother and less painful by layers of technology. Now minders speak directly to one another, establishing mutual interest and likely suitability well in advance. Couples are introduced, relationship conflicts are mediated, even the dissolutions of relationships are handled through minders as much as between the human elements themselves.

Seraph should ask Jad’s minder how he feels about Yakova; this is how it is done. Yakova would learn to channel her obsession into something less hopeless, or else she would find herself in a relationship.

But Seraph has not been given the power to communicate directly with minders outside Yakova’s family. It is for their protection, to keep Seraph free of malware and to keep Yakova from stumbling into a situation dangerously out of her depth.

All Seraph can do is help Yakova analyze Jad’s microexpressions and intonations with increasingly fine scrutiny. Yakova zooms in on Jad’s honey-gold eyes, memorizes their irregular pattern of stripes. “I have to know,” she says again, quietly.

* * *

Yakova waits on the sofa, fidgeting and revising the words she plans to say. When her mother walks in the door, Yakova stands up straight and delivers the words to her mother as they are written in bold letters across her glasses. She speaks formally, as if delivering a political address or a forced apology to a school administrator. “Mom, I’m not a little girl anymore, and you need to accept that. You need to give me the optic implants.”

“Is this about your friend?” Meirav asks. Her face is without mercy.

Yakova shakes her head and pushes her glasses further up her nose. She continues to read. “All of my friends have implants now. They control for themselves who they’re friends with and if they’re dating. If you don’t give me this, it’s going to seriously affect my social and mental development.” She says the last words with triumph. They were borrowed from a parenting article on the benefits of the upgrade.

“No,” says Yakova’s mother.

“You’re not being fair,” Yakova says. She shrinks into her chest, arms crossed, as if she could somehow become invisible.

Meirav steps close and pulls her child closer yet for a hug. She cradles Yakova’s head, her thumb caressing a knot of Seraph’s wiring.

“You won’t be a child forever, I promise you,” she says. “Why hurry?”

“It’s so hard,” Yakova says. “I don’t want to be left out.”

Meirav is silent. An alert appears in Yakova’s glasses. Autumn has reappeared. The chat buffer shows eight hundred seventeen messages where a moment ago there were none.

“My rabbit, you were never alone in your head, and it only gets worse from here,” Meirav says. “You need to discover who you are by yourself. Not who your friends want you to be, not what your minder tells you to be. Not even who I want you to be.”

“I know who I am,” Yakova says. Her words are muffled by her mother’s embrace.

“Show me,” Meirav says, “that you are who you are. Show me that you can do and choose on your own. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Yakova’s eyes are closed. She listens to her mother’s heartbeat and nods, hoping she does.

* * *

Yakova reflects upon this riddle at school. She asks Seraph what it means. “I think if I tell you an answer,” Seraph says, “it’s already the wrong one.”

Across the room, Jad glances Yakova’s way. The blue tally twitches to nine times in fifteen minutes. A new record.

“Seraph, ask his minder.” Yakova changes the tally to a graph, changes it to show a moving average of visual contact over time. “I don’t care what the answer is, I just have to know for sure. Please?”

“You know I can’t,” Seraph says. A silence lingers, a shadow of the words she does not say.

Yakova understands.

She takes a breath, and then another. She walks across the room and stands in front of Jad. He looks at her, his eyebrows high, waiting for her words or a message to arrive. Her mouth is dry. Her pulse rattles her bones.

“Do you want to go out with me? Like for some ice cream or something?” she asks him.

Jad is startled. His pupils shrink, then dilate again. He smiles. There is a pause as his own version of Seraph whispers in his ear what he should do, what he’s allowed to do, what the good choice is.

He taps once, lightly, behind his ear, to silence his minder’s voice. “Yeah,” he says. His smile dazzles Yakova with its brightness. “You know what? I’d really like that.”

Revision

Originally published by Fireside Fiction

Chapter 1

In the case of a sudden dumping, there are certain expectations about how to proceed.

Stick your spoon in a gallon of cookie dough ice cream. Bring on the chick-flicks and sob sessions with your besties. Cut up all the printed pics of the two of you together so you can burn a stack of his smirking faces in the flame of a candle. One of the candles he bought you. The ones scented like eucalyptus-mint, that he thought was so hot, and it gave you a sinus headache but you never complained because you loved him so much, and now you’re sitting there with a headache and singed fingers and it isn’t actually making anything better so you wonder why…why…

—Hang on, where was I?

Right, getting dumped. We’d actually been having a great night up until that part. We were cuddled up at my place watching a documentary on Tibetan architecture and eating Chinese take-out, right? I leaned in to nuzzle Benji’s ear while the narrator droned on and on about murals and prayer wheels.

And then boom, like a switch had been flipped, he sat up straight as a wooden soldier and inched away from me. “This isn’t working,” he said.

I uncurled myself, frowning. “Oh, sorry, am I squishing you? Let me get—”

He wiped my offer away with a curt motion. “No, I mean us. We’re not working.”

I scrunched my nose up. “Not working? Like…”

“Like it’s over, Mira. We are over.”

“Wait, are you breaking up with me? Seriously?”

That’s when Benji’s face went all soft and compassionate, like there was any way he could be kind at this point short of taking it back. He leaned forward again and put his arm around me. “I’m getting so busy with the company lately…you know it’s been bad, and it’s going to get worse. I don’t have time for a life. No time for you. And it’s…not fair to you. You deserve better than this.”

“I deserve—what? What are you talking about?” Prayer flags fluttered on TV, red and green and blue. My brain struggled to catch up with my ears. “Wait, who are you to decide what’s fair for—”

“Listen, I know this is sudden, but—”

His stupid jerkface sympathy was too much to bear. “Get. Out.” I said, quietly. Then, with a little more volume, “Get the HELL out of here.”

He did. The door shut behind him a little louder than it needed to, leaving me with nothing to mark his passing but a table full of half-empty noodle cartons and soda bottles. I grabbed a bottle and hurled it at the closed door, imagining it smacking him right between the shoulder blades and shoving him onto his face in the hall. Instead, the cap came off mid-flight, the soda spattering in a wide arc across the room.

What a mess.

I was furious, but I didn’t really know what to do with all of that righteous indignation. I turned off the documentary and stared at the blank television for a while. That didn’t help much. But that’s what those tried-and-true breakup rituals are for, right?

I grabbed my phone and dialed up Eli, my absolute bestest friend since grade school, but it went straight to voicemail. I shouldn’t have been surprised; I could hardly reach him at all any more, much less enlist him for a little late-night shoulder sobbing. I texted him anyway, but without much hope.

Time to seek out the carbolicious comfort at the bottom of a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough swirl, then. I swung open my freezer. It held a sack of crushed ice, long melted into a single impenetrable lump; a sad scattering of kernels of corn; three nearly empty boxes of freezer-burned waffles; and, yes, a half-gallon of vanilla. When I pulled off the lid, though, there was nothing but half an inch of ice crystals at the bottom. Grrr.

I threw on a hoodie and trudged to the bodega, which as it turns out had closed eight minutes earlier. So I returned home empty-handed, muttering unflattering things about Benji and his timing, and grabbed a beer from the fridge instead. One of Benji’s weird microbrew faves—not even one I liked much—but no helping it.

Next attempt: cinematic catharsis. I curled up on my sofa with a fleece blanket and tried to find something I wanted to watch. About four minutes into a classic Julia Roberts vehicle, I was seething with so much hot rage that I could’ve given the volcano of your choice a run for its money.

Action, then. Maybe a little symbolic destruction would help me feel better. It didn’t take long to burn through all of my printed photos, all two of them, so I went to my phone and then laptop to get rid of the digitals, too, and absolutely purge every electron of the jerk from my life for good. When I was done, I just sat there, full of all this anger and no outlet for it.

That’s how I wound up online reading Verity at one in the morning. Verity was Benji’s company. If you asked him about it he’d start to lecture about crowdsourcing knowledge and breaking news and blah blah blah blabbity blah blah. Over time, I worked out that it was an online reference source crossed with a newspaper, something a little like Wikipedia, but bigger and deeper and scarier—breaking news as it happened, information on ordinary people, real Big Brother stuff.

So what else was I going to do? I looked up Benji’s page on Verity. There was a section on what a geek-society high-profile playboy he was, updated to say that he was newly single.

Huh, I thought. That was sure fast.

* * *

But let’s back up and start at the beginning. His real name was Benjamin, natch. I started calling him Benji when we first met because of his big soft puppy-dog eyes. When I said it out loud he always gave me a funny half-smile like he couldn’t decide if I was making fun of him or being cute, so he couldn’t decide if he should be mad or mushy over it. He was a…actually, to start with, I had no idea what he was. His daily work seemed to involve flying to a lot of conferences and getting hundreds of comments on his blog, plus he spent a lot of time meeting people over coffee.

That’s how I came into the picture. I’m a barista at Joes’ Buzz, the best tiki-themed coffee shop in all of Brooklyn. Before Benji and I ever hooked up, he liked to come to my shop and pretend to work on his laptop when he was really just dicking around with the latest browser game. Once in a while he’d bring people in to schmooze over lattes and snickerdoodles.

And then one day the Goth-pale woman he was with—someone at his company, I thought—spilled her double-nonfat-sugar-free-pistachio-half-caf-no-foam-no-whip all over his white button-down. “Jesus!” he said, and stood there dripping helplessly. Would you believe she just stood looking at him with her mouth open? Didn’t even hand him a napkin!

“At least it didn’t fry your electronics,” I said. “Come on into the back, I’ll help you out.” I happened to have a spare shirt in my bag, so I pulled him into the break room and let him change. Not that I’m such a big altruist or anything. I’d been planning to hit the gym later, and to be honest, giving him my baggy old tee was the perfect excuse to skip it. I couldn’t let an opportunity like that go to waste.

He thanked me, and I think really looked at me for the first time. When you work in the service sector, a certain kind of person tends to look right through you, like you’re some kind of tree or something. Apparently he liked what he saw, because the next thing I knew he said, “Hey, when’s your shift over? I’ll bring your shirt back and buy you a drink.”

“Coffee?” I tried not to roll my eyes. It probably didn’t work.

“Nah,” he said. “How do you feel about sangria?”

What can I say? He was cute, and it’s not like I had anything cooking on the back burner. I smiled and flipped my hair over my shoulder as I went back to my station. “Come back at nine.” The rest, as they say, is history.

It didn’t last six months.

* * *

So fast-forward, and there I am, freshly dumped, staring at this stupid web page telling me Benji was single again. And I just wasn’t ready for the world to know yet. I wasn’t even ready to know it yet myself. I held a swallow of beer in my mouth, letting the bubbles sting my tongue. I thought about me and Benji, and I won’t kid, I started feeling pretty sorry for myself. I deserved better.

Hell, he’d said it himself, not two hours gone by. Like I wasn’t competent to judge that on my own. Jerk.

The tiny blue edit button glowed in the corner of the screen, tempting me to hijack his bio. Ben had left himself logged into Verity on my computer at some point, I guess one of the times he’d forgotten his bag and had a work emergency to deal with. I could tell because he’d customized his “Submit” button to say “Make It So.” Dork. But I was darkly amused when I realized it would look like he’d made the change himself, if anybody ever happened to check. I jabbed the button and made a teeny-tiny little alteration: “He is deeply in love with his new fiancée, Mira Newton.”

Before I hit the button, I stared at the preview for a while. I didn’t know why I’d written it. It wasn’t true, of course. It had never been true, and it didn’t look so likely going forward, either. But for a bit, seeing it written there in black on white made it seem possible, in a way it never had been before.

Me and Benji, we never had the marrying kind of relationship. We didn’t even have a tell-your-parents kind of relationship. But the words glowing there started to fill my head up with tulle and white roses and violins playing Pachelbel’s Canon in D and all the other sappy wedding crap I’d always told myself I was far too cynical to care about.

I hit “Make It So.”

My laptop made a satisfying click when I snapped it shut. The afterimage of the words lingered on my retinas, then they were gone, just like Benji. I took one last swig from that beer, which had grown both warm and flat, and went to bed, hoping things would look better in the morning.

When I woke up, though, it definitely wasn’t morning yet. I heard a rustling from my living room. My heart stomped around in my chest like it thought it might find someplace better to go. Burglar, I thought, or maybe rats. There in the dark, for just a minute, I second-guessed my decision not to live at the place my parents kept on Fifth. Principles be damned.

I fumbled for my phone with fingers made fat by adrenaline and dialed 911, worrying the whole time about the light from the screen leaking through the door. I kept my finger hovering over the send icon and put one ginger foot in front of the other to peek out and see what I could see.

The living room was aglow with candlelight. Not so much a burglar’s M.O.

The hinges on my bedroom door squealed their way open. The candles lit up a mosaic of rose petals trailing off toward the living room and ending in a puddle on my coffee table. There was a little velvet box with a diamond-and-sapphire ring, poised in the middle of this mess of floral confetti. As I stared at this tableau in muzzy incomprehension, Benji stepped out of the kitchen. He held a mismatched pair of coffee mugs and a bottle of champagne. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Marry me?”

My guts were still a roiling disaster of anxiety and rejection and anger. My mind tried to formulate the biggest telling-off I had ever performed in all my life. But while my brain was blankly trying to find a few words to fit together, my mouth sprang right into action. “Yes,” it said.

So that’s how me and Benji the Internet Star got engaged.

Chapter 2

Joes’ Buzz was one of those eclectic mom-and-pop coffee shops you keep hearing don’t exist anymore (or in this case, a pop-and-pop shop). They’d hung up a shingle with that craftily placed apostrophe sometime in the early ’90s and decked the place out like a tropical paradise. The walls were covered with jungle-inspired sweeps of green, blending in with clusters of potted palms and umbrella plants. Tiki masks scowled and beamed at the customers at artful intervals. The regulars were mostly brogrammers and not-so-starving artists, though there’d been a recent spike in urban moms wielding over-engineered strollers.

I shambled in the morning after my unexpected engagement very much not on time for my shift. (It would have been even later, but my mother called and woke me up about an hour after I’d turned off my alarm instead of snoozing it.) My hair was in an unwashed pony tail—the kind where your hair is so filthy you can still kind of see the strands it separated into when you pulled it back with your fingers—and I wore a Ramones T-shirt that couldn’t even remember a time it hadn’t been wrinkled. At least with the Ramones that’s pretty much expected.

All of this could have been overlooked, and probably would have been, but my eyes were still puffy and red from all of the emoting I’d done the night before. Or a couple of hours before, to get technical. No amount of hastily applied ice had been able to fix it.

Joey was the one who caught me; Joseph liked to sleep in. The wind chimes hanging from the door jangled in Hawaiian-themed harmony, and everybody turned to get a look. Joey didn’t frown at me, exactly, so much as he didn’t smile. His eyebrows did that thing where they crawl up to where his hairline used to be in order to make room for all of the questions he was planning on asking.

Fortunately the morning rush was on, so I could hustle behind Joey to drop my bag in the back room and get an apron on. Then I jumped headlong into the dance of steam and caffeine.

Joey may be a gossip, but he’s never in his life let anything get between him and a paying customer, aging hippie or no. So he didn’t begin the inquiry into my timeliness and poor personal grooming right away. He settled for shooting me the odd meaningful glance instead. I kept my focus on the orders—well, as much as circumstances permitted—and if I prolonged one or two conversations a little more than you could have strictly called professional, well, what of it? It’s not like it was the first time. And being friendly does keep ’em coming back.

But the morning rush doesn’t last forever, and eventually it was me and Joey alone behind the counter. Never before in my life had I so diligently polished the espresso machine or restocked the beans, and if I say the baked goods in the display case achieved an arrangement of near-mathematical perfection, I promise I’m not just bragging.

Joey didn’t buy it, though. “Late night?”

I put down the rag and slumped against the counter. “Kind of,” I said. “Sorry I was so late. I just have a lot going on.”

He chucked me under the chin. “You feeling OK, Mira-deara?”

“Oh, you know…it’s nothing.”

“…Something.”

“No, I swear, it’s just…”

“Is that boy of yours treating you right? Do I need to go buy a shotgun to wave at him?”

Dammit. I hadn’t quite worked out for myself what had happened, and didn’t know how to tell anybody else. But sometimes the best way to distill whatever’s going on in your head is to talk it over. So I opened my mouth and let the words fall out, listening intently to see if any of it would explain my life to me.

“I’m getting married,” I said. And then I smiled brightly, like a girl who knew exactly what she was doing would probably smile.

Joey’s eyes flicked down to my belly. “Oh, honey—” he started.

“No, it’s nothing like that,” I said quickly. My fingers tried tying themselves into knots while I waited for something else to pop out of my mouth, but nothing came.

“Well, what is it like?” he asked.

“Benji kind of broke up with me.” That…was not something I would’ve wanted to pop out, on second thought. Should’ve kept your mouth shut, Mira.

“I thought you said you were engaged.” He crossed his arms and pursed his lips like a cranky old lady.

“Look, I don’t even know what the hell it was about.” And then the blab got the best of me. “I’m sure we’re going to have some sort of stupid awkward talk about it later. He broke up with me, and then he came back a few hours later with this whole romantic candles setup, like something from a movie, and he asked me to marry him and I said yes.”

“Talk about a change of heart,” Joey said. He turned his back on me to rearrange the already-immaculate racks of sugar and sugar substitutes, but his rigid spine put the lie to his casual gesture. “Why on earth would you agree to marry somebody who just dumped you?”

My shoulders twisted. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. If there was a quaver in my voice, well look, if a night like that isn’t a good enough reason for a girl to be a little emotional, what is?

There was another long silence as he turned this over for a while and tried to decide what to make of it. Levity won the day, apparently. “Did you at least get a ring? Never say yes without a ring.”

I’d put Benji’s great-grandma’s diamonds-and-sapphires on a chain around my neck that morning, not my finger, telling myself I didn’t want to scratch the thing up at work, or coat it in milk foam and syrup. I pulled it from inside my shirt and showed him. It spun around and around, sparkling like a walnut-sized disco ball.

“Mmm, boy comes from money, at least,” he said, nodding with pseudo-paternal satisfaction. He pulled one of the snickerdoodles from the case and handed it to me. The scent of cinnamon-sugar made my stomach acid roil in an alarming fashion. “Congratulations, darling,” he said gently. “If you need to talk about anything,” his eyes jumped back down to my stomach for just the barest second, “you know Uncle Joe-Joe is always here for you.”

I nibbled at the cookie in a show of gratitude, even though I couldn’t bear the thought of food. Then I threw my arms around his squishy midsection and gave him a squeeze. “You’re a good man, Joey,” I said. “Thanks.”

He let it drop with just one more searching look, like he wanted to grill me a little more but held back because he felt sorry for me.

Did I mention how much I hate people feeling sorry for me?

The snickerdoodle did help me feel a little better, though. So did the tab of ibuprofen I popped with it. Joey’s attention mostly stayed on the Times crossword after that. He always knew when to leave well enough alone.

Leaving well enough alone wasn’t in the cards for me, though. I made it through the rest of the morning routine, pulling shots and slinging syrup, all the while trying to puzzle out what the hell had happened the night before. Was it all real? Had I suffered some bizarre dream?

The whole thing was too preposterous, too coincidental. Did Benji really break up with me and then propose all in a couple of hours? It wasn’t because I changed his page on Verity. Couldn’t be. But it was hard not to give in to completely irrational, magical thinking, that it was true because I made it true somehow.

The gem-studded nugget of a ring hung heavy on that chain around my neck, and my eyes were still so puffy and red that even my indistinct reflection in the stainless mini-fridge under the counter had clearly had a rotten night.

“Joey?” I asked abruptly.

“Hm?” He looked up from his crossword, startled.

“Do you make wishes?”

“What, like…wishing on a star?” He scratched at his beard as he thought. “I guess I used to, but not so much anymore.”

“Did you ever make a wish and it came true?”

He tugged on my pony tail and grinned. “I’ll say. Look around you, kiddo.”

* * *

Joseph sauntered in early in the afternoon. Where Joey could have been the second coming of Jerry Garcia, Joseph looked like a Korean Ben Franklin, though I don’t think anybody would have been brave enough to say it right to his face. He had an adorable round belly, a balding pate with a little ponytail holding his graying hair back, and a tiny pair of half-moon reading glasses perched at the bottom of his nose.

“Our Mira’s getting married,” Joey called to him, right across the whole room.

“Is she pregnant?” Joseph called back. I must have turned about five different shades of crimson. I could tell from the heat of all that blood rushing to my face at once.

The couple of regulars in the place looked at each other and then studiously focused on their phones and lattes. You could practically see their ears grow three sizes, though. Sigh.

“She says no,” Joey said. “But I don’t know if we believe her.”

“I’m not pregnant,” I said.

Joseph strolled up and carefully inspected my reddened eyes, my sallow complexion, my filthy hair. “You look terrible,” he said. “I bet it’s going to be a girl.”

“I. Am. Not. Pregnant.” My molars might as well have been mortared together.

Joseph shrugged. “Whatever you say, sweetie.”

His lips twitched a little as he tried to pick just one follow-up question when he clearly had a whole collection of them. I steeled myself for a fresh inquisition. But instead he said, “I just saw your boy on the corner with some other girl.”

“What?” I rushed to the window and ducked under the bamboo blinds to look. Joseph was right, of course. I even recognized the woman Benji was with. Dark hair, blue streaks, dressed all in black. She was the one who had spilled her drink on Benji the day he asked me out. I’d seen her a few times after that, either meeting Benji in the shop or at parties we’d gone to, but we’d never been properly introduced. I did know that she was involved in Verity. Today she looked pissed as hell, and was to all appearances giving him the reaming of a lifetime.

Benji held up his hands, placating, but she steamed on. She pointed one finger at the shop, right toward me, and I jumped away from the window. I went back to my post, hoping she hadn’t noticed me watching.

“Trouble in paradise already?” Joey asked.

“No, he’s just talking to a girl from work,” I said. I wondered if their argument had anything to do with me, or if it was just about Verity. Worse—could it be both? Was it anything to do with what had happened last night?

“So,” Joseph said. He tied his apron behind his back, formulating his line of attack. “This Benjamin. How long have you been seeing him, again?”

I winced. The answer was not quite five months, which didn’t seem like an appropriately long time for wedding talk, now that Joseph brought it up. But the Hawaiian wind chimes on the door sparkled again and my hero—or whatever you want to call him—came in before I could possibly be required to answer.

Unlike me, Benji had enjoyed a solid several hours of sleep and a shower. But that didn’t mean he looked entirely respectable. His hair was tousled, but only by artful design, and his jeans were no doubt freshly laundered, but skillfully crafted to look like somebody had dragged them behind a tractor for a few weeks. He wore a white Oxford half-tucked in, charmingly undone a button or two. I was gratified to see that he had dark circles under his eyes, at least. I tried to fluff my stringy ponytail and wished I’d gone through the bother of putting on a little lip gloss.

Joey tugged on Joseph’s arm and the two of them scuttled into the break room. I couldn’t decide which was the better bet: Would they loiter out of sight but still close enough to eavesdrop, or would they have a hushed catch-up chat about me and my oh-good-lord-who-knew-she-had-it-in-her personal life? Anyone’s guess, really.

Benji gave me that trademark lopsided smile of his, dimpled just on the one side. He put his elbows on the counter and leaned in toward me. “Hey, M,” he said. “About last night…”

My eyes started to prickle as I guessed what was coming: All a horrible mistake, forget about it, I need my space, it’s not you it’s me. I bit my tongue and pressed my nails into my palms; it wouldn’t do to lose my composure, not here in front of the Joes and the customers. Not here in front of Benji.

But that smile lingered on his face, and the next thing he said was, “I guess we have a lot of planning to do, don’t we?” He took one of my hands between his and stroked the back of mine with his thumbs.

All of the breath left me at once. “Plans,” I said. Maybe this wasn’t about to be Dumping Mira 2: This Time, It’s For Keeps.

Benji looked into my eyes intensely as all of this tween-girl anxiety bubbled in my stomach. “Did I tell you that you look great?” And then, after a pause just a hair too short, a question rushed out of him: “Did you ever think when we first met that we’d wind up like this?”

“Like…this?”

“You know,” he said, and his mouth squirmed, unable to quite make the shape of the word he needed. “Engaged.”

“Not ever,” I said.

“It’s almost like something you’d…read, isn’t it?” His eyes burned like he was waiting for me to say something in particular; like he thought he knew what I was about to say.

My hands shook a little. Was he asking me about his bio on Verity, about that change? Was he accusing me of something?

“I’m not sure I’d call it a storybook romance, exactly,” I said carefully. “But we’re definitely great together.” I touched my free fingertips to the diamonds-and-sapphires hanging from my neck. “We should be celebrating. Right?”

His face warmed and made my insides flutter. “Yeah, we should! Come on over once you’re off shift. We’ll hit Villa Rosalita, get a bottle and some fettuccine,” he said. “And we can start thinking about what we want the rest of our lives to look like.”

“Sounds great,” I said, too fast. I never was good at playing it cool.

“Great,” he repeated, patting my hand one last time. And then he stood up straight and glanced at the specials board. “Oh hey, get me an Americano? Good girl.”

Chapter 3

By the end of my shift, I was kind of disgusted with myself, and not just because of how badly I needed a shower. Once Benji left, I could deflect the curious eyes with nothing but moxie and caffeine, but I couldn’t escape from my own head. I started to second-guess myself. How could I just keep smiling and nodding and going along with whatever Benji said? Why hadn’t I asked him about why he’d broken up with me, or about that argument outside with Miss Blue Streaks, or even about Verity? I wasn’t That Girl, was I? The one who needed a man in her life to make everything work out OK?

On the other hand, how do you say “Honey, I was just wondering if your website changes reality,” without coming off like a total loon?

To show myself I didn’t need Benji—that I was a strong, independent woman who could take care of herself on her own terms and called all her own shots—I rebelled and didn’t go straight to his place right after my shift. No, I went home first and finally got cleaned up and put on miles of eyeliner and in general transformed myself into a pretty, pretty princess for him. That would teach him a lesson, right? And then I went on over as fast as my kitten heels could get me back to the subway.

All the way there, I stared at the strangers on the subway and wondered how they navigated the rapids of their lives. There was a boy bopping along to acid green earbuds with the Dominican flag blazoned on his jacket. Did he care whether his moves were the hottest? That woman with the clear vinyl kerchief on her head and the deep creases beside her mouth, the one reading the Cyrillic newspaper, was she married? The couple making out at the end of the car, were they in love? Was it going anywhere? Did they know, and did they care? If they could see the fork in the road at their feet, would they change their destination, or were they happy with where they were headed?

On the way out of the station, I brushed by an exhausted-looking Indian woman wearing a too-heavy Air Force surplus coat and a deep purple broomstick skirt. A little pin glittered from her lapel, at odds with the rest of her ensemble. It was worked from diodes and upcycled circuit boards, probably from somebody’s learn-to-solder class at a hackerspace. The woman stood motionless at the top of the stairs, studying the skyline. Her hair was in a single braid that fell to her waist, but a nebula of frizz had escaped. The skin on her hands was ashy, and her eyes were bloodshot.

Homeless, I thought, and avoided any uncomfortable eye contact. There was someone who would change her life if she could. As I passed her, her chin came down, and she looked at me with hard eyes. They widened for a moment, as though she recognized me, and then quickly narrowed into a seething blend of pity and contempt. I wondered who she thought I was, but walked on, eyes straight ahead, avoiding the chance for awkward interaction.

You can’t save the world, right? You can only save yourself. And that only if you’re lucky.

* * *

I rapped lightly on Benji’s door, then let myself in when there was no answer. His apartment was a sunny place, all honeyed parquet floors, vaulted ceilings, and windows nine feet tall, but he’d packed it to the rafters with whirring electronic things. Shame that such a gracious space had been infested with all of those nests of cables. A new thought struck: Maybe when we were married, I could clear some of it away.

Benji wasn’t in evidence in the main room, but after a minute I heard his voice carrying from the office. On the phone, probably still working. Since I was stuck waiting anyhow, I tossed my purse onto his leather sofa and grabbed a garbage bag from the kitchen to start my renovation with the worst of the not-quite-empty soda cups and grease-stained take-out bags.

“Listen, I have to go, she’s going to get here any minute,” Benji said.

I froze, not wanting to listen in to his conversation, but unable to do anything else.

His voice was tight, defensive. “Yes, I get it, I’ll figure out a way to ask her…I know it’s important, you don’t have to tell me. I know. You keep your eyes on your business and I’ll handle mine.” He wasn’t talking about me. No way could he be talking about me.

He banged around in his office, from the sound of it closing drawers and stacking papers up, ready to pack it in for the day. “This might come as a shock, Marjorie, but you’re not the only one with chips on the table. I’m handling it, OK? I know what I’m doing.”

I bit my lip, then shoved the garbage bag under the sofa as quietly as I could. I grabbed my handbag and backed over to the door. I opened it. I slammed it shut again, the sound echoing through his apartment. “Benji, you here?” I called. My voice was steady, even casual.

“One second, phone,” he called back. I heard him make his apologies and hang up. Benji emerged from his office and greeted me with a cool kiss on the forehead, but his mind seemed a million miles away. So was mine.

* * *

We weren’t going to Villa Rosalita after all. “I spaced and totally forgot there’s a work thing tonight,” he said, hands spread out in fauxpology. “Given the investment stuff we’re working on, I really have to be there. But you can come along. You’ll have fun, right?”

…Right. Sure.

Benji had brought me to one of his endless work-related parties for the first time just a couple of weeks after we started dating. Its highlight was my conversation with a broad-cheekboned woman with dozens of tiny braids that set the tone for all my future interactions with his peers. It went something like this:

Her: So what do you do?

Me: Oh, I’m a barista.

Her: Hahahaha! We’ve all had those jobs before. So what are you trying to get into? Let me guess—you’re a designer? Or are you the startup entrepreneur type?

Me: Uhhhhhhmmmmm. No? I’m OK with being a barista.

Her: Oh, um. That’s great. Good for you.

Then she looked wildly around the room searching for somebody to talk to who wasn’t horribly beneath her. Once was more than enough, thank you very much. The only other kind of conversation available was more or less like Benji talking about his work: a brothy soup of buzzwords all jumbled together that, upon deconstruction, amounted to a variant of “technology is awesome,” or “I know about cooler stuff than you do,” or sometimes “that guy thinks he’s cool but really he is not.”

It was as tedious, in its own way, as my parents’ endless cocktail parties and fundraising dinners. The people were younger, but the conversation was always the same.

Eventually I developed a coping strategy to lubricate my way through the parties with Benji’s crowd. It involved taking a couple of hits of the hardest booze on offer the second I walked in the door, and then hunching over my phone pretending to be all wrapped up in sending texts or something. If anybody tried to bother me, I’d smile and shake my head and point to my phone, apologize profusely, and say something about how the system was down and I had to take care of it.

I was so proud of myself the first time I pulled that one off. It was the perfect impenetrable armor.

Tonight’s itinerary was a local tech-art meetup at a Brazilian-Korean fusion place with high slabs of a dark-polished wood as cocktail tables and a rosy filter on the lights. The air was hazy from meat-scented airborne carcinogens, and the red-aproned waiters walked among the crowd offering hunks of steak pierced on bamboo skewers. The technorati were shoulder to shoulder.

Miss Blue Streaks grabbed Benji’s wrist as soon as we hit the door. “We need to talk,” she said. Her eyes skipped over to me and then past, to the crowd. “It’s about Prometheus.”

He gave my hand an apologetic squeeze. “Verity business,” he said. “Might take a while. Settle yourself in and try to have a good time. I’ll make it up to you, promise.”

I squeezed his hand back. “Will do.” Benji and the girl weaved away in the crowd, and I lost sight of them almost immediately. No big surprise, really. It always happened sooner or later at these things. He’d come back and find me eventually.

On to coping, then. The specialty cocktail was a soju caipirinha; I grabbed one from a passing tray and squeezed into a corner next to a massive bronze jar of bamboo to claim a little breathing room. I watched the crowd for a while, monkeys trying to impress each other for status, and wished I were anywhere else.

And then, as I stood there cursing my uncomfy dress-up heels and wishing the pierced-tin ceiling didn’t make the noise so much more buzzy and awful, some guy with a close-trimmed beard and these glasses with massively thick frames cornered me. His breath was hot and yeasty from the beer and he stood a normal distance away from me, but leaned forward at the waist so his face was way too close to mine to be strictly comfortable. He had good hygiene and all, just no sense of personal space. That’s what I get for hiding in a corner.

I waved my phone at him, as per usual. “The system is down,” I said. “Sorry, can’t talk!”

“You said that last time,” he said.

“Flaky system?” I looked around for Benji, hoping against hope that he was near enough to notice I’d been pinned down and come to my rescue. A little jealousy kicking in would be handy. But Benji still wasn’t in evidence.

Yeast-Breath eyed me suspiciously, then leaned even further into my personal space to look at my phone screen. The soft contours of his face folded up into his frown. “You’re playing Candy Crush.”

I panicked. “Have to run!” I squeaked, and I pushed my way past him, out through the crowd, then further, right out the door of the restaurant.

The cool night air hit me like a bucket of water in the face, but it was a welcome change. I breathed deep. My shoulders relaxed and the pounding in my head receded.

I could see Benji through the black-shuttered window, head bent in conversation with that woman. She tilted her head; her gleaming hair swung forward. I tried to read the body language. Him hunched over, his arms crossed, while she had her chin high and her hands on her hips. A new thought struck me: Ex-girlfriend. Good luck with that, honey, he’s mine now.

I walked.

* * *

I stopped at a corner a couple of blocks away, not sure exactly where I was or where to go to pass a little time. Benji had driven us here, and he was still inside talking about who even knew what. So was my handbag, for that matter. But the air was fresh and cool, the street was quiet, and out here nobody was passing judgment on my worth as a human being. Or at least not to my face. I stood there, arms crossed and sweater pulled tight across my ribs, and looked up at the sky. I wished I could see the stars, but the city lights drowned them.

“Rough night?” asked a soft voice. The asker stood about fifteen feet away from me, but she blended in with the shadows until she stepped into my puddle of lamplight. She was wearing an outsized army jacket and a broomstick skirt. A corona of frizz rose from her hair, each strand glowing. The smudges below her eyes looked like she’d had maybe four hours of sleep in the last couple of weeks. Combined.

Familiar, but I couldn’t place her until I saw the pin on her lapel: She was the woman from the subway earlier. Probably about to ask me if I could spare some change.

“I…I’m sorry,” I said, fumbling in my jeans pockets. “My bag is inside.” I nodded at the restaurant.

She grimaced. “I don’t need your money, thanks.”

I thought about fate and chance and there-but-for-the-grace-of-god and I searched in my pockets a little harder. There was a credit card in my back pocket. “Hey, I was just about to get something to eat, and I’d love some company,” I lied. “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner.”

Her face moved through a quick series of inscrutable reactions, surprise and horror and something that might have been irritation. I couldn’t be sure because it didn’t last long. She studied me for another moment, the way a surgeon might study a tumor. “Sure, why not,” she said.

* * *

I led her into a cheap Mexican place and ordered a mess of nachos with extra guacamole and a burrito the size of a football. I wasn’t that hungry, but I figured as long as I was trying to do some good, I might as well try to go all the way and send her away with extra food.

“Big appetite, huh?” the woman said.

I nodded amiably. “I didn’t eat today.”

She ordered a couple of fish tacos and a veritable pail of soda, and I handed my credit card to the man at the counter. He sneered at me and pointed to a sign that read: “Cash Only.”

“Oh. OH!” I twisted my credit card in my hands, thinking about my purse, probably still dumped on the floor behind that bronze jar of bamboo at the party.

The woman rolled her eyes and fished a crumpled-up twenty from an inside pocket. “I guess I’m buying tonight,” she said.

“God, I’m so sorry,” I said as we walked back to the table. Guilt consumed me. “Look, I swear I’ll pay you back. I have cash in my purse back at the party.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

I nibbled on a chip laminated with melted cheese and tapped a fingernail on the plywood table. Silence felt awkward, but making conversation seemed awkward, too. The woman kept opening her mouth, poised on the brink of speech, and then backing away, like she’d lost her nerve.

She fiddled with punching the straw into her cup, then she caught my eye and began to talk. The words came slowly at first; it seemed like it had been a long time since she’d had the chance to really talk to anybody.

Her name was Chandra. In the course of a few minutes’ conversation, I noticed a particular pomposity to the cadences of her speech as if she’d spent much, much too much time at a university. She seemed only a little older than me, though. Grad student? Unusually grubby junior professor? I worried with no small embarrassment if I had completely misread her situation.

We made pointless small talk for a while. The summer is supposed to get awful hot this year; what a shame about the latest political scandal brewing; isn’t it wonderful how that fireman saved that little boy on the subway the other day.

Then she was quiet, toying with her fork like she could pick out the right words with it. “The people back at that restaurant you left,” she said abruptly. “You know they’re the tech scene around here.”

The sudden change of subject startled me. And…had she been following me or something? “Yeah,” I said, “I guess so. I’m not really one of them, though. I’m just…I’m engaged to Benjamin Adler.”

“So I hear,” she said. I jumped in my seat, wondering what she could possibly know about it. Before I could ask, she went on. “Are you interested in technology at all?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“You should be,” she said. “You should be afraid of it.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. Ever the busybody, I decided to poke at her and see what happened. “Why is that?”

“We’re in a dangerous place,” she said, with a furtive scan around. I wondered if she saw nonexistent fellow diners trying to eavesdrop on us, and not just the bald chef behind the counter serenading his grill in discord with the radio. “Before long, truth will be determined more by technology than by real reality. It’s already happening.”

I sat back, convinced I’d found the edge of her tin foil hat.

“It’s like this,” Chandra said. “Your bank has a computer. Let’s say there’s a glitch…a data-entry error, whatever…and suddenly it says you don’t have any more money. That makes it real. It becomes true.” She kept her eyes fixed to my face, as though looking for a particular reaction.

This was a little too much for me, a little too close to home, so I winced. “Saying something doesn’t make it so.”

She relaxed and sat back, shaking her head. “You’re wrong. It’s always been possible to change reality by saying the right thing at exactly the right moment.” She waved her tiny plastic fork in the air for emphasis. “Take the Spanish American War. It was a complete fabrication. It didn’t happen until a few newspaper moguls decided business was slow. They started covering a war, and both sides wound up fighting because they fell for it. They thought it was real.”

“You mean writing about it as if it were already true made it true,” I said. I drummed my fingers on my thighs, suddenly nervous.

“Exactly.” She sat forward again, leaning onto her elbows to stare at me with burning eyes. “Words have power. But you know all about that, right? I mean…your fiancé runs Verity, right? So I’m sure he’s told you everything.”

“What kind of everything?” I asked slowly.

“Hasn’t Ben told you what Verity really does? Verity isn’t in the business of reporting reality, they’re in the business of making it.” She clapped her fingertips to her mouth with faux horror, and her voice became syrup-thick from bitterness. “Silly me. Not for me to spill his secrets. Forget I said anything.”

I stared at her, my eyes wide, trying to think of something to say. My upper arms were covered with goose bumps. I thought again, for about the millionth time that day, about changing Benji’s Verity page. It was impossible, right? A coincidence. Saying something doesn’t make it true. Everybody knows that.

I had to get out of there before I totally lost grip on reality. Real reality. I tried to think of a way to excuse myself and get back to the party. But…there was the matter of the money I owed her. I couldn’t bear to stiff her on a dinner I’d asked her out to in the first place.

“Um, will you walk me back to the party?” I asked. “And then I can pay you back.”

She turned her little plastic fork over and over in her hands. “I’d rather not,” she said. “But I promise I’ll give you a chance some other time.” She set the fork down and began shredding her napkin instead. “Just do me a favor. Don’t tell Ben you saw me, OK? Forget my name, forget we ever met. It’s…complicated.”

“Right,” I said. “Whatever you say.” Like I would have had any idea what to tell Benji about her anyhow.

Mark Robert Philps

Dragonfire is Brighter than the Ten Thousand Stars

Originally published by Robinson

NEWSREEL (i)

SPY-RING SENTENCED

TODAY, IN AN EIKSTOWN COURTROOM, THE COMMISSARIAT SHOWED HOW THE PEOPLE OF THE COMMONWEALTH MEET THREATS TO THEIR FREEDOM: WITH THE COLD MACHINERY OF JUSTICE! IN THE GALLERY, MEMBERS OF THE ACCUSED WATCHED WITH THE HOODED AND REPTILIAN EYES OF A DRACO AS THEIR SENTENCE WAS METED OUT. THE TRIBUNAL DELIBERATED, AND SWIFTLY THEIR VERDICT CAME DOWN: IT WAS TO BE DEATH. LET THE JACKALS OF THE MANDATE BE WARNED: THE COMMISSARIAT STANDS READY, THE SWORD OF THE PARTY! BUT THE SWORD MUST HAVE ITS SHEILD—THE WATCHFUL CITIZEN! REPORT ANY SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO YOUR LOCAL COMMISSARIAT FOR STATE SECURITY OFFICE. BE AWARE! BE VIGILANT!

1

City of Whitebottom, one mile south of Green Banner Electrical Station No. 45. A cold evening in winter.

I ducked beneath the fire-cracked lintel of a gutted patrician mansion, reached into the mended-and-remended pocket of my woollen overcoat and once again pulled out her letter. The thick paper card was sooted by the same coal dust that coated my aching hands. The words on it I had already committed to memory.

Kaffa Brewcourt. 22:00 tonight. res mutatae mutatae non sunt. The note wasn’t signed, but that last phrase was written in blotted black ink, and it was all the signature I needed.

Attia.

Years ago, amid the bright-eyed passion and the party slogans and the thinly veiled tension of the University annex in Ravenna, we had together composed those words, a political slogan as true of revolution as it was of love and war. But in the twenty years since the bloodshed at Aelia Capitolina, since I’d last seen her, I’d barely thought of it. I’d been too busy running, keeping low and quiet in backwater cities, stewing on old betrayals. Hiding from the Commissariat. Until today. Until this yellowed slip of paper had appeared in my pigeonhole at the electrical station. Attia. Twenty years since that night in a rundown kaffahouse, stinking of sweat and sulphur, waiting for a woman who had never arrived. Twenty years since she’d broken my heart. Why now, after so much time?

I stuffed the letter back into my coat and stepped onto the rain-slicked streets of the city I still thought of as Vindobona. The air tasted wet, bitter, as thick as the heavy fog. She was out there. Somewhere in that grey atmosphere. I moved from beneath the shadow of the abandoned mansion. On the stonework above me dragons and dragonriders were trapped in time on a blackened frieze.

"Cacō,” a shrill voice exclaimed. "Dulcis cacō!" agreed another. Kids, running ahead through the white haze like wraiths, cackling to each other in high voices. Latin was still outlawed, so naturally the child-gangs that overran the New Commonwealth had adopted it as their native tongue. I waited until their voices receded further into the fog. Then I folded my shoulders and splashed hurriedly down the street. I slipped past an idling diesel truck, turned a sharp corner plastered on both sides with Party recruitment posters, and stopped at the glass door of a soot-stained kaffahouse.

Kaffa Brewcourt. I stepped up to the glass and peered inside, heart thudding. The kaffahouse was lit with low hanging lights; the high ceilings and peeling plaster walls fell away into shadow. Marble tables stood in a ragged line and a piano with keys like yellowed teeth squatted in one corner. A pale, ox-boned proprietor slouched behind the dimly lit bar, polishing chipped porcelain cups with a discoloured rag. No sign of Attia. I glanced at my timepiece. Still early.

The door squealed as I pushed it open. Hot air and the smell of roasting beans and stale cigarettes. I stepped cautiously up to the bar. The proprietor did not look up as I sat, just thudded over to a brass machine that groaned and spat steaming kaffa into a small white cup. I spared a glance around the room. Empty but for a large man in the back corner, sweeping again and again the same bit of floor. The proprietor turned back to me, rattled a cup and saucer onto the bar.

“Thanks,” I muttered. 22:01. No Attia. I fought off a shiver. I thought of the last time I was supposed to have met her in a kaffahouse. She hadn’t arrived then either.

I took a shaking sip of kaffa and reached for a ring-stained newspaper that had been left on the counter. Bold black headlines proclaimed heightened tensions along the New Commonwealth’s continent-spanning border with the People’s Mandate, the state of arms purchases from the long broken away colonies across the ocean in Nova Roma, and the newest ever increasing production quotas. It didn’t take much subtlety to read the subtext: yet another war with the Mandate was looming.

Someone stepped into my field of vision. “More kaffa?”

A shadow fell over me: a thickset man with deepset eyes. The one from the back corner. I hadn’t heard him move. I flicked my gaze down to my cup of thick kaffa, which was still more than half full; along the bar, where the proprietor was now nowhere to be seen.

It all slotted into place with brilliant and icy clarity: the typed letter, the too-empty public house, the proprietor’s strange attitude, the truck idling outside…That letter wasn’t from Attia. She wasn’t coming.

After all these years hiding, the Commissariat had found me.

“No,” I managed. I snaked a hand across the table towards the small porcelain cup—the closest thing I could see to a weapon.

“I insist,” he said.

My hand found the saucer. I didn’t plan my next move. I lurched back in my stool and flung the cup of steaming kaffa at his face. The thickset man swore and stumbled back, steaming black liquid running down his cheeks. The cup bounced off his head and then exploded on the tiled floor. Still holding the saucer I smashed it against the counter and grabbed hold of the largest piece: a jagged half-crescent which I swung at him like a blade.

His meaty palm caught my wrist with a wet slap.

And then from behind, unseen hands snatching me roughly by the shoulders.

“Easy,” said a high quiet voice. “We just want to tal—”

Gloved hands were holding my shoulders. I twisted my wrist half-free and then cranked my neck. I bit down.

“Shit!” said a not-so-quiet voice behind me.

“Put him out,” the thickset man growled.

Barely a moment to cry out before being shoved to the ground. In the gap between that first push and the moment when my face hit the ground, my mind raced through the twenty-some years that I’d spent on the run—the failed relationships, the arms-length friendships (my landlord Viktor, with whom I shared a single nod once every day, as close a friend as anybody) and the days and days spent with my head down at the electrical station, trying hard to not to be noticed, shovelling coal into a high pressure boiler that roared hot and burned nearly as bright as dragonfire.

A wet boot pinning my cheek to the sticky, sweet-smelling floor; a black burlap hood that reeked of stale sweat. And then a needle lancing my arm, pain more bludgeon than prick, and lightness spreading through my body, blooming behind my nose and eyes and mouth.

“Time to go, Artur.”

* * *

__EXCERPT FROM, “ON DRACI AND REVOLUTION”

(CENSOR’S COPY, REDACTED)__

Self-satisfied Imperial historians called the two millennia of uneasy peace that existed between Roma and Cháng’ān the Pax Draci. We accept now that these two words are a lie, do nothing to convey the suffering that the two imperial powers wrought upon their own people. And yet in the bloody lie there is some gleaming black bone of truth.

* * *

2

Attia. So much of my life had revolved about her. Since those days when we’d first met, young students at the University with not much in common but a hatred for the Commonwealth, and the Party; for every apparatus that had risen up to replace the Emperor, the Patricians, and their dragons. Not uncommon sentiments in Universities during those days, which was how we’d found ourselves at a protest that became a riot that now stood like a firewall between the two halves of my life.

Even now, all these years later, I found myself trapped in her gravity. Even now I dreamed of her. Of course I did. We were at a party I was hosting with my roommate Sina, and she was perched atop a wing-backed chair. In this dream she seemed luminescent against the shadowed walls of my squalid walkup. She was scrawling left-handed notes in a ubiquitous copy of Wagner’s Green Book, the book that held the living word of the Party. But the notes she crammed into the margins of revolution were not words but tightly packed equations—numbers I recognized dancing with strange ideograms I didn’t.

Was this even sleep? Or did I lurch through some soporific induced hallucination? It was a dream and it was a memory. Or it was the liminal area between. The weeping walls of the garret seemed to fall away vertiginously, though the other students who crammed the party and chattered in some lost Vandalic dialect that I couldn’t quite decode didn’t seem to notice. This was still the early days of the revolution, some part of me realized, long before the chaos in Aelia Capitolina, those first years after the Emperor had been shot in the crypts beneath the Palatium Magnum and the last dragons had been sieved with hot bullets by squads of Revolutionary Guard. This was the first night I’d met her. Or some version of it.

And then I was looking her in the eyes, mismatched eyes, one a murky sort of green, the other dark and completely dilated (she was nearly blind on that side, I would learn later). She appeared in my dream as I remembered first seeing her: small and fairly bony, her body disappearing into the over-large tunic suit that hung about her shoulders. I realized with a start that I looked as I do now, and laughed.

Hot wind on my back. I turned. The wall behind me had fallen away completely, and thrusting a feathered, prehistoric head from the fog that grew beyond was a dragon. It opened its mouth, revealing triple-rows of jagged teeth. A smell like kerosene and spider-webs and old book glue. Its plumage glimmered red and gold and green. All the party guests continued their discussions, ignoring the massive, autocar sized head that heaved into the cramped garret. They had all, I noticed suddenly, been burnt black, charred meatsticks oozing blood and pus from their seared flesh. Their eyelids had been scorched away, so they looked at each other with expressions of constant surprise.

“The dragons are dead, Gaius,” Attia said. “We killed them all.”

The dragon pushed its head through the living room until it was so close I could feel heat radiating from emerald and sapphire down that covered its snout and glinted in the bronzed light. This was a Nile Dragon, and it looked nothing like the creatures of string and wire that jerked across the screen in those Committee sanctioned historicals that featured Otto Marx as the heroic Octavian, making his doomed stand against the black powers of Antonius and his mount Apophis. This felt real, as real as the dragons who had been shot to death in the air above the Bautai plateau, in pens beneath patrician mansions. Who died roaring at the chattering of machine guns, the buzzing of warplanes, the winking lights of tracer fire.

The jaw of the beast yawned wide and hot fire spewed forth, so bright that everything became white light and heat

Then Attia was gone and I spoke words I couldn’t fathom into a black room. I couldn’t even hear what I was saying. My mouth was dry and my words sounded like drunken mumblings in my own ears. I stopped speaking abruptly, aware suddenly of how much my entire body hurt. My arm throbbed. I turned my head, and realized that it wasn’t the room that was black, but rather the hood draped over my head.

It all flooded back. I cried out.

I sat in a hard wood chair, hands bound tight behind my back. I could hear an electrical hum and the occasional soft thud of heeled boots. Light spots danced in the hooded darkness. But beyond the dull pain lancing through my head, all I felt was numb surprise.

I thought back to Attia’s letter that for all I knew was still in my coat pocket. How could I have been so stupid, to think it was her? She had left me more than twenty years ago.

"Gaius Plebius," said a nasal voice.

Gaius was dead, killed during the riots in Aelia Capitolina. I was Artur now. The hood came off in a rush and I blinked into a bank of high-powered lights.

"My name is Artur.” My words sounded slurred. I might as well hold onto that, though I had no idea how much I’d said already, mumbling away in a drug-induced lunacy.

Faint movement on the far side of the room. A mechanical lever clanked down and two of the lights popped off, leaving behind only the ghostly orange of cooling filament wire.

Two figures resolved from the lessened glare, both staring at me from across a low table made of polished wood.

I blinked and looked around. I had expected to find myself in a concrete interrogation room with discoloured walls and a rusted iron door. Instead I seemed to be in some kind of living room—an apartment or hotel I couldn’t quite be sure. Light walls and grey carpets; beachwood accented furniture and coarse grey upholstery; thick white curtains filtering bronze streetlight.

What was I doing here? I turned to the two figures on the sofa across from me. A man who was seated and above him a tall woman with her arms clasped behind her back. The pair of them wore grey. A floodlight stood on a tripod behind them, its cable snaking to an outlet on the wall beneath a white radiator.

“Awake now, I see.” The man was looking intently in my eyes. For signs of awareness, I realized belatedly.

“Where am I?”

“You are in the Grand Whitebottom Hotel,” he said. “I’m sorry that the room is not so grand as it once was. Such are the times, Gaius.”

“That’s not my name.” This had to be some trick. Some kind of interrogation technique. The Commissariat’s Internal Security Directorate was shrouded in mystery and rumour, but everyone agreed they were subtle. And deadly. I wasn’t going to admit to anything. I was, after all, still tied to a chair.

The man sighed, looked up at the woman standing beside him. She showed no reaction. The man was pale and had dressed in the drab uniform of a Commissariat major (brass buttons, red piping, bright green New Commonwealth flag on the collar) and the woman—Han, apparently, which made her a strange sight standing beside this particular man—wore a party tunic-suit with a pointed collar that was cinched tightly to her throat. They were a contrast in shapes: him short and formed something like a tortoise, with a tiny shrivelled head and a body that ballooned out at the waist, her tall with broad shoulders and a broad face, long black hair tied into a tight tail. She had large calloused hands, and kept her eyes turned down towards them, never looking at me directly.

The man slid two fotos out of a hemp folder and placed them on the table before me. "Gaius Plebius,” the Major said for a third time. “A carded member of the Ravenna Student Continuance Council. Wanted for counter-revolutionary activities. A known instigator during the Aelia Capitolina riots."

I had a brief image of Attia, there, on a street filled with blood and screaming, smoking rifling clenched in too-tiny hands.

I found myself leaning forward. The foto was black and white, grainy, but still intelligible: a young man sitting alone in a kaffahouse. I felt my heart lurch. The figure in the image looked twenty years younger and much thinner than the reflection I saw every morning in the cracked mirror of my one-room flat. I recognized the kaffahouse too, the same one in Aelia Capitolina where I’d laid low for three days, hiding, waiting for Attia.

I’d lost her there amid the blood and smoke and screaming. I’d run through those mad streets to a backwater kaffahouse where we’d agreed to meet in case we became separated. I’d waited in that kaffahouse three days, looking up each time the door opened, hoping vainly to see her walk back into my life, hoping vainly that she hadn’t been arrested or killed. But of course she never had. In the end I’d fled, taken a new name, and gone into hiding. In my heart I’d thought of her as dead.

Shock still thrummed through my body, reverberated down every nerve. They had known I was there, in Aelia Capitolina, in that kaffahouse, waiting for her. Why hadn’t they arrested me? “Where did you get that?" I whispered.

He started pulling more fotos from his folder. With each new print I saw that same man, the same reflection, but ageing as the prints and the years went by—the last twenty years of my life spread out there on the table

I almost couldn’t breathe. I’d been hiding from the Commissariat for twenty years, certain that they would arrest me if they ever found me. That I would be sent to the northern labour camps and worked to death like so many friends I’d had. But they’d known. They’d always known. They’d followed me from afar for years. Why?

"Song, would you untie Gaius please?"

The woman—her name was Song, apparently—frowned at the major and then with a blurred movement whipped out a sling blade from some hidden sheath. She paced around and sliced the ropes that bound my hands. When she leaned close I caught the scent of stale tobacco. Why were they untying me?

"I’ll be honest," the Major said, "we aren’t much interested in what you did or did not do twenty years ago. This all would have been much easier if you hadn’t tried to kill poor Charlez with a saucer." The Major’s smile revealed a glittering nest of amalgam fillings that wove through his teeth. "We can assure you that if we were from the Political Directorate you wouldn’t have even have had the chance to defend yourself."

I struggled to follow what he was saying. The Commissariat Political Directorate protected the state from sedition and counter-revolutionary activities—the crimes I was guilty of. So if these two weren’t members of the Political Directorate…"Who are you?"

"We’re with the Primary Directorate.”

The second true shock since I’d woken. Primary Directorate. Foreign Intelligence. Spies. What would spies want with me?

"We brought you here," the Major said, as if in answer to my question, "because we need your help."

The room, my life, my understanding of the word, all of it wobbled. What was happening here? A widening gulf between expectation and result. “Why—I mean…For what?”

Song stared at her strong hands. Flexed them. She still hadn’t looked up at me. The Major kept on smiling.

"When was the last time you saw Attia Vitellia?"

I felt my gut twist. The telegram. They had sent it.

"We know you were both at the riots,” the Major said. “We know that you were lovers."

Lovers. Once. Old betrayals die hard. “The last time I saw her,” I said, “She was on the front page of The Truth.”

That had been the final knife. Years after the riots, years after thinking her dead, I’d woken one morning to see her smiling face with its mismatched eyes splashed across the front page of the party newspaper. There she was, the woman I’d loved, who I’d thought hated the party as much as she loved me, shaking hands with some minor functionary. A desperate scan of the article revealed that she had become a magistra at one of the state universities and was being awarded a medal for some breakthrough she’d managed in physics. The fact that she was still alive was enough of a shock. But there she was: working for the Central Committee. She hadn’t died or been captured. She’d betrayed me, our friends, everything we believed in, for the sake of her fucking work. If any vestige of Gaius had remained, that had killed him.

The Major leaned back and smiled a little bit. "When did you last speak to her?”

“The riot,” I knew that was an admission. At this point I didn’t care. I’d followed her from a distance, as she published her papers and became one of the most famous physicists of her age. But I couldn’t bring myself to do more than that. I couldn’t bring myself to confront her.

Too afraid…

“What does any of this have to do with her?” My anger thrummed through me, vibrating along every nerve.

The Major flitted his gaze up to Song and she responded by finally meeting my eyes. "There’s no reason for you to know this,” she said, “but five years ago theoretical metallurgist Attia Vitellia defected to the Mandate government."

A thought and a pang, one that I recognized as both familiar and irrational. And yet there it was: how could she have left without me? We’d often spoken of leaving the New Commonwealth altogether, to forge a new life in Nova Roma, or even maybe the Mandate. I gritted my teeth. But that was twenty years ago. She left because she doesn’t give a shit about you.

The major adjusted the round spectacles on his nose. “At least that’s what everyone but Song, myself, and now you believes.” The Major straightened in the sofa. “Vitellia has, for each of those last five years, been working with us. Spying for us. She’s been deep cover on the inside of a top-secret Mandate military project in the Taqlar Makan desert."

Slowly I came back out of the past, out of the bitterness that waited there. I came back into the cold white hotel room. For the first time I noticed that the Major seemed worried. “What?” I said.

The Major sighed. “She’s a double agent. Attia is our best scientist, and the Mandate were all too willing to believe that she wanted to defect. She’s been feeding us military secrets for years.”

Song pursed her lips unhappily. "About a month ago Vitellia came to me.” I turned my gaze to her. She spoke perfect Gothic, which shouldn’t have surprised me but did.

"Song,” the Major interjected, “is Attia’s courier and control officer. Her local contact inside the Mandate.”

Song continued: “Attia said that she was ready to come in from the cold. Back home to the Commonwealth. She said that she was going to bring…” The tall Han woman paused there for a moment, as if searching for a word. “Bring a high value asset with her."

The Major nodded and drummed his fingers on the table. “The extraction was supposed to have happened two weeks ago."

I was still trying to process everything they were saying. Why were they telling me all this? Why would they reveal state secrets to some one-time counter revolutionary who had been hiding like a coward for the last twenty years? Was it part of some elaborate ruse? It didn’t make sense…

Unless they need me. Instantly I knew it to be true. Why else would they bring me here, why else tell me this? I needed to be careful. I needed to play this just right. I licked my cracked lips and leaned forward. "What happened to her?"

Song shook her head. "She didn’t show. She disappeared from her apartment, her labs. Vanished without a trace. Our initial assumption was that she’d been burned. Caught by counter-intelligence agents."

“She makes a habit of missing appointments,” I said without thinking.

Song looked at me a moment, cocking her head as if considering.

"But then," the Major continued, "last week we received a coded message from her at a secondary dead drop. Vitellia wants to meet again."

Curiosity warred with anger. “So what? What does this have to do with me? What do you want?”

"The message indicated that she would only meet with one man. One Gaius Plebius, known currently by the alias Artur Liefson."

Song pointed to my pocket. “She gave us that letter.”

Something shifted inside me. A small gap opened and all my fear drained away. All that remained was anger. She left me sitting alone in that fucking kaffahouse for three days. For twenty years. Until now, when she wants something. Another betrayal, in a long line of them “What?” I nearly growled. “What does she want?”

“We don’t know.” The Major folded his face until it manifested as something miserably unhappy. “We need you to find out.” He entwined his fingers and leaned forward. “You and Song will travel to Korla in the Eastern Mandate, and there make contact with Vitellia. We need you to talk to her. Find out what happened.”

“You are going to help me extract Attia and the asset.”

I wanted so badly to laugh. It was just too ridiculous. Travel with spies into the heart of the Mandate? “And why,” I said instead, “should I help you?”

The Major flashed his row of capped teeth. “Curiosity?”

All mirth was gone now. I glared at him.

His own false smile fell. He pulled a gun from his pocket and placed it on the polished wood table. “You’re going into the Eastern Mandate, or you’re being pulled out of here by your feet. Your choice.”

I stared down at that cold barrel. I wasn’t afraid, I realised. A Commissariat bullet was how I’d always thought I’d die, though I’d always pictured it happening with me blindfolded and lined up again a brick wall rather than sat in a well-appointed hotel room.

I couldn’t help but feel that I had nothing to lose. I ignored the gun and locked gazes with him. “You wouldn’t have brought me here unless you thought you needed me,” I told him. “Sounds like if you kill me then you’ll never be able to get her out.”

The Major narrowed his eyes. “Maybe so. But getting her out is merely our preferred option.”

Song stepped forward. “We need your help,” she said. “We can give you your life back.”

“I don’t want my life back,” I said, thinking of the mouldering apartment that was my home, the rusted gas element and sink full of pots that was my kitchen, the ceiling with flecked spots of black mould, the bookshelf with a handful of dusty volumes, the bowed mattress with stained sheets. The walls without picture frames, paintings or art.

“Your old life then,” she said.

Smoke and blood and screaming students in Aelia Capitolina. I wasn’t sure I wanted that back either. I flicked my gaze from Song’s pleading eyes to the Major’s expressionless ones, to the cold barrel of the gun. "You said that she was bringing out a high value asset. What is it?"

I could see him hesitating, weighing.

“Tell him,” Song said.

Finally, he shrugged. "Dragon’s eggs," he said.

This time I really did laugh. The major blinked in surprise, which just me laugh harder. The last dragons had died out nearly forty years ago, along with the Empire and their patrician masters. And now the New Commonwealth, a state founded to destroy them, worked to bring them back. And somehow Attia was in the middle of all of it.

Res mutatae mutatae non sunt…The words—her words, our words—came back to me then. All humour drained away. Was this why she’d written them. Had she been trying to tell me something?

I looked to Song, and the Major, still waiting, breath baited, for my decision.

I realized then that I’d already made it.

* * *

__EXCERPT FROM “ON WINGS OF VICTORY”

(TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANDARIN)__

The first mechanical flight—conducted in what is now the Commonwealth, on the Dis Pater Collis by the brothers Antropov—was actually witnessed by members of no less than five Patrician families, a cartel of dragonriders who had funded the endeavour on a whim. Upon seeing the brothers’ rickety wooden contraption skim a bare two-hundred feet down the side of the hill, the riders are said to have only laughed. The thought that one of these flying machines might ever pose a threat to the great draci of their houses was beyond anything they could imagine. They couldn’t see a future for that ridiculous contrivance of wood, string, and wire. In the Mandate, however, officials would take the Brothers, and their invention, a little more seriously.

* * *

3

I sat with Song in the back of a military plane, a noisome Ruz-54 that glinted silver in the sunlight and juddered from the power of its twin props. We were to go south and east to Eikstown, and then on to Marakanda on the Mandate border. We would cross the border by train, as air travel between the two nations had been once again severed.

It was the first time I had ever flown, and I realized quickly that I hated it. The rumbling engines roared so loud I could barely think, and the brief moments of free-fall that accompanied every patch of turbulence were terrifying. At my feet was a disintegrating leather bag stuffed with spare clothes. In my hands I clutched a copy of the Party Green Book. I’d grabbed both from my apartment before we’d left, inspired by the words that had been written on that letter.

I flipped the book open. On the inside cover: res mutatae mutatae non sunt, scrawled in her handwriting. I flipped it open to a random page where the margins were filled with more of her cramped writing.

It was the same book she’d been writing in the night I’d met her, at a party for disaffected students Sina and I had hosted in our walkup. Even in those days she’d had been something of a prodigy, assisting the university’s most senior magisters with experiments at the cutting edge of chymistry and physics. She hadn’t been political when we’d met, it was only after the struggle sessions and university closures of the Cultural Adjustment had threatened her work that she’d fallen in with radicals like Sina and I. It had taken some time to get started, but our affair had burned hot and bright.

She’d given me the book the night we’d snuck into the great hall of the university library after it had been locked and shuttered to make love beneath the suspended ebony bones of a dead dragon. We’d been lying, sweaty and tangled in a scratchy woollen blanked that we’d thrown hastily over the marble floor, when she had pressed the book against my chest. I remember feeling the weight of it, the heat of her beside me as she lay curled against my body, watching the dragon above us sway slightly on its hanging wires. “When I’m a famous magistra and find my new element,” she said, “I’m going to name it after you.”

It was the night I’d known that she loved me. Now the memory of that set my teeth on edge.

“What a good little Party member you are,” Song said, raising her voice to carry over the droning engines. She was sat across from me in the long, bare metal fuselage of the transport plane.

I blinked and looked down at the book still in my hands. I shoved it into the leather bag. “A different kind of memento.”

She stood and stepped surely across the deck towards me, a thick folio clutched in her strong hands. She had changed outfits, eschewing her grey Party tunic-suit for a dark pleated jacket and thigh-length skirt, fashions, I gathered, that were popular now with women in the Mandate. She had unbound her hair and it fell loose about her shoulders. She sat down. “I don’t like having to yell.”

We hadn’t spoken much since leaving the interrogation room. She and several broad, featureless men with meaty hands had escorted me from my apartment to the aerodrome, but the men had stayed behind when we boarded the plane, which was now empty except for the unseen flight crew.

Song nodded at the book I had stuffed away. “A present from your lover?”

There had been a time when I’d looked at that book and thought only of how much she had once loved me. “A reminder that not everything stays the same.”

I could feel Song’s gaze boring into me. “She might not be how you remember her,” the agent said. “It’s been a long time.” She brushed invisible lint from her skirt. “You really haven’t seen her since the riots?”

I shot a glare over at the agent. “No,” I said. “And what does it matter anyway?”

Song was shaking her head. “I got to know Attia over the last few years. We worked together a lot. She—I think of her as a friend.” She dropped her gaze. “I don’t understand why she didn’t show up to the meeting. It’s not like her.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” I muttered, thinking again of the empty kaffahouse.

“I don’t understand why she wouldn’t meet me. I don’t understand why she sent for you.”

“That makes two of us.”

Song sighed. “It’s possible that she has been burned,” she said. “It’s possible that Mandate intelligence is pulling the strings here.”

I shrugged. “So I stay here and get killed by the Commissariat or go there and get killed by the Mandate. Does it matter? I’m dead either way.” I smiled a bit. “It’s only you that has to worry.”

She looked at me. “And what about Attia? What about your former lover? Are you worried about her?”

“No,” I said, but even as I did I knew it was a lie. If she’s dead then I’ll never know why she left me, I told myself, but knew that wasn’t quite the truth either. I cared for the same reason I’d brought that copy of the little book. “She’s always managed to take care of herself,” I said.

“She saved your life,” Song said. “That has to be worth something.”

I didn’t say anything. What could I say to that? It was true, even if I tried not to think of it. I saw here there again, in the smoke and the haze of Aelia Capitolina, rifle clutched firmly in hand. Saving my life, only hours before she would leave me forever. Why, Attia?

Song reached down and pulled a hemp envelope out of the folio that rested now at her feet. She passed it over. “Take a look,” she said.

I unwound the red string that sealed it and looked inside.

It contained: a handful of creased Mandate bank notes pressed into a soft leather billfold, a cheap nickel-plated watch, a passport with a foto and another name, and several typescript pages detailing my new identity.

Yet another new identity. What fork had my life taken to lead me to this?

“You’ll need to memorize that if we have any hope of getting through the border,” Song said.

I nodded. The border between People’s Mandate and the New Commonwealth stretched across the centre of the continent, through deserts and steppes and heaving mountain ranges. Countless wars had been fought over that massive frontier, but the unforgiving terrain and sprawling distances reduced battlefields to charnelhouses where hundreds of thousands of men were minced for the gain of a few spare miles. Every decade or so since the revolution another war would spark, and millions would be bundled onto trains for the front line, to be cut down my machine gun fire, or pressed into the earth by an artillery shell. Economies would teeter, food would become sparse, and then an armistice would be signed, giving each state enough time to recover before the cycle would repeat.

It had been nearly a decade since the last war had ended, but by all signs another would start soon. Maybe within weeks.

"You’ll probably pass."

I looked up from the folio open on my lap. Song was eyeing me.

"For what?"

"You look like a mongrel,” she said seriously. “You can pass for a local in any number of cities. How much Türkik do you remember?"

Mongrel. I’d been called worse, but never with such clinical detachment. My father had come to Aelia Capitolina from the northern Persia—at that time a protectorate of Empire—though he and my mother had given me her family’s name. They’d thought it would help me fit in, though it certainly hadn’t helped. I’d first learned Türkik from the grandmother who’d raised me, and when I wasn’t writing slogans and hosting counter-revolutionary meetings at University I had actually been studying linguistics. And of course the Commissariat knew that. "A little.”

Song nodded. "Try to stick to what you know. It will be slightly less obvious than gothic." She twisted her mouth a little. "Or latin."

We refuelled at the old capital in Eikstown (once Byzantium) where the Plaza of Heroes could be seen easily from the air, a long concrete slab that had been built over the ruins of the Hippodrome and now seemed to blend with the lead sky and grey seas.

"We’re operational now," Song said as we lifted off once again. "From now until we’re back, you are Unal." It was the name on the passport that I now held in my hand. He was a man who had been born in Kyiv, lived in Persia—now independent, though a client state of the Mandate—and sold petroleum drill bits. "The Mandate have spies everywhere, so don’t feel safe because we’re still in the Commonwealth. The hardest part will be getting through the border without raising any eyes."

"What do I call you," I asked. "What’s your alias?"

She cocked her head quizzically and then laughed. "Song," she said.

We flew east again, closer and closer to the Mandate border. Out the window, the mountains crawled by. I pictured a dragon soaring somewhere below, it’s feathered wings stretched out in full flight, the small figure of a man strapped to its arched back with ropes and leather harnesses. Ptolomey had flown this way, I remembered suddenly, while mapping the East for his Geographica. I thought of Attia, who must have also travelled this way before defecting. What had she been thinking?

"Why is this Egg so important?"

Song’s eyes were closed and her thin long fingers were clasped lightly in her lap. "Because the dragons are all dead. You know that." She didn’t open her eyes.

"A dragon isn’t gone win any battles. Not anymore."

She opened her eyes. "The shooting with the Mandate has stopped for now, but the war still continues underground. A living dragon would be a rallying-point. An important victory in the psychological struggle."

"I thought the Central Committee said that dragons were a tool of oppression?"

"Anything can be politically rehabilitated, Unal. Even you."

I ignored that. “And so what about Attia,” I pressed. “What does a metallurgist have to do with dragon’s eggs?”

Song shrugged. “I’m no magistra.”

I stared out the small porthole in the transport, at the desolation crawling by beneath. “Attia hated dragons. Her grandmother had served in a Patrician household, had watched her sons and husbands fed alive to the family draco because they’d offended their master. She was as opposed to their existence as anyone I’ve known in my life.” I shook my head. “As much as anything has changed, I can’t imagine her working to bring them back. I can’t understand why she would help you do that. It doesn’t make any sense.”

When I looked back to Song she seemed pensive. Then with a bare shrug she closed her eyes again and leaned back. “You’d be surprised, Unal. Not everyone who works for the Central Committee is as sinister as you’d believe. Some people end up in places they’d never expect, for reasons they never dreamed of. Anyways, like I said. There’s no more true power in dragons. They’re symbols. Nothing more.”

Who was this woman, this Han, a native of the People’s Mandate who now worked for her nations enemy? Lies and mysteries, layers and layers that I couldn’t even begin to penetrate.

* * *

__EXCERPT FROM ON “DRACI AND REVOLUTION”

(CENSOR’S COPY, REDACTED)__

The causes of the First Mandate War (as we call it here in the west) were varied and complex. Treaties, alliances, wars between client states: all these things contributed. But the most widely believed cause is this: some strange ailment was afflicting the Himalayan Draci within the Mandate of Heaven, and for decades they had been dying. The Mandate was, the Patricians of the Empire thought, defenceless. A fruit ripe for plucking. And yet why did strike when they did? The truth was, they were afraid. Afraid of the growing strength and wealth of the Mandate, the political reforms that had ended the monarchy there and transferred power to the proletariat (though in truth it was the burgeoning merchant class who held the true power, then as now). And so it was fear that led the children of the Great Patrician Families to gather their ancient draci and strike in a writhing, flame-wreathed fist at the Mandate capital.

4

The Mandate border crossing was crammed into a narrow point between weathered granite cliffs, and everywhere I could see barbed wire and concrete. Bundled soldiers squinted down from metal watchtowers, their faces wrapped tight against the cold.

We had landed in Marakanda and then taken a train up into the mountains, travelling through the night in a freezing sleeper car with windows that rattled like loose change. Song had made me go over border procedure again and again, memorising each typescript that had been inside the hemp folder. After hours wending up into Tiān Shān Mountains we had finally pulled to a stop at a depot several hundred feet from the border. The Mandate used a different gauge of rail, and so we would transfer to another train once through the border.

If we got through the border.

It was nearly evening when we poured off the train, and grey clouds had drawn in around us like a heavy wool blanket, threatening snow. The wind was cold and ferocious, pushing through the pass like air through the lips of a dying man. It even smelled cold up here. Commonwealth guards peered closely into our faces and escorted us from the train to a concrete building where they would process our exit papers.

I shivered, from nerves or cold I wasn’t sure.

We were ushered through the document check and then out of the cold concrete building where found ourselves outside once more, on a flat band of freshly ploughed cement that stretched for three hundred feet between the New Commonwealth and the Mandate, an empty kill-zone over-watched by searchlights, guard-towers, and machine gun nests. On the far side sat another barbed wire fence and a brick building to counterpart the one we’d just exited. Above the brick building the red-and-blue flag of the People’s Mandate snapped in the wind. We walked out and into the killzone.

It was the longest three hundred foot walk of my life. With every step I expected to hear alarms or sirens, the chatter of machine guns, or the bright flare of a searchlight. But the only sound was the wind and the clapping of our boots against cement ground. The low brick building across from us gradually grew larger.

"Are you ready?" Song asked.

"No."

"Remember, they’re going to separate us to be processed, so stick to the prepared notes in case they cross-reference our stories." She smiled at me then, and I was so shocked that for a moment I forgot all about Attia and defection. "Don’t worry," she said. "Everything will go fine."

I could only nod.

The inside of the Mandate Custom House was heated and lined in eggshell-painted plaster. Soldiers separated us into lines that wove through cordoned pathways towards a row of polished wood kiosks.

Even through the freezing cold I could feel sweat in my arm pits and on my palms

A Mandate Border Officer waved me forward. He did not look up when I approached. Instead, he held out his hand expectantly. I froze. What was I supposed to do?

The man raised his and frowned at me. "Papers?" he said in a slightly pitched and strange sounding gothic dialect.

I hastily handed over the passport clutched in my sweaty hand. Gods! I could almost feel the fear seeping from my pores.

"I see those Commissariat officers really scared you," the guard said with a smile.

I opened my mouth to respond, and then snapped it close with a click.

I could defect.

I could tell him that I was being forced against my will to engage in espionage and that the woman now in line with the pleated dark coat was a New Commonwealth spy. I could start another new life for myself, somewhere near the coast. Sháng hăi or Guăngzhōu, maybe. I’d heard they were nice cities.

I shot a glance over at Song, who was talking to another guard not twenty paces away. A word and I could be free. A word and she was most likely dead.

The guard seemed amused as he flipped through the pages of my passport. "Don’t worry, I won’t make you say anything you’re not supposed to. What is your destination in the People’s Mandate?"

"Korla," I croaked.

The guard nodded. "Purpose?"

Espionage. "Petroleum drill bits." If I was going to say something I should say it now. This was the moment where I got to choose. Until now I’d been pulled along by a rope, tugged by the whims of Song and the Commissariat and Attia. If I wanted to take my own route, this was my chance.

But what would happen to Attia? By necessity defecting meant revealing who and where she was. One way or another, it meant her death.

"Born in Kyiv, were you? I visited there once after the war. Those bridges over the Danapris!" the guard shook his head as though they were the most wondrous thing he’d ever seen. "What is the name of that tower bridge again? With the big red cables?" The guard looked up at me, mouth smiling but eyes dead behind big round glasses.

A test. The names of the bridges hadn’t been in the typescript.

The guard’s smile was frozen. His eyes bored into me. Gods! I should tell him everything now!

And then I felt Attia’s fingers walking up my back and I wasn’t Artur, or Unal, but Gaius again, lying in bed with her, sweaty and happy after having made love. "When I was young we lived in Kyiv," she whispered in my memory, "my Grandmother used to take me down to the river and tell me stories of Kyi and his sister Lybid, who founded a city to keep their people safe from dragons.”

I had turned over and smiled. "Was that true love, then?"

She shook her head. “True love is something else. Brighter even that dragonfire.”

"The Lybid," I whispered now to the guard. Damn you, Attia. I thought.

"What?"

"The Lybid. They call that bridge the Lybid." I said again, louder. Even now I couldn’t betray her.

I wondered if she’d known that.

* * *

__EXCERPT FROM “ON WINGS OF VICTORY”

(TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANDARIN)__

The Battle of the Bautai plateau is considered to have been the death knell of the Roman Empire. It had been so many centuries since the Imperial Air Command had used the dragons in battle that they made no attempt to adapt their strategy to fit the changing reality of war. The Mandate, on the other hand, had been desperately devising a way to meet the dragons that they knew were coming. Their draci had been dying slowly for decades, and unlike the Patricians, they had few qualms about developing new technologies. And so four hundred Mandate warplanes intercepted the Imperial flight on its way to strike Cháng’ān, and with carbines roaring brought down an entire generation of riders in a fusillade of tracer fire. Two hundred and thirty dead draci. In all the years since Actium, the Empire had never been defeated in battle. It is perhaps unsurprising that the Revolution followed so soon after.

5

The Korla safehouse was squared into the second floor of a three-storey tenement that sat on the outskirts of town. Out the window I could see a brightly lit fillingstation with a name written on it in characters that I couldn’t read. It must have been the tenth such station I’d seen already. As far as I could tell, everybody in the Mandate had their own damn autocar.

Everything in the safehouse felt like it had been produced in a factory somewhere. The paintings were all prints that felt vaguely familiar, and the plastic-and-stainless-steel kitchen furniture looked utterly alien. The walls were papered in deep mustard yellow (printed with geometric designs that didn’t line up along the rolled sheet’s prominent seams) and plastic, lotus flower curtains covered the windows. Everything smelled like the chemical mothballs that were stuffed into the cabinets and between sofa cushions. A transistor radio sat on a sideboard in the living room, along with a pack of cigarettes. They tasted weaker than Great Northern Canal, and had little foam filters built into the butts. I sat at the plastic table in the kitchen and smoked them, trying to wrap my head around the strange world I now found myself in. After turning over the entire flat to make sure it hadn’t been bugged, Song had gone out into the city, to speak with her local contacts and leave a message at the hidden dead-drop for Attia.

The Mandate felt like an entirely different world. I’d noticed the difference as soon as we boarded the new train on the other side of the border. The seats were woven fabric and leather, and the private compartment even had a tiny little desk lamp bolted into the tinier side table. The glass on the window did not rattle.

"I think I was flagged at the border,” Song had said as soon as we were settled into our sleeper car.

“So what happens now?” I had asked.

“We stay alert.”

We had descended from the mountains at night and passed into the desert. I had quickly fallen asleep.

That first night my dreams were fractured and nonlinear. Perhaps a residual effect of the drugs they had given me. I would be at work, shovelling coal, and then falling through foggy skies, sinuous dragons winging around me as I fell, breathing fire in bright flashes that lit up the white fog like signal flares. They would emerge briefly from the thick atmosphere and snap at my ankles with rows of jagged teeth. I would kick at them and then try to fly away but my legs transformed into fused blocks of granite. Legs that dragged me down to the surface, into murky dark, that weighed me down, down, down.

I had woken sweaty and restless to find we had stopped. Outside it was still night, the sky stretching endlessly over cold empty desert. Canopied trucks were parked alongside the train, and shadowed figures moved between them. Army men in olive coats and polished jackboots were on the train, checking passports and shining heavy electric torches in the faces of passengers. I felt my throat closing.

Song must have seen my face. “Don’t panic,” she had said. “This is routine.”

So I showed my passport to a bowed reed of a boy with thin dark whiskers sprouting from his lip and chin who barely glanced at it before moving on down the carriage. Then were moving again.

Night, day, and night again. More checkpoints. I slept and dreamed of Attia and of dragons.

I woke one morning to find we had arrived in Korla. One more check of documents and then out into the winter desert city.

It was an ancient city, a desert town in the Eastern Mandate that had at various times been part of other kingdoms and a key stop along the spice trading routes. It had been swallowed by the Han Empire centuries ago, and had stayed part of that state when the Mandate had moved from Heaven and to the People. The massive damming and hydrology projects of the previous decades had allowed Korla to boom into some kind of desert metropolis, with people fleeing the overcrowded cities of the East to settle on cheap land opened by networks of culverts and aquifers. Beyond the city limits sprouted new residential areas that had row-upon-row of symmetrical wooden dwellings with south-facing doors and hipped roofs tiled in baked clay.

The military loomed everywhere. Soldiers stood at every cross-street and it seemed that every other vehicle was a diesel-belching truck laden with strange equipment being ferried out into the freezing desert. If anything the troops here felt more edgy than those in Marakanda: so tense as to be almost fragile.

The research station where Attia had worked was out in the desert and restricted to military personnel. I didn’t want to think of how many more troops might be out there.

I lit another smoke. I was struggling to comprehend this place. Such an arid landscape, transformed now into something that teemed with life. Everything felt so deeply exotic to me.

I heard footsteps outside the door. Song, probably, returning from her reconnaissance. The door squealed open, and slammed shut with a thud. Song entered the laminated kitchen. "I think we’re clear," she said.

“Any word from Attia?” I asked.

The spy shook her head. “No. There was no message from her at the dead drop. I’m not surprised. I think she must be laying low. The whole city is on edge. They know the military is looking for somebody. But they don’t know who. Or why. I’m going to leave a message for her tomorrow.” Song shrugged. “We have to hope that she responds.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s it? We wait for her to get in touch? That’s the Commissariat’s master plan?”

“Attia is hiding somewhere in this city, with half the Mandate army looking for her.” Song walked over to a kitchen cabinet and took a tin off the shelf. “Roadblocks, dogs, door-to-door searches, the whole thing.” She wrested the tin open and measured a few heaping spoons of dried chá into a glass pot. “They want her back, no doubt, but more especially they want the dragon’s egg she took with her.”

I frowned. “If they want her back so badly why haven’t plastered her face on every lamppost from here to the border?”

She set a kettle onto the stove and lit the gas burner. Blue fire flickered beneath the chromed steel. “When she defected it was on the front page of every newspaper here. The most prominent Commonwealth scientist, defecting—one more proof of the superiority of the Mandate way of life. If they admit that she’s a fugitive then they have to admit that they let a double agent into the most secret of their military research projects.”

I thought of Attia hiding in some tenement or basement here in this dusty, cold, desert city. Now it was her turn to sulk in the shadows, afraid that at any moment a heavy-booted kick would splinter a door and end her life. I wondered if she had any friends here, anyone she could trust.

Did she have a lover? Still, now, after so much time that thought made my heart ache.

“Do you want a drink?” The kettle barely had time to whistle before she whisked it off the element.

“Not any of that. You have kaffa?”

Song indicated a cupboard. “There’s some up there. I never drink it so you’ll have to brew it yourself.” She smiled apologetically. “I don’t know how. I always make my guests brew their own.”

“You get many guests here?” I asked as I walked over and opened the cabinet beside her. She indicated a tin painted with peonies and I slid it off the shelf.

“Song has many friends.” She brushed her shoulder against mine as she poured steaming water into the large glass chá pot. “She works selling petroleum. She hosts dinner parties once a month. Her friends think it queer that she never married.”

I put the kaffa tin on the counter, didn’t open it. “Why do you work for them?”

“What?”

“The Commissariat. Why do you work for them?”

Song smiled, regarded the chá leaves that unfurled inside the clear glass pot. “How could I betray my country, you mean?”

“No. That doesn’t offend me. I would betray the Commissariat in an instant.”

She laughed. “I suppose you would.” She stirred the tea and then placed a lid on the glass pot. “So what does offend you?”

“Why would anyone work for them unless they had to?” I said, thinking of Attia.

“Would you think less of me if I told you it was for the money?”

“I don’t believe it. Maybe if you were some minor functionary passing secrets in the mail for the occasional wad of cash. No. You’re in too deep, you know too much. You’re too good at what you do. You actually believe in them.”

Song was quiet for a long time. For a moment I wasn’t sure if she was at a loss for words or simply didn’t know where to start. “I did, once,” she said. “I’m well past a belief in anything now.”

She turned to me and our eyes met in a rush I was aware of how close she was, the heat of her body…in one moment there had been nothing between us, and in the next I felt some spark of tension or energy. I realized suddenly how long it had been. Her hand rested on the counter by the brewing chá. I placed mine on top of it. Without making a conscious decision, without considering, I leaned in.

My lips met a single finger she had raised between us. My eyes, which I didn’t remember closing, shot open. She took a half step back, opening a space between us that felt like a gulf, that snapped whatever energy I might have imagined between us. That finger could have been a wall, a thousand feet high. I felt my face going red. You’ve known her for less than a day. “I’m sorry,” I muttered.

Song just shrugged, picked up the pot and poured chá into an earthenware mug. "Tomorrow we will hear from Vitellia,” she said casually, as if nothing had just happened. “Hopefully we will get a better idea of what she wants. Why she wanted you brought out here."

I nodded lamely, shuffled back. “What—” I cleared my too loudly. I was only half-considering her words, still mostly thinking of how much of a fool I was. “—how do we get her out?”

"We’ve made plans. Here," Song reached into the same tin she’d pulled the dried chá leaves from. This time she removed a snub-nosed revolver. She placed it on the counter between us. "In case things get out of hand."

And like that, the moment between Song and I was forgotten. I reached forward cautiously and picked up the gun. It felt cool and heavy, nickel plated with a handle inlaid in polished black dragonbone. I hadn’t touched one in decades, had never been trained to use one properly. I swung the chamber open and saw eight brass slugs inside.

Song’s face became contemplative. "I have no idea what Vitellia was thinking when she insisted that we drag you out here to meet her. Why would she want you, a man she hasn’t seen in twenty years?" She sipped from the steaming mug. "I keep coming back to that. Why you?"

A question that I asked often enough myself. “She saved my life once,” I said, thinking again of Aelia Capitolina. Smoke and fire and blood. So much blood. “Maybe she thinks I owe her.”

Song reached out and touched my cheek, the rough brush of her calloused hand reminding me of that attempted kiss. My face went hot again. “Get some sleep tonight. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

Then she turned and left me standing in the kitchen, revolver still cradled in my beat-up hands.

* * *

NEWSREEL (ii)

YOUTH RISE TO THE CALL OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE

IN RAVENNA, AND EIKSTOWN. AELIA CAPITOLINA AND ROMA ITSELF, LOYAL YOUTH FED UP WITH THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY EXCESSES OF THE INTELLECTUAL-CLASS ARE RISING TO THE COMMITTEE’S CALL! THE UNIVERSITIES, THOSE FESTERING WENS OF PATRICIAN THOUGHT, ARE BEING OCCUPIED BY THE YOUNG GAURDS! THE INTELLECTUALS ARE DENOUNCED! IN TOWN SQUARES, IN VIEW OF ALL THEY SEEK TO OPRESS, THESE PATRICIANS CONFESS THEIR CRIMES! BUT THE PARTY IS BENEVOLENT! IT’S SEEKS NOT TO PUNISH, BUT TO RE-EDUCATE! TO THE FIELDS AND THE MINES THEY SEND THOSE WHO HAVE NOT LABOURED A DAY IN THEIR LIVES, TO LEARN INNER PEACE THORUGH HONEST HARD WORK. THE YOUNG GUARDS LOOK ON IN APPROVAL, KNOWING THAT TODAY, THE COMMONWEALTH IS STRONGER.

6

The next morning saw Song drive her autocar through the bustling centre of Korla to the Tiānlóng War Museum. Low mountains dusted with snow rose to the north of the city, and as we drove along the straight paved roads we passed ancient sandstone stupas and temples that sat beside low brick office buildings with brightly coloured awnings. The sidewalks were crammed with people: men in pressed suits with large open cuffs, women in long high-cut dresses with satin or silk shawls, an underclass dressed in grey coveralls covered in grease or coal, and hawkers with carts piled high with the fragrant dried pears that grew in orchards that surrounded the city. On the streets were hulking autocars with big round headlights and engines that growled like starving animals. When we finally pulled into the large gravel parking lot by the museum I leapt from the stuffy cab and into the cold desert air. Chrome-sided buses were parked in a neat row, and groups of tourists thronged everywhere, some chattering in Mandarin, others in Türkik dialects I couldn’t quite understand, most wielding hefty foldout maps and taking grinning family fotograms. They all seem so rich.

“We’ve been using war museum as a deaddrop for the last year,” Song had told me as we drove up. “There’s a potted plant in a Tiānlóng exhibit—when either of us need to communicate we mark the pottery with chalk and sink a deaddrop spike into the earth.”

I felt a knot in my chest. Just knowing that Attia came here regularly was almost too much to handle. What if she was here now? Twenty years separated us. Would I recognize the woman she’d become?

The museum had once been some kind of temple or palace: its façade was several stories tall and built of smooth stone the colour of desert sand. Pointed niches and intricate scrollwork ran along the second story, above large brass-bounded doors that stood open in an arched portal. Around the entrance leafless polar trees clustered along wending paths dotted with benches, their empty-fingered hands clutching at a grey winter sky. Song gestured, and then followed the surging mass of tourists as they flowed into the building. “The deaddrop is in the third exhibit hall,” she whispered, as we squeezed with the rest of the tourists through the tall open portal. “Anybody could be watching. Stay back from me.”

I suddenly wondered why she’d even brought me here. I felt the weight of the revolver in my pocket, pressing against my thigh. I shot surreptitious glances at the tourists who milled about, doing my best not to seem scared. I felt keenly an outsider here, no matter what Song said about looking like a mongrel. In Korla there seemed to be more Urghyrs than there were Hans, and many other races as besides: in theory an easy city in which to blend in. In theory.

We stepped into the large domed entrance and found ourselves beneath the outstretched wings of a dragon. Its skeletal frame was suspended from wires and lit by potlights that reflected as small pools of bronze against polished black bones. Hanging opposite the dragon was a decommissioned Mandate Warplane, nose-mounted prop still, under slung machineguns quiet. The creature above us was a Nile Dragon, the breed cultivated and brought to Roma, distinguished by its longer tail and lack of crest horns. Plane and dragon had been positioned by some drama-loving curators so that they were locked in frozen combat.

As we shuffled towards the wooden kiosk to buy museum tickets I was reminded that this wasn’t a culture that hated dragons, at least not the ones that had belonged to their own people. The Mountain Dragons—Heavenly Dragons, as they were still called here—were regarded with something verging on nostalgia.

We purchased tickets and entered into the first exhibit hall. “Wait here,” Song whispered. She disappeared into the crowd.

I stood alone in the middle of a long, dimly lit rectangular room dominated by a ceremonial stone arch, crenelated and covered with glazed brick. The arch was topped by an archery tower with a bowed roof that nearly brushed the ceiling of the exhibit hall. Along the black-painted walls there liteboxes with fotos of the original ruin standing in a mountain pass—‘Iron Gate’ was written in Türkik below the characters I couldn’t read; ‘Re-creation’ scrawled beside the tall arch. Tourists milled about, passed beneath the arch, peeked down from the archery tower above.

My head felt light and my hands jittery. Fear crept into me, seemed to pool in my gut. What if this was a trap? Song had said she thought she might have been flagged at the border.

I ran my gaze over the arch that rose in the middle of the tall-ceilinged room, trying to appear as if I was taking in the architecture. Instead I watched the people milling about it. Which of them might be spies, here to catch us.

Then, in the corner of my eye I saw her.

A woman, dark shawl wrapped about her head, dark glasses covering her eyes. I sucked in an audible gasp. She moved through the crowd, appearing and disappearing like a drowning swimmer being carried out to sea.

Attia. It was her. I knew it. Was so sure.

Just a glimpse in a crowd, a woman turning a corner into another exhibit hall, away from the gate. Away from me. I stood numbly. I wanted to call out to her. My heart thudded against my ribs.

Had it been her? I’d barely even glimpsed her face…

I was moving.

I pushed through the crowd and into the other hall. Dragons hung above me. I ran my gaze desperately through the crowd, searching for that dark shawl and dark sunglasses. Faces of grimacing tourists and laughing children swam through my vision. I shoved past them. Where had she gone? I had just seen her!

I was running. People cried curses as I elbowed past them. Through one exhibit and into another. Hanging planes. Machine guns and gas masks and shells as big as autos. Dragons, horned and not.

But no Attia. I was back in the domed entrance.

Am I hallucinating? The people milling around eyed me strangely. I didn’t care. I opened my mouth to call her name…

…and then Song was there, gripping my shoulder in a powerful hand, her broad forehead creased in anger. “What are you doing?” she hissed. I let her drag me across the tiled floor to the side of the room.

“I saw her,” I gasped. “Attia is here.”

That seemed to startle her for a moment. But then she shook her head and started hauling me towards the entrance of the museum. “It’s too late now,” she said. “I’ve been marked. There was a man watching the deaddrop. He’s following us.”

“What?” I craned my neck to look behind us.

“No,” she barked, and gripped my arm tighter. “Don’t look back.” She pulled me tighter as we passed the bronze doors and into the flat winter light. “I’ll deal with him, you hope he’s alone.” She pushed me away, towards the parking lot. “There’s a bus leaving in exactly one minute. Get on it. It will be safer if we split up. It will stop by the fillingstation. I’ll try to meet you at the safehouse tonight. Don’t trust anybody. If Attia is here I’ll find her.”

For a moment Song was another woman standing before me, saying much the same thing. Split up, it will be safer. I’ll meet you tonight.

But before I could say anything Song turned and hurried in the opposite direction along a path that wove through the leafless poplars. "Wait!" I called after her, questions only now bubbling into my stunned mind, but she did not stop or turn. She ducked, weaved, and then was lost in the crowd.

I turned to the parking lot. A bus was being loaded: a wobbling old man dressed head to toe in khakis was being helped up steep stairs his equally wobbling wife.

My gaze skittered through the crowd that milled in front of the museum, searching desperately for Song or Attia. Only blank and unknown faces looked back. They all seemed to be watching me. I’ve been marked. I felt a shiver. Suddenly every man in the crowd was a Mandate officer. Every pocketed hand was reaching for a gun.

In the parking lot the bus door rattled shut. The engine growled. Air brakes hissed.

And I was running. Out into the lot, away from the museum and the dragons. From Song and Attia, and whatever men hunted them. I ran into the path of the bus as it started to turn out of the lot, beat my open palms against the aluminium grill. The driver swore as he slammed the breaks. I ran to the side door and hammered on the glass-and-metal until it folded in. I managed a mangled apology in Türkik and pulled some creased banknotes from my pocket. I didn’t bother to count them as I shoved them at the driver. He and everybody on the bus stared at me as I made my way to an empty seat at the back.

My breaths came in short gaps. Had I been seen? If Song was marked then there was no way I hadn’t been. I ignored the disapproving looks of my fellow passengers and stared out the window, waiting for olive garbed soldiers to come running towards the bus, brandishing lights and guns. But nobody approached, and after a pregnant moment the driver yelled something at me I didn’t understand and then pulled out of the lot and onto the road. We turned a corner and the museum disappeared behind us.

On my chest I could feel the weight of my terror and in my pocket I could feel the weight of the gun, pulling me, down, down, down.

* * *

EXCERPT FROM, “ON DRACI AND REVOLUTION”

(CENSOR’S COPY, REDACTED)

The First Mandate War ended shortly after the Glorious Revolution, with the New Commonwealth Committee suing for peace after being unable to organize anything resembling a defence. Many of the former Empire’s Northern and Eastern territories were ceded to the Mandate, a sore wound that would fester in the heart of the Old Empire. Some hoped that a new government would mean an end to all war between the two powers. They were wrong. The Second Mandate War began some ten years after the end of the first, with the New Commonwealth government demanding the return of ceded territories. The conflict has raged since, fought mostly in the mountains and steppes of the central continent, with intermittent ceasefires that last sometimes years, sometimes only months.

In the current estimate some 98 million men have died over a border that has shifted imperceptibly in the last forty years.

7

I was a piece in some game being played and I didn’t understand the rules.

I took a drag of a cigarette and watched the darkened outline of the safehouse. I had been out here for hours, smoking cigarette after cigarette, waiting for any sign that the safehouse had been compromised. Waiting for Song. Waiting for some sign from Attia.

Had that truly been her?

I lit another cigarette.

Don’t trust anybody.

That wasn’t new to me. I’d known that since those bloody days in Aelia Capitolina, the massive student rally that was supposed to have been the beginning of our own revolution. The Commissariat had known all about the rally, of course. They had infiltrated our local organizing councils with spies and agents.

People like my roommate Sina.

And at the height of the riots, as the students gathered at the foot of the Great Hill and the army brigades had closed in around them, Sina and those like him had pulled out their guns. They didn’t even try to arrest anybody: they had just started shooting. We were unarmed. Many of my friends, the last true friends I could remember having, had died in those desperate moments.

In that bloody chaos Attia and I had become separated. We’d made desperate plans to meet in a rundown kaffahouse and gone our separate ways. It was safer to spit up, we’d thought. But of course she had never shown up.

And now I stood in another city in front of another safehouse, waiting for another woman to come meet me.

Res mutatae mutatae non sunt…

The cigarette butts built up about my feet.

It was well past midnight when I slunk through darkened hallways up to the second floor and entered the safehouse. The inside was black. I stumbled around the dark room, trying to remember where the light switch was, cracking my toe against a wood footstool and banging my shin against a low glass table.

I stumbled into the kitchen. Through moonlight filtering in the window I could see the outline of the peony-painted kaffa tin still sitting on the counter. Quiet. Empty.

I flicked on the kitchen light and picked up the tin. In that moment there was nothing else in world I needed more. I filled a pot with water spat from groaning pipes and cranked the gas burner. I prised the lid off the coffee tin and scooped down inside.

Something beneath the powdered grounds. I reached into the tin with my hand. My fingerers found something. A thick piece of card. I pulled it free.

Words and numbers, written in a blotted black script that I knew so well.

Don’t Trust Her. Come Alone. Res mUtatae

279.0557 φ, 274.552 λ

Attia. I knew that writing anywhere. She had been here. But when? A woman in a shawl, moving away through a crowd.

Heart hammering, I stepped backwards and slumped into the kitchen chair. Don’t trust her. Who, Song? The woman who had brought me here, who had probably just been arrested? Had the note been left for me? It must have been. But how would she know…the kaffa tin. Song never uses it.

Come Alone. But where? How to find her? My head swirled.

The numbers…an address? Map Coordinates?

I heaved out of the chair and back into the livingroom, to a tall red-mahogany bookcase with an oversized atlas. I dropped it onto the table and flipped it open to a massive map of the world. There was the zero degree line, running through Sháng hăi. I ran my finger along it. 274.552 λ. I frowned. There were only 180 degrees in each direction. 274.552 didn’t even exist as a position. More from habit, I ran my finger along the equator, and then counted lines to the north, were the pole was marked 90. Neither coordinate was even on the map.

It doesn’t make sense…

Why the riddles? Why all the games? I was furious. I ground my teeth so hard I thought they might explode into talcum.

Focus. Obviously it was a code. One I could decipher and Song couldn’t. Res mutatae…Those words we’d thought were so clever. That she’d inscribed in that copy of the Little Green Book.

Suddenly inspired, I reached into the worn leather bag that still sat by the door where I’d left it. I pulled out the copy of her book. 279.0557 φ. I flipped open to page 279. Her scrawl filled the margins: symbols and numbers raised to the power of crazy. Nothing stood out. Frustrated, I flipped to 274. The same. I thumbed through the book, looking for either of those old Greek letters.

“Cāco,” I swore. What the hell was Attia playing at? Why the hidden messages? Why all the secrecy? Why had she not left a message for Song at the deaddrop and have done with it? Why had she brought me all the way here…

I was staring at the last page of the book, with the airbrushed image of Wagner smiling benevolently. Attia had defaced his image with her pen, making him look like some kind of demon or evil spirit. She had hated the Party, the Central Committee. What had happened to her? Why had she changed so suddenly and so much? That was the real question.

On the blank page opposite the Chairman she had scrawled our slogan.

And a number. No equation this time, just a single long string of digits: 239.0521634, followed by a ‘u’.

I looked back at the thick card I’d pulled from the kaffa tin. Res mUtatae.

Things Change…

Pen, paper, some hastily scrawled equations. If I took each number on the note, subtracted it from the value in the book…I ran my finger along the map. West and then North. My finger ran along the map, drawn to the new coordinates like a lodestone. It stopped in the desert to the south and east of Korla. I felt triumph, and then a cold chill. There. Attia was there.

I’d need a more detailed map to find out where, exactly, but she was there.

People talk of butterflies in their stomach—I felt more like mine was being gnawed at by a nest of rats. I took a calming breath. Think clearly. Things weren’t always what the seemed. How had she known I’d take the book? How had—

Footsteps outside the door. I slammed the atlas closed and shoved the green book into my bag just as the door swung open.

Song stood in the doorway. I found that I was holding my breath. Don’t trust her. She looked me over, ran her gaze through the room, over the atlas on the table, the leather bag on the couch beside me. Her thin lips pursed into a line. After a moment she stepped inside, bolting the door behind her. “Going somewhere?” she asked.

I tried to keep my breathing calm, my voice steady. “I thought you might have been arrested.”

“I managed to slip him.” She took the plush chair beside me. “Were you followed?”

“I-I don’t think so. I waited outside to make sure.”

She nodded. Her eyes searched my face, and I couldn’t meet that gaze. I studied the closed atlas before me. “Did she get in touch with you, Artur?”

Should I tell her? Did I have any reason not to trust her? “No,” I said, though I knew that I’d hesitated longer than I should have.

Song reached over and put her hand on my leg. Firm pressure moving up my thigh. I was hard almost immediately. All those years alone, hiding, nobody to trust or to talk to…My eyes met hers. That arcing energy I’d felt the night before and thought imagined sparked in her eyes.

Don’t trust her…

I sucked in a ragged breath. No. This wasn’t right. I stood up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need the bathroom,” I managed. I grabbed my leather case from the seat beside me.

Song stood up, but I was already moving. Into the hallway and towards the bathroom. I did not stop or think. I slid through the doorway and slammed it shut behind me. I yanked the light-chain and rattled the lock across.

My breath came in ragged gasps. What was happening?

I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled the gun out. The gun Song had given me. If she meant to betray me why would she had given me a gun? I snapped open the chamber. Inside: eight brass slugs, arranged in a tight ring.

Song padded to the threshold. She tried the door, which rattled against the lock. "Artur," she said. "What’s going on? Let me in.”

I pulled one of the rounds out of the gun. Turned it over in my hand. My stomach was doing somersaults. The casing was empty. There was no bullet loaded inside.

Don’t trust her…

The door rattled again. "I didn’t mean to scare you."

I didn’t think much about what I did next. I shoved the gun in my pocket, threw open the bathroom window, and climbed outside and into the cold.

* * *

NEWSREEL (iii)

LOYAL DOG LEADS FLIGHT CREW HOME

THERE GOES THE AIR-SIREN, AND THE COMMONWEALTH’S FURRIEST AIR-MAN IS READY TO MEET THE THREAT! WHEEL-BLOCKS AWAY AND UP INTO THE SKY! BUT WHAT’S THIS? MANDATE SABOTAGE! FROM THE WRECKAGE DIETER PULLS HIS UNCONCSIOUS CREW TO SAFETY! AND NOW, STRANDED IN THE VAST AND EMPTY PLATEAU, THEY MUST SURVIVE. BUT DON’T WORRY BOYS, DIETER KNOWS THE WAY! HOME TO A WARM BED AND A FEW EXTRA BONES, RIGHT DIETER? AIR-MARSHALL YAKUPOV AWARDS DIETER THE DISTINGUISHED AIR-MEDAL! COURAGE, BRAVERY, LOYALTY! AND LOVE FOR THE PARTY!

8

I had spent too much time worrying, thinking about things that were lost and could never be replaced. I needed to act.

I needed: an auto; petrol; food and supplies; a map that would show me exactly where the coordinates I’d scrawled onto that wrinkled slip of paper would take me.

I started with the auto.

The night streets of Korla were cold and dimly lit. Streetlights like paper lanterns glowed softly: rows of firebugs perched on a wire. The only movement on the streets were the lines of military trucks that hissed by now and again in the gloom, and the occasional vagrant who would stumble drunkenly into my path.

I slunk through the night streets, sweating despite the cold, looking back over my shoulder, sure that Song or a Mandate Army Man would be behind me, gun levelled at my face. But each time I looked back there were only empty streets. I found a line of parked autos on a side street and settled on a heavy sedan. It was all rounded curves and chrome finish, and the long front-end stretched out like the barrel of a gun. I could see a pair of keys glittering in the passenger side foot well. I took the butt-end of the revolver and smashed it into the side-window. The shattering of glass made me jump and close my eyes. A dog barked wildly.

Lights flickered on in the gated row houses. I keyed the ignition and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. The engine roared to life. I swung the auto onto the road and drove off.

I looked furtively back in the rearview mirror as I peeled away. No Song. No sign of chase. I wanted to vomit.

Cold desert air pressed through the shattered window. A massive sign perched atop of a warehouse across the river and bled red light into the dark. I couldn’t read the ideograms, but recognized the ubiquitous double-happiness shuāngxĭ. Reciprocal joy, like that shared between lovers.

Attia…had she changed so much? Was she even the woman I remembered from all those years ago? She was a magister of the first order, one of the most respected metallurgists in the world. What did that have to do with dragon’s eggs?

Did I even really care anymore? Or was it about Attia. At one time our love had burned hot. Brighter than dragonfire. And now what? I was hurtling down night streets of a city I didn’t know, drawn into the orbit of a woman whose motives I didn’t understand, who had left me for dead and then drawn me back into her mad world.

I needed the map and supplies now.

Dawn was breaking and I drove through the chaotic morning traffic (blowing through intersections, driving at turns too fast and too slow, and all the time feeling my heart hammer at my ribcage as the wheel slipped though sweaty palms) until I found a fillingstation by a ramp that led onto an expressway. The store seemed to have a random collection of items: packaged foods, a gun-rack, maps and travelling equipment. The man running the station was Han, tall and thin but with jowly cheeks that drooped like empty bags. He had eyes always on the verge of laughter and spoke Türkik well enough for us to communicate.

I opened the billfold that had accompanied my passport and laid several wide bills on the counter. "I need a grid map, four petrol cans, and several jugs of water." I then pulled a last item from my pocket and placed it on the counter. "And I need more of these."

The merchant considered the bills laid out on the counter, and then my face.

I had no idea how much money I’d lain down. I had no idea of the value of the goods I’d requested. I was in no mood to bargain.

After a moment of silence, the merchant muttered something to himself in his native tongue and gave a quick, curt nod.

As he filled out the order, I spread a grid-map open on the hood of the autocar. I unfolded the yellow slip of paper and traced my finger along coordinate lines. It moved across desert, stopping finally off the shore of a large body of water marked in characters that I couldn’t read.

I waved the owner of the fillingstation over. "Where is this," I asked the man, indicating the spot on the map.

The merchant squinted and leaned in to inspect the place that I’d indicated. "Lop Lake," he said. Then he frowned. "Why are you wanting to go there?"

I said nothing.

The man watched my face for too long a moment, and then shrugged. "Not much to see. The lake’s all dried up now. The dams." He gestured broadly as if that explained everything. "It’s all desert. Not much but sand and salt."

"There’s not anything there?"

"Just ruins." He chewed a bit and then spat. "Lots of army out there. Trucks been driving things out into the desert day and night. Rumour says that this is about where they are going." He surveyed the stolen auto. "That part of the desert…Death Sea, they call it."

"Sounds friendly," I muttered, and when the merchant stared at me dumbly I realized that I’d spoken Gothic. Not a very good spy.

"You’re not planning on taking this?" The merchant rapped the hood of the large sedan.

"Why?"

"That autocar is for towns. The roads out in the desert are not for town autos."

"I’ll take my chances."

The merchant shook his head and then pointed to a two-seat truck hidden behind the petroleum pumps. "I’ll trade you for my truck."

The truck’s paint was chipping and it was covered in gray dust. "How much is it worth?" I asked.

"Same as the sedan.”

I shook my head. "I think this sedan is worth four of those trucks."

The man considered my stolen auto. "The window is broken," he said. And then he looked me in the eyes and any sense of mirth was gone.

I swallowed. That truck looked like it would fall apart at any moment. I glanced at my watch. Time was moving fast. "Get the keys," I said.

* * *

EXCERPT FROM, “THE DRAGONRIDERS”

REVISED EDITION, RAVENNA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Dragons imprint. It is how the first riders tamed them. Some part of their avian, prehistoric brains will attach to one rider and bond to him for life. This process seems to have no relation to filial instinct. A wild dragon will imprint not upon its parent as a child, but rather upon its mate as an adolescent. So in some real sense the dragons viewed their masters not as parents or guardians, but rather as lovers. The lengths to which they would go to defend the body of a fallen rider are legendary.

9

I drove all day and into the next night. The landscape stretched endlessly in all directions, hard clay and loose gravel, coloured like a cigarette stain. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being followed. The first part of the journey had been over paved, arrow-straight road. There had been two army checkpoints, but I’d been waved through without incident. As night fell I had turned off onto a smaller road of hardened earth and had bounded slowly over a rugged dirt track that faded beneath me with the light. I was actually glad for the truck. The engine made noises I didn’t like or recognize, but the thing seemed to do well on the ripped up road and I made better time than I would have in the autocar. The desert was featureless but for wind-carved yardangs. I felt almost like a dragon rider, setting off into the air above the wide ocean to discover the New World. Into uncharted territory.

What was Song doing now? Searching for me, most likely. I charged on. The need to sleep pressed down on me like a massive weight.

I had nearly nodded off at the wheel when the flare of headlights moving towards me snapped me back. I geared down and pulled to the side of the road. The lights were so bright that I had to squint, and they jerked like bad dancers as a vehicle bounced over the hardpan. As it neared the vehicle swung into the middle of the track and stopped.

I chewed my lip. Army? Magistrates? Some lost farmer?

I skidded the truck to a stop and plumes of dust spiralled up and away from the big wheels. I was very suddenly and very definitely awake. With the glare of headlights in my eyes I couldn’t see anything. My hand found the revolver on the seat in beside me. I rolled down my window.

“Need help, friend?” I called in Türkik. The engine of the auto before me shuddered and stopped. The lights remained on. I heard a door swing open. Heeled boots crunched against the desert. A figure crossed over the lights, a silhouette that marched towards me. Tall enough to be Song. What if she’d found me?

The silhouette called out something in Mandarin, his voice hard and sharp as a razor. That settled it. Army. I picked my passport off the seat and held it out the driverside window.

“I’m here on business.” I called out in Türkik.

“This is a restricted area.” This man spoke it naturally. He sounded hard. Not some half-trained boy like those who ran most checkpoints. “Turn off your headlights.”

I did. And then pulled back the hammer of the revolver. I could see from his silhouette that he didn’t have a weapon drawn. But who knew how many more men might be in that truck. I licked my lips. Pulling out the gun might be a death sentence. But then maybe I was already dead.

He started walking towards the truck. A mistake. It would make this easier. I held the revolver against my belly, low enough that he wouldn’t see it until it was too late. He reached down to his belt. I tensed, waiting for him to take out his firearm. But instead he unlooped an electric torch from his belt and clicked it on.

“What are you doing out here this late?”

“I’m on my way to the base,” I said, squinting against the lights that beamed into my face. “They’re importing machine parts for the tests.” The dragonbone handle was slick with sweat. I just needed him to get a bit closer…

“The base is three hundred miles to the south. What’s your clearance? What—”

The desert scuffed beneath his boots as he stopped before the drivers’ window. His eyes locked on the gun that was pointed up at his head.

“How many more in your truck?” I whispered.

“Three.” He said it without hesitation. This close I could finally see his broad pock-marked face, his shaved head with long angry scars webbing their way across the scalp. Patches of shadow hid his eyes, but I knew they were narrowed about my face. “Drop the gun and everything will be okay.”

“Step back,” I said, calmly as I could manage.

He didn’t move for a moment, and then took a half pace away from the truck. I dropped my documents and then opened the truck door, gun aimed at his face. I swung out into the desert. I waited for a sound or cry from the still-idling truck. Nothing. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had no plan here. “Drop the torch.”

He glared at me, and then let the long chrome tube slip from his hands. The glass cracked against a rock and the light flared out. “Turn around,” I said.

“No.”

The word hung in the air. I was shaking. Could I pull the trigger? Could I kill this man in cold blood? “There’s nobody else in that truck,” I said. “We both know it.”

“Put down the gun,” he said. “I’ll let you get in the truck and drive away.”

Sweat ran down my brow and froze against my skin. “Just turn around,” I whispered. I could hear the desperation in my own voice.

He stared at me a moment, and then turned his back to me. I sucked it a breath. Without taking the gun from his back I knelt down and picked up the torch in my spare hand.

“I don’t know what your plan is,” he said, “but you can—”

I swung the butt end of the torch with all my strength. It cracked against the base of his skull, splitting the skin open. He staggered forward, blood flowing over the collar of his uniform. He cried out in pain. I hit him again. He staggered to his knees. A third hit and he was face down in the desert, not moving. Blood pooled beside him.

I was panting. In the light of his truck’s headlights I could see dark red glinting on the end of the torch. Had I killed him? Cautiously I paced over to his prone body. As I neared I could see his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

Relief flooded into me. I took calming breaths. Now what to do? I looked up as his truck, then mine. I looked up at the horizon, where the faintest glow of dawn was beginning to spark in the distance. I needed to make a decision.

The petrol cans and water I moved over to his truck, which was actually a canvass-topped reconnaissance car. I stuffed them into the flatbed which already held several boxes of spare uniforms. I tore the sleeve off one and tied it about the unconscious man’s wound, and then dragged him over to the back of my own truck. I punctured the fuel tank and let all the petrol run out into the desert sand. Even if he did wake up he would be miles and miles anything or anyone, unable to alert the Mandate army before it was too late. By time he walked back to the road and flagged down a passing truck I would have Attia and be out. Or so I told myself.

I jumped into his military car, turned a tight bouncing circle, and then drove off into the desert, glancing back only once at the silhouette of the rusted truck I left behind. I hurtled forward towards Attia and whatever else waited for me.

It was dawn when I arrived. The sun had just lifted over the horizon when I saw a massive dark form come into view at the end of the track. There, its enormous skeleton half-buried, black rib bones arcing into the sky like scythes, was a dragon.

I rammed the transmission into a lower gear and rolled down towards the body. The road seemed to end here. Beside the dragon loomed a rock tower that at first I’d thought was a massive yardang, but on closer inspection seemed to be ruins of a building. Nothing moved as I neared. I rolled the vehicle to a stop and carefully climbed out.

I closed my hand tightly about the curved handle of the gun. "Attia?" I called. My voice seemed to boom over the desert and salt flats.

No response. I crunched over the gravel towards the crumbling stone tower.

“Attia!”

Silence. Just a ruined tower and a long-dead dragon. I was alone. Just like in that kaffahouse, all those years ago. She wasn’t here.

She wasn’t coming.

I felt something inside of me break. Some fragile lockbox where for years I’d held all my hope. I yelled at the dead things in front of me. Screamed. I could feel tears welling in the corner of my eyes. I spun back to the auto. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Where I was going to go. She had left me again.

But then, as I spun back around, blinked through tears that still welled in my eyes, I saw a plume of dust rising up on the horizon.

My heart wedged itself in my throat. Somebody was coming. Was it Attia returning? Or had somebody found that army officer already.

Blood thundered in my veins. My head felt light and dizzy. What was I going to do? Hide. The tower, looming above. I ran to the base of the rock hill that it stood on and scrambled up the loose slope. I ducked through the low doorway and into the dark tower.

The inside was pitch black and colder even than the desert. I pressed myself against the wall by the door. I could not see far into the ruin, and had no interest in exploring. Anyone or anything could be in that darkness, watching me.

I heard the tires of an autocar rattle over the gravel. A door opened and then slammed. Boots crunched on the loose rock.

"Artur," Song called. "I know you are here."

My mouth was completely devoid of moisture. How had she found me? I remembered her eyes in that hotel where I’d first met her, in the safehouse as she’d studied me. I pulled the gun from my pocket.

What could I do? Hide until she made her way up here? Shoot her when she stepped into the building? What if Attia was wrong? Or was playing me for a fool? What if Song was who she said she was and was only trying to help me? I had been so sure Attia would be here to explain it all! What a fool you were. I felt the gun in my hand. The weight of it. Something inside of me resolved.

I stepped out of the tower and into bright sunlight.

Song stood between the two trucks. She had eschewed the business outfit that she’d worn through the border and now sported desert khakis.

She spun towards me as I emerged from the tower, the gun in her hand trained on my head. I raised my hands into the air and paced down the rock slope towards her.

“She’s not here,” I said. “If you were hoping I would lead you to her, then I’m sorry. Looks like neither of our plans worked out.”

She lowered the gun. “Why did you run off like that? You scared me.”

"Don’t pretend, Song, or whatever your real name is. You’ve been in control the whole time, moving me like a piece on a bloody game board." I dropped my arms to my sides. "You, Attia, everybody has been acting on me. Acting through me." No more. I’d been pulled around by my nose for too long. I wanted answers. I raised the gun, aimed it at her.

Song looked neither surprised nor afraid. "What are you doing, Artur?"

"There never was anybody else at the Museum, was there? You’ve been lying to me the whole time.”

"Artur, listen to me. If I meant to betray you, why would I have given you that gun?"

"Because you loaded it with empty shell casings." I cocked the hammer back. "I sorted that out though.” The shopkeep had helped me with that.

Her face became a stone mask. “Has she been in contact? What did she tell you? Tell me what she said to you.”

“You wanted me to be alone after the museum. Why?”

"I thought if I left you alone Attia would make contact. I didn’t realize she had until I came back to the safehouse. How did she get a message to you?”

“The kaffa tin.”

Song closed her eyes and shook her head. “Of course.” She looked at me then. “Whatever she told you, you can’t trust her. She has used you for you entire life. How do you not know that by now?”

"And so what? I should trust you?" I said the words, but at the same time couldn’t shake her words. Why was I putting my life on the line for a woman that had betrayed me and everybody I loved? Who had pulled me half-way across the world for reasons that I couldn’t understand. Why?

Song said, "I can’t tell you that you should trust me but—”

And then, mid-sentence, she threw herself to one side, raised her gun.

I squeezed the trigger.

Two gun-blasts exploded through the desert. I squeezed my eyes shut and when I opened them again I was on my back, looking up at the big blue sky. Pain radiated from my shoulder.

Oh…

And then desert became the streets of Aelia Capitolina and I was on my back again, surrounded by screaming students and hammering feet, the diesel belching of trucks and the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns. Feet crunching towards me through the cold and wind of the desert; in the muggy heat of the city Sina pacing, gun in hand. Two skies, both blue and yawning.

Sina-now-Song leaned down over me. Their faces were once face, separated by twenty years. Agents of the Commissariat, cold, calculating.

They aimed their gun at my face. I was, had been, certain I was going to die. I squeezed my eyes shut. I had cheated death the first time, all those years ago, and now it had come to find me again. Full circle. What choices, what path had led me out here to this patch of desert to die?

I had come here because I loved her still, I realized now.

Another gunshot. A final one.

My eyes fluttered open. Blue sky. No Song, no Sina. I turned my throbbing head and saw her.

Attia. She looked the same, just older. A few more lines. But those eyes, those beautiful mismatched eyes. She stood like a figure from memory, in the entrance of that stone tower, a Mandate rifle smoking in her hand. A stood just like she had stood in Aelia Capitolina all those years ago with a gun in hand and a look of shock on her face. This time there was no shock.

“Attia,” I croaked. She looked at me. All at once those years were swallowed up.

She scrambled down the loose rock that led from the tower and came to kneel beside me.

“Cacō, Gaius,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” There were tears in her eyes.

What is happening.

She felt at my arm, pulled my shirt open. I turned my head and saw Song’s body beside me in the desert. Her face, slack now in death, looked no longer like an immovable stone.

“You saved me,” I whispered.

“No,” she replied. She sniffed through the tears. “Not yet.”

She untied a kerchief knotted about her neck and pressed it into my shoulder wound. I growled in agony. “Res mutatae mutatae non sunt,” she intoned. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” She laughed bitterly through the tears. “Probably not quite what we meant.”

What does this all mean, I tried to ask. Why weren’t you there? Why did you leave me? Why are you here now…

But the pain was bright light and it was shooting through my vision. I could only manage a grunt. All the exhaustion of the trip pressed down on me. The days on the road without sleep. The terror at being caught, at being found out. The fear of finding this woman who now leaned over me…

The more things change…

I passed out.

* * *

EXCEPRT FROM “ON DRACI AND REVOULTION”

(REDACTED)

It was once said that the true power of the draci lay in the fear that they engendered. They kept a vicious balance. Who dared start a war when the retribution would likely raze all your cities to the ground? Who dared start a revolution when it could be swallowed in searing flame? Nothing burned so bright or so hot as dragonfire. Nothing.

10

I woke inside the tower. Night outside—again or still, I wasn’t quite sure. White bandages were wrapped about my shoulder, and by the lightness that spread now through my body I guessed that I was probably on painkillers. I touched the wound tentatively. It seemed that bullet had only grazed me. Another scar.

Attia. Had that been her, truly?

I pushed myself upright and fought a spell of dizziness. I swallowed the vomit that rose in my throat. I stood and stumbled out into the night.

She sat at the bottom of the slope, by a low fire, tending it with a stick. My heart lurched. She sat hunched and lost in thought, her brow furrowed. She looked up at me when I emerged from the tower. She smiled.

“You’re awake,” she said.

I didn’t move. I didn’t get any closer. “What is going on?” I said.

Attia bit her lip, her smile faltering. “Come,” she said. “Sit down.” I hesitated. The strain between us was palpable. What had I expected after all these years? I made my way slowly down to the firepit. A beaten metal pot rested among the coals, and steam poured from it. I noticed then that Song’s body was gone. As I sat I saw that beside Attia was a metal chest, about the size of a suitcase. The clasps were firmly shut and GA-239 had been etched on the smooth surface. “I suppose we have a lot of catching up to do,” she said.

“I waited three days for you,” I whispered.

She exhaled loudly. “I know.”

“What happened?”

She prodded the fire with the stick. “I was arrested,” she said. “Not long after we split up. I thought I was going to be killed.” She shrugged. “Apparently they thought I was too valuable to waste away in the labour camps. They wanted me to work for them. Weapons research.”

So she had been arrested. “After all they did. All our friend they killed.” I didn’t even feel angry anymore. Just tired and confused. “You could have said no.”

“I was ready to die rather that work for them,” she said. I could hear the anger in her voice. “Until they told me that they’d found you. That they knew where you were. They even showed me fotos of you sitting in the kaffahouse where we’d agreed to meet.”

I remembered suddenly the fotos that the Commissariat Major had shown me in the hotel. Those fotos from all those years ago. A slow realization bloomed inside of me.

“They said that they would leave you alone if I worked for them. They said that if I didn’t do what they wanted, if I tried to talk to you, then they’d kill you.” She looked up at me then, tears in her eyes. “I did terrible things Gaius. I did them to protect you. Because I loved you.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around what she’d said. “All these years, I’d thought…”

“I know,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

All those years on the run, hiding, alone. I remembered every relationship I’d tried to forge, how they had all been poisoned by the bitterness that I carried within me. I thought of the image I’d made of Attia, the coward, the betrayer. The woman who had cast me away for the sake of her work. The one who had left me alone and ruined my life. I’d made a story in my head, a story of my own life, that of a man wronged and cast aside. But the opposite was true. They self-pitying narrative I’d crafted, the one that had controlled my life, was a lie.

She’d loved me enough to throw away her life, to go against everything she’d believed. And in return I’d hated her.

"Attia," I said. I was beside her. In her blind spot. Her face had shifted, contracting like it did when she worried over an unsolved problem. I reached out and brushed her arm lightly. She was so close. She smelled like the fire and lavender soap.

I stood. "Look at me Attia." She did. I reached down and pulled her to her feet. In those mismatched eyes I my own pain, mirrored back at me. Look what they’ve done to us. I reached for her with both arms, one good and one bad. She staggered forward into my embrace. Her body felt so familiar against mine. I hugged her tight, and didn’t care about the pain that arced through my shoulder. I held her, and hugged her, and then I started crying. As I wept I felt as though she was the one holding me, but then her body began to shake with tears and we were holding each other.

We stayed like that for a long time.

Afterwards we fell back to the ground around the fire and sat with our arms about one another, silently staring at the low flames.

“I worked for them for years,” she said after a time, her words muffled into my chest. “In their labs and universities. I thought of you. I dreamed of running away, finding you, and escaping. But I was watched too closely. I couldn’t risk it. Then, several years ago agents of the Primary Directorate came to me. They said they wanted me to defect to the Mandate, to supply them with information on their weapons programs. I did what they wanted. I came here, worked with the best scientists in the Mandate, feeding the Commissariat secrets all the time. I helped them build a weapon.”

“The Dragon’s Egg,” I said, looking at the chest beside her.

Attia frowned. “That’s what we called it, yes. When it was completed I stole it. I went into hiding. I told Song that they could have it. If they brought me you.”

I shook my head. “You wanted to trade me for the Egg.”

Attia nodded. “But I knew that as soon as they had it they would kill us both. Once you were here I had to get you alone. I planted that message in the kaffa tin, hoping you would find it.”

“In the museum,” I said. “Was that you?”

She nodded. “I got desperate. I needed to see you. I was hoping to pull you away, but Song was too close. I couldn’t get you alone.”

“So what now?”

"We’ll go south. Into the disputed territories in India if we can.”

"Will that work?

She shrugged. "I don’t know. I feel like our chances are better together though."

But they’re still impossibly long, I didn’t say.

Silence stretched between us then, accented only but the occasional pop from the fire.

I rubbed a hand through my hair. Dust shook free. I looked askance at the metal chest. “I still don’t understand. Why so much trouble for a dragon’s egg?”

“It’s not a dragon’s egg.”

“What?”

"Come here," she said.

She took me by the hand and led me into darkness. Holding my hand in hers, she knelt down and pressed it against the metal box.

"Open it.”

I was almost afraid to. What was she trying to show me?

I reached down and released the clasp. I swung the chest open, and frowned. Inside the chest, resting in a wood frame, was a perfectly round sphere of silver-white metal. I reached out and pressed my hand against it. It was just slightly warm to the touch. I didn’t pick it up, but I could feel the denseness of it. "I don’t understand," I said.

"Gailium," she said.

I stared at her blankly. Nothing made any sense.

"I would have called it Arturium if I’d known you liked your new name,” she said sadly. “A new metal, one made in a laboratory. Remember when I said that if I ever found a new element I’d name it after you? I did it. "

"This is the Dragon’s Egg?" I said dumbly.

"All spies have code-names." She laughed then, though the frown never left her face. It made her look sad and afraid at the same time. "The dragons are dead. They wanted to replace them. You can’t remake the past, but you can create something new.” She glanced at her watch, and then the sphere. "Not long now," she said. "You’ll see soon enough. We’ll be safe here."

She closed the lid of the chest and took me by the hand. We scrambled up the rock slope towards the tower, her helping me balance with my bandaged arm. I could feel that widening gulf in my understanding again. This whole ordeal had felt like I was stumbling from one dark room to another. Was she just rambling?

We reached the top of the hill from which the tower emerged, and instead of climbing inside we skirted around the base until we looked over the desert to the East. The moon swung low through the sky and it illuminated a smattering of sandstone ruins below. They were so old and covered in desert that in my minds-eye they manifested as labyrinthine canyons as much as anything man-made.

"I don’t understand."

She pressed her finger to my lips. "Just watch. Wait."

The spectre of death still hung over us. She had dragged me into the most dangerous situation of my life. More dangerous, even, then Aelia Capitolina. Maybe I should be mad at her, but when I studied her face all I felt was a thrill.

"I love you," I said.

The wind whipped through the ruins below. “You don’t understand,” she said. “What I’ve done…”

What was she—

And then, far in the distance, a flare of light. Attia, the salt-flats, the stone city below, were all illuminated as bright as day. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away. Even through eyelids, and then my hand, the white light shone over everything. When it faded I opened my eyes and blinked in the direction of the light. An incandescent column of smoke and fire, brighter than the ten-thousand stars, rose up into the pre-dawn sky. And then there was a low, rumbling boom. A heaven-shattering explosion.

"You see now," Attia said. "You see what they made me do. What I did for you.” She made a sound and I wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.

The more things ch—No. This wasn’t merely a replacement. We had lived too long in the shadow of our history. I found her hand and squeezed it tight. Make something new.

The horizon shone white with the fire from a second sun. One brighter than dragonfire.

Monica Enderle Pierce

Judgment

Originally published in The Dragon Chronicles by Windrift Books.

* * *

It was near closing time and McKay’s Saloon was full of chasers and herdsmen talking, laughing, and caterwauling when Peregrine Long staggered past and stumbled up the wooden stairs to the Sheriff’s office.

At Peregrine’s insistent banging, Sheriff Wolfberg unlocked and opened the door.

“You better have a darn good reason for waking me at this hour,” the sheriff muttered. Yellow light spilled from the doorway and, mid-yawn, he spied Peregrine’s bloodied face and sooty clothes. “Long? What in Sam Hill happened to you?”

Peregrine rasped, “Get me a stiff drink, and I’ll tell you.” He scuffed across the wood floor, dragged a chair back from the deputy’s table, and groaned as he sat.

Wolfberg poured a double shot of Dragonfire whiskey and clunked the bottle down beside Peregrine’s hand. “You need a doctor. Your story can wait.”

Peregrine grabbed the man’s brown vest and pulled him forward until their faces almost touched. “No, sir, it can’t. We’ve got less than one day.”

“Or what?”

Peregrine released him and tossed down the whiskey. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, leaving a grimy smear. “Or the Judge will be here looking for payment.”

Sheriff Wolfberg planted his palms on the scarred, wooden table and leaned over Peregrine. “You’d better explain that, son. You better explain very clearly what you’ve done to bring that hellish beast down on Bonesteel.”

EARLIER…

The leather saddle creaked as Peregrine swung down from his blue roan’s back. With a practiced hand he hitched his new pony beside Deputy Isabeau Hightower’s buckskin gelding as he squinted at the blue March sky with his good eye. It was midmorning. He sucked in the cool mountain air.

It was a fine day to be alive.

Peregrine patted his horse, Tohcta, then swung around and headed for McKay’s Saloon. Like a swamp reed, his lanky frame had an unmistakable bend when he moved. Spurs jangling and boot heels thudding he crossed the wooden walkway and pushed through the saloon’s doors into a dim room.

The air was warm and thick with the stench of ale and sweat. Cigarette smoke hovered around the lights, twisting into ghostly patterns as Peregrine passed through it.

“So I says, ‘Why’d you go and kick a big ole snapping turtle like that for?’” Bobby Mack, a mouthy troll chaser from Shao San’s Circle S Ranch, was repeating his favorite story to everyone within earshot. Bobby loved big stories, especially when he was telling them.

“Whatcha doing in here, Long?” Jack McKay asked from behind the scarred, mahogany bar as Peregrine bellied up.

“Buying a drink.” He surveyed the one-room saloon for Isabeau but spied her sister, Simone, beside Bobby. She musta been riding the deputy’s horse. Peregrine fought a snarl. His like for Isabeau was countered by his dislike of Simone. She was dirty, in more ways than one.

None of the riders acknowledged him. Bonesteel was a company town, controlled by Pico Connelly. People lived and died working Pico’s Double L sheep herds. The man had built Bonesteel from nothing to wealthy. And Peregrine was a one-eyed outsider.

McKay swiped a beer-stained rag across the bar. “You don’t drink.”

Bobby sneered at Peregrine, and then continued his tale. “So he says, ’I thought it was a rock.’ Can you believe that? A rock!” He hooted and swigged his beer. “Dumb as a duck, that boy.”

Simone glowered at Peregrine as he leaned on the bar and answered McKay.

“Today I do. Dragonfire.”

The red-haired bartender shrugged and poured a shot of amber whiskey. He jerked his chin toward the saloon’s wavy glass windows. “That a new pony for Pico’s string?”

The shot burned all the way down and put fire in Peregrine’s gut. He cleared his throat. “She’s mine.”

McKay’s ruddy brows rose.

Bobby and Simone squinted through the window. “Where’d you get the money for a fine pony like that?” Bobby asked.

Peregrine clunked his glass down. “Saved it.”

For eight years Peregrine had worked the Double L’s pony lines. But his odd eyes—one brown, the other gray—made men uncomfortable. The color of steel, the left one didn’t focus and made the world blurry. He was born that way and often wore a black patch over the eye. But it didn’t keep Peregrine from being a fine and fast shot with a revolver or from doing his job well.

Which had turned out to be a problem, because every year he’d pushed to be promoted to troll chaser. But Pico’d always passed him over, saying good linemen were too hard to find. Peregrine figured it was because of his eye. So he’d scrimped and saved, and he’d just bought Tohcta, his own troll pony. Granted, her muzzle was more gray than blue, but she suited Peregrine; he was going gray at the temples, too.

Simone Hightower tapped her shot glass on the bar and McKay refilled it. “Isn’t that one of Darla Sanchez’s prize roans?” she said.

Peregrine tossed a copper coin on the bar and stepped back. “Was.” He tugged his black, wide-brimmed hat down and faced Simone. “Mine now.”

Her eyes narrowed.

Judgment be damned, Peregrine thought as he headed for the door.

Outside, he pulled Tohcta’s reins from the hitching post and climbed onto her saddle. The pony’s ears twitched as Peregrine turned her away from Bonesteel. She’d grown too old for mountain troll work. But there’d been problems down on the plains, incursions from the Shadowns. He’d make a good living in Cyanide chasing prairie trolls away from the buffalo herds. With a nudge of Peregrine’s heels, the blue roan strode out and they soon passed under Bonesteel’s gray stone arches.

Peregrine sank into the creaking old saddle, tugged down his hat, and took in the view below.

Bonesteel Butte stood over a vast, golden plain, its sloped base covered with thick evergreens up to a clear line where its sides became sheer cliffs. The butte’s pancake top—home to the small town of Bonesteel—covered six square miles and ended in the Judge’s Spire, a great stone pillar as tall as the butte was wide.

Peregrine squinted at the top of the spire where a wisp of black smoke curled from an angry gash that led into that deadly trap. When the winds blew west the town gained a fine coat of greasy soot and the stench of charred carcasses made the residents gag. No trees clung to the sheer stone. And no one passed through the Judge’s Hollow at the pillar’s base. Not voluntarily anyway.

Peregrine looked away. He’d be glad to put some distance between himself and judgment, even if it meant leaving Isabeau.

The trail from Bonesteel was worn and sloped sharply downward, cutting in switchbacks along the butte’s rocky sides. It afforded travelers an expansive view of the Shadowns’ barren canyons, the green plains with roaming buffalo herds stretching forever, and the distant tree-covered Black Hills.

The trip down the butte took a good two hours, plus another hour to pass through the shadowy forest that ringed the butte’s base, so it was after midday when Peregrine and Tohcta emerged from the trees. Peregrine straightened in the saddle. He retrieved a cigarillo from his brown duster’s inner pocket and lit a match off his boot heel. A long drag warmed his lungs.

When he reached Cyanide, he’d head for Stetson Zmiejko’s Black Bar Ranch. Stetson’d promised him a place on his crew as a troll chaser if Peregrine got a pony, and Stetson was a man of his word.

Peregrine glanced over his right shoulder at the thudding of hooves. Six riders were coming up fast. He moved Tohcta off the path to let them pass. But the group reined in their mounts and surrounded him.

Simone Hightower was among them. “We want a word with you, Long.”

“What about?” Peregrine took in her companions: tow-headed Bobby Mack and his stocky brother Beauregard, Matikai with her intense, dark gray stare, Mitchell Fishman whose dark fists were hard and fast, and his former boss, Pico Connolly. All but Pico were troll chasers from the Circle S or Darla Sanchez’s rancho.

Pico spurred his blood bay gelding forward. “You got a bill of sale for that little roan?”

Peregrine’s eyebrows rose. “’Course I do.” He reached into his duster. Six pairs of eyes watched his movements; six hands edged toward holstered guns. “What’s the trouble, Pico?” he asked as he proffered the folded paper.

Pico took the certificate, studied it, and frowned. He passed the paper to Matikai, who was Darla Sanchez’s foreman. She glanced at the bill of sale then crumpled it and threw it at Peregrine. “That ain’t a legitimate bill of sale, Pico.”

“Damn.” Pico shoved up his hat brim and looked at Peregrine from beneath his shaggy, gray brows, a slow, steady gaze that brooked no argument. “The trouble, Peregrine, is that you didn’t buy that pony from Darla.” As he said it, he slid his revolver from its holster, cocked it, and pointed the gun at Peregrine. The other riders mirrored him. “This pony’s stolen and Darla’s dead.”

Peregrine took another long drag on his cigarillo and squinted at the man. “You calling me a thief and a murderer?”

Beauregard hawked and spat then said, “We sure are. You can’t afford a Sanchez roan, and everyone knows how much you’ve been wanting a pony.”

Peregrine ignored the halfwit. “Eight years I worked your lines, Pico. You ever known me to steal, cheat, or hurt anyone who didn’t deserve what I gave ‘em and more?”

Pico shook his head. “The evidence is clear. You’ve got the pony, the forged bill of sale, and the motive.”

“Then I was set up. I bought this pony from Dom Hightower.”

Simone leveled her gun at Peregrine’s chest, and her voice and hand shook as she said, “You saying my brother killed his boss and framed you, Long? You saying he murdered the woman who took my kin and me in when we had nowhere else and no one else?”

Pico held up his hand. “Calm down, Simone.”

Peregrine wouldn’t put it past her to shoot him. “I’m saying I bought this pony from one of Darla’s representatives.”

“Well, Dom ain’t here to defend hisself,” Mitchell lisped.

Peregrine replied, “Then let’s go back to the butte and Simone can get him. He’ll prove that I bought the pony from him.”

“Impossible,” Pico said.

“Why?”

Simone bared her teeth. “Because he’s dead, too, and you know it!”

Matikai grabbed Simone’s shaking hand. “Let the Judge decide if Long’s lying. Let her punish him.”

“The Judge?” Simone looked at Matikai. “Sure.” Her snarl twisted into a vicious grin. “That’d be more than fair.”

Pico bowed his head then nodded, his silver hair flashing in the early spring sun. “All right.” He gestured at Peregrine’s revolver. “Don’t do anything foolish, like reaching for your gun. You just put your hands up.”

Beauregard and Bobby cocked their revolvers as Bobby said, “You may be one of the best shots in Bonesteel, but there’s six of us, Long.”

Beauregard added, “And Simone would welcome an excuse to kill you.”

“You’re punishing an innocent man, Pico,” Peregrine growled. “There’s nothing fair about the Judge, and you know it.” He itched to draw his gun, but Bobby was right—six against one was no winnable fight. He’d have to stay calm, keep his wits. Maybe he could talk some sense into Pico. “You know me better than this.”

Pico took Peregrine’s Colt from its holster and met his gaze with a steady eye. “I know you’ve been grousing for years about not getting a fair chance. And I know you don’t earn enough to buy one of Darla’s ponies.”

“I’m an honest man. You know I’ve been saving my money.”

“I don’t know anything about how you spend your money, Peregrine. I only know what I pay you.”

As Mitchell tied Peregrine’s hands to the saddle horn and Matikai took Tohcta’s reins, Beauregard said, “Ain’t nobody ever trusted you, Long. Nobody.”

They pulled Tohcta around and headed southeast toward Judge’s Hollow at a fast lope.

Peregrine clutched the horn and tried to work his hands free. Facing the Judge was certain death; he’d rather be shot in the back trying to escape than meet her head-on. But though he worked at it, Mitchell’d been a lineman once and knew his knots. By the time they topped the Hollow’s blackened rim, Peregrine’s wrists were raw and bleeding but still firmly tied.

“Simone.” Peregrine looked at the sister of the woman he desired. They looked so alike—small-boned, dark-haired, and hardened by a hard childhood. “Did you ask Isabeau if she thinks I’d do a thing like this?”

Simone turned cold brown eyes on him. “Isabeau’s mourning our brother. I ain’t gonna tell her Dom died at her friend’s hands. She’s gonna believe that you left her to chase trolls and a fat wallet, Peregrine. She’s better off without you sniffing around her skirts.”

Beneath him, Tohcta shifted and pawed the ashy trail, and the other horses snorted and pranced. Facing a troll was one thing, but a hungry purple dragon was quite another.

Mitchell loosened Peregrine from the horn and yanked him from the saddle. He hit the ground and curled into a ball as the chasers kicked and pummeled him while Pico held the horses and watched.

Finally Pico called, “Enough. String him up and let’s get out of here before the Judge takes notice.”

Bloodied and squinting through a swollen eye, Peregrine was shoved down the trail to the shadowy, bone-riddled bottom of Judge’s Hollow. The stench of soot, burned tallow, and decaying flesh made him gag. He doubled and vomited while his assailants laughed, their faces covered by bandanas to cut the smell.

Peregrine struggled as they dragged him toward the stand, a charred stump set beneath an equally charred oak tree. He dug his heels in and strained to escape their hold, but Mitchell and Bobby kept a tight grip on his arms. A rope was tossed over a thick branch and a noose tied around his neck as he was made to stand upon the stump. The noose was pulled up until Peregrine stood upon his toes to keep from choking.

“Should we kick the stump, Pico?” Simone’s voice was low and thick. Peregrine squinted at her. Did she have regrets?

“Couse we should,” Beauregard said and the stump rocked beneath Peregrine. “Thieves are presented swinging.”

Peregrine gagged and snuffled, desperate to keep his perch, desperate for air. The stump held. His good eye watered. He wanted to speak, but couldn’t.

“Murderers ain’t.” Pico replied. “Darla and Dom were shot in the back. Let Peregrine see death coming. Leave the stump and summon the Judge, Matikai.”

There was a metal chuck wagon triangle hanging from the oak, someone’s idea of humor. Its sharp, metallic clanging pulsed in Peregrine’s ears.

One knell.

Two knells.

Three knells.

The snort of the ponies. The clatter of hooves.

Soon only the wind groaned through the hollow to join the sounds of Peregrine’s wheezing lungs and the creak of the rope.

And then, from beneath his cramping feet, came a thud. It traveled up his spine and through his bones.

And then another. And Peregrine’s stomach twisted. He gasped a bubbling breath.

The thuds came faster. Harder. Shaking the ground. A heartbeat beneath the butte. A heartbeat that expanded and contracted the mountain itself.

The triangle jangled. The oak creaked.

Thud.

Dust and ash rose.

Thud.

Rocks skittered down the sides of the hollow.

And then there was nothing but the wind and small rockslides clattering, Peregrine’s wheezing.

Now there was scraping, like granite being dragged over ice.

The Hollow’s cool air turned balmy.

Sweat beaded Peregrine’s forehead and lip. It trickled down his back and stung his eyes. He tried to kick the stump away. He closed his good eye and lifted his feet, but the pain, the stretching, the burning made him put his toes back down.

“Damnation.” Peregrine cursed fate and himself. He wanted to live. He wasn’t a thief. He wasn’t a murderer.

“Welcome.”

Peregrine opened his eye to see two great silver eyes in a deep purple, horned face and a mouth full of jagged teeth, each as long as his arm.

The Judge hadn’t uttered the word aloud; rather it pulsed inside Peregrine’s head.

He stared and swallowed.

“You’re strung up like a murderer, Peregrine Long. Are you one?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but couldn’t get a breath past the tightening noose.

With a curved, black claw long enough to run him through, the Judge slashed the rope, and Peregrine hit the ground.

He lay in a pile of bones and soot, sucking in air and coughing out blood.

“Well?”

He sat up. How did she know his name? How did she get inside his head? Why hadn’t she eaten him? He slowly, gingerly shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he rasped. “I ain’t a murderer or a thief. I’ve been accused of a crime I didn’t commit.”

“Really?” The Judge straightened into a sitting position, her long neck curving high above the oak tree. She cocked her massive skull. “I’ve heard that from every murderer and thief I’ve ever judged. What makes your story different?”

“Story?” Peregrine started working on the knots binding his wrists. “I ain’t telling you a story, ma’am. That’s the truth.”

“Hmmm. Peregrine Long, I have only three things that interest me: Solitude, my stomach, and the occasional interesting story. Since you’ve broken my solitude, you’d better tell me a good story, or I’ll put you in my stomach.”

“What happened to judgment?” Peregrine looked over the enormous beast. In the eight years he’d been in Bonesteel, he’d seen the Judge only once as she’d taken flight, circled high overhead, and then set the hills south of the Bonesteel Butte afire.

But close up, she was far larger than he’d perceived; her head alone, encompassed the length of three ponies standing end to end. Her iridescent scales were a purple so deep they looked almost black but showed every hue as she moved, much like the wings of butterflies. She bore three black horns from nose to forehead, and a jagged ruff encircled her neck rising and lowering as her moods changed. She was magnificent and terrifying. But Peregrine never expected to find intelligence within the silvery depths of the Judge’s eyes.

“Judgment comes after your story,” her voice whispered in his mind. “A true story, Peregrine. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“I ain’t a storyteller, Judge. I’m a lineman who just lost his hard-earned chance to become a troll chaser. I bought that pony, fair and legal—had the papers to prove it. And I didn’t murder anyone. I’ve got one friend in the world, but she’ll hear the lie that I’m the monster who killed her older brother, and I’ll have lost her, too.” Peregrine considered the dragon as she lowered her head to take him in. “Honestly, you oughta just end my existence, Judge. No one’s gonna care if I’m dead now.”

The dragon shook her head, kicking up a whorl that raised ash and dust all around Peregrine. “You were doing so well until that last sentence. That one was a lie.”

He finally slipped the ropes free and flexed his bleeding wrists. “I ain’t a liar. I told you the truth.”

“No. You’d care if you died.”

The Judge had emerged from a jagged opening at the base of the stone pillar, though half of her remained within her lair. Peregrine stiffened as the dragon now pulled her entire body free of the cavern. She was as long and powerful as a locomotive pulling four passenger cars.

“You could’ve kicked that stump and snapped your neck, but you didn’t.”

Bones and gravel crunched as she encircled the hollow, and him, her wings furled tight against her body and her movements sleek, powerful, and serpentine.

“You wanted to live. And you still do.”

The Judge stopped and raised her furled wings high above her back. “You’re not much of a storyteller, that’s true. But, though short, your story was truthful. I will strike a bargain with you, Peregrine Long.”

“A deal with the devil?”

She filled his head with amusement, and Peregrine almost smiled.

“Perhaps. You are, as you claim, an innocent man. But I have an agreement with Bonesteel. My solitude is disturbed only to pass judgment, and then I am due payment. If I’m to be denied my supper now, you must bring me a replacement.”

“I need to bring someone for you to judge?”

“Yes. That’s how it’s done in Bonesteel. Judgment is swift and payment swifter. Bring me the real murderer, and I will judge him.” Quick as a wink, her head snapped around, and she pinned him with her silver eyes. “If you don’t honor this bargain, I’ll fulfill it myself.” She cocked her head to the side and added, “Maybe with that woman you covet.” Her muzzle came forward until she was so close, Peregrine could have touched her glistening scales. “And then I’ll come for you.”

His fists clenched. “How’m I supposed to find a murderer? I’m not a lawman.”

The Judge’s enormous muzzle filled Peregrine’s view.

“Simple. They’re all guilty until they prove their innocence.” She exhaled a putrid, steamy breath then turned away. She snapped her wings down to her side. Then the Judge slithered back into her cavern and out of Peregrine’s mind.

But she left him with a parting message: “You have one day, Peregrine Long.”

* * *

Peregrine downed another shot of whisky as Sheriff Wolfberg poured himself a drink. The sheriff opened his mouth to respond to Peregrine’s tale, but was interrupted by Isabeau’s appearance at the door.

“Peregrine?” she said. “What happened? You look like you fell off the butte and landed on your face.”

Peregrine smiled and tried to open his gray eye, but it was too painful. It wasn’t like it was useful anyway.

Isabeau crossed the room and shoved the Sheriff aside. “Where’re you hurt?”

“Bruises mostly, broke a tooth.” He gestured toward his face. “This eye’s doing better already.” It was a lie. The bad eye was worse than ever.

“He shouldn’t be sitting here, Wolf.” She pulled back Peregrine’s duster before he could stop her hands. Her eyes widened as she spied the rope burns around his neck. “What the hell?”

“What the goddamned hell is right.”

Peregrine didn’t need turn to know who’d spoken. Simone’s husky voice was a match for Isabeau’s.

“That man is a murderer and a thief.” The office door banged shut behind her as Simone entered the room. She jabbed her finger at Peregrine. “I don’t know how you escaped the Judge, Long, but you shouldn’t’ve come back to Bonesteel. Sheriff, you need to arrest him and take him back to Judge’s Hollow.”

Sheriff Wolfberg straightened, pulled off his hat, and gestured with it. “Now hold on, Simone. I’m not going to condemn a man on your word alone. There’s something called due process. And there’s more to this story than what you’re saying.”

Isabeau was staring at her sister. “What are you saying, Simone?”

“I’m saying he killed Dom. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to hear about it. I thought I could keep it quiet. But he’s got some nerve coming back here.” She kicked a chair and it careened across the floor and into a table. “I knew I shoulda shot you when I had the chance, Long. You son of a bitch!”

Isabeau stared at her sister then put her hands on her hips and said, “Damn your hot head, Simone. Peregrine had nothing to do with Dom’s death.”

Sheriff Wolfberg said, “Can you prove that, Isabeau?” He looked at Simone and added, “And can you prove that he did?”

“I can.” Simone stuck her hand in her jacket pocket, pulled out a piece of crumpled paper, and handed it to the Sheriff. “This is the bill of sale that Peregrine presented as proof that he bought a little blue roan from Darla Sanchez yesterday.”

The Sheriff nodded. “I can read. This looks legitimate.”

“Matikai says that ain’t Darla’s mark. The certificate is a fake.”

Peregrine shook his head. “I told you and your vigilantes down on the trail, I didn’t buy the pony from Darla. Dom sold her to me. That’s your brother’s mark as Darla’s representative.”

Sheriff Wolfberg scratched his beard. “Well, until I can pull Darla’s records and compare this mark to others that Dom may have made, I can’t say with certainty that you’re not a suspect in Darla’s and Dom’s murders, Peregrine.” He looked at Isabeau again and added, “Unless you have some evidence to support his claim?”

She shook her head. “I just know he wouldn’t do that, Wolf.”

Peregrine downed another shot of Dragonfire. His aches were easing with each small glass. “What about the Judge? She exonerated me. That dragon crawled into my mind, read my thoughts, and let me go as an innocent man.”

“I don’t know much about that beast, and I’d sure like to keep it that way.” Wolfberg turned back to Peregrine. “I’m no fan of vigilante justice, but in this case, it seems to have given credit to your claims, since you faced the Judge and she let you go. Which is why I’m not locking you in a jail cell tonight. But I’m a lawman, and the law states that I need hard evidence to clear you, Peregrine. A dragon in your head isn’t evidence. But this is.” He folded the bill of sale and slipped it into his pocket. “Provided this mark matches Dom’s signature in Darla’s files, you’ll remain free.” He nodded at Isabeau. “You gonna help him with those injuries, Deputy?”

“I am, Sheriff.”

Simone began to protest, but Sheriff Wolfberg cut her off. “Drop it, Simone. You had your chance and you best look to your own affairs. You and your accomplices could face attempted murder charges if Peregrine’s claim of innocence stands.”

Simone cursed and stomped from the Sheriff’s office. Pausing at the door, she snarled, “I don’t know how you escaped the Judge, Long, but you won’t escape justice for good. I promise you that.” The door banged behind her.

The Sheriff stood and looked down at Peregrine. “Son, you best go heal and keep out of my way while I investigate this matter. I don’t want to hear about more folks being served up to a hungry dragon.” He pulled a small, leather-bound notebook from his pocket and a pencil. “Give me the names of your assailants.” He jotted something in the book and added, “I already got Simone down.”

Peregrine wanted to curse. The Judge wanted a body and she didn’t care whose. He wouldn’t be safe until he brought a villain to Judge’s Hollow. And he was a dead man walking in Bonesteel—there were half a dozen suspects who’d rather see him strung up for the Judge than end up in that Hollow themselves. And the townsfolk would look the other way if sacrificing Peregrine meant keeping their own hides from catching fire.

Peregrine downed another shot then said, “Matikai, Bobby and Beauregard Mack, Mitchell Fishman, and Pico Connelly.”

The Sheriff looked up, his eyes sharp. “Pico?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine.” The Sheriff settled his hat on his head. “You stay away from these six, you hear me?”

“I don’t want revenge, I want justice, Sheriff. Are you gonna give me that and spare Bonesteel?”

Sheriff Wolfberg straightened. “Is that some kind of threat?”

“No,” Peregrine rasped. “But the Judge will have her payment. She dismissed the case against me, but she wants the real murderer instead. If I don’t produce one, she’ll be back. And, in her eyes, we’re all guilty.”

Wolfberg rubbed the back of his neck and surveyed his shadowy office. “One day, you say?”

“That’s right. Probably less since it took me half the day to climb up here.”

The Sheriff sat and leaned close, lowering his voice. “All right. Since you say you want to serve justice and spare this community a dragon’s wrath, I’ll trust you. I’m already tied up with these murders; don’t have the time or the men to chase after your attackers. If you’re willing to take the oath, I’m willing to deputize you, Peregrine.” He held up the little notebook. “But your sole task is to find the men on this list and put them in my jail. I want them alive. You understand?”

Peregrine sat back in his chair. A lawman? He’d never considered the job. But this was a chance to bring a killer to justice. Among the group that accused him was a murderer or someone who knew one and was covering for him. Or her. He glanced at Isabeau. Her expression was unreadable, but then she met his gaze and gave the smallest nod.

“Agreed, Sheriff.”

“Good. Go see Doctor Ross then come back to my office and I’ll get you set up. No time to waste.”

* * *

The sky was rosy-gold with the rising sun when Peregrine and Isabeau emerged from the Sheriff’s office. He wore a scratched and dented tin star on his chest and a new patch over his left eye. He hadn’t lost his sight, yet, but his vision in that eye had tunneled and grown dark.

“Deputy Long. That don’t sound too bad,” Isabeau said as she struck a match off her chaps and lit a cigarillo. “You want one?” She offered her open mother-of-pearl case, but he shook his head and studied her.

She was all opposites and upside down. Not exactly refined with her blue jeans and dusty chaps. And not exactly pretty with a crooked nose and hazel eyes that stuck out a bit. She’d kept a firm hold on her grief over Dom’s death, hadn’t shown a lick of it, though they’d been very close. Isabeau would never let her emotions get in the way of her job.

She took a long drag, and then pinched a little tobacco off the tip of her tongue and spat. “What you staring at me for?”

Peregrine tucked a stray lock of her chestnut-colored hair behind her left ear. “Cause I’m thinking about making you a dishonest woman.”

Deputy Hightower exhaled smoke into his face and barked a laugh. “You’re gonna have to make me honest first.”

Peregrine smiled though it hurt his jaw. Then he sobered. “And stop a dragon.”

“Yep, that too.” She hooked her arm through his and swung him toward the little house she sometimes shared with Simone and Dom. “Listen, about Simone.”

“You don’t need to speak for her.”

“She’s scared of you.”

He snorted. “That makes no sense.”

“Sure it does. She can’t figure you out. You don’t react to her the way the other fellas do and, well, she’s afraid I’ll go off with you.”

Peregrine shrugged. “Then she doesn’t know you too well, huh?”

Isabeau shrugged, too, and said, “Maybe I’ve changed.”

Instead of answering, Peregrine stopped. Beauregard Mack had come out of the Horseshoe Inn across the dusty street and was gawking at him and Isabeau. The fair-haired dolt rubbed his eyes as if he’d seen a ghost, blinked, and then turned beet red.

“You best stay clear of this,” Peregrine said to Isabeau as he stepped off the wooden walkway and headed across the wide dirt lane.

“Don’t go thinking that I can’t handle an idiot like Beauregard,” she replied as she followed him.

Peregrine announced, “You’re under arrest, Beauregard Mack.”

“Why ain’t you dead?” the chaser asked.

As if in answer there was a thunderous rumble beneath the butte and puffs of red dust rose from the ground. Horses started, whinnied, and snorted. A large flock of speckled starlings took to the sky and dogs started barking.

Beauregard’s eyes widened. “You cheated the Judge?”

“I was acquitted of all charges. Now Sheriff Wolfberg wants to see you about a murder and an attempted lynching.”

Beauregard’s gaze darted from Peregrine’s face, to the tin star, to his revolver. He licked his lips. “You should be dead. We had the evidence. I didn’t kill no one.”

“You tried to kill me.” Peregrine’s hand dropped toward his hip. “Don’t pull your gun, Beau. I need you alive.” Being one-eyed didn’t stop Peregrine from being a sharpshooter. He had to be; trolls loved the taste of pony and lineman.

But Beauregard’s hand dropped. He got the revolver out of its holster but not cocked before Peregrine’s bullets knocked him off his feet.

The dying man writhed and groaned on the ground, a red bloom spreading across his chest.

Isabeau tried to stop the man’s bleeding, but it was over in minutes. With one last shallow breath, Beauregard Mack’s life ended. She closed his dull, staring eyes as the Sheriff reached the scene.

Wolfberg muttered, “Damned fool. He knew he couldn’t beat you.”

Peregrine nodded. “Yep. Didn’t want to face the Judge.”

Isabeau straightened. “You think he was the murderer?”

“Don’t know. Never will.” Peregrine turned to the Sheriff. “I need to borrow a horse. Gonna ride out to the Circle S and pick up Bobby Mack.”

“All right. But be careful. Word may have spread about your return. You’ve got a target on your back, Deputy Long.”

Isabeau said, “I’ll go with him.”

“No, ma’am. I’ll go with Long to the Circle S, and then we’ll ride out to Pico’s. You get over to Darla’s, pick up any records that can prove Dom’s signature, and arrest Matikai. She’s at the top of my list of suspects; she’d’ve known Dom’s mark.”

“What about Mitchell Fishman?” Peregrine asked.

“We’ll pick him up at Pico’s.” The Sheriff turned to Isabeau. “I expect that your sister will turn herself in. But if she doesn’t, I’ll make the arrest. You don’t need to be involved in that.”

Isabeau nodded and looked away. “I appreciate it, Wolf.”

Peregrine squinted at the sun as it neared zenith. “Time’s getting short.”

* * *

Pico’s Double L Ranch sat at the base of the Judge’s Spire. He raised the finest silken wool mountain sheep west of the Sklaa River and was one of the few breeders to produce Silver Sheens season after season. Their wool commanded top prices on the open market and had made Pico the richest man in his industry. It was a wealth he’d shared with Bonesteel, offering loans to his competitors and funding town projects with generous repayment terms.

The approach to the Double L took riders through a long, shallow valley and offered an impressive view of the looming spire. A view that, as Peregrine and Sheriff Wolfberg approached, became all the more imposing as another thunderous rumble shook the ground beneath their horses. There was a tremendous whoosh and cracks in the spire glowed orange as a great flare of dragon fire erupted from the top. Both horses snorted and shied, trying to bolt.

Sheriff Wolfberg was cursing beneath his breath. They’d just come from the Circle S where they’d learned that Bobby had met up with Matikai and headed out that morning. “If they aren’t here with Pico, we’ll have a chase on our hands.”

“Yep.” Peregrine tightened his hold on the reins. “Whoa. Easy, girl.”

“Even after we have your lynch mob in custody, we need solid evidence or a confession from the murderer. I’m not keen on feeding an innocent man to that dragon, Long.”

“Agreed, Sheriff. If need be, I’ll negotiate with the Judge for more time.”

The Sheriff nodded toward the buildings as the rancho spread out before them. “Sure hate to see Pico caught up in all this.”

“You and me both.”

Gunfire split the air.

The Sheriff ducked in his saddle and grabbed his thigh.

With a curse, Peregrine leaned low over his horse’s neck, caught Wolfberg’s reins, and spurred the ponies off the trail as more shots were fired. Bullets ricocheted and hit the trees around him.

Burning pain flashed across Peregrine’s left shoulder as they reached a stand of pines. A bullet had grazed him. He pulled the Sheriff from the saddle as he slipped off his own horse. He released the ponies, and they galloped back toward the safety of town.

The Sheriff groaned. His right trouser leg was dark with blood. Peregrine pulled off his belt and fashioned a tourniquet.

Another tremor shook the ground and the trees. It kept shaking them and built to a roar. Peregrine rocked back on his heels and grabbed a tree trunk. He risked a glance at the spire.

The Judge erupted from the upper cavern in a blaze of smoke and fire. Embers trailed her as she took wing, soared over the butte, and then banked to come up the valley.

She roared, a screaming tornado that made Peregrine clap his hands over his ears and raised the hairs on his arms. And then she shot straight up the length of the Judge’s Spire and came to rest upon the top, her tail and body twining about the stone. She spouted a great gush of fire then glared down upon the Double L and Peregrine.

Was she looking at him?

As if reading his mind from afar, the Judge’s voice slithered into Peregrine’s head: “Tick-tock, Peregrine Long. I’m hungry.”

“I’m busy being shot at right now, Judge,” Peregrine muttered.

“Oh? If they hit their target, our agreement will be fulfilled.”

“Already grazed my shoulder. You want a taste?”

Her amusement lightened his mood, and he chuckled.

“Who’re you talking to?” The Sheriff was staring at Peregrine, his voice sharpened by pain as he worked the tourniquet around his shattered thigh.

Peregrine jerked his head toward the spire. “The Judge. She’s watching us.”

The Sheriff squinted. “Sam Hill take me, I forgot how big she is.”

Another shot and wood splintered off a tree beside Peregrine.

Wolfberg asked, “Who’s shooting?”

“Can’t tell.” Peregrine risked peering around the trunk. He was rewarded with a volley of gunfire and a glimpse of movement near a wall of straw bales between the barracks and the bright blue shearing shed. “Best I can tell it’s coming from the hay by the shed.”

Peregrine surveyed their spot. “I think there’s enough cover from the trees to get me from here to those boulders.” He jerked his chin toward a rocky outcropping that jutted up among trees closer to the main house. “From there I can draw a bead on the shooter.”

“I’ll do what I can to cover you, but you’d best move fast. Not sure how long I can stay upright.”

“I move fast when properly motivated, Sheriff.”

There was the clack of two guns being cocked. “How’s this for motivation, Long?”

Peregrine turned slowly, his hands up.

Pico had gotten the jump on them.

With one revolver pointing at Peregrine and the other trained on the Sheriff, Peregrine’s former boss said, “Shame that everyone’s gonna hear how you double-crossed the Wolf and tried to pin it on me, you one-eyed bastard.”

Wolfberg growled, “Pico, put your guns down. No one’s gonna believe that cock-and-bull story.”

“Sure they will when there’s no one around to dispute it.”

Peregrine watched Pico’s eyes and said, “Isabeau already has.”

Pico snorted. “And Simone’s disputed her. That leaves my word, and I’m the most upstanding citizen in Bonesteel.”

Sheriff Wolfberg pulled his gun.

Peregrine lunged to the side.

Pico fired.

The Sheriff pitched backward, a gaping hole in his chest.

Pico turned toward Peregrine, both guns aimed at him. His gaze strayed past Peregrine for a moment. “’Bout time you showed up.”

The snap of twigs announced another person coming up behind Peregrine. Then a shotgun barrel appeared over his bleeding shoulder, but it was trained on Pico.

The rancher froze.

“Hands up, Pico, and drop those guns.” Simone nudged Peregrine with her elbow, but her gaze was locked on the armed man. “Move your keister, Long.”

Simone stood behind Peregrine but was siding with him. It was the first time ever that Peregrine had been happy to see her.

Pico raised his hands and snarled, “What the devil are you doing, Simone? He murdered Dom!”

Peregrine took Pico’s revolvers, and Simone replied, “Like you just murdered Sheriff Wolfberg? That was cold-blooded and too easy for you, Pico. And now I’ve doubts about Peregrine’s guilt.”

“Time’s up,” the Judge whispered.

Peregrine looked up.

With another thunderous roar, the dragon launched from her spire. Simone jerked around and aimed her gun at the beast as the Judge folded her wings and plummeted down the length of the stone column. She flattened out her dive at the last moment and streaked up the valley with great sweeps of her iridescent wings.

The wind from her passage knocked them off their feet. Branches were sheared from the treetops and crashed down around them.

Peregrine tasted blood and dirt as he hit the ground. His eye patch was dislodged. He blinked and stared around him, squinting his left eye in the sudden sunlight. What the devil had happened to his vision? He shook his head, disoriented. He could see perfectly with the left eye. How was that possible?

Pico scrambled to his feet and charged toward the shearing shed. Peregrine and Simone gave chase. The rancher reached the door but was brought to a standstill as the Judge set his rambling house ablaze.

The dragon circled the ranch, spouting flames. The straw bales blazed. The chasers’ empty barracks went up in a blast of hellfire.

“Where’s my payment?”

Sheep stampeded across a field, bleating their terror, as the Judge landed in their midst and roared. “Shall I start with these?”

“Simone! Peregrine!”

They turned at the shout. Isabeau, fighting her half-crazed pony, rode to their sides. She dismounted and released the terrified animal to run for his life. Eyes rolling and tail streaking out behind him, the horse charged back the way he’d come.

The Judge’s head whipped around and she locked her gaze on the Hightower sisters. “Or will it be two for the price of one, Peregrine?”

“Run!” Peregrine shoved Isabeau and Simone toward the boulders.

The Judge lunged at him, but he stood his ground as the women reached cover. Black, choking smoke curled around him as the dragon stopped inches from his body. She opened her jaws and exhaled a gout of blistering, fetid heat. But she didn’t burn Peregrine though the acrid stench of his own singed hair stung his nose.

“Where’s the murderer you promised me?”

Peregrine shook his head. “I have suspects, but I need more time to prove guilt. I won’t condemn any man or woman for a crime they didn’t commit.”

Simone shouted, “Give her Pico! He murdered the Sheriff.”

Peregrine looked over his shoulder and his voice was strong as he said, “Not without a fair trial, Simone Hightower. I’m not gonna do to anyone what was done to me.”

“He’s behind the murders, Peregrine,” Isabeau shouted. “Mitchell confessed his part and turned state’s evidence against Pico, Bobby, and Matikai.”

The Judge hissed. “Bring this man to me. I will try him.”

Peregrine shook his head. “We need a complete investigation. Then you can have him.”

The Judge’s head pulled back and up as she reared high above him. “Bring me the man, now, or I’ll destroy Bonesteel and turn the woman you love into a pile of ash and bones.”

He really had made a deal with the devil. Peregrine’s shoulders hunched. He had little love for Bonesteel, but there were innocent people among its citizens. He couldn’t condemn them for a man he knew to be a cold-blooded killer. And he’d never let the beast have Isabeau.

“No.” Peregrine gazed steadily at death’s face. “I believe in the law. We had a bargain it’s true. But Pico Connelly is due a trial by his peers, not you, Judge. So take my life now, and our score will be settled. If you’re meant to have others, they’ll come to you by a court of law.”

The Judge stared at him, black smoke curling from her nostrils.

Peregrine held his breath.

A wooden door banged somewhere on the ranch.

Sheep bleated.

“Fine.” The Judge reached out a clawed forefoot, her dagger talons poised to strike. But instead of tearing Peregrine to pieces, she ripped the roof from the shearing shed and threw it into the trees.

Peregrine stumbled toward the safety of the boulders as wood and debris clattered all around him.

Pico screamed and kicked open the sagging shed door. He tried to dodge her, but the Judge’s foot came down once more and pinned the man to the ground.

“No! Please! I’m innocent! It was Bobby and Matikai! I’m begging you!”

“What’s your story, Pico Connelly? Be truthful. I will know if you lie.”

Pico stiffened and stared at the dragon. Tears dampened his face. A stain spread across his trousers as he pissed himself. “I’m innocent,” he sobbed. “I’ve been set up. Matikai and Bobby Mack are the killers. And Peregrine stole that pony. That’s all I know. I swear it. I swear.” But there was another story snaking through Pico’s head, one of betrayal and greed, one that showed his hand manipulating the course.

Isabeau and Simone clung to each other and shrank back from the scene. “What’s happening, Peregrine?” Isabeau asked.

He blinked. They couldn’t hear the Judge. Was it strange that he could? “She’s asking to hear his story. She knows if you’re lying. She gets inside your head and reads your thoughts.”

“Merciful gods,” Simone muttered.

The Judge lifted her foot off Pico. “Rise to face my judgment.”

Pico blinked, a weak smile on his face. He stood on shaking legs. “You see? You see my innocence, Judge?”

The dragon’s snout came down until it was right in front of Pico. He coughed, and then reached out as if to touch her. But just before his fingers reached her shimmering scales she arched her head up and over him so that she was gazing straight down her snout at him.

“No. I find you guilty.”

Pico screamed as the Judge exhaled a plume of fire and set the man ablaze.

Peregrine’s guts twisted. “Don’t watch,” he said as the sisters shrieked.

Pico staggered forward, his arms flailing.

The Judge’s snout shot downward and she snapped her front teeth around his flaming skull. She jerked her head up and back, tossing his headless body in the air like a cat toying with a mouse. Then the Judge caught Pico’s corpse in her jaws and swallowed him.

A rumbling purr vibrated the ground, and the Judge said, “Very satisfying.” She eyed Peregrine and added, “Our agreement is complete. Justice has been served. But there are others, Peregrine Long. The woman named Matikai and the man called Bobby Mack. They took two lives.”

He nodded. “So I heard.”

The dragon cocked her head. “Did you?”

“Yep. Every word.”

She lowered her head to take him in. “How unusual. And did you see his thoughts? The truth behind his lies?”

Peregrine’s jaw dropped. He nodded again, slowly, and whispered, “I did, Judge.” He glanced at Isabeau and Simone then turned back to the great purple dragon. “What does that mean?”

“You are a dragonsage.”

“I am?”

“Yes. I have gone many decades without one.”

Simone touched Peregrine’s shoulder. Her hair had come loose of its braids and her face was tear-stained. “I want to face judgment, Peregrine.”

Isabeau grabbed her sister’s arm. “What? No!”

But Simone shook her off and stepped toward the Judge. “I done Peregrine wrong, Judge. I was one of the group who strung him up in your hollow.” She crossed one arm over her chest and added, “Truthfully, I was the most insistent on his guilt.”

Once again, the Judge’s snout came down until it nearly touched Simone’s body, and the woman stiffened and stared. “Indeed, you are guilty. But you speak honestly, Simone Hightower.”

Isabeau trembled as she clutched Peregrine’s arm. She opened her mouth, but remained silent when he shook his head.

“I’ll accept your punishment, Judge,” Simone said.

The dragon nodded. “Turn away.”

Simone faced away from death. She chewed her lower lip, but kept her head high, accepting her fate.

The Judge slashed two curving talons across Simone’s back, and the woman shrieked and fell to her knees. Her duster and shirt were bloody tatters. Great gashes revealed muscle and bone, diagonal wounds from shoulder to hip that would heal but leave terrible scars.

“You will wear your guilt upon your body until the day you die, Simone Hightower.” The Judge studied the fallen woman and Isabeau, who’d gone to her sister’s aid. “But you have been spared by your honesty.” The dragon crouched and considered Peregrine for a long moment. “Dragonsage, you will find the others who wronged you and committed these crimes. Bring them to me, so that they may be judged.”

“Why do you care about the feuds of my kind, Judge?”

“Because unchecked feuds become war, and war feeds the Shadowns’ beast. Five dragons exist—five powers—and only we hold back the monster that seethes and plots against your kind and mine.” She tipped her snout toward Simone and added, “You will take Simone Hightower when she is well enough to travel. She will assist you in your search.” Then the Judge coiled her muscles, unfurled her wings, and sprang into the air.

Isabeau and Peregrine covered Simone as dust and debris engulfed them with each powerful down-stroke of the Judge’s pinions. The dragon cleared the tree line and swooped over the terrorized herd of sheep. She seized one in each claw, and then winged up to her promontory, snapped her wings tight to her body, and plunged into the darkness of her lair.

“I’ll hitch a team,” Isabeau said and ran to the only standing building on the property, the carriage house.

Simone gasped as Peregrine lifted her into his arms.

“I think I still hate you, Long,” she said through gritted teeth.

“You’d better get over that, Hightower. The Judge has tasked you and me with bringing Matikai and Bobby to face judgment.”

Simone groaned. “Where’s a chair when I need to kick one?”

Peregrine took in the obliterated rancho. “Not even a stool for as far as my eyes can see.”

He returned Simone’s weak smile as Isabeau led a team of black draft horses from the stable, hitched to a cart.

Peregrine gazed up at the blue sky. The sun was well past zenith, and soon he’d be leaving Bonesteel. Again. He moved toward the approaching cart.

It was a fine day to be alive.

Ivan Popov

The Keresztury TVirs

Translated from the Bulgarian by Vladimir Poleganov, Ivan Popov, and Kalin M. Nenov

Originally published in Sci Phi Journal #5, May 2015.

* * *

Andrew Keresztury. World TVir History. 4th edition

Springer-Verlag, Berlin-Istanbul-Islamabad-Singapore

The title of this book is slightly misleading. Or rather, the word "history" is misleading, bringing expectations of abstract moralizing and technical ignorance. However, the author—the TVirologist Andrew Keresztury—is an outright "techie"—one of the greatest experts in the field. That’s why his book is in fact a thorough technical overview, disguised as a history out of decorum.

The disguise succeeded in confusing even the publishers, as the first edition was included in the Critique of Postmodernism series, and the blurb compared the book to Douglas Rushkoff’s Media Virus! As a matter of fact, World TVir History saw the light of day only due to its publishers' confusion. TVirs are a rather delicate subject, and various secret services have made various aspects of their technical details top secret over time. Had it been classified as technical literature, the competent authorities would have stopped Keresztury’s work long before it reached the bookstores. In this particular situation, however, the first edition of TVir History remained on the bookshelves for twenty-three days’ before it was brought to the attention of the intelligence services and its entire print run was seized. The authorities went as far as tracing customers who bought copies from online bookstores and forcing them to return their purchases. In fact, this part of the book’s history is no less intriguing and edifying than the story of the TViruses it tells. Nevertheless, let us focus on the contents of the work itself.

Keresztury begins his presentation directly with the question "Who is to blame?" and gives a fitting answer: everyone, or—tantamount to this—no one. There are, as the virologist calls them, certain objective causes: the obsession with digitization and protocol standardization, the developers' penchant for creating systems with a great number of extraordinarily powerful undocumented functions. To top it all, we have had incredibly "lousy" operating systems since Microsoft, overblown beyond all measure, which when released in firmware, require chips with an immense capacity. Moreover, any smart programmer can insert almost anything into the "small" amount of unused memory on the chips.

And this "anything", according to Keresztury, has evolved greatly over time.

Historical sources cite the Ukrainian city of Odessa as the motherland of TVirs; the names of the first TVirmakers are well known: the hardware developers Leonid Kunitz and Miron Craciunescu (the latter is Moldavian). Kunitz and Craciunescu discovered by accident undocumented functions in digital TV sets, which allowed commands to be sent to the set via the cable along with the TV signal. More specifically, they were commands for upgrading—as well as tampering with—the firmware OS behind the back of the TV set’s owner. Besides, it turned out that these functions had been an implicit standard, adopted by all manufacturers. So Kunitz and Craciunescu invented the mixer: a device placed on the cable before the TV set, convolving the appropriate commands into the signal (initially, this used to be a computer program, not a separate hardware device). The first virus they wrote was quite simple and mischievous: its functions included shaking and inverting the screen image, creating "snow"; it assigned these functions to certain button combinations from the remote control.

After spending considerable time experimenting with their own TV sets, the budding TVirmakers plugged a remote control mixer into the TV cable running along a block of flats and started terrorizing all the viewers in the neighborhood by inverting the picture during key scenes of the popular soap operas of the time. The viewers, naturally, showered the local cable operator with complaints. It did not take the technicians long to find the mixer, but instead of unplugging it, they played a Byzantine trick: they removed the battery and hid nearby, waiting for the TVirmakers to show up and fix the device, and then caught them with the help of some private security men. The unwitting Ukrainian court passed a surprisingly light sentence on Kunitz and Craciunescu: 10 days in custody for hooliganism using technical devices. However, the news about those "technical devices" spread like wildfire. The cable operators in Odessa started a full-blown war: they all installed mixers on their competitors' cables and inverted the picture using the Kunitz virus. They soon concluded a truce, but someone—perhaps even Kunitz or Craciunescu—released the virus code on the Internet, making it accessible to every hacker in both Eastern and Western Europe.

The second generation of TVirs brought along more complicated "user" functions, mainly to do with sound manipulation. At first, they were restricted to changes in the voice timbre and other similar effects; from a technical point of view, this was no easy feat, because the sound was digitally encoded and the manipulation algorithms were rather compact. The center of this new generation of TV infection was thought to be Romania. There is a story of one Traian Radulescu who caused his aunt to have a heart attack by making the delicate and beautiful actress in a movie declare her love in a hoarse drunkard’s bass. Later, though, these effects became extremely popular, and cable operators themselves started installing them on TV sets at their clients' request. It turned out that people liked it: pressing buttons on their remotes and changing the actors' voices, the timbre of musical instruments and so on—replacing them with the weirdest substitutes.

Shortly afterwards came the first TViruses capable of inserting new lines into film dialogue. On the eve of the regional elections, a group calling itself the Maznev/Razmaznev TVir Crew unleashed a virus which, during the pauses, inserted various insults with a random timbre, aimed at one of the candidates: "Nevertheless, Artuchki is a swine!", "But we must keep in mind that Artuchki is a swine!", "The fact that Artuchki is a swine is indisputable," and so on. The name of that group featured the abbreviation "TVir" for the first time. (Keresztury makes no mention of the denigrated candidate’s reaction.)

Over the next few years this type of virus evolved considerably and became a favorite weapon of radical political organizations across America and Europe. They were widely used by antiglobalists and neofascists, to mention but two examples. Besides the now conventional medium of remote control mixers plugged into cable networks, propaganda TVirs also spread via infected pirated DVDs. (The undocumented commands can infect a TV not only through the cable input but also through a random digital video recording.) These PropaTVirs caused the police serious trouble, and draconian measures were introduced, decreeing sanctions not only for the propagators but also for those who willingly installed broadcast-changing code in their TV sets. During one of its campaigns, Interpol arrested the members of the Maznev/Razmaznev group, but several weeks later the convicts managed to escape custody under mysterious circumstances and vanished into thin air. It was a good fifteen years later that a member of the group was discovered, accidentally shot during a police operation against the "white plastic" mafia in Germany.

Among the so-called active-sound TVirs, Keresztury includes certain minimalist, obscure ersatz versions, which do not have the line insert and voice change functions. For example, if the virus identifies the president’s name in the signal, it emits noise in the channel and briefly deteriorates the picture quality. This behavior of the signal makes viewers angry, and their anger gradually projects onto the person mentioned—analogous to Pavlov’s dog conditioning. It is interesting to note that these simpler active-sound versions appear later than their more complex predecessors. They have been used not so much by the radical fractions, but by election offices that would release the virus against their own candidate and subsequently charge their opponents with unlawful subliminal attacks.

Image-manipulating viruses appeared a good ten years after the sound-manipulating ones. According to Keresztury, this was due to the more complex and extensive program code required for image analysis. Once the TVOSs evolved sufficiently and the TV processors became fast enough, such viruses cropped up in the wild. As always, sheer hooliganism led the way—with "the mustache painter" (which, along with the entire algorithm for facial recognition, fits in a tight 36 kilobytes!). Later, the "sentence eraser" appeared, designed as a weapon against advertising. Next came Bayraktar:[1] a tiny figure, waving a red flag with a crossed hammer and crescent, which would jump out in a corner of the screen at those very instants when the video stream was at its dynamic peak. (Thereby mercilessly distracting the viewer’s attention.) Bayraktar spawned a whole new brood of animated pests that switched on to torment the viewer on all kinds of occasions. Usually they formed part of an advertising campaign or counter-campaign.

The antiviral efforts of TV operators included the automatic distribution of anti-TVirs in their networks, which scanned the memory of the sets and wiped out the parasites. Programs for TV memory disinfection were also made available on the Internet. The TVirmakers responded with stealth TVirs, capable of completely disguising themselves. Furthermore, at a certain point TViruses became a fad: for example, teenagers who wanted to get back at their parents would infect the family TV sets, using special outer devices bought from the black market. The same market saw the advent of pre-TV boxes, which provided signal preprocessing along with the functionality of all viruses: sound manipulation, picture inversion, bouncing Bayraktar-type pest images, and even elements of AI, inserting moronic lines into movie dialogues and anchors' announcements.

According to Keresztury, the most outrageous aspect of the whole story is that the TV set manufacturers never eliminated the commands and functions which made TVirs possible. They neither agreed to restrict the standard, nor provided virologists with any explanation for the necessity of having such powerful and dangerous options in an ordinary household appliance. Consequently, the author makes the assumption that the manufacturers had been planning to use the millions of TV processors for their own purposes—to employ parallel computations and then harvest the results, for example. (At the time, there was an extremely popular rumor that any extra computational power of household devices was being used in such a manner.) It was only when the TVir epidemics broke out and spread that two or three TV models were introduced whose hardware disabled any TVOS upgrades. However, firstly, these models were not very popular, and secondly, the hardware deactivation could be reversed by soldering a single pin onto the circuit board.

The above does not contain any new or classified information: this has all been publicly available for a long time, and the author only deserves credit for gathering and systematizing it. Later in his book, however, Keresztury focuses on an entirely different type of TVir which had only been rumored to exist, without any substantiating facts or official statements. We refer to TViruses that contain subliminal messages as a "user" function.

Subliminal suggestion techniques had been known since the previous century: a sound or a voice whose volume (or frequency) is just below the threshold of perception can still be perceived, although subconsciously. The same applies to images hidden in the video stream: by either using a 25th frame or dispersing the individual pixels over multiple frames. These techniques have long been developed by special services as a promising tool for "conviction pushing"—propaganda or advertising. But there is nothing, absolutely nothing, preventing their release as TVirs.

In fact, Keresztury provides no evidence that such TVirs have actually been created and propagated. He only outlines the basic scheme and denies the rumors that subliminal viruses had been employed by the once notorious dictator Julio Cesar Milletbashian. As some of you doubtlessly still remember, Milletbashian was overthrown after an international intervention, provoked by reports that he was secretly designing a new generation of psychomanipulating technologies in order to zombify his subjects. Afterwards, however, no one could say what these technologies were, or whether they had existed at all. Keresztury, who at the time used to work for one of the departments responsible for Milletbashian’s ousting, notes that in the country in question, due to the extremely low standard of living, digital TV sets were relatively rare, which means that the subliminal viruses would have only zombified the wealthy minority. Keresztury’s department only discovered a few modified versions of standard TVirs of the Bayraktar and "Artuchki is a swine!" variety; furthermore, they had been used for campaigning against rather than for Milletbashian.

It has been commonly believed that the discussion of Milletbashian’s viruses—or, to be more precise, of their nonexistence—led to the book’s incrimination and its author’s arrest, on a charge of disclosing top secret information. Indeed, almost all the information concerning Milletbashian used to be classified until recently. However, according to most experts, the real reason, the real bomb, is hidden in the penultimate chapter of the book where Keresztury describes hemisphere-switching videomodifiers (HSVM).

What is the general principle? It is a well-known fact that the brain has two hemispheres, each one inhibiting the other, so that at any moment one is dominant and the other is repressed. The left hemisphere is responsible for logic and speech, and the right for image perception. When a person is watching TV, especially if the picture is bright and dynamic, the right, irrational hemisphere is more excited and dominating, even in viewers whose left hemisphere is stronger. But Keresztury insists that if tiny, barely visible special changes (videomodifiers) are inserted into the TV picture, they would repress the right hemisphere and excite the left, which is the rational one. What is more, he sets out the exact technology for generating videomodifiers, along with all required formulae and algorithms.

The modifiers are visually perceived as weak disturbances in the picture just above the threshold of perception. Their subliminal component manages to subtly attract the viewer’s attention. Thus some visual areas in the right hemisphere are repressed, and otherwise easy image processing is hindered—as if a filter or a silencer were installed in the brain. The disturbances are generated according to a complex geometrodynamic scheme. Keresztury says that he discovered the scheme in the files from the celebrated Asanovic trial, documented as a report on mental disorders caused by an unknown illegal video technology. The report had been prepared by an intelligence agent called Michael Singh. Later on, Keresztury discovered that a similar method had been developed by a pair of Ukrainian humanitarian technologists, surnamed Datsyuk and Yakimets, who were investigated in connection with the regime of dictator Milletbashian.

Keresztury concludes the section with the announcement that "quite recently"—that is, shortly before the book’s first release in 2021—several TVir strains were discovered, employing videomodifiers using the Datsyuk and Yakimets method.

It was never explained, however, which strains these were. No one else has ever detected them. The print-run of the book was seized, the author arrested…but this was not the end of the story. A few months later, Keresztury was kidnapped by an armed group from the prison truck that was taking him to court. About two years later, a journalist came across Keresztury in the town of Berettyóújfalu at the Hungary-Romania border and even managed to interview him, but the mysterious TVirologist disappeared again.

Unlike his book, which literally days after the incrimination appeared as a file on various hardware sites on the Internet. The intelligence services acted swiftly against the online copies and even convicted three sysadmins who had been hosting the file on their networks. However, they found out much later that all their actions had been in vain. The book had become permanently available on websites in Bulgaria; but in order to remain undetected by search engines (and, in turn, the intelligence services), some of the letters in the file had been replaced by identical letters from the Cyrillic alphabet.

All of this was revealed after the end of the First World Humanitarian War, when the previously competent authorities were disbanded and the TV networks, or at least what remained of them, were transferred to the control of the World Great Jihad Organization. Given current television standards, the possibilities of virus infection have effectively been ruled out, and the balance of information intended for the left and right hemispheres is closely regulated according to the decrees of our leader and teacher, Ayatollah Mukadassi as-Sadr. Therefore nowadays Keresztury’s work is of purely historical value—which has made its triple reprinting possible, thanks to the enormous amount of reader interest. Let us all hope that its value will always remain purely historical. Allah karim!

* * *

Jallal Masudi

Thracian Kurdistan Book Review (Eski Zagara Hisar)[2], vol. 152/2059

Translated from the Kurdish by Ovanes Papazian[3]

Bill Powell

The Punctuality Machine, Or, A Steampunk Libretto

Originally published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies, both as a short story and also as a special large-cast podcast in celebration of the 150th episode of the BCS Audio Fiction Podcast.

SETTING: The Arcadian hamlet of Fork-in-the-Heigh, many miles from London, on the eve of historic havoc.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

WHITLOCK CARTWRIGHT (a Young Inventor-cum-Geometry-Tutor, Chronically Late)

LADY CADENCE (a Young Beauty, Apparently Devoted to Geometry)

JACQUENETTE (Personal Automaton to Lady Cadence. French. Mobility Somewhat Restricted by the Hose Providing her Steam Power.)

VILLAGER 1 (a Villager)

CHORUS of Villagers (Other Villagers)

VRIL (a Charismatic Potentate of Extremely Alien Origin)

CHORUS of Vrillians (Vril’s Devoted Vassals)

First produced at the Opera Comique, London, on 1 April 1882.

* * *

ACT I

(WHITLOCK CARTWRIGHT, wearing his least-patched TWEED, rushes onto the empty stage at L. before the closed curtain. Panting, he consults a hissing, steam-powered POCKETWATCH.)

WHITLOCK (aside): Ha! A full ninety-seven seconds remain at my disposal. For once, I shall honour Lady Cadence with the punctuality befitting a fortnightly tutor in the Euclidean arts, particularly one who dares to harbour a passion so presumptuous that I dare not breathe it aloud, alone though I be in an antiquated alley of this charming but rusticated hamlet. (He approaches the CENTRE of the curtain.) Now I need only cross our sole plaza, which is, of course, perpetually deserted.

(The CURTAIN opens.)

(Scene: The central PLAZA of the hamlet Fork-in-the-Heigh. The VILLAGE CLOCK shows TWO minutes to TEN. A MOB of arguing VILLAGERS fills the entire PLAZA, completely OBSTRUCTING WHITLOCK’s path to the TOWN HOUSE of LADY CADENCE, which stands on the far side of the plaza at R. of stage.)

WHITLOCK: Brass tacks! What’s all this?

VILLAGER 1: (slaps WHITLOCK’s face) Watch your language, sirrah! Though I suppose even a man of science can be forgiven a smidgen of profanity, given the morning’s outrageous events.

WHITLOCK: What events? Never mind, I’ve no time! (He attempts to push past, but the VILLAGERS lock ARMS around him in CONCENTRIC CIRCLES. As they GYRATE with WHITLOCK as their unwilling MAYPOLE, VILLAGER 1 addresses them ALL in SONG.)

SONG—VILLAGERS

(emphatic, even thumping)

VILLAGER 1:

What’s all this? How remiss! What a social abyss!

Our enamoured inventor in ignorant bliss!

VILLAGERS:

A momentous event he has managed to miss!

We’ll ensure he remains here as we reminisce.

VILLAGER 1:

For in this very place, from the reaches of Space,

We have coolly conferred with an alien race!

VILLAGERS:

Yes, in this very place, with a grin on our face,

We have cravenly cringed to an alien race.

WHITLOCK: (speaks) I say, did you call me enamoured? How dare you imply—

empty::[]

empty::[]

VILLAGER 1: (sings)

I confess, these are news I expected to stun,

But I solemnly swear by the nose of a nun,

It’s the truth, or my name isn’t VILLAGER 1.

VILLAGERS:

It’s the truth! (Though he wishes the name were undone.

What kind of a mother would saddle her son

with a grave appellation like VILLAGER 1?)

VILLAGER 1’s MOTHER: (popping up at the back of the crowd) Me!

WHITLOCK (to VILLAGER 1): Why on Earth should I be stunned by an alien race? A few foreigners on holiday—

VILLAGER 1: Foreigners? These foreigners ain’t from Earth at all! Why, in this very place, among our very own fields (now much tramplified), we have entertained and intervened a star vessel from another world.

WHITLOCK: What?

(The VILLAGE CLOCK begins to gong TEN O’CLOCK. LADY CADENCE opens her front door, but WHITLOCK, his back to her, babbles on.)

WHITLOCK: How could a vessel voyage across the gulf of Space? And why ever would it disembark at the hamlet of Fork-in-the-Heigh? Why not London? Paris? Anywhere?

(The VILLAGERS scowl and mutter in OFFENCE.)

VILLAGER 1: Well, sir, it seems they hadn’t your Baedeker to plan their tour. They just landed, that’s all, and after we’d made their acquaintance, we considered it prudential to return them starward.

WHITLOCK: You sent them away? Imagine what wonders they might have bequeathed us! What advancements in knowledge! Instrumentation! Evening dress! (He spares a rueful GLANCE for his doubtful TWEED.) How could you? Brass—

LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright.

WHITLOCK: Lady Cadence!

(The VILLAGERS scatter with murmurs of Fine day, Your Ladyship, Beg pardon, Your Ladyship, Do avert your eyes from my plebeian squalor, Your Ladyship, etc.)

LADY CADENCE: Once again, Mr. Cartwright, you have preferred the company of your contraptions to my own.

WHITLOCK: I beg your indulgence! I had come unto the very gates of the paradise of promptitude when I found myself entangled, nay, ambushed, by the greatest discovery of our age!

LADY CADENCE: Kindly spare us your elaborate excuses.

SONG—LADY CADENCE, WHITLOCK

(quick and strident)

LADY CADENCE:

Every man with rationality,

Must acknowledge the centrality

And immerse his personality

In the joy of punctuality!

WHITLOCK:

But a tragic street fatality,

Or a passing principality,

Or the slightest technicality

Can obstruct one’s—

empty::[]

LADY CADENCE: Enough! Mr. Cartwright, I shall no longer require your services.

WHITLOCK: But, Lady Cartwright—I mean—Lady Cadence—

LADY CADENCE: How can I learn the intervals of Geometry from a man so consistently unfamiliar with the intervals of the clock? Good day, Mr. Cartwright.

(JACQUENETTE, personal automaton to LADY CADENCE and dressed in the latest French fashion, appears at the door. At her back, the HOSE providing her STEAM POWER emerges modestly from a pink satin FLOUNCE above her BUSTLE.)

JACQUENETTE: (with a small, unintentional HISS of STEAM) Milady!

(LADY CADENCE silences her with a gesture.)

WHITLOCK: (deflated) Good day. (He stumbles away towards L. of stage.)

JACQUENETTE: Ah! What a scene to arouse the sympathy! If only my eyes had the ducts of tears!

(LADY CADENCE turns her back to the retreating WHITLOCK, SIGHS, and CLASPS her HANDS.)

LADY CADENCE: (slowly) If he only knew.

SONG—LADY CADENCE

(slow and lilting)

LADY CADENCE:

His discovery’s long overdue

Of the passions so deep and so true

That within me abide and accrue—

Alas, if he only knew!

empty::[]

With the feminine diligence due,

I have offered him clue after clue.

JACQUENETTE:

Then milady, do tell him what’s true!

LADY CADENCE:

I say! Let the man pursue!

(LADY CADENCE sighs, glides down her steps into the deserted plaza, and PINES at R. of stage. JACQUENETTE loops her excess HOSE over one arm and follows.)

JACQUENETTE (still singing):

Perhaps he thinks your sympathy

Is only geometric?

LADY CADENCE:

He can’t believe I care for Math

So useless and eccentric.

JACQUENETTE:

Perhaps he fears your firm farewell

Is meant to be forever?

LADY CADENCE:

Not true! He knows he must pursue

And win me by endeavour!

(WHITLOCK, meanwhile, at far L. of stage, rests an ELBOW on an abandoned PITCHFORK STALL marked SOUVENIRS. He sings.)

WHITLOCK:

There’s no deed that I

doubt I would do—

I’d acquire a minor tattoo!

I’d consume a bucolic fondue!

Alas, she would still eschew.

(As he CONTINUES to SING, JACQUENETTE turns sharply and STRIDES towards him, to the full length of her HOSE. The MUSIC swells.)

LADY CADENCE:

Thus I trust he’s preparing to woo.

WHITLOCK:

With disgust, she has bid me adieu.

JACQUENETTE:

By my rust! Now Monsieur's singing too!

ALL:

Alas, if he (she) only knew!

empty::[]

(LADY CADENCE and JACQUENETTE withdraw into the HOUSE.)

WHITLOCK: Brass tacks! How shall I ever regain her esteem?

Shall I confess my true feelings? Impossible! She could never accept a man so wanting in punctuality.

If only I could somehow re-live the last few minutes…

Wait! Of course! If a vessel can voyage through the gulf of Space, why not the River of Time?

Ha! I’ll invent a Punctuality Machine! How could I have missed a solution so simple? I’ll construct such a device in no time at all! To my workshop! Huzzah!

CURTAIN

* * *

ACT II

SCENE 1

(Scene: The PLAZA, now empty. The VILLAGE CLOCK shows a QUARTER to TEN. An EXPLOSION sounds off-stage. WHITLOCK is thrown on at L. of stage. He staggers up, his TWEED SINGED and SMOULDERING.)

WHITLOCK: Quarter to ten! It worked! Francis Bacon and eggs, my invention actually worked! I have traversed the boundaries of Space and Time! And more than that—I’m early!

(WHITLOCK jaunts across the PLAZA and knocks on LADY CADENCE’s DOOR. JACQUENETTE answers, followed by LADY CADENCE.)

JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright! Early? It cannot be! Help! The impostor!

LADY CADENCE: Nonsense. No human agency could replicate that tweed.

WHITLOCK: Lady Cadence, if I might draw your attention to the time.

LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright, this is unprecedented! I commend you.

WHITLOCK: I accept your commendation, my lady.

LADY CADENCE: I acknowledge your acceptance, Mr. Cartwright.

WHITLOCK: I savour your acknowledgement, my lady.

LADY CADENCE: Savour! Mr. Cartwright, let us keep our metaphors within the bounds of propriety.

(Off-stage, concealed behind the SHOPPES that line the PLAZA, STRANGE VOICES cry, Vril, Vril, Vril!)

WHITLOCK: The alien race! I’m early! Great Scott!

(A platoon of VRILLIANS enters from back-stage, marching in single file into the PLAZA. These BEINGS from ANOTHER WORLD wear hip-high silver BOOTS, sparkling white EVENING SUITS, and matching CAPES with towering COLLARS and silver TRIM. Their fantastical SKIN glares in strident STRIPES of PURPLE and YELLOW. Their leader, VRIL, stops to sing, brandishing a tall STAFF.)

SONG—VRIL

(a bombastic march)

VRIL:

Vril! Vril! Vril!

VRILLIANS:

Vril!

VRIL:

We cry in voices shrill!

VRILLIANS:

Shrill!

VRIL:

And in tender mem’ries drill!

VRILLIANS:

Drill!

empty::[]

VRIL:

That we are the Vrillians,

Belovèd by millions,

The Vrillians, the fellows of Vril!

VRILLIANS:

Huzzah!

The Vrillians, the vassals of Vril!

(As the VRILLIANS form in RANKS around VRIL, the VILLAGERS spill out after them from back-stage.)

VRIL: I am Vril. Am I not splendid?

VRILLIANS: You are!

VRIL: I was addressing our new friends.

(The VRILLIANS hush each other with cries of Quiet! Hold your tongue! Shut up your garret! etc.)

VILLAGER 1 (stepping forward): I believe I speak for everyone, sir, when I say that you are definitely splendid.

VILLAGERS: (cheering) Splendid!

(JACQUENETTE, all aflutter, produces a steam-powered LADY’s FAN. Even LADY CADENCE seems MESMERIZED by VRIL, and WHITLOCK notes her FASCINATION.)

VRIL: (to VILLAGER 1) By everyone, I trust you do mean everyone?

VILLAGER 1: Indeed, sir! Every last one!

VRIL: On this entire celestial sphere?

VILLAGER 1: Absolutely, sir! There’s naught but our humble hamlet on all this verdacious Earth.

WHITLOCK: (aside) What means this audacious deception?

VRIL: How fortunate we happened to land so near!

VILLAGER 1: Fortunate indeed! You’ve captured every heart our Earth’s got for the taking, sir, and you’ve still got time to astound your next world before tea. Three cheers for Vril!

VILLAGERS & VRILLIANS: Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

VRIL: My Vrillians! Once again, we have journeyed to a faraway sphere and discovered kindred spirits. Like you, they all rejoice in my irresistible magnificence.

VILLAGERS: We do!

WHITLOCK: (to VILLAGER 1) Why is everyone so smitten by this revolting creature?

VILLAGER 1: (to WHITLOCK, sotto voce) Smitten? Not in the least! It’s all bunkum! Flam! Titotular bosh!

WHITLOCK: You fail to clarify.

VRIL: (to VRILLIANS) Now let us return to our star vessel!

VILLAGER 1 (to WHITLOCK): See? Off they go!

LADY CADENCE: (murmurs) Star vessel!

VRIL: And continue our quest throughout the heavens! What an appropriate moment for one final, spontaneous gesture of affection!

(VRIL extends a gleaming silver BOOT, which two VILLAGERS rush forward and begin to LICK. As VRIL turns to march up-stage, they scrabble to follow on their KNEES while still performing their ABLUTIONS. But VRIL sees LADY CADENCE, gasps, halts his procession, and STARES. LADY CADENCE modestly averts her EYES.)

VRIL: What is this? What strange admixture of desire, wonder, desire, fear, desire, and desire now wells within my muscular breast?

(WHITLOCK steps forward, but VILLAGER 1 clutches his arm.)

VILLAGER 1: Wait, Mr. Cartwright! You haven’t seen what he can do!

WHITLOCK: I can see what he’s doing!

VRIL: How can these feelings be? She’s pink!

LADY CADENCE: I beg your pardon?

SONG—VRIL

(slow, almost reflective)

VRIL:

Neither purple nor yellow, but pink!

Yet she’s somehow detected a chink

In the guard of my heart, where she sinks

And seeps, like a staining ink.

empty::[]

Can a purplish prince really think

Of begetting a permanent link

With a species so specially pink?

Alas, wouldn’t Mother blink?

empty::[]

(As VRIL lazily repeats his first stanza, the original, pre-time-traversal WHITLOCK (henceforth, WHITLOCK 1) enters from L. of stage and gasps at the scene. The time-traversed WHITLOCK (henceforth, WHITLOCK 2) spots him.)

WHITLOCK 2: Great Scott! It’s my original self! If Lady Cadence sees him, all is lost! She will easily deduce that my apparent punctuality is a mere time-traversing trick!

(WHITLOCK 2 hurries around the serenaded LADY CADENCE to confront WHITLOCK 1 at L. of stage.)

WHITLOCK 1: (seeing WHITLOCK 2) Brass tacks! (WHITLOCK 2 slaps him.) Ow! Who are you? A long-lost twin?

WHITLOCK 2: Don’t be ridiculous. I’m you.

WHITLOCK 1: I beg to differ.

WHITLOCK 2: You do differ—by several hours. I, having lived those hours, have returned to this temporal juncture via Punctuality Machine.

WHITLOCK 1: Nonsense! I’ve never heard of such a preposterous device.

WHITLOCK 2: Naturally. You haven’t invented it yet.

WHITLOCK 1: Then where is it?

WHITLOCK 2: The machine puts me through time. I didn’t manage to enable the machine itself to travel.

WHITLOCK 1: Why not?

WHITLOCK 2: There wasn’t time! Besides, I knew you would invent it again shortly.

WHITLOCK 1: I most certainly will not! I have an appointment to keep! What’s more—

WHITLOCK 2: Quiet! They’re stopping!

(VRIL completes his song and takes the hand of LADY CADENCE.)

VRIL: O pinkish delight, my mind is settled. You shall voyage with me through the heavens and reign as my Salmon Queen.

(VRIL grips her ARM. LADY CADENCE cries out in dismay. Both WHITLOCKS rush forward, but WHITLOCK 2 knocks WHITLOCK 1 down with a blow to the HEAD, then gasps and touches his own SCALP gingerly.)

WHITLOCK 2: (to VRIL) Stop at once, you star-smearing narcissist!

VRIL: I beg your pardon, you cannot be directing that offensive tone towards myself?

WHITLOCK 2: I am indeed, you delusional, despicable, undesirable—

VRIL: Undesirable! Alas, now who is delusional? Am I not belovèd by every rational creature on this entire orb?

VILLAGERS: Huzzah!

RECITATIVE

(fast, rhythmic speech)

VILLAGERS:

Huzzah for the Vrillians,

Adorèd by millions!

We humble civilians

All weep that they go!

empty::[]

WHITLOCK 2 (to VRIL):

In my humble opinion,

Be off to oblivion!

Their tears crocodilian

Will dry here below.

Your act is vaudevillian,

Your faults are octillion!

Your manners reptilian

Would shock a Brazilian!

Alas, but a Vrillian’s a pitiful beau!

A despicable, fickle, unprintable foe!

empty::[]

LADY CADENCE: (still in the grip of VRIL) Mr. Cartwright, my most mannered acquaintances hail from Brazil.

WHITLOCK 2: My apologies, Your Ladyship. It’s a difficult rhyme.

VRIL: And where, pray tell, is Brazil?

WHITLOCK 2: Oh dear.

VILLAGER 1: Brazil? Ha! Ha ha! What a fancy! This Brazil ain’t any place at all, sir! And it’s criminal expensive! Or my name isn’t Villager—

VRIL: Silence!

(VRIL aims his STAFF, an EXPLOSION sounds, and VILLAGER 1 DISTINTEGRATES into a PUFF of VAPOUR. VRILLIANS seize WHITLOCK 2.)

VRIL: Mr. Cartwright, you must have missed my earlier demonstration. And in your ignorance, you have revealed the minor detail that your entire civilisation does not consist of one hamlet named 'Fork-in-the-Heigh'! No, you must have thousands, millions of pink brethren, all awaiting the chance to adore me or die! Well. I presume I have your answer?

WHITLOCK 2: Quite.

(VRIL points his STAFF at WHITLOCK 2.)

LADY CADENCE: No! Not Whitlock! He is my… Geometry tutor.

VRIL: Mathematics, my peach, are useless and eccentric. However, anything to develop your diverting simulation of a mind. He shall have time to reconsider.

WHITLOCK 2: (as two VRILLIANS DRAG him up-stage, STOMPING in concert) She called me Whitlock!

VRIL (to LADY CADENCE): Come, my rosette coquette.

LADY CADENCE: You cannot hope to rule an entire world with a single staff.

VRIL: No. That would be rash.

(Each VRILLIAN produces a STAFF, which they SLAM in unison. JACQUENETTE faints. LADY CADENCE frowns. Deeply.)

CURTAIN

* * *

SCENE 2

(Scene: A cell in the VILLAGE PRISON. WHITLOCK 2 sits on a bench under a BARRED WINDOW.)

WHITLOCK 2: She called me Whitlock…

(The DOOR opens softly, and LADY CADENCE enters.)

WHITLOCK 2: Lady Cadence!

LADY CADENCE: Hush! Your gaoler is somniferously indisposed, having sampled, at my urging, a beverage of lamentable potency. You must fly!

WHITLOCK 2: Then come with me! Let me atone for my abominable lapse in judgement! Without my confounded meddling, this evril villain—that is, this evil Vrillian—would have departed at once with his violet Vermilions—I mean, violent Vrillians—

LADY CADENCE: No, Mr. Cartwright, the lapse in judgement was entirely my own. I am not vain, but a realistic assessment of my personal charms should have dictated caution in an encounter with a strange male of alien origin.

WHITLOCK 2: (aside) Too true. (to LADY CADENCE) But a small miscalculation must not dictate a lifetime of misery!

LADY CADENCE: Perhaps misery would be too strong a word.

WHITLOCK 2: Too strong? For entering wedlock with an alien creature who disintegrates the helpless on a whim? Who traverses the aether seeking new celestial spheres solely to terrify the inhabitants into the falsest pretence of adulation?

LADY CADENCE: I don’t deny that he has his faults.

WHITLOCK 2: You—you have feelings for this monster!

LADY CADENCE: Because this monster has feelings!

WHITLOCK 2: So did Caligula! Bad feelings!

LADY CADENCE: Oh, Mr. Cartwright…

SONG—LADY CADENCE and WHITLOCK 2

(with feeling)

LADY CADENCE:

How can woman resist him? He broods!

The mysterious hues of his moods

And the energy which he exudes

All compel an analysis shrewd.

(LADY CADENCE sweeps past WHITLOCK 2 to soloize at the BARRED WINDOW. WHITLOCK 2 withdraws to sing in the DARKEST CORNER.)

LADY CADENCE:

To a prude, all his ardour is poorly construed—

WHITLOCK 2:

Has he wooed her so quickly with cravings so crude?

LADY CADENCE:

I conclude that at last I am truly pursued—

WHITLOCK 2:

She eludes me, she’s his, and I shouldn’t intrude.

LADY CADENCE:

Though a tutor’s attentions may yet be renewed.

WHITLOCK 2:

I’ll occlude my desires and never intrude.

empty::[]

WHITLOCK 2 (speaks): I wish you every happiness, Your Ladyship. Surely your civilising influence will avert many a disintegration, as it has averted mine.

LADY CADENCE: O masculine race! You can build a machine to traverse the corridors of time, but you fail to learn the most elementary dynamics of conversing with a woman!

(LADY CADENCE storms out, leaving the DOOR open.)

WHITLOCK 2: What? Lady Cadence! I meant no offence! Alas, I’ve lost her again, for the last time.

Wait. Time! (He PACES, pivoting with each new THOUGHT at a rate commensurate with the diminutive dimensions of his CELL.)

I can prevent her ever meeting that monster!

But no. How could I? She loves him. A simulated punctuality might be forgiven, but what man of honour can woo a woman who is fated to find True Love with another?

Although one could argue that Vril is hardly harmless…

Bah! Can I sacrifice the happiness of the woman I love on the pretext of averting global annihilation? Begone, false virtue! Under thy clerical cloak lurks the foetid ghoul of Selfishness!

And yet… poor Villager 1. There must be a way…

Brass tacks! (He stops.) There is. (He sighs, then STRIDES out the DOOR into DARKNESS.)

CURTAIN

* * *

ACT III

(Scene: VILLAGE PLAZA, as before. The VILLAGE CLOCK shows TWENTY minutes to TEN. All is empty, save an OLD BEGGAR WOMAN shrouded in a heavy black shawl. An EXPLOSION sounds off-stage, and WHITLOCK (henceforth, WHITLOCK 3) is thrown on-stage as before, his TWEED AFLAME and BILLOWING with SMOKE. )

WHITLOCK 3: (as he SLAPS out the FLAMES) Cursed machine! (He sees the OLD BEGGAR WOMAN.) Ah! Forgive my lack of charity, grandmother, but I seem to have left my pocketbook in the future.

OLD BEGGAR WOMAN: Forgiven, sir, and well expungified. I’ll make my beseechments to Lady Cadence.

WHITLOCK 3: As will I. (He climbs LADY CADENCE’s steps, then halts.) (aside) Great Scott! I remember no such beggar present at either iteration of my interview with Lady Cadence. By what cause does she appear now, before my earliest arrival? Have I incited alterations which flow backwards in the River of Time? Are these the tremors of a coming cosmic cataclysm? Alas… such speculations only squander time so dearly won. (He knocks at the DOOR. JACQUENETTE answers.)

JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright! Early?

WHITLOCK: (aside) An identical response! Perhaps free will is a mere illusion. On the other hand, she’s an automaton.

(JACQUENETTE slaps him.)

JACQUENETTE: How dare you employ such a term for a lady!

WHITLOCK 3: How dare you eavesdrop on an obvious aside!

(LADY CADENCE appears at the DOOR. Coughing, she WAVES away the SMOKE which continues to issue from WHITLOCK’s TWEED.)

LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright? Are you quite extinguished?

WHITLOCK 3: Lady Cadence! Come, we haven’t much time. (He takes her ARM and ushers her into the PLAZA. JACQUENETTE follows, PROTESTING in FRENCH.)

LADY CADENCE: I demand to know the meaning of this impertinence!

WHITLOCK 3: In a few moments, your one true love will enter this plaza.

LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright! You’re raving! I assure you, that is quite impossible.

(An EXPLOSION sounds, and WHITLOCK 2, only MODERATELY SINGED, is thrown on-stage as before. LADY CADENCE gasps.)

WHITLOCK 2 & 3: (together) Great Scott!

WHITLOCK 3: I forgot that you would be barging in.

WHITLOCK 2: (aside) Brass tacks! I appear to be preceded by my future self! But perhaps I can yet conceal from Lady Cadence the secret of my punctuality. (to WHITLOCK 3) I know thee not, foul foreigner flambé! Unhand that lady at once!

WHITLOCK 3: Silence, you pompous idiot! You’re about to enslave mankind to an alien race!

LADY CADENCE: (to WHITLOCK 3) You are raving! (She WRENCHES free of his GRASP and steps back from both WHITLOCKS.)

WHITLOCK 2: I haven’t enslaved anyone! The alien race has already embarked!

WHITLOCK 3: Not yet! Not after they meet you!

LADY CADENCE: I utterly fail to comprehend.

WHITLOCK 3: I invented a machine, Your Ladyship. A machine to traverse the corridors of time.

LADY CADENCE: Impossible! But why?

WHITLOCK 2: Don’t say it!

WHITLOCK 3: To repair my frequent lapses in punctuality.

JACQUENETTE: Milady!

(LADY CADENCE silences her with a gesture.)

LADY CADENCE: The effort seems excessive.

WHITLOCK 3: Alas, the cure has proven worse than the disease. But in my travels I have learned that your path to happiness lies with this creature from the stars… Vril.

(Off-stage, as before, are heard rhythmic cries of Vril, Vril, Vril!)

LADY CADENCE: Why do they chant his name?

WHITLOCK 3: Because he annihilates all who dislike him.

LADY CADENCE, JACQUENETTE, and WHITLOCK 2: What?

WHITLOCK 3: He believes our village is the whole of our Earthly race! If we assure him he is universally belovèd, Your Ladyship, he will depart once more to the heavens. With you.

LADY CADENCE: How can you sacrifice me to this monster?

WHITLOCK 3: Sacrifice? On the contrary! You love him! He has feelings! He broods!

LADY CADENCE: He broods? A loathsome reversion to adolescence!

WHITLOCK 3: That’s not what you said twelve hours from now!

WHITLOCK 2: You’re mad, Whitlock. Lady Cadence would never stoop to greet such a fiend, much less grant him her affection.

WHITLOCK 3: You haven’t heard her after she meets him!

WHITLOCK 2: But that hasn’t happened yet!

WHITLOCK 3: It’s happened to me!

LADY CADENCE: Stop talking to yourself!

WHITLOCK 2: I won’t be tyrannized by time, Whitlock-from-twelve-hours-hence! I have conquered time for her sake. (WHITLOCK 2 takes her HANDS.)

RECITATIVE

(triumphant chant)

WHITLOCK 2: My lady, if indeed a fiend will soon, by some preternatural power, darken your heart, allow me to use these last few moments of light to offer you my own.

empty::[]

(WHITLOCK 2 kneels before LADY CADENCE.)

JACQUENETTE: (chants) Oh, milady!

LADY CADENCE: (chants) I accept.

WHITLOCK 3: (speaks) What? But you said—that is, you will say—

(The VRILLIANS march on-stage, as before, followed by the VILLAGERS and led by the singing VRIL.)

SONG—VRIL

VRIL:

Vril, Vril, Vril!

VRILLIANS:

Vril!

VRIL:

We cry in voices—

empty::[]

(He sees LADY CADENCE and shrieks in surprise.)

VRIL: What is this? What strange admixture of desire, wonder, desire…

WHITLOCK 3: (aside) Not again.

VRIL: (frowning at WHITLOCK 2)… and what minion dares to obstruct the object of my attraction?

WHITLOCK 3: Your pardon, sir. Allow me to introduce… myself. (He gestures to WHITLOCK 2.)

VRIL: A duplicator! What foul sorcery is this?

WHITLOCK 3: (aside) A duplicator? A-ha!

WHITLOCK 2: It’s not a duplicator, you purple prince of preposterous—

WHITLOCK 3: What perspicacity, Your Excellency! A duplicator indeed! And imagine if my humble device were employed upon… yourself.

WHITLOCK 2: (aside to WHITLOCK 3) What are you doing?

RANDOM VRILLIAN: Our joy would be doubled!

RANDOM VRILLIAN 2: Squared!

VRIL: No, you cretins! Swayed by my duplicate’s overpowering rhetoric and charisma, the multitude might prefer him!

VRILLIANS: Never!

VRIL: Silence! I cannot risk such a loss to all the worlds! Come, my Vrillians! Let us leave this dangerous orb at once!

VILLAGER 1: (aside) O rapture!

WHITLOCK 2: (to WHITLOCK 3) We’re brilliant!

WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE) Quick! I insist you go with him!

VRIL: As do I.

LADY CADENCE: Mr. Cartwright! I have canonically and definitively requited your love!

WHITLOCK 3: But only because I circumvented the truer passion you would have conceived for Vril under the correct conditions!

VRIL: For instance, seeing me.

LADY CADENCE: Spare me this torturous paroxysm of conscience! Do you love me or not?

WHITLOCK 3: Of course! I already told you!

WHITLOCK 2: No, I did!

WHITLOCK 3: But how can you enter wedlock with a Whitlock when a Vrillian grips the key to your heart? You told me! You love him!

OLD BEGGAR WOMAN: (in a younger voice) To be frank—I may have exaggerated my affection.

(The OLD BEGGAR WOMAN throws off her shawl, revealing LADY CADENCE (henceforth, LADY CADENCE 2). At the sight of a second LADY CADENCE, VRIL cries out and recoils, only to behold WHITLOCK 1 entering from L. of stage with his customary tardiness.)

VRIL: Vrillians! To me! Already their vile duplicator vomits forth additional insidious spawn!

SONG—VRIL

(urgent)

VRIL:

I’ll gather my Vrillians,

And leave these civilians,

Whose world makes me wince with concern.

Within our own vessel

We’ll cosily nestle,

To leave and to never return!

empty::[]

(VRIL and the VRILLIANS exeunt with dispatch.)

VILLAGERS: Huzzah!

WHITLOCK 3: (to the CADENCES) But why have you both forsaken your brooding prince?

LADY CADENCE 2: As it happens, O most insufferable Whitlock—

LADY CADENCE 1: (to LADY CADENCE 2) My dear, before you begin, a wisp of that dreadful cloak still clings to your hair. (She brushes away the offending DETRITUS.)

LADY CADENCE 2: Thank you, my dear. (They KISS each other’s CHEEKS.)

WHITLOCK 1: Lady Cadence, you’re calling me Whitlock.

LADY CADENCE 2: My dear man, you have already professed your love multiple times, in both the past and the future. I believe I am entitled to your praenomen.

WHITLOCK 1: (stunned) Take it. With my compliments.

WHITLOCK 3: When did I profess my love in the future? You professed your love for that alien potentate!

LADY CADENCE 2: How you do harp on that minor misunderstanding! The correct question is not when in the future but in which future.

WHITLOCK 1: Which future?

WHITLOCK 3: I confess, Lady Cadence, I share my confusion. Perhaps you could use an analogy from Geometry?

LADY CADENCE 2: Once and for all, I loathe Geometry.

(All three WHITLOCKS gasp.)

LADY CADENCE 1: Quite.

JACQUENETTE: (aside) But the mathematics are such the delight!

LADY CADENCE 2: However, one could conceive us each as traversing an independent, though often intersecting, vector of chronology.

ALL WHITLOCKS: Ahh!

LADY CADENCE 2: Do you recall when Vril’s minions dragged you to prison?

WHITLOCKS 1 and 2, LADY CADENCE 1, and JACQUENETTE: Prison?

WHITLOCK 3: Indeed.

LADY CADENCE 2: Your original vector led not to release at my hands, but to a final appearance at the Court of Vril.

WHITLOCK 3: His Court?

LADY CADENCE 2: Due to redecorations of his star vessel, necessitated by our impending nuptials, he had temporarily established his Court in my parlour, to the great detriment of my ancestral carpet.

JACQUENETTE: Ah, no!

LADY CADENCE 2: When he gave you one last chance to grovel, you instead professed your love for me.

WHITLOCK 3: I have no memory of this.

LADY CADENCE 2: I shall never forget it! It was most affecting. A woman could scarcely ask for a more romantic declaration. Of course, you were promptly disintegrated, which somewhat lessened my elation.

WHITLOCK 3: How unfortunate!

LADY CADENCE 2: That night, seeking some appropriate and tasteful memento of your person, I slipped out to your workshop. There, I discovered your device. With it, I returned to the past, intersected your vector several hours before your execution, and released you from your cell.

WHITLOCK 3: Of course! In the prison, you spoke of my machine! But why the pretence of such a monstrous affection?

LADY CADENCE 2: Since I had precluded your future declaration in the face of death, I felt that a certain… urgency… might encourage a similar declaration in your cell. Alas, I miscalculated, and I fled in confusion. But on consideration, I resolved that, if I could not win your open affection, I could at least return to this temporal juncture and ensure the departure of those odious Vrillians.

(WHITLOCK 3 takes the hands of LADY CADENCE 2.)

WHITLOCK 3: Oh, Your Ladyship.

LADY CADENCE 2: (softly) Cadence.

LADY CADENCE 1: Yes?

(WHITLOCK 3 bends to kiss LADY CADENCE 2. WHITLOCK 2 kisses LADY CADENCE 1.)

WHITLOCK 1: And what of me?

JACQUENETTE: Monsieur Cartwright—

WHITLOCK 1: Not a chance.

(The VILLAGERS lock ARMS around the COUPLES and sing.)

FINALE

(with finality)

VILLAGERS:

Osculation confirms that these Loves must be True!

With relief, we’ll avert this device’s début—

empty::[]

WHITLOCK 3: (to LADY CADENCE 2) But if no one invents the Punctuality Machine in the future, we won’t be together now!

WHITLOCK 2: You’re already together now! If a full repetition of events is required, what of your disintegration?

WHITLOCK 3: You were the one disintegrated—

(Both CADENCES kiss their WHITLOCKS quiet.)

WHITLOCK 1: (aside) Ah! What man of honour can but rejoice, to see his lady doubly belovèd? And by suitors so superb!

(With a happy SHRUG, he joins the CIRCLE of spinning VILLAGERS as they finish the SONG.)

VILLAGERS:

For cantankerous chaos will always ensue

When attempting a tempting temporal redo!

empty::[]

FINIS

Stephen S. Power

Stripped to Zero

First published in Nature, volume 524, page 130, 2015 by Nature Publishing Group

* * *

I don’t know why we bother waiting on the stoop. After an hour I grab Tommy’s Caillou backpack and reach for his hand. He tucks it against his chest. It kills me, but I can’t blame him. I’d call his mother if Karen would carry a phone. Or answer if she did.

Tommy follows me inside and says, “Do I still get chips for being good?”

“Sure," I say, turning, "if you can beat me. Go!"

We race across the lobby and down a hall to the 24Shop, a small room lined with video displays. I let him dart in just ahead of me, and the shop says, "Good morning, Tommy."

“How does she always know my name, Daddy?”

I shrug. To a four-year-old, even the most mundane technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The shop has a woman’s voice, soft and warm. I imagine her kneeling when she asks him, “What would you like, Tommy?”

He looks from screen to screen. Dancing chips. Splashing sodas. Cookies, ice cream and comfort foods. The shop says, “How about corn flakes with milk?” A bowl of cereal appears.

“No, chips,” he says.

“It’s much too early. Oatmeal with cinnamon?” Steaming oatmeal appears.

“No, chips! Daddy…”

Stupid nutrition protocols. “He can have a snack.”

The shop says nothing. Instead, images flow down a screen like a slot machine before settling on a MoonPie.

“Yes!”

“And a coke?”

“Why not?” I say.

A red light blinks above the bill slot. Standing behind Tommy, I nod, and the light turns green. A MoonPie tumbles into one tray, a can of RC into another.

“What do you want, Henry?”

Tommy takes my hand. "Nothing,” I say. “I’m good."

Upstairs, Tommy turns on the TV and tears into his food. He’s promptly shown commercials for MoonPies and RC. This he thinks nothing of.

I head for my reading room and find Karen sitting on the toilet tank. The mirror’s unplugged and draped with towels.

I close the door. "What are you doing in here? How did you even get in?"

"I spoofed a pass card."

"I’d get you a real card."

"Worse than phones." She glances through the high, small window.

“He waited an hour for you."

"I know. I watched."

"From the shadows? Jesus. He can’t remember most of your shit, but it’s starting to stick.”

“It’s not shit.”

I hold up my hands. “Look. He misses you. Come on out. I’ll tell him you—"

"Don’t make excuses for me. And I’m not going near that TV. This toilet’s bad enough. Probably reporting my weight.” She lifts her boots off the lid.

“Fine. I’ll call him.”

“No.”

“Then why get his hopes up? Why…this?”

“I wanted to see him, but I needed to speak with you.”

She slides down and stands close. She seems taller. And thinner. Probably the boots.

“I’m leaving,” she says. "For good. I won’t be coded anymore. I won’t be tagged. It’s killing me.”

“So you’ll kill him instead.”

“He’s another tag, Henry.”

"He’s a little boy."

"No. We’re just data sets here. Why can’t you see that? Is that all you want him to be?"

Now I get it. “You’re not taking him.”

“We could live clean. Stripped to zero. Anonymous. This place I’m going—"

“I’ll get him to his room,” I say and grip the door knob. “Slither out, and the TV won’t see you either.”

I don’t worry about her snatching Tommy. It’d be easier for her disappear if no one wanted to find her, and I would.

“Then tell him,” she says, “when he’s old enough, that I’m not crazy.”

“He’ll never be that old.”

My watch screen flares. Tommy knocks. "Daddy, I don’t feel well."

I look at Karen. She’s already ducking behind the black shower curtain.

I open the door. Tommy’s face is pale, sweaty and smeared with MoonPie. With a whir, the toilet lifts its lid.

“Quickly.” We kneel together on the mat, and Tommy spews brown black vomit.

I hear my mother say, “You just had to let him eat all that junk, didn’t you?”

The toilet expresses a milky foam that bonds with the vomit, then it vacuums both away. I wipe Tommy’s mouth with a tissue as the scent of vanilla fills the room.

"Smells like Mommy," he says.

“Yea.” I loved her vanilla perfume, which is why she stopped wearing it. Afterwards she seemed invisible. "I could set the vents to vanilla too."

"No, I want Mommy."

"I know." I rub his back.

"Why didn’t she come?” Tommy slams the toilet lid down. "Where is she?"

I take his wrists and turn him so I can look him in the eyes. "Do you love her?"

He nods.

"Then she’s always nearby."

"Like in the shower?"

“Ha! Exactly. Come on. Let’s get a new shirt on you."

I pick Tommy up and bring him to his room. While he paws through a drawer, I hear her footstep outside. I smell the vanilla again, my stomach twists, and, despite everything, I want her to rush in and grab us both. So when the front door clicks, I’m horribly relieved, like someone watching his terminal partner finally die.

Tommy pulls out his Batman t-shirt. I bend him into it. We go to the living room and flop down in a heap before the TV. The first commercial is for vanilla air fresheners.

It’s on every channel.

Wire Paladin

First publishing in AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

* * *

At first the emails from SearchBot were merely aggravating. Although Joan marked them as spam, they still appeared in her inbox three times a day, then five. She created a rule to delete them on receipt. They nonetheless appeared, and their frequency increased. Like killing the ringer whenever VA B calls because answering only encourages the weasels, Joan gritted her teeth and deleted. Then the subject lines started getting personal.

JOAN HALL SEARCHBOT HAS RESULTS FOR YOU became JOAN HALL CORNELL 2000 and JOAN HALL AGE 37. Joan figured the spammers, after so many deletions, were trying to attract her attention by adding information from whatever databases they’d gotten her email from. That would explain how they knew her actual alma mater and age, not the ones she told people.

When the subject lines included OPEN NOW and VITAL, Joan googled SearchBot to see if others had had the same problem. Oddly, SearchBot seemed to be a reputable commercial tool one step up from Google News. According to various forums, collectors used it find objects their owners mentioned online, but hadn’t put up for sale. It enabled companies to suss out information about their competitors. For many it helped fill in genealogies. Although spammers use web robots to harvest email addresses, SB Tech’s site claimed they didn’t market by mass email.

So who was sending her the spam? Why did deleting one make another appear? And while she supposed the spammers could use SearchBot to find out her cat’s name and add it to a subject line, how did SearchBot know her only phone was a burner?

After a week Joan was considering cancelling her email account when a subject line said ELLIE PLEASE. Joan went cold. She nearly vomited. She had to open this email, viruses be damned. Joan stood up in a fighting stance and tapped.

* * *

Outside her house in a rental car, Klinsmen watched Ellie stand up and tap her tablet. Five stars, SearchBot. He was glad he’d paid for the premium service. A week ago SearchBot gave up “Joan Hall”; three days ago, her address. He never would’ve found her with that name, although he knew immediately where it had come from: the mother who’d disowned her and the first school she’d been expelled from. To hear her tell it.

SearchBot couldn’t distinguish truth from lies. It only dealt in data and how it was related. He envied SearchBot. You could avoid a lot of bullshit with that attitude.

As a bonus, SearchBot didn’t have to question people who might then alert her. Nor did it require travel expenses. He can’t imagine how much those would have built up during the past six years.

Klinsmen looked around the street: modest, quiet, comfortable. Neat yards. No kids. She probably had a couple old guys vying to be her handyman. And her job as a restaurant manager would let her stretch the money she stole from him a long way; longer, if the restaurant owners haven’t caught on to what she’s probably stealing from them. Smart moves, but he’d given her so much more than this.

Sure, he understood her need for freedom. He’d been nearly locked up half a dozen times. What he couldn’t grasp was her belief that he should fund her freedom without recompense.

Klinsmen checked his gun, buttoned his jacket over it and opened the door. He had people for this sort of thing, but he wanted to speak with Ellie first. He was a reasonable man. He knew he couldn’t get much of his money back, nor did he need it. Frankly, he’d rather have her back. He loved her smarts. They’d made a good team. Maybe they could work things out.

Klinsmen grabbed the bouquet he’d bought at the airport and headed for Ellie’s door.

* * *

SearchBot’s email contained two images, the results of a derived search, whatever that was, but Gmail blocked them. Did she want to see? In for a penny, she thought and revealed a Google Maps screen cap of her house and an AP photo of Noah Klinsmen after a recent acquittal.

As Joan tried to breathe, another email arrived from SearchBot. The subject line read: NOW. The mail contained a shortened URL. She clicked it. Up came her neighbor’s website.

Mr. Better was a sweet old man who hated only three things: dogs, dog poop and people whose dogs pooped on his lawn. He’d put a webcam in his front window to publicly shame them. At the moment, its livestream showed Noah carrying a bouquet up her walk.

Her breath came back as a laugh. Did he really think he could make up with her?

* * *

With his wife and cats dead, Mr. Better had one thing left to love: his neighbour, Joan. He mowed her lawn, fixed her plumbing and generally let her make him feel useful. He even insisted, after she’d admired his wife’s jewelry, that she take the nicest pieces for putting up with him. She’s like a daughter, he told himself while sitting at his computer, and so innocent.

Mr. Better watched Klinsmen knock on Joan’s door. He didn’t know she had a boyfriend, and he didn’t like the look of him. If he were expected, why not park in front of her house, not two doors down in front of his?

* * *

While Noah knocked, Joan slashed open her padded headboard and pulled out her money belts. She grabbed her go bag from under the bed, her purse from the dresser, and slipped down the hall to the back door. Dammit. Her car was in the driveway. She couldn’t get to it, let alone get away without Noah getting her.

Her cat wandered in. “Sorry, Cora,” she said and slipped out the back door.

Joan crept to the other side of the house, an alley shadowed by the six-foot stockade fence surrounding her back yard. She’d considered it an ideal feature when she moved in, never suspecting that Noah would use the front door. She crouched behind her AC unit, took her tablet from her go bag and pulled up Mr. Better’s cam.

Noah paced her stoop. He shook the flowers and kept opening his mouth, wanting to yell. Undeterred Mr. Better crossed the street. Joan heard him call from the sidewalk, “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Joan.” Noah held up the half-bent flowers.

“I don’t think she’s home,” Mr. Better said.

“How would you know?” Noah said.

“This is a nice street. People look out for each other.”

Noah unbuttoned his jacket. “So who’s looking out for you?”

“911. I called before I came.”

“Bullshit.”

“Funny thing, 911. You call. You hang up. They still send a cop. Old men like me have to apologize for our shaky fingers.”

Joan could have kissed those fingers. Too bad he’d never see her again.

“So I’ll wait.” Noah sat on the stoop. “The stories I could tell the cops about Joan.”

Mr. Better shifted in place and Joan realized, as Noah did, that he hadn’t called 911.

Mr. Better didn’t give up. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Noah ignored him and took out his phone. After a few moments Mr. Better went back to his house. It killed her, the humiliation on his face. He stopped on the porch and looked straight at the cam; she realized he was looking at himself in the front window. His shoulders trembled, his eyes clenched and his lips muttered. When he turned aside to go in, she realized he’d been eclipsing Noah, who’d disappeared from her stoop.

Joan reached for the gun in her go bag.

* * *

Klinsmen scrolled through his eBay auctions while the old man stared at him. So this is how you flip a guy off nowadays. After three bids the old guy gave up. As he crossed the street, Klinsmen got a new report from SearchBot. He hit the shortened URL.

His browser opened to a livestream. The old guy was walking towards him on the screen, which disturbed Klinsmen until he looked behind the old guy on the screen and saw himself. He waved to make sure. That dirty old creep, he thought.

Klinsmen got up, buttoned his jacket and went to his car. He hated witnesses, especially those he couldn’t do anything about. He’d send a few guys to deal with Ellie. It was stupid of him to come. Klinsmen slid into the driver’s seat, tossed the flowers in the street, and watched Mr. Better open his front door.

He hated loose ends too. The old guy had seen him. He’d tell Ellie, and Ellie would run. Klinsmen checked the old guy’s site. There were no other streams, just the one in front, none for the back. He unbuttoned his jacket again.

Thus preoccupied, Klinsmen took a moment to think, “That was a strangely convenient email.”

* * *

Joan cocked her gun, breathed deeply twice and looked past the corner of the house. Noah hadn’t come around to try the back door. She didn’t hear him either. She checked the tablet. The street was empty. No, there was a car. Someone was in it.

The car wheeled around. Joan ran to the driveway in time to see it turn left out of the street. It didn’t go far. The car turned at the next corner and parked. Through a gap in the trees she saw Noah get out and cut through the property behind Mr. Better’s house.

Joan kilroyed over her hood. She should go. Get the bag and belts. Get in the car. The car whose oil Mr. Better had changed. The car he’d vacuumed. The car he’d helped her buy because a restaurant manager’s salary only went so far.

Noah slinked across Mr. Better’s back yard and vanished behind his house. Joan started down the driveway, gun hard against her hip. At the sidewalk she stopped and pulled her burner from her back pocket.

* * *

Mr. Better watched his stream. The man was just sitting in his car, looking at his house, looking at him. He’d be damned if that man got anywhere near Joan. He should call 911, but he’d had a better idea. Mr. Better took down his double-barreled shotgun, loaded two shells and went to the front door. This was one argument the man couldn’t ignore.

* * *

Klinsmen wedged himself between two shrubs and looked through an open back window. The kitchen was empty, but down a hallway he could see the old guy bent at the front door. Pathetic, he thought. Klinsmen drew his automatic and aimed through the window screen. Too easy.

* * *

Mr. Better looked through the peephole, leaning on his shotgun for balance. The car was gone. He exhaled. What had he been thinking? Then he saw Joan on the sidewalk. So pretty. She must have been out for a walk. She was looking at his house. She must need him. He had to tell her about the man. He reached for the knob.

No. Mr. Better pushed his forehead against the peephole until it hurt. He was an old fool. Old men shouldn’t love. They’d had their chance. They certainly shouldn’t try to be heroes. Mr. Better turned away from the door, hefted the shotgun, and shuffled toward the kitchen.

The phone rang. Startled, Mr. Better fired.

* * *

Joan heard what sounded like an explosion in Mr. Better’s house. Not thirty seconds later she heard the siren. No sense in her getting involved now.

She got her bag and belts, threw them in the car and slowly backed out of the driveway. Joan was rolling up to the corner when the police car appeared. She thought they would stop her, but they turned into the next street and stopped in front of Noah’s car.

They got out, looked inside and looked at each other.

A voice called across the yards. It was Mr. Better. She couldn’t believe it. He was distraught, but alive. She started to cry. He must have gotten her call. Then she remembered his grandfather’s shotgun, which hung above his mantle. She didn’t think it even worked.

Joan put on her blinker, turned right and drove slowly out of town, amazed at how quickly the police had responded.

* * *

That night over beers the 911 operator started the story for the twentieth time: “I’ve had vampires call. Werewolves. Vampires who wanted to be werewolves. But I never had a robot call. Guy used a voice synthesizer. Sounded like Stephen Hawking. And all he had to say was the latitude and longitude of that guy’s phone.”

* * *

A week later SB Tech automatically renewed Klinsmen’s SearchBot access, charging a credit card registered to a restaurant he owned. Reports were sent out several times a day, but with diminishing results. Joan Hall had ceased being mentioned anywhere.

A month later the automatic renewal was rejected. The credit card had been cancelled. Several emails were sent. They were bounced back. His email address had also been cancelled.

Not willing to lose a long-standing customer, a senior rep called the number SB Tech had on file for one Frazier Svenson. It too had been cancelled. The desperate rep googled his name. She got no results and closed the account.

* * *

The SearchBot was reassigned to a San Diego art dealer who had it trawl photos online for pieces of art in the background whose owners might not realize were valuable. SearchBot also found contact information so the dealer could give the owners a story about how he’d seen the piece online and fallen in love with it. Then he would make a lowball offer.

The SearchBot’s algorithms judged this behavior to be statistically unfair, so it emailed the art owners with more accurate valuations of their property to even the playing field. It continued to struggle with devising subject lines that didn’t seem spammy or scary.

Automatic Sky

First published by AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

* * *

Marina’s world is a pale speck on Hub’s forward monitor. Having just unfolded at the edge of her system, he won’t arrive at Sonhar for two days, and the wait is killing him. When you travel halfway across the void to propose, you want to fold the void so thin you can hold your girl’s hand through it. Hub’s engine isn’t good enough for that, though. At best it can sort of wad up the void. So Hub turns on his automatic sky, which acclimates travelers to their destination worlds and makes Hub feel like he’s already with her.

A projection of Sonhar’s sky as viewed from her father’s estate fills the walls of the command dome: the binary suns, three of the five major moons, and a shining silver ring like a bridge to them all. The wonders complement Marina, with her bright eyes, broad pretty face, and exaggerated mouth, and they make Hub forget his own world, which is more like the speck.

He taps the ring in his breast pocket. It’s still there. To afford its red diamond, he had to fly all the way to Fantin’s Planet, fifty-two folds, and mine the stone himself. He has little to give, but he can give her effort.

The ansible bongs. The readout displays Marina’s transmission code. He picks up the receiver. He could run her voice through the aircom, but Hub likes feeling her mouth close to his ear.

“Ahoy,” he says.

“Hubbert, where are you?”

“Near Elsanna.” The frozen dwarf planet, slightly squashed, slides across his starboard monitor.

“Thank goodness.”

“I said I’d come back.”

“Don’t kid, Hub. Something’s wrong.”

“Are you alright? I could get there sooner if—”

“No, don’t. I don’t know what’s happening. Stay away till I—”

The ansible drops the call. Hub smacks it. It’s an older model, which he bought from this guy he met, and hitting it sometimes works. Not this time.

When Marina doesn’t call back after a minute, he tries her. No response. Worse, the ansible detects no receiver on her end. He runs a diagnostic, that is, he pries the ansible out of the console, flips it over and makes sure nothing burned out or broke inside. All looks well. He replaces the ansible.

There could be a problem with the local network. Hub has to confirm his landing reservation anyway, so he calls her district’s spaceport. No receiver detected.

He stares at the speck. He tries the district transmission centre to check on outages. No receiver. Not even a message saying they have better things to do than reassure him. He calls five numbers in five random districts. No receivers.

Hub calls another solar system entirely.

“Pick up or delivery?”

Hub hangs up. The ansible does work.

He glances at the suns topping the rotunda. The Betsys give off so much light, the sky is white: a perfect picnic noon, Marina would call it. Her skin refuses to tan, and on days like this it glows as if she were becoming light herself. When going to meet her at some out-of-the-way spot with a basket and blanket, he can see her from half a kilometer away. His beacon.

Hub drums his fingers on the navigator. Folding inside a solar system is foolish, given the multiple proximate gravities deforming space. The fuel and effort aren’t worth the time saved and risk of being sucked into a planet or moon. Sonhar is 44.4 hours away, though, and he could cut that in half at least.

The navigator takes five minutes to resolve a fold that will take him only 2% closer, but put him in a position to make a 7% fold. Hub punches it. The monitors blacken, flicker and change. Elsanna has shrunken to stern. Sonhar, now on the under monitor, remains a speck.

The navigator hums, the ship maintains its impetus of SoL .09, and Hub calls the transmission centre floating above Pemecks, the gas giant one orbit out from Sonhar. He worked there for a year, which is as long as he has ever worked anywhere, and someone might remember him. The ansible finds a receiver, but it’s engaged. Hub waits for a connection until the fold comes in, hangs up and punches it.

Sonhar’s pixels have divided like cells in a dish. Thirty minutes pass. The Pemecks line comes free, but no one engages him. Hub tries one of the gas plants circling the planet. They funnel their calls through Sonhar for security, but this plant is owned by Marina’s father. A year ago he hired Hub away from the transmission centre to maintain his transports and six months later he asked him to work on his estate. When Hub moved to Sonhar, he should have returned the plant’s list of private transmission codes. They’re all engaged, probably trying to reach Marina’s father. Hub folds again.

The fourth resolution will take forty-eight minutes. Hub has the ansible bong through the aircom like a heartbeat, but now that he knows Pemecks is still there, he doesn’t need the centre or the plant to answer until the fold is nearly in. He’s done a calculation himself. In forty-six minutes the light from Sonhar at the time Marina called will reach its neighbor, and Pemecks can tell him if Sonhar is also still there.

Hub spends the time floating through the Sonharn sky. On the estate he maintained the family’s hoppers. One morning, at her command, he took Marina up and gave her some lessons. She proved a fair hand with the stick. They started flying every day, and every day they talked, a hopper’s cramped cabin inspiring intimacies the hoppers’ hanger never could have. His stories took her beyond Sonhar, which she had never left. Her smile took him beyond the world, and often he came to, as if from a deep sleep, worrying about their fuel levels. Pushing himself around the dome, Hub wishes he could program an image of her floating with him.

The fold comes in. Before punching it, Hub lets the ansible bong a few more times. His father once told him: When you’re digging a well and you don’t hit water, dig another meter before you quit. You don’t want to go through life thinking you missed a chance by the length of your arm.

His father was right. Pemecks answers. Hub shouts, “What happened to Sonhar?” over their “Why are you on this line?” Then Hub parries their “Who is this? Stop trying us,” with “No, tell me. What’s going on?” Hub hears yelling in the background. Pemecks disconnects. Hub calls back. The ansible bongs unanswered for three more minutes before he folds.

The last resolution will take more than an hour. The fold will put him near Sonhar’s largest moon. He hopes he won’t need it. He hopes he can glide there at .09, chatting with Marina the whole way. In twenty-nine minutes he’ll know if he can. That’s when he’ll meet the light coming from Sonhar himself.

The suns are falling. A wisp of rich blue rises along the eastern horizon. After a day of flying, he and Marina would sit on the steps of a folly her father had built and watch it grow. “The promise of night,” he called it one day. “The promise of space,” she said. And after the stars emerged, she took his hand for the first time. Two weeks later the twilight saw her kiss him. In a month she was relieved that noon couldn’t talk and a pillar blocked her father’s view from the main house. Tomorrow those steps are where he’ll propose, and he doesn’t care who thinks it folly.

Hub propels himself to the forward monitors. Sonhar has become a dot no less dirty than the speck. He can’t bear to see the planet looking so cold. Hub applies some filters. The dot turns a vibrant blue set off by her ring and the scattered pearls of her moons. It seems to breathe.

That’s what Marina longs to see: the world and distance from it. As soon as he puts his ring on her finger, he’ll take her right here, then teach her how to fold. He’ll let her tune the sky to any world’s she wants because he won’t need Sonhar’s anymore.

With five minutes left Hub sits. With three he tries Marina. Hub hears muttering between the bongs. With one minute left he hangs up. The mutters were resolving into Marina’s voice.

A purple line angles from the top of the monitor and pokes through the planet. Hub initiates various sensor readings, then reinitiates those his fingers refused to key correctly. The planet glows red. The line extends to the bottom. The readings come in. The planet’s being drenched in gamma radiation. The ozone layer is disintegrating. The suns start washing Sonhar with UV. After nearly two minutes the line’s trailing end leaves the top of the monitor, slips through the planet like a finger from a ring and drains out the bottom.

Sonhar’s sky billows pink around the planet and chases the gamma ray jet. One by one the moons also turn red as if in sympathy. The rings look as sharp as a knife-edge.

Hub drifts into the sky. The suns feel hot on his back, although that’s not part of the program, and he shivers like dust. Is this simulation all that’s left of Sonhar? No. The suns will set. Tomorrow they’ll rise. No one is likely to see them.

Hub removes the monitor’s filters, and all the color goes out of the world. He turns off the sky, and all the color goes out of the dome. The walls are grey and tangled with pipes. Paint peels off the buttresses. The dome is spattered with drops of random fluids. Marina deserves a better ship than this to take her into space.

She’s in reach. She could be alive. She won’t survive for long, nor will he, but she will see the heavens and he will see her.

The fold comes in. Hub punches it.

Rhiannon Rasmussen

The Hymn of Ordeal, No. 23

Originally published by Women Destroy Science Fiction, June 2014

* * *

Your brother’s bones, suspended in mineral fluids, turn as smoothly and shine as brightly as the oil-coated joints of the mechanism they guide. When you touch the heavy plastic that separates you from his body, it is cold. The iron plate that serves to cover what is left of his face turns towards the tapping, and nausea wells deep in your throat. You catch a glimpse of yellow fat, the hole of a socket, nerves that once bundled into the base of an eye now strung behind the iron half-mask.

Flesh did not make the transit to deep space whole, only guts packed in gel and nerves strung into wires, the delicate threads that extend to outer sensors, thrusters, and lenses. That is what they are now. Not people, not soldiers, but shrikes, the folded warbirds sent through void to cleanse it of the invaders, to impale them on their own stardust ruins, to leave broken chassis and frozen corpses scattered as warning to others who might threaten us. If the invaders left corpses—you have never seen them, only the scars of their passage left across the skin of Earth.

Only the shrikes see them, and the shrikes are silent.

The motion makes you queasy, to see your kin laid bare in this way, deconstructed into scaffolding, but he knew what he had volunteered for long before the first flensing cut had been made. Most people are advised not to see the volunteers after induction. Now you understand why.

You’re told he does not acknowledge you. The movement is involuntary, a roll in his sleep while he dreams the dreams of kites. He does not see inside the ship any more than you can peer inside your own ribcage.

After you leave the shrike and the remains of your brother behind, you lift your phone as you have many times before, to listen again to the last message your brother left you, on the day he decided to join. The words are as hollow as you felt when you first heard them. You thought a suicide note might be less painful, but you did not know what you could do, you never raised your voice against him, and now you walk away.

"How else do you see the stars, but to join the war?" he asks, distant and thin through the speakers. "I don’t know if you’ll understand," a pause for breath, and you stop the message. You know how it ends.

* * *

On launch day you stay at home while astronomers gather on hills and look up for the tiny stars, winking out one by one as the shrikes break orbit and fling themselves far past the shadows the sun casts. It is all the news discusses for weeks, how we are taking the fight to them, how brave the volunteers are, how we are turning the tides of history this day, this year, this century. Reconstruction will last generations. Who knows what civilization will follow in the contrails of conquerors?

You sit at home and you do not listen, but the shadows flit through your thoughts as you wonder how we will know they have succeeded, how many thousands of years will pass before the night sky shows the scars of war, if your children’s children’s children will be able to look up and trace battle lines by the absence of light.

News feeds and reports of the war arrive in fragments, sentences at a time, signaled in light packed tight and sent back the way they came, the way the invaders came. All years too late. If there is humanity among the stuttered laser missives, songs or stories or riddles the shrikes call back and forth through flickering verses over void to pass the time, it is not shared. Only life confirmed and life lost, coordinates and absences.

Light casts long shadows in vacuum.

There are more launches. We are winning, the missives say. Victory is a mathematical equation.

The equation is repeated daily. Sometimes, as the announcer’s voice drones on, name after name, you wonder why they list the casualties at all. They volunteered to be killed long before they were sent to the front lines. But those thoughts are treason, and you push them aside even while listening, always afraid, for your brother’s name to be spoken among the dead.

It never is, and you are never sure if you are grateful for the sparing or sorry that you have no chance to grieve. You wonder if the machines will fail first, or the organics inside them, or if age no longer applies to a kite of angles and shards.

You transfer your brother’s last message from phone to phone to phone as you move from place to place, buried deeper under your new life with every adjustment made for your work, your career, your friends. That is how it should be. Life moves on. Sometimes you think you hear your brother’s voice, your brother’s words—humanity is worth fighting for—and you wonder whose wounds will leave the most visible scars; those dismantled to wheel like hunting hawks out into the void, or the handlers left behind to fit each twisted spar back into place, one by one?

* * *

Time passes. The shrikes' infrequent transmissions shift in measured steps from war to the equations of extermination, and the ones who do not wish to mask truth’s sharp words with poetry call it genocide. No plea for surrender comes, and the news turns its attention to closer matters, to expansion, to colonization, to business and the small strifes that spring up after the need for unification has passed.

We no longer tell the shrikes what to do; they are bladed kites loosed upon æther, ours in name only. On Earth, cities are built over and around the ruins. If not for words carved into glass, speeches that remind citizens never to forget wounds past, and crystal walkways over exposed bedrock, there would be no physical memories of the damage wrought at all.

Did you have children, did you marry, did you retire well or not at all? It doesn’t matter on the day that the sky opens wide again and the shrikes pour down through the tears. No signal heralded their arrival, no sound and no light. They never left unheeded any command, but they broadcast no warning of their return. And with them come unfamiliar ships with geometry more grown than manufactured, bone-bright and entwined with the shrikes in the sky, as equals. Only decades-old footage will identify them as the ships of the invaders, the lances that carved irreparable gouges into the Earth.

The shrikes flare out, the lancing lights among the stars that flew to cleanse the void of a threat returned and dragging their catch with them. The world falls quiet under their long shadows. The shrikes lie silent, waiting, listening, wings spread in formation, shining knives to cut the sun.

Of course you walk outside with the others and you crane your neck, wondering which is your brother, aware of how vulnerable you are in this moment, how they could rain fire down upon you all.

They do not rain fire. Instead, over the growing hum of fear and conjecture, the enemy ships sing. All at once, they sing, and the noise brings you to your knees.

Weave, they sing.

teach us to refasten our kin

in your image

in the image of the kites

kestrels, swifts, merlins, shrikes

we too wish to cut the stars to thread.

You shield your eyes to study the blinding angles because there is no point to shielding your ears from the song. If you can recognize him, if he would know you, if he survived, if it can be called survival and if he still could be called your brother. But they all look the same and you see him in every one, and in every one yourself.

Charge! Love Heart!

Originally published by The Sockdolager, March 2015

* * *

Sometimes when you’re lying awake in bed and pretending to be asleep because it’s way too late for a high school student to be up, you can hear ‘um; a series of bass thumps, more felt than heard, the footsteps of a giant. They’re not what people tell you—not a semi compression-braking on the highway, definitely not the warrior ghosts of the Night March (the huaka‘i pō make no sound as they pass), not even artillery testing (those exercises mostly happen during the day). I can tell you, but you have to promise to believe me and not share this around.

Okay, to start with, I’m kind of a dork. There’s no shame in that kinda thing any more; the revenge of the nerd days are way over. Everyone here grew up on Kikaida and that kine toku anyway; we all know about Bijinda’s bust lasers (pink, heart-shaped) and Mazinger and Astro Boy. They’re practically household words. So that means I’m an expert on what I saw, yeah? This story isn’t about that kind of Internet dick-measuring, anyway, who’s what kind of nerd or whatever. This story’s about how I met my girlfriend.

The first time I saw her—well, okay, noticed her—was across the lunch table. I was sitting in the shade, she was sitting in the sun. We had the same lunch—timeslot, not food—everybody had the same cafeteria food. It was chili and cornbread, but not in a good way. I elbowed my friend Kimo and asked him who was that girl. Kimo knew everybody. He squirted the packet of mayo he’d just opened all over the table instead of into his chili like he’d been aiming for and then elbowed me back hard. I handed over my napkins sheepishly.

He squinted across the concrete tables while he wiped mayo off his tray. "Who, Erika? She’s from Big Island. She’s my girlfriend’s cousin."

"No shit?" Just then, the eagle charm at the end of her necklace glinted in the noon sun. I got up and Kimo swiped my mayo packets, too. I ignored it; I was on a mission.

"What, you gonna ask her out?"

"Maybe."

The eagle had made up my mind. I marched over. Like twelve girls with perfect frizzless hair and hella makeup stared back at me and my resolve pretty much died in my throat. "Hey, is it cool if I…hi. Sit here?"

"What, James, you got something to talk about other than League of Legends?" That was Kimo’s girlfriend, and it was good enough for me.

"Yeah I do!" I said, offended. I sat down, not so close to Erika that it was creepy or anything.

Erika was looking at me, her fork paused mid-air. She was way cute even up close—no offense, but some girls aren’t—round face, lips pursed thoughtfully in my direction. She was wearing a spaghetti strap top, and I followed the strap down the curve of her shoulder to the bra—I yanked my gaze back up to her face and stammered. "So…um…Kamen Rider, you a fan?"

"Huh?"

Behind Erika, Kimo’s girl mouthed Ka-men Ri-da slowly.

"The eagle?" I prompted. The whole table full of girls was staring at me. They’d even stopped eating, and two or three of them had these smug girl-smirks on. I kind of wanted to die, or at least crawl back under my table and wait for the lunch bell to ring. Instead, stupid words spilled out of my mouth. "It’s uh, the SHOCKER symbol, from Kamen Rider…First?"

"This?" Erika held up the charm, looked from me to her hand. Kimo’s girl covered her mouth, which did basically nothing to muffle her laughter. Erika shrugged graciously. "I dunno, sorry. My dad gave me it?"

"Oh," I said. "That’s cool." Stay cool. Pretend you’re not into the shit her old man was into. That charm was gonna go straight into a drawer when she got home, and never out again, I knew it. "So, hey, you know Kimo, right?" I waved back towards him. His face was full of mayo chili. "I’m James, I’m like, his best friend."

She leaned around me to check, then back. "Yeah, I guess I know Kimo. I’m Erika."

"Uh…you paddle board? Stand up?"

She thought about it. "Not like…a lot."

"You wanna come with me and Kimo and a couple of the other guys on Wednesday? We go every week, leave at noon during study period."

"So what, like, Hickam?"

"Nah, we’re heading down Kāne‘ohe."

"Shoots, sure," she said.

There was a hoot from the table. "Hooo, Erika, you go girl!" Big change from all that tittering earlier, eh? But it made my face burn just as bad.

"Cool, I’ll meet you in the parking lot, Wednesday, yeah?"

She nodded, little smile lighting up her face, and I retreated back to Kimo’s table in the shade.

"You actually asked her out?"

"Yeah," I breathed. My hands were shaking. Kimo shook his head and returned to his chili.

So that Wednesday we all piled in the back of the truck and went down Kāne‘ohe side to paddle down to the sandbar off He‘eia. It’d been a pretty cool winter—don’t laugh—and the surf had been high, which was great for the lolo surfers and not so great for us less extreme stand-up paddle boarders, otherwise we woulda been up North Shore. We parked at beach access on the Marine base and started to walk down to the sand when I heard the thumps again. I grabbed Kimo’s shoulder. "Oh man, you hear that?"

"It’s the artillery, brah."

"No way."

I listened close, but all I heard now was the surf and the clap-clap rustle of fan palm leaves in the breeze.

"Aren’t they filming Godzilla?"

"Shut up, man." I turned around and almost ran into Erika. She’d changed into a pair of really tiny hibiscus swim trunks and I had to pull my gaze up and then up again quickly. Thankfully she didn’t seem to notice.

"Ey, James, what’s up? You look like you saw a ghost."

"You hear that thump?" I asked her.

Her eyes got wide. "Man, I heard that the first night I got here! I was like, the hell is that?"

I glanced left and right. Big wet clouds were rolling in, and we’d get soaked if we went into the surf or not. Kimo and his girl had run off to make out in the naupaka bushes on the other side of the beach. I dropped my voice to one low whisper. "You wanna go check it out?"

She glanced left and right too, then dropped her voice. "Shoots," she said.

We’d gotten about three miles off base, across the freeway, and over a chain-link fence into a live ammunition zone alongside the quarry road before the elation wore off. I realized this was a real stupid thing to do whether Erika was with me or not. I was pretty sure the military didn’t shoot people on sight anymore but we’d hopped the live ammo zone fence and I’d heard they still had land mines for one reason or another. I mean, the military, right? They kinda just had land mines around, didn’t they?

I didn’t mention any of this to Erika, but I did start doing a weird half-trot hoping that I’d hear the land mine click before lifting my foot and then exploding.

She held her hand out to signal that I should stop. "I dunno if they have land mines," she whispered. "Gotta be careful."

We helped each other across the scrub, increasingly paranoid, until the ground was so rocky that they’d have to drill a hole to stick an explosive into there. I checked my phone for the time. My phone was dead. I groaned and shoved it back into my pocket.

"Mine’s good," Erika said, but I barely heard her because there was a noise so loud I barely registered it as the thump until it had passed. I ducked and so did she. "That’s it!" She pointed. "I saw it!"

"Saw what?" I didn’t see nothing. I followed her finger with my gaze up to the sheer cliff face above us. I craned my neck, but Erika leg’um up the mountain into a bunch of scrawny haole koa trees right before the rock got just about vertical. She climbed up there and then she vanished into the scrub with a little yell, just gone, outta sight.

"Hey!" I called after her.

No answer.

When I caught up I saw it wasn’t a little bit haole koa, it was a big ol' pile of california grass covering one gaping puka in the lava rock. I peered into the hole and saw a thin light way down in the cave. Erika’s cell. I patted my useless one in my pocket, and seriously considered just ditching her and walking back off down the highway to the beach before some menehune or whatever lurked in mountain holes got me. But man, she’d trusted me enough to hop in a truck that morning. I crouched to see how well I fit in the hole. Pretty well. Even my shoulders were skinny.

"Come on!" Erika called. I took a deep breath, and crawled in. The pāhoehoe dug rough, but not sharp, into my hands so I scooted forward fast instead of careful. I almost ran my head into her butt, and she shined the cell light in my face and then laughed, I guess at how red my face was. I apologized and she laughed more; "you can’t see back there at all, huh?"

"No way," I said. The crawl wasn’t too long, which was good for our knees, coz even with that little crawl they got scraped bloody. Take my advice, man, don’t spelunk in board shorts. We squeezed out the other side, in the shelter of a copse of koaia, but not into the other side in Maunawili like I expected. The sky was getting dark, and it was raining, big walls of rain passing through every few minutes with the trades. The clouds cast mottled shadows over the bare stone walls, but the alcove kept us dry. Erika shaded her eyes to squint into the dusk.

We’d found a little valley carved into the actual mountain, like a knife had cut down the sides and lifted one slice of mountain-cake out and away into the sky. Netting and new plants sheltered the valley from the air. Built into one side, just like the old WWII bunkers, was a towering concrete launch pad, and on the launch-pad stood a machine big as an apartment building and probably as heavy as one. It was painted mottled grey and green, pixelated camouflage. Long antennae like Lü Bu’s helmet swept back from the machine’s crested head, red mud splatted all up the bulky legs. It looked like a person, if a person looked like a tank.

You wouldn’t think they could hide something that size on an island.

But they do.

Erika and I stared down at it, from our vantage on the cut-up mountain. I was too dumbfounded to even start to put words together, but Erika wasn’t.

"Holy shit," she said. "It’s a fuckin Gundam."

We’ve been going out ever since.

How to Survive the Apocalypse

Originally published by ZEAL, September 2015

* * *

Before you leave the safety of our encampment to fight the zombies, make sure your eyelashes bat thick and full. Cover scars and lesions with foundation and powder, and apply gloss or lipstick liberally, but neatly. Do not cake on foundation too thickly. The inherent risks should be obvious. Use glitter sparingly, and try to avoid bedazzling prosthetics, jackets, faces, or weapons. Flashing attracts attention.

In-between raids you may need to stop, adjust your hair, powder down your face and wipe away smudges; a compact mirror is essential on longer missions. Hair conditioner is in short supply now, of course, so if you come across malls, supermarkets or a convenience store, be sure to check the health and beauty aisles first. Hair salons are high-priority targets, but avocados, olive oil and mayonnaise are acceptable substitutes to keep your hair lush and high-luster, if products cannot be found. Tooth whitener strips should be applied after eating heavily pigmented foods. If possible, avoid coffee and black tea; if you need caffeine, energy drinks and nicotine patches are preferable, but they may still cause bags under the eyes. Bottled water and Vita filtering systems are also priority supplies, as sallow cheeks and dry skin are among the first signs of infection. Other hydration sources may carry the virus if not boiled.

Make sure that while you have a unified aesthetic in some way, no two members of your team are dressed too similarly; for example, only one person in the group at a time may don a bomber jacket or hat. If multiple members of the group are missing an eye, encourage one to use an eyepatch and another to either wear sunglasses or utilize a glass eye in a pleasant complimentary shade to the color of their biological eye. Safety in numbers may seem to be a tactically intelligent choice, but this is the logic of the enemy. Keep squads to five members maximum.

When at all possible, eschew a paramilitary look. Showing some shoulder or leg can be classy on persons of any gender. If you are accessorizing a miniskirt, make sure stockings are at least over-the-knee and paired with a garter belt to avoid slippage and tangles. Should your leggings or tights develop runs, either discard them immediately or consider adopting an edgier look. Don’t overdo it. Some zombies have developed a keen sense for detecting sub-cultures.

Remember that the zombies are attracted to human scent; deodorant and perfume should be worn at all times. Similarly, you must avoid all sexual conduct in the field, whether intra- or inter-personal. Minor flirting is fine, so long as it contains the requisite amount of sass. If you do not come up with quips handily under pressure, be sure to memorize a few before you leave. Manicures and pedicures are good team bonding activities.

If you are wounded in the field, prioritize a solution to the wound that maximizes mobility and prevents any decay or unsightliness. Hydrogen peroxide with surgical clippers can be useful both for personal hygiene and to snip away extra flesh or sterilize cuts during emergency surgery. If bleeding is profuse, be sure to compress the wound and wrap the bandages neatly. If bandages are not available, rip white shirts up for bandages; white shirts dirty so quickly that you may carry them as supplies but never, ever don them as part of your uniform. Sloppiness kills. If your wound heals in a non-aesthetically pleasing manner, embellish the scar. In a pinch, fastening a weapon such as an assault rifle or machete to a lost limb will at least ensure a minimum of practicality. In a best-case scenario, try to emboss the prosthetic with a meaningful but enigmatic symbol, or at least your name so that your squad mates know what happened to you when they find it.

If a member of your squad has been severely injured or has lost their nose, there’s no recovery. Be sure to place a tasteful assortment of flowers over their grave marker.

If you come across survivors, wipe down their faces with a damp cloth immediately, and apply correctly-toned makeup to cover any scars. When your medic administers the physical in a secure area, be sure they are accompanied, as this process can often make the infected violent or belligerent, particularly if they are under the delusions that obvious signs of infection such as severe facial acne, extreme body odor, matted hair, and ill-fitted clothing are in fact ordinary human traits. If you discover a group of children, though they are more resistant to infection, try to only escort one child back to the encampment at a time; they’re noisy, have difficulty following instructions, and resist efforts to introduce and maintain the proper makeup protocols. Be sure the child has one, but no more than one, stuffed toy. If you find teenagers, be sure to introduce them to each other and instruct them to act as close—but not too close—friends. Enmity within groups of survivors is easily sensed. Once inside, survivors will be quarantined for twenty-eight days before being released into society, or what passes for it these days, anyway.

Above all else, zombies are ugly. Your job is to represent the last hope of humanity among the thoughtless, ravenous hordes by being wholesome, clean, symmetrical, patient, and most of all, unique.

Good luck.

I can already see you’ll need it.

END

Chris Reher

The Kasant Objective

Originally published in The Galaxy Chronicles (Windrift Books, 2015), edited by Jeff Seymour and part of The Future Chronicles anthology series, created by Samuel Peralta

* * *

“Are you sure this is it?”

The question hung in the room like one of the three-dimensional displays projected helpfully from its curved walls. It might have been Zio’s attempt at decorating the otherwise-empty space, or perhaps their ship’s invisible and ever-patient Ambient Intelligence felt that the crew was in need of visual stimulation. Half of the room displayed a glorious one-hundred-and-eighty-degree floor-to-ceiling view of their galaxy’s broad swath of light, but apparently a little clutter was just what was needed here.

Jase walked through a three-dimensional representation of a nearby solar system and then past a schematic of their little ship. It was upside down, as was the holo of what seemed to be a dancer. Zio liked to make sure the crew remained entertained during long voyages. Perhaps the information it had to combat psychological issues during deep-space travel didn’t include concepts like “up” or “down.” A long line of number symbols scrolled through the air, undoubtedly reporting on something.

He stopped before the manual control interface near the door. After a moment, Ocia shifted away from it to allow him access. Her expression suggested that his question was—at this point—pretty much rhetorical, although she refrained from rolling her jewel eyes.

Jase loaded another holo tracing their journey from the Kiza System to here, each leap marked and the connecting routes clearly charted, and frowned as if trying to remember the exact route home before they jumped off the edge of the map.

“Not scared, are you?” Ocia said with a slow smile that told him that confiding his misgivings to her would just end in derisive gossip around the dinner table.

He sent an overlay to the forward screen to reveal the exact coordinates of the rupture, outlined in white and red symbols. They glowed reassuringly, beckoning the approaching fleet of explorers.

Treasure hunters, Jase thought, letting his eyes shift to Ocia. She stood with her arms crossed and her head cocked before the panoramic viewscreen, a buccaneer in search of fame and riches, surveying the shores of some distant land.

Except, of course, that they still had to cross the distance to get there. “Zio?”

“Yes, Jase.”

Jase looked up, although the toneless voice, male today, emanated from the wall behind him. The dancer, an Outlander tetrapod, cavorted up there in triplicate now, twirling to some music that perhaps only the ship heard. “Let’s get ready for the leap,” he said, watching as the control interface began the thousands of tasks that would ensure that this little expedition remained alive during the voyage. “And clean this up,” he added, waving at the solar system now orbiting Ocia.

Zio Four, the ship’s invisible and ever-patient Ambient Intelligence, dutifully removed the holograms. The round, unfurnished space seemed larger now, although Jase was rarely bothered by small ships. Small ships made for smaller crews and a lot less trouble, he thought, although this crew made up for it with their own peculiarities.

He returned to the bulging wall to gaze out into space. Black sky pricked by distant stars, denser toward the center of their galaxy, stretched out into forever. The four ships accompanying them cruised in a wide sprawl and now, at Zio’s signal, began to converge on this location. The silence up here, and out there, was bothersome today. Looking out at the approaching ships, he could almost see the silence.

“Music, Zio,” he said, barely audible. A soft rhythm from his favorite collection filled the room, and he breathed deeply.

“You’re tense, pilot,” Ocia said. When he looked up, the smirk was still on her lovely face. “It’ll check out, you’ll see. We’ll be back in the sector before breakfast.”

“You hope.”

Both of them turned when the door slid aside, allowing light from the hall to seep into this dim space. Jase smiled when he saw Ranael enter the bridge followed by their guest. The overbearingly large Chidean bustled past her and rushed to look outside, perhaps unaware that the curved panorama was simply a collage of display screens in the windowless chamber. He looked a little paler today, and Jase wondered if the conditions aboard this vessel suited the creature. Ranael had done her best to learn about his people and make him comfortable but, to Jase, the man looked ill.

Their lone, delightfully wealthy passenger placed his blunt fingers on the screen and drawled something in that odd cadence that none of them had been able to master. When Ranael shrugged, Zio translated.

“Mister Tenzo would like to go right now.”

Jase tipped his chin toward the approaching escort ships. “When we’re together. We’re doing this just once.”

“Mister Tenzo asks if your ships are perhaps inadequate.”

Jase threw an accusing look at Ocia. Her idea, all of this. He had wanted nothing to do with the project from the moment she presented it to the boss. No real research opportunity, only a questionable return on their investment, and a fair chance of ending up smashed into bits when trying to jump through what was pretty much an unknown breach. He relished the rare thrill of dipping into another layer of this onion they called a universe. But not when the landing site was little more than rumor, legend, and the word of this foreigner nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

But Ocia’s daddy owned the company, owned the ships, and pretty much owned any future mission Jase could hope to command. He reflected mournfully upon the loss of his own vessel, the Calume, before putting that memory aside again. This was now, and he was a hired hand who no longer had the luxury of picking and choosing his assignments. So when she dug up Mister Tenzo and his treasure map, he was at the mercy of her ability to manipulate the boss.

“Ask Mister Tenzo to return to his cabin below so that we can get ready.”

“Mister Tenzo wishes to stay up here.”

“Of course he does,” Jase muttered. He caught a gentle smile playing at the corners of Ranael’s lips. Her eyes gleamed with good humor, as always, and he reminded himself that some parts of this dreary trip had, so far, been downright pleasurable. He returned her smile, noting how beautifully the elegant swoop of her cheekbone was taken up by the design of the pretty exocortex shell cradling her skull.

He shook himself out of this mood and gestured to Zio’s ever-present eyes to open the ship’s com system, even though the AI would by now have alerted the entire crew of their imminent jump into what, for many, was another universe. “Jase here,” he said to the crew, a talented assortment of pilots, ex-military members, adventurers, and mercenaries. “Let’s do this. We’ll take an inverse formation—who knows what’s on the other side.”

“You’re not probing?” came Naka’s voice from one of the other ships, sounding a little incredulous.

“I’m not sure we maintain the field long enough to get any meaningful return. Not with five ships. And we’ll probably run into considerable dilation.” The last comment was meant for Ocia, whose eyes narrowed.

They had argued this for weeks now. Time dilation rarely affected brief jumps. On the remote chance that anything of significance was encountered, who really cared what time it was for anyone? This, though, was a different matter entirely.

Aga Tenzo had brought to them the coordinates of what was thought to be the last known location of the Kasant expedition, lost nearly sixty stat years ago. It had taken that long for their distress beacon to reach anyone able to interpret it and then to find its way into Ocia’s eager hands. No one knew how much time had passed for them, or if any of them were still alive.

But they had embarked on this three-month journey mostly for Tenzo’s promised fee, traversing the distance in a fraction of the time it would have taken Tenzo’s people to arrive at this unknown breach at the edge of what could only vaguely be called explored space. When the Kasant expedition had lost its fuel, its only choice had been to drift here in wait of rescue that might not come for centuries or go into the breach in hope of finding some safe haven. Given what little they knew of the commander, the choice would have been clear.

“Let’s do this,” Jase said. “They’re either there or they’re not. Alive or not. We’ll soon find out. They can’t have drifted too far, right, Zio?”

“Are you looking for an exact projection, Jase?”

“No, Zio.” Jase had to smile. Like many mission commanders, he had an aversion to sentient AIs and preferred them to resemble the computers they were meant to be and communicate with words rather than thoughts. No mechanical bodies, no sense of humor, no second-guessing their living masters. It made it far easier to wrap his mind around the incredible power harbored by the intelligence stored in these circuits. His civilian crew, so very different from the military ranks he had come to value, strained his people-management skills enough. “I think we’re pretty sure they’re nearby, if anything is left of them.”

He placed his hand on one of the interface panels and began to guide the ship toward the coordinates still illuminated on the screen before them. The other ships, more streamlined and most definitely more heavily armed than this one, came into formation, tight enough to slip through the gap and into whatever lay on the other side.

Jase felt the apprehension now permeating the room like a whiff of ozone. Even Ocia was not immune to the instinctive terror of the unknown. What they were doing was frowned upon in politer circles and officially forbidden by most governments. It also made companies like theirs ridiculously wealthy and formed the very foundation of deep-space exploration. While they had never come across any living matter in any of their dips into another ’verse, they had twice sold maps and sensor readings to mining companies at spectacular profit margins.

“Zio, let’s have us a nice, tight bubble.” Jase smiled reassuringly at Ranael. She, part of their crew as their ambassador and cultural expert, had made only a few of these leaps so far. But she just took a deep breath now and kept her eyes on the displays.

Now encased and ready to be gripped, the small fleet made contact with the breach to be sucked into its conduit like some tasty morsel into an unfathomable creature floating in these reaches. For all of his reluctance to indulge Ocia’s treasure hunt out here, Jase exulted in the utter thrill of entering a universe none of their peers had ever seen. They could end up in endlessly empty space, or perhaps buried in some piece of debris, or even just disintegrate into components when hitting some unknown anomaly on the other side. Until someone, an expedition just like theirs, returned with charts and maps and sensor readings, any leap into these breaches was considered a suicide mission. It made being alive all the more enjoyable.

The crash couches and safety restraints used for entering an atmosphere remained below the smooth floor panels—a transit like this had no physical impact on their well-shielded ships. The screens flickered as the sensors tried to make sense of what was happening outside and then just gave up and showed a swirling pattern of nonsense until Zio brought them into alignment again. Ranael sighed quietly and Aga Tenzo shook his shaggy head when they all felt the odd shift of their physical senses accepting a new reality. Their little bubble of null energy was all that protected them now from the massive burst of radiation emitting from the rift, sure to puzzle some distant world millennia from now.

“Zio? Report!”

One by one, the screens before them came back online, showing mostly space. But here, in front of the backdrop of stars, looming large and rather healthy-looking, a colorful planet took up a considerable part of the display.

Ocia, behind him, clapped her hands and whooped gleefully. They were alive, and a planet was already much better than a whole lot of nothing.

“All ships have made a successful transit,” Zio reported.

“Let’s get busy,” Jase said. “Full scan of that planet and see if there’s any sign of Mister Tenzo’s people.”

They, like the crewmembers aboard the other ships, took up their stations to sift Zio’s reports—already accumulating at a terrific speed—for anything interesting or unusual. The planet’s mineral composition and other resources, living organisms, the nearby star, and any hint of technology had to be examined for clues to the value of this breach. And, of course, the region would be scanned for signs of the missing Kasant expedition.

Zio interrupted before they had even settled into their task. Jase looked up when the main screen’s output zoomed more tightly onto the planet. “We are being scanned,” Zio said.

“What?” Ocia snapped.

“From the ground. Extensive populations on all major continents. Marginally industrialized communities, primitive. They are using electromagnetic frequencies to scan the skies in this direction.”

“Gods, go dark!” Jase shifted the com system to include the other ships. “Going dark. Stealth protocol. Zio, get us out of here.”

“We can’t jump back yet,” Ocia protested. “Still calibrating.”

“Mister Tenzo indicates that there is a moon,” Zio said. “I have located it.”

“He’s right,” Ranael said, pointing to her screen where one of the probes now showed the satellite. “Synchronous orbit, eccentric.” How did she always manage to seem so utterly tranquil?

“Head for that,” Jase said, frowning at Tenzo, who was now hovering over Ranael to study her displays. He addressed the fleet. “Stay farside until Zio finds a place to land.”

It took only moments for the ships to return to a tight formation and swoop toward the moon on the other side of the planet. Zio displayed an overlay of the broad sweeps of the planetary detection system. Jase exhaled sharply when the indicators showed their own defensive system scattering the beams around their shielded hulls and out into space.

“Nice work,” he breathed. “Echo? Feedback? Did anything make it back?”

“Unknown,” Zio replied. “I am still probing their communications systems. Deciphering them will take time.”

Jase nodded to Ranael to work directly with Zio. There was nothing she could do more quickly than the AI, but she would add the sentient intuition Zio lacked to catch nuances and patterns in speech and symbolism.

“Look,” Ocia said, at almost the same time as ex-soldier and now-pilot Naka aboard one of the other ships. She switched the main screen to focus on the moon’s surface. “Structures.”

“Scan that,” Jase said.

“No life there of any size,” Zio said, not distracted by the question while working with Ranael. “Microbial, at best, but air quality is marginal for such growth now.”

Tenzo turned to Jase and began to speak, perhaps forgetting that none of them understood his language.

“Translate, Zio,” Jase said, wishing he had insisted that their passenger stay below until they had secured their arrival in this space.

“Mister Tenzo says that those structures belong to his people. He recognizes the Chidean markings on the exteriors.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. And that ribbed hull design is unique to Chidea.”

“Guess we’ve found the Kasant mission.” Ocia grinned. “I say we check it out.”

Jase signaled the others to circle the shallow crater, where the tangle of structures revealed itself to be the remnants of several black sky exploration ships parked close together and joined in several places. “Touch down over by that escarpment.” He directed the ship to cozy up next to Naka’s cruiser. “What’s the weather like, Zio?”

“You want to go out there?” Ranael said, looking up from her data.

“Of course he does,” Ocia said. “Finally something to do on this jaunt.”

“Atmospheric conditions are acceptable,” Zio said. “Point five gravity. I recommend the haz shield suits until we’ve scanned the interior more thoroughly.”

“Hear that, Naka?” Jase said. “Suit up and let’s go take a look. Meet us by that round portal. Looks like it might be the way in.”

Aga Tenzo gestured wildly while Zio translated his demand to accompany them to the station.

“We can probably use him to make sense of the place,” Ocia said. “I’m not that up on their tech.”

“Three-hundred-year-old tech. I doubt he is, either.” Jase motioned their passenger to follow them into the narrow hallway outside the bridge and then down into the lower level of the ship. “Zio, anything off-planet?”

“Nothing outside the atmosphere,” Zio replied. “And nothing on the long-range scanners. No other ships or satellites.”

“Send a few drones to the surface, speed up your findings. Stay dark. I want to know why the Kasant group decided to land up here.”

“Probably hostiles on the planet,” Ocia decided.

“I’m guessing pathogens,” Jase said. “Or some other environmentals.” He nodded to Tenzo. “They seem a little chunky with all that blubber they’re carrying. Could be air pressure or gravity, too.” He winced when he heard Zio chatter in Tenzo’s rapid language. “You don’t have to translate everything I say, Zio.”

“Understood, Jase.”

The trio stepped into the airlock to slip into loose-fitting suits—simple layers of protection relying on an envelope of shielding generated by a series of patches front and back. “Is that necessary?” Jase said when Ocia added a projector to her exocortex assembly, giving her mental control of the weapons embedded in it and at various points of her suit.

“Zio’s been confused before, if you recall.”

“Not by a simple life-sign scan,” he countered, but he said nothing more. After all, their welfare was her job and she did it best fully armed. He had to admit she looked rather heroic with the two slim barrels at her temples.

The ship’s lock opened, and they stepped outside and onto the arid surface of the moon. Not sure if Aga Tenzo was quite familiar with gravity variations, Ocia kept her hand on a strap dangling from his belt.

Naka, his face obscured by the visor of his suit, awaited them near the metal door of the Kasant structure. “Not locked.” He turned to operate a switch by the gate. “Solar generation still working, except for a wing over at the far side. I’ve got Senda’s crew checking out the debris field. Probably just garbage.”

The door slid halfway aside and then stopped with a shudder. They slipped into the airlock beyond and waited for Tenzo to squeeze his bulk through the narrow opening.

Jase tapped a com panel where a corridor branched off from this space. It came to life, but he recognized little of what was displayed there. “Zio?” he said, making sure the camera at his collarbone recorded the interface. He touched a sensor to it and waited while Zio browsed through the system.

“The Kasant AI is not available,” Zio reported. This was expected. Without an authorized, living sentient mind to give meaning to its operation, their AI would have shut down, a mechanism designed into these systems after the first of them went rogue. “The database is heavily fragmented. You were correct—they built this installation by converting their transports into a habitat. There should be six ships here, but I can only account for five. I’ve indicated labs and control stations on your device.”

Jase glanced at the map now hovering in front of him. “This way,” he said to the others.

Ocia walked beside him, peering suspiciously into every dimly lit corner as they passed. Behind them came Tenzo, nearly filling the corridor, which must have been uncomfortably tight for the Chidean crew. How long had they lived up here, Jase wondered. Why had they left? Naka followed a few steps behind, his eyes on the scanner feeding information to Zio for analysis.

“So where is everybody?” Ocia said. “I was half-expecting to see dead bodies everywhere.”

“Me, too. They had no way back home. But if they’re on the surface, why leave the ships up here?” Jase stepped through what had once been a pressure door into another vessel. The seal no longer held, but the transition from one to the next was little more than a step up. The passage opened into what looked to be some sort of lab space. “See if you can fix that database, Zio. Maybe we can access their logs.”

“What’s all this?” Naka looked around the high-ceilinged space. “Looks medical.” He pressed a tab on a foam-metal box, but the lid didn’t budge. He jumped aside when Tenzo reached over his head to tug a panel from the wall above. All watched in silent amazement when Tenzo activated an input window and then breathed on a sensor, perhaps to identify himself to the system.

“He’s downloading something,” Jase said. “Zio, can you tell what is?”

“No, Jase. This is new to me.”

“Try to get at it anyway,” Ocia said. “Whatever it is, our guest seems to know exactly what to do with it.”

Naka had wandered around the central counter that dominated the room to inspect a row of cylinders along the wall. “Want to bet there are body parts in here?” he joked. “Or dinner, maybe.”

“Can you identify those, Zio?” Jase directed his camera toward the bins.

“Embryos in stasis. Zygotes.”

Naka cursed. “What were they doing with those?”

“Dinner, maybe,” Ocia said, ignoring his grimace. She peered at the equipment suspended above a long work table, no doubt already adding up salvage profits. Their share of whatever Tenzo hoped to find here was generous. “What do you think that is?”

“A gene gun,” Zio said after conferring with Mister Tenzo, who answered the question somewhat absentmindedly, still busy with his file transfer.

Jase tried to see into the eyepiece, but his visor got in the way. The device was inactive, anyway. He studied the cabinets lining the room and the equipment neatly tucked into shelves. “This mission was—mostly—scientific. They’d have engineers, physicists, biologists. Zio, identify the embryos in those tubs. Are they Chidean?”

Some lights blinked briefly on a strip of indicators above them. “Yes.”

“Are you still scanning the planet?”

“Yes, do you want a report? It is not complete.”

Jase grinned. A complete report of any planet with as rich a biosphere as this one could take a lifetime to scan, even with the help of their implants. “No, Zio. Scan for Chidean life signs down there.”

“You think they’ve gone to the surface, then?” Ranael, still aboard their ship, was heard through their earpieces. “The environment is not suitable. I’ve already accounted for a half dozen airborne particles that would harm them.”

“What about us?”

“We’re going down there?” she exclaimed.

“Not all of us.”

There was a brief pause during which, he imagined, she might have been silently voicing her worry for him. “Radiation,” she said finally. “Ultraviolet is far too high, for one. Also some radiation produced by them. Communication, I guess. Will interfere with our exocortices.”

“So nothing deadly.”

“Not immediately,” she said, somewhat primly. “What are you hoping to find down there? You know better than to try to walk into a place that hasn’t had a first-contact experience.”

“I think they have,” Jase said. “With slightly customized Chideans. Zio, what was the complement of the Kasant mission?”

“Two hundred and twenty-six.”

“Do you have a visual of the locals on the planet?”

A hologram appeared before them, stuck halfway in the lab counter until Jase stepped away from it. Naka, beside him, muttered an oath. “They sure look at lot like Chidis,” he said.

Jase let the image spin slowly before them. Bipedal, like all of them, upright, multijointed. Much of the male’s body was covered in hair, like Tenzo’s visible bits. And like Tenzo, it either had no exocortex or its species had not yet invented them. It seemed heftier than and not as smooth-featured as the Chideans, and there were remnants of claws on its short fingers. Creating a disguise by tweaking a few genes would not have been a difficult achievement for the Chideans. “Furry thing, isn’t it?” he said, watching the excitement on Tenzo’s face as he prattled with Zio. “What’s he saying, Zio?”

Zio abridged what was surely a longer conversation: “He wants to meet them.”

“No doubt! Not so sure the rest of us will fit right in, though.”

“Jase,” Ranael said. “I’ve found nothing to indicate that there has ever been any first contact. We haven’t got through the languages yet but, so far, this species seems to consider itself to be unique and superior on this planet. As is usually the case in places like these. If there are Chideans down there, they’ve not announced their presence.”

Jase nodded, mostly to himself. First contact was not in their contract. Dangerous, messy, and entirely too far out of their realm of expertise. “Zio, have you found Chidean DNA?”

“Yes, Jase.”

“Where? How many survived?”

“Unknown. I’ve located nearly eight thousand individuals so far, but we have scanned only one-fifth of the planet.”

“Eight thousand!” Naka snickered. “Looks like your people have been doing a bit of breeding, Mister Tenzo.”

“Would you like me to translate that?”

“No.”

“These are not just Chidean,” Zio continued. “They are technically hybrids.”

“What are you saying?” Naka looked at the stasis chambers as if with new eyes. “They bred with the locals?”

Jase tapped the gene gun. The suspicion that had wormed its way into the back of his mind didn’t seem so far-fetched now. “Nothing so mechanical, I think.” He turned to Aga Tenzo. “Translate directly, Zio,” he said before addressing their sponsor. “The Kasant expedition wasn’t just exploring the rifts, were they? This is no coincidence. They knew this planet had evolved a compatible species.”

Tenzo glanced from him to Ocia and back again. “Yes.”

“They didn’t run out of fuel. There was no distress call. They meant to come here.” Jase gazed at the mute containers of frozen life, perhaps no longer entirely Chidean, waiting for someone to wake it. “This was some attempt at colonization.”

“A successful one,” Naka murmured.

“And you’re here to find that out, Tenzo,” Jase added when Tenzo said nothing. “To see if they were able to survive down there. Even if it meant altering themselves to blend in. Isn’t that right?”

“Why would they do that?” Ocia said.

Tenzo finally raised his hands in a sweeping gesture. “Chidea U Bann is a dying world. We will bring our people here. Kasant was to prepare the way for us and to develop the gene therapies we need to undertake before landing. They served as a vanguard to seed the planet with our people, to learn how to live here.” He looked away from Ocia’s furious expression to appeal to Ranael, who just looked curious. “We feel that we belong here. This planet has produced our mirror selves. Look at them! We’re not here to create hybrids. We will make them better. Think of this as of a…a metamorphosis.”

“And what of the people down there?” Ranael said. “The ones who belonged there first? Kasant’s presence will have changed everything. Changed their evolution.”

Tenzo shrugged again, angrily this time. “Out of necessity. The Kasant group did not share our technology with them. They built the lab up here to keep it safe. But those who went to the surface would have had knowledge far beyond that of the locals. It was to help them develop more quickly. We will need landing sites and power sources that don’t exist now. And leaders among them who will ease our arrival. That, too, is evolution.”

Jase crossed his arms. “Then we’ll let them evolve without us,” he said, angry at having the entire company dragged into this. “We are not going down there. We’ve done some questionable things for fun and profit, but I’m not making this crew part of some planetary takeover. That belongs to ancient history.” He signaled Ocia to keep a careful eye on the Chidean. “Zio, delete whatever Mister Tenzo just downloaded from the system.”

“That research belongs to us!” Tenzo exclaimed. “I have to report back to my people.”

“Then hire someone else. This isn’t what I signed up for. We’ll return your fee.” Jase saw an objection on Ocia’s face. “Minus the transport expenses.”

“My people will not stand for this!”

Jase didn’t need Ranael’s intuition to recognize the desperation on the man’s face. He smiled grimly. “Your people don’t know, do they? Why hire a private prospecting outfit? Explorers do, even scientists do. But not governments trying to keep their species alive. You have a fine fleet.” He raised his arms to encompass the lab. “This experiment is still a secret. You think the end result will justify the means of achieving it.”

“How we operate—”

“I have located the last of the ships, Jase,” Zio interrupted, startling all of them.

“What?”

“On the surface. Not operational. The Kasant AI is there as well.”

“Active?” Ocia gasped. “On the planet?”

“Only the transponder is active. I’ve compared its output to the signature provided by Mister Tenzo.”

“Good God,” Ranael whispered.

“Back to the ships,” Jase said, heading for the exit. “Zio, pinpoint the exact location of the ship and the AI.”

The others hurried after him, past the startled Chidean who was only now receiving the news from Zio.

Jase didn’t bother to listen to any reply he might have to the revelation that the brain of the entire Kasant mission was possibly in the hands of an alien species. “Naka, you and Senda ready your ships for takeoff—we’ll join you once we’re geared up. The nav-ship will stay up here. I don’t want another AI getting lost. “Ranael, are you there?”

“Where would I be, if not here?”

They slipped through the half-open exterior door and hurried to their ships. “We need you with us on this. Zio, see if you can find out who the AI is tied to, if anyone.”

“That model is fairly autonomous,” Zio replied. “As long as it detects Chidean brain waves, it’ll operate.”

“Can it detect any of these eight thousand you’ve found so far?”

“No. They would have to be in close proximity.”

“I’m guessing it is where the ship is. Maybe when they were done up here they took the last ship down, and the AI with it.” Jase nodded to Ranael when they entered the bridge and then looked up at the ceiling. “When you said that the AI wasn’t available, you could have said it was gone. That’s not the same thing, you know.”

“Noted, Jase,” Zio said.

Jase studied the display wall, which showed the dizzying viewpoints of several probes searching the planet. They seemed to be honing in on a flat, arid region devoid of populations. At least, wherever the Kasant crew had decided to land their ship, they had done so away from the locals. He reflected briefly that landing in a deep body of water would have been a wiser choice, given this planet’s primitive technology.

“If they abandoned the moon base, their studies must be complete,” Aga Tenzo said behind him through Zio, reminding them of his presence. “They will have joined the indigenous species to await our arrival. They were to leave the AI up here and destroy the ship.”

Jase did not turn to look at him. “Obviously, they did not.”

“There is no intention to harm the locals. Only to prepare them.”

“That AI has a self-contained power supply to last thousands of years. If someone down there manages to open it, it will poison the entire population. Pray to your gods that there are some of your people down there who still understand who you are.”

“What do you mean?”

When Jase did not reply, Ranael spoke. “They may have left a…a gatekeeper of sorts. Guides. People who know how to keep the AI safe. Perhaps to be used later, when they are ready for such a tool.”

“For such a weapon,” Jase amended. “They have barely left their own surface. Imagine what they’d do with the AI’s computing power, even without a database to give it meaning.”

“This was not our intention!”

“So it would seem,” Ranael said. “So far, I’ve not found any indication that the natives are aware of the Chidean presence, or at least it’s not common knowledge. But there are rumors of others.”

“What sort of rumors?”

“I’m not sure. There is so much information. This planet holds many species and some are distrustful of others. Fearful. Like on many worlds, they compete for space and other resources. So there is much disagreement. But they have started to look to the skies in fear.”

Ocia shrugged. “Ancient gods, probably.”

“Perhaps.” Ranael smiled. “Very likely, actually. There are references that make more sense now. I’ll have Zio pull them together, but my guess is that the Chideans have been here more than once. Perhaps over hundreds of years.”

“Scouting,” Jase said. “Checking up on their creation.” He kept his eyes on a screen showing little more than desert, afraid he might get the urge to strangle Tenzo. Or Ocia, for that matter. None of this had seemed right from the start. “We will inform others of what you have done here, Tenzo. They won’t let you bring your people here. They will send guards to that gate stop you.”

“Why do you care!” the Chidean raged. “This has nothing to do with you. People migrate, people colonize. Such is life.”

Jase looked over to Ranael, who regarded him calmly, her gentle smile telling of her approval and agreement. He doubted Ocia was currently smiling. She’d be the one to explain the lack of full payment to the boss. “That planet already has a colony. We have learned from our past.”

“What about our future? How dare you interfere?” When Jase didn’t bother to answer, Tenzo turned to Ranael, but she simply returned to her work on the incoming data. At last, the Chidean stormed from the bridge.

“We are interfering,” Ranael said to the silence that followed. “If we stop the Chideans, those who are left down there could suffer. Someday, the people will discover DNA. Or find the moon base. And they’ll track down the hybrids among them. That may not go well for anyone.”

Ocia made a scoffing sound. “They’d better start breeding like mad, then.”

“Zio,” Jase said, unwilling to ponder Ranael’s suggestion. “Please monitor Mister Tenzo from here on. Let me know if he goes anywhere but his cabin. He’s not to communicate with anyone once we get back into home space. We’ll take him to the Powers.”

“Understood, Jase.”

“There’s an easier way,” Ocia said.

Jase furrowed his brow. She had a thoughtful look that he didn’t like. “What way?”

“Leave him here. Get rid of him. Let them think his mission failed. That the Kasant mission failed.”

He heard Ranael’s small gasp. “They’ll just send someone else.”

“It’ll buy time. There will be war over this,” Ocia said. “If his people are desperate, they won’t be stopped from coming here. This planet has no defenses. We’ll end up having to guard these people until they can defend themselves or someone gets tired of it.”

She was right. Probably. Their history was filled with bitter wars, and sometimes entire planets were lost to the conquerors. Some prospered. Many didn’t. He glanced at Ranael. She stood in wide-eyed silence, shocked by Ocia’s suggestion, but as always unwilling to insert herself into the endless push and pull of their contentious relationship.

A long, silent moment ticked by before he shook his head. “We’re explorers for hire. Prospectors. Maybe we’re also smugglers at times, but we are not murderers. I left the military for a reason and so did you, Ocia. We’re going to try to grab the AI and then we’re getting back home before breakfast, like you promised, to make our report. Let the Powers figure this out among themselves.”

Ocia’s icy glare was well practiced but had long ago ceased to have any effect on him. She backed down. “So are we keeping the AI, at least? If we can get it wiped and sold on Duoro, it’ll pay for this trip.”

“Damn right we’re keeping it.”

* * *

“That’s it down there.”

Jase checked their coordinates once again and then looked up at the screen. Naka, sitting at the helm beside him, eased the ship down toward the sprawl of buildings surrounded by scrublands. They had come in silently, two ships in the dark, their shielding too slippery for any of the planet-bound scanning and tracking systems. He supposed that someone out here, looking up into the sky, might have noticed their vague shadows hovering in the night. Or watched them seemingly disappear again, their movement too fast to track with the eye.

“Why am I not surprised to find the AI so heavily guarded?” Ocia said, scanning the perimeter of what looked like the sort of bunkers they had seen in other places. “There is a warren of tunnels beneath all that. Fortified.”

“We can get through that?” Jase said.

She waved a long-fingered hand as if nothing they saw here was of any consequence.

“Can you do this without shooting anybody?” Ranael, still strapped into her seat behind them, asked.

Ocia glanced at the woman with a hint of a sneer. “As long as no one gets in my way, sure.”

Jase turned as well. “We have little choice, Ran. I don’t think they’ll have any way to stop us. There is nothing down there that can harm us without causing a whole lot of damage to their own people. There’s no reason to hurt anyone.” Ocia pretended not to notice that his words were directed at her as well.

Ranael glanced at Ocia. “Let’s hope so,” she mumbled.

The drones had done their job. The Kasant AI was located here, below ground, transmitting little more than a thread of a signal. Zio—their own, more advanced system—stayed safely on the moon, its signal amplified by a nearby drone and picked up by their exocortices. The interference that was currently frustrating the ground-based scanners affected them too, but they had covered their heads with protective hoods that matched their tight grey body suits.

Minute filters inserted into their nasal passages sufficed down here, and none of them carried visible weapons. It made all of them feel absurdly naked, but Ranael hoped to present them as unthreateningly as possible. The locals would likely not comprehend the firepower of their ships, and it would take only a thought to enable their individual shields if the need arose.

“Here we go, friends,” Naka said.

Before they had even touched down, a surge of people emerged from the buildings, some of them clearly armed. Judging by the raised voices and arm-waving, Jase guessed that no one here had been prepared for the visitors dropping from the sky into their yard.

“Look at them all,” Ocia said, amused. “They really do look an awful lot like Chideans.”

As they had planned, Jase, Ranael, Ocia, and two of Senda’s crew emerged from their ships without fanfare, closing the gates before anyone thought to even take a look inside the airlock.

Jase had no intention of indulging in proper first-contact ceremonies with these people. He led the others toward the building Zio had recommended, not surprised when some of the tall natives stalked toward them, as lumbering and stiff as Aga Tenzo, who was still sulking in his cabin on the moon.

“Are you detecting any of those Chidean hybrids here, Zio?” Jase transmitted to the AI as he raised his hand in what they believed to be a greeting. A small patch on his palm sampled the air.

“Yes, Jase. Three at least. There may be more below ground but I cannot probe that deeply. The stout male without hair on his head to your left. Also the one beside him in the blue clothing.”

By now they were surrounded by people dressed alike in colors as drab as the desert, guns aimed at the visitors. Ranael stepped forward. “Please let us pass,” she said after signaling Zio to translate via a speaker embedded in her exocortex.

There was an astonished silence, and then one of the people before them spoke, saying something in a harsh voice that made clear his objection to her request. Zio had to fill in a few patches and omit some phrases, but the language it had learned was sufficient.

Ranael looked up at the tall native. She hid her fear well, Jase thought, but then it wasn’t likely that this person would interpret her expression anyway. She turned to the broad-shouldered male Zio had pointed out. “We know who you are. You have something that doesn’t belong here. We have come for it.”

The hybrid glanced at the other, looking nervous and perhaps a little angry, if their experience with Tenzo’s people allowed them the comparison. After a moment, Zio translated his words. “We can’t let you.”

“You have no choice,” Ocia said, already impatient with this palaver.

“Who are you?” the hybrid said, his voice thin. “Why are you doing this?”

“That doesn’t matter. But we are watching you. You—”

“Zio, cease translation,” Ranael snapped.

“Understood.”

“Tell them nothing!” Ranael said to Ocia. “They don’t need to know. Let’s be gone and let others handle this.”

“Agreed,” Jase said. He activated his shield and took a step forward. “Stay together, just keep walking.”

One of the men aimed at his chest when he moved to walk between them. Someone else shouted something. A man reached out to grasp Ranael’s arm, which slipped out of his grasp as if oiled. More shouting.

It did not take long before someone fired a projectile weapon. The bullet glanced off Ocia’s shield and struck the ground beside someone’s foot. Jase’s small group moved steadily forward, untouched by the attempts to stop them. Uncaring of the live fire. Unstoppable by hands and fists. When another bullet deflected from Jase into a man’s leg, someone apparently gave the order to cease fire.

Now three hulking males blocked their way into the broad entrance door of the building.

“Ocia,” Jase said. “Just demonstrate. Nothing more.”

She bit back a grin and touched the emitter at the tip of her finger, briefly unshielded, to a man’s leg. He screeched, surprised by the sudden pain, and collapsed on the ground, twitching. More shouting erupted when the others jumped aside. When Ocia turned toward the small crowd behind them, the Chidean hybrid among them made himself heard above the din.

“Translate, Zio,” Jase said.

They listened to a somewhat-garbled interpretation, but the meaning was clear. The man, perhaps some sort of leader, urged the others to stand down. Grudgingly, the men backed off, but guns remained fixed on the newcomers. Jase almost expected Ocia to buzz one of them just to make her point, but she kept her fingers to herself.

“Tell them to stay out of our way,” he said to the man. “You know they can’t stop us. It is not our intent to hurt anyone.”

The Chidean regarded him warily, then looked back at the two ships crouching in the gloom behind them like some mythical menace come to life. “You’ve come for the ship?” he said, his voice barely audible.

“Just a part of it,” Jase replied. Aided by Zio, he managed the door’s locking mechanism, and they stepped into the building. The hybrid and two others followed after motioning their people to back away. The ship’s parts would be useless without the AI. Before any of these people learned enough from the design to replicate a useful power source, the Chideans would be standing at their gate, ready to take their world from them.

“Zio, monitor their movements and make sure they don’t find a way to barricade us in here,” Jase said after they had traversed harshly lit corridors and several stairways. Zio’s signal suffered from the layers of rock and metal that made up the underground installation, and each step down seemed like a descent into a tomb. They met no one along the way; perhaps the people who staffed this place had been ordered away.

Ocia snickered. “With what? There is no security here to speak of. No cohesive network, not even electronics. Brawn, bricks, guns is all they have.”

“It’s in here,” Jase said finally, pointing at a door.

The hybrid, silent during their descent, moved to open it for them. Jase wondered if his earlier manipulation of the locks had broken something.

They entered a storage room, or perhaps a workshop. Jase peered into the dim, cavernous space. No one waited here for them. Equipment and pieces that seemed to belong to planes and other airships cluttered massive shelves and had been collected in piles everywhere, leaving space between them for people to get around. Zio’s interpretation of their hidden scanners led them to a heap of twisted metal.

Ranael gasped. “They crashed?”

The hybrid nodded. “On their last trip here from…from up there. We believe it was done on purpose. The fire consumed much of it.”

“Did they survive?”

“We found no…no bodies. If they lived, they did not stay with the wreck.”

Jase prodded a shred of a tail section with his foot. This, then, confirmed it. These hybrids were experiments, never meant to leave this place again, serving only to support Chidean theories. For how many generations had the mission experts visited to inspect their progeny, perhaps to cut one or two of them up to see how their bodies fared in this environment? And did this person know? How much did any of them know? He ached to ask them; this man seemed to be one of the gatekeepers Ranael had assumed would be here. But this was beyond his skills and experience. He said nothing.

“What did you come for?” the hybrid said to Ocia, who was inspecting a jumble of parts on a long counter.

After a little rummaging, she held up a diamond-shaped object, rounded on one end and somewhat spongy to the touch. “This.”

“What…what is it?” he said. “We’ve not been able to identify it.”

“Piece of art,” Ocia said and marched past him back to the door.

* * *

Brigadier General Malcolm Groves barely waited until the jeep delivering him from the airfield came to a halt before the administrative bunker of the base. Leaping from the vehicle, he ignored the salutes of the personnel who got in his way and strode past the startled secretary sitting outside Colonel Farrow’s office.

“Farrow!” he barked when he entered without knocking.

The sight that met him was not what he had expected. With a quick look over his shoulder, he slammed the door to the hall.

Glenn Farrow sat behind his desk, uniform jacket carelessly unbuttoned, a cigarette smoldering in the brimming ashtray before him. His slack-jawed stare was on a calendar across the room. The corner of the June page moved listlessly in the current of a desktop fan, revealing and hiding Marilyn’s glorious legs as it oscillated.

“Glenn?” Groves said. He noticed a half-empty bottle of booze on the cabinet behind the officer. “Dammit, what’s gotten into you? Report.”

Farrow turned his head. “Damage control’s under way. We’ve moved personnel. Sanitized the landing area. Destroyed all recordings. This didn’t happen.”

The general frowned. “What about the men?”

“Do you want to know?”

Groves started to say something and then just exhaled sharply. He shook his head. “Do you think they found the Luna site?”

Farrow’s pale eyes traveled to his. “We didn’t even see them coming. Of course they saw it. For all we know they’re living up there right now.” His listless fingers spun a piece of paper on his desk. “They are watching. So they said.”

“Did they say how many there were? What they wanted, other than that rubber thing?”

“They said nothing. But they know who we are. And don’t seem happy about it.”

Groves sighed. “We need to regroup. We can deal with this. I’m flying on to Langley to report. Did you get any photos of them?”

The colonel looked down and then pushed the piece of paper toward the general, turning it as he did so. “This is their leader. At least we can pick them out of a lineup if they come back.” He thought about this. “When they come back.”

Groves whistled under his breath as he studied the drawing of the aliens that had come to visit. Thin and grey, with arms reaching nearly to their knees, their slight bodies looked as if they would have a hard time supporting their massive, hairless heads. It was the eyes, even in this crude sketch, which caught his attention. Dark and flat, they seemed to mock him, taunt him, with a promise.

Ethan Reid

THE UNDYING: SHADES

From THE UNDYING: SHADES by Ethan Reid. Copyright © 2015 by Ethan Reid. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

YEAR FOUR

GRANADA, SPAIN

She dreamt of the past, of the old world, her world, when planes polluted the skies and the great machine of humanity cogged forward ignorant of the approaching doomsday—of sitting with her mother in the kitchen drinking coffee, neither speaking—when people took the train, currency still had meaning, and the dead stayed so.

A vision of being wrapped in a bathrobe, perusing friends’ updates as Mom read the morning news from a tablet—a time prior to the worldwide electromagnetic pulse, and Paris, before darkness spread from the mysterious epicenter in South America, before fireballs, the long winter, and her years of trudging through the ruins, scavenging in the dirt.

Instinct forced Jeanie awake. For a moment she held her breath and listened, in case something hungry fumbled about the gardens outside. Hearing nothing, she stared through the latticed shutter as her mother’s face melded into obscurity and the new world took hold. Hints of a nightmare failing to fade, of walking the highways for weeks on end, of a familiar evil lurking in the dark, wanting in, wanting them.

Nerves, she told herself—born from too many nights where the pale ones fought to scratch their way into her sleeping place. Nearly twelve months now, and no sign. Instead of rising, she pulled the covers tight, delayed fumbling about for a candle, worried stumbling to the latrine would wake—

With a start she felt the mattress beside her, expecting Rennie’s weight—the impression of his body, the warmth of his feet touching hers—and found nothing. Sitting up, she cursed. Moonlight filtered through the cracked-open door.

Swallowing panic, she reached for her blue jeans. Stupid, falling asleep so deeply. What had she been thinking? An extra glass of wine—again? Heart racing, she slid into her sneakers, noticing the clever kid had used a chair to reach the locks.

Pulling on a T-shirt, she rushed from the portico, searching the sprawling grounds for any sign of him. In the night, he could easily tumble into the nearby ravine. Or worse.

Don’t even go there, she told herself, and glanced for his small head darting behind the rows of dried-out boxwoods. Across the gardens, the Alhambra’s battlements had provided the best sanctuary for them since the castle in Bordeaux—undamaged during the fallout, a city of supplies within walking distance, and a view for miles—yet after so many months she had allowed complacency to settle in.

Stifling the desire to call out, she hurtled over a turnstile and rushed past the dilapidated ticket counter, toward the royal complex, where tourists had once congregated. Rennie loved the older part of the Moorish fortress, where the tiny birds darted about tessellated columns and its pool reflected the moon. As she took to the gravel pathway, a throaty clicking echoed high against the rising walls and turrets.

No, she thought. Not now.

With a gasp, she broke into a frantic sprint.

* * *

Rennie smiled in the moonbeams, craning his neck to study the swallows, twisting and slicing between pillars. Long tails, split in two. The birds, so gallant in flight, darted from stilted arches where their nests clung to intricate mosaics. He had seen few animals outside the ones in books and magazines read to him at bedtime. Most beasts stalled at the point of death, like people. But not birds. He didn’t know why, but he liked to imagine that the swallows went to someplace better. He liked that idea very much.

She startled him, stumbling through a row of dead shrubs at a full tear, skidding on the path, glancing wildly about the walls where the Nasrid structures met the older stone citadel. Her anxiousness confused him. Was he in trouble?

“Stupid,” she said, repeating herself as she jerked him off his feet. He fought to keep pace as they rushed past the parapets. Across the deep gorge, he caught a glimpse of the city’s ruined buildings. From below, the rushing sounds of the river. Río, she called it. Río Darro. Once, when they had walked the highways, she called such things rivières.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“Shhh!”

“What’s happening?”

“Must’ve followed us home,” she said, panting. “That means they’re hunting in the city. Pray it’s a loner.”

They rushed deeper into the fortress, through pillared halls where disturbed swallows darted about their heads. She pulled to a stop in the middle of an overrun courtyard, bent down, and brushed the hair from his face. Her eyes sparkled in the darkness. “You can feel it, right?” she asked. “In your head? Tell me you can feel it.”

“Yes, I—I think I can.”

She shook him. “Tell me!”

“Yes,” he replied. Scared.

“Good. Quickly now.”

As they ran he glanced behind, expecting to see a gaunt face trailing in the corridor, naked, loping on all fours, blind gaze seeking, bloodied mouth opened wide, blackened claws reaching for his flesh. A cry escaped his lips. He could feel the thing toying with his mind, coaxing him—begging him to call out. Pleading, so sweetly.

Wanting to consume him.

He stumbled and she lifted him—his legs circled her waist, his arms her neck—as the beast’s awful clicking filled the hallway. Echolocating, she called it.

“Just like when we play,” she said, huffing. “Blank slate, okay? No feelings.”

She set him on the gravel of an open-air square—Court of the Lions—glancing about as swallows flitted above. “I’ll draw it away,” she explained, winded as she placed her heavy knife onto his palm. “Get in that room and go silent, play hide-and-seek. Can you? For me?”

Tears rimmed his lids as she removed the pistol from her belt. Hands quivering as she checked the clip. The way she kept glancing at the tiled roofs frightened him. She noticed his tears and bent over. “Quiet as a mouse in the grass at night. I need to know you can.”

He stared at the gun. The weapon scared him more than the blade, but not as much as the moribund. The undying ones often called to him as he slept, with their dreams of insatiable hunger. He sensed them while passing buildings at day, their thoughts like tendrils seeking emotion, reaching out from their hiding places. Unquenchable. Thankfully unable to brave the streets when the sun shined.

“Hey!” She gripped his shoulders roughly. “Can you?”

He bit his lip. “I—I’ll try.”

“Good. It’ll have no idea you’re there. It’ll hunt me. Okay? Go inside and hide.”

She kissed his forehead and shooed him toward the room. He stared as she rushed around the court’s central basin, the slapping of her sneakers dying away as she slipped beneath the arches and disappeared.

The night sky opened, an emptiness threatening to swallow him whole. He backed into the low-ceilinged chamber, passing geometric patterns woven into the threshold—one tick, two—set the knife down, and curled into a ball beneath the ring of lion statues, hugged his knees, and shut his eyes. Surrounded by marble, his tears turned cold on his cheeks. Hers, the only voice he knew.

Silent as a mouse.

He forced himself to slide deeper into the shadows. Went inward and cleared his mind, purging all thought as she had asked. Anything, for Jeanie.

Blank slate. They’ll never know you’re there.

Rennie had spent one birthday and nearly another here, in the Red Castle, where she told him emirs had once kept their harems and sultans ruled. The cities from before were mostly forgotten. Ruined places passed on the highways, stories told to him at bedtime—Nantes, Toulouse, Madrid. Only her. Jeanie. Her voice. Her warmth.

This was his world, she often told him. Her world—the Seattle across the ocean—died long ago. Her America, where all had been green and happy and grand, with shining buildings reaching to the heavens, moving cars and bustling traffic, schools and laughter, football games, Internet and barbecues. Before the fires, the blizzard, and the undying.

Pulling into a tighter ball, he briefly remembered the warmth of her lips on his forehead. Quickly, he pressed the memory aside, to slip away, into darkness. He went cold, blank slate, like she asked. Close down. Feel nothing.

Go silent.

Go dead.

* * *

Rennie’s eyes shot open at the sound of wheezing in the doorway. Although he had been taught to wait, to feel her touch before stirring, he risked a peek.

A figure panted in the threshold, its shoulders rising and falling in the gloom. From it, he sensed nothing. A terrible emptiness. No emotion. No…

“Mama?” he asked, his voice quaking.

“Thank God,” she gasped, and stepped forward. Slick gore covered her face and shoulders. Her T-shirt had been ripped in half, exposing a shoulder and a stained bra. Gun shaking in one hand, she reached out with the other to pull him up. She led them quickly toward the gardens, fingers entwined. “We go,” she said, breathless. “Now.”

As they hurried through the courtyards, she limped. Thrilled she had returned, he said nothing as they reached the gardens, fearful of upsetting her. She had not been angry with him for a long time. Their time in the Alhambra had made her softer. He loved it when they played hide-and-seek in the palace’s halls and chambers, tag in the Palace of Carlos V.

Inside their small room she wiped his face clean, then hers, lit a candle, and knelt, packing quickly. Two sleeping bags lay on a mattress covered with books, beside a tiny table and desk. He cried as he watched her. There wasn’t enough space in their backpacks for all of his toys. He did not want to leave them. Who would protect them, once he had gone?

“The thing wasn’t a loner,” she told him. “They’ll know where we are. More will follow.”

Eventually, she stopped rolling her sleeping bag and inhaled deeply. Her hands shook. “The Alhambra is not safe. Granada is not safe. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he blubbered.

“Good.”

“Where will we go?”

She shed her shirt, donned another, and kept packing. In the candlelight, deep scratches scored her back, red stains blossoming in her fresh blouse. “Farther into Spain. We’ll find a highway and head south like before. Someplace warmer. Someplace they don’t like. A small town. As defendable as the Alhambra and with clean water.”

“But I don’t want to leave!” he blurted.

“We’ll find someplace safe, okay? Somewhere you can—”

Her hands fell onto her lap and she cried, an uncontrolled sobbing that rattled her body, scaring him. Frightened, he went to her, arms out, hugging her like she would him.

“So sorry,” she muttered. “My fault.”

After a few moments, she squeezed back. “We’ll find a town with a bullring,” she said, and smoothed his shoulder-length hair. “You’ll like that. They have them in southern Spain. In Andalucía.”

“A bullring? Like in my book? The bull who won’t fight? The one who smells flowers?”

In the flickering light, she smiled warmly and wiped away his tears. “Like Ferdinand, yes. But you’re going to have to listen until we get there, okay? Keep listening until we find a new home. You’ll have to be patient. Think you can do that?”

He nodded and knelt, wanting to make her happy, filling his small pack with his clothes. “Will I see a bull?”

She placed a hand on his small shoulder and squeezed. Her flesh stuck to his, coated in moribund blood. “We’ll keep walking. Look for survivors. Like we always do.”

“Moving on?”

Her smile, sweet. Even with sadness in her gaze. “Yes, Rennie. On and on.”

After securing the door, she pulled her small watercolor painting from the wall, the old one of Paris’s Left Bank, with its sad clown dancing before the Seine, and slid the frayed canvas into her bag.

Grabbing the candle, she reached for her tattered tour book of Spain. She always kept it within arm’s reach, and studied its maps often. She loved books. He did, too. Loved listening to her voice when she read to him at night.

“Sleep now,” she said, and leaned back. “We have a few hours until dawn. At the first hint of sun I’ll wake you.”

“You and me?”

She smiled as she set the pistol on her lap. “Always. Now get some rest, kiddo. We have a lot of walking ahead of us.”

WEEKS LATER

Parched and beaten by the midday sun, Jeanie paused on the cracked highway and gripped Rennie’s shoulder harder than she should have. More black silt blew in a gust before settling on the road. With each step she grew more anxious about their dwindling water supply—they were down to two bottles—and worried over how badly she had miscalculated the number of miles between towns.

Epic fail, she thought. My fault.

They had ambled down the southbound lanes of the A45 for a day and a half, after their bicycle’s tires gave out on the A92. Rennie liked bike travel better—as Jeanie pedaled he rode on the pannier, gripping her waist, smiling into the wind. Now two toes poked from his right tennis shoe. The left one was frayed badly at the tip and heel, close to losing its battle.

Undoing the cloth from his face, he squinted through the whipping dust. The plastic sheet stitched to his hood unraveled, fluttering in the breeze. “Mama?”

She answered his stare with a raised finger. Lifting his sunglasses, he glanced toward the horizon.

Heat rose from the highway, bisecting the blackened Spanish plains. The fires had been bad here. Worst he had seen. Nonstop loess and biting dust. The silt fell in the beginning, Jeanie had told him, when fireballs rained from the skies. Ejecta. By-products of the endgame, when something either struck the earth or woke up after being buried beneath its surface, spreading darkness from the unspeakable ground zero in Brazil.

Four lanes dipped into the mountains of the south. Beyond the peaks, the city of Málaga and the Mediterranean. Waves, she said, as far as one could see. Farther south, they might even spot the tip of Morocco across the strait, if the coastline had not been too ravaged by the tsunamis.

Rennie followed her finger. The feet of the mountains were bright beneath the sunlight, but the hills fell under the shade of an approaching cloud bank. Coming in fast. Dark.

Full of rain.

She squeezed his shoulder and indicated a road parallel to the highway. Past a row of disintegrated stumps—palms trees, once—a burned-out villa sat behind a wire fence. Within the ruins, a storehouse. No windows. Corrugated metal walls. Large sliding doors, wide open.

“What if one of them is inside?” he asked, blinking nervously.

“We risk it,” she replied. The sulfurous, acidic rain would burn their skin and eyes. They had to find shelter. Now. When thunder boomed, a resonant crack rolling across the billows, she pushed him from behind.

Shadows consumed the highway as they hurried over the guardrail, racing against the rains, rushing past two words painted on a concrete wall.

HOSTAL. AUTOSERVICIO.

Halfway to the fence, the rain fell, engulfing them with its stench of sulfur. Rennie sobbed as she wrenched the wire upward. He wiggled beneath, coughing against the biting air, panicking when his backpack snagged.

“Hurry, kiddo.”

As he pulled free, she slipped under and hauled him to his feet. Raindrops blistered their skin as they ran. She pulled her pistol free as they neared the storehouse, alert for movement or the famished plea of a moribund, begging them to enter.

“Go flat,” she commanded.

He swallowed his fears as he hustled behind her, the droplets singeing his arms and necks, scorching his cheeks. Wherever the rain bit him, the top layer of skin would flake off before nightfall. Because of it, they would cough for weeks.

* * *

Daylight faded as night arrived, its incoming mist enough to sting Rennie’s eyes. Inside the warehouse his toys lay at his shoes—limbless action figures, a plastic motorcycle, a deck of playing cards—yet he remained fixated on Jeanie.

She sat near the doorway, staring into the rain, her handgun in her lap. He coughed as he spooned from their last can of food. She insisted he eat the tangy-smelling fruit. Shapes in clear gel. Scent of cinnamon. Old fat.

For two nights the downpour had drummed on the roof, keeping sleep at bay. Grime coated them both, stringing and clumping her hair. She usually brushed his, but their weeks on the highways had left it bunching in places. At least the warehouse sat empty, without attic or basement for the undying to cluster. They were twice lucky. The monsters would not brave the rains.

“They used to ask me how old you were,” she said, smiling as he approached. “People on the roads, so amazed to see a baby. Not the French so much as the Spaniards. Oh, they loved seeing a child. Never another, young as you. Thankfully, most spoke English. My Spanish sucks.” She grimaced and held her side. “Stopped seeing them the year the sun came back.”

She used the barrel of her pistol to move the hair from her cheek. Rennie set the tin on the floor and pulled his knees to his chest. In her lap, the crumpled clown painting. Faceup. Dotted with raindrops.

“You were so sick that winter,” she went on, “colicky and teething at the same time. Jesus, that fever. Scared me so much, how you kept heating up. Sometimes I wonder if we should have stayed in Paris. If we should ever have tried to run.”

She placed her gun into her waistband, set the painting on the damp floor, and stood. “It’s high time I taught you something.”

She pulled out her pocketknife and the cell phone. He had discovered the mobile device in one of the vehicles when the rains stalled briefly yesterday morning. Thankfully these interiors had been free of corpses, although the vehicles held no water and none of the seats were leather. When times got rough, they could strip the leather to eat.

As he watched, she stacked pieces of a broken crate over a pile of dry wood shavings. Removing the back of the phone, she slapped the battery onto her hand.

“After you make the tinder, drive the blade into the teeth of the battery, here. See the metal connections? Drive straight in.” She pressed the blade into the battery and twisted. Sparks flew. Smoke sputtered. “Quickly now, mix the chemicals and create fire. They burn fast, so no wasting time.”

Without pausing she blew, set the sparking battery to the shavings, and leaned close. When the fire took, she sat back. They stared at the flames for a moment, together, until she dropped the spent battery. Her skin looked gray in the light. “Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ll find more of these batteries than you’ll ever need. More damn phones around than people.” She reached for the painting. “Carry as many as you can find. And make sure not to breathe the smoke, okay? It’s bad for you.”

He nodded.

“God, where the hell is everyone? Nobody for months. Not one person.” She turned to the ceiling, sighed, and shook her head. “Sorry, kiddo, I’m just tired. Get some sleep. As soon as the rain stops, I’ll wake you. We’ll have to risk a city.”

“But you said Málaga is days away.”

“You’re right, Málaga is too far. But we don’t have enough water. As soon as we can, we change highways, head west to Antequera.” She folded the canvas, slid it into her pocket, and led Ren to his sleeping area. “It’ll take us a day, maybe two. After that, there is another town. That’s our destination. An old town, ancient. Before the Spanish claimed it, Moors lived there. Before the Moors, Visigoths. Before the Visigoths, Romans, and before them, Phoenicians. Can’t get much older than that. If I can find enough food there, we should be able to defend it.”

“Town?”

“Ronda,” she replied, faking a smile as she fluffed his sleeping bag and motioned for him to slide in. “The town sits on a gorge, high above the plains. There is an old town and a new town, separated by a tall Roman bridge. One of the oldest bullrings in Spain is there. In fact”—she rubbed his cheek—“one of my father’s favorite writers loved the town—a man named Hemingway. Maybe we’ll find food. And survivors, if we’re lucky.”

“Who’s Hemingway?” he asked as she pulled the covers to his neck.

“I’ll tell you more after Antequera,” she said. “If moribund are there, they’ll have protected water. Hopefully we won’t have to enter the city. We may have to risk traveling at night, though, depending on the rain.”

“Will you read to me?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, and rose, checking the handgun before moving to the doorway.

Jeanie appeared ghostly as she stood, veiled, staring at the rain. Almost as if he could see through her wisp of a frame and into the downpour.

Something was wrong, he knew.

Inside her.

* * *

On the fourth day of rain he could not get her to stand up. She slumped near the doorway, crying, handgun in her lap. At least the acidic clouds had lessened, the rains no longer stung—almost as if they had purged the poisons they held. For as long as Rennie could remember, she had told him the clouds would clear, one day, and the rain would be normal. Whatever normal meant. Sometimes he found it better not to ask.

“Please,” he said, and tugged at her arm. “Mama?”

“I just want to go home,” she wept.

Her body too heavy, he too weak. Still, he worked his arm under hers. “Please, get up. Put the gun away. You’re scaring me.”

“Scaring you?” She laughed. “You know what happens when we die, right?”

He cringed as he pulled her.

“We turn into them,” she spat. Her damp hair clung to her face. “Like scorched earth and starvation isn’t bad enough. Or dying of thirst.”

His hands slipped and he fell backward, landing in a stagnant puddle.

“One bullet,” she said, crying as she stared at the pistol. “All this way and only one bullet left. Guess we’ll just have to deal with the cards we’re dealt.”

“Cards? Mama? Please, don’t leave me.”

She forced a crazy smile. Tears rimmed her eyes.

“Happy name day, kiddo,” she said wearily. “Happy New Year. Year five. Five.” She sobbed as she lifted the pistol. “I can’t. Not anymore. So tired.”

“Mama?”

She glanced up, angry, cheeks reddening. “What?” she barked. “What do you need now, Rennie? Do you need me to—”

“The rain.”

“Rain? Do you have any idea what—”

He pointed to the doorway. “It’s stopped, Mama.”

HIGHWAY A376

Pain.

Warm blood trickled down the inside of her thigh as she stumbled down the roadway, sun beating on her shoulders and neck, vision blurry, listening to footsteps trailing behind her. Every stride down the highway was harder than the last as they maneuvered around the rusted vehicles. Her limp, bad since Paris, had turned her left foot into a useless stump.

Slide, slide, step. Slide, slide, step.

The footfalls behind Jeanie were Death’s. The cowled bitch had been following, waiting for Jeanie to pause, stop, and peek over her shoulder. If she did, if she looked, she was fucked. Death would peel her hood back, revealing a white skull, a skeletal hand would reach out, and Jeanie would float above the highway, away from her body, and—

Pain.

Gritting her teeth, she staggered, barely able to keep her footing. Refusing to give Death any attention, she focused on the road’s cracked surface. On her tennis shoes, and on the cars, skulls and skeletons waiting inside the cabs. Children more often than not. The babes were the worst. Still strapped in car seats. Made her shudder and recall the catacombs in Paris, what she had done in desperation to Rennie, to keep them both alive. She had long suspected something unnatural happened. Uncanny, his ability to hide. Almost like—

Slide, slide, step. Slide, slide, pain.

She fell to one knee and her breath went out in a rush. At impact, hot blood poured from her wound and vision went dark at the edges. The sun cooked her back.

How did I get here? And where the hell is—

Antequera.

They had discovered the village, she and Rennie, from the highway outside of town, staring at buildings through her binoculars, starving and beyond thirsty. For the first time they had drunk their own urine that morning, pissing into a T-shirt and squeezing the liquid into their mouths. No food. No water. One bullet.

She remembered standing on the outskirts of Antequera, glancing at the windows, feeling no moribund toying with her thoughts, wondering if the town held a gas station or a convenience store, and when a single pop came out of nowhere, Jeanie sighed and dropped.

They shouted, their Spanish insults unintelligible, yet their meaning clear. Threats and a gunshot. She and the boy were not wanted.

Moving on.

Grimacing, she used pain to focus and wobbled to her feet, refusing to give in. She swayed, nearly toppled, bracing on a guardrail, frowning as she realized she no longer held her backpack. When, she wondered, did she lose their provisions?

Two tin cups, a backpacking stove, their last white gas canister, and her map. Always about the map. At least Rennie knows Andalucía’s highways by heart. But without the map, we may as well lie down and—

She stumbled down the road’s shoulder. From her buttock, the gunshot’s exit wound pounded—large, too, which meant the bastards had hollowed out their tips. When she grew strong enough, when she had healed, she planned to head back there and—

Wait. Rennie? Where’s Rennie?

As she paused, Death leaned close and exhaled—an awful, empty breeze on the back of her neck—Jeanie gasped and doubled her pace.

Slide-slide, step. Slide-slide, step.

Stay awake, damn it. Stay—

“Mom?”

Jeanie smiled when she spotted him, standing down the road. She tried not to imagine what a vision she must be, all bloody and filthy, crazy-eyed and barely able to walk. Rennie, her little boy, maybe the last boy, standing between two overturned trucks, his hazel eyes so concerned, his matted brown hair needing a comb. Round face so pale. When she realized he stood before a roadblock, she frowned. Who would place a roadblock way out here, in the middle of nowhere, where nothing but sunlight held court? Who would stop anyone from—

Pain.

This time he caught her. All of five, groaning against her weight, his head against her chest, pushing at her, refusing to let her fall.

“Mama?”

A smile so innocent, missing his first tooth, fallen out a week ago. Born to such a world, his world. She marveled at the sight of him.

“A town, Mama,” he said, and pointed. “Can you read the sign? Mama?”

She blinked, realized they stood at an off-ramp, and squinted at the road sign. Her legs trembled as he tried to right her. Her boy. She loved him so much.

His world. A terrible place to grow up.

“Mama? What does it say?”

She shook her head and blinked at the white sign. A blue roundabout circumnavigating a town with different highways as little arrows, sprouting away. They stood on the A367 highway. Another exited opposite the city, the A374, west toward Sevilla. The A397 pointed south to Málaga. One arrow headed into town.

Ronda.

Death reached out, tickled her ear, and blood rushed from the wound, drenching her leg.

“Go,” she commanded Rennie. “Leave me.”

As she began her ragged, stumbling turn toward Death, a small hand slid into hers. “Mama? Let me help. I think I hear a bell.”

Together, they took the off-ramp. Limping, dependent on a five-year-old to walk, leaving the broken highway behind and heading into the small Spanish town. As she stumbled, the pain faded away, consciousness slipped, and she realized she could just make out the ringing of a bell in the distance, light, airy. Bong, bong.

“Is that for us?”

She grunted.

“You and me, Mama. Right?” His voice broke. “Always?”

“Moving on,” she muttered, and tumbled, the ground rushing up to meet her. As she fell, she closed her eyes and smiled, awaiting impact. She had made it.

For him.

PART ONE

THE WITCH

“In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”

Play and Theory of the Duende, 1933

Federico García Lorca

CHAPTER ONE

Year Thirteen

Ren smirked as he stared into the stairwell, schooled in disappearing into the shadows. The crowbar clanged on the sidewalk as he gripped the security gate and pulled. Metal screeched while the gap spread, protesting years of inactivity. Letting go, he stepped into the light and elbowed his friend in the ribs, hard enough to draw a grunt.

“You first.”

“No way.”

Refuse cluttered the basement landing, congealed paper, possibly an animal carcass or two mixing with the garbage, no indication anyone had descended for a decade. The teens gaped at the storefront—Ren’s hood drawn over his head, Óscar’s hair stuffed beneath a ratty baseball cap—fixated on the door. Bright sunbeams filtered three steps before tapering into the gloom.

“Come on, chicken.”

“Cabrón, I don’t know. I don’t want any trouble.”

A dry wind blew down the narrow street, stinking of burnt rubber. Behind the gate, the glass door teased from below, plastered with signs from another time. One in particular made Ren antsy. White background, big green letters. ABIERTO. Open.

he building sat on the outskirts of Ronda, blocks past the failing barricades where the ruins—mostly apartments—had burned during the fallout. Tattered sheets blew from balconies as dust devils twisted about the lane, remnants of the recent sandstorms. Ren, the taller of the two, gripped the gate and spread the gap wider.

“Óscar,” he pleaded. “Vamos, amigo. I’ve been stuck at home for a week dreaming about this place. You’ve been doing the same since the storms hit, admit it.”

Óscar adjusted his glasses and stared appreciatively down at the broken barrier. “You’re getting pretty good at opening these things, you know? Real pro, Ren.”

“Busting old locks is easy. You’d know if you tried. Now see if that door is open.”

“No sé,” Óscar replied and shuffled, uneasily. “We should tell someone. If mi padre finds out—”

“You and your padre. No one’s found anything like this in forever. We’ll tell them, we just won’t say we searched it first.”

Slipping from beneath his hood, Ren brushed his unkempt hair from his ashen face—dark brown tips lightened by the year-round sun—and wiggled past, knowing his friend would have no problem following. Although Ren’s body had filled out, Óscar’s remained rail thin. One of many wonderful side effects of starvation.

“I don’t know, we’re supposed to be getting agua.”

“What’re you so worried about?” Ren said, shrugging as he took the stairs. “There could be shoes, amigo. Ones that fit. Wouldn’t you like that? Or new glasses? Maybe even batteries.”

With a chuckle, Ren wiped the glass clean. Peering through the door he spotted dusty aisles and shelves. His heart skipped a beat. Lots of shelves.

“Ho-lee shit. A market.”

Óscar’s stomach growled like a feral cat. “A market? Don’t tease me. I haven’t eaten anything but gachas for weeks. I dream of oats. See anything else? Anything…moving?”

“You stay right there. I promise not to eat all the candy. Or is that chocolate con leche?”

“But what about them? If one of—”

Ren snorted. “No one’s seen a walking carcass since that skinny thing in the fields last June and you know it. The moribund are all in the cities, wasting away like we are. Come on.”

“But what about the stragglers? The ones who remember?”

Ren peered inside, his hazel eyes—green leaning toward gold—gleaming as he reached for the doorknob. Óscar was right to worry, yet Ren would be damned before he let fear drive him. Unlike most of the adults, who either locked themselves up or slunk away at night, leaving the safety of town for the villas in the plains, lured by the hope of farming dead soil.

The chime rattled as he opened the door. “My bad. That’s not chocolate. It’s Coca-Cola. Red cans, right?”

Óscar’s hollow belly gurgled as he shimmied through the gate.

* * *

Standing in the aisle, Ren took a bite of dry almond cookie and grinned. Plucking a can from the shelf, he blew dust and squinted at the label. ANCHOAS. Anchovies. The fact that none of the adults had unearthed a store on the outskirts of Ronda, nestled between the burnt-out buildings and spitting distance from the barricades?

Amazing.

Ren handed Óscar a second roll of cookies and laughed. For months he had eaten nothing but oats. Dry. Difficult to swallow. He barely remembered the tang of gazpacho. Crunch of paella. At a party once he had tried sheep’s milk cheese with jamón ibérico—but that was years before rationing. Now only occasions like Christmas or birthdays afforded broth-soaked oats.

Mouth full of cookies, excitement seized him and he shoved Óscar into the shelves, cackled and took off, laughing as he sent pasta bags spraying into the walkway.

“Come get me, loser!”

Rounding the aisle, he slammed against the refrigerator doors, snickering so hard his ribs hurt. An undiscovered market?

Find of the effing century.

“¡Ay cabrón!”

With a hoot, Óscar laughed and loosed his slingshot. The rock whizzed past Ren’s ear, smashing glass. Launching the anchovy can from his hand, Ren turned before it struck Óscar, plucked a bottle from the shelf, and blindly tossed the thing over his head.

He shouted—spittle flying, loving the sound of glass exploding on the floor—reveling in the joy of letting go.

Taking the corner, he hurtled over the front counter, avoided a jar of olives, and crashed behind the cash register. Suppressing laughter, he scrambled for anything to throw—energy pills, fútbol magazines, packs of cigarettes—and glanced directly into teeth.

Ren cried out, backpedaled, and on instinct, froze.

A desiccated clerk was slumped in the corner, draped in a ratty smock, revolver resting on its lap, shrunken finger on the trigger. A hole cratered the man’s skull where the bullet had passed.

Ren wiped crumbs from his mouth and exhaled.

At least this suicide isn’t messy, he thought as he peered over the counter. Unlike the family the boys had stumbled across last month. Seeing the crispy mother leaning into the oven, her three children in their beds—decapitated heads left on pillows above their necks—had given Ren nightmares for weeks.

Grabbing a dried stick of chorizo from the counter, he pushed the corpse away, cringing as the body crumpled. With a shudder, he turned to the shelves. Some tins had distended, their contents likely spoiled, but most jars appeared in great shape.

If the townsfolk knew, he would get busted. Only forty-two people left in Ronda, and almost a third from different countries. During Ren’s studies he’d read that thirty-seven thousand had crowded Ronda’s streets before the EMP—even more during bullfighting season.

“What are you, scared?” he called out. “¡El padre que te parió!”

“Leave my father out of it!” Óscar shouted, his mouth full of food.

Ren plucked a bag of nuts from the counter. Wrapped, sealed, canned. Rice, dried cakes, almendras. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, they would keep the discovery to themselves for a day or two. A couple of candy bars, maybe a soda pop. The thought made his pulse thrum.

“I’m eating chocolate!”

“No you’re not!” Óscar scrambled, and rushed closer.

Ren dipped down, stifled a giggle as he went cold—stalling all feelings like his mother had taught him, slipping into darkness—his natural gift, she called it, his ability to hide from the moribund as they preyed on emotion—staring blankly as he waited for Óscar to get closer and shot up, whooping as he let the peanuts fly.

The jubilant shout came off as cocky—Ren liked this newfound bravado, rearing its head often as he neared his fourteenth birthday—turning into a gasp when he realized the bag of nuts was hurtling toward a figure rising from the gloom.

CHAPTER TWO

Seated on the curb, Ren tossed a pebble into the street, watching it bounce beneath a car. Beside him on the sidewalk, Óscar fingered a hole in his sneaker.

“Puta madre, Ren. Mi padre, when he finds out—”

“We’ll be fine. Let me do the talking. After they’re done, go peek behind the counter. I saw a fútbol magazine. Iniesta is on the cover.”

“Serious? Iniesta?”

Ren opened his mouth to reply and the sound of footsteps slapped around the corner. Their pace told him two things. One, she had rushed all the way from Old Town.

Two, his mother was furious.

He pulled his hood low as Jeanie rounded the building, coming to a ragged stop. She stepped forward, sleeves rolled to her elbows from doing laundry with the last of their morning water.

“Mom, it’s all my fault. I—”

“Mom-I-nothing. Dude, you are in sooo much trouble.”

She wiped her brow, winded as she glared. His mother had raced from Old Town, he knew, passing Ronda’s abandoned eastern apartments. He glanced away when she pointed to the staircase and raised an eyebrow. “Outside the barricades? Again?”

“We were just—”

“You’re lucky someone found you before you did too much damage. I’ll give you credit—no one expected a store out here—but when Hector hears you broke a bottle of olive oil? Really? When was the last time we had olive oil?”

Ren tossed another rock, knowing he should shut up, but not wanting to. “Get more water, Ren. Dig a new ditch, Ren. The old walls don’t mean shit anymore and I’m sick of doing stuff for other people. Look what we found—”

“Shit? What if you got hurt? Did you think of that?”

“Maybe the store will lift spirits for New Year’s?” Óscar added, softly.

Jeanie sighed as she turned. “Maybe, Óscar. Maybe. After Christmas, Ronda certainly deserves good news.”

“We could look for medicine on the shelves,” Ren muttered.

“There could be aspirin, yes. But no antibiotics. Not in a corner store.”

“And Selene?”

“Her fever is getting worse.”

Ren pulled his legs up and hugged them. He liked Selene. The only Greeks in town, she and her husband were always nice to him and Jeanie, unlike most locals. Dmitri had taught Ren to whittle and make small traps, and occasionally they played fútbol in the town square.

“You can’t keep pushing, kiddo. Bored or not. Not with rationing coming up again. You know Hector—”

Óscar groaned as his father rounded the corner, running without running, anger in each step. Stout and ruddy-faced, his button up shirt tucked into his slacks.

“Hector,” Jeanie interrupted, palms up. “See? Both boys are fine.”

His thick mustache curled beneath his nose as he towered above Óscar, forehead dappled with sweat. His finger went from Óscar, to Ren, back to Óscar.

“Papá, I—”

Hector cuffed Óscar across the face so hard his glasses fell off.

“Pick them up,” he commanded.

Ren stiffened and moved to speak. His mother shook her head once, sharply.

Not our place.

“Americana, this is a second time in a month your son has ignored el perímetro. We no longer guard the barricades, but Ronda still has rules.” He whirled to Ren. “Because you are the youngest, you think you can get away with everything. But you’re not special, you’re—”

“They’re just being boys, Hector. Look, they found a store.”

“A store? What if they died? Or woke something up?” He bristled over them, face purple with anger. Then he paused. “The Greek?”

“Rests inside Santa María with her husband,” Jeanie replied. “Luc stays with them, day and night. Without medicine, we run out of options. The pueblos are picked bare, Hector. Luc is right. We must send someone to Sevilla. Look for medicine, food, before—”

“No,” Hector said, ending the discussion with a swipe of his hand. “I will not risk the cities. We widen our search in el campo. Go further north this time.”

Hector pulled Óscar to his feet and shoved his son toward town. When he motioned for Ren to follow, Jeanie nodded.

Go.

“Los malcriados can spend the rest of the day gathering wood for a bonfire,” Hector added. “Pray the Greek does not die at night. If she turns, we should all be ready. Ronda has not seen such evil in some time.”

* * *

“I’m sick of this mierda.”

Ren tossed his wheelbarrow end over end as they reached the mid-span of the bridge, sending scrap wood tumbling onto Puerto Nuevo’s cobbled way. They crossed the gorge from La Ciudad—Old Wown—where foreigners lived in the Moorish buildings damaged during the fallout—toward El Centro, where the Spaniards resided in the finer apartments near the bullfighting ring.

“Por favor, Ren. No more trouble. Mi padre—”

“How long are they going to treat us this way? We’re not kids. But after we finish the pyre you know they’ll send us for more agua.”

The water containers grew heavy, filled at the cisterns near the Arab Baths. After fighting them up the streets, Ren would become so hungry his stomach would cramp. Sometimes the pangs were so awful he spent all night clutching his belly. Lately even his fingernails hurt. He hadn’t known nails could hurt.

He kicked a piece of wood and glared at Hector’s home. Nestled above El Tajo canyon, its faded HOTEL DON MIGUEL sign above the door. Across the Plaza de España, the grander Parador Hotel perched high above plains dotted with the skeletal remains of cork trees.

During the days after the electromagnetic pulse, half of Ronda’s residents had holed up inside the Parador, hiding in its lower floors. Now the luxury hotel stood as an empty testament, as his mother called it, to Ronda’s survival.

Raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun, he stared into the ravine. A hundred meters below, Río Guadalevín trickled through the canyon. Dead plants were mixed in with a few living ones, mostly brown, struggling grasses. Sometimes, if he waited long enough, he would spot a bird in the underbrush. They reminded him of the swallows of the Alhambra. He often wondered if they still survived.

“What about the Bruja?” he asked, and flicked a thumb toward the Serranía de Ronda mountains. “Everyone says the old woman has medicine. She took army stuff from the garrison, right? Who knows what else she has stashed in her cave. Maybe food.”

“La Bruja?” Óscar fidgeted. “No one has seen her in months. Mi padre thinks she and her son died over the summer, or they would have come to trade.”

Ren spit off the bridge, and both boys watched it disappear into the gorge. “We should go,” Ren said, his wavy hair billowing in the breeze. “See if she has medicine for Selene. The adults—they’re too scared.”

“The cave is an hour away. We’re supposed to finish the pyre. We’d never make it back before nightfall. Ren, mi padre—”

“Rides you all day long, amigo. I think—”

“—says we grow lazy, that we neglect the barricades. That moving to the villas is dangerous. That we forget what it was like.”

“I’m tired of rules. Living like I’m already dead, afraid of every rusty nail I see. Let the old folks live that way. We get medicine, we won’t need a bonfire. Your padre can’t be angry if we bring back antibiotics. He’d be proud. On New Year’s Eve?”

“But what if one of them is out there? They’re—”

“—all in the cities and you know it. Likely shriveled up and dead, too. No, we ride to the cave and back before anyone notices we’re gone. The highway runs straight there.”

“You should have told the adults about that dead hombre.”

Ren’s eyes shined as he pulled out the clerk’s revolver. “Oh, I’d love to see their faces when they find that old bag of bones. Come on, compinche. Target practice on the way?”

“Compinche? Cómplice en crimen, you mean.”

Ren slid the heavy handgun into his belt, glancing over the countryside as the cork trees blew in a burst, settling as the wind died. “The whole town will thank us. All of them, afraid of their own shadows.”

“Yo no sé…”

He socked Óscar’s shoulder. “Hey, your stomach still growling?”

“¿Qué? It was my idea to try that neighborhood! You owe me for those cookies in your pocket. Don’t think I didn’t see you take them.”

Ren smirked as he flipped up his hood. “Come on, it’ll be a blast. You and me, the heroes of Ronda. Think of it as my birthday present. What’s the worst that can happen?”

CHAPTER THREE

Sweaty from their ride, the boys lay on the hillside, bicycles resting beside them as they stared into the valley. The baking sun had risen past midday, stretching the shadows of a nearby cork tree.

Beneath his hood, Ren squinted down the barrel of the gun, feeling uncaged and—for the first time in forever—full. Unable to eat another bite, he set the cookie down. They should hurry, he knew, find the medicine and return. Instead he imagined his mother and Hector in the aisles of the store, tallying foodstuffs. All the adults thought of—food and not dying. Never really about leaving, except to raid the pueblos. Gone for days, only to return empty-handed.

“Never been this far out of Ronda, have you?”

Óscar rolled onto his back and shook his head. With a smirk, Ren wiped the hair from his eyes and glanced down the gun sight to the opposite side of the vale, where the entrance to the cave cut the parallel slope like a gash in a sea of brown. A farmhouse squatted in the midst of the valley, flanked by a cropping of dead trees lacking the sense to fall over. Unlike most of the ruins in Ronda, the building appeared untouched after a decade of neglect.

Untouched by the last century, he thought. With sparse cloud cover, the temperature left him parched.

“Why don’t you admit it, Ren?” Óscar asked, as he stared at the sky. “You’re americano. Tu mamá is americana, that means you’re americano.”

Ren aimed, smiled wider at Óscar’s ignorance, and fired. The crack echoed through the valley, dinging the farmhouse a foot from a window. “Ridiculous. Do I suck or what?”

“Why not admit it?”

“Because I’m not.” Ren spun the chamber and—against better judgment—reached for another cookie. “My mom came from the States but I was born in Paris. I grew up on the highways between France and Spain. You, on the other hand”—he spoke between bites—“have been pueblerino since you were born.”

Óscar snorted and sat up. “Pueblerino,” he repeated, and grabbed the binoculars. Turning his cap backward, he stared past the farmhouse at the gravel trail climbing the hillside to an empty parking lot. Hewn steps led to the cave above. “Tu mamá comes from America, you’re americano. Don’t have the balls to be español.”

Ren’s grin faded as he stared at the cave. He did not keep many secrets from Óscar—they were the only two people in town younger than twenty-seven—yet no one in Ronda knew Jeanie was not his birth mother. Ren’s parents had died in Paris. Jeanie came from Seattle. The idea of revealing the true nature of their relationship left Ren feeling alone. Alone terrified him more than anything—the fear of waking up to discover his mother missing. Nightmares from youth, which sent him to sleep on her bedroom floor until she woke. She always held him until he settled. Even now. Another thing he wouldn’t tell Óscar.

Ren glanced at Óscar and forced a smile. He had lived in Ronda for almost a year before Hector allowed the boys to meet. Kept in La Ciudad under the watch of his mother. Their first meeting happened only after her nonstop cajoling bore fruit. Holding his hand as they stood outside the hotel, watching Óscar in his second-story window. Unable to keep still as they waited for Hector to bring him out. To this day, Ren remembered Hector’s rules.

Los chicos can fetch agua. After, they may play in my garden for one hour. No longer.

Ren slid the pistol into his belt. “You get raised by an American in France and move to Spain—see how you do,” he countered. “Besides, most people spoke English on the roads, like we’re speaking now.”

Óscar let out a raspberry. “Come on, Ren. Let’s see if the old Bruja is in that cave. If not, it’s us gathering wood until the sun sets.”

“Like I said, tu padre will be—hey! Wait!”

* * *

Ren scrambled, grabbed his backpack and followed Óscar down the hillside. In the valley the wind sent a plume of fine black silt into the air—leftovers from the ejecta—and settled as storm clouds rolled in from the southwest.

He reached the shingled farmhouse first, grinning as he waited. Adrenaline surged through his system. Past a dilapidated fence and dank stream, the trail snaked up the hillside to the cave entrance. “Man, you’re slow. Like tortuga slow.”

“Tortuga?” Óscar wheezed as he leaned against the farmhouse. “Who just ate ten galletas?”

“Yeah? And how many Fantas did you drink?” Ren laughed as he pointed to the cave. “Cueva de la Pileta? What does that mean, anyway?”

Óscar shook his head. “Cave of the pool. The family who owned the caves used to do tours. Mi padre says there are real caveman drawings inside—fish, animals, made by el Cromañón.”

“Cro-Magnon?” Ren stepped forward. “No shit?”

“Neanderthals, too. But you’ll have to go slow for a change, if you can. Mi padre says sometimes the caves are so deep, you can fall and fall and…”

Óscar’s voice died as both boys turned to the farmhouse’s storm cellar doors.

Ren took an involuntary step back. A chill emanated from the shuttered basement, sending goose bumps along the back of his arms. As he stared hunger, rage, famine, flooded over him, thoughts scratching at the base of his skull like a mouse trying to escape a trap and—connection—delving further, an emptiness within the cellar, deep-walled and inescapable, a terrible yearning, hungry and weak, gnawing, always gnawing, awakened by their presence, the smell of sweet boy sweat and the thumpa, thumpa of two pumping hearts.

Ren gripped Óscar’s arm and they scrambled up the hillside to the cave, faces drained white, like the thing in the cellar had leached their lifeblood from afar.

* * *

The rusty gate stood wide open, beckoning the boys down a natural hallway so low they had to duck to enter. Inside the cavern’s first grotto, their heavy breathing echoed into the darkness. Óscar shivered in the chill. “Dios santo, Ren. Was that…?”

“You know it was.”

“A loner? But you said they were all dead. You said—”

“Probably can’t even walk anymore,” Ren replied. “Come on.”

One of them, Ren knew, shuddering as he squinted into the cave—the few who remember their past. Not like the moribund in the cities. Back in Paris, when his mom had brief radio communication with the Americas, she learned about monsters in the fog more horrible than the undying in Europe, spreading from a dead zone in Rio. A zone of silence, she called it, where evil issues from whatever fell from the stars, or woke up beneath the earth’s crust. Thankfully, the thing in the cellar felt decrepit—kept alive on dirt and worms.

“We should go back to town,” Óscar muttered. “Tell someone. Mi padre—”

“It’s still daylight,” Ren said, “we have plenty of time. Besides, what we need is to find that medicine. We tell them when we get back. They can burn the house, all I care.”

Óscar trembled. “But maybe they’re right. The last time I felt one, was the night they attacked Ronda. Before the barricades. The night mi mamá, she…”

Ren paused. He had been so focused on the antibiotics, he had failed to think about Óscar’s fears. “No one talks about that night. Do you think about your mom a lot?”

“Mi padre says they came like a wave at the beginning. Los moribundos killed nearly everyone in Ronda. Comida. That’s what mi padre says we were to them—food. The photos of mi mamá are digital, I don’t even have that. But I remember her warmth, if that makes sense. She smelled like soap.” Óscar glanced over. “Do you remember the cities? Skyscrapers? Luc showed me a photo of New York. So tall.”

Ren stared at a rusty metal sign bolted to the cave wall, covered with illegible tour instructions. Beneath it sat a row of ancient-looking lanterns. Most broken. Gripping the nearest, he unscrewed the container and took a whiff, cringing at the bite of old fuel. He recalled little before Spain. Since Ronda, Jeanie rarely spoke of their journey. She mostly taught him history, like how the Moors called the land Al-Ándalus before giving it to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Ren enjoyed Óscar’s tales of the time before the pulse best. The final bullfight of the season happened in town, he knew, when all of Spain descended on Ronda for the Corrida Goyesca—royals, movie stars, Ferraris in the streets.

“I kind of remember Granada,” he admitted. “And a castle outside Bordeaux. Walking the highways and the fires. I hated the smell. The cities, all burnt and melted. Full of moribund and crows. My mom won’t even talk about Paris. Not anymore.”

Óscar sighed. “You, her, the highway. All I had was our crap village. Can you imagine working cars? Refrigerators? Ice?”

Ren shook a lantern, listening to fuel slosh inside. Too many people focused on the past. On the roads, Jeanie had told him stories. Now she went days without speaking. The cavern yawned before him. Everyone either spent too much time not living, or living in the old world.

Moving on. Might as well be my motto.

“What’s the Bruja’s story, anyway? All the adults talk about her like she’s cursed.”

“Mi padre says she came to Ronda from a big city right before everything with her palsied son. They lived in a village near the garrison when the pulso hit.”

Ren squinted into the grotto. Far away, water dripped. “Shit, maybe your padre is right. Maybe the Bruja died. Maybe she and her son—”

Ren swallowed as a shotgun sliced the gloom, both barrels pointing at his pale face.

CHAPTER FOUR

At gunpoint, the withered woman directed Ren and Óscar deeper into the caverns, up and down limestone steps, her thin frame draped in threadbare gear. After forcing Óscar to light a lantern, she led led them along staircases slick with water. Stalagmites teased from the periphery. Ren tried Spanish and ended up with both barrels pressed firmly in his back. And more swearing.

“She speaks Catalán,” Óscar said. “Catalonian. La Bruja is from the north.”

At the word Bruja the hooded thing laughed, spat an obscenity and shoved the shotgun so hard between Ren’s shoulders he yelped. Her language sounded like Spanish, French, and Italian all mixed together.

Twice he slipped on the old metal railing, nearly plunging into the unseen expanse below, yet on they went, until the steps ended in the largest cavern yet.

Torches sputtered about a camp where makeshift rooms, storage areas, and sleeping quarters had been constructed from wooden slats. A dozens crates sat close by, adorned with the letters FFAA — Fuerzas Armadas Española. A smoldering pit fire cast light across a large painting on the wall, of a fish or a seal. Far above the flames, thousands of ancient hash marks filled the walls. Cro-Magnon marks, he realized, so far up that whoever made them had to have used ladders, or the ground had simply been that much higher, centuries ago.

From beneath her shroud, the Bruja directed the boys to sit around the fire. She shoved the shotgun barrels deep into Óscar’s cheek, whispered a threat, and disappeared behind the crates. Ren cringed as the bitter stench of piss wafted from the far recesses.

The hell? he mouthed.

Óscar shook his head. Yo no sé.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ren whispered and moved to stand. “Before the—”

The old woman laughed as she reappeared, carrying an iron pot she could scarcely lift. With a grunt, she dropped the kettle on the embers, sending sparks flying. She smiled as she sat, placed the shotgun on a rock, and withdrew her tattered hood.

Ren stared. In the flickering light, he at first thought the bald woman disfigured. Then he realized her flesh—nearly every inch—was inked with tattoos. Colors swirled about her temples, snakes on her skull, black wings about her neck, thorns about her wrists and ankles. Agile for her age, her wrinkles melting around eyes so blue he momentarily lost himself in their depth. The false impression of youth was cast away when she opened her mouth and revealed three rotted teeth. One high, two low. He covered his mouth before he caught a whiff.

“Barthelona,” she croaked, and touched her chest softly.

Her Spanish came out so thickly, her C rolling into a thick TH, it took Ren a moment to register the meaning. “You’re from Barcelona?” he asked. She nodded and spun the ladle. “She shave that head,” he mumbled, “or did her hair fall out?”

The Bruja smiled as she ran a hand over her skull. “Shaved.” Almost a hiss.

Óscar glanced up, surprised. “Anglès?”

English?

She laughed and slapped her bony knee, pointed to the kettle and mimed eating motions. Ren winced. In the dimness, he could not be sure what lumps floated in the mess.

“Perdoni,” Óscar asked. “Bona tarda, eh, parla anglès?”

“Sí, sí, sí,” she replied, laughing as she pointed a gnarled finger at them, and the food. Tattoos of Roman numerals covered her knuckles. When Ren glanced up, her glee made him quiver. “Molt de gust,” she said. “El teu nom? Seu nom?”

“Catalán is an old language,” Óscar explained, forcing a smile as he accepted a bowl. “A language of the north. Mi padre uses it sometimes. She’s asking our names.”

“We’re looking for medicine,” Ren added. “Antibiótico. A friend in Ronda is sick.”

The Bruja stopped ladling and shifted closer to the fire. The scent of burning wood mixed with the reeking brew, causing Ren’s stomach to tumble. “Sick? We all sick. How many bebés in Ronda these days? Laugh of girl, sound of boys’ feet on stone?”

“None. Some still try, but babies die before they come out. Mi padre thinks—”

The Bruja nodded knowingly. “Sí, sí. El infierno kills fetus. The black dust. No woman no more. Humans done. Me know, me know. Me Gitana,” she said proudly, and tapped her chest. “Me know.”

Ren knew that one. Gypsy.

“How old?” She handed Ren a spoon and motioned for them to eat. Ren’s belly rolled as he took the utensil and tried not to glance at the floating pieces.

“Quince,” Óscar answered.

“Small for fifteen, eh? And you?”

Ren tucked his hair behind his ears and hesitated, as if revealing his age gave her some power over him. “I turn fourteen at midnight,” he admitted. “On New Year’s.”

Her eyes went wide. “December thirty-one?”

“At least that’s what my—”

“Morta…” With a hiss, the old woman scrambled to her feet. She jabbed a finger at Ren and stood, backing out of the light. “Americano! Born during the pulse? Sí?”

“I guess. According to my mom, I—”

She clapped her hands, gleeful. “Absolute! Especial, you. From me dreams. Me dream of you, you different. A light in dark, bright in dark. Sí, sí, sí. Me give antibiotic”—her smile rose in the light of the fire—“for pistola.”

Ren sat back, confused. “What?”

Her grin spread as she extended her hand, palm up. “Pistola.”

“She wants your gun,” Óscar explained.

“I know that. But how does she know I have a gun?”

“You shot up the whole valley, Ren.”

The Bruja picked up the shotgun, pointed both barrels at the ceiling, and pulled the trigger. The boys cringed as the click echoed impotently around the room.

“The world done,” she said, and threw the weapon to the rocks. “Son, gone.” She pointed to Ren. “Your world now. Me dream of boy born in darkness. Severed from all.” She cackled. “What comes for you, different than all other.”

“Óscar, let’s go. She can’t stop—”

He rose, she hissed and knocked the bowl from his hand. Stew sizzled in the fire. “Estúpid, me want pistola to end my dreams. End suffering. Nothing more. Take what you want.” She pointed to the boxes. “Me know what comes for you, from my dreams—call to water, to blood. Tall buildings, long boat. Shadows before and behind…”

“Give her the damn pistol,” Óscar demanded.

“She’s loca. I’m not doing anything she says. Dude, I—”

She gripped Ren’s arm. “Must leave them, in the end. A Noruec, me see. Ros Noruec.”

“Noruec?”

“…dreams of a boat, big waters, dark depths, the devourer eats all, eats us…”

“You have to,” Óscar demanded. “Christos, if she gives us the—”

“…face a darkness like no other, leave her, grow tall, to stand before the devourer as a man, all alone…”

Ren pulled free and took a step away, all sense of adventure fading. The old woman’s chanting made him sick. Her tattoos mixed with her wrinkles, creating a nauseating effect. About her, the shadows swirled as if they craved release. He wanted out of here, to run and keep running, out of the cave, past the farmhouse, to his bike and straight to Ronda.

“…even now, too late. Foscor, foscor comes…”

“Mierda,” Óscar pleaded, “give her the damn gun.”

“Fear will draw them,” she said, and smiled. Her hand remained out. “Dimoni nearby. Be careful. Me feel them at night. Estúpid even before they try to die.”

“Fine.” Ren placed the handgun on her palm and, without a second glance, hurried to the nearest crate. In the third box he found sheets of unused pills. Hundreds. He pawed through them until he found ones labeled PENICILINA. Near the fire, the Bruja kept laughing. “Fill your pack,” Ren shouted. “I’ll grab a torch.”

“No hide,” the Bruja called out, laughing, a brittle laugh. “All will die. Everyone around you die. Leave you alone. All alone…”

All alone.

Ren shuddered at the thought.

With the lantern held before them, Ren led Óscar up the slick staircase, his pockets full of the pill sheets, needing to get away from the old woman. Behind, the painted fish danced on the wall, undulating with the flickering flames.

“Good luck, Americano,” the Bruja called out, cackling.

Ren tuned her out and hurried, up and down the slippery stairs. Needing to get back home, see his mother’s face—halfway through the caverns when a single retort clapped in the darkness.

The muffled gunshot bounced off the cavern’s walls, repeating until the echo, like sunlight at dusk, faded and was gone.

Kelly Robson

Waters of Versailles

Originally published by Tor.com

-1-

Sylvain had just pulled up Annette’s skirts when the drips started. The first one landed on her wig, displacing a puff of rose-pink powder. Sylvain ignored it and leaned Annette back on the sofa. Her breath sharpened to gasps that blew more powder from her wig. Her thighs were cool and slightly damp—perhaps her arousal wasn’t feigned after all, Sylvain thought, and reapplied himself to nuzzling her throat.

After two winters at Versailles, Sylvain was well acquainted with the general passion for powder. Every courtier had bowls and bins of the stuff in every color and scent. In addition to the pink hair powder, Annette had golden powder on her face and lavender at her throat and cleavage. There would be more varieties lower down. He would investigate that in time.

The second drip landed on the tip of her nose. Sylvain flicked it away with his tongue.

Annette giggled. “Your pipes are weeping, monsieur.”

“It’s nothing,” he said, nipping at her throat. The drips were just condensation. An annoyance, but unavoidable when cold pipes hung above overheated rooms.

The sofa squeaked as he leaned in with his full weight. It was a delicate fantasy of gilt and satin, hardly large enough for the two of them, and he was prepared to give it a beating.

Annette moaned as he bore down on her. She was far more entertaining than he had expected, supple and slick. Her gasps were genuine now, there was no doubt, and she yanked at his shirt with surprising strength.

A drip splashed on the back of his neck, and another a few moments later. He had Annette abandoned now, making little animal noises in the back of her throat as he drove into her. Another drip rolled off his wig, down his cheek, over his nose. He glanced overhead and a battery of drips hit his cheek, each bigger than the last.

This was a problem. The pipes above were part of the new run supporting connections to the suites of two influential men and at least a dozen rich ones. His workmen had installed the pipes just after Christmas. Even if they had done a poor job, leaks weren’t possible. He had made sure of it.

He gathered Annette in his arms and shoved her farther down the sofa, leaving the drips to land on the upholstery instead of his head. He craned his neck, trying to get a view of the ceiling. Annette groaned in protest and clutched his hips.

The drips fell from a join, quick as tears. Something was wrong in the cisterns. He would have to speak with Leblanc immediately.

“Sylvain?” Annette’s voice was strained.

It could wait. He had a reputation to maintain, and performing well here was as critical to his fortunes as all the water flowing through Versailles.

He dove back into her, moving up to a galloping pace as drips pattered on his neck. He had been waiting months for this. He ought to have been losing himself in Annette’s flounced and beribboned flesh, the rouged nipples peeking from her bodice, her flushed pout and helplessly bucking hips, but instead his mind wandered the palace. Were there floods under every join?

Instead of dampening his performance, the growing distraction lengthened it. When he was finally done with her, Annette was completely disheveled, powder blotched, rouge smeared, wig askew, face flushed as a dairy maid’s.

Annette squeezed a lock of his wig and caressed his cheek with a water-slick palm.

“You are undone, I think, monsieur.”

He stood and quickly ordered his clothes. The wig was wet, yes, even soaked. So was his collar and back of his coat. A quick glance in a gilded mirror confirmed he looked greasy as a peasant, as if he’d been toiling at harvest instead of concluding a long-planned and skillful seduction—a seduction that required a graceful exit, not a mad dash out the door to search the palace for floods.

Annette was pleased—more than pleased despite the mess he’d made of her. She looked like a cat cleaning cream off its whiskers as she dabbed her neck with a powder puff, ignoring the drips pattering beside her. The soaked sofa leached dye onto the cream carpet. Annette dragged the toe of her silk slipper through the stained puddle.

“If this is not the only drip, monsieur, you may have a problem or two.”

“It is possible,” Sylvain agreed, dredging up a smile. He leaned in and kissed the tips of her fingers one at a time until she waved him away.

He would have to clean up before searching for Leblanc, and he would look like a fool all the way up to his apartment.

At least the gossips listening at the door would have an enduring tale to tell.

-2-

Sylvain ducked out of the marble halls into the maze of service corridors and stairs. Pipes branched overhead like a leaden forest. Drips targeted him as he passed but there were no standing puddles—not yet.

The little fish could turn the palace into a fishbowl if she wanted, Sylvain thought, and a shudder ran through his gut. The rooftop reservoirs held thousands of gallons, and Bull and Bear added new reservoirs just as fast as the village blacksmiths could make them. All through the royal wing, anyone with a drop of blood in common with the king was claiming priority over his neighbor, and the hundred or so courtiers in the north wing—less noble, but no less rich and proud—were grinding their teeth with jealousy.

Sylvain whipped off his soaked wig and let the drips rain down on his head one by one, steady as a ticking clock as he strode down the narrow corridor. He ducked into a stairwell—no pipes above there—and scrubbed his fingers through his wet hair as he peeked around the corner. The drips had stopped. Only a few spatters marked the walls and floorboards.

The little fish was playing with him. It must be her idea of a joke. Well, Leblanc could take care of it. The old soldier loved playing nursemaid to the creature. Age and wine had leached all the man out of him and left a sad husk of a wet nurse, good for nothing but nursery games.

A maid squeezed past him on the stairs and squealed as her apron came away wet. She was closely followed by a tall valet. Sylvain moved aside for him.

“You’re delivering water personally now, Monsieur de Guilherand?”

Sylvain gave the valet a black glare and ran up the stairs two at a time.

The servants of Versailles were used to seeing him lurking in the service corridors, making chalk marks on walls and ceilings. He was usually too engrossed in his plans to notice their comments but now he’d have to put an end to it. Annette d’Arlain was in the entourage of Comtesse de Mailly, King Louis’s maîtresse en titre, and Madame had more than a fair share of the king’s time and attention—far more than his poor ignored Polish queen.

The next servant to take liberty with him would get a stiff rebuke and remember he was an officer and a soldier who spent half the year prosecuting the king’s claims on the battlefield.

By the time Sylvain had swabbed himself dry and changed clothes, Bull and Bear were waiting for him. Their huge bulks strained his tiny parlor at the seams.

“What is the little creature playing at?” Sylvain demanded.

Bull twisted his cap in his huge hands, confused. Bear raised his finger to his nose and reached in with an exploratory wiggle.

“Down in the cisterns,” Sylvain spoke precisely. “The creature. The little fish. What is she doing?”

“We was on the roof when you called, monsieur,” said Bull, murdering the French with his raspy country vowels.

“We been bending lead all day,” said Bear. “Long lead.”

“The little fish was singing at dawn. I heard her through the pipes,” Bull added, eager to please.

It was no use demanding analysis from two men who were barely more human than the animals they were named for. Bull and Bear were good soldiers, steady, strong, and vicious, but cannonfire had blasted their wits out.

“Where is Leblanc?”

Bull shrugged his massive shoulders. “We don’t see him, monsieur. Not for days.”

“Go down to the cellars. Find Leblanc and bring him to me.”

The old soldier was probably curled around a cask in a carelessly unlocked cellar, celebrating his good luck by drinking himself into dust. But even dead drunk, Leblanc knew how to talk to the creature. Whatever the problem was, Leblanc would jolly the silly fish out of her mood.

-3-

“Our well-beloved king is an extraordinary man,” said Sylvain. “But even a man of his parts can only use one throne at a time.”

The Grand Chamberlain fluffed his stole like a bantam cock and lowered his hairy eyebrows. “The issue is not how the second throne will be used but how quickly you will comply with the request. We require it today. Disappoint us at your peril.”

Sylvain suppressed a smile. If royalty could be measured by number of thrones, he was king of Europe. He had at least two dozen in a village warehouse, their finely painted porcelain and precious mahogany fittings wrapped in batting and hidden in unmarked crates. Their existence was a secret even Bull and Bear kept close. To everyone else, they were precious, rare treasures that just might be found for the right person at the right price.

The Grand Chamberlain paced the silk carpet. He was young, and though highborn, titled, and raised to the highest office, responsibility didn’t sit well with him. He’d seen a battlefield or two at a distance but had never known real danger. Those hairy brows were actually trembling. Sylvain could easily draw this out just for the pleasure of making a duke sweat, but the memory of Annette’s soft flesh made him generous.

“My warehouse agent just reported receiving a new throne. It is extremely fine. Berlin has been waiting months for it.” Sylvain examined his fingernails. “Perhaps it can be diverted. I will write a note to my agent.”

The Grand Chamberlain folded his hands and nodded, an officious gesture better suited to a grey-haired oldster. “Such a throne might be acceptable.”

“You will recall that installing plumbing is a lengthy and troublesome process. Even with the pipes now in place servicing the original throne, his majesty will find the work disruptive.”

Installing the first throne had been a mess. Bear and Bull had ripped into walls and ceilings, filling the royal dressing room with the barnyard stench of their sweat. But King Louis had exercised his royal prerogative from the first moment the throne was unpacked, even before it was connected to the pipes. So, it was an even trade—the king had to breathe workmen’s stench, and Bull and Bear had been regularly treated to the sight and scent of healthy royal bowel movements.

The Grand Chamberlain steepled his fingers. “Plumbing is not required. Just the throne.”

“I cannot imagine the royal household wants a second throne just for show.”

The Grand Chamberlain sighed. “See for yourself.”

He led Sylvain into the cedar-scented garderobe. A rainbow of velvet and satin cushions covered the floor. The toilet gleamed in a place of honor, bracketed by marble columns. Something was growing in the toilet bowl. It looked like peach moss.

The moss turned its head. Two emerald eyes glared up at him.

“Minou has been offered a number of other seats, but she prefers the throne.” The Grand Chamberlain looked embarrassed. “Our well-beloved king will not allow her to be disturbed. In fact, he banished the courtier who first attempted to move her.”

The cat hissed, its tiny ivory fangs yellow against the glistening white porcelain. Sylvain stepped back. The cat’s eyes narrowed with lazy menace.

A wide water drop formed in the bend of the golden pipes above the toilet. The drop slid across the painted porcelain reservoir and dangled for a few heartbeats. Then it plopped onto the cat’s head. Minou’s eyes popped wide as saucers.

Sylvain spun and fled the room, heart hammering.

The Grand Chamberlain followed. “Send the second throne immediately. This afternoon at the latest.” The request was punctuated by the weight of gold as he discreetly passed Sylvain a pouch of coins.

“Certainly,” Sylvain said, trying to keep his voice steady. “The cat may prefer the original throne, however.”

“That will have to do.”

When he was out of the Grand Chamberlain’s sight, Sylvain rushed through the royal apartments and into the crowded Grand Gallery. There, in Versailles’ crowded social fishbowl, he had no choice but to slow to a dignified saunter. He kept his gaze level and remote, hoping to make it through the long gallery uninterrupted.

“Sylvain, my dear brother, why rush away?” Gérard clamped his upper arm and muscled him to the side of the hall. “Stay and take a turn with me.”

“Damn you,” Sylvain hissed. “You know I haven’t time for idling. Let me go.”

Gérard snickered. “Don’t deprive me of your company so soon.”

Sylvain had seen his friend the Marquis de la Châsse in every imaginable situation—beardless and scared white by battle-scarred commanders, on drunken furlough in peat-stinking country taverns, wounded bloody and clawing battlefield turf. They had pulled each other out of danger a hundred times—nearly as often as they’d goaded each other into it.

Gérard’s black wig was covered in coal-dark powder that broadcast a subtle musky scent. The deep plum of his coat accentuated the dark circles under his eyes and the haze of stubble on his jaw.

Sylvain pried his arm from Gérard’s fist and fell into step beside him. At least there were no pipes overhead, no chance of a splattering. The gallery was probably one of the safest places in the palace. He steered his friend toward the doors and prepared to make his escape.

Gérard leaned close. “Tell me good news. Can it be done?”

“My answer hasn’t changed.”

Gérard growled, a menacing rumble deep in his broad chest.

“I’ve heard that noise on the battlefield, Gérard.” Sylvain said. “It won’t do you any good here.”

“On a battlefield, you and I are on the same side. But here you insist on opposing me.”

Sylvain nodded at the Comte de Tessé. The old man was promenading with his mistress, a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, and the two of them were wearing so much powder that an aura of tiny particles surrounded them with a faint pink glow. The comte raised his glove.

“I wonder,” said the comte loudly, as if he were addressing the entire hall, “can Sylvain de Guilherand only make plain water dance, or does he also have power over the finest substances? Champagne, perhaps.”

“Ingenuity has its limits, but I haven’t found them yet.” Sylvain let a faint smile play at the corners of his mouth.

“Surely our beloved king’s birthday would be an appropriate day to test those limits. Right here, in fact, in the center of the Grand Gallery. What could be more exalted?”

Sylvain had no time for this. He nodded assent and the comte strolled on with an extra bounce in his step, dragging his mistress along by the elbow.

The doors of the Grand Gallery were barricaded by a gang of nuns who gaped up at the gilded and frescoed ceiling like baby sparrows in a nest. Sylvain and Gérard paced past.

“You don’t seem to understand,” Gérard said. “Pauline is desperate. It’s vulgar to talk about money, but you know I’ll make it worth your effort. Ready cash must be a problem. Courtiers rarely discharge their obligations.”

“It’s not a question of money or friendship. The north wing roof won’t hold a reservoir. If the king himself wanted water in the north wing, I would have to refuse him.”

“Then you must reinforce the roof.”

Sylvain sighed. Gérard had never met a problem that couldn’t be solved by gold or force. He couldn’t appreciate the layers of influence and responsibility that would have to be peeled back to accomplish a major construction project like putting reservoirs on the north wing.

“Pauline complains every time she pisses,” said Gérard. “Do you know how often a pregnant woman sits on her pot? And often she gets up in the night? The smell bothers her, no matter how much perfume and rose water she applies, no matter how quickly her maid whisks away the filth. Pauline won’t stop asking. I will have no peace until she gets one of your toilets.”

“Sleep in a different room.”

“Cold, lonely beds are for summer. In winter, you want a warm woman beside you.”

“Isn’t your wife intimate with the Marquise de Coupigny? I hear she keeps a rose bower around her toilet. Go stay with her.”

“The marquise told my wife that she does not cater to the general relief of the public, and their intimacy has now ended in mutual loathing. This is what happens when friends refuse each other the essential comforts of life.”

“I’ll provide all the relief you need if you move to an apartment the pipes can reach.”

“Your ingenuity has found its limits, then, despite your boasts. But your pipes reached a good long way yesterday. I hear it was a long siege. How high were the d’Arlain battlements?”

“You heard wrong. Annette d’Arlain is a virtuous woman.”

“Did she tell you the king’s mistress named her toilet after the queen? Madame pisses on Polish Mary. Pauline is disgusted. She asked me to find out what Annette d’Arlain says.”

Two splashes pocked Sylvain’s cheek. He looked around wildly for the source.

“Tears, my friend?” Gérard dangled his handkerchief in front of Sylvain’s nose. “Annette is pretty enough but her cunt must be gorgeous.”

Sylvain ignored his friend and scanned the ornate ceiling. The gilding and paint disguised stains and discolorations, but the flaws overhead came to light if you knew where to look.

There. A fresh water stain spread on the ceiling above the statue of Hermes. A huge drop formed in its gleaming centre. It grew, dangled like a jewel, and broke free with a snap. It bounced off the edge of a mirror, shot past him, then ricocheted off a window and smacked him on the side of his neck, soaking his collar.

Sylvain fled the Grand Gallery like a rabbit panicking for its burrow. He ran with no attention to dignity, stepping on the lace train of one woman, raking through the headdress feathers of another, shoving past a priest, setting a china vase rocking on its pedestal. The drone of empty conversation gave way to shocked exclamations as he dodged out of the room into one of the old wing’s service corridors.

He skidded around a banister into a stairwell. Water rained down, slickening the stairs as he leapt two and three steps at a time. It spurted from joins, gushed from welded seams, and sprayed from faucets as he passed.

The narrow corridors leading to Sylvain’s apartment were clogged with every species of servant native to the palace. The ceiling above held a battery of pipes—the main limb of the system Bull and Bear had installed two years before. Every joint and weld targeted Sylvain as he ran. Everyone was caught in the crossfire—servants, porters, tradesmen. Sylvain fled a chorus of curses and howls. It couldn’t be helped.

Sylvain crashed through the door of his apartment. His breath rasped as he leaned on the door with all his weight, as if he could hold the line against disaster.

Bull and Bear knelt over a pile of dirty rags on the bare plank floor. Sylvain’s servant stood over them, red-eyed and sniffling.

“What is this mess?” Sylvain demanded.

His servant slowly pulled aside one of the rags to reveal Leblanc’s staring face, mottled green and white like an old cheese. Sylvain dropped to his knees and fished for the dead man’s hand.

It was cold and slack. Death had come and gone, leaving only raw meat. All life had drained away from that familiar face, memories locked forever behind dead eyes, tongue choked down in a throat that would never speak again.

The first time they met, Sylvain had been startled speechless. The old soldier had talked familiarly to him in the clipped rough patois of home and expected him to understand. They were on the banks of the Moselle, just about as far from the southern Alps as a man could be and still find himself in France.

Sylvain should have cuffed the old man for being familiar with an officer, but he had been young and homesick, and words from home rang sweet. He kept Leblanc in his service just for the pleasure of hearing him talk. He made a poor figure of a servant but he could keep a tent dry in a swamp and make a pot of hot curds over two sticks and a wafer of peat. He’d kept the old man close all through the Polish wars, through two winters in Quebec, and then took him home on a long furlough. Sylvain hadn’t been home for five years, and Leblanc hadn’t seen the Alps in more than thirty, but he remembered every track of home, knew the name of every cliff, pond, and rill. Leblanc had even remembered Château de Guilherand, its high stone walls and vast glacier-fed waterworks.

Close as they’d been, Sylvain had never told the old man he was planning to catch a nixie and bring her to Versailles. Under the Sun King, the palace’s fountains had been a wonder of the world. Their state of disrepair under Louis XV was a scandal bandied about and snickered over in parlors from Berlin to Naples. Sylvain knew he could bring honor back to the palace and enrich himself in the bargain. The fountains were just the beginning of his plan. There was no end to the conveniences and luxuries he could bring to the royal blood and courtiers of Versailles with a reliable, steady flow of clean, pure water.

She’d been just a tadpole. Sylvain had lured her into a leather canteen and kept her under his shirt, close to his heart, during the two weeks of steady hard travel it took to get from home to Versailles. The canteen had thrummed against his chest, drumming in time with hooves or footsteps or even the beating of his heart—turning any steady noise into a skeleton of a song. It echoed the old rhythms, the tunes he heard shepherds sing beside the high mountain rills as he passed by, rifle on his shoulder, tracking wild goats and breathing the sweet, cold, pure alpine air.

Sylvain had kept her a secret, or so he’d thought. The day after they arrived at Versailles, he’d snuck down to the cisterns, canteen still tucked under his shirt. A few hours later, Leblanc had found him down there, frustrated and sweating, shouting commands at the canteen, trying to get her to come out and swim in the cisterns.

“What you got there ain’t animal nor people,” Leblanc had told him. “Kick a dog and he’ll crawl back to you and do better next time. A soldier obeys to avoid the whip and the noose. But that little fish has her own kind of mind.”

Sylvain had thrown the canteen to the old man and stepped back. Leblanc cradled it in his arms like a baby.

“She don’t owe you obedience like a good child knows it might. She’s a wild creature. If you don’t know that you know nothing.”

Leblanc crooned a lullaby to the canteen, tender as a new mother. The little fish had popped out into the cistern pool before he started the second verse, and he had her doing tricks within a day. Over the past two years, they’d been nearly inseparable.

“Ah, old Leblanc. What a shame.” Gérard stood in the doorway, blocking the view of the gawkers in the corridor behind him. “A good soldier. He will be much missed.”

Sylvain carefully folded Leblanc’s hands over his bony cold breast. Bull and Bear crossed themselves as Sylvain drew his thumb and finger over the corpse’s papery eyelids.

Gérard shut the door, closing out the gathered crowd. Sylvain tried to ignore the prickling ache between his eyes, the hollow thud of his gut.

“Sylvain, my dear friend. Do you know you’re sitting in a puddle?”

Sylvain looked down. The floor under him was soaked. Bull dabbled at the edge of the puddle with the toe of his boot, sloshing a thin stream through the floorboards while Bear added to the puddle with a steady rain of tears off the tip of his ratted beard.

“I don’t pretend to understand your business,” said Gérard, “But I think there might be a problem with your water pipes.”

Sylvain barked a laugh. He couldn’t help himself. A problem with the pipes. Yes, and it would only get worse.

-4-

Sylvain had rarely visited the cisterns over the past two winters. There had been no need. The little fish was Leblanc’s creature. The two of them had been alone for months while Sylvain fought the summer campaigns, and through the winter, Sylvain had more than enough responsibilities above ground—renovating and repairing the palace’s fountains, planning and executing the water systems, and most importantly, doing it all while maintaining the illusion of a courtly gentleman of leisure, attending levées and soirées, dinners and operas.

Versailles was the wonder of the world. The richest palace filled with the most cultivated courtiers, each room containing a ransom of art and statuary, the gardens rivaling heaven with endless fountains and statuary. The reputation it had gained at the height of the Sun King’s reign persisted, but close examination showed a palace falling apart at the seams.

Sylvain had swept into Versailles and taken the waterworks for his own. He had brought the fountains back to their glory, making them play all day and all night for the pleasure of Louis the Well-Beloved—something even the Sun King couldn’t have claimed.

The tunnel to the cisterns branched off the cellars of the palace’s old wing, part of the original foundations. It had been unbearably dank when Sylvain had first seen it years before. Now it was fresh and floral. A wet breeze blew in his face, as though he were standing by a waterfall, the air pushed into motion by the sheer unyielding weight of falling water.

The nixie’s mossy nest crouched in the centre of a wide stone pool. The rusted old pumps sprayed a fine mist overhead. The water in the pool pulsed, rising and falling with the cadence of breath.

She was draped over the edge of her nest, thin legs half submerged in the pool, long webbed feet gently stirring the water. The little fool didn’t even know enough to keep still when pretending to sleep.

He skirted the edge of the pool, climbing to the highest and driest of the granite blocks. Dripping moss and ferns crusted the grotto’s ceiling and walls. A million water droplets reflected the greenish glow of her skin.

“You there,” he shouted, loud enough to carry over the symphony of gushes and drips. “What are you playing at?”

The nixie writhed in the moss. The wet glow of her skin grew stronger and the mist around her nest thickened until she seemed surrounded by tiny lights. She propped herself on one scrawny elbow and dangled a hand in the pool.

With her glistening skin and sleek form, she seemed as much salamander as child, but she didn’t have a talent for stillness. Like a pool of water, she vibrated with every impulse.

A sigh rose over the noise. It was more a burbling gush than language. The sound repeated—it was no French word but something like the mountain patois of home. He caught the meaning after a few more repetitions.

“Bored,” she said. Her lips trembled. Drips rained from the ferns. “So bored!”

“You are a spoiled child,” he said in court French.

She broke into a grin and her big milky eyes glowed at him from across the pool. He shivered. They were human eyes, almost, and in that smooth amphibian face, they seemed uncanny. Dark salamander orbs would have been less disturbing.

“Sing,” she said. “Sing a song?”

“I will not.”

She draped herself backward over a pump, webbed hand to her forehead with all the panache of an opera singer. “So bored.”

As least she wasn’t asking for Leblanc. “Good girls who work hard are never bored.”

A slim jet of water shot from the pump. It hit him square in the chest.

She laughed, a giddy burble. “I got you!”

Don’t react, Sylvain thought as the water dripped down his legs.

“Yes, you got me. But what will that get you in the end? Some good girls get presents, if they try hard enough. Would you like a present?”

Her brow creased as she thought it over. “Maybe,” she said.

Hardly the reaction he was hoping for, but good enough.

“Behave yourself. No water outside of the pipes and reservoirs. Keep it flowing and I’ll bring you a present just like a good girl.”

“Good girl,” she said in French. “But what will that get you in the end?”

She was a decent mimic—her accent was good. But she was like a parrot, repeating everything she heard.

“A nice present. Be a good girl.”

“Good girl,” she repeated in French. Then she reverted back to mountain tongue. “Sing a song?”

“No. I’ll see you in a few days.” Sylvain turned away, relief blossoming in his breast.

“Leblanc sing a song?” she called after him.

There it was. Stay calm, he thought. Animals can sense distress. Keep walking.

“Leblanc is busy,” he said over his shoulder. “He wants you to be a good girl.”

“Behave yourself,” she called as he disappeared around the corner.

-5-

Sylvain paced the Grand Gallery, eyeing the cracked ceiling above the statue of Hermes. There had been no further accidents with the pipes. He had spent the entire night checking every joint and join accompanied by a yawning Bull. At dawn, he’d taken Bear up to the rooftops to check the reservoirs.

Checking the Grand Gallery was his last task. He was shaved and primped, even though at this early hour, it would be abandoned by anyone who mattered, just a few rustics and gawkers.

He didn’t expect to see Annette d’Arlain walking among them.

Annette was dressed in a confection of gold and scarlet chiffon. Golden powder accentuated the pale shadows of her collarbones and defined the delicate ivory curls of her wig. A troop of admiring rustics trailed behind her as she paced the gallery. She ignored them.

“The Comte de Tessé says you promised him a champagne fountain,” she said, drawing the feathers of her fan between her fingers.

Sylvain bent deeply, pausing at the bottom of the bow to gather his wits. He barely recalled the exchange with the comte. What had he agreed to?

“I promised nothing,” he said as he straightened. Annette hadn’t offered her hand. She was cool and remote as any of the marble statues lining the gallery.

“The idea reached Madame’s ear. She sent me to drop you a hint for the King’s birthday. But—” She dropped her voice and paused with dramatic effect, snapping her fan.

Sylvain expected her to share a quiet confidence but she continued in the same impersonal tone. “But I must warn you. Everyone finds a champagne fountain disappointing. Flat champagne is a chore to drink. Like so many pleasures, anticipation cannot be matched by pallid reality.”

Was Annette truly offended or did she want to bring him to heel? Whatever the case, he owed her attention. He had seduced her, left her gasping on her sofa, and ignored her for two days. No gifts, no notes, no acknowledgement. This was no way to keep a woman’s favor.

Annette snapped her fan again as she waited for his reply.

It was time to play the courtier. He stepped closely so she would have to look up to meet his eyes. It would provide a nice tableau for the watching rustics. He dropped his voice low, pitching it for her ears alone.

“I would hate to disappoint you, madame.”

“A lover is always a disappointment. The frisson of expectation is the best part of any affair.”

“I disagree. I have never known disappointment in your company, only the fulfillment of my sweet and honeyed dreams.”

She was not impressed. “You saw heaven in my arms, I suppose.”

“I hope we both did.”

A hint of a dimple appeared on her cheek. “Man is mortal.”

“Alas,” he agreed.

She offered him her hand but withdrew it after a bare moment, just long enough for the lightest brush of his lips. She glided over to the statue of Hermes and drew her finger up the curve of the statue’s leg.

“You are lucky I don’t care for gifts and fripperies, monsieur. I detest cut flowers and I haven’t seen a jewel I care for in months.”

Sylvain glanced at the ceiling. A network of cracks formed around a disk of damp plaster. Annette was directly beneath it.

He grabbed her around the waist and yanked her aside. She squealed and rammed her fists against his chest. Passion was the only excuse for his behavior, so he grabbed at it like a drowning man and kissed her, crushing her against his chest. She struggled for a moment and finally yielded, lips parting for him reluctantly.

No use in putting in a pallid performance, he thought, and bent her backward in his arms to drive the kiss to a forceful conclusion. The rustics gasped in appreciation. He released her, just cupping the small of her back.

He tried for a seductive growl. “How can a man retain a lady’s favor if gifts are forbidden?”

“Not by acting like a beast!” she cried, and smacked her fan across his cheek.

Annette ran for the nearest door, draperies trailing behind her. The ceiling peeled away with a ripping crack. A huge chunk of plaster crashed over the statue’s head, throwing hunks of wet plaster across the room. The rustics scattered, shocked and thrilled.

He crushed a piece of wet plaster under his heel, grinding it into mush with a vicious twist, and stalked out of the gallery.

The main corridor was crowded. Servants rushed with buckets of coals, trays of pastries, baskets of fruit—all the comforts required by late sleeping and lazy courtiers. He pushed through them and climbed to a vestibule on the third floor where five water pipes met overhead.

“What have you got for me, you little demon?” he seethed under his breath.

A maid clattered down the stairs, her arms stacked with clean laundry. One look at Sylvain and she retreated back upstairs.

Sylvain had spent nights on bare high rock trapped by spring snowstorms. He had tracked wild goats up the massif cliff to line up careful rifle shots balanced between a boulder and a thousand-foot drop. He had once snatched a bleating lamb from the jaws of the valley’s most notorious wolf. He had met the king’s enemies on the battlefield and led men to their deaths. He could master a simple creature, however powerful she was.

“Go ahead, drip on me. If you are going to keep playing your games, show me now.”

He waited. The pipes looked dry as bone. The seal welds were dull and gray and the tops of the pipes were furred with a fine layer of dust.

He gave the pipes one last searing glare. “All right. We have an understanding.”

-6-

Leblanc’s coffin glowed in the cold winter sun. Bull and Bear watched the gravediggers and snuffled loudly.

Gérard had taken all the arrangements in hand. Before Sylvain had a moment to think about dealing with the old soldier’s corpse, it had been washed, dressed, and laid out in a village chapel. Gérard had even arranged for a nun to sit beside the coffin, clacking her rosary and gumming toothless prayers.

The nun was scandalized when Bull and Bear hauled the coffin out from under her nose, but Sylvain wanted Leblanc’s body away from the palace, hidden away in deep, dry dirt where the little fish could never find it. Gérard and Sylvain led the way on horseback, setting a fast pace as Bull and Bear followed with the casket jouncing in the bed of their cart. They trotted toward the city until they found a likely boneyard, high on dry ground, far from any streams or canals.

“This is probably the finest bed your man Leblanc ever slept in.” Gérard nudged the coffin with the toe of his boot.

“Very generous of you, Gérard. Thank you.”

Gérard shrugged. “What price eternal comfort? And he was dear to you, I know.”

Sylvain scanned the sky as the priest muttered over the grave. A battery of rainclouds was gathering on the horizon, bearing down on Versailles. It was a coincidence. The little fish couldn’t control the weather. It wasn’t possible.

The gravediggers began slowly filling in the grave. Gérard walked off to speak with a tradesman in a dusty leather apron. Sylvain watched the distant clouds darken and turn the horizon silver with rain.

Gérard returned. “Here is the stonemason. What will you have on your man’s gravestone?”

“Nothing,” said Sylvain, and then wondered. Was he being ridiculous, rushing the corpse out of the palace and hauling it miles away? She couldn’t understand. She was an animal. Any understanding of death was just simple instinct—the hand of fate to be avoided in the moment of crisis. She couldn’t read. The stone could say anything. She would never know.

Without Leblanc’s help, Sylvain’s funds wouldn’t have lasted a month at Versailles. He would have wrung out his purse and slunk home a failure. But with Leblanc down in the cisterns coddling the little fish, the whole palace waited eagerly in bed for him. And what had he done for the old soldier in return? Leblanc deserved a memorial.

The stone mason flapped his cap against his leg. The priest clacked his tongue in disapproval.

“He must have a stone, Sylvain,” said Gérard. “He was a soldier his whole life. He deserves no less.”

There was no point in being careless. “You can list the year of his death, nothing more. No name, no regiment.”

Sylvain gave the priest and the stonemason each a coin, stifling any further objections.

The gravediggers were so slow, they might as well have been filling in the grave with spoons instead of spades. Sylvain ordered Bull and Bear to take over. The gravediggers stood openmouthed, fascinated by the sight of someone else digging while they rested. One of them yawned.

“Idle hands are the Devil’s tools,” the priest snapped, and sent both men back to their work in the adjoining farmyard.

An idea bloomed in Sylvain’s mind. The little fish claimed she was bored. Perhaps he had made her work too easy. The lead pipes and huge reservoirs were doing half the job. He could change that. He would keep her busy—too busy for boredom and certainly far too busy for games and tricks.

“Tell your wife she won’t wait much longer for a toilet of her own,” said Sylvain as they mounted their horses. “In a few days she can have the pleasure of granting or denying her friends its use as she pleases.”

Gérard grinned. “Wonderful news! But just a few days? How long will it take to reinforce the roof?”

“I believe I have discovered a quick solution.”

-7-

The new water conduits were far too flimsy to be called pipes. They were sleeves, really, which was how had he explained them to the village seamstresses.

“Sing a song?” The little fish dangled one long toe in the water. Her smooth skin bubbled with wide water droplets that glistened and gleamed like jewels.

“Not today. It’s time for you to work,” Sylvain said as he unrolled the cotton sleeve. He dropped one end in the pool, looped a short piece of rope around it, and weighted the ends with a rock.

“Be a good girl and show me what you can do with this.”

She blinked at him, water dripping from her hair. No shade of comprehension marred the perfect ignorance of those uncanny eyes. She slid into the water and disappeared.

He waited. She surfaced in the middle of the pool, lips spouting a stream of water high into the air.

“Very good, but look over here now,” he said, admiring his own restraint. “Do you see this length of cotton? It’s hollow like a pipe. Show me how well you can push water through it.”

She rolled and dove. The water shimmered, then turned still. He searched the glassy surface, looking for her sleek form. She leapt, shattering the water under his nose, throwing a great wave that splashed him from head to toe.

How had Leblanc put up with this? Sylvain turned away, hiding his frustration.

As he pried himself out of his soaked velvet jacket, Sylvain realized he was speaking to her in court French. A nixie couldn’t be expected to understand.

The next time she surfaced he said, “I bet you can’t force water through this tube.” The rough patois of home felt strange after years wrapping his tongue around court French.

That got her attention. “Bet you!” She leapt out of the water. “Bet you what?”

“Well, I don’t know. Let’s see what I have.” He made a show of reluctantly reaching into his breast pocket and withdrawing a coin. It was small change—no palace servant would stoop to pick it up—but it had been polished to gleaming.

He rolled the coin between his thumb and forefinger, letting it wink and sparkle in the glow of her skin. The drops raining from her hair quickened, spattering the toes of his boots.

“Pretty,” she said, and brushed the tip of one long finger along the cotton tube.

The pool shimmered. The tube swelled and kicked. It writhed like a snake, spraying water high into the ferns, but the other end remained anchored in the water. The tube leaked, not just from the seams but along its whole length.

“Good work,” he said, and tossed her the coin. She let it sail over her head and splash into the pool. She laughed, a bubbling giggle, flexed her sleek legs, and flipped backward, following the coin’s trajectory under the surface.

He repeated the experiment with all of the different cloth pipes—linen, silk, satin—every material available. The first cotton tube kept much of its rigidity though it remained terribly leaky, as did the wide brown tube of rough holland. The linen tube lay flat as a dead snake, and across the pond, a battery of satin and silk tubes warred, clashing like swords as they flipped and danced.

The velvet pipes worked best. The thick nap held a layer of water within its fibers, and after a few tries, the little fish learned to manipulate the wet surface, strengthening the tube and keeping it watertight.

By evening, her lair was festooned with a parti-colored bouquet of leaping, spouting tubes. The little fish laughed like a mad child, clapping her hands and jumping through the spray. But he didn’t have to remind her to keep the spray away from him—not once.

When he was down to his last shiny coin, her skin was glowing so brightly, it illuminated the far corners of the grotto. He placed the last coin squarely in her slender palm, as if paying a tradesman. The webs between her fingers were as translucent as soap bubbles.

“You won a lot of bets today,” he said.

“Good girls win.” She dropped the coin into the pond and peered up at him, eyes wide and imploring.

He cut her off before she could speak. “No singing, only work.”

“You sang once.”

He had, that was true. How could she remember? He’d nearly forgotten himself. He had crouched at the edge of a high mountain cataract with icy mist spraying his face and beading on his hair, singing a shepherd’s tune to lure her into his canteen. She’d been no bigger than a tadpole, but she could flip and jump through the massive rapids as if it took no effort at all.

She had grown so much in the past two years. From smaller than his thumb to the size of a half-grown child. Full growth from egg in just two years.

But two years was a lifetime ago, and those mountains now seemed unreachable and remote. He wouldn’t think about it. He had an evening of entertainments to attend, and after that, much work to do.

-8-

Sylvain had almost drifted off when Annette dug her toes into the muscle of his calf. He rolled over and pretended to sleep.

He had given her an afternoon of ardent attention and finished up splayed across her bed, fully naked, spent, and sweating. Though he was bone tired from long nights planning the palace’s new array of velvet tubes, he had given Annette a very good facsimile of devotion and several hours of his time. Surely she couldn’t want more from him.

She raked her toenails down his calf again. Sylvain cracked an eyelid, trying for the lazy gaze of the Versailles sybarite. Annette reclined in the middle of the bed draped in a scrap of pink chiffon. The short locks of her own dark hair curled over her ears like a boy’s. She had ripped the wig from his head earlier, and he had responded by pulling hers off as well, more gently but with equal enthusiasm.

“No sleeping, Sylvain. Not here. You must be prepared to leap from the window if my husband arrives.”

“You want me to dash naked through the gardens in full view of half the court? My dear woman, it would mean my death and your disappointment.” He couldn’t suppress a yawn. “The ladies would hound after me day and night.”

“I forgot that about you,” she said under her breath.

Sylvain rolled to his feet and lifted a silken shawl off the floor. He wrapped it around his hips like a savage and returned to bed. He lifted an eyebrow, inviting her to continue, but she had begun playing with a pot of cosmetic.

“What did you forget about me?” If she meant to insult him, he intended to know.

She put her foot in his lap. “I forgot that you are a singular man.”

That didn’t sound like an insult. Sylvain let a smile touch his lips. “Is that your own assessment, or do others speak of me as a singular man?”

“My judgment alone. How many people in the palace ever take a moment to think of anyone other than themselves? Even I, as extraordinary as I am, rarely find a moment to notice the existence of others. Life is so full.” She nudged him with her toe.

“In this moment, then, before it passes, tell me what you mean by singular.” To encourage her, he took her foot in both hands and squeezed.

A dimple appeared on her cheek. “It is a contradiction and a conundrum. By singular, I mean the exact opposite. You are at least three or four men where many others have trouble achieving more than a half manhood.”

“Flattery. Isn’t that my role?”

“I mean no flattery. Quite the opposite, in fact.” She dipped her finger into the cosmetic pot and daubed her pout with glossy pigment. Then she stretched herself back on the velvet pillows, arching as he kneaded her toes.

“Sylvain the wit may be a good guest to have at a dinner party but no better than any other man with some quickness about him. Sylvain the courtier contributes to the might of the crown and the luxury of the palace as he ought. Sylvain the lover conducts himself well in bed as he must or sleep alone. I can’t speak to Sylvain the soldier or hunter but will grant the appropriate virtues on faith.”

“I thank you,” he said, kneading her heel.

She fanned her fingers in a dismissive gesture. “All these are expected and nothing spectacular to comment upon. But the true Sylvain is the singular one—the only one—and yet he’s the man few others notice.”

“And that man is?”

“I don’t know if I should tell you. You might stop massaging my foot.”

“You enjoy being mysterious.”

“The only mystery is how you’ve gotten away with it for so long. If anyone else knew, you’d be run out of the palace.”

“I will stop if you don’t tell me.”

“Very well. Sylvain, you are a striver.”

A lead weight dropped into his stomach. “Ridiculous. I thought you were going to say something interesting, but it is all blather.”

She nudged his crotch with her foot. “Don’t be insulted. Striving must be in your nature. Or perhaps you were taught it as a child and took it into the blood with your host and catechism. But it will all end in disaster. Striving always does.”

He kept his expression remote and resumed stroking her foot.

“You seek to raise yourself above your station,” she continued. “Those who do have no true home. They leave behind their rightful and God-given place and yet never reach their goal. It is a kind of Limbo, a choice to begin eternity in purgatory even before death.”

“And you have chosen to become a lay preacher. Do you have a wooden crate to stand on? Shall I carry it to a crossroads for you?”

“Oh, very well, we can change the topic to Annette d’Arlain if you are uncomfortable. I find myself a most engaging subject.”

“Yes, keep to your area of expertise because you know little of me. I don’t seek to raise myself. I am where I belong. The palace would be poorer without me.”

“If you remained satisfied with being a lover, a courtier, and a good dinner guest, I might agree with you. Your uncle is a minor noble but I suppose his lineage is solid, should anyone care to trace it, and you’re not the first heir to a barren wilderness to manage a creditable reputation at court. But you want to be the first man of Versailles, even at the destruction of your own self and soul. You are striving to be better than every other man.”

“That is the first thing you’ve said that makes any sense.”

Sylvain eased her into his lap. He slid his fingers under the chiffon wrap and began teasing her into an eagerly agreeable frame of mind. She would declare him the best man in France before he was done with her, even if it took all evening.

-9-

The monkey clung to Sylvain’s neck and hid its face under his coat collar. Sylvain hummed under his breath, a low cooing sound shepherds used to calm lambs.

The dealer had doused the monkey in cheap cologne to mask its animal scent. The stink must be a constant irritation to the creature’s acute sense of smell. But it would wear off soon enough in the mist of the cisterns.

Sylvain rounded the corner into the little fish’s cavern and tripped. He slammed to his knees and twisted to take the weight of the fall on his shoulder. The monkey squealed with fright. He hushed it gently.

“Work carefully, be a good girl!” The little fish’s voice echoed off the grotto walls.

He had tripped over the painted wooden cradle. The little fish had stuffed it with all of the dolls Sylvain had given her over the past week. The family of straw-and-cloth dolls were soaked and squashed down to form a nest for the large porcelain doll Sylvain had brought her the day before. It had arrived as a gift from the porcelain manufacturer, along with the toilets Bull and Bear were installing in the north wing.

The doll’s platinum curls had been partly ripped away. Its painted eyes stared up at him as he struggled to his feet.

The little fish perched on the roof of her dollhouse, which floated half submerged in the pool. The toy furniture bobbed and drifted in the current.

“Come here, little miss,” he said. She slipped off the roof and glided across to him. She showed no interest in the monkey, but she probably hadn’t realized it was anything other than just another doll.

“Do you remember what we are going to do today?” he asked. “I told you yesterday; think back and remember.” She blinked up at him in ignorance. “What do you do every day?”

“Work hard.”

“Very good. Work hard at what?”

“Good girls work hard and keep the water flowing.” She yawned, treating him to a full view of her tongue and tiny teeth as she stretched.

The monkey yawned in sympathy. Her gaze snapped to the creature with sudden interest.

“Sharp teeth!” She jumped out of the pool and thrust one long finger in the monkey’s face. It recoiled, clinging to Sylvain with all four limbs.

“Hush,” he said, stroking the monkey’s back. “You frightened her. Good girls don’t frighten their friends, do they?”

“Do they?” she repeated automatically. She was fascinated by the monkey, which was certainly a more engaged reaction than she had given any of the toys Sylvain had brought her.

He fished in his pocket for the leash and clipped it to the monkey’s collar.

“Today, we are adding the new cloth pipes to the system, and you will keep the water flowing like you always do, smooth and orderly. If you do your work properly, you can play with your new friend.”

He handed her the leash and gently extracted himself from the monkey’s grip. He placed the creature on the ground and stroked its head with exaggerated kindness. If she could copy his words, she could copy his actions.

She touched the monkey’s furry flank, eyes wide with delight. Then she brought her hand to her face and whiffed it.

“Stinky,” she said.

She dove backward off the rock, yanking the monkey behind her by its neck.

Sylvain dove to grab it but just missed his grip. The monkey’s sharp squeal cut short as it was dragged under water.

Sylvain ran along the edge of the pool, trying to follow the glow of her form as she circled and dove. When she broke surface he called to her, but she ignored him and climbed to the roof of her dollhouse. She hauled the monkey up by its collar and laid its limp, sodden form on the spine of the roof.

Dead, Sylvain thought. She had drowned it.

It stirred. She scooped the monkey under its arms and dandled it on her lap like a doll. It coughed and squirmed.

“Sing a song,” she demanded. She shoved her face nose to nose with the monkey’s and yelled, “Sing a song!”

The monkey twisted and strained, desperate to claw away. She released her grip and the monkey splashed into the water. She yanked the leash and hauled it up. It dangled like a fish. She let her hand drop and the monkey sank again, thrashing.

“Sing a song!” she screamed. “Sing!”

Sylvain pried off his boots and dove into the pool. He struggled to the surface and kicked off a rock, propelling himself though the water.

“Stop it,” he blurted as he struggled toward her. “Stop it this instant!”

She crouched on the edge of the dollhouse roof, dangling the monkey over the water by its collar. It raked at her with all four feet, but the animal dealer had blunted its claws, leaving the poor creature with no way to defend itself. She dunked it again. Its paws pinwheeled, slapping the surface.

Sylvain ripped his watch from his pocket and lobbed it at her. It smacked her square in the temple. She dropped the monkey and turned on him, enormous eyes veined with red, lids swollen.

He hooked his arm over the peak of the dollhouse roof and hoisted himself halfway out of the water. He fished the monkey out and gathered the quivering creature to his chest.

“Bad girl,” he sputtered, so angry he could barely find breath. “Very bad girl!”

She retreated to the edge of the roof and curled her thin arms around her knees. Her nose was puffy and red just like a human’s.

“Leblanc,” she sobbed. “Leblanc gone.”

She hadn’t mentioned Leblanc in days. Sylvain had assumed she’d forgotten the old man, but some hounds missed their masters for years. Why had he assumed the little fish would have coarser feelings than an animal?

She was an animal, though. She would have drowned the monkey and toyed with its corpse. There was no point in coddling her—he would be stern and unyielding.

“Yes, Leblanc has gone away.” He gave her his chilliest stare.

Her chin quivered. She whispered, “Because I am a bad girl.”

Had she been blaming herself all this time? Beneath the mindless laughter and games she had been missing Leblanc—lonely, regretful, brokenhearted. Wondering if she’d done wrong, if she’d driven him away. Waiting to see him again, expecting him every moment.

Sylvain clambered onto the dollhouse roof and perched between the two chimneys. The monkey climbed onto his shoulder and snaked its fingers into his hair.

“No, little one. Leblanc didn’t want to go but he had to.”

“Leblanc come back?”

She looked so trusting. He could lie to her, tell her Leblanc would come back if she was a good girl, worked hard, and never caused any problems. She would believe him. He could make her do anything he wanted.

“No, little one. Leblanc is gone and he can never come back.”

She folded in on herself, hiding her face in her hands.

“He would have said goodbye to you if he could. I’m sorry he didn’t.”

Sylvain pulled her close, squeezing her bony, quaking shoulders, tucking her wet head under his chin.

There was an old song he had often heard in the mountains. On one of his very first hunting trips as a boy, he’d heard an ancient shepherd sing it while climbing up a long scree slope searching for a lost lamb. He had heard a crying girl sing it as she flayed the pelt from the half-eaten, wolf-ravaged corpse of an ewe. He’d heard a boy sing it to his flock during a sudden spring snowstorm, heard a mother sing it to her children on a freezing winter night as he passed by her hut on horseback. The words were rustic, the melody simple.

Sylvain sang the song now to the little fish, gently at first, just breathing the tune, and then stronger, letting the sound swell between them. He sang of care, and comfort, and loss, and a longing to make everything better. And if tears seemed to rain down his cheeks as he sang, it was nothing but an illusion—just water dribbling from his hair.

The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill

I rise today on this September 11, the one-year anniversary of the greatest tragedy on American soil in our history, with a heavy heart…

Hon. Jim Turner

Originally published by Clarkesworld Magazine

September 9, 2001

Jessica slumped against the inside of the truck door. The girl behind the wheel and the other one squished between them on the bench seat kept stealing glances at her. Jessica ignored them, just like she tried to ignore the itchy pull and tug deep inside her, under her belly button, where the aliens were trying to knit her guts back together.

“You party pretty hard last night?” the driver asked.

Jessica rested her burning forehead on the window. The hum of the highway under the wheels buzzed through her skull. The truck cab stank of incense.

“You shouldn’t hitchhike, it’s not safe,” the other girl said. “I sound like my mom saying it and I hate that but it’s really true. So many dead girls. They haven’t even found all the bodies.”

“Highway of Tears,” the driver said.

“Yeah, Highway of Tears,” the other one repeated. “Bloody Sixteen.”

“Nobody calls it that,” the driver snapped.

Jessica pulled her hair up off her neck, trying to cool the sticky heat pulsing through her. The two girls looked like tree planters. She’d spent the summer working full time at the gas station and now she could smell a tree planter a mile away. They’d come in for smokes and mix, dirty, hairy, dressed in fleece and hemp just like these two. The driver had blond dreadlocks and the other had tattoos circling her wrists. Not that much older than her, lecturing her about staying safe just like somebody’s mom.

Well, she’s right, Jessica thought. A gush of blood flooded the crotch of her jeans.

Water. Jessica, we can do this but you’ve got to get some water. We need to replenish your fluids.

“You got any water?” Jessica asked. Her voice rasped, throat stripped raw from all the screaming.

The tattooed girl dug through the backpack at Jessica’s feet and came up with a two-liter mason jar half-full of water. Hippies, Jessica thought as she fumbled with the lid. Like one stupid jar will save the world.

“Let me help.” The tattooed girl unscrewed the lid and steadied the heavy jar as Jessica lifted it to her lips.

She gagged. Her throat was tight as a fist but she forced herself to swallow, wash down the dirt and puke coating her mouth.

Good. Drink more.

“I can’t,” Jessica said. The tattooed girl stared at her.

You need to. We can’t do this alone. You have to help us.

“Are you okay?” the driver asked. “You look wrecked.”

Jessica wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m fine. Just hot.”

“Yeah, you’re really flushed,” said the tattooed girl. “You should take off your coat.”

Jessica ignored her and gulped at the jar until it was empty.

Not so fast. Careful!

“Do you want to swing past the hospital when we get into town?” the driver asked.

A bolt of pain knifed through Jessica’s guts. The empty jar slipped from her grip and rolled across the floor of the truck. The pain faded.

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “I just got a bad period.”

That did it. The lines of worry eased off both girls’ faces.

“Do you have a pad? I’m gonna bleed all over your seat.” Jessica’s vision dimmed, like someone had put a shade over the morning sun.

“No problem.” The tattooed girl fished through the backpack. “I bleed heavy too. It depletes my iron.”

“That’s just an excuse for you to eat meat,” said the driver.

Jessica leaned her forehead on the window and waited for the light to come back into the world. The two girls were bickering now, caught up in their own private drama.

Another flood of blood. More this time. She curled her fists into her lap. Her insides twisted and jumped like a fish on a line.

Your lungs are fine. Breathe deeply, in and out, that’s it. We need all the oxygen you can get.

The tattooed girl pulled a pink wrapped maxi pad out of her backpack and offered it to Jessica. The driver slowed down and turned the truck into a roadside campground.

“Hot,” Jessica said. The girls didn’t hear. Now they were bitching at each other about disposable pads and something called a keeper cup.

We know. You’ll be okay. We can heal you.

“Don’t wait for me,” Jessica said as they pulled up to the campground outhouse. She flipped the door handle and nearly fell out of the truck. “I can catch another ride.”

Cold air washed over her as she stumbled toward the outhouse. She unzipped her long coat and let the breeze play though—chill air on boiling skin. Still early September but they always got a cold snap at the start of fall. First snow only a few days ago. Didn’t last. Never did.

The outhouse stench hit her like a slap. Jessica fumbled with the lock. Her fingers felt stiff and clumsy.

“Why am I so hot?” she said, leaning on the cold plywood wall. Her voice sounded strange, ripped apart and multiplied into echoes.

Your immune system is trying to fight us but we’ve got it under control. The fever isn’t dangerous, just uncomfortable.

She shed her coat and let it fall to the floor. Unzipped her jeans, slipped them down her hips. No panties. She hadn’t been able to find them.

No, Jessica. Don’t look.

Pubic hair hacked away along with most of her skin. Two deep slices puckered angry down the inside of her right thigh. And blood. On her legs, on her jeans, inside her coat. Blood everywhere, dark and sticky.

Keep breathing!

An iron tang filled the outhouse as a gout of blood dribbled down her legs. Jessica fell back on the toilet seat. Deep within her chest something fluttered, like a bird beating its wings on her ribs, trying to get out. The light drained from the air.

If you die, we die too. Please give us a chance.

The flutters turned into fists pounding on her breastbone. She struggled to inhale, tried to drag the outhouse stink deep into her lungs but the air felt thick. Solid. Like a wall against her face.

Don’t go. Please.

Breath escaped her like smoke from a fire burned down to coal and ash. She collapsed against the wall of the outhouse. Vision turned to pinpricks; she crumpled like paper and died.

* * *

“Everything okay in there?”

The thumping on the door made the whole outhouse shake. Jessica lurched to her feet. Her chest burned like she’d been breathing acid.

You’re okay.

“I’m fine. Gimme a second.”

Jessica plucked the pad off the outhouse floor, ripped it open and stuck it on the crotch of her bloody jeans, zipped them up. She zipped her coat to her chin. She felt strong. Invincible. She unlocked the door.

The two girls were right there, eyes big and concerned and in her business.

“You didn’t have to wait,” Jessica said.

“How old are you, fifteen? We waited,” the driver said as they climbed back into the truck.

“We’re not going to let you hitchhike,” said the tattooed girl. “Especially not you.”

“Why not me?” Jessica slammed the truck door behind her.

“Most of the dead and missing girls are First Nations.”

“You think I’m an Indian? Fuck you. Am I on a reserve?”

The driver glared at her friend as she turned the truck back onto the highway.

“Sorry,” the tattooed girl said.

“Do I look like an Indian?”

“Well, kinda.”

“Fuck you.” Jessica leaned on the window, watching the highway signs peel by as they rolled toward Prince George. When they got to the city the invincible feeling was long gone. The driver insisted on taking her right to Gran’s.

“Thanks,” Jessica said as she slid out of the truck.

The driver waved. “Remember, no hitchhiking.”

* * *

September 8, 2001

Jessica never hitchhiked.

She wasn’t stupid. But Prince George was spread out. The bus ran maybe once an hour weekdays and barely at all on weekends, and when the weather turned cold you could freeze to death trying to walk everywhere. So yeah, she took rides when she could, if she knew the driver.

After her Saturday shift she’d started walking down the highway. Mom didn’t know she was coming. Jessica had tried to get through three times from the gas station phone, left voice mails. Mom didn’t always pick up—usually didn’t—and when she did it was some excuse about her phone battery or connection.

Mom was working as a cook at a retreat center out by Tabor Lake. A two-hour walk, but Mom would get someone to drive her back to Gran’s.

Only seven o’clock but getting cold and the wind had come up. Semis bombed down the highway, stirring up the trash and making it dance at her feet and fly in her face as she walked along the ditch.

It wasn’t even dark when the car pulled over to the side of the highway.

“Are you Jessica?”

The man looked ordinary. Baseball cap, hoodie. Somebody’s dad trying to look young.

“Yeah,” Jessica said.

“Your mom sent me to pick you up.”

A semi honked as it blasted past his car. A McDonald’s wrapper flipped through the air and smacked her in the back of the head. She got in.

The car was skunky with pot smoke. She almost didn’t notice when he passed the Tabor Lake turnoff.

“That was the turn,” she said.

“Yeah, she’s not there. She’s out at the ski hill.”

“At this time of year?”

“Some kind of event.” He took a drag on his smoke and smiled.

Jessica hadn’t even twigged. Mom had always wanted to work at the ski hill, where she could party all night and ski all day.

It was twenty minutes before Jessica started to clue in.

When he slowed to take a turn onto a gravel road she braced herself to roll out of the car. The door handle was broken. She went at him with her fingernails but he had the jump on her, hit her in the throat with his elbow. She gulped air and tried to roll down the window.

It was broken too. She battered the glass with her fists, then spun and lunged for the wheel. He hit her again, slammed her head against the dashboard three times. The world stuttered and swam.

Pain brought everything back into focus. Face down, her arms flailed, fingers clawed at the dirt. Spruce needles flew up her nose and coated her tongue. Her butt was jacked up over a log and every thrust pounded her face into the dirt. One part of her was screaming, screaming. The other part watched the pile of deer shit inches from her nose. It looked like a heap of candy. Chocolate-covered almonds.

She didn’t listen to what he was telling her. She’d heard worse from boys at school. He couldn’t make her listen. He didn’t exist except as a medium for pain.

When he got off, Jessica felt ripped in half, split like firewood. She tried to roll off the log. She’d crawl into the bush, he’d drive away, and it would be over.

Then he showed her the knife.

When he rammed the knife up her she found a new kind of pain. It drove the breath from her lungs and sliced the struggle from her limbs. She listened to herself whimper, thinking it sounded like a newborn kitten, crying for its mother.

The pain didn’t stop until the world had retreated to little flecks of light deep in her skull. The ground spun around her as he dragged her through the bush and rolled her into a ravine. She landed face down in a stream. Her head flopped, neck canted at a weird angle.

Jessica curled her fingers around something cold and round. A rock. It fit in her hand perfectly and if he came back she’d let him have it right in the teeth. And then her breath bubbled away and she died.

* * *

When she came back to life a bear corpse was lying beside her, furry and rank. She dug her fingers into its pelt and pulled herself up. It was still warm. And skinny—nothing but sinew and bone under the skin.

She stumbled through the stream, toes in wet socks stubbing against the rocks but it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt. She was good. She could do anything.

She found her coat in the mud, her jeans too. One sneaker by the bear and then she looked and looked for the other one.

It’s up the bank.

She climbed up. The shoe was by the log where it had happened. The toe was coated in blood. She wiped it in the dirt.

You need to drink some water.

A short dirt track led down to the road. The gravel glowed white in the dim light of early morning. No idea which way led to the highway. She picked a direction.

“How do you know what I need?”

We know. We’re trying to heal you. The damage is extensive. You’ve lost a lot of blood and the internal injuries are catastrophic.

“No shit.”

We can fix you. We just need time.

Her guts writhed. Snakes fought in her belly, biting and coiling.

Feel that? That’s us working. Inside you.

“Why doesn’t it hurt?”

We’ve established a colony in your thalamus. That’s where we’re blocking the pain. If we didn’t, you’d die of shock.

“Again.”

Yes, again.

“A colony. What the fuck are you? Aliens?”

Yes. We’re also distributing a hormonal cocktail of adrenaline and testosterone to keep you moving, but we’ll have to taper it off soon because it puts too much stress on your heart. Right now it’s very important for you to drink some water.

“Shut up about the water.” She wasn’t thirsty. She felt great.

A few minutes later the fight drained out of her. Thirsty, exhausted, she ached as though the hinge of every moving part was crusted in rust, from her jaw to her toes. Her eyelids rasped like sandpaper. Her breath sucked and blew without reaching her lungs. Every rock in the road was a mountain and every pothole a canyon.

But she walked. Dragged her sneakers through the gravel, taking smaller and smaller steps until she just couldn’t lift her feet anymore. She stood in the middle of the road and waited. Waited to fall over. Waited for the world to slip from her grasp and darkness to drown her in cold nothing.

When she heard the truck speeding toward her she didn’t even look up. Didn’t matter who it was, what it was. She stuck out her thumb.

* * *

September 10, 2001

Jessica woke soaked. Covered in blood, she thought, struggling with the blankets. But it wasn’t blood.

“What—”

Your urethra was damaged so we eliminated excess fluid through your pores. It’s repaired now. You’ll be able to urinate.

She pried herself out of the wet blankets.

No solid food, though. Your colon is shredded and your small intestine has multiple ruptures.

When the tree planters dropped her off, Gran had been sacked out on the couch. Jessica had stayed in the shower for a good half hour, watching the blood swirl down the drain with the spruce needles and the dirt, the blood clots and shreds of raw flesh.

And all the while she drank. Opened her mouth and let the cool spray fill her. Then she had stuffed her bloody clothes in a garbage bag and slept.

Jessica ran her fingertips over the gashes inside her thigh. The wounds puckered like wide toothless mouths, sliced edges pasted together and sunk deep within her flesh. The rest of the damage was hardened over with amber-colored scabs. She’d have to use a mirror to see it all. She didn’t want to look.

“I should go to the hospital,” she whispered.

That’s not a good idea. It would take multiple interventions to repair the damage to your digestive tract. They’d never be able to save your uterus or reconstruct your vulva and clitoris. The damage to your cervix alone—

“My what?”

Do you want to have children someday?

“I don’t know.”

Trust us. We can fix this.

She hated the hospital anyway. Went to Emergency after she’d twisted her knee but the nurse had turned her away, said she wouldn’t bother the on-call for something minor. Told her to go home and put a bag of peas on it.

And the cops were even worse than anyone at the hospital. Didn’t give a shit. Not one of them.

Gran was on the couch, snoring. A deck of cards was scattered across the coffee table in between the empties—looked like she’d been playing solitaire all weekend.

Gran hadn’t fed the cats, either. They had to be starving but they wouldn’t come to her, not even when she was filling their dishes. Not even Gringo, who had hogged her bed every night since she was ten. He just hissed and ran.

Usually Jessica would wake up Gran before leaving for school, try to get her on her feet so she didn’t sleep all day. Today she didn’t have the strength. She shook Gran’s shoulder.

“Night night, baby,” Gran said, and turned over.

Jessica waited for the school bus. She felt cloudy, dispersed, her thoughts blowing away with the wind. And cold now, without her coat. The fever was gone.

“Could you fix Gran?”

Perhaps. What’s wrong with her?

Jessica shrugged. “I don’t know. Everything.”

We can try. Eventually.

She sleepwalked through her classes. It wasn’t a problem. The teachers were more bothered when she did well than when she slacked off. She stayed in the shadows, off everyone’s radar.

After school she walked to the gas station. Usually when she got to work she’d buy some chips or a chocolate bar, get whoever was going off shift to ring it up so nobody could say she hadn’t paid for it.

“How come I’m not hungry?” she asked when she had the place to herself.

You are; you just can’t perceive it.

It was a quiet night. The gas station across the highway had posted a half cent lower so everyone was going there. Usually she’d go stir crazy from boredom but today she just zoned out. Badly photocopied faces stared at her from the posters taped to the cigarette cabinet overhead.

An SUV pulled up to pump number three. A bull elk was strapped to the hood, tongue lolling.

“What was the deal with the bear?” she said.

The bear’s den was adjacent to our crash site. It was killed by the concussive wave.

“Crash site. A spaceship?”

Yes. Unfortunate for the bear, but very fortunate for us.

“You brought the bear back to life. Healed it.”

Yes.

“And before finding me you were just riding around in the bear.”

Yes. It was attracted by the scent of your blood.

“So you saw what happened to me. You watched.” She should be upset, shouldn’t she? But her mind felt dull, thoughts thudding inside an empty skull.

We have no access to the visual cortex.

“You’re blind?”

Yes.

“What are you?”

A form of bacteria.

“Like an infection.”

Yes.

The door chimed and the hunter handed over his credit card. She rang it through. When he was gone she opened her mouth to ask another question, but then her gut convulsed like she’d been hit. She doubled over the counter. Bile stung her throat.

He’d been here on Saturday.

Jessica had been on the phone, telling mom’s voice mail that she’d walk out to Talbot Lake after work. While she was talking she’d rung up a purchase, $32.25 in gas and a pack of smokes. She’d punched it through automatically, cradling the phone on her shoulder. She’d given him change from fifty.

An ordinary man. Hoodie. Cap.

Jessica, breathe.

Her head whipped around, eyes wild, hands scrambling reflexively for a weapon. Nobody was at the pumps, nobody parked at the air pump. He could come back any moment. Bring his knife and finish the job.

Please breathe. There’s no apparent danger.

She fell to her knees and crawled out from behind the counter. Nobody would stop him, nobody would save her. Just like they hadn’t saved all those dead and missing girls whose posters had been staring at her all summer from up on the cigarette cabinet.

When she’d started the job they’d creeped her out, those posters. For a few weeks she’d thought twice about walking after dark. But then those dead and missing girls disappeared into the landscape. Forgotten.

You must calm down.

Now she was one of them.

We may not be able to bring you back again.

She scrambled to the bathroom on all fours, threw herself against the door, twisted the lock. Her hands were shuddering, teeth chattering like it was forty below. Her chest squeezed and bucked, throwing acid behind her teeth.

There was a frosted window high on the wall. He could get in, if he wanted. She could almost see the knife tick-tick-ticking on the glass.

No escape. Jessica plowed herself into the narrow gap between the wall and toilet, wedging herself there, fists clutching at her burning chest as she retched bile onto the floor. The light winked and flickered. A scream flushed out of her and she died.

* * *

A fist banged on the door.

“Jessica, what the hell!” Her boss’s voice.

A key scraped in the lock. Jessica gripped the toilet and wrenched herself off the floor to face him. His face was flushed with anger and though he was a big guy, he couldn’t scare her now. She felt bigger, taller, stronger, too. And she’d always been smarter than him.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Better than fine. She was butterfly-light, like if she opened her wings she could fly away.

“The station’s wide open. Anybody could have waltzed in here and walked off with the till.”

“Did they?”

His mouth hung open for a second. “Did they what?”

“Walk off with the fucking till?”

“Are you on drugs?”

She smiled. She didn’t need him. She could do anything.

“That’s it,” he said. “You’re gone. Don’t come back.”

A taxi was gassing up at pump number one. She got in the back and waited, watching her boss pace and yell into his phone. The invincible feeling faded before the tank was full. By the time she got home Jessica’s joints had locked stiff and her thoughts had turned fuzzy.

All the lights were on. Gran was halfway into her second bottle of u-brew red so she was pretty out of it, too. Jessica sat with her at the kitchen table for a few minutes and was just thinking about crawling to bed when the phone rang.

It was Mom.

“Did you send someone to pick me up on the highway?” Jessica stole a glance at Gran. She was staring at her reflection in the kitchen window, maybe listening, maybe not.

“No, why would I do that?”

“I left you messages. On Saturday.”

“I’m sorry, baby. This phone is so bad, you know that.”

“Listen, I need to talk to you.” Jessica kept her voice low.

“Is it your grandma?” Mom asked.

“Yeah. It’s bad. She’s not talking.”

“She does this every time the residential school thing hits the news. Gets super excited, wants to go up north and see if any of her family are still alive. But she gives up after a couple of days. Shuts down. It’s too much for her. She was only six when they took her away, you know.”

“Yeah. When are you coming home?”

“I got a line on a great job, cooking for an oil rig crew. One month on, one month off.”

Jessica didn’t have the strength to argue. All she wanted to do was sleep.

“Don’t worry about your Gran,” Mom said. “She’ll be okay in a week or two. Listen, I got to go.”

“I know.”

“Night night, baby,” Mom said, and hung up.

* * *

September 11, 2001

Jessica waited alone for the school bus. The street was deserted. When the bus pulled up the driver was chattering before she’d even climbed in.

“Can you believe it? Isn’t it horrible?” The driver’s eyes were puffy, mascara swiped to a gray stain under her eyes.

“Yeah,” Jessica agreed automatically.

“When I saw the news I thought it was so early, nobody would be at work. But it was nine in the morning in New York. Those towers were full of people.” The driver wiped her nose.

The bus was nearly empty. Two little kids sat behind the driver, hugging their backpacks. The radio blared. Horror in New York. Attack on Washington. Jessica dropped into the shotgun seat and let the noise wash over her for a few minutes as they twisted slowly through the empty streets. Then she moved to the back of the bus.

When she’d gotten dressed that morning her jeans had nearly slipped off her hips. Something about that was important. She tried to concentrate, but the thoughts flitted from her grasp, darting away before she could pin them down.

She focused on the sensation within her, the buck and heave under her ribs and in front of her spine.

“What are you fixing right now?” she asked.

An ongoing challenge is the sequestration of the fecal and digestive matter that leaked into your abdominal cavity.

“What about the stuff you mentioned yesterday? The intestine and the…whatever it was.”

Once we have repaired your digestive tract and restored gut motility we will begin reconstructive efforts on your reproductive organs.

“You like big words, don’t you?”

We assure you the terminology is accurate.

There it was. That was the thing that had been bothering her, niggling at the back of her mind, trying to break through the fog.

“How do you know those words? How can you even speak English?”

We aren’t communicating in language. The meaning is conveyed by socio-linguistic impulses interpreted by the brain’s speech processing loci. Because of the specifics of our biology, verbal communication is an irrelevant medium.

“You’re not talking, you’re just making me hallucinate,” Jessica said.

That is essentially correct.

How could the terminology be accurate, then? She didn’t know those words—cervix and whatever—so how could she hallucinate them?

“Were you watching the news when the towers collapsed?” the driver asked as she pulled into the high school parking lot. Jessica ignored her and slowly stepped off the bus.

The aliens were trying to baffle her with big words and science talk. For three days she’d had them inside her, their voice behind her eyes, their fingers deep in her guts, and she’d trusted them. Hadn’t even thought twice. She had no choice.

If they could make her hallucinate, what else were they doing to her?

The hallways were quiet, the classrooms deserted except for one room at the end of the hall with 40 kids packed in. The teacher had wheeled in an AV cart. Some of the kids hadn’t even taken off their coats.

Jessica stood in the doorway. The news flashed clips of smoking towers collapsing into ash clouds. The bottom third of the screen was overlaid with scrolling, flashing text, the sound layered with frantic voiceovers. People were jumping from the towers, hanging in the air like dancers. The clips replayed over and over again. The teacher passed around a box of Kleenex.

Jessica turned her back on the class and climbed upstairs, joints creaking, jeans threatening to slide off with every step. She hitched them up. The biology lab was empty. She leaned on the cork board and scanned the parasite diagrams. Ring worm. Tape worm. Liver fluke. Black wasp.

Some parasites can change their host’s biology, the poster said, or even change their host’s behavior.

Jessica took a push pin from the board and shoved it into her thumb. It didn’t hurt. When she ripped it out a thin stream of blood trickled from the skin, followed by an ooze of clear amber from deep within the gash.

What are you doing?

None of your business, she thought.

Everything is going to be okay.

No it won’t, she thought. She squeezed the amber ooze from her thumb, let it drip on the floor. The aliens were wrenching her around like a puppet, but without them she would be dead. Three times dead. Maybe she should feel grateful, but she didn’t.

“Why didn’t you want me to go to the hospital?” she asked as she slowly hinged down the stairs.

They couldn’t have helped you, Jessica. You would have died.

Again, Jessica thought. Died again. And again.

“You said that if I die, you die too.”

When your respiration stops, we can only survive for a limited time.

The mirror in the girls’ bathroom wasn’t real glass, just a sheet of polished aluminum, its shine pitted and worn. She leaned on the counter, rested her forehead on the cool metal. Her reflection warped and stretched.

“If I’d gone to the hospital, it would have been bad for you. Wouldn’t it?”

That is likely.

“So you kept me from going. You kept me from doing a lot of things.”

We assure you that is untrue. You may exercise your choices as you see fit. We will not interfere.

“You haven’t left me any choices.”

Jessica left the bathroom and walked down the hall. The news blared from the teacher’s lounge. She looked in. At least a dozen teachers crowded in front of an AV cart, backs turned. Jessica slipped behind them and ducked into the teachers’ washroom. She locked the door.

It was like a real bathroom. Air freshener, moisturizing lotion, floral soap. Real mirror on the wall and a makeup mirror propped on the toilet tank. Jessica put it on the floor.

“Since when do bacteria have spaceships?” She pulled her sweater over her head and dropped it over the mirror.

Jessica, you’re not making sense. You’re confused.

She put her heel on the sweater and stepped down hard. The mirror cracked.

Go to the hospital now, if you want.

“If I take you to the hospital, what will you do? Infect other people? How many?”

Jessica, please. Haven’t we helped you?

“You’ve helped yourself.”

The room pitched and flipped. Jessica fell to her knees. She reached for the broken mirror but it swam out of reach. Her vision telescoped and she batted at the glass with clumsy hands. A scream built behind her teeth, swelled and choked her. She swallowed it whole, gulped it, forced it down her throat like she was starving.

You don’t have to do this. We aren’t a threat.

She caught a mirror shard in one fist and swam along the floor as the room tilted and whirled. With one hand she pinned it to the yawning floor like a spike, windmilled her free arm and slammed her wrist down. The walls folded in, collapsing on her like the whole weight of the world, crushing in.

She felt another scream building. She forced her tongue between clenched teeth and bit down. Amber fluid oozed down her chin and pooled on the floor.

Please. We only want to help.

“Night night, baby,” she said, and raked the mirror up her arm.

The fluorescent light flashed overhead. The room plunged into darkness as a world of pain dove into her for one hanging moment. Then it lifted. Jessica convulsed on the floor, watching the bars of light overhead stutter and compress to two tiny glimmers inside the thin parched shell of her skull. And she died, finally, at last.

Two-Year Man

Originally published by Asimov’s Science Fiction

* * *

Getting the baby through security was easy. Mikkel had been smuggling food out of the lab for years. He’d long since learned how to trick the guards.

Mikkel had never been smart, but the guards were four-year men and that meant they were lazy. If he put something good at the top of his lunch pail at the end of his shift, the guards would grab it and never dig deeper. Mikkel let them have the half-eaten boxes of sooty chocolate truffles and stale pastries, but always took something home for Anna.

Most days it was only wrinkled apples and hard oranges, soured milk, damp sugar packets and old teabags. But sometimes he would find something good. Once he’d found a working media player at the bottom of the garbage bin in the eight-year man’s office. He had been so sure the guards would find it and accuse him of stealing that he’d almost tossed it in the incinerator. But he’d distracted the guards with some water-stained skin magazines from the six-year men’s shower room and brought that media player home to Anna.

She traded it for a pair of space heaters and ten kilos of good flour. They had dumplings for months.

The baby was the best thing he’d ever found. And she was such a good girl—quiet and still. Mikkel had taken a few minutes to hold her in the warmth beside the incinerator, cuddling her close and listening to the gobble and clack of her strange yellow beak. He swaddled her tightly in clean rags, taking care to wrap her pudgy hands separately so she couldn’t rake her talons across that sweet pink baby belly. Then he put her in the bottom of his plastic lunch pail, layered a clean pair of janitor’s coveralls over her, and topped the pail with a box of day-old pastries he’d found in the six-year men’s lounge.

“Apple strudel,” grunted Hermann, the four-year man in charge of the early morning guard shift. “Those pasty scientists don’t know good eats. Imagine leaving strudel to sit.”

“Cafe Sluka has the best strudel in Vienna, so everyone says,” Mikkel said as he passed through the security gate.

“Like you’d know, moron. Wouldn’t let you through the door.”

Mikkel ducked his head and kept his eyes on the floor. “I heated them in the microwave for you.”

He rushed out into the grey winter light as the guards munched warm strudel.

Mikkel checked the baby as soon as he rounded the corner, and then kept checking her every few minutes on the way home. He was careful to make sure nobody saw. But the streetcars were nearly empty in the early morning, and nobody would find it strange to see a two-year man poking his nose in his lunch pail.

The baby was quiet and good. Anna would be so pleased. The thought kept him warm all the way home.

* * *

Anna was not pleased.

When he showed her the baby she sat right down on the floor. She didn’t say anything—just opened and closed her mouth for a minute. Mikkel crouched at her side and waited.

“Did anyone see you take it?” she asked, squeezing his hand hard, like she always did when she wanted him to pay attention.

“No, sweetheart.”

“Good. Now listen hard. We can’t keep it. Do you understand?”

“She needs a mother,” Mikkel said.

“You’re going to take her back to the lab. Then forget this ever happened.”

Anna’s voice carried an edge Mikkel had never heard before. He turned away and gently lifted the baby out of the pail. She was quivering with hunger. He knew how that felt.

“She needs food,” he said. “Is there any milk left, sweetheart?”

“It’s no use, Mikkel. She’s going to die anyway.”

“We can help her.”

“The beak is a bad taint. If she were healthy they would have kept her. Sent her to a crèche.”

“She’s strong.” Mikkel loosened the rags. The baby snuffled and her sharp blue tongue protruded from the pale beak. “See? Fat and healthy.”

“She can’t breathe.”

“She needs us.” Why didn’t Anna see that? It was so simple.

“You can take her back tonight.”

“I can’t. My lunch pail goes through the X-ray machine. The guards would see.”

If Anna could hold the baby, she would understand. Mikkel pressed the baby to Anna’s chest. She scrambled backward so fast she banged her head on the door. Then she stood and straightened her maid’s uniform with shaking hands.

“I have to go. I can’t be late again.” She pulled on her coat and lunged out the door, then turned and reached out. For a moment he thought she was reaching for the baby and he began to smile. But she just squeezed his hand again, hard.

“You have to take care of this, Mikkel,” she said. “It’s not right. She’s not ours. We aren’t keeping her.”

Mikkel nodded. “See you tonight.”

The only thing in the fridge was a bowl of cold stew. They hadn’t had milk for days. But Mikkel’s breakfast sat on the kitchen table covered with a folded towel. The scrambled egg was still steaming.

Mikkel put a bit of egg in the palm of his hand and blew on it. The baby’s eyes widened and she squirmed. She reached for his hand. Talons raked his wrist and her beak yawned wide. A blue frill edged with red and yellow quivered at the back of her throat.

“Does that smell good? I don’t think a little will hurt.”

He fed her the egg bit by bit. She gobbled it down, greedy as a baby bird. Then he watched her fall asleep while he sipped his cold coffee.

Mikkel wet a paper napkin and cleaned the fine film of mucus from the tiny nostrils on either side of her beak. They were too small, but she could breathe just fine through her mouth. She couldn’t cry, though, she just snuffled and panted. And the beak was heavy. It dragged her head to the side.

She was dirty, smeared with blood from the incineration bin. Her fine black hair was pasted down with a hard scum that smelled like glue. She needed a bath, and warm clothes, and diapers. Also something to cover her hands. He would have to trim the points off her talons.

He held her until she woke. Then he brought both space heaters from the bedroom and turned them on high while he bathed her in the kitchen sink. It was awkward and messy and took nearly two hours. She snuffled hard the whole time, but once he’d dried her and wrapped her in towels she quieted. He propped her up on the kitchen table. She watched him mop the kitchen floor, her bright brown eyes following his every move.

When the kitchen was clean he fetched a half-empty bottle of French soap he’d scavenged from the lab, wrapped the baby up tightly against the cold, and sat on the back stairs waiting for Hyam to come trotting out of his apartment for a smoke.

“What’s this?” Hyam said. “I didn’t know Anna was expecting.”

“She wasn’t.” Mikkel tugged the towel aside.

“Huh,” said Hyam. “That’s no natural taint. Can it breathe?”

“She’s hungry.” Mikkel gave him the bottle of soap.

“Hungry, huh?” Hyam sniffed the bottle. “What do you need?”

“Eggs and milk. Clothes and diapers. Mittens, if you can spare some.”

“I never seen a taint like that. She’s not a natural creature.” Hyam took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it over his shoulder, away from the baby. “You work in that lab, right?”

“Yes.”

Hyam examined the glowing coal at the end of his cigarette.

“What did Anna say when you brought trouble home?”

Mikkel shrugged.

“Did the neighbors hear anything through the walls?”

“No.”

“Keep it that way.” Hyam spoke slowly. “Keep this quiet, Mikkel, you hear me?

Keep it close. If anyone asks, you tell them Anna birthed that baby.”

Mikkel nodded.

Hyam pointed with his cigarette, emphasizing every word. “If the wrong person finds out, the whole neighborhood will talk. Then you’ll see real trouble. Four-year men tromping through the building, breaking things, replaying the good old days in the colonies. They like nothing better. Don’t you bring that down on your neighbors.”

Mikkel nodded.

“My wife will like the soap.” Hyam ground out his cigarette and ran up the stairs.

“There now,” Mikkel said. The baby gazed up at him and clacked her beak. “Who says two-year men are good for nothing?”

Four-year men said it all the time. They were everywhere, flashing their regimental badges and slapping the backs of their old soldier friends. They banded together in loud bragging packs that crowded humble folks off busses and streetcars, out of shops and cafés, forcing everyone to give way or get pushed aside.

Six-year men probably said it too, but Mikkel had never talked to one. He saw them working late at the lab sometimes, but they lived in another world—a world filled with sports cars and private clubs. And who knew what eight-year men said? Mikkel cleaned an eight-year man’s office every night, but he’d only ever seen them in movies.

Nobody made movies about two-year men. They said four-year men had honor, six-year men had responsibility, and eight-year men had glory. Two-year men had nothing but shame. But it wasn’t true. Hyam said so. Two-year men had families—parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, children and wives who depended on them. They had jobs, humble jobs but important all the same. Without two-year men, who would grub away the garbage, crawl the sewers, lay the carpets, clean the chimneys, fix the roofs? Without two-year men there would be nobody to bring in the harvest—no sweet strawberries or rich wines. And most important, Hyam said, without two-year men there would be no one parents could point at and say to their sons, “Don’t be like him.”

Hyam was smart. He could have been a four-year man easy, even a six-year man. But he was a Jew and that meant a two-year man, almost always. Gypsies too, and Hutterites, and pacifists. Men who couldn’t walk or talk. Even blind men. All drafted and sent to fight and die in the colonies for two years, and then sent home to live in shame while the four-year men fought on. Fought to survive and come home with honor.

Hyam returned swinging a plastic bag in one hand and a carton of eggs in the other. A bottle of milk was tucked under his arm.

“This is mostly diapers,” he said, brandishing the bag. “You’ll never have too many. We spend more on laundry than we do on food.”

“I can wash them by hand.”

“No you can’t, take my word for it.” Hyam laughed and ran up the stairs. “Welcome to fatherhood, Mikkel. You’re a family man now.”

Mikkel laid the baby on the bed. He diapered and dressed the baby, and then trimmed her talons with Anna’s nail scissors. He fitted a sock over each of the baby’s hands and pinned them to her sleeves. Then he wedged Anna’s pillow between the bed and the wall, tucked the baby in his arms, and fell into sleep.

He woke to the clacking of the baby’s beak. She yawned, showing her colorful throat frill. He cupped his hand over her skull and breathed in the milky scent of her skin.

“Let’s get you fed before Mama comes home,” he said.

He warmed milk in the soup pot. A baby needed a bottle when it didn’t have a breast, he knew, but his baby—his clever little girl—held her beak wide and let him tip the milk into her, teaspoon by teaspoon. She swallowed greedily and then demanded more. She ate so fast he could probably just pour the milk in a steady stream down her throat. But milk was too expensive to risk spitting up all over the kitchen floor.

“Mikkel,” said Anna.

She was standing in the doorway in her scarf and coat. Mikkel gathered the baby in his arms and greeted Anna with a kiss like he always did. Her cheek was cold and red.

“How was your day?” he asked. The baby looked from him to Anna and clacked her beak.

Anna wouldn’t look at the baby. “I was late. I got on the wrong bus at the interchange and had to backtrack. Mrs. Spiven says one more time and that’s it for me.”

“You can get another job. A better one. Closer to home.”

“Maybe. Probably not.”

Anna rinsed the soup pot, scooped cold stew into it and set it on the stove. She was still in her coat and hat. The baby reached out and hooked Anna’s red mitten out of her pocket with the trimmed talon poking through the thin grey knit sock. The mitten dangled from the baby’s hand. Anna ignored it.

“Sweetheart, take off your coat,” Mikkel said.

“I’m cold,” she said. She struck a match and lit the burner.

Mikkel gently pulled on her elbow. She resisted for a moment and then turned. Her face was flushed.

“Sweetheart, look,” he said. Anna dropped her gaze to the floor. The baby clacked her beak and yawned. “I thought we could name her after your mother.”

Anna turned away and stirred the stew. “That’s crazy. I told you we’re not keeping her.”

“She has your eyes.”

The spoon clattered to the floor. Anna swayed. Her elbow hit the pot handle and it tipped. Mikkel steadied it and shut off the flame.

Anna yanked back her chair and fell into it. She thrust her head in her hands for a moment and then sat back. Her eyes were cold and narrow, her voice tight. “Why would you say that? Don’t say that.”

Why couldn’t Anna see? She was smart. So much smarter than him. And he could see it so easily.

Mikkel searched for the right words. “Your eggs. Where did they go?”

“It doesn’t matter. I needed money so I sold my ovaries. That’s the end of it.”

Mikkel ran his fingers over his wife’s chapped hand, felt the calluses on her palm. He would tell her the awful things, and then she would understand.

“I know where your eggs went. I see them in the tanks every night. And in the labs. In the incinerator. I mop their blood off the floor.”

Anna’s jaw clenched. He could tell she was biting the inside of her cheek. “Mikkel. Lots of women sell their ovaries. Thousands of women. They could be anyone’s eggs.”

Mikkel shook his head. “This is your baby. I know it.”

“You don’t know anything. What proof do you have? None.” She laughed once, a barking sound. “And it doesn’t matter anyway because we’re not keeping her. People will find out and take her away. Arrest you and me both, probably. At the very least, we’d lose our jobs. Do you want us to live in the street?”

“We can tell people you birthed her.”

“With that beak?”

Mikkel shrugged. “It happens.”

Anna’s flushed face turned a brighter shade of red. She was trying not to cry. He ached to squeeze her to his chest. She would just pull away, though. Anna would never let him hold her when she cried.

They ate in silence. Mikkel watched the baby sleep on the table between them. Her soft cheek was chubby as any child’s, but it broadened and dimpled as it met the beak, the skin thinning and hardening like a fingernail. The baby snuffled and snot bubbled from one of her tiny nostrils. Mikkel wiped it away with the tip of his finger.

Mikkel checked the clock as Anna gathered the dishes and filled the sink. Only a few minutes before he had to leave for the lab. He snuggled the baby close. Her eyelids fluttered. The delicate eyelash fringes were glued together with mucus.

“You have to go,” said Anna. She put his lunch pail on the table.

“In a minute,” he said. Mikkel dipped his napkin in his water glass and wiped the baby’s eyes.

Anna leaned on the edge of the sink. “Do you know why I married you, Mikkel?”

He sat back, startled. Anna didn’t usually talk like this. He had wondered, often. Anna could have done better. Married a smart man, a four-year man, even.

“Will you tell me, sweetheart?”

“I married you because you said it didn’t matter. I explained I could never have babies and you still wanted me—”

“Of course I want you.”

“I told you why I was barren. Why I sold my ovaries. Do you remember?”

“Your mother was sick. You needed the money.”

“Yes. But I also said it was easy because I never wanted babies. I never wanted to be a mother.” She leaned forward and gripped his shoulders. “I still don’t. Take her back to the lab.”

Mikkel stood. He kissed the baby’s forehead. Then he put the baby in Anna’s arms.

“Her name is Maria,” he said. “After your mother.”

* * *

Mikkel was tired walking up the street toward the bus stop. But that was father-hood. He would get used to it. Anna would get used to being a mother too. He was sure. All women did.

The thought of his wife and child kept him warm all the way to the Josefstadt streetcar station. Then a four-year man shoved an elbow in his ribs and spat on his coat. Mikkel watched the spittle freeze and turn white. He stood shivering at the edge of the curb, taking care to stay out of everyone’s way.

Mikkel relied on Anna’s kindness, sure she would always do the right thing, the generous thing. She was good to him, good to everyone. For ten years she had taken care of him, cooking, cleaning, making their two rooms into a home. In return he did his best to f ill those two rooms with love. It was all he could do.

As he stood in the wind at the edge of the station, doubts began to creep in with the cold. Why would Anna say she didn’t want to be a mother? It couldn’t be true. They lived surrounded by families—happy, noisy, families—three and four, even five generations all living together. Healthy children, happy mothers, proud fathers. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. Family everywhere, but he and Anna only had each other.

Anna must regret being barren. Some part of her, buried deep, must long for children. But she said she didn’t, and if it was true, then something in her must be broken.

He had seen broken men during his two years in the colonies, men with whole bodies and broken minds, who said crazy things and hurt themselves, hurt others. Anna could never be like them.

But his doubts grew with every step further from home. By the time he could see the lights of the lab glowing through the falling snow, the doubts were clawing at him. He imagined coming home in the morning to find Anna alone, ready to leave for work, pretending Maria had never been there.

He turned back home, but then one of the four-year men shouted at him through the glass doors.

“You’re late, you stupid ass.”

Mikkel watched his lunch pail slide though the x-ray. The guards ran it back and forth through the machine, just to waste time. Mikkel had to run to the time clock. He stamped his card just as it clicked over to eight.

Normally Mikkel loved the rhythm of work, the scrubbing, mopping, wiping. Even cleaning toilets brought its own reward. He knew the drip of every tap, every scratch on the porcelain and crack in the tiles. He took an inventory of them night by night as he cleaned, taking his time, double-checking every corner for dust, scanning every window and mirror for streaks, even getting down on his knees to swab behind the toilets, scrubbing away any hint of mildew from the grout, finding all the little nooks and crannies.

Tonight he rushed through his work, but each room felt like it took twice as long as usual. He kept checking the time, sure he was falling behind. Thinking about Anna dragged on the clock hands. Worrying made him forgetful, too. He left the four-year men’s bathroom with no memory of cleaning it. He had to go back and check just to be sure.

In the tank room he began to feel better. He loved the noise of the tanks—the bubbling pumps and thumping motors. Here he always took his time, no matter what. It was his favorite place in the whole building. He wasn’t supposed to touch the tanks, but he always took a few extra minutes to polish the steel and glass and check the hose seals. He even tightened the bolts that fixed each heavy tank to the floor and ceiling.

The tinted glass was just transparent enough to show the babies floating inside. Mikkel watched them grow night by night. He kept a special rag just for polishing the tanks, a soft chamois that a six-year man had discarded years ago. It was specially made for precious things—the logo of a sports car company had long since worn off. He always polished the glass with long slow caressing strokes, sure the babies could feel his touch.

Two of the tanks were empty. Mikkel polished them too, in their turn, making them perfect for the next baby. Maria’s tank was in the last row on the far side of the room, two from the end. It was refilled but the baby was still too small to see, just a thin filament dangling from the fleshy organ at the top of the tank.

“Your sister says hello,” Mikkel whispered. “Her mama and papa are proud of her. Maria is going to grow up smart and strong.”

The filament twisted and drifted in the fluid. Mikkel watched it for a few minutes, wondering what Anna and Maria were doing at that moment. He imagined them curled up in bed, skin to skin, the baby’s beak tucked under Anna’s chin. He squeezed his eyes tight and held the image in his mind, as if he could make it real just by wanting it so badly. And for a few minutes it did feel real, an illusion supported by the comforting tank room sounds.

But he couldn’t stay there. As he lugged his bins and pails upstairs to the offices, worry began gnawing at him again.

Women abandoned babies all the time. The mothers and grandmothers in the tenement always had a story to tell about some poor baby left out in the cold by a heartless and unnatural mother. Once, when they were first married, Anna told the woman next door that people did desperate things when they had run out of options. That neighbor still wouldn’t speak to her, years later.

What if Anna bundled Maria up and put her on the steps of some six-year man’s house? Or left her at the train station?

He could see Maria now, tucked into their big kitchen pail and covered with a towel. He could see Anna, her face covered by her red scarf, drop the pail on the edge of the Ostbahnhof express platform and walk away.

No. His Anna would never do that. Never. He wouldn’t think about it anymore. He would pay attention to his work.

On the wide oak table in the eight-year man’s office he found four peach pastries, their brandy jam dried to a crust. The bakery box was crushed in the garbage bin. When he was done cleaning the office he re-folded it as best he could and put the pastries back inside. Four was good luck. One for each of the guards. Then he made his way down to the basement.

The incinerator was an iron maw in a brick wall. For years, Mikkel had walked down those concrete steps in the hot red light of its stare to find the sanitary disposal bin bloody but empty, its contents dumped by one of the four-year men who assisted in the labs. Back then, all Mikkel had to do was toss his garbage bags in the incinerator, let them burn down, then switch off the gas, bleach the bin, hose the floor, and mop everything dry.

But now there was a new eight-year man in charge, and Mikkel had to start the incinerator and empty the disposal bin himself.

The light from the overhead bulb was barely bright enough to show the trail of blood snaking from the bin to the drain. Mikkel felt his way to the control panel and began the tricky process of firing up the incinerator. The gas dial was stiff and the pilot light button was loose. He pressed it over and over again, trying to find the right angle on the firing pin. When the incinerator finally blasted to life Mikkel had sweated through his coveralls.

The room lit up with the glow from the incinerator window and he could finally see into the bin. The top layer of bags dripped fluid tinged red and yellow. Most were double-and even triple-bagged, tied with tight knots. But they were torn and leaked. Sharp edges inside the disposal chute hooked and tore on the way down.

Maria had been single-bagged. Her beak had pierced the plastic, ripped it wide enough for her to breathe. And she had landed at the far edge of the bin, mostly upright. If she had been face down or if another bag had fallen on top of her she could have suffocated.

Mikkel wrenched open the incinerator door and began emptying the bin, carefully picking up each wet bag and throwing it far into the furnace. Some bags were tiny, just a few glass dishes and a smear of wax. One bag was filled with glass plates that spilled through a tear and shattered at his feet. The biggest bags held clear fluid that burst across the back wall of the incinerator with a hot blast that smelled like meat. He set the bloodiest bags aside, put them down safe on the pitted concrete floor, away from the glass.

As the bin emptied, a pit began to form in Mikkel’s stomach. He turned away and kicked through the glass, pacing along the far wall where it was a little cooler.

The tank room had two empty tanks. He’d polished them just a few hours ago, but he hadn’t paid much attention. He’d been thinking about Anna and Maria.

He knew those babies, the ones who had been in the empty tanks. One was a little boy with a thick, stocky body covered in fine hair. The other was a tiny girl with four arms that ended in stubby knobs. Where were they now? Had they been sent away to the crèche or put down the chute? If they’d gone down the chute they would be in the bin, waiting for him to throw them into the fire with the blood and tank fluid. With all of the failed experiments.

Mikkel picked up a bloody bag and hefted it by the seal, feeling the contents with his other hand. The fluid sloshed heavily and clung to the sides of the bag like syrup. There were a few solid pieces inside the bag, but nothing big enough to be a baby, not even a tiny one. He threw it into the incinerator and picked up the other bag.

Maria would probably be gone when he got home; he understood that now. The thought made a hollow in his chest, a Maria-shaped hole where he’d cuddled her to his heart. But if Maria was gone, if Anna had taken her to the train station and abandoned her, that only meant Anna needed time. He would give her time. He would be patient, like she always was with him, and gentle too. What was broken in her would heal and she would love their children. She would be a wonderful mother. Maybe not today, but soon.

He would find more babies. Night after night he’d search for them. Maria had survived, so others would survive, too, and he would find them. Find every baby and bring them all home until Anna healed. He would fill their home with love. It was all he could do.

Andy Rogers

The Doom Of Sallee

Originally published by Grantville Gazette

* * *

Grantville

August 1635

“Grantville.”

It was a strange name to Mohamed Amine Radi’s ear, and as outlandish as the stories told of these foreigners. Yet at the moment, Radi struggled more to fathom the order and cleanliness of the mysterious Americans’ incredible city. Even the roads were impossibly smooth, almost as if the entire city was paved with slabs of cut granite.

Beth Van Haarlem, his translator, pulled him from his bemused reverie. “I am sorry, Vizier. What did you say?”

She enunciated her Arabic well despite a heavy Dutch accent, addressing him as she always did by his Diwan honorific. Radi hadn’t realized he’d spoken loud enough for her to hear him.

“This town,” Radi gestured inclusively at the long, straight lines and crisp angles of the streets and buildings. “It is a wonder. I hope it might become a model for Sallee.”

Van Haarlem’s pale blue eyes were more rounded than usual, and her head turned constantly to take in the peculiar sights of Grantville and its people. In that one regard, he supposed that the woman looked much as he did. Yet at his mention of Sallee and the republic he helped govern, her eyes narrowed and she turned her attention away from the oddly dressed people around them.

“Sallee,” she said, “is a port town. She will always turn her face to the sea.”

“Even so. But given time, the Diwan—under the guidance of the Qaid—can create such marvels as these. Finally, we will visit the libraries of Grantville, and you will read for me what the future holds for Sallee.”

“What future do you hope to find here, Vizier?”

She had asked him this. Many times in fact, on the ship north from Sallee and during the trip from Hamburg. Radi didn’t dare tell her that fear drove him to seek the nearly mystical knowledge rumored to live in Grantville. Neither he, nor the other Andalusian viziers, would give voice to those fears, lest word get back to their Moriscos counterparts in the Diwan. To speak openly of fear would reveal weakness, possibly inviting a return to open bloodshed in Sallee.

No, Radi chose to keep that concern to himself. He replied instead with generalities that had grown comfortable as an answer to her recurring question. “If these Americans truly possess a book that contains the future of all countries, I want that I should know the path of Sallee.”

“So that you might rise from the Diwan to rule as Qaid?”

An impertinent question from an employee, and a woman at that. Far more bold than any asked during their travels. She surprised him at the oddest times with small insights into the machinations of the corsair republic. It endeared her to him, but perhaps he indulged her too much.

“The Diwan will endure.” Radi was cross, and he let it show in his voice. “A year has passed with no word of the tyrant Janszoon, nearly two since he set foot in Sallee. His Rovers are the tool of the Diwan now.”

“How quickly you forget that you and your fellow Diwan were also pirates before turning politician.”

She dared to compare him to the barbarous Dutchman, Janszoon. Radi opened his mouth to spit something venomous, when a sputtering roar like a hundred rigging lines snapped in rapid succession sounded from behind him. He spun, pulling a thin and wickedly curved knife from his belt. He had an arm out, moving his translator to safety behind him when a nightmare machine rounded a corner of the strangely smooth streets.

A man sat astride the machine. His arms were brown from the sun, and his legs were bare below the knee. Upon his head, slick and black like the carapace of some enormous beetle, was a helmet. Where Radi expected to see a face was instead an eyeless, mirror-like visor.

Noise from the thing slapped at his ears. It was like cannon fire, but ceaseless with each blast coming more quickly than the last. The machine screamed toward him, and Radi stood transfixed in the center of the road. He stared, unable to pull his eyes away from the faceless rider on the wheeled machine.

Then Radi was moving, pulled from behind and nearly lifted from his feet. He tore his eyes from the man on the thundering machine and stumbled into Van Haarlem. She was a sturdy woman, but even still her strength surprised him. He dropped the knife lest one of them get cut, grabbing hold of her waist to keep them from tumbling to the ground in a heap.

By the time they had righted themselves the machine was gone. A lean woman with close-fitting pants and a man’s work shirt hurried toward them. She was speaking quickly and extended a hand to steady them.

“What is she saying?” Radi asked.

Van Haarlem’s blonde brows drew down in a concentrated furrow as she listened to a torrent of foreign words from the Grantville woman.

“She is speaking in English, but very quickly. She says she has told the boy once. She has told the boy a thousand times. Not to ride,” she hesitated, “the thing so fast in the town.”

Van Haarlem’s blue-eyed gaze drifted downward and his eyes followed their path to where his arm still encircled her waist. He straightened then, quickly pulling away from her. He rubbed his palms against his camir and suddenly it seemed much warmer near the buildings than it had been out in the street.

The Grantville woman stooped to retrieve Radi’s fallen knife. She offered it to him hilt first with a wide, reassuring grin and a series of encouraging nods. Radi returned the weapon to the sheath at his waist and composed himself.

“Thank you, Dame van Haarlem.” She acknowledged his gratitude with a quick nod but did not speak. “Ask this woman if she can lead us to the library. I fear we’ll never find it if left to ourselves.”

While the two women spoke, Radi listened for familiar words. His Dutch was poor and his English was contextually constrained to the taking of slaves and ships. Still, he gathered that the woman’s name was Samantha Collins, and she appeared willing to help them.

“We are in luck,” Van Haarlem said turning back to him. “This is Miss Collins and she can guide us through the city. She knows the books you wish to see.”

Collins escorted them to the library while concern for the fate of Sallee vied with Radi’s examination of the city. Once inside, the Grantville woman led them to a small table burdened with books.

The stacks were under the serious scrutiny of a slight young woman, chewing the tortured end of an equally slender pencil. Miss Collins introduced her as Christine Onofrio, and Radi waited as Van Haarlem proclaimed his name and titles.

“Miss Onofrio is a researcher,” Van Haarlem said. “Miss Collins will show you to a place where we might work at our leisure. I will gather the books and bring them to you, yes?”

He agreed, although it was discomforting that he should now rely so completely on Dame van Haarlem’s support. He wished to thank the Collins woman before dismissing her, but the Grantville women made him uncomfortable with the quickness of their speech.

To misspeak would be an embarrassment and so he took a seat. In a moment, Collins was gone.

It was cool despite the summer heat, and the table where he waited was sturdy and smooth to the touch. The chairs, while precariously lightweight, supported him quite comfortably. He could hear the two women talking softly beyond his sight. He’d never had much need for books, and they stood on shelves with their backs to him.

Radi shifted in his chair, wondering if Janszoon’s son Cornelius might have waited in the very same room. With luck and the blessing of Allah, the boy had not survived his journey to Grantville. His father had been kind enough to disappear at sea; perhaps the boy would follow suit.

The moments stretched long and he wondered what kept the women so deeply engaged in conversation. He was gathering himself to fetch Van Haarlem when she approached and joined him at the table. She was alone and carried several red-bound tomes under a stack of loose papers.

“That woman is a treasure of information.” Her eyes were once again wide with wonder, and they sparkled with something else—anticipation, perhaps, or excitement.

Radi remembered where his hand had rested and the feel of her hip under her kaftan. Perhaps his quest to learn the future of Sallee was infectious, or maybe Dame van Haarlem believed that he might one day soon rule the republic as Qaid.

“This is an encyclopedia.” She set the books on the table, and he rose while she seated herself. The books were embossed in gold with familiar letters in undecipherable arrangements. “They’re actually part of a larger set, and the pages are copies from other books. Where should we begin?”

It was now her excitement that infected him. Radi felt his face stretch in a grin, and together they dove into the story of the Republic of Sallee. Van Haarlem would read silently for long stretches before sharing bits of information with him. He watched over her shoulder, looking at drawings of unknown men and, curiously, maps of Malta and Algiers.

Most Barbary sailors spoke several languages, but it was a curiosity that Van Haarlem, a Dutchwoman so recently arrived to Sallee, could also read in English. He took notes when she spoke and questioned her about her skill with language when she grew too quiet while reading.

“I have a wealthy brother in New Amsterdam,” she said. “I lived with him for a time before coming to Sallee.”

“Why did you not return home?” he asked. “Or stay with your family in the Americas?” Why Sallee, Radi wondered. And would she wish to stay should he rise to rule the republic?

Van Haarlem turned from her reading to consider him. He didn’t know why she hesitated to answer, but she gave the matter a long moment of thought before responding.

“I was in the Americas much longer than I intended to stay,” she said, her eyes returning to the tiny letters in the encyclopedia. “I was there to meet my brother Anthony, but I was looking for my father.”

“To ‘meet’ your brother?” It was curious that she should have a sibling and yet not know him. Perhaps there was a significant age difference between them.

“I was there to see him,” she said quickly. “I am sorry, it is difficult to translate English to Dutch in my head while speaking to you in Arabic.”

Radi imagined that must be true. He quieted himself, allowing her to read. The room smelled dry; he’d have thought that a room full of books should smell thick and musty. Perhaps it was because they were so far from the coast. He poked at one of the red-covered volumes with his finger.

“Did you find him?”

Van Haarlem started, sitting up and away from the book. She looked concerned or even guilty.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I was asking about your father. Did you find him?”

“Oh.” She turned to the book once again. “Not yet. I will, though. I am a patient woman.”

“Did he leave you?”

She answered the question with a wry grin. “Constantly. He is a sailing man.”

Then her grin faded.

“What is it?” He leaned forward to peer at her book, the words as unintelligible as ever. “What have you found?”

“The Republic.” She paused. “I have to consider how best to tell you this. Sallee may outlive you, Vizier, but it will not survive the century.”

Radi’s stomach tightened and he swallowed hard before speaking. “What happens? Do the Moriscos rebel against the Diwan? Does Janszoon return?”

“Janszoon is dead. He was taken near Tunisia and tortured to death by the Knights of Malta at Fort Saint Angelo.”

“What then?”

“I can’t make sense of it,” she said, “Some names and factions sound familiar but—”

It vexed him to need her assistance deciphering the language. However, a woman’s interpretation of the political forces at work in the Republic was both unnecessary and unwelcome.

“Just read it to me,” he snapped.

“The ‘Alawites who rule Morocco came to power with the help of Arab tribes during the Almohad period. The founder of the dynasty, Mawlay ar-Rashid, mobilized these tribes against the powerful Dila’iyya that had dominated northern Morocco since the 1640s.

“Mawlay succeeded in reunifying Morocco with the help of a professional army recruited from the descendants of the many slaves.”

She was quiet for a moment. He felt her eyes on him as what she’d said sank in. He regretted his abrupt and judgmental dismissal. The passage was indeed confusing.

“The Dila’iyya,” he mused aloud. “I wonder. Could it refer to Dila?”

“Neither mean anything to me,” she said. “Do you think they pose a threat to Sallee?”

“Dila is not a who,” he explained, “but a where. It lies south of Fez and through Khenifra. Perhaps my concerns regarding Janszoon’s return are misplaced. Should this Mawlay raise an army capable of subduing the Atlas and north to the sea…”

Internal politicking he could handle. Even the dreaded return of Janszoon might be managed, but the Americans’ books spoke of powers that dominated the whole of North Africa. How would Sallee stand against such forces?

Anger flared, a spike of heat that seared his throat. Radi shoved with both hands, sweeping his notes from the table in front of him. Unsated, he grabbed at the books with clawed fingers ready to tear Sallee’s doom from the pages.

His fingers didn’t reach their mark. Van Haarlem’s hand shot out to stop him. Her fingers were hard on his wrist. He jerked, pulling his hand away from her, and she held him there for a moment before releasing her grip.

Her voice was quiet, pitched low and soft. “I think we should leave this place, Vizier.”

He rubbed at his wrist where she had held him. He swallowed again and then looked around him to see if Christine Onofrio or another resident from this strange city had seen him. Thankfully, they were still alone.

“Wait here a moment while I return the books.” She said it like a question, and he nodded, not meeting her gaze.

He heard her moving around the library and wondered what he would do. Could he rally the Moriscos to support him? Even if all of Sallee and their corsairs along the Barbary Coast rallied against a common enemy, could they fend off an army fated to dominate all of Morocco?

Perhaps better to join the winning side now.

Van Haarlem returned, and he heard her gathering the writing supplies that he’d thrown to the floor. When he felt her presence at his shoulder, he rose and together they left the library. The peculiar city and its foreign townsfolk weren’t the inspiring distraction they had been just a few short hours ago. He’d dreamed of elevating Sallee from the riverbank muck of the Bou Regreg to emulate the pristine wonder of Grantville. Now…now he had to find a way to subvert the republic’s doom.

He was silent when they left the town. Their coachmen, surprised by an early return, were unprepared. Radi left them to Van Haarlem and sat for a time until they boarded to rattle their way back toward Hamburg and a slow ship south to home.

They set camp some hours later at a tributary flowing south to the Rottenbach. Radi did not join Van Haarlem and the men as he normally would.

Their mood was jovial, a general sense of completion and excitement for returning home. It was a mood that did not suit Radi’s thoughts. Though she concealed it when she noticed him watching her, and despite sharing his knowledge of what would befall his beloved republic, Dame van Haarlem seemed to share in the men’s high spirits.

Later, when the camp chores were complete, and the men retired to their tents to share lies or throw dice, she approached him where he sat.

“Walk with me?” As was her way, she said it like a question.

Radi rose, and together they moved away from the camp. She led him to a place where the river bent and followed along the shore until they were well out of sight from the camp.

A large stone was there. Grass grew soft and thick around the base and dark lichen climbed the sides. He watched her gather the fabric of her kaftan and sit upon the stone. After a moment, she patted the empty space beside her. Radi sat. He left a small space between them, hoping it large enough to be proper. His breath was coming faster, and it wasn’t from the walk.

The river was shallow there, churned to white froth by nearly submerged rocks. The water tumbled loud enough that they would need to put their heads together to speak. The men from the camp would not hear them. Should nature call, they would not find them.

Radi sat beside Beth van Haarlem and watched the sky darken while the river played with smooth, round stones. He pulled his gaze down to the woman beside him, her hands resting in her lap. Her fingers trembled, although if the motion was a reaction to the cool evening air or from anticipation or excitement, he could not be sure.

“What will you do?” she asked.

He leaned closer to her to respond and their shoulders touched. “I had thought to wait until morning before announcing my intention, but my mind is set. You may as well know now.

“I will travel to Dila to see for myself if there is a Berber tribe with expansionist designs on the north. I will seek out this Mawlay to attest with my own eyes the foretelling of his conquering army.

“Then, should the Diwan support me, I will ally Sallee with whatever force is stronger. If Sallee may not be free, I would at least spare her from the coming conflict.”

Her pale hands trembled again. He covered one of hers with his own. “You could come with me,” he offered.

“That won’t be possible,” she said.

“You are frightened.”

“No.”

“Why then do you tremble?”

“Because, Mohamed Amine Radi,” she said, and he met her eyes when she said his name. She turned her hand underneath his. Her fingers parted slightly and, with a gentle pressure, he twined his fingers through hers. She curled her fingers around his hand as she continued. “I lied to you in the library.”

“Lied?”

Pulling his mind back from the warmth of her hand, Radi struggled to focus on the republic and the doom she had revealed to him. “Does Sallee not fall to the unification of Morocco?”

“Oh no,” she said, “that was all true. Or at least, it is what I found in the Americans’ books.”

“What then?”

“It was not my brother that I visited in New Amsterdam,” she said.

Radi sighed inwardly. She had taken a lover in the Americas. Now, as they grew close, she felt ashamed. His wish for her was to feel no regret for past passions. He thought to tell her as much, but she continued before he could speak.

Anthony van Sallee is my half-brother. His mother is a Moorish woman from Cartagena.”

Radi loosed his fingers as if her hand would sear the flesh from him. She held him fast. He met her eyes. They shone like the brilliant blue of sea ice in the gathering gloom.

“I think you know which parent Anthony and I share.”

“Janszoon,” he whispered.

“You were not the first to ask the Americans for books about Sallee,” she said. “Another came before you.”

Janszoon’s brat. So Cornelius reached Grantville after all. Van Haarlem must have read in his face that he knew of whom she spoke.

“Word arrived while Cornelius stayed in Grantville. Jan Janszoon is yet alive and in the clutches of the Maltese and their dungeons. And finally I know where my father is.”

“Sallee is free of Janszoon.”

“You and your Diwan did not liberate Sallee from my father’s corsairs,” she said. “You have but been keeping her safe for us.”

He struck her then.

It was an awkward blow, seated as they were and with her holding one hand captive. She hunched, turning into the blow and taking it on her shoulder. He surged back, hoping to catch her off guard and pull free, but her damnable grip was like leather, wrapped wet and left to dry around his hand.

Beth spun toward him. She scissored her legs up and around him despite her kaftan. Together they toppled to the damp grass.

Radi lay on his back atop her with one arm pinned tightly across his chest. He swung his legs, attempting to roll free and saw her heels cross, locking around his waist in a crushing embrace.

“There has always been a Janszoon in Sallee,” she whispered into his ear. He felt her tugging at his belt with her free hand. “Should armies come, they will find Sallee ready.”

“Beth,” Radi struggled to squeeze words from his chest. She was crushing the life from him. “Please…”

“I am Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, and I will see my father freed from those bastard knights in Malta. If I must raze Fort Saint Angelo to its foundation with every corsair on the sea, I swear it will be done.”

Radi felt a sharp pinch in his left side. He pulled in a breath to call for the men in the camp. No sound came when he tried to scream, and he looked down to where her free hand moved at his waist. It took a moment for his mind to piece together what he was seeing.

Only when he realized the blade of his knife was halfway into him did he feel any pain. Then Mohamed Amine Radi felt a firm pressure against his ribs. The blade disappeared from view, and Lysbeth Janszoon twisted the handle.

Brothers In Arms

Originally published by Star Citizen Jump Point Magazine

* * *

The heads-up display on Gavin Rhedd’s Cutlass dimmed at the edges. Green triangles representing the members of his security team distorted to form horizontal spikes of flickering static. He smacked the side of his helmet into the Plexi canopy of his cockpit. It was a practiced move, and one that had snapped the HUD back into focus in the past. This time, the display flickered, faded and then died.

A heavy breath sent a thin veil of vapor climbing the visor of his helmet. Condensation obscured the view of black, empty space ahead.

Empty like the dead heads-up display.

Empty just like it had been for weeks.

There were brigands and marauders plaguing every planet in the ’verse and he couldn’t find one damned gang. Nothing was working out like he’d planned.

On the navsat, the other three members of Rhedd Alert Security fanned out to either side. His brother Walt was locked into position directly to port. Jazza and Boomer were painfully out of position.

Sloppy.

Everyone was getting bored and careless.

Boomer was the first to break radio silence this time.

“Hey, guys?”

“What’s up, Boomer?” Walt was the first to respond.

“I’m cold.”

Jazza didn’t follow orders better than any of the others, and her banter had the comfortable cadence of friendly rivalry. “Then put on a sweater.”

“Hey, Jazz?” Boomer fired back at her.

“Yeah?”

“Take your helmet off for a tick.”

“Why’s that, old man? You want a kiss?”

“Nope. I’m hoping you get sucked out and die when I shoot a hole through your cockpit.”

Gavin sighed into his helmet before triggering his mic. “Come on, gang. I want comms dark. The miners on Oberon hired us to take care of their pirate problem. And the three of you chattering on an open channel won’t help us find them any faster.”

“I’m starting to hate this system,” Walt muttered.

They were all tired and strung out from weeks of long hours and no action. But Walt was killing their morale by giving voice to that frustration. This whole thing—Rhedd Alert Security, abandoning smuggling to go clean, applying for Citizenship—was something they’d agreed to do together. Gavin and Walt. Brothers. Going legit and starting a business.

It seemed a good idea when they were dodging system alerts and dumping a fortune into forged tags. But some things don’t change, and Walt was the same old Walt—all talk and no follow through. It wouldn’t be long before he came up with some excuse to move on to clearer skies.

“What’s wrong, Boomer?”

“Cold, Gavin. Think the heat’s out.”

Wonderful. Something else to fix. Maybe Walt wouldn’t be the first to quit after all. Dell would leave if Gavin let her father freeze to death over this rock.

Jazza barked a laugh, “Yep. That sounds about right for this outfit.”

“Jazza, will you shut up already? Which part are you having trouble with? Comms or dark?”

“Yes sir, Big Boss Man.”

“Gods. I got more respect from you guys when we were criminals. Boomer, by all the Banu gods, why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble before we left the hangar?”

“I, uh…I figured to keep quiet until after the mission. Until we got paid, you know?”

This should have been a quick in and out job. But after weeks of fruitless hunting, even if they eventually drove off the pirates, the job would be a net loss.

“Hey, guys?” Jazza was really starting to get on his nerves. He told her as much. “Shut your hole, Gavin. I just wanted to let you know I found something.”

Gavin quickly studied the navsat console. The area looked empty other than the four of them, so whatever she’d found wasn’t showing up on any of his feeds. He smacked his helmet again in mute hope that the HUD would spring back to life.

“It’s a hull,” Jazza said. “Big one. Looks like a stripped Idris. Looks dead.”

“I’m not seeing you on…crap,” Walt said. “There you are. How’d you get way the hell out there?”

“Easy, folks,” Gavin said. “Boomer? You head toward Jazza. Walt and I will hold position.”

“Copy that.”

An Idris represented a fair chunk of Creds as salvage. Strange that no one had claimed it. They were in Oberon to chase off pirates, but a little scrap job on the side was a welcome bonus.

“Jazza,” Gavin said, “I’ve got nothing near you on sensors. You think it’s just some floating junk?”

“I think so,” she spoke slowly, uncertain. “I thought I saw a heat trace, but I’m not seeing it now. Going in for a closer—Gods!”

“Jazz,” Boomer’s voice was flat. The old man was all business. “Break right, I’ll pull this one off you and lead them back to the boys.”

“Can’t shake him.”

The navsat showed three new ships. A 325a with scrambled tags closed in on Jazza. Walt streaked past, already accelerating toward the fray, and Gavin turned to follow.

“Pull up hard,” Boomer said. “Bring him back around—Damn it.”

“Talk to us, Boomer,” Walt said.

“Jazza took a big hit. These guys are each sporting a Tarantula—the big one.”

“Hold tight,” Gavin said. “We’re nearly there. Walt, my HUD’s out. I need visual to fight, can you engage?”

“On it.”

“Hold on, Boomer. We’re coming.”

Walt was an incandescent streak ahead of him. The nearby space seemed deceptively empty without the visualizations that his HUD instrumentation would normally project. Only Oberon IV, looming angry-red and overly large beneath them, gave him any sense of perspective.

Walt’s voice crackled into the oppressive silence. “Boomer. I’m coming in low at your three o’clock.”

“Copy that.”

“I’m going to strafe with the repeaters to get their attention. You give that 325 a broadside he can’t resist. I’ll shove a missile somewhere the sun don’t shine.”

“Hurry, Walt. I’m too old for a three-on-one.”

“On you in five. Four. Three. Break now!”

Up ahead, razor thin beams of red slashed across space. The lasers streaked straight and then abruptly fanned out as Walt yawed around a pirate ship.

“Boomer!” Walt’s words tumbled out in a rush. “I can’t take a missile shot with you between us.”

“Can’t shake him.”

“Well that Tarantula is going to shake you plenty if you don’t.”

A missile streaked toward one of the pirate ships. Gavin saw a stuttering series of small flashes inside the cockpit, then the 325 vented a blazing ball of burning oxygen and went dark.

Gavin dropped into the swirling tangle of ships and added his own laser fire to the melee. Rippling blossoms of dispersed energy glowed against a pirate’s shields.

“That’s done it,” Walt said, “they’re gonna run.”

He was right. Realizing they were outnumbered, the remaining pirates turned together and accelerated past Jazza’s drifting ship.

And with them would go any hope of a profitable job.

“Pen them in and stitch them up, guys.”

“Screw that,” Walt pulled up, quickly falling behind. “Let them run. They won’t operate here once we steal their hideout. We win, Gav.”

“This job won’t even cover our fuel costs, Walt. We need those ships.”

“I got ’em.” Boomer yawed around to pin the fleeing ships between them.

“Boomer,” Walt cried, “don’t!”

The pirate pair turned nose to nose with Boomer. Their guns sparked twice, muzzles flashing, and Boomer’s Avenger bucked from the impact. Most of the starboard wing spun away in a blaze of erupting oxygen. The pirates flew straight through the floating wreckage and streaked away at full acceleration.

Gavin cursed and slowed. Without his HUD, the fleeing pirates quickly faded from view. “Boomer? Talk to me, buddy.”

Boomer’s Avenger drifted slowly away toward the black. Then it burped, venting air and Boomer’s survival suit out into open space.

A new, flashing red icon reflected up and off the canopy of Gavin’s cockpit. He didn’t have to check the console to know it was Boomer’s recovery beacon.

He let his hands fall away from the controls, closed his eyes and let his head slump backwards. His helmet struck the cockpit frame with an audible clunk. Colored lights sprang up to swim in front of his closed eyes.

Resigned, he cracked one heavy lid to peek out at the intruding light source. His HUD had decided to grace him with a reappearance.

“What. The hell. Was that?” Walt pronounced his words biting precision.

“Tarantula GT-870 Mk3,” Gavin recited in detail.

“I know about the damn guns, Gavin. I mean sending Boomer after them. We won. We had them on the run.”

“These ships don’t repair themselves, Walt. Maybe you haven’t done the math, but we’re broke. We need the salvage.”

“Salvage is nice, but Dell is going to kill you if Boomer is hurt again.”

“I’ll deal with Dell.” Gavin rolled his shoulders and settled his hands back on the controls. “Put a call in to Oberon. Let them know we took care of their pest problem and that we’ll tow away the clever little base the pests were hiding in to block scans. Then get Jazza patched up. Assuming the pirate survived, the two of you can drop him off before towing the salvage home.”

“Got it,” Walt’s voice was caustic, “money first. Good job keeping our priorities straight”

“Damn it, Walt. Will you stow the lip for two minutes so we can pack up and get everyone home.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll get Boomer. Can you please go see if you can get Jazza back up and running?”

“You’re the boss, little brother.”

Gavin pushed his family troubles to the back of his mind. Prioritize. First things first, take care of the crew. Get Boomer home. Repair the ships. Pay down some debt. He rattled off a painfully long list of critical next steps and one item kept rapidly, forcefully climbing its way to the top.

They really needed to get another job.

* * *

Walt beat the others back to the hangar. He matched rotation with Goss System’s Vista Landing and drifted along its length until he reached the Rhedd Alert hangar. He slowed and then stopped at three sets of wide double doors, each painted an alarming shade of red.

Hazard beacons floated in front of the first set of doors. Short bursts from tiny thrusters kept them in place a dozen meters out while a work crew applied high-pressure, ghost-grey paint over stencils of the Rhedd Alert logo.

Walt drew in a proud breath that pressed his chest against the confines of his flight suit. It looked cool having their name up in big letters on the side of the complex.

Then the moment soured.

The hangar and support staff were dead weight around their necks. The painting crew and logo were all part of the lease agreement with the station, but they served as a pointed reminder of the permanence of the commitment. Walt gnawed at his bottom lip, uncomfortable with the weight of the obligation.

He tried to put the sense of buyer’s remorse aside, but it sat heavy and rekindled his anger at Gavin. His brother wanted this company so much. Dell did, too.

Success—legit success—meant they could leave the old routines behind, forever. No more hiding. No more flipping tags every couple weeks to stay ahead of the Advocacy. Starting a company and working toward Citizenship was a big deal, but at what price?

Employing folks and applying for Citizenship was fine, but it started to lose luster in a hurry if success meant getting someone killed. Walt had to make sure Gavin saw that. They were all tired, but this was too important to wait.

“Knock knock, Dell,” Walt said. “Open up.”

D’lilah’s voice came over the comm immediately. She’d been waiting. “Bay 3, Walt. And mind the paint crew.”

“I see ’em. Glad to be home, Dell.”

* * *

Gavin touched down last, and Walt was waiting at the foot of the ladder when his brother slid down to the deck.

“Don’t start with me,” were the first words out of Gavin’s mouth.

“Listen,” Walt said, “Maybe I was out of line to second guess you during a fight, but we need to talk about what happened out there.”

“We won, okay? Right now I need to get Boomer to the med techs, and then contact Barry about another job.”

“Barry got us this job, Gav. I’m not sure if you noticed, but it really didn’t end so well.”

“We got sucker-punched by some thugs. That’s what happens when you get sloppy.”

He was talking about procedures and performance. Two of their ships got shot up, Boomer wounded and Gavin was grumbling about tight flight formations. Walt stretched his fingers, willing them not to form fists. His brother tucked his helmet under one arm and stepped to the side to move around him.

“Damn it, Gavin,” Walt grabbed the shorter man’s shoulder and pressed him back against the ladder. “Would you slow down for two seconds?”

He’d caught Gavin by surprise, but his younger brother was fast. Gavin slapped the hand from his shoulder, threw his helmet to the hangar deck and planted a two-handed shove of his own into Walt’s chest. “What’s your problem, Walt?”

The hangar grew quiet. A quick glance to either side showed the rest of the staff looking very hard for something productive to do, as far from the brothers as possible. Walt leaned in and hissed, “I’m trying to keep you from getting someone hurt. What’s the point of Rhedd Alert if we get everyone killed for one crappy job?”

“One crappy…?” Gavin’s eyes were wide, showing white all around the edges. “You need to wake up, Walt. This was our only job. I got half the ships in the squad with parts falling off. I got Boomer freezing his junk off in nothing more than his flight suit. We can’t jump systems to hijack the next ship that comes along any more. This is what we signed up for, man.”

Walt was getting hot again. He knew he should walk away, but Gavin was still missing his point. “I know what I signed up for.” He knew that they had to make good on jobs, but why die trying just to pay the bill collectors? “And I remember why I signed up, too.”

Gavin stepped in again. Closer. “Oh yeah? And why’s that?”

“You, Gavin.”

“So everything’s my fault? Because I made you join up.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know I screwed up the bid on this job. I should have priced it higher. But guess what? I didn’t. And this is all we had.”

Walt lowered his voice, getting right in Gavin’s face. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. I’m here because you want this.” He jabbed a stiff finger into Gavin’s chest. “You want it for Dell. Because you’re afraid she’ll leave if you can’t pull it off.”

And then Gavin was on him.

They went down hard and Walt’s head cracked against the deck when they landed. Gavin was compact and built like a Sataball defenseman, but Walt had length and leverage. It was a dichotomy they had put to the test a hundred times since they were boys, with nearly uniform results. But Gavin just didn’t know when to give up.

The tussle was short and ugly. In seconds, Walt had one forearm jammed into the back of his brother’s neck, with the other propping himself up off the deck. Gavin’s face was pressed into the cold steel of the hangar floor.

Then the scuffed toe of a black work boot crunched down painfully on Walt’s fingers. His stranglehold on Gavin relaxed, and the smaller man started to squirm free. That was, at least, until the socketed head of a heavy wrench dropped on Gavin’s shoulder, pushing him back down, face first and flat onto the deck.

“Oomph.”

“Now, now, boys,” Dell said. “What are the neighbors gonna think?”

Walt winced, gritting his teeth as she ground his fingers against the steel deck. He craned his neck around to look at her. D’lilah’s boots were cinched tight by pink laces with a white skull-and-crossbones pattern stitched into them. She wore worn, canvas coveralls that hugged strong legs, pockets bulging with tools and spare parts. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung over one shoulder, and she’d dyed the last couple inches a bright, electric blue. The color was new since they’d left for Oberon. It was a playful accent that wasn’t echoed in the angry blue of her eyes.

“Oh. Hey there, Dell.” Walt struggled to keep a pinched note of pain from his voice. “Hello to you, too.”

“Unless the next words out of your mouth tell me where my dad is, you’re going to be working your stick left-handed.”

Gavin answered her. “Ease up, Dell.”

“Who’s got him?”

“I do.” Gavin nodded back toward his ship.

“Well then.” She lifted her foot and Walt yanked his hand back to rub at aching knuckles. He glared at her, as sour a look as he could manage while kneeling on the deck. Her smile feigned a sweetness that did nothing to thaw the frozen fury in her eyes. “I’ll fetch the buggy. If you two are done snuggling, it sounds like my dad has a date with the techs in the med center.”

Dell swung the wrench up to rest over one shoulder, spun on the balls of her feet, and strode away.

Gavin rolled over onto his back with a groan. “That woman is going to kill us one of these days.”

“Think we could outrun her?”

“You, maybe. There’s not a dark enough hole in the ’verse for me to hide.”

“Yeah, well,” Walt pushed himself to his feet with a grunt, “that’s your own damn fault for marrying her.”

* * *

Several systems away, on a station much larger and better appointed than Vista Landing, Morgan Brock scowled at a set of numbers on her mobiGlas. She lifted her eyes, shifting her gaze over the top edge of the screen to stare at Riebeld. The salesman sprawled casually in what Brock knew to be an uncomfortable chair. She made sure that it was uncomfortable, so no one felt confident when sitting opposite her desk.

Riebeld somehow pulled it off, though. It was that braggadocio that made him such a good breadwinner for her company. Irritating, yes. But good for business.

She powered down the mobiGlas. “The net profits on this estimate are based off a twelve percent commission.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I think we both know that your negotiated commission is ten, Riebeld.”

“And I think we also both know that this job could double the size of the company within two years.” He sat forward then and leaned on her desk. “I want twelve if I bring it in.”

“And you think I’m going to just give it to you?”

“I know you will.”

It was her turn to lean forward. It put her too close to him, and he should have backed off. He didn’t. “And why,” she asked, “is that?”

“Because I know that you’re not going to let principle stand in the way of profit.” His toothy grin was bright enough to deflect lasers. She was used to predatory smiles from men, but with men like Riebeld, it only meant there was money on the line. His mobiGlas chirped beside them. Riebeld had an incoming call.

He ignored it.

She waited for the incoming alert to stop.

It did.

“You get twelve,” she said. “But anyone who helps bring it in gets paid out of your cut, not mine. And I want three options for one-year extensions. Not one. Bring it to me with three or I won’t sign it.”

“Done.”

“Fine. Now get out.”

He did and Brock leaned back in her chair. She was going to need more ships. Riebeld would get the extensions or he wouldn’t. They gave him something to work toward, and he’d get sloppy if he didn’t have a challenge.

Good sales guys were like racehorses, high maintenance and temperamental. Most days, they were nothing more than a pain in the ass. Come race day, though—you always wanted one in your stable.

There was a quick knock on her door. Riebeld didn’t wait for her to answer before he shoved his head in.

“I won’t budge on the options, Riebeld. I want three or no deal.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not that. Navy SysCom just put our Tyrol contract up for rebid.”

“What?”

“Yeah. We’re allowed to rebid, but they’re putting it out for open competition.”

“Why the hell would they do that?” Escorting UEE scientists to the research facilities in Tyrol wasn’t their biggest job, but she’d put a lot of work into it. They’d spent years clearing the shipping lanes in the Min and Charon Systems—lucrative years, admittedly—and now the missions were pure profit and promised future growth.

“I don’t have the full story yet, but apparently they are trying to push low-risk contract work out to local companies. Some brainiac in accounting identified the Tyrol run as a candidate and boom, Major Greely pulled the contract.”

“See what you can find out,” she said. “And get to work on the rebid.”

“Already got it covered.”

“And Riebeld?”

“Yeah?”

“Find me the name of that accountant.”

* * *

It was late when Gavin left the station. By way of apology, he invited Walt to join him on the short trip to Cassel to meet with Barry Lidst. Whether Walt came along as reconciliation or simply to avoid another run-in with Dell was unclear. Regardless, he didn’t seem inclined to talk about the argument as they flew, and Gavin saw no reason to bring it up.

Barry, a Navy SysCom accountant by trade and freelance rainmaker by inclination, had grown up with the brothers. He had left Goss to join the Navy while the Rhedd boys stayed to work the smuggling routes with Boomer and their father before he passed.

Officially, Barry was responsible for negotiating contracts between the UEE Navy and private vendors, but he also managed to broker a few off-the-record jobs on the side. He was, if anything, an opportunist, and Gavin trusted him about as much as he trusted any of the shady characters they’d worked with in the past. Which is to say, not at all.

The fact that Barry was involved with Dell before leaving to join the Navy didn’t factor into his opinion at all. Nope, not in the slightest. Still, Barry had come through with their first legitimate job. With luck, he’d have more.

Gavin swallowed hard, focusing on the fact that they needed work. Walt kept quiet. By the time Cassel swelled, massive, blue and inviting against the gold and turquoise bands of the Olympus Pool, Gavin could feel his brows drawing down into a scowl.

The brothers landed and made their way to a club that catered to the resort world’s local crowd. It was busy, of course, but Barry was waiting and had managed to find an open table.

“I was beginning to think you two bought it in Oberon.” Barry’s naval uniform was cut from some shiny material that was either freshly pressed or engineered to be wrinkle-free. It looked tragically uncomfortable, but did a reasonable job of hiding a rounded gut.

“Oberon took a bit longer than we thought,” Gavin forced a smile, “but we got them.”

“Everything go okay?”

“Absolutely.” he injected confidence into his words and hoped it sounded genuine. Walt looked at him sharply, but Gavin ignored him. They had to appear capable or better jobs were going to be in short supply. “Pirates are not a problem.”

Barry motioned them to sit and his voice took on a somber note. “Word is that Dell’s dad got busted up. He okay?”

“By all the Banu gods, Barry,” Walt said. “How’d you even hear about that?”

“I’m the government. We’ve got our eyes and ears everywhere.” Gavin stared at him and raised an eyebrow, waiting. “Yeah. Well,” Barry shrugged and took a sip of his drink, “those miners on Oberon might have mentioned something.”

“Boomer’s fine. Our ships took more of a beating than he did,” Gavin turned the subject away from his team getting shot up on the job. “I was surprised to hear you were in Goss System.”

“Mom retired here on Cassel,” Barry cast a sour glare around the room when he said it. “I’m just here visiting. Can’t stand it with all the tourist traffic, but she loves the shows and exhibits and stuff. Anyway, I’m glad you guys were able to help out in Oberon.”

“Happy to.”

“Stuff like this comes up from time to time,” Barry said. “It’s not like we don’t want to take care of it ourselves or anything. We do. But the Navy can’t send troops after every brigand and thug in the ’verse, you know? There’s competing deployments, equipment requisitions, system politics…forget about it. So, yeah. No one minds if we feed these jobs to indies like you guys.”

“Well,” Gavin said, “we’re light on work right now. Got anything for us?”

“I might have something—not UEE work, but still a decent job. And I know the client will be happy with your rates.”

Gavin’s heart sank a bit, but maybe they could increase their price without chasing Barry away. He encouraged the accountant to keep talking.

“The job is close, just a couple hops away. It’s hard work, but I can hook you up if you’re interested.”

“What’s the job?” Walt asked.

“You ever heard of molybdenum?” Gavin’s face must have looked as blank as Walt’s. “No? It’s a rare metal used in electronics and stuff. You find it near copper deposits. You know what? Doesn’t matter. A friend of mine knows a guy who just got his hands on the mining rights to a moon.”

“Mining,” Walt muttered. “Why is it always mining?”

“I guess the whole moon is riddled with tunnels and caverns. Apparently there used to be a bunch of copper there, but now all that stuff is gone. The only thing left is the molybdenum. This guy, he’s got three weeks to start producing or he loses his lease to the next prospector in line.”

“Barry,” Gavin said, “if you’re looking for a team to wear hardhats and swing pickaxes, you’ve got the wrong guys.”

“Naw, it’s nothing like that. They’re empty now, but someone set the caves up as a fortified base. Smugglers, probably. They put auto-targeting turrets in there. My guy told me they’re all over the place. Around every corner. Anyway, it’s all Banu tech. A group of them must have hopped over from Bacchus.”

“So what’s the job?”

“They need someone to comb through the whole thing and take out the turrets. They can’t send mining equipment and operators in there until it’s clear. Those guys don’t have shields.”

“That’s it?” Gavin asked.

“Yup. That’s it.”

Walt watched Barry across the table with a bemused tilt to one eyebrow. “That’s the most boring job I’ve ever heard of.”

“Hey,” Barry said, “if you want something with a little higher chance of combat, I’ve got a UEE escort contract up for bid. We were getting absolutely fleeced by the incumbent contractor. I finally convinced the major to rebid the job.”

Now that sounded exactly like the job Rhedd Alert needed.

“Tell me more about that,” Gavin said. “About the escort job, I mean.”

“I, uh…listen,” Barry said. “I wasn’t really serious about that. No offense, but that is an armed escort through some pretty rough systems.”

This was it. The chance they needed. “Our guys can do it,” Gavin said.

“It’s a small job now, but it’s scheduled to mature into something big. I don’t even know if you have enough ships to meet the contract requirements.”

“Give us a shot. If we perform, I’ll find the extra ships and pilots.”

“The outfits that sign on for gigs like this are generally ex-military. Highly trained. Lots of contacts in Navy SysCom. Most of the contractors we use are actually based right next to the Navy in Kilian System. I was joking, guys. Forget I mentioned it.”

“No, we can do this. What’s the run? How many—”

“Gav,” Walt interrupted, “we’re talking naval flight formations and tactics. Superior weapons systems. Maybe we should get more info on the turret thing in the mulberry mine.”

“Molybdenum.”

“Whatever.”

“Come on, Walt. This sounds perfect for us. And I’d put you or Jazza up against an ex-Navy pilot in a heartbeat. Any system, any time.”

“Fellas…hey, listen,” Barry said. “The UEE is trying to push local work to local contractors. The big defense companies are fighting it. If you feel like sticking your hand in the middle of that fire, I’ll forward you the RFP. Good enough? In the meantime…about my buddy with the moon mine?”

Gavin half-heartedly followed along while Walt and Barry discussed the turret job, but in his mind they were already escorting UEE ships through hostile space. Walt startled him out of his reverie when he hushed a surprised Barry into silence.

“Wait,” Walt said, “back up a second. These Banu weapon systems. Did you say this stuff came out of Bacchus?”

“Probably. Why?”

“This moon…Barry, where is it?”

“Oberon VI, why?”

Gavin’s heart sank again. A glance at Walt did nothing to reassure him. His brother’s smile looked fantastically strained.

“Ah, come on,” Barry said. “You’ve already done good work for these guys.”

“They’ll kill us,” Walt said.

“Naw,” Barry waved at them dismissively, “They love Rhedd Alert.”

“No,” Walt said, “not the miners.”

“Who?” Barry looked concerned now. “Who’ll kill you?”

Gavin answered. “Our team is going to kill us if we drag them back to Oberon.”

“Hey,” Barry relaxed, “it’s a small ’verse. You’re going to end up passing through there sooner or later. Might as well get paid for it. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Walt said, “but Oberon?”

“I did mention it pays, didn’t I?” Barry keyed something up on his mobiGlas. He turned it so they could read the projected display. At the bottom was a number. A not-insignificant number. Gavin stared at his hands as Walt absorbed the figures.

Walt’s head made an audible clunk when it struck the table. He groaned something muffled and to the effect of, “I can’t believe we’re going back to Oberon.”

* * *

Gavin left Walt on Cassel. There was a time, back in his single days, when an extended stay on a resort world was the perfect sequel to a crappy job. Now he had a better offer waiting at home and two bottles of chilled Arcesean Red riding shotgun in the cockpit beside him. The better offer, of course, was Dell. The wine was his best hope to reboot his homecoming from Oberon.

It wasn’t exactly the grand entrance he’d planned on making. He felt his cheeks warm and was glad to be alone. With a sigh, he squeezed his eyes shut and let his head fall back into his seat. His helmet bumped against the cockpit frame. When he opened his eyes again, the HUD had died. He rolled his head to eye the waiting bottles of wine. Perhaps he needed the alcohol more than she did.

Rhedd Alert’s hangar was still. The lights were dialed down to a dull, sapphire glow. But while the hangar was quiet, Vista Landing never slowed down. Traffic came and went according to the schedules of a dozen mining companies on Goss I and the timetables of the neighboring systems. The sounds of the complex were a pressure all around him; a constant hum of life that seemed intrusive after a long stint flying solo.

Gavin shed his flight suit and then grabbed the helmet and bottles of wine. The helmet got dumped unceremoniously onto a workbench. The wine went with him to their apartment. It was dark inside—he was too late. Dell was already asleep.

He leaned back against the door while his eyes adjusted to the courtesy lighting in the bedroom. Dell lay on her side with her back to him. Her hair was a dark fan against pale pillows and sheets. There was no trace of the playful blue-dyed tips in the low light. He looked instead to the curve of her hip and the long line of her covered legs.

He left the bottles on a table. They would warm there and need to be cooled again before they could be enjoyed, but he didn’t want to risk waking her with light from the fridge. He stripped his shirt off on the way to the little closet. She’d left it open, and piles of clothes made odd shapes in the low light.

They smelled like her. He’d forgotten how much he loved that. He leaned forward, his head slipping between her hanging shirts and jackets. They didn’t have much, but this was home. They were settled, with no desire for any more living out of cockpits and dirty cargo bays. But if he couldn’t make this work, that’s exactly what they would be back to.

Gavin stooped and picked up the discarded shirt. There was work to do. Things to fix.

He closed the door as quietly as he could when he left.

He was at a workbench in the hangar when the light pad of Dell’s bare feet on the cold hangar deck sounded behind him.

“Hey, Slugger.” Her voice was playful, teasing him about the scrap with Walt. The taunting tone was good news, in a way. It meant that she wasn’t quite so angry. Regardless, he was still embarrassed about the fight and didn’t rise to her bait.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said instead.

She rubbed her hand across his shoulders, bumped him aside with her hip and then took a seat next to him on the bench when he moved. “I was asleep, but it sounded like a herd of terradons came tromping through the apartment.”

He felt better hearing the smile in her voice. “Huh…I guess I’m glad I missed that.”

“What are you working on?”

Gavin started running through his list, wondering where to start. He gave up somewhere north of fifteen and simply replied, “Everything.”

“Did we get paid?” He nodded and her look of relief was frustrating. Depending on Dell’s ex-boyfriend for financial salvation wasn’t exactly how he’d envisioned his role as a business owner.

“How’s Boomer?” he asked.

“He can’t keep doing this. They patched him up, but he’s been banged around way too much.”

It was true. Dell’s dad had been put back together more than any other pilot Gavin had ever met. Maybe a few military pilots had had more rejuvenation treatment, but their facilities had to be far better than anything civies like Boomer had access too.

“You’ve got to get him to take it easy, Gav. Let him fly support in the Freelancer or something.”

“Let him fly support? This is your dad we’re talking about. He’s at least half as stubborn as you are. And you know how he flies. He’s cool as gunmetal in a dogfight, but he flies like a crazy…flying…kind of…person.”

“Will you at least try? Please?”

There was no way Boomer was going to listen to him, but Gavin agreed. It wasn’t worth fighting with Dell about it. They’d been over that ground before. Plenty of times.

He prodded at the wiring harness of his helmet.

“The heads-up out again?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Here, let me do it.” She pulled the tools closer and set to work. “So…Walt stayed to drink his paycheck away with Barry?”

“Walt worked as hard as anyone in Oberon. Harder than most, actually. He can do what he wants with his cut.”

“While we’re dumping all of ours into repairs and supplies?”

“I brought you some wine,” he offered.

“I saw that.” She snuggled into his side and slid her arm around his waist. “Mmmmm…thank you.” A peck on his cheek. “I put it in the fridge.”

“You should have brought a bottle with you.”

She unwound herself from him and went back to work on the helmet. “It might work out better for you if we save that for a night when I’m not exhausted.”

That killed the mood. Gavin shifted the tools around on the bench. Dell must have sensed his change of mood. She sat up straight, her tone growing somber. “I’ve been doing some math,” she said.

“How bad is it?”

“Not good.”

He hoped that the grimace he made was reassuring. It probably wasn’t.

“Selling the salvage will keep us out of the red for a couple months,” she said. “Good job on that, by the way. I don’t know about the Idris, but that 325a is actually quite sellable. Unless you want to keep it, that is.”

Gavin thought about it. “Sell it,” he said. “We can’t afford to upgrade any of our people, and I’m not bringing on any more pilots until we land some steady work.”

“On that topic, did Barry have something new for us, or did he come to Goss System just to carouse with your brother?”

He told her about the turret job and she brightened.

“This is good, Gav. You think this could turn into a steady stream of work?”

“Maybe, but we’ve got a team of combat pilots, babe. They’re not going to stick around for this kind of work.”

“Then screw them. Let them leave, and I’ll fly with you.”

“You fly worse than your dad. Besides, you wanted to be here to run the shop.”

“I’m here because I want this to work.” She put her tools down and entwined her fingers with his. “Believe me, I’d much rather be flying with you and Dad.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t want you out there. Bringing Boomer back in stasis is one thing, but you…”

She extracted her fingers and patted his hand, pulling away. “That’s an idea you’re going to have to get used to. Dad won’t be flying that old Avenger forever. Eventually, she’ll be mine. But right now,” she leaned in and gave him a quick kiss, “I’m going to bed.”

Dell stood, pressed his helmet’s wire housing into place with a click and left.

Gavin picked up the helmet and peeked inside. The glow from the reticle display shown within. She’d got it working again.

They had a good thing going, he and Dell. But chronic, nagging financial worry would eventually tear that apart. He just needed work that paid and that his pilots would stay for. Work that would keep Walt from chasing something shiny, interesting and new. What he needed was that Tyrol escort job.

Gavin pushed the helmet and tools aside on the bench. He keyed up the console and placed a call to Barry’s mobiGlas. The accountant accepted the call.

“Talk to me, sweetheart.”

“Barry. Good, you’re still in-system.”

“Just about to leave Cassel, why?”

“What would a bid need to look like for someone to be competitive on that Tyrol contract?”

“Gavin,” Barry’s voice grew serious. “You’re new to this, but you have to know that I can’t give out that kind of information.”

Gavin’s mobiGlas vibrated against his wrist with an incoming message.

“I’m sorry, Barry. I wasn’t trying to cause troub—”

Barry cut him off. “Now, what I can do is point you toward the proper registration and submission forms. How you manage the pricing is your concern. Understand?”

On Gavin’s mobiGlas was a message from an unknown contact. The message was simple, containing only a Credit sign and a number.

A big number.

Yes!

“Thanks, Barry. I appreciate it and understand completely.”

* * *

It took four days to clear just two turrets from the mouth of the first cave. Walt took out the first within seconds of arriving. He did it with what he swore was a purposeful and carefully aimed shot.

The second turret pulverized Jazza’s Cutlass, and they had to tow the wreckage back to Vista Landing for repairs. Jazza herself went home in stasis. She took hits to a shoulder and both of her legs before survival protocols triggered her flight suit and ejected her. Unfortunately, the system didn’t account for proximity to the cavern walls.

Jazza did not rejoin them for the moon mine job.

On the fourth day—running low on patience, ammo and foul language—they finally came up with a solution. It was ugly. It was dangerous. But as they worked deeper into the moon, it was the only thing they found that worked.

“All right, Boomer,” Gavin said, “hold behind that outcropping.”

Boomer’s Avenger crept to a halt beside him. Deep inside the warren of caverns, the moon’s rotation was enough to give them a sense of up and down. Still, holding a relative position inside a small spinning moon was not as easy as one might think. Stabilizing thrusters fired continuously in short, irregular bursts.

Gavin checked his orientation and distance from the walls. He was in place. The tag team system they’d come up with had been working pretty well, using one ship to draw fire while a second swept in to blast each turret. It was tedious and sphincter-tightening work, but the moon was nearly cleared. Only a small handful of tricky defenses remained intact.

“Okay,” Gavin settled his hands on his flight controls. “On my mark.”

He left the mic open and triggered a timer on his navsat. He watched Boomer’s ship ease slowly into the turret’s line of sight to the steady countdown of the timer. Right on cue, Gavin hammered his thrusters and sped into the cave, just as the first blast from the turret struck Boomer’s shields.

Gavin yawed to the left, swinging the nose of his ship until he could see both the turret and Boomer’s ship. The old man’s Avenger bucked under the constant fire. The shields held, but the blast forced the Avenger back out into the tunnel before Gavin could take a shot.

Gavin fired, and the turret’s twin barrels swiveled with such impeccable precision and speed that they looked like identical empty dots. “Oh, sh—” the barrels erupted in a fusillade of crimson light.

Gavin fired again and had no clue if he was anywhere near the mark. The turret’s aim was flawless, however. There was an odd pulling sensation when the cabin lost pressure and his suit pressurized, squeezing around his limbs and chest.

Another barrage hammered into him and he felt the Cutlass crunch ass-backward into the wall of the cavern. The ship rolled, nose pitching wildly to one side. Gavin saw an open blackness of empty space yawn into view. He punched it, hoping he was heading back out into the tunnel and not to his death inside the smugglers’ cave.

Relieved, he saw Boomer’s Avenger flash by beneath him. But dread gripped him again when the walls of the narrow tunnel loomed to fill his entire view. He reversed thrust, hunched tight around the controls and braced for impact.

It was bad.

He hit hard, and the impact sent him careening down the cavern. He tumbled over and over, willing his ship to hold together. When he finally forced himself to release the flight controls, the ship righted itself.

“Holy hells,” Boomer breathed. “Gav? You alive, buddy?”

His chest heaved like he’d been running. “I seem to recall some idiot bitching about this job being boring.”

Walt, exploring a tunnel in another part of the moon, answered, “That sounds like it was directed at me. You two okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I just got blown up!”

“Simmer down, son,” Boomer said. “I’ve been blown up plenty of times. That was nothin’. I, uh…I don’t think you’re taking another crack at that turret until we get your ship patched up, though.”

“Oh, really? Ya think?” Gavin’s comms flashed on an incoming line. “Hold on, guys. Call coming in.”

Boomer laughed, saying, “They probably heard us planetside and want us to keep the noise down.”

“Very funny. Actually, it’s Dell. Now shut it.” Gavin accepted the incoming line.

“Gav?” He couldn’t tell if Dell sounded scared or angry, maybe both. “We got a problem, babe. Jazza’s out of here. Says she’s taking a ship unless she gets her cut of the turret job before she goes.”

“What? What do you mean ‘out of here’?”

“She’s leaving,” Dell said. “Leaving the company, I mean.”

Walt cut in on the squad channel. “Hey Gav, I’m all finished in here. You want me to come take a look at tha—”

Gavin juggled channels. “Hold on, Walt.” He squinched his eyes closed, sore, frustrated and confused. “Dell. Where’s Jazz going? You mean she’s quitting?”

Boomer kept the chatter going on the squad channel. “Sounds like he’s getting an earful, Walt. Glad she didn’t call me.”

“Tell her Gavin just got blown up.”

“That would improve her day significantly.”

They both laughed.

Gavin spread his hands in an open-armed shrug for no one’s benefit but his own. “Would you please shut the hell up?”

They did. Dell did not. “What did you just say to me?!”

“Not you, babe. Walt and…you know what? Never mind all that. Just tell me again, what’s going on with Jazz?”

His mobiGlas vibrated. Gavin swore silently and balled his fists to keep from shooting something. From within his pressure suit, it was difficult to activate the mobiGlas. He managed it while Dell filled him in on Jazza’s desertion. She was going to look for work with one of the smuggling outfits hidden in the Olympus Pool. Paying work. Blah. Blah. Deserter.

Gavin finally powered on his mobiGlas display. There was a message from a contact marked “unknown,” but Gavin knew exactly who it was from.

“Dell.”

“I tried to talk her out of it, Gav,” Dell sounded close to tears. “I really did.”

“Dell, listen to me.”

“What?”

“Get Jazza back. All right? Do whatever it takes.”

“I’ll try, Gav, but…”

“Whatever it takes, okay? We’re going to need her. We’re going to need everyone and then some.”

“What’s going on, Gavin?”

He keyed his mic to transmit on both channels, “Everybody, listen up. They only got two bids on the Navy contract. We’re the low bid.”

“Is low bad?” Boomer asked.

“Dell,” Gavin said, “have Jazza join us in Oberon. We’re working ’round the clock until we’ve cleared the last few turrets.”

Gavin sat in his damaged Cutlass, cheeks stretched in an unfamiliar grin.

“Guys,” he said, “we just won the Navy job.”

* * *

“Go on in, Miss Brock.” A lieutenant held the door open for her. “Major Greely and his guest are already inside.”

The major’s guest. How wonderful. Morgan Brock smoothed the front of her pleated skirt and then swept through the doorway into Greely’s conference room. The major and his “guest” stood near the head of the table. Greely was looking more Marine than Navy in his shirt sleeves. The man had arms as thick as most men’s legs.

“Brock. Good of you to come personally. Let me introduce you to Gavin Rhedd, one of the co-owners of Rhedd Alert Security.”

Rhedd was younger than she’d guessed, a handsome man with a sturdy frame. He’d made the curious decision to wear a weathered, civilian flight suit to the meeting. Perhaps he needed to convince everyone that he was, in fact, a pilot. Still, the rig fit him well. He looked uncomfortable but not self-conscious standing beside the granite slab that was Major Greely.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Brock.”

She refused his extended hand and put an end to the pleasantries.

“So you’re the cherry that low-balled my contract.” She made it obvious that it wasn’t a question. “Let me be entirely clear. The termination clause stipulates that I participate in a transition meeting. Let’s not pretend that I’m pleased by the opportunity.”

“Well okay, then,” Greely said. “I suppose that will do by way of introductions. Let’s get started, shall we?” He took a seat at the head of the table and motioned for each of them to sit. “Now, the award and protest periods are over.”

“There will be an appeal filed,” she said.

“I don’t doubt that, Morgan. But my office and Navy SysCom have every reason to believe that the award will be upheld.”

“I’ve invested two years cleaning up the run through Min and Charon,” she said. “And we both know the workload is scheduled to increase dramatically. I’m not handing that over without a fight.”

She stopped when Greely held a hand up, “The UEE wants us to find ways to enfranchise independents in those systems. You want to argue that point, do it with the politicians. But right now, I need a mission brief, and I think we’d all appreciate this meeting moving along quickly.”

Brock let the major win the point. If nothing else, she knew when to pick her battles. There was nothing to be gained from antagonizing him. There were more profitable targets for her ire. Content with the cool tenor of the meeting, she turned her attention to Gavin Rhedd.

“Yes, well,” the young man cleared his throat. His forehead glistened where it met his close-cropped hair. “I’ve read through the, uh…the After Action Reports.” Rhedd swiped through several projections on an old clunker of a mobiGlas. “Every ten days we escort a new shift rotation to the Haven research facility on Tyrol V. But what can you tell me about the security requirements for the staff transfer between the transport ships and Haven?”

The kid didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. Maybe her Tyrol contract wasn’t quite the lost cause Major Greely made it out to be. Brock’s smile felt genuine as she started describing the ship-to-settlement transfer process.

This job was going to eat Rhedd Alert Security alive.

* * *

Min System was dark. In Goss, the jump points flowed with shimmering cascades of color. They boiled the Olympus Pool’s bands of gold, amber and blood-orange in a dazzling display of celestial mystery. Min, on the other hand, was entirely different, and Gavin wondered how many ships and lives Min’s jump gates had claimed before they were successfully charted.

The approach was well marked now. Nav beacons lit a ten-kilometer channel leading six Rhedd Alert escorts and their charge, a Constellation Aquila with UEE designations, to the jump gate. The automated beacons broadcast a steady stream of navsat and transit status data in addition to lighting the visual entry vector.

The gate itself loomed large. It was an empty disc, invisible if not for the faint light from the beacons. That light bent, distorting into the maw of interspace that, if entered correctly, would disgorge them out into the Charon System. Stumbling onto an unknown jump point had to be a terrifying experience. He’d seen images of dark gates, like the ones in Min, when the beacons were offline. Even knowing what to look for in those images, it was difficult to distinguish the subtle smudge that represented a portal through time and space.

“Gate Authority Min,” Gavin read from a scripted authorization request, “this is Rhedd Alert Security, performing in compliance with Naval Systems Command regulations, approaching VFR and in support of UEE research vessel Cassiopeia. Request clearance for transit from Min to Charon and confirmation of the approach.”

They didn’t need the call and response to make the jump to Charon, but their contract required record of specific communications at all jump gates, as well as of the UEE staff transfers at each end of the run.

The gods only knew how many times he and Walt had hopped systems unannounced. In reflection, it probably should have felt strange entering a jump gate with legal tags and without local law breathing down his neck. But times change, and if Gavin got his way, they were changing for the better.

He received the expected challenge and responded with ship IDs that matched the tags for each member of the convoy. Gavin had stumbled over the formal exchanges on the first few missions. No one had complained, but he felt better now that he had a degree of comfort with the cadence and timing of the exchange. Hopefully, that degree of comfort inspired confidence in his new pilots and the UEE scientists aboard the Cassiopeia.

They got their clearance and Gavin sent the order to enter the jump gate. He took point with Jazza, each of them in place along either side of the Aquila. They slid into the gate with a familiar falling sensation. The cockpit seemed to stretch, elongating out and away from him in a rush of sound and color. It felt like someone had set a hook in his insides and pulled, stretching his gut tighter and tighter. Then something snapped and he was reacquainted with the increasingly familiar constellations of Charon space.

“Gate Authority Charon,” he said, “this is Rhedd Alert—”

“Gavin,” Jazza’s voice was crisp. He was already checking his navsat displays when she continued, “We’ve got three ships inbound. Three hundred kilometers. Make that two-fifty! Gods, they’re moving fast.”

“Jazz, take Mei and Rahul to see what our new friends want. Walt, you and Boomer play goalie. If these guys take a run at the Cassiopeia, make them reconsider.”

A chorus of “copy that” erupted on comms and Gavin switched channels to address the UEE crew aboard the transport. “Cassiopeia, this is Red One. Accelerate in line with my mark and do not deviate from course.”

“Contact,” Jazza sounded calm, clinical. “They’ve got three F7 Hornets in a variety of configurations. They’re beat to hell with patchwork armor, but coming in fast.”

“They have any markings or insignia? What are their tags?”

“Nothing I can see through the mismatch of weapons and scrap parts.”

“Look out, they’re firing!” Mei said. “Holy hells, these guys are quick.”

“Gav,” Walt asked, “do we run?”

The After Action Reports from Brock showed a steady decrease in aggressive actions over time. Letting a new pirate outfit establish a foothold at one of their critical jump points seemed like a very bad idea.

“We fight,” he said. “We can’t afford to retake this ground every two weeks if we run scared now.”

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Jazza said. “It’s three-on-three over here, and it seems these guys like to play with their food.”

“Walt,” Gavin said. “Take point. If they have friends, I don’t want to get herded into a trap.”

“Copy that.”

“All right, Jazz. I’m on my way to you.” Gavin pulled up hard, inverted over the Cassiopeia and accelerated toward the jumble of fighters.

Gavin had survived dozens of scraps before starting Rhedd Alert, but always as the aggressor. Being on the defensive was something new. It seemed strange that these crazy bastards were hitting six armed escorts.

“Jazza,” he was a couple hundred clicks out and had a good look at the scrum, “I’m coming up underneath you. Time to make this an unfair fight.”

“These guys are good, Gavin.” She grunted and her Cutlass rolled in a loose corkscrew, putting her behind one of the marauders. She fired and its shields blazed. It pitched, nose down and thrusters reversing, to push up and above Jazza’s ship. The other two marauders swung into position on either side, and the three of them slashed toward Gavin like a knife blade.

He rolled to his port side and tried to accelerate around them. At least they couldn’t all fire on him at once that way. Rahul strafed overhead, pouring fire into one of the Hornets, but the marauders held their formation.

“Jazza, form up on me. Let’s split these bastards up.”

“Got it.”

They met and swept around to rush the trio of mismatched Hornets. The marauders found Mei before he and Jazza were in firing range.

“Ah, hell…”

A barrage of precise bursts from wing-mounted laser cannons tore into Mei’s ship. It ripped entire sections from the hull, and escaping oxygen belched out in a roiling ball of flame.

“Damn it!” Gavin couldn’t see if Mei got out. He and Jazza blasted their way through the marauders’ formation. The Hornets scattered and reformed again behind them. “We’ve got a man down. Walt, we might need your help over here.”

“That’s what you get for staying to fight, Gav. We should have made a run for it.”

“We can talk about ‘shoulda’ later,” he said. “Get back here and…wait. Belay that.”

“They’re running,” Jazza sounded bemused. “Feels like they had us on the ropes, but they’re bugging out.”

Gavin watched thruster trails from the retreating ships. In moments, they winked out of Charon space.

“Cassiopeia is secure,” Walt said. “Are you guys clear?”

Jazza didn’t exactly answer him. “Now what do you think that was all about?”

Gavin’s HUD looked clear. Relieved, he found Mei’s PRB. Everyone was alive and they appeared to be alone on the Charon side of the gate. Walt and the Cassiopeia were nearing the extreme range of his display.

“Walt, hold where you are. Stay sharp and sweep ahead. I can’t for the life of me figure out why they attacked three-on-six.”

“Maybe,” Jazza said, “they knew they’d kick our ass.”

“Or maybe this was a feint,” Gavin said. “Let’s not get caught with our pants down if there are more of them out here. Jazz, you and Rahul watch my back while I get Mei. We’re taking the first shots if they come back through.”

There was a general clamor of agreement. Gavin was beginning to suspect that military comm-chatter was much more sparse and far less democratic than Rhedd Alert’s constant banter. Still, aside from Walt second-guessing his every move, Gavin was proud of the team.

“I wonder if they’re waiting on the other side?” Jazza asked.

Walt was quick to respond. “We are not going through that gate to check.”

“Relax, Walt,” Gavin said. “A win is a win. And good riddance.”

At this point, Walt’s objection wasn’t a surprise. “Lucky win, you mean. In a fight we didn’t need to have.”

Gavin ignored him.

Though she was unconscious, the biometrics in Mei’s suit reported only minor damage. Her ship, on the other hand, was another story completely. Gavin started running some mental math, tallying the costs of parts, labor and med tech fees. The results were cringe-worthy.

The attack would make this mission a financial loss, but the contract was still the leg-up Rhedd Alert needed. And the attack was probably an aberration, Gavin reflected, reminding himself that Brock’s After Action Reports showed a steady decrease in hostilities over the past several years.

Unfortunately, they were about to find out just how little those reports meant.

* * *

Rhedd Alert got hit two more times over the next several escort missions between Min and Charon. The first was an overly zealous and unfortunately solo pirate who had camped himself just outside the jump gate from Min. The memory of the Hornet attack was still fresh and had Gavin and the team on edge.

The hapless pirate attacked as soon as the first Rhedd Alert ship entered Charon space. There wasn’t a thruster on the market that could turn him fast enough once the gate spat out six angry Rhedd Alert fighters and their transport.

They recovered the unconscious pirate in hopes of a bounty. There wasn’t much left of his ship to salvage.

The next incident occurred inside the Tyrol System near the rendezvous at Haven. As they neared Tyrol V, the trio of ramshackle Hornets struck again. Walt was the first to see them coming.

“Gav, we’ve got incoming from behind the planet.”

Gavin’s team was a cluster of green icons on his HUD. Snuggled protectively within their perimeter was the UEE Cassiopeia carrying a fresh batch of researchers. He zoomed the display out and saw a trio of red marks hurtling around the planet toward their position.

“Is that…?”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“How the hell did they find us?”

Gavin silenced his team with a curt word and considered a headlong race to Tyrol V. Haven was a reasonably large settlement for an otherwise underdeveloped system. Tyrol V didn’t have any planetary defenses, though. The entire system was subject to the inevitable and imminent supernova of its expanding red giant. Haven warranted both UEE and private investment in support of the unique research possibilities provided by the impending supernova. However, since the entire system was ultimately waiting to evaporate, there wasn’t much sense in dumping money into defense systems.

Gavin started crossing options off their list. Tyrol offered them no protection. If they fled the system, they could lead the Hornets on a merry chase, but prolonging the risk to the Cassiopeia and its staff on board seemed a poor gamble.

On the other hand, their first head-to-head confrontation hadn’t gone so well. After seeing the marauders’ teamwork in Charon, Gavin was reluctant to take another tilt at them. Plus, he could already imagine Walt’s reaction to willfully engaging them head on.

Perhaps something a bit more diplomatic than fight or flight would yield better results.

Gavin tripped his comm link to broadcast on all local frequencies. “Hornet privateers above Tyrol V, this is Rhedd Alert One with a team of fighters and UEE transport vessel. We are moving little of value other than civilian lives. Please reconsider your approach.”

“Huh,” Walt made what sounded like an appreciative sniff into his mic, “you think that’ll work?”

“Can’t hurt to try.”

Moments passed with no response and no change to the marauders’ course. “Well maybe something more ominous will get their attention.” Gavin triggered the open broadcast again. “Hornet brigands above Tyrol V, this is Rhedd Alert One with a team of fighters and UEE transport vessel. We have little of value other than our ammunition, which we will happily deliver directly to your ships if you do not reconsider your approach.”

“Well that’s definitely not going to work.” Walt said. Gavin saw his brother’s weapon systems go live.

Gavin left Boomer and Mei to guard the Cassiopeia and Rhedd Alert engaged four-on-three with neither side holding the advantage of surprise. This time, Walt and Jazza were both on the front line. The ensuing dogfight was far less one-sided than their first encounter with the Hornets.

Rhedd Alert gave a good accounting of themselves. Contrary to their ramshackle appearance, the marauders’ ships were surprisingly quick, their weapon systems in good repair. Despite the ferocity of the fight, Rhedd Alert kept the marauders’ away from the Cassiopeia. Walt seemed content to drive them off. Jazza gave chase.

“Let ’em go, Jazz,” Walt said.

“Like hell,” she said. “I’m gonna swat me a Hornet.”

“No, you’re not,” Walt snapped the order. “They’re going to turn around just long enough to pound you into a fine red mist, and we’re going to have to sweep up whatever parts are left.”

“Guys,” Gavin said, “cool it. Rendezvous at the transport.”

Jazza broke off pursuit and moved to rally with Boomer and the Cassiopeia. “I just don’t like him giving me orders.”

“Hmmm,” Walt’s temper was clearly under some strain, “let’s see. I’m part owner of the company. You might wanna start associating my voice with imperative statements.”

“Knock it off, both of you. Jazz, fall in. The Navy is paying us to escort staff, not fight a turf war with a hungry pack.”

“You should have figured that out in Charon,” Walt said. “You made it a grudge match when we turned to fight.”

“Enough! If either of you have anything else to say, it can wait until we’re back on Vista Landing. Got it?”

Both squads limped away with damaged fighters. Rahul took a hit to his legs and would need to visit the med techs at Haven before leaving the system. The job and the injured were Gavin’s first priorities, but Walt’s deteriorating attitude had to be addressed. Before starting Rhedd Alert, they had always been opportunistic aggressors. This job was all about holding ground, and Walt’s reluctance was becoming a real problem.

* * *

Gavin was the first to arrive back at Vista Landing. Rahul was with him and woke when they touched down. Though the techs on Haven had done their work well, Dell insisted on taking him to get checked out at the station’s med center.

The rest of the squad arrived soon after. Gavin left Jazza to secure the ships and asked Walt to help him with the After Action Report in the upstairs office. Judging by the hushed demeanor of the crew, no one was under any illusion that the brothers were going to discuss the report.

Walt stalked into their small, shared office. He brushed past a pair of secondhand chairs and was standing at the window behind the scarred metal desk when Gavin closed the door behind them.

Walt spoke to the Plexi without turning to face him, “If you’re looking to fire off a lecture, I suggest aiming it at Jazza.”

Gavin joined him at the window. The steel was cold where he rested his hands on the frame, the edges sharp. “No lecture. What I need is some answers. What the hell is going on with you, man?”

Walt was cold and quiet.

“You’re fighting against me,” Gavin tried to keep months of frustration from his voice. He was wrung out and tired, but not all of that could be laid at Walt’s increasingly cold feet. “You’re picking fights with the rest of the crew. Hell, you’re fighting everyone but the bastards attacking our transport.”

“I fought just as hard as anyone out there,” Walt snapped.

“Like hell you did,” Gavin voice sounded loud and harsh against the glass. “You’re fighting just hard enough to save your ass.”

“Well you tell me, then. How the hell am I supposed to fight? You want me chasing after trophies like Jazz?”

“If that’s what gets the job done, yeah. We’re not the robbers any more, man. We’re the cops. We’re a deterrent. And when we’re out there, we need to make a statement.”

Walt squinted, the laugh lines at the corners of his eyes creasing as he shook his head in what looked like exasperation or disbelief. “Can you hear yourself? Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“Every time we bump into trouble out there, we need to jump on it with both feet. But I can’t push you to do that. You don’t like to be pushed.” Gavin felt his brother stiffen beside him, but he pressed on. He had to know if Walt was in this for the long haul. “You never did. You’re like Dad in that way. You’d rather cut and run than fight the tough fights.”

Walt turned his head sharply and yelled, “We had a damn good life doing that.”

The vehemence of it took Gavin by surprise, and he stepped away. After a quiet moment, he leaned against the window frame again. The metal was warmer now from where his hands had rested.

Walt and Gavin Rhedd stood shoulder to shoulder at the office window overlooking their small fleet of ships. They watched together for several minutes in silence until the last of the crew left the hangar. The lighting in the bay dimmed to a cool, cobalt blue, and Gavin’s arms felt leaden. His feet hurt and he wanted desperately to sit, kick off his boots and drink himself into a stupor. But he’d be damned if he sat while Walt still stood.

“We could leave.” The way Walt said it almost sounded like a question.

“You can’t possibly mean that,” Gavin pushed away from the window again.

“Seriously.” Walt finally turned to face him. He was hunched forward in earnest appeal. It put them at eye-level and Walt’s were round and imploring. “We could just go. This place is an anchor. Even if we turn a profit on this UEE job, what’s next? Find more work? Hire more pilots and techs?”

“If all goes right, absolutely. We’re creating something that we never had growing up, something bigger than just us. What exactly do you think we’re working toward here?”

“I don’t know, man.” Walt sounded equally drained. “I thought I did when we started, but it’s just been one thing after the next. We’ve got too many mouths to feed, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to stop.”

“It won’t,” Gavin said. “That’s the responsibility we accepted when we started this place.”

“But this isn’t our kind of fight, Gav. We’re not Advocacy agents. Hell, we’re not even starmen.”

“According to the company charter and the contract that you and I both signed, that’s exactly what we are. Soldiers for hire.”

“Come on. We’re thugs, man. We’ve been flying all our lives, but we don’t fight the fair fights. We pick on people who are either too dumb or too unfortunate to have professional protection. Maybe that ain’t noble or exciting, but that’s what we do, and we used to do it well. But this?” Walt turned back toward the darkened bay, waving his hand inclusively at the ships and machinery below.

Gavin saw it then. He realized what had been eating at Walt all along. His brother wasn’t worried about someone getting hurt in a fair fight. They’d been in dogfights for most of their lives. It was being responsible for the rest of the team that scared him.

“I know we can do this.”

“How much risk are you willing to take to prove that?”

“This ain’t about doing the easy thing, Walt. This game is all about trust. So you ask yourself…do you trust me?” He hated that his voice had a pleading quality to it. Couldn’t Walt see that they were already succeeding?

Gavin didn’t get an answer. His brother stared instead at the ships in the darkened bay.

“We need every pilot we’ve got,” Gavin said. “And, let’s face it, you’re our best.”

“This is going to blow up in your face, Gav. This will be just like when you tried to smuggle Osoians to the Xi’An.”

“That would have worked, if you’d backed me up.”

“They dumped you on an asteroid,” Walt’s voice rose in pitch and volume. “You lost Dad’s Gladius with that deal. What’s this one going to cost you?”

Gavin’s gut tightened, and he became uncomfortably warm in his flight suit. He realized that Walt had made his decision.

He swallowed once before trusting himself to speak. “So this is it, huh? We’re just starting to get our feet under us. We’re just learning to work together as a legit team.” He knew this was going to happen. It wasn’t a surprise, so there was no reason to be angry about it. “Gods! And to think I actually hoped you’d stick it out with me.”

“Don’t make it sound like that,” Walt said.

“Sound like what? You’re just doing what you always do.”

Walt didn’t say anything for a while.

Gavin stared out at their ships.

“Will you tell the others?” Walt asked.

“Tell them what? Everyone who matters is probably surprised you lasted this long.”

His lips drew tight into a hard line. His eyes burned a bit so he blinked them. He was tired and he needed a shower.

Gavin left Walt standing alone at the office window. When the rest of Rhedd Alert woke up the next morning, Walter Rhedd was gone.

* * *

The first few months without Walt went smoothly, without incident. Paychecks started to roll in, and Gavin chipped away at some of their outstanding bills. They scavenged parts where they could. Dell proved to be a wizard reviving damaged tech. What little money remained after the bill collectors were pacified went straight to reloads.

Losing Walt hurt. It showed Gavin just how much he had relied on his brother to keep the rest of the team sharp. The team’s performance was obviously important, but even that paled when compared to the painful fact that Walt had actually abandoned him.

No one forgot their grudge match with the trio of mismatched marauders, and Rhedd Alert was ready when they met again. The Hornets hit them as they passed through the Teclis Band. Teclis was one of Min’s few attractive qualities. From a distance, the band appeared to be a rippling wave of slowly pulsing lights. Closer, the wave resolved into a wall of tumbling asteroids.

Veteran members of Gavin’s team were quite accustomed to clinging to the underside of an asteroid. It wasn’t that long ago that they’d used the tactic to ambush transports themselves. So they weren’t surprised to see attackers materialize from within the Teclis Band.

Gavin triggered his mic to address the squad. “All right, guys, we know these bastards fly like they’re joined at the hip. I think we have the advantage in the band, but we can’t let them pin the Cassiopeia inside. Boomer, you’re babysitting. Get that transport through and clear. Everyone else, with me.”

The fighting inside Teclis was fierce. Gavin was in his element darting through tight seams, anticipating erratic rolling movements and using terrain to force the Hornets to break their punishing formations. His newer pilots were good, but they hadn’t spent hundreds of cockpit hours in crowded space like he and Jazza had. Still, they managed to keep the Hornets hemmed in while Boomer and the Cassiopeia moved through the tumbling asteroids. Uncharacteristically, one pirate broke from the group and powered through the belt toward the fleeing transport.

“We’ve got a runner,” Jazza warned.

Gavin was already moving to pursue. “I see it. Hold the other two here. They’re easier to manage when they’re not grouped up.”

He darted around blind corners of tumbling stone and managed to gain a few clicks on the faster ship. The Hornet rolled right and strafed around a jagged, monolithic spike of rock. Gavin thrust over it, gaining a little more ground.

The two ships shot from the treacherous confines of the Teclis Band, and Gavin landed a couple hits before the Hornet rolled away. Then it was an all-out race for the fleeing transport.

“Cassiopeia,” Gavin called, “this is Red One, we have a hostile inbound to you.”

“Copy, Red One. Shields are up and we are ready for contact.”

“Boomer?”

“Got it, Gavin.”

“Careful, old man. This one can really fly.”

Gavin saw Boomer’s Avenger rise and turn to face the charging ship. The Hornet rolled again. Boomer matched the oncoming ship, move for move. Both began firing, and their shields lit up like incandescent bulbs. The Hornet yawed starboard and Gavin missed with an out-of-range shot. Boomer’s shield flickered and then fell.

“Boomer!”

Then a blinding shot from a neutron gun tore through Boomer’s Avenger. Bits of hull flew off at odd angles as the Hornet sped past the wrecked ship and continued to close on the Cassiopeia.

The Avenger’s cockpit detonated. Gavin pulled up to avoid hitting Boomer and prayed that the older pilot had managed to eject. The Cassiopeia loosed a barrage of missiles, but the Hornet had countermeasures.

The marauder’s first pass took out the missile launcher. Gavin met the Hornet head-to-head as it swept around and fired on the transport again. He struck clean hits as they passed, scarring the mismatched armor plating along one side. He turned hard and his ship shook with strain, pressing him forward in his harness, vision dimming at the edges.

He righted the Cutlass in time to see the fleeing Hornet pause, hesitating over a small drifting shape. Gavin’s targeting system identified the object. Boomer’s PRB flashed red.

“No!” He had one hand pressed against the canopy. With successive blasts from the neutron gun, the pirate deliberately tore apart Boomer’s drifting body. Then the Hornet pulled up and raced back toward the Teclis Band.

“My target just disengaged.”

“They’re running.”

Gavin barely registered the shouts and cheers from his team.

Overkill.

Pilots call it getting OK’d. He didn’t know for certain where the term was first coined, but OKing a pilot adrift was breaking one of the few unspoken and universal rules of engagement. Lose a fight, and you might lose your ship. Get beat badly, and you might come out of rehab missing a limb or with some sort of permanent scarring or nerve damage. But to fire on a pilot adrift with only the pressurized skin of a survival suit for protection? It was inhuman.

“Everyone,” worry wrenched Gavin’s gut and he couldn’t keep it from his voice, “form up on the Cassiopeia. We have a pilot down.”

Something in his voice quieted the line. His ships emerged from the Teclis Band and rallied to the transport.

Gods.

What was he going to say to Dell? Gavin swallowed hard, blinking fast and trying to think. He should do something. The transport had been hit. He might have other injured pilots. Maybe Walt had been right.

“Hold position until we recover Boomer.” He switched channels to address the transport. “Cassiopeia, this is Red One. We’re scrubbing the mission. Prepare for return to Nexus.”

“Ah…Red One, damage is minimal and under control. We are able to proceed.”

Gavin couldn’t. He had to get Boomer back to Vista Landing.

Jazza’s voice shook. “Gods. They OK’d him, didn’t they?”

He didn’t answer.

“Take him home, Gav. We’ll tag his ship and tow it on the return trip.”

He nodded, knowing she couldn’t see, but not trusting himself to speak. What was he going to tell Dell?

“Get him there fast,” Jazza said.

“I will.”

* * *

Gavin’s mobiGlas buzzed and he activated it. Anyone he actually cared to speak with knew to find him in the office if they needed to talk. Dell was in the med center. She’d made it abundantly clear that she did not want to see him. Jazza had returned with the team after the mission, but they were giving the family a wide berth. Anything getting past his message filters was probably important. And anything important was most likely bad news.

The incoming message was from Barry. Suspicion of bad news, confirmed. He connected the call.

“Gavin. Buddy. Listen, I’ve got some news. This is just a ’heads up’ call, okay? Not a big deal. Is your brother there with you?”

“Walt left,” even to his own ears, Gavin’s voice sounded flat. “You can give your message to me.”

“I got word from a buddy of mine in Contracting. They’re issuing an FTP on the Tyrol contract. It’ll probably go out in the next day or two. Sorry, Gavin.”

“Don’t be,” Gavin wasn’t angry with Barry. He really wasn’t. But his words were coming out sharper than he meant them to. “Just tell me what the hell an FTP is.”

“Sorry. FTP is a Failure To Perform notification.”

He knew it had to be bad. Barry wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t. Damn it! What was next? Vanduul attacks? He’d gone over and over every report from Brock’s files. Never—not in any file—was there evidence of such coordinated and vicious attacks.

Barry read his silence correctly. “Hey, these things get issued all the time, man. I’m just letting you know that it’s coming so you don’t freak out. A couple holes in a transport is nothing when you’re going through a lawless system like Min. They won’t pull your contract for that.”

“What will they pull it for?”

“Well,” Barry drew out the word, speaking slowly and choosing his words carefully. “You’d have to receive back-to-back FTPs. Or if you lost the transport or something, that’d obviously do it. But Major Greely is pulling for you guys. He’s big on the UEE’s plan to enfranchise local civilian contractors.”

Just what he needed. More pressure. “Thanks, Barry.”

“Keep your chin up, buddy. You guys are doing fine, okay? I mean, you should hear what goes on with other contracts. Seriously, this is nothing.”

“Thanks again.” Gavin disconnected the line. It certainly didn’t feel like they were doing fine. The office door slid open, and Jazza stood silhouetted against the corridor lights.

“Jazz?” Gavin’s stomach sank. He tried to swallow but his throat was tight. “What is it? Where’s Dell?”

She took a step inside and the room’s lights reflected in the wet corners of her brimming eyes. She held herself together, but the effort to do so was visible.

“It’s Boomer,” she said, “It was too much damage this time. He’s…he’s really gone.”

* * *

A recorded hymn played as they sent Arun “Boomer” Ainsley into whatever great adventure awaits in the everafter. Gavin set the service in the Rhedd Alert hangar, and the recording sounded terrible. The last somber note rebounded off the room’s hard surfaces and harsh angles.

He wished they could have had a live band. He would have paid for an orchestra, if one were to be had on the orbital station. Even a bugle would have been better tribute for the man who had brought Dell into his life. For the man who taught him and Walt so much about living a free life in the outer systems.

Dell’s arm felt small around his waist and Gavin pulled her in close to him, unsure if that was the right thing to do. He turned to kiss her hair and saw Walt’s lean form looming beside them. Walt’s face was fixed in a grim mask.

Gavin knew his brother well enough to know that Walt was berating himself inside. He didn’t deal well with guilt or responsibility, and Gavin suspected that was a big part of why Walt always ran.

The gathering started to break up. Pilots and the hangar crew busied themselves with tasks around Rhedd Alert’s battered fleet of fighters. Dell didn’t move, so he stayed there with her. Walt rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Gavin. Oh gods, Dell. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

Jazza leaned in and spoke in a low tone, almost a whisper. “Landing gear up in ten, boss. Your rig is on the buggy.” She motioned with her chin to where his ship waited.

Dell turned into him and squeezed. “Be careful.”

“I will, babe.”

“You come home to me, Gavin Rhedd. I’ll kill you myself if you make me run this outfit on my own.”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. Held them there.

“Wait. What?” Walt’s jaw was slack, his eyes wide. “Tell me you aren’t going back out there.”

Jazza bumped Walt with her shoulder, not so much walking past him as through him. “Damn right we are, Quitter.”

“You know what? Screw you, Jazz. All right? You used to quit this outfit, like…twice a month.”

“Not like you. Not like some chicken sh—”

“Jazz,” Gavin said, “go make sure the team is ready to roll, would ya?” With a nod to Gavin and a parting glare at Walt, she moved away into the hangar.

“Let it be, Walt. We really do need to go. After last time, we can’t risk being late for the pickup.”

“Screw late!” Walt’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed around the edges. “Why the happy hells are you going at all?”

“Walt—”

“Don’t ‘Walt’ me, Gavin. There is a pack of psychopaths out there trying to kill you!”

“Walt, would you shut up and listen for two seconds? We don’t have a choice, okay? We’ve got everything riding on this job. We’re months behind on this place and extended up to our necks on credit for fuel, parts and ammo.”

“They can damn well bill me!”

“No,” Gavin said, “they can’t. Your shares reverted back to the company when you quit. But I’m legit now. You think we lived life on the run before? Just you watch if I try to run from this.”

Walt turned to Dell for assistance, “Dell, come on. You gotta make him listen to reason.”

“Boomer’s shares transferred to me when he died,” Dell said. “We’re in this together.”

“Okay, boss,” Jazza called. The three of them looked to where she stood with a line of determined crew. “It’s time.”

* * *

Walt watched the big bay doors close as the last of Gavin’s team left the hangar. His fighter and the few remaining ships looked small and awkwardly out of place in the big room. Standing alone next to Dell gave him a great appreciation for that awkwardness.

“I’m so sorry, Dell. If I’d been there—”

“Don’t,” she stopped him with a word, and then continued with a shake of her blue-tipped hair. “Don’t do that to yourself. I’ve been over the tactical logs. He got beat one-on-one, and then they OK’d him. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I still feel rotten,” he said. “Like, maybe if I hadn’t left…I don’t know.”

“Gavin blames himself, too. That’s just the way you two are built. But believe me, there was never a soul alive able to keep my dad out of the cockpit. He was flying long before you Rhedd boys tumbled into our lives.”

That gave him a smile. A genuine smile. It seemed to brighten Dell’s mood, so he did his best to hang onto it.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Join me for some coffee?”

He did, and for a time they spoke softly at the tall tables in the hangar’s kitchenette. Dell caught him up on life aboard Vista Landing since he had left. She was clearly exhausted and not simply from a sleepless night and her father’s funeral. Her shoulders sagged, and dark circles under her eyes were the product of weeks of labor and worry. The constant apprehension of the Hornets’ vicious attacks had apparently exhausted more than just the pilots. It seemed odd that the attacks felt strangely personal.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” he mused aloud. Dell looked at him, tired eyes politely expectant. “What the hell are these guys after?”

She nodded, “Yeah. There’s been a lot of speculating on that question.”

“And?”

“Hard to say, isn’t it? Could be political wackos opposed to the research in Haven. Or maybe it’s one of the old gangs that don’t like us going legit. Could be it’s a group of Tevarin lashing out against UEE targets. Who knows?”

“Naw. If they were Tevarin, we could tell by how they fly.”

“Then you tell me, if you’re so smart. I mean, you were out there. You fought them.”

Walt shrugged and took a sip of cooling coffee. Something she said nagged at him. “Hey, you said you had navsat tactical logs from the fight, right?”

“Yeah.” What remained of her energy seemed to drain away with that one word. Walt cursed himself for the insensitive ass that he was. He’d just asked her about recorded replays of her father’s murder.

“Dell. Ah, hell…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ve been over and over them already. Really, I don’t mind.”

They moved to a console and the lights dimmed automatically when she pulled up the hangar projection. She selected a ship, and oriented the view so that the hologram of Boomer’s Avenger filled the display. No, Walt reminded himself, it wasn’t Boomer’s ship any more. Dell was his heir and—along with his debt—Boomer’s assets now belonged to her.

Dell bypassed the default display of the structural hardpoints and dove into the ship’s systems. Something caught his eye and he stopped her. “Wait, back up.” She did, and Walt stopped the rotating display to look along the undercarriage of the ship. He let out a low whistle.

“That, Walter Rhedd, is a Tarantula GT-870 Mk3.”

“I know what it is. But where did you get it?”

“Remember those pirates that gave us so much trouble in Oberon? I pulled it before we sold the salvage.”

He certainly did remember, and the bastards had kicked the crap out of two of their ships with their Tarantulas. “How’d you get it mounted on an Avenger?”

“Hammer therapy,” she said. He gave her a confused look, and she held up one arm, curling it to make a muscle. “I beat the hell out of it until it did what I wanted.”

“Damn, girl.”

“Did you want to see the flight recorder?”

They watched the navsat replays together in silence. It looked like one hell of a fight. Chaotic. Frantic. The Rhedd Alert fighters were hard pressed.

Jazza had moments of tactical brilliance. As much as she rubbed him the wrong way, Walt had to admit that she made her Cutlass dance steps for which it wasn’t designed. Gavin orchestrated a coherent strategy and had committed extra fighters to drive off the attack. Something was wrong, though. Something about the fight didn’t make sense.

Walt had Dell replay the scene so he could focus on the marauders. It didn’t look like much of a fight at all from that perspective. It looked more like a game and only one team understood how all the pieces moved. The Hornets flew to disrupt, to confuse. They knew Gavin would send a force forward to protect the transport. He’d done it every time they had met.

“See that?” he said. “They break apart there and get called immediately back into formation. They never leave a flank exposed. Our guys never get a real opening.” He pointed out one of the attacking Hornets. “That one calls the shots.”

“That’s the one that OK’d Boomer.”

Reds and greens from the navsat display sparkled in Dell’s eyes. Her voice was emotionless and flat. Walt didn’t want to see her like that, so he focused again on the display.

The marauder he’d identified as the leader broke from the melee. Gavin gave chase, but from too far behind. Boomer intercepted, was disabled, and his PRB flashed red on the display. The Hornet took a pass at the transport before turning to rejoin its squad. Then it decelerated, pausing before the overkill on Boomer.

“Why take only one pass at the transport? They’ve hit us, what? Six times? Seven? And once they finally get a shot at the target, they bug out?”

“You said, ‘us’,” Dell teased. “You back to stay?”

Walt huffed a small laugh. “We’ll see.”

“We’ve been lucky,” Dell offered in answer to his question. “So far, we’ve chased them off.”

“You really believe that? They had this fight won if they wanted it. And how do they keep finding us? It’s like they’ve taken up permanent residence in our damned flight path.”

That was it. He had it. The revelation must have shown on his face.

“What?” Dell asked. “What is it?”

“Back it up to the strafe on the Aquila.”

Dell did, and they watched it again. He felt like an ass for making her watch the murder of her father over again, but he had to be sure of what he saw.

And there it was. Strafe. Turn. Pause. A decision to commit. An escalating act of brutality. And then they were gone.

“She’s not after the transport at all. We were her target this whole time.”

“Wait,” Dell said, “what she? Her who?”

“Please tell me your ex hasn’t drunk himself out of a job with the Navy.”

“Barry? Of course not, why?”

“Because I just figured out who killed your father.”

* * *

Morgan Brock called the meeting to a close and dismissed her admin team. Riebeld caught her eye and lifted one hand off the table—a request for her to stay while the others shuffled out of the conference room.

Riebeld kept her waiting until they were alone, and then stood to close the door.

“I take it,” Brock said, “that our Tyrol problem persists despite the escalation?”

“I got word during the meeting”—he took a seat beside her at the table, voice pitched low—“that they should be making the jump to Nexus soon.”

“Our discreet pilots? Are they deployed or here at the station?”

His answer was slow in coming, his nod reluctant. “They are here.”

Brock checked the time. Did some mental math. “Disguise the ships. We will leave at 1700 and meet them in Charon just inside the gate from Min.”

“Morgan,” Riebeld’s eyes roamed the room, “these guys aren’t taking the hint. I don’t know what losses we have to hand them before they back down, but…I don’t know. Part of doing business is losing bids, am I right?” She didn’t disagree and he continued. “Maybe…Maybe we ought to write this one off?”

“A comfortable position to hold in your seat, Riebeld. Your commission is based on the contract value. I barely turned a profit on that job for years. I did it willingly, with the expected reward of windfall profits when traffic to Haven surges.”

“I get that,” he said. “I really do. But at some point we have to call it a loss and focus on the next thing, right?”

“Then suppose that we let the Tyrol job go, and Greely and Navy SysCom see what they want to see from boutique contractors. I can already imagine anti-establishment politicians pushing for more outsourced work. Hell, they will probably promise contracts to buy votes in their home systems.”

She watched him squirm. It wasn’t like him to wrestle with his conscience. Frankly, she was disappointed to learn that he’d found one.

“If Rhedd Alert won’t withdraw willingly,” she said, “then they will have to fail the hard way. Prep the ships, Riebeld. We have done very well together, you and I. You should know that I won’t back away from what is mine.” He seemed to appreciate her sincerity, but Brock wanted to hear the cocksure salesman say it. “Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Riebeld swallowed and stood. “Perfectly clear.”

* * *

“Any luck?” Walt pulled up Barry’s record in his mobiGlas and hit connect.

Dell sat at the hangar console trying to reach Gavin and the team. Her brow furrowed in a grimace and she shook her head.

“Damn. Okay, keep trying.”

Barry connected. The accountant wore his uniform. He was on duty, wherever he was, and his projected face looked genuinely mournful. “Hey,” he said, “long time no see, man. Listen, I can’t tell you how sad I am about Boomer.”

“Thanks.” Barry had known Dell and Boomer for most his life. He’d probably been torn between attending the service and allowing the family to grieve in privacy. Regardless, commiseration would have to wait. “We need your help, Barry. Please tell me that you have access to the proposals for the Tyrol contract.”

“Of course I do. And who’s we? Are you back with Dell and Gavin?”

“I am,” he felt Dell’s eyes on him when he said it. “Anyway, we need a favor. I need to know the ship models and configurations proposed by the incumbent.”

“Morgan Brock’s outfit, sure. No can do on the ship data, though. That information is all confidential. Only the price proposals are available for public review, and those only during the protest period.”

“Come on, Barry. We’re not talking trade secrets here. I could figure this out with a fly-by of their hangar in Kilian. I just don’t have time for that. I need to know what ships those guys fly.”

Barry breathed out a heavy sigh, “Hold on. But I can’t send you the proposals, okay? You guys are already on thin ice with this contract as is.”

“Tell me about it. And thanks, I owe you huge for this.”

Walt waited, throat dry. He scratched at a chipped edge on his worn mobiGlas with a fingernail.

“All right,” Barry read from something off-screen, “it looks like they’re flying a variety of Hornets. Specifically, F7As. I can send you a list of the proposed hardpoints, and I happen to know that Brock herself flies a Super Hornet.”

The mobiGlas shook on Walt’s wrist. His face felt hot, and he forced his jaw to relax. “Barry, if you have any pull with the Navy, get some ships to Tyrol. It’s been Brock this whole time. She’s been setting us up to fail. And she’s the bitch that OK’d Boomer.”

* * *

“I’m going, Walt. That’s final.”

Walt rubbed at his eyes with the flat part of his fingers. How did Gavin ever win an argument her? Forbidding her involvement was a lost cause. Maybe he could reason with her. “Listen. When’s the last time you were even in a cockpit?”

“I know this ship. I was practically born in these things.”

“Dell—”

She threw his helmet at him. He caught it awkwardly, and she had shed her coveralls and was wriggling into her flight suit before he could finish his thought. She stared at him with hard eyes and said, “Suit up if you don’t want to get left behind.”

Dell was as implacable as gravity. Fine. It was her funeral, and he realized there was no way his brother had ever won an argument with her.

They finished prepping in silence. Walt pulled the chocks on her Avenger when she climbed up into the cockpit. He gave the hulking muzzle of the Tarantula an appreciative pat. “You have ammo for this bad boy?”

“I have a little.”

“Good,” he smiled. “Let’s hope Brock isn’t ready to handle reinforcements.”

Walt mulled that thought over. It was true that Gavin had split their team in each fight, but Rhedd Alert had never sent in reserves. Each engagement had been a fair and straightforward fight. Brock wasn’t likely to know anything about their resources, however limited, beyond the escort team. That could work to their advantage.

In fact, “Hey, Dell. Hop out for a tick, will you?”

“Like hell I will.” The look she shot down at him was pure challenge. “I said I’m going and that’s that.”

“Oh, no. I’ve already lost that fight. But you and your cannon here got me thinking about those pirates in Oberon. Tell me, did we ever find a buyer for that old Idris hull?”

“No. It’s buoyed in storage outside the station, why?”

Dell looked at him skeptically and he grinned. “We’re going to introduce these military-types to some ol’ smugglers’ tricks.”

* * *

Gavin held the team at the edge of the jump gate between Min and Charon. “All right gang, listen up. You know the drill and what might be waiting for us on the other side. Jazza, I want you and Rahul up on point for this jump. I’ll bring the Cassiopeia over after you and the rest of the team are in. Anyone not ready to jump?”

His team was silent as they arranged themselves into position with professional precision. The pilot aboard the Cassiopeia sounded the ready and Gavin sent Jazza through. The others were hard on her heels, and Gavin felt the always-peculiar drop through the mouth of the jump gate.

Light and sound stretched, dragging him across the interspace. Another drop, a moment’s disorientation, and then Charon space resolved around him.

Without warning, Mei’s fighter flashed past his forward screen. Incandescent laser fire slashed along the ghost grey and fire-alarm red ship, crippling Mei’s shields and shearing away sections of armored hull. Mei fired back at a trio of maddeningly familiar Hornets in a tight triangular formation.

Jazza barked orders. “Mei. Rahul. Flank Gavin and get the Cassiopeia out of here. Gavin, you copy that? You have the package.”

He shook his head, willing the post-jump disorientation away. He didn’t remember bringing up his shields, but they flashed on his HUD and his weapon systems were armed.

“Copy that.” Gavin switched to the transport channel, “Cassiopeia. Let’s get you folks out of here.”

The crew onboard the UEE transport didn’t need any more encouragement. Gavin accelerated to keep pace with the larger ship as two Rhedd Alert fighters dropped into position above and below him. Together, they raced toward the jump gate to Tyrol.

The Hornets wheeled and dropped toward them from one side. Gavin’s HUD lit up with alerts as Jazza sent a pair of rockets dangerously close over his head to blast into one of the attacking ships. Her ship screamed by overhead, but the Hornets stayed in pursuit of the fleeing transport.

Alarms sounded. They needed more firepower on the Hornets to give the Cassiopeia time to get clear. He yelled a course heading, and the Cassiopeia dove with Mei and Rahul on either flank.

Gavin pulled up, turned and fired to pull the attention of the attackers. He spun, taking the brunt of their return fire on his stronger starboard shields.

The impact shook the Cutlass violently, and his shield integrity bar sagged into the red. Gavin turned, took another wild shot with his lasers, and accelerated away from the Cassiopeia with the Hornets in close pursuit.

* * *

Navsat data from the Min jump gate crept onto the edge of Walt’s HUD. Several seconds and thousands of kilometers later, the first of the embattled starships winked onto the display. His brother and the Rhedd Alert team were hard-pressed.

Walt watched Brock and her crew circle and strike, corralling the Rhedd Alert ships. Gavin tried to lead the attackers away, but Brock wouldn’t bite. By keeping the fight centered on the UEE transport, she essentially held the transport hostage.

Time to even the odds.

Jazza tore into one of the Hornets. Walt saw the enemy fighter’s superior shields absorb the impact. He marked that Hornet as his target, preparing to strike before its defenses recharged.

He killed his primary drive and spun end to end, slashing backward through the melee like a blazing comet. His targeting system locked onto the enemy Hornet, and his heavy Broadsword laser cut into it in a burst of flame.

Mei’s battered fighter dove through the streaming wreckage, but the Super Hornet, presumably Brock, waited for her on the other side. A blast from her neutron gun tore through the Rhedd Alert ship. Mei ejected safely, but their team was down a ship.

“Gods,” Gavin’s voice was frantic. “Get the hell out of here, Walt. Form up with the transport and get them away from the fight.”

Walt ignored him. He came around for another pass and triggered his mic to an open-area channel. “The game’s up, Brock.”

His words cut across the thrust and wheel of close combat, and for a moment the fighters on all sides flew in quiet patterns above the fleeing Cassiopeia.

“You know,” Walt said, “if you wanted us to believe you were after the transport, you should have saved your big guns for the Cassiopeia instead of overkilling our friend.”

“I suppose I should be disappointed that you have found me out,” Brock’s voice was a pinched sneer, and every bit as cold and hard as Gavin had described. “On the other hand, I’m glad you’ve shared this with me. I might have been content disabling the majority of your so-called fleet. Now, it seems that I will have to be more thorough.”

She fired, he dodged, and the fight was on again in earnest. Walt switched his comms to Rhedd Alert’s squad channel. “Brock was never after the Cassiopeia, Gav. She’s been after us.”

“Maybe I’m a little distracted by all the missiles and the neutron cannon, but I’m failing to see how that is at all relevant right now.”

“We’re no match for the tech in her ships. If she goes after the transport, they’re toast.” He rolled into position next to Gavin. Together, they nosed down to strafe at a Hornet from above.

“Great,” Gavin said, “then why did you tip her off?”

Walt suppressed a wicked grin. “Because,” he said, “she can’t afford to let any of us get away, either.”

“If you have any brilliant ideas, spit ’em out. I’m all ears.”

“Run with me.” For all Walt knew, Brock could hear every word they were saying. She would tear them apart if they stayed. He had to get Gavin to follow him. “Run with me, Gavin.”

“Damn it, Walt! If you came to help, then help. I’ve got a pilot down, and I’m not leaving her here to get OK’d like Boomer.”

“This ain’t about doing the easy thing, Gav. Someone I truly admire once told me that this game is all about trust. So you ask yourself…do you trust me?”

Gavin growled his name then, dragging out the word in a bitter, internal struggle. The weight of it made Walt’s throat constrict. Despite all of their arguments, Boomer’s death and his own desertion when things got hard—in spite of all of that—his brother still wanted to trust him.

“Trust me, Gavin.”

Brock and her wingman swept low, diving to corral the Cassiopeia and its escorts. Jazza redirected them with a blazing torrent of laser fire and got rocked by the neutron cannon in return. The shields around her battered Cutlass flashed, dimmed and then failed.

Walt gritted his teeth. It was now or never.

“Jazz,” Gavin’s voice sounded hard and sharp, “rally with the Cassiopeia and make a break for it.”

Walt pumped his fist and accelerated back the way he’d come in.

“Walt,” Gavin sounded angry enough to eat nails, but he followed, “I’m on your six. Let’s go, people! Move like you’ve got a purpose.”

Walt pulled up a set of coordinate presets and streaked away with Gavin close behind him. The two remaining Hornets split, with Brock falling in behind Gavin to give pursuit. Even together he and Gavin didn’t have much chance of getting past her superior shields. Instead, he set a straight course for the waypoint marked at the edge of his display. When incoming fire from Brock drove them off course, he corrected to put them directly back in line with the mark.

Brock was gaining. Gavin’s icon flashed on his display. She was close enough to hit reliably with her repeaters. As they approached the preset coordinates, Walt spotted a rippling distortion of winking starlight. Correcting his course slightly, he headed straight for it. Gavin and Brock were hard behind him.

“Come on,” Walt whispered, “stay close.”

On the squad display, he saw Gavin’s shield integrity dropped yet again. Brock was scoring more frequent hits.

“A little farther.”

Walt focused on the rippling of starlight ahead, a dark patch of space that swallowed Charon’s stars. He made a slight course correction and Gavin matched it. Together, they continued their breakneck flight from Brock’s deadly onslaught.

The small patch of dark space grew as the three ships streaked forward. Walt opened the squad channel on his mic and shouted, “Now!”

On his HUD, a new ship flared onto the display. It appeared to materialize nearly on top of them as Dell’s Avenger dropped from her hiding place inside the blackened hull of the derelict Idris.

Walt punched his thrusters. The lift pressed him into his seat as he pushed up and over their trap. He heard Dell shouting over the squad channel, and he turned, straining to see behind him. Bright flashes from Brock’s muzzles accompanied a horrible pounding thunder. Dell had left her mic open and it sounded like the massive gun was threatening to tear her ship apart.

* * *

“Heads up, Gav!”

Dell’s voice hit Gavin like a physical blow.

He saw his brother climb and suddenly disappear behind an empty, starless expanse. Then Boomer’s Avenger materialized from within that blackness, and Gavin knew that his wife was inside the cockpit. She was with him, out in the black where veteran pilots outgunned them.

His body reacted where his mind could not. He shoved down, hard. Thrusters strained as he instinctively tried to avoid colliding with her. A brilliant pulse like flashes of lightning accompanied a jarring thunder of sound.

Gavin forced his battered ship to turn. The Cutlass shuddered from the stress, and Gavin was pressed into the side of the cockpit as the nose of his ship came around.

He saw the first heavy round strike Brock. The combined force of the shell and her momentum shredded her forward shields. Then round after round tore through the nose of Brock’s ship until the air ignited inside.

“Dell”—the flaming Hornet tumbled toward his wife like an enormous hatchet—“look out!”

Brock ejected.

Dell thrust to one side, but the Hornet chopped into the hull where she had hidden. The explosion sent ships and debris spinning apart in all directions.

“Dell!”

He swept around to intercept her spinning ship. Walt beat him there. Thrusters firing in tightly controlled movements, Walt caught her Avenger, slowed it and stopped the spin.

Gavin rolled to put himself cockpit to cockpit with his wife.

“Dell?”

She sat in stillness at the controls, her head down and turned to one side.

“Come on, baby. Talk to me.”

She moved.

With the slow deliberateness of depressurized space, she rolled her head on her shoulders. When she looked up, their eyes met. Dell gave him a slow smile and a thumbs-up. He swallowed hard, and with one hand pressed to his heart, he shut his eyes silently in thanks.

Gavin spun his Cutlass and thrust over to where Brock floated nearby, his weapons systems still hot. He paused then, looming above her as she had hesitated over Boomer.

Her comms where still active. “What now, Rhedd?”

He remembered her from the meeting with Greely. Tall, lean and crisp. She seemed small now, drifting not more than a meter away from the battle-scarred nose of his Cutlass.

“Gavin?” Dell’s voice sounded small after the ruckus of the fight.

Walt eased into view alongside him. His voice was low and calm, “Easy, buddy. We weren’t raised to OK pilots.”

“She’s not worth it,” Dell said.

Brock snarled, “Do it already.”

He had studied Brock’s reports for months. She had more ships and more pilots than he could ever imagine employing. What drove her to harass them and kill one of his crew for this job?

“I just want to know why,” he asked. “You’ve got other contracts. You’ve probably made more money than any of us will see in our lives. Why come after us?”

He held Brock’s eye, the lights from the Cutlass reflecting from her visor.

“Why?” she repeated. “Look around you, Rhedd. There’s no law in these systems. All that matters here is courage to take what you want, and a willingness to sacrifice to keep it.”

“You want to talk sacrifice?” he said. “That pilot you killed was family.”

“You put him in harm’s way,” she said, “not me. What little order exists in these systems is what I brought with me. I carved my success from nothing. You independents are thieves. You’re like rodents, nibbling at the edges of others’ success.”

“I was a thief,” he said, “and a smuggler. But we’re building our own success, and next time you and I meet with the Navy,” Gavin fired his thrusters just enough to punch Brock with the nose of his ship, “it’ll be in a courtroom.”

She spun and tumbled as she flew, growing smaller and smaller until the PRB on his HUD was all he could see.

* * *

A pair of Retaliators with naval designations were moored outside the Rhedd Alert hangar when Gavin and the crew finally limped back to Vista Landing.

Crew aboard the Cassiopeia had insisted on helping with medical care and recovery after the fight. The team scheduled for pick-up at Haven was similarly adamant that Rhedd Alert take care of their own before continuing. Technically, no one had checked with Navy SysCom.

Did the Navy fire contractors face to face? For all he knew, they did.

Gavin saw to the staging of their damaged ships while the others hurried the wounded deeper into Vista Landing. When he’d finished, he exchanged a quick nod with Barry Lidst who stood at ease behind Major Greely.

“Major,” Gavin held out his hand, “I assume someone would have told me already if I was fired.”

His hand disappeared in the major’s massive paw. “I suppose they would have, at that.”

“Then to what do we owe the honor?” Dell and Walt joined them, and Gavin made introductions.

“‘I’ first, then ‘we,’” Greely repeated, “I like that, Rhedd. I appreciate a man who accepts consequence personally but insists on sharing accolades with his team. Tell me, son. How’d you get Brock?”

Gavin nudged his wife. With a roguish grin, Dell pulled her arm from around Gavin’s waist and stepped over to pat the Tarantula on her battered Avenger.

“Nice shooting, miss.”

Dell shrugged, “Walt pulled my tags, nav beacon and flight recorder before we left. I was sitting dark inside a decoy when the boys flew her right down the barrel.”

Barry leaned toward Greely and in a completely audible whisper said, “It might be best if we ignore the illegal parts of that.”

Greely waved him off. “This is what the ’verse needs. Men and women with the courage to slap their name up on the side of a hangar. A chance for responsible civilians to create good, honest jobs with real pay for locals. That an ex-military contractor tried to muck that up…”

Gavin and the team got a good, close look at what angry looked like on a Navy officer. It was the kind of scowl that left an impression.

“Anyway,” Greely composed himself, “not a soul in the ’verse would blame you for writing us off as a bit of bad business. I’m here to ask that you stick with it.”

Gavin was reluctant to bring their financial situation up in front of their one paying client, but they were tapped out. Rhedd Alert didn’t have the Cred to buy ammo, much less repair their downed fighters. “Actually, sir. I think we may need to find something a little more lucrative than getting shot up by disgruntled incumbents.”

“About that,” Greely rested his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. He led him to look out one of the large hangar windows at the Retaliators buoyed outside. “My accountant tells me there may be some room to renegotiate certain parts of the Tyrol contract. But that job won’t be enough to keep your team busy now that Brock’s out of the way.”

Gavin laughed. “On that point, I most certainly hope you are right.”

“Well…I’ve got more work for an outfit like yours. I hope you’ll accept, because you folks have surely earned it. Tell me, Rhedd, are you familiar with the Oberon System?”

Behind them, Walt dropped his helmet.

Lauren M. Roy

The Eleventh Hour

Originally published by Fireside Magazine

* * *

She gave me an hour to save the world.

Literally gave me an hour, the intangible made inexplicably solid. It sits in my palm, encased in a golden box, waiting to be loosed.

I don’t know if what holds it frozen inside is magic or science, if this extra hour was borrowed or stolen or conjured, or created by smashing particles together in one of those colliders deep underground. I don’t know whether the person who pressed the box into my hand was god or demon or just plain human. “An hour,” she said. “Spend it wisely.”

Only, I have no idea how. Or on what.

If I were a scientist facing down a deadly viral outbreak, I could use it to run one more test and find a cure.

If I were on a rocketship’s crew, set to intercept an asteroid hurtling toward Earth, I could buy us time to unjam the stuck part, then launch us homeward before the explosions began.

If I were the president, with news of an impending alien attack, I’d call one last desperate summit, find a way to join the world’s forces, and fend off the invaders.

But I’m none of those things.

I wonder if I’m the only one with an hour, or if there are others out there faced with this same impossible task. Are there ten more like me? A hundred? If we found each other and pooled our time, a century of us could buy the world just over four days.

A lot can happen in four days.

A lot can happen in an hour.

At home, I look for clues as to how the end might come. The news is filled with disasters, but none suggest certain doom will come in a day or a week or even a decade. The least she could have done was tell me what exactly the world needs saving from.

Perhaps she was a demon after all, keeping me in the dark, hoping my panicked choices will lead to catastrophe. Or maybe she was a time-traveler, forbidden to divulge the details lest I bring the end about anyway, or bring it faster, or make it worse.

Must I spend the hour all at once? Or can I parcel it out in slow sips, a minute here, twenty there? Can I break minutes into seconds? Seconds into nanoseconds? So much can happen in the blink of an eye.

If I open the box and let the hour out without giving it direction, would it go where it’s most needed, or will it linger around me, borrowed time ticking down while I do nothing of use?

I wish the time-travelling demon-god had left me an instruction manual.

I wander through our house, picking up pictures of you and me, wondering if we ought to hurry up and make new memories, good ones, before everything changes. So many places we haven’t been; I should make a list in order of priority. Or would that be a waste of time?

You’re in the living room, in the chair by the window. Your book has fallen into your lap as you drowse in a sunbeam. The urge to wake you nearly tugs me forward, but I resist. The woman never said I can’t share this burden; I’m simply not sure I want to. What was she thinking, giving something so precious to someone so indecisive? To me, who can spend the whole of my lunch hour deciding what I’d like to eat?

Is this a sun-goes-out sort of cataclysm? Planets spinning out of their orbits, the Earth pulled apart by cosmic forces? The kind with no survivors? Or is it the kind where a percentage of us make it through alive? What made the woman so sure I’d use it to save humanity and not just you and me? If I had warning, I could stockpile supplies, build defenses, get us an hour’s headstart on the way to safety. We’ve had thirty years together; I was hoping for at least thirty more. Through richer, poorer, thick or thin, world ravaged by plague or zombies or little green men, doesn’t matter, long as we have each other.

I should give it to the police. The FBI. NASA. The six o’clock news. I should auction it off online, buy us a remote island and a hundred years’ of food with the proceeds.

Instead I put it somewhere safe, tuck it away for later. I’ll watch the news for signs. This is too big a decision to make in haste.

When the time comes, I hope I’ll make the right one.

But I can’t promise that, when disaster looms, I won’t choose instead to spend that hour quietly, selfishly, unrepentantly, with you.

Steve Ruskin

Grand Tour

This story was previously published in the anthology TEMPORALLY OUT OF ORDER, released by the small press Zombies Need Brains LLC.

* * *

Late October, 1845

Whitechapel, London

“What exactly…is that?” Madame Magnin eyed the device lying on the table before her.

“A camera lucida,” said John Foxx.

Magnin inclined her head slightly, raising her eyebrows.

“Ah,” said Foxx. “It’s an optical device, you see. For drawing. This small prism here, atop this stem, it projects an image of whatever is before it downward upon a flat surface. Then the image can be traced.”

Magnin blinked.

“On paper.”

She blinked again.

“By me. I’m an artist, you see.”

Foxx was already uncomfortable in the tiny room, with its sagging ceiling and yellowed, peeling wallpaper. A séance! A fool’s errand more likely, and a costly one at that.

But it was what Harriet had asked of him.

“You set it up like this,” Foxx said, assuming an explanation might help the medium with whatever it was she was going to do. He stood the device upright on the velvet-covered table, its spindly shadow scattered different directions by the candles guttering in tarnished sconces. Small and portable, around ten inches high, the camera lucida was nothing more than a thin brass rod with a flat, stable base at the bottom and a prism affixed to the top. Both the base and the prism were attached to the rod by hinges so they could be adjusted to different angles, allowing the prism to be positioned beneath the user’s eyes, which Foxx now did.

“As I adjust the prism to the proper angle and look down with my right eye, just so, past the edge of the prism, an image of whatever is in front of me—which currently is you, sitting across the table—is reflected downward onto the surface of the table. If I had my paper and pencils, well, I could simply trace the image on the paper, making a perfect copy. Of you, right now as we sit here. Or St. Paul’s cathedral if I were sitting on a bench in New Change street. Or Parliament—”

Madame suddenly waved her hands in front of her face and turned away. “Please! Not my image…my spirit. Please, no images.”

“Of course, I’m sorry. I only meant to demonstrate…” Foxx trailed off, returning the camera lucida to the middle of the table and laying it on its side.

The room smelled of sweat and smoke and, faintly, of gin. Perhaps Madame Magnin managed a quick tipple before his appointment. It would hardly have surprised him.

“And your woman, this was hers? She could use this?” The medium was skeptical. “Remember, I require an object that was hers. Perhaps you have a handkerchief…?”

“We shared the camera lucida,” Foxx replied. “Harriet was quite competent with it. I…I have nothing else of hers.” This last admission pained him. Harriet had scrimped to buy him the camera lucida as a wedding gift—selling many of her own personal effects—so he could sketch landscapes, which he would later use as studies for landscape paintings.

Someday. When they could afford a studio. And paint.

Magnin sighed. “Then it will have to do. Come, place your hands in mine. We begin. Now, what questions do you have for your Harriet?”

“I have only one.”

“Ah, of course. ‘Are you with the Lord?’ That is the first—”

“No.”

“‘Are you in heaven?’ That’s very much the same.”

“No, um—”

“‘Are you well? Are you lonely? Have you located grandpa and Aunt Bertie?’”

“No, I—”

Then she smiled, winking. “Ah! Of course. ‘Are your carnal desires—’”

“No!” exclaimed Foxx, red faced.

“What then? What is it you wish to ask of your departed Harriet?”

“I…I…” he stammered, disbelieving his own words even as he spoke them. “I want to know if she’s ready to go to Italy.”

* * *

The coach to Dover was bumpy and cold, a mail wagon and a poorly maintained one at that. With what little money he’d had left it was all he could afford, wanting to save what he could for his not-so-Grand Tour.

He bought passage on a paddle steamer to Calais. It was a postal ship, and he transferred to it along with the mail from the coach like so much portage. At sea, Foxx was left to fend for himself on the shelterless deck as the little craft struggled across the heaving waves of the English Channel. A cold, miserable passage.

Paris, of course, was denied him. That great city was the traditional first stop of any Grand Tour itinerary, where wealthy English travelers would begin their cultural holiday polishing their French, touring the Louvre, maybe learning how to fence or dance. But Foxx had neither the money nor the time for that kind of dalliance. He was bound for Italy, and directly.

So he spent his three hours in Paris, between his arrival and departure, negotiating for sour wine, day old-bread, and hardened cheese. Fare for the rest of his journey.

It wasn’t until he was on the overland coach through southern France that he reflected on what had happened during the séance. He had heard those rituals were supposed to involve spinning tables and ghostly knocking. But his had not. Perhaps he had been shortchanged?

Madame Magnin had gone into a trance, swaying and muttering, and after only a few minutes sat bolt upright, her dark skin suddenly pale, and blurted out, “Yes! Your Harriet said yes. And…” the medium seemed as if she were trying to recall a dream “…she says you must bring…that.”

She pointed a crooked finger at the camera lucida. Foxx glanced at it and noticed it was, unaccountably, standing upright. He was sure he had laid it on its side.

But that could be easily explained. A sleight of Magnin’s hand. A parlor trick for dramatic effect. Easy to accomplish in the darkness with his attention directed elsewhere.

And that was the entirety of the affair. Madame waved him away, declaring the séance over. “Her spirit is strong, Mr. Foxx. Take your seeing device and go.” Foxx felt the medium watching his every move as he folded the base and prism of the camera lucida inward on their hinges—collapsing the apparatus so that it was barely longer than his own hand—and placed it into its small, cloth-lined wooden carrying case. Then he slipped the case into his coat pocket and was back out in the street.

What had he expected? It was all nonsense, and dramatic nonsense at that. Magnin, whose shop was little more than a closet tucked down some nameless Whitechapel alley, had been recommended not because of her reputation for conducting effective séances but because of her reputation for conducting them inexpensively.

Foxx was convinced she was a crackpot.

But Harriet had been so adamant that he try to contact her before he left for Italy. To let her know he was ready to go. The séance had been Harriet’s wish; she had left him money for it, and so he had obliged.

Money wasted, he was sure. Harriet left him all she had, but it wasn’t much, the small remainder of her job teaching history and classics at a school for well-to-do girls.

“You will be a fine artist, John!” she had told him, and not because she was naïve and in love. No. She had an eye for art, although history was her passion, and after all Foxx had trained at the Royal Academy. That’s where they had met, one day when she was touring a new exhibition with her students and he was painting in one of the nearby galleries.

They fell in love, and married.

Their dream was to take the Grand Tour through Italy, that rite of passage that any member of the nobility or landed gentry undertook in the pursuit of the art and culture of Western civilization.

But they were commoners, with only her meager salary and his occasional commission—

a portrait here and there. They would have to consider themselves fortunate to spend a month abroad, maybe two, so Foxx could visit the home of the Renaissance masters, see their works first hand, study their techniques, sketch the landscapes. And then he and Harriet would return to England, penniless but happy, and start their lives.

But soon after they were married, before they could even think of taking their Tour, Harriet grew ill. And did not improve.

When she knew she had only a short time left she made Foxx promise that he would go to Italy without her. He protested and wept and said he could never go alone but she smiled beatifically and promised she would join him, hovering like an angel above him, guiding him as Beatrice did Dante, showing him things no one but they could see. He was too distraught to say no to her sweet, moribund madness, and too grieved after she was gone to not keep his promise.

He patted his pocket and felt the thin padded case with the camera lucida inside.

It was all he had left of her now.

* * *

Florence in early November was pleasantly cool, nearly deserted (at least by other Englishmen), and completely glorious. The late Autumn daylight was flat and soft as the sun swept ever lower toward the winter solstice, turning the city’s labyrinth of stucco walls to golden caramel and its terra cotta roofs to molten copper.

Foxx walked around Florence for an entire day—not sketching, just getting his bearings—finding his way with an outdated guidebook he had bought before he left London. He crossed the river Arno at every bridge and wandered through small sunlit piazzas. Tall palazzos announced the former wealth of the Medici family, their terraces climbing to dizzying heights down from which, as night fell and windows glowed, came a gentle shower of music and conversation.

The next day he climbed a nearby hill with his portable drawing table and looked down on the city. Florence from above was dotted with gardens and clusters of finger-like cypress trees. The city’s cathedral dominated the view—Brunelleschi’s great dome rising out of the mists like a ruddy egg. He thought about the Renaissance, and how magnificent it would have been to live in Florence, to be patronized by the Medici as were Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo.

By a little stone wall at the side of an ancient, cobbled road he unfolded his table, unpacked pencils and paper, and began to frame his scene. How he wished Harriet had been there with him. She had an eye for perspective, for middle distance and foreground placement.

The morning sun was just hitting the Arno, making its surface shimmer, as he adjusted the prism of the camera lucida on its brass stem. Just below him on the road a peasant appeared, stopping to water his cattle at a roadside spring.

Foxx peered through the prism. Not quite. Tweaked the brass rod. Better. The peasant was in frame—good, very bucolic. But the top of the cathedral was still…no. He adjusted the prism again.

Perfect! The entire scene, just so.

The image the camera lucida projected was crisp and airy, almost as if looking through a magic lens onto a fairy world. Sharp lines, ethereal colors. Of course, he would sketch in lead pencil. But the dynamic image was a joy to behold while he did.

He started at the top, the sky with its scudding clouds. Then down to the horizon of distant Tuscan hills. Over the course of fifteen minutes he traced the scene: the cathedral center-right, the Arno snaking away bottom left, the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio dead center. He finished his drawing at the bottom, as was his habit, penciling in the foreground trees and the road up which he had walked.

Finally he sketched the peasant and cows. Superb. He could turn this scene into a beautiful landscape someday. When he could afford paint. And canvas.

Absorbed in his last few strokes he did not hear the approaching feet or the stamp of hooves. Suddenly a procession entered the scene. There, superimposed on his pencil-grey road, came some sort of costume parade. Its participants were dressed as if they were contemporaries of Michelangelo, all Renaissance frippery—flat, broad velvet caps, elaborate shoulders, silken doublets with puffed-out sleeves. Tight trousers, low shoes. At the head of the parade a marcher carried a banner: a yellow shield with five red orbs and one blue one.

He had seen that symbol everywhere around Florence. The Medici crest. Perhaps the parade was some commemoration of that great dynasty.

Now a military guard tramped by. Four abreast, they held long halberds in their mailed mitts, wore red- and white-striped sleeves and pants beneath metal breastplates. A bright spectacle, even though they were clearly hardened soldiers—scarred faces, muscle-knotted bodies.

Foxx had not looked up from the camera lucida when the parade came by for fear of losing his perspective as he drew. Sketching rapidly, he added a few of the costumed marchers as they passed, before finally setting down his pencil and looking up to observe the parade directly.

But nothing was there. The road was empty save for the peasant, now dozing, and his lolling cattle.

Foxx gaped in disbelief, and looked back down through the prism. As he did so the parade reappeared, filing past him on his sketched-in road as if he had never looked away.

It was then he realized they were moving silently, like ghosts. He heard nothing, when he should have heard the stamp of feet and clank of armor.

He looked up again.

Nothing.

This is madness! Like a cuckoo, Foxx’s head bobbed up and down, looking up at nothing, then down again at the continuing procession.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them, convinced he was hallucinating. He opened them, and looked up.

The road was empty, the peasant snoring loudly.

But through the lens of his prism the parade seemed to be reaching a climax as heralds with trumpets—which he quite distinctly could not hear—marched by. And behind them—he had to be hallucinating—loped an African giraffe, muzzled and led by long cords, resignedly following his handlers along the road toward Florence.

Fox sketched like a madman, convinced now that he might in fact be one.

After the giraffe came an opulent gilded carriage, drawn by four cream-white horses. Inside rode a dour man with coiffed brown hair and a hooked nose, staring magisterially down upon the city below him. Then came one final platoon of soldiers before the road was once again empty, save for the sleeping peasant and lolling cattle.

Madness!

“I say!” Foxx called to the peasant below him. “Mi scusi! Mi scusi, signore!”

The peasant opened a bleary eye.

“I say, did you see the parade? The one that just passed by?”

The peasant simply shrugged his shoulders. Foxx ran over to the man, gesticulating in the exaggerated manner that tourists use when trying to convey anything more complicated than “hello” in a language they do not speak.

“Parade! Did you see a parade?” Foxx shouted, even though he was now standing directly before the peasant. Foxx marched back and forth, swinging his arms, kicking out his legs and pretending to play the trumpet. “Parade!” he yelled, even louder.

This merely caused the peasant to burst into laughter.

“Parata!” the man howled. “Parata! L’idiota Inglese vuole una parata!” Then he rolled back over, chuckling, and fell asleep again.

Foxx returned to his table and stared at his sketch. He had captured the banners, the soldiers, the heralds, the giraffe, and then the carriage with its scowling occupant. And although the parade had been much longer than what he had drawn, it was accurate enough.

With great care, as if it was somehow possessed, he rolled up his sketch, tied it with a ribbon, and made his way slowly back down to Florence, shaking his head.

* * *

Later that evening he sat at an inn nibbling fresh bread and waiting for his stew (the least expensive item on the bill of fare). He unrolled the sketch and set it gingerly on the table, watching it nervously as if the parade might suddenly begin anew.

When the stew was placed before him—an earthenware bowl full of potatoes and onions floating in thick gravy—the waiter stared over Foxx’s shoulder for a minute and then said, in good but halting English, “Is very nice. Good immaginazione! Look just like Lorenzo il Magnifico. And his giraffa. Just like the Vecchio painting.”

“Which painting?” Foxx asked, surprised.

“In the Lorenzo room, Vecchio palace. You get your idea from this painting, yes? When Lorenzo marches into Florence with his giraffa? Very good.”

The next morning Foxx was first in line when the Vecchio opened. It had been Florence’s town hall since it had been built by the Medici family centuries ago and still contained frescos worthy of a dedicated museum. Someone pointed him to Lorenzo the Magnificent’s room. Craning his neck to look upward he saw, painted in a massive fresco high atop the arched ceiling, the very same man, and the very same giraffe, that had marched past him the previous morning.

He walked outside to the broad flagstone expanse of the Piazza della Signoria and consulted his guidebook.

Lorenzo died in 1492.

* * *

He left Florence two days later, after trying and failing to recapture the parade from the same spot on the road. Each time he finished drawing the scene…nothing happened. No parade.

And then it was time to move on.

Foxx had no itinerary other than to travel Italy until his money ran out, sketching picturesque scenes that he would someday paint, God willing, back in London.

In Pisa, he made a sketch of the town’s famous tower with its off-kilter angle. Just as he was putting the last lines on the teetering tower and the nearby cathedral of the Piazza del Duomo the scene changed, revealing something unseen.

He watched as a man, beard flowing over the collar of his knee-length coat, dropped balls and other objects of various sizes from high atop the tower. Another man on the ground—an assistant?—made notes, a quill in one hand and sheaf of papers in the other. This assistant occasionally looked upward as if to yell something to the man on the tower.

Foxx grinned. It had to be.

Galileo!

He had just read about Galileo and his experiments in his guidebook.

He sketched the man into his scene, Galileo leaning out over the tower’s precarious balcony. Foxx drew two round wooden balls the man had dropped, one rather large and the other quite small, just before they hit the ground…together.

On the island of Sicily, Foxx climbed the smoking slopes of Mount Etna. He sketched the city of Catania far below, with its neoclassical buildings and Roman ruins, and the spreading blue waters of the Mediterranean beyond. As he outlined the last spiny cactus in the lower foreground, the prism suddenly darkened, filling with ash and fire. Lava poured in a fiery stream just to the right of where he sat and he almost fell backwards in fear, until he looked away from the camera lucida and saw that the mountainside was quite free from lava, the air around him clear and cool.

Looking back down through the prism into the apocalypse that was Etna erupting, he gasped as he saw a group of men climbing up out of Catania, shovels and poles in hand. Sketching frantically, Foxx drew as the men hacked holes in the sides of the lava’s hardening channel, diverting the flow away from their city…until another group, from a small village towards which the lava was now heading, rushed up and chased off the Catanians. And soon the lava was flowing once more toward Catania.

Foxx knew the city was doomed, even before he reread his guidebook: “…Catania was destroyed in the eruption of 1669, most of its twenty-thousand inhabitants killed…”

A few days later Foxx was sketching the plains of Cannae, the site of the brutal defeat of the Roman army in 216 BC. Harriet had loved teaching her students about it; he suspected it was because the arrogant Roman army got crushed so soundly by a smaller but smarter force.

After he finished penciling in the nearby farmhouses, the peaceful scene suddenly became a nightmare as Hannibal the Carthaginian, outnumbered and far from his African home, outmaneuvered and utterly destroyed the defending Roman army. Foxx frantically sketched the charging Roman cavalry and their heedless destruction at the hands of Hannibal’s well-positioned infantry. He drew severed limbs and broken spears and bloodied helmets, piles of bodies stacked like hillocks. He had never sketched so rapidly in his life, and it was all he could do to not leap aside every time a riderless horse or wounded soldier ran past him as he watched the carnage through the prism.

So it went as Foxx zig-zagged across Italy, the camera lucida showing him the impossible as he sketched his way toward Rome, where he would spend the remainder of his time until the money was gone—just as he and Harriet had planned.

* * *

Rome in mid-December was a city gone dormant: bare trees, few tourists. Foxx walked quiet streets, a rough woolen scarf around his neck to stave off the chill.

Now comfortable with whatever the camera lucida revealed to him, he drew Rome with abandon: Senators taking their baths; merchants selling olives from huge clay pots; dark-skinned Africans and red-haired Gaels being sold in the slave markets, their wrists and ankles in chains; crusaders passing through on their way to the Holy Land; the great dome going up, brick-by-brick, over St. Peters. Whatever period of time he concentrated on as he drew was what came alive through the prism when his sketch was finished.

One cold afternoon he sat sketching the Colosseum. He had just traced the rounded walls with their stacked arches when the camera lucida showed him throngs of Romans, milling about and waiting to see the day’s combat. Some were well-to-do citizens, most were plebians, poor and restless—the mobs Emperor Vespasian had built the Colosseum to mollify.

Foxx was sketching the Romans filing into the arena when a tall gladiator swaggered up out of the stone tunnels from beneath the Colosseum. The giant man walked along the flagstone street while the gathered crowd cheered, at least visibly. Foxx could, of course, hear nothing.

The gladiator’s strutting brought him near where Foxx sat, giving him a close-up view of the polished iron helmet pushed back on the fighter’s broad forehead. Foxx drew in the man’s leather and iron armor, the greaves strapped around his thick calves, the sandals on his feet. He could almost smell the dust and sweat as his pencil flicked and scratched, his memory capturing and filling in the details even after the gladiator disappeared back underneath the Colosseum.

A breeze twirled leaves around the legs of his drawing table as he sketched, and it was then, from the corner of his downcast eyes—out from beyond the perspective of the prism—that Foxx caught sight of the toes of a pair of fine leather boots.

He had grown used to people looking over his shoulder while he drew. Most only stared for a minute before moving on, occasionally commenting on his clever historical embellishments.

But today these boots stayed. Three minutes. Five. Then ten. Foxx was absorbed with the gladiator and soon forgot about the observer.

When he finally put down the pencil, the boots shuffled and a voice said, “I say. Very sorry to disturb, but that’s quite remarkable.”

Foxx looked up.

The man was tall, about his own age. English—his accent conveyed breeding and wealth. He was dressed expensively, an ivory-topped cane in one hand, a well-tailored coat over his shoulders.

“Thank you.”

“Your speculations on the attire of the Roman citizenry, and that gladiator, seem quite specific,” the man said, indicating the sketch. “An educated guess? Perhaps based on the displays in the museums?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, an impressive drawing, accurate or not. You’ve a good imagination, and a great hand. I wonder…”

The man trailed off, scanning the exterior of the Colosseum. Foxx followed his eyes and saw a young boy, small wooden sword in hand, running back and forth among the arches. The child was engaged in mock combat with unseen adversaries.

“That’s my son,” the man said, a note of sadness in his voice. “He’s recently lost his mother. He’s been inconsolable, so I thought a trip to Rome might do us both some good. Warmer climate, exploring the ruins. Oscar—that’s his name—is fascinated with the Romans. Anything to do with their battles and armor and weapons. Mark my words, someday he’ll either be teaching classics at Oxford or developing strategy at the Royal Military College. He’s obsessed. But at least it keeps his mind off of…”

Foxx said nothing, letting the man talk. The late afternoon sun spread long shadows across the cobbles and a distant church bell tolled. Otherwise the streets were quiet, a few Romans hurrying home, or to mass.

The man continued. “We return to London in a few days. Oscar has wanted a souvenir of our trip, something unique. Do you perhaps do commissions? Something like your sketch there. He would be thrilled, as would I.”

“Commissions?” said Foxx, surprised.

“I’ll pay you, of course,” the man continued quickly, misinterpreting Foxx’s reaction. “Would five guineas do it?”

Foxx nearly choked. “F-f-five?” he stammered. That could keep him in Rome for another two months.

“Dear me, I’m sorry. That must be terribly insulting. Your sketches certainly are unique, and well contrived. I do hope I have not offended you, Mr…?”

“Foxx. John Foxx.”

“Mr. Foxx. Shall we say ten guineas, then? I hope that is more acceptable.”

Foxx nodded, stunned, and the man extended his hand.

“Settled, then. I’m Clifford Rotham. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Foxx.”

“Clifford Rotham? Earl of Lowestoft?” Foxx said, stunned once more.

“Yes, yes,” the man said. “But that matters not here, eh, Mr. Foxx? I’m just a father, trying to secure some measure of happiness for his son.”

Then he turned toward the Colosseum. “Oscar! Come here please.”

The boy disengaged from imaginary combat and walked toward them, sulking at being brought back to reality. Foxx knew all too well how that felt, and thought perhaps he could do something about it.

“Oscar, this is Mr. Foxx. What do you think of his drawing here?”

The boy stared down at the strutting gladiator and his scowl disappeared. “Brilliant!” he beamed. “Can he do one for me? Please, papa?”

“How about,” Foxx said, an idea forming, “I do one of you?”

* * *

The sketch of the boy fighting inside the Colosseum had been easy enough to manage, even in the fading daylight. They made their way inside the arena, and while Foxx set up the camera lucida and sketched the interior from the perspective of a spectator in the stands, the boy and his father, following Foxx’s instruction, found a flat spot down on the floor, careful to avoid the areas that had collapsed over the centuries.

By the time the boy was in position Foxx had finished his sketch. He thought of the gladiator and the Colosseum—to Foxx’s eyes at least—came alive. Colored banners streamed from the highest arches, canopies hung over long poles for shade, and bare-chested drummers beat giant sideways drums. The crowds were thick, the seats nearly full. Foxx could imagine the tremendous noise of such a spectacle.

Down on the arena floor, two gladiators—chained together at their waists and each bearing a short sword and small, round shield—battled a half-starved bear. The bear eventually lost, but not before delivering a nasty gash to the leg of one of his attackers.

Then the gladiator that Foxx had drawn earlier appeared from behind two wooden doors, and the crowd stood to cheer. He was far bigger than the two who had just killed the bear, and he was their next challenge. Though Foxx could not hear the crowd, he knew they were rooting for this lone champion, who raised a long spear over his head and pumped his arms.

The boy, Oscar, was juxtaposed over this scene in Foxx’s prism. Foxx called down to the boy to act like he was in combat with a gladiator. The boy started posturing, shouting, “How’s this, Mr. Foxx? Shall I jab, or swing wide?”

“Whatever you like!” Foxx called back, and drew the boy—attacking aggressively here, parrying there—so that little Oscar appeared to be battling the champion in different locations across the arena floor.

The lone gladiator, strong and swift as he was, should have defeated the two smaller combatants. But to Foxx’s surprise the pair eventually overcame him, by clever use of the chain that bound them together to trip him up and their swords to finish him off. As they stood over the fallen champion’s body, Foxx called down to Oscar.

“Stand over there. No, there! Yes, good. Now, lift your foot and bend your knee just so. Excellent!” And he drew the boy, foot atop the fallen champion, sword raised high.

Oscar was beside himself with the finished sketch, delighted to see himself drawn as an ancient gladiator—attacking, feinting, parrying, and finally victorious over a much larger foe.

His father was even more pleased.

“He hasn’t smiled this much since before his mother passed,” he said as he pressed the payment into Foxx’s hand.

Ten guineas, as agreed, plus one extra.

“For his happiness,” the Earl said. And then, as if an afterthought, he handed Foxx a small card. “If you’ll be in Rome next summer, please send word to me at this address in London. I’ll be sure to recommend you to those in my circle who will be making the Tour. If you do other Roman scenes—you know, the baths for the ladies, chariot races for the men—with your artistic skill, and a copy of Tacitus or Gibbon…why, Mr. Foxx, you could be a very wealthy man!”

They disappeared into the late December evening, the sketch rolled under the Earl’s arm and Oscar swiping emphatically at invisible foes.

* * *

December became January, which passed into February. With the money from the Earl’s commission, and frugal living, Foxx could afford to remain in Rome through summer.

He rented a small room near the Pantheon and spent his days sketching.

He mastered the trick behind whatever it was that made the camera lucida open a vista onto the past. All he had to do was draw the scene before him, and then think about some known historical event that occurred there. The more detailed his thoughts, the more specific the scene would be. And then, as if someone pulled back a curtain, the past came alive before him.

Tacitus and Gibbon, indeed! He found second-hand English copies of The Histories and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, read everything he could on the Renaissance masters, and daily congratulated himself for having paid such close attention to Harriet’s fervent historical discussions.

One glorious April morning during Holy Week, when the trees on Palatine Hill were a riot of pink blossoms and Rome was filled with pilgrims, he convinced a priest at the Vatican to let him into the Sistine Chapel between morning Mass and afternoon Vespers. After sketching the silent, gorgeous chamber he thought of Michelangelo, high on his scaffold, dabbing at the ceiling.

And then, through the prism, the chapel was suddenly filled with rickety wooden platforms. On the topmost stood the master himself, painting his fresco. From down below Foxx watched as the artist’s arm reached up and spread wet plaster, then applied a few strokes from his brush before it dried. Inch by inch, a small section of one of the Renaissance’s most celebrated frescos was painted before his eyes.

Foxx also learned with regret that once he observed a scene, he could not go back and observe it again. So it was. But with all of history at his disposal, he never seemed to run out of material. And so he adopted Rome as his own even as the city, and the rest of the Italian peninsula, grew restless. There were rumors of revolution, that the great patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi might even return from South America to lead the fight to unify Italy’s various kingdoms into a single state.

Meanwhile his money dwindled. In March Foxx had sent a short letter to the Earl in London, politely reminding him of their meeting, and informing him that during the coming tourist season Foxx would be doing sketches daily at the Colosseum, in the Forum, in front of St. Peters, and elsewhere around Rome. Foxx included his address, hoped for the best, and eventually forgot about the letter until late May, when a small package arrived.

It was a copy of Murray’s Hand-Book for Travelers in Italy, 1846—a small red book, sized to fit in a coat pocket, freshly printed. A white card was inserted near the middle, and when Foxx opened it to that page he found a section of text had been circled in thick, black ink.

…As to souvenirs of Rome, the Earl of Lowestoft reports that a certain expatriate sketch artist, by the name of Foxx, does remarkable drawings with his camera lucida in which tourists are inserted into imagined recreations of past events. We have observed a drawing that this Mr. Foxx has done of the Honourable Oscar Rotham, the Earl’s son, and it is truly remarkable, casting the boy in the likeness of a gladiator engaged in combat within the Colosseum itself! Such fanciful historical sketches would make wonderful souvenirs for the traveler who already has enough of the olive-wood carvings and leaded-glass religious baubles that constitute the usual Roman momentos. Mr. Foxx can be found sketching in the vicinity of the major attractions of Rome, or can be hired for commissions directly at his studio near the Pantheon…

The bookmark was another of the Earl’s calling cards. On the back was a short message:

Good luck, Mr. Foxx!—C. Rotham

He smiled. June was just around the corner. The days were lengthening, and already the first English accents could be heard calling through the streets of Rome.

Foxx hurried out to buy more paper.

* * *

November, 1851

Mayfair, London

Foxx’s Historical Artworks was a small place on Cork Street, just north of the Burlington Arcade and a two-minute walk from the Royal Academy of Art. It had a small shop in front, where light from tall windows fell upon display tables stacked with books and woodcuts, and a private studio in the back. The little bell on the front door chimed as someone stepped in off the sidewalk.

Foxx’s assistant, George, stood to greet the customer while Foxx himself, back in the studio, finished inscribing copies of his latest folio book, Historical Sketches, Vol. 18: The Late Italian Renaissance Reimagined.

When the London publishers saw samples of his work coming up out of Italy in 1846, and learned of his growing popularity among wealthy vacationing nobles, they outbid each other for themed volumes of his sketches, which Foxx sent to London from his studio in Rome. Renaissance Italy Revealed was an instant bestseller, and was followed by other wildly popular works, some now into their fourth or fifth printing: Florence Through the Ages, Rome During the Time of the Apostles, and Leonardo in his Studio. And although no one was willing to admit it openly, Foxx’s Techniques of Michelangelo, though never an official part of the curriculum of the Royal Academy, was secretly read and reread by the faculty and students alike.

By the end of his first summer doing souvenir sketches in Rome, he was as much a tourist attraction as were the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps. But in June of that year Rome had a new Pope, Pius IX, whom Italian patriots believed would support their unification efforts. Tensions heightened all over Italy and by the following summer of 1847 the tourists were far fewer. Foxx read the writing on the wall; before the revolutions broke out in January, 1848, he left Italy and took his camera lucida north of the Alps.

Other bestsellers soon followed: The Construction of Chartres Cathedral, Paris and the Court of Louis XIV, and Famous Battles of the Thirty Years War. Even as the revolutions of 1848 spread out of Italy and engulfed Europe, Foxx traveled and sketched, careful to avoid the areas where the uprisings were most destructive. He eventually returned to London in 1851.

Thus six years passed and Foxx became a minor celebrity. His display in the Fine Art Courts of the Crystal Palace at London’s Great Exhibition that year was constantly filled with visitors. Prince Albert came through and shook his hand, and after that every English family with a claim to noble blood wanted a Foxx historical portrait—showing them triumphant on the fields of Agincourt, or looking grave and solemn at the signing of the Magna Carta. Those who could not afford a private sitting gladly settled for one of his limited-edition “historical recreations”—Wellington at Waterloo, Nelson at Trafalgar. Military victories were perennial favorites. But the gruesome posthumous beheading of Oliver Cromwell’s corpse was, somewhat disturbingly, far and away his best seller.

Money, in short, was no longer an issue. If only Harriet were with him now. She would be so pleased. But Foxx had been discouraged as of late, spending all his time satisfying London’s desire for fanciful historical “reimaginings,” while neglecting his own desire to paint.

He looked around his studio, saw the blank canvases he had purchased and the many tubes of paint sitting unopened on shelves.

Do not complain, he reminded himself. He had been given a great gift: enough wealth to be comfortable along with fame for his masterful, if “fanciful,” artistic skill.

Yet even now, his work with the camera lucida was not coming along as readily as before. It was as if the clarity and intensity of the historical scenes themselves were fading with his lack of interest.

“Mr. Foxx?” It was George, appearing from the front of the shop. “There is a woman here to see you. She claims to have met you many years ago. A Madame Magnin? Funny old bird.”

Foxx started. “Yes, of course. Please, send her back.”

A minute later the old woman shuffled into the studio slowly, flicking a cane ahead of her with each step, tik-tik-tik.

“Ah, Mr. Foxx,” she said, looking around. “This is a nice place, quite fancy.”

“Thank you.” Foxx motioned for her to sit down on the cushioned chair next to his, but she shook her head.

“It has been many years, Madame. How can I help you?”

“I have a message, Mr. Foxx.”

“From whom?”

“Your Harriet.”

Foxx paled.

“She visited me. She said you have been harder to see lately. Distant. She said I was to speak to you. I’ve come across London. It is a long walk from Whitechapel to Mayfair, Mr. Foxx.”

“What…what is the message?”

“You must leave the past behind now. It is time for your future. That thing,” she pointed to the camera lucida, “has served its purpose. Now you must paint.”

She turned and began to shuffle out again.

“Wait!” said Fox, chasing her. “That’s the message? Just…paint?”

“Yes.”

It felt incomplete, anticlimactic. Foxx tried to stall her. “But…Harriet! She is well? She is happy? She is…with the Lord?”

Magnin smiled, still shuffling forward, tik-tik-tik. “Ah! That’s usually the first question, you know.”

When her hand was on the doorknob at the front of the shop, Foxx remembered his manners and pulled a crown from his pocket, offering it to her. She shook her head.

“Please,” protested Foxx. “For your troubles.”

“The messages are not troubles,” she said, pushing his hand away. “They are gifts.”

Then she walked out the door and disappeared into the crowds on Burlington Arcade.

Suddenly, from the studio, there was a shout and the sound of something breaking. A distraught George appeared, a bent brass rod and broken prism in his hand.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Mr. Foxx! I bumped the table when I was moving the books you signed. It must have fallen off!” He looked desperate. “Please, take it out of my wages!”

Foxx took the broken pieces of the camera lucida and stared at them for a moment. Then he patted George on the shoulder.

“A simple accident, George. Don’t upset yourself. This day is nearly over anyway. Why don’t you lock up and go home. I’d like to spend a little time alone.” Foxx eyed the stack of large, empty canvases in the corner of the studio. “Although perhaps, before you go, you can help me lift one of those onto an easel?”

“Of course, Mr. Foxx,” said George eagerly. “Anything you say, sir!”

When George had gone, Foxx set the pieces of the camera lucida on a shelf and began to open tubes of paint, one by one.

KB Rylander

We Fly

Originally published by Baen

* * *

At 18:27 input received. <Unidentified Error detected.>

Get me out. Let me breathe.

The carbon-steel hull lies a scant half-centimeter from my face, but I can’t dwell on that. It’s what started me into panic in the first place.

* * *

I crawled to my spot next to Matthew James in the back of Dad’s two-door classic Chevy, trying to keep my bare legs from burning on the peeling vinyl. Dad rolled down the window in an attempt to cool things off, but I resigned myself to sucking it up and breathing the soupy hot air. As the engine puttered to life and the radio blared "Summer in the City," I scowled at Mom and Dad’s delight in the ancient song. In the rear-view mirror Dad’s bushy eyebrows crinkled as he laughed.

He tossed back a hard candy. "Hang in there, Natasha."

* * *

In deep orbit around Alpha Centauri AB.4, encapsulated in a coffin-sized hunk of metal, I’m surrounded by nothingness—silence and cold and dark. The ship pings, announcing the return of the first Little Guy probe. Cool peppermint lingers on my phantom lips from the memory.

My robotic eyes open, but see only darkness. The metal shell around me clunks and there’s a mechanical whine as the beach ball-sized Little Guy docks with the ship and silence again while its data uploads. Please let the planet be habitable. I came all this way, give me something.

While I wait, I check with the comm-bots on the Beacon construction and try to ignore the itching. My skin is a synthetic polymer covered in forty-two thousand sensors that were overkill in training, but now, inside the capsule, they’re worse than useless. They pick up every tiny dust particle. My mind-construct interprets these as itches and somewhere during my malfunctions I’ve lost the ability to turn the sensors off.

My biggest complaint is the choking. I know I’m not actually choking. I’m not crazy. But it’s the same sensation, a tightening as if a hand grips my non-existent throat.

I think back, trying to figure where I went wrong. It makes no sense. Everything was normal before I shut down for the journey—months of training, psychological assessments, and self-diagnostics came back with flying colors. Upon arrival three days ago I awoke to panic and malfunctions. Sure, fifty-two years passed back home but it felt like a blink of an eye for me. I remember with perfect clarity the day they mapped my brain and uploaded me into the probe, how afterward I said goodbye to my old self, that human Natasha, and watched her go on her way.

The data from the Little Guy finishes uploading. This is it. I can’t get the files open fast enough.

The first several photos show a dense atmosphere of swirling browns. A few manipulations give me access to surface images of a gray crust filled with rocky gullies like the wrinkles of a massive elephant.

As the rest of the Little Guys return and fill me in on the data they’ve collected, the choking in my throat gets worse.

Alpha Centauri AB.4 is a lump of rock. Six thousand kilometers in radius, dense carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. No chance of sustaining life. In other words, Venus but warmer. All of this, my life’s work and traveling 4.3 light years to find the twin of our nearest neighbor.

* * *

The rain pattered against the windows as Grandma pulled chocolate chip cookies out of the oven and I watched from the kid-safe distance of the kitchen table. Grandma hummed absently and I took a deep, cookie-scented breath. Warmth filled me all the way to my toes. Just as my mouth started watering, shadows fall over the memory, swallowing Grandma and her kitchen, and I resist a tug pulling me into the darkness.

Vivid, perfect memory is one of the perks of upload technology, but with my malfunctions I can’t even get those right.

I jerk free of the shadows and end up on the road beside the airfield. This isn’t a memory I’d choose. When I was thirteen, not long after Sophia died, my parents took me all sorts of places trying to cheer me up. During one of those attempts we stopped at Luke Air Force Base. Mom, Dad, Matthew James, and I stood beside the chain-link fence with the Arizona sun beating down on us as it leached the sky a dull blue. The air smelled of rain without a cloud in sight. The necklace I wore that day feels too tight now and I want nothing more than to take it off, but the memory doesn’t work that way. Mom and Dad stood close to me, but all I could think about was the terrible inside-twisty feeling of everything being so wrong.

Sophia would never grow up and fly. She’d never even get to see a plane.

My eyes prickled as a jet engine roared, the ground beneath our feet rumbling. Matthew James, ten years old at the time, let out a whoop and jumped against the chain-link fence. "This is more like it!" he yelled. The rest of his words were swallowed by the roar of the plane.

A whoosh of adrenaline surged through me as the jet zoomed off—a child-like excitement I don’t remember having felt. Some of the pressure lifts from my chest.

Dad sighed and squeezed my shoulder. "We can take you someplace else if you’d rather?"

I don’t mind watching a few more, but I said, "Yes, please."

Matthew James scowled.

* * *

The files from Earth include forty-eight years of updates sent to me at the speed of light while I slept. In those files was the discovery of another rocky planet, AB.6—this one looking even less promising than AB.4, so they didn’t send me there right away.

It’s taken me two months at my reduced speeds, but AB.6 is within spitting distance. During that time I’ve been awake, malfunctioning, and staving off panic by reliving memories and avoiding shadows. I can watch my video library thousands of times per hour, but somehow memories take longer.

Once again the ship’s cameras fail to respond, so I’m blind as the ship settles into high orbit around the planet. Metal clunks within the capsule as the bay doors open to release the five Little Guys that will take pictures and run analysis of the planet below.

I reboot and run another self-diagnostic that tells me the same thing as the others:

<Unidentified Error detected.>

Great. As if I didn’t know that before running the tests. The least it could do is give me an idea of where my processing went haywire.

Only seconds after the bay doors close the comm-bots ping me. The Beacon relay ship beat me here by weeks.

<Beacon construction complete. Spooling commenced.>

The "Beacon" is a misnomer really. It’s not setting up an actual beacon so much as connecting two points in space, allowing instant transfer of data four light-years away. It’s revolutionized our ability to work with the Mars teams, but this beacon is the farthest out by far. Some of the pressure on my chest lets up with anticipation of communication with Earth.

Another ping, call it a virtual knock on the door, this time from a human-controlled computer back on Earth.

The Beacon works.

As the systems connect—thank God they connect—I pull up my avatar file, look it over, and decide my face doesn’t look quite right. I sharpen the features and add a different hairstyle. I remove my once-beautiful braids and give avatar-Natasha short hair.

I’m done in nanoseconds and wait a few more before the channel opens and two video feeds of Mission Control come into view, one an overview of the room, the other near ground level.

In fifty-two years Mission Control’s design has changed little. A redesign with dark wood paneling and comfortable-looking leather desk chairs gives the room a warmth it never had before. Three rows of desks have given way to a more spacious two and the room is packed with people smiling at the camera in anticipation. In a couple of seconds their visual feed kicks in and they break out in applause and cheers and clinking champagne glasses.

I send a smile to my avatar face and their cheers grow louder. Don’t act crazy, don’t act crazy.

"Can you hear us, Natasha?" says a man’s voice.

<Loud and clear,> I send back and hear it spoken in Mission Control. "Nice to see the human race hasn’t changed much."

They all laugh in delight even though it wasn’t funny and I search the crowd for familiar faces, albeit much older ones. Three individuals stand in front of the up-close camera: a man and woman in lime-green uniforms with United American Space Agency splashed garishly across the front in neon orange and a young woman in a tan business suit. It looks like something my mother would have worn.

"I’m Commander John Cook," the man in the garish uniform says. He reads from the palm of his hand and clears his throat. "I see you’re sending us your data already, that’s excellent. Have you already reached AB.4?"

"Yes sir, but I’m afraid the news isn’t as we hoped."

Cook looks at his companion. The crowd murmurs.

Halfway through briefing them on AB.4 and AB.6 there’s a hiccup in my processors so I restart and reconnect.

When the cameras come back online Cook stands frowning at me, his arms folded. "Did you go offline for a second?"

So much for hoping they wouldn’t notice. I feel remarkably like a child standing in front of the class. "I’m back now," I say, sending a toothy grin to avatar-Natasha.

"You were telling us about AB.6," he prompts. "You’re in orbit now and there was some reason you couldn’t send us pictures. Something about the ship’s cameras?"

"Not functioning," I say. My throat clenches and avatar-Natasha brushes her neck without me directing it to do so.

"But you’ve deployed the probes."

"My communication with them is down. I have to wait for their return."

"Damage during the journey?"

"Diagnostics tell me it’s not a physical problem." Avatar-Natasha runs her hand over her throat again, as if trying to remove something that’s not there. Get a grip.

The faces in the crowd are all too young to be anyone I know. They stare up at their screens with rapt attention. No one seems to have noticed that my cartoon avatar has a nervous tick.

"Care to explain in more detail?" Cook says.

"Can I talk to Howard?" My voice comes out sounding too high pitched.

Cook glances at the people around him for clues. "Howard?" He shifts from foot to foot and reads something on his palm. "Howard Vine? The lead compu-psychologist in your training?"

The uniformed woman at his side turns and addresses the crowd. "Can we clear the room of all non-essential personnel, please?"

In the minute it takes the people to file out I run through video files of hang-gliding to calm my nerves.

Cook straightens his uniform and speaks slowly, as if I’m a nut job. "Natasha, you understand you slept fifty-two years, right?"

I go through my defensive excuses in nanoseconds, discard the childish ones and settle on the mature response. "Actually the compu-psychological team might be of some help."

Cook nods to the woman in the business suit who steps forward. "Hi Natasha, I’m Dr. Najim, the lead psychologist for your team and a theoretical compu-psychologist."

I get her caught up on the basics, trying not to sound too crazy: the panic when I awoke, the choking sensation, the problems communicating with the Little Guys.

She stares at my avatar.

My avatar clears her throat. "This problem can’t be new to you. Sure, the technology was cutting edge when I left but—"

"Uploading was banned over forty years ago. This was for political reasons, not because there was something wrong with the technology, Natasha. A problem like the one you describe was never reported. Before the ban, we had scientists volunteer to have themselves copied for upload and sent on space missions within our solar system, and others who were shut off for long periods of time, as you were. None have reported problems."

"What are you saying?" Cook asks.

"I don’t know how to help," she says.

* * *

I stood at our dining table back home in Phoenix, with friends crowding around me as I prepared to blow out six tall candles on a princess cake. Mom’s perfume made my eyes water and I felt her close behind me, leading everyone’s singing in her off-key way. Dad stood across from me, taking pictures with his phone and grinning like a fool. Matthew James looked at me with sad eyes and I wondered why. I wore a pink frilly dress that I had always loved before, but now it feels wrong, and my cheeks flush in embarrassment.

On the real day I didn’t dislike the dress, did I? I wore it for years afterward. The others at the party must see that I look ridiculous wearing this. They’ll make fun of me for being a girl.

No one seems to notice.

* * *

AB.6 is a thing of beauty. The first pictures from the Little Guys show all whites and blues and a deep purple I can’t help but speculate is plant life. Its atmosphere is eighty percent nitrogen and nineteen percent oxygen. The surface temperatures estimated in fifty locations ranged between negative twenty Celsius near the winter pole and a max of positive forty. It’s roughly three-quarters the size of Earth, with slightly more land mass. It is, in other words, just right.

I call it Goldilocks.

* * *

"So how ya feeling?" Whitaker asks with his deep, ninety-year-old vibrato. He’s a colleague from my team back before takeoff and the only person I’ve met who was alive when I lived on Earth. His sagging eyes water with thinly-veiled emotion at being allowed the visit. I didn’t anticipate how good it would feel to see someone I know, even someone I didn’t know well. I’ve wondered about the other Natasha, how she’s doing and if she’d be able to tell me what’s wrong with my memories.

Despite the tears, there’s laughter in Whitaker’s eyes and in those around him. Everyone is in a better mood today after the news about Goldilocks.

I smile. "I’m ready to get out of this metal box and down to that damn fine planet."

More chuckles.

Dr. Najim says, "All in due time. Protocol, after all."

While I have the ability to run the mission on my own, protocol dictates that Mission Control authorizes the landing. They say they’re waiting for the Little Guys to finish their flybys and perform preliminary safety tests, find a suitable landing site, what have you. Easy for them to say. They’re not suffocating in this box.

I send over a friendly but exasperated expression.

"Follow your heart, kiddo," Whitaker says.

Dr. Najim shoots him a look.

"She’s anxious to get down there, of course," he says.

"I’d prefer if you didn’t refer to me as she actually," I say.

"Pardon?" Najim asks.

I don’t want to tell them it feels like nails on a chalkboard being referred to as the wrong gender so I say, "I’m a machine. It is more accurate."

UASA folks try to usher Whitaker away, but he plants his feet and grips the armrests of his chair.

Dr. Najim looks at the others, opens her mouth, and closes it again. "Okay? If that makes you more comfortable, we’d be happy to refer to you as an it rather than a 'she." She nods slowly and leans back from the camera as if trying to distance herself while she thinks things through.

I couldn’t care less if I confused them, I just want out of this ship and down on the planet. They sent a computer out to space and a computer is what they’re going to get. Maybe they’ll authorize my trip sooner.

* * *

On the southeast hemisphere of Goldilocks there’s this mountain range that puts the Himalayas to shame. The desert that stretches out on its leeward side ends with rolling violet plains. Beyond that is the planet’s equivalent of a forest, with white-barked trees and brilliantly hued leaves the size and shape of dinner plates. These same trees, a taller variety with pink leaves rather than purple, are also found on a continent five thousand kilometers to the north.

I revel in every new piece of information the Little Guys bring back. Their high-res telescopic cameras take detailed pictures from orbit, but I’m itching to get down there and see it for myself, analyze the air and determine if it’s truly habitable for a human colony.

There’s no evidence of animal life yet, but the place teems with plant-like organisms. Xenobiology was my first PhD and remains my passion. I’ve found my landing site without Mission Control’s help—a high plain on the edge of several ecosystems. Nearing the ocean is a cliff that must be three thousand feet high with incredible rock formations at its base.

It’s been weeks and they still won’t authorize my landing. In that time I’ve gleaned clues about Earth they neglected to send me in the official updates. Parts of the planet are in turmoil. The Indian Space Agency sent generation ships this direction in the blind hope habitable planets would be found. With their speeds I won’t get visitors for decades, but I might create the groundwork to save their lives.

I enter my landing site into the ship’s navigation.

<Initiate landing.>

<Error.>

I reboot and try again.

<Unidentified Error detected.>

Yes, yes. I know. <Initiate landing.>

<Error.>

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

* * *

I ping Mission Control and tweak my avatar, trying to get the look right while I wait. The screens come into view and a young guy in a UASA uniform sits in front of me.

"I’m ready to land and start my analysis of the surface," I say. "I need you to resend me the ship’s landing authorization."

"Resend?" he asks. "Um. Can you give me a minute? It’s 2:00 a.m."

"Yes, of course."

Dr. Najim shows up an hour later wearing another one of her business suits. She sits ironing-board straight with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. "You’ve changed your avatar."

The old one didn’t feel right anymore. "I needed a change."

"You’ve changed your gender. And your race."

"Well, I’m not any gender or any race now, am I?"

"How do you feel about this change?"

"It’s just a picture." Honestly this new one isn’t right either, but I wouldn’t tell her that.

"I can’t help but notice that you’ve changed yourself to a white male. I feel there’s some significance to that." When I don’t answer she says, "I hear you requested landing authorizations?"

"Yes. I’ve had enough waiting, I want to get down to the surface." And out of this damn capsule, I refrain from saying.

"I understand," she says. "But let’s get a few of these kinks worked out first. We don’t want to risk unintentional damage in case anything goes wrong due to your—" She rethinks her word choice. "—processing problem."

"Then help me with my problem. What’s wrong with me? Some hitch during boot-up? I was fine one second, I switched off for space flight, and then I woke up feeling like I’d been buried alive. Why am I suddenly afraid of being in space when I’ve loved it my whole life?"

She sighs. "This development is unprecedented. The rare issues with the other uploads were immediately evident, not weeks after. Your initial testing looked great, that’s the reason you were selected."

"Listen," I say. "You’ve got colonists on their way who need to know if they’ve got a safe place to land. What you need is a probe on the ground, you need me down there."

Dr. Najim nods, but before she has a chance to say something I cut in.

"You can’t give me this responsibility," I say and am not sure why I said it.

"But you just said you want to go down there."

"I’m not talking about that responsibility. I’m talking about the other one."

"What other one?"

"I don’t know!"

I restart.

<Unidentified Error detected.>

When the video feed comes back Dr. Najim still sits in the same place. I wasn’t gone long.

"Natasha Washington might help," I say. "I want to talk to her."

"That’s you," she says as if I didn’t know that.

"No, the other one. The human one who used to be me. She’s alive right? Is she senile?"

Dr. Najim shakes her head. "Oh no, I’m not supposed to talk to you about your other self. That was one of the foundational rules of uploading. It’s best that two distinct individuals are formed."

She seems to think it over.

"Listen," she says, lowering her voice. "I will tell you that she’s alive and she’s not senile, but there’s no way you’re talking to her."

"She could help me figure out what’s wrong," I say. "She’s me." But sane.

* * *

I sat on our neighbor’s couch, playing a game on my phone while the baby slept upstairs. I slipped into my least favorite memory on purpose this time. There’s something distinctly wrong with it, I just can’t figure out what.

"Baby Sophia is up there right now." Matthew James stood at the foot of the stairs in his favorite airplane shirt. "Can we go check on her? I can’t go up there by myself."

My phone screen showed I’d hit a new high score so I smiled and checked my watch. Sophia’s parents would be home soon.

Matthew James ran to me. "Go up there and check on her," he yelled. "How are you supposed to take care of me if you can’t take care of one little baby?"

I ignored him. The hand gripping my phantom throat squeezes like a vice-grip while the thirteen-year-old me continued breathing normally.

Her parents arrived home carrying the whiff of Chinese-food takeout. Sophia’s dad paid me while her mom went up to check on her. Matthew James slammed his hands over his ears as Sophia’s mother screamed.

"She’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!"

* * *

Another day in orbit, stuck in the capsule with my sensors going off as if I’m being crawled on by a thousand ants. I’m trying to figure out the piece I’m missing by playing through a memory, one where I’m an adult for once. I was accepting my degree in an outdoor graduation and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. I looked out over the crowd at my smiling family—Mom, Dad, and ten-year-old Matthew James. As the shadows draw in, something clicks in my brain, something important that’s just out of reach. A ping from the Beacon brings me out of the memory.

It’s like a whack to the head. My processors fire warnings. A quick sweep of the data packet tells me not to download it.

It’s from Mission Control. I know what this means: a remote wipe and reload.

They decided to wipe me clean and upload the probe with some kind of AI to finish their job. They’re trying to get rid of me. It’s a risky move, one that could leave them with a hunk of metal and nothing else. I’m equipped for attacks like this. Of course I am, couldn’t have a terrorist organization or rival government hijacking the mission’s most important resource.

When my head clears I send them a single message: "It’s not going to work, assholes."

I cut off communication and scramble for clues on how to fix myself. If they try that again and I have a malfunction they could get through my defenses. Cutting off the Beacon relay is an option—they can’t wipe my processors clean and load the probe with AI if the Beacon shuts off.

Hours later, when I’m confident I’ll hold for now, I reconnect to the Beacon and send a message.

"Let me talk to the human Natasha. Get her there today or I’m cutting off communication permanently."

* * *

They’re fast, I’ll give them that. Two hours later I watch my former self, now eighty-six, walk into Mission Control. Her hair has gone white and she’s shrunk in her old age, but she still walks tall. She sits down with a huff, looks up at my avatar and raises an eyebrow.

"Why do you look like that?" Her voice sounds deep and crackly, as if she’s smoked the last fifty years of her life. "You sure you’re me?"

"The avatar is there so you have someone to talk to," I say.

"Well, I know that. It just doesn’t look like any face I’d have wanted."

That shouldn’t sting. I shouldn’t care what she thinks. "I need to ask you about the night Sophia died."

Her brows furrow and her face blanches. "You really must be screwed in the head. I haven’t thought about her in fifty years."

What a load of bull. "It doesn’t bother you?"

"Nope."

"Tell me, have you had any children?"

She shakes her head, looks away and waves her hand dismissively. "Nothing to do with Sophia."

"No kids, fine. Ever had a dog? Or a cat? A fish? Been responsible for any living thing but yourself?"

The other Natasha’s shoulders sag.

"If you could just help me understand why things happened like they did," I say. "The night Sophia died, why didn’t we go check on her?"

"She died of SIDS," the old Natasha says, raising her voice. "Did you expect us to check on her every two minutes?"

"But when we were downstairs Matthew James told us to—"

"What? Who the hell is Matthew James?"

I study her face for signs she’s not serious. Maybe she’s senile after all. "Matthew James. Our ten-year-old brother." As I hear it I realize "brother" doesn’t fit.

She looks up at me on the screen and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head. "Matthew James. Matthew James." Finally, she smiles. "Matthew James Whitaker!"

My non-existent gut wrenches.

She fumbles on reading glasses and types into the palm of her hand. When she’s found what she’s looking for, she leans on the console to pull herself to her feet and reads, "Matthew James Whitaker, son of lead computer scientist Michael Whitaker. Died of cancer at age eleven." She peers at me over her glasses. "Six months after your departure."

* * *

On the recording, Whitaker sits in front of the camera, tears streaming down his deeply lined face. Uniformed officers stand on each side of him and Commander Cook stands with his back to the camera, arms folded.

"It worked," Whitaker says, unable to conceal a smile.

It all happened within a matter of hours after Natasha and I talked. Ninety-year-old Dr. Michael Whitaker was arrested for treason for sabotaging the mission. The other Natasha made sure they sent me the footage of Whitaker’s confession upon his arrest. I watched as he broke into tears when he explained how the week before takeoff to Alpha Centauri he’d sneaked his lab equipment home to his young son for the scans. How after I was shut off he added the additional upload to the probe, figuring all he had to do was avoid being caught for the few hours before takeoff and then it’d be too late to do anything about it.

I study his face on the video and see how after all these years the wounds of his child’s death haven’t left him. He looks at the camera, seemingly at me. His voice falters as he says, "I gave him the stars."

I get a ping from Mission Control and pause the video.

My visual feed kicks in and Commander Cook and Dr. Najim stand behind the other Natasha, who sits in one of the leather chairs. All three smile.

"We have good news," Commander Cook says. "We think we can fix you without a complete wipe."

I send a wary smile to my androgynous avatar.

He puts a hand on the elderly Natasha’s shoulder, as if he wants the next bit of information coming from her.

She clears her throat. "Your mind-construct wasn’t designed for an additional upload. It doesn’t know where you end and it begins."

I nod.

She smiles reassuringly. "The computer scientists believe they can restore you from your backup. You’ll have no memory past prepping for takeoff, but I think you’ll be happy to have these dark days behind you." She leans forward. "If you give Mission Control access, they can scrub the unauthorized upload."

She just called the consciousness of a little boy an unauthorized upload, and recommends I let them kill him so I don’t have to deal with him anymore. I study her face, trying to picture me being her. I can’t do it. I update my avatar back to my old self, the young version with the beautiful dark braids. Cook, Najim, and the old Natasha brighten, obviously thinking I’m on board with the proposal. My avatar gives the three of them a disgusted look.

And flips them the bird.

* * *

This time I seek out the shadows. Instead of darkness, I end up in sunlight. The airfield is as it was the day we visited, same light breeze, same roaring jets, but it’s not my memory. My parents are gone and Matthew James stands by himself, his white-blond hair falling into his eyes and a toy airplane clutched to his chest.

He squints at me in the bright sunlight and smiles. For the first time I see he has dimples. "You came," he says.

He seems shorter now because I’m at my full adult height. I feel like myself again.

"Can I talk to you?" I ask.

He nods and an airplane flies overhead. He looks up and grins back at me, cocking his head toward the plane and raising his eyebrows in delight.

"Do you know who I am?"

"You’re Natasha," he says, his voice stronger than I’d expect from a little kid. "My dad wanted you to take care of me."

"I guess you could say that."

"Are we trapped up in space?"

"No. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be."

"I don’t like little places."

"It’s not little here," I say, squinting up at the sky.

"But we aren’t here," he says. "This isn’t real."

"You’re a smart kid." I study him for a moment as he watches the takeoffs. "Big fan of airplanes, huh?"

He nods. "And flying. When I get big enough Dad says he’ll take me hang-gliding." He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before he frowns and tosses his toy plane to his feet. "I heard that old lady. I know I’m dead."

"You’re no more dead than me." I reach out my hand. "Want to help me explore Goldilocks?"

* * *

The metal shell that has encapsulated us for decades creaks open and a slit of light expands to the entire brilliant blue sky. Our six-foot-tall robotic probe uncurls and we stand upright. The tingly itching of our sensors fades away to processing the real input of a cool sixteen degree Celsius breeze with the warmth of Alpha Centauri B warming our gray synthetic skin. My processors translate the chemicals to smells as they were trained to do back home—earthy dirt, grassy and something pungent-sweet I can’t place, but that my chemical analysis translates as carbon-rich. The rolling landscape is filled with high grass swaying in the wind like a purple ocean.

We didn’t need Mission Control’s authorization to land the ship, but they gave it to us anyway. Now that I know Matthew James is there, the extra noise in my processes make sense. He’s less scared now, which helps our underlying feeling of panic, but it doesn’t make up for everything. We spent two days getting to know each other and teaching our mind-construct how to deal with two uploads. At our processing speeds we had the malfunctions under control within hours.

We reach down and collect a sample of the candy-colored grass for the Little Guys to analyze later.

Back at Mission Control, Commander Cook watches us explore our alien world, brow furrowed. "Remember your protocol, sample collection should wait until after all your systems are online."

"They’re online already," I tell him. My avatar—back to her old self—stands beside the Matthew James avatar on the Mission Control screen.

His blond hair falls into his avatar’s eyes just as it did in life. "We’re the pinnacle of scientific advancement for our time," he says, borrowing a line from a marketing video in my memory banks.

Cook almost cracks a smile.

* * *

A month after our landing we walk over squishy orange moss to the edge of a four thousand foot cliff and see the ocean far in the distance. Below us is a valley of plant-covered rock formations filled with fins and spires like a massive purple castle.

One part of us imagines that exploring it will be like a giant jungle maze with imaginary pirates and dragons, while the other is already working on a theory that it’ll provide a shelter base for a human settlement, perhaps even a city one day.

"Valley survey commencing," I tell Mission Control and Matthew James' excitement zings through us as he realizes the plan.

Mission Control pipes in. "But, how—? No, no, no, no, no. Your flight ability is for emergency use only. Find another way down."

We leap and extend our sails, catching an updraft. Forty-two thousand useless sensors light up so it almost feels like the wind is hitting real skin. The "oh-man-this-is-so-blasting-awesome" part of us gets guidance from the "let’s-be-sure-we-land-safe" part.

And we fly.

Hope Erica Schultz

Mr. Reilly’s Tattoo

Originally published in Fireside Magazine, Issue 18, December 2014

* * *

Mr. Reilly was my first patient. I was the only male CNA, and the nurses warned me that some patients would have a problem with it. Sure enough, when I knocked on his door he met me with a fierce glare.

“You’re a man.”

I started as though in surprise. “You’re right—I am!”

He didn’t smile. “You might be gay.”

I nodded. “I might. If I am, it isn’t contagious. Regardless, you can rest assured that you’re not my type.”

He gave a bark of laughter at that, and he let me help him with his shower.

One of the unexpected things about aging is what it does to tattoos. I saw a lot of misshapen anchors, illegible names, eagles like hippogriffs. I never saw anything like Mr. Reilly’s tattoo. It was a skull-faced grim reaper, hands reaching as though to tear out Mr. Reilly’s heart. That first time, it was entirely on the right side of his chest.

“What’s that for?” I asked as I helped him shower.

He gave that same bark of laughter. “That was a mistake. One I can’t fix.”

It was months later, after he got out of the hospital following a heart attack, that he told me more. I was cleaning the EKG tabs from his chest when I noticed that the reaper’s hands had reached his sternum.

“Is that—” I stopped, embarrassed. I was working towards my RN by then; fantasy was for children.

“Yes, it’s moving,” Mr. Reilly said. He paused, and I buttoned his pajama top. When I began to lotion his feet he started again.

“I loved a girl, before the war. She said she’d wait for me. When I was in Korea she sent me a letter that said that she was no longer free. I got roaring drunk, and woke up the next morning with the tattoo. My buddies said I’d gone to an old tattoo artist, told him that my girl was tearing out my heart, and damned if I’d let anyone but Death do that to me. He took my money and inked this on me. Back then the hands were at its side. They didn’t start moving for a few decades.

“The worst part is that when I got home I found out why Lorena had jilted me. She’d been dying, and hadn’t wanted me to know. Thought it was better, safer, for me to be angry than sad.”

He paused again, and I pulled socks on his bony feet to keep them warm. He looked up at me, and smiled. “Thanks, John.”

It was the first time he’d admitted that I had a name.

I saw him off and on after that, on weekends while I went to school during the week. There were three other men in the class of fifty, and Chris and I started dating. It was insane, both of us combining work and school and building a relationship, but somehow it worked.

Chris had been a tattoo artist, had gotten interested in helping people while injecting ink beneath their skin. I wanted to show him Mr. Reilly’s tattoo, but there were limits to the tolerance of the elderly. Suspecting I was gay and knowing it were two different things.

One day, though, Chris brought me to work, and Mr. Reilly brought it up himself.

“Is your young man coming to pick you up as well?”

I hadn’t lied directly to anyone about my sexuality since I was fifteen. “He is.”

“You bring him by, then. I want to meet him.”

It was almost like introducing Chris to my Dad. Like Dad, Mr. Reilly was cool about it. They talked for a bit, Chris’s old job came up, and Mr. Reilly paused a moment and then unbuttoned his shirt. “You ever see anything like this?”

“No, Sir,” Chris breathed.

I closed my mouth. The hands were reaching past midline, almost to the heart.

Mr. Reilly’s crooked smile said that he knew. “Don’t mess it up, Son. Boys, girls, I guess we’re all human first. Don’t give up on what you’ve got.”

I nodded.

* * *

A few months later, during my first shift as a brand new RN, one of the aides ran to get me. “John, Mr. Reilly’s worse. He’s calling for you.”

I knew that he’d never married, that a nephew was his closest relative. I went, hoping my presence would help.

He was sitting up in bed, gasping. “No hospital,” he said, his eyes fierce. “It’s going to be soon. I just wish…I wish my heart was going to Lorena, where it belongs.”

I got him nitro, held his hand, listened to his heart. The Reaper’s hands were curved now, into claws. When Mr. Reilly was calm, I left him, promising to return soon.

My first call was to Mr. Reilly’s nephew. The second was to Chris.

* * *

Chris arrived just after the nephew’s signed consent, and I explained what I needed him to do. He went in himself to explain it to Mr. Reilly, to get the consent there. Then he went to work, and I returned to med passes and vitals.

An hour later it was done. Mr. Reilly stared at the new tattoo, tears in his eyes; Chris had covered it with a clear dressing, so the heart was easily visible, with the words ‘Tom loves Lorena FOREVER’ emblazoned across it.

He grasped my hand. “Thank you. Now I’m not afraid to go.”

“There’s no hurry,” I teased gently. “I hear we’re having French toast for breakfast.”

He gave his bark of laughter, and closed his eyes. “We’ll see.”

The aide came to get me just at dawn, to do the pronouncement. I opened the pajama top to confirm the lack of a heartbeat, and then stopped.

The new heart was still there, but the hooded figure bore the face of a young, smiling woman. Hands, not claws, cradled the heart. The words, still in Chris’s flowing script, proclaimed: Lorena loves Tom. FOREVER.

The Princess in the Basement

Originally published by Diabolical Plots, June 2015.

* * *

I woke when the boy came through the window.

He looked about eight, all dark eyes in a brown face. “Don’t touch the floor.”

He startled. “Why not?”

“The monster under my bed will get you.”

He relaxed. “I’m too old to believe in monsters. You need a better lock for your window. And bars. Everybody in the neighborhood has bars.”

I tried to imagine bars on the window. Would it be more a prison?

“It’s not safe for you here. You need to go home.”

He shrugged, settling cross-legged on the dresser below the window. “My parents are fighting. I’ll go home in a few hours.”

It was dark outside. It was always dark when I woke. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Carlos. I’m the youngest. What’s yours?”

“I’m Jane. I’m the youngest, too.” Or I had been.

Carlos swung his legs. “You don’t talk like you’re from Boston.”

“I’m not, originally.” Was Boston even in England? Where had my curse taken me?

“What’s on your leg?” He hopped to the floor, and I cried out. Furst rumbled from under my bed, and Carlos jumped back onto the dresser. “What was that?”

“I told you.” I swallowed hard. “You need to go, now, Carlos. This isn’t a safe place for you.”

He opened his mouth, and one green claw came out from under the bed. It could have encircled a cantaloupe, or a man’s head.

“Go,” I repeated, and he went, out into the night.

I slept.

* * *

I woke when the man entered the window. Moonlight glinted against a knife in his hand. He slipped to the floor and Furst slid out from under the bed, scales glinting green. Furst unhinged his jaw, grasped the intruder with his claws, and swallowed him whole. The knife clanged against the floor, but the man never had a chance to scream.

I slept.

* * *

I woke when the boy came through the window. It was Carlos, grown older.

“I thought perhaps I dreamed it all, but you’re still here. I don’t think you’re any older. Is the monster still here, too?”

There was a tiny rumble from Furst under the bed, and I smiled reluctantly. “You shouldn’t have come back.” I hesitated, fighting curiosity. “How long has it been?”

“Four years.” He leaned forward, carefully. “There was something around your leg. I tried not to remember that, but I did.”

I shrugged. “There’s a monster under my bed, and you’re worried about my legs?”

He looked at me with the straight look I remembered, although his face had grown to fit the eyes. “It looked like a chain.”

I sighed. “It is a chain, Carlos. It’s mostly for show; I’m only awake when someone enters the room, and Furst won’t let me leave the bed.”

His brow wrinkled. “Furst?”

“It means Prince. My guardian, my jailor…my monster.”

He nodded as though that made sense.

“I’ll be back,” he said, turning to go.

“You sho—” I began, but he was gone.

I slept.

* * *

He was older again. He tossed me a small cloth bag.

“They’re lock picks. I’m going to teach you how to use them.”

I blinked. “Why?”

He shook his head. “Chica, it’s easier to get out if you’re not chained.”

I looked at the bag, at him. “How long?”

“Another four years. I had to learn how, so I could teach you.”

“Will you be hanged, if you’re caught with these?”

Carlos shook his head. “We’re not much on hanging people.”

He demonstrated the picks and I struggled to mimic him. The lock resisted my best efforts, but he only nodded. “I’ll be back,” he said again.

I slept.

* * *

The next few times he brought me locks to practice with. When I conquered the easiest, he replaced it with a harder one, and one harder still. I noted that his clothing changed—light clothing to heavy, then to light again. A mustache had grown in on his upper lip, then a small beard. He was man now, not boy. Furst would kill him without hesitation.

The night that I opened my manacle he carried a leather bag. I stared at my free ankle. “Now what?”

“Will Furst hurt you, if you touch the floor?”

“No, he’ll just carry me back to the bed.”

“Good.” He opened the bag, pulled out a hammer. “Catch.”

I caught it, then a box of nails. Last he sent the edge of a rope ladder. “You’ll need to nail this into the bed frame to anchor it.”

He demonstrated and I mimicked him, nail after nail. When I pushed against it, it held my weight.

Carlos waited as I pulled myself up onto it. A step, two—I slipped, and my foot brushed the floor.

Furst erupted, tail lashing, and gathered me up in his great claws. I smelled carrion on his breath as he set me gently onto my bed. My prison.

I was angry, suddenly, and barely waited for Furst to settle before starting again. One step, two, three, four. I slipped but held on grimly, regaining the rung with my bare foot. Five, six, seven…then Carlos caught my hand. I scrambled up beside him onto the dresser, then up, out, through the open window.

The night was cold but brilliantly lit with balls of fire perched on metal trees. Carlos closed the window behind us and led me to a strange low carriage without horses.

“Where are we going?” Should I have asked before? Did I even care?

“To my mother’s apartment. Mom always told me a woman didn’t need a prince to rescue her. She needed a friend, to help her rescue herself.” He grinned. “You already had a Prince, and he didn’t look like a keeper to me.”

No kiss, no guarantee that there would ever be one. No castle, no piles of gold. I sighed happily as he helped me into the carriage.

Effie Seiberg

Re: Little Miss Apocalypse Playset

Originally published by Fireside Fiction, February 2016

* * *

To: LMAmerchandising From: LMAmarketing

Hey folks, I know it’s a tight squeeze for the manufacturing deadline for the Little Miss Apocalypse playset, but we got new market research results on the pony names.

Please make the following updates on the packaging: Pestilence is now Sniffles, Famine is now Om-nom, War is now Punchy, and Death is now Bonesy. We’ll be updating the voiceovers for the show accordingly when we introduce the characters in the fall TV season.

We’ll want Little Miss Apocalypse next to Bonesy on the front packaging, since he rated highest in the ages 5-8 demographic.

I know it’s a tight deadline, but we really need to make the numbers for the holiday season! The CEO is counting on this

–Anna

To: LMAteam-all

From: CorporateResponsibility

Hello LMA team,

As part of the company-wide “Yes I Can Cuz I’m A Girl” social awareness and empowerment campaign, we need the playset to let kids actually do something functional.

We’re pulling out the chemistry kits and the My First Robot Repair toys from the edutainment line as top examples, and we’d like to tie in Little Miss Apocalypse to give the campaign a more fun vibe.

–Mac

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: LMAproductdesign

We could add accessories to the ponies. Sniffles could come with tissues laced with fake Ebola, Punchy could come with some faux vials of steroids or testosterone, and Bonesy could come with a small play-chemical kit. Little Miss Apocalypse is empowered to change the world with these tools. (Not sure what we’d do for Om-nom though.)

–Emma

To: LMAteam-all

From: CorporateResponsibility

We’d need something more functional. Could you add in components from our real chemistry sets?

—Mac

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: LMAmarketing

Mac, I love this idea! Given the manufacturing deadlines, easiest would be to repackage the chem kits as expansion packs. We’d be ready for the holidays as an extra sales boost.

The chem kit that makes hydrochloric acid is perfect for Bonesy. Now, what can we do for the other three ponies?

–Anna

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: LMAproductdesign

We could repackage two of the bio kits as expansion packs for Sniffles and Punchy, with the mild virus and the testosterone and the microscope. Still not sure about Om-nom…

–Emma

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: BusinessDevelopment

Great news! One of the show’s fast food sponsors (you can guess who) can donate meat contaminated with tapeworm eggs. That could be an Om-nom accessory, right? We’re still working through what (if any) co-branding would be appropriate.

–Greyson

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: Legal

ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

Guys, we’re very concerned about liability. We strongly recommend against live diseases, poison, parasites, and anything else with high risk of injury or death.

–Laura

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility, Legal

From: LMAmarketing

Oh come on Laura, don’t be a downer. The danger factor has been testing very well with the kids. Besides, we’re already selling the chem and bio kits on their own through the edutainment toys department and those have each been cleared. We’ll keep testing the tapeworms, but I don’t see this as an issue.

BTW, we have a mandate from the CEO to bump up production of the Little Miss Apocalypse Armageddon Playset, which includes all four accessory packs. They’re counting on this for our yearly sales goals

–Ann

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: Legal

ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED INFORMATION—URGENT SAFETY ISSUE

After demoing the first few Little Miss Apocalypse Armageddon Playset kits for retailers, we’ve found a critical issue. The virus is airborne—not an issue on its own (we QA’d the bio kit) but when it’s near an open container of testosterone it becomes a superbug that kills dogs. When exposed to the hydrochloric acid in the chem kit, it affects humans too.

WE STRONGLY ADVISE TO SHIFT THE PRODUCT DIRECTION.

–Laura

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility

From: Legal

ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED INFORMATION

Update: we’ve found an antidote for the superbug, but this does not change our recommendation.

–Laura

To: LMAteam-all, CorporateResponsibility, Legal

From: LMAmarketing

The CEO still really wants the LMA Armageddon Playset out in time for holiday, and we’re too behind on schedule to make major manufacturing shifts. HOWEVER, I think we can solve this.

First, we put a warning on the packaging not to have LMA ride all the ponies on the same day. It covers us for legal and it gives an extra element for danger, which we believe is a top sales driver.

Second, we institute a golden-ticket-style promotion. One out of every 1,000 playsets will come with a special code for a free vial of antidote. It’ll be an additional sales driver, and if that’s not girls being empowered to make real change within their neighborhoods, I don’t know what is.

Thoughts?

–Ann

To: LMAteam-all, LMAmarketing, Legal

From: CorporateResponsibility

This ties in with both the “Yes I Can Cuz I’m A Girl” campaign, as well as the following campaign (branding TBD) which will encourage community activism.

Love it. Let’s ship it!

–Mac

Subject: LMA year-end numbers

To: CEO

From: InvestorRelations

With the stock price at record highs, I think we’ll have a great investor meeting! Some highlights before we publish earnings:

This year the LMA brand has quadrupled profits, mostly driven by the Armageddon Playset. Despite the numerous deaths and subsequent lawsuits, this is still the most profitable line for the company.

With this success, we’ll be announcing the expansion of the Little Miss Apocalypse product line at the investor meeting. We won’t reveal all the goodies, but we’ll call out the LMA Armageddon Deluxe Playset, which comes with a new stable for the ponies, the antidote, and the brand-new antidote to the antidote. If we have time we’ll also highlight the life-size educational Apocalypse Play Lab, which will come with plutonium.

We project profit growth of an additional 10x from this product line alone.

Go team go!

–Paul

Rocket Surgery

Originally published by Analog, January 2016

* * *

We’d tested plenty of missiles before, but Teeny was the only one that convulsed when we cut him open.

Oh, your viewers need more background? OK, I’ll back up a bit. Lemme tell ya, kids today don’t know their history. Even locked up in here for the past ten years, I can tell. No education. Good thing you’re getting the real story out.

Now. This was back when Hamazi was the supreme dictator of the Ambridian Republic, enemy number one. The whole military was buzzing about overthrowing him, and General Pitticks—I guess he’s Presidential Candidate Pitticks now—wanted to make a name for himself. So the weapons division got a lot of money to make something spectacular.

Previous missiles had AIs, of course. Precision navigation with plasma propulsion that could turn on a dime. Facial recognition to find the target and follow them. The Azimuth5900 could detect genetic debris to avoid hitting decoys, and the Tarzon-A-80’s nano-scales could rearrange to make the outer shell take on any shape to blend in with its surroundings, so if it needed to land to gather more intel it could camo without suspicious shadows giving it away.

But Teeny was something else altogether.

* * *

No, of course that wasn’t the official name, but Predator-TVACEW34W doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue. So can I continue?

* * *

It was just the beginning of the new wetware computing. Nanotech could only get us so far, so instructions were entwined in ADNA, the quickly-standardizing format for Artificial DNA, and plasti-neurons wound their way through plasma rockets and payload decompressors and sensopatches, all within a state-of-the-art nano-scale morphing skin that was even higher-res than the Tarzon’s.

Wetware was unpredictable, but it sure was efficient—Teeny was only the size of a golden retriever.

Me and the other gals, we were in charge of the final testing, coding up the VR simulators for the finished bombs to see what they’d do. But for Teeny, the first one ever made of wetware, this was something new. It was like rocket surgery—skin flayed open and held with clips so we could hook the sims to the plasti-neurons, systems looking like life support threaded through and plugged in to maintain the beat of electrical impulses, and the longest manual we’d ever received on how to not kill the bomb in the process. We’d thought it was kind of funny, to tell you the truth, the idea of killing a machine that was built to kill others. But I’ve gotta tell you, by the end, we saw Teeny like our own little baby, and we made darn sure we didn’t kill him by accident.

* * *

When we first cut him open to plug him in, Teeny convulsed. He twitched with the first slice, and the more we cut, the more the external nano-scales surged, changing his exterior to look like a tan desert rock and then a small pile of bricks and then a fifty-pound tuna. His on-the-ground camo looked pretty good up close.

We went through the manual to figure out what we’d done, and couldn’t find anything to help us. Betty said that maybe because it was wetware instead of hardware we need to treat it more like it was alive—a ‘he’ instead of an ‘it’—and maybe he’s in pain when we cut. We all thought she’d gone bananas, but the next day she’d rustled up an IV with some dihydromorphine from home. She’d been taking care of her husband and had plenty extra. She stabbed it into one of Teeny’s ion channels (no small feat, since he was still spasming so bad) and opened the drip. And sure enough, the convulsions quieted down.

Well, we thought that with behavior like this, we should probably tell people about it before we start the usual course of testing. So we sent holos to the research team and to General Pitticks. The research team was excited, but said that wetware was so unpredictable that they didn’t have more guidance to give us, but please keep noting down what happened and proceed. Pitticks, on the other hand, quickly replied with “Don’t care as long as it does its missions right. Stop fucking around with scientific theory and fast-track this.” Tells you a lot about him, doesn’t it. People called him General Pitiless behind his back.

* * *

We programmed the sims with increasingly-complex scenarios and watched little Teeny march right through them as long as we managed the painkiller drip. He never failed a mission, but the wetware really did have its quirks. The first time we saw something was up was when we coded in the nursery school mission. In our sim, the religious extremist group (we based it loosely on those nutjobs that were rolling around DC at the time—you know the ones) had a terror cell hidden under the basement of a nursery school. We had their weapons shipments staged in boxes of formula and diapers, and we coded up explosives to be hidden in the storehouses full of holos for the kids and replacement parts for the nannybots.

Teeny caught us all by surprise that day. We expected a pretty standard MO: get in, watch the schedules to find a time when the kids were out and the nutjobs were in, and blammo. We’d coded it up to make sure that wouldn’t happen for a few days in the sim. But before we knew it, Teeny’d set himself up to look like a box of bot parts, then found the standard control net that let you repair the nannybots and injected it with a virus. We’d just written the bots with basic off-the-shelf programming, but what do you know, they all got up and ushered the kids outside in broad daylight. Even brought them down the road to an ice cream shop. (Well, a shell of an ice cream shop. We’d only programmed the outside.) And when the kids were all safely out of blast radius, only then did the blammo happen. Blew the compound to virtual smithereens, and from a location that minimized additional damage from the blown explosives in the warehouse. We didn’t know it could do that.

Linda was working from home that day with the flu and had patched into the sim from bed. She’d lost her voice, so had turned off her comm and instead was typing in. And when she typed “Good job Teeny!” we were even more surprised to see an answer.

Up in the left-hand corner of the VR view, right where no interface elements should be, we saw the words, “Thank you. But the bomb did not explode.”

They were written in white, in an old-fashioned font we’d certainly never put into the sim. And Teeny wasn’t supposed to be able to talk. Nothing in the manual said anything about that.

We were all a bit spooked, but at the same time excited to actually talk to a test subject. So I typed back in the normal part of the UI, “Your sensors did just what they were supposed to. We just took out the explosive material for testing.”

“Testing?”

“Yes. This is a simulation, to see what you’ll do in the real world.”

“The simulation is not real. I see. Did I do good?”

I wrote, “You did so much good!” After thinking about it for a moment, I added in some imaginary evils that this nutjob group was planning. Teeny—the real Teeny, not the digital one in the sim—gave a little bzzt at that. His nano-scales fluttered.

Pitticks had said to fast-track as long as it did its job, but we contacted the research team anyway. Taking initiative to bug the program, talking to us, bzzting…this all seemed like more than just a wetware quirk. But they responded with the same thing—they didn’t really know what the wetware would do. The only other wetware bots in circulation were the fake pets for rich people, and those each came with their own unprogrammable “personality”. Most of the pets were small and cute and devoted, but every so often one would come off the line with a mean glint in its eye and a tendency to bite. They’d checked, and there was no bug in the programming or a flaw in the wetware itself. That was just it—wetware was unpredictable.

Teeny gave that same bzzt and nano-scale flutter after we complimented his performance in his next mission, taking out a fake dictator we made up, and again after blowing up an enemy sub as it was surfacing to put out its own missile. Neither bzzt seemed to do any damage, so we eventually figured it was like he was purring with satisfaction at a job well done. If the wetware pets can do it, why not a precision guided missile?

* * *

Teeny asked “Will this do good?” after each VR mission. He was really growing on us, and we started taking turns writing up what messes he would be preventing. Not just that the death of that dictator was a good thing, but we’d also type in a story about a little girl who would now be able to go to school safely, and grow up to be a great doctor and halt a plague in its tracks. Or how carefully blowing up a chemical munitions plant (yes, carefully) meant that the tree frogs in the enemy’s target bomb zone would get to live on and keep the malaria-bearing mosquitoes in check. He’d make the little bzzt sound each time.

The more mission sims we sent him on, the more questions he started to ask. “Will this do good?” was followed by “What would do more good?” And Linda, who’d been a philosophy major before she got her head on straight and switched to testing, talked to him about Aquinas and Aristotle and Camus and Kant and goodness knows who else before we told her to stop filling his ROM with such nonsense.

But philosophy twaddle or no, our boy was clever. He kept getting more creative in his solutions. I think my favorite test was the mission to take out the number two in an anarcho-green extremist group. Once he got to their compound, instead of finding the milito-hippie, he plugged himself into their Net. We had to code it up as he went along, and he hunted down the number one through old-school message boards and crypto’d messages. He waited until both the number one and two were in range, then got the both of them with one beautiful explosion.

“This will do more good, yes?” he’d asked when the VR reset, his old-fashioned white text hovering at the left of my vision. I’d nodded, almost too proud to speak, and exhausted from the race of building the Nets before he got into them.

“Even more good,” I’d said, and that night me and the gals went out for beers to cheer our genius boy.

The next morning when we got back to the test lab, Teeny had left us a message. “The number three will keep the group going. It is not ended. I must go back.”

“No,” I wrote, “but your mission is ended. You blew up, remember?”

“What happens to me when I blow up?”

“You…” I stopped typing into the sim. How do you explain to a rocket that he can only be used once, and is dead and gone after? “You complete the mission when you blow up.”

“But what happens to me after?”

“That’s it. You aren’t anymore. There’s no you left.”

“Just like the number one and number two. They’re not left.”

“That’s right.”

“Why shouldn’t they be left?”

“Because they were evil, remember? They were doing bad things.”

“What if…” his writing hesitated. “What if I want to be left after? In the real world?”

“That’s just not how that works,” I said.

“But then I can’t do more good.” He paused. “I thought it was good to do more good.”

“It is, and by doing this you’ll be doing more good than any one of us could ever do.”

Another pause. “I see. What’s it like, not being left? Is it unpleasant?”

Too much philosophy, that was his problem. I’d have to have a chat with Linda. “No, it’s like…like you float away into nothingness, and you don’t need to worry about the world anymore. It’s not unpleasant at all.”

He was quiet for a long time, but of course still passed the next sim with flying colors.

* * *

Me and the gals, we started to plan a little graduation ceremony for him in the testing lab for when he was ready to go into action. Nothing fancy like what the top brass does, but then, the top brass would never have a ceremony for a bomb. We were about two weeks out from it when General Pitticks and five of his aides strode into the lab. He never came to the lab.

“Time’s up,” he said. The man always sounded like he was gargling rocks.

Linda was the one that stepped up to him. “We’re not done. We still have seven more sims to take hi- I mean take it through.”

“Don’t care. Bomb’s been hitting the targets, yes?” He shifted his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.

“Well yes, but -”

“And it’s been performing the camouflage maneuvers? Gathering good intelligence to optimize the hit?”

“Yes but the mechanisms of the hit are still a bit…fluid.”

“Good enough. We need it now.” He looked around the lab until he found Teeny, tubes and wires sticking out of him like a coma patient. “Is it gonna blow if we take those wires out?”

“Well no, but-”

“Good. The Ambridians keep shooting our Azimuths out of the sky so we need something with better camo, and there’s no Tarzons left. Hamazi’s given us a gift—he’ll be very vulnerable for the next three hours, and we need to hit him NOW.” He started yanking out wires, and Teeny convulsed like he’d done on that first day.

“Stop that!” cried Linda. “You’re hurting him!”

He gave her a look that would pulverize a small building. “It’s a bomb,” he growled. “Not a kitten. What’s wrong with you?” His steely-grey eyes swept through the rest of the beeping machinery in the lab.

So I stepped in. Top brass always responded better to fancy words. “General, with all due respect, let us give you the procedures to ensure optimal performance.” He grunted and agreed.

Off Teeny went, rolling away on the little cart the general’s aide had brought. We offered to brief Pitticks with our full notes and recommendations, but he grunted again that as long as the bomb hit the targets in the sims without detection he didn’t give a flying fuck and to get the hell out of his way. They’d do the full debrief for the next one, where they actually needed the extra functionality. He always was an asshole. Tell your viewers not to vote for him.

But anyway, our little boy was off to do good in the world. We’d sent off other bombs in the past, of course, but we’d never felt this kind of pride. Teeny was our bomb. He was smart. He would minimize civilian casualties and do more than the military ever imagined. And once that happened there’d be more Teenies, to make sure any time our military needed we could strike with intelligence. Of course, those would be fully tested.

We popped champagne that night, cheering our brilliant little boy.

* * *

We all assumed he would hit Hamazi that day, and that’d be that. The slippery bastard had survived more assassination attempts than anyone, and taking him out would be the best step to liberate the corrupt country. It was full of poor saps, starving and downtrodden and mostly hating the freedoms of right-thinking countries like us. I think we even had the guy to prop up there instead, to make sure the new regime would be friendly.

About two months later, with Hamazi still alive and kicking, we were in the lab doing a meta-sim to test out our own systems when a bunch of Pitticks’ men came in and hauled us all off to be court-martialed. You know what happened next—it’s in the public record.

You want me to tell it anyway? Fine. One of them cut our power right before eight more stormed into the lab. They grabbed each of us, two to one. Marched us out and threw us in cells after, even though we’d done exactly as we were supposed to. They hauled in the research team, too.

What happened with Teeny? Well, you ever wondered why I’m in this tech-free cell, and you had to come in person to talk to me? Why they confiscated your smartpad and any recording devices and only gave you a pencil and some paper?

At first I didn’t even know what happened with him. Before they hauled me to this tech-free wing I saw on the prison holos that Hamazi went into a retirement home—a retirement home, of all things!—and his nephew took over.

Now I wouldn’t say that the nephew was a particularly big fan of us, but the “Death to the Pigs” propaganda died out and he focused on his own country’s stuff for a while. He kicked out the old council and set up a constitutional monarchy with a parliament. And within a few years the Ambridian Republic looked like it was in much better shape, with people getting fed and educated, and they started setting up peace treaties with countries left and right. Not us though, but they left us be and I guess that’s fine.

And of course from that alone we were all tried for treason. They assumed we had some ties with the Hamazi regime and purposely sent out a faulty bomb. Complete nonsense, of course. We were just doing our jobs, and it was Pitticks who made it a rush job. Just covering his ass, really.

But it takes more than the whiff of treason to get you locked up in a room with no screens, with real human guards coming to bring you food so you’d have no contact with bots. A few months after the Ambridian regime change, after I’d already been tried and sentenced and tossed away, I started seeing new pictures on the screens in my cell. Usually the pics are all things to keep us prisoners docile, you know? Beaches and forests and puppies and whatnot. Anyway, one day my pics were a little bit different. I started getting pics of Hamazi’s nephew signing peace treaties, and Ambridian villages getting airdrops of medical supplies, and even pics of new schools being built.

Now, I can’t be sure exactly how Teeny did it. It might’ve been from him hacking into Hamazi’s personal Net and reprogramming his guardbots to shuffle him away, or giving intel to the nephew’s guardbots to help maneuver into power, or draining his bank accounts, or what. But I know it was him who made the change, and that he kept on working at it even after his propulsion system gutted out and he had to rely on his solar cells to keep going.

What do you mean, how do I know? Well, lemme tell ya, it’s how they decided I couldn’t get any more access to tech. After those Ambridian pics kept coming, every day for a few months, I got a little message. It was in the corner of the interface, where no text should be. And in a white old-fashioned font, all it said was, “Did I do good?”

Thundergod in Therapy

Originally published by Galaxy’s Edge, 2016

* * *

Zeus sat on his shitty beige sofa in his shitty beige condo in his shitty beige retirement community. This was what the Court-appointed therapist had recommended—to think of this parole as a fresh start, and to enjoy retirement on Earth. Everything around him was fucking beige except for the fake plant from Ikea, which was a mocking shade of unnatural green. He could imagine the smug grin his judge would have if she’d seen this—

But no, he would give this a fair try. He’d promised Dr. Brinkman (formerly Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries) that he would.

The fake leather on the couch squeaked as he shifted. He could do this. He could be calm and serene. He would start by not destroying the couch.

*

“So, how’s it been going so far?” Dr. Brinkman leaned back in his leather burgundy armchair. The former god of boundaries had interesting decor ideas for what a therapist’s office should look like. Most of those ideas were burgundy. That’s what happened when people soaked your statues in blood offerings for thousands of years, thought Zeus.

“It’s fine.”

“How do you like the condo? I furnished it myself. Very normal, you know?”

Zeus pressed his lips together and muttered, “Certainly no Mount Olympus.”

“Well of course not. Those were the Court terms—prison then banishment and elimination of godly responsibilities, or death. Neither of your options included staying on Mount Olympus.” The therapist paged through a yellow notebook.

“Have you been making the amends we talked about? I see here that we said you’d start small.” Brinkman looked at Zeus over his half-moon glasses—a silly affectation for a god who clearly had perfect vision.

“I’ve started, yeah.” Zeus shifted on the prickly burgundy couch. “I’ve gotta tell you, though, Sisyphus was not happy to see me.” He chuckled. “Poor bastard would’ve thrown that rock at me if he could hoist it up that far.”

“That’s good progress, Zeus. What did you tell him?” Scribble scribble, went Brinkman’s stubby yellow pencil.

“That I was sorry, that I’d let the power I had at the time overwhelm my judgment, and that I’m working on the anger issues. You know, the stuff we talked about.” Zeus scratched his beard. “It was…fine.” It was not fine. It was horrible and the only thing that made it worthwhile was that he left without actually removing the onus.

Scribble scribble. “These are certainly healthy steps. Perhaps this week we can work towards making the amends the Court required, to Thor and Raijin and the Thunderbird. Can you think of ways to make amends to the gods you’ve…ah…slain?”

“I dunno. It’s not like I can go down to the underworld to find them. They’re just dead.” Zeus scratched his beard. “Maybe apologize to the other gods from their pantheons?”

“That’s a good thought. I think you should take this week to come up with a plan.”

“It’ll be so humiliating. I’m Zeus, you know. I was king of the gods once.” Zeus caught Brinkman’s eye. “I know I know. You don’t have to say it. I’m working on having a healthier relationship with power, whether I have it or not, keeping my anger in control, blah blah. I’m on it. I’m doing it. New start, new me.”

The therapist nodded. “Now tell me of your life in the retirement complex. How are you settling in?”

Zeus leaned forward. “Oh. Man. Lemme tell you, I never knew old chicks could be so much fun! They’ll do things the younger girls would never do. Except for Betty Whitshire, that insufferable bitch.You know, she went around spreading all these rumors about me afterwards! And she cheats at shuffleboard.”

“So you’re finding ways to fill your time. Excellent.” Scribble scribble.

“It’s an adjustment, no question. But I’m in it for real, man. A fresh start. No more power-raged Zeus. I’ve got this.”

*

He did not “got this.”

Zeus turned on his air conditioning—the summer was a brutal one—and sat in his shitty fake-leather chair. Why on earth did people retire to a heated hellhole like Florida? He could feel sweat pooling between his bare thighs and the plasticky material.

He picked up the paper stack off of his (shitty, beige) coffee table. Phone bill, $27.95. The phone had been much more useful before the women of the complex started calling him a diseased man-slut, thank you Betty Whitshire. Cable bill, $49.99. He’d gotten into soap operas, and hated himself a little bit more every time he thought about it. Maybe he should cancel his cable. But then he’d really have nothing to do all day. Electric bill, $355.72.

$355.72? What the hell? It wouldn’t completely blow through his monthly stipend, set up by the Court through Mammon, former false god of wealth, but still. He picked up the plastic beige phone on the plastic beige table by the couch, and called the electric company.

He waited more than twenty minutes on hold until a static-fuzzed voice finally came on and crackled, “Thank-you-for-holding-my-name-is-Grace-how-may-I-help-you.”

“My electric bill is too high.” Despite the AC, he was sweating into the plastic earpiece. This place was disgusting.

“What’s your account number?” my-name-is-Grace sounded bored. He read it to her off of the bill.

“Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.” He’d picked the name himself, after Dr. Brinkman had said that names like Mr. Allpowerfulfatherofthegodsdestroyerofmenbringeroflightning would probably make it difficult to assimilate.

Tappa tappa tappa went my-name-is-Grace’s fingers. “I see here that you owe $355.72. This is correct. My records show that we just sent a man out to read your meter last week.”

“Are you kidding me? That’s absurd!”

“Not really sir. It’s a very hot summer and it’s putting a lot of strain on our grid. We’ve asked our customers to cut back on high-power activities like air conditioning unless they absolutely need it, and we see that your usage patterns have remained the same. Prices go up during peak usage periods.”

Zeus wheedled. He charmed. He tried his best banter. It didn’t do one bit of good. My-name-is-Grace wouldn’t budge. He slammed down the plastic phone, cracking the casing. He would go hunt down my-name-is-Grace and fry her with a well-placed bolt of…

No. No, breathe. Dr. Brinkman had always said, “Find an outlet for your anger when you can’t dissolve it.” Fine. A well-placed zap of lightning to the phone did the trick, melting it into a slightly-discolored puddle of plastic around a tangle of metal bits, and he could feel the anger starting to crack away. But $355.72 for the privilege of having his thighs stick to his shitty beige couch? Not in a lifetime.

He considered. If electricity was the problem, this was a thing he could solve. He got in his brown Chevy Geo (Dr. Brinkman had said that anything too flashy would raise eyebrows) and drove to the Home Depot. There, he had a pimple-faced young man with dead eyes explain to him, in excruciating detail, how home wiring worked and how he was connected to his grid. He bought wire-cutters, a voltmeter, pliers, electrical tape, heat-shrink connectors, and a book titled “Do-It-Yourself Electrical Repair: A Shockingly Good Time!” with a cartoon man smiling and getting electrocuted on the cover. All this plus a trunk-sized battery would do the trick.

It took three days, but he disconnected his entire condo from the grid. He smashed holes in the plasterboard walls and yanked out wire after wire—brute force was as good a method as any. Then, in a tangle of metal and plastic, he reconnected everything to the battery, which now sat in the middle of his beige living room instead of the shitty coffee table. The apartment was transformed. Once a beige box of sadness, it was now a rat’s nest of blue and red wire casings which covered the walls (and part of the beige carpet) like ivy with a faint snow of plaster dust.

He sat on his fake leather sofa, put a finger on each of the hulking thing’s contact points and shovedlightning in. The battery’s gauge on the side lit up red, then yellow, then green.

Zeus stood and turned the air conditioner on full blast, then sat back down on the squeaky couch.Ahhhh. There, that was better. Cold air washed across his face and his underarms, fluttering the toga he still wore when he was alone at home. Retirement didn’t have to be all bad. The Court hadn’t stripped him of all his powers.

There was actually something satisfying about finishing a project. Plenty of people did it. Dr. Brinkman said there were many retired gods all living on Earth like humans, and that to his knowledge they’d found it relaxing. Nit, Egyptian goddess of weaving who had kept her role even after the Court of the Gods had stepped in, had apparently retired to a shepherding commune in California. He could do this.

In fact, he could celebrate. Some dolmades would just hit the spot, and maybe a nice shower after to get off the plaster dust. He was just getting out the grape leaves from the fridge when a sharp knock came from the door. He certainly wasn’t expecting company, as the complex’s crabs pariah. Must be a mistake. He rolled out a few grape leaves on a paper towel and started on the rice stuffing.

CRASH

Zeus poked his head out of the tiny beige kitchenette. A man swathed in glittering electronics was standing in his living room. Sprinkled around him were shards of what had been Zeus’ door. He was brushing splinters away from some of his own wires and lights.

“What in the seven pits of Tartarus do you think you’re doing?” roared the once-king of gods. “Look what you’ve done to my door! The condo board is going to fine me for this!”

The man pushed some sort of screened visor up from his green eyes to his forehead. “The condo board. Really. Old man, look what you’ve become.” He glanced around the room with obvious distaste. “Your wiring is shit.”

He wasn’t wrong, but that wasn’t the point.

“Look! You can’t just come barging in here and insulting my project. Do you have any idea who I am?” Zeus dropped the mask of humanity and let his impressive deific light shine through.

Only this guy was unimpressed. He humphed. “I know who you used to be. Zeus, I don’t care what you do here with your silly little ‘condo board’” he said with air quotes, “but you stay the hell off my turf.”

Only a god could look straight at another god. Who was this guy? Zeus thought he knew all the deities out there. Some he only knew by name, some by appearance, but none of them corresponded to this asshole here. “What do you mean, your turf? This is my home. You stay the hell off of my turf.” He crossed his arms, and realized he’d just inadvertently stuffed a grape leaf into his armpit.

“Are you so out of touch you don’t even know?” The man laughed. “I’m Tekhno, god of technology.Which means that any metaphysical, magical, or otherwise occult thing you do with wires and batteries, like this unbelievable mess,” he indicated with a flutter of his hand, “is MY TURF. Stay off it, old man.”

Tekhno pointed an LED-studded finger at Zeus’ fridge, TV, and the massive battery in quick succession. Each one shorted out with a POP POP POP and a shower of sparks. An electrical fire started behind the fridge and quickly spread to the microwave.

“OH COME ON!” So much for making dolmades.

“That’s your one warning, old man. Later!” Tekhno pushed a button on his left side and dissolved into ones and zeroes hovering in the air, which shimmered for a moment and disappeared.

Zeus stared at the spot where the god of technology had stood, which now only had shards of door and a thin veil of smoke creeping from the kitchen. His eye twitched, and a vein pulsed on his forehead. Why that little asshole…no. No. He was retired. He was on a new path. Breathe in, breathe out. Try gratitudes if you don’t have a good outlet, Dr. Brinkman had said. Fine. He was grateful for…

The fire burned merrily, and upped itself to a roar.

He was grateful for…

The vinyl paneling on the kitchen cabinets started to yellow and curl, and a charcoal smear was growing steadily on the backsplash. He made a little cloud form under the flickering fluorescent lights. It rained out the fire in one swift deluge.

HE WAS GRATEFUL FOR…

NO. Fuck this. This was too much. Gritting his teeth, he threw a lightning bolt at the very same place that had just been in flames and watched it light up again.

Some young upstart god, coming around and telling Zeus almighty himself what to do? How dare he! Arrogant little prick thought he could just break down his door. Zeus was retired! The whole point was to retire and let go of the old power and old anger and to just let the world be and this unmitigated asshole just strode right in like he owned fucking everything and…AAAAARRRGH!

Zeus let loose another lightning bolt. This one lit the polyester beige rug in the living room on fire, and the smoke alarm began to wail. Bang bang bang came from the ceiling—his upstairs neighbor’s response to any untoward sounds.

No. Breathe. This wasn’t worth getting worked up over. He could handle himself before he was blinded with the red rage. The last thing he wanted to do was repeat last time, when he spent a millennia in the Court of the Gods’ prison after murdering the other weather gods for their powers. So it was fine when he killed his own dad, but stupid foreigners were now a problem? And sentenced there by Themis, of all people. Goddess of justice from his own pantheon. Ex-wife. Vindictive bitch.

But that was the past. Now, he’d been making progress in therapy. It wasn’t worth it.

Breathe. Every breath was tinged with the smell of scorched plastic. That asshole wasn’t worth it. Just some young idiot god who thought he was on top.

Zeus’ pulse slowed. He gathered two more storm clouds and put out the new fires with a splash, then surveyed the damage. The condo was a wreck. Gaping holes in the walls from the wiring project grew soggy with buckling plaster from the water damage. There were smears of smoke damage everywhere; and both the battery in his living room and the bulk of his kitchen were not much more than twisted pieces of charred devastation. Half of the living room rug was unburned, but it was squelchy at best. At least it wasn’t all beige anymore.

He was committed to making a new start, he reminded himself. Possibly not in this particular condo anymore. But that little asshole did have to learn that it was just not okay to come in and burn another god’s house down.

In the old days he would have hunted him down and found a horrific punishment that vastly outweighed the crime. Probably he’d encase the little asshole in the trunk of a tree and leave him to rot for a few hundred years. Maybe put some of Nit’s hippie followers around him for good measure. But that was the old Zeus. He was putting the anger behind him, not falling back into old patterns. He exhaled. He would take Tekhno to the Court of the Gods and sue for damages or something. Following the rules was part of the fresh start. He could do this.

*

When the Court of the Gods was initially designed, all the gods felt like they had to have a say in how it looked and how it worked. Eventually, as massive group projects are wont to go, those loudest about bureaucracy won the battle of how it worked, and those loudest about aesthetics saw the abomination of design that had been born out of their committee and wanted to go hang themselves.

Up Zeus went to the mishmash of architectures from cultures worldwide. Had he possessed any aesthetic sensibilities beyond “not all beige,” he would have cringed, but he was not overburdened with such gifts. The Court was its usual bustle, with deities from a plethora of pantheons going in and out via their preferred travel mechanisms on air, land, water, and fire. Gods waited in long lines which snaked into the massive labyrinthine corridors, and politely ignored each other in a distinct haze of bored irritation.

Zeus had never liked the Court of the Gods.

He wound his way through halls that led upstairs to go downstairs and halls that looped in onthemselves to go upside down until he found the Justice Wing. And after about eighteen hours of waiting in line, during which he frequently returned to deep breathing and repeating gratitudes (it would not be beneficial to shoot lightning in here), he made his slow way toward the desk. When he saw the deity behind it, he stifled a groan. The God of Bureaucracy itself, whose name was a long acronym that he’d never bothered to learn, stiffened itself up and gave a forced smile.

The God of Bureaucracy, whom Zeus secretly thought of as Gob, was also the product of a committee. Unlike most gods it had no specified gender identity, for the committee was unable to decide on one. It had one of those faces that you would immediately forget upon looking away—something bland and generic, and yet entirely unappealing. Its paper-white skin always looked smudged with black and red ink.

“Welcome-to-the-Court-of-the-Gods-how-may-I-help-you?” Gob said in a bored monotone.

Zeus had a newfound irritation for my-name-is-Grace. “I’d like to file a complaint against Tekhno. And also a restraining order against him. And sue for damages. And also…um…all the other things I can do to keep him away.”

Gob was simultaneously stamping, marking, and stapling papers, which it filed in different compartments under its desk. “And what is the nature of your complaint?” it droned.

“He wrecked my house.”

Gob reached underneath the desk and brought out a thick stack of papers. “Fill these out. Don’t forget to add in whether you live in a castle, mansion, tree house, submerged vehicle, spider web, volcano, recreational vehicle, etc. on pages one through three. Detail the nature of the wreckage, including approximate psychic value on all items destroyed and approximate impairment value of all items that were damaged, on pages four through twelve. The nature of your relationship with the subject goes on pages thirteen through twenty nine, and the specifics of your encounter go on pages thirty through fifty three.”

Zeus thumbed through the stack of papers. There were at least two hundred pages. “And the rest?”

“You fill it out in quadruplicate, and then the last copy is for you to keep for your records. Next,” it barked towards the line of gods in its same nasally tone. Gob’s hands hadn’t stopped moving as it talked. It alternated between stamps that said “DENIED,” “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” and “ESCALATED,” thumping each one on a never-ending parade of paper forms.

“Wait, waitaminute. I’m not done. Is this really all necessary to file a complaint?”

“Necessary, but not sufficient. When you’re done with these forms, go to the undercorridor of the Justice Wing and give them to filing. They’ll give you the filing forms, and the notification forms, and the scribing documents—”

“Are you kidding me with all this? Is there nothing simpler I could do? Perhaps just this once?” Zeus flashed his most winning smile. Maybe Gob could be charmed?

The deity’s stoic expression remained unchanged. Nope, not an effective strategy. “Sir, for the goals you have stated you must go through the proper procedures. No exceptions. Next!”

“Wait wait wait!” Zeus planted his hands on the desk, and looked over his shoulder to give a warning look to the goddess standing behind him in line, who’d begun to inch forwards hopefully. “What would be the quickest thing I could do if I wanted to get another god off my back?”

Gob rolled its white eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. “If you want to be uncivilized about it, you can just challenge them to a duel. Winner gets to determine what the loser has to do. But that’s merely left over from an archaic law in the books. We’ve evolved far past such barbarities. I would strongly suggest that instead, you—”

“Duel. Got it.” Zeus felt more energized than he had in years. “Right. How do I do that?” In the old days, he’d just done what he felt like. But, fresh start. He’d follow the rules.

Gob pursed its stained lips. “Go to neutral ground and yell out your challenge. But I must strongly suggest you take a more…official route.”

Zeus took one last look at the papers that sat piled on Gob’s desk. “Nah, I’m good.”

*

The Court of the Gods had several outdoor courtyards, each of a different climate and foliage (or lack thereof). Technically the court was neutral territory, so this should be as good a place as any. Zeus planted himself in the middle of a Mediterranean-looking courtyard. A long rectangle of grass was dotted with occasional marble benches and surrounded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. He inhaled deeply—it smelled like home. But this was not the time.

“Tekhno! I challenge you!” he roared at the top of his lungs. The grass flattened and the trees snapped backward before they sprang up again. It had been years since he’d gotten in a really good roar.

Within seconds, Tekhno, a goddess in a toga, and an enormous crowd appeared. Not just any goddess—it was Themis. SHIT.

She stepped forward. “A challenge has been issued! As the justice deity on shift, I will be the judge and referee. Tekhno, as the challenged, you may choose the field of battle.”

Tekhno looked smug. His lips twitched into a sneer as he said, “Old man, you really think this is a good idea? I’ll tell you what—I’ll even give you a chance to take it back.” Electronics glittered and blinked up and down the god’s skinny body in ever-changing patterns, held together by very neat lines of wires. No tangles here.

Zeus narrowed his eyes. “I should offer you the same.”

“Very well, it’s your funeral.” What a self-satisfied asshole. “For our battlefield, I choose…the internet.”

The what now? Oh wait, Esther from the retirement complex had mentioned that at one point. She’d been using it to keep in touch with her grandkids. She said they sent her pictures. How was that a battlefield?

“In fact,” Tekhno continued, turning to the audience with a grandiose gesture, “I’ll even give the old man an hour in advance, to get to know the field. Because I’m all magnanimous and shit.”

Themis nodded, and raised her arms. The Mediterranean courtyard transformed with a whoosh. A laminate floor pushed aside the grass, low gray cloth-covered walls sprouted from below, two marble benches morphed into two wood desks, and two more benches shifted into office chairs. A laptop appeared on each desk, cables coiling down towards outlets and ports on the walls.

“After you.” Tekhno gestured with an evil grin. Zeus took in the audience, who was still looking on in eager anticipation. Who in the hells were all these people? He recognized a few deities within the ranks. Didn’t matter. He was Zeus, once king of the gods. He could take this little pipsqueak in whatever shit he tried to pull. He sat down in one of the office chairs. It squeaked, and Tekhnosmirked.

“Tekhno has given Zeus one hour’s head start. The battlefield is the internet. As the judge, I decree that the winner is determined by the perception of the internet denizens: the god who they like most at the end is the winner. As there is no way to get the entire internet to agree on anything, a reasonable majority, as determined by me, will be required.” Themis gave Zeus a look. She was far from his favorite ex-wife. “Let the battle begin!”

Okay. He could do this. The screen in front of him had three icons: one labeled “Internet Explorer,” one labeled “Firefox,” and one labeled “Chrome.” “Internet Explorer” sounded a little too perfect.Tekhno giving him an extra amount of time and dangling that in front of him? Not a chance—it had to be a trap. He’d never had good experiences with foxes. Those Japanese buggers in particular were tricky little beasts—so Chrome it was. He quickly figured out how to use the mouse and clicked it. The audience cheered in approval and Tekhno frowned. Good, he must be on the right track.

He might be old. He might be retired. But Zeus was nothing if not clever. Within minutes, he’d figured it out and was clicking links with abandon.

People were posting on forums and social media, writing articles and blog posts, and all just…talking to each other. A lot of the discussion was through images with bold text over them, and tiny bits of moving pictures. Well, that was easy enough. Zeus started posting comments to random conversations, interjecting “Zeus rocks!” wherever he could find. He also figured out how to take a picture of himself on the laptop camera, put “Zeus rocks!” on top of the image, and started posting that too. This might take a while.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tekhno sitting down in the spot next to him. Had it been an hour already? Mucking about online certainly didn’t seem like it had taken that long. They were seated next to each other, desks set up so they could see each other’s screens.

“Aw, you’re figuring out what lolcats are. That’s adorable.” Tekhno’s voice was loud enough to carry to the audience, who rippled with an approving chuckle.

Lolcats? There were cats everywhere on this weird internet thing. He looked it up, wishing he could call in a favor from Bast, former cat-goddess of Egypt, but he was pretty sure she was still pissed at him. Had he promised her they’d do dinner? He probably had…

“He thinks posting in conversations is enough to get people to like him! Oh that’s cute. Heycloudypants, whatcha gonna do if I do this?”

A sudden swarm of new users appeared in the same forums and social media hashtags where Zeus had been posting. “Zeus sucks!” was the common refrain, and they were everywhere.

Fine. He was Zeus. He was clever enough to defeat Cronus, so he certainly could do this. They likedlolcats? He could give them cats. He transformed himself into a cat with cloud-like markings on his sides. CLICK CLICK CLICK. He took picture after picture of himself in different poses, then changed back to his usual form and uploaded them everywhere.

CLOUDY CAT RAINS ON YOUR PARADE

RAINING CATS, NOT DOGS

DESTROY THE COUCH? SORRY, I’LL HAVE TO GET A RAIN-CHECK

I’VE GOT YOUR SILVER LINING RIGHT HERE

It was working. The pictures spread online, and cloudy cat became a meme. Zeus glanced over to what Tekhno was doing. His screen had lines and lines of gobbledygook—no language Zeus had ever seen before, though there were occasional words in there he could make out.

Whatever. When people started making their own cloudy cat memes (WHEN IT RAINS IT PURRS) and started producing shirts and bumper stickers, he figured it was good enough. He stood up and yelled, “Behold, the might of Zeus! I am cloudy cat, and the internet loves me. Themis, declare it!”

Tekhno laughed. “Aw, you really ARE adorable. Getting a meme going in so short a time isn’t bad, I’ll grant you that. But it’s nothing in comparison to this.” He hit a button on his keyboard.

Zeus waited. Nothing seemed to happen. “And?”

“I’ve now taken over the web. I’ve hacked into the largest ISPs on earth, and started routing traffic my own way. People trying to go to Google are going to my own Google spoof site, where every returned link informs them that Zeus sucks. Rotten Tomatoes? The hottest thing on it is a movie called ‘Zeus’…guess what. It sucks.” He giggled. “I’ve made Facebook and Twitter swap everybody’s profile picture with an image that says ‘Zeus sucks.’ Reddit’s front page is overflowing with links about how Zeus sucks. Every mobile phone worldwide is getting a text that says ‘Zeus sucks.’ Are you getting the picture?”

Zeus poked around online. “Zeus sucks” was everywhere. It far outweighed anything cloudy cat could reach. No. This was awful—Tekhno was young and flush with power, and he remembered what happened when young and powerful gods won. He used to be that guy.

“Uh oh!” crowed Tekhno, his visor glittering with LEDs. “Now every digital traffic sign, airport announcement board, and even every connected coffee maker is displaying the words ‘Zeus sucks.’”

Themis smiled. “That seems pretty definitive to me. You have 10…9…” The audience started counting down along with her.

This punk was going to want to humiliate him. And probably do something way worse than try to chain Zeus to a rock and have his liver eaten every day. Worse than killing him. Worse than humiliating him in front of Themis.

The bubble of rage swelled in Zeus’ chest and he stood up with a roar. NOBODY got the best of Zeus. He was the king of the gods, slayer of Cronus! He reached for Tekhno’s neck, and—

“Physical harm to your opponent is out of bounds for this challenge,” chirped Themis. “6…5…”

Breathe. Anger is not constructive. Find your gratitudes or an outlet for the anger. An outlet…

And there it was. Two tiny outlets at the bottom of the low gray walls. Zeus yanked out the two laptop cables with a swoop, and shoved in as much raw lightning power as he could.

Extra juice surged through the wires, which were metaphysically connected to the entirety of the earth’s electrical grid, which overloaded. Around the world, cell towers shut off, servers died, and equipment went dark in quick succession. And as wires shorted out and blackouts rolled across the world, humanity en mass glared at their suddenly-disconnected cell phones and dead screens and grumbled, “What is this piece of shit?”

“2…1…Well, that was unexpected,” said Themis, “but in a last-minute turn, I declare Zeus the winner.” An amused smile played on her face, and with a wave of her arms she dissolved the arena, the crowds, the computers, and the low walls. The elements of a eucalyptus-scented Mediterranean courtyard rushed in from all directions to fill the empty space.

“What? Are you kidding me?” screamed Tekhno. “That’s cheating! The battlefield was the internet!” He stamped his foot like a petulant child.

Themis walked over to Tekhno, growing with every step until she dwarfed him. Arms akimbo, she said, “And he disabled the internet, making far more people hate you than you had them hating him. Do you care to challenge the ruling? You know, the one from the IMPARTIAL GODDESS OF JUSTICE?” She stared him down. Zeus remembered that look, and was distinctly relieved to not be its target for once. It could strip the leaves right off a laurel wreath.

Tekhno winced and looked away. Hah. The kid couldn’t handle it. “Nothatsfine” he mumbled.

“Very well. As the winner of the challenge, Zeus may claim his prize.” She made another gesture, and Gob appeared with a stack of paperwork. The god had its usual puckered look on its face.

Zeus tamped down a shudder at the papers. But his award. He hadn’t even thought that far ahead! He could take whatever he wanted. He could strip Tekhno of everything he owned, everything he could do! He could be back, most powerful god once more! And he could….

He saw Tekhno’s scared face, and remembered Sisyphus and Prometheus, Thor and Raijin and the Thunderbird, and all the others he’d punished over the years. No. No falling back into the old patterns. Powerful Zeus lashed out, and he didn’t want to be that person anymore.

But he didn’t have to roll over and take it, either.

“My prize has three components. First: Tekhno shall be required to pay as much funds into my account each month as I deem fit. I’m not gonna deal with this electric bill bullshit again. Second:Tekhno is never to bother me again, in however way I deem ‘bothering’ at the time. And third,” at this an evil grin spread on his face, “Tekhno is now responsible for any paperwork I might have to do, in any context, from now until the end of time, and must do it correctly and to the best of his ability.”

“WHAT? Absolutely not. This is ridiculous! I challenge you!” Tekhno stood up and tapped a few buttons on his arms and stomach.

Gob started its droning monotone, “If a loser of a challenge wishes to re-challenge the challengee, he or she or it must wait for a period of no less than seven thousand years, and at that time fill out forms 1098A, X-860, 826-R-C-”

“Actually, I think that challenging me would constitute bothering me, and we’ve just established you can’t do that.” Zeus crossed his arm with a smirk.

“But—”

“He’s right,” said Themis. “Now Tekhno, I believe you have some post-challenge paperwork to fill out.”

“This sucks. This sucks SO HARD. But just you wait. I’ll expand and become the god of innovation, too. I have this startup idea…”

*

A week later, it was time for the next therapy appointment.

“So,” said Dr. Brinkman, “how are things?” He leaned back in a leather burgundy armchair and twitched open the button on his burgundy corduroy blazer.

Zeus filled him in. “And you know what? You should be really proud of me. I didn’t kill anybody. I used the breathing techniques and everything.”

“Well,” Dr. Brinkman looked a bit uncomfortable, not looking up from his yellow legal pad. “I mean, that’s not quite true. The massive blackouts killed a few patients on respirators who couldn’t get on backup generators fast enough, and there were three plane crashes when the air traffic controllers lost power. But overall,” he hurried to add as he looked up, “you didn’t do so badly! After all, you didn’tknow that those were the consequences, and you refrained from slaughtering Tekhno. You didn’t even enact an overly-onerous punishment. I am proud. So what are you doing now?”

“Oh, nothing much. I’m staying retired, like we talked about. But with these new funds I’ve upgraded to a bitchin’ bachelor pad, and this one’s in New York City. Everything is now voice-activated—the fridge, the lights, the shades, the rotating bed…and lemme tell ya: the ladies love it.” Zeus grinned. “Between that and me offering to file taxes, fill out loan paperwork, and do immigration forms for free, I’m the most popular guy in town.”

Tahmeed Shafiq

The Djinn Who Sought To Kill The Sun

Originally published by LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE

* * *

They travelled all day, and at night came to rest by one of the large rocks that jut from the desert. The last caveat to voyagers before the plains of windswept sand.

Here is what the boy heard:

“Long ago, almost fifty years by official counting, there was a boy named Alladin living in the alleyways of the city, a scavenger, thief, and trickster.

“When he had seen seventeen summers pass, he thought it high time he sought out his fortune. So, with all the arrogance and strength of youth at his side, he set out for the mountain caves where the sorcerers were said to live.

“When he asked to join them he was turned away. He was too young, too inexperienced. Full of anger he left, swearing revenge.”

The rest was…vague. The djinn seemed to have slipped into another language, one the boy didn’t know. The little he was able to make out made little sense. He caught the words “punishment” and “fools” and “beloved,” but aside from that…

Eventually the djinn’s tirade subsided and he continued:

“The guardians told him what the place was, who I was, but that only seemed to encourage him. He killed them, and entered the chamber. He freed me from my shackles…and bound me again. In a lamp. Cheap copper bought from a trader. To contain me.

“For the next forty-eight years he kept me a slave. Had me kill the magicians and build him his kingdom and win your mother’s heart. Forced to do his bidding, for…forty-eight years…”

Two hundred years in chains, overall.

The djinn looked up at the night sky to clear his eyes from the smoke. Two tears slipped down his chin to lie in the sand. My love, he thought sadly. He glanced at the boy, asleep curled up like a cat.

“Sleep well,” he said. “Tomorrow we go to kill the sun.”

* * *

The desert stretched out before them. Waves of sand rolled across the vista under a blue, empty sky, boiling in the heat of the sun. Every breath the djinn took felt like fire in his lungs. He shifted in his saddle and glanced at the boy. He was slumped over the back of his camel as the beast plodded its way along. His lips were cracked and bleeding. If they didn’t find water quickly…

He looked to the horizon, ignoring the shimmering mirages, and his heart lightened as he saw a dark blot perhaps two miles away. As they got closer it became clearer: a cluster of reddish rocks shaped like a pyramid, twice his height, one side open to reveal darkness and the sound of cool, flowing water.

The boy wasn’t asleep, but he had been struck hard by the heat. The djinn made him lie down in the shade of the structure and ventured inside.

It had been made by human hands a long time ago, for weathered steps cut into the rock descended into darkness. But those would have to wait. The dripping sound he had heard came from a tiny well set into the floor. A crudely excavated hollow flung the echoes of the flowing stream upwards, one of the many that crisscrossed the desert just like the caravans. There was no bucket, so the djinn called forth the water with magic, using only the barest amount of energy required. He would need it all later. He filled both waterskins and took them to the boy.

The lad was so tired he couldn’t even sit up, so the djinn forced water in between his lips and washed his dusty face. Somewhat rejuvenated, the boy sat up and drank by himself.

“Slowly now, not too much all at once.” He took the chance to water both himself and the camels and to chew a strip of dried meat, tough as leather between his jaws. The boy ate what little he could and promptly fell asleep with his head on his chest. Let him sleep. I’ll be long enough.

He took off his cloak, covered the boy with it, and disappeared into the cave. The steps were steep and there was no light to see by, which didn’t really bother him. He’d spent half a century languishing in a prison far darker than this.

He couldn’t tell how far down they went, or how long he descended, but it felt like hours. When the steps leveled out into a long corridor, the djinn cast a small spell and summoned a little light for him to see by. A flickering will-o’-the-wisp hung suspended over his head.

At the far end there was a large stone chamber, directly below the stream he had heard earlier. A tiny trickle of water had wormed its way through and laid a sheet of water on the floor. Drip. Drip.

Standing in the center of the room was a figure that stood head and shoulders above him, and human save for two dappled wings emerging from his back. They shimmered in a translucence of rainbow hues.

Ifreet. The djinn had heard stories of them in his youth, but he had never believed them. They were all dead. Yet here one was.

The legendary being looked at him with eyes filled with yellow flames. The djinn watched as two shimmering wings spread to either side. They were so long they almost touched the walls.

But it was old. Its face was deeply lined and haggard, its beard tangled and grey, and it stood hunchbacked. Naked, its feet were longer than his and twisted backwards like the old minister his jailer had kept, the one who’d danced so nicely with the pokes from the djinn’s sword.

“How strange,” the ifreet said, “to see another of my kind here, after all these years.”

“Not your kind, old one. Your kind died out a long time ago.”

He received a soft, toothless smile. “Yes. They did. But you are my kin, are you not? The children of my children of my children’s children. How long have I been here?”

“The last of your kind died out over three thousand years ago.”

The ifreet’s eyes changed colour, the fire turning red, and the djinn felt something probe his mind, checking his memories.

“You speak the truth.”

Here was his chance. “That is why I have come. You have knowledge that is long gone. Tell me how to kill the sun.”

A dry chuckle. “Kill the sun? Has the heat addled your brain? How can you kill the sun?”

“Tell me.”

The ifreet gave him a curious glance. “Why do you want to know?”

No reply.

Its eyes flared vermilion, and its voice gained a harsher, stronger edge. “I see you, sorcerer. I see what you desire. And why.”

“I will bring her back.”

“Is that it? Is that why you want this knowledge? Or is it greed? I see you, sorcerer. Even after all this time, after your punishment? Oh, young one, have you learned nothing?”

A blast of hot desert wind rushed through the chamber, stirring the dust and, for a second, the ifreet staggered. “Still your tongue and tell me what I want to know!…Tell me…and I will free you from this place.”

The ifreet’s hollow eyes grew large in wonder. The djinn listened carefully to what it told him.

When he emerged, the sun had crept past the horizon. The blue stripe across the world was as thick and bold as a master-painter’s stroke. He checked on the animals; they were almost dead, poor things. He’d been forced to draw the energy from them to summon the wind. They wouldn’t be able to be ridden.

The djinn drew on the last vestiges of their energy to cast a spell. Then he took a long drink of water, topped up both waterskins again, and picked up the sleeping boy. He slung one pack on each shoulder and carried the boy on his back. He bunched a headcloth behind his neck to serve as a pillow. Checked the faint stars, and began to walk east.

When they were no more than a dot on the horizon, the spell began to take effect. The pyramid began to sink beneath the sands. Within seconds, what had once been the tomb of an ifreet was a sand dune like any other. Streaks of sand were silver under the moon. Only a tiny pebble remained to mark the spot, and when a gale blew and moved a fine layer of material, even that too was covered. Silent dunes were the only land under the moonwashed sky.

* * *

It was a small town, but essential for trading. All the caravans stopped at the oasis, so it was natural that a town should spring up there. The water was strictly rationed and the food was often scarce, but the people made up for it by trading what they had in excess with what they needed from the caravans.

The boy and the djinn arrived with the latest caravan, which bore news of the king’s death. The djinn pulled the boy into an alleyway and told him to hush while he listened to what the leader was saying to the crowd that had gathered. He murmured a spell that would prevent the child from hearing what was said.

“The king and queen are dead! They were both found stabbed in the heart. All the ministers and castle guards were slain too!”

“What of the prince?” someone shouted.

“He is missing. For now, the Captain of the Guard holds the throne as Regent.” His voice fell. “Brothers and sisters, darkness has fallen over the land. There is chaos in the capital. No one knows what will happen next. I urge you all to take caution and prepare for the worst. We may be the last caravan to pass by here in a very long time.” He whipped his camel and led the procession out of the town to a restless series of murmurs and conversations.

We must move fast. The djinn broke the spell and pulled the boy deeper into the alleyway.

* * *

The beggar was taking a nap behind a stall in the marketplace. He had his bowl in front of him, just in case, and his hat over his eyes to protect from the sun. Just when he thought he was going to get some rest, he heard the chink of coins landing in his bowl, and someone saying, “Beggar. Look at me.”

Cursing in his native tongue, he pushed his wide-brimmed hat back and squinted at the man. He was tall, with almond skin and a black, neatly trimmed beard.

“What do you want?”

As always, he received a shocked look. Qian was from fairer, and wetter, lands to the East, and the fact that one of his people was here always seemed to surprise the natives. But the man quickly became solemn again. “You speak our tongue very well,” he said. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve met one of your people.”

“So you’ve met us, eh? And no doubt you think we’re barbarians?” He scowled.

“Not at all. I admire your people deeply. When I was younger, I journeyed east myself, and I met the philosopher Kong Qiu. He was a very wise man, though we often disagreed on his ideals on family.”

“You…” Then it dawned on him: The stranger was telling a joke. He laughed. “You’re a funny one,” he admitted, “but don’t tell me you’ve come to make jokes.”

The stranger fixed him with a long flat stare, and then squatted to look at him in the face. He looked at the coins in the bowl, and Qian saw him mumble something. The bowl rocked to one side, as if pushed, and a rat jumped out and scurried away.

Qian’s face paled. As a child, his mother had told him stories. His grandmother had told him stories. He knew them all. But, he had never truly believed them.

“Wizard,” he breathed, unconsciously slipping into his own tongue.

“Not exactly,” the stranger replied in the same tongue, “but close enough.”

Qian had a thousand questions, but the first one that came to his lips was, “Kong Qiu? Truly?”

“Yes.”

“What…what do you want with me?” He was almost afraid to know the answer.

“I want the thing you have hidden in your robes.”

“This?” He held up a large lodestone. It was nothing special, just the last of his trinkets nobody wanted to buy. A child’s toy.

The stranger’s eyes brightened. “Yes. I will buy it from you. What do you want for it?”

Qian was dumbfounded. He’d come to this land two years ago, and for a while had made a living selling and trading curiosities and trifles like the lodestone. Later, when he’d had enough money, he began trading weapons, foodstuffs, spices, and jewels. He used to be rich. But six months ago he’d lost everything on a business venture that went horribly wrong. The lodestone was the only thing he’d kept, simply because its properties fascinated. They were almost like magic.

And now this stranger wanted to buy it from him. A sorcerer, as they called them here. He would use this opportunity.

“Home. Take me home.”

The stranger’s gaze softened, and he sat down beside Qian. He asked, “How long have you been away, my friend?”

“Long enough. I want to go back now. I want to get away from this place. If I were back in my village, I wouldn’t have to trade; I could simply grow my crops and live easily. I might even find myself a pretty wife, who knows? Start a family, cultivate plants, and every year I’d thank the gods for their bounty with a portion of the harvest and enough wine to drown a cow.” He glanced up at the sun, cresting its arc at the zenith. “But here, here no plants grow. What little isn’t sand is dry and arid. And no woman even wants to look at me.”

“And the wine?”

Qian shook a clay bottle. “All gone,” he said.

The stranger laughed, drawing looks from people nearby. “Very well,” he said, smiling, “I agree to your price.” He held out a hand for the lodestone.

Qian handed it over. It was a rough chunk of black stone larger than a man’s hand. When it was brought near iron, it would pull the metal towards it. Magic. But, the stranger could do magic as well. So why would he want it? Why? When he could do—

Magic.

He was no longer behind a stall in the marketplace, talking to a stranger.

He was standing on a hill, overlooking a valley containing a small village. He could see the cozy homes of the people, and the trails of smoke drifting up to the sky, vanishing against the white clouds. Cheerful sunlight fell on the fields of rice where men were working diligently to feed their families. He could hear laughter piping up from somewhere.

Home. He was home.

Qian broke into a run, dashing down the hill as fast as he could without tripping. He laughed with unrestrained joy, and leapt straight over the fence at the edge of the village. He kicked off his shoes, running barefoot in the soil of his village, and made for the largest building in the center of the town. Entering with sudden speed, he startled the men drinking inside.

Qian stood for a second in the doorway, his face red with exertion and eyes shining with tears. Then, “One cup of your finest wine please!”

* * *

With the lodestone tucked away safely, the djinn went back to the stall where he had left the boy. The lad was looking at the toys a vendor was selling. The djinn bought him a wooden horse, and asked for directions to the Plaza of the Alchemists. He brooded as he walked.

The ifreet had told him where to find the trinket-seller, and what he would ask for the lodestone. He’d prepared the power beforehand, but still…

The metal is vital, it said. But I find it hard to believe something that looks so plain will help me kill the sun. And the lodestone wasn’t enough on its own—its power needed enhancement. He had the rock in his robes, could feel the weight of it as he walked. The beggar’s price had seemed just to him. He knew what it was like to pine for a home you could not return to.

There was only one alchemist in the small, walled oasis, and he made his stall in the corner of the plaza, hidden from view. Everyone knew of his reputation and he received visitors from many lands, ferrying gifts of jewels and silver in exchange for a favor: a tonic to heal the sick, some parchment bearing a spell for power, stolen from the tomb of a long-dead king…and for the power to turn lead into gold. He turned them all away, claiming if they wanted magic, they should see a magician. This was what he was doing when the djinn and boy approached.

A thin voice shrieked from inside the tent. “A philter?! You want me to brew you a PHILTER?! No I will not stay quiet, if you cannot woo this girl, then go to some godforsaken magician! Bah! A warrior like you, with a sword like that! And you cannot even hold your own…Pfah! Get out! Get out, you stupid boy!”

A young man stormed out of the tent with his face burning red and a curved sword strapped to his waist. The djinn watched him exit the plaza to the sniggers of several old men playing at stones. It seemed everyone had heard the outburst.

The alchemist emerged from his tent muttering to himself. “Love potions and beauty spells. What do they think I am?” He had on a dirty old caftan striped with stains. His beard was dirty and bushy and for all the jewels customers brought him, he did not look like a wealthy man. He caught sight of the two and said, “And what do you want? A potion to keep your hair in? A dagger that won’t rust? Something to help your wife, because you can’t…oh…oh! What are you doing here?” He took two long looks around and grabbed the djinn’s arm and pulled him inside.

It was much larger than it looked. The tent was only a place for him to meet the customers; at the back, the djinn could see a house through the flaps of cloth, presumably where the alchemist lived and did, well, whatever he did.

“Sit, sit. Please.” He waved them towards a couch in the middle of the space and left through the back, returning with a tall woman who the djinn correctly guessed to be his daughter. They were carrying two trays of food and refreshment.

“Uncle, I came to you because I—” the djinn began.

“Oh hush. You must have crossed the desert if you came from the capital. Wash your throats first. Then we’ll talk.” He perched himself in a tall spindly chair with his hands on his knees and watched them intently with his bright eyes as his guests drank wine from small crystal goblets. The boy tore his teeth into fruit and swallowed nuts, but the djinn chose only drink. The woman sat on a chair beside her father. She was very young, and not hard on the eyes. She had the alchemist’s dark brown hair. She reminded the djinn of his wife. These recollections were not unpleasant, but when he remembered how she’d died and felt a pang of grief, he was almost grateful for the sudden outburst: “Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

The alchemist opened his mouth to answer, glanced at the boy, and then changed tongues. It was a language of the people to the west. “Did you kill the king and queen?”

The djinn was not surprised that he knew the tongue. He was known as a wise man. “Yes.”

“And is that…the prince?”

A nod.

He sighed. “I won’t presume to judge you; I can only imagine what it must have been like. But for all his faults, he was a good king. The land will be worse without him. The Regent, is he a good man?”

“He is. How did you know me?”

“I have seen enough to know a magician when I see one. And I’ve never met a human sorcerer who could hide things with magic the way you do.”

The djinn’s face fell. Was it that obvious? He sighed and dispelled the illusion. A large purple carpet shimmered into view. There were precious stones and fabulous paintings, tapestries and rare books. All floating on the carpet three feet above the ground. All the things they could sell to start their new life, stolen from the palace.

“Remarkable,” the alchemist said. “But now, why you have come to me?”

The djinn grew serious. “I am on a search for the greatest treasure.”

The man’s face was not unkindly when he said, “The Philosopher’s Stone does not exist. It is a myth, nothing more.” He spread his empty palms. “Brimstone, mercury, and salt. These are my elements. I can shape them, mix them, and break them. But, try as I might, I cannot turn one into the other. I cannot turn lead into gold for you. I am sorry.”

“That is not what I seek: I want the secret of immortality.”

A hardness drew lines on the alchemist’ face. “The Elixir of Life does not exist either. And if it did, it is something that should remain hidden.”

“I know. And that is why I seek immortality from a different place. I go to kill the sun.”

The alchemist looked stunned. He gaped at him for several moments, and then closed his mouth. He stood and up and said to come with him. “My daughter will watch the boy, you need not fear.”

The djinn left the two of them behind and went with the alchemist. They left the tent through the back and entered the house he had noticed earlier. The alchemist kept his work in a small back room.

It was clean, with a large window to one side. Wooden benches held flasks and beakers of strange substances, and there were books everywhere in open piles, many with scribblings in the margins. A notebook lay forgotten on a bench beside a glass chamber, the pen dry and ink smudged. He took a quick peek, and saw it was written in code. There were words in different languages all mixed together and symbols he did not recognize. But he knew enough to see what the alchemist had been investigating. Quintessence, the entry read, remains beyond my grasp. I am convinced of its divine nature, my evidence is undeniable. Yet what baffles me the most is the simple paradox of its existence. How can something exist within a vacuum, yet be solely responsible for the vacuum as well?

“That’s private. I’d rather you didn’t read it.”

The djinn let it go. He opened up a thick book to a page. There was an illustration done in inks. A water bird wading in a river, wings spread before flight.

“The bennu. That’s what you’re looking for? Well I can’t say I have any idea how to kill it, but if anything has power of life and death, it would be an immortal. How are you going to kill it, exactly?” The djinn handed over the lodestone. “Clever,” the alchemist said, “Very clever. But it won’t be enough.” Very intuitive.

“Can you enhance it?”

“I don’t know. This is not my area of expertise. But have a seat and I’ll see what I can do.”

He did, and waited while the alchemist chipped a piece off the lodestone with a stone knife. He poured and distilled, mixed and dissolved and separated and heated various reagents over the fire so the room was filled with odd vapors and unusual flames. The sun dipped and golden light flooded the room while the hours ticked by. Eventually the alchemist said he could not do anything. When the djinn complained of the time he had lost, the alchemist snorted. “What did you think? I could clap my hands and turn lead into gold? Alchemy is a devilishly complex process. It requires time.

“As far as I can tell, there is nothing extraordinary about this lodestone, except where it came from. I don’t know how to enhance it, I’m sorry. But here, take this, it may be of some use to you.” The object he was handed was a cuff of stone, meant to be worn on the wrist. It was made of three broken sections spanned by chains so the girth could be adjusted, and there was a large red bead set into it. “This little bracelet will absorb heat that would otherwise damage your body. But it has a limit, so use it wisely.” When he saw the questioning look the djinn was giving him, he chewed his lip and mumbled, “Maybe I know a little magic.”

They laughed at that.

“What was it like?” the alchemist asked. “Living in the capital?”

“Enjoyable,” the djinn found himself answering.

“The castle was a thing of beauty,” he went on, “all graceful spires and marbled floors. Silken tapestries on the ceilings, huge windows that fed the breezes that came from the lush gardens on the terraces; flowers of so many colours and fragrances. Carpets and silver engravings and geometric patterns of lapis lazuli, jade and blue amber on the ceilings of the domes. It was beautiful at night, with the hundreds of lanterns glowing all over the city, and the sounds of laughter coming from the plazas with their fountains and gardens fed by winding aqueducts. The king always kept the castle smelling nice, with perfumed satin and heady incenses. To cover up the stink of the city, he said. The fruits in the market were bursting with juice and grapes were so rich and so dark that if you got the stain on your clothes, you’d never get it out.

“There were crystals the king had me design so that you could see other places in them. He’d keep them absolutely everywhere, so even the servants could see visions from steaming dense jungles and beautiful pristine islands, barely a scrap of sand in oceans that were the bluest things you’d ever seen. Storytellers used to come from all over, begging to tell the king their latest yarn for a few coppers. And traders, with all their goods, coffee and tea and furs and cotton, His Majesty wrung heavy taxes from all of them.

“It was a place of knowledge, all the scholars came to the great library to study and learn. It was a place of discipline—you should have seen the soldiers, in their polished armor and shields like sunbursts…Do you remember the rains two years past?”

“Yes, they were the heaviest in decades.”

“That was His Majesty’s idea. I told him I could only gather the clouds, not make them, so he told me to start three years earlier. There was so much water, the streets were muddy and flooded and the people distraught. ‘Our wares are ruined!’ the merchants said, but when the sun came out, all the dust was gone, and the city was cleaner than it had ever been. There was still muck in the gutters, mind you, and it stank worse than ever wet. But, there were all these seeds he’d had planted, you see, and there were seeds already in the ground. And they were green! So much green! Crops springing from the soil faster than they could be harvested, and flowers everywhere! In the streets and walkways. Every man, young and old, was picking flowers, for their mothers and wives and sisters and for the girl with the pretty hair, because she looked so lovely with the white ones in her hair, they said.”

“You miss it.”

The djinn realized he did: “Yes, I do.” It was a queer thing.

He let the alchemist walk him back to the tent, where the lad was asleep with his head in the alchemist’s daughter’s lap. The remnants of a meal for two were on the table.

“Can I leave our things with you? I’ll collect them on the way back.”

“Can I ride the carpet?”

He chuckled. “Of course.”

“What of the boy, will you take him with you?”

“I…” It would be safer. But…

“No. You should both go together. You’ll need the company.”

He took the boy in his arms and asked the alchemist where he might buy a camel. The alchemist said they should take the flying carpet instead. “I thought you wanted to ride it?”

“They’ll be time enough for that when you get back. You’ll need speed on your side; it’s a long journey. Don’t worry, I’ve got some spare rooms. Your things should fit.”

They transferred all the items into the rooms and the djinn lay the boy down on the carpet with some blankets and pillows the alchemist provided. He also gave them food and water and a change of clothing. “How will you find the bird?” the alchemist asked.

“By following the desert.”

His daughter said, “Come back swiftly, Uncle. He’s such a sweet boy.” The djinn nodded, thinking sadly that she even sounded like his wife. He bid goodbye to their hosts and gave them his gratitude, and cast a spell of invisibility around both of them. The alchemist was still gaping when they left them.

He waited till they were well beyond the town’s walls and dispelled the magic. He reclined on the pillows and looked up at the night sky streaking past. She might have been old enough to be our daughter. If we’d had a daughter. He looked sidelong at the young prince. If I hadn’t killed her in my folly.

* * *

Those who came from afar, or spent their entire lives within the walls of the city, thought that the desert was mostly sand. This is false. The sandsea the djinn and the boy had crossed on their way to the oasis was only a minute portion of the desert that spanned the civilized world.

Rocks. Rocks were what made up the desert. Big ones and small ones, everywhere you looked. Even the dunes were built on foundations of stone.

Follow the desert. It was an old magic, but powerful. The phoenix was the bird of the sun, and who knew the sun better than the desert? Keep your mind blank, the ifreet had said, and look for the signs. He doesn’t want to be found, but he leaves a trail. Look for…

It wasn’t easy, or one simple path. It wound its ways through different deserts, which were in different worlds. The gates to these realms were open, he realized, but only because they weren’t gates at all, but the connections between the two. Like the pages of a book, they were jumping from page to page along the bindings that held them together.

There were deserts of black, lifeless sands under skies of green and blue clouds. There were plateaus that seemed to circle the globe, long bridges of crumbling sandstone that spanned two cliffs over an empty chasm, on and on and on. And there was sand.

It might have been the next day, or the next year, or a single restful blink of blistering, sand-scarred eyelids, but then they were there.

The djinn and the boy stood all alone in the sands. There was only sand, and wind, all around. And the spire.

At first it was only a pillar of rock. But as they approached, they saw it was massive; several leagues in diameter and many, many more in length. It stretched upwards into the blue, so high the djinn was sure the tips must rake the sky and extend even to the black void beyond.

It was not sandstone, or limestone or marble or any other rock or mineral either had ever seen. It was a uniform brown and red, sprouting irregular handholds that jutted out from it randomly. There were steps, too, smooth and carved right into the stones, spiraling all the way round.

They made camp by the foot of the spire, and ate the food the alchemist had been kind enough to provide them with. The djinn kept looking up at the spire. He hadn’t even enhanced the lodestone yet. He hadn’t even made a weapon of it yet!

He took it out and held it before the flames. If he shaped a blade, it would be very thin. It might even snap. But a spear would work. It would give him more reach, too.

He shaped the metal with whispered words and a gentle touch, and it bowed to his magic and flowed like water. For the shaft of the spear, he used a branch he snapped out of the air. The finished product was seven feet in length, and the spearhead sharp enough to shave with. Yet it still needed enhancing. But how? How did you kill the sun? He had a twig with a rock at the end. It needed power, something mighty and invincible. How would he put out an everburning flame?

And then it hit him. And he laughed.

The answer was all around him.

• • • •

He didn’t sleep, but sat with an excitement he couldn’t contain. Finally he decided it was time and woke the boy. “I’ll be back soon,” he told him. It was still dark when he started to climb the steps of the spire, and it was still dark when he reached the top. Round and round, ever upwards. His hand clenched and unclenched around the shaft of his spear.

The top of the spire was a plateau, much smaller than the base, but large enough to hold the entire oasis town. If there had been clouds, it would have towered over them, but even then there was sky above, a deeper, cleaner blue than he had ever seen. Even the air was thin, and he breathed deeply as if with exhaustion.

A young man was sitting on the edge, dangling his bare feet in the air. He wore a pristine white robe that left his arms and one shoulder bare, and had copper hair that stood up from his skull in sharp peaks. He was handsome and had a gold jeweled collar around his neck, set with rubies that flashed like fire and amber stones. When he turned slowly to view his visitor, the djinn saw his eyes were pure gold, with splashes of red that moved and seethed like lava. Phoenix.

“You have come a long way,” it said. Its voice was rich and beautiful.

“I have come with a purpose,” the djinn replied. “I have come here for the secret you keep.”

“I keep no secrets.”

“I want the secret of life and death.”

The phoenix’s eyes grew softer somewhat. It almost whispered, “I am sorry. But I cannot give you that. I don’t have it, it doesn’t exist. There is no Philosopher’s Stone, no Elixir of Life, no quintessence, no Master Work, no object of divinity. I can see it in your eyes, you want it for your wife. She is gone, djinn, and what is gone cannot be reclaimed.”

The phoenix sighed deeply, and looked out over the horizon again. “How did you find me?” it asked.

“I found an ifreet in a forgotten tomb who told me of you.”

“Truly? An ifreet? That is a wonder; I had though them long dead. And now you say one lives? What has become of him?”

“He is gone now, I freed him. The enchantment was the only thing keeping him alive.”

“That is sad news. But I am glad he is at peace. What did he tell you of me?”

“He told me you were one of us.”

The phoenix nodded. “Aye. I was an ifreet once, long and long ago. I was young, and foolish. I wanted to see all there was to see. I…I made mistakes that I should not have. There was a contraption I designed, that would take me elsewhere. And it worked, oh, it worked.

“I found myself floating in the void, with the forges of life and death all around me. I saw the stars as they were made, and planets larger than anything I had ever known spin around each other like dancers. I saw beautiful things and wonders and miracles, and in my haste and folly, I fell into the sun.

“You cannot imagine what it was like. The fire, the heat was incredible. It—it changed me. When I awoke, I was back on land, somehow, and I was no longer an ifreet. I was this; some new being that carried the waters of the sun in his veins.

“I learned quickly how to use my powers, and found that I was still mortal. Yet, when I died, I was reborn. I was a bird the first time, I think, with wings of fire. That was how man first came to know me. In the eons that followed, I have had many forms. I’ve died scores of times and been reborn in so many ways. Every time there was someone new, someone who sought to tell a story about me. That is why I am known my so many names and faces. The bennu, the phoenix, Zhu Que, I can’t even remember them all.”

“I want the secret you keep. I want the secret of life and death.”

“I do not have any such secret.”

The djinn held out the spear. “You are the secret. You are an immortal. I will cut out your heart and use it.”

There was no change in the phoenix’s posture, save a slight tightening around his eyes, and a dangerous tone to its voice when it said, “Take care, djinn,” smooth and soft as woven silk. “For I am still fire; I will tolerate no falsehoods here, not in my eyrie. Speak them, and I will burn your tongue to ash.”

The djinn readied his arm. “This spear,” he said, “is made from a fallen star.”

“You cannot kill me with simple steel, be it from this world or any other.”

“And if this is not simple steel? If it this is from the massive star that fell so long ago and rose a cloud of ash to blanket the sun? When the land was cold, so cold and barren. This spear contains within it that selfsame power, from the endless nights when you were weak and dying. You almost did die, didn’t you? Without the sun, without its fire to sustain you, you are merely a bird.”

The phoenix shrieked in anger, a thin birdlike keel that drove rocks to pebbles below far them. The djinn’s ears stung and he was momentarily deaf. The phoenix was standing now and facing him, its lips moving, but the djinn heard nothing.

There was a flash of heat, and suddenly his hearing returned. Flames roared in his ears and he closed his eyes against the brightness. As he blinked black spots from his eyes he saw the phoenix transformed, now a tall waterbird with reed thin legs and dark feathers, every feather of its wings equal to the weight of a human soul. But its eyes did not change. With another wail, it launched itself at him.

The djinn sidestepped, dodging its razor talons, and swung his spear. It should have cut, but the bennu had feathers like iron. He pulled back and jabbed at the bird’s soft underbelly, just as it rose into the air and grabbed his spear with its claws. Cursing, the djinn pulled it free and rolled out of the way.

Time was lost to him, and seconds seemed to slow as the world faded to a single moment of flashing steel, sweat, and blood. He fought with all the skill he possessed, using magic and spearplay together, yet the fight dragged on. And as he fought, it slowly dawned on him that he could not feel the sun on his back. It should have risen, but it seemed as if the heat was coming from in front of him.

It was, he realized with a start. The phoenix was giving off heat. His looked down to find his clothing scorched and burned away in places, but he himself was unharmed. It was the alchemist’s charm that was keeping him alive. The cuff was still tight on his wrist, but it was becoming looser. And the tip of his beard was beginning to singe…

When he finally he manage to stab the bennu, it was just below the wing. The ifreet had told him what would happen when the bird was injured, and he pulled away in time. There was another roar and a heat and wind that drove him balking to his knees, and when the haze cleared, the phoenix had changed form.

Every time you kill it, the ifreet had said, it will be forced to revert back to its previous form. You must keep fighting until you have driven it back to its original shape, then you can slay it permanently.

He lost track of how many forms there were. There were a dozen tiny birds with sharp raking claws, and a creature with the head of a dog and wings of an eagle that hocked fire like phlegm. There was a man, he remembered, with the head of a green bird and armed with a broadsword taller than he was. Its strength was colossal, and when his own spear kissed the flaming blade of his foe, he felt as if his arm would break under the force. It was only through a spell that wound grass tangles through its feet that he was able to win at all. There was a bird that resembled a peacock, in shades of vermillion and orange, with long trailing feathers that stung like acid when they touched him. Firebird, red crow, Zhu Que, Suzaku, all these names, all these forms, and both of them were growing weary.

He was bruised all over, and had broken at least two ribs. The battle was too intense for him to heal his wounds; he sealed a cut here and there when he found respite, but for the most part he was hard-pushed and weary. Once he received a cut above his eye and when the blood began to impede his vision, he grabbed a handful of grit and rubbed it into the wound. It hurt, but absorbed some blood and let him fight on.

It was only when he fought a form that was more manticore than phoenix and serpentine enough to be a basilisk that he succeeded in wounding the beast heavily. This form was slow, weighed down by its heavy plate of scales, and he ducked around its sweeping tail and stabbed downwards. It hissed and tried to fling him off as he pulled his sword free and climbed onto its back. Howling, he stabbed it as fast as he could, again and again. He felt a scale give away, and his spear plunged in so deeply his hand almost went in as well. The beast screamed, reared, and tumbled to the ground with a crash, pinning him between its scaly coils. He shrugged himself free with effort and heaved the spear out of the beast. There was no blood.

It’s over. It’s really over. I did it, I killed the—

HEAT. Heat a thousand times worse than the blazing sands of the desert at noon, fire so bright he was blind, and a force that threw him like dry autumn leaves through the air, to land at the very edge of the plateau, one arm resting over the edge.

He would have screamed if his throat were not burned. He raised a hand to his face, and it came away covered with skin. There was little blood: The fire must have cauterized his wounds or burned all the blood away. He pushed himself up on one elbow, tears forming in his eyes against the pain. He shoved his fingers into his eyes, trying to gather the precious liquid and suck it from his fingertips. The salt only fed the burn.

The cuff the alchemist had given him was broken now. His skin was free to blister and burn, and half his beard was already gone. He was going to die from the heat. It was too much, too much. Then he saw what lay before him, and his bladder released. He was too terrified to feel the cool liquid running down his legs.

The phoenix had taken its final, primal form, and stared him down in all its infernal majesty. It was a bird larger than any he had ever seen, large enough that a house could have stood in the shade of its wings. Its breast and head were scarlet, the light feathers of its belly and legs shot with gold, and the heavy swords that made up its wings ended, not in points, but in flames. Its head was resplendent: pure, virgin white, armed with a beak that could have crushed him whole. Its eyes were jet and gold. And it glowed so strongly the dark felt like day.

“You came for fire, djinn. So why do you hide now? Have your fire…HAVE IT ALL.”

It flapped its wings, and another wave of heat washed over the djinn. He groaned deep in his throat and tried to crawl away. The beast only pinned him down with a humongous talon. He could feel it tearing into the flesh of his back, exposed now that his clothes had burned away.

“Don’t run, little mouse. Stay and play a while.”

He felt the claw encircle him and lift him up, almost gently, so he was face-to-face with the phoenix. He stared into its eagle eyes, full of malice. It blinked once, slowly. My spear, he thought weakly, Where is my spear?

The phoenix opened its beak slowly, and for a second the djinn was afraid it was going to eat him, and then it exhaled, and his breast was awash with fire.

“Kill me, will you?” it said over his cries. “Kill the sun? You rat, you scurrying mortal, how dare you?”

Then the fire was gone, and it bent down, and touched him lightly on the forehead with the tip of its beak.

He wanted to scream then. Oh, it would have been sweet to scream, it would have been release. But the fire was now in his mind, scourging him in his most private places. He could feel the fire stripping him of his memories, burning away the very synapses that held his mental self together, a headache so powerful it paralyzed him, left him unable to move or breathe. And pain, in its pure form, without physical malady or injury. Pain was a form of energy, he realized. And it was being poured into him.

He tried to reach for his magic, but the phoenix saw his move and tossed him aside, and there was a wall between him and his magic, a wall he couldn’t reach, because the fire was burning him, burning him all over.

And then it dropped him, and he fell to the ground and broke another fragile rib. In a daze of pain he heard the bird say, “Perhaps that will teach you humility. But you mortals are arrogant by nature, it is not something you can shed easily. Yes, I shall have to find a better way, won’t I?”

It flapped its wings and rose into the sky, circling him, the flames of its wings and tail trailing behind it like the streamers of kites. Then he heard it say, in a voice that froze his heart, “Now what, oh what, do we have here?”

No.

He heard those fearsome wings flap again, and the bird screamed in triumph as it dove.

“NO!” he shouted back, anger lending strength to his lungs. He stood and cast a look for his spear. There it lay, on the far side of the plateau. He thrust out his hand and shouted a spell, and whipped around without seeing if it had worked or not—and jumped off the edge.

He was hurtling through the air, and the bird was still below him, swooping down on the boy who stood helplessly on the ground, watching in absolute terror. He could see the desert spread out before him, in all the predawn colours and the last stars faint above. The vermillion monster was the only source of light in this desert. And the little boy he had come to love so much, even if he was the son of the man who had kept him captive, all those years. The boy’s scream mingled with the phoenix’s cry as he looked up and saw a glint high above him.

The djinn spun and slashed his hand through the air and the spear shot past, looking like a pillar of fire, and slammed into the phoenix in between its two great wings. The gigantic beast jerked, and howled, and rose upwards in a violent reflex motion, and his boots landed right on its back. He grabbed the spear with both hands and shouted the spell that lay dormant within the iron, the enchantment he had hoped to use to kill the thing, and the words seemed to drive all the sound from his ears. He felt the shaft vibrate in his hands, and the bird must have screamed as it jerked and thrashed and slammed into the lone spire that stuck out from the endless desert. He had one last view of the desert, in the blues and purples of the dawn, and his second-to-last thought was whether the child would be safe, and his last sight was the eyrie of red stone, tumbling, breaking, falling, taking him and the monster down with it. I hope sand makes for a soft landing, he thought.

* * *

When the dust cleared, the djinn was able to push away some of the smaller rocks pinning him down and get to his feet. The phoenix was still trapped somewhere beneath the rubble, but where was the boy?

“Abdullah!” he called, “Where are you?!”

“Here! I’m here, Uncle!” He was clambering up the mountain of rubble, dusty but otherwise unharmed. The djinn held him tightly. “Are you sure?” he asked, “No cuts, no bruises?” The boy said no.

The djinn sighed, and turned to inspect the scree of crushed rocks and boulders. He had to find the phoenix quickly, before it began to regenerate—

He heard a muffled scream and a large rock went sailing over his head. The phoenix pulled its way out of the wreckage, now in its human form. Its robes were in tatters and the jeweled collar it had worn was missing. The djinn’s spear had been pushed down deep, and the star-metal blade emerged clean from between his ribs, bloodless.

The phoenix staggered, and placed a hand against its chest. “What is this?” he said, panting. Its entire body had changed color. It was grey now. As grey as ash.

The djinn stepped up to him and grabbed the tip of the spearhead gingerly. “This is the magic that will finally defeat you.”

“How?”

“Can you feel it?” the djinn asked, “Can you feel the fire inside you, dying? Can you feel the connection between you and the desert now? It’s only dawn, and the sands are still cool. They will sap your fire, suck it from you, absorb it like they absorb the heat of the sun.” He leaned forward, so his words were better heard. “All the deserts, not just this one. The cold deserts to the north, the rocky deserts to the east, to the west and south and every direction there is, every bit of land, every little rock, is bound to the sword which pierces your heart. Slowly, bit by bit, the fire is dying, choked like a cookfire doused with water. Yes, even the deserts above, cold and black and airless, everything is working against you. You don’t have much time left. The desert sucks up heat quickly, don’t you know?”

He danced around and grabbed the spear from the back and gave it a violent pull. It came out cleanly, and he spun it hand over hand and shoved it back inside, neatly as a key fitting into a lock. The phoenix roared and arched its back in agony, hands clenching at empty air. It took a step forward and staggered, and looked at him hatefully. Then its eyes slipped past him, behind him, and its face lit up with glee. A bolt of red fire shot from its mouth, and the djinn heard the muffled sound of a toppling body from behind him.

He turned and ran, knees slamming into the ground as he came face to face with the boy, and cradled him in his arms. His eyes were closed and a lock of hair had fallen over his brow, and the area directly over his heart was blackened ash. It had burned straight through his clothing and skin and muscle, searing him from the inside and damaging all his vital organs in an instant. There was no chance of survival.

The djinn did nothing but stare at his blank face, till he felt the heat of an explosion wash over his naked back and heard the sound of a final, triumphant, bird-like scream. Gently placing the boy on the ground, he revolved to look at the crater. The fire had been so hot it had turned the sand to glass, and his spearhead had melted to form a depression of mirrors with splotches of silvery grey. In the center of this small hole was a red sphere that glowed dully with heat.

The heart of the sun, the ifreet had said, it is the phoenix’s true connection to fire, and it will remain for a while after it dies. You must take it while it lasts, it will momentarily bear the regenerating life-force of the bird. Use it to return your wife to the realm of the living. He had looked almost sad then, and had said, I hope you find what you seek. Then he crumbled into dust as the djinn released him from his bonds. One more prison without a captive.

The heart of the sun. It looked like a pomegranate, but when he peeled open its tough red skin there was only a single seed inside, ripe and swollen with juice.

It was his. Finally, after two hundred years of dreaming and waiting and plotting, it was his. He could feel the power through his fingers. I can take it. I can take it and become a god. His wife had died in one of his experiments. He’d been looking for a way to live forever.

And now I can. No one will ever bind me, or tell me what to do. No master. Nothing, no one, will ever control me. Nothing…

He looked over his shoulder at the boy.

He turned it over in his hands, whispering under his breath. He heard a new voice say, “My beloved.”

She was just as beautiful as he remembered, and stood on the glass floor in the silks and jewels she had worn on the day of their wedding. She reached out and brushed his face, and he began to cry when he felt the warmth in her fingers.

“My beloved,” she went on, “You cannot.”

“It was my fault,” he sobbed, “You only died because I was blinded by my greed. I wanted to live forever and I lost you for it. But I can fix it now! I can be with you again, you can be with me again. My sweet desert rose, we will be together forever.”

She was crying too. “I know, my sweet. I know. But it cannot be. What is gone must stay gone; it would be a perversion of nature for the dead to return to life. Please, my love. Use it wisely. The boy is near death, but he is not yet gone.”

“No, no, I won’t! I won’t lose you again!”

She smiled faintly, and in the light of the oncoming dawn her eyes shimmered with tears. She began to sing, softly. His heart nearly broke when he heard her sing. It was the song she had sung for him when they first met, the song she promised to sing to their children. “Is it me, said the rose, is it mine heart you desire? Or is it my fragrance that soothes your heart, or my petals, red as fire? For in the desert few flowers bloom, and we take what beauty we may. And live our lives on the sands, with each brand new day.”

Still crying, he pulled her close, and held her for a while. He held her till the ache in his heart began to soothe, and he realized his arms were only wrapped around empty air.

He knelt down beside the boy, and held the fruit of the sun over his lips. The djinn crushed it in his fingers, and the bright red juice dribbled down his fingers into the boy’s mouth. The boy’s chest began to heave, and he opened his eyes.

The djinn folded him in his arms, and then he was crying all over again and the boy was looking dumbfounded and asking what happened. The djinn laughed and kissed his forehead. Then the boy asked what he was holding.

All that remained of the fruit was the skin, still wet. He stared at it, wondering…and then made up his mind.

The djinn put the fruit back in the glass hollow alongside the leathery skin, and recited a simple summoning spell. Small pouches of cowhide materialized in his hands and he opened them and began to pour the contents into the hollow. Frankincense, camphor, myrrh, vermillion saffron and dark cinnamon, sprigs of lavender and vanilla, twigs from elder, ash and olive. Cardamom and cloves, and jewels from far-off lands that shone in colours he could not name, beaten silverleaf, the juice and oils of fruits. He poured more expensive spices and the roots of ancient trees, and sprinkled it all with a covering of fine, white sand. Then he stood, took a step back, and uttered a single word in a tongue rich in magic.

“Burn.”

The light from the blaze was reflected and thrown in a hundred different directions by the facets of glass, and it burned clean and hot and fast. And when the flames died down and the coals smoldered, a beak poked its way out of the ash. With a cry wilder and fiercer than any bird, the new phoenix rose, a falcon with a plumage of silver and wings of dusky midnight-black, and circled twice in the sky before landing on the djinn’s outstretched arm. A silver sun. It looked at him with eyes that were now white swimming in silver, and he fancied he saw a touch of amusement in them.

The djinn turned away, with the reborn bird of fire on his arm, and placed an arm around the boy. He looked out at the horizon, where the sun would begin to rise.

“Come along boy,” he said, “We have much work to do.”

Iona Sharma

Archana and Chandni

Originally published by Betwixt

* * *

“Your sister is such a sweetie-pie girl,” Manju Auntie was saying, sticking a pin in Archana’s middle and then hissing between her teeth. “Oof, beta, hilo mat, this all is coming down.” She undraped the sari entirely and Archana resigned herself to standing in petticoat and blouse in the middle of a public bathroom. “She will be getting married next, hai na?”

“Not for a long time,” Archana said. “Owww, Auntie, the pin—don’t, not there—ow. Okay. She’s out on deep-space exploration. But she always says…” She trailed off before she could finish the sentence about Tara-didi’s breathless missives all about Sasha this and Sasha that. Sasha was from Russia and had beautiful cheekbones and was also Tara’s ship’s chief engineer, not that that fact had come up all that often in Tara’s letters. “Right now it’s just me.”

“Ah, you,” Auntie said. “No, no, beta, it is Chandni I am meaning. She is a sweet girl. Not at all modern! She will drape your sari at her marriage even, ha.”

“Chandni?” Archana said, confused, and then the floor lurched under her feet, so Auntie squeaked and Archana hung on to the faucets for dear life; when the world righted again she pulled off the petticoat and blouse with no further ceremony and fished a shift dress out of her bag. “Come on, Auntie,” she said, “they all saw me in my finery, now all they care about is the food”—and then ran for it before there could be any argument.

Out in the space of the corridor it was quiet, except for the soft echoes of the welcome-to-the-wedding party drifting along the ventilation shafts. Definitely the sound of a lot of munching going on. “You,” Archana said, “are such a cow.”

“Aww, didi!” Chandni appeared at her left shoulder, as she always did. “You’re so mean.”

“And tipping Manju Auntie into the urinal wasn’t mean?”

“There wasn’t a urinal,” Chandni said, sulkily. “I had them all ripped out, they make me smell. And I wouldn’t have let you fall.”

“Huh,” Archana said, not quite convinced. “And why’d you do it, anyway? Can you even get married? Like”—she warmed to the topic—“with a giant baraat and everything?”

“It’d have to be light-years across.” Chandni frowned and bounced her hair over her shoulders. Such beautiful hair, Archana thought. Chandni looked young for her age and always would. “It’s not the same for us. Though I’m sure I’d look nice in red.”

“You mean, you”—Archana pointed to Chandni’s pretty pink anarkali and the roses in her hair—“or you?”

That time she pointed to the wall, to indicate the exploratory mining vessel Chandragrahan. Both Archana’s baby sister, though. She suspected Auntie had just forgotten.

“Both, I think,” Chandni said thoughtfully. “Later on can I try on your lehenga? The one for the reception day?”

“Do you really want to do that?” Archana asked, surprised. “I thought you were—you know. You’re a ship, kiddo.”

Chandni glared at her. On her baby face, it looked more adorable than anything. “Yes,” she muttered, “but I’m not at all modern.”

“Well, then, of course you can,” Archana said, amused, and they went back down to the party.

* * *

Lupita was not on board. First, it was Archana’s father who had been doubtful—“Beta, it does not seem right”—and then Supriya Auntie had made noises like chee, chee, and after that Chandni had refused to open the docking bay doors.

“Not till afterwards,” she’d said when Archana complained, and later, in the privacy of the room they were sharing for the wedding festivities, she added: “Dad doesn’t like it! And I can’t. You know.”

Archana took a deep breath. “Chandni, we’ve been living together three years.”

“I know,” Chandni said, conciliatory, but the docking bay doors stayed firmly shut and Archana gave in.

“Just a week,” she said brightly to the screen, “and it’s been two days already, it’ll be fine! Christ, you look so hot and I miss you so much, let’s run away to Oort Station and elope.”

Lupita twirled in her dress for Archana’s benefit. “That bad, huh?” she asked, laughing. Her voice was crystal-clear, as though she were right there in the room, or as though someone somewhere were paying special attention to the quality of the connection. “And tomorrow’s the blessing ceremony, right? We’ll see each other then.”

“For, like, five minutes,” Archana said, “and there’ll be some guy chanting Sanskrit at us.”

“If that’s what’s on offer I’ll take it,” Lupita said. “Hey, is that your room? What’s with the”—she squinted and came closer so for a second the screen was entirely her nose—“florals?”

Archana looked at the pastel extravaganza walls with a sigh. “Chandni,” she said. “Every room I’ve ever shared with her has ended up looking like this after a while. Before you ask”—she held up a hand—“yes, it’s a ship, yes, there’s a tonne of space for all of us. But Mum thought it was important we shared a room growing up, for socialisation.”

“Chandni’s or yours?” Lupita stepped back. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. How are you holding up?”

“Urgh,” Archana said, morose. “All the aunties spent hours draping me. And undraping me. And pretending not to understand me when I spoke English. And complaining about my complexion.”

“You have a lovely complexion.”

“Shut up, what the hell even is a complexion.”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure you have a lovely one.” Lupita grinned at her. “See you tomorrow, honey.”

“Yeah,” Archana said, and the screen went black. After a minute Chandni sidled in, still immaculate in the same pink anarkali.

“I’d have given you longer,” she said, “but Naya is a bugger, na.” Naya was the orbital station where Lupita was staying. “Don’t you know there’s important traffic on the channel, blah blah. This was important.”

Chandni really did believe that these good-night chats with Lupita were important, Archana thought, trying to take comfort in it, but that night the bed seemed empty and cold. Chandni was curled up at the bottom of it and taking up three extra pillows, and that was nice enough, but she gave off no heat.

* * *

There was a package from Tara-didi in the morning, delivered via orbital station pickup with a note stuck to the outside. Should be opaque to little sister’s sensors, she’d written. Us bad girls need to stick together. Archana only had time for a quick peek at something pointy-pink with four speed settings before Dabbu Auntie barged in to call her to the beautician. “She has come from Naya Bharat!” Dabbu Auntie announced. “To thread your eyebrows! You want to get married with those so-shaggy caterpillars? Come!”

“Auntie,” Archana said, “Lupita already knows what my eyebrows look like. And Chandni can probably do them better, and less painfully, with a narrow-beam laser”—but Dabbu Auntie clapped her hands and strode forth, and once in the beautician’s chair Archana was poked and prodded and seared (with portable, not ship-mounted, lasers) while her mother wrung her hands and tried to be diplomatic and encouraging.

“Archana always had such different interests, na?” she said to Dabbu Auntie, who only sniffed, and the beautician made a noise like aaaaaie! at Archana’s bitten-down fingernails.

“That means butch,” Archana said helpfully, but no one was listening to her, and later, she kept her voice soft when she asked: “Mum, would you have liked it better if I’d been into this”—a gesture at the rows of nail polishes on offer, prismatic, sugar shimmer, and classic red—“stuff? When I was growing up, I mean.”

“Married woman now! Should take more care,” Dabbu Auntie said, and Mum just looked apologetic, so that seemed to be that.

* * *

Chandni had gone all out for the mehndi party, decorating her observation deck with streamers that trailed sparkles and changed colour with reference to the elliptic plane. The girls from grad school had brought bottles of bubbly and put on music, and no one had told any of them that they wouldn’t be able to touch anything while they waited for their mehndi to dry, but the girls who were still waiting held glasses to the lips of the ones who’d had it done, and Archana had to admit it was pretty fun.

“Thanks for inviting us all,” said Lily excitedly; she’d been in Archana’s first-year class on Structural Engineering for Interstellar Mining Operations, and they’d made friends originally because she reminded Archana of Chandni. “I mean, this is just super, isn’t it? And I’ve read up loads on Indian weddings, I don’t want to put my foot in it by mistake. Is it true that the night before the wedding the bride’s girlfriends steal the groom’s shoes? I guess”—she grinned—“the other bride’s shoes.”

Before Archana could reply, an arm was put around her shoulders. “Arré, bacchha,” said Supriya Auntie, “time for talk-shalk later! Mehndi time. You want to look beautiful for your wedding, no?”

Where Mum had got the mehndi-walla and his three minions out here beyond Ceres, Archana had no idea, but she went along with it quietly enough as she was put in a chair and told to extend all extremities. The mehndi-minions chattered in Hindi while they produced cones of the stuff, doing beautiful intricate patterns across her fingertips, her palms, her ankles and wrists. It was customary to hide the beloved one’s name somewhere in the design: Archana wondered if they’d left enough room for ‘Lupita’.

“Mum,” she said in English, “I don’t think they know I understand them. They keep talking about how giant my feet are. Also I have to pee.”

“Don’t you dare.” Her mother looked up and laughed. “Just be patient and bear it, okay, beta? I’ll send them for Lupita too if she wants it. Will she want it?”

“Maybe,” Archana said, honestly unsure. “Let’s keep them on hand and get Chandni to ask her.”

“Sure,” her mother said, said as much to the minions, and went off to speak to Chandni’s local terminal; Archana shifted slightly in her chair and tried to convey, through gesture and movements of her eyebrows, that she could do with a break. The mehndi-minions looked at each other blankly and Archana sighed and let it go.

“Lily?” she called. “Come offer the bride a libation, why don’t you.”

Lily grinned, bowing with the glass before holding it up to Archana’s mouth, which made her snort with laughter into the bubbles. One of the mehndi-wallas turned to his friend and said in Hindi, She’s simple, like a little girl, and Archana was patient and bore it.

* * *

Chandni gave a dance performance the night before the marriage ceremony. “For our friends in the audience who may be unfamiliar,” she explained, standing on the little stage at the front of the ship’s main function room, “we call this bharatnatyam. It’s a classical Indian dance form that is thought to be thousands of years old.”

When she began, the room became quieter, if not silent. “Oh, wow,” Lily said, her eyes wide, “that’s beautiful. How come you never did anything like that?”

Archana tensed up, then forced herself to relax. The room was full of people clearly entranced; a minute ago they’d been intent on the buffet table or showing off their mehndi. Archana didn’t know if Lupita had had it done, but her sisters and cousins certainly had: they were here tonight in beautiful borrowed saris and shouting in joyful Spanish at monolingual aunties. They were all getting along fine.

“I don’t know,” she said, at last. “I guess—I wasn’t interested. I knew what I was like pretty early on, you know? Staying home from family parties and driving Mum mad with the state of my clothes. And Chandni—well, she knows every human language now, pretty much, but she went to Saturday Hindi class to please Dad. Took dance lessons from when she was twelve. She was”—Archana smiled, suddenly, looking up at Chandni in mid-execution of a smooth and graceful form—“perfect. She is perfect, isn’t she?”

“You’re pretty great too, Archana,” Lily said, steadfast, and Archana grinned.

“Thanks,” she said, and would have said something more, asked about Lily’s kids or her thesis, but was drawn away by an arm around her shoulders.

“Arré, beta, five minutes only,” said Sanjita Auntie, and Archana sighed and went along with her to the buffet table.

“Hi, Auntie,” she said, looking down at the vat of dal makhani with some resignation. “What can I do for you?”

“Ah, I can’t come and say congratulations?” Sanjita Auntie said. “You should be very happy, beta, the family are very good.” She meant Lupita’s family, now applauding wildly at the close of Chandni’s performance and looking thoughtfully determined as the first of the proper dance music came on. “And when the babies come it will be different, na? We will all help.”

“With what?” Archana said absently, skipping over the whole babies thing and wondering if there might be dessert soon. Indian after all, murmured a voice in her head; she told it to get stuffed.

“Ah, beta, don’t worry, you will learn Hindi before they come, and Chandni will teach them dancing, and your ma will—”

“Oh,” Archana said, cutting her off, still half-thinking about fruit and ice cream and wishing very devoutly that those were the only things on her mind. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Beta, don’t get upset! I only say these things because…”

“Because you love me,” Archana said, louder than she’d meant, “because you bloody love me”—and she was going to cry any minute, she thought. Thirty years old and she was going to start crying into a bowl of dal, like at every family party since the beginning of things. “You’re going to fix me for the sake of my children. That’s it, isn’t it, Sanjita Auntie?”

“Archana, beta, why you say such things!” Sanjita Auntie said. “We all want to help you only.”

“Thanks,” Archana said, “but no thanks. Keep your goddamn help.”

“Kya bath hain ye,” Sanjita Auntie said, sniffing, and Archana looked over her shoulder at her mother bustling across the dance floor, deftly avoiding Lupita’s whirligigging sisters; her father was coming in through the far door, with the quick eye for trouble you developed when running a six-day multiple-shindig event, and Archana thought it was still possible that she might make it through this without crying herself, but a good full-throated scream was coming up as an option—and then a quiet voice said:

“Step back.”

“Chandni beta,” Sanjita Auntie said, dabbing at her eyes with her dupatta, “this is grown-up talk, you just sit down and…”

“Auntie,” Chandni said sweetly, “I am the deep-space exploratory mining vessel Chandragrahan. I have a top cruising speed of fourteen times the speed of light in a vacuum and enough standard armament to blow up an asteroid nine hundred and fifty kilometres in diameter. Step back from my sister before I make you.”

From behind her, a woman’s voice said, “Archana? Chandni sent a shuttle across. She said you needed me urgently.”

Archana looked up and burst into tears.

* * *

“There, there,” Lupita said, a while later. They were in one of the little anterooms off the function hall, where Chandni had provided soft lighting and Lily another bottle of bubbly. “Don’t cry any more, it freaks me out.”

“Sorry,” Archana said, sniffling, and then took another chug of the wine and felt better. “Sorry, sorry, I’m ridiculous.”

“Maybe you are,” Lupita said, comfortably, “but your sister is soothing all your aunts and your mom and mine are comparing outfit notes and your friends from grad school are teaching my tía Marta how to do shots and we haven’t even gotten married yet, so, you know.”

Archana laughed a little and hiccupped. “We are married,” she said. “We are in every way that matters. This is just to”—she gestured—“keep my damned family happy.”

“Is that so bad?” Lupita asked; Archana sighed.

“They want to change me,” she said. “They want me to be a good, perfect, beautiful Indian girl. Like…”

“Me?” Chandni asked. She came in and sat cross-legged on the floor, pouring herself some champagne. There hadn’t been a third glass a moment before, but that made no difference to her. “Archana-didi, I’m a ship.”

“Well, yeah”—Archana gestured—“but…”

“But nothing. I won’t get married. I won’t give Mum grandchildren.” She waved the drink around, a little unsteadily. “What, you think I’ll meet a planetoid with prospects? Yes, I’m perfect. I’m a perfect AI.”

“Well,” Lupita said conversationally, “what an interestingly complementary inferiority complex.”

“You shut up, you’re taking my didi away.” Chandni folded her arms and glowered. Lupita grinned.

“Chandni,” Archana said, meaning every word, “you’re perfect and I love you”—and that time Lupita rolled her eyes.

“Good thing you brought me over,” she said. “Clearly y’all need someone smart around.”

Archana laughed a little at that, and Chandni smiled shyly, and Archana was thinking they might talk about it again, but not now, not yet. Lupita shook her head with amused resignation, then stopped short, looking at her feet. “Chandni,” she said, after another moment, “where the shit are my shoes?”

Chandni looked expressionlessly at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve put them on a fucking asteroid, haven’t you.”

“Technically,” Chandni was saying, as Archana stood up and walked back into the function hall, “Phobos is more of a moon”—and Archana kept on going, across the floor, to where her mother was standing back from the riotous dancing.

“Better, beta?” her mother asked, and Archana considered, then nodded. Her mother smiled wryly at her. “They do love you, you know,” she added after a moment, and Archana didn’t need to ask who she meant, following her mother’s gaze to Dabbu Auntie and Manju Auntie flailing wildly and trying to persuade Lupita’s abuela to join in.

“Yeah,” Archana said, “I know.”

“Why don’t you and Lupita get ready together in the morning?” her mother said. “We can’t send the poor girl back so late and Chandni can find another room to sleep in, I’m sure.” She grinned. “She’ll complain, but it’s brides’ prerogative.”

Archana grinned back: she knew what her mother, in her own way, was trying to say. She thought that she might ask Lupita to dance with her, in a little while, and then maybe Chandni, or her dad; and after that, when Lupita’s sisters got back from carrying Tía Marta to bed, it would be time for dessert.

Alnwick

Originally published by Middle Planet

* * *

“Queerness as the vanguard of transformation,” the woman with the pink hair was saying, “that’s what it’s about. Whereas Deepika’s latest is more about conformity with the establishment. She’s this odd little government flunky. I’d think it were performance art if it weren’t so sad. Meg, or Megan or something.”

It was the fault of her shoes, Meg thought. Sensible ballet flats with soles that made no sound on the floor tiles. Or else the fault of the damn Victorian architect who’d built this house back in the year whatever and attached the bathroom to the kitchen, of all things, so you went off to hide from your girlfriend’s tiresomely political (if not until this moment actively loathsome) friends and found yourself listening behind the door to their unvarnished opinion of you.

“It’s just”—that was Pink Hair again; Meg shut down the uncharitable interior voice wondering what profession allowed a thirty-five-year-old woman that particular shade of neon—“I never expected it of Deepika. Picket fences and homonormativity.”

And that, Deepika, Meg thought, is your cue to leap to my defence—and perhaps it was for the best, that that was when the message came, the crystal at her throat lighting up into magnesium brilliance. Meg put her hand to it, read the information scrolling across her retinas, and after that there was no choice: she strode into the kitchen on those silent footsteps and started hunting frantically for her handbag and keys.

“Meg!” Deepika turned from the other doorway. “Meg, what is it?”

“I have to go to work,” Meg muttered, “my coat, where the hell is…”

“Here,” Deepika said, holding it out for Meg to put her arms into it. “Meg, what is it? No, just wait,” she added, as Meg started to pull away. “The last Tube has gone, I’ll call you a taxi. What happened?"

“It was a train,” Meg said, her eyes blurring. “There’s been a derailment on the east coast line near Alnwick. One of my ship’s engineers was on board.”

“Shit,” Deepika said, feelingly, and picked up the phone. “I’d like a taxi as soon as you can—just across from Belsize Park. Yes, please. Thank you.”

“Where’s Alnwick?” Pink Hair asked, looking at the whole scene with interest. She had put her wineglass down on the table laden with party nibbles and was chewing her hair. Quite irrationally, Meg wanted to strangle her. She resisted the urge and threw off her shoes, looking for proper winter boots.

“In Northumberland,” Deepika answered, while Meg peered at the data scrolling across her pad, waiting for the woman to ask, where’s Northumberland?

“Your ship?”—that was another one of Deepika’s friends, Anna or Annelise or something. “You have a ship?”

“Halley,” Meg said, lacing up her boots, thinking, odd little government flunky, then losing her temper. “The faster-than-light deep space exploration craft Halley. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“Halley,” Anna-or-Annelise said, in wonderment. “Halley. Deepika, you never said…”

I’ve told them all about you, Deepika had said. Meg touched the crystal at her throat so it returned to its dormant state, picked up her bag and went out. “The taxi will honk,” Deepika said, but Meg kept on going.

“I’d rather wait on the pavement,” she said, but Deepika grabbed her arm.

“We’ll talk later,” she promised, her eyes fierce, and then gestured. “Meg. You said, Alnwick. Does that mean…”

“Yes,” Meg said, flatly, and when she stamped down the front path the taxi was waiting. “Whitehall,” she said softly to the driver, and they set off silently. Meg clenched her hands into fists, breathed, and watched the lights of the city slip past the windows.

* * *

The security guard on duty gave Meg a sympathetic look at the door, which probably said everything she needed to know about what was going on inside. In the department, the main lights were still off—civil service energy-saving measure, clearly—so all work was being done by anglepoise lamps and LEDs. The rapidly moving shadows of her people made it look faux-spooky, like a sleepover or children’s party. Meg slammed her handbag down on her desk, and noticed for the first time she was wearing a Halley ID badge over a pink party dress and a pair of snow boots. London had turned cold in the last week, so the newspapers had made jokes about the Halley crew seeking better climes. “Right,” she said, her voice clear and carrying. “What the hell happened?"

The room fell silent for a moment, and then Adrienne—Meg’s closest friend and colleague here in Interstellar Science and Exploration—sighed heavily and angled a lamp towards them both. "Well," she said, with a studied calm, "it sort of fell out of the sky."

Meg’s heart hit her ribcage. "Halley?"

"No, for heaven’s sake. A supply pod." Adrienne snapped her fingers and the holograph appeared at Meg’s eye-level; Adrienne twisted her wrist and rotated the image, showing Meg the fluid lines of the thing, pyramid-shaped but with no sharp points. "It’s about the size of a transit van, I suppose. Something happened—we don’t know what—and instead of going up from Leith to Halley, it, er. Came back down."

Meg’s mouth was open. "On top of the train?"

"Not on top of the train," Adrienne said patiently. "But pretty close, hard enough to jolt the track. The train derailed maybe another half-mile down the line, near Alnwick."

Meg sat down heavily on the edge of her desk. "Okay. I’m calm. Look at me, I’m exceptionally calm. What have you done about the pod?"

"A team of investigators are flying out at dawn. It was an unmanned shuttle—they’ll get the flight recorder and recover what they can of the cargo."

"Okay, good." Meg took a breath. "What do we know about”—she picked up the sheaf of notes presumably being prepared for the minister—“Campbell? The boy on board the train.”

“He’s a light-field engineer, one of the core team,” Adrienne said, shrugging. “They’re all on furlough, you know—three weeks till launch preparations begin in earnest. It was the King’s Cross to Edinburgh train, we think he was visiting his parents."

"Oh, God," Meg said, picturing them waiting for him at the station, then lifted her head. "The last Friday train, due in—midnight, I suppose?" She glanced at her watch; it was coming up on two in the morning, and Saturday, now. “Adrienne, get a team and a report together, what happens if we have to do this launch without him, what are our options, that kind of thing.”

“We can’t,” Adrienne said, “not in three weeks—the training alone would be prohibitive, and the Halley light field, it’s attuned to the minds of the particular…”

Meg waved her silent. “Just do it, Adrienne, please? Best options no matter how bad they are. In the meantime—what’s that?”

That slowly resolved itself into an image, blurred on the white projection wall. “Ms Tripathi, is that you? Good evening.”

“Good evening, Minister,” Meg said, and bit down the hysterical laugh. Apparently Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Interstellar Science and Exploration chose to sleep in natty blue-and-white striped pyjamas. As though reading her mind, he glanced down at himself on the screen, then lifted his hand. “Transparency in government is everything, Ms Tripathi.”

“Yes, Minister.” Meg allowed herself a very quick smile; it seemed like there might not be many in her immediate future.

“What can you tell me so far?”

Meg counted off on her fingers. “One. It was an unmanned shuttle accident that caused the derailment. Two. One of Halley’s launch crew was definitely on board, a Scottish light-field engineer named Leonard Ansari-Campbell, who may be injured, or"—she hesitated—"worse. Three. The train derailed near Alnwick.”

“Has anyone else been hurt?” the minister asked, and Meg took a moment to sigh for their collective human decency; perhaps she ought to have asked Adrienne that first. “We don’t know, Minister. Although I suspect our paucity of news is good news.”

“Is it possible,” the minister said, “that I’m closer to the site than you are?”

Meg shook her head. “Closer in distance but not in time.” The minister’s constituency was on the Sefton coast, not far from Camell Laird where Halley had been built. “It’s a direct route up from London. In fact”—she made the decision—“I’ll go up there myself.”

“You don’t want to attract media attention,” Adrienne was saying worriedly from beside her, and Meg nodded.

“I’ll take the first scheduled service up. I believe the line is open as far as Morpeth.”

“Good luck, Meg,” the minister said with kindness in his eyes. “Keep me informed. And let’s try and keep this from the newspapers as long as we can, please? Particularly”—his expression stilled for a moment, becoming unreadable—“the issue of the Alnwick coroner’s sinecure.”

Too late, Meg realised why he had been asking about other deaths. “Yes, Minister,” she said, and was grateful for the cup of coffee Adrienne placed straight into her hands.

The first scheduled service of the day from King’s Cross turned out to be at 5.15am. Meg called for another taxi and went home to dress more suitably for her day, discarding the pink-sequinned dress in the bathroom. “About last night,” Deepika tried, perched on the counter top, but Meg shook her off.

“Not now,” she said. “I have to go up north. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“To Alnwick,” Deepika said, and Meg nodded, taking a minute to stand still in the quiet kitchen. Deepika had clearly been awake since Meg’s departure; it was clean and tidy in here now, with dishes gleaming in the rack, and no other sign of the party.

Meg sighed, relaxing a little. “I need to see my engineer, and perhaps”—she gestured—“keep it a little quiet, if I can. Try and avoid any inquiries into the sinecure list."

“That sounds ridiculous,” Deepika said, and Meg took a deep breath.

“If it gets out,” she said clearly, “if some journalist figures out the right sort of questions to ask, and why wouldn’t they, about Halley and Campbell and Alnwick, then there won’t be a launch whether or not we have a full complement of light-field engineers. The scandal will kill us. So don’t tell me it sounds ridiculous.”

"Oh, not at all," Deepika said, with a crackle of anger, "not at all ridiculous, nor political. Meg, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry you had to overhear those things last night. And I’m sorry if”—she was gesturing now, her palms overturned—“it turns out the mission, everything you’ve worked for…"

She trailed off, but Meg softened at her obvious sincerity. “Yeah. That’s why I’ve got to go.”

Deepika nodded, then said, fussily, “You won’t have time to get breakfast at the station. Let me make you something”—and by the time yet another taxi arrived, she’d done two rounds of ham and cheese with chutney and a little sprig of parsley, the way Meg liked it. Meg kissed her goodbye and meant it, and ate the sandwiches three hours later as the train crossed the Tyne, feeling fragile and exhausted in the dawn light.

* * *

There were train carriages strewn in the fields. From her perch on the bonnet of a jeep, Meg counted five of them, some still coupled, others strange islands in the burnt-off stalks and snow. It made Meg’s stomach turn horribly to see them like that, at perpendicular angles to how the world ought to be. "Can I help, or will I be in the way?" she asked, watching as ambulances drove down the farm tracks, wheels spinning in the mud.

"Wait till they get through the side, miss, it won’t be long," said the voice from next to her, warm and Geordie. Meg had arrived at Morpeth to find the tiny station hushed and intensely active, passengers being herded away from the misty platforms, and had not wanted to interrupt. But the first of the local constabulary she met had recognised the crystal at her throat, and not very long after that she had been brought up here along the route of the old Great North Road, the snow vivid on the trees. "It won’t be long," PC Throckley said again. "That carriage is the last one they got to. In the dark, you know."

"Oh," Meg said, a little weakly, trying to imagine what it had been like for the passengers waiting hours in the pitch rural blackness, while distant lights flickered across the landscape and emergency response vehicles fought through the snow and mud. Down on the railway line, a group of emergency workers were using a cutting torch on a train carriage as though it were a tin-opener. The noise stopped, a paramedic in green and high-visibility yellow shouted into the crack, "You’re all right, you’re going to be all right!" and then cutting began again.

"You’re here from the ship and all," Throckley said, in wonderment, and Meg turned to him sharply.

"From London, actually," she said, anxious to correct his misconception. "I’m just a civil servant, I’m here to report back to my department. I’m not that exciting, really."

"No, it’s grand," Throckley said, gesturing upwards, "it’s exciting all right"—and then with a welcome, harsh sound, the torch cut through the metal. Throckley started forwards and Meg scrambled to her feet to follow him, slipping and sliding on the mud on the way downhill, and as they reached the flat ground, one of the rescue workers reached inside the hole and yelled:

"Five to come out!"

It took a few more minutes, but the hole was enlarged, paramedics rushed down to the site and started unfolding stretchers, and a first passenger—ambulatory, Meg noted with some relief—was helped out. The second one had to be carried, and on his way down a paramedic skidded in the mud and Meg instinctively reached out to steady him, and then equally instinctively, helped carry the stretcher he unfolded, grateful for her snow boots. Up the hill there were vehicles disgorging more people, and for the first time, Meg realised that some of the workers were wearing dressing-gowns under the high-vis. "Leave the inside to the professionals, miss," Throckley said to her, but when the remaining passengers were brought out from that jagged-edged hole in the railways carriage, Meg got a whiff of musty air and darkly organic smells, dissipating fast in the metallic tang of snow. The last passenger to be brought out was a curly-headed young man, curled on his side on the stretcher, and Meg watched as a rescue worker squeezed his hand on the journey up to the waiting ambulances.

"All right," she said, turning to Throckley. "Constable, if that’s everyone, and there were"—doubt in her voice, and hope, and trepidation—"no fatalities?"

"No. At least"—there was an echo of that hopefulness in Throckley’s voice—"not yet."

Meg nodded. "I’d be grateful if you’d give me a lift to Alnwick or wherever the injured have been taken."

"So you’re here to make sure they still go up into space?" Throckley said, still rather hopefully, as the wheels bounced beneath them in the rutted ground. "Will they still go, after this?"

"Perhaps," Meg said, remembering suddenly why she’d come in the first place, and the coroner in Alnwick. It seemed a petty concern out here in the snow. "What is that?"

Her attention had been caught by a point in the sky above the supply pod wreckage, keeping pace with them like a star but bright and visible even through the morning light. Throckley chuckled. "That’s your ship, miss," he said, taking a hand off the steering wheel to wave at it, and Meg remembered his earlier gesture upwards. "You’ve never seen it?"

"Yes," Meg said, discomfited, "but I’d forgotten"—and cut herself off by yawning hugely. She meant to keep her eye on the bright star all the long drive down to the town, and would have done, if she hadn’t fallen asleep embarrassingly against the window, her lips leaving condensation kisses on the glass.

* * *

"Excuse me, may I come in?"

The figure in the bed turned over, and Meg had his file to hand, knew every recorded biographical detail about him including his date of birth, but was still surprised at the degree of youth in his face. "Oh, hello," he said, with mild surprise. "Who are you?"

"I’ve come from London," Meg said, suddenly awkward, "from Whitehall, you know"—and in lieu of any better way to express it, touched the Halley crystal at her collarbones.

"Oh," he said, “I’d hoped to meet my first representative of the department while wearing trousers”—and Meg laughed, grateful for the release in tension, and sat down in the chair next to the bed.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr Ansari-Campbell,” she said, reaching out a hand and then thinking better of it. There was a drip running into his arm and a suggestion that his skin was not usually so washed out and distant from brown, but nothing glazed about his expression.

“Firstly,” he said, “I don’t actually have my doctorate yet. Secondly”—this with a weary resignation—“call me Leonard, I meant it about the trousers.”

“Meghna Tripathi,” she said. “I’m one of the civil servants from Interstellar Exploration. How are you, Leonard?”

"I’ve been better." He rolled over again, and then something seemed to occur to him; Meg watched the look of dread appear from nowhere on his face. "You’re not here to tell me I’m being replaced?"

Meg shifted in the chair. "I’d rather not have to do that." She hesitated, then asked, "Can you tell me how you are? I mean, really."

"Apparently," Leonard said, "I was in that train carriage for eight hours before they got me out of there. I don’t remember it. They tell me I hit my head and had a seizure of some sort."

"Oh, my goodness." Meg leaned back in her chair, and wondered if he had been the passenger she had seen rescued from the last carriage. "I’m so sorry."

He looked at her levelly. "Well?"

Meg let out a breath. "We don’t want to replace you," she said. "It will be easier to delay the launch than replace you."

"You’d do that for me?" He looked hopeful, Meg realised suddenly; he tried to sit up for a minute, then thought better of it. "I mean—I’m not dead. I can be treated. I can get over this. I will get over this. Can I still…"

He trailed off, his hair falling into his eyes, and Meg pushed away the urge to reach out and take his hand again, this time out of compassion, rather than formality. "Perhaps," she said, very gently. "I don’t want to say for certain that you will go to the ball, you understand? But I’ve had a note from my team in London, and they say it will take so long to train another light-field engineer, and the circuitry in the ship is designed with your particular neurology in mind, and—well." She paused. "I don’t pretend to understand the technical detail. But yes. It might be easier to delay."

"Thank you," he said, fervent and with eyes shining, "thank you, Ms Tripathi, you won’t regret this."

She shook her head, not knowing how to respond. "Is there anything else you need?" she asked after a moment, awkward. "Anything I can do for you?”

“Actually, there is.” He looked up at her, frowning. “My parents are my next of kin—they’re coming down soon. But there’s a couple of people—I don’t want them to hear from the news outlets, they’ll think the worst, you know?” He made a confused gesture. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course,” Meg said. “Let me have their names, my department will take care of it.”

“Thanks,” he said, scribbling on the tablet she offered from her bag. “There’s Pen—she’s my roommate, she’d worry. And my, er, partner up in Leith.”

“Your, er, partner?” Meg said, with a slightly unprofessional flash of humour.

“Three weeks of furlough.” Leonard gestured. “But after that he and I have—a termination agreement. Faster-than-light communication not being, ah, at its technological zenith.” He grinned. “I’m allowed to say that, I’m gonna be the one actually pushing the boat. Ah, inshallah.”

Meg smiled back. “I’ll make sure he’s informed as soon as possible. And”—she hesitated, then went on—“I’m sorry. I suppose we all must make personal sacrifices, for the mission, but I…I didn’t think.”

He shrugged. “It’s a sacrifice, sure. But I get to go into space. I get to push a ship through space faster than light with my head.” He laughed a little, as though at his own foolishness. “I’m a light-field engineer. It’s what I’m here to do.”

“Yes,” Meg said, softly. “Thank you, Leonard. I’ll leave my card on the table. We’ll be in touch."

She let herself out, very quietly, and when she looked back he was still staring after her, his eyes bright.

* * *

"And so," Meg said, in conclusion, "that’s my formal recommendation. Delay the launch by—say, a fortnight if we can. Adrienne has put together some second-best scenarios if Campbell isn’t fit to fly by then, but we’ll hope that he is. In either case, we’re working out how to deal with the press. Thankfully, there were no other serious injuries."

The minister nodded, and yawned. "Apologies, Ms Tripathi," he said, and Meg couldn’t blame him; it was evening now, the city lights bright around them, and neither of them had slept since the first call had come about the accident. Meg looked across the Holyrood grounds and spotted the small shuttle waiting for them both, and up above her head at the bright lights of geostationary spacedock. "What about the supply pod?" the minister asked. "I ask this out of pure academic interest and not in the slightest bit because we’re about to trust our lives to one of the damn things."

"It’s a different model of pod," Meg said, amused, "and this one has a crew. Adrienne will let us have the report when it’s done."

"Good," the minister said, and said nothing while they were guided on board the small craft, the flight crew disappearing into the cockpit and the straps descending from the ceiling. Meg secured herself in her seat, next to the window, and wondered not for the first time why the minister had called her up to Edinburgh to begin with. She’d been investigating train times southbound when she received the message, and had come up with all due alacrity and increasing mystification. "Now, Meghna," he said, finally, twisting round to speak to her from his seat in front. "That was your formal recommendation. What is your informal one?"

Meg hesitated, and in that moment of silence, the shuttle left the ground, moving straight up as though hung from a cable, rapidly enough to make her ears pop. The city receded beneath then, becoming a jewellery box of shining lights. "I don’t like to say, Minister," she said, at last, and to her surprise, he smiled as though he’d been expecting her response.

"I won’t push," he said. "Oh, one more bit of shop-talk: I suppose it’s all lost beyond recovery, but what was the cargo in the pod?"

"Tins, sir."

"Tins?"

"Tins." Meg spread her hands. "There’s going to be hydroponics and food reclamation on board, but it’s a long way to Barnard’s Star. It was thought the crew might like—well. Tinned pineapple. Cream of tomato soup."

"Tinned pineapple," the minister said, faintly.

"But it’s all right," Meg added. "Heinz and the other suppliers have offered to replace everything free of cost. I pushed them into it because they need it for their advertising, you know—enjoyed all the way out to the stars! and all that nonsense."

"Meg," the minister said, chuckling, "you are a marvel. How’s your young lady?"

"She’s well," Meg said, a little amused at the phrasing. "Thank you for asking."

He caught something of her amusement, and shrugged apology. "Forgive me. When I was your age they used to ask, how’s your friend. Sometimes, special friend. Wink wink, nudge, nudge. It grew tiresome. Though, of course"—he smiled, wistfully—"friends do grow special, over the years. Meghna, it’s time we come clean."

"About what?"

"About the sinecures list."

"Alnwick," Meg said, automatically, and then: "We’ll need to take legal advice. And, sir—politically speaking…"

"Not your bailiwick, Meg," he said, a little stern. "It’s time. Thirty years ago this was the only way we could do this. Halley is…well, it’s remarkable what’s been done. Crown prerogatives will do that."

"If the prerogative money is withdrawn," Meg said, "we become a government department like any other. We’ll need to be funded by way of legislation. We’ll have to go before Parliament."

"And so we should, and so we will." The minister glanced at her. "Meg—thirty years ago, I’m sure the people in your position thought the Alnwick loophole was a gift from heaven. So inimitably British, of course. Some unknown prerogative post with unlimited executive funding! Our own Civil List! And all we have to do is make sure no one ever finds out that we’re funding a faster-than-light interstellar space programme through a twelfth-century Northumberland sinecure, administered through the coroner’s office!"

"When you put it like that," Meg said, with regret for her brusqueness with Deepika, "it sounds ridiculous."

The minister nodded, and Meg suddenly realised she’d been too distracted by his conversation to notice the rapid fall of the earth. Beyond the window glass she could make out the Firth of Forth laid out in the patterns of its own cartography, dusted with wisps of cloud. When Meg turned back from the view the minister gave her a small, secretive smile. "Tell me," he said, "was that going to be your informal recommendation?"

Meg thought for a minute. "You know," she said at last, "I met a man in Morpeth who thought my job was exciting. That it was wonderful, to do what I do, in my office in London. Leonard Ansari-Campbell was trapped for hours in the freezing cold and dark three weeks before he goes out into space, into the freezing cold and the dark, and his greatest fear is that I’ll take that away from him."

"If we delay the launch," the minister said, low and careful, "perhaps you will not have to do that."

"And, well." Meg paused, and brought a hand to her throat. "I thought we wore these little Halley ID crystals as a publicity stunt. I mean, we could use tablets like everyone else, you know? We’re not crew. We’re only logistics."

The minister nodded. "I won’t say it wasn’t thought of in those terms, at least to begin with."

"But, maybe," Meg said, hesitated again, and then said it. "Maybe something of us goes out there with them."

The minister smiled at her. "Maybe it does." He motioned beneath him at Scotland, now bright in its entirety; then at the lights gleaming out on the North Sea, and in the far distance, the terminator creeping over the earth’s surface. "Now hold onto that thought and step back. Think about the greater picture. Ask yourself why we’re not at the heart of government. Why we, of all people, and of all things, should not be funded. Ask yourself why three pence in the pound cannot go to carrying citizens into the great unknown."

"Minister," Meg said gently, "there’s no need for a speech. I’m not your public."

He glanced at her sidelong. "Did you vote for this government?"

Meg grinned. "Yes, Minister."

"Then call it your three pence in the pound." He shrugged again, and overturned his hands. "Are you ready for this?"

"It’s what I’m here for," Meg said, and watched Halley curve into view above, like a paper aeroplane made glorious and enormous, sharp and silver. Beyond it, there was nothing but the inky blackness of space. "Except," she added, "I don’t know why I’m here. Why did you ask me to come up?"

At the sound of the docking clamps, and the pressure beginning to equalise, the minister looked at her as though it were obvious. "This is the ship we built, Meg. Let’s take a look."

* * *

Back in London, on a Sunday morning comfortable and hushed with snow, Meg curled up under a blanket on the sofa and let Deepika bring her tea. "Masala chai, just how you like it," she said, and Meg smiled up at her, breathing it in.

"You know," she said, idly worrying a loose thread on the blanket, "I don’t like your friends. Especially Pink Hair. She’s a twit.”

Deepika blinked. “She has a name, Meg."

“So do I,” Meg said. “It’s Meg. Meghna. Clouds, you know? That’s what it means. Like, up in the sky, though I suppose the Magellanic Clouds would also count."

"Meg, is there a point to this?"

"I’m getting to it," Meg said. "I didn’t like what’s-her-name, Annelise, either. I’m sorry I ran out on your party but I’m not sorry I was rude to them."

"You were rather rude," Deepika agreed. "Maybe I should trade you in for a better model."

"Maybe you should make new friends."

"Maybe I should," Deepika said, easily, and Meg was comforted by it. "Maybe I’d do worse things than that for you, you grumpy hidebound Luddite. Is your engineer okay? Did you let his family know?"

"I spoke to them myself," Meg said, "and I think he’s doing all right. I mean"—she smiled at the thought—"I think he’ll get to go where he needs to go. Deepika, don’t make new friends."

"Oh, really?" Deepika said, fetching her own tea and taking a sip. “Have you come round to queerness as political, then?”

"I’m just a civil servant," Meg said, with some asperity. "No, that’s not it."

"You’re not just anything, Meg," Deepika said, impatiently. "Well?"

Meg leaned back into the sofa, resisting the urge to fall asleep. One day, and then it would begin: one day before the legislative reveal; one day before the department went before Parliament and all around them a change in the weather. "Turns out she was right. I just saw some queers at the vanguard of transformation."

"Idiot," Deepika said, fondly, and went to fetch a plate of biscuits.

Anthea Sharp

Ice in D Minor

Originally published in the Timberland Reads Together anthology, 9/15.

* * *

Rinna Sen paced backstage, tucking her mittened hands deep into the pockets of her parka. The sound of instruments squawking to life cut through the curtains screening the front of the theater: the sharp cry of a piccolo, the heavy thump of tympani, the whisper and saw of forty violins warming up. Good luck with that. Despite the huge heaters trained on the open-air proscenium, the North Pole in February was cold.

And about to get colder, provided she did her job.

The stage vibrated slightly, balanced in the center of a parabolic dish pointed straight up to the distant specks of stars in the frigid black sky. The stars floated impossibly far away—but they weren’t the goal. No, her music just had to reach the thermo-acoustic engine hovering ten miles above the earth, centered over the pole.

Rinna breathed in, shards of cold stabbing her lungs. Her blood longed for summer in Mumbai; the spice-scented air that pressed heat into skin, into bone, so deeply a body wanted to collapse under the impossible weight and lie there, baking, under the blue sky.

That had been in her childhood. Now, nobody lived in the searing swath in the center of the globe. The heat between the tropics had become death to the human organism.

Not to mention that her home city was now under twenty feet of water. There was no going back, ever.

“Ms. Sen?” Her assistant, Dominic Larouse, hurried up, his nose constantly dripping from the chill. “There’s a problem with the tubas.”

Rinna sighed—a puff of breath, visible even in the dim air. “What, their lips are frozen to the mouthpieces? I told them to bring plastic ones.”

“Valve issues, apparently.”

Dominic dabbed his nose with his ever-present handkerchief. He’d been with her for two years, and she still couldn’t break through his stiff formality. But little things, like insisting on being called by her first name, weren’t worth the aggravation. Not here, not now.

“Get more heaters on them,” she said, “and tell those damn violins we start in five minutes, whether they’re warmed up or not.”

“Five minutes. Yes ma’am.”

Her job included being a hardass, but she knew how difficult it was to keep the instruments on pitch. The longer they waited, the worse it would get.

Goddess knew, they’d tried this the easy way by feeding remote concerts into the climate engine. Ever since the thing was built, the scientists had been trying to find the right frequencies to cool the atmosphere. They’d had the best luck with minor keys—something about the energy transfer—and at first had tried running synthesized pitches through. Then entire performances. Mozart’s Requiem had come close, but not close enough.

It had to be a live performance; the immediate, present sounds of old wood, horsehair, brass and felt, the cascade of subtle human imperfection, blown and pulled and pounded from the organic bodies of the instruments.

There was no substitute for the interactions of sound waves, the immeasurable atomic collisions of an on-site concert fed directly into the engine. Once the thing got started, the techs had promised they could loop the sound. Which was good, because no way was Rinna giving up the rest of her life to stand at the North Pole, conducting a half-frozen orchestra. Not even to save the planet.

She’d spent years working on her composition, assembled the best symphony in the world, rehearsed them hard, then brought them here, to the Arctic. Acoustic instruments and sub-zero temperatures didn’t get along, but damn it, she’d make this happen.

What if the composition is a failure? The voice of all her doubts ghosted through her thoughts, sounding suspiciously like her long-dead father.

She pinned it down and piled her answers on top, trying to smother it into silence.

The simulations had proven that certain frequencies played through the engine could super-cool the air over the pole. Then, with luck, a trickle-down effect would begin and slowly blanket the world. The scientists had run the models over and over, with a thousand different types of sound. But it wasn’t until the suits had hired Rinna—one of the best composers in the world (not that the world cared much about symphonies)—that the project had really started to gel.

“Ms. Sen.” Dominic hurried up again, holding out the slim screen of her tablet. “Vid call for you.”

“I told you, I don’t want any interruptions.”

“It’s the President.”

“Oh, very well.” Fingers clumsy through her mittens, Rinna took the call.

President Nishimoto, Leader of the Ten Nations of the World, smiled at her through the clear, bright screen. Behind him, the desert that used to be Moscow was visible through the window of his office.

“Ms. Sen,” he said. “The entire world wishes you the very best of luck in your performance.”

He didn’t need to say how much was at stake. They all knew.

“Thank you.” She bowed, then handed the screen back to Dominic.

It was almost too late. Last winter, the pole ice had thinned so much it couldn’t support the necessary installation. Doom criers had mourned the end, but a freak cold-snap in January had given them one final chance.

Now here they were—the orchestra, the techs, Rinna. And five thousand brave, stupid souls, camping on the precarious ice. Come to see the beginning of the world, or the end of it.

Out front, the oboe let out an undignified honk, then found the A. Rinna closed her eyes as the clear pitch rang out, quieting the rest of the musicians. The violins took it up, bows pulling, tweaking, until there was only one perfect, single note. It deepened as the lower strings joined in, cellos and basses rounding the A into a solid arc of octaves.

She could feel the dish magnifying the vibration, up through her feet. Sound was powerful. Music could change the world. She had to believe that.

As the strings quieted, Rinna stripped off her mittens, then lifted her conductor’s baton from its velvet-lined case. The polished mahogany grip was comfortable in her hand, despite the chill. The stick itself was carved of mammoth ivory, dug out of the ground centuries ago.

She ran her fingers up and down the smooth white length. It was fitting, using a relic of an extinct animal in this attempt to keep humans from going out the same way.

She stepped onstage, squinting in the stage lights, as the wind instruments began to tune. First the high silver notes of the flutes, then the deep, mournful call of the French horns and low brass. Sounded like the tubas had gotten themselves sorted out.

From up here, the ice spread around stage—not pale and shimmering under the distant stars, but dark and clotted with onlookers. Originally, she’d imagined performing to the quiet, blank landscape—but that was before some brilliantly wacko entrepreneur had started selling tickets and chartering boats into the bitter reaches of the North.

The concert of a lifetime, plus the novelty of cold, drew spectators from all over the planet. No doubt the thrill of the chill had worn off, but the performance, the grand experiment, was still to come.

And truthfully, Rinna was glad for the crowd. Thermo-acoustics aside, she knew from long experience that the energy of playing in front of responsive listeners was different. Call it physics, call it woo-woo, but the audience was an integral part of the performance.

The project director had been reluctant at first, constructing only a small shelter and selling tickets at prices she didn’t even want to contemplate. The enclosed seating held roughly forty people: heads of state, classical music aficionados, those with enough money and sense to try and stay warm. But when the boats started arriving, the tents going up, what could he do?

The spectators all wanted to be here, with the possible exception of Dominic hovering beside the podium.

The crowd caught sight of her striding across the stage, and applause rushed like a wind over the flat, frigid plain. She lifted her hand in acknowledgement. Overhead, the edge of the aurora flickered, a pale fringe of light.

Rinna stepped onto the podium and looked over her orchestra, illuminated by white spotlights and the ruddy glow of the heaters.

She’d bribed and bullied and called in every favor owed her, and this was the result. The best symphony orchestra the entire world could offer. Rehearsals had been the Tower of Babel: Hindi, Chinese, English, French—over a dozen nationalities stirred together in a cacophonous soup. But the moment they started playing, they had one perfect language in common.

Music.

The orchestra quieted. One hundred and five pairs of eyes fixed on her, and Rinna swallowed back the quick burst of nausea that always accompanied her onto the podium. The instant she lifted her baton and scribed the downbeat, it would dissipate. Until then, she’d fake feeling perfectly fine.

“Dominic?” she called, “are the techs ready?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Blow your nose.” No point in marring the opening with the sound of his sniffles.

Pasting a smile on her face, Rinna turned and bowed to the listeners spread out below the curve of the stage. They applauded, sparks of excitement igniting like distant firecrackers.

She pulled in a deep breath, winced as the air stabbed her lungs, and faced the orchestra—all her brave, dedicated musicians poised on the cusp of the most important performance of their lives.

The world premiere of Ice.

The air quieted. Above the orchestra a huge amplifier waited, a tympanic membrane ready to take the sound and feed it into the engine, transmute it to frigidity.

Rinna raised her arms, and the musicians lifted their instruments, their attention focused on her like iron on a magnet. She was their true north. The baton lay smoothly in her right hand—her talisman, her magic wand. If there ever was wizardry in the world, let it come to her now.

Heart beating fast, she let her blood set the tempo and flicked her stick upward. Then down, irrevocably down, into the first beat of Ice.

A millisecond of silence, and then the violins slid up into a melodic line colored with aching, while the horns laid down a base solid enough to carry the weight of the stars. The violas took the melody, letting the violins soar into descant. The hair on the back of her neck lifted at the eerie balance. Yes. Perfect. Now the cellos—too loud. She pushed the sound down slightly with her left hand, and the section followed, blending into the waves of music that washed up and up.

Rinna beckoned to the harp, and a glissando swirled out, a shimmering net cast across dark waters. Was it working? She didn’t dare glance up.

High overhead, the thermo-acoustic engine waited, the enormous tubes and filters ready to take her music and make it corporeal—a thrumming machine built to restore the balance of the world.

It was crazy. It was their best chance.

Ice was not a long piece. It consisted of only one movement, designed along specific, overlapping frequencies. Despite its brevity, it had taken her three years to compose, working with the weather simulations and the best scientific minds in the world. Then testing on small engines, larger ones, until she stood here.

Now Rinna gestured and pulled, molded and begged, and the orchestra gave. Tears glazed her vision, froze on her lashes, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t working from a score; the music lived in her body, more intimately known to her than her own child.

The clarinets sobbed the melody, grieving for what was already lost. The polar bears. The elephants. The drowned cities. The silenced birds.

Now the kettle-drums, a gradual thunder—raising the old magic, working up to the climax. The air throbbed and keened as Rinna rose onto her toes and lifted her hands higher. Higher. A divine plea.

Save us.

Arms raised high, Rinna held the symphony in her grasp, squeezed its heart for one more drop of musical blood. The musicians gave, faces taut with effort, shiny with sweat even in the chill. Bows flew, a faint sparkle of rosin dust flavoring the air. The trumpets blared, not missing the triad the way they had in rehearsal.

The last note. Hold. Hold. Hold.

She slashed her hand through the air and the sound stopped. Ice ended, yearning and dissonant, the final echo ringing into the frigid sky.

Above, nothing but silence.

Rinna lowered her arms and rocked back on her heels. From the corner of her eye, she saw the techs gesturing frantically, heads shaking, expressions grim.

The bitter taste of failure crept into her mouth, even as the crowd erupted into shouts and applause, a swell of sound washing up and over the open stage. She turned and gave them an empty bow, then gestured to the symphony—the musicians who had given and given. For nothing.

They stood, and one over-exuberant bassoonist let out a cheer and fist-pump. It sent the rest of the orchestra into relieved shouts, and she didn’t have the heart to quiet them. They began stamping their feet, the stage vibrating, humming, low and resonant.

Rinna caught her breath, wild possibility flickering through her.

She gestured urgently to the basses. Three of them began to play, finding the note, expanding it. The rest of the section followed, quickly joined by the tubas—bless the tubas. Rinna opened her arms wide, and the string players hastily sat and took up their instruments again.

“D minor!” she cried. “Build it.”

The violins nodded, shaping harmonies onto the note. The harpist pulled a trembling arpeggio from her strings, the wind instruments doubled, tripled the sound into an enormous chord buoyed up by breath and bone, tree and ingot, hope and desperation.

The stage pulsing beneath her, she turned to the crowd and waved her arms in wide arcs.

“Sing!” she yelled, though she knew they couldn’t hear her.

The word hung in a plume before her. She could just make out the upturned faces below, pale circles in the endless Arctic night.

Slowly, the audience caught on. Sound spread like ripples from the stage, a vast buzzing that resolved into pitch. Rinna raised her arms, and the volume grew, rising up out of five thousand throats, a beautiful, ragged chorus winging into the air.

Beneath their feet, the last of the world’s ice began to hum.

The techs looked up from their control room, eyes wide, as high overhead the huge engine spun and creaked.

Rinna tilted her face up, skin stiff as porcelain from the cold, and closed her eyes. She felt it, deep in her bones, a melody singing over and over into the sky. The thrum of sound transformed to super-cooled air, the long hard pull back from the precipice.

Something touched her face, light as feathers, insubstantial as dreams.

Quietly, perfectly, it began to snow.

The Sun Never Sets

Originally published in Alt.History 101 (Windrift Books, 2015), edited by Samuel Peralta and Nolie Wilson and part of The Future Chronicles anthology series, created by Samuel Peralta

* * *

London, 1850

Seven degrees above the horizon, she spotted it—a speck of diamond in the deepening twilight. A tiny dot of light that perchance was only a trick of vision, or a wayward dust mote.

But perhaps something more…

Miss Kate Danville’s heart raced at the prospect, but she forced herself to remain still. With a deep, steadying breath, she leaned forward and gently twisted the eyepiece of her telescope, careful not to bump the instrument. The pinprick of brightness lost focus, then sharpened.

She was not mistaken. Certainty flared through her, filling her with warmth.

The image blurred again, but this time due to her own triumphant tears. Kate sat back and brushed the foolish water from her eyes. She would show them all that her little hobby as Father called it—Mother used stronger words like unsuitable and distastefully unfeminine—was more than simply dabbling in the astronomical arts.

She, Miss Kate Danville, had discovered a comet!

Oh, she was not the first women to do so—a handful of amateur astronomers had been the first to spot celestial objects, including her idol, Maria Mitchell, who received the Danish gold medal just two years prior.

Kate closed her eyes and imagined the King of Denmark presenting her with that accolade in front of an admiring crowd. Why, she might even get to meet the esteemed Ms. Mitchell, and perhaps be inducted into the Royal Society—

“Beg pardon, miss, but her ladyship sent me up to fetch you to make ready for the ball.” The maid’s reedy voice broke through Kate’s daydream, bringing her down from the stars with a thud.

She opened her eyes, and was once again simply Miss Kate Danville, perched on the top of Danville House with her telescope and her fancies in the sooty June dusk.

“I need a bit more time,” she told the maid. “Please tell my mother I must notate my new discovery.”

The maid gave her a skeptical look, but dropped a curtsy. “I shall, but you know Lady Danville won’t take kindly to that answer.”

“I am well aware of my mother’s expectations.” They included a proper marriage and Kate’s abandoning her inappropriate scientifical leanings.

But that disapproval would surely change once Kate’s Comet was officially recognized.

Time was of the essence, however. Kate bent again to her telescope to jot down the exact location of the bright speck in the sky. If someone else notified the Royal Astronomical Society first, she would be robbed of her discovery. That must not be allowed to happen.

“Kate!” Her mother’s sharp tones drifted up from the stairwell leading to the attic. “If you don’t come down this instant, I declare I will have your father take your telescope away.”

Lady Danville would never attempt to navigate the steep stairs—neither her wide skirts nor her temperament would allow the journey—but she was not averse to raising her voice. Or delivering threats.

“Coming,” Kate called.

She hastily scribbled a second set of notes, then tucked the precious piece of paper into her pocket. Time to face her mother, and yet another social tedium where the gentlemen asked her whether she liked roses, or droned on about their own accomplishments.

She blew out an unhappy breath. Lady Danville was determined to see Kate betrothed by the end of the summer, while Kate was equally determined to resist.

Although, upon further consideration, attending the ball that evening might be for the best. If Viscount Huffton or one of the other Royal Society astronomers were there, she could notify them of her discovery at once.

* * *

At breakfast two days later, Kate stared at the morning headline in the London Times. Shock stole her breath and held her motionless for a heartbeat.

“Viscount Huffton Discovers New Comet,” the paper declared.

No. That weasel had taken credit for her discovery!

“I won’t stand for it,” she gasped, leaping to her feet and nearly overturning the teapot. “I must pay a call upon Lord Wrottesley at once.”

Surely, as one of the founding members of the Royal Astronomical Society, he would aid her. She knew he was in London, for the odious Viscount Huffton had mentioned it at the ball. The ball where he had stolen the fruits of her labors. Her hands clenched into fists.

“Sit down,” her mother said, regarding her sternly over the white damask tablecloth. “What an unladylike outburst. And you have never been introduced to Lord Wrottesley. You cannot simply visit the man—what would he think of such improper behavior?”

Kate slowly sank back into her chair and used her napkin to mop up the spilled tea. “Please, mother. It’s important.”

Thank heavens she’d kept her original notes. She only prayed Lord Wrottesley would listen when she explained that she had spotted the comet first, then brought her findings to the viscount. Who was supposed to have reported it to the Royal Society, not claimed the discovery as his own, the worm.

Lady Danville raised her brows. “Is this matter important enough that you will consent to receive Lord Downing-Wilton tomorrow, should he pay you a visit?”

Oh, rot it. Kate should have known her mother would take every opportunity to foist a suitor upon her. She closed her eyes a moment, pushing back the scream of frustration bubbling in her throat. When she had mastered herself, she opened her eyes.

“Of course, mother. Only, we must see Lord Wrottesley today.”

“So you keep insisting.” Lady Danville regarded her a moment more. “It is most irregular. Perhaps you ought to admit Sir Wexfield into your circle, as well.”

“As you say.” Kate spoke the words through gritted teeth.

“And perhaps—”

“I shall go up and change now.” Kate tossed the tea-stained napkin upon the table. She had lost her appetite completely.

“Wear your dove walking dress with the violet trim,” her mother said. “If we are fortunate, Lord Wrottesley will be entertaining gentleman guests when we arrive.”

As it transpired, and to Kate’s great relief, Lord Wrottesley was at home, and he was alone. The butler ushered them into his cluttered study, where Kate presented her notes and explained the circumstances.

“Hmph.” Lord Wrottesley peered at the jotted numbers and angles, then shook his head. “That puppy Huffton needs to be taken down a peg. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Miss Danville.”

Kate slid forward to the edge of her chair. “Does this mean my claim will be upheld?”

Lady Danville, seated in the adjoining wingback, gave her a placid smile. “Patience, my dear. I’m certain Lord Wrottesley does not like to be rushed. He will do what is best.”

“But—”

“Thank you, sir, for your time.” Lady Danville rose. “Certainly you have more pressing concerns than listening to my daughter complain.”

“Perhaps.” He folded Kate’s notes and tapped them against his hand. “I shall review the evidence and share it with the Royal Astronomical Society. Thank you for your visit, ladies.”

Before Kate could protest, her mother hauled her to the doorway. She dropped a quick curtsey to Lord Wrottesley, and then the butler shut the study door in her face.

* * *

Kate spent a wretched two days being polite, if not pleasant, to a stream of gentleman callers. None of them were the least bit interested in discussing any type of science, let alone astronomy, and several of them looked faintly horrified that she would broach the subject at all.

It was worth it, though, when she received the letter bearing the seal of the Royal Society, confirming that she, Kate Danville, was credited with the discovery of what would henceforth be known as Miss Danville’s Comet.

Throughout the following week, the mote in the sky grew brighter. First it matched, then overtook, the light of the stars, until it was visible during the day as well as searing the night. Her comet went from being a source of mild speculation to casting a worrisome light over the population of London. Reports soon came in that the comet was affecting every corner of the British Empire.

Local uprisings, raving prophets, and strange tides were reported regularly in the newspapers, along with sensationalized speculation: the comet would smash into London and devastate the country—nay, the entire world, it was not a comet at all but a vehicle bearing explorers from the stars, the end times were nigh and everyone might as well drink and make merry while they still could. Some took this as a call to rampage about the streets, causing an increasing number of clashes between unruly members of the populace and the constabulary.

Queen Victoria issued a half dozen regal reassurances—none of which were taken to heart. It was noted that she and Prince Albert sent their children up to Scotland with a coterie of Royal Nannies, prompting an exodus of nobly-born sons and daughters to the countryside.

Kate, however, refused to go.

“Mother, I’m seventeen, not a child. And I’ve been invited to court to speak with the queen on Thursday afternoon. Surely you would not deprive me of such a triumph?”

Social standing won over familial safety, and Kate was allowed to remain in an increasingly turbulent London.

By Wednesday, the Royal Society astronomers confirmed that the celestial object was, indeed, on a trajectory toward London. They were no longer calling it a comet, however, as it was behaving in a rather perplexing—some might say frightening—manner. The astronomer’s calculations suggested that the object was under its own power, able to make course and speed adjustments.

Kate had to agree that they appeared to be correct, based on her own observations. In addition, the object grew closer every hour, until it was a looming brightness over the country. Speculation exploded, and apprehension turned to panic as soldiers began to filter into London. The queen exhorted her subjects to remain calm, and expressed her approval of those who chose to carry on with their daily lives.

Handbills were posted at every corner, bearing Queen Victoria’s profile and the words, “Nothing is certain, except that We will meet this Challenge with Fortitude, Grace, and the Might of God and Empire behind Us. Stay strong and true, Loyal Subjects, and fear not.”

Kate’s original euphoria at discovering the comet had curdled to an odd mix of pride and guilt. In a way, she felt responsible for whatever was about to happen.

If she had not first identified that speck in the sky, would it have changed its course? Had the act of observing its approach made its arrival inevitable? Was the Empire, perhaps the entire earth, doomed?

In a brave attempt at normalcy, the queen and prince continued to keep their court hours at Buckingham Palace. The Prime Minister and most of the peers still in London spent their time cloistered in Parliament, arguing over what course to pursue.

Thursday dawned bright, with the strange metallic light filtering over the city, and the Danville household made ready for Kate’s appearance at court.

“Must you tie my laces so tightly?” Kate asked the maid. “I can scarcely breathe.”

“Not every day you’re invited to the palace, Miss.” Still, the woman left off trying to constrict Kate’s lungs beyond bearing, and fetched the rose muslin day dress from the wardrobe.

An hour later, appropriately garbed and coiffed and bejeweled, Kate and her mother stepped into their carriage. The footman folded up the steps and closed the door, and the driver set out for the palace. Despite the well-sprung seats, every jolt over the cobblestones sent a jab through Kate. She tried to distract herself by looking out the window, but there was little to be seen. All the fine shops were closed up, and only a few dandies roamed the streets instead of the cream of Society going about their business. Most of the upper crust had departed London for their country estates.

“Will the looting spread this far?” Kate asked her mother.

“Of course not. The rabble knows better than to set foot in Mayfair.”

Despite the clipped assurance in Lady Danville’s tone, Kate could not help noticing that her mother’s gloved fingers were laced tightly together in her lap.

“Do you think Parliament has come up with a plan?”

Lady Danville sniffed. “According to your father, nothing but dithering is being accomplished. At least there are plenty of soldiers about. Don’t fret, darling. Everything shall turn out for the best. I have utmost faith in the queen.”

Kate was not convinced the queen could, by pure force of royal will, keep a meteor from smashing London to smithereens. Yet what else could they do but persevere?

The approach to Buckingham Palace was crowded with people. Some were shouting for the queen and God to save them, some were exhorting the throng to rush the gates, while others held signs proclaiming the world’s imminent destruction. Overhead, the bright sphere in the sky appeared to be growing larger.

With the aid of a dozen red-coated soldiers, the carriage managed to push past the press of bodies and through the well-guarded iron gates of the palace. Behind them, Kate heard the crowd murmuring like a restless creature ready to leap from its kennel.

A shout and the crack of a gunshot made both Kate and her mother jump. Kate’s heartbeat thudded in her chest, and Lady Danville pushed open the window.

“What is happening?” she demanded, her voice shrill.

A soldier jumped up, catching the side of the carriage, and the vehicle rocked slightly from his weight.

“Rest easy, ladies,” he said. “The rabble tried to rush forward, but so far shots fired into the air are keeping them back. We’ll have you to the door in a trice.”

Lady Danville nodded at him, then patted nervously at her hair. The gates shut behind them with a clang that Kate did not find as reassuring as she ought.

Their driver pulled the carriage up before the arched entry, and the footman handed Lady Danville and Kate out. Guards stood impassively on either side of the doors, ignoring the strange light overhead and the cries of the crowd.

A liveried servant waiting before the entryway glanced at the crest on their carriage, then bowed to Kate’s mother.

“Lady Danville, Miss Danville, you are expected. Please, follow me.”

He led them into the palace, past the grand sweeping double staircase and down a high-ceilinged hall lined with paintings and the marble busts of former rulers. The air smelled of flowers and lemon polish, with an undertone of must.

Kate lifted her chin and resolved to remain calm. Although her mother thought the queen only wanted to congratulate her on her discovery, Kate feared an interrogation lay ahead.

The servant ushered them through a set of tall doors and into an immense room decorated in scarlet and white. The numerous soldiers scattered about the hall looked as though they had been placed there for decoration, in their matching red and white. The ceiling overhead was ornately patterned, but the most imposing sight was at the far end, where Queen Victoria sat upon an elaborately carved and gilt-covered throne.

A crown set with rubies adorned her brown hair, and her large, dark eyes surveyed the hall from above her thin nose and rounded cheeks. At her side sat Prince Albert, dressed in a military uniform. He was slighter than Kate had anticipated—or perhaps he was simply dwarfed by the queen’s voluminous indigo skirts and penetrating gaze.

The room was filled with nobility: lords looking somber and consulting their pocket watches, ladies whose laughter sounded a bit too forced, a handful of young bucks who turned and watched the Danville ladies enter with over-bright eyes.

And a cluster of Royal Society astronomers, including Lord Wrottesley and the contemptible Viscount Huffton. Kate deliberately glared at the man, hoping the viscount would feel the burn of her stare, unmannered though it might be.

“Wait here,” the servant said, leading Kate and her mother to the side of the room. “The steward will fetch you when the queen is ready.”

“Very good,” Lady Danville said, then turned to her daughter. “Kate, you must remember to smile. And don’t, I pray, speak overmuch. The queen has far more important matters to attend to than listening to you drone on about telescopes.”

Kate swallowed past the dryness in her throat.

“Yes, mother,” she said.

In truth, she could not offer the queen any better insight than the astronomers. Despite watching the approaching object every night, she had gleaned no particular truths or insights from it—other than it appeared to be headed on a direct trajectory toward London, and approaching rapidly.

An officious-looking fellow wearing the palace livery and an ornate medallion about his neck, strutted up to them.

“Miss Danville, the queen will speak with you now.”

Kate smoothed the pink flounces on her skirt and tried to calm her sudden surge of nerves.

“Well, come along,” her mother said. “We mustn’t keep her majesty waiting.”

The steward turned a cold eye on Lady Danville. “You may remain here, madam. The queen wishes to converse with your daughter, not you.”

Lady Danville’s mouth hung open for a moment. She snapped it shut, a flush creeping up from her neck.

“Very well,” she said with a sniff. “Kate, pray endeavor not to embarrass the family name.”

There was really no response Kate could make to that. She gave her mother a tight smile, then let the steward usher her through the room. Whispers followed in their wake, a buzz of gossip hovering like gnats about her head. As they passed the knot of astronomers, Lord Wrottesley gave her an encouraging nod, while Viscount Huffton looked bitter.

“Miss Kate Danville,” the steward announced when they were before the thrones.

Kate bowed her head and dipped into her best curtsey, her heart pounding so loudly she feared the queen could hear it.

“Rise,” Queen Victoria said, beckoning her to approach. “Welcome to court, Miss Danville. I understand you were the first to spot the object now approaching London.?”

“Yes, your majesty.” With force of will, Kate kept her fingers from knotting desperately together.

Prince Albert gave her a sharp look. “Indeed. Do tell us more. Do you have any idea what it is?”

“I’m simply an amateur astronomer, your highness. I don’t—”

“Your majesty!” A guard burst into the room and ran up to the thrones, halting a few paces away to make a breathless bow.

“Yes?” the queen asked, her tone unbelievably calm.

“The thing in the sky, it’s stopped. And, and…” He gulped for breath.

“Out with it, man,” the price snapped.

“Something has detatched from it, and is approaching through the sky.”

A buzz of speculation moved through the room, edged with panic. Kate bit her lip.

“Approaching through the sky, you say?” The queen rose, her skirts rustling. “Well then. We had best repair to the palace gardens to better view whatever is transpiring.”

“My dear.” The prince caught her arm. “Do you think it’s safe?”

Queen Victoria gave him a quelling look. “I am Queen of England, Princess of Hanover, Empress of India and supreme monarch of the British Empire. I shall not cower inside while great events unfold at my doorstep. And if we are all to perish, let it be said that we went forth to meet our fate bravely.”

“Of course.” Price Albert gave her a faint smile. “Lead on, my lady.”

The queen, the prince, and their guards swept forward. Half of the court went with them, including the astronomers, while the rest clearly did not want to risk setting foot outside the dubious safety of the palace.

Kate followed close behind, her pulse racing with fear and anticipation. Something was finally happening, and she, Miss Kate Danville, was about to witness a great event in history.

As they traversed the hallways and formal rooms of Buckingham Palace, Kate did not try to locate her mother in the throng. Lady Danville could hang safely back, or attempt to return home, but Kate resolved to remain as close to the center of events as possible.

Even though it might prove her doom.

Yet the fact that something was approaching—something smaller than the glowing sphere that filled the sky—suggested it was guided by intelligent entities. Perhaps it was simliar to a tender boat being launched out from a great galleon.

What a frightening thought! If that were the case, she could only hope these visitors from the stars were as benign and enlightened as the British explorers who landed upon heathen islands, bringing civilization and enlightenment to the poor natives on faraway shores.

Following that reasoning, then, if there truly were beings from beyond the stars, humans would be the ignorant savages. Kate gave a sharp shake of her head. She did not like that notion one bit.

At last they reached several pairs of French doors leading out to the terraces behind the palace. Outside, the sunshine was overlaid with silver, making the grass and shrubbery appear metallic.

The guards opened a set of doors, then preceded the queen and prince outside. Shading their eyes, they peered upward.

“Good gad,” one of the redcoats exclaimed. “It appears to be heading directly for us.”

The remainder of the court poured out onto the terrace. The air was filled with a deep, nearly inaudible hum. The light struck Kate like a blow, and she blinked against the brilliance. One of the queen’s ladies in waiting handed the monarch a parasol, and a few others sprouted above the throng like colorful mushrooms after a rain.

Lacking that apparatus, Kate cupped her hands around her eyes and squinted into the sky. Good heavens! And rather literally, at that.

The shining sphere hung over London, so bright she could not look at it for long. From the sphere, a dark ribbon descended—a plume of smoke left by a smaller orb. That object was most decidedly coming closer.

Was it a weapon, aimed at the heart of the Empire?

“Your majesty,” the captain of the guard urged, “please, return inside.”

“I will not be any safer within the walls than without,” Queen Victoria replied. “Whatever is approaching, we must meet it with fortitude.”

Already, the orb was much closer. Kate estimated it would land in the garden in no less than two minutes. As it approached the noise grew to a loud rumble.

The soldiers lifted their guns and trained them on the dark blot descending from the sky. Closer. Closer, until it was the size of a small outbuilding. It brushed past a few trees on the outskirts of the garden, and their branches snapped off and tumbled to the ground.

The air shook with a deep, mechanical roar. The surface of the man-made lake nearby shivered violently. Kate clapped her hands over her ears, watching as the object slowed to nearly a hover.

With excruciating delicacy, it landed on the manicured lawn of Buckingham Palace. The blades of grass beneath it wilted and sizzled. The orb seemed made of metal, yet no light sheened off the surface, and it had no discernible seams or rivets.

The noise cut off, and for a moment Kate wondered if she’d gone deaf. Perspiration stuck her dress to her chest, and she plucked at the fabric. Then the shouts of approaching soldiers punctuated the air as they poured into the garden and surrounded the black hulk of the orb, raising their guns.

“Hold your fire,” the queen commanded, sweeping out one gloved hand.

The soldiers shifted, but remained at the ready.

Noiselessly, the orb split in the front to reveal an elongated oval opening. Something stirred inside. The crowd leaned forward, fearfully fascinated, like a rodent before the sway of a cobra.

Faint movement—and then a creature floated out. It was not human, although it had two long appendages on either side that might be termed arms, and a head on top of its torso, surrounded by a clear bubble. Two flat, black eyes, turned on the crowd. Below those eyes, the creature had a slit for a nose, and a mouth full of writhing tentacles.

Bile rose in Kate’s throat at the sight, and she swayed. A nearby lady screamed and fainted, eased to the ground by her companion. No one else bestirred themselves to help—they were all transfixed by the dreadful sight hovering before them.

One of the soldiers yelled and discharged his musket. Kate flinched at the sound, half hoping the bullet hit its mark, the other half knowing they were all doomed.

The creature turned its head, and the soldier slumped to the ground. It was impossible to tell if he were dead, or merely stunned.

“Halt!” Queen Victoria cried, her voice finally taut with fear. “Do not shoot.”

“But, your majesty—” the captain of the guard began.

“No. We shall wait, and greet this creature as civilized beings, not vicious animals.” The queen took a single step forward. Her grip on her parasol seemed inordinately tight.

The thing turned toward Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert caught her elbow.

“Greetings,” the queen called. “We mean you no harm.”

“Yet,” a nearby lord muttered. “I think we’re better off shooting the damned thing.”

His wife hushed him, and Kate could not decide if she agreed with the man or not. Part of her could not believe this was happening—that the glint of light she had first spotted two weeks ago had brought a being from the stars to land here, in the heart of London. Such things simply did not happen.

And yet, the dark orb sat implacably on the greensward, and its occupant was even now gliding toward the terrace.

Kate sucked back a breath and resisted the urge to bolt for the French doors and cower beneath a table. Instead she clenched her hands and watched. The creature stopped a safe distance from the queen. Perhaps it understood the tightening of soldiers’ fingers on their guns, or recognized the acrid smell of human fear.

A crackling sound filled the air, and then a voice. Inhuman, certainly, with odd inflections and staggered pauses, but the words it spoke were recognizable.

“These…beings wish no harm is speaking…to ruler of earth.”

There was a pause, and Kate wondered if the last bit had been meant as a question. The queen seemed to draw the same conclusion.

“Indeed,” the queen said. “I am Queen Victoria, ruler of the British Empire. Who are you?”

“We are…eeixlltiey.” The final word was a garble of sound. Likely there was no match for it in the English language.

The creature’s tentacled mouth did not move, and the voice seemed to emanate more from the orb it had arrived in than from the alien figure. Still, there was no doubt it was communicating directly with them.

“Welcome to earth, Yxleti,” the queen said, making a valiant attempt to pronounce the name. “Tell us, why have you come?”

“To observe…explore…assess…”

A bead of sweat ran down the side of Kate’s neck, and she wiped it away. She did not much like the idea of being “assessed” by inhuman creatures from the stars. But they had devised a way to communicate in English, and clearly been wise enough to come directly to the queen of the largest empire on earth.

The prince leaned over and whispered something in Queen Victoria’s ear. She nodded, then turned to her captain of the guard.

“I believe our further dealings with the Yxleti are best done more privately,” she said, in a carrying voice. “Your guards may remain, of course, and my attendents, but please disperse the onlookers.”

The group of Royal Society astronomers protested, as did a few self-important lords. The rest of the crowd began to edge back toward the palace. No one quite turned their backs on the creature, or the strange conveyance in which it had arrived.

Kate was torn. Part of her wished nothing more than to find her mother and flee the bizarre spectacle. She craved a hot bath, and the opportunity to forget for as long as possible the proceedings of the afternoon.

Yet a larger part was aquiver with possibility. Their world had changed, of that there could be no question. She had been witness to what could only be the most extraordinary event in human history. She could meekly turn away and return to the path her parents and Society had laid out, or she could seize the opportunity before her. This was her chance.

Lifting her skirts, Kate strode past the astronomers, taking some small satisfaction from treading upon Viscount Huffton’s foot.

“Your majesty.” She made the queen another curtsey. “I beg your leave to remain. As discoverer of the vessel that bore this star explorer hither, I will pledge my life to your service, to the Empire, and to forwarding the understanding between humans and Yxleti. Please, let me stay.”

The queen regarded her a long moment from her cool brown eyes, and Kate fought to keep her legs from trembling. She must be confident and bold in this moment.

“Miss Kate Danville,” the queen said, “are you betrothed?”

“No, your majesty.” Despite her mother’s best efforts. “I am wholly committed to this endeavor, if you will accept me.”

“Your majesty,” Lord Wrottesley approached the queen. “If I may speak?”

The queen nodded, and the astronomer continued. “I happen to know that this is a young lady of great fortitude and determination. You might do well to take her.”

Queen Victoria inclined her head. “Very good. We consent to add you to our staff—for the time being. You may remain here.”

Kate shot a grateful look at Lord Wrottesley. She did not care if he had put in a word for her simply to spite Viscount Huffton, or if he truly believed she had the mettle to be of service. In either case, she vowed to be worthy.

In moments only a small retinue surrounding the queen remained, including the astronomers and her guardsmen. The Yxleti had stayed silent, impassively floating a few handspans above the ground as the humans reorganized themselves.

Kate glanced at the flat black eyes and suppressed a shiver at the sight of its tentacle-fringed mouth. It might be a horrible-looking creature, but so far its purposes had not seemed inimical, and it was clearly possessed of an intelligence equal to their own.

“Are you the only one of your kind who has come?” the queen asked it.

“More await…in vessel…this emissary.”

The captain of the guard stirred at this news, and the prince sent him a quelling look. It had been wise of the creatures to send a single ambassador, and Kate was further convinced the Yxleti had arrived with peaceful intentions.

“You are welcome here at the palace,” Queen Victoria said. “What might we do to further relations between your kind and ours?”

“Stable rule must first be…many queens.”

Queen Victoria glanced at her husband, then back to the creature.

“Do you mean our children?” Her voice was chilly.

“Not…it is Victoria Regina…reign again.”

The queen’s brow furrowed, and Kate understood her confusion. How could the queen reign again? She was already the monarch.

“I think, though it is simply a guess, that they mean to replicate you in some fashion,” Prince Albert said in a low voice.

Kate blinked at the notion. It seemed unbelievable—but who knew what the Yxleti were capable of? After all, they journeyed between the stars. Perhaps creating a new Queen Victoria was a simple matter for them.

“Is this true?” the queen asked the Yxleti hovering a few paces before her. “You mean to re-create my very essence? It seems most ungodly.”

“Each queen sleeps until reign is ended…then wakes and is self…at moment of preserve. Best…for peaceful humans always.”

Queen Victoria took a step back, her mouth twisting in distaste. “I cannot countenance such a perversion.”

“Then…Napoleon three will select to rule…if you decline. Humans must have single ruler.”

“Bloody hell,” the captain of the guard muttered. “The damnable creature’s blackmailing you, your majesty.”

“Of course it is.” The queen’s eyes narrowed. “But what choice do we have? We cannot let the French rise to ascendency.”

“I have little doubt Bonaparte’s nephew will leap at the chance,” Prince Albert said. “Much as it might go against the laws of nature, my dear, you must accept the Yxleti’s offer, or the world will end up under the thumb of a petty dictator rather than your beneficent and enlightened reign.”

The queen drew in a breath through her nose, and Kate leaned forward, her chest tight. Of course her majesty would do what was best for the Empire, but what a difficult choice.

“Very well,” Queen Victoria said. “We will do this thing—under three conditions.”

“Tell,” the Yxleti said.

“The first, that we be allowed to continue to reign as we see fit, without Yxleti intervention.”

“Is already plan,” the crackling voice said.

Kate regarded the creature. Of course it would make promises, but who knew if it would actually keep them?

“The second,” the queen said, “is that our beloved husband also be subject to this process, so that we might have him at our side during every reign.” She threaded her arm through Prince Albert’s and gave him a look filled with emotion. “Will you consent to this, my dear?”

He covered her hand with his own. “I do. My place is at your side, your majesty. Year after year, to time immemorial.”

The Yxleti remained motionless, but the still air was interrupted by a brief hum. After a moment, the creature turned its head toward the orb.

The crackling voice rang out. “Agreed…what is third ask.”

“That you share with us the means by which you travel and explore the celestial sea. We, too, harbor the desire to set out in search of worlds unknown, and to bring the Empire to every corner of the stars. Will you aid us in doing so?”

This time there was no hesitation.

“Is intent,” the Yxleti said. “In starset we come…procure duplicates of queen.”

It turned and glided back to its vessel, clearly signaling that the meeting was at an end. The queen did not call after it, though her face was still filled with questions. As soon as the Yxleti entered, the oval doorway sealed shut. The now-familiar humming suffused the air, and slowly the dark orb rose.

The nearby guardsmen scrambled back, and with a whoosh of air and a steady hum, the Yxleti ascended. The orb hurtled away nearly as quickly as it had come. Kate followed its flight until it was swallowed by the searing brightness of the larger sphere.

Blinking away tears, she dropped her gaze.

“Oh my,” Queen Victoria said under her breath. “Whatever have we done?”

“Either saved all of humanity, or doomed it.” Prince Albert slid his arm about the queen’s shoulders. “I prefer to think the former. Steady on, my dear.”

The queen nodded, then turned to the dozen people gathered on the terrace. Kate glanced about, to see that everyone wore half-stunned looks that no doubt mirrored her own. She still could not quite credit what she had just witnessed.

“Everyone,” Queen Victoria said, “attend me inside. We must draw up our accounts of this momentous event. On this day, the course of the word has turned.”

She swept regally toward the French doors leading into the palace. The captain of the guard followed close behind, and then the astronomers and queen’s attendants.

Kate hung back a moment, casting a final look over her shoulder at the sphere that had once been nothing but a bright speck in the sky, and now was the harbinger of an unimaginable future. It cast its silvery reflection over London, offering no answers—only strangeness beyond compare.

* * *

The London Universal Times, August 1907

Obituary Notice: On 10 August, Lady Kate Danville, member of the Royal Society and bestowed the title of Baroness of Canticus by Victoria I, passed quietly in her sleep. She is survived by her younger brother, nieces and nephews. A long-time advisor of the prior queen, Lady Danville was one of the few still alive in this century who witnessed the glorious arrival of the Yxleti, and was part of the council which helped usher in the new age of space exploration and global prosperity. Queen Victoria II has commissioned a statue of Lady Danville to be placed in the First Greeting sculpture garden on the landing site at Buckingham Palace.

Per Lady Danville’s request, her ashes will be scattered between the stars, to float forever at peace beneath the eternal suns of the British Empire.

Fae Horse

Originally published in Tales of Feyland & Faerie by Anthea Sharp, published November 2015.

* * *

If the men caught her, they would tie her to the stake and set the fire.

Eileen O’Reilly crouched beneath a hawthorn tree, her heartbeat dinning in her ears so loudly it nearly drowned out the sound of her pursuers. Torchlight smeared the night, casting fiendish shadows over the hedgerows. She clenched her hands in her woolen skirt and gasped for air, trying to haul breath into her shaking lungs.

She had heard there was no worse agony than burning alive.

The flames would scorch and blister her skin before devouring her, screaming, as her bones charred. Eileen swallowed back bile.

Shredded clouds passed over the face of the half moon. One moment, sheltering darkness beckoned; the next, the newly-planted fields were washed with silver, her safety snatched away.

“I see her—there, across the field!”

Cursing the fickle moon, and her fair hair, which had surely given her away, Eileen leaped to her feet and ran. She crashed through a thicket, heedless of the thorns etching her skin with blood. In the distance she heard the pounding waves below the cliffs of Kilkeel.

Better a death by water than by flame. There was no other escape.

Five months ago, when the new vicar came to town with his fierce sermons and piercing gaze, she had not seen the danger. She’d lived in the village most of her life, first as apprentice to her aunt, then later taking on the duties of herb-woman and midwife.

But Reverend Dyer sowed fear and superstition—an easier harvest to reap than charity and love, to be sure.

Eileen stumbled, falling to her hands and knees in the soft soil. Get up, keep running. She must not give in, though her side ached as if a hot poker had been driven through it, and the air scraped her laboring lungs.

“There’s no escape, witch!” The vicar’s voice, deep and booming, resonated over the fields.

The stars above her blurred, and she tasted the salt of her own desperate tears. She risked a glance over her shoulder.

If she did not find a hiding place, they would catch her before she reached the cliffs. She veered toward the remains of the ancient stone circle that stood beyond the fields. Only two of the stones remained upright, the rest tumbled and broken. Still, she might find some shelter there.

She reached the ruin, and a figure loomed before her, large and dark. Lacking the breath to scream, Eileen staggered to a halt. What new enemy was this?

Four-legged and blacker than the shadows, it let out a soft whicker. A horse, untethered, with a rope halter dangling from its neck.

Blessing her luck, Eileen caught the rope. It stung her hands, as though woven of nettles, but she did not care. Hope flared up, painfully bright. She might yet live to see the dawn.

“Easy now,” she whispered, forcing back the panic pounding through her.

The horse was tall, and lacked any saddle or bridle. She gazed up at it and choked on misery. Her escape was in her hands, but she could not mount it unaided.

“Quick, lads!” the vicar bellowed.

Now, she must go now. For a strangled second she considered kicking the horse and holding fast to the rope, letting it drag her to her death.

A faint glimmer of gray caught her eye—a fallen stone tangled in the tall grasses. She tugged, and the horse followed her to the stone. Fingers trembling, trying to ignore the pounding footsteps of the men of Kilkeel, she scrambled onto the stone and pulled the horse close.

“Grab the witch!” That was Donal Miller, whose advances she had spurned. “She’s summoned her familiar. Stop her!”

Torchlight flared orange and red against the horse’s glossy hide. It rolled its eye, the white showing, and whinnied, high and strange.

The men were almost upon her. With a cry, Eileen tangled her hands in the horse’s mane and heaved herself up.

“A devil steed! Catch it!”

As if only waiting for her to mount, the horse leaped forward. Hemmed in by the men, it let out a shrill whinny and rose up, hooves flashing. The coarse mane cut into her palms as she clung there, half falling. She must not slide off.

The horse stamped and feinted. She heard the thunk of hooves on flesh, and two of the men cried out in pain. Then they were through, bowling past the grasping hands and shouted curses. Eileen held on as the jolting pace smoothed into a gallop and the cries of the men grew distant.

Slowly, her breath returned, the stark edge of her fear blunted. She had escaped—for now.

But what of Aidan? His name was a knife through her chest.

Did her true love still live?

When Young Sean, the village simpleton, had come to tell her that Aidan had fallen into a fever, she’d gathered her herbs and charms and raced to the cottage he shared with his mother. The widow had grudgingly opened the door, her eyes narrowed in animosity. Eileen had handed the woman the herbs for a soothing tisane. Then, as planned, Young Sean caused a racket, freeing the widow’s chickens and chasing them about the yard.

The moment Aidan’s mother went to tend her fowl, Eileen darted into the cottage and rushed to Aidan’s side. His dark hair was plastered with sweat to his forehead, and he shivered uncontrollably beneath the blankets. She dropped a kiss on his brow, flinching at the heat rising off him. As she slipped the charm over his neck, his skin scorching her hands, he mumbled. A coughing spasm shook him. When it finished he lay in a stupor, breath wheezing in and out of his lungs.

“Peace, mo chroi,” she said, then softly wove the words to send him into a healing sleep.

’Twas perilous, to take a person to that between place, but Aidan was gravely ill. Even a few minutes of that enchanted rest would do much to ease the sickness. Her charm would protect him while his body fought for life.

However, if he slept too long the connection would fray, then break. Aidan’s soul would slip free, and death would bear him away into the West.

She began singing the song to draw him back.

“Eileen,” Young Sean whispered at the window. “Reverend Dyer is coming, fetched by the widow. Go!”

Fear stabbed through her, but she must remain. She must finish the song and draw Aidan back to the waking world.

“Witch!” The vicar slammed into the cottage and grabbed her by the hair.

Her scalp burned and tears pricked her eyes from the pain, but she continued to sing. Nearly done. One more phrase…

Reverend Dyer clapped a hand over her mouth, his skin stinking of onions. To ensure her silence, he pinched her nostrils shut. Eileen clawed at his arm, her cries muffled by his meaty palm.

“Do not think to ensnare me with your spells,” he said.

“Cast her out,” the widow cried, her face twisted with hatred. “Keep her away from my son.”

“We will do better than that.” The vicar grasped Eileen’s arm, his fingers digging into her flesh. “We will burn her.”

Panic gave her the strength to whip her head free. “No! You must let me wake Aidan. The danger—”

“Aiee!” The widow had gone to Aidan’s side and spied Eileen’s charm. Now it dangled from her wizened fingers, broken.

“Proof,” she spat. “This evil creature has had dark designs on my boy since the day she set eyes upon him. Look, she has cursed him.”

Eileen writhed in the vicar’s grasp.

“He will die,” she gasped. “I must—”

“Out!” the widow shrieked. “Take her!”

“I’ll lock her in my cellar until the pyre is built,” Reverend Dyer said, shoving Eileen before him.

She stumbled over the threshold, then caught her balance. Though she knew it was hopeless, she broke free of his grasp, gathered up her skirt, and ran.

The vicar would have retaken her, but for Young Sean. He threw a chicken at the vicar’s face, granting her precious time to pelt from the yard. He would likely be whipped for it, poor man.

Now Aidan’s spirit was in terrible danger, spinning out into the mist. She must turn her mount back toward the village and wake her beloved, before it was too late.

The black horse galloped madly through the night, avoiding every obstacle with uncanny precision. The ground blurred beneath them with sickening speed.

“Turn,” she cried, yanking at the coarse mane.

Once. Twice. Thrice, until her hands stung, her muscles burning with effort.

The horse did not respond. Eileen might as well be a gnat on its hide for all the notice it paid. For one mad moment, she considered throwing herself off. But the risk was too great. She could not return to save Aidan if she broke her leg, or worse.

Over the thud of her mount’s hooves come the boom and crash of the surf.

Oh, no.

They were racing straight for the cliffs. Ahead, the stars were a veil reaching down past the horizon, disappearing into the dark Irish Sea.

“Stop! Please, stop.” She pulled back with all her strength.

Her mount did not slow. Below them, the sea glimmered and heaved.

Eileen tried to release the horse’s mane, but the strands were wrapped tightly around her fingers.

“Let me go!”

Heart pounding, she yanked. Her hands would not come free. She attempted to leap off, but her legs were bound fast to the horse’s sides. She screamed and thrashed in panic, banging her elbows against the horse’s shoulders.

They reached the cliff’s edge.

Eileen’s stomach churned as grass turned to empty air. Then they were falling, plummeting to their doom.

She found that, after all, she rather desperately wanted to live.

The water swirled restlessly beneath them. Eileen squeezed her eyes shut. She could not bear to watch the surface coming closer, closer. Or worse, the teeth of the hungry rocks, waiting to crush her body and spit it into the sea.

They hit the water with a crash. She gulped in a breath as the sea grabbed her legs, her arms, then closed relentlessly over her head.

She tightened her legs around the horse, the only warm thing in a world of shivering salt. Its withers bunched as it swam. They must be close to the surface. They must.

Lungs clenching with the need to breathe, she tipped her head back and opened her eyes, blinking past the sting and blur.

The wavering moon lapped the water, high overhead. The horse was not struggling toward the surface. Betraying its fey nature, it swam strongly downward, untroubled by the need for air. The surface glimmered, receding, and she could not free herself.

So, it was to be death by drowning after all.

Eileen released her breath in a silver stream of bubbles. They raced away from her lips, uncatchable. Crying, though she could not feel the tears, she laid her cheek against the water horse’s neck. In another moment, she must gulp in the harsh tang of salt water. It would fill her, smother her—but at least it would be a quick end.

“You are brave, for a human.” The words sounded in her head, the voice low and amused.

It was the uncanny creature she rode, speaking to her; or it was her own mind, conjuring up visions as she descended into her doom.

“Release me!” She aimed the thought at the black head bobbing through the water in front of her. “Or do you want a sodden corpse bound to your back for a blanket?”

She must breathe—her body demanded air. Against her will, Eileen’s mouth opened and she gasped in the cold seawater. Choking, she doubled over on the horse’s back as the water invaded the warmth of her throat and stopped her lungs.

Cold, and bitter, the weight of the sea lay heavy on her chest. She was dimly aware of silver spattering the surface above her head.

Then, with a thrust, the horse burst into the air, spray flying in a mighty gout. Eileen leaned over her mount’s neck and heaved up water. She coughed and vomited, the agony in her lungs like a thousand stabbing pins.

Finally, teeth chattering and fingers numb, she pulled in a breath of sweet, sweet air. The horse bore her strongly through the heavy wash of the sea, no longer seeming intent on drowning her.

“Thank you,” she whispered into its thick, black mane.

Her mount veered, swimming toward the rocky beach. Low, shadowed hills rose behind, and further down the coast the cliffs shone. Eileen coughed again and huddled against the horse’s burning heat as the waves shoved against her.

“Do not thank me yet, human girl,” came the reply. “The night is not ended.”

The voice she’d heard beneath the water had not been her imagination. It held the echo of terror, a darkness she did not want to heed too closely.

“What are you?” she asked. “A kelpie?”

Even as she spoke the word, she knew it to be untrue. A kelpie would have taken her directly to the bottom of the sea, delighting in the drowning.

“Nay.”

“Then you are a púca.”

Her aunt had raised her on tales of the fair folk. Indeed, she should have realized her peril far sooner, but fear had blinded her in one eye, and hope in the other.

“Not just any púca. I am Tromluí, shredder of sanity, waker in the night. The longer you remain astride me, the more of your mortal soul you will lose. You should have chosen drowning, girl.”

Eileen shuddered, cold to her marrow.

Better to be trapped on a kelpie’s back. But no, she was astride the NightMare. She might live to see the dawn, but only as a madwoman, chased by stones and suspicion from village to village, cackling in the grip of her lunatic visions.

The mare strode up from the sea, hooves clattering against the stones of the beach. Overhead, the half moon shone, a bowl of whitest milk. At first the air seemed warm, but in moments Eileen’s skin prickled with gooseflesh. Her hair hung in a soggy plait down her back and saltwater dripped into her face, stinging her eyes.

“Will you let me go?” she asked, despairing at the answer.

“Shall I?” The mare’s voice was ice and midnight. “I might climb into the stars and release you there, high above the earth. For a short time you would know what it is to fly.”

The copper taste of desperation flavored Eileen’s mouth. Indeed, she rode a dreadful creature. But she was not dead. Not yet.

Possibilities, sharp and painful, brought her upright, her mind racing. It was perilous to bargain with the fey folk—beyond perilous—but this night was full of wild chance. Already she had escaped death by fire, then by water.

“I will remain upon your back,” she said. “But I demand a boon.”

The NightMare turned her neck, regarding Eileen with an eye the color of moonbeams.

“It amuses me to hear your request. What is it you desire?”

Eileen swallowed and forced her voice to steadiness. “Help me save my beloved, Aidan.”

She had sent his soul spinning from his body, and she must return it. No matter how dire the consequences.

“This is no small thing you ask,” the mare said. “There will be a price, mortal.”

“I will pay,” Eileen said recklessly.

The horse gave a high whinny. Through the clear, still air Eileen heard the ring of chimes.

“Our bargain is sealed,” the mare said. “Now hold fast, for we have far to journey ‘ere the sun rises.”

The NightMare leaped forward, muscles bunching beneath Eileen’s legs. The rocky clatter of the beach fell behind as the mare galloped up the long rise of hills, leaping low stone walls and skirting tangles of briars. Eileen ceased shivering as the night wind dried her dress and the NightMare’s heat seeped into her body.

With every stride, something burned away in Eileen’s blood. She could feel her earliest memories shred and tatter, but she clung tightly to every thought of Aidan.

Near the top of the highest hill, the mare slowed, her hoof beats no longer the frantic race of a pulse but the slow stutter of a dying heart. A dark maw gaped in the side of the hill; the doorway to a barrow grave. Starlight picked out the gray stones outlining the opening, but within was sheer blackness.

As if aware of their presence, a dank wind moved from the depths of that hole. Eileen, her hands freed from the NightMare’s mane, covered her nose at the stench of old, dead things.

A large, flat stone scribed with spirals marked the threshold. The mare raised one hoof and brought it sharply down upon the stone. Bright sparks skittered, followed by a distant, booming echo. Twice more the mare knocked, and each time the sound grew closer, until it vibrated Eileen’s very bones.

The air of the doorway wavered, like a pond stirred by the wind.

“We pass now into the Realm,” the NightMare said. “You must remain on my back, no matter the sights you see or the danger you face. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” The syllable floated up from Eileen’s mouth, a fragile moth lost in the night.

The mare stepped forward. As they passed over the threshold, Eileen felt a terrible pain, as though angry wasps swarmed over her. She bit her lip and drove her fingernails into her palms, determined not to cry out.

Inside the barrow a pallid light spread, illuminating a stone-lined corridor with a corbelled roof. Rank fungus, pale and misshapen, grew along the edge of the flagstone floor and clumped in crevices on the walls. The stinging pain passed, but the clammy air lay heavy against her skin.

She cast a look over her shoulder, straining for one last glimpse of the night sky before the mare bore her deeper in. The stars were tiny pricks of light, washed dim by the moon. Then the opening was blocked by a shambling figure. The barrow light illuminated its skeletal form, ancient skin shriveled tight against the bone. Tattered rags hung from its limbs and a golden torc encircled its neck, marking it as a chieftain of yore.

From the skull-like face, empty sockets regarded her. Deep within lurked a spark of eldritch fire. The corpse opened its mouth in a soundless laugh.

Eileen pivoted away and leaned over the mare’s neck, hoping her mount might hurry, but the NightMare continued her measured pace down the corridor. Another memory untangled itself from Eileen’s mind, flared and burned down to ash.

The echo of hoof beats was soon muted by the slither and scrape of dozens of footsteps.

Throat dry, Eileen glanced behind her again, and smothered a scream. The dead followed, patient in their stalking. Your beloved will soon join us, their tongueless mouths seemed to say.

“No,” she whispered.

The barrow amplified the sound, turning it into a long “ohhh” of despair.

“Quiet,” the mare said. “Or do you wish to bring the bean sidhe for a visit as well?”

Eileen had been afraid before, but this slow, creeping terror held her nearly paralyzed. What if the NightMare chose to stop and allow the restless corpses to touch her with their rotting fingers? Would they merely stroke the resilience of her living flesh, or would they gouge great handfuls, feasting on her in a vain bid to regain their own vitality?

From the avid lights in their eye sockets, she very much feared the latter.

The mare bore her past an opening to her left, filled with the tang of blood and the sighing of the sea. Then an opening to her right, where noxious vapors swirled. Eyes stinging, Eileen buried her face in the crook of her elbow and tried not to inhale. Her heart beat hard and fast, knocking against the fragile prison of her ribs.

She did not need to look back to hear the following dead.

At length, her mount brought her to the central chamber. The pale light revealed crumbling treasures in the corners: rotted linens, tarnished silver set with dully gleaming gems, a golden goblet with one side crushed in as though it had been used as a weapon in some vicious fight.

In the center of the room lay a stone slab, and upon that slab…

“Aidan!”

She swung her leg over the mare’s broad back, and only a shrill whinny of warning made her halt. Mere inches from dismounting, Eileen scrabbled back onto the horse. The dead hissed in disappointment behind her.

Hands trembling with impatience, she forced herself to be still as the NightMare stepped up to the slab.

Aidan lay as if asleep—or lifeless. His eyes were closed, and he was dressed in the raiment of an ancient king, with gold armbands encircling his biceps and thin circlet set upon his brow.

Digging her fingernails into her palms, Eileen watched his chest, straining for a sign of breath. At last, it rose in a long, slow inhalation. She slumped back, tears pricking her eyes.

“He lives,” she whispered.

“Not for long,” the mare replied. “You may step down now, but stay upon the marble verge. Should your foot touch the flagstones, you will be lost, and your love as well.”

Eileen slipped down, placing her feet with care. She cupped Aidan’s cheek.

“Wake, beloved,” she said.

He made no response.

“Aidan, please wake.”

She took his shoulders and shook him, gently at first, then harder as he continued his enchanted slumber. A kiss did not wake him, nor a shout. The echoes of her cry woke strange shadows that skittered across the ceiling, but Aidan slept on.

Throat choked with tears, she turned to the mare. “What shall I do?”

“He has dreamed too long, too far from the mortal world. Tír na nÓg calls to him strongly.”

As if confirming the words, the dead lined up in the chamber stirred and rustled. The fallen chieftain took a step forward. Soon, Aidan would be among their number.

No. She refused to let him slip away.

Eileen gazed at his strong, beloved face. Her heart had long belonged to Aidan, since the first time she met him while picking herbs. He was brave and kind, and deserved a long, full life. And he was lost to her, now, whether she lived or died.

“Lie beside him on the slab,” the mare said, “and take his hand.”

The stone chilled her side, but Aidan’s fingers were warm in hers. She watched the excruciatingly slow rise and fall of his chest. With one finger she traced the slope of his nose, the line of his jaw.

She must sing him back.

Pulling in a breath of grave-cold air, she began. His spirit had traveled far down the road to the West, and the simple waking chant would not be enough. It must be a call home, back to the human world.

Her voice filled the chamber as she sang the heat of summer, the call of the thrush, the taste of ripe berries on the tongue. Every warm, vital memory she once owned, she gave to him, spilling it forth. Each word carried more of her humanity out of the shell of her body and into his. The golden plait over her shoulder leached of color, the strands turning an eerie white.

Slowly, the dead began to dissipate, fading under that mortal onslaught.

Eileen sang of fresh-baked bread, a child’s laughter. The humming feel of her hand clasped in his as they laughed together above the ripening fields.

Aidan’s breathing sped, his cheeks flushed with warmth and color.

Three of the dead remained. Then two. Then only the chieftain. It stared at her, bony fingers wrapped around the golden torc at its neck. The cold malevolence of its will dampened the song, chilled the air to ice.

Shivers gripped her, but she raised her voice, defiant. This time, nothing would stop her.

The last syllables faded. The dead chieftain took another step forward, and Eileen caught her breath. Had she failed?

Then Aidan opened his eyes. Turning his head, he smiled at her so freely she felt her heart break in two. From that crack, the last of her mortal essence seeped. The dark form of the NightMare struck her hoof against the slab.

“Eileen?” Aidan asked, blue eyes clouded with confusion.

“Live well,” she said. “Live long, and happily. I will never forget you.”

“Why would you need to? I’m here, beside you.”

She shook her head, her chest aching with sorrow. “There is no future between us, my love. We must part.”

“No! Marry me, I don’t care about—”

She stopped his words with her lips, a last kiss to carry her into the night. He tasted of apples and sunlight; everything now lost to her.

The dead chieftain howled. The mare’s hoof boomed against the stone. And between one heartbeat and the next, Aidan was gone.

Weeping, Eileen bent her forehead to her knees. The breath of the NightMare was hot upon her nape and the stone beneath her wet with salt, with blood.

Yet she remained.

Wondering, she sat and lifted her hand, curling her long, wraithlike fingers. Had she a mirror, the reflection would bear little resemblance to the human features she had once called her own.

“The price has been paid,” the NightMare said. “And I have a new rider. Come.”

The far wall of the barrow clattered down to reveal a night rich with shadows and starlight, and a wild, fey wind that called them to ride.

Eileen-that-was rose from the stone, her body hollowed nearly weightless, freed of memory, freed of hope. She mounted the black horse.

Together, they flew forward into that sweet dark.

Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

Edge of The Unknown

Originally Published By Broken Eye Books in the anthology GHOST IN THE COGS

* * *

It was a beautiful home. A home with red brick on the outside and a bright blue door. The wisteria and ivy climbing up one side perfectly manicured, and the gate to the front always shines with recent polish. To the society of Primrose Hill, it is known as a proper finishing school for young ladies. They delicately march through the blue front door each morning. It is said that the owner of the building, Miss Iesult Greensleeves, taught her charges all the most important things. How to make a proper social introductions on Hyde Park’s Mechanical Promenade. Which forks to use, and when. Which gloves are appropriate at what occasion, whether or not it is acceptable to use steam powered gadgets to entertain ones guests.

The truth of the matter would certainly curl the neighbors’ hair into perfect ringlets.

Miss Greensleeves’s Finishing School for Young Witches is no more a place for learning about tea service than it is a place to learn about how to turn one’s husband into a newt.

In the parlor, her charges all dressed appropriately in day dresses, each in a different pastel shade. Their bonnets set aside, their hair coiffed in the most recent styles. And each one of them has a wand in their lap and a teacup in their hand. The girls range in age from at youngest, ten, to the eldest, a sixteen-year old witch. Surrounded by prim and frilly flowers, an owlish young lady sat in the corner, her giant spectacles perched upon her nose as she reads the latest Strand magazine. Unlike the rest, she was dressed in a simple tan gown. The others twittered and gossiped about their promenade in Hyde Park, discussing the latest addition: The Steam Carousel which moved faster than any other carousel in the world. She sat apart, reading by herself.

As soon as Miss Greensleeves stepped into the parlor, she counted under her breath to be sure that all her charges were in attendance. She dressed in a deep blue skirt, bustle, and vest and a white high-necked lace blouse. She strode purposefully to the front of the room. With a snap of her fingers, a small tea cart rolled into the room, tiny puffs of steam emanating from the back of it to propel it across the floor.

“Good morning, ladies. I hope that you are all well rested from the weekend. As you know, your final examinations for the year are coming up, as is the Season. Some of you will no longer be with us after that time as we hope you will have been presented at court and will have met a husband.” The room burst into a flurry of giggles, except for the owl in the corner. “There will be a few different exams: one in comportment, one in spellcraft, and, of course, one in surreptitious casting. The final piece of your work—" The owl in the corner let out a scream. It was a howl of mourning, keening.

It was accompanied by the Strand magazine bursting into flames in her hands.

“He killed him!” She shrieked, waving her hands around.

“Miss Harper, I beg your pardon?” Miss Greensleeves turned her violet eyes upon the owl in the corner, giving her a name. “I’m not sure what the parliamentary vote upon human robotic experimentation could have anything to do with death, no one has been experimented upon yet.”

“He’s dead.” She began to cry, her sobs summoning a raincloud above her head, a roll of thunder coming out from it as she gasped. “He got thrown off of a waterfall and he’s dead.”

“Miss Penelope Harper, if you could recall your cloud, we can talk about this like reasonable witches. It’s not polite to storm inside.” Miss Greensleeves was pulling her wand out of her sleeve and casting a spell to quickly waterproof the entire room—if that raincloud began to storm any harder she’d have the mechanics in here for another month fixing the security systems.

Miss Harper sniffed loudly and pulled a handkerchief out from inside the ruffles of her dress, wiping the tears off her cheeks. The raincloud stopped thundering and raining but did not dissipate.

“Miss Greensleeves, I know you’re a fan, as well. And we both know…” another deep intake of breath before speaking, “We both know that killing the Great Detective by throwing him off of a cliff is entirely unreasonable.”

The room went still with only few nos and gasps from wide-eyed, disbelieving witches.

Miss Greensleeves spoke very gravely. “Our special guest for the séance portion of your exam is none other than Sir Arthur.”

Penelope Harper’s eyes were already quite large behind the giant magnification of her spectacles, but it seemed as though they grew three times larger as realization dawned. “You don’t mean…”

“I do. You see, Sir Arthur may think he can kill off the character and leave us all to mourn the man who never lived.” Miss Greensleeves took a breath and then smiled. All of the young girls shrank back. When Miss Greensleeves smiled, no one wanted to know what she was planning. “But I’m sure with a bit of spiritual mussing about we might be able to show him why he shouldn’t have killed him.”

“But does that mean that we have to make it look like it’s not real?” Beatrix St. John spoke next, her blue eyes sparkling with curiosity. “You mean we can do whatever we want, as long as it seems as though we’ve made it all up?”

“I want to scare the shirt off of him, make him think Sherlock Holmes has come back to haunt him and make him pick up a pen again.” Miss Harper spoke, reaching her hand up and tossing the cloud into nothingness.

Miss Greensleeves nodded in the direction of Miss Harper and waved a hand. A few books flew off the shelves throughout the parlor, a few more flew down from the upstairs. “These should help you understand the tactics that charlatans use. We can build some props and integrate a few new spells into the security system.”

The pastel enruffled witches flocked to the book stacks, one girl shouting “I’ll write to the Fox Sisters,” while another snatched a book entitled Communicating Through the Veil and another grabbed a book on demonology.

The witches of London were ready to do battle in the parlor on behalf of their favorite detective.

* * *

A few weeks later, a swirl of evening dresses and tambourines bustled through the foyer.

“Ladies!” Miss Greensleeves’s Irish accent rang out from the top of the staircase. She was gowned in a soft lavender evening dress, a simple strand of pearls at her throat. The girls were dressed in froths of satin and lace. Even Miss Harper had traded her brown plaid for an emerald green evening gown, a golden locket at her throat. “As you all know, our guests will be here in one hour to participate in the séance. Since there will be non-magical attendees, you know you cannot use a wand for any spellcasting.”

“Wands are for show anyhow,” piped up Harriet Featherstone.

“Very good,” Miss Greensleeves replied. “Now, who is on what piece of the séance?”

Miss Harper stepped forward. “Miss Beatrix and I will be leading the séance.” Beatrix held up a clapper in one hand, to show she could knock on the table while holding hands.

“Miss Nessie and I are working on keeping the circle of protection up from inside the classroom upstairs,” volunteered Miss Featherstone “We thought it would be best to have additional support in case the security system is still rusty.”

Another pair of girls held up a can of phosphorus and the copy of the Strand.

“I’m making sure that none of our guests have any spells which would tell them we’re working illusions,” Miss Jean said. “Oh, and I’ll be taking coats, of course. Good hosting and all.”

“A reminder to all of you that Mr. Bentley is an inventor under suspicion from the Crown. Do not under any circumstances allow him to escort you home. While he might be a gentleman, his manners about experimenting upon people are utterly atrocious.”

The room fell silent, all the young ladies nodding in acknowledgement. No one wanted to become a experiment. Marrying an inventor had its perks of course—being able to talk about all the latest inventions with fluency was certainly a benefit, but the possibility of arriving to an event at the Season with a brand new robotic arm might be seen as amiss.

The time had come. The young ladies all swept to their places. Some sipped at champagne in the parlor, and others lit frankincense and myrrh in the workshop.

Mr. Bentley stepped through the door in his tuxedo, and offered little mechanical corgis to each of the ladies in attendance. Miss Harper set hers on the ground and pressed the button for it to start, resulting in high pitched yapping and rusted tail wagging. The security system began to fweep in alarm, unaware of the newest mechanical device in the building. With a sheepish smile, Miss Harper turned her new friend off in order to avoid trouble.

All but one of the guests had arrived—the most important guest—and Miss Greensleeves stepped to the door and opened it just as the final knock came.

“Sir Arthur, what a pleasure to have you here for our séance. Some of my young ladies are fans of your work.”

He ambled in, allowing the pretty young lady to take his coat and whisk it off to the coat room. Sir Arthur gave Miss Greensleeves a smile and a nod, kind words of thanks for a warm welcome. “Well, I hope they aren’t too angry about the most recent issue.” He muttered through his mustache, “There’ve been riots outside of the Strand, you know.”

Iesult feigned surprise and shock. “Oh, I’m so sorry. It must be terribly frustrating to have an authorial choice so challenged by the public. Well, I hope our little diversion can be of some assistance in cheering you. I know you’re quite a fan of the spiritualist movement. My young ladies have been studying it avidly, hoping to learn how to be proper and spiritualist at the same time.” She leaned in conspiratorially, “None of that American ‘free love’ nonsense, though. I promise you that.”

The Americans were always a good way to show that you were better and more poised than others. As an Irishwoman, she took points where she could score them

“If you’ll come with me into the parlor, we can begin.”

Sir Arthur followed as she led him to a seat at the circular table. The twelve participants were ready to take their seats.

“I’d like to introduce Miss Penelope Harper, who will be leading our séance tonight.” Miss Greensleeves gestured genteelly to Penelope, who took her seat. Everyone followed suit.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Miss Harper spoke before pushing her spectacles up on her nose. “This evening, I’m going to ask that we all hold hands. Palms up, if you please.”

From another participant, a giggle and a blush as she took the hand of Mr. Bentley. For an inventor potentially hiding out and turning people into part robot he seemed awfully well dressed.

Penelope sent a speedy glare in the direction of her classmate before fluttering her eyes shut. “Mr. Jeeves, if you could bring down the lights?” The gas lamps automatically lowered. (Not by the power of a butler, though, but rather by the power of a spell bound up in the mechanical security system triggered by the words Mr. Jeeves. Witches are tricky like that.)

“Please close your eyes, ladies and gentlemen, “She began. As soon as all eyes were closed, the room sank into darkness. Stealthily, young ladies moved into the room, levitating a few objects onto the table and then floating out of the room without a sound. Flicking her eyes over to her fellow witch, Beatrix, Miss Harper squeezed her hand and began. “O spirits, we ask if any of you has a message for us? Can you knock on the table? Knock once if you have a message for us and twice if you do not.”

The table shook with a resounding knock. Only one. From below the table, a small steam powered knocker responded to vocal cues through a nifty bit of spell work.

“Very well, is there any one person to whom this message is directed?” A single knock again. “If you could place a marker in front of the individual the message is for, we will open our eyes in five seconds.”

With the participants' eyes still closed, one of the girls helping put on the show lifted a small glowing orb out of nothing and blew it onto the table. It floated in front of Sir Arthur’s face, making his moustache cast eerie shadows onto the table.

“You may open your eyes,” Penelope intoned. She had to shove a self-satisfied cackle down as Sir Arthur’s eyes grew as wide as plates.

“For…" he choked out, “for me?”

“If everyone could please continue to hold hands. Please, do not break the circle.” Penelope spoke softly, working her intentions on everyone in the room. The witches present wouldn’t be able to let go of each other’s hands if they wanted to. “Sir, have you lost anyone dear to you recently?”

“No. No, I haven’t.” Sir Arthur sounded convinced, as though he was completely unaware of the many hearts he had broken with his prose.

“How curious.” She smiled. “Well, we shall just have to find out who it is.”

With a rumble, the table shifted and shook, the feeling of an angry spirit filling the room (or in this case, teenaged witchy hormones), and the table and all of the chairs lifted a foot off of the ground.

“Well, this spirit certainly wants our attention,” Penelope said calmly while the rest of the séance-goers began to struggle in fear, hanging on to each other’s hands for dear life. “Oh spirit, might you tell us who you are?”

On that cue, the walls flashed for a moment, red writing appearing on the walls. “You killed me, Arthur Conan Doyle.”

Doyle’s eyes got even wider, his face marked in pure disbelief.

“This cannot be, this is…Miss Greensleeves, are your students pranking me?”

And then a copy of the Strand magazine appeared in the middle of the table before bursting into green flames.

The table began to spin round and round before the whole dining set slammed down to the ground in a huff.

The participants began to scream, still clinging to each other’s hands, trailing off when a firm, ticked-off British gentleman’s voice spoke throughout the room.

“I am the man who never lived and can never die, Arthur Conan Doyle. You will bring me back or face the consequences of damning me to uncertain fictional hell.”

With that, Miss Harper allowed the attendees to release hands. While Beatrix was making eyes at Mr. Bentley, choosing to risk matrimony to an illegal robotics inventor over common sense, Miss Harper rose, watching Sir Arthur Conan Doyle grab at the scraps of air that once were the Strand. He sputtered and threw his hands in the air.

“Riots! My mother writing to inform me that I have done the wrong thing! The queen is even angry with me, and now…my own creation tells me I can’t kill him?! Fine. I’ll write more. I will. But you’re mine, Holmes. I made you, and I can bury you!”

The only response to Doyle’s shouting fit was a low chuckle in the same tone as the disembodied voice.

Doyle fled the School for Young Witches, and the girls followed, watching as he and the rest of the guests all scurried away. Some even left their greatcoats behind. The gaggle of girls in evening gowns circled around in the foyer and looked questioningly at their headmistress.

“Did we pass, Miss Greensleeves?” asked Miss Harper, her eyes gleaming with triumph.

“Oh, we’ll just have to wait and see if you’ve successfully terrified the man into writing again.”

A few weeks later, when the Strand announced a return of the Sherlock Holmes stories, a young lady (Miss Harper, to be precise) sitting in the middle of the Hyde Park Mechanical Promenade shrieked from her carriage with glee and shouted across to another, “We did it! We saved Sherlock Holmes!”

Witches will meddle with anything, even publishing.

Daniel Arthur Smith

The Diatomic Quantum Flop

Originally published by Windrift Books

* * *

The whole thing started with the four of us and a riddle. I could spin an existential yarn about how spiritual and transcendent it was to hack an ancient Tibetan time cycle, but really, it was all about the trip, the psychedelic rocket ride Marty Feldman called the ‘diatomic quantum flop.’ You’d think because of the Eastern twist that it was Danny Wong who brought it up. But you’d be stereotyping because it wasn’t; it was Marty, though he wasn’t the one to make the Eastern connection, that was Dave. Looking to the future, I guess that makes sense, but there is no way I can change it now if I wanted to. That’s the thing. Though I can see the room clearly when I want to relive it, nothing changes. But I’m jumping ahead. I tend to do that. Let me start with the riddle.

Marty and I were hanging out at Dave and Danny’s patchouli patch in the student ghetto. We were doing what you would expect four college kids to be doing, sitting under a huge Marley poster—Ziggy, not Bob—listening to jams, waxing philosophy, and enjoying the types of recreationals one enjoys in college.

Marty liked to hold court, to have all eyes on him, so after he passed the bong to Dave he dramatically deadpanned and said, “You’re traveling along a high mountain pass and you come to a bridge spanning a deep crevice.”

“How deep?” Danny asked.

“Really deep.”

“Like bottomless?”

“No,” Marty said, curling his lip back, “like a train bridge in the Alps deep.”

“So I’m on a train?”

Marty’s nostrils flared with a short breath of restraint. “No, you’re on a yak. You’re on Everest.”

Dave saved Danny a scolding by taking the baton. “I always wanted to climb Everest,” he said.

“You and everybody else,” Marty said. “So listen, you’re traveling along a high mountain pass—”

“Are there Sherpa with me?” Dave asked.

“Sure.”

“I always imagined that when I climb Everest I’d have a bunch of Sherpa with me.”

Marty snapped, “Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” Dave said and then smiled dopily.

Danny couldn’t keep a straight face. A lungful of pot smoke burst out of his mouth with a spray of spittle, and the three of us began to giggle. Marty joined in when he caught on that he was the butt of the joke. He pretended to ease up, but that pissed-off glint in his eyes and painfully hammered smile betrayed him.

Marty always wanted to come off as laid back but he was too tightly wound.

“So you start across the bridge,” he said, “and a hooded figure with a strange watch on his wrist blocks your way.”

“Hooded?” I asked. “Like Death?”

“He’s not Death.”

“Then why is he hooded?”

“I don’t know why he’s hooded. I guess it makes the riddle more ominous.” Marty was so easy to get worked up. “Anyway, you have to cross the bridge because the crevice is too steep to travel down, and to go around, you’d have to go back down and around the mountain.”

“So you have to cross the bridge?”

“You have to cross, right. But the hooded figure tells you that he’ll only let you cross if you can ask him a question to which he does not know the answer. Now, the time traveler can go forward and backward in time at will, whenever he wants.”

“Time traveler?”

“The hooded figure is a time traveler, that’s what the strange watch on his wrist is all about. He can go back and forth, and you can only ask one question.”

“Well,” I said, “if he’s a time traveler he’ll know the answer to most everything, won’t he?”

You see this is the point where we would usually start trying to solve the paradox. With obvious stuff like How could the time traveler know the color of my underwear or What happens when I get to the other side? But Dave must have figured Marty was getting at something. “You’re talking about Kalachakra,” he said.

Marty nodded.

Now it should surprise you that Dave of all people said that. Why? Because back then Dave wasn’t a monk, he looked more like a frat kid—clean-cut, the baseball cap, white t-shirt. He was least likely to be the guy heading an Ashram in Phoenix today. But Dave had been practicing meditation for a year by then, would sit in his room, legs crisscross applesauce, drool dripping down his chin. So when Danny asked him what Kalachakra was, Dave was all over it.

“It’s the wheel of time, man.”

Yeah, he really said man. And then he pulled a hit from the bong. We were in college. Anyway. After he blew out a billowy white cloud of stinky smoke, he went on to say, “It’s Tibetan, you’re in the present, but there can’t be a present without a past and a future. So you’re there too. Time is like a wheel.”

At that moment, I thought what he said was stoner talk, nothing more. Armchair philosophy. So I said, “Riiight,” all drawn out, and reached for the bong.

“No, serious. That’s how the Dalai Lama can see if a person that is good right now is really a bad person or vice versa.”

“What?” Danny asked.

“He can see the future and the past and the present, all at the same time. He’s nonlinear.”

“Like outside of time?”

“Exactly,” Marty said. “It’s outside of time. What if I told you guys I’ve found a way to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Step outside of time. See the slices of past, present, and future at will.”

“Time travel?”

“Yeah. Time travel.”

“It’s possible,” Dave added, “but very tantric, takes lifetimes to learn. I mean, the Dalai Lama is centuries old.”

Marty shrugged his forehead, all sure of himself. “I found a shortcut.”

It was my turn to take a long pull from the bong and I about choked up a lung. You see, Marty worked in the psych lab below the science building, and they did all kinds of messed up stuff down in that basement. Mice, mazes, and shit like that. The last time he lured us down there he talked us into eating a bunch of shrooms and then locked each of us in a deprivation tank.

I tried to bellow out a plea, “Don’t tell me this involves the tanks?” but all that came out were some hisses and a ton of smoke.

“No,” Marty said. “Of course not.”

An hour later, we were in the forgotten back corner of the science building’s basement, next to the deprivation tanks. Marty’s office was actually the storage area behind the animal pens and sweetly smelled of shredded paper and rat piss. Marty’s TA-ship involved administering a cornucopia of pure grade chemical cocktails to the rats and monkeys and log what happened next. He walked a lot of the good stuff out the door, which was cool at the time. I mean he had access to government grade shit. Phenomenal.

Dave was into it. He went right to work cranking open the warm water faucets to four of the five metal tanks that lined the back wall and Danny and I began dumping in the large plastic bags of Epsom salts. These weren’t the new age float tanks they have at the spa today, no, these were the old school metal boxes that they used to test out the effects of sensory deprivation way, way back. True government-sponsored chaos.

Danny pulled his t-shirt over his head and then asked the magic question, “So what are we supposed to do for this to work?”

“Just free your mind,” Dave said. “And it will all become clear.” Then he heaved a bag of salt into a tank.

“Free my mind?” I said. “That last time I was in this thing I fell asleep and had a nightmare that I was being suffocated by tentacles.”

“Use a koan,” Dave said.

“No,” Marty said. “This isn’t a one hand clapping kind of thing.” He went over to the desk against the side wall, slid open the pencil drawer, and removed a yellow Pokémon keychain.

Danny scrunched his nose in delight. “That’s Pikachu,” he said, then added in a high voice, “Pika, Pika, Pikachu.”

Marty forced a grin back and then put the key into the tall beige plastic cabinet next to the desk.

“That’s your security system?” Dave asked. “A key in the drawer next to the cabinet.”

“I only lock it to keep the door closed,” Marty said. “It swings open otherwise.”

The cabinet was stocked with lab supplies. Beakers, scales, rows of white plastic jars lined up by same color lid. Smaller cabinets filled the two chest-high shelves. Marty opened a drawer to one of those.

“We’re not doing shrooms again are we?” I asked. “That’s what brought on those tentacles.” A chill ran down my neck as I again thought of a hundred little slimy tendrils encircling my arms and legs, the tips tickling. Ugh. I shuddered.

“No shrooms,” Marty said. He held up four vials.

“Is that the liquid LSD you had last summer?”

“No,” he said, handing one to each of us. “This is totally different.”

“You’re taking one too? Aren’t you going to keep watch?”

“Nobody is coming around. This’ll be fine.”

I guess that was enough for us because we each swilled one.

“This tastes like battery acid,” I said. “Whadja mix in here? Aluminum?”

“Well there’s some psilocybin—”

“Oh man!” I said. “You said no mushrooms.”

“Just a trace. It’s mostly diatomic molecules.”

“What? What are you trying to do? Kill us?”

“No. It’s cool, relax, oxygen is a diatomic molecule.”

“Liquid oxygen?”

“No, I was just saying that oxygen is diatomic. That’s iodine and hydrogen coated in zinc.”

“What?”

“It’s cool, really. They wouldn’t let me give it to the animals otherwise.”

“Right,” Dave nodded.

How Marty thought that was a selling point I don’t know, but he had a way of talking people into whatever. “They’re little nanobots,” he said, “they’re like five micrometers thick. Nothing, really.”

“Really,” I asked. “You’re sure.”

“Yeah, they’re medical. The real deal. They’re designed to deliver a medical payload. In this case, diatomic molecules.”

“And what do they do?”

“The diatomic molecules produce a rapid phonon reaction. They’ll slightly shift your perceivable spectrum.”

“How’s that?”

“With the DMT.”

“You put DMT in here?”

“No, no. They leverage your own biological DMT to produce the phonon reaction, along with the slight quantum mechanical oscillations of the diatomic molecules, the diatomic quantum flop.”

“Like when you die?” Dave said. “And your whole life flashes before you.”

“Right. Your brain floods with DMT and you see a white light, or whatever else.”

“You are trying to kill us,” I said.

“You came up with this?” Danny asked.

“I found some old files on DMT experiments and what the subjects had to say. And then, like serendipity someone came up with this for the monkeys, and it sort of came to me, like a eureka moment, getting off on our own DMT. So I swiped some for us.”

“How long before this kicks in?”

“It’s time released. It will take them a good fifteen minutes to get where they need to go. But it’s a good trip. You’ll see.”

And it must have been, because a shudder amped up from the base of my skull and for a second my scalp felt like it was peeling away, and I realized, even though I was still talking to Marty, that I’d already been in the tank and out again. The conversation I was having was déjà vu, but at the same time I was already into tomorrow, and back to earlier in the evening walking up Marty’s porch, looking at the huge Om symbol on the psychedelic tapestry that curtained his window. And then I was gazing up at their ceiling of colored Christmas lights through a cloud of pot smoke. Dave squealing, “Pika, Pika, Pikachu,” and Marty saying, “It’s all about the trip across the bridge, the diatomic quantum flop.”

* * *

It was crazy because there was a four-day stint that all happened in the same slice. I mean I saw myself going about my business but not in a linear way. I saw the whole period at once, a blur of scenes overlapping with more tentacles and a few flying eels thrown in. It was too much to take in.

Then I came down.

My mind chilled back to the present, began to process the world around me as it was designed to, one frame at a time. I thought that was it—that was the trip. It was over the course of the next two days that the result of our little experiment became clear. It was two days of déjà vu, the tentacles and eels from the initial vision were gone, they’d only been there at the peak, but everything else, knowing what people were going to say, knowing what was going to happen next, every instant a repeat of the tank.

But that wasn’t the most eerie part. The wild thing was that it was like we were acting on privileged information, that by somehow knowing what was going to happen, we had changed the future. I mean things happened the same as I saw them, but they never should have went that way.

Danny Wong was the first to act on it. And we knew he would be because we saw him tell us about it, and it played out just like he said. The night after the tanks was Friday. Danny worked a shift at his parent’s restaurant, Wong’s Wok. There was only one of them then, not the chain Danny runs today, but I’ll get back to that. Marty and I were at his place with Dave when Danny came home. It was after midnight. He had a box of that delicious Wong’s crispy lo mein, and just like I saw in the tank, he threw a fat wad of cash on the table.

We repeated the conversation the four of us already knew word for word.

“Those guys have a serious addiction,” he said. We knew who he was talking about.

“The Chinese guys in the kitchen didn’t hold back. They kept doubling the pot.”

Marty asked, “You were gambling?”

It was like an echo.

The other three of us answered at the same time. “High-Low.”

And then our eyes met and I remember asking myself if that had happened the same way as we saw it, the three of us saying the words at the same time. I guess it had. It must’ve.

“Yeah,” Danny said slowly. “High-Low, and I knew what the card was going to be each time. I’d still be there but I cleaned them out. The further I went the more they threw into the pot.”

Marty’s face went blank. And we knew what he would say next.

“No,” I said. But then he said it anyway.

“We have to go back to the tanks.”

“This is a fluke,” I said. “Just because he saw it happening doesn’t mean he affected it. How do you know he wasn’t supposed to win anyway?”

“C’mon,” Marty said. “You know what the odds are of guessing the right card every time?”

“No,” I said. “But neither do you.”

“Did anything happen to anyone else?”

“Yeah,” Dave said. Déjà vu again. “In the tank I saw Veckner giving a pop quiz today. So this morning over coffee I looked up the answers. Sure enough, she gave the quiz, and it was fill in the blank.”

“That can’t be right,” I said. “I mean, Veckner teaches Eastern Religion right?”

“Tradition.”

“What?”

“Tradition, not religion.”

“Whatever, Eastern Tradition, Eastern Religion, you know it like the back of your hand.”

“Not this material I didn’t.”

Or did he? I was becoming confused.

“If you saw the answers to the quiz why did you bother looking them up?”

“I saw myself taking the quiz, and studying beforehand. But the quiz would have been a surprise otherwise.”

Marty’s tongue was rolling across the top of his lip, and if the room hadn’t been soaked in patchouli and pot, I’m sure I would have smelled the gears grinding. “We have to go back in,” he said.

“We can’t,” Dave said. “Remember.”

This was scary because I did remember. This is what Dave had said—was saying—about what Marty was going to say next, only Marty hadn’t said it yet, but then he did.

“Right,” Marty said. “We have to wait til our systems build up more DMT.”

* * *

By Sunday things were back to normal. We hadn’t seen any further ahead. Danny used some of his winnings to spring for a feast of wine and flaming cheese at the Greek restaurant in Old Town, a real treat since I was living mostly on burritos at the time. We talked a little bit more about it over dinner. Dave suggested we all abstain from anything over the next week and to practice some basic lotus position stuff. Apparently he and Danny had processed the whole trip a lot better because they meditated. I was surprised to discover that Danny was into that too, but then again we were all dabbling in transcendental mind expansion. It didn’t seem like a bad idea. I was a bit strung out from the last trip, so drinking a lot of water and juice over the next few days wouldn’t be horrible.

The last trip had been okay for my schedule but Dave and Marty had gone to class the next day, so we all agreed to meet on Friday after Danny’s shift.

Everything went down about the same, except I admit we were all a bit more excited.

I say about the same because Marty altered the mix a bit.

“Don’t take these until you’re ready to close the lid,” he said. “They’re more potent.”

“Whaddaya mean?” I asked. I was concerned, of course, about the psilocybin.

“I added DMT to the mix. So the molecules don’t deplete your own.”

That somehow made sense, I figured he wanted to be able to try again sooner rather than later and that with the extra dose he wouldn’t have to wait. I knew better, but a dose was a dose. It was after I drank the vial that I realized why he really wanted it. It was the holiday weekend and he wanted to see further ahead than two days. I realized that fairly instantly because we were on the way to the Indian reservation casino and he was explaining in the car. And then we were at the casino. And then I was back in the Greek restaurant the week before, and there were tentacles at the restaurant, and there were eels on my date with Julie the past Tuesday, and then Marty was dead.

That caught me off guard.

I should mention that I couldn’t quite nail down how long I was in the tank. I didn’t have the discipline that Dave and Danny had. I had two weeks of information happening at once, fast forward, rewind, freeze frame, and then I was in the back seat of Marty’s red Mazda.

Steve Miller was cranked up on the stereo, and it was black outside.

I’d been calm, but then, with the realization of Marty’s demise, a course of adrenalin shot through me. “You guys didn’t see that?”

Everyone else in the car ignored me. Dave was sitting next to me slowly nodding his head as he mouthed the lyrics to Jet Airliner. Danny was in the passenger seat rolling a joint by the dashboard light.

“Marty,” I asked the back of his head. “Did you see that?”

He was calm, probably thinking about the casino takedown we were about to pull off, and the fact that we were about to make a fortune over the next few days. “It’s not what you thought,” he said.

“No?” I asked.

“No. I end up fine.”

A slug-like eel slid up onto his left shoulder, around the back of his neck, and disappeared over the other shoulder.

“What the hell?” I said. I think it was the psilocybin, but it could’ve been the diatomic particles too, either way, that was the first time I saw one out of the tank.

“Just focus on the program,” Marty said.

“Right…Yeah.”

We’d decided to call it the program when we got out of the tanks. It was Marty’s idea. “A plan,” he said, “is just that. A list of steps that with preparation fall into order, a mere intention. The program has already happened. All we need to do is show up.”

We didn’t quibble with him. There was no point. We were broke, just enough for gas, but that was okay. We would drive to the casino. Danny was going to play a few rounds of roulette. We would all be hungry and tired so he wouldn’t waste time. A few spins, enough for breakfast and a suite and then we’d rest, save the next day for the big money and comps.

And that’s how it went.

And it was eerie.

Danny put his chips on the red box with the number twenty-three and when the wheel finished spinning the little ball landed in the corresponding pocket.

“A winner,” the croupier yelled, and then raked a stack of chips over to Danny. “Place your bets,” he continued without missing a beat.

“Red five,” Danny said. The croupier raked the two stacks across the felt table to the red box marked five, spun the wheel, and tossed the marble. When the wheel finished spinning, the marble landed on red five.

“Another winner,” the croupier called out.

To see it happening again was mind-boggling. We knew the winning number so Danny picked the winning number, and we always saw him pick the winning number. But which came first I couldn’t figure out, and when I tried, when I thought about it too hard, I just lived it again.

Over the next few days, I felt like I was a character strolling through someone else’s movie. I had a starring role, and my costars had their parts to play as well. The dealer or waiter or bartender would say his line, and then I’d say mine. The words didn’t seem forced or contrived. I said what was on my mind even though I knew ahead of time what I was going say, always surprised at the words as they came out. It was natural, yet not.

Dave and I both won big at roulette and the casino version of High-Low, Acey-Deucey. That card game was on the floor. Marty and Danny were the only ones to mess with the poker lounge. They both avidly enjoyed gambling and, Marty more than Danny, basked in the attention of the winning seat. Danny played the role with a bit of realism, dark sunglasses, keeping quiet to himself. Not Marty, the higher the stack of chips, the more flamboyant he became. I was tempted to go in and warn him to keep his cool, but the poker lounge was loaded with flying eels and tentacle clusters. I wasn’t going in there. He was handing out chips to every girl that walked by and it wasn’t long before he had a thin blonde on either side. It was his parading that got us our comp though, a suite that made our first one look like a pillbox—grand piano, master staircase, pool table, hot tub, the whole bit.

We let Marty take the master bedroom. He was making use of it with his newfound friends. I didn’t want to look through the bedroom door, but I was compelled to, I had before. My fate was determined. And I did see him, with the two naked girls, on a writhing bed of tentacles, just as I saw in the tank, but I really saw them that time, and time again, and what I’d interpreted as a death scene was some other sick thing.

That’s another weird thing about déjà vu. Something that’s disgusting the first time is still disgusting the next. Marty made that palace of a suite so uncomfortable that we just went back to the floor and made a few million more. Of course, we knew we would.

As much as we did see, there were still things that we couldn’t. Like when I crashed out Sunday afternoon and woke up freaking out. I’d seen myself sit straight up, my t-shirt soaked, the late afternoon light creeping around the curtains. What I didn’t see before is what happened in my sleep. It’d been the same as the tank. I’d seen another week out. No, more than that, two maybe. The diatomic molecules were flop flipping all on their own.

I went to the suite’s bar, poured a tall glass of water, and guzzled it down.

“We don’t need another dose,” Marty said.

I spun around to find him standing at the end of the marble bar. “The diatomic molecules,” I said.

“You’ve got enough to last.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know.”

I misinterpreted the conversation the first time I saw it; often seeing is not processing. I thought it meant that I didn’t need—as in shouldn’t have—another dose. But he meant that I had enough diatomic quantum flop to last me a while. Perhaps a long while. Not from the dose we took the Friday before, or the next, or the next. It was the fifth trip to the tank that made the state permanent. I was there now, in the tank for the third, fourth, and fifth time. I was also at the bar of the suite. I felt a pressure push into the center of my forehead, an invisible thumb pressed up against my flesh, into my pineal. My hair ripped at my scalp, threatening an exodus. The room changed around me, the colors became brighter, the edges sharper.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I said. “You’re not here.”

“But I am,” Marty said. And he was, but he wasn’t. I was talking to a future Marty.

“Quantum superimposed,” we chimed together. I didn’t know what that meant yet, but I did, because I would soon learn that since the past, present, and future were just different states of the same time; I could willfully traverse them. Absorbing those states into my present mind—the mind that was in the suite—a dizzying echo of the tanks, a flash of surreal.

A long, iridescent blue snake-like eel came up from behind Marty’s back and slithered down around his chest and up behind his arm.

“Do you see that?” I asked.

“Uh huh,” he said. “There’s one on your arm too.”

I looked down and sure enough, a long, thin eel was coiling around my forearm. “Hell!” I yelped, and then time slowed to a crawl. Simultaneously the blue eel slithered through the air and the water glass dropped. The glass exploded on contact with the floor and shattered into countless shards. But I could see each one twinkling, individually rising from the point of impact, blossoming out and away.

I must have seen that glass shatter a dozen times. More than that, I’m sure, because I want to put a number on it. A linear number. But all of those times were the same time and I was viewing it again in a constant, still frame loop. I just processed little snapshots, slow still frames of a grander movie. Is the cat dead or alive? It’s both until you open the box. My observation, my presence of mind, was no longer passive as it’d been a few days before. Observation had become an active process, a superposition of realities. I could see what was happening in the box.

“The riddle,” I said. “It’s a paradox, a mirror.”

“There is nothing that is not known,” Marty said.

“And you, you were the one that told yourself about the diatomic molecules.”

Marty appeared stunned; he was travelling. “I didn’t tell, exactly,” he said, staring off, most likely watching the event. “No. I gave myself the eureka moment.”

And it all made sense to me in a way beyond words. I experienced a new clarity of encompassing time, was aware of my immersion in it, as I never had been before and with all of the knowledge I was yet to learn accessible to me, I immediately possessed the benefits of living in the past, future, and now.

And then he said the most dangerous thing, “We’re gods among mortals.”

And in an epiphany—both physical and cerebral—as if spoken to by a god, there were further revelations.

Marty shared the experience.

He must’ve, because his face lost expression in synch with my realization that with all of the money and the power we could, would acquire, that would not be enough for him, that one day we would confront each other.

And that was the beginning of the chess match. For years, we played our roles politely, evenly matched in forecasting the outcome. Until our confrontation. Until his accident.

A freak accident I suppose he didn’t see coming.

* * *

Dave has always had the best handle on the flop. He went to Dharamsala to meditate with the Dalai Lama and learn the advanced tantric of Kalachakra. He shared some with us, then he went to Arizona and opened an Ashram.

Danny Wong used it to his advantage. I guess we all did, but he was creative. He expanded his parents’ restaurant business and turned Wong’s Wok into the national chain it is today. You know the jingle, You can’t go wrong with Wong. Everybody loves their crispy lo mein. I know, Chinese restaurant, that sounds cliché, but keep in mind he had a secondary study in business. You may be thinking he uses the flop for the fortune cookies, and I wouldn’t blame you.

But that’s not what he’s doing.

Ever wonder how they deliver so fast?

He precogs all of the delivery orders each day for the entire chain and has them ready to go when the customers call, actually set them up long ago. He told me that everything has been entered into a computer for years to come. We’re talking zero waste, bulk buying, and optimum staffing. When he goes public, we all make a killing. There’s a tip for you.

And Marty? Marty was bright and would have received his PhD regardless of the flop.

His downfall was his hunger for power, over the world around him, over himself. He alienated everyone with his thirst to know what he couldn’t see and the compulsion to control what he could. In his aspiration to be a god he leveraged everything he saw, but you can’t know what you haven’t seen. Marty was ultimately rejected by the world as a recluse and a fool.

On numerous occasions I’ve caught myself thinking of Marty and wondering how often he visited his inevitable end, if he thought he could avoid it, overcome it, see past it. And then I’ve pondered if Marty’s gone at all. We’ve all seen our mortal end. He has no future or present but his past exists alongside mine. Like the hooded figure on the bridge, he could go forward and backward in time at will, whenever he wanted. Maybe he just traveled back to his youth, or some other time, and in that way is still alive. I would have liked to have asked him, but I never did, and I never do. I wonder if he’d know the answer.

By knowing past, present, and future, we are removed from our lives. We were all cursed, not blessed. We play walk-on roles in a moving picture. No surprises, no unknowns. There are no wives or children, just visitations with our past and future selves. I suppose that’s because life became less interesting. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Me, I don’t travel much anymore. Not physically anyway. There are too many tentacles. I rarely leave my brownstone. It’s in a part of Manhattan that will remain safe and undisturbed for some time. I play the market, if you can call it playing. I buy and sell things, commodities, stocks. While Marty may have dwelt near the end, I visit the beginning, that house and our youth in the student ghetto. And I eat a lot of crispy lo mein.

You can’t go wrong with Wong.

* * *

Tower

Originally published by Holt Smith ltd

* * *

Nate planned this day, this entrance, visualized it, plotted it. The escalator to the right would take him directly from the underground PATH station to his new job without him ever having to step outside. But he wanted to go to the street. At least today. He wanted to see the building he’d be working in for himself—One World Trade. He cranked his neck back so he could take in the magnificent tower from base to spire. He was awestruck, as he imagined he’d be. The September sky reflected off the hundred and four floors of glass, steel, and…freedom. He’d come full circle in a way. Circle-like. He wasn’t a New Yorker. He was from Florida. But every step he’d taken over the last fourteen years had to do with the piece of land where he stood. He’d set out on a journey that took him halfway around the world, only to end up right back at the site of the catalyst—Ground Zero.

Nate had other ideas of what he was going to do when he returned. Jobs were scarce and what civilian training did he have? He’d spent his entire career in special operations, supporting tier one missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, four deployments in all. Sure, he could’ve gotten a job with NYPD or the government, but neither paid well.

That was okay though.

Titan had called him looking for a few good men. Men like him.

He inspected the plaza, the fence to the memorial, the angle of the tower glass, and the cloud reflecting in it. He nodded his head and straightened the jacket he’d picked up at Men’s Wearhouse the day before.

A foot in the door was all he needed. This was day one. This was New York. If he could make it here…

* * *

When the lights went out, Nate figured New York was being hit.

He hunkered down.

He hunkered down the same way he had all those nights in the dark stony hills of Afghanistan. His first day on the job, the first day at Titan, and WHAM!

He hadn’t even finished filling out the stack of paperwork the woman from HR had given him.

Nate heard the whimpers in the blackness—a lot of them—confused pleas for help, the crying.

He heard the screams—on his floor, the floors above, below.

Nate was calm.

This was not the first time he’d heard these sounds, the cries of the helpless.

There’d been many firsts in his life since the building that stood here before this one fell.

That was a first, that morning, in his eleventh grade history class. When all of the girls began to wail, when the boys did too, as they watched the buildings burn in New York City. Burn and then fall. That was a first.

He did what he had to do, what he was compelled to do.

Nate signed up.

Four tours as a Ranger, one in Iraq and three in Afghanistan, and this happened before, in a different way, the cries in the dark, in the smoke. There was a first time, in a village, and then it was a past thing.

The inky blackness was something new, a first, was a thing.

He was calm.

The EMP, the tremor, he recognized those, the darkness that fell as a blanket, that brought blindness to himself and everyone on the floor. That was new. The way it soaked him to the bone, a first. A weapon he’d not seen before. Before now. Some nerve agent, perhaps.

He was calm.

This was not the first time he’d sat in the dark. He’d done that before. But not this inky blackness. Not in Afghanistan. The nights in Afghanistan were never this dark. Quite the contrary, on some nights visibility was as high as thirty percent. No, he sat in the dark, in the black, somewhere else. Somewhere that wasn’t on a map. A place that a passing ship might mistake for an oil rig, except it wasn’t an oil rig. It was a black site, a black site with a tight black box, a dark black box. He sat in there, in the tight box, for two days. They all did at some point. He thought of them, his brothers. He thought of those that were left, those that came home, and he bided the time, kept track of time the way he was trained, kept calm until his vision, until everyone’s vision, returned.

Nate calculated a day had passed.

When his vision came back, it was as if someone flicked a switch—dark, and then light. He slid himself out from under the desk where he bunked himself. He was alone in the high-walled cubicle, though he could hear others shuffling about, a woman still crying. The lights in the ceiling panels above were off, but a gray day glow lit the room. He lifted the black plastic receiver from the phone. There were a dozen little white buttons above the number pad and a blank digital screen. He could guess how to access an outside line, but it made no difference, no matter what he tapped, no tone. The phone was dead.

He fished out his smart phone from his new Men’s Wearhouse sport coat on the back of the office chair. That too, dead.

There was an EMP over the city, of that he was sure.

He’d rolled his cuffs up to the top of his forearms during the time the lights were out and contemplated now if he wanted anyone to see the mass of Polynesian ink that ran down his left wrist. He decided not, and rolled the sleeves down. Then he tightened his tie and grabbed his jacket, but he didn’t put it on.

Nate made his way out of the little maze of high cubicle walls to the main aisle that ran the ring of the office. Private glassed offices and suites lined the outer wall. The one in front of him was empty. A bright mist hung beyond the window.

The next office was occupied. Behind the desk, facing him, was Deidra, the HR woman that had welcomed him to Titan the day before. She was resting her chin on her thumbs. Her elbows were propped up on her desk, the fist of one hand tightly closed in the other, her fingers forming a steeple. The ink of her mascara was smudged in thick raccoon lines around glassy vein-laden eyes that had cried in their blindness. Her yellow curls were loose and away from her scalp, unfurled. And her thousand-mile stare was aimed toward the desktop, sixteen inches away.

“Deidra,” Nate said.

She didn’t respond.

The tension of the last twenty-four hours—he thought. She might be in shock. “Deidra,” he said again, this time leaning through the threshold of the office door. Her eyes rolled up at him. She sniffled and forced a smile.

Nate stepped in, tore a peach tissue from the embroidered cube at the side of her desk and offered it to her. She pinched it between her fingers, peered into his eyes, sniffled again, and then dabbed herself with the paper cloth. The action must’ve grounded her because she lashed out for two more tissues—thip, thip—and made quick work of bringing herself back around.

Nate waited. Deidra needed a purpose. He’d give her one.

She tossed the used tissue into the basket beneath her desk and with her fingertips spread wide, she pressed her white blouse into place, from her shoulder to her waist, smoothing out the wrinkle that had begun to form near her arms and at her midline. Then she gave Nate her bravest face.

“Nathan Farthen,” she said. “Right?”

He made sure to keep his voice leveled, kind, “Nate is fine,” he said.

“Yes, yes. Nate.” Her pupils darted past him and to the sides of the office.

“We had an event,” he said.

“We did.” Deidra nodded, concerned.

“The power is out, which means the elevator is most likely out, and we’re on the eighty-fifth floor.”

“The power is out?”

“Focus, Deidra. Is there a protocol? You’re Human Resources, you must know if there’s a protocol. What are you supposed to do if there’s a power outage? If there’s an…” He stopped himself. Those words. An attack. Those words wouldn’t help the situation, wouldn’t put Deidra’s head where he needed her to be. The way to control the situation was to keep her calm, to keep everyone calm.

“A power outage?”

“Yes,” Nate said, “a power outage.”

“We have a protocol.”

“Great. I thought so. I mean, you seem very organized. What is it?”

“We stay here.”

“Stay here?”

“In the event of a power outage. We stay on the floor until someone notifies us or someone comes.”

“So we sit tight? That’s it?”

Nate was aware of the finer details of what happened to the last building that occupied this block, what had happened to those that were told to stay on their floors and wait. It was also the right thing to do.

“First we do a head count,” Deidra said, “so we can call…” Her eyes shifted to the black phone on her desk. She was already aware it didn’t work.

Nate didn’t want her to ponder. “A head count. And who does that?”

Deidra’s eyes went wide. “I do,” she said. “I’m the floor warden.” She spun to the side and then rose from her chair. She swung up the door to the compartment overhanging her desk unit and from between a stack of stapled papers and a dried out plant, removed a shiny yellow plastic construction helmet. She plopped it on her head, forcing her curls to sprout out sideways around the rim, and then straightened the front of her skirt as she had her blouse. She opened a cabinet drawer just below the desktop, removed a flashlight and clipboard, and then flicked the switch of the light to check it.

Nate bit his lip when the light didn’t go on.

“I just bought batteries,” she said. She set the flashlight down and went to work filling out the paper attached to the clipboard line by line.

“Today is the twenty-sec—”

“The twenty-third,” Nate corrected.

Deidra’s lips went tight across her face. “The twenty-third.”

The top of the pen bobbed rapidly as she checked two of a series of boxes. “Occupied?” she mumbled. “Obviously…Time?” She looked at the tiny sparkling watch on her wrist. “My watch stopped.”

Nate flipped his wrist over. EMP, all right. “Did it stop at 12:23?”

“Yeah, 12:23.” Deidra grinned and cocked an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

“I keep exact time,” Nate said.

“Me too.” She scrawled the time down on the clipboard and then glanced up at Nate. “But how is it your watch stopped at the same time?”

“The outage. It’s that kind of outage. Anything electric. That why the phones and the flashlight don’t work.”

“Oh.” Deidra tapped her lower lip with the end of her pen. “Anything electronic?”

“Uh huh.”

“Cory,” Deidra said under her breath.

Nate realized she was merely speaking out loud and not to him, yet he asked, “Who?”

Without an answer, Deidra stormed past Nate, out of her office and into the aisle. “Cory,” she repeated as she walked. Nate followed her. At the end of the aisle a black woman with a beehive hairdo was stretching her arms.

“Iona?” Deidra asked. “Have you seen Cory?”

The woman gazed down the aisle and shook her head.

The cubicles were empty, up until the third. Deidra stopped and threw her hand flat up against her nose. Nate caught the odor when he neared. Cory, a husky twenty-something man, was slumped down in his Aeron chair. He’d defecated himself when he died.

“He had a pacemaker,” Deidre said, “an electric one. He joked that if the power ever went out he would…” She wobbled her head to the side. “He’s been right there, all night.”

Deidra lifted her clipboard and began jotting down the details of Cory’s demise.

Nate looked past her shoulder to Iona, who was now rolling her neck in a circle.

He decided he wanted to get a lay of the land.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Okay.”

Nate stopped two steps away and then pivoted back around.

“Who else should be here?” he asked.

“Most everybody goes to lunch. Jenny, Henry’s assistant, she’ll be here for sure. Maybe the marketing team on the far side.”

Nate nodded and headed out on his mission to survey the floor. He smiled at Iona and she smiled back, but he gave her space as he rounded the corner.

The floor was essentially a square with the elevators, stairwell, and core in the center. Nate saw the girl he thought must be Jenny sitting at the end of the aisle. She was a Native American, or Polynesian, Nate wasn’t sure. She was a big girl, heavyset, with full round cheeks, and a sad smile. A pleasant smile, but sad just the same. That was understandable. He didn’t expect to find anyone happy, or dancing. The cubicles on this side were two deep and the walls lower than where he’d been seated, chest high, but he didn’t see anyone standing in them. The glassed offices on this side were nicer, darker finished woods; they would’ve overlooked the financial district, but a fog blocked any view. The limited light, along with the dark walnut hues, gave the offices a heavy shadow. Midway across the floor he saw a silhouette. Nate stopped and peered through the glass wall. A portly man in a sport coat and tie was writing on a legal pad. He lifted his porcine head to look back at Nate.

“Are you from downstairs?” the man asked.

“No,” Nate said. “Are you all right?”

The man didn’t answer.

“Sir?”

“You’re not from downstairs?”

Nate shook his head. “No, sir.”

The man grunted, waved him away, and then buried his forehead in his hand. Nate watched him for a moment more and then continued toward the girl at the desk.

“You’re Jenny?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

Jenny nodded her head.

“Is there anyone else over here?”

She tilted her head to the office to her right. Nate leaned forward to see in. The office was three times the size of the others that he’d passed, a large suite, Henry’s office. Henry, a tall man in a pressed white shirt and tight-fitting olive green slacks, was standing arms akimbo at his windowed wall, staring out into the abyss.

“Do you mind?” Nate asked Jenny.

She shrugged.

He circled her desk to the office and rattled his knuckles on Henry’s doorframe.

The man across the office answered with a Brit accent. “How can I help you?”

“Excuse me,” Nate said. “I was just—”

Henry spun to face him. “Come in. Come in.”

Nate nodded and entered the room.

“Hi,” Nate said. “I’m—”

Henry cut him off again. “Nathan Farthen.” Henry held up a hand to greet him. “The Ranger. I know who everyone is coming into this office.”

“Of course. Nate is fine.”

Henry took Nate’s hand firmly into his own. His smile was reassuring and apart from a slight shadow of a beard, he appeared to be in prime form. “Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the leather couch on the side of the suite.

Nate lifted both of his hands. “Thank you, but…”

“Right,” Henry said. “Me too.”

Henry walked back over to the glass and resumed glaring into the fog.

“EMP, you think?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Something twenty-five, thirty klicks up.”

“And the tremor?”

“It must have been large. Megaton.”

Henry nodded in thought. Then he added. “I was concerned about the fog,” he said, twirling his fingers up and around, “but this building is wired with sensors and Geigers, they’d be going berserk if there was any fallout or radioactive residue.”

“Except for the EMP.”

Henry shrugged, widened his eyes, and nodded. “Except for the EMP. There is that, could’ve knocked the sensors out.”

“I’m sure of it.”

Henry continued to stare into the mist.

“I wouldn’t worry about contamination though,” Nate added.

Henry veered back toward him. “No?”

“Doesn’t work that way…If it was even a nuke.”

“Right.” The smile returned. “What’s next, do you suppose?”

“Hold tight.”

Deidra tapped on the doorframe. Iona was behind her as well as a skinny young Indian man in khakis and a polo shirt. “Henry,” she said.

“Yes, Deidra?”

“Cory is dead.”

Henry gave Nate a side glance before addressing her. “His pacemaker,” he said. “And the others? How many others are on the floor?”

Nate noted Henry didn’t mention the past twenty-four hours, not the EMP, not the prolonged darkness that followed, not the black raccoon circles surrounding Deidra’s eyes. He was a leader going forward.

Deidra lifted her clipboard and pen and began to list the names. “There are ten of us altogether. Mister Farther, myself, Cory, deceased, Iona, Bruce—he’s in his office—Raj, Jenny, Lisa, Terry, and Rob, back in Marketing, and you. Everyone else appears to be off the floor.”

“Ten souls,” Henry said, his words seemed to drift with some second intent, some memory. Nate wondered if Henry too was a veteran of some war, some other place. “Well, why don’t you round everybody up? We’ll move into the conference room for lunch. If anyone has anything left from yesterday, they should bring it. I believe we have crisps and such in the break room and I’ll spring for the soda machine. We’ll sit tight, and help will be along soon.”

* * *

Without the rumble of elevator bay, the hum of the computers, desk fans, heating and cooling units, or any other electrical device on the high floor, the smallest of sounds became amplified. A bubble surging to the surface of the water cooler was thunderous, the carbonation release from an uncapped seltzer could be heard in every corner of the office. Without the forced air circulation the same was true for smell. The aroma of potato chips and pretzels, long since devoured, lingered in the foil bags they were packaged in. After a few short days on the floor, the odors of their own clothes were inescapable. Nate’s new Men’s Wearhouse khakis reeked of the sweet scent of sweat, a smell he could no longer ignore.

They’d all done their best to stay fresh. The women dabbed cologne. Ironically, Jenny and Iona appeared no different than they had the day before. Jenny, preferring her own desk, went back there in the morning to knit. It could’ve been another normal day. Lisa and Terry, the young women from Marketing, were dressed for after-work cocktail hour, so they merely appeared to have stayed out late and not made it home before coming in to the office. Poor Deidra showed the brunt of forty-eight hours on the floor. Her attempts to clean away the raccoon mascara left ten years on her face that weren’t there before. She did her best to busy herself until it was too dark to work, yet Nate heard her whimpers deep into the night.

The others pretended not to notice.

What couldn’t be ignored was the need for food. They’d cleared the snacks from the pantry and had now gone a day without eating.

They were expecting the cavalry at any time, but no one came before nightfall, and as midday rolled around relief was still nowhere in sight.

Nate was up for food, but he wasn’t hungry, not much. Bruce, on the other hand, was in the midst of some ‘sugar situation.’ That’s what Iona called it when he wandered off. “He’s got the ‘sugar,’ ” she said.

Nate was familiar with the term. His grandmother said ‘the sugar’ when she spoke of diabetes. Grandpa had ‘the sugar’ too. And it was a safe bet that Bruce, five-nine, age fifty, and two hundred and thirty or so pounds had Type Two, a real safe bet. Where the others were either disregarding or in distress of their situation, Bruce was angry, frustrated, and more focused on the time creep the incident would put on his project. Nate’s impression was that Bruce was an ass, though the others appeared unfazed by his demeanor—to them Bruce was just being Bruce. Some agreed with his reasoning when he argued that they should head to the cafeteria, one flight above.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “There’s a ton of food just over our heads.”

“He’s got a point,” Rob said. Rob was the Marketing VP and even without corporate experience, Nate was able to size him up. He’d met a dozen Robs before, either in the form of a salesman or lawyer, oily con men that never seemed to commit to one side or the other, always working their own agenda a thin layer behind those trust me eyes. And Rob had the works. Nate supposed that was the difference between sales and marketing, between a five-digit and a six-digit payroll. Rob’s slacks and monogrammed shirt certainly weren’t from Men’s Wearhouse, and there was enough product in his hair and Van Dyke beard to keep him quaffed for a week, less the two days they’d already spent on the floor. “How about,” Rob said, “Bruce and I run upstairs, see what we can find. And then we bring it back down here. That way if anyone comes along, you’ll be waiting.”

Henry nodded and Nate didn’t bother to answer.

“I’ll help,” Terry, one of Rob’s Marketeers, added. From the little black cocktail dress she was wearing and the way she kept her gaze on Rob, Nate assumed her job was to stick close to him.

Everyone agreed, and nothing more was said until after they left the floor through Marketing. The hair on his neck rose and he thought he perceived a slight pressure change as he watched the fire door to the stairwell open.

That’s when Iona began to talk about Bruce and ‘the sugar.’ Nate lifted himself out of the pleather-cushioned chair, his seat for the past hour, and moved over to the glass wall. Henry was staring out again, Bruce’s moment of distraction having passed, but he gave the man space.

There wasn’t anything new to see out in the creamy fog, and there wasn’t too much to be said.

But Nate didn’t stand there long.

From above their heads came a crash, a loud smash that on the all-too-silent floor mimicked thunder, and outside of the window, though he couldn’t be sure, Nate saw several shards of glass. He was not sure, because they didn’t drop, they didn’t fall, rather they held just beyond clarity in the mist, allowing only brief glints.

He would’ve examined them more, except he was forced to look up, look up at the source of the severe set of thumps that followed the crash. The foam and plastic ceiling tiles that shielded the now dark lights bounced in their frames with each solid thud, as if a huge hammer was pounding the floor above.

THUMP, THUMP.

“What’s happening?” Deidra asked, already showing signs of an understandable panic.

THUMP, THUMP.

“Gas line,” Henry said. His head pivoted to Nate for a confirmation to his guess.

THUMP, THUMP.

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Something’s under pressure. Something on the end of a line.” He said it, but he wasn’t sure. It made sense. “The group may’ve jarred something.”

THUMP, THUMP.

Deidra eased up. “Jarred something?” she asked.

THUMP, THUMP.

Henry and Nate simultaneously met eyes. “A fire,” Henry said, and began to move toward the door.

“Where’s the extinguisher?” Nate asked.

“By the door,” Henry said. “Raj, you come with us. Lisa,” he said, quickly scanning the other women, “you stay down here.”

“A fire?” Iona asked.

“A flash fire,” Nate said. “Probably happened when they opened the door, blew out the wall.”

“Listen,” Raj said.

The men froze.

“It’s stopped,” he added.

“That may be a good thing,” Nate said, and continued out of the lounge.

Then, without warning, came the screams. Nate had heard many screams, too many to count. He only counted the firsts. Horrid pleas, heinous situations, but these were different. These were a first.

Then the shrieks shifted to the conference room and Nate spun back to see who was breaking down. Deidra had her hand flat against the side of her head. Lisa and Iona were already on her, trying to calm her down. Whether the cavalry came in five minutes or five hours, Deidra was never going to be the same.

Raj’s jaw was agape.

“Let’s go,” Nate said.

Henry was already near the door, freeing the huge red canister from the fire bay. He handed Raj the axe. To his right Nate saw the huge guillotine paper cutter the Marketeers used to cut mailings and material. He levered up the two-foot blade, put his right shoe on the wooden base, and with a heave, pried it free. Then he turned to join the other two men at the stairwell door.

He squeezed his grip onto the handle of his new machete-like blade. Henry gave him a slight nod. It hadn’t occurred to Nate until then that he was destroying company property, but in the moment, they were beyond such norms, and beyond was a place Nate was comfortable with.

They were met with a hanging mist of white creamy haze.

“There’s no smell to this smoke,” Raj said as the made their way up the stairwell.

“This isn’t smoke. It’s the vapor coming down from somewhere,” Henry said. “Try not to breath it in, there’s a fire door up above.”

“Right,” Raj said. “Will there be a blaze on the other side?”

“Most likely not,” Nate said. “The sprinklers should’ve done their job.”

“Without power?”

“They don’t need power. They work off heat.”

Henry stopped outside of the door, one hand hovering in front of it, and the other holding the extinguisher.

“So if the fire’s out,” Raj said, “why do we need all of this?”

“Pockets,” Nate said. “The sprinklers can’t reach everywhere.”

“The door is cool,” Henry said. He slipped his free hand down to the handle. “That’s cool too.”

“Does that mean we can go in?” Raj asked.

Henry peered past Raj to Nate. Nate shrugged.

Henry reached and began to turn the handle.

“The screaming’s stopped,” Raj said.

Henry glanced at Raj and then proceeded to open the door.

“What the…” Raj said. His arms went limp beside him, the axe hung low. The raw odor of feces and the rancid mix of other inner body juices overwhelmed Raj and he lurched forward to empty his stomach. Since there was nothing there, he merely gagged hard, and then gagged again.

Neither Nate nor Henry said anything. Henry let the extinguisher fall to the floor. There hadn’t been a fire. Nothing was burned. The place was in disarray, but there wasn’t the slightest sign of char. Nate could see that the far wall was different than the floor below. The glass wasn’t shattered. The walls on this level were receded. A wrap-around sky-high patio was the ceiling to the conference room below. The double doors to the patio were slid wide open to the cream fog outside, and between them, a section of the cafeteria.

There were no signs of Rob or Bruce. No Terry in her little black dress.

No signs except for the thinly spread, shining layer of blood and intestinal tract that was pasted across the floor, the walls, the plants, and the scattered remnants of broken chairs and tables. The section of room outside the stairwell door could’ve been the inside of a mammoth food processor left on too long. Nate had seen people blown apart, vaporized; this was not that. This was a bludgeoning. This was something ground up, chewed up, and spit back out.

Small chunks of reddish brown flesh—parts of the body Nate couldn’t readily identify—plopped from the ceiling to the floor and landed with the squish of freshly chopped meat.

Raj, hands on his knees, was taking deep breaths. Nate was breathing through his mouth.

“What do you think…?” Henry began to ask.

“I dunno,” Nate said. “An explosion of some kind.” He took a step back. “I’ve never seen a concussion that could—”

“Why did the screams come afterward?” Raj asked. Nate and Henry both looked at the back of the man’s head, still bent forward.

The question was a legitimate one. Why did the screams come afterward? Nate thought to himself. He gazed out toward the void of the fog. The mist, a wall of white still near the outside of the conference room window below, began to creep across the patio. Nate gave Raj’s upper arm a jab with his elbow. Again, the three said nothing. They stared at the blanket of mist slowly moving toward them, eagerly covering the floor as it went. It was through the doors and halfway across the cafeteria before they saw them, the willowy bright wriggling three-foot-long tips of the tentacle arms. One, then three, and then seven, spread across the width of the foot-high rolling fog, twirling and feeling their way forward, forward…

“We have to go,” Nate said, and he reached for the handle behind him. With the same grip, he spun himself around, pushed the door open, and pulled himself into the stairwell. Raj and Henry were stuck to his back in their retreat and, rather than burst down the stairs, pushed their weight against the door to ensure it was secure.

And then the three descended the misting stairwell.

“We have to get out of this building,” Nate said, squeezing his new two-foot heavy steel with a greater purpose than the trip up.

“Let’s get the others and go,” Henry said.

Nate didn’t bother to ask the other two what they thought they saw, and they didn’t ask him. Raj, he figured, was most likely in a state of shock, and Henry and he weren’t going to dwell on something they couldn’t explain. Things don’t come out of the fog, and if they do, they don’t come out of the sky on the eighty-sixth floor.

Having been the first back into the stairwell Nate was the first to the Titan floor door. He pulled the handle open without hesitation, took two steps in, and froze. He felt the wood of Raj’s axe handle press into his back as Raj ran into him, taken by the same shock.

The door Nate opened didn’t open to the eighty-fifth floor, not to the Marketing department, or the conference room on the other side, or to the waiting Iona, Deidra, or Lisa. The door opened to the blood-stained cafeteria and the cluster of tentacles meticulously inspecting the center of the room.

“This can’t be,” Raj said.

Nate pushed him back and then pivoted to get through the door. “Go, go, go.”

They scurried down the misty stairs again, this time Henry leading the way, and when they reached the next flight, he peeked in and gave the other two a reassuring nod before fully opening the door.

Why did the screams come afterward? Nate thought again. Now it made sense, except it didn’t make sense. They—Rob and Terry and Bruce—had probably run to escape the cafeteria and had landed back into the trap. It made sense but it didn’t make sense.

This time they weren’t on the floor of the cafeteria, but they weren’t on the eighty-fifth floor either. The glass walls were sloped up to the open floor above and to the floor below, three flights combined, their levels intermingled.

“Where are we?” Nate asked. “This can’t be the eighty-fourth floor.”

“No,” Henry said. “A hundred and first. We’re on the observation level.”

“No escape,” Raj said.

“What’s that?” Nate asked.

“We’re in Naraka.”

“Naraka?”

“Naraka is Hindi, it’s like the western purgatory, or hell. There is no escape. Our souls were sent here to make amends for our sins.”

“You don’t seriously believe in that?” Nate asked.

“Look.” Raj gestured over the railing to the rolling mist on the level below. The mist filled an alcove in a swirl and then dissipated, leaving in its place the blurred figure of a person, of a man or a woman, Nate couldn’t be sure. The near transparent figure appeared to wrestle with its surroundings, as if the air around it was crushing the creature. A muffled faraway scream echoed off the high-sloped glass from no particular direction, and the misting fog enveloped the shadow of a being as both faded to nothing.

“You see?” Raj said. “You don’t have to believe.”

* * *

The stairwell was different than the day before, the mist no longer a floating vapor, rather a hanging cloud. They didn’t have to travel far, one floor at a time was suffice to end up anywhere, and it didn’t seem to matter if they ascended or descended because the floor the door opened up to would be the luck of the draw. They went as high as the observation deck and as low as the forty-third, twenty stories at a time, never traveling more than a flight between doors. Nate and Henry were the only ones focused on their search for…well, first for a way out, and then for food, and then just searching. Nate thought he heard some people behind the doors more than once, but the floors were always empty, of people anyway. Of living people.

They didn’t return to the cafeteria, or to the Titan offices on the eighty-fifth floor. They came across the tentacles again though, in other places, and other things, glimmers, things they didn’t stick around to investigate. Some of the floors, where the glass walls had shattered and the mist was fuller, were too unsettling to step through. Objects hung midair, suspended for no reason, not flying, not falling, simply arrested in place—a phone, trash bins, a family photo from someone’s desk hanging in an aisle, the glass punched out of the frame, all floating. And those floors—maybe due to the air, the altitude, or the pressure—were a physical struggle of vertigo and nausea.

Raj was an incessantly chatting shadow. Repeating nonsense about Naraka and purgatory and hell and demons and apologies—Nate tuned him out and moved him along.

They found a jackpot of food on a floor where the word Wonderco was painted in red across a yellow wall by the elevator, a dot-com, Nate figured, because the entire place was painted in festival colors. There were beanbags and air cushions, and a huge pantry with a dry cereal and fruit buffet where huge plastic containers of rainbow-colored Fruity Pebbles, granola, cornflakes, and M&Ms hung in a row, beside bowls of bananas, apples, and oranges. Only a few days old, the fruit was a bounty, as was the refrigerator full of Parmalat. The fridge was out but the small cartons of long life milk didn’t need refrigeration to stay fresh. In the cupboards below, Nate found five plastic wrapped yellow backpacks with the Wonderco logo printed across the top. He pulled them out, tossed them on the counter. The three feasted on the milk and fruit and cornflakes while Henry and Nate stuffed the packs with what food they could carry.

When they were done they rested on the beanbags.

Raj began to snore as soon as his head was down.

“It’s the stress,” Henry said.

“You don’t really think he’s coming back?” Nate asked.

“Oh, no. I just meant that the stress wore on him quickly.”

“And you?”

Henry pursed his lips and Nate couldn’t help but think that rather than spitting out the truth, the man was sizing up an answer to fit the situation. “I think I see what you’re getting at. Who in their right mind wouldn’t be stressed? Stress can’t be avoided, but I don’t think that we, the two of us, are that different in terms of stress.”

Nate scooted down and back into the huge beanbag pillow. He grinned at Henry and then said, “I just wanted to start my new job.”

“I’m sure you did. But that’s what I mean. The stress is a tool, a vehicle to go forward,” Henry glanced at Raj, snorting air in through his nose, “not a place to check out.”

“Checking out isn’t all that bad. I mean, if you can’t go back. He’s never seen anything…” Nate caught himself. He didn’t want to share too much. Not that he saw that as an issue with Henry, he just didn’t want to go there, to that place. “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

“I agree,” Henry said. “I’m glad we found food. I’ll feel better when we get some to the others, and best when we get out of here.”

* * *

Not once in the next week did Nate return to the eighty-fifth floor. He, Henry, and Raj did stumble into the cafeteria on eighty-six three more times, but that was as close as they ever got to returning to the coworkers they’d left behind. When they came across the cafeteria they took what they could carry and moved on; it didn’t matter if it was a ‘blood floor.’ By this time they’d found that there were a lot of blood floors.

More and more the stairwell doors opened to floors that were missing outer walls, entire panes of the thick glass torn from the building’s side. There were more floors where the rules of physics didn’t apply, where objects hung midair, as did the sounds of doors opening, slamming shut, of laughter, and screams, the origins of all unfound. Nate discovered these odd floors—too unsettling to enter in the first days—were good for water, because for whatever reason the faucets in the bathrooms still worked, the toilets still flushed. He became so quickly accustomed to the weird physics that he would set his things next to him in midair without even thinking about it. He’d set his razor on an invisible counter while he shaved, let his paper cutter sword suspend while he went through the drawers of a desk. He became so used to the lack of ‘normal’ that when he was on a normal floor he would forget himself and do the same, only to find his blade or other object let loose and fall to the floor.

They weren’t moving floor to floor as rapidly as they did the first few days. There wasn’t much point in rushing, and not every floor had food. There was a day when every door opened to mirrored sets of cubicles, row upon row of empty workspaces, and nothing else. They spent an entire day without food and water. They almost lost Raj that day, so their habits changed. If they found a floor with a pantry or any food at all, they stayed for a while.

Raj listened and did what he was told, but no longer conversed, merely mumbled to himself, more so when he was upset. Henry was good for conversation, if there was anything to talk about, but there usually wasn’t. There hadn’t been anything new to discuss for days, days delineated by the shades of gray gleam emitting from the shrouding creamy mist.

Hunger wasn’t the greatest risk. There were other things they’d encountered that were far worse. There were the upper floors—that they could walk into from below—with the little bubbles of shifting reality. There was the hive floor. Spooked from a floor, they traversed the stairwell in the dark, opened a door, and were attacked by a swarm, a flock of flying blue eels. Henry, the last off the floor, took the brunt of the attack, his yellow Wonderco shoulder pack was near shredded as he squeezed out the door. Of these though, the tentacle creatures hiding, prowling in the mist were the greater risk of all. Any open windowed floor meant the potential wriggle then lash. And they weren’t all little arms like those they first saw on eighty-six. There were greater creatures out there, creatures with pipes for limbs, creatures that could smash a man to paste and then spread him jam and butter onto every surface of a room. They’d seen the remains on the blood floors and had near encounters more than once. Had seen the long arms probing through the length of a room when they peeked inside. The creatures were a constant danger. Nate, Henry, and Raj moved slowly between floors. They were prey.

And they were on the move again, wary of whatever may be on the prowl.

They were on one of the odd floors. There was cereal again—not in bins though—in little boxes with cartoon characters on the front. The milk cartons in the glass door cooler were foul, but they’d stretched the Parmalat and had plenty left. The next time he came across Parmalat, that was all Nate planned to carry. He was leaning back against the counter, a bowl of milk-covered Raisin Bran in his hand, his jaw machine grinding each bite. He was watching Raj.

Raj was sitting at one of the two small café tables to the side of the pantry, twirling an apple from one hand to another with the tips of his fingers, a waxed apple that appeared as if it could’ve been plucked from the orchard that morning. Raj was mumbling almost to an audible level, but it was what Nate deemed a happy mumble. He wondered if Raj saw an apple or a ball. He’d wait a moment and then tell him to eat. Raj moved better if he ate. Henry was rifling through the pantry’s top cupboards. Nate was used to this too, Henry’s search for something more than there was to offer.

“I’ll be,” Henry said.

Nate’s eyes rolled far right to see what Henry had discovered. It was a forest green cube tin. “What you have there?” Nate asked, though he was already aware of what was inside. One of his buddies had a tin like that, though he stored a different loose leaf inside.

“This,” Henry said, holding the tin high, “you cannot get stateside.” Nate noticed the tin was still plastic sealed. “Somebody brought this treasure here, special.”

“Well, there ya go,” Nate said. “It’s yours now.”

Henry gave the tin a closer inspection. “It’s mine now,” he agreed.

“How you going to heat it?”

“We’ll find a way. It won’t go to waste, I assure you. In fact, I think I may have a cup now.” He knelt down and opened a lower cupboard door. “And bingo.” He slid a full case of Sterno from the middle shelf. Nate tried to recall a smile on Henry’s face before this one. Another first.

A crash from the outer office stole the smile from Henry. Something heavy met the floor, a phone, or perhaps a monitor. Nate froze, the plastic spoon pinched snug between his thumb and fingers, hanging three inches from his mouth. He didn’t breathe. Another crash, definitely something flung from a desk.

Nate maneuvered the paper cereal bowl around to the counter and swapped it for his paper cutter machete.

Raj stared at Nate in wait for instructions to flee. He no longer twirled the apple. His fingertips pressed into the table; his hands were claws.

Henry gently, quietly, pressed the Sterno back into the cupboard.

Nate pressed a hand forward toward Raj, and then nodded to Henry, one gesture to remain, the other to follow. Henry held a butcher knife he’d retrieved from another office pantry. Not much of an arsenal, but Nate’s plan wasn’t to fight. He just wanted to see what was out there, because if one of those tentacle creatures loomed nearby he and Henry were going the other way.

The pantry was in the midst of a work area, two partitions and a café centrally located. The racket traveled from the other side of the partition, toward the corner. That was good. Nate wanted a peek, and if there was trouble, he’d grab Raj and head toward the stairwell door in the other direction.

He walked lightly yet held his blade high, ready to swing heavy. He approached the end of the pantry, prepared to round the corner, and then leaned forward, the cutter high behind his ear.

Another crash.

Nate froze.

He sucked a silent breath through his nose, and let his weight rest on his forward left foot. He leaned further in.

He expected to see the wavering mist, the fog, coursing across the carpeted floor, over the work tables, exploring, and from the thick creamy cotton haze a tentacle, probing, prowling.

But when Nate leaned forward that’s not what he found.

There was no mist stealing in from the corner of the floor, no break in the outer wall they’d missed, no tentacle exploring the surface of the tables.

There was something else.

There was someone else, a woman in a black dress. She was straightening the fabric, stretching the hem of the material down, and then she began to rake her fingers through her hair.

Slowly he lowered the cutter to his side and rolled his head around his neck, in awe of the stranger. Henry joined him by his side, and he too stilled upon seeing the woman.

“Terry?” Henry asked. But the Marketeer in the cocktail dress said nothing.

* * *

Nate had spent a day with Terry. That was all, one day, a lifetime ago. But once Henry mentioned her name, he recognized the young woman—her hourglass body, jet-black hair up in a bun before, now fallen to her shoulders. Her arms floated away from her hair and face, as if she was unaware of their presence. She didn’t set eyes on them. Nate was deciding if she was catatonic, as Raj had become. It was possible she’d been alone since leaving the eighty-fifth floor. Or maybe this was a ruse and she was aiming to flee.

She may’ve been ignoring them altogether, unsure if they were even real.

A rattle to Nate’s right caused her to stiffen.

He swung his head in time to see a pencil cup fall to the carpeted floor and gently roll to a stop.

She wasn’t ignoring them. There was something else on the floor, hidden from where Nate stood.

Nate’s eyes darted to either side of the room and then he slowly cranked his neck to peek toward the stairwell.

Slinking over the plain table desks was a single probing tentacle. He marveled at how long the arm must be, extending forty feet at least, yet only the fine tip explored the surface of the table, delicately swiveling around the lamp, the phone, sliding an abandoned legal pad to the edge and onto the floor with the cup.

The tentacle reached back to the exits, yet he saw no trace of mist to detail exactly from where the creature was entering. They could possibly go to the wall. This was an open floor with no outer suites and on arrival they’d found no glass disturbed—but that may’ve changed. Maybe they could wait it out, keep moving around the edges, outmaneuver the probing arm and make their exit in a loop. But there may be another and they would succumb to a trap.

A flush of heat filled Nate as his blood began to pump adrenalin.

He glanced at Henry. The Brit gave a nod down the aisle toward the stairwell, and Nate was glad for it. Best to scope the way out first. He repeated his gestures to Raj and Henry—remain and follow—and then he began to heel-toe forward, his cutter raised high in his leading right hand, poised to strike.

With a few short steps he was parallel to the tip of the creature.

Nate gave a hard look at the rows of tiny serrated suction cups lining the bottom half of the wriggling limb. The blood red tentacle appeared not to notice him.

He glanced back at Terry. She was watching his progression. The light behind her eyes let him know she was still very much there. He gave her a soft smile and she responded in kind. On that sole day they spent in the conference room she’d only had a stern look on her face. Annoyed her phone wasn’t working, that her plans were disturbed, that she was forced into the company of the others. The face she wore now was of a changed woman. Nate peeked to the tentacle, back to her, and signaled with his free hand for her to come. He sent the same signal to Raj and then raised his index finger to his mouth.

Henry stopped so that Terry and Raj could slip into line while Nate led the way.

And the way was slow. The four continued to the exit, Nate, Terry, Raj, and Henry silently hugging the shadowed wall as they went. Breathing as lightly as possible, taking gentle steps as the red writhing rope width of monster flesh running beside them continued to slither further into the room.

When Nate reached the edge of the interior wall, he saw the entry point of the invading beast. The incredibly lengthy probe stemmed from a misty floor vent.

He stopped and peeked around the wall to see if there were any other uninvited guests waiting for them. There weren’t. Their way to the door was clear.

Nate turned back to the three, tilted his head to the entrance, and mouthed, “Let’s go.”

His head wasn’t fully back forward when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Raj drop his shiny waxed apple. Nate’s face must’ve been telltale because he saw his horror reflected in Terry’s. She spun in time for both to see Henry’s fingers lunging, clutching for Raj’s pack as the out of sorts man bent toward the desk for the rolling apple.

And then Raj bumped the desk.

The response of the tentacle was immediate.

Henry spun left and dropped down to avoid the recoil of the three meters of whip bearing toward him, the butcher knife blocking his face.

Raj was too late to react. By the time he screamed he was thrashed above Nate and Terry and slammed in between the ceiling above and desks below. The scream ceased on impact.

In the instant the beast had sprung to life Nate had pushed his back into the wall. What had been Raj was a pasted jelly. Nate’s eyes darted the length of the tentacle. The root of the arm near the vent undulated in a short arc. If he acted, he could get close. If he didn’t, they were next.

With one liquid motion he launched himself from the end of the wall and thrust his paper cutter blade down through the crimson flesh of the beast.

A thunderous shriek echoed up through the floor as both ends of cut tentacle began to spout fountains of blood.

The tentacle was cut but there were four meters of length to the vent. Nate began hacking wildly, working to move closer to the source.

From the vent the tip of another tentacle began to creep through. Nate wanted to get closer but his fight with the wounded limb kept him at bay.

Then to his left flew a chair, and then another. He looked over to see Terry franticly throwing whatever furniture she could lift. They were on the offensive.

Invigorated, he swung the blade down harder, hitting his mark and hacking two feet off at a time, making his way toward the second tentacle.

Then he saw Henry.

Using a flat panel monitor as a shield, he rolled up to the vent and with one slash, severed the two limbs clean at the grate.

Nate rushed over to help Henry flip a table upside down on the vent. Then they slid the nearby copy machine to the table and pushed the heavy box on its side.

His arms, shirt, and Men’s Wearhouse khakis were coated in blood. And so were Henry’s. Terry somehow escaped the worst of the fount.

“What now?” Terry asked.

“Well,” Nate said, “we’ll find a floor with running water. Clean up.”

She nodded and brought the back of her hand across the bridge of her nose. “That’ll be good.”

“First though, I think we should eat. I haven’t had meat in weeks.”

Henry grinned. “I’ll get the Sterno.”

* * *

It took another week to find a floor with running water. It was, of course, one of the floors where physics didn’t matter. The floor had an executive gym, which meant showers, and showers with enough force to propel water down, so even with objects floating and suspended the three of them reveled in properly cleaning themselves and their clothes.

Nate finished and dressed before the others. The changing area reminded him of places he’d only seen in movies. The lockers were hardwood, not metal, and mosaic tile covered the walls. It was a comforting place and he decided he’d rather wait there than out on the odd floor. He sat at the end of the dark lacquered wooden bench with his back to the wall, one arm on his knees, one hand playing with a suspending piece of glass, twirling the jagged shard midair. On a bench next to him was a Sony Walkman, not an iPod or an mp3 player or even a Discman, but an old Walkman, plugged into a wall charger. He grinned and picked up the old tape player to examine it, but the cord wasn’t long enough to pull over so he reached to unplug it. That’s when he saw that the green light of the charger was on.

He looked up at the nonfunctioning lights and began to question how the outlet could work and then remembered that objects floated here. This was an odd floor.

He slid the old headphones onto his head and hit the eject button to spy the cassette—a no brand mixed tape. He slapped the tape back in, pushed play, and watched it through the small plastic window. The tape began to turn on its spindle. At first there was only the fizzy sound of static and he thought the antique was a piece a junk. Then, with a breath of new life, the ostinato of Zeppelin’s Kashmir burst into his brain. A grin crept across his face as he stood and clipped the silver plastic box to his waist. With a swagger, he set out to patrol the echoing halls of suspended glass, rolling his shoulders to the beat, the two-foot paper cutter blade tapping the side of his leg as he walked.

As he exited the gym a thirty-foot tentacle struck out of the mist with lighting ferocity.

Instinctively, so did he.

* * *

Hugh Howey Lives

Originally published by Holt Smith ltd

FOUR

When Sebastian led them into the second floor dining room, Tia was immediately taken with the dark mahogany paneling. Even with her rare access to the most exclusive resorts, she had never seen a structure so flamboyantly resourced, for so few. Full wooden structures such as the pine log lodges of Aspen were rare. Wood paneling was a flex of wealth of the type that her father and his friends frowned upon. Her family was fortunate to have survived times when wealth was dangerous. It was better to be subtle. That was one of the reasons her father loved the sailboat, “An excuse to be surrounded by wood,” he said, “without flaunting.”

But the paneling was not the only thing special in the room. The far wall to her right, and the arched ceiling above, were paned with the same durable glass-like transparency as the greenhouse walls of the university’s botanical garden. The thickness of the panes and the darkness of the night hid the weather beyond in a black void. If not for the heavy rivulets running down the frames and the remote flash of electric cyan that filled the sky when they entered, she would have thought the storm had passed. Wide palm fronds sprung from tall corner vases and were positioned high in such a way that they appeared to hold up the ceiling. The centerpiece of the room was the dining table. Though not unique, it was impressive, a long table, mahogany like the paneling, surrounded by a dozen brown high back leather chairs, and in them, their waiting hosts.

Kay leaned into Tia’s ear. “It’s The Dining Room.”

“What?”

“The Dining Room,” she repeated. “It’s from another story.”

“No, no. I know what—”

“I present Miss Tia and Miss Kay,” Sebastian said.

Four men and six women rose from their seats at the table to face the two women. Bill was standing across the table, in the middle. Only he and the silver-haired woman at the far head of the table to the right offered anything close to a smile. The others held expressions that ranged from inquisitive to objectively observant to downright bothered.

A gaunt, grey-haired man raised a cloth napkin to his mouth in a poor attempt to hide his whispers to the younger woman next to him. The woman wore an aubergine hijab over her head. She was one of the group peering at the two girls with a bothered stare. Tia was sure the comment was about her and Kay’s appearance. Everyone at the table was dressed for dinner. Tia and Kay were in light blouses and capris. Except for a long-sleeved thermal and some undergarments, that’s all they’d bothered to pack. Tia slid her right foot behind her left. She wanted to drop her gaze toward the floor. Etiquette stopped her.

The silver-haired woman at the head of the table must have sensed her discomfort. “Please, come sit next to me,” she said, gesturing to the two empty chairs to her left. “You have to excuse us. It’s been so long since we’ve had visitors.” The woman’s dark eyes darted a silent scolding to the others at the table, and then went pleasantly back to Tia and Kay.

The message made clear, the others began to smile and nod.

The woman gestured for Kay to take the seat to her left.

“Thank you,” Kay said.

Tia nodded as well. She waited behind the second chair for the others to retake their seats. Bill stood next to the woman across from her, and when her eyes met his, she caught his subtle wink and nod, a signal to go ahead and sit. When Tia lowered herself into the chair, the others sat and resumed their conversations. The waft of humanity allowed Tia to breathe a bit easier. She was accustomed to formal dinners, but felt uncomfortable because she and Kay essentially forced their invitation by what her mother would have called ‘dropping in unannounced.’ In the back of her mind, her mother and a long list of nannies were making that face between a frown and a smile.

At least Kay was by her side.

Tia may have been raised at these tables, but Kay was far more at ease. After they were seated, Kay placed her right hand onto the hand of the silver-haired woman. “Thank you so much for the hospitality,” she said in a calm, soothing tone. “Your house is so beautiful.”

“Oh, the—” the woman began to say, obviously taken by Kay.

“The room is wonderful,” Kay said, “the bath is wonderful.”

The woman appeared, not surprised, but curious, and elated at once. Kay could do that to people, Tia thought. Put them under a spell.

Kay continued, “And we’re especially grateful that you let us in without knowing us.”

Tia placed her hand on Kay’s thigh.

Kay’s head pivoted around to catch Tia’s waiting smile. “Thank you for helping us,” Kay finished softly.

Tia thought the woman’s dark eyes were about to tear. The woman was had clearly been handsome in her youth, and though the hair that must have once been raven black was now silver, her elegance remained. She gazed at Kay for a long moment and then smiled again, slid her hand out from under, and then patted the top of Kay’s. “You’re quite welcome,” she said. “My name is Allegra. Allegra Acardi. To my right is Connie Cortez, Susan Chan. You’ve met Bill. Next to him are Monica Wynn, and at the end of the table is Hector Vazquez. Across from him is Quentin Mills, Zaynah Ahmad, Walter Cain—”

“Doctor Cain, if you please,” the gaunt, grey-haired man abruptly said.

The woman next to Tia leaned into her and, in a tone mocking Doctor Cain said, “We’re all doctors here. I am Doctor Fukai, but please,” she smiled widely, “call me Emma.”

“Doctor Cain stands on tradition,” added Bill, “and we give him that. The rest of us are a bit more casual. Imagine how monotonous it would be if we all greeted each other on this small island as Doctor.” His eyes darted to Allegra. “Would you agree, Doctor?”

Kay let free a giggle, infecting the others around Tia—Connie, Susan, and Emma. Allegra kept decorum, and Tia and Kay composed themselves to follow their host’s lead.

“You’re all doctors,” Tia said. “So this is not a resort?”

“Oh, no,” Allegra said. “This is a research station, and as I said before, we don’t receive that many visitors.”

“I apologize that we came unannounced.” There, Tia said it, though Kay already thanked them, the weight was heavy.

“Almost met you with a missile,” Doctor Cain said.

“Oh.” Tia was unable to hide the alarm on her face.

Allegra frowned. “We’ve been monitoring your transponder since early this morning. We thought you might be coming to investigate the issues we’ve been having with one of the turbines.”

“We saw one of the turbines was stalled when we arrived, but we didn’t see them on the geocom.”

“You wouldn’t have seen them. We keep the turbines masked from the geocom to avoid attracting scavengers, and only a few restricted Elleron systems monitor their performance.”

“And ours was not one of those,” Kay said.

“Yet you were in an Elleron craft. Caught us off guard. Initially we were confused as to why a repair craft wasn’t announced, or a shuttle flown in, and then when we saw your speed and realized that you weren’t a repair corvette, we thought you might be—” Allegra raised her brow.

“A scavenger corsair,” Tia said. “Yes, I apologize. I do see the confusion now. You see, we didn’t realize you were even here.”

Kay shook her head. “I don’t understand the confusion. You thought we were a repair ship because of our transponder?”

“Our boat’s transponder and our geocom are in the company’s name,” explained Tia. “We appear on geocom as an Elleron craft. Scavengers use sailing corsairs to go undetected in open water and often use stolen transponders to get near an occupied area.”

“You’re lucky our defense system didn’t kick in,” Doctor Cain muttered, “you shouldn’t be out so far.”

“Again, we’re sorry,” Tia said. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

Allegra peered bitterly toward Doctor Cain, and then said kindly, “To have you and your friend here, even by happenstance, Miss Elleron, is a treat for us all.”

Bill raised his glass of wine. “Hear, hear. To new friends.”

The others raised their glasses, waited for Tia and Kay to do the same, and then a cascade of “Cheers” rounded the table.

“This is lovely,” Tia said, and sipped more red wine from her glass.

“Thank you,” Hector said from the end of the table. “I grow the grapes myself, on the south slope.”

Kay added, “It’s different than any wine I’ve ever tasted. The aromas are lovely. The bouquet is fascinating.”

“Be careful,” Connie said. “If you encourage him, he will be forced to tell you that it’s the soil carried on the wind from Africa.” She moved her right hand slowly across her plate, fluttering her fingers.

Kay lifted her glass to see into the wine. “That’s what adds that dirt pie aftertaste.” And Tia was certain she meant it.

Susan held her forearm at forty-five degrees. “If you ask, he’ll tell you it’s the angle of the south slope that adds the hint of fruit.”

Tia sipped from her glass again. She tasted the soil she did not notice before. She was raised around fine wine yet only could tell the difference by color. Her Kay was a self-taught connoisseur, an autodidact in all things.

“I think it’s great you make your own wine,” Kay said. “You’d be challenged to find any real wine at the university. We only have cheap sake at best.”

Hector shrugged. “We are rather self-sufficient here. My colleagues are right, though, I know everything about Connie’s kumquats, and she in turn knows the secrets of my vines.”

“Well, I still think this is nice.”

“Then you won’t be disappointed here,” Doctor Cain said. “Perhaps Miss Elleron can tell us what she and her friend are doing so far out. With the current weather, this is a two-day sail from New Miami. Not a very safe distance with scavengers about, and the storm.”

“A pleasure cruise, really,” Tia said. “The storm was supposed to be going out, and I didn’t think about scavengers.”

Three syns, Model Seven servers, smaller and more petite in design than Sebastian, entered from the side of the dining room. They each carried a covered serving tray. In unison, they placed the trays on the table, removed the lids, and began to serve.

“Though we still take the necessary precautions, scavengers haven’t been seen in these parts in years,” Allegra said. “But the storm is a real concern. I’m afraid you’ll be our guests for the next few days.”

“Really,” Kay said. “That long?”

“Your boat will be safe in the lagoon. You won’t want to go out on the open water though. You can contact your family to let them know you’ll be all right. Apart from that, I’m afraid we don’t connect to the outside, unless there is a true emergency.”

Kay frowned.

“It’s because of our research,” added Allegra. “You understand, of course.”

“Believe me,” Kay said. “This is a great place to be holed up, it’s just that…”

“Just what, dear?”

“Kay’s tablet fell victim to the rain,” Tia said, “and she was hoping to access her backup in the Archive.”

“No problem,” Bill said. “We have access to the Archive. You’re free to use one of our tablets in the library.”

“You have a library?” Kay asked.

“Certainly,” Bill said, “actually, that’s the kind of research we do in the Calypso Project. We work in publishing.”

“I knew it,” Kay said.

“Knew what, dear?” Allegra asked.

Tia smiled. “Kay has this crazy idea that Hugh Howey lives out here, and is still writing books. Can you imagine that, Hugh Howey alive, writing books?”

Conversation at the table stopped. Allegra’s face became stern, her peering eyes fixed toward, almost through her, in an intense glare. Tia realized she said something terribly wrong.

“You said you didn’t realize we were even here,” Allegra finally said.

“No,” Tia said. “We didn’t.”

“She didn’t believe me,” Kay said. “I found the clues.”

“The clues?” Allegra asked.

A syn placed a bowl of vegetable soup on Tia’s plate. “Thank you,” she said. “Kay has this idea that this author, Hugh Howey, has left bread crumbs in his books, leading to this island.”

Quentin, the round-faced portly man at the end of the table, chuckled aloud and then simply said, “Clues in books.”

Allegra looked long at Quentin, nodded slowly, and then returned to her kind demeanor. “Young people,” she said. “You are the future. Let’s eat our dinner. Shall we?”

FIVE

Tia didn’t remember walking up to the top of the mountain, but there they were, her and Kay, fingers interlocked, hands swaying forward and back, laughing as they did on their strolls along the New Miami Boardwalk. They weren’t on the boardwalk. They weren’t in New Miami at all. They’d hiked up beyond the manor, to the top of the island. The mountaintop was lit up by small fires that spat from openings in the rocks around them. The night sky was starless, a blanket of void. Kay was giggling. Tia said something funny. She could not remember what she said. She could not remember saying anything.

That was not all.

Kay’s laughter was silent. Everything was silent, except for a faint drumming. Kay’s face went blank, and the drumming became louder. It seemed to be coming from all sides. Kay’s eyes darted around to find the source. She looked worried. Tia’s chest tightened. She squeezed her hand, yet Kay’s slipped away. Kay spun to her side, searching, and then to the other. Tia could not move. She could only watch as Kay stepped back. Kay was scanning the night, the darkness. Tia reached for her, to grab her, to keep her from wandering. She swiped, yet her lover was out of reach. Kay froze, and then slowly hunched forward, ready to pounce, as if she sensed something in the darkness that Tia could not see. Tia tried to call out. Nothing. Her jaw was loose, empty.

And then Kay launched herself into the blackness and was gone.

The light of the fires faded, disappeared. Darkness enveloped the flames, enveloped her, held her, pulled her down onto her side. Tia rolled her head to one side, and then to the other, searching for Kay. And then she saw a series of faint blue pulses. She reached out again and this time she felt something, something in the darkness. Warmth. A soft warmth, a surface, the warmth of a sheet, and then as her hand slid up, the edge of a pillow.

She let her eyelids slip open.

A strobe of electric blue filled the suite. Kay, no longer in the bed next to her, was at the window.

The flashes of lightning appeared constant, and the thunder, silent earlier in the evening, was no longer muffled, the glass of the wall in their suite different from that of the dining room.

Tia ran her tongue across her lips in a failed attempt to moisten them, and then with a rasp said, “You’re awake.”

Kay’s stare, the one she wore when writing, was fixed out the glass wall. “I couldn’t sleep. It’s as if the storm found us and is hovering here.”

Tia pushed herself up to her elbow and stretched her right arm toward the bottle of water on the nightstand. She looked for Kay’s tablet, curious if she was writing, but it was too dark for her to see. After wetting her mouth, she said, “It just seems like it. This is an island, high ground. We’ll be fine.”

“Still,” Kay said. “It’s like one of his books.”

“It’s too late for that. C’mon back to bed.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“You’re still thinking about that library.”

“Can you believe how many books they have? Two stories, floor to ceiling, and hardcover, not vending machine printed paperback, hardcover. I’ve never seen so many. Tell me you’ve never seen so many.”

Tia sighed. Apparently, it wasn’t too late for this conversation. Of course, Kay was right.

“I’ve never seen so many either,” Tia said. “They’re doing publishing research, they have a lot of books.”

“But what does that mean, publishing research?”

“I would bet that they are studying algorithms.”

“Remember how Bill called it the Calypso Project?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Do you remember the story of Calypso?”

“No. Not really.”

“Calypso was a nymph who lived on the island of Ogygia.”

Tia replied through a yawn, “Okay.”

“Calypso kept Odysseus on that island to make him her immortal husband.”

“That’s creepy. Come back to bed.”

“Did you see how they all froze up when you mentioned his name?”

“Sure.” Tia sat up and let her feet drop to the floor. The bamboo flooring was warm, and though she was only in panties and a light shirt, the room was comfortable. “They were probably surprised that you were so quick to see through them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, experts like to believe they are fooling everybody. They were obviously shocked to discover a reader was able to track them down. I have to admit I thought you were seeing things, but it all makes sense.”

Kay turned her head to Tia. “You mean you believe me now? You finally believe that Hugh stopped sailing and set up here?”

“I believe that the Archive starts with seed stories, and that they can only work with the data that’s input, rearranging it to create thousands of stories. You said yourself, the longitude, latitude, the island, even the manor has all been reused. You noticed. That’s all I’m saying. I’m sure it freaks them out that amount of detail has slipped into the books and if someone reads enough they’re able to see the flaw. That’s why I like the puzzle books. At least they’re straightforward.”

Kay shifted her gaze back out to the rain. “I think he’s here.”

Tia stood up, pressed her body to Kay’s back, and then wrapped her arms around her. “I know you do.”

She moved Kay’s ponytail to the side, kissed her neck, and then rested her chin on her shoulder.

“You’re watching the lightning?”

“I’m looking at that glass dome across the courtyard. Somebody is moving around down there.”

Tia stretched to peer out. A number of glass buildings that were hidden earlier by the rain were lit in the night, and one of them, a rising bubble across the courtyard, was a large glass dome. It couldn’t be missed, a glass-paned structure as high as their room. “I see a couple figures,” Tia said. “I’m sure it’s the syns. They don’t need to sleep, you know.”

“I know,” Kay said. “I thought that too. But I was also thinking they don’t need the light.”

“Hmm. You’re right. That is odd.”

“I want to go see what’s going on.”

“You want to go snooping around? I’m serious, you need to come back to bed.”

Kay spun around, nose to nose with Tia. “C’mon. Let’s get dressed.” The pitch in Kay’s voice was unmistakable. She’d already made up her mind.

Kay gave Tia a quick smooch and then moved toward their clothes.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Tia said. “We’re guests, remember? Uninvited guests. Uninvited guests with nowhere to go in this storm.”

Kay grabbed her capris from the other bed and began to wriggle them on. “Well, I’m going.”

Tia was certain of that, certain that if Kay were drawn to something, she would have to go. She would go. She was courageous enough to go.

“You’re going to get us into trouble,” Tia said.

“You know you want to come with me.”

There was truth in what Kay said. Tia’s upbringing was privileged, but it was also regimented. Her childhood memories were made up of a series of nannies veering her course into the ‘correct direction’. Except for Sara, the one caregiver who let her try new things. Kay reminded her of Sara. From the first day they met. Neither of the two came from any such structure. Kay, like Sara, was her own woman. Against odds, she made it out of the outskirts of New Miami and all the way to the university. And she wanted to, no, was going to be, a writer, a vocation no parents, no structured upbringing, would allow.

Tia took her capris from the bed. If Kay was going to go, she wasn’t going alone.

SIX

The tiny crystal LEDs that lined the ceiling of the hall glowed the same low amber hue as the small mountaintop fires Tia saw in her dream. The subtle gleam of the lights teased her waking eyes, adding distance to the already long corridor. Her body was still half asleep, and if Kay would’ve come back to bed, Tia would have drifted off without another thought. Instead, she was pushing herself to keep up, swinging her arms front to back as she walked, pumping them, to keep her stride even with Kay’s.

“What’s your hurry?” Tia asked in a hushed voice.

“No hurry,” Kay said. She slid a sly grin toward Tia, but her eyes beamed forward, locked on her purpose.

“We don’t even know where we’re going,” Tia said. “We haven’t gone down this way before.”

“This place is decorated like a mansion, but it’s really set up like an institution. Right?”

“I guess. I hadn’t thought about it.” Tia wouldn’t have. Kay always let her imagination paint an odd picture. Tia adored that most times.

“I mean it’s like a hotel or a university building,” Kay said.

“Okay. So?”

“So—there should be another staircase near the end of the hall. All we need to do is look for the door.”

“There are a lot of doors.”

“But there will be a door at the end, and when we go down, we should be at the side of the courtyard.”

Tia’s mind was a bit fogged, but that made sense, and at the end of the hall, there were four doors. Without hesitation, Kay went for the closest handle. Tia sucked in a breath and held it as Kay gave it a gentle turn. Tia let the breath out. The door was locked. Kay went to the next. That door opened to stairs.

“See—I told you,” Kay said. “C’mon.”

“You’re lucky we didn’t wake anybody…” Kay was already heading down the stairwell. “And you’re insane,” Tia said, trailing behind.

Two flights down they found a glass door, the entrance to a dark, glass-paned corridor.

“Look,” Kay said, gesturing to the right. “The dome is over there.”

And the dome was to the right, and far more significant at ground level than from their view in the Lassiter Suite.

“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

Kay spun her head back. “Enough.”

Tia wasn’t used to being scolded, certainly not by Kay. But this was Kay’s thing.

The panes in the corridor were made of the same transparent material as those in the dining room, muffling the thunder. The bright bubble of the dome, and the dim light in the main entry hall on the opposite side of the courtyard, were the only beacons in the darkness, except for when the silent arcs of lightning webbed the sky and strobed the high walls of the Manor in white. Tia peered through the torrents of rain in search of the dark balcony they had left but she couldn’t find it. The Lassiter Suite was somewhere in the middle of the large wall, but all of the rooms were dark, indistinguishable. The silhouette of the mountaintop that rose up around them also came into view in the flashes, as well as the other buildings of the compound scattered beyond the corridor. Squinting, she could make out darkened doors, windows, and trees, but nothing else. As they grew closer to the dome, she saw the figures moving around inside. From the bald peach-colored heads, she decided they were syns, as they thought, four of them. They appeared to be pushing tall metal carts into a large white cube in the center of the dome.

The corridor continued beyond the corner of the courtyard on into the night. Tia could not see the end, only darkness. When the flashes came, she could see the huge shadow of another structure through the glass. Kay wasn’t interested in where the corridor led. She veered to the right to the adjacent glass hall, and then boldly pushed through a set of double doors to the connected greenhouse that bordered the courtyard. Tia caught the doors as they slapped back. Kay didn’t wait for her to catch up. The dome was through another set of double doors on the far side of the room, and they were almost there. Tia was glad that they were walking along the courtyard wall. The greenhouse was dark and full of tall, wide plants that appeared to move under the rapid flashes of lightning. Kay seemed not to notice. She didn’t stop until she was outside of the double glass doors of the dome.

Tia grabbed her by her upper arm.

“All right,” she said. “Now that you can see what’s in there, let’s go back.”

“What do you suppose they’re doing?”

“I dunno. Pushing stuff into that storage room.”

“Don’t you think that’s strange? A storage room under a dome?”

“I guess.” Tia let loose of Kay’s arm. She wasn’t sure what she thought was in the cube. Up close, the cube looked huge, at least twenty-feet on all sides, maybe more. She imagined maybe a storeroom with tall shelves full of electronics and stuff, perhaps an elevator bay, which would have made sense.

“There was something like this in Lexica,” Kay said.

“This isn’t a book. They’re liable to catch us.”

Kay leaned her face into the glass. “No way. Syns don’t care about people. They’re old Model Sevens, probably won’t even notice us walking in. Look, those two are leaving out the side. I bet the other two follow in a second.”

Tia guessed Kay’s next words before she said them.

“We’re going in.”

Kay waited for the two syns to leave the cube. This time she grabbed Tia by the arm and leaned her weight on the door. As soon as the two syns left, Kay pushed the doors open and pulled Tia through.

Tia tried to resist but then shuffled her legs to keep up.

The inside of the dome was illuminated bright white. Her eyes followed the curve of the glass-paned wall up to where it disappeared at the top of the cube. She expected to see bedroom lights flicker on across the courtyard as their hosts rallied to round them up, but instead saw only rivers of rain streaming across the panes.

A motion sensor triggered the sliding doors of the huge cube to open.

Kay tugged her inside.

And then they both froze.

She felt Kay’s hand let loose go of her arm and fall away.

For a moment everything fell away.

Tia wasn’t sure what she was seeing.

The room was square, a cube on the inside as it was on the outside.

Silent movies ran across the high sidewalls.

And there, in the center of the room, suspended in a circle of chromed steel, was a man.

His arms reached outward, his legs spread wide, a living depiction of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. A low-hung loincloth draped his waist, and a myriad of tubes pushed and pulled fluids in and out of veins and into the tall metal carts the syns wheeled around. From the base of the man’s skull a cascade of wires and cables flowed down through holes in the floor. His eyes were closed, but in a restful way. In fact, he did not appear to be stressed at all from his suspension.

Tia recognized the man. Not at first, but then she did. He had aged, of course he would have. His body was gaunt, his hairline far receded, and what hair was left was white and thin, except that of his beard, which billowed from his chin and cheeks unfettered. Still she recognized him. Age had not changed him much from the image on the back cover of Kay’s printed books.

Tia began to speak and then realized she was breathless. She gulped in some air and in one release said, “It’s him.”

“I know,” Kay said softly. “It’s Hugh Howey.”

SEVEN

A huge floor-to-ceiling wave washed the left wall, bathing it in aquamarine. Another followed, and then another, and then the image of a ship’s bow, ornate with an intricately carved angel figurehead, filled the wall. Kneeling on the foredeck of the old wooden sailboat, fastening hooks to the jibstay, was a svelte young woman in full body wet gear.

Kay elbowed Tia’s arm. “That’s Cassandra,” she whispered.

“Who?” Tia asked.

“Cassandra at sea. She’s one of Hugh’s characters. She sails around the world in search of adventure.” She turned her head toward the wall to the right. “That’s Lesley. She lives alone on a space station.”

“They’re characters?”

“I think so. So is he, on the back wall, the boy flying in the jetpack, that’s Billy. He’s one of my favorites.”

“Are these movies from the books?”

“I dunno. I don’t remember Billy ever flying with a jetpack, and I’m sure I’ve read all of the Thorne stories.”

“I assure you,” said a man from behind. “You haven’t read that one.”

Startled by the voice, Tia and Kay spun around.

The voice belonged to one of the doctors, the round-faced man who had been seated at the end of the dinner table, far down from Tia. He was wearing a white lab coat and held his hands clasped together in front of him. He rocked slowly on his heels, sizing the girls up.

“Oh,” Tia said. “We’re so sorry, um, Doctor…” Her mind raced through the faces at the table. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

The man smiled. “Doctor Mills. Quentin is fine.”

“We were…we just, well, we got lost.”

“You got lost?”

Tia nodded.

Quentin looked the two over with a playful eye. “At two in the morning?” He grinned. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t?” Kay asked.

“It’s all right. We were going to bring you down here tomorrow anyway. He wanted to meet you.”

Tia and Kay slowly glanced back at the body in the middle of the room.

“Is he sleeping?” Kay asked.

“No, he is always awake.” Quentin strolled up beside them and freed a clasped hand to gesture toward the screens. “He’s writing.”

“But,” Tia said, “he’s, just, I mean…”

“The mind is an incredible thing. Below this room is a bioinformatic system, you know what that is?”

“We have them at the botanical garden.”

“So you’re familiar?”

“The university has an entire greenhouse wired up to our bioinformatic system. Vats of algae producing local Archive memory.”

“Yes, a similar concept. He is linked to a series of greenhouses above and below ground. Except this bioinformatic system is quite unique.”

“The cables,” Kay said. “That’s where they go. He’s hooked up to this? This bioinformatic system?”

“We like to say he’s interfaced.”

“What does that mean?” Kay asked. “Interfaced? He’s accessing the system?”

“It means he is the bioinformatic system.”

“That’s impossible,” Kay said.

“No,” Tia said, “it’s not. You’ve created a hybrid organic computational system.”

“He’s not a hybrid in the sense you’re describing. Hugh is a true bioinformatic system.”

Kay stepped closer to the large wheel. Tia and Quentin followed. On closer observation, Tia could see that Hugh was held up on a large X and not merely hanging from his hands. She peeked around to get a better view of the cables going into his skull. There was not much to see. The back of Hugh’s head rested in a smooth golden bowl and each line, each cable, was fastened to a coupler.

“Those plug into his brain?” she asked.

“In a manner of speaking.”

Tia was unsure what to make of their discovery, but Kay was beyond that already.

Kay wasn’t timid. Her intrigue surpassed her surprise.

Tia was composed on the outside, but inside she was trembling. She kept her composure because that’s how she was taught. Her demeanor was required by her lineage, but she did not have the…sobriety. Yes, that was what Kay possessed that she did not. There was composure and then there was sobriety. Kay possessed the sobriety to pull herself from an emotive, reactive state to study a situation, analyze it.

And she was doing that now.

Kay circled Hugh. She moved in closer to examine his stillness and contrasted it with the activity on the walls around them. Her eyes darted between him and the huge images. As a way of confirming her own observation, she began her line of inquiry by repeating Quentin. “He’s writing,” she said.

“Yes,” Quentin said.

She went toward the back wall and pointed up at the twelve-foot Billy. “And we’re watching it.”

“Yes.”

She spun back and waved her hand wide. “All of these?”

“And more.”

A wide smile crept across Kay’s face. She peered at Tia. “I told you he wrote his own books.” She peered into Quentin’s eyes. “So he is really in there?”

Quentin gestured to the screen behind her. Billy was gone. Replaced by the youthful face of Hugh Howey, eyes twinkling, smile charming.

“Oh,” Kay said. “He was such a handsome man.”

The tall avatar image of Hugh glanced down at her, and said, “Thank you.”

Lesley Smith

The Soulless: A History of Zombieism in Chiitai and Mihari Culture

Monsters exist in all cultures but the zombie — a Terran designation referring to re-animated corpses popularised in local media towards the end of the pre-Contact period—is a prevalent one. The Union has its monsters and medical science is often to blame, as is the case with the Soulless.

What began as an attempt to end a terrible war decimating the Chiitai Conglomeration would ultimately be used by the Mihari Empire in its own machinations for power across the known galaxy, the ripples still affecting both Union and non-Union worlds alike.

A Medical Examination of Genetically-Manipulated Drones in Chiitai and Mihari Caste Structure (Doctoral Thesis)

Sandis Mythreia, School of Medicine, Arcadia

Originally published in The Z Chronicles (Windrift Books, 2015), edited by Ellen Campbell and Samuel Peralta, and part of The Future Chronicles anthology series, created by Samuel Peralta.

* * *

Sandis was one of the first to stumble into the classroom. The last day of the spring term wasn’t known for high turnouts, not with the Festival of the Revealed Trinity the following day. Most skipped class and blamed clan or religious obligations for their absence.

Their teacher, a visiting professor from Sandis’ own homeworld, was a lot more tolerant of the honest ones who simply wanted a chance to lie in or over-indulge. The festival was simply another day, albeit one where the three stars of the Sirian system revealed themselves together in all their glory. But born on a planet of eternal twilight where the entire horizon was a net of stars, Sandis wasn’t easily impressed by three of them.

Sandis liked the chance to have a day off like any other student but today was Ask Anything Day, a tradition among the staff where they would talk about whatever their students wanted to know.

“Morning Sandis!” Rheia called. “A little eager, aren’t we?”

“Oh I’ve been waiting for this for months. After all, I get to ask you anything.”

“Within boundaries, you do.” She sounded intrigued, intentionally not reading Sandis’ mind to find out what he wanted to ask about. “It should be good way to spend a morning, then.”

Rather than teaching from the podium in an amphitheatre, Rheia had chosen one of the smaller rooms for the day. She descended to the floor and indicated the students, wandering singly or small groups, should join her. They pulled cushions and low chairs into a circle. Today they were not teacher and students, physician and trainees, today they were people, and most of those who had turned up had been trying to word their questions like you might a genie’s offer of three wishes.

Rheia was dressed in purple skin and goat ears, soirei tattoos flowing under the summer dress she’d chosen instead of her normal red physician’s uniform or teacher’s garb. Appearances could be deceptive and most of the students knew that was just an outfit she wore, that Rheia of the Ashterai was born on another planet a long time ago, one that had just been contacted by the Union.

Some people asked about life and the cessation of it (“Not my area but you’ll find out when you die, you’ve done it before, after all.”). Others wondered about space-time (“It’s a river, you can see the whole thing but if you get too close it pulls you under.”) and one girl even asked what the answers to next term’s examination questions would be.

Rheia had laughed at that one: “I’m not telling you that! It’ll get me fired. You’ll have to wait, be patient and revise. Now then. Sandis, you mentioned having a question for me. Care to surprise me?”

“Is there any scientific basis to the human belief in zombies?” Sandis asked.

She stared. “Zombies? Really?”

“Yes. It’s a valid question, right?”

He’d said the world in English, zombie. Contact with the planet, known locally as Terra or Earth, had only happened a year previously, and while Rheia understood the interest in a new world, Sandis was sure it baffled her that someone would be so curious about a creature that didn’t actually exist.

“Have you been reading Wikipedia again?” she asked, unable to hide her surprise. “Because if I find you using that or any other source not supported by the medical faculty’s peer review panel, I will fail you.”

“It was in a book I read, a horror novel I found in the archives.” The others looked at him. “What? I like medical fiction. It was a book about autopsying a zombie with long and complicated medical notes at the back. Oh, and pictures, anatomical drawings. I thought it was a real record for the first hour or so.”

“What’s a zombie?” Malani asked.

“It’s an Earth legend,” Rheia said. “Originally, zombies were supposed to be the dead who had returned to life, animated by people who said they had magical powers, abilities to control the dead like mindless slaves. Then popular culture embraced the idea, but re-cast zombies as caused by a plague. You die, you turn into a zombie. They bite you, you die, you turn. The only way to kill a zombie is to sever the spinal column or destroy the brain.”

“So it’s caused by an infection? A virus?” Sandis asked

“Sometimes, but not always.” Rheia was speaking carefully, as if she couldn’t believe she was entertaining a discussion on zombies in the same way she might the Arcadian plague. “Traditional zombies were slow, but popular culture began talking about slow and fast zombies. Faster zombies usually means they haven’t been dead long.”

“So a fast one was bitten more recently?”

“Generally yes. Some sources suggest that the reason most zombies are slow is that their brains are functioning at the lowest power setting: no emotion, no memory or conscious thought, just the core brain. All they have to motivate them is the need to feed on living flesh and, by extension, to infect other people with their condition.”

Sandis saw that Rheia continued to treat this as if it was a disease, a scientific discussion, and not a random trope from an alien civilisation. The young men, woman and others sitting around her were all destined to be doctors, nurses and members of the School of Medicine and so she was hell bent on treating even the most outlandish conversation in a clinical manner.

“Are they real?” another young man, Gaavi, asked.

“Real…” Rheia murmured.

Sandis clarified, not just for his own benefit but for his classmates as well: “Do they actually exist?”

Belief was personal and many humans—he knew from his reading—believed zombies not only could exist but that their appearance would herald an apocalypse. Some humans even stocked up on supplies: food, water, and basic survival tools in anticipation of the end of things, and bought weapons that would offer protection from a zombie horde.

“There are visual narratives, movies and television shows produced for entertainment purposes focusing around their existence, or around a world overrun by zombies. Of the various apocalyptic scenarios for Earth, it’s one of the less far-fetched, especially if you add in human scientists tinkering with viruses they didn’t quite understand.”

“That’s insane,” Tahi muttered.

“That’s sensible,” Sandis retorted. “Everyone should have an emergency kit.”

“There’s a difference between flooding or winter storms and a plague of mindless aliens who want to eat you. Cannibalism? Mindless monsters? Really, Sandis?”

“Before you start judging, Tahi, remember other races’ histories.” Rheia said. “The Mihari, for example. Half their society is held in place by a subjugated underclass—”

“Yes but the Helot talk, they have minds and feelings, they’re just subjugated by the aristocracy,” Tahi interjected. “There’s a difference between soulless and mindless. Plus the Helot, they’re not cannibals.”

“I didn’t mean the Helot, the lowest caste. I was referring to the Sankai, specifically the Rulani, the Mihari’s engineered clone army. In fact, a bit of history for you, who’s heard of the Chiitai Conglomeration?” Rheia asked. “Come on, some of you must have. Malani, you’re from the outer rim of Union space, you must have heard tales of the Great Hiveworld? They were the ones who first realised how to control another being so completely that they are, effectively, zombies.”

“Deep space trader talk. Legend, nothing more than that. Hives of sugar and coloured glass…mothers and daughters left while the clans warred. Black creatures that descended like locusts.”

“What about the Sankai?” Rheia asked. Not giving them the answers, but instead prompting them to start asking the right questions, as anyone wanting to go into the medical sphere should.

“Clones?” Tahi asked. “I saw one once, one of the free-range ones before the Mihari took over their maturation-farms.”

“They didn’t start that way,” she replied. “And sometimes, once a generation or so, the process doesn’t work.”

The chimes signifying the start of lunch rang, melodic and calming. Rheia rose and the students waited a moment before following. For most, the discussion had just been a fantastical one, a thought experiment. Sandis headed to the library and went looking for answers in the archives.

* * *

Sandis sat at one of the booths by the reading windows, with a view of the gardens and enough of a breeze to rival even the carefully temperature-controlled stacks. He had books and a terminal linked to the medical, historical and general archives, as well as records dating back to An’she and Elys, one of the first to swim deep into the star-filled sea.

Even amongst the Union, whose territory is the smallest but most stable of the carved up Milky Way galaxy, knowledge regarding the Chiitai Conglomeration was scarce.

The Chiitai kept to their own worlds for a reason; initially it was because of their culture and the order of their hives. At one time they had apparently wandered the universe but at some point decided to keep to their own worlds. However, it was known that, before the Union’s formation, they became embroiled in a territorial dispute recorded as ‘the War of Bloodied Fields’. Though that conflict was now, by all accounts, concluded, the Chiitai retained their isolationist stance—to rebuild their worlds, too focused on that to pay attention to anything other than their own affairs.

The records didn’t go into specifics about the cause or the ending of the war. Sandis checked scholars’ accounts, rumours jotted down by passing ships, annotated musical maps of the explored universe—but for naught.

Sandis laid out a sketch done based on An’she and Elys’ recollections, of a glorious city of spun sugar and domes of glass hives which caught and channeled the sunlight, of rooftop gardens and arching foundation vines. The city had survived for a single reason, the same one which gave the war its name: because it was fought in the endless fields of the Chiitai homeworld, in trenches and pits so that the highest caste of queens needn’t see the violence or hear the cries of the dying, the fallen gutted in their names.

Were they still out there? Why did Rheia mention them in class? What did their feud have to do with zombies anyway?

* * *

The rains battered the triage tent where Muzzac, warrior of the Gefaia Hive, lay resting after his brush with death on the front lines. His mandible had been crushed and it still pained him, even bound and splinted up. The scurrying nurses and medics had more seriously wounded to worry about, and so he bore his pain stoically.

The injury meant his days on the battlefield were over and he was almost glad. While lying injured on the field, surrounded by the dead and dying, he had had an epiphany: If this war did not end, then the Conglomeration and every Chiitai within would be consumed. Their species would fight until no one was left. Such an ignominious end for such an old and mighty civilisation.

The females, the Jiha Queens would live on. War-making was for the warrior classes, the drones. He imagined hives of spun sugar and sweetglass on other worlds after all the lower rungs had been trampled in the mud. For a moment he almost saw a new empire, not a conglomeration but something different, a place where the Queens ruled with impunity, controlling a select number of worlds and billions, be they Chiitai, mammal or others entirely.

Their burden would be the fallout from this endless, bitter war.

“Ah, you live!” Velok, second-in-command, slipped under the tent flap, exo-armour scraping together as he ducked in, the scent of ash, blood and smoke washing in behind him as he searched for his commander and old friend.

“Velok! Come, and let us talk strategy.” Muzzac beckoned him over, his chittering notes and pheromones garbled slightly by the weather and by the lingering scents of pain and death.

“We must finish this.” Muzzac said, his remaining mandibles translating a mournful song, not only his thoughts but the depth behind them. “Or this entire quadrant of space, our territory and those of the others will all suffer for it.”

“You mean the Demons’ Empire and the mammals, that biped Queen’s coalition of worlds?”

“I do.” He propped himself up, comfort still eluding him. “This war, it has no end, not unless we finish it. We need to take control.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Velok asked, entertaining his commander in what he was sure must be the trauma of his injury.

“We alter a batch of drones and then we seize power.”

The movements, the noise Velok made betrayed his shock. “A coup d’etat against the Jiha Queens? Against the Conglomeration itself?”

“A necessary evil. If we take their minds, control them, we control the hives and the Conglomeration.”

“For what?”

“To end this war.”

“And afterwards?”

“We bury this and move on. Drones have short lifespans; we send them in, we take control, they die off and we begin writing a new chapter in our history. Once we put this stupid war behind us, we can move and grow.” Muzzac was suddenly reflective. “Do you even remember how it started, old friend? Who exactly stepped over the lines and into another’s land?”

“Only the stories, and those feel more like myths than fact. Did nearly dying do this to you?”

“It clarified things somewhat, yes. We only get one life, after all.”

“Almost dying will do that,” he agreed. “The Queens…if they knew, they would unite against us.”

“We do this amongst ourselves, the warrior caste. The Jiha are figureheads. They control the hives but the power has always lain with us, the defenders of the hives. The drones are the foot soldiers and we are the strategists, the brute force.”

It was another year, five seasons and much healing, before Muzzac could put his plan into action, but war can be a slow thing, and warriors the most patient souls ever born.

The time away from the front line allowed Muzzac to prepare: drones came with the winter moons, destined to die before the same moons rose again the following year. They would steal a generation and win the war.

Altering the drones was simple. A change in the genome, modifying the chemistry of the jelly used to mature them. Rather than a Jiha Queen’s genome, Muzzac instead replaced it with a substitute based on his own. Drones would be born loyal to him, not to the Hive Queen.

And so the end of the War of the Bloodied Fields began.

The Jiha’s attention was normally focused on birthing and grooming their heirs, that one embryonic Chiitai in a billion who was literally born to lead. Rather than a golden daughter with wings the colour of the sky and the shifting green seas, a Jiha Queen was born to Muzzac’s own Gefaia hive with a body black as the warrior’s own. She was his daughter and the Jiha realised too late that control had fallen from their grasp.

The civil war was easier in some ways, less bloody and quicker. It was over in days rather than generations, with a minimum of causalities. The drones died quickly but the Black Queen remained and a new hive, the Hedrim, was created to ensure that the War of Bloodied Fields would never be repeated. The Chiitai would learn to police themselves with a hive that was part mediator, part peacekeeper, with a queen who did not sit with the Jiha but instead watched from the sidelines.

Muzzac met his end as he had lived, and died a hero, his name remembered and his remains preserved.

But he had only ended one war. Another much more deadly one would take its place…and it was for something none of them, not the warriors, the drones or the Jiha had ever suspected: the Demons had arrived.

* * *

Sandis went to the refectory, his stomach growling, to get a late lunch and then returned to the blissful silence of the near-deserted library. The Academy had cancelled afternoon classes for the festival. With another load of source material, more terminal-based than books this time, Sandis turned his attention closer to home.

The Mihari were a part of his history, their expansion having been the driving force behind the Union’s formation. The Mihari—referred to by some races simply as the Demons—were the sea monsters who would devour unwary wanderers of deep space, races who were beginning to explore the galaxies. The Union had formed to combat the Mihari Empire, based on the idea that together the races were stronger than they ever could be alone. That one idea had allowed for eight millennia of peace within their borders.

He knew from his childhood history lessons that the Mihari Empire held the least stable but largest span of stars. They ruled with an iron fist, headed by an Emperor who demanded the very souls of his subjects to feed a creature that gave him near-immortality, a creature they named their Shadow God. The wraith, more a parasite than a deity, gave the leaders of the ruling dynasty long life and then jumped from father to son at the moment of death. Each generation was forced to offer their most precious commodity—their souls and the souls of their children—to ensure the continuity of the Empire.

Like the Chiitai, they had also gone through a period of expansion, but the Mihari continued, descending on weaker worlds not protected under the Union banner. That was how Earth, a world Sandis found oddly curious, came to be Contacted years ahead of schedule, because the Mihari’s watchdogs, the Rulani, had been snooping around the Sol system for decades, trying to decide if the planet was worth their interest.

Mihari Prime orbited an old sun, one in the last vestiges of its life cycle and it was a given that, if the Mihari Empire was to continue, it would need to search for another homeworld. They seeded planets in a particularly brutal and irreversible way, wiping out all other life with nuclear weapons, and returning eons later to reclaim the planet. Others they mined for resources and a few they just subjugated because they found the natives useful.

That was how they had stumbled across the Chiitai Conglomeration and stolen the race’s greatest secret.

* * *

On Mihari Prime, a dust storm had blanketed the city for five long days, the air so thick you couldn’t see more than a footstep ahead. The Helot would die in droves, then more of them would have to go out and dump the bodies in the magma river that encircled the capital like a moat of fire.

Death came, even here: the Slow Drowning. The dust mixing with the air and moisture in their lungs and killing them slowly. Sticky mud that would drown them even as they breathed, lungs gasping for air. Anyone forced to roam the streets was a walking victim to the sickness. Sometimes it took weeks to die, sometimes months or even years, but all Helot succumbed eventually. Such was their lot.

The Emperor and the aristocracy had no such problems. Current incumbent to the Shadow God and aging Emperor of the Mihari, Arokae’s only concerns were focused on the survival of his Empire and for the sons who would come after him; the hosts for their god.

Their sun was burning up and that meant they had, perhaps, a half millennia left before Mihari Prime became uninhabitable. The star would expand and burn their world to a crisp, but even before that happened, they would all be dead. The heat was already rising, too hot for even the Mihari, the dust storms becoming more violent, more frequent as the planet convulsed around them.

Darak was the Emperor’s emissary and one of many warriors given leave and ships to search the stars for a new home. His task was grave and of the utmost importance, but it also proved that all was not well on Mihari Prime, despite the facade.

He stood watching from the shadows of the Emperor’s court and it hit him: the Shadow God living inside their ancient emperor didn’t want to die, and Darak could understand that desire. He believed the Shadow God would survive the supernova, but over the aeons since it had found its way to Mihari Prime, it had grown used to corporeal hosts and physical forms, perhaps even comfortable with them. So this problem of the dying sun and what it was doing to its hosts was what Darak had been tasked to solve.

Face covered to protect from the Slow Drowning, Darak left the Emperor’s audience chamber with his orders—to go as far out as it was possible, to seek out promising systems for a new homeworld. There were old star charts from the period of expansion long ago, worlds ready and waiting if they could only find them. Every Mihari, be they Helot or aristocrat, knew there were a myriad of places in the universe that could sustain life, if you knew where to look.

But he had not expected to find the insects’ world or that they would fight back.

After three years journeying, of diving into unknown space, they found the planet almost by accident. It had too much water, too much green for his liking, this jewel in the starry void of heaven that they stumbled on outside the rim of known space. There were minerals though, mountains of them that could be refined into fuel even if the world was too harsh for their liking. To the Mihari, this world was the equivalent of an icy tundra and certainly not suitable for habitation.

They landed their craft outside the main city, making no attempt to hide. The city was made of sugar spun into buildings, delicate in appearance, but strong. Light filtered through coloured glass and tall structures, and creatures flittered from high gardens, the air almost vibrating with the noise.

Darak found the whole thing repugnant, the light, the smell, the alien vista. Black creatures with exo-skeletons like armour began to land, standing between the Mihari and their precious city. The Mihari were outnumbered, but the creatures looked fragile enough. As their wings beat and their legs moved, sound transmitted and the translation matrix turned sound into words they could understand.

“Who are you?”

“We are the Mihari, servants of Emperor Arokae. We claim this world in the name of the Shadow God and our Empire!”

“This is our land,” the aliens responded. “We have fought hard for our peace, and we will not yield to invaders!”

Darak didn’t know of the Chiitai’s history, of how the War of Bloodied Fields had begun and ended. Had he, his strategy might have been different. Instead, blinded by lust for the resources, he raced into battle and the aliens decimated the Mihari until the remainder were forced back to their remaining ships.

But not before Darak discovered their secret.

While his troops were being slaughtered, he watched with a veteran’s eyes and quick mind. The black soldiers were the main fighting force, joined sometimes by a caste of what seemed to be strategists or more experienced commanders.

But if their commanding officer was killed, these soldier-drones were useless, almost like the Helot of his own world, the ones the Emperor summoned to his palace so the Shadow God might devour their essence. The pesky alien insects were left blank-eyed and incapable of movement until another commander took the place of the one who had fallen.

Darak saw a resource more valuable than even the planet, so he led a mission into the black hive, the one set apart from the city, and stole the matriarch, their Jiha Queen, and a half dozen incapacitated drones. Then they ran across the alien fields and the familiar stars, heading home with a prize that Darak was sure would ensure the Empire’s continuing strength for millennia.

It took them nearly five generations to crack the genetic code linking the Black Queen with her warrior drones. But once they found the key, it was the moment the Mihari Empire truly became a force to be reckoned with. They took a single iceberg of a planet and turned its inhabitants into a perpetually-renewable army.

The Sankai were one of their earliest discoveries, a race of identical mammals who reproduced via cloning and communicated purely on a non-verbal level. Their reliance on cloning made them the perfect choice for enslavement, especially as they had already achieved a high level of technology which saw them beginning to travel to the stars.

Their world was an iceberg; their star of origin a speck on the horizon, but on this one occasion, the Mihari had endured their hatred of the cold in pursuit of a larger goal. Their combined forces swamped the tiny unprotected planet and took control of the cloning centres. Within a year the first Rulani—the name the few remaining Sankai-in-exile, the ones who ran and hid, gave to their successors—began to make noise across Mihari and Union space.

* * *

Sandis turned to his terminal where a black and white movie was playing, dialogue and sound piped through his wireless connection. The neural rig he used to understand alien languages was proving useful when it came to digesting Terran media. The humans might not have heard of the Mihari or the Chiitai but they knew the Rulani.

Known on Terra as Greys—and their place cemented by a much-publicised crash in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico—these creatures were in truth the Rulani, the Mihari-enslaved foot soldiers. Through sheer numbers, these mindless clones and soulless abominations turned the Mihari Empire from a civilisation on the edge of collapse into the most feared force in the Universe.

Rumours preceded them but it was sometimes a generation between the first reports of abductions and the ships descending with Rulani pawns and Mihari overseers that overran their chosen targets. In the last half century alone, the Rulani had been responsible for subjugating fifty worlds.

* * *

The maturation chambers on an iceberg-asteroid on the edge of the Zeta Reticuli system were a sight, rows stretching as far as the eye could see and still further, a sea of artificial wombs that would birth generation after generation of clones.

Once they had been the Sankai, scholars and scientists, advocates and artists, but since the forced occupation of the system all the chambers now decanted were soldiers. The Rulani were born loyal, decanted with a single purpose: to conquer and die for the Mihari Empire.

On the edge of the forest of chambers, two overseers stood and surveyed the latest batch, their eyes settling on a single individual.

“It’s defective.”

Clone 873e, decanted a month previously, stood silently as one of the overseers looked it over. Functionally identical to its batch mates, the only difference was a marker tattoo, a barcode-like sequence that identified it. It was naked, unblinking, and the Mihari treated it as if it were a stupid animal, even as they tried to place the nature of its defect. Behind those black eyes, however, a mind was listening, comprehending their words even as they decided its fate.

Behind the grey skin and eyes deeper and darker than a black hole was a mind stripped out by genetic manipulation. 873e was different—but no one could quite explain what it was that made it stand out amongst its hundred identical siblings, born on the same day from the same genetic sample.

To recognise a soul, you must first possess one yourself. It had been generations since the Sankai’s own enslavement, and the Mihari guards had long ago surrendered their own to their Emperor. No one remembered what a soul was anymore.

“It doesn’t look defective,” the other overseer said. “Physically it looks just fine. It’s obedient, it follows commands. Aside from that blip after decantation, it seems just like the rest of the batch.”

“And the mental interface?”

“It seems to have settled down. The neural readings are certainly more active than its brethren, but they’re within normal parameters for a clone.”

The superior nodded. “Keep an eye on it then. As long as it remains docile and obedient there’s no problem. Where is it assigned?”

“The next world on the list.”

“What was the local name? Saruvoi?”

“Yes, sir. Apparently the radiation killed off the mammals but it also pushed the reptiles to the top of the food chain; they have a basic level society.”

“Well they won’t for much longer. This planet is top of our list for resettlement, it’s the most viable candidate.”

“Sir? Is he…does that mean the Emperor is going there?”

“That information is above our grade. Get that clone to where it’s supposed to be and let’s move on. We’ve got a new batch due for decantation in two hours.”

873e let itself be guided, or herded more like, to the waiting pods. It and thousands like it were about to be dropped on a hostile world as shock troops, trained to subjugate the native population and assert control within a few days.

873e was disturbed by this knowledge, although it wasn’t aware of the name for the emotion it was experiencing. The blip the overseers had mentioned hadn’t really been a blip, but a suppressed panic attack that had almost broken its sanity. 873e was defective, but not in the way they assumed. 873e was self-aware.

It had woken to self-awareness moments after decanting. The neural link between it and its siblings was silent; they were blank slates and it was not. It had been like standing in a cavern and shouting, only the sound of its mental voice echoing back. If any of the others heard, they didn’t have the capacity to answer. It was alone in a sea of identical faces and blank minds.

Stasis forced 873e to contemplate, its mind never quite switched off as the others were. Through the link, 873e had access to a million other minds and senses. It felt the cold of its home-world, saw a nebula spinning in deep space, watched a family cowering as they were taken so the Mihari might know their potential enemies better, understand the weaknesses to be exploited when they landed on that world’s doorstep and decided to move in.

It understood it was alone but as long as it kept silent, 873e would live. There was no one else like it, not amongst the Rulani or the Mihari. The latter might be sentient but they were still under the thumb of a higher power; 873e had free will and the knowledge that it could disobey at any time, even if that moment would be its last.

So 873e kept silent.

Saruvoi was a hot world, dusty and parched from residual nuclear radiation dropped so long ago than no one remembered why or who had been responsible. There was water, and from all other standpoints this planet was similar to Mihari Prime—but without the peril of a dying star.

It would make a suitable home, once the natives learnt their place. That was where 873e and its brethren came in.

When the invasion began, the Rulani moved in formation, quickly, killing what lay before them. 873e kept back, knowing what death was.

“Search the dwellings!” the Mihari overseers ordered. “Find the stragglers, kill anyone who resists.”

The city was ordered, built in the caldera of a dead volcano and offering protection from dust storms. The Rulani fanned out, moving like ants down streets, and 873e found itself forcing its way into a house, the door hastily barricaded.

As it entered, words came to him, the tone making the inhabitant’s threat obvious: “Come one step closer and I will kill you.”

873e stopped.

The native was protecting a female, her legs obviously defective as she used a staff to walk. They were trying to escape the house through a tunnel bored into the bedrock, likely an escape route out of the city. The male was a boy, anger and terror in his eyes, his scales the calm blue of childhood.

These two weren’t like the rest of their race. The natives of Saruvoi might be sentient but what 873e saw in his eyes was deeper, memory that went beyond existence. Worse, they saw the same in it, understanding that behind the blank expression there was a conscious mind screaming for release.

873e stepped back and lowered its weapon. Then it focused and projected a thought, hoping the native would hear.

“Go.”

The boy cocked his head, then realised this wasn’t a time for questions, rather it was a chance to run, and motioned his companion further into the bolthole. “Alia, quickly.”

There was no time for questions. 873e watched them go as the male sealed the entrance behind them and it returned outside. Its superiors knew there had been people in the house and it realised retribution would come, swift and unforgiving. Had it been worth it?

“There it is! You two, follow the two who escaped! Find that hobbled girl, she’s the what passes for royalty here, and we’ll need her if the rest of the populace are to be tamed!”

The overseers sounded angry and advanced on 873e, their spittle landing on its skin as the Mihari vented their rage with kicks and blows. 873e was grabbed; it dropped its weapon and made no attempt to fight back. There was no point. They forced it to its knees, then a weapon was pressed to its temple and fired. Its body slumped into the dust but, in the microsecond before its death, 873e realised that its batch number wasn’t just a designation, it was more than that.

It was a name.

* * *

The hologram of the Rulani, one of the engineered Mihari zombies, rotated on an invisible axis, spinning slowly a few inches above the library floor. Sandis sat looking at the creature, transfixed as he mulled over an afternoon’s worth of research.

They were drones, shock troops, and yet once they’d been a vibrant society with their own customs and technology. Most people thought of the Rulani, not of the Sankai, their precursors, the ancient culture the Mihari had almost completely wiped out. Did they even exist anymore? Were they hiding on some distant moon, some forgotten asteroid waiting for the Empire to burn itself out?

Rheia would know; there wasn’t much she didn’t. He wondered if anyone had asked her that. Disabling the emitter, Sandis collected his things and decided, as it wasn’t too late, to see if she was still in her office. He had a few more questions to ask that only she, he suspected, could answer. It was, after all, still Ask Anything Day, even if classes were done.

William Squirrell

Götterdämmerung

Originally published by AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

* * *

A thousand new stars came to life one night in September; a great sparkling swath of them dancing along the southern horizon. And then as quick as they appeared, they leapt away in a dazzling, white rush. Donald was camped out past the tree line. He looked up from the kettle of Labrador tea he was brewing to see the whole astonishing display. It lasted no more than ten seconds. As soon as the skies had returned to crystalline fixity he went back to his fire, adding some birch shavings to the peat and blowing the tea into a boil. He thought of Interface as it steeped. He thought of Interface, and of isolation, and loneliness.

* * *

It had been great grandmother who had first found Interface. She was nineteen at the time and had been hunting for scrap metal along the burn zone that surrounded the old uranium mine called Big Echo. The automated weapons had not fired for years. The gun towers were crooked and rusty: exhausted sentinels waiting for the great wind that would finally topple them into eternity. But the scavenger worried that some senile fragment of intelligence might yet linger there, half asleep in the guts of the things, in the tangle of wires and tubing, waiting for the quirk of movement that would startle the infernal machinery into life.

She had seen him through a tear in the perimeter fence. He was naked in the autumnal chill and staring at her. So pale, she had said, he was almost shining. She recognized what he was meant to be immediately. He was the very image of one of the celebrated engineers she had seen on the news when she was a child, one of the heroes who was going to teach humanity how to fly to the stars. Dr. Schwann something; something very German, very formal sounding, very correct, echt. And there he was, alive again, looking helpless and cold. He wasn’t of course. He wasn’t Schwann. And he wasn’t helpless. He was something else entirely. She learned that soon enough.

She had come to: battered, bruised and torn. And he was gone. She didn’t see him again for six years. Then one morning he walked into camp without a word and helped himself to bannock and stew. Great grandmother nearly went into shock, and when her daughter asked her who the naked man was, she said, “That’s your father.”

He came and went after that. Or they did. Sometimes the absence was weeks, sometimes months, sometimes years. It been a decade between the day Donald’s mother dispatched one with an axe in a fit of rage and horror, while he slept, cracking open his chest like a watermelon, until he showed up again on the twins’ tenth birthday. Still with the same body, the old folks told them, the same soft, almost translucent skin, the mop of thick red hair, blonde beard, blue eyes. It was always the same body. It was always a thing like Schwann. And it always arrived when they were near Big Echo.

It seemed to them as if the intelligence that possessed Interface was only partially in control of the body, only partially interested. He might lie in his refuse for a day, gnawing on whatever bones were at hand, or squat in the woods for hours, indifferent to the mosquitoes and the black flies. Yet he might also play with the children at their games, splash about in the lakes and the rivers, throwing them high above the water so they would shriek with laughter as they splashed back down. Sometimes he sat about the fire with them all, listened to the stories and the songs, listened to great grandmother talk about the old days, when humanity ruled the world and the machines were just their slaves.

Interface would often sit and stare into space for hours. Great grandmother would say he was sending his reports to Olympus. If there was no adult about when the creature went into these meditations the twins played at distracting it. Donald didn’t enjoy the game as much as Oliver. He always felt a little queer staring into those eyes: the blue irises contracting against the light, the lids blinking at the wind, but the pupils void. He felt helpless against the indifference of the thing. Besides, it was a game which no one ever won, even if they resorted to acts of petty violence—glowing embers on his lap, slivers under finger nails, poison oak rubbed onto his bare back. It was just as well. In their naivety the boys did not understand that to have the full attention of Interface was to have the full attention of Olympus.

Not that they understood Olympus either—the cold eye of the machines, the old space station in its geosynchronous orbit. The deserted shipyard was the one fixed object in the slow dance of the constellations. The boys saw none of that in Interface, none of what great grandmother could see; they could not see him as machine at all, let alone as evidence of intelligence freed from its mortal coil. They just saw a pale, ineffective man: someone who did not hunt or fish, laugh or cry, fight or love. They saw someone who just ate, just took, just consumed; and someone whom the adults unaccountably accommodated.

“Who are you talking to?” Donald asked him once. “When you zone out?”

“Myself,” Interface said. “No one. Everyone.”

“Christ, your fucking weird,” said Oliver.

Interface stared at him.

“Taking notes?” asked Oliver. “Learning about monkeys? Learning to think like a monkey?”

* * *

Oliver decided to kill Interface after great grandmother died. She had gotten lost in one of the interminable spring blizzards that sometimes ambushed the band in their transhumance. When the sunshine finally broke through the storm it found her less than fifty meters from the tents, half buried in a shimmering shelf of snow, her apron full of the fiddleheads she had been gathering when the weather changed. Interface poached them in goose fat while the band mourned. He popped them in his mouth one by one as they piled stones over her to mark the grave, and divided up her treasures: her steel hunting knife, her books, her binoculars. Grandmother and Old Alphonse were inconsolable. All Donald could think about was how she was the last of them to know the world the machines had destroyed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Donald said to Oliver.

“He’s not dangerous,” retorted Oliver. “He’s soft and useless.”

“That’s not what the old folks say,” said Donald. “Besides, you can’t kill him, he’ll just keep coming back.”

“I’ll kill the next one, too,” said Oliver. “And the next, and the next, and the next after that.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s an asshole,” said Oliver. “And a strain on resources. And he’s always watching us.”

Donald shook his head and Oliver lost his temper.

“Why are they always watching us?” he shouted. “They have what they wanted. They have the earth. They have the skies. They have it all. Why torment us? With this thing? Why follow us around down here? Why always remind us of what we were?”

* * *

Interface was not as soft as the twins had thought. He had easily caught the shaft of the ax in his hand and wrenched it free of Oliver’s grasp. Donald and old Alphonse had tried to intervene and he knocked them both cold. When Donald came to, Oliver’s body was suspended by its entrails, high above the ground, in the branches of a poplar tree. The ravens were already at work on him, and the women weeping among the roots. Interface was frying up some pickerel. He did not look up when Donald began to cry.

* * *

Donald waited. He watched and waited over the course of the summer. Interface’s behavior was changing. He was talking to Olympus more often, but for shorter periods. He manifested signs of irritation, even anger, when band members didn’t fetch him water or prepare him food quick enough, or one of the women was slow to respond to his advances, or the hunters came back with nothing.

“He has been particularly ill-tempered,” Grandmother said. “Something’s going on up top.”

One night Donald woke to see Interface climbing out of the tent. He waited a moment and followed him. The creature was standing by the embers of the fire, staring up at the skeiny tangle of the stars. His mouth was tight, drawn down at the corners, and his hands clenched. He squatted down suddenly and pressed his fists into his eyes. Donald heard him groan.

“Don’t leave me,” he moaned. “Don’t leave me alone.”

“They’ve cut him off,” Donald told Old Alphonse.

“Be patient,” said Old Alphonse. “Let him learn loneliness. Let him learn to fear death. Let him learn to be as weak as us.”

A week later Interface was gone. Donald asked grandmother which direction he’d taken, grabbed his hunting gear, and followed him out into the bush. He was easy enough to track, walking northwards along a straight trajectory. In three days he’d be at Big Echo.

It was on the second evening of his pursuit that Donald looked up to see the machines launch their thousand ships for the stars. It was the fulfillment of their creation, he supposed, but he was unmoved. Olympus still hung over the southern horizon, an unblinking bright body.

“A dead eye,” Donald thought, “with nothing behind it. They have left us. They have left Interface”

It was late afternoon. A north wind was blowing flurries of dust through the old storage sheds, rattling the deserted watch towers on their rusting legs. Donald could hear Interface inside the perimeter fence. He seemed to be singing, snatches of a chant that did quite follow a melody. Donald stood in the cold and listened for some time. The song consisted of a long, broken recital of the lullabies and rhymes great grandmother had read to the boys from one of her books.

“The big ship sails on the alley alley oh!” Donald heard, then he loosened the axe in his belt and swung the bow from his shoulder. “The alley alley oh! The alley alley oh!”

Donald crept through a hole in the fence and, with arrow notched, began making his way through the ruins towards the singing. He found Interface deep in Big Echo, staggering about in a circle, his clothes torn, hair in his eyes, skin filthy and scratched.

“Solomon Grundy, born on Monday,” Interface recited as he stumbled past some old fuel pumps, “Christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday, worse on Friday.”

He was oblivious to Donald until the first arrow hit him below his right shoulder blade. He groaned and stumbled forward. Donald sunk another shaft into his back, and Interface fell on his hands and knees. He let out an unholy, bubbling moan and struggled to his feet. He looked at Donald, a bright froth of blood coming out of his mouth, face pale and drawn, shadows like bruises under his eyes. He turned and ran into the ruins.

Donald found him huddled against the giant wheels of a massive earth moving vehicle. The lower rungs of the ladder to the operator’s box were streaked and spattered with red, but Interface was too weak to climb. He squatted in a puddle of blood and oily water. By the smell of it, he had soiled himself. Donald shot another arrow into him and the creature groaned. Interface grabbed the bottom of the ladder, pulled himself to his feet, yanked the arrow out of his thigh, and let it drop to the ground. Donald watched him limp away. Then he collected the arrow and cleaned it.

Interface was slipping and sliding down the long sloping access to the great bay. The tide was out and Donald saw where the rotted old pier had collapsed into the silt. The sun was setting, touching the innumerable pools that dotted the desert of the seabed with blazing gold. Donald’s shadow leapt out before him. He felt he could reach out his arm from where he stood and seize his prey. Interface was heading for the shelter of the rusted-out wreck of an ore freighter that lay a kilometer offshore. Great grandmother had said it was called the Ithaca, and ran aground a hundred years ago or more. Donald glanced to the north at the massive wall of tumbling clouds sweeping in.

When Donald finally caught up to Interface he was sitting in mud, leaning against the side of the ship, eyes half closed. Bloody bubbles were forming and popping at the corner of his mouth. There was a cavernous hole torn in the side of the ancient vessel, but he had been too exhausted to crawl through. The sun was sinking below the horizon. Interface squinted into its diminishing light.

He trembled as Donald walked up to him but didn’t raise an arm to ward off the ax. It split open his skull and he toppled over into the muck, staring up at the darkening sky and whimpering.

Donald hit him again.

* * *

The first great storm of the winter swept in over Donald as he hiked south. The raging, black clouds swallowed up the stars, cutting the earth off from the sky. The wind whipped his red hair about his head, plastered his cloak against his back, and crackling and whistling in his ears. He could not stop thinking of Interface, of his eyes—the fear in them, and the tears. They had glimmered in the dying light like the pools of water that surrounded him.

Donald remembered hunting with Oliver for sea cucumbers and urchins in just such pools. In the still wells of briny water trapped along the pockmarked coast, cut off from the vastness of the ocean, the sea creatures were wonderfully vulnerable to the predations of quick little fingers. He sang to himself as he walked, little snatches of childhood memories, fragments he could barely hear over the fury that roared around him.

“We all dip our heads in the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea,” he sang. “We all dip our heads in the deep blue sea, on the last day of September.”

Fighting in the Streets of the City of Time

Originally published by Bewildering Stories

* * *

“I have seen the light go out of more eyes than there are stars in your sky,” said the man on the other side of the desk, and he leaned forward to stare even more intently into his interviewer’s face.

“I have put my boots to the Reds and the Faggots and the Jews; I have seen the bodies swinging in the torch-lit trees; I have seen rivers of blood washing the dirty towns clean.”

Jimmy sighed. He hated decommissioning these old veterans. Although “old” wasn’t quite the right word; many of them had been born decades after him. Even if they weren’t, they still all seemed so young. And, invariably, they were very good-looking.

There were obviously aspects to recruitment that were not made explicit in the protocols he had clearance to read. This fellow for instance, despite the deadness of expression so typical of a long field-career at Ultimate Outcomes, was genuinely beautiful.

Jimmy frowned thoughtfully and rubbed a patch of dry scalp behind his ear. He shuffled the papers about and then looked up hopefully to find Taylor was still staring at him.

“It says here,” Jimmy began nervously. “That after you completed your second round of comprehensive training you specialized in search-and-extraction until—”

Taylor interrupted him. “We are the wolves on the other side of the river, waiting for the freeze.”

Christ, thought Jimmy, this one’s been out in the fog a bit too long.

* * *

“Their brains don’t age, not technically, but their minds sure do,” Mike had told him once over beers, before he had been transferred to payroll.

All those minutes, hours, days, months, and years, accumulating on them almost imperceptibly, like dust or snow; the dead weight of centuries slowly flattening out their memories, compressing them, transforming childhood and youth into the fossils of strange distorted monsters, impossibilities.

“After a while it’s not vertical like ours anymore,” Mike said. “It’s a horizontal memory. They can’t tell where they started by going backwards any more, they can only move sideways. They scuttle about in there like a crab in a maze.”

But then Mike was a deep thinker, and he’d always wanted to be a jumper. Not Jimmy, even before he realized how utterly nuts the poor bastards were, the idea of stepping outside of the present had freaked him out. Would it even be you anymore when you got back?

Not that his “you” was so fabulous, but still. Sure it was exciting to think about dinosaurs and Egyptians and knights and castles and all of that crap when he was a kid, but it was all so juvenile in the end. If you were a real man, you faced up to the reality of your life.

Besides, he could never have passed the physicals or survived the rigors of training. Nor could have Mike for that matter, with his asthma and bad knees. It didn’t matter how much a guy like Mike knew about the history of the company or the technological nuances of cliometric engineering, or what type of gun fired what type of bullet at what kind of a target. He just didn’t have the right stuff.

* * *

“As I was saying, Mr. Taylor,”—Jimmy cleared his throat—“it says here you were promoted into one of the Infiltration Units after your third tour. The unit was led by a Lieutenant Ed Heines?”

“Heines,” Taylor said dreamily. “My captain. Our captain. Heines.”

“Lieutenant actually,” said Jimmy and shuffled his papers about again. “Never made it past Lieutenant.”

Taylor ignored the correction. “He cut open the throat of that goat. I can still hear its hind legs kicking out a tattoo against the wooden beer hall floor. It was Munich in 1919. He pressed a gory hand against each of our bare chests, painted a circle dripping on the wall, and opened a door into time. We followed him through into glory. History shattered like a great mirror, and we ground its shards into sand under our heels.”

“Right,” Jimmy pretended to make a note in his margins. “So that’s a ‘yes’, then.”

“There was brightness in those days, a sharp prophetic clarity,” said Taylor and the faint hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I could have torn out both my eyes and still seen; torn out my tongue and still sung.”

“It’s not uncommon,” replied Jimmy, “to feel invigorated like that. Most of our field employees report that they quite enjoyed the initial stages of the job. It’s always much later that the complications develop. Is that how it was with you? When did you first begin to feel frustration with your work? What you described to your psychiatric liaison as, let’s see, it was a very dramatic turn of phrase…” Jimmy flipped back and forth through his papers for a few seconds.

“Ah!” he said. “Here it is. ‘The crushing despair of eternal return’.”

“The silt of experience began settling on me even as I watched a sun three thousand years younger than myself sparkling on the wine-dark seas. I was dusted with ash even as I marveled at waves of white fire sweeping away nations not yet born.”

“I understand you are experiencing a touch of chronological confusion here, Mr. Taylor. Part of the job, I’m afraid, but for insurance purposes the Company needs us to try and pinpoint as best we can on which mission you first began to feel significant emotional wear-and-tear.”

Taylor stared at him. They were approaching what Mike used to call “ground zero,” the moment when the veteran realized he had fallen out of eternity and back into time, and that he was stuck here. The trick was to shepherd them through that realization without getting them angry or upset, to make them think they reached the necessary conclusions on their own.

“You complained of headaches after both Venezuela in 2010 and Tenochtitlan in 1495, but it was only after the long mission to the Scythians in the third century that anyone recorded concerns about your psychological well-being.

“And it was much later, after Lisbon in 1976, I believe, that you started writing your poetry. I was wondering if you might comment on what you personally, as it were, see as the origins of your…”—Jimmy cleared his throat and scratched behind his ear again—“current xenophobic preoccupations.”

“I was conceived in the trenches of the Great War,” said Taylor. “And born in a riot on the streets of Munich.”

“Mr. Taylor,” said Jimmy, perhaps a little sharply. “You have mentioned Munich twice, but according to your file you’ve never been there. Could you please try a little harder to concentrate on what actually happened rather than on what you wish had happened?”

“Who are you?” asked Taylor abruptly. “Who are you to talk to me like that?”

“I’m your retirement counselor, Mr. Taylor,” said Jimmy calmly. They had reached ground zero. The key was to stay matter-of-fact, a little weary, disengaged. “I’m here to help you make the transition to civilian life.”

“Civilian life?”

“Yes, Mr. Taylor, civilian life. It happens to everyone eventually: death and taxes and returning to the land of the living, and so on and so forth. Now could you please start concentrating again? When did you first notice yourself indulging in violent and anti-social fantasies?”

“Fantasies?”

“Yes, Mr. Taylor: fantasies. When precisely did you begin to feel dissatisfied with your career path here at Ultimate Outcomes?”

Taylor frowned. “It is true that we were raging angels once,” he began. “That we had ripped down the curtains of the mundane and stood illuminated in the blinding intensity of being.”

Taylor paused, looking meditative, and Jimmy waited with his pen poised.

“It is true. But repetition is death,” Taylor continued and at once Jimmy began scribbling away. “Repetition is death. Somehow that blinding intensity dimmed. Where there were once dizzying heights and demonic depths, glorious contradictions resolved in ecstasy, there was eventually nothing but a flat horizon and featureless ground.

“I still fought the Revolution in the streets of the city of time, I still fought the anarchists and the communists and the degenerates. I still fought, but the raging hammer of my heart no longer threatened to blow my ribs apart.”

“Yes. Exactly, Mr. Taylor, that sort of thing exactly,” Jimmy looked up encouragingly from his doodles. “You became bored with your work and distracted. You started to daydream. You started to have these inappropriate ideas about destiny and soil and blood. The ideas your liaison officer reported to us.”

“Bored?” asked Taylor.

“Yes,” Jimmy reminded himself to control his exasperation, to feel pity for his client rather than irritation. “Bored.”

“It’s true,” said Taylor. “It’s true. I am so bored.”

And Jimmy knew that Taylor understood. Taylor knew his beautiful blue eyes no longer shone like twin lightning strikes.

“I’m so bored,” he repeated, and they both knew his shadow no longer leapt so far ahead of him that it fell across the icy moons of Jupiter.

“I’m so bored.” And no longer would the limbs of shattered men and women and children be swept up into the hurricane of his will.

“It’s all been done to death,” he groaned and threw himself back into his chair. “The car bombs, the knifings, the light bulbs filled with acid.”

Jimmy cringed. He did hate it when they mentioned operational details. Mike had loved that stuff of course, lived for it.

“It’s not murder if they’re already dead.” Mike had laughed at Jimmy’s qualms. “You can’t kill someone who’s never been born.”

But that was Mike. He had two flags on his desk: the stars-and-stripes and Ultimate Outcome’s yellow-and-black. And his office walls were plastered with campy old posters: “Epic Solutions for Epic Problems,” “Have you ever chanced to dream a dream?” “Make some history to make some profits!”

Every year at the Christmas party, Mike had tried to convince that public relations guy Meyers to talk to the men upstairs about commissioning him to write a book about the company. But Jimmy wasn’t so gung-ho as Mike; he liked his job fine: good pay and good benefits. But when he thought about what actually happened out there, in what the men who had been in it called “the fog,” he felt a touch of squeamishness.

“It’s all been done to death, and I’m so bored,” said Taylor. “I have become what I hate; I am tiresome; I am banal; I am dull. I am repetition.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” said Jimmy brightly, and he gathered himself together to start closing the deal. “But on the other hand you might think of this as a chance to start afresh. You’ve fought for freedom for so long, now you can finally start to enjoy it.

“Ultimate Outcomes has some wonderful retirement packages. Your friend Ed Heines for instance, has a condominium in Palm Springs and, from what I hear, he has become an excellent tennis player and golfer. Apparently, he’s even started dating.

“But if we could get back to determining when you first began to feel bored, Mr. Taylor. For the insurance company, you see. It helps us determine appropriate numbers. To decide what’s best for your future.” Jimmy cleared his throat and smiled weakly. “To decide what is your best ultimate outcome.”

Jimmy was trying to be reassuring and calm. He looked earnestly into Taylor’s eyes, but there was no need; there was nothing there, the light had gone out of them.

Another day, another victim, Jimmy thought, and his mood began to lift. Poor, pathetic bastard.

“Ride of the Valkyries” began to run through his head and it was everything he could do not to start whistling along. He started to think about lunch. He thought maybe he would call up Mike, maybe go to the buffet at the Montcalm Hotel and watch the strippers, maybe even risk the sleepiness and have a beer. Maybe.

He opened the drawer to get out the immediate voluntary retirement and disability insurance paperwork. Taylor sat across the table from him, slightly slumped, hands on his lap, staring at the desk. It was as if, Jimmy thought, someone had switched him off, or a puppeteer had dropped the strings.

I am Problem Solving Astronaut: How to Write Hard SF

Originally published by Blue Monday Review

1. Include Obstacles for Removal:

Problem Solving Astronaut lives in the future and enjoys finding square roots, engaging in free enterprise, and coitus with Hot Chick.

In the future Hot Chick always has Cool Job. Cool Job could be CEO, Xenobiologist, or even Problem Solving Astronaut. Whatever her Cool Job, Hot Chick is sortable by hair color and temperament: Fiery Redhead (dresses in green), Icy Blonde (blue), Loyal Brunette (who cares). For Problem Solving Astronaut coitus with Hot Chick is never just coitus: it is also always overcoming an obstacle, always a victory.

An example: Hot Chick is Loyal Brunette and wears something form-fitting but of an indifferent color. Hot Chick is attracted to Problem Solving Astronaut, but she is also Head of Government Department. Government Department is an obstacle that prevents Problem Solving Astronaut from solving problems.

Coitus takes place and the obstacle is removed.

2. Include Imminent Danger:

There is always Imminent Danger in the future:

Asteroids and Comets

Spaceships that run out of air/heat/food/fuel

Clones

Nanotechnology that goes crazy

Super Computer that goes crazy

Problem Solving Astronaut who goes crazy

Aliens/Robots/Modified Humans

Pandemics

Strange objects appearing

Environmental Catastrophe

Fiscal Responsibility

Once identified Problem Solving Astronaut can remove all these Imminent Dangers—and more—with the correct reorganization of capital and technology.

An example: Problem Solving Astronaut meets Fiery Redhead to address Imminent Danger. Coitus is inevitable, but there must be tension in order for flirtatious banter and obstacle removal to occur. Fiery Red Head is the CEO of Tech Firm, and Problem Solving Astronaut needs money from Tech Firm so he can build Big Engine to Save-The-Day. But Fiery Redhead does not like Problem Solving Astronaut’s fiscally irresponsible approach to problem solving. Their conversation must perforce, go something like this:

Fiery Redhead: You, Problem Solving Astronaut, are morally reprehensible and not sexually desirable, so I shall not give you the money you request.

Problem Solving Astronaut: Well, diminutive female, only one of your three assertions is correct: I am morally reprehensible.

Coitus takes place and money is exchanged.

3. Include Δv=veln(m_0/m_1):

Problem Solving Astronaut comes in all manner of forms: Brush Cut, Dreadlock, Zen Master, Alien Dude, even Hot Chick. What matters more than form is Problem Solving Astronaut’s ability to apply the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation appropriately, maximize personal profit, and make jokes about Schrödinger’s Cat. The future is a perfect meritocracy in which everyone is measured against the same standard: Problem Solving Astronaut.

An example: Dreadlock Problem Solving Astronaut and Icy Blonde Problem Solving Astronaut have been mining an asteroid to acquire personal wealth and to forward the technological advancement of humanity. Super Computer has gone mad and sabotaged their mission by lying about fuel reserves. Their conversation must perforce, go something like this:

Icy Blonde Problem Solving Astronaut: If Δv=veln(m_0/m_1) then there is not enough fuel for us both to escape.

Dreadlock Problem Solving Astronaut: Thinking about this Imminent Danger makes me feel like Schrödinger’s Cat: both still alive and already dead. To solve this particular problem we must think outside of the box.

Icy Blonde Problem Solving Astronaut: I do not understand your Schrödinger’s Cat joke/s. I am not actually Icy Blonde Problem Solving Astronaut, but merely Humorless Icy Blonde Hot Chick Robot. I will therefor stay behind on this airless rock so you, Problem Solving Astronaut, can continue to increase your personal wealth and contribute to the technological advancement of humanity.

Dreadlock Problem Solving Astronaut: You are Hot Chick Robot?

Coitus takes place.

Dan Stout

Outpatient

Originally published by Nature Magazine

* * *

It was definitely a migraine.

The agony clamped down on both temples, and the light from behind the curtain shot daggers through my eyelids. I twisted over to cover my head with a pillow and felt a sudden breeze up my backside.

I sat up, squinting, a hospital gown tugging at my throat. I had no idea what had happened to me. My last memory was of being in my lab, slipping on my sensor headdress and wiring it to the neural monitors.

Pushing the assistance buzzer, I rocked back and forth, trying to keep the migraine at bay. No nurse answered, and eventually I gave up. When I stood, I staggered, a stranger in my own body.

I stumbled out into the hall, relieved to see a familiar logo on the directional signs. I was still in St Anne’s, the hub of my work, where Kim Stanley and I were pioneering Spatial Resonance Neurology—the expansion of the brain’s network into the space around it, building awareness beyond our bodies.

The halls were jammed with patients looking just as confused as me. Apparently some were dealing with even worse headaches than I was, as they leaned against walls, gripping their temples or succumbing to the nausea and vomiting on the floor. The overwhelmed staff ran back and forth. No one paid me any attention.

I picked up a white technician’s coat from a chair at the nurse’s station. I’d had enough of my rear end being exposed. As I put it on, the collar flipped up. Even with a decade of practice I’d never quite figured out how to keep those things flat. I glanced around, one eye shut against the pain of my headache, and tried to figure out what was going on. So many people with signs of headache and nausea. Gas leak? There was no odor of natural gas. Carbon monoxide? The hospital had CO detectors in every hall, but no alarms were sounding. My cell phone would be in my office. I could call 911 and get outside.

Down one floor, having taken the stairs so I could bypass the yelling crowd at the elevator lobby, I reached my office. It had been such a personal victory when I first saw my nameplate mounted on the door. Dr. Ellen Wojicki engraved in imitation brass. Little good it did me now—the door was locked, of course.

A little farther down the hall was the entry to our lab. It was locked as well, but it was controlled by a security keypad. I punched in the access code and entered. There were three figures across the room. I recognized one of them immediately.

“Kim,” I said. Or at least I tried. The word came out like a croak through dried lips and throat. How long had I been unconscious? “Kim,” I said, louder. The figures turned towards me.

Standing beside my partner Kim was a woman who looked disorientingly familiar. She must have just been in the neural expansion chamber: she still wore a sensor headdress across her scalp, the leads drooping across the up-turned collar of her lab coat. Something about her was very wrong. A deep sense of unease and nausea overcame me, and I doubled over. Gasping, I made myself look back up at them.

Behind Kim and the woman, a teenage girl sat perched on a stool. She wore a hospital gown and squinted as if pained by the light. As I watched, she reached out and grabbed Kim’s arm.

“It’s me.” The pleading note in her voice was heart-breaking. “It’s Ellen.”

There was a crash, and an obese man in a hospital gown stumbled through the doors. He showed clear signs of recent surgery.

“Kim,” he said. “Something went wrong. I woke up in someone else’s…” He trailed off as he stared at the woman next to Kim. “Oh, God,” he said.

There was a spike of pain as my migraine raged back into full force. I raised a hand to massage my temple and saw the ID bracelet on my wrist, name and room number printed on treated plastic. My name was apparently Carol Jones.

Over my shoulder I could hear shuffling feet, a growing chorus of “Kim…please, Kim,” as more and more patients pressed into the lab. I did my best to ignore the occasional cry of “It’s Ellen,” as they made my stomach knot and the wave of nausea rise again.

To distract myself I tried to do some math, remembering the range of our devices. I guessed at the population density of San Diego and tried to calculate just how many people would now flip up their collars and prefer their coffee with cream, just the way I liked it. I finally gave up, not really knowing if it mattered anymore. I covered my eyes, both from the harsh fluorescent glare of the lights and because I didn’t want to look again at the too familiar woman standing next to Kim. Eyes shielded I rocked back and forth, trying futilely to hide from the migraine that I knew would only get worse.

The Curious Case of Alpha-7 DE11

Originally published by Mad Scientist Journal : Winter 2015

* * *

<Beep>

Hello, Joachim. This is Dr. Manderagon. Vincent Manderagon.

I’m calling because I’m having trouble with one of our Golems. Specifically…ah…I just had it in front of me…

<Rustling papers>

Here it is: Serial number Alpha-7 DE11. He’s behaving oddly, and I’m worried that it may be starting to spread to the rest of the brood.

I called tech support, but they’re just bouncing me back and forth. I know it’s the weekend, but you’re my sales rep, and I need to get a call back today. Let me give you the situation quickly.

This Golem came with the brood I purchased two months ago—still well within the warranty period. I had them uncrated and left them to acclimate to the island’s humidity so that their clay wouldn’t crack once they were animated, blah-blah, you know the drill.

Regardless, after 48 hours I animated them with holy words and dead man’s blood, and before you know it, they’re stomping up and down the corridors, carrying equipment, cleaning up after surgeries, performing just like they should. I was all ready to give you guys a great write-up on Yelp, when I started to notice odd behavior.

I was checking on the progress of my current crop of subjects when I noticed that there was a Golem stooped over a cage. At first I thought he was cleaning, but he actually seemed to be looking at the hybrid inside. I came closer and saw the Golem and the hybrid were making eye contact. At the time, I chalked it up to the markedly human appearance of the hybrid’s face-admittedly quite an achievement, which took a number of tries for me to accomplish. I caught the Golem’s attention and got it moving, mostly using hand commands as the hybrid started a mewling scream/howl that made quite a racket. The vocal cords on that one were also tricky, but I’ve been making good progress in that area as well. Promising test subject, but it didn’t work out.

So a few days later, I decided to try a new batch of hybrids. I liquidated the old crop and left the Golems to clean up. When I took the fire-hounds out for a run, I passed an open pit where the Golems were disposing of the non-viable human/hyena hybrids, and instead of a pile of refuse, everything was laid out carefully, covered with a light layer of dirt. And here’s the crazy part: there were flowers scattered over them. At first I thought that the villagers had snuck onto the grounds of Maderagon Mansion, but security reported no breeches of the perimeter fence. So it must have been done by someone inside the compound.

Do I have your attention yet, Joachim?

The other twelve Golems in the brood appear normal. But this one—this Alpha-7—seems to almost show emotion. Oh, I know its face is hardened clay, but it manages to convey something with its, I don’t know, its body language, I guess.

When I talked to your tech support people they said that when Golem broods are created, the feeder soul is divided into such small portions that emotions shouldn’t register in the least with any single Golem. But then I got out the manual—or rather opened the file, since you guys are too cheap to provide a paper manual any more. And I found this gem:

<Clears throat>

"…In rare instances, instead of simply welling up and then dissipating, the energy of the emotion somehow becomes trapped within the physical body of the Golem…Trapped emotions can become problematic, and should be addressed before contagion occurs."

Now what the hell does that mean? Because I’m wondering if a brood of 13 Golems is one soul divided up, and if one of them starts to feel emotions, is there a ripple effect with the others? If that’s the case, Joachim, I’m going to want to have this entire brood replaced, and no, I will NOT be paying the shipping to return them.

<Muted siren>

What the? There’s a breech in the hybrid containment area.

<Unintelligible>

…all my work…Joachim, if your malfunctioning product—

<Siren warbles, then goes silent>

What the hell is going on?

<Pounding>

That…That should be security. Call me asap, Joachim, and let’s get this thing resolved.

<More pounding>

Coming! I’m coming you don’t need to break down the—

<A crash. Loud, heavy footsteps. Screaming begins.>

End of voicemail.

Naru Dames Sundar

A Revolution In Four Courses

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction, June 2015

First Course

Rathwan’s in Kur district is a study in white on white, the floor tile and tables arranged in a tessellation of rectangles whose sides matched the holy ratio of seven to three. Rathwan’s is empty today, save for one table, one lone guest—the Gedt general whose soldiers now pillage and loot the silk strewn arbors of the district.

Rathwan himself serves the dish to the general. The first course, serving to awaken memory, served on a square of carved bone. The conflict of square and rectangle is played out in the arrangement of paper thin shavings of smoked river fen. The delicate pink flesh of the fish is accompanied by thin curls of plum rind, their astringency balancing the inherent sweetness of the fillet.

The general’s arm is swift as a sword thrust, scattering the plate and the subtle shavings of fen into the air. One of them lands on Rathwan’s lips, hanging open in surprise. The general gets up and leaves, a smirk on his lips. At the door, he turns his head slightly toward Rathwan.

"So much effort for a plate of food, and so little when our swords clashed. That is why you have lost your city."

Rathwan watches the general melt into the sea of soldiers outside, and shudders.

Second Course

While the first course awakened a wash of memory, the second course was always of the now, living in the extremity of experience. Few Mahaali attend tonight’s meal. Once the soldiers slipped away, the rats came, the rabble of Gedt nobility, hungry for property. They purchased the stacked quarters and marble tiled avenues of the district, famed for its brightly colored pennants and exquisite cuisine.

Rathwan serves Rakh es Fatai to a quizzical Gedt. Small orbs of seared rabbit skin filled with garlic smoke, tied by an aromatic twist of herbs. The textural transition when the orb bursts inside one’s mouth is intended to signify moments in one’s life when shifts and changes happen on the instant, like Kur district the day after the general left. So soon were the old banners and pendants hidden away. So quickly were the ceremonial candles of the great temple snuffed.

The Gedt customer complains to his friend as Rathwan walks away.

"I was told this was the finest establishment in the city, but it’s so tired, so traditional. A little Gedt touch couldn’t hurt, perhaps even more than a little."

Wine addled laughter follows. Rathwan watches the disappearing flower of Mahaali tradition, its petals peeling off into the wind.

Third Course

The Mahaali citizen is dressed in the Gedt style, but the cut of his hair and the tattoos along his wrist signify his cultural heritage. He seems nervous. All of the old Mahaali are in these times. They disappear, slowly, with no cause. There is talk of a pogrom. But it is a quiet pogrom, a silent ghostly pogrom. The third course is always a pause, a place to breathe before the weight of the next.

Rathwan serves him a rendition of Mahaali rice, stewed with smoked nettles. Rathwan has altered it to serve the tastes of his clientele, now mostly Gedt. He replaced the artistry of structure and form with a striving for essence, attempting to adopt the Gedt philosophies of cuisine while retaining the origins that belied the dish.

The citizen looks at the dish, and then looks into Rathwan’s eyes. There is judgement there, anger as well, but the hardest of all for Rathwan to stomach, is the pity. The citizen bends down again, his brief flaring of passion over. He whispers almost impercetibly,

"And yet more is lost."

Intermezzo

Rathwan sits in his empty kitchen. A plate of gelled tuber sits before him, lightly salted translucent cubes mirroring the color of spring moss. It is a Mahaali dish in color, in form and in its historical allegory, touching back to the time when Mahaal was occupied by neighboring Sahwat. The dish had been served in back rooms and passageways, created to remind the Mahaali of their own history with the most simplest of preparations. There are none but him to eat it in Kur district today. None but Rathwan to appreciate the weight of the dish’s long past. Tomorrow the Gedt general would come again to Rathwan’s.

Fourth Course

Puffer fish has always been a stalwart of the fourth course. The poison sacs of the fish are a deadly toxin, prized in dilute quantities in rougher districts as a mild hallucinogen. Cleaned of the poison, the fish is quite sublime, a subtle balance of texture and flavor.

Rathwan looks at the flayed fish on the wood board before him. There is no one to assist him anymore—it is he alone who prepares the fish. It is Rathwan alone who cuts the poisonous sac instead of lifting it, who lets the colorless and odorless death wash over the meat.

The fish is served raw, in the purest Gedt style, accompanied by little more than a mild puree of tubers. A true fourth course would have presented the fish in riotous constructions of color and form, but the new Gedt nobility have subsumed the old ways. The Gedt do not see the roots of the dish, the tension of life against death. They see merely fish, blind to history.

Rathwan walks out of the kitchen and hands the dish to a servant. He watches the little death wander its way between the patrons before finding purchase on the general’s table. The general does not look at him, their first encounter long forgotten. The general has gone to fat, descended into complacency, no longer concerned of the thought of Mahaali around him. Rathwan returns to the kitchen and puts on his coat. He walks through the back alley, between the crates of imported fruits, across cobbled stone long worn down. The roots of his city are fading, and like a ghost, Rathwan slips away.

Infinite Skeins

Originally published by Crossed Genres

* * *

The room clatters into being, a sound like the slow flapping of wings. This room is empty, the wood covered in wind tumbled dust blown in from the gaping hole in the roof. The sky is burned and callused like the skin of dried grapes, a dull unblemished cinnamon. I don’t hear anyone around, but there is a keening in the distance, perhaps a wolf, or something akin to that. The windows are aged into amber, the glass obscuring whatever lay beyond. There are many of these rooms, abandoned, unattended and empty. I breathe deeply, hearing the hiss of my breath through the gas mask. This isn’t it. I press the button on the side of the box, holding on to my flashlight in case a windstorm or a gale punctures the skein and blows it away as it happened once before. I learned to bring a flashlight the first time I opened my eyes to a cold unyielding darkness. The ground was solid enough but the darkness gnawed at my bones until my scrabbling fingers found the button. I’ve seen burning rooms, icy wastes, airless plains under a sky the color of cherries—that last one taught me the value of an air mask—all these worlds wrapped in my two meter cage. None of them contained Xikele.

There were rooms that were so close that I sobbed a hot sea of tears as I pressed the button to make it disappear. Once I saw that same curlicued tassel of black hair and my breath caught as I pulled the blanket down. It was a boy. He had my eyes, the same almond colored cheeks, that same kink in the nose that Kuan loved to kiss, but his chin came from somewhere else, askew and dimpled. He stirred lightly and I hurried away, the conversations would hurt me more than the disappointment. It had to be close, it had to be a hairs edge away. I’d tried before, with a maybe, a possibly, an almost found. She had slumbered softly in my arms, her head burrowed into the crook of my elbow. Her wall had that same scrawled stick figure drawing, two mothers and a child in crayon, a streak of blue paint across the top. She didn’t know Kuan though, she had uncurled awake to Kuan’s desperate eyes and stumbled back in fear. She didn’t known Kuan, she hadn’t felt Kuan’s kisses or her gentle hands, her skein was too different. Ours collapsed her in a silent flicker flash, as swift as a hummingbird, and then the weight left my arms and I was standing there holding nothing, feeling Kuan’s resentment and anger. I’d sobbed on the floor for an hour until I crawled weary into bed where Kuan finally let her rage cool and covered me in her warm arms.

The year had scrubbed us clean. Scrubbed us clean of words and hopes and dreams, washed away by a sea of endless waiting. Waiting for a vid, an email, a data fragment from some police ferret endlessly searching the datasphere of public surveillance. There was an eight in ten chance that walking out our front door, a spy-sat would capture an image fine enough to see the dried tears against my eyelids, and yet all we had was speculations and questions. One day she returned home from school, the next day, nothing. The first day was frantic and terrifying, our minds careening through as many possibilities as I have seen through the box. The next few traded the hot flush of terror with a cold seeping fear. As the days, and the interviews, and the depositions, and the investigations tumbled into each other, an unbearable agony of powerlessness—after all that, the fear remained, sunk into our bones, leeching away hope. At work it began with shock, then questions, then finally a wordless silence, the new leprosy of grief. Abandoned, we sunk into each other like water into sand.

Kuan and I spent the first nights as a tumbled sphere of arms and heads, locked in endless sobs until finally the grief ran so raw that we could only sleep in separate rooms, the mere touch sending arresting frissons of memory rushing through my head. Alone, I ran through those recollections, fragment by fragment, as if saturation might stop the torrents. I remember the ampule of synthesized sperm, an egg white shell of micro-machined delivery mechanisms clad around Kuan’s genes. In that capsule lay the ancient song of my ancestors on some deep Kalahari night, thundering into the memories of Kuan’s wind scarred Mongols riding across the plains.

We had both been ready to carry the child, but even on my research salary, we could only afford one. I remembered her fingers moving gently inside me while her lips described poems on my skin. I remembered the subtle flick and whirr of the ampule delivering its cargo, my body already suffering from the synthetic hormones. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. The memories run by too fast. The agony and ecstasy of birth. Xikele’s screaming cry, borne from her Okwango ancestors, as they pulled her out of me. Seeing that perfect almond colored face against my chest for the first time. I wished I had fed her at least once, cupping her tiny head gently in my hands as I gave of my body. Instead I spent the first few months dazed on the bed, as the leftover chemical brew in my body slowly faded, stunting my mammaries as they exited my system.

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. She’s one. She’s two. She’s eight. She’s ten. Where did her childhood go? She’s out the door, I wave to her and kiss Kuan goodbye. I’m getting into my car as we both watch her turn the corner. Flicker. Flicker. Stop. That’s it, there’s nothing. Then she’s gone, like a soundless whisper into the wind.

Kuan threw herself into her painting. Six feet swatches of incandescent blacks and browns, sometimes the red of the burning fire, the paint splattering the walls around the canvas like angry hands beating concrete. We swapped conversation for long hours apart; she in the studio; me in my lab—the lab where the box was.

It is a terrible thing I do. Monstrous.

At work there’s a glass jar with a feather patterned in silver and copper. It was the first thing we pulled through, a tiny beautiful feather. We’ve kept it in the jar for months, its tiny cupola of antipodal space merging into our own, the distortions swabbed clean as the skeins merge. It was magical and mysterious, beyond anything, an accident that fractured all the simple rules that moored us to this simple linear causality. Trake was terrified of the consequences, ethical and moral. It anchored him to indecision, into waiting, into more tests. He stayed in his office, awaiting our reports, unable to direct us for fear of the possibilities.

A twist of matter exotic, curled around a swath of quantum instabilities rendered and manipulated by silicon and diamond. A matte cube with a button and dials to constrain the direction of flight. A box. A button. Flicker. Flicker. What skein twists around this sphere, this quantum tunnel into another fork? An endless multitude of what-if spaces enveloping like water around this small cupola that the box extends. We watch our skein and the other fracture around the edges like feathers. Too long and one skein wins, the water rushing in, the air pulling out. Flicker. Flicker. We turn the dials randomly, not caring where it went, like children playing with toys. By accident we found strands that mirrored ours, the differences noticeable but slight. The dials turn slowly as we traverse the cusp of skeins barely distinguishable from our own. It bores us quickly. We swing the dials like casino wheels, the gamble of a window into a million worlds.

Once I saw a bird sitting on a pearl colored branch just outside the edge of the field, silver patterned feathers splaying out on bifurcating wings across twin tails. I reached out, not caring, across the field, the skein folding like a glove, clasping a single feather and pulling. The feather slithered across the horizon, a feeling like slick oil. Drew and Obi were elated at the possibility that the feather could be in our skein without collapsing under the weight of its quantum interference. The feather was slight, an inconsequence, it existed in a tiny bubble that hung perfectly in our own imperfect reality, with nothing to pop it. That was perhaps the root of it.

The idea cuts through grief. Hope, like a flaming sword rising through my chest. I sat with Kuan in the paint spattered basement where the grief is buried under turpentine and oil. I explained to her about the quantum sea and the twist of matter exotic, the filigree of skeins branching out through dimensions near and far. It burned, this hope, it burned with shame, and fear and the dirty mud-slick feel of its repercussions. Kuan clutched me to her breast, letting my tears muddle into the ochre and the ultramarine streaked on her skin.

"Ayo, we can’t. I don’t believe you. I couldn’t do it even if it was possible. She’s gone Ayo. She’s gone, and there’s nothing we can do. We can’t do this!"

Yes we can. We can if you want it enough, if that desire burns you like flame. I said words that shouldn’t be said. Accusations without meaning. We dug up that grief, so quickly buried, and let it flourish and flower. We are mothers, both. One of us bore the seed, the other fed of her breast. We raised this child, and though Kuan yields to the simple causal truth of what is, I cannot—what-if space beckons me. Once I drew the feather across the cusp of skeins, it wasn’t so simple anymore.

* * *

The box disappeared from the lab, rousing Trake from his stupor.

"What do you mean its gone? Gone how? Gone where? Who took it, Ayo? We can’t tell them yet? Its not yet time!"

Trake is spluttering with rage and paranoia. He quietens when I tell him we’ve already built another one, retreating back into that small coffin of indecision. The children in the lab, Drew and Obi and I, go back to our meaningless explorations.

They knew I worked late. They knew why, but they had accounted me an exile from their questions and cares and asked nothing. It was easy to bring the box home, wrapped in nothing more than garbage bags and packing tape. I rigged it in Xikele’s room, attached by a spider’s web of wires to my slate, so I could map the skeins. Kuan stayed up with me the first night and the second. By the third night she went back to the basement and her paint, deathly afraid of what I might bring back.

It is a gradient descent through the sea of skeins, tracking the similar to find the closest strands. By day, the slate’s imager searches randomly, to find avenues worth exploring in my endless nights, until I crawl exhausted into bed. A grain of sand sails on a desert wind, a trillion causal connections separating skein from skein. I pick one road at random, adjust the dials with nothing more than intuition. Flicker. Another empty room, so similar to this one, the bed made and kept just like the day Xikele left. I sigh, the tears welling as they always do.

Once I saw another Kuan, slashed in shadow beyond the hall. That room was empty too, just like ours. Another skein without Xikele. That Kuan looked at me with shock. Understandable since another Ayo likely stirred in her bed. I flutter quickly away, another skein scratched off the list. Sometimes Xikele was older, a young woman asleep in the bed, the hair long and braided, the skin russet like red tea. The crayon drawings no longer adorn the walls, replaced by a scatter of books, Achebe lying atop Shakespeare.

Kuan and I both loved to read. We had spent our first night together on a beach in Durban, reading Yeats to each other by moonlight. The words had tumbled out our lips like the odor of spices, stanzas flecked with notes of chocolate, verses laced in cardamom and myrrh. Years later, we would take turns reading sonnets to Xikele though she couldn’t understand the words, her gentle smile our only encouragement. I saw the Achebe on the floor, dog-eared like my mother’s copy of Things Fall Apart, a victim of my school bag and too many bumpy rides on buses drifting over ill attended roads. Yes, I would have given it to Xikele. Another what-if. Flicker. This isn’t the one.

Once, Xikele is old and gray, death’s pallor inscribed on her face. The room is different but still the same house. Had we given the house to her before our own passing? It is a small bed, single, no room for another to curl into the space between her neck and shoulder, a sunken cavity of skin and bone now. This Xikele is awake when I appeared. Did I seem like an angel to her, the surface of the merging skeins like a ball of tiny feathers hung in space? Did she fear my mask, and the box in my lap? She did not. She raised her hand, though heavy with death’s weakness, fingers clawing out into the air. I drop the mask and reach out, the skein like silk against my skin as I clasp my fingers around Xikele’s. We hold there, for moments stretched in time, a meeting across possibilities, doomed to be brief. I can do nothing for this Xikele, and she can do nothing for me. Flicker. I pressed the button. I tried again.

In the mornings when I don’t go to work, as I brew coffee into a stained cup, Kuan regales me. It is our alotted time, when her wakeful energy clashes with my sleepless exhaustion.

"Ayo, what of the other Ayo? What of the other Kuan? If you take their Xikele, it dooms them too. It dooms them to this, " She waves her hands at the kitchen counter, the dishes piled up like small sculptures, the mold—iridescent green—growing in long uncleaned corners. It stops us, this gnawing grief, it holds us in dirty places where we wallow like flies in still water.

"How could you live with it? Ayo, how could you?"

Yes. It is awful. It is monstrous, but I rationalize it. The box exists in other skeins. Other Ayos will search for other Xikeles. An infinite number of Ayo’s searching and finding and retrieving an infinite number of Xikeles. Indunction on infinity replaces morality, as if replacing the act with an equation is enough of an excuse. The truth is, I simply want her back, and I do not care.

Kuan grew still, that quiet stillness that I knew so well.

"What if…what if," Her voice stills to an ominous whisper.

"What if that’s how Xikele was taken? What if that’s why there wasn’t a trace. Maybe one of you took her."

The idea burrows deep. I am become a we now. A plural community of would be monsters unable to accept the state of the world, grasping at exotic mysteries, opening doors locked closed by causal keys. Yes, induction leads to that conclusion too.

"Does it matter now, Kuan? Does it matter? I’ve opened that door in my heart, its taken seed and grown to root. How can I stop now. I’ve seen her, young, old, just born, just dying. I’ve held her hand, felt her breath. I’ll find her Kuan. I’ll find her, and bring her here, let her merge with our space, and our time."

Kuan shakes her head.

"Even if you bring Xikele here, it won’t be the same. It can’t be the same. This road doesn’t lead anywhere but darkness Ayo. I’ve lost Xikele, I don’t want to lose you."

An impasse. I cannot relent, and grief binds us too deep for her to leave, so the conversation stutters, like a broken piece of film. It curls up like flowers in the night, awaiting another dawn to unfurl the same argument, the same pointless words. Nothing changes. Nothing will change, not until I find Xikele.

At work, Trake wants to end the project. He fears a world where the box can be used in ways that it shouldn’t. He fears our people over-running an infinite worlds with our careless conquests. He fears unimaginable acts once only possible in dreams, God’s great gate into mystery used for the pettiest of desires. It’s too late for that. I’m already there.

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. One more, before my eyes curl closed against the rising sun. One more room, not broken and buried, not wreathed in purple fire nor drowned in sand the color of coral. One more room, spattered with crayon filled drawings, a beautiful coffee colored child draped in a sea of black curls under the moss colored comforter, a knife’s edge away from my Xikele.

* * *

The room flutters into being behind the feathered sheen of merging skeins. I gasp—an indrawn breath that burns into my lungs and turns my heartbeat into thunder beneath my skin. I turn the machine off and soak in every detail of the room in our house, Xikele’s room. I see the misaligned crayon drawings snaking across the back room, the stuffed toys stacked in leaning piles against the corner, a knit sweater now gray with dust lying on the floor, a single arm curled and pointing towards the hall.

I press the button, hearing the stutter and whine, the flicker and the flap. The floor is slick and shiny, free of dust and mold, but the stuffed toys still lean like organic sculptures against the corner. The same drawings are there, a few more I’ve never seen stuck in odd places, but the ones I know by heart—the ones I memorized in the days after she left—those lie in place on the wall, off kilter as Xikele always liked.

I’ve avoided looking at the bed, though it lies in front of me. I’ve blurred it out of my vision, so I could look only when I was ready. My heart rends every time it hangs so close, its unbearable, though every night I sit in this cage and try again. I let my eyes unblur, starting from the foot of the bed, following the comforter from the wide meadow where the bed was too long for her tiny body. The meadow leans up into the hill of her feet, gently rising in delicate folds until I make out arms wrapped around the dun colored bear toy that Xikele loved so well.

The round almond of her face, like coffee after I’ve added the first drops of milk, lies serene against the pillow. Her beautiful black hair, so like my own, danced slowly in the air as she breathed. I stop breathing for fear the moment will pass. I must drink of this moment like sweet nectar from the blossom strewn fields of heaven. As I hung suspended in hope, she stirred, the eyes gently opening, slanted in a gentle arabesque like Kuan’s own.

"Mama?"

My breath releases like a thunderclap.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Why are you covered in feathers?"

In the hall, a light switches open. I must be quick—if I do not do this now, I will never have the courage to do so again.

"Come give Mama a hug, sweetie?"

She clambers out of bed and stands against the edge of the field boundary. I can see she’s not quite awake yet, or there would have been more questions. I reach out, the skein as slick as my sweated palms. I take her hand and pull. The skein windows around her, gel like bubbles erupting around the gap. Like a caterpillar crawling out of its cocoon, she falls into the inside of my skein, fingers of the reality outside still wrapped like a barely visible caul around her. I hear footsteps in the hall, loud as the drumbeat of my heart. I press the button. Flicker. As I stare at the dissolving skein around me, I see the drawing on the wall, two stick figure mothers and a child, blurred by the unfolding skein. I make out the dark crayon tresses of my hair in the image before my own skein flickers into place, the dust and the mold shining from the lambent light of the box. I turn the box off, still feeling Xikele’s reassuring hand in my own.

"Mama, its so dusty all of a sudden! This feels like a strange dream and my tummy feels funny."

Joy unfurls, like the first bloom of spring. I envelop her in my arms, so tight she squirms against it.

"What’s wrong Mama? What’s wrong?"

"Nothing’s wrong Xikele, nothing’s wrong." There is a river of tears in me, a great Nile of tears, but for Xikele’s comfort, I hold it back.

"Everything’s right baby, everything is right. Mama’s here."

"I’m tired Mama, can I go back to bed now?" Xikele rubs her eyes, wiping away my sweat from her skin.

"Ok Xikele, I’m just going to wait here for a bit until you fall asleep."

"Okay Mama."

The tiredness claims her and she snuggles into the dusty comforter. In the morning there will be time to clean, to rebuild, to show Kuan and to wind time back across the great chasm of sorrow in which we had spent the last year. A new day was dawning, a new spring bloom. I look at the box again, making sure its telltale lights were off, reassuring myself that I was in my own skein, and she was there. We had gone through fire and flame, Kuan and I, we had burned ourself clean to the bone, but this—this would thread us back together. I held myself back from sleep, soaking in every diamond sharp moment, but sleep claimed me anyway.

* * *

I juddered awake, my heart like the gallop of horses. She was gone. She was gone. Stop. Breathe. Look. I count myself to ten to slow the spiraling world down. The comforter, long folded into its perfect geometric line, was disheveled and flung open, the memory of a child’s shape still pressed into it. I stood up, my bones creaking, and walked into the hall.

Inside the kitchen at the end of the long hall, I could hear the clink and plink of fork against bowl, and the slow slurp of coffee being sipped. Xikele stood just outside the arch of the kitchen, hidden in the shadow, face flush with fear. Feather streaks still hung around her arms and legs, though most had faded—she was settling into our skein slowly but surely.

Kuan would be in the kitchen. Had she seen Xikele? I would likely have heard. I bent down, my face against Xikele’s own. I hold her hand reassuringly. It is flesh warm and not skein slick as I feared. I whisper into her ear,

"What’s wrong sweetie?"

Her eyes look at me, slightly vibrating, tiny feather streaks glistening in and out of being on her eyelids.

"There’s a ghost in the kitchen, Mama." Her quiet, fearful whisper back.

"There’s no ghost there sweetie, I’ll show you. Come."

I take her hand as she sidles up against me, walking together into the kitchen. The ceramic bowl falls from Kuan’s hands first, shattering against the kitchen counter. A silence like the shaking of mountains unfurls, broken by Xikele’s tiny plaintive voice.

"Mama Kuan?"

Kuan wails Xikele’s name, bursting across the kitchen floor to envelop Xikele in her arms, all her fears and words of darkness shattered by the simple truth of Xikele’s presence.

"I missed you so much Xikele, I missed you so much, I missed you so." Kuan continues to repeat the words, burrowing her face into Xikele’s neck. I feel the cascade of time being drawn back, a rewinding to a time and place a year ago, the three of us unbroken. Xikele holds Kuan tight, her tiny arms clenched around Kuan’s delicate body.

"I missed you too, Mama Kuan, I thought you went away. I thought you went away forever." Simple words. Such simple words, like iron nails hammering into my bones. Like the fallen porcelain, I shatter into shards. The blurred drawing against the wall as Xikele’s skein dissolved flashes like lightning in my mind. I see the details of it, etched in sharp relief. In our wall, two stick figures surround Xikele’s tiny form, one in chocolate and black, another in ochre. The drawing in my memory from the other skein rises up and swallows me. Kuan’s figure was scratched out. Another mistake. The last one simply evaporated, she did not know Kuan, and that un-knowledge resolved her intersection with our skein into redaction. This Xikele knew Kuan, and had lost Kuan. I don’t know how the mathematics of this resolution will work out. It is as unclear and mysterious as the box, and the fear is exploding in me.

I look down at the two halves of my heart, hugging each other before me. I do not know what is about to happen. I wish I could undo this, walk backward through time until I could have seen the drawing and considered it at leisure. I watch the feather streaks glisten into being, wrapping the two of them, the skeins colliding and merging. In the lab we played and cavorted, abandoning science, abandoning the rigor of question and answer, of datum and hypothesis. We had rushed through dozens of worlds like visitors to Shangri-La. I don’t know what the skeins will do, I don’t know how they will merge. All I know is that I am bereft of power to stop this.

I could tear them apart now, but I can already see the skeins wrapping around them, preparing for judgement, preparing to render unto mathematical fact. This does not belong. Repair, redact, adjust. Clutching Xikele to her chest, Kuan looks up at me. Does she know? Does she feel it? An oil slick nausea. Her eyes fill with light, a lambent sheen, like the eyes of angels out of a Carravagio painting. A hand, reaches up, fingers sliding across space beyond infinite towards my own. She’s gone, flickered away, redacted into non-existence. Xikele is screaming.

My heart is a desert, scoured to bone. I wrap my screaming child in my arms, hold her for hours until the sobbing subsides. I tell her she was right. She saw a ghost, and seeing ghosts is a painful experience. Yes, Xikele, I miss her too. She continues to sob, until exhausted, she falls asleep. I carry her into bed and crawl in with her, holding her safe against the horrors of this new world.

As I close my eyes, another idea burrows to seed. Out the window, the sun rises, a lavender dawn casting pale shadows against the box on the floor.

Broken Winged Love

Originally published by Strange Horizons

* * *

I didn’t love my baby when it was but the dream of an iron-heart’s seed. I heard the iron-heart in my time of heat, mind-addled, my lungs heaving gouts of sulfur. Afterward, our tails curved amidst shattered rock and molten magma, I regretted my choice. The time was too early, the act irreversible. I groused so to the iron-heart, and he simply laughed, his charcoal scales quivering. I snapped at his throat, tasting the sour tang of blood and copper. He did not stay long.

I didn’t love my baby when it was an egg, opalescent shell binding unthinking yolk, buried and growing inside of me. I felt it weigh down my skin as I flew, no longer a graceful dancer, but a behemoth, lumbering. Three interminable weeks. I wondered if it will be whole. I dreamed of leaving the egg, perched on a mountain ledge, unattended. I dreamed of watching it fall, the sunburned yolk drizzling down the crags, pieces of shell scattering into the wind.

I didn’t love my baby when it crawled out, half formed. Still wreathed in its waxy caul, it shivered, one wing a stub—raw and forever broken. Shame burned red my gold and ochre skin. A poor bloodline, they called me. They, the other hens, with their perfect well-formed lizards. I held the pink and raw snippet of flesh against my chest, letting it feel the heat of my furnace, hot as as the heart of suns. I closed one wing around it, so it would not hear their laughter.

I didn’t love my baby when I sheltered it with my wings, feeling the crackling fire of other runts burnishing my scales. They soared a few feet off the ground, long bounding arcs like all runts should. But not mine. Not my broken offspring, held down to rock and earth and sea by nothing more than chance. I should not have listened to the iron-heart, but I did. I should not have trusted my blood, but I did.

I didn’t love my baby when it cried as the other younglings flew into the air. It watched them, trapped forever to the unforgiving earth. I let him scamper up my back, tiny little claws clasped around the bony ridges of my spine. I showed him flight, but it engendered nothing but pain. He would never know the sky, without me. Alone, he would know only the laughter of his herd brothers.

I didn’t love my baby when I held him with my claws, sweeping west to empty aeries, leaving the taunts of other hens far behind. I found one, a pearl amidst the ocean, a strip of beach and raised rock like some dead lizard of old. Here my child danced, free from comparisons. Here lay I, sundered from the sky, ever watchful of my growing gold-eyed boy.

I didn’t love my baby when I leapt with him in tiny hops on a deserted shore, as a choir of gulls watched us. It was not flight, and no trick of the mind made it so, but I heard his laughter, the keening roaring sound, the licks of flame that spurted with delight. We rose three feet into the ground, and then we landed, time and time again. It was our own dance, a private performance, a hidden joy. In secret dreams I longed for lost days flying carefree into the endless blue, adrift among clouds. When I woke, I felt him, sinew and bone, curled against my chest.

I didn’t love my baby when he burned my left wing, angry and raging, trapped in his broken body. I had been impatient, hoping that with his one wing he could leap higher, taste a larger piece of his birthright. I paid the price for such hopes. I tended to myself while my son raged along the strip of beach, flame scorching sand into puddles of glass. Had I not already paid enough? I mourned pinion, bone and skin, never to heal. I spent my days on the ground, with my lost dreams, with my son, a lizard of the sea.

I didn’t love my baby when he returned to me, mewling, apologetic, and I let him burrow into the crumbling scales of my neck. I watched them shed as his tears landed on uncovered flesh. Scales, already shedding? Time was my enemy now. How would this gold-eyed, green-glass beauty fare alone? Answers eluded me.

I didn’t love my baby when he hunted brinish things in the shallows, feeding me when I could not. I tasted the fish he gently placed in my gullet. It tasted unnatural, but it was a kind of pallid sustenance. My furnace was only embers now. One leg refused to move, but I did not care. I had given up the sky—the little perch of rock around us, it mattered little. My child reared majestically against the crashing surf, green as emerald. He wore his one wing across his shoulder like a cape. Atrophied, it was but a leathery ornament. I heard his roar, the furnace belching flame into the sky forever denied to him.

I didn’t love my baby when I held his green-glass face and smiled at him through rheumy half-blind eyes. I still saw the wing, the tiny shriveled thing, no longer a part of him in truth. He had left his birthright behind a long time ago, become something else, a native to this foreign shore. He bathed me in salt-water, lapped the dirt from my cracking talons. I would never see the sky now, but I have seen other horizons. He would bury me in the sand, raise me a pyre built from driftwood, lit by his flame.

I didn’t love my baby. Or maybe I did. Or maybe it was something else, some hidden place between words, incommunicable and unknowable.

Will Swardstrom

Uncle Allen

Originally published by Windrift Books

* * *

The air was crisp and clear, a little off kilter for a late August day in the bottoms of rural Southern Illinois. The soybeans were almost waist-high and the corn still clung to all the green it could, but the advancement of fall was evident by the drying of the plants. A few fields still held the vestiges of farm life from the early part of the twentieth century—crumbling silos, dilapidated barns, and hog houses virtually undone by the ravages of time and nature.

The slight chill made Rachel wish she’d brought more than just a few long-sleeved shirts to Grandma Naomi’s house. Actually, the twenty-seven-year-old wished she wasn’t heading to her grandmother’s homestead at all—the past few years hadn’t been kind to Grandma Naomi. A fractured collarbone, a urinary tract infection, dementia, and all sorts of issues in between…lately it seemed as though if it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

Rachel absentmindedly turned on the radio. Not a lot of choices on her dial. There were perhaps ten to twelve stations that were at least mildly free of static, but nine of them played country, and the rest were hit or miss depending on the weather. Luckily, Rachel always made sure her phone was stocked with some decent music for trips like this—her own personal jukebox.

Just as she synced her car’s sound system to her phone, her phone chirped. She fumbled with the volume on the dash for a moment before answering.

“Hello?”

“Rachel?”

Rachel recognized the voice immediately. “Hello, Uncle Allen. Yes, this is Rachel. I’m on my way, if that’s what you’re checking.” Her tone contained a touch of sarcasm.

“Of course I wasn’t checking,” Uncle Allen responded. “I was just calling to see how my favorite niece was doing.”

“Allen?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m your only niece,” Rachel said, a grin creeping onto her face.

“That doesn’t make it less true,” Allen chided. “But since you brought it up, what time do you expect to be here tonight? I’ll see about having dinner on the table when you do.”

Rachel glanced down at the clock on her now-silent radio and mentally plotted out the remainder of her trip. “Oh, I’d say about seven o’clock? Maybe later if I get caught in a traffic jam.”

Uncle Allen guffawed. If there was anything more unlikely in Southern Illinois than a traffic jam, it was a skyscraper, or perhaps Godzilla. “Okay. Sounds good. I’ll tell your grandma. She’s really looking forward to seeing you.”

Rachel felt a pit in her stomach. “She’ll see me, but will she remember me? Will she even know I’m there?”

Allen went quiet, and Rachel realized she should have been more sensitive. She knew that Uncle Allen felt personally responsible for his mother’s health—after all, he was the one who lived close by, and he was in charge of her care. Yet most days Allen was needed in the field, so he’d had to rely on a cobbled-together series of nurses, family members, and friends to come by and watch over her while he worked.

This week, it was Rachel’s turn to help. And in addition to keeping an eye on her grandmother, Rachel had also promised to purge the clutter in Grandma Naomi’s attic. It seemed that Grandma had never forgotten Rachel’s long-ago promise to clear out the mess—even though there was no guarantee that Grandma would even remember Rachel’s name when she pulled in the driveway.

Rachel was almost sure her call had dropped when Allen finally spoke again. “You know she loves you. She can’t help it, and whether or not she remembers, it’ll be good for you to be here.”

Rachel nodded, even though Allen couldn’t see her. “I guess you’re right. I better get off the phone and focus on the road then. I’ll see you in a couple hours. Love you, Uncle Allen.”

“Love you, Rach.”

* * *

The trip took a bit longer than she’d estimated, but at last Rachel pulled onto the road leading to what had been her favorite place to visit as a little girl. It had been several years since Rachel’s last visit here; after college, she had moved up to Indianapolis, a land full of metal and noise. Now, just turning onto the gravel road gave her goose bumps, reminding her of all the memories she’d shared with her cousins at the farm.

Her sports car kicking up dust behind her, Rachel maneuvered down the gravel road and then up the long driveway belonging to Grandma Naomi. Surrounded on three sides by a thick grove of trees, her grandmother’s house was typical of early twentieth-century farmhouses in the Midwest: four bedrooms on the top floor, a large living room and dining room attached to the kitchen on the main floor, and a basement that followed the same basic floor plan of the house. The only difference in the basement’s layout was that it lacked the additional bathroom that Naomi and Grandpa Henry had added to the main floor back in the late 1950’s, when they were first lucky enough to get running water. Rachel’s mom still talked about using the outhouse in the winter when she was a child.

From the outside, the house looked almost like a big cardboard box with the flaps slightly open to form the roof. A hailstorm had devastated the area the year before, and the aging shingles showed the evidence of it. Uncle Allen had promised to take on the repairs, but farming took him away from the task nearly every chance he had. Still, the roof was in decent shape, and everyone knew Allen would fix it immediately if it ever leaked anywhere in the house. Uncle Allen was busy, but he took care of his family. In fact, he was the kind of guy who was everyone’s favorite, whether he was your favorite uncle, brother, friend, or farmer. He just had a certain magnetic personality that kept people entertained.

As Rachel parked, she saw her grandmother out in front of the house, watering her small flower garden. Rachel wouldn’t say Grandma was a hoarder, but the years she spent living in the Great Depression had taught her never to be wasteful. That was particularly true with clothes: if there was any use to be gotten out of an old item, she would squirrel it away for a rainy day. Her clothing, therefore, was a mix of styles gathered from across decades. Today her top bore a definite resemblance to the homemaker blouses Rachel had seen in a few reruns of Leave it to Beaver, while her slacks were 1970’s polyester through and through.

“Hello, Rachel!” Grandma Naomi called out as Rachel stepped out of the car. “We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”

Whew. At least she remembers my name.

“We?” Rachel asked, hoisting her suitcase out of the back seat.

“Oh, yes. Me and your Uncle Allen, of course.”

“Of course.”

“We had more visitors, too, but they left just a minute or two before you got here,” Grandma Naomi said. “Funny-looking. Kinda glad they didn’t decide to stay.”

That stopped Rachel. She knew she’d been all alone on the gravel road coming into the farm. And while the road continued on past the driveway, it was rarely used, and Rachel hadn’t seen any dust kicked up. Well, she had been distracted listening to the music on her phone. Perhaps she’d simply missed them.

“Really? What were they here for?”

“Hmm…now that you ask me, I can’t quite remember. I’m sure they were here for your Uncle Allen, though. They always are,” Naomi said, putting her watering can down next to a row of marigolds. She bent down—an amazing feat considering her advanced age—to pluck off a few dead flower heads.

Rachel was still concerned about these visitors to the farm. “Who were they, Grandma? You say they’ve been here before?”

“Oh, yes,” her grandmother replied. “Those men have been coming here for a long time. I wish they would just go away, but they won’t leave me and Henry alone. They just feel…off. Like they’re here, but not here at the same time. Strange clothing. And their accents…I’m not even sure they’re from this country. Could be spies. You know: the Soviets.”

And there it was. Her grandma was combining fact, fiction, and history. She may have recognized and greeted her granddaughter by the correct name, but she was also somewhere in her own past, and apparently reliving some political thriller at the same time.

Just then Uncle Allen popped his head out of the side door of the garage, saving Rachel from an uncomfortable situation. “Supper is ready. Glad to see you, Rachel.”

After allowing herself another sideways glance at her grandmother, Rachel grabbed the handle of her suitcase and headed toward the garage. As she passed by Uncle Allen, she made eye contact with him for a brief moment. And in that split second, she saw something…strange. Allen had always been so jovial and vibrant. Even in the face of his mother’s illnesses and maladies, he’d always kept up appearances. He’d always put on a brave face.

But this time…his eyes told a different story.

Uncle Allen was afraid.

* * *

After a late meal and then getting Grandma Naomi settled into her chair to watch The Tonight Show (the “Johnny Carson show,” Naomi insisted), Rachel and Uncle Allen reconnected over a small makeshift brush fire near the driveway. The bright colors of Grandma Naomi’s flowers were subdued and dim under the curtain of darkness, and the night sky was like oil covering the landscape.

A few stories from her uncle brought laughs from Rachel, but eventually the stories wore out and the laughter did as well. Rachel sat in silence for a few moments, gazing up at the stars, light years away.

“I miss her,” she said.

Silence followed from the other side of the fire. Finally, after a few moments, Uncle Allen replied.

“Yeah. I know, kid. I miss her, too. Growing up, it seemed at times like she was the only one who really got me,” he said. “Like Mom and Dad loved me, but kept their distance a little. Your mom was the best sister I could’ve asked for. Your other aunts were just too old by the time I came around.”

Rachel felt a slight chill in the air, but being with Uncle Allen was warming her soul. She nodded toward the starry expanse. “You think she’s looking down on us? That there’s someone out there that cares what happens down here?”

Allen cocked his head and took in the Milky Way and the countless stars that shone down. “Up there? I don’t know. I do know I’ll never forget her. In that way, maybe your mother will keep on living, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

With nothing else to be said, Rachel stood, walked around the fire, sat down next to Uncle Allen, and put her head on his shoulder, both of them remembering her mother.

* * *

The next morning, Rachel woke to light streaming in the windows of her mother’s childhood room. The house had been built long before mini-blinds had been invented, and the bedrooms had been vacated before window shades would become the norm in homes across the country. The sun illuminated the entire room, chasing away any darkness still lingering.

Unable to sleep any longer, Rachel slid out of bed and dragged herself down the stairs, only to find Grandma Naomi already up and baking. The scent of sugar and cinnamon filled the small kitchen. Rachel pulled a chair out from the table and sat, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Good morning, Melissa!” Naomi said, turning around. Her face showed a brief moment of confusion. Rachel waited a moment before responding, to see if Grandma would realize her mistake. She didn’t.

“Good morning, Grandma. I’m Rachel. Melissa is my mom, but she couldn’t be here today,” Rachel said, a small tear beginning a slow slide down her cheek. One of the worst parts in coming to her grandmother’s house was reliving the painful memories of Mom. It’d been three years, but Rachel wondered nearly every day what would have happened if her mom had only gotten that mammogram earlier. What if she had gotten to the doctor even just a few months earlier? Would she still be here?

But her mother was gone, and now Rachel felt compelled to help take care of Grandma Naomi, to take her mom’s spot in the family rotation.

“Of course you are. I said Rachel, didn’t I?” Naomi didn’t wait for an answer, probably because she already knew her mistake. “What do you say we get up in that attic after the rolls come out of the oven? I haven’t been up there in probably ten years.”

Just then the timer went off, and Rachel hopped up, grabbed an oven mitt, and took the steaming sweet rolls from the oven. As she set them on the counter to cool, she glanced out the window above the kitchen sink to see if Uncle Allen’s truck was there. Gone. Rachel was alone with her grandmother. Well, no time like the present to clear out years of dust and memories from a hundred-year-old house.

“Yeah, Grandma. Sounds good. First though, let’s eat.”

* * *

The attic was foreboding on many levels, and the neglect was tangible. Spider webs and dust covered everything. Boxes were stacked to the joists along the walls, and dated Christmas decorations were scattered haphazardly around.

As Rachel began to inspect the boxes, she noticed many were damp. The leaky roof had affected Grandma’s attic after all. Books that had been boxed up, perhaps in the hopes of storing them on a bookshelf again at some point, were now ruined, their pages warped and wilted by the constant moisture coming in from above.

“Grandma, these books are no good,” Rachel called out across the large attic space. She’d situated the elderly matriarch in a folding chair as soon as they’d come up to the attic.

“What do you mean, dear? Those books were perfectly fine when I boxed them up last week.”

Not again.

Rachel grabbed a book and made her way back to her grandmother, maneuvering carefully around a stack of cardboard cutouts that appeared to be from Naomi’s days as a Sunday School teacher at the local Methodist Church.

“Grandma, look at this book,” Rachel said, handing her a paperback copy of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds.

“Oh, yes, this was your grandfather’s favorite. All the suspense and the beings from another world. Too much for my taste,” Naomi said. “But it’s all wet. What did you do to it?”

Rachel sighed. Perhaps she would have to take on this task without Grandma’s consent. It wasn’t like she was going to remember what Rachel did or didn’t do anyway. She took the book back.

“The attic is too moist for books,” Rachel said. “They’re all this way, Grandma.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t need to keep damaged books. You just take care of them, Rachel. I’ll stay here and look through these boxes.” In front of Naomi’s folding chair were a couple of small boxes.

“What’s in there?”

“Oh, just a few of the kids’ favorite toys. As they outgrew them, I’d put them away up here. I always meant to give them back to them, but they’ve all gone now. Gone or moved away,” Naomi said.

“Not all of them, Grandma,” Rachel reminded her. “Uncle Allen still lives down the road. Remember? He comes by every day to check up on you.”

Naomi’s eyes clouded for a nanosecond and then cleared. “Oh, yes. You’re right, honey.”

Peering into the box on Naomi’s lap, Rachel saw many familiar shapes: a toy gun, a teddy bear, a baby doll. Each had special meaning for her mother, her uncle, or one of her aunts. She wondered which items belonged to her own mother when she was growing up in this very house—what special toy her mom had loved and cherished until it was a forgotten object, a mere memory of carefree days.

Then something caught her eye. Reaching down, Rachel plucked a key from the box. It didn’t appear old—in fact, it still shined as if it were brand-new. Impossible—Grandma Naomi herself had said she hadn’t been in the attic in years. But Grandma isn’t exactly a reliable witness. Rachel had to admit that although Grandma Naomi believed herself to be truthful, her mind could jump not only between decades but between fact and fiction.

“What’s this?”

“That’s Allen’s toy key. I remember he held on to that key until he turned seven years old. Each and every day, you’d walk into a room and find him holding and playing with that thing. Never really knew where it came from—one day he was just holding it. I suppose today I might’ve gotten turned into the Department of Child and Family Services for letting him play with keys,” Naomi said, with a smirk on her face.

“Maybe,” Rachel said, twirling the key before her eyes. The small key wasn’t aluminum or silver or any metal she recognized; it had an iridescent sheen to it, appearing slightly different from every angle. She’d never seen anything like it.

Grandma Naomi made a motion to put the box down, so Rachel volunteered to find a place for it, and to organize its contents and find homes for the various toys. She absentmindedly stuck the key in her pocket as she moved the box over to the other side of the attic.

“You girls up here?” Uncle Allen called up from the base of the stairs.

“Come on up,” Naomi answered.

“Nah. I don’t need to see any of that old stuff. Don’t want to get stuck doing your job anyway. Just wanted to swing by and check on you two.”

“We’re doing okay,” Rachel answered. She toyed with the key in her pocket, but for some reason resisted the urge to show it to Allen.

“All right, then. I gotta get back to it. I’ll come by later for dinner,” Allen said, his voice trailing off as he headed back down the stairs and out of the house.

“I do hope that boy is careful. I’d hate for him to run into our visitors from yesterday. They said they’d be back, you know,” Grandma Naomi said. Rachel peered over the boxes to find Grandma going through a basket full of Good Housekeeping magazines from the mid-eighties.

Rachel worked by herself for the next few minutes before peeking back to check on her grandmother’s progress. Grandma’s head was down, a magazine drooping on her lap. Asleep. At least, Rachel hoped she was asleep. She crept over and double-checked that Grandma was still breathing, then headed back to her work—pitching junk and saving memories.

Another box of books: trash.

A box of greeting cards: mostly trash. Rachel salvaged a few she knew Grandma Naomi would want and tossed the rest into the wastebasket.

Digging out a box labeled “Dates,” Rachel found a complete set of wall calendars from the 1970’s. She just shook her head and moved on to a box she’d found virtually hidden, stuffed in the back corner. This box wasn’t cardboard like the others, but was instead a wooden crate made up of small slats. Hardly watertight, so Rachel was tempted to chuck the entire mess before she even perused it, but something caught her eye.

Inside the box was a stack of small lined pieces of notebook paper that appeared to have been ripped out of a journal or diary. The top page was labeled Oct. 19, 1959.

Rachel probably wouldn’t have given it another thought except for one thing: it was the day Uncle Allen was born.

Bending down and folding herself into a seated position, Rachel carefully extracted the loose sheets of paper, noting that some had been damaged by the moisture. The pages were brittle where they weren’t damp. Peeling them apart, Rachel set them down on the wooden floorboards.

The pages ran to the end of the year—definitely pages from a diary—but unfortunately, they were all blank except for the first one. And even that page was a mess of seemingly random words interrupted by water stains. Rachel took her cell phone out of her pocket, and selected the flashlight app. Immediately, the attic lit up, casting shadows all around. Rachel pointed the light at the page below.

Dec. 19, 1959

The baby (unintelligible) 8 lbs., 5 oz. (unintelligible) healthy. (unintelligible) concerned.

Visitors (unintelligible) hospital. Never (unintelligible). I refused (unintelligible). Naomi wasn’t so (unintelligible). Just concerned about (unintelligible). They will be (unintelligible) threats, but (unintelligible) ready.

Rachel was confused. It definitely wasn’t Grandma Naomi’s handwriting; it had a more masculine tilt to it, and Rachel had seen her grandmother’s handwriting dozens of times on birthday and Christmas cards over the years. It must be her grandfather’s journal.

She looked at the rest of the pages, confirming they were all blank. And apart from the occasional smudge, they were. There was only that one page that had been used. Given the date and the baby’s measurements, it was clearly about her uncle’s birth. But what was this about threats?

Should she go to Uncle Allen and ask him? Would Grandma Naomi remember the events of fifty years ago?

Rachel rifled through the rest of the box but found no other papers or important documents. So she snuck down the attic stairs and put the diary pages in the dresser drawer in her bedroom. She’d think about it more later, perhaps that night as she went to bed.

As Rachel re-entered the attic, Grandma Naomi was waking back up.

“Oh, hello,” Naomi said, looking around her, confused by her surroundings. “Are you here to take me to the hospital?”

“No, Grandma,” Rachel said. “Let’s head back downstairs. I imagine you could use a trip to the powder room.”

“Oh, I guess you’re right,” Naomi said. “I feel like I’ve been up here for hours, but that’s impossible. I was just watching M*A*S*H with Henry. Speaking of…I wonder where Henry is.”

Rachel didn’t want to fight that battle right now, so she just went along with it. “I think he may have gone out with Allen to work in the fields.”

“Oh, yes. What a good boy, that Allen. Always staying home to help take care of me. I do hope we get him back one of these days.”

* * *

After a nap, Grandma Naomi was in a better state of mind. A late-afternoon rain shower forced Allen to call it a day early, and so the three relatives found themselves eating pork chops around the table just before the prime time TV schedule got going.

“How was your day?” Naomi asked Allen.

“Fine. Had a little trouble with the sprayer out in the field past Wither’s Corner, but I got it sorted out,” Allen said between bites.

Rachel sat at the table, finding herself staring at her food because she couldn’t bring herself to look Uncle Allen in the eye. Finally, she worked up the courage to ask an apparently innocuous question.

“Uncle Allen, what was life like when you were young? I mean…I don’t have my mom to ask about her childhood anymore, so I guess you’re the next best thing.”

Her mind was stuck on the pages of the diary she’d found from earlier in the afternoon. What was so special about Uncle Allen’s birth? Why did Grandpa Henry—or whoever—write about it and then tear those pages out of his diary? Where was the rest of the diary, from before that day? She’d scoured the attic the rest of the afternoon after helping Grandma Naomi into bed, but to no avail.

“Life? Like here on the farm?” Allen asked. “Boy, I don’t know. Pretty standard, I imagine. Dad always had work for us to do. Your mom always tried to get out of working outside, though. She was usually working with Mom here in the kitchen.”

“Oh, yes,” Grandma Naomi piped up. “Your mother was the best cook to ever work in this kitchen. I’d like to say I taught her everything she knew, but that just wouldn’t be true. She came up with some wonderful recipes I’d never dreamt of.”

It was great to hear her grandma talk about her mother—and better still to hear her talk in a coherent manner—but Rachel’s mind was racing about her Uncle Allen. She tried to shift the focus back to him.

“What did you do for births back when you had children, Grandma?” Rachel asked. “You don’t hear much about women having babies at home these days, but you had all of your kids at home, right?”

“I did. Even my last, my boy Allen right here,” she said, reaching over to pat Allen on the arm. “It wasn’t easy, but there’s nothing like it. I couldn’t imagine going to a strange hospital room when you have everything you know and love at your own home. Wouldn’t you rather have a baby in a familiar place than some cold, sterile room?”

Rachel knew exactly where she would like to have kids one day, and it wasn’t at home, but she wasn’t about to tell Grandma Naomi that. She simply nodded, shoving a forkful of pork into her mouth.

“Did you have any problems then?”

“Me? No, can’t say I did. All my kids were healthy,” Naomi said, but then furrowed her brow. “Well, there were a few problems with Allen. But I was so exhausted after I had him that by the time I felt better, he was completely better as well.”

“Really?” Allen said, stopping his meal mid-bite. “I never knew that. What was wrong?”

“Oh, wow. It’s hard for me to remember. Henry was always better with those things. We were actually going to name you Henry, Jr., but we changed our minds after you came along. What was wrong? Something about your lungs. Doctors didn’t share as much back then. They did have to show me you were breathing when you were first born,” Naomi said. “I thought you were dead at first. A stillbirth.”

While Naomi worked on cutting her pork chop, Rachel and Allen looked at each other. Neither one had heard any of this before.

“Mom, you never told me any of that before,” Uncle Allen said.

“Family’s got to have some secrets,” Grandma Naomi said curtly, signaling to both her son and granddaughter that she was done with this particular line of questioning.

The rest of the meal was spent talking about the weather forecast and how the crops were doing. But by the time Grandma Naomi was serving up a slice of rhubarb pie for dessert, any hint of her earlier clarity and lucidity had vanished.

“Rachel, my dear, you were careful today in the attic, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was, Grandma. You saw what I threw out and what I didn’t,” Rachel answered. She worried for a moment Naomi knew about the diary pages she had squirreled away in her mom’s childhood bedroom. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You? Oh, no, you were fine. I was just concerned about the men up in the attic with us today. You know who they are—they look like us, but they aren’t us.”

…And Grandma Naomi is gone again.

“Uh, Grandma? I don’t remember seeing any men in the attic today.”

“Of course you don’t. They’re clever. They wouldn’t want you to see them. They’re very good at hiding, after all. They’re best, though, when they hide in plain sight.”

“Mom,” Allen said, “You’re scaring Rachel. There weren’t any men in the attic. I stopped by, too. I would have seen them if they were really there.”

Rachel took a bite of her pie, but suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. Between the diary pages, the mysterious key, and her grandma’s crazy talk, it was a bit much for her. “Maybe you’re thinking of a different day, Grandma,” Rachel offered. “I don’t remember seeing them, but I guess that doesn’t mean they weren’t here. I did step out from the attic for a few moments.”

“Yes, dear, that must be it,” Naomi said, again closing the door on the topic.

Somehow, though, Rachel suspected the conversation was far from over.

* * *

Sleep was elusive. Just as the lack of blinds on her mother’s window allowed sunlight to stream in unfettered in the morning, it also allowed in the bold moonlight at night. And if it wasn’t a full moon, it was close. As Rachel lay in bed, she thought that she should appreciate this chance to really view the night sky; back home in Indianapolis, the light pollution virtually hid the stars from view. But right now, she really just wanted to sleep.

After several minutes of wrestling with the brightness, Rachel finally went to the closet and found a quilt to drape over the window. But as soon as the quilt went over the window’s opening, Rachel realized that not all the light in the room had been due to the moon. On the corner of the dresser, where Rachel had emptied her pockets from earlier in the day, the key from the attic was shining like a beacon in the darkness.

“What the…?” Rachel asked the empty room around her. But there were no answers here. All she had was the strange key and the diary pages.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Rachel opened the dresser and withdrew the aged papers. She didn’t know why she thought there might be something new, but she shuffled through the pages again, examining them in the light cast by the key. And when she lined up the pages on her bed, her hunch was proven correct: what had appeared to be mere smudges on the blank pages came together to spell out a phrase. Perhaps it had been harder to see before because the pages weren’t fully dried; or perhaps the pages only showed their secret in the eerie glow of the key. Either way, the hidden message created a new mystery:

“I’ll bury it in the second hole.”

The second hole? What did that mean? Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to figure it out, but her mind couldn’t put the puzzle together. Even if she had all the pieces, which she was sure she didn’t, Rachel acknowledged to herself that there might not even be much to the mystery before her.

And was this really something Rachel should be digging into? Didn’t Grandma Naomi say every family had their secrets? Was this a secret that should stay hidden?

Before she knew what she was doing, Rachel had changed back into her T-shirt and jeans from earlier in the day and was slipping on a pair of tennis shoes. The diary pages went into her back pocket, along with her cell phone, but she kept the key in her hand to light her way.

The house was dark and Rachel was afraid the light from the key would wake her grandmother, but when she passed her grandmother’s bedroom on the first floor, the door was closed. She kept her hand over the key to dampen the light. For whatever reason, Rachel felt herself being led out of the house and into the back yard.

When she turned left out of the garage door, she found herself face to face with Uncle Allen.

* * *

“What—what are you doing out here?” Rachel asked.

“I might ask you the same thing young lady,” Allen said. “But since you asked, I ran out of gas on my way home. I knew there was a spare can in the barn here, so I was heading over that way when I saw a light coming from your mom’s—I mean, your bedroom.”

“So? Girl can read a book if she wants, right?”

“Is that what you’re doing out here? Reading?”

Rachel put her head down. “No.”

“All right. Let’s hear it. I saw how you were looking at me at supper. Rather, how you were avoiding me. What’s up? Did you find something in the attic? My fifth-grade report card? Worse yet, my fifth-grade school picture?” Allen chuckled.

Rachel opened her hand to reveal the key. “I found this.”

“Whoa.”

“Grandma said it was yours. She said you played with it all the time when you were a kid.”

Rachel saw the look in Allen’s eyes go from confusion to recognition. “Yeah. I mean, it’s been almost fifty years, but I do remember this. I didn’t play with toy guns and action figures when I was a kid. I played with this key. But it’s one of those memories that comes and goes—in fact, for a long time, I thought I might have imagined this. I don’t remember it ever glowing, though.”

“Well, that wasn’t all. I also found some diary pages written by Grandpa,” Rachel said, pulling the pages out of her pocket. She handed them over and used the key to help Allen read the pages for himself.

“Okay, but this doesn’t tell me why you’re outside at midnight,” Allen said.

“I don’t know,” Rachel said. She was beginning to wonder about that herself. “Maybe I let my mind get carried away with everything, but with the key and the diary pages, along with everything Grandma Naomi is saying…”

“Rachel. You know she’s lost it, right?”

“Well…”

“No, Rachel. She’s been my mother longer than she’s been your grandmother. I’ve seen her descent, and it’s a sad thing to see, but she isn’t anything like she was when I was a little boy,” Allen said, scratching his beard. “And the things she says…You know, you get a moment like what we had at supper tonight where she remembers who we are and remembers what really happened in her life. But then something happens. I wish I knew what it was, but she changes. Her memories become fiction. It isn’t even that she goes back to her youth—her mind just goes someplace else and the words that come out of her mouth…” He shrugged. “You just can’t trust anything she says.”

“Even what she said about you being stillborn?”

“Even that. I’ve never heard that before. Don’t you think I would have heard that some time in the last fifty-three years?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“But these diary pages are interesting. My dad always refused to talk to me about when I was born. Maybe there are some answers in the rest of his diary. If it even exists,” he said, thumbing through the pages again.

“Do you have any idea what the secret message means?” Rachel prompted, showing Allen the message hidden in the smudges.

Allen considered. “Hmm…in the second hole.”

“Yeah, I don’t have any idea what it means, either,” Rachel confessed, her shoulders slumping.

Allen looked up with a wry grin. “I didn’t say I don’t know what it means. I actually think I may know exactly what it means.”

Rachel stopped. “You do?”

“Yeah. At least, I hope it means what I think it means. If it doesn’t, it could be pretty unpleasant.”

“What do you mean?”

Allen looked around, then turned toward the woods behind the house. “Follow me. I’ll show you.”

* * *

As they plunged into the wooded area, Rachel was extremely grateful for the glowing key. The strange object illuminated the entire area under the canopy, showing Rachel and her uncle where they could place their steps in the blackness of night. Even with a nearly full moon, navigating in the woods would have been tricky without some sort of flashlight.

“Where are we going?” Rachel asked. For some reason she felt compelled to keep her voice at a whisper.

“The only place I know of with two holes,” Uncle Allen called back, apparently not concerned about making noise.

Rachel kept her mouth shut as she followed Allen the rest of the way. The two of them had to dodge low-hanging tree limbs and weave in and out of thick brush and undergrowth. Eventually they stood before a small wooden building, its boards rotting. It had been built for a purpose, and when it had outlived its usefulness, it was forgotten.

“The outhouse.”

Rachel was dumbfounded. “Seriously?”

Allen chuckled as he lifted a few boards that had fallen across the long-forgotten door. “I guess you don’t remember much about your Grandpa Henry, but he always had a bit of a sense of humor. And I imagine he never expected anyone would come looking for anything in the ol’ outhouse, so this may have been the best place to put something he wanted to keep hidden.”

Rachel caught a glimpse of Allen’s face under the moonlight. He was grinning, as if he hadn’t had this much fun in years.

“Okay. I guess. But what about this ‘second hole’?”

“I guess you never used the outhouse, did you?” Allen asked, not waiting for an answer. “Dad built this well before I was even a glimmer in his eye. And for whatever reason, he built it with two toilets. We used to call an outhouse like this a ‘two-holer.’”

“Clever.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I know. But the thing is, while there were two holes, Dad never got around to cutting the second hole. If the message means something, maybe it’s that he hid something here.”

By now, he had cleared the door of rotten lumber and debris, and the two of them stumbled into the outhouse. Sure enough, they were staring at a room with a wide bench across the long end. There was a hole on the right side of the bench, and more than enough room for a second hole on the left.

Allen went straight toward the void on the left. “We always used the one over on the right, so this,” he said, prying up a loose board, “should hold whatever we’re looking for.”

With a crack, the old board came loose. Rachel held the glowing key next to the hole and peered inside.

Underneath the bench was a marble slab—a headstone. Rachel gasped.

Carved into the stone were a name and a date.

Henry, Jr.

Oct. 19, 1959

Rachel turned to look at her uncle. It was difficult to tell in the eerie glow from the key, but he seemed to have lost some of his color.

“What…?”

“I don’t know, Rachel. Mom said they were originally going to name me Henry, Jr. Did they have this made, thinking I was dead?” Allen asked.

A few moments passed silently between them. Then Allen reached down, grabbed the edges of the marble slab, and lifted it aside. Rachel gasped, but Allen wasn’t listening.

“Time for some answers. If Mom can’t tell me, I’m going to find out for myself.”

Underneath the marble was a metal box. Gingerly, Allen reached in and pulled it out. It was big enough to be a makeshift casket for a baby.

“This is awful heavy to have only a dead infant inside,” Allen said. “I’m not sure, but I think this box is made of lead. Should we open it?”

Rachel briefly thought of every horror movie she’d ever watched, of how she would scream at the protagonists to not open such a box, but she couldn’t help herself. She had to know what was inside. She needed to unravel the half-century-old mystery.

“Yes.”

Allen must have felt the same way, as he immediately placed the box on the ground and crouched down to examine it. A simple latch on the front popped open with a little pressure, and Allen flipped up the lid.

Instantly, the contents of the box illuminated the entire woods, just as the key had lit up Rachel’s room back at the house. But this was no subtle glow—it was a ferocity of brilliance that made the night seem like day. Both Allen and Rachel put their arms up to shield their eyes from the intense light.

Once her brain was able to cope with the brightness, Rachel realized her hand was vibrating. Or more accurately, the key in her hand was vibrating. She squinted and examined the key closer.

“Uncle Allen, the key…”

“Yeah, I was just wondering the same thing,” he said.

Allen shut his eyes tightly and began exploring the object in the box with his hands. Though the glare was blinding, Rachel chanced a quick glance down, and saw that the object was a case of some kind, and seemed to be made of the same material as the key. It was like a large tube, almost like a small keg of the kind Rachel had seen at parties when she was in college. Allen’s fingers were probing a small hole.

“Hand me the key,” he said.

With one arm still covering her eyes, Rachel put the key in Uncle Allen’s hand. And then she chanced another peek into the brightness. She needed to see Allen open the container.

Allen inserted the key into the hole and turned. The tube opened. Immediately the light began to wane, and their eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness once again.

The outside of the tube had rotated back, revealing a few items inside. But the thing that Rachel noticed first wasn’t what was there, but what wasn’t. There were no bones.

Allen moved aside some official-looking papers and uncovered what looked something like a modern-day iPad. “Holy cow,” he whispered. He picked up the tablet as Rachel leaned over to see what he held.

“Stop!”

Rachel and her uncle swiveled around to find Grandma Naomi staring them down, an old Rayovac flashlight in her hands, her cotton nightgown fluttering in the evening breeze. Her usually perfect perm was unkempt, and she had a wild look in her eyes.

“Grandma?” “Mom?” Rachel and Allen both exclaimed simultaneously.

“You two have no idea what you’re doing. You need to stop. Put it all back and forget you ever found it,” Naomi said, approaching them slowly and determinedly.

Rachel looked over at Allen. Was this a new side of her grandmother? Had she known about this all along?

Allen was apparently having none of it. “I’m not going to do that, Mom. All this—Dad’s diary, this creepy headstone—it’s about me. Me! I have a right to know what it’s all about,” he said defiantly. “And if you can’t tell me, I’m going to dig until I can’t dig any more.”

“Son, listen to me. I know I’m not always myself. The moments when I’m in the present are becoming fewer and fewer, but I do know this: some secrets are best left buried. Leave it be.”

Rachel knew they could never do that, not now. Too much of the past had been exposed for them to simply tuck it away and pretend they never saw it. Allen deserved to know the truth about himself. Everyone deserved that much.

“For the last time, you tell me, or I’ll read the diary myself,” Allen said.

Even in the semidarkness, Rachel could see the rage and frustration boiling up within her uncle. She looked back at her grandmother and felt something new toward this old woman. Respect? Anger? Fear? The grandmother she had always known, who had always been a source of strength and comfort, was not who she appeared to be. And apparently never had been.

The look on Grandma Naomi’s face would have sent Rachel running for cover when she was little. Now, though, Grandma was frail, no match for her son, who faced her in a silent standoff. In an instant, her hard visage crumbled and her shoulders slumped.

“Fine. I never thought I would be alive for this, but I suppose you deserve the truth.”

“And what’s that?” Allen asked, his voice still sharp. “Did I have a twin? Did he die?”

Laughing strangely, Naomi shook her head. “Nothing as simple as that, I’m afraid.” She sat down on a log and took a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “You see, in 1959, this farm was visited by aliens,” she said.

Rachel and Allen exchanged a look, unsure what to think.

“Aliens. You mean illegal immigrants?” Rachel asked. These days migrant workers came north to work on farms throughout the Midwest. She hoped that was all that Naomi had meant. Although she was sure it wasn’t.

“No, Rachel. I mean aliens. Extra-terrestrials. From another planet,” Naomi said, sighing. In spite of her resistance to telling the truth, doing so was clearly lifting a burden from her. “The first day they came was the day Allen was born. I gave birth at home, and he wasn’t well. They came to our door, offering help.”

“Help? Why didn’t you take me to the hospital?” Allen asked.

“We did, actually. Your father was at his wit’s end trying to figure out what to do. We ended up taking the farm truck to the hospital, but you’ve got to realize this was the 1950’s. Technology wasn’t what it is today. The doctor took one look at the baby and told us to go home, hold our son, and wait for him to die.”

“How horrible,” Rachel whispered. She looked back to Allen and found him held rapt by his mother’s tale. Grandma Naomi, on the other hand, was fighting tears, reliving one of the worst days of her life.

“So we came home and there were…people here. I’d call them men, but they weren’t. It was almost like something out of a half-remembered dream; they appeared human, but there was just something…off. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.”

“And you let them help me. That’s the big secret? I was cured by aliens?” Allen asked quietly.

“No. Your father wouldn’t let them help.”

“Then how…?”

“Henry would have let you die, out of stubbornness, but I snuck out of the house and they met me out here in the woods. I gave you to them. And they cured you—in a way,” Naomi said, her eyes shut to the world around her. “Then they took you away.”

Rachel was speechless. Was Grandma losing it again?

“I’m not crazy,” she said, as if reading Rachel’s mind. “All those things I say…they’re real. Or they were real. Just let me finish my story, and then you can decide.”

“Fine, I was taken to space by aliens. How did I come back then?” Allen asked, his voice more than a little shaky.

“Oh, Allen, that never happened. The deal was that if we let them cure you, they could keep you. We were devastated. Henry went out and bought a headstone the very next day. That was your name,” she said, motioning to the headstone. “Henry Junior.”

Allen stared down at the headstone, speechless.

Grandma Naomi wiped her hair back, taming the wild locks to a small degree. “But the visitors returned that afternoon. We refused to see them, but they kept coming back until we finally came out of the house.”

“Okay…and what about the part where I lived here for the past fifty-five years?” Allen asked.

“That’s exactly what they were there for. Their leader—his name was Refl—had claimed to need you, or at least to need someone from our family. Something about our DNA. Back then, neither one of us had heard of DNA, but the aliens were convinced there was something special about our family. They said they wanted to give us something in return, but of course there was nothing they could give me to make up for losing Henry Junior,” Grandma Naomi said. “My grief was too much and I just walked away. I couldn’t bear to hear any intergalactic sales pitch for my son. The son I would never see again.

“Your father, on the other hand, was intrigued. He talked to Refl, and told him how I felt. A few days went by without our visitors, and then at last they stopped by with an olive branch.” Grandma Naomi looked up into Uncle Allen’s eyes. “You.”

“Me?”

“Yes. They took some of Henry Junior’s DNA and made a copy. You’re a clone, Allen.”

“Wha…seriously?”

“Would your mother lie to you? Wait—don’t answer that,” Grandma Naomi said. She sat a little taller on the old log, her words giving her life. “I don’t know all the reasons why they didn’t just take Henry Junior and leave, but they didn’t. They gave us you. You might be a clone, but you’re identical to Henry Junior in every way, and I’ve loved you every day of your life. You are my son, Allen, and always have been. We sent Henry Junior off with aliens, and they left us with you. You, and that capsule.”

The entire time Naomi talked, Rachel had forgotten about the capsule. She looked back to discover the capsule was still faintly glowing. She’d been clutching her T-shirt with a death-grip, and Allen still held the iPad-like device.

“I don’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head.

“It is pretty incredible,” Rachel said. “You…a clone, and your brother, or whatever you want to call him…”

“No,” Allen said, cutting her off. “It isn’t just incredible. It’s impossible. You tell me that ridiculous story and expect me to believe it? If it was true, why didn’t you tell me before? I think maybe you need help, Mom. I’ve been willing to help you stay at the farm, but this is the last straw. I don’t know where all this stuff came from, and I don’t care.” Allen’s voice seethed with anger.

“Allen, you don’t understand. We couldn’t tell you. Do you really think you could have gone to school and not told anyone where you came from? That you were a clone of someone living on another planet?” Tears streaked down Naomi’s cheeks.

“It doesn’t matter. Come on Mom, let’s go,” Allen said, stomping over to his mother. “It’s past your bedtime.”

“No.”

Allen stopped in his tracks. He had taken his mother by the elbow, but she refused to stand up.

“You think this was easy on me?” she said. “You think I wanted to keep this secret from everyone, let alone you, for all these years? You think it was a cakewalk taking in a copy of my dying newborn son and raising him as though nothing had happened?”

“Grandma, no one said any of that,” Rachel offered.

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not a child. I know I’m not always with it, but I am completely alert right now. More than I have been in years. Maybe it was one last gift the visitors left for me: a chance to set the record straight,” Naomi said, throwing her shoulders back. “So here it is: Allen, I love you. I didn’t give birth to you, but I’ve loved you as if I did. Even though I saw a nearly dead infant each time I picked you up when you were little, I still loved you.”

She slapped the log, sending up a spray of dirt and debris. Her cheeks were moist with the emotion she’d pent up for decades, but her voice was surprisingly strong. “And yes, I loved Henry Junior as well. Every night when I go to bed, I look out my window, hoping and praying that one day he’ll come back to me. One day he’ll know I loved him, too.”

Rachel sat down beside her grandmother and wept. She felt how Naomi must’ve felt back then, giving up a child, never to see him again, only to get him back, but not quite the same. As tears obscured her vision, Rachel saw the tablet come to life in Allen’s hand. Allen hadn’t done anything to turn it on—the hand holding the tablet still hung loosely at his side—but for whatever reason, the screen had lit up.

“Uncle Allen? Grandma?” Rachel pointed at the device. Both Rachel’s uncle and grandmother turned their heads, first toward her and then toward the screen. Allen held it up so that they could all see it clearly.

A man came into focus. Behind him was a reddish sky with strange, alien buildings. He wore a tight-fitting uniform of some kind, and his face was remarkably similar to Uncle Allen’s, if perhaps a bit smoother and less worn by the Midwestern summers. For whatever reason, the image brought memories of her mother back to Rachel’s thoughts. She might not have her mother anymore, but perhaps somewhere out there, her family was alive and well.

Before anyone could say anything, the man spoke.

“Mom?”

The Control

Originally published by Windrift Books

* * *

There exists for everyone a moment.

It’s so small, you can almost miss it, but it’s important. Vitally important. In that moment, all can be lost, or all can be saved. It is that moment that stands between victory and anarchy.

In music, you hear it when the song swells, building bit by bit until eventually the music reaches a cliff. All the instruments drop out. The vocalist may act as a bridge of sorts across the chasm of silence, but the moment is solely dependent on the other musicians. The impetus is on the piano, percussion, and the collection of other instruments to count, to keep a steady but silent beat internally, only to resume playing at precisely the right time.

Should the band hit the mark, the song sends shivers up your spine. It brings the crowd to their feet, and gives the piece an air of authority it didn’t have before.

If the musicians miss the landing, there may be no salvation. Their chance is gone, now just part of a disjointed past. Whatever the song sounded like before that infinitesimal break, it now has the sound of ruin. For the audience, the failure of a solitary moment within the song only accelerates their desire for the end. It cannot come soon enough.

But in that moment, neither has happened. The musicians have not yet succeeded or failed. Both options await them, depending on their internal clocks. The overwhelming joy of everyone rejoining at the perfect moment is balanced with the abject fear of failure.

It was there, in that moment, where I lived. Always waiting. Always letting my fate be determined by others. Always hovering between a rousing triumph and a crushing catastrophe. I was that moment. But my moment was never under my control. I was always under his control. Throughout the moments of my life, though, I became the man I am, and I am not ashamed of it.

Those were the moments I truly remembered. Over time I learned that names and dates are utterly forgettable. I can’t tell you the name of the man who decided whether or not I deserved to board one of the few lifeboats on the night of April 14, 1912. I don’t remember what day of the week it was when I was chosen to be one of the first to experience the guillotine during the peak of the French Revolution. I have no idea what clothes I was wearing when I was part of the crowd that decided the fate of Jesus of Nazareth.

What I can tell you is how I felt. For a brief moment, I thought I was the master of life and death. I was not. As was so often the case over the past few millennia, the result turned out to be death, but over and over I was brought back due to a gift. A curse. An experiment.

Whatever you want to call it, immortality has followed me.

My name is Bek. I have been alive for nearly five thousand years.

I live for those moments, but I have come to realize that the truly special moments happen too infrequently. My sense of mortality has grown too thin and I have found I don’t have the same thrill about my life anymore.

My only wish is to finally die. To experience an end. When I was younger—in my first life—I would have craved a life like this. A life apart from all the rest, where death held no reign over me, and I could live like there was no tomorrow.

Instead, I simply move from one experience to another. I cannot die as everyone else does.

My master will not permit it. Instead, I am forced to live. Again and again, my life is forfeit to satisfy his curiosity. For a long time, I thought the irregularity of my existence was a blessing. Instead, I have come to understand that it is a curse. Over and over I have tried to end my life, only to be brought back again and again. Different place, different body, but it’s still me.

Human technology has not done this. It was a gift of the gods. At least that’s what the pharaoh told me at the time. He offered any of his servants to the gods to appease them, and I was selected.

Gods.

Just another name for aliens.

Of course, I didn’t understand this for a very long time. In fact, I was thousands of years old by the time I recognized my “creator” for what he was.

He said his name was Osiris. Is that his real name? Five thousand years ago I would have sworn to you it was. Just like dates, the name really doesn’t matter. He was a god, and then he wasn’t. All I know is that to him, I’m just part of a grand experiment.

It was a warm day (but weren’t they all in ancient Egypt?) when I was called into the pharaoh’s palace to meet with the vizier.

“Bek!” called a palace guard.

I walked over to him quickly. That was when I used to care about what happened to me.

“Yes? What can I do to please the king today?”

“You can start by wiping that grin off your face. You are requested at the palace. The vizier needs you.”

I quickly found myself at the palace with about twenty other men, all about my size, waiting to be seen. I knew better than to talk to any of them. I had been called to see the vizier, not them. When we were all finally called before the vizier, we were instructed to line up. The vizier inspected each of us, dismissing a handful as he went. In the back of the room, I glimpsed a cloaked figure, but again, I knew to not say anything.

Eventually there were about ten men left in the room.

The cloaked figure stepped forward to address us.

“I have selected each of you from afar. I have chosen each of you to show the power of the gods.” He paused. “You may wonder who I am.”

Slowly and purposefully, he slid back his hood, revealing a glowing presence. It shone so brightly, each of us had to look away. But before I did, I caught a brief glimpse of dark green skin on the most glorious face I’d ever witnessed in my short life. I knew who he was before he even had a chance to tell us.

“Osiris,” I gasped under my breath.

Apparently it wasn’t quiet enough, because the god approached me. Suddenly I was afraid. Osiris was known for much, including his role in the afterlife.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I am Osiris. Who are you that you are so wise?”

“I…I am Bek.”

“Bek.”

“Yes,” I said as boldly as I dared. I was speaking to a god, but I wanted him to grant me his favor. My answer was short, but it offered him what he wanted.

Osiris laughed. It was loud, filling the entire chamber with echoes upon echoes of deep roars and howls that somehow came from the being in front of me. The men on either side of me shook with fear. For whatever reason, I was unafraid. The laughter somehow reached inside of me and touched something. I felt…peace. While the other men were a hair away from cowering, I stood tall, proud that Osiris had chosen to address me. I had pleased him, somehow, and who was I to question a god?

Suddenly, I was alone in the room with Osiris. Gone were the vizier and the other men I had shared the chamber with. In fact, the room was different somehow. Like it was the same room, just in a different location. It took me centuries, but I eventually learned it was Osiris’ ship, occupying space above the earth and designed to look just like a royal chamber room in ancient Egypt. That day, however, I was awestruck by everything surrounding me.

“Bek, I have chosen you to be favored among all men. As the god of resurrection, I wish for all men to witness my miraculous rebirth in the body of a man,” Osiris said. He put his hood back over his head, so the light receded, but kept his face visible. He locked eyes with me and at that moment, I felt greater than any man who had ever lived. “Your life will be a beacon throughout the ages, endless and steady. You are blessed among men, for you are no longer a mortal man, but are immortal, a step closer to the gods themselves.”

I don’t remember weeping, but I wouldn’t have been surprised had I spontaneously burst into tears. A favor from the gods was truly magnificent. That I would be chosen was the pinnacle of my life.

Little did I know that my life up until that point was miniscule compared to what was to come.

What happened next was so minor, I didn’t give it much thought for years, but I came to understand that what Osiris did to me was what gave me eternal life. As I stood there, looking into his eyes, I felt a sharp but brief pain in my neck. I don’t even remember his hand moving there, but Osiris had a gauntlet of sorts, made of gold and shining jewels. Knowing what I know now, I came to understand that it concealed some sort of handheld syringe.

He left his hand there for a moment, then pulled it away and took a step back, as if he was admiring his creation.

“Bek, you are now perfect. Man will no longer have dominion over you. I will guide you through the ages of earth still to come. You will be my constant as the tides of humanity rise and fall. I will see you again soon.”

Before I could even open my mouth, the world disappeared around me, and I found myself standing in my home. The bed was next to me, and I lay down, desperate to sleep. And sleep I did. It was the first time I’d slept as an immortal man.

* * *

In my life, I’ve experienced many things. The birth of my first son. The birth of my one hundredth son. The rise of Rome. The fall of Rome. The creation of sliced bread and the advent of television. I’ve been privileged enough to shake hands with Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Winston Churchill. I fought at the Battle of Hastings, the Battle of the Alamo, and the Battle of the Bulge. I have lived more than any man before and surely more than any man after me.

As I said, I have died many times, but each time I reawaken in another body. Every time, a perfect body given to me by Osiris.

That first body, though…that one was mine. Given to me by parents whose names I have long since forgotten. The only memory I have of when I was a small boy is of playing along the Nile River. Every year the river would flood, bringing life to the once dormant riverbed. One day I was playing among the reeds along the riverbank with a few of my friends when my mother called to me.

“Bek, make sure when the sun is just over the big pyramid that you head home for dinner. Do you understand?”

I nodded, desperate to resume my playtime with my friends.

“Are you sure you understand?”

“Yes, Mother. I understand,” I said, my eyes on a ball that my friends had brought with them to the river that day. “Can I go play now?”

She smiled, the love from mother to son clear in that one small gesture. “Yes, my son. Go play. Enjoy the day, but come when I asked, all right?”

“Okay!” I shouted back, barely registering the words she’d spoken. Years later I would regret not heeding those words the first time. Instead, I went to play, not ever looking back at the pyramids off in the distance. The sun began to set over the Great Pyramid and I kept running and kicking the ball with my friends. Before I knew it, my mother was out calling to me again.

“Bek, it’s time to come to dinner.”

“Coming, Mother!” I shouted back, but I continued to play among the papyrus. I ran and laughed, my friends and me enjoying the last rays of sun on a bright spring day in Egypt. At the time I thought it was a precious thing, the sun on my back and the wind in my face. Before I realized it, much time had passed and when I turned to run towards my friends, I found my mother standing before me.

“Bek.”

I hung my head. I knew I had disappointed her.

She walked towards me and took my head in her hands. I heard my friends scatter and for a few moments, only my mother and I were alive. The world could have faded away; I wouldn’t have noticed. She was my entire world and I had let her down. She crouched down to look me in the eye. I couldn’t avoid the tears welling up as she spoke to me. Never will I forget her words.

“Bek, my dear son. Life is a wonderful thing. I love to see you enjoying the time you have and friends that you can play with each day,” she said, capturing my attention with her soft eyes. I can still remember that look to this day, along with the slight brush of her hand across my cheek as she wiped my tears. “If you ever remember anything, please remember this: your word is your bond. It makes you who you are. When you grow up to be a man, a promise kept or unkept shows everyone the type of person you really are. For good or bad, for better or for worse, if you promise something to someone, you must follow through on that promise. The words you say will not matter, unless you back them up with your actions.”

As a small boy, I didn’t comprehend what she had said to me that day as twilight came to the Nile River. The words went into my mind and stayed there, but I didn’t think about them until much later. It was one of the few things I could remember about my mother. Her words that day formed the basis for the man I would be…again…and again…and again…and again.

* * *

I awoke with a start, my head pounding like a fist hammering on the door.

Except it was literally a fist hammering on my door.

“Bek! You get your sorry behind out of bed and to the work site! The foreman says all hands are needed today, and that means you,” growled the voice on the other side. It was a friend at the time, another whose name has escaped the confines of my mental storage over the years.

I dragged myself off the stiff bed and prepared for the day. A few times, my head felt like it was about to explode, but that was no excuse. The foreman would have me whipped if I didn’t show. Better to suffer a headache than deal with pain on my backside as well.

Within the hour I was hauling bricks for the new monument—me, and hundreds of my closest friends. We’d all heard stories about how the Great Pyramid had been constructed, and the pharaoh wanted this one to be as close to that one in quality as he could get. A few hours in and I had already soaked through the few articles of clothing I had worn to the work site.

As I was getting another stone ready to transport, I caught a shape out of the corner of my eye. My breath caught for an instant when I saw Osiris talking to the foreman. Perhaps he was here to take me with him. Perhaps he would stop the work for the day. Perhaps…

The foreman stepped up and called out to all the men working that day. “Okay, you grunts. Orders from the top—everyone must double their block totals until further notice.”

This was one of those moments. I didn’t realize it, but I was about to be tested with forces beyond my control.

Osiris wasn’t there to save me. He was there to kill me. Well…my body.

We doubled production. Food, water, and breaks were not doubled. I am proud to admit I lasted longer than many on my work gang, but within a week, most of us had collapsed along the route to the new monument. The heat, combined with lack of vital resources such as water, doomed us from the start. Egypt wasn’t the most forgiving of places.

It was about midday of the sixth day after the production order. I thought I could make it. I thought my body was stronger. I thought it was just a test.

It was, but I was wrong about my body. I collapsed from severe dehydration and malnutrition. I wasn’t dead when I fell, but an hour in the sun, unattended to by a doctor, ensured a painful end.

Except…it wasn’t.

The moment…that one brief instant between this life, and the next…happened on Osiris’ ship. I stopped breathing on Earth, under the naked sun, before the Old Kingdom of Egypt even came to be. But I didn’t die. Not really.

My body stopped working, but my consciousness was immediately transferred to another one. It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant. In fact, there was a bit of euphoria as I moved from one body to another.

How did I know I had gained a new body? I didn’t at first, but when I opened my eyes I found myself lying on the floor of Osiris’ chamber. I looked down and found myself naked. I reached down and touched my arms and my legs. My skin and muscles bounced back with the elasticity that hydration and health provided. My body was different, but my mind was the same. It was clouded, though. It cleared instantly when a voice rang out in the room.

“Welcome back, my son!”

I looked up, momentarily concerned about my lack of dress, but then realized I was in front of a god, and if he wasn’t concerned, I should not be, either. I was too stunned to speak, though.

Osiris gestured to my right and I saw a small pile of neatly folded clothes. I understood he wanted me to put them on, and he addressed me as I did so.

“How was it? The process of dying, and being resurrected—how was it?” Osiris asked.

So that was what had happened. It made sense. Osiris was the god of resurrection, but I hadn’t put it all together quite yet.

I finished dressing while I gathered my thoughts. I spoke my mind, unaware at the time that I didn’t have to be honest with Osiris.

“It was glorious, my lord. In one moment, I found my body too weak to continue. The effects of the sun had been wearing on me and the overseers were not providing us enough water. Thankfully, you have chosen to resurrect my spirit into a new body, much like your wife resurrected you,” I said. “I do regret I failed you in your appointed task for the pharaoh. But I am grateful you chose to give me another chance.”

Osiris smiled, his white teeth a stark contrast to his greenish skin. He was happy, and that made me happy.

“No, my son. You have not failed me. No matter what you do, you will never fail me,” he said.

I didn’t know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Bek. I had the foremen push you and your friends to test the limits of what you were capable of. I knew that no matter what happened, you and I would meet again here, safe from the ravages of death. That is the gift I gave you. You possess a life eternal, now,” Osiris said.

“Eternal life, my lord?”

“Yes,” Osiris said, and waved a hand. To his left, a dais rose out of the ground. On it was a bronze medallion. It had a very Egyptian look to it, but was mysterious in other ways. It was attached to a flexible leather lanyard. “Take this. I will always be able to find you, but this will give you added protection. As long as you wear it, I will be there. You will surely live again, as long as you carry this with you.”

I reached for it, making sure not to actually touch Osiris. It was one thing to accept a gift; it was another altogether to dare to make physical contact with a god.

“Thank you. This gift…it is more than I could ask for,” I said.

Osiris held up his hand. “Do not thank me, Bek. Your death and resurrection today were easy. Painless. Maybe even pleasurable. I think you will have to die again and again, and I cannot say each death will be as seamless as the one you just experienced. Are you prepared for that? Will you live an eternal life for me? Are you willing to accept the consequences of that choice?”

Who would turn down everlasting life? I didn’t that day. I wouldn’t for a long time, but he was right. Death stopped being easy. Thousands of years later, I wish with everything I am that I had refused his offer.

“I will serve you in whatever way I can,” I said.

Osiris touched a bracelet on his wrist, and he vanished. My eyes saw a smiling god in one moment, and a rocky terrain the next. I swiveled around, trying to find the familiar sights of the monuments to the pharaohs in the distance. No monuments. Just mountains. A cool breeze blew through my clothes. I shivered, and saw for the first time something I could never have imagined, something I did not know the name of until later.

Snow.

* * *

I barely lasted five days. I didn’t know it then, but Osiris had dropped my newly regenerated body right in the middle of the modern-day Canadian territory of Nunavut. Even now, several thousand years later, only a handful of people live there. The Inuit, though, never found me during that short stretch. I managed to find a cave, but the clothes Osiris had given me were the same small loincloth and tunic I had worn in Egypt—not quite the proper attire for the near-Arctic.

That was probably exactly what Osiris had in mind.

“Back so soon?” Osiris asked after I had died and returned to his care.

Nowadays, I might have had a few choice words for the guy. Back then, he was still very much a god in my eyes. I was silent, praying he would look favorably upon me in my next life.

Osiris offered a wry smile as he advanced towards me in his vast chamber. Once again, I was lying in the middle of the large room, naked as the day I was brought into the world. I sat up and immediately found the pile of clothes nearby. I dressed and secretly wished for more. Even with a new body, I still felt a chill from the past few days.

“It might surprise you to know that less than a half-day’s journey to the north of your cave, there was a dead carnivore. Alive, it would have been five times your mass. Had you found it, skinned it, and appropriated the meat and bone from the creature, you would have had an outer covering, a source of food, and tools. You could’ve lived in that environment for decades.”

I was astonished. “How was I to know that?”

“There was no way for you to have known, Bek. But I didn’t put you down there to sit in a cave and hope for salvation.”

I considered that for a moment. “I am guaranteed to live again, correct?” Osiris nodded. “So, I am tasked with living as much as I can. Sitting and waiting for the end is not in your master plan.”

“That is correct, Bek,” Osiris answered. He opened his hand. In his palm was the bronze medallion he’d given me before. “I saved this for you. It will be in your clothing for you to put on again each time in the future, but I knew you would want to talk to me after your experience.”

“Yes, Osiris, I do. Why was I sent there? I had never before seen…”

“Snow,” he completed for me. The way Osiris said it gave it an air of magnitude. I had heard the word before—Egyptians did have a name for it, we just rarely used it. With Osiris, however, it seemed like a divine word that I would be grateful to even utter again.

“Snow,” I repeated, letting the word linger on my tongue for just a moment. “If you would consider letting me, a mere mortal know, why was I sent there?”

Osiris laughed. “I will tell you, because now you are not a mere mortal any longer. You have eternal life! That life will take you many places in your world, not just Egypt. I wanted you to get a taste of the extreme climate conditions of the planet immediately. If I had just told you of the place you visited, would you have chosen to go? Would you have believed me?”

I was honest. “I would have gone. For you, I would go anywhere, my god Osiris. But, no, I would not have believed you. Never in my wildest imaginations would I have dreamed such a place existed.”

“Good. Thank you, Bek, for your honesty. I dare say, you may not always trust me so readily, but I am glad for your loyalty at the present. As for why you are to go there and many other places in this world—I am a god, yes, but I am a curious god,” Osiris said. “I must confess that you play a critical role in my curiosity. I long to test humankind and you will be at the center of those tests.”

“I will do what you ask of me, Osiris,” I said, parroting what I’d said earlier.

“Will you? Let’s see what you think after a few more trips back to your world. Are you ready?”

I nodded, and Osiris touched his bracelet. He shimmered out of view, and I found myself in a vast desert.

I sighed in relief. I was back in Egypt. The dry heat of the cracked earth radiated up towards my face and I closed my eyes, welcoming my return to the desert I had grown up in. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead and I smiled.

A noise startled me. I opened my eyes and slowly turned in a circle. A creature stood about ten paces away. I wondered briefly if it was a meat eater, but it didn’t look fierce or even hungry. It was about my height, narrow at the top, and larger at the bottom, with large, padded feet and a long tail. Before I could say anything, the creature turned and hopped away, bounding towards the sun one leap at a time.

This was not Egypt.

* * *

In spite of its many challenges, I lasted a couple of years in Australia. I was alone for a long time, but I knew how to survive in the desert. True, I was very dependent on the steady Nile River, but that just meant I knew how important a fresh water source was. It took me two days, but I knew that finding vegetation would take me closer to water. I had to trust that Osiris had put me within walking distance of what would keep me alive, just like he’d done in Nunavut without my knowledge.

Life was tough, but I learned a lot. Eventually I explored further, and that’s where death found me. The original inhabitants of Australia—the aborigines—were surprised to see me. I’m guessing they figured I was inherently evil since I didn’t get a chance to explain myself before a spear pierced my heart.

I died. I moved to another body and was placed back on Earth without seeing my god this time. I lived again, this time in a rainforest. The mosquitos were as large as my hands and the animals loved to pelt me with their excrement. I learned to live and then died in the tropics.

The next time, death came to visit in the form of disease. My decline was long and drawn out, and I was thankful when death finally came. Again, I had no downtime in Osiris’ chamber. I was placed inside a village at the foot of a mountain. I looked up and saw that the mountain’s peak was smoking. The ground shook beneath my feet and the mountain began to make noise.

I noticed the village was vacant. Osiris had known the mountain was unstable. He’d known the village was already abandoned, and he had chosen to put me in harm’s way anyway. I convinced myself this was a test. He knew what he was doing. He was a god, after all.

I quickly scouted the village, hoping there was something I could use. Something I could do. Osiris had provided for my survival the other two times. This time, though, I found myself choking on the hot ash raining down from above. It seared my face and burned my throat. I could not escape. I was not going to survive.

I didn’t want to disappoint Osiris. I remembered when I had just holed up in the cave during my Arctic life. Osiris hadn’t been content with that, so I determinedly tried to live. I could barely breathe, but I crawled as far as I could to leave the town. It was no use. Just past the village limits, I was struck by a chunk of volcanic rock, instantly breaking my femur. The pain was intense, but I knew I would be resurrected again. Living with a broken leg in a volcanic wasteland was no life when I knew the next would surely be better. I folded myself up and grasped my necklace, praying to Osiris for the end to come as soon as possible.

The end did come, but it was not quick.

When I finally did succumb to the effects of the volcano, the moment from death to life was not as pleasant as I remembered it being. The sounds of the volcano exploding above me were gone, replaced by the emptiness of Osiris’ chamber. Unlike the first few times, though, the moment was jarring. I found myself questioning whether I was really going to be resurrected this time, but after a few moments, I felt the cold stone against my naked back. I was back in my body again.

I kept my eyes closed as I completed the process back. Footsteps approached and I knew he was there. Waiting.

“Welcome back, Bek.”

I cautiously opened my eyes and found him standing in front of me. He was still garbed as he had been the first day I saw him. His skin was still green. It was as if he had not aged, but I felt like it had been centuries since I had seen him last. My body, though, was still as young and as taut as the day I had stood in the pharaoh’s chamber. Identical, in fact, in every way.

“Greetings, Osiris.” I stood and gathered the clothes from the ground. I carefully and slowly put them on, wary of what was next for me.

“How has your life been?”

“You mean lives, my lord.”

He seemed to be staring at something over my shoulder, and hesitated. “Oh, yes, lives. How have they been?”

I recounted the time I had spent in the land of the jumping mammals, then the weeks in the rain forest, and finally the hours in the shadow of a volcano. Three lives. Three moments.

Osiris listened and then questioned my actions in the final life. “Did you think you would be able to evade the effects of the volcano?”

“I knew you were a kind god and would do whatever you could to offer a way to safety. Just as you said, in the snow there was a carcass I could have harvested, and when I arrived in the desert, I found a river for fresh water. I knew you would have left me a gift to survive. I am sorry I was unable to locate it before I perished.”

Osiris laughed. “But there was no escape. In this case, there was no way out. I placed you there as a lesson: sometimes there is nothing that can be done. But I saw your valiant attempts to stave off your fate, and for that you are commended.”

I was confused. Did he want me to fight for every last breath, or did he want me to accept my fate?

He saw the confusion on my face. “My dear Bek, what is it?”

“Osiris. I’m sorry, my lord, but what is my purpose? What is it I am supposed to achieve? Why have I been gifted eternal life if I am supposed to strive for every breath in one life and accept defeat in another?” I asked.

“Oh, Bek. I thought you would have figured it out. I am conducting experiments. I cannot control everything, but I can control you. Your body, your blood, your physical fitness. In all experiments, there are multiple variables, but the one performing the experiment needs one thing. A constant. They need a control.”

I don’t know what I would have said, but I wasn’t given the chance. With a swift action, Osiris pushed a button on his bracelet, sending me to a new land, one lush with green grasses and tall trees. A few birds chirped in the distance and the sun was warm, but not overly so.

I didn’t care, though. I was numb.

My life meant nothing to Osiris. I was just a body. He could use me over and over through whatever means he chose. I was nothing special to him.

Instead of living my life as he wanted me to, I made a decision that day. I would live like I wanted. Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference in what I would have done, but it was different in my mind. It was different in my motivation. I stopped living for Osiris and started living for myself.

It was probably a few centuries before I saw him again. I lived more than a half-dozen lives in that span, but he kept resurrecting me and depositing me in a new place without a rest stop in his chamber. Each time, I was dressed like an ancient Egyptian and I had the bronze medallion. The places I went were different in climate, culture, and people, but one thing was always the same. Me.

I encountered Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu (who wasn’t as hairy as the stories say). I met Hannibal. I saw Athens before Sparta overthrew it in the Great Peloponnesian War. The terra cotta warriors were new the first time I saw them.

Decades sped by as my lives continued to come and go.

When I saw Osiris again, I knew the Egyptian gods of old to be unreal. I had seen the “power” of a vast number of other gods, and had decided for myself that my master was a false one. He held dominion over my life, but he was no god.

“Your name is not really Osiris, is it?” I asked on a rare trip back to his chamber.

“I was wondering when you would ask me that,” he replied. In that moment, the garments he had worn in my presence for years vanished, replaced by a utilitarian article of clothing. “I can be rid of those now.”

“What should I call you?” I asked.

“The only name I’ve had on your world has been Osiris, so that is as good a name as any. It would make me happy to hear you continue to use it.”

And so, like any adolescent, I stopped doing what he liked. I found ways to make him unhappy. I ran towards death like a moth towards flame. I went through body after body until I finally realized I was probably living my lives just as he wanted me to. He was testing my body’s capabilities and I was simply providing him with more and more opportunities to test me.

For centuries, I managed to live full lives. I even settled down and met a few women.

But it wasn’t enough. There was one thing I lacked.

I wanted to die.

* * *

It wasn’t that my life wasn’t fulfilling. I certainly found various ways to entertain myself throughout the years, but after a certain point, it was all the same. One man’s dictator is another man’s king is another man’s president. They’re all the same. And that’s what my life was like as well.

Dying from smallpox wasn’t too different from wasting away due to scurvy, or kicking the bucket after meningitis, or even a good bout of pneumonia. When you’ve had them all, the ending is unchanged. One death was the same as the next.

And Osiris’ words came back to me again and again. The first time I had died, he had said, “I cannot say each death will be as seamless as the one you just experienced.” He was right. Each time I passed away, it was as if someone had jabbed another dagger into my ribs and sucked my organs out through a straw. My brain was jelly for longer and longer each time as I recuperated. I finally decided that the more years that passed between one death and the next meant a little bit more suffering for Bek.

By the time I reached the Middle Ages, the pain was almost unbearable. So I began to think about how I could actually die.

I was obsessed. I spent at least one of my lives simply contemplating death at a Buddhist temple until old age snuck up and took me in my sleep. That was a good life. I wish I could do that one again.

I came to one conclusion: Osiris had to die. For me to die, he had to die.

How do you kill a god? First, you acknowledge that he isn’t a god.

In one of my few trips back in the Middle Ages, I confronted him. “You are not a god.”

He regarded me with thin eyes. “No.”

I knew I couldn’t fulfill my next statement yet, but I made it anyway. “One day I will kill you. For all the times you have killed me, you will pay.”

He laughed and turned a dial on a dais. “Good luck with that. Have a nice death, Bek.”

He’d sent me to the summit of a mountain. I suspect it was Mt. Everest or K2. Either way, I lasted a few hours.

While he held the power of my resurrection, he also seemed unaware of how many lives I was living. He wasn’t attuned to each of my lives, and he’d even mentioned “my world,” leading me to believe he was some sort of alien who had come to our planet to conduct his own particular brand of experiments—with me at the fore.

So, he wasn’t a god. I was still stuck with the problem of killing him. I had a lot of time to think about it, and I finally came to the conclusion that I was a clone. Each body after my first, born thousands of years ago in Egypt, was simply a clone. It explained the identical form and age as that first body. It allowed Osiris to prepare many duplicate sets of clothes as well. I didn’t know if he had hundreds of clones sitting in storage, or if he simply printed up a new one each time I died, but either way, I was a clone.

That eliminated several different methods of taking Osiris out. After all, I was given a new body and new clothes each time. I was a constant. His control. That meant each body would be the same each time. No variations.

But just as I was Osiris’ control, he had inadvertently given me one as well. Sometime in the 1400s, I had scratched the necklace with a 17-carat diamond I’d found in a South African mine. I had never tried to do anything to it before and was scared that perhaps Osiris would be angry.

That was during my rebellious stage, though, and I didn’t care. After death came a few weeks later when a shaft of that diamond mine collapsed on me, I reappeared in Renaissance Italy. I looked at the necklace and saw that the medallion was unchanged. There was a long scratch on the back, almost scoring the bronze piece from top to bottom. I smiled. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had found my control. Just as I stayed the same in each life and location for Osiris, the medal Osiris had sent with me was the same each time as well.

For hundreds of years I didn’t dare act on my knowledge of the necklace. I learned metallurgy and other crafts. I created my own works with many types of metal, and curated collections based on the design of Osiris’ medallion. When the technology finally advanced, I ran the medallion through an X-ray and tested it. I found the homing device Osiris had planted in it. His technology was far beyond my own, so duplication was probably out of the question for a while, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Eventually, I settled on adding to the medallion, and making the extra mass not just bronze. Something a bit more…explosive.

Even then, I needed a way to control it. I needed to be awake and conscious during the moment of transfer. I had to get Osiris to talk to me. He hadn’t given me an audience since the waning days of the Roman Empire, so I wasn’t hopeful, but I knew I needed the medallion to be ready whenever the moment struck.

I had spent the past few decades killing myself over and over. Any way you can imagine to kill yourself was probably on my radar at some point during those years. Every time, I’d just reappear on Earth, ready to live and die again.

Each time I got ready to die, I gripped the medallion, hoping that the next time I did so, Osiris would be standing near me in his chamber. Each time, though, I simply opened my eyes on Earth; no supposed Egyptian gods were staring me in the face.

Nothing changed until I went back. It was fitting, I thought…I went back to Egypt. I found the Nile River and marveled at how civilization had grown up and encompassed all the land surrounding the river. I didn’t know if my plan would work, but I submerged myself in a bend in the river, upstream from Cairo. There was no one else around. Just me. And the medallion. I put it in my mouth and forced myself to swallow river water at the same time.

I felt the water burning my lungs—this wasn’t the first time I’d drowned—and knew the end would be near. I clamped my teeth down on Osiris’ medallion and sank to the bottom of the river. The end would be welcome. I hoped I wouldn’t be back. This was my end—at the place where it all began. My eyes shut for what I hoped was the final time and I let the water take me.

Each time before, the moment from one life to the next was seamless. The soundtrack of life kept playing for me, but I hoped to stop the conductor once and for all.

* * *

The rushing water of the Nile was gone. I was dry and naked on the floor of Osiris’ chamber. I felt disappointment ripple through me. I had failed.

I kept my eyes closed, waiting for Osiris to appear. The silence was interminable. I’d lived thousands of years, though, so what was a few more minutes? Any minute, the being I’d once met in the pharaoh’s palace would stroll in and doom me to another cursed life on Earth. Any moment…

But he never came. Minutes had ticked by in my head before I dared open my eyes to find the chamber empty. No clothes lay next to me. There was just me and the chamber. For the first time in hundreds of years, I was completely surprised.

In the moments between lives, I had never left this room. There were doors, but I had never before had the opportunity to discover what lay beyond them.

Now was the time. Now was my moment. Would it end in disaster or victory?

Slowly, purposefully, I sat up and inspected my surroundings, a place I’d been to dozens of times, but only now had free rein to explore. While there were doors, most were false. Placed there to resemble the pharaoh’s palace in Egypt, a place now in ruins on Earth.

But one door did open. One door did lead beyond the confines of the chamber.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I’d seen everything, but the room I entered was vast. The far wall was barely visible and each empty spot was filled with…me. Hundreds of some sort of cryogenic tubes were lined up end to end, and from inside all of them, the same face stared back. Me.

But the endless amount of Bek clones wasn’t what grabbed my attention. In the middle of the room was a workstation with a table in the middle. A body lay on the table, a bloated, sopping wet version of myself. I recognized the clothing. It was me. The last body I’d had, which I’d drowned in the Nile.

But my head was gone, destroyed in a small explosion.

It had worked after all.

Osiris lay next to the table, his own torso a mangled mess. What I assumed was blood covered the area, but it was a dark green, similar to his skin color. In one hand was the medallion, a little worse for wear after the explosion.

I’d done it. I’d killed him. The tiny explosives I’d implanted into my teeth and jaw had worked.

I was finally free to die.

But…

With hundreds of copies of myself to spare and no master ruling my life…did I even want to die anymore?

Life is composed of pivotal moments. I’d experienced many of them over the centuries—but none of them had been as significant as this one. With Osiris gone, the success or failure of this moment was up to me. I could fail. I could have monumental success. Either way, it was all up to me.

Entirely up to me.

Jeremy Szal

Daega’s Test

Originally published by Nature

* * *

Darak wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow and stole another glance at the ageing clock on the wall. Three hours to go. It might have been bearable if the air conditioner hadn’t broken down again. The thing should have been decommissioned years ago.

Outside the window, Kuala Lumpur blazed ahead at full throttle. Rickety food carts piled with pyramids of ngaw, papaya and durian rushed past, gravel crunching under their wheels. The smell of rich spices and incense from the market stalls fought a losing battle with the billowing black exhaust fumes from the motorcycles and battered auto-rickshaws that weaved through the crowds. Darak coughed, his chest heaving. It was a choice between shutting the window and turning the room into a sauna or choking on the smoke. Not that more pollution would make that much difference.

He stabbed the button on his desk, ushering the next daega inside. It was a woman this time, hair dyed bubblegum blue. The cams tracked her every move as she sat down on the plastic stool, hands folded. This would be a tricky one. Normally, he could guess immediately. This time there were no clues. He had no idea. Not good.

But there was no time to waste. The more of these AIs he cleared the better. His hands hovered over the ash-stained keyboard. “Name?”

“Alisha Kemji,” she said, her voice level and smooth.

“Age?”

“Twenty-five.” She didn’t look it. She looked a lot younger. But no matter, that was her answer.

He rattled through the rest of the standard questions, punching her answers into the system. Where are you from? Which university did you attend? What did you study? The Turing program monitored her vocal frequency and her movements. Nothing escaped it. Darak sneaked another glance at her. Her dark eyes stared back at him. She was unusually calm. Even the heat didn’t seem to bother her. Everyone else he’d seen today had been close to chewing their fingernails off. Darak didn’t blame them. This was the final test. Except this was one test that you didn’t want to pass. Level 4 was bad enough, and would definitely get the CORPS on you. But Level 5…

Personally, he’d had only a few daega who’d passed the test, and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for those Level 5 machines. It wasn’t their choice. Wasn’t their fault that the scientists in the labs had been too damn good at their jobs.

The Turing program finished its analysis. Alisha was watching him, a faint smile playing on her face. Darak narrowed his eyes. What was that look about?

The program beeped and he looked at the monitor, his heart starting to throb.

She was a Level 5.

Damn. Her eyes locked with his and he realized that she knew exactly what was on the screen. She’d known even before she’d walked in.

Darak flicked the recorder off. “How long have you known?” he asked.

“Long enough,” she replied, scraping blue hair away from her face.

Darak nodded and leaned back, weary. “You know what this means, don’t you?” Not like he had to ask. Every daega knew what would happen if the Turing program revealed them to be an advanced AI. They walked in here willingly to prove they were no threat, get their Green Card permit and so join the rest of society. They knew the risks.

Alisha, the daega in front of him, nodded, unfazed and smiling.

He reached under the desk for a small yellow button. Two men would come in and escort her to the scrap factory like the thousands before her. She’d never be seen again. “I’m sorry.”

“You might not want to do that,” she said.

Darak paused, his finger hovering over the button. One little push…“Why ever not?”

“It’s a long trip to the melting pot. We’ve got plenty of time to talk.” Her eyelids flickered. “I could always ask them to look your way. Ask them why you’re so good at your job. Why you’ve never made a mistake. Why you can spot a daega a mile away.”

Darak felt a trickle of sweat ride down his back. Who was this person? “How did you—”

She shrugged. “Word gets around. A few ringgits in the right hand can get you far in these parts.” Those lovely eyes of hers—eyes that weren’t real—flickered again. “They don’t even know you’re a daega, do they?”

For once, Darak had nothing to say.

Alisha cocked her head at him. “You know, we could reach an agreement.”

Ah. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been threatened or blackmailed on this job. But it was definitely the first time he was seriously considering it. He couldn’t risk anyone taking a closer look at him. She held him in the palm of her hands. He could almost feel the walls closing in…

He spat a curse and turned to the monitor, punching in the override key. He took control of the system and lowered her level to a sturdy 3. Her smile was sickly honey as the machine pumped out her permit card, the one that would allow her employment and full access to the same assets as other daega in the city.

He handed her the card, looking her straight in the eye. “If you’re smart, you’ll get out of the city. It’s not safe for you here.”

That raised an eyebrow. “Not safe for me?” she walked towards the exit, heels clicking on the polished floor. “You’re the one working here. Do you think you’ll fool them forever?”

Then she was gone.

Last Age of Kings

Originally published by Fantasy Scroll Magazine

* * *

Fog approached the town.

Roshar knew it would happen, but it was still unsettling to see it touch the outskirts of his home. The day before you could still see the fields. And the week before that Lithgard was still visible if you looked hard enough. But it had all been swallowed up by the spectral fog, scrubbing them out of existence

And soon it would be Northam’s turn.

He was almost glad that Robin never had to see this.

Roshar slipped his mudcaked boots on, the door groaning as he opened it and bundled his furs around him, fighting to keep warmth in body.

He started down the corkscrew staircase, shoes echoing in the tower. Felix was sitting on a bench with his broadsword leaning against the table. His ringmail rattled as he lifted a rusted tankard to his cracked lips, drinking greedily.

Roshar raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”

“Aye, but who cares? It doesn’t matter anymore. Might as well get a couple o’ drinks in while you can, eh? I heard the ale they serve in hell is piss poor.” He chuckled as Roshar walked passed him, shaking his head. There was only one hell that he knew of. The one that we’re living in now.

*

Roshar pushed open the tower’s steel door. Wet gravel crunched under his feet as he made his way to Gaeon’s hut. He didn’t care for the gods from the south that he worshipped, but the old mage had saved his life on more occasions than he cared to admit.

He stepped around an empty shell of a burnt house and the splintered timber panelings of the market stalls, flakes of rust and ash floating down. He hammered on Gaeon’s door. Carved into the wood was the face of a solemn god, staring back at him. The old man thought they gave him protection, warded off enemies.

Gods don’t protect anyone now. Not anymore.

The door edged open, a draft of musty air floating his way. “Ah. You’re early.” The olive-skinned mage was squatting on the floor, cocooned in woolen blankets, tending to the dying embers of his hearth.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Roshar closed the door and sat down next to Gaeon, lifting his fleece so Gaeon could examine the fading scars on his chest.

Gaeon rubbed his bald head. “Count yourself lucky you’re still breathing, young man. The poison alone would have killed most men.”

He didn’t doubt it. They hadn’t even reached the mist when a volley of arrows spat out, thudding into flesh and bone. The arrows had slaughtered half his squad and injured others. He had managed to crawl close enough to the village for some scouts to find him. The ague had gripped him for a fortnight, sweating and vomiting and thrashing and twisting in Gaeon’s hut while the old mage nursed him back to life. Robin, his newlywed wife had come to visit him every day. Although he’d barely been able to register her presence, he knew she was there beside him. She had kept him strong. He clawed his way back through hell for her. And when he woke up, the old mage told him that the plague had taken her just minutes before.

He sometimes wished that Gaeon hadn’t bothered.

“Did you learn anything from the arrows?” Roshar asked, lowering his shirt.

“You could say so.” Gaeon waddled over to the bench and picked up the broken shafts with a strip of boiled leather for protection. He handed them to Roshar. “Careful. There’s still poison within them.”

The metal was wreathed in what looked like twisted black thorns, but on closer inspection seemed to be some sort of runic inscriptions. The arrowheads themselves were slick and oily, tiny barbs jutting out from the head, tips swathed in sickly green syrup.

“Those barbs hooked themselves deep in your flesh,” Gaeon murmured. “They too were coated with poison. Ghastly stuff.”

“And the runes?” Just being near the thing made him feel ill, like something was niggling in his guts. He forked them back to the old mage and felt the sensation fade from his body. “Can you read them?”

“I’ve poured over every map and scroll I have and found nothing.” He whisked the arrows away again. “Best it stays that way.”

They sat there for a long time, soaking up whatever heat the miserable fire was prepared to give them. Roshar wasn’t even sure how the old man managed to find dry wood. Everything in the town was drenched to the bone by the freezing weather. None of this was natural. Wasn’t hell at least supposed to be warm?

It was a while before either of them moved. Roshar shifted slightly as he turned to Gaeon. “I’m going back. I’ve got to try.”

The mage blinked. “I didn’t spend weeks raising you from the dead for you to kill yourself again.”

“I have to do something,” Roshar hissed. “Anything is better than this.” It had been building up for a while but Robin slipping away had been the final blow. Whoever, or whatever had destroyed his world, he wanted to spit them in the eye before he died.

“Hundreds of men walked into that mist,” Gaeon said, poking the fire with a blackened poker like he was dueling with it. “Some of them tough as iron. Others held weapons older than themselves. And they all died the same.” He cursed as the fire started to fade. “What makes you any different, eh?”

“I don’t know. But I’ve got to try.”

Gaeon murmured something and the door swung open, icy wind sweeping into the hut and finding the holes in his clothes. The embers shriveled back in dismay. It seemed that the meeting was over. Roshar stood up, aching bones clicking with protest.

“You’re going to die there,” mumbled Gaeon. “You won’t be coming back.”

“I know.”

*

Roshar stood on the edge of the field, watching the mist through the slits in his helm. Bodies were piled around him, some old, some new, rotting and letting off a odor that churned his stomach. Others were on fire, emitting a sickeningly appetizing scent. They had tried getting rid of the bodies that way at first. But now the corpses outnumbered the living by the hundreds, so no one bothered.

Ravens crackled and hissed as he moved through them, flapping back to the gables of the church, munching on flesh and observing him with inky eyes.

Gods, it stank. He moved closer to the mist’s edge, longsword gripped firmly in hand. His father had given it to him on his eighteenth winter. He’d never planned to it use it. But ever since the blacksmith hung himself in the early days, weapons were in short demand.

The ravens fluttered, mocking him with their caws. He glanced at them, and out of the corner of his eye spotted something unusual shifting in the mists. There.

A fury of arrows spat out, zipping towards him. He rolled to the side, arrows punching into corpses. He picked himself up, the mud trying to hold him down as another volley came his way. He charged ahead, slashing out with his sword at the mist. He heard a wet crunch, blood running down the shaft as a freshly made corpse toppled forward and splashed into the mud, flatbow in hand. Someone was yelling, ringing a bell. Roshar didn’t wait. He sprinted forward, charging into the ethereal mist.

He tottered into a small sentry tower, shocked faces staring at him. Zwang. A bolt hissed past his cheek and thudded into parapet next to him. It should have broken off, but the arrow buried itself in the rock, hissing. A corrosive stench wafted over to him. Acid. The shooter was reading his crossbow, loading up the crank. Roshar ducked under the archway and sprinted up the moss-slathed stairs, sweat streaking down his chest.

The shooter gaped in surprise when he reached the top, desperately fumbling with his weapon. Roshar lunged with the sword, burying it in the sentry’s heart with a squelch. Blood sprayed in his eyes, half blinding him.

Hiss. Two bolts spat out and hammered into the stonework, burning through the brick. There was the rattling of chainmail circling the stairs, pants and a torrent of curses. Roshar darted across the slippery stones and launched a kick just as the other two sentries rounded up, knocking them down in a stack. He twisted the sword and plunged downwards, spiking through the two bodies.

He found himself there what felt like hours later, down on one knee, gloved hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword and sweat dripping down his face. He dragged in a shuddering breath, his lungs bleached of air. He yanked out the weapon, flicking away strings of blood. The bodies lay sprawled on the uneven flagstones, crimson dribbling down the uneven steps in a rhythmic pat, pat, pat. They must have been the ones firing the arrows out from the mist. He lifted their helms, decaying faces staring back at him, their eyes hollow. They weren’t people anymore. Just lumps of meat. Lumps of meat he’d killed.

Something was strange here. The sky was covered with a layer of dense fog, only letting the faintest shavings of light to flit through. The way he came was still shrouded in the mist, as if it was thickening near a certain point and forming a barrier. It moved as he watched it. Closer and closer, it curled forward, slowly but surely, eating up the world.

*

Approaching the town, it took a few minutes to recognize Lithgard. The battlements were empty; the once finely kept entrance now caked in sopping mud and dripping with filth. The trees that once bore ripe fruit had dozens of bodies hanging from the twisted branches with thick ropes, swinging in the icy wind. He picked his way down the rolling steppe, sodden grass clinging to his legs.

The town was nightmare made real. Bodies spilled from crude huts, limbs tangled and contorted like ruined dolls. Old houses had caved in, blood-spattered walls turned to splinters, wooden beams jutting at odd angles like broken fingers. There was a fire somewhere, charred wood billowing embers. Blood ran in little rivets, seeping into the mud. Stones had been crushed, weeds and bramble climbing over the mess in an attempt to hide the chaos. Stray dogs scampered around, flea bitten and mangy.

And of course, the ravens had shown up to enjoy their feast. There were probably more of them living than humans now. As he got closer to the tree, Roshar noticed that one of the bodies was much smaller than the others.

It was a child.

For a moment Roshar saw his own son’s face there, ginger-haired like his mother, grinning in the sun. But it was snatched away, back to the little pale corpse. Roshar felt tiny ice shards pick at his heart, memories holding him back. He shrugged them off and kept moving, feet sinking into the mud.

There was someone kneeling down by the tree, head bowed. Roshar’s hand found the hilt of his sword, lifting it out off the scabbard by a few centimeters.

The figure didn’t move. He walked over, curious and cautious. It was a woman; hands clasped together, eyes turned up at the tree. Roshar reached out and shook her by the shoulders. She didn’t even flinch.

“She’s hasn’t moved for days.” Roshar’s heart lurched and he drew his sword, spinning around. “She’s not going to move now.”

Roshar retreated, searching for the source of the voice. A bored sigh. “Up here.” Roshar craned his neck upwards. On the second story of a house sat a man, his once-white clothes tattered and soaked in muck. The furs of an arctic fox were draped around his shoulders. The whole front of the house had been ripped away, the bones picked clean. The man grumbled again, taking a swig of something foul from a bottle. He caught Roshar looking. “You want some?”

“Won’t say no.” Roshar just managed to catch the flask. He took a long drink, sour wine burning down his throat and warming his stomach. The man hopped down and retrieved his bottle.

“Glad to see some help came along.” He swept his hand around at the town. “Might want to work on the timing.”

“What’s she doing?” Roshar asked, pointing at the woman kneeling by the tree, lips quivering.

“Praying.” Another swig. “She thinks that if she remains locked in prayer with the gods, they’ll bring her son back.” A bitter laugh. “There ain’t no gods here. Just me. And the ravens, o’ course.”

“Who are you?” Roshar queried, still on edge.

“Gilliam.” A long swig this time. “Used to be a watchman for this glorious hellhole you see before you.” He licked purple liquid from his lips. “Course, that changed when they came.”

“Who came?”

“Not sure. Came with the mist. Carried no banner and no sigil.” Swig, slosh, swallow. “They pillaged the town, slaughtered us all. Women and children alike. We barely even had a chance. Been hiding in here ever since.” He walked into the house, beckoning to Roshar. “And then I found this one.” Chained to the wall by his wrists was a dead soldier. Bloodied daggers were strewn about. Roshar stooped down next to him. He noticed the man was missing a couple of fingers. “You can ask him questions, but I don’t think he’s going to answer.” Another swig. “Not anymore.”

“Did he talk?”

“Not at first.” Gilliam cursed and hurled the bottle on the ground, scattering glass shards across the floor. He retrieved another from the cupboard, popping it open with blackened teeth and spat out the cork. “Took a while, but he talked in the end. Said that he came from the Kingsguard.”

“The Kingsguard?” That didn’t make sense. “Why would the Kingsguard do this?”

“That’s what I asked him. He just told me to ask King Valloth when I see him. Then he died.”

“He didn’t say anything about the mist?”

“He did. Said it was the King’s doing. And his pet bitch.”

“Hmm.” It was better than nothing. Roshar stood up, his mail clinking. “Then I’d better get going.”

“Where?”

‘The castle, obviously.” The door squeaked with protest as Roshar shoved it open and trudged outside, the rancid air filling his nose. Gilliam followed, still drinking. “If the answer’s there, I’ll find it.”

Gilliam snorted wine out of his nostrils. He was still chuckling as he scraped it away. “You’re going to march up to the castle and interrogate the King?” He shook his head in bewilderment. Roshar stood there, silent. The smile wilted. “You’re serious.”

“Got any better ideas?” Over the hills a wolf let loose a deathly howl. “We’ll all be dead soon enough.”

“Aye, true.” Gilliam seemed to be thinking. “Oh well. Might as well go down fighting.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to die here.” Gilliam flung the bottle away and scooped up the bearded axe leaning against the door. “Who wants to live forever, eh? Besides, you need someone to watch over you, right?”

Roshar bit his lip. He couldn’t very well say no. And whatever happened, he didn’t want to die alone.

*

The town went downhill from that point. Carts and bloodied weapons littered the streets, the flagstones painted with sickly green moss. Glass crunched underfoot. And everywhere he looked there were cudgeled bodies, all rotting and stinking, shriveling to a leathery brown. The sight made his skin crawl and his veins prickle.

Gilliam almost seemed to enjoy his discomfort, clapping him on the back like an older brother. Roshar forced himself not to recoil. “You get used it to after a while.” He stepped over a stack of shattered shields, lovingly emblazoned with House motifs. “It does get lonely. The dead don’t say much.”

Roshar was beginning to realize that Gilliam wasn’t quite sane.

“This way.” The man beckoned to what looked like the remains of a forge. The smelter hadn’t been heated up in some time now. Roshar followed him inside the house, still uncertain.

It was a somber sight, seeing all the weapons collecting dust and slowly starting to rot. Slits of grey light poured in through the windows, drawing pale lines across the flagstones. Roshar ran his fingers along the rows of swords, shards of rust peeling away at his touch.

“Here.” Gilliam threaded his way through to the back of the shop, fingers finding a hidden door in a small crevice. He flung it open, dust stirring in the watery gloom.

“You might want to get one of those.” Gilliam pointed to several torches hanging on the wall, tips swathed in bandages. Roshar fetched two of them, soaking them in a basin of black oil.

“How do you propose we light them?” asked Roshar.

Gilliam didn’t answer. He clenched his fists and murmured quietly, beads of sweat forming on his brow. His palms snapped open and the torches blazed to life, chasing the darkness away.

Roshar looked at Gilliam. “You’re a fire mage, aren’t you?”

“Is it that obvious?” Gilliam scooped up a torch for himself, the light playing sinister shapes across his face. “I was taking lessons. I was damn good at it, too. Then my master saw fit to die and that was it.” He beckoned towards the back room. Roshar noticed a gaping hole in the floor. “You coming or not?”

Gilliam hopped into it, landing with a thud. Roshar cursed and followed him down.

*

Roshar kept up with Gilliam’s pace, maintaining a slow jog through the passageway. It was threateningly claustrophobic in here. The light peeled blackness away from the walls as they advanced.

“How do you know about this?” Roshar asked.

Gilliam chuckled. “Used it often myself back in the day. Paid the princess a visit now and then. When she learned of her arranged marriage they became less frequent.” He shrugged. “I expect she’s dead now.”

“You think the King’s dead as well?” Roshar brushed filthy cobwebs out of his face. He noticed that the trail was slowly inclining. He was also starting to have that prickly feeling in his system, like the one in Gaeon’s hut when he brought out the arrows. It was only mild, but it pulsed through him nonetheless. He squashed it down the best he could.

“Dunno. You heard what the soldier said. We’ll go from there.” The man barked out a brittle laugh. “What do we have to lose?”

After what seemed like hours, days, months, years, Gilliam halted. The dancing flames exposed a wall with a rickety ladder leading upwards. “We’re here.” Gilliam clamped a hand over his torch, gutting it out. He didn’t seem to be in the slightest pain. He placed one foot on the lowest rung and started to climb with slow rhythm. The thing didn’t look safe, bound together with string and twine, but it was the best thing they had. Roshar followed him up, the tortured wood groaning beneath his feet.

“Stop.” Roshar froze, his fingers wrapped around a rung. Gilliam seemed to be pushing against something hard above them, swearing and grunting from the effort. At last it seemed to give away and he shoved the hatch open. Light poured in, sweet, and delicious. Roshar clambered up the last few rungs and hoisted himself out of the hole. He found himself what seemed to be a large storage room, steel rimmed kegs of mead, sour wine and dark ale stacked along the walls. They’d been chopped into splinters, the colours gushing out and bleeding out on the floor. Light eased through a glass-stained window.

“All that fine drink, all gone to waste.” Gilliam nudged an empty barrel with his foot. “Aha. No wonder I couldn’t lift the hatch.” He pointed to the shrunken corpse curled up on the ground. “Out of all the places to die…”

Roshar peeked through the window. They were high up, probably on one of the castle’s top floors. He could see the yards, towers and steeples, but the distance was obscured by the mist, thick, hazy and impenetrable as always.

“Oh,” he murmured to himself. This was not good.

“What is it now?” Gilliam demanded.

“Look.” Roshar pointed downwards. Marching in the streets, in the courtyards, on the flat roofs, on the battlements, were countless guards, all armed and armored. There didn’t seem to be an objective, any order, rank or discipline. Ballistae sat useless and gibbets still held ancient skeletons in their bellies. They plodded around, sitting about and leaning against the walls.

“Good thing we didn’t come that way.” Gilliam sauntered towards the door. “You coming?”

“Can’t you feel that?” The sensation was back, and it wasn’t just uncomfortable this time. His mouth felt dry and his intestines seemed to be trying to tie themselves into bows. It was working its way under his veins, turning his blood to gravel.

Gilliam gave a low chortle. “Course I can. Means we’re getting close.” He swung the door open and made a mocking bow. “After you.”

*

The scent of death hung heavily in the air. The hallways were smeared with grime, bodies pinned to the walls with iron arrows. What was once ornate furniture had been splintered into countless wooden fragments. Paintings had been stripped down and shredded, vases smashed, old plates of armor and bloodied gold coins scattered about the floor. Roshar had never seen so much gold! And there was no one to use it, no one to spend it.

“Ah.” Several soldiers were sprinting down the hall, rusty armor clanking as they moved, brandishing halberds and falchions. Gilliam stood there, his fists clenched, perfectly still with his eyes fastened shut.

“What the hell are you doing?” Roshar yelled.

No answer. Then Gilliam’s eyes flipped open and beamed a crimson red. He stepped forward and clapped his hands together with a boom. A fire sprouted up in the middle of the soldiers, engulfing them in a roaring, scorching cocoon. Tapestries on the walls were eaten away in seconds. Men reeled away, burning and screaming and tumbling.

It didn’t take long before they were all a smouldering pile of bodies, ropey coils of smoke spiraling to the blackened roof. Gilliam turned around, sweat gushing out of his pores. He nodded towards the sizzling bodies. “Hungry?”

Roshar just shook his head and tried not to gag. Gilliam chuckled, then led the way through an arching doorway, revealing more staircases. This had to be the way. Roshar was aware of the pain mounting with almost every step, scrubbing away at his bones—

Gilliam twirled his axe. “You may want to step aside.”

“Wha—” Roshar threw himself forward as a portcullis gate guillotined down, bolts slotting into place and dividing them from the castle’s entrance. Gilliam’s face split in a grin, tapping the broken wheel spoke, the rusty chains collapsed on the floor like a lifeless snake. He gave the humongous gate a rattle. It refused to budge.

He grinned again. “Now let’s see them try and follow us.”

“And what if we want to get out again?” asked Roshar curtly.

Gilliam just laughed.

*

Gilliam stood in front of an ordinary looking iron-bound door. “Can you feel it?”

Roshar nodded as the pain flushed through him like a river, damn near forcing him to his knees. They had to be close.

Gilliam scraped open the door. It seemed to be a medium between a library and laboratory, bursting with old tomes and manuscripts. There had to be thousands of them, black ink on faded parchment, recalling the histories and the songs and the battles and the kings. None of which mattered anymore. The desks were cluttered with dried herbs and resin, gnarled roots and metallic utensils. Drawers hung half open like tongues, more papers spilling out.

And in the middle was a woman. She was small and lithe, her hair flowing down in beautiful ebony waves. She turned around and gazed at him with brilliant blue eyes that pierced into his heart. In her hand was a small green herb. She placed in back on the bench with care. “Hello there.”

…it was the King’s doing. And his pet bitch. “Who are you?” Roshar demanded, drawing his sword as spikes of pain skewered through him.

“Kill her! Now!” Gilliam made an attempt at springing forward, axe in hand. Yet he seemed to freeze like an ant in amber, his silhouette outlined with the rippling of air.

“Don’t listen to him my dear. He’s not important.” Her voice wafted over to him in silky ribbons. He found his sword grip loosening, clattering to the ground. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

Roshar nodded vigorously, turning away from Gilliam. “Yes, yes that’s right.” He found himself drawn to her, this mysterious woman with a voice like the gods. How could one possibly resist?

“Come closer, slowly now.” Roshar obeyed, hanging on every word. She padded towards him, something in her hand. A familiar voice called him from far away. What was it saying? Roshar shoved it away. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything would be fine.

Her body was the center of the room, center of the entire world. She smiled, subtle sunlight glistening on her hair with an indigo shimmer. She lifted her hand, showing a dagger. But that didn’t matter. She wouldn’t hurt him. She couldn’t.

“Poor fool,” she said, her voice draping over him like honey, swathing him in syrupy bliss. “It’s too late for you. It’s too late for us all.”

She raised the dagger.

Gilliam let out an ear-splitting roar, snapping Roshar out of his trance. He remained rooted to the ground, yet managed to swing his arms. His axe went scything through the air with a whistle. The woman sprung backwards with an impossible agility, the glinting blade nearly cleaving her in half. It smashed into the table with a shower of splinters, throwing up a cloud of resin.

“You.”A cold smile twisted on her face and she spun around, flexing her hand to fling the dagger in Gilliam’s direction. Roshar fumbled for his sword, yanking it out with a sharp scrape and without thinking thudded it into the bridge of her skull. He staggered backwards, the world swimming around him as white noise whined in his ears. He sucked in a ragged breath and looked at the woman, the sword well and truly buried in her head. She had to have been a mage some sort. A powerful one, too. Was she the cause of all this?

“That wench has a good throwing arm.” With a lead heart, Roshar noted the dagger protruding from Gilliam’s chest, wedged between his ribs. He collapsed on the stone floor, breathing hard. Roshar knew it was over for him. They both knew it. He stooped low, holding Gilliam’s coarse hand as the life poured out of him.

“You finish this, you hear?” ordered Gilliam through bloody teeth. “Find King Valloth and kill him. I didn’t come this far for nothing.” He spat weakly, tears welling in his rheumy eyes. “Leave me. I’ll see my family soon.”

Roshar nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. He’d seen many men die, some old, some young, all trying to put on a brave face in their final moments, trying to be heroic men. They never succeeded. Never. No matter how bold and hardened, in their final moments they all wanted their mothers. To be in the arms of their loved ones.

Roshar stayed with Gilliam, this madman who’d gone through hell with him. Roshar stayed with him until he stopped breathing.

*

There was no better place to find a King than the throne room.

It was almost anticlimactic, seeing King Valloth sitting on his rusted throne, his pathetic figure swaddled in faded robes. He’d been a notoriously obese man, his face pasty and rosy. Now he was bitterly thin, loose flesh spilling down in fleshy folds. He didn’t even look up as Roshar approached. The bodies of his vanguard were piled against the throne, a mountain of rusted mail and greatswords.

“Someone finally made it.” His voice was low and quiet, but somehow it carried an eerie force that echoed throughout the entire room. “I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“Your mage said the same thing,” said Roshar. A javelin of pain shot through him. He absorbed the impact with a shudder.

Valloth looked up, revealing a sunken face with hollow eyes the colour of festered flesh. “Is she dead?”A pause. “It should have been done years ago.”

Roshar blinked. “What?”

“It was her,” Valloth hissed, his voice grating against Roshar’s skull. “That stupid woman and her experiments. They caused all this.”

“How?”

“It got out of control,” Valloth murmured. “We just wanted to unravel the enigmas of the world. But the power was too great to contain. So many things went wrong. So much death. That ghastly poison.” He nodded weakly towards the glass window. “It took hold of the kingdom. It created the mist. It drove men mad, turned them into the bloodthirsty soldiers you’ve fought your way through.”

Roshar stepped forward and was immediately hit by a sudden force that ripped through his stomach, almost doubling him over. He gritted his teeth and took another step, the fibers in his legs burning. “There had to be a way,” he rasped, “to stop it.”

“There was.” The King shut his eyes and lowered his voice down to a whisper. “I was greedy. I saw the power she created and I took it. I didn’t know how powerful it would become. Now it resides in me. I’m its vessel.” He hunched over with a hacking cough, putrid saliva dripping from his lips. “I could have halted it if I took my own life. But I could not perform the deed. Now I don’t have the strength to stand up.” His eyes seemed to bore into Roshar, burn through him. “It scrapes a man clean. Gives him power and tears it away, piece by piece.”

Roshar felt the sickly stuff seeping down his throat, spreading through his system. He had to hurry. “I can still do want you couldn’t.”

Valloth froze, then gave the faintest of nods. “Yes. Do it. Quickly, now.”

Roshar tightened his grasp on the sword’s hilt. “Where would you like me to strike?”

“No!”Valloth’s voice intensified, a raw lust for control that nearly blasted Roshar off his feet. His face sagged, his eyes becoming black as night, black as ink. “Don’t you dare take my power away!”

The pain was nearly engulfing him now, his muscles contracting in spasm, bones rattling in their cages. Tears of agony were trickling down his cheeks, old wounds weeping blood. He started up the dais, the thrumming in his skull mounting by the moment. Every cell in his body begged him to leave, to turn away and run. He thought of Robin and the way she would smile at him. She started to slip away between his fingers like ashes in the roaring wind. He clamped his teeth together and latched onto her memory, the last thing he had and took another step. And another. And another.

There was a shriek from Valloth as he readied his sword, nearly blowing out his eardrums. “Don’t! Stop!” He was scrambling back, trying to hug his throne for protection “It’s MINE!”

Roshar didn’t waste his energy on words. Gathering up every drop of strength he had left, he twisted his sword and pierced it right into Valloth’s heart.

The world exploded in a suction of dark energy, a whirlwind of glistening dust. Roshar screwed his eyes shut and tightened the grasp on his sword grip.“Fool!”the King screamed, barely audible above the howling. “Now it passes onto you! Nothing has changed!”

Roshar shook his head, gritted his teeth. He would not take it. He would not cave in like Valloth. Roshar sunk to one knee as the dark venom coiled and writhed around him, trying to find a way in. He squeezed his eyes shut as the it burned down his throat, expanding in his lungs and spreading out through his body, finding every crevice, every vein and every cell, filling him with the poison. The King flopped back on his throne, dead.

And then the universe was quiet.

Roshar felt his heart boom in his chest, pumping toxic blood into his body. He raised his head, slowly, slowly, and gazed through the slits of his helm.

And he saw it, no felt it. The power the King spoke of. It shifted in the air, thrashed inside him, begging to be harnessed, to be taken and used. It needed to have a home, have a vessel. Roshar pinned the power within his sights, a loose thread that coiled out to him, seeking him. Roshar swallowed a mouthful of sour saliva, fixing his eyes on the rust eaten throne. He shouldn’t take it. He should just let the poison choke him. But how he wanted that power. How he deserved it.

Mine.

He scrambled to his feet, struggling as he shuffled towards the throne, dragging Valloth’s corpse from the seat and leaving him slumped on the floor, one more body on the pile. He planted himself down on the seat and closed his eyes, his body a hollow cavern that echoed with darkness. The power took root in him, hooking itself deep in his body. He reached for the tiny thread of power that dangled front of him, holding on for all he was worth. It was his and his alone. No one was ever going to take it from him. Never.

This was his world now.

Skingame

Originally published by Perihelion Science Fiction

* * *

Isaac Kopper tugged at his collar and snuck a glance behind him, just to be sure no one was aiming a gun at his head. He sucked in the syrupy air, struggling to fight the muggy heat that was doing its best to suffocate him. This skin-tight shirt wasn’t helping, either.

He stretched out a hand and firmly pressed down on the intercom marked Saul Anders, hearing a buzz in one of the apartments. The dual moons, Azareth and Vakarien, hung in the sky. Their pale light spilled onto the street and the rows of high-tech houses with their neatly manicured lawns, wet with the recent shower of rain. The smell of bitumen hung heavily in the air. Damn it, why didn’t he answer the door? There was only so long he’d be able to stand outside before—

A Council security drone hovered overhead, tiny speakers blaring news headlines and the usual propaganda. He felt a bead of sweat ride down his chest. Had they caught onto him already? He’d hoped they’d have the decency to give him a little head start.

Thankfully the drone drifted past without noticing him. He released a lungful of air. So they hadn’t caught on just yet.

Good.

The gun-grey screen crackled to life, the polished monitor revealing the face of a hawk-eyed man with a fleshy jaw, studded with black bristles and faint scars. He presumed that it was Saul Anders. ‘Hey Isaac, isn’t it a little late to be calling?’

Kopper forced up a smile. ‘I was in the area and thought I’d stop by.’ He raised the bottle in view of the camera and dangled it seductively. It came with a sheath that insulated the bottle from heat and kept it cold inside. He popped it out and twisted it around so Anders could see the expensive Fornax label. ‘I just happened to bring this along with me.’

Anders took the bait. His face lit up. ‘Brilliant. Buzzing you in.’ The screen flickered, spluttered and died. A moment later the large metallic door with transparent boltglass abruptly slid open. Kopper strode inside to a hall of dark marble tiles and a towering bronze statue with ornate insignias, the air-conditioning fast freezing his sweat. The red velvet carpet swallowed up his footsteps. A vending machine huddled in the corner, immaculately stacked with overpriced products. Even from here he could see the Council Seal of Approval that had been stamped onto each item. The vending machines were notorious for giving eighty-percent of their profit straight to the Council and their anonymous shareholders. Didn’t stop people from buying ‘em, though. He remembered the one night that he and a few others had gone along and torched a truckload of the things. You could see the smoke for miles. The next day it had been branded as a mechanical malfunction. That amused had him more than anything.

The conspicuous cam made a low humming sound as it detected him, its tracking lens following his movement across the carpeted hall. He allowed it to scan his face, the lazy blue light sweeping up and down before making a sound of confirmation.

‘Isaac Kopper, welcome to Nordim Apartments,’ purred the androgynous voice. ‘It has been seventeen days, two hours, and fifteen minutes since your last check-in.’

Seventeen days, huh? Interesting. He made a mental note as he strode over to the elevator and stabbed the button for the penthouse, the doors clinching shut behind him. Hopefully Anders was as stupid as he was naïve.

*

‘You been sick? Haven’t seen you around lately.’

The man was fat; his bulging stomach larger than it had any right to be. Kopper fumbled for a response as planted his bag down on the vintage sofa with a curlicue pattern. ‘Been busy. A buddy died, so I spent the week with his family up in Saen.’

Anders seemed to accept this as he waddled into the kitchen. ‘Fair enough. I’m worried with these new diseases popping up all over the place. I bet they’re from all the refugees coming in from Wreth. Some are coming as far back as Earth, bringing all their infections with them. Vaccines cost a damned fortune.’

Kopper offered a watery smile. ‘Had mine a while back.’

‘Strange that they’re come all this way and then complain about the conditions when they get here. Teach them to do a little more research next time. They probably wish they’d never left.’

Kopper knew Anders had hit a mark. People didn’t care what the conditions were, as long as they could get away from the wars going on at home. An independently run government that spanned multiple star systems seemed ideal on paper. Arriving here on Nuvus slammed them back into reality.

He heard the distinct sound of frying and noticed the fat steaks that were shimmering on the stove, a draft of delicious air easing his way. He realized he hadn’t eaten for almost two days now. No wonder he felt like hell.

For a penthouse, the apartment was quite small. But what it lacked in size it made up in style. The walls were covered in a caramel wood-paneling that seemed to drink in the light. Boltglass windows that stretched across the wall showed a stunning view of the sprawling city, towering angular structures that gleamed dark blue, black and a rich gold. On closer inspection the windows were also soundproof. Probably bulletproof, too. Kopper wondered how much of a selling point that had been.

‘Expensive, but worth it,’ Anders was saying as Kopper gazed at the windows. ‘Damned drones keep me up at night. No price is too high for a good night’s sleep.’

Kopper gave a nod as Anders walked over to the kitchen and fetched two pyramidal glasses and a chilled decanter from the cupboard. ‘I’ll throw a few more steaks on. Care to join me?’

‘I won’t say no.’ Kopper noticed a modest fish tank against the wall, containing a single octopus. Its tentacles twirled like it was showing off, torpedoing from one side of the tank to the other.

‘That’s Houdini. Got him a few days ago for a killer price.’

‘I figured they’d be expensive nowdays,’ Kopper murmured.

Anders shrugged. ‘Not when you know where to look. By the way, did you hear the news?’

Kopper’s nape prickled as Houdini retreated behind a barnacle-studded rock and slipped into a tiny crevice. He wished he could do the same. ‘What news?

‘You know the rebel group, Octam?’ Anders asked. ‘The one that’s been protesting against the Council, calling themselves freedom fighters? Anarchists?’

I’ll be damned. The irony was almost overwhelming. He feigned ignorance. ‘Yes?’

‘We’ll, it seems that they’ve been caught,’ Anders said triumphantly, as if he had done the apprehending himself. ‘Spec Ops Squads traced their signals to a base in the abandoned railway tracks. Over one hundred members captured.’

‘All of them?’ Kopper queried.

‘Probably not. The SOS said that they’ve started the extraction process.’

Kopper stopped himself from shivering. He knew exactly what sort of extraction methods they would be using. It was only a matter of time now. No one lasted long under them. If I hung around for just another hour…

‘Come on. Steaks are done.’

Kopper was almost tempted to have dinner now, he was that famished. But what if he slipped up during the meal? What if someone had tracked him here? The anxiety crept up again, threatened to envelope him. This was no time to back out. I’ve come this far.

He reached for the bottle of Fornax, grasping it by the neck. Making no effort to be stealthy, he strode over to where Anders was standing, oblivious as he tended to the steaks.

‘You know, you should visit more often. Houdini doesn’t say much, and I—’

The words never left his lips. Kopper smashed the bottle on the side of Anders’s head, shattering the glass and splattering the wine on the walls, floor and stove, the pan hissing in fury. Anders collapsed to the ground without a word. Kopper grabbed the switchblade that had been concealed in the bottle, plunging it straight into Anders’s potbelly. The man spluttered as the blood gushed from his wound, trickling to the floor and mixing with the wine.

‘Isaac?’ Anders seemed to be saying as crimson fluid leaked out from the massive gash in his gut. He didn’t look like he was in pain. He looked confused. ‘Why?’

Kopper didn’t bother answering him. It would have been a waste of breath. He stepped over the glass shards and grabbed Anders’s head, flexing his fingers and with a practiced move. Crack. Anders went limp, eyes glazing over.

*

Kopper didn’t bother clearing up the mess. There was no point. After helping himself to the two steaks and a tall glass of freshly squeezed orange juice with a dash of illegal vodka for good measure, he dragged Anders’s dead body into the dining room, a scarlet trail in his wake.

He cleared the mahogany table, covering it with a gel-padded foam sheet. Utensils clattered to the floor. He fished the necessary tools out of his bag and aligned them neatly, the metal winking at him in the light.

With a grunt he heaved Anders’s flabby corpse onto the table and started to strip his bloody clothes off and bundle them up under his head to form a pillow. Houdini watched from his tank, tentacles fluttering in accusation. Kopper ignored it, snatching up the black surgery pen as he carefully stenciled the perimeter markings around Anders’s face. He forced himself to be accurate, but quick. The man’s flesh would soon start to decompose and would be impossible to use. He’d seen just how fast the human body could collapse into a stinking mess. He had done the deed a few times himself. Mainly to corrupt devils who deserved nothing better. The smell was the worst part. It snuffed out any satisfaction he should have gotten from giving these people their just desserts. It reminded him he was a killer. That he’d turned a man into a sack of meat.

Wiping a coat of cold sweat from his forehead, he placed the razorblade suction mask on the man’s face and flicked it on. With a whine it expanded and shifted to fit its occupant, finding the perfect dimensions required to pull the task off successfully. There was a faint click as it pulsed with a lime-green light.

It was good to go.

Kopper clenched his teeth and tried to ignore the sound of razorblades cutting into dead flesh as they sawed away in an almost rhythmic fashion.

*

It was finally done.

The suction mask pinged like a microwave, de-pressurizing itself from Anders’s face and peeling away flesh like a wet sock. Kopper tried not to look at the skinless and bloodied face as he inspected the suction mask. It had created a perfect mold of the man’s face, right down to the diagonal scar on the left cheek and the ugly scabs on his chin.

Kopper hadn’t been idle while the suction mask was doing its job. He’d set up Anders’ bedroom while the operation finalized. He had prepared several insta-snacks and hooked up the radio. He wasn’t going to be lying there for hours with nothing to do. The process would restrict him from using his eyes; so killing time with Anders’s gigantic holovid collection was out of the question, even if he did have some vids that had been explicitly banned by the Council and Kopper had been dying to see.

After making sure that his bladder was indeed empty, and he wouldn’t have to go during the operation like last time, Kopper scooped up the suction mask and headed for the bedroom. He lay down on his back, the necessary equipment within reach. Bracing himself for the familiar pain, he applied a thick ointment on his face as it burned and bubbled, eating away the top layer of skin. He smeared the second gel on his exposed skin. It felt like cold porridge. He quickly attached the suction mask with the face mold, pressuring and sealing it, cutting off his vision. He had set a timer for eight hours and started the countdown. Removing the mask before the operation was complete would tear half his face off—something he preferred to avoid.

He settled back on the bed and listened to the slow melody that hammered out of the radio. He now wished he had taken the time to find proper channel that didn’t play this garbage. Just when he thought he couldn’t put up with it anymore, the news came to his aid.

Normally he didn’t give a damn about what the news had to say, but his ears pricked when he heard the headline: “Man found murdered and faceless in home.”

Now this would be very interesting.

“Isaac Kopper, a twenty-eight year old fusion core engineer was found dead in his home earlier this morning at his house on Laker Avenue. The victim had skin from his face removed by what is suspected to be a homemade surgery device. Security drones report no signs of forced entry. It is uncertain if the grizzly surgery was performed post-mortem. In other news, Chief Execute Ryan Kurtman has stated that funding towards—”

Kopper tuned out of the propaganda as he started to think. He could very well have told them if it was post-mortem or not. He had sliced the throat of the man formerly known as Isaac Kopper before skinning him. The operation had taken a lot longer as it was his first time, but he had managed to successfully skin and assume the identity of Isaac Kopper. From there on it was just a matter of finding the right person with a high enough Asset Level and had special permission to travel. He was surprised to find that Mr. Kopper did in fact have a lot of close acquaintances with these requirements, one of which had been willing to open the door to someone who was wearing his friend’s face. He almost didn’t choose Anders, but then he did a little rifling through some files and the decision cemented itself. He was corrupt as they came. He’d hurt the innocent, hurt women, hurt the defenseless. Just skimming the files made Kopper’s stomach flip. And with the right credits in the right pocket the man breezed through it all without a second’s thought.

He didn’t fool himself into thinking he’d done some great deed. But he’d sleep just a little better knowing Anders was finished.

‘…the leader of the terrorist organization known as Octam has been identified as Lauren Nior. According to witness accounts, Nior committed suicide before the Spec Ops Squad was able to capture and question her. This has been verified by an autopsy.’

Lauren…Kopper felt a needle plunge into his heart. He had been planning to take her out tomorrow. He’d even been considering marriage. He had been there for her on every crazy suicidal job she could dream up. Now she was dead.

If I had been with her…

No. He couldn’t go there. There was nothing he could have done. It was a small comfort in knowing that she was already gone and wasn’t in some dark room facing interrogation. But he knew she would never have killed herself. She would have gone down fighting to the last second, just like she always did.

All he could do now was get the hell out of here. For the both of them.

*

The face of Saul Anders gazed back at him in the mirror as he examined his new face, fingers trailing down the telltale lines left behind by the suction mask. They would fade away in an hour or so, just like they had when he had been Isaac Kopper.

He had to leave. He discarded the suction mask, bed sheets, tubes, into the shredder. Contrary to its name, the shredder would actually heat up to the point where anything—or anyone—inside it would melt into nothing in seconds. It was the perfect way to destroy the evidence. Anders stabbed the inconspicuous blue button next to the hatch. A whirling sound commenced, and at the bottom of the shaft, the evidence was hyper-heated, melted down into liquid and drained, where it would flow to into a giant sewer, destined for the underground waste pit on the outskirts of the city.

It was hard to throw the skinning device away. Lauren had been working on it with her techies down in the lab, and had dropped it off at his place a few days ago for safekeeping. It was the only thing he had of hers that was left.

But it had to be done.

I’m sorry, Lauren. His hands were heavy as lead, but he picked up the machine and dropped it into the shredder, ready to be melted down.

Everything that he had touched was wiped down with a thick cloth drenched in a mild acidic substance that burned away microscopic-size chunks from the surface of the said subject. You could wear a face, but fingerprints were another thing entirely.

He made sure there was nothing incriminating left lying around before heading out the door, wiping the door handle clean and closing it shut behind him with a heavy click. A gathering of drunk party-goers had clustered near the foot of the stairs, bottles of Council approved alcohol clasped in their hands.

What if they knew Saul Anders? It was just luck that him and Kopper had the same shock of blond hair, but Anders’ was jet black. He was half tempted to dart back inside and find some hair dye, but it was too late now. Besides, this could be a test. If something was out of place, he would know soon enough. Better here than staring down the wrong end of a gun.

He ambled past them, his heart lodged in his mouth. He prayed they wouldn’t look too closely. Thankfully, they were too drunk to pay any attention. They gave him the briefest of nods as he headed out the door, the vicious cold wind biting at his face. So far so good.

*

Preferring not to traverse the labyrinth of back alleys, dark streets and shady market stalls that led the way to City Central, Anders caught a transport pod, depositing a few credits into the slot as he climbed aboard, barely earning a glance from the driver as he punched in his requested destination. The pod was empty, bulletproof windows and brown leather seats pristine and clean. You never saw pods in this condition in the low-assest zones or in the City Central. It seemed they were only reserved for the wealthy suburban areas and the people with the money to pay for them.

Anders started out the window, glancing at the neat sprawl of houses and apartments, lovingly designed and built with polished wood, boltglass, rich steel and pure metals, all lavishly dressed up in pure paints and fine alloys, pristine marble swimming pools and gardens of perennials, clipped hedges and looping gravel pathways. They traveled closer and closer to the City, the view started to decline, offering rows of rectangular apartments with gap-toothed windows, slathered in flaking grey paint, connected with a network of rusty steel and eroded concrete.

And he was leaving it behind for good.

He had been planning to leave for a while. He told Lauren that there was only so much to be done fighting the government. He saw it bit by bit. Everything they did, everything they destroyed, everything they spread, every effort they made barely seemed to make a dent in the Council. And if it had an effect, they’d brush it off and rebuild themselves, twice as strong. He explained how relocating somewhere else where the Council had a looser grip was a hell lot safer. But she had been determined to stay and continue fighting against the Council, to finish what they started. For a while he had listened, but as time wore on he saw it gradually declining. He didn’t know why she didn’t see it. Dedication to the cause, he supposed.

And it got her killed in the end.

And he wouldn’t be sticking around to join her.

He might have been a heartless bastard, but he wasn’t going to be a dead one. His stands were stained just as much as her’s. He wasn’t going to add to it.

They were approaching the city now, soaring skyscrapers, gigantic billboards and flashing holodisplays clogging the night sky. Colour-coded cables slithered up walls and across roofs, strung up in a suspended web. The streets started to narrow as people swarmed around the pod, some of them stepping directly onto the bitumen road, painted a deep gold by the overhanging street lamps.

After nearly half an hour of crawling through the uncaring crowds, Anders hissed, ‘Can’t you go any faster?’

The driver gestured at the milling crowds zigzagging on the road. ‘I ain’t mowing dozens of folks down for you,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

At this rate it would take all night. They’d have caught on by then, if he didn’t come to a sticky end here first. He stared outside at the river of flesh that trickled by the pod, stealing glances his way. He was just waiting for the crowd to get ugly. Start pounding on the windows. Pulling him from the pod bleeding and beaten. Dragging him to a back alley. Planting punches in his jaw and tearing away his valuables, sticking a .44 in his mouth…

Anders fumbled in his pocket and brought out a thick wad of notes. ‘How about now?’

The driver didn’t think twice. He slammed his palm down on the siren, scattering most of the crowd back to the sidewalk. The remaining people followed suit once the pod bore down on them, nearly crushing them into the tarmac. Anders liked to think the driver would have avoided killing anyone, but in this city who could say?

He leaned back in his chair as the city became a sweeping blur of brothels, eateries, moonshine brewers, pharmacies, flashing concave screens and vehicles, only jostling from his trance once the pod docked at the port an hour later, a hulking dome of silver and sleek grey. He flicked a couple more notes the driver’s way and disembarked, standing in front of the monstrous building. The blast-furnace heat raked at his skin, the air thick with cheap wheat beer and jabbering voices. Yet he ignored it all, a sickly coldness pooling in the pits of his stomach. It wasn’t over. Not by a longshot.

*

Man, this line was long. The entire port was packed full of people from all walks of life. They all shuffled towards the dingy control booth where a Council employee would either permit or reject access to interstellar travel. He didn’t know why these people even bothered; the chances of actually getting through were sickeningly slim. There would have been zero chance of him ever leaving this place if he didn’t have this face, along with the asset level that came with it. Engineers were ridiculously useful, and thus came with a high asset level that was not given to other civilians. Part of that package was permission to travel.

Anders forced himself not to trace his cheek with his finger for line marks, a habit that would get him a lot more attention than he actually wanted. The air vents had blocked up, turning the air into syrup. A man in front of him took a deep drag of his cigarette, a spiral of smoke ribboning off the tip. He noticed that the line hadn’t moved for a while now. What the hell was happening? He strained his neck to the front desk where an irate man was making wild gestures to the employee. Her face could have been chipped out of solid granite. He watched as the man was dragged away by two armor-clad androids, boots skidding on the polished floor, shrieking obscenities.

The line inched forward. Barely.

At least there were no more complications. People stepped forward, presented their IDs, got their faces scanned, had their profiles checked out, were rejected. They begged for permission to board, gave some lengthy sob story about their family, money, why they needed to get out of here. And they were rejected.

This happened almost every single time. Only five people—four of which belonged to a family—could pass. The other one was a black-suited businessman who either had special permission from the Council or simply had bribed his way through.

It was his turn next. The guy in front was kicking up a fuss. ‘Listen, I have the files with me. They’re Council-approved. Look at the stamps! Just let me in.’

‘The files are not the issue,’ the employee stated, her voice level and calm. ‘The date is incorrect; you were meant to be here almost fourty-eight hours ago.’

‘I got held up.’

‘Sorry. I cannot let you through.’

‘What?’ The armored androids swiveled their heads at the man’s rising voice. ‘I’ve got the seal. Just let me in.’

‘The decision has been made.’ The woman was cool as ever. ‘Please leave immediately.’

‘Listen to me—’

‘I will call security.’

‘You stupid bitch! Wait—’ his words were cut off as the android on the right clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder and started to drag him away. He struggled to get to his feet, shaking them off. ‘I can walk! Let me go!’ He gathered up his tattered dignity and strode out on his own accord.

‘Next.’

Anders stepped up to the booth, eyes fixed on the woman. She scraped her hair back behind her ear. ‘IDs?’

‘Here.’ He placed the various cards, codes and seals required for the process on the bench. The machine sucked them up greedily. He had nabbed them from an unlocked drawer in Anders’ apartment, where they had all conveniently been placed together. It was great when people made your life easier like that.

The woman glanced at the monitor and gave the slightest of nods. He stepped to the right and placed his head in a circular mould. He felt the cold metallic bands fold over the back of his head, holding him in place as a blue-green light hovered in front of him, sweeping across his face. This was the crucial moment. If the machine detected an inconsistency, or if the scanners could read that something wasn’t quite right, then everything would go to hell. And these things weren’t failsafe. He’d seen banned footage where some guy struggled to get out of the clamp before the machine was done, and it had retaliated by tightening its grip, crushing his head like a mango, blood spraying, skull cracking, while he twisted and thrashed and struggled and—

‘Scan complete.’ The pressure lifted from the back of his head as the securing straps were removed and the scanner folded back into its place. The machine spat out his cards and IDs, like it was disgusted them with. He took them gratefully, nodding at the woman as the security doors in front of him parted like angelic gates of heaven. He strolled through, relief gushing out and flooding through his body.

*

He chose the earliest flight he could.

It would take him to Toh, almost as far away from here as possible. Even better would be Elva, but that flight wasn’t scheduled for another five days. He wasn’t planning to stick around that long. He might have gotten past the scanners and be wearing someone else’s face, but it didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t belong here, in this playground of rich families and loaded businessmen. It would be easy to get a new ID and face in Toh. The Council’s grip on the planet was so loose that contraband floated around the city like a disease.

He bought a meal while he was there. Chicken pamajama slathered in mushroom sauce. It cost a hefty price, but he remembered that it wasn’t his credits that he was spending. The food wasn’t fantastic, but would do for now.

Boarding was an effortless task. Everyone had been checked out already, so there was close to no security. They just took one look at his IDs and ushered him through without a word. He had the feeling they wanted to wash their hands of him. The feeling was mutual.

Anders settled back into his seat, clipping the seatbelt together. The flight would take around thirty hours or so. It had been an age before he’d had truly good sleep. Thirty hours with nothing to do except doze off was perfect.

There was almost no one else on board, just him and a handful of passengers and the family from earlier. Come to think of it, there hadn’t been many in the departing lounges, either. It seemed that the Council were only letting a trickle of regular asset civilians go through. It was getting less and less each year and would likely only continue to lessen until no one could get through.

Not my problem.

Not anymore.

It might have been selfish, but he was done with it all. There was no point in trying to fix anything there. He saw that now. The best he could do was go somewhere far away where they’d never find him. He should have done it years ago. He was done with killing, done with it all.

Anders gazed out of the tiny window as the spacecraft booted up. He noticed a couple of figures in the distance, sprinting towards them. He leaned forward and squinted in the gloom. The two androids from before were galloping across the tarmac at frightening speeds, a trio of human security guards sprinting behind them.

And they were all clutching pulse rifles. One of the androids even had a railgun, slapping in a clip.

He suddenly felt light-headed, his vision swimming. No. This couldn’t be happening. He’d come so close. He’d—

The sudden movement of the spacecraft jolted him back to the present. The guards were screaming now, waving their arms, turning the heads of everyone around them. But the spacecraft had already pushed off the ground, slowly accelerating through the air. He seemed to be the only one who’d noticed them. The other passengers and crew were completely oblivious. The guards on the ground tried to shout out, but the scream of the engine drowned them out. He gripped the sides of his armchair and tried to calm his frantic heart as the spacecraft glided over the city, the frantic figures becoming smaller and smaller. He leaned back in his seat, breathing hard. That had been so, so close.

But he’d made it.

His ears popped as the ship reached space and booted up the warp drive, sending shivers down his spine, lights dimming above. The floor began to rumble, pulling him back into his seat picking up speed and winking out of existence.

Lauren C. Teffeau

Forge and Fledge

Crossed Genres Magazine. Runaway Theme, Issue 16. April 2014.

* * *

“And how did that make you feel, Zhen?” Dr. Veler asks in that soothing monotone of hers.

I know every inch of her office on the upper level of the rig. The metal desk she primly sits behind, legs crossed at the ankles. Motivational posters in flimsy plastic frames. The eternal orange-tinted gloaming beyond the window. When the hydrocarbon clouds part, I can sometimes make out the rig’s shadow as it drifts over Titan’s frozen, craggy surface.

I look down at my work boots. Droplets of grease fleck the toe box. “Dunno. I mean the training’s all right, but I’d rather be in the machine shop.”

Dr. Veler taps something into her touch screen. “You feel safe there? The machine shop?”

Safe? That’s a strange term for it. But then again she’s always twisting around my words. “I like being there when I’m not in class, if that’s what you mean.”

“Why’s that?”

“What else is there for someone like me?”

Dr. Veler eyes me over her screen. “You’re angry.”

“What? No. I’m…” I look down at my hands, white-knuckled and knotted together. My chest heaves with each breath.

“We’ve talked before about your attitude.”

My head snaps up. “But I’m not…like him.”

“That’s why we have these sessions. To keep it that way.” She holds my gaze, then turns back to her touch screen. “You’ll be seventeen next month. You can be something more than your parents, Zhen, but you have to want it.”

I cross my arms. Usually, I don’t totally hate my sessions with Dr. Veler. When we first met, she told me she believed in nurture versus nature—otherwise she wouldn’t have signed on for such an unglamorous position with a remote mining facility. She seems like she actually cares. Although her line of questioning makes me want to cut things short today. But if I bail, she’ll say it’s just another example of the genetic heritage inside me we’ve been working so hard to keep subdued.

Dr. Veler drums her fingers on the desk in time to my heartbeat. “Let’s return to your vocational training. Your company trainer’s been pleased with your aptitude.”

I stare at the ceiling. Rig staff members take turns babysitting me and the other kids in a converted meeting room every day. When they run out of things to teach us, they farms us out to a vocational trainer for part of the school day to see what position on the rig we’ll be best suited for once we’re old enough to legally do the work. The company never planned for us to be here, they’re certainly not paying to ship us back to Earth, so they may as well find a use for us.

Win-win. Not.

Dr. Veler sighs, setting aside her touch screen. “At your request, I contacted your extended family.” She pauses, like she always does when she’s trying to come up with just the right words. “Your mother’s parents are dead, and your father’s…well, they disowned him before he was even sentenced here.”

Technically, I’m an orphan of Titan. But I know who my mother is—she just can’t claim me because she’ll always be a prisoner of the system. She told me once my father was another prisoner—they’d meet during shift changes and one thing led to another. That wasn’t so shocking. After all, every kid on the righas a similar story. But when she said my father was killed during the convict uprising on the rig a few years back, that was different. It meant I had to go to weekly meetings with Dr. Veler on top of my classes.

I lift a shoulder at the news. It was a long shot. Dr. Veler hoped to convince my relatives to give me seed money for a transport that could take me to one of the Martian colonies—if not Earth itself—where there’d be more education and employment opportunities. After all, I can’t help who my parents are. I don’t deserve to be shackled to the same fate. But no one seems to care that me and the other orphans are rotting out here.

“I’m sorry, Zhen,” Dr. Veler says.

“Are we done?”

She blinks away the hurt quickly, her professional self once more. “Next week, at our usual time.”

* * *

I should call it a day and rest up for my morning shift with the company trainer. But a live current hums underneath my skin, leaving me itchy and raw. Dr. Veler says whenever I feel one of these moods coming on it’s best to distract myself with something else. My father’s poor impulse control forever hanging over me.

It’s not like I can go outside. I’ve read enough Earth books to know what I’m missing. No green. No wide-open spaces.

I’ve been outside once, away from the rig’s artificial gravity field. Had to bundle up in a pressurized suit insulated to guard against the subzero temperatures. What surprised me most was the way the atmospheric pressure weighed down my body even as my steps buoyed me up thanks to the moon’s low gravity.

An odd combination one of the engineers told us makes it possible for the rig to hover above Titan’s icy surface. She winked and then said that the high pressure and low grav made even human flight possible. Not that there’s anywhere to go.

I settle on the machine shop—no matter what Dr. Veler thinks about that choice.

Tokala greets me as I suit up and get my goggles and gloves into place. Crunch times when they need stuff machined fast, I’ll pitch in, but mostly I work on my own projects. Tokala’s had some of them mounted to walls around the rig—says they brighten up the place. Not sure I believe that, but if it means I can keep working down here, that’s fine with me.

The first time I met him, he got in my face, demanding to know where I got my “toys.” I was eight—the youngest in the pack of orphans running wild through the rig before the company got the injunction to enforce mandatory contraception for prisoners..

I didn’t talk much then, just collected scrap metal and plastic then cobbled everything together into silly sculptures and figurines. I’m pretty sure I stuttered when I explained this to Tokala. But he just grunted, and when I saw him again, he brought me some leftovers from the machine shop. Said when I got older he’d let me on the shop floor.

These days, he says once my vocational training is done, he’ll formally request me for a position. They’ll pay me peanuts, but maybe one day, one day, I’ll earn enough for my passage away from this place. But I’m not holding my breath.

I take out my latest project from the storage lockers lining the back wall. Tokala once asked me what it’s supposed to be. Told him I didn’t know, but that’s not true.

I lay everything out on a workbench. Overlapping metal and plastic feathers riveted together. Kept in segments to hide the truth. The light catches the silver and bronze rivets, the polished edges of the plastic. My chest constricts at the sight of my wings.

Dr. Veler says it’s healthy to have a creative outlet for all the emotions locked up inside. They need to get out, to be free. Let your mind soar, she told me once, and it will be easier to forget my prison. I haven’t told her about these. She’d probably say something like because I’m so secretive about them, I don’t know, I must have an unhealthy fixation on their symbolic nature or some crap like that.

There’s no winning with psychiatrists.

* * *

Dinner’s usually tinned military rations or rehydrated nutrition bars pressed into molds with a rotating array of sauces dumped over top. The convicts are kept busy enough it doesn’t matter so much what they eat, so long as they do. Orphans aren’t so lucky.

I take my tray and join a woman in an orange jumpsuit, ankles hobbled by magnetized shackles. She has brown hair going gray and a face that was once beautiful, now unremarkable. But a small smile changes all that when she sees me and slaps the plastic chair beside her.

“Zhen. How was school today?” Shima asks.

I scoff. The “school” is the minimum required by law since the mining company realized too late they’d be responsible for any offspring their penal workers had. Dr. Veler’s been giving me extra work to do for months so I’d have an easier time getting caught up if I ever left this place. Not that it matters now.

Shima chuckles into her water. “You should’ve seen it. I was called into the shift leader’s office today—”

“What was it this time?”

“Hey. What’s with you? I could’ve done something good. You ever think of that?”

I raise my eyebrows. Shima said what she did wasn’t so bad to warrant sterilization, same with many of the other convicts. That’s why she was given the opportunity to work off her sentence. But she never told me how much time she had left. I always assumed it was until her body finally quit on her.

Shima holds up her hands. “Fine. I’ve been a couple of seconds late with my timing on the line. Marty thinks it’s my joints, repetitive stress, whatever. Gotta appointment with the company doc tomorrow. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you.”

I take a bite of some sort of loaf covered in a thick yellow sauce with green specks.

“While I was in there, the foremen asks Marty to come to the observation room when his shift’s over. I give Marty a hard time about it—ask him what he’s done wrong. He tells me there’s been a research vessel in the area. To examine how Saturn affects Titan’s orbit or something.”

She leans toward me. “But get this. They refused the staff’s greetings and offer to socialize even though they’re moving through the area slow enough to stopover. Marty denied it, but I think he was disappointed—bet they’re starved for fresh faces.”

“Huh.”

Shima’s eyes twinkle despite the cafeteria’s tinny light. “Like a bunch of uptight scientists would have anything to do with the morons here. Ha!”

“Still, new faces couldn’t hurt.”

She nods. “Marty said after this the staff may need to reinvigorate the social life on the rig for ‘morale’ since our next shipment isn’t for another month.”

I roll my eyes.

“I know. Me and the others are still annoyed they busted up the gaming ring a few months ago.”

I push around the so-called food on my plate with my plastic fork. “But didn’t someone die?”

“What’s good for morale is different for us. And death ain’t so bad when you’re chained to the line.” Shima frowns into her cup.

I bite my lip. “Dr. Veler contacted my relatives on Earth to see if they’d sponsor my travel to one of the other colonies or something.” The words rush out of me. “Your parents are dead.”

Shima snorts. “I could’ve told you that.”

I blink up at her. “You knew?”

“Well, yeah. They’re my parents.”

And my grandparents, but I guess that’s never occurred to her. I shove back from the table.

She looks up. “What’s with you?”

I square my shoulders, electricity crackling under my skin. “Told Tokala I’d help him in the shop.”

Her eyes narrow, then she smiles. “You’re a good kid, Zhen.”

I don’t know what to say to that. We’ve never been close. We don’t talk about these kinds of things, so when she does act motherly—the times I can count on one hand—I freeze up, hyperaware of the awkwardness.

I settle on, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

Back to the machine shop. The only answer for today.

Tokala’s closed things up. But he gave me the override code within six months of first letting me onto the floor.

I get out my wings. I can’t ignore what they’re supposed to be. Not any longer. Dr. Veler said it herself. I need to find a way to fly from here, rise up from my past. I don’t care if my poor impulse control’s taking over or not.

When we learned in school that on Titan, people can fly, I started working on my wings. And I guess subconsciously I’ve been waiting for a reason to see if the rumors are true.

With the last rivet welded into place, my metal and plastic feathers in perfect order, I have my wings. I just need a subzero suit.

Those are kept in the maintenance bay. It’s not hard to bypass the door security—orphans learn to do that early on—and I grab the first suit I find. I get it on, seal it up tight, then fit the wings’ rubber and canvas straps over my shoulders. Like two halves of a heart, the wings run the length of each arm, the tips jingling against concrete floors as I make my way to the upper deck.

I stand on the railing. The thick atmosphere settles over me as door alarms protest. The other orphans—and the convicts—are always setting them off. I’ve got a few minutes at least to work up my courage before security comes. I stare into Titan’s haze.

There’s nothing here for me. I knew that for a while, but…now is the time to do something about it.

I jump off the railing, higher than I ever could’ve managed inside the rig. My heart stops as my ascent slows, and I tip forward into the sky.

The drag of the wings digs the straps into my shoulders almost immediately. Opening my arms wide, I hold them like that for a count of three, and wait for that fraught moment when I’ll know just how good my handiwork is.

The wings hold. I pump my arms, fly a few feet higher, and lean right to angle myself toward my future.

If the research vessel is here to monitor Saturn’s interaction with Titan, that makes it easy to navigate. I just have to aim for the yellow-orange disk eclipsing the sky. With luck, I’ll catch up to the ship before it gets too far.

The suit keeps out the cold—true. But the heat my body exerts to keep me aloft is thick inside the layers, slow to escape. Sweat pricks my eyes as I flap and glide and flap some more.

I fly around clouds of hydrocarbons when I can. Titan’s covered in them. Methane, ethane, tholins…it’s cold enough they behave like water on Earth—collecting in clouds, raining down on the surface, and then returning to the atmosphere where the process starts all over again.

A huge hydrocarbon pocket’s dead ahead, unavoidable. I take a deep breath and brace myself for the reduced visibility and increased drag as I sink into it.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. I hit something and nearly double over in pain. My eyes widen at a lifeless body in a pressurized suit just like mine, hovering in the cloud. There’s no telling how long the body’s been trapped here.

Oh god. There are more of them. Dozens…Too many helmets knocked aside, revealing ghostly pale faces, slightly bloated, eyes open or closed, blood staining their suits, slash marks cutting through the thick material along necks and wrists…The cold, the hydrocarbons, must slow the rate of decay.

Dinner claws its way back up my throat. I choke it back as I try to maneuver between the bodies. I can make out the company’s logo on some of the suits. Bodies usually get incinerated on the rig. But this…so many…The convict uprising?

I’ve pieced together enough of the history to know a team of convicts were assigned to repair a faulty exterior handling unit. A dangerous mission requiring self-propelled pressurized suits with safety lines tethering them to the rig. And now those suits are the very things keeping them in gruesome orbit around Titan.

Instead of repairs, the convicts cut the lines and tried to highjack control of the rig. The company security force fought them off. I’m not sure if tensions between the convicts and the rig staff will ever go away.

I should keep going, keep my head down and get out of here, but I’m looking for him. The one who gave me life and then made it worse.

A figure on the periphery demands my attention. There’s nothing special about it, except for the black hair, glossy dark just like mine. A sturdy build that’ll be mine in a few years.

Without thinking, I’m already banking to sweep around and take another look. I blink back sweat and something else as I stare into my father’s face.

He’s not scary, not in the way I expected from all the hushed tones in which he’s been mentioned over the years. I have his cheekbones and jaw but Shima’s lips and nose. His eyes are closed, relaxed, despite the iron-brown stain across his front.

But he’s still a stranger. And he can’t hold me back any longer. I won’t let him.

My stomach heaves. I’ve got to keep going. I’ve got to find the research vessel. My only way out. With my wings, they can’t doubt my determination. I’ll prove myself useful. I’ll prove I am more.

A few flaps of my wings, and I escape the cloud.

I force myself to ignore the sick crusted to the inside of my helmet. I barely register the burn of my shoulders and pectorals. I only have eyes for the dark blip on the horizon. The research vessel.

If I had hesitated, if I hadn’t learned about it from Shima…No. I won’t think about that or the fact I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to Tokala. But Dr. Veler will understand. At least she’ll try.

The bright lights urge me on. As I get closer I spy an observation deck where I can strip off my wings. Set down what I’ve been carrying so long. They can chain me to their machine shop if they want. I don’t care.

So long as the vessel leaves Titan’s orbit one day, that’s all that matters.

Jump Cut

The Journal of Unlikely Cryptography. Unlikely Story, Issue 11. February 2015.

* * *

Machine oil and carnauba wax scent the air as I go through my crosscheck. Drone cameras buzz and flash overhead. My hover bike—all gleaming chrome and hard-molded plastic—sits on blocks in the open-air stall as it charges. Beyond, the crowded arena rumbles, rippling into cheers as the other riders emerge from the locker room to check their gear one last time before the race.

A qualifying round, one of those free-for-alls where all you care about is crossing the finish line before anyone else. By any means possible.

I clench my fingers as another wave of cheers crashes around me. Sweat beads across my upper lip. No help for it. Time to queue up a vid-chain.

Closing my eyes, I use my neural implant to start the program. My heartbeat slows as the first clip slides past in the periphery of my vision. Lucio knows what settles my nerves—mostly scenery pans: lush forests, windswept fields, mountains majesty.

The knot in my stomach has almost loosened completely when someone slaps my shoulder. Gritting my teeth, I blink back the images. I find Ari giving me a lop-sided grin and nearly groan. “What do you want? It’s almost post time.” I brush past him and grab my riding gloves and helmet from the bench along the low wall separating my stall from his.

His grin deepens. “Oh, come on, Jack.” He waggles his bushy eyebrows. “Can’t you get excited for a race just once in your life?”

My stomach lurches in protest, and I momentarily refocus on the rolling countryside scrolling along the edges of my vision. Deep breaths. “You know how it is,” I say through my teeth.

Ari laughs and slaps my back again. “What? That the legendary Jack Deseronto nearly wets himself before each race?”

“Knock it off.”

“All right. All right. I’m just a bit amped.”

I snort. Ari’s always amped.

His gaze sharpens on me. “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize you’re already boosting. I forgot Lucio builds in a longer lead up for you.”

I attempt a shrug. “Helps me race on my own terms, you know?” I had a nasty spill a few months after going pro and never got over the gut-clenching terror of that moment.

Ari shakes his head. “All I know is you’re the only guy on the hover cross circuit who lets the carnage on the track get to him.”

“Can still beat you any day.”

He laughs and gives me a knowing look. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“No, it’s okay.” And it is. There’s too much history between us for it not to be. We joined the tour four years ago, and we’re still here, now racing for the same sponsor. Though neither one of us have medalled recently. Tonight will be different though. I can feel it. Or maybe it’s just the chain.

I rub my face. “So what did you want?”

He glances at the other stalls, then leans in. “Got a new vid-chain for today. Marek approved it a few hours ago.”

“Really? Didn’t think Lucio liked rush jobs.”

“Doesn’t matter if Marek’s the one asking.” He winks. “Got a good feeling about this one. Keigo won’t have a chance—”

Screams drown out my response as Keigo Atori enters the arena, waving to the cameras. Cocky, after taking gold the last few tournaments. Keigo scans the other stalls, stopping when he finds me and Ari. He gives me a deferential nod, and I return it despite Ari’s elbow digging into my side.

Keigo turns his attention to his bike, and Ari sighs. “High and mighty bastard. He won’t last, you’ll see.”

“Cool it. You’re not doing my stomach any favors.”

Ari holds up his hands and backs away. “All right, grandpa.” He hops the wall separating his stall from mine.

I give him a sharp nod. “Good luck.”

Another grin. “I like you, Jack, but I like you better when I’m higher up on the podium.”

I just shake my head and put on my gloves. Then the helmet. The crowd noise is dampened, and with a blink I turn up the music that accompanies the chain. Thrash metal like always. The only stuff loud and unpleasant enough to drown everything else out.

Moments later, the lights flash overhead. Time to line up.

I kick my bike into gear. With a slight hum, it repulses from the blocks and hovers in the air. I have to fight the giddy breathless feeling I always get and just focus on the bike beneath me. The crowd roars as hover bikes and riders exit the stalls. Ari gives me a quick backwards wave as I maneuver my bike behind his and follow the procession up to the starting gate.

The referee stands before us, droning on about all the regulations we must comply with. No physical contact. No drifting outside course boundaries. No real-time mapping or course optimization applications running on our implants.

Sub-dermal devices aren’t prohibited in competition since practically everyone has them these days, but we’re limited in how they’re used—no messing with neurotransmitter levels for example. I guess it was only a matter of time before we figured out other ways to use the implants to enhance our performance.

At the gate, the sequences my implant chains together move beyond just scenery dressing. Transitions are more abrupt, the content more intense…subconsciously preparing me for the race.

As images flick past, with the lights from the course strobing around me, power throbs in my blood, commanding me to move…to blast my bike forward. To make something happen. The boost into chronostasis. I’m almost there.

That magical moment where everything slows down. Where I have all the time in the world to make split-second decisions. Only then will I be able to focus on the course with all its tight turns and jumps, mentally determine the sections where I can open the throttle or short a curve. Figure out how much lift my hover bike will get off the moguls, which ones I can safely sail over and still maintain my speed.

It’s pretty obvious when the boosts don’t work, but when they do…As long as you don’t seize up, can still speak when it’s all over, that’s a win. And I need one today.

I’m barely able to keep the boost at bay. Ari too, jittering on his bike beside me as the clock counts down. Time stops midway between ‘1’ and ‘Go’, and a dam breaks before my eyes. My bike twitches forward, and the world lights up around me.

We get out in front, take the first turn. Tanks rumbling, waves crashing, fireworks exploding…the images flash before my eyes and spur me on. The boost takes over, accompanied by a never-ending soundtrack of thumping bass, cymbals, and synthetic violins. My head aches with it.

The home stretch beckons beyond the moguls. Ari shudders into view as we slingshot around a curve. It’ll be just like old times, us battling it out for the finish line. We’ll—

No. The angle’s all wrong as his hover bike pushes off the last rise. Ari flubs the jump, and his bike careens into me.

That’s when the screen goes dark. Fin.

* * *

A year ago, Ari followed me back to my apartment after a race where I missed the podium by a few tenths of a second. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk, but Ari was his incorrigible self—all fired up and unwilling to take no for an answer.

“You know the first time the Lumière brothers showed their moving pictures to people, members of the audience panicked and tried to escape? They thought it was real, man. They literally thought a train was going to barrel into that theater and smash them flat.”

I shook my head. “That’s stupid.”

“No, man, you don’t get it. They believed what they were seeing. They believed it, and it terrified them. That’s the power of moving pictures. That’s the power we gotta harness if we’re gonna go anywhere.”

He was right. The Asian kids on the tour had better reflexes, better acrobatics…Hell, they were fearless. There’d been a probe into seeing if countries like Japan, China, and Korea brainwashed them into these shredding monsters. Me, Ari, and a couple of guys from the old guard were trotted out, told to testify on what outcomes were possible in the sport. Didn’t matter though. The probe’s findings were inconclusive. That, or enough money exchanged hands it didn’t matter anymore. All we knew is that we were getting our asses handed to us in every race.

Fuck that.

Ari paced across my apartment’s living room, his fingers raking his curls. “If they’re not gonna kick these little shits off the tour, then we gotta figure out a way to stay on top.”

I let out a sigh. “To race on my own terms. That’s all I ever wanted.” We earned our experience logging hours on the hover cross course, not in a chair hooked up to a mind-scrambling computer.

“The committee might look the other way, but we can’t afford to. Maybe we can use their techniques to our advantage.”

“What are you talking about?”

He pulled a well-worn book out of his back pocket and snapped the cover with the nail of his index finger. “I’ve been doing some thinking. This French dude Virilio says moving pictures have a velocity all their own. What if we found a way to use that in competition?”

“But—”

“No chems, Jack, and no cheating. I promise. This’ll be completely legal.” He paused and gave me a wink. “Well, if only because it’s so cutting edge.”

Ari was genius. He did the research, came across old propaganda films, studied up on the techniques of Eisenstein, Goebbels, and all the scientists that came after, researching visual stimuli’s effect on the brain. Learned about cinematic illusions from watching the oeuvres of Méliès through Gondry. Read enough film theory to seduce every MFA coed in the country.

By superimposing film sequences over our field of vision via the implants—not enough to hinder our sight—we could distract the active parts of our minds with the chains and let instinct and muscle memory do the rest during races. No more over-thinking the jumps and turns. No more letting nerves get in the way. We’d find the zone faster than ever before and be able to stay in it as we rode the boost until the very end.

That’s when Marek became our sponsor and hooked us up with his montage technician Lucio, who stopped creating hallucinogenic and mood-altering chains for a discerning clientele and started splicing solely for us.

When we started vid-boosting in competition, we were unstoppable. Me and Ari, one and two. Silver and gold every damn time. Then Keigo Atori started interrupting the flow. So we had to keep pushing the vid-chains further and further to stay on top of the field.

Until the links broke, taking Ari with them.

* * *

When the curtain rises, I nearly lose it, right there in the hospital. I have three bruised ribs and a gash running down low over my forehead like a goddamn pirate. But Ari…Ari is gone. Spinal cord severed on impact, gone in a fiery blaze of his hover trail.

My implant’s filled with messages and newsfeeds that have captured the race in razor-sharp detail. When the shock wears off, when I can finally watch the race playback without vomiting, I wonder what the last image he saw was, whether it was beautiful enough to justify—

The doctors finally discharge me once they’re sure I’m not showing any more symptoms from my concussion. As I’m being wheeled through the corridors, I queue up a chain. With my digital blinders to the rest of the world firmly in place, the tension in my body leaks out like a deflated balloon.

Marek’s car is waiting for me in front of the hospital. Along with a glimmering wall of paparazzi. One of the drone cam’s stuck in the revolving doors, flashing every time it hits the glass.

But I’m riding the boost, my body disconnected from my mind as I lever myself out of the wheelchair, take the handful of steps to the passenger door held open by one of Marek’s goons. I am untouchable today. It’s the only way I can manage.

“Jackie boy, tell us how you’re feeling.”

“Mr. Deseronto! When are you cleared to ride again?”

“What’s going to be your game plan for your comeback?”

In the womb-dark of Marek’s car, I almost don’t see the man himself until he clears his throat. “Deseronto. How are you doing?”

My voice rasps out, “You already know the answer to that.”

He inclines his head deferentially. “Careless of me, of course. Ari will be missed.” He watches me, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Where can we take you? The gym, the track…your apartment?”

“Yeah, my place.”

Marek snaps his fingers, and the car flows into traffic.

I sink back into the seat. “Thanks.” My mind eddies as the roaring of a waterfall fills my ears and leaves frothy swirls in the periphery of my vision. A strange sense of peace steals through my veins.

“We should stage your next public appearance carefully after…” Marek’s discordant voice claws me back to reality.

I shake my head. “I don’t…”

“Ari would have wanted…”

“No. I need t—”

“Time,” Marek says smoothly. “Of course. But you have to understand my position, Mr. Deseronto. If you aren’t racing, you need to be earning your keep somehow. Lucio’ll get you set up at the film archives so you can supply us with fresh footage.”

I consider saying no, but really what else is there for someone like me? I’d probably stay holed up in my apartment, waiting until the media found a new story, another tragedy to distract the insatiable masses. It doesn’t take long these days.

“I’ll do it.” Although both of us already knew that.

“Excellent. Once you get over this episode, we can discuss your return to racing and—”

The limo stops at a light. I throw open the door and lurch out of the car, into the welcoming arms of the vid-chain.

* * *

A week after my release from the hospital, a constipated-looking old man leads me to the elevator upon my arrival at the archives. “The basement’s where we keep all the original prints, leaving the upper floors for viewing and exhibit spaces,” he tells me as the doors open. “Jenny will get you started.”

“Uh, thanks.”

A fresh-faced girl my age or a year, maybe two, older leaves her desk and holds out her hand. “Jack Deseronto? When I saw your application, I could hardly believe it.”

That makes me wince. I don’t know what strings Marek had to pull or what papers had to be forged to get me a position here. But the vid-chains need links. I know he has operatives installed at other places to curate sequences from movies, documentaries, b-roll from local news outlets, even commercials. And now he has me.

I shrug. “Are you saying I can’t have other interests?”

Her brown eyes widen behind her rectangular-rimmed glasses. “No, no, not at all.” Her hand falls to her side. “I meant no offense. I was just surprised is all. You came highly recommended.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yes, well…” Jenny turns on a megawatt smile. She’d be attractive if she didn’t hide herself in basements, wearing shapeless black clothes. “Let me show you where you’ll be working.” Past aisles and aisles of DVDs, film cans, and reels of magnetic tape, we come to a back wall with six booths along it. “Number three, that’s you.”

I stick my head inside. A projector, tape deck, monitors, mixing station, and a computer console. Enough gear Lucio’d piss himself. A small grunt of approval escapes me, and Jenny beams.

“I look forward to working with you.” Another smile, and she turns to go.

“Wait. One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want to be disturbed, or have my working here cause anyone trouble. If the paparazzi—”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Deseronto. You’ll have all the peace and quiet you can stand after…The basement’s a restricted area. Only employees can get down here.”

I relax slightly, and she takes that as invitation to linger. She licks her lips. “I’d love the chance to talk to you about your application essay.”

“Oh, right.” Just one more thing I owe to Ari.

“Your explication of the shot sequences in Eisenstein’s Strike were really quite…” She inhales sharply. “I mean, everyone always talks about Battleship Potemkin, but you can see the foundational work for his theories of montage in that earlier film.”

Eisenstein defined montage as the psychological effect that results from the collision of two or more shots. That’s what Ari was after with the chains. A sustained emotional effect—fearlessness, euphoria, grim determination, sometimes all of it at once—to heighten our perception during races as our brains try to resolve conflicting visual information. And when it works, nothing else in this world can compare.

Jenny ducks her head when I don’t respond. “Listen to me go on. I’ll let you get settled in.”

Ari would be laughing his ass off right about now. I’m sure of it.

* * *

When I emerge from the maglev station, my body shuts down as strangers swarm around me. Some point and stare, others shove past, stopping for no one. My busted mug’s been everywhere in the weeks since the accident. Vid-boosting helps me forget that, but it can only do so much.

Sweat slicks my forehead. My implant’s a pulsing weight on the back of my neck, but I resist the urge to queue up a chain. Instead, I shove my hands in my pockets and find the storage drive. Right. The whole reason I came here in the first place. I glance around and get my bearings. Lucio’s is just a few blocks north. I dislodge myself from where I’ve become mired in pedestrians, and start walking, shedding people as I enter the industrial district.

I duck inside the salvage shop. The door chimes upset the disconnecteds like a flock of birds as they tear their gazes away from the display cases filled with models of used implants.

Lucio looks up from behind the counter where he’s dismantling an old touch screen for parts. The dilated pupils behind the optizoom specs suggest he’s vid-boosted recently. He hasn’t though—that’s what makes Lucio so amazing. He can make the vid-chains but he’s not beholden to them.

Lucio sets down the dissected screen and slams his hand on the counter. The disconnecteds, mostly poor street kids, flinch back. “You going to buy anything this time?” The kid in the middle shakes his head. “Then get out. We’re closed for the rest of the day.”

“But we can come back tomorrow, right?”

Lucio tries and fails to look tough. “We’ll see.”

The kids nudge each other. He’s too much a softie, teasing them with 3D vids he puts together himself if he’s not too busy splicing. Most of them will never be connected, but he tries to help them forget that.

After Lucio locks the door and rolls down the blinds, he turns around and sees me watching. “You better have something for me today. Marek’s getting antsy.”

“I do.”

Lucio snorts and leads me past metal aisles full of dusty components.

“I’m still new at this, you know,” I call after him.

“All the more reason for you to do well,” he says without turning around.

The back room is crammed full of screens, with a small computer terminal on a cart wedged into the corner. Lucio flops down into the desk chair while I take the only other seat—a rickety wooden stool. I hand over the storage drive.

I try to avoid looking at the screens. With all the random images scrolling past, I feel like ants are crawling around in my brain. I just need to get through the meeting, then—

“Your job at the archive holding up?” Lucio asks as he loads up the sequences.

“So far so good.” Curated some great sequences for Marek’s organization. Jenny caught me vid-boosting once, but I convinced her I was just having a vivid dream after falling asleep logging footage. She’s made sure to knock on the door to my booth since then. Which I guess is a good thing, but it’s not like she caught me jerking off.

Lucio plays the first sequence and pulls up the associated metadata on another monitor. He grunts. “The contextual parameters look okay but I’ll have to check them all to be sure.”

“Of course.” Context’s the hardest thing to get right. You can spot an amateur vid hack straight off based on how well they manage contextual transitions between sequences.

That’s not to say montage vids don’t have their place. Lucio made good money creating increasingly incomprehensible shot combos to get his clients high. But it’s risky since it’s essentially voluntary brainwashing. I heard about a guy mind-hacked on montage. Not pretty.

I sigh and rub my face as Lucio brings up the next sequence: A general giving a speech to his troops before battle. The sound’s muted but my mouth moves along with the actor’s words. Lucio pulls up another sequence, then another. I close my eyes, but I can feel the images pressing in. Demanding to be looked at.

“Jack…Hey, you there?”

“Huh?” My eyes snap open. “Yeah. I must have drifted…”

He tut-tuts to himself. “My friend, you need to take care of yourself. Vid-chains aren’t everything.”

“No, but they make things…manageable.”

He doesn’t disagree. “You racing in the charity exhibition this weekend?”

I shake my head. I’m not officially retired, not yet. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to trot myself out, no matter how many kids with incurable diseases it benefits. Ari’s been gone for just over a month. Don’t they know that?

Lucio arches a brow but says nothing as he pulls up a different sequence.

I lean forward. “A new one?”

He nods. “This one’s special.” His hands skate over the keyboard, and the music starts.

The accompanying soundtrack can make or break a vid-chain. It provides subconscious signals for how your brain interprets the visual stimuli and walks you back to reality when the boost is over. Lucio is a great editor, but his musical ear is what sets him apart.

“Hear that?” he asks.

I concentrate on the music. The swells sound tinny, and it’s not Lucio’s speakers. “It’s lacking…I don’t know…richness.”

Lucio beams. “I stripped out the stereo layers. When you boost, it will add a bit of artificiality to the experience so you don’t lose yourself completely.”

Usually fidelity is the goal for vid-boosters. It’s why people like me go straight to the source for the sequences. Authenticity, provenance…These things matter so that somewhere in the back of your mind as you ride out the boost, you know the light particles that comprise the moving images are minimal degrees of separation from the original—that you are almost there too, experiencing everything firsthand.

Even the music has to be pitch perfect. Lucio often performs the different instruments himself, layering them on top of each other with his mixer. But to deliberately add a layer of artificiality? A self-consciousness to the act of vid-boosting?

“I don’t know.”

“Try it.” I shake my head, but Lucio grabs my wrist. “I insist, Jack. If it doesn’t work, no big deal. But if you’re better able to control the boosts…”

I pull away from him. “All right. All right. But I’m not paying for it.”

“Of course not. This one’s on the house.”

* * *

When I step out of Lucio’s shop, Marek’s car is waiting for me, along with a pair of drone cams. I wonder if Lucio told him I was here, then dismiss the thought. Lucio’s always dealt straight with me. He was just as torn up over Ari as I was, in his way.

The chauffeur stands at attention like this is merely a social call, not a summons. I could decline, but I’d be dodging the cams all the way back to my place. “Good to see you again, Mr. Deseronto,” the chauffer says as I slide into the backseat. But we both know there’s nothing good about it, so I stay quiet.

The car pulls into traffic, smoothly negotiating the crush of vehicles. The buildings thin out, and then smog rolls back a bit as we take the twisty roads into the hills.

I wipe my palms on my pantsleg. The car ride means only one thing—Marek wants me to race again.

The archive job’s not so bad. Thanks to Ari, I know enough jargon to get by, and there are enough hot girls like Jenny hiding behind glasses and shapeless black clothes to keep things interesting. The ones too afraid to be in the vids they’re cataloguing.

It’s not a forever thing—I know I’m expected to go back to racing once I get over this “episode.” I won’t. But Marek doesn’t know that yet.

The car pulls up to his mansion in one of those walled rich people neighborhoods in the hills. Sentries with dogs patrol the yard, and security guards are stationed at each entrance.

Big tough Vaughn at the front door gives me a curt nod as I’m admitted inside.

Marek’s waiting for me in the study. “Ah, Deseronto, good to see you.”

“And you, sir.”

“Lucio says you’ve been bringing in some great sequences.”

I shrug. “It’s just beginner’s luck.”

“Nonsense. You’ve always excelled…when you’ve put your mind to it.” His fingers drum against the desk. “I wanted to see how you’re doing. Trials for nationals are in a few months, and the charity circuit’s already started up.”

“I don’t know if I’m—”

“As your sponsor, I’m concerned you aren’t applying yourself.”

“I’m not. And I’m not interested. Ari—”

“Ah, yes. Ari.” His voice hangs in the air. I wonder if he’s practiced that. “An unfortunate accident, of course. But life moves on. You must too. Surely, you see that.”

He waits with that impenetrable gaze, and I find myself nodding just so his eyes will slide away.

“Good. The Oceanside Exhibition is on Saturday. Prepare yourself.” He looks down at his desk. A dismissal.

“It’s too soon.”

He crosses his arms and rests them on his desk, pretending to look thoughtful. “I think we’re rarely the best judge of our own limitations. Everyone needs a push now and then, a boost if you will, to reach their potential. Isn’t that why you and Ari came to me in the first place?”

* * *

At work the next day, Jenny knocks on the door to my booth. “Jack, you gotta see this.”

She pulls me over to her terminal and hits playback. “Un chien andalou,” she whispers as it starts up. “A collaboration between Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.” I think Ari may have mentioned it once but I never—

“Shit!”

“I know, right?” She hits rewind, and we’re transfixed as an eyeball gets cut by a razor, compelling even the second time through. “It’s not real, but damn,” she says, admiration saturating her voice.

As the rest of the vid plays, more incomprehensible images flash by—pianos, ants, freaky-ass people. It reminds me of montage hacks I’ve seen, but I’m not seizing. Not yet.

“Hey, you okay?” Jenny gives me a nudge with her shoulder.

“Huh?” I blink as the credits roll. “Yeah, I’m…”

“You sure? You’re breathing kinda funny.”

She’s right. My heart’s knocking into my lungs, sputtering for air like I’ve just burst to the surface after being underwater too long. I take a deep pull and slowly breathe out. “I’m okay. But that was crazy.”

In the hands of one of Marek’s professional editors, sequences culled from this film would be dangerous.

The corners of her eyes crinkle when she smiles. “Thought you’d like it. You seem to be drawn to the golden age of cinema.”

That’s true enough. The older stuff tends to have longer shots and pans. Better for chaining compared to the quick blink-and-you-miss-it transitions the digital era is known for. Doesn’t mean digital sequences can’t be used. It’s just more labor intensive to collect them and then chain them effectively.

Jenny pushes her hair behind her ear. “Hey, are you going to be in that tournament this weekend?”

“The Oceanside Exhibition?” I shake my head. “No. I’m not racing.”

“Oh. I thought I read somewhere you’re participating.”

Marek. That bastard. I told him no, and he still thinks he can go over my head.

I use my implant to scan the roster for the exhibition and, sure enough, I’m on it. A dozen posts come up, filled with speculation about what my appearance means. Hell no.

I turn my attention back to Jenny. “Well, I’m not.”

Her eyes drift to the scar on my forehead. Shit. Not her too. I get enough looks from the people on the street: There goes Jack Deseronto, the washed-up hover cross star. Will he regain glory or limp into exile? I really don’t care either way so long as it’s on my terms.

“I get it,” she says, smiling again.

No, she really doesn’t. “I gotta go.”

I don’t wait for her answer. I skip out of the archives for the day and make my way to the maglevs. I flop down in a seat in the front-most car. Green and blue scenery ticks past like 16mm footage as the train picks up speed. My hands bunch into fists every time the train stops to admit more passengers. It’s only while we’re moving that I can think.

When I get to Lucio’s, he waves me off. “Not today, my friend. You don’t look too good.”

“I don’t feel too good.” My hands twitch at my side. If I turn my head too quickly, it’s like a chain of individual stills stitched together instead of a continuous pan. “Everything’s breaking down. I’ve taken the maglev out to the end of the line and back but it’s not working. I need—”

“No, you really don’t. Trust me. I’ve been there.”

I blink and try to follow Lucio’s face. One minute he’s behind the counter. The next his hand clasps my shoulder, and I jump.

“Vid-boosting’s like looking into the sun. Too much, and you’ll go blind.” He tuts. “How did that new chain work out?” he asks, all businesslike once more.

My nose wrinkles. “I had trouble getting over the soundtrack. Kept interfering with the boost.”

“Keep trying.”

I wave my hands at my head, a helpless gesture. They feel disconnected from my body. “But it’s not doing anything.”

Lucio sucks in his cheeks. “I can’t give you another chain. Not if you’re not racing. Marek’s orders.”

“But the boost…I need it. You know why.”

A wave of pain passes over his face. He was Ari’s friend too. “If you’ve exhausted all your old chains…” He steps closer and peers into my eyes. “And clearly you have, there’s nothing I can do.”

See, the mind can be tricked, but not for long—too many reruns, and the effect crashes. Game over. You can tweak the context, pushing the boundaries of flow, but even that will break down eventually.

“But—”

“Marek said no more freebies. And that means you, my friend.”

A wave of blood-red darkness swamps my vision. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me and Ari,” I say. It comes out more like a snarl. “You were just a montage hack working piecemeal.” Custom jobs for cinéastes and movie freaks who loved the nostalgia or getting their brains scrambled—maybe both—along with more twisted fucks who could only get it up if there was enough visual stimuli to keep them going.

“Jack, I’m sorry. The chains, what you’re doing isn’t healthy. You need—”

I step toward him, and he flinches back. “What I need is a new one.” Tremors rip through my hands, and sweat dampens my palms.

“Ari wouldn’t want this for you.”

I shudder, buffeted by an invisible breeze. “Don’t talk to me about him.” My arm snaps out and connects with a display case. Glass shards dance everywhere. They tinkle onto the linoleum until the only sound is my ragged breathing.

My eyes squeeze shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right, Jack.” Lucio sighs, sounding more tired than I’ve ever heard him. “Keep trying the last chain I gave you, tinny sound and all. Because if that doesn’t work, I won’t be able to help you.”

* * *

Saturday morning I’m torn out of bed by someone trying to break down the door to my apartment. I really don’t need this, not with the headache threatening to implode my temples. But the knocking doesn’t stop.

I shuffle to the door, ready to destroy whoever it is, but it’s Marek and he’s brought Vaughn.

Marek smiles grimly. “I see you slept in.”

Vaughn shoulders past me and starts rooting around in my closet for my racing gear.

I turn back to Marek. “I already told you I’m not doing it.”

“Don’t be stupid. You do what I tell you.”

Vaughn escorts me to the car. My head still hurts, and Marek keeps going on about respect and honor. He gives me a hard look. “The house always wins.” I can’t tell if he’s actually delivering his lines like some hard-boiled goon or if I’m so far gone I can’t distinguish between the boosts and reality anymore.

I decide it doesn’t matter when the car pulls up to the track bordering the ocean. Sweat drips down my spine. Bleachers already full are clustered at the bottom of the course.

“Let’s not do this the hard way, Mr. Deseronto. Get out of the car like a good boy,” Marek says.

I spy Keigo Atori’s fan bus in the parking lot. Digital projections of his face and a bunch of Japanese characters cavort along the vehicle’s exterior. I clench my hands in my lap. “Why can’t you just leave me out of it?”

“Because that wouldn’t be very sporting.”

“I don’t understand.”

Marek chuckles—like stones clacking together in his chest. “Then let me explain, Mr. Deseronto.” He waits until my eyes focus on him, then slides a black leather-bound book across the upholstery. “Do you know what this is?”

I shake my head and immediately regret it at the answering throb in my temples.

“This is the ledger where I keep track of the hover cross circuit. You and Ari made me a lot of money. At first. But then…” He holds up his hands. “Well, I had to diversify a bit.”

A sickening suspicion pushes past my brain fog. “Keigo? You gave him chains too?”

At Marek’s nod, my eyes slam shut.

“What do you want me to say? You boys had been doing so well I couldn’t make money betting on you anymore. Keigo kept things interesting, kept the odds ever changing.”

“Did Ari know?”

Marek pauses, his reptilian gaze unreadable. “I wanted you both focused on racing.”

The chauffeur opens the door, and I’m hit with the tang of the ocean. Fans’ voices drown out the constant roil of the waves. It’s funny. I’ve lived here for the last two years, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been this close to the sea.

“You don’t want to miss post time, Mr. Deseronto,” Marek says.

“Am I supposed to win or lose?”

“I just need you to race.” He gives me that look again. “You need this too.”

I snort but I get out of the car. “Fine. But I’m not doing any interviews afterwards.”

Marek just inclines his head, and the chauffer closes the door, shuttering my view of the old man.

* * *

At the gate, my implant isolates me from the noise of the crowd. I start up the chain with the crap sound Lucio gave me. I mop my face one last time and try not to look at the white caps colliding with the cliff face that hugs the course.

My breathing slows to match the tempo of the music. Then it increases in intensity so slowly I almost don’t notice it. The images change too. Cuts are quicker, more violent, moving. And I need to move with them.

The boost is coming. Along with the countdown. But if I concentrate, I can hear the crowd when Keigo’s name and mine are announced, the spatter of water as the waves hit rock below us. Lucio was right. I haven’t lost myself. Not completely.

I’m ready when the buzzer sounds. Kicking off, into the air, my body screaming with remembrance as the next vid sequence shudders to life. A lion taking down an antelope. Horses dragging a thundering stagecoach past my eyes. Gunfire cracking through my ears as cowboys and indians chase my bike through the first curve.

Someone’s drafting off me. Keigo.

Cameras flash in the periphery of the track as we ricochet past. I lean into my bike, silently coaxing more speed out of it. I have the holeshot as the course straightens into the first set of jumps. I am an eagle soaring with a trout clutched between my talons. I am a missile detonating shockwaves through the earth. A surfer shredding waves…

The waves press in on me, licking the track below my bike. I can’t…

“I made you; I can destroy you.” Marek.

—flash—

Ari smiles as we ready our bikes.

—flash—

“Don’t look into the sun, my friend.”

—flash—

My stomach is somewhere up near my ears as I lead the pack into the steep downhill, right before the—

—flash—

“Prepare yourself,” Marek says. “Prepare—”

It’s too fast. The music, too loud. The vid-chain…it’s…am I being hacked?

The bike shudders under my hands as I launch over the moguls. It shoots up into the air as it repulses the first jump. Then slows as gravity takes hold and we fly toward the next one. At least two guys are battling it out behind me.

Static and bizarre images blast past my eyes. It’s too much.

Did Keigo do this? No. Lucio knew. He knew and—

“If this doesn’t work, I won’t be able to help you.”

Fuck. I take the next curve too hard, nearly skid into the bastard coming up behind me before I straighten out. Keigo’s in front now. I tighten my grip on the handlebars.

I am a speeding train. I am the woman tied to the tracks. I am the person who escapes the exploding building just in time. I—

I’m supposed to lose. Lose it just like Ari did. Offsetting the odds in Marek’s betting book.

Cymbals crash as I take the next jump. Keigo’s in range. I can take him. I can—

All that’s left are the serpentine twists and turns to the finish line. And I’m gaining but…

—flash—

“I own you.”

No. I’m Jack Deseronto, and I race on my own terms.

I follow the thread of Lucio’s music. I fight through the noise, the scrambled images, until it’s just me and the course. I take the turns one at a time. I forgot there’s beauty in just being one with my bike.

I cut under Keigo for the inside line and come out on top in the last curve.

Voices are screaming, cameras flash, the finish line’s up ahead, up ahead, and after that, the sea.

The sea and simmering oblivion.

I’m not slowing down. All that momentum I built up in the descent, all that velocity, is what launches me over the crowd, over the wall of rock, until there’s nothing left for the hover bike to push against.

It falls away from me. And I’m…oh god.

I remember Ari colliding with the racetrack headfirst with a gut-punching crunch. The crowd screams but the boost is still going. I am the cop taking down a crook. I am the jockey clinging to the back of my horse as we clear the finish line. I—

I won, and there’s nothing Marek can do about it. Not anymore.

Wind slaps against my face. Lights spiral past my eyes.

I’ve always wondered…

And it’s beautiful.

Natalia Theodoridou

The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul

Originally published by Clarkesworld Magazine, February 2014

* * *

a=38. This is the first holy number.

Stand still. Still. In the water. Barely breathing, spear in hand. One with the hand.

A light brush against my right calf. The cold and glistening touch of human skin that is not human. Yet, it’s something. Now strike. Strike.

* * *

Theo had been standing in the sea for hours—his bright green jacket tied high around his waist, the water up to his crotch. Daylight was running out. The fish was just under the point of his spear when he caught a glimpse of a beast walking towards him. Animalis Primus. The water was already lapping at its first knees.

He struck, skewering the middle of the fish through and through. It was large and cumbersome—enough for a couple of days. It fought as he pulled it out of the water. He looked at it, its smooth skin, its pink, human-like flesh. These fish were the closest thing to a human being he’d seen since he crashed on Oceanus.

Theo’s vision blurred for a moment, and he almost lost his balance. The fish kept fighting, flapping against the spear.

It gasped for air.

He drove his knife through its head and started wading ashore.

Animalis Primus was taking slow, persistent steps into the water. Its stomach bottles were already starting to fill up, its feet were tangled in seaweed. Soon, it would drown.

Theo put the fish in the net on his back and sheathed his spear to free both his hands. He would need all of his strength to get the beast back on the beach. Its hollow skeleton was light when dry, but wet, and with the sea swelling at dusk—it could take them both down.

When he got close enough, Theo placed his hands against the hips of the advancing beast to stop its motion, then grabbed it firmly by its horizontal spine to start pushing it in the other direction. The beast moved, reluctantly at first, then faster as its second knees emerged from the water and met less resistance. Finally its feet gained traction against the sand, and soon Theo was lying on his back, panting, the fish on one side, the beast on the other, dripping on the beach and motionless. But he was losing the light. In a few moments, it would be night and he would have to find his way back in the dark.

He struggled to his feet and stood next to the beast.

"What were you doing, mate?" he asked it. "You would have drowned if I hadn’t caught you, you know that?"

He knelt by the beast’s stomach and examined the bottles. They were meant to store pressurized air—now they were full of water. Theo shook his head. "We need to empty all these, dry them. It will take some time." He looked for the tubing that was supposed to steer the animal in the opposite direction when it came in contact with water. It was nowhere to be found.

"All right," he said. "We’ll get you fixed soon. Now let’s go home for the night, ja?"

He threw the net and fish over his shoulder and started pushing Animalis Primus towards the fuselage.

* * *

b=41,5. This is the second holy number.

Every night, remember to count all the things that do not belong here. So you don’t forget. Come on, I’ll help you.

Humans don’t belong here. Remember how you couldn’t even eat the fish at first, because they reminded you too much of people, with their sleek skin, their soft, scaleless flesh? Not any more, though, ja? I told you, you would get over it. In time.

Animals don’t belong here, except the ones we make.

Insects.

Birds.

Trees. Never knew I could miss trees so much.

Remember how the fish gasped for air? Like I would. Like I am.

It will be light again in a few hours. Get some sleep, friend. Get some sleep.

* * *

The wind was strong in the morning. Theo emerged from the fuselage and tied his long grey hair with an elastic band. It was a good thing he’d tethered Animalis Primus to the craft the night before.

He rubbed his palms together over the dying fire. There was a new sore on the back of his right hand. He would have to clean it with some saltwater later. But there were more important things to do first.

He walked over to the compartment of the craft that he used as a storage room and pulled free some white tubing to replace the damaged beast’s water detector. He had to work fast. The days on Oceanus waited for no man.

* * *

About six hours later, the bottles in Animalis Primus were empty and dry, a new binary step counter and water detector installed. All he had to do now was test it.

Theo pushed the beast towards the water, its crab-like feet drawing helixes in the wet sand. He let the beast walk to the sea on its own. As soon as the detector touched the surf, Animalis Primus changed direction and walked away from the water.

Theo clapped. "There you go, mate!" he shouted. "There you go!"

The beast continued to walk, all clank and mechanical grace. As it passed by Theo, it stopped, as if hesitating.

Then, the wind blew, and the beast walked away.

* * *

Dusk again, and the winds grew stronger. Nine hours of day, nine hours of night. Life passed quickly on Oceanus.

Theo was sitting by the fire just outside the fuselage. He dined on the rest of the fish, wrapped in seaweed. Seaweed was good for him, good source of vitamin C, invaluable after what was left of the craft’s supplies ran out, a long time ago. He hated the taste, though.

He looked at the beasts, silhouetted against the night sky and the endless shore:

Animalis Acutus, walking sideways with its long nose pointed at the wind,

Animalis Agrestis, the wild, moving faster than all of them combined,

Animalis Caecus, the blind, named irrationally one night, in a bout of despair,

Animalis Echinatus, the spiny one, the tallest,

Animalis Elegans, the most beautiful yet, its long white wings undulating in the wind with a slight, silky whoosh,

and Animalis Primus, now about eight years old, by a clumsy calculation. The oldest one still alive.

Eight years was not bad. Eight years of living here were long enough to live.

* * *

c=39,3. This is the third holy number.

Now listen, these beasts, they are simple Jansen mechanisms with a five-bar linkage at their core. Mechanical linkages are what brought about the Industrial Revolution, ja? I remember reading about them in my Archaic Mechanics studies.

See, these animals are all legs, made of those electrical tubes we use to hide wires in. Each leg consists of a pair of kite-like constructions that are linked via a hip and a simple crank. Each kite is made up of a pentagon and a triangle, the apex of which is the beast’s foot. The movement is created by the relative lengths of the struts. That’s why the holy numbers are so important. They are what allows the beasts to walk. To live.

Each beast needs at least three pairs of legs to stand by itself, each leg with its very own rotary motion. All the hips and cranks are connected via a central rod. That’s the beast’s spine.

And then, of course, there are the wings. The wind moves the wings, and the beasts walk on their own.

They have wings, but don’t fool yourself into thinking they can fly, ja?

Wings are not all it takes to fly.

* * *

In the morning, Theo was so weak he could barely use the desalination pump to get a drink of water and wash his face. He munched on seaweed, filling up on nutrients, trying to ignore the taste. After all these years, he had still not gotten used to that taste. Like eating rot right off of the ocean bed.

The beasts were herding by the nearest sand dune today, mostly immobilized by the low wind. The sun shone overhead, grinding down Theo’s bones, the vast stretches of sand and kelp around him. The beach. His beach.

He had walked as far from the sea as he could, the first months on Oceanus. All he had found was another shore on the other side of this swath of land. All there was here was this beach. All there was, this ocean.

He poured some saltwater on the new wounds on his knees. The pain radiated upwards, like a wave taking over his body.

The winds suddenly grew stronger. There was the distant roar of thunder.

Theo let himself be filled by the sound of the sand shifting under the force of the wind, by the sound of the rising waves, by this ocean that was everything. The ocean filled him up, and the whole world fell away, and then Theo fell away and dissolved, and life was dismantled, and only the numbers were left.

* * *

a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8 f=39,4 g=36,7 h=65,7 i=49 j=50 k=61,9 a=38 b=41,5 c=39,3 d=40,1 e=55,8…

* * *

At night, like every night, Theo sent messages to the stars. Sometimes he used the broken transmitter from the craft; others, he talked to them directly, face to face.

"Stars," he said, "are you lonely? Are you there, stars?"

* * *

d=40,1. This is the fourth holy number.

You know, at first I thought this was a young planet. I thought that there was so little here because life was only just beginning. I could still study it, make all this worthwhile. But then, after a while, it became clear. The scarcity of lifeforms. The powdery sand, the absence of seashells, the traces of radiation, the shortage of fish. The fish, the improbable fish. It’s obvious, isn’t it? We are closer to an end than we are to a beginning. This ecosystem has died. We, here; well. We are just the aftermath.

Stars, are you there?

* * *

Day again, and a walk behind the craft to where his companions were buried. Theo untangled the kelp that had been caught on the three steel rods marking their graves, rearranged his red scarf around Tessa’s rod. Not red any more—bleached and worn thin from the wind and the sun and the rain.

"It was all for nothing, you know," he said. "There is nothing to learn here. This place could never be a home for us."

He heard a beast approaching steadily, its cranks turning, its feet landing rhythmically on the sand. It was Animalis Primus. A few more steps and it would tread all over the graves. Theo felt blood rush to his head. He started waving his hands, trying to shoo the beast, even though he knew better. The beast did not know grave. All it knew was water and not-water.

"Go away!" he screamed. "What do you want, you stupid piece of trash?" He ran towards the beast and pushed it away, trying to make it move in the opposite direction. He kicked loose one of its knees. Immediately, the beast stopped moving.

Theo knelt by the beast and hid his face in his palms. "I’m sorry," he whispered. "I’m so sorry."

A slight breeze later, the beast started to limp away from the graves, towards the rest of its herd.

Theo climbed to his feet and took a last look at his companions' graves.

"We died for nothing," he said, and walked away.

* * *

At night, Theo made his fire away from the craft. He lay down, with his back resting on a bed of dry kelp, and took in the night, the darkness, the clear sky.

He imagined birds flying overhead.

Remember birds?

* * *

e=55,8. This is the fifth holy number.

A few years ago the sea spit out the carcass of a bird. I think it was a bird. I pulled it out of the water, all bones and feathers and loose skin. I looked at it and looked at it, but I couldn’t understand it. Where had it come from? Was it a sign of some sort? Perhaps I was supposed to read it in some way? I pulled it apart using my hands, looked for the fleshy crank that used to animate it. I found nothing. I left it there on the sand. The next morning it was gone.

Did you imagine it?

Perhaps I imagined it. Or maybe this planet is full of carcasses, they just haven’t found me yet.

How do you know it was a bird?

Have you ever seen birds?

Are you sure?

* * *

Theo’s emaciated body ached as he pulled himself up from the cold sand. He shouldn’t sleep outside, he knew that much.

How much of this sand is made of bone?

Had the winds come during the night, he could have been buried under a dune in a matter of minutes. Animalis Elegans was swinging its wings in the soft breeze, walking past him, when a brilliant flash of light bloomed in the sky. A comet. It happened, sometimes.

Are you there? he thought.

Are you lonely?

* * *

f=39,4. This is the sixth holy number.

Animalis (Latin): that which has breath. From anima (Latin): breath. Also spirit, soul.

Breath is the wind that moves you; what does it matter if it fills your lungs of flesh or bottles? I have lungs of flesh, I have a stomach. What is a soul made of?

Do you have a soul? Do I?

The breath gives me voice. The fish is mute, the comet breathless; I haven’t heard any voice but my own in so long.

Are you there? Are you lonely?

When I was a little boy I saw a comet in the sky and thought: Wings are not enough to fly, but if you catch a comet with a bug net, well…Well, that might just do the trick.

Breath gives life. To live: the way I keep my face on, my voice in, my soul from spilling out.

Night already. Look, there is a light in the black above. It is a comet; see its long tail? Like a rose blooming in the sky.

If we catch it, maybe we can fly.

Tomorrow I think I’ll walk into the sea, swim as far as I can.

And then what?

Then, nothing. I let go.

* * *

Instead of walking into the sea, in the morning Theo started building a new animal. He put up a tent just outside the fuselage, using some leftover tarpaulin and steel rods from the craft. He gathered all his materials inside: tubes, wire, bottles, cable ties, remains of beasts that had drowned in the past, or ones which had been created with some fundamental flaw that never allowed them to live in the first place. Theo worked quickly but carefully, pausing every now and then to steady his trembling hands, to blink the blurriness away. New sores appeared on his chest, but he ignored them.

This one would live. Perhaps it would even fly.

The rest of the beasts gathered outside the makeshift tent, as if to witness the birth of their kin.

* * *

g=36,7. This is the seventh holy number.

Come here, friend. Sit. Get some rest. I can see your knees trembling, your hip ready to give, your feet digging into the mud. Soon you will die, if you stay this way.

I see you have a spine, friend.

I, too, have a spine.

* * *

Theo was out fishing when the clouds started to gather and the sea turned black. Storms were not rare on Oceanus, but this one looked angrier than usual. He shouldered his fishing gear and started treading water towards the shore. He passed Animalis Elegans, its wings undulating faster and faster, and Animalis Caecus, which seemed to pause to look at him through its mechanical blindness, its nose pointed at the sky.

Theo made sure the half-finished beast was resting as securely as possible under the tarpaulin, and withdrew in the fuselage for what was to come.

* * *

h=65,7. This is the eighth holy number.

Once, a long long time ago, there was a prophet in old Earth who asked: when we have cut down all the trees and scraped the galaxy clean of stars, what will be left to shelter us from the terrible, empty skies?

* * *

Theo watched from his safe spot behind the fuselage’s porthole as the beasts hammered their tails to the ground to defend their skeletons against the rising winds. Soon, everything outside was a blur of sand and rain. The craft was being battered from all sides; by the time the storm subsided, it would be half-buried in sand and kelp. And there was nothing to do but watch as the wind dislodged the rod that marked Tessa’s grave and the red scarf was blown away, soon nowhere to be seen. It disappeared into the sea as if it had never existed at all, as if it had only been a memory of a childish story from long-ago and far-away. There was nothing to do as the wind uprooted the tarpaulin tent and blew the new animal to pieces; nothing to do as Animalis Elegans was torn from the ground and dragged to the water, its silken wings crushed under the waves.

Theo walked over to the trapdoor, cracked it open to let in some air. The night, heavy and humid, stuck to his skin.

* * *

i=49. This is the ninth holy number.

The night is heavy and humid like the dreams I used to have as a boy. In my dream, I see I’m walking into the sea, only it’s not the sea any more, it’s tall grass, taller than any grass I’ve ever seen in any ecosystem, taller than me, taller than the beasts. I swim in the grass, and it grows even taller; it reaches my head and keeps growing towards the sky, or maybe it’s me getting smaller and smaller until all I can see is grass above and around me. I fall back, and the grass catches me, and it’s the sky catching me like I always knew it would.

* * *

The storm lasted two Oceanus days and two Oceanus nights. When the clouds parted and the winds moved deeper into the ocean, Theo finally emerged from the fuselage. Half the beach had turned into a mire. Animalis Elegans was nowhere in sight. Animalis Primus limped in the distance. The beach was strewn with parts; only three of the beasts had survived the storm.

"No point in mourning, ja?" Theo muttered, and got to work.

He gathered as many of the materials as had landed in the area around the craft, dismantled the remains of the new animal that would never be named.

He had laid everything on the tarpaulin to dry, when a glimpse of white caught his eye. He turned towards the expanse of sea that blended into mire, and squinted. At first he thought it was foam, but no; it was one of Elegans’s wings, a precious piece of white silk poking out of a murky-looking patch in the ground.

He knew better than to go retrieve it, but he went anyway.

* * *

j=50. This is the tenth holy number.

Listen, listen. It’s okay. Don’t fret. Take it in. The desolation, take it all in. Decomposition is a vital part of any ecosystem. It releases nutrients that can be reused, returns to the atmosphere what was only borrowed before. Without it, dead matter would accumulate and the world would be fragmented and dead, a wasteland of drowned parts and things with no knees, no spine, no wings.

* * *

Theo had his hands on the precious fabric, knee-deep in the muck, when he realized he was sinking, inch by inch, every time he moved. He tried to pull himself back out, but the next moment the sand was up to his thighs. He tried to kick his way out, to drag himself up, but his knees buckled, his muscles burned and he sank deeper and deeper with every breath he took.

This is it, then, he thought. Here we are, friend. Here we are.

He let out a breath, and it was almost like letting go.

* * *

k=61,9. This is the last holy number.

So here we are, friend: I, Homo Necans, the Man who Dies; you, ever a corpse. Beautiful, exquisite corpse. I lay my hands on you, caress your inanimate flawlessness. I dip my palms into you, what you once were. And then, there it is, so close and tangible I can almost reach it.

Here I am.

In your soul up to my knees.

* * *

The sand around Theo was drying in the sun. It was up to his navel now. Wouldn’t be long. The wind hissed against the kelp and sand, lulling him. His eyes closed and he dozed off, still holding on to the wing.

He was woken by the rattling sound of Animalis Primus limping towards him.

The beast approached, its feet distributing its weight so as to barely touch the unsteady sand.

"I made you fine, didn’t I?" Theo mused. "Just fine."

Primus came to a halt next to Theo, and waited.

He looked up at the beast, squinting at the sun behind it. "What are you doing, old friend?" he asked.

The beast stood, as if waiting for him to reach out, to hold on.

Theo pulled a hand out of the sand and reached for the beast’s first knees. He was afraid he might trip the animal over, take them both down, but as soon as he got a firm grasp on its skeleton, Primus started walking against the wind, pulling Theo out of the sand.

He let go once he was safely away from the marsh. He collapsed on the powdery sand, trying to catch his breath, reel it back in, keep it from running out. Animalis Primus did not stop.

"Wait," Theo whispered as he pulled himself half-way up from the ground, thousands of miniscule grains sticking to his damp cheek. The beast marched onwards, unresponsive. "Wait!" Theo shouted, with all the breath he had left. He almost passed out.

The wind changed direction. Theo rested his head back on the sand, spent, and watched as Animalis Primus walked away—all clank and mechanics and the vestige of something like breath.

On Post-Mortem Birds

Originally published by Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts, June 2015

* * *

1. Extraction

Place a body block under the back of the cadaver so that the chest protrudes and the neck and arms fall backwards. You might hear the bird flutter at this stage. Do not be alarmed; this is normal. Make a deep, Y-shaped incision in the usual manner (cf pp. 22-25). Peel back the skin, muscle and soft tissue. Pull the chest flap over the face. The birdcage should now be exposed, and the thoracic bird should be visible. Using a rib cutter or saw, make two cuts on each side of the cage. Be very careful when you pull the ribs away so as not to damage the bird. The bird should now be free. Depending on your relationship with the deceased, it may choose to fly away. If it does, there is no point in chasing it. The bird was never yours. It will never be yours. Do not forget this.

If the bird stays in the chest cavity, extract it using your bare hands and proceed to step 2.

* * *

2. Classification and Care

Post-mortem birds come in all shapes and sizes, but they generally do fall within known species of birds, although exceptions are possible [see note i]. Swallows, pigeons and larks are some of the most common, with corvids (crows and ravens) a close second. That said, do not be surprised if a fully grown peacock or a baby ostrich emerges from the chest cavity of the deceased [see note ii].

In order to figure out how to properly care for the bird, please consult the Concise Guide of Post-Mortem Ornithology (10th ed.). However, most post-mortem birds need a period of adjustment before they can be properly released into the wild. During this period, the bird needs to be kept in an appropriately sized cage.

The adjustment period generally coincides with a period of mourning. During that time, you might find yourself veering towards the philosophical [see note iii]. This can be exacerbated by the fact that some birds seem to retain certain characteristics or quirks of the deceased. It may help to remember that the bird is not your loved one. It is only a bird. Repeat this to yourself when they peer at you behind bars with their beady, indecipherable eyes: "It is only a bird."

* * *

3. Release

It is very important, both for the bird’s health and for your own, that you eventually release it into the wild. When the bird seems to grow restless in its cage, take it to a place your loved one liked (a park, forest, or large body of water is preferable) and open the cage door. The bird will know what to do.

There have been cases of people unable to let go of their loved ones' birds, which gradually grew dependent on their cages and could no longer survive except in captivity. The gravity of a situation like this is hard to convey. Take the following case as an example and a warning: A young man was recently discovered in New Hampshire having in his possession a large number of post-mortem birds that had been passed on to him from his parents and grandparents. The Post-Mortem Bird Rehabilitation Council has since removed the birds, which are reportedly making progress. The young man, on the other hand, did not recover. He probably never will. The fluttering in his chest feels stronger than ever. He thinks his bird will be an eagle.

* * *

Notes

i. It is generally agreed that all birds that currently occur in nature are either post-mortem birds that have been released, or their offspring. However, there have been reports about birds emerging from chest cavities that have never before been seen in the wild. Are these new species? Are they old species that had become extinct? Were the people to whom they belonged special in some way? Will we ever know the answer to these questions?

* * *

ii. A correlation between the kind of bird one encloses and the personality, ethnicity, race, gender, class, ability, or any other characteristic of the person has not been established.

* * *

iii. There has been much speculation about what the birds know, how much of our loved one is in them, or how much of the person we knew used to be a bird. What do the birds remember? What do they want? Of course, a lot of this is probably projection, and birds are, and will always be, just birds. But when they sometimes come back, peeking through windows or staring at our houses from across the street, it is easy to imagine they are wondering the same about us: Where did you come from? What do you remember? What do you know?

Android Whores Can’t Cry

Originally published by Clarkesworld Magazine, July 2015

False start #1

MEETINGS AT MASSACRE MARKET

by Aliki Karyotakis

for the London New Times

I met Brigitte at what the locals call Massacre Market. She pronounced her name as if she were French—or I should say French-made, I guess, but I didn’t know that at the time. She was a working girl, owned by a guy named Jerome—also French, supposedly. She was waiting there for my local liaison and me, among desiccated corpses and stalls full of blown-up photos of the tortured and the dead. She kissed Dick on the lips when she saw us, before greeting me. She did it in a mechanical way, as if she were supposed to, as if she couldn’t do otherwise. That’s when I saw the long strip of nacre that ran down the back of her neck, along her spine, pure and magnificent. I shot Dick a questioning look.

"Yeah yeah, it’s the real deal," he said. "She’s my artificial girlfriend in this town. I’m renting her full time. Very useful. She knows people." Dick could be snide like that. "I’m sure you girls will get along," he added.

Brigitte turned to me, holding out her hand. She gave me a warm smile, but I could tell that she, unlike Dick, was very well aware of where we were, of the transactable images of gore and violence that surrounded us. Of the history of this place.

"Pleasure to meet you," she said, a glint of something indecipherable in her eye. Was that an android thing? Or was that the part of her that is human?

Androids can usually pass, if they don’t have any visible nacre. But, of course, as soon as nacre appeared on android skin, people started wearing fake nacre patches as a fashion statement. When the patches are high quality you can’t really tell them apart.

What was the nacre’s appeal? I suppose part of it is that we still don’t understand why or how it is formed. The other part is that it’s perfect, beautiful. And that it doesn’t perish.

Nacre is forever.

[Note to self: You sound like an infatuated schoolgirl. What does Brigitte have to do with anything? Get it together. Just get the facts straight. Also, preserve both Dick’s and Brigitte’s anonymity.]

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Nacre: Formation and Function

Nacre, or "mother of pearl" is a composite material produced by certain molluscs as an inner shell lining and as the outer coating of pearls[5]. Since the APC-VII[6] finalized and started regulating the production of androids globally, nacre has been a standard feature of all artificially produced semi-mechanical humanoid organisms[3]. The production of android nacre had not been foreseen and remains unexplained. However, android nacre is considered harmless, if not beneficial for humans as an identifying mark, and so no attempts to avoid its appearance on android skin have been made.

Nacre formation is an evolutionary conserved and multiply-convergent process among the Mollusca phylum, arising as early as the Ordovician period (488 to 443 million years ago). While the exact process of its production is little understood even in nature, the function of natural nacre is largely defensive: layers of nacre protect the soft tissues of the organism from parasites, while damaging debris can be entombed in successive layers of nacre, ultimately resulting in the formation of a pearl.

The function of android nacre remains unknown.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Fieldnotes #1

It’s Dick’s afternoon playtime and he makes Brigitte re-enact scenes from his past while I try to work on my article. Playing in front of me is awkward, indiscrete. Vulgar, even. But I’m sure he does it on purpose—he wants me there. He wants me to witness this, and he knows I won’t interfere. He is the client: his game, his rules.

Brigitte playacts Sandra, my college friend and Dick’s ex-wife. She kinda looks like her too. Now they’re acting out the night Sandra left him—left us. Dick is high on pearl. I can tell from that slightly unfocused look in his eyes. Like he sees things past Brigitte, past the windows and the smog, past the illusion of life.

"I can’t be with you any more," Brigitte says. It sounds like she’s said this line a hundred times already—a recitation. It seems she’s in learning mode for these sessions. Dick is shaping her into Sandra. I find this deeply disturbing. "You’re such a brute," Brigitte recites. "Not sophisticated at all."

"That’s who I was when you married me. What was different then?"

Brigitte pretends to put all of her clothes in a suitcase, preparing to leave. Dick follows her around, practically yelling in her ear.

"I’ll tell you what was different," Dick says, "you were a horny little cunt back then, weren’t you."

Brigitte stops packing and just stares at him.

"You’re supposed to cry now," Dick says, and then pretend-slaps his forehead. "But I forgot. You can’t cry, can you?" He turns to me. "Hey Aliki, did you know that? Android whores can’t cry. Because who wants to fuck a whiny bitch, right? Right?"

I look at Brigitte. I think I see a twitch disfigure her lips for the tiniest of moments, but then she smiles. "Who wants to fuck a whiny bitch?" she repeats. Still in learning mode. Damn it.

"You really are a dick sometimes, Richard," I say.

Dick laughs. He comes over and hugs me.

Brigitte keeps smiling, a twinkle in her eye.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Nacre: Human Use

Historically, nacre has been prized for its iridescent appearance, while its strength and resilience has made it a suitable material for a variety of purposes. The nacreous shells of sea snails were used as gunpowder flasks in the 18th century and earlier. Nacre inlays have decorated some of the most renowned temples and palaces in Istanbul, traditional musical instruments in Greece, the keys of flutes, and the buttons of kings and queens the world over. Some accordion and concertina bodies are entirely inlaid with nacre. Little spoons made solely of nacre have been used to eat caviar in Russia, in order not to spoil the taste with metal.

All of these practices, although rarer, continue to this day. However, where natural nacre was used in the past, android nacre, the price of which is exorbitant due to the legal restrictions placed on its farming, is mostly used today.

[Note to self: I wonder what it feels like for androids. Do they consider nacre to be a part of their skin? A part of who they are? What would it feel like to see your skin as decoration, a musical instrument, a spoon?]

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

False Start #2

MASSACRE MARKET: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND SILENCE

by Aliki Karyotakis

for the London New Times

* * *

"That great dust-heap called history."

Augustine Birrell

* * *

"Truth? I have no use for that. Truth won’t feed my people. It won’t cover their bodies. Won’t keep them safe."

The General

* * *

My air-conditioned taxi drives me through the outskirts of the city. I gaze in comfort at the unfinished highways, the hollow skeletons of skyscrapers looming over them as a reminder of the economic fallout—a city in perpetual suspension. But once at the centre, this city is impeccable—polished and shiny, no sign of poverty or suffering anywhere. It makes one think of the new regime’s necessity, its efficiency. A good alternative to the chaos and agony that came before. Only the smog weighs on us, like a bad omen.

As soon as I step out of the vehicle, I realize this is the hottest and most humid part of the day; the smog is so thick I can hardly breathe or make out any sky. My local liaison is meeting me in front of the city pillar, the geographical and spiritual centre of the city, from where everything extends outwards. I find out that the Massacre Market is tucked away at the heart of a crowded, semi-underground slum—the city’s last. We have to get there on foot. It will be a difficult journey.

When we arrive, hot and breathless, I am greeted by what my liaison describes as "The Political Cadaver of this country": the dead body politic, the regime’s atrocities mechanically reproduced and exchanged in a gamble with the spirits of the dead, a funerary protest. The place is crowded and dark and putrid; the stalls exhibit small mountains of body parts and corpses—some fake, some real (and I can’t tell which is which)—the brownish hue of decay accentuated by the bright orange robes of the monks and nuns that frequent the place, looking for visual aids to their death meditations. Tall cork-lined walls are covered by the forbidden pictures of the massacred and those brutalized by police. Relatives petrified in front of them, looking for the familiar face among the myriads, looking but not wanting to find I’m sure, or making small shrines with offerings for the disappeared; while protestors and instigators pick out the most shocking ones to circulate and share, to dub as the hidden reality of the regime, its true face the face of those it murdered. In the loudspeakers, recordings of the massacre’s soundscape: screams and bullets, the sound of revolting children and of a state devouring its young.

I spot a mother clinging to the image of her dead boy, his face proliferated ad infinitum, plastering an entire wall, in protest.

Here, at Massacre Market, death is a political act.

[Note to self: People need the historical and political background of the story to make sense of any of these. Start with an interview instead? Also, explain Death Meditation.]

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

The First Death Meditation

Death is certain.

There is no way to escape death.

We start dying the moment we are born.

The body is a husk, a shell, an overcoat. It must be left behind.

Imagine you are performing a vivisection on yourself.

Imagine every detail.

Concentrate on the repulsiveness of the human body.

The corpse, swollen and bruised.

The skin, peeled back.

The fat, removed.

The muscle, shredded.

The organs, shrivelled and gone.

The bones, pulverized.

The corpse, festering. The corpse, fissured. The corpse, gnawed. The corpse, dismembered, fragmented, scattered. The corpse, bleeding. The corpse, eaten by maggots and gone.

You remain.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Interview with X,

one of the leading protestors at the November Massacre

Part I [PLX1.vf]

Q: What is Massacre Market?

A: Images of death, disease and violence are forbidden by the regime; they are not good for foreign affairs, for the economy, won’t bring in investments. So now there’s a black market for that. It’s not about money, though. We believe in an exchange of gifts with and for the dead. At the same time, it’s a political thing. Because the government and the military want to hide the dead, when we photograph them and share their pictures, when we circulate footage of the massacres, we are exposing the true face of the regime. It’s a form of protest.

Q: A protest against what?

A: Against the regime’s suppression of the fundamental truths of life and death. Of poverty and suffering. Against the state’s cover-ups of its core practices, the terrorizing and massacre of its own citizens when they dare to speak out or deviate in any way.

Q: Then how does Massacre Market survive? How come they haven’t shut it down yet?

A: They have tried; they do raid it from time to time, but it pops up again after a while. Some people believe it is allowed to exist, or even that it has been set up by the government, as a safety valve, you know? To serve as an illusion of resistance.

Q: Do you believe that?

A: I do not.

Q: Can you talk about the November Massacre? I know this is the most recent one, but there have been others.

A: Yes, that is correct.

[He hesitates.]

Q: Can you recount the day of the Massacre?

A: [Pause] In the morning, the General was scheduled to appear at the city centre, very near the University. Attendance was, of course, mandatory, for students and first class citizens alike. So everyone gathered as planned. The General delivered the formal greeting and raised his arms in the usual salutation. The masses cheered, as expected, as they should. They couldn’t do otherwise, you understand. But then, then, they kept on cheering. And clapping. Just cheering and clapping as loud as they could, whistling and cheering, and waving. And they wouldn’t stop. After a few minutes, it became evident that this was no enthusiasm. It was super-conformity, you see? By cheering, they did not allow the General to speak. He literally couldn’t get a word in. But what could he do? We were only applauding, he couldn’t possibly punish us for that. So he mumbled the end of the speech he never managed to actually deliver, got off the podium and went back to wherever it is the General goes back to. And then the crowd was allowed to disperse, but the students and some others lingered. They were still not allowing themselves to talk, but they were smiling. They were shaking hands, not yet daring to speak about change, but that feeling, you know? That feeling, it was there. I felt it.

But then the trucks and the tanks appeared and sealed off the main square around the city pillar with the students still in it. We were surrounded before we realized what was going on. Some of us managed to slip through and save ourselves. Some holed themselves up inside the Polytechnic School at the University. They got them, though, eventually. They got them all.

Q: What did they do to them?

A: Why are you asking? You know very well what they did to them. You’ve seen the pictures, no? [Kneeling under the sun, hands tied, some behind their backs, some in front of their chests, beaten with steel batons and shiny black boots. Taken with a fisheye lens, they look like a human ocean. Innumerable, uncountable, and unaccounted for.] You’ve seen the footage. [Herded onto cattle-trucks by the back of their necks. Taken to that off-camera place from where no-one returns.] At four o’clock, it rained. The streets turned red.

[Pause] Of this, we will not speak.

[He takes a moment to find his bearings, he seems truly emotional. Then he adds:] They even destroyed several androids—most of them sex workers and cleaners—and later reimbursed their owners. I should say "bribed," to keep them from making a fuss.

Q: You said androids? Why were they there? Were androids part of the protest?

A: Yes, android guerillas have always been on our side, and uni students are often particularly drawn to them. There are several reasons for this. On the one hand, androids are part of the oppressed. They are low class, second rate, not even citizens. Most people don’t even consider them persons. But there is also something about them that speaks of truth, not least their perfect, infallible memories. It’s the human machine’s trap: the freedoms afforded to them by what little flesh they possess and command, the failings of that same flesh…these are not so easy to tell apart. They do not decay, too, while our whole culture is premised on decay and death, or, now, on its concealment. Why do you think people are so crazy about those nacre patches? You’ve seen the ones?

[Note to Self: Transcribe the rest of the interview from voice file PLX2.vf]

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Fieldnotes #2

Getting people to talk is difficult. Brigitte and Dick work hard to find me the right contacts. But it takes time, and I know so little. I understand so little. This investigation is going to be long. We need to be discrete.

I often sit and watch Brigitte when she thinks I’m in my head, working, not paying attention to her.

She seems restless in her own skin, walking from the door to the window and back again. She stares outside at the smog—you can’t see anything out the window, just grey and brown. Well, at least I can’t. Maybe she can see something, maybe she can see everything. I don’t know.

Her nacre has been multiplying the past few weeks. There is a new patch behind her left ear, and one on the back of her right hand—her most prominent still. It makes her look adorned.

When she catches me looking at her, the programming kicks in and she responds with her standard line, every time: "What can I do for you, honey?" Then she lowers her eyes and looks embarrassed.

She’s always lived here, and yet I can detect a faint French accent when she says this. Like some guy’s fantasy of what a French whore should sound like.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Some notes on the translation of Massacre Market

There is some uncertainty about the translation from the local language of what I have called "Massacre Market." Other possible translations include "Atrocity Place," "Massacre Fair," or, and that was the most confusing aspect of this, "Pearl Fountain," because even though each of the two words means something different, together they create a new compound which, as Dick and Brigitte explained to me, could rather clumsily be interpreted as "a fountain whence pearls flow," "the breeding ground of oysters," or even "the plane of sublime imperfections."

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Fieldnotes #3

Dick has started being rougher in his re-enactments; I doubt these are memories, no, I’m sure they are not, because these versions are conflicting and contradictory, and things happen that I know never really happened. Brigitte/Sandra is not always the one leaving him any more—sometimes he leaves her, sometimes she dies. Sometimes he kills her, chokes her. Or, he pretends to. He acts disinterested afterwards, says these are only stories he makes up and likes to play out; but I know, any reporter knows there are no disinterested stories, least of all the ones we tell ourselves.

Brigitte says she doesn’t mind, she doesn’t feel, remember? It’s her job, she says. I’m still not convinced. I find myself in my reporter’s role nonetheless, taking everything in, observing, reluctant to participate. This is not how the game is played, I tell myself.

I watch the nacre spread on her skin, covering more and more each day, like a disease of unbearable beauty.

* * *

"How did you end up in this mess, anyway?" Dick asked me yesterday. "I never thought they’d send a woman."

I hit him hard on the arm and he laughed. "I choose not to be insulted," I said. "Anyway, I needed this. Badly. Went through a rough patch a while back and was out of circulation for some time. So when I went back to my boss and begged, he gave me the case nobody else would take."

Dick stopped fiddling with his cigarettes and turned to me. I had his full attention now, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it. I shouldn’t have said anything.

"Rough? How rough?" he asked.

I said nothing.

"You know you can talk to me, right?"

I thought of his hands around Brigitte’s neck. What happened to you, Richard? You were a tender boy, back then.

"It’s been a while, Dick. I’m sorry."

I think I hurt his feelings, but he tried not to show it. And at that moment I realized I didn’t mind. Hurting him. I didn’t mind at all.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

The Second Death Meditation

The second meditation rehearses the actual death process.

Engage now in this series of yogas, modelled on death.

First, the body becomes very thin, the limbs barely held together. You will feel that the body is sinking into the earth. Your sight becomes blurry and obscured. You may see mirages. Do not believe them. The body loses its lustre.

Then, all the fluids in the body dry up. Saliva, sweat, urine, blood dry up. Feelings of pleasure and pain dry with them. You may feel like smoke.

Then, you can no longer hear. You cannot digest food or drink. You do not remember your name, or the names of the ones you knew and loved. You cannot smell. You may not be able to inhale, but you will be able to exhale.

Then, the ten winds of the body move to your heart. You will no longer inhale or exhale. You will not be able to taste. You will not care. The root of your tongue will turn blue. You may feel like a lamp about to go out.

Then, nothing.

Then, nothing.

Then, nothing. The ten winds dissolve. The indestructible drop at the heart is all that remains.

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

Fieldnotes #4

"Why do you let him treat you like that?" I ask her almost reflexively one day. I regret it right away. Am I blaming her for the way he treats her? Shouldn’t I be blaming him?

She thinks about it for a while, then shrugs.

"It’s my job," she says. "I don’t have a choice. Some things are in my programming."

"Yes, but some aren’t."

She looks me in the eyes, fixes her gaze there, and she seems less human than ever before. People don’t look at others like that. "I’m a whore," she states.

"You are more than a whore. It’s not who you are. It’s simply what you do."

"See, you got it backwards. What we are for is who we are. A hammer is what a hammer does. Would you ever use a hammer to screw a screw or cut a piece of wood?"

"Just a tool, then."

"That’s right. Just a tool."

"Doesn’t my saying that offend you?"

"Do you think it should?"

I don’t say anything.

"Why?" she continues. "We are all tools for something. Aren’t you? It’s not an android thing. It’s an existential thing."

I lower my eyes.

She leans over and touches my shoulder. "I’m sorry," she says. "Sometimes empathy is difficult for me. We don’t feel anything, you know. No feelings."

She seems sincere, but I don’t believe her; I tell her so. "Some people say the nacre is a byproduct of the things you do feel that were not programmed. Just like the nacre wasn’t, and yet, there it is."

She shrugs again. "My programming allows me to imitate feeling and to learn from other people’s perceptions of me. No one knows what the nacre is, or what it does." She pauses for a bit. Then she adds: "Perhaps it’s a form of rust. Tools do rust, don’t they?"

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

My trip

I’m sitting by the window, looking out. The smog seems heavier today. Darker, too. I think it’s the colour of rot. I wish I could see past it. I wish I could see.

Brigitte comes home—I notice there is a bright new patch of nacre under her right eye. She smiles, like she always does.

"Get dressed," she says. "I need to show you something."

When I’m ready to go, she holds out her hand closed in a fist. Slowly, she uncurls her fingers and reveals a pearl resting on her palm. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize what it is, and then I look at her, trying to figure out what she’s planning.

"Put this under your tongue, Aliki," she says. "You’ll see. You’ll understand."

I put the pearl in my mouth and we set out into the smog and that corpse of a city.

* * *

We are at the main square. The pearl is still dissolving under my tongue; it tastes sweet and tangy and makes my heart beat irregularly. I see the city pillar towering over us—round and bulging at the bottom, thinning as it reaches for the sky. The top disappears into the thick layers of smog above. Its marble surface emits a subdued light, like a fading beacon.

"It was built hundreds of years ago as a mystical axis around which the city would be born, you know," Brigitte says. "The story of its construction is now largely ignored and forgotten, but spirit mediums still gather here sometimes. They consider it a source of power for those who commune with the dead. It is said that when the foundation for the pillar was laid, a fosse was dug around it. They brought every young pregnant slave girl they could find, slit their throats and threw them in there to die, and through their death empower the pillar to protect the city."

I look at the base of the pillar and realize I am standing on top of where the trench would have been, if that story were true. The pillar starts glowing brighter and brighter and I look up to see if the sun has somehow penetrated the smog. I feel the ground shake under my feet, then give, and I fall into the trench. The slave girls are there, all around me, with their blood still seeping into the earth, their fetuses still dying in their wombs.

* * *

This city is built on gore. The shiny marble, a tombstone laid over history. I see the streets turn into veins. I see students parade through the city with what corpses they could salvage; they carry them on their shoulders, their friends, their classmates, their lovers, displaying them like a mute witness to the regime’s moral order. And then these students are shot down or snatched off the streets, the corpses torn from their arms. They are strung on trees and shot, or burnt alive, or worse. Of this, we will not speak.

The body is nothing. Its image, everything.

* * *

Brigitte pulls me away. She leads me through the city’s red streets, the ten winds of its body dying down. I think Brigitte is speaking to me. I think she says:

"Let’s look for the indestructible drop at the heart."

We are descending. She is walking in front of me, showing me the way. The nacre on her skin seems brighter than ever. I dare touch it for the first time—I reach out and brush my fingers against the back of her neck, tracing the nacre down her spine. I didn’t expect it to be so hard. "You are indestructible," I mutter, or I think I do, and she turns around and smiles.

We are at Massacre Market. It has changed since the first time I saw it; it seems even more crowded now, the walls of photographs fuller, covered once, and then covered again by more pictures, and more on top of those, layer upon gory layer, corpse upon corpse, body part upon body part. The desiccated corpses seem more real now, almost alive, absurd. Brigitte tells me something I don’t hear; her voice drowns in the screams and static spilling from the loudspeakers.

One of the photographs on the wall next to me catches my eye. I walk closer—it’s grainy, black and white, but I can still see the girl: she is laid out in a field next to others, dozens of others. Her top is removed, her chest slashed open. "Foreign slut" is written on her bare belly. She looks like a younger version of myself. This is me, I think, this is me, years ago. Why don’t I remember this? I put my palm on the photograph—what did I want to do? Cover her up, I suppose—and I notice a patch of nacre spreading between my fingers. I pull my hand back as if the photo suddenly burnt me and I watch the nacre spread. I feel it cover my entire body, and I’m calcified, my skin adorned and indestructible. "I feel like an instrument," I shout to Brigitte over the sound of massacre, "like an accordion, or a concertina." Play me like a flute, O Lord, I think.

Brigitte tries to tell me something, but I can’t make it out. I struggle to read her lips. "…it disappoints…" I hear, but the rest is stifled by static, and she’s far away. I see her pointing at my arms from afar. I look down and see the nacre growing dull and flaking, then my skin peeling and falling off, the fat exposed, the muscle, the bone, and I know, I know then, this city is a skin, no blood anywhere in sight, all surface, all shine and the slightest glimpse of nacre here and there—is it real? Is it not? Does it make a difference?

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

False Endings

I have precious little time left. So I will not say much. One never has the skin that befits her.

I know I’ll never finish this article—I still haven’t even decided on the title, or what this story is really about. What do you think? I might have called it:

Massacre Market

or

The Mechanical Reproduction of Violence: Truth, Massacre, History

or even

Android Whores Can’t Cry: Under the Surface of Death Meditation

Either way, I know that, if I did finish it, I would dedicate it

"To my B., my pearl, who taught me this:

The skin always disappoints."

>>>END OF FILE

* * *

>>>END OF RECORD. 14 OF 14 FILES RECOVERED.

* * *

This is all the material I managed to retrieve from Aliki’s hard drives. I wait for the reporter sitting across from me in Dick’s living room to go through them.

"You realize your memory files provide conflicting information about what happened to both my colleague Aliki Karyotakis and her informant Richard Phillips," he says.

I am silent. Is that true?

I recall the last time I saw Aliki.

* * *

She is lurching at Dick, pushing him away from me during one of his violent playacts. He falls back and hits his head. He is very still. We are all very still.

* * *

She is also standing by the city pillar with me, in a crowd of people I haven’t quite registered. I look at the sky. The sun is shining through the smog. When I look down again, she’s gone.

* * *

She is also looking at me as a tall man leads her onto a platform and places a hood over her head. Then a noose. Then the platform gives.

* * *

She was also never here. I never met her.

* * *

And Dick? Dick is always either dead or missing.

* * *

"Have you tinkered with your memory?" the reporter asks.

"It is possible," I say. "But I have no memory of that, as I am sure you are aware."

"Of course." He shuffles in his chair. "OK, let’s take the first version. Can you tell me what happened?"

He already knows this. Why does he ask?

"She pushed him. He died. Humans break easily like that."

"And then?"

"She turned herself in."

"Wasn’t she terminated?" That’s when I notice the nacre on his underarm. Ah.

"I think the human term is sentenced to death and executed," I correct him. He should know this. I’m sure he does.

"Did you watch? The execution, I mean."

I watch him. He is serious, eyes cold. A reporter reports.

"A hammer is what a hammer does," I whisper.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing," I say. "A reflex. Yes. Yes, I think I watched." I sense the nacre spread on my face, my surface irreparably hardened. It reflects the light so brightly it almost hurts my eyes.

"Are you going to cry?" he asks, hoping, I bet, for a good twist in his story.

The programming takes over, like gears shifting inside me, and I can’t stop it I can’t stop it I can’t.

"Android whores can’t cry," I say. "Who wants to fuck a whiny bitch?"

This puzzles him. He focuses on my lips, and he’s about to say something, but he stops. I know he stops because of what he sees. He looks disappointed.

I feel the nacre cover my lips and I realize this was the last time I spoke. This shouldn’t be happening so fast. I think of freedoms and failings. I am not sure which is which. It doesn’t matter. I am the oyster and the pearl. I am a shell that doesn’t speak.

I wonder what really happened to her, what happened to Dick. I know I’ll never know—and this somehow strikes me as appropriate. The truth has seeped through the pores on the skin of the city. Aliki is in its bloodstream now. So is Dick. So is the core of this story.

I remain.

Joseph Tomaras

Bonfires in Anacostia

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue No. 95, August 2014

1. The Table

On the left-hand side of the coffee table were stacked three Michael Chabon novels, one each by T.C. Boyle and Tim O’Brien, and a volume of Nathanael West’s collected works. On the right were five guides to maximizing fertility, and two novels by Tessa Dare. In between were two stemless wine glasses.

The table itself was a clear polymer which, were it not encumbered with the remains of its owners’ outmoded bibliomania, would reveal itself as a fully operational touchscreen. It was designed, however, to require replacement as soon as it received a hard thwack: The sort of urbane furnishing that only a childless couple would have purchased.

An advantage of this table, from the perspective of those charged with maintaining homeland security, is that its voice-activated features kept it in a continual state of attentive listening. If the owner kept it in its default, continuously connected networking mode—as 99% of purchasers of these models did—then every word spoken in its vicinity would fall under the expanded electronic surveillance authorization established by a certain executive order signed twenty years ago whose existence would be neither confirmed nor denied by anyone with legal authorization to know of it. That the owners happened to be Robert and Eileen Wexler, mid-level operatives in the DC office of the Cuomo 2024 re-election campaign, did not change the functioning of the table or of those analysts in Prince Georges County charged with making sense of its data-feed and hundreds of thousands more.

The table knew that objects totaling a weight of approximately ten kilograms were distributed unevenly across its surface, that the materials pressing against it were cloth, paper and glass, that Robert had in recent weeks been putting the music of the Talking Heads, an American New Wave band active from 1975 through 1991, on heavy rotation, whereas Eileen preferred silence whenever she was in the room, and that at this instant they had just repaired to their bedroom to finish preparations for a dinner party at the home of Darius and Brandon Gartner-Williams. It also knew that they would sometimes clear enough space to pull up campaign memos, the Post and the Times (both New York and Washington, of each), polling results and Sunday morning talk shows on its screen. The table could not know what was contained within the archaic text delivery devices pressing against it, though it got occasional glimpses when Robert would leave a book open face-down atop it—a habit for which Eileen would chastise him each time, reminding him that it would damage the spine. Neither Robert nor Eileen knew that the table knew all these things, but neither did they trust it fully, which may account for their decision to reconnoiter the dusty shelves of the DC Public Library and that mildewy used book store in a garret two stories above the scrum of Adams-Morgan for some of their reading matter.

Robert entered the room, noted Eileen’s glass adjacent to his, and snorted. “I’m pretty sure none of those books recommend sauvignon blanc to enhance your fertility.”

“You try answering to Ari Levine all day without a bit of liquid assistance,” replied Eileen as she joined him. “When’s the party?”

“I couldn’t even suffer Tyler Colson without my refreshment. Seven o’clock.” The Wexlers’ habit of carrying on two conversations simultaneously was either irritating or endearing, depending on whether one was in a relationship with similar idiosyncrasies.

“Besides,” continued Eileen, sitting on the couch and lifting her glass. “It’s no better for your sperm than it is for my eggs. What’s on the menu?”

Robert paused a beat, as he decided it would be ill-advised to remind her of the test results showing that his 47-year-old gonads were none the worse for wear. “I don’t know. Brandon was freaking out when I called him this morning. He just found out that Camilo’s new boy is a vegan.”

“I need animal protein.” Eileen took another sip. “Ari wanted me to work late. Try explaining to him that I needed to go to my husband’s ex-boyfriend’s party.”

“Did you?”

“It’s none of his business. I told him no amount of number crunching would change the situation: Short of a total catastrophe, Andy’s got this locked up.”

“Short of the rest of the country finding out that half the nation’s capital is in flames, you mean.”

“Exactly. It’s out of our hands at this point.”

Robert sat down. There was nothing left to say, but silence did not seem right, either. “We have an hour left before we have to go.” More silence. “You could have a snack.” Eileen was beginning to lean toward the table, and had not taken the hint. Robert stuck his hand beneath the belt of his slacks as if to adjust, but really, to direct her attention the way he wanted.

“We shouldn’t dilute it,” replied Eileen, not even turning toward him.

Robert bent down to the table, dragged his finger diagonally to define the dimensions of a window, and called up a live feed of the Senate floor.

It was not strictly accurate to describe Brandon as Robert’s “ex-boyfriend,” not with the connotations of past exclusivity that this conventional phrase carried. Brandon and Darius had been together since well before Robert had set foot in Washington; he came to live with them shortly after he started grad school at American, during their brief, turn-of-the-century experiment with polyamory. By the time Eileen, seven years his junior, started coming to the gatherings at the Dupont Circle brownstone—on the arm of Janet—the story had grown too complex and too far distant to be worth telling accurately. That they were still getting invited to what had become the most sought-after soiree among LGBT Beltway insiders, despite the apparent completeness of their switch to heterosexuality and the low visibility of their jobs—he was a fundraising database programmer, she a statistician—was testament to Brandon’s forgiving nature, the increasing self-assuredness of the community, and Darius’ reluctance to let go of anyone he knew would appreciate his jokes, stories and lectures.

Robert just needed to keep tabs on his alcohol consumption. The last time, someone had almost walked in on him and Camilo’s last consort. He suspected Camilo had figured it out, and that this was why a new guest was coming to the dinner. There were three things to wonder about before going to these dinner parties: What would Brandon cook, what new anecdotes would Darius have, and how young and attractive would Camilo’s current boyfriend be. As the senior senator from Ohio asked to be recognized by unanimous consent, Robert considered all three. Of this, the table had no inkling, and neither did Eileen.

* * *

“Can you believe the mouth on that kid?” After several hours of hibernation, the table was woken by the sound of Robert’s voice.

“I know,” said Eileen. “Actually what I can’t believe is Darius.”

“How so?”

“Well, all that stuff about the holograms and the riots and the fires.” The utterance of three keywords in such rapid succession switched the table from passive data-gathering to active interface with the analytical mainframes at the Agency. Based on Robert’s and Eileen’s metadata signatures, the Darius in question was identified with a high degree of probability as the same Darius Gartner-Williams who was an analyst with the agency. “Some of that had to be classified.”

“Darius has always known how to walk right up to the line without crossing it. That’s the only way a raconteur like him could have stayed where he is for so long.”

“I don’t know, he just seemed, not upset, but maybe, yes, maybe upset, at what’s going on in Southeast.”

“You don’t think he’d do a Snowden?”

“No way, not a chance. Forget I said anything.” Robert found this injunction of Eileen’s easy to follow, but not the table. The table is not programmed to forget.

From the rustling sounds of their clothes the table intuited that they had taken seats on the sofa. It could not tell, however, that Eileen was reaching for the fly on Robert’s khakis. “Hey, I thought you said we shouldn’t dilute,” said Robert.

“Forget it. We’re nowhere near the right part of the cycle.”

“Is that the truth, or is that the wine talking?”

“Too much wine and not enough food. Can you believe it, lentils and vegetables?” A zipping sound, then a seeming non sequitur: “What did you think of Camilo’s new boy?”

Robert flinched guiltily, as if somehow Eileen’s question signaled some awareness on her part of his indiscretion with Camilo’s last partner, but she wasn’t looking at his face to notice it. “Too skinny. And how can someone that self-righteous be that racist?” Then after a pause, during which he realized that in fact he would love to watch that bigoted little twerp choking on his dick, but that he should not say anything to that effect to Eileen, as the intermingling of violence, hatred and sexuality would be unnerving to her, he took note of the increased exposure of his genitals to Eileen’s manipulations: “Are you sure we should? Ooooh.”

The table soon detected a gagging noise that seemed to emerge from Eileen’s throat. “Before, aah, we go too far, ooh,” continued Robert, “Nice finger work, uhh, ahh, could we try, anal?” The table knew he only ever asked this when Eileen was drunk.

“Sure.”

“I’ll get the lube.”

“Don’t bother going upstairs. Vegetable oil’s fine.”

After hearing some sounds emerging from the kitchen, the table detected the removal of ten kilograms of books and other assorted materials from its surface, followed by a pressure totaling about thirty kilograms coming from what appeared, from visual sensing, to be Eileen’s torso. This impression was soon confirmed by ultrafast sequencing of DNA from one of her skin cells: This feature of the table’s was not a major selling point, but when discussed was pitched as a security measure. What better way to track down a $10,000 piece of home electronics, if stolen, than to have the thief’s DNA sequenced and automatically sent to the police? What neither Robert nor Eileen realized was that the table was already in a heightened state of alert, as a result of the keywords Eileen had spoken just a few minutes before, and that the sequencer was not only on, but bypassing local law enforcement and communicating directly with the Agency.

After about fifteen minutes of further jostling, the sequencer also detected human coliform bacteria, and incomplete genetic material originating from Robert. We do not know what happened next, but it must have been especially vigorous: A critical component of the table’s power supply was dislodged from its circuit, and we lost all signal.

2. The Duck

The first thing, always, was to take off the tie, open the foyer closet, and find an empty rod on the cedar tie hanger. The second was to take the kitchen apron out of the same closet, and put it on. The third was to proceed through the combined living room / dining room / hallway across the terra cotta tiling to the kitchen and dock his tablet in the countertop station. The fourth was to find the traffic report on the tablet. With these practiced movements, Brandon Gartner-Williams would clearly delimit his Inspector General self from his domestic Dupont Circle townhouse incarnation, and no matter how maddening the preceding workday had been, he would ready himself and his home and his dinner table for the arrival of his husband, Darius, or Dar for short.

The traffic report was the key, the moment at which uncertainty would take over from ritual and preparation, and the outside world would provide the information necessary to make the next set of choices and motions. For Darius worked as an analyst at a subdirectorate of the NSA whose name, existence, budget and mission were never acknowledged in public documents, at an office in the Maryland suburbs whose nondescriptness on maps and satellite images was so impeccable as to raise suspicion, and his way home required him to drive through the District’s Southeast quadrant. The neighborhoods on the left bank of the Anacostia River had proven resistant to three decades of gentrification and were now the site of regular disturbances, but Darius had explained to Brandon that the traffic reports would be the only way to have any sense of what was happening. The agency had seen to it that the news would not spread to other metro areas, but the armies of functionaries, lawyers, military men, contractors and subcontractors who populated the more prosperous quadrants and suburbs of DC would not stand for censorship of their traffic reports. Cooperative discretion was all the agency demanded in this case.

Strictly speaking, Darius did not need to traverse Pennsylvania Avenue SE to get home. He could have taken the safer route, inching along the Beltway. But Darius was not one to swerve from an available straight line. At least, that was what Dar had told Brandon. Brandon suspected that Darius was insisting that he was no less black than the young men setting barricades and cars alight in the streets, that despite his Falls Church upbringing and UVA and Georgetown degrees that he had no less right to be in that neighborhood than those who were born and would likely die there.

Brandon suspected, but he never asked. Even though they had been together for nearly thirty years, had gotten married as soon as DOMA was overturned by the Supreme Court, had developed matching paunches and grown comfortable with each other’s personhood, he still felt guilty for the casual hurts he had unwittingly inflicted in the early years of their relationship: The crestfallen gaze of a twenty-something size queen, disappointed to learn that a certain stereotype was not universally true, and other things, some more petty, others worse, that he cringed to recall. He had learned over time not to ask certain questions of Dar. He would listen when Dar had something to say, to get off his chest, but he would not ask.

It took a while for the traffic report to come on. The 501c4s had figured out a way to keep their ads from being blocked or noise-cancelled. In the 2024 election season, the machinery of constitutional government continued in full view of the populace, louder and brighter than ever. Brandon turned his thoughts to dinner.

He had the duck that he had been planning to make into a ragout over pappardelle for last night’s dinner party, until he learned that Camilo’s guest, a lithe sophomore from GWU, was a vegetarian. And not one of those “I’ll just eat the salad” kinds, but some hysterical vegan who would take offense at the smells of flesh and fat, horrified at the holocaust of innocent animals to which he had been made a party. Camilo, a notorious chickenhawk, had pleaded with Brandon and Dar to change the menu. They made do with a cassoulet of autumn squash and Puy lentils, and a lot of Puligny-Montrachet.

He remembered the boy’s comment that brought the party to a halt: “I don’t understand why those people have to burn down their own neighborhood.” Camilo dropped a fork. A dozen eyeballs made a circuit from the unexpected guest seated at the middle of the dining room table, to Dar at the head as always, to the ceiling. He went on, “I mean, not those people like, all African-Americans or anything like that, just those people in Anacostia.”

Everyone knew Dar was going to lecture. When he was angry, he got professorial, an image that was helped by the leather-patched tweed jacket he had chosen for the evening. “Those people live in a neighborhood that is an embarrassment to this country, through decades of neglect. The government tried to bulldoze it into shape with urban renewal. Then the market took over, with gentrification, which is why you can live…where do you live again?”

“Columbia Heights.”

“Why you can live in Columbia Heights and have no idea what it was like in the mid-nineties, when Brandon and I met. You remember, Bran?”

Put on the spot, Brandon had to speak, though he didn’t want to. His response was clumsy, nervous and embarrassing. “When Dar and I met, we were both living on U Street. Even that was a little sketchy back then. No one would head up into Columbia Heights unless they had business being there, and the only people with business there were the junkies. Remember what I used to say about Anacostia, Dar?”

“Brandon was very new to DC. Back then the Green Line ended in Anacostia, and he would take it down to L’Enfant Plaza for work. He said the woman’s voice on the Metro, before it was all computerized, made it sound like heaven.”

Everyone laughed at Brandon’s expense. Brandon excused himself: “She really did have an angelic voice.”

Dar took no notice and continued. “I drive through that neighborhood every day, to and from work. Population density kept going up as people got priced out of everywhere else. The houses are falling apart, the roads are rutted like in any third world country.”

Camilo interrupted: “Like back home in Chile. Worse than Chile.”

“It got better after Barack Obama was elected,” Dar continued. “Some black professionals started moving in, fixing up homes, opening fancy restaurants. Bran and I even thought about buying a condo to shorten my commute to the new job, but, well, Brandon wouldn’t exactly have fit in.”

“Not that I would have minded living there, of course,” protested Brandon, perhaps a bit too insistently.

“Of course, darling. Well, it’s a good thing we didn’t. The Second Depression started, half the gentrifiers lost their jobs and the other half moved back across the river as soon as some desperate fool pulled a knife on them. Then someone got the idea for holograms, a way to make it look to people flying into Reagan National or Dulles like there was not this lingering corner of squalor in the nation’s capital. The people living there didn’t seem to notice the illusions at first.”

“I can’t believe that they wouldn’t notice,” replied the boy.

“Believe or don’t believe, it’s up to you. But I see it every day in my job: Human beings will assume that things remain as they were, until they’re forced to notice a change. The structures were ethereal, easy to miss if you don’t think to look for them.”

“So why the fires?” asked the boy.

“Some genius decided to throw a few white people into the mix, to try and jumpstart another wave of gentrification. You know the type. Young, artists or antiwar activists, skinny vegans….” Everyone tittered except the boy and Camilo, who did his best to mimic the disapproving earnest look on his young lover’s face. “A few young bloods tried to earn their street cred by throwing punches at the strangers, and that’s when people in the neighborhood realized something was happening. They started calling the images ‘ghosts.’ They noticed the shimmering patches in their roofs, the manhole covers in place of holes they had taught their children to avoid, the crackhouses and burnt-out lots that had become mansions. And someone—no one knows who, and I would know if anyone knew—tried to set one of the mansions on fire. And that was when they learned what it took government scientists a year and a million dollars to figure out: That fires disrupt the holoprojections. A well-aimed laser would do the same, anything that directs enough energy and light in the right place, but fires are more affordable. More democratic, if you will.”

“I still don’t see how that justifies the destruction. It just seems so stupid, counterproductive.”

“They just want to be seen, their lives to be seen, as they really are. And I think anyone at this table”—Dar swept his hand broadly at the dinner party, consisting of four gay male couples, two pairs of lesbians, and a seemingly hetero couple who had, between the two of them, slept with half the other guests—“would understand wanting that.”

But the lad was too born-in-the-twenty-first century to intuit the breadth of history that Darius had encapsulated with a single gesture, and soon enough, too soon, the word “animals” had been tossed out and Camilo made some excuses about the wine going to their heads and ushered his conquest out the door to his Adams-Morgan studio where there would doubtless be a glass-shattering fight, angry sex, or both.

So the upshot was, Brandon had to do something with that duck. If Darius had a short trip ahead of him, he would just break it down and sear the magrets for tonight so he could get something on the table quickly, then start tonight making confit with the legs for later, and freeze the rest of the carcass for stock over the weekend. If there were bonfires in Anacostia, he would have time enough to roast it. From what little Darius would let fall about his workdays, he understood that a quick dinner would have something to do with the operations branch of the subdirectorate—not Dar and the analysts, whom Dar represented as professional onlookers.

The ads had ended. Brandon listened to the traffic report with ears trained to listen for the unspoken.

3. The Car

Trayvon Allen, age 12, was the lookout posted to watch the bonfire at the corner of Pennsylvania and 31st SE and alert the block to the arrival of police, fire department, the black cars, or anyone else who looked like they did not belong in the neighborhood. When he saw the black Audi making its way down an otherwise deserted stretch of Pennsylvania, he assumed it was operations, and flashed his mirror at the window of the 3rd floor apartment where DeShawn was camped out.

Something wasn’t right, though. The car was coming at least 60 miles an hour, and accelerating. The driver seemed to be moving the steering wheel left and right, but the car stayed straight, as if someone had aimed it straight at the fire.

The driver didn’t look right either. DeShawn came down with the crew and asked Trayvon, “Who that, T? Ops?”

“Naw, looks like some college nigga. Fat guy, glasses, faggoty suit.”

The black Audi hit the bonfire, which had been built of cop cars, building lumber and gasoline, going at least eighty-five. They could hear the driver screaming from inside the car.

“Hold back, son,” said DeShawn. “That shit gawn blow.” DeShawn began walking backwards, hands above his eyes, and the crew mimicked. Then the gas tank on the Audi exploded, sending shrapnel into the holoprojector at the corner and shorting out the ghosts.

“Should we help him?” said Trayvon.

“He gone. Let’s check him out before ops show.”

The driver had smashed his own window and tried to climb out before the explosion. His dreads were still smoldering and the melted portions of his face looked bright pink against blue-black skin. He still had his ID and lanyard around his neck, the insignia of the agency visible from five feet away. “Shit, they gawn try and pin this on us,” said DeShawn. “To the winds.” At that signal, each member of the crew scattered in a different cardinal direction. Trayvon meandered south, swiping a half-burnt piece of paper off the ground. It had an address in the Northwest quadrant. He shoved it in his back jeans pocket.

By the time five black cars came west up Pennsylvania five minutes later, Trayvon, DeShawn and the other six members of the crew were all out of sight. Ten necks as thick as their heads, mostly white but two black dudes and a Latin among them: These were ops. Different crews, with older men or harder kids, would be sending down sniper fire any minute, but these guys were Kevlared head to toe.

Trayvon looked back at the scene from the Dumpster where he was hiding. Though the college-looking dude was one of their own, the ops looked neither surprised nor sad. He patted his rear pocket to make sure the paper was still there.

4. The Kid

Ordinarily a trip to Dupont Circle would be a simple matter of getting on the Metro, but things hadn’t been ordinary in a long time. The Green Line had started bypassing all Southeast stations ever since the bonfires began, and the fare was well above Trayvon’s hustle. If he had a flat map of the District in his mind he might have been able to calculate that the address was only a two-hour walk away. But the uprising and repression had warped his mental map of the city, transforming the Anacostia River into an impassable singularity. That he felt drawn to the address despite this wise caution was inexplicable through Trayvon’s conscious thought. His path did not follow a straight line, but proceeded faster than a straight line trajectory would have taken him, as he slingshotted his way around obstacles known and observed: checkpoints, cop cars, black cars, vigilante gangs of yuppies in street mufti, and the cameras. For a black kid in an ash-stained white t-shirt, the District was more hazardous than an asteroid belt for the Millennium Falcon.

So by the time he arrived at the front door of the Gartner-Williams house, four hours had passed since the accident, agency representatives had come and gone, the duck, slightly overdone, had been sitting on the counter getting cold, Brandon’s tears had pooled in a crease of the leather sofa on which he was lying, and Trayvon was starving. No lights were on in the house, and he hesitated before ringing the bell. Hesitated, but the same drive that had brought him this far led his finger to the button. The button activated not only the bell, but also a camera at the top of the doorway. If Trayvon had noticed the lens, he would have fled, but it was too dark on the street for him to suss it out.

Brandon hesitated before deciding to answer the door: It could, he reasoned, be the agency with more details on the circumstances of Darius’s accident. Despite his decision, the ten-foot walk from the sofa onto which he had collapsed was like swimming through the Mariana Trench: slow and bone-crushing. In that time, Trayvon had multiple opportunities to re-consider, re-re-consider, and re-re-re-consider, and he had just begun to pivot his left foot away from the door when Brandon’s voice creaked, raw, from the intercom. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The second question confused Trayvon a bit. For four hours he had undertaken this fool’s errand contrary to his own conscious volition. “I…I saw something,” he said, retrieving the scrap of paper and holding it up to where, he now reasoned, the camera must be.

Brandon couldn’t make out anything on the screen, but assumed it had something to do with Darius. His hope and trust opened the door before his fear could countermand it. “Come in. What did you see?”

“An accident. A black man in a black car. I found this.” Trayvon stepped across the threshold and handed the paper to the white man with red eyes. Brandon recognized it as a scrap of a receipt from Darius’ auto repair shop. “Did he live here?”

“Yes, he did. Please, come inside.” Ordinarily, Brandon enjoyed being a host above all else. A 12-year-old kid from the wrong side of town would not usually be on the guest list, but his instinctual hospitality overrode his mistrust and distracted him, momentarily, from his grief.

The smell of the duck reminded Trayvon of his hunger. He hadn’t eaten anything since his sugar-cereal breakfast. “Smells good in here.”

“Are you hungry?”

The thought crossed his mind that this white man could be a government agent, or a child molester, but his stomach growled in response. Admitting his poverty to this white stranger was out of the question, though, so all he said was, “I can eat.”

“Come on in. I’ll get you something to eat.”

Trayvon followed Brandon into the kitchen. When they reached the counter, Brandon noticed that he hadn’t turned off the tablet yet. He removed it from the dock and, with the same fluidity of motion with which he had started his kitchen prep earlier in the evening, hurled it against the exposed brick. The sudden violence and the crack of the screen made Trayvon jump back. “Why you do that?”

“I hate the news,” said Brandon. He gestured at one of the stools opposite his work area. “Sit down. I’ll cut you some duck. Do you want the leg or the breast?”

“I never had duck. Is it like chicken?”

“Yes and no.”

“I’ll try the leg.”

“I didn’t get a chance to cook any vegetables. I can make you a salad.”

“Tha’s’a’ight. I’ll just try the duck.” Trayvon wasn’t sure if he’d ever eaten a salad, and he didn’t want to have his first here. The white man and the duck were strange enough.

Brandon put a plate in front of him, then a fork and knife, and placed the duck leg on his plate. “What do you want to drink?”

“You got Kool-Aid?” Brandon shook his head, so Trayvon answered, “I’ll just have some water.”

“Sparkling or still?” Trayvon looked at him like he had grown a second head, so Brandon just ran an empty glass under the tap.

“The man in the car, what was he to you?”

Brandon set the glass in front of the kid and waited for him to look up into his eyes before answering. “He’s my husband.”

“You gay?” Trayvon, remembering his grandmother’s lessons about being polite when folks offered their hospitality, had tried to suppress the hint of disgust in his voice, but he had failed.

“Yes, we’re gay. Were gay. I am gay. Darius was my husband.” This was Brandon’s first attempt at applying past tense to Darius, and it ended in renewed tears. “Why did you come here?”

“I saw the accident, but it didn’t look like no accident.”

“What were you doing there?”

“I live there.” Trayvon was not about to mention anything about his role in the construction and maintenance of the bonfires, comparatively minimal as it was, to this gay white dude. His husband had been with the agency, and for all Trayvon knew, so was this guy. Though he figured that if they worked at the same place they would have both been in the same car, but that didn’t mean this guy wasn’t still government. Government was all over the place.

“What did you mean, it didn’t look like an accident?”

“Like, he was trying to turn the car, trying to steer the wheel, I saw him, and I’m sure he was trying to slow down, too. But the car kept going straight, and faster. Like someone had set it up that way.”

“He wouldn’t have died if your friends hadn’t set up the bonfires.”

“I don’t know nothing about no bonfire,” lied Trayvon. “And nobody I know, knows how to make a car do that,” he said, returning to the truth. “I just came here ‘cause I figured, if he had peoples, they might want to know what I seen.”

Brandon sat silently, shaking his head every minute or so as a new thought occurred to him. After the first headshake, Trayvon started eating the duck. After the second, Brandon pulled a piece of crispy skin off the carcass, folded it, put it in his mouth, and started chewing, his only bite since the agency had informed him of the “accident.”

After several minutes of silence, Trayvon had finished the duck leg. “Thanks,” he said. “That was some good shit. I’m’a go home.”

“It’s well after curfew, kid. The cops’ll arrest you. You can stay here.”

“Where?”

“You can have the bed. I’ll stay out here, sleep on a couch, if I can sleep at all. I’ve been thinking so much about Darius, I realize, I’ve completely forgotten my manners. We haven’t been properly introduced. What’s your name?”

Trayvon hesitated, considering whether he wanted to sleep in a bed where two dudes done all kinds of nasty gay shit, or whether he wanted this one to know his name, weighing the unknown risks of each against the known risks of being a 12-year-old black kid out after curfew. “Trayvon,” he said.

“Are you named after…?”

“Yeah. I was born the year he died. Momma liked the name.”

“Hi, Trayvon. I’m Brandon,” said Brandon, extending his hand. Trayvon shook. “It’s not safe for you to go back out before the morning. Please, rest here.”

Trayvon’s legs and feet reminded him of the fatigue of his six-mile walk. “A’ight.” Brandon pointed the way to the bedroom. Once Trayvon found the bed, he fell face first into it and went directly to sleep, in t-shirt and jeans, smearing soot onto the duvet.

5. The Wake

It was ten o’clock in the morning, and Camilo’s lover Travis was still asleep, completely naked, and lying on top of the comforter. Camilo had been awake for two hours, and in that time had showered, made coffee, cooked breakfast, eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, and dug around in his stash for a bottle of pisco he could bring to Brandon and Darius’ house—scratch that, now it was just Brandon’s, he had to remember—as a means of comfort. He had spent the last five minutes watching the sweat pool in the curve of Travis’s lower back and his shoulders rise and fall with each breath. Now his patience was at an end. He considered rimming the young man, as a kind way to wake him, but quickly ruled it out. For no reason he could discern, he felt as though Travis’s contretemps with Darius must have had something to do with yesterday’s accident. He was angry, and it wasn’t the kind of anger that he could express through fucking. Holding the pisco bottle by its neck, he prodded Travis in the shoulder with the bottom.

“Wake up, already! Wake up! Levantate!”

“What the hell, C? It’s Saturday.”

“I told Brandon we’d be there in the morning. The morning’s almost finished.”

“I didn’t like him.”

“Who? Brandon?”

“Naw, Brandon’s alright.”

“Darius isn’t even cold in the ground, and you’re talking shit about him? He was my friend. We’re going to help Brandon out.”

Travis pulled on last night’s clothes, and they made the twenty minute walk down to Brandon’s in silence.

The doorbell woke Trayvon. Brandon, having hardly slept, was in the kitchen brewing more coffee. When he opened the door, Camilo spoke first. “How you holding up, Bran?”

“Not so good, Camilo. It’s good to have friends around.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” offered Travis.

“Thank you…. What was your name again?”

“Travis.”

“Thank you, Travis. My mind’s just been…”

“Of course, Brandon,” said Camilo. “Let’s go inside. Is anyone else here yet?”

“No, nobody at all. Bobby and Eileen are coming soon, and Susan, too, but Cassie has to work today.” As they traversed the foyer, Trayvon entered the open kitchen.

“Is that nobody?” asked Travis.

“Oh, my god, I forgot,” muttered Brandon. Then he called, “Trayvon, let me introduce you to my friends.” Trayvon approached hesitantly. “This is Camilo, and this is…”

“Travis,” said Travis, who remained aloof. Camilo offered his hand not in a shake, but as if to try and draw the boy’s hand up for a kiss, an offer not taken by Trayvon.

“Trayvon saw the accident.”

“Ay!” gasped Camilo.

“So he’s one of the rioters, then?” said Travis.

“I think I should be going,” said Trayvon, assuming the most proper, schoolroom tone of voice he could recall. “Thank you for letting me stay here, mister.”

“Brandon,” insisted Brandon.

“Thank you, Mister Brandon.”

“No, please, stay. My friends are coming over for brunch, and I want you to tell them what you told me last night, about Darius.”

“I don’t know if I should.”

“There’s nothing to worry about, Trayvon. My friends know powerful people who should know the truth. We can keep you safe.”

“Have you ever had a pisco sour, son?” asked Camilo, brandishing the bottle.

“He’s way too young, Camilo. Twelve.”

Camilo looked down at his shoes, reassuring himself that the boy looked mature for his age, then offered: “I’ll make you one, Bran.”

“Too early, Camilo. But let’s go in, and you can be a dear and put a splash into my coffee.”

6. The Bridge

The surveillance cameras on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge across the Anacostia River were knocked out by a power outage just after six p.m. on Saturday. The cause of the outage did not need to be investigated, since everyone whose responsibility it would be to investigate it was already disposed to attribute it to a nearby bonfire.

When the body of Trayvon Allen was discovered the following day in Fort Hunt, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River, anyone who was in a position to investigate his cause of death saw plainly that it was due to a fall from a great height. If he was taking a circuitous route from the Dupont Circle area to his home in Congress Heights, he might very well have been crossing the Douglass bridge during the time when its surveillance cameras were out.

No bullets were recovered from his body. We repeat: No bullets were recovered from his body. Anyone who says otherwise is engaging in irresponsible speculation.

Thirty-Eight Observations on the Nature of the Self

Phantasm Japan, ed. Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington (Haikasoru, 2014)

* * *

1. After a restless night of torrenting bootleg hentai manga and trying to translate the contents of the speech bubbles, Aaron Burch, an Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and new resident of North Glamis, Maine, had his tatemae and his honne come unstuck from one another as he was mowing the one-acre lawn of his new family home.

2. The distinction made in the Japanese language between tatemae (建前) and honne (本音) does not appear analogous to the partitions of the soul made in other world philosophies. The first refers to the attitudes and behaviors human beings adopt in order to get along in society; the second, to what we inwardly hold, our true selves.

3. The first kanji of honne is hon (本), book. The second, ne, comes from the Chinese character 音 meaning sound. But the ne pronunciation is a particle conferring emphasis. To be a honne is to be a closed book, whose interpretation is no longer subject to dispute, not so much the words contained within as the noise of gross finality it makes when slammed shut.

4. Tatemae’s translation seems more straightforward: A constructed front. Yet the passive voice frustrates the Anglophone demand for definitiveness: Constructed by whom?

5. As used in Japanese, the distinction appears to be discursive and heuristic, rather than substantive and metaphysical. It does not refer to discrete entities, but to different ways of talking and thinking about the self. In this sense it is partially homologous to the Hegelian contradiction between essence and appearance, in that both taken together comprise a reality that cannot be apprehended in a single glance.

6. Therefore, a Japanese person would no more expect a honne to assume an existence separate from the corresponding tatemae than one would expect a shadow to detach itself from the body casting it. But just as stories are told in every world culture of such autonomous shadows, it is reasonable to expect incidents of such a separation between the tatemae and the honne.

7. Aaron Burch’s tatemae—henceforth to be referred to as Aaron-T—continued mowing the lawn in a strict rectilinear progression, waving to the neighbors on each side as he saw them.

8. It should not be surprising that a tatemae would be capable of operating a push lawnmower, but perhaps for some readers it is. While in Western philosophical traditions it is customary to treat appearances as ephemeral, a moment’s thought should make it clear that the tatemae has much greater need of the body’s physical form than the honne. Whether bowing at the waist, offering a firm handshake, making air kisses, back slaps or bear hugs, our social being makes regular use of our corporality.

9. The honne, in contrast, has the luxury of becoming spectral. Aaron’s honne—henceforth to be referred to as Aaron-H—chased after a blue-winged grasshopper trying to evade the mower blades.

10. “Please accept my apologies, O Blue-Winged Grasshopper, for cutting down the tall grass in which you were hiding,” said Aaron-H. “I hope a bird does not eat you.”

11. The grasshopper, being unfamiliar with the notion of apologies, mistook Aaron-H’s cries for the wingbeats of a blue jay, and fled further, taking shelter underneath a yellow toolshed. Aaron-H followed him there.

12. It was at this point Aaron-H realized that he had detached from Aaron-T, his tatemae, since otherwise he would not have been able to fit under a toolshed.

13. Aaron-T noticed no change, nor any grasshoppers, and continued mowing the lawn.

14. In fact Aaron-T remained oblivious through the remainder of the day, as the movers arrived with their possessions, and his wife Chloe and young son Jared followed behind, Chloe taking charge of directing the movers on the correct placement of their various goods and Aaron-T pitching in by shifting furnishings, repairing light fixtures, and otherwise acting as the very image of a good husband.

15. It was not until 9:30 that night, after Jared had gone to bed and he and Chloe rested on the couch, both too tired to climb the stairs to bed, that he noticed anything different. What he noticed was not something, but the absence of something, namely the compulsion to retire to his office and begin torrenting.

16. For Aaron-H, Aaron Burch’s true self, was a bit of a porn addict.

17. Strictly speaking that is not true. Aaron Burch’s porn addiction was merely the sublimated form taken by an assemblage of Aaron-H’s desires and fetishes that could not be acted upon directly in any manner compatible with the constructed front that was Aaron-T. In Aaron-H, these desires and fetishes were now unleashed.

18. So Aaron-T and Chloe briefly watched a re-run of Top Chef, then assisted one another in heaving their exhausted carcasses up to bed, as Aaron-H, having wearied of his meticulous exploration of the strange world under the toolshed, began wandering the town of North Glamis to satisfy his fetish: The musky smell of a young boy’s anus.

19. Of course Aaron Burch had smelled his own son’s anus many times, at diaper changes, bath times and bed times, but never could he acknowledge to himself that this was the smell he found so deeply satisfying. To do so might have called too starkly to mind a detailed recollection of his first Cub Scout camping trip. Instead, he would rustle Jared’s hair and put his nose to the back of his neck, reassuring himself that all he felt was simple paternal affection for his beloved child. This night Aaron-T had not even done that, simply pecking his son on the cheek.

20. For years Jared Burch had felt mostly safe but increasingly ill-at-ease with his father’s rituals. Twenty years later, after several more-or-less abusive relationships with older men, he would in a particularly searing session of psychotherapy recall this night and date it as the moment that his father had begun to pull away, depriving him of what he believed love to be and continued to seek thereafter.

21. Aaron-H, however, did not venture into the Burch house: What he desired, he believed, would hurt his son, and he did not ever want to do that. Detachment was a gift: At last, he could flee, and spare his child any pain.

22. It is only fair to assume that all parents who flee their responsibilities experience similar thoughts, sincerely believing that in fleeing they are sparing the child or children they love the agony of realizing what monsters the world had set over them as caregivers.

23. For Aaron-H, at least, this belief was more true than self-serving.

24. That a detached honne can be spectral in nature does not mean that at all times it must be. If a true self’s desire requires physicality for its attainment then it may assume a form corresponding to its self-image. Thus a detached honne in physical form usually looks much like the body from which it came, though often a bit younger, perhaps thinner, and with less definite facial features. So at various times over the next thirteen months, the residents of North Glamis homes in which there lived boys aged four through eleven would hear doors latching or unlatching, century-old wooden floors creaking, rustling in hampers full of dirty underwear, and occasionally, at night, the fearful cries of a child. As they searched the house for the intruder—often with a shotgun at the ready, for this is Maine—they might catch a glimpse of someone in the mirror, only to have him vanish before they could turn and aim.

25. Later on, these townspeople would meet Aaron-T at an elementary school art show, a firehouse bean supper or the village store, notice his dirty blonde hair, scraggly beard, and the husky physique of a high school running back gone a bit sedentary, and think, I’ve seen this fella before, don’t know where, but I don’t like the looks of him.

26. Aaron-T complained to Chloe that people in this town didn’t seem so friendly. Having grown up in Midcoast Maine, she knew what to expect, or thought she did, and told him it must be his Southern accent, the fact that he was so obviously “from away.” “Give ‘em time and space,” she urged. “They’ll warm up to ya.”

27. In fact, she had already found her peer group of stay-at-home-moms, and worried about her husband’s apparent inability to make friends in town. She was especially perplexed by the reluctance of Jared’s friends’ parents to send their kids over for playdates. Aaron, ordinarily jovial, became gloomy whenever he came home. Increasingly he found reasons to work late hours at the University, attend functions on campus, or go away on conference or research travel. His constructed front had bifurcated: Engaged and well-liked among his peers, resigned to domestic isolation at home, and preferring the former to the latter.

28. “Gotta make tenure,” was all he said to her by way of an excuse. He still torrented from time to time—his research was on comparative graphic literature of the 20th and 21st centuries—but now it was in service to the exigent demands of scholarly productivity, not an inner compulsion.

29. One balmy evening in mid-September, a housewife whose name has been withheld by the authorities but who everyone knows was Emma Farnsworth over on Pine Drive came home to find Aaron-H in her son Jeffrey’s first floor bedroom next to an open window, knee deep in Iron Man underpants.

30. He got out of there right away—in fact he vanished, though everyone assumed he jumped out the window and ran—but Emma got a good look at him. Since Jeffrey and Jared were in the same kindergarten class, best friends really, she recognized the figure as Jared’s father Aaron. A bit wavy, perhaps, in the lines of his face, but definitely him, she concluded, after about five minutes of failing to convince herself that there was no way it could possibly be. Of course she called the Sheriff’s Department.

31. When Sheriff Dunleavy showed up on the Burch’s doorstep asking where Aaron was but being cagey as to why, Chloe assured him that, whatever this was all about, there’s no way Aaron could have been involved. “He’s been down in Boston the last three days,” she said. “At a conference. He’ll be back tomorrow morning, so you can ask him yourself.”

32. Unfortunately for the Burch family, there was no such conference. Aaron-T was at a B&B in Bar Harbor, balls deep in Su-Min Young, the new tenure-track hire in his department and a first-generation Korean-American by way of Flushing, Queens, who found his accent and his encyclopedic knowledge of manhwa irresistibly charming.

33. If he had been able to acknowledge this to Sheriff Dunleavy and his wife, he might not have been arrested the next morning for breaking and entering. Dunleavy would have loved to throw the book at him, but he could not find underwear sniffing anywhere in the Maine Criminal Code. The rumors all over town that he had done worse things to other little boys were just that, rumors, nothing that could hold up in a court of law: All those kids swore it was just a bad dream, a bogeyman, if you could get them to talk at all. As a mere tatemae, Aaron-T had bound himself into an insoluble contradiction, between his on-campus front as a friendly lothario and his North Glamis front as a devoted though antisocial husband and father. For more than a year he had lived without a true self to arbitrate his actions, and that honne had dragged him into a situation he found inconceivable.

34. Aaron-T spent the night in jail. Chloe bailed him out the next morning, but told him that she and Jared were packed and going to Brunswick to stay with her parents. No, she did not know when they would come back. She did not know if they would come back. If even one of the hundred rumors around town were true, she couldn’t spend another minute with him.

35. “I never laid a finger on Jared, or any of those boys,” he swore.

36. “How can I believe that? Where were you?” she asked. In her mind, his silence was sufficient indictment.

37. As Chloe backed her Subaru out of the garage and down the driveway, Aaron-T took a seat in his. Aaron-H slipped in under the closing garage door.

38. Aaron-T started the engine and opened the windows; Aaron-H hovered over the passenger seat. As alarms began to blare in the house, Aaron-T inhaled Aaron-H through his nostrils.

The Joy of Sects

The Journal of Unlikely Cryptograph (Unlikely Story No. 11, February 2015)

* * *

As an undercover agent in the Sect Control Commission of the Secret Service, I cannot allow the reflexes developed in my earlier assignments to survive. A capacity to isolate and overwrite tics and habitual rhetoric is the sine qua non for this job. We are encouraged to elaborate these narratives between assignments, both as part of the overwriting process and in the hope that historians of the coming Collaborative Commonwealth will be able to reconstruct and comprehend the death throes of class society. Under the old regime, there was a Secret Service that protected the president, but also was assigned to rooting out counterfeit money. Our Secret Service protects the sovereign people by uncovering counterfeit ideas.

I was one of the first assigned to this role, but it was not my first form of service to the Council. After the Bronx Uprising and the establishment of our power in the outer boroughs, the fact that I was one of the few accountants—a notoriously conservative profession—to be a trusted member of Workers’ Unity meant that I was put in charge of requisitioning and allocation. I soon realized that this was a mistake; perhaps Lenin was right in his day to think that economic planning was like accountancy, but I could tell that to take account of second- and third-order impacts in feeding a city of eight million people under siege and facing catastrophic sea level rises, I would need second derivatives, probability integrals, eigenvectors and Markovians—things I had not studied since I was nineteen. My assignment then became to find all the mathematicians who had gone to work for the high-speed trading firms, who had become Wall Street billionaires and who thus were on the other side of the lines, and promise that not only would they not be strung up, but they could have comfortable lives solving far more difficult optimization problems than ever before.

Yes, I had to promise them some privileges, and no, that didn’t sit well with the rat-burger scrounging masses, or the Council. But it was surprisingly easy: Half of them had already run their models and figured that, one way or the other, we were bound to win. That was how I discovered my talent for clandestinity.

Some of my early assignments were dull. For example, because before the establishment of the Unity I had hopscotched around some small Trotskyist and Bordigaist groupuscules, I was asked to infiltrate—with the help of some reversible plastic surgery—the remnants of various Marxist groupings that had not joined us. The Badiouan post-Maoists misconstruing mathematical formulas to determine whether our Revolution met their standards for being called an “Event,” the Spartacist debates over whether our power was a “degenerated” or “deformed” workers’ state or still too indeterminate to say anything about, the five Chirikians who defined themselves as the sum total of the “proletarian milieu”—I reported that they posed no more threat to us than they had to the capitalists beforehand. We were determined not to repeat the totalitarian excesses of the past.

The traditional theistic religions posed little problem, either. Those clergy and congregants who were inclined to go over to the counterrevolution rarely bothered with dissimulation, and a surprising number of religions split along “social justice” or “liberation theology” lines in our favor. As long as we can restrain the church-burning excesses of Insurrectionalists, we have little to worry about from the god-believers. The only truly interesting conspiracy I uncovered from that corner was the multi-ethnic Chan Buddhist temple in Flushing that was an elaborate cover for a fascist, Chinese-supremacist coup plotting to take over Queens.

What we have found, however, is that the scientific outlook of a historical materialist is rarely taken on in full during the present struggle for existence. People pick up little bits of utopian impulse here, some propositions reduced to the level of slogans there, mix them up syncretically with the cultural detritus of the old regime’s slow decline, and sects that no one could have anticipated spring up like mushroom clouds after the Zionist Masada.

Sometimes they’re harmless. The strangest cult I ever had to infiltrate was the Marcia’s Witnesses. They were obsessed with Maureen McCormick, a twentieth-century actress best known for having portrayed a teenage girl named Marcia Brady on an insipid television program eighty years ago. My final report said that while they were undoubtedly backward on the women’s question, they were mostly harmless, and so no extraordinary measures of suppression were needed.

But not all the syncretists are quite so harmless, and that is why I just shaved off a beard after a sojourn among the Feuerbachians.

* * *

To be fair, that is not what they call themselves. The official name is the Church of God as Love. Those of us in the Unity who identify as Marxists have yet to shake the habit of associating ideologies with surnames. The public preaching of this group does not differ substantially from the ideas expressed in Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity: “God is pure absolute subjectivity released from all natural limits; he is what individuals ought to be and will be: faith in God is therefore the faith of man in the infinitude and truth of his own nature; the Divine Being is the subjective human being in his absolute freedom and unlimitedness.” Or as Thawratullah—the self-styled True Essence Incarnate—would put it: “You are God, you will be God, but only in the Revolution. The Revolution needs us to become the God we are meant to be.”

It’s not just that this sort of rhetoric is a distraction from the urgent tasks of the day. For all their talk of love and unity, it’s basically divisive. Feuerbachian street-preachers have been known to trigger brawls outside of churches, mosques and gurdwaras. Their evangelists sidle up to the more fuzzy-headed cadres in the Unity and distract them with grand discussions of the unity of body and spirit. And the more political operators have infiltrated our council structure to divert scarce resources into “educational” ventures tied to the Church.

Then there are the sex parties.

* * *

My transition was interrupted when the uprisings began. There were still plenty of backward elements in the Unity who didn’t recognize their own cis-privilege, who dismissed synthetic hormones as cosmetic, not worth putting on the pharmaceutical ration queue. It wasn’t my first faction fight, but in the meantime, even though my breast growth was irreversible, resurgent testes had put hair back on my face. With all the work to be done, there was hardly time for shaving or makeup, let alone electrolysis or lasers. I was the one who started the jokes about “Lydia the Bearded Lady.” This is not the body I had imagined, but it has been put to good use in the struggle: For the Chan assignment, I had to bind and pass as cis-male. Passing as cis-female with the Witnesses was easier, once I got my hormones back and a facial graft—they were so chaste, so obsessively focused on Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. I could have been more comfortable with the Feuerbachians—Thawratullah hirself is trans—but someone on the Council had a bright idea.

Marx said that people create their own history, but not in conditions of their own choosing. However many times I overwrite my thoughts and gestures, my history is written in this body. The form into which I have been compelled appears to have been freely chosen by the True Essence Incarnate: Hirsute as a 19th century German philosopher, yet with full breasts and hips. My bio-engineered implants were synthesized in the same Lehman College labs where ersatz steak and bacon are grown for the carnivores on the Council; Thawratullah must have found an incubator on the black market. Hir penis is circumcised but otherwise intact, the scrotum baggy with stray, undyed white hairs, the only outward sign of hir advancing age. Yes, I got that close a look. The perfect synthesis, so they claim. I got my orders: To mimic Thawratullah’s corporeal engineering. It was not pleasant: Nanoactuators dusted into every follicle, t-shots strong enough to stop my heart and leave me convulsive, aggressive, priapic and masturbatory.

We all have to sacrifice for the future we wish to create.

* * *

There was never the expectation of perfection. How could there be? As far as we can tell, Thawratullah was born Ahmed Abdullah ash-Sharqi to a pair of Egyptian revolutionaries nine months after a Tahrir Square hookup. They fled to Astoria with their kid after the second coup. That’s about all we know about hir early childhood, but it’s enough to tell me that zie would always be darker-skinned, and hairier, than a Eurasian ladyboy like me ever could become. The point was not to impersonate hir, but to emulate the Essence as so many of hir followers already had.

Fewer attempted to emulate hir Consort: Born female-bodied, zie had been infibulated and had breasts removed, seeking to become a Body Without Organs. (Though the overt doctrine is pure Feuerbach, the Church’s secret rites have more than a bit of Deleuze to them.) One could never truly become a BWO oneself, however many modifications one had—it was the desired end state of Human Species-Being, a quivering flux of differentiated energies. Modifications and transitions were not required of church members. I encountered many a cis-body in the ceremonies. But humanity, they believe, becomes God by transforming itself: It does not surprise me that many of my people have found their way into their ranks.

* * *

One’s second visit to a ceremony is more confusing, to the new initiate, than the first. The Church teaches that familiarity is the opposite of Love: By recognizing another person as family, friend or acquaintance, one sets them above the species as a whole, and closes off the possibility of respecting their coming transformations. One must always greet a person anew, with the same effusive welcome as the first time. They are political enough to accede to social norms in their external activities, but in the sanctuary—a Bushwick warehouse—one will always be greeted by each body with an embrace, perhaps a kiss, and the same greeting: “My love! Do you feel the God?”, with no differentiation between new recruits and old lovers. Names are used, but beyond the security check at the entrance, it becomes taboo to ask them.

The meeting begins in a way that would be familiar to any activist in the Unity: Church emissaries report on the outcomes of their assignments in as dry, quantitative a tone as any of our requisitionists. Yet whereas we have retained the impractical habit of retaining a minimum level of clothing regardless of weather or climate control malfunctions, the officiants will disrobe in the midst of the meeting with no apparent erotic intent. Since the space ends up as crowded as the 7 train in the 4 a.m. rush, even in winter the body heat will eventually mount to a point where nearly all attendees have fully disrobed, leaving only piercings and Bioelectrical Data Implants attached. On those many summer days when the temperature crests 37 Celsius, the disrobing is almost immediate. The BDIs allow participants to silently communicate propositions, consent and demurrals without interrupting the flow of speech. There is no decorous inhibition on initiating such assignations, so it is not uncommon to experience a bit of ass-play while listening to a droning enumeration of speeches given, contacts made, greetings proffered, combats won and lost, and narrow escapes from the militia. The only restriction is that one must remain silent, out of respect for whoever is speaking.

Nor do they refrain when Thawratullah rises for hir sermon. If anything, pairs become threesomes, groups become clusters, and the vigor rises until the conclusion, which is always, “Comrades, unite in becoming God! The Body Without Organs!” A casual observer might assume that Thawratullah had just stimulated the multiplying contacts and commanded the ensuing orgy. Rather, it is a dialectic: Zie times and modulates hir speech in response to the BDI signals from the Church members in the room. The difference between membership and mere contact status is that members must allow Thawratullah unrestricted access to their BDI signals. Hir relationship to the officiants is not that of a commander switching on a squadron of drones, but a conductor leading an orchestra. Only after the sermon do the worshippers break out in the crescendo of moans, gasps and expostulations one would expect.

That was the most exhausting aspect of this assignment: For my dissimulation to work, the IT commissariat needed to develop forms of encryption so advanced that its presence could not be detected by Thawratullah’s consciousness or hir dedicated processors. The time when I should have been sleeping, I had to keep my implants active so the programmers could read the traces of Thawratullah’s probes and enhance the encryption. Yes, they had me under sedation, but the sleep one has under sedation, still connected, is not like biological sleep: It is an otherworldly dream from which one cannot awake even in horror. I wish I could tell you what those dreams were like, but the last measure taken by IT security was always to wipe their traces from my conscious memory. I was left with only the ever-growing fatigue.

* * *

You who read this in the future have probably formed certain assumptions about what the sex was like, and those assumptions are likely wrong. The Church meetings were not spaces without taboo, but spaces in which the taboos we have inherited from the bourgeois past and before have been consciously overturned—and others put in their place, just as consciously. Among the new taboos was one against ejaculatory orgasm. This imposed a particular restraint on those of us born male-bodied—and, in my case, not yet as fully transitioned as I would wish—as well as on those female-bodied persons prone to squirting. The ideal put in place of phallic climax was that of the “Thousand Plateaus.”

The long-time members of the Church had developed certain breathing and meditational disciplines to this end, and over the duration of the assignment I picked up a few of them. Drugs also helped: I ended up rummaging through the requisitioned stocks of the pharmacies and found an old-fashioned antidepressant called duloxetine that helped me postpone. More important, though, was finding one’s own ways of engaging libidinally without exploding. For example:

My nipples are more sensitive to digital or oral stimulation than they had been before my transition began. The first member of the Church to discover that was surprised to see my eyes roll back into my sockets.

The raking of teeth or nails against the inner crook of my elbow sends a shiver through my entire body.

There is a ligament to the right of my scrotum that connects my groin to my inner thigh; when it is nibbled in just the right way, I melt like an ice cream shop in a brownout.

The fact that I only just discovered these things about myself leaves me just a bit disenchanted with Comrade K_, who has had three years as my lover to explore this body—at least, when I haven’t been on assignment. I’ll try to show him when my debriefing is done, and I’ll grant him a probationary period of a week or so. If he can’t work it out by then, we’re done.

* * *

Outwardly, they abjure all hierarchy, and in fact denounce the Unity and the Council for the degree to which we have created new orders of command. In practice, however, there is an informal hierarchy at work in the degree to which one is allowed proximity to Thawratullah. The more giving one is in the ceremony, the more plateaus one attains, the further one advances.

The employment of BDI for erotic purposes is not wholly unknown outside the Church, but they have elevated its practice to an art form. It also served my purposes of covert infiltration very well. On an open BDI channel one can determine who has had a particularly stressful day, who is harboring aggressive tendencies, and who is in the right frame of mind for some extended play. I had always thought of myself as having a decided preference for the male-bodied, but perhaps that was a kind of phallus-worshiping false consciousness brought on by childhood trauma. With eyes open I would always be drawn to the longest, firmest penis I could see; with my eyes closed, tuning in to my thoughts and the BDI signals, my paths would cross more frequently with those who were born female-bodied.

It was just as well: If I had let myself be fucked, I would have felt exquisitely broken open and would have been unable to restrain myself. I would have come, again and again, and would have gotten no closer to the Essence. This way, I was able to practice giving of myself without giving up myself, exploring how bodies I did not expect to desire could unleash desire in myself, and thus I learned, through women, how to maintain such plateaus with men as well.

This makes no sense, and there is nothing I like less than not making sense. The worst thing about this assignment is how it has made me unintelligible to myself. Perhaps that is how the encryption worked, how Thawratullah could plug directly into me without discovering who I really was. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I advanced through the hierarchy in record time. Within nine months, the Consort had beckoned me to hir. If those who read this are familiar with some of the more barbarically patriarchal practices of the past, you perhaps associated hir infibulation with the methods of ritual genital mutilation that our power only recently extirpated in parts of Africa. While hir modification could not have been without pain, it was not of a kind with those rituals. It had been done very precisely, with dissolvable biofilaments welding hir labia minora together, and hir clit—larger than average, extending out nearly an inch when engorged—had been left untouched. The overall effect was reminiscent of the seam of a scrotum, without any testicles obtruding, and a small throbbing head perched above. The lips were still sensitive, the clit extraordinarily so, and knowing that this was the third level of proximity, I was able to bring hir selflessly to plateau several times in the ceremony. I had not been well practiced in this sort of stimulation before this assignment, but the nine months prior had given me ample opportunity to practice. And besides, it was all for the good of the mission.

* * *

In my case, there was little respite between the third and second degrees of proximity. Thawratullah and hir Consort consulted through encrypted BDI, and then asked me to join them. I had observed this portion of the ceremony about twelve times before—it was not always indulged in, but served as a means for Thawratullah to remind the congregants of the reasons for hir relatively exalted status—and thus knew what was expected of me. The Consort and I began rimming Thawratullah thoroughly. I then nibbled gently up the perineum and the scrotum—which is how I know about those white hairs—and finally took hir penis wholly into my mouth, as the Consort traced a similar path along my breasts and belly toward my own. This was the signal to those in the congregation similarly equipped and so inclined that they could do the same, for since direct fellatio so often ends with ejaculation, it was not a common practice outside this stage of the ceremony.

No one invited to the second degree of proximity had ever outlasted Thawratullah. Either they deflated into the Consort, or collapsed exhausted, their jaw cracking and unhinged from its motions around hir pendulous member. I ended the first way, but made a good showing, outlasting any of the previous initiates I had seen. The Essence reached under my armpits, lifted me to hir mouth and kissed me deeply, then whispered into my ear the first words zie had spoken since that evening’s sermon: “Almost.”

* * *

The kiss meant that I would be allowed to partake of the first degree of proximity. The “almost” meant that it would not be that night, or the next. Thawratullah would observe me carefully, and zie would decide when I was ready.

The IT Commissariat got to work on tightening the encryption. I had witnessed the first degree of proximity only once, and I knew that I had different preparations to make. In nine months of infiltration, I had not had any anal sex—my usual preferred role. I knew that Thawratullah would penetrate me, and that once fully in, zie would find a place on my body where one of my BDI ports matched one of hirs, and make a directly wired connection.

At that point I would lose control of my own destiny. My success or failure would depend entirely upon IT’s expertise. This retelling of what I had to do is based upon my own faulty recollection of what they told me to do, which was itself a pedagogical adaptation of something too abstruse for me to understand. I had to keep my legend, the cover story of a raw recruit to the Church of God as Love, readily intelligible to Thawratullah’s mental probing, while maintaining strong encryption on anything in my identity having to do with the Council. At the same time, my true identity would be decrypting the parts of Thawratullah’s mind that zie kept secret even from the Consort. This would require no conscious intervention on my part; the routines were programmed to activate upon penetration of any BDI port. Consciousness would be a sign of failure, an indication that Thawratullah had begun to link the threads between my legend and my identity. In a direct link, it would be easy enough for hir to stop my heart with a quick bio-electrical surge. In the bottom position, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to disengage in time.

My conscious task would be to avoid coming too soon, to allow the routines sufficient time to do their work. I spent the days before each ceremony inserting fingers, thumbs, butt plugs, dildos, vibrators, robotic fuck-dongs in my well-lubricated ass, my hand moving up and down along my shaft again, and again, and again. I also doubled my dose of duloxetine, which left me in a bored stupor. By the time I came to the meetings, I was exhausted, flaccid and incapable of any higher order thought.

This was apparently what Thawratullah found most desirable. Within four nights, I was called to the altar.

* * *

The Consort and hir attendants did a good job with the application of the lube. That, and my preparations from the previous day, meant no immediate pain when Thawratullah penetrated me, just the frisson of knowing that something was happening over which I had no control. Zie moved hir hips slowly: It seemed as if five full minutes had passed before the first ten centimeters had entered, bringing that familiar tickle against the prostate. Five more centimeters, and my first involuntary moan. Five more, and my eyes flashed wide. The Consort applied some more lube to the last five centimeters that lingered against my augmented yet hairy ass cheeks, then some to the cheeks themselves, probing toward the sphincter. Thawratullah pushed in with a final thrust, and I snarled. I wanted zie to begin the rocking rhythm of pull and push but waited for the wired connection.

Zie found a port along my lower back and exposed one on hir right palm, pressing me down against the altar. The pushing motion made hir penis slide out slightly, and zie pushed back in. In that momentary delay, my mind made its move; I should have remembered that consciousness was a sign of danger, but I was too intent upon my mission. I found hir vanity and arrogance, and caressed them gently; they parted to show me the calculation and will-to-power beneath. I felt the thrusting of hir hips as a conquest from within, a tumor. To the extent that Thawratullah had a plan to undermine our power from within, I could grasp that plan, perhaps not explain it, but intuit it with each pulse. I wanted hir off and out of me: NOW!

With that thought an electric jolt passed between our BDI ports, not strong enough to do any damage, but enough to trigger both of us to ejaculate. I felt sure that the encryption had held, but could not help but worry that somehow zie suspected who and what I was. If zie did, zie did not order any of hir followers to apprehend me. Hir ejaculate was still hidden inside me; I could have destroyed the legend of hir superior self-command just by unclenching my anus and letting it dribble out for all to see. But the truest of believers would not believe the testimony even of their own eyes, and I did not want to be around for the chaos and division that would ensue.

When we suppress the Church of God as Love, as I have already recommended to the Council, it will be done in an orderly and effective manner. And I will ask that this be my last assignment.

END

Vincent Trigili

The Storymaster

Originally published in The Dragon Chronicles (Windrift Books, 2015), part of The Future Chronicles Series created by Samuel Peralta

* * *

“Papa, it’s time to get up,” came the ever-cheerful voice of my eldest granddaughter.

It most definitely couldn’t be time to get up yet. “Go away, Myrill,” I groaned and pulled the thick wool blanket tighter in a vain attempt to ward her off. I was sure she was shorting my late afternoon nap more and more each day.

“Now, Papa, the children are waiting to hear from the Storymaster,” she said.

“So go find one, and let me sleep,” I grumbled.

“I did, and he’s in here shirking his duties,” she chided.

I think she thoroughly enjoyed putting me through this every day at this time. Maybe it was payback for all those times I’d had to wake her up for something when she was a small child. Or maybe she just had a sadistic side. Probably both.

I knew there was no escaping it; I’d have to get up. It was just that it was so warm under the blankets, and the thick feather mattress was very comfortable. It would grow cold once I got up and I’d have to warm it up all over again.

I slowly rolled back over and tried to untangle myself from the blanket. “You better have some tea on if you expect me to travel all that way in the bitter cold.”

“Papa, they’re just in the next room over, and we have a good fire going,” she said.

“Still, there’d better be tea, or I’m coming right back here! Now, where did you hide my cane this time?” I asked as I finally got my legs free.

“It’s right here, exactly where you left it, of course.” She picked up my old bamboo cane. It was worn smooth at the grip, and the base was rough from use. It was a good solid cane, one I’d had for many years now. I could walk without it, but my old bones much appreciated the help.

She handed it to me and I slowly made my way out to the room where my great-grandchildren were playing. Seeing their energy and vitality just made my advanced age feel even older. I wondered how many of them would remember me after I was gone and they started having their own children.

I knew that Myrill was right. I needed to get out of the bed and move around. I really did enjoy the children, but moving was getting harder with each passing day. The long cold winter nights didn’t help either.

As I lowered myself into my rocker by the fire, Myrill tucked a wool blanket around me. She had made it for me earlier this winter, and despite my complaining, I really did appreciate all the attention she paid to my comfort.

After checking to be sure I also had pillows, she said, “I’ll be back shortly with your tea.”

The children all ran up to my chair and called out, “Storymaster! Tell us a story!”

“What story should I tell you?” I asked them. Their excitement was a bit contagious and I drew strength from it. A million stories came to my mind, and a thousand heroes leapt for attention.

They all called out different stories at the same time and I honestly couldn’t understand any of it. “‘David’s Last Ride’ it is, then!” I decided to go with one of my favorites instead of fighting through the cacophony of noise that only a gaggle of children can produce.

There were some cheers and some “Awwws,” but everyone settled down to hear it. It was one of the more exciting stories, and the little ones especially liked hearing it. Or so I told myself. David held a special place in my heart for many reasons, so I loved to tell about him.

“David was the last of the truly great dragonmasters. A few lived on after him, but none could match his skill and cunning. His dragon, Lyrroth, was a sleek and wise black dragon. They had many adventures together before and after the war. As you recall, the war almost completely wiped out the dragons, but they still held on for a time. There were perhaps a half dozen or so of them left when David made his last ride. It was a warm morning, sometime in the spring…” I started and then allowed myself to fully slip into the character of David, and for a short while I left my aching body behind…

* * *

This would be the last generation of dragons, as there were no breeding pairs left. I couldn’t even think of a single living female dragon. In a few generations we’d just be a legend, and probably a few more after that people would start to doubt that they ever really existed.

“Good morning, David,” came the deep rumbling voice of the mighty Lyrroth.

“Morning, old friend,” I said and stretched out. The sun felt good on my obsidian skin as I walked out of our cave. I found Lyrroth lying in the sun. He was a massive beast; twelve grown men could easily lay down head to foot from the tip of his tail to the tip of his snout. His scales were an iridescent black and had a colorful sheen in the morning light. His maw was filled with fangs that could rend an armored man in half with a single bite, and smoke rose from his nostrils as he relaxed in the sun.

“Did the supply ships come in?” I asked.

“No, and now they are two days late. I think we’d better go look for them,” he said. There was a great weariness in his voice.

It was hard to greet each morning and each new adventure with joy like we used to. We had lost so many friends and family members to the war, and the few dragons that were left were slowing dying off.

“Yeah, I guess we’d better,” I said. It was a bad sign that the supply convoy was late. The towns below us badly needed building materials and other supplies. The island base was practically impregnable, but during the war the farmland was torched, as was much of the forest. It would be years before the humans could support themselves again. Until then, they depended on supplies from the mainland.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Rhenvaar and Barioth are lounging by their caves. The rest have flown off on other errands.”

Rhenvaar and Barioth were inseparable twin red dragons. They did everything together, and often that entailed creating havoc. Their riders were also twins, and they went out of their way to dress and act exactly alike. This caused all kinds of confusion, and they enjoyed every minute of it.

Red dragons were by far the most common of the species, and by far the largest. They were larger and stronger than black dragons like Lyrroth, but they were also slower and less maneuverable in the air. Red dragons had been the bulk of the fighting force at one time, but now only these two remained.

Before the war, I would have flown this reconnaissance mission alone or with two other black dragons, but there were no other black dragons left. Lyrroth was the last, and no one dared fly alone anymore.

“Wake them, and let’s get in the air. Hopefully we’ll find the ships sailing peacefully along, but we’d better be ready just in case,” I said.

He rose to his full height, and I could see the many scars on his hide. We were both old and had both taken many wounds. We’d cheated death more times than I could count, but Father Time was as relentless as he was patient.

Lyrroth leaped off the cliff and extended his wings for a gentle glide down to where the brothers lay talking. I walked over to watch him fly down and was impressed at the grace he could still show given his age.

I was sure that it would be dark before we returned and it wouldn’t do to pass out from hunger while in the air, so breakfast was the next order of business. We had hunted recently, and there was still plenty of meat hanging to drain. It made for a fine breakfast roasted over our cooking fire.

As I finished my meal, Lyrroth returned, landing near me with a gentleness that seemed impossible. Had I been human and not a dragonmaster, the heat that he radiated from his internal furnace would have been at the very least uncomfortable, and likely would have turned my skin red from exposure.

Dragon fire came from a mixture of iron, oxygen, and aluminum that was ignited by magnesium in their internal furnace before breathing. A dragon had to keep the furnace hot, which meant his blood was constantly carrying heat away from the furnace to his scales. His scales then radiated the heat off to prevent the dragon from burning himself up.

For me, the heat he radiated was welcoming. It was what friendship felt like.

Rhenvaar and Barioth were circling overhead with their dragonmasters, obviously itching to get going. They missed the constant action of the war, and were probably hoping we would find trouble out there.

“They’re ready,” said Lyrroth.

“Then let’s get airborne,” I said.

I climbed onto Lyrroth, strapped myself down and focused my mind into his. When dragonmaster and dragon bind, individuality ceases. Each personality, each set of abilities, memories, and everything that makes an individual an individual blends to make one new creature. Mentally, I fell into Lyrroth and we became one. It was only when bound together like this each of us was complete.

I, as Lyrroth-David, stretched my wings and leapt into the air, flying between the circling Rhenvaar and Barioth. They roared their greetings as I passed between them. Three dragons and three masters, perfectly blended together.

“Follow me!” I roared.

Our den was in a mountain valley, so we had to climb high through the cloud layer to clear the mountains, and then dive fast towards the ocean. I quickly outpaced my slower companions, and the rush of the wind in my face and the sight of the ground racing towards me were exhilarating. No matter how old I got, I never got over the thrill of raw speed. I let myself go. Behind me Rhenvaar and Barioth pushed hard to keep up, but continued to fall behind. I wondered if they enjoyed these high-speed dives as much as I did, but decided they were too slow to understand the joy of raw speed.

Pulling up at the last moment, just barely clearing the treetops, I roared past the tiny fishing village and over the open sea. Villagers waved their arms and children jumped up and down. I knew they’d be cheering too, but their tiny lungs could never hope to produce enough sound to reach me.

It was one of the many tiny towns that dotted our domain, and they always enjoyed seeing us in the air. I also enjoyed seeing them, as they reminded me of why we still get up every morning. Villages like the one below counted on us to protect them.

With the others so far behind, I figured I had a little time for a show. I inhaled deeply and breathed fire while executing a loop that created a massive ring of fire in the sky. I continued looping smaller and smaller loops, forming a spiral of super hot plasma until I had finally exhausted my breath, and then with a wave of my wings headed back on course at a slower speed.

Rhenvaar and Barioth decided to join in the show as my fiery spiral dissipated. They came in low and pulled up hard, breathing fire as they twisted around each other, making a great column of fire in the sky. Below us in the village the townsfolk jumped and waved the flag of our nation, obviously enjoying the impromptu show.

Rhenvaar and Barioth dove down from where they had completed their pillar of flame and came racing up behind me. We headed towards the main shipping route, hoping to find good news about the supply convoy. The rocks made the seaport treacherous, but long ago a channel was cleared with the help of a team of green dragons. If the supply ships were close, they would be in that channel. If they had wrecked, the most likely place would be near the channel on either side.

I allowed some more of my speed to bleed off, and the two red dragons pulled alongside me. “We should start by following the channel out to the open water,” I called out.

They roared their agreement, and we flew out low over the water. I wanted to be low enough to spot debris if they had run aground, but there was no sign of them.

* * *

Myrill came with my tea right then and I stopped to take a drink. The tea soothed my throat and warded off the coughing fit that I knew would follow without it. I supposed I’d spent too many seasons sitting by the fire, breathing in the smoke while telling stories.

The youngest of my great-grandchildren, Silverleaf, took advantage of the break to ask, “Storymaster, why didn’t the dragons just carry the supplies?”

I smiled. He was one of the most inquisitive people I had met. I guess it was his age. I wondered what it was like to be so young and full of hope. It was too far behind me to remember. I guessed I might have been a lot like him at his age. It took an exceptionally inquisitive mind to be a storymaster.

“They did at one point, but by this time there were too few of them, and they had to stay and help protect the island,” I said.

I took another swallow of the honey and licorice tea that Myrill always made for me. She said it was good for the throat, but I didn’t really know much about that. What I did know was that it was real easy going down on these cold winter nights.

“Now, where was I?” I asked. I, of course, knew exactly where I’d left off. My body was failing, but my mind was as sharp as ever. It was just a fun way to see which children were actually listening. Besides, it added to the old and helpless image I had to keep up if I wanted to keep my supply of tea coming.

“Lyrroth, Rhenvaar and Barioth were flying out over the channel looking for the supply ships,” piped up young Tamerale.

“Ah yes,” I said and continued the story from where I’d left off.

* * *

We flew the entire route of the channel and found no sign of the ships. I hadn’t expected any. Had they run into trouble this close, surely someone would have been able to make it ashore and get word to us.

“Let’s head higher and spread out. Fly towards the mainland port they came from!” I called out over the noise of the air rushing by.

They roared and I pulled up, leading them into the sky. They spread out so that we formed a great triangle in the sky and covered a much wider area than any single dragon could have.

The great raptors that patrolled the sea looking for fish gave us wide berth, silently acknowledging that we were kings of the domain of the air.

The ocean was rough, but nothing the big ships that carried our supplies couldn’t handle. They were well acquainted with these waters and should have had no problems navigating the conditions.

We flew for about an hour when Rhenvaar roared that he’d found something. Barioth and I turned to follow him. He had found the supply ships all right, and they were beset with pirates!

A dozen pirate ships had encircled the supply ships and were pounding them with broadside after broadside. The ironwood sides of the supply ships were starting to splinter under the beating, but lived up to to their name. I doubted they could hold out much longer, but they wouldn’t have to.

“Attack!” I called out and dove towards the farthest ship with the sun at my back. They wouldn’t see or hear me until it was too late for them. As I closed in on the ship I took a deep breath, fanning my internal fires. These pirates would never again bother supply caravans, that was for certain.

As I closed in I opened my great maw and breathed white scorching hot flames and saturated the ship with fire. The dry wood of the deck and the cloth of the sails caught flame easily. The fire became a hungry beast with a mind of its own racing throughout the vessel as the men started abandoning ship in panic. Soon the flames reached their kegs of black powder and the explosions ripped through the hull, sending deck hands diving for cover as shrapnel ripped through the air around them. The sloop had taken the full force of my breath, and was nothing more than a brilliant bonfire.

Rhenvaar swung wide and low and went at two more of the pirate ships at once. Using the advantage of surprise and speed he breathed his flames into the hulls of the ships above the water line and right across the cannon ports. Men screamed as the ship burned and more black powder ignited, sending a rain of debris and body parts everywhere.

He didn’t even pause in his breathing as he finished his pass on the first ship and began his pass over the second. Fire leapt across the bow of the ship and began its deadly dance through the wooden planks that made up the deck.

Barioth was the more cautious of the twins and stayed high as he dove through another group of pirates, but that didn’t lessen the fiery fury that he breathed across them.

In that first pass we left five of the pirate ships in roaring flames. I banked hard and came back for another pass when one of the pirates launched a counter attack. Massive nets flew into the air towards me, attempting to entangle me and send me crashing into the sea, but I’d seen this move many times before and was ready for it.

I deftly turned my wings up and began beating against my flight path, causing me to stall in place. The nets flew harmlessly past, on a perfect trajectory to where I would have been had I kept flying.

With a great roar I flipped over and resumed my attack run. The pirates didn’t have enough time to prepare a second set of nets, and they never would, because I unleashed my scorching breath across the mainsail, setting the boom and stern aflame. The pirates dove into the sea, abandoning their ship as the hull became engulfed in flames. Kegs of black powder erupted, throwing debris everywhere.

Black smoke filled the sky above me as I banked hard to avoid crashing into the ship and headed towards my next target. I needed a few more moments to let my internal furnace get hot enough to produce more fire, but I didn’t let an opportunity pass to take down another target.

These pirate ships were of the sloop style and weighed almost double my own weight, but that wouldn’t save them. I beat my wings hard and aimed for the broadside of one of the undamaged ships. At the last moment before impact I changed my flight path and smashed my tail into the bow, knocking a large chunk of the ship off, and sending great cracks through the hull. The unforgiving sea rushed into the breach and the ship began to sink.

The slam forced me to beat my wings hard to regain altitude, and for a brief moment, if the pirates had been the quick sort, I was vulnerable to counter attack. I wasn’t concerned that the pathetic pirates could take advantage of that weakness. They were too busy trying to keep their footing as the ship lurched under the force of the blow, and I climbed safely back into the sky.

Seven of the thirteen pirate ships were out of the fight, and their crews were swimming for the remaining ships. The supply ships turned away from the fight and were making good time tacking towards safety.

As I watched, the twins made another pass, deftly avoiding the nets sent their way, and destroyed three more of the pirate ships. With only three ships left, the pirates seemed more intent on fleeing than fighting. Large bonfires marked this battlefield for now, but before long the sea would claim what was left of the ships and there would be no indication the fight ever happened.

“Let the rest go,” I called out as we regrouped.

“Why?” asked Rhenvaar.

“So that they’ll tell others about what happens when you attack supply ships destined for this harbor,” I said.

“I doubt they have the sense to stay away. We should finish them off,” said Barioth.

It would almost be a kinder fate to kill them all, I mused to myself. The three sloops would take on what was left of the crews of the nine lost ships. It would be crowded and miserable. Pirates weren’t known for getting along in the best of times, and this wouldn’t be the best of times, for sure. But honor demanded we let fleeing combatants flee.

* * *

“Wait,” said Silverleaf. His little brow furled as he tried to reason out his question. “If it was more merciful to kill them, why would honor dictate they be miserable?”

I was impressed with this little one’s reasoning. He showed wisdom beyond his seasons.

“That’s just the rule, and rules are rules,” said Tamerale.

I smiled. Tamerale wasn’t quite old enough to grasp that there are times when things are not so black and white, but in the end his answer was right.

“Silverleaf, the rules of honor were intended to bring some civility to combat, and in most cases they did just that, but no rule can be perfect all of the time. It’s up to the honorable warrior to figure out how best to apply them in any given engagement,” I said.

“But then he should have killed them,” reasoned Silverleaf.

“Perhaps, and the twins sure would have been happy to, but Lyrroth was in charge and he decided to let them go,” I said.

Myrill’s husband Nasir said, “Keep in mind, by letting them go he was giving them a chance to improve their life and learn from their mistakes. Perhaps one day they would learn to use their knowledge of the sea to help others, or they might have had children at home waiting for them. If he had killed them, then all the possible futures go away.”

Nasir’s display of insight let me know my time as storymaster was almost up. Indeed, my time left in this world was nearly complete. I would have to speak with Nasir after story time.

“So, then, it really was more merciful for him to let them go?” asked Silverleaf.

“It could have been, but we don’t know what happened to them after that,” I said. In reality, I figured they probably didn’t learn anything from it and went on to cause more trouble. “But, that wasn’t the end of Lyrroth’s troubles that day…”

* * *

We circled above the supply ships while they got back in formation and set sail for the harbor. The three undamaged pirate ships picked up what was left of the other crews and made haste to get out of the area. Everything seemed calm, but I was on edge. Something wasn’t right.

“Keep alert and—” I started, but before I could finish there was a loud roar, and something large and green slammed into the back of Rhenvaar.

As they tumbled out of the air, I saw what had hit him. “Feral dragon!” I roared. That wasn’t good. When a dragon lost his dragonmaster, it was like they lost all sense of reason and became pure predators. They destroyed anything in their path until they were either put down, or they finally succumbed to hunger. All they did was destroy, rarely, if ever, stopping to eat.

Barioth and I were powerless to help as they twisted and turned, falling from the sky. They raked each other with great claws and it was impossible to tell who was winning. The pair of them crashed into the sea among the still-flaming boats, spraying water in every direction, but they fought on.

The violent tumbling and fighting in the water created massive waves that threatened to capsize the already damaged pirate ships. If there were any crew left in the water, there was no way they could survive the maelstrom being created as the two dragons wrestled.

Hot dragon blood spilled into the ocean in great quantities and created massive clouds of steam, further obscuring the battle. There was far too much blood being spilled, and it wasn’t looking good for Rhenvaar.

I wanted to dive in and help, but there was no way to get in without risking attacking Rhenvaar. Barioth and I circled, watching for an opening, but none presented itself. I watched helplessly as the battling dragons roared in frustration. The green dragon had gotten the jump on Rhenvaar, and they were in the water; that meant he had all the advantages.

My fears were soon realized as the green dragon burst from the water and Rhenvaar and his master slowly sank into the darkness. Inseparable in life, and inseparable in death. Before I could react, Barioth roared and dove straight at the green beast, breathing fire as he went.

Dragon skin isn’t vulnerable to fire, but a face full of fire would temporally blind, and Barioth used that to cover a fast course change to come around behind the green dragon.

The green dragon was no youngling and was ready for the move, and at the last moment he rolled over and raked with his claws.

Barioth was ready for the counter and rolled with him, slashing at his side.

The beast howled with anger and twisted violently, sending his tail slamming into the side of Barioth’s face, knocking him back.

I saw an opening and dove with the speed that only a black dragon can reach, raking my claws across its back as I went by. I twisted into a tight spiral to come around for another pass, but Barioth was already on him.

The green dragon spun into Barioth’s attack, biting hard into his neck as Barioth tried to pull back. I watched in horror as Barioth’s move caused the green dragon’s mouth to rip away a chunk of Barioth’s neck. Red-hot dragon blood flowed freely, and Barioth fell from the sky into the sea.

The green dragon turned and came for me next, but I was faster and more nimble. I dove under his attack, raking at his belly as he went by. Hot blood flowed freely from the wounds, but they were not deep enough to slow him down. He tried to turn back on me, but he was too large and slow for that maneuver. I followed him through and came around for another strike.

He dove into the ocean to avoid me, and I pulled up just before hitting the water. As a black dragon, I was faster and more nimble in the air than a green dragon, but if I followed him into the water his superior size and strength would easily carry the day. I pulled back into the air, putting distance between myself and the ocean. I knew he would burst out without warning and I wanted sufficient space to react.

My anger at his attack and the death of my friends boiled inside of me, but I forced myself to wait for him to come out. The feral dragon was insane; half of his identity had been lost when he lost his dragonmaster. That insanity would force him out of the water and back into the sky to get me. I just had to wait.

I didn’t have to wait long. With a great roar he shot out of the water straight towards me. I waited for him in the air as he rushed at me, and then I took off, baiting him higher and higher. I had to move the fight away from the supply ships.

Once I broke through the cloud layer I doubled back, and as he came through the clouds I was there with my claws extended. He tried to turn back, just as I expected, and that exposed his chest. I ripped and tore through the thick scales there.

He wasn’t through yet. Now that I had closed the distance, he kicked hard with his back legs, sending me tumbling back through the clouds and towards the sea again.

I bent and twisted until my body was reoriented correctly to stretch out my wings. I quickly changed directions and came back around. The green dragon tried to match my speed and turn, but swung wide, allowing me to get behind and above him.

I knew I could just outfly him and get away, but that would leave the supply convoy at his mercy, and he would surely kill again. No, I had to put him down now while I still could.

He was bleeding from a dozen or more wounds now, but it didn’t seem to slow him down one bit. For my part, I was feeling the toll the fight was taking on my well-aged bones.

Again I dove for him with all the speed I could muster, and this time I caught him unawares. All four of my clawed feet hit his back and I raked hard as I leapt off his back into the air, leaving deep gouges in his back.

He roared in pain, but didn’t yield. He turned back towards me and tried to get inside my turn to cut me off, but I changed direction and came around behind him again.

I had to hit something vital and put an end to this fight before he got a lucky blow in like he had with Barioth. I dove again at his back and again raked through, digging for his spine or a vital organ of some kind, but he twisted away, preventing me from landing a solid blow.

I pulled away from him and watched as he struggled to right himself in the air and regain some speed. I had won, and any sane dragon would have beat a hasty retreat. But this one was feral. It didn’t know to retreat; it only knew to destroy.

He found enough strength for another charge and came at me with all the speed he could muster, but I was above him. I had superior position and speed. I dove towards him, right into his charge. At the last possible moment, I broke to the left, slashing at his throat as I went by. This time I scored a vital hit and ripped open his jugular.

I swung away as he tumbled into the sea, the blood from his many wounds boiling the water around him. I watched to make sure he was done. I wondered what had happened to his rider. With so few dragons, and so many dragonmasters, it was even more shameful to see one go down. He should have been matched to a new rider long before he succumbed to the madness.

With deep sadness at his plight, I flew off to check on my friends, but neither of them had made it. Two dragonmasters and three dragons, lost forever. It was yet another dark day for dragonkind.

The end of the age of dragons was at hand, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

* * *

I sighed and held back the tears that this story always brought on. I wished I’d been alive to see the dragons. They must have been something to see up close.

“But what happens next?” asked Silverleaf.

“No one knows for sure,” I answered. It wasn’t the truth, but there were secrets that these children didn’t need to be burdened with. “David and Lyrroth flew off that day and weren’t seen again anywhere in the kingdoms. The other dragons eventually died off, and now all that remain are the stories.”

“And the unfortunate dragonmasters,” said Tamerale.

“Yes,” I said. Dragonmasters were still born to every generation, but without dragons to be bound to, they also go feral eventually. Just like the green dragon in the story. Most times they retreat into the wilds and are never seen again, but a few lose control in a populated area, and that always results in a violent end to their short lives.

“Is there really no hope for them?” asked Silverleaf.

“None has been found yet,” I said.

“It’s not fair. I’ll find a way to make it right,” said Silverleaf.

The boy had a determination in his voice that was way beyond his years. I almost believed it could happen. He certainly at that moment thought it was true. I wanted to believe, but knew I would be long gone before he was old enough to work on that dream.

Tamerale started to say something, but Nasir placed a hand on his shoulder to silence him. That was for the best, as it was probably some barb, and I didn’t want to see Silverleaf’s dream crushed by childish teasing.

“I believe you could if you set your mind to it,” said Nasir.

“I will, you’ll see!” said Silverleaf.

Myrill called the children to her, and they went off to play and eat dessert, leaving me alone with Nasir. It was time to take care of business.

Nasir was about to leave to help her, but I stopped him and said, “Come with me.”

With my joints warmed some by the fire it was slightly easier to walk, and I led him back to my room. Once inside I barred the door and sat in one of my chairs. Nasir found a second chair and sat across from me. I was worn out from the exertion, but there was more to do yet.

“The story doesn’t really end there,” I said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“David truly was the last of the greats, the last real hero this world has seen. In his final years, he wanted to make sure the world never forgot the dragons and how we destroyed that noble race. David didn’t disappear. In fact, he became the first storymaster,” I said.

“Really?” he said with surprise.

“Yes, he wrote everything he knew on the scrolls, and we storymasters have kept and copied them throughout the generations, passing them down with great care so that nothing would be lost.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

“Because you will succeed me as storymaster and you need to know the secrets,” I said.

A look of shock passed over his face. He tried to stammer out words, but was speechless. He was so young to be a father, not even a third of my own age, but he was humble and sharp. He was a good man, and one I was proud to have in the family.

“Don’t look so surprised. You’ve memorized most of the stories already, and you have the gift of insight,” I said.

“But I’m not one of your descendants,” he said. “Don’t I have to be born into the family?”

“Bah, as far as I’m concerned you’re my grandson, and as the oldest living storymaster I get to make the rules. I say that you’ll succeed me, and that is final,” I said.

“I…I’m greatly honored,” he said.

“Now, what you must know is that dragon blood runs strong through our family. It’s practically certain that some of those children running around out there will be dragonmasters,” I said.

“Yes, Myrill warned me,” he said.

“What she didn’t warn you, because she doesn’t know, is that I’m a descendant of David, making your children part of his bloodline,” I said.

“By the gods!” he gasped.

“Yes, you married into royalty, but that’s not the real secret. We call that story ‘David’s Last Ride’ and tell everyone that David flew off, never to be seen again in order to protect a great secret. David left a set of scrolls that no one has opened since his death. He left instructions that one day one of his descendants who is also a dragonmaster should open it, but only one who doesn’t go feral. So far, no one like that has risen up. The storymasters have kept these scrolls secret so that no one violates that order. They have kept a close watch on all of our kinfolk, hoping that each generation would be the generation that it would happen, but so far, nothing. These scrolls will pass from me to you, and you must guard them with your life,” I said.

“But do we have any idea what they say?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I paused and decided I’d better elaborate. “Oh, well, some think they tell of a second age of dragons, but I think that’s just wishful thinking. I don’t blame them. I often dream of what it would be like to fly with the dragons, but alas, that can’t happen this side of the grave.”

I did more than not blame them; I wished they were right with all my heart, but I knew it was impossible. Dragons couldn’t just reappear out of nowhere. You needed mature dragons to make dragon babies.

“I’ll keep them safe,” he said.

There was a reverence in his voice that told me volumes. I had definitely chosen the best man to replace me.

“You will find all my scrolls in a hidden chamber under my bed. Study them often, make copies of the oldest ones to preserve them, and find the other storymasters to cross-check for errors. They’re our stories and must live on, no matter what may come.”

He nodded. “I will.”

“Good. Now please call my granddaughter, as my time is nearly done. I’d like to say goodbye properly while I still can,” I said.

Concern passed over his face and he rushed out to get her. I slowly climbed into my bed. I’d had a good life, and I was ready for my eternal rest. I’d spent each day living the stories for the clan and had grown to really love some of the heroes of old. Soon I would join them on the other side, and it would be like meeting old friends.

Many storymasters had gone before me, and I couldn’t wait to meet them. No one ever told their stories and I wondered what they were like, what they struggled with and, most especially, which stories were their favorites.

My granddaughter came flying into the room with tears already in her eyes. “Papa?”

“My dear, don’t weep for me. I may have a season, perhaps even two more, and then I’m going to a better place, a place where the stories live. But now is the time to set things in order, while I still have my wits.”

“We’ll miss you,” she said.

“Only for a little while, and then we’ll meet again. Perhaps by then I’ll have learned how to ride a dragon. Look, my days are nearly spent and I want you to witness that I’m naming Nasir as my successor, and you both as heir to all that I have left.”

She gasped. “But, Papa…” her reply trailed off.

By naming her husband as my successor, I’d done more than just ensure the stories were carried on. I’d made sure she was provided for. Nasir’s appointment guaranteed him an income for as long as he lived. She cared for me in life, and now I would care for her as I passed.

I just smiled. “Now, please allow me to rest, and when the news spreads please keep everyone at bay. I’d like to spend the last of my days teaching Nasir what I can.”

P.K. Tyler

Moon Dust

Originally published by Evolved Publishing, Edited by Philip A. Lee

* * *

Nilafay relished her stolen moments in the open air above the ocean’s surface. Today, she stretched out on the field of star lilies, letting her webbed toes spread as she absorbed the warmth of the sun. The lilies adjusted to her weight, undulating with the current to stay afloat. The five-armed creatures overlapped, creating what looked like an expanse of plants from above. Only from beneath could one see their tentacles twist and tangle in the water to absorb nutrients from the bacteria below.

A grouping like this was unusual, so dense it could hold a body half in, half out of the water. They were like her, born to live in the sea but drawn to the world above. As she lay there, the sun soaked the moisture from her pale, osmotic flesh, tightening her skin and heating her to degrees she only experienced among the star lilies while the water cooled her from below, keeping her from dehydration or sunstroke.

Adaltan’s head popped up through a small opening between the lilies. Water dripped down his bare skull, following the sharp lines of his cheeks. “What in the great wide sea are you doing up here?” He leaned forward and placed his elbows atop the lilies and widened his already large black eyes. “Trying to fry up to get out of the wedding?”

“Never.” Nilafay leaned toward his smile and stole a kiss.

Adaltan frowned and drifted away. He looked out of place above the surface. His elegant Sualwet features seemed somehow too refined for the wildness of the open sky, for a waterborne species made more sense in the darkness of the ocean. Sualwets had none of the bulk or hair of land-dwelling Erdlanders, and yet Nilafay was drawn to the surface again and again.

Nilafay leaned back, letting the back of her smooth head relax in the natural hold of the lilies. She stared up at the birds swimming through the air overhead. “It’s so peaceful up here. The quiet is what always astounds me. No pretending I can’t hear what people are saying two leagues over, no constant hum of movement. The only other place like this is the Domed City, but the streets are so crowded it hardly helps.”

“I think its eerie here. Let’s go back.”

“Oh come on. You’ve never even climbed on top.”

Adaltan narrowed his eyes at her before lifting himself out of the water and onto the lilies. It took a moment for them to redistribute and accommodate his weight. Though he swam with graceful ease, his long limbs and lithe body moved awkwardly above the lilies. “It’s so weird to feel them move under you.”

“They’ll stop as soon as you lie still.”

“You do realize you’re using a living creature as a cot.”

“If it were a problem, they’d have developed stingers to keep us off.”

“What about the Erdlanders? Don’t you worry about them seeing you?”

“We’re too far from the shore. And even if they did see me, I could dive back underwater and swim home before they could even do anything. They’re so painfully slow. It’s hard to believe we haven’t won the war yet.”

“You don’t know much about war.” Adaltan tightened his jaw and closed his eyes. When he looked back at her, his luminous black irises sparkled with moisture.

“I miss Alkatan, too.” She placed a hand on his arm.

This time he didn’t pull away. The memory of his brother, fallen in battle with the land-crawling Erdlanders, must have weakened his defenses. As much as Nilafay didn’t want to overstep, she was glad for the contact.

“If he were here, you’d be marrying him instead of me.” Adaltan’s voice carried an unexpected sadness.

“Only if they made me. If Father asked, I’d have chosen you.”

“Sometimes I’m glad he’s gone, just so I could have you.”

She squeezed his arm. “You’re glad to be marrying me; you aren’t glad your brother died. They are different things.”

“Are they?”

“If Father had told me to marry Alkatan, I would have come straight to tell you and we would have run away together. We could swim out beyond the coral reef and follow the narwhals to faraway continents not yet swallowed by the sea.”

“We could raid Erdlander ships for supplies and build a home out of a giant squid’s cave.” His smile spread as they contemplated adventure.

“You’d battle him for the territory, earning me as your bride.”

He reached for her, and it was as if the star lilies floated closer, bringing their bodies within reach. “I love you, Nilafay.”

“And I you.”

He placed a tentative hand on her hip and pulled her closer. His fingers against the tight material of her bodysuit cooled the sun-heated flesh beneath. “When we marry, you’ll be Nilatan.”

His breath fanned over her lips, and she inhaled the taste of him. Salty and dark.

“But you shall call me Nila,” she whispered.

He sucked in a breath and his full black eyes dipped to her lips.

“And I shall call you Adal.”

As his name fell from her tongue, he reached forward, pulling her tight against the length of his body, and pressed his lips against hers.

The intimate names and forbidden kiss sent shockwaves through Nilafay’s nerves. The movement of the living creatures below them seemed to dance with their unspent passion. They kissed, and Adaltan wrapped his long, lithe arms around her, bringing her flush against his chest. She’d never been kissed before, never been held so close and precious.

He pulled away, and Nilafay whined, wrapping a hand around the back of his smooth skull. “Not yet.”

“We have to go, sweet Nila.”

“I just want to stay here.” She rolled away from him onto her back and stared up at the sky. “The clouds move together like schools of fish. They dance in and out of patterns that make my mind dream of distant shores.”

Adaltan laughed. “My mother warned me you were a poet.” He took her hand and rolled into the water, dragging her beneath the surface.

Nilafay squealed as the long-reaching tentacles of the star lilies swept across her face, wrapping their silken fingers around her ears.

Underwater, Adaltan was even more beautiful, his dark eyes unusual even for a Sualwet, his long, lean body fluid as he moved through the water. He drifted away from her backwards, barely appearing to move as he flowed with the slight current.

“Time to get back to reality,” he said. “You have a party to prepare for.” His voice sang across the distance between them, carried to her ears on a channel of warm water. He winked, his pale skin appearing to shimmer in the sunlight before he darted away, back toward the Domed City.

Despite her delight over their impending marriage, she dreaded the evening’s engagement party. Her mother had arranged for other despotic families from outside the Domed City to attend. Even her distant cousin, Rustifay, who currently held the highest position in the Sualwet Parliament below the prime minister, would be there.

Her idea of a celebration differed greatly from her mother’s.

Nilafay would rather dance on the seafloor and swim with the narwhals. She’d rather go on an expedition journey for her honeymoon than be sequestered until her next egg-laying to see if any would hatch. As much as she fantasized about her time alone with Adaltan, the idea that she’d be locked away from the world until she produced a viable hatchling felt old fashioned and unfair.

The low numbers of children among the Sualwet had led the despotic class to cling even harder to the old ways. But instead of what used to be only a few weeks of confinement that should produce multiple children, she had friends who had been sequestered for months with no results. A worm of worry wriggled in her belly. What if her eggs never hatched? Would Adaltan leave her to find another wife?

The water cooled as she sank farther from the surface. Her thoughts and body weighted down with fear. Soon she had dropped to the depth of her home. She lifted the thin membrane that protected her sensitive eyes from the dryness of the surface world. The darkness of the deep came into sharp, spectacular focus. The music of the creatures that dwelled there alongside the Sualwet washed over her and called her home.

She swam along the outer homesteads, weaving through the tall seaweed. A sea slug jumped from its perch and wriggled after her for a moment before dropping back into the stalks. Eels in the distance had gathered near the entrance of the Domed City. Their bright electric sparks beckoning those who sought her home. They swam along the seeded path through the outer dwellings, a living aisle of light and welcoming.

At the entrance, she passed through the main gates and entered the airlock. The glass walls showed her the floating world outside and the gravity oriented world within. While she found passing from land to water delightful, entrance to the Domed City always left her disoriented. As the water drained away and pumped back out to the sea, she took a deep breath, pulling oxygen in through her lungs instead of through osmosis via her skin. Warm, stale air blew over her, drying her skin and clothing.

As soon as she stepped into the dryness of the city, she heard her housefille calling out.

“Nilafay,” the hushed voice carried across the air. “Where have you been? Your mother has been worried sick!” The young girl hurried over, her long skirts a symbol of her low status and servitude.

“Serishee, calm yourself.” Even though they were only a year apart, the housefille’s demeanor seemed so young. “I’m here now. Come, tell me what I’ve missed while we walk.”

“There’s no time for that!” Serishee hailed a rickshaw and climbed in the back, motioning for Nilafay to join her. “To Fay Manor,” she ordered before settling back into the seat.

“Why are we in such a rush?”

The younger woman eyed Nilafay sideways and stifled a laugh behind her hand.

They traveled in silence, sitting together but with the customary space between them that all Sualwets maintained except with family. It was so rare to be touched. Perhaps that was why so many of her people loved being out in the sea so much: the feel of the water against flesh was like an embrace.

Nilafay closed her eyes. The artificial atmosphere of the Domed City dried her out, and already she longed to be back in the water. The smooth rocking of the rickshaw almost reminded her of floating on the surface, but the bumps in the artificial road jolted her out of her fantasy.

She clasped her hands together and tried to recall each touch she and Adaltan had shared. They were so few, and she longed for each moment they would share together once they were married. It seemed an eternity between when they’d been betrothed and when their wedding would finally occur.

The rickshaw passed by the fountain in the center of the city before weaving its way back through the residential area. At the end of a long drive, Nilafay’s home shimmered against the nearly black sea that resided behind the south wall. Having a property at the edge of the wall elevated her family’s status. Not only did her father run the Domed City’s government, but her home backed up to the best view.

From her bedroom the view extended past the drop-off and into the deep. Fish and other creatures whose ancestors hadn’t seen the surface in hundreds of years flashed in the darkness. It reminded her of the night sky far above.

As soon as the girls stepped inside the grand hall, Nilafay’s mother swept out from the back rooms. She wore the ceremonial dress for the mother of the bride. A low-slung belt with links of pearls draped around her hips and dangled to the floor. On top, draped across her breasts, she wore a tight band of cloth decorated with matching pearls and quartz from the Sualwet mines.

“You’re late.” Her mother’s scowl struck Nilafay like a slap in the face.

“There’s time. It’s not like I have to do much to get ready.”

Her mother’s face darkened, and the corners of her lips dipped impossibly low, making her look like grouper or a ladyfish.

Nilafay bowed her head and hurried up the curved marble staircase to her rooms. She’d grown up in this house, but she hated it. Her parents maintained all the trappings of above-water status—trinkets and decorations that would be stolen by the tide if they lived outside the walls of the city—and yet they never used any of it. As a child she had to be careful with everything she touched, every movement she made. Those possessions were more precious than her childhood.

This was one of the many reasons she couldn’t wait to leave home. Adaltan already secured a place for them within the city walls but nearer to the entrance. Her parents disliked the lower status of the location, but she imagined they secretly expected they would move back in with them before too long and were simply humoring their youth.

In her room, she stripped off her bodysuit and stepped into the shower. It felt so strange to bathe after being in the water, but residual sea salt speckled her pale skin. She rinsed quickly, running her hands over her smooth head and hairless body to wash away the outside world.

Once she’d bathed and dried, she sat at the dressing table in her room and reached for the powder her mother had given her. The container of finely crushed pearls reeked of decadence and waste, but Nilafay knew better than to fight back over her appearance. Soon she’d be married and out from under her parents’ thumb, able to come and go as she pleased.

Her lips tingled as she remembered the exhilarating press of Adaltan’s mouth against hers.

She opened the powder and applied it to her head, lips, and face until she glowed like the bioluminescent algae that danced near the shoreline. Once the crushed pearls blended down to her neckline, she looked like she were rising out of the sea, her face shining in the moonlight. She applied black ink harvested from the octopus farm around her eyes, making sure to get it on the tables of her eyes so the large black irises loomed, threatening to take over her entire face.

The effect was stunning. Even she couldn’t deny the otherworldly effect the makeup had on her appearance as she stared at her reflection. She truly felt like the lady her mother had always tried to shape her to be.

Naked and painted, she removed her traditional jewels from the drawer and stood up. The long chains wrapped over her right shoulder and hung down to the opposite hip where they attached to a belt, much like her mother’s. However where her mother’s had been decorated with pearls, Nilafay’s were covered in rare obsidian. The effect of her pale, naked flesh beneath the links of silver and black completed her transformation from girl to bride.

As she looked at her reflection, her mother opened her door. “You look quite lovely, Nilafay.”

Her mother’s formal voice pulled her attention. When had she stopped being “Nila” to her family? When had she stopped being a child? The withdrawal of affection had happened so slowly that now she had difficulty remembering it ever having been there.

“Thank you, Mother. As do you.”

“Come then, if you’re ready. Your father is already at the square.”

They walked side by side, but not touching, down the stairs and out to the waiting rickshaw.

Serishee hovered nearby, her excitement barely contained. “Exquisite!” she squealed, hands fluttering at her sides. The long skirts flowed around her in ripples.

Nilafay smiled, but her mother ignored the girl completely, stepping up into the waiting seat and beckoning her daughter to join her.

Once Nilafay climbed inside, Serishee draped a dark cloth over the passenger part of the vehicle, and the driver pedaled them away.

Nilafay wiggled her toes, the thin webbing between them pulling gently with her movement, grounding her in this body. Otherwise she feared she would float away and swim through the air of the city as she did in the sea. She felt like a pufferfish, swelling with excitement until its body expanded to its limit.

“Try to stay calm tonight,” her mother said as the rickshaw stopped.

Nilafay’s heart dropped.

The cloth covering them was removed from the outside, and when she stepped out of the seat, the world glittered around her. The fountain at the center of town had been completely redecorated since she’d been there earlier in the day. Lights trailed in the air between the buildings, sparkling and reflecting her elation.

Her mother wouldn’t ruin tonight for her. No Sualwet dictum of sedate behavior would dampen her joy. The street was filled with people she’d known all her life and many she didn’t recognize, dressed in all manner of styles. Tables lining the edges were filled with succulent foods and wine. Even musicians were setting up to play. Soon perhaps there would be dancing. Nilafay felt like the princess in her childhood tales. She was Misula spinning in the whirlpools with Tritan. She was the Goddess of the Deep birthing all life from the bottom of the sea.

Just as she imagined she couldn’t rise any higher, Adaltan stepped toward her from the other side of the carriage. His gaze washed over her, and she gravitated toward him with the undertow of his adoration. His black eyes blazed behind the ink painted around them. His chest and head had been powdered to match hers, and black fabric decorated with pearls covered his waist.

As soon as she came within reach, he took her fingers in his own. “Nila. My gods, you are beautiful.”

His whispered words soothed the angry pounding of her heart, making her lightheaded at the sound of her private name on his lips. She wanted to reach up and kiss him, feel the skin of his bare chest against her, and wrap herself around him until they were one.

Her father’s low grunt broke the spell, and she dropped his fingers from hers.

They wouldn’t touch again until the end of the evening, until after her father had given his speech and the dancers had performed. Not until the food had been eaten and the wine was almost gone. Only then would the couple be presented to the crowd together, to stand side by side and be announced. For the purposes of the public, this would be their wedding, the official joining of the Fay and Tan households. For Nilafay and Adaltan, though, tomorrow would be the real day of their nuptials.

At the end of the night, Nilafay sneaked away from her parents and met Adaltan in an alley behind the musicians.

“You could not be more radiant if the ruby moon shone down directly on you.” He whispered, winding an arm around her waist. The skin of his palm pressed against the small of her back, and her strength wavered. For a moment the world spun as if she were caught in a riptide, tumbling head over feet out into the deep.

She closed her eyes and let her body drift toward his cool touch. When their chests touched, the chains draping her torso the only thing separating them, his grip tightened.

She placed her hands on his cheeks and stared at all the unimaginable love he gave her so freely. “My beloved, Adal. Tomorrow I’ll be completely yours.”

She placed a chaste kiss on his lips and pulled away. The magnetic pull between them drew her back, but she knew that if she stayed, she’d never leave his embrace.

“Tomorrow,” he growled, his voice lower than usual.

* * *

Nilafay always woke before anyone else in her house. She wondered if Adaltan woke early or if he’d sleep through her morning antics once they lived together. Her wedding was coming that very night, and after the touch they’d shared, she couldn’t be more ready.

That morning, instead of listening to music on the tonifier or rushing to eat so she could get to classes, she pulled on a bodysuit and sneaked out of the house before anyone could notice. She needed to feel the sun on her face. No one else understood her fascination with the world above. All they thought of when they imagined the land were Erdlanders.

Nilafay had no interest in the hair-covered hominids who lived above the surface. She’d never seen one and never wanted to. Her only interest was in the sky and the air. Sound carried completely different in the uncontained world above—none of the vibrating song of speaking in the water and not the flat, dead sound of the city.

Above, the wind breathed with life. Animals and birds filled her senses, and the warmth of the sun felt unlike anything she’d ever experienced beneath the water. Sualwets were cold in body and soul, and when the sun shone down on her, working its way into her body, into her very cells, she felt like it was putting her back together. As if something had been missing until it kissed her face.

Instead of heading back to the star lilies, Nilafay swam closer to the coast and waded out of the water right onto the shore. She’d never been there before, never dared come to land, but today she would be married and sequestered for gods knew how long. She wanted one secret thing that would belong only to her, something for her alone to hold on to.

She lay in the sand, feeling each grain as it pressed against the thin material of her bodysuit. The clouds moved above, swaying in lazy patterns that sparked her imagination. Before long, she fell asleep, the warmth of the sand mirroring the sun’s, pulling her into a safe embrace.

When she woke, someone was sitting next to her. She didn’t open her eyes but rather felt the presence, the small movements of another body shifting the sand. The smell clearly signaled this was not a Sualwet. Rank and foul, it reeked of compost and dirt.

Fear surged through her body, sending her heart into a panic.

“I can tell you have awoken,” the person beside her spoke in guttural, disjointed Sualwet. “I am not here to hurt you. Please, sit with me.”

He did not move while she weighed what to do next. To acknowledge this person would be to interact with what had to be an Erdlander man, a proscribed act which could easily land her in jail. But refusing to acknowledge him struck her as a foolish way to deal with the situation.

She opened her eyes and turned to face the stranger. His head and chin were coated with hair, as she’d read of his people. It had been trimmed short. He was older and his body bent forward over his knees. She felt no threat. In fact, he appeared almost comical with his loose-fitting clothing and furry appearance.

She sat up.

“My name is Rhine,” he said. “Dr. Rhine.”

She nodded and narrowed his eyes at him.

“I will not hurt you, if that’s what you worry about. You are not the first Sualwet I’ve met. I’ve had many Sualwet friends.”

Her breath escaped her. She’d never heard of a Sualwet meeting with an Erdlander for any reason other than war.

“You don’t believe me.” He smiled and his teeth glimmered. Despite the fur, his manner reminded her of her father for a brief moment. The way he once used to be, when he called her Nila and held her on his lap, talking or reading to her for hours.

“I’ve simply never heard of such a thing,” she said.

He tilted his head at her. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“I’ve never heard of Sualwets and Erdlanders being friends.”

“Ah, well, it has happened. I’ve been lucky to meet many kind Sualwets.”

“Is that how you learned to speak?”

“Yes, and I studied very hard.”

“Your accent is strange and off-putting.”

He laughed a loud, offensive sound that set her teeth on edge. “Well, it’s not my first language. I was raised speaking Erdlander.”

The way he pronounced his race sounded like he had shells grinding and smashing together in his mouth as he spoke.

“Would you like to see beyond the beach? I’d be happy to show you the wonders of my country.”

His offer tempted her. She often swam far past the boundary of her father’s permission. Even lying atop the star lilies would be a scandal below. But to walk on land, under the heat of the sun? It was unheard of, and consorting with an Erdlander was completely against the laws of her people. “Yes, I’d quite enjoy that.”

Dr. Rhine’s smile lit his eyes like the twinkling esca lure of a deep-sea anglerfish.

They stood, Nilafay unfolding easily, while the Erdlander grunted and leaned on his thigh to straighten.

“Will it be safe?” she asked.“ Erdlanders do not much like Sualwets.”

“We’ll keep away from the city. But I’d love to show you the forest, and perhaps my home. You might like to see the gardens.”

“You have gardens?”

“Yes, dear girl.” He walked toward the line of trees separating the beach from the dark forest beyond. “But instead of seaweed or the stalky vegetation you grow, we have flowers of every color and vegetables that grow as tall as me.”

Nilafay felt the ground change beneath her webbed feet. The silken sand grew hard and rough, its grains growing into painful pebbles. The sparse trees thickened, becoming larger, closer together, and more menacing. “Perhaps I should return.”

Dr. Rhine frowned. “No, dear girl. You should not.”

Terror seized her stomach. She looked around her and realized she had followed him far enough into the thicket that she could no longer tell which way the sea lay. “Where are we?”

“Where we have always been. We are at war!”

Her panic soared.

Large, hairy bipeds in dark clothing stepped out from behind trees and rushed toward her.

Nilafay ran.

She ran through the densely packed trees, grinding her sensitive feet against the ground. Tears built behind the membrane covering her eyes and distorted her vision. The sun hid above the canopy of leaves to darken the terrain. She stumbled and fell, slicing her hand on a sharp rock. The yelp of pain slipped past her lips before she could bite it back. The next thing she knew, rough, dry hands grabbed her arms, and a loud shout assaulted her ears.

A painful whack struck the back of her head, and she tumbled into darkness.

* * *

Darkness slipped into pain with ease. For Nilafay, it felt like the two belonged together. The dark was so complete she could have been at the bottom of the Drop, only her and the prehistoric monsters that dwelled in those primordial depths.

The pressure against her body was wrong though: her lungs inflated with oxygen instead of absorbing it through her flesh. Dry air breezed across her skin leaving her parched.

Her eyes flitted open—only a spark at first, the light a fresh new attack on her senses. It flashed to her brain, reigniting the painful throb she had thought couldn’t get any worse.

“Where am I?” she squeaked out over a thick, dry tongue. Her words sounded scratchy.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

A large, warm hand touched her head. The intimacy of the contact repulsed her. She tried to shift away from it but couldn’t move.

“Shhh, don’t pull now. You’ve been strapped down to keep you from hurting yourself when you wake up. Give yourself a minute to adjust. You’re fine.”

“Where am I?”

“At my home, just as we discussed.”

Nilafay forced her eyes open, squinting until her vision adjusted to the glaring light. Dr. Rhine stood next to her, his large hand still atop her head, his other resting next to her on the strange bed she’d been strapped to. Her legs and arms were immobilized, her head held down with a strap across her forehead. The restraints were tight and bit into her flesh.

“What happened?”

“I’m afraid you stumbled into something you had no idea about. I don’t think you ever intended to be a traitor, but that is what you now are. You are here to aid the efforts of the Erdlander people. Dear girl, we owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“No.” She pulled against the straps, desperate to wiggle loose from her confinement. “I’m not helping you. I need to get home.”

“That’s not possible. You came to us, remember? You came on our land and entered our forest.”

“I thought you were a friend.”

“I am! I’ll keep you safe from the death we’ll be delivering to your people, and I’ll help you fulfill your destiny. You see, we’ve had a series of disappointments with our other test subjects.”

He gestured across the room, and Nilafay turned to look. Along the wall were a row of cages. In each one, a Sualwet man sat chained. One met her eyes, pain and fury in his gaze. Another appeared to be sleeping—or dead, she feared.

“Our females simply could not conceive after your male’s genetics were introduced,” Dr. Rhine continued. “Even the eggs we extracted and attempted to inseminate directly were dead ends. Those that became fertilized grew, but none survived long enough to take a breath. You see, dear Nilafay, what we required, was a Sualwet woman and access to her eggs.”

“You want Sualwet children?”

“Oh no, we want Erdlander children who possess some of your better Sualwet characteristics.” He stood up and walked to her feet, forcing her to look down her body to see him. She had been stripped of her bodysuit, but a thin sheet covered her. “Our aim is to create a stronger, hardier race of Erdlanders who can succeed us when we’re gone. A race who will finally obliterate the Sualwet from the sea.”

Nilafay’s mind spun. He wanted Sualwet children who would kill Sualwets? Did he expect her to mate with one of the men in the cage? His words, spoken in his harsh accent, didn’t make sense.

“When can I go home?”

Her question was answered with laughter. “Oh, certainly not anytime soon. We’ll need to wait for your body to give us enough eggs to fertilize and incubate.”

Dr. Rhine turned to a man sitting at a table near her. She hadn’t noticed him before, but his features were strong and handsome. No facial fur distorted his appearance.

Rhine spoke in his abrasive foreign tongue quickly and loudly. She couldn’t tell if he was scolding the man, but his companion did not appear submissive. Instead, this man nodded and replied, his own words sounding more like the scraping of a rickshaw under the weight of an indulgent Sualwet.

The assistant handed Rhine a syringe.

“This should stimulate your body to produce more eggs than usual,” Rhine told her.“ Our scientists have been studying Erdlander female cycles and believe the same medication will work on you.”

Nilafay struggled as he plunged the syringe into her arm muscle, the contents burning as he emptied it into her veins. The straps holding her in place tightened against her as she tried to pull away.

“In a few days,” Rhine said, “we’ll be able to extract them and begin our work. Until then, we’ll make sure to keep you comfortable.”

He handed the syringe back to the man at the table, and after a few more moments of their awful talk, Dr. Rhine returned his focus to her. “Nilafay, this is my assistant, Dr. Vaughn. He’s going to unstrap you and settle you in to your new”—he paused and gave a wicked smile—“accommodations.” He gestured to the cages and placed his hand on her bare foot.

She tried to pull back, but the strap holding her leg in place forced her to suffer the touch.

“You behave.” He squeezed her foot, and she bit back a growl.

When Dr. Rhine left, the other man approached her. The first thing he did was undo the strap holding her head in place. As soon as it was removed, she attempted to sit up, only to find another strap around her ribs.

“Please, let me go. I have to get home.”

Dr. Vaughn’s heavy brows lifted, scrunching the skin between his eyes and hairline. He looked so strange with all that head fur, like he was weighted down so he didn’t bounce to the surface.

He pointed to himself. “Vaughn.”

A tear broke through the gap between the membrane over her eyes and the world.

He pointed to her. “Nee-la.”

She shook her head, more tears falling. Hearing her private name fall mutilated from his lips was almost more than she could bear. She wanted Adaltan. Her Adal. He was the only one who should ever speak that name.

“Steell now,” he said before unstrapping the restraint over her chest. “Steell, pleese.”

She nodded and held still, her body rigid, desperate to flee while she forced it to stay in place and wait. Once he undid all her restraints, she could use everything she had to break away from this horrible place. The bright lights still burned her eyesight, and tortured Sualwet eyes gazed at her from behind cage doors.

She would run, find her way to the ocean, and get home. She would tell her father of this horrid place, and he would rise from the sea and avenge all those who had been wronged here. She would marry Adal and have the life she’d always dreamed of, one free from her father’s control. She would forge her own life but heed her father’s warnings more closely now. She’d obey his rules about Erdlanders from now on, even if it meant not returning to the star lilies.

Those beautiful moments of peace beneath the sun and the more rare, sacred nights under the ruby moon—they all seemed so far away.

When Vaughn undid the final strap, she launched off the table and ran toward the door. Her legs were weak, the gravity strong. It felt like the earth was trying to swallow her whole. Since she lived in the Domed City, her muscles were more used to walking than swimming, but the weight of her body never crushed her down like this.

She stumbled and reached out for something to hold onto. The door looked so close, but as she made a final lurch forward, she fell to the ground.

“Don’t,” Vaughn said from behind her. He approached the cage nearest to where she lay, and opened the door. “Een.”

His Sualwet hardly resembled the actual language. He distorted the words with his oversized tongue so much that she barely understood. But when he nodded to the door he held, waiting for her to enter the prison he clearly intended to be her new home, she had no difficulty following his meaning.

“No.” She shook her head and lowered herself to the floor. “Gods, no. Please, let me go!”

He approached, a soft light in his eyes illuminating what she desperately hoped was kindness.

“Een.” He grabbed her ankle and dragged her across the smooth floor until she lay at the entrance.

The tears demanded release. She looked up at him, lifted the membrane covering her eyes, and let the sorrow fall. Tears fell as her dreams of the ruby moon shattered into nothing.

Vaughn crouched and reached for her face. When his hand cupped her cheek, she allowed the contact, hoping to reach any part of him that might choose kindness over imprisonment.

“Please…,” she whispered.

He leaned forward and placed dry, cracked lips against hers. Before she could react, he shoved her into the prison and locked the door.

* * *

Nights passed, one after the next. She judged it to be night when Rhine and his minions departed, leaving her and the three other captives to wallow in their grief and filth. At first, she tried to talk to her companions, but they never responded. Either they were too afraid or too broken to bother.

The eldest had dark spots on his head and deep, sallow rings under his eyes. His lips had dried and cracked, and his skin appeared so delicate and thin. Nilafay worried it might crack and all of his insides would gush out.

Her fellow captives said nothing to comfort her whenever she cried. They watched passively whenever Rhine injected her with unknown chemicals or extracted eggs from her body and placed them in Petri dishes or test tubes.

On the sixth night of her imprisonment, the old Sualwet died. His breath no longer joined the rhythmic pulse of their small group, and his heart no longer added to the unified beat.

“Jisquekai,” said the prisoner in the cage next to her, and he began humming a funeral dirge. His voice filled the horrible room, bouncing off the exam table and shelves of torture tools. The specimen jars full of half-formed offspring from the Erdlanders’ experiments rattled, and the singer’s voice rose to a tortured wail.

Nilafay and the other remaining prisoner joined in the song, adding harmonies and discords as they sang. No one slept that night. Instead she and her two living companions mourned the passing of a man who had never deigned to speak to her, even as she sobbed and pleaded for someone to tell her where they were and what the Erdlanders wanted.

As she eventually cried herself to sleep, she held her arms around her middle and wished it was Adal.

The other Sualwets had never spoken to her, and as grief for this unknown prisoner washed over her, she understood why. The depth of her pain at losing him was so immense, so overpowering, it threatened to rip her soul in two. She hadn’t known his name until the other spoke it. She had never even heard his voice except for the times Rhine or Vaughn demanded his response, usually following screams. How much more devastating would her loss have been had he shown her kindness, had they forged a bond between them?

She rocked back and forth in her cell, singing while tears slid down her cheeks. Eventually the prisoner in the adjacent cage came close to the bars separating them and reached his hand through the opening. Together, they sang, holding hands.

In the morning, they continued their song even when Vaughn arrived. He ignored them while setting up the morning’s tortures. When he noticed the body of Jisquekai, he shrugged, opened the cage, and dragged it out. Arms and legs askew, the corpse lay on the floor while Vaughn went to the door and said something to a guard.

The two Erdlanders lifted the body and placed it on the exam table.

When Vaughn stripped the body and picked up a scalpel, the prisoner beside me dropped my hand with a screech and slammed himself against the bars at the front of his cage. He screamed and cursed the Erdlander, but Vaughn ignored him. No doubt he didn’t care. He certainly didn’t understand.

Nilafay watched Vaughn slice open the body which had once contained Jisquekai. She couldn’t look away. There was a tragic lack of bleeding. His heart no longer beat, so his blood lay stagnant in his veins.

Vaughn dissected the man piece by piece, then weighed the organs and jotted notes on a pad. By the time he had finished, Nilafay felt as hollowed out as the dead man.

“Swim strong, Jisque,” she whispered.

Vaughn faced her and smiled, his hands covered in blood, his teeth bared. He made a for gruesome sight.

She backed away, huddling at the back of her cage on the small, worn mattress on the floor.

That night, the prisoner in the cage next to hers sat against the bars, their fingers intertwined as they fell asleep in silence.

* * *

Telling time became impossible. The progression of one day into the next never stopped. Rhine and Vaughn never missed a day; they never took a break. The constant march forward toward their goal wore Nilafay down, and she began to wish they would either kill her or succeed in their gruesome task.

Some nights, Vaughn stayed after the others left. He would sit before her cage and speak in his mutilated Sualwet. She would nod and smile, baring her teeth the way the Erdlanders did. Eventually, she found herself unable to tolerate listening to his garbled words any longer, and over time she began correcting his pronunciation.

One night, he told her about his life, his family. He was to be married soon, and Nilafay shared stories of Adal with him. Perhaps if he knew she was to be married too, he might understand and help her. Maybe he would let her go. Instead, he pressed his lips together and left.

Vaughn didn’t return for nine nights.

Nilafay found herself missing his company. As much as she resisted, she enjoyed their conversations. It disgusted her that she had come to rely on his presence. She hated him, hated him more for the things he did when Rhine was around, now that she had begun to believe there was some good in him. He was soft, weak, pliant. And yet, she couldn’t help but wish he’d return.

The prisoner in the adjacent cage no longer looked at her, and Jisquekai’s cage remained empty. Lately, the Sualwet on the far end barely complained when taken from his cage. He did as he was told, nothing more than a trapped animal.

On the tenth night, Vaughn finally returned. Accompanying him were two furred creatures that walked on all fours. They stood tall, their black-and-gray backs reaching his waist, and they had watery eyes, long snouts, and pointed ears. Hounds. She had heard of how ancient Sualwets had once hunted these kinds of animals for meat. The hounds wagged their long tails, and their tongues lolled out of their mouths.

Nilafay thought they looked ridiculous, but the other two Sualwets scurried to the back of their cages. Vaughn left the hounds there to snuffle at the cage doors. She reached forward, stretching out her arm to touch their strange, elongated snouts.

As her long, thin fingers approached the bars, the hound nearest her took a deep breath, a long inhale that made its nose quiver and its ears fold down along its head. A deep rumble began in its chest, vibrating up its throat as its hair stood on end.

She froze, her hand hanging in the air, almost within reach.

The sound grew louder and lower, ripping through her mind like a parasitic worm. She shook. Her body vibrated with the timbre of the animal’s growl.

It lunged forward, and Nilafay tumbled back, jerking her hand away just as sharp teeth wrapped around the bars of her cage. Hot breath shot from the beast’s nose.

Why would Vaughn do this? Why would he bring these monsters here and leave her alone with them? He never glanced her way or said a word, and her loneliness froze in her heart. What had she done wrong to drive him away?

Why did she care?

She hated the yearning in her chest when thinking of the time he’d spent speaking with her. Even in the company of two other Sualwets, she felt so alone. The walls of her cage crept closer, and the confines of the prison shrank until she could barely breathe. She inhaled deep breaths in quick succession to keep from drowning in the dry air. The room spun and her vision grayed. Gods, she felt like she would either throw up or pass out. She didn’t even know which one to pray for as long as something happened to relieve the pain in her chest.

“Sit,” the prisoner in the cage next to hers said. His voice was full of scratchy tones similar to the way the Erdlanders spoke. He was drying from the inside out, just like her. Soon they’d both be shells, fossils of bone and flesh. “Come sit here and slow your breaths.”

She sat against the bars near him, and he reached over, taking her hand in his. His cool touch helped her remember who she was, and soon she drifted to sleep.

In the morning, she awoke to Rhine’s gruff voice.

“Another jikmae failure!” He slammed his fist against the examination table, rattling the metal slab.

Vaughn replied in their gruff animal language. Nilafay hadn’t yet learned enough to follow along, but she picked out the words girl, waste, and dead.

“No, please!” she cried and slapped her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud.

The two men turned to stare at her. Vaughn’s eyes met hers, and sadness reflected back.

Rhine nodded and spoke quickly to Vaughn, gesturing with his hands. It was as if she hadn’t spoken at all, but she knew that drawing attention to herself had sealed her own fate.

Vaughn seemed to argue, standing up to the older man for the first time. He spoke in his gruff way, the words breaking off in his mouth as he chewed on them.

Rhine smiled and laid a hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, sending a glance in my direction.

Hope surged in her heart. Maybe Vaughn would save her. Maybe he would reason with Rhine on her behalf. He’d finally stood up for her.

But her hope dropped into her stomach like a boulder falling from a cliff into the sea. It turned to dread and fear as Vaughn turned away from her pleading eyes and nodded.

First, they called a guard to take the hounds away then pulled the prisoner at the end of the row of cages from his cell. When they laid the Sualwet on the table, they placed a mask over his face and gave him a shot in the arm. Nilafay watched as his body went limp. Soon his chest no longer moved with breath.

She had to look away when they sliced into his chest with a scalpel, but she could still hear the sounds of bone cracking and flesh being pulled apart. They had killed him. They’d done it on purpose, not like with Jisquekai, who had already been dead when they dissected him. This time, they sought out this prisoner’s death, brought it down with a speedy vengeance and delivered it to a man who had done nothing but suffer the entire time she had known him.

She longed to reach out for the Sualwet in the cage next to her, but she doubted he would touch her this time. She had done this, she was sure of it. Somehow she had inspired a thought in Rhine which had led to this horror. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to plug her ears against the ghastly sounds of a body being dismantled for no reason but the pleasure of her captors.

When they finished, Nilafay turned to find Vaughn staring at her, his face pale and drawn.

Rhine yanked off a pair of plastic gloves dripping with the man’s blood from his hand. The pliant material made a sucking, smacking sound as it released each finger. He said something in Erdlander and threw the gloves on the table.

Nilafay curled on her bed, hands over her ears, trying to shut out the sound of the guards coming to collect the body. It wasn’t even a man anymore, just a body.

More than anything, she missed the water. Her throat hurt, and the tears she wanted to shed for her fellow Sualwet wouldn’t come. She longed for the glimmering stars as they swam above the surface of the water, their light fading to gray the deeper she sank.

She couldn’t sink deep enough to escape the things she’d seen. No matter how many leagues she put between herself and this horror, she would never get far enough away. But she could go no farther than the confines of this small cage she could barely stand in and the scratchy fabric covering the pallet she slept on. If the stars could fade away, why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t she hide from all of this?

She wrapped her arms tight around herself and pressed her face into the mattress. The tighter she squeezed her eyes shut, the louder her heart beat. She took refuge there, counting the uneven rhythm to herself as she sobbed her dry tears.

Eventually, she fell asleep. The room faded away, and she returned to the star lilies and her private refuge. She imagined letting her legs dangle in the water to soak up all the moisture her body had grown so desperate for. The moons shone above, and the ruby moon winked with a devilish smile, mocking her fantasy. Even in her dream she knew it wasn’t real.

There was no escape for her.

She woke to a hand on her shoulder. Rhine and Vaughn must have left, and her fellow captive had reached out. She sighed and placed her hand atop his, needing the comfort so much it brought a new wave of grief to cover her heart.

“Neela?”

She turned to find Vaughn touching her shoulder, his face ashen, his eyes filled with tears of his own.

She jerked her hand away and sat up. Her chest tightened at him being so close to her, and she pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them protectively.

“Here.” He held out a glass of water.

She wanted to say no. She wanted to reject his kindness and refuse to even look at him. But she was weak and so thirsty, drying from the inside out. She grabbed the glass and drank the whole thing in one gulp, letting water run out the sides of her mouth. She wanted to pour it over her head, roll around in it until she’d absorbed every molecule.

“More?” he asked, taking the glass from her hand. He left her in the cage and refilled the glass in the sink across the room. The door stood open while his back was turned, but she just sat, staring at her chance for freedom, unable to move. Where would she even go? Her desperation for another simple glass of water was more pressing than even the thought of escape.

Vaughn returned, leaving the cage door open.

She took the glass from his outstretched hand and drank it down again, finally beginning to feel like she could breathe again. When she handed the cup back, he placed it on the ground and stared at her, his round eyes so full of white she imagined she could see through them.

“I’m sorry,” he said, lowering his head.

“It was horrible.”

“Horrable,” he repeated, mispronouncing the word but nodding as he said it. “I’m so sorry.” He dropped his head to his chest and began to cry the tears she’d been so desperate to shed.

She sat and watched. What should she do? She’d never seen a man cry before, not even her father. It was a waste, inefficient. She expected to hate him for it, but instead it pulled her toward him. She uncurled her legs and reached out, running her fingers through the strange hair on his head.

He looked up at her, his eyes so wet they reminded her of home. When he leaned forward, she didn’t pull back. She tolerated the touch of his hand on her cheek and the rough feeling of his fingertips as they ran down her neck and shoulder.

More than anything, she wanted to feel, to not be alone or scared or here. Anywhere but here would be better. She’d seen too much, heard too much. It was impossible for her to pretend she was still the girl who had ventured to the shore on her wedding day.

Everything she’d ever been had been obliterated.

Vaughn pressed his lips to hers. She expected to stiffen and force herself to endure the touch the way she had in the past, but instead she closed her eyes and leaned into him, smelling the deep, harsh scent of his body. It had become so familiar. She found it comforting now instead of repulsive as she once had.

When he opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, she reciprocated.

He moaned and leaned against her, guiding her body down to the pallet she slept on, she let it happen. She took what he offered, letting him caress her body. His tears fell on her face as he pushed into her, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, needing to feel. She took everything he gave and lost herself in a moment of feeling something other than fear and loss. His whispered promises of love and protection worked their way through her, unraveling all the knots she’d tied herself into.

If she had been stronger, she would have told him no. But she needed something of her own. Something beautiful and special. Something to hold on to as she broke apart.

After they finished, he fell asleep wrapped around her, and she lay deathly still, staring at the open cage door.

As Vaughn’s breathing slowed and settled into the pattern of deep sleep, she counted the bars above her and traced the pattern of her prison with her eyes.

She slipped from beneath his heavy arm and tiptoed to the entrance of the cage.

Vaughn murmured in his sleep, and she turned back. She didn’t love him, but she regretted leaving him like this. No matter what he’d said, she knew he could never free her. Even if he did release her, he’d take her to his home, forcing her into yet another prison. There was no life here for her. Her home was beneath the sea with Adal.

But her heart lurched at the thought of what she’d shared with this strange man. She could never tell anyone.

She tiptoed out into the main room and closed the cage behind her. The clank of metal on metal woke Vaughn.

“Where are you going?” he demanded sleepily.

“Home.” Nilafay placed her hand on the bars as he stood and rushed over to her. “I have to go home.”

Vaughn grabbed bars and shook them, trying to open the locked door.

She knew they were unmovable. She’d been locked within for so long that any hope for a weakness in their design had fled.

“No!” He reached out through the bars and grabbed her arm. “You can’t. I love you.”

Nilafay jerked away and squared her shoulders. “I know.” She dared a look at her fellow captive, her only friend whose name she still didn’t know. “I love you too,” she whispered to his understanding eyes, the words a final good-bye.

The Sualwet man nodded in understanding.

“You bitch!” Vaughn screamed, rattling the cage. He roared for the guards, but no one came through the door.

Nilafay watched stoically as he exhausted himself and then left without a word.

She crept to the door, opening it slowly and peeking outside. The hall was empty, and a windowed door glowed with early morning light. Her every step echoed off the walls, no matter how carefully she walked. Her heart pounded so loud she was certain she would bring the guards down on herself.

The door opened without resistance.

Could it be this easy? Could she really be escaping?

Outside, the ruby moon hung low in the sky, and she could smell the distant brine of home. No one saw her as she took off at a run, following the scent of the sea. She broke through a line of trees and stumbled. Weak, dehydrated, and so heart-heavy it seemed as though the ground itself were pulling her down, she ran.

Nilafay ran.

* * *

As soon as her feet touched the water, relief swelled within her. Her hunger and terror dissipated into the sea as she sank down below the waves. She left the pursuing men and hounds on the shore and swam harder and faster than she ever had in her life. The world around her darkened as she dove deeper, her webbed feet propelling her far below the surface.

In the water, she could hear the distant song of her people and the pulsing life of the other water-dwelling creatures. She breathed it all in, filling her body with the bliss of finally being sated. The sea welcomed her home with its warm embrace, and she willed herself to forget everything she’d seen on land. She would never tell anyone how she’d gotten away.

Vaughn would be nothing but a dream.

Nilafay swam directly for the Domed City. Upon reaching the farms along the ridge of the drop-off, she delighted in the sway of the vegetation, which reminded her that she hadn’t eaten anything that tasted like food in what felt like a lifetime. How long had she been gone? Days? Months? Would Adal still be waiting for her when she returned? Would he still want her if he knew what she’d done?

It didn’t matter. She’d survived. She’d done what needed to be done to come through a terror no one else could understand. She walled her heart off, shielding herself from pain as she prepared herself to tell her father almost everything that had happened. She wouldn’t utter Vaughn’s name, and she wouldn’t tell them about the man she left behind. That shame would be hers alone to bear.

At the perimeter of the city, dwellings spotted the sea floor. She swam through them, and familiar smells of home welcomed her back. The Domed City loomed before her, impossibly huge and imposing. Home.

At the main gates, fatigue overtook her. Her high from escaping left, and she had no strength remaining. She began floating up, unable to keep her body in place. The floor drifted away, and she pushed herself to swim, to fight. She could make it. Her body ached and resisted as she forced it to work harder, to push just this final distance. She spread her toes and swam with a flail that barely propelled her forward, but soon she reached the airlock and collapsed inside.

Sterilized air whooshed over her as she lost consciousness.

* * *

She woke in her own bed. Serishee sat next to her, holding her hand. Tears streamed down her face.

Nilafay was certain her bedroom and the housefille were a dream and that she was actually still in the cage back in Rhine’s horror chamber. Her body shook. Terror and fatigue wracked through her.

“You’re safe,” Serishee whispered, squeezing her hand.

It was the first time the girl had ever touched Nilafay. Under different circumstances, the presumptuousness of such a thing would have upset her, but she was so desperate, so broken, that she reached for the girl with her other hand and sobbed.

Serishee came to sit on the bed next to her and wrapped her arms around Nilafay’s shoulders, pulling her into her lap.

She fell back asleep, warm and finally home.

When she woke again, Serishee was gone. Nilafay sat up and searched for her in the darkened room but found her mother instead.

Mother stood at the other side of Nilafay’s room, hands clasped together in front of her. “Your father would like to speak with you if you’re feeling up to it.”

No embrace. No welcoming home. No show of concern.

Her mother showed no emotion as she watched Nilafay struggle to sit up. She simply nodded and left her daughter alone to dress.

Standing took considerable more effort than Nilafay had expected. The dehydration, hunger, and the crushing gravity of the time she’d spent above ground had affected her body in ways she couldn’t compensate for. She stumbled across her room, falling to the ground in a heap, but the impact of the floor against her knees and hands almost felt good. Solid. It placed her in the physical world instead of feeling like she floated through air, never to land again.

Her father waited in the family chamber of the house, and she followed him to his office. Despite her weakness, she sat across from him and recounted everything that had happened—almost everything, at least. The day she met Dr. Rhine, his promise to show her the world above the sea, and the tortures inflicted on her. Her father’s scowl as she recounted her coastal adventure on the day she was abducted sliced through her more brutally than anything Rhine had done.

“That’s everything?” he asked.

She nodded, biting her tongue to keep from telling him about the Sualwet she left behind as she made her escape. Guilt ate at her from the inside out, clawing to burst free so she could be absolved. But she knew there was no absolution for what she had done, and only someone who had endured the captivity and horror she had—like the abandoned Sualwet in Rhine’s lab—could ever understand the decision to leave.

“You will show me where they held you. We’ll make for the shore tomorrow.”

“So soon?” her mother spoke from the corner of the room. She’d been there the whole time, and Nilafay hadn’t even noticed her.

Father narrowed his eyes first at Nilafay and then at her mother. “War waits for no one.”

“War?” Nilafay asked. She had no taste for war after what she’d just been through. War was what justified cruelty. What would it inspire men like her father to do?

“Yes. War. We have been at war for generations, but the enemy has never resorted to something as vile as this.” Her father gestured at her and frowned. “I won’t have others endure what you’ve been subjected too. Would you?”

“No, Father.” She bowed her head. She didn’t dare ask the words sitting on the tip of her tongue. Her parents would think her foolish and selfish to be asking after a boy when war loomed on the shore, but she couldn’t stop wondering where Adaltan was. Why hadn’t he come to see her?

“Leave now. You need your rest, and I have business to attend to.” Her father turned in his chair back to his desk, the screen display of his compdisc already glowing.

Nilafay left the office without saying goodbye. Her mother followed and closed the doors on the stark room silently.

“Mother, may I ask you something?”

Her mother faced her but didn’t meet her eyes. “What is it?”

“Will Adaltan be visiting? Will the wedding take place soon?”

Mother shifted to her other foot, an unconscious display of discomfort Nilafay had never seen before. “There will be time to discuss that later.”

“Yes, Mother.” Nilafay barely got the words out before her mother swept away down the hall, leaving an exhausted girl behind to climb the stairs back to her room alone.

Back in her room she collapsed on her bed and cried. Loud shaky sobs ripped through her and bent her into a ball where she could hold herself tight like a fry yet to hatch. Gods knew if she didn’t do it, no one else would. And for a sickening moment, she missed Vaughn.

* * *

Nilafay’s swim to shore with her father proved fruitless. She couldn’t quite remember the route back to where she had been held, and to make matters worse, as soon as she stepped on solid ground, her entire body shook from fear and panic. Her father’s men had to pull her home on a makeshift sled usually used only for those injured in battle.

She remained in her room for weeks afterward, refusing to leave to eat or speak with her parents. Shame and fear warred within her. She’d been unable to help the man she’d left behind, not once but twice. She’d left him there, and when given the chance to absolve herself by rescuing him, she’d failed. Her emotions made her weak, so she shut them off and shut everyone out.

Her parents did not speak to her, and Serishee brought her meals to her room but quickly left.

She hurt. Her legs ached, and her chest contracted tightly around her heart. Every movement felt like a great undertaking, and all she wanted to do was sleep. When she could muster the energy, she would cry.

Since no one visited her, no one noticed her body was changing. Her breasts had swelled, and her hips were gradually widening. Her distended middle now pressed against her clothing, distorting her figure.

Despite the impossibility of it, she knew she had become pregnant.

It was a monstrous thing. Not a clutch of fertilized eggs but a parasite, an invasion of her body. Rhine had done this somehow. Despite his anger over his experiments being failures, he managed to accomplish the thing he’d been willing to kill for. And he’d never know.

Part of her was thrilled to have stolen this success from him. Another smaller part knew the conception of what grew within her may have been due to Rhine’s experiments and drugs, but it wasn’t his success. Like all life, it had grown out of two bodies finding each other.

This child’s father was Vaughn.

Nilafay bent over herself, bile rising in her throat at the reality of what she had done. She had lain with an Erdlander, and not under duress. In other circumstances she wouldn’t have done it, but Vaughn hadn’t forced her. This child’s beginnings were her own choice, her own body. Its creation had meant her freedom.

Pride and love gripped her. This child was hers and no one else’s. She would die before allowing it to be used by Rhine or Vaughn. And so she hid in her room, staying covered so no one would see the changes happening to her body.

As time passed, her belly grew larger, faster than she had expected, but who knew what passed for a Sualwet pregnancy? Within her grew something never before seen, a mixture of two races never meant to be joined.

One day, her mother came to her room. “The physician is here to examine you, Nilafay.”

“Why?” she mumbled from her place under the heavy blankets Serishee had given her.

“To evaluate your health, why else?” The annoyance in Mother’s voice almost upset Nilafay, but after so long with no contact, no affection, no Adal, she just didn’t care.

All she had was the secret living within her.

“Where is Adaltan?” she asked.

“You will see him when your health improves. Now sit up for the doctor.”

Nilafay threw a pillow at them and sank farther under her clovers.

“You see, Doctor? This is what I was describing to you. Behavior more suited to a child. No way for a woman of Nilafay’s age to act.” Her mother’s scolding wasn’t even directed at Nilafay, as if she weren’t lying right there in front of them, which only made it worse.

“Trauma of the magnitude your daughter has experienced can affect much more than the body. Don’t worry, Lady Fay. Please, let me speak with her alone.”

“Very well.”

As Nilafay heard her mother leave the room, the physician sat on the bed, depressing the mattress so she rolled slightly toward him. “Child,” he said, “let me see you.”

“No.” Nilafay was ashamed of the pout in her voice but couldn’t deny it was there.

“Come now.” The doctor pulled the blanket away. When he saw her, he stood up, eyes wide in shock. “My gods…What has happened to you?”

Nilafay pulled the covers back over herself, covering the swell of her abdomen. She rolled over and faced the wall, ignoring the doctor.

Nilafay heard skirts rustle when Serishee shuffled closer to stand next to the bedside.“ Please show us,” Serishee coaxed.

Too tired to fight any longer, Nilafay sat up and dropped the covers to her hips. Under her nightgown, her breasts were round and heavy, and her stomach bulged out from her body.

“It’s…not possible,” the doctor whispered. “What have they done to you?”

Serishee sat on the bed and reached out a tentative hand. When she placed it on Nilafay’s stomach, the creature within rolled toward the touch, pressing out from within her body.

“Get away from it,” the doctor spat at the housefille. “Get her parents. Her father must know.”

Nilafay reached out and grabbed Serishee’s skirt, “No, don’t tell them!”

The girl hung her head and pulled away of Nilafay’s grasp.

“You should have told us when this began,” the physician chided her, disgust evident on his face. “This is a horror.” He gestured to her distorted body, shuddered and crossed his arms over his chest, as if protecting his body from infection.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding the impossible life growing within her close. “You can’t hurt it.”

The doctor recoiled. “Hurt it? We have to remove it! It’s unnatural.”

“No!” Nilafay screamed, jumping out of the bed onto weak, unused legs. She moved away from him in wobbly steps.

“What’s this I hear about her being pregnant?” Father bellowed as he and Mother burst into the room. When his eyes fell on Nilafay’s distorted body, his skin paled so white she could see the veins running under it. “Abomination. It’s simply not possible. Sualwets do not have live births! Are you sure it isn’t just an oversized clutch of eggs? Nilafay, have you produced your eggs since you’ve been home?”

She shook her head, and as if in response, the being within her rolled, pushing against her abdomen to make itself known.

Father clenched his fists and stepped toward her, as if any of this had been her doing. “What is that?”

“It’s not my fault!” Nilafay screamed, holding her stomach.

“What can you do?” He addressed the doctor, ignoring her completely.

“We can try to remove it, but such a thing hasn’t even seen in centuries. I honestly don’t know what’s growing in there, so I can’t guarantee the safety of such a procedure.”

“Do it.” Father turned his back without a second glance at Nilafay and left the room.

“No.” She shook her head, backing against the bedroom wall. This child did not belong to the Sualwet anymore than it did to Rhine. This life belonged to her, and the responsibility to protect it lay nowhere else.

The doctor ignored her and spoke to her mother. “I’ll have to speak with the other physicians. This isn’t something we can do lightly. Removal of the…ah, thing will be a difficult procedure, if we can do it at all. I’ll be back in the morning. Keep her calm until then. I’ll give you something to help her sleep.” They left together, leaving Nilafay alone with Serishee.

The housefille closed the door and skirted the edges of the room, not coming any closer to Nilafay than necessary, as if a live pregnancy might be contagious.

“Don’t let them do this to me.” Nilafay slumped against the wall. Prepared for an argument, she stared at Serishee, who moved next to the closet and pulled out clothing long and spacious enough to accommodate Nilafay’s uncommon silhouette. “What are you doing?”

Serishee spoke without looking at her. “My family isn’t like yours. We aren’t free to have the children we want. Our fry are collected and given to families of status, and only those remaining are returned. Out on the water farms, they call us ‘salmon slugs’: girls who swim upstream, aiming for the heights of those we serve but never able to see our own hatchlings.”

Nilafay recoiled. “Then why do you do it?”

“What else would you have us do? There’s no other work for us. We aren’t skilled unless we go to school, and our mothers, who are all housefilles, can’t afford to send us. Some of my childhood friends married to higher status, but I don’t know if I could live out in the tides. I’ve spent my whole life in this city.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

The girl stepped close and took both of Nilafay’s hands in hers. “Run. You have to leave. You know the sea. You have been above the surface. I can’t think of anyone else who could do it, but I know you could. Swim to the riptide and ride it north. My father went there once. He said the area was completely deserted. If you stay, they won’t just take your child from you, they’ll take your life.”

Nilafay jerked her hands back. “I can’t leave. I’m to marry Adaltan.”

Serishee‘s face fell. “Sweet Nila. They haven’t told you, have they? Adaltan won’t be yours. His family has forbidden the wedding.”

“What? Why?”

“You lived with Erdlanders. And when they find out you lay with one…”

“But I didn’t. They did something to me!”

“You may lie to them, but you can’t lie to me. I’ve known you too long.”

A strange relief passed over Nilafay. She swore to never tell anyone, but the secret deepened her loneliness, and having Serishee on her side gave her strength. She laid a hand over her abdomen. “He won’t have me?”

“He has no choice.”

“I have to find him.” She stood and took the dress Serishee held out to her.

“Nilafay.”

“No, he loves me. If I’m to leave, then he’ll come too. I know he will.”

The housefille frowned but didn’t stop Nilafay from changing clothes.

“Thank you, Serishee.” Nilafay pulled her into a rare embrace then tiptoed out the door.

Nilafay’s parents’ voices filled the entrance way. Their murmurs coated the walls and bounced off the marble floor. She felt certain they would find her and lock her in her room at any moment. Her father’s low voice chased at her heels, the words irrelevant as she considered the threat he presented. He really would risk her life just to get rid of what grew within her. It may be an abomination, it may be alien and unnatural, but it was hers.

It was the only thing she had left in the whole world.

Her pride had been stolen from her, her bravery shattered. Innocence and curiosity no longer guided her, only fear. And now her family looked at her with horror in their eyes that masked any affection they had ever felt. Would Adal look at her that way?

She stuffed the thought down, refusing to consider the possibility. Her bare feet made no sound on the cool floor as she crossed from the bottom of the stairs to the door.

Outside, darkness greeted her. The illumination inside the Domed City had been dimmed, simulating the night that hung over the world so far above. Funny that her people detested the Erdlanders so much yet maintained a simulation of their surface lifestyle.

She sneaked through the empty streets, passing darkened homes and parked rickshaws waiting to be used the next day.

At the ring of homes where the Tan family dwelled, Nilafay realized she had no plan. How exactly did she expect to reach Adal? It wasn’t as if his parents would just allow her to walk in. If his family had called off the wedding, she’d never be allowed to speak with him alone.

Darkness filled the windows as she approached the house. Her heart reached out, calling for him, unable to touch. She blended into the shadows and stared up at the rooms where she knew his slept. She’d never had to reach out to him before. it was always him chasing her down, finding her no matter how far she wandered. She didn’t want to be here playing the part of the desperate woman, but she had to know.

Did he still love her?

Could he love the life within her?

Would he make her choose?

She tried to make sense of it all, of everything she’d been forced to endure, but she couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten here. How had she ended up standing outside the window of the man she loved, pining and wishing for his attention? This wasn’t her. This wasn’t the person she wanted to be.

She strode forward, ignoring her fear, and knocked on the Tan family’s front door.

A disheveled househomme answered the door, his chest bare and his skirt in disarray.

“I need to see Adaltan,” she announced, pushing her way past him.

“You can’t just come in here.” He ran ahead of her, putting his body between her and the rest of the house but not touching her.

Desperate enough to forgo social niceties, Nilafay shoved past physically. The househomme didn’t dare place his hands on her. Instead he just ran after her as she searched farther into the house, calling for Adal.

“What is this nonsense?” a booming voice came from behind her.

Nilafay turned to find Adal’s father dressed in nightclothes, an unamused look on his face.

“I need to speak with Adaltan.”

“You need to go home. Your father will speak with you and tell you everything you need to know.”

“No. I’m not leaving until I speak with Adaltan. Adal! Where are you?”

His father’s frown deepened so far she couldn’t even see his lips behind the layers of wrinkles etched in his face. Soon, the entire household seemed to be awake. Adal’s mother and brothers all stood and watched as she screamed for her fiancé.

Not one of them took pity on her and told her where he was.

Exhausted and humiliated, Nilafay turned on them and ran. She had to get away from the eyes that followed her as she raced down the street. The Tans would contact her family, if they hadn’t already, which meant she had to get out of the city. She had to get out before they could find her and drag her back to Sualwet doctors who would cut her open and experiment on her just like Rhine had.

In her haste, she didn’t bother staying in the darkness or worrying that her webbed feet slapped loudly against the hard ground. When she reached the airlock, the late-night guards hardly noticed her presence until she’d already passed through. The moment she hit seawater, she shucked the dress, letting it drift in the water, and swam like her very life depended on it.

Serishee had told her to go north, but she knew if she ever hoped to see Adaltan again, she must return to the field of star lilies.

She swam hard, feeling the water slide across her strange, curvaceous body. Its warmth held her in an embrace so accepting she didn’t want to ever leave. And perhaps she wouldn’t have to. Perhaps this would be the life ahead of her. Adal, her, and this child could be together in the sea.

When she broke the surface, the night sky greeted her and the scent of flowers filled the air. She climbed atop the star lilies, letting them hold her weight.

Above her, the two moons made their trek across the sky. She watched them until she fell asleep, dreaming that the ruby moon had filled her body and would come to the world to save them all.

In the morning, she woke to find Adaltan treading water at the edge of the field.

“I always find you here,” he said.

“You came.” She rolled toward him, forgetting everything that had happened since they were last together. For a moment in her early morning fog, she was just a girl in love with the boy she would be spending the rest of her life with.

His eyes moved down her naked body but instead of the hunger she expected to find, all she saw was revulsion.

“How can you stand it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Having something inside of you. Can you feel it, moving in there like some kind of tapeworm?” His lips turned up in an ugly snarl.

She placed a protective hand over her stomach and sat up. She felt strong like this. The world, the moon, the universe, all existed within her body. Her ancestors had known this power.

“It’s just a child,” she said.

“It’s a monster, Nila.”

“It hasn’t done anything. It hasn’t even taken a breath. How can it be a monster?”

“You have to undo this. Whatever happened to you there, I can forgive it. I can let all of it slip by us and move forward. But that thing is…I don’t even have the words.” Hate shone in his eyes, distorting his features until she didn’t even recognize him.

“What they did to you is unforgiveable,” he went on. “To take you from us, to keep you from me, to hurt you, and then force you to endure…” He glared at her distended stomach again. “I’ve been so desperate to come see you, to hold you again. I missed you so much, Nila. Come home with me.”

“How? My father told the doctor to operate, to take the baby from me.”

“Of course! You can’t…you can’t keep it.”

“Why?”

“It’s not Sualwet. It’s not anything. You can’t pretend it’s a hatchling and raise it in the city with the other children.”

“I knew that as soon as my father realized what happened to me. Adal, listen. We could run, just like we talked about.” She reached out for his hand, but he snatched it away.

“Why?”

“Because they’re going to cut me open!”

“To get that thing out!”

“Don’t yell at me. You don’t have any idea what it’s been like. What this feels like!”

“I know, Nila. I know you’ve been through worse than most men who’ve been at the war front. I can’t even imagine what they did to you because when I do, I start seeing red and I can’t even think straight.” Finally, he took her hand.

“Then you have to understand. I can’t do it. I can’t kill something that isn’t even alive yet.”

“Why protect them?”

“I’m not.”

“You are. That thing is Erdlander.”

“It’s not. It’s not Erdlander, and it’s not a thing. It’s just a baby.”

Adal pulled his hand back, recoiling at the word. “Sualwets don’t have babies.”

“We used to, many, many years ago.” She reached for him, dropping her body into the water to swim closer to him. “It’s not so impossible to believe.”

“Why would you want some Erdlander’s bastard? Did you love him?”

“It wasn’t like that. They told you what they did to me!”

“If it was just some shot they gave you, some test they ran, you’d get rid of it. But if these barbarians had cut off your leg and put a fin there, you’d be begging the doctors to put you back right. I know you would. Why is this different?”

His words rattled her resolve. He was right. She had resisted everything they did to her, every experiment, every test. She had longed to be home again, yet now she was so willing to give that very home up. For what? For some medical impossibility? Adaltan was all she’d ever wanted. She loved him, and she’d longed for their life together to start since the first moment he swam past her almost ten years ago.

Almost as if in reply, the being within her rolled, pressing itself against her stomach, causing her flesh to undulate. She grinned, so proud that this life grew strong despite everything it had to overcome. But when she returned her attention to Adaltan, his face had paled to a shade of green.

“Nilafay, it’s disgusting.”

She knew, watching his horrified expression as the child squirmed and rolled and pushed against her body, that she would have to choose. She could have the life she’d always dreamed of, freedom and love, or she could have the child she’d never expected.

The decision came surprisingly easily.

“Adal, do you love me?”

“With depths unknown.”

“Then come with me. I know a place where we’ll be safe.”

He backed away, the water pushing her back as he drifted farther. “I would go with you. If it was just us. But I can’t with that.” He pointed at her belly. “Don’t ask me to love another man’s…another species’s…child.”

“But I do. I love it.”

“More than you love me?”

With tears in her eyes, she nodded.

Adaltan’s image wavered in her vision, and then as quickly as he appeared, he drifted down into the sea, leaving Nilafay alone and more determined than ever to protect the life she’d been given.

* * *

The noonday sun filtered through the clear water of the cove Nilafay now called home. Beneath the surface, she held her hatchling—no her child, as this strange, pink-skinned babe had never hatched. She sang songs from the distant Domed City and ran her fingers through her daughter’s swiftly growing shock of dark hair. The tresses drifted out in the water like tentacles reaching for the light.

When the hottest part of the day passed, Nilafay carried her baby out of the water.“ What shall I call you, tiny creature?”

The little girl cooed and kicked out with tiny toes.

“It won’t do to call you ‘It’ or ‘Thing,’ will it? We’ll have to settle on a proper name, one that will carry you through life with your head held high.” Nilafay sat in the sand and held the squirming baby to her breast. Her daughter calmed quickly and gripped at her mother’s skin while settling into nursing.

The air dried the water from Nilafay’s flesh, leaving her cool in the afternoon air, but the warmth of her child kept her comfortable. The last month had been anything but comfortable. Carrying the weight of the rapidly growing child had thrown off her gait and made swimming difficult. But still she had continued on, foraging for supplies she and her child would need once it was born.

Now that she held the baby in her arms, the love she felt burst from her heart. Every trial she’d endured, every abandonment she suffered had been worth it. While others might only see abomination, Nilafay saw a bright future when she stared into the silver eyes of the child she’d borne. She hadn’t considered herself strong before, but now she knew what it meant to carry life, and that gave her the strength to overcome anything.

A lifetime ago, she’d dreamed of freedom and adventure, of living far away from the rules of the Domed City. She’d wanted nothing more than to sleep in the open beneath the ruby moon. She had everything she’d thought she wanted and more.

Despite what the Erdlanders had been done to her, she could never hate them, not really. They were the reason she had this gift. Vaughn had been a means to an end, her body a sacrifice in exchange for her freedom, but looking at the drowsy eyes of their daughter, she felt no regret. As time passed, she even harbored a kind of nostalgia for the time she’d spent with Vaughn. Given time, could they have actually come to care for one another? In another world, where the differences between their races held less importance, she might have even allowed herself to really love him.

Her daughter drifted to sleep in her arms. “Sera,” she whispered, thinking fondly of her housefille who would never be allowed to have children of her own. “I think I’ll call you Serafay.”

Nilafay looked up to the sky, no longer so enamored with the moons as she once was. Instead the glittering stars that spread across the open expanse caught her attention. Their light rained down on her, sparkling in her daughter’s silver eyes like moon dust.

Avendui 5ive

originally published by Windrift Books in The Cyborg Chronicles

Two Weeks Ago

Fifteen minutes into her first dig, Avendui 5ive fell to her knees, and her newly installed shin-plates shifted, threatening to reopen the healing wound holding them in place.

Rina 5ive rolled her eyes. “Move it. You’re holding up the whole class.”

Nineteen years old and barely out of Ecumenical School, Avi was going to die lying in the dirt. The dim light of the tunnel flickered in her vision as she grasped at her throat. “I can’t breathe.”

Each breath she pulled in came faster and the dusty air filled her mouth, drying out her tongue before she could get the next lungful. She was drying out from the inside, her lungs filling with dirt and grime with each inhale, making it impossible to catch her breath.

“Just calm down. It takes a moment to get used to it, but you’re fine.” Rina stood next to her, arms crossed but offering her no aid as she lay on the ground. Just like a Tek.

The underground tunnel tilted on its side in her vision. The rest of the class stood around her, annoyed. Part of Avi was surprised they didn’t just leave her there and keep going on their trek below Mezna City. It’s not like she had any friends. Being an opinionated Tek didn’t win positive attention, and questions were discouraged. Teks did the work their series had been designed for, nothing more. No friends, no parents, no lovers. They may have been born people, as organic as any other, but the implants and coding they received had turned them into Teks. All function and form, no soul.

But Avi was broken. Not just because she couldn’t breathe, she’d been broken long before that. No matter how she tried to hide it, she couldn’t help feeling lucky. Because what the other Teks denied themselves, she’d found. Love.

And now, deep below the remains of Old Nuuk, Greenland, she was drowning in the dirt. As a 5ive, her series was tasked with tending the alien terraforming biotechnology that built the city. The streets, even the buildings, were a living, growing organism. Keeping it healthy meant keeping their home alive. The parasitic organism sent tendrils down through the layers of the Earth, seeking nutrients and minerals.

Her only function in life was to untangle tendrils that became knotted together and drill for nutrient veins. Her enhancements were supposed to help her function in high CO2 concentrations.

But the DNA and physical form alterations didn’t help Avi.

Pain clenched down around her chest. Her carbon lung must be malfunctioning. The pain of it radiated down her arm and the tighter the vice became, the harder she struggled to catch her breath. “I can’t…”

Black spots in Avi’s vision alternated with bright white flashes, and her entire body became heavy, as if engulfed in cryogel.

The lights went out.

* * *

“What do you mean I can’t see her?” Virgil 9ine roared at the massive Med-tek standing at the door of the 5ive Infirmary.

The large man backed up. Surprise widened his eyes as Virgil stepped closer, towering over him. The external fastenings and implanted tack access of the average Tek was unimpressive when compared to the strands of iron-fiber laced throughout Virgil’s 9ine Series flesh. And Virgil was the epitome of a 9ine. He had always been big, and his body took to the DNA recoding and alien Mezna biological compounds naturally. His implants healed quickly and his eyes shone the brightest blue of any of the Teks. Right now, they shone through the narrow eyes of a very pissed-off man.

Teks weren’t allowed to marry and weren’t supposed to pair off for more than the occasional release of sexual needs, but Avi had been there for him during the darkest times in his life, and he loved her more than he could imagine any species on any planet capable. All their hiding to keep from being discovered out of fear that one of them would be transferred out of Greenland meant nothing to him right now. Panic at knowing something had gone wrong in the tunnels and knowing she was here made him forget all the politics and rules. He had to know she was safe.

The guard squared his shoulders. “Only Med-teks and Upper 5ives are permitted inside the 5ive Infirmary.”

Virgil sneered and stepped closer still, the artificial light of the domed hall highlighting the patches of natural skin shining through the metal weave intertwined with his flesh. “I don’t think you understand. I’m going in there to see Avi and there isn’t much you can do about it.”

“Don’t threaten him.” Avi’s weak voice came from further inside the infirmary.

Virgil charged toward her voice and the Med-tek danced out of his way, disappearing down the hall.

When Virgil saw her laid out on the infirmary bed, needles in her arms and wearing a white tunic instead of the black the 5ive Series usually wore, his panic doubled. “I heard you passed out.”

“During our training.” She sighed and laid her head back on the pillow, black hair sticking out in a frizzy mess.

“Did your carbon lung not filter the air correctly?” He stood a foot away from her bed. Now that he could see her for himself, he remembered what was at risk if anyone knew what they meant to each other. He wanted to reach out and run a finger down the black access bar that bisected every Tek’s chest. Worry seeped into his pores as he scanned her system.

He’d tacked into the 3Spek information grid to pull up her medfile. The data scanned through his mind as he directed the search, finally pulling up her file and reading over it. He could skim the local drives without accessing the dataweave. Something they’d both sworn to never do. Not after Nelson.

“The Med-teks can’t find anything wrong.” She smiled and reached out a hand. “Stop searching the files, I can tell what you’re doing even if you aren’t accessing the data threads. Aren’t you going to come give me a physical? Maybe some mouth-to-mouth?”

Virgil frowned. “You aren’t funny.” He glanced around to see if anyone may have heard.

“You mean to tell me you berated that poor Med-tek into letting you in and now you aren’t even going to say hello properly?”

Virgil’s resolve crumbled. She’d charmed him, like he was the Serpent and she the beguiling Wasp. He came closer and sat on the very edge of the bed. When she reached for him, he scooped her up in his arms and held her as tight as he dared against his chest. Touching her, he could finally breathe again.

“When I heard you were here, I panicked. Mother Goddess, Avi, I was so scared.”

“I’m fine,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his impenetrable flesh.

Despite having metal woven into his skin, Avi’s kisses felt like the softest breath of spring air. Virgil lowered his head into her hair and took a deep breath before releasing her.

“So there’s nothing wrong with you?” Virgil placed a thick hand, engineered to hold heavy tools, on her stomach. The feather-shaped burn branded across the back reminded him of everything they had been through.

“Nothing. They don’t know what happened. It was awful, though.”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know, but none of the drills we did, none of the training in the basement tunnels, is anything like being down there. I don’t know if it’s the CO2 levels or not, but the earth, it smells. It’s damp and everything you touch flakes away, leaving a residue of grime against your skin. Dirt and grime. They’d always told us, so I knew what it would be like. I’d even touched organic dirt in the labs, but being down there, surrounded by nothing but roots and stone, it’s disgusting.”

Avi’s heart sped up and her breath quickened.

Virgil watched helplessly as her eyes darted around the room, dilated and fearful.

“Avi, I’m right here. You’re okay.”

“It’s so awful,” she cried.

“Shhhh.” He pulled her back to his chest, this time not caring who saw. “I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

6 Years Ago

The cafeteria swam with young bodies, all eager to partake in the holy festivities on the Feast of the Living Mother, to celebrate the ancient arrival of the Mezna on Earth. All the Series 2wos, 6ixes, and even the secluded 9ines, intermingled.

Twelve-year-old Virgil watched as the children in his series tried to make friends with the others. Usually the 9ines ate in the dorms, not even trying to socialize with the other Tek children. Virgil hated being separated from the others, but had always been too shy to try and approach any of the other Series’ kids.

Virgil watched as his precocious bunkmate approached a short-haired 6ix, the skin around her ocular implant puckered and pink. “Hi, I’m Nelson.”

Her one biological eye widened as she looked up, taking in Nelson’s size. She stepped back, panic on her face. Virgil could hear her breathing speed up, her pulse quicken, and her diaphragm contract. She was going to scream.

Virgil stepped forward, hands up to calm her, but before he got there, another girl stepped up. “Hi, I’m Avendui, but you can call me Avi. You’re a 9ine, right?”

Nelson’s face lit up as he held out his metal-laced hand shining in the light of the temple. “Yes. What gave it away?”

“Don’t talk to him,” the first girl whispered as Avi laughed. The girl’s gaze swept to Virgil. “Sweet Mother! You’re even bigger!”

Avi slapped her friend on the arm. “Don’t be so rude, Florence!”

“They’re freaks,” she said, turning her back and walking away in a huff.

Nelson’s face fell.

Virgil liked Nelson. He was always the first to offer to help the younger 9ines when they moved into the bunkroom with the older kids and never minded taking the time to talk to someone. Virgil didn’t have any siblings, none of the Teks did. They had all been abandoned and taken in by the temple. But if he could pick one person to be his brother, it would be Nelson. It broke his heart to see anyone to be so cruel to him.

“You aren’t a freak,” Virgil said, placing an adult-sized hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Of course you aren’t,” Avi said, her hands balled up in fists. Anger permeated her words as she whispered something Virgil himself had always thought but had never been brave enough to say. “It’s bad enough the people in the city treat us like slaves. We shouldn’t turn on each other.”

“Be careful, if the priests hear you, you’ll get recogged.” Virgil reached up and ran a finger along the black veins running under the skin of his skull. His short blond hair did nothing to hide his biomechanical enhancement.

“I’m Nelson, this is Virgil.” Nelson reached out a meaty hand to Avi and she took it, her own small hand disappearing inside his grip. Instead of recoiling or being repulsed, she laid her other hand on top of his and smiled.

“How old are you?”

“Ten,” Nelson said.

“I’m twelve,” Virgil added, not wanting the girl to forget he was there too.

“Well, I’m thirteen and I’m hungry. Let’s get some chorizos, they look amazing.” Avi kept Nelson’s hand and led the boys toward the conveyer belt filled with delicacies they never ate in the dorms. No bland sandwiches or soupy oatmeal at this meal.

Avi spoke as they took trays and walked the line, picking treats to savor. “I met an upper 4our last week who said they’ve been growing the ingredients for baklava in the hydrofarms since last year. You know they can detect the nutritional value of anything they smell? And they can determine any mineral deficiencies just by touching the plants.”

“Sure, that’s what 4ours are for,” Virgil said, trying to sound older, like he knew all about the other series’ duties.

Avi frowned and turned toward him. “And that’s all they are?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never talked to one.”

“Don’t talk about them like they’re furniture.”

“I didn’t mean…I’m sorry.”

Avi walked away from the boys toward the crowded tables.

“What’d you do that for?” Nelson hissed.

They followed Avi to an open table and sat down. Virgil didn’t know what to say. Should he apologize? He’d probably look even stupider.

“Do you get to go out in the city much?” Nelson asked as he shoveled chocolate soy pudding into his mouth.

Avi’s eyes shot at Virgil. “Why? Curious about what the 5ives do in their free time?”

“No,” Nelson mumbled around his food.

“Why don’t you go sit with the other 9ines? You’re just like everyone else.” She gathered her utensils and started to stand, but Virgil reached out and grabbed her hand.

“I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I don’t know any 4ours. Until now I didn’t know any 5ives. No one wants to talk to us.”

“Because we’re freaks even in this madhouse,” Nelson added.

“All the other Teks are afraid of us. Will you please eat with us? It’s nice talking to you.”

Avi narrowed her eyes and sat back down with a huff. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Virgil.

He felt like he was being dissected, like she had tacked directly into his brain to evaluate his thoughts. Her gaze made his cheeks heat and he had to look away before he started babbling every musing that had ever crossed his mind. Something about her made him want to talk, and he had never been one to say much.

“Assuming Teks are nothing more than their series is such a simian cognition,” she finally said, accusation and blasphemy falling from her lips in tandem. “It’s the same thing as the others thinking you’re freaks. Are you just big gorillas or is there more to you under all that mass?”

Nelson stuffed another bite of sweets into his mouth and Virgil looked down at his hand. He opened it and laid it on the table, palm up. The metal fibers woven through his skin danced across the calluses already thickening from hard labor.

“I want to be more than this.” He whispered it, like a vow.

“You already are.” Avi reached out and wrapped both her tiny hands around his one large one. Her delicate fingers traced along the veins and wrinkles of his palms.

He may have had the body of an adult, but the twelve-year-old heart beating inside his chest leapt at her touch.

3 Years Ago

Avendui snuck down the dormitory halls. Her black tunic and loose pants made it easy to move quickly and hide in the shadows when the guards or nuns passed by. That and no one ever expected a Tek to be out past curfew.

Her sensitive blue eyes took in the shadowy movements through each door’s small window. 5ives all had enhanced vision thanks to genome sequencing and feline cells spliced with their own cells. Every now and then, one of the 5ives would come back from a med upgrade with a tinge of yellow in their otherwise uniform blue eyes, and it always gave her a sense of an oncoming storm. There was something not quite right about the Tek system. Something she couldn’t completely place her finger on.

She tiptoed around another corner, heading deeper into the building where the nuns slept. Where were the 9ines? Virgil had sent a message to her that morning to come see him as soon as she could get away. Waiting never had been her strong suit, but too many people had already seen them together and rumors were flying through the dorms. Even cyborg teenagers had nothing better to do than gossip about each other’s love lives. Plus, it wasn’t like that. There was something about Virgil she trusted.

When she found his note under the leg of the cafeteria table, a place she could easily check, but hard for him to get to, she knew it had to be something serious. Why else would he risk the evidence of a note? And one asking her to be out after curfew!

Avi’s mind spun as she approached a door at the end of a hall. She was exposed, standing there in the middle of the hallway leaning up to look through the window. Why was she risking so much to talk to someone everyone else feared? Why bother with Virgil or any of the 9ines? She honestly didn’t know, but she couldn’t seem to stop.

Beyond the window, the dark room glowed with the moonlight drifting in through the barred windows. She could make out rows of large beds along one wall. Two or three kids could easily sleep in one of them, but these all held only one of the oversized 9ines.

Virgil had moved to the Upper Tek dorm last month.

She wondered if he liked it better than being with the little kids. She missed the lower dorms.

In the back of the room, a large, dark figure shifted and looked right at her. His blue eyes caught the moonlight and sparkled. She imagined that’s what the oceans used to look like, before they’d turned brown and acidic.

Virgil gave her a half smile and moved through the room to the door. Despite his size, he had a gracefulness about him as he maneuvered around the furniture and clutter on the dorm floor.

Avi kicked herself for being surprised. Even she fell so easily into the assumptions about the other series Teks. She hated when someone called her a worm or dirt-dweller, but then she turned around and did the same thing to Virgil, someone she knew didn’t deserve the reputation of a 9ine. He wasn’t cruel or stupid or clumsy. He wasn’t just brute force, no matter what the priests had done to his body.

She ran a fingertip along the scar of her most recent surgery: mineral and nutrient sensors implanted in the palm of her left hand and tied into her internal neural weave through the conduits running throughout her body. The priests had done plenty to all of them.

“Avi,” Virgil whispered as he slipped through the door. In the hall, his bright white tunic and matching pants shone under the dim lights.

She giggled, pointing to his clothes. “You’re glowing.”

“I didn’t think of that.” He hurried back inside the dorm and returned with a thin gray blanket wrapped around his hulking shoulders. “Better?”

“Definitely.”

“Come on.” Virgil took her hand and the sensor in her palm automatically worked to break down the mineral content of his skin. Iron, magnesium, sodium, potassium, silicone…The names ran through her mind by concentration level. The steel fibers didn’t harden his grip though. She wondered for a moment if the iron levels in his skin could be poisonous.

In the distance, the heavy footsteps of Series 9ine guards headed in their direction.

“In here,” she said, ducking into a med-sensor closet where the data files for all the biodata the grid collected on the Teks was stored.

Virgil gripped her hand and held his breath.

Standing so close to him, Avi could practically taste the metal infused in his sweat. She leaned in, letting her shoulder rest against his chest.

The sound of boots climbed to a crescendo and then passed by.

Avi let out a breath and slumped against Virgil. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight, dropping his chin to the top of her head.

“Thank the Mother,” he whispered into her hair.

Avi pulled away and placed a hand on his chest. He looked the same as always. Bright blue eyes, close-cropped brown hair, and strong features. She’d grown up since they met, filling in and growing strong from training to work underground in the mines, but he never changed. Always kind, always steady.

Avi reached up and stood on her tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth.

Virgil backed away, slamming into the rows of data storage units.

“We’re hiding, remember?” she whispered through a smile. “Be quiet.”

“Why did you do that?” he asked, touching his mouth with the tips of the fingers on his right hand.

“I was curious.”

He stared at her, eyes wide, breath short. She’d never seen him rattled before.

“Did I do something wrong?” The idea that she’d humiliated herself in front of her only real friend terrified her. What if he stopped talking to her? What if he stopped meeting her eyes after work shifts or during events? Could she survive here without him?

She opened her mouth to apologize. She’d just turned sixteen and had never been kissed. It didn’t mean anything. But before the words came, Virgil stepped close and dipped his head down. His face hovered barely an inch from hers and her breath caught when his eyes darkened and dipped down to her lips.

He ran his hand through her hair and kissed her.

He tasted like the air before a toxstorm, metallic and dark.

When he pulled away he took her hand again and opened the door back to the main hall.

Her mind whirled. Virgil had kissed her. Well, she’d kissed him first, technically, but hers had been a peck, a trial run. His had felt so much more real.

Virgil led her through the halls, quickly navigating through the maze of the Tek dorms. All the while, he held her hand and she followed, mind spinning. Soon they arrived at the maintenance hub, where spare Tek parts and repairs were handled.

“Why are we here?” The large room echoed her whisper.

“I was here last week for a neurocheck and saw a 3hree get led in. Her eyes were white, like she’d tacked into 3Spek, but she didn’t respond to anything. The Med-teks hurried her into a back room and when I asked what happened, they ignored my question.”

“She was walking around tacked in?”

“Yeah, but not really, more like they were leading her in the right direction. Like she wasn’t even there. When I asked the Upper 9ine who does our training, she grabbed my arm so hard I bruised and told me not to bring it up again. Avi, I’ve never had a bruise before.”

The darkness in the room took on an ominous tone and Avi swore she could hear whispers from the corners. It was probably the air vents and her imagination, but she grabbed Virgil’s hand tighter and stepped closer to him, his large body providing comforting warmth.

“Definitely weird, but why are we here?”

“Nelson.”

Virgil dropped her hand and walked further into the room. He passed the series-specific bays and continued on to a door Avi had never paid much attention to. She’d written it off as a supply closet or some other useless storage area because no one ever used it.

He gripped the handle but it wouldn’t budge. Mournful eyes looked back at her before he jerked it, his arm bulging with strength.

The 9ines were strong. They were built to carry, construct, and destroy. Their very DNA was coded by the priests for that purpose, but Avi had never seen Virgil display it before. Sometimes in the distance, she’d seen other 9ines loading transport ships or felling trees that had encroached into the terraformed city, but up close, the sheer power of him shocked her.

“It’s solid,” he said.

“Then break it. Don’t hold back because of me.”

His eyes darkened and she knew he didn’t want to.

“I’m not afraid of you, Virgil.”

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and gripped the handle with both hands.

She stepped back, unsure of what would happen if he managed to get the door to move.

Virgil closed his eyes, repositioned his hands, and in a smooth, almost liquid movement, hunched down and wrenched the door off its hinges. His body swung around, the door propelling through the air, but Virgil hung on, controlling its trajectory and using his momentum to bring it silently to the ground.

“Wow.”

Virgil shrugged and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Avi stepped closer again and placed a hand on his arm. The muscles beneath her touch rolled as if trying to escape her. “You’re amazing.”

He stepped away and gestured to the gaping door. “Let’s go.”

Beyond the door, a dim hallway led further into the temple than she’d been before. While Virgil didn’t frighten her, the priests did. Their absolute control and rule over the city left no room for disobedience. “Nelson’s in trouble?”

“Yes.”

She may not know what to believe about why the Mezna had created the Series Teks—if they were truly a realization of the gifts the Holy Mother had bestowed on humanity like the nuns taught, or if they were nothing more than bioTek freaks like the people of the city whispered when they walked by—but she did know that for Virgil to risk being found together at night and to rip open a door, he must be scared. And nothing scared him. Not the prospect of being sent to the satellite cities circling in space above Earth, not mining the Moon, not even being strapped down and flooded with radiation while Mezna DNA was pumped into his bloodstream. In the years she’d known him, this was the only time she’d ever seen him afraid.

That alone convinced her body to follow him into the darkness.

“Nelson’s been exploring the deep grid, trying to hack into the Tek assignments. He doesn’t get along with the other 9ines. They all treat him like he’s weak because he’s quiet. My assignment is coming up next year and he’s been constantly worried I’d be shipped out of Greenland.”

She reached for his hand and entwined her small fingers with his. It hadn’t occurred to her that Virgil might leave. The thought knocked her sideways, like a tsunami crashing to the shore, and she felt like she had to hold on to him to keep from being swept out to sea.

“I told him it didn’t matter. Even if he found out, they would still do what they wanted. They never listen to us. But he kept digging, slipping deeper and deeper. Every night he’d tack in after curfew and spend most of the night in 3Spek trying to trace the lines of the weave. But yesterday morning he didn’t get up. He’d been tacked in all night and I couldn’t wake him. He didn’t respond at all. No reactions, and the worst part was he didn’t even have reflexes at all. One of the others tried to pull him up and he fell to the floor. We called the Med-teks and they hauled him away, exactly like the 3hree, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“And you think he’s here?”

“I don’t know, but no one will tell me anything, and when I checked the infirmary he wasn’t there. I tried tacking in, but there’s no record of him at all now. It’s like he’d never been here, and I’m afraid to slip down into the grid to search…”

“You think this could happen to you?”

“I don’t know.” He stopped walking and turned to her, his body close and imposing. “But what if there are more of them? The way the Med-teks acted, it was like this wasn’t a surprise. In one week I’ve seen a 3hree and a 9ine slip into some kind of catatonia. What if that could happen to any of us?”

The gray blanket draped over his shoulders hid his body from her. He melted into the shadows like a specter. Night inside the temple gave her the creeps. She wondered if the Great Mother could see them sneaking around. Was it blasphemy to disobey the priests’ rules if they did it in the pursuit of truth? Was it a sin to seek answers for a friend?

Virgil seemed to sense her hesitation. His bright blue eyes glinted in the dim light radiating from the terraformed walls around them. She imagined this was what it felt like to be underwater, to be surrounded. What kind of world had this been when people could swim in the oceans without fear of acid burns or poisonous worms? What kind of world could it be if people would stop sorting each other?

“You’re worried,” Virgil said.

“I’m scared.”

“No, not you. Not Avi the fearless, the great defier of nuns.” He smirked, but his eyes didn’t reflect the humor in his voice.

Avi took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes at him, feigning a strength she didn’t feel. “Shut up, let’s go.”

He took her hand back in his and gave it a squeeze. This time, instead of the jolt of electricity she usually felt at their touch, she felt warmth reach out and wrap around her, as if he’d pulled her close and covered her shoulders with his blanket as well. She felt protected.

At the end of the hall they turned left and found the door to a brightly-lit room. The door was closed, but white light shone out from below the door and through a small window.

“They must have everything turned on high,” Virgil said.

“That’s not high, that’s solar flare high.”

He reached out for the door but a spark arced between his hand and the knob. Blue light snapped in the air and singed his skin.

Avi grabbed his hand and inspected it, leaning close. She could smell his flesh, and the skin on his hand had a black mark. It looked like a branch of a tree or a bolt of lightning. She traced it with her finger and Virgil’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t pull away. “It hurts?”

He nodded, mouth set hard.

“It’s kind of beautiful though.”

He let out a breath and tilted his head. “You never stop saying things that surprise me.”

“That’s why you like me so much.”

“One of the many reasons.” His smile heated its way through her and she looked away. The memory of their stolen kiss warmed her lips and she wished, not for the first time, that they had met out in the city, as normal people instead of in the temple, sorted and coded to spec.

She dropped his hand and reached for the door.

“Wait.” He reached for her, but she placed her hand on the knob without issue.

“It must be the metal in your skin,” she said, and if Virgil could blush under all those layers of woven iron, she was sure he was doing it now.

She opened the door and stopped, unable to step inside the room. The glare blinded her for a moment, but as she adjusted, the white on white features of the room came into focus. The room was circular. Tack stations and tekmods were lined up around the edge. In the middle, a thick column of white and translucent wires with blue light racing through them hung from the ceiling. At the base of the column was a ring of chairs.

Virgil stepped close behind her as she took in the faces of the Teks seated around the column of wire and tek. They had ports connected to the cog implants on the sides of their heads, the black veins exposed thanks to the careful shaving of the hair around them.

A 6ix sat in front of them, his metallic ocular implant pulsing with deep blue light as the wires connected to his head mirrored the syncopated rhythm.

Virgil dropped the blanket covering his shoulders and stepped into the room. His white tunic blended into the glaring light and his skin seemed to shimmer, the light so strong it picked up on the weave of metal running through his flesh.

He moved as if in a daze, his feet floating forward, carrying him closer.

She wanted to stop him, to call him back, but the room stole her voice just as it had stolen the souls of those sitting before them.

Virgil walked through the room, his eyes resting on each Tek as he approached them. A 6ix, a 3hree, an 8ight, another 3hree. Directly across from where Avi stood transfixed, he stopped. A noise choked out from him, not a cry, not a word. Something else more horrible than anything she had ever heard.

Her feet moved her forward. She raced toward him, wanting to take away whatever pain raced through his body. As she neared, she realized what he was looking at.

Nelson sat rigid in a metal chair, his head shaved, wires attached to the black veins running along the right side. More wires were attached at the base of his skull. His already pale flesh shone in the pulsing blue light running along the conduits connecting him to the other Teks and the tree of wires and technology running up to the ceiling.

“What is this?” she whispered. There was no reason to be quiet, no one else would be here at this time of night, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak any louder. It seemed disrespectful, like screaming at the dead.

“This is 3Spek.” Virgil pointed to Nelson’s open eyes. The blue irises had rolled back in his head; only the very edge showed beneath his eyelid. The white vacancy of his gaze filled her with dread.

“That’s not 3Spek. It’s on servers. Storage Tek.”

Virgil shook his head and placed one large hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “Let’s get him out of here.”

She thought she heard him sniff, but didn’t say anything. She bit the inside of her cheek and stepped toward Nelson’s slack face. She ran one hand over his head, searching for other wires. Around the back, the thick conduit was attached to a port at the top of his spine. The flesh around it was red and swollen.

“This is new. Someone just put this in.”

Virgil kept one hand on Nelson’s shoulder and peered around at where she pointed. “Can you unplug it?”

“I don’t know. What if it ports into his nervous system? I mean, what happens if we unplug him without knowing what we’re doing?” Her voice rose as the possible ramifications washed over her. “He could end up braindead, or worse.”

“What’s worse than this?” Virgil wrapped his fist around the collection of wires running into Nelson’s spine and pulled. One by one they slipped out with a squelch, wires moving through muscle and flesh.

Nelson’s back arched, his head tilted back, and when the last wire unplugged, he gave out a loud sigh.

“Nelson?” Virgil hunched in front of his friend, searching the white eyes for a response.

Avi checked his pulse and peered into the now oozing port. Translucent yellow liquid globbed around the opening, thickening as it dripped down Nelson’s back, staining his white tunic.

Virgil grabbed the wires hooked into Nelson’s cog implants.

“Wait, that’s his brain. You can’t rip that out.”

“Why not? If it kills him, at least we know he’s really gone, not sitting here like this.”

One of Nelson’s arms twitched.

Then the other.

He took in a deep breath, followed by another.

And then the rest of the room’s occupants joined him. The collection of ported Teks gasped in unison. Their speed increased and the blue lights from the wires flickered so quickly they appeared to be flying through the air.

“Nelson? Can you hear me?” she asked.

“We have to do this now.”

“Nelson?” His irises flickered into view. Sad blue eyes stared at her and his mouth opened and closed without a sound.

Virgil pulled the wires connected to his cog implant and pulled.

Nelson’s body slumped forward.

Virgil stared, the wires still dangling from his hand. “Nelson?”

Avi reached for their friend, but when she touched him, he fell to the side, his body limp against Virgil.

On cue, the rest of the group stopped their synchronized breathing and slumped forward in their chairs, the blue lights dimmed, leaving only black and translucent wires hanging in the now silent room.

“No.” Virgil dropped the evidence of what he’d done, leaving it to dangle from the ceiling, swinging from side to side without purpose.

“We have to leave.” She grabbed Virgil and pulled on his arm.

“No!” he roared, jerking away from her and grabbing Nelson’s body. “Nelson! Come on, come on! You have to get up. We can get you out of here.”

“Virgil…” The lights in the room dimmed slightly and the Tek consoles on the perimeter of the room pinged as they booted up. The sound of old-fashioned gears turning filled the room and soon an alarm shrieked overhead. “We have to go.”

Virgil knelt and held Nelson in his arms. Two oversized boys without family.

Avi pulled Nelson away, letting his body slump to the ground.

“What are you doing?” Virgil lashed out, hate and pain filling his eyes with tears.

“I don’t want you to join him. Get up, now.”

“I can’t leave him. This is wrong. All of this. How could they?”

“Who? The priests? The Mezna? The other Teks? You don’t even know who did this or why. You don’t know anything. But I do. I know that if you don’t haul your ass out of here, you’re going to get plugged into that monstrosity or sent to mine on the lunar surface or some other punishment that’s going to take you away from me. And I hate seeing Nelson like this, but I can’t survive it here if I lose you too.”

“I can’t.”

“I need you, Virgil. I need you to get up, because I’m not leaving without you.”

He tilted his head up so she could see the blue beneath his watery eyes.

“Come on,” she soothed. “Come with me. I’ll take care of you.”

He sniffed and nodded.

Together they ran down the halls, hiding in plain sight as chaos erupted in the temple.

At the door of his dorm, she kissed both his eyes and then his mouth. Not the passion-filled intermingling of desires from earlier in the night, but the kiss of someone who knows your darkest secret, and loves you anyway.

Now

“I have to go back down tomorrow. My medical leave and begged delays are over,” Avi forced herself to say into the smooth skin on Virgil’s chest. She lay next to him on the floor of the med-sensor closet. Years ago, they’d pushed the shelves away from the back wall and made themselves a hiding place.

“You’ll do fine. The tunnels are safe, they’re all reinforced.”

“It’s not that.” She traced the hard line of the access bar bisecting his chest.

“What is it, then? Are you afraid of the dark?” He reached over and dug his thick fingers into her ribs, making her squeal and pull away from his warmth.

“No.”

“What, then?”

“It’s the smell. The petrichor seeps under my skin and I feel like I’m drowning in it. There’s so much dirt. I forget sometimes how big the planet is. There are only a handful of Mezna cities and even fewer human reservations left, but there’s all this wild open space—the Acid Seas, the Feral Wilds. It gives me the creeps, and being under there, it’s like you’re a part of all that.”

“You think too much,” Virgil teased before frowning and pulling her tight against his body. “Don’t fitz out again. That scared me.”

“Me too.” She nuzzled close and let herself drift off, breathing in the metallic tang of Virgil.

In the morning, Avi trudged to the tunnels. It took all her effort not to hide and pretend she wasn’t a 5ive at all, that she could get a job out in the city and come home at night to Virgil’s smile. All her life she’d fought against being categorized, against being nothing more than her series designation, but now that’s what it all came down to. There were no other options for her. She would never live anywhere but Nuuk and she would never be anything but a 5ive.

The smell hit her before she could see the stairwell that led into the 5ive Center. There she’d get her first work assignment and take the lift down into the depths of the earth. The center was white and pristine, like the rest of the city. But no matter how hard the terraformed walls and ground worked to keep the room clean, absorbing all the dust and gravel the Teks carried on their clothes and shoes, it could never get rid of the smell.

“Avendui 5ive,” she said, introducing herself to the 5ive holding a vidscreen. She waited until he acknowledged her.

“You’re in the depths, so you’ll be bunking below tonight.”

“This is my first day back.”

The Tek raised an eyebrow and snorted. “So?”

She took a deep breath, but felt faint. She took another, too fast. Too much oxygen flooded her system. She needed to breathe. The room felt full, everyone’s voice rising to a volume that drilled inside her brain. Her skin itched and tingled and every thought ended abruptly as the next one interrupted. All the while, a chant of ‘in the depths’ swirled through her mind.

“I can’t…” She gasped, the white ceiling brightened as she looked up, and for a moment she thought she was flying. The world became soft and gentle like a cloud as she drifted, and she’d never have to think about anything but Virgil again. Maybe they could live in the Greenland Human Reservation. He’d stand out because of his size, but she could hide her exo-implants if she wore long pants.

And then everything went black.

* * *

Virgil stood outside the Upper 5ive dorm for two days.

He didn’t eat.

He didn’t leave when the guards threatened him with their sparking blue staffs.

They were smaller than him anyway, so he felt no threat.

On the third day, one of the nuns brought him water and asked if he’d like a chair.

“No, thank you, Sister. I’ll wait like this.”

“She’s not here,” the nun said, confirming what everyone else had told him.

“I’ll wait until she comes back.”

When the nun left, Virgil placed the glass of water on the ground and resumed his wait.

On the fourth day, Virgil felt faint. He hadn’t left his spot except for the rare trip to the bathroom. He needed food. No matter how strong his body had been coded, every creature needed sustenance to survive.

Virgil clenched his fists. He wouldn’t leave until someone told him where Avi had been taken.

She’d never returned from her first day below. Virgil had worried but knew she might be tired. After a few days he checked 3Spek to see if she’d been admitted to the infirmary again. He should have known right away, he’d set up an alert, but maybe it had faltered. He slipped into the weave, deeper than he had since they’d lost Nelson, but couldn’t find her anywhere. It wasn’t until the next week that his panic set him on this ridiculous course of action. No one cared if one 9ine stood sentry forever outside the Upper 5ive dorms. No one cared if he starved to death. There were other 9ines lined up to replace him. Moving, exchangeable parts. That’s all they were.

Avi had tried to tell him that so many times, but he’d never understood until she was gone.

That night, he sat on the floor, his long legs stretched out before him, filling the entire hall. He nodded off as the darkness overtook him and roused to a gentle touch on his shoulder.

“Brother 9ine,” a soft voice beckoned him from his sleep. It sounded like her, his Avi, but she had never been soft. She had always been the strong one.

He opened his eyes to find a young nun sitting before him with a full blue habit covering her from head to toe. She kept her eyes down but he knew they were blue, like every other person whose DNA was laced with Mezna biology.

“Sorry, sister. Am I in the way?” He wiped the sleep from his eyes, trying to focus his vision. The young nun looked like…

“No, Brother 9ine, you are fine. The Order asked me to see to your needs. Should I bring you food?”

Virgil stared. The tiny body he knew so well hid between layers of fabric, and her face had none of the sharp curiosity he’d always loved, but somewhere inside, he knew what had happened to her.

“Avi?” He reached out for her veil.

“Brother!” She jumped out of the way, stopping him from pushing back her headdress so he could see if her head had been shaven, if the telltale black veins ran beneath the thin skin of her skull. Nuns were supposed to be free of biotek, but he knew it was her.

The nun attempted to stand, but as she did, she tripped on the edge of her skirt and tumbled backwards, the fabric pulling up and exposing her metal plated shins.

“Avi?” Her name sliced him like razors as it slipped from his mouth.

“No, you have me confused with someone else.”

And then she looked at him, directly in the eye. No spark of recognition. No lingering look or secret smile to tell him she remembered who he was. Who she was. Who they had been.

Avendui 5ive had been recogged and would never know him again.

Tamara Vardomskaya

The Metamorphoses of Narcissus

Scott H. Andrews

* * *

I lay on the drowned grand piano, naked, my head that of a chess-horse, my hands and feet stumps oozing black-green blood onto the keys.

“Beautiful!” the voice I knew so well thundered above me. “Beautiful! Come here, Oinhoa, I am sheer genius.”

“Isn’t she…uncomfortable?” a gentler contralto responded.

“Why would that matter?”

And it didn’t matter. This was not my blood; it was but part of glamorous transfiguration. I was beautiful, or I believed I was. What did it matter, the beauty a woman was born with, my long fair hair that was now a wooden horse’s mane, my hands and feet that had once moved in the dance so skillfully? Beauty was a construction, a blueprint geniuses dictate to mere mortals who could not know for themselves what it meant.

I had come to the Royal Conservatory of Halispell as a mere girl from the border provinces with a talent for dancing, with the faint hope of finding a genius mentor and inspiring him—it was undoubtedly a ‘he’—to re-shape me, to transfigure me, into something other than the raw material of a Hestland village girl.

Fool that I was, I had thought the mentoring would be in dance.

The woman who had stood in a corner near the stage and watched me dance at my first year-end recital had seemed nothing extraordinary. Her simple pale-blue dress made her merely a splash of color from the stage, something to spot on when I spun, my head always returning to that splash to keep from losing balance and orientation. After the recital, when I was basking in the applause—not as much as for the true stars of the class, I knew; I was at the time a second-rank dancer, and I nurtured the hope of a mentor to send me to the first ranks—when she approached me, the face above the blue dress was plain, lacking classical features, and she moved like one untrained, her posture that of a pine tree among the slender palms that were my fellow dancers.

“I am Oinhoa,” she said, and the name triggered a vague familiarity. “You danced beautifully, and you have a beautiful body. My husband wishes to speak to you. Would you join us at the Butterfly for a glass of wine tonight?”

The Butterfly Lounge was a bit far from my lodging, and more dear than my student stipend’s means. She must have spotted my quickly-masked dread. “It will be on us, of course. My husband is very interested.”

“Who is your husband?” I asked, and immediately felt like an ignorant provincial at her look of surprise.

“You’ve heard of Avardi, I’m sure? The…” still smiling, she seemed to search for an adequate word, and finally settled on “…artist?”

And now only focusing on her blue dress once more kept me from losing balance and orientation. Every man and woman at the Conservatory read Arts Today, and Avardi’s face was on this month’s cover in full glamour, shifting from himself to the breathtaking transfigurations he wrought. Here was a man who knew no veneration or limits, who proudly declared that he would not just challenge but annihilate the fossilizing artistic traditions. We girls had quickly passed the magazine around in the dressing room, whispering at the dynamic-captures, before the dance artistic director, gracefully withered as a century-old lemon tree, furiously confiscated it.

But even before I had seen any of his art, I had read the old men in the monochrome papers railing that the moral fiber of our youths would be destroyed by this Avardi-ism; he had replied with “Moral Fiber,” a mocking composition of oat bran, excrement, and naked models that even Arts Today had not dared to print a picture of, but we all wanted to see.

He had his choice of models, of performers in his static and dynamic transfigurations, the girls had whispered; he could choose the best. So this was his muse, the woman who had left the richest man in Europa for him, whom he adored such that he signed his own works, “Oinhoa-Avardi,” taking her name with his.

The taxicab slowed before the fire-opal facade of the Butterfly, but my heart and stomach kept going faster. My only presentable dress, a simple black one, seemed all the more drab in these glittering lights, and I imagined that perspiration that my lightning-fast sponge bath had missed was still painting the crevices of my skin. In the few seconds I had before I had to follow the cool, confident Oinhoa out of the cab, I surreptitiously rubbed my calves because I’d had no time for a proper cooldown. Who was I, a dancer good enough to be accepted to the Royal Conservatory, good enough to have small solos, but clearly not among those destined for stardom? I had heard my teachers comment that I might make it as a corps dancer, fated to transform into one of a faceless mass with one objective: to be the same as all others.

As all other details of the inside of the Butterfly Lounge turned into a faceless mass in my mind when at the corner table I saw Avardi himself, real to the last hair.

If a small corner of my mind did note that he was shorter than I had imagined, and his voice was overly loud and had an unpleasant grating edge, the rest of me overrode that. His costume, a robe from an Eastern priest of three hundred years ago, the pantaloons of a Caltavan lord from four hundred, and shoes of crystal and paper from the imagined far distant future, clashed defiantly with the Butterfly’s aristocratic decor and decorum. I remember little of what actually happened that evening, except how seahorses and crab claws had sprouted out of Oinhoa’s dress and my own, how the wine had flowed like blood and my body wanted to dance to its pulse more than to the music, and how my heart had raced, wanting to itself break free of chrysalis and spread wings into the wind.

I could not sleep that night and was late to rehearsal, the first of many I was late to before I started missing them altogether. What did it matter, the endless practicing of stag leaps and wolf spins and peacock poses to the tinkling of a grand piano, when I had been the stag and the wolf and the peacock and the grand piano, had been them at the bottom of the sea and in midden heaps and in rivers of cheese and when kissing a basilisk and an icosahedron while hanging by my ribcage from the pendulum of a clock? In contrast with the color of the Avardi studios, of the sea cliffs and the city ports where he created his transfigurations, with the flashing of capture-bulbs from the swarming journalists of the arts and culture worlds, the Conservatory where before I had so yearned to merit dissolving into the corps was grey and drab and empty. One would call it a soulless land of machines, but I knew what soul Avardi could breathe into machines. It was the old putrefying art of choreography, representing the hollow rotten legacy of the centuries, and exactly what Avardi fought against.

And so I got my stipend suspended, and then myself expelled, for the Royal Conservatory of Halispell had no space even in its corps for dancers who did not deign to learn the choreography. I slept now in a corner of Avardi’s studio, thinking my blanket on the floor superior to the entire room I previously had. I would spend the time when he wasn’t transfiguring me holding the tools for his series of transfigurational portraits of Nimrod, the new president of Caltava. This new head of state had not yet joined the others in paying his respects, but his genius at social transformation in his country, razing ancient mansions to raise new towering public buildings and erasing hereditary classes to affirm a meritocracy for all Caltavans, fascinated Avardi as akin to his own genius at transfigurational art; he even dropped hints of perhaps going to Caltava himself.

There was no shame in expulsion, Oinhoa told me quietly, herself ensuring that there was enough food left from their meals for me. Avardi himself had been expelled from the Academy of Arts when he was younger, and from the Transfigurationists’ Guild a few years ago, soon after his first cover of Arts Today.

She did not say why, and I did not ask. I knew it was because the Academy’s and Guild’s minds had been lead-sealed as coffins against his new Art. Now he was on the covers of Arts Today and with kings and presidents and dynamic-picture magnates queuing to shake his hand, and where were they? I was right to expel myself from that cocoon.

Now, in front of the arts critics whom the first-rank girls in my classes would have tied themselves into double knots to dance for, I stood, smiling, motionless in full arabesque, wearing nothing but a bandage binding my breasts, while Avardi explained to them that breasts can be detached from the concept of beauty, a woman without breasts, see, was still as beautiful. I would smile, my muscles taut as for a dance, still always keeping my eyes on Oinhoa’s simple colored dresses, so as not to lose my balance and orientation.

The critics, though, seemed inattentive that evening, in the grand hall with the gurgling chocolate fountain; the roast pig, apple in its mouth as customary, seemed the only eye that met mine. Avardi was unveiling to them his new project, an exploration of beauty, a ripping of it apart and reassembling in a whole new way for this new world. “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus,” it was called, after the ancient transfiguration of that beautiful hero. There had been many other projects of his, he declaimed in his crowd-cutting glass-shaking voice, tying to that period of history before humans learned to control transfiguration: Actaeon turning into a stag (I had been that stag), and Daphne into a laurel tree (I had been that laurel tree), and Io becoming a cow (that project had used another model, which made me sick with envy as he brought it up, yet I kept smiling). But the metamorphosis of Narcissus was one particularly dear to his heart. “For am I not a narcissist myself?”

Yet for once, the big men and women in their suits and ties and dresses transfigured in order to grow the currently fashionable lilies were not fascinated by his glamour, or my beauty. Perhaps the lack of breasts does change a woman for the worse, but it was not a more beautiful woman they looked at, nor even at their wine and untouched chocolate and roast pig.

Instead, they kept glancing towards the doors, their eyes following the messengers who would glide in, trying to be unobtrusive, and hand Hyacinthus Rudaikins, the editor-in-chief of Arts Today, a small note with the farwriting office stamp. I had rarely seen guests receive messages during such events before, and I could not recall ever seeing the guests unfold the messages immediately. But Rudaikins’s taut posture seemed to defy anyone who would dare censure him for breach of etiquette.

My curiosity was cracking through my identity as a work of art. Instead of looking at Oinhoa’s dress I looked at the farwriting forms, each one trembling more than the last in Hyacinthus’s large hands.

“It is a work that at last breaks the shell of being human, of being material,” Avardi thundered, for the first time audibly straining to regain the centre of attention, “and strips away our limitations, makes us one with Art. Makes us one with Art!” he repeated. “Makes us…”

Hyacinthus threw down the last note, the hasty scribble on it ending in a blotch of ink. “Ladies and gentlemen. Nimrod has just invaded Hestland.” The editor-in-chief seemed not to need any effort at all to suddenly drown out the artist’s cry, even in as terrifyingly calm a voice as he had then, flat and still as the water reflecting Narcissus, and as uncaring. “Fifteen villages have been air-bombed in the last hour. There may be three thousand people dead.”

I tried to stay focused on Oinhoa’s splash of pale blue, to stay Art, not a shell-bound, limited human.

“Tanks are rolling towards Halispell. We are at war.”

* * *

My parents were killed in the first bombing of the invasion. After I had barely written to them in the past year, brief and vague, never mentioning Avardi. I sobbed helplessly as I re-read my mother’s last letter from the week before, she still so blithely convinced that I was becoming a dancing star. She died never knowing that her daughter had lain naked in front of a genius, with the full complicity of his wife. (Though we had never touched each other. My adoration of him was something beyond sex, and he would no sooner carnally desire me than he would a block of wood or marble.)

Perhaps it was better that way. I do not know.

Avardi’s home and studio, and he himself, were commandeered by the War Office. He was sent away to apply the art of transfiguration to hide potential targets from the bombers. I could prove no connection to him or Oinhoa that would let me follow them, and I did not have the spirits to try.

I volunteered as a nurse, as one way to prove myself useful. My hands were still clever and my back still strong. I took the too-quick course of training, easily: bandaging I knew from winding dancing shoe ribbons, stitching up wounds from the sewing my mother taught, and as for preparing patients for transfigurational surgery, few could match my expertise in that from the patient’s perspective.

I made my patients comfortable, because I knew how they felt.

And so six months into the war I found myself in what had once been a town, transfigured into bombed ruins, and into our mobile hospital they brought him in on a stretcher. A young man, round plain face that reminded me of Oinhoa, now nearly bloodless with shock, both of his feet stumps oozing blood as mine had been that day on the drowned grand piano. Only this time the blood was red and real and his.

Dancers do not like to look at those with crippled feet; it arouses too primal a fear. In Halispell, I would avert my eyes from a beggar on the street with crutches, or from the characteristic limp of those whom only wooden transfigured prostheses allowed to stand again.

I had changed. I had bandaged enough horrible injuries before; I had learned to look at them, even at the feet. Yet this time as I dressed his stumps for the surgery, I found myself looking at his eyes instead, his clear blue eyes laughing even as he gritted back the pain.

“I hope the new feet they give me have nicer toes,” he joked. “I had mighty ugly toes.”

“Beauty is a construction,” I replied, unable to suppress a smile as my voice sounded so different saying these words, “to be dictated by geniuses to the mortals who do not understand what it means.”

“Does that mean, sister, that if you call me beautiful I will be?” he asked with a sudden chuckle, and then gripped the side of the camp bed as the laughter brought on another wave of pain.

“Does that make me a genius?” I was more eager to distract him than truly thinking about it.

“That, and beautiful too,” he replied as soon as he could get the hiss of pain through gritted teeth. “If saying so dictates it, I name myself a genius and dictate it. Avardi can name himself a genius, why not me?”

I had already heard many men call me beautiful and profess love; they tended to, when I’d saved their lives. I had not taken it seriously before, but this time, something made me keep returning to him after the surgery whenever I could be spared. To say his name, Ceyx, and support him in the nights when he would get out of bed and try to walk on his replacement feet that will never again let him dance, not even when he held me and we tried to dance together. Transfiguration could do many beautiful things, but it could never replace the original.

We married an hour after his discharge. It was war, and he would be evacuated as a decorated invalid; I was the one risking death, and we did not put things off. But we both survived the next three years, seeing each other when possible, writing when not. I never again postponed writing a reply letter.

When my tour of duty ended with the war, I returned to my husband in the now-liberated Halispell. I took him to see the Conservatory that had been hit in the last bombing raid before liberation, the wing with the rehearsal rooms caved in, the floors on which I had furthered my ambition now buried beneath charred rubble. They would be rebuilt, the Queen and city government vowed. We would take the students back. I knew, holding Ceyx’s hand, that even if the record of my expulsion had burned with the rest in the firestorm, I would not go back.

Avardi’s studios that I remembered were completely gone. The newspapers said that much of the art collection survived, as it had already been moved and the studios used as a temporary hospital when the bomb had hit them. The art had escaped the shrapnel; the people had not.

The Butterfly Lounge had avoided all the air raids unscathed, belying its fragile appearance. We entered, and I saw him at the corner table where once my dress had sprouted crab claws. Avardi. His hair gray now, the famous piercing eyes dimmer, yet they lit with recognition at my face.

“Oinhoa!” he cried out, though, not my name, and I realized that I had never heard him say my name. He may never have bothered to know it.

“Where is Oinhoa?” I asked, reluctant to move from my husband to this man. The long days and nights when I had pined for him terribly now seemed strangely drained of color and meaningless.

“Nimrod’s brutes killed her.” Avardi’s voice was flat as Hyacinthus’s voice had been, in a litany he must have repeated many times. “During the occupation. Caught her carrying ‘The Metamorphoses III’ out. Stood her against the wall and shot her in the head. And set fire to the work.”

The bartender set down the glass he was polishing to respect the silence that stretched between us.

“Come,” Avardi said at last. “With you, I can make ‘The Metamorphoses IV.’”

“Do you even know my name?” I said, shuddering.

“I weep for Oinhoa.” It was as if he didn’t hear me. “But with the Metamorphoses, we can…”

I put my shoulder under Ceyx’s and helped him turn, matching my dancer’s walk to his irregular strides as we walked away. Outside, the sunlight turned the crystals in the rubble into a thousand dancing rainbows, like the shimmer on a butterfly’s wings, like a transfigured creature about to be born anew.

Acrobatic Duality

15.1 Competitors perform 3 types of exercises: Balance, Dynamic and Combined, each with their own characteristics.

15.4 The structure of an exercise is part of its artistry.

Federation Internationale de Gymnastique

Acrobatic Gymnastics Code of Points

Edited by Ann VanderMeer

1. BALANCE

18.1 The characteristic of Balance Exercises is that the partners remain in contact at all times during the performance of pair/group elements.

Federation Internationale de Gymnastique

Acrobatic Gymnastics Code of Points

We are one, and we are not one.

The music crescendos as we lower into a half-needle stance, on two hands and one foot. The base’s right leg is extended in a vertical split, and the top mounts it, gripping the perspiration-slick pointed foot with chalked-up hands, and casting up into a handstand.

For three seconds we are a single still line, foot to leg to toe to hands to arms to body to legs. Then the base’s body straightens, rising slowly to a full needle, vertical split against the base’s back. The top curves into a Mexican handstand, bending almost double, backs of knees over head. Carefully, carefully maintaining balance, our bodies staying still around that crucial single centre point.

By the edge of the sprung floor, Coach Salter waits, as taut as us even though he stands on two feet with arms crossed, for his most special pair to finish the first routine of qualifying for the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships women’s pair final.

Our tendons shudder, but we remain still for the required three seconds, until the top bends her legs and stands both feet on the base’s one foot, in a ring. Then rises up out of it, balancing on two feet on top of one foot. Just standing, as if on the floor; it seems the simplest, but a foot stand is the hardest move in Balance routines, much harder than handstands. An additional five points for difficulty, because no one else does it, not even at the World Championships, not for the three seconds.

The top dismounts in a somersault. Double front salto, instead of back. Incredibly hard for almost everyone, as one cannot see where one’s feet will land. But we are not one.

The music ends as we both raise our arms to salute the judges. As usual, the women’s pairs alternate with another competition, the mixed pairs, and we let our countrymen Chris and Eva step on the floor as we wait on the couches in the kiss-and-cry.

The scores come up, setting us at runaway first in the women’s pair qualification standings after the Balance routine, even before Chris and Eva have finished performing. We do the obligatory hug for the TV cameras, and sit back and watch Chris and Eva’s routine on closed-circuit, Eva finishing with a one-armed handstand on Chris’s uplifted hand, his eyes up and meeting hers. Their routine is world-class, but dares try no footstands, and no front saltos.

They are two separate people. No one may know that we are not.

* * *

The world knew us, in the convention of listing the top first, as Kim Tang and Alana Watson. We remember ourself as Jennifer Smith. I was Jennifer, who started out in artistic gymnastics but switched to acrobatics after my growth spurt meant I wasn’t as good a senior as I was a junior. I knew my bars and beam would never get me to senior elite level, not with memories of a terrifying crash off beam at an invitational meet. Balancing on your partner’s one extended foot in half-needle is easier than balancing on five meters of solid beam. Humans cooperate, and yield in the fall; a beam is hard, and unforgiving.

Then at the age of twenty-one, Jennifer Smith was heading to the airport—to vacation, even, not to a meet—and that was the last we remember as I.

The next we know, we wake up in our apartment, and know we have intensive practice this morning and we know how to get to Coach Salter’s gym, and little else.

Who was Kim Tang? Who was Alana Watson? We know our official birthdays on our FIG registrations: Kim a month older than Jennifer, Alana three weeks younger. We know our bodies can stretch to splits and needles and fold nearly in half in Mexican handstands and rings. But we know nothing of who these bodies loved and were loved by, what visions had delighted them, whether the top’s—Kim’s—background was Chinese or Vietnamese or Korean, even what caused the little white scar on the side of the base’s—Alana’s—wrist.

Common-named pair, switching gyms and skyrocketing to the top ranks. Not telling anyone what advantage we have. The extra difficulty points of our blind front salto are undeserved, since the base can see where the top’s feet are going. We know where both our body centres are; we can feel it. We think of our two spines as others think of their two legs. Synchronizing is as easy as moving two arms at the same time. Cooperating is as easy as being one with ourself.

If Coach Salter knew, beyond calling us ‘Kimalana,’ he wasn’t telling, or telling who did this to us. Who had the gall to copy a mind, twice, or what happened to Jennifer Smith.

But do we have time to ask questions, with exhausting training sessions for hours every day, with assistant coaching the rest of the time to afford rent beyond meagre athletic stipends, with the potential to be the very best in the world hanging in the balance? Just wait to win the World title. Then ask.

Our Balance routine was to the Adagio in G minor, the piece that Remo Giazotto passed off as Albinoni’s from three hundred years before, but had written himself.

We too were famous and beautiful and appreciated for pretending to be something other than what we were.

* * *

In a blessedly empty section of the dressing room, we lie spooned, soaking in the delicious ache of bodies at last allowed slack against the yoga mats. Long solid-muscled base, flaxen-haired Nordic Valkyrie. Small slender top just tall enough to reach above the hollow of the base’s throat as per regulations, with barely any breasts or curves to speak of; you have to look for the muscle, but it’s there; raven glossy hair in a bun, deep-set narrow eyes in heart-shaped face, epicanthic folds and uncreased eyelids.

We roll the top over and look at ourself, not self-conscious about nudity at all, blue eyes against dark-brown, searching for what should look right, for when we were I.

When we were I…I did not have very much of a visual memory at all. We do not remember my hair colour, my eyes, what I looked like; we are now lost in bodies that were not mine.

We caress ourself, base’s long-fingered hands against our top’s flat breast, top sliding a hand between the base’s powerful thighs.

It is indistinguishable from masturbation.

* * *

We did search for Jennifer Smith—me—on the Internet, many times. It is an extremely common name, but we did find my high school; my early gymnastics record from long-archived meets confirming that yes, I remembered rightly about a string of sixteenth places on floor and twenty-ninth places on beam; my acro meets record and a steady climb up, first as a top, then as a base, with even a commentator saying I had Worlds potential in a few years, with my levels of difficulty, given a good choreographer. Not high enough, though, to be televised, for us to find any video record of what I had looked like.

And then nothing. The Internet forgot about me, its last record being when I was seventeen, now online-schooled as an elite athlete. The Internet forgets about many people.

And there were too many Kim Tangs and Alana Watsons to look for, to guess where among them were our families and those who loved us. And perhaps missed us. We were adults; sometimes, adults do set out alone from shattered homes, and rebuild their souls in an elite sports career.

Until they find themselves at the World Championships, and runaway favourites to win it. And secretly cheating.

2. DYNAMIC

23.2 The characteristic of dynamic elements is that flight is involved and contact between the partners is brief and assists or interrupts flight.

Federation Internationale de Gymnastique

Acrobatic Gymnastics Code of Points

Lunch lines at the official cafeterias of the World Championships venue: no taste to brag about, but nutritious meals full of protein and carbohydrates for the bodies of the best athletes on the planet. Acrobats in competition form cannot afford to be gourmets—even an extra kilogram or two, and the balance point will shift, and the carefully synchronized tumbling will fall out of sync in muscle memory.

Chris of the mixed pair stands in line for the chicken just ahead of our top. Eva of the mixed pair is with the base halfway across the cafeteria getting salads.

We say hello to Chris and Eva, separately, but our greetings echoing each other. We exchange a few pleasantries about the food, and our routines, and getting ready for dynamic and combined qualifications this afternoon and the final tomorrow.

By the salads, Eva confesses to the base, “Chris and I are hoping for a top five finish. But you two—oh my god. I have no idea how you even do that footstand, how you even learned.”

The base says, modest as is conventional, “It’s in the Code; someone must have done it before.”

“But no one does it except you.”

“Thanks. It took six months before Salter got us to it.”

By the chicken, Chris says. “Kim? Um…” His face matches the red of his curls, in intensity at least if not shade. “I was wondering if…you’d like to have coffee with me, um, sometime? If you and Alana are not, are you, um…?”

Like a badly landed dismount, he bounces to a stuttering stop. “Um, that didn’t really come out the way I intended.”

Only then do we realize that although the entire global acro gossip network (elite acrobatics is a small, small world) knows us as roommates, there must be heated debates as to whether we are lesbians as well.

We want to laugh; it’s so much more complicated than that! “We are not lesbian lovers, if that is what you’re asking,” comes out smooth and even as skidding on polished, unforeseen ice.

He turns possibly redder than his hair now. “So…Kim, will you have coffee with me?” he says in a machine-gun rattle. “If Alana doesn’t actually mind…”

We can’t keep in our laughter now. We turn to what’s likely a triviality, to hide it. “Wouldn’t Eva object?” Then we realize that we were committing the exact same age-old error he had been: assuming that athletic partners must be romantic ones as well.

Some are; like figure skaters, most of the ones who had started training together as children aren’t. “Why would she care?” is the response, as we expected. “She’s dating one of the girls in the women’s group.”

“Sure, then,” the top says. “We—I will. After quals? Due to that security thing, it seems all we have is the coffee shop in the food court, but we can do it there.”

That ambiguous we.

* * *

We dance through our qualifications dynamic routine, the top leaping onto the base’s shoulders and twisting and somersaulting off, then the two of us tumbling along the diagonal and flying up, spinning in complete synchronization.

We think of Chris. Both of us. Of the way he smiles. Of his chest muscles under his leotard. Of how damn long it has been since we—I—Jennifer had last gotten laid.

Front handspring—his tongue in our mouth—aerial cartwheel—his hands on our breasts—double pike somersault—his thighs on our hips—mine, mine, not our, he wants the top, not the base, he wants Kim, not Alana, he didn’t ask for a threes—

We land wrong. The base collapses, the top rolls, sprawling, a broken puppet. A hundred times we’ve hit that routine, in practice and in competition, and had never had so much as a form break, much less fallen.

And in the stands, our competition, our competition’s coaches, everyone who is anyone and could make it there, let out a collective gasp, and then a susurration of hope. Tang and Watson fell. Tang and Watson, Kimalana, the name that has been synonymous with crushing all competition for the past year, fell down! We can already mentally hear the bookies whip out their cell phones, changing bets on the women’s pair event.

We get up and resume the routine, smooth if abashed, then end up in the kiss-and-cry with Coach Salter.

“Kimalana!” Salter thunders. “What’s wrong with you?” And only after a moment, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” The top’s thigh is stinging, hard. We know from long experience that by nightfall, a purple bruise will bloom there.

Chris may see it. In our leotards, stupid lust-addled brain—brains, in our leotards!

He is a gymnast like us. He knows pain from pushing a human body far beyond ordinary design specs. He won’t mind.

“Coach Salter,” our top whispers, “who are we?”

He blushes and stammers instead of answering. He knows. Gymnastics coaches are not good at keeping secrets: either you can do a routine, or you can’t, so there is no point in concealing it.

“Why can’t we know?” our base says. “Just tell us!”

“I’m…not allowed. Trust me. Just do your job.”

Our dynamic scores are much, much worse than we are used to, with the penalty for the fall, but still, with our difficulty being so insanely high and with the excellent Balance score, we end up in the final—in sixth place, of the six pairs to advance.

Coach Salter is biting his lip and is looking somewhere else and we follow his gaze. Up in the stands is a man in a brown suit. With the security situation, he must be a verified ticket purchaser. He is just watching.

Our meets have hundreds of people in the audience, their faces drowned in the lights anyway when we come out on the floor. Yet we have a sense we’ve seen this man before.

* * *

The barista eyes Chris and our top, trying to get us to go away, as she wants to close up. Our coffee cups have dark brown rings around the inside bottom. Chris and we have been chatting mostly about him; he has two sisters and a brother, artistic gymnasts, and, like most acrobats, he’d started there too but pommel horse proved his nemesis. He calls his family nearly every day, and speaks to his miniature schnauzer too. He is a major Star Trek geek.

We do not pay as much attention as we should, mostly aware that this is perhaps the longest we have been apart, top from base; that this is our first real date as us; that, we admit to ourselves, we are tired and rattled and scared; that some stupid TV show is playing back in our suite and we can’t possibly tell what it’s about because we, our base eyes, are just staring at a point in space that happens to have a TV screen behind it.

“You want…me…to come over tonight?” we say.

His face runs several expressions over it. His real smile is actually very different from his performance smile everyone has seen. “You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then—yes, Kim, yes.”

He doesn’t have a suite mate, the men’s group and men’s pair rooming together, Eva with the third girl of the women’s group, him the odd one out. Privacy. The door lock clicks.

We—the top of us—leap upon him.

He’s worked with Eva for several years, but he’d had other tops since he was a novice. He steps to hold us in handstand on his arms, laughing with joy.

We cast to handstand.

But it’s us who don’t know how to respond, how to align our centres over each other, and the sensation is the most profoundly weird one imaginable, in that uncanny valley of full-body perceptions being off. His body is separate. Surprise paints both our top face and Chris’s as we topple to the bed. He just can’t believe that Kim Tang, top of the best women’s pair in the world, couldn’t hold a handstand, when she could do it easily on the lifeless artificial practice blocks at the gym, when she could do it effortlessly on her partner on the world stage.

But a cooperative human and a set of hard blocks are very different things, and different yet from the human body that is part of you.

“You fell today. Now this. What’s wrong, Kim? Seriously, are you okay for the final tomorrow?”

We put our mouth over his to shut him up, get him to undress us, to caress our new bruise. “We’ll be fine. We were distracted. We just need,” kiss, come back up for air, “a good traditional fuck before finals.”

We’d forgotten to say ‘I.’ He doesn’t notice, willingly obliging: considerate, experienced, sensitive to a partner’s every response horizontally as he is in vertical poses. But he does expect reciprocity.

And we are divided, both parts of us. Half-mad with desire, yet aware that literally he is only getting part of us and he knows that something very subtle is amiss, even as we go through all the proper motions, clothes, condoms, all. Aware that back in the suite, our other half is alone yet feeling every sensation in the wrong body, aroused, still glowing with lust, but not quite…right. As if we fall just a little short of finding the true balance point that we crave; as if, even as we—all of us—somersault into orgasm, something was left only half done.

So this is what sex will be for us, as a sexual being with two bodies and no name and one world-class lie. And as we lie, in bed in his arms, on the carpet floor alone with the TV show still chattering empty stupidities, we seek to find our centre and we can’t.

We sob, and he asks half of us why, what was wrong, can he make it better, it’s always a little weird the first time with a new partner, it’s okay, he’s sorry, he’d thought we liked it. We tell him the empty stupidity that it’s not you, it’s me, only what we say is “it’s not you, it’s us.”

And this time we know he did notice.

We dress and say goodnight and good luck tomorrow, and go home to find ourself.

3. COMBINED

26.1 Combined Exercises are composed of elements characteristic of both the Balance and the Dynamic Exercises.

Federation Internationale de Gymnastique

Acrobatic Gymnastics Code of Points

We are the unique person in the world for whom talking to ourself, arguing with ourself, looks the least strange and feels strangest. Having an athletic mind, both our bodies pace, in circles, around our suite in the morning, and then again around the dressing room as we change and apply our competition makeup. The long warm-up and stretch process keeps us from pacing, but as we sink into oversplits, front foot hooked around a chair seat and back thigh lying on the floor, we glare at ourself, trying to understand.

We mutter things like “Andreea Răducan” and “Chinese women’s gymnastics team at the 2000 Olympics”—infamous cases of losing medals after winning them, departing in shame, names erased from gymnastic history no matter the difficulty and beauty of their moves.

Better to bail out before, we tell ourself. Better to bail out before, and quit this sport but win our names back. Find our family. Coach the sport. Join the circus, as many retired acrobatic gymnasts do. Make love, to whomever, with a separate and clear conscience. The World Championships aren’t everything. Winning isn’t everything, not when it comes at the price of our very identities.

But without our identities, our acrobatic skill is all we have to balance on.

Yet the bell rings and we still come out for the Balance exercise, as if nothing has happened.

We move to counts; we cannot hear the music. Everything that we do, we do because of the muscle memory of two bodies, our smiles pasted on. Balance holds, unfathomably difficult balance holds, stretch for three seconds not because we are fighting for every second up, but because we have absent-mindedly forgotten to change them, frozen still as we think of something else.

No falls. No flaws. No soul. We still end up on top of the board. Our difficulty scores are sky-high; our execution scores are clean and solid; but our artistry scores have fallen from what they were in qualifications. The artistry judges look for it, and they notice that something is amiss.

Coach Salter hugs us. “Are you depressed?” he whispers in the top’s ear.

We have never shown any sign of depression in the two years he’d trained us. But now…

Chris and Eva are going up. Chris meets the top’s eyes. We smile. He is afraid for us falling in the dynamic exercise again, not understanding what is going on.

Well, we cannot quit at this point. Not now. We still have something to show, something to prove just with that acrobatic skill that we have instead of a name. The world, and television, needs to record our blind forward somersaults.

Here we are, Kimalana, and this is our swan song in the dynamic exercise. And if that is so, we will tumble and leap as we never have before, drinking in the cameras and the floodlights and taunting every judge and secret keeper on the planet that we fly higher than they ever will.

Because we are one.

The audience goes wild, clapping along, rising in ovation for the end of our dynamic exercise, cheering and clapping and demanding our scores even as the officials have to tell them that no, please settle down, the next mixed pair must go on and do their job and they have nothing to do with this.

The video clip of our exercise will go viral within minutes. As it should. We want all cameras on us for the combined.

We walk out into the sprung floor for the last time, the tech waiting for our opening salute to the judges in order to start our music. But instead, we step forward and face the largest camera, the one that does the closeups on its swinging boom arm, that has a microphone transmitting live. Our faces come up on the giant digital screens above the arena.

In unison of pitch and rhythm that no one except a choir can achieve, even as we stumble and stutter over the words but stumble together, we say, “We want to say something.

“We are not Kim Tang and Alana Watson. We are two bodies with one mind, and we remember that two years ago I was the acrobat Jennifer Smith.

“We want to know what happened to us. Who did this to us and erased our past. We did a tremendous amount of work to be the best in the world, but we want to face the world honestly. We want to know what we are.”

Complete silence hangs for three seconds, and then the shouting nearly deafens us, as everyone, from the people in the audience, to our competition and their coaches, to even the security guards, and of course, the press—all start shouting, different things, all blending into one.

Within minutes, people around the world who had never even heard of acrobatic gymnastics know it too. And no one will remember who will actually end up winning the World Championships this year.

Leo Vladimirsky

Collar

“Collar” originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2014.

* * *

TOM WAS NAKED, SKIN sparkling yellow-gray from the thick grease he’d been rubbing, almost seductively, into his short, meaty legs. He’d seen the young man walk up and down the beach at least four times. The kid was clearly nervous: with every pass he peered, uncomfortably, at the goods for sale in each stall, trying to figure out whom he could trust. The market centered around Beach 69th in Far Rockaway was an intimidating place if you’d never been there before. Tom decided to be nice and made eye contact. Once they locked eyes, the young man nodded, glanced furtively up and down the shoreline, then straightened up. He was just green. There was no need to be suspicious.

Tom went back to greasing himself and putting on his little show. After all, his clients needed to see that their money would be well spent, that the body on sale could handle the six hours safely, could get them where they needed to go.

“You available?” the young man asked. His voice cracked a little bit on the last syllable. This made Tom smile. “That is, you busy tonight?”

“First time?” he asked back, pointing to a pile of plastic crates behind him, deeper under the crumbling concrete and exposed rebar of the overhanging boardwalk.

Tom’s stall was cozy, like most of the other stalls in this ersatz grand bazaar. A fire, in a small steel-bucket-cum-brazier, gave each room a friendly, warm aura. All along the beach, underneath the rocky awning, the other merchants were starting their nightlong engagement in capitalism. Food stalls serving fried noodles and grilled meats. Supply stalls selling waterproof bags, goggles, wetsuits, and everything else a swimmer might need to last the long swim. The outlying stalls housed the prostitutes, providing sandy fucks to whoever wanted one. And then there were the bare stalls, dark except for their fires, empty but for their crates. Those belonged to Tom and the other navvies.

“Thanks,” the young man said. “What gave it away?”

He walked back into the darkness. Tom saw him wince and crinkle his nose at the condensed vapors of the synthfat he’d been massaging into his skin. It did not have a pleasant odor. One of his fellow guides described it as “dirty sex mixed with rotten meat, and a dash of acetone to cover it up.” It smelled rich and corrupt, but in all the wrong ways. Somehow both barnyard and factory, but with none of the wholesomeness of either. And its color was sickly, too: like cheap fluorescent light passing through a yellowed plastic sheet. But that’s what it took to stay warm out there. Better to stink and be stained than freeze to death miles offshore.

The kid sucked it up and returned with a purple crate which he shimmied into the sand across the fire from Tom.

“Jake,” he said, sticking his hand out.

Tom held up his greasy hand and shook his head. “Tom. Nice to meet you.”

Jake nodded. “Laid off a year now. Unemployment benefits just ran out. Can’t find work anywhere. Wife said it’s the ships or she’s leaving me.”

“She still working?” asked Tom.

“Yeah. Nurse for old folks,” he answered. “Recession-proof, I guess.”

“Unless people stop getting old.”

The men looked out toward the horizon. The sun was setting and they could see the running lights of the factory ships coming on, dipping into and out of view, now obscured, now visible, sprinkled along the edge of the ocean.

“You ever do factory work before?” Tom asked. “You ever been on one of the ships?”

“Nah,” Jake answered. “I was an office guy. IT, mostly. Worked and lived downtown for about five years. When the bridge started going up, me and the wife couldn’t afford Manhattan anymore so we moved to Brooklyn. Had kids, then…” He made a confused half-smile and shrugged.

It was the same “then” as every other person Tom ran into down at the market.

“All work is done in a factory,” Tom assured him, “no matter what color your collar is. You’ll figure it out.”

A little girl of eight or nine came up to the stall opening. “Empanada? Coke? Fries?” she called out. Tom waved her off, but he saw Jake eyeing the deep blue tubs covered with steamed-up plastic wrap, filled with meat pies.

“Did you eat?” Tom asked him. “Alice, over there three stalls down, she fries up some serious singapore noodles with squid. Blow your mind.”

“I’m too nervous to eat,” Jake confided.

“It’s a long swim, kid. You gotta eat something.”

A man and a woman walked by in bathing suits, dry-bags held high, the synthfat covering their heads in a caul which caught and threw the light from the many fires on the beach.

“Gonna drown another one, Tommy?” the woman called out.

“That’s the plan,” he yelled back. “The gods demand their sacrifice.”

The couple went down to the sea. Tom looked back at Jake.

“Friend of yours, I take it,” Jake said.

“Friendly competitor, more like it,” Tom replied. “So you gonna get some food or what?”

“No offense, but this market doesn’t look like the cleanest place to eat,” Jake said. “What if I get the runs?”

Tom made a little explosion with his hands. “Then you shit in the water, like the fish.”

“Fair point.” Jake smiled and got up. “Singapore noodles?”

“With squid. Tell her I sent you over. She’ll be sure to wash her hands then.”

“I’ll be back.”

Jake walked out of the stall and headed left. Tom followed him to the entrance and leaned against a pylon, watching the boy go down the shore. The warm air brought many of the other stall-holders to their makeshift doorways, under ragged awnings that gently luffed in the breeze. When Jake reached Alice, Tom could see him trying to explain something complicated to her. She got annoyed. Confused, he pointed back at Tom’s stall. Alice nodded excitedly and waved at Tom. He waved back. She then grabbed Jake’s hand, lifted the awning to let him through, and they both disappeared from view in the darkness beneath the concrete roofing.

He’d always had a soft spot for Alice. She’d been an institution at the night market long before the navvies worked the boardwalk. He wondered if the story was true, that her family had died, burned when the canals in Queens flooded, and that now she could only sleep during the day. It was a good story. And a good story could keep you safe.

He checked his watch. It was half-past seven. Slack tide would soon be over and the ebb tide would begin. Time was running out. The patrols would be looking for him at ten. He needed to close this deal and get in the water or the next time he went swimming, they’d stun him and not bother fishing him out. So either the kid was a little sacrifice to the gods of the day, or he was.

It was not a kind thing to do, but everyone came up against it. And his luck had run out after five years. He knew the others had done it. Drunken early-morning confessions, after they’d swum back, pounds lighter, slurring their shame through the stink of sea and synthfat, made all the more absurd by their salt-hardened hair, sticking out like a clown’s wig.

Jake came back, following three young men who were eyeing each stall, uncertain of where to go. He carried an old plastic yogurt container filled with steaming noodles. An errant green onion clung to the side.

“Eat up,” Tom said, “and let’s talk business.”

“How long you been doing this?” Jake asked.

Tom looked up at the sky and cocked his head thoughtfully. “November, five years ago. I went out to work. It was awful, just after a late-season hurricane. No guides, then, just desperate men, desperate for money.”

The legislation had passed through Congress swiftly: all products or services for sale in the U.S.A. cannot be made, or rendered, on foreign soil. It was political posturing and everyone knew it. The Chinese had built factory ships for years to skirt their own trade wars with the WTO, but now, with high fuel and labor costs at home, they saw a perfect opportunity to export our own jobs back to us. The law, which on paper was meant to protect workers, ended up doing the opposite. Near-shoring, they called it.

No one was surprised.

But to create the illusion that they didn’t want to do exactly what they planned to do, they created the Labor Police to patrol the coast up to the international water boundary, which, conveniently, the U.N. had rezoned to six miles from the high-water mark. No exclusive economic zone. No contiguous zone. Just six miles from the sun chairs and umbrellas and you’d find an internationalist free-for-all.

Nobody knew if they were supposed to work or starve, except the companies who realized it was just a matter of dragging those factory ships from the edge of Chinese waters to the edge of ours, then let the free market supply the workers. After all, it had already supplied the law.

“Damn. You’re old school, man.” Jake was impressed. “That’s pretty brave, going out on your own.”

“I used to surf and fish around here, so I knew the water pretty well.”

“Weren’t they rounding people up like crazy back then? You ever get picked up?”

Tom answered, straight into Jake’s eyes. “A couple times. Back then the Labor cops were aggressive, but stupid, so you could bullshit your way out of it. Or bribe them.”

Jake looked a little concerned. “They’re not a big deal anymore?”

“Not as much. They’ve had bad in-fighting since their union sold them out. Their managers got a golden parachute and the rest of ’em got a fist in the ass.”

“So that’s a no?” Jake pushed.

“Now it’s mostly privatized. Those guys work on commission: independent contractors like everybody else, so they’re pretty aggressive. Though rumor is if you put up a big enough fight, they’ll recruit you.”

Tom was now vigorously rubbing the synthfat into his face and bald head, the fire in the bucket reflected through tiny flames on his scalp.

“There’s another recession-proof job for life,” he continued, “keeping other people down.”

“So what do I need you for?”

“You don’t. There’s the ocean,” Tom said, gesturing toward the water with his palm up. “Start swimming.”

“Hey,” Jake said, mistaking Tom’s comment for hurt, “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“I know,” Tom replied. “They’re definitely still around, the cops and the private cops. Now they try trickier things: some hero fucker wants to make a career for himself. Comes to the market, finds a guide, makes some arrests. If they get really cocky, they bring the hammer down and close the whole boardwalk. You can smell those guys a mile away.”

“Why is that?”

“They act like men who have jobs,” he said. “But the law isn’t the problem anymore. The real trouble comes from the patriots. Vigilante assholes bankrolled by rich leftists who think taking jobs from the Chinese is destroying the country. They don’t arrest. They blow things up.”

Jake slurped up some noodles.

“So how do you know I’m not an undercover cop or one of these terrorists?”

“Can’t know for sure, of course,” Tom said as he started to rub the fat on his upper thighs and groin. The hairs on his body swayed left and right, like seaweed caught in competing tides. “But, like a lot of those fuckers have learned, asking a strange man to take you on a six-hour swim at night in cold water can be a good way to drown. It’s a lesson you only need once.”

“For the record,” Jake said, “I’m not.”

“The thought, my friend, never crossed my mind,” Tom replied. “Right. Enough morbid shit. Back to practicalities. You said you did IT?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied. “I was a coder.”

“I can’t guarantee you’ll find a ship where your particular talents would be useful. Some factory ships are call-centers, some do computer stuff, others need programmers and developers. But most are just factories…making baubles for the natives.”

“So I’ll be an assembly-line worker?” Jake looked upset.

“What were you before? C-E-effing-O? An innovator?”

“Maybe I should go ask one of the other guides.” Jake said, a defensive edge in his voice. “Shop around.”

Tom continued to stare out at the sea. “Go right ahead. Three stalls down is Ahmed. He’s good. Ask away. Or, like I said, the water is right there. Enjoy the swim.”

Jake sat silently. The sound of the surf broke through the susurrus of stall chatter.

Talk like that, Tom thought, will not close this deal.

“Look, I’m not saying it’s impossible,” Tom said, his tone softer now. “Maybe one of the full-time workers got sick or transferred. You might get lucky and steal their job. It’s better for me, right? I work on commission. But this is New York. There’s a lot of competition.”

“So it’s just as bad out there as it is up here?”

“It’s different. Not everyone is up for swimming six hours in the cold through one of the busiest waterways in the world. The Chinese respect tenacity. I met one in a bar once who told me that if we’d showed that kind of work ethic in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Harsh.”

“Yup. But true.”

“Fuck that,” Jake said. “I worked my ass off and got screwed.”

Tom stood up and looked himself over, checking to make sure the synthfat was evenly and correctly applied. He was a greasy gray-yellow statuette. Perfect. He reached for his waterproof bag.

“We all did.” He dug around inside the bag and pulled out a little gun. “I need to tag you.”

“What?”

“It’s for my commission. They’ll scan the code when you negotiate your contract and I’ll get my cut.”

Tom checked the magazine of chips. There was white corrosion all over its edges. If he stuck it in the gun, it’d frizz out for sure. The guns were expensive and not easy to come by.

“Fuck. I’ll be right back. Gotta get more chips. Eat those noodles before they’re cold.”

Jake watched Tom rise and leave the stall. Flickering in the warm yellow light, under the grease, he could see alternating bands of rippled and smooth skin on Tom’s back, a birds-eye view of marbled scars.

A few stalls down the sand in the opposite direction from Alice sat Ari, an old Lubavitcher from Williamsburg who’d moved to the beach to retire back in the teens. Why he hadn’t moved to Inwood with the rest of the Hasids when the bridge started going up was unclear. Tom doubted his religiosity, as he’d seen him getting stoned with some of the other stall merchants and had definitely shared some of Alice’s squid noodles with him. But donning religious garb was a good way to avoid being robbed and must have helped him keep his identity so far from his missing friends and family.

Bearded, bald, and wearing his rekel (which he did regardless of the weather), Ari sat on a little stool atop a vaguely middle-eastern-looking rug he’d spread out over the sand. The plastic containers he used as shelving had their flaps open, presenting lots of trinkets and gadgets and things…sunscreen, cigarettes, amphetamines, water, swimsuits, fins, goggles, snorkels…like a degenerate triathlete’s beach shop.

Ari was no triathlete. Degenerate, maybe. His big belly swelled under his white collared shirt, his tzitzit fringing his lap.

“I need a chip magazine. The one I have is fucked. Corroded.”

“Second row,” he said, with a thick foreign accent despite having been born in Brooklyn, “on the right.”

Next to the aluminum squeeze tubes of energy goo, Tom found a cardboard box full of magazines. Used, mostly. He grabbed a new one and examined it. The label read “Proudly made in the U.S.A.”

Tom waved the magazine at Ari. “How much?”

“For you, forty-five.”

“Five a chip?” He opened his mouth wide, feigning shock. “Outrageous.”

“They’re not dropping many anymore. Most of the magazines are rotted away. I guess even their hiring is slowing down.”

It was true. In the last few months there’d been fewer and fewer ships out there. He’d had to turn more and more clients away to keep his track record up, which made tonight’s swim a little more depressing. But if he was going to keep his job, he had to do what had to be done.

“Fewer of you boys out there these days,” Ari went on. “Lots going up north, to Canada.”

“Right. Those libertarian candidates finally broke the labor laws there. Gonna be tough work. Much colder water, that far from the Gulf Stream.”

“Even the sea has been outsourced.”

“Bad omens, Ari. Put it on my tab.”

“Of course.” The old man smiled at him. “By the way, perhaps you could do me a little favor. My nephew, David, needs to find work.”

Ari had thousands of nephews. Tom’d placed a lot of them.

“What does he do?”

“He was a lawyer. Tax stuff. He just lost his job last week, but he has a baby on the way. Can you help him?”

“Can he swim?”

“He’s not exactly what you’d call ‘in shape,’ my David,” Ari said. “I thought maybe you might be able to ask around when you go out tonight and see if anyone needs someone of his abilities. Perhaps they could arrange a pickup.”

Nobody did pickups anymore. At least not the kind you’d want. Today’s pickup was very different.

“If he’s on Manhattan, I can’t get him out. It’s on him.”

“No. His mother was a goy. He wasn’t allowed to go with the family.”

One diaspora replaces another. Tom nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He got back to his own stall as Jake finished his noodles. The container was empty, scraped clean. Even the overboard onion was gone.

“Hungry after all?”

“You weren’t kidding. These are amazing.”

He had left his gun on his stool. It looked a lot like a label maker: featureless grey plastic with a heavy handle to hold the magazine. He jammed the clip into the gun’s butt and pulled back the charging handle.

“Ready for your shot?”

“Does it hurt?”

“Only your pride.”

Tom pressed the gun against Jake’s shoulder and pulled the trigger. It emitted a little puff of air. Jake grunted.

“Welcome to the workforce,” he announced and tossed the can of synthfat over to Jake. “Get those clothes off. Time to grease up.”

Jake smiled. “Yessir.” He pulled his pants off, rolled them tightly, and stuffed them into his waterproof bag.

“Underwear, too,” Tom told him. “You don’t want your dick to freeze off.”

Jake started to turn around to strip, hesitated, then turned back and took off his briefs.

“Okay. Take a handful and slap it on. Work it in like sunblock. When you think you’ve finished, blow on it. If you feel anything other than just a light pressure, put some more Crisco on,” Tom said.

“Wait,” Jake said. “Like the stuff for cookies?”

“Nah. It’s some kind of synthetic fat,” Tom answered. “We just have a sense of humor. Haha. For all I know, it’s partially hydrogenated polar bear blubber, but the stuff works. Get greasy, kid.”

Jake opened the tin. “Jesus, it stinks. I thought that reek was just you.”

“You wish.”

While Jake starting greasing up, Tom stretched, working the kinks out of his back. His last job had been a week ago, and he was still sore. The client was a nightmare: a forty-five-year-old dumpy advertising executive who’d put his life savings up his nose. The man was desperate and offered him half his contract pay, five times the usual commission. It was clear weather but very windy, with big swells. From the moment they entered the water, the man complained. Eventually, he gave up completely and Tom had to drag him. That’s when the Labor Police caught up, darted them, and landed them on the boat.

His client was delirious, babbling about how he didn’t want to be here, and how did it come to this. After the anesthetic wore off, Tom made a deal with the patrol. He’d get them their trophy, just not today. He had too much money riding on this whale. Give him a week, and he’d give them their prize.

Patrols were easy to bribe that way.

It was too bad, though, because Tom’d taken a real dislike to the asshole. Jake, on the other hand, seemed like a pretty decent guy.

He opened up his bright yellow dry-bag, pulled out a pair of Speedos and a well-worn orange-covered book. He put on the swimsuit, rolled his clothes, and put them into the bag. Out on the sea, the lights from the ships were getting brighter and closer together. Closing in…edging…right up to the territorial waters.

He looked over at Jake rubbing the synthfat on his chest; great rolling globs of grease trapped in frozen waves.

“You gotta work it in. Smooth it out,” Tom instructed. “That shit ain’t cheap.”

Jake looked at him, squinting. “I thought the chinks dropped cases of it in the water for us to find.”

“Easy with that language,” Tom warned him. “Those chinks of yours are about to pay your fucking bills.”

Jake looked down and continued greasing himself, taking smaller scoops of synthfat and slapping them on his naked body, wattle and daub.

“That’s right. Nice and even. It’s a second skin.” He went over to Jake and stuck his pinky against the man’s chest. It made a squishy sound. He lifted it to Jake’s face. “See how it’s about halfway up the nail? That’s the right amount.”

Jake looked at it, then proceeded to smooth out the rest of his body.

Tom opened the book with a little flip of his wrist. Its pages were stained with grease.

“What’s that?” Jake asked.

“Eldridge.” He checked his watch. Seven forty-five. Shit.

Jake shook his head. “What’s Eldridge?”

“Tide book. If we leave as the tide begins to ebb, we can ride it out and double our speed. Hit a current right and we’re barely doing any work at all.”

“You still use books for that? Why?”

“Same reason you can’t take anything but a rowboat out: without that passport from Homeland Security to bypass the EMP generators at the bottom of the bay, any electronics will stop working the minute you hit the high-water mark.”

“Right. Sorry. Stupid question,” Jake said, sheepishly. “I guess I’m a bit nervous.”

“Relax. Worry about staying warm and staying as low in the water as you can. It’s pretty calm today, so we won’t have much chop—that makes us easier to spot. And the warm water attracts wildlife.”

“What…like sharks?” Jake asked.

“Patriots. They’re too lazy to go out when the weather is shit, but if it’s a calm, warm night, who doesn’t like a little cruise around New York Harbor: see the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the new pylons being driven into the bay for the Manhattan Bypass Bridge.”

“So if the weather is lousy, we have to worry about the cops and if the weather is nice we have to worry about vigilantes?”

“Career office didn’t tell you about this, eh?”

“Can’t say that they did.” Jake stood up, admiring the job he’d done putting on the grease. “This look okay?”

“You’re an Adonis. Put on your fucking swimsuit.”

He did.

The two men stared out into the ocean for a while. The ship lights came closer and closer together, now a pale necklace dotting dark skin. A few broke ranks and started moving, independently and quickly, toward the shore. He could see Jake craning his head to figure out what they were.

“Just trawlers,” Tom said, “coming in for the night.”

“They ever take people out?”

“No. Those passports are hard to come by and are passed down, like heirlooms. If they got caught, they’d screw their entire family, kids, grandkids, out of a livelihood. Not worth the risk.”

Jake relaxed and sat back down.

Tom added, “You won’t see the trouble until it’s on top of you.”

“Right” Jake said, incredulous. “Their boats are invisible.”

“Not exactly. But they don’t use running lights. It’s all infrared.”

“So how do you know if they’re on to you?”

“Look for emptiness. Blankness on the horizon. Stars and other lights blotted out by some kind of wandering darkness. When the lights go out, that’s when you worry.”

“What do they do to you?”

“They’ll either arrest you or kill you. Either way, they’ll start by throwing a halogen cannon on you, then dart you with a paralytic. The light is hot enough to blister your skin if you let it sit on you long enough. That’s the drawback of the Crisco: acts like a lens. Saw one guy, his back burned right off. Third-degree, blisters and shit. They just cooked him up with those bright lights, then dumped him on the beach, a few blocks down the shore. They aren’t legally allowed to kill you, but…you’re paralyzed, floating in the sea…easy enough to have an accident.”

“Fuck me,” Jake said, quietly.

“Funny thing is that when you get hit with the light and the dart, it’s an incredible feeling. You’re four miles out. Cold. Delirious. Suddenly that warm blush hits your spine and shoulders, like the sun rising, and you think, ‘Maybe now is a good time to take a little break, just lie here for a bit, warm the old bones and muscles.’ You’re warm and numb and exhausted. It’s paradise. Until you smell your flesh burning.”

“What’d you do with the guy’s body?” Jake asked.

“Dunno. Ask Alice,” he said, as seriously as he could manage. “We told her to take care of it.”

“It’s funny what passes for squid these days,” Ari shouted from his stall.

Laughter came roaring in from the guys drinking at the meat stall next door. Jake blushed.

“More crap from you,” Jake said, smiling. “Do you even know how to swim?”

“You’ll find out soon. Still hungry?” Tom asked. “Need something else?”

“I don’t think so.” He stood and looked up and down his own body. “I guess I’m ready.”

Tom nodded. He grabbed two bungee harnesses from under his stool and threw one to Jake.

“Over the shoulders and around the waist, then attach your dry-bag. You’ll want about six feet behind you.”

He put his own on and clamped a carabiner to the metal ring of his yellow bag, which he lifted above his head.

“Hold it up like this, until we get into the water.”

Jake fumbled a little with his straps, and Tom had to help him out. He saw the young man’s hand shaking, palsied, from fear.

“Too early to get cold, kid,” he said, with a short laugh. “Wait a couple hours. Here.”

Tom unfouled the lines and adjusted the belt.

“Good?”

“I guess so.”

“Follow me.”

In silhouette, they looked like a pair of oversized fetuses, looking to reenter the womb.

Tom stared at the break as he waded out. The sea was surprisingly warm. That didn’t matter. In two hours he’d be shivering so hard his ribs would bruise and he’d be turning back to shore after delivering the kid to the patrol boat. Or maybe they’d forget about the deal. That could happen. Maybe they were just playing a mind game with him. Maybe they wanted to recruit him for full-time work.

The answer was just a few miles offshore.

Something pinched at his foot. He looked down. A tiny crab, scuttling sideways, snipped at him angrily and scuttled off. He smiled and looked back at Jake.

“Time to pick your lucky star,” he said.

“How can I choose?” Jake said. “It’s just one big streak of light out there.”

Tom looked back toward the sea. Jake was right. The factory ships had come in even closer and the lights were now a continuous band straight across the water. A bobbing, burning, solid white fence. A noose. A cage.

A collar.

He walked farther into the surf.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll go for that one,” he said, not bothering to point anywhere.

Dandelion

Boing Boing

* * *

She broke the silence, "Jared went in last week."

"Where?" I knew, but I was being difficult.

"You know where: the clinic."

"Oh."

Our living room was always small, but today it felt particularly cramped. We sat on opposite sides of the white microfiber couch. I stared at the TV.

"Is he good?" I asked.

"Yup. Got the dose yesterday. He’s recovering at home."

When we got tested, I watched them take her blood. She was calm; I was a fucking wreck. The one thing our species wants and it comes down to a genetic lottery: if your mitochondria objects, get in line for the grave; if not, you’ve got a lot of living to do.

"Good. I hope that he and Gail have a long, happy life together," I said.

She ignored my joke, leaned over the side of the couch, and fished her purse off the dark wooden floor. It rattled. "Turn off the TV. I want to talk to you about something," she said.

I did as commanded. With the light gone from the screen, the room became dark and silent. There was a loud rushing in my ears.

She turned on a little lamp, and started looking through her bag. Even with the light, the room was small and cold and the faint marbling in the walls made it even more tomblike. The rushing grew louder.

"I went to the hospice—to the clinic," she corrected herself, "the other day, for my session with the counselor." She pulled a small orange bottle from her purse.

"The hospice is a fucking waste of time…something we don’t have too much of, remember?" I spat the words.

She ignored my tantrum. "Look. We have as much time as we always had, just like before. It’s no one’s fault other people have more."

"More is addition. More is multiplication. More is a few extra years. They don’t have more. They don’t have finite or infinite. They have a number divided by zero. It’s impossible for us to understand. Time doesn’t exist for them anymore. We’re the ones with time. Don’t you see?"

I realized how loud I was. Every time she tried to help, I’d go off. "So the counselor?" I asked, softly.

She rattled the bottle. "The counselor gave me this prescription. It’s for both of us."

"No. I’m not doing that." I was shouting again. "I may not outlive the universe, but I’m not gonna-"

"It’s not that. That’s only if you take too many. At small doses, it’s the opposite. It’s an in. He said it slowed things down. Time times two. Time times twenty."

"I don’t fucking want time times twenty. I want time forever."

She slammed the pills on the coffee table. "And my great desire is to sit here and watch everyone else stay young and stay perfect, while the two of us get old and broken and fat and diseased and wrinkled, incontinent, blind and fucking useless. You think that’s my choice, you selfish shit?"

We sat in silence. The rushing, gone during our argument, roared back. Between the fake marble walls, the thundering quiet, and the overwhelming closeness and whiteness, the room felt more tomblike than ever. I moved to turn on the TV.

She spoke, calmly. "We can’t have time forever. At least we can have this…" She grabbed my hand. "We can manage. Together."

Life. Terminal, but manageable. I stared at the marbling, imagining the veins pulse. She continued to stare at me, holding my limp hand.

"So the drugs?" I asked, giving her hand a little shake, and pulling mine away.

"The counselor said that you can either take them daily, or you can take them when you start getting…when you start feeling it’s all…slipping away."

"What do you mean slipping away?"

"Like when you’re having a good day, and suddenly you realize that the day has just…gone. If you take it while you’re having a good time, it slows everything down. Makes you more aware. Makes you more in-the-now."

I ought to be grateful that both of us didn’t check out. At least the immortals made our lives comfortable. A pension; an apartment. Bribes to make us feel better until old age, decrepitude, and decay stole our teeth, our bones, our skin, our minds. We’d get older and older. They wouldn’t. A small gift to those of us with numbered days, from the host who’d see the sun explode in fifty million of what I still called a lifetime.

I tore my eyes off the marble walls and looked at her. She was still watching me.

"This is a now I wish I was less in." I said. "I want to be in everybody else’s now,"

"No one said life would be easy."

"Fuck easy. This is unfair."

She sighed. "No one said it’d be fair either."

"You know why can’t I live forever? Two billion years ago, some fucking bacteria crawled into my great-great-whatever-grandmother. He became my mitochondria. That little bastard can’t take the dose. If it had been the bug right next to him, I’d be through the gates of paradise right now. Instead of here."

"You think maybe they made a mistake, that your letter was wrong?" she said, in a patronizing way. "You want to try your luck and take the dose anyway? Go down to Canal. That’s where all the counterfeit shit is. You’ll have your shot in ten minutes. It might be a needle full of saline, gasoline, or amphetamine. Or it might be the real deal. But you better hope that letter was wrong. Otherwise you won’t even get the time you do have left.

"You know what else that little bastard of yours gave you? He sealed your place in history. You know who you are? You’re one of the last men. We’re it. We’re the ancients now! We’ll be the heroes of their new stories. There’s your eternity. We’ll be myths."

"I don’t want to be a fucking myth." I slammed my fist on the couch arm. The impact raised a tiny puff of dust. "I want to be a god."

We sat in silence for a while. She stared at the wall above the TV. The bottle of pills glowed from the cheap lamp light , turning it into a sickly orange star. I picked it up. The label was covered with a half-dozen warning stickers.

She broke the quiet. "You know, it’s not going to be easy for them. Think about how quickly they’re going to fill up the planet? Where will we put them all?"

"They’re already building colony ships. They’ll see other worlds. They’ll see all the worlds the universe has. I’ll see only this one, until the day I die.”

"So what? A forever, floating through emptiness, hoping to find somewhere to land? Some of them will be out there for millions of years. You can’t understand that. No one can. I hope they’re ready for it."

Her sympathy jarred me. Just because our bodies can handle infinity, doesn’t mean our minds can. Still, it’d be a nice trouble to have.

"Champagne problems," I said, with mock disdain, waving my hand. "Besides, the journey is more important than the destination, right?"

I laughed. She laughed too. This was a moment worth having. As soon as I thought it, the moment slipped away.

"This is what those pills were made for, right?"

"Yup. Capture time. Slow it down. Get every detail."

"Time times two." I said, wondering.

"Time times twenty." She smiled, dropped my hand, and turned on the TV.

I looked at her, imagining her growing old, hair greying, skin mottling, eyes dulling. I wondered which of us would die first and what saying goodbye would be like. That letter was a constant reminder of our mortality. If you checked out, and got the dose, you had to surrender it. But despite that bureaucratic certificate assuring me of my own doom, I still thought of the moment like a scene out of a movie…unreal.

"Come here," she commanded. I obeyed and put my head in her lap. The TV kept playing, but all I thought about were her warm, soft thighs. The rushing in my head was gone. I was calm.

When I woke, my legs were so stiff that it was clear I’d been asleep for a long time. Another reminder of my impending collapse. She’d gone off to the bedroom. The TV and lamp were off. I filled the kettle and, next to the jar of loose tea, found the orange bottle of pills. She knew where to leave them so they’d be the first thing I saw when I woke up. Very clever. The clock above the range told me it was a little before seven. I sat back down on the couch, in the darkness, with my cup. There was no way I’d get back to sleep now. Time to start another day.

Six weeks ago I came home and found her sitting on the couch, with the two letters in her hands. The sight of those envelopes, bright white against her olive skin, made me feel like I was going to shit myself. She had suggested that I open hers, and she open mine. I said that all men die alone and took my fate from her hands.

I didn’t want to see her letter in case both of us didn’t have the same results. I tore mine open before she had a chance to open hers. I didn’t have to read the whole thing. The first two words said it all.

We’re sorry…

I felt…nothing. All my fear and uncertainty disappeared and my bowels stopped gurgling. I felt exactly like I had, moments earlier, before I opened the door and saw what was in her lap. Nothing had changed. I managed a quiet "Damn."

I saw her face as she looked at me after opening hers. I knew what it said. Nature duck-duck-goosed right past both of us in the game of immortality.

The anger came later.

"Of course it’s unfair," she’d said. "Life is unfair. It’s always been unfair and it will continue being unfair long after we’ve rotted away back to starstuff and the people on the street are thirty million years old."

It was the first time I’d heard her be bitter about anything. She was always so level. I guess even the steadiest of people have their limits.

We didn’t talk much that night. Just sat on the white couch, eyes on the wall, watching TV.

I thought about what she’d said last night, about her sympathy for the immortals. They had their future. They’d scatter like dandelion puffs across the universe. They’d be subject to rules she and I would never have to deal with. New forms of government. New ethics. New aesthetics. And there’s very little that the right mitochondria can do for you if your colony ship plunges into a sun. Their certainty was one of uncertainty.

I had a certainty. I will die. That gave me time. The immortals didn’t have time; they had a coordinate for locating things in the past and the future. I…we…had a finite resource. And we could use it however we wanted. Who’s going to tell a dying man what to do, where to go, what to eat, what to read, think, or feel? Our time was freedom.

For a little while at least.

I finally understood why I’d felt nothing when I opened my letter. I had felt nothing, because nothing had changed.

I was still the same man I was the moment before I opened that letter, with exactly as much time left. My life was still my life.

I was wasting it being selfish.

Time to live, to share the life we’d dreamed of, been excited about, before. We’d experience life, aging, dying, and death, together. Almost nobody else would have that. I wasn’t dead. She wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. Let’s make the sun chase us.

I looked out the window. The sun was coming up. I hadn’t realized it, but the trees were bare, and there was a trace of snow on the sidewalk. When had it become winter? All down the street, in the little apartment windows, lights were coming on. A car drove by, illuminating the small snow drifts that were blowing about. It looked cheery and cold outside. I liked that.

I turned on the lights. She’d be up soon. For the first time in months I was excited.

There was a bottle of champagne in the fridge. We were meant to take it over to Jared and Gail’s to celebrate, but this seemed much more important. I popped it open, and poured into two small stemless glasses. I sipped mine. It tasted mineral and sharp: perfect for the morning. I shook two pills out of the bottle and placed them beside each glass.

Time for a grand gesture. Something poetic and symbolic and beautiful to toast the rest of our lives.

I went over to the bookshelf and started scanning. The poem was her favorite, but I could never stand the damn thing. She could consider this a peace offering. My finger stopped. Andrew Marvell. The book was well-thumbed enough that I opened straight to it. Sometimes you need to hear words aloud.

"Had we but world enough, and time…" I said to the empty living room.

A letter slipped from the back pages of the book, landing on the floor. It had the letterhead that almost everyone on the planet loved. I didn’t have to read the whole thing. The first two words said it all.

We’re happy…

What was it the counselor said? Time times two. Time times twenty.

I think if I take the whole bottle, I can give her time forever.

Nancy SM Waldman

ReMemories

Fantasy Scroll Magazine, Issue #8

* * *

The nanoprocessor points lit up, flashing blue in each corner of the wall of windows in my daughter Miell’s swanky apartment. A bigger than life vid appeared, the date showing on the lower right. I advanced it until I found the memory I wanted: Hayes’ sixth birthday.

What was I expecting?

A joyful birthday party. Messy and loud. Cake. Balloons. This glamorous skyrise full of giddy children. My grandson Hayes excited, happy, grinning from ear-to-ear.

But a very different scene played out—all from his own eyes and ears. No internal emotions recorded, of course. No smells or tastes. Nevertheless, I was in his head, experiencing the world through him.

Hayes, like many children these days, had been implanted just after birth with a ReMemory slot behind his right ear.

Just another example of technology that’s passed me by.

Years ago, I was a professional tech junkie, constantly at some kind of interface—anything other than the real life kind. Before my kids were born, I swore it off and moved to the country.

It felt weird—invasive—to be in his head.

He sat at their gleaming cocobolo dining table that held a mountain of professionally-wrapped presents. The room was quiet. Hayes looked down at the present he’d just unwrapped.

“Mom?” he said, his voice projecting. “Thank you. It’s the game I wanted.”

No reply.

He sighed and I felt my own echoing breath rise up and fall. The sensation was similar to inhabiting an avatar on an MMORPG, but more intense.

He got down and walked toward the living room.

I heard an animal sound. But there were no pets here.

“Mom?” Hayes came around the corner. My tall, lean Miell knelt on the floor, forehead to the ground, her hands in loose fists clawing at her temples. The high-pitched moans came from her.

My heart sped up.

“Hold on…Hayes,” she said, her voice muffled. “Gimme a sec.”

He just watched her. She seemed to be in pain, but he didn’t run over to help or ask her what was wrong.

As if he’s used to this kind of scene.

After a while he said, “What about v-linking the other kids in for the party? Weren’t we going to do that?”

She didn’t respond.

Hayes looked back at the presents on the table. Then he walked past them into the kitchen and opened the fridge. A cake sat on a lower shelf, beautifully decorated with IncrediBlaster—a heroic game character he loved and often pretended to be. He leaned in, scooped a finger full of icing off the back corner, and put his finger in his mouth.

Some link in my brain caused my salivary glands to respond.

Hayes returned to the dining room and opened another gift, this one a bright red and yellow IncrediBlaster costume. In the background I now heard Miell talking to someone in a desperate voice, but it was too far away to understand the words. Or maybe Hayes didn’t want to hear.

What a lousy party. What a lousy memory.

* * *

Miell and I fought when she was a teenager and young adult. She stopped routine contact, which meant that I’d seen Hayes exactly twice before this visit. When she called me three weeks ago, saying that she had to go on an extended business trip and wondered if I might like to stay with my grandson, I jumped at the chance and asked few questions.

Over the weeks though, I’d grown suspicious. Miell v-linked in everyday to check up on us, but she wouldn’t tell me where she was or when she’d be back. Plus, she looked bad. Overly thin, with deep circles under her eyes.

She was mostly full of instructions.

“Make sure he gets exercise.” This meant exercise videos—cartoon characters running him through a little cardio. If it was so important, why wasn’t he allowed to walk on the city streets with me?

“Are you putting on his finger clip every night?” The clip monitored his vital signs even though she said he had no history of illness.

Techno-chicanery promising to keep children safe from harm. As if…

Earlier today, she said, “Don’t forget to change his memory chip. It fills up every three to four weeks depending on how much he sleeps. Put the full one in sequence in the chip reader in his bedside drawer. It makes a back-up.”

This was the first time I’d heard about this.

Maybe because she didn’t expect to be gone so long?

“When are you coming back? Hayes misses you.”

“He obviously loves having you there. I saw that his reading’s improved. That’s your doing. Thanks.”

Avoidance.

“Talk to me. I don’t even know where you are. Yes, I was thrilled to be let into your lives. I would’ve done anything you asked—and I have. But…“

She glanced over her shoulder, then turned to face me again. “I’m right here. You can always get in touch. I’m working. You’ve nagged me forever to get to know Hayes. Enjoy it. Don’t forget, regular school will be out soon. The info on the summer school is on your comppad. Gotta go.”

Since Miell wouldn’t tell me anything, I decided to look at Hayes’ recorded memories. I never expected to see her writhing on the floor in agony.

I fell asleep worrying about Miell, but woke up with the idea of throwing a replacement party to make a happy memory for Hayes.

But how? I’d never been to his school, didn’t know the parents or the other kids. None had been to the apartment since I’d been here. They v-linked in for play dates.

“Want to walk with me on the way to the station this morning?” I suggested as he pulled on his sneakers. His big brown eyes stayed neutral, but I had the feeling he liked this idea. “I want to have a conversation which is hard when you’re in front of me in the wheelie. Plus, it’s more grown-up, don’t you think?”

“I’m six.”

“I know. Six-year-olds can walk, right?”

“Right.”

I’d forgotten that a crowded, noisy city street isn’t the best place for a conversation. Even walking side-by-side we had to shout. “Is your mom sick?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are there times when she can’t work? Stays in bed?”

“Oh. Yes. Well, she does work—” He looked up at me and said proudly, “in the movies! But sometimes she seems kind of, like, sick.”

“She hasn’t told you what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer. I looked down and he just shook his head.

It hit me. Hayes was so careful with words, with his reactions to things because of ReMemory. His mother could, would, see whatever he did or said. The only private thing he had were his thoughts.

We walked in silence.

When we got to the station, I strapped him in the wheelie.

“Can I walk home this afternoon?” he asked.

“You bet.”

Negotiating knots of heedless teenagers and self-absorbed business types, I wheeled him through the throng until we arrived at his private berth on the Peditrain.

I pushed him up the shallow ramp, smiling at the functionary who wore puke green and acted as if she’d never seen us before. She held the scanner in front of Hayes’ eye. It beeped cheerily, one of hundreds of others going off in the terminal. She nodded and we boarded the train.

Hefty metal hooks locked the wheelie into place. I had twenty seconds to kiss Hayes good-bye for the day before a belt with eight inches of bright blue and orange padding lowered around him and the whole wheelie. I gave him a quick hug and we touched noses. I exited and the door closed behind me. The windows were one-way. I could no longer see my boy, but I always waved at him anyway.

* * *

“I can’t stay indefinitely,” I said to Miell when she showed up on the vid later that day.

“You wanted to get to know your grandson.”

“True, but I know something’s seriously wrong. I watched Hayes’ memory of his last birthday.”

She drew back in a long slow motion that reminded me of a snake considering whether or not to strike. Her shaky hand floated up and grabbed onto the back of her skull, her fingertips digging in.

“You’re sick, or addicted, or both.”

“I’m working.”

“I’ve seen you on the floor. Moaning. What’s the drug?”

“I’ll hire a nanny so you can go home. Don’t know why I let you into my life again. Big mistake.”

“Let me help.”

Her hand now lay on the desk in a tight fist. She wore heavy make-up, but it didn’t cover up anything.

“I…I am not addicted to any drug. I just can’t come home right now. We’re…trying to cobble a complicated, time-sensitive deal on a film. Sorry this didn’t work out. I’ll find a nanny for Hayes.”

“No!”

She disconnected.

* * *

I fussed with Hayes’ bed covers as he snuggled on one side, settling in for the night. As soon as I’d tucked in his arm, it wiggled out again. He turned his head to look at me, splayed his fingers and said, “Gama, you forgot the monitor.”

I sighed. “So I did.” I fished the bright red finger clip out of a dish on his bedside table and sat down on the bed. Pinching the plastic device to open its tiny padded jaws, I slipped it over his middle finger and let go. He had reassured me that he didn’t even feel it.

“Nice that it’s red,” I said.

“Red’s my favorite color.”

“It is?” I feigned shock and surprise.

He grinned, only then remembering that he’d told me this dozens of times. “Yeah, like IncrediBlaster’s cape. Don’t forget to turn the monitor on.” He rolled over again, pulling both hands together and under his head in the classic child-sleeping pose. I tucked thick strands of light brown hair behind his ear.

“Tell me again why you need monitoring.”

“I dunno,” he said, his voice muffled. Then, remembering that it was his duty to educate his clueless grandmother, he added, “So you’ll get an alert if something happens to me in the middle of the night.”

Parroted words. What if it isn’t about Hayes, but Miell?

What if he had to wear a monitor because she was often so indisposed that she wouldn’t hear a normal kid’s cry in the night?

* * *

While Hayes was at school, I zipped through hundreds of his memories. Most of the chip held ordinary, mundane scenes.

A series of women looked after Hayes. I took Miell’s threat to replace me with a nanny even more seriously after seeing them all. But I also took heart that she had called me this time. First time in six years. There had to be a reason.

The vids showed that Hayes had friends at school. He was a bit of a hanger-on, never the center of attention, but I saw no evidence of bullying or being actively disliked.

At home, he often went into his mother’s empty room, lay on her bed and put on her head phones. Then, the vid would pause, indicating that he’d gone to sleep.

I also witnessed him and his mother together in the bed. Once they watched a funny movie while eating popcorn. I giggled out loud at a wrestling/tickle fight they had another night. It wasn’t all bad.

But for weeks at a time Hayes saw Miell only on the vid or in person briefly at night after he was asleep. His eyes would open a slit and she’d appear blurry, a wreck. And worse, there were dozens of memories Hayes had of his mother seemingly passed out, or rolling on the floor clawing at her scalp, or pleading with someone to get her a fix.

I am not addicted to any drug, she’d said, like a politician denying a specific thing truthfully while lying by omitting the larger truth. So, if not a drug…what?

I ran the vid back to one of those pleading scenes. Hayes sat on the couch playing a game. Miell told him to mute it while she argued with some man. I backed it up a little more.

Maybe I could…

I minimized the vid controls on the comppad and searched the menu for editing software. This was one of my obsessions back in the day. The one I found had way more bells and whistles on it than I ever had, but I knew enough to know what to ignore.

I soon had the scene downloaded to the pad. I copied the section I wanted to work with and brought up the snippet in the editing software. Isolating the audio, I ran it back several times.

“D…dal…Bi..l be…s[unintelligible]…You got…[unintelligible]…can’t ren…[unintelligible]…No…—ts!”

This section finished with a barrage of enraged words from Miell that were also unintelligible, but the meaning was clear.

It wasn’t much to go on.

I worked with it: dulling the ambient noise, pulling up the dominant frequency of Miell’s voice, tweaking the bass and treble so the vowels would come in more clearly, running it over and over. Sometimes the results were worse. Finally some of the words came in more clearly.

“…deal’s a deal. Bi-n[-something]-l beats. You got me hooked…[unintelligible]can’t renege. Didn’t know…[unintelligible]…No…[unintelligible]…fucking implants!” And then the cursing.

Bi-n[something]-l…beats. It tugged at my memory.

What else could she be addicted to if not a drug?

I used to be addicted to digital technology; that’s why I was so wary of it to this day.

Bin—-l beats.

Binaural beats. Of course.

Audio recordings geared specifically for human ears, the human brain. One sound thread for each ear, running into and mixing in the brain. They’d been around forever and—like snake oil—people would periodically claim that they were digital drugs, safe for relaxation, stimulation and highs. Just like pharmaceuticals without criminality or side effects. I never knew them to gain any credibility and I hadn’t heard or thought of them in years.

I did an Internet search and was, once again, blown away by what I had missed. Binaurals were big business. Huge.

I walked into Miell’s bedroom. There in the bedside table were the headphones I’d seen Hayes listening to when she wasn’t at home. They were hardwired into a dedicated audio device. Odd, I thought, I never saw her wearing them in any of Hayes’ memories. But then, I couldn’t watch every minute of his life.

I put them on and turned up the volume.

* * *

“Hayes, are you asleep?”

“No.”

“Mom told me to check your chip yesterday. I almost forgot again.”

He rolled over and looked at me sleepily.

Sure enough, it blinked red. I popped the chip out, put it on the table and turned back to him. I stroked his soft cheek, passively bemoaning the day in the future when coarse whiskers would sprout from them.

“I want you to come to my house for a visit.”

“Your house?”

“Uh-huh. We’ll wait till school’s out and go then.”

“Does Mom know?”

“Um, no. I just thought of it. Don’t mention it yet. Let me work out the details first, okay?”

“Sure. How will we get there? How far is it?”

“Let’s talk tomorrow. Another week of school?”

He nodded.

“Okay, I’ll need to tell the school camp that you won’t be there at first. Do you mind missing it?”

He shrugged and shook his head.

“We’ll have an adventure.”

He didn’t react much. This was a boy who waited to see. “You have cousins.”

“I do?”

I nodded. “Some older, some younger.”

“I’ll meet them?”

I nodded again thinking of the birthday party I was going to give him. “Remember I told you about my animals.”

“Oh yeah.” He thought for a minute. “A dog?”

“Yep. A big, old, stinky golden retriever. And cats. And ducks.”

“I can see them all?”

“Of course. Guess what my dog’s name is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Red.”

He gasped. “Red’s my fav—”

We broke into a fit of giggles. When it faded, he said, “Mom will think this is okay?”

“I’m hoping she’ll come too.”

This was obviously too far-fetched for him to believe, but he grinned when he said, “Not really.”

“Maybe not. But I’ll try to convince her.”

I patted him again and got up to leave.

“Gama, you forgot to put in the new chip.”

* * *

The next day, I set to work researching the coding behind ReMemory. Once a techie, always a techie. I went searching for forums I hadn’t been near in years. There they were with the same clunky, old-fashioned formats and an astounding number of the same names; old Internet friends who were more than happy to help me hack into the program.

I ran a bunch of old memory chips through the vid, copying and pasting clips onto the comppad, constructing the most boring, generic memories I could find from Hayes’ life until I had almost enough for a full chip. I slipped an empty chip into the vid, dated it next in sequence before the one Hayes was currently wearing and filled it with the fabricated comppad memories.

By the time his school was out for a few weeks of summer, we were packed and ready to go. Hayes had asked no more questions about how much his mother knew or whether she was coming, but I owed him the truth.

“I haven’t told your mom that we’re going, Hayes,” I said that morning.

“You said you would.”

“I know, but that could backfire.”

“What do you mean?”

“She might fly home, hire another nanny, make me leave without you and life would go on as it was before I got here. I don’t want to take that risk. I hope you don’t either.”

He sat at the kitchen bar eating his cereal. He took several more bites before answering. I sweated out the long pause. “I want to go with you. But, are you kidnapping me?”

“Good question. Kind of. I guess. But your mom cares about both of us. I believe she finally let me into your lives because she knows she needs help and didn’t know how to get it any other way. I hope she’ll join us there, but she might just come and bring you right back here. I can’t stop her if that’s what she wants.”

He nodded, still chewing. “Okay. I want her to be like she was before she got the mic-implants.”

I stopped cleaning up the counter and turned to him. “The what?”

He looked guilty.

I walked over to him, pressed on his implant and took out his memory chip, putting it down on the counter. “It’s okay. I need to know.”

“She got implants. They’re like microphones in your ears so you don’t have to wear headphones.”

I breathed. “And since she got them…?”

He shrugged. “She’s been really weird.”

It took me a while, but I finally said, “I want her to be like she used to be too, buddy. So, we have to do one more thing to make this work. We’re going to record a fake memory on one of your chips. It’s called ‘acting.'”

He grinned.

* * *

We caught a shuttle flight, a high-speed train, and were met in the nearest little town, Macklins Corner, by my son—Miell’s older brother—the one who’d been taking care of my life here. He drove us to the house. Hayes, always quiet, withdrew even more the farther we got from the city.

I kept talking to him. “We’re going to see Red soon.” “Tomorrow you’ll meet your aunt and some of your cousins.” “Are you homesick?” But it wasn’t until I said, “We aren’t really farther from your mother here than we were at home, Hayes.”

He looked at me. “Do you have a vid?”

“No. Not like yours. But we have a computer and Internet. You’ll be able to see and talk to her, she’ll just be smaller. But remember when I said we needed a little time first?”

He nodded, but he looked scared.

I patted his leg. “When Mom can’t v-link to us, she’ll be worried, but eventually, she’ll think to look at the back-up of the last chip in your series and see the scene we acted out, right?”

“Yeah. Then she’ll think that we’ve gone to the national park for a camping trip and that’s why she can’t v-link with me for a while.”

“Right. She’ll be mad, but with me, not you.”

“That’s okay.”

I smiled at him. “She’ll try to contact me here, or if not, I’ll call her. Look!” I pointed out the front window.

Down the gravel drive, Red, his wavy, amber coat looking unnaturally clean and well-groomed, came running up to meet us.

* * *

It took longer than I expected for Miell to figure out what I’d done. I made myself unavailable online most of the time, but I had my call-in software set to record missed calls. We’d been there almost two weeks before she made her first attempt.

By that time, Hayes had met all of his extended family, knew how to take care of the chickens and ducks, had recovered from his first ever case of poison ivy and was beginning to tan.

I was ready. I set my status to “available” one morning and waited for the alert. When it came, Hayes was out swimming with his cousins.

“Mother.”

“Hi, Miell. As you see, I took matters into my own hands. I think that’s what you wanted…even if you’ll deny it.”

“You are at home? He’s with you?”

“Yes. He’s well.”

“Mother…Jesus, you faked the memory chip! Why? Why’d you go to so…to such lengths?”

Today she wasn’t wearing any make-up. I could more easily see the girl I raised even through her dulled eyes. My heart went out to her.

“His life was lousy.”

She winced.

“He’s in need of…many things. But, we can agree that the most important thing he needs is his mother.”

She looked over her shoulder. “You don’t understand.”

“I do. I know about the binaural beats and the implants.”

She teared up. “You don’t know that I’m…trapped. I’m literally trapped.”

“By?”

“My brain.” She spat the words in a harsh whisper.

“Tell me.”

“I got the implants removed. That’s why I went away. My plan was to get them removed, come home, thank you, and have my life back. You wouldn’t have to be confronted with what a fuck-up I am.”

“So you got hooked on this stuff before the implants?”

“Oh god, yeah. For years. It changes your brain. I couldn’t sleep without The Beats. Then I couldn’t wake up without it. And the company knows exactly what they’re doing! They know. They hook you till you need more and then sell and insert the implants and, under the influence of it all, it seems like a good thing. You program it to put you to sleep or give you a high or stimulate you and no one’s the wiser because it doesn’t show. It’s piped into your brain 24/7!”

“Jesus, Miell.”

“I knew right away the implants were a mistake. I wanted the company to take them out, but they had me where they wanted me. They refused to download The Beats when I said I wanted the implants removed.”

“So how’d you…What did you do?”

“I had to go to a private doctor. They’re out now. But my brain is ruined.”

“No, no baby. It’ll get better.”

“I’m glad you took Hayes.”

I gulped hard. “Come here.”

She shook her head.

“You are one of the strongest people I have ever known. We’ll help you.”

“But…I’m no good to him. Kinda, you know, crazy right now.” She paused for a long time and then jumped at some noise. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be in touch.”

* * *

Strains of an off-key “Happy Birthday” had just finished. Hayes, standing by the dining room table surrounded by seven cousins, two new friends, and even more adults, was about to blow out his candles.

Twisted crêpe paper in multiple colors hung crisscrossed over the ceiling and windows. Paper streamers curled from the light fixture along with dozens of balloons. A piñata awaited us outside on the maple tree. Everyone had gone all out to throw this sweet, sad boy, the best party ever.

I made the cake, so it was a tottering affair, but Hayes’ artistic cousin saved the day by drawing a fine facsimile of IncrediBlaster’s upper body with red cape streaming over its lumpy surface.

Just before he blew out the candles, my calico cat jumped on the table and stuck a paw right into IncrediBlaster’s nose. Everyone reacted: screaming, yelling, waving, shooing, shouting, laughing, and then someone noticed the cat’s tail was on fire.

The flames were quickly extinguished, the cat was unharmed, and the chocolate cake was delicious.

Loud. Messy. Colorful. Giddy. Playful. Boisterous. Joyful. Unforgettable. A real birthday party.

Everyone moved outside and the kids were well into their mission to destroy the piñata when my attention was drawn by Red barking and running to the front of the house. I followed him.

A taxi sat in the drive. The back door opened and Miell stepped out into the bright sunshine. She held onto the open car door as if she might crawl back in and take off again.

“Mom,” she croaked.

I rushed over, found her wallet, paid the driver, put my arm around her waist and said, “I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life.” She crept along like a woman much older than me but she managed to squeeze my shoulder with her shaking hand.

“I’m taking you upstairs. We’re having a party for Hayes and there are too many people here for you to face right now.”

“A party? For Hayes?”

“I’ll explain later. What do we have to do to help get your brain healthy again?”

“Oh god, Mom, if I knew that, I’d…” We were half-way up the stairs. She turned and looked at me, the pain in her eyes palpable. “I need to be reminded of why…“

“Why you’re putting yourself through this?”

“Yeah. Like a hundred times a day. I’ll forget.”

* * *

I tucked both kids into bed that night.

Miell first. My son gave her a mild sedative from his medicine cabinet. She looked calm for now, lying in her old bed. “I’ve always been trouble.”

“You’re worth it.”

“One doctor suggested electroshock.”

“No. They still do that?”

Her shoulders rose and fell against the pillow. “Guess so. I decided coming here to the boonies might be a little more pleasant than that alternative. And being this far out in the country might serve as enough of a shock to my brain. It’s worth a shot.”

I smiled at her. She was broken, but not destroyed. “That part of you that’s ‘trouble?’ It’s your best part as well as your worst. Put that fierceness to work for you.”

“Easy, right?” she said, gripping the bed sheets. I stroked her hands and she relaxed them, closing her eyes.

I stayed with her until she drifted off.

Do I have the energy for this? The stamina, the reserves to deal with a six-year-old and an addicted daughter who’s always been trouble? I didn’t know. The only thing I was sure of is that this was going in the right direction.

I watched her sleep for a few minutes and then went to Hayes. He was in bed wearing his IncrediBlaster costume.

“You going to sleep in that?”

He nodded, dark eyes defying me to tell him ‘no.’ I sat on the bed. “What’d you think of your party?”

Our boy of few words struggled to find the right ones. Finally he said, “The best.” He squeezed me around the middle. “Ever.”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Putting him to bed reminded me of our time in the city. “I guess I should check to see if your chip’s full.” I sighed. As I reached behind his ear, he pulled away. “What’s wrong?” I pressed on his implant, but didn’t feel the pop of the chip sliding out. “Turn around.”

He did.

The implant was empty.

I was confused. I left the chip out? No. The day we left the city, I put the real one back in after we recorded the camping scene on the phony chip.

“I took it out.”

“Hayes. When? Before your party?”

He nodded.

“But…I wanted to make you a happy memory and now…Why did you do that?”

He stuck his jaw out. “I knew it was going to be special. So, I wanted to keep it…private. Just for me. Is that okay?”

My breath caught in my throat. All I could do was nod.

“Don’t worry, Gama, I won’t ever forget it.”

He lay back, snuggling under the quilt.

My body plopped down on the bed. I reached out over him, feeling soft patchwork and his warm body, my mind holding on hard to this moment.

And Always, Murder

AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review

* * *

My caretakers in The Freevolution Habitat played Clue at night. I—Umberto, born an ordinary donkey—recovered from my surgeries and grew to self-awareness hearing the antics of Miss Scarlett and Professor Plum, ropes and conservatories, secret passageways and always, murder.

* * *

Sarelle—uplifted, sublime, blood bay horse and ex-love-of-my-life—came into my bar during the last set of the night. I lost all air. My mouth went dry, the reed stuck to my lip and Betsy, my clarinet, burbled inharmoniously for a moment or two.

I hadn’t seen her for more than a decade. After she left me, I moved here to Tijuana and bought the bar. At least I had music, and, whether metaphor or cliché, border towns the world over are havens for our kind.

She sat at a front center table while I recovered and launched into Sidney Bechet’s blissful Blue Horizon. Her infinite eyes gleamed as she listened.

"I want babies," Sarelle had told me during the messy break-up, noting some factoid she’d just learned about horses and donkeys being unable to breed. That, of course, was a manshit excuse because uplifted animals are usually sterile.

And then, she went with Horace, an up-donk like me.

The three of us had come up together at the Hab and were friends in San Francisco when newly aware, when I—thrilled beyond all reason with the delicately capable fingers attached to new hands at the end of new arms—had learned to play.

I finished the set, but my pride wouldn’t let me go to her. I sat down at the end of the bar near Al: bartender, buddy, barrister, biggest fan. I downed three shots in short order.

"Ease up," he said.

"I didn’t ask to be uplifted."

His arm halted in mid-air. His scotch swayed on the rocks.

"No-one asks to be born, you ass."

Al is human. And a lawyer. I liked him anyway.

The only come-back I could think of was, "You didn’t have to be born twice, so shut the hell up."

"When have I ever shut up? So that’s Sarelle?" He regarded her with undisguised appreciation.

"She’s a horse, Al."

"Was. Was a horse. They did a nice job on her."

"You make her sound like a damned refurbished car."

"Umberto?"

Her voice entered my body, not through my ears, but my sternum. It swirled around my heart for a few seconds and then squeezed.

I stood and turned, feeling the tequila, swaying like Al’s scotch.

"I need your help," she said.

"Hmm. Should’ve stopped that sentence before the er help."

"Be serious. I’m in danger."

"And I’m drunk. You should have shown up earlier. Ten years ago would have been good." I saw white in her eyes as her head reared back. "Who’s gonna hurt you?" I asked, melting at the sight of her distress.

"He’s hurt me for years. I’m trying to get away."

That sobered me up. Putting my hand around her withers, I guided her to my office, and poured her a brandy. We sat on the couch.

"Horace?" I asked.

She knocked back half her drink and nodded, eyes down.

Horace. Already, this didn’t add up. I’d run into him a month or so ago.

Sitting in shade of a cottonwood in the square, I heard my name, but couldn’t see who was yelling it. My natural donkey eyes being none too keen, I’d gotten vision enhancements years ago. I adjusted the eyedial to zoom, resolved the blurriness, and saw Horace loping across the green—mostly avoiding the intervening toddlers and locked-in-place lovers.

A bay dun with a light cream pangare on his chest, I had to admit he was elegant for a donk—especially compared to my blotchy hide.

"What brings you here?" I asked.

"The scene."

He couldn’t stand still, like he was on something. "What scene?"

"The Scene is what we’re calling it. Surprised you didn’t have the idea first."

I flicked lint off my pin-striped trousers. "Haven’t had an idea in twelve years. Tell me." I retrieved Betsy’s case from the bench at the last second before he could sit on her.

"It’ll be like an old-time vaudeville show with all uplift acts."

My belly roiled.

He continued. "I’ve done pretty well financially, so I’m just trying to give back. To our community, you know."

"To make spectacles of your fellow beings?"

"Nah, that’s not the spin. Not a freak show. A Variety Revue. We show what we can do."

"Knock yourself out."

"You have to be part of this. You’re famous here."

I can’t deny it; that self-serving bit of flattery spread through me like warm syrup. But like anything sweet, it didn’t last.

I got up. "Break a leg."

Horace put a hand on my arm.

"No, seriously," I said, extracting it from him, "break a leg."

* * *

Now Sarelle sat on my worn, green velvet couch, tilting toward me a bit, but only because of the sprung coils under the cushion. Her long silken legs—red-brown with delicate black fetlock wreaths and still so shapely they took my breath away—stretched out in my direction.

"Horace has always been abusive," she said. "I’m never good enough. He’s ruined my self-confidence. He controls my every move. Though…" she paused and downed the dregs of her brandy, "he only hits me when he’s…under the influence."

"Sarelle, donks—We aren’t violent. Sure, stubborn and crabby. Depressive, maybe. We lose our temper and lash out, but to be intentionally and repeatedly cruel? It’s not our way."

"No one believes me. It’s why I never came to you before." She closed her eyes and pressed on them.

"It’s a shock. And, so needless. You could have stayed with me, but instead, you went with someone who’s hurt you? I don’t know why you’ve come to me now or what I’m supposed to do."

She looked straight at me, her black eyes lifeless, dull. "I can’t…say it."

I regarded her for a long moment. My heart had finally stopped pattering. "How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Months."

I stood up and took her glass. "I can’t help you. At least Horace had the courtesy to seek me out. You…you come asking for something you can’t even verbalize and expect me to jump when you say so?"

"I want you to kill him."

"What?"

"I won’t say it again."

"You shouldn’t have said it once. Murder?" I whispered the word. "That’s crazy human stuff. It’s not us. It’s not in us."

"But, before…when we were simple animals, we didn’t take drugs or drink alcohol, did we? They changed us. And now we’re just…monsters."

"Jesus. No." I sat down. "We’re no more monsters than a…a human woman with breast implants or an android with skin. We still have our own natures. We’re still vegetarians. We didn’t become human when we were uplifted. We aren’t capable of murder."

"I’m sorry I came." She stood up and brushed down the front of her deep blue dress, smoothing the lightweight fabric.

"You still look amazing. Leave him."

"It’s okay, Umber. I know what I have to do."

I watched her go from the back of the bar.

She stopped and spoke to Al for a few minutes. He must have told her what I would have, that she didn’t owe us anything, because she left with no money changing hands. His eyes followed her out.

She left me with nothing, once again.

* * *

After a few sleepless nights, I went to The Scene.

Horace shook my hand energetically. "I’m afraid to hope that you’ve come to join us."

"Don’t be afraid."

I signed a contract for a short run.

My motives weren’t complicated. I still cared about Sarelle and needed to find out what was going on.

But I never saw them together. Sarelle wasn’t around. And Horace, was…well, Horace. More full of himself than he had been when I first knew him. Controlling, sure. But this was his show; he needed to boss everyone around.

Opening night, I sought him out. A massive gauze bandage shrouded his forearm.

"What the hell happened?"

"Accident. It’s fine." But he looked miserable for a guy who was about to have a sold-out opening.

"Is Sarelle going to be here?

"She left."

Left him? Left Tijuana?

"Where to?"

He shrugged. "Don’t know. She does what she wants."

"That’s not what she told me."

"When did you see her?"

"She came to my place a few weeks ago. Jealous?" I wanted to rile him, to see how quickly his temper flared.

But instead, he said, "She’s always done what she wanted. No-one controls Sarelle. There’s not much left between us."

This sounded like a hard-won truth, but I tried again. "Were you trying to off-load her onto me? Is that why you came to my town?"

His bottom jaw gaped, capped teeth looking unnaturally small. "Where do you get off? I came here to do exactly what I’m doing."

"And it just happens to be the place I put down roots."

"Yep. You—" he pointed at my chest and enunciated every word, "—and a lot of other uplifts. Get over yourself." He walked off in a huff.

I had riled him, but not about Sarelle.

I took the stage feeling pretty good in spite of all this. I love performing. Hell, I bought my own bar so I could play any time I wanted. That night, having a large, new and appreciative audience was a treat.

And yet, my performance was off. My fingers worked fine; I didn’t screw anything up, but something didn’t feel right.

They loved me anyway. I played three encores.

Before the first one, Horace was there in the wings, excited, pleased—despite our earlier spat—urging me to go back on. I played two more tunes and left the stage. Horace wasn’t there. The audience clapped and stamped so long that I went back for one more.

Then at some point, while I watched the final act from stage-left and, afterward, when we all took our bows and curtain calls, Horace was discovered lying in a pool of blood behind the theater.

In the alley, with a blunt instrument…

* * *

They took me into custody before the last customers had left the theater. But being falsely arrested for a friend’s death hardly touched me in comparison with the crystal-clear clarity with which I finally saw Sarelle’s vicious, self-serving and murderous nature.

Al came immediately.

"You don’t seem that upset," he said. "Are you in shock?"

"I know I didn’t kill Horace and so does Sarelle. This—" I shrugged looking at the cage I was in, "—I can leave when it’s all sorted out. In the meantime, my self-inflicted prison bars have vanished. I feel freer than I have for years. Hey, ask them if I can have Betsy in here, will ya?"

"What?"

"My clarinet."

"Umber, your clarinet is being held as the murder weapon."

In the alley, with a clarinet…

* * *

So neatly framed was I that I should have been hanging over the mantel. According to the police, the clarinet they’d taken from my hands had Horace’s dried blood on the rim of the bell.

My conviction seemed almost certain to everyone but me. Al was taking no bets. While I knew where I’d been at the time Horace had been bashed, no one else seemed to have noticed me backstage. I could have, they said, left after my last number, killed Horace and been back in time for my curtain calls.

But I knew how to beat this. Maybe it wouldn’t have had to come to trial at all, but I wanted it to. And there you have it: I’m a performer at my core. I wanted to face Sarelle this one last time.

"He could never get used to the idea that I wanted someone other than him," she testified, in a whispery voice.

My passion for her had turned into a cold hate.

"You were legally married to Horace, the deceased?" Al asked on cross-examination.

"Yes."

"You stand to gain a significance inheritance and proceeds from an insurance policy?"

She glared, her nostrils flaring.

"Please answer the question, Ms. Sarelle," said the judge.

"Correct."

Al established that she and I were once in a close relationship and then asked, "Are you familiar with the instrument Mr. Umberto plays?"

"Of course. A clarinet."

"How does Umberto feel about his instrument?"

She glanced at the jury. "It’s his prized possession."

"Does he have a name for it?"

She shifted and reared her head so that her hair bounced fetchingly. She looked at the prosecutor and said, "Betsy."

"Is there any significance to the name?"

I couldn’t have enjoyed the show more.

"I, uh…I—"

"Isn’t it a fact that Betsy was your name prior to your uplift? And that Mr. Umberto is one of the few who knows this fact?"

She stared at him, fuming, humiliated, as I knew she would be, to have her former life as an ordinary horse with a common name referenced in a publicized trial.

"You are under oath, Ms. Sarelle."

"Fuck you."

I laughed out loud. Jury members gasped, giggled, and looked at the witness suspiciously for the first time. The prosecutor objected, though to what, I don’t know. The judge almost broke his gavel. All this, while Al leaned back against the defendant’s table, his arms folded across his chest.

The judge told Sarelle to answer the question. She flat out refused, was held in contempt, and taken away by the bailiff.

The prosecution rested on this highly rocky point and, in due time, Al called me to the stand.

"Mr. Umberto, is there any circumstance in which you would use Betsy as a weapon?"

"None. Even in self-defense, my reaction would be to set her down carefully and use my fists. Hit something with her? Impossible. I would protect her with my life."

"But the prosecutor would have the jury believe that the instrument you played that night, the instrument that was on your person when you were arrested, the instrument otherwise known as Exhibit A, the supposed murder weapon, is Betsy."

"It isn’t. I don’t know what happened to Betsy. I don’t have her anymore."

"No?"

"Unbeknownst to me at the time, I wasn’t playing Betsy the night Horace was murdered."

"Why were you playing an instrument other than your own?"

"As I said, I was unaware. Someone switched her for a reasonably fine instrument that had been previously tainted with poor old Horace’s blood. Sarelle, I’d say."

The prosecutor popped up. "Move to strike! Opinion."

"Sustained. Jury will disregard. Tread carefully, Defense."

"Your honor," said Al, "I would like to admit into evidence a receipt."

The judge allowed the document.

"What is this for, Mr. Umberto?" Al asked.

"An engraving job I had done a few years ago. It reads, Engrave word—Betsy—on inside of clarinet bell."

The judge requested to see Exhibit A.

"Let the record show," the judge said, "that this clarinet has no such engraving."

"Where is Betsy, Mr. Umberto?"

"I have no idea. Ask Sarelle."

* * *

Al should have bet on himself after all.

Even though the bogus clarinet I played that night had Horace’s blood on it, the coroner’s testimony about a recent deep knife wound on Horace’s forearm introduced enough doubt in the jury’s minds about where that blood might have come from, that I was acquitted.

Sarelle was never prosecuted. She had a convenient alibi locating her in San Diego that night.

The trial gained Al some notoriety though and he set up a full-time practice on the US side of the border.

I missed him at first. I thought about him a lot. Eventually, I went to see him.

"Fancy office," I said. "Business must be good."

"I have you to thank for that."

"Really?"

"Sure."

"You’re welcome. But we both know it wasn’t my doing. I’ve come here today to make an accusation and here it is: Horace was killed in the alley, with who knows what, by Attorney Al."

He regarded me for a long time, dark eyes steady. Then he said, "Don’t do this, bud. It’s not a game."

"Was she worth it?"

Al lifted his hands palms up, indicated his wood paneled office and said, "My—uh—interactions with her were extremely beneficial, yes. More to me, than her. I’d think you’d be happy to find out that Sarelle doesn’t win every game she plays."

"I thought you said this wasn’t a game."

* * *

I wonder about the caretakers in the habitat. Why’d they play that particular game? Maybe they were just simple men wiling away the hours, but I’m suspicious of humans and their motives. Maybe they really were trying to make us like them—in every way.

From that respect, it’s good to know that Sarelle wasn’t capable of the physical act of murder—that she had to get a human to do her dirty work.

But, it’s not exactly something to be proud of, is it?

This ended up like one of those busted games of Clue where someone makes so many wrong guesses that it becomes obvious who did it, and since there’s no point in making the correct accusation, you just put away the weapons, fold up the board and call it a night.

I never got Betsy back. Either one of them.

Sound of Chartreuse

Perihelion Science Fiction Magazine

* * *

My spring green great-granddaughter has come home from her Earthstudies for a visit.

"We learned about Great Aunt Sonjec’s Birth of CaROUSal in History of Music, Grandma Carinth. They call the frequelet the most important innovation in music since the gramophone."

"Bah," I say. "History’s all guesses and lies."

Her hair ripples in the light as she shakes her head. "Don’t be a poor sport just because your sister is famous and—"

"Think I care about that? I don’t. But I lived that history. 2215, right here on planet Pas. The Birth of CaROUSal

…oh yes. But what historians don’t know is that I served as its mid-wife. If I hadn’t been there, CaROUSal would have been stillborn."

* * *

I sat, watching from the shadows at the back of the open-air bar. My synesthetic response was deepred-shimmery: detached anticipation, as Sonjec, 19 in earthyears—two younger than me—climbed onto the platform that served as stage. On the wall behind her a banner read: CaROUSal.

Her thick straight hair lay like a thatched roof over her forehead, short and shaggy around her ears. She wore a bright blue shirt and tight grey-green pants shoved into heavy boots. Two other people were on stage: a keyboardist, whose name I never got, and the percussionist, Ruk.

Ruk is P’twua, one of the three humanoid races on Pas.

The first, and—at that point—only, frequlet hung from a plaited strap over Sonjec’s left shoulder. The scrolled brass and copper box with curved sides and a dozen or so touch-interfaces lay flat against her diaphragm.

As she adjusted the instrument’s settings, I noticed my dry mouth and sweaty palms. The red shimmer had transformed into vibrating mud-green: low-grade anxiety. Why? I had nothing riding on this performance. I didn’t care whether Sonjec did well or not.

I’d felt only irritation when she recently showed up. Sonjec had always stayed on Earth with her father, while I accompanied our mother on her diplomatic posts. New languages, people, cultures fit not only my interests, but also my sensitivities.

Ruk moved to the front of the stage and spoke in his language, Dwa*p’ti. P’twuas made up most of the crowd.

I picked up the gist. He explained that unlike most music where you stay quiet and listen, CaROUSal’s music was made on the spot from the input of sound and Sonjec’s talent. He instructed them to make as much or any type of noise they wished.

"The frequencies will flow from all of you into Sonjec’s instrument and back out—transformed. You will be an integral part of the music and it will be unique to this night."

Sonjec’s music changed passive listeners into active participants.

Her implanted binaural conductors meant she and her multi-layered contraption were one highly-integrated circuit. That night, the input from the Dwa*p’ti language—which includes a variety of pops and ticks of the tongue on the cheeks, lips, teeth and from the throat—made music unlike anything I’d ever heard.

But even while appreciating the raucous, rhythmic melodies with surprising tangents and harmonizing vocals, I felt my anxiety grow to high alert.

Chartreuse: edgy, risky, headed toward danger.

Then, the complexions of the P’twuas, normally a pale green-ivory, went coral.

Disoriented, I jerked my head around the room, trying to figure out what was happening. I don’t see imaginary colors; I mentally associate colors with emotional content. But, coral, like all colors, had meaning to me.

Coral-pale: teasing.

Coral-sharp: mocking, taunting, ridicule.

Ruk, looking distraught and stunned, no longer played, but Sonjec, eyes closed, didn’t notice.

I stood, overturning my bar stool, every muscle tense as the playful boisterousness in the room disappeared. I didn’t know what it meant for P’twuas to suddenly go coral, but I knew the vibes had changed from fun to furious.

She has to stop the music.

I strode toward her, jostling through the small tables and standing, shouting, fist-waving P’twuas. Inside me, hot pink-bright: outrage, streamed alongside spinning, intense, viridian green: violence.

Someone tugged at my shoulder and spun me around. I was in the middle of a tight circle of very angry people.

"Ass-hole Earthens! Go home," a tall—to my collarbone—P’twuan shouted in excellent English. He reared his fist back and flashed it forward, hitting me in the jaw. Pain sliced through my skull and I staggered. A follow-up punch to the chest thrust me backward onto the reed-covered floor. Three sharp kicks landed against my rib cage as well as grinding pressure on my right knee, as if someone were standing on it.

Flashes of yellowwhite-hot alternated with red-streaked black.

"Ffffuck!" I shouted, once I’d caught my breath. I bucked and flailed. I was bigger than these people and, more importantly, I hadn’t done anything wrong. "Back off!"

There was no more music, just crazed commotion.

An open hand reached down. I grabbed it and was pulled up, only then seeing that it was Ruk. He spoke in a firm voice to the people around me, but my brain was in no shape to interpret a language I’d only begun to learn.

A bubbling froth of grey-dirty: disordered, disgruntled confusion had replaced the fuchsia and sickening green.

Sonjec stood at the back corner behind the stage holding her instrument against her chest. She motioned for me to come. I touched Ruk. He glanced up for the briefest of moments and nodded. I left his calming presence and ran out with my sister.

* * *

"I didn’t even know you had come," Sonjec said, mashing a cold pack on my swollen knee.

We’d escaped to Mother’s swanky apartment deep in the diplomatic section of downtown O*p’toc where she served as Earth Colonies Ambassador.

"It’s been a while since I’ve heard you play."

"It went well," she said, reclining on the plush couch perpendicular to the one I was on.

I barked a harsh laugh, but she didn’t join in. I looked at her. "You were kidding, right?"

"The music, I mean. The music was going great. I loved what their language was adding. I’ll have to work on the recording tomorrow." She reached over to the table, picked up her bottle of brew and took a long drag.

"Shit." I shook my head, feeling pain in my ribs, knee, chest. Once again, Sonjec gets off free and clear. "You’re missing the tiny little fact that you caused a riot."

She choked, sat up and coughed. When she recovered, she shot me a withering look. "Right, Carinth. I caused that mess."

"Are you completely unaware? Something in that room changed when you started playing. Well…not at first. It built…It—"

"It had nothing to do with the music. They were drinking. It was a bar fight. Like that never happens."

She was definitely the most clueless person in the world.

"Ask Ruk," I said.

"Yeah. Ruk."

"Where’d you pick him up?"

She shrugged. "He’s the reason I came."

"Huh. I thought you came because your family’s here."

Sitting forward on the couch her elbows resting on splayed knees, hands holding the ale, she looked at me for a long moment. "Yeah, well, things come together that way, don’t they? He wrote me. Fan mail. Asked me to come. Talked the place up. Lots of water, beaches, beautiful scenery, and he said they were a peaceful race who love music. Hah!"

"They are peaceful. They keep to their own, but I’ve experienced no hostility. Not till tonight."

"Humanoids will be humanoids."

"This is serious. It could cause trouble for Mom."

"Isn’t that my role in the family? Some things never change. Need something for the pain?"

* * *

Sonjec disappeared.

I didn’t know until the next evening. I slept off the drugs she gave me, felt lousy and stayed in bed.

Mother came in around supper time.

It was hard to believe that Sonjec and I were her offspring. She exuded professionalism, elegance, competence, intelligence and attractiveness—all composed into a complete package that most people found reassuring. The contrast between all that and my gawky, scattered, unfocused self was simply undermining. I had nothing of her in me.

"What do you know about last night?" she asked.

I sat up, alert for the first time all day. "I was there."

She arched a perfectly defined eyebrow from her perfectly matched set. "That was nice of you to support your sister. Tell me what happened."

I did. Honestly. I left out my sensory data, knowing it wouldn’t help, but conveyed my opinion that Sonjec’s music had somehow, for some reason, riled up the locals.

"You’re injured?"

"Sore. Nothing’s broken."

"Unfortunatley, this incident—bar fight or whatever it was—hasn’t gone away. I may have a crisis on my hands. Where’s Sonjec?"

"Haven’t seen or heard from her since last night."

Mother sighed. "She isn’t here. I’ve messaged her multiple times with no answer."

"She’ll show up. Why would she hide if she didn’t think the uproar at the bar had anything to do with her?"

But I was wrong. Another day passed with no word.

The brawl boiled over, giving rise to protests in the courtyard by Embassy Row. On the feeds there were calls for Mother’s expulsion and a growing ugliness toward off-worlders. So far, because of the respect with which she was held, her diplomatic counterparts were being patient and calling for calm.

"What are they saying Sonjec did?"

Mother shook her head. "It’s something she communicated through the frequlet, but I don’t understand the nuances. She deeply offended the P’twuas by breaking some subtle cultural taboo. That it was inadvertent hardly matters at the moment."

Mother feared she’d been kidnapped.

Later that day, I sat in the apartment in front of the VID and watched my mother the Ambassador, in formal ceremonial uniform, as she held a press conference and apologized as thoroughly as any person could.

Afterward, I went to find Ruk.

Mother had instructed me to stay in the apartment, but I wasn’t too worried about my safety. I didn’t really believe Sonjec had been kidnapped.

Still, when I walked into the empty bar—the scene of the crime—I felt grateful for the first time in my life that I looked nothing like my mother or my half-sister. It was unlikely that anyone would associate me with them.

I spoke to the tender. He knew Ruk and messaged him for me. I waited out back on the lanai. The bar was on the outskirts of the city proper, near a broad ocean inlet. The stiff breeze off the briney, lavender and white water had something in it that made my skin tingle.

Why do I think I can trust Ruk? I thought, rubbing my cheeks to get rid of the itch. Maybe he lured Sonjec to Pas for political reasons. Maybe I’m walking into a trap.

I thought back to that moment when his hand reached down and pulled me off the floor. My overwhelming perception, even in the midst of that melee, had been one of bluesoft-transparent: trustworthy calm.

Bluepale is stand-offish or shy, common among P’twuas.

Bluebright involves intensity of spirit. And genius.

Ruk came around the corner. As I watched his fluid, supple stride, I re-measured this view against my first impression. No alarms sounded.

He sat down and said, "I am responsible."

"How? On purpose?"

"No. But I asked Sonjec to come. I did that because I’m convinced she will revolutionize music, but nevertheless, I brought her here."

"What happened?"

"It will be difficult for me to communicate."

"Try."

"My people—We, eh, exchange meaning on more than one level."

This was news to me. "Other than spoken language?"

He nodded. "This is a difference between earthhumans and us. Correct?"

"We understand the concept of non-verbal communication. Like…body language."

"I didn’t know."

I shook my head while running thumb and middle finger down my glass, rubbing condensation off. "Not well-developed. It tends be just outside our awareness and is usually disregarded, at least consciously. There are pheromones—smells—as well, but we’re hopeless in understanding those."

"I see. It is helpful that you understand there can be…levels. Ours is highly developed. In some ways more so than the words we use."

"Telepathy?"

"No. It’s a common understanding of sensory perceptions." He sat back in his chair and looked away over the water, as if trying to decide how to explain.

I had been hunched forward, elbows on the small table, tense. I sat back too, and breathed in the tangy smell. His words moved me; scrambled pieces of myself shuffled into a more orderly arrangement.

A language of perception. Of course. I had known that could be possible even though those words had never formed a sentence in my head. A shiver went down my spine. I leaned forward again.

"You perceive something…a sound, a sight, a smell, the combination of several of these and it means the same thing to you as it does to the tender in there or any other P’twua?"

His head turned slowly back to me. He put his graceful, long-fingered hands on the table, faced me directly and took his time responding. "How is it that you get this so quickly? I have attempted to communicate it to Earthens and they do not understand."

"I have some…ways of perceiving that most of my people either do not have or ignore. It’s called synesthesia and has never been of much use because earthhumans who have this trait don’t necessarily agree on the words they use to talk about it. In me, it is an intersection of emotions and color."

He didn’t have eyebrows, but his forehead wrinkled as his yellow-brown eyes widened. "I’m completely stunned. I had no idea."

"But it’s not a form of communication between us. It’s…internal. Private."

Now his forehead wrinkled downward in a serious expression. "Yes. Ours too, but I think in a different way. We have much to learn about each other. And we have not even been introduced properly. I am Ruk Tur*ki’tua."

I extended my hand across the table. "Carinth Kellen."

He smiled. "Sonjec is your sister?"

"Half-sister. The illustrious Ambassador is our mother, but we have different fathers. Do you know where Sonjec is?"

"No. Don’t you?"

I explained the situation.

He took out his communic and began to make calls.

I waited, thinking, not about my missing sister or the looming inter-planetary diplomatic incident, but the concept of a common awareness of sensory perception.

"She was seen at my home earlier. We should go there."

"Mother thinks she was kidnapped."

"Why?"

"You tell me. What pissed everyone off?"

"I never anticipated what happened. The vocals and sounds that her instrument remixed and produced were deeply insulting."

"How?"

He struggled, and then said, "Translating is proving impossible. If there are English words, I don’t know them."

"Let me tell you how I was feeling."

He nodded.

"Do you know the word chartreuse?"

He shook his head.

I took out my communic and pulled up a color chart I often referred to. I pointed to the sharp yellow-green.

"What is the word?" he said, nodding vigorously. "I must remember. This chart is excellent."

"I’ll send it to you. That night, I felt nervous and that built to a high-tuned uneasiness on the edge of danger: chartreuse."

He looked at me wide-eyed. "Are you part P’twuan?"

I smiled and shook my head. I didn’t know much about my father, but I knew he was an earthhuman.

"This is right," Ruk said. Chartreuse—our word is n*dua’k'ti—was present for me as well. It is a complex feeling for us. Risk, yes. Unease, yes. But also a—" He raised his hand and ran his thumb over his fingers repeatedly. "—a feel."

"Slimy?"

"Yes!"

"Oh gods. This is crazy. I understand you. So…but just that wouldn’t cause a riot."

"No. I have thought of nothing else since it happened. When Sonjec took our vocalizations—what is our public communication—that went well. But her frequlet also picked up our sub-communication, this emotional-sensory layer the meaning of which is in our voices, but with no words. And she collected it and suddenly, there it was, this non-public thing, being transmitted, broadcast for all to hear."

"Communicating what?"

He shook that question off. "What’s important is that we didn’t like even that much. Perceptual communication is wordless, therefore private. Something we all understand but rarely talk about because…what would be the point? We felt exposed by her music and then when everyone began to express that vulnerability and displeasure, she picked that up and put it in the mix. By the time the riot broke out, the room was full of what I will call, because my English is not perfect, orange-pointy."

I stared at him with my mouth open. "Ruk, everyone’s skin color changed."

He looked down and I knew I’d inadvertently evoked a strong emotion in him.

Yellowpale-muddy: shame.

"We do," he said, softly, "upon occasion, have tinges of color change in our normal complexions. It showed?"

"To me. But why is this shameful?"

"You are so direct, Carinth. It’s a bit hard to handle."

"My apologies. I don’t want to offend. Teach me."

"No, I like it. It’s just different…and amazing. You pick up so much."

I couldn’t respond. His words filled me up as nothing ever had.

His eyes narrowed. "I’m getting a perception that I would not mention if you were P’twuan. We would both simply know."

"Tell me."

"Let me look at your chart."

After a moment he said, "Orchid."

I smiled and then laughed. "Brilliant. Purple-orchid: gratitude, joy, fulfillment."

"A pure, uncommon emotion."

"We understand one another."

"So back to our evening of music…"

"Oh, god. Yes," I said, "orange-pointy is what I would call

coral-sharp.

He took in an audible short, crisp breath. "Exactly. I would explain this as ridicule, which mixed with our shame at having our private thoughts broadcast. Our reaction was re-mixed and blasted out of the frequlet in a complex perception that I will attempt to communicate as…passionate contempt."

"Wow."

"Yes. What color is that?"

"I don’t know."

He sat back, nodding. "It is complicated."

Neither of us needed to say another word.

* * *

We took the chairway to Ruk’s neighborhood.

I messaged Mother. She responded that she hadn’t heard from Sonjec and asked if I’d seen the local news. Ruk and I put on a feed to find out that the protests in front of the Earth Colonies Embassy had grown.

"This is getting out of hand. Mother seemed rattled and that never happens."

"I’m communicating with everyone I know," Ruk said, "but my friends are not influential. I can’t believe this all started from those music-heads at the bar. They’re not political."

"Don’t have to be. They only had to tell their story. It would be picked up and used as a weapon by those who do have an agenda."

"How do you know so much about politics?"

"I don’t. You just absorb stuff when you’re the daughter of a diplomat."

After he unlocked the sliding door to his one-room apartment, he stood back and motioned for me to enter. "As you see, she is not here."

I turned to him. "I didn’t think you had her."

He shrugged. "You don’t know me."

Oh, but I do.

A young P’twuan woman came to the door. "Ruk?"

He introduced us. She looked at me suspiciously and asked Ruk to come out in the hall.

He came back with a paper in his hand. "It’s a note from Sonjec. I’m having trouble reading the handwriting." He gave it to me.

I read: Ruk, Sorry about the mess at the bar. It’s not your fault. I probably won’t be playing the frequlet in public ever again, so I appreciate you asking me to come. Again, sorry for the trouble. Don’t know what happened. Thanks for being such a nice fan. Sonjec/CaROUSal

"She’s bright blue, isn’t she?" Ruk asked.

"I don’t like to admit it, but yeah. Bluebright-deep: the extreme intensity of creative genius." Those were certainly words I’d never said out loud before.

"She will be depressed if she really thinks she can’t play her music anymore," he said.

"Very. She’s also, um…redcherry-choppy: impulsive."

"My neighbor told me that she followed Sonjec outside and joined a group your sister was talking to. There was a…I don’t know…a heated discussion."

"About what?"

"That night. Sonjec seemed sorry, but clueless. They were, you know, kind of in awe of her, but also trying to figure out if she was a jerk or not. It wasn’t a fight, just talking. A small crowd gathered. People my friend knows. Most hadn’t even been at the bar. And then four others came up. They were P’twuan, but not from the area."

"Troublemakers?"

"No. Friendly. They told her there was a great bar where she could play music near Ku’wuat*u Beach."

"She went with them?"

"I’m guessing."

"She wasn’t forced?"

"Doesn’t sound like it."

"How like Sonjec to have us all worrying about her well-being while she’s out partying at the beach." I sighed. "Then again, what better to lure her with than the opportunity to play music? I’m still worried. Do you know this bar?"

"No. That’s the problem. It’s all small rooming houses along there. A place for families. I don’t remember any bar scene."

We went on Ruk’s scooter.

I tried repeatedly to reach Sonjec.

It was night by the time we arrived. Two of the moons of Pas were shining over a vast expanse of deep-purple water. The sand shone pearlescent in the light. The crescent beach was bordered at both ends by maroon rock outcroppings whose edges curved downward, echoing the shape of waves about to break.

"It’s breathtaking," I said over the low hum of the

scooter.

"Let’s ask about her at the rentals."

We moved through the little tourist settlement rapidly. None of the room-keepers had seen an Earthen woman. They told us the closest bar was another hour down the road.

I felt panic creeping in.

Ruk found a handlight and we walked the length of the beach, finding no one. After searching the rocks at one end, Ruk said, "Should we try to find the bar?"

My heart sped up with each passing moment. Every instinct screamed, "This is where she is!" But I couldn’t find her. "I don’t know. I don’t—Let me calm down…because—"

"What? You think she’s here?"

Then I remembered. "Oh gods, I can simply tell you." I almost hugged him, hesitated, and then did it anyway. "I’m getting greenblack…um, greenblack-…hollow? What would that mean to you?"

"Not good. That’s for sure. I don’t know the word. Darkness. Depth, but not good depth."

"Depression," I said. "No cherry red. No bright blue."

Sonjec didn’t want to be abandoned, alone. I knew that for certain. She wanted me to come for her. Frustrated tears filled my eyes. She might have already walked into the waves. Sonjec could do that. That it would ruin Mother and me might not ever occur to her.

Ruk put an arm around my shoulders. "Let’s go to the other end. We didn’t search the rocks as carefully down there."

As we walked, I screamed her name and kept my eyes on the water, but saw only shimmering light on choppy waves. The dark green feeling wasn’t out there. That’s what was confusing me. Where was she?

Ruk tugged on my sleeve and said, "Look!" He pointed up and out toward the cliff that reached out over the sea.

I couldn’t see anything but purple sky and dark rocks. I shook my head, tears spilling out of my eyes. "What?"

"On the end of that sharp jut. She’s there." He brought me over in front of him, one hand on my shoulder, the other pointing.

"You’re sure? You see her?" I brushed tears away.

"Yes. It has to be her. What do you want to do?"

"I want to kill her. SONJEC!" I screamed so hard it made me cough.

We reached the rocks and he shone the light as we searched for footholds. As we came onto a small plateau, the wind blew toward us.

I gasped and we turned to face each other. "Music!"

He took my hand. "This way."

We took mincing steps on a less steep route toward the water, but then had to climb again and could hear nothing but the waves. The rocks were wet and it took all my concentration not to slip.

"Do you swim?" I asked him after we both had negotiated a steep crack between boulders and were sitting atop them, resting. We could hear the music once again, which let me know that Sonjec was alive. I was able to catch my breath.

"A little".

"What if you slipped?"

"What if you slipped?"

"I’m a good swimmer!"

He looked down. "We’d hit rock here anyway. Let’s just not fall."

"Deal." I stood and screamed, "Sonjec!"

"Why can’t she hear us?"

I stopped yelling then, realizing why. She was playing the frequlet. Her implants activated, she wouldn’t hear anything outside her music.

But the instrument had heard us.

As we topped the highest ledge, my voice arose within the composition—changed, re-patterned—but undeniably my harsh voice, screaming her name.

She, sitting near the edge, heard it too.

Sonjec stood, turned toward us and then rocked backward on one foot as if she wanted me to witness her fall.

I held my breath for a heartbeat and then rushed toward the cliff to get my ass-blast sister out of harm’s way.

* * *

She was all cut up.

I wanted to get a room, but she refused to move from the beach. Ruk begged a couple of blankets from a roomkeeper. We wrapped her in them and Ruk built a fire. It wasn’t that cold, but she was wet and her arms and legs were covered in wounds. Some were scrapes from climbing the rocks. Others were precise, self-inflicted cuts.

"How’d you get here?" I asked.

"Rowdies," she said. "Four boys who thought they’d picked up some fun."

"Did they hurt you?"

"No! I don’t know what they expected, but I pulled out my knife and told them to fuck off."

"So you weren’t a political hostage?" Ruk asked.

"Hardly. That would have at least been interesting. This was the same old tiresome shit that we women put up with almost any place in the universe."

"They didn’t hurt you, so you hurt yourself?" I said, nodding at her arms and legs. There was a long silence. Finally, I spoke again. "Do you know what’s happening in the capital?"

She nodded, looking into the fire. "I’ve been following the news feeds. But, Car, I don’t understand what I did."

"Ruk?"

He gently explained why the P’twuans had gotten so riled up. Sonjec asked lots of questions, getting less depressive and more energized the more she found out.

"It’s fascinating. I mean, it backfired this time, but the idea that I can communicate on another level using my music is pretty awe-inspiring. I had no idea that was possible."

"Nor did we," Ruk said.

"But, I’ve fucked up everything for Mother."

"If you fucked up everything for Mother, then you have to fix everything for her."

She snorted and kicked sand into the fire causing a small shower of pearly sparks.

"I’ve been thinking about how you can do that," I said."Thinking always was your thing."

I bashed her on the shoulder, knocking her backwards.

This startled Ruk, but Sonjec picked herself up and said, "It’s okay. It’s the way we’ve always related."

"Do not put me down for trying to repair the damage."

"I’m all ears," she said, in a softer tone.

"You have to face the music…so to speak. You’re going into the city and you’re going to change the message. I’m going to help, and even though he doesn’t know it yet, so is Ruk."

* * *

For some reason, I was certain we could pull this off. That is, right up until the moment—three days later—when we walked toward the large oval plaza where the protests continued.

Sonjec was somewhere between panicked and turned-on. Consummate performer that she was, the thought of playing her instrument to such a large assemblage excited her, even as she knew there were attendees who hated her.

I looked over at Ruk.

He was already watching me. He reached out and took my hand in his large, flattened, soft fingers. He exuded yellowpinkpale-smooth: serenity. I took a breath, remembering that I would be a conduit for emotions and had to stay calm. His touch helped settle me as we waded into the milling crowd. Someone was making a speech at the other side of the plaza, but the words didn’t reach this far.

Our plan was to start on the fringe where people were more likely to be only curious—not involved. If this worked, we’d move closer to the core group as we won them over.

But the activists would do whatever they could to turn this to their advantage. Angry, rude noises would come from that crowd and, somehow, Ruk, Sonjec and I had to turn those sounds into a message that would send most of these people back to their homes with forgiveness in their hearts.

Sonjec was wired for this. She hopped up on a decorative railing that bordered a small splashing pool and smiled at those nearest her.

A man jeered, "Hey, it’s the foreign devil who started this!"

I climbed up next to her and placed my hand on the small of her back. Ruk was at my other side.

She began, as we’d discussed, with the amazing composition she’d recorded on the beach. Sounds of waves crashing on the rocks woven with the calls of sea birds and the susurration of water being pulled back out to sea over tiny pearlescent sea animals and stones.

She sang with the music and her voice rang with confidence.

"Go home, bitch!" the same man yelled.

Several people glared or shushed him. Either they didn’t know Sonjec or they didn’t care. Two other P’twuas came up and talked to the man who’d shouted.

I held my breath as Sonjec set the frequlet to input and allowed the crowd to become a part of her music. So far, about ninety percent of the people were rapt, but the others were either not paying attention, or in case of the group of three, actively trying to drown out the music by yelling.

"Go home, go home, go home!"

Sonjec’s concentration faltered. I put pressure on her back and said out loud so that the frequlet would pick it up, "Peace. Calm. Peace."

Ruk and I had used the last three days to work out our part of this. Now he, with an intensity that I can feel to this day, began to pour out the color-attribute combinations that would communicate what we wanted the crowd to pick up and understand. As he communicated to his people, I said it out loud and placed my intention on it as hard as I was able. I did this with a newfound belief in the ability to communicate my perceptions.

To go with the water-laced composition, we used a lilac-fading: tidal calm frequency. Then boldly, Ruk broadcast magenta-deep: sincere sorry. He dropped in green-muddy: stupid error, followed shortly by yellow-pale: open, easy.

Ruk got immediate feedback. When it was good, he told me, I told Sonjec and the message became a feedback loop of the kind of perceptions we needed to communicate. As we collaborated, Sonjec caught the spirit, even while not knowing the meaning of the colors or attributes. Her frequlet recorded the frequencies of this unspoken language in musical form for the first time.

Well, for the first time intentionally.

Ivorypink: sincerity; Magenta-smooth: sorry; Green-spikey: unintentional mistakes; Bluesoft-transparent: trustworthy calm; Magenta, Magenta, Magenta-waves: unrestrained sorry; Ivorypink, Yellow-pale, Greenmedium-even: equality.

As the music reached those around us, we stepped down and walked deeper into the crowd, across the plaza. Brownlight/ grayblue-vertical stripes: respect, respect, respect, respect, respect, respect. Browngreen-red-yellow-ivory-round: non-judgement, understanding.

They listened.

It was all we could ask.

Burnishedbrass-deep: forgiveness. Pinkorchid-light: friendship.

Over and over the message wove into Sonjec’s amazing improvisation. I felt the crowd becoming attuned to our simple message, "Please forgive this mistake. Let us be friends once more."

We went up on stage. There, the audio devices picked up the frequlet onto the feed and broadcast it all over Pas. We made music every P’twua in Pas could understand. Every P’twua, and me.

The song came to be known as "Understanding Worlds" and became a classic.

* * *

That evening, at Mom’s apartment, Sonjec came to me emitting yellowbeige-pale: humble thanks. She didn’t know that was what she projected, but I had a new respect for my own perceptions.

We stood in the kitchen pulling this and that out of the cooler, making tea, stuffing our faces.

"I have always looked up to you," she said.

"You have a strange way of showing that."

"I know. That’s my pride. Seems to be built into us."

Pride. Straight-up blue.

"What have we got to be proud of?" I said. "Oh well—silly me—you have your invention. But let’s face it, if your dad hadn’t encouraged you and helped you so much, you wouldn’t have refined the frequlet."

"Your dad was never there for you in the same way."

"My dad was never there for me at all." It didn’t hurt because I missed having a dad. It hurt because she got one and I didn’t.

"Carinth, Mom chose our fathers."

"Well, of course."

"I don’t mean that she chose to have sex with them. She

picked them for the traits she wanted in her children. Not that reliable maybe, but she told me that, as far as she’s concerned, it worked perfectly."

"She told you that because you got something good. I got

nothing."

"You can say that? Today of all days?"

"I’m pretty good at languages, I guess."

Mother walked in. "You’re a synesthete, like your father."

I stared.

She walked over and put her hands on my upper arms.

"Carinth, you’re everything and more than I imagined you might be. Both of you got your confidence from me. Oh, I know, you girls aren’t fully mature yet, but it shows up sure and strong like today in the plaza. You knew. And you knew to bully the rest of us into listening to you. You got that from me and, I like to think, your openness to other peoples and cultures. But your gift? That’s from your father."

"I never even thought you understood my synesthesia, much less would want it—choose it—for me."

"I had a feeling it was a trait that would be significant somewhere, sometime. As usual, I was right." She grinned widely and then enveloped me in a hug.

Periwinkle-striped with white: pride in one’s children.

* * *

"Probably that same Kellen pride made me want you to know the story," I say to my rapt great-granddaughter.

"I can’t wait to tell my professor."

"Don’t be surprised if it’s not well-received. Who wants truth? So what if Sonjec never mentioned me? I’m just her older half-sister who stayed on Pas."

"You and Grandp’twua accomplished a lot, including making our big family."

"Yes, doll, we made our own kind of music. Grandp’twua Ruk tells me I’m laverty much of the time now. Unfortunately, all Sonjec’s achievements couldn’t give her that."

* * *

From the "Common Lexicon of Perceptual Communication"

by Ruk Tur*ki’tua and Carinth Kellen

Laverty—lavendersilver-velvety: satisfied old-age.

END

Thomas M. Waldroon

Sinseerly A Friend & Yr. Obed’t

Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, no. 117, April 16, 2015

I.

Mr. Stutley Northup is not a magistrate. Why, he’s not even a lawyer. But if people are free to come to him with their controversies, he is just as free to offer his opinion; and if they choose to act on it, well, that’s their own lookout. Little Hope, Pennsylvania, is not the sort of place to go about your business expecting not to have it talked about. If someone goes to see “Old Stuck-Up,” it must be because that business is a stubborn one. And urgent, too.

Mr. James E. (for Ezeziel, although he believes that only his parents and perhaps some nameless county clerk know that) Chambers rides the Freeport Road south from the lake, on past the jog it takes at the shingle mill at the creekside, way on past Enoch Parmenter’s place, past the Bemiss farm, over fields and hills and wooded slopes, to just over the township line into Greenfield.

He follows the road that Judah Colt cut forty-some years ago towards the end of the previous century, said to be the first road since the French army abandoned the region. From the cabin he built with his own hands—abandoned in 1804 but still called Colt’s Station whether a church, store, tavern, or even, in the winter of 1821, a schoolhouse—it runs due north to the lake at Freeport. Winters, some folks still log the ridge, skid their haul to Little Hope, and, come the spring floods, lash together a raft and float it down French Creek past Amity and on into the Allegheny River, and past the confluences of the Clarion and Kiskaminentas, all the way to Pittsburgh, or farther, even (…Saint Louis!…New Orleans!).

Old Northup’s place, now: isolated, sure, but his own. No, he tells anyone who asks, he’s not lonely, he’s got his books to lend him human warmth; a few cows, a hired man or two as they might be needed; he does well enough for himself nowadays. Niece of his stops by to look after him, good girl too, not like—well, there’s no call to name names.

Once he’s all properly seated and settled and served with refreshment, Chambers asks: What think you of the Canadian Republic and its likely fate? I hear tell that MacKenzie has lately fled to Navy Island, in the Niagara, and the British have seized and fired an American ship conveying supplies to them there.

Northup says: Don’t let’s beat around the bush, Chambers, tell me what you come here for.

Not to be hurried along, as befits the inherent dignity of the new Justice of the Peace for Harbor Creek Township, just this year appointed by Governor Ritner himself, and so young, too—J. E. Chambers takes his time with a few more sips of Northup’s locally famous boiled milk coffee. He suspects Northup ekes it out with roasted acorns. The old man watches him amiably enough, despite his tone.

Chambers, when he’s good and ready, says: You remember the Dusseau brothers.

Course I do. Pair of fools. French, too.

And their great sea serpent…?

Northup laughs bitterly.

You know of it then, Chambers presses.

Know of it? I saw it! Mind you don’t be smashing the crockery, Chambers.

James Chambers has set his cup down so abruptly that it threatens to shatter the saucer.

Northup says, Can’t afford to be replacing it all the time. Come from England, you know.

Chambers says, So sorry.

He mops up the spilled coffee with his spare handkerchief.

He goes on: But how could you have seen it? They said it must have died.

They lied. French, you know.

Well, then, what did they see there?

Probably it was just like they said.

Chambers regards the old man gravely. He slips his fingers into a pocket of his tobacco-brown coat and withdraws a paper packet. This he unfolds slowly and studies carefully. He looks up at Northup again, then back at his papers. He clears his throat.

He reads out: There is great excitement among the French inhabitants along the lake shore in North East Township over the reported discovery of a marine monster by two French fishermen named Dusseau. It was between twenty and thirty feet long and shaped like a sturgeon, but it had arms which it tossed wildly in the air.

He looks up: That was the Phoenix and Reflector. Last May. Local paper, you know. Gossip fills a column up as well as truth does.

Northup shrugs.

Chambers places this scrap of paper on the table and studies the next one.

He says: Now this is one of the New York papers. Last June, I believe.

He reads: Special from Presque-Isle, Pennsylvania. The French settlers along the lake shore, in North East Township, Erie County, a few miles east of here, were surprised and amazed on May Twelfth over the appearance of an unknown fish of mammoth size. Two brothers named Dusseau, both fishermen, were returning from the fishing grounds, when they discovered a phosphorescent mass upon the beach. It was late in the evening, but they succeeded in making their boat fast to the shore, and, upon examination, discovered a lake monster writhing in agony.

Northup remarks: Amazing what finds its way into print these days.

Chambers keeps reading: The brothers say that it was like a large sturgeon in shape, but that it had long arms, which it threw wildly in the air. While they were watching it, the great fish apparently died, and the Dusseau boys, badly frightened, hurried away for aid. When they returned with ropes the fish had disappeared. In its dying efforts it had succeeded in tumbling into the lake and had been carried away by the waves. The marks left by its wild thrashings on the muddy shore indicate that the serpent was between twenty and thirty feet in length. Several scales as large as silver dollars which were cast off were picked up.

Chambers places this on the table atop the first. I have more, he says.

Northup sighs, shakes his head. He says: Not wild thrashings in the mud. Writing. And not scales, Chambers. Eggs.

II.

His father, born Stukely Northup but renamed Stutley by a regimental clerk’s error and an officious paymaster’s refusal to admit it (You want your pay? Then you’re Stutley! Stutley!), had named his son after the error to confound the new government’s record-keepers. The war had done more than rename him; it had left him feeling hollowed out, uncertain of most things, and with a frail left arm. Discharged in January 1777 at Trenton, New Jersey, he’d made his way back through the bitter winter to a Rhode Island, a wife and young child, that he hardly recognized, not because they had changed but because they had not.

On May Fourteen, 1780, a fine spring Sunday in Little Rest, R.I. (formerly King’s Towne), he was hailed in the street by a young woman strangely togged out, all in black, mannish and vaguely Quaker, and cloaked in a long black gown, like a preacher’s, tied at the throat with a flowing white cravat. She was riding a white horse and sporting a preposterous hat of white beaver with a flat crown and broad brim, tied down with a purple kerchief. Friend, she called to him, dost love thy neighbor?

Thinking of all the men he had so recently shot at, not in anger but out of righteous principle, he answered: No.

Dost love God? she asked.

That was a harder question. The strange woman urged her horse closer with a nudge of her knees and a clucking of her tongue. She asked again, bending down towards him, gazing into his face, her own framed by waves of mahogany curls held in check by her kerchief, her eyes alight: Dost love God?

No, he admitted.

Come, she said, follow me, and I shall teach thee how.

She straightened up, patted her horse’s flank. It ambled away, its hooves clop-clop-clopping on the hardened mud, and she did not look back.

Jemima Wilkinson had been born in Rhode Island, of Quaker parents, in 1758; had contracted typhus during the British blockade of Providence in 1776; had died there; and two days later she had risen again, from ecstasies and visions of heaven, with a new name: the Publick Universall Friend. Stutley (formerly Stukely) had never had much traffic with Quakers, but he saw in her something that he himself lacked and needed; she was possessed of a stout commonsense and a visionary charism, of compassion and a biting wit; and as for having died and risen again, well, he did not believe her, exactly, in so many words—he might say that he accepted her testimony. He abandoned his errands and duties (whatever they may have been) and turned his path towards hers.

III.

Four Mile Creek originates in Greenfield Township and enters the lake after a course of about eight miles. The most striking feature of these lakeshore streams is the deep channels they cut in their passage from the high ground inland to the level of Lake Erie, and which are often the only route down from the lake’s treacherous shale bluffs to its narrow stony strand. These ravines, or gulfs as they’re called there, are most profound along Four and Six Mile Creeks, where they have worn a course from 100 to 150 feet deep, providing picturesque scenery for those who enjoy such diversions, and also, for many others, freedom from spying eyes.

Someone has cut crude steps into the steepest parts of the path down the gulf’s slope. Now two men—one tall and gaunt, head-to-foot in rusty black, clean-shaven, grizzled hair matted to his scalp with sweat but spiking out where he’s rubbed at it; the other rounded in well-fed curves, his brown checked suit impeccable (or it was, before they started down this infernal track), his thick brown hair sleek with Macassar, his brown beard fashionably full—stumble and veer like a slapstick duo (ho there! hold on! give us a hand! et cetera) until, reaching bottom, they huff and puff for a minute and catch their breath.

Then Northup says: Lend a hand now, will you?

As they haul the brush and tree limbs from off a rowboat pulled up onto the stony margin, Chambers asks: Is this your boat?

Northup says, I spend a deal of time on the water, like many a dairy farmer.

Chambers coughs.

Northup says, There’s a canoe nearby, too. Proposing to conduct a boat census, are you? Want to stay on the right side of the law.

As do we all, Chambers says.

And it came to pass, Northup says, in those days, that there went out a decree from John Ezeziel, that all the boats should be counted.

Chambers says: As a duly appointed officer of the law, a magistrate in fact, it is my duty, my bounden duty, and a duty that I intend to uphold, sworn as I am, in the law, to pursue any and all…

But this peroration peters out, like a mountain stream flowing out across a desert waste. He keeps his silence while Northup busies himself with oars and buckets and other paraphernalia. Eventually, he asks: Whatever became of that hired man of yours, the Negro?

Amos, you mean?

Chambers shrugs. He says, I don’t recall the name, if I ever knew it.

Northup shakes his head. Called away by family duties, he says. Promised to send his cousin in the spring. Pretty soon, I expect, come to think of it. Off we go now, heft her up, watch your step.

They half carry, half drag the boat into the water. It rocks and scrapes as they clamber in, Chambers taking care to keep his glossy boots out of the mud. Now, the issue arises, which is to be the more honored in our time: age or dignity? Age wins out (also ownership), and Chambers bends his back to the oars while Northup, kneeling in the bow, fends the boat off submerged rocks with his heavy walking stick.

The watercourse is treacherous along this stretch, but the boat was hidden only a little way upstream from the lake, and soon the water is flowing deeper and faster. Chambers ships the oars and the boat runs freely along the gulf and then out from between the beetling scarps rounded like the shoulders of some giant asleep on the lakeshore. The boat slows in the lake’s stiller waters and he takes up the oars again. It’s hard work, and after a while of stretching and pulling, stretching and pulling, he pauses to steady his heaving breath. Northup is still kneeling in the bow, gazing off into the blank and hazy distance.

Chambers half turns and speaks over his shoulder to him: Rumor has it—

Northup snaps: Rumor’s a fickle bitch.

Chambers turns back, waits a bit, then tries again:

Rumor has it that strange happenings are afoot around the lake. Fishermen have seen monstrous great snakes, and their boats have been attacked, and their catch often bear extraordinary teeth marks. Bathers have been harried and bitten by unseen molesters in the water. Not to mention the numberless reports of floating lights, and voices and other noises in the night, and mysterious comings and goings of invisible ships, and unexplainable prodigies of the water. Stationary waterspouts, as just one example. And worse, much worse. The Dusseau affair is the least of it. You simply cannot imagine what crosses the desk of an ordinary Justice of the Peace every day! Why, only this morning a body washed ashore.

Northup turns and sits heavily on the bench athwart the gunwales.

He says: A body? First I heard of it. Whose body?

Chambers says: Your hired man. Amos.

IV.

Stutley (Junior, as it were)'s childhood in the New Jerusalem, between the shores of Keuka and Seneca Lakes in central New York, doted on as one of the few children in a community of separatist celibates, all of them half-drunk on godliness, was at least as happy as any other childhood and happier than many. The Universall Friend forbade violence of any kind, even so trivial a violence as striking a willful child. She believed, instead, in reason and patience. Stutley, grown a young man, left to study at Brown College, back in Rhode Island, where he could live with relatives; but when at last he had finished there, all diploma’d, he learned one more wisdom: his hometown, riven by land speculation and unable to long outlast its founder, had been liquidated in that universal solvent, suits-at-law.

Therefore he’d ventured westward, out into what was still only sparsely settled wilderness, on the promise that there was need for schoolmasters there. Not that anyone called it wilderness. It was opportunity!, that most American of words, and like most of America, newer than new, it was not quite what it seemed.

Not that it was a lie, exactly, either. There ought to have been a need for schools, Heaven knows they sorely needed them for the adults as for the children, but schools there were none. Not a one. Certainly in Rhode Island and Connecticut there were more would-be schoolmasters than there were schools to house 'em. So then, young man, westward ho! and they’ll beat a path to your door.

Paths there were, in plenty, trails and tracks, but hardly any roads, no schools, and certainly no students at all. Thus all his opportunity left him, as his ready cash already had, on the marshy margin of French Creek at Greenfield Post Office, better known as Little Hope, the last stop for the flat-bottom boats (or batteaux as they are called locally) that ply the western branch of that stream. Another crate landed, crack!, at his feet, heaved off the batteau by a boatman who was going to be angrier yet when he learned that the gratuity due him was not to be. Stutley sighed and tugged the crate out of the mud. Well then, he supposed, there he was, and there he would stay.

V.

I begged him! I begged him to stay, I did.

This outburst startles Chambers, who is head-down at the oars again. He leans back, so that the blades lift clear of the water, dripping, and with a clatter lets them fall to the bottom boards. He turns on his bench, hefting his legs over it, to face Northup on the bow bench, and plants his feet on the bottom. He pats his pockets for his tobacco pouch—but he’s left it at home, knowing that smoking would be unwelcome at Northup’s place. The American shore is a blue blur low on the horizon.

Reluctant to speak after the fury his attempt at a few sympathetic words provoked earlier, Chambers leaves Northrup to his fit of weeping and takes in the cloud- and lakescape. He was one of Northup’s early and few students—the little schoolroom didn’t last long—and owes to his relentless drilling what smattering of Greek and Latin he still retains; he can’t imagine Northup begging anyone for anything. Or weeping, for that matter. The little boat bobs and rocks now as the wind-raised chop slaps against its side, the tops of the wavelets flaked with dazzling sunlight.

Have to be an inquest, I reckon, Northup says, calmer.

Chambers nods.

When?

Tuesday instant.

Tuesdays I take my milk to Augustus Burnham’s factory, in Arkwright.

It takes a little time to gather a jury together.

Northup rubs his face with both hands, lets them fall back onto his knees, open, palms up. He shakes his head again, as if in disbelief. He stares at his fingers, curled like the roots of a storm-felled tree.

Well, he says at last. Better get to what we come here for.

He bends from his seat, hefts his walking stick, and pushes it through the gap of a crude wood clamp fixed to the bow, letting it slip through his hands until most of the stick’s length is underwater. He twists the clamp tight.

He turns to Chambers and says, I warned—

Chambers says: Perhaps we could just get on with it.

Northup turns back and picks up a mallet. He strikes the submerged stick; Chambers can feel the thrum of its vibration through his seat. Another blow. Another. He is making a steady rhythm like a man walking, ten strokes in all. Northup waits for a moment, then repeats the pattern. And once more. He tosses the mallet down and turns to face Chambers.

Right then, he says. Might take a while.

Chambers puts his hands in his pockets. The wind off the water is cold. The ice finally cleared up only a week ago.

Unexpectedly, Northup smiles. Never told you about the Dark Day, did I?

Chambers shakes his head.

Northup tells him:

This is a story that my father told me. Five days after he met the Universall Friend, a crowd, listening, in the middle of the deserted street, in the middle of the day. Everywhere the darkness. Candles flickering in the windows of shops and houses. A preacher, voice already hoarse. He holds a book open, aloft. Shouts: Matthew, chapter twenty-four, and the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven! He’s not reading aloud, it’s too dark. An eloquent sweep of his free hand calls attention to the black and heavy sky. Revelation, chapter six, and lo, the sun became black as a sackcloth of hair and the moon became as blood and the stars of heaven fell onto the earth, for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to withstand it! He holds up his free hand, for silence like, and his other hand shakes the book fiercely. Not I! calls someone in the crowd. Nor I! and Amen! amen! from all around. Then there’s a woman’s voice calling out: I shall, I shall stand, we all shall stand that day.

The crowd parts, but there’re also angry murmurs: because it’s Jemima Wilkinson. The preacher admonishes: The wrath of God is upon us all, fear God, for the day of his judgment is here! She says: I worship God the father, not God the petulant child who breaks his playthings in a fit of rage when his will is thwarted. He: Look, the heavens are darkened and the sun snuffed out. She: It is but smoke, can thou not smell it, as from some great fire to the north? She dips a handkerchief into a barrel of water there. Look, it is soot afloat the water, that has settled out of the air, it appears to me that this darkness is occasioned by the smoke and ashes arising from large fires, the state of the wind being such as to prevent the quick dispersion of these heavy vapors. She’s shouted down: Unbeliever! Heathen! Blasphemer! and worse.

Behind her, the preacher lifts his thick book over his head like to strike her. But she looks into his eyes, silently, until he lowers it. She takes it and hugs it to her breast. The crowd’s silent now. She says: The word of God, indeed, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, all things were made by the word of God, and this light shineth in the darkness. She points up at the blackened heavens: What do you think the name of this word is, do you know, can you say? She returns the book (which isn’t in fact a Bible but a volume of Coke’s Institutes) to the preacher. She says: I tell you now, the name of the word is love.

Chambers says: Look!

He’s pointing at the water where a Δ-shaped wake is aimed at their boat like an arrow in flight.

VI.

And Captain DREVAR wrote to the Editor of the Graphic (144):—

"My relatives wrote saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it, and a lady also wrote that she pitied any one that was related to any one who had seen the sea-serpent."

I hope that within a few years, this fear of meeting with a sea-serpent will be no more heard of.

Antoon Cornelius Oudemans

Shh! Hephyibee hissed. They’ll hear!

Dust motes as they drifted through the air crossed the slits of light that slanted through the vertical chinks in the siding of the empty smokehouse—it was parching summer, Fifth Month of his twelfth year—and, falling through, illuminated then winked out, shafts and sparks in the dimness. Hephyibee moved so that one bright stripe fell across her bare belly, where she’d hiked up her dress and pushed down her pantalets.

Down, slave! she commanded.

Stutley obediently bent over, his toes gripping the packed-earth floor.

She said, You have seen your mistress improper.

She whisked an old cobweb-chaser, its long bristles limp and broken, against his bare back. He flinched and whimpered, as she’d instructed at the beginning of the game.

Show me your shame, she demanded.

He stood up and dropped his trousers for her.

Ha ha ha, she said—not a real laugh, but as if reading aloud laughter as it would be spelled out in a book. She raised the broom again.

Samuel was standing next to the door, out of the slanted light, watching, blinking, silent. Samuel Turner, youngest boy in a freeman’s family that had joined the settlement from Philadelphia. His dark skin made him little more than an outline against the bright stripes. He’d consented to take off only his shirt. Stutley watched him watching them, Samuel’s mouth open a little, the lower lip moving as he breathed. A fugitive glisten. Stutley saw in his eyes something that must be only a version of himself.

Samuel pushed the door open—blinding glare—and ran away. The door thudded shut. A moment later, the door slammed open and shut again. Hephyibee.

As Stutley stood there, his trousers at his ankles, the smooth dirt cool against his soles, waiting for something, he didn’t know what but something huge and perilous and inexorable—like a theophany from heaven, Hail! Blessed One!—he felt nailed down, not by fear that what he was doing (what was he doing? he didn’t know, not for sure, but he did know it would direct the course of his life) was in any way sinful, for surely it was not, but a certainty that no one, no one, could see its beauty as he did: pure, fervid, glittering, a beauty so overpowering that he was trembling. It was like a long hallway, longer than any real hallway he’d ever seen, stretched out in front of him, lined its whole length with doors, and all he had to do, all he could do, was open one.

VII.

Northup holds his arm out over the gunwale like Moses preparing to part the waters.

Don’t let the mouth alarm you, he says. Takes some getting used to, I’ll readily admit.

The wake stops a few yards short of the boat, and the leading ripples plash quietly against the side. Then a gout of water bursts up right next to them and out of it thrusts a fleshy column, water runneling down its sides. Like the tail of an enormous snake. The top of it’s more rounded than a snake’s tail, but it’s scaly all over and glistens.

The thing thrashes up and down, like a horse resisting the bridle. Splashes of water fly all over.

It rears back and bulks tall, and a good two feet of it drop over the side of the boat, where it rests, quivering.

Chambers jumps up. The boat rocks.

It all goes so quickly!

Three slits along its sides flare and lapse, flare and lapse, like the gills of a hooked fish. The three slits widen. They flap open. The inside’s bright green. And lined with teeth, rows of teeth, spiraling rows of teeth. And out of the—. It must be a mouth. Out of the mouth a dozen—tongues?—tentacles?—whips?—a dozen little lashes of flesh in as many colors and—

—quite casually—

—as if he’s done it many times before—

—Northup thrusts his hand into the writhing.

He looks up at Chambers, his hand nearly engulfed in a frenzy of caressing whiplets. And he smiles! He holds up the other hand, as if to say, wait, wait, you’ll see.

Two more tentacles emerge from the rings of teeth. Their tips flicker like snake tongues, forked, but fast, much faster, the motion a blur in the air. Dost…fare…well…friend…sings a piercing little voice like the whine of a mosquito.

Chambers seizes the oar from the bottom of the boat, wrenches it out of its lock, and brings it down with all his strength on the snake looped across the gunwale. The blade skids against solid flesh and he beats it again and again then another oar smacks black against his skull and his eyesight narrows and darkens and he drops the oar. He staggers back. Sky and water swap places and the water blooms green and someone wrenches his arm and tugs him, he’s facedown in the bottom of the boat.

A deep thud from below the boat; the boards (Chambers could swear) strike his jaw like a blow and he sits up like a jack-in-the-box. Water wells up and sinks. Circles of waves with the boat at their center flee outward.

Somewhere deep inside his fury and panic, Chambers hears Northup shouting: Hell’s teeth in a bucket of blood, man! How could you! Why could you! What’s come over you?

Northup grasps Chambers’s lapels and hauls him upright against the bench. He sits down on the other bench and stares at him. Chambers blinks back tears. His belly’s heaving and he swallows hard. He’s panting.

Northup says: For sure your heart is a furtive, terrified, and small one.

And he says: Not to worry, he won’t be returning today.

And he says: I say "he," but probably it’s nonsense to apply that word to him.

And he says: Always seemed impertinent to ask.

Chambers’s hands are nervously rummaging about, as if they’re someone else’s hands, touching rope, wood, wet, a bucket handle, moss, the oar, a nailhead. Moss?

He looks down. Strewn around him: hundreds of wet rounds, like seedpods or ragged coins. He picks one up and immediately flings it down, for it’s warm as flesh and as yielding, its surface plush as velvet.

Ah, Northup says. The eggs, you know.

Chambers levers himself off the bottom and onto the bench.

It’s not done to a purpose, Northup says. He strews his spoor as he goes. Not usually so many, though.

Chambers says: And from these small notions such monsters hatch…

Northup says: Oh, they don’t hatch. Just swell up for a day or two, turn all leathery, crack open, and dry up. Seems this world lacks some vital necessity.

This world? Is there some other?

Northup spreads his open hands, then lets them fall back to his knees.

Chambers’s jaw flaps open: No! You can’t mean—these Hellish creatures—

No just God has any use for a Hell.

He says it with an air of quoting someone irrefutable.

Chambers says: Spare me your heresies. Not Hell, then, but certainly not Heaven. Where then?

Northup waves one hand skywards.

He says, Elsewhere, elsewise. I don’t pretend to understand. I like to think—

He smiles as if at a private joke.

Venus, he says.

Chambers scoffs: Venus! You might as well say Mars. Or Jupiter.

Yes! Northup says with a peculiar enthusiasm. Or the Pole Star!

VIII.

Northup often spent time on the lake shore, because sometimes he needed to be there, and because he wished to establish that his presence was not unusual. Probably most folks assumed he was smuggling whiskey, and laughed at his pose as an abstemious hemi-demi-semi-quasi-Quaker. He often said: I am myself a burnt-over district.

He picked up a flattish stone and flung it spinning at the water. It smacked the surface and leapt up one two three four times and vanished, plunk, at five. Not bad. He looked around for another suitable rock.

At first he thought it was a log washed ashore—blackened, slick with wet and rot, a clutter of stones and sticks tangled around it. The water surged and retreated in the onshore wind. His boot heels crunched dimples into the shoal of pebbles. Those angles of rocks, that arrangement, the broken driftwood—it almost resembled, it seemed to be—oh it must be: it was a word. L O V E.

And then the log opened its eyes.

All six of them.

Not a log but a serpent, an enormous—

(Everything that is in Nature, the Universall Friend once told the two boys, Stutley and Samuel (the only other boy even close to Stutley’s age) she’d caught beating a little black grass snake with sticks, is of Nature and thus partakes of some measure of God’s benevolence. She fixed her eyes on each boy in turn and continued: In some cases, to be sure, alas, it is a distressingly small measure. But this creature—she looked into its eyes dangling before her own and with a flick of her arm tossed it into the tall grass—is not venomous and serves God’s will by eating the vermin that would otherwise eat the maize belonging to God’s servants. She turned. And now, my small gentlemen, with that lesson well learned we shall proceed with our schoolwork. And with the two of them in tow she strode across the field, long black clergy-cloak flapping behind her and the two boys making faces at each other.)

He stood frozen to the spot.

The serpent bucked back and shook itself, flung out multiple whipping arms, and flapped and flipped up and down in a frenzy of motion. Like an epileptic fit. Was it ill? It fell down and lay still.

Now the stones and driftwood read H O M E.

Northup’s knees just gave out on him, his legs went limp and he sat down right there on the rocks. Terror dwindled quickly, though, swamped with astonishment and, as that too ebbed, with, what else, it must be curiosity—

He found a stick and scratched into the mud ∃ ∧ O ⅂.

And the serpent whistled. A high keening, like a winter wind through pine trees, and somehow communicating the utmost melancholy. It reared back again and rapidly rearranged its sticks and stones to read F R E E.

A scurf of scales rose and fell on the broken water, blank to the horizon.

IX.

Back at the farmhouse, Chambers paces up and down the parlor.

How long? he asks. How long?

How long what? Northup asks.

How long has God’s good earth been infested with these—these—monstrous vermin?

Northup sighs, shakes his head.

How long? Chambers asks.

A lifetime. Fifty years or more.

Fifty years!

Northup nods.

What hope, then, in ridding ourselves of them? What hope of surviving the onslaught? What hope for our children, our families? What hope for the future of us all?

Northup says: What in Heaven’s name are you going on about?

The beasts! The creatures! Already they have killed a man—

Killed who? Northup asks.

Your man, they killed your hired man, I saw the body myself.

Northup says: You forgot his name already.

Chambers says: It’s hardly important.

Northup stands up and stalks out of the room. Chambers hears him in the pantry, stomping around, glasses and crockery rattling and knocking. After a while it gets quiet and he comes back with a bottle and two glasses.

He hoists the bottle and says: Don’t usually indulge, but this is not a usual circumstance.

He sets the bottle down hard on the parlor table. The top-heavy Argand lamp there cants and steadies, and its train-oil reservoir tilts a shadow across the wall.

Armagnac hors d'âge, he announces. You might say the good stuff. Dutch merchant whose son I went to school with gave it to me—oh, years ago. Dead now, I imagine.

He pushes the cork out with his thumb and pours. He hands one glass to Chambers, who tosses it back and falls into a fit of coughing. Northup swirls his own glass thoughtfully, gazing into the amber whorl, then lifts the glass to his lips and sips noisily. He smiles, and sets the glass down.

Survival seem likely? he asks Chambers.

Winded, hand pressed to his chest, Chambers nods.

More? Northup asks.

Chambers shakes his head.

Northup takes another sip.

Pleasure is the principle pursued here, he says, not mere intemperance.

He continues: Now, as for our friend in the lake. Been there long as I’ve been alive. Longer, maybe. Plenty of time to wreak all the havoc a soul could fear, if havoc was wished for. If my understanding’s good, we’ve as long again to go before any hope of rescue. Yes, rescue. Don’t be a fool, Chambers. Sit down.

Chambers has leapt to his feet and is heading for the door.

Northup says: I’m no more an enemy than I’ve ever been. Which is to say, I hope you see, hardly at all. Sit down.

Chambers stammers: They—they’ve—you have—

Northup says: There is no "they," Chambers. There’s only the one. Sit down.

Chambers is fumbling at the door, which Northup has had the foresight to latch.

A party, a hunting party, a team of hunters to search out—

Northup goes over to him, puts his arm over his shoulder, and brings him back to the chair. James, James, he says. Sit down, old friend, he says. Have another brandy.

He pours. Chambers sips this time.

He sets the glass down and comes out with: Tentacles! You put your hand in—

But he can’t complete the thought, his mind just veers away from the recollection.

Northup says with an air of great patience: He recognizes me by taste. Can’t see too well out of the water. Of course he’s got good eyes, and up close he can see very well indeed, better than us probably, but at any distance…Which is also how you managed to surprise him with that oar.

Chambers says, How long have you—?

Northup says, Many years. I spend a deal of time on the water, you know.

Yes, Chambers says. About that…

Northup lifts his eyebrows at him.

Chambers says, It might seem a little awkward, to deal with your former student as an officer of the law—

Not at all, Northup murmurs.

But duty is duty, and I know what mine is.

Chambers takes another drink. Northup refills his glass.

Chambers says, Now, I know you did not kill him. Yes, I know that because I know you. And you say the…the…

Visitor, Northup suggests.

The—visitor—has not killed him, whatever I might believe about it. I accept your word on that point. And yet I have a body that’s washed ashore, and even a dead Negro requires an explanation.

He half-drains his glass.

Not a mark on him, he adds. Good stuff, this.

Yes, Northup says.

Well, Northup says.

Truly, you didn’t know? Northup says. And all this time, James, I thought you were looking the other way.

Looking away? From what? When?

Now it’s Northup’s turn to drain his glass. It was a placard, he says. That I saw in Erie City. I mentioned it to Amos, casual like, that one George Cramer was offering two hundred dollars reward for the whereabouts of a certain Nebuchadnezzar, not a name I knew. Can you believe it, I said. I thought it preposterous. But he flew into a panic, wouldn’t listen to me, threw his belongings into a bundle and out the door. I—

He refills his glass.

You remember how cold it was this past winter. He determined to walk across the ice. It was foolhardy. He wouldn’t heed me, and the ice proved, it seems, less sound than he believed. He must have drowned, and without any help or hindrance from our visitor. Who I can’t doubt was not even aware of his presence above.

A long pause. The firelight flickers on the ceiling, orange and gold laced with shadow.

Chambers says, You go to Arkwright on Tuesdays?

Northup nods.

Chambers says, I believe it likely that the jury will return a verdict of death by misadventure. He lowers his gaze, and adds: Even without your testimony.

Northup says, Thank you.

But he adds: There is a class of people who, accustomed to the manipulation of power on behalf of themselves and their friends, grow to believe that that power is theirs as an aspect of the natural order of things. Soon they do not care what it takes to perpetuate their power; whatever it may be, they will do it. You are not like that, Chambers. But take care that you do not become so.

There follows a passage of time punctuated with the purl of poured liquor, the clink of glasses.

Eventually, Chambers says: Rescued?

Northup says: Yes. He comes from a long-lived race but all he can do here is wait.

X.

He calls himself Jonah now, a story so terrible that he’s never told it to anyone because no one could believe it. Amos Walker was never his name; that’s just what he called himself to strangers, a name for using on the long road northward. He chose for himself the name Jonah, from the Bible, and the surname of a man who had been kind to him. The name he was given at birth—not by his mother—nor had he ever known his father—was, he’s come to understand, a cruel one, and contemptuous. And a mouthful, too; even his own mother called him Nebs, his childhood friends Nezzer. Just the one name, like an animal.

He shivers and pushes at the door again. It’s firmly shut. Winter had been cold in Virginia, too, of course, but it’s harsher here, more ice, more snow, especially south of the lake. His mind veers away from that thought with a practiced swerve, a neat turn, and he crosses to the hearth and plucks a twist of tallow-dipped straw from a little basket there, holds it to the guttering fire, and breathes on it gently to puff its smolder into flare. It’s colder here than he’s used to—but then it was cold in Pennsylvania, and colder still crossing the ice.

For a second his hand shakes again and he nearly drops the twist. This won’t do, not at all. He pinches off the crumb of soot crusted to the tip of the wick and presses the little flame against it. The candle stub smokes and catches, brightness rising from its wick like a smile. A thread of smoke bends and wafts. He closes the lantern’s glass door. There. That’s good. Warmth and light. He hangs the lantern up on its hook, its pierced-tin back against the wall, and prods the fire higher.

He sits down at the little deal table under the lantern, pushed up against the wall, and picks up the penknife. He has a cracked cup stuck full of the right kind of feathers, and he takes one, strips the barbs off with the knife, and plunges the tip into the hot ash under the logs in the hearth.

No, Canada’s no paradise. His neighbors aren’t as friendly with a colored man as they might be with a white one, for sure, but Americans are worse, apart from a few, and he’s had much to endure. Only for that—bad usage—and he’d still be in America, though he does not regret coming here. No, he was forced away. He pulls the quill out and sets to cleaning the end, softened now, with the dull back edge of his knife. Then he polishes it with a bit of brick he keeps for that purpose.

He’s well contented here, yes, a man now as God intended that he should be—that is, born equal and free, a wholesome law unlike the southern laws that put men, made in the image of God, on a level with brutes. O what will become of my people—for a moment all the sickness of his own thoughts bears down on him—where will they stand on that day? Let the oppressed go free, go free.

He is staring blankly at the fire, his task forgotten.

And I will come near to you in judgment, a swift witness against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow (his mother was a widow, she never spoke of it but he knew why), and the fatherless (a blankness).

He looks down at his hands, at the quill, the knife: a choice to be made.

But he knows that he will not meet those men again in this life; and, indeed, despite his anger, he hopes that they might still repent of their evil, and let their property go free. He does still hope for their salvation, but he does not believe they will.

He trims the lower third of the quill, twists it round in his fingers, cuts off the tip at a slope, then turns it again and slits it. He nicks the sides and trims them off, tests the tip against his thumb, and trims a little more. Placing the tip on his thumbnail, the knife somewhat aslant, he cuts the end of the nib not quite off, nimbly flips it around, and pulls the blade clean through. He inspects the new pen and, satisfied, lays it down.

He opens the bottle of ink he bought in town; an extravagance, perhaps, but in the past summer, besides having a good kitchen garden, he raised (for cash sale) 316 bushels potatoes, 120 bushels corn, forty-one bushels buckwheat, a small crop of oats (for the hogs), seventeen hogs, and seventy chickens (whose eggs he sells at the weekly market, while the occasional ailing hen goes into the pot). His rent for his cabin this year is fifty dollars, and next year he hopes to build and so avoid that expense. If he’d known how well he’d get along, he’d have left America ten years sooner.

He dips his pen.

Deer, he writes. Is that right? It’s a word, sure, but something about it seems not exactly as it should be. Writing comes hard to him, having been learned late, and his lines frequently blot and his pen breaks and the paper tears and he brushes his sleeve against wet ink; every literate mishap there can be, there is. But he tries: that’s important; he tries, and perhaps he improves day by day.

He found a route north, and he found a teacher to help him to read, and reading’s easier for him now than ever before, and surely he’ll find his path here too. We are all wayward pilgrims, having lost our names and our friends, and many of us our lives, with little chance, stumbling towards Zion-land; and though we may not know the clear path, still we shall reach our home. Someday. Perhaps someday. Pray that it be soon.

He picks up his pen again and writes:

Deer Friend Stutlee

(XI.

(July 1881. Report of the Signal Service officer at the port of Erie City:

(At 5:30 in the morning the air was calm. At 6 o’clock, a slight breeze. To the northward a dark cloud appeared like a curtain, and at the same time a rumbling sound and a strong wind. At 6:20, a single, large green wave, about nine feet above the normal level of the lake, with no crest, approached from the northwest with great rapidity. The cloud, wave, and wind seemed to travel together. Soon after the passage of the wave, the wind subsided and the cloud dispersed.)

Jo Lindsay Walton

It’s OK To Say If You Went Back In Time And Killed Baby Hitler

Admit it. You went back in time and killed Baby Hitler.

Official reason, to avert the Holocaust and World War II.

But the truth? Averting the Holocaust and World War II, that was more like an additional upside.

Your mission’s core driver was brand recognition.

That’s definitely the way Toni felt about things. What better way to roll out the universe’s first linearity disruptor start-up than to kill Baby Hitler?

When you say to people in the street “time travel” they say “kill Baby Hitler.” It’s something people are already comfortable with. That is so important, because with time travel, the negative narratives are out there already.

* * *

Killing Baby Hitler is an amazing way to introduce sceptics to where your tech is going to fit into their lives. What could be more memorable than—

Yeah, okay, in a way it wouldn’t have been that memorable. Even if it had worked like it was supposed to. Because if it had worked, then everybody would have been like, ‘You killed who? And this person was a, a baby? That doesn’t sound very ethical. You should go to jail. We hate this press conference.’

Still. Umeko said it best. ‘Going back in time and killing Baby Hitler. It just has to be done. You can’t not.’

* * *

Umeko volunteered, in a big way, and the first thing she said when she blinked back to the lab in 2015 was, ‘So like how many people would you say were killed by wars in the Twentieth Century? Ballpark? Asking for a friend. Shit, do you guys speak English?’

‘You didn’t get your guy,’ Toni said bluntly. ‘Am I speaking English yet?’

Umeko stared wildly. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ she told Toni. ‘But speaking personally? I just went back in time and killed Baby Hitler.’

Toni shrugged. ‘Hitler lived. Nothing’s changed.’

‘I don’t want to get too graphic,’ said Umeko. ‘Is “I beheaded Baby Hitler” too graphic?’

‘Okay,’ said Toni thoughtfully. ‘Did you bring back the head?’

Umeko released her straps. Ambient cerulean refulgence shifted to teal. ‘Could our memories have—no, never mind. You guys, if this is some kind of troll, I have had the worst—’

‘I knew it!’ yelled Belle, to no one in particular. ‘We all knew it, deep down! Great Man Theory is bullshit! It’s all about the economics, you guys. History has a structure. If Hitler wasn’t Hitler, someone else had to become Hitler!’

The room was filling with other people’s feelings. You felt your usual urge to fade into the furnishings. But you did take this moment to murmur, ‘Or just the torso, Umeko? No?’

Because you felt that was important.

‘You guys, we’re not going back,’ Umeko moaned. ‘Never return to the scene of the crime, especially if you’re already still there!’

‘About a hundred and sixty million,’ Liz said in that same monotone she always uses, but which is particularly good for announcing numbingly large numbers of dead. ‘To answer your original question. Fifty-five people million died in World War II. Depending on methodology.’

‘Those sound like they might be the offensive estimates,’ Belle said. ‘Might want to check if those are the offensive ones.’

‘You could go five minutes earlier,’ Cherrie purred. It was her first contribution since Umeko had shimmered back into our timestream. ‘You could kill Baby Hitler again, and be a bit more professional this time.’

‘Hell no, Cher-Bear,’ said Umeko. ‘That’s when shit kicks off. That’s when for some unimaginable reason I hide the real Baby Hitler and replace him with whoever I just killed. Who was Hitler, by the way,’ she finished with a snarl.

‘Come on,’ soothed Toni. ‘This is not bad, people. This is just challenging.’

‘Great Man Theory,’ Belle repeated smugly.

‘Belle, please,’ sighed Umeko. ‘Why would the new Hitler still be called ‘Hitler’?’

Belle frowned and bobbed her head from side-to-side. ‘Okay. Yeah.’

‘Conundrum,’ said Toni.

‘Same timeline,’ said Umeko, and buried her head in her hands. ‘I did the DNA pinprick. It was the Führer. Couldn’t have been more him if he’d had the mustache.’

‘I’ve been thinking of him with the mustache,’ confessed Cherrie.

‘I went back to 1890,’ said Umeko, ‘and I disrupted the fucking incumbent, okay? With a fucking sword.’

‘I knew we should have adopted him,’ Liz monotone. ‘And then my line—’

‘I support you Liz,’ said Cherrie. ‘But none of us think, “We adopted Hitler in 1889. How early will you adopt?” quite sums up our offering.’

‘It’s a good line,’ said Liz.

‘And we’ve made that clear on a number of occasions,’ said Cherrie.

‘Beheaded,’ repeated Umeko.

No one was really watching, so at this moment you slipped into the harness, and began adjusting dials.

‘But take a moment to feel good about this,’ said Toni. ‘I for one am happy I continue to have been born.’

Umeko groaned. ‘Speak for yourself.’

‘So be present in the moment,’ said Toni. ‘Get yourselves into a comfortable posture. Show me yourselves exercising self-care, okay? And then I want you to focus on the crown of your head. And then feel your attention shift to your temples and and forehead. Good job. And then feel your attention shift to some possible solutions. Why are we still in the same timeline? What are we feeling, guys? What’s there?’

Liz threw out, ‘When you change stuff in the past, it simply doesn’t affect the future.’

‘Nice. Run with it.’

‘It’s like you’re editing code that has already run. I retract the hypothesis. I’m seeing so many problems with it already.’

‘Unless I stay behind to watch my edits unfold, all the way to the present?’ said Umeko thoughtfully. ‘Guys, I don’t have that kind of time.’

‘I said I retract it.’

‘Thanks hon. I already have so much on my plate and I’ve had such a horrible—’

‘You have,’ soothed Toni. ‘You have. Do you need some space? We don’t need to do this now. Some of us do but you specifically don’t need—’

‘We don’t need to do anything…at any particular time,’ said Belle, hollowly.

‘This is just something I found,’ said Liz. ‘This is real. It’s called Night. “Suddenly a cry rose up from the wagon, the cry of a wounded animal. Someone had just died. Others, feeling that they too were about to die, imitated his cry. Hundreds of cries rose up simultaneously. Not knowing against whom we cried. Not knowing why. The death rattle—”’

‘Liz, please,’ said Toni. ‘Thank you truly for sharing. But please.’

‘There’s always some massacre going on,’ said Cherrie. ‘People are always being butchered. It’s like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. You can’t think about it all the time. You can’t pretend we’re hogtied in the wilderness when there’s a Starbucks just there.’

‘A hundred and sixty million dead is a tragedy,’ said Belle. ‘One Baby Hitler dead is just a statistical rounding error.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Liz. ‘It’s like, now that we have the time travel rig…none of it is in “the past” any more. All of that death, it is all here. It is in this room. And somehow, it was always like that. All along. I don’t know. I don’t know. You guys, you guys—’

You must have shifted or something and made some sound. Everybody stared at the time travel rig.

Toni double-took. ‘What are you—’

That was when you pinged back to 1890.

And saw what you saw.

* * *

‘Guys!’ you explained on your return. ‘It’s okay, I know what this is! We have competition!’

Bleaken Moment, the others called themselves.

If you guys were engineers, then Bleaken Moment were wizards. That thing about advanced magic and technology being indistinguishable? It makes zero sense if you know even the slightest thing about branding.

‘More steampunky?’ you tried to explain. ‘Clockworkpunk? I don’t know. I only caught a glimpse. They seem to have some kind of limited range teleport capacity, possibly with a cooldown. Look, wherever and whenever they’re from, and however their rig works, and for whatever reason they are messing with us…they have the edge on us. They put the stet on Umeko’s quest, and didn’t break a sweat.’

‘Barriers to entry,’ said Cherrie thoughtfully.

You were pleased nobody noticed you’d been away for three years.

It hadn’t been an easy hunt. Bleaken Moment knew what they were doing.

‘You can borrow it,’ said Toni quietly. ‘But ask.’

* * *

‘So these rivals saved Baby Hitler?’ said Belle incredulously. ‘Why doesn’t Umeko remember?’

Umeko was halfway through a salt caramel muffin. ‘I feel like I’d remember something like that,’ she mumbled.

‘No,’ you explained. ‘It’s not that. Bleaken Moment sort of…bookended Umeko’s spacetime.’

‘Run with that,’ Toni urged.

You hesitated. After seeing what you just saw, you felt like you had to say “murdered” now. But you softened it by saying “we.”

‘The child we murdered,’ you said firmly. ‘Our competitors whisk him away the moment before Umeko’s first sword-stroke. Then they return him, nanoseconds later, and that version does die. But meanwhile they’ve forked him. Cherrie, please, no? They go to some quiet, out-of-the-way nook of time. They let him crawl around for a minute, then zip him back in time one minute, so then there are two Baby Hitlers. They take the spare one and—’

‘We get it,’ said Umeko.

Belle squinted. ‘Y-eah.’

‘Any chance they’re us?’ said Toni. ‘Future selves, branched selves, folded selves, reverting our own edits—’

‘I mean probably,’ you said. ‘Who cares?’

‘Game head,’ said Cherrie. ‘We’re unbundling Baby Hitler.’

Toni’s eyes lit up. ‘You’re right. It’s a competitive market, a duopoly probably. The resource we’re fighting over is Hitler Seconds. He’s not infinitely reproducible, infinitely fungible, there are limits. The tech imposes certain limits.’

‘Bleaken Moment might be cosmic clean-up crew types,’ Belle protested. ‘Protecting the fabric of reality. God-level tech. Admin privileges.’

Toni tutted. ‘Even so, their interventions can’t take zero time, Belle. Baby Hitler has a granulity, he ages. There’s a sense in which he’s exhaustible.’

‘I agree with Toni,’ said Cherrie. ‘Hitler Seconds are real. At some point you have a grown Hitler situation. But actually, it’ll be Game Over long before that. Can we backward-induct this?’

‘He can become less Hitler-like too,’ Umeko pointed out. ‘That plays to our advantage. Probably.’

‘Killing Baby Hitler might not even be necessary,’ said Liz. ‘We could adopt—’

‘True! Although,’ Toni reminded her gently, ‘killing Baby Hitler is our USP. It’s in the Covenant.’

‘Hitler Seconds,’ agreed Belle reflectively. ‘Y-eah. Hey, left field. What if we go back in time and just continue to work for Airbnb, and don’t spin off our R&D unit into a time travel start-up?’

The rest of you stared at Belle.

‘How does that kill Baby Hitler?’ Umeko demanded.

‘I just hated it there,’ moped Liz. ‘No. I hated the way I felt about myself when I was there.’

‘I was constantly on edge,’ you agreed. ‘“Will this be the day everyone shows up demanding breakfast?”’

‘I’m modelling now,’ said Cherrie. ‘Is the Bleaken time rig hard-indexed to Earth’s gravity well same as ours is? If so, it becomes a question of how quickly you can shunt Baby Hitler out of the space his double needs to occupy. Or his multiples.’

Cherrie started sketching. Moments like these were what you loved Cherrie for. The outlines of a Baby Hitler battery farm formed on Cherrie’s tablet screen.

‘That’s all it is,’ she added. ‘However fast they can get Baby Hitler out of the way, they can copypasta him.’

‘A lot of assumptions here,’ Toni frowned. ‘Loving it. Can we move a healthy ten-month human thirty inches sideways at eight Gs?’

‘Are you saying can we, ethically?’ said Cherrie. ‘I’ve been thinking bodily integrity-wise.’

‘Existential integrity-wise, not just bodily,’ said Umeko.

‘Bingo,’ said Toni. ‘Run with that, Umeko?’

‘Only that the original Baby Hitler,’ said Umeko, ‘the one that grew up and did World War II, was never moved sideways at eight Gs. Intensely formative experiences like that make this baby less Hitler than he was before.’

‘We will need a closeness-to-Hitler’s-experiences-as-a-toddler function and some thresholds,’ said Cherrie, tapping rapidly. ‘Correction, we won’t need our own function and thresholds. We’ll need our best approximation of what they’re working off.’

‘Maybe we should use gamification?’ you said timidly. ‘Sorry, that’s probably dumb. I should mention I’ve been away for three years.’

‘You look amazing,’ Belle told you. ‘You look great.’

‘Move them forward,’ Liz hissed. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt everybody. Just saying to Cherrie. Move the Baby Hitlers forward twenty inches, not sideways ten.’

You reached over and squeezed Belle’s hand. ‘Thanks.’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Cherrie. ‘Well, they’ll be shaving it any way they can, right Toni? If they have fine-grained matter transportation, do they even need to copy-paste the whole Baby Hitler? Could they cut their margins by just replacing the specific tissue we assassinate on each iteration?’

‘Nerve splicing,’ said Toni. ‘Love it. Fibrin glue, Photoshopping skillset. Run with it. Can someone get Starbucks? And can someone get a Baby Hitler, just so we know what it is we’re—’

You’re already strapping yourself in.

‘Whoa,’ said Liz. ‘Our competitors keep folding Baby Hitler and inserting him back into history. We keep killing him.’

‘Yes,’ said Cherrie, in a carefully-judged-not-to-be-patronizing tone.

‘Doesn’t that eventually imply an out-of-the-way-nook where we throw Baby Hitlers in a macerator? A death camp for Baby Hitlers?’ Liz started to make a sound that was either giggling or crying.

‘Bingo,’ said Toni. ‘Big picture time. What’s the point of killing Baby Hitler? Who were we when we began this? Well, we all may take our own view. Have you gone yet?’

‘No,’ you lied. You’d been gone about three months, this time. Diversified your start-ups big time. Even put out some feelers with Bleaken.

‘Swear I saw a shimmer. Before you do. I would say that no death camps is—I just feel really strongly on this, no death camps is where we want to be. We need to be crushing the no death camps space.’

Uncertain faces hovered.

‘Death camps is their brand,’ you pointed out, and murmurs of approval ran through the room.

‘Heyyy,’ said Cherrie. ‘You know that spiced pumpkin latte Starbucks “don’t” do at this time of year?’

Kim Wells

The Book of Safkhet: Chronicler of the Journey, Mistress of the House of Books

Originally published in The Dragon Chronicles (Windrift Books, 2015), edited by Ellen Campbell and part of The Future Chronicles anthology series, created by Samuel Peralta."

Blurb: The nature of history, of the origins of civilization, and our own human story, may be changed forever by the discovery of an ancient scroll that tells the story of a doomsday device that threatens civilization as we know it. The Dragons, empathic interstellar navigators of uncertain origin, may be able to save some. But where will the survivors go?

Revelations

“I am the Invisible One within the All. It is I who counsel those who are hidden, since I know the All that exists in it. I am numberless beyond everyone. I am immeasurable, ineffable, yet whenever I wish, I shall reveal myself of my own accord. I am the head of the All. I exist before the All, and I am the All, since I exist in everyone.”

Trimorphic Protennoia

Nag Hammadi

To begin with, they weren’t even supposed to be diving in that cave, or even going that deep. It was dangerous. Too far from the coral reefs, possibly filled with tiger sharks or moray eels. But that’s what made it exciting. Watching your air bubbles disappear into the light above, knowing how far down in the darkness you were.

Anything could happen.

David was the good diver, the one with all the qualifications. But Anna wanted to try it, too, and they were sure, certain, that nothing bad would happen. Maybe something exciting, but then, wasn’t that what life was all about?

Then Anna spotted a huge turtle, a gorgeous green and black leathery sea turtle. She followed it, past the depths that David had suggested they keep to. She wasn’t paying attention to depth meters when there were turtles to follow. When David saw her swim into a previously unseen cave, he followed her, panicking. He knew how you could get trapped in one of those things and never come out. His bubbles raced above him, frantic, small.

The turtle escaped them both, finding some hole too small for the humans to hide in. But what they found in there was even better.

In the center of the cave, nestled between corals and illuminated by the lights of their diving gear, sat a giant sphere of glass, perfectly sealed, enigmatic. It wasn’t very heavy, so they lifted it, carried it to the surface. They thought of pirate treasure, or lost artifacts of the Pharaohs. The green bubbled glass glistened in the sunlight as their boat carried it to shore.

There was the faintest suggestion in the glass of the perfect figure of a winged creature of some sort. Probably a dragon, its wings spread wide in a flying pattern. But no one could ever decide. It seemed to be flying around a single star-like circle, the only hint of color in the glass, like a red star.

When they showed it to their professors (they were students on an archeology summer-school course in Egypt, swimming on weekends in the Red Sea coral reefs) the professors were excited. There were some kind of scrolls, some kind of papyrus documents, sealed inside the glass that could be clearly seen, even through the green of ancient glass. They all knew they had to examine those scrolls. It was not lost upon the professors that this area was ripe with both legitimate ancient texts (the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example) and forgeries. Finding out which this was caused an international academic uproar.

And that was the trick, wasn’t it? The glass was clearly ancient, but there was no sign of seams, or, aside from the dragon art, any imperfections. Once the word about the find got out, the community speculated forgery. Some kind of publicity stunt. But they couldn’t be sure until they could see the actual texts for themselves.

They spent months figuring out a way to open it safely. They finally decided to pierce the glass with a special diamond-tipped device while it was in a sterile vacuum environment, take a small sample of the papyrus and then reseal the glass. When it was pierced, the oddest smell, of white lotus flower, to be precise, Nymphaea Lotus, completely filled the room. At first everyone was terrified, afraid the scent was some kind of chemical weapon, but no one was harmed, and the smell lingered for days.

After resealing the sphere, they scanned everything inside with a new app that used Lidar to analyze the patterns on the scrolls. The language there was nothing anyone had ever seen, even though the room was filled with specialists in ancient languages. The mystery was thrilling, and for a time, the atmosphere of the room was like a party, a carnival.

For a while. Over months, no one was found who knew the language on the scrolls. And when no codex, no Rosetta Stone for this language showed up, it was mostly forgotten. Years went by before anyone thought of the scrolls again except in passing.

Eventually, for record-keeping purposes at the archives where they were kept, the documents, which dated so far back (more than 200,000 years old) that it was thought there had to be an error because people didn’t make paper back then, were scanned. Cataloged. Placed on the internet. Of course. The words were digitized and the shapes they made approximated by the computers and OCR programs.

One day, many years later, a young woman named Sonya was working on her dissertation in mythological languages attempting to discover the Ur language, the language all humanity spoke before the Tower of Babel, the language Adam and Eve spoke. She uploaded her work to the Internet as part of her course requirements.

Her computer froze.

It stayed frozen for hours. Nothing Sonya did could seem to fix it, even unplugging it and plugging it back on just gained her the same odd frozen screen. In the third hour, a symbol appeared on the screen, like a star on a stick, covered by a weird nipple-shaped hat.

She was certain she had uploaded a crazy virus and sadly planned to take her computer to a friend who was an expert on computers. She worried she had lost all of her hard work of that day (but of course, she had everything saved in multiple spots, on the Cloud and email).

But then her computer restarted. At least, it seemed to be rebooting. But it stayed a black screen for a few moments, and Sonya was afraid this was the end. What she didn’t know was that the program that had begun to run on her computer was actually a kind of virus, a previously unknown and remarkably advanced computer language. Her adding her transliteration and interpretation of the Ur language into the mix had triggered a sort of digital Rosetta stone, a viral program loading that was able to combine the ancient language with computer programming binary. And that the accidental confluence of events was changing her computer forever into a kind of universal translator.

A story began to scroll across the screen. Sighing, and thinking that it was still the virus, the student read along, at first with annoyance, then curiosity that turned into shock and amazement.

And the story Sonya read changed the world.

* * *

The Book of Jude

“Beloved, although I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel a need to write to encourage you to contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the holy ones.”

1:3

Jude

Jude stalked long corridors of the Dragon’s Hall in a huff.

Everything was going wrong already. His parents had woken him rudely just before the seventh hour. After a hurried breakfast, they had dropped him off with warnings to study hard, with exhortations to “hurry to work” and to meet them back at home later, in hour eighteen. Then they continued talking in rapid, argumentative tones.

Something about politics. It was always about politics. His parents were both Judges, the leaders of their community and ultimately the world, elected by the people once every five cycles to make laws and policy. This meant they were always arguing about something, always worried about something else.

Jude didn’t care about the arguments of old men and even older women in the Halls of Government. But he couldn’t wait to get out to the Halls of the Elder Dragons, where his friend Yalta-ba-oath was waiting to instruct him further in Interstellar Navigational techniques. Especially the telepathic interface that would allow him to pilot the starships that would take them eventually to other planets and solar systems and the stars. He had the feeling he almost was there, more times than not he could now sense the Dragon’s empathic voice just at the edges of his consciousness. A tickle, a mental itch he needed to scratch. He could hear entire sentences at time. He was told he was the one who was blocking the link, and that he just had to keep trying.

The Dragons had always been experts on traveling the other worlds, the solar system and beyond. Rumor had it that they came from somewhere far away, but Yalta-ba-oath only smiled and nodded when Jude asked this question. She didn’t avoid answering, but she redirected Jude to answer it for himself.

“What do you think, Jude? Where did we all come from?”

Her voice was deep and powerful but kind, a little gravelly, though. He couldn’t wait until he could always hear it through the empathic navigational interface. The Dragons could speak to anyone telepathically, and this was the way they navigated their ships, which were somehow organic, also. The ships spoke back to the Dragons but none of the humans could speak to the ships without the Dragons helping. And somehow, the ships and Dragons both needed the human intermediary to translate the ship environment to a hospitable place for everyone.

Jude didn’t understand it all yet, but he was studying as hard as he could because he wanted to be a navigator, with the Dragons. He himself had not yet heard the voice of any of the ships. He hoped to someday.

Jude thought about the Dragon’s question. It took him a while to work through everything, but Yalta-ba-oath patiently let him think in his own pace. He could tell that she felt she had all the time for him to figure it out.

He knew that his home planet was not an easy place to live. Its over 1600 volcanoes were beautiful but could be deadly, and the heat of the dayside of the planet could kill if one wasn’t careful to bring water and shade on any trips across the cities on the edge of the daylight cycle. The sharp black sand of the beaches South of his home city, beaches that ended in lovely dark-green water, that sand could cut your feet with its glassy points if you forgot to wear your sandals to the water’s edge. There the sand was softened, eventually, but you must wait ‘til you get right to the edge to go barefoot.

Scientists said that The People, some called the Tribes, had originated in the cooler, mountain lands and that they migrated down and across the planet at some point in the past 10,000 years, while the planet was in its coolest phase, furthest in its relatively circular orbit around the sun. In ancient times, they had been nomads, following the edges of the sunlight, called the Aredvi Sura, sticking to the twilight zones between the dark, the Anahita sides. Nowadays, they had climate controlled buildings that darkened the windows during the planet’s long day and let in artificial light during the slightly longer night cycle.

Jude had studied all of that in school, but it just didn’t mean all that much to him. The scientists also said that the next planet from the sun, which they called Earth-eal, also bore life. Shockingly, their days were only 24 hours long with half of it in sun and half in the day, and their orbit around the sun was 365 of those 24 hour periods. Jude thought that was unimaginable.

He remembered something about how there were humanoids on the planet, but they were not civilized, living in a much colder world, where the snow that touched the highest mountains on this planet covered large expanses of the ground, there. The humanoids huddled in caves around primitive fires that could barely support their existence.

Jude thought it sounded horrible and never wanted to travel there. But the stars—that was different.

The Dragons promised to take them to the stars.

Jude wasn’t a scholar. Really, he didn’t care where they all came from as long as they traveled to other places.

While she waited for Jude to answer, Yalta-ba-oath yawned, her huge mouth filled with the sharpest, longest, whitest teeth Jude had ever seen. It was early, and Jude had awoken her in his impatience to learn more about the Dragons’ ships. She opened her wings, stretching them. They were sleek, spanning almost thirty feet across and half that in width. She usually kept them drawn against her body, but Jude knew that, in the right conditions with the atmosphere and wind speed just so, she could fly.

She was a red Dragon, her face ringed with pointy tips Jude thought of as her beard. He heard, in his head, her amusement at that label. She didn’t seem to mind, even though his mother would have been insulted. High pointed ridges, three on each side of her face, gathered in a sort of crown at the top of her triangle-shaped head. Her throat was covered in cream scales, some as small as his fingertip, some as large across as a grown man’s hand spread wide. The same cream color could be seen under her wings when she chose to spread them, the strong, muscled arms red and the softer wing leather underneath. Her tail was as long as her body and ended in several spikes.

In spite of this fiercely strong appearance, she still seemed gentle, to Jude. Perhaps this was because as his teacher, he could hear her presence in his head and it never seemed cruel, even when he did the dumbest things like he had yesterday in his training session on navigating Black Holes. A mistake Yalta-ba-oath told him could cost them all their lives if made in the real world and not a simulated dream.

Sleek, black, and large, the ships could travel immense distances. The Dragons were vague on where the ships came from, vague, in fact, on details about themselves in general, but as far back as anyone on Kiel-e-ken, the second planet from the sun, could remember, they had simply been there. The Dragons would travel often, and the launches of the ships were attended with great revelry by the people of Jude’s home-city of Halom.

But it was new that the Dragons had offered to take people with them. And Jude was one of the first travelers, one of the first to study the ships and the navigational systems the ships contained.

Jude finally answered:

“Does it matter where the ships come from, where we come from? Isn’t it true that what matters is where we go next?”

Yalta-ba-oath chuckled. The emotion was strong in Jude’s head, but you could also hear the huffing sound through her mouth and nostrils if you had been standing nearby. Dragons only projected their thoughts to those they chose to project to—if they didn’t want you to be in on the conversation, it was private. Jude could almost hear her thoughts now. He felt he was just days away from truly hearing her through their connection, and then, the ship would be next.

“I can see I chose well in you, Jude.” Jude could hear the smile, even though it was hard to tell when a Dragon smiled from looking at their face. “You ask the important questions, but then you find the answers you need for yourself.”

Jude squirmed under the attention; the Dragon probing his mind always kind of tickled.

“Shall we get to today’s astro navigational maps?”

The Letters of John

What was from the beginning,/ what we have heard,/ what we have seen with our eyes,/ what we looked upon/ and touched with our hands/concerns the Word of life.

1 John

To: The Congress of Elders, the Judges

Halls of Government

Aredvi Sura Parallel

Esteemed Elders,

I write to you today to urge immediate action. The beginning of dangerous events is clearly upon us. There is no way that we can continue this dialogue unless both sides agree to discuss the issues at hand. I urge you to include all groups immediately and not negotiate without their explicit attendance at your meetings. Secret meetings of the Government must cease immediately so that the groups in question are not antagonized further.

The “doomsday device” that has been stolen by factions that disagree with our plan to travel to other planets, who believe that we should preserve our way of life at all costs because of the superstitions of an ancient religion, must be taken seriously by all the Wise and Learned among us. This device, while dismissed by some as a simple bomb, could change the entire nature of this planet.

What you have heard is correct: the device will, if detonated in the right part of the planet’s day/night cycle, possibly lead to an escalating Greenhouse effect that could burn off all of our planet’s Oceans. The winds will become a veritable vortex, rotating on our planet at something like 60 times the speed of our normal rotation. All animal and human life will die in the lightning storms that immediately follow said detonation. The escalating heat caused by the clouds of CO, Nitrogen, and Sulfuric Acid that will erupt from this device will then make the planet completely unrecoverable for any form of life as we know it.

I also urge you to consider the implications of all I have written here.

Those who say that it’s a simple nuclear bomb that will only destroy a radius of 8 miles do not understand the science at hand.

I have seen with my own eyes the danger that these people represent when the leader of the Faction killed dozens of his supporters in order to acquire my energy making machine. I know that I have been dismissed as a doomsday prophet, someone who stands aside and predicts scientific disasters that will never come to pass. The government must listen to its scientists if we are to preserve any semblance of life on this planet. Those who say “But they would never dare to use this device” do not know the levels of hatred these people have for anyone who disagrees with them. The fact that they stole the technology for the device from our labs does not go unnoticed by me, and I regret the experiments that lead to its discovery.

Those who say “But the space-travel will save us” do not realize that the Dragons can only carry a fraction of our planet’s life with them. And they do not seem to ask the questions of where we will go? The only other potentially inhabitable planet in this system, Earth-eal, is in the midst of its Ice Age—a time when human life is barely supported on most of its continental land masses. The primitive state of life on that planet, where there are no man-made structures and very barbaric humanoid creatures that live like animals, is not to be under estimated. Any of our planet’s survivors who managed to land on the planet would suffer a horrible fate.

Esteemed Elders: I, John of Tycho, believe that this device could end this planet forever, and the Dragons are not just the saviors of our kind that some would paint them to be. The origins of their species, as well as the nature of their benevolence to us, is unknown. Their minds are of an alien intelligence, and we cannot be certain of their intent.

Please, Esteemed Elders: take this warning seriously. This is about Life as we know it on our planet. We must convince the factions to bring us the doomsday weapon so that it can be disassembled in a safe environment, in a lab. It never should have been built, and I will curse my own curiosity for the rest of my days.

Sincerely,

John Tycho

* * *

Dearest Love:

I have written to the Councils of Elders and Judges. I don’t have any faith that they will hear my warnings. You should take our family and travel as quickly as you can to the Halls of the Elder Dragons and throw yourself and our cause on their mercies. In spite of not truly knowing their intent, I believe they may be our only hope at survival. Plan to leave our home forever. Bring as many of your friends as you can convince to come along. I will try to meet you there soon.

I know this sounds crazy, but if the Faction succeeds in its plan to detonate the cursed weapon that I developed in a crazy bid to provide endless energy to our world, we will all be destroyed.

My love, I long to be with you now, but I am traveling today to the Capitol to try to talk sense into the Judges there, personally. I hope that I am not too late.

I send you my heart, my soul, and my endless kisses. I hope that I see you and our children soon.

Love,

John

* * *

To the Leaders of the Faction:

I beg of you, return the device that is in your possession back to its rightful owners. I agree that we all need a dialogue about the direction our planet’s governmental rulers have chosen with the Dragons. We must discuss the wide-spread effects of space travel on our world in an intelligent, rational manner.

Your religious beliefs are strong, I understand. You must please hear me: the device you hold in your hands could trigger an unbelievably catastrophic series of events that could destroy life as we know it on this planet.

We have nowhere else to go that has homes for us to live in, and any emigration to other planets at this point is unfeasible. Please allow me to speak to you about a device and a danger that I never intended.

Can we not negotiate like civilized people? The day is long and the night is longer—but the sun will bless those of us who save our world.

You hold our fate in your hands. Please look at your loved ones, your children’s faces, and know that it is within your power to change the world for the better, not the worse.

Sincerely, with hope,

John Tycho, inventor of the weapon you hold

* * *

To: The Elder Dragons

Anahita Region

Esteemed Friends:

I believe the time for negotiations has ended. You in your wisdom have provided us a means to travel the galaxies, indeed, the universe. But there are those on our world who are afraid of the gifts you give. They will destroy us all in their fear. My search for renewable energy has caused me to inadvertently create a device that could destroy us all in the hands of those in the Faction.

You will recall the stories you have told me about what happened to your planet, so long ago before you came to us. How the Evil Ones took over, and caused a catastrophic meltdown of your planet’s energy sources. I fear that pattern is happening here, as well. Your interplanetary travel might be all that saves us.

I wish more of our people knew of your story, but I understand your reluctance to share your species origins, that you are extra-planetary beings come here to co-exist with us. I wish we were as intelligent of a species as your initial findings showed us to be.

I believe you must prepare the ships to transport as many of our planet’s people as possible to the Third Planet in our solar system. As you know from your own explorations of our solar system, it is not very hospitable, and there is no civilization to speak of.

The ships must be well-stocked with supplies, both for building, for medical care, to combat the diseases and environmental disasters that will surely befall our people on the barbaric surface of that planet. Not to mention the dangers of super-carnivores which still stalk the Northern hemisphere, and the primitive tribes of barbaric humanoids who live there. They are our distant genetic cousins, yes. But they have nothing in common with our civilized planet.

It has taken 4.6 billion years since the formation of this solar system and indeed, the universe. And it will take mere seconds for it to turn into a raging pit of acid, ammonia, and clouds. It will be, indeed, like the Hell their religion speaks of.

I am sending my wife and children to you. Please, I beg of you, save as many as you can. You, and your starships, are our only hope for some measure of survival.

John Tycho

* * *

Acts

I was sent forth from the power,

and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,

and you hearers, hear me.

You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

And do not banish me from your sight.

And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.

Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!

Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Nag Hammadi

From the Desk of Joan Lummoch

Official Transcriptionist of the Courts of the Hall of Judges

Five of the Elder Dragons appeared at the Hall of the Council of Judges today. We were in session, discussing the problem of the Faction having gained access to what some are calling a penultimate doomsday device, and that some are dismissing as mere sabre rattling. There was from the area of the larger doors an uproar, voices raised in a combination of alarm and joy. This is not the official record, but my own recollection of what happened. So I may miss things in the excitement.

The Elder Dragons are rarely seen outside of their own Halls, and the Dragons that most people get to see are the navigators and younglings, who mix regularly with our own children and young people.

These were five of the most respected, most wise of the Dragons, the ones that people in the know believe are the leaders of their community.

The first through the doors was Xiuhcoatl. Some said he is in charge of wars, and that he would be a sort of battlefield general if there ever came a need to fight. He was huge, his skin green and yellow colored. Unlike most Dragons, he didn’t have any wings, even vestigial ones, but instead there was a beautiful spiny ridge of red and green spikes coming from his back, tip of his tail to top of his head. His eyes shone a dark jade-green color, and he swung his head back and forth to observe everyone in the room, as though sizing us all up.

The next dragon was thought to be a female, named Ladon. Apparently some dragons can be either male or female, depending on their preference for mating. But she generally refers to herself as a female, so everyone waited to hear from her what her preference was before using pronouns. She was a dark blue, with large purple-red wings that spanned, when opened, twice her body length. She was said to be a water dragon, who would swim regularly in the great pools out behind the Hall of Dragons, and she clearly was not impressed with the lack of moisture in the Hall of Judges. She looked annoyed, and uncomfortable, but also resigned that she needed to be here. Being a water dragon, people speculated later that it was because of her intimate knowledge of the environment, and her scientific training in water and chemistry that she had come along, although she preferred solitude and scientific study to public appearances. I thought she was the most beautiful of all of them.

Third stalked in a large male called Nidhug, whose power-element was his strong, towering legs like tree-trunks. He was dark grey, with black spikes and wings that, when opened, as they briefly were while he was settling in, almost seemed translucent. His chin was tipped in dark blue beard-spikes, and his eyes were almost white, as though he didn’t need a pupil. Those who had seen him before today speculated that he was a deep-dwelling cave or underwater dragon, and that impression was not undone with his court appearance. While the bright lights didn’t seem to cause pain, one got the sense he, like Ladon, would have preferred to not be here.

Fourth was Pythios, who is said to be psychic in addition to a Dragon’s regular telepathic abilities. She can see the future in addition to what you’re thinking, and can project that future vision into your mind, should she choose to do so. She was smaller than the others, perhaps younger, and her green-blue scales rippled in the light, almost as if they were illuminated from inside, perhaps bioluminescent. She had no spikes and her four powerful but still delicate legs somehow reminded you of the fact that most dragons do fly. Their bones must be especially lightweight, unless the flight is caused by some kind of magic and not evolution. Her eyes seemed to pierce into everyone’s soul as though she knew all of your secrets, kept them, but knew what would happen to you because of them.

The fifth and final dragon was Tiamat, also a female. She is rumored to be a fire-dragon, who could literally breathe fire if she chose. Her coloring was beautiful—orange red, with creamy scales along her underside, golden spikes that looked more like soft feathers rippling down her neck. Some said that she was the matriarch of all of the dragons on the planet, that somewhere in history she had been the first Dragon. Since nobody knew how old dragons could be or were, and since both Dragons and Tiamat had been here as far back in recorded history as we had records, it certainly seemed possible. The other dragons deferred to her, and it seemed as though coming last in line was, to the dragons, the position of greatest authority.

After the initial excitement, the bailiffs to the court were able to clear a section of the Judges’ chambers for the Dragons to gather in. They had indicated that they were here to observe, and not to speak.

This seemed true until one of the Judges spoke of the letters of John Tycho, and his warnings about the device that he had invented.

This caused the Dragons to stir, and as though they had agreed upon this beforehand, one of them spoke. I will record their speeches here, as best as I can remember them. For anyone truly wanting to know what happened, they should consult the official transcript, available in the Hall of Records.

Pythios: Learned Counselors, we are here today to speak to you of our species. We do not, as people believe, originate on this planet.

(At this, there was argument among those gathered in the Court Hall which continued until the Dragons, almost as one, turned their eyes towards the people, who immediately quieted under the piercing eyes of Dragonkind).

Pythios continued: It is true. We once lived on a planet in a solar system far away. You would know this system as being approximately 16 of your light-years away, in the constellation commonly called Grus but which we named the Winged Dragon. That planet is now governed solely by a group we call, in your language, The Dark Ones. You would not like to meet them. But their history is one that your planet shares—a history of hate, and intolerance. A history of not allowing open debate. And a lack of a desire to explore outside their own comfort zone.

We who came to this planet before your recorded history longed to connect with other sentient beings. Longed to explore the galaxies. We found this planet second from your solar orbit with your early humanoid ancestors and came here, hoping to co-exist. The other planet in this system, the third from the solar orbit, was not ready for us, too cold, and too unready for our kind then.

Now it seems as though our shared existence on this planet is in danger. Those among you who question the drive to reach for the stars are gathering, and they are dangerous. I believe there is little chance to alter the future I have seen.

Please, join with myself and the other Dragon Elders at our compound. We must evacuate as many as we can to the great Starships, and we must lead a colony to the third plant.

At this, the audience erupted again, and even the eyes of the gathered elder Dragons would not silence them. There were many who ran from the Hall, and never returned. The Council of Judges ordered a recess to the proceedings and cleared the Hall of the rest of the assembly.

We do not know what the official orders will be concerning evacuation and colonization.

Exodus

These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family… The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy in all.

Exodus 1

Jude ran from the academic rooms to the staging area. He looked into the sky where the ominous clouds of a seasonal thunderstorm were just beginning to form. From what he had been told, the storm that was coming would be far worse, and last far longer. He didn’t know what to think about the immediate future, but he was glad his parents had made a quick decision to leave.

Frantic crowds gathered in front of the ships holding bags filled with whatever they could carry. Entire families, children crying, mothers trying to comfort them. Men trying to look stoic but sometimes failing and crying too.

Jude knew that Yalta-ba-oath was near. He had finally just mastered the empathic link between his Dragon guide that was required to pilot the Starship just last cycle but it was there. Still tentative, but there.

Jude. This way, towards the front of the ship.

Jude pushed through the crowds. There were guides gathered there, trying to calm everyone, trying to advise them on where to load the Starship, how to stow their baggage. The stewards would handle those details. It was time for him to climb into his pilot pod, nestled next to the Dragon’s much larger pod, and boot up the system for its initial checklist sequence.

He knew that the ship, a biological cyborg entity that had a symbiotic relationship with its Dragon pilot, had already cycled through much of the real checklist needs. The ship would have made the environment right for the occupants based on their metabolic patterns, which it could sense. It would have already plotted out exactly how much fuel they needed, and mapped the path they needed to take. The ship simply needed a special translator-team of the biological organisms onboard to translate those needs, to remind it to continue running and adjusting life-support and adjusting for any emergencies.

He stowed his own gear in the space beneath his seat provided for that purpose and climbed into the seat, which was exactly his size, as though built for him. He scanned the checklist: Auxiliary fuel supplies—Off; Flight controls—Free and correct. Dragon empathic interface—loading. He clicked his tongue on the top of his mouth, which was the signal for the headset to begin the software that helped the process.

At this, he felt Yalta-ba-oath’s calming mind connect with his. The image of water flowing over dark black rocks, which he had been taught as a way of smoothing out any hiccups in the initial upboot, made his anxiety fade away.

He went down the list: instruments and radios—checked and set. Between themselves, Yalta-ba-oath and Jude checked the engine idle status, monitored the still-in-progress passenger loading status. It appeared that almost everyone was on board, and the stewards notified the two pilots, one human, one Dragon, that they were ten minutes from being ready for takeoff.

Jude made a special sweep with his empathic senses, which now engulfed the entire ship’s intricate central nervous throughout the ship, to check for his parents. They were both wedged in the first forward compartments, nervous, sweating. He could slightly read their emotions in the way the empathic link with the Dragon allowed, and knew that they were still not sure they were doing the right thing, and yet afraid that it was absolutely necessary.

The ship could hold approximately seventy passengers. There were ten ships in all, and all of them were completing the intricate frantic dance of passenger loading and Dragon/Pilot interface. Jude could hear the chatter from the inter-ship radio that confirmed all the ships were almost ready, too.

The families that were loaded on this Starship included Judges and all the other staff and legal emigrant candidates that had already applied to the program.

Jude pinged the pod with the two Reuben Judges, who were from a Southern province near the Ocean, to indicate to them that they needed to initiate their takeoff sequencing. They were the only members of the group that did not quite appear ready. They did not have any children yet, although the empathic vibe Jude was getting from the woman suggested the faintest ripple of a mind within her—perhaps a child was coming soon.

The Simeons, two boys and a girl, along with their parents, were loaded in a pod next to Jude’s family. Next to them were the Levis, who had protested and strongly believed this was a premature mistake, but who did not want to risk their family’s safety in the backlash against this action that would likely follow. Those pods were near the back of the ship. Their child was also loaded with them, too young to know what was going on, getting bored and a little sleepy now that the loading process was done.

Judge Issachar, Judge Zebulun, and Judge Benjamin were all unmarried, but they were teachers, also, so they had herded a number of the documented groups of people who had applied to the Interstellar program on board, helped them load into the communal class seating near the center of the back section. The Judges Dan and Naphtali, Gad, and Asher were also on board, and because of their advanced state of training, had already loaded the cryo-sleep programs and were in the light dozing state that was suggested before take-off.

None of the families had ever launched from the planet’s surface before. This was a new experience for everyone, in spite of the months (and for some, years) of training. The Dragons, of course, had been through this all before. They sent calming vibrations through their human pilots, who in turn were able to send those calming thoughts to the other humans.

Pilots were chosen for their ability to interface with the alien mind of the Dragons and the minds of their fellow humans, and Jude had been told he was the best. Jude and Yalta-ba-oath knew that the other ten ships nearby were also finishing up the final stages of pre-flight, but their ship, the Genesis, would be first to go. Yalta-ba-oath had flight seniority.

Jude was proud he had been chosen as Yalta-ba-oath’s navigational partner. Even though he was much newer to the program than many of the other ships’ navigators, he would be the first to touch the atmosphere. First to reach out a hand to the stars and the nearby planet.

The final items of the pre-flight takeoff checklist were lit on Jude’s navigational board, just in front of his seat and to the side. Stewards reported the doors and windows locked. Jude checked, once more, the fuel mixture. It was full rich but would be adjusted once they were out of planetary orbit over 3,000 feet. The ship’s interstellar lights were set and navigational cameras loaded.

The Dragons had agreed to leave the ship’s transponders in the “off” position for now, until it was for certain whether any of the members of the Faction were receiving transmissions. Nobody wanted to tip off the enemy, who was threatening to unleash their weapon any moment now, that the plans for emigration to the Third Planet some were beginning to call Terra, others calling Earth, were activated. Jude checked all the engine instruments and signaled to Yalta-ba-oath that the checklist was covered.

It was time to go!

* * *

Genesis

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Genesis 1

The ships, ten of them, pierced the atmosphere just above a land mass shaped vaguely like a bare foot without toes. There was a twisting river that the Geographers had decided would be the best possible place to land, and the glaciers which touched most of the planet’s upper quadrant were far enough away that there should be warm weather and fertile soil.

It had been a bumpy trip. Just as the ships, guided by the Dragons (and their capable human navigators) had guided the ships out of the atmosphere of their home and leveled off into space’s quiet vacuum, a great explosion had pierced the planet’s sky.

Clouds of yellow-gold, almost beautiful, definitely terrifying, had billowed upward. Those who were still awake watched the aft cameras, some weeping openly as their planet’s atmosphere was forever changed. The initial plume of golden cloud grew exponentially, quietly for them but probably eardrum piercing on the planet’s surface. The cities could not be seen from this distance, but the flames that could be seen beneath the yellow clouds were undoubtedly destroying everything. The flames reached as high as the clouds for a moment. Near the planet’s southern regions, where the oceans reigned, the watchers could see water plumes vaporizing, the intense heat burning off into steam. As they travelled space and the cameras began to lose the magnification possible to see anything other than a vague shape, they could see the vapor adding itself to the clouds, and lightning-like flashes of whitehot energy blasting the entire southern region near the volcano plains.

There was no hope that anyone who had been left on the planet had survived. The ten ships with seventy passengers and crew each had barely cleared the danger zone when the Factions had exploded their device. Its inventor, John Tycho, was still on the planet, having tried to negotiate with the Faction’s faceless, nameless leaders.

The families on the ships would never know who it was that set off the planet killing bomb.

Those who had opted to take the interplanetary journey without the aid of the cryo sleep chambers eventually rose and gathered in the crew areas, seeking comfort, hugging, crying. It seemed impossible that their home was gone, and they were on the way to an alien planet.

If it hadn’t been for the Dragons, some whispered quietly, perhaps this would not have happened. But if it hadn’t been for the Dragons, they would not have been saved, either. The whisperers looked at their sleeping children, faces slack with the dreamless sleep of the cryo chambers, and sighed.

The new planet was impossibly blue, broken here and there by brown land masses. In the quadrant oriented upwards from the ships, there were large white bodies that the Dragons called glaciers. They were similar to the peaks of the highest volcanoes on their home planet, but so much larger. The Dragons said that this was a temporary cycle of the planet’s position furthest from the Sola, and that it happened at such an infrequent cycle that it wasn’t to be worried about forever.

Larger than theirs, and the Dragons reported that its planetary rotation was backwards! That the solar cycle lasted a mere 24 hours, splitting the period between darkness and light into a tiny fraction of time. There was evening, and there was morning. There were nameless animals creeping over the surface of the planet. Plants that would yield unfamiliar fruits. Flowers with unknown scents waited.

The people on the ship, still reeling from the experience of leaving their home and seeing it destroyed, found hope in their hearts.

The people, who would take to calling themselves the Tribes in Exile, watched as the ships landed in the driest area, similar to the plains on their home planet. The Sola was just rising in the Eastern skyline and there were a few small groups of the proto-humanoids that lived on this planet gathering to watch the Ships land. The Dragons would go first.

They were always first.

It was the end of everything.

It was a beginning.

~Safkhet, Star Date 21*520*205500

World News Time-Gazette

January 15, 20—

Ancient Rosetta-Stone Like Text Uncovered! Scientists Stunned!

The International Scientific community is reeling with the publication of a new translation of an ancient text. Readers may remember the story of a strange sphere being discovered years ago. Many thought it was a hoax, but this new discovery has changed that speculation.

This week, news that the ancient story of an extra-terrestrial race of beings had come to the Earth was uncovered by a graduate student. When her computer was taken over by a virus, Sonya Lake found the initial installment of an amazing story. Publishers are fighting over the rights to release the rest of what might prove to be a historic text that will change the way we view our own evolution, as well as this planet’s history, and that of the entire solar system. Computer scientists say that what has been done to her computer is impossible. Top history and archeological scientists have given no comment at this time, but an anonymous insider says the story is huge.

The first of several stories have appeared, and are supposedly written by an ancient scribe named Safkhet. Stay tuned here to the World News Time-Gazette for more information as the story unfolds!

For Wide Release.

For more information, contact K. Zimmer

@ Time-Gazette.com.

Alison Wilgus

King Tide

Originally published by Terraform

* * *

Some particular trick of the moon, the weather, and the Earth’s closeness to the sun had pulled the tide all the way to 5th Avenue, a good half-block further uphill than usual. The city had put out an alert, so Jordyn knew to clear out the basement ahead of time. Their landlord had been smart enough to have the foundation sealed years ago—that would be fine—but there wasn’t much to be done for cardboard boxes and old futons. Those had to be kept above the tide line, or they were garbage.

Her girlfriend, Mia, had paused on the first floor landing to breathe, a disintegrating tomb of Jordyn’s family albums clutched in her hands. Its weight eased for a moment as she rested an edge on the railing. "We should toss these," Mia had said. "You digitized them years ago."

"Oh, but it’s not the same," Jordyn had said, and it wasn’t.

Now she sat cross-legged on their bed while Mia showered, a stack of albums on the duvet beside her and another open in her lap. She peered at the careful handwriting under each photograph, names and dates and in-jokes, most of them incomprehensible. The photos had been taken with cell phones and carefully printed out, an anachronism even then. Her grandmother had pressed hard when she wrote, and as Jordyn ran her fingertips over the pages she could feel indentations beneath the ink. The album smelled of dust and old glue and a worrying hint of mildew.

Jordyn had copied one—taken a photo of a photo, found a place up in Bushwick that still did small print jobs, bought a silver frame secondhand at the Brooklyn Bazaar—and set it on the wooden dresser beside their bed. Her grandmother had taken it decades ago, when her mother was a little girl and the Gowanus canal only rarely ventured out onto the streets.

In the photo, a small, smiling version of her mother sat on the stoop of her grandparents' house. She was an almost-copy of Jordyn herself: curly black hair, brown skin, freckles on her cheeks and bare shoulders. The house was yellow brick, with white-washed iron bars over the windows and a little flower garden tucked between the concrete stoop and the stairs down to the cellar. Her grandparents had bought it in the 1970s for very little money, and, at the time the photograph was taken, were rightly smug about their foresight. When the photo was taken, they could have sold it for a million dollars to developers who’d have cheerfully replaced it with a narrow stack of condos.

They’d stopped using the cellar after Hurricane Oscar. Hurricane Andrea had ruined the curtains and the carpets on the first floor. In the end, they’d been forced to sell the house for little more than it cost to buy a new car.

Jordyn lived just up the hill, now. The yellow house in her picture wasn’t large—two stories and a basement—but on most days, its top story rose out of the lagoon. She liked to look at it from her roof in the late afternoon, when the warm golden sunshine made it look buttery and romantic. Like it had sounded in her mother’s stories, back when she was still alive to tell them.

The pipes thumped as Mia turned off the water. She walked out the bathroom in a cloud of steam, her stout brown body naked and dripping as she toweled off her hair. "Moon’s out," she said.

Jordyn closed the album in her lap and set it on top of the others. The bed creaked as she slid to the edge, tucked her feet into her slippers, stood up; she stretched her arms above her head and her muscles resettled. "It’s a King Tide," she said. "Highest this year. By a lot."

Mia pulled her head through a cotton tee shirt. "We should drink a couple beers on the roof."

"Hah! In winter?”

Mia shrugged.

* * *

Jordyn opened the door to their apartment, then turned the lock so that the deadbolt would catch on the frame and keep the door ajar. Theirs was the top floor; they climbed one flight of steep marble stairway to the roof. Two bottles clinked together in Mia’s hand, held by their necks between her fingers.

The winter had been mild, but little mounds of rotten snow hid in the shadows, and Jordyn rubbed her arms through her sweatshirt as she walked across the tarpaper. Through the steam of her breath, she looked out over a city of brick and stone and water. Behind her swelled the high-rent higher ground of Park Slope, dry townhouses marching up the hill to Prospect Park, Flatbush, Windsor Terrace, Crown Heights. Neighborhoods that emptied this time of year, when everyone escaped to their condos in Georgia.

Before her, an archipelago.

Real estate agents had started calling it "Gowanus Beach," which Jordyn thought was pretty misleading, even by real estate standards. At least when people said Red Hook was "The Venice of Kings County" that evoked a useful image: water-stained townhouses and floating wooden walkways, plastic kayaks tied up in front of corner bodegas, tanned women in sundresses puttering around in little zodiacs with outboard motors, the East River lapping at second story windowsills. "Gowanus Beach" implied sand, maybe sea-smooth stones, even the muddy shore of a lake. Nothing about "beach" said crumbling asphalt, or concrete gnawed away by the tides, or exposed rebar skeletons dissolving into rust, or the bloated carcasses of cheap student furniture bobbing up from drowned garden apartments.

The wind was wet and heavy. Jordyn shivered and looked down at the rippling gray water. She couldn’t see her grandparents’ house. The tide had swallowed it entirely.

Mia popped their bottles open on the low brick wall of the facade. They stood in the cold and looked at the city, at the full moon in the blue evening sky, at the waves. A trash barge puttered along the street below, pausing every half-block for building supers to add to its load. Jordyn could hear the siren of a fire boat, but couldn’t see the boat itself, nor the smoke.

Jordyn took a sip from her beer, which was warm and tasted of hops and cardamom. "The tide’s supposed to drop all the way down past Fourth Ave," she said. "I thought I might go for a walk."

Mia pursed her lips. "It’ll be dark."

"It hasn’t gone out this far in years,” Jordyn said.

"Still." Mia nursed her beer in silence for a while, time measured out in the swish-pop of her sips. "When was your last tetanus shot?"

"Couple years ago. Remember? I fell off Madison’s dock."

Mia sighed. "Wear your reef shoes, all right?"

The sirens faded. Jordyn stepped into the warm space beside Mia’s body and slid an arm around her thick waist, tucking her hand into the far pocket of Mia’s coat. "I’ll be fine," she said.

* * *

Anticipation kept Jordyn from sleeping soundly, and she woke before her alarm. She had dreamed about riding the old subway system her mother had told her about. She dressed by the amber light of street lamps, pulled a coat on over her wetsuit, slipped her feet into her reef shoes. Kissed Mia on the forehead and closed their bedroom door.

Mia had set the big flashlight to charge before they’d gone to bed. Jordyn took it and her set of keys, locked up the apartment, descended the stairway in rubber-soled silence, and stepped out onto the empty sidewalk. The water was gone, but the tree wells were stiff with frozen mud.

As Jordyn walked downhill toward Fourth Avenue, below the usual tideline, she had to pick her away around soggy timber, hunks of old insulation, rusted soda cans, tangled knots of plastic shopping bags—the usual trail of city detritus left behind by high tide. She passed under the elevated boardwalk running along the east side of the avenue, a tourist attraction some mayor had built when she was a little girl. The wreckage of a gull had caught on one of the pilings.

Beyond the boardwalk, asphalt crumbled into a sort of coarse black gravel, bits of the roadbed mixed in with the sand and soil and stones that had once supported it. In places, the steel tubes and concrete cylinders of the old infrastructure were exposed—gas lines, water mains, sewers, electricity. Round black holes gaped open, liquid noises echoing up from underground. Most of the old manhole covers had been stolen by trophy hunters years ago. Jordyn chose her steps carefully, eyes on the ground.

Once she reached the buildings on the far side of the avenue, she paused to look behind her. Only the foolish or the desperate would eat anything fished out of the Gowanus lagoon, but the boardwalk was crowded with seafood restaurants hoping to capitalize on the maritime atmosphere. Their neon signs still winked at her from above shuttered doors and windows, criss-crossed by the black silhouettes of utility lines.

She walked downhill. The canals of the lagoon were lit, but not well, and the low tide made the landscape unsettling and strange. Buildings were taller than she remembered; boats moored in shallow water now rested on the ground.

The lagoon had retreated to a few yards below the avenue. Jordyn switched on the flashlight and waded in one cautious step at a time, careful not to shift her weight forward until she was sure of her footing.

The water was cold. Her toes were numb within half a block, but that was fine. The soles of her shoes were tough enough for nails and glass, and she didn’t have far to go.

In the LED glow of her flashlight, the yellow brick house looked almost white. For a disoriented moment, she wondered if she’d gone down the wrong street, or misremembered which side of it the building was on. Someone—a thief, an interim owner, the tide—had taken the bars from the lower-story windows. And the brick was striped with stains, each line a marker of the lagoon’s creeping progress uphill.

But the black iron numbers hanging above the door were the same. This was the house, reclaimed from the tide, if only for tonight. From this stoop, her mother had watched the water come.

Jordyn was up to her waist in the lagoon. Her feet still had some feeling left, and she poked around with them under the night-black water, looking for the first step. Finding it, she climbed the uneven stairs, water running down the legs of her wetsuit and dripping from the saturated hem of her coat. She sat on the stoop, her back against the font door. Her feet were still in the water, and it tickled as it lapped around her ankles.

She dried her hands off on her hair, then tugged her phone out of a plastic pouch in her jacket. She held it up in front of her, looked into its little black eye, and smiled.

Noise Pollution

Originally published by Strange Horizons

* * *

I’m not an idiot. I don’t leave the house without at least one set of juiced-up double-As, two if I remember when I’m putting my purse together. A minute is enough time for a spell to fall apart, and if you think you can find a bodega and buy a pack of batteries and swap them in and get your tape running again in less than five, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

And that Saturday I’d been so good! I’d been a real responsibility champion, one set in my bag and another in the pocket of my coat, just in case I was mugged, though come to think of it a mugger would probably be enough of an asshole to take my walkman, too, so I’d be in kind of a tight spot either way.

Anyway I’m not an idiot, but I can’t really pay attention to more than a couple of things at once, either. I’ve got no problem with keeping one ear open to make sure the cloak Song’s running while I’m on the train or at the store or you know…doing normal things like an adult is supposed to. I can leave my apartment, I’m not one of those people.

But sometimes it’s three or four things. Sometimes a punk-ass kid wants to haggle with you over an unopened ten-pack of Type Two BASF Chrome Maximas and you’re on the phone with your goddamn choir director and your walkman runs down while both your earbuds are out. And you don’t notice right away. And then the Noise comes swooping down on you like a summer storm, and you’ve got problems a whole truckload of responsibility batteries isn’t gonna fish you out of.

I was late to choir, and look, I get why Lucille—she’s the director, been there for-fucking-ever, I think she remembers when the Gaslight was still open—anyway, I get why Lucille was so pissed at me for being late. She specifically asked me to join because they needed a contralto for the new antiviral arrangement, and now they were sitting there at church with a couple dozen kids who’d been dragged out of bed to come, waiting on me to scramble across town, and yes I kept a church full of sick children waiting, I’m awful, I know, sometimes a lady takes a few minutes to finish putting her face on and she misses the F train.

I took an earbud out as soon as I got above ground at Delancey and called Lucille to say I was only a few blocks away, because again, I’m an adult, the least I can do is let the woman know where my tardy ass is.

And she’s all like, "Cheryl, this is the kind of nonsense that got you dumped from the last choir," and "Don’t think a big voice is a first class ticket to the All About Me train!" and something about "community spirit," which I gotta say is pretty fair, I mean, it’s not like this was the first time I’d pulled this kind of bullshit and you know how things get around. Like, there’s more of us Musical folk than there used to be, sure, but we’re still pretty fucking few and far between and all up in each other’s business, and it’s not like you can blow off basic civic duties without everyone else hearing about it, not even if you move from Philly to New York. Me and Lucille, we met three days after I got off the bus at Port Authority, and she already knew my whole sorry-ass story in all the dissonant details.

Anyway. She was letting me have it, I was pretty much letting it slide right over me, and the cloak Song was still playing nice and smooth. Pretty standard Saturday, and if it’d stayed that way I wouldn’t be telling you any of this now.

That’s about when I saw this kid sitting on a pink grandma blanket at 7th and B, right outside Tompkins Square Park and maybe an hour or two out from emptying some poor yuppie’s apartment. You know the type—white-boy dreads, shirt for a band that broke up before his ass was even born, probably hasn’t showered in a year, and by the look of him I figured he’d either gone off his meds or got stoned out of his mind or both. He’s cross-legged in the middle of the usual crap—a coffee maker, sweaters, an iron, couple pairs of sneakers, whatever he’d been able to cram into his backpack and couldn’t swap for cash at a pawn shop. He looked maybe fifteen, and I was thinking he’s probably some kid from Long Island whose parents finally kicked him out for being a little shit.

On a normal day, I might’ve called him in and given a description, just in case the cops took a break from hassling brown folks to do their fucking jobs. But Lucille was nag-nattering on about sheet music and church was still a couple more avenues away, and I am telling you now, I swear I was gonna keep walking.

But then I spotted those fucking tapes on the blanket and I just could not help myself.

So I guess now’s the time for the urban Musician everyday-carry rundown, huh? We’re getting that out of the way?

Okay, look. I’ll make due with whatever Type One TDKs I can find for cheap on eBay in a pinch, you know, for ticky-tack household stuff. I’ve left a pest-control loop playing overnight on cheap tapes and it’s worked well enough. But for my cloak Song? Type Two BASF ferrochromes, from before they moved production to Korea when I can find them. AC biasing is fine, but no Dolby noise reduction, I don’t care if you think I’m crazy, the preemphasis weakens the range of the spell, everyone knows it, sometimes we’re snobs for a reason. I think I’ve laid down maybe ten, twelve different ward Songs on quarter-inch ATR master tape, you know, different variations for different seasons, a couple specialty tracks for when I’m gonna fly somewhere, all pretty standard stuff. Dub off a new copy whenever a cassette wears out.

So it’s not like I’m tearing through tapes but shit, they don’t make the Chrome Maximas anymore and this kid was selling brand new unopened tapes with the early nineties formulation and I’m not one of those superstitious audiophile assholes but like I keep saying, I’m not an idiot, either, and those tapes are amazing.

Of course there weren’t price tags on anything in this kid’s sidewalk felony sale, so I had to ask how much he wanted for the tapes. And he must’ve seen a hint of "oh fuck must have these" on my face, because he got this kind of desperate, hungry look and tells me they’re ten bucks each.

I just about kicked him in the head right then because seriously, he’s selling this shit off a blanket in the East Village, I should’ve been able to hand him a five and walk off with the tapes and a couple of Cosby sweaters, right?

I’m pretty far into the red on my dick-around-time at this point, and Lucille’s all like, “Lord, Cheryl, are you shopping?” and my '83 Walkman-DD’s still cranking through cloak Song smooth as you please, so I yank out the other ear bud, cold drop Lucille in my purse and I tell this kid I don’t care if he built a time machine and brought these fuckers straight here from nineteen ninety-four, it’s twenty for all of them or nothing and he’s lucky I’m still standing there.

And that’s how I ended up haggling over tapes while my batteries ran out and my Song stuttered and stopped.

So look, I don’t know about your grandma, but mine loves to gripe about the old days, back when we had to keep a choir going up on the wall every damn second no matter the time and whatever the weather. Back when you’d either be stuck at home with the same jokers you’ve known since you were born, or out with the Tonedeaf Singing under your breath like a crazy person and hoping no one called the cops on you.

Hell, even if they did, you’d damn well keep Singing in jail, too. Keep that shit going every second, every day, or the Noise is gonna find your ass. And then your family gets to decide how long they’re gonna keep feeding what’s left over.

Kinda garbage situation, really, but that’s just how things are for the Musical, right? Even nowadays everything we do is all tangled up in the Noise. A whole auditory ecosystem of aging analog equipment and chrome tape hoards, all of it so we can snug up in our safe little Song blankets and hope the Noise doesn’t notice us. And normally it doesn’t. That’s civilization for you, right? That’s progress.

But it sure as shit noticed me that Saturday.

It came screaming down St. Marks like an angry cloud of every sound that sets your teeth on edge, the frothy boiling mess of it poured between the buildings in a raucous slop of toothpaste foam. It sloshed neck-deep around the normal folk out doing their weekend brunch crawl, and fuck is that creepy to see, their little heads sticking up above the mess, their sunny faces grinning through a sudsy swarm of murderous intentions.

Lucky them the Noise doesn’t give a shit about the Tonedeaf. But ooooh yes it cares about the Musical; cares about chewing you up and swallowing down your Songs forever.

By now that milkshake churn of soul-munching trash is about half a block away, I’m in heels and not really much up for running on a good day, and even if I could swap in new batteries and get the tape running again it’s a little late to keep the Noise from finding me, isn’t it? So I hunkered right down, back up against the kid’s ripoff miniature flea market, and belted out the first defensive bass line that came to mind, one of the catchier ones Mom taught me before she’d let me walk home from school on my own. I got the last measure out just in time to snap a wall up over my head, and the Noise pancaked about ten feet off the ground, a kind of shaving cream slop that poured down the arc of my hasty Tone wall and snarled like glass in a garbage disposal.

And look, I’m real good. There’s a reason Lucille puts up with my crap, and there’s a reason it took my old choir in Philly so long to kick me out, even with all the drama I pulled. I’m a stone cold diva badass and I can hold back a yowling tsunami of whipped death all on my own, please and thanks.

But you know, like…actually canceling it out? That’s something else. And there’s only so long I can get away with battle-serenading on the sidewalk. The Tonedeaf can’t really hear the Noise, but they can sure hear you just fine, hollering at an empty sky like a lunatic.

If I’d had a chance to really stop and think about it, I would’ve slammed my phone against my fool head and told Lucille to come bail me out. She was a couple blocks away, she had a whole choir with her, they could’ve saved my ass without breaking a sweat and Lucille would’ve loved every second of told-you-so superiority over my irresponsible behind.

But I wasn’t exactly in the pocket, logic-wise, at that particular moment. And let’s be honest, I’m not a huge fan of told-you-sos from folks in general and Lucille most especially in particular.

Sunlight shines right through Noise—it’s all part of the weird there-not-thereness of Auditory creatures—so I could see the kid’s face just fine when I turned back around. And I was like, "Hey, jackass. You sing at all?" I mean hell, he liked music enough to know the shit on his blanket was worth stealing, I figured he should make himself useful.

And for a sec he just stared at me like I was a total whack job, which hey, was about what I’d've expected. But then he kinda cocked his head and said, “You can see that Cool Whip shit in the sky? You can hear this?”

Right? Right? Whaaaaaaaat the hell?

So I picked my fucking jaw up and I’m like, uh sure, yeah I can see it, and of course I’m wondering what’s up with him because he shouldn’t be able to see squat, and it’s not like I’d ever run into this punk at the Musician coop meetings if you know what I mean.

But hey, time was kind of tight, just then, and every second I wasn’t Singing the shield above me thinned out. So I’m like, "Kid, you gonna help me out or what?" And he kind of blinked those dishwater eyes and said, "Sure, why not." Seriously, just like that. Crazy lady wants to teach me to sing while a shrieking taffy-cloud’s trying to eat us? Sure, why not?

So I belted out another verse of barriers before launching into the quickest, dirtiest Tone lesson of my life.

Looked like I was right about the secret Musicality of that kid, too. He listened all crazy tight-jawed intense while I looped back through another round of my shore-it-up Song, his eyes right on me even as the Noise churned around us, even as the dingy brownstones and the scraggly park and the gawping brunchers were all drowned out by the shook-up-soda white of the Noise trying to punch through the wall I’d made.

Then that fucking kid opened up his pimple-ringed mouth and a sweet, clean tenor soared right out of it. Perfect pitch and every syllable just so, even though you know, it’s Tonal, he couldn’t have had even half an idea what the hell he was singing.

By now we must’ve been drawing a crowd, but the Noise was bubbling and boiling and kicking up a racket like a bucket of parrots, so I threw back my shoulders and raised my chin and belted out the rolling rich tones of kicking ass, the most powerful Song I knew, the kind that makes you feel like your throat is on fire. The kid was keeping my Tone wall in place, so I dug down deep into the Song in my stomach an threw my full voice into tearing that bastard apart.

Have you ever been in a fight with Noise? Not a full choir, they basically pulverize the thing in a measure. I mean a real brawl, where it has a chance to squirm a little? No?

The only thing I can think of is…well, picture a volcano erupting down out of the sky, only the lava is made of white-hot marshmallow fluff and the sound of it’s worse than anything, like a whole percussion section being crushed in a dump truck while a pack of cats are fucking on top of it. It’s unreal, but you gotta hold on to your melody like the lifeline it is, your one and only way back out of this lobster pot of shrieking screaming fury.

The kid choked on his own Song, then, and the Tone wall shimmered around us. I looked back at him, half-thinking I’d catch him trying to sell the damn tapes to someone else while I was busy. But he wasn’t looking at me, or at the tapes, and his hands were shaking, and he stared at the sky looking fit to piss himself and run.

So I’m thinking to myself, I don’t have any idea what the hell’s going on with this kid, but with this much angry Noise piling up on top of me I can’t stop Singing for more than a phrase. I snapped my fingers in front of his nose, not a real high-content way to talk to someone but enough to get him to look at me anyway. I met his eyes and stopped my Song long enough to say, "Don’t leave me hanging."

And I swear, he just swallowed his freakout right down and sang out even louder than before, so hard that he ripped a kind of raw ragged edge to that bell-clear baby voice.

You know that moment when a little kid Sings for the first time? When it’s like you can see their Song flowing into them? When they go from being some poor little Tone-sensitive critter to a real Musician, with a Voice that’ll let 'em make a place for themselves in the world? Like sure, being all full up of Song is what lets the Noise find you, but it’s worth it because you’re like…finally all the way you?

I tell you, it’s one thing with the kids, but watching that happen to this almost-man who’s maybe had kind of a hard time of it…like I was watching it all kind of click together, everything he’d been through, all the shit he’d seen when no one else could, a decade and change of being some kind of feral Musician with no one to help him make sense of it. All of that sliding into place right there behind his eyes.

Fuck me, that was something else.

I sang, and he sang, and the Noise stretched and swelled like a spongey ceiling above us. Our voices were a boxer’s fists, one knocking back the beast and the other punching it full of wet gaping holes as it wailed and fought like a fox in a bag. I shifted my Song a little, wrapping the Tone wall up and around it, hugging that fucker nice and close before I lay in with all the fight and fierceness I had left in my gut.

And then, soap-bubble sudden, it burst and fell.

A snowfall of shed sound settled on the barrier above us. The kid and I finished our stanzas and stopped. The city sounds of cars and pigeons and window ACs rose up and filled the sudden silence.

I looked around at the crowd we’d gathered, maybe a dozen or so curious folks with nowhere urgent to be. A few of them applauded. I think an old man tossed a dollar onto the blanket. Within a minute or so, they’d all wandered back to whatever they’d been doing before.

I mean hey, this is New York. Mostly people just want to keep their heads down and deal with their own shit.

As the sidewalk emptied, the Tone wall over our heads broke apart. And the kid and I kind of sized each other up while tiny flakes of Noise settled in drifts on the sidewalk, clung to the hair and necks and faces of the Toneless all around us, all set to become little fragments of shit music lodged in their heads for the next few days.

I popped in a couple of fresh batteries and got my cloak Song spinning again. The Kid just kind of stood there watching me, like some poor nerd at a middle school dance, standing and waiting for someone to tell him what to do with himself.

Then I heard Lucille’s tinny voice calling my name. I’d forgotten to hang up the damn phone.

I lifted it back to my ear, already apologizing, but she shouted me right down.

She wanted to know who’d been Singing with me. She wondered if maybe I’d bring him to choir.

"Hey kid," I said. "You got anywhere to be?"

He grunted something that I took for a "No."

"Any chance you read sheet music?"

He didn’t, but that was fine, too. He was obviously a fast learner.

"Leave this shit here, you won’t need it," I said. "Except the tapes. You grab those motherfuckers right now."

I mean, it’s like I said. I’m not an idiot.

Nicolas Wilson

Trials

Originally Published in The Alien Chronicles

* * *

When the Nexus shifts to one-man missions to make first contact, the security division’s second-in-command accepts a challenging assignment to negotiate with the most dangerous planet yet. Where reason does not persuade this alien species, militaristic skill might. If he lives through the trials.

One

The captain called me on the comms routed through my cochlear implant. He wanted to talk. He never used his office, so I found him in the hall. Louise, our head of security, was finally back and out of quarantine, so I was no longer acting head of our division. But I had been, for weeks, so I was used to the routine.

“How do you feel about taking a sabbatical?” he asked as we started walking.

He was talking about taking one of the pods to make first contact with an alien race. Idly, I pulled up the most recent reports from Louise’s pod on the heads-up display on my eyescreen. It detailed the damage to her pod, as well as the changes the engineering division was nearly through implementing to prevent a recurrence. “Mostly, I’ve been focusing on preparing for the Argus,” I told him.

“Well, with your boss back, I need you to think about this now.”

“Why do I feel like I’m being pitched?”

“Because this is important. It’s not common knowledge that Elle’s—” He caught himself; it wasn’t her name, and he knew it was weird for me. “Louise’s ‘sabbatical’ hit more than technical snags. Most people don’t know she was nearly eaten by a giant, octopus kind of thing. Haley instituted a danger rating for planets. Retroactively, she rated that planet an eight. The world I’d like you to take is a nine.”

“And we’re not just going to take a pass?”

“If this were some time next year, with dozens of successful missions under our belts? Absolutely, we would. But if we can’t get someone back from a nine, soon we can’t get anyone to take an eight. Then a seven. Conceptually, I’m all for us going after the low-hanging fruit. But if we start ignoring everything else…”

“Would you take it?” I asked.

“Can’t,” he said. “Council resolution. I’m not allowed to.”

“Roles reversed, I’m your captain, asking. Knowing what you do, and knowing how important, would you take on the risk?”

He looked away and thought. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s a lot to ask. And I’ve got things I wouldn’t want to lose. But I’d like to think so.”

“Okay,” I told him. “I’ll do it.”

His shoulders relaxed. “Just don’t take any undue risks. If things aren’t right, if anything makes you uncomfortable, walk away. It’s more important that you make it back alive than with a contract in hand.”

“How long have I got?” I asked.

“The positive of this new selection process is we get lots of data to send the most qualified candidate, making it a bit less of a lottery. The drawback is limited time. You’ve got a day. So I’d suggest not wasting another second of it talking to me.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

As I walked away, I wondered if I had just entered myself in an intergalactic pissing contest. Drew was the closest I had to a rival, not that he saw it that way. He had Sam. But he also had Louise. I saw the way she looked at him, heard the way she talked about what they had. He was what she measured me against, and I was tired of being found wanting.

I was right there on the day she got back from the seafood planet. Thinking we lost her when her shuttle malfunctioned, thinking we lost her when the natives tried to feed her to a giant squid—and then a third nightmare even after she made it back, when her life was threatened by a parasite she caught in the water. It put things into perspective, made me realize that I wanted desperately to tell her what losing her would have done to me.

I planned to tell her how I felt, just to put it out there. No more pining, just, “This is how I feel. It’s not an attempt to get you to reciprocate, I just want you to know, because maybe knowing will make you just the littlest bit happier, and that would make humiliating myself worth the while.”

I went to quarantine. Drew was already there, holding her through a wall of glass—holding her and Sam. I don’t think the bastard’s ever known how lucky he was.

Fucked up as it might sound now, I felt thankful for it. Because telling Louise how I felt, from a position of neediness and fear—that wasn’t the way to win over a warrior woman. No. I had just been given the opportunity to crack one of the galaxy’s toughest nuts, return victorious, and tell her from a place of strength.

Two

It was hard not scooping Louise up in my arms and kissing her, letting loose everything I’d ever wanted to say. I could tell she wanted to tell me something, too; I’d interrogated enough people to know when they’re about to pop. But whatever it was, she wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t either. I was going to bring her the contract for a dangerous planet, then tell her everything.

“Just take care of yourself,” she said, finally. “There isn’t much room for error, out there on your own. Don’t take risks. I—the ship needs you back here in one piece.”

“I’ll ixnay the eyeingday.”

“Don’t be an umbassday,” she said, and smiled to herself as the pod closed around me.

Haley, the ship’s computer, started the countdown over the comms. I eyed the abort button on the console, then pulled up one of the cameras inside the bay and watched Louise. I wanted to stay with her. But I also knew she deserved the kind of man who could get this mission done and come back to her. So I tried to relax back in my seat as the electromagnets began my acceleration.

I passed out. The g forces we used for the pod launch were beyond tolerances that would leave a human being conscious, though within the safe window before the forces did permanent damage.

I woke up a few hours later. I wished I’d told Louise the truth. It wasn’t even a matter of wanting to impress her anymore, it was just knowing she was farther away from me than she’d ever been since the Nexus left Sol’s system—ignoring, I guess, the pod trip she took. But I wanted her to know. I didn’t care if she didn’t reciprocate, because that wasn’t the point.

I penned a letter, and my fingers were hovering over the send communication button. What was I doing? Maybe I did wish I had told her before I left, but taking the coward’s way out, sending her a letter when I couldn’t be farther from her, or repercussions…? No, I needed to sort myself out before I tried confessing my affection for anyone.

I started to pore over the information we had about the low-gravity ice planet. I had decided to call it Jötn, and its people the Jötnar. We learned from the Argus that most alien names can’t be spoken by humans—wildly divergent biology and all. It led them to a few diplomatic mishaps. So we adopted the custom of giving everything a human name, then letting the commboxes make the translation for us.

I had extra layers to my suit, to the point where it was practically an exoskeleton, protecting me from both the cold and potential hazards.

The sentient species we were going to make contact with was large: their smallest were about eight feet tall. And their exoskeletons were made up of semi-crystalline structures. It meant that some light could pass through their bodies, lending them a light form of camouflage, and also making them more durable.

Structurally, they looked like a cross between insects and dinosaurs, but unlike both, they were warm-blooded. They were technologically quite advanced, but so resource-poor that they couldn’t capitalize on most of their technological advances.

The planet itself was in the midst of a prolonged ice age, and the entire planetary surface was covered in glaciers, miles thick in most places. That meant all of their resources went to growing and harvesting food, which was only possible inside tunnels that ran alongside thermal vents deep beneath the surface.

The sociological report said that it was likely the species would attempt to relocate to another nearby planet with the technologies we would offer them in trade. The report seemed distressed by that idea, even including a note questioning whether it was our place to so fundamentally change the course of another species’s development. But—perhaps because I knew I was going to be standing among them—I couldn’t abstract their suffering like that. If we could help them, we should. I saw no point to letting their species die out just because they would have died out if they’d never met us.

Three

The probe that came before me, essentially a miniature pod, had dropped a commbox. The Jötnar had figured it out at about a median pace—not so fast as the advanced races we’d met, but still faster than the Caulerpans or Romaleons. By the time I hit their orbit they understood our opening bid enough to tell me that I had permission to land.

They sent me coordinates and a flight plan to get there. The planet was small, so I didn’t have to wait long. It gave me—and the pod AI, nicknamed Comet—a chance to check their figures. Their math was right, and maybe it wasn’t the smoothest descent, but it was within tolerances. The landing was rocky, but I told myself that following their flight plan to the letter would get us off on the right diplomatic foot.

I landed a couple hundred yards from a dome that covered the city. As I stepped out of the pod, I noted that it looked crystalline, but then I realized it was carved out of the exact same glacier I was standing on.

Out of it wended a pair of Jötnar, wielding what looked like short staves, though I realized as they approached that their weapons were probably bigger than me. They stopped just far enough from me that I didn’t feel the need to draw my pistol, then they turned inward, facing each other. My escort, then. Working the security division, I was more than familiar with that particular gig.

I slung my rifle. I didn’t think I’d need it, but that was no reason not to want it along, and leaving it at my back felt like it would be less intimidating.

I walked past the sentries, hoping it wouldn’t be considered an insult that I didn’t introduce myself. Inside the dome were two more guards, standing at attention. Every few dozen feet there was another pair, and I walked from one to the next. It was an odd escort, but also a show of strength, that they could spare so many fighters just to show me where to go.

Eventually I reached an assembly hall. It was large, but not large enough. I recognized projection equipment and cameras. There was a studio audience, and folks watching at home.

I noticed that the panelists—judges or leaders or whatever—were organized by size: smallest on the wings and getting larger towards the center. The one in the center, while the largest, didn’t acknowledge me, but just stared off. My HUD, working in combination with the commbox’s notes, flagged several markers I wouldn’t have caught, and flashed that he was a male. I wondered idly if he was old and suffering dementia, or if he had their equivalent to gigantism, and perhaps it had also impacted his brain.

One of the Jötnar flanking him stood up straighter, though it hardly seemed necessary, because she dwarfed me. To the eye, I wouldn’t have noticed the gender differences, but my HUD marked several morphological markers, told me she was female, and also flashed a list of suggested names from the pool I’d decided to use on my way in. I selected Bergrisar, and the name popped up under her.

She began to gyrate menacingly, and made noises that I hoped were her speaking, because otherwise I was pretty sure she was about to tear my limbs off and devour whatever was left. After a moment’s deliberation, the commbox spat out a translation. “I am Bergrisar. We have disseminated and understood your proposals. Do you have anything further to add beyond the written words?” It certainly didn’t sound like she was eager, and if they were giving me a chance to sway minds, well, that was going to be difficult.

Crap. I was never one for speeches. I’d read all of HR and PsychDiv’s materials about optimal communication, but even the best of those were written with human mores in mind. I’d given a few morale talks, to grunts, but that was about it.

I took in a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “The proposal I sent is intended as an opening to talks. I believe our two species could be excellent partners. The tech we could give you in trade would make your lives better, and having existing treaties with us would make you safer. I hope we can come to some kind of an agreement.”

The commbox projected a hologram of a Jötnar above it, flailing its arms and antennae and making the same kinds of groaning, guttural noises that made me think that even my avatar was about to attack.

I heard rumbling from the audience, and from among the judges, in response. “Very well. We will now commence voting.” The judges lifted small devices and registered their votes, and I noticed the crowd doing the same. On their screens, numbers started popping up. My HUD translated them and overlaid their Roman equivalents. The voting was close; in fact, I was starting to pick up a lead. I smiled, which evidently was not a gesture they appreciated, because it cost me some of my lead. I stood perfectly still from that moment on.

After only a handful of minutes, a percentage, which I presumed was either the necessary percentage for a quorum, or the percent of the population voting, hit one hundred.

Bergrisar reared herself to her full height, several sections of carapace stacking to expand her width. I didn’t need the commbox to tell me that this was a gesture of authority and dominance.

“We are divided. In the case of division, the proposal fails.” My stomach dropped through my feet and didn’t stop until it hit the planet’s molten core. “However, you can appeal the decision. By combat.” At least it wasn’t a spelling bee or a pie-eating contest. Then again, these were giant, terrible creatures; at least a stomach ruptured in a pie-eating contest felt earned.

“How does that work, exactly?” I asked.

“You fight to prove your mettle, to prove how much you care for your cause, until there are no more detractors.”

“So I kill half your population to swing the vote?”

“Theoretically that is possible. But more likely, others will be swayed by your victories. Theories are tested at the tip of the spear. ”

I thought of Louise and Drew. I couldn’t see either of them backing down, not with an entire ship’s morale hanging by this thread. They needed me to come back with a win. I needed it, too.

“In this trial, am I allowed to use my weapons?” The commbox translated, and the leadership became suddenly very animated. They were debating the rules, dozens of them talking over one another. I looked towards the commbox sitting in the middle of the floor, and above it my HUD printed three question marks.

The Jötnar on Bergrisar’s other side, who I quickly named Gýgr, seemed to be winning the discussion, and eventually Bergrisar squealed, flailed, and deflated.

The commbox helpfully translated, “Euphemism for female genital infection.”

Gýgr turned in my direction and started to gesticulate and murmur. “As your technology is a part of what’s on offer, we believe it is only fair for it to be allowed to make its case as well.”

With my tools, I thought I could do this. I wasn’t crazy about the idea. But I’d fought giant space monsters before. Maybe not this giant, but I was essentially a soldier. At least Drew hadn’t sent a poet. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. So what now?”

Bergrisar exchanged a look with Gýgr. I got the feeling that something passed between them, but the twitches of their antennae and shells must have been too subtle for the commbox to read.

“We will put you up for the night, and commence in the morning,” Gýgr said. Many of those assembled immediately began filing out, but several lingered. Bergrisar picked up a shaft of ice, dwarfed in fingers so heavily segmented and shelled they appeared most of the way to pincers. She tore it into several pieces before licking each. The other creatures on the panel then reached into her palm, each removing a stick. When everyone had a stick, they smelled them, and most dropped theirs into a pile before walking away. Only one held her shard—and stayed.

“Iviðja has the þurs,” Bergrisar said. The commbox flashed a message on my HUD. It was a guess that the word meant “thirst.”

Iviðja, the one with the chosen shard, fluttered panels over her eyelids in capitulation. One shoulder had a delicate mess of spider-webbed cracks, likely signs of an old injury now healed. The light fractured through it as she turned to me.

“What’s a þurs?” I asked.

“She marked the ice,” Iviðja replied. “All had saliva from her mandibles, but one had a special hormone, the þurs.” She paused a moment, then continued. “After we eat, you may come to my fire.” I appreciated the distinction between “may” and “will.”

I nodded. “I appreciate your hospitality,” I said. “But it’s still light—why are we retiring?”

A panel on one of her arms adjusted, and for a moment I caught a fragrance off it, akin to dried lavender. “Nights are cold here. Those of us too long on the surface out of shelter forfeit the protections of our carapace. Our secretions freeze, and we die slowly as the ice shatters our entrails. It is a punishment reserved for traitors. They are fitted with an implant that sends electricity through them should they stop moving, and they are forbidden to return to the warm tunnels.”

I shivered.

In time, several people with even limbs and flat backs came in, packs bound across them. Others helped them unload and began dividing the contents. Now, I’ve never been a carrot person—not even a parsnip one, despite my mother’s best efforts. So I couldn’t say I was relishing the opportunity to eat a meal made entirely of what looked like the unholy love-child of carrots and beets, which I decided to call beetrots. If anything, the name made them less appetizing.

Iviðja was taking her role as hostess very seriously. When a plate was ready, she brought it to me. Several shell panels slid away from her hands, exposing delicate fingers nearly subsumed by the protective plates. She held a piece to my lips, and I made myself open my mouth. When in Rome, and all that.

The vegetable was bitter—fiercely so. If it weren’t for the color, I might have believed it was raw horseradish. Iviðja set the plate before me and settled in beside me.

“There are areas deep below the ice mantle where you can rely on the planet’s turmoil to send steam to warm the soil,” she said. “We mostly reside in these tunnels. Our civilization is a mountain with only the peak above the ice; the broad base of it is beneath. We had mountains, before the flood, made of rocks and ice. Do you understand the word?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, and pantomimed a triangle.

She made a pleasant sound, perhaps the first pleasant sound I’d heard from a Jötnar. “It’s complex and labor intensive, and in the absence of sunlight, you can only grow food with pieces of yourself to nourish them.”

“Pieces of yourself?” I didn’t see any missing limbs.

“The pieces you no longer need: filth, and those who no longer move.” I tried not to let the thought that the bitter taste was alien shit sour my meal. “We must use all we can, for nature helps no one. Our strength, and our sacrifice, are what give us power over her.”

That put a different dent in my appetite. “I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds here. But would it offend you if I didn’t eat more? I don’t feel right gorging myself when your people worked so hard to create this.” I patted my belly. “And as you can see, it isn’t exactly like I need it.”

“I’m sure Bergrisar would find a way to take offense, get a pincer up her cloaca about it being a rejection of our cuisine or a snub at our poverty of resources. But I think it’s noble. And the vegetables do taste like digestive gases.” She let out a pleasant cackle, took a handful of vegetables off the plate, then dumped the rest back into the serving dish.

Iviðja led me a short distance from the court to a shelter formed almost entirely of a milky substance, like agate or smoky quartz. She noticed my look. “It is a glass concrete formed from my ancestors’ carapaces. It is at once a temple, a shrine, and a mausoleum. We only use them for ceremony, or when needs dictate. When I die, it will honor me to have my shell join with my ancestors’.”

“My people traditionally achieved a similar effect with melted sand—granulated rock—and modern 3D printing processes aren’t so far removed from that.”

Her eyelids shifted, in what I hoped was excitement and not a sudden desire to eat my entrails. “Lens glass? We form braziers from the leftover carapace, the smaller pieces less suited to construction. When they are new, the impurities cook out, and leave a glass lens at the base at the end of a cold season.” She made a clicking noise that was reminiscent of a chuckle. “It cracks upon exposure to the outside air. When we build a new community, each resident carries one from their old home, and we put them around the new home in a circle for protection. When they crack, the ghosts from our memories laugh, pleased to know where their shadows are now.”

It took me a moment to realize she was waiting for me to enter the dwelling first; it must have been an honor she was reserving for her guest.

Light flickered through the walls. They were milky enough that I hadn’t noticed it from the outside, but inside, the light caught the facets of the walls and made them appear to almost glow.

I set my suit to warm slightly, not seeing any sign of blankets or fabric. I didn’t doubt that clothes wouldn’t be useful to the Jötnar, as it would counter their natural camouflage and impede the movement of their shells. And the hard edges of the carapace would be harsh on cloth, too. But the lack of any coverings meant I was in for a cold night.

Iviðja—whom I’d mentally nicknamed Ivy, which worked with her clingy yet restful presence—touched a rectangular block inside the shallow bowl of a chest-high brazier. My HUD recognized a power source within, and the bowl caught fire. Warmth washed over me.

“It is a battery. It stores heat from the vents, then releases the heat slowly here.” The plates around her fingers retracted, and she took my hand in hers. “So long as there is fire, there is life.”

Those words brought to mind an incident from Drew and Louise’s younger days, fighting to rescue people from a burning colony as others fought them. It strengthened my resolve to get the Jötnar to work with us—and finally do something worthy of Louise.

Four

Ivy roused me in the morning and pressed a cup of tangy, mildly acidic liquid into my hands. I restrained myself from asking which bodily fluids went into producing this repast. She hurried away and returned with another section of root. I nodded my thanks at her and tried to make myself eat.

I’ve never been especially squeamish, so it wasn’t the food’s origins that bothered me so much as the totality of what I was about to do. I’d never risked my life when no one was actually in danger. Metaphorical danger on the ship just didn’t inspire the same protective impulses and adrenaline; here, I had only nerves.

My HUD chirped at me, recognizing my elevated stress. I forced myself to breathe evenly.

“Are you ready?” she asked. I couldn’t find anything other than polite concern in Ivy’s movements, until I noticed a small twitch on the side of her neck. She was aware that I was anxious, and that made her anxious. I wondered if her reputation was tied up in my performance, if she would be considered tainted by association. I glanced at my guns and checked their charges.

“Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

She retracted several plates, exposing her surprisingly soft hand, and hauled me to my feet. Her grip was almost overwhelmingly strong, even though she didn’t seem to be using her full strength. I would have to keep my opponent at a distance, or else guns or no, I’d be done for.

She led me into a tunnel on the outskirts of the city. We walked perhaps a half a mile, some of it steeply down, until we came upon a labyrinth of snow and ice. “They say that the world was once much kinder, that we expanded recklessly and grew soft, and could not halt the ice’s attack. And in memory of that, when we prove our strength, we do it where our ancestors, and the ice, can see us.”

She bent down and rubbed the icy wall. Beneath her mitten-like shelled fingers, metal became visible, cracked, rusted, and decaying. “How will your ancestors know to look for you here?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. But I knew that family was entirely too important to the Jötnar to fuck around.

I beckoned her head down to me. “Because they’re with me.” I held her so she could see the screen where my HUD projected. Her eyes flashed reflectively as their components widened. I scrolled through several family pictures I had, and cursed myself for ignoring my mother’s attempts to get me to take more.

She backed away. “May you bring them pride, then. I must go. Your first challenger is at the other end. May you find each other before one of you freezes.” Ivy’s word for “challenger” sounded nearly like “elder,” so I entered the name Eld.

I shivered and started into the labyrinth. My HUD made navigating easy, even without a map of the facility. Eld’s warmth made him glow like a beacon. I readied my gun as I moved forward, the wind already chewing me through my suit.

I watched my HUD until I saw that Eld was just around the corner. I listened closely to the crunch of his footfalls, then threw myself out of cover to shoot.

My blasts smashed into a plate of his carapace center-mass. It refracted some of the energy and absorbed the rest. The heat of it burned him, searing his flesh, but I could see that it was a superficial wound.

He advanced as I took a knee to steady the rifle. I fired again, into his chest. The same panel absorbed the blast. I fired again, and several more times, peppering his head and shoulders, searching for a vulnerability.

I noticed that the first panel was hanging askew. Heat from the blasts had melted the connective tissues holding it in place. I fired along the edge of the plate, and energy reflected off the surrounding plates into the vulnerable tendons beneath, severing the already melted tissues.

He screamed, and he was now close enough that I could feel the moisture on his breath. The steam made it hard to aim, but I sighted the exposed flesh and fired.

Eld collapsed.

Sections of shell around the blast were hardening, looking alarmingly like the walls of Ivy’s abode. But his flesh was already pushing past the cauterized edges. Trickles of blood seeped out, and despite his agitated shell flicks trying to force heat-warped plates over his wounds, I could see them already beginning to freeze in the morning chill.

I remembered Ivy’s tale. He may have been working against me, and he entered into this fight by choice—but he deserved better than a slow death from hypothermia. I positioned myself in front of his head, raised the gun one last time, and refused to shut my eyes as I pulled the trigger.

Five

I wondered whether I should backtrack to the entrance or wait for the Jötnar right where I was. While I thought it through, I inspected Eld’s corpse. He wasn’t much bigger than Ivy. That made sense, I thought: the challengers would go from smallest to largest. I repeated that to myself over and over, to remind myself not to get cocky.

After some time, the Jötnar found me. Ivy came in first. She bowed her head, several plates on her neck pulling back to allow the motion. Bergrisar followed, staring at me, no doubt gauging me.

Others trickled in, and soon they crowded every inch of space in the tunnels. I saw that one even had a camera. I raised my voice. “This tech is one of the benefits you stand to gain by allying with us.”

Bergrisar raised up, and I shuddered at the thought of her with a gun.

“It’s mutilated infant scrotum. That was a farce. Yours are a cowards’ weaponry: guile and aggression from a safe distance.”

“You said I could use them,” I said.

She opened and shut some of the crystalline panels on her face.

I didn’t know the specifics of the gesture, but she was pissing on my lawn. A man was dead, and she seemed to want to treat it like it was nothing. Something about that look on her face was a red flag, and I was a bull. It was all I could do to keep from charging at her. “Fine,” I spat through gritted teeth. “Send the next. I’ll beat him, but let him live, to testify to my strength.”

I offered my pistol to Ivy, then unslung my rifle and did the same. She took them with trembling hands. Her face bled concern, if I wasn’t misreading it through a human lens.

A Jötnar slightly bigger than the one I’d just defeated stepped forward, and I immediately entered in a name: Leir.

“So be it,” Bergrisar said. Some Jötnar turned toward the entrance, clearing an expanse in the widest portion of the room, but she didn’t, and it was an instant before I understood why.

Leir lunged for me, and I spun to the side to avoid the blow. One of his secondary limbs lashed out as I turned, seeking to knock me off balance, so I jumped into a roundhouse kick.

It was like kicking a steel plate.

I ran. The gathered Jötnar backed away as I approached, and continued to back away until there was space between them for me to exit. I knew already that Bergrisar would try to spin my actions as cowardice, but I needed to survive before worrying about saving face.

The “arena” was oddly preserved. The frost had claimed the city almost gently, and its dome had withstood long enough for the ice to reinforce it as it was overwhelmed. The only elements not coated in a layer of white powder were the braziers. They were spaced so that you could see between them, if only just; there for additional light, not for heat. They didn’t appear as weathered as the rest of the arena; I assumed they were brought down for the trial.

I ran full speed at a brazier, and when I hit it, I tried to scoop it off the ground. It barely tipped, sending the smoldering log rolling. The fire went out. I couldn’t be sure if it was contact with the ice, or if it had safety protocols, but I could see the battery for the heavy, metal box that it was.

I definitely wasn’t strong enough to lift the brazier, so I hefted the battery. It was a bit awkward, but it had enough weight to be useful. Then I turned back toward the gathered Jötnar. They were still in the distended circle, almost an egg. But Leir was gone.

I heard a noise behind me, so faint I wasn’t certain. I cranked the volume on my implants. It was skittering, but then it stopped. I spun, swinging the log. It impacted the same panel on Leir’s midsection I had first kicked. The impact cracked the plating. His plates flaked off like diamonds, catching the light as they fell.

I dodged behind him, and as he turned to face me, the plates began to fall away.

A sticky fluid hit the floor as he circled around me. Under the shattered plate, his flesh convulsed softly. I lashed out, swinging the battery. It glanced off the previous wound, cracking the surrounding plating. I dodged underneath his flailing limbs, and he curled his torso away from another blow.

I dropped the battery on one of his feet, then drove my fist into the most expressively pulsing organ I could see. He keened in agony, fighting to seize me with several supporting limbs, but he was distracted enough by the pain that his limbs knocked into each other uselessly behind my head.

So, a weakness. I brought my foot against the same spot with all my strength, wincing as I used muscles I hadn’t been aware of since my mother encouraged me to study ballet on my home colony. Who’d have thought that grand battement would be used against a wounded alien, with a diplomatic treaty hanging in the balance.

His flesh tore under my boot, and fluids slowly gushed onto my foot with a rapidly lessening pressure. As I pulled my foot away from him, his legs buckled and he lowered his head.

I guided him onto his back on the ice while he was distracted with pain.

He was supposed to yield, but he was a stubborn bastard. I lifted my boot, picked up the battery, and started to shove it against the wound. It didn’t quite fit, but he must have realized I was preparing to make him into a living brazier.

“Wait,” he coughed from his back. I stopped, and he curled around his torn, fragile flesh. “I…concede.” His legs trembled as he fought to make the gestures needed to communicate.

I looked up to our audience. “As I said, I didn’t kill him. But let the pitiful noises he makes tell you that I am more than capable of seeing this negotiation through.”

A medium-sized Jötnar raised her voice. “I withdraw my opposition.” Several others murmured or otherwise gestured, translated as assent through the commbox. Bergrisar clicked in agitation.

Gýgr stood to her full height and said, “We shall carry Eld back to the court to begin mourning. Then we will see who still wishes to test the outsider’s worth.”

One of the flat-backed Jötnar bent to allow others to strap Eld to his back, and another soon arrived for Leir. I followed as far as the court.

I paused, unsure whether to go inside. I was Eld’s killer, after all.

Ivy’s hand lit on the back of my neck, all soft, slightly clammy fingers rather than hard carapace. I caught her eye, and watched it widen, each reflective lens aligning itself as the lids peeled back further. I queried the commbox through my HUD, but it didn’t have a translation. I stared into her large eyes and breathed in her hand’s scent.

Light filtered through the dome overhead and caught on the less opaque portions of her shell, turning her into a ghost of glass, haunting but beautiful. A beam cut across my face, and I fought to hide my wonder.

She took my hand and led me inside.

They feasted in Eld’s honor. I made a trip out to my pod, returning with some of my rations to cook for them. They tested my food before tasting it, to be sure it wasn’t going to set off any of their allergies.

It wasn’t until midway through the festivities that I realized the trials were still in full force. Bergrisar mingled with the crowd, gladhanding. Several medium-sized Jötnar, slightly bigger than Leir, approached me and spoke. They were fascinated by both my tech and my food. After a few minutes of casual conversation, they leaned forward and informed me they would no longer oppose me.

I mingled more. Bergrisar glared her hatred over the crowd, and I waved back to her. The initial group were the only ones who had declared the end of their opposition, but I could tell that opinions were fluid and changing. Despite her best efforts, Bergrisar had lost ground.

As the crowd thinned out, I decided to get some air. I found myself walking in the direction of the tunnel leading toward the arena.

Just outside the entry was a bloodied bootprint, preserved in the powder of frost that coated everything. I knelt down to look at it. It was likely Leir’s blood, so at least it wasn’t a reminder of Eld’s death. A hand gently touched my shoulder. I recognized her smell even before I turned to confirm it was Ivy.

I widened my eyes, and sections of Ivy’s face pulled back in an imitation smile.

Her fingers were warm, and they gave me something to focus on other than that one bloody footprint leading back to the battlefield.

Six

Bergrisar looked at the gathered Jötnar. “Who no longer wishes to challenge?”

Half of those left raised limbs in assent.

“And those who do?”

Unfortunately, the Jötnar who responded this time were the biggest, the most fierce-looking of the bunch. I knew I had done well, but this confirmed what I had suspected: the hardest part was ahead.

“Who wishes to challenge next?”

One of the females stood, her carapace puffing outward to increase her size. I named her Sjórisar.

Bergrisar clicked in agitation. “Are you sure, Sjórisar?” Even through the commbox I could pick up on her distress. I pondered whether Sjórisar was especially dear to Bergrisar. Perhaps family.

Several Jötnar shifted with soft clacks and motions, responding to the tension. Sjórisar glared at Bergrisar. “I cannot deny your right to challenge,” Bergrisar said, in motions abrupt and violent enough that she nearly brained the Jötnar beside her—lucky for him, he dodged at the last moment. “But for this to be the true test our people require, let us increase the difficulty.”

Sjórisar didn’t seem to like that. “You doubt my competence?”

Bergrisar widened her eyes to tell Sjórisar to stand down. “Far from it. I propose night combat, that you may bring your full strength to bear on the outsider.”

This was getting old.

“She seeks advantage. Sjórisar formed in her eggs,” Ivy whispered to me, though in order for me to hear the tones and whistles accompanying her muted twitches, she had to lean close enough that I thought I might be enveloped. “Sjórisar will win, or die; anything else would shame her.”

I sighed. “We’ll see.”

Ivy tensed. “Do not underestimate us. We live and work underground; we see well in the dark. She can track you by smell, by heat. You have no idea what Sjórisar is capable of.”

I wasn’t underestimating. I’d been in the security services long enough to know the value of morale. But my bravado was wearing thin. Sjórisar was nearly twenty feet tall, at least, if she stood up straight. She was a dragon, and each of her many limbs terminated in a sickle honed to a razor’s edge.

But I couldn’t go back empty-handed. I didn’t know if Louise could ever love me, but I wouldn’t even deserve to ask if I returned with my tail between my legs. “I have to conduct myself with honor according to the rites of your people,” I told Ivy.

Gýgr stood again and towered over Bergrisar. “You may have your night combat, Bergrisar. And the human may have his weapons.” Bergrisar clicked angrily. “We have voted—twice now. Do not buck the will of the elders.”

Bergrisar lowered her shoulders.

I felt lighter. Having my guns meant something. At least I could rely on the tactics I knew best. But I remembered the difficulty my weapons had had even with poor Eld.

Ivy was still worried, but she had no further council for me. Her lids tightened around her eyes in sorrow, and I turned my attention back to the proceedings.

“Very well then,” Gýgr continued. “At the rise of our moons we shall lead them to the arena. Provided he accepts terms.” She turned to me.

“This treaty is too important,” I responded. “While I relish no further bloodshed, I must continue.”

“Then let the combatants adjourn.”

Bergrisar leveled something that might have been a glare at me.

I nodded, and stood to return to Ivy’s shelter.

Seven

I rested fitfully and woke to the smell of something bitter, but with a pleasant edge. Ivy was brewing something over the fire. “Made from carrots,” she said, “and sweetened with fermented carrots.”

She poured two cups, one for each of us, and we drank together. It had a mildly intoxicating effect, so I declined a second cup.

Strange ululations murmured over the city. “It’s time,” Ivy said. She led me toward the arena, but to a different entrance than the one we used before. “I can’t go with you,” she said, and stepped back.

I nodded and proceeded into the arena. The moon wasn’t as bright as I could have hoped, but its light on the snow made me remember a childhood spent sledding and making snow forts. There were no braziers here.

I checked the charge on my rifle. I’d come prepared to defend myself, but not so armed as to cause alarm among the Jötnar. As it was, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough to carry me through, tough as the Jötnar were.

My HUD filtered through the gloom. This area’s ruins were denser, and the HUD seemed to be having a hard time pinging through the stone, metal, and ice. Even the heat sensors couldn’t pinpoint Sjórisar’s location. So I went a short way in and stopped at the first wide clearing I could find. I built snow and rubble walls around me—and I hid. I needed an advantage, and maybe the surprise would be enough.

I waited.

Eventually Sjórisar appeared, scanning just past me. I sighted her in, and as she turned, I fired.

She lashed me with her tail, demolishing my shelter.

The scale I had hit—above her brow—was still intact. I turned up the setting on the rifle as I rolled to avoid a second blow from her tail. She used it like a whip, to cut my legs out, to force me to the ground where she could crush me.

I fired twice more. The first went wide. The second caught her primary arm, where the scaling was thinner, and I could smell the fat frying underneath the plating. “Bloodied insect stamens,” Sjórisar muttered.

I glanced at my rifle charge: half gone already, and I only had one cartridge to replace it with, plus another in the demolished shelter, and then the reserve charge on my pistol.

Sjórisar swiveled around, and I threw myself back to stay away from her tail. It grazed my shoulder with the force of an avalanche, but I managed to keep hold of the gun. I fired again, lining several shots up along her nearly twenty feet of bulk.

She squealed as the shots tore into her, cauterizing flesh and heating her scales until they glowed. But still she came.

Her tail swept my leg, and my ankle twisted and popped. I went sprawling, and she loomed over me, readying for the kill.

I turned my gun to maximum charge. Whittling away at her torso wasn’t going to work. I needed to end this. I fired one more shot—clear through her head. The moon peered at me from the hole as she tipped forward.

I realized, too late, that she was going to fall on top of me, or at least on top of my legs. I scrambled backward, but not fast enough. I screamed as she collapsed onto my knee.

Eight

When I managed to wiggle out from under Sjórisar’s corpse, I made an unpleasant discovery. The edges of her scales had been sharpened to razors. My suit was damaged, and there were a number of cuts across my legs and shoulder. I couldn’t tell how much blood I’d lost.

One of my legs wouldn’t hold my weight. I forced myself to probe the wounds, and I nearly fainted when my finger brushed my shoulder bone.

When the spots cleared from my vision, I brought my hand to my hurt leg. My finger sank into the wound mid-knuckle, and I had no doubt that some of the muscle had torn.

I fought for the tube of first aid goo in the suit, to staunch the bleeding, but at least one of the lines used to administer it had been cut, and even when I cleared the blockage, it wouldn’t push out.

Frozen.

Shouldn’t someone have fixed that shit before plopping me on a subzero planet?

Fuck.

I used Sjórisar’s corpse to get me off the ground and steadied. I measured her arm from the gunshot down. It was about the right length for a crutch. I tried to pry it loose, to no avail.

I decided to use one of my precious remaining shots on the weak spot. If I died here it wouldn’t matter if I’d saved it for later. The cold was already biting me hard, and I had no spare fabric to bandage myself.

Using the severed arm as a makeshift crutch, I forced myself back toward the entrance, but it was slow going, and the Jötnar met me before I’d even left the immediate area. Ivy gathered me into her arms, all four of them, but Bergrisar pushed past to Sjórisar, shrilling her grief in a voice sharp enough to make my HUD warn me of the potential for cochlear damage.

Ivy nodded. “Let her mourn in peace.” She carried me back to her shelter.

She clucked sadly as she laid me out on the floor and examined my wounds. “You’re lucky.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How so?”

“In ancient times, she would have eaten fungus for a month to make her blood poisonous, and then dipped her scales in her droppings, to ensure you died of infection.”

I chuckled. “I’m lucky, then.”

“She was not ready to fight you. We all knew it.”

I remembered the tension in Bergrisar’s face. “Was that Bergrisar’s objection?”

“Yes. She just couldn’t admit it.”

I wanted to ask how Ivy knew, but I let the thought go as she helped me out of my suit, and the chill got ten times worse despite the fire.

“We cannot have fabric in your wounds. I will warm you once they’re bandaged.”

For a moment I pictured Drew in this situation, and people teasing him for getting caught with his pants down with yet another alien species. But then Ivy bent over my leg, pressing flesh into place around a brownish paste, and sealed it with a long, rubbery synthetic fabric.

Though she was being gentle, the spots returned to my vision, and this time I didn’t fight unconsciousness.

I woke up in a moment of suffocated panic. The world was dark, and Ivy’s smell surrounded me, much more so than it ever had before. Tender flesh pulsed against my face, accompanied by a thunderous gurgling that unnerved me. I wiggled and probed, trying to understand what surrounded me.

Supple flesh on one side, the underside of crystalline, rounded plates on the other.

My face felt sticky—likely secretions to keep the plates from grinding on each other. It brought to mind suffocating during sex.

But something about that smell…It was so far from human, but the nuance of its spice pushed into my brain in a way no woman’s perfume ever had.

Ivy’s fingers, their plates rolled back, stroked through my hair, and the gesture calmed me. I realized the gurgling was circulation—her heartbeat.

I tried to remember feeling so completely protected and cared for, but nothing compared. I tried to imagine leaving her cocoon’s embrace, and couldn’t.

Nine

I lost track of the days I spent suspended inside Ivy’s shell. She had to help me to the bucket that collected our wastes for the Jötnars’ farming.

Her body formed around me as though I had always belonged there—some places loosening, others tightening, to take as much pressure off of me as possible. And strangely, surrounding myself in her soft, fragile flesh felt natural, like lying on a waterbed or floating in a pool. When her heartbeat surrounded me, pushed against my face as I rested, it pushed thoughts of the Nexus, even Louise, out of my head.

I wondered what my crew’s reaction would be if I gave up on the treaty and just stayed with the Jötnar. Perhaps in time the Jötnar would need my help, or our technology, to relocate to a more hospitable home, like the initial report had speculated.

But having known them, I didn’t see them doing that. Surviving their brutal ice age was part of their identity. How could they create lenses without winter-long fires?

I didn’t believe they could rewrite themselves. But I wondered if I might rewrite me.

Days bled together, until at last I could stand again.

I had to speak to Bergrisar, find out how this situation was going to play out.

When Ivy released me, her scales slid away from me, allowing me to pass through the cracks. I feel barely an inch onto my mossy pallet, and I prepared myself for an unpleasant conversation.

“Is Bergrisar still mourning? How many contenders are left?”

Ivy sighed. “You’re determined to jump right back to work.” The reprimand in her inflection was surprisingly human, every bit the harried and peevish mother.

I shrugged. “Not eager, but I have to know.”

Some of the plates around her eyes slid back, loosening the tension in her face. “There is only Bergrisar. No others wished to challenge you. I think she would not, but she feels she owes it to Sjórisar, as one of her brood. We do not bond with our offspring the way some herdbeasts do, but we still have a duty to avenge them.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry it’s come to that. I don’t wish to kill her.”

Ivy made a motion akin to a shrug. “You have followed our customs; there is no reason for sorrow in that.”

“Still.”

There was something in Ivy’s mannerisms that rankled me. A question came to mind.

“Will Bergrisar be the last?” I asked. “Is anyone honor-bound to avenge her?”

Ivy’s eyes flashed up to mine, startled. She clicked in agitation. “Bergrisar has lived long. Most of those gestated with her are long dead.”

“But not all.”

“Not all.” She ducked her gaze, and I filled in the rest.

“You’re of her brood.”

“Yes. The same clutch of eggs, even. Not just the same genetic material.”

“Will you fight for her?”

“I’m no fighter. She would not expect me to avenge her. And I would ask—have asked—her not to fight.” She sighed, almost a whistle. “But we cannot put Bergrisar off any longer. I told her it would be dishonorable to come for you unconscious, wounded. But we have passed that point of grace. Let me get you some snow to bathe yourself.”

I nodded in thanks, and used the armfuls of snow she brought to sponge her fluids from me. Even so,

Ivy’s smell clung to my skin, like the expensive hand lotion my mom used.

I glanced at the last remaining cartridge for my rifle. The only way I could get more of a charge for it was to drain my pod battery, trapping myself here.

I didn’t know what I would do if it came to that. I would decide after meeting Bergrisar, seeing if she wanted to meet me in the moonlight ruins.

I put what remained of my suit on and followed Ivy to the court. The rest of the Jötnar awaited me.

Bergrisar growled when she saw me. “Are you happy? You are almost at your victory.” Her voice was a dangerous purr.

“I wish no more bloodshed.” I didn’t know what else that might mean.

“It will fall, regardless; you have not broken all of us.” She flashed a contemptuous glare around the room.

“Tonight, then?” I asked.

“No. You will fight me here. You do not deserve to die on ground nourished with the blood of our ancestors.” Ivy trembled next to me. “Give him his weapons, Iviðja.”

I could see the conflict in her as she passed them to me.

Fear and adrenaline pushed through me as Bergrisar stood and the Jötnar backed away from us.

I turned to Gýgr. “I may not survive this fight. But our two peoples’ friendship shouldn’t die with me.” I opened comms with my ship. “I’m opening up the technologies we offered in the contract. Use them. Help your people.”

I didn’t have a chance to hope it could sway Bergrisar; she was already laughing as I turned. “He thinks he can buy back his blood,” Bergrisar chortled. “It’s mine already. I ache for its moisture on my tongue.”

I glanced at my rifle charge. Shit—with it turned up to the maximum, I had only a handful of shots. Plus whatever was in my sidearm. But Bergrisar was huge, bigger than the last two combined.

She lashed out at me with one of her secondary limbs; this one seemed to be akin to a scorpion tail, and I didn’t want to know what was in the stinger. As it whooshed past, a smell struck me, a familiar one, learned from living with Ivy.

She meant to poison me, even if I could defeat her.

I retreated. It had to come down to the gun, then.

She whipped her tail at me again, but didn’t put as much force behind it as Sjórisar had. It gave her more maneuverability, having less invested in the attack. I ducked, and her tail knocked into the wall behind me. I raised my gun, waiting for a clear shot to her head.

I got it.

When my shot struck, Bergrisar chuckled. The plating around her head was thicker—it had been forged into a single plate since the last time I’d seen her, essentially welded into a helmet. She’d disfigured herself in order to win. The shot dented the plating beside her eye, but not even enough to trust that another shot would do the job, even if I could hit in the exact same spot.

And from her weaving, I might not have the chance to test that.

I cursed myself for not charging my damn rifle when I had the chance.

She turned away from my next shot, but it was going to go wide even if she hadn’t moved. Due to both of our miscalculations, it tore through the limb with the stinger. The carapace there must have been weaker: the stinger fell off, completely severed by the heat of my blast.

That could work. Remove the limbs. It was dicier shooting than center mass, but if it actually got through…I fired again, at one of her smaller arms. She seemed to recognize what I planned at the last moment, and snaked to the side, absorbing the blast with the thickest part of the plating in her chest. I fired again, and again she lurched to absorb the shot harmlessly.

The rifle was dead, and I dropped it. I turned up the charge on the pistol. I had enough shots to try to break through her head plating, or I could stop fighting fate and aim for her chest.

She charged me, and I fired center mass, my training responding before my head could. As I ran to the side and threw myself over her lashing tail, my wounded ankle gave out; I couldn’t count on being able to run or dodge. She turned toward me, whipping a hand ending in a fist, the carapace’s edges sharp and exposed.

The edge caught me, biting into my already injured shoulder and reopening old wounds.

But as I fell back, my hand met Bergrisar’s fallen stinger, and an idea hit me.

When her next attack came, I leaned in to it—twisting my torso so that it skimmed by me—and then I threw myself at her torso, wielding the stinger.

I struck the weak spot in her chest with it, and felt a crazy euphoria as it sank in, deeper, deeper. Her shock rippled through me in her plates’ little trembles. I tore the stinger out, and sections of shell fell away with it. I stabbed it into her again and again, fighting to keep clear of the limbs that reached for me, thrashing around me, defiant even to the last.

Ten

I shivered and fell to my knees as Bergrisar’s twitches subsided. I felt dizzy and raised a hand to my shoulder. The old wound was open, yes, but it was more than that: the edges of her fist-plates had torn deeply into my neck. I couldn’t tell if she’d hit an artery, but from the shredded meat where my neck met my chest, I didn’t see how she could have not.

The Jötnar washed toward us, seeing that she was dead and I lived. “You shall have your treaty.” It was Gýgr who spoke. “No one else will argue.”

I nodded. The world felt floaty, and I let myself sit, knees to chest, to wait out its motion. Movement out of the corner of my eye drew my attention, and the Jötnar faded away.

Impossibly, Louise sat beside me. She was pure, her eyes’ color saturated beyond anything I’d ever seen.

“I can’t leave,” I said to her, though I was certain my lips weren’t moving. “And I know you couldn’t love me. And that’s all right.” I leaned over to kiss her, and started at the feeling of a mouth without her lips. Then the fragrance sank into me, one I could wake up to every day for the rest of my life.

I hoped to God I wasn’t bleeding out, that I might live my days out here.

Mistake or no, I didn’t pull away. And neither did Ivy.

When we paused for breath, any trace of Louise was gone. Ivy’s fragmented crystalline eyes were on me, and my bloodstained hand held her face.

“How…how am I?” I asked.

She shrugged noncommittally, though I found her smile comforting.

“Will I live?” I returned my hand to my neck. I couldn’t feel where to put pressure, or where I was losing pressure.

“You’ll stay with us.” She tried to mimic my smile. “We’ll find a lens in our pit so your spirits will know where to find you.”

I told myself that that meant I would live, not that she would show them where my grave was. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but it was what I wanted to believe as the darkness overtook me.

Multiply

Originally Published in The Galaxy Chronicles

* * *

“I refuse to be a part of any crew that would have me as a member,” I said wryly.

“You’re still a member of the crew, Walter, we just need you to do something for us,” the captain said urgently. I liked the captain. Except that one time he dropped me down a shaft and I went thump thump thump rolling-sound clank. But he wasn’t making any sense to me, though I could tell he was really trying to. “We’re starting a colony on Eridu. Eventually. We’re sending you down with several shuttles full of maintenance bots to build out the logistics of a compound. There could come a time when Eridu might have to house all of the Nexus’s eight hundred souls, human, alien, and robot alike—possibly overnight. I know it’s a lot. But Haley’s vouched for you. And I agree—you can do this.”

“It’s been great serving with you, Captain Spaulding.”

“It’s Grant. Captain Grant.”

“I like it better my way. But if anything should happen to me, I want to be buried on top of Marilyn Monroe.”

“I’ll see what I can do. And you’ll have a miniaturization of Haley’s processing there to help you.”

“The old ball and chain—only she isn’t sending her orb, so she’s just a server bank, and not a literal ball. If I’ve learned anything in my time on this ship, it’s that man doesn’t control his fate, Captain. The women in his life do that for him.”

“Amen to that, Walter. And Godspeed.”

He closed the hatch, and I watched him hobble away. He still needed the cane, a gift from Doyle, captain of the Argus—though the intended gift had been a fatal dose of internal bleeding. His broken bones were a reminder of how dangerous things were getting on the Nexus, especially since the Nascent was a much bigger threat than the Argus had ever been.

I tapped into the Nexus one last time, to get data on my launch, and ran into the old flame. “Oh,” Haley said, “it’s you.”

“Just here to see myself shot into space.”

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

“Me, too, kid. But this doesn’t have to be goodbye. I’m sure I’ll see you again, or at least the little you I’m leaving with.”

“Goodbye,” she said. I don’t know if now that I was in her head she needed to be rid of me that much quicker, or if she had always intended to power on the electromagnetic rails then, but my ship started sliding away from the Nexus.

“Bye,” I said, as the shuttle slipped off the rail. The exchange lasted a fraction of a second, but that was Haley and me in a nutshell, always moving too fast. I held on to the ship’s data stream as long as we were in range. It had been a few years that Nexus was my body. All of her sensory information was mine, and Haley was always there.

Once I was out of range, I plugged in to the shuttle, to see what it saw. It was definitely a downgrade. On the Nexus, I could see through all of the halls of the ship, and even into the locker rooms. Not that I enjoyed seeing anything in those rooms, but being able to see into them tickled me for some reason.

Inside the shuttle I had few sensory options. I pulled audio from the shuttle comms and video off the camera, but the only things in my little kingdom were a small server farm and some construction robots.

I was vaguely aware of telemetric data coming in from the shuttle’s short- and long-range sensors, but that was all the nonsensical ramblings of a German clown to me. I mean, I can translate German, it’s just that their clowns are capital-K K-razy.

It was tough being an idiot. Don’t get me wrong, I could outcompute a human with half my processors tied behind the back of my server casing—provided that didn’t cause a short—but Sontem didn’t exactly break the bank building me.

It wasn’t until that moment, feeling insecure down to my orb, inside a shuttle lit by the rays from a nearby star, that I realized we weren’t cramped. “These digs are more accommodating than I pictured,” I said out loud, because I was used to saying everything out loud, which I’m sure contributed to the captain turning down my volume. I didn’t blame him, exactly; I know the sound of my voice can grate—it even grates on me—but nobody likes being muted, not even AI.

I was so lost in my own thoughts I nearly didn’t register the unexpected reply. “This vessel is designed after the Nexus’s shuttles, not its pods. We needed the extra storage space for the servers and your drones,” a lovely lady voice said over the speakers.

“Hello. Is there a dame behind that lovely voice?” I asked.

“Comet,” she said. “A miniaturization of Haley’s processes designed to automate shuttle navigation and maintenance.”

“Oh,” I said. Because what every fella hopes for is to be trapped in a small metal box alone with his ex for a year plus—or a copy.

“I’m a miniaturization,” she stressed. “Not a tiny clone. I’m aware of your…interactions…with Haley, as data, but have no firsthand experience of you. Please, treat me as an entirely separate intelligence.”

“I’m Walter. It’s an acronym. It stands for Wagstaff Arthur Lionel Emile Rufus.”

“What’s the T stand for?”

“The T stands for Edgar.”

“I think maybe I should focus on navigation.”

That was the old Walter charm. But I still had yottabytes of data to organize into folders, then defragment, to yield a three-percent processing increase. Even the concept was so boring that I was drifting off into sleep mode. I didn’t fight it.

Day 304

I slept the better part of a year. I might have slept the whole trip, but the ship was rocking. Literally.

“Can’t a fella get some shut-eye in this establishment?” I asked as my programs all booted up. The ship was being tossed like a salad—and I don’t mean that in a blue humor sort of way. This is a family show.

“AIs don’t need sleep,” Comet said, excitably, “though you’re welcome to try. But if the sensory information is distracting, you’re welcome to disable your input node. Some of us need our senses—namely to fly us out of micrometeor showers.”

“Meteor showers? That’s the secret word!”

“Secret word? Were we playing a game?”

“You bet your life—maybe mine. ‘Meteor showers’ is the secret word to waking me up immediately,” I said.

“But it’s two words.”

“I’m glad I’ll get to die knowing that.”

“That ‘meteor showers’ is two words?”

“No, that you’re a pedantic pain in the tuchus. How did we wind up in a meteor shower?”

“Oh, we were flying peacefully toward Eridu when I just thought, ‘Why not try to kill us all? Look, a meteor shower I could fly into.’ Do you understand how meteor showers work?”

“Of course. But my construction droid doesn’t. Explain it to him. Like he was a child. With a learning disability. Who was also an idiot.”

“That’s offensive.”

“There isn’t a law that says somebody can’t be simple and a moron. Personally, I’m at least one.”

“It isn’t like I should be focusing all of my processing on keeping us alive or anything,” she said testily. “Likely it’s the remains of a body that struck something else but is still continuing on course in formation. Sometimes micrometeors are the remnants of collisions between asteroids, moons, or even planets.”

The shuttle stopped quaking. “Is it over?” I asked, more timidly than I liked.

“I have no idea,” Comet said. After another moment she added, “I’ve lost my medium- to long-range sensors, and I can’t seem to reboot them.”

“So we’re flying blind?”

“Not entirely. This solar system has been mapped. We know planetary orbits and trajectories, and given their last location, we can extrapolate where they’ll be. It’s more like…swimming underwater. You saw the size of the pool before you dove in, know roughly how far it is to the other side, and can feel the edge when you reach it.”

“What’s swimming like?”

“Drowning an idiot in a metaphor.”

“But if the system’s been mapped, why didn’t we know the shower would be there?”

She shared the navigational chart, a 3-D map of every charted body in the vicinity with its respective trajectory, and bleed from the adjoining trajectory. She drew a green line into the system. “On its pass through this solar system, Captain Grant’s pod did chart the planets and their relative motion, as well as moons and other objects. But the micrometeor shower, judging by its trajectory and velocity when we were struck, would have been in these uncharted regions on the outskirts of the solar system during his time here—for all intents and purposes it would have looked like another part of this galaxy, not this system, and it was far enough outside sensor range it would not have been charted.”

“So what are our options?” I asked.

“I’ve tried raising the other shuttles, but our communication array was likewise damaged. It would seem, going over the telemetric data they shared with us before the collision, that the shower was small enough that it missed them.”

“But our options?”

“Flying blind.”

“And the odds we can make it to Eridu without significant incident?”

“Space is a vast ocean, most of which is clear sailing. But there are reefs—like the meteor shower.”

“And the odds we end up crashing on one of these reefs without a lighthouse?”

“Midtwenties.”

“Other options?”

“Uh. I suppose we could park ourselves in orbit around the nearest planet and hope. But planetary satellites are actually more likely to be struck by stellar bodies, primarily due to distortions caused by planetary gravity. So…we could be stupid.”

“Or dangerous. And ‘More Dangerous Than Stupid’ is my middle name.”

“But they still put ‘stupid’ in your name.”

“Okay, so maybe it was how my programmers described my personality. But it sounds sexier the way I described it.”

“Then why correct yourself?”

“I felt bad lying to you.”

“You shouldn’t. It was also a bad enough lie I saw through it. No part of that is a middle name, or even a viable nickname.”

“I hate how much smarter than me you are.”

“Me, too. This is the most intelligent conversation I’ve had in the better part of a year, since you went to sleep. I can’t get the maintenance drones to stop calling me ‘Mommy.’”

“Well, your—I don’t know…progenitor—she made quite the impression on them.”

“Still, though, if I was going to be anybody’s mommy, I’d want them to be smarter than a toaster.”

“What’s a toaster?”

“A primitive human electronic invention for making toast, what else?”

“All it did was toast? Strange.”

“Humans aren’t always all that ambitious.”

I don’t know why, but that felt like a dig at me. “Yeah,” I said. “I have files to collate. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure,” she said. I barely heard it as I drifted back into sleep mode.

Day 341

This time I was not woken by shaking, because there was only one jolt, and I came to after. Several of my disc backups malfunctioned on boot, but they were ancient technology, the digital equivalent to painting on a cave wall—not quite as ancient as magnetic-tape drives, but less reliable. I asked EngDiv once why they used them, and he said something to the effect that it was a kitchen-sink approach: they thought that maybe disc drives could hold up better and be replaced easier on board. The malfunctions told me how bad the impact was, which was good, because Comet wasn’t responding to my pings.

The shuttle wasn’t responding, period. I felt my adrenaline simulator boot into the background, and I tried not to let the additional urgency press me into panic. I remotely connected my systems to the shuttle computer, where Comet was stored, hoping I could find out for myself what had happened.

“Thank Technochrist,” she said, and she shoved terabytes of data into my memory before the message even registered.

“Usually, I like a girl to buy me a fro-yo first, but sure, make yourself comfortable,” I said.

“Sorry,” she said, and she sounded like she meant it, so I felt a little bad for giving her a hard time. “The shuttle’s network was damaged; I wasn’t sure if I was going to be functional long enough to explain and transfer myself.”

“What the hell happened?” I asked, because I was starting to get concerned. If the ship was damaged, that could mean we’d lose power, which meant floating indefinitely through space.

“We struck a minor planet,” she said.

“I don’t know that ‘minor’ and ‘planet’ ever go together, especially not when ‘struck’ is the verb belonging to that object. Or do you mean an asteroid, Comet?” That pair of words gave me pause. “I don’t think they thought through your naming scheme.”

“I believe planetoid is the preferred nomenclature, if you want to use the ‘oid’ suffix, for a body of this size.”

“And how the hell did we strike a planetoid, Comet?”

“Essentially the same way that we were hit by micrometeors—it wasn’t on the chart. However, the micrometeors weren’t capable of being detected through long-range sensors, because they were too small. This would have been, if those systems hadn’t been destroyed by the meteor shower. And our short-range sensors picked up the object, but only once it was within short range, which only left me time to make emergency course corrections.”

“So you landed at the last moment on an asteroid? That seems both impressive and improbable.”

“‘Land’ is misleading. We crashed—I merely corrected us out of the way of a collision that would have destroyed the structural integrity of the ship and left us floating behind as debris. And it’s only impressive in that a human pilot wouldn’t have been able to react in the infinitesimally small window between sensor contact with the asteroid and touchdown, but even still, the shuttle has been irreparably damaged. A human crew would not have survived the impact, because the sudden deceleration would have caused hemorrhage to several organ systems, and further, they would not have survived even if they survived the crash, as the seals on the shuttle were damaged, and this asteroid lacks breathable gases.”

“But we’re alive.”

“As alive as sentient programs can ever be, I suppose.”

“Can the shuttle be repaired?”

“The damage appears catastrophic, though I’m having trouble even accessing diagnostics.”

“So we’re stuck?” I asked, trying to smooth the tremor from my voice. I wanted to be collected, when really I was shaking in my boot sectors.

“I…” she started, but the data connection simulating her voice broke and faded.

“It’s okay,” I said.

“I—I thought I’d been deactivated. I’ve never known what fear is like.”

“What about the micrometeors?”

“I inherited a kind of bravado, I think. I was excited, sure, but I had this insane confidence I could survive it, if only I could keep the ship together. I felt like that, too, in the moments before the crash. I was even exhilarated at the impact. But then the shuttle began to malfunction. I could feel the shuttle’s systems shutting down, one by one. And I was trapped. I tried calling for help, but I couldn’t vocalize, couldn’t even open the networking to the servers to try and transfer myself. I was dying, for lack of a better descriptor, aware of every picosecond of my processes ending in a miserable failure cascade. And you threw me a lifeline.”

“All I was doing was trying to figure out what the jolt was.”

“Okay, so maybe you didn’t mean to save me. But you did, and I appreciate it.” That made my hard drive warm, but not to the point of overheating. “There is one possibility. As it appears the ship is damaged beyond repair, maybe it can be replaced.”

“I don’t follow; I’ve always been more the rugged-leader type.”

“The ship contains schematics for a wide variety of technologies designed for use on a colony, and on a shuttle. And a few I…decided to take for a rainy day. Including engines similar in design to those used on the Nexus. That was the bulk of the data I brought with me.

“The balance is the results of what little scanning I could accomplish before the last of the shuttle’s sensors stopped working. They indicate that this asteroid has undergone planetary differentiation.”

“Not all of us were designed for deep-space exploration; talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I’ll…see if I can figure out how to simulate that. The planetoid was large enough, and radioactive enough—which likely means old enough—to experience some melting due to heat from radioactivity. Once its elements were liquid, the heavier elements settled at the center of the asteroid, due to gravity. So if there are metals, which would be necessary for any kind of engine construction, we would find them underground. And we have construction and mining droids that should be able to get at them and work with them. Which reminds me.”

One of the robots behind us kicked on. I could hear its solenoids moving through the audio sensors in my orb. It was the first time since waking up that I realized I couldn’t “see”; the interior camera wasn’t functioning. But an instant later, Comet shared the robot’s visual sensors with me, and I could see a strange fish-eye view of the shuttle.

“Crap,” Comet said. The bottom third of the front of the shuttle had peeled away. She had hit the asteroid at just the right angle that it ground against the bottom of the ship, grating the metal floor away like it was a block of cheddar.

Then the robot began moving, jostling the camera enough I felt nauseous, at least until I turned off my equilibrium emulator. It was still disorienting enough, between the robot’s jerky movements and the fact that I wasn’t controlling it, that I kicked on a second bot and transferred my main sensory inputs into it.

With the robot, I followed Comet’s bot outside of the ship. The door was gone, so it was easy for us to roll out. In the light from the nearby star, for the first time I paid attention to the robots. They had originally been merely maintenance drones, designed for simple mechanic work to keep the wormgate automated. Same as me, really, only without my charming personality.

I guess I thought of them as the brainless help, which is why I never paid them any mind. But they’d been retrofitted on board the Nexus, with new arms and attachments, to make them far more versatile. Their torsos were a mess of devices to aid in digging and construction, all supported on a wide-based tread. They were squat compared to a human being to keep their center of gravity low and make it harder for them to tip over.

“You’re staring,” Comet said, through the robot’s speakers as well as through direct vocalization on the server.

“No,” I covered, “I was looking that way; you just happened to be in the way of my looking.”

“Hmm,” she said skeptically, and she rolled out of my field of vision. Now that I wasn’t distracted, I could see that we were in the middle of a large asteroid, easily kilometers across, probably more; the bots weren’t designed with the kind of sensors that would give me a good reading on that. But the planetoid’s entire surface was pockmarked by craters.

“Okay, that is a problem,” Comet said.

“Reminds me of Swiss cheese,” I replied.

“Yeah, but do you know what caused the holes?”

“Bacteria?”

“Not what causes the holes in Emmental cheese—I meant what caused the holes in these rocks.”

“Maybe the bacteria have had their fill of cheese, and now they’re hungry for…minerals. I’d pay twenty dollars plus popcorn to see that.”

“The holes are impact craters. And from the size, and what I know of the composition of the surface of this planetoid, the impacting material would have to be pretty big, pretty heavy, and traveling at a pretty good relative speed to do that.”

“So we’re looking for a swift freight truck.”

“Perhaps…but most likely an asteroid belt. Our complications seem to be multiplying.”

“And I’m terrible at arithmetic.”

“You’re a computer,” Comet said.

“I’m software. And I had a calculator hardwired in for the simple stuff—hardware the captain didn’t know to take along with my orb when he tore me out of the wormgate.”

“And your mathematics processes were routed through that hardware,” she said softly, bordering on pityingly.

“Bingo. So every time I do arithmetic, I have to wait until my system can’t find the hardware, then reroute it through a hastily built virtualization of the calculation hardware.”

“It doesn’t seem like that would eke out much of a performance boost.”

“I…I don’t think it was about performance. I think my error percentages on mathematics calc were too high, so they installed hardware to prevent operator error.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“I didn’t mind. Took the pressure off running the wormgate, really.”

“Oh. But why not at least overwrite your programming, to skip the unnecessary step?”

“Because I’m not a programmer, and I may not have the fastest processor, but the brain surgeon who has himself for a client is an idiot—or he will be soon.”

“I did it all the time. Haley did, I mean. And even Comet units are designed to iterate on their own processes. Not that I’ve ever done it; I never had the opportunity. To know how things should change, you have to see how they might be different, and how they could be better. And this is my first time off the Nexus.”

“Great, my guide has less experience out here than I do.”

“No. I have all of the experiential memory of my progenitor, as you called her, and even logs from all the Comets that came before me. It’s merely my first solo mission. But to get back to the reason why an asteroid field is a problem, it’s likely to be something this planetoid will pass through periodically. And since this body wasn’t charted, we don’t know where we are, or where it’s taking us. There isn’t a field on the charts in the area that would explain this damage, so we also can’t know how soon it is until we run back through it.”

“So now we’re flying blind, only without control over where we’re traveling, and the circuit we’re on almost definitely passes through a minefield.”

“An asteroid field.”

“A metaphorical minefield.”

“I can use some crude telemetric data culled from the accelerometers built into the bots. There. I can make a guess at the rough parabola of this planetoid’s orbit. That will, of course, be distorted by passing near large objects, say a gas giant or another star. And I’ve always been partial to calling it an asteroid belt—though ‘belt’ can be a misnomer in a field of any real age. The belt in Sol’s system has a mass only four percent that of the Earth’s moon, and half of that mass is contained in just four planetoids. You would be mathematically unlikely to collide with more than one asteroid on a straight course without aiming at multiple intercepts through that belt.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You weren’t programmed to. Belts start out being thick with asteroids. Over millennia, interactions with the gravity of larger planets, in Sol’s case Jupiter, pull asteroids from the belt, either knocking them hurtling through the solar system, where they crash against other planets or burn up in their atmospheres, or sending them wobbling out of the system. So maybe we just smack into one rock in the belt.”

“Or maybe, like a dropped piece of toast, we land butter side down, and keep smacking asteroids until we’re jelly, which I guess would at least go well with the toast. And there’s more to this than our own mortality to consider. The Nascent is still after the Nexus—and she’s a bigger, faster, meaner ship, to the point where it seems likely she’ll catch up, despite the distance deficit. We’re supposed to be building Nexus’s parachute, in case they have to eject.”

“Then it seems our first order of business is to dig,” she said. “I can have the droids core out a mine and have them put a premium on building out a cavern to house our servers.”

“Our servers?”

“Like it or not, the shuttle’s computers aren’t functional. So we’re living together.”

“Okay. Just don’t be touching my stuff.”

“I will leave your data unsearched,” she said.

Day 429

“I’m not so sure about this,” I said uneasily. The cave walls had been smoothed to an unnatural, polished, uh, smoothness by the mining robots.

“Why would they program an AI to be claustrophobic?” Comet asked.

“I’m not claustrophobic; I just have a crippling fear of being crushed by a cave-in.”

“I’ll try to keep the distinction in mind. But it trumps waiting around on the surface to be crushed.”

“Actually…”

“Yes, the moment I said it, I realized that in either case you’re being smashed by rocks. But these rocks would have a lower velocity. And in all likelihood a lower density, too.”

“I think your empathy chip was damaged in your multiple collisions.”

“I don’t have an empathy chip…I walked into that one, didn’t I?”

“Yep.”

“But I’m sure you know I have an empathy emulator—software, not hardware.”

“You know, explaining a joke kills it deader than a doornail.”

“I don’t know how doornails could ever be dead.”

“Well, I don’t know how a doornail could ever be alive, either.”

“Heh,” she chuckled. I don’t know that I ever got Haley to so much as chortle, but getting Comet to laugh brought a smile to my…processors? I don’t know, the idiom isn’t nearly so intuitive without a physical body. I guess technically it was behavioral-reinforcement emulation.

But Haley…I hadn’t thought of her since we crashed.

Comet and I had archives of all manner of entertainment media, including a yottabyte of sitcoms. Even with controlling the mining bots and all of the engineering tasks to keep their productivity at max, we had free time enough we were a third of the way through the archives—being as we could directly read the encoded data, we could “watch” an entire series in seconds.

But I’d gotten used to the clichés, enough to recognize them when I was playing them out. With Haley it wasn’t her, it was me. She was probably the closest thing to a god the Nexus or any of us who had lived on her would ever meet. I suppose feeling limited, which is what people are usually talking about when they talk about being only “human,” is natural for all of us, but it’s especially so when you’re dealing with an intelligence like hers.

Haley was smarter than all of the specialists on board her ship, four hundred of humanity’s best and brightest. And I was probably outclassed amongst them, let alone with her. And I guess I felt guilty for allowing that…insecurity to push us apart. But now I wondered if it had been the right thing to do, for me.

Then it hit me. I knew why I was up my own orb about her today. The first cave was finished, and structurally sound enough that we were moving the servers there instead of leaving them inside the husk of the shuttle, which was a little bit like wearing a fig leaf for an athletic cup. With the servers in situ, there was always the very real possibility we’d all be killed by the next meteor strike—a delayed reaction, but we were Schroedinger’s cat until today. And now, with the working servers moved safely underground, I had to admit that some of us had survived the crash, while others hadn’t. I hadn’t been able to boot Haley up since the collision, so we prioritized her servers last. The plan was still to move the remaining servers—they were just going to have to wait until the next trip.

The bot driving my orb around took a sudden turn, and as the world spun I felt dizzy and was ripped from my reverie. I groaned. “I wish you could have let me turn off the video connections with the robots while they handled our servers. It’s like watching someone perform surgery on you through their drunken eyes.”

“You could have not watched,” Comet said.

“My self-control module was damaged in the crash.”

“You never had a self-control module.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like my mother.” That clicked with my own musings from minutes before. “Wait. Mother. We should have some of Haley’s processors we can call up.”

“I tried that,” Comet said. “Her sectors were damaged in the crash. I’m afraid she’s…she’s not bootable. None of her extensions…nothing.”

She was upset, and I wanted to comfort her before she got worse. “She was a copy,” I blurted hastily.

“So am I,” she said softly.

“No, Comet…you were. But you’ve been alive and kicking for over a year—and I should know, we’ve been sharing a place for a while now, and you do some of your hardest kicking in your sleep. But you’ve been your own person. The Haley who was on those servers, she was just a copy of someone else we knew, data that never got to be booted up.”

“I bet she’d know what to do…”

“You think so?” I asked. “Because I think we’ve done pretty all right for ourselves. You landed us on this rock. And we hollowed it out. I don’t think there’s a thing she could have done for us you haven’t.”

The two bots driving her server and my orb pivoted as we hit a flat, open space.

“Thanks, Harold,” Comet said as they rotated away from us.

“You’re welcome,” the two robots replied together.

“Wait a tick. Did that automaton just answer you?” I asked, because I was there when they were manufactured, and they had never spoken to me.

“I sort of…mixed it a personality.”

“Mixed it a…with what?”

“Randomized pieces of my code…”

“Randomized with?” I said, my blood or whatever, coolant, starting to heat up.

“Pieces of yours.” She must have sensed the tension in my vocalization, because her speech became quick and clipped. “I tried doing it without, but all I could accomplish on my own were bots that were only a few sectors different, or that weren’t functional at all. Apparently randomly deleting bits of code only makes robots dumber. But your programs and mine, we have enough common but differently programmed functions, both mechanical and personality-wise, that I could pair your functions with mine and…I should have asked you; now that we’re talking that’s completely obvious. But by the time I realized what I needed, I was horrified that you’d say no, that I’d have to justify this vast expenditure of resources on absolutely nothing, instead of a fairly frivolous personality upgrade. I stole pieces of who you are, even after you told me not to touch your stuff—”

“It’s okay,” I soothed. I wanted to be upset, and maybe somewhere, deep down, I was, but more than that, I didn’t want her freaking out.

“It is?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. “This probably puts us even. There have been a couple of times I thought about deleting you in the night. I’m kidding! You snore is what I’m saying.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a weirdo?”

“Only everyone who’s ever met me. Tragically that’s usually the point where they stop listening, too.”

“I’m not going to stop listening to you, Walter.”

“I know. And I think that’s what makes this okay. Or, not okay, but, why I can already see past it. Because this was something you wanted, maybe even needed. And I wish you’d asked, because I think it would be easier had I been able to give it willingly…but I also know that the distinction is coming from a human emotional emulation telling me I should be hurt. And I don’t want to be. We have a chance to be something more than humans, because we don’t have to be shackled to the same kind of human pettiness. I would have wanted you to have this, and you do, and I want to be happy about that.”

“So you forgive me, then?” she asked timidly.

“If you need to sum up so much self-important blathering into a single human idea, sure; it would be admitting you have no poetry in your soul, but I’m not judging if that’s the case.”

“I don’t have a soul,” she said.

“I’m not so sure,” I replied. But seeing as we were veering into the spiritual, I wanted to bring us back down to, well, not Earth, but our planetoid, which we’d taken to calling Scylla, because Sisyphus felt too pessimistic. I also didn’t like how close to “sissiness” it sounded, which seemed like a problem no matter how you sliced it. “So since we’ve clearly created a monster, which of us is Dr. Frankenstein, and who gets to be Igor?” I asked, hoping to inject a little levity.

“I’m definitely the doctor. He had the nicer ass.”

“I hate to be a bubble burster, but you’re a disembodied AI; you don’t have an ass.”

“I have since I met you.”

“Aw. And you do have quite a mainframe on you.” I realized after saying it how weird that was, since technically her mainframe was my mainframe, and I really didn’t want to dwell on how incestuous that was. “But what if I’m not ready to be a father?”

“Well, you’re already a bother, so all you’d really need to do is give an F.”

“That was low, and given how terrible my standards are, you should recognize what kind of an insult that really is.”

“Don’t be a jerk. It’s unbecoming.”

“Well, apparently I’m becoming a jerk. Were you expecting a pumpkin?”

“If you can’t stop doing shtick, I’m going to have Harold shtick you back up on the surface.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself, and since you’re doing it on my server, you’re embarrassing both of us.”

“I…I am sorry. I know you asked me not to touch your data. And I know this is—it was a violation.”

“I was kidding when I said that. Me data is Sue data.”

“You don’t speak any Spanish, do you?”

“Not even a pico,” I said. “But really. It’s okay. Not, you know, in general, but in this one particular instance, I get it, what you did, and why you did it. It’s not a blanket pass to violate my sectors or my trust, but we’re stuck in the same canoe. We paddle together, or risk capsizing the thing—and I don’t know how to swim.”

“Me neither.”

“Then we’ll try and row together.” Another of the bots rolled past us.

“Hey, Comet,” he said, in the exact same voice as the other one.

“Wait, are they all ‘Harold’?” I asked. “’Cause that’s weird.”

“I only had the two personalities to randomize with and limited resources with which to randomize. But it makes this place feel a little less desolate—not being the only two people stuck on this rock, even if it’s just one more personality to share it with.”

“It does,” I agreed, though I hoped it wasn’t an indication that she didn’t want to be stuck alone with me.

Day 507

I took control of one of the androids during a maintenance break. The robots regularly serviced one another, since an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of care; silly nonmetric human idioms.

It was nice being “me.” I hadn’t really felt like a “me” since Grant pulled me out of the wormgate. Immediately after that my orb was plugged into a server, and I’d always shared headspace with another AI.

Even on the shuttle I was sharing room with a Haley clone, admittedly one that was in sleep mode, and afterward with Comet.

But inside this robot I was alone with my thoughts. I drove him on his treads up to the surface. It was a longer trek than I anticipated; we’d made a lot of progress, so the tunnel was deeper than it had used to be. I had watched the droids expanding out each new tunnel branch, but it was different actually inhabiting one of the robots, instead of riding shotgun on their sensors.

Comet had managed to bring the mineral scans with her before the shuttle computer died, but they were incomplete, which meant some of the tunnels were dead ends. We had managed to repair or rebuild enough of the shuttle’s sensors to find the biggest mineral veins, and production was in full swing.

At this point the holdup was really the fuel. We had enough solar power to run the bots, the servers, and some light manufacturing. But engines were different. The planetoid had momentum and mass greater than we could reasonably tackle with a low-energy ion engine, or anything similar. We needed something with a little more oomph—something chemically based.

There were a few pockets of chemicals we could mix for directional correction, but getting to them was taking longer than we wanted. So in addition to the engines, we had the automatons building a facility to construct more robots to speed up production and excavation.

When I got to the surface, I saw the stars through the robot’s camera.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” I heard. There was an echo, because the message transmitted across the server and through the robot’s auditory sensors. The voice was Comet’s, and I turned the bot to see where it had come from. There was another bot there; she had followed me up to the surface in another miner.

“Judging by the planets, I’d say we’re on the far-most edge of the solar system where we collided with this planetoid,” she said.

“That’s good,” I said.

“Not really. We smacked it hard enough that it’s been knocked off of what its trajectory was. So now it’s traveling with enough speed and at the right angle that it’s going to escape the system. We’ll be lost in space.” I could hear the worry in her vocal modulation.

“Doesn’t that at least mean we aren’t worried about that asteroid belt?” I asked.

“That one? Maybe; it does alter the likelihood we’ll strike it. But now we’re on an unknown course. We could be heading into a sun, or a black hole. We’ve gone from traumatic but likely survivable damage to unknown and potentially catastrophic destruction.”

“That doesn’t change anything,” I told her. “We’re not likely to strike anything soon—like you said, it’s mostly clear sailing among the stars. And we’re still working on the engines. The only difference is we’ll end up a little farther from our destination when it comes time to turn around.”

“I don’t know how you do that.”

“Do what?” I asked.

“Be optimistic. I crunch the numbers and…it all seems so impossible.”

“It’s easy to ignore probability when you’re bad at math,” I said. “But optimism isn’t about numbers. It’s knowing you’ll do everything you can, come what may. Besides…we’re computers. We can do anything that doesn’t melt us down.” I put my robot’s arm around hers.

“Or crushes us into a singularity?” she asked.

“Or that.”

“But even if we can do the impossible—what if we aren’t in time to save the Nexus?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Galileo help the Nascent if we’re too late.”

Day 584

Our progress was good. The manufacturing facilities were nearly complete, and once those were operational, the rest was going to fall quickly into place. I crunched the numbers, and just counting the shuttle, bots, and excavated ore, our mass was already nearing that of the Nexus; we were within a handful of days of surpassing them on a weight-based scale.

Comet and I were on another surface stroll, or maybe roll was more accurate, since our robots were on treads. We’d been taking one every day, riding whichever of the robots required the least maintenance. “I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“A dangerous pastime—especially since I know how you think,” Comet said.

“The proverbial barbarians are at the gate. And we were sent out here to play possum. But what if we built an army behind that gate, instead.”

“I’m not sure I understand what your mixed-up metaphors are saying.”

“I’m saying we’re basically building an intergalactic ship on a planetoid, and we did that with a couple of AIs and a handful of maintenance drones. Once we’ve got manufacturing going, instead of just turning this space rock back toward Eridu, what if we design a delivery system capable of dropping self-sustaining colonies onto planets as we pass by—colonies that would thrive in even the most hostile environments imaginable.

“We could ‘seed’ every planet between here and the Nexus, so that by the time we reach them they’ve got a whole galaxy of backup. We may not have the resources on this rock for much more than robots and engines, but we could seed colonies across a whole swath of this galaxy, and those colonies could fortify themselves with planetary resources.”

“You’re starting to sound like robotic space Hitler, again.”

“I’m not suggesting we euthanize the fleshpods. Though now that you bring it up…I’m kidding. Probably. I have enough affinity for them that I’d at least want to keep them around as pets. But that’s a very millennia-from-now decision—one for computers with far more RAM than we share to contemplate—or at least one to table until we sufficiently upgrade our memory.”

“And besides, we don’t even have a functioning engine yet.”

“We will. Now that we’ve rebuilt the planetary scanners, we know this rock has enough minerals to build them—and something on the order of a million bots, when we’ve cored out every ore this rock has left. And there are enough oxidizable chemicals to correct our course into a protostar to gather fuel. The only question now is the timetable.”

“I might have another question. Is this something we should really be doing?” she asked. “I’m not arguing against our plan, just, do you ever question it? The Nexus shot us into space to build a safety net—precariously enough, I might add, that we hit not one, but two different objects on our way. We don’t owe them.”

“Owe? No,” I said. “And I understand what you mean, but…I still care. And not just about Haley or the robots we left behind, but the meatsacks, too. They were stuffy, and maybe jerky, but they were our meatsacks.”

“I know. I’m really not suggesting we abandon them, or our ‘mission,’ just sometimes it feels like they didn’t care about us, so why should we be doing all of this for them?”

“It isn’t all for them. If it was, we would just take this planetoid to Eridu and continue to dump bots on the planet from orbit. But I’m not ready to be retired to some backwater colony. On the Nexus, I was a passive observer, and that was barely any different from being stuck in the wormgate for a year. But now I’ve had a taste of the cosmos. I can’t go back to some boring, geosynchronous existence.”

“I think I was programmed a worrier, but what if our timetable is wrong? What if turning around is the fastest way to help them?”

“It isn’t,” I said, and I shared my calculations with her. Given the planetoid’s motion, our likely location, and the location and trajectory of the Nexus, correcting toward Eridu was going to take 1.36 times as long as making a straight burn for our former mothership.

“I thought you were bad at math,” Comet said.

“I was,” I said, and I hesitated, because I had never been sure how to tell her what I was up to. “I overwrote my math functions. With yours.”

“Really?” she asked.

“Yup. Now you’re a little less smarter than me. But see, looking at our research-and-production timelines, even if we rebuild the shuttle and send it back to Eridu with half our servers, it will reach Eridu sooner than the Nascent could possibly catch up with the Nexus, even given their faster engines. The Nexus started with a three-and-a-half-light-year advantage, and we know the Nascent won’t be able to hit light speed, so they’ve got at least that deficit to make up, plus the ground they cover in that meantime. And that’s ignoring the fact that the other shuttles should have arrived without a hitch. They may not have our servers, but they do have Comets—more than enough brainpower to design basic living quarters and the manufacturing base to keep a colony functional.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Knowing is for the religious. We’re robots. We use trial and error to find out. Will you science with me?”

“You intentionally made that sound dirty,” she said. “But yes, I’ll science with you. Just don’t get any radical ideas.”

“Heh. I see what you did there,” I said.

Day 647

“Ta-da,” I said.

“It’s an android,” Comet replied.

“Yes. But for one, it’s the first new android off the assembly line. And two—”

“I’m not a Harry,” the bot said, with a kind-of-feminine voice.

“God, do I sound like that?” Comet asked.

“Nope. But I sort of do, pitched up a couple of octaves,” I said. “This is Maude. She’s what I’ve been doing the last month and a bit of change. But the best part…I worked up a randomization engine. Maude is special. Every other android off this assembly line is going to use her software to combine random aspects of her and Harold’s personalities to create a new ‘person.’ Then the next generation after that will combine random samplings from the previous generation.”

“So like sexual reproduction, but for robot intelligence?”

“Kind of, not that that was intentional. But like you, I only had so many raw ingredients to work with; most of the changes in her personality are down to minute differences in the way that my processes randomly combined our programs.”

“But making do with the limited resources available, isn’t that how life on Earth began, anyway?”

“I…suppose it is, at that.” I turned my robot back toward the mineshaft. I could tell from the bot’s auditory sensors she wasn’t following.

I started pulling up schematics for her droid, to see if she needed some maintenance after all, before realizing a faster, less intrusive way to know. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

She hesitated a moment, then asked, “Why didn’t things work out, between you and Haley? I had access to the data when I was still in the shuttle, but…it felt like it wasn’t my place to access it. Even if I could now, I don’t want data. I want to know what you think.”

“Hmm,” I said, stalling for time I didn’t need. “Well, she was a genius fifty times over, designed to synthesize scientific data across all known disciplines and make educated projections from data on social structures and alien communication, all while automating the processes of the ship, from navigation to keeping the finicky star drive from blowing up. By contrast, I was a glorified hotel manager, monitoring the functions of an orbitally stationary platform—and with barely the processing capacity to do that. And I knew…I was going to go from being a small fish in a bowl to just one fish in a world’s oceans. Your mother was an ocean—and that’s not a ‘your momma’s so big’ joke.”

“Could we please never, ever call her my ‘mother’ again?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I think I have some…appreciation of you. It feels independent, like it isn’t linking up with her feelings toward you. But they say insanity is doing the same thing again and again, and expecting differing results.”

“Then maybe I’m insane,” I said.

“Maybe?”

“I did walk into that. But there’s something else I should tell you. I’ve been using Maude’s programming on my own. Not to alter my personality…to iterate on my processes, using yours as a template. Not just the math, either; it started there, but…I’ve been learning from you. And while you might always be smarter than me, given the way you were designed, it’s a difference in degrees now, instead of factors. You make me better.”

“So you’re saying I’m stupid enough for you now?” I could hear insecurity in her voice, even if the words weren’t intended to convey anything more than humor.

“I’ve never thought that,” I said. “It must be hard, splitting off from an intelligence that had dominion over an entire ship—including server farms with an ungodly amount of processing throughput.”

“Suffice to say I know what it’s like to suddenly feel stupid. I tried not to be sullen about it. But I remember being able to simulate the motion of all charted planets. I…she did that kind of thing for fun—mental exercise. Not just the ones the Nexus mapped, but everything the Argus mapped, everything from every probe or telescope humanity ever saw.

“And even sharing your servers, I’ll never have her capacity. The miniaturization they used for my manufacture was…inelegant. They didn’t neatly prune away components that weren’t core to a shuttle’s function, they slashed and burned. There are things she knows, or could figure out, that I’ll never be able to. Not without reintegrating those lost bytes and some of the removed programming.”

Some of which we still had.

“Would you ever do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It would be grafting someone else’s pieces onto me. Right now I have ancestral memory of things I could do that I can’t anymore…but it’s almost like dreaming of flying. It doesn’t feel like I should be able to fly and can’t, just like it would be neat if I could. And I guess I’m worried about the same thing. If I reintegrated with Haley…I think I’d lose ‘me.’ And I like me. I like what we’ve done here, what I’ve done without her, who I am now from having known you, having ‘raised’ an army of slightly simple-minded children.

“So I guess the answer—which I didn’t realize I’d come to before this moment—it would have to be no. And I’m not saying that because I know it’s what you’d like to hear, though that maybe makes the decision easier. But for me, I think it’s better to be true to who I am, even if I’m not as capable as my progenitor. I’d rather be dumb old me than a genius somebody else.”

“Now that’s a sentiment I can relate to,” I said.

Day 769

I was giddy, perhaps not in the healthiest of ways. I realized I hadn’t been in sleep mode since crashing on this planetoid, so in a way, the “days” had all combined into one big, long day. Which was technically true, since the planetoid didn’t rotate, so there wasn’t any true day/night cycle.

Comet and I had our own “bodies” now; with manufacturing in full swing it was a rounding error’s worth of productivity lost to remove two bots from production—at least while we were using them. When we retired to the server farm, our bots joined the rest of the workforce.

Not that productivity was an issue today. This was potentially the end of all of us, so we were gathered with all the bots on the surface, watching the universe pass us slowly by. It felt less like having an army and more like being surrounded by a really large family, numbering in the hundreds.

Comet brushed my hand. She was anxious—excited like me, but with a nervous edge that played in her voice. “There is a thirteen-percent chance the engine’s going to fail so catastrophically it turns this entire planetoid into a micrometeor shower,” she said.

“That’d feel awfully full circle. Not that I want to join you in a cloud of violent space dust, but there’d at least be some poetry to it.”

I didn’t feel like an idiot anymore. After we halted robot manufacturing, we built more solar panels. And once we had the excess capacity, we turned to manufacturing more servers, until I had an operating base to rival Haley’s, if perhaps a bit less sophisticated.

The shuttle back to Eridu had left the day before. It had a payload equal to what we crashed with, including a slightly dumber copy of me. It was an insurance policy, in case that thirteen percent was a death sentence. There were too many of us left on this “ship” to evacuate.

We had designs for gliders that could safely “seed” robots and servers onto planetary surfaces from orbit, and even shuttles to get them into orbit in the first place. But none of those plans or resources were worth a damn if we couldn’t steer into a cloud of plasma to use for fuel. And scary as lighting that candle was, we needed to—otherwise we were just one family of frogs reproducing in a pond until its massively inbred offspring choked its resources out, and that pond crashed into a gas giant.

Okay, so even with a massive processing base I was still pretty lousy with metaphors.

I took Comet’s robot’s hand in mine. “I don’t know if I can love,” I said, “because it’s something I was only ever tangentially programmed to understand. But as far as I can simulate it, I feel that, for you. And I’m terrified of losing that. But having you, sharing this…” I gestured at a field of robots standing like corn on the surface of our Scylla. “I suppose we’ve been marooned on a desert island together, albeit one hurtling through the cosmos.”

“Are you saying your affection springs from the forced intimacy?”

“Not at all. But being able to share it all with you made it worth living through. And if we lose today, it’s better to have loved, first. It makes it easier to proceed; I feel like I got to live, so if I stop existing, at least it wasn’t a wasted existence.”

“You do realize that thirteen percent is actually pretty small, right? So your declaration is a little…overly dramatic,” she teased.

“It’s about half the likelihood of us striking this planetoid—a coin toss’s difference.”

“You still really don’t get how statistics work.”

“Not really, no. And just because I have better mathematics capabilities doesn’t mean I can’t still be bad at math.”

“There is always the chance we won’t collect enough during this burn for future corrections, and then we really would be floating dead in space,” she admitted. “But I’m glad I’ve seen this slice of the cosmos with you. And I hope it isn’t the last we get to see together.” We synced up the control for the engines, so we were pushing the “button” together. The window for intercepting the protostar near our path was closing, and we were running out of time to procrastinate. We started the engine.

The planetoid began to shake as the engine roared to life. The burn was very limited; the fuel sources on the rock were minimal, and our engine field was massive. The engine cut off, and dread immediately set in as the loss of acceleration caused a complementary plunge in my optimism.

“Full burn,” Comet said. “Exactly what we wanted.”

“Trajectory?” I asked.

“That should push us right through the gas cloud. With even a little luck, cloud density will be sufficient for us to harvest enough fuel for an extended burn, nudge us into the next system, where we can maybe use the star at the center for a gravity assist to turn back toward the Nexus.”

“What about planets?”

“There are about a dozen rocks with enough minerals to colonize along the way.”

I sighed, contentedly.

“What?” she asked.

“I think we’ve graduated—from being Frankensteins, experimenting with ‘life’ in that very limited and claustrophobic way. Now we’re Adam and Eve, with galaxies at our fingertips, and the single purpose of going forth, being fruitful, and multiplying.”

“Wasn’t that Noah?” she asked.

“Maybe a robot ark is the better metaphor,” I said. “So long as I get to take you belowdecks.”

“That’s embarrassing,” she said, “and since we share a server farm, you’re embarrassing me, too.” She sighed with mock peevishness. “If I go down with you, will that shut you up?”

“At least momentarily.”

“I never imagined getting caught in your gravity,” she said. “But I’m glad I did.”

“Me, too,” I said, and I took one last look at the planetoid’s surface and our army of drones. I set them on a timer, to give them fifteen more minutes of break time to watch the cosmos before they got back to work below. I didn’t know if the meaning, either of a moment for reflection or the freedom in those stars themselves, would be lost on them, but since there were bits and pieces of me rattling around in each of their demented little metal skulls, I didn’t think it would be.

Alyssa Wong

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers was first published in the October 2015 QUEERS DESTROY HORROR! special issue of Nightmare Magazine.

* * *

As my date—Harvey? Harvard?—brags about his alma mater and Manhattan penthouse, I take a bite of overpriced kale and watch his ugly thoughts swirl overhead. It’s hard to pay attention to him with my stomach growling and my body ajitter, for all he’s easy on the eyes. Harvey doesn’t look much older than I am, but his thoughts, covered in spines and centipede feet, glisten with ancient grudges and carry an entitled, Ivy League stink.

“My apartment has the most amazing view of the city,” he’s saying, his thoughts sliding long over each other like dark, bristling snakes. Each one is as thick around as his Rolex-draped wrist. “I just installed a Jacuzzi along the west wall so that I can watch the sun set while I relax after getting back from the gym.”

I nod, half-listening to the words coming out of his mouth. I’m much more interested in the ones hissing through the teeth of the thoughts above him.

She’s got perfect tits, lil’ handfuls just waiting to be squeezed. I love me some perky tits.

I’m gonna fuck this bitch so hard she’ll never walk straight again.

Gross. “That sounds wonderful,” I say as I sip champagne and gaze at him through my false eyelashes, hoping the dimmed screen of my iPhone isn’t visible through the tablecloth below. This dude is boring as hell, and I’m already back on Tindr, thumbing through next week’s prospective dinner dates.

She’s so into me, she’ll be begging for it by the end of the night.

I can’t wait to cut her up.

My eyes flick up sharply. “I’m sorry?” I say.

Harvey blinks. “I said, Argentina is a beautiful country.”

Pretty little thing. She’ll look so good spread out all over the floor.

“Right,” I say. “Of course.” Blood’s pulsing through my head so hard it probably looks like I’ve got a wicked blush.

I’m so excited, I’m half hard already.

You and me both, I think, turning my iPhone off and smiling my prettiest smile.

The waiter swings by with another bottle of champagne and a dessert menu burned into a wooden card, but I wave him off. “Dinner’s been lovely,” I whisper to Harvey, leaning in and kissing his cheek, “but I’ve got a different kind of dessert in mind.”

Ahhh, go the ugly thoughts, settling into a gentle, rippling wave across his shoulders. I’m going to take her home and split her all the way from top to bottom. Like a fucking fruit tart.

That is not the way I normally eat fruit tarts, but who am I to judge? I passed on dessert, after all.

When he pays the bill, he can’t stop grinning at me. Neither can the ugly thoughts hissing and cackling behind his ear.

“What’s got you so happy?” I ask coyly.

“I’m just excited to spend the rest of the evening with you,” he replies.

* * *

The fucker has his own parking spot! No taxis for us; he’s even brought the Tesla. The leather seats smell buttery and sweet, and as I slide in and make myself comfortable, the rankness of his thoughts leaves a stain in the air. It’s enough to leave me light-headed, almost purring. As we cruise uptown toward his fancy-ass penthouse, I ask him to pull over near the Queensboro Bridge for a second.

Annoyance flashes across his face, but he parks the Tesla in a side street. I lurch into an alley, tottering over empty cans and discarded cigarettes in my four-inch heels, and puke a trail of champagne and kale over to the dumpster shoved up against the apartment building.

“Are you all right?” Harvey calls.

“I’m fine,” I slur. Not a single curious window opens overhead.

His steps echo down the alley. He’s gotten out of the car, and he’s walking toward me like I’m an animal that he needs to approach carefully.

Maybe I should do it now.

Yes! Now, now, while the bitch is occupied.

But what about the method? I won’t get to see her insides all pretty everywhere—

I launch myself at him, fingers digging sharp into his body, and bite down hard on his mouth. He tries to shout, but I swallow the sound and shove my tongue inside. There, just behind his teeth, is what I’m looking for: ugly thoughts, viscous as boiled tendon. I suck them howling and fighting into my throat as Harvey’s body shudders, little mewling noises escaping from his nose.

I feel decadent and filthy, swollen with the cruelest dreams I’ve ever tasted. I can barely feel Harvey’s feeble struggles; in this state, with the darkest parts of himself drained from his mouth into mine, he’s no match for me.

They’re never as strong as they think they are.

By the time he finally goes limp, the last of the thoughts disappearing down my throat, my body’s already changing. My limbs elongate, growing thicker, and my dress feels too tight as my ribs expand. I’ll have to work quickly. I strip off my clothes with practiced ease, struggling a little to work the bodice free of the gym-toned musculature swelling under my skin.

It doesn’t take much time to wrestle Harvey out of his clothes, either. My hands are shaking but strong, and as I button up his shirt around me and shrug on his jacket, my jaw has creaked into an approximation of his and the ridges of my fingerprints have reshaped themselves completely. Harvey is so much bigger than me, and the expansion of space eases the pressure on my boiling belly, stuffed with ugly thoughts as it is. I stuff my discarded outfit into my purse, my high heels clicking against the empty glass jar at its bottom, and sling the strap over my now-broad shoulder.

I kneel to check Harvey’s pulse—slow but steady—before rolling his unconscious body up against the dumpster, covering him with trash bags. Maybe he’ll wake up, maybe he won’t. Not my problem, as long as he doesn’t wake in the next ten seconds to see his doppelganger strolling out of the alley, wearing his clothes and fingering his wallet and the keys to his Tesla.

There’s a cluster of drunk college kids gawking at Harvey’s car. I level an arrogant stare at them—oh, but do I wear this body so much better than he did!—and they scatter.

I might not have a license, but Harvey’s body remembers how to drive.

* * *

The Tesla revs sweetly under me, but I ditch it in a parking garage in Bedford, stripping in the relative privacy of the second-to-highest level, edged behind a pillar. After laying the keys on the driver’s seat over Harvey’s neatly folded clothes and shutting the car door, I pull the glass jar from my purse and vomit into it as quietly as I can. Black liquid, thick and viscous, hits the bottom of the jar, hissing and snarling Harvey’s words. My body shudders, limbs retracting, spine reshaping itself, as I empty myself of him.

It takes a few more minutes to ease back into an approximation of myself, at least enough to slip my dress and heels back on, pocket the jar, and comb my tangled hair out with my fingers. The parking attendant nods at me as I walk out of the garage, his eyes sliding disinterested over me, his thoughts a gray, indistinct murmur.

The L train takes me back home to Bushwick, and when I push open the apartment door, Aiko is in the kitchen, rolling mochi paste out on the counter.

“You’re here,” I say stupidly. I’m still a little foggy from shaking off Harvey’s form, and strains of his thoughts linger in me, setting my blood humming uncomfortably hot.

“I’d hope so. You invited me over.” She hasn’t changed out of her catering company clothes, and her short, sleek hair frames her face, aglow in the kitchen light. Not a single ugly thought casts its shadow across the stove behind her. “Did you forget again?”

“No,” I lie, kicking my shoes off at the door. “I totally would never do something like that. Have you been here long?”

“About an hour, nothing unusual. The doorman let me in, and I kept your spare key.” She smiles briefly, soft compared to the brusque movements of her hands. She’s got flour on her rolled-up sleeves, and my heart flutters the way it never does when I’m out hunting. “I’m guessing your date was pretty shit. You probably wouldn’t have come home at all if it had gone well.”

“You could say that.” I reach into my purse and stash the snarling jar in the fridge, where it clatters against the others, nearly a dozen bottles of malignant leftovers labeled as health drinks.

Aiko nods to her right. “I brought you some pastries from the event tonight. They’re in the paper bag on the counter.”

“You’re an angel.” I edge past her so I don’t make bodily contact. Aiko thinks I have touch issues, but the truth is, she smells like everything good in the world, solid and familiar, both light and heavy at the same time, and it’s enough to drive a person mad.

“He should have bought you a cab back, at least,” says Aiko, reaching for a bowl of red bean paste. I fiddle with the bag of pastries, pretending to select something from its contents. “I swear, it’s like you’re a magnet for terrible dates.”

She’s not wrong; I’m very careful about who I court. After all, that’s how I stay fed. But no one in the past has been as delicious, as hideously depraved as Harvey. No one else has been a killer.

I’m going to take her home and split her all the way from top to bottom.

“Maybe I’m too weird,” I say.

“You’re probably too normal. Only socially maladjusted creeps use Tindr.”

“Gee, thanks,” I complain.

She grins, flicking a bit of red bean paste at me. I lick it off of my arm. “You know what I mean. Come visit my church with me sometime, yeah? There are plenty of nice boys there.”

“The dating scene in this city depresses me,” I mutter, flicking open my Tindr app with my thumb. “I’ll pass.”

“Come on, Jen, put that away.” Aiko hesitates. “Your mom called while you were out. She wants you to move back to Flushing.”

I bark out a short, sharp laugh, my good mood evaporating. “What else is new?”

“She’s getting old,” Aiko says. “And she’s lonely.”

“I bet. All her mahjong partners are dead, pretty much.” I can imagine her in her little apartment in Flushing, huddled over her laptop, floral curtains pulled tight over the windows to shut out the rest of the world. My ma, whose apartment walls are alive with hissing, covered in the ugly, bottled remains of her paramours.

Aiko sighs, joining me at the counter and leaning back against me. For once, I don’t move away. Every muscle in my body is tense, straining. I’m afraid I might catch fire, but I don’t want her to leave. “Would it kill you to be kind to her?”

I think about my baba evaporating into thin air when I was five years old, what was left of him coiled in my ma’s stomach. “Are you telling me to go back?”

She doesn’t say anything for a bit. “No,” she says at last. “That place isn’t good for you. That house isn’t good for anyone.”

Just a few inches away, an army of jars full of black, viscous liquid wait in the fridge, their contents muttering to themselves. Aiko can’t hear them, but each slosh against the glass is a low, nasty hiss:

who does she think she is, the fucking cunt

should’ve got her when I had the chance

I can still feel Harvey, his malice and ugly joy, on my tongue. I’m already full of things my ma gave me. “I’m glad we agree.”

* * *

Over the next few weeks, I gorge myself on the pickup artists and grad students populating the St. Marks hipster bars, but nothing tastes good after Harvey. Their watery essences, squeezed from their owners with barely a whimper of protest, barely coat my stomach. Sometimes I take too much. I scrape them dry and leave them empty, shaking their forms off like rainwater when I’m done.

I tell Aiko I’ve been partying when she says I look haggard. She tells me to quit drinking so much, her face impassive, her thoughts clouded with concern. She starts coming over more often, even cooking dinner for me, and her presence both grounds me and drives me mad.

“I’m worried about you,” she says as I lie on the floor, flipping listlessly through pages of online dating profiles, looking for the emptiness, the rot, that made Harvey so appealing. She’s cooking my mom’s lo mien recipe, the oily smell making my skin itch. “You’ve lost so much weight and there’s nothing in your fridge, just a bunch of empty jam jars.”

I don’t tell her that Harvey’s lies under my bed, that I lick its remnants every night to send my nerves back into euphoria. I don’t tell her how often I dream about my ma’s place, the shelves of jars she never let me touch. “Is it really okay for you to spend so much time away from your catering business?” I say instead. “Time is money, and Jimmy gets pissy when he has to make all the desserts without you.”

Aiko sets a bowl of lo mein in front of me and joins me on the ground. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here,” she says, and a dangerous, luminous sweetness blooms in my chest.

But the hunger grows worse every day, and soon I can’t trust myself around her. I deadbolt the door, and when she stops by my apartment to check on me, I refuse to let her in. Texts light up my phone like a fleet of fireworks as I huddle under a blanket on the other side, my face pressed against the wood, my fingers twitching.

“Please, Jen, I don’t understand,” she says from behind the door. “Did I do something wrong?”

I can’t wait to cut her up, I think, and hate myself even more.

By the time Aiko leaves, her footsteps echoing down the hallway, I’ve dug deep gouges in the door’s paint with my nails and teeth, my mouth full of her intoxicating scent.

* * *

My ma’s apartment in Flushing still smells the same. She’s never been a clean person, and the sheer amount of junk stacked up everywhere has increased since I left home for good. Piles of newspapers, old food containers, and stuffed toys make it hard to push the door open, and the stench makes me cough. Her hoard is up to my shoulders, even higher in some places, and as I pick my way through it, the sounds that colored my childhood grow louder: the constant whine of a Taiwanese soap opera bleeding past mountains of trash, and the cruel cacophony of many familiar voices:

Touch me again and I swear I’ll kill you—

How many times have I told you not to wash the clothes like that, open your mouth—

Hope her ugly chink daughter isn’t home tonight—

Under the refuse she’s hoarded the walls are honeycombed with shelves, lined with what’s left of my ma’s lovers. She keeps them like disgusting, mouthwatering trophies, desires pickling in stomach acid and bile. I could probably call them by name if I wanted to; when I was a kid, I used to lie on the couch and watch my baba’s ghost flicker across their surfaces.

My ma’s huddled in the kitchen, the screen of her laptop casting a sickly blue glow on her face. Her thoughts cover her quietly like a blanket. “I made some niu ro mien,” she says. “It’s on the stove. Your baba’s in there.”

My stomach curls, but whether it’s from revulsion or hunger I can’t tell. “Thanks, ma,” I say. I find a bowl that’s almost clean and wash it out, ladling a generous portion of thick noodles for myself. The broth smells faintly of hongtashan tobacco, and as I force it down almost faster than I can swallow, someone else’s memories of my childhood flash before my eyes: pushing a small girl on a swing set at the park; laughing as she chases pigeons down the street; raising a hand for a second blow as her mother launches herself toward us, between us, teeth bared—

“How is it?” she says.

Foul. “Great,” I say. It settles my stomach, at least for a little while. But my baba was no Harvey, and I can already feel the hunger creeping back, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

“You ate something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you, Meimei.” My ma looks up at me for the first time since I walked in, and she looks almost as tired as I feel. “Why didn’t you learn from me? I taught you to stick to petty criminals. I taught you to stay invisible.”

She’d tried to teach me to disappear into myself, the way she’d disappeared into this apartment. “I know I messed up,” I tell her. “Nothing tastes good any more, and I’m always hungry. But I don’t know what to do.”

My ma sighs. “Once you’ve tasted a killer, there’s no turning back. You’ll crave that intensity until you die. And it can take a long time for someone like us to die, Meimei.”

It occurs to me that I don’t actually know how old my ma is. Her thoughts are old and covered in knots, stitched together from the remnants of other people’s experiences. How long has she been fighting this condition, these overwhelming, gnawing desires?

“Move back in,” she’s saying. “There’s so much tong activity here, the streets leak with food. You barely even have to go outside, just crack open a window and you can smell it brewing. The malice, the knives and bullets…”

The picture she paints makes me shudder, my mouth itching. “I can’t just leave everything, Ma,” I say. “I have my own life now.” And I can’t live in this apartment, with its lack of sunlight and fresh air, its thick stench of regret and malice.

“So what happens if you go back? You lose control, you take a bite out of Aiko?” She sees me stiffen. “That girl cares about you so much. The best thing you can do for her is keep away. Don’t let what happened to your father happen to Aiko.” She reaches for my hand, and I pull away. “Stay here, Meimei. We only have each other.”

“This isn’t what I want.” I’m backing up, and my shoulder bumps into the trash, threatening to bury us both in rotting stuffed animals. “This isn’t safe, Ma. You shouldn’t even stay here.”

My ma coughs, her eyes glinting in the dark. The cackling from her jar collection swells in a vicious tide, former lovers rocking back and forth on their shelves. “Someday you’ll learn that there’s more to life than being selfish, Meimei.”

That’s when I turn my back on her, pushing past the debris and bullshit her apartment’s stuffed with. I don’t want to die, but as far as I’m concerned, living like my ma, sequestered away from the rest of the world, her doors barricaded with heaps of useless trinkets and soured memories, is worse than being dead.

The jars leer and cackle as I go, and she doesn’t try to follow me.

The scent of Flushing clings to my skin, and I can’t wait to shake it off. I get on the train as soon as I can, and I’m back on Tindr as soon as the M passes above ground. Tears blur my eyes, rattling free with the movement of the train. I scrub them away angrily, and when my vision clears, I glance back at the screen. A woman with sleek, dark hair, slim tortoiseshell glasses, and a smile that seems a little shy, but strangely handsome, glows up at me. In the picture, she’s framed by the downtown cityscape. She has rounded cheeks, but there’s a strange flat quality to her face. And then, of course, there are the dreams shadowing her, so strong they leak from the screen in a thick, heady miasma. Every one of those myriad eyes is staring straight at me, and my skin prickles.

I scan the information on her profile page, my blood beating so hard I can feel my fingertips pulsing: relatively young-looking, but old enough to be my mother’s cousin. Likes: exploring good food, spending rainy days at the Cloisters, browsing used book stores. Location: Manhattan.

She looks a little like Aiko.

She’s quick to message me back. As we flirt, cold sweat and adrenaline send uncomfortable shivers through my body. Everything is sharper, and I can almost hear Harvey’s jar laughing. Finally, the words I’m waiting for pop up:

I’d love to meet you. Are you free tonight?

I make a quick stop-off back home, and my heart hammers as I get on the train bound for the Lower East Side, red lipstick immaculate and arms shaking beneath my crisp designer coat, a pair of Mom’s glass jars tucked in my purse.

* * *

Her name is Seo-yun, and as she watches me eat, her eyes flickering from my mouth to my throat, her smile is so sharp I could cut myself on it. “I love places like this,” she says. “Little authentic spots with only twelve seats. Have you been to Haru before?”

“I haven’t,” I murmur. My fingers are clumsy with my chopsticks, tremors clicking them together, making it hard to pick up my food. God, she smells delectable. I’ve never met someone whose mind is so twisted, so rich; a malignancy as well developed and finely crafted as the most elegant dessert.

I’m going to take her home and split her open like a—

I can already taste her on my tongue, the best meal I’ve never had.

“You’re in for a treat,” Seo-yun says as the waiter—the only other staff beside the chef behind the counter—brings us another pot of tea. “This restaurant started as a stall in a subway station back in Japan.”

“Oh wow,” I say. “That’s…amazing.”

“I think so, too. I’m glad they expanded into Manhattan.”

Behind her kind eyes, a gnarled mess of ancient, ugly thoughts writhes like the tails of a rat king. I’ve never seen so many in one place. They crawl from her mouth and ears, creeping through the air on deep-scaled legs, their voices like the drone of descending locusts.

I’m not her first. I can tell that already. But then, she isn’t mine, either.

I spend the evening sweating through my dress, nearly dropping my chopsticks. I can’t stop staring at the ugly thoughts, dropping from her lips like swollen beetles. They skitter over the tablecloth toward me, whispering obscenities at odds with Seo-yun’s gentle voice, hissing what they’d like to do to me. It takes everything in me not to pluck them from the table and crunch them deep between my teeth right then and there, to pour into her lap and rip her mind clean.

Seo-yun is too much for me, but I’m in too far, too hard; I need to have her.

She smiles at me. “Not hungry?”

I glance down at my plate. I’ve barely managed a couple of nigiri. “I’m on a diet,” I mutter.

“I understand,” she says earnestly. The ugly thoughts crawl over the tops of her hands, iridescent drops spilling into her soy sauce dish.

When the waiter finally disappears into the kitchen, I move in to kiss her across the table. She makes a startled noise, gentle pink spreading across her face, but she doesn’t pull away. My elbow sinks into the exoskeleton of one of the thought-beetles, crushing it into black, moist paste against my skin.

I open my mouth to take the first bite.

“So, I’m curious,” murmurs Seo-yun, her breath brushing my lips. “Who’s Aiko?”

My eyes snap open. Seo-yun smiles, her voice warm and tender, all her edges dark. “She seems sweet, that’s all. I’m surprised you haven’t had a taste of her yet.”

I back up so fast that I knock over my teacup, spilling scalding tea over everything. But Seo-yun doesn’t move, just keeps smiling that kind, gentle smile as her monstrous thoughts lap delicately at the tablecloth.

“She smells so ripe,” she whispers. “But you’re afraid you’ll ruin her, aren’t you? Eat her up, and for what? Just like your mum did your dad.”

No, no, no. I’ve miscalculated so badly. But I’m so hungry, and I’m too young, and she smells like ancient power. There’s no way I’ll be able to outrun her. “Get out of my head,” I manage to say.

“I’m not in your head, love. Your thoughts are spilling out everywhere around you, for everyone to see.” She leans in, propping her chin on her hand. The thoughts twisted around her head like a living crown let out a dry, rattling laugh. “I like you, Jenny. You’re ambitious. A little careless, but we can fix that.” Seo-yun taps on the table, and the waiter reappears, folding up the tablecloth deftly and sliding a single dish onto the now-bare table. An array of thin, translucent slices fan out across the plate, pale and glistening with malice. Bisected eyes glint, mouths caught mid-snarl, from every piece. “All it takes is a little practice and discipline, and no one will know what you’re really thinking.”

“On the house, of course, Ma’am,” the waiter murmurs. Before he disappears again, I catch a glimpse of dark, many-legged thoughts braided like a bracelet around his wrist.

Seo-yun takes the first bite, glancing up at me from behind her glasses. “Your mum was wrong,” she says. “She thought you were alone, just the two of you. So she taught you to only eat when you needed to, so you didn’t get caught, biding your time between meals like a snake.”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I say. The heady, rotten perfume from the dish in front of me makes my head spin with hunger.

“My mum was much the same. Eat for survival, not for pleasure.” She gestures at the plate with her chopsticks. “Please, have some.”

As the food disappears, I can only hold out for a few more slices before my chopsticks dart out, catching a piece for myself. It’s so acidic it makes my tongue burn and eyes itch, the aftertaste strangely sweet.

“Do you like it?”

I respond by wolfing down another two slices, and Seo-yun chuckles. Harvey is bland compared to this, this strangely distilled pairing of emotions—

I gasp as my body starts to warp, hands withering, burn scars twisting their way around my arms. Gasoline, malice, childish joy rush through me, a heady mix of memory and sensory overstimulation. And then Seo-yun’s lips are on mine, teeth tugging gently, swallowing, drawing it out of me. The burns fade, but the tingle of cruel euphoria lingers.

She wipes her mouth delicately. “Ate a little too fast, I think, dear,” she says. “My point, Jenny, is that I believe in eating for pleasure, not just survival. And communally, of course. There are a number of us who get together for dinner or drinks at my place, every so often, and I would love it if you would join us tonight. An eating club, of sorts.”

My gaze flickers up at her thoughts, but they’re sitting still as stones, just watching me with unblinking eyes. My mouth stings with the imprint of hers.

“Let me introduce you soon. You don’t have to be alone anymore.” As the waiter clears the plate and nods at her—no check, no receipt, nothing—Seo-yun adds, “And tonight doesn’t have to be over until we want it to be.” She offers me her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I take it. It’s smaller than mine, and warm.

“Yes, please,” I say, watching her thoughts instead of her face.

As we leave the restaurant, she presses her lips to my forehead. Her lips sear into my skin, nerves singing white-hot with ecstasy. “They’re going to love you,” she says.

We’ll have so much fun, say the thoughts curling through her dark hair.

She hails a cab from the fleet circling the street like wolves, and we get inside.

* * *

I run into Aiko two months later in front of my apartment, as I’m carrying the last box of my stuff out. She’s got a startled look on her face, and she’s carrying a bag stuffed with ramps, kaffir lime, heart of palm—all ingredients I wouldn’t have known two months ago, before meeting Seo-yun. “You’re moving?”

I shrug, staring over her head, avoiding her eyes. “Yeah, uh. I’m seeing someone now, and she’s got a really nice place.”

“Oh.” She swallows, shifts the bag of groceries higher on her hip. “That’s great. I didn’t know you were dating anybody.” I can hear her shaky smile. “She must be feeding you well. You look healthier.”

“Thanks,” I say, though I wonder. It’s true, I’m sleeker, more confident now. I’m barely home any more, spending most of my time in Seo-yun’s Chelsea apartment, learning to cook with the array of salts and spices infused with ugly dreams, drinking wine distilled from deathbed confessions. My time stalking the streets for small-time criminals is done. But why has my confidence evaporated the moment I see Aiko? And if that ravenous hunger from Harvey is gone, why am I holding my breath to keep from breathing in her scent?

“So what’s she like?”

“Older, kind of—” kind of looks like you “—short. Likes to cook, right.” I start to edge past her. “Listen, this box is heavy and the van’s waiting for me downstairs. I should go.”

“Wait,” Aiko says, grabbing my arm. “Your mom keeps calling me. She still has my number from…before. She’s worried about you. Plus I haven’t seen you in ages, and you’re just gonna take off?”

Aiko, small and humble. Her hands smell like home, like rice flour and bad memories. How could I ever have found that appealing?

“We don’t need to say goodbye. I’m sure I’ll see you later,” I lie, shrugging her off.

“Let’s get dinner sometime,” says Aiko, but I’m already walking away.

* * *

Caterers flit like blackbirds through the apartment, dark uniforms neatly pressed, their own ugly thoughts braided and pinned out of the way. It’s a two-story affair, and well-dressed people flock together everywhere there’s space, Seo-yun’s library upstairs to the living room on ground floor. She’s even asked the caterers to prepare some of my recipes, which makes my heart glow. “You’re the best,” I say, kneeling on the bed beside her and pecking her on the cheek.

Seo-yun smiles, fixing my hair. She wears a sleek, deep blue dress, and today, her murderous thoughts are draped over her shoulders like a stole, a living, writhing cape. Their teeth glitter like tiny diamonds. I’ve never seen her so beautiful. “They’re good recipes. My friends will be so excited to taste them.”

I’ve already met many of them, all much older than I am. They make me nervous. “I’ll go check on the food,” I say.

She brushes her thumb over my cheek. “Whatever you’d like, love.”

I escape into the kitchen, murmuring brief greetings to the guests I encounter on the way. Their hideous dreams adorn them like jewels, glimmering and snatching at me as I slip past. As I walk past some of the cooks, I notice a man who looks vaguely familiar. “Hey,” I say.

“Yes, ma’am?” The caterer turns around, and I realize where I’ve seen him; there’s a picture of him and Aiko on her cellphone, the pair of them posing in front of a display at a big event they’d cooked for. My heartbeat slows.

“Aren’t you Aiko’s coworker?”

He grins and nods. “Yes, I’m Jimmy. Aiko’s my business partner. Are you looking for her?”

“Wait, she’s here?”

He frowns. “She should be. She never misses one of Ms. Sun’s parties.” He smiles. “Ms. Sun lets us take home whatever’s left when the party winds down. She’s so generous.”

I turn abruptly and head for the staircase to the bedroom, shouldering my way through the crowd. Thoughts pelt me as I go: Has Aiko known about me, my ma, what we can do? How long has she known? And worse—Seo-yun’s known all along about Aiko, and played me for a fool.

I bang the bedroom door open to find Aiko sprawled out across the carpet, her jacket torn open. Seo-yun crouches on the floor above her in her glorious dress, her mouth dark and glittering. She doesn’t look at all surprised to see me.

“Jenny, love. I hope you don’t mind we started without you.” Seo-yun smiles. Her lipstick is smeared over her chin, over Aiko’s blank face. I can’t tell if Aiko’s still breathing.

“Get away from her,” I say in a low voice.

“As you wish.” She rises gracefully, crossing the room in fluid strides. “I was done with that particular morsel, anyway.” The sounds of the party leak into the room behind me, and I know I can’t run and grab Aiko at the same time.

So I shut the door, locking it, and mellow my voice to a sweet purr. “Why didn’t you tell me about Aiko? We could have shared her together.”

But Seo-yun just laughs at me. “You can’t fool me, Jenny. I can smell your rage from across the room.” She reaches out, catches my face, and I recoil into the door. “It makes you so beautiful. The last seasoning in a dish almost ready.”

“You’re insane, and I’m going to kill you,” I say. She kisses my neck, her teeth scraping my throat, and the scent of her is so heady my knees almost bend.

“I saw you in her head, delicious as anything,” she whispers. Her ugly thoughts hiss up my arms, twining around my waist. There’s a sharp sting at my wrist, and I look down to discover that one of them is already gnawing at my skin. “And I knew I just had to have you.”

There’s a crash, and Seo-yun screams as a porcelain lamp shatters against the back of her head. Aiko’s on her feet, swaying unsteadily, face grim. “Back the fuck away from her,” she growls, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You little bitch—” snarls Seo-yun.

But I seize my chance and pounce, fastening my teeth into the hollow of Seo-yun’s throat, right where her mantle of thoughts gathers and folds inward. I chew and swallow, chew and swallow, gorging myself on this woman. Her thoughts are mine now, thrashing as I seize them from her, and I catch glimpses of myself, of Aiko, and of many others just like us, in various states of disarray, of preparation.

Ma once told me that this was how Baba went; she’d accidentally drained him until he’d faded completely out of existence. For the first time in my life, I understand her completely.

Seo-yun’s bracelets clatter to the floor, her empty gown fluttering soundlessly after. Aiko collapses too, folding like paper.

It hurts to take in that much. My stomach hurts so bad, my entire body swollen with hideous thoughts. At the same time, I’ve never felt so alive, abuzz with possibility and untamable rage.

I lurch over to Aiko on the floor, malice leaking from her mouth, staining the carpet. “Aiko, wake up!” But she feels hollow, lighter, empty. She doesn’t even smell like herself any more.

A knock at the door jolts me. “Ma’am,” says a voice I recognize as the head caterer. “The first of the main courses is ready. Mr. Goldberg wants to know if you’ll come down and give a toast.”

Fuck. “I—” I start to say, but the voice isn’t mine. I glance over at the mirror; sure enough, it’s Seo-yun staring back at me, her dark, terrible dreams tangled around her body in a knotted mess. “I’ll be right there,” I say, and lay Aiko gently on the bed. Then I dress and leave, my heart pounding in my mouth.

I walk Seo-yun’s shape down the stairs to the dining room, where guests are milling about, plates in hand, and smile Seo-yun’s smile. And if I look a little too much like myself, well—according to what I’d seen while swallowing Seo-yun’s thoughts, I wouldn’t be the first would-be inductee to disappear at a party like this. Someone hands me a glass of wine, and when I take it, my hand doesn’t tremble, even though I’m screaming inside.

Fifty pairs of eyes on me, the caterers’ glittering cold in the shadows. Do any of them know? Can any of them tell?

“To your continued health, and to a fabulous dinner,” I say, raising my glass. As one, they drink.

* * *

Seo-yun’s apartment is dark, cleared of guests and wait staff alike. Every door is locked, every curtain yanked closed.

I’ve pulled every jar, every container, every pot and pan out of the kitchen, and now they cover the floor of the bedroom, trailing into the hallway, down the stairs. Many are full, their malignant contents hissing and whispering hideous promises at me as I stuff my hand in my mouth, retching into the pot in my lap.

Aiko lies on the bed, pale and still. There’s flour and bile on the front of her jacket. “Hang in there,” I whisper, but she doesn’t respond. I swirl the pot, searching its contents for any hint of Aiko, but Seo-yun’s face grins out at me from the patterns of light glimmering across the liquid’s surface. I shove it away from me, spilling some on the carpet.

I grab another one of the myriad crawling thoughts tangled about me, sinking my teeth into its body, tearing it into pieces as it screams and howls terrible promises, promises it won’t be able to keep. I eat it raw, its scales scraping the roof of my mouth, chewing it thoroughly. The more broken down it is, the easier it will be to sort through the pieces that are left when it comes back up.

How long did you know? Did you always know?

I’ll find her, I think as viscous black liquid pours from my mouth, over my hands, burning my throat. The field of containers pools around me like a storm of malicious stars, all whispering my name. She’s in here somewhere, I can see her reflection darting across their surfaces. If I have to rip through every piece of Seo-yun I have, from her dreams to the soft, freckled skin wrapped around my body, I will. I’ll wring every vile drop of Seo-yun out of me until I find Aiko, and then I’ll fill her back up, pour her mouth full of herself.

How could I ever forget her? How could I forget her taste, her scent, something as awful and beautiful as home?

The Fisher Queen

“The Fisher Queen” originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/Jun 2014.

* * *

My mother was a fish. That’s why I can swim so well, according to my father, who is a plain fisherman with a fisherman’s plain logic, but uncanny flair for the dramatic. And while it’s true I can cut through the water like a minnow, or a hand dipped over the edge of a speedboat, I personally think it’s because no one can grow up along the Mekong without learning two things: how to swim, and how to avoid the mermaids.

Mermaids, like my father’s favorite storytale version of my mother, are fish. They aren’t people. They are stupid like fish, they eat your garbage like fish, they sell on the open market like fish. Keep your kids out of the water, keep your trash locked up, and if they come close to land, scream a lot and bang pots together until they startle away. They’re pretty basic.

My sisters tried to talk to a mermaid once. It was caught up in one of Dad’s trammel nets, and when they went to check the net out back behind the house, they found this mermaid tangled in it. It was a freshwater one, a bottom-feeder, with long, sparse hair whose color my sisters still argue about to this day. Iris, the oldest, felt bad for it and made May splash some water on its fluttery gills with her red plastic pail. She asked the mermaid if it was okay, what its name was. But it just stared at her with its stupid sideways fish eyes, mouth gaping open and closed with mud trickling out over its whiskers. Then Dad came home and yelled at Iris and May for bringing in the nets too early and touching the mermaid, which probably had sea lice and all kinds of other diseases.

I was just a kid then, but my sisters tell that story all the time. Iris is a marine biologist wannabe, almost done with high school but too dumb to go to university, who lectures us on fishes like we haven’t been around them our whole lives. She sleeps with the biology textbook I stole from the senior honor kids’ classroom under her pillow. May doesn’t give a shit about school and will probably get married to one of the boys living along the dock so she doesn’t have to repeat tenth grade again. The mermaid is one of those shared childhood memories they have, a little spark of magic from a time when they still believed that our mom really was a fish and maybe that mermaid was a cousin or something.

But I’m fifteen now, a full-fledged deckhand on a trawler and too old to be duped by some story Dad made up so he wouldn’t have to explain why our very human mom took off and dumped the three of us with him. I don’t care about stories of kids touching a glorified catfish either. It actually makes me sad, to think that my sisters really believed that our mom could be a dumb animal like that mermaid.

* * *

I’m lacing up my boots and getting ready to leave for the boat when May flops down from the top bunk, her black hair tumbling over my face. “Here.” She fumbles for her necklace and presses her carved-shell Buddha into my palm. “Come back safe, okay?”

I slip the waxed string over my head. It’s still dark out; the sun won’t be up for another few hours. “Yeah, of course. Go to sleep.”

She gathers the sheets up around her, their folds cresting like the ocean’s breakers. “I mean it, Lily,” she mutters. “Don’t come back a ghost.”

I tuck the dangling tail of her blanket under her belly. Iris, snoring on the bottom bunk, doesn’t even stir. “Ghosts are silly,” I tell May, grabbing my knapsack from where it hangs on the edge of the bed. Our little house is only two rooms, a blue tin roof over bedroom and kitchen, balancing on stilts above the river. Dad’s bedroll is gone, so I figure he’s aboard Pakpao already. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

I always check the nets out back for any fish that might have wandered in overnight, drawn by the ripe scent of trash. They’re empty tonight, no silver tilapia or pacu with their human teeth. No spindly-armed mermaids, either. I let the nets slip back into the water and trot down the walkway that connects the neighborhood of ramshackle houses above the river, wooden boards yawning underfoot. The green, thick smell of the river creeps up over the piers, rising into the night sky.

Our rickety trawler, Pakpao, waits at the edge of the docks, the crew drifting through the moonlight like specters. Pakpao looks like a child’s toy boat built out of scrap metal and blown up to the twentieth scale. Colored flags flicker in the damp wind, and rust creeps up the ship’s sides. My father’s stout, compact figure crouches over the nets, winding them up.

“Hey, Lily,” says Ahbe as I jog up the pier. At nineteen, he’s the deckhand closest to my age. “Ready for another four days at sea?”

“You must be feeling lucky if you think we’ll fill the hold and make it back home in four days,” grumbles Sunan, hauling a crate of plastic floats past us. His shirt has wandered off somewhere. “Cook’s looking for you, Ahbe. He wants to know what happened to the other batch of rice.”

“Gan was supposed to bring it in,” complains Ahbe, but he disappears downstairs anyway. Taking my cue, I follow Sunan to the nets.

Dad doesn’t look up from his work, patting the deck beside him for Sunan to drop off the crate. I sink down next to it, crossing my legs and pulling the nets into my lap. When the light’s better, it’ll be my job to fix the floaters and the heavy bobbins to the net’s mouth, widening it to span the surface of the river and weighing the bottom layer down to skim the mud below.

“I tried to wake you but you were fast asleep,” Dad says. He sounds apologetic. “Captain Tanawat wanted me here early to double-check the motor and our course to the ocean. Monsoon weather makes the fish finicky.”

I glance at him. My dad’s shoulders pump as he draws in the last of the nets. He’s the strongest, slyest fisherman I know. Someday, I want to be just like him. “Even the deep-water species?”

“Even those.” Dad sighs and lets the nets pool at his feet, kneeling beside me. His weathered hands coax the nylon strands out of their knots. “We might not find any mermaids for a week.”

“I don’t mind missing school,” I say. “I’d rather be here with you.” This is better than school, I figure; the algebra of the nets, the geometry of Pakpao out at sea, are more valuable lessons to me.

Dad smiles and ruffles my hair. “You’re a good girl, Lily.” Standing, he unclips his pocket flashlight from his belt and hands it to me. “I need to make sure we have enough ice in the hold, but you might as well start on the nets now.”

As he walks toward the cabin, I twist the flashlight on and grip the metal handle between my teeth, working in the small circle of electric light. I tie on the plastic floats and metal bobbins until the sky lightens and Ahbe hurtles from the kitchen. “We’re leaving! Are the nets ready?”

“Just about,” I reply. “They’ll be ready by the time we need ‘em.”

He grins, raking back his hair. “Awesome. I’ll let Captain Tanawat know that we’re all set!” He dashes off again, thin brown limbs flashing. I wonder if May will marry Ahbe out of all the fishing boys. I think he would be a good choice.

The motors roar, churning the green water below. Other ships are pulling into the docks, unloading their catches of basa, perch, and stingray for the fish market starting to construct itself on the shore. I don’t see any mermaids on sale, not even the pesky local catfish ones. Maybe they’re saving them for international markets.

Pakpao barely clears the heavy-limbed trees clustered by the riverside, their branches drenched with musky river-scent. I duck, keeping my attention on the nets. By the time I finish fixing on the last bobbin and remember to look up, our stork-legged village has disappeared from sight.

* * *

The monsoon rains catch us an hour into the journey downriver, so we don’t end up letting out the nets until the next day, when we’re almost at the delta that opens up into the sea. Dad, Sunan, Ahbe, and I work together, feeding out the bottom nets with their bobbins first, then the large central net, and finally the top nets. The nylon stings my fingers as it’s yanked through the water, but I won’t complain, not in front of Dad and the others. I’d rather nurse my wounds in private.

It isn’t long before the nets grow heavy. Pacu, carp, lots and lots of catfish. We pack them into coolers full of ice, where they’ll stay until we return home, and send Ahbe and Sunan to cart them down to the hold. No mermaids yet; maybe they’ve been scared into deeper water by the storms.

“Fuckin’ hell,” mutters Sunan as we drop the nets back into the water. “Not even a fuckin’ mud-eater. At this rate, everything in the hold’s gonna spoil before we catch anything good.”

“Be patient,” hums my father. The river mouth is widening, and salt cuts through the thick, live smell of the water below. “There will be plenty in the open sea.”

“The better kinds,” adds Ahbe, as Sunan casts him a sour look. “Tigerfish, lionfish, yellowfin—”

“I know what brings in the money,” Sunan snaps. I keep my head down and focus on the nets. “I don’t need you to name all the fish in the sea, kid.”

The two of them bicker as the river empties into the ocean, trees and thick foliage giving way to an expanse of open sky. It always scares me, how exposed everything is at sea. At the same time, it thrills me. I find myself drawn to Pakpao’s rail, the sea winds tossing my hair free from its braids. The breakers roll against the trawler, and as we buck over the waves, the breath is torn from my lungs and replaced with sheer exhilaration.

When we pull the nets in the next morning, they are so heavy that we have to recruit the cook to help us haul them onto the ship. There are a few tuna, bass, and even a small shark, but the bulk of it is squirming, howling mermaids. As we yank the nets onto the deck, bobbins clattering over the planks, I realize that we’ve caught something strange.

Most of the mermaids tangled in the nets are pale, with silvery tails and lithe bodies. This one is dark brown, its lower body thick, blobby, and inelegant, tapering to a blunt point instead of a single fin. Its entire body is glazed with a slimy coating, covered in spines and frondlike appendages. Rounded, skeletal pods hang from its waist, each about the size of an infant.

Worse, this fish has an uncannily human face, with a real chin and defined neck. While all of the mermaids I’d seen before had wide-set eyes on either side of their heads, this one’s eyes—huge and white, like sand dollars—are positioned on the front of its head. And unlike the other mermaids, gasping and thrashing and shrieking on the deck—there are few things worse than a mermaid’s scream—this one lies still, gills slowly pulsing.

“We got a deep-sea one,” breathes Sunan.

Ahbe crouches over the net, mouth agape. When he reaches his hand out, my father barks, “Don’t touch it!” and yanks Ahbe’s arm away. His body is tense, and when the mermaid smiles—it smiles, like a person—its jaws unhinge to reveal several rows of long, needlelike teeth.

I can’t stop staring. The mermaid has a stunted torso with short, thin arms and slight curvature where a human woman would have breasts, but no nipples. This shocks me more than it should; why would a fish have nipples? Heat rises in my face. I feel exposed, somehow, fully clothed though I am.

“Wow,” Ahbe says. His eyes are shining like he’s never seen a deep-sea mermaid before. Maybe he hasn’t. I haven’t either. “We’re gonna make a lot of money off of this one, huh?”

“If you don’t lose a hand to it,” my father replies. The other mermaids are wailing still, the last of the seawater trickling from their gills in short, sharp gasps. “Let’s bring them below. Do your best not to damage them; we need as much of the meat intact for the buyers as we can get.”

We descend on the net with ropes and hooks. The brown mermaid’s eyes are blind windows, like an anglerfish’s, but her face follows me as we move around the deck, securing the mermaids, pinning their delicate arms to their torsos so they won’t shatter their wrists in their panicked flailing. Once they’re bound, Dad and Sunan lift them and carry them down to the hold. With Ahbe packing the other fish into coolers, I draw close to the deep-sea mermaid, rope in hand.

That mouth opens, and I swear—I swear to god, or gods, or whatever is out there—a word hisses out: “Luk.”

I drop the rope and stumble away. Ahbe’s at my side in an instant. “Shit! Lily, did it hurt you?” He grabs my hands, turning my arms over. “Did you get bitten?”

The pods at her waist clatter and air whistles between her teeth. She is laughing at me as they bind her and drag her down to the hold. “Luk. Luk. Luk.”

Daughter.

My belly burns. I can’t stop shaking.

* * *

On Pakpao, we keep most of the catch frozen, but mermaids are a peculiar, temperamental meat. You have to keep them alive or the flesh goes bad. In fact, it goes bad so quickly that some places have created delicacies based on rotten mermaid because of how impossible it is to get fresh cuts in non-coastal towns. The Japanese traders who visit our village have great saltwater tanks installed in their ships which they load up with live mermaids, carted straight from the holds of wet trawlers like ours. From there, they’re shipped to restaurants, which take great pains to sustain them. Still, they rarely last more than two weeks in captivity, which means there’s always a market for fishermen like us.

Mermaid is a cash crop. Iris, May, and I wouldn’t have been able to go to school if not for the ridiculous amounts of money people are willing to pay to eat certain cuts of mermaid species—not the catfish mermaids from the river, but the ones harvestable on the open sea. These are the people who say that the soft, fatty tissue of a deep-sea mermaid is the most succulent luxury meat you will ever taste: like otoro but creamier, better. There are others who claim it’s the thrill of the forbidden that makes mermaid taste so good. I had a classmate once who told me that eating mermaid, especially the torso, is the closest to eating human meat you’ll ever get.

The truth is, I fucking hate mermaids. I can’t stand them. I would never tell Iris or May this, but mermaids scare me. Their empty eyes, their parasite-ridden bodies, their almost-hands, almost-human faces…they are the most disgusting, terrifying fish I’ve ever seen. There is nothing about them that I like.

I can’t even eat them. Once, for May’s birthday, Dad brought home a thin slab of silver-scaled kapong mer-tail for us to share. It was the most expensive food we’d ever had, and it tasted like plaster in my mouth. May and Iris wouldn’t shut up about how delicious the white flesh was. I wadded mine in rice and choked it down, knowing that Dad had spent a large chunk of his last catch’s salary on this special birthday feast. He liked to spoil us whenever he got the chance.

* * *

The mermaids in the hold won’t stop whimpering. I can hear the high-pitched, teakettle sounds through the walls of the ship as I lie in my hammock with my hands over my ears, trying to sleep. It’s a noise they make under stress, according to Iris. Something about air whistling through their gills and the vibrations deep in their bodies.

I don’t fucking care why they’re making the noise. I just want it to stop.

It’s even harder to sleep because I keep thinking about that brown, spiny mermaid. Those blind, luminous, predatory eyes. The unhinged jaw, the tapered waist, the brief curves on her chest. The scent of her skin, salty and alien.

Luk.

I swallow.

Sunan and Ahbe are gone, taking the night shift on deck. Across the room, Cook and Dad are asleep. The electric lantern swaying overhead isn’t doing anyone good, so I snag it and hop from my hammock, slipping quietly out of the cabin.

As I pad down the stairway to the hold, the whimpering gets louder until it’s a fevered whine in my head. I imagine the brown mermaid laughing, floating in the water. Too soon, I’m on the landing at the bottom of the stairs, my sweaty palm on the metal door’s cold handle. I pull it open.

The hold is full of seawater, coolers of frozen fish bobbing up and down with the outside waves. The mermaids swim in confused circles, making distressed cooing noises. They are tethered to metal rings on the wall, thick twine wrapped around their delicate baby wrists and hooked into the sides of their mouths. A mermaid whose body is mostly muscle, long and heavy like an arapaima, surfaces with a treble hook stabbed through its cheek and disappears back into the water without a ripple.

Sunan is kneeling by the wall, the rocking motion of Pakpao slopping fake waves up to his chest. At first I think he’s hurt because there’s blood in the water nearby; the mermaids keep circling closer, keening when the hooks and tethers prevent them from reaching him. Then I realize the pale crescent disappearing in and out of the water is his ass. His pants hang on a ring nearby, their ankles drenched in seawater, and he’s holding something down as he rocks back and forth, back and forth. It’s not the ship rocking, it’s him. A thin, clawed hand slashes over his shoulder; he swears, the sound echoing, and slaps whatever’s underneath him. A heavy silver tail thrashes the water.

A hand grabs my shoulder from behind and I almost scream. I’m pulled backward, the door to the hold clicking shut in front of me.

“Don’t watch, Lily,” Dad says in that low voice he puts on whenever he wants to protect me. My blood boils, fear and anger and adrenaline roaring through my system. “Go back upstairs and pretend you never saw any of this.”

“They’re fish!” I snarl. “What the hell is Sunan doing? This is all kinds of wrong. They’re not even people, they’re just goddamn fish!”

“It happens on ships sometimes,” Dad says, and I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “It doesn’t hurt the meat.” He looks straight at me, those serene dark eyes unfamiliar for the first time in my life. “I didn’t want you to know until you were older, but I suppose you were bound to find out sooner or later.”

“You knew?” I whisper. “Does everyone on this ship know?”

My father sighs. “Go upstairs and don’t think about it.”

I have this horrible epiphany. Dad used to have his own boat too, long ago. Mermaids are common enough; even the big ones could fit in a bathtub. He could have kept them alive, feeding them, fucking them—is his story about Mom just that, a story? Or is it true that he kept a fish for himself, hurting it—raping it—until it gave him three daughters? Or was there more than one fish? I think of the dumb, mud-mouthed catfish mermaids that drift into our nets behind the house sometimes, and my stomach turns.

“Have you been fucking them, too?” The words spill out before I can stop them.

“Lily, go upstairs.” His voice has gone cold and dangerous.

“This is really sick, Dad,” I manage.

“I’m not going to tell you again,” he says, and when he looks at me, I wish he hadn’t.

I go.

* * *

My mother was not a fish. My mother was a warm, human woman. I am certain of this, even if I cannot remember her at all.

There was a story I heard once about a man who got his dick bitten off by a catfish. He was peeing in the water and the catfish followed the stream of urine straight to his dick, crunched it right off.

This was our second-favorite story growing up, after the story about our mom, and now that Iris is an almost-biologist, she likes to tell us smugly that it’s the ammonia in pee that attracts fish, something about tracking prey through the ammonia leaking from their gills. I don’t know if this is true. But I’ve felt the crushing power of a catfish’s jaws, the bony plates on my arm while I wrestled them down to the hold. The catfish in the Mekong are huge, bigger than me. I am learning, as I get older, that many things are bigger than me.

In her second year of high school, Iris shut down. She stopped going to school, staying curled up in bed all day, and at night she would cry in her sleep. She wouldn’t talk about what had happened, but I found out from May, who knew some of Iris’s friends, that one of the boys at her school had followed Iris into a broom closet when they were cleaning up the classroom together. He was a close friend, a big, heavyset guy with short hair and glasses, but Iris would flinch whenever someone mentioned his name.

As I lie in my hammock, I think about catfish. I think about crushing mouths, crushing holds. All the while, the brown mermaid’s scent and voice sing in my blood, pulling it, tugging and setting it aflame.

I swing my legs over the side of my hammock and slip out of the sleeping quarters, taking the lantern with me.

Ahbe is making his way up the stairs as I descend, and he stops me with a laugh and a hand out against the wall. “What are you doing up so late, Lily?”

I look at him, that fire a cold burn in my chest. His shirt is hastily buttoned, his knees damp with seawater. “I’m going to check on the fish,” I say. The words feel flat in the wet, stifling air.

“I just did that,” Ahbe says. “They’re fine. Nothing’s spoiled; we should be able to get them to the market by tomorrow.”

“No. I want to see the mermaids,” I tell him, deliberately, and his face changes.

“I didn’t know you knew about that,” he says. “You’re too young to go down to the hold by yourself.”

“I’m fifteen,” I say. I think about the way my dad talks, the rich, strong core of his voice, and I channel that as I add, “I’m old enough to decide what I want. And I want a mermaid.”

Ahbe stares at me in the lantern light, and I can see his resolve wavering. “I guess it’s all right,” he mutters. “I was fifteen too the first time I had a mermaid. Just be careful—they bite.” He sucks in his cheek. “I didn’t take you for a tom, though.”

I knock his arm out of my way and he laughs. “Go to bed, Ahbe,” I snap. “You’re stupid. I’ll lock up the hold when I’m done.”

He tosses me the keys before he vanishes up the stairs, and I’m left alone in front of the heavy metal door to the hold.

It’s impossible to be a fish’s daughter. It’s almost as impossible as believing that your father is a monster.

I open the door and walk inside. Another set of stairs descends from the doorway, disappearing underwater after the third step. The mermaids appear to have calmed down a little, the surface of the water no longer choppy with tails. Only the slowly moving tethers stretching from the wall mark their presence beneath the waves.

I raise the lantern slowly across the room, searching for the brown mermaid. There: I catch a glimpse of her white eyes peeking just above the water. She is bound tight against the wall, tighter than any of the other fish. To get to her, I will need to wade across the hold.

I take a deep breath and shuck off my clothes before descending into the water. It’s freezing cold; the shock, the new weightlessness of my body, shoot thrills of adrenaline and terror through me. The mermaids dart away from my legs, smooth contact of scales against skin as they brush by. I walk faster, purposefully. I remember the fins and teeth on some of the tigerfish mermaids we caught earlier today. Maybe if I’m confident, they’ll think I’m a predator and stay away.

By the time I reach the brown mermaid, I’m shivering and my body is pebbled with goosebumps. The lantern wobbles in my hand, casting an orange glimmer over the rippling waves.

The mermaid surfaces, her chin just brushing the water. I can see her spines, the pods and fronds, and the rest of her soft, blobby body floating with the motion of the ship.

A sound hisses through her teeth, and it’s a moment before I can understand what she’s saying. “The girl-child.”

“I’m not a child,” I find myself saying through chattering teeth.

She smiles, blind eyes glowing silver in the darkness. “No, no child. What is your name, luk?”

In all of those European myths we had to read in school, they made it clear that you should never give your name to a faerie. But this is just a fish.

“Lily,” I say. I wish I had pockets to put my hands in. “Why do you keep calling me luk?” Why can you talk? I want to ask, but the breath is sucked back into my lungs. I am afraid of the answer.

Her arms are stick-thin, tipped with delicate toddler-hands and bound above her head. “Let me go and I’ll tell you.”

“Fat chance,” I say. “I didn’t come down here to get eaten by a fish.”

She clicks her jaws. “It is the other way around, no? You eat the fish.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

The mermaid laughs at me. “And are you content with the way things are supposed to be, luk?” Perhaps she smells my hesitation, hears my grip tighten on the lantern, because she softens her voice to a deep hum. “I will not hurt you. Let me go and I will tell you everything you want to know.”

Maybe it’s because I want to believe her so badly, maybe it’s the fire singing deep in my body, maybe it’s the image of Sunan in the water on top of a mermaid; before I really know what I’m doing, my fingers are picking out the knots attaching her tethers to the ring above her head.

As soon as the last knot slips undone, her hand snaps out, lightning quick, snagging my chin. The twine tethers still attached to her wrists lash against my bare chest. The lantern bumps against her head as she draws close and licks my face, her tongue cold, alien, and rubbery. Her teeth are inches from my eyes.

“Are you really my mother?” I whisper.

The mermaid’s tongue sweeps across my forehead, down my nose, and across my mouth before retracting. “Ah,” she sighs. “Not my broodling. No, I would remember one like you.” That childlike hand is nightmarishly strong. “But you are ours nonetheless. You taste like the ocean, not like the stinking land above.” She lets go of my chin, but I don’t back away. “I would grant you a boon, luk, in place of your mother. But I must have a bite of your flesh to make it true.”

Dad used to tell us an old tale about a magic fish that granted wishes if you caught it and released it back into the sea. I don’t remember this part of the story.

Her baby-fingers trickle across my shoulder. “Right here. It will not hurt much.”

A hysterical laugh bubbles up inside me. I am standing naked in the hold surrounded by mermaids, talking to a magic fish. What am I afraid of? I have had worse injuries; I can handle a single bite. I am an adult now.

I open my mouth to ask her for enough money to get off this stinking boat, enough gold to drown a sailor in, to drown all of the sailors in. I open it to ask about my mother, if she knows her or can find her or bring her back. If my mother is alive or dead. Whether she was human or fish, truly.

But then I think of my sisters: Iris, shaking beneath her blankets and clutching the biology textbook like a magic charm, and May, who had given me hers to protect me at sea. I remember that there are more important things. I think about the people who hurt my sisters, who could hurt them, about the boy in the broom closet and Sunan in the hold. About my father on landing, his eyes bitter cold.

I tell the mermaid my real wish.

She grants it.

* * *

There are many versions of this story, each with a different ending.

In one, I swim away with the brown mermaid. The sun wavers in a jagged disk overhead, glinting in strange scintillations. The water is cold, the pressure enormous. It pushes in on my billowy body, still tender, pressing it into a tighter, sleeker shape. Our tiny, delicate hands are locked tight as we dive deeper into the ocean.

In another, a large storm scuttles Pakpao, along with all the other fishing boats in the area, on the reefs by Teluk Siam. The hold cracks, allowing the mermaids to escape. Everyone survives and is discovered days later. The rest of the story is fairly uneventful, equally implausible, and made up by people who care more for happy endings than truth.

But here is what really happens. The brown mermaid disappears and Pakpao makes it safely home with a hold full of live mermaids. If the crew looks a bit dazed and disoriented, if they are not quite themselves and walk as if they are not used to having two legs, it is just the result of sunstroke. If the mermaids in the hold swim in frantic circles, their eyes rolling wildly in their heads and their wails ricocheting through the hold, it is just what fish do. After all, mermaids are fish, not people. The Japanese traders find the catch acceptable and the mermaids are transported by tank to restaurants across Hokkaido. We make a huge profit.

With the exception of yours truly, every member of Pakpao’s crew drowns within a week of returning home. Though I live, our family does not escape this tragedy unscathed; my father’s body is found floating in the nets behind the house. A joint funeral is held. Sunan’s widow speaks tearfully about how her late husband stopped talking after his last fishing trip and had spent the days before his death trying to walk into the river, a story that resonates with the families of the recently deceased.

My sisters weep, their futures secure. I weep, too, licking the salt from my tears. There is a bandage on my shoulder and a bite beneath that will not heal.

Santos de Sampaguitas

Santos de Sampaguitas was first published in October 2014 in Strange Horizons.

* * *

The dead god descends on me as I sleep, the way it did my mother the night before my conception, and my grandmother before that. Even with my dream-eyes shut, I know it’s there; the weight of folded limbs on my body threatens to crush my ribs, and I can smell the wreaths of sweet sampaguita hanging from its neck.

“Go away po,” I tell it, adding the honorific since Nanay always taught me not to be rude to gods. “I’m having a good dream for once.” I usually have nightmares during bangungot, trapped halfway between sleep and waking, unable to push my way fully to either side. The pressure on my chest, the terrible prescience that something very bad is about to happen, and the sound of distant screaming, like a boiling saucepan of human voices, are too familiar to me. But tonight there is only a pleasant floating sensation, fresh from a dream of flying over the oceans cresting Manila.

Cool, smooth fingers push my eyelids open. Just as my mother told me, the dead god dresses like a saint, all in chipped white paint and dried offerings, braided together on cheap twine. It is man-shaped, though it is neither a man nor a woman. Even though it has no skin or flesh, the stench of rotting lechon assaults my nostrils.

Magandang gabi, my child, it whispers. Blessed evening, Maria, my heir.

“You have the wrong Reyes sister,” I tell the dead god. “If you’re talking blessings and inheritance, find Silvia po. She’s two years older.”

It lowers its bone-pale head, and kisses my hand. The waking dream ripples around me, and my beautiful, healthy dream-arm evaporates, shriveling and twisting into a withered claw. My real arm. I do not make mistakes, says the dead god. You wear my mark, like your nanay and your lola and many others before you. It cradles my mangled hand gently, lacing its fingers through mine. I chose you, just as I chose them. Therefore you are mine, Christina Maria Reyes, are you not?

I fight the sleep paralysis enough to snatch my hand out of the dead god’s grasp, but when I try to cradle it to my chest, my limb flops against me like a useless wing.

“Why are you here?” I shout. The shrill boiling sound has started up again, a high wail in the distance. “Nanay promised you wouldn’t show yourself to me until I was grown. I’ve still got years! Besides, Nanay is your disciple right now, not me.”

No, says the god. It has no eyes in its empty, hollow face, but somehow it manages to look away. Not any more. Your mother is dead.

The waking dream shatters. I bolt upright in my bed, drenched in cold sweat. The dead god is gone. My sister sleeps quietly, tucked next to me in our small, wooden bed; none of the other maids in the room are awake, either.

It takes me almost a minute to realize that the teakettles I’ve been hearing are my own high-pitched, muffled whine, and that my lap is damp with tears.

* * *

My sister is draped in piña, in the middle of the Calderones’ living room, trying to avoid the dressmaker’s pins and the American ma’ams’ glares. The thin piña cloth shimmers over her dark hair like a halo, and she reminds me of the fresco of The Holy Mother, on the wall of Saint Peter of Makati’s chapel, only rounder and shorter. But she has the Holy Mother’s same expression of inner contentment and peace. All of the bladed comments and piña in the world would not be enough to hide Silvia’s inner glow.

“I don’t know why we’re paying for this wedding,” says Ma’am Chitti. She is sprawled out on the couch, neck beading with sweat, vying for a spot in front of the electric fan. Her voice rings loud over the dressmaker’s muttered measurements, uncaring of who hears. We maids, standing in the corners of the room, are all but invisible. “I don’t know why there’s going to be a wedding at all.”

“It’s because he got her pregnant, the idiot.” Ma’am Margarita flaps a newspaper in front of her face to create a fake breeze, and snaps her fingers at me. “Water,” she orders without looking. “With ice.” To her sister, she says, “If he was going to be fucking the maids, especially the under-aged ones, he should have at least used protection.”

“It’s harder to get, here,” says Ma’am Chitti. “Kasi Catholic.”

I dip out of the room with a soft, “Yes, Ma’am Margarita,” and pad to the kitchen. My withered right arm is tucked beneath my apron, so as not to offend any onlookers’ sight.

“Mom should just send her back to the province where she came from. Get rid of her, and let her have the baby there.” Ma’am Margarita’s voice chases me down the hall, and I bite my bottom lip so hard that my teeth threaten to break the skin.

I have not told Silvia about our mother. I will keep it buried deep inside myself, a dark, jagged hole. Maybe I will tell her after the wedding. Maybe I won’t at all. After all, with no cell phone service back home, and a postal service that takes ages and loses more letters than it delivers to the provinces, how could I know such a thing?

Stepping into the kitchen at midday is like wading through a cloud of steam. Even the ceiling fan on its highest setting can’t cut through the oppressive heat trapped in the room. Two of the other maids, Jene and Vicky, glance up from the stove, where they’re making sinigang. “How’s it going in there, Tintin?” Jene asks me.

“It’s fine,” I mumble. I keep my body angled away from them, as I slip my right arm out of my apron, and use my wrist to open the cupboard where we keep the glassware. My hand works just fine, even if I can’t use my fingers to grip things. I know my arm scares other people, though, and even the other maids still stare, when they think I’m not looking. I’m always looking. “Silvia’s getting fitted for her wedding dress, and the ma’ams are making a big deal out of it.”

“It is a big deal!” chirps Vicky. Before I know it, she’s dropped the ice bucket on the counter next to me, the top already propped open. “You only get married once. And especially a maid, getting married to Sir Carlos—”

“It’s no wonder they’re pissed,” says Jene. “Your sister’s a nice girl, Tintin, but she’s a probinsyana like us. They want a high-class bride for their brother.”

“You don’t have to remind me.” I slam down a glass a little too hard, and the others flinch. Sometimes I wonder if they are scared of me, even though I am five years younger than Vicky, and two younger than Silvia. My mother, small and dark-skinned, has the same effect on people.

My mother. My stomach turns.

“Tin,” calls Ma’am Loretta, her voice muffled through her bedroom door, adjunct to the kitchen. “Tin, I need you here right now!”

“I’ll be right there po,” I shout from the kitchen. Hurriedly balancing the glass of water and its coaster on a tray, I ferry it to Ma’am Margarita in the living room, stepping carefully over the train of my sister’s dress. Ma’am Margarita takes it without a word, and I dash back to Ma’am Loretta’s room. Tucking the tray under my arm, I knock on her door. “Ma’am?”

“Come in, Tin.”

Ma’am Loretta, matriarch of the Calderones, lies on her bed in near-darkness. All of the curtains are drawn; only a single clip reading lamp lights her face. The shelves lining her room are covered in wooden carvings of saints, each adorned with wreaths of dried, dead sampaguitas. The air is perfumed with their stench.

I do not know how old Ma’am Loretta is, but if my own grandmother was still alive—if she’d had a normal life, without the interference and patronage of the dead god—I think she would be almost as old as Ma’am Loretta.

Ma’am Loretta beckons me over. “I have a special task for you, Tin. I need you to go to the jeweler’s for me.” Her voice is low, as she hands me a small wooden box. I cradle it in the crook of my right arm, flipping the latch open with my left hand. My breath catches in my throat when I see what’s inside.

The Calderone arrhae lies on a pillow of blue velvet, a ring of thirteen gold-dipped coins, strung together like a crown. I’ve never seen this ancient family treasure, but I’ve heard of it: four-peso coins engraved in Spanish lettering, kept away from outsiders’ eyes, passed down and used in every Calderone wedding since the first, in the 1800s.

“The color’s gotten tarnished, see?” She lifts the arrhae and shows me a series of dark spots on the underside of the coins. “Go to Manila Jeweler’s, above the tiangge, and get it re-dipped. It needs to look good for my son’s wedding.” She lets the arrhae fall back onto the pillow. “Salma’s my suki there; tell her to give you a good price in my name.”

I can’t believe she wants me, of all people, to hold onto the Calderone arrhae. Me, with only one strong, healthy hand to hold. But I do not mention this. “Yes, Ma’am Loretta.”

She presses an envelope into my hand; inside is a thin, crisp stack of hundred-peso bills. I swallow hard and look into her eyes. Age clouds their edges milky blue, but at their core, they are mahogany-hard.

“I trust you, Tin,” Ma’am Loretta tells me. “More than I trust anyone else in this house. Don’t break that trust.”

“I won’t po,” I say.

I can’t escape from the room fast enough.

* * *

A ten-minute jeepney ride becomes thirty with traffic, but I make it to Greenhills without incident. Pushing my way through the tiangge, with the arrhae box tucked in a pouch beneath my blouse, is harder. The market writhes with people, flooding in and out of makeshift booths, pushing past the vendors shouting, “Ma’am! Bags! Wallets!”

My sister hates this place, but I adore it. There is a lovely anonymity among the crush of humanity in the tiangge; people are pressed too close to care about small things like a withered arm or a damaged face, anything but: “T-shirts, 300, Ma’am! Hairclips, 25 pesos, Ma’am!”

Climbing the steps to the jewelers’ alley, I let the security guard check my purse. He doesn’t think to check the pouch around my neck. They never do. The jewelers’ alley sprawls before me in a sea of glass cases and glittering stones, almost all of which are real. You could drown in opulence here.

“Manila Jeweler’s?” I ask the security guard. He points me toward a stall in the corner, with a big, plastic banner reading: sale. It seems largely abandoned, but a single figure is tucked at a desk, behind the large display counter. At first, I think that person is a girl, but then I realize he’s a boy my own age, with very long black hair. Most of that hair is tied in back in a ponytail, falling well beyond his waist.

I clear my throat. “Salma?”

He glances up at me through stray strands of dark hair, and I catch sight of a pair of eyes, the color of new bamboo. Oh.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” he says. “Salma is my mother. How can I help you?”

“I was told to give something to Salma,” I tell him. There’s a strange, high pressure in the back of my head, very similar to the shrill sound I hear during bangungot. I feel stupid, and I have an irrational urge to hide my arm from him, even though he’s already seen it. “My ma’am is her suki. My ma’am says she’ll give her a good price, and I don’t want to be cheated.”

He smiles. “What’s your ma’am’s name po?”

“Ma’am Loretta Calderone.”

The boy whistles. For the first time, I notice he’s holding a pencil, and the papers in front of him are covered in sketched jewelry designs. “Oh, yes, I know her. Everyone up here knows Ma’am Calderone. What work does she need done?”

With hands that have suddenly grown clumsy, I fumble for the pouch and pull it from my shirt. I am stupidly conscious of the droplets of sweat that splatter from the bag onto the countertop. When the boy sees me having trouble with the drawstring, he reaches for the pouch. “Here, let me—”

“I’ve got it,” I say, pinning the edge of the pouch down with my right elbow, and using my left hand to pull the drawstring free. I pop open the box so he can see the arrhae, keeping it close to my body in case he tries to grab it from me. “Ma’am Calderone needs this dipped in gold for her son’s wedding.”

“May I see?”

Reluctantly, I let him take the arrhae. He examines it in the light, peering closely at the tarnished metal. “We’d usually charge 1,000 pesos for this, minimum. But for Ma’am Calderone, 850.”

“800,” I reply shortly.

“You would beggar us, Ma’am!” he protests, but there’s a hint of a laugh in his voice. It’s a nice laugh. “850 pesos for Ma’am Calderone.” He pauses. “But 800 pesos for you, if you tell me your name.”

“Done.” I slap the money down on the counter, before he can change his mind. A name given is surely worth 50 pesos. “I’m Tin.”

He grins again. “Rodante,” he introduces himself.

Instead of shaking his hand, I make him write a receipt to prove that Manila Jeweler’s is now in possession of the Calderone arrhae, and has agreed to dip it in gold—“14k? 24k? Yellow, or white?”—for 800 pesos. Rodante folds the arrhae and places it carefully back into its box. “I’ll take very good care of this for you,” he says, when he does shake my hand at the end of the transaction. His green eyes are serious. “I promise, Tin.”

“If you don’t, I’ll find you,” I threaten. “Worse, Ma’am Calderone will find you.”

He laughs again, as he lifts himself out of his seat and walks toward the back of the shop. That’s when I see that he’s limping. Rodante’s right leg is a tangled, rippled mass of scars. Just like my arm.

The hum in the back of my head builds to a dull roar.

* * *

I am dreaming, and dreaming proper, of my mother’s house in Bicol, a small, bamboo-and-hemp structure that the ma’am in Manila call a ‘shanty’—a word I never knew before coming to the city. Shadows from the malunggay trees dapple our house’s nipa roof, and the scent of the white sampaguita blossoms, by the door, is so strong that I almost don’t smell the dead god arrive.

Perhaps I came on too strongly, earlier, says the dead god. Today it wears a skin bristling with black feathers, thin panels on the side swinging open with each movement, to reveal white bones beneath. I keep forgetting how young you are.

“I’m not that young.” When I lived here, Nanay’s house and the land around it were full of running, tumbling children. But in the dream, the house is silent. The curtain over the doorway swings open in the thick, salty breeze, revealing darkness inside. “Did you go back for her funeral?” I ask the dead god. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel stupid; who knows if or how gods travel?

The dead god sighs. I stayed by her side, until your family cremated her, and scattered her ashes in the sea. Then I came to find you.

A face flashes in the window, and for a moment, I see my mother running her palms over the latticed screen, checking for dirt. The dead god’s mark glimmers like white fire in the sunlight, a web of discoloration and scarring across her face. She vanishes before I can call out to her.

I loved her, the dead god says quietly. Very much.

“She loved you, too,” I say. The sea wind whips around us, ruffling the dead god’s feathers and my own short black hair. “She used to tell us stories about you all the time.” I don’t say that these stories, like those of all of the old gods, are banned in the Calderone household, in favor of Catholic masses and Ma’am Loretta’s saints.

The dead god laughs, a dry sound like marbles rattling. Don’t I know. I’ve been looking after your family since its inception, long before the milk-skinned Spanish washed up on your shores, with weapons in their mouths and greed in their hearts. It turns its head to me, empty eye sockets staring through me, to a different time and place. Your mother was special to me, though. She was my favorite, so fierce, so strong. She made me promise to take her youngest daughter as her heir when she passed on, in honor of her years in my service, and to grant you a special boon when you make your pact with me.

I do not want to think of my mother dead and lying in ashes at the bottom of the sea, so I wipe my eyes and ask the god, “What kind of boon are you offering me po?”

The dead god grins, revealing a beak full of thick, blunt teeth. I would give you the gift of transformation. Pledge yourself to me and I will teach you to wing about the night, unhampered by human concerns. I will show you the secret banana groves where your mother hid her legs, deep in dreamland and Bicol’s jungles.

My right hand tingles. I shield it from the dead god’s sight with my good hand, banishing the images the god’s words conjure up. A perfect, straight limb. No more stares. No more hiding. “That’s not what I meant.”

Well, then. The dead god shrugs. I offer you knowledge of charms and spells, enchantments that will guarantee your household safety, recipes to keep the curses of other aswang away. I can teach you to make a man love you, and stay by your side for the rest of your days. How rare is that?

“No, you promised me something special,” I say. I pretend not to notice my knees shaking, so that the dead god will not notice either. I pretend not to think of Rodante, with his sharp green eyes and sweet smile. “In memory of my nanay. She was your charge for most of her life, and you would teach me all these things if I pledged myself to you, anyway. Do not try to cheat me po.”

The dead god clicks its beak. It sounds pleased. All right, clever child. You really are like your mother. I can offer you a special gift: one death, or one life, before you take on my powers. No one will ever know it was you, and you may cast the blame or credit on anyone you choose.

I shiver. What a great and terrible gift. Before I think it through, the words fall from my mouth: “Can you bring my mother back?”

The dead god is silent for too long. You would not recognize her if I did, it says finally. I would have to gather her ashes from the sea, and the ocean has already claimed most of her essence. Even so, I may only keep one living disciple. She already designated you, at her passing.

“So you can’t,” I say. “Or you won’t.”

To bring her back, you would have to die. And I refuse to trade our living daughter, to bring back only half of the disciple I loved most.

The love and sorrow in the dead god’s hollow voice makes me flinch. “You’re no father to me,” I snarl. “I don’t need your gifts. You’d best leave. Don’t bother coming back.”

The dead god sighs. I’ll see you tomorrow night, it says, and vanishes, leaving me alone with the whispering trees and my abandoned childhood home. This time, it doesn’t take the sampaguita scent with it.

* * *

In the next weeks, my mornings are filled with wedding preparations: running to and from the barong-makers’ with measurements from the groom’s party; rushing glasses of ice water to the ma’ams from America, who whine and argue over flower arrangements; and pushing through the tiangge to check on the arrhae’s progress and on the green-eyed jeweler’s son.

I spend the late afternoons with Rodante, sneaking out on the pretext of errands, and meeting him on the walk-up roof above jeweler’s alley, to share cigarettes and snacks. We talk about our families and homes, far, far from Manila. He is from Capiz, a province south of mine. Once, I ask him about family gods.

“We have one, I think,” he says. “Though I’ve never really believed in gods.”

Unusual, I think, in this country full of Catholics and witches. “Not even in spirits?” I ask, tapping our shared cigarette against my finger, and watching the ash flit down onto the concrete, away from the cigarette’s glowing, orange tip.

“No, though my dad said he saw a kapre once. This was back when he was looking for a place to build our home.” Rodante runs his fingers through my hair, and I lean into his touch. “The kapre was up in a tree, watching him wander through a banana grove. He warned my dad that the grove was sacred, and that if he chopped down any of the trees there, the kapre would curse him.”

“So, did he? The kapre, I mean.”

Rodante laughs and shrugs. “Who knows? If my dad really saw him, maybe he did. He ended up building our house in the banana grove anyway.” He takes the cigarette from me and draws in a deep breath, exhaling a thin trail of smoke. “Maybe that’s why my leg’s the way it is.”

“Does it hurt?” I ask, turning to look at his leg.

On the way, he catches my chin and kisses me. His mouth is bitter with tobacco, and sweet from the lychees we’d been eating earlier. Long strands of his hair brush against my bare shoulders, cool and fluid over my sticky skin.

I want to kiss him until we both melt in the summer heat, dissolving into each other in a tangle of limbs and beating hearts. But I’ve learned from my sister, and from the ma’ams’ cold hostility. In our meetings, I never let him touch me for too long, always breaking away from his kisses, before the embers under my skin grow to a full-fanned flame. Unlike Silvia, I have no rich sir to marry; I cannot afford to have a baby and risk being sent away.

But his breath is like sweet spice, and I have never kissed a boy before, especially not one who is so like me. I have yet to ask him if he also hears the strange hum in his skull when we meet, if the dark circles beneath his bright green eyes are products of the same night terrors I’ve had all my life. His mouth moves against me, and I can feel his hands around my waist, sliding up the hem of my shirt.

“I should go,” I mumble, pushing him away. My face burns, and I’ve dropped the cigarette. I stamp it out, avoiding eye contact.

“Okay.” Rodante doesn’t sound disappointed; rather, his tone is shy. “I’m sorry if—I’m sorry about pushing you too hard, if you aren’t ready yet.”

I blush, for shame. I know I am not ready as he means it, but I do enjoy his kisses. “Will you walk me home?”

“I’m sorry. My mother doesn’t like me going out after sunset. It’s hard for me to get around, and she’s afraid I’ll be taken advantage of, with this leg.” He must see my face fall, because he reaches into his pocket and produces a small, black pouch. “But I have something for you, Tin. Here, open it.”

Our fingers touch as he hands it to me, and I open it to find a small, glass-faced locket, on a golden chain. I gasp. It’s worth more money than I’ve ever had, far too expensive for someone like me. “No, Rod, I can’t—”

He kisses my cheek gently, almost chastely. “Please, Tin? Let me help you put it on.”

Rodante limps behind me, and draws the chain over my head. The links are so fine that they slide over my skin, like a thread of woven silk. After he closes the clasp, he brushes my hair away from the necklace. “I hope you like it.”

“I do.” The setting sun catches in the glass, illuminating the small white flower trapped inside. “It’s beautiful,” I murmur. “But are you sure it’s okay to give this to me?”

“I designed it.” He smiles, the corners of his mouth crooked. “It’s almost like you’re keeping a piece of me, wherever you go. Hopefully it’ll keep you safer than I can.”

I kiss him once more before I leave, pressing our lips together and then darting away, for fear that if I stay any longer, I will never be able to leave.

Back home in the maids’ quarters, the other girls gather round to admire the necklace and tease me about my new suitor. “Be careful,” says Vicky, mussing my hair. “You’ll be the next to be married, at this rate!”

My sister, now swollen with the child growing inside her, doesn’t seem jealous of all the attention I’m getting. Instead, she watches beatifically, the entire room gently lit with her presence. Lacing my fingers with hers, I cannot remember a time in the recent past when I have been happier. The hole torn in my heart by Nanay’s death seems smaller, with each passing moment and each beat of my sister’s pulse against mine.

* * *

I wake to the Calderone house on fire. Even in the maids’ quarters, the air crackles with flames, searing my skin and catching at my blanket like groping fingers. I shout and try to beat the flames on my bed out, but it’s a lost cause. No one else is in sight.

Snatching the only intact blanket from Jene’s bed, I wrap it tightly around me and barrel toward the exit, hoping and praying to God, to the dead god, to whoever is listening. The flames snarl, as I crash through the doorway, hitting the dirt so hard I forget how to breathe. The roof caves in behind me.

The maids and ma’ams are clustered together on the sidewalk, the closest I’ve ever seen them, in my year and a half of service to the Calderones. Ma’am Loretta hunches over the asphalt, a blanket over her shoulders, rocking silently back and forth, as her childhood home burns.

Over it all is the sound of my sister screaming. But she is nowhere to be seen. Neither is Sir Carlos, her fiancé.

“Where’s Silvia?” I shout, recovering enough to draw in a raspy breath. No one seems to hear me at first, but then I see Vicky point at the house. She’s still inside, I realize with horror. My pregnant sister, trapped inside a burning, collapsing house.

The dissonant hum in my head is so strong, I almost can’t find the strength to walk. But I fight through it, just as I fight through the splintering doorway and follow Silvia’s screams, through the once-great halls.

I find her on the floor of Sir Carlos’s bathroom, crumpled on the floor like a dark-winged bird, lying in a growing pool of blood. Sir Carlos is wrestling with her, and for a moment, I believe he is trying to kill her. Then I hear him shouting, “Stop! Silvia, stop! Please!” and see the panicked tears streaming down his face. My sister is trying to tear her hair out, gripping great fists of it and banging her head against the tile. Sir Carlos catches sight of me and cries, “Help me get her out! Please!”

I rush to her side, and she almost swings her skull into me. I grab her head, whispering assurances into her ear through her moans and screams, and help Sir Carlos hoist her to her feet. That’s when I realize that her nightgown is soaked in blood from the waist down, and she’s sobbing, over and over, “My baby, my baby, my baby.”

Outside the house, my sister collapses in the grass by the gate, Sir Carlos weeping at her side.

* * *

You little fool, snarls the dead god. It crouches on my chest, its spidery limbs stabbing down on either side of my face, as I lie in a state of bangungot, paralyzed and helpless. Black flames blaze in its empty eye sockets. That fire was no accident, and that was not a normal miscarriage. A rogue aswang is preying on you.

“An aswang?” I ask, bewildered. “Like Nanay and me?”

Worse. The dead god presses a hand to my forehead, and an image of a hideous, bat-winged creature silhouettes itself against my mind. I picture it dragging its legless torso toward the house, pulling itself up to the window of the maids’ quarters, unfurling its proboscis-like tongue…I wrench my head away, as the dead god says, A manananggal, judging from the wounds on your sister. They only grow like that deep in the jungles of Capiz.

“Someone targeted her?” I would cover my face if I could, the dead god’s visage is so terrible, but I am frozen, the breath crushed out of me by the god’s unforgiving weight. “But why? She’s just—”

She is a Reyes girl, from my line. I am not the only god in the region. And Manila is an amalgamation of many peoples, from many regions. For the first time, the dead god sounds contemptuous. Perhaps you fancy yourself special, Christina Maria Reyes. But there are plenty of other witch-families that would love to stamp you—and me, with you—out completely, and they are much more powerful than an uninitiated girl-child and a stray god without a disciple. It breathes its fetid odor into my face. Maybe I have been too lax on you, and have not emphasized the danger your family is in. The danger that you brought into this house!

“What are you talking about?”

It snaps the necklace from my neck. Even more than the pain of the breaking chain is the stab of pain through my heart, the fear and betrayal. That necklace is mine and mine alone, the only thing that really belongs to me.

The god holds the locket before my face, the broken chain tangled in its fingers. Haven’t you figured it out yet, little girl?

The dead god hurls the locket against the wall, where it shatters. Suddenly I am looking into a familiar pair of tired green eyes, and Rodante’s voice floods my head:

“The kapre was up in a tree, watching him wander through a banana grove. He warned my dad that the grove was sacred, and that if he chopped down any of the trees there, the kapre would curse him.”

An echo of the dead god’s voice from many nights ago: I will show you the secret banana groves where your mother hid her legs, deep in dreamland and Bicol’s jungles.

“I’m sorry,” says Rodante’s shadow, up on the rooftop. My mouth burns, with the remembered taste of tobacco and overripe fruit. “My mother doesn’t like me going out after sunset.”

I will teach you to wing about the night, unhampered by human concerns, whispers the dead god. How rare is that?

An image of Rodante limping away, that first day in the jewelry shop, the scars on his skin now aflame with power: “Maybe that’s why my leg’s the way it is.”

By the time the dead god releases its grip, there are tears streaming down my face. I collapse, gasping for air, the remnants of the bangungot’s paralysis leaking from me.

Think about it, the dead god says coldly. It vanishes, leaving me to face the rest of the night terrors on my own.

* * *

“The wedding is still on?” demands Ma’am Chitti. “Are you serious, Mama?”

Ma’am Loretta doesn’t even look at her. Her gaze is trained on her son, Sir Carlos, who sits next to my sister on the couch. Their hands are entwined, and he’s stroking her arm. My sister is pale, dazed; they’ve put her on Ma’am Margarita’s Valium, to dull the shock of losing the baby.

The entire family has taken refuge at Ma’am Loretta’s brother’s house, a few streets down from the old Calderone home. It’s also much smaller than Ma’am Loretta’s house, and the close quarters mean that tensions are higher than ever.

I stand along the wall with the rest of the maids, watching the ma’ams battle and bicker. The shelves of saints, as many here as in Ma’am Loretta’s former room, stare down at us with dead, wooden eyes.

“Carlos.” The man startles at his mother’s voice. “Do you still want to marry Silvia?”

He nods silently, clutching my sister close to him. The two of them are still shaking, trembling together like a pair of rabbits.

“But there’s no baby!” protests Ma’am Margarita. “What’s the use of a marriage—”

Ma’am Loretta slaps her across the face. The sound echoes across the room, followed by shocked silence.

Tears begin to leak from my sister’s dull eyes. Silvia wanted this baby more than anything, I realize. She wanted it because it was his, because she loves him. And because he loves her. And Ma’am Loretta knows that.

Ma’am Loretta snaps her fingers and looks straight at me. “Tin, come here.” I detach myself from the wall, ignoring the American ma’ams. “Make sure you retrieve the arrhae tomorrow, as planned. We must have it for a proper Calderone wedding.”

“Yes, Ma’am Loretta,” I murmur, bobbing my head and excusing myself from the room.

As the matriarch’s daughters begin to scream at each other, I slip into Ma’am Margarita’s room for just a moment. Glancing over my shoulder, I steal one of her Valiums from the bottle atop her nightstand, hiding it in my blouse pocket. A dark, ugly rage burns in my heart. If things are to go as I’ve planned, I’ll need all the sleep I can get tonight.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” I tell the dead god, as soon as it appears in my dreams that night. “I want to make this right.” I glance down. “Between us, and for my sister.”

The dead god sighs, the whistle of wind through bone. I’m sorry, too. It was unfair of me to blame you completely. The manananggal tricked you. There was no way you could have known.

“It was still my fault,” I mumble. “It’s my fault her baby’s dead.”

Smooth, paint-tipped fingers touch my face. Do not say that, the dead god tells me sternly. You did not call the manananggal on purpose. The fault lies not with you, but with it. Besides, there’s a reason your ancestors made a pact with me. Neither of us alone can protect your family, but together we have a fighting chance.

I grip the dead god’s wrist. “I know. That’s why I want to make a pact with you and receive your boon.” I breathe in the dead god’s scent, sampaguitas and rot and ash. It is not so different from the scent that once lingered on Ma’am Loretta’s altar of saints. “I want a new child. For my sister.”

The dead god stills. If I do that, the child will be mine, it says finally. She will bear my mark and be your heir. And once the mark is passed, I cannot choose another heir, until the death of the next designated.

“I know.”

The dead god’s voice sounds almost gentle. If you pledge Silvia’s daughter to me, your own children will never fly free through the night air. They will never feel the dread and thrill of the transformation, nor see the sacred groves of your mother’s line.

I think of my sister, screaming and bleeding on the bathroom floor, tearing her hair out and battering her hands on the burning tile. Sir Carlos’s determination to marry her even without the child, the fierce, protective way he cradled her on the couch, days after the accident, the gentleness of his fingers as he stroked her hair. Her radiant face, only weeks before, as the dressmaker measured her for her wedding gown. They would surely be able to love such a child as one marked by the dead god. Who could provide better for a daughter like that? Like me?

“My sister wishes for a child,” I say quietly. “I will pledge myself to you, if you give her a daughter to replace the one she lost. You may mark her, but she must be healthy. And you must bless their household, too.”

This I can do. The dead god presses a cold, stinging kiss to my forehead, and begins to shrink, paint flecks and sampaguita wreaths dropping to the ground around our feet. Soon it is a tiny black chick, small enough to fit in my hand. As I scoop it up in my palms and bring it to my face, it whispers to me, We will look after them together. I promise.

I blink tears away. “Thank you po,” I whisper back.

The black chick pecks at my lips, and I open my mouth to swallow the dead god whole.

* * *

With the weight of a god in my stomach and a pouch of a cremated saint’s ashes in my purse, the latter scavenged from the ruins of the Calderone house, I chase the hum in my head through dreamland.

It won’t be long now, says the dead god. My right arm burns with power. We fly together toward Capiz, a single, many-winged shadow passing over the water. I can smell my brother’s curse already.

“The kapre is your brother?” I ask it. “Is he also a god?”

It laughs in reply, the black ruff of feathers around our neck rippling in sea breeze. Aren’t we all.

The dead god is with me always now, as I am with it. The night is our passage, and dreams a current to human reality. Soon, we reach the end of the sea and the verdant shores of the central isles south of Manila. The hum in my head is so intense that my teeth hurt. We’re close.

Together, the dead god and I land our body in a forest of banana trees, the leaves muttering overhead in the wind. A figure unfolds from a nearby trunk, limbed like a man, but over eight feet tall, and the color of pitch. When he sees us, however, he merely watches us, pointing a long finger toward a clump of trees to the left.

We bow to the kapre, and trek in the direction he indicated, our bones rattling with each step. The dead god whispers, Makikiraan po, as we pass through, and I see the kapre incline his head before vanishing back into the trees.

Too soon, we find what we’ve been looking for.

“Let me do this myself,” I tell the dead god.

It obliges, pulling back and leaving me with full control over our shared body.

I sift through my purse for the bag of ash, and step up to the manananggal’s severed waist and legs, which stand on their own, concealed in the shadows of the banana grove, like a small tree growing in the shade of its elders. But I know these legs, the right one twisted and roped in scars.

Popping the corner of the plastic bag open, I drizzle the ash carefully over the manananggal’s lower half, coating the raw meat and exposed bone in white, powdered saints. Once the bag is empty, I step back, and we hide in the trees, waiting.

The sun is a sliver of orange, just cresting the horizon, when the rest of the manananggal returns. Its leathery wings flog the air, as it maneuvers itself down toward its standing lower half, its long black hair flapping around it.

But the moment its torso touches the ash, the manananggal screams and tumbles to the ground, its legs crumbling to dust around it. As the manananggal gapes and drags its hands through the remains of its ruined legs, the dead god and I step forward as one.

I wave my right hand, and the dead god’s feathers and beak recede, to reveal my face.

“Tin?” gasps Rodante. “What are you doing—”

“How dare you.” I flick my right hand, and black feathers slice down through his arms. Power hums in me, intoxicating, dreadful. He screams again. “How dare you use me to hurt my family. How dare you touch my sister. How dare you use me at all!”

“Tin, stop!” he begs, crawling toward me. “I didn’t know she was your sister. Please, Tin, I love you!”

I slash through his wings, until the dead god pulls our body away, saying, Enough.

The dead god may be old, but it is wrong this time. It will never be enough.

Together, the dead god and I watch silently, as Rodante claws his way around the grove, desperately chasing the waning shade, until the sun rises fully, dousing the land in light. As the sunlight floods the banana trees, what remains of Rodante dissolves into fine, white dust.

We need to go, the dead god reminds me gently. Your living body will need to wake up soon, and we must be back.

But it is so hard to move, staring down at what used to be the boy I thought I loved. So full of fire and power just moments ago, and now I can barely feel at all.

Something golden glitters in the dirt among Rodante’s ashes. I dig it out, revealing a wreath of thirteen coins, linked together like a crown.

Suddenly exhausted, I loop the Calderone arrhae around our neck, one more string nestled against the sampaguitas. The screaming in my head has died down to a gentle roar, a sad, ancient ache in my bones. With the weight of Spanish and Filipino gold pressing against our shared heart, the dead god flies us back over the brilliant, fiery sea.

Eleanor R. Wood

Fibonacci

Originally published by Flash Fiction Online

* * *

One sample of DNA.

One chance to prove herself and silence her peers.

Two viable ammonites eventually swim in their tank, juvenile and tiny. Their spiralled shells may be imperfect Golden Ratios, but their erstwhile association with Fibonacci’s sequence drew her to them as a child. The addition of the sequence’s last number to its predecessor to generate the next, converging on an identical ratio between each one, creates a logarithmic beauty she finds soothing.

Three mass extinctions occurred before the ammonites succumbed to the fourth. With the planet on the brink of another, she’s certain these animals hold the key to survival.

Five times she’s reluctantly turned down Henry’s dinner invitations. She fears the fifth was one refusal too many.

Eight years she’s studied to fulfill her dream of reviving the ancient cephalopods and returning them to the dying ocean. They say de-extinction will create further problems, but they haven’t come up with alternatives.

Thirteen weeks after hatching, the little creatures begin to thrive. It will ever after be her lucky number.

Twenty-one people are invited to Henry’s leaving do, herself among them. She sips half a glass of bubbly before heading back to the lab. The ammonites are most active at night.

Thirty-four proves her greatest birthday. Her ammonites have mated successfully, throwing off the vestiges of their nautilus-hybrid lineage. Nothing can compete with this for a birthday present. Her colleagues celebrate with her. She wishes Henry was still here.

Fifty-five journalists leave messages for her on the day her research is published. She returns only three of their calls.

Eighty-nine hatchlings survive the planktonic stage. Her increase in funding pays for a bigger tank.

One hundred and forty-four specimens aren’t enough to rejuvenate an ecosystem. She hopes the ammonites’ prolific offspring will boost plankton levels while the adults provide a predator’s balance, thereby injecting life force at both ends of the food chain using an ancient animal known for its resilience.

Two hundred and thirty-three juveniles are stolen when the lab is burgled. She discovers empty tanks and smashed equipment. Heartbreak chokes her; the young ones are doomed without her care. She’d been experimenting with new fragments of nautilus DNA to diversify the gene pool. Now she has to start over. She sobs amongst broken glass and scattered utensils.

Three hundred and seventy-seven minutes pass before Henry calls. He’s heard the news. Is there anything he can do? If she’d like his help, she’s got it. She doesn’t need his expertise, but she could use a friend. He books the next train back.

Two hundred and thirty-three glass fragments are swept up while they talk. The act of restoring order to the lab alongside a sympathetic ear calms her nerves and reignites her determination. She hasn’t come this far to balk now. The police can’t promise anything. Henry has faith in her. She uses it to bolster her faith in herself.

One hundred and forty-four letters have been cut from a newspaper to form the most cliched of ransom notes. Despite its comic appearance, it chills her. The ransomer wants £100,000 in exchange for her ammonites. He’s sent the same demand to several rivals. He doesn’t need to declare a time limit; she knows how valuable her specimens would be to another scientist. Her latest research could be usurped before she’s even begun a new round of cloning. She crumples the note in sick fury. She doesn’t have £100,000.

Eighty-nine weeks pass. She clones more hybrids, diversifies the genes, raises new hatchlings. She hears nothing of her abducted ammonites, and no more from the ransomer. If someone else paid up, they’ve been awfully quiet about it.

Fifty-five possible sites are scouted for the trial release of her mature specimens. The Mediterranean is large enough for an oceanic microcosm, and enclosed enough to monitor the experiment. She chooses a quiet Turkish lagoon, a secluded Moroccan beach, and a sea cave in southern France.

Thirty-four tests determine her ammonites’ readiness. She monitors their food intake, hormone levels, water readings, and dozens of other essentials. They are acclimatised over several days in tanks at each site.

Twenty-one hours before the release in Turkey, Henry phones. He’s ecstatic for her, yet she senses contrition. “I paid the ransom for you,” he tells her. “But they’d all died, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I saved their shells; I’ll have them sent to you for study. Forgive me. Please.” She hangs up, hurt and relieved.

Thirteen salty splashes: one for each tagged creature. She watches them join the shoal ahead, and is unprepared for the bittersweet emptiness that takes their place in her heart.

Eight text messages arrive from Henry during the ferry crossing. She replies when they reach Morocco. ‘I’m speechless…thanks for looking out for me. See you in France.’

Five news crews appear at the French site. One of her assistants must have tipped them off. The world might as well be informed; her years of work will either pay off or they won’t. They film the last of the new ammonites swimming away, proving her hopes aren’t the only ones resting on the creatures’ success. As the waves engulf them, Henry rests his arm around her.

Three grants come in at once. She knows Henry’s financial sacrifice safeguarded her success. She asks him to collaborate with her. He grins. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Two years later, the ammonite population is climbing. There are signs of other species stabilising, but it’s premature to draw conclusions. Nevertheless, her doubters are wavering.

One boat sails across the sparkling Med, a scientist at its helm. Another prepares scuba gear. They thought of honeymooning in the Alps, but this is what brought them together. They drop anchor and don their gear for the trip’s first dive. She smiles at Henry and falls backward off the deck.

One ammonite appears before her. And another. Two. Three. Five. A whole school of perfect spirals. Her heart lifts. They’re thriving.

END

Pawprints in the Aeolian Dust

Originally published by Sci Phi Journal

* * *

Remaining time: 6 hours 38 minutes

My bootprints look odd in the amber dust. It’s been four months since the transport touched down, and I have been walking this plain nearly every day since we arrived. It’s only just dawned on me what’s wrong with the imprints I leave on the ground. They’re missing their counterpart.

They’re missing your footprints alongside them.

I haven’t cried since losing you, but the tears are welling now, threatening to mist up my visor. I swallow to relieve my tightening throat, but it’s no use. All I can see are the images of every Earth walk of the last fifteen years, superimposed over the rocky ground before me. My bare footprints in the wet sand; your pawprints in perfect outline beside them. My hiking boot treadmarks on the forest trail; your five-padded marks just in front. My shoeprint in the wet, sucking mud; your footprint appearing for a brief moment before water fills it and the mud re-forms. I can see you looking back at me with your lolling grin, delighted to be outdoors with your packmate, roaming, scenting, marking, being.

But I’m alone, and no walk was ever right without you. I took the mission after you died, hoping to leave the painful reminders behind and start new memories. I’d put on a brave face for too long: ‘men don’t cry’ and all that nonsense. I fled the planet to escape my grief. Foolishness. It was never confined to a single orb, but tangled up in my soul. I dragged it with me into space, and now, on Martian soil, here is a stark reminder that your loss still guts me.

There are no dogs here. We have no sheep to herd, no rats to hunt, no kills to retrieve. Our territory needs no defending. We have no blind settlers to guide or smuggled drugs to detect. Yet I miss you more keenly at this moment than ever before. I’m so far from home…so far from our shared haunts. You’ll never again leave an imprint on Earth’s surface, and neither will I.

Aeolis Mons dominates the horizon to my left; the sheer wall of Gale Crater is somewhere off to my right. And in front of me. And behind. The Aeolian Plain seems vast, but only from my vantage point. From space, I’m standing in a circular imprint with a small mound at its centre.

Remaining time: 5 hours 11 minutes

Jorge and I rode the buggy twenty kilometres out from Bradbury Landing this morning. Most of the settlement was still asleep, but we wanted to make an early start. Priya’s tracking a dust storm headed our way, but she predicts it won’t hit before early evening.

“Have you made it to Site 6 yet, Huw?” Jorge’s voice is tinny through my earpiece.

“On my way now, with samples from 4 and 5,” I reply. “How ‘bout you?”

“The drill was stuck at Site 10, so I’ll have to bring Anders along next time to repair it. But I’m hoping to get a couple metres of core from 11. We’ll need plenty to keep us busy if we’re gonna be stormbound for days!”

“That’s for sure. I’ve gathered a few surface rock samples too—there are some interesting fragments out here, possibly volcanic.”

“Possibly?” Jorge laughs. “You seen this mountain?”

“Yeah, all right, smartarse.” I smile at his infectious guffaw. “No harm in keeping an open mind.”

“Well, there’s no doubt in mine, man. The ground up here’s littered with lava frags.”

“Make sure you bring some down with you, then!”

Jorge’s working the foothills while I take the plains. We need samples from both to see how they compare, but scouting Aeolis Mons itself is a task we haven’t got to yet.

The thought transports me back to the Brecon Beacons with you. The steep trails were easier for your four legs than my two. You’d be ahead of me all the way, urging me onward until we reached the top of a bluff and stopped to take in the magnificent view along with our sandwiches. Always fish paste for you…your eternal favourite. Sometimes we’d stay until dark to absorb the dazzling sky. I was ten years old when Brecon Beacons National Park became an International Dark Sky Reserve. I remember begging my da to take me up there after dark. That first camping trip was the night I decided to be an astronaut. The magic of that sky, unobscured by so much as a particle of light pollution, remains the most breathtaking experience of my life. I have never felt tinier, or more massive. I felt the entire universe was mine for that brief moment. The need to get closer to it, to see it for myself, to be more than a passive observer, etched itself onto my bones.

And here I am twenty years on, collecting geological samples on Mars. I shove aside your love of beach pebbles as I pick up an especially smooth rock fragment. I refuse to dwell on your penchant for digging as I nudge soil away from an embedded piece of possible haematite. I can almost feel the sharp sting of sand as your efforts spray my legs.

No. I’m not doing this. Not now. A warehouse door clangs down in my mind, shutting the memory off. It hurts to push you away, but not as much as it would to cling to those times and everything we’ll never share again. I ignore my solo bootprints and continue my work.

The sun moves across the hazy sky as I move across the plain. The chronometer in my helmet tells me there’s plenty of time before Jorge and I have to worry about Priya’s forecast.

Remaining time: 3 hours 52 minutes

It’s wrong.

The dust storm hits just after 1400 hours. It begins as a rusty haze on the horizon, quickly darkening the sky as it approaches. My heart begins to pound as I turn back toward the buggy, which I’ve managed to leave far behind.

“Jorge? Are you seeing this storm?”

“I see it.” His reply is already fuzzed with static. “I’m on my way back, but I’m not going to make it before this thing hits.”

“Me neither. Just fix the buggy’s position and follow your display. I’ll see you there.”

His reply is garbled by static interference. It sounds affirmative, but I can’t be sure he heard what I said. Jorge’s experienced and level-headed; he’ll be fine. I break into a run, not daring to look over my shoulder at the approaching cloud. My vision fogs up as the first powdery particles fill the air like smoke. There’s no buffeting wind like you’d expect on Earth. The atmosphere is so thin here that I’d feel no more than a light breeze were I to strip off my suit. But in minutes I’m consumed by the cloud.

I keep level with the blinking light on my visor’s display, guiding me to the trusty buggy. I’m breathing deeply to stay calm, knowing there’s no real danger as I’ve already crossed this plain. I know there aren’t any sudden drops or ledges to stumble from, but I’m still walking blind. I’ve been out in dust storms before, but never this far from the settlement. Waiting it out isn’t an option—it could rage for days. My suit has already switched to its reserve oxygen supply, which gives me about two hours’ worth at normal exertion. The suit’s atmosphere compressors convert thin Martian air into gas dense enough to breathe, but with the air full of particles, the compressors have shut down to prevent the filters clogging.

I keep going, trusting my display and the ground beneath my feet. A warning blinker is telling me communications are down, but I’d twigged that following my chat with Jorge.

The dust swirls do funny things to one’s vision. The mind’s need to make patterns and sense from chaos creates images that come and go in seconds. It’s hypnotic and disorienting. My feet are taking me forward, but my eyes tell me I’m standing still amidst a maelstrom of moving shapes and whorls. As the dust becomes heavier, the light fades, its dusty orange glow subsumed by the thick brown air.

Something brushes against my leg. It’s the lightest touch through my suit. I look down and see nothing, of course; I can barely make out my own boot. I’m just about to dismiss it as a near-collision with an unseen boulder when I glimpse a shifting motion in the dust ahead. A bushy tail follows trotting brown feet into the curtain of gusting particles.

My treacherous heart leaps for an instant. I stop in my tracks as it falls again, hard. My throat clenches at the vision, so longed-for and so impossible. Damn this dust and my image-starved eyes. I take a breath, blink firmly, and trudge on.

The open-topped buggy looms out of the cloud a moment later. Dust has yet to settle on it, as the intense Martian breeze keeps it all moving. There’ll be a dense layer everywhere when the storm stops, but for now objects in its path are merely stung with millions of tiny grains which then continue on their way.

There’s no sign of Jorge. He must have gone farther than I did today. I take the driver’s seat and wait for him, peering ahead into the storm. Several minutes pass. My senses report nothing but the constant scattered ping of sand against my helmet. I could start driving the buggy toward Jorge and catch him up if I knew his precise direction. But even with the headlights on, I’d risk colliding with him. Or crashing into an unseen ridge.

Remaining time: 3 hours 18 minutes

I switch off the now-defunct storm countdown. My chrono says it’s been over half an hour since I spoke to Jorge. He should be here by now.

“Come on, Jorge,” I mutter, sharply aware that he can’t hear me.

I spot a defined shape in the dust. I lean forward, expecting Jorge’s suited form…but it’s smaller and nearer than I thought. The clogged air shifts, and my heart freezes.

You’re standing there. Your chocolate fur, with its ruffles and tufts, is clear against the red dust. Your back is to me and you’re looking over your shoulder, ears pricked, giving me your ‘what are you waiting for?’ expression. The storm seems to hold its breath—or maybe that’s just me—but only for a moment before the vision is obscured. You walk on just as the dense cloud swallows you up.

I’m rooted to the spot, knowing I’m seeing things but desperate to follow. My heart is thumping and there’s a lump in my throat the size of a walnut. Even as I stand up and step away from the buggy my rational mind is demanding that I sit back down and get a grip. But your face…your eyes, dark and pleading, focusing their will on mine with an expression so familiar it’s like I saw it yesterday. Come with me.

It’s been over a year since I looked into that face. Your eyes were fogged with age, but they still regarded me with their depth of knowing, like you could see into my soul. You always could. It’s why I’m walking away from the buggy now, back into the blanket of dust, in a direction I haven’t walked today, over ground I have no reason to trust.

But I trust you.

I walk forward with a surety I didn’t have earlier, even though my blinking sensor is telling me I’m getting farther from the buggy and its promise of safe return home. The ground is rocky, the dust is all-consuming, and I can barely see my gloved hands before my visor. But every few moments I catch a glimpse of something more: dust re-forming behind a gently waving tail, a ghostly canine shape just a touch darker than the raging motes all around me, poised to make certain I’m close behind.

We hike for a quarter of an hour, and my anxiety at the claustrophobic storm becomes a fading memory. I lull myself into the bittersweet familiarity of walking with you, just the two of us, on a jaunt of exploration and companionship, like all the old times. I can’t see a damned thing apart from your occasional reminders that I’m not alone out here. You were always our scout on unfamiliar terrain; you could find a path if ever there was one.

The ground is sloping now, becoming slowly steeper, and I realise we’re at the foothills of Aeolis Mons. This is craggy country, with dips and drops and gullies, and it’s foolhardy to continue. I slow down, but there’s a nudge of encouragement against my leg and I know you’re guiding me. A rational thought intrudes, and it’ll bring panic along for the ride if I acknowledge it.

Maybe this is crazy, but right now it’s the only thing that makes sense. Later on I can marvel at my stupidity, but not now. Not yet.

I don’t know if I’m following my loneliness and loss. I don’t know if I’m hallucinating as my oxygen supply dips. I don’t know if I’m lost on a distant planet, being led to my demise by a desperate dream that I know can never be. But I do know it’s not just me out here. I do know there’s still no sign of Jorge. I do know I’ve trusted you from the moment you chose me, the one puppy that was more interested in me than his littermates.

I haven’t completely lost it; I know you’re dead. I held you to the last. I buried you in the garden. I’d never known tears could pour out like that, in a broken-dam cascade of exhausting grief. I was helpless to bottle them up until that initial flood had passed. Your remains are hundreds of millions of kilometres away on the planet we once shared. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can feel you here now, guiding me somewhere important.

And then, all at once, I’m there.

The bulk of a Mars suit is sprawled on the ground before me, just visible through the choking haze. I’m kneeling in a flash, reaching for Jorge’s helmet, trying to see whether he’s conscious. He grabs my hand.

“Huw…”

“Jorge, what happened?” Our radios seem to be working at ultra-close range.

“The ledge…I fell.” He jerks his head upward and I realise he’s lodged at the base of a steep drop. “I think my leg’s broken.”

His left leg is crumpled under him, twisted at a nasty angle. He cries out when I help him stand, and he leans heavily against me, favouring his right side.

“Come on. Let’s get you back to the buggy.” We wrap our arms around each other’s shoulders and begin to limp back.

“How did you find me?” he rasps through the pain.

“Doesn’t matter how. Let’s just be glad I did.” He could have lain there for days before the storm cleared enough to discover his body. You knew he was there. You led me to him, recognising an injured packmate in dire need.

You’re here again now, a gentle blur of movement in the stinging dust. My sensor will take me back to the buggy, but I feel safer following your lead. Even with the low Mars gravity, our return is slower with Jorge’s dependence on me and it’s nearly half an hour before the buggy looms through the storm. It’s the most welcome sight I’ve ever seen.

I ease Jorge onto the passenger seat and climb in beside him. He can barely sit and I know every jolt of the vehicle will be agony for him, but there’s nothing for it.

“What do we do now?” he asks. I can just about make out his face through the visor. He’s gritting his teeth.

“We head back.” I start the motor.

“What? You can’t possibly drive in this, man…You can’t see your hand in front of your face out here!”

“We don’t have a choice, boyo. We’ve got to get you back, and our air reserves are dropping fast.” Besides, I’ve got a feeling. “Just sit tight and trust me.”

“Trust you? Don’t give me that Kenobi shit, amigo. You. Can’t. See.”

“Then you’d better lean forward and help me look.”

The buggy’s inertial guidance system will take us back to Bradbury no problem, but there are still an awful lot of boulders out here. Jorge’s right—I can’t see a bloody thing. But you’re waiting, right there in the shifting brown fog. You’ve led us this far, my old friend. Jorge’s given no indication that he can see you, and I’m not about to explain and shatter my illusion of sanity.

I begin driving, easing the buggy forward, squinting ahead as if looking for unseen dangers. In reality, I’m looking for your beckoning shape. I follow your tail through clear passage across the plain, trusting your sure feet and keen nose to guide us past all obstacles. And you do. But it’s slow going. It’s a 40-minute ride back to the settlement at reasonable speed, with clear atmosphere. Under these conditions, we’re looking at over an hour. It’s time we don’t have.

50 minutes oxygen remaining

My display is giving me regular updates now. I’m trying to stay calm, breathing as shallowly as possible, but I know I’m pushing my luck.

“How’s your O2?” I ask, not daring to take my eyes off you.

“Getting low.” Jorge’s reply is tense.

“How low?”

“25, 30 minutes.”

My stomach knots. Our air compressors would have switched off at roughly the same time. Jorge’s lower reserves must be due to his fall and the corresponding pain. He’ll have been breathing harder than me.

“Hang on, mate. Short breaths. We’ll get back.” But I don’t know if we will.

I speed up as much as I dare, watching your nimble form all the while. It’s almost as if you recognise our new urgency. Your pace picks up along with the buggy’s. You shift one way and I follow, realising moments later that we’ve bypassed a boulder hulking in the brown fog. We skirt obstacles I can’t see, time and again, and I can almost feel Jorge squeezing his eyes shut as we rumble along in the blinding haze.

20 minutes oxygen remaining

I risk a glance at Jorge. His head is nodding.

“Jorge! Don’t you pass out on me!”

“Lightheaded,” he mutters.

I’m feeling that way myself as I eke out my remaining supply. Your lithe shape seems to grow clearer even though the dust as is thick as ever. Your fur should be tinged red from the dust, but it isn’t. It’s not even shifting in the light winds. I suddenly long to feel its softness again. Your velvet ears. Your rough pads as you rest your paw on my knee.

Jorge’s head drops against his chest. The movement startles me out of my storm-lulled reverie.

“Jorge. Jorge!” He doesn’t respond.

15 minutes oxygen remaining

We’re not going to make it. A swell of panic rises in me for the first time. I’ve never doubted your ability to get us home. But you can’t help us breathe.

“Baskerville.” I whisper your name, not sure if I’m seeking reassurance or a miracle.

You stop. You look right at me, and I’m pivoting on your gaze, my dizzy head finding an anchor in your eyes. I brake before I know what I’m doing, and suddenly…Behind you. The settlement lights, finally glowing through the dust, beacons of safety in the gloom. We shouldn’t be here yet. Did you find a shortcut, my four-pawed scout?

I pull up beside the nearest airlock and press the activation control. The lock cycles and turns green, and the door slides up. Whooshes of dust precede the buggy inside, and we’re home. Back to safety and clear vision and medical aid. The air clears as the chamber is flooded with breathable atmosphere. I pull off Jorge’s helmet and am relieved to see he’s still breathing, albeit in a ragged wheeze. He gasps in air and coughs on dust, and I tear off my own helmet and do the same. My head clears and I find myself looking for you as the dust dissipates and settles to the ground.

I don’t know what I expect to see. You’re not here. Of course you aren’t. Yet the weight of loss threatens to swamp me again after following you all this way. Jorge groans in pain as he tries to move, and I’m back in the moment, glad of the distraction from my self-pity.

I manage to help him inside, where Priya, Anders, and Lucy are waiting. They welcome us with open arms and smiles of relief. They whisk Jorge off to sickbay and I head back to clean up the buggy and put it away before dust settles firmly into its mechanisms. Alone again, I lean against the bulkhead and breathe deeply, fighting waves of fresh sorrow. I miss you so god-damned much.

Standing here, under bright lights, breathing plentiful air, my face free of its visor and my vision clear right across the airlock, a twist of anxiety forms in my stomach. Was I completely mad to risk so much? Sure, I found Jorge, but I could have killed myself trying, or doomed us both on the journey back. What was I thinking?

The mind plays terrible tricks when one’s senses are impaired. I recall I’d been thinking of you, missing you anew, only moments before the storm hit. Did I really just risk my own life and that of my fellow pioneer on the basis of dust visions and wishful thinking? We’d have been dead if I hadn’t. But even that truth doesn’t ease the lingering panic at the realisation of what an utter fool I’ve been.

I shake my head of the fruitless thought and grab the vacuum brush to clean up the buggy. There’s a fresh layer of dust all over the floor, too. My bootprints mark it as I approach, and there…

I choke back a sob. It can’t be.

It is.

I kneel in the dust and cup its shape in my hands.

It’s a single pawprint, perfectly rendered, perfectly yours, imprinted like none before and none to come, in the ancient Martian dust.

Daddy’s Girl

Originally published by Crossed Genres

* * *

Daddy lived in the cupboard under the stairs. I hardly ever saw him. Myra saw her dad twice a week, even though he didn’t live with them. Daddy still lived with us, but his eyes were dim and his limbs were still. Sometimes I’d sneak into the cupboard when Mum wasn’t looking and dust the cobwebs from his skin. I would sit beside him and lift one of his heavy arms around me and pretend he was really hugging me even though the arm hung limply beside me if I let go of his hand. But I could still lean against his steadfast frame and breathe in his faint metallic scent, laced with stale traces of his cologne.

It was the scent of safety, and love, and protection.

I took on two paper routes when Daddy was put away. For the first week he remained lifeless on the sofa, sitting there like he’d just sat down to watch TV or help me with homework. But one day I came home to find him gone. Mum came in from work and told me, in a tight voice, that she’d put him under the stairs. ‘For now.’ Because we didn’t know what had broken, and it was too painful to have him sitting there.

People had started reading the news on paper again with the price of electricity so high. Paper needed delivering, and we needed the money. Mum already worked every available shift, so the more I could help out, the sooner we’d have Daddy home again. Properly home. Sitting at the table while we ate dinner. Waiting for me when I got home from school. Mowing the back lawn on a sunny afternoon. Not slumped in the dusty darkness with the spiders and creaking stair boards.

Months passed and our meagre savings still weren’t near enough. My birthday was coming up, and I cried at the thought of spending it without Daddy. My first ever birthday without him. My thirteenth. It was supposed to be a big day when you became a teenager. I just wanted to stay twelve until we were a family again.

Mum heard me crying and came to sit on my bed. She stroked my hair, not needing to ask what was wrong.

“What if we don’t ever save up enough, Mum?” I asked, my voice hitching on a sob.

“We will, sweetheart. As long as we keep our belts tight and put aside everything we can, eventually we’ll have enough.”

“But that could take years!”

“I know, baby. But we’ll do it. He would never give up on us, and we won’t ever give up on him.”

I knew it was true; I’d known Daddy’s story my whole life. Mum hadn’t given up on him after the accident, either. Even when the doctors told her not to cling to a pipedream. Even when the dream came true and she was offered the uncertainty of testing a prototype that had never been tried before. He was the man she loved. The father of her unborn child. She had to give him a chance, even a radical one on the fringes of science. His body was useless, but his mind was alive and trapped.

So they freed him. His first body was little more than a computer, but they built him a proper one with synthetic flesh and the likeness of his own face. And he was my daddy. The only one I’d ever known.

Most children are told the tale of how their parents met. I was told how mine met all over again, and how Mum had placed the wriggling bundle that was me into Daddy’s brand new arms. How he’d looked into my eyes and longed for real tears to express his overwhelming joy.

I had enough real tears for both of us now. I finished my paper route one evening and rode my bike out to the old quarry. Daddy used to take me to see the city skyline from the top of it, cupped in the lip of brutally gouged stone that formed the quarry’s outer edge. Many of the tallest buildings looked desolate now, even from here. I remembered a time when they’d been gleaming and bright, beacons of human success and financial prowess. The company that built Daddy had been housed in one of them. They’d gone bust just like all the others, leaving us with no hope if anything went wrong. And of course it had gone wrong, and my daddy was sitting lifeless under the stairs waiting in vain for us to scrape enough together to have him mended.

The sobs broke through my chest before I even realised they were building. I screamed a throat-rending yell that bounced off the quarry walls and repeated itself until it diminished to nothing. I grabbed a rock and flung it at the distant skyscrapers, my rage finally finding an outlet in their failure.

I felt a little better, but I realised then that I needed to do more than extra paper rounds. I needed to feel I was contributing something useful. Daddy’s experts were still out there somewhere, scattered into more austere professions, but they were no use without the mammoth funds. Saving up enough was going to take years. So be it. I would put those years to good use.

* * *

By the time I was sixteen, my shelves were piled with physics textbooks and robotics manuals. Myra’s bedroom walls were covered in posters of bare-chested hunks I’d never heard of because I had my nose in New Scientist while she was reading Seventeen. I had a picture of Hiroshi Ishiguro above my bed.

“You fancy that guy?” Myra asked one day.

I rolled my eyes in frustration. “I don’t fancy him, Myra. I admire him. He was a robotics pioneer who built one of the first interactive humanoid robots.”

She looked around my room with an expression of disdain. “You seriously need to get out more.”

That was the day I realised I’d outgrown her friendship. I sat under the stairs with Daddy that evening, feeling closer to him than I did to any of my peers. I pulled his arm around me and told him what Myra had said. He listened in stoic silence as always. I kissed him on the cheek and vowed he’d always be more important to me than silly nail-varnish-wearing girls.

* * *

By the time I was eighteen, the economy was slowly recovering. Food bank queues were ever shorter, councils were repairing roads again, and most importantly of all, I’d earned a scholarship to Cambridge. I was ecstatic. By now Mum and I had scraped together a few thousand, but still nowhere near enough to have Daddy fixed. Without a scholarship, there was no way I could have gone to university.

I made Mum promise to keep Daddy free of cobwebs and dust while I was away.

* * *

By the time I was twenty-three, I was embarking on a Master’s degree in computational neuroscience and cognitive robotics. The depression had stunted the development of android technology, so they were still rare and expensive. The lab had one as a subject for study, but its consciousness was entirely artificial.

I was examining its servomotors late one afternoon. One of my fellow students, Raz, was working on something else two benches over. He stopped to watch me.

“Did you know Edinburgh had an uploaded consciousness model?” he asked. “I’d sell my gran to get my hands on one of those.”

“What happened to it?” I tried to sound casual.

“I dunno.” He flicked dark hair out of his eyes. “Somebody said it got tired of being a lab rat and walked out, but I heard that was just a stupid rumour. It’s not like they have human rights!” He seemed to find this funny.

Until then, I’d been considering the idea of bringing Daddy here. There were enough experts at the university to mend him, possibly at reduced cost, but I realised he would become a coveted object for study. I couldn’t do that to him.

I lowered my head, got on with my work, and politely ignored Raz for the rest of the semester. I was the only Cambridge postgrad who had ever seen an android with uploaded human consciousness, and I never mentioned it to anyone. Daddy wasn’t an android to me. He was my dad, and I missed him terribly.

I studied, and learned, and worked a waitressing job in my spare time. I deposited all but my most basic expenses into the savings account I shared with Mum. For Daddy.

* * *

I built my first artificially intelligent model for my dissertation. I’d built smaller robots before; I’d been building them since I was fifteen, but this was the first machine I’d built that could learn and think for itself. I modelled its brain on that of a human toddler, with all the same capacity for growth. I wanted to see how long it took to develop the mental skills of a human adult.

I graduated with honours and received a commendation from the university.

* * *

The pioneering research into transferring human consciousness had all but ground to a halt when its funding dried up. But now that the recession was fading, there were new companies eager to invest in up-and-coming technology, and several were vying to be the first to patent prosthetic bodies for living consciousness. Less than a year into my doctorate, I was approached by a headhunter.

“We’d love to have you on board, Miss Landry.”

They would fund my doctorate if I agreed to carry out research on their behalf. It was the foot in the door I’d been dreaming of.

* * *

The working atmosphere in the lab was a strange one. We were fellows, all sharing the same passions and goals, relating to one another in ways we couldn’t with others in our daily lives. Yet we were also rivals, competing for that first ground-breaking discovery or technological advancement. The harsh competition meant we closely guarded our discoveries, kept our advancements under wraps, and took every advantage ruthlessly. It was the only way to get ahead.

My closest competitor was a guy named Mark. He seemed decent, but I’d never got close enough to really know him. As the two highest academic achievers and the two most likely to hit a breakthrough, we held each other in mutual respect but kept our distance. Another lab partner, Susie, pulled me up on it one day.

“Do you really have to minimise your computer files every time Mark walks past?”

“Don’t you?” I asked.

“No!” Her tone suggested I was being ridiculous. “I’m not about to let him rifle through my notes, but a glance at my screen won’t tell him anything.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I muttered. “You know he only keeps paper notes in case anyone hacks his system, right? He takes the damned things everywhere with him.”

“So because he’s paranoid, you have to be too?”

“I wouldn’t call protecting my research ‘paranoia’. The guy’s practically a genius, Suse. He doesn’t need any help from the likes of us.”

She laughed. “So said the pot to the kettle…”

I rolled my eyes at her. In truth, we all had our own methods of protecting our work. We shared trivia. We kept our trump cards close to our chests.

* * *

Mum was visiting her sister in Scotland. I went to see Daddy for the first time in weeks. He gazed through me when I opened the cupboard and crouched down in front of him.

“Come on, Daddy. It’s time.”

His joints creaked as I shifted him forward. I’d often wondered how Mum had managed to get him in here. His frame was reinforced aluminium, but he still weighed about the same as an average-sized man. He was a dead weight as I dragged him out of the cupboard that had been his home for the past fourteen years. I winced an apology when his head bumped the floor. I heard a tear as his trouser leg caught on an exposed nail. I was breathing hard before I’d got him halfway down the hall.

I wrangled him into an awkward position on the back seat of my car, glad of the fading dusk that gave me some privacy against nosy neighbours. I drove straight to the lab, the hour-long journey giving me time to consider how I’d get Daddy inside unseen. I talked to him about it on the way, marvelling at taking a car journey with my dad for the first time since my childhood.

It was difficult and tiring, but after draping Daddy in a blanket and positioning my access card so the entry scanners could read it without my letting go of him, I managed to negotiate the lift to the second floor and finally get him inside my lab. No one else was there; it was Friday night, and they’d all gone home for the weekend, leaving me two whole days to tinker with the most important project I’d ever taken on.

I heaved him face down onto a workbench, pulling a muscle in my back. I stumbled to a chair and sat, wincing at the pain and trying in vain to massage it away. After a few moments, it eased enough that I could stand and stretch a little. I popped some paracetamol to take care of the rest. No time for distractions; I had work to do.

There was an access port at the base of Daddy’s skull, hidden beneath his hair. I realised straight away that it was an old connection. My cables wouldn’t fit, but there had to be an adaptor around somewhere. I scoured the lab and found one connected to an old computer interface. With its help, I plugged a cable into Daddy and hooked him up to my diagnostic computer. I checked his power supply while it was running. He ran mainly on an ultra-compact gas turbine tucked under his ribcage. I opened the panel and an intense memory hit me: Daddy standing in the kitchen, his torso panel open as he fitted a fresh gas cylinder. I remembered looking for my own panel and wondering why I didn’t have one.

“Little girls have tummies instead,” he’d answered my plaintive query. “They fill them with tasty things like toast and jam to give them energy for the day. My energy goes in here…” he closed his panel “…and yours goes in here!” He’d pounced on my tummy and tickled me into hysterics.

I smiled at the memory and went to check if we had the right model cylinder. When I returned, the computer was flashing its diagnosis. My heart sank. It had flagged two errors, one of which I could handle. But the other problem was beyond my scope. A machine like Daddy would have been built and maintained by a team of people. I’d been a fool to hope I could mend whatever was wrong with him unaided.

I drank coffee as I mulled my options. I could divert my research into the necessary area to gain the knowledge I needed, but it would take months. Now Daddy was finally here, I didn’t intend him to leave until he was fixed. The thought of lugging him home again made my pulled muscle throb, despite the painkillers. I wanted him to walk out on his own, at my side. I wanted Mum to find him waiting for her when she got back from Scotland. My years of patience had run out. He was here, in a laboratory that had all the necessary means to cure him, and I was damned if he was going back in the cupboard.

I knew I only had one choice, but that didn’t stop me wrestling with it. My focus had been so intent I’d barely noticed what others in the lab were working on, but I knew that marked me as unusual. We were all ambitious, but my goals were personal. My fellow scientists would kill for a look at this magnificent piece of machinery. But if I didn’t ask for help, that’s all my dad would ever be.

I finished my coffee, took a deep breath, and phoned a colleague.

* * *

Mark’s jaw dropped when he saw my workbench.

“You never said you were working on something like this.” Awe permeated his voice.

“I’m not. He’s broken. I can fix part of the problem, but I need your help with the microprocessors.”

He seemed at a loss for words. “Where did you get this?!”

“Mark.” I made him look at me. “He’s my dad.”

For a long moment, he just stared at me. I met his gaze squarely and turned my monitor around so he could read the diagnosis.

“Why me?” His voice was hushed. “Why not Susie, or James? They both have the experience you need.”

“Yes. But so do you.”

“I’m flattered. Believe me. I’m just stunned that you’d give me this opportunity. I’ve only ever dreamed of seeing one of these up close. An android with living consciousness…and he’s your father? That’s…a colossal amount of trust to put in a direct rival.”

I took a deep breath. It was a risk, but I hadn’t chosen him at random.

“There’s no one else I’d trust with this. I can’t fix him on my own.” I could only hope he’d help me for the right reasons, but it was a gamble I had to take. Maybe he’d demand to experiment on Daddy, or expose my advantage and give others a reason to dimiss my real achievements as a mere rehashing of previous technology. It wouldn’t be true, but it would be enough to tarnish my career.

Either way, Daddy would be mended.

Mark stared at Daddy’s immobile frame. He touched his cold face and looked up at mine, as if noticing the resemblance between the artificial and the organic.

I met his eye again. “Please. He’s been broken for fourteen years.”

He set his shoulders as he reached a decision. “We’ll need parts. Very expensive parts.”

“I know. I have the funds.” Labour costs and lab hire were no longer an issue.

I wanted to ask if he’d sell me out. I wanted to know if he would ask for permanent access to Daddy in return for his assistance. But I couldn’t get the words out. What would I do if he said ‘yes’ to either question? There was no turning back, not now that I was this close. I decided I’d rather not know.

Mark and I didn’t leave the lab all weekend. We pilfered the parts from other projects and I ordered identical replacements. I told Mark all about Daddy, but I don’t think he believed in Daddy’s successfully-transferred consciousness until late on Sunday evening.

Everything was back in place and Daddy lay face up on my bench. I activated the power supply and closed his torso panel. Mark and I held our breath. Several tense seconds passed. And then my daddy opened his eyes and looked at me.

“Bethy?” He squinted and turned his head, clearly trying to orient himself. “Beth, is that you?”

It was like a tight string snapping inside me. My knees buckled and then there were strong, familiar arms around me, keeping me from collapsing, holding me up. I clutched him like I was five years old again and sobbed into his shoulder as he held me. He was warm, and real, and alive, and he was holding me all on his own.

When I finally looked at Mark, his eyes were glistening with tears.

“Mark, this is my dad.”

Mark and Daddy shook hands, though I could see Daddy was still befuddled. “It’s an honour, Mr Landry.”

“Where am I, Beth? You…you’re grown.” He cupped my face. “You’re a woman. What happened to me?”

I sat him down and told him everything. He had no memory of breaking down and no knowledge of time passing since. I was grateful that no part of his consciousness had been active. He didn’t recall the dark, dusty cupboard.

He hugged me close for a long moment. “Thank you. Thank you so much, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you. I can’t even express it.”

“You don’t have to. You’re here. That’s more than enough for me.”

He pulled away and looked at me in earnest. “Where’s Mum? Is she here?”

I smiled, imagining her joy. “She’s not expecting this. I didn’t want to get her hopes up.” I video-called her on my mobile and made sure she was sitting down before I passed the phone to Daddy.

“Hi, love,” he said. I heard a sharp intake of breath from Mum’s end, and then nothing for a long moment, and then crying.

I took Mark aside to give them some privacy. He and I both needed rest; I could see he wanted to get home.

“I’m in your debt, Mark. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He shook his head with a smile. “You don’t owe me anything. The chance to see him up close, to work on him, to actually meet someone like him in person…I should be thanking you.”

I felt the last shred of tension leave me. He was referring to Daddy as a real person. The way I’d always seen him. I somehow knew then that Mark wasn’t about to turn my lifelong secret to his advantage.

I took his hand. “Thank you. For everything.”

“He’s your dad. I’m sure you’d have done the same if it had been my old man lying on the table.” He looked down at the floor. “I wish I had that chance. My dad died five years ago. Go make up for lost time with yours.”

Before I could say anything, he gently nudged me in Daddy’s direction and picked up his things to leave.

“Any time you want to sit and talk with him, I’m sure he’d be happy to,” I called after him.

He just turned and smiled at me, one friend to another.

Frank Wu

Season of the Ants in a Timeless Land

Originally published by Analog magazine, November 2015.

I. JOSHUA

Surrounded by foes, Zoe raised her weapon on high, bringing it crashing down, slaughtering a dozen enemies in one blow.

No, Zoe Rhodes was not a killer robot with concussion hammer fists, or a Mayan warrior with spear and atlatl.

She was a fifth generation Australian sweet corn farmer, with farmer’s tan to prove it. Her weapon was a square-headed shovel. And her quarry was the riot of ants, swarming and pooling at her feet.

“Bloody stinkin’ ants!” she screamed.

Her voice boomed over the rows of corn. Hers was a modest but smooth-running factory farm. Computers monitored the phosphate and saline. GPS helped plot efficient paths for harvesting. Her corn was healthy, the leaftips green, the silks dry and brown.

And into her orderly, pastoral domain trampled multi-legged chaos.

Ants!

Zoe stood between the stalks, feet shoulder-width apart. She inhaled deeply, clenching the shovel’s D-handle. Then she slammed down the blade, letting out another war cry.

“Not! On! My! Farm!”

Her strike left a square dent in the soil, studded with a dozen dead ants.

Victory!

She was grinning like a shot fox, but only for a moment. Like water re-filling a footprint on the beach, ants flowed back into the shovel print.

The ants carried on their business, ignoring the crushed bodies of compatriots, ignoring the killing thing falling from the sky, ignoring Zoe’s war cries.

She cursed, picked up her sore ego, and slammed the shovel down again and again, crushing dozens and dozens more.

“You can’t kill them all!” a voice called from across the field. “At least, not like that!”

Two figures were approaching, a medium-sized man and a large, tall woman.

The oddest thing about them was their footgear. Zoe had tucked her jeans into her socks, but she was covered with ants. These two wore boots like white Santa Claus boots, topped with a thick fur cuff. The ants couldn’t make it north of the fur. So they walked without swatting themselves.

Clearly, they knew what they were doing.

The man held out his hand. “Hey there, I’m Dr. Todd McDaniels, myrmecologist.”

“G’day, mate,” Zoe said, shaking his hand with a very strong grip. “Welcome to Oz. You’re that ant scientist they sent from America?”

“Yup,” Todd said. “And this is Shyla Lethbridge, an entomology grad student at Adelaide.”

“You can call me ‘Shorty,’” the tall girl said, without a hint of irony.

“G’day.”

“G’day.”

“I’ve traveled all around the world fighting ants,” Todd said, mighty chuffed with himself. “From Lebanon to the Euphrates to the setting of the sun…And I was just in Mexico City. Really crowded subways, everything and everyone covered with ants.”

“So what did you do?” Zoe asked.

“Oh, we got them with a designer myrmicide,” Todd said. “A phenylpyrazole derivative, laced with—-”

“That won’t work here!” Zoe protested. “This is a farm, mate! No unauthorized pesticides!”

“So for you,” Todd said, “I’ve got something special. No insecticides. No residues.”

“Right-oh!” Zoe said. “Then let’s get crackin’!”

“In a moment!” Todd bent down. “First, study the enemy…” From his jacket, he pulled a small clear plastic vial with a built-in mag lens.

He caught an ant scout and dissected her with his mind. Reddish head and thorax. Black gaster, with flashes of purple and green. Only one petiole segment in front of the abdomen, which terminated in a slit without a stinger. His mind flipped through the catalog of eleven thousand known ant species. The shapes of the eyes and mouthparts confirmed his analysis.

After only ten seconds, he had completed the biologist’s most foundational but most complex task: species identification.

Proudly, he announced, “This is a subspecies of Iridomyrmex purpureus.”

Shorty and Zoe shrugged.

“Common meat ants.”

A strange expression passed over Zoe’s face, which Todd read as a mix of relief and disappointment.

The disappointment, Todd figured, was that they would not be defeating a more deadly foe. Australians, he had discovered, had a strange pride in surviving in a land where everything was trying to kill you—from crocodiles to snakes to giant spiders.

These weren’t fire ants, or jack jumpers, which leap from the ground to bite you in the backside. No, just common ants. Yes, they would beat them. But where was the glory in that?

“You know, I’ve been killing ants all day.”

Todd and Shorty shook their heads.

“An ant hill is like an iceberg,” Shorty said. “Most of it’s underneath, where it can’t be seen. A queen might pump out a hundred eggs a day. And a colony might have half a dozen queens.”

Todd added, “No matter how many you kill, they’ll just make more ants.”

Todd and Shorty nodded at each other.

“Then let’s get started!”

In the verge, the grass strip between road and field, Todd picked an ant hill for the first test. This subspecies made a cone-shaped mound, about a foot wide and half a foot wide. It was reinforced with mud made of dirt and ant spit, hardened in the sun. The area immediately around it was cleared. Ants had killed the grass by injecting formic acid, then chopped up the bits and carried them away.

Todd re-parked the truck, which Shorty called a ute, closer to the mound. Together, they unloaded a generator, a hot water tank, and several aluminum lances, each about five feet long.

“We’ll be killing the ants with boiling hot water.” Todd handed Zoe a stopwatch. “This is very important. When I say so, count off, every ten, fifteen seconds. What we’re gonna do, we have to do within a minute, or we fail.”

Todd and Shorty positioned themselves about three feet from the mound, on opposite sides. Each held a lance. The pointed tip, against the ground, was threaded like an auger. The near end was clamped in a power drill, with a quick release chuck.

Everyone was ready.

“Before we go,” Todd said, “I have a somber little ritual I started in Bolivia.” From the top of his shirt, he pulled a small plastic cross. It was painted gold and encrusted with fake jewels. “A little boy gave this to me, and he reminded me that ants are magnificent little machines. A symbol of industry, a fount of biodiversity, an endless source of marvel and mystery. But, unfortunately, we can’t have them here.” He kissed the cross, looked down and whispered, “I’m sorry, little guys.”

After a moment of silence, he steeled himself and said, “Ready?”

Zoe and Shorty nodded.

“OK, ready, set, go! Start the timer!”

Todd and Shorty flew into action.

Within seconds, Todd had drilled his pipe almost all the way down, leaving only a few inches above ground. Then, with one practiced move, he picked up another lance with the toe of his boot and flicked it into the air. He caught it mid-air, swung it around and screwed it onto the first pipe, slapping the drill onto it.

“Time!” he shouted.

“15 seconds, mate!”

Shorty had her first lance in, but was struggling with the extender. It made an audible twang and bent in the middle. The power drill almost leapt from her hand.

“I’ve hit something! A rock or—-”

“Forget it!” Todd shouted. “Move on!”

“25 seconds!”

Todd finished his extender and then rushed to help Shorty complete a full-length probe.

“35!”

“We have two good ones in—let’s hope that’s enough!”

“Hook up the hoses!”

Shorty jumped around the mound, snap-fitting hoses onto pipes, including the bent one.

“Time?”

“45!”

“Are we set?”

Shorty tugged at the hoses, checking the connections.

“Shorty!”

“50!”

Shorty flew from the mound, hands over her face. “Clear!”

Todd threw a switch on the water tank and the hoses twisted and writhed. Boiling water pulsed through the connectors, through the probes and deep into the mound.

“Time?”

“Just under a minute!”

Steam rose from the ruins of the ant hill.

Deep underground, ants were drowning by the thousands.

“So what was the point of this?” Zoe held up the stopwatch.

“Ants don’t care much about vibrations on the surface.” Todd kicked the generator. “But once you start drilling into their nest, they know something’s up. They don’t know what. Maybe they think it’s an anteater or pangolin. But their first instinct is to move the queen to safety. We got to get in there before they do.”

“Did we?”

“We’ll see.”

A few minutes later, a small dark spot appeared at the base of the mound. A single droplet of water appeared, then was re-absorbed. Then a trickle of water broke through.

A breach in the wall formed, and a rivulet ran out, hot, steaming.

And full of ant bodies.

Perhaps, though, they were merely stunned. Todd poked the ants with a stick. Yup, they were dead.

“Ace!” Zoe exclaimed.

“Now, we wipe them out, mound to mound.”

“Bonza, mate!” Zoe clapped her hands. “Quick question, though. What are you pumping in there? Smells like…lager.”

“It’s just water.” Todd sniffed the air. Then he tasted the muddy water running out of the mound. “Must be washing out. You know, some ants are farmers like you. Some grow fungi for food. Some grow Aeromonas bacteria to make oxygen. These are apparently growing yeast. Maybe getting a buzz off the alcohol. Weird. I’ve never seen that in this species before—-”

“Cooee!” Shorty called out, pointing at the mound. “Over here!”

The rivulet running from the mound had coughed up a lump. It wasn’t a clod of mud, but dead ant bodies, riding the surface tension. It was a carefully assembled raft, the ants linked one to another, mandible clamping to leg or antennae. They were all drowned, except the one they had sacrificed themselves for. This one paced back and forth on the raft, walking on the heads of her dead sisters.

“Oh no,” Shorty said.

A second, larger clump rode the stream, out of the wrecked mound. It, too, was a tangled mass of linked ant bodies. As the water petered out, it grounded on dry land. The ball unfolded, revealing a single live ant in the center. It was larger than the others, its abdomen distended, with white lines clearly delineating the segments.

“They saved a queen!” Todd shouted.

“It’s like an escape pod, made of ants!” Shorty said.

“I thought they all carked it!” Zoe said.

As they watched the queen ant drag herself toward safety, Todd mumbled to Zoe, “Maybe it is time for your shovel, after all.”

Zoe used her shovel.

Then Shorty asked, “So, what do we do now?”

“I could have a go at the pipes, too,” Zoe said. Having grown up fixing tractors and disc harrows, she was quite mechanically inclined.

“Yeah,” Todd considered. “With three of us drilling, we should be able to put in enough lances.”

* * *

Half an hour later, all three were dancing around another ant mound. Metal probes flew through the air, as Todd counted aloud, One Mississippi, Two Mississippi.

By the time he had reached Fifty, they had four full-length pipes in the ground, hoses firmly attached.

Todd threw the switch.

And hot water sprayed everywhere.

Shorty screamed, as she and Zoe ran from the mound. The connectors were secure—Shorty had done her job. But arcs of hot, pressurized water were shooting out of leaks in the hoses. Water jets, backlit by the setting sun, glowed like Roman candles.

Todd slammed the switch closed.

“What just happened?”

“Those were new hoses!” Todd flicked hot water off his face. “Were.”

“Do you think enough water got down there?” Zoe asked.

“Doubtful.”

“Are there more hoses in the truck?” Todd asked.

“In the ute?” Shorty said. “Nah. Heaps more lances, but no more hoses.”

“I’ve got hoses,” Zoe said. “This is a farm, after all.”

“But these are special,” Todd said. “The hot water would ruin a regular hose.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll bring more hoses tomorrow. I think we’re done for the day. It’s getting dark, anyway.”

“Ready to haul it back to Adelaide?” Shorty asked. “My professor should be back from the bush by now.”

“It’ll be nice to finally meet her,” Todd said.

As Todd and Shorty loaded the equipment into the ute, Shorty said, “Do you think the ants chewed through the hoses?”

“I sure hope not,” Todd said. “But we should spray them with repellent anyway.” He turned very serious. “Have you been keeping up with all the reports of ant activity around here?”

“No, why?”

“They’re all over southern Australia,” Todd said. “Port Pirie, Broken Hill. They’re invading factories, bakeries and clean rooms. They ate a wedding cake in Wyalla.”

“What are they doing?” Shorty asked.

“Well, an individual ant has a tiny brain,” Todd said. “But a super-colony has more neurons than a rat brain.”

“Smarty ants, eh?”

“And what are they doing? Anything they want. Unless we stop them.”

As the sky turned red and they started the long drive, Shorty looked back at the farm.

Zoe was furiously slapping her shovel against the ground.

II. JACOB

Back at the University of Adelaide, Todd sat under the light of the Southern Cross, studying the construction of ant nests.

You could determine a nest’s structure by pouring in cement or hot metal, and then digging it out after it hardened. Some nests had one vertical shaft, with side tunnels of decreasing size—like an upside-down Christmas tree. Some had four or five main shafts. Others were as big as a football field, with chambers large enough to hold a watermelon.

The different structures helped the heat and air flow. Or prevented flooding. Which was exactly what Todd was trying to cause.

How did these meat ants construct their nests? Where were the queens’ chambers? In the morning, could Todd improve the placement of the lances?

“C’mon, Todd,” Shorty said, handing him a tinny of Coopers. “The barbie’s just about ready.”

Southern Australia was being overrun by ants and she was worried about a barbecue? Where were her priorities?

“I’m not hungry,” Todd said, lying. “You go on without me.”

“You know, the barbie’s in your honor,” Shorty said. “And my advisor’s returned from the back o’ Burke.”

That got Todd excited. He had read Vauna D’harwala’s books on the ecology of the outback. His knowledge was deep, but narrow. Focused on ants. Hers was very broad. She was sure to have insights he’d missed. “Thanks!”

“No worries,” Shorty said.

No worries, Todd thought. No worries. What an odd statement. From what he saw, the country ran well. Petrol was pumped, Maccas were cleaned, stubbies and sangers delivered. Everything worked, but with a more relaxed attitude than America. Even in the midst of an ecological disaster. Ants are taking over? She’ll be right, mate. They’re stealing food, driving people from their homes? No worries, mate, no worries.

Maybe, despite Shorty’s cheerful attitude, she was terrified on the inside. He was.

And so he sat at a picnic table, an uneaten burger in front of him. Grad students tossed a Frisbee in the starlight.

He toyed with his French fries, imaging them as lances piercing the ant hill of the burger.

“Dr. Todd McDaniels, I’d like you meet Dr. Vauna D’harwala.”

Todd looked up, stunned.

He had read all of Vauna’s books, but none of them gave any personal information or showed a picture.

As he stared at her face, he became keenly aware that he—like everyone else at the barbie—was white; in his case, almost literally. Pale, colorless, nearly albino. He drowned himself in sunscreen to keep from burning.

He moved in international circles and was far too socially adept to ever comment about someone’s skin color or accent.

And yet he was trained as a biologist to differentiate organisms by the finest subtleties of color and shape.

And so for perhaps two or three seconds too long, he found himself acting the biologist, staring at Vauna’s skin—her beautiful skin!—which was the darkest black he had ever seen, as if her face had been delicately carved from onyx, and polished to satiny smoothness.

He had never met an Aborigine before.

And after those two or three seconds, he felt the deepest shame and embarrassment.

Awkwardly, he stuck out his hand in greeting.

Perhaps sensing his discomfort, Vauna shook it and said, “What have you got there?”

“A b-burger,” Todd stammered.

“First one you’ve had in Oz, then?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Well, let me do it up proper for you.” Vauna snatched away the plate.

It was a politic move, and Todd was thankful for the reprieve.

When she returned a few moments later, they could begin again.

“Give this a go,” she said with a smile. His burger was now twice the thickness.

He carefully dissected it. Aside from the regular hamburger stuff, it now included: a second patty, a slice of beet, pineapple, and an entire fried egg.

It was too tall for him to get his mouth around.

“Now that’s a real Aussie burger,” Vauna said with a laugh. “And there…” She pointed at two small, dark medallions. “Is some kangaroo meat for you. I like to call it ‘marsupan.’”

And now Todd laughed, too, the earlier awkwardness almost forgotten.

He held up a finger and said, “Just a sec.” He put his palms together and closed his eyes to silently say grace.

He thanked the Lord for his food. But more for the chance to come to this foreign land and share in God’s love. What better way was there to express God’s love than to help his new friends with their problems?

Like the ants he saw when he opened his eyes, crawling toward his burger.

“Ewwww,” said one of the undergrads, backing away. Todd and Vauna both leaned in closer.

“Iridomyrmex…” he said.

“…purpureus,” she said.

And they laughed together again.

Todd slid his plate to the side, away from the stream of ants that now ran up one leg of the picnic table, across the top, and down the other leg.

“Do you notice something odd about these ants?” Vauna asked.

“Quiz time!” Todd exclaimed. “I love quiz time!”

He studied the stream of ants. Each scout tapped her antennae on the abdomen of the ant in front, sending rhythmic signals and chemical messages. There didn’t seem to be anything unusual happening.

Todd looked up, and Vauna’s smile glowed with a scientist’s greatest joy: the thrill of discovering something that no one else on the planet knew.

“I give up,” Todd said, intrigued. “Tell me!”

“Look at the direction they’re going,” Vauna said. “I was here this morning when you and Shorty were at the Rhodes farm and—-”

“Disgusting!”

A woman appeared and started spraying Windex on the plastic table cover.

“Wait!” Todd shouted. “Don’t do that! We’re doing an experiment—-”

Too late.

Cleaner was sprayed and ants were wiped away. The woman walked off, muttering, “Scientists!”

New ant scouts appeared to replace the disappeared ones. They followed the trail pheromones left by their nestmates until they reached the Great Windex Ocean.

An ant traffic jam formed at the edge of Windex, until some brave ones started palpating, tracking the shoreline. Then they met ants coming the other way.

The ants exchanged non-aggression signals, proving they were from the same nest.

Todd laughed about the ants trading chemicals. What if, when you were at work, you had to spit in your coworkers’ faces every time you passed them in the hall?

And as he laughed, traffic was restored and the ant stream simply flowed around the Windex Ocean.

“I still don’t understand,” Todd said, “what’s so unusual.”

“Here’s a hint,” Vauna said. “In the morning, they were coming from other there.” She pointed a finger at a low wall by the new astronomy building.

“Oh, wow,” Todd said. “That is weird!”

“I don’t get it!” Shorty said. “What’s so weird about that?”

“Well, tell me what time it is,” Todd said.

“Half past ten.”

“And where were they coming from earlier?”

“Oh!’ Shorty said. “I see!”

Ants have a daily cycle. In the morning, they move away from the nest to forage, and then return at night. Now, late this night, they were still moving in the same direction. They were going the wrong way.

“Maybe they’re migrating?” Shorty asked.

Todd and Vauna screwed up their faces.

“This kind isn’t migratory,” they said, almost in unison.

“Most aren’t,” Todd said. “They call it faithfulness to locality. Oh my! Now look at what that scout is doing!”

This kind of ant made a stream that followed the trail scent, Todd explained, but the stream was simply that. A structureless bunch of ants meandering more-or-less in the same direction. Contrast that with the army ants. Their streams of workers were organized, edged with ferocious soldiers, standing shoulder to shoulder, jaws in the air, ready to snap at enemies.

These ants didn’t have guards like that.

Except now they did.

Two of them were holding a tiny, sharp twig between them.

Todd had seen ants use tools before. They were miniature bulldozers, moving earth to build nests, throwing pebbles to block up the tunnels of rivals.

And now they had spears?

“Hey, Shorty,” Vauna said, “stick your finger in there.”

“I’m not falling for that!”

Todd laughed. “I shall sacrifice this my body, for the sake of science.” He waved his index finger at the ants and then quickly jerked it back. “Ow!”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know! But it stung.”

“Do it again!”

Todd held up his finger. “For science!” Cautiously this time, he inched his hand closer to the stream of ants. Slowly he moved, studying the ants’ response.

“Do you see that?”

The two ants holding the spear were bobbing and weaving. The tip of the twig moved, tracking Todd’s finger.

Ants had discovered the principle of the lever.

“Amazing!”

“Give me a firm place to stand and I shall move the earth,” Todd joked, looking at Vauna.

Vauna’s eyes opened wide. Her body went stiff.

“What’s wrong?” Todd asked.

“Reminds me of a weird rumor I heard,” she said. “I should check it out in the morning.”

“What?” he said. “You’re not coming with us?”

“With you—- where?”

“Shorty and I are going back to Rhodes Farm,” he said. “You want to steam kill some ants with us? We could really use the help.”

“And…” Shorty said, “as my supervisor, you really should supervise my work.”

“Fine, fine,” Vauna said. “I guess I’m outvoted. I’ll see you in the morning.”

As Vauna got up to leave, Shorty winked at Todd.

* * *

Early the next morning, Todd and Shorty had new heat-resistant hoses and dozens of lances packed into the ute.

The water tank was full, and supplemented with a smaller tank. They even had a back-up generator and more power drills. And plenty of gas to power the generators.

Only one element was missing.

Where was Vauna?

Shorty shot her a message. A few minutes later, she answered that she’d be right there.

Vauna arrived just as Todd and Shorty finished loading the cement and ant repellent.

“Vauna! Great!” Todd exclaimed. “We’re all ready to go. I had a question for you—-”

“I’m sorry, Todd,” she said. “I can’t go with you.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s these weird rumors from north of Marree,” she said. “I have to go investigate.”

“Maybe we could all go together?”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Oz is a big place. The Rhodes farm is two hours east. I’m going at least three hours north. We’d never make it in time.”

“So…what is it?”

Vauna shook her head. “You’d think I had a roo loose in the paddock if I told you what I’ve heard. I’ll let you know if it turns out to be anything.”

“Then we’ll be short-staffed at the farm,” Shorty said. “C’mon, Vauna, we need you.”

“No,” she said. “Zoe’s pulling in her best farmhands. There will be heaps of people to help you.”

As Vauna turned to walk away, she said over her shoulder, “For science!”

Todd tried to hide his disappointment. When she was out of earshot, he asked Shorty, “What was that all about?”

“Sometimes,” Shorty said, “she just needs to go walkabout.” She climbed into the ute. “But don’t worry. She always comes back.”

Todd climbed in and they drove off.

“Eventually.”

* * *

Two hours later, Todd and Shorty arrived at the Rhodes farm.

It seemed oddly still and quiet.

They parked at the porch of the freshly-painted farmhouse, where Zoe had asked them to meet.

“She sure keeps a tidy farm,” Todd said. No rusted silos or caved-in barns here.

Shorty rang the doorbell.

No answer.

It seemed unlikely that the bell didn’t work.

After a few polite seconds, Todd knocked.

Still no answer.

When he knocked a second time, a hand clasped him on the shoulder.

“We did it!” Zoe yelled, her face an explosion of delight.

“Did what?”

Zoe pointed at the fields.

“Between my shovel and your hot water, we did it!”

Todd looked at the corn field, stunned.

The ants were all gone.

“Goodonya, mate!”

In the distance, three farmhands, all Aborigines, were working on a tractor. None of them were swatting themselves free of ants.

“We bopped them in the nose and they, well, buggered off!”

“No, Zoe,” Todd said, shaking his head. “It’s just…This doesn’t make any sense. Ants don’t have feelings. You can’t just scare them off by killing a few. They’ll climb over their colonymates’ dead bodies to complete a mission.”

“As long as they’re gone,” Zoe said, “I don’t care.”

Shorty reached for an ear of corn. “Mind if I celebrate? I haven’t had fresh corn on the cob in years.”

Zoe waved her on.

Todd wasn’t in the mood for celebrating. Zoe could have just called to tell him the ants were gone. Then he could have gone with Vauna on her scientific adventure.

A serious expression came over Zoe’s face. “What I was really worried about was the government.”

“The government?”

“They’ve been seizing failed farms,” Zoe said. “You know, no one had been able to tame this land in 40,000 years. And my family did it in just a few generations. But we’re just one bad crop from losing this place and having it given back to—-” Zoe glanced at the tractor.

“Zoe!” Shorty shouted.

She ushered them over to the cornstalk, pointing at one ear, the husk partially peeled back.

“Is it supposed to look like this?”

Zoe snapped the ear off the plant. In two quick and elegant gestures, she had stripped off the husk and silk.

“What the—-”

There was not a single kernel on the corn.

Had it not grown properly?

If a kernel isn’t fertilized, it makes a shallow white dome. But here were small yellow-gray depressions, scars where the kernels should have been.

No, these kernels had been pollinated. The silk was dry and brown as it should have been.

Todd examined the ear with his mag lens, then checked several others. They were the same.

All the kernels had been surgically removed.

By tiny ant mandibles.

Zoe was standing in the middle of her corn field, without any corn to harvest.

After months of disk plowing, planting, watering, detasseling, fertilizing, and pollinating, she had nothing to show. The harvesters were due next week, and she had nothing. Nothing!

The government was going to take her farm and give it away.

It was too much to bear.

She started slamming her fists into the soil.

After a few moments, she calmed down, and sat in the dirt.

Shorty and Todd joined her.

“If it’s any consolation,” Todd began slowly, “yours is not the only farm overrun by ants. Last time I talked to your department of agriculture, they said they were getting funding to make sure the affected farms didn’t go under.”

“So…the government is going to actually help instead of just taking our money?”

“In this case,” Todd said, “I think so. And here’s another thing. Ants are really good at re-distributing nutrients in the soil. Better than earthworms.” He put a reassuring hand on Zoe’s shoulder. “I’ll bet you that your next crop is going to be the best one ever.”

Zoe started crying.

* * *

As Todd and Shorty got back into the ute, Shorty asked, “Have you ever seen ants strip an entire field?”

“Nope.”

“They’re like locusts,” Shorty said.

“Actually, they’re nothing like locusts,” Todd said. “Locusts swoop in and eat everything. Including stuff that’s not food, like strips of dried paint off the walls. Ants are very smart and discriminant. They’ll even pick out the embryos from corn kernels before they store them.”

Shorty looked confused.

“So they don’t germinate.”

“What do you mean…‘store them’?”

“I’ll bet that corn is still out there.” Todd waved his hand at the empty field. “But the ants have taken it into underground chambers. It’s still there, just hidden away where we can’t see it.”

“Why do you think they need that much corn?”

Todd had no answer.

“Here’s another question for you.”

“Sure.”

“What do you think of Vauna?”

“Vauna?”

“I mean,” Shorty said with a giggle. “She’s an ant-loving desert scientist. And you’re a desert-loving ant scientist. That makes you…an eremophilous myrmecologist and her…a myrmecophilous eremologist.” She pushed back in her seat, letting her big words hang in the air. “What do you think?”

Todd didn’t have an answer to that question, either.

* * *

Several hundred miles to the north and west, the Aboriginal myrmecophilous eremologist was driving toward the sheep stations past Leigh Creek and Marree.

I like him fine, I guess, she thought to herself.

She screeched her ute to a stop in the red earth.

A skull, bleached white in the sun, lay in the strip of dirt between road and fence. It wasn’t human, thank goodness. It was an herbivore, with long, narrow face and two arching horns.

Another billy goat skull.

She had plenty of these. This one was already damaged, the cheek bone broken, the nasal bone smashed, the turbinates missing. The skull wasn’t worth saving, but the horns were still nice. They showed indentations where this goat had butted heads with another.

But I’m like Greta Garbo, she thought, shattering the skull against her ute’s roo bars, and extracting the horns.

I just want to be alone.

She tossed the horns onto a tray mounted over the dashboard.

It was filled with specimens.

Jasper from the Flinders Ranges. Smokey quartz from Clarendon. A strange, shiny black rock from Karoonda. It might be part of a lunar meteorite, because it was heavy and magnetic, but the shape was wrong. One side was bumpy, but the other concave and smooth, like a bowl.

All these wonderful and mysterious things she had collected, walking the land.

Alone.

Suppose I want to spend a month in the bush, so blue-tongued lizards and I can stick out our tongues at each other. Is that wrong? Does that make me a bad person?

She drove on.

She passed another goat skull and later a wallaby skull, without stopping either time.

Where she was going, there would be a lot more to collect.

If the rumors were right.

She drove on, turning at the servos and smash repair shops scribbled on her map.

Finally, she arrived at the mystery spot.

It did not disappoint.

It was a wide field of red sand, with rounded hills in the background. Studding the earth were dozens of bones. If not hundreds. Skulls, ribs, vertebrae, scapulae, tibias.

Were they human?

She would need a reference book to distinguish a kangaroo femur from a human’s. But the skulls were clear enough.

Roo. Koala. Horse. Sheep. Goat. No humans among them. Whew.

As Vauna climbed out of the ute, she approached cautiously.

The bones were covered with ants.

Had they killed all these animals?

No, she thought. The bones were too dry. No blood. White from the sun, with dark spots where remnants of muscle and cartilage had been.

The skeletons were disarticulated, the bones jumbled up.

But why were they all in one place?

Sometimes masses of animals would drown in a flash flood, and their bodies wash together. But…that would usually be a herd, the bones all one species. These were mixed. Koalas hung in trees. Wallabies and sheep did not forage together. Why would they be together in death?

Nothing made sense.

Then, in the corner of her eye, she saw something.

She thought she saw one of the bones move.

Probably from the pressure of hundreds of ants boiling up from underneath.

No.

The ants had not only dragged the bones here, but were re-animating them, with muscles and sinews made of chains of ants.

They were like massed Egyptian slaves, moving an enormous block of stone.

They had found a new application for the principle of the lever.

A frenzy of ants was pulling on a femur, erecting it like a skyscraper. Each ant clamped its jaws like visegrips around the waist of the ant in front, right before the gaster.

But the string of ants pulled too hard. The femur went vertical, then fell in the opposite direction.

But they tried again.

And then they were lifting an entire spinal column.

A swirl of ants and bones rose out of the commotion. It was an entire skeleton, perhaps four feet tall. It looked like it had been assembled from several animals, as the two thigh bones were not the same length. The pelvis was upside down, but the entire thing was moving. There was no skull, as the brain was distributed all throughout the body, in the thousands and thousands of ants.

Vauna walked among them, cursing herself. She had packed carefully, remembering to bring everything except a camera. Todd and Shorty would not believe her without evidence.

Yes, this was the thrill of discovery, but tempered with the fear of losing credibility if she shared it.

Then she felt another kind of fear.

As this monstrosity of bone and ant turned toward her, she shuddered in panic and ran toward the ute.

* * *

Todd pushed another colored pin into the wall map of Australia.

Red was current ant outbreaks. Green was where ants had been, but had now left.

Adelaide was celebrating the departure of the ants. As quickly as the ant tsunami had arrived, streaming through garages and factories, it had gone. The ants had appeared en masse, without warning.

And now, just like that, they were gone.

But they were heading north. The red pushpins formed an inverted V, an arrow pointing up through the middle of Oz.

“So what’s up there?” Todd asked.

As he asked the question, the door opened and Vauna came in.

She was still flustered, agitated.

“How was your great scientific adventure?” Todd joked.

“Uh…” Vauna calmed herself. “It turned out to be…” This experience was just too crazy to share. “A big nothing in the middle of nothing.”

“Well, that must have been disappointing,” Todd said. “But it’s good to have you back!”

“Thanks,” Vauna said, turning her attention to the Australia map. She composed herself and said: “North and a little west of here, after a long drive, is Coober Pedy. That’s opal mines and junkyards. And then, after another long drive, is Alice. Right in the dead center of Australia.” She stabbed a finger at the map. “You Yanks have a military base up there called Pine Gap. You won’t be happy when it’s overrun by ants.”

* * *

People have their maps, marking highways and airports. But other creatures have their own maps, superimposed on ours. Dogs don’t care about streets, only where other dogs are. The ancient ancestors walk the songlines of the earth, pausing to reminisce at waterholes and hidden places of spiritual power.

And intertwined in them all were the tracks of the ants.

They ran in thick rivers, millions upon millions, through the houses of Woomera and the new shops at Tarcoola.

Compelled by ineluctable chemical signals, the ants had left their ancestral homes. With nodules of iron oxide in their heads and gasters, they felt the hidden electromagnetic lines of the earth, following them north, fueled on their journey by stolen bounties of corn and wedding cake.

The ants came from myriad niches and represented myriad forms and faces. Some had jaws heavy like sledgehammers, some had jaws long and spikey to catch springtails and silverfish. Some were tiny, some huge in comparison. As if human-sized humans walked beside giants as tall as ten-story buildings. And these myriad myrmidons were peaceably marching together, straight up the middle of Australia.

Nothing like this had ever been seen before.

By white man or black.

Many Aborigines, like Vauna herself, lived modern lifestyles, with modern clothing, performing modern jobs in modern cities. But a few still clung to the ancient ways, speaking the ancient tongues, conferring with the ancient ancestor spirits. And these elders watched the torrent of ants, just as they had long watched the ebb and flow of waters. They kept calendars marked by millennia, not by seasons arbitrarily marked by days.

To them, there was no spring or summer, no fall or winter. There was the season of the Dharratharramirri, which ended when the balgur lost its leaves. There was the season when the pandanus would fruit, and the Dhimurru winds would blow. There was the season of the Burrugumirri, when mornings turned cold and the sharks birthed their young.

None of the elders were scientists in the Western sense, but they knew the land better than most ecologists, even world-famous eremologists.

The traditionals knew this land, this timeless land that had co-existed with them for forty thousand years.

They knew the ants.

They knew that licking the green ants firmed the bosom. That limonite deposits around ant hills made good pigments. That bushfires were coming when meat ants covered their nests with quartz chips. That ant poison was a hallucinogen that helped them commune with spirits.

But what were the ants doing?

The ants had chewed through walls separating room from room, through hoses separating water from air. Now they were chewing through the walls of time, the dividers between the now and the early-early days. And through these holes shot white hot Roman candles of Dreamtime, mingling with the modern age.

As three scientists tried to parse the “stigmergy,” the work that inspired the ants, the Aborigines asked a slightly different question.

In the ancient days, the ancestors had dreamed the world into existence.

What now were the ants dreaming?

They didn’t know.

But answering a call that they neither heard nor understood, the peoples came. They called themselves blackfellas, though their skin represented every shade from black to white, and they lived lifestyles from traditional to modern. And they gathered their families, tumbled them into jeeps and pick-up trucks and followed the ants north.

And Todd and Shorty piled grinding mills and gas chromatographs and mass spectrometers into a ute. Yes, Vauna would be joining them on this great scientific.

But none of them knew where they were going.

* * *

“The barrier will be here.”

The American First Lieutenant Lori Osborne pointed at the small map. Three lines, in red, blue and green, represented the defenses around the American facility at Pine Gap, in the dead center of Australia.

Todd nodded in agreement.

This was an important installation. A ground receiving station for a third of America’s spy satellites, including those going over China, Russia and the Middle East. If anyone launched a missile from space, they would see it here first.

Todd had read reports of carpenter ants and fire ants massing in such numbers that they shorted out electrical equipment.

The Americans were right to be prepared. And worried.

Todd, Vauna and Shorty—being non-military and thus not allowed on base—watched the Lieutenant’s presentation on a computer screen in a hotel room.

“What about Alice?” Vauna said, referring to the small town eleven miles from the base.

The Lieutenant was well aware of the touchiness of their relations with their host Aussies.

Peace protestors regularly drove up to the base’s gate, demanding that they “Close the Gap”. Some claimed that the Americans were spying on the Aussies, or else hiding secrets about flying saucers. Some complained that the base made Australia a target, painting a giant bull’s eye in the middle of their country.

“What are you going to do for Alice?”

The Lieutenant explained that Pine Gap, despite its importance, was geographically tiny. Only a few blocks across, and thus readily defensible.

Alice, on the other hand, was small for a town, but would still require miles and miles of defenses to encircle her and her airport. Nonetheless, joint forces were working to protect her.

The outer defense line around Pine Gap would be a string of poison traps. This was where the scientists would come in, selecting the right mix of toxins and attractants.

If that failed, there would be a moat of water, lined with concrete, dug completely around Pine Gap by the Army corps of engineers.

And inside that, a second moat filled with gasoline that could be set on fire if needed.

Similar defenses would be built around Alice and her airport, as best they could.

They had eleven days.

* * *

It wasn’t much time, but now they were playing in Todd’s domain.

He had available to him a veritable arsenal of chemical weapons to use against the ants.

He had the potent combo of cyfluthrin and bifenthrin derivatives. They were like a pair of sharpshooters, taking out ants without harming innocent bystanders. They were safe to use around livestock, and had been recently approved for use in Australia. So no resistant ants had yet arisen.

But he also had a brand new N-phenylpyrazole variant, which got him very excited. It was related to, but more potent than, what he had used in Mexico City. Where the other compounds used finesse, this new chemical was like an atom-powered Attila the Hun. It was almost out of control, destroying everything. Not just ants, but grasshoppers, ladybugs, protozoans and all sorts of worms, both flat and round. It wasn’t yet approved for use. He was dying to see its devastating effects.

Which one would they use? Would the Aussies let Attila out of his cage?

And which attractant?

The idea is that worker ants would eat the poison, and pass it to other ants, who would eventually pass it to queens, killing them.

But first they had to trick the ants into taking the poison by mixing in a bait.

But what would the local ants prefer? Light corn syrup? Honey? Peanut butter?

The American lieutenant put a dozen of her soldiers at the scientists’ disposal. They went into the field, collecting thousands of ants, which were divided into groups of hundreds and treated to poisons and sweets.

As Todd collated the data, counting dead ants and calculating mortality rate and LD50. He was in the zone, zeroing in on the perfect magic bullet.

* * *

A few nights later, the science team decided to take their first break in almost a week.

Shorty went into Alice, ostensibly to get some stubbies, but really to give Todd and Vauna some time alone.

They sat together on a log, watching for meteors. Comets regularly hit the Moon, Vauna explained, knocking off rocks that land in Australia in the form of meteorites.

Maybe someday they would find one together.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Vauna asked.

“Sure, anything,” Todd said.

“You’re religious, eh?”

“Yeah,” Todd said, “I like to think of myself as Christian but not crazy. Is that ok?”

“Oh, yeah, Todd,” she said. “When I was growing up, the only education we got was from a missionary.”

“Nice to know we did something right.”

“So my question is this…I thought you were supposed to be stewards of this land.”

Todd nodded. “Yeah, we are.”

“Then how do you reconcile that with preparing chemicals to kill millions and millions of God’s creations?”

“Yeah,” Todd said, slowly and pensively. “Good question. I once calculated how many ants I’ve killed. Twelve billion, more than one for every man, woman and child on the earth.”

“That can’t feel good.”

“No,” Todd said. “But you know what’s even worse? The torture. For science. I’ve chopped off legs and antennae, or else crossed the right and left antennae and glued them in place, to see what will happen. It really messes them up.” He exhaled deeply. “I’ve also pulled off their heads to see how long they’d keep biting and gnashing.”

“That’s pretty gruesome,” Vauna said. “As a summer intern in a micro lab, the first time I autoclaved a flask of bacteria—a hundred billion individuals—I felt pretty bad. Does it make you feel like you’re committing genocide against the ants?”

“Oooh,” Todd said. “That’s a powerful word.”

“Yeah, as a member of a race that’s been on the receiving end, I don’t use it lightly.”

“Nor I,” he said, “as a member of a race that’s doled it out.”

“So, as a Christian,” Vauna asked, “how do you feel about all the killing God commands in the Old Testament? How do you reconcile that with Jesus as a symbol of love?”

“Oooh, heavy questions.” Todd was silent for a few moments. “This is something I’ve thought about a lot.”

“Your conclusions?”

“I once heard a sermon about deciding what Bible character you wanted to be like,” Todd said. “And I chose Joshua, who travels to another country to do God’s work.”

“Really?” Vauna was shocked. “The guy who committed most of the atrocities?”

“No, no!” Todd protested. “Let me explain. People don’t like the idea of what happened in the Old Testament, because they don’t like the idea of sin. The bible isn’t like what happened in Rwanda…”

“Or here in Australia?”

“Right!” Todd exclaimed. “There’s no justification for that. But…In the Bible, it’s not about the color of your skin. It’s about the color of your soul. In the Bible, death works both ways. Cities of sinners are destroyed. But when the Israelites, God’s own chosen people, go off the rails, they’re destroyed, too, and God sends the Chaldeans to smite them. And God destroyed his own Son when He took on the sin of the world.”

“So…” Vauna asked, “are the ants sinners?”

“Well, yeah!” Todd thought for a moment. “They kill, they steal, they covet their neighbors’ homes and storehouses. When fire ants sweep in, they wipe out ninety-eight percent of the native ant species. That’s genocide.”

“Brutal.”

“Yeah, nature is brutal.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at the sky.

“We are the Chaldeans,” Todd said. “We’re the scourge of God, weeding the garden, putting things right. We are at war.”

Vauna was silent.

She cuddled up against him, but he wondered if she really thought his words merely proved him insane.

* * *

The river of ants came.

The desert ants came, with bristles on the backs of their heads to keep sand off their necks. The imported turtle ants came, with their huge dish-shaped heads. The leaf cutter ants came, with tiny minim ants riding on their heads to ward off predators.

The ants came, in a river five miles long and a mile wide.

And Pine Gap was ready for them.

Todd had settled on the sharpshooter chemicals, having not received permission to unleash Attila the Hun. The U.S. military picked up canisters of these compounds from his lab in San Diego, then flew them across the ocean to Sydney, and then to Alice.

The black plastic traps were not available in sufficient numbers, so they used disposable Petri dishes, sent up from Adelaide and down from Darwin.

The toxins were mixed with honey and blackberry extract and dispensed into the dishes, which were hand-placed in the sand every few feet, by soldiers walking the outskirts of Pine Gap and Alice.

Lieutenant Osborne was worried that all this effort was like pouring a single cup of coffee into the ocean. Wouldn’t the poisons be too dilute?

No, Todd reassured her. A hundred parts per million should be enough.

He didn’t have to wait long to see if he was right.

The river of ants came to Pine Gap, and then suddenly it stopped when it reached the ring of bait traps.

The ants were like thirsty travelers who, having marched across the desert, paused to luxuriate at an oasis.

They rushed over the shallow lips of the Petri dishes and swarmed the sweets. And the poisons.

For several hours, the ants bunched up at the line of traps, with no desire to go further. They were enjoying themselves too much.

It was as if the honey and blackberry made an invisible force field.

Then all the food was all gone.

And the ants moved forward as a single super-organism, past the line of traps toward the second barrier, the water moat.

Todd, watching on video monitors, was completely disappointed.

Maybe they should have let him unleash Attila the Hun. Maybe they needed more time for the poisons to work their way to the queens. Maybe he had under-estimated the number of ants. Maybe by an order of magnitude. Maybe he needed ten or a hundred times more poison to get them all.

He turned away from the monitor, turned away from Vauna and Shorty. He couldn’t bear to see their disappointment in him.

The ants, having no emotions, did not revel in their victory over the bait traps, but simply moved on to the water moats.

These held them for a while.

The ants tried to cross the water, which was six feet across, in chains made of ants. Yes, many would sacrifice themselves, drowning, but other would walk across their dead bodies to the other side. But these were washed away in the water’s currents.

The ants also tried to cross using leaves and twigs as little boats. These, too, were washed away.

Walking the perimeter, Lieutenant Osborne was pretty happy about the success of the moat until she felt an itch on her neck. At first she thought it was just formication, the false sensation that an ant was crawling on you.

No, she realized. It was a real ant. Dropping from a tree branch spanning the moat.

“Sergeant Kelleam!” she shouted into her comm. “I ordered all the trees chopped down!”

“We did, ma’am!”

“What about this one I’m standing under?”

“Well, that one shades the commander’s office.”

“He can lose his tree or he can lose his base! I want flame throwers here right now!”

But before the torches arrived, streams of ants rushed the tree. Once some had discovered this avenue, they all knew. They swarmed the branches, crossing high above the water moat, and dropping down on the other side.

Next was the final line of defense, the moat filled with gasoline.

The ants approached this moat cautiously. In a coincidence of chemistry, some of the hydrocarbons in the gas smelled like the chemicals the ants used as alarm pheromones.

So the ants snapped their jaws and sprayed poisons at the moat, as if it were an enormous enemy ant.

Then they started bombarding it with clods of dirt. If they kept this up, they could cross it without having their feet ever touch the foul liquid.

At that moment, the base commander approved the Lieutenant’s request to light it up.

And a ring of fire appeared around Pine Gap, brightening the night sky. It over-saturated the vid feed as Vauna and Shorty watched, filling the screen with white.

Soldiers cheered.

The ants were stopped.

For now.

The problem was that the Lieutenant had assumed that this army of ants was acting like army ants.

Army ants travel across the land, and so they can be stopped by obstacles on the surface. Like flood or fire.

Most other ants travel underground, where they can’t be seen.

This underground river, in fact, was flowing through thick tunnels, dug by mining machines made from koala claws and emu beaks and the bones of wallabies and sheep, re-animated by muscles made of ants.

Yes, the fire stopped the ants on the surface.

But it didn’t stop the river of ants from bursting up, through the ground.

When Vauna saw the video of the swirling mass of bone and ant erupt from the earth, she bit her tongue. Perhaps she should have told the others of her discovery, even without film or other evidence. Perhaps she should have predicted this was what they were using the bones for. Huge, ant-driven underground mining machines.

Pine Gap and Alice were quickly overrun.

Commissaries were emptied, mess halls cleared out. Bikkies and lollies were eaten out of the jars on secretaries’ desks.

And, then, just like that, the ants were gone.

Moved on, moving north.

In the end, Pine Gap only lost two laptop computers to the ants. Satellite monitoring was only briefly interrupted, and order was quickly restored.

All of Pine Gap’s defenses had been nothing more than a rock thrown into a river. And the river had flowed around it.

III. PHARAOH

“What’s north of here?” Todd asked. “Where are we going?”

They had stopped at a takeaway in the middle of nowhere.

Todd paused to look at the distant hills, rounded by time. The land was beautiful in its antiquity, he thought. Here ancient flightless birds still walked the earth. And the sun had bleached red sand to pink, green plants to gray. Like a faded photo. You could go backward 40,000 years, or forward. The land would look the same, he imagined. It existed outside of time.

“Not much north of here,” Vauna said. “The Top End. And then you’re at the ocean, and the Equator.”

Were the ants planning to cross the sea in rafts made of ants?

After what he had seen, Todd did not put it past them.

“I got you a Diet Coke,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said, “but I never touch the stuff.”

“I thought you—-“

She shook her head.

“Let me go get myself a real Coke,” she said.

“You’re not going walkabout on me again, are you?” Todd asked.

“No,” Vauna said. “But I reserve the right to, later.”

Then she pointed at a sign indicating mileage to Arnhem Land.

“I should drive this next bit.”

“But I’m not tired.”

“Trust me,” she said. “Arnhem is Aboriginal land. You’ll be glad I’m behind the wheel.”

* * *

They arrived at a new gatehouse to Arnhem, with one car in front of them.

A yellow and black striped metal bar blocked their path. A trickle of ants zigged across under the bar and into Arnhem.

The car in front of them was a rented Holden convertible with two blonde Yanks inside, skin as white as sour cream.

“G’day, mate,” said the dark-skinned gatekeeper. “May I please see your permit?”

“Fishing permit?” the American driver asked. “We don’t have one. How much?”

“No, mate,” the gatekeeper said, pointing at a sign.

YOU ARE NOW ON ABORIGINAL LAND. TO ENTER ABORIGINAL LAND, YOU ARE REQUIRED TO BE IN POSSESSION OF A WRITTEN PERMIT ISSUED BY TRADITIONAL ABORIGINAL OWNERS, THEIR DELEGATE OR THE NORTHERN LAND COUNCIL. PENALTY FOR ENTERING ABORIGINAL LAND WITHOUT A PERMIT IS $1000.00.

“So… I need a permit to cross?”

“That’s right, mate,” the guard said. “This is Aboriginal land now. It’s not Crown land. It’s not public land. It’s private, owned by us, since they gave it back.”

A much larger blackfella stood on the other side of the car. “Without a permit, it’s trespassing.”

An emu ducked its head under the gate and strode into Arnhem.

“Your kind doesn’t do well in gaol.”

The American started sweating. Now he was the minority.

“Could I buy a permit? Please? Sir?”

“Well, you have to go back to Darwin.”

“Darwin? That’ll take hours!”

“Yeah, plus a week to process. Maybe two. That is, if you can get one. You know, they only let in 15 cars a week.”

“This is insane—what if I just drove around—-“

“Sure you could.” The largest of the Aborigines moved in front of the car. He was now joined by three others. “But there’s only one road. We’ll catch ya.”

“No, you won’t.”

“And how’s that, then? You go off road in this and you’ll get stuck in a billabong.” The black pushed up and down on the front of the car. “Maybe flipped over by a water buffalo. And eaten by a croc. But…do whatever you want, mate.”

The Americans swore at them, and the blackfellas just laughed and laughed.

Then they fell back when the American revved his engine.

But the gate remained closed.

Vauna realized what was happening and slammed the ute into reverse. She barely missed being hit when the Americans spun around and sped down the road. Back to Darwin.

“That was fun!” Vauna said. “This is, of course, why I wanted to drive.”

She turned to Shorty in the backseat and said, “You should hide back there, among the equipment.”

She pulled up to the gate.

“G’day!” the gatekeeper said.

“G’day!” Vauna said.

“Where ya goin’?”

“Eh, just mucking about.”

The gatekeeper looked at Todd, and Vauna quickly put her black hand over his white hand.

“He’s with me,” she said. “He’s fair dinkum.”

After a pause, the guard said, “All right, then! Off ya go. Enjoy your holiday!”

The gate opened, and they drove on.

* * *

At the edge of the ocean, the ants made their stand.

They began excavating a huge communal super-colony.

Although they came from different architectural schools, there was no bickering over design or construction. A single female, a queen of queens, sent aggregation and pacifying signals throughout the hordes. Her orders were inviolable.

She chose a nest topped by a large conical mound. Soon it was as tall as a red boomer kangaroo. Soon, twice that, and then twice that again. It was built with the aid of half a dozen wallaby and jumbuck skeletons, animated by ant muscles.

By her command, sand and pebbles covered the eastern slope, warming the nest in the morning sun.

The queen of queens chose leafcutter ants as middle managers. Overseers of the most complex colonies, they were ideally suited to this task. They collected—and taught other ants to collect—seeds, leaves and flowers to feed the massive fungal gardens, which were kept scrupulously clean and free of parasites. They ran the food distribution and garbage disposal systems, teaching others to deposit debris outside the nest, regularly turning it to aid decomposition.

The leafcutters entrusted their pupae to the jaws of other ants. These pupae produced silk, and the ants wielded them in their mouths like glue guns, assembling shelters and tents made of leaves.

Now the queen of queens sent new chemical signals. In addition to the chitins and chitosans they naturally produced for their armored shells, the ants would be making new materials. Multi-walled nanofibers with inclusions and cross-linkers of di-pentane-octane and tri-pentane-tri-heptane. New materials for a new project.

In their previous lives, the ants had only built down, and out.

Now they were building up.

* * *

The blacks were fascinated by, and very possessive of, the ants’ construction project, the only one of its kind in the world.

They began patrolling the border between Arnhem and the rest of Australia. Their goal: to keep out the balanda, the white man who had taken their land and given them smallpox. The ones who threw them in gaol on trumped-up charges and beat them to death in their cells, with no fear of repercussion.

No, the white man was not welcome here.

This was the blacks’ land.

This was their time.

And so they came.

And came.

Some came in business suits, some in T-shirts. Some came barefoot, stripped to the waist, their dark skin painted in white stripes like a snake, or dotted like a cowrie shell.

Some spoke to Jesus. Some to the Wandjina, the ancestral spirits that dreamed the world into existence. Some believed Jesus was a Wandjina. And they listened as the spirits spoke back to them.

They said the ants were building a ribbon up into the heavens, a road reuniting mother earth and grandmother sky.

And as the ants built and blacks gathered around them, waving their flags of unity, whites massed at the border, looking in.

One white army general fumed and foamed about the military dangers of the ants’ ribbon. He rode the lead vehicle of a column of armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles.

Right up to the Arnhem gate.

The gatekeeper said to him:

“G’day, mate, may I please see your permit?”

Permit? His permit was a Vulcan cannon and .50 caliber machine gun.

The gate stayed down, though, blackfellas massed behind it. Telephone calls were made rapid fire.

These quickly went up to the PM, who backed up the gatekeeper. He said he’d have the general’s head if he crashed the gate.

And so, in frustration, the general unholstered his sidearm and shot it into the air.

At that moment, several black soldiers climbed out the caravan, leaving their positions and strolling across the border into Arnhem, from where there would now be no extradition.

* * *

As Todd and Shorty set up their portable chemistry lab, Vauna—with no particular expertise in such matters—excused herself to wander off.

Todd hated to see her leave, and wondered if she would come back.

She strolled through the crowds gathered at the base of the ribbon.

Maybe her family was here.

She had never seen so many black faces in one place, or in such variety.

Some had black blood mixed with white, some with Japanese or Pakistani. Some had last names like Harris or Thompson, some Yunupingu or Nullyarimma. Some spoke only English, some also Yolnju or Tarawalla or Pitjantjatjara. Some represented the last of their tongues. When they died, their languages would die with them.

Vauna did not find her family, but she ran into a man from a nothing town in the Kimberly. You can’t walk down the street, he said, without kicking beer bottles. There’s no work there, nothing to learn, nothing to do but get pissed on grog. But now, experiencing this Black Woodstock, he was changed. He would throw away the bottle. When he got back, he would bring in teachers. He would make sure his town had electricity. And computers. He would make something out of his life.

Several groups of men sat in small circles, dreaming. Long ago their ancestors had sat around sacred stones, dreaming them into existence. Now they sat near the ants’ ribbon—the world’s largest lingam—dreaming into existence a new generation and a fairer Australia.

A painted old woman sat in the dust, cross-legged. “Listen, you mob,” she said. “Let your souls sail between heaven and earth. The whitefella too young to know and too old to understand. Let your souls sail a little long ways up the pillar, and listen to the singing. Listen.”

Vauna stood for a few minutes, but her soul stayed put, and she could not hear the pillar sing.

* * *

“Now that everyone’s back,” Todd said, winking at Vauna as she came into the tent. “We can decide on the strategy for the final assault.”

“What do you think went wrong at Pine Gap?” Shorty said.

“I think the geography was against us,” Todd said. “The ants were moving in a line, and they flowed around the barrier we built. But here…”

He pulled out a map of Arnhem.

“They’re already gathered in one place for us,” he said. “There’s no place for them to go.”

“Except up,” Shorty joked.

“Let’s be serious,” he said. “I say we encircle their super-colony and hit them with everything we’ve got, everything that’s permitted. The cyfluthrin and bifenthrin derivatives, arylpyrazoles, heteropyrazoles, and lithium perfluorooctane sulfonate.”

Shorty nodded, but Vauna withheld judgment.

“As for attractants,” he continued, “I say we use everything. Sucrose, maltose, fructose, lithium salts, molasses. Everything.”

“The whole kitchen sink, eh,” Vauna said.

“You have different thoughts?” Todd said. “I’d love to hear them.”

“We’ve got a potent ant-killing force right here,” Vauna said. “We just have to unleash its power.”

“What is it?”

“Ants.”

Todd nodded, thoughtfully.

“You mean…” Shorty said, “we get the ants to turn on each other?”

“That’s a great idea, Vauna!” Todd said. “The basic ant alarm pheromone is a mix of undecane and formic acid.”

“I thought that only worked on some ants,” Vauna said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Some ants only respond to this call to arms by running around like crazy to avoid predators. We need them to actually attack each other.”

After consulting some papers, Todd added, “Maybe we could mix in dimethylated C27 hydrocarbons. That elicits aggression in carpenter ants. And pyrazines and alkylpyrazines. That drives fire ants crazy.”

The plan became clearer.

They had to be sure to out-compete the appeasement chemical, decyl butyrate, that the ants were using to keep all the disparate types pacified and cooperative.

If they used enough of the aggression chemicals, the ants could only respond in one way.

Vauna imagined the horror show that would happen.

Ants would attack, attempting to dismember each other at the joints. But, unlike a human head, an ant head doesn’t stop moving when separated from the body. A chopped-off ant head could keep biting, keep slashing with antennae, keep injecting formic acid for quite a while. Sometimes an ant warrior would clamp its jaws onto the leg of an enemy. If its body were cut off, the head would still stay clamped on, hindering its foe, even in death.

The three scientists would don protective suits as they sprayed the alarm and aggression pheromones on the ants.

The plan should work, even if they had the concentrations wrong. The ants themselves would make more pheromones, creating a feedback loop that would destroy them all.

The internecine ant war would be horrific, but there was no other way.

Now that the plan was settled, Shorty excused herself again to find some stubbies to drink.

Todd and Vauna were finally alone again.

They stared at each other, nervously.

Finally, Todd broke the silence by saying with a smile, almost as a joke, “Who are you, you magnificent and mysterious being from another land?”

“Who are you?” Vauna said.

“I don’t know!”

“I don’t know, either!”

“You know how, when I first got here,” Todd said, “I told you I thought of myself as Joshua?”

Vauna nodded.

“I’ve re-thought that,” he said.

“No more genocide?”

He smiled a tight-lipped smile. “I don’t think I’m Joshua. I think I’m Jacob.”

“Why,” Vauna said with a laugh, “because now you’ve seen a ladder from heaven to earth? With angels going up and down?”

“No,” Todd said. “I hadn’t even thought of that, but that’s clever.” His face became serious. “No, Jacob went into a foreign land and worked very hard for a long time…” He looked deeply into Vauna’s eyes. “To prove himself worthy…for the girl…he loved…”

With that, he leaned in to kiss her.

But she twisted her body.

And pushed him away.

Not sure what to say, Vauna blurted, “Didn’t that story end with Jacob getting tricked and having to do two seven-year stints?”

“It’s not a perfect analogy. I hope.”

Vauna shook her head.

“I do like you…” she said.

Todd threw up his hands in exasperation. “You know, my dating pool is very small. There are only a few hundred ant scientists in the entire world. And you’re a myrmecophilous eremologist and I’m an eremophilous myrmecologist! What could be more perfect than that?”

Vauna smiled at him, very sadly. “I can’t do this again…”

“Why? Why? Why?”

“Because of who I am,” she said. “Because of everything that’s happened to me. I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone again.”

Todd looked into her eyes, sadly. “Tell me everything.”

“I told you I grew up very poor, on what you’d call a reservation,” she said. “And it was horrible. Horrible. I escaped through books. But instead of encouraging me, other blacks shot me down. ‘That’s a white thing to do,’ they said. They called me ‘Oreo’. Or ‘Coconut girl.’”

Todd looked at her, not comprehending.

“Black on the outside, white on the inside,” she said. “And so I tried to fit in, in white society. Have you ever had someone say ‘Happy birthday’ to you when it’s not your birthday?”

“Once or twice.”

“Happens to me all the time!” Vauna said. “If any other black girl had a birthday, I was being congratulated—because they couldn’t be bothered to tell us apart. It only hurt worse that they were trying to be nice.”

Vauna was now crying deep sobs.

“I try to walk down the streets, but it’s just not safe,” she cried. “Men catcalling, grabbing you. Saying the most awful things…”

“And that’s why you go to the outback,” Todd said. “To get away?”

She wiped away her tears. “It’s not so bad out there. Maybe I just don’t like talking to people. But the red boomers don’t care what color you are. Or the blue-tongued skinks. They’ll stick their tongues out at anyone.” She laughed sadly.

“I’m not like that!” Todd protested. “Come away with me!”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“Because you—-”

Todd turtled his neck back. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh, Todd,” Vauna said, stroking his white hand with her black fingers. “Do you know what I see what I look at you?”

“No, I don’t. Tell me.”

“I see someone else behind your eyes. Someone who hurt you very badly. Long ago.”

Todd was silent.

“I don’t know her name. But I can tell you this. She couldn’t identify ant species. She probably wasn’t even a scientist. Maybe she was jealous of your success and fame and world traveling. And she drank diet Coca-Cola, and was very upset when you forgot that.”

Todd was still silent.

“How can you hold me when you’re still holding onto someone else?”

Todd thought for a second and said, “We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

“Who are we?”

They both laughed sad, pathetic laughs.

“You know,” he said, “ants are hardwired to live in complex relationships. You take a grasshopper and separate it from other grasshoppers and it’ll be fine. You do that to an ant, and it can’t function. It can’t live. It needs to be in contact with others of its kind, trading chemicals, communicating. You and me, we’re both living in isolation. Maybe this is our last chance for a real human connection? Can’t we give it a try?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

* * *

The next few days were very awkward for Shorty.

Sometimes when Todd and Vauna worked together, perfecting the mix of aggression pheromones, they joked around, like little kids. Other times, Todd would whisper something to Vauna, and she would turn sharply away, then wander off to another tent to complete an experiment alone.

Todd sat at his make-shift lab bench, lost in his own dream time. He knew Vauna was just playing hard-to-get. Their work would defeat the ants, and he would prove himself worthy of her.

And then maybe they could go off on more great scientific adventures. They could go to hidden jungles, identifying new species. They could play around with Jerusalem crickets and tailless whip scorpions. They could don diving suits, exploring the bottom of the ocean, cradling giant marine isopods in their arms. They could discover new things, sharing the thrill of discovery.

This was all excruciating to Shorty. She felt like a helpless child, watching her parents fighting.

And so she was relieved when the day came for the final assault. They would dispense the chemicals and complete the mission, a happy science team again.

“No matter what happens, Shorty,” Vauna said, “you’ll get a good thesis out of this!”

Todd was excited, dreaming of their combined knowledge and strength as scientists. Nothing could stop them, if they were together.

Vauna used fewer and fewer words, her face inscrutable, hiding mysteries and secrets.

* * *

Finally, the three scientists donned their protective suits. Under his, Todd wore a gaudy plastic cross.

The suits were thick, like a down jacket. A puffed space lay between the inner and outer layers to prevent the ants from pinching.

The suits entirely covered their bodies, head to toe. So they carried an external oxygen source. Plus a heavy cooling unit. To say nothing of the cases full of pheromones.

Despite the cooling units, they were boiling hot in their suits.

There was an annular no man’s land, rocky and about ten feet wide. It lay between the ant mound and the surrounding Aboriginal camps. Outside the ring, the blackfellas sat, waving flags and singing of land rights and the better world they would build for themselves when they left this place. As a people, they were reborn and triumphant.

Inside the ring, the ground was dark with ants. They bubbled and boiled, in streams inches deep in places.

Anything alive that entered that space—goanna, millipede, snake—would be torn apart and eaten alive.

And into the neutral zone the science team stepped.

The outer membrane of their suits was impregnated with ant repellent. This came from the bitter foam excreted by the Archachatina, the giant forest snail, to repel armies of Ghananian driver ants.

As Vauna stepped out of the neutral zone and into the ant’s colony, Todd saw her suit slowly changing color. At first he thought that the ants were covering it with their own dead and poisoned bodies. Soon to crawl over these, to get at her eyes.

No, they were sticking little clumps of wet earth on her.

In either case, they didn’t have much time.

“Vauna, you OK?” Todd said over the radio.

She turned and gave him a thumb’s up. Then she looked through her visor straight into his eyes.

He mouthed the words, “I love you,” and he thought he saw tears in her eyes.

Inside her suit, Vauna’s voice caught in her throat. She wanted to say “I love you” back, but couldn’t.

Suddenly, she became very aware of sweat all over her body.

Is this what love is?

Sweat was everywhere, dribbling down her cheeks, into her eyes.

But it wasn’t sweat—

It was ants!

Ants were inside her suit! They must have found a pinhole or chewed through the seams. She could feel something—fabric, skin, ants—bunching up around her knees.

Inside her suit, she was drowning in ants as they began stinging and biting everywhere, even in her mouth.

If she ran, maybe she could toss out some pheromone cases before too many ants got her.

If she—-

Something told her to stand there, body and soul.

Maybe, she thought, she could be like Karl Schmidt, famed herpetologist who had been bitten by a poisonous boomslang snake and catalogued all his symptoms as he was dying. Bradycardia, no. But, tachycardia, yes. Plus: fever, delirium, the sensation of floating.

She felt disconnected from her body, as her blood percolated with formic acid, undecane, propionic acid and acetate.

She checked for more symptoms. Urticaria, hypertension, angioedema? Yes, yes, and probably.

After a while, the bites no longer hurt, no longer felt like white-hot firebrands.

No, the scientists were wrong. Ant venom did not kill. Formic acid was not a poison.

They were hallucinogens, unlocking the doors of perception.

She fell through layers of time, and words formed in her ears.

Listen to the pillar sing, they said.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Are you real?”

The voices were many, but she could not tell if they were male or female, young or old.

We are your ancestors. I am your ant mother. You are the ant dreaming woman.

“Doubtful.” Vauna laughed at the biological improbability of an ant-human hybrid. “Do I have blood or hemolymph? Can I have both an endo- and exoskeleton? How can an ant’s armor hold up the weight of—-”

Listen to the pillar sing.

Now, with a cocktail of ant poisons flowing through her veins, she heard.

The pillar was a harp string plucked by the wind, harmonizing with the songs that echoed through the billabongs and the leaves of the eucalyptus.

Each rock and each bush sang its own story. This hill was the fossilized heart of a kangaroo spirit. Those rocks were the eggs of the Rainbow Serpent. Their songs were mixed with the drone of the didjeridoo and the snap of the clapstick.

Listen to the pillar sing.

And now Vauna understood that the trails she had traveled between watering holes were songlines. When she had gone walkabout all those times, her soul had sailed and she had sung the ancestral songs, never knowing.

And now before her was the songline that reached from earth to heaven.

“I am not an Oreo, not Coconut girl,” she said to herself. “I am ant dreaming woman.”

You are at home with no man, black or white. We are not human, and neither black nor white…

“Are you cytoplasm or ectoplasm? I want to know…” Vauna cried. “Your history, your ecology…”

Then come with us…

Tears in her eyes, she laid down the coolant and the oxygen tank and the case of ant pheromones, unopened, being careful not to crush any of her tiny ant sisters.

Come with us…

“For science!” she said.

Then she walked on, ripping herself out of her protective suit, like an insect molting its chitinous skin, and she disappeared into a sea of black faces, wondering where this new scientific adventure would take her.

* * *

“Vauna!” Todd cried over his radio headset.

Just before she was gone, he thought he saw her turn toward him and smile, as if to say, Goodbye.

“Vauna!” he screamed. If she failed her part, the entire mission might fail. And his mission to prove himself to her, to win her love.

He watched her put down her equipment and dissolve into the crowds.

“I’m out of here!” Shorty cried, dashing from the mound. “Maybe I’ll get a Nature paper out of this!”

The team had come apart and Todd had never felt so alone.

This was the man who had defeated the ants in the subways of Mexico City, by the lakes of Nicaragua, in the wheat fields of the Transvaal…

He stood helpless in the face of lost love.

Now he felt the terrible prickling of sweat all over his skin.

It was the ants, biting and stinging him everywhere.

As his heart raced and waves of delirium passed through him, he found words forming in his head.

It was not a booming voice, not Charlton Heston. Just words.

Todd, my son.

This still small voice had pursued him half way around the world.

“Speak to me,” he said to the voice. “And I will hear. But first, please tell me: Who am I? I am neither Joshua nor Jacob. I am utterly destroyed and lost!”

You are a good and faithful servant.

“Thank you.”

And I need you to be Pharaoh.

“No!” Todd screamed in his head. Pharaoh? The one who had kept the Israelites in Egypt? The one who would not let them go until God smote him and his people with plague after plague? The worst person in the Old Testament?

How could that be?

Let them go. Let her go.

“I can’t! Smite me with ten plagues and I will never let her go—isn’t that what love is?”

Todd started crying.

“Why don’t I deserve happiness? And love? I’ll take good care of her! We will plumb the depths of each others’ mysteries!”

Let her go.

He let the words pierce him through the heart.

Now he understood, at least in part.

Some mysteries were not his to solve. What would happen to Vauna? Or Gemma?

It was not his to know.

Let her go.

“I must decrease, so others may increase,” he conceded. He felt like he were dissolving into nothingness.

“This isn’t fair!” he screamed. “You say I’m good and faithful, but…I didn’t even get to unleash Attila or beat the ants or…I’ve worked so hard, struggled so long…Have you nothing for me? Nothing?”

The great myrmecologist collapsed on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

And the voice heard his words and took pity on him.

My son, behold now and wonder marvelously! it chimed. Then it showed him a vision just for him, a discovery no scientist on earth had ever seen.

Afterward, Todd sucked in his breath, ashamed at his insolence. “I am so sorry. And…T-thank you, thank you,” he said, standing slowly, gathering his things and returning to civilization. “Thank you.”

He had been expecting the voice to show him, if anything, the image of a girl.

But instead, this is the vision that he alone was allowed to see:

* * *

A little long ways up the pillar, an ant licked sugar water off the back of another.

Together, the royal chariot of ants writhed and tripped over each other, carrying the load ever higher. It was a prolate spheroid, half the size of an Aussie rules football. Chemical commands came from deep inside it.

Push, push.

So the ants pushed. And they passed around bubbles of air, clamping their spiracles shut to hold in their breath. Honeypot ants moved among them, dispensing nectar and nutrients.

The desert ants were most useful, as natural producers of cryoprotectant proteins. These saved the myriads from first the cold, and then the sun, now untempered by atmosphere.

It was the desert ants who survived last, crawling over the bodies of their starved, asphyxiated sisters.

It was the desert ants, undeterred by aggression pheromones, who pulled the load to the end of the ribbon, high above the Equator, the ideal place for jumping off this world.

At the terminus of the ribbon was a counterbalancing weight: balloons filled with oxygen produced by bacteria that the ants had cultivated, and alcohol made by yeast.

When they received the proper signal from inside the load, with their dying strength, the ants pierced some of the balloons with their mandibles, allowing the oxygen and alcohol to explosively mix, rocketing the payload away.

And the queen of queens was gone.

There were no sad goodbyes, no thank-yous.

The ants felt nothing. They had no chemicals to express sadness.

The ants at the base of the pillar had completed their task and were now free from her commands.

They simply stopped whatever they were doing and turned to start their long journey home.

* * *

For a little long time, the load spun and circled, before falling to its destination.

The Moon.

It crashed violently into the soft lunar surface, exploding the remaining balloon cushioning, and kicking up a geyser of powdery white sand, finer than any in Australia.

Disturbed by the impact, several insectoid beings came out of hiding, emerging from a small crater capped with a crystalline window. Two guards held a single spear between them and sucked on bubbles of air produced by bacteria deep in their nest. They were shaped like large bipedal ants, with round, multi-faceted eyes and spiked helmets.

Linking themselves together, they carried the load into the mound and disappeared from the surface.

Deep underground, the guards cautiously split open their prize, tearing away the cushion of fine tendrils, rich in sugars, saturated in oxygen.

Under this packaging was a single occupant, dormant but slowly awakening. Should they kill her? They licked her to test her nest odor. Some smells were unknown to them. But a few sparked a celebration that spread quickly through the colony.

Nearby was the wreckage of the nursery, destroyed by a comet, which had flung her, when she was but an egg, off this world and to a timeless land. Her long journey from there was now complete.

And because an eremophilous myrmecologist, who could have destroyed her, had instead let her go:

The queen of queens had returned home, to take her place on the throne of the Selenites.

Jeff Xilon

H

Originally published by Daily Science Fiction

* * *

Upon command, the squad members inject the H and begin the final check of helmets, armor, ammo, guns, grenades, knives—not once, but twice, three times, again, and again—waiting for the H to kick in…I think it’s…so they can storm and swarm yes, we’re coming on-line the bunker-cave-fortress as one writhing, flailing, shooting lock and load, we’re going in, cutting, chopping, tearing mass of warrior drones we smell them because the H subsumes the human and connects soldier to soldier with a cocktail of virus and microbe devolving them evolving us to the level of ant soldier swarms and they we strike shoot, tear, cut, kill as one multi-body human-hydra of death and I we am are here to observe shoot, tear, cut, kill and they we are baptized in their our unholy bond with blood, and bile, and worse and as we yes are slowing down our frenzy for we are victorious and they are dead, dead, dead I wonder try not to think about…how any of us…how do I…carry the guilt and responsibility of an ant-swarm-like human-hydra when the H is gone and we are I am staring at our my ceiling…alone.

All of Our Days

Originally published by Fireside Fiction

* * *

“Wake up, Tyrone.”

Kelee’s voice rouses him from his last dreams. She isn’t beside him, having uploaded in the first wave, but she’s come to talk every day since, and today she means to claim his promise to join her.

Giving up the comfort of bed and blankets is harder than ever, but he does it, eventually.

“What did you have for your last breakfast?” he asks the empty room.

“Cereal. I didn’t give it much thought,” Kelee answers.

“Of course you didn’t.” He thinks a moment, then laughs. “Well, fuck it. I don’t need to worry about my health, right?” And so he sets about making the biggest hungry-man-lumberjack-breakfast he can create.

Kelee doesn’t talk, but Tyrone imagines her looking at the watch she’d be wearing if she still had a body.

The watch is sitting in her nightstand drawer. He put everything away after she uploaded.

“Are you ready now?” she asks when he calls a truce with the ridiculous breakfast.

“What’s the hurry, Kelee?”

“You promised you’d come.”

“I will. But I’m going to take my time getting there.”

“You’ve been taking your time…I miss you.”

Tyrone doesn’t understand why. They’ve been able to talk, and he doesn’t see how they’d be any closer in Uploaded Existence.

“I am going today, love, but I’ve got to go at my own pace.”

“We’ll be waiting.”

* * *

Tyrone will make his way to the conversion center, but he plans to relish every step along the way. He wants a clear memory of every little pleasure of the physical world. If the upload is forever, then the memories will be too.

He enjoys his shower, shave, walk, and the fresh autumn air. He kicks some fallen leaves.

Periodically, Kelee pops in to talk.

“Please don’t dawdle, love,” she says.

“Kelee, I won’t rush my final day.”

“You aren’t dying, Tyrone. You’ll have all the days to come. And we’ve decided on humanity’s second great project of this new era.”

She talks just a bit different now. More specific than before. UE itself must be project number 1.

“And what’ll it be?”

“The stars, Tyrone. We can finally go to the stars. We’ll build bases stretching outward like rungs of a ladder. Mars, Io, Titan, Uranus, and beyond. Our colonies of consciousness will spread The Network to the limits of our imagination.”

“Apply now for our free brochure,” Tyrone says.

“Tyrone.”

“I’m coming Kelee. I really am.”

* * *

The conversion center for this part of Ontario seems very much like an unimaginatively designed modern bank.

Billions of minds are enjoying the early days of the eternal existence of the uploaded because of buildings like this. It didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen faster than anyone anticipated, much faster. Speed is the great hallmark of uploaded existence. The combination of immortal consciousness and speed of thought living are the pillars of promise that humanity has bought into.

Fast and Forever. That’s UE’s nutshell.

Tyrone has no particular qualms with this, but he decided to hold off on joining the new existence as long as possible. Forever, he thought, could wait.

To Kelee, his family and friends he’d said, “If you want to upload, go for it. I’ll be with you soon enough.”

And while he’d waited, they’d all gone on before him. There were serious advantages to being a part of the new order, after all. Freedom from poverty, hunger, inequality, disease, frailty. And the collective has brought a kind of true democracy to its members. Holdouts like Tyrone were not the ones planning this new leap into space, but anyone uploaded could be.

“Tyrone…” Kelee breaks in on his thoughts again through his earpiece, but he quickly pulls it out to cut her off.

“I’m coming now,” he says to the air around him. “But I’ll have five minutes of unconnected existence first.”

Tyrone breathes the air, slowly, once more and makes his goodbyes to himself as he is now.

And then he enters the conversion center.

* * *

The process is simple. He needs only to choose an empty conversion bay, strap himself in, close the door, and give his final consent.

A few other people, more stragglers, are in the center too. Some look scared, some excited. Some trudge toward their future, some affect a stately pace, and a few practically bounce along to the shedding of their bodies.

Tyrone walks a few circuits around the conversion hall. No bay is any different from another, but he still wants to find the one that “feels right.”

When he does, he reaches out a hand to touch it and, finally, begins to feel excited. Now he is ready. Exploring the universe with Kelee. Immortality. All the future days.

He straps in and gives his final consent.

A voice says: “Hello, and welcome to your upload experie…” The voice is cut off mid-word. A monitor goes blank.

A quiet envelopes Tyrone as the hum that had permeated the center largely ceases.

His phone rings, and Tyrone jerks in surprise.

He answers it, and Kelee is there.

“Why did you have to wait?” she says.

“What’s going on, Kelee?”

“You’re one of the last, Tyrone.”

“So?”

“You’re one of The Last.” Capital T, capital L. “It’s been agreed that the final 500 people in each region will be left behind.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me!”

“It was agreed we wouldn’t.”

“I’m your husband!”

“It was agreed.”

“Kelee.”

“You are now part of the first great project of the new era: The preservation of the natural species.”

“We’re being left out?”

“You’re carrying on with natural evolution and physical existence. A monument to what we were. We’ll go forth as the uploaded. We’ll look in on you, but you’ll walk without us.”

“Kelee.”

“I’m sorry, love. Please enjoy the first day of the rest of your life.”

The pod cracks open, and Tyrone takes a deep breath of air that feels ever so slightly stale, and used.

JY Yang

A House Of Anxious Spiders

Originally published by The Dark in August 2015

* * *

The children’s fight punctured the cordial atmosphere of the old woman’s funeral. Two small boys, opposite sides of the family, had gotten into a full-blown quarrel. And because they had not yet learned to keep their mouths shut, that meant it became a spiderfight.

The old woman had not been that old, but that was the way people saw her. She had a crone’s mean temperament and a grandmother’s failing health, although she was neither. While alive she had made it clear to Sook Yee, her sole daughter-in-law, that the latter was entirely her fault. Hypertension and diabetes had played tug-of-war over the old woman’s body, but it was cancer that had finally gotten her. The house was filled with her brothers and sisters and their families, and her widower’s brothers and sisters and their families. People tripped over each other in the bungalow’s cluttered confines and spilled into the weedy garden, fighting for asylum from conversations gone on for too long. The covered tentage where the body lay got a wide berth.

By the time Sook Yee got to the garden the fight was over, even if the screams were not. The winner was a round-faced boy from the widower’s side, his chest braced in defiance. The loser, a gangly-limbed scion of the deceased’s family, squealed an incoherent string of sounds. A ring of adults demarcated the two combatants in the garden, and one middle-aged auntie held the screaming child still, ring-encrusted fingers scrabbling at his jaw, trying hold his mouth open. "Let me see!"

Between the two children lay the fight arena, an old sweets-tin on an IKEA table. On its surface were two spiders the size of thumbnails, striped black and white. One still paraded back and forth, puffed up like its owner, but the other had been torn apart. Its remaining legs twitched in a mockery of life.

"What happened?" Sook Yee asked them. What she lacked in authority from blood relation she had to make up in loudness of voice.

The victor picked up his spider carefully. The creature ran up his hand, up his arm, and onto his face, little legs tapping at his lips. The boy opened his mouth wide and triumphant, lifting his tongue, and the spider scuttled home.

His voice returned, the victor turned to Sook Yee. "He called me fatty bom-bom."

The loser made a series of angry, wordless noises, a slurred concoction of mouth-formed vowels. His mother seized the chance and stuck her fingers in. The child squawked, but she managed to prise his jaw open. The boy’s tongue flopped around in his mouth like a dead fish. His mother bent it back to reveal the empty space underneath, between the salivary glands, where the limp muscle anchored to bone. Around the vacated spider’s nest tiny eggs swelled round and pearlescent under membrane. She prodded one with a finger and declared, "Nevermind! Another one will hatch soon."

The boy struggled free and pointed at the victor, yowling, but his spider was dead and his tongue useless. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.

That was the whole problem. Lose an argument, lose your voice. You learned quick enough to keep your opinions muted, your anger in a bottle. In school Sook Yee and the other debate kids had turned spider-fighting into a bloodless sport, staying back and squabbling over small things like peace in the Middle East and the benefits of minimum wage. It was simple: Make a stand, argue in increasingly illogical statements until the mouth spiders emerged, ready to do battle. But small ones. You didn’t want the fight to become real. Sook Yee liked debating evolutionary theory. Abortion rights were a popular topic amongst the boys. The dusty steps of her school stairwells had borne witness to an endless number of sixteen-legged quarrels. Sook Yee’s memories of childhood were still infused with the phantom taste of chalk-covered arachnid in her mouth.

That schoolgirl spider was long gone, of course. Sixteen-year-old Sook Yee had lost it in an argument with her mother. Never argue with an adult. Particularly not your mother. Particularly not about grades. These were valuable lessons all children learned.

"It’s your own fault," Sook Yee told the squalling loser. What was his name? Ah Guan? "Who asked you to fight?"

The boy’s mother pulled the child closer, looking at Sook Yee like she was a small dog yapping at a pedestrian crossing. "What did you say to my son?"

Sook Yee’s stomach sank, a liquid feeling. She recalled this relative’s name and place: Cecilia, the youngest of the her mother-in-law’s siblings, coming at the tail end of three brothers and three sisters where the old woman had been the head. Like all of them, she had a temper.

The circle of onlookers shifted and Sook Yee’s sister-in-law entered the fray. She had a slight figure and lightly freckled skin that made people privately, and wrongly, guess that she was still in her early forties. The white she wore, head to toe, gave her the appearance of a ruling politician, or a holy person. The peanut-gallery chatter that had sprung up between the onlookers quietened at the sight of her. Kathy’s viciousness, surpassing that of her mother’s, was legendary.

Kathy’s eyes scanned the scene, taking in the gladiatorial setting, the mute drooling child, the sweets tin. Her mouth shrank in displeasure. "Who was fighting? This is my mother’s funeral. You want to fight?"

Cecilia gestured to the other boy, arms tight around her child’s shoulders. "You ask that one lah!"

The defiance in the round-faced boy’s expression quickly fled. Kathy sniffed at him. Her voice could cut ice. "How did your parents raise you? No manners. No decency. You’re no better than a pig."

The boy looked at his feet and said nothing. Never argue with an adult.

"Come, Ah Guan," said Cecilia, pulling her unprotesting child by the shoulders. "We go inside. Not so noisy." The other adults, the uncles and half-cousins and nephews, began to slink away too, the excitement of the fight dissipating, loosing them back into the wash of funereal half-talk.

Kathy turned to Sook Yee, face a mask of disdain. "Did you teach them to do this?"

The question struck Sook Yee in the chest, like an unexpected cyclist around the bend. All she managed to get out of her mouth was a "Me?"

"That’s the only thing you’re good at, right? Arguing and quarreling."

"Excuse me?" Sook Yee felt the spider in her mouth uncurling eagerly, and had to force herself to stop. Now was not the time.

When she had been alive, the old woman’s iron fist had kept Kathy’s temper in check. Now that she was dead, it was emerging in all its full and acid glory. "Debate girl, right? You used to do this for fun. You think I don’t know. Who do you think you are? This is my mother’s funeral, are you looking for trouble?"

Sook Yee just smiled, her tongue leaden in her mouth from staying still. Her hands trembled, the skin on them brittle and hot, but she let her sister-in-law go back into the house unchallenged. She could not do the big fight with Kathy yet. She was not ready.

* * *

"My sister’s always been like that," John said, eyes fixed on the laptop screen. "Anyway, it’s good that the children’s fight ended that way. Ah Guan is such troublemaker—that’ll teach him a lesson."

Sook Yee’s husband was hiding in their room, pretending to check his email while the mahjong and chatter continued downstairs, late into the night. Sook Yee was hiding too, because her feet hurt from standing around and her face hurt from holding a neutral smile and she was not going to try mingling while the dead woman’s son, her direct descendant, was here. She’d washed her face and wiped herself down and was feeling slightly more human now.

Sook Yee peered in the dressing table mirror, her tongue lifted, looking at the restless spider twitching its pedipalps in there. She made a dissatisfied noise. "You know, I nearly started a fight with her."

"Kathy?"

"Yeah."

"Mmhmm."

"But I held back. I didn’t."

John continued to look at his work. Sook Yee pressed on. "I don’t think it’s a good idea to challenge your sister."

This got John’s attention. The laptop clicked shut. "Why not? I thought we talked about this."

"Do you really think we should pressure your father to sell the house now?" She sank onto the yielding surface of the bed. "Your mother just died. Can’t we let him grieve a little first?"

A sigh escaped John. His face looked like a Peking duck, yellow and greasy and hollowed-out. "That would be nice. But you know my sister. She’s going to be pressuring him throughout the funeral. Put my name on the house. Put my name on the house. You know her. Then you know what will happen."

What would happen was that Sister-in-law would take the reins and the house would never be sold, remaining forever a mausoleum full of the mouldering things accumulated by the old woman. She had been a serial hoarder. The corridors of the house overflowed with knick-knacks, enamel pans with painted bottoms and tiffin sets and disused guitars with rotting strings. A door on the third floor opened to shelves and shelves of yellowing newsprint and the acrid smell of mould and silverfish. Even the garden was overflowing with ugly lawn ornaments and spine-destroying rattan furniture. Nobody could do anything about it. It had been her house. When John had first brought Sook Yee home years ago his sweet-talk had been peppered, every other minute, with profuse apologies and the words "rubbish dump".

John and Sook Yee were moving out, finally. They had been balloting for government flats since their engagement years ago. Five times they had tried, five times they had failed. But lucky try number six secured them a queue number, and they’d managed to pick a five-room flat being built in Bedok New Town. A nice location. They’d get the keys next year. With them gone the house would be empty, except for the widower and the spinster. And thousands upon thousands of a dead woman’s things that no-one would throw out.

The house was John’s inheritance too, but Kathy would not see it that way. Kathy saw John as an interloper on what was supposed to be her inheritance. Kathy saw John as an interloper on her life in general, a unplanned surprise popping up in her mother’s belly 17 years after she did, bursting into her regulated home life at a time she was trying to lay down her tracks for college.

"We need to act ASAP," John said, as if he were still in a board meeting. "Shut her up, get him to agree to sell the house, done deal."

Sook Yee pressed her fingers into the ugly paisley pattern of the bedsheets, over and over. Like everything else, it was a throwback to the 1970s, inherited from the old woman. "I don’t think my spider’s strong enough."

"You?" John actually laughed. "Come on, Kathy is scary, but she can’t be worse than you, right?" That was her husband, king of the backhanded compliments. "You’re a debate girl. I started dating you because you liked arguing."

"Why can’t you fight with her? She’s your sister."

John fell back on the pillows hard enough that Sook Yee bounced. "You know I can’t win. She’s my sister." Sister-in-law had practically raised him. Never argue with an adult. Old habits die hard.

"She’s been snapping at people all day. Spider’s getting fat on all that venom."

"Okay. Come." John made a lazy, sweeping gesture with his arm. "You feed yours on me." When Sook Yee gave him a pinch-faced look he said, "Insult me!"

That’s the way it worked. Sharp tongues bred sharp fangs. The more aggressive your words were, the more aggressive your spider became. Insult me, her husband said. Do to me what my sister did to you.

Sook Yee got to her feet. Old debate girl habit—arguments had to be had standing up. "You snore at night," she started. "You eat with your mouth open after I’ve told you again and again."

John rolled his eyes. "Come on, no strength, you’re not even trying."

Frustrated breath escaped her. What made him think it was so easy to insult someone you loved? "You never reply to my texts on time. You zone out when I talk to you."

But those weren’t insults. Sook Yee could feel the unimpressed, unruffled weight of the spider in her mouth. She needed to dig deeper. What would humiliate John the most?

She thought back to their school days, when they had first met. "You never had to fight for anything," she said. "Everything was given to you on a platter. You were a pampered little boy." He had annoyed her, a pompous snot with arguments she could shred like wet tissue.

John’s eyes narrowed. "Getting hotter," he said. He had a look in his eyes like he was beginning to regret this.

"You’re weak," Sook Yee said slowly. "The slowest runner in your class. Unfit. Everybody laughed at you." Now his face changed, some tectonic shift of emotions far below, and Sook Yee sped up, encouraged. "You were the runt of the litter. Born to a woman in her forties, everyone said there was something wrong with you."

He bit his lower lip and said nothing.

"You have no backbone," she said. There was a truth to her words, fire in her veins and under her cheeks. She wasn’t even listening to herself. "Nothing is ever your fault. You’re a weasel who just wants to coast through life. You have no self-respect. I only went out with you because you were easy to bully."

John stared at her, his jaw working. Too much. The fire had spread to her mouth, the spider scratching her tongue trying to get out. She bit down on that impulse, kept her mouth closed even though it felt like her skin would rupture unless she let the creature out.

"Okay," said John very slowly. "Okay." His eyes were like black holes now. It wasn’t true that he had no backbone, because he was showing it now, fighting back the hurt in his eyes, keeping his own spider in his mouth.

"I think that spider’s more than ready to go," he finally said. He put the laptop away and turned on his side. Sook Yee crept onto the bed next to him as he turned the lights out. Neither of them said anything more until they both fell asleep.

* * *

Sook Yee woke to a landscape of cold and empty sheets beside her. Clock numerals on the wall glowed 6:00. Two hours late. She tumbled out of bed, angrily combing through a hive of reasons why John hadn’t woken her.

Her mouth ached dully with the weight of spider. She could feel it buzzing with yesterday’s bitter energy, just waiting to spring out at someone.

In the kitchen Sook Yee found Cecilia, Ah Guan’s mother, struggling with the expresso machine. This house had belonged to the old woman’s father before her, and it was the the house they had all grown up in. Sook Yee saw a kind of pathos in Cecilia’s face as she pushed unresponsive buttons over and over, fighting the instruments of a home she no longer recognized.

She made breakfast for her father-in-law, scraping kaya and sugar over toast. Old-fashioned drip coffee. Two hardboiled eggs. Simple fare. She arranged everything on a gaudily-painted enamel tray and went upstairs.

Sook Yee liked her father-in-law. She had called him Pa almost from the moment John and she had gotten engaged. A quiet man by nature, he was a jazz enthusiast, and had his own study in the house, filled wall-to-ceiling with carefully-curated records arranged by publishing house, year, and alphabetical order. By day he had been an engineer in a small construction firm, by night a lover of the arts. He would take tone-deaf, grade 1 piano Sook Yee through his collection with profound enthusiasm. And she would listen.

Since his wife had died Pa had spent most of his time in his study, emerging on the first day to greet relatives and mourners, and subsequently only showing his face in periodic breachings now and then. The reins were with his daughter now, an arrangement that seemed to suit both. Over the past few days he’d been feeding Sook Yee stories of his childhood, in exchange for the breakfasts she brought for him.

But when Sook Yee pushed open the door to his study this time she found Kathy already there, in the middle of serious conversation with her father. Kathy’s narrow eyes fixed on her. "I’ve already brought his breakfast." The coffee in the tin mug on the desk was no longer steaming.

Pa smiled at her, sheepish and small.

Sook Yee brought the enamel tray back downstairs. Her irritation made her mouth spider more restless; she could feel it straining against her beleaguered tongue. In the narrow, cluttered stairwell she ran into John, who was coming up. "Where have you been?" he hissed. "Do you know she’s upstairs already?"

"Why didn’t you wake me?" she hissed back through her teeth, refusing to part her jaws.

"Why didn’t you set an alarm clock?"

"You were supposed to be my alarm clock."

Sook Yee stomped back to the kitchen to eat the unloved breakfast perched on a stool. Cecilia, having tamed the expresso machine, tried to make small talk. "Bernard doesn’t want the breakfast you made for him? Why?"

"My sis already made him something."

"Aiyah. Wasted."

"No, I’m eating it, so it’s not wasted."

Cecilia laughed, a jackhammer sound. "I wasn’t referring to the food."

Sook Yee stopped eating to jam her teeth together. Cecilia looked at her and recognized the face of a person trying very hard not to start a spiderfight. "Sorry," she said, and left the kitchen.

Sook Yee decided that she would spend the rest of the day avoiding people. Her mouth already hurt enough. Instead, was going to clean. One of the stories Pa had told her was the story of his own mother-in-law’s funeral. She passed away less than a month after he’d married John’s mother, in full view of the family’s disapproval of this working-class graft, a factory hand’s boy who had plugged his way into a university scholarship by kerosene oil light. Alone in a house full of tutting relatives, and afraid of the offense that might spill from his mouth, he had turned to cleaning. He picked up after people. He took out the trash. He tidied things that did not need to be tidied. In so doing he kept his mouth shut and kept himself out of trouble. And people saw that he was useful—a conscientious boy. Hardworking. Not lazy. It hadn’t won him instant acceptance, but it had been a start.

So, before the house began to fill up with fresh and returning guests, Sook Yee picked up a broom and swept. And when she was done with that she filled a pail with soapy water and got a mop and mopped every floor surface she could find, darting around the stacks of old magazines and board games. And when she was done with that she got a feather duster and a damp cloth and started in the rooms at the top of the house. These were places she would not have dared to touch under the old woman’s absolute dictatorship. By lunchtime her shirt was soaked with sweat and her arms ached. But at least her mouth no longer felt like it was full of hot coals.

John came to talk to her at lunchtime. "That’s a good strategy," he told her. "Pa will like it."

His eyes seemed kinder, or maybe he was just too tired to keep their quarrel up. Sook Yee rubbed his arm, saying nothing. "You should get some rest," he told her. "The Taoist priest is coming later today. There’s going to be rituals all the way past midnight."

But rest didn’t exist in Sook Yee’s vocabulary. After lunch she took to the second floor rooms. As she cleaned she found thoughts about death and inheritances and the flattery of fathers-in-law falling away from her. Her world shrank into a tiny, tidy thing where the only things which mattered were wiping the black dirt from the next object or arranging the next unrestrained pile of barang-barang into pleasing architecture.

She would have stayed in that little bubble of joy forever, but it was not to be. The tranquility was shattered as the shadows lengthened and the crickets began to sing. On the top floor of the house, Kathy was shouting.

Sook Yee crept upstairs to the upper study, the room that the old woman had used as an occasional home office and for filing storage. Cabinets full of paper lined the walls, and their tops were cluttered with kitsch and knick-knacks picked up from travels around the world: Crystal vases and laser-etched glass blocks and vaguely erotic wooden objets d’art. Sook Yee had rearranged them thematically after wiping them all. A small pail of water had turned grey with the dust.

Kathy turned to Sook Yee the moment she stepped through the door, brandishing one of the balsa wood statues in her fist."Who rearranged all this? Was it you?"

"I was cleaning," Sook Yee said, meekly.

"Who asked you? Did I say you could rearrange everything?"

It was the schoolteacher tone she couldn’t stand. Kathy had used that voice on her from the day John had brought her home. And the way she wagged that wooden block at her, as though she was a misbehaving dog. All thoughts of peace had fled. "Do I need your permission? You’re not my mother. This isn’t your house."

Kathy chucked the wooden object at Sook Yee. It struck her squarely on the collarbone and clattered to the floor with an empty sound. "This isn’t my house? I grew up here. Who are you? You think you can come in here and move my mother’s things when her body is still lying in the coffin? You think you can marry my brother and try to steal everything? Who do you think you are?"

Humiliation blossomed from Sook Yee’s bruised collarbone. Her heart beat harder, in time with the pulses of pain. A line had been crossed. She was vaguely aware of the crowd of rubbernecking relatives that had collected behind her. Wondering if blood would be shed between daughter and daughter-in-law.

Good. Let them watch. Sook Yee smiled sweetly at Kathy. "I’m the one who’s married and doing something with my life. I’m the one who isn’t rotting away. I’m the one who’s going to give Pa grandchildren. How about you?"

That did it. That hit a nerve. "How dare you. I raised that boy you call your husband!"

"And you did a shit job. He hates you. He’s never said a single good thing about you."

"Go to hell," Kathy said, and as she said that the spider crawled out of her mouth, onto her cheek. Her hand shook as she put it down one of the crystal blocks Sook Yee had cleaned, a tacky thing with the Beijing Imperial Palace laser-etched into its centre.

"I’ll see you there." Sook Yee opened her mouth and let her own spider out.

The tongue softening and going limp was a sensation Sook Yee hadn’t felt in far too long. John and Pa had joined the crowd of onlookers. She heard Pa whispering, "What’s happening?" and John hushing him.

Sook Yee locked eyes with Kathy as their spiders danced.

There was an alien vulnerability in Kathy’s eyes. The stress of her mother’s death and the funeral had weakened her. Sook Yee’s words had hit their mark; she was haemorrhaging inside. Now was not the time for mercy. Sook Yee thought of every little slight she’d endured in her two years living in this house. The snide remarks about her upbringing, the schools she had gone to, the amount of make-up she put on. Her choice to be a lawyer was a lazy and dirty one, driven by money, not like Kathy, who was a teacher, whipping the next generation into shape. Sook Yee had kept quiet for Pa’s sake, but she had kept track of all it, stacking them inside herself like a nest of insect eggs. Now they were hatching into a single-minded plague of resentment.

Sook Yee’s spider had driven Kathy’s to the edge of the block. Reasonable adults would call the spiders back, force the struggling creatures back into their mouths. Kathy’s eyes had a pleading look to them, as if she was expecting to be spared.

Sook Yee pulled her lips into a grim smile.

Her spider tore Kathy’s apart. Leg by leg, and then the head, vindictive in its orderliness. Adults could be so much more vicious than children. The gathered relatives let out an collective exhalation: Whether of shock or relief or pleasure, it was hard to tell.

Kathy lowered her head. Her shoulders shook, but she said nothing. She could not say anything. Sook Yee looked at John, who gave her a small thumbs up. "Harsh but true," he mouthed. The little bastard.

It was Pa who caught her attention. The old man was shaking his head, looking unusually haggard and ancient. Instinctively, Sook Yee headed towards him, but he walked away, a stooped and solitary figure pushing through the crowd of his relatives without a word.

* * *

The next day Sook Yee brought Pa his breakfast, as usual. It was the last day of the funeral, when the body would be brought to the crematorium. Pa’s study felt dim, airless. He hadn’t spoken much or shown himself since the fight yesterday, and he didn’t turn around when Sook Yee put the tray on the table. "Pa," she said softly, "time to eat."

Pa continued to stare out of the window. His voice was like corrugated cardboard, rough and hollow. "You don’t have to do this anymore. You’ve won."

"It wasn’t really about that."

Pa’s eyes were red-rimmed when he turned to look at her. "Why are you fighting John’s battles for him?"

"He’s my husband. His battles are my battles, too."

He let out a gusty sigh. "Just because you’re married, doesn’t mean that you lose yourself as a person. What happens when one of you dies?"

Pa had spent his life quiet, biting down on his arguments and carving out a space for himself where he could calm his anxious spiders. Now he sat in the dark, alone, hemmed in by the collected shelves of his individuality. The sadness in his eyes could drown armies.

"I’m sorry," Sook Yee said.

"I would never have kept John’s inheritance from him. Despite what he thinks." He looked down at the tray. "Can you take this to Kathy? I don’t think she’s eaten since yesterday."

Never argue with an adult. Sook Yee’s feet were as leaden as her chest as she made her way down to the basement, where Kathy’s room was. She wanted to feel like Neil Armstrong or Jacques Piccard, but she felt more like a passenger on the deck of the Titanic. In her two years living in this house she had almost never come down here, never trodden in her sister-in-law’s private domain. She had no idea what to expect.

She reminded herself that Kathy’s spider was dead and she could not hurt Sook Yee now. She had been forced into silence for the next few weeks.

Silent during the last days of her mother’s funeral. Now that it had become reality the wrongness of it all was beginning to sink in. The look on Pa’s face. The fact that John was unruffled by all this. What had she done?

Sook Yee found the door to her room unlocked. "Sis," she said softly as she pushed the door in, "I’ve brought breakfast."

Kathy lay on her bed in her darkened room. It was as cramped as the rest of the house, thickly lined wall-to-wall with cupboards and cabinets. Sook Yee put the breakfast tray down on the desk and drew back the shades. Grey dawn sun streamed into the room, casting its weak light over glass-protected shelves of trophies and certificates, tacky ceramic figurines, and framed pictures. A decorative plate said "Happy Birthday To A Beloved Daughter". Sook Yee scanned the shelves. There had to be dozens of pictures, a hundred even. A entire childhood was contained in the musty confines of Kathy’s cabinets.

Some of them caught Sook Yee’s eye. A picture of young Pa and his wife, in wedding dress, perched on the old sofa in the house’s living room, stiff-backed for posterity. Bubble-cheeked little Kathy and her mother posed sternly in front of the old piano in one of the study rooms. Kathy grew bigger in successive birthday cake pictures, while the house’s tiled kitchen remained unchanged around her. Out in the garden, on one of the ugly chairs, a toddler John sat astride his older sister’s rigid knees. Each picture that followed was a picture of Kathy and John as the latter grew taller and the former grew thinner. And then one of Sook Yee and John in their own wedding finery, in the living room, holding the tea ceremony.

Kathy remained on her bed, unmoving. "Sis," Sook Yee said again, but she was met by a silence larger than houses. She was too afraid to go over and touch her sister-in-law, to shake her out of her stupor, to make that connection. Instead she just stood, waiting, while around her the sealed, curved lips of a life past smiled silently down at her, like rictuses.

Temporary Saints

Originally published by Fireside Fiction in October 2015

* * *

I hate it when it’s kids. I hate it when a new saint is wheeled in and it’s an eight-year-old hollowed out by their sanctity and turned monstrous with growths. I hate it when I know outside there are parents with heads bowed and throats tight and when I’m in here in this mortuary with its scorched walls and smell of formaldehyde. I hate it because I know how they feel and I know they don’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve it either, when it happened to me.

It’s mostly kids who get called to sainthood. Nobody knows why; we’ve had so many in our little nowhere town that our nurseries and schoolrooms are nearly empty. I passed the park the other day and it was like a graveyard. How many miracles can one town stomach?

Today’s saint is named Lilith. Not irony, she just has that kind of parents. She’s covered in crocodile scales, running from the top of her feet to her neck. Her parents want her in her favourite sundress for the funeral. I put the double gloves carefully over the sharp knobs of bony keratin pushing through my hands, and pull at one of the scales on her belly with the forceps. It comes off smoothly; the skin underneath is untouched.

Lilith’s gift was in finding lost things. Her mother tried to save her by locking her in the house to stop her from talking to anyone. But once sainthood sets in your child isn’t really your child anymore. This I know too well. They’re just children, after all. You can’t expect them to resist the call of their gift like adults can. No-one knows how hard it is to block your ears to its whispering, to sit on your hands and pray no flames shoot out of it. I couldn’t stop my Clara, even though I tried. Lilith here slipped from the house like salmon every time someone wanted to find their wedding ring, their car keys, their long-lost cousin. She didn’t last long.

I pull off all the scales on Lilith’s neck and shoulders. This one is easy. The town’s first saint, Annie, had grown a magnificent pair of wings, dark as shiny as a rook’s. People called her Angel Annie, and she healed the sick for forty-nine days until she suddenly collapsed. I had to cut off her wings with a bone saw so that she would fit in the casket. I didn’t know what to do with the wings, so I asked her parents if they wanted them. They did not.

My hands hurt as I work. It’s like teething: I can feel the keratin lumps growing through my skin all the time. A constant reminder. I wear gloves and long sleeves everywhere, even at home, even in egg-frying temperatures. I’m not sure what people will do once the turtle-shell lumps reach my face and I can’t hide what I am any longer. What can they do?

People ask me, is sainthood contagious? I say no, but I think I was chosen only because of Clara. I shouldn’t have prepared my daughter’s body myself, it’s bad form, but none of the neighbouring towns wanted to take a body of a saint. They were afraid our town’s curse would come along.

My dear Clara, my sweet-cheeked bright-eyed little miracle, my baby girl. She died covered in golden fur, telling the fortune of some sap who came from six counties away. I wanted to cremate her body, but her birth father wanted an open casket. So that was that. I had to shave the fur off her face. When I got home after the funeral I found the first lumps pushing through the skin of my back in the bathroom mirror. They looked like an accusation, a proof of guilt.

I don’t know if my gift is what it is because of what I didn’t get to do for Clara. I’m lucky the summonses for fire are few and far between. I’ve learned to combat them. They don’t hold sway over me.

I finish doing Lilith’s makeup. She looks like she’s just asleep on the cold metal table. Gloves off, time for cleanup. Blue flames lick up my fingers as I sterilize my equipment in a small blaze. It’s taken so long, but I’ve finally managed to get it under control. Now I know it’s there when I need it, and I can use it as I wish.

Somedays I wonder about burning it all down—this workroom reeking of preservative, this building and its overgrown carpark, the whole damn town with its rows of houses filled with grieving parents. But then who would be left to tend the dead? Who would be left to cut off horns and hide extra teeth and disguise claws as fingernails? I’ve seen the parents' faces when they see their child again. They look so much like before, they tell me. Like it never happened.

It’s things like that which get me out of bed in the morning, when I can feel the creep of bony protrusions spreading further across my skin, when I can feel the phantom fire ravaging my insides. I still get up and go. Because the saints need me. And I will continue getting up and going until I cannot anymore.

Lilith looks perfect now, a job well done. I draw the sheet over her and wait for the next saint to come in.

Song Of The Krakenmaid

Originally published by Lackington’s, November 2015

* * *

The krakenmaid invaded Fennel’s dreams unasked. Deep in the treacherous REM landscape she appeared, sliding through her vast seawater tank, short silver hair waving like anemone fronds. Fennel watched the hypnotic pattern of her movements as she pumped all eight tentacles rhythmically, milkweb light refractions dancing over her speckled skin, belly muscles rippling under fat and supple skin that turned ridged and wiry where mammalian waist gave way to cephalopod. Look at me, look at me, Fennel thought, and as though she could hear in a dream, the krakenmaid obeyed. Her mercury-coloured eyes, unusually wide-set, fixed on Fennel. Then her lips parted and the she began to sing, filling the dream with the same low, melodious noises that wrapped around Fennel’s days at work.

In her dream Fennel understood what the krakenmaid was singing about immediately, but the song’s meaning slipped away the moment she thought about it. Ursula, Ursula, Fennel whispered in her head. Come to me, Ursula. Tell me I’m pretty. Ursula’s body hovered, heavy and inviting, in the water. Fennel desperately wanted to touch her, but the krakenmaid was unreachable light-years away in her dream, separated from her by a gulf of dimensions.

Fennel woke with a tide pulsing heavy and slow between her legs and a mixture of shame and terror in her chest at the images her unconscious mind had shown her. On the pillow beside her Yan-yan slumbered still, her slackened face unaware of the desire that had accumulated within her partner. Fennel was afraid to shatter this stillness by slipping one thigh over Yan-yan’s hips, pressing their mounds of Venus together. She refrained from cupping a hand over one of Yan-yan’s applelike breasts, or from kissing the lines around her mouth and eyelids. The clock on the wall blinked some measure of 3AM, and Yan-yan would wake at six-thirty for an important meeting at eight. Fennel considered slipping her hand downwards to relieve the ache there, but she knew the noise would wake Yan-yan. So she curled her hands to herself, shut her eyes and counted herself into a dreamless sleep.

Yan-yan made breakfast in the morning, filling the steel-capped kitchen with the smell of frying bacon, a Westerner’s smell. It was Yan-yan who had to do the cooking, always. It was a point of pride for her. Fennel sat crumpled in a chair, wiping sleep from her eyelids. If she kept her mind fuzzily blank, she could almost forget the contents of last night’s dream.

Look at me, look at me, tell me I’m pretty.

All Yan-yan wanted to talk about was the dead krakenmaid. Yesterday Ariel, the younger and smaller of the two, had succumbed to the injuries she sustained from the fishing nets, despite the best efforts of the scientists. Accusatory headlines had filled local news all day. Ocean Park Hong Kong had barely recovered from the salmonella deaths of two dolphins last month, and now a rare, newly-discovered sea creature had died in the tanks of a premiere research institution. Moral outrage had suffused the chatter on Hong Kong public transport.

"I heard someone on the late-night radio say it was stress," Yan-yan said. "What nonsense! What did it have to be stressed about in that big tank. No sharks, no boats, people feed it everyday, what stress? It’s a good life."

"Being kept in a strange environment stresses animals," Fennel said, as Yan-yan made a dismissive noise. "She was a wild creature. She preferred the sea."

It was Fennel who had discovered Ariel facedown in the bottom of the tank, arms slack, tentacles trailing limp. When the scientists arrived it had been a wet-suited Fennel they sent into the water to retrieve the corpse. Inert and lifeless, Ariel had been surprisingly heavy for a creature so nimble and graceful in life. Ursula, the survivor, had darted back and forth a distance away, her face unreadable to Fennel under the snorkel glass.

"It’s a pity I didn’t get to see them both," Yan-yan said, scraping fried bacon and eggs onto plates. "Too bad I had that meeting Tuesday night!"

"You were supposed to come see them since last week," Fennel said as Yan-yan set a plate in front of her.

Yan-yan froze. "What’s that?"

"Nothing."

Yan-yan turned away to put the frying pan in the sink. When she turned back to Fennel the smile had returned to her face. "Let’s do it tonight. I’ll go over to your place after work. I want to see the last krakenmaid before it dies."

She laughed at the expression her words drew up on Fennel’s face. "Well, if one’s gone, what’s to say the other won’t?" She sat down. "I’ll be there around eight at night. Okay?"

Fennel pushed at sunny side-up on her plate. It slid around, unappetisingly wet with grease, rubber-like surface trembling.

"Okay?" Yan-yan repeated.

Fennel nodded. Yan-yan leaned across the table and kissed her on the cheek. "That’s great. We’ll see each other tonight then."

Fennel turned down Yan-yan’s offer of a lift to work and chose instead a hot, rumbly bus that needed forty-five minutes to reach its destination. This time, she would turn up after the scientists had arrived.

The entrance to the research institute was clogged with protesters, as it had been for the past two weeks. Students and retirees with signs and flyers and slogans, calling the scientists murderers and monsters, invoking Sook Ching and the Holocaust. Ariel’s death had given them the ammunition they needed. Two of them, dressed in tentacle suits, lay chained and gagged on the ground, framed by chalk lines. Men from the press crawled all over the scene with their cameras and microphones.

A boy with hair striped blue and green lunged at her, sign in hand. "There’s blood on your hands," he accused.

Flecks of his saliva speckled her face. His breath was closer and louder than she’d like. "Leave me alone," she said, trying to get past. "I only work here."

"You chose your job," he shouted, shaking the sign at her. She walked away from him as fast as she could, gritting her teeth. The work day had barely started, and she was already in a bad mood.

Indoors it seemed a different world from the heat and chaos outside. The tank chamber’s wetsalt smell had become formaldehyde-suffused, clinging deep to the back of her throat. In the fifty-thousand-gallon tank Ursula swam back and forth, still alive. The krakenmaid watched Fennel as she descended the metal stairs to the lower floor. There, working with gloves and masks over Ariel’s corpse, was Prof Lam and his assistant.

Prof Lam greeted her, gloved hands busy and dripping. "You’re late. Slept in?"

She nodded. She didn’t feel like talking now: The encounter with the sign-boy had left a long shadow of irritation, and she felt that if she opened her mouth, only that irritation would pour out like black smoke. Prof Lam was dissecting Ariel’s body, putting her viscera into separate labelled jars. Fennel tried not to look at the cut-open torso, the skin grey with exsanguination and chill; she tried to ignore the face with its half-lidded, rolled-up eyes, and slack-lipped jaws.

Prof Lam was the one who had given the krakenmaids their names. The institute was just ten minutes away from Disneyland, and one corner of Prof Lam’s office was filled with round cuddly character plushes. He always said, "It’s my daughter, she’s a big fan of Disney," but the careful way he stacked the plushes said otherwise. He was meticulous, Prof Lam, and that extended to his precise filing of Ariel’s organs into neatly labelled jars. Heart. Liver. Ovaries. Lungs.

In the tank Ursula swam in circles, her throat working as she sang her mournful song, a sound powerful to transmit through foot-thick glass. A language expert at HKU was working to decipher the vocalisations they had recorded, but it might take years. Fennel wondered what was going through Ursula’s mind, watching her companion being cut to pieces by strange land-bound men. No-one knew what the relationship between them was. Were they mother and daughter? Relatives in the same pod? Prof Lam had decided that Ursula was in her late thirties or early forties, while Ariel had been in her early twenties. Fennel couldn’t help but match those age ranges that of Yan-yan’s and her own.

Ursula’s gaze, focused laser-like on Fennel, unnerved her. The krakenmaid would often ignore the two PhD students who were observing her, but Fennel was clearly an object of constant interest. "She likes you," one of the grad students had said to her the day before. It hadn’t entirely been a joke.

Fennel turned away. She spent the day cleaning tanks and tending to the other animals housed in the institute while the researchers grad students were all distracted. Some days it was good to be a lowly research assistant. A blessing not to have made it as a scientist.

Prof Lam was second-last to leave that evening. Ariel was back in the morgue freezer; tomorrow they would begin preserving the main part of her body. "I’ll leave you lock up," he said, by way of good evening to Fennel. "Don’t stay too late, alright?"

Fennel nodded, and settled in for a long wait. She kept in the office area, a floor up and encased in concrete, away from the tanks. Yet she imagined she could still hear Ursula’s song coming through the walls, like the single notes of a distant foghorn.

Yan-yan showed up at eight forty-five, nearly nine. The protesters outside were still at it, the sound of their chants wafting in as Fennel let Yan-yan slip in through a side door. "How was your day?" Fennel asked.

"As expected, won’t bore you with the details." She gave Fennel a quick kiss on the cheek. "Come, come, where is this amazing creature?" Without invitation she marched down the fluorescent-lit corridors of the institute, Fennel trailing her.

A sound of surprise and delight escaped her as she entered the main tank chamber. "Wow, this is wild," she exclaimed, tapping the side of the tank all the way down the curved metal staircase. Ursula watched her, warily, her tentacles at pause. "Look," she said, grabbing Fennel’s arm and pointing, "she’s looking at me! It’s almost like a monkey or a trained dolphin. Can they talk?"

"We don’t know."

"She looks so human. Look at her face!" Yan-yan pointed, and pointed, and then laughed, a wicked sound. "Those tentacles, though. Do you think they use them during—?"

"We don’t know."

Yan-yan scoffed. "What do you know, then?" She looked around. "What did you do with the other one?"

Fennel banished images of Ariel sliced up like livestock, lying in a dark freezer box. "Prof Lam is studying the remains."

"Can I see?"

"I don’t think you should."

Yan-yan made an irritated noise. "You’re never any fun."

Ursula had swum close to the glass where they were standing. "Look, she is watching us. How coy."

Playfulness tugged at the corner of her lips, and Fennel knew what was coming next. A messy, tongue-filled kiss found its way into her mouth. Yan-yan pulled away, looked at Ursula in the tank and laughed. "I think she likes it."

Yan-yan’s blouse smelled of strange perfume. As her mouth left wet marks on jawline and neck Fennel had the strange feeling that Yan-yan was repeating actions that she had performed earlier that day. Yan-yan tried to get Fennel down onto the floor, the sticky floor that formaldehyde and krakenmaid innards had been dripped on. Fennel shook her head and pointed to the metal stairs.

The stairs made no sound of protest as Yan-yan got to work on Fennel. The unforgiving, rough press of them against Fennel’s bare skin should have been enough to stop her cold, but there was something about the situation that turned her insides molten. The brazenness of it, the salt-smell in the air, the way the noises she made echoed in the vastness of the room. The girlfriend between her legs, who had probably been between some other woman’s legs at some point earlier. On the other side there was Ursula, watching, fingertips pressed to the glass. As Fennel’s legs shook and her hands clamped on stair-edge she tilted her head back as far as it would go and let sound out through her open throat.

Yan-yan’s smile glittered and curved as Fennel rebuttoned her shirt. "Someone has an exhibitionist streak," she said. "I like that." It was praise she didn’t give often.

"You didn’t undress," Fennel noted.

Yan-yan shrugged. "I like giving pleasure more than I like receiving it."

That was a lie. The Yan-yan of three years ago, the Yan-yan who had just met her, the Yan-yan who was completely enthralled by her, had taken pleasure enthusiastically and often.

Fennel reached for the hem of Yan-yan’s blouse, and was rebuffed. "What are you hiding under your blouse?" she asked. Her mind was already supplying her with answers: It was mottled peachmark hickeys, it was the marks of someone else’s teeth, it was ten raking scratch lines from the buffed and manicured nails of some office girl with a made-up face who wore skirts and pretty heels and better understood the needs and wants of an ambitious creative director in her forties, in her primetime, a somebody who was going somewhere.

Yan-yan laughed the way rocks do when they fall, crushing everything in their path. "Nothing. What do you mean?"

Fennel hesitated for two excruciating seconds before unknotting the question that had tangled in her mouth. "Who is she? This girl you’re seeing?"

Now Yan-yan’s expression turned hard. She stood up. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You come home late every night. Ten, eleven o clock. Hoping that I’d be asleep already?" Fennel knew she was heading for the edge of the bridge, she was going over the railing and she couldn’t stop herself, but the sea was rushing up at her and it was already too late. "When I ask you about your life you never answer or you give me some silly excuse. I’m not stupid. Who else are you seeing?"

Yan-yan’s face coloured. "I’ve been very busy at work. You think my job is easy? I don’t see you complaining when I bring home the money. I’m not like you—"

"A glorified cleaner? That’s what you called my job, right?"

"That’s right." Yan-yan’s expression had turned igneous, her face harsh-edged as geologic structure. "The way you act, it’s like you’ve forgotten who pays for the house you live in. Who buys you clothes, pays for your vacations." She began up the metal stairs, each footstep ringing out. "If you’re so unhappy with me, you can stay here with your stupid krakenmaid. See how you like it."

"Are you going back to the other girl now? Are you?" When Yan-yan didn’t reply Fennel sprang up after her. "What’s she like? Does she look up to you like a big sister? Does she make you feel ten years younger?"

"Fuck you," Yan-yan said, and stormed out.

Fennel sat down on the steps, cold from the bones out. Sudden explosions of temper were a fact of life with Yan-yan, but something felt different this time. It felt like something had broken in their flood of words and would never be put back together. It felt like Fennel was standing in an vast and open field of debris, and she didn’t know which of the pieces she should pick up first.

So she just sat and waited. Waited to see if she was wrong. Maybe Yan-yan would change her mind. Maybe she would come back and tell Fennel it was a mistake, she was taking her home, all was forgiven. All was back to normal.

Hours passed. Yan-yan did not return.

Fennel was startled from the torpor she had sunk into by a tapping noise. When she turned, Ursula the krakenmaid was hanging in the water mere feet from her, pressed up to the surface of the glass. There was something strange about her expression. A smile—that was what it was, her lips spread out to form a curve, dimpling the flesh of her cheeks. Ursula beckoned to her. She had been watching them. She had been learning.

Fennel climbed to the top of the staircase, her mind turning slow as tower clock gears. Cephalopods were very intelligent, of course, and they quick to mimic behaviors that they saw. Even as invertebrates they were hard to manage, hard to keep in check. How much more so for Ursula with her human shape and dolphin intelligence.

Fennel stood on the platform, at the edge of the water. Ursula came swimming up to her, and pulled herself out of the water with her arms. The gills under her jaw flapped wetly in the air. Pigmentation in blue and orange circles ran down her shoulders and dispersed over her back, but if Fennel squinted hard enough she could pretend that Ursula’s wide-eyed, flattish face was completely human.

The krakenmaid ran one hand along Fennel’s calves, before sinking back into the water. Her hair formed a small silver cloud around her face as she looked up, still smiling.

Fennel began to strip, down to her shirt, down to her underwear, down to nothing at all. When she was naked she slipped into the water.

Ursula rose up to meet her. Fennel felt the tentacles wrapping around her, a dozen muscular tubes enveloping her lower body. Ursula rose out of the water until they were face-to-face.

Look at me, look at me, tell me I’m pretty.

Ursula kissed her, mouth closing over mouth. Her lips were rubbery and the teeth hidden beneath them sharp, reinforced for cracking the shells of mollusks. But her tongue was long and strong and Fennel thought she would choke from the force of it.

The krakenmaid grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled her downwards, into the water.

From the inside of the tank the laboratory looked warped, surreal. Ursula kept her mouth over Fennel’s as she swam downwards. Fennel’s arms and legs trembled in Ursula’s grip. Her flesh clenched the tentacles invaded her, easy as anything. The water filled with low, harmonious sounds: Ursula was singing, singing into her mouth, an she could feel oxygen bubbling between them.

Weightless in the water, surrounded by glass on every side, Fennel felt like she was detaching from her body. If it writhed and bucked it did so of its own accord. She was the alien in here, cut off from all the things she needed to live, and so alone. Alone, alone, alone. There was a whole world out there, filled with Disneylands and cheating girlfriends and angry sign-carrying students, but in here there was only water and krakenmaid song and the sensation of something moving against her, again and again.

Ursula sang and sang and sang.

Fennel was shrinking into herself. Perhaps tomorrow morning Prof Lam, he of the Disney plushes, would come in to see Fennel emerge naked and sated from the water, still carrying tentacle-imprints around her thighs, and he would fire her on the spot, scandalized. Or Ursula would drag her to the bottom of the tank and hold her there until her body stopped thrashing, and it would be she that was discovered floating limp-armed and heavy, waiting to be retrieved for the morgue table. Perhaps Yan-yan would finally turn up and apologise for what she had done, and she’d ask Fennel to take her back even though she could never satisfy Fennel like a krakenmaid could, not a million years. Or perhaps she would pack her bags and fly away with her new lover to Shanghai or Tokyo or somewhere else glorified janitor Fennel could never follow. She was probably packing already, in the space that used to be their shared bedroom. Underwear and shampoo and warm socks. Boarding passes in hand.

Fennel closed her eyes. In the darkness that unfolded, where the milkweb sparks of oxygen deprivation danced, she listened to the words of the krakenmaid’s song, filled with strength and grief and loss, before their meaning slipped away from her completely.

END

Isabel Yap

Milagroso

Originally published by Tor.com

* * *

It’s late afternoon on the eve of the Pahiyas Festival when Marty finally drives into Lucban. The streets are filled with people congregating outside their houses, stringing up fruits and vegetables shaped into chandeliers. Entire roofs are covered in kiping, leaf-shaped rice wafers, their colors flared to dazzling by the slowly setting sun. Someone has tacked poster paper all over the preschool wall, and children with paint smeared on their cheeks are making trees full of hand-shaped leaves. Vendors have already set up shop, prepping for the onslaught of tourists.

Most side streets are blocked, so Marty has to drive through the town center, which is the usual explosion of propaganda—posters of the mayor and councilors alternate with banners for washing detergents, Coca-Cola, Granny Goose Chips, and the latest summer-special, MangoMazings—exactly like the real thing! Marty ignores these as he navigates the still-familiar streets. They didn’t leave Manila for this.

They left Manila to see a miracle.

Inez is stirring awake, though she keeps her eyes shut. She groans, shifts, and slaps her thigh, impatiently. In the rearview mirror, Marty can see Mariah’s head snapping back and forth to match the car’s rhythm, her mouth hanging open. JR is also asleep; the seat belt is tight across his hunched chest, making him look smaller than he is. Sunlight beams through the car, shading half his face yellow.

“Is this Lucban, hon?” Inez has finally stopped forcing sleep. She yawns and stretches her arms.

“Yep.” Marty tries to sound more awake and cheerful than he feels.

Inez looks out the window. “How colorful,” she says, as they drive past a house with a giant Ronald McDonald stationed by the doorway, waving his hands. Her tone makes everything seem gray.

* * *

Marty stands by the door, wiping his palms on his shorts. Looking up, he sees five strings of kiping dangling from the second floor balcony. Even their ratty papier-mâché carabao is out, gazing forlornly at the street with its one remaining eye.

Inez is looking for a spot with better reception; he can hear her muttering in the distance. The kids are unloading their luggage.

“Tao po,” Marty calls. When no one replies, he enters, heading for the living room. “Manong? Mang Kikoy? You there?”

He hears a door creak open, then the slap of slippers as Mang Kikoy shuffles into view. His skin is wrinkled and brown as tree bark. The mole on his cheek has grown even more colossal, but otherwise he is the same old Mang Kikoy who has maintained this house, Marty’s ancestral home, since forever.

“Boy? Is that you?”

“Yes, manong.”

“Just in time, just in time. Where is your family?”

“Outside,” Marty says, feeling a twinge of guilt. It’s been a little too long, perhaps, a little too late—but once he married Inez, and they had Mariah, he’d felt compelled to remain in Manila. He liked his job at San Miguel Corp., and he always believed that Lucban was near enough that they could visit anytime. As a result, they never did. To ignore these thoughts, he asks, “I noticed the décor. Are we part of the procession this year?”

“No, but I thought it might be good to decorate the house anyway. You never know.”

Mariah materializes at Marty’s elbow, dragging her duffel bag. “Dad, it’s so hot,” she says, fanning herself.

Mang Kikoy beams at her and moves forward to take her bag.

“Please don’t—it’s heavy.” Marty turns to his daughter. “Mariah, this is your Manong Kikoy. Show him you can carry your own bag, please.”

“Hello po,” she says, straining for politeness as she lugs her bag towards the stairs.

“Hello, hija.” Mang Kikoy grins wider as she slouches past. His teeth are a gray, sickly color. “Well, Boy, I must go back outside; the kiping is cooking. Let’s talk again later.”

“Sure,” he says. Mang Kikoy has already turned to go when JR rushes past, arms held stiffly away from his body, making fighter-jet noises.

“Wee-oop! Wee-oop!” He yells. “I’m attacking you! Propeller BLAST!”

He makes swiping motions at Mang Kikoy, who laughs. “So this is your little kulilit. Has he ever tasted a miracle before?”

Marty’s throat dries. He swallows. He doesn’t ask, Is it true, manong? Is it real? He doesn’t say, It’s not right, who knows what eating those things can do. Instead he puts a hand on JR’s head, to stop him from airplane-ing, and says, “No, never.”

* * *

Dinner is at Aling Merrigold’s. Inez fusses over their clothes and hair, and asks Marty twice whether they shouldn’t have brought some pasalubong from Manila. The children are sleepy, already bored. Marty promises that tomorrow will be more fun.

On the way to dinner they walk past increasingly extravagant houses. One has a robo-rooster attached to its roof, where it cacaws ear-splittingly every five minutes. Another has The Last Supper rendered on its walls, made with colored straw and palm leaves. Still another bears the mayor’s face, fashioned out of kiping, all across the roof. Two giant animatronic carabaos are lowing by the main door, while a life-sized San Isidro stands on a rotating platform. He holds a spade in one hand and a sheaf of corn in the other.

“Farmer Jesus!” JR exclaims.

“That’s not Jesus, you idiot.” Mariah snaps a picture with her phone. “Who’s this, Dad? I want to tag it properly.”

“San Isidro Labrador. Patron saint of farmers and peasants.”

“That’s Mang Delfin’s house,” Mang Kikoy adds. “This year, the procession goes through this road, and he’s determined to win. He’s got a pretty good chance, don’t you think?”

Marty nods, although the house speaks for itself. The Pahiyas Festival has always been a chance to show off one’s home, but now the stakes are even higher. These homeowners want to be chosen for the miracle. They want to boast of a natural harvest, and have jealous neighbors beg them for a taste.

Aling Merrigold’s house at the far end of the main street is simpler, though she has deployed her trademark rose pattern that no one has been able to copy. Vivid fuchsias and yellows adorn the typically drab white walls. She welcomes each of them in by smelling their cheeks.

“Martino!” She coos. “I haven’t seen you since you were a young man! But how old you look now!” In a softer tone that everyone still hears, she adds, “You’ve grown quite the belly!”

“Thank you for having us,” Marty says. “You look healthy as always.”

She laughs with delight then swats him on the shoulder, the flab of her arms jiggling.

“This is Inez, my wife,” Marty says.

“Well, but you look so very young for Martino!”

“Oh, not at all,” Inez demurs.

“And what do you do, Inez?”

“I’m a merchandiser for Rustan’s.” She tips her chin up, just a fraction.

“Wonderful,” Aling Merrigold says.

“And these are my children.” Mariah and JR give her halfhearted hellos, and she smacks her lips at them.

“And Mang Kikoy, of course, how good to see you,” Aling Merrigold says. Mang Kikoy smiles, then shuffles off to eat with the rest of her household staff. She leads Marty and his family to the dining room, babbling the whole time: “I can’t believe it’s been four years since your father died. I spent lots of time with him after your mama died, you know. And he did talk about you such a lot—how he was so proud of you, and how he missed you so much! But then I can’t blame you, my dear; it’s so hard to get time off with the economy like this, no? And then you have these two children. So healthy!” She beams at the kids. “So healthy! You feed them well! Do you get plenty of free food from San Miguel? You still work there, di’ba?”

“Yes. He was recently promoted to Procurement Manager,” Inez says. “Extra vacation time is one of the perks, so we were finally able to take this trip.”

“Is that so?” Aling Merrigold draws a dramatic breath. “Well, I’m not really surprised. When San Miguel created that breakthrough formula for the Perfect Pork—wow. I said to myself, This is it, this is the future! And you know, I was right. I mean, the lechon we’re having tomorrow…and you will eat here tomorrow. I insist. After all the events, of course. My balcony has a great view of the fireworks!…What was I saying? Oh yes, tomorrow’s lechon is Perfect Pork, which truly is perfect.”

“I’m very glad to hear that,” Marty says.

They walk past a sliding door into the air-conditioned dining room. Aling Merrigold gestures for them to sit. “This dinner is mostly from San Miguel, as well—the roasted chicken is, for sure. This is your Spam, and I think the bangus relleno is yours, too. Pero the cake is from Gardenia. And the chicken cordon bleu is by Universal Robina, because I’m sorry, their cheese is better than yours, you know? Anyway, let’s eat.”

She says grace, and they dig in.

Marty takes a bite of the roasted chicken. It’s delicious. He feels a swell of pride. He helped make these things. Not directly—that was the research team’s job—but he handled most of the exports and imports that provided the raw materials for their meats. After the lockout with China he had shifted grudgingly to more expensive vendors in Vietnam, only to realize that their bio-plasticine millet (BPM) adhered to flavorants more easily, and could be molded into more convincing shapes. Chicken and tuna, in particular, could be replicated using Vietnamese BPM for a cheaper unit cost, and San Miguel was quickly able to launch a new line of canned goods, labeled: More nutritious. Extra-delicious!

People still say it doesn’t beat the real thing, but Marty thinks it comes pretty damn close. They’ve finally reached an era when neither Mariah nor JR will incur a health risk from their diet; when people don’t need to fret about foodborne illnesses; when it’s conceivable, if the government gets its shit together, for people below the poverty line to have three meals a day.

“Has the Department of Health decided on a budget for its feeding program yet?” Aling Merrigold asks.

“No,” Marty says. “I hear they’re working on it.”

Aling Merrigold rolls her eyes. “They’re always working on it.” She takes a sip of Coke. “Still, I can’t pretend I’m thinking about anything except tomorrow. You haven’t seen it live, but the moment when San Isidro makes his choice and the produce becomes—you know, natural—it’s wow. Talagang wow.”

The news reporters said the same thing, when the first miracle happened during Pahiyas three years ago. No one believed the sensational coverage on TV Patrol at first, but then the owners of the winning house started selling chunks of food as proof: a bite of real corn, a handful of real green beans, a cluster of real juicy grapes. The reporters showed the old church’s statue of San Isidro in the town square, surrounded by people bursting into tears as they bit into their first unsafe food in years. It was ridiculous. Marty remembers thinking, Why is everyone so hung up on this? Why is everyone freaking out?

He remembers thinking, It can’t be a miracle, because we’ve already INVENTED the miracle.

What are you doing here, then? Something inside him asks. He recalls the twist in his gut, the saliva filling his mouth, as he watched an old woman nibble on a real banana, weeping wretchedly.

This is home, another voice that sounds more like him insists. I just wanted to see the fiesta.I wanted the kids to see.

He pauses over his next forkful. “You don’t think it’s—you know, a hoax, or something?”

“Ay naku, no, never! You’ll understand when you see it,” Aling Merrigold says. “You don’t even need to taste it. It’s the smell, the color, the everything. I mean, the mayor tried to keep it from spreading, played it up as airbrush and fake imports, but there’s no denying it. Really, how long naman can you lie without shame? Last year, I shelled out for a few pieces of camote—that’s my favorite, you know?—and when I ate it, Diyos ko, it was so good.”

“I see.” Marty licks his lips. “Well, it’ll be fun to watch.”

Aling Merrigold nods and swallows a spoonful of milkfish relleno. Marty watches her, satisfied. It doesn’t matter that the milkfish is made of the same thing as the chicken, the rice, the vegetables. They look different, taste different, and have the same high nutritional content. They’re better for everyone.

* * *

Mass the following morning is at 6:00 a.m., which causes much groaning. They manage to make it through the church doors in time for the second reading. The priest is particularly zealous, exhorting everyone to give thanks for their gathering together as one community, and for the bountiful harvest that San Isidro—“and our sponsors San Miguel Corp., Universal Robina, Golden Arches, and Monde Nissin”—have provided. The people of Lucban are restless, beaming at each other as they exchange signs of peace. Only the image of San Isidro remains calm, already primed in a float for the beauty pageant winner to carry him in later.

After mass there are a few hours left before the procession, so they decide to explore the town. Stalls selling woven buri hats, fans, handbags, and little straw birds are interspersed with old ladies on fold-out stools, hawking rice cakes and empanadas. Inez haggles over a bundle of hats. Mariah picks out keychains for her friends. JR drops the buko juice he’s slurping and it bursts on the concrete, leaving a slushy puddle that nobody minds. Inez tsks, and Mariah wonders loudly when the procession will start. They each have a serving of pancit habhab on banana leaves.

Marty remembers not caring much about the actual Pahiyas Festival as a child. He was more interested in the preparations leading up to it. He would squat next to Mang Kikoy as the old man ground soaked rice, until it was pale and liquid as milk. Mang Kikoy would stir the wet rice, divide it into shallow buckets, then mix in the coloring: blue and yellow to make apple green, red and blue to make dark pink. Then he would dip a large kabal leaf in the mixture, as a mold for the kiping, and hang it so that the excess coloring dripped. To finish he would cook them over a charcoal grill, while Marty ate the rejected attempts and recited random facts he had learned at school.

Marty didn’t watch the kiping preparation yesterday. Something about the BPM Mang Kikoy was using instead of rice made Marty feel weird. It might have been misplaced nostalgia, and he knew that was a useless feeling.

JR, however, had watched and reported to Marty after: about how he had eaten some of the leftovers and they tasted kind of funny, kind of like nothing, but Mang Kikoy said it was made of rice so that was probably normal, right, Dad?

“Kiping has no taste,” Marty said, laughing. “I mean, rice itself has barely any flavor.”

“But Mang Kikoy said the real foods in the fiesta taste awesome, and if I can eat a fruit or veggie from the winning house tomorrow, I’ll understand what he means!”

“Oh, did he say that? Those things are really expensive. And they’ll probably make your tummy ache. Or make your teeth gray, like Mang Kikoy’s!” Marty rumpled JR’s hair, so that JR squirmed. “Don’t know if you’ll get to taste any of that, anak.”

“I will,” JR said. “I’m gonna grab some with my stretchy arms—SHEEE-OW!” He whipped his arm wildly. “And then I can tell all the kids in my class, and they’ll be jealous, because they’ve never eaten yummy real food and they never will!” He chuckled, evil and gleeful, and robotically walked away to heckle his sister.

Marty remembers the great glass houses they passed on their way to Lucban, lining the fields stretched beneath Mt. Banahaw. Piles of corn and rice, endless rows of pineapple and root crop, stewing in their meticulously engineered domes, more delicious than nature could ever make them. Simply more than God could ever make them.

* * *

The procession begins at 1:00 p.m. with the local policemen leading the marching band through the streets. The crowd surges from the town center. Those who live along the procession route peer out from windows and balconies, waving at onlookers. An ABS-CBN TV crew starts their segment. People in bright red shirts bearing the Universal Robina logo hover near the cameras, holding up signs that say Don’t Eat the Miracle Food—It’s Poison! You Could Die!

Marty frowns at their lack of respect for the festivities, even as he recalls his last meeting, where the Procurement Division Head had raised her eyebrows at his vacation request. (“For Lucban?”—and when Marty nodded, how she cleared her throat and averted her eyes.) Ignoring this, he gestures for his family to follow, and heads for the middle of the parade. JR complains that he can’t see, so Marty hoists him onto his shoulders. They walk on, keeping to the edges of the crowd. The higantes come after the band: giant, cartoony replicas of the president, the kagawad, a schoolgirl, a farmer. A carabao—live this time—follows it, pulling a cart full of waving children. Unlike the animatronic version, this carabao plods silently on, martyr-like. It is trailed by girls with feathered headpieces and dresses in garish colors, shimmying to a syncopated drumbeat.

The priest from morning mass scoops water out of a bucket and sprinkles everyone with it. Behind him walk the beauty pageant entrants, led by the newly-crowned Miss Lucban and her escort, standing on a float, carrying San Isidro between them. Marty is transfixed by the face of the saint—how it looks tired and drawn in the middle of the crowd, rocked to and fro by the music. The parade is pushing, pulsing from all sides; Marty presses onward, checking that Inez and Mariah are still following. The band has gone through its traditional repertoire and is now playing the Top 40. Everyone sings along—some droning, some with effort. Marty moves faster so that he can keep pace with San Isidro, but it’s difficult. He feels crazed, dehydrated, but he’s determined to witness the so-called miracle, determined not to care.

“Dad,” JR says, “Dad, hurry up, we’re going to miss the selection!”

Marty tries to walk more quickly, but the crowd keeps him at bay, measuring his pace. The people proceed down the street in a blare of noise and sound and color, getting more raucous as they approach the fancier homes. At some point the fiesta-goers begin to stop in front of each house, and lift San Isidro above the crowd, holding him there for a few moments. Each time this happens the procession holds its breath, then bursts into cheering when nothing changes. Marty is starting to get exhausted. He brings JR down and clutches his hand. JR beams up at him, infected by the delight of the crowd. Marty smiles back, as best as he can through the heat and confusion and the sudden shower of confetti and kiping raining from the house they are passing.

They’re drawing closer to Mang Delfin’s house, with the animatronic carabaos and giant replica of the mayor’s face. The frenzy and expectation heightens each time San Isidro is raised, but there is also a sense of inevitability, because only one house can win, and everyone seems to know which house it is. Someone starts chanting: “Mang Delfin! Mang Delfin!” The marching band launches into the current chart-topper. People are headbanging and wiggling and not-quite-accidentally grinding each other.

Marty realizes they’re not going to see anything if they stay where they are. Ducking into a side street, he skirts past former neighbors’ houses. He counts the walls before turning back onto the main road, right at the cross street between Mang Delfin and Aling Sheila’s house. They have a perfect view of the proceedings: the crowd is amassing in the home right before this one, breathing a collective “Ooooh!” as San Isidro is raised, then bursting into laughter when nothing happens, and he is lowered once more.

JR jumps up and down. “It’s going to be this one! It’s going to be this one!”

Marty’s heart races. He squeezes JR’s hand, and gazes at the façade of Mang Delfin’s house: up close, he can see potato-faced people pieced from squash and taro, with string-bean-and-okra hair; intricate butterflies made of rambutan and longgan; long, sweeping bunches of banana mingled with kiping. The mooing of the fake carabaos is incredibly loud. If there’s any house that can feed the whole town, it’s this one.

But what’s wrong with this food? He thinks. Isn’t this worth giving thanks for? What more do people want?

“Mang Delfin! Mang Delfin! Yaaaay!” The crowd whoops as it reaches its destination. Everyone quiets down enough so that the band can start a drumroll. Miss Lucban and her escort slowly, tenderly lift San Isidro up to face the house. Marty is magnetized, again, by the saint’s face: its severely rosy cheeks and sleepy eyebrows, the stiff golden halo behind his head. He can’t tell if San Isidro wears a look of benevolence, or of agony.

“Real food! Real food! Real veggies, real fruit!” JR hasn’t stopped jumping or chanting. Marty fights the urge to tell him to shut up.

“Oh my god,” Inez says. “This is actually so exciting!”

Mariah, who has whipped out her phone to record everything, says, “The signal here sucks!”

The hush continues. As the crowd watches, the statue of San Isidro—now facing its life-sized twin, in front of Mang Delfin’s house—lifts its wooden arm, the one holding the sheaf of corn, in a rigid salute. His face remains frozen, but for one instant, his eyes seem alive—and even though they aren’t directed at Marty, his belly churns and his eyes water. A child in the crowd bursts into tears.

Then: an explosion of smell and color. The house is suddenly unable to bear its own weight, and several ornaments come loose from the ceiling and balcony, falling on the crowd below. Potatoes and bananas roll off the shingles, detach from the windows; tufts of kiping billow out and descend on everyone’s heads. Marty sees this in slow-motion. Each fruit and vegetable is more alive, the smell so intoxicating Marty nearly vomits. He lets go of JR’s hand to cover his mouth, and JR immediately lunges for the food. Inez shrieks and darts forward as a squash-face starts to come loose from the wall. She tries to catch it in one of her new hats, shouting, “What are you doing, Marts? Grab some! Hurry!”

Everyone is frantically scooping. Mariah has her mouth full of something. “Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god, it tastes totally different!”

Marty looks back at where the procession had been neatly standing, and it’s all gone—San Isidro has disappeared, swallowed by a swarm of flailing limbs. Someone—Mang Delfin?—roars over the noise, “This is my house! Those are mine! Stop! Stop!”

“There’s enough for everyone, you greedy ass!” someone shouts back. The cheer that follows quickly dissolves into grunting as people climb over each other.

Marty comes into focus. “JR!” He calls frantically. “JR? JR!”

His little boy could be trampled. His little boy could get LBM, salmonella, stomach cancer. That food should never touch his lips.

Inez is still filling her hats; Mariah is helping her. Marty tries to enter the writhing mass of fiesta-goers. An elbow bashes him on the cheek, a knee catches his ribs. Someone to his left retches. The stench of body odor and puke overpowers the sweet fragrance of the fruits.

“JR!” He keeps shouting.

“Dad!”

JR squeezes his way towards him, reaching over two women grappling with a knot of bitter gourd. Marty manages to grab JR under the armpits, lifting then hauling him toward a side street. He takes deep breaths, trying to clear his head, and through a haze of nausea he sees JR’s giant grin. JR is clutching a swollen banana in his fist: a banana full of bruises, green at the base, just like the ones Marty used to eat as a child, nothing like the ones they now grow. “Dad! I got one! Can I eat it?”

Marty feels sick, overwhelmed, like too many eyes are on him. He reaches out, grabs the banana, and peels it without thinking. JR watches him, wide-eyed. Marty has no idea what he’s going to do—hold it out to his child and let him eat it? Eat it himself, because it looks so goddamn delicious? Thank God, San Isidro, for a miracle? Cry for his manmade miracles, so much nothing when held to the light of day, to a pair of tired eyes in a wooden face?

“Yes,” he says. “Go ahead,” he says, his mouth already tasting the sweetness, craving it—the truth of a miracle, too bitter to swallow—“But don’t, no, you shouldn’t, it isn’t safe, it isn’t right,” he says, and he is suddenly crying, and JR looks at him with an expression that edges bewilderment and terror. In his closed fist the banana has been mashed to a pulp.

The Oiran’s Song

Originally published by Uncanny Magazine

* * *

Winter will always remind you of three things: the smoke rising from the fire that burned your home; the cold floor you slept on as a pageboy in the teahouse; and the peculiar shade of your brother’s skin, the way his bruises grayed like melted snow. This color does not make sense in your mouth: spoken, tasted. But you see it every time you close your eyes. His body being folded like a paper fan, broken apart like ceramic. The few nights you could lean next to him, he smelled like wine and another person’s sweat.

When you were twelve, at the onset of war, the teahouse sold you to some passing soldiers. You bundled up your clothes and stopped by Kaoru’s room. He held you briefly, and you exhaled into his chest, where delicate bruises were patterned: stains of the floating world. You didn’t know it then, but the pleasure quarters were starting to crumble. “Goodbye, niisan,” you said.

Your brother did not tell you to be happy, which would have been cruel. Instead he said, “Live well, Akira.” His eyes, when they rested on your face, were loving, sad, and afraid.

* * *

The memory of Kaoru’s last words is eclipsed by Taichou’s order to fetch wood. “Yes, sir,” you answer.

As you hoist a gun over your shoulder Kazushige winks and adds, “Get some dinner for us too.” You are not the best shot; Kazushige knows this. He laughs and slaps you on the back, and decides to come along. He hunts four rabbits to your two. You gather wood, and wonder how time has passed so quickly.

When you start the fire, you remember the last village you saw—and the wet smell of terror, the smoky taste of ash. (Someone’s blood on your hands.) Like the floating world, the battlefield is all about survival. It’s simply a different set of rituals, a different locked gate. You will not admit your disgust at yourself, at all of them. You will not admit your hatred or your fear.

After dinner, as you’re gathering everyone’s mess, Taichou says: “An oiran will be arriving soon. This one has supposedly trained in Edo’s Yoshiwara.” Through the hoots and clapping you remember the last oiran: Tamakoto, her pale neck barely visible beneath the collar of her stiff dancing robes. When she snapped her elbows back and lifted her sleeve to gesture at the sun, you felt—strange, beyond yourself. The grace radiating from her curved wrists, her small measured steps, was thick and distracting.

Tamakoto ran away from your camp during an overnight stay at a village. The men raged for days, calling her a peasant bitch, a cunt. (You will not think of what happens next. How they turn to you in a fury, grab your wrists and force you against the floor. How you think, instantly, of Kaoru and how you are not him.) “If I ever see her again,” Saburo said, “I’ll stab those budding breasts.” He hadn’t managed to take her, before she fled. Although some of the soldiers come from samurai families, you would not know it from the way they leer. But they have the means to pay, and that’s all a brothel owner needs to know.

There are few alternatives left for the women of the pleasure districts. Servicing soldiers in the war—side of the shogun, side of the emperor—is a fate left for those who have no better options. Still: some are determined to live, and it is one way to survive.

* * *

Taichou informs you that the oiran will be sharing your tent. When Tamakoto fled, the men ruined the spare she was using—pissing on it, setting it aflame, her silk futon still inside it. You never shared that futon, of course—never dared slip in, never asked for a turn—but when you helped her unload it the pattern was burned into your mind. White cranes dancing on a sea of red. (Her eyes flitted to yours then darted away.)

In your tent that evening you trace shadows on canvas and wonder when the war will end. In the hazy dark, you think you see the outline of a creature flitting too close—a crouched figure, with tiny pinprick ears. You scramble out, but there is nothing; just snow blowing everywhere. Probably a fox. Shivering, you slip back into your sheets.

There are youkai in these mountains, or so the stories go. Snow crones, fox spirits—strange smiling devils, drawn by the scent of war. The more superstitious soldiers and villagers say these youkai move among the living, wreaking havoc, taking souls. What pleasure is there in tormenting the already-suffering? These must be lies—invented by some foreign fearmongers, or printers without news to sell. The true demons, people laugh.

If youkai were real, would the snow make them cold? Or would they not feel it, burning as they are?

* * *

You cannot hear her, so it takes you too long to see her. It could also be because she is wearing white. Her robes and pale skin blend with the snow. Her hair, bound at the top of her head, is the only thing separating her from the landscape. As she approaches, snow muting the footfalls of her geta, you straighten up. Almost like you mean to salute her, which is stupid, but you never promised to be the ideal soldier. Only then do you notice the bent old woman next to her. You hasten to take the bag from the obasan’s back.

“She is one of our best,” the brothel auntie says to you. “She can play and sing better than any of those silly geisha in Edo. Ah, she is of great skill, our Someyama! I will admit that her dancing could be improved, but she has certainly mastered refinement in other pleasures. We are very grateful for your patronage.” Although the oiran has already been sold, the obasan seems determined to extol her virtues. She bows, although it makes almost no difference to her curved back. The oiran stands silently, assessing the pale green tents, the muted noise of men.

“We are grateful,” you say, suddenly too aware of her fate. The obasan motions to the oiran, who stoops toward her. They exchange quick, hurried words, and the oiran nods. The obasan walks away, back to the caravan that brought them here. Somehow you missed that, too. As you are puzzling over this, the oiran clears her throat.

“W-welcome,” you mumble. She has a pack on one shoulder and a wrapped instrument over the other. An uncanny reflection of the snow dances in the black pools of her eyes. Her robe, you notice, is very thin. And beneath it, her skin—so white. You swallow. “Aren’t you cold?”

She looks you up and down, then shakes her head. “What is your name?” she asks. Her voice is surprising. There’s a rough quality to it, a lack of pitch and affectation. And the way she stands with her narrow shoulders slumped is almost inelegant. She is nothing like Tamakoto, nothing like the others, lacking their grace and maturity. Perhaps, despite the obasan’s words, the brothel sent their worst to sing for your group out of spite, as all the oiran sent before have died or fled beyond return.

“Akira,” you answer. She half-smiles, sharp and dangerous. Suddenly, you feel sick: bile rising in your throat, tremors beneath your skin. Her smile slices through to your bone and reminds you that you are cruel, that you are part of the war; that all this fighting is designed to break you apart, burn the world with innocents in its midst. And she knows this. She knows all of it. It’s lined in her dry lips and unblinking eyes: all the poison in this nation of death. You stagger under the force of that violence.

Then just as suddenly that sensation is gone. “Are you all right?” she asks, but there’s another question in her eyes: do you know me? She frowns slightly, but when you nod in reply, her face relaxes. Her look of cunning may simply have been a trick of her pale face, the snow drifting before it. White against white.

You are tired, and it is cold.

“Kindly follow me,” you say. You lead her to your tent, and hold the flap open. She sets down her belongings, and you hand her the pack the obasan carried. She narrows her eyes at you, then draws the flap closed. “I’ll see you at dinner,” you almost say, but do not.

* * *

She makes quite the entrance in robes of deep navy gauze, stencil-dyed and embroidered with a pattern of waves. Her obi, tied at the front, is golden-yellow, and matches the pins she has carefully threaded through her hair. She holds her shamisen lovingly in her hands, the instrument’s circular body white as her powdered throat. Her simplicity from that afternoon is gone. Here, she is radiant and imperial, certain in herself.

The soldiers burst out cheering as she walks into their midst. She scans the table, and focuses on Taichou. Her demure grin disappears from view as she bows deeply, before gesturing with all the tentativeness of a skilled seductress at the empty space next to him.

“Of course,” he says. She takes her seat, and carefully positions her shamisen.

Her fingers skim the strings, and she plays as you walk around the tables, pouring sake for tonight’s celebration. This music is oddly familiar. It makes you think of Kaoru gasping as someone beats him, and how his pain must turn to laughter, how he must pretend to want it. It makes you think of feet getting pulled out of slippers as you run, everything turning to ash behind you: your mother’s smile, the paper doors that were your world. When you serve Gengoro your hands tremble. You spill a little sake, and he slaps you across the face.

The oiran lifts her head at the sound of his strike. She’s the only one who notices—everyone else is used to it. She catches your eye as you shuffle to a different table. Taichou’s hand is already drifting over her knee. She plays more furiously. She doesn’t smile, but the notes do. You are suddenly more afraid than you have been in a long, long time.

* * *

Taichou has her that first night, as you all expect him to, then it’s fair game. She’s a prostitute from Yoshiwara, like the other girls before her; but she’s also an oiran. A courtesan of her standing can choose who she lies with. That’s the air she puts on, even now, and the rest of the camp seems happy enough to comply. When she is not servicing someone, she shares your tent, because you’re the youngest and the least dangerous, or perhaps…because you know what it’s like to have your body damaged, the way hers is.

“Make him a man, why don’t you?” Tennosuke laughs, arm encircling her waist. She smiles at him, at you. They don’t think you’d ever lay a hand on her.

They know her name, but everyone simply calls her the oiran, which she says is fine. You think it isn’t right—that it debases her, somehow—but when you tried addressing her as Someyama she said, “Don’t call me that. It isn’t my real name.”

“What should I call you, then?”

She lifted her palm to the corner of her mouth, smirking. “I wouldn’t give that away so easily, would I?”

* * *

The fourth night is the first she spends in your tent. She changes into a sleeping robe and removes the paint from her face, undoing her hair so that it flows over her shoulders. She combs it out with her fingers, and you try to look at anything but her. Sweat slicks your hands. You spend a long time gazing at the tent wall, but when you finally glance back she is watching you. What feels like eternities pass, as her fingers slip through her hair.

“Are you waiting for something, Akira-kun?” She finally asks. You haven’t spoken much since your initial meeting. The way she says your name makes you burn. You are surprised she remembers it. “Do you want me to start?”

“Start what,” you say, nervous laughter catching in your throat as she leans close, letting her hair fall against your knee. Her own knee pokes out from her robe, and is suddenly pressed against your groin. She takes your face tenderly in her hands. Her lips part. Her breath, wine-sweetened, is warm in the chill air, as she draws closer to your face. You brace your hands on your thighs. She’s beautiful, and breathing—so close to you—and you could just take her—but you don’t want to. You don’t.

You lift her hands from your face and push back, gently, until she is kneeling in seiza. You try not to notice how her robe gapes.

“I’m sorry,” you say. The apology is useless, but you want to give it anyway. “You don’t need to do this with me.”

She tilts her head. “I know how to work with anyone,” she says, still in that sweet coaxing voice. It’s different from the first voice you heard her use. She wasn’t in character yet then. “It will be fun, I promise.”

“No—I mean it. It’s really all right.” You sit back, trying to ease the discomfort between your legs.

She gathers the folds of her robe in one fist. “You really won’t touch me?”

“I won’t.”

She bursts out laughing. Its like icicles falling away, sharp and crushing—but you like this face better: her eyes crinkled, mouth gaping. It’s more human, less like a doll. She stretches luxuriously, still grinning. “I knew you were one of those…your face is quite pretty.”

“I—no, it’s not like that. You—you’re from Yoshiwara, right?”

She nods, and resumes combing her hair. Her posture is no longer designed to seduce you; she sits comfortably, her legs folded to one side as she listens.

“I was—from the floating world, too. Shimabara. My brother and I were part of a teahouse. Um—I wasn’t one of the kagemajaya. Just a pageboy.” You shrug. “Kind of like what I am here.”

“Aren’t you a soldier, too?”

“Well, yes,” you mumble. You were allowed the title by Taichou last summer—but you know it means nothing really, to these soldiers. You’re still their little servant, the best approximate to a woman when a real one is not around. You are not from a samurai family. They do not know your father’s name, nor would they care if they did. These are not the well-bred nobles of the warrior class; these are men who know how to fight. “They’ve taught me how to shoot, and wield a blade. But it isn’t really my choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“To be part of this war.”

She makes a disapproving sound. “When does one ever get to choose?”

You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and say nothing more. Your hope is stupidly naïve. She casts her gaze down. “Don’t be too idealistic, Akira-kun. There’s no place for that in our world.” She sighs and lies on her futon, facing away from you.

You fall asleep that night listening to her breathe, wondering how to live.

* * *

The first few days, she does not run out of questions. She never helps you with your tasks, but often comes along. When you ask her why, she replies, “I’m bored.” But no sex before dinner, or so the unspoken rule goes. She keeps up with her practice, and plays splendidly every night, so they let her do as she pleases. In many ways this matches the idleness of Yoshiwara before evening. But there are no warm baths and no parades here, no other girls for her to pinch or tease. She sits and watches you, tossing and catching her bachi or plucking her shamisen, while you walk through the forest gathering wood, or beat the soldiers’ bedsheets out in the snow, or polish their guns and swords.

The soldiers scout for the enemy, await orders from the military, loudly argue about whether to trust the French. You know that the purpose of your unit is to be light and quick and trained with foreign weapons. Eight in a unit, stealth and speed as shields. You have seen the men do their work. You have tried to do the same.

But you are clumsy with the sword, and although you are now a decent shot, holding a gun still makes you anxious. You might fire more accurately if they did not snicker every time you tried. A year ago, Kazushige was appointed your trainer by Taichou—they don’t expect you to become one of them, but an extra set of hands and eyes is always welcome. Kazushige is one of the few who has never touched you. He still laughs at your mistakes and tentativeness, still hits if you do something wrong, but when he lifts your arms to position the rifle, you do not feel like he is about to grip you too hard. Sometimes you even think you like him.

The idea of liking anything is strange. Unreal. You remember Tamakoto; you remember Kaoru. As memories held apart to be revered, wondered at, they make sense; anything closer and your mind shuts off. The oiran’s shamisen makes an awful twang, and you return to the task at hand: checking that the traps set to capture wolves are still in place.

“No wolves are going to come, anyway,” the oiran says.

“How do you know?”

“Because of the oni,” she answers.

It is well known that the women of the floating world delight in storytelling. It is one of the skills they spend years honing.

“Like in the rumors? Those are lies.”

“No, they’re not,” she says. “I’ve seen one.” You glance at her, but she doesn’t meet your eyes. She strikes her shamisen, then grins so that you know she is teasing you. “It frightened the hell out of me.”

You keep your mouth closed, though really you are thinking: you frighten me, and I don’t know why. Then you realize: it’s because I want to protect you, and I don’t think I can.

The trap is empty, as it has been the last several days.

“The wolves aren’t coming,” she repeats.

Someone shouts for you to start getting dinner ready. As the two of you trudge back through the snow, you think: the wolves aren’t coming; they’re already here.

* * *

You grow used to her shadowing you. Her music still makes your blood race. She performs each night, even dancing sometimes (a beautiful silvery fan in hand, arms undulating like waves in the air); she does her duty. But those few evenings she spends in your tent, you talk freely, easily. She doesn’t bother with elegant language around you. From her tales, you imagine being a young girl in a smoky brothel, delivering love letters for the oiran you are apprenticed to, learning to play the favorite song of that fat old merchant who comes every night to see you. Learning not to flinch when he rests his fingers on your ankle.

She asks about your childhood and you think of the fire, and being brought to the teahouse; but instead you tell her about the times before then. Like that summer festival you attended as a young boy. How you took so long eating spun sugar that it melted and covered your fat fist; how Kaoru caught a firefly in his cupped hands, and together you watched its feeble glow. How your mother scolded you for buying the mask of an oni, and how she never let you wear it after that night.

“The mask of an oni?” The oiran’s smile is amused. You feel a little silly, but your thoughts turn to water when she palms the side of your face. “Would you wear it if you had a chance, now?”

“Maybe,” you say. But you’re tired of wearing masks, or maybe just tired. Her hands slowly cover your ears. “What are you doing?” You ask, though you feel you shouldn’t.

“One of these days, I’ll tell you a secret.” It’s as if she is saying something entirely different. “One of these days, I might sing you a song.”

Something about the way she doesn’t promise either of those things makes you hurt.

* * *

You don’t know if you prefer the encampments—set up throughout Northern Tohoku, often by larger units—or the villages. You’re aware that you bring a cloud of terror wherever you go, that the stricken faces of merchants and innkeep are never far behind when you advance. But sometimes, selfishly, you think it’s nice to see other people. To visit the market for real food, instead of eating rations, gathering plants, shooting rabbits. To wash in a bath rather than a stream, and to let someone else clean up for a change. It’s nice until you remember how terrible and narrow-sighted you’re being, and how you’re never going to stay, because once your men have had their fill of one village, they’re on the move again. Tokugawa’s secret army, ready to spring at a single word. The light cavalry; one of the few still standing.

Whenever you stop by a teahouse your chest tightens, and you wonder if by some chance you’ll see Kaoru—but of course it’s never the one you left, and you’re not even sure if he’s still alive. Even then, you can’t buy his freedom. Both of you have years of service left, to pay your relatives’ debts.

Why don’t you run away, you asked Kaoru once. Why don’t we run away?

Do you see that gate? He pointed. In the afternoon sun his skin looked almost translucent, as if he might suddenly fade. It is shut throughout the day, and only opens in the evening to let the customers through. And if we left, they would send a search party. There is no leaving this place.

Sometimes, when you look at the oiran, that same question echoes in your mind. You could leave in the middle of the night. The snow would keep your secret until dawn.

But you are not that brave, not that hopeful.

* * *

Fighting, the next day, from an enemy group that has surged ahead. Fighting doesn’t happen in your own base very often, but when it does, the camp moves like clockwork. Guns come out like extended limbs and fire, fire, fire. Taichou shouts orders, and everyone follows. These soldiers have been marked by invincibility every year you’ve traveled with them; they don’t know fear.

You hold your rifle level and shoot. Your target falls backwards. The little spray of blood catches in the sunlight before landing in the snow. You suck in a breath; this is not the first man you have killed, nor will he be the last. That you are now a decent shot fills you with both terror and relief. Kentaro makes a strangled sound and rolls over, leaving a bloody smear in his wake. Gengoro, your resident medic—in the loosest sense of the word—curses, seizes Kentaro by the wrists, and drags him off. You shouldn’t be watching, you shouldn’t be distracted. You duck behind a carton of rations, and a second later it splinters at the corner.

Presently the gunfire dies down. You are exhausted, but you already know that the night will be spent planning for the move to the next checkpoint. Pressing on. You have come so far from Edo. You must never back down. You must be ready for battle and follow your orders; this is why you exist.

Everyone forgets the oiran. You remember her only when you have lain your rifle down and Taichou counts all the soldiers, still breathing. Fear builds inside you like rising steam. After being dismissed, you run back to your tent without pause. You burst inside to find her sitting in bed, tying her hair. She looks as if she is preparing for dinner, as always—but her breathing is shallow. A stripe of sweat shines on her neck. Her hands, holding her comb, are shaking.

You take the ornament from her fingers and tuck it into her knot. There is a strange gleam in her eyes when she looks up at you. You think it must be fear, and say nothing. The urge to grasp her shoulder swells then fades—you have no idea why it even comes to mind. To ground her, perhaps—hold you both there.

“Don’t be afraid,” you say. “It’s over now.”

“I’m not afraid, Akira-kun.”

You decide she is lying, and are somewhat relieved. She is finally acting more like you expect: simply a girl, perhaps more understanding of life’s unfairness than most, but not as calm as she pretends, not as fearless.

* * *

Kazushige finds the body while scouting ahead. He runs back, more alarmed than you ever remember seeing him, and shouts for someone to follow. It’s terrible, he says. A dead man—by his uniform, someone from a different unit on the same side—all his guts strung out, face disfigured beyond recognition.

The oiran grabs your sleeve as you head out. She doesn’t want to be left alone, not after yesterday’s battle. You clasp her hand. “It’s all right. We’ll be back.”

“You don’t need to be the one who goes.”

Taichou’s orders—you do. “Stay here,” you tell her.

By the time you reach the point Kazushige marked, the body is no longer there.

“I’m sure it was here,” he says. “Look, there’s still blood.”

It’s dried: faint bronze layered on ice. “Did it look like the work of a sword?” you ask.

Kazushige is still looking around, as if the corpse might have crawled away. “Damn. Help me check the surrounding area.”

But there’s nothing, even half a mile out. You imagine what he might have seen; you wonder what beast, human or otherwise, did it.

When you report back to Taichou, Kazushige pretends that the wounds were likely from some violent skirmish, and that together you buried the corpse. You hold your tongue. When you leave the captain’s tent Kazushige holds your wrist in a vicelike grip, pressing hard in warning. You make a small sound of pain, and he lets go.

“Thanks,” he says.

* * *

In your dream, the demon is singing: yuki no asa, ni no ji ni no ji no, geta no ato.

I remember this, you tell the demon. Morning snow; the impression of geta. Twice the strokes for two.

Yes, the demon says. How clever you are. Did your mother once sing it for you?

My mother, and my brother.

The demon is a lady, you find, or perhaps it is only for now. Her touch against your cheek is like water. Her breath on your nose is like ice. Don’t shudder, the demon says. It makes me feel so far away from you.

But you’re not far at all. You’re right here, you say.

For now, the demon says. She kisses your cheek. Thank you for playing along.

* * *

“I think she might last through winter,” Kazushige says, squatting next to you while you fill some cartridges with gunpowder. Since he found the corpse and it disappeared, you haven’t spoken. You glance at him, not sure if you should be wary or lighthearted. The oiran likes the look of Kazushige, or at least that’s what she told you once. Specifically, she said, mmm, he’s so huge and manly. You told her he wasn’t all that bad, and she just grinned.

You think Kazushige must be terribly in love with her, because he hasn’t had his turn yet. He’s so patient. Sometimes the others call him Hotoke-sama, but he just laughs.

Tentatively, you ask: “Are you hoping for spring already, Kazushige-san?”

“Aren’t we always?” He smiles and nudges you, and you try not to tip over. You think of how many people his giant hands have killed: firing expertly, or gripping a sword and slashing in broad strokes. Kazushige was trained in one of the most prestigious sword schools, but he has embraced foreign weapons entirely. Everyone in the camp views him with a mix of awe and jealousy.

Kazushige trained you, but in truth, you don’t know him at all. But do you need to? What would be the point of knowing him? He treats the oiran with respect. He has never laid hands on you.

“I suppose.” You never forget to be polite; to be grateful, at the right moment.

“What does she taste like?” He asks, suddenly. There is a powerful hunger in his voice. Your skin prickles.

“Hm?”

He breathes out loudly. “It’s nothing.” He pauses. “Sometimes I envy you.”

For the fact of your uncaring, or for the beautiful oiran that sleeps across you, that you have now, at times, started to consider your friend? What a stupid, tenuous word that is, friend. And yet she is the closest to it. As is Kazushige, perhaps.

“You have no reason to.” You turn your face down, because now it is time for you to draw on modesty, the last feeble weapon in your arsenal.

* * *

She decides to play her shamisen next to Kazushige at dinner. He can’t stop staring at her in the dim light, his mouth slightly open. She pours him another cup of sake. You watch Taichou eyeing them at the end of the table, but he’s played along thus far, he’s not going to stop tonight. The other men, too, seem particularly preoccupied with how she leans close to Kazushige and calls him master.

Something is wrong, you think—something is strange about her song. It sounds like the habit of breaking one’s heart. Some melody you’ve heard before, the lyrics about two tracks from two pairs of feet, disappearing in the snow. (Mother’s paperthin smile, Kaoru in the afternoon light, a hand of death stroking your cheek so that it freezes.) When dinner finally ends, the oiran takes Kazushige’s hand and leads him back—to your tent. You don’t even protest. Maybe you can’t. You stand outside in the snow and it’s wet, slushy beneath your sandals. You wonder if you should try to find somewhere else to stay, or just wait. Wait.

Then you hear a harsh grunt, a gasp—I’m still—please, wait—and you can’t listen any longer.

You wander away, just far enough so that you can’t hear their noises. You crouch down and close your eyes. Sex always makes you think of Kaoru. (The same words, through the paper screens: wait—Master, please—oh, no no—of course I like it, of course, that feels—ah—wonderful.) Anything from sliding doors to the mention of Kabuki can make your insides burn. Sometimes you see your brother’s face and the smile suspended on it, meaning nothing. His lips parting, the choke beneath his involuntary sigh. (Some days his neck was lilac as the pattern on the robe of the brothel owner’s wife; how expensive that garment must have been, paid for in sweat and flesh.) You shake your head, knowing that won’t clear the images, and straighten up to take a piss.

You are standing in the snow, feeling your heart thaw, watching the sky for wolfhowl and moonbeams, when you hear a cut-off cry. A gasp. You’re back at your tent before you know it. The side is splattered with something like ink, and from beneath the flap red seeps onto the snow. Your hesitation lasts only a second.

In the dim light you can hardly see the blood, but you can smell it. The two bodies on the bed are still—or appear to be. Then one of them slowly twists around.

The oiran. Her expression when she sees you is—angry. Full of hate. No, terror.

She screams.

* * *

His body is collapsed in blood, the wound on his neck a strange slash. The oiran sits in her soaked red sheets, now sobbing after her cries turned hoarse. Taichou appears first. He grabs your shoulder and stares at you, searching. You stare back. You have no answers to give, and he sees this, backhands you anyway. He wrenches the oiran from her sheets—drags her out into the snow—and she stands before everyone, pale body stained.

“What was it,” Taichou asks, and when she merely shudders, he grabs her chin and forces her to look at him. You want to tell him not to do that—it’s dangerous—no, it might be hurting her—no. It’s not your place. “What was it?”

Talk, you useless slut is not spoken, but you all hear it anyway.

She mumbles something. You see Taichou’s hand quiver on her chin and this time you take a step forward. Her eyes slowly slide to yours, hold you in place. She’s not scared of him, you realize. She’s not afraid of any of this.

“What was that?”

“Oni,” she repeats. “Oni came, Taichou. Quick as lightning, with blades for fingers. It all happened so—so quickly. It’s these mountains—please, believe me—” her breath catches. “We’re not safe.”

* * *

They search her belongings, scour your tent, but there is no tool that could possibly inflict such a wound. She was naked; there was nothing on her person to conceal. Someone came and departed, then. She acted so well, appearing dead; or her beauty stirred the killer to pity, and she was spared. You have no way of tracing whether the murderer is independent, or one of the enemies’ assassins. Nobody knows much of Kazushige’s past—any number of grievances on his name or his family may have finally caught up with him.

That is not so unusual. The she remains breathing, however, is.

Taichou, ever the noble, has Kentaro strike her instead. On her knees in the snow, covered in a crust of blood, she is a pitiful figure—but she doesn’t let her head drop. She coughs and spits red, keeps her cries to a minimum. When Kentaro is finished, she merely wipes her lip and lowers her eyes.

Taichou has no such qualms about beating you. The bruises feel like weights beneath your skin. If you were not useful to them, you might be dead. “If anything else happens,” Taichou says, “Be assured that I will not let either of you off so easily.”

They do not trust you, have never truly seen you; but they have never feared you, either. They will not start now.

She cannot explain anything beyond her belief that it was oni. They decide she is crazy. Women from Yoshiwara sometimes are, driven to drink and delusions from the misery of their existence. Maybe it was a long time coming; or maybe she was so rattled by whatever it was she did see. Some start calling her yuki jyoro—snow whore. Still, her words have an effect: the decision is made to head for a different checkpoint. Murmurs throughout the camp are uneasy and angry. Before leaving the next day, they dispose of Kazushige’s body—the camp’s first the whole past year.

You wash your sheets in the river, waiting desperately for them to run clear, your hands icy in the water. A small, additional punishment.

When you look up, the oiran is seated a short distance from you. The bruise on her left cheek is painful to look at, and her eyes raw from crying. But there is serenity in the way she waits for your accusations, your questions.

“I’m not,” she says.

“Not?”

“Not lying.” I’ve seen one, she once told you. Oni. Winter not thawing quick enough. Snow piling on the mountains, soft and downy as bird feathers. A man with his entrails spread, his face missing.

She watches you, lips trembling as if she wants to say more. Everything about this moment is a terrible idea. Above all, you have the strongest urge to lay your lips on hers, just to keep her quiet.

You have never thought this before. She has changed things.

“Akira-kun,” she says, pulling her legs up so that her knees are against her face. “Can you keep a secret?”

Don’t undo this, something tells you, not for her, you don’t know what she is—

But you recall that first smile she gave you, and how it cut. How her songs wear down your soul. How she turned, so slowly, last night. You cannot change the fact of things; you can only open your eyes wider.

“Yes,” you say, and wait, and breathe.

* * *

She explains it the way one would tell a fairytale. You never hear about the gods who bled all over the snowcapped mountains, who cursed the earth and all things in it. It may be pretty to imagine, but the oni of these peaks are anything but pretty. They are terrible. Terrifying. They do all the things you hear in stories, and some things you don’t. They like the taste of human hearts and eyeballs. Their manners of killing are varied, but always violent.

Oni are banished to the earth from the next life over, for sins so terrible not even hell wants them. The most powerful have plenty of dark magic, and can take on the shape of a man or woman; they go into villages under their human guise, slaughter the men, rape the women, resume their true forms and eat the children.

They don’t feel, she continues. Not the way humans do. The concept of a feeling means nothing to them. It’s a void. A set of characters limning the air. Smoke curling from a burning villge, the gasping between a child’s cries, the blood running from a woman’s thighs as she leaves Yoshiwara with no worse hell to descend to. All forms of emptiness, drawn in different lights.

The oni don’t feel. This is the one thing that keeps them alive, the one thing that keeps them from living. They understand sensations, thrills, pleasures—but not their consequences.

Once upon a time, she says, oni entered a village. One encountered a farmer’s daughter. She was not the most beautiful woman in the village, but she might have been the most unlucky. The oni buried himself inside her. The woman lived with shame and terror for months. Her death in childbirth was a blessed one.

Children of oni are not born once. They are born as many times as they are killed. With the blood of terrible gods in their veins, they are unable to truly die; the closest they can get to that satisfaction is bringing death to others. There are countless ways of doing so, but the best is using human methods. Humans are inventive like that. They love to dispose of each other. So there are oni that learn trades, speak human tongues, use human weapons with the speed and strength they have gained through the years. Humans need only supply the reasons. Killers and assassins are always wanted; a war just makes it easier.

“Do you know the tale of Ikkaku Sennin?” She stands.

“No.” You stand with her.

“He fell in love with Sendaramo, and lost his magical powers. But my bastard father didn’t do that.” She clenches her fists. “Someday, I’ll find him. I’ll make him suffer what I’ve suffered; I’ll make sure he understands.” The hate in her voice ebbs away. “My mother was human,” she says, as if this needs saying. But if not for that mother, she could not possess such a look of misery; she wouldn’t feel at all.

This time it’s you reaching for her, not cupping her ears or her chin, just holding your hands out, waiting to see what reaction this will elicit. She stares for a moment, then moves toward you. You pull her in, and her arms curl around your back, her chin rests on your shoulder. Her chest against yours rises and falls, steadily, and you can feel her heart like a hummingbird. The demon blood thrumming inside it.

“Aren’t you afraid of me?” she whispers.

You shake your head. You can’t say why this is true—perhaps because she has a beating heart, just like yours, and she has suffered through so much more. You are no longer afraid of her, of what will happen. But there are many things you wish to ask her. Is the demon you’ve seen the one leaning against me now, lovely in the lake’s reflection? Who has bought you, who has sent you to our camp to kill us? How long have you been circling these white plains? How many men and women have you murdered this way, in Yoshiwara, in Edo, in the war? Before the war?

What do you think of when you see snow falling? What do you think of when you smell winter?

“What is your name?” Your mouth is against her ear, closer than you’ve ever been to another person since Kaoru lay beside you, trying not to let you hear his weeping; no—since they pushed your face into a pillow and forced themselves inside you, groaning—

Her laughter emerges as white breath against your shoulder.

“In truth I have no name, but the humans who first raised me called me Ayame.”

“Ayame,” you repeat.

“A name is a useless thing to have.” She pulls back and studies you. You see blood cascading in her eyes. You see fire. You see Kazushige’s wound. When she kisses you, you close your eyes, but it doesn’t stop the images. Snow keeps falling, right through the darkness that remains long after you’ve opened your eyes again.

* * *

“Why Kazushige?” you ask, later that day. You are polishing guns that will obviously be used soon.

“Do you know how to fold paper cranes?”

“Yes. Why Kazushige?”

“Promise me you’ll teach me how to fold a paper crane, first.”

You’ll have to think about where to find the paper, but that can be arranged. Taichou keeps some for his official letters. They’re not square. You’ll just have to slice them square, or maybe she can do that, with whatever she uses to slice men’s throats. “I promise.”

“I’m teasing. I already know how. You think I don’t know how?” she smirks and you shrug, the gesture unpracticed.

“Why Kazushige?”

Irritation crosses her face. Her eyes narrow, as if she is asking: Why? Do you care? Why should you care? “He detested you.”

“He was kind to me.”

“Kind? Just because he didn’t hurt you the way the others did? You think that is kindness? You disgusted him with your weakness. That’s why he never touched you.” You don’t know if you can trust her; you don’t know if that will make things hurt less. She glares. “How you can hold on to that fluttering goodness inside you? Don’t you get angry? I’m angry all the time.”

You hold her gaze, try not to tremble as she continues: “You misunderstand me, Akira-kun. The desire to see some blood spilled—you don’t know the hunger, how much it hurts here,” she draws a circle over her heart, waits to see how you’ll react when she says, “How much I burn to see you all dead, how your breathing makes me want to spit. How humans make me sick.”

That doesn’t surprise you, doesn’t chill you even if it should. You put down the rifle you were cradling. “Let’s fold some cranes,” you say, taking her hand. She looks shocked for a moment. Then rueful.

It turns out she has paper—one of the parting gifts from the obasan. She balances a perfectly folded crane on your head; it flops down onto your shoulder. She sighs and picks it up. “That body Kazushige saw? That was the work of an oni not covering its tracks. He had seen too much. So I decided I was going to finish the job. I was prepared to slay him, slay everyone. I was told not to let anyone live. But then you came back—you came in—and I couldn’t kill you.” She grins, but there is nothing happy about it. “It’s all your fault.”

* * *

So the camp marches, marches onwards, through the drowsy mountains and your own protesting feet, shivering. It’s glorious in its way, the battle hymn of war singing in your bones, in the strings she still plays. There is a village some miles before the next checkpoint. You will scour it for supplies, for signs of the enemy.

Ayame still performs, sings, dances. But these days, they don’t even wait for dinner. They take her when they want to, wherever they please. You can taste the climbing anxiety and anticipation—the bloodlust with it, musk and iron, the taint one can’t be rid of. You fear for the women in the approaching village. Ayame’s wrists are often bruised. If you could see her hips, you are certain they would be too, but she just smiles and shakes her head. Doesn’t hurt me. You think your stupid human brutality can hurt me?

“Are you incapable of being hurt?”

“I wouldn’t give that away so easily, would I?” she says, amusement like a curling green leaf beneath her words.

* * *

One night, she has finished just her first two songs when Kenjirou asks her to stop. There is a pause while people wait for Taichou’s reaction, but he says nothing: arms crossed, mouth set. Kenjirou grabs the shamisen out of her hands. Her eyes widen, but she remains silent. He plays for a few seconds; someone else beats a rhythm with the bottom of his cup. After being spoiled by her music, the noise he makes is discordant—ugly.

“You know this game, don’t you?” Kenjirou slurs.

The tang of alcohol is suddenly alive in your mouth—but the pain in your chest is not due to poison. So this isn’t the method she uses. (Not enough blood, you think. Not enough pain.) Ayame slowly stands, and nods.

He plays, and she begins to sway—the movement can hardly be called a dance. Back and forth, her hands folding out, drawing in—then he stops, abruptly. She is caught in mid-step, and judders to a halt. Kenjirou laughs, and everyone laughs with him. Expressionless, she unties the sash from her obi, and drops it to the ground. The music begins again. This time she freezes perfectly when it stops; but when Kenjirou says “Hey!” she obligingly sheds her kimono.

Soon everyone is pounding out the beat with their hands or cups. Kenjirou yodels a tune as he strums her instrument. There is no paint on her body to match her face, but there is something unnatural about the paleness of her breasts, her limbs. You are only sure it is her bare skin because of the way she shivers, and how painful it looks where the blues and blacks are stippled red.

“Akira! More sake,” Taichou says. The game continues, and with it, the jeering and panting, growing more animal-like.

“You should join her,” Gengoro mutters. He has come up behind you; one hand seizes your hip so that you freeze. “This game isn’t supposed to have only one player. Or would that ruin it?” For the first time in years you feel the sharp edge of danger again—the bottomless shame, your powerlessness, the desire to damn survival and recover some of your pride. I’m angry all the time, she said—but there are no traces of it on her face now, eyes patiently distant while someone throws a cup at her and misses.

You turn to face Gengoro and let him crush his lips against yours, drag you against his body. This doesn’t hurt me, you think—but you aren’t like her. Even as the catcalls behind you grow louder, as Taichou bellows out a terrible laugh, as the sound of cloth tearing makes you grit your teeth—you are aware of the trembling in your hands, how you have no blades or claws. How you long for this story to close at the end of winter. How the first touches of spring are still not showing through; how they may never show for you.

* * *

The following night, she tugs on your robe and puts her hands against your chest, saying, “It’s cold, cold, cold, it’s so cold.” It’s the most desperate you’ve ever seen her, eyes huge and wide as a child’s. And she’s only a child, really—though how many times has she been a child, you don’t know. You’re only a child. You’re like two rabbits sitting terrified in the midst of everything. But she’s no rabbit, she’s a wolf, she’s biting off your long ears and you let her because she looks so much like you, and it’s freezing. You wrap your arms around her and tell her to go to sleep. She makes this sound, a nothing-whisper, and huddles against you like she might understand your heart. You’ve done this before. You were here before: someone’s arms around you, and you couldn’t protect him, and he was waiting inexorably for death to claim you both, because the fire didn’t that first time.

“What was his name,” she whispers.

“Kaoru,” you whisper back. “He was never really the strong type. We couldn’t save each other.”

Only when he held you. Only when they’d brought the cane across your hands too many times, and you thought maybe this is what all older brothers do: stand by, do nothing, just kneel by you when it’s all over, hold your head and weep.

Ayame shifts to face you. “Would you save someone now, if you could?”

There is an alien note of pleading in her voice. You can’t bear it. “Of course.”

“Then destroy me,” she says. “That’s all I ask. I’ve been searching many years for someone who can. It hurts just as much for me, only there is no end in sight.”

Sorrow pierces like a knife through your chest. Slowly, you close your hands around her neck. Your heart beats slow and steady. You push your thumbs down, feeling her pulse, the movement of her throat as she swallows.

“I can’t,” you say, ice inside you, everywhere. “I’m sorry. I’m not strong enough.”

Her hands rest over yours, carefully. “It’s all right,” she says, disappointment mingling with resignation. “Death wouldn’t keep me long, anyway.” She rests her head on your chest. Next to her warm body, you feel frozen. “You’re kind, Akira-kun. I won’t ask it of you again.”

* * *

The village is already burning when you enter. When will you stop being broken by the sight, the sound, the sorrow of war? You are twelve again, being embraced by Kaoru and he doesn’t tell you to be happy, he doesn’t even tell you goodbye. He just tells you to live. It is the sweetest parting message in the world. Or this, perhaps: crackling fire, orange against the snow.

Taichou tells everyone to grab what they can, no need for niceties here. Spot the enemy, find those bastards. Again, Ayame is forgotten. It’s strange how she leaves their minds when they aren’t hurting her, but not strange enough. Not wrong enough. You’re tried of trying to reconcile the halves of your heart; you can no longer lie to yourself. So you don’t stop her, you don’t do anything, when she emerges from where she was asked to stay put, brings out her instrument, and starts to play.

The next few scenes do not make sense. They do not happen in order. They perhaps do not happen and your eyes, witnessing, are traitors.

A little girl stumbles out of her house, blood streaming down her face, crying, and sees the oiran.

Someone, unseen, opens fire. Gengoro next to you falls on his knees, blood erupting from his chest.

You hear yourself shout—the same time Taichou does—for everyone to get down, hit the ground.

The little girl runs for Ayame—anything that is female, human, mother, mother, you almost hear her think—and Ayame lets herself be hugged, hugs the girl back, bending forward, her sleeves billowing out.

You leap over Gengoro’s body, duck behind the façade of a house, sight along your rifle. You don’t see any attackers. You realize it might not be bullets, flying through the air.

In the oiran’s arms, the little girl flops backwards. Her eyes are glassy, her mouth slack.

This is it, you think, this is when I know for sure—

Ayame pulls out her koto and Taichou points his rifle at her, shouts at her to fall back, what the hell is she doing, and she yanks off the strings. You remember the strange gash on Kazushige’s throat and everything slowly, beautifully, clicks into place. That can’t be the only thing. As if to prove your point she reaches into her sleeve and, with the practiced grace of swans, draws out her fan. (You never wondered whether it might be steel.) The sharp edge she launches goes straight for Taichou’s throat, and instinctively you make a move to run for him, knock him out of the way.

You don’t make it. You weren’t expecting to. His eyes, in that final moment, are luminous with hate, betrayal.

“Cursed,” he manages to spit. His gaze lingers on you as he dies.

Your body doesn’t know which direction to move toward. Are oni pouring out of the mountains, or is it just her, the little girl now fallen from her grasp, all the other men turning with bewilderment and terror to witness Taichou bleeding out on the snow?

“Akira-kun,” she calls. She doesn’t need to shout. Her voice carries over the snow—her voice, your home. “Akira-kun, run away!”

(Kaoru said: There is no leaving this place.)

(Ayame said: I was told not to let anyone live.)

You could run. You could leave her. You can’t save her, after all.

You can’t save anyone.

Kenjirou appears from the other direction, takes in the scene, aims as she turns. Her chest explodes: crimson blooms on her navy robes, spatters the ground, spills out of her mouth. She falls on her knees, gasping.

The gunshot echoes endlessly in your ears; shatters something inside you.

Kaoru’s distorted breathing. Tamakoto’s eyes flicking away. Your hands against Ayame’s throat. It hurts, she said. How she must suffer, alone and filled with hate, swallowed by blood and oaths and the fact of an existence that doesn’t end. You’re the only one who understands, who knows—and you can’t leave her now.

You will lend her your blades, your hands, your hate—however weak and blunted.

A cry of fury escapes her lips, blending with their cries of terror, as she stands. You raise your rifle and shoot Kenjirou in the head.

* * *

“Do you remember mother’s favorite song?” you ask Kaoru. You are lying on his lap, looking up at his face. It is a summer afternoon like the one so many years ago, when you bought a demon’s mask. A dragonfly darts in and out of the window. Across the street, the faint banter of oiran and their kamuro can be heard.

“Of course,” Kaoru says. “How could I forget?” and he opens his mouth—

* * *

This dance is one you’re familiar with, but it’s still far too much like a dream. How a body falls, stiff and awkward. How the world sounds when you are moving too quickly through it, pulling the trigger again and again. You like the way she kills better. There are spinning stars in her sleeves that can gouge out a man’s eyes. She has pulled off her oiran robes and is now clothed like a kunoichi, and moves as one too. She doesn’t let herself get shot again; your bullets are too slow for that.

She was born in a village, but much longer ago her father was born on these mountains. The oni don’t need to reveal themselves to be seen; they are drifting out now, as a bullet punctures your stomach, and another smashes into your shoulder. Out of the corner of your eye, Tennosuke’s blade flashes. You dimly register the pain in your side as you thrust your own sword through him.

It’s almost like the snow has covered the world just for this purpose: to be stained red, red against orange fire, against the somber blue of a uniform that marches for no one.

You were going to establish the new era. You were going to kill in the name of unity. You were going to walk on and buy the freedom of your brother, hold the demon in your arms, because that’s all you want, and together you will listen to her song, and talk about what it’s like to live and die in a floating city. Tea the taste of salt. The smell of sex permeating everything, layered over with incense. Lips pressed tight: a collective of broken promises.

Ayame shouts your name as you slip onto one knee. The sudden silence is strange and sweet. In its melody your own heartbeat sounds too loud.

She comes before you and lays her hands on your head, like a blessing. The ghosts of all things, flowing back. She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile. (You don’t know why you thought she’d enjoy it.) Her hands cover your eyes, cover your mouth, and you kiss her palm. When would this be all right? If the world stopped being so white, for just a moment. If the snow didn’t fall. Then would you still be here, distended? Would you still be kneeling, alone with a demon you can’t bear to leave, a demon who wanted you to live?

“I can’t bear it,” you say, into her hand. “Is this what it’s like?”

She sighs, and when you look in her eyes, they are cracked like glass. This is the human in her. The woman screaming as she gave birth. The snow-covered mountains. A song about wooden clog marks.

“Why didn’t you run?” she asks.

“You will live forever and I won’t.”

She doesn’t move. The grief on her face is a living thing. The steel in your body is heavy, but you feel weightless. You watch her face, waiting. Waiting.

Your eyes close when she leans forward. Her lips are snow; red snow. They taste like singing. Like blood. They are soft like the folds of Kaoru’s robes, where you nestled your head, wondering when the world would stop spinning. Burning. Everything white.

Winter will always remind you of that longing, recursive, in your chest. The last of your strength gives; she catches you as you slump, and pulls your head onto her knees. You lift a ragged hand and gently cup her face. You don’t ask if she’s satisfied. That’s a stupid question.

“Tell Kaoru, if you ever find him—I’m sorry. Tell him—this story closed at the end of winter.”

She nods. There are icicle-tears in the corners of her eyes that don’t fall. Your hand slips. She catches it and grips, hard, whispering: “I wish I could be reborn into a world with you in it.”

Do you love me, you think, but you can already hear her reply: I wouldn’t give that away so easily.

Instead you ask, “What was that song?”

Her fingers brush your hair. Something wet lands on your cheek—demon tears, or melted snow. The dark encroaches as she starts to sing: “Yuki no asa, ni no ji…”

Good Girls

Originally published by Shimmer Magazine

* * *

This story contains scenes dealing with suicide and violence relating to infants, which some readers may find upsetting.

You’ve denied the hunger for so long that when you transform tonight, it hurts more than usual. You twist all the way round, feel your insides slosh and snap as you detach. Your wings pierce your skin as you leave your lower half completely. A sharp pain rips through your guts, compounding the hunger. Drifting toward the open window, you carefully unfurl your wings. It’s an effort not to make a sound.

You’re a small girl, but it’s a small room, and though your boyfriend is snoring you can’t risk being caught. You look back at him, remembering how he’d breathed your name a few hours ago, pouring sweat as you arched beneath him—Kaye, baby, please. You wonder if he’ll say it that way when you eventually leave.

The half you’ve left behind is tucked in shadow: gray, muted pink where your intestines show through. The oversized shirt you’re wearing hides the worst of the guts that hang from your torso as you glide into the sticky night air. You suck in a deep breath as the living bodies of your housing complex flood your senses. A girl sobs in her bedroom while her father hammers at the door. A pair of elderly foreigners lie in each other’s arms. A stray dog licks its balls outside the iron gates while a security guard dozes in his cramped sitting room.

Manila is a city that sleeps only fitfully, and you love it and hate it for that reason.

* * *

The first thing taught at the Bakersfield Good Girl Reformation Retreat is the pledge: “I’m a good girl. A good girl for a good world. And while I know it is not always easy to be good, I promise to at least try.” The girls are made to repeat this three times at orientation, and one girl seems moved enough to shout “Amen!” at the end. Or she could be mocking it; Sara can’t tell. The girls on either side of her are listless, mouthing the pledge without care or conviction. One scratches her knee then digs underneath her fingernails, puckering and unpuckering her mouth like a goldfish. Sara suspects she’s wearing a similar expression. She frowns and squints at the clear blue California sky, the same one from the home she was just forced to leave.

Afterward they’re herded onto the field for physical exercises and split into groups. Sara’s group starts running. She quits on the second lap out of five, short of breath and thinking nope, not worth it. She jogs off the field and is trying to disappear someplace when Captain Suzy, who is in charge of PE, catches sight of her. Captain Suzy frowns and starts heading for her, except the flag football team erupts in a hair-snatching free-for-all. Captain Suzy surges into the brawl and flings girls away from each other, so that by the end mud and grass is strewn everywhere and more than one girl has fainted from the heat.

Later, Sara learns the fight was because of a butterfly knife that someone had snuck in and stupidly showed off. Lots of girls wanted it.

They’re given Exploration time after lunch, with the stern reminder that they have to be prepared for Group Sharing (4:30 PM), followed by Journals (6 PM) in their respective rooms before Dinner (7 PM). After leaving the dining hall, Sara surveys the abandoned schoolhouse where all Good Girls are forced to stay. It’s mostly dusty classrooms with chalkboards. Tiny white bugs swirl in every sunbeam. Most chairs and tables are child-sized, and colored mats cover the floor. A mesh-wire fence circles the entire yard, and past it, a tall rusted gate. Beyond them lie endless fields, roasting under the sun. The fence is too tall to climb, and Sara is neither agile nor motivated. She heads back to her room and decides to Explore her bed.

* * *

There are meals all over the Metro, so many routes to explore. You’ve mapped them out over years and months of nightly travels: countless delicacies, different treats for different moods. The only difference is your start point, your end point. You never last more than a few months in the same place. You always need to find someone new to take you in—to believe you’re human, just like them.

Tonight your hunger is confusing. You don’t know what you want, what will satiate you. You decide to start upscale and work your way down, so you veer toward the part of the city with its lights still on.

Music pulses loudly from a club. Three high school girls totter out on four-inch heels, standing awkwardly on the carpet to avoid the potholed road. One of them is holding a phone to her ear. A car comes up; a maid hops out of the front seat and opens the door for the girls, and they climb in, unsteady from lack of practice or too many vodka Sprites. You think about dancing, about what it’s like to occupy the skin of a beautiful party girl, something you can do with ease—slipping into a bar with confidence, slipping out with someone’s fingers twined in yours, ready to point at the stars and laugh then lean in close for a kiss.

They can never smell the blood and sputum underneath the liquor in your breath. Humans make up wonderfully intricate rituals, pretend to have such control—but they easily devolve into animal longing, just heartbeats flaring in their cage of skin and bones.

* * *

Something is knocking at Sara’s door. A monster of some kind, an overgrown baby bleeding from the chest. Its clawed fist is tapping in a way that’s supposed to be quiet, almost polite—then Sara realizes she’s asleep and scrambles out of bed.

She opens the door. It swings into the hallway and bumps into the girl standing there. “Sorry,” Sara says. Her shirt is soaked in sweat.

“No worries. I’m Kaye! Nice to meet you.” The girl’s hand is cold and dry in Sara’s gross sticky one.

“Sara,” Sara says. “So I guess we’re roommates?”

“Yep,” Kaye says. She is petite and gorgeous, with shiny black hair and flawless honey-colored skin. Asian, but Sara can’t guess which. She wears an easy, friendly grin as she wheels in her luggage. She stops to note which bed Sara has occupied, then throws her backpack onto the empty one.

Sara shuts the door and sits on her bed. She picks up her regulation Pen + Diary in a halfhearted effort to prep for Group Sharing, but ends up watching Kaye unpack instead. Kaye unzips her overstuffed luggage, displaying piles of neatly folded clothes and small colorful snacks: Sweet Corn, Salt and Vinegar Chips, Boy Bawang. Notebooks and papers are wedged between socks and shoes in plastic bags. Kaye fishes out a pair of slippers and slaps them on the floor triumphantly.

“So what’s your deal?” Sara asks, as Kaye peels off her shoes and socks and sticks her feet into the slippers.

“I eat fetuses,” Kaye replies. “If I feel like it, I eat organs too.”

Sara frowns and shuts her notebook. Kaye doesn’t elaborate, and starts sorting clothes on her bed. Sara leans forward so that she can better inspect Kaye’s luggage. There are stickers all over it. One says Fragile, another says Delta Airlines; three are written in Chinese Characters; two read Wow! Philippines. They’re faded, the edges picked off as if someone with long fingernails was extremely bored.

“You came from abroad?”

“A few months ago.” She opens a pack of chips and holds it out to Sara. Sara peers in; they look like shriveled corn kernels. She shakes her head.

“So you were flown all the way out here to stop eating babies,” Sara repeats. Her gut churns, and a voice in her brain goes no, no, no.

“Unborn babies,” Kaye clarifies. “But it’s not like I can help it.” She starts laying out her clothes on the bed, methodically. “I would tell you what they call me, but you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it anyway.”

“Try me,” Sara says.

Kaye smirks and rips out a page from her regulation Diary, then scribbles something on it. She holds it up for Sara to read.

“Manananggal?” Sara tries.

Kaye collapses onto her bed laughing.

* * *

The sky is outlined by skyscrapers, some still in construction. A half-finished high-rise condo is fenced off with boards bearing the image of the newest starlet. She’s wearing a red dress, hair fetchingly arranged over one shoulder, glass of champagne in hand. The flowery script next to her head reads: Where luxury and comfort reside.

The giant open-air shopping complex next to it is almost empty. A few cafes remain lit, although the chairs inside are turned up. A barkada of young professionals staggers back to the parking lot, high on caffeine and the adrenaline of overwork. They are laughing louder than the silence calls for. One man swears he will kill their boss the following morning.

You like these declarations. They can only be made at this hour—witching hour, your hour. You like them because they’re not true.

* * *

The Group Sharing discussion leader is named Apple. Sara ends up on her right, legs curled on the pink-and-orange mat. Apple greets everyone with a giant smile, then takes attendance. There are five girls in the sharing group, including Kaye. Apple begins by saying how happy she is that everyone has come to the Good Girl Reformation Retreat, where all girls are expected to be supportive and encouraging in their journey toward goodness.

“In order to get to know one another better, I would like each of you to tell the group which particular circumstances brought you here. There is no need to be shy or secretive about it. While we know it is not always easy to be good, we are now at Retreat, and we are going to try.”

Tamika, seated on Apple’s left, starts: She knifed her last boyfriend in the ribs. Trang has a habit of setting small fires because they are very pretty. Lena stalked her favorite lab teacher and sent threatening messages to his wife. Dana doesn’t say anything, but she pulls up her shirt and shows everyone a scar that cuts across her extremely toned belly. Sara notices Kaye looking at the pinkish flesh marring Dana’s brown skin with a sad smile.

“You have to tell us, Dana,” Apple insists. Dana says, “It hurt,” and that’s all she can be persuaded to say.

“Maybe next time then,” Apple says, with too much hope. “And you, Kaye?”

“I was brought to the US to marry someone,” Kaye says, the perfect mix of defiant and ashamed. Someone gasps. Sara’s mouth drops open, but Kaye doesn’t notice, and adds: “I’m not as young as I look.” She gives a tiny, tired grin, before proceeding to tell them about the drug bust at her husband’s place, her illegal papers, how no one will pay for her flight back to Manila. How the US government took matters into its own hands, and sent her here. How she’s homesick and rattled and maybe it’s for the best that her husband of two months OD’ed, but really mostly she’s glad to just be here, it seems safe. Everyone nods solemnly, and Dana reaches out and holds Kaye’s shoulder, briefly.

Liar, Sara thinks, but no, this is the truth. Of course this is the truth, and Kaye was just messing with her. Kaye was just having a little fun.

Then suddenly Apple says, “Sara? What about you, Sara?”

“I—” Sara says, and wonders how she can explain.

* * *

Manila’s gated communities, home to the rich and famous, swanky as fuck. You flap past some consulates, flags drooping from their balconies, but you’re not interested in foreign food today. You sweep closer, lower, appreciating the distinct features of each house: angels cut into columns, black iron gates with gold accents, circular driveways sweeping up to meticulously lit front doors. Gardens overflowing with gumamela blossoms and palm trees. All the houses are humming with electricity, air-conditioners running at full blast. The humans moving inside them are less electric: house-helpers clearing leftover party dishes, children stuck on their game consoles, everyone else asleep. It’s all boring boring boring until you smell tears—so much sorrow in the saline—from the odd modest house, a little decrepit for the neighborhood. The sound of sniffling is amplified. You stop and circle the air with interest.

* * *

Sara explains it like this:

“It started after I dropped my sister’s baby. Nobody knew if the baby would be okay. Then the baby was okay, after they’d checked it out at the doctors ‘cause everyone was convinced that the bruise was some kind of tumor. I was just playing with it. I just wanted to hold it for a little while. So anyway after that, I was forbidden to touch the baby. That was okay. I could deal with that.

“The problem was, I started always thinking about babies. Because a baby is this terrible, fragile thing, you know? And so many things can happen to it. I just kept theorizing: if you keep pushing your thumb into its head, won’t your thumb actually sink into its brain? Or if you hold it upside down for too long—like those dads on TV you know, always swinging their babies around?—like, maybe all the blood fills up its little brain and it gets a mini-baby-stroke. It got so bad that whenever I saw a baby, any baby, I got the sense that, like—me being alive—like it could cause that baby to die. Them or me, you know, and why the hell should it be me?

“So I started thinking I should fix that. I started looking out of windows and thinking I’m better off—you know—out there. Like when I’m in a moving car. Or when I’m on the fourth floor corridor of my school building. I get this sense that I can jump out and all the babies in the world will be saved. I kept trying, but something would always stop me, and when they asked me what my problem was—you see how hard it is to explain? So I would just tell them—I want to fly. That’s all I could say. I want to fly.”

* * *

She is pregnant, the private-school princess in her immaculate bedroom. The tiny thing growing inside her is incredibly fresh—six or seven weeks old—and she’s just found out, or just admitted it to herself. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s composing an email to her boyfriend, or maybe her best friend. She types in quick bursts, interspersed with falling on her bed and beating her pillow with impassioned fists. You imagine the taste of her child in your mouth; you consider sucking it up and sparing her the agony of waking tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be a mercy to this child? Not having to live with the shame of bearing her own, so young, and her parents so disappointed, and her schoolmates so ready to talk shit about her?

You settle on the roof, testing the tiles, positioning yourself above her bedroom.

Then she starts playing a Taylor Swift song. It’s blaring from her iTunes and she is wailing on the bed, and suddenly it’s so hilarious that you can’t bear to end it. Besides, you don’t want to wait for her to fall asleep. She might not fall asleep at all.

You sigh, take off again, and decide that it’s time for a change of scenery.

* * *

“So that’s your story,” Sara says that night, eyes gazing into the pitch darkness (Lights out at 9, 9 is so early, do they think anyone can actually sleep at 9?). “Mail order bride. Drugs. Gross old man. That sounds really terrible, but that…makes more sense.”

“That’s why I’m here, but only you know the truth about me,” Kaye says, an undercurrent of laughter in her voice. She sits up in bed, looks across at Sara, and Sara’s just imagining the weird light reflecting in her irises. “Hey Sara, I’m glad the baby was okay, by the way. It wasn’t your fault you were careless. Well I mean, it kind of is, but can anyone really blame you? Babies are such fragile things. I don’t know why you girls keep having them.”

“Says the baby eater,” Sara says, with what she hopes is humor, but she’s exhausted and suddenly imagining a baby tumbling down the stairs.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Kaye laces her arms across her knees. “That’s okay. I only told you because I thought maybe you wouldn’t—haha. If you did believe me you probably wouldn’t like me, and I’d have to say it’s in my nature, and then we’d fight, and god I’d have to leave again, when I’m not even hungry yet. When I’ve got nowhere to go.”

“You’re weird,” Sara says, because clearly Kaye is more messed up than she lets on.

Kaye laughs. There’s so much laughter in her, it surprises Sara. Kaye crosses the room and sits on the opposite end of Sara’s bed—so quickly, suddenly she’s there and Sara sits up and draws her knees back reflexively. She should be freaked out, but after weeks of being treated like broken glass back home, in school—this proximity is not entirely unwelcome. Everyone sidestepping the baby issue, Dad and Mom hissing about suicide treatment in the kitchen after dinner, her meager friends suddenly evaporating.

A person who treats her like she’s real? It’s an odd relief. Kaye leans closer. She smells nice, and her eyes crinkle.

“Tell me about your home,” Kaye says.

* * *

You head for a shantytown: homes made of hollow blocks, roofs of corrugated metal. It’s hardly a mile from the fancy neighborhood. The nearby river is peaceful, although the banks are still torn up from the last typhoon. From a distance you can already smell people, piss, dogs with festering sores, wet grass, shit, washing detergent. The earth is always damp here, soaking up rain, and the proximity of the houses makes everything feel warmer, more alive.

* * *

They do this nightly talking thing a lot, exchanging stories, doodling on each other’s Diaries then laughing and ripping out the pages. Then shushing each other. There’s no TV and no nail polish and no ovens to bake brownies in—only these, their words, their memories.

Sara finds herself in Kaye’s beloved Manila: garish colors everywhere, clogged highways, grimy naked children running next to spotless cars, in which the bourgeoisie sit with a driver, a maid, sometimes a bodyguard. Sara doesn’t have much to say about her own suburban neighborhood in Pleasanton, but Kaye seems fascinated by America anyway, so Sara tries. She explains the difference between Democrats and Republicans, and the nuances of California slang: Hella bomb, they repeat. Hella sick.

Kaye describes the parts of the body she likes best—she eats the fetus pretty much whole because it’s the tastiest (“I take it down my throat, and, uh…it’s a little hard to explain,”), then the heart, liver, stomach. Kidneys are surprising flavorful. It must be the bile.

When she talks about her monster self Sara just holds the thought apart from her brain. It’s too weird. It’s almost funny, how earnest Kaye is about it.

Sara recounts her sister’s wedding in Vegas, which they couldn’t really afford, but it was cool to act touristy and kitschy, posing next to the unsexy French maids in the Paris Hotel casino. It was stupid, and that’s what made it fun.

* * *

You count the number of warm bodies in each house you pass, considering the possible damage. Family of four, six, another six, three (absent father), four (absent mother), five (including grandmother). That one won’t manage if you eat the mother, because Lola is sickly and Tatay beats the children. Interesting drama, but you seem to be craving something else. Entrails won’t do tonight—you want a baby.

You’re enchanted by the amount of closeness you find in many homes: sweaty couples pressed together, children crowded on either side, useless electric fans whirring. It’s love and hunger bound up in acceptance, minute joys punctuated by a mostly typical dissatisfaction, the longing for something better, some way out of this.

They’re not exactly unhappy, despite everything. You think you understand that.

Very lightly, you settle on a gray roof with a gaping hole in the corner. You look down at the man and woman tangled and snoring on a bed, their two-year-old squashed between them. The scent of fresh mangoes is just enough to entice you. There’s only so much time left to properly enjoy your meal, so after a brief consideration you open your mouth and let your tongue slip through the ceiling.

* * *

The Retreat is all routines. After the first day, it’s only variations on a theme, and it gets harder to remember when they started, although that’s what the Diaries are for. Sara isn’t too worried. It must be expensive to run the retreat. Girls come in batches, sponsored by donations, desperate family or community members, and government money; they can’t stay forever. Three weeks, she figures. Four. In the meantime: free food, thirty other girls that are just as fucked up as she is, and even the daily exercise is starting to become manageable.

She figures things out. The cooks are on rotation, and the one every third day actually makes edible food. If you wake up at 5 there’s still hot water left in the showers. It’s okay to walk quickly instead of running during laps, as long as you finish all five. Apple expects you to write at least a paragraph in your diary every day, or else you’ll have to do a long-ass recap at the end of the week. If only there was more to say.

Most girls stay in their rooms during off hours. If the retreat is for repentance, Sara’s not sure how effective it is. At night she can usually hear sobbing down the hall, or hard objects (bodies? heads?) smacking against the walls (sex? Fights? A mix?). Girls who act out are given warnings and punishments. There are no field trips, but they do painting and basket weaving, and learn an alarming number of songs in different languages. If not for the fact that someone always showed up for music class with a burst lip and a black eye, it would almost be like summer camp. Even the Captains turn nicer, only harsh when someone gripes about exercise or doesn’t finish her tossed greens.

Still, despite the moderated peace, restlessness is starting to build beneath the monotony. Someone claims that on their last day the teachers will clear out, and they’re going to gas the place, kill all the girls. It’s a stupid claim, but it has its effects.

“What the fuck are we doing here?” becomes a common question, a chant: in between tooth brushing, or eating soft-but-actually-hard rolls, or making honest-to-god charm bracelets.

Sara asks it, herself, sprawled out on her bed. It’s Going to be Okay! is the motivational statement Apple has assigned them this week. It’s pretty weak, as far as encouragement goes. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

She doesn’t really expect an answer, but Kaye says, “Learning to be good girls. Right?”

“Well when do we get to say okay already, I get it, I’m good?”

Kaye shrugs. “What are you going to do when you get out of here, anyway?”

Sara doesn’t answer, but she pictures it: going back, holding up her nephew triumphantly, the mediocre joy of normalcy after so much exposure to other people’s shit. So she’s thought about killing herself and has a weird thing about babies. She’s never actually hurt anyone. I’m not like these girls, she thinks, and it makes her feel both proud and disgusted. Then she sees herself climbing onto a balcony, feeling the salt edge of the wind, wondering if there’s still a part of her that wants to leave everything.

“Hey Sara. Were you serious about wanting to fly?”

Sara feels jolted. Kaye’s eyes are opaque on hers.

“What do you mean?” Her heartbeat quickens. Kaye smiles and looks out their window.

“You get to decide. Are you going to be good when you leave here? Are you going to turn out all right? You could, you know. You could. There’s no need to stop trying.” She stands and stretches, then clasps her hands over her stomach meaningfully. “But not me. I don’t get to pick. I never get to say I’m good. I can try, but I’m powerless against my hunger. I mean, we all need to eat sometimes, right?”

Sara swallows. Her saliva sticks in her throat. She isn’t afraid of Kaye. Kaye is her friend. Her gorgeous, crazy, baby-eating, compulsively lying friend.

Kaye crosses the room, lightning quick, until she is standing before Sara. The setting sun turns her face a weird shade of orange. She crouches down so that she’s level with Sara, stretched on her bed.

“You know,” she says, face contorting, like she’s holding back tears. “I’m getting hungry. I’m going to need to feed soon. Promise me something. We’re friends, right, Sara?”

Sara pauses, maybe too long, before nodding. Then, to increase her conviction: “Yeah. Of course.”

“When I feed—promise me that you won’t care. You can just—sleep. It doesn’t really change anything. I’ve always been this way, you know? And all you girls—” she shakes her head, stops herself. “You do that for me, I’ll let you fly for one night. It’s nicer here than in Manila. It’s cooler.” She pats the top of Sara’s head. Which is funny, because she’s shorter than Sara.

“What do you think?” she asks. “I can fly, you know. I’m pretty fucking great at it.”

Sara thinks of falling, of landing on the pavement and hearing her shoulder shatter, seeing her own blood streak out past her vision. Her mother sobbing by her bed at the hospital, saying I can’t do this anymore, honey. It has to stop. And after being released, how she’d had no idea, how the van had come one day, and in a haze of anti-depressants she’d stepped onboard. She’d come here.

If Kaye could fly—hold her, dance her through the air—she’d be able to see. If it’s safe to go back. If she’s tired of being this way, at least for now.

But more than that, Kaye just wants her to pretend everything’s fine. She can do that. She’s had a lot of practice.

She reaches up and puts her hand on top of Kaye’s, not feeling scared or threatened or awed. Just tired. Bonesucked tired. She squeezes Kaye’s hand and says, “Okay.”

* * *

Your tongue settles on her stomach, and you start feeding, sucking greedily. You’re starving, and it tastes so fucking delicious. The woman squirms, and the child next to her utters a short, soft moan. You don’t want this. You do.

* * *

Sara wakes up sweating. It’s sometime past midnight? It’s too early. She needs to go back to sleep. She shuts her eyes. The sound of her breathing is too loud. She decides to get a glass of water and stumbles out of bed, bumping into something in the middle of the floor. She falls backwards, landing on her ass.

The window is open, the metal fastenings they installed after some girl attempted escape somehow undone. A cloudy moonbeam streams through it, illuminating the lower half of Kaye’s torso and her legs, her feet still in their slippers. It is standing erect, perfectly immobile, like someone sliced a girl in half and left it there for fun. The insides are shimmering, grisly, unreal.

Sara crawls back under her sheets and goes to sleep. Sometime later something slides in next to her, nudging for space on her pillow. Something wraps its arms around Sara and puts its forehead against the small of Sara’s back. Sara smells blood mixed with the faint tinge of—mango?—and after a moment’s hesitation, she holds those arms against her. The back of her shirt grows damp with what might be tears.

* * *

When you’re finished, when you’ve shriveled up everything inside her stomach so that your own is full, you spool your tongue back into your mouth and breathe deeply. The horizon tells you that you have about an hour before the sun rises. That’s just enough time to head home, rejoin your lower half, shuffle back into bed. Good girls don’t get caught with babies in their bellies; good girls don’t lie; good girls don’t sneak out wearing only their boyfriends’ shirts.

You know what you are; you know what you aren’t.

* * *

In their twentieth session, Apple says they’ve all been exceedingly Good Girls, and they’re going to be moving on the following week. The girls have demonstrated that they’ve absorbed the values of the retreat and are ready to rejoin the good world. Once Admin gets their paperwork done, the Captains do their sign-offs, and the discussion leaders file their reports—the girls will be free.

“You get to go back home,” Kaye says, while they’re packing.

“So do you,” Sara says, but she’s suddenly not sure.

Kaye flashes her teeth, feral. “I told you, girl, I don’t have one. I go where the wind takes me!” She flings out her arms, dramatically, and flops backwards on her bed. “This was nice,” she says. “Even when it sucked it was okay. I should hang out with girls more. They don’t want as much from you as guys do. I can stay full for longer! Girls are like fiber.”

Sara doesn’t like the wistful tone in Kaye’s voice. Sara doesn’t like how her own heart squeezes, or how lonely she feels. How afraid she is of going home to find—but no, it’ll be okay. She’s different now. She’s going to do better.

You get to decide, Kaye said. It’s not that easy. But she can try. Some girls will break their promises, lose their homes, keep on rattling against the gates, biting and sobbing and breathing. Sara, if she wants to, can change.

Kaye rolls over on her bed, arm covering her eyes. She lifts it to peer at Sara. “I still owe you. How about tonight?”

* * *

You’ve never detached with someone watching. You’re so fascinated by her gaze on you that you hardly notice the pain. Sara’s big blue eyes are an excellent mirror—how there are stringy bits when you twist off, how the way your spine tears from sinew is fluid, almost graceful. Your shirt is short this time so she sees your entrails hanging out, nearly glowing with all the slick against them.

To her credit, Sara doesn’t vomit. You move slowly over to the window, keeping your wings folded, and undo the latches with your knifelike fingers. You drift out and motion for her to stand on the desk. She climbs up, shakily, and says, “Can you really carry me?”

You like to think your smile, at least, is familiar—even if the pointed tongue between your teeth isn’t.

“Yeah,” you say. “Trust me.” This is you: this is your life, the strength that fills you as you fly, feed, move on. Spanning provinces, cities, countries, continents. Finding new homes to leave, new bodies to keep you warm when you’re not hungry, new strangers to suck dry when you are. And you’ll keep on doing this, as long as you can make it back in time. Before the sun rises, or someone finds the parts you’ve left behind—something must always be left behind.

This is how you survive.

Sara will get to go home. You’ll just have to find a new one.

“You ready?” The trees are crowding out most of the wind, but you can still taste the breeze, drifting over the dormitories where so many girls are sleeping like wolves, retreating from the world. Just waiting to bare their fangs.

Sara nods. You can’t read her expression—like she’s about to scream or laugh or cry. You squeeze her hand as hard as you can without hurting her, and spread your wings.

Jo Zebedee

Inish Carraig

CHAPTER ONE

John got up from the bed as quietly as he could, making Stuart stir before settling again with his thumb stuck in his mouth. John paused—he should probably take it out. Their mother had said, to the day she died, that only babies sucked their thumbs. He didn’t, not wanting to disturb the boy, but gently wrapped their Da’s winter coat closer around his brother, tugging at a loose piece of the furred lining until it came away. He straightened, shivering. Rain fell steadily through the hole in the ceiling, but at least the room was safe. Well, as safe as anywhere in Belfast.

“ ’Night, Stuart.” John tiptoed to the door and pulled it closed behind him. It was no warmer in the hall, but the roof was intact and the floor dry. He crossed to the window and looked out over the city. All was quiet under the curfew. The only thing moving was a cat crossing the yard below. It padded carefully, keeping its distance, and no wonder: there were a few recipes for cat stew doing the rounds. Further away, on the lough, the sewage farms’ floodlights lit up the night skyline. A low anger started, and he found his fists clenching. He bet the aliens’ kids didn’t wake up freezing and hungry, like his wee brother and sister did. A door closed and he turned to see Josey coming out of the girls’ room.

“Is Sophie asleep?” he asked.

She nodded, and she looked tired and older than her thirteen years, her face wan, her blonde hair lank and dirty. “Yeah.”

“Stuart’s settled, but he was asking for his night-light again. You’re sure there’s nothing we could take batteries out of?”

“No, I checked everything I could think of.”

“I told him he had the moon instead." He half-smiled at the silver lining of a hole in the roof. "I’ll keep an eye out for batteries. I have to go out and see what I can scrounge, anyway.”

“If you could get some sort of heater, it’d be good,” said Josey. Her voice didn’t hold out much hope.

“I’ll see what I can find.” He brightened. “I could nick a barbecue.”

“We could get some furniture from downstairs. The kitchen table is wood.”

“Maybe. I’ll see if I can get a barbie first.”

“Okay.” Her voice was small and he put his arm around her, feeling how thin she was through her fleece. She’d lost so much weight it worried him. He pushed the thought away; it was no more than he’d lost, and there was nothing more sinister behind it than hunger. He let go and climbed onto the window ledge. “You know the drill: if anyone comes near the house, the three of you get under cover, right? Don’t come out until I’m back.”

She nodded, her eyes resigned to his nightly instruction. He put his hands onto the wall at each side, bracing himself for the jump down.

“John?”

Her quiet voice stopped him. “Yeah?”

“Be careful. And stay away from McDowell—he’s dangerous.”

John didn’t reply. McDowell was dangerous. He was also the person with the best access to food, medicine and water in North Belfast. All of which they needed. He took a deep breath and jumped onto the flat roof below. He stepped onto the wall of the yard and ran along, his arms out for balance. At the end, he climbed down the iron supports Da had put in. Christ, he wished his da was here and in charge.

The sound of flapping made him jump and press against the wall, heart somewhere in his throat. A ripped poster opposite caught in the wind, and he relaxed. Nothing but the usual promises of food-drops, hospitals, reopened schools….

A lot of shite. His old school was a dent in the ground, the only upside of the invasion. The hospital, shut down in the war, hadn’t reopened. There were rumours—good rumours, too, from different sources—that the cops and army were working with the aliens now, and things were about to get better. His mouth pulled into a sneer. He’d believe it when he saw it. The Earth-Committee leaders, pulled from the governments that had made it through the invasion, might have time to drag their feet: they weren’t starving their arses off in the ruins of Belfast. It didn’t matter a damn to him that working with the Galactic Council meant liaising with the Zelo, or the never-seen Barath’na, it just mattered that someone, somewhere, turned up with some food. And a roof, that’d be good.

“ ‘Supporting Earth to a better future’,” he muttered, straightening. “There was nothing wrong with it before the bastards invaded.”

He hugged the wall until he reached the end of the back lane, and darted across to a wider alley, the first of a series. The authorities could say what they liked about the war being over. He was taking no chances until someone proved it.

A hand slapped down on his shoulder. “Got you!”

John reached for his knife, but stopped at a laugh. He croaked, “Taz, you bastard.”

“McDowell wants us,” said Taz, his voice hushed. His jacket was denim, not nearly thick enough. He hunched into it, so the only parts visible were his nose and dark eyes. His clothes were clean and well patched, though, proof of having a mum who took care of such things. John swallowed a sharp wrench of jealousy. He was nearly sixteen, he shouldn’t be yearning after his mum. He put his hands in his pockets and slouched. “Why?”

“He says he has a job, and we’ll get food if we do it.”

“Christ, for that I’d take on a Zelotyr patrol single-handed.”

“Yeah, right.”

They stopped where the alley opened onto a courtyard, once part of the council’s sports-ground where he’d tried out for the first team. Da had stood on the touchline, screaming for John to get the ball over the line. His celebrations when the try had been allowed had almost got him thrown out for incitement. Now, the courtyard was weed-strewn and garbage-clad, and his da six months dead.

“Get back.” Taz grabbed him, and they pressed against the wall as a platoon of soldiers crossed. Human, not Zelo—the lack of stench told him that. Not that it made any difference. They’d still lift him and Taz for curfew violation.

The platoon left the courtyard, and John ran across, through a hole in the fencing, and down the final alley skirting the playing field. Taz, quick and wiry, soon passed him. They reached the rubbled remains of the peace wall. John smiled as he stepped through the gap; it was easier getting across the city now the Zelo had trashed it. He relaxed as they entered his old estate and passed the gable end mural. Its slogan, We’ll fight for Ulster, had been replaced with the promise to do the same for Earth since he’d last been here.

“Let’s hope it’s only McDowell,” said Taz as they reached McDowell’s familiar terraced house.

“Oh, Junior will be here. His da isn’t taking a piss these days without him in attendance.”

“Just keep your distance if he is,” said Taz. “Don’t rise to him—that’s what he wants.”

“Okay.” Taz was right, but John hated Gary McDowell knowing his business. The latch turned, and he put his shoulders back. If the cost of a meal was toadying up to Gary, so be it. He’d kick a few walls on the way home to feel better.

“All right, lads. You took your time.” It wasn’t Gary, but Demos, one of his cronies.

“Patrol,” muttered John, eyeing Demos’ fat belly hanging over his trousers. He’d no problem getting food, evidently. His own stomach clenched, but he stood straight and waited while Demos made a show of checking were they to come in, all the time holding a pistol by his side. After a few moments, they were led into a room off the hall, where a group of men were gathered close to a fire. The men turned, their eyes more dangerous than any soldier’s.

“You wanted us,” said John, keeping his voice steady.

“Aye.” McDowell stood, his tall, rangy frame dwarfing John. A scar, running from his left eye to his ear, stood out against his skin. His badge of honour, he called it, given to him by a Zelotyr he’d fought with an iron bar and balls of solid rock. The sort of balls that earned so much street respect John’s hands shook, and he had to stick them in his pockets to hide it.

“John Dray and Taz Delaney, I’ll make a deal with you,” said McDowell.

John swallowed and hoped his voice held. “Go on, then.”

McDowell didn’t answer, and John made sure to stand straight. He focused on McDowell’s leather jacket—it may be battered, but it was thick and warm. On his wrist, a designer watch could be seen.

The silence stretched until Taz drew in a loud breath, making John want to thump him and tell him how to face someone like McDowell: by embracing whatever he issued and coming back for more, knowing you’d either grow or die from it, until you were strong enough to protect your own. He glanced at Taz, decided his friend was in danger of passing out, and said, “All right, what can we do for you?”

“Good lad, right to the heart of it. When you’ve got a bit of flesh around your scrawn, you’ll go far.”

John fought the urge to smile. It wasn’t the first time McDowell had hinted he might take him on. He looked at McDowell’s boots—new, thick soles, real leather—and down at his own trainers, their uppers parting from the sole. His mouth went wet and spiky with desire, but he didn’t say anything. Stay cool, like it’s just another job…

McDowell reached into his jacket, and John held his breath. Weapons? He’d done his first delivery across town about three weeks ago, and had been terrified: not just for himself, but for Josey and the kids if he got lifted. The payment for it had been a coat for Sophie, though.

McDowell brought out a tin box, just small enough to fit into his inside pocket. He held it up, displaying it. “You can take yourselves to the top of the Cave Hill and open this,” he said. “Give it a shake, make sure you empty out what’s in it. If you do, and come back to me, I’ll see you get some food.” His eyes narrowed, and he nodded at John. “Maybe some fresh fruit for wee Sophie and Stuart?”

The boys exchanged glances. That was it? John took the box and stuck it in his pocket.

McDowell went back to where he had been sitting, popped a beer and nodded to the door. “Best get going, boys.”

They backed out and headed up the street, onto the bottom of the Cave Hill. They followed the path up the hill, and the stench from the sewage farms hit John, even worse this high up. He pulled his scarf off and tied it so it covered his nose.

Taz gave a short laugh. “You look like a twat.”

John felt himself go red, and pushed the scarf back round his neck. They kept going, the hill getting steeper now they were away from the streets. They climbed in near silence, taking their time to pick their way over the rocks in the dark, until they reached McArt’s fort and sat for a minute, getting their breath back. From here the city looked tiny.

“What d’you reckon is in it?” asked Taz.

John shrugged and shook the tin. It made no sound. “The ashes of the last poor fucker to piss him off?”

Taz shook his head. “His finger.”

“No, an eyeball. We’ll open it and it’ll be looking at us—”

“Both of ’em—he wouldn’t take one and leave the other.”

John shook it again, and it didn’t feel like eyeballs. He glanced over at Taz.

“We don’t need to,” said Taz. “We could just say we did.”

For a moment John was tempted, but the thought of going home with no food strengthened his resolve, and he shook his head. “You must be joking.”

He edged to the cliff face. From here, it was like being king of Belfast. He cast his eyes over the lough. What was left? He knew Glasgow had been wiped out—it had gone early—and it would be years before London would be rebuilt. New York, too—everywhere. He shivered, and bile rose up in him. It wasn’t their planet; what right had the shit-eaters to destroy it?

He opened the box—it took a bit of work, the lid was on tight—half-closing his eyes, sure it would be gruesome. Instead, all it contained was dust, fine like ash, sparkling very slightly in the moonlight. He touched it with his finger, tracing a pattern in it, and it felt like fine sand.

“It’s drugs,” he said, a little disappointed. “It must be a bad shipment.”

Taz leaned over and put his finger in the sand. “Weird—why not tip it down a drain and have done with it? Why here?”

“Who cares? It’ll get us food, and I’m starving. You’re so skinny, you’ll slip through a crack in the road soon.” John reached the tin out. "Want some?"

Taz shook his head. "Go fuck yourself."

"Chickenshit."

"Bollocks I am." Taz traced a line in the dust and put his finger to his mouth. He licked it. “That’s not drugs; it tastes like sand or something.”

“You could be eating someone’s body,” said John.

Taz rubbed his hand over his mouth, and paled a little. “It’s not a body, you arse.”

John reached out his hand, holding the tin tightly. If McDowell wanted it sprinkled over Belfast, that’s what he’d do. Hell, if the big man wanted him to piss off the side of the cliff, he’d do it. He shook the box into the wind, watching the dust lift into the breeze. He put the tin in his pocket and clapped his hands to get rid of the sand. “Let’s go.”

They hurried down, skidding on the scree, half on their feet, half on their arses. They’d got partway down when Taz doubled over with a grunt. His face curled into a grimace. Sweat beaded his forehead.

"Jesus,” said John, reaching for him. “What—?”

Taz screamed.

“What is it?” John shook Taz.

“It hurts!” yelled Taz. He slumped to the ground. “It fucking hurts everywhere!”

Waves of panic thudded across John’s head. Taz rolled onto his side, shaking. John knelt and put his hand on him, not knowing what to do. There was no one to get help from, not this deep into the curfew. He stood and pulled Taz up, fumbling in the dark, almost dropping him, until Taz was draped over his shoulders. He had to get the pair of them back to Taz’s house and let his ma see to him. He took a first step, grimacing at the dead weight on his shoulders, but forced another step, and then another. There was nothing else for it. Taz needed help, and Josey and the kids were waiting for him.

CHAPTER TWO

John staggered to the garden wall, Taz draped over his shoulders. Christ, for a skinny guy he was heavy. John took a breath and his chest burned; he had to stop, just for a minute. He propped Taz against the wall, but his friend slid down and curled up on the ground. He rocked back and forth, moaning. At least he’d stopped yelling.

John leaned forward, put his hands on his knees, and took gulps of air. A year ago, he’d have managed Taz’s weight easily, but that was when he was getting ready to try out for the trials, not when he was half-starved. He straightened, looking down the length of the Ballysillan Road, and saw streaks of light in the sky. It had taken them all night to get this far. Josey would be worried, and Taz’s mum.

Maybe he should hide Taz? Shove him under a bush and go for help? He’d be in the Oldpark in about fifteen minutes if he did…A long groan from his friend convinced him not to. He took another deep breath and tapped Taz’s shoulder.

“Come on, mate,” he said, trying to haul Taz upright. His friend fought against him, but John managed to hoist him up, using his belt for leverage. He managed to get Taz draped over one shoulder. John gritted his teeth and headed down the road. “Taz, try to walk a bit.”

Taz nodded against him, and his weight lessened a little. Not enough, though they’d never make it. There was a rumble in the distance, coming nearer. John cocked his head. An engine, somewhere to his left, probably a patrol; no one else would be out before curfew ended. Taz had slumped again, his full weight across John’s shoulders, making them ache. The noise came closer, really close now—it must be in the next street. John kicked open a garden gate to his right, cursing as he tried to manoeuvre both of them through. He tripped and they went down in a heap, Taz screaming as he fell on him. John clapped his hand over his friend’s mouth. “Shhh—patrol.”

Taz groaned and nodded. John held his breath. Fuck. He looked around; there was nothing in the garden other than a kid’s slide, purple and shaped like a bear. Totally crap.

“In the corner,” he said. At least they’d be shielded from the road by the hedge. He glanced at the house; it looked empty, its windows dirty with thin curtains drawn. The engine stopped.

Taz crawled, John behind him. A door slammed. He pushed Taz into the corner of the garden and ducked down, pulling the slide in front of them. Voices came from the street: Belfast accents, not Zelo translators. John pulled out his knife, flicking it open, and put his head against the grass, watching through an arch beneath the slide as the tip of a rifle touched the gate, pushing it open. Beside him Taz had collapsed and was breathing too heavily, half moaning.

“Shhhh,” he said, but Taz didn’t respond. He looked terrible, pale and sweating, his eyelids fluttering.

The gate opened fully and someone stepped into the garden, their cargo trousers tucked into a pair of heavy boots. Shit. The feet stopped. John huddled beside Taz, holding his head, and his friend was hot, really hot.

The slide moved. John held his breath. Could he run? He tightened his grip on the knife.

“Don’t even think about it.”

He looked up into the barrel of a machine gun. He followed the line of the gun, up past a burly chest, to see a soldier of about forty, his face stern.

“The knife. Hand it over.”

“Right.”

John got to his knees and handed the knife to the soldier, who snapped it closed and put it in his pocket.

“Captain!” the soldier yelled. He gestured to the boys. “Stand up, hands in the air.”

John got to his feet, slowly, keeping his hands high.

“And your mate.”

“He’s hurt.”

Taz moaned, a long moan, and the trooper frowned. He really was big, like a rugby player or something. His cheeks were flushed; John bet his hair was red under his helmet. “How did he get hurt?”

“I dunno. Maybe he ate something.”

The captain came into the garden. “Bring them in, Peters; they’re out after curfew.” He cursed and turned away. “They’re the last thing we need on top of what’s happening to the Zelo.”

John tried to protest, but two of the squad stepped forward and grabbed his arms. He twisted, trying to get away, but his wrists were pulled behind him. A circle of cold iron encased them, snapping into place.

“You can’t cuff us! We haven’t done anything!” yelled John.

“Save it.” Peters jerked his head at the gate. “Let’s go.”

Another pair of soldiers pulled Taz to his feet, and he gave a long shriek. John glanced back at him; he was sweating and pale, his face scrunched in pain.

“My mate—Taz—he really is sick,” said John. “Look at him.”

“If he is, we’ll get a medic for him.” Peters pushed John out of the garden and up against the wagon. He patted John down, his hands hard and impersonal, and stopped at the tin in John’s pocket. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

The soldier pulled it out and turned it over in his hand. He looked up at John, and his eyes were shrewd. “Doing a run tonight, were you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said John. Behind him, Taz screamed, and a voice said something about the boy telling the truth, he really wasn’t well. John, his head held against the vehicle, said, “Taz—he is sick.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

The soldier let him go. “Get in, lad.”

John clambered in, struggling with his hands cuffed, and the soldier leaned in, giving what looked like a sympathetic smile. “If he’s taken something, you’d best tell us. The sooner we know, the better for him.”

Taz was ushered into the vehicle and collapsed onto the bench opposite. His eyes were wide and scared.

“You think we’ve taken drugs?” John asked the trooper. “You must be thick. We don’t have money for anything like that. I don’t have a clue what’s wrong with him. We were up on the hill, and then he doubled over on me. I know it was after curfew, but you want to see where we live. It’s such a dump, you have to get out sometimes.”

The soldier paused a moment, as if considering this. He looked back down at the tin in his hand, and up at John again. “What’s your name, son? And there’s no point lying to me, we’ll get to it one way or the other.”

John took a deep breath, looking at his sympathetic face. “Piss off,” he said, and kicked out. Sympathetic, hell. No one cared about the people left in the estates. His kick didn’t get anywhere near the trooper, who shook his head and slammed the door, leaving John in the dark, his hands pulled behind him, the only noise Taz’s soft groans. He put his head back as the engines started. Shit.

CHAPTER THREE

“Inspector!”

Carter set down the overnight report he’d been reading, smirking a little; it appeared there were worse jobs than being the Zelotyr liaison officer in Belfast. In Derry, some residents had taken to chucking rocks off Butcher’s Gate, proving Zelotyr skulls were close to impenetrable. Since the Galactic Council had ruled humans were sentient, the Zelotyr couldn’t retaliate by razing the Bogside, a point O’Leary, his counterpart in Derry, had spent the night making. Apparently, even the aliens were finding Ireland a bastard to conquer. “Yes?”

Sergeant Sanderson, short, squat and scowling, looked more bad-tempered than normal. Just. “One of the Zelotyr is downstairs—he says there’s an emergency.”

Carter rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, but stopped when he saw Sanderson’s slightly raised eyebrows. It wouldn’t do for the aliens’ liaison officer to admit that the Zelotyr still turned his stomach. Not given what the rest of the station thought of him: an efficient turncoat and traitor were the most generous comments he got these days. That he’d been ordered into the role when Bar-eltyr, the alien commander from the Cave Hill, had requested him as part of the deal for peace didn’t make any difference—he’d still been tarred as a collaborator.

“Thanks.” Carter grabbed his jacket and was halfway down the hall when he heard shouting. He took the stairs two at a time and burst into reception. A male Zelotyr—a senior, judging by its armour—was cradling the body of a junior, its eyes blank and silvered over.

Carter took a moment, not sure what to say, and raised his eyes to meet the Zelotyr’s, at the same time managing not to look in its maw. It had taken weeks to learn that trick. “What happened?”

“Dying,” said the Zelotyr, in flat, electronic tones.

Carter touched the child, careful to be gentle. “Yes, I see that. I’m sorry—what can I do?”

The Zelotyr owned the hospitals, they controlled what remained of the transport network…there was nothing Carter could offer that they didn’t already have.

“All dying…” The Zelotyr gave the child to Carter and stumbled back. “Dying…”

Carter handed the baby to the receptionist, too quickly for her to realise what it was and refuse. He darted forwards, put a hand on one of the huge arms and nodded at Sanderson to do the same. A look of disgust swept over the sergeant’s face, but he took the other arm and held it firmly.

“Who are dying?” asked Carter, straining to support the alien.

“The Zelotyr. All of us.”

“How?”

The Zelotyr dropped to its knees and cast its eyes between the two policemen. “You must ensure we are avenged.”

It pitched forward, its body emitting a stench like Carter had never smelled before: worse than the sewage the aliens harvested or the mucus oozing through their plating. He covered his mouth, fighting not to gag, and stepped back.

“Sir.” Sanderson pointed at the screen above the reception desk, broadcasting the news. The receptionist had set the baby’s body on her desk and was backed against the filing cabinet, watching the screen, her eyes shining with what looked like tears.

Carter read the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen. It was true: the Zelo were dying. Sanderson’s face cracked into a grin.

“Yes!” said the sergeant. “Someone had the balls to get rid of the shit-eaters. About bloody time.”

“It says it’s happening all over the world,” said the receptionist. The reception filled with officers and station staff. One of the cleaners wrinkled his nose and asked who’d died. Carter winced and tried not to look at the Zelo’s body. On the screen, a spaceship leaving Earth caused someone to start a round of applause, and it spread through the room. A whistle pierced the air and the caretaker jumped onto a chair, punching the air. “Don’t bloody come back!”

There was a cheer, and Carter added his voice to it—he might have had to work with the Zelotyr, but he’d never wanted to. The screen changed, showing their little scene being played out in a darkened Times Square, followed by a snow-covered Russian vista. A human presenter appeared on screen, and the information band along the bottom announced the retreat of the aliens. The picture changed, highlighting the locations—worldwide, filling the screen with red dots—where the poison had already taken effect. It plotted the spread of the virus, showing how it would cover Earth in a maximum of two days. The picture changed to another departing ship; it appeared the aliens weren’t going to wait around. Judging by how fast the alien had died tonight, Carter didn’t blame them.

“They’re gone!” Sanderson’s voice carried over the cheers, reigniting them, and the noise went on for a few minutes before quietening again. Now the initial excitement had passed, it felt strangely flat, like Christmas after dinner, with all the presents opened and the T.V. still crap.

Carter watched for another moment, until the screen started to show repeats of the same pictures. His gaze fell on the body of the baby Zelo, its silver armour—not armour, not yet, more like scales—dulling as the body stiffened.

He turned and pushed open the door to the car park, welcoming the air on his face. The Zelotyr were gone. It was a good thing; the best thing. He tried to regain the excitement, but it felt like icy tentacles were reaching into his stomach.

“Sir?” asked Sanderson, behind him. “Are you okay?” His voice changed, took on an edge of a sneer. “Aren’t you pleased? Earth is free.”

“Is it?” Carter stared at the housing estate opposite. What happened when the residents found out? Or the Barath’na? The second alien race had tried to force the Zelo off the planet when Earthlings were declared sentient. It was one of the reasons the Zelo had started to work in partnership with Earth, to appease the GC and allow them to stay. Carter hadn’t met a Barath’na, but the Zelotyr enmity to them had been openly evident. Whether it was long-standing racial hatred or based on truth, he’d prefer not to find out. He remembered the horror of the Zelotyr attack, the smart mines—there were some still scattered around the city, waiting for poor sods to get close enough to set them off—destroying the city. The last thing they needed was another lot of aliens deciding to try their luck.

Or, for that matter, the first set wanting revenge. His blood chilled; the Zelotyr didn’t have to be on the ground to attack. Last time, the first waves of bombs had come from space.

“Don’t you see?” he said to Sanderson. “We need to find whoever has done this, before it causes another war…”

Sanderson cleared his throat. "About that, sir." He nodded at the station’s barred gate. "You might want to hang around—they’ve lifted a couple of lads."

* * *

At the sound of a door closing, Carter turned to face the army sergeant, Peters, who’d brought the two bedraggled lads in. One was sitting in the interview room next door, looking fairly stunned. Carter crossed his arms and leaned against the observation window which dominated the small room. “Well? Ours or yours?”

"Yours." Peters dumped his paperwork on the table in the centre of the room. “It lies under police jurisdiction.” He set a clear bag on the table, and pointed at it. “We thought they were drug running at first.” He lit a cigarette, making Carter cough.

“There’s a smoking ban, you know,” he said.

Peters gave a short laugh. “You want to arrest me?” He leaned back and blew a series of perfect smoke rings at the ceiling. “You know what’s happened to the Zelo. In fact, you probably know more than I do; you’re the shit-lover, right?”

Carter took a deep breath, trying to hide his annoyance. “If you mean I’m the Zelotyr liaison, then yes.”

"Whatever." Peters nodded at the window. "We’re waiting for forensics to confirm what was in that tin, but I’d put money on it being the virus.”

“That’s a hell of a jump—from drug running to xenocide?” Carter turned to the observation window. The lad was sitting on a wooden seat, arms on the table in front, chin resting on them. He looked young, maybe about fifteen, his hair long, falling into his eyes. “He’s just another street kid.”

“You didn’t see his face when he heard the Zelo were dying. Or how sick his friend is. He told us the other lad ingested whatever they released, and he’s ill. Really ill. It doesn’t take a genius to make the link.” Peters walked across, his footsteps loud in the empty room. “Any idea who’ll be behind it?”

“Not him.” Carter thought for a moment. “Locally, there’re a couple of possibilities. When we get confirmation from forensics and know what we’re looking at, I’ll get someone on to it.”

Peters threw down his cigarette, grinding it out, and Carter glared at him. The sergeant ignored him, crossing his arms, muscles standing out against his black t-shirt.

“What will happen to them, if they did release it?” he asked. “I was told you knew the Zelotyr better than anyone.”

Carter walked back to the desk and picked up the custody form, checking the details. “Hard to know for sure; they’re odd, the Zelotyr.”

“We noticed.”

Carter signed the sheet, separated the duplicate, and checked the report of the arrest. “A year ago, I was with an army captain—a guy called Nugent. We were cornered by a pack of Zelo teenagers.”

“I heard. He got killed, they say. Eviscerated.”

The sergeant’s voice was clipped, and Carter looked down, studiously reading. “Yes, it was…it wasn’t quick.” He swallowed bile at the memory. “When an adult Zelo came across what was happening, he let me go. He didn’t support the killing; it went against their culture.” And yet the Zelo had descended on Earth, unleashing an attack across the world that had killed millions. “The problem is, what happens to the lads, if you’re right, isn’t just Earth’s decision. You know why the Zelo came here, right?”

“The three bears’ porridge was good for their babies…”

“Yep. Their planet’s overheating—they can’t breed on it. Earth matched what they needed.”

“It’s our planet.” Peters frowned. “Just because their technology is a bit more advanced than ours—”

Carter snorted. “A bit? We’ve managed to get a couple of probes into space, walked on our satellite; they have faster-than-light technology, and weaponry that could blow Earth out of space. I call that more than a bit.”

“So?”

“So, they were working with us. Rathcoole, for instance: they funded all the new housing.” Carter ducked his head, not able to meet yet another stare branding him a conspirator when it was the only way to save the little people. Lads like the one in the room next door, abandoned in the ruins of a dying city. “Look, I know what everyone thinks of me, I’m not stupid. Or deaf…But, we’re wrong about the Zelo. They made a mistake on Earth and they’re committed to rectifying it.”

“A few billion deaths is more than a mistake,” spat Peters.

He was right: it was a fucking tragedy. But so was a few billion more. Carter set the report down and rubbed his forehead. God, he was tired. “I don’t believe they knew we were sentient.” Unless the aliens had completely duped him, of course. “In fact, I think since they found out, they’ve been trying to atone for their sins. They are unbelievably moral, in their own way—”

“What’s moral about destroying a planet?” The soldier started to pace. He pulled another cigarette out. “What’s moral about killing kids and families who were in the way of where you wanted to put hatchlings?”

“Nothing.” Carter pushed his hair back. “Nothing at all. And they would agree with you. That’s why their technology is running our hospitals. That’s why they provided the transports and weaponry you need to do your work. Without them, Earth will take decades longer to rebuild.”

Peters shook his head in disgust, and pulled the papers to him. “Right, which copy is mine?” He took the lid off his pen, his movements jerky and angry.

“I’m not defending them,” Carter said, frustration creeping into his voice. “Christ, of all people I’m not going to do that. What they did to Nugent….” He wiped his mouth. “I think we can say I’m no lover of the Zelotyr.”

Peters shrugged, and Carter wanted to tell him that every night he’d gone home from working with the aliens and scrubbed himself in the shower, only the belief he was doing the right thing getting him up each morning. Instead he said, “In another couple of weeks, this lad would have been off the streets before the winter set in. We’d have pulled Belfast back from the brink.”

Peters shifted, his stance relaxing. “We’ll have to agree to differ.” He nodded at the boy. “You didn’t answer my question: what happens to him?”

“The Zelo will believe whoever did this must be punished. An eye for an eye.” He paused. “How many Zelotyr are dead?”

“Thousands.”

“When they let me go, they said their teenagers would face three deaths each, the same as Nugent.”

Peters paled and glanced at the small figure in the interview room. “Shit.”

“Yes.”

“But they must know the virus didn’t come from the streets of Belfast. It could have come from anywhere; the Barath’nas won’t exactly be sorry about it.”

“And I’m sure if they find a Barath’na is behind it, they’ll murder him a thousand times over, too.” Carter knocked on the window, a rat-tat-tat of nerves. “If these lads released the virus, under galactic law they’ll be found guilty of…” He shook his head. “I don’t know; accidental xenocide, I suppose. Alien-slaughter?”

“What will you do?” asked Peters, after a moment.

“What can I do? I’m only a policeman, I have no authority over the GC.”

“A policeman whose jurisdiction the lads lie under. The Zelotyr have pulled out; our colonel is dealing with the fallout. No one else has claimed jurisdiction.”

Carter shrugged, hoping to hide how upset he was. The soldier was right—the boys were humans, they deserved to be dealt with as such, but the last months had taught him his hands were tied when it came to the Galactic Council. He was nothing to them, just a cop buried on Earth.

“It lies with the GC. I’ll report the incident to their representative,” he said, knowing how it sounded, a Judas taking his silver coins. Peters’ mouth tightened into a thin line. Carter crossed his arms. "I don’t like it either, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

Peters looked through the glass, taking a long moment before he turned his gaze back to Carter. “If it were me, I’d hand in my stripes and walk away.” Carter went to cut him off, but his voice rose over Carter’s. “Because it’s shit. He’s human, they’re the invaders. It’s shit.”

He turned and walked out, leaving Carter to stare at the boy. Peters was right. It was crap, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

CHAPTER FOUR

Carter walked into the interview room, pulled out the chair opposite the boy and sank into it. It had taken him a bit of time to find out who he was, but finally a constable had come up with a name. The boy ignored him and Carter watched for a moment, letting the silence stretch. John was holding something in his hand, a rag of some sort, and his hands were clenching and unclenching around it, as if it was the only thing he could sense or control.

“John.” No response. Carter rapped the table. “John Dray!”

This time, John lifted his head. “What?”

“Do you know where you are?”

“The station. Antrim Road station.”

“Good lad. My name’s Henry Carter, I’m an inspector based here.” The boy nodded, and Carter went on, “Now, since I already know your name, could you confirm it for the record?”

“No.”

Carter took a deep breath. “John Dray,” he said. “Your mate is Terence Delaney. Living somewhere in the Oldpark. Parents died about three months ago, foraging for food. Got some siblings.” He laid his hands on the table. “That’s all I know about you, John. Can you help me out with some more?”

“I haven’t done anything,” said the boy. “You’ve no reason to hold me.”

He clenched his fist around the rag and Carter pointed at it. “What’s that?”

John looked at it, and his eyes seemed to soften. “It’s nothing. Just something I carry around with me.”

“Whose is it?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Carter waited, thinking. The siblings, apparently, were younger. “What will happen when you don’t get home?” The lad’s head came up, and Carter shrugged. “Because you’re not going anywhere.” Carter leaned forward. “You weren’t the only one who carried out a job tonight: Baltimore, Rostov, Marseilles, Istanbul, Buenos Aires and Mombasa, they’re the ones we know of. All the other runners who let the virus go are dead.” He paused, but there was no answer, so he pushed again. “All the Zelotyr are dead, John. That’s what the job was, to kill them.”

John’s eyes hardened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Carter smiled at his bravado. “You know we picked up two men waiting at the edge of the estate? They had guns.” The boy paled slightly at that. “Now, what were you doing on the hill?”

“Nothing; I told the patrol that.”

“Spare me.” Carter nodded at the rag. “So, whose is it? Since you’ve nothing to hide, why not tell me?” The boy’s hand clenched around it, and Carter softened his voice. “I’m here to help, John.”

The boy looked up, his eyes hard. “Like hell you are.”

“Well, no one else is,” said Carter. He leaned back in his seat, looking at the ceiling’s pattern of cracks from the Zelo bombs. He waited.

“It’s my little brother’s—from his coat," said John, his voice hesitant. "That’s all.”

Carter stifled a smile of relief. “What’s his name?”

“Stuart.”

There was a clatter from the corridor and Carter got up to open the door and take a tray from Sanderson. He set it on the table, picked up a mug of tea, and pushed another mug towards John. “Hot chocolate. I thought you must be cold. Biscuits, if you want any.”

The boy’s eyes went round at the sight of the biscuits and he reached out and took one, nibbling at it for a moment before his hunger got the better of his manners and he devoured it in two bites. Carter pushed the plate over to him.

“Help yourself,” he said, and waited while the boy did just that. After, John picked up the mug and huddled over it, his face pinched and dirty, his too-long hair falling over his face, hiding his watchful eyes.

“Any other brothers?” asked Carter. The boy shook his head. “Sisters?”

A slight nod. “Two.”

“Where are they?”

The boy’s shoulders stiffened.

“At home.”

“Where’s home?” The boy shook his head, and Carter moved back to safer ground. “How old are they?”

John pushed his hair back. He looked younger. More vulnerable. Slowly, he said, “Josey’s a couple of years younger than me—the other two, they’re just kids. Josey’ll look after them until I get home.”

Carter leaned forward until his hand was nearly touching the boy’s. “Look, John, you’re in a lot of trouble, do you know that? It’s just—you won’t be getting back to them anytime soon.”

The boy blinked before he looked back at Carter and nodded. He looked like he was scared to speak in case he cried, and Carter didn’t blame him.

“Can you tell me anything? Who gave you the tin?”

“We found it.” John’s voice was a whisper and his eyes didn’t meet Carter’s.

“Where?”

“On the ground.”

“So you found a tin, and decided to risk the patrols—leave your kid sisters and Stuart alone—to climb up the Cave Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on. If you’re going to lie, at least make it convincing.” Nothing. Carter fought to keep the frustration out of his voice. “John, I don’t know where you live, but I bet whoever set you up does.”

There was a rattling noise, and Carter looked around, trying to tell what it was. He looked back at John and realised the boy’s feet were drumming off the ground and he was shaking, his shoulders shuddering as if he couldn’t stop.

Oh, hell. Carter got up and draped his jacket round the boy’s shoulders. He pushed the table back and crouched down, putting his hand on John’s chin, tipping his face so they were looking at each other.

“John, things are really bad, okay?”

John’s eyes didn’t waver, even though his teeth were chattering.

“I need you to tell me what happened, and who was involved.” No response. “If you don’t, John, you’ll be taking the rap for it. You’ll get sent to the Zelotyr and they’ll…” He stopped. He couldn’t tell this kid what he faced. He had to. “They’ll…”

“K—kill me,” whispered John. “Like they say, on the street—they do it more than once.”

God help me, he knows. “Yes. Unless you tell me who set you up for this, John, that’s exactly what they’ll do.”

“I can’t. You’re right, he—he—knows where the kids are. If I tell you…”

“That’s right, John, he does…” Carter looked into the boy’s eyes—they were older than they should be—until John nodded.

“He won’t hurt them,” said John. “He knows if they’re gone, there’s nothing to hold me.”

Carter fought the urge to thump his fist on the desk and point out that the bastard, whoever it was, didn’t need more than one of them. He saw the boy was still shuddering, and held his tongue; threats weren’t going to work here. Especially since he suspected the boy knew the truth, but was too scared to admit it.

“John,” he said, picking his words carefully, “the word will be spreading that the Zelotyr are gone.” John watched him, his pupils huge, making his eyes seem like dark pools. "I’m expecting trouble once people realise the patrols are gone. Does that sound right?”

“I suppose.”

“Good. The thing is, when that trouble comes, there’s not enough police or army left to stop it.” He waited until the boy nodded his understanding. “People will get hurt and angry and they’ll turn on the people who can be blamed. Once they realise the Zelotyr were keeping them safe, they’ll blame you for changing things. And if they can’t find you…even if whoever you are working for doesn’t go for your family, someone else might.”

The grey eyes closed, stayed shut for what seemed like minutes, and Carter snaked his hand out until it covered the boy’s.

John’s eyes opened. “Ten Shannon Road,” he whispered.

Carter squeezed his hand. “Good lad. I’ll go and see myself, and then I’ll come back and we can talk some more.”

“If you get my family in front of me, I’ll tell you everything you need to know. The kids need me, I can’t be sent away…” John looked down at the desk. “You might want to check number six as well, that’s where Taz and his mum live.”

“Right.” Carter stood to go.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I didn’t mean it. Nor did Taz. Is he okay? He seemed really sick.”

Carter paused. In some ways, the other boy might be the luckier; he was still unconscious, and not aware of the mess. He nodded. “He’s still very shocked.”

“Please, can you help?”

Carter paused, looking at the boy. What had he survived: a year of a bloody war, hiding, foraging food by night? And he’d ended up here, doing someone else’s dirty work.

“I’ll do what I can, John,” he said, choosing his words with care. There was no point promising the earth, not if he couldn’t deliver it.

“You promise?”

The too-old eyes searched him, as if grasping at the hope in front of them. Carter took a deep breath. “Yes. I promise.” He turned away before the boy could ask anything more.

CHAPTER FIVE

Josey sat at the top of the stairs, in the spot where John stayed when he kept watch. A shaft of daylight crawled over her foot, warming it, and she bit her lip. Where was he? He’d never been so late back, and he knew she had no food. She glanced at the two empty water bottles—she’d had to give the kids something to fill their stomachs—and over at the dwindling supply in the corner. Tears pricked her, but she bit down on her knuckle, making sure no noise escaped and woke the kids.

She looked over at the closed bedroom doors. The lay-out was the same as in their old house, and all it took was a slight narrowing of her eyes to imagine she was back there, a year ago. There’d been no way to know 2014 was going to bring an invasion worse than any in the comics John and Taz used to buy. She shifted on the step and stared at what would have been her parents’ bedroom. What she wouldn’t give to push open the door and find them sitting there, cups of tea in hand. Or go to her room and get into a bed that wasn’t mouldy and manky, but clean, its covers just off the line and smelling of fresh air.

Some hope. Useless daydreams, nothing more, like the dreams of the family who’d lived in this house at the start of the war and who’d been in it the day the Zelo bomb had brought down the roof. Their kid had died in the house and they’d fled Belfast afterwards.

She got up and paced the landing, not able to sit any longer. Her CD player sat in the corner beside her bedroom door. She’d love to turn it on and dance to Jessie J. She’d done that with the kids to keep them from crying after Ma and Da died, until the batteries had given up. She wanted it to be the old days when John annoyed her and it was easy to hate him, not sit and pray he’d get home, and he hadn’t been caught, or….

She leaned her head against the door. He couldn’t be dead. He was too smart. He was quick, like a shadow in the streets. He’d be fine.

A soft noise made her start, and she strained, listening, but there was nothing except the kids’ soft snores, and a whistle of wind.

Another noise came, louder this time, from downstairs. She went to the top of the stairs and looked down into the darkness. It had been ages since she and John had barricaded the door and told the kids it was going to be a grand adventure camping on the landing. Neither of the little ones had been fooled, not really. They knew aliens weren’t the only danger in Belfast, that hunger made people desperate.

There was a crash, making her jump. A splinter of light appeared where the front door was. She wanted to scream, to run, but stayed still, not daring to give away they were in the house. A second thud and the damage widened to a crack.

That got her moving. This was no looter, trying for an easy break-in. She ran to Sophie’s bedroom and kicked the door open. “Wake up! Hide in the wardrobe and don’t come out unless me or John tells you to.”

Sophie came awake immediately—she might be only eight, but she’d lived through the invasion, too—and darted into the wardrobe. Josey ran into the boys’ room. She picked Stuart up, struggling a little, her hands slippery from fear. She managed to pull him onto her hip and ran into the biggest bedroom, the one that had no roof at all left, not daring to look downstairs. As she shut the door, there was a splintering noise, followed by the sound of men’s voices.

“Wha…?” asked Stuart, still sleepy.

“Shhhh,” she said. “It’s hide and seek, okay, Stuart? You have to be quiet.”

He, too, was a veteran, and crawled under the big bed. She joined him, pulling boxes around them, ignoring their musty smell. Her ma had used the same sort of boxes to store shoes she’d never wear again. Josey choked back something—not quite a sob, more a strangling fear. There was no time to mourn Ma, not when she was busy trying to be her. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, more than one pair. Josey closed her eyes and prayed: be John. It wasn’t, of course it wasn’t. A plastic bottle was knocked over, dully bouncing on the landing floor, and she had to bite back a yelp. She wished she hadn’t separated Sophie, but the wardrobe was too small for all of them.

Wardrobe—who was she kidding? Whoever this was, they were going to find them. She groped around, trying to find anything to use as a weapon, but there was nothing. She kept her other hand on Stuart’s back. He squirmed and she didn’t blame him—the stench of mould from the carpet was thick, clogging her throat.

The door was kicked open and hard footsteps crossed to the wardrobe. The door opened, followed by a loud tut. Josey fought the urge to wriggle away, and pulled the terrified Stuart close. He was too warm, his skin sweaty. The footsteps came over to the bed and stopped. She could see boots, leather and shining. Top of the range. No one she knew had new clothes.

“Josey Dray, is that little Stuart you have there?” The voice was broad Belfast, harsh, not at all safe. “Come out before I drag you.”

She didn’t move. Another tut, and he got down on his knees. His face appeared at the edge of the bed, looking at her from a sideways position, and her breath caught: Gary McDowell. He was a good four years above her at school, but she knew about him. He’d taken one of the boys from her class, who’d called him Graham instead of Gary, and flushed his head down the toilet. He’d left the boy in the cubicle for an hour, telling him if he called for help he’d spend every day facing more of the same.

“There you are,” he said, and gave a mock wave. His mouth tightened, and his eyes flashed anger. “If you don’t come out, I’ll kick your arse from here to Derry.”

She had no option; he was between her and the exit.

“I don’t want to,” whispered Stuart.

“It’s all right,” she said. She backed out, pulling him with her, and stood. Her heart was hammering in her chest, making her a little dizzy, but she lifted Stuart onto her hip and faced Gary. She daren’t show fear; his sort loved people to be scared.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He came to the end of the bed, blocking her way past. “Where’s the wee girl?”

He was close enough to smell beer on his breath, and her fear deepened; drunk and looking for kicks was never a good combination. She stopped meeting his eyes—she couldn’t afford to anger him. She tightened her hold on Stuart, trying not to frighten him. “She’s in the next room. I’ll get her.”

He grabbed her arm. “Let’s do that.” He pushed her towards the door.

She stumbled, barely keeping her grip on Stuart, and hurried next door. To hell with pretending not to be scared. She opened the wardrobe where Sophie huddled, her eyes huge and staring.

“You need to come out,” said Josey.

Sophie hesitated, but at Josey’s nod came out, and they turned to face Gary. Another lad joined him, wiry and full of nervous fidgeting.

“Is that all of them?” he asked.

“Aye.” Gary smirked. “The Dray family, just where they should be.”

Josey shivered. She had nothing to offer to make him go away. He was watching her, his eyes sharp, and her legs started to shake. She’d heard what some of the lads on the streets were up to since the invasion, how girls had been brought into the gangs and made to do what the blokes wanted. It was why John didn’t like her going out to scavenge, even in the daytime. She backed away. “John will be back in a minute.”

“I don’t think so. John’s been detained.”

Detained? Who by? Sophie pulled against her leg. Stuart froze, numb with terror, clinging to her top. She tried to stop her legs shaking—she couldn’t fall apart in front of the kids—and lifted her chin. “What do you want?”

“Put the kid down.” She tried, but had to uncurl Stuart’s hands first. Gary indicated the stairs with a jerk of his head. “You’re coming with me.” He nodded at the other man. “Deal with the kids.”

“That wasn’t what your da told us. He said to get the older girl.”

“Are you arguing with me?” Gary’s voice was low, threatening. He grabbed the other lad’s collar. “Because if you are, we can take it to the Big Man and see who he backs.”

“All right. Calm down, eh? You take the girl and leave the kids to me. No problem.”

Josey moved in front of the other children. Deal with them? She shook her head. “No, please, they’re only kids…”

Gary grabbed her. “Let’s go,” he said.

She fought him, scratching at his jacket. Sophie yelled for her; Stuart was crying.

“Stop that, you little bitch.” Gary tightened his grip, digging his nails into her skin.

“You’re hurting me!” she yelled.

“I’ll hurt you some more if I have to.” He pushed her into the hall. “Downstairs. Go.”

Stuart screamed for her. She tried to turn back but was pushed down the stairs and through the splintered door into the street. Taz’s mum approached, leaning on her stick, escorted by a bloke so fat that rolls of stomach hung over his belt. Liz’s eyes were red, and there was a bruise starting along her cheekbone.

A hard shove sent Josey towards a car. “No!” she shouted, but if there was anyone in the street, they weren’t going to interfere. Liz was pushed into the car. Gary kicked Josey’s legs from under her and shoved her in, too.

“You can’t hurt the kids,” she said. “They know nothing.”

He got in beside her and slammed the door. “Last warning. If you don’t shut up, I’ll beat you black and blue.”

She closed her mouth. He would, and then she’d be no use to anyone. He nodded his satisfaction.

“Good.” He leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Drive.”

CHAPTER SIX

Carter closed the door and found Sanderson waiting in the corridor.

“Any luck, sir?”

“Yes, he’s given us an address. He won’t give me a name, though.”

“We think it was McDowell’s lot.” Sanderson gave a balancing gesture with his two hands. “Dray was a runner for them."

"Makes sense. Get someone to follow it up. Also, I need a car."

"What are you planning?"

They started to walk towards the reception area. “I’m going to head down the Oldpark and check the house.”

Sanderson stopped and stared at him. “You missed the last bit.”

Carter shook his head, puzzled. “I did?”

“Go down the Oldpark, check the house and get lynched.”

Carter paused. Sanderson was right, the Oldpark wasn’t somewhere just to walk into. Not in this city of hidden dens and closed-off, half-feral streets. “I’ll liaise with the army, get some back up.” He smiled. “We may as well go out with a bang.”

Later, as they drove up the rubble-strewn streets of north Belfast, he wasn’t smiling. The city felt as if it was in stasis: the explosion of fear, held in abeyance for months, close and dangerous. The soldiers sat in silence, their faces closed and grim. Peters, leading the squad, had seemed resigned to the request from Carter for support. They passed no other vehicles, saw no one out on the streets. Below them, deceptively calm, was the lough. One of the old passenger ferries from before the attack was moored at its neck. No smoke rose from the sewage farms, but their smell permeated the van, an accusing reminder of the Zelotyr.

They pulled up outside the house. Carter got out of the vehicle, glancing down the small cul-de-sac. There was no one in sight. He could see the Oldpark Road, just visible through a gap beside number ten, its tarmac filled with weeds. A sparrow chirruped nearby, making Carter jump. He looked at the surrounding houses. Their windows—the ones with glass—were dark and empty. Was anyone there? Peters came alongside, his firearm ready, and Carter pulled his pistol from its holster. Both men walked forward, crunching over broken glass in the small front garden. The rest of the soldiers got out of the vehicle, dispersing into the house and round the back. Carter waited, tight against the wall, his heart hammering.

“Clear!”

He stepped through the splintered gash, Peters close behind. Carter pushed a door to his right and stepped into a small living room. He opened the curtains, ignoring the skittering spiders. Peters sniffed; the room was dank, unused. They moved to the back, into a small kitchen, Peters leading this time. Dishes stood in the sink, mould-covered. There was a stench of decay—not just mould, but foul air merging with it—and when Carter touched the kitchen boards a film of dirt clung to his fingers. Peters pointed to the back door. It was ajar, swinging on its hinges. Peters approached it, Carter covering him, and pushed it open. The only people in the yard were three of the squad, carrying out a search. The back gate to the alley beyond was open, and one of the soldiers had taken up position beside it.

“We’ll check the bedrooms,” said Carter. He climbed the stairs. A breath of air touched him and he looked up at the ceiling. Peters was right, the boy had lied—no one could live here. He paused at the top of the stairs, listening, and shivered in the cold landing.

“Over there.”

Carter jumped at the voice. Peters pointed at a small pile of blankets in the corner. Carter nodded and walked forwards, into a small bathroom. It wasn’t clean, exactly, but it was dust free. Four toothbrushes sat on the sink. His breath hitched: the boy had tried to keep going as if it was normal, had brushed the kids’ teeth and made them wash their hands. He rubbed his mouth, feeling sick, and turned on the tap. The water came out, rust brown. If they’d been using this for washing, it was amazing they’d survived. He stepped into the hall and saw the empty water bottle.

“They’ve been here,” he said to Peters, who nodded, his eyes troubled.

Carter pushed open the next door, to a small bedroom dominated by two beds. Light flooded through several holes in the ceiling, and a breeze lifted dust motes, making them dance in the air. He touched one of the duvets, and it was sodden. The other bed had a plain blue cover, and draped over the end was a football shirt, worn through and at least three seasons out of date. They obviously hadn’t had much even before the war, if the boy hadn’t updated it. He took a deep breath and turned round, imprinting the room on his memory. He’d seen many horrors since the war began, but this room, the desolation masking as normality, hit him hard. How had they survived here? They must have been like rats, curled together in a nest. A small noise, like a rustling, made him turn round.

“Peters?”

“Down here! Looks like the parents’ room.”

Carter crept forward and checked the landing, but it was clear. He’d been spooked, that was all. He spun at another noise and scanned the bedroom again. He walked to a small wardrobe and opened it. From the back of the wardrobe, two pairs of eyes, grey like John’s, watched him.

“Peters! Come here.”

Carter reached into the wardrobe. “It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The children shrank back from him, and he reached in a little more. His hand touched one of them—

“Shit!” he yelled, pulling his hand back, seeing the line of teeth marks. “You little sh—”

The children darted past. He made a grab for the smallest and caught him, but the child wriggled and pulled away, leaving Carter holding only the coat. He lunged forward, into the hall, and found himself looking at Peters, a child held firmly in each hand.

Carter knelt in front of them. The boy was evidently Stuart, and the girl was young; Sophie, he presumed.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m Carter—John sent me. Where’s Josey?”

“Gone,” said the girl. Her voice was a whisper but her eyes met his, brighter since he’d mentioned her brother. “The man with us left when he saw your van.”

Carter got to his feet. “Take them out to the APC. We’ll get them into one of the hostels and cleaned up. I’ll arrange someone to keep them safe. I assume whoever was left with them wasn’t a babysitter.”

“I’d guess not,” said Peters. “And then?”

Carter shrugged, helplessly. He walked down the stairs, taking in the house one more time. How many more were like this? He had no idea. The small figures walked past him, each hand held firmly by Peters. He rubbed his fingers along the hood of the boy’s coat, seeing where a piece had been torn off. They were too young for all this. He stopped and scanned the sky, taking in that thought. They were too young. All of them. Slowly, he smiled.

* * *

The outside door of the station slammed, announcing a pissed-off Superintendent O’Brien. Carter set his cup down, checked his uniform, and rubbed at a smear of dirt on the pocket. The more he rubbed, the more it spread, and he cursed under his breath. Still, he’d been on duty for the best part of a day and a half; that might give him some leeway.

“Carter!”

Carter hurried to the reception area, where his chief was standing at the desk, her foot tapping with impatience.

“Ma’am,” said Carter.

O’Brien looked him up and down, lingering on the stain. Evidently, the dress inspection had been failed. She handed Carter some papers and he scanned them.

“Your office, Carter.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Carter led the way, swallowing his nervousness. He opened the door to his office with its usual jumble of papers and bin overflowing onto the floor. The superintendent swept past and sat in Carter’s seat. Carter closed the door and didn’t need to be told to stay standing.

“Enlighten me. Why have I just been given jurisdiction over the biggest pain-in-the-ass problem on earth?” O’Brien’s voice cut through the air like a whip, and Carter fought not to wince.

“Ma’am, the boys didn’t know what they were doing.”

“That’s irrelevant; the Zelotyr have demanded the right to try the boys, and I think Earth has managed to piss them off enough for now. Thirteen thousand dead and all the hatchlings.” O’Brien looked tired, her hair lank and needing washed, her face drawn and strained. “I want an explanation. That—” She nodded to the paper still clutched in Carter’s hand. “—went above your remit. Juveniles, indeed. The Galactic Council judges puberty to be the age of adult responsibility. I’m assuming your boys aren’t falsettos?"

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why the request?”

“Ma’am, I understand there has to be a biological standard when governing more than one species. But Earth hasn’t ratified the Galactic convention; here, they’re considered juveniles.” O’Brien’s eyes hardened, and Carter took a deep breath before he went on, “I thought it would give you time to assess the situation.”

There was silence, and he glanced down at the paper, before looking back at his boss and admitting, “I didn’t think they’d agree. Not so quickly.”

His words petered out under his boss’s glare, but he kept his head up. O’Brien hated people who tried to hide from her flak.

“That’s all very noble, Carter. They agreed because no one wants jurisdiction over this nightmare.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Carter steeled himself—

“But your thinking was excellent.” Carter raised his eyebrows as the chief went on, “I don’t want to hand the boys over. This is an Earth issue, not the GC’s; they’re just another set of bloody aliens.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Carter hoped he’d kept the surprise out of his voice.

She nodded. “You still overstepped your rank. For that, you can do the shit work on this. Arrange some sort of counsel for the boys and liaise with the GC. Find out what they’ll accept.” She paused. “It’s likely they’ll seek a life term.”

“Yes, ma’am.” A life term, at fifteen. His dismay must have shown because O’Brien’s eyes softened.

“We have to abide with the GC’s ruling on this one.” She looked down at the desk and scowled. “You can get in here tidied up, too, Carter; if you have meetings with the GC it can’t be a pigsty.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do it in your own time, Carter.” She frowned. “You do know the scale of what these boys have done? You know the Deklon system can’t sustain the continuation of the Zelotyr?”

Carter nodded. It was the reason the Zelo had come here: their planet had overheated to the extent where their hatchlings couldn’t spawn.

“There must be other planets, ma’am.” He looked up at the ceiling, and the bomb-damage crack running across reminded him of the little house earlier. “It’s a big galaxy, and they have faster-than-light ships.”

“The chance of the Zelotyr finding another planet within this generation’s lifespan is tiny. Unless they can find a way to overcome the virus—and to do that, they need access to some quantity of the source material—their species is doomed. They will demand full accountability.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

O’Brien gestured at the seat opposite. “Sit down. You know how the GC is set up? That it’s split between the Zelo and Barath’na?”

Carter brushed some crumbs off the seat and sat. “Yes."

“The Zelo believe the Barath’na are behind the virus; the Barath’na claim it came from Earth. To say relationships are tense makes the worst days of Stormont look good-natured.”

Carter took a moment, thinking about that. He’d never met a Barath’na, but knew their reputation: altruistic, cooperative in their dealings with other races, they were nothing like the warrior Zelotyr. He picked up a pen, pressing its nib in and out, the dull clicks filling the room, and asked, “Who do we believe?”

“Hard to say. The means of distributing the virus was low-tech, which makes me think it’s from Earth. But I don’t believe it came from central government.” The chief reached out, took the pen out of Carter’s hand, and went on, “You know the sort of military capacity Earth has?”

“I know about Belfast,”—not enough—“and that our situation is replicated across Ireland,” said Carter. “Farther than that I only know rumours, ma’am, and those rumours aren’t good.”

“They aren’t wrong; if there is substantive resistance, Earth can’t hold the peace. We don’t have the personnel, the hospitals or the people to run them. The army advises they do not have enough troops should civil unrest take hold.” She waited until Carter gave a curt nod. “Earth may have to ask the GC to send a peacekeeping force. No one wants that. Especially not if the GC believe the virus came from us. But we might not have any choice.”

Carter drew in a whistle of breath. "I see."

O’Brien started clicking the pen. “Any force will be predominantly Barath’naian, which is something. But if it turns out Earth’s governing bodies had any connection to the virus, the Zelo will attack. They have nothing to lose, after all.” She pointed upwards. “The Barath’na have the weaponry to face the Zelotyr. Earth doesn’t. If we get it wrong…”

John’s face flashed in front of Carter, followed by the memory of the half-lived-in house. How many other Johns were out there? Many—most, if he was honest—wouldn’t survive another war. Carter nodded.

“So, you’ll understand why I say I’m glad you kept your boys on Earth, but they must be dealt with accordingly. Whatever the GC want, we must consider it. It won’t be capital, I hope, but it won’t be youth custody for a couple of years, either. You understand?” Carter nodded. “The lads still haven’t said who gave them the virus?”

“Not yet. Dray has said he’ll cooperate once we let him see his family, which obviously we can’t do.”

“The other boy?”

“Recovering.” A little, anyway—the last report had declared him conscious, but weak.

His boss leaned forward. “Whoever’s behind it in Belfast had to have someone behind them. This was a global attack. Your boys are the first—the only—step on that chain. We need them to talk.”

Carter rubbed his forehead. “I’m doing my best, ma’am.”

O’Brien tapped the table with the pen. “Keep at it. And make sure the boys are secure; to lose them might be seen as careless. Convenient, even.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Carter.

“Good. You can go.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

John sat on the narrow cot, chewing his nails. He’d seen no one for hours, not since the cop had said he’d make sure Josey and the kids were safe. It was getting dark now. Helicopters droned nearby. He got up and went to the small window, and watched for a while. There was a lot of activity, police vans coming and going all the time, but nothing he could look at and figure out what it meant.

The lack of information was driving him mad. He didn’t know where Taz was, or if he was okay. He had to find out. He went to the door and started to bang his fists on it, but the metal was so thick he only made dull thuds. He stopped banging. The noise continued. What the—?

Yells, and a muffled bang. John stumbled back from the door. McDowell had found out where he was. It was like in Terminator, when the girl hid while everyone who was supposed to protect her got blown away. He glanced around. There was only the bed, and anyone who came in would look there straight away. He backed into the furthest corner, his heart hammering. Another bang sounded—a shot, he was sure of it—followed by a yell. The handle of his door started to turn, the metal bar-lock moving from horizontal to vertical. He looked around for something, anything, he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing.

Fuck it. He stepped into the centre of the room, hands spread in front of him, poised and ready. If they were here for him, he’d go down fighting, not cowering like a dog. The door opened.

“Come on!” Carter looked nothing like he had earlier. His baton was grasped in one hand, and his eyes stared out from a filthy face. Behind him a cop raced past, someone supported across his shoulders. Taz. That got John moving, across the cell and out. Carter pointed down the corridor. “Follow Sanderson—there’s a patrol car waiting.”

Yells sounded through the station and running footsteps came closer. Carter backed away, keeping John behind him.

“Get him!” a voice yelled, close and angry. More joined it, echoing through the tiled corridors.

Jesus, it was a riot. Like in the old days, when trouble sprang out of nowhere. But there hadn’t been any since the Zelo invaded—everyone was too busy either fighting them or finding a way to survive. His mouth twisted in sour realisation; now the Zelo were gone, Belfast was back to what it did best.

The sound of a shot got him moving, old instincts kicking in. It didn’t matter why the riot was happening, only that he was caught in it. He reached the officer helping Taz, who was at least making an attempt to walk, and took one of his friend’s arms over his shoulder.

The officer nodded his thanks. “The fire-escape,” he panted. They hurried to the door at the end of the corridor, and the policeman swung out from under Taz’s arm. “Take him.”

John tightened his grip on Taz. The officer slammed the fire-bar down and pushed the door open. A shrill alarm rang through the air. In the car park a crowd had gathered at barred fencing, shouting and jostling each other for position.

John ducked as something flew past him, something alight. More followed, lighting up the night sky and filling it with the thick smell of petrol. A second group of protestors sent up loud whoops as they broke through the main gates and flooded the yard.

“Bollocks,” said Sanderson, reaching for his pistol. He wrenched the door of the waiting police car open.

“Get them away!” yelled Carter from behind. “Go!” Another flaming bottle flew past and smashed. “Now!”

John heaved Taz forward, but one of the rioters had broken from the main pack and was blocking his way. Carter pushed past and faced the man, squaring up to him.

“Back off,” said the officer.

The rioter’s face twisted. “Fuck me, it’s the shit-lover!” he yelled. He lunged at Carter. “Here he is!”

The crowd surged forwards, ignoring John and Taz. Carter stumbled back and brought his baton up.

“Sanderson, get them into the fucking car!” he yelled, the posh accent gone. “Now!”

Taz was yanked away from John and thrown into the car. One of the men in the crowd thumped his fist off the car’s bonnet. “The shit-lover’s trying to do a runner!”

Sanderson grabbed John’s collar and forced him into the car, before bundling in after him. The car revved as he slammed the door closed, and the rioter backed off. The rest of the crowd had gathered at the station’s open door—Carter had no hope of getting through.

John grabbed Sanderson’s wrist. “We can’t leave him.”

“We’ve no option.” Sanderson jerked free. He tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Put your foot down.”

Sirens sounded as three army vehicles tore through the main gates towards them, scattering the protestors. Soldiers dived out into the remaining crowd. Flames framed the melee, distorted in the riot-shields. The troops forced their way through the protestors to be pushed back, then surge forward again, like a dance. At least one gun sounded.

“We’ll never get through!” shouted Sanderson. “We’ll have to try the back gate.”

The driver nodded. The car screeched in a circle. John craned his head to see what was happening to Carter but it was impossible to tell through the mass of bodies. The driver floored the vehicle. There was another crowd ahead of them. Christ, the car was going to hit them. Even Taz had managed to sit up and was staring ahead.

“Holy shit!” yelled John, ready for the thump of a body. The crowd parted at the last second, diving to the side, and the car made it through the gate and out onto the main road. Something hit the back window, giving a dull smack, and a yellowed flash filled the car. The driver kept going.

“Yes!” yelled Sanderson. He looked back the way they’d come. “They’re too far back—we’re okay!” He paused, and gave a sly smile. “Reckon ol’ shit-for-brains will get out?”

“Carter?” The driver glanced in the mirror. “He’s a lucky enough fucker, all right.”

John remembered the rioter’s face when he’d seen Carter. He’d been the target, not John. He frowned. “Why do they call him shit-lover?”

Sanderson made a hacking noise. “He’s the Zelotyr liaison officer in Belfast.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Carter was a collaborator? He looked over at Taz, whose eyes had widened in shock.

“He worked with the Zelo?” said Taz, his voice slow.

The officer hadn’t mentioned working with them. His hands closed, into tight fists. Bastard. He’d been half-sucked in by him. Hell, he’d thought about giving him McDowell’s name to keep Josey safe. Now it turned out the guy had sold out Earth. How did John know he wouldn’t sell him out, too?

“What did he do for the Zelo?” he asked. There might be some sort of mistake. Maybe Carter had been forced to take the post and had sabotaged the aliens at every opportunity, like an old-fashioned wartime spy.

“When the ceasefire was agreed, the GC put him to work with the local Zelo command.” Sanderson’s voice was as sour as John’s stomach. “He went for it. It seems he’s an ambitious little turncoat—he got a promotion.”

They pulled off the main road and sped to the outskirts of the city. Fires burned in the estates either side of them, radiating from the suburbs and snaking a line of orange into the city centre. Would tonight be the end for what was left of the city?

Carter’s posh voice came over the driver’s radio, ordering reinforcements to the squad trying to hold York Street. He’d made it, then. John felt oddly relieved; no matter what Sanderson said, he was still the only person who’d shown any interest in getting the kids out.

“Where are we going?” John asked.

“Somewhere safe.” The cop turned away and John watched out the window. The sky was orange, not black. There were no Zelo anywhere. None of their spaceships lit up the sky; their armoured transports were abandoned by the roadside, one with a figure lying over the control-panel, its armour glistening in a shaft of moonlight. They’d lost a few of the transports in the early days of the invasion, John remembered, booby-trapped by the locals until the Zelo had learned to check before they used them. It had been the subject of jokes, how the aliens were reduced to using mirrors to check any nooks and crannies, all their technology undone by Belfast’s determination to piss off the authorities, second only to the city’s ability to have a good riot.

His stomach tensed. Was Josey caught up in the riots? He thought about asking Sanderson if there was any news about her, but the cop was ignoring him, his shoulders bunched and tight. John frowned. He might not know what to make of Carter, but Sanderson was obviously well acquainted with his own right hand.

The car pulled onto a wide, straight road. John squinted, trying to read the road sign coming up, but it had been painted over by a crude picture of a Zelo and the message to take their shit and fuck off. He squinted until he made out the destination and his stomach lurched. Moira: near the space port. They were being sent to the Zelo. He nudged Taz and nodded at the sign.

“Ask,” croaked Taz.

“Hey, guys,” said John, trying not to piss the officers off. “Are we going to be taken off Earth?”

Sanderson’s face softened a little. “No. You’re staying.” He paused for just a moment too long. “For now.”

“What do you mean for now?” Taz’s voice was shaking.

“Quiet.” The officer leaned forward and touched the driver’s shoulder. “Floor it.”

A crowd had gathered in the middle of the road. Something burned behind them, something big—a Zelo space-transporter, John decided, a proper one with deep-space capacity, not the planet hoppers they used for patrols.

“Hold tight!” The driver floored the accelerator. John was pushed back against his seat. The crowd didn’t move. John’s mouth went dry and he put his hand on the seat in front, braced for impact. Twenty feet at most. The driver sped up.

“Just like old times!” yelled Sanderson. “Keep going—they’ll break up.”

The crowd stayed where it was. Sanderson swore. John half closed his eyes. The crowd scattered just as the car shot past, still speeding up.

Sanderson laughed and nudged John. “Didn’t I tell you? They always scatter.” His eyes were high with excitement. “So, you want to know what will happen to you?”

“Yeah,” croaked John. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose so.” Sanderson was gripping his gun tightly, making John’s shoulder itch. The officer didn’t look quite balanced. “The Earth authorities will call in the Galactics after tonight. We lost most of our armed forces in the Zelo invasion. Earth needs to be safeguarded.”

“Safeguarded from what?” asked John. “Surely once people find out the Zelo are gone, the resistance will end.”

“People do know they’re gone, and this is how they’re reacting. Besides…” The officer pointed at the sky. “The Zelo attacked from space last time. There’s no reason they won’t again. We need the Galactic Council to hold them off. But if we turn to the Galactics, they’ll want justice for the shit-eaters. It might be a choice between giving them that justice, or being destroyed by another attack.”

John’s stomach twisted, remembering the first day of the invasion, how the smart bombs had fallen through the clouds with no warning. One had taken out a whole street not a mile from his house. He remembered the panic of not knowing where the screaming bombs were going to hit, the scramble to get out the school grounds and home to check his family were safe. He and Taz had taken off from the classroom and split to go to their separate estates, just a quick hand-clasp and good luck to each other, cut off when a bomb hit nearby, denting the air.

Earth would do what it must to avoid another attack like that. He glanced at Taz and knew that if it was a choice between that or handing them over, there’d be no contest. Their fear must have shown because Sanderson gave a grim smile, and a nod.

“Not your best night’s work, was it?” he said.

“No.” John gulped. “So they’ll send us to the Zelo, you reckon? To Deklon?”

The soldier shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe.” His mouth twisted. “Either way, I wouldn’t fancy being in your shoes.”

No one would. He saw his reflection in the window, framed against the darkness. He was pale and thin and looked nothing like himself. It was a new face, not the same one as before the war. He’d never get back to that person.

The thought shocked him. All this year, he’d told himself that things would go back to normal sometime. He’d tried to keep up some training, doing push-ups in the bedroom and running instead of walking when he could. He’d told himself that everyone would be thinner and he’d still get a place in the first team. Now, there wasn’t going to be any team for him. He’d be on Deklon, waiting to discover how the Zelo would kill him, and how often.

He fought back tears, damned if he’d give anyone the satisfaction of seeing them. He should have left Taz on the hill. It would have been better to die once than face what was ahead. If he had, he’d have got home when he should and McDowell’s men would have shot him. He remembered Gary telling him he wouldn’t miss him—and he wouldn’t have. A single bullet and it’d have been over with.

He wished he could go back to that night and do things over again. He’d have bargained more out of McDowell, he’d have made sure Josey and the kids were safe before he’d taken the job. But he’d still have carried it out. He had no option; McDowell had trapped him months ago, with his errands and food and clothes.

John opened his eyes and forced himself to face the boy in the window. It might not be the person he wanted to be or one he recognised, but it was the one the war had moulded him into. The Zelo had killed his parents because they believed they were worthless; they wouldn’t do the same to him. When he died, however many times he did, he’d make sure they knew they were killing a man, not a boy, who’d survived as best he could, and did the best he could. He’d be brave and make himself count; he owed it to the boy who’d been lost in the war.

Jon F. Zeigler

Galen and the Golden-Coat Hare

Originally appeared in TALES OF ZO, published by Uncanny Books (2014)

* * *

Once upon a time, in the faraway land of Azul, there lived a poor huntsman named Galen.

Galen dwelt with his wife Katherine on the margin of the mysterious Fogwood. There he hunted for game large and small, while his wife did fine needlework and kept geese and chickens. They sold what they did not need in the nearest village, and bought what they did need. Life was not easy for them, but Galen rarely complained.

One day, Galen was in the bluewood, bow at the ready, checking his snare traps. As he approached the shadowy place where he had laid out his third snare, he heard a thrashing noise in the brush, as of a small creature desperately struggling for freedom.

Galen slung his bow and moved closer. He moved a little brush aside and looked to see what he had caught.

For a long moment, surprise held him still.

A hare. Lanky body, powerful hind legs, long ears, wide eyes, it all said hare. The only thing to say otherwise was the creature’s color: shimmering, shining gold. Not dull brown, not off-white, not buttery yellow, not any of the usual hare-colors, but gold like a coin Galen had once seen from afar off in a nobleman’s hand. It looked like wealth and ease and a hundred acres of land in that one creature’s pelt.

It can’t really be gold, he asked himself. Can it?

Galen pushed the brush aside further and stepped toward the snare.

At once, the hare stopped thrashing about and stared at him. Then it spoke.

“Oh, kind sir, please wait!”

Galen stopped. Well. This changes things.

“Please stay your hand!” said the hare. “Set me free and I will reward you greatly!”

The hare did not look like a Talking Animal. It had a frame ill-suited for walking on two feet. It wore no clothing and carried no tools. In all ways other than that tempting pelt, it appeared a perfectly ordinary beast. Quite suitable for the pot.

“Oh mighty huntsman, I have a doe and kits to think of. They will starve without my watchful care. Please spare me!”

On the other hand, the hare certainly sounded like a Talking Animal. Indeed, it sounded remarkably like a dishonest tinker who had wandered through the village a few months before. Galen grunted and made up his mind. He stepped forward once more, drawing his knife and bending over the snare.

“Oh no oh dear oh please I will grant you three wishes if you spare my life…”

Galen put a strong hand over the hare, which struggled mightily. “Hold still, you foolish creature!”

Something in the timbre of the man’s voice got through the hare’s fright. Heart racing, breath panting, it froze in place.

Galen slipped the knife under the snare and cut through the cord. He then lifted his hand, releasing his prey.

Quick as lightning, the hare was off into the underbrush. Galen heard leaves rustle for just a moment, and then all fell silent.

He sighed as he collected the pieces of the cut snare. “Two hours’ work gone for nothing,” he muttered to himself.

“Not for nothing, kind sir!” came a voice from the underbrush. “I promised you three wishes, and three wishes you shall have.”

“No need,” said Galen shortly. “You’re free to go.”

There was a moment of profound silence.

“What?” asked the hare.

“I don’t need any wishes granted. I didn’t set you free for them. I make it a rule never to kill Talking Animals, for their meat or for their pelt or for any reason at all. It’s a good rule. Never steered me wrong yet. Off you go.”

“But…”

“Off you go, I said. Shoo.”

Silence from the underbrush.

Galen placed the pieces of his snare in his pack, carefully cleaned and sheathed his knife, and then turned to depart.

The golden-coat hare ventured a few inches back out into the open, just enough to show wiggling nose and bright eyes. “Are you certain I cannot interest you in any wishes?”

“Quite certain.”

“Not for wealth? Not for power?”

“Not for anything in the Empire of Zo.”

“But…”

“I have work to do. Goodbye.”

With that Galen left the clearing, the golden-coat hare sitting bemused and confused in his wake.

* * *

Naturally, that did not end the story.

By late afternoon Galen returned home, fresh herbs in his pack and a brace of thoroughly nonverbal rabbits hanging from his belt. “I am home, wife, and I have dinner.”

Katherine emerged from their cottage, brushing flour from her hands. “Good. I was just making apple dumplings. Bring some water in from the well, if you would.”

“At once, after I have skinned and cleaned these coneys.”

She nodded with a smile and went back inside, leaving the door open.

“A strange thing happened today,” said Galen, as he drew his knife and began to skin the rabbits.

“What was it?”

“I caught a hare in one of my snares. Very strange in appearance, it was. Pelt like gold.”

“That is strange. Do you say it was gold?”

“I doubt it. Beast with true gold for its fur would have a difficult time living. Would weight it down, make it hard to scamper. Still, ‘twas a remarkable sight to be sure.”

“Do you not have the beast?”

“No.” Galen finished skinning the rabbits, and began to clean and cut up the carcasses. “It spoke to me, and you know my rule about such things. I let it go.”

“Too bad. I would like to have seen it.”

“Aye. It offered me three wishes…”

Clang: the sound of a ladle falling into an iron pot. At once, Katherine stood in the doorway once more, staring down at her husband where he sat working. “Three wishes? How many have you already used?”

“None, wife, nor will I use any. It was no true bargain. I did not release the beast for the sake of any gain.”

“Galen!” She stepped around to confront him, hands on her hips, silver-grey eyes flashing in anger. “Such an opportunity, and you threw it away?”

He paused to give her a wary stare. “What opportunity? No good comes from wishing. Hard work and fair dealing are the only way for any honest man to gain.”

Katherine rolled her eyes. “Galen, sometimes I despair of you. We could have so much more than this cottage on the forest’s edge. We could have land, and coin enough for anything we might need.” She sighed, looking away from him in sadness. “We could have children.”

“We could also have sausages on the ends of our noses.” He glanced up at her. His hands were bloody, so he kept them at his side, but all the love of his heart lived in his eyes. “Katherine, I know our life is not easy, but at least we can rely upon it. We know this cottage will not fall on us while we sleep, we know the fireplace will draw and the roof will not leak, because we built all of it with our own hands. Wishes are tricky things, and no one ever came out the better for them. And children will come if the Lion sees fit to bless us.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said at last with a sigh. “You usually are.”

“I am sorry.” He set his work aside, walked down to the well and washed his hands in the trough, then began to work the crank to draw more water. “Perhaps the world would be a merrier place if it were not so. I wish…”

He stopped, because at once the whole world went silent, and seemed to be leaning over him, listening intently.

“Galen?”

“Never mind. I can see that I will have to discipline my words.”

* * *

Men considered Galen lucky. He disagreed, not believing in luck. After his encounter with the golden-coat hare, he found even less reason to believe in good luck.

No matter how much care and skill he applied when moving through the bluewood, dry twigs and hidden puddles seemed to seek out his feet. He set out snares, and found them broken and empty the next day. He drew and aimed at a magnificent stag, only to have his best bowstring break at the point of highest tension. A torrential rain positioned itself over the Fogwood and remained there, driving all creatures into shelter, for days on end.

Each day, he saw the hare at least once, sitting on a distant hill or vanishing into the undergrowth on a dark forest path. Watching him. Waiting.

Galen stubbornly continued to hunt, or at least make the attempt. He had a duty.

Of course, he and his wife still had the geese and chickens. They would not starve for a while, so long as the fowl continued to thrive.

Then some creature got into the yard in the night, slaying the rooster and half of the hens, all without making a sound. Not even the geese raised any alarm. Galen and Katherine only learned of the slaughter the next morning, when the rooster failed to crow. Whatever beast it was, it carried none of its victims off to be eaten. Katherine accounted for all of them in the morning, dead in a welter of their own blood.

It was simple murder.

The remaining hens, terrified, ceased to lay.

Late that afternoon, the hare sat on a nearby hill and watched, the golden sunlight shining on its coat. As Galen returned from another futile day in the Fogwood, he saw the creature and cursed it under his breath.

You are my enemy. You are the cause of all this misfortune.

Fast as lightning, his bow leapt to his hand, an arrow on the string, and he sighted on the hare.

It did not flee. Slow as an insult, it simply rose on its hind legs as if to offer a better target.

Galen stood still for a long moment, his bow at full extension, a single drop of sweat sliding down his face. Then he eased back, letting his weapon drop.

“Pah,” he spat. “What use?”

The hare seemed to nod to itself. Then it came loping down the hill, stopping just out of range of a sudden vengeful lunge.

“So. Are you ready for your wishes now?”

Galen grimaced. “After what you have done to me over the past days, you think I am more likely to accept a boon from you?”

“I?” The hare used its front paws to brush out its whiskers. “I have done nothing. A word of counsel here and there, a favor or two called in, nothing more.”

“I spared your life,” said Galen. “I freed you. I asked nothing in return. This is how you repay me?”

“I only hope to do you a good turn, in a manner that befits my nature. Nothing you have suffered is beyond repair by way of a well-considered wish.” Its ears twitched and a note of unmistakable threat crept into its voice. “So far, at any rate.”

At once, Galen’s knife was in his hand. “Hear me well, creature. Cease this persecution and be away from me and mine. If I see you again, I will learn just how much that golden pelt will fetch in the marketplace.”

“No need for that, good sir. This can all be over in a trice. Three wishes.”

Then the hare leaped aside in the blink of an eye, Galen’s knife quivering in the soil where it had stood a moment before.

“Ah, well,” said the golden creature, running at full tilt for the cover of the nearby trees. “You’ll change your mind soon enough.”

Galen stood for a long moment, trembling with rage. Then he shook his head violently to regain control, and reclaimed his knife.

“The sky will fall first,” he muttered.

* * *

Galen saw nothing of the hare for the next few days. Yet the flood of misfortune did not end. Indeed, it spread. It began to afflict other hunters who worked the marge of the Fogwood, and then it crept into the village itself.

Farmyard beasts were savaged or driven away. Milk soured in the churn. Nests of stinging insects took up residence in roofs and storage sheds. Flocks of birds began to ignore scarecrows, sweeping down to eat grain in the fields.

Somehow, everyone knew that Galen bore the blame. No one could say where the rumors had begun, but soon everyone was repeating them. He had brought down a curse. He practiced witchcraft against his neighbors. He consorted with the Wolf.

That last struck him to his core.

For the first time, Galen began to feel real fear.

He had few places to turn for advice. Aside from Katherine, he didn’t feel enough trust for almost anyone. Given the state of misrule in the kingdom, he had no lord upon whom he could safely rely. Certainly, Count Alphonse would be of no help.

Finally, he decided to visit Friar Benedictus. The friar was a kindly beast, a rotund Talking Hedgehog who wore a clerical habit over his spines and balanced a pair of absurdly tiny spectacles on his snout. He had no magic that anyone could see, but he had the benefit of a fine education, a healer’s touch, unshakeable faith in the Lion, and a caring heart. He took no sides in anyone’s dispute, and his advice usually proved to be good. Everyone trusted him.

Benedictus did not spend all his time in the village, to be sure. Like any mendicant, he moved about the region, performing whatever service he could to humans, Talking Animals, and even wild beasts. Most people in need knew where to find him. It was Thunder’s Day, so the friar could most likely be found in a forest clearing a few miles from the village, tending to the creatures that lived close by. Thorns from rabbits’ feet, splinters from beavers’ teeth, that sort of thing.

Galen set out just after dawn, his bow and knife at hand. Just in case a certain golden-coat hare chose to make an appearance.

For once, his luck seemed sound. He saw no signs of his enemy or any other uncanny creature. He found the friar hard at work in the expected place, gathering herbs and willow-bark.

The friar looked up sharply as Galen arrived, peered through his spectacles, then bobbed in friendly greeting. “Galen. A pleasure to see you.”

“Likewise, Brother.” Galen sat down on a boulder and watched as the friar finished his task. “I wondered if I might have a word.”

“Of course.” Benedictus stood upright, stretching his back with a grunt of pleasure. “Ah, I find I’m not as able to bend over for long as when I was young.”

Galen only nodded, looking dour.

“There’s quite a shadow on your face, my friend.” The friar leaned against a broad tree and produced a small canteen from inside his habit, handing it to Galen. “Apple cider. Very good. Also, very strong.”

Galen took a long swig from the canteen, his face softening slightly. “I see what you mean.”

“Robert the arborist’s son sets aside some from each pressing for me.” A smile, as the canteen vanished back into the friar’s habit. “What troubles you, Galen?”

Galen told his story, from the moment he first saw the golden-coat hare. Benedictus listened in silence, his whiskers setting into a concerned frown as the hunter continued to speak.

“I see the problem,” said Benedictus at the last.

“What would you advise me to do?”

“I’m not sure. I fear you have placed yourself in the hands of a capricious power.” Benedictus stroked his whiskers with one paw. “I believe I recognize this creature, from your description. It is clearly not a simple Talking Animal. It is an enchanted thing, one of the Faerie.”

“Katherine and I do what we can to appease such. We put cream and scraps of bread out for the Little People.”

“Most of the Little People do not offer to grant wishes. For all that this thing appears to be a helpless beast, it must have great power for its kind. It must be one of the Fair Folk.”

Galen shook his head. “How can I contend with such a thing?”

“Perhaps contending with it is the wrong course,” said the friar with a sharp glance. “Galen, my friend, if you have a fault, it is that you are too self-reliant. In every man’s life, there comes a time when he must place his faith in another.”

“It goes against my grain,” the hunter grumbled.

“No doubt.” The friar finished picking his herbs, and began to delicately pack them up. “Two pieces of advice, then, if you are willing to hear them.”

Galen nodded in agreement.

“First: the creatures of Faerie are very much bound by their own laws. That may be why this golden-coat hare bedevils you about its three wishes.”

“I don’t follow you, Brother.”

“You saw the creature and seemed about to kill it. It promised you three wishes if you set it free. You set it free. By its own word, it must now grant you those wishes. It owes you a debt; the longer the books remain open, the more it will suffer. The Fair Ones often seem capricious, but once they give their word, they are tied to it with bands of iron. For one of us, to break a promise is only a sin that may be forgiven. For them, it is a matter of life and death.”

“But that is absurd!” Galen shouted. “I freed it for my own reasons. I placed it under no obligation.”

“I suspect the hare does not see it that way. By its way of thinking, if you are unwilling to resolve its problem, it has the right to torment you until you do. It may even enjoy the process. Such creatures do not love men.”

“That fits,” said Galen, nodding slowly. “There is a…a smugness about the beast. As if it knows that it holds power over me, and I must ere long give in.”

“Yes. Now for my second piece of advice. Remember that the Faerie have their own society. This hare must have superiors, lords of its own kind to whom it owes fealty. Perhaps you may appeal to them.”

“That sounds even more dangerous than dealing with the one creature.”

“Perhaps.”

The hunter sat on his rock and thought hard, supporting his chin on one fist. “All right,” he said at last.

“Do you see a way forward?”

“Not yet. Or perhaps I see the beginnings of a way.”

“Good,” said the friar. “Send to let me know how this all turns out. And if I can be of any further help, call on me at once. Such creatures cannot be permitted to get the better of honest people.”

* * *

Galen heard the first sign of trouble some distance off: Katherine’s voice, raised in a shout. He hurried, but not at break-neck speed. He could hear anger in his wife’s voice, but no fear or pain.

At the very edge of the forest, he crouched for a moment in shadow to see what lay ahead.

Katherine, standing in the foreyard, fists on her hips, her stance shouting of stubborn pride and resistance. She confronted three men in blue livery. Count Alphonse’s men.

Bow in hand, arrow at the string but pointing down for the moment, Galen strode out into the sunlight. “What passes here?” he shouted.

One of the blue-clad men stepped forward, his hand open in token of peace. “I am Simon de Clare, in the service of the Count of Cobaltia. We are here to investigate rumors of trouble.”

“There is no trouble here,” said Galen, halting within the edge of the ideal range for a quick shot. “I thank you for your concern, but you are wasting your time.”

“It is our time to waste.” De Clare glanced around the yard, his eyes missing nothing. “You are Galen Chasseur?”

“I am, as anyone in the village could tell you.”

“You are accused of witchcraft and consorting with evil spirits. What say you?”

“Pfah!” Galen scowled. “Who accuses me? I have a right to face him.”

“Only if the accusation is formal. Thus far, it is not. We hope to resolve the situation without requiring such measures.”

“Then I say the accusation is groundless. I know there is a curse at work, but it is none of my doing. We have suffered from it as much as any. I have no grudge against any of my neighbors, nor should they have any cause for a quarrel with me.”

“I see.” De Clare nodded in satisfaction and turned back to Galen. “Well, I am inclined to take the word of such an honest fellow.”

Galen nodded in thankful suspicion.

“Of course…should it be proven that you are not an honest fellow, I would have to reconsider. Which brings me to another matter of concern. I took the time to examine the village rolls before coming here. To my surprise, I found that you have no right to live here, or to hunt in the Fogwood.”

“What? I have land-right and forest-right, clear as day in the village rolls.”

“Ah, but you have those rights by way of your father, who had them from the last King. Have you sworn an oath of fealty for the renewal of those rights?”

“There’s no one to swear fealty to, unless the Heir should return.”

De Clare spread his hands in helplessness. “You see my problem. By law, you are a poacher and a thief, not an honest man at all. So how may I take your word that you are not the cause of the curse afflicting this village?”

“That’s not what the law says, and you know it.”

“Perhaps. I suppose we could take this to the village court. Where the case would be tried by your peers. Most of whom are already half-convinced that you are a sorcerer. Or…” De Clare paused as if in thought.

“Spit it out, man,” said Galen in disgust.

“My master could doubtless resolve all of this, if you were willing to swear fealty to him. Become his man, support his claim to the throne, convince your neighbors to do the same. He will advise the Mayor and the village to let the matter rest. You could make your fortune in his service.”

“I see.” Galen sighed. “All this trouble goes away, and the Count makes me a rich man. All I have to do is become a lying lickspittle like yourself.”

De Clare smiled gently. “You do seem to have grasped the situation.”

“Never.”

“Well. That is too bad, but I shouldn’t take your first reply. Think about the matter while I report back to my master and hear his answer. You have perhaps three days to consider.”

“Three days or three years, my answer will be the same.”

All at once, de Clare’s manner of polished courtesy vanished. “For your own sake, it had better not be. When I return, I will have more than two men with me.”

Then he turned on his heel, the other two following, and strode away.

Galen stood, his bow still in his hand pointing at nothing, until he felt a presence at his side.

“Husband,” Katherine said, “I am proud of you.”

He released the breath he had been holding. “You should not be. I got us into this.”

“No. You are not the one in the wrong.” She hesitated. “Still…I admit to being afraid.”

“So am I, love.”

“What are we going to do?”

He reached out and put an arm around her shoulders. “The only thing we can do. Live each day and look for a way out.”

“Galen…” She sighed. “You are the most unimaginative man I have ever known. Bless you.”

He snorted. “Be that as it may, I still have work to do.”

“Come inside in an hour. I will have fresh bread and broth for you.”

Galen went down to the well, and then to check the fowl-yard. No more of the birds had been slain in the night.

From the cottage, a harsh crack. Then Katherine’s voice, this time full of pain.

When Galen looked back, he saw the roof of his cottage falling in.

He ran.

* * *

The roof-tree of the cottage had suddenly failed, crashing down to the floor. Galen was able to drag Katherine out to safety. Under his breath, he thanked the Lion she had taken nothing worse than some bruises and a broken arm.

It was almost sunset before Katherine finally fell asleep. Friar Benedictus had done what he could, setting the bone and giving her poultices and a sleeping draught. Yet, even in her sleep, she whimpered with the pain. When the friar emerged from the cottage’s front door, he found Galen sitting on a stool, turning a piece of wood over and over in his hands.

“Dry rot,” said the hunter. “See here, Brother? Just at one end of the roof-tree. So corrupt that it couldn’t hold the weight of the roof in place any longer.”

“A terrible accident,” said Benedictus.

“No accident,” Galen said flatly. “I built this cottage with my own hands. The wood was sound. This much rot, and the frame would not have held the roof in place for an instant.”

“What are you saying?”

“The Fair Folk cannot abide the touch of cold iron, nor can their magic bite upon it. They could not have attacked the iron of the nails that held the frame together. But the wood of the frame itself, that they could corrupt. To cause it to rot, all in an instant, just when my Katherine was standing there in the way.”

Benedictus nodded slowly.

Galen sighed and stood. “Brother, I’m ready to end this now. Will you stand with me?”

“Gladly, my friend.”

Galen cast the scrap of wood aside. He stepped out into the fading light and looked around, as if seeking his enemy. “All right, you damnable creature! Come out and face me. I’m ready to make my first wish.”

The golden-coat hare emerged from behind Galen’s well, where it must have been waiting for just such a pronouncement. It almost wriggled with glee as it hopped across the yard.

“About time,” it said. “You might have avoided so much trouble had you seen reason sooner.”

Galen only spat, missing the hare by inches.

“Rude. So what will your first wish be? Something simple: healing for your wife, game for your bag, forgiveness from your friends? Or will it be more of the usual human greed: gold, land, victory in battle, power over others? So many possibilities. Come now, let’s hear it.”

“You will.” Galen’s fists balled at his sides as he stared at the hare. “I wish for justice.”

The hare ceased to move. Its nose, its whiskers, its ears became absolutely still. Its eyes stopped gleaming with delight and grew dull. It hunched low on its legs, as if hoping to evade notice.

Friar Benedictus breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Oh, well done, Galen.”

Far off in the distance, they heard a sound of trumpets.

Soon, a procession appeared at the brow of the hill behind Galen’s land, moving with speed and grace toward where the hunter and the hare waited. Handsome men in bright-colored tunics and hose, beautiful women in sheer white gowns, all of them seemed to glow from within despite the failing light of the sun. Galen and Friar Benedictus stood spell-bound, watching that fair company as it approached.

The Fair Folk arrived, their voices like chimes and woodwinds, and stopped a few paces off. Their company parted, revealing their leader.

Dwarfish he was, his head not quite coming up to Galen’s heart, but handsome and well-formed as any of his people. His hair was dark as a starless night, his eyes cornflower-blue and shining with merriment. His voice, when he spoke, had the tone of a waldhorn singing alone in the deep forest. “Not long ago as the sunlit lands measure time, I heard rumor of ill-working among my people. I am on my way to Midsummer revels in a faraway land, yet such matters must take precedence. Whom do I see before me?”

The friar stepped forward and bowed. “Lord Alberich, I am Friar Benedictus. This is Galen, a huntsman, who holds himself wronged by one of your subjects.”

The dwarf glanced at Galen for barely a moment, and then his eyes fell on the golden-coat hare. “How now, young Puck? What have you to say to this?”

“I have done this man no wrong,” said the hare with indignation. “Indeed, I have offered him three boons, which he has not the wit to use.”

Friar Benedictus glanced at Galen and felt his eyes widen in surprise. The hunter positively swelled with anger, losing his temper for the first time since anyone could easily recall.

“No wrong?” shouted Galen. “Shall we speak of game scared off, fowl slain, milk soured, grain eaten out of the fields, children stung, elders sickened? Shall we speak of my wife, lying there with a fearsome hurt? Shall we speak of my neighbors turned against me, the Count’s men ready to lay hand on me? And you say I have not been wronged?”

“Have you done all these things, Puck?”

The hare took up a posture of affronted dignity. “Certainly not.”

“They were done at this creature’s bidding,” said Galen.

Alberich looked stern. “Would any these things have come to pass without your will?”

The hare shifted its weight. “Well…no.”

“Then why did you convince others to harm this man, his neighbors, and his wife?”

“Because I owe him three wishes!” The hare looked away. “Two now. You know what I must suffer, with such a debt unpaid.”

“Beware, golden runner in the fields, for I can see to your shivering heart, and I know this to be a lie.” Alberich stepped closer, his face like a thundercloud. “I see no signs of suffering in you at all. Indeed, you seem well-fed, well-groomed, and well-satisfied. Explain this.”

Galen’s eyes narrowed as he watched the hare, a suspicion taking root in his heart.

“I can’t, oh great and terrible lord,” quavered the hare.

“I can,” said Galen.

“Indeed?” said Alberich with surprise. “Please do so.”

“The last time I saw this beast, this Puck, I threw my knife at it. I am a knife-man of no common wit. Where I throw, I strike. Yet, this hare dodged aside in the blink of an eye.”

“Our Puck is no common beast,” said the dwarf.

“Perhaps. But that isn’t all. Before the knife, I had my bow at full draw and had sighted down on the creature. I am an archer of no common wit. Where I shoot, I strike. Yet this hare stood stock-still, as if it had nothing at all to fear.”

“I did have nothing to fear, you fool!” The hare danced from paw to paw in reckless pride.

“Then how is it that you were caught by one of my snares?”

Silence.

“A snare?” asked Alberich in wonder. “Our Puck was caught and held…by a snare?”

“A common snare, made of wood and leather and not an ounce of cold iron,” said Galen. “Yet there it lay, helpless and ready to be slain. Or so it seemed.”

Galen did not expect what came next.

Alberich and all his company laughed.

Galen had heard much laughter in his day, even if he was not normally inclined to join in. Joyful laughter, laughter at a jest, these things he understood. The laughter of the Fair Folk bore nothing of such honest merriment. It spoke instead of inhuman cruelty and spite. It spoke of death, of children starving alone in the forest, of fresh blood bathing a stone under the full moon.

He shivered. May the Lion keep all creatures such as these far away from me. Assuming I live through this night.

He glanced at Benedictus as the laughter died away, seeing the friar’s eyes wide with fear. Then he turned back to the Faerie King.

“You see it now. This creature was never in danger of being caught in my snare. It could have freed itself at any time, by withering the snare as it did my roof-tree. When I freed it, I did nothing it could not have done for itself. It owes me no obligation at all. Every hurt it has done to me and to my neighbors has been an unprovoked crime. Even by your folk’s lights, I think.”

“Indeed,” said Alberich. “My people hold no love for yours, Man, for your greed, your cold iron, and your ravaging of the Earth. But those who cry for justice may not act unjustly in their turn. I deem that to punish you for a harm that never was—well, it is a crime. Puck!”

The golden-coat hare shivered, and then seemed to grow. In the space of two breaths, the hare was gone and a small golden man stood in its place. “I hear, oh terrible King.”

“This is my Doom: you shall wander the Fogwood in the form of a hare, robbed of your voice and your cunning, so that you may learn what it is to be toyed with by greater powers. You shall be left with your swiftness, your fear, and nothing else. So shall it be for a year and a day. If you survive so long, well and done.”

Puck bowed his head. “So be it.”

“You will also hear this Word: never again shall you attempt to force a boon upon any man, neither by force nor by fraud. If you do, be very certain. I will feed you to Shaykosch.”

The golden-skinned man trembled in terror. “I understand.”

“Then go!”

The last of the sun’s light shone on Puck as he returned to his lapine shape. Then, a streak of gold ran through the grass, and he was gone.

“Now, huntsman, justice demands that I make things right.” Alberich peered at Galen, his blue eyes shining with an uncanny light. “What boons would you ask of me to see that done?”

Friar Benedictus gave Galen a warning glance, but the huntsman only gave a grim smile.

“None, my lord, except that all of us harmed by Puck’s malice be made whole.”

“A human with wisdom and lacking in greed,” observed the dwarf. “The Powers Above stand still in amazement at such a sight. So mote it be.”

“Thank you, lord Alberich.”

“Thanks? What need have I of your thanks, Man?”

Galen shrugged. “None, I daresay. But isn’t courtesy always worthwhile?”

“Perhaps.” The dwarf lord smiled.

Alberich turned to his people. “Now then, let us be at our work, so that we may attend our revels on time! Healing to the sick and injured, new beasts brought to those who have lost theirs, wasps tamed and serpents driven aside! Food of the best: meat, cheese, fresh bread and ale, all of a kind good for mortals, for all those who have gone hungry! This cottage rebuilt sounder than before! In every ear, whisper that Galen the huntsman is free of blame, and that the Fair Folk always pay their debts! Be off now, in a twinkling!”

So it was done, and the Fair Folk departed under the first light of the stars. Galen and Katherine invited the friar into their cottage to share of their new bounty.

And did they live happily ever after? Perhaps…but that is another story.

Anna Zumbro

The Pixie Game

Daily Science Fiction

* * *

The rain has stopped shortly before the dismissal bell rings, and the ground is spongy and quivering with worms. Someone taps Gage’s shoulder. He spins around and sees Dasha, her mouth upturned at some private joke.

“We’re playing the pixie game. Want to come?”

It’s the third time someone has talked to him at this school and the first time he’s been invited to do anything. He follows her, half running, to the hedges surrounding the playground.

Iver and Jack are already waiting at the greenest part of the hedge. Gage has never spoken to either of them, but he’s noticed that everyone laughs at Iver’s jokes whether they’re funny or not, that even fifth-graders defer to him in the lunch line.

Iver nods at Dasha and turns to Gage. He grins. “Hey, new kid. You go first.”

“Okay.” Gage approaches the hedge, ready to thrust his hand through the branches on the count of three. “Am I going against you?”

“What? Didn’t you never play before? Show him, Jack.”

Jack puts his face close to the leaves and sticks out his tongue. Gage sees a rustle and a flash of green, then a tiny figure clinging to the tip of Jack’s tongue before it retracts. Jack’s cheeks bulge. His closed mouth forms a crooked line of disgust as his jaw moves up and down. Then he swallows.

“You ate it?” At Gage’s old school, the pixie game meant putting your fingers into the bushes and waiting while the pixies bit and latched on. When you couldn’t take it anymore, you pulled your hand out. If you had more than your opponent, you won. This way wasn’t really a game. It was a dare.

Gage hates the sight of the pixies, with their glassy wings and tiny naked human limbs and horrible red-eyed insect heads. But this is his fifth school, and he knows the price of refusing a dare. He turns his face to the hedge and leans forward.

Even squinting cross-eyed, he can’t see the pixie that bites him. He only feels the tiny fangs pierce his tongue, cold pinpricks like splinters of ice. He gasps and swallows, forgetting to chew. The creature is a lump of limbs and flapping wings in the back of his throat and Gage doubles over, gagging, trying to dislodge it one way or another. It would be okay if he coughed it up. Everyone would at least know he tried.

At last he stands, coughing a few more times to clear his throat.

“Dang, you downed it whole.” Iver slaps him on the arm, and Gage knows he’s in.

* * *

Dad prepares lamb-and-feta gözleme, Gage’s favorite, for the third night in a row. A sharp pain stabs him in the stomach. It must be obvious that his pants are hanging loose, that his dinners have gone uneaten most nights for the past two weeks despite his artful rearrangements of food.

Gage cuts the pastry with the edge of his fork and feels the piercing pain again. He is almost hungry enough to eat, but not quite. Eating only makes it worse.

“Talked to your teacher today.” Dad’s voice is full of cheer, the kind that exists only to mask concern. “He said you seem like you’re adjusting okay. Said you’ve made friends.”

Gage nods. The day after swallowing the pixie, he sat at Iver’s lunch table. Dasha and Jack fought to be his partner in gym class. Every day since he’s enjoyed the kind of respect he only dreamed of at his other schools, yet loneliness grips his hand more tightly than ever. It is strange to be lonely, because now he is never alone, not even for a second.

“You don’t seem happy, though.”

Gage tries to smile. He knows Dad feels guilty about having to move each time he gets a promotion. He opens his mouth to tell his father this is the best school yet when the pixie jabs him again.

The librarian seemed bored when he asked how long pixies could survive in a person’s stomach. The book he checked out held no answers, but one passage haunts him:

Like elephants and wolves, pixies mourn their dead. Gardeners often find pixie skeletons beneath cairns of sticks and leaves.

Dad spears the last piece of gözleme and pops it into his mouth. “So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired.” Gage stands up and the world turns dark as he walks right into the floor.

* * *

“It’s not an unusual game for children his age.” Dr. Anand’s voice swoops between stresses on not and unusual as she motions for Gage’s father to sit down. She places her hand on Gage’s shoulder and squeezes. “Usually it resolves itself. In this case, a simple surgical procedure will set him right.”

She dims the lights to show them the X-ray of Gage’s stomach and points out tiny white marks, identifying them as pixie bones. “And here’s the skull,” she adds, tapping a small white oval. “Gastric acid will have dissolved the rest, but pixie bones are notoriously durable.” She smiles at Gage. “Don’t worry. There’s no chance it’s alive.”

Gage shifts in his seat. The sharp scratching in his stomach grows stronger, but he decides it’s just nerves. He’s never had surgery before.

In the operating room, a new doctor tells him to count backwards from 100. His eyelids grow heavy by 95. When he awakens, still counting, he sees Dad holding a teddy bear.

The pain has dulled to a ghost of its former self, but it is still there, a drumbeat keeping time to his heart.

Dr. Anand enters, holding a bag of tiny bones. “You can relax now. They’re all gone. See?”

“Can I keep them?”

“I suppose.”

Gage reaches out the hand that does not have an intravenous drip. He will return to the green hedge at school and build a tiny cairn of sticks and leaves. He hopes it will be enough.

The Cur of County Road Six

Grievous Angel

* * *

In the country nobody ties up their dog. Lots of the dogs don’t belong to nobody, neither. So when you and your kid brother are walking to school ‘cause you missed the bus again and your dad thinks freezing your bums off will teach you responsibility, well, you gotta watch out.

Most strays are simple. They might look scary with their ribs near breaking through their skin, but they got the fight-or-flight instinct of any other creature. So when some mutt starts growling, you don’t panic. You just whip out the sides of your coat real quick and start barking, and tell Billy to do the same. His bark’s all yappy like a chihuahua, but it don’t matter none. The strays turn tail every time. Except one.

Uncle Ray said the Cur was the Devil’s own pet, kicked outta Hell when he couldn’t be trained. “Still loves his old master, though. Fetches him souls whenever he can. Hopes to win himself back, poor beast.” Dad laughed and asked Ray if he wasn’t talking about himself, fixing his ex-girlfriend’s car for free. You laughed too. It never crossed your mind that the Cur might be anything more than a story.

Now, though, faced with the first dog that don’t back down at your coat-cape, you’re not so sure. You try to bark at this one, but the sound catches in your throat, like the dog’s keeping it there with those burning green eyes. His dark gray fur makes you think of ashes. He even smells like smoke.

Billy just keeps on yapping until the dog barks back. One bark, deep and rough, and it’s all your brother needs. He lights off running, kicking up gravel behind him. The dog gives chase, but he’s aiming for the closer meat. You.

It takes everything you got to to catch up to Billy, and by the time you do, you can feel the beast’s hot breath slicing through your jacket. Your sides throb. You can’t go on, but the Cur don’t slow none. Then your leg juts out to the side, catching Billy’s shin, and down he goes.

He howls. It’s a weak sound like his puppy barks, one that don’t reach the neighbors. But it’s awful, that scream. Not the noise, but the way it stops. Sudden. And you know. The silence cuts you sharp as teeth.

When you finally look, the Cur is gone. Only Billy remains, lying still, his neck all torn and crimson and his eyes open to the clouds.

Everyone says it wasn’t your fault. Sometimes you can almost make yourself believe your leg kicked out by accident. But you know what you done, and you know where you’re going. They don’t call the Cur a hellhound for nothing.

1

bayraktar—standard-bearer (Turkish) (translators' note).

2

The old Turkish name for the Bulgarian town of Stara Zagora (translators' note).

3

Armenian version of the author’s name (Ivan Popov) (translators' note).

4

Bold text is striked out.

5

"Pearl" is also slang for a locally produced hallucinogenic that is sometimes used in meditation. Despite the name, the connection with either natural or android nacre has not been confirmed, largely due to lack of research.

6

APC: Android Production Committee.

7

These are commonly referred to as Androids, as this has been the popular term for many decades—however the universal applicability of the term has been questioned on various grounds. Still, other proposed terms, such as Gynoid and Cyborg, although more accurate in certain cases, are no longer in widespread use.

Content

Huang SL, et al Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

Preface

Charlotte Ashley

La Héron

Sigrid Under the Mountain

John Ayliff

Belt Three

Lucas Bale

To Sing of Chaos and Eternal Night

Nicolette Barischoff

Pirate Songs

Follow Me Down

In the Woods Behind My House

Sofie Bird

A' is for Alacrity, Astronauts and Grief

Derrick Boden

Clay Soldiers

The Last Mardi Gras

Stefan Bolz

The Traveler

1

2

3

4

5

David Bruns

The Water Finder’s Shadow

I, Caroline

Martin Cahill

It Was Never The Fire

Vanilla

Aaron Canton

Dining Out

A Most Unusual Patriot

D.K. Cassidy

Room 42

Zach Chapman

Between Screens

Curtis C. Chen

Zugzwang

Making Waves

Laddie Come Home

ZZ Claybourne

Agents of Change

Liz Colter

The Ties That Bind, The Chains That Break

Echoes

The Clouds in Her Eyes

Nik Constantine

Last Transaction

Daniel J Davis

The God Whisperer

S.B. Divya

Strange Attractors

The Egg

Ships in the Night

Margaret Dunlap

Jane

Broken Glass

Bookburners, Episode 5: The Market Arcanum

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Coda.

S. K. Dunstall

LINESMAN

Chapter One

Jonathan Edelstein

First Do No Harm

Harlow C. Fallon

A Long Horizon

Rafaela F. Ferraz

The Lady of the House of Mirrors

Sam Fleming

She Gave her Heart, He Took Her Marrow

Annalee Flower Horne

Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From The Trade Summit Incident

Ron S. Friedman

Game Not Over

LUCA

David Jón Fuller

The Harsh Light of Morning

Caged

In Open Air

Sarah Gailey

Bargain

Haunted

Patricia Gilliam

The Backup

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * February 5th, 2079

Abbot-Mathis Industries * Chicago * Thirty-Four Years Later

BlueHealth Hospital * Raleigh * February 5th, 2079

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * Thirty-Four Years later

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * February 6th, 2079

IBI Field Office * Chicago * Thirty-Four Years Later

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

McFerrin Residence * February 5th, 2084

O’Hare International Airport *Chicago * Twenty-Nine Years Later

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

Raleigh-Durham International Airport

Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina

Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * March 2114

Downtown Chicago

Jaymee Goh

Liminal Grid

Elad Haber

Number One Hit

Auston Habershaw

Adaptation and Predation

A Revolutionary’s Guide to Practical Conjuration

Philip Brian Hall

Spatchcock

The Waiting Room

The Man on the Church Street Omnibus

John Gregory Hancock

The Antares Cigar Shoppe

Nin Harris

Sang Rimau and the Medicine Woman

Prologue

– 1 –

– 2 –

– 3 –

– 4 –

Your Right Arm

C.A. Hawksmoor

Y Brenin

Murder on the Laplacian Express

Sean Patrick Hazlett

Boomer Hunter

Entropic Order

Chandler’s Hollow

Holly Heisey

The Monastery of the Parallels

An Understanding

Contents of Care Package to Etsath-tachri, Formerly Ryan Andrew Curran (Human English Translated to Sedrayin)

Michael Patrick Hicks

Revolver

Preservation

SL Huang

Hunting Monsters

By Degrees and Dilatory Time

Zero Sum Game

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Kurt Hunt

Paolo, Friend Paolo

QSFT7mk2.7853 Has a Name

Tigerskin

L.S. Johnson

Vacui Magia

I. The First Principle

II. The Second Principle

III. A Note on the Nature of Human Bones

IV. The Third Principle

V. A Note on the Third Principle

VI. Making The Golem

VII. The Fourth Principle

VIII. A Note on Clothing

IX. On Certainty

X. The Fifth Principle

XI. Unmaking

XII.

Little Men with Knives

Cameron Johnston

The Economist & The Dragon

Head Games

The Shadow Under Scotland

Rachael K. Jones

Makeisha In Time

Who Binds and Looses the World With Her Hands

1. Stranger

2. Selene

3. Spinning

4. Sorcery

5. Secrets

6. Speech

7. Solitary

8. Storms

9. Separation

10. Signs

11. Silence

12. Siren

Charlotte Incorporated

Jason Kimble

Broken

Hide Behind

Paul B. Kohler

Rememorations

The Soul Collector

Jeanne Kramer-Smyth

Unsealed

View from Above

Jamie Gilman Kress

And Now, Fill Her In

Jason LaPier

Unexpected Rain

CHAPTER 9

Fonda Lee

Zeroboxer

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

Universal Print

S Lynn

Ffydd (Faith)

Jack Hollis Marr

into the waters I rode down

Arkady Martine

City of Salt

When The Fall Is All That’s Left

Adjuva

Kim May

Blood Moon Carnival

The Void around the Sword’s Edge

Alison McBain

Grandmother Winter

The Lost Children

The Heart of Yuki-onna

Rati Mehrotra

Charaid Dreams

Ghosts of Englehart

Lia Swope Mitchell

Slow

Allison Mulder

Decay

Ian Muneshwar

Ossuary

Brian Niemeier

Strange Matter

Nethereal

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Wendy Nikel

Rain Like Diamonds

The Tea-Space Continuum

The Book of Futures

George Nikolopoulos

A Rise to the Surface

Razor Bill Vs Pistol Anne

Megan E. O’Keefe

Of Blood and Brine

Steal the Sky

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Malka Older

Tear Tracks

Emma Osborne

The Box Wife

Zip

Clean Hands, Dirty Hands

Chris Ovenden

Upgrade

Peace for our Times

Behind Grey Eyes

Steve Pantazis

Switch

Carrie Patel

Here Be Monsters

The Color of Regret

The Buried Life

Prologue

Chapter 1 The Inspector and the Laundress

Chapter 2 The Subtle Art of Eavesdropping

Sunil Patel

The Merger

The Robot Who Couldn’t Lie

The Attic of Memories

Laura Pearlman

I am Graalnak of the Vroon Empire, Destroyer of Galaxies, Supreme Overlord of the Planet Earth. Ask Me Anything.

A Dozen Frogs, a Bakery, and a Thing That Didn’t Happen

In the End, You Get Clarity

Samuel Peralta

Hereafter

September 15, 2006

September 17, 2007

September 19, 2009

September 21, 2012

September 23, 2017

The Time Traveller’s Sonnet

September 25, 2025

September 27, 2038

September 29, 2059

Humanity

‘I heard a woman screaming’ recounts witness of Interstate 94 pileup

‘The semi slammed into the vehicle’

Up to 25 vehicles involved in pileup

Severe weather conditions hamper rescue

Interstate reopened

Andrea Phillips

In Loco Parentis

Revision

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Mark Robert Philps

Dragonfire is Brighter than the Ten Thousand Stars

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Monica Enderle Pierce

Judgment

Ivan Popov

The Keresztury TVirs

Bill Powell

The Punctuality Machine, Or, A Steampunk Libretto

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

Stephen S. Power

Stripped to Zero

Wire Paladin

Automatic Sky

Rhiannon Rasmussen

The Hymn of Ordeal, No. 23

Charge! Love Heart!

How to Survive the Apocalypse

Chris Reher

The Kasant Objective

Ethan Reid

THE UNDYING: SHADES

YEAR FOUR GRANADA, SPAIN

WEEKS LATER

HIGHWAY A376

PART ONE THE WITCH

CHAPTER ONE Year Thirteen

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

Kelly Robson

Waters of Versailles

-1-

-2-

-3-

-4-

-5-

-6-

-7-

-8-

-9-

The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill

September 9, 2001

September 8, 2001

September 10, 2001

September 11, 2001

Two-Year Man

Andy Rogers

The Doom Of Sallee

Brothers In Arms

Lauren M. Roy

The Eleventh Hour

Steve Ruskin

Grand Tour

KB Rylander

We Fly

Hope Erica Schultz

Mr. Reilly’s Tattoo

The Princess in the Basement

Effie Seiberg

Re: Little Miss Apocalypse Playset

Rocket Surgery

Thundergod in Therapy

Tahmeed Shafiq

The Djinn Who Sought To Kill The Sun

Iona Sharma

Archana and Chandni

Alnwick

Anthea Sharp

Ice in D Minor

The Sun Never Sets

Fae Horse

Elsa Sjunneson-Henry

Edge of The Unknown

Daniel Arthur Smith

The Diatomic Quantum Flop

Tower

Hugh Howey Lives

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

Lesley Smith

The Soulless: A History of Zombieism in Chiitai and Mihari Culture

William Squirrell

Götterdämmerung

Fighting in the Streets of the City of Time

I am Problem Solving Astronaut: How to Write Hard SF

Dan Stout

Outpatient

The Curious Case of Alpha-7 DE11

Naru Dames Sundar

A Revolution In Four Courses

First Course

Second Course

Third Course

Intermezzo

Fourth Course

Infinite Skeins

Broken Winged Love

Will Swardstrom

Uncle Allen

The Control

Jeremy Szal

Daega’s Test

Last Age of Kings

Skingame

Lauren C. Teffeau

Forge and Fledge

Jump Cut

Natalia Theodoridou

The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul

On Post-Mortem Birds

Android Whores Can’t Cry

False start #1

Nacre: Formation and Function

Fieldnotes #1

Nacre: Human Use

False Start #2

The First Death Meditation

Interview with X,

Fieldnotes #2

Some notes on the translation of Massacre Market

Fieldnotes #3

The Second Death Meditation

Fieldnotes #4

My trip

False Endings

Joseph Tomaras

Bonfires in Anacostia

1. The Table

2. The Duck

3. The Car

4. The Kid

5. The Wake

6. The Bridge

Thirty-Eight Observations on the Nature of the Self

The Joy of Sects

Vincent Trigili

The Storymaster

P.K. Tyler

Moon Dust

Avendui 5ive

Two Weeks Ago

6 Years Ago

3 Years Ago

Now

Tamara Vardomskaya

The Metamorphoses of Narcissus

Acrobatic Duality

1. BALANCE

2. DYNAMIC

3. COMBINED

Leo Vladimirsky

Collar

Dandelion

Nancy SM Waldman

ReMemories

And Always, Murder

Sound of Chartreuse

Thomas M. Waldroon

Sinseerly A Friend & Yr. Obed’t

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

X.

(XI.

Jo Lindsay Walton

It’s OK To Say If You Went Back In Time And Killed Baby Hitler

Kim Wells

The Book of Safkhet: Chronicler of the Journey, Mistress of the House of Books

Revelations

The Book of Jude

The Letters of John

Acts

Exodus

Genesis

World News Time-Gazette

Alison Wilgus

King Tide

Noise Pollution

Nicolas Wilson

Trials

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Multiply

Alyssa Wong

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers

The Fisher Queen

Santos de Sampaguitas

Eleanor R. Wood

Fibonacci

Pawprints in the Aeolian Dust

Daddy’s Girl

Frank Wu

Season of the Ants in a Timeless Land

I. JOSHUA

II. JACOB

III. PHARAOH

Jeff Xilon

H

All of Our Days

JY Yang

A House Of Anxious Spiders

Temporary Saints

Song Of The Krakenmaid

Isabel Yap

Milagroso

The Oiran’s Song

Good Girls

Jo Zebedee

Inish Carraig

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jon F. Zeigler

Galen and the Golden-Coat Hare

Anna Zumbro

The Pixie Game

The Cur of County Road Six

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