Josh Roseman

THE CLOCKWORK RUSSIAN

AND OTHER STORIES

Stories

“27 Jennifers”

Jennifer Two

For twenty years I had no one to talk to except the computer, and the robots, and myself. The computer had no personality, the robots were mindless little drones, and I wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

Then she showed up.

I must have been asleep when it happened — the sky never got lighter or darker here, just the same starlit twilight — so I’d taken to going to bed and waking up when I felt like it.

I didn’t feel like waking up only four hours after telling the computer to darken the windows and dim the lights. I needed a good nine hours of sleep to be functional these days. But I felt her, and she jolted me out of a dream that melted away instantly.

“Computer, interrogative: who’s there?”

The androgynous voice, which had resisted two decades of me trying to reprogram it into something a little more pleasant, said, “there is another human present on the island.”

I practically jumped out of bed and pulled on yesterday’s clothes; they were still in a heap on the floor. The computer lit the way for me as I pelted through the house, snatched up my handheld, and left the small, domed building behind. I turned to the port — the only entrance to the island, so it only made sense that, whoever the human was, she had to be there.

“Computer,” I said as I slowed to a lope — I wasn’t as young as I’d been when Michael dumped me here, and try as I might to stay in shape, two blocks at a flat-out run was about my limit, “interrogative: who’s the human?”

“The human is a female, twenty-four standard years of age,” it said through my handheld. “She is in excellent physical health. No other information is available.”

“Wonderful.”

“Null input.”

I heard a lot of that. I hadn’t at first, but I’d stopped caring about the proper way to talk to computers. I had been a doctor once, but now I was just a lonely, middle-aged woman, living in what amounted to solitary confinement on an abandoned, human-made island city.

I rounded the last corner and nearly ran the woman down. As it was, I had to jump to the side, catching myself a good scrape along my left hand as I dragged it on the plascrete wall in an attempt to slow down.

“Where exactly am I?” Her voice was suspicious. Familiar, too. “And who the hell are you?”

I took a good look at her. She was my height, slender, with dark hair in what they used to call a pageboy. But it was the eyes that caught me.

“Who are you?” she said again.

I tried to shake some of the pain out of my hand. “My name,” I said, “is Jennifer.”

Now she looked critically. I watched as she measured me, bright blue eyes flicking up and down. “My name’s Jennifer Davalos,” she said, even more suspicious now. “Where the hell am I?”

Even under normal circumstances I didn’t care for the deserted streets. “Come with me. We can talk at my house.”

She didn’t follow, and when I didn’t hear her shoes on the plascrete pavement, I turned back. “What is it?”

“Your scar.” She’d gone pale. “The one on your left arm.”

It had happened so long ago I’d nearly forgotten it; fifteen years old, low-gravity fencing, a high arc jump, but my opponent was too fast and her sword had whipped along the back of my left arm. If I’d worn a jacket or even a longer shirt, Jennifer would never have seen it. The new Jennifer, that is. The other Jennifer.

The other Jennifer who was showing me the back of her left arm.

The other Jennifer who had an identical scar.

The other Jennifer who was me.

* * * *

Jennie Four

Jennifer — Jennifer Two, we’d decided after a couple of days — had been the first to join me, but she wasn’t the last. There were ten of us now — five Jennifers, one Jenn, and four Jennies, the most recent of whom showed up just yesterday. Jennifer Two and I had had the place to ourselves for two years before Jennifer Three; the first two Jennies arrived only six months after Jennifer Three, and within days of each other.

By now we’d figured out what was happening.

The story was the same for Jennie Four as it had been for Jenn One three weeks previously: her husband had gotten upset about something and stormed off to his lab. Jennie, or Jenn, or Jennifer; whoever it was went to sleep alone and angry in her bed on the science station that hung in orbit, but woke up on the plascrete ground at the port.

Days on Ongkanon VI were thirty standard hours long. Once there were five of us, we started sleeping in shifts, trying to catch the next arrival and figure out exactly how we’d gotten here, but it was as if our brains just stopped. Well, everyone’s except mine. I was always well and truly asleep when one of them arrived.

And Jennie Four arrived furious, snarling, pacing my living room, glaring at the four of us — myself, Jennifer Two, Jenn One, and Jennie One; as the first of each name, we decided it made sense for one of each to be here, and Jennifer Two I insisted upon including because she’d been my first companion. “That ungrateful bastard!”

“I know,” said Jenn One. “We all know.”

“How did… what did he do? How come… I mean…” She stared at us, getting a good look for the first time, and had to sit down. But she was back on her feet again in an instant. “You… and you, and you, you’re…” She took a deep breath. “You’re me!”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Yes, we’re all Jennifer Davalos, and if you ask the computer in the medical center to scan us, our DNA will be the same, but we’re not the same person. Not anymore.”

“And why are you so much older?” she asked, just as suspicious as Jennifer Two had been.

I shrugged. “I think we’re clones. That is, you’re clones of me. I was the first Jennifer Davalos. From what we can tell, you’re the tenth.”

She sniffed. “I go by Jennie,” she said. “Michael hated it, but he had this look in his eye that made me want to fight him on it.”

“You’re one of mine, then,” said Jennie One. She’d let her hair grow out; my hair — our hair, I supposed — tended to get wavy if I let it go without a cut for too long.

“What do you mean, one of yours?”

Jennie One got to her feet. “I’m Jennie. The first Jennie, that is.”

Jennie Four gave her the same once-over every new arrival had given those of us already here, all the way back to Jennifer Two. “What if I want to be in her group?” she asked, pointing to Jenn One.

“It’s not like that,” I said. “We just thought it would be easier—”

“The hell with that. I’m not going to be a part of this!”

The four of us let her storm out. Jennie One gave me an apologetic look. “Was I really that bad?”

“You got over it.”

* * * *

Jenn Two

Jennifer Two was shaking my shoulder. “Wake up, One,” she was saying softly. It had been our little joke for our three years alone together — I was One, she was Two. Now that there were twenty-one of us, the humor was gone, but old habits died hard. “Come on, One. You have to get up!”

I blinked sleep out of my eyes. “What is it?”

“It’s Jenn Two. She’s here!”

Now I was awake. For the past six years, there’d only been one Jenn — we were up to twelve Jennifers and seven Jennies, but only one Jenn, and Jenn One had been wondering when there would be another of her.

I got dressed and followed Two — still slender as the day she’d arrived, still with the same pageboy-cut dark hair, still sticking with me even though I was twenty years older than her and looked it — out to the street. We met up with Jennie One and rounded the corner to the port, moving quickly.

My hand went to my mouth and I distinctly heard myself gasp. Jenn One had been on greeter duty for the week, even though no one new had arrived for four standard months. Now Jenn One had a black eye, nearly swollen shut, and was bleeding from her mouth. Jenn Two had her in a choke hold, and when she saw the three of us, she tightened her arm. “What the hell is this?” she screamed. “Where am I?”

I was frozen. Powerless. I hadn’t seen violence like this since…

…oh. Of course. Since Jenn One. But Jennie One had knocked her on her ass with one good roundhouse kick — most of the Jennies were athletic, and Jennie One in particular; she ran the exercise classes we all forced ourselves to attend. When Jenn One had come to in the medical center — restrained at first — we’d made her see reason.

But that had been years ago. Jenn One had calmed down, channeled her anger, and was the source of most of the new artwork in the house I shared with Two. I hoped that Jenn Two would someday find a healthy outlet.

First, though, we had to keep her from hurting Jenn One anymore.

“Jenn,” Two said, stepping forward, “please. Let her go.”

“No!” As Two got closer, Jenn Two backed up until her shoulders were against the port itself. I could see Jenn One’s face getting redder, but she trusted us. She trusted us to save her.

“Jenn, please,” Two repeated. “You’re hurting her!”

“Who is she?” Jenn Two’s eyes darted around, and when she saw the rest of the Jennies moving to flank her position, she yanked Jenn One’s arm up and behind her back. Jenn One couldn’t stop the cry of pain.

“Put her down, Jenn,” Two said. “Put her down and we’ll talk. We’ll explain everything, I promise, but stop hurting her.”

“Explain now!” Jenn Two twisted and Jenn One howled.

And that was that. The Jennies moved in and, although I saw Jenn One’s face go white as Jenn Two dislocated her shoulder, that was the worst of it. Jennie Six pressed an injector to Jenn Two’s neck and she went limp.

Jennie Four and Jennie Seven carried the mercifully-unconscious body of Jenn One to the medical center, and Jennifer Nine set her shoulder and fixed her eye. Jennifer Four restrained Jenn Two, but Jennie Two and Four remained on either side of the newcomer’s bed.

I nodded — as the first and oldest, I was the unspoken leader, though we didn’t need much leading, when it came right down to it — and Jennifer Four brought Jenn Two around.

When Jenn Two saw all of us glaring down at her, she stopped struggling. It was Jennie One who did the talking.

And Jenn Two, just like with her predecessor, listened.

* * * *

Jennifer Sixteen

We learned from Jenn Two. Seven more Jenns showed up over the next year, along with four Jennifers and an eighth Jennie. Four Jennies were always called in when someone new arrived, and although Two nearly got her leg broken when Jenn Five came to the island, for the most part things were uneventful.

What worried Two and the other Ones was the frequency they were arriving. Michael seemed to be more and more touchy; Jennifer Sixteen was in tears as she sat on my couch, Two’s arm around her. “It was horrible!” she said, wiping her eyes with a piece of tissue. “Ever since we arrived, Michael’s been on edge. It’s like his experiments are all going wrong and he can’t figure it out and he t-takes it… he…”

She broke down and Two cradled her in her arms. Jennie inclined her head toward the kitchen doorway; Two nodded, and the other two Ones and I left the living room. I told the computer to close the kitchen door; I don’t think Jennifer Sixteen noticed.

“It’s getting worse,” Jennie said. She was the decision maker among the four of us these days. “Remember what Jenn Eight told us.”

I nodded, more to myself than to the others. Michael had backhanded her in a fit of frustration; she’d hit him back, and that had been the end of her. That had been three weeks ago, and Jennifer Three was still counseling her, trying to convince her that it wasn’t her fault.

“So what do we do?” asked Jenn.

“We can’t leave,” Jennie said. “We’ve tried. All of us — the Jennies — and I know both of you have had your people try too.”

“What about the port?” I asked. “Can we break through?”

“To what?” Jennie asked, almost snarling, though she shook her head and murmured an apology a second later. I could see this was bothering her more than any of us. “There’s nothing out there but argon air and acid seas. We’re only here because Michael thinks he can remake this hellhole into something more people can live on.”

“It’s been almost ten years. There’s thirty-three of us now.” Jenn drummed her fingers on my kitchen island; I noticed that she was painting her nails pale-pink again, and letting them grow long enough to click on the decorative blue-and-white tiles. “We create.” She obviously meant herself and the other Jenns. “Maybe we can create something to get us back to Michael.”

“But to where, exactly?” I hated being the devil’s advocate, but someone had to be, and Jennie had that gleam in her eye that said she was about to start organizing things. “It’s a huge planet. This was the only settlement. We can cross the sea, find another landmass, but what would be the point? We know Michael’s still in orbit.” His work was done from a geosynchronous satellite, and each time a new arrival showed up, she confirmed that he was still up there. “Can you build a liftship?” I asked, and Jenn shook her head.

“We can’t just sit here and let him keep making more of us!” Jennie’s fingers were on the edge of the island, gripping tightly, the skin almost white at the tips. “We have to do something!”

The kitchen door opened. Two stood behind Jennifer Sixteen, whose eyes were swollen and red, nose still running a bit. “I’m ready,” she said, her voice hoarse and thick. “I think.”

I was closest. I opened my arms and let Jennifer Sixteen hug me. I kissed her forehead and smiled. “Welcome to the island.”

She smiled back, ever so slightly. It was enough, for now.

* * * *

Jennie Ten

Another twelve showed up in what was, I realized one day, my thirtieth year of exile. They all came within days — a week at the outside between each — until forty-five of us populated the small island settlement. There was plenty of room, enough houses for each of us to have our own, even though the Jennies had commandeered one large home and lived together in it. There were nine of them now, plus fourteen Jenns and twenty-two Jennifers — I found it helped if I didn’t think of them as me.

None of the Jenns could come up with anything on the island — or create anything in the fabricator — that we could use to build a liftship. The Jennies wanted to find a way to take over the liftship that brought the others to us, but we had no idea why everyone just shut down when it arrived.

Then Jennie Ten came.

I went to visit her in the medical center. Jennifers Three and Nine were standing near her, monitoring her brain; Jenn One was sitting at her bedside, holding her hand, explaining where she was and what was going on. She told Jennie Ten she’d be right back and, while Jennifer Three took over hand-holding duty, Jenn and I went to the small office Jennifer Nine had been using since she’d taken over as head of the medical center. I took the guest chair; Jenn hitched her hip up onto the desk. “She’s a blank,” she told me. “Nothing in there. Just her name: Jennie.”

“Nothing at all?”

Jenn shook her head. “Doesn’t know her last name, where she’s from, even why she’s got that scar.”

“Did Michael—”

“It doesn’t look like he did anything physical,” Jenn said. “But it was definitely intentional.”

“How so?” I didn’t know a whole lot about cloning, and I had to think about what was the right question to ask. “Is it the imprint? I mean, my mind? Did something go wrong?”

“I don’t think so.” Jenn looked at the wall screen. “Computer, declarative: display brain scans of patient currently in main exam chamber.” The screen lit up. “Display brain scans of patients Jennifer Fifteen, Jennie Nine, and Jenn Three. Comparative view.” I watched as the scans appeared. “Discontinue command interface.” A beep told us that the computer was no longer listening.

“What am I looking at, Jenn?”

Jenn slid off the desk and pointed at Jennie Ten’s scan. “I’m not a scientist anymore, not like Jennifer Nine, but from what she told me, parts of the imprint were blocked through what she calls primitive methods.”

“Primitive?”

Jenn’s finger traced dark spots on Jennie Ten’s scan, then indicated the same areas on the other three. “Blocks,” she said. “Jennifer Nine believes something went wrong right after the imprint — if you look at the size of the blue area, compared to the others, Jennie Ten hasn’t had very much time to form new memories. Almost everything that was in there was from your original imprint.”

I cursed softly, under my breath. “Michael so insisted on the damned imprint. I wish I’d resisted.”

“If you had,” Jenn said, smiling, “would you and Two be celebrating ten years together?”

“Probably not.” The thought of Two never having existed hurt more than I’d thought; I’d loved Michael once, but now there was no room for anyone in my heart except Two. And my… what were they, anyway? Sisters? Daughters? Except for Two, who was my lover — and Jenn One, who had become my confidant and closest friend — they were just copies of me. Or, at least, I tried to think of them that way; it was easier than thinking about how many times Michael had replaced me.

I sighed. “Can Jennifer Nine do anything?”

“Jennifer Three’s going to try hypnotherapy first, but if not, Jennifer Nine thinks there’s enough in the computers to guide her through imprinting a newly-grown clone.”

“But Jennie Ten’s not newly-grown.”

Jenn shrugged. “Jennifer Nine thinks she’s only been out of the tank for a day. Two at the most. She can clear Jennie Ten’s mind altogether with drugs and electrotherapy, then re-imprint her.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That sounds like an awful lot of maybes.”

“It is.” Jenn looked up again. “Computer, declarative: clear wall screen.” It went dark. “Discontinue command interface.” Then she waved toward the door. “Jennifer Nine wants the four of us to talk about it, and put it to a vote. We can rehabilitate Jennie Ten as she is, but if this doesn’t work…”

“If it doesn’t work,” I said, following Jenn into the corridor, “then we’ve basically killed her.”

* * * *

Jennifer Twenty-Seven

Jennie Ten had been the key, and it had taken two months, with four more Jennifers and two more Jenns showing up in the meantime, to prepare.

“Remember,” Jennifer Nine said, leaning down over my bed in the medical center, “you won’t be able to move. If the sedative wears off, try not to panic. It shouldn’t, but just in case.”

“That’s reassuring.” My hands clenched into fists, and I forced them to open. I had to relax. If I was too keyed-up — if there was too much alpha-wave activity coming from my brain — then whoever was controlling the liftship would know I was awake and might turn back.

That was how Michael did it: each clone was imprinted with sensitivity to a certain range of sound that put her into a catatonic state until it was shut off. Only I was immune, so I had to be awake to start our countermeasures. Every one of the others had a program on her handheld that emitted a canceling sound, but I had to start it, and when the disabling sound stopped, I would have to shut off the countermeasures — the sound coming from the handhelds would make the others’ ears start to bleed and, shortly thereafter, their imprints would start to scramble. Without both sounds working in concert, the others wouldn’t survive.

Jennie Four had been our volunteer during that phase of the testing. Her body was in a stasis drawer in the morgue. The only one of us in thirty years to die.

Michael would pay for that. For exiling us, and for killing… well, when it came right down to it, for killing me. He’d nearly killed Jennie Ten as well, but he didn’t have it in him to do that kind of violence. He’d just blanked her and shipped her down to the island after that first night.

Jennie Ten had told us about it the moment she’d woken up from surgery. She hadn’t been able to sleep that first night after Michael had had his way with her — and oh how I remembered our first night on the station and how good the sex had been — had gone to the medical bay for a sedative, had seen a robot cleaning the cloning room, and then her natural inquisitiveness — my natural inquisitiveness, I supposed — had taken over. Michael had caught her, but not before she’d learned the truth: she was the forty-fifth version of me that Michael had grown in the past ten years.

“Jennifer?” Except for Two, they all called me Jennifer. Just Jennifer. A sign of respect, I supposed, acknowledging that I was the first. “Are you ready?”

“Ready or not,” I said, “here I go.”

We were gambling, and I knew it. I could remain under for five days; one of the clones held a dead-woman’s switch, keyed to her brainwaves, and if she went catatonic, I would be brought back. But it was our best chance. Jennifer Nine smoothed my hair back from my forehead and, still smiling my most tender smile, pressed the injector to my neck…

…and I was awake. The clock one of the Jennifers had mounted to the ceiling told me that two days had passed. I remembered my instructions and took three deep, slow breaths, then sat up.

Jennifer Twenty-One was sitting beside my bed, eyes open and unfocused. I reached down and cupped her cheek, but she was catatonic, just as we knew she would be.

As they all undoubtedly were.

All I had to do was tell my handheld to activate countermeasures and they’d all wake up, but one thing we couldn’t know in advance was how much time we had between the catatonic state and the arrival of the next clone. Jenn One had suggested a four-hour window; one of my REM cycles was four-and-a-half, which would give them — whoever they were; we still didn’t know — enough time to drop off whoever had displeased Michael and get away before I woke up.

I left the medical center and walked briskly along the streets. I passed the fabrication center that, after the automation had failed, Jennifers Five and Twenty had been maintaining tirelessly to ensure we had food and raw materials. I passed the garden plot tended by the robots left behind when the island settlement had been evacuated fifty years ago. I passed the houses of my friends.

I passed my friends, standing in the street, unmoving, captured like the finest statues, and fought the urge to wake them early. I felt lonely even as I passed Jenns, Jennifers, and Jennies, and I hadn’t been lonely in ten years.

Finally the port came into view. I sat on the ground, just out of sight, and told the computer, via my handheld, to display the feed from the camera we’d set up back when it was just Two and me.

It took an hour before anything happened. I saw the liftship slowly glide into position, its thrusters glowing white-hot, the acid sea burning red below them. It backed up, closer and closer, but I waited. We’d planned this. The Jennies had planned this. The Jennies, and the Jenns and the Jennifers; every single one of us working together to escape.

The ground vibrated slightly. The port began to cycle.

“Computer, declarative,” I said. “Activate countermeasures.”

Everyone woke up in an instant. I couldn’t hear either the countermeasure or the signal, but I knew it was working. I could hear them all converging on the port. I got to my feet and joined Two as she passed, pulling her into a quick, fierce kiss before catching up with Jenn Eight and Jennifers Fifteen and Sixteen.

The port opened and an anti-gravity pallet floated out, piloted by a large, blocky robot. Someone was on it, asleep or unconscious, and as the Jennies advanced, it lowered her to the ground, far more gently than I’d expected.

I also hadn’t expected Michael’s voice to boom out of the robot’s mouth-speaker. “Step back!”

“No chance!” shouted Jennie One, who was at the vanguard. “Let us onto the ship, let us get off this planet and let us move on with our lives, or we’ll take the ship by force and do it anyway!”

“No.” Michael’s voice sounded sad. Sad, and something else. Something that made me pull Two against the plascrete wall of what had once been a sundry shop, back when this had been more than just a home for exiled versions of myself. I whispered to my handheld the command to open the door; Two followed me inside, looking confused.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Something’s not right,” I said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but something—” I heard Jennie call out the order to charge the ship, and then the horrifying sound of blasters.

“Oh, no,” Two whispered.

I stepped around her and stared out the window.

The robot was firing bright beams of light at the advancing women — at my sisters, my daughters, my friends — and they were being cut down where they stood. Some turned and ran, and a few managed to get out of the way, but I couldn’t keep count. I couldn’t watch. I turned to Two and we collapsed to the floor together. I held Two, and she held me, and we waited for it to end.

* * * *

And Then There Was Her

Two was still as beautiful as ever — maybe she wasn’t as young as when my husband and I had come to Ongkanon VI, but she was still slender and her hair was as dark as her eyes were bright. I was sixty-four; ten years had passed since the massacre. All that remained, including me, were eight Jennifers, three Jenns, and one Jennie. No one new had arrived in all that time, and Jenn Two guessed it was because he’d finally gotten one of us to be the perfect woman for him.

I didn’t care. Not anymore. My dear, darling Jenn One was gone; her screams had been clear to me above all the others. Maybe we were all the same on some level, but Jenn One had been different, had been my best friend, and I missed her more than any of the other forty-one who’d died that day. Jenn Two was… well, she wasn’t Jenn One, and I still got a pain in my chest and a lump in my throat when I thought of her.

I was in the garden with Two — I’d banished the robots years ago — when I felt the gentle vibration of the ground that told me the liftship was back. We’d agreed, those of us who’d survived, that if it ever came back, we’d get the hell away from the port. I hoped the others remembered.

I met Two’s eyes and held out my hand; she took it and squeezed gently. “It’ll be okay, One. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Two — my lovely, loving Two — had become so much stronger. She was our leader now; I was just an old woman who lived in a colony of clones, exiled for some imagined slight.

We knelt in the dirt and waited until the liftship uncoupled.

And then we heard the voice.

“It’s not me,” I said. “It’s not me, Two.”

“I know.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Let’s go see who it is.”

Jennie Four was already there, talking to the newcomer. I pushed my way past the others, Two by my side. “Who are you?”

The woman was shorter than us, with flowing blond hair and pale green eyes and curves almost voluptuous enough to be called exaggerated. She gave me a nervous smile. “My name’s Mary,” she said. “Mary Davalos.” She looked from Two to Jennie Four, then at the others, clustered farther back. “I don’t mean to be rude, but where exactly am I?”

* * * *

About the Story

“27 Jennifers” is my first published piece. It was the winner of the inaugural Broken Mirror Story Contest, presented by The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. They originally published it in audio form, as performed by Dani Cutler of the Truth Seekers Podcast. The prompt, “someone comes to town and discovers that everyone there is exactly the same”, confounded me for about two weeks, until I was driving home from work and heard Mike Doughty’s song “27 Jennifers”. The story unfolded in my brain and I wrote it in about three days.

What I love about the story is how the clones work together to figure out what’s going on and how to stop it, and the quiet, solid relationship between One (the original — as far as we know) and Two. While it does have its unanswered questions — why would a scientist and his wife be the only people on a terraforming station, and why would there be cloning equipment there? — I feel like the story holds up pretty well.

And here’s a fun fact for you: this isn’t the only story I’ve written based on “27 Jennifers”. It is, however, the only one I’ll probably ever publish.

“Bring on the Rain”

The Commodore’s cabin is clean, free of the sand that seems to have settled everywhere else. The surfaces are polished, the floor spotless. William guesses the cabin was once a bedroom, but now the only furniture is a huge desk and three chairs, one for the Commodore and two for his guests. Bookshelves are built into the walls, crammed with as much literature as the colony has been able to collect in its travels.

And it’s been traveling for a long time.

“You’re sure, Lieutenant?”

William has long since grown accustomed to the designation. “Yes, Commodore. I’m sure. All my computer models agree.”

The Commodore steeples his fingers and leans back in his chair, a wooden antique worn smooth with more than a century of use. William stands and waits; his computer models have been continuously refined over the past three decades, and only once in five years has he been wrong. After several seconds of consideration, the Commodore nods. “Very well.” He writes on his tablet and presses the commit button; William knows that, up on the bridge, the Commodore’s orders will appear on a repeater screen for the crew to act upon. “You may go, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Commodore.” William walks down the narrow corridor to the main cabin, still as well-appointed as it had been when the ship was built in the 1990s. He retrieves his sidearm from the lieutenant that runs the Commodore’s personal guard, then goes out onto the aft deck. He squints in the bright sunlight — no clouds in the sky to lessen its impact — before covering his eyes with sunglasses.

“Lieutenant,” says the Officer of the Deck — a greeting and an acknowledgment of William’s greater rank; the OOD wears an ensign’s single black bar on his shoulder.

William has never approved of the military fashion in which the Commodore runs the colony, and long ago he chose to ride in the middle of the pack, holding his appointed rank of lieutenant but never actually ordering anyone around. “Can you bring my car in, please?”

“Yes, sir.” The ensign blows a four-note melody on his whistle, then shouts to a couple of enlisted men riding on a skid off to port. “Lieutenant Portis, disembarking!”

William watches as the two men work a complicated pulley system; his car, docked at the end of a long, narrow girder, begins moving closer. As he steps up onto the platform, he feels the ship’s engines thrumming harder. A moment later, he’s hanging on tightly as a loud horn sounds from the bridge deck. That sound is picked up by other ships, echoing outward across the broad, sand-swept plain. Behind William, more than 50 other ships feed power to their engines and, seconds later, the ground below the ship is moving at a much faster clip than the stately twenty-per-hour it was when William had docked his car and come aboard to see the Commodore.

Oh well. It’s not as if he’s never done this before.

William nods to the enlisted men as he reaches the bottom of the port ladder, then takes two quick steps across the skid before climbing onto the car and lowering himself through the opening in the roof. He has to angle his body uncomfortably to drop into the driver’s seat. The car is still in neutral, its wheels moving as fast as the ship to which it’s docked; William starts the engine and calls the OOD. “I’m ready to go. Thanks for your help.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.” William sees the ensign’s hand come close to the video pickup; the young man works his console and, with a clank and a lurch, the magnetic clamp disengages from the side of the car. William shifts into gear and steps down on the accelerator; the engine catches and he turns the wheel left, veering away from the Commodore’s ship. It’s the only one, he notices, that still has a gleaming-white hull; the rest of the ships in the Demetrius Colony are rusted or discolored or battle-scarred, but somehow the Royal Admiral has stayed as clean on the outside as the inside.

William drives past the colony before reversing course; it’s easier to dock at his home ship if he’s coming up from behind. The rear-guard gunners salute as they see his dusty beige car pass, but he doesn’t acknowledge them. He’s busy navigating the small sea of colony ships, which have all accelerated to 110-per-hour, keeping one eye on what’s in front of him and the other on the position display — wouldn’t do to get in the way of another vehicle, but this time there’s no one else out except for him and a couple of patrols, picked out in pale yellow on his screen.

Up ahead, he sees the broad stern of the Mighty Mississippi, its huge turbines mounted to long-disused fiberglass paddle-wheels. He calls the supercargo, whose features fills his display. “Ready to board,” he says.

The supercargo’s dirty face is streaked with sweat. “You’re cleared for Slot 12. Opening main door.”

“Got it.” William shuts off the screen. In front of him, the huge panel at the aft of the Mighty Mississippi eases downward, clanging as it hits the dry, cracked ground. William lines up his car, then presses hard on the accelerator; the little vehicle zips up the ramp and into the hold. Through his open roof he hears the heavy ka-chunka-chunka of gears pulling the door closed behind him, but he’s already hitting the brakes hard, seatbelt locking, preventing inertia from throwing him through the windshield. Once he’s down to ten-per-hour, he flicks on his lights and drives to Slot 12; as soon as he’s in, the slot lowers itself thirty centimeters, effectively locking the car in place. He engages the emergency brake anyway, then shuts down the engine and steps out.

“Any problems?” asks the supercargo.

“None.”

“What about the Commodore? I heard the horns, but…”

William gives the man a nod. “We’re going,” he says.

The supercargo’s face brightens as he smiles. “Finally! You know my youngest has never actually seen a true storm?”

“Now he will.” William knows the supercargo has three sons. He knows everyone on the Mighty Mississippi; he’s been living here for the past fifteen years. “I’m heading upstairs. Say hi to Dinah and the boys, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

William claps the supercargo on the shoulder, then heads for the door. Couldn’t hurt to check his models one last time.

* * * *

William wakes in the middle of the night, jolted out of a dream by the sound of horns. This time, it’s not the deep horns that warn of a course change; this time, it’s staccato bursts that signal an attack.

“How did they find us?” Andie asks as she climbs out of bed. “The scouts said we were clear for fifty kilometers!”

“I have no idea,” William says. He watches Andie pull off her nightgown and struggle into her uniform. Objectively, Andie’s prettier than his wife was, though Rina’s still his first love. He doesn’t think Rina would mind, though, that he’s sleeping with the first officer of the Mighty Mississippi.

Andie adjusts her jacket, then pulls her gray-streaked brown hair back into a tail. “Are you up?”

He’s awake, but he knows what she means. “No. Not until next week.”

“Then get to a saferoom and stay there,” she orders. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Why, Andie,” he says, sitting up in bed and grinning, “I didn’t know you cared.”

She gives him a frustrated look. “Don’t be an ass. Of course I care.” The look turns wry. “Who’ll find us water if you get killed?” She blows him a kiss, then leaves the cabin, boots loud on the old wooden floors.

He shakes his head, then gets up and gets dressed. Under his feet, the deck shudders as the Mighty Mississippi increases speed; the turbine engines are at full bore now. It sounds like they’re pushing the ship at the colony’s maximum speed of 150; the Mighty Mississippi can reach 175 with a good tailwind, but 150 is still more than the engineers will like.

Dressed, William locks his cabin — not that anyone would steal from him, but it’s an old habit — and makes his way to Deck Four.

* * * *

The all-clear message arrives four hours later, and William sees the sun coming over the horizon as he and the hundreds in the saferoom rush out to see what’s happened while they were locked away. William stands at the railing, next to one of his neighbors, looking out at the ships nearest to them. “Not too bad,” the man says. “We’re still moving, anyway.”

William nods. He’s standing next to the casing that holds the port-side paddlewheel. There’s smoke coming from a large yacht 30 meters distant, but nothing else looks out of place. He goes back into the ship, to the ladder that goes between the decks.

Up on Deck One, William finds Andie on the open platform aft of the bridge. Though he’s not fond of being a Lieutenant, having rank allows him to be present. He brushes her hand and she flashes him a quick smile. “Did we lose anyone?” he asks quietly.

“One of the gunships was bombed,” she says. “The Brasilia. Sixteen dead, and we had to scuttle the ship. Two more died when their trucks were rammed. Don’t know how many injured, but Royal Admiral estimates fewer than 100 overall.”

William wants to touch Andie, to reassure her — and himself — but the set of her shoulders and the lines around her mouth tell him not to. “How about our ship? Anything I can do?”

“No.” Her comm chimes, and she reads something off the small screen, then presses a couple of buttons and clips it back onto her belt. “We took a couple of shells, but they missed the engines and the paddlewheels. She’s a tough old bitch.”

He smiles. Andie loves the Mighty Mississippi; she’s passed up several chances to command newer or faster or stronger ships. He knows the Commodore wants her on the Council, but only ship’s captains can serve. It doesn’t matter to either of them, though; they’re together on the Mighty Mississippi, happy most of the time, and — unlike the smaller colonies they’ve absorbed or the bigger ones that have trouble keeping their citizens happy — they have William and his computer models to help them find water.

“I’m going below,” William says after a long moment. “The repair crews are going to need coffee.”

Andie nods, but doesn’t look at William. He goes down to the cargo bay, where the crews for this quadrant of the colony will come together and receive their assignments. William hears the supercargo complaining about the damage the main door will suffer from all the cars and trucks driving over it, but everyone — including the supercargo — knows that being attacked is a part of life, especially if they’re searching for water. After all, William’s not the only meteorologist on the continent, and if he can find a storm, so can others.

* * * *

The colony fights off a band of raiders in small, fast boats — and destroys half of them — but isn’t bothered for the rest of the week. At night they go faster, but every other day the ships slow down, the solar collectors they plundered from a city in what used to be Arizona recharging as many batteries as possible. William still remembers when the colony laid siege to the city, forcing them to give up the collectors and threatening the families of the engineers: come with us and make the collectors work on our ships, or we’ll kill the people you love.

It hadn’t been the colony’s finest day, but even William had realized the necessity of alternate forms of fuel. Nomadic colonies were more likely to survive because they could go and find resources they needed, but the unfortunate tradeoff was that they needed resources to be nomadic. The solar collectors solved many of their problems. Plus, William knows, with water as precious as it is now, being able to find it and get to it is safer for everyone; bringing the colony to the water means no one gets ambushed bringing it back.

In thirty years with the colony, William has been part of more than one ambush party, stealing water to survive. He much prefers using his computer models to find water and bring the colony to it.

“We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” he tells Rina. She hasn’t responded in seven years. “This will be a big one, the biggest since… well, probably since I lost you.” A photograph of her smiling face looks up at him from the desk in his cabin. “You’d have loved it, Rina. Lightning, torrential downpours, the works. Nothing’s actually pointing in this direction — the apprentices all say it’ll be near Lake Michigan.” Or what’s left of it, he amends mentally; there hasn’t been more than sludge and debris there since the Event, since the planet was blasted for two days by radiation and heat from a solar storm no scientist predicted. It had killed almost three-quarters of the population and left most surface water undrinkable. Climate change had done the rest.

“The hydrology crews have the collectors ready to deploy, and the container ships have been scrubbed. Finally we’ll have water that doesn’t taste like metal. And we’ll all get to bathe.”

Rina’s smiling face doesn’t change, even when William strokes the surface of the photograph. He remembers the rain that came in their first year together, right after they were married; they’d joined hundreds of others, stripping off their clothes and exulting in the cool water misting down from the sky. He’s found the colony bigger storms since, but that type of rain — there are maybe four storms like it each year, and William usually gets them in range of one, sometimes two — makes his heart grow warm.

William is an expert at finding rain, but Rina had been something special; when Rina found a storm, it was always a monster, washing away months — sometimes years — of accumulated dust and sand and dirt, filling the container ships almost to capacity, and giving everyone hope that maybe this time things will be different, that maybe this time the weather has finally changed for the better.

It never does. It never will. William knows that, and, deep down, so does everyone else.

William’s comm rings. He touches the photo again, puts it back in the little box in his top drawer before answering.

“Come up to the bridge.” It’s Andie. “The Commodore needs to speak to you.”

* * * *

Andie uses her influence to be assigned to the contact team; she’s driving the white van, William seated beside her. Two security guards are in the back row of seats, and in the middle, controlling the main gun, is a wiry young man, probably on his first mission.

In the side-view mirror, William sees the ships of the colony grow smaller. Repeater screens show the approximate location of the other colony and, up ahead, the single vehicle the Commodore negotiated for them to meet. It’s a dirty red truck, bigger than their van but less aerodynamic; William’s seen a few like it in Demetrius, mostly used for transporting groups or medium-sized cargo. It could probably hold a dozen soldiers, though the scanner reads only five heat signatures. “Looks like they’re holding to the agreement,” he tells Andie. Then, to the gunner, “what do you see, Paolo?”

“One cannon,” he says, his voice through the door-mounted speakers a little quavery — definitely his first mission. “And, I think, two submachine guns as well.”

“Stay locked onto their gunner, Mr. Ruiz. If this turns bad, I don’t want them shooting up our asses.”

“Yes, Commander.”

William hears the gears of the gun moving as Paolo takes aim. “I think they just want to talk, Andie,” he says. He wants to reach for her hand, resting on the shifter, so invitingly close, but the two guards don’t need to know they’re more than shipmates, more than colleagues.

She makes a derisive noise. “You’re our best meteorologist. You found a storm that’s not supposed to be here, that there aren’t any signs of. But the Jairasu are here anyway.”

The implications of that name are heavy in the air, especially for William. “I never told the Commodore — or anyone else — that I was the only one who could find the storm,” he says. “And anyone who can program a computer can, with enough time, learn to read the data like I can.”

“We need this storm, Lieutenant,” Andie snaps. There’s nothing in her voice to indicate that she was ever more than his commanding officer. That hurts, but he has to let it go. She’s in command mode now.

The van coasts to a stop; Andie leaves the engine running. The guards open the side doors and jump out, weapons pointed at the ground. Two soldiers — one with a shotgun, the other holding two pistols — step out of the red truck. Andie nods to William and touches his shoulder; he turns to her and sees the worry in her face and he wants to hold her, to tell her it’ll be all right. Instead he follows her lead, disembarking from the van. It’s been a long time since he’s stood on ground that isn’t moving; he forces himself not to sway, not to show weakness.

The front doors of the truck swing open and two more people step out. The passenger has two pistols in his belt, grips forward for a cross-draw, but it’s the driver who grabs William’s attention.

“Rina?”

* * * *

Rina’s bright-blue eyes are chips of stone in her dark face. Her hair is cut close to her head, bare arms more muscular, body leaner than before.

William, for his part, can barely move. He’s staring at Rina’s smile, at bright-white teeth bared in an expression not even close to friendly. She takes in the rank stripes on his shoulder. “Still a Lieutenant?” Her words lilt, voice musical. “And who is this?”

“Commander Andie Shepherd,” she says. “You called this meeting. Why?”

When Rina looks to Andie, William finds himself able to breathe again. He tries not to gasp in the dry, dirty air. She’s not supposed to be here. She’s not supposed to be alive: seven years ago, Rina was on patrol duty when the colony was attacked by the Jairasu, a converted luxury liner with eight overweaponed gunships zipping around it in formation. Demetrius turned and ran, pursued by three Jairasu ships; one of the colony’s gunships was obliterated before they made their escape. No colony William knows of, including his own, has ever been strong enough to take on the Jairasu.

But it still doesn’t explain how Rina survived. Three days after the battle, William joined a convoy to go back and search for survivors. No bodies were found — just scorch marks, dried blood, and the occasional scrap of clothing or desiccated flesh — but given the size of the explosion, they hadn’t expected more.

And William certainly hadn’t expected to see her alive again, working for the most-feared colony in all of North America.

“Lieutenant!”

Andie’s command voice brings him back. “Y…” He swallows, wishing he had some water; it’s back in the van, for all the good that’ll do. “Yes, Commander?”

“Miss Meredyth has some data for you.” Andie hands him a tablet; he shades the screen with his hand, skims the information there. “Do you agree?”

William reads the tablet again, then offers it to Rina. “I’m sorry, Commander, but I don’t.”

Rina folds her arms. Behind her, the soldier with the shotgun takes aim at the van. The man standing at Rina’s side draws his pistols. “Take another look,” Rina says.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you want, Rina.”

A gunshot echoes across the heat-blasted ground; the bullet buries itself into the cracked pavement at William’s feet. “You will be respectful!” the soldier snaps.

William hands the tablet to Andie, then puts his hands behind his back. He carries his pistol there only because it has to be somewhere. He hopes Rina doesn’t remember that. “Fine,” he says. “Miss Meredyth, please tell me what you want me to say.”

Her smile grows nastier, if that’s possible. “You want to say that my data are right. You want to say that the Demetrius Colony is going to divert course one hundred kilometers to the east.”

He catches Andie out of the corner of his eye. She gives the minutest possible nod. “All right,” William says. “I’ll recommend we move.”

“A wise decision.” Rina’s soldiers point their weapons back at the ground and William’s party backs up, climbing into the van. Andie moves the shifter and they back away; she waits for more than 200 meters to pass before she turns the wheel and points them back toward the colony.

Not a word is said by anyone.

* * * *

The Commodore refuses to bend — “we won’t let them chase us off again,” he says over the colony’s radio network; “we won’t let them steal our water!” William hates himself for his own pragmatism: he knows the decision is correct; he knows the Demetrius Colony needs water; he knows it would be a colossal mistake to pass up a storm like this, one that could quench their thirst — and their children’s thirst — for months.

Despite the twisting fear in his stomach, six hours after the meeting with the Jairasu — with Rina — William is piloting a small, fast car with a trio of submachine guns mounted to the rear. In the passenger seat is another young gunner, a girl named Shanna with skin even darker than Rina’s, her hair intricately-braided, blood-red beads woven into the rows. Her hands are steady on the gunnery controls.

William’s car is one of dozens, a phalanx of small vehicles, gunships, and even two cruisers bearing heavy artillery, powerful enough to seriously inconvenience even large ships. It’s the biggest show of force William’s ever seen, by the Demetrius Colony or any other.

The gunner offers William a dense, wood-colored bar. “Thanks,” he says. It tastes like it looks, but it’ll keep his energy up. He follows it with a swallow from his canteen, a tall metal bottle with a liter of water inside. “Not your first time out?”

She shakes her head. “I’m part of the gunnery maintenance crew on the Jekyll,” she says. “Never been in one of these little cars, but I know plenty about guns.”

“Good. I really don’t want to get killed out here.”

Shanna’s teeth aren’t as bright as Rina’s, but her dark eyes shine in the light of the setting sun. “Keep us out of the way of the other guys,” she tells him, “and I’ll do the rest.”

William’s car is on the fringes of the phalanx. He knows Andie is on the bridge of the Mighty Mississippi; as one of the biggest ships in the colony, it serves as one of several communication hubs. She’ll be safer there anyway. As safe as anywhere, he amends mentally; the Commodore refused to move the colony, despite the Jairasu threat — Rina’s threat — and the storm will come soon. Already huge puffy clouds have moved in, and William’s models predict that the first of the rains will start around sunset.

“It’s a damn waste,” he says softly, gripping the wheel.

“The water?”

“Yes.”

Shanna nods. “Maybe that’s their plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Jairasu are pretty much one huge ship, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“So they’ll probably just send in their gunships and protect the main vessel. All we have to do is hold them off until the storm ends.”

William gives her a tiny, tight smile. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir’.”

“You’re the boss.”

* * * *

The Jairasu gunships are big and fast, and, to make matters worse, they’re maneuverable too. “It’s not fair,” William grumbles as he joins formation with six other cars. He feels the wheels skid on the mist-slicked ground as the cars strafe past Mars — the Jairasu gunships are all named for planets. So far, Neptune has been destroyed, a smoldering hulk taken out by the grenade-equipped vans in the Fourth Group. William’s car is part of the Sixth Group; one of their number is already gone, a brief bloom of flame and then nothing but twisted metal and corpses. Overall the Jairasu are winning: the comm chatter coming through the door speakers confirms that. Six more cars and two gunships are gone forever from the Demetrius Colony, and one of the water carriers, the Farmer’s Dell, was hulled early on and is probably still spilling the precious liquid.

The guns behind William chatter — Shanna twisting her controls and raking Mars. The Jairasu ship’s huge gun barks once and an explosion forces the Sixth Group to scatter. Vehicles zip and twist around each other, trying to stay in formation, to concentrate their fire, but there’s just too much coming from the remaining five Jairasu ships.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” William yanks the wheel hard to the left; the tires squeal, trying to get traction. He pumps the brake, which helps a little.

“Bearing 245 relative,” Shanna says. She adjusts her guns so she can look through the digitally-augmented sight. “That’s not good.”

William spares a glance at the repeater; Shanna’s thrown her gunsight feed up onto it. “No,” William agrees, “that’s not good.”

Orders are coming up on the repeater now: Fourth through Eighth Groups, intercept small craft. William checks his bearing, then presses hard on the accelerator. The engine whines; the speed display ticks upward as they get closer.

The approaching vehicles aren’t cars; they’re much smaller. Motorcycles, armed with what look like grenade launchers. The drivers are exposed, protected only by windscreens and helmets.

“Sixth Group!” It’s the voice of Lieutenant Tenay, who’s in command. “Pick your targets! Fire at will!”

William aims at a cluster of three motorcycles; Shanna presses her triggers and bullets spatter outward. Two of the bikes lose control — one of the drivers is flung into the path of a Sixth Group truck, cracking its windscreen as he bounces off — but the third manages to fire his own weapon. William decelerates, twisting the wheel, then drops into reverse gear and guns the engine.

The grenade explodes close enough that the heat washes over them. By the light of the blast, Shanna blows the motorcycle to bits.

All around them, the Demetrius groups have the Jairasu well overmatched — the bikes are fragile, and not well-balanced for fighting on wet ground — and, after Shanna dispatches two more, William takes a moment to check the tactical display.

“It’s a trick!” He reorients their course and leaves the group behind. “Look!”

“But why send out vehicles that are so easy to kill?”

“Suicide fighters.” William swerves around a destroyed car. “Couple hundred years ago, used when battles were fought in the air. Then, sixty years later, people strapped bombs to their bodies. Same principle.”

“But… who would sign up for that?”

“They probably didn’t know.” William pushes the accelerator as hard as he can. His repeater shows new orders: abandon the bikes, lay down covering fire, return to Point Nine — the original staging line. “Looks like someone up there figured things out.”

Shanna’s gun chatters; two lights on the tactical display blink out. But up ahead are Mars and Saturn; they’re shelling the Hamilton, the remaining cruiser in the battle group, but at least the Hamilton is still firing back.

The Sixth Group forms up. Shanna drops her seat flat so she can change out her ammunition, going from standard rounds to acid slugs. She sits up straight again, teeth bared. “Teach those bastards to destroy my friends,” she growls.

William isn’t so sanguine about taking life. He knows he has to; he knows that, without the storm — which is going to flood this area in little more than 90 minutes — the colony might not last much longer. It doesn’t make him any happier.

The gun stutters, the noise deeper; the slugs tear into the aft section of the Mars. As William shoots the car past it, he sees Shanna firing into its engine, her aim perfect. When the gun goes quiet and his ears readjust, he hears the difference in the sound of the Jairasu ship. “All vehicles, concentrate fire on Mars!” Tenay orders.

A minute later, the gunship is destroyed.

* * * *

Only Jupiter and Pluto manage to escape the Demetrius battle groups, though as it departs, Pluto is struck by a huge bomb, fired from the remains of the Hamilton, and it goes up in a reddish-orange gout of flame. No one cheers; the losses to the colony are too great for that.

William and Shanna read the screen as they form up: two cruisers, a water-carrier, five gunships, 23 smaller vehicles, more than 600 people. William feels sick; Shanna seems subdued, playing with one of her braids. “We won, though. We’ll get the water.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a win,” William says. He checks his heads-up display: they have enough fuel to continue patrolling for another two hours. “How’s your supply?”

“We’re good,” she says. “Plenty of ammo.”

“That’s reassuring.” William doesn’t feel reassured, though.

Rain patters gently on the now-closed roof of the car. Shanna opens her window and cups her hand, then brings the water to her mouth. “Amazing,” she says. “Absolutely amazing.”

William doesn’t say anything, just drinks a little from his canteen. Something’s not right: everything he’s heard about the Jairasu makes him doubt that the battle’s truly over. The last colony to stand and fight against them is now a graveyard of dead ships along what used to be the banks of the Hudson River. That colony wasn’t as big as Demetrius, but they weren’t pushovers, either. And still the Jairasu made short work of them.

Still, without more than a vague feeling, William can’t do anything but follow his patrol route and wait for the storm.

Which, at least, comes right on schedule. The wind picks up somewhat, and just after that, the pattering on the roof and windscreen becomes a downpour. William activates the wipers, but they don’t help much; between the darkness and the rain, he finds himself navigating by the tactical display.

“I hope the container ships are getting this,” Shanna says. “It’s unbelievable.”

William nods. “I’m sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to.” His eyes are still on the tactical display. “That’s odd.”

“What?”

“Look.” He points to something on the edge of the infrared sensor’s range. “What do you think that is?”

Shanna shrugs. “Probably the part of the ground that’s not getting rained on.”

“I don’t think so. The storm is small, but not that small.” He keys in to Lieutenant Tenay’s frequency. “Sir,” he says, ignoring his dislike of protocol, “take a look at bearing 258 relative; can you request they boost the scanner?”

“In this mess? Portis, you must be nuts; nothing works when there’s this much interference.”

“There’s something out there,” William says. “I’m sure of it.”

He can picture the Lieutenant shaking his head. “All our firepower is deployed along that side anyway. If something’s coming, we’ll catch it.”

William closes the channel. “Do you still have the acid slugs loaded?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“We’re going to figure out what that thing is.”

“Lieu—” She pauses when she sees his expression. “Look, it’s not our job, and if we break formation for no reason—”

“Then get out,” he tells her. His hand goes to the shifter. “Say the word and I’ll let you off. No questions. I’ll take the blame if there’s any to be had.”

Shanna makes an amused sound deep in her throat. “Who’s going to protect your ass if I jump ship?” She smiles. “Let’s go.”

William checks the tactical display, and when there’s an opening, he pulls the car out of formation and aims for 258 relative. The Lieutenant’s voice starts calling for him over the speakers, first as if there might be something wrong, but then more angrily.

Shanna turns the comm down to a low murmur, almost lost among the sounds of the storm. The lightning has started, occasional flashes punctuated by booms of thunder. The first one makes Shanna jump in her seat, but she recovers. “That never gets old.”

William spares her a small grin, but that’s all he can offer. He switches from tactical to infrared sensors, watching for the surviving gunship.

It’s not there. Nothing’s there but a huge heat blob that worries him more with every passing second.

“We didn’t drive them off,” William says. “I know that much. No one drives off the Jairasu.” He focuses the infrared scanner: plenty of heat, and the telltale purple areas that indicate engine compartments. “They’re out there,” he says. “And they’re moving.”

“Then why are we still here? Call the Lieutenant!”

William shakes his head. “We can’t. Look.” He clicks the tuning knob on the comm unit: static on all the channels. “It’s a white-noise field. We have them too, but if we use them, we can’t communicate either.” He flips to a lower-frequency band; the carrier signal is mercifully clear. He presses the transmit button, then repeats the same three-letter combination over and over.

“Will we get a reply?”

“No. This band is transmit-only from here. But hopefully they’ll get the message.”

Shanna puts her sights on. “Move us closer. I’ll try to slow them down.”

“With that gun? Really?”

She nods. “Just do it. We’re out here; we have to do something!”

William swings the car out wide and comes around behind the flagship. As he gets closer, he realizes just how enormous it is, and how fast it’s going. Somehow the monstrosity is moving at a steady 130-an-hour, and in this weather, the smaller wheels of the car have a difficult time keeping up. But he manages to come alongside one of the gigantic tires, pushing the engine as hard as he can. Several displays are red-lined by the time he gets close enough to one of the hundreds of wheels keeping the Jairasu flagship moving.

Shanna takes aim. Fires.

Fires again.

And again.

William has to back off the accelerator before the engine overheats. The car starts falling back. Its lights hit the wheel that Shanna shot: it’s pitted where the chemical has eaten into it, but the ship itself hasn’t slowed down at all.

Shanna tosses her sights on the dashboard in front of her. He can see tears in her eyes. “They’re going to kill everyone,” she says. “They’re going to destroy our ships and no one will be able to do anything.”

“They’re heading straight into the colony’s teeth. They’ll at least be able to slow them down, or get out of the way—”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

William doesn’t. The very thought of the biggest, most powerful ship known to be roaming the western hemisphere, moving at this speed? They’ll never see it coming.

* * * *

William manages to coax enough out of the engine to almost catch back up to the Jairasu before the massive liner slams into the heart of the Demetrius Colony. The smaller ships are maneuverable enough to get out of the way, but the tactical display shows that the core vessels have no chance.

Shanna and William watch as the lights blink out from the display. Supreme Illusion falls first. Then Strongman Jack and Coburn. Two of the water-carriers are next, and then William’s heart stops.

The Mighty Mississippi is gone.

* * * *

The Jairasu leave long before the storm ends. By morning it’s rained itself out and William and Shanna, who abandoned their car to join the rescue effort, are able to see the destruction.

“My God,” she whispers, clutching William’s hand. “My God, look at it!”

He can barely stand to. The water glistening on every broken surface will be evaporated away soon. His brain fills in the broad swath of missing ships: at least 20 are lost, probably destroyed, and there must be thousands dead.

Last night, the two of them tried to find the Mighty Mississippi, but the big ship was completely gone. As the sun starts to rise, he sees marks on the ground heading eastward: something huge was pulled against its will.

William practically drags Shanna to an abandoned car and slams it into gear, following the direction of the scorch marks. Four kilometers away, he finds the forward half of the Mighty Mississippi, her turbines sheared away. There’s ruins a few hundred meters back, probably where the engine compartment blew up. William slams on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt, and jumps out. He and Shanna sprint across the already-steaming ground to the broadsided, broken ship.

“Andie!” he shouts. “Andie!”

He sees the bridge, its canopy peeling away from the upper deck. “Andie!”

“Who’s there?” It’s a male voice. “William, is that you?”

It’s Captain Marshall. “Where’s Andie?”

A long pause. “She’s trapped,” the captain yells down. “Call for help! Quickly, before—”

Metal shrieks. The entire bridge pulls away from the ship and crashes to the ground. An instant later, a small explosion blows a wave of heat in William’s direction.

Shanna grabs him before he can run into the burning wreckage. “They’re dead,” she says, her grip vise-tight as he tries to pull away. “Damn it, William, she’s dead!”

Though he fights Shanna as she pulls him back to the car, he knows he’ll never see Andie again.

* * * *

It takes a month for the Demetrius Colony to recover. The Commodore still leads, and there are still 22 viable ships. The smaller vehicles have nowhere to dock anymore, but some of the hulks are cannibalized into rolling platforms, and that helps. Five water-carriers are still intact, though there’s little protection for them now that there’s only one remaining gunship.

“Find us water,” the Commodore orders William, who again stands in the book-lined cabin — which has taken surprisingly little damage. Either that, or he told them to clean it up at the expense of others. “Find us another storm, Lieutenant.”

“Why? So the Jairasu can just take it away again?”

“What would you have us do? Go after them?”

William tosses a tablet on the Commodore’s desk. “They warned us! Damn you, they told us exactly what they were doing! And you ignored it!”

“We needed that water,” the Commodore says, his voice quiet and deadly. “And you’re out of order.”

“I’m out of order, am I?” William grabs the desk and shoves it; the Commodore is knocked onto his back, stuck in his chair. William comes around and kneels beside him. “How does it feel?”

“Let me up!”

“No. Not until you learn how it felt for the people who died because you couldn’t heed a warning.” He feels his throat go tight. “It was like this for Andie, you know. Trapped on the bridge of the Mighty Mississippi, knowing she was about to die a horrible death.” He rips the rank from the Commodore’s shoulder. “I’m taking a cruiser and as many others as want to follow, and we’re going after the Jairasu.”

“That’s suicide!”

“Maybe.” William gets to his feet. “But they aren’t invincible. We destroyed some of their ships, and now I’m going to wipe them off the face of the planet.” He permits himself a small smile. “And Andie deserves better. Her, and all the others you allowed to die.”

The Commodore calls William’s name, but he doesn’t turn; he leaves the cabin, leaves the ship, and walks to the Shepherd — formerly the San Diego. Sixteen of the fastest, best-armed cars and trucks are parked near the sleek, powerful vessel. There’s also a converted yacht filled with water, courtesy of some of Shanna’s connections.

On the Shepherd’s bridge, William takes a moment to check his comm. He already knows what’s in there: Rina’s message, sent in the middle of the storm — he hasn’t changed his comm frequency, so it’s not surprising that she was able to get him. “You never came after me,” Rina says, smiling sadly into the video pickup. He’s listened to the message more than a dozen times. “I survived, I made myself useful, I worked my way up. I fought to give Demetrius a warning, but you didn’t listen. My people had no choice.”

The first time, William had flung the comm across the parched ground, but Rina’s voice had continued speaking.

“I’m not sorry. We did what we had to do to survive. Just like you.” She pauses. “Don’t cross our path again.” It looks for a moment like she’s going to say something else, but the message ends there.

William puts the comm away. Shanna and three young men step onto the bridge a couple of minutes later; the men take stations, and Shanna stands beside William, looking out at the Demetrius Colony. “We’re ready,” she tells him. He nods, and she orders the Shepherd Colony to get underway.

William is pretty sure Andie wouldn’t be happy that he’s on a mission to avenge her death, but he doesn’t care. The Jairasu are going to pay for this.

Rina’s going to pay for this.

* * * *

About the Story

While “27 Jennifers” was the first story I had published, “Bring on the Rain” is the first one published by a market considered “professional” by SFWA. It appeared in Asimov’s, one of the true giants of science fiction. The editor, Sheila Williams, rejected it the first time I sent it, but was kind enough to request a rewrite. That’s the version of the story that you just read. I’ve flirted with the idea of writing a prequel or sequel to this, perhaps expanding it to novel-length, but that hasn’t happened yet.

The story came to me almost as a whole entity after I saw a random image online (which I’ve tried for years to find, without success) of a cruise ship navigating a narrow, winding river that cut through grasslands. Obviously I changed a few things, but the Jairasu and the car battle remained through all drafts. The Commodore’s ship, the Royal Admiral, is named for my late grandfather’s boat, and in my mind, looks just like it.

Oh, and after I wrote the story, I spent almost a week trying to figure out a good title, eventually resorting to a google search for “songs about rain”. Jo Dee Messina’s “Bring on the Rain” showed up; I read the lyrics and decided it would be a good choice, but I’ve never actually listened to the song.

“Greener”

The apartment is silent. Naomi and the kids are gone. Eight years — two contract renewals — and we decided to end things. Or, more accurately, I decided it was time to let the contract lapse.

I really thought Naomi would take it better, but I was wrong. I thought she would be able to overcome her old-fashioned upbringing, her parents with their lifetime contracts and their “for-better-or-for-worse” mentality, but when I told her I wouldn’t be renewing for another four years, she hit me. She actually punched me, so hard that I stumbled, falling onto the floor and cracking my head against the refrigerator.

I don’t think much was said after that. I slept on the sofa, and when I got to work the next day, my message telltale was blinking. I found a simple, terse note from her on my screen: “I’m bringing the kids to my parents. I’ll get my stuff out next week. My attorney will contact you about custody arrangements.”

A few lines below that: “You prick.”

That had been three weeks ago.

* * * *

Sari steps in behind me and the door slides shut behind us. Her hands go to my shoulders, then slide down my arms. I turn to her, see her dark face half-lit by the city lights coming through the open window. Her eyes are wide. She’s smiling. I lean in to kiss her, but she stops me, puts one finger on my chest. “No, Scott,” she says in her lilting accent. “You must test first.”

I roll my eyes — I don’t think she can see it, not with the light behind me — and step into the kitchen. The junk drawer — Naomi called it that — is mostly tidy now, just a couple of data drives and the small white box. I set it on the counter and open the top; blue lights flicker as it cycles up, and an oval area glows yellow. “I’ll go first,” I say, pressing my index finger to the yellow light. There’s a tiny pinch and a beep; the machine has a drop of my blood. While the small square readout shows a pattern of pretty lights, I take out an alcohol swab and run it over the testing pad. I’m sure I’m clean, and I’m just as sure that Sari’s not going to want to test if I haven’t cleaned up after myself.

Another beep. We both look down at the readout, Sari close enough that I can smell the delicate citrus scent of her perfume, feel her bare arm brush the sleeve of my shirt. In small capital letters, it says, “NO KNOWN SOCIALLY-TRANSMITTED DISEASES. NO KNOWN CONTAGIOUS PATHOGENS. BIOCONTROL IMPLANT ACTIVE THROUGH 121778. THANK YOU FOR USING PFIZER.” Despite knowing I’m clear, I still let out a soft breath. I must have touched at least twenty people in passing between leaving the bar and getting to the apartment; who knows what I could have picked up?

“Very good,” Sari says. She reaches past me and presses her index finger to the yellow oval. Her hand brushes mine as she does, and I’m sure it’s intentional. The machine thinks, taking longer than it did with me, and the readout is a little more ambiguous. “NO KNOWN SOCIALLY-TRANSMITTED DISEASES. NO KNOWN CONTAGIOUS PATHOGENS. ANTIGENS PRESENT FOR INFLUENZA STRAIN 602-A. NO DANGER OF INFECTION. BIOCONTROL IMPLANT ACTIVE THROUGH 030579. THANK YOU FOR USING PFIZER.”

“602-A?” I ask. “What does that mean?”

I see Sari’s shrug; my eyes have adjusted to the lack of light. “I was ill a month ago,” she tells me. “I received medication, and did not miss any time at work. I was told 602-A causes at best a tendency to sneeze when it reacts with vaccinations.” She smiles and touches my arm, fingers gentle through my shirt. “My test is clear. Your test is clear.”

Her message is clear. I put my arms around her, hands on her lower back, above her hips, and this time I do kiss her.

* * * *

Even though we’re both clean, Sari insists that I fabricate a physical barrier. It’s been ten years since I’ve been with anyone except Naomi, and I’ve almost forgotten how to put it on. Sari waits patiently, slim and dark, a smooth statue reclining in our bed — my bed now; Naomi didn’t take it, or any of our furniture, with her — and smiling. I finally get it in place and kneel between her legs, then lean forward, but again that finger on my chest. “What is it?” I ask, impatient.

“You must obtain my consent.” She says it with a smile, and I’m sure she won’t say no, but she’s right. She has to explicitly voice her consent or this could be considered forced. “And I must obtain yours.”

I try to laugh, but it comes out tight and uncomfortable. “I consent to sexual relations with you, Sari Kadam.”

Her hands come up to my face, cool on my cheeks. Her thumbs stroke my cheekbones. “I consent to sexual relations with you, Scott Everett.”

* * * *

Sex with Sari, though, is a disaster. It’s been so long since I’ve been physical with anyone except Naomi that I can’t satisfy Sari. Not even a little. When it’s over, she gathers her clothes and walks out of the apartment.

Naomi would never walk out after sex, no matter how bad it was.

But maybe it was just Sari. At least, that’s what I hope. So I try again. Neither Ann nor Kelly asks me to wear a barrier, though both want me to test—and both are clean. It doesn’t work out with either of them, though—Ann turns out to be a mistake, desperate and clinging, and Kelly makes it clear she just wants me for the night. After that, I’m jaded to the whole thing, though I go out with Bryan and Daniel after work on Friday anyway. We get a few drinks before Bryan suggests a negotiable-entertainment venue. I don’t really want to go in, definitely don’t want to pay fifty dollars just to walk through the door, but he promises there’s someone here I’ll want to meet.

Her name is Tina. She’s very nice — she ought to be, since I have to pay her just to sit and talk with me. She’s wearing too much perfume. And, like every other employee, male or female, that’s all she’s wearing; places like this, the management wants it clear to everyone what they’re negotiating on. When I was younger, I might have been distracted, but Naomi preferred nudity when it was just the two of us and, after getting the requisite look, I find it easier to ignore the fact that Tina is naked.

“If you’re so unhappy about being here,” Tina says in a flat, broad Midwestern drawl, “why’d you come?”

I shrug. “Bryan said I’d like you.”

Tina grins. “Bryan’s a pervert. Pay me enough and I’ll tell you just what it is he likes about me.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I say, making a face. She laughs — it’s a prettier sound than her voice — and scoots closer to me. Her hand falls to my right thigh, as if by accident. “So, how did you—” I pause. My comm is vibrating in my pocket; I take it out, and Naomi’s picture is on the screen. I’d caught her mid-laugh, carefree, beautiful. “Sorry, Tina. I have to take this.”

She nods and as I get up it’s as if she shuts down, going from affable, available girl to some sort of switched-off machinery. I touch the connect key and hold the comm to my ear. “Hi, Naomi,” I say.

“Just making sure you’ll be at the apartment tomorrow when I drop off the kids.” The old sharpness is back in her voice, and despite the picture on my comm, I remember why I didn’t renew the contract.

“I’ll be there,” I say. “I’m just out for drinks.”

She makes a sniffing noise. “Not my business,” she says. “I’ll drop them off at nine, like we agreed.”

Naomi clicks off before I can say goodbye. I plop back onto the bench and Tina comes alive again, pressing up against me. Her arm goes around my shoulders. “Everything okay?”

I nod, just once. “Former wife,” I tell her. “Every time we talk, she’s just so…” I make a hard, unpleasant sound and Tina smiles. “What’s so funny?”

She strokes my cheek. I know the gesture is practiced and professional, but it still feels good. Reassuring. “There’s no need to keep it all in,” she says. “We can talk about it, and about what you want to do to make it go away.”

“What?”

Tina reaches out to the table in front of us and touches a pale-blue oval with her forefinger. A screen — part of the table, but so dark I didn’t notice it before now — lights up, and a menu appears. “Let me help you,” she says, her voice soft. “I can take her off your mind. I promise.”

* * * *

We test at the venue—I come back clean, but Tina has antigens for herpes simplex. Hell, half the country has that; at least Tina’s had it treated. She meets me outside, gets into my car wearing jeans and a sleeveless blue blouse. As I drive her back to my apartment, I notice just how blond her hair is, how curly it is. But plenty of women have curly, blond hair.

I offer her coffee when we get inside, but she declines. “Let me take you to bed,” she says, coming close, looking up at me with pale blue eyes. “Let me help you forget about her.”

“Naomi.”

“Naomi,” she repeats. I let her take my hand, let her lead me to the bedroom. She undresses me expertly and guides me to sit on the edge of the bed. Her clothes come off just as quickly, and soon enough she’s kneeling in front of me, doing exactly what we negotiated. It feels amazing, but not like when Naomi did it. I can look down at Tina, watch her hair shift, hear the soft sounds, but I can’t let go. I try, but I can’t, and I know it’s because she’s not Naomi.

Afterward, I return the favor. Tina doesn’t taste like Naomi; she’s bitter, sharper. Later, when she’s on top of me, her body is so much like Naomi’s: it shines the same in the bedroom light and moves the same as she moves above me, but I can’t lose myself inside her.

She’s not Naomi.

* * * *

Before Tina can get dressed, I negotiate with her to stay the night and be with me again in the morning. I fabricate a toothbrush for her and we use the side-by-side sinks in the bathroom, both naked, just like Naomi and I used to do before bed each night. I can’t stop myself and, as Tina rinses her mouth, I come up behind her and hug her, burying my face in her hair. I almost don’t care that it smells different; if I try hard enough, I almost believe I can catch the scent that is uniquely Naomi.

But I can’t. Not really.

We go back to the bedroom and snuggle together under the comforter, and before I realize who I’m with, I’m kissing Tina tenderly on her lips, wishing her good night. She smiles at my embarrassment, but she’s being paid enough not to say anything.

* * * *

Tina and I are having breakfast when the door chime rings. I open it and am nearly taken off my feet when Cher and Bobby barrel into me, hugging me as hard as they can. I extricate myself enough to get to my knees so I can hug them properly. “Hi,” I say, kissing their cheeks. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too, Daddy,” Cher says. She’s older — nine — and thinks she should speak for Bobby, who’s only six. “Can we live here again?”

“Can’t,” Bobby says. “Mom said.”

I look past them. Naomi’s standing in the doorway. She has a faraway look in her eyes and I realize that she can see into the kitchen. She can see Tina.

“Hey, go on into the entertainment room,” I tell them. “Let me talk to Mom for a minute.”

“Okay,” Cher says. She looks back at Naomi. “Bye, Mom!”

Naomi just keeps looking at Tina. I get up and guide Naomi into the hall, letting the door close behind us.

She punches me again. My teeth clack together and I bump the wall, but this time as she comes in for a second blow I catch her fist. We were together so long that she can’t help telegraphing what’s coming next, and I take her knee on the side of my thigh. It puts her off-balance and she staggers back a bit. “You prick,” she snaps. “If you wanted me, why didn’t you stay with me?”

I blink back tears; my jaw is throbbing fiercely. “You drove me crazy, Naomi,” I say softly. I think I taste blood, and I swallow. “I loved you — I do love you — but you drove me crazy! Nothing I ever did was good enough for you, and you never let anything pass without fighting me on it. How can you expect me to renew with you after that?”

“How can you… That woman…” She’s almost sputtering, her pale cheeks going bright red with anger, and I can’t help it; I grab her and push her up against the wall, press my mouth to hers, kiss her hard, the way we always used to.

She kisses me back for a moment, then shoves me away and smears her mouth against her sleeve. “Damn it, Scott! How do I know you’re clean? How do I know that she didn’t give you something?”

“We tested,” I say, but the look on Naomi’s face tells me any answer would’ve been a wrong one. “Damn it, Naomi, we’re not under contract anymore! I’m free to do what I want!”

Naomi folds her arms under her breasts. “Then why pick a woman who looks so much like me?”

I don’t have an answer for that, and we just stare at each other for a minute before Naomi lets out a long sigh. “Take them to school Monday. I’ll pick them up there.”

She turns to go. But I can’t let her. “Naomi,” I say. “Wait. Please.”

She stops walking but doesn’t turn around.

“Naomi, I’m sorry. I miss you. I just… I mean, I can’t…”

“I’ll see you in a month, Scott,” she says, still facing away. I watch her walk down the corridor, turn the corner to the lift, and I have no choice but to go back inside.

* * * *

The kids and I have a fun day together. I suppose I’m overcompensating, but I let them decide what to do and end up spending five straight hours at the theater. There are worse things than animated animals and robots running around, doing silly things, and anyway it makes them laugh. Then we get dinner and go up to the skywalk — something Naomi never lets them do, despite how safe it is.

And even though it’s perfectly safe, I let Cher hold my hand, so tightly that it makes my fingers hurt. Bobby doesn’t care; he’s going from left to right, looking out over the city. The skywalk is ten stories up, connecting the Bank of America building with the Faneuil Hall Marketplace; the sun goes down early this time of year, and the city lights are bright all around us. Halfway across the bridge there’s a little sitting area with a couple of metal-mesh tables and benches, all bolted down. Cher and I sit down, and I give Bobby my card so he can use the pay-to-view binoculars. Cher is still holding my hand, but her grip’s loosened a bit.

“We didn’t have to come,” I say after a minute. “If you don’t like heights, I mean—”

“No,” she says quickly. “I mean, yes, I don’t, but it’s only fair. Bobby sat through my princess movie.”

I don’t let her see my smile, and I don’t tell her that he was playing Ben Brady Football on my comm the whole time. “I guess you’re right,” I tell her. But I know my kids, and I know that’s not what’s really on her mind. I also know that I can wait her out.

It doesn’t take that long. “Daddy, why didn’t you and Mom stay together?”

I have a pat answer ready; I’ve had one for each of them since it happened. But it seems stupid now. All my reasons, all my excuses, and none of it feels right. “I wish I knew,” I say. “I love your mom. I still love your mom.” I swallow hard; there’s an unexpected lump in my throat. “And I miss her, and I miss you guys. But we just… it wasn’t working, Cher. It just wasn’t.”

“Did you stop having sex?”

I cough loudly, inadvertently pulling my hand away from Cher’s. “What?”

She makes a face. “Come on, Daddy, it’s just what adults do when they love each other. You and Mom love each other, so if you stopped having sex, maybe you don’t love each other anymore.” Her voice is resolute, but the skin around her eyes is tight and she’s folded her hands in her lap.

I put my arm around Cher’s shoulders and pull her close. “We… didn’t stop having sex.” I can’t believe I’m talking about this with my nine-year-old daughter. “Cher, if there was anything wrong with your mom and me, it wasn’t that.”

“So what was it?” She’s looking up at me now, eyes glistening. A tear is halfway down her left cheek, and I brush it away. “Why can’t you be together?”

I don’t have an answer, and even if I wanted to think of one, Bobby’s bounding back, still full of energy, my card in his hand. Cher pushes away, as if I was hugging her and she didn’t want me to, and gets up. I take my card back from Bobby. “Ice cream?”

“Sure!”

“Great. We can get it when we get off the T.” I hold out my hand to Cher, but she doesn’t take it; I shrug and start to walk, Cher a step ahead and just out of reach, Bobby still zipping back and forth, seeing as much as he can. At the Marketplace, we take the elevator down; both Bobby and Cher look out the transparent windows, but all I can remember is the last time I was in this elevator, Naomi and I bundled in coats and scarves but still pressed together, kissing, not caring who was watching.

As good as tonight is with the kids, that night was so much better.

I miss those nights. I miss her.

* * * *

I have to carry Bobby into his room; Cher just needs a gentle touch on the shoulder to be woken up and urged to go to hers. I make a halfhearted attempt to clean up the living room — popcorn dropped on the couch and the floor, wet rings of condensation on the coffee table — but stop when I find Cher’s comm sticking out of her jacket pocket. The telltale is glowing purple: a video message. It’s probably an invasion of privacy, even though she’s my daughter, but I play it anyway, just out of curiosity.

Naomi’s face appears on the screen and I suddenly can’t stand up anymore. I half-drop-half-fall onto the couch, holding the little screen in front of me.

“Hi, baby. Just wanted to wish you good night, and sweet dreams, and to tell you I love you.” Her voice is tender, soft and sweet, the way it is whenever she has to put a bandage on a cut or explain why bad things sometimes happen. My chest gets tight again. “I hope you’re having a good time with your dad, and that you’re behaving, and taking care of your little brother.” She’s smiling, but there’s tension around her lips and in her neck. She runs one hand through her thick hair. “I miss you, baby. I can’t wait to see you Monday.” A pause, just this side of too long. “Love you, Cher. Call me if you need anything. Anything,” she repeats.

The video stops on the last frame—Naomi’s face—and the menu comes up. I select “keep as new” and tuck the comm back into Cher’s jacket pocket, but it’s only two minutes later that I’ve got it in my hand and am listening to Naomi say “I miss you, baby.”

This time, I forward the message to my own comm before putting Cher’s away. Then I get up and take my comm into my bedroom, securing the door behind me. I undress and climb into bed—it still smells like sex and Tina’s perfume—and hold the comm in front of my face.

“Hi, baby,” Naomi’s recorded voice says. “Just wanted to wish you a good night…”

* * * *

After I drop the kids off at school Monday, I call in sick to work and, as I ride the T back to the stop near my apartment, I send a message to Tina. She responds almost immediately and, an hour later, we’re on the couch in my living room, her bare feet in my lap, a news channel running on the screen, the sound off. “I missed this,” I say.

“I imagine so.” She moves her heel a little, but I don’t respond the way I think she expected me to. “What’s the matter, Scott?”

I sigh and lean my head back on the couch cushions, my eyes closing. “I’ve just been lonely, I guess. I mean, I’ve been out a few times, and even had sex, but it’s not the same.”

“Scott,” she says softly, slowly, “what exactly am I doing here?”

My hand closes around her right ankle. “I just…” I find myself sniffing. “I miss you. I want you back with me.”

She yanks her foot away and I open my eyes to see her getting up from the couch. “I think that’s quite enough,” she tells me. She pulls her comm out of her pocket and does something to it. I hear mine ping softly. “There. That’s everything you paid me today.”

“But…”

“No buts,” she says. I stand up, but she’s already almost to my front door. “Scott, I’m not your ex-wife.” Her tone is not ungentle. “I might look a little like her, but I’m not. If you want her back, you have to talk to her, not to me.”

I shake my head slightly. Tina’s right; she doesn’t look like Naomi. Not really. “All right, fine. Go.”

I turn away, but I don’t hear the door open. I feel Tina’s hand touch my shoulder and I turn around. She cups my cheek and smiles. “You’re a good person, Scott. I’m sure the two of you can work things out.”

“I hope so.” It’s more a whisper than anything else.

Tina steps away, her touch lingering long after she’s gone from the apartment. I can still feel it as I pull out my comm and watch the message from Naomi, the message I edited down at midnight, once I had the content memorized. As I listen, it almost feels like Naomi had just said goodbye for the day.

“Hi, baby. Just wanted to tell you I love you.”

“I love you too,” I say. “I really do.”

* * * *

I watch the message, over and over, for most of the day. On Tuesday, I go in to work, but everyone in the office notices that something’s up. “What about Tina?” Bryan asks as we sit in the break room, nursing coffee. “Wasn’t she great?”

“She was fine,” I say, noncommittal. “Nice girl.”

“Did she do that thing?” His left eyebrow goes up and he makes a gesture that can’t be misinterpreted. “I told her she should, that you really needed it.”

I don’t answer.

“Fine. At least I tried.”

He leaves the break room, mug in hand. I’ve been cupping my own in both palms, ignoring the heat seeping through the ceramic and into my skin. I spend the rest of the day at my desk, skipping lunch, earpiece tuned to my comm, listening to Naomi’s message. Every chance I get, I load up pictures of her and flip through them on my screen. For every harsh word, there’s Naomi, wind whipping her hair into a curly mess, sitting on the seawall at Martha’s Vineyard. For every snide remark, there’s Naomi, smiling longingly at the camera, chin resting on a hammock made of her fingers. For every pointless argument that she insisted on winning, there’s Naomi, nude and beautiful, posing for me in our bed.

For everything she did to hurt me, she did just as much to make me love her.

How could I ever have said goodbye to this woman?

* * * *

I’m still at my desk at seven, long after everyone else has gone home. I put my comm into the dock on my desk and select the Medfield address that connects me to Naomi’s parents. Her mother — the same face, the same hair but done in gray-streaked brown — answers my call, folding her arms. “What is it, Scott?”

“Hello, Joanna,” I say. “Is Naomi available?”

“Even if she was, I don’t think she wants to talk to you.”

“Fine, but I still want to talk to her. Can you…” I trail off. Something Naomi’s mother said sinks in. “Why wouldn’t she be available? It’s a school night. What about Bobby and Cher?”

“They’re fine,” Joanna says. “Their grandfather is helping them with their homework.”

“That’s good.” Naomi’s father is a biologist, one of the smartest people I know. “Where’s Naomi?”

Joanna’s lips press together tightly, and she exhales slowly through her nose. I stare intently at the screen, and finally Joanna tells me. “She’s gone out. A date.”

I feel my fingers go cold, a fist clenching around my heart. “A… a date?” Joanna nods. “With whom?”

“She didn’t say. And it’s none of my business. Or yours,” she adds. “Or don’t you remember that you didn’t renew the contract? The one you insisted on, instead of marriage? When you said no, you gave up the right to ask after Naomi.”

Joanna’s finger comes close to the screen, to disconnect me.

“Wait,” I say, my voice dull. “Please.”

Her hand moves away. I’m thankful; Naomi’s father wouldn’t have waited. “What is it?”

“I…” My mouth is suddenly dry. I swallow hard, run my tongue over my teeth, and try again. “I made a mistake.” The sound of the words, the trembling near-whisper, the first time I actually say it out loud, it all runs together and I find myself crying. I choke back a sob. “I should have renewed, Joanna.” I have to force the words out. “I miss Naomi. I miss the kids. I… just…” I manage to take a couple of breaths. “Please, Joanna. If I call her, she won’t answer. Can you help me? I just want to talk to her.”

Joanna’s silent for a long moment. “I know you have her comm address. For the kids.” She appears to make a decision. “Here.” Both hands move toward the video pickup and I hear the soft clicking of keys. My comm pings a second later. “Her emergency code.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Joanna says quickly. “She’s furious with you.” A long pause, as if she’s not sure what she wants to say next. “But you’re better as a family.” Her expression is more sad than anything else. “Fix this, Scott, and don’t screw it up next time. I won’t help you again.” She stabs her finger at the screen; her face blinks out, replaced by a call summary. I touch the keys on the dock and bring up my messages.

There it is. Naomi’s emergency code. They can be bypassed, but Naomi’s not that technical.

I am. Instead of calling her, though, I type the code into AC&C’s locator program. Her location comes up less than ten seconds later, along with a map and directions. I don’t need either.

I was just there.

The skywalk.

* * * *

I pass my card over the reader and step through the little plastic turnstile at the Faneuil end of the skywalk. A group of what looks like college students holds the elevator for me; when we get to the top, they stroll out and I angle around them. According to my comm, which has been tracking Naomi’s location since I left the office, she’s at the midpoint of the skywalk. Maybe she’s even sitting at the same table where Cher and I sat a few nights ago. I zip up my jacket and begin walking, wondering how I’m going to explain to Naomi’s date why I tracked her down.

Turns out that’s not even necessary; Naomi’s standing at the railing, looking outward. There’s a gentle breeze; her curly hair flutters a little, as does the tail of her shirt where it peeks out from below a dark-green cashmere sweater. I stand next to her. “Hi, Naomi.”

She turns her head. Her face is hard, her eyes sharp. “What are you doing here, Scott?”

“I thought you were on a date,” I say.

“That’s not an answer!” she snaps. But she immediately looks to regret it; I know that expression. “He invited me to his apartment, but when I told him I wasn’t planning to sleep with him, he got pissed off and left.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” She actually half-smiles. “But then, you had that woman in the house when I dropped off the kids.” The smile’s frozen on her face as she realizes what she said. “Did you sleep with her?”

Well, there’s no right answer here. Best not to lie. “Yes,” I say. There’s regret in my voice that I didn’t expect. “I… I was lonely, and we negotiated.”

Naomi makes a face. “That’s disgusting.”

I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have, but we tested first. We were clear.” I try to keep any inflection out of my words, but I know I sound a little bitter. “It’s been almost a month. I haven’t been alone since we moved in together. I was lonely, Naomi. And I missed you.”

“I could tell.” Her hand is cold when she puts it over mine. “Scott, what happened to us? We used to be so happy.”

I look at her; her pale eyes are shiny. “I don’t know, Naomi, but I know this: I’m not ever going to be happy again unless I’m with you.”

She laughs, that incredulous sound that means she doesn’t know how to react, and then she’s grabbing me, hugging me tighter than she ever has, almost knocking me off-balance as she pulls my head down and kisses me like she did when I proposed the contract. My arms go around her and I squeeze her right back until she coughs into my mouth and I realize I’m holding on too tightly.

“Come on,” she says, her chin trembling. “Take me home.”

We hold hands all the way to the elevator, and once inside, she presses against me like she did that night in the elevator all those months ago. I put my arms around her waist and pull her close.

* * * *

“Hold on,” Naomi says between kisses. I’ve pulled her sweater off and shoved up her blouse to get to her bare stomach. But her hand is on my shoulder. “Scott, wait!”

I bury my face in her stomach, breathing in the scent of her, heart pounding. “What is it?”

“I have to…” she swallows, but doesn’t continue, just pulls away and goes into the kitchen; I follow, shrugging off my jacket and tossing it on a chair. She goes straight to the junk drawer and takes out the tester, and the pounding in my chest stops for a few seconds. I can only watch, dumbfounded, as she opens the little white box and powers it up, then presses her left middle finger to the yellow oval.

We wait. It beeps. She reads the screen, which I can’t see.

And the color in her cheeks drains away.

“Naomi?” I sound small. Scared.

She passes the tester to me, and I can tell she couldn’t speak if she wanted to.

“DRHIV TYPE TWO MARKERS DETECTED. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH REPRESENTATIVE IMMEDIATELY. BIOCONTROL IMPLANT ACTIVE THROUGH 052880. THANK YOU FOR USING PFIZER.”

I put it down on the counter. “Naomi? What… how did this happen?”

There are tears in her eyes again. This time she can’t stop them. She reaches for me, but I step back; she stumbles and catches herself on the edge of the counter, going to her knees. Her hands readjust her clothes, seemingly without thinking about it. “It was the night after I left,” she says softly, not looking up. “A couple of friends, tried to cheer me up. We got really, really drunk.”

“Oh, Naomi…” She doesn’t drink. She barely touched her champagne at our contracting ceremony. I kneel, but stay out of reach. “Naomi, what happened to you?”

Now she tilts her chin up. Tear tracks shine on her pale, perfect face. “This guy, he was nice to me. He listened. He said he’d drive me home, and I left. I guess I forgot about Maria and Gwen, because they gave it to me good at work the next day, even though I was hung over.”

“Naomi,” I say, “what aren’t you telling me?”

She buries her face in her hands and starts to sob, and I can’t help it anymore; I go to her, put my arm around her shoulders, and let her cry against me. “Naomi, I don’t care what it was. I’m not mad. I just… I have to know!”

She’s muffled, but I still understand her. “I told him I wanted to test, but he said he was clean, and he already had his hand under my dress and I didn’t push it. God, Scott, I didn’t make him do it! And now look at me!”

I grab her shoulders suddenly, and she stares at me, shocked. “I am, Naomi,” I say. “This isn’t the end of the world. We just… we need to get you treated. Use barriers. We… we can…”

But I can’t finish. I break down. We kneel together on the kitchen floor, and we cry.

* * * *

Naomi and I both call out sick from work on Wednesday and I take her to our PHR. He does more extensive testing and it turns out the markers are left over from where her body fought the virus to a standstill. “Your vaccine,” he tells us, sitting on a stool in the exam room. “It protected you from the effects of the disease, just like it’s supposed to. You’ll be fine, Naomi, but drug-resistant HIV is still dangerous to others.”

“Wh… what does that mean?” She’s holding my hand; I feel her pulse racing. “I… what about Scott? My kids?”

He shakes his head slightly. “You’ll never be able to donate blood or tissue, and if you ever cut yourself, you need to make sure no one touches the blood, just in case. We’ll need to give Cher and Bobby extra boosters, but they should be all right.”

Naomi sighs, relieved, but there’s something missing. I stare at the man until he gets up and leans against the counter. “I’m sorry, Scott. We can protect your kids, because they share your wife’s DNA, but the two of you aren’t blood relations.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“You can’t have unprotected sex with Naomi. If you do, you’re likely to contract the disease yourself.”

I blink slowly, then nod. HIV was beaten for a few years, back in the tens, but it came back, overcame the treatments and the vaccines. Scientists managed to stave it off and create a new vaccine about thirty years ago, but while I was in college it mutated, and the new version is tougher than ever.

How could Naomi let herself catch this?

I turn to her, anger hot in the pit of my stomach, but then I see her face, her tears, her absolute misery, and it melts away. I just got her back, and now she needs me more than ever.

* * * *

At first, we manage. After the initial shock wears off, everything is perfect. We manage to avoid arguments for a couple of months just by staying out of each other’s way. But that’s not a perfect solution, and half a year later we’re at each other’s throats again, same as always, and Cher and Bobby are in their rooms to escape my shouting and Naomi’s deadly quiet words.

It’s not the first time I wonder if I made a mistake in reuniting with Naomi, but it’s the first time I say it out loud. “I should’ve left you then,” I snarl, pacing back and forth in the kitchen. “I should’ve told you to get the hell out of my house.”

“Maybe so,” she says, barely audible, just like every other time we fight. “But you’d be a mess.”

“Oh, screw you!”

“Maybe,” she says again. “But I know you, Scott. And I know me. We can’t live without each other, so let’s just get over this…” She falters, and I fight the urge to finish her sentence — something that would fuel the fire even more. “Damn it, Scott, what the hell were we even fighting about?”

I turn away without a word and walk quietly down the hall to our bedroom. The door closes behind me. I want to scream, to kick something, to go back out there and remind Naomi, in explicit detail, exactly what she said that set this off.

But I don’t. I just stand there in the center of the room, eyes closed, forcing myself to calm down. This has to stop.

* * * *

Naomi comes in an hour later, touching the lock control as she does. “The kids are okay,” she tells me as she undresses. I’m already in bed, comm in hand, reading. “Bobby’s fine, but Cher…” She takes a deep breath. “Scott, Cher was bawling. She was afraid we’d separate again.” I open my mouth, but she holds up a hand. “I told her it wouldn’t happen, no matter what, and I put her to bed, but you’re going to have to talk to her.”

“I will,” I promise.

Naomi’s pulls her nightgown over her head and slides into bed beside me. “Scott,” she says, “we have to stop this. It’s not healthy.”

I put the reader on my nightstand and turn to her. “I know, Naomi. I really do. But…” Oh, hell, I have to tell her. “Naomi, you push every single one of my buttons. You drive me crazy. You piss me off at every turn, and it’s all I can do to scream at you instead of going off and breaking something.”

“So why do you stay?” Her eyes shine. “We don’t have a contract anymore; you can leave whenever you like.”

“Because I love you!” I reach for Naomi, and my hand finds her thigh. I sound plaintive, pleading with her to understand. “I love you, and I want us to be together!”

Naomi smiles. I move my hand to her cheek; her face is as soft as ever. “I love you too, Scott.” She holds me by the wrist, kisses my palm. I feel tears on my fingers. “I never said it before,” she says, “but I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “It happened. It’s in the past.” I move closer to her, my lips nearly touching hers. “Be with me, Naomi. Now. Forever.”

She nods and kisses me. When we separate, her cheeks are pink, her lips parted. She reaches for the barriers on the bedside table, but I grab her arm. “No.”

“Scott, you know what the PHR said—”

“I don’t care anymore.” I nudge her legs apart with my knee. “I want you, Naomi.” I’m close enough now to feel her heat. “All of you. No matter what.”

She wrenches out of my grip and pushes at my chest. “I can’t let you, Scott. I can’t infect you!”

I take her wrists in my hands; her pulse is bird-quick under my thumbs. “I love you, Naomi.” She tries to protest, but I kiss her and, after a few seconds, she stops fighting. I have to prove to Naomi that I want her, and only her, for the rest of my life. I don’t care about the disease anymore. I can live with it, but I can’t live without Naomi. I’ve tried, but the grass isn’t any greener on that side.

After the kiss, Naomi doesn’t try to stop me again. Her back arches, just like always, but a tear trails down the side of her face. She doesn’t have to tell me why she’s crying.

And I don’t have to ask.

* * * *

About the Story

“Greener” is another story that Sheila Williams of Asimov’s requested a rewrite on — though in this case it was specifically for one sex scene that didn’t need to be quite as explicit as I made it. The editors also replaced Tom Brady Football with Ben Brady Football, and I’m not sure why. I don’t remember much of the writing process, except that I do know I finished it without any major hiccups — which, for a procrastinator like me, is quite an accomplishment.

The story itself was born of some relationship issues I was having, and my worries about how my daughter would feel when I became a single father. A lot of my work from the past ten years was influenced by that, and I think stories like “Greener” helped me work through them and get me to where I needed to be, mentally and emotionally. When I wrote this, I was weighing the adage “the grass is always greener on the other side” and wondering just how true it would be. Everyone has a different answer to that question, and I hope I captured that with Scott’s dilemma.

In the past three years, there’s been a lot of discussion around consent, some of which I’ve participated in. Now that I have that knowledge, I feel very different reading the last scene of this story. And not necessarily in a good way.

“113 Feet”

“This is a really bad idea, Elle,” Barry says.

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snaps. “Phil would kill me if I didn’t come with you.”

Barry is fiftyish, portly and gray-haired. Seeing him take off his shirt is an experience I wish I’d never had.

“I have friends with certifications,” I say. “It’s not like I couldn’t have asked one of them.”

“How many of them have actually been down there?” It’s almost a growl, and I’m actually cowed a little. “That’s what I thought.”

I sit on the hard bench, wood planks covered in thin, all-weather carpet, and fiddle with my regulator.

“How far away do you think we are?” he asks.

“Don’t know. Ask the captain.”

Barry looks up at the bridge, where Al — the captain — stands, driving the boat. Al is even older than Barry, narrow and hard and tanned almost leathery with decades of exposure to the sun. Instead of going up to talk to him, though, Barry goes around the cabin to stand by the bow, leaving me bouncing up and down on the bench as the boat zips across the water. The light chop makes the horizon rise and fall faster than is comfortable. I can take it, though, and if I get sick enough to throw up, at least I know enough to do it over the side.

My guess is that we’re ten minutes from the dive site. Maybe fifteen.

After waiting seven years to get my answers, fifteen minutes isn’t much of a wait at all.

* * * *

I was seven when I first realized my dad was doing more than just studying the life cycle of coral reefs. I’d been in the ocean with Grandpa; I knew what they looked like. I knew there were natural ones and artificial ones; I knew that if you touched a reef, part of it could die, and that if you touched fire coral, you’d burn.

The big tank at Dad’s office had plenty of coral inside. I separated myself from him — it was easy; he was so focused on his work that when I said I had to go to the bathroom he didn’t even notice — and went off on my own.

No one watched me climb up on a chair. No one noticed my nose was so close to the water that all I could smell was salt. No one saw me reach in and brush the back of my hand on the bright-orange coral flower.

The scream made Dad come running. He picked me up as I cried and shouted, carried me to a chair, and told me to hold out my arm. Then he poured clear liquid over my skin: vinegar, like what Mom used to clean the floor. It didn’t make the burn stop hurting, but it helped, and after a few minutes I started to calm down.

“What happened?”

When I looked at Dad, it was through a blur of tears. “I reached in the tank,” I said. “I touched the coral.”

“Oh, come on!” Dad said — almost yelled. “I’ve told you before: this isn’t a game! It’s not a place to play! This is my job, and if you can’t behave, you can stay home with your brother next time. You got that?”

I stared at him for a second, then burst into fresh tears. Dad shook his head and crouched in front of me. “I’m sorry, Eleanora. I didn’t mean to shout. You just… worried me. And you know you shouldn’t have touched something that was going to hurt you, right?”

“I…” A hiccup. “I’m… I’m sorry, Daddy…”

He leaned forward and hugged me, rubbing my back. “Come on. I’ll get my things, and we can go home.”

“’Kay.”

He asked me to sit in his desk chair and wait while he called Mom. He’d left his computer turned on, and I read some of what was on the screen. I didn’t understand all the big words, but I was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with coral reefs.

* * * *

I come out of the cabin after exchanging my t-shirt and shorts for a wetsuit. Barry’s on the bench, buckling his vest. Al is by the ladder to the bridge. “How long will we be out here?”

“We brought enough air for two dives,” I tell him, checking my watch. “Figure a couple of hours.”

“It’s more than 100 feet down,” Barry says. “Be real, Elle. How long do you think we’ll be able to stay?”

I glare at him. “You can stay up here. I’ll dive alone if I have to.”

He mouths something nasty before going to work on his fins; I sit across from him and do the same. I’m faster than him, though; before he’s even finished buckling on his vest I’m already on my feet, hanging onto the railing at the stern. I hold my mask to my face and, as the boat rises on a small wave, I step off and into the water.

* * * *

I was ten the first time I got into Dad’s files. He got fired the summer after second grade; we had to move, and I had to change schools. But Dad got a new job, and Mom did too, and we were doing okay. I was aware, I suppose, that our circumstances had changed, that we didn’t have enough money to live like we used to, but I was a kid. I didn’t really care about it the way an adult might.

Jason noticed. He was fifteen, moody and broody. My parents yelled at him a lot, and he yelled back. I tried to stay out of the way.

I also tried to stay out of sight when Mom and Dad went out and Jason had someone over. It wasn’t hard; they’d sit in the living room and watch one of my parents’ R-rated tapes, and I’d hide in my bedroom from the explosions and the adult stuff.

Dad usually locked his office door, but he must have forgotten this time. I always tried the door, just in case, just out of curiosity, and when it opened I couldn’t help but go inside. Jason and I were never allowed in there when he wasn’t around.

I clicked on the lamp and sat in Dad’s big leather chair. The desk was very neat, very organized, and I made sure to put his folders back when I finished reading them. Or, I should say, skimming them: I might have been good in school, but there were some big words — like “transdimensionality” — that I didn’t understand. I stuck to sentences that said things like “portal”, “rift”, “coordinates”, and so on.

Dad had been doing this research for a long time; there were notes dated before I was born. I remembered times when he’d been away for a week or longer, times he’d come home from those long trips with his arm in a sling, or limping, or bruised. How dangerous was this stuff?

The noises from the living room stopped after an hour, and I quickly cleaned up and ducked out, locking the door behind me and stealing off to my room to try and make sense of what I’d read. From what I could understand, Dad believed there were portals somewhere in the ocean. One was close to where we lived. He used to work for the government. He had a hypothesis — I knew that word, thanks to Science Fair — that the portals were “beyond our current level of technology.” Dad’s notes had wondered who made the portals. And, over and over, he’d written “where do they go?”

That had given me chills, enough that I’d tucked myself into bed and tried not to think about it.

Mom and Dad got home around midnight, and when Mom came to check on me, her touch on my shoulder was so reassuring that I “woke up” so I could get a hug.

Whatever it was Dad thought was at 113 feet, it gave me the creeps.

* * * *

Barry leads the way, one hand around the line, a spiral of blue and white stripes. I follow his bubbles. The water grows cool at 30 feet, then colder at 60 and 90. I wish I’d gone with the dry suit, but they always make me feel clumsy. The wetsuit is thin and black and easy to move in, and I can handle the chill.

It’s dimmer when we get to the bottom, the line attached to the wreck by a heavy metal ring. The tips of my fins touch the boat and I float there, taking a moment to turn on my mask-mounted light and another, brighter one in my vest pocket. Barry fiddles with his own light, looking at me.

I check my computer, then hold it up. We’re only at 93 feet, and I’ve got plenty of air. Mark always said I seem to come up with more air than I bring down with me, and if I’m going to do this right, I’m going to need to regulate my breathing more strictly than ever.

Barry, on the other hand, has used a surprising amount of his supply. I want to pull out my slate and berate him, but that’ll just waste time. Besides, he’s already looking around, getting his bearings. He turns back to me and motions that I should follow. He’s been down here before; he’s the expert.

* * * *

I was twelve when I got my dive license. Dad had been away more and more through third and fourth grade, long weekends and unexplained trips, and I guess when he saw how much I liked snorkeling during a family trip to the Keys, he tried to buy my forgiveness.

It worked, too. When I opened the long white envelope, I nearly hugged him to death.

The classes were held at a dive shop half an hour from home. After dinner, Mom drove me and I did boring school homework in the backseat. Naturally, I already would’ve finished my dive class homework the day it was assigned. I spent a month learning the rules, the equipment, how to clear my mask, how to put together and break down and clean a dive kit, buddy breathing, sign language, and moving while carrying a third of my weight in equipment.

My first dive wasn’t much; we went down about 30 feet, knelt in a circle on the sand, and covered the basics. But it got better, and soon I had my PADI Open Water certification. The real problem was finding someone who would dive with me; I wanted to go every weekend, but Mom worked Saturdays and Dad wasn’t home half the time. After months of just showing up and hoping there would be someone who needed a buddy, jumping into the water while Dad sat on the boat, reading or doing research or whatever, I finally found a good partner. Mark was a year older than me, but shy as a first-grader. Most divers weren’t as young as us, and that didn’t help him either.

Still, even though we didn’t talk much about anything except diving, it was nice to have a friend my age on the boat. We dove together dozens of times, and though we didn’t go to the same school, in ninth grade I asked him to Homecoming. He blushed and stammered and accepted. Of course, we spent most of the night just sitting at a table and talking about getting my advanced certification so I could join him on deeper dives. It beat the heck out of pretending I could dance.

* * * *

The wreck is nothing like I’ve ever been in before. The boat looks like it was 300 feet long before it sank. Most of it is down another 60 feet or so, on its side, but there’s a good 50 feet standing vertically, the bow just below a sandy shelf.

Barry has his slate out. He’s written something. 10 mins left. Hurry up. I nod; he jams the slate back into his pocket and steps over the edge. I follow him down.

There’s a hole at 125 feet; Barry catches the edge of it and shines his light in, then swims through. I’m close behind.

I’ve never been inside a wreck like this. It’s a constant effort to stay vertical without getting confused. Barry’s looking back at me, waiting to catch my eye; when he does, he waves his light upward at a doorway. I have to turn my body sideways and roll up through it, but Barry stays outside, shaking his head and pointing to his stomach.

I probably don’t have much more time than he does, not at this depth, but I spend a few precious seconds writing him a message. Which way?

He points his light toward an even-narrower opening at the far end of the compartment. I clip my big light to my wrist; I’ll need both hands to navigate. I take a deep breath, blow it out, and, regulator clenched tight in my teeth, I make for the doorway.

* * * *

I was a week away from my fifteenth birthday when I ran into Dad on a dive boat. Mark had driven me to the dock — he was going to do a wreck dive, then I would do a deep reef, then we’d all do a shallow reef. When we left my house, I’d noticed Dad’s car already gone, but that was nothing new, and anyway, I didn’t care. One more week and I could dive wrecks with Mark — who I’d come to realize was actually pretty attractive. Those two things crowded Dad out of my mind.

Three years of lugging a dive kit had made me stronger than most girls my age; I rarely had to put my stuff down between the car and the boat. But everyone within fifty feet heard my scuffed red tanks clang on the pavement.

“Dad?”

My father was on the boat, talking animatedly to a short, fat man about his own age. But when he looked my way, he merely gave me a half-wave, suddenly all serious, before going back to his conversation.

He was wearing a wetsuit.

“Your dad dives?”

I dropped my bag and went after my tanks. “He never told me.”

Mark shrugged and followed me onto the dock; we handed our equipment over the side and, as another diver stowed it, we crossed the threshold. I dropped one of my tanks into the storage area in the middle of the deck, then bungeed the other along the side. My bag went under the bench for now; I’d put my equipment together once we were out on the water.

Mark had gone up to the dive shop, probably to go to the bathroom — he had a thing about going in the ocean — and I went up to the bow.

“Dad, what are you doing here?”

“Diving,” he said, his voice flat. “This is Barry Katz,” he added. “Barry and I have been working together since… well, for a long time.”

I remembered Barry’s name from Dad’s ever-more-detailed notes — Mom had a spare key to his office, and it’d been easy to borrow it and make a copy. I held out my hand and he shook it. “Hello, Barry.”

“Hello.” His voice was mild, not as deep as Dad’s.

There was a heavy silence. Dad turned to me. “We have some things to discuss.”

“You bet we do,” I said. “When did you—”

He cut me off. “I meant with Barry. I’ll talk to you later, if you want.”

I didn’t stomp off in a huff. I definitely wanted to, but stomping was immature, and Mark would be on his way back to the boat soon. I didn’t want him to see that.

Twenty minutes later, we left the dock. Mark and I stood on the port side, watching the other boats as we passed them. Eventually we made it out to the open water; the boat sped up, bouncing only slightly on the clear, smooth ocean. I separated from Mark and tried to eavesdrop on Dad, but every time I got close, he frowned at me and moved away. I could tell he was trying to hide his excitement, but he only let his guard down with Barry, and that more than anything else pissed me off.

I did manage to grab his arm just before he began his dive. “Later, Eleanora,” he said, smiling, and then was in and under and gone.

Mark gave me an apologetic look as he joined up with a couple of guys and followed Dad and Barry into the water.

I’d never been on a three-dive trip, and was unprepared for the sheer boredom of waiting for the advanced divers to get back. I put together my dive kit. Tested my air. Pored over my log book. Did calculations in my head to figure out when the others would get back. I even talked to one of the other divers still aboard until I realized all he was interested in was staring at my chest.

Clouds started gathering about ten minutes before the first of the advanced divers was set to surface. I climbed up to the bridge.

“What’s going on, Elle?”

Steve owned the boat; he and I didn’t talk much anymore now that Mark was around, but I’d been diving from this boat for years, and we were friendly enough. “This weather,” I said. “Did they get the forecast wrong?”

“Not that I know of.” Steve flipped on the little radio mounted behind the throttle levers. Nothing on the news station about severe storms. Still, the wind was whipping up and the boat was starting to rock, not so much that we were in any danger but it was a little worrying nonetheless.

I checked my watch again. Eight minutes left in the advanced dive.

Lightning flashed out of a sky that was suddenly dark; it hit close enough to the boat that I heard the snap of electricity.

“Shit!” Steve shouted, the word half-covered by a blast of thunder. “Get down!” he ordered. “Help anyone who comes up. They’ll need it.”

The boat was rocking more as I dropped down to the main deck, and I almost rolled my ankle trying to keep my feet. But I held onto the tanks, secured in place, until I was at the stern. I grabbed a rope out of one of the buckets on the deck, tied it to the railing, then tied it around my waist. I didn’t plan to fall in, but better safe.

Rain began to fall, lightly at first but soon enough pouring onto the boat, the decking slippery under my sandals, clothes plastered to my body, hair in my eyes.

The next flash cut through the storm. I saw two heads bobbing in the choppy water, two hands waving.

It wasn’t the okay sign.

It was the trouble sign.

One of the other junior divers, Shawn, joined me at the other ladder, mask around his neck, rope around his arm. “What the hell is going on?”

“No idea!” I pointed out over the water, yelling over the roaring of the storm. “Do we go help them?”

“I’ll go! You stay here, hang onto the rope!” Shawn pulled up his mask and dove in, snorkel barely visible after only a few seconds. I braced my feet and fed rough plastic rope out through my hands. More heads broke the surface; I called Shawn’s name, but he couldn’t hear me.

A few seconds later Shawn waved to me; I began hauling in the rope, helping the divers make their way back to the boat. “What’s going on?” I asked, still yelling, but a snap of lightning and another rolling boom smashed down the words. I shook my head to clear it and reached out, grabbing the first diver by the wrist and pulling him onto the rocking, bouncing deck. “Are you okay?”

He spat out his regulator. “I’m fine! But someone’s missing!”

I nearly dropped the next diver, but recovered and pulled him onto the deck. “Who’s missing?” I asked him, gasping.

The boat bounced up, then slapped down; I looked out, saw Shawn swimming toward a trio — thank God, Mark was okay, I could breathe again. “Who’s missing?” I shouted.

The diver wasn’t listening. He and his partner were crawling along the deck, trying to get to a bench.

Mark and his partners were close enough now that I could help them aboard. More divers were with me now, working together to get everyone onto the boat.

Mark flopped onto the deck. I pushed him past, but not before I heard him try to tell me something.

“What?”

He yanked his mask down and heaved up onto a bench; one of the divers lunged across and bungeed Mark’s tank in place. “Your dad!” Mark shouted over the wind. “That Barry guy, he can’t find your dad!”

I dropped to my knees, nauseous. Barry was at the end of the ladder, and he was alone.

“Where’s my dad?” I screamed in his face. “Where’s my dad!”

Barry clung to the ladder; it rose in the water, smacking him in the face, knocking out his regulator. Two of us grabbed his arms and hauled; Barry’s bulk splatted to the deck between us. “Where’s my dad? Where’s Phil Raymond?”

Barry couldn’t catch his breath, but he could point, eyes wide behind the thick glass of his mask.

He was pointing at the water.

* * * *

The doorway is too narrow even for me, and I only weigh 125 pounds. I try a few angles, but time and air is bubbling away, and I have to make a decision.

I unbuckle my vest, fully aware that it’s a stupid thing to do, but I get through the opening, pulling the gear in behind me. I hold up the big light in my hand and look around: down, left, right, straight ahead, but I see nothing.

Then I look up.

At first I think it’s just an air pocket. I’ve seen them on wreck dives: air collects in hollows and sealed places. But I notice after a few seconds that my air bubbles aren’t collecting.

They’re disappearing.

I check my gauge. 116 feet.

All of Dad’s notes say that, whatever these portals are, they’re all at exactly 113 feet. Three feet above me.

I take a deep breath, then give a gentle kick and float toward the silver surface. But a loud clanging makes me snap my head around.

Barry’s banging his knife on his tank. He has his hand around his neck.

He’s running out of air.

I check my computer, cursing. I could probably stay another five or six minutes before I’m in trouble, but Barry is already there.

I have no choice. I pull back and make my way through the narrow doorway, spitting out my regulator so I can swim into my vest. I shove the regulator back into my mouth and purge it, teeth digging into the rubber grips, glaring at Barry as I move past him.

I feel him behind me as we head to the line. The current is picking up, and I snag Barry as he’s nearly pulled away. I clip both of us together, then to the line; we empty our vests and begin swimming upward.

The trip takes longer in this direction; we have to stop twice to decompress. The line is jolting around during the second stop, and Barry’s dark eyes are ringed with white. I pull out my slate. Whats wrong?

He takes it out of my hand, holding the pencil the way a two-year-old might hold a crayon. Storm. Like B4.

I’ve dived in bad weather before — rain and wind just means a little adventure getting back on the boat. But I look up and realize with a jolt that the sun isn’t out anymore.

I take the pencil. Let go b4 surface. Come up away from boat.

Current?

I can handle it.

My computer ticks down the seconds, then beeps when it’s safe to continue. I unhook from the line and begin kicking, the muscles in my legs fighting the weight of my equipment. I glance back; Barry is behind me, but his kicks aren’t going to be strong enough. I grab him by the tank valve and estimate the distance to the surface.

Ten feet.

I mumble another curse around my regulator and inflate my vest halfway, feeling it pull us upward. I know it’s a risk, but I can’t carry both of us.

We break the surface and inflate the rest of the way. A wave slaps me in the face, separating me from Barry; I turn and kick back toward him, legs burning. I get a hold of his vest, pull him close, and shout “swim!” around my regulator.

The next wave knocks his mask askew and, with a hand I can see shaking even as we’re tossed around, he pushes it back in place.

It takes everything I have left to make it to the boat. Al’s thrown out a life preserver; I make sure Barry’s holding it before grabbing the ladder and dragging myself up onto the deck.

Al helps me up onto a bench, stringy muscular arms keeping me from crashing across the deck and into the cabin wall. I get myself bungeed and undo my fins, shoving them into an empty tank holder before unbuckling the vest and lurching to my feet. Together we pull Barry up onto the deck; he coughs and sputters and spits out his regulator, but he’s able to let us help him to a bench. We get him secured and he yanks his mask down.

“It’s happening again! Just like last time!”

“What happened last time?” Al says, his voice sharp through the wind.

“Seven years ago,” Barry says, a little stronger, “we were here! Her dad… we were on that wreck… we found… and her dad…”

“Shut up, Barry!” I yell. “He’s not dead!”

“Goddammit, Eleanora!” He’s hanging onto bungees on either side and I’m clutching the bridge ladder, but Al somehow is still on his feet, eyes narrowed. “Phil’s dead! Phil’s dead and this is insane! What the hell are you trying to prove?”

“He’s not dead!” It’s a scream to the sky, to the storm, to the rain and wind and lightning and thunder. They rip the words away but I just keep screaming it. “He’s not dead! He’s not dead!”

* * * *

I was almost sixteen when they told me Dad was dead. Steve got us away from the storm, and the Coast Guard came, but I only remembered it in flashes. Mom met me at the dock, eyes red and puffy, and I threw myself into her arms, crying along with her. “They’ll find him,” I forced out between sobs. “They’ll find him.”

Mark drove us home. Mom and I huddled on the couch, watching the phone, waiting.

The call never came.

Mom and I kept checking with the Coast Guard, but they kept saying they hadn’t found him. Mark stopped returning my calls; he’d had enough of me begging him to dive that wreck with me. But I never gave up, not even when a Coast Guard lieutenant came to our house, sat down in our living room, and told Mom and Jason and me that they’d officially declared my father dead.

Mom lost it, but I didn’t react.

My father wasn’t dead. Until I had proof, he wasn’t dead.

* * * *

Rain pours down. I loop my arm through a bungee and start changing my vest to my second tank.

“What the hell are you doing?” Al glares at me, holding the cabin doorway.

“I’m going back down there!” I get the vest off the first tank, then scoot down to the second. It nearly crashes to the deck when I unhook it, but I yank the vest onto it and bungee it back in place.

“No way!” Barry yells. “No way am I going down there again!” He points to Al. “Get us out of here!”

“No!” It’s a scream, enough to make Al stop, halfway up the ladder. “I paid you,” I snarl. “I paid you, and this is my boat for the day. We’re not leaving!”

“She’s crazy!” The boat rocks, slams Barry against his empty tank, and he clutches his shoulder. It’s a mistake; the boat skews back in the other direction and pitches him to the deck. “Elle, this is nuts!”

“He’s not dead!” I screw my regulator onto the tank. “One hour! Then we’re going again!”

Barry shakes his head, face white with pain, barely holding onto the railing in the middle of the deck. “I can’t do it again, Elle,” he says. I barely hear him over the storm. “I can’t do it.”

“Then I’ll go alone.”

* * * *

I was seventeen when I stole Grandpa’s boat and took it out to the wreck where I’d last seen my father. The radio squawked at me the whole way: Grandpa yelling at me to come back, to bring the boat back so we could talk about this.

I stayed there for hours, snorkeling along the smooth surface of the water, staring into the depths, trying to make out the wreck that I knew was down there. Dad’s notes, his log book, everything in his computer said there was something down there. Barry Katz wouldn’t talk about it no matter how hard I pushed him.

I would’ve gone down to the wreck, but there’d been no way for me to sneak my dive stuff onto the boat. I tried, though, swimming as far down as I could, until my lungs burned and my eyes were blurry with tears and fatigue.

There was no way I could get there. Not without air. Not without equipment.

Grandpa’s voice on the radio kept yelling at me as I leaned over the side, the sun low on the horizon. “I love you, Dad,” I whispered. “I’m not giving up.”

That night I came up with a plan.

* * * *

Barry is greenish-pale after twenty minutes in the wildly-rocking boat. Al’s on the upper deck, strapped in, waiting. I manage to get to my cooler, stowed in the cabin, and down a bottle of water and a bag of mini-muffins.

Instantly I realize my mistake. Fortunately there’s Dramamine in the cooler, as well as ginger ale. I dry-swallow the pills and bring the soda out to the deck, looping my arm through the ladder to stay upright. Barry’s still on the bench, good arm threaded through a bungee. He hasn’t moved since Al and I put him back up there. The sound of the storm is just background noise now, and though Barry keeps getting bumped against the empty tank holders, his voice is calm through the cacophony.

“I hate this.”

I drink more of my soda, then lunge to where he’s sitting and press the can into his hand.

He shakes his head. “I’m gonna lose it,” he says.

“If you barf, you barf.”

“Not that.” He looks down.

I nod. “Want some privacy?”

He doesn’t answer, just turns away. I get back to the ladder, then move to the side of the boat, facing the bow, letting Barry pee himself in relative peace. At least the rain — still coming down in sheets — will wash it away.

My watch eventually beeps. Only ten minutes until I can go back. The adrenaline suddenly gives out; I lean over the side and throw up. The current carries it away and waves wash the side of the boat, as if it never happened.

I stare at the sky, breathing slow and deep. “I’m not leaving,” I say quietly, ignoring the salt spray that makes my eyes burn and itch. “I’m going back, and I’m going to find my father.

I stay starboard until my watch beeps again, then work my way to the rear deck and struggle into my gear.

“I’m not going,” Barry says. “I can’t go back again.”

I shrug as best I can with the vest tightened across my shoulders. “Then I’m going alone.” I stare across the middle of the deck at Barry. “If…” I swallow hard. “If something happens…”

Barry sees that I can’t finish. “You’re crazy, Elle,” he says. “Please don’t do this.”

I reach back and undo the bungee. The boat rocks; I plant my fins and slide to the end of the bench. “I have to, Barry. I have to know.”

I look up to the bridge, see Al leaning over the railing. “Don’t do it, girl,” he calls.

I shake my head, then pull my regulator into my mouth. Normally I’d take a giant stride into the water, but in this weather, I just hold my mask and regulator to my face, twist around, and fall backward with a splash that I’m sure neither Al nor Barry can hear over the storm.

Ten feet down the line, the silence is louder than the noise on the surface. I block it out and, hand over hand, pull myself toward the ocean floor.

* * * *

I was eighteen when I gave up on my plans to become a marine biologist — like Dad. For two years I was a lackluster community college student, but I didn’t care. I worked in a dive shop and as a lifeguard, saving money. I’d need the best equipment — and I’d have to buy it myself — and I’d also need to charter a boat.

Right after I turned twenty, I ran into Mark at the dive shop and convinced him to have dinner with me. But when I told him what I was planning, he shut down.

“I don’t dive anymore,” he said.

“You’re crazy,” I told him. “You love diving.”

“I loved it.” Past tense.

“It was a one-in-a-million accident!” I snapped. “Come on, Mark. We used to… I mean…”

He shook his head. “I just… I can’t. I’m sorry, Elle.”

I slept with him that night, hoping it would change his mind, but even after that he still said no.

I left the next morning and didn’t look back. Soon after, I got my two-year degree, then gave up on school and threw myself into my work and my plan. Mom and Jason confronted me, said I was obsessed, and I moved out. I spent more hours at the dive shop and on the beach. I even started teaching swim classes. Guys hit on me and I turned them down. Girls tried to befriend me but I played the bitch card. Parents hired me to babysit or give private lessons, and I did it for the money, but I detached myself from the people.

I had one purpose: find out what happened to my dad. Nothing was going to get in my way.

* * * *

I stop at the end of the line and check my computer, noting the maximum safe depth and time — depressingly short on the latter, depressingly shallow on the former — and set my watch. I won’t give up until I know the truth, but I don’t want to die down here either.

I drop over the side of the wreck and swim into the dark opening. This time, without Barry to slow me down, I’m out of my vest and inches from 113 feet in no time.

I pull out my knife. The tip grazes the silvery surface.

A blinding flash knocks me back. My regulator falls out of my mouth and I grope for it blindly, holding my breath, my eyes a wall of blue afterimages. I finally shove it in my mouth and blow, purging the seawater. My second exhalation clears it completely and I dig my teeth into the grips. My jaw is tired, lips stretched and sore, but I’m not stopping.

I take a minute to think — and to let my heart rate slow to normal — then lock the knife back in its holster. No metal: seems simple enough.

I pull open the Velcro that holds my left glove closed and tug it off. My skin is very white in the glow from the lamp. I reach for the silvery surface and, in a quick motion, push through.

There’s air on the other side. Cold, dry air. My hand starts to shake and I pull it back.

My skin looks okay. I check the sleeve of my wetsuit: no damage there. Whatever it is, it’s safe to pass through.

I close my eyes tightly, looking away as I do, and extend my entire arm through the portal.

Nothing happens. Nothing bad, anyway.

I open my eyes, then check my air and my watch. Seven minutes to the point of no return, until I have no choice but to ascend.

But I have no choice in what I’m about to do now, either.

As quickly as I can, I strip off my dive equipment. I stick my watch into a vest pocket, hook my fins to the shoulder straps, then unzip my boots and tuck them into the fins’ foot holes.

Zippers. I consider for a couple of seconds, then open my wetsuit. I have to release the regulator to wiggle completely out of it. If the air I touched is any indication, I’m going to freeze my ass off on the other side — my one-piece isn’t made for warmth — but I don’t care. Besides, the coldness of the water is already numbing my fingers. It can’t get much worse.

One more look at the computer. Five minutes. 113 feet. I’ll never get all this stuff back on in time; I’ll be lucky to get into my fins and drag my air supply back to the line. There’s coral everywhere and I know it’ll to rip me to pieces when I get out of here.

But I’ll live.

A final check: no metal anywhere. I point myself toward the silver surface of the portal and pull my mask off, pushing it into a pocket in my vest. Seawater and particles tear at my eyes.

I take five deep breaths and, on the last one, release the regulator and kick forward, through the portal, and toward my father.

* * * *

I was twenty-two when I found my father. He was declared dead by the Coast Guard when I was fifteen, but I never believed it. They never found a body. I spent seven years trying to get back to where he was lost, seven years trying to find him.

And fewer than seven minutes on the other side.

I found out what happened at 113 feet the moment I swam through that silver surface and landed hard on a metal platform, shivering in icy, dry air.

“Doctor Raymond! Doctor Raymond, you’d better get out here!”

I blinked hard and tried to stand, but I was so cold that I couldn’t do more than wrap my arms around my chest.

I heard clanging, felt the metal vibrate, and then the lights above me were blocked off. Someone draped a light sheet of cloth over my body and I was instantly so warm that I almost passed out. Someone else pulled me to my feet.

“Doc…” I cleared my throat and spat out a gob of saltwater-tinged phlegm. “Doctor… Raymond?” I blinked a couple more times, but I wasn’t hallucinating.

“Hello, Eleanora.”

“Dad?” He wasn’t dead. I was staring right at him. “Dad!”

I was on him in an instant, arms around him, and he was hugging me back. But tentatively, almost as if he was afraid of me. “I missed you, Eleanora.”

I looked up at him. He seemed older than he should have been, as if more than seven years had passed. “What happened, Dad?”

Instead of answering, he looked over my head. “How long?” he called.

The answer came through a P.A. System. “Four minutes, Doctor.”

Dad nodded, then guided me to a bench. “Here. Sit.”

I did as he said, wrapping the sheet around my body. My ears and toes were freezing, but I didn’t care. He was alive. My father was alive.

“I only have a little time to explain,” he said, his arm around me.

“Explain what? Aren’t you coming back?”

He laughed. Not angry, not exasperated, just amused. “I’ve been here almost forty years. Why leave now? Besides, how would I come back?” He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have enough air in your tank to get me to the surface? I haven’t been diving in…” His voice faltered, and he smiled. “Well, it’s been a while.”

“Don’t they have tanks here?” I looked around, but didn’t recognize anything except the silver oval of the portal. “Where the hell are we, Dad?”

“Actually, Elle, the right question is ‘when are we’.”

“Damn it, Dad, stop wasting time!” I pushed his arm off and glared at him. “If I only have a few minutes, then tell me what happened!” My throat went tight, but I wouldn’t cry. There wasn’t time to cry. “Dad, please!”

He sighed. “The short version is this: about 150 years in your future, scientists discovered a way to go back in time. The system is overpowered in case something goes wrong, and that energy has to go somewhere.”

“The storms.”

“Yes. The storms. At least, over the ocean, fewer people are at risk.” A young woman in a blue jumpsuit gave Dad a handheld computer. He scanned it, nodded, and handed it back. “Time’s running out. Come on.” We went back to the portal, standing in front of it. “It takes about an hour for the storms to clear when someone goes through. They tried it closer to sea level, but the storms were so strong that the man they sent through was ripped apart.”

“But how come they started when I got close? I didn’t touch the… portal?” He nodded, and I continued. “I didn’t come through.”

Dad gave me a look I remembered perfectly, a look that said I should’ve figured it out for myself. “How do you think we knew you were coming?”

I had no response to that, and even if I had, Dad was already watching a technician aim something at the portal. “Anyone there?”

“No, Doctor.” Like everyone else except Dad, the technician was wearing a blue jumpsuit. Dad looked normal: slacks and a burgundy sweater. “Mr. Katz will arrive in 81 seconds.”

Dad nodded. “Come on, Eleanora. It’s almost time.”

I slung the cloth to the floor. Somehow I was dry, and though it was still chilly in the lab or hangar or whatever this place was, I could handle it for another minute. Besides, I didn’t care. I had to ask before it was too late.

“Why didn’t you come back, Dad?”

He didn’t answer; he just pulled me into a hug.

“Sixty seconds.” It was the person on the P.A.

“Dad, please! Why didn’t you come back?”

He was smiling again. I wanted to wipe it off his face, but I couldn’t. Not when I saw tears in his eyes. “I’m a scientist, Elle. How could I turn down an opportunity like this?”

My fists balled and I wrenched away. I wanted to hit him. Hard. “How dare you! How dare you leave us for that?”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“How could I not? It was the chance of a lifetime! The chance to study history by actually being there. Things you only know in books… I’ve seen them!” His bright blue eyes were wide.

“Then let me stay with you,” I pleaded. “I’ve got nothing back home! Please, Dad, let me stay!”

But he shook his head. “I can’t, Elle. Things have changed these past few years. We have to be careful, or…” He cleared his throat. “I’m breaking all kinds of rules by even talking to you, and when you get there, you can’t tell anyone.”

“Twenty seconds.”

I stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not keeping this a secret.”

“Fifteen seconds.” Red lights began to glow around the portal.

“Come on, Elle.” He reached out as if to hug me again, but I moved closer to the portal. “Promise me!”

“Ten seconds.”

I shook my head. The technicians were already well back. Dad took a couple of steps away, his eyes sad. I could barely bear to look at him.

“Five seconds.”

“Good-bye Eleanora. I love you.”

“Fuck you, Dad.”

A sharp beep. I took a deep breath and jumped through the portal.

* * * *

I’m warm.

I’m warm, and I’m on my back.

I’m warm, and I’m on my back, and I’m laying on something hard.

I open my eyes, blinking against the harsh brightness of the sun.

“You made it.”

Barry’s voice.

I wheeze, then start coughing. He cradles my head in his arm, brings a bottle of water to my lips. I sip some of it. “Barry?”

My vision starts to clear. His hair is as wild as mine is after a dive. He smiles. “Glad you’re back.”

“Wh…”

“Couple of minutes after you left, Al helped me get my stuff on. I followed you.”

“Why?”

The smile goes away. “I couldn’t leave you alone down there. Not after… not after Phil…”

I feel my eyes well up with tears, but I fight them down. I have to know. “How long until the storm ended?”

“About an hour after I got to you. Why?”

“No reason.”

* * * *

A category-one hurricane blew through two weeks later. I spent the day at Mom’s. When I got back to my apartment that night, I found an envelope on my pillow. My name was on it. The handwriting was my father’s.

I threw it away unopened.

* * * *

Mark’s living in Virginia now. It takes me almost a whole day to drive to his house.

“Hi, Elle.”

I slide past him, into the living room, and drop onto the couch. He sits in a chair beside me.

“I’m not diving. Ever again.”

He leans forward, touches my knee. I cover his hand with mine. I know my face is blank.

“I found him.”

Mark blinks. “You…”

I nod. “I found my father.” A pause. “He’s not dead.”

“Wh… what?”

I meet Mark’s eyes. “He left me. Me, and Jason, and Mom. I’m done with him.”

“But where is he?”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. And I don’t care.”

Mark pushes me for more, but I don’t tell him. To the rest of the world, my father’s been dead for seven years.

Time for me to join the rest of the world.

* * * *

About the Story

Although “113 Feet” was my third professionally-published story, it was actually the first that I submitted to Asimov’s. Ms Williams rejected it, but included extremely detailed notes and invited me to re-submit. I made the changes, sent the story back, and got a second personal rejection. I was very grateful for both, and they eventually led to the version of the story you just read, which was published by Escape Pod back when Mur Lafferty was the editor. She got me to trim it to under 8000 words, which is quite a feat given that the original version ran almost 12,000.

The first draft of the story didn’t show what happened when Elle went through the portal. It also had additional scenes, including another appearance of my grandfather’s boat and some actual communication between Elle and her father prior to her trip through. But in the end I had to trim a lot, including some of the details in the scuba scenes — most of them drawn from my own experiences diving with my dad, and all of them vetted by a dive master who turned out to be one of the coroners working at the Cobb County, Georgia, medical examiner’s office. Those edits let me show what Elle’s father was up to — which, to be honest, I actually didn’t know when I finished my first draft. I guess at the time I didn’t need to know so I just didn’t think about it.

I consider this story my lesson in not giving up; it took more than four years for it to go from my brain to a published final product. It’s also one of my personal favorites.

“Belief”

“Dad, someone broke the computer again.”

I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder and leaned back in my chair. There was a lull in the noise, and I took advantage of it. “What do you mean, ‘someone’?”

Sam sighed. At twelve, it was little more than theatrical, but I was glad he’d called me and not his mother. “Ash sent me a file for a report we’re doing—”

“Oh, well, see, there’s your problem.” I waved to Jo, who was heading out for the day. She gave me a small smile. “The last time I fixed your computer, it was because Ashleigh gave you a virus. I told you not to accept files from her.”

“Da-ad!” Now he was whining. “I gotta do the project, and her computer sucks!”

I shook my head. Ashleigh was Sam’s first “girlfriend”, if a twelve-year-old could have that sort of thing. She was leading him around on a leash, too. I knew girls matured faster than boys, but this was ridiculous. “I get out of here at seven,” I said. “If you can get your brother to bring you and Ashleigh to the apartment, I’ll make dinner and you guys can work on the project on my computer. Just check with your mom first.”

Sam huffed at me. “You know what she’ll say.” The boy had alarming insight into the way things were between me and my ex.

“It’s homework. You have to do it, and I’m sure it’s due tomorrow.”

“Hang on, Dad, I’ll check.”

“I’m sure,” I said again, stressing that part, “that it’s due tomorrow.” Stressed that last word too.

It still took Sam a second. Not the quickest on the uptake, that boy. “You’re right, Dad. It’s due tomorrow. Can I come over and use your computer?”

“Sure thing. What do you want for dinner?”

“Whatever. Are you cooking?” He sounded hopeful. Michelle had never cooked when we were married.

“I could be.”

“Please?”

I made that little half-chuckle-half-laugh noise that no one’s bothered to name yet. “Sure, I’ll cook. See you between seven and eight. And make sure,” I added, “that you scan Ashleigh’s stuff before you open it on my computer.”

“Okay.” Normally he’d have sounded long-suffering, but I think he was just happy to be having dinner at my apartment, with his girlfriend, and his mom nowhere in sight.

I’ll take it. “Love you.”

He grunted, but didn’t say it back. I didn’t bother to force him into it, either; Sam wasn’t the only one celebrating. Maybe it was petty of me, but I was getting to see at least one of my sons before my official weekend. One per month, two weeks in the summer, two weeks in the winter.

At least I got that much. Some of my friends and co-workers barely saw their kids.

The phone rang. I sat up and answered it.

Back to work.

* * * *

“I know Sam lied to me.”

“Hello to you too.”

Michelle waved toward the interior of my apartment, but I didn’t invite her in. Instead I stepped out and closed the door. “Your computer was broken. He had to use mine. He told me the report was due tomorrow.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Why would he lie to me about schoolwork?”

She slapped a piece of paper against my chest. I held it up to the anemic sodium-yellow light above my door.

“See?”

I shrugged. “So he lied. Is it so terrible that he asked for my help, and that I gave it to him?”

Michelle sniffed. “You bribed him to come over here. You know your computer’s better than mine, and I can smell that you made him dinner.” She folded her arms under her breasts; I knew that signal, and leaned against the door frame. She was settling in for an argument. “Damn it, Greg, you know the rules!”

“And I’m supposed to ignore when my kids need me just because a judge said so?” I tried to keep my voice level; I spent too many years rising to her bait. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“It’s not bullshit!” she snapped back. “You signed the papers. You had your chance, and you blew it.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. We’d been over this ground before. Back in Baltimore, when I’d been a news reporter instead of an assignment desk jockey, the station had sent me out on assignment. The court had changed our date — I didn’t have any proof, but I was pretty sure Michelle had been behind it — and I hadn’t found out until I got back. But she’d maintained her innocence, and I’d grown tired of her lying about her lies to me. “If Sam or Dan need my help, I’m more than happy to let them come over here so I can help them.”

She sniffed again, this time even more derisive. “You’ve got them eating out of your hand, don’t you?”

“Don’t punish them, Michelle. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

She sputtered, but recovered. “Didn’t do anything wrong?”

I held up a hand. “We’re not married anymore. I don’t have to listen to this. I’m going inside.”

“So am I. And I’m taking Sam home with me.”

“Michelle, don’t be stupid. He’s working on a project for school. When he’s done, or when it gets close to ten, I’ll bring him home. He’ll be at your door by 10:30, I promise.” I didn’t like the plaintive tone I heard when I said that, but there was nothing I could do. “Just let it go.”

“Sam comes out now,” she said, almost snarling, “or I call the cops and they bring him out, and then we see what the court says about your custody arrangements.”

I closed my eyes. “Thanks so much.”

“For?”

“Reminding me why we’re divorced.”

* * * *

Sam had been hustled away in a hurry, but Ashleigh has protested, saying she wanted to finish up before she left. “Can you take me home?”

“No problem,” I said, flipping on the television. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She disappeared back down the short hallway and into the tiny room I sometimes called an office, when I was feeling charitable. Sam had left a small stack of papers on my coffee table, and I flipped on an episode of Star Trek on my DVR, more for the background noise than anything else, before shuffling through it.

“Hey, Ashleigh?”

“Yeah?” she called back.

“What’s this stuff on the table?”

“Sam said it came out of his printer.”

At first glance, it looked like garbage text — usually the kind that wastes a whole cartridge and half a ream of paper. Page after page of three-digit number-letter blocks that looked like halves of hex codes. Later, as I drove Ashleigh home, I asked if she recognized any of it.

“No. Sam said it’s because my computer has a virus, but I’ve been doing all that stuff you said I should to keep it secure.”

“Virus scanner?”

“Yes.”

“Spyware eliminator?”

“Yeeeees.” She drawled it.

“Firewall?”

“Yes! God!”

“Sorry,” I said, grinning. “What was the file supposed to be?”

“Our report. I left a copy on your hard drive, in case Sam needs to work on it more.” My eyebrows rose and fell. Apparently my son hadn’t told his girlfriend that it was unusual for him to be at my house on a weekday. “You can look at it if you want.”

“Okay.” I took the Excelsior exit toward Interlachen. We stopped at the hospital to let an ambulance scream past. “So… um…”

“You don’t have to talk,” she said, not unkindly. “It’s okay.” And she took out her cell phone, clicking the keyboard, probably texting Sam.

* * * *

“You see this?”

I leaned over to look at the other computer at the assignment desk. “What’s up?”

Frank pointed at his monitor. “Shuttle’s going back up.”

“Now why do you have to do that to me?” I moved back to my own workstation. “You know how those stories make me feel.”

“Oh, please, don’t start. That teacher from Edina—”

“I know, Frank.” My fingers slammed keys on my computer, making it rattle and shift on the scratched, pitted desk.

I hated being reminded of what I believe.

* * * *

When I was five, Star Trek came on every evening at six. My dad would get home from work and we’d sit and watch it together before dinner. Some parents bond with their kids through sports, but for me and my dad it was Star Trek. Also Saturday afternoon TV on TBS — The A-Team, Knight Rider, NWA wrestling. But mostly Trek.

And at that age, I wanted to believe. I would lie in bed at night, clutching my stuffed dog and hoping that, when I woke up, I’d be on a starship, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life-forms and new civilizations.

I wanted to believe.

I wanted to believe in a future where I could work with robots. Or join a ragtag fugitive fleet searching for a shining planet known as Earth. Or have a super-powerful car with lasers and turbo-boosters. Or even hang out with a group of ex-soldiers, on the run from the government, wanted for a crime we didn’t commit. That sort of thing.

Then came real life. Kids in my high school didn’t think it was cool; they thought it made me weak and stupid. And by the time I got through college, real life had taken over. Instead of the United Federation of Planets, it was United Healthcare. Instead of NCC-1701, it was 401(k). And the only Dr. McCoy I ever met wore a rubber glove and told me to lay on my side and draw my knees up.

Oh, I still believed. I still watched sci-fi shows, still saw fantasy and action movies on opening day, still tried to get my kids interested in Star Trek. But that was it. No aliens, no superheroes, no James Bond.

Just reality.

* * * *

“Dude, where’d you get this?”

Ben — the IT guy — was in my passenger seat; we were headed out to lunch, and I’d given him the inch-thick stack of paper to look at while I drove.

“My son. His girlfriend sent him a file, and it printed out all this junk.”

“That’s crazy, man.”

“Why?”

Ben handed me his iPhone. I glanced down as we waited for a light to change. “How did you get this?”

He shrugged. “Showed up when I synched this morning.”

“Any of the numbers the same?”

“Haven’t had a chance to look that close.”

“Well, we’ve got time now.”

Ben took back the phone. I tried to listen to the radio, but all I could do was flick my eyes in Ben’s direction every few seconds. “Slow your roll,” he said. “I’m checking.”

After another couple of minutes, I tucked my car into a parking spot around the side of the Longhorn. “Well?”

“Don’t know, dude. It’s just numbers to me.”

We ordered our food and Ben slid the phone across to me. I started flipping through the pages, hoping I’d see a pattern, but nothing jumped out at me.

“Yeah, you’re not getting it either.”

“It takes time,” I said, not looking up.

“Well, your time’s up.”

The waitress was setting plates on the table. I handed him the phone. “Can you e-mail me that?”

“Whatever, dude.”

* * * *

I didn’t think about the numbers until close to midnight, until I was at home on the couch, half-watching the end of a James Bond movie on Spike. The credits started rolling and I hit the saved-items button on my remote, hoping that something might be in there to put me to sleep.

Instead, all the movie names had been replaced by groupings of numbers and letters.

I snapped awake and grabbed my phone, making sure I had photographic evidence to show Ben tomorrow. I also played around a little in the DVR menu — all the options had been replaced by three-character combinations, but everything still worked normally.

Well. I couldn’t leave it alone, not after that. I shut off the TV and went into my office. Google brought me a surprising number of porn sites when I dropped in a few groupings, but there were some truffles in the mud, mostly in the form of cryptography and conspiracy websites and forums. I joined one that looked promising — one would think it would be harder to get into a community of paranoid people — and read through the thread called “THR EED IGI TNU MBE RSI NMY STU FF!” Members were seeing it in their e-mail, on their phones, even when they tried to use their GPSes. I shared my own story and a few blocks of characters from the e-mail Ben forwarded me, then went to the bathroom.

When I got back, my screensaver had kicked in. But it wasn’t the Windows logo floating serenely, like it was supposed to be. It was more of the number-letter blocks, slowly filling the screen until they rolled up and off.

I shifted the mouse back and forth a couple of times, then hit the space bar. Nothing. “What the hell?”

After a few more futile attempts to turn off the screensaver — and more than one failed three-finger salute — I flipped off the surge strip. The code — that’s what it had to be: some sort of weird code taking over my computer — blinked off.

And as it did, my phone trilled its e-mail sound.

More numbers.

Another trill. Another bunch of numbers.

And a third time.

“This is too weird.” I switched the phone’s profile to silent mode, dropped it in its cradle, and went to bed. Probably not the best thing to do, but I had to be up early for work and no amount of numbers would change that.

* * * *

My alarm clock flipped on, barely jolting me out of the zombielike half-slumber I’d managed after sitting up in bed for hours, poring over the papers Sam had left… was it only two days ago? I couldn’t even remember, I was so exhausted.

Coffee. That would help. I ambled into the kitchen and started it up, then flicked on the little under-the-cabinet TV. It was only a nine-inch set, so it was hard to see at first, but soon enough I had the big TV in the living room turned on.

In the crawl across the bottom of the screen, in between stories about gas prices and the war in Iraq and the reconstruction of 35W, I saw the numbers and letters again.

A82

10F

CC5

51C

909

BA9

* * * *

“What was up with the crawl this morning?”

Anna didn’t look up. “Seemed fine to me.”

“Really? Nothing strange? No errors or anything?”

She grunted. “If you count Diane misspelling a bunch of words, sure, there were errors. But nothing major.” Anna was the EP of the morning shows. If she didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. “What’s up?”

“Can I borrow your DVR?”

“If you need it.” She hefted herself out of her chair — it groaned a little in relief — and clumped off in the general direction of the bathroom.

I’d learned my lesson about sitting in Anna’s chair; I leaned against the side of her desk instead and clicked back to 6:10, when I’d seen the numbers in the crawl.

A82

10F

CC5

51C

909

BA9

28C

8A0

219

208

72A

EBB

And so on. Except now it was the whole crawl. No lottery numbers, no weather or traffic or sports scores. Just block after block of numbers and letters, each separated by our logo.

“That’s strange.” Ben had come up without me noticing and was leaning over the short wall separating Anna’s desk from the one next to it. “I missed it this morning.”

“I was up all night trying to figure out what was going on.”

“I can tell.” He peered at the screen, then slammed his hand onto the desk. “Pause it!”

“What happened?” The freeze-frame looked no different than it should, except for the crawl. “You see something?”

“Maybe.” He tilted his head to the side. “Go back a little.”

I did. “Hey, so I joined this forum last night. Bunch of conspiracy nuts talking about seeing the numbers and letters. I posted some of ours.”

He made a noise and came around, sitting in Anna’s chair. A cloud of funk rose from it, but he ignored it as he remoted into his computer in IT. “Check this out,” he said. “I think it’s repeating.”

“What?” I leaned down and scanned the screen, then ran the DVR on slow. “Holy crap. What the hell is it?”

Ben looked up at me. We were a little too close for comfort in that position, but it was the last thing on my mind. “I think it’s a message.”

* * * *

Four hours later, over lunch in his little cave of an office — bagels scrounged from a sales presentation; neither of us felt like going out — we set laptops up like a game of Battleship and ran our number-letter combinations through a little application he’d written. “How long did this take you?”

“All morning.” He rubbed his eyes. “And most of last night.”

“No wonder you look so shitty. You probably slept as much as me last night.”

“Well, it took me until almost 2:00 to even think of it.”

“Why?”

He smirked. “I saw movie credits. First the names of the stars, then the crew, and finally everything was numbers and letters.”

“Was it View to a Kill? That was on last night.”

Ben didn’t look at all apologetic or embarrassed as he told me what DVD he’d been watching, and he shrugged off me you-ought-to-be-ashamed glare. “Like you’ve never.”

I didn’t reply. He was right, but I wasn’t going to say it. “So you copied down all the numbers?”

“Nah. I put the DVD in my computer and ripped them to my hard drive.”

The bagel was a little stale, and my jaw ached as I talked around it. “What about the morning show? Did you pull that in too?”

“Yeah.” There was a beep. Ben’s eyebrows went up. “Check this shit out.” He turned his computer around.

In a movie, I would’ve whistled to indicate surprise or shock. Instead, all Ben got was a quiet “holy shit.”

“You believe that?”

I didn’t reply.

* * * *

I still wanted to believe the impossible was possible. Oh, I knew it wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t possible for a man to fly, or shoot heat rays from his eyes, or dodge bullets, or reverse time. Deep in my heart of hearts, I hoped I was wrong, but I’d long since downgraded my expectations. And aliens? At first, I’d hoped to be an astronaut or end up in Starfleet so I could meet them, but now I had a mental picture of aliens in earth orbit, laughing at us. Or planning to invade. If they wanted to take over, we wouldn’t be able to stop them, and at the rate we were going, sending Roman candles into space instead of actual starships, we’d never get to their planets.

For years, I hadn’t even considered that any alien race might want anything to do with us.

But there it was on Ben’s computer screen:

IF YOU CAN READ THIS MESSAGE ACCEPT OUR GREETINGS ATTEND THE SPORTING CONTEST BETWEEN THE TWINS OF MINNESOTA AND THE DEVIL RAYS OF FLORIDA ON THE 194TH DAY OF THE HUMAN CALENDAR YEAR INFORM YOUR COMRADES SO THEY MAY WITNESS THIS EVENT

“What. In. The. Hell?”

“Yeah, really.” Ben forced a laugh. “Who goes to Twins games, anyway? Couple months, they could’ve seen some football.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t remember picking up my bagel, but there it was in my hand. I put it back down. “I wonder why they’re talking to us this way.”

“No idea. Maybe they can only talk to our computers? Like, maybe they don’t talk? Or maybe they’re deaf or something.”

“It could be anything,” I said slowly. “Maybe they’re telepaths, or they come from a planet where the air is too thin and sound doesn’t carry…” But I trailed off. “I have no idea.”

“We going to tell anyone?” He didn’t usually sound this thoughtful. “I mean, who would believe us anyway, right?”

I shook my head, a couple of quick jerks. “Has anyone mentioned this to you?”

“Huh-uh. What about that forum you joined?”

I refreshed the page on my laptop. “No one yet, but one guy says he thinks he’s close. Most everyone else says it’s a hoax.”

“No way, dude. No way.”

I definitely agreed with him on that. “So, what, do we get tickets to the game and just show up?”

“I guess.” He turned his computer around. “You buying?”

“I’ll write you a check.” I paused. “You think my kids might want to come?”

Ben slowly closed his laptop. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I dunno, man.” Another refresh; nothing new. “I mean, this could be historic, right? Aliens landing on earth… would they forgive me if they weren’t there to see it?”

He sighed. “Okay, A? We don’t think it’s a hoax, but what if it is? B, terrorists. C, maybe the aliens are just trying to get us all in one place so they can blow us away or probe us all at once or whatever. D, that’s a Friday and it’s not your weekend to see them anyway, so do you really think your wife’s just going to roll over and let you take them to a game? Do they even like baseball?”

“Dan played little league,” I said. “Sam doesn’t like sports. But he’d come if I was there.”

“How sweet.” Ben’s voice didn’t lend itself to sarcasm. “Seriously, not a good idea.”

“Why not? We’ve agreed it’s not a hoax. I’m pretty damn sure it’s not terrorists, and as for them blowing us up?” I shrugged. “If they were going to kill us, I bet the message would’ve been more attractive. This is just, like, ‘come see us, please,’ not ‘if you come see us, we’ll make you rich’.”

“But what about Michelle?”

“Maybe we can work something out. Go ahead and get four. Five, if your girlfriend is coming.”

“Nah. She hates baseball.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to Michelle.”

“Good luck.”

* * * *

“Out of the question.”

“Oh, come on, Michelle, it’s one damn night!”

She sucked her cigarette like she was mad at it instead of mad at me, then blew the smoke in my direction. “It’s not your weekend. Hell, even if it was, you don’t get Fridays. You get Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning.”

I took a couple of steps away — not because of the smoke; I just didn’t want to be that close to her. “Look, Ben won the tickets, so it’s not like there’s money involved.” A small lie, but it wasn’t as if Michelle had never lied to me. “It’s just something nice he wants to do. Why can’t you accept that?”

Michelle dragged down the last of the cigarette, then flicked it out into the parking lot. “It’s very simple, Greg. If the game was next month, or on a Saturday or Sunday, you could take them. But Friday? No. No way.”

“Can we work out a trade?”

She fingered the pocket of her slacks; there was a rectangular bump in one pocket that I figured was her pack. “You couldn’t have found a better time?”

“You don’t return my calls or e-mails, and the last time I went to your house, you called the cops on me for dropping off a book Sam forgot. This is all I had.” I stopped pacing. “Oh, smoke another one if you want, I don’t care!” that old snap, the same one I’d had so often toward the end of our marriage. Apparently I hadn’t forgotten about it. “When’d you start that, anyway?”

“Why do you care?” She didn’t pull out another cigarette, just her lighter, which she turned around and around in her fingers.

“I don’t need my kids getting sick from your smoke. At least you do it outside, right?” She gave me a sharp look. “Hey, I’m sure a judge would be thrilled to hear the primary caretaker started smoking after the divorce. I may not make as much money as you and Randy,” I said; she winced when I mentioned her new husband, “but I do have a three-bedroom apartment. Plenty of room.”

The lighter stopped spinning. “Whatever,” she murmured. “Get them home by noon on Saturday.”

It was juvenile of me — and I knew it — but as I cut into traffic on the way out of the parking lot, I replayed that moment in my head. I finally had some leverage over her, and I could use it.

Not even her nastygram text — “u owe me 1 day of ur 2 wks in dec” — could deflate my mood. Aliens coming to Minneapolis and a victory over Michelle? Best day of the year so far.

* * * *

The seats were very good — tenth row, a little bit past third base — and Sam, at least, was impressed. I could tell Dan would rather have been out with his friends instead of at a baseball game with his father, especially on a Friday night, but at least he was keeping it to himself.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Sam asked halfway through the bottom of the third.”

“Uh…”

“I’m heading up,” Ben said. “I’ll show him.”

“You cool with that?”

Sam shrugged, imitating Dan, who, if he noticed it, didn’t show it.

“All right. Bring me back some nuts.” Ben gave me that goofy grin that said he was about to make an inappropriate joke, and I rolled my eyes. “Yes, yes, deez nuts, I want deez nuts, now get out of here.”

Ben looked like he wanted to pout — he hated when people stole his punchlines — but trooped up the stairs with Sam.

“Very droll, Dad,” Dan said.

“Thanks. Glad you like it.”

“Eh.”

There was a crack, and we both turned back to the field to see one of the Twins knock one into left-center. “So, Dad,” Dan said after a gulp of soda, “what’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, “why’d you fight Mom so hard for us to come with you to this game?”

“You think I can afford tickets this good on my own?”

“I don’t know. You work in TV.”

“Right.” I took a hit off my own soda. “Short answer: Ben won the tickets, Ben and I are friends, and he invited us.”

“Cool,” Dan said, but in that unenthusiastic way all teenagers seemed to say it.

The inning ended. The Twins trotted out onto the field. It wasn’t until the second batter made it up to the plate that Dan, rather idly, not even looking my way, asked what the long answer was.

My head snapped up — I’d been watching a pretty girl in an unflattering top sidle her way across the sixth row. “What do you mean?”

“What’s the long answer?” Now he was looking at me.

And Sam was back too. “Long answer? What’s the question?” He dropped into his seat next to me and handed me a plastic bag of peanuts. “Come on, Dad,” he said, lips pressed together in disapproval. “You tell Dan all the good stuff, but not me. What’s up with that?”

“Do people still say that?” I asked, trying to stall.

“Da-ad.”

Crap. “Ben?”

Ben shrugged. “All yours, dude. I’m just here for the baseball.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Sam looked scandalized — had I really never cursed in front of him before? — but I could tell neither he nor Dan were going to let it go.

I took a breath and looked up at the top of the dome. In a perfect world — or a movie — whatever was going to happen would’ve happened at that exact moment.

In this world, though, it took until I’d explained about the crawl on the morning news.

* * * *

All around us, people were shouting, running for the exits, taking photos and videos with all kinds of cell phones. Sam looked like he wanted to bold; Ben and Dan were with the cell phone crowd.

I put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “It’s okay, son. It’s okay.”

“Okay?” His voice was an octave too high. “Dad, what is that thing, and what’s it doing in the middle of the field?”

I looked at the infield; the players had scattered, back to the catacombs of the building, somewhere under our seats. The ship — it had to be a ship; it couldn’t be anything else — had appeared out of nowhere. No noise, no lasers cutting open a hole in the dome, no thrusters burning the grass. I’d been looking at the girl again until someone had yelled, “What the fuck is that?”

The thing was about as big as the infield itself, rectangular, maybe five or six stories high. I flashed instantly on Borg ships, but this couldn’t be the Borg. A, they were fictional, and B, whoever these people or aliens or whatever turned out to be, they had at least bothered to put windows and doors on the ship. Parts of it — looked like exhaust ports to me — were still glowing reddish with heat. The ship itself was a deep, silvery color, and it didn’t reflect light. Flashes from photographers didn’t shine back off the skin of the ship, but there were slight flickers of reflection from the windows.

“Dad,” Dan said slowly, eyes wide and fixed on the ship. “What. The fuck. Did you bring us here for?”

“Don’t curse,” I said automatically, my own eyes examining the ship.

“No, Dad, I think I deserve a fuck or two here.” He looked at me, and he looked pissed. “You got some weird messages, figured out what they meant, and decided you wanted me and Sam to be here when aliens invaded our planet? Is that it, Dad? Is it?”

“Damn it, Dan!” I snapped, finally looking at him. “Don’t you get it? This is… it’s…”

Ben picked up when I stammered out. “It’s history, dude. It’s like, where were you on 9/11, or where was your grandpa when Kennedy got shot, or when we landed on the moon. Stuff like this, you’ll want to say you were there. Your kids will think you’re awesome.”

“My kids?” He looked past me and I turned; Sam’s knuckles were white where he squeezed the arms of his seat. “How many kids in here tonight, Ben?”

Sam’s face was as white as his knuckles, brown eyes wide and glittering. “I want to go home, Dad.” His voice was very, very small.

I put my arm over his shoulders and tried to pull him to me. “It’ll be okay, Sam. I’m sure it’s safe. They… um… probably just needed a way into the dome.” I smiled, but it felt fake, even to me. “Maybe if they waited a couple of years, they could’ve just come into the new stadium without worrying about the roof, right?”

“That’s not funny,” Dan said, almost snarling. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are you going to go? I drove.”

He held out his hand. “Give me your keys, then. Your new alien friends—” and he choked on the word “—can give you a ride home.”

“Dan, come on!” I pointed toward the ship. “They sent us a message. Look around you, and think about the people you passed on the way in. How many of them looked like real baseball fans?” He glowered, but I pushed on. “A lot of people got this message. Why would aliens bother to tell us they were coming if they were going to kill us all?”

He shook his head. “Give me the damn keys, Dad.”

I glanced at Ben, who shrugged again. “Dan,” I said, “please, don’t go. This is important.”

“Important to you, maybe.” He waved in the general direction of the rows of seats behind us. “Look around you, Dad,” he said, parroting my words and my tone. “People are getting the hell out of here. They’re scared. Even your conspiracy-theory buddies aren’t staying.”

“I—”

But Dan kept going, raising his voice right over mine. “I don’t care who’s in the ship! I don’t care if they’re here to give us warp drive or the cure for AIDS or what! You just dragged me and Sam with you because you don’t think aliens can be evil! Come on, Dad, I watch movies just like you, but you’re an optimist and I’m not!”

“Dan…”

He got up and crossed in front of me to put his hand on Sam’s arm. “Come on, bro. We’re going.”

“Sam… you know I wouldn’t put you in danger…”

“I’m scared, Dad,” Sam said. “I want Mom.”

I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. “Sam…”

He let Dan pull him to his feet. Dan held out his hand again. “Keys, Dad.”

I gave them to him. “Here.”

“Thanks.” He didn’t sound appreciative, just sad. “Good luck.”

* * * *

The stadium had been empty enough by that point that Dan and Sam had no trouble getting out of the stands. I hoped they’d be okay on the concourse level.

“Dude, that was harsh.” Ben had his phone out, probably on the internet.

“Yeah.” My own phone was vibrating in my pocket; I put it to my ear. “Hello?”

“What the hell is going on over there?”

“Yeah, Michelle, have to call you back in a few minutes,” I said, voice dull.

“What about Sam? What about Dan? What the hell—”

I ended the call.

“Hey, Greg?”

“What?”

“Check this out.” He handed over his phone; the CNN app was open. “Dude, every baseball game in the country has one of these things at it. It’s not just here.”

“Really?”

“Really!” His forehead was starting to shine with sweat. “I gotta get out of here. Something’s not right.”

“Fine. Go.”

“Come on, Greg, let’s get the hell out of here before it’s too late!”

“You go ahead.” I turned back to the ship. “I’m going to see what happens.”

He muttered something and ran for it.

* * * *

I don’t know how long I sat there, watching the ship, waiting for something to happen. My phone was vibrating non-stop in my pocket, but I ignored it. There were a few people still in the stands; I ignored them too.

The ship would open. The aliens would come out. They would be benevolent. We would learn so much from them. We would go into space and join a peaceful federation of other starfaring cultures. We would—

“Citizens of Minneapolis, Minnesota.”

It was coming over the speakers in the stadium. It was displayed in all capitals on the jumbotron.

“Please form an orderly queue and make your way to our transport. You will receive further instructions once inside.”

I looked around. No one was closer to the field than I was, not now. I jogged down the stairs and jumped the railing; a door had opened in the side of the ship, and I made for it. I couldn’t see what was inside, but I didn’t care.

I believed.

* * * *

About the Story

“Belief” was one of the first science fiction stories that I ever wrote, and it’s one of the few where I managed to keep the ambiguous ending over the objections of first readers and editors. It took more than five years to go from my brain to publication, and I know I completely rewrote it more than once. I originally called it “I For One Welcome Our New Robot Overlords” because the aliens were originally going to be robots — and, truthfully, they might still be. I don’t know what’s in that ship any more than Greg did before he went toward it.

The story was really more about believing in the future, and being constantly disappointed with the fact that science fiction stubbornly refuses to become science fact. In the four years since the story came out, we’ve had tremendous advances, but space travel remains stubbornly out of reach of the average citizen. Sadly, I expect it to remain so.

I used to work at a TV station and that experience informed the scenes at Greg’s workplace — especially the discussions between Ben and Greg, which are based loosely on discussions I had with the IT guy at that job.

“The Clockwork Russian”

I’m just rewinding my electric gun when the bell on my desk rings. I pick up the speaking tube. “Yes?”

“You are…” The voice trails off into a tinny echo of itself. “Man who solve crime, yes?”

“I am.”

“Good.” The man sounds Russian, which isn’t necessarily a surprise. “I wish to come up. Discuss crime with you.”

There’s a pedal on the floor. I step gently on it until I hear a hiss, and I know the front door of the walk-up is opening.

The gun is rewound and in my desk drawer when the door to my office opens. The man — not my customer yet, just someone who wants to talk — shrugs off his heavy gray coat and hangs it on the hook next to mine, then looks down at his boots. “You have no scraper. Apologies, for mud on floors.”

I wave my hand slightly. “It’s fine. Sit.”

He plants himself in the plain wooden chair on the far side of my desk. “I am Pyotr Leonovich Novotny.” Definitely Russian. “For you, I have job. I have money for you to do job. Tell me cost, and I pay.”

“Not just yet,” I say. “What is it you need me to do?”

Pyotr Leonovich folds big, calloused hands on my desk. He’s a large man, though it’s not something easy to tell until he gets up close. His nose, his chin, his thick black beard, all are so large as to almost be comical, but the hardness in his bright blue eyes is not something to laugh at. “Police, they say accident. No investigation. Vasily Leonovich, my brother, in wrong place at wrong time, shot by guards when not listening to sign.” Suddenly he slams both fists on the desk and I just barely manage not to jump. Everything is rattled, and my little heliotype viewer falls onto its side.

But Pyotr Leonovich is immediately contrite, standing up the little piece of clockwork, touching the exposed gears at the side. I can tell he’s used to working with machines — small machines, no less — by the tenderness in his fingertips. He turns the small crank, winding the spring, and when he lets go, the viewer begins to click softly, once every second. After ten ticks, a larger gear catches and the heliotype of my parents is replaced by one from my university days. He looks at me then, satisfied, a little guilty. “Apologies. But Vasily was not ignorant. Police, they anger me.”

I nod. “When did this happen?” I still haven’t decided to take the case, but I pick up my pen and twist it, exposing the nib. “How long ago?”

“Two weeks now,” he says, and I write it down. “Police take one week just to release body for burial, then one day to tell me no case. I try to learn, but face closed door. Not expert.” He has that guilty look again. “Tried to fight guards. Shot me.” He pulls down the neck of his thick, dark-green sweater, and I see a bandage. “Woke up in alley. Came to see you next day.”

“Pyotr Leonovich,” I say, and he blinks, surprised that I know the correct form of address, “what sign did your brother allegedly ignore?”

He sighs, then sits silent a moment. “Trespassers shot on sight.”

I put my pen down. There’s only one place in Seattle where anyone would find that sign. “I’m sorry, Pyotr Leonovich, but I can’t help you.”

His big hands curl into fists, but he controls his anger. “Please,” he says, low and soft. “I must know why!”

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

He says something in Russian that I can’t quite make out, though the word for “shit” figures in it somewhere. I never learned the language, not officially, but living here it’s hard not to pick up at least some useful phrases. Instead of bothering to translate, though, he takes out an envelope and places it on the desk. “Deed to property,” he says, pushing the soft white paper across the blotter. “My brother’s. Yours if you find out why he was killed.”

I wouldn’t be a detective if I wasn’t curious. I take out the deed, unfold it, and scan it. Then I fold it back up and replace it. “This stays here,” I say. “Even if I wasn’t going to take your case, this isn’t something you want in your possession. Not right now.”

“So you will work for me?” He seems to brighten, though with the beard and mustache effectively obscuring the lower half of his face, it’s kind of hard to tell.

“Yes,” I say. “You’ll pay me $150 for the first week’s expenses, non-refundable, then another twenty per day after that.”

He nods and reaches into his pocket, then sets a small stack of bills on the desk. “I am watchmaker,” he says. “Clockmaker also. Money is not problem.” The top bill has Grant on it, and there’s no reason to believe the others are any different. I pocket two of the fifties, then drop the rest into a slot in the desk, the one that leads to my safe.

I push my chair back and stand up. Pyotr Leonovich rises as well. “Thank you,” he says sincerely. “Thank you.” He reaches out as if to shake my hand, but I don’t reach back, and he unsuccessfully turns the gesture into a thick-fingered comb that goes through his black hair. He goes to the door and pulls on his coat. “You find me at shop. Downtown, next to Ishmael’s Restaurant. All hours, come if you know anything.”

“All right. But don’t expect miracles,” I caution him as he opens the door. “For all either of us knows, there was a very good reason your brother was killed.”

For a few seconds, I’m afraid Pyotr Leonovich’s money is going to go toward buying a new doorknob, but he just shakes his head and leaves, the door closing behind him, the latch clicking. I fold the bills and slide them into my wallet, then take my gun and holster out of the desk. The leather is soft and doesn’t dig into my skin — not because I paid for it, but because I’ve worn this holster for a long time, though I had to make some modifications when Seattle Police and I parted ways. I pull it over my shoulders and buckle it, then retrieve my own coat from the rack. On the way out, I flip the third switch from the left just inside my front door, and when I leave, the colored circle beside the speaking tube has turned from green to red. I lock the door, put up my hood, and start down Fourth Street. Cabs don’t come up here, and I’m going to need a ride in this weather.

* * * *

TRESPASSERS SHOT ON SIGHT. The metal sign is smooth and polished, black with white writing so it’s visible in all but the heaviest snowstorms. Behind the gate — metal bars a couple of inches apart and twelve feet high, set into heavy stone walls — I can see the familiar lines of the warehouse complex. It cost me an extra ten to get the cab to drop me here in the first place, and the gears ground and screeched as the driver did his best to speed away, steam from his exhaust pipe melting the snowbank on the side of the road.

Beside the sign is a speaking tube. I flip the electrical switch beside it, then wait.

“We’re closed.” The voice is guttural. Familiar, but guttural. “What do you want?”

“John Bach,” I answer, “here to see Mr. Frieze.” I learned long ago not to laugh at his name.

There’s a pause. Then, “you’re not on the list.”

“I know.” The wind picks up and I shiver, unable to stop it; it’s almost impossible to quickly draw a gun in a heavy coat, and I don’t expect to be out here long enough to need to waste a chemical heat pack. The hood protects my ears and neck, at least. “Please tell him it’s not related to our usual business. And for the love of God, can I at least wait in the guardhouse?”

“No. You can wait right there.”

Wonderful. I tuck myself into the lee of the gate, even a few inches’ protection better than nothing. I’m counting on my relationship with Mr. Frieze to get me inside, even though I don’t have an appointment. And Mr. Frieze is nothing if not appreciative of order. Overly so, I might say, though not out loud. To anyone. Ever.

I’m almost ready to give up when the gate clanks and starts to swing inward, creaking in the cold and the wind. I slip through as soon as I can and make my way to the guardhouse — skipping that stop is enough to get anyone shot. Even me.

It’s warm in the guardhouse. Too warm, actually; heat is piped in through a grate in the floor, and without a window or door cracked open, it’s far too stuffy in there for three people. I’m surprised the guards haven’t gone crazy from the still, hot air. I don’t bother to take off my coat — I’ll be back out in the cold in a minute anyway — but I wish I could; within seconds, sweat begins collecting at the small of my back, and I know that’ll just make it worse when I do get out there.

I push back my hood. “See? John Bach.”

One of the guards — a short, chubby man with graying brown stubble and washed-out blue eyes — is holding a rifle on me. A real one, with bullets in it. The other is in better shape, and appears to be in charge. He steps toward me. “Arms to your sides. Legs apart.”

“Oh, come on,” I say. “It’s me. John Bach. I’m here every month. Do we really have to—” But I shut up and do as he says when I hear the rifle cock. The guard pats me down, harsher than usual — me and my big mouth — and takes advantage of the opportunity to dig his thumb into the pressure point above my collarbone. I grunt, and he sneaks past my guard to snatch away my gun.

“Mark it down, Stan,” he says. “One electric handgun.”

“Yeah. One electric handgun.” He scrawls it on a sheet of paper while the other man hits the safety. The priming chamber sparks as the spring slowly winds down, and once it’s empty, he hands it back. “You know the rules, Bach.”

I don’t say anything, just slip the gun back into my holster and wait while Stan talks to someone over the speaking tube. The earpiece held to the side of his face delivers a response, and it must be one he disapproves of, because he grumbles as he uncocks the rifle and leans it against the side of his desk. “Go on,” he says. “Mr. Frieze is waiting for you.”

“Thanks so much,” I say with just enough false cheer to make them glare at me. I shoulder the door open against the wind; it slams shut behind me. I pull my hood up and take careful steps through the snow to the main building. The wind gusts behind me, and I’m almost leaning back as I walk, trying to keep from being blown over, knowing that Stan is probably watching, waiting for me to sprawl on my face. But I get to the next door without incident and pull it open. I squeeze in and another gust sends the heavy metal slab clanging closed against the door frame.

I have to blink a few times to get my eyes adjusted to the light and the lack of snow. It’s more pleasantly-warm in here, not so oppressive, and I take a moment to scrape the snow off my boots, remove my gloves, and hang my coat on the rack beside the door. It doesn’t bother me that the young woman behind the desk can see my gun; she’s seen it every other time I’ve come here. I give her a smile. “Hi, Alex.”

She smiles back, eyes twinkling, round cheeks dimpled. “Hello, John. Mr. Frieze wasn’t expecting you today.”

“I know,” I say. I go to her desk; there’s a dish of disc-shaped caramel candies. I take one and let the sweetness rest on my tongue before shifting it to the side. “This isn’t about business.”

Alexandra’s smile seems to stick in place. “Mr. Frieze doesn’t have friends,” she says. “This can’t be a social call.”

“No, it’s not.” I can feel the caramel essence coating my mouth. It reminds me of fireside afternoons with my brother and grandfather, makes me feel warm inside. I suppose I could buy the candies myself, but too much of a good thing dulls the pleasure it brings. “It is about business, I suppose, though not my usual.”

Now the smile goes away completely. “I know Mr. Frieze didn’t hire you,” she says. Alexandra knows my business. “Please, John, tell me you’re not here to investigate him for someone.”

I spread my hands. “Sorry, Alex, but I think I am.”

“John…”

“Just ring me in,” I say. “I’ll be all right.”

She nibbles her lower lip for a few seconds, her hand over the button on her desk. “You’re not going in discharged, are you?”

I click my tongue at her, which is harder than it sounds with candy in my mouth. “The guards would be so disappointed in you,” I say as I draw my gun. I fold out the little crank on the stock and wind it, keeping my strokes slow and smooth even though I want to crank it up and get this over with. What Alexandra hasn’t said is that Mr. Frieze might be more than a little upset about my unplanned appearance. I’m counting on the trust he has in my other, less-public business to get me through the meeting, but then, if the deed Pyotr Leonovich gave me is what got his brother killed, not even the threat of my own death could keep me away.

I finish winding and reholster the gun. “There,” I say. “Ready to face the music.”

“That isn’t funny.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You used to think it was.”

She presses the button. I hear the slightest muffled ring from the other side of the wall behind Alexandra’s desk. A few seconds later, the light beside the bell turns from red to green, and I hear the click of the door unlocking. “Go on in,” she says, sounding resigned. “Good luck, John.”

“Thanks.”

* * * *

It’s even darker in Mr. Frieze’s office; the only light comes from a small electric lamp on his desk, which is quite a walk from the door. I hear the door lock behind me, but that’s normal for Mr. Frieze. In fact, all of this is normal — the thick carpet that muffles my steps, the measured ticking of the desk clock, the dark and windowless room; all of it helps Mr. Frieze deal with his problem.

Though calling it that to his face would be exceedingly stupid.

“Please sit down, Mr. Bach,” Mr. Frieze says. I can barely make out shadows of his features; the lamp has a very weak bulb. I’ve seen Mr. Frieze’s face a couple of times, and he’s not scary to look at, but in this place, in these circumstances, I can’t help but feel my heartbeat speed up slightly. I find the soft leather seat by touch and ease myself into it. “You are not scheduled to be here this day.”

I nod. Mr. Frieze has told me that he sees very well in the dark; whether it’s true or not, I can’t say, but I’m not going to doubt him. “I apologize, sir,” I tell him, keeping my voice low. “I realize I am not due for 17 more days.” Mr. Frieze measures time in days at the largest — days, minutes, seconds, but not hours or weeks or months or years.

“Prime,” he says. His fingers tap a complicated pattern on the wooden desk. “The sixth.”

It takes me a moment to realize what he’s referring to. “Yes,” I say. “I suppose it is that.” Whenever I’m in this room, I find myself falling into Mr. Frieze’s precise patterns of speech. Maybe it helps. I don’t know. “Sir, I come to you today not as a dealer of goods, but as a consumer of information.” Which is technically true.

“I know not of any information you could want from me that you do not already have.” Mr. Frieze speaks with a faint accent; it sounds Germanic, but the last time I heard someone speaking German was at university, and that was thirteen years ago. I smile to myself — another prime number. “You will explain yourself, Mr. Bach. Please.” There’s no question in that icy tone. I’ve heard Mr. Frieze use that same tone to order a man’s death. My back is cold where sweat has soaked through my shirt. “Now.”

I take a deep breath. “Sir, I have been retained by a man whose brother was shot and killed at this property, and—”

“Vasily Novotny,” Mr. Frieze says, the first time he’s ever interrupted me. I see his elbows come to rest on his desk, and his hands as he folds them. I can make out more of his face as he presses his lips to his fingers. I wait for him to continue. “Vasily Novotny trespassed. He climbed the wall. He bypassed the guardhouse. The guards had a job: to shoot trespassers. Vasily Novotny was a trespasser; therefore, he was shot.”

I find myself growing interested, not with the story, but with the way Mr. Frieze is speaking. The last time I heard him speak like this was when I told him I could sell him single-shot hideaway weapons — disposable electric guns. Not very economical, but Mr. Frieze pays the bills, and when Mr. Frieze orders something, it’s worth my while to make it available to him.

Mr. Frieze is excited. And that can’t be good.

“Sir, my retainer comes from a man with interest in the circumstances of Vasily Novotny’s death. I must investigate, as I have been paid to do.”

Mr. Frieze doesn’t nod, but something in his posture shifts. I feel myself tense up, mentally measuring how long it will take me to draw my gun and shoot Mr. Frieze, and then figuring out how much time I’ll have before his entire organization comes after me. But Mr. Frieze simply says, “I believe any investigation into my organization will prove fruitless. I suggest you depart now. I will see you in 17 days.” I hear a soft click — the door behind me unlocking — and I know I have no choice in the matter. “Good day, Mr. Bach.”

“Good day, sir,” I say as I get up. “Thank you for your time.”

He says nothing, and I get out of there. It always feels like escaping from a nightmare when I close that heavy door and see Alexandra’s concerned face. Without a word, she places four of the candies on a sheet of paper and folds it shut. I take one more, put it in my mouth, and close my eyes, letting out a long sigh.

“That was really stupid, John,” she says.

“I know, but I had to try.”

“No. You didn’t.”

I blink, then look down at Alexandra. The folded paper is in her hand; I take it, and my fingers brush her palm as I do. Her milk-pale cheeks flush pink; her eyelids flutter. “Thanks,” I say. “For this.”

She makes an affirmative noise. I go to retrieve my coat, and I’m pulling my gloves back on when she says my name.

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow night?”

I nod. “Tomorrow night. See you then.” I grab the door handle. “Good-bye, Alex.”

She smiles, but says nothing else, and I push the door open and start my trek back to the road.

* * * *

I’m nearly frozen through when a cab finally stops, and I have to fumble for almost a minute until I can get my wallet out and hand over a few dollars. “Ishmael’s,” I say, barely able to control the quivering of my jaw. “Downtown. Franklin Street.” The driver, an older man wearing bracelets marking him as Kikiallus, engages his clockwork-and-steam engine and I lean back against the upholstered seat, not really watching or paying attention. It seems all too soon that I’m giving him another dollar and stepping out into the cold, then back to the warm again, inside Ishmael’s restaurant.

I do a lot of my own cooking in the winter — it helps to warm the house — but I’m here often enough. Ishmael comes out from behind the counter and claps me on the shoulder, but is careful not to take my coat. “John Bach!” he says in his deep, church-bell voice. “How are you?”

I try not to wince. This is the lunchtime crowd, and some of them work for the police. And the police and I try to stay out of each other’s way. But then, I’m too cold to notice if any dirty looks are sent in my direction. “Ishmael,” I say by way of greeting. He guides me to a seat at the raised counter, then goes back to the other side. “Coffee?”

“Of course, of course!” He produces a heavy earthenware mug and fills it with acid-smelling black liquid. I would prefer tea, but I have an image to maintain. “Food for you?”

I pull off my gloves and cup the mug in my bare hands, leaning over to breathe in the steam rising from the coffee, trying to avoid wrinkling my nose at the scent. “What’s open-faced today?”

“For you, John, I’d cut off my own hand and grill it ’til it steamed.” He grins, his teeth as white as the coffee is black, a sharp contrast against his dark, dark skin. “But everyone else is having corned beef with onions and mustard.”

“Sounds fine.” I sip the coffee, hot enough to scald and strong enough to wash away whatever I still taste of the caramels, but I don’t care. I need the warmth. It’s not usually this cold in the winter, but the newspaper says we’re having the coldest January since the 1890s. “Is Alan cooking today?”

“’Course he is, John.” Ishmael puts a napkin and some silverware in front of me and gives me the slightest hint of a nod. I do the same and sip some more coffee. “Alleycat!” he calls. “House special, side’a’hash, extra mustard for my friend John Bach!”

“You got it, Ish!” The voice that comes through the open window to the kitchen is a familiar tenor. If it sounds a little anticipatory, I doubt anyone notices.

The coffee begins warming me up, and I’m just about this side of relaxed when the stool next to me creaks. “Why’s he always yellin’ yer name?”

I look sidelong at Christopher Courtland’s gray, grizzled face. His uniform shirt stretches a little, pulls at the buttons, and his badge is pinned on ever so slightly crooked. “We’re friends,” I say. “Doesn’t he do that to everyone?”

“Doesn’t do it ta me.” Officer Courtland — once Sergeant, but that’s part of why I don’t work for the police anymore — reaches out and runs the fabric of my sleeve between his fingers. “Nice material,” he says. “How you gettin’ by on a private eye’s pay, anyway?”

“How are you getting by on a beat officer’s?”

Courtland’s face goes brick-red, and I honestly regret what I’ve said — not because Courtland didn’t deserve what happened to him, but because I’m not really in the mood to deal with him today. He opens his mouth, but closes it when a pale hand lands on his left shoulder, probably harder than it needed to. “I think we’re done here,” says Tom O’Leary. He gives me an apologetic look. “Come on, Christopher. Back to work.”

Courtland makes an ugly noise, but gets off the stool and goes to the coat rack. Tom shrugs. “Sorry, John. He’s not doing so well these days. Wife’s mad, kid’s down in California trying to get into pictures, you know how it is.”

“Yeah.” I lift one eyebrow. “Sorry you’re stuck with him.”

“’S only for a few months,” Tom says. His lips curl into a smile under his bright-red bristle-brush moustache. “I’m on track for Sergeant.”

“Congratulations,” I say, and mean it. I move to give Tom’s hand a shake, but something in his pale eyes warns me against it. “All right then. Have a good one.”

“You too.”

Ishmael puts my plate down as Tom heads for the front door. The bell jingles as the two officers leave, and as if a weight’s been lifted, the conversation in the restaurant seems to get louder. “You shouldn’t do that when they’re around,” I say.

“Hell with ’em.” Even when he’s trying to be quiet, I still feel like Ishmael’s voice could bash a hole in the side of a building. “I want my customers to know John Bach eats here.”

“Your mistake to make.” I say it with a smile, because Ishmael and I go way back, back to when I first left the police. We’re not friends, but each of us knows secrets about the other, things we wouldn’t want getting out. I snatch up an onion and eat it. “Great, as usual.”

“’Course it is.” Ishmael puts a glass of water on the counter. “Eat up, fill up!” He laughs, one of those wall-destroying booms. “Lord knows it’ll be a day and a half before you even think to eat a good meal again!”

My heart skips as I start in on my sandwich and Ishmael moves off to talk to his other customers. A day and a half — a code phrase. One that means Alan’s gotten my message.

The food suddenly tastes a whole lot better — not that it was bad in the first place, but the promise of Alan improves everything.

* * * *

I linger until the lunch crowd thins out, hoping to at least share a word with Alan, but the closest I get is his crooked grin as he puts plates up on the platform between the kitchen and the restaurant. I pay the grandmotherly-looking woman at the front, tell her she’s looking lovely, and go next door, not bothering with my gloves.

The inside of Pyotr Leonovich’s shop is nothing at all like Ishmael’s restaurant. It’s dim and quiet, cool and empty, with only a small area in the front for customers. A glass display case holds a selection of watches, some fine and some utilitarian; I don’t wear one, not when there are clocks everywhere, but if I did, there are several I would very much like to own. Pyotr Leonovich comes out from the back room, wiping his hands on a smooth leather apron; he takes off his visor, detaches the binocles clipped to the brim, and sets both on top of the case. “Mr. Bach,” he says. “You have information so soon?” Here in the small shop, he moves not like a bull among china but like an athlete, with controlled power and efficiency of motion. “Your intelligence I know, but this — amazement!”

I shake my head. “It’s not that, Pyotr Leonovich.” I open my coat, and he sees my gun. He tenses, as if I’m threatening him; I’m not, but I do want him to know I’m serious. “You need to tell me what your brother was into, and how he got mixed up with Mr. Frieze.”

Pyotr Leonovich’s body relaxes and he looks down, dejected. “Apologies,” he says. “I had hoped it would be easy.”

“Nothing with Mr. Frieze is ever easy,” I say, not assuringly. I rest the heels of my hands on the metal edge of the display case. “Tell me about your brother, Pyotr Leonovich.”

* * * *

Vasily worked for Nicholas II, Pyotr Leonovich said. I followed in my father’s footsteps, learning the clockwork trade, but Vasily, he was special. Very smart, able to dream up things I could never. He went to work repairing motorized carriages, and word got to the Tsar that Vasily Leonovich Novotny could make them run faster, and quieter, and able to carry heavier loads by introducing steam-powered engines. Father was so proud when Vasily came home, told us he was appointed to the Tsar’s scientific council. We knew it meant military, it meant prestige for our family and money besides, for in St. Petersburg, the jobs were in big devices, big machines, not the small gears of watches and clocks and gadgets.

Then came Rasputin. You have heard of him: Nicholas’s sorcerer, the Merlin of our time. When Vasily came home, which was less and less as months passed, he would tell us of the awesome powers he beheld in Rasputin’s presence. Rasputin, whose robes deflected bullets, who could walk outside in winter without coat or boots, who seemed to know everything Vasily was working on and how to improve it. Perhaps he was just better-schooled, perhaps he had others working in the scientific council. Perhaps he consorted with the Germans. The important thing was that Vasily was happy, and we were all well.

But all was not well at court, and Vasily came to our door in spring. This was 1917; I know that you, an educated man, know of the Uprising, of Rasputin’s takeover of the throne and his institution of the Five-Year Plans. He took Anastasia as his bride and ordered all his forces to find Nicholas and return with his head. I see you shaking your head; you are correct. Nicholas, to the best of my knowledge, still lives. But had Vasily stayed, he would not have. Vasily, though impressed by Rasputin, was loyal to Nicholas, and when Vasily arrived, he was bloody, his arm broken and clutched to his side. I took him through the house, out the back, at Father’s insistence — Father said to run, to escape, that Rasputin was coming — and I took Vasily to the only place I knew was safe: my old school friend Anatoly. His mother lived on the outskirts, and she let us in, helped me to bind Vasily’s arm.

I found out that night that Rasputin’s men killed Father and Mother, and burned our house and shop. They did the same to the men with whom Vasily used to work on the carriages. It was only a matter of time until they made the connection with Anatoly’s mother, and though we wanted to stay, to take revenge, two clockwork men could not stand against the might of Rasputin the Terrible. So we ran.

It took a hard, cold year to make our way across the vastness of Russia. We crossed the Strait and found ourselves behind Russian lines — Rasputin may have changed many things, but he continued Nicholas’s campaign to expand Russia’s holdings on this continent. We lied about our situation, about our names, said we had lost our way in the snowstorms — there was indeed a snowstorm at that time, though Father had well taught us to keep our bearings in such weather — and were taken in by the Eleventh Brigade. When they discovered our facility with clockwork, with machines, they sent us to the carriage depot, and for many months we had good work, and enough to eat, and the Russian Army claimed more and more of the Canada Territory until finally we came to the border with your United States.

Oh, and how Vasily was enamored with America. America, he would say at night, as we lay on our bedrolls in the depot, with its freedoms to do whatever one wished, to believe in any God or none at all as you please. In America, no one would kill us if the government changed. In America, we could make our own way, free of the Tsar’s taxes or Rasputin’s Plans. In time, Vasily convinced me, the steadfast and safe older brother, that sneaking into America would be the best thing we could do. In broad daylight, as we took our turns patrolling the border, keeping the Americans at bay — or so we were told — we climbed the fence and escaped into America. This scar on my hand, it is from the chains and wire at the top of the border fence, and I wear it with pride.

But now we were in a foreign land. Vasily spoke some English — there were Englanders on the science council, and they taught him — and he gave me what he could. We made our way along the old highway that connected New Vladivostok — what the Canadians used to call Vancouver — with Seattle, and when we came to this city, Vasily and I found work at a place that repaired and modernized carriages. I only stayed for a year before convincing the old Jew who once ran this shop that I was capable of repairing clocks and watches just as well as he, but Vasily stayed on. Until 1923 we were happy; we shared rooms in a building on the lake, we learned English and spent Saturdays — for the Jew closed this shop on Saturdays, as his people do — at the library, studying, becoming citizens of America. Three years we stayed out of plain sight, but then Vasily’s vehicle depot was purchased by another, one who saw what Vasily could do and who placed him at the head of it.

You know who this other ultimately worked for.

Little changed for those first months, but Vasily would come home at night with stories of the men who brought in their vehicles for repair, of the beautiful women in their beautiful clothes with their beautiful jewelry who hung on the arms of these men. Then one night he did not come home at all. I thought he had found a beautiful woman of his own, for in this city in springtime, when the weather is warm, the women wear such clothes… you know this, a man of action such as yourself. But no, when Vasily came to the shop the next day, his eyes were full of wonder and he told me of this man Frieze, the man who told Vasily he must make a weapon of clockwork and steam, one that could not be stopped by what Frieze called “enemies”. And of course Vasily rose to the challenge.

You remember the influenza of autumn 1923. It took the Jew who owned the shop, and I discovered he had willed it to me. I still close it on Saturdays in his memory. With a loan from the bank, I bought the building in which we lived, and between my earnings — for you Americans have such gadgets and timepieces, and are willing to pay well to repair them and buy new ones — and Vasily’s money from his work for Frieze, we purchased several more buildings on the water. We rented rooms, made money, but one building we allowed for those like us, Russians trying to make their way in America. We let them live for little money, for no money, until they could be independent. And things were so.

* * * *

“Well,” I say, “what happened in the past year-and-a-half that turned Mr. Frieze against Vasily?”

Pyotr Leonovich shakes his head. “Karol Antonovich Ivanov,” he tells me. “Karol we knew in New Vladivostok. A soldier. On our doorstep, though, last October, he came destitute. He left garrison, afraid for his life, and like others we give him home, help him with job.”

“What kind of job?”

A sigh. “Karol Antonovich was not good at jobs. Angry often, even with me, with Vasily. Took work at the docks, a strong man, but thrown off into Lake Washington when he stole things.”

“Sounds like a lovely individual.” It’s starting to come together, what happened, but I have to hear Pyotr Leonovich tell me, to confirm it. “Go on.”

Pyotr Leonovich picks up his visor, runs the edge between his big fingertips. “Vasily went to Frieze’s man, said Karol Antonovich, he do what jobs are needed. But Karol steals again, this time from Frieze, and hides in our property.”

“And Mr. Frieze isn’t the kind of person who forgives. Or forgets.”

“Nyet.” Pyotr Leonovich hasn’t said more than three words in Russian to this point; telling the story of his escape to America must have helped. But he mutters something about stupidity and idealism before continuing. “Frieze, he tells Vasily to find Karol, bring him for justice, but Vasily believes in America and tells Karol to run, gives him money. Lucky that Karol did not steal from me, that I have strongbox with clockwork locks for merchandise.”

“But if Vasily couldn’t find Karol, then why was he on Mr. Frieze’s property?”

“Vasily, he hear that Frieze has Karol, goes to plead for his life. Frieze says yes, in exchange for property. As Vasily told it, he asked for time, Frieze says to take one day, no minute more or less.”

“Sounds like him.”

“As you say,” Pyotr Leonovich says. He puts down the visor, looks straight at me. “Vasily, I think, breaks into Frieze’s gate, try to rescue Karol, maybe remember what Anatoly’s mother did for us in St. Petersburg. And is shot dead.”

I give Pyotr Leonovich a moment to collect himself — his blue eyes are glittering — before I say anything. “You want me to find out if Karol Ivanov was really there, don’t you.” He looks about to answer, but I don’t give him the chance. “This isn’t about what happened to your brother, is it?”

“More money, if you want, I will give—”

“Keep your money,” I say. “I don’t do revenge. You want to know if Karol Ivanov was really in there, you ask Mr. Frieze yourself.” I take my gloves out of my pocket, pull them on. “I’ll return your money by the end of the week, minus the $150. You can have the deed back too.”

Pyotr Leonovich hangs his head. “Very well. My apology, Mr. Bach, for deception. But did not believe you would agree if I told you full truth.”

“I wouldn’t have.” I open the door. The wind has died down, but it’s still bitterly cold. “I’m sorry about your brother, Pyotr Leonovich. I truly am.”

“Thank you,” he says.

I leave before he can say anything else.

* * * *

Ishmael was right: I don’t eat a very good meal that night. There’s leftover fish and potatoes in my icebox, and I put them in the metal basket in my fireplace. I really should turn the crank and make sure it cooks evenly, but I’m just not in the mood, so half the food is cold and the other half scalding when I carry it down to my workshop with a fork and a mug of hot water. I nibble at one of the potatoes while my tea steeps, reading the front page of the Post-Intelligencer. Pyotr Leonovich was right about one thing: the Russians are not happy about having stopped at the border. I’m glad to see President Coolidge saying we would not be the aggressor, but there’s another quote from the Secretary of War, about how the Russians will be biting off more than they can chew if they cross the border in force. “Will be”… that worries me some.

I set my food aside and take the sachet of tea out of the mug, then give it a slight shake before bringing it to my lips. I feel sometimes that I use all my patience in my work, and when it’s time to eat or drink, I can’t wait around. The tea is watery, weaker than I’d like, but it’s warm, and I need warm. It’s been a cold day.

I’m not in the mood to eat anyway, and after contemplating the editorial page for a few minutes without actually reading any of it, I put the paper aside and take out the latest project in my other job — the job I did for the police for five years, the job I’ve been doing on my own for almost that long. I separate the two halves of the grenade and set them in cup-shaped holders. From my top drawer I retrieve a cross-shaped tool: two screw-driving heads, a pincer, and a rubber mallet. With the pincer I tease out one of the springs and set it in an indentation I planed out of the wooden worktable. There are two more springs there, both tighter than the original, and I start with the tightest one, easing it into place and using a long, thin tool with a flat tip to lock it. I hook the spring to an axle, then set my tools aside in favor of an automatic winder which I align with the main gear. My thumb holds down the switch and the winder begins to move.

And the spring pulls a little wooden door out of the way.

Success. Finally. Grenades are a little new to me, but I’ve seen the insides of enough weapons to know what I’m doing. For the most part. It isn’t like I’m going to actually load the grenade with anything truly destructive, not until it’s perfected.

My testing material sits in two glass bottles and a wooden box. I replace the piece of wood, then pour vinegar onto one side and baking soda on the other. To both sides I add pinches of rice before closing the grenade again. The other side of it, the side with the timing mechanism, I left wound when I finished working on it last night, so it’s ready to test. Instead of latching it together, though, I just close the two sides and secure them loosely with a bit of rubber adhesive. I carry the grenade — about the size of both of my fists, and heavy with all the mechanisms inside it — to the far corner of the cellar and set it on the floor. I remove the metal pin that holds the timing mechanism in place and step well back; the worst that will happen is a mess all over my clothes, but it’s always better to be safe.

Thirty seconds later — I count the clicks — there’s a fizzing noise and the two sides of the grenade pop open on a hinge. Foam flows out, along with the uncooked rice.

Perfect.

It takes a couple of minutes to rinse out the mess from the test, and then I put the grenade in front of a tightly-wound fan to dry it — wouldn’t want the metal to get rust or residue on it. While the fan whirs, I make some notes in the “Grenade” folder — not very creative — about the tension of the spring. I’ll need to purchase more of them from the fabricators; must remember to mail them an order soon.

The fan clicks off and I put the grenade away before going to the workspace on the other side of the cellar and uncovering the electric rifles I’ve been assembling. It’s mindless work — putting stock with barrel, engine with firing mechanism, threading wire with hammer — but I spend an hour doing it because it needs to be done. Can’t sell weapons to Mr. Frieze if I haven’t put them together yet.

* * * *

Breakfast is dry Grape-Nuts, straight from the box, while I finish yesterday’s evening edition. I have milk, but it’s easier to just drink it from the bottle than go through the production of soaking the cereal and using a spoon. The paper, though, doesn’t interest me any more than it did last night, and I leave it on the counter and go upstairs to dress.

I leave the panel by the speaking tube on red; if anyone wants me to work for them, they can push a message through the mail slot, but for now I have to give Pyotr Leonovich his money back. The weather is a little milder — it’s not snowing and the wind’s not blowing, but it’s still extremely cold outside. I grew up in Chicago, though, and I can handle the ten blocks to Franklin Street.

I’m not expecting to see Tom O’Leary standing outside Pyotr Leonovich’s shop when I get there. Tom’s hard to miss with his flaming hair, and he’s got his hat under his arm while he talks to a middle-aged man in a business suit. “I was just going inside to get out of the cold,” the man says. “I didn’t expect the door to be open, but who am I to not take advantage?”

“And that’s when you found Mr. Novotny,” Tom says. “Right?”

“That’s right.”

Tom sees me and hails me with a raised hand. “’Morning, John.”

The businessman gives me the once-over, but discounts me. That tends to happen. “What about my watch?” he asks. “I paid Novotny good money to have it fixed, and I’d like it back.”

“This is a crime scene, Mr. Oliver,” Tom says. “For now, your watch will have to wait until we can locate Mr. Novotny’s next-of-kin.”

Oliver harrumphs, then stomps off. Tom gives me an apologetic look. “Sorry about him.”

“Forget it,” I say, waving my hand. “What happened to Pyotr Leonovich?”

Tom’s eyes go as sympathetic as police eyes ever do when on the job. “You knew him?”

“He hired me,” I say. “He wanted me to find out why his brother was shot, after the police closed the investigation.” I try not to look accusatory; Tom gives me a slight shrug. “He didn’t tell me the whole story until later, though, and when he did, I told him I couldn’t do the job.” I take a long, slightly-crumpled envelope out of my inside pocket. “I was coming back to return most of what he advanced me.”

Tom waves me through the open door. The interior looks much the same as it did yesterday, though brighter — yesterday there was nothing but clouds and snow, but the sun’s out today. The shop seems less mysterious now. The door behind the counter is open, and I hear Officer Courtland and at least two others in the back. “He’s in his bedroom. Has an apartment back there.”

“Oh.” I’ve only known Pyotr Leonovich for a day; it’s hard to get too broken up over him. But I do take a moment to mourn the loss of talent — maybe he and I could’ve done more business together, and it never hurts to know another good clocksmith. “Any ideas yet?”

“You seem to know a little about him. What did he tell you was happening in his life?”

“Bach can’t tell you shit.” The grumbling voice is Officer Courtland’s; he’s standing in the doorway, a ledger book under his arm. “What the hell you doin’ here anyway?”

“I had business with Pyotr Leonovich today,” I say. I tuck the envelope back in my pocket; no sense tempting possibly my least-favorite member of the police force. “I’m just as surprised as you.”

“’Pee-otter Lee-on-ovich?’” Courtland sounds out the syllables. “First-name basis, huh?” He flips the ledger book out and drops it on the display case, and I jump as the glass rattles in the metal frame. “So will I find your name in here?”

“I don’t know, Officer.” I stress his title; when last we worked together, we were both sergeants, but I took early retirement and kept my rank. Courtland didn’t deserve to even stay with the department, but here we are. “You’ll have to look.”

He makes a frustrated noise and clomps back out of sight. “Look, John,” Tom says, “I can get you back there, if you think it’ll help.”

“I think what would’ve helped is if you investigated his brother’s death and maybe meted out a little justice.” I say it softly, because it’s not Tom’s fault, but he’s here and he’s convenient. “Otherwise, Pyotr Leonovich wouldn’t have hired me, and I wouldn’t know what I know about his brother, and about his mission to figure out just who to take vengeance upon.”

“So he was out for revenge.” Tom takes out his notebook and pen. “When did this happen?”

“Yesterday,” I tell him. “You know about Vasily Novotny’s murder?”

“Our investigators officially ruled it an accident, that he was carrying a gun, tripped in the snow, and it went off in his chest.”

“If that’s what you believe,” I say with a false sense of cheer. “I know a little of what goes on in Mr. Frieze’s operation. I’ve had some dealings with them in the past.”

Tom nods. “Miss Willoughby’s intended. I remember that.”

That wasn’t quite what I meant, but I take great care to keep those dealings out of sight of the police. “Yes. I also know that Mr. Frieze is trying to take over the blocks by the lake. He wants to tear down the old buildings, put up new offices and shops.”

“Yes, John, that was in the paper.” He gives me a look. “Why do you always call him ‘Mister’?”

“Have you met him?”

Tom shakes his head.

“If you had, you would call him Mr. Frieze as well.”

“Right.” Tom makes a note. “We haven’t had time to look into Mr. Novotny very much yet. It would be very helpful to us if you could connect this lakeside project with the Novotnys.”

I open my mouth, and Tom poises his pen expectantly, but I close it without saying anything, half-turning toward the display case. “Can I see the body now?”

“Come on, John, I know you know something!”

“Maybe I do. But you know that I was the best weapons man Seattle Police ever had, and if there’s clues to be had from that side, you know I’ll find them faster and better than anyone else.”

I wait, staring at Tom, until he finally sighs and points. “Go on back. Just watch for Courtland; he’s not thrilled that you’re here.”

“Feeling’s mutual.” I go around the case and step through the door. There’s a back room that looks much like my cellar, although if Pyotr Leonovich possessed the kind of weapons I do, he wasn’t showing them off. I glance at his workbench, at his tools, but everything seems in order. The next door leads to a small, cozy living room, with a kitchen beyond and a narrow staircase that makes me wonder how Pyotr Leonovich made it up there any way but sideways. There’s another open door on the ground floor, though, and that leads to the bedroom.

“Hey!” Courtland moves to block my path; he’s big, but I’m quick, and I slip past him. He overbalances, and I can tell the other two officers want to laugh, but they know better. “Bach, get the hell outta here!”

“O’Leary sent me back,” I say, standing in a corner, looking at the room. “He wants me to take a look.”

Courtland swears loudly, colorfully, and stomps away. The other two visibly relax. “Mr. Bach,” says the younger officer in greeting. I’ve met him before; his name’s Thompson.

“Mr. Bach.” The other officer, closer to my age, holds out his hand. I shake it. “Fred Waters,” he says. “I’ve heard about you.”

“And you still shake my hand?”

Waters clicks his tongue. “There hasn’t been a true investigator on the force in years, and the notes from the man I replaced spoke highly of your skill.” He gets out of my way. “I’ve tried to keep Courtland from contaminating the scene, but the man’s a bear.”

I make a small sympathetic noise. “The price of doing business. What do you have so far?”

Waters waves toward Pyotr Leonovich’s body. I follow him and we squat beside the corpse. The wounds are easy to spot; Pyotr Leonovich was killed wearing only his long-johns. His chest has two ragged holes in it. “Pretty certain cause of death is gunshot wounds to each lung.”

“Drowned in his own blood,” I say. Thompson gulps loudly. “If you can’t handle it, there’s no shame in that.”

“He’s right,” Waters says. “Go on, see if O’Leary can use you. If anyone asks, there were too many people in the room.”

“Thanks,” Thompson says with another swallow, then makes his retreat.

“Been in combat, then?” I ask Waters.

He shrugs. “I was in the Great War,” he tells me. “Compared to that, this is nothing. You?”

“I’m a Negro who spent five years in the south before my grandfather moved me and my brother to Chicago. Whatever Mr. Lincoln said, some people still shoot men with skin like mine.”

Waters declines to comment on that. He slides a kit out of his pocket and opens it, then pulls out a short probe with a tiny electrical generator on the end. “I’m going to take out one of the bullets, unless there’s something else you need to see.”

“Do you have helios?” Waters nods, so I take out my handkerchief and wipe it across one of the wounds. The blood is dried, but I rub the cloth between my fingers instead of simply looking at it. “Too gritty for blood alone. He was shot at close range.”

“How did you—”

“It depends on the gun,” I say. “The newer models, they use more powder to make the bullet more accurate. Had the killer used a single-shot pistol, or even a rifle, then I couldn’t say for sure, but with this I know it was a handgun. Probably not Russian-made.”

Waters snorts as he clicks the generator, which sparks to life. “Plenty of those around.”

“Have one myself, back at the house.”

He holds the probe over the wound high in Pyotr Leonovich’s right chest area, and the bullet snaps out, pinging where it meets the probe. “What do you carry?”

I sweep back the left side of my coat. “Electric. I don’t see the point in wasting life. Saw enough of that on the force.”

“That’s the God’s truth,” Waters says. He takes a small metal tray out of his kit and drops the bullet onto it, then puts the probe away. “What do you think?”

The bullet’s got blood on it, and other things I’d rather not think about. “Nothing special about it. Just a bullet.”

“Which means we cross off half the suspect list. Not Russian, not Native, not any of the little gangs.” Waters tips the tray, the bullet falling into a small paper envelope, which he tucks in his side pocket. “He doesn’t look scared.”

“He was a big man,” I say. “Until the gun came out, he probably thought he could outmuscle them.”

“Even a big man can’t take on an army by himself, not without a Tommy gun.”

I point to the foot of the bed. “Look there.” We get up and take a few steps away from the body. “Can’t make out the details, but the rug is dingy there. The rest of the room is very, very clean, as befits a man who works with tiny machines.”

“You would know?” Waters asks.

“I’ve done my share, and I work with clockmakers from time to time.”

“If you have that gun, that’s the truth.”

I don’t correct him; he doesn’t need to know that I built most of the mechanism myself. “I’ve never met a clockmaker who leaves dirt. If Pyotr Leonovich had known his rug was dirty, he’d have taken it up for the washing. Someone didn’t wipe his feet on the way in.”

“That accounts for one person,” Waters says. “How can you be sure there was more than one?”

I take a half-dollar out of my pocket. “Watch.” I give it a good overhand throw toward the window; it pings on the glass and drops to the floor. I retrieve it and hand it to Waters. “Give it your best shot.”

He throws — not great form, but well enough. I take the coin back and put it away. “I’m two inches taller than you. My throw had a higher arc than yours, even allowing for differences in the way we pitch coins.”

“So?”

“The wound on the right is higher than the one on the left, so much that a marksman who made the heart-shot on the left wouldn’t have let his gun kick quite that high. If you look at the other bullet, it won’t tell you anything more, but I can tell you that there were two men, two guns, and they shot Pyotr Leonovich as he was coming back from the toilet.”

Waters puts his hands on his hips. “How the hell can you be sure?”

I chuck my thumb to one side. “Next door. My friend Ishmael’s restaurant. He has his toilet upstairs, uses a gravity flush, same as me. You can check up the steps if you want, but—”

A heavy clunk and the soft sound of rushing water makes anything else I have to say irrelevant. Heavy footsteps clump down the stairs, along with cursing. “Go on up, Bach,” Courtland says from the hallway. “See what you can sniff out, huh?”

Waters rolls his eyes as Courtland departs, but I just shake my head. “It only gets better from here on out.”

“I’ve been here all of three months and already that man makes me want to leave. How the hell does he end up on so many serious crimes?”

“Believe it or not,” I say, “he used to not be a half-bad officer.”

“So what happened?”

I shrug. “Me.”

Waters wisely doesn’t press the issue; I follow him out to the shop, where Thompson is flipping through the ledger book. I see Courtland through the front windows, leaning on a lamppost. Tom is making notes. “You can call the coroner now, Tom,” Waters says. “I think we’ve got what we need.”

“From the body,” I add. “Tom, can I go back for a minute, once they take him away?”

Tom nods. “I sent Courtland out to call Crenshaw.” That was the medical examiner’s name. “You may want to disappear for a while. Courtland’s in a fouler mood than usual.”

Both Waters and I decline to comment on just how foul the stairwell was as we passed it. “Will someone be here to let me back in?”

“Just give it an hour. Thompson, you can stay.”

Thompson doesn’t look thrilled, but he nods anyway. “I’ll be here, Mr. Bach.”

I shake hands with Waters again. “Good to meet you.”

“And you.”

I leave, pointedly ignoring Courtland as he provides Franklin Street with a large sampling of his flatulence. Ishmael’s is closed, so I keep walking, looking for anything suspicious. What I didn’t tell Tom and Waters — and especially Courtland — is that I’m almost certain Mr. Frieze is behind this in some way. Nothing special about the bullets. No mess. Expensive tools still on the workbench, and if I’d been the killer, I certainly would’ve taken a few of them. This is a statement killing, and it’s only a matter of time until I catch someone lurking around, making sure the police treat the murder as Mr. Frieze has paid them to do. And he has paid them; he’s paid them as long as I can remember, and when I was on the force, it was just something we worked around.

I’m three blocks down the street when I catch it: two men in long gray coats, standing on a second-floor balcony, mugs in their hands. The sign above their heads advertises coffee and baked goods — Lucy’s; I get my bread there sometimes — and Lucy has a cafe upstairs that serves breakfast.

These men are not the breakfast crowd. They may be dressed like they have office jobs, but the clock at the corner of Franklin and Main says half-past-nine, and they aren’t dressed well enough to be in charge.

Mr. Frieze knows me. He knows that I’m an investigator. But he’s not going to be pleased if he finds out that I have any part in this.

Damn.

* * * *

I eventually get back to Pyotr Leonovich’s shop and, with Officer Thompson watching, I give the place a thorough going-over. All I can tell is that my late client was a tidy man who ate sparingly, dressed warmly, and kept his tools and equipment organized. It’s not until I get upstairs to the toilet — still hanging on to a hint of what Courtland did this morning — that I find the safe, hidden behind the wall cabinet. I don’t try to break in; the police have someone who can do that if needed. If I really need information, I’m going to have to get into Vasily’s rooms.

But not today. Today I clean my house. I open the windows, thankful it’s not snowing again, and wind up all of my fans to blow out the lived-in scent. I knock on my neighbor’s door and chat with her for a few minutes, and when we’re done she’s promised me to have a nice chicken dinner done up “for you and your friends.” She’s Canadian, escaped ahead of the Russian invasion with her husband, who died from the same influenza that took Pyotr Leonovich’s old boss. She cooks for me, and I haul firewood and coal for her, and fix her steam engines when they need maintenance or repair. It’s a nice little arrangement, and it means that when Alan and Alexandra come over, they don’t have to eat the boring meals I put together when I’m alone.

The sun goes down by five, and Alan shows up promptly at six. I invite him in, and once the door’s closed I clutch his shoulders and kiss him.

“We have to do this more often,” I say, still holding him.

“Yes.” Alan isn’t terribly loquacious even at the best of times. “Let’s go in, John.”

I’ve got dinner set out when Alexandra arrives, and I’ve opened a bottle of white wine as well. I let Alexandra in, holding the door open with my foot as I lean down and kiss her cold lips, holding her round cheeks in my hands. We hold the kiss for several seconds, though we keep it chaste. Alexandra and I aren’t in that kind of relationship.

“Alan,” she says when she gets to the dining room. “How are things?”

“Well, Alex. Thank you.” He pulls out a chair for her, and eases it in as she sits. I pour wine before taking my own seat, and we eat in companionable silence until my doorbell rings.

“Back in a moment,” I say. But no one’s at the door. All I find is an envelope on the floor. My finger is under the flap before I realize it’s got Alexandra’s name on the outside.

“Alex?”

“What is it?” she calls back.

“Something’s come for you.”

She comes to the front hall and I hand her the envelope; she opens it and scans the sheet of paper inside. Her skin is naturally pale, but the healthy blush from the warm house fades from her cheeks as she looks up at me. “It’s for you,” she says.

“It’s got your name on it.”

“It’s not that.” She bites her lower lip, then reads the short note. “’Tell your false lover he should leave the Novotny business alone. It would be a shame for the restaurateur Ishmael to lose his custom when it is revealed his chef prefers the company of men in the bedroom.’”

“Shit!” It’s a sharp whisper.

“What do we do? Do we tell him?”

“Of course we tell him,” I say, putting my hand on Alex’s lower back. Her face flushes as we walk back to the dining room. “Alan, you need to read this.”

He skims the two-sentence message, then balls it up and slings it through the open door to the kitchen. “I’m not afraid,” he says. “Sit. Eat.”

We sit down, but no one feels much like eating now. “Alan, it wouldn’t be fair to Ishmael if this gets out. You know that.”

“Ishmael is your friend,” Alan says. “I’ll explain it to him when I see him tomorrow. For now, put it out of your minds.” Alexandra seems like she wants to say something, but Alan holds up his hand. “I know who you work for, and I can guess where this comes from. Let it go.”

I take a couple of breaths, then drain the rest of my wine. “If we had a fourth, we could play bridge,” I say, full of false merriment.

Alexandra smiles. “Go on,” she says. “I’ll tidy up. I have my book, and there’s the radio. Go.”

Alan pushes back his chair and stands. “Thank you, Alex.” I make an affirmative noise and follow Alan out of the dining room and up the stairs to the bedroom. Once the door’s closed, I make a move to grab Alan, but he steps out of reach. “Sit down,” he tells me, and I go to the edge of the bed. Alan looks down at me, brown eyes dark and solid and full of concern. “Truth, John: are you going to let it go?”

My fists ball; I hit my knees with them. “I would,” I say. “I was going to.”

“And now?”

“Now…” I sigh. “Now they killed both Novotnys, and nothing except the deed to the property is keeping them from knocking down all those houses on the lake.”

“You have it.” I nod. It wasn’t a question. “You shouldn’t care.”

“I know. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.” I wipe my palms on the bedspread. “It’s just…”

He paces a few steps, back and forth. “What?”

I look up at Alan. There’s something hard and gnawing at the pit of my stomach. “When I was with the police, we let Mr. Frieze do what he wanted. I’ve seen him have a man shot for saying the wrong thing, and I still do business with him, and I justify it because I have to make a life somehow. Investigating… it doesn’t pay.”

“So find a way to make it pay,” he says. “Tell Frieze you’re done. That simple.”

“Damn it, it isn’t!” I get up from the bed and prowl around it; Alan sits next to where I was. “I’m sick of Mr. Frieze getting whatever he wants, and now he’s going to put dozens of people out of their homes. Vasily Novotny got in the way, and Mr. Frieze just brushed him aside. Him, his brother, and their friend.”

“John,” Alan says, “don’t—”

“I have to.” I hate cutting him off, but I’ve made my choice. “I’m keeping that deed, and without it, the buildings will be tied up in probate for months. Long enough for me to figure something out, or maybe to magically ‘find’ the deed. There’s got to be a way.”

Alan smiles, gives his head a little shake. “So much passion.”

I look down at Alan and see what’s in his eyes. “I only get to see you a few times a month; I have to do something with it.”

He holds out his hand, and I take it, and we don’t have to talk about this anymore. For the next little while, everything will be all right.

* * * *

Alexandra is in the kitchen, heating coffee on the little gas burner on my counter. There’s already a mug of tea, steam rising, next to that, and she hands it to me. “Sleep well?” I ask.

“As well as I usually do when I spend the night at my suitor’s house.” She clicks the burner off and pours a measure of milk into her mug, then adds the coffee. “It’s funny,” she says as we carry our drinks to the table. “People find out you and Alan are together and both of you are ruined, but if I stay at the house of John Bach, the dark and mysterious—”

“Hardly mysterious, Alex,” I say. She’s laid out fruit and toast, and I spread preserves on a slice. “Everyone in town knows who I am.”

She smiles above the rim of her mug. “Knowing what you do isn’t knowing who you are. I, on the other hand, know who you are, and I still think you’re dark and mysterious.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” I crunch into the toast — Alexandra always makes it a bit too crispy, but who am I to complain? I probably wouldn’t have bothered even heating the bread. “Thanks for staying.”

“Have to maintain the illusion,” she says.

“I suppose there is that.” I drink some of the tea. “Did you see Alan when he left?”

“I heard him, but my door was closed.”

I make a humming noise but say nothing else on the matter.

After breakfast, I escort her, arm in arm, to the next block. I hail her a cab and, before putting her in, we kiss again — the same closed-lips closeness we’ve been doing in public for a year. It gets the job done.

I wait for the cab to turn the corner, heading for Mr. Frieze’s property no doubt, before hailing another for myself. It takes ten minutes to get to the buildings on the deed in my pocket. The business address is an old-looking four-story, the front done in bricks that were once red but are now pinkish from age. I start up the steps, nodding politely to the first two men who pass, but the third — a stocky man in a black fur hat and blue coat — pushes past me as I’m going in and he’s leaving. If I was somewhere I knew better, I might have said something, but I haven’t been this way since I was a police officer, and though I’m armed, I’m not looking for trouble. Just information.

The lobby smells like vinegar — probably recently mopped. It’s tiled, not cheaply but not expensive either, at least as far as I can tell. There’s not much interesting to see, just mailboxes on one wall, a wide staircase, and a door that says Manager. I try the handle and it opens to a tiny office, barely big enough for two people. One is already there: a teenage girl with hair like white silk and impossibly-dark blue eyes. She’s bundled against the chill of the room, a heavy black sweater and a dark-green scarf, both of which have seen better days. She smiles — crooked teeth. “Good morning. May I help you?” I can’t mistake the accent as anything but Russian, and it’s pretty thick. Makes sense.

“I’d like to see the building manager.” I point to the door behind her, which I’m guessing leads to an inner office. “Is he in?”

“Nyet.” Her pale cheeks go instantly pink. “I am sorry. I mean, no, he is not. I can take a message if you would like to leave one.”

I blink. “What about the owner?” Let her think I don’t know.

But she surprises me when she shakes her head. “I do not know the owner. The manager is the only person I talk to.” Despite the accent, she’s not picking her way through the words, which means she’s spent time learning English. Good. She might not be in school but at least she’s educated. So many of the young Russians don’t even bother after they high-tail it across the border. “A message?”

“I’ll just come back,” I say. “When will he return?”

“I do not know.” She brushes a tendril of hair behind her left ear. “I am here only to collect the rent. Gospodin Ivanov does not tell me his comings and goings.”

The name instantly catches my attention. “Ivanov? Karol Ivanov?”

“Yes, that is him. Are you a friend?”

I sniff to cover my surprise at hearing that name. “I’m a friend of a friend. Pyotr Novotny.”

“I know no Pyotr Novotny.”

“What about his brother?”

“V—” She cuts herself off, but not soon enough. Her face flushes again. “No, I know no Novotny.”

I put my hands on the desk and lean down. I hate to menace a teenaged girl, but it usually works. “When’s the last time you saw Vasily Leonovich?”

Her eyebrows flick upward in surprise; I don’t imagine she sees many Negroes, let alone those who know the proper form of Russian address. I use that surprise, holding her eyes, not looking angry, just disappointed. She breaks quickly. “Karol Antonovich — Ivanov,” she amends. “After the turn of the year, when I arrived to work, he was in the office, trying to open the safe. I do not have the code, and I told him so. He was angry, and left quickly. When Vasily Leonovich arrived later, I told him what had happened, and after lunch, I was sent home and the two men locked the office behind me.” She pushes back from the desk a little, and I stand up straight. “How do you know Pyotr and Vasily?”

I smile, just a little. “I’m an investigator. Pyotr Leonovich hired me after Vasily’s death.”

She goes white. “Vasily… he is… dead?”

Oh, hell. She didn’t know. “Yes. I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you.” Tears well in her eyes, and I hand her my handkerchief. She accepts it with a watery grin and wipes her face. “You knew him well, then?”

A nod. “Vasily Leonovich allowed my family to live on his property for no money until we had jobs and could pay him. He taught me…” Her voice breaks, but she swallows and soldiers on. “He helped me to learn English, so I could succeed. I cannot believe… he is truly dead?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

She sniffs hard and wipes her nose again. “Two Mondays past, Vasily Leonovich came to me, gave me a gift, and warned me that if anyone came looking for him, I did not know who he was. Him or his brother. He had told me of the troubles during the Uprising, and I thought it was maybe the Secret Brigade.” Rasputin formed the Secret Brigade in the months after the Uprising — his personal police, who would do anything he ordered. They made Mr. Frieze look like a schoolteacher. “When Ivanov said Vasily Leonovich made him manager, I did not question. I had seen them talking many times, and it… it seemed…” She trails off in a fall of fresh tears.

I come around the desk, sit on the edge, and take her hand. It’s slender, small and cold. “What’s your name?”

“Irina.” She swallows hard. “Iosovna.”

“Irina Iosovna,” I say, holding her hand probably tighter than I should, “my name is John Bach. I’m going to figure out what happened to Vasily.”

“So it was not the Brigade?”

I shake my head. “I guarantee it.” I let her hand go, and she lets it fall to her lap. She’s still dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Can I take a look in your boss’s office?”

Her eyes go wide. “I should not permit you.”

“It might help.”

That sways her easily. She takes a key out of her desk and hands it over. “Be quick, John Bach,” she says. “I truly do not know when he is to return.”

I unlock the door. “Let me worry about that.” I close the door on her tear-streaked face.

* * * *

Ivanov’s office — Vasily Leonovich’s until just recently — is only a little bigger than Irina Iosovna’s. Two people could probably sit across from Ivanov if they bunched up tightly. One wall is taken up by metal file cabinets. I try a few drawers, but they’re all locked. The clock is boring and inexpensive, which surprises me; with Pyotr Leonovich as his brother, I’d have thought Vasily would’ve gone in for something nicer. I’m sure Pyotr wouldn’t have begrudged it to him, not with the way he’d talked to me about his brother. Other than the clock, the walls are bare, with no fresh paint and no holes for hooks that might have once held pictures. I get the feeling that Vasily spent little time actually in the office and Ivanov just doesn’t care.

I go behind the desk and sit in the old but well-maintained wooden chair. The armrests are worn smooth with use. Nothing on the desk stands out to me — the notepads don’t have impressions I can examine, and if Ivanov is using a date book of some kind, he’s not leaving it out. The desk itself is plain wood, sturdy, not ornamented; one drawer has pens and other oddments in it, and the rest of them are filled with used ledger books. I don’t have enough time to pore over all of them, but I glance at enough pages to see that these buildings are definitely profitable, even with regular maintenance and the one at the far end of the property with the non-paying tenants. If Mr. Frieze wants the buildings, that I can understand, but why destroy them just to rebuild? He could bring in plenty of money just by installing a puppet manager.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what happened after Vasily’s death.

The bottom drawer of the desk is false — the handle pulls the entire panel off, and behind it is a metal safe with a clockwork lock. The only way in, other than to break it, is to use the key, and even if I had the key, it’d be useless. Based on what I can see of the gears — there’s a little window so the owner can see how much time he has before he can open the safe — I wouldn’t be able to unlock it until about 11:30. With enough time and the right tools, I probably could break in, but I didn’t come prepared for that.

I get up off the floor and dust off my knees, then sit in the wooden chair to think, to try and figure out how this is all connected.

Vasily Leonovich works for Mr. Frieze. He’s apparently in good standing — he works on vehicles, makes them run better or faster or have the ability to withstand bullets. Mr. Frieze must know that Vasily has a brother, and maybe has even approached him, but Pyotr said nothing about working for Mr. Frieze. It’s more likely Vasily kept him out of it or Pyotr just didn’t have the abilities Mr. Frieze needed. Through all this, Vasily also maintains the apartments and takes in recent immigrants, helping them to get on their feet, letting them live for free. Mr. Frieze probably knows all of this too, and doesn’t care until he comes up with this lakefront construction project. Anyone who reads the paper knows that he’s bought up several blocks worth of property, but Vasily says no. Maybe they argue; I don’t know. Mr. Frieze, though, can afford to wait, to break down Vasily’s defenses. It would be too obvious to just kill him, and if he really was a genius with machines, it would have be a waste. I’ve never heard of Mr. Frieze eliminating someone as talented as Vasily was supposed to be just to make a point.

Then Mr. Frieze is handed a gift: Karol Ivanov, who makes the bone-headed mistake of stealing from his organization. He plays on Vasily’s loyalty, tries to get Vasily to hand over the property in exchange for Ivanov. Vasily says no, gives the deed to his brother for safe-keeping, and tries to rescue him. He gets all of a few dozen feet into Mr. Frieze’s compound and is shot dead.

But then I get to the sticking point: why is Karol Ivanov walking around? Why didn’t Mr. Frieze just kill him and be done with it, once Vasily was taken care of? That part doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess I’ll just have to find Ivanov and ask him myself.

* * * *

I lock the office behind me and hand the key to Irina Iosovna. “Thank you.”

She gives me a grateful smile before putting the key away. “Did you find anything that could help?”

“No. Just more questions. But maybe you can help me.”

“How?”

“Do you have a picture of Karol Ivanov?”

Now it’s her turn to shake her head. “I would not know where to look, either.”

“Well, what does he look like?”

She nibbles her lower lip for a moment. “He is not a pleasant man. Not like Vasily Leonovich.” She sniffs, tears threatening, but controls herself. “Smaller than you, up to perhaps your nose. But wider. Muscular. He has brown hair and eyes, and a moustache but no beard. He is… what is the word for not shaving?”

“Scruffy,” I say without thinking.

Irina Iosovna smiles. “Thank you. It is a good word.” Her tongue darts out, licks her lips, which are pale from the cold of the room. “He looks scruffy almost all the time. And he has a scar above his left eye. It cuts through his eyebrow.”

That does it. “Black hat? Blue coat?”

“You have seen him today?”

I shove my hands into my pockets so she doesn’t see them curl into fists. “Just missed him. He bumped into me on the steps.”

She laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “He does that.”

“I’m not surprised.” I take a couple of breaths. “I think I’ll leave him a message, if that’s all right?”

A nod. She picks up a pen and holds it over a notepad. “What would you like me to tell him?”

I know exactly what to say.

* * * *

A cab brings me home, and after locking the office door, I toss my coat on my chair and grab the top drawers of both my file cabinets. Instead of the drawers sliding out, the false-metal doors of a large cabinet swing open. I undo my holster from my shoulders and hang it on a hook, selecting one that’s a little stiffer, the straps thicker. It also has room for two guns. I put my electric handgun on the left side, and on the right, my service revolver — one of very few bullet weapons I own. Killing is very, very final, and if I kill Ivanov, I can’t question him. But I might need more than just electricity this time.

I pull my sweater over my head and hang it up, then put the holster directly over my shirt — it’s thirty degrees outside and too windy not to wear more than just a shirt and coat, but if I need to move quickly, I won’t be able to do that wrapped in wool. I’ll just have to be cold. I lament for a moment that I haven’t figured out the grenades yet, then laugh at myself; that would be far too much just to threaten one man. Instead, I slip collapsible batons in each of my coat pockets, and put my small tool kit in the inside pocket, since I might have to break into something. I don’t bring any extra bullets — I hope I won’t need them — but I do bring the speed-winder for my electric gun. I hate to use it, because it’s just as likely to strip the gears, which will mean I’ll have to replace them all, but if it works, it could save my life.

Then I put the coat on, lock up behind me, and head back to the lakefront. Instead of going into the main building, I go into the farthest from, the one where the new tenants live. The ones who can’t pay. The ones just as likely to have jumped the fence as come through the government complex downtown. This building is far less well-kept than the official one; the tile floors are cracked in places, and there’s trash on the stairs. I can’t imagine that Vasily Leonovich would’ve allowed this — I never met the man, but everything I know about him says this means Ivanov doesn’t care about these people, not the way the Novotny brothers did.

Irina Iosovna told me what room Ivanov was registered to — on the fifth floor, what had once been open space was converted into single-person single-room apartments. I have the key to Ivanov’s, but I don’t need to use it; the door’s unlocked. It’s there that I wait for Ivanov.

* * * *

“You are John Bach.”

I look up from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — Alexandra left it for me months ago, and I never got around to reading it — and see Karol Ivanov in the doorway, wearing the same black hat and blue coat I saw him in earlier. Now that I can get a closer look, I understand what Irina Iosovna meant about his appearance; Karol Ivanov is not a nice-looking man. His nose has been broken more than once, and there are other scars on his face, including one that bisects his lower lip and goes down and under his chin. Probably a broken-bottle scar from a bar fight; I saw enough of those in my days with the police.

“Well?”

I slip a bookmark between the pages and set the novel aside. “That’s me,” I say, standing up. Ivanov steps into the one-room apartment, and two others come in behind him. They both have guns drawn — real ones, with bullets — but they’re not pointed at me. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It is not.” Ivanov’s voice is gruff and clipped. He was military once, so that makes sense. “You found something that is mine, yes?”

“What, this?” I slip the envelope with the property deed in it just a little out of my inside pocket. “It was given to me, if that’s what you mean.”

“It is mine,” he says, and takes another step forward. “You will give it to me. Or we will have harsh words.”

I fold my arms — more than an empty gesture, because it means I can get closer to the guns under my coat. “I’ll give it to you,” I say. “But first, I want to know something.”

Ivanov gestures. One of the men with him holds up his gun, but the other seems unwilling. “It’s Bach!” he whispers. “We can’t! Frieze’ll ice us!”

I have to shake my head and grin. “You definitely don’t want him hearing you say it quite like that.”

The man’s face goes white. “Hell, Ivanov. I’m not doing this. Tell Frieze if you want; I don’t care. I ain’t killing John Bach.”

Ivanov turns. There’s a crunch, and the man crumples to the ground. I didn’t even see Ivanov’s arm move, and that worries me.

“You,” he says to the man pointing the gun at me. “You will shoot this man John Bach?”

“You bet.”

“You will shoot him in the knee, and then he and I will talk again.”

The gun dips and I jump aside as he fires. The bullet splinters the wooden floor, but before he can point at me again, I’ve yanked out my electric gun and the lead is smacking into his forehead. He goes stiff as the wire crackles and the gears wind down, and when the gun runs out of charge, he drops to the floor with a wet thump.

But now Ivanov’s smiling — one of his front teeth is cracked, and many of them are crooked — and he has a long knife in his hand. I put my hands in my pockets. “You do not have another gun.”

Good. He’s cocky. I pull out the batons and flip them open. “No. I don’t. And I didn’t have to shoot him, either. I just wanted to know how you’re still alive if you really were stealing from Mr. Frieze.” We start circling each other — the room’s actually rather large, and there’s not much furniture to get in the way. “Just tell me, Karol Antonovich.”

That pulls him up short for a moment, but in the next he’s swinging his knife hand and I barely manage to get the batons up, crossed, blocking him. I kick downward, the heel of my boot cracking on his knee; he yelps, hopping back. But he’s right there again, and he’s so fast, and the knife cuts through my coat and slices across my left arm. My hand spasms and I drop that baton, but with the other I deflect the knife once more.

That’s all the grace period I get before the pain from the knife-wound kicks in. I try to get his knee again, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a fight with someone who really wants to kill me. Ivanov gets out of the way and my boot hits the floor. I bring my right knee up and he takes it on the hip, but it’s enough for me to get behind him and slam the haft of the baton on the back of his head. He stumbles forward and trips over the man he punched, catching himself on the wall. He flips the knife and flings it, but he’s off-balance too and it clatters to the floor.

“Well,” I say, wanting to clamp my hand to the wound on my arm but knowing that means I’ll have to give up the baton, “it appears we have an impasse.”

Ivanov reaches down and takes the pistol from the man he tripped over. I curse; I should’ve thought of that, but I was too busy trying not to get stabbed. He cocks the gun and points it at me. “You are mu’dak, John Bach. But you fight well.”

I drop the baton. No point in holding it now. I can’t stop a bullet with it. “So tell me, before I give you the deed and you kill me anyway: how?”

“I steal from Frieze. He threatens to kill me, I tell him I can get Vasily Leonovich to give him the property. I have heard of the disagreement they had.”

“So when he came to rescue you…?”

“I need no rescuing. A trick. Vasily Leonovich, he did not bring the deed. He did not come to the gate or announce himself. He tried to be a hero.” Ivanov snorts. “There are no heroes. Especially not him, and not a clockwork Russian like his brother.”

Blood is dripping off my fingertips. The cut must be deeper than I thought. I grit my teeth against the pain. “You killed Pyotr,” I say. “You and that one.”

Ivanov looks down at the man I shot. “Pyotr Leonovich would not tell me where the deed was. Now I know who had it.” He looks sidelong at me. “Tell me, how do you know?”

I shake my head. “It’s not important.” But the two of them are the right height. It was a guess; apparently a correct one. “So Mr. Frieze promises you… what? I can’t imagine not killing you is enough.”

He steps toward me. “More power. More importance. What they would not do in Russian Army.”

“I can see why,” I whisper. I shouldn’t have said it, but pain does strange things to a person.

And now Ivanov’s close enough that I can smell him, vodka and sweat. The gun looks a lot bigger this close up. “The deed is in your coat. Move your arms.”

“Let me just give it—”

“Nyet!” He gestures at my hands with the barrel of the gun, and I do what he says, spreading my arms. He reaches in, but misses the deed. His fingers find the stock of my other gun and he tugs at it. It gets stuck on the holster — it does that sometimes — and I grab my opportunity, grab Ivanov in a bear hug and slam him to the floor. He grunts and squeezes the gun in my holster; I feel a burn but the bullet cracks the window behind me and I know I’m not shot. He tries to fire again, distracted, and I punch, hard as I can with what strength is in my injured arm. It shocks Ivanov and he drops the other gun, which I slap away.

It’s enough time for Ivanov to roll us so he’s on top, and he puts his big forearm on my throat, holding me down against the rough wood floor. I kick out, but he’s too heavy and too strong and I know he’s going to choke me to death, take the deed, and all these people will be out of their homes.

I try to punch him, try to swing my right arm around at hit his kidneys, his face, but he catches it with his left and slams my hand down, hard enough to make it go cold. I feel the impact all the way up to my shoulder.

I need to breathe. Ivanov’s ugly, scarred face is starting to blur as my eyes tear up. I need to get away. I need… I need…

Ivanov smiles as I swing my arm up again. I only catch the pocket of his pants, but there’s something in there. Something metal. He grunts in surprise and lets up for just an instant, enough for me to get a tiny fraction of breath, and I jam my hand into his pocket and pull out one of my single-shot electric guns.

Ivanov lets go of my right arm, but he’s at the wrong angle to stop me. I bring the gun to his ear and hit the switch.

And I can breathe, and I’m about to push Ivanov off me when he collapses, his forehead hitting my chin, the back of my head cracking on the wood floor, and I pass out.

* * * *

“You look like shit, Bach,” Courtland says when he comes back in.

I don’t even have it in me to insult him back. I’m sitting in the room’s only chair, and Officer Waters is bandaging my arm, though I know I’ll have to see a doctor when this is all over. Tom O’Leary is in the hallway, questioning the man who shot at me. Waters and Thompson — who told me they were partners when we talked yesterday, and was it really only yesterday when I was standing in Pyotr Leonovich’s shop, standing over his dead body? — are here to investigate. To see if I’m telling the truth about how it all happened. Normally I’d stick my nose in, try to help, but it’s hard when I’m the one being investigated.

Tom comes back. “You okay now, John?”

“I’ll live.” Waters ties off the bandage and steps away, joining Thompson next to Ivanov’s body. His dead body. The electricity was too much for him, especially when the slender probe in the gun punched through his ear and into his brain. An ugly, painful way to die, but better him than me.

Courtland comes up behind O’Leary, trying to look menacing, but he’s never been able to pull that off on me. “What’d he say?”

“I shouldn’t tell you—”

“Then don’t, Tom!” Courtland interrupts. “What right does he have to know?”

Tom rounds on Courtland. “John Bach was a better officer than you’ll ever be, so back the hell off before I throw you out of here!”

“You can’t talk to me like that, Tom! I was a sergeant, I deserve…” But he stops when he sees the look on Tom’s face, and I wonder what it feels like when he turns ugly like that. Courtland turns on his heel and stomps away, and Tom’s composed when he looks back at me.

“Felt good?”

Tom lets out a long breath. “You have no idea, John.” He leans against the old wooden wardrobe. “Russell Barrett — the hired gun — says he knows nothing about no one, that Ivanov hired him to be muscle, that he does this sort of thing all the time.” He sighs. “He said he shot at you, and that’s the last thing he remembers, but the burn on his head says you got him, which is what you said. So he’ll be locked up.”

“What about the other guy? The one I said wouldn’t shoot at me.”

His face goes still. “He’s dead, John.”

“Dead? How?” I look at the place where he’d lain. There’s still blood on the floor. “All Ivanov did was punch him in the face. I didn’t see him drown in blood or anything like that, so how’d he die?”

Tom shakes his head. “Waters thinks when Ivanov hit his nose, it pushed the bone into his brain.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah.” He blinks a couple of times, as if to clear his head. “Look, John, what was this all about? Tell me the truth this time.”

“The truth.” No way Tom’s getting that out of me. No way I’m telling him about Mr. Frieze, about the deed, about how Vasily figured into Mr. Frieze’s plans for the lakefront properties and how Mr. Frieze had Pyotr Leonovich killed. The last thing Tom needs is to be in the middle of this. “The truth is what I told you,” I say after a pause. “I found out Ivanov lived here, and I was looking around to see what he might have stolen from Mr. Frieze. I thought he’d been killed. But then he showed up with those guys, and… well, you know the rest.”

“You’re lying,” Tom says, but without rancor. “I can’t prove it, but I know you’re lying.”

I meet his eyes. “It’s all the truth I can give you, Tom.”

He stands straight, offers me his hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet. “I’ll just have to live with that, then.” We walk toward the door. “Glad you’re still alive, John.”

“So am I.”

* * * *

Ishmael knows a doctor, and I end up with a neat row of stitches and a bottle of pills. Morphine. I’ve had that before, and it seems a bit like using a sledgehammer to kill an ant, but I guess it’s all he had. Afterward, I go up the back steps to the little office above Ishmael’s restaurant, where Alan is waiting for me. Ishmael closes the door and Alan’s pulling me into his arms. “You just can’t leave well enough alone,” he says, though not angrily. “You never can.”

I hug him back. “I know.”

We hold each other for a minute or two. Then Alan says, “I have to get back to work. We can’t get caught out like this just because you went and almost got yourself killed.”

I smile, then kiss him. He leaves first, and I go back the way I came in. It takes me a couple of minutes to walk around the block, and when I get to the front of Pyotr Leonovich’s shop, Tom’s already waiting at the door. “Larssen’s inside. He’s almost got the safe open.” I follow Tom as we go through to the back. Eric Larssen is a locksmith, and a good one; he also built the fake file cabinets in my office. “Well?”

“Had to cut through,” he says. That explains the smell of heat and chemicals: Larssen’s acetylene torch. “Left the window open.”

“Thanks, Eric,” Tom says. “Send us the bill, right?”

“Definitely will.”

Tom goes up the narrow staircase to the bathroom. We crowd into the small room and Tom starts putting things into the sink. There’s a few stacks of cash, a ledger book, some documents, and a little metal box of photos that I’d love to go through, see what Vasily looked like, get to know him and his brother. But Tom whispers “aha!” and takes out a yellowish envelope sealed with wax. “This should be the will. You can come back to the station with me, and we’ll open it in the presence of a lawyer. Just in case.”

“I’m fine. I’d rather just get home, if it’s all the same to you.” I slide the envelope with the property deed in it out of my pocket and, as Tom’s eyes go wide, drop it in the sink. “What’s that?”

He gives me a dirty look as he puts the white envelope into his own pocket. “One of these days, John, you’re not going to get so lucky.”

“But that day wasn’t today.”

Tom doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He goes down the steps and out of the shop. I take a couple of minutes to appreciate the quality of the late Pyotr Leonovich’s tools, and am sorely tempted to take his spring-winder. But I’m not a thief. Not unless I’m being paid, anyway. I leave the shop and hail a cab while Tom locks the door behind me. Whatever’s in the will, it’ll all sort itself out.

The cab takes me home, and to my surprise, Alexandra’s sitting on the steps. She jumps to her feet and hugs me hard; I go stiff until she whispers, “remember who I’m supposed to be, John.”

Then I hug her back and we go into the house. She starts a fire; I drop my coat on the floor, set my holster on the occasional table, then collapse on the couch. She stands over me, hands on her hips. “You didn’t even ask how I knew, John.”

I close my eyes. “You work for Mr. Frieze, Alex. I don’t have to ask.”

She makes a sound low in her throat. I feel the cushions shift as she kneels and leans her elbow on the cushions, her chin in her hand. “I should leave you here,” she says, “but I owe you too much not to look after you for a while.”

I shrug. It doesn’t hurt too much now; I bit off half a morphine pill in the cab. “You paid me.”

“You saved me. Let me at least help.”

“It would help to have tea,” I say.

I hear her shoes clicking on the floor as she goes into the kitchen. I turn onto my side and look at the fire for a few seconds before noticing the envelope on my coffee table. It has my name on it, so I open it and read the typed note inside.

Step with care. If you were a part of the unpleasantness with Karol Ivanov, Mr. Frieze will not be pleased.

There’s no signature. I drop it on the table and go back to staring at the fire, waiting for Alexandra and my tea. Mr. Frieze doesn’t know for sure if I was involved, and I apparently rate a warning, not a bullet.

The fire starts to get fuzzy as the morphine takes over. If Alexandra ever came back with my tea, I don’t remember it.

* * * *

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

January 31, 1925

Page Four

“Businessman’s Will Halts Redevelopment of Lakefront”

The redevelopment of Garrett Street by Frieze Holdings was halted yesterday when the will of local businessman Vasily Novotny, who died earlier this month in what police called an accident, was read at Seattle Police Headquarters. The will, discovered by Officer Tom O’Leary in Novotny’s brother’s downtown shop, specifically deeded the five buildings not to his family but to a trust set up through Washington Mutual Savings Bank. The trust specifically dictates that the buildings are to remain residential housing for no fewer than fifty years from the date of Novotny’s death.

Speaking for Frieze Holdings, Michael Bon Terre said, “we were of course saddened to hear of Mr. Novotny’s death, but we will continue to investigate this will — both its legality and how binding it is. Frieze Holdings is dedicated to redeveloping the Garrett Street lakefront district.” The bank, however, told the Post-Intelligencer that, to the best of their knowledge, the trust takes precedence.

The elder Novotny, Pyotr, a watchmaker, was tragically found dead in his Franklin Street shop on Wednesday, shot by assailants unknown. Police continue investigating.

* * * *

About the Story

I had spinal surgery in early 2009. Toward the end of 2008, I had an idea for a steampunk story about a detective in Seattle, and I wanted to get the story written before the surgery happened, just in case I didn’t make it. I finished the first draft of “The Clockwork Russian” on January 5, although the bulk of the writing was done over the course of three days the week prior. I had surgery on January 6, came home on January 9, and spent five weeks recovering. It wasn’t until mid-May that I could really focus on the story again, and I’ve been tweaking it on and off ever since; I’ve even worked on outlining it into a full-length novel (which may yet be written).

I’m a big fan of Sherlock Holmes; I’ve read all the original stories and seen many of the films. I wanted an American Holmes with a checkered past, and I created that in John Bach. There’s history hinted at in “The Clockwork Russian” that I hope to explore someday, and reopening the case of Mrs. Willoughby’s intended was going to be the sequel to this story. It might still be. Bach is also the first non-white main character in any story I’ve written, and I hope the storytelling did justice to him in that regard.

Because this is alternate history, I tried to extrapolate what a relatively non-violent ex-weapons expert might use or invent. Hence John Bach’s preference for tasers — or, as he calls them, electric guns. The single-shot weapon Bach uses to defeat Ivanov was inspired by a similar one in Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant (I think). Oh, and I actually do have an acquaintance whose last name is Frieze. It was too good a villain name not to use, and I imagine that, if there is to be a sequel to “The Clockwork Russian”, Mr. Frieze will return.

“Amid the Steep Sky’s Commotion: a Tale of the Airship Ozymandias”

Commander Markel folded his arms. “Well?”

I looked past him. Blood spread across the parquet floor of the dining cabin. Face-down at the center of the room was a man in evening dress, the tails of his suit slowly soaking up the blood that had, until very recently, been inside his body. Except for the blood, the scene was quite peaceful: a few of the staff near the kitchen entrance, the chief steward standing beside the first mate.

“I just got here, Commander,” I said. “But it certainly looks like he’s been murdered.”

“Bravo,” Markel said. He cleared his throat and leaned in my direction. “What are you going to do about it?” He was clearly trying to intimidate me, but I was more than six inches taller than him. It wasn’t going to happen.

Nor was I going to rise to the bait. I slipped past Markel before he could do more than halfheartedly menace me. I had to get closer to the body, but the blood had spread too far. Since I didn’t want to disturb the scene until I got a better look, I was going to have to step up onto a chair and walk from table to table. At least the tables didn’t wobble; on an airship, everything was nailed down that could be nailed down. I certainly couldn’t have done this on the ground. Nor could I have done it in heels; fortunately, given the nature of my job, I could get away with boots.

I looked down at the corpse from the table nearest it. There was an awful lot of blood; my uniform skirt was going to be soaked by the time I was done examining the body.

“Mr. Peters,” I called to the steward, “I’ll be needing a tablecloth.”

“They are at your disposal, Constable McDonald.”

“Thank you.” I stepped off the table and onto a chair, then gathered up the white linen in both hands and yanked. Unfortunately, not a single piece of china, cutlery, or glass remained in place. I smiled tightly at no one in particular as I folded the tablecloth into a pad. My boots made sticky noises in the blood as I eased myself onto the floor and laid the pad beside the body. After that, there was nothing for it but to smooth my skirt under my knees and lowering myself the rest of the way. I pulled a pair of thin leather gloves out of my jacket pocket and worked them over my hands, then reached across the body and turned it onto its back.

Even I couldn’t hold back a small sound of surprise: it had been a long time since I’d seen a throat cut from ear to ear. That explained the amount of blood, at least. The man’s face was locked in an expression of surprise, dark brown eyes stuck open by congealing blood. There was also a blotch of it on his lower stomach; I’d need to expose him to see more. I worked my fingers between the rent in the fabric and ripped.

Blood misted over my skirt. I made a disgusted noise and removed my left glove so I could take a small kit out of my inner pocket. I flipped it open and set it next to me on the pad. Inside: some of the tools of my trade, including a long, narrow probe I could use to explore the wounds without touching them.

But there was little to learn from the body. I got more from the contents of the dead man’s pockets: a leather folio, room and wardrobe keys, assorted small change, and a flask half-full of — I opened it and sniffed — distressingly-cheap vodka. As if there wasn’t far better liquor available just about everywhere aboard ship.

“Constable, are you quite finished?” I glanced to the right; Commander Markel had assumed a bored expression.

“I think so.”

“Good. The staff needs to clean this room, and the passengers will be arriving for their late meals soon.”

I got to my feet, folding the evidence into a clean-looking cloth napkin and tucking it into my jacket pocket, then picked my way back across the tables to the exit. “Throat cut,” I told the first mate. “And stabbed, low in the body. I’m guessing it was a crime of passion.”

“Who was he?”

“I haven’t looked yet. I want to get the evidence back to my office.”

Markel huffed air through his mustache, but stepped aside to let me pass. “Can we move him?”

“If you want.” I called it over my shoulder; I was already on the way to the crew-only door at the far end of the passageway. Beyond it: a cramped corridor, pipes jutting out at odd angles and dim bulbs lighting the way with a weak yellowish glow. I felt my skirt pulling where blood stuck it to my boots; I’d have to change before I went anywhere near the passengers.

* * * *

My office was a pocket-sized cabin a few yards aft of the bridge. I kept it as clean as possible, but inner rooms like this always smelled of mildew and used air. Markel had told me, when I’d boarded for my first tour aboard the airship Ozymandias, that beggars couldn’t be choosers. At least I was on the king of airships: four levels of passenger berthing and entertainment, multiple dining halls, even a theater for the showing of moving pictures or the acting of plays. It certainly rated more than a single constable, but I was all the Great American Airship Company cared to employ.

I didn’t care much about that anymore, but I still would have appreciated not paying for my own supplies — including the bright bulbs I’d had to install in my office lamps. They cast sterile white light that brought Marianne into sharp relief where she sat in my one guest chair, the only dirty thing in the pristine room.

“I’m sorry,” I said, dropping into my chair behind the desk. She reached for me and I took her hand.

“What happened?”

I squeezed her fingers. “One of the passengers was murdered. Someone cut his throat.”

Marianne made a face. “That’s awful.”

“You have no idea.” I didn’t say it sharply, though; after dancing around each other for the better part of half a year, we were finally together, and I didn’t want to push her away. “Now I have to find out who he was, search his cabin, and then bring everything to Saint-Pierre.”

She pursed her lips. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“You have duty—”

“What I have,” she said, pale eyes glinting under chestnut-brown bangs, “is Chief Engineer Frederickson eating out of my hand. I only need to ask.”

I seriously considered it for a moment. But in the end, I shook my head. “I’ll be all right,” I said. “The last thing he needs to know is that you and I are anything more than shipmates. He’s not stupid.”

“No. Just an ass.” Marianne’s fingernails were cracked and dirty but her palms were soft and her lips softer as she raised my hand to her mouth and kissed my fingers. “I’ll see you after-shift?”

I smiled; there was a hopeful note to her voice. “This figures to be a long night,” I said; her hands tensed, and I stroked her cheek with two fingers to try and soothe her. “I’ll try not to be out too late.”

“Please don’t.” She kissed my hand again, then pulled away gently and left my office.

It took me a full minute before I could concentrate enough to lay out the evidence on my bare wooden desk. The room and wardrobe keys told me the man had resided on the lowest level — the most expensive, most exclusive, with windows curving downward along the edge of the hull. I piled the change at one side, then opened the leather folio.

“Well, then.” The man’s driving license proclaimed him to be Ignatius Robins of Boston, Massachusetts. “Who were you, Mr. Robins, that someone should hurt you so?” I rifled through the dead man’s cash — more than three hundred dollars in assorted bills — and placed it near the change. It was expensive to fly Ozymandias, to be sure, but passengers bought their tickets in advance. I couldn’t imagine needing more than one hundred dollars. But then, I’d never paid for the privilege of the journey.

Robins had kept a bank identification card in the folio, a photograph of himself with his arm around a similar-looking man — perhaps a brother — and a sealed paper envelope half the size of a dollar but thick enough to hold at least five. “Drugs, Mr. Robins? Really?” With a small, sharp paper knife, I slit open the envelope.

It wasn’t drugs I shook out into my palm, though. It was sheets of what felt like rice paper, covered in tiny writing. I looked at one through a magnifying glass.

Then I let out a hissing, dismayed breath.

Cyrillic lettering. Russian words. I read a few lines, feeling blood drain from my face.

Mr. Ignatius Robins of Boston had been engaged in espionage.

* * * *

I stopped at my cabin on my way to Robins’s. It was getting on to eight o’clock, but I had to change. The room was far smaller than anything I’d had working ground-side; space was at a premium even on a luxury liner. Still, I had a private bunk, as befit the ranking security constable, and if I had to sit on my bed to open my wardrobe, or sleep pressed up against the wall to share the space with Marianne, at least I had that much. The tiny washing-up cubicle wasn’t so terrible, either — the entertainers had their own quarters on another level, thankfully; those twittering birds were the last thing I needed after a long night walking the decks.

I changed into a fresh maroon skirt and rubbed a cloth over my boots until the blood was gone. After a brief stop in the crew lavatory to wash my hands, I went to the lowest level and located Ignatius Robins’s cabin. It wasn’t the most lavish, but it was close. I put on gloves and reached for the door handle.

The polished wood swung open before I could even try the key. I reached into my jacket for my baton, which lived in a pocket along my spine. The metal rod was warm even through my glove; I held it at the ready and stepped into the doorway. “This is Constable McDonald. Identify yourself!”

Something crashed, out of view, probably in the private washroom; I closed the door behind me to protect the other passengers from seeing anything potentially unpleasant before moving through the stateroom, baton raised. “Step out with your hands up!” I snapped in my best stern-teacher voice. “Do it now!”

“All right!”

A woman. I hadn’t expected that. She sidled out of the washroom, hands at shoulder-level.

“Sit down, please.” I gestured to the bed with the baton. She did as I said, curling in on herself a bit as if afraid I’d hit her. Or worse. A man might have — probably would have — taken advantage, but I didn’t believe in unnecessary violence or forcing myself on a suspect. Even an attractive one — and this one was very attractive. “What’s your name?”

She blinked huge green eyes at me. “Katya,” she said, her voice flavored European but not quite Russian. “Katya Iyarina.”

“What are you doing down here? Shouldn’t you be…” I made a vague motion toward the upper decks. I’d recognized Miss Iyarina’s name from the manifest as one of the dancers in the questionably tasteful revue that ran mid-days; while wives visited the health spa or played cards, their husbands crowded into a small, dark theater to stare at Katya and the other women.

She swallowed. “Ignatius. He…” She had the decency to look ashamed. “He hired me. Last night.”

I tried not to look as though I’d tasted something unpleasant. It was against contract to do what Iyarina had done, but management unofficially asked constables to overlook the activity. “How did you get in?”

“The door was not locked,” she told me. “I came for what I left last night.”

“And that is?”

Now she did blush, gesturing to her very short skirt. “All right, I get it.” I sighed, putting the baton away before sitting in the room’s one chair. “Have you seen Robins today?”

“Not since this morning.” Iyarina ran one hand through thick blond hair. The move made her body shift provocatively under her tightly-buttoned blouse; I managed not to look away. It was clearly a practiced motion, intended to attract attention. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he’s dead.”

To her credit, the dancer pulled off a good impression of a devastated lover, but I knew better: she’d been here because Robins had paid her. She didn’t really have any ties to him.

“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt him?” I asked.

She shook her head, hair falling around her face, eyes downcast. She even manufactured a couple of tears, which dripped from her narrow nose and spattered on her stockinged thigh. “He was a gentle man,” she said. Then she looked up at me. “Am I safe, Constable McDonald?”

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not.”

“Then you’re safe from me, at least.” I ran my palms over my knees. “Stay in company. Just in case. But I think you’ll be all right.” I waved to the door. “Go on. I know where to find you if I need you.”

She didn’t say anything else, just got out of there. I locked the cabin door behind her and began searching the room. The wardrobe yielded nothing much, just clothing that befit a gentleman of leisure and a couple of walking-sticks — neither of which concealed swords, not that I really expected to find them. But it was a bit odd that there were no weapons at all among his belongings; spies were said to value their lives very highly.

A quick search of the drawers in the bedside tables revealed nothing but a pad of writing-paper and a sharpened pencil. I was luckier in the washroom: in the center of the toilet roll, I found another thick envelope, curled up and stuck there by two dabs of what smelled like spirit gum. I wiped my fingers on the hand towel and put the envelope into my jacket, then rechecked all of Robins’s toiletries on the off chance he’d secreted something inside one of the bottles. He hadn’t, of course; the toilet roll had been a very good hiding place.

Before leaving, I lifted the toilet lid, just to check. “Oh, that’s vile.” Robins hadn’t had the courtesy to pull the chain after his last trip. I dropped the wooden disc back onto the bowl and tugged the small handle on the wall behind.

Nothing happened.

Had this been a routine search for contraband, I might have let it be and called a mechanic, but given the situation, I was taking nothing for granted. Upon closer inspection, the tiny silver screws holding the panel behind the handle were definitely damaged, probably by a screwdriver not made for this size or head. I used the small driver in my little leather case to remove the panel so I could reach into the opening.

Another envelope. I took it out and examined it: thicker than either of the others, and the humidity of the plumbing had loosened the gumming along the seal. It was already almost open; my thumb teased the flap the rest of the way off and I peered inside.

Hundred-dollar bills. At least fifty of them. I cursed quietly: as if a murdered spy wasn’t bad enough, now I had to deal with one who might have been working for the highest bidder.

I locked the cabin behind me and made for the bridge. I needed to speak to the captain.

* * * *

Captain Saint-Pierre wasn’t happy to be in his office talking to me, not this late in the evening, and he didn’t try to hide it. “I’m really quite busy, Mrs. McDonald.” He never said my rank, either.

“I know, sir.” I opened the flat metal box where I’d put Robins’s rice paper and handed the captain a magnifying glass. “But look at this.”

The captain huffed but did as I asked. He only glanced, though. “I don’t read this language, Mrs. McDonald.”

I suppressed a sigh. “It’s Russian, sir. These are state secrets, I think.”

“Really now?” He looked again, then shrugged, broad shoulders shifting beneath his maroon jacket. He set dark brown eyes on me. “Do you believe he was killed for them?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Did you find anything else, Mrs. McDonald?” Every time he called me that, I had to fight down the urge to snarl at him. I hadn’t been married for years, but for propriety’s sake the Company said I had to be treated as if I still had a husband. Not that the captain cared; his hand had “accidentally” brushed my backside far too many times over the past year for it to be much of an accident anymore.

“He’d hidden more documents in his toilet roll—”

Saint-Pierre laughed. “You’re not being paid to clean his washroom, Mrs. McDonald.” I bit the inside of my lip as hard as I could. “Was there more?”

“No, sir.” Except the money, but I wasn’t telling him about that. Not now, and perhaps not ever. The ass.

“Then figure out who killed him. Figure out why. And soon. I don’t want a killer on my airship. Understand?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And try not to anger too many of the passengers.” He offered me a flash of a smile, teeth bright white in his dark Caribbean face. “The last thing we need is to be giving refunds because Mrs. McDonald stepped on the wrong toes.”

My teeth were clenched tightly enough that, if I kept it up, I would have a spectacular headache. “No, sir,” I said through them.

“Good.”

His hand on my lower back was overly familiar as he ushered me out of his office, but I endured it. At least he tried to be subtle; the one and only time Commander Markel had pinched my backside, I’d broken his fingers — and paid dearly for it out of my wages.

Worth it, though.

* * * *

I separated the evidence into three plain white envelopes, then locked it all in my safe. Except for the money. I couldn’t guarantee I had the only key to my safe, and it was a lot of cash. I counted it again, then put it into my jacket. $6,500. If the killer knew about the money, he or she would most certainly come looking for it. Better to keep it on my person.

I sighed. $6,500 was enough for me to quit the Company and disappear, enough for Rebecca McDonald to die quietly and be reinvented in Spain or France — I spoke both languages well enough. All I had to do was repair the handle-plate in Robins’s cabin — Marianne would be glad to help me there, I was certain — and say nothing of the money.

Money. It had spelled the end of my career with the San Francisco Police Department: after my first partner’s death, I’d been paired with a clumsy, easily-bribed nincompoop who’d pinned his theft of $700 on me. As far as I knew, he was still taking bribes and menacing citizens while I looked down from tens of thousands of feet and tried to figure out who had killed a spy. And of course the Company didn’t pay women nearly as well as men; I had precious little left over after paying for a room back in California that I only used one week out of every four.

I touched the envelope in my pocket one more time, then squared my shoulders and headed out to the entertainment deck. I still had a job to do. The money would wait — whatever I decided to do with it.

* * * *

Most of the 300-or-so passengers were on the entertainment deck. It was the largest deck on the airship, and for at least some portion of the evening everyone made it up here. It would’ve been suspicious not to. I looked in on the main dining cabin; no one taking a late meal seemed the worse for wear, and the help had cleaned the floor. But word had got around nonetheless, and a couple of passengers asked me if I’d caught the culprit yet.

“I can’t discuss an active investigation,” I said to an older man walking with his wife and sons — both of whom leered openly at me.

“But are we safe?” his wife asked.

“Of course,” I told her. “You have nothing to worry about. The Great American Airship Company prides itself on being the safest there is.”

The conversation was repeated, with minor changes, as I made my rounds. I eventually ended up on the open foredeck, jacket buttoned tightly, hands deep in my pockets. We were moving at speed, and with the sun gone the wind sliced through me as efficiently as the killer’s knife had slashed the throat of the late Mr. Robins. Not many passengers chose to spend their evenings out here, though one young couple was at the very prow, her red hair streaming out behind her as he held her round the waist so she could lean up against the railing. I smiled ruefully; once upon a time, I’d had a husband and we’d had our own moments of closeness, but now, if anyone saw me holding my lover like that I’d probably be thrown over the side, and her soon after.

Someone tapped my shoulder. I spun quickly, stepping back, but it was only Mr. Peters, the chief steward. “Dining cabin closed?” I asked.

“Yes.” He breathed deeply, then inclined his head at the couple. “Sweet, isn’t it?”

“If you like that sort of thing.” I shivered. “Did you need something, Mr. Peters?”

He shook his head. “Please: call me Tony.”

“Tony, then.” I felt the wind trying to pry my hair out of its long braid. “Is something on your mind?”

“You have to ask?”

I hitched one shoulder, a half-shrug. “I’m no psychologist,” I said. “The medic can give you something to calm your nerves, if you like.”

“It didn’t bother you? At all?” Tony had his hands tucked under his folded arms; instead of a coat, he wore a dark-blue cape fastened in front with three silver buckles.

“That’s not it.” I felt the airship bank slightly; the wind ceased to blow quite so fiercely into our faces. The couple at the prow was kissing now, her back pressed into the metal railing. “I’ve seen worse.” I swallowed. “There’s just a lot on my mind.”

“Why? Was there something strange about the killing?”

I turned to him. “You seem awfully interested.”

“It did happen in my dining cabin.”

Ah. “I suppose you’re right. But I interviewed your staff already.” I’d done it before my rounds; no one had seen the actual killing, but two waiters confirmed that Iyarina and Robins were together all through the dinner hour. I very much wanted to know why she’d lied to me, but interrupting Iyarina while she was entertaining would just draw the captain’s attention, and that wouldn’t be helpful at all. I’d have to wait until tomorrow morning. “The only possible suspect is one of the dancing girls. I don’t think she could’ve done it, though.”

“Why not?”

Now I gave him a sharp look. “I think you know enough about the entertainers on this airship to know the answer to that. If she killed him, how could he pay her?”

He smiled, apologetic. “So what will you do?”

“The murder weapon was probably tossed over the side,” I said. “But that doesn’t matter. I’ll find who did it, and he — or she — will pay for the crime.”

Tony nodded, apparently in approval, then left the foredeck via the port-side door. The couple departed the same way. But I stayed out in the open a while longer, despite the wind and the cold.

I was going to figure out who killed Ignatius Robins. Somehow.

* * * *

“I thought I left all this behind two years ago,” I said softly, my breath ruffling Marianne’s hair. “I thought I was just a constable on an airship now.”

Marianne and I were pressed tightly together, huddled under my too-small, too-thin blanket. She’d slipped into the bed after I’d fallen asleep, but her warmth and the scent of soap and skin had woken me. “You’re more than just a constable, Rebecca.” My arm was over her body; she pressed my hand between hers. “You’re my constable.”

“I know.” I kissed the top of her head — she was even shorter than the first mate, and fit very nicely against me in this position. “I just wish everything wasn’t a damned competition.”

She nodded. We both knew that if I went to the captain or Commander Markel, they’d find a way to use it against me, to say I wasn’t competent. They already didn’t like me — well, that wasn’t quite true; they liked that I was a woman, and that I was pleasant to look at. No wonder Marianne tried to do all the dirty jobs: why dig through layers of grime and soot and cleaning fluid?

More fool they.

“I’m going to have to talk to the crew tomorrow,” I said. “The entertainers, the engineers, everyone. And if it’s not one of them…”

“Then we’ll see.” She brought my hand to her mouth again, kissed my fingers slowly before running her lips over the pad of my thumb. I suddenly felt very warm inside. “What about that dancer?”

“What about her?” I struggled to think. “Robins would have paid her.”

“Would he?” Marianne turned to face me, cupped my cheek with one hand. “Look at how they treat you. What if Robins wasn’t any better?”

“Iyarina said he was a gentleman,” I said. Marianne’s eyes were silver in the moonlight coming through the tiny porthole. “I’m sure he paid, and paid well.”

Marianne kissed me, then said, “you think too well of people for someone who used to be a police detective.”

“Well, she did lie to me. Should I go wake her up? Question her again?”

“Yes.” Another kiss. “But not just now.”

* * * *

Iyarina wasn’t in the cabin she shared with the other dancers. None of them were very pleased to be woken up at half-past-seven, but I didn’t care. “Where’s Katya Iyarina?”

The red-haired one peered across the room; Iyarina’s bunk was one of six crammed into this space. “Out.”

“She’ll be back at lunchtime.” This was the brunette in the bunk just below; she had a sleeping mask over her face and hadn’t bothered to remove her makeup; lipstick was smeared on her pillow. “I’ll tell her you stopped by.” The last was barely intelligible around a yawn.

“You do that.”

I left the cabin and stalked through the narrow corridor to the crew staircase, making my way down to the lowest level. Robins’s cabin door was open; I reached for my baton, but when I heard the captain’s voice, I knew I didn’t have to bother.

And that I wasn’t going to like what was about to happen.

“There you are, Mrs. McDonald.” He sounded both satisfied and angry, and he stressed the “missus” once again. “Looks like we’ve found your killer!”

Behind the captain, Katya Iyarina stood, arms held by the junior navigator and the meteorologist. “Captain—”

“It’s over, Mrs. McDonald,” he said. “People were talking more about a dead passenger than the food, or the shows, or, God help me, the girls! I can’t have that on my ship! That’s not keeping the peace, and you know it.”

I took a closer look at the dancer; one side of her face was angry and red, and she was crying. “What were you doing here, Katya?” I tried to sound kind; she needed someone on her side.

“She said she left something here,” said the meteorologist. He didn’t sound happy about being conscripted to take a passenger into custody, and I didn’t blame him. “The captain…” He bit his lip; the captain glared at him. “Captain Saint-Pierre questioned Miss Iyarina, and she said Robins refused to pay her that first night.”

“So she caught him after dinner,” the captain said. “He wouldn’t pay, and she killed him.”

I was watching Iyarina, though. Her jaw was set, her face hard, even though she was crying. Her green eyes met mine and I knew. “Captain, it doesn’t add up,” I said, turning to him. “Robins had $300 in his wallet.” And thousands more in his cabin, but I definitely wasn’t telling the captain about that now. “He could afford to pay her six times what she’d charge!”

“And she killed him anyway. Didn’t you, girl?”

When the dancer didn’t respond, the captain backhanded her across the other cheek. She slumped, probably feigning unconsciousness. Probably a good move.

“And as for you,” he snapped, his dark eyes on mine again, “you’re off my ship when we get to Boston.” He advanced, and I gave ground. When I’d been on the force, I’d have stood up to him, but here I had no backup. Here, Captain Saint-Pierre was the law. “Your assets are in the Company bank, aren’t they? It’ll be quite the challenge to get home to San Francisco without any money.” He was very close now. “Perhaps by then you’ll be properly humbled,” he said, low and vicious. “Perhaps I’ll let you back on my airship.” His hand came up and I flinched. I couldn’t help it. But all he did was touch my cheek, then my shoulder, then my breast. “In a far more revealing uniform, I think. One that befits a woman without usable skills.”

He smiled, and in that moment, I was truly afraid.

“Perhaps Miss Iyarina will teach you some of hers.”

* * * *

Marianne found me in the plumbing room, hidden behind the water tank. When I saw her, I grabbed her and hugged her as hard as I could, disregarding the state of her clothes, not caring about the dirt transferring from her to me. “If I have to kill the captain,” I said, “please tell the police it was self-defense.”

Her arms went around me. She rocked me gently. “He’s a bastard,” she whispered, stroking my shoulders.

“He’s putting me off the ship in Boston.”

“Oh, Rebecca.” She kissed my shoulder.

“He suggested…” I successfully fought down a sob. “He suggested I whore my way back to California.”

Marianne had no words. She held me, I don’t know for how long. Until I was able to breathe normally, until my heart stopped hammering.

“Katya lied,” I finally said.

“What?”

I leaned against the bulkhead; Marianne held my hand, ran her thumb over my knuckles. “She lied to the captain. He…” I sighed. “Well, you probably know what he did. There were witnesses, though; she had to confess, even if it wasn’t true.”

“Then who did it?”

“I wish I knew.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve got four days to figure it out, though.”

“Do you want my help?”

I shook my head. “Don’t get involved, Marianne. Don’t go down with me.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I kept going. “I love you, but I don’t want you throwing your career away for me.”

“It’s my career!”

“Marianne,” I said, voice flat, and that was that. She knew that tone, knew that there would be no more compromises.

She turned. “Pride goes before a fall,” she said, and left the plumbing room.

Maybe Marianne was right, but I wasn’t done with this case. Not even close.

* * * *

Hidden in an out-of-the-way corner of deck two was a locked room with a cot, privy, and basin. When passengers got drunk and violent and needed to sleep it off, I locked them in. I figured it was where the captain would put Iyarina. But when I got there, I found Tony Peters, the chief steward, leaning over a red-uniformed crewman who was on the deck, clutching his groin and gasping. “I came with her food,” Tony said. “She kicked him and ran.”

“Damn!” I drew my baton. “Did she say anything?”

“That she was going to jump. That no one would believe her anyway.”

I turned and bolted. There was only one place she could be going.

* * * *

At half-past-eight, few passengers were up and about. The dining cabin didn’t open until nine anyway. I had to dodge only two or three people as I sprinted along the length of the entertainment deck and burst through the foredeck door.

Katya Iyarina was holding onto the railing, staring straight ahead.

“Don’t do it,” I said.

She looked back, saw me holding the baton. I put it away and moved toward her. “Katya, please. This isn’t the answer.”

“So I go to prison for murder? Or worse?” Her fingers were curled tightly around the metal, her hair flowing as the airship continued on course. “I did nothing wrong!”

“Katya,” I said, “tell me the truth.”

“The truth.” She laughed, scornful, but when I joined her at the railing, she did as I asked. “The truth is that Robins was a nice man. Sweet. Tender.” She smiled. “Not like many of the others. We talked for a long time, and I said good-bye. But I left without the money.”

“So you met him in the dining cabin…”

“And he apologized, and said he would pay, and invited me to eat with him.”

“You had to be on stage right after the dinner hour, though, so you left before he did.”

“Yes.” She was crying —real tears this time. Before the captain had had her imprisoned, she could’ve written it off, could’ve moved on to another passenger. Not now, though. “He gave me a key to his cabin, told me to wait.”

“Why did you lie to me?” I asked. “Why not just tell me everything when I found you last night?”

She sniffed, a derisive noise. “You are the constable. Why would you believe me?”

I shook my head. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where will I go?”

“My cabin, for starters. I’ll find you somewhere else to hide until I uncover the real killer.”

Iyarina touched my shoulder. “Thank you, Constable.”

I smiled. “Please. Call me Rebecca.”

I led her to the port-side door and opened it.

Something slammed into my shoulder. I shoved Iyarina out of the way and fell backward, avoiding another strike. “What the hell?” I blinked tears out of my eyes. “Tony?”

The chief steward had a long wrench in his hand. He swung again; I rolled, yanking my baton out of my jacket. The next time he tried to hit me, I was ready; I grabbed the wrench and pulled him to the deck, punching at his jaw with the fist clenched around the baton. He howled in pain as I got to my feet, legs still shaky from that first blow. “What are you doing?”

Peters managed to get up, holding his face, the wrench held out like a sword, as if he was some sort of fencer. I gripped the baton more tightly. “She told you, didn’t she.”

It wasn’t a question. “What the hell is going on?”

“She told you she didn’t kill Robins.”

Oh, my dear God. “You… you killed him?”

Peters stepped closer to Katya and pulled a clasp-knife from his pocket, then flicked it open. The morning sun glimmered on the blade. He pointed at the railing with the wrench; Katya dropped to her knees and huddled, making herself as small as possible. Then, to me, he said: “I had my orders.”

“Your… orders?”

He smiled and sketched a salute with the wrench. “Anton Petrovich, at your service. Or, more precisely, in service of the Tsar.”

“You’re the spy?”

Peters—Petrovich—laughed. “No, no, my dear Constable. Robins was most definitely the spy. And a very good one too; he stole classified information from the Russian Consulate. The telegram was very clear: kill him, recover the documents, find someone to take the blame.”

I looked more closely at the knife; it was about the right size for the stab wound in Robins’s stomach. “You were sloppy,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hands on the information.”

“I didn’t have a lot of time.” Petrovich’s hand darted out; Katya cowered back and shielded herself with her arms. The knife left a bright line of blood on her skin. “And you were so damned efficient. You found the plans before I could get to Robins’s cabin that night.” His face went hard. “You ruined everything for me, Constable McDonald. Everything!” It was a furious shout.

The airship hit a bump of turbulence; Katya whimpered. I kept my feet, but Petrovich dropped to one knee. I advanced, but he turned the knife as if to throw it. I had no doubt he could kill me that way. I wished I could carry a pistol, but guns were prohibited — one careless bullet could puncture the giant aluminum-encased balloon hanging above our heads.

Petrovich stood again, smiling. “You have a simple choice, Constable McDonald: say nothing, go along with the tramp’s confession, and, when we get to Boston, make your report to the Company. You’ll never see nor hear from me again.” He brandished the wrench. “Or there could be a fight, and you both could die.”

Except for the little matter of Katya going to prison for a crime she hadn’t committed, Petrovich’s plan sounded pretty good, given what the captain had in store for me. Especially since I still had the money.

The money.

“What about the money?”

His eyes narrowed. “What money?”

He didn’t know. The Tsar’s government must have withheld that detail — or perhaps the money was intended to help Robins disappear until the Russians forgot what he’d done. Not that that would help; the Tsar was known for his long memory. “I found money along with the documents.” A plan formed in my mind. “Thousands of dollars. You can have it if you let us live.”

Petrovich clicked his tongue. “Come now, Constable. Why shouldn’t I just kill you and take the money anyway?”

“I suppose you have a point.” I tucked the baton under my arm, but didn’t put it away. “Go on, then. Kill me. You’ll never find it.”

Petrovich’s smile returned, toothy and unpleasant. He waved the knife at Katya. “Run, little tramp. Hide. Don’t let me see you again.”

Katya looked at me; I nodded, and she ran for it. Even if she was caught by the captain again, it was better than being at Petrovich’s mercy.

Once the dancer was gone, Petrovich gestured toward the door with the wrench. “Lead on, Constable.”

I shook my head. “You really believed I wouldn’t keep the money on me?” I took the envelope out of my jacket and held it up. The wind tried to tug it out of my fingers. “$6,500, Petrovich. A lot of money.”

He closed the knife and jammed it into his pocket, then reached out. “Give it to me. Now!”

“No.” I took a $100 bill from the envelope and let it go; the wind carried it to the back wall of the foredeck. “I think not.” Then I dropped the envelope.

“You bitch!” He dove for the money as bills scattered everywhere. His hand closed on the envelope, still half-full of cash; when he looked back, he wore a triumphant expression.

It lasted all of half a second before I smashed the baton across the bridge of his nose. Blood spurted as he brought the wrench up in a clumsy arc; I cracked the baton on his hand and, as the wrench clanged to the deck, I dropped to one knee and punched the metal rod into his chest, all my weight and strength behind the blow.

Bone cracked. Petrovich’s eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to scream, but all that came out was a spray of blood.

I don’t know how long it took him to die, but in the end, it didn’t really matter.

* * * *

U.S. Marshals met me at the port and escorted me to their Boston office, where I was debriefed. I told the truth, except for one small detail, and the Marshals didn’t seem inclined to press the issue. They also took the captain into custody — they hadn’t looked kindly upon his mistreatment of Katya, and, trying to save face, the Company let them keep him.

I was in the care of the Marshals for four days; the Ozymandias left without me after two for her return trip to San Francisco. Not that it mattered; the Marshals were so grateful that I’d recovered the intelligence and eliminated an agent of the Tsar that they booked me a luxury cabin on the California Limited III.

I boarded the train the next morning at eight and, half an hour later, went to the dining car for a late breakfast. I was just spreading jam onto my toast when I heard a voice I couldn’t fail to recognize.

“Hello, Rebecca.”

I smiled at Marianne as she slid into the seat across from me and reached out to take my hands in hers. “Surprised?”

“Very. The Ozymandias left days ago, apparently without her engineer’s mate. Do you still have a job?”

She grinned. “I told you Frederickson was eating out of my hand. He convinced Commander Markel. I’m not getting paid, but it’s worth it.” Her palms were warm, fingers rough in places with calluses from years of working in engine compartments. “Even though you were a little sharp with me.”

My eyes prickled with tears. “I’m sorry, Marianne.”

“It’s all right,” she said. There were too many people in the dining car for her to kiss my fingers, but I know she wanted to. “I forgive you.”

The waiter came to take Marianne’s order, and once he was gone I asked her if she got the note I’d sent; sequestered by the Marshals, it was the only way I could get a message out. “I did,” she said. “I tried to write back, but they said you couldn’t receive any communications from outside.”

I made a face, which made Marianne chuckle. “At least you’re here now. At least you found my train.” Her lips tightened at that and I stroked her wrist. “What is it?”

“Not that I regret being here, but the ticket was…” She blushed. “I’m sorry, Rebecca, but this is expensive, and you know how much the Company pays women. Even high-ranking women like us.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I reached into my jacket and showed Marianne the edge of the envelope. I saw her stunned expression and felt myself smile. “They asked. I lied. They didn’t push it.” I tucked it back into my inside pocket. “We have nothing to worry about. Not this trip. Maybe not ever.”

“Rebecca…”

“Shush now,” I said in my best mock-authoritative tone. “We’ve got a week to talk about money.” I stroked her fingers; her cheeks flushed pink. “Among other things.”

* * * *

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ode to the West Wind”

* * * *

About the Story

“Amid the Steep Sky’s Commotion” was originally written for a Crossed Genres magazine prompt, but ultimately they decided not to publish it. It ended up at Khimairal Ink, a magazine featuring female-focused literature. I originally had planned to write this story as a sequel to The Clockwork Russian, but while crafting the plot I realized it was too crowded and ended up bidding adieu to John Bach in favor of focusing on Rebecca McDonald.

When editor Marshal Latham reprinted the story, he went back and compared it to a post on the Escape Artists forums that I made about a steampunk story that had aired on Escape Pod a few years prior. I was complaining how the author of that story seemed to have a “steampunk checklist” and was making sure he ticked all the boxes, not realizing that I’d done almost the exact same thing with this story. The boxes I ticked were: unconventional (relatively) sexual preference by a female character, Russians, trains, airships, at least one person dead on the floor (having been killed before the story began), the good guy winning, and the bad guy surviving so there could be a sequel. Unticked were: corsets, swords, and cool guns. Admittedly, the main bad guy didn’t survive, but Commander Markel and Captain Saint-Pierre lived to menace women another day. I guess I’m sometimes a hypocrite when it comes to my writing.

This story’s fun fact: parts of it were inspired by some Star Trek: Voyager fanfic I read at the time I was writing it. And no, I won’t give you a copy.

“Survivor”

Wen slumped against a crystal formation and stared up at the dark sky, lit only by greenish-gold auroras. Sweat ran down into her eyes and made her clothes cling in uncomfortable places. She wanted to sit down, wanted to take off the pack for a few minutes, but the last time she’d done that, her feet had ached even worse for the respite.

No. Better to stay standing.

She caught her breath before taking a measured swallow from the canteen that hung at her side. Gulping the water would be a mistake; in this state, she’d just throw up. Staying calm, that was the key.

One more swallow, though she ached to drain the whole thing, and then back onto its clip.

Wen’s borrowed comm pinged. Four hours to sunrise. Four hours until the witchlight above her head gave way to the burning white orb that would blast her with heat and radiation until she was nothing but a memory.

Four hours to live.

She shoved the comm back into her pocket, stood up straight, and started to run again.

Well, jog, anyway.

It was the best she could do.

* * * *

The rich kids had chartered an interplanetary liner for their high school graduation party. Wen had been invited because she was friends with someone who was friends with someone whose father owned a big chunk of one of the moons. She knew no one liked her — no one ever really liked the fat kids, not even the other fat kids — but she’d be leaving in a few weeks anyway, to one of the top universities in the system. Why not at least try to have a little fun?

And Bess had insisted. Bess, her friend, who had begged Missy Hallen to let Wen come along.

Bess had also insisted Wen have a few drinks — they were out of orbit, and the rules didn’t apply. “Come on, Wen! Lighten up!”

Wen hadn’t liked whatever Bess had pressed into her hand, and she’d soon begged off and stumbled down the corridor to the little medical bay.

When the collision alarms had sounded, Wen had managed to strap herself in despite a blinding headache and a growing urge to vomit.

Then the ship had crashed, and when Wen came to, she’d stumbled along the tilted corridor until she’d seen the damage.

The ship had been ripped in half, and the other part of it was on fire, maybe half a kilometer away.

Between her and that blaze was a field of bodies.

Her hand went to her mouth and she stumbled backward, trying not to scream.

* * * *

Wen heard a noise — one that didn’t sound like her body crushing tiny crystals under her feet — and immediately dropped to her knees. She stifled a groan, then lowered herself flat. The second planet, Sidqiel, was home to all sorts of dangerous wildlife, and though Wen had a blaster — part of the liner’s emergency supplies — she had no way to know what was coming.

So she calmed herself. She tried to breathe more quietly.

And she listened, clutching the blaster in her left hand, waiting for whatever was out there, wasting what little time she had left.

* * * *

Wen had screwed up her courage and tried to go out among the bodies strewn across the debris field. She’d taken a scanner from the medical bay, hoping she could find someone still alive, someone who could help her.

After seeing the third mangled corpse, though, she’d given up on that and returned to the ship. She found some painkillers in the broken-open pharmacy locker and took one; the headache fled in abject terror, which allowed her to think clearly.

“Where am I?”

Well, that one was easy enough. Wen reached for her comm—

No. She reached for her pocket, but her comm was gone.

She found it in the corner of the medical bay, screen shattered, unwilling to even turn on. “Well, that’s brilliant.” Wen’s voice was scratchy in her ears — had she screamed as the ship had crash-landed? She didn’t remember.

Wen had to shove open the door of the next compartment — people were often surprised how strong she was, but then, it took a lot of muscle to move all that body around. At least, that’s what she told people. Once she’d managed to open the door, she found more bodies: a popular girl named Laka and her boyfriend Akito. Their clothes were strewn around the room — apparently Laka had made good on her promise to bed Akito before graduation — but as Wen knelt to check and see if they were alive — they weren’t — she found Laka’s comm, undamaged, sticking out of a jacket pocket. No signal, but at least it was working. Small favors.

She moved on to the next compartment.

* * * *

Tiny scaled creatures no bigger than Wen’s hand slithered past, through the crystal debris, clearly fleeing something. Wen risked a peek above the patch of crystalline bushes that hid her, but saw nothing.

Then a noise, high-pitched and horribly discordant, drove her to the dirt again. She looked up, but saw nothing. So she climbed to her feet, checked her comm, and started to jog again.

And was nearly mauled by huge, heavily-scaled serpent that had been hiding in a hollow in the ground. It rammed into her backpack, knocking her flat on her face. She spat a mouthful of crystal pebbles and got to her knees once more. The serpent was staring at her, tensed, ready to attack again.

Wen looked into its huge blue eyes. It blinked, and she blinked. She guessed it wasn’t used to its prey getting up again.

Holding its eyes with hers, Wen slowly brought up the blaster until it was pointed at the serpent.

Then, without warning, it attacked.

At this distance, she didn’t even have to aim. One shot from the blaster blew its head clean off. The rest of the body knocked her to the hard ground yet again, her head thumping hard against the top of the backpack, but the thing was clearly dead.

She shoved the remains of the serpent to one side, stood up again, and got moving.

* * * *

Wen made her way through the ship, waving Laka’s comm in slow arcs, trying to get a signal. She had no idea where the ship had crashed; the impact had flattened everything for half a kilometer, and although she had seen stars when she’d gone outside—

Stars. Stars, just barely peeking through the clouds and the auroras.

Wen found the nearest emergency door and opened it, then jumped down onto the hard ground. Her knees and ankles let her know just how bad an idea that had been, but she didn’t care; she activated the comm and pointed its visual pickup at the star-speckled sky.

It pinged a couple of seconds later.

Wen read its screen and swallowed hard.

Sidqiel. They’d crashed on Sidqiel.

She was as good as dead.

* * * *

Wen checked the comm: only a kilometer to go before she reached the old substation. Though she was dripping with sweat and aching in ways she never knew her body could ache, she picked up her pace, trying to move faster, trying to get to safety before the sun’s radiation blasted her like she’d blasted the serpent.

Soon enough, she burst free from the crystal forest and into a clearing. In the distance, she saw the dark, blocky shape of the substation.

And right in front of her, the ground stopped short, falling away into a chasm.

Wen tried to stop, but lost her footing and fell hard on her ass. She struggled to her feet and tried to slow her breathing. She stared into the chasm. It was farther across than she could ever dream of jumping. It stretched to her left and her right, with no end in sight.

“Well, this is just great,” Wen said. “Now what?”

* * * *

Wen searched every compartment of what was left of the ship until, in a cabinet behind the rear galley, she found the emergency transmitter. Heavily insulated against just about anything, from impact to explosion, from deep-water pressures to the vacuum of space, she knew she could use it to call for help.

Not that anyone could make it to Sidqiel in seven hours, which was all the time she had left before sunrise, according to Laka’s comm. At least she could tell someone what had happened.

The unit was easy enough that even a lacrosse star could use it. Wen was about six times smarter than any of them — or, at least, she told herself that every time one said something about her size. She swallowed hard — she’d wished they’d stop making fun of her, but she’d never wished them dead — and jammed her thumb on the activator.

The box powered up quickly, a small screen unfolding from the top. Wen keyed it to transmit, then spoke into the audio pickup.

“This is Gwendolyn Yee Irons from Montgomery City, Hemingway Province. My ship crashed. Is anyone reading this?”

Nothing for several long seconds. She tried again.

“Can anyone hear me? This is Gwendolyn Yee Irons from Montgomery City—”

“Miss Irons, this is Sergeant Salzman at Orbital Station 3. Do you read?”

“I read you!” Wen felt tears prickle her eyes and a lump form in her throat. She forced it down. “Sergeant, the ship I was on… it crashed on Sidqiel. I couldn’t find any other survivors.”

Another interminable silence. Then Salzman spoke again. “We’ve triangulated your signal. You only have about seven hours until local dawn. Can you get out of the sun?”

“I can stay in the ship—”

“No,” he said, cutting her off. “Without shields, without power, you’ll cook in there.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? I’m not stupid, Sergeant; you can’t get here for almost ten hours.”

“Please remain calm, Miss Irons.”

“Remain calm?” She kicked the transmitter, but that only hurt her foot. The unit remained unperturbed. “I’m going to die down here, and you want me to remain calm?”

“Stand by.”

“Stand by? Stand by for what?”

No one answered.

Wen dropped to the floor, back against the wall, and let herself cry. She was going to die, alone, among the bodies of her classmates and… well, they weren’t friends, but they were still people. Of all of them, why had only she survived?

“Miss Irons.”

Salzman’s voice.

“Miss Irons, are you there?”

Wen wiped her face with the back of her hand and struggled to her feet. “What do you want?”

“Miss Irons, there’s an old research substation about thirty-five kilometers from your position, bearing one-six-three. Can you get there in seven hours?”

Wen did the math in her head, then burst out laughing. It was either that or start crying again.

“Miss Irons? What is it?”

Still laughing in little hiccups, Wen found the button that activated the unit’s visual pickup. “Look at me, Sergeant. Do you think I can make it even five kilometers? And on those crystal plains out there, I’ll be on my ass half the time!”

A pause. “Miss Irons, it’s either run or die. We’re launching a rescue ship right now, but if you don’t get to that substation, there won’t be anything for us to find except your body.”

Wen took a couple of deep breaths, then stared at the pickup. “I’m going to die out there.”

“You will not die,” Salzman snapped. “Do you understand me?”

“Sure, yeah, whatever you say.”

“It’s your choice. Which would you rather do: sit there and die, or fight for a chance to live?”

* * * *

Wen used her blaster to blow apart the base of a huge crystal formation at the edge of the forest. It was just luck that the towering pillar didn’t fall on her, that it fell toward the chasm.

But it wasn’t long enough. Not even for her to make a jump if she got a running start. “Damn it,” she growled, sitting on the fallen crystal and staring at the chasm. “Damn it! Damn it all!”

She was going to die.

She said it out loud: “I’m going to die.”

She got to her feet and stood at the edge of the chasm. “I’m going to die!” she screamed.

Then she looked down. The gold-green witchlight of the aurora wasn’t bright enough to see the bottom — for a moment, Wen considered jumping in; whatever was down there, it was probably nice and sharp and would probably kill her pretty damn efficiently when she landed on it.

The aurora pulsed brighter, which she’d seen happen on occasion during her flight from the ship, and she got a good, long look at the far wall of the chasm. Nothing but crystal boulders and, below that, darker rocks. Rocks as far as her eyes could see.

No. That wasn’t right. Wen pulled the flashlight out of her pack and turned it to its highest setting. The chasm was about seven meters across, and the beam just managed to pick out hollows in the rocks.

“Caves,” Wen whispered. Then, a cry of delight: “Caves!”

* * * *

“All right,” Wen said after a long, quiet moment. “All right. I’ll try. I’ll try to get to the damn substation.”

“Good. We’ll send the rescue ship there first. Just get to the subterranean levels and see if you can get emergency power working. Even without it, you should survive until we get there; the ship will extend a shield over the entire area.”

“All right,” Wen said one more time. “Let me give you my comm frequency.” She read off a string of numbers. “Do you have it?”

Salzman repeated the numbers to her, and she confirmed them. “Miss Irons,” he said, his voice gentle, “it’s not going to be an easy trip. Not even for someone in perfect health. But it’s the only way you’re going to survive. No matter what happens, just keep going. Can you do that for me?”

Wen made a nasty sound with her mouth. “Don’t patronize me, and don’t try to be my friend. Just get the damn ship here.”

Another one of those pauses. “Very well,” Salzman said finally. “Are there any emergency supplies? They should be near this transmitter.”

“Hang on.” Wen rooted through several more cabinets until she found three large backpacks, each one clearly marked IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. “Got ’em.”

“Good. Put one on.”

Wen struggled into the straps. “This thing weighs a ton!”

“Bring it with you anyway.”

“But I won’t be able to run even without it—”

“It has water, rations, flashlights, and tools. What if something goes wrong with our rescue ship and you have to stay in the substation longer than a few hours? You’ll want the supplies then, Miss Irons.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll carry it.”

Salzman explained to her how to activate the water canister and reminded her to drink when she needed it. Then he said, “Be careful, Miss Irons. Move quickly, but not recklessly.”

“I figured that part out.” She grinned. “And my name’s Wen.”

“Wen,” Salzman said. “Wen, leave the transmitter running, and as soon as you get to the substation, put your comm on full broadcast mode. We’ll come get you. I promise.”

“You’d better.”

“We will. Salzman out.”

Wen stared at the transmitter, then turned and made her way out of the ship. Her comm directed her to 163, and she began to walk, setting the device as she went, until finally its little screen showed her destination and the time she had until the sun fried her.

Then she started to run.

* * * *

Wen breathed a silent thanks to Sergeant Salzman and his insistence on her taking the emergency supply pack when she’d left the ship. It had included a thick spool of microfilament attached to a heavy support belt, and although Wen had never climbed anything except the occasional flight of stairs, she buckled the belt around her waist and tied a loop around the base of another crystal formation. She circled the pillar and knotted the line so many times that, by the time she was done, she had a clump of microfilament half the size of her comm.

Then it was time to climb.

Which, Wen realized, she had no idea how to do.

“Okay,” Wen said. “Okay, I can do this. I can figure this out.”

Truthfully, there wasn’t much to figure out. Wen looped the microfilament around her thighs to form a sort of harness; dim memories of adventure movies that she knew were probably wrong, but it was better than nothing. She cut off the sleeves of her shirt with a utility knife and wrapped them around her hands. Then she sat on the edge of the chasm and tried to descend.

Tried. Her hammering heart had other ideas.

“No,” she said, her voice too quiet to echo off the chasm’s far wall. “I can do this.” As if to add its own form of encouragement, the comm in Wen’s backpack pinged.

“One more hour. Now or never.”

Wen played out a meter of filament, grabbed it tightly with both hands, and slid off the edge.

* * * *

The first hour of Wen’s flight from the ship had been the worst; pain jolted her legs, her knees, her hips, her spine, everything. Her body bounced in unpleasant ways, and even though she’d worn comfortable shoes on the graduation trip, her feet protested every step. And the damn backpack straps kept digging into her shoulders, its weight like a small child on her back.

But every time she wanted to stop, she just slowed to a walk and checked the comm. Every time she checked the comm, sunrise was a little bit closer… and so was the substation.

“I… can do… this,” Wen panted as she jogged. “I… can… do… this!”

And every time she felt she was about to pass out from exhaustion, she put one foot in front of the other, repeating the four-word mantra in her head when she could no longer spare the breath to speak.

I can do this.

I can do this.

I can do this.

* * * *

Wen hung over the edge, suspended, heart hammering in her chest. She had never thought she could be so scared, but then, she’d never dangled by a nearly-invisible thread over what looked like a bottomless chasm. The microfilament was taut in her hands, and she gripped it tightly, not wanting to move.

The comm pinged again. Had five minutes really passed while she was hanging here?

“Damn it!” she said, ignoring the shaking of her voice. “I can do this!”

Wen slowly moved one hand from the microfilament line to the spool at her waist and gently turned the controller until, centimeter by centimeter, she started to descend.

“Well,” she said, surprised she could her herself over the hammering of her heart, “this isn’t so bad.” She turned the controller again and started dropping a little faster. She had to find a cave — a deep one, deep enough that she could hide in the thermal cocoon that was part of the pack’s emergency gear — and she had to find one soon.

But she wasn’t going to do it this way.

Wen unhooked the flashlight from her pack and set it to the widest possible beam, and then activated the spool again. As she moved, she swept the light back and forth across the dark rocks until she found a promising shadow.

Wen pocketed the flashlight and, holding the line with both hands, swung her weight gently until her feet were against the uneven wall of the chasm. “I ran more than thirty kilometers to get here,” she whispered to herself. “I can damn well walk to that cave!”

It took a few minutes to figure out exactly how long the line had to be to walk horizontally to the cave, but Wen still had twenty minutes to spare when she finally reached it. She wondered how deep she was, and if she’d be protected enough — the reel at her waist didn’t have a readout of how far she’d gone — but she didn’t have time to look deeper. No, this was it. This cave or nothing.

Wen managed to swing into the cave opening and sprawl flat on the rocky floor, keeping herself from being pulled back out again. Slowly, one hand clutching a small stalagmite, Wen played the flashlight’s beam over the cave’s walls, floor, and ceiling. Stalactites, more stalagmites, a damp and acrid odor that was probably Sidqiel’s water supply — poisonous to humans, naturally — and, to Wen’s immense relief, nothing waiting to eat her. And the cave was at least ten meters deep.

The comm pinged again. Fifteen minutes. “This is it,” Wen said. She took the utility knife from her pocket and cut through the makeshift harness. Then she carefully removed the belt while holding onto the end of the microfilament, tied the two ends together, and buckled the belt to the stalagmite.

Wen shrugged off the backpack and, by the white glow of the flashlight, unpacked the thermal cocoon. According to the tag, it was rated to keep the average human alive in temperatures ranging from minus-twenty-five to plus-one-twenty-five. Wen tried to remember just how hot it got on the surface of Sidqiel during the day.

The silvery material of the cocoon crinkled as Wen climbed into it. She tried to pull the backpack in after her, just in case, but it wouldn’t fit. “Damn.”

After a moment’s thought, Wen packed as many supplies in there with herself as she could, and drank the last of her water. Then she recorded a message on the comm and set it to broadcast mode.

Finally, Wen swallowed two sleeping tablets from the backpack’s medical kit, sealed herself inside the cocoon, and waited for dawn to come. The pills took effect quickly. Wen’s last thought before her eyes closed was that, if the cocoon didn’t save her life, at least she’d die in her sleep.

* * * *

Wen maneuvered the hoverchair across the stage, accepting her diploma from the headmaster. She shook his hand and gave him a tight smile, but she didn’t really feel like smiling. She didn’t even wait for the end of the ceremony; her parents helped her get into their car, and only half an hour later she was back in the hospital, hooked up to the machines that were slowly but surely repairing her body.

Wen’s mother kissed her forehead, her hand smoothing over what wispy hair remained on Wen’s head. “I’m so proud of you, love,” she said. Her round, dark eyes filled with tears. “So proud.”

“Thanks, mom.”

The doctor came in then, and Wen’s parents excused themselves. “How are you feeling?”

“Alive,” she said.

“Better than dead.”

Wen didn’t dignify that with a reply. Doctor Morn had been saying that ever since Wen had met him. In truth, she was lucky to get as far as him; the rescue ship had had quite a bit of difficulty getting to Wen’s cave, and she’d been exposed to heat and radiation that, despite the thermal cocoon, had nearly killed her.

Doctor Morn lifted Wen’s gown to check the radiation burns on her stomach and chest. She closed her eyes; she didn’t need to see the way her flesh hung oddly on her frame. The sickness that came with radiation poisoning had forced the doctor to remove large chunks of diseased skin. A graft was healing on her forehead and reconstructive surgery had fixed her nose, but they weren’t ready to do the rest of her body yet.

“You’re doing well, Wen,” the doctor said. “We should be able to cover the scars with more grafts, and I’m hopeful that, with enough drug therapy, you won’t need any more organ replacements.” She already had a new liver and pancreas, cloned from her mother’s because there weren’t enough healthy cells to get them from her own. “Do you have any questions?”

Wen shook her head. The doctor replaced the gown and covered Wen with a light blanket. After he was gone, her parents sat with her for a few minutes.

Sergeant Salzman waited until they were gone to come see her. He was young — only twenty-five — which had surprised Wen when she’d met him in person. He pulled a chair to her bedside and took her small hand in his large, dark ones, staring at her with intense, deep-set brown eyes. “You did it.”

She turned to him. “I did it.”

He always said that to her, and she always said that to him. When they’d first met, Wen had been fiercely shy, especially under his attentive stare — “I was there when they brought you aboard,” he’d said; “I helped save you.” — but now they’d become friends and Salzman spent at least half his off-shifts with Wen, playing games or just talking.

And on those moments when the guilt came, when Wen broke down in sobs and asked him why she’d been the only one to survive, Salzman — his first name was Shael — held her hand and passed her tissue after tissue.

Today, though, was a good day. Today, Wen smiled at Shael. Today, Shael smiled back.

Today, Wen was alive.

* * * *

About the Story

When Crossed Genres put out their call for stories about overweight women as protagonists, I knew immediately that I wanted to submit to the anthology, which was called Fat Girl in a Strange Land. While I am not a girl, I do know intimately what it’s like to be overweight, and I felt confident I could parlay that into a realistic female character. What I ended up with was a story that had some similarities to the escape from Crematoria in The Chronicles of Riddick, although given that our own sun’s heat and solar radiation could kill us if we got too close to it, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that there are other planets in the galaxy that would do the same.

I had a wonderful experience working with editor Kay Holt on the story; she pointed out several places where I could tighten, clarify, expand, and improve, and she was willing to listen and discuss when I said I wanted to keep something a certain way. It’s one of the many reasons why I still submit stories to Crossed Genres magazine.

I often have difficulty coming up with names for characters. Sometimes I’ll mine my Facebook feed, but for Shael Salzman, I mashed up two musicians who remix video game music. I’ve also used the name Shael in other works, which hopefully you’ll get to read someday. If I ever finish them.

“A Dog and His Boy”

Rex sat quietly in the middle of the clubhouse, swinging his head from side to side. His brown eyes were large and uncomprehending. The only reason he’d come in the first place was because his human, Sam, had told him to. Rex would follow Sam anywhere, no leash required. And right now, Sam was sitting beside Rex, petting his back gently.

“Okay,” Sam said. “We’re ready. Do it.”

Rex didn’t like how nervous his human sounded. He made a small noise and laid his head on Sam’s leg.

A couple of the other humans lit candles with smelly matches, and a girl human who sometimes made Sam’s heart beat faster — Rex could hear it — opened a big, old, musty book.

“It’s not going to work.” One of the humans, Steven, whispered that to Sam’s friend Ricky, one of the most interesting-smelling humans Rex had ever met. Ricky also belonged to Rex’s friend Bull, and Rex and Bull liked to play together at the park. “She’s just BS-ing us.”

“I am not!” Rex’s ears fluttered; he didn’t like the girl human’s voice when she got loud. “If you don’t think I can do it, why don’t you just… just leave!” Rex smelled the girl starting to sweat and he thumped his tail on the clubhouse floor. He couldn’t help it; when someone yelled, he wanted them to be happy, and maybe if he was happy, they would be happy too.

The girl didn’t get any happier. She just cleared her throat and started saying words Rex had never heard before.

The words made Rex’s fur itch. He stirred, but Sam put his hand on Rex’s shoulders and shushed him. “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay.”

Rex knew those words, but he didn’t feel “okay”. He started barking, loud as he could, trying to make the girl stop talking.

She wasn’t stopping.

Rex rolled onto his back, exposing his throat and his belly, hoping the girl would realize he was giving up, that she could stop what she was doing.

It didn’t work. She just kept saying those strange words, over and over.

When the wind blew out the candles, Rex bolted, shoving his way past the humans in front of the clubhouse door and running for the woods. He barked the whole time, trying to get someone’s attention — maybe Bull could hear him, or the big humans who told Sam what to do.

Suddenly, Rex’s legs didn’t want to work right; he tripped over his paws and went face-first into the dirt. He barked once more, then kicked out, trying to get up.

He felt strange. He felt uncomfortable — his back was bent in a new way, and his legs, too. He couldn’t hear right, and nothing smelled the same. But he could see now, much better than before.

Rex was so stunned by the changes that he didn’t notice the humans until they’d caught up to him and were standing over him. One of the boys laughed and pointed. “You can see his thing!”

The girl punched the boy’s shoulder. “Shut up, Terry!”

“You shut up…” He paused, then narrowed his eyes. “Beverly.”

The girl’s fist slammed into Terry’s nose. Terry fell on his backside, clutching his face. “You bitch!”

“My name,” she snarled, standing over him, “is Lee! Get it through your stupid head!” She kicked Terry’s leg, then turned to Rex and draped an old blanket over him. “Sorry about that.”

Rex tried to lick Lee’s hand and she jerked away. Rex cocked his head and looked up at her, confused: she’d never minded before. “Lee!” he barked, then pawed at his muzzle. His voice sounded strange.

And his nose felt even stranger! Rex scrambled backward, leaving the blanket behind. Terry laughed, but Lee ignored him as she came closer. “Rex, it’s okay,” she cooed. “Calm down. It’s okay, I promise.”

“No!” he barked. Why did he sound like this? Why was he barking like the humans? “No!” He got up on his haunches. “Bad Terry. Bad Lee.” He sniffed. “Sam?”

“Sam’s in the clubhouse,” Lee said. She’d snatched up the blanket and was holding it up. “Come with me. I’ll take you to Sam.”

“Sam!” Rex jumped to his feet and trotted over to Lee, who wrapped the blanket around his waist. “No,” he whined. “No.”

“Yes, Rex.” She tucked the blanket together like Sam when he put bandannas around Rex’s neck. It wasn’t so bad, but he wanted to cover himself with his tail. The blanket felt rough on parts that had only known fur before. “Come.”

Rex came. He quickly figured out how to walk on only two legs, a trick Sam had tried to teach him but he’d never been able to do until now. He kept sniffing, but his nose only made out grass and the dirt on his face. He could plainly see the clubhouse as they got closer, but he couldn’t smell the wood, or the candles, or the glossy pages of the magazines Ricky hid in a box in one corner. “Confused,” he barked softly.

He was even more confused when he saw himself sitting in the clubhouse, a leash hooked to his collar and tied around the leg of an ancient wooden table. “Me!”

He — that is, the other dog who was Rex — barked loudly and strained to reach Rex, but was brought up short by the leash and tumbled to the floor with a choked-off whine. Rex sniffed the dog, who licked his face. He looked up at Lee. “Me?”

“That’s Sam,” Lee said. She squatted on her haunches and stroked the black-and-white fur of the dog’s head. The dog — and it didn’t smell at all like Sam; it smelled, to Rex, like himself — squirmed as far out of reach as it could, belly to the floor, tail flat. “I’m sorry,” she said to them both. “I really didn’t think it would work. I thought I was just going to scare everyone!”

“Scared,” Rex whined. “Help.”

Sam tried to speak, but neither Rex nor Lee could understand him. “I’m sorry,” Lee said again. She checked her watch. “Look, I have to go home. You guys stay here, and I’ll sneak out and bring you some food and stuff.” She touched Rex’s shoulder and he tried to lick her hand again. “No, Rex. Don’t do that.”

Rex could tell her heart really wasn’t in the reprimand, though, and she let him lick her a couple of times. She tasted like usual — soap, nail polish, the stink of her two cats — and it helped calm his nerves a little. She smiled at him, then left the clubhouse.

Sam whined at Rex. Rex stretched out on the floor next to Sam and, in a few moments, both were asleep.

* * * *

The creaking of the clubhouse door woke Sam first, and he nudged Rex with his cold nose. Rex jerked awake. “What!” he barked.

“Shh! It’s me!” Lee’s voice. And she had food.

Food!

Rex didn’t even wait until she put the plate down; he used his paws — his hands — to lift the metal stuff off the top, then dug his face into the cold hamburgers and hot dogs. He’d had better, but he was hungry now.

“Rex, slow down!” Lee hissed. She pushed his head away and yanked the plate out from under him, then slid it across the floor to Sam. “Here. You have to eat.”

Sam sighed, but he did as she said. At first he nibbled tentatively, but Rex remembered how good treats like this had been, back when he had fur and four legs, and it looked like Sam liked them too. He gulped down the burgers and hot dogs, and by then Lee had put a bowl of water on the floor. He lapped it up greedily.

Rex looked at Lee with sad eyes. “Drink.”

She opened a can of soda and brought it to Rex’s mouth. The cold liquid was too sweet, and it made his mouth taste like metal, but after a few sips he realized he enjoyed it. He tried to grip the can, but when he almost dropped it, he realized it would be better to just let Lee hold it for him.

“Okay, guys,” she said when the meal was over, “Ricky is going to say you’re sleeping over at his house. So we have until tomorrow at dinnertime to fix this.”

Sam barked quietly. Rex cocked his head and stared at Lee. “Dog.” He pointed at himself. Then he pointed at Sam. “Human.”

“Yeah, Rex. I know. But for now, you have to remember that you’re Sam. And Sam,” she added, looking down at his furry form, “you have to answer to Rex. At least for now.”

Sam’s large, brown eyes managed to look angry — Rex recognized the same look the big humans at his house got when he pooped on the floor or slept in the middle of the kitchen and made people trip over him. Rex shrank back a little, and when Sam noticed, he got to his feet and came over to Rex. Rex tried to remember what felt good and managed to scratch Sam behind the ears.

Lee giggled, but when Sam gave her that look again, she stopped. “I’m sorry.” She went to the corner of the clubhouse and brought back the clothes Sam had been wearing earlier in the day. She held the bottom part out and told Rex to put it on.

He tried, but fell hard. Lee almost laughed, but stopped when Sam growled and just helped Rex get dressed. “Okay,” she said, “good. At least now people won’t stare.” Next she took out a lantern and lit it, then set it on the table. “I’m going to go through the book until I find a way to undo this. I promise.” The book was already on the table. Rex looked at it, but he didn’t know how to read like Sam and the other humans. He wanted to grab it with his teeth and rip it to pieces, but in his mind that book and his strange situation were connected. Destroying the book meant he couldn’t be a dog again, and Sam couldn’t be a human again.

So Rex sat on the floor near Sam, and Sam put his head on Rex’s leg, and they dozed off together.

* * * *

The sun was up, but the clubhouse wasn’t warm yet. Rex had an urgent need to go out, and since Sam wasn’t tied up anymore, they walked to the woods together. Sam awkwardly cocked a leg, but when Rex tried to do the same, Sam barked at him.

“Out!” Rex barked.

Sam stopped himself and came close enough to Rex to gently take his clothes in his jaws and tug downward. Rex understood and, together, the two of them got the pants — yes, that’s what they were called, pants — out of the way. Rex looked off into the woods as he and Sam both peed, and Rex even managed to get the pants most of the way up before they went back to the clubhouse.

Lee had woken in the meantime and, as they sat back down on the floor, she took out some food and unwrapped it. Rex didn’t much care for the taste of the brown things with fruit in them, but Sam snapped two of them up without hesitation. “Sorry, Rex. It’s all I could bring. I’ll go get more water, okay?”

“Drink. Tickle. Metal.”

Lee laughed. “Not this early in the morning. Stay here, guys; I’ll be right back.”

Rex stood as soon as she was gone and went back to the table. He growled at the book. “Bad,” he said. “Bad thing!”

Sam trotted over and reared up onto his hind legs, planting his forepaws on the table. He nosed at the book until Rex figured out what he wanted and turned the page. Actually, he turned many of them — at least two paws worth — but Sam didn’t seem to mind. Rex watched Sam’s eyes — his own eyes — staring at the paper, trying to read.

Rex wished he could do more to help, but he was a dog — a dog wearing a human’s body, but still a dog. All he could do was what his human wanted — even if his human had fur and a cold nose.

* * * *

Lee was gone a long time, long enough for Sam to knock the book onto the floor and Rex to fix it for him. Together, human and dog looked at the pages, helping each other, trying to find a solution to their mutual problem. When she finally returned, she couldn’t stop herself from saying how cute they looked. Sam responded with several loud, unhappy barks.

She sighed and returned to the book, Sam by her side, Rex pacing aimlessly and walking in and out of the clubhouse. Finally Lee said to Sam, “can you take him for a walk or something? He’s getting on my nerves a little.”

Sam barked once, brightly, then went to Rex and nudged the back of his leg. Rex got the message and they headed out into the bright, warm morning sunshine.

Rex was in heaven. Maybe he couldn’t smell or hear everything, but now he could see! Trees, grass, squirrels — squirrels! A squirrel was sitting on a branch, watching him warily. “Squirrel!” he shouted, and leaped for it.

He missed. He fell. He got up and shook himself off, and Sam pushed his body against Rex’s leg, moving him in the direction of the path that led to the street. “Squirrel,” Rex said, a little forlorn, but he did what Sam wanted.

As they walked down the street, the sidewalk warm under Rex’s bare feet, Rex saw other humans he recognized from the clubhouse, or the park, or afternoons at home watching Sam games with his friends. He barked hellos at them, and they said hi to him, but when they tried to ask him what was up, all he could say was “sky.” The first time he did, Sam let out a huffing canine sigh.

Neither human nor dog realized they were in front of their house until one of Sam’s big humans called out. “Hey, Sam, come here a sec!”

Rex trotted obediently up the path. “Hello!”

“Look, Sam, I don’t mind if you spend the night at your friend’s house, but could you at least come home and get your toothbrush? I know it’s summer, but…” She cocked her head. “Sam? What’s wrong?”

Rex had hung his head. The human wasn’t actually scolding him, but her tone was one of annoyance. “Sorry,” he said.

She peered at him a moment longer, then shrugged. “Go on inside. And put some shoes on, would you? Before you step on glass or something.”

He slipped past the human, Sam at his heels. Rex knew the way to Sam’s room — up the stairs, second door on the left. He flopped down on the bed — something Sam let him do only when he knew he wouldn’t get caught — and Sam used his head to push the bedroom door closed. Then he sat in the middle of the room and stared at Rex.

“Sorry,” Rex said again, a whining note in his voice. “Bad?”

Sam barked a couple of times, but Rex didn’t understand him. Besides, he was tired, and the bed was comfortable. He rolled onto his back and fell asleep.

* * * *

A knock jerked Rex awake. “Door!” he barked without thinking.

“It’s me.” Lee’s voice. “I’m coming in, okay?”

“Lee!”

She’d taken the time to switch from her long black dress into brighter clothes. Her pants were shorter than the ones she’d made Rex wear. Her hair was pulled back like a tail, and his brain argued between licking her ears — which always made her laugh — and not doing it, since she’d pulled away the night before. He did scramble up onto his haunches, the bed a little shaky under him, so that Lee would have room to sit beside him. Which she did.

Sam stared at her, ears forward. Finally, she looked away, hands in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t find anything.”

Sam’s barking was explosive, a furious sound that made Rex duck behind Lee, made him want to curl his tail up under his body.

“Wait!” she said. “Stop, please!” Rex looked up at her; her eyes were wet. Normally he smelled salt when that happened, but all he smelled now was the bed. Sam did stop, but he was standing up, tail down, lip slightly curled. Rex wanted to run, or hide in the closet, or get as far away as possible. But Lee put her hand on his shoulder and petted him. “Sam, please! Just listen!”

Sam sat, but still looked angry.

“I went to the library, okay? I looked at some other books. They all said this wears off in a few hours. A day at the most. Can you…” She sniffed hard. “Can you wait?”

Sam shuffled down to the carpet and put his nose on his paws. Rex knew that pose: it meant he would lie there and wait as long as it took.

“I’m really sorry, Sam. I didn’t think… and… I mean, you’re the only person who really listens to me, and you thought I could do it, and I didn’t want to disappoint you—”

A soft bark cut her off.

“Okay, I get the point,” she said, laughing a little. “Hey, do you want to go back to the clubhouse? Or have a picnic?”

“Picnic!” Rex loved picnics — he always got lots of human food at picnics. He looked at Sam. “Picnic? Sam?”

Sam stood, shook himself slightly, and looked to the door. Rex didn’t know what to do with it, and Sam couldn’t do anything with it. Fortunately, they had Lee.

* * * *

Even though Rex wasn’t used to picnics as a human, he decided they were just as much fun either way. He got a lot of human food, and he played ball with Sam — though trying to catch it in his mouth had hurt his small nose and flat teeth. They went to the lake and Sam jumped in without hesitation, though Lee put her hand on Rex’s shoulder. “You should take your shoes off first.”

“Shoes?”

Lee tapped Rex’s foot with her own. “Those. Take them off so they don’t get ruined.”

Rex knew that word, and he didn’t like when people said it was his fault. So he plopped down on the grass and started working on his feet.

By the time he got the shoes off, Lee was already in the lake. He laughed as he splashed into the water and started to swim. It was certainly an unfamiliar feeling not to have the water pulling at his fur. He figured out how to float and basked in the sunshine, listening to Lee and Sam chasing each other around in and out of the water.

Then he heard Terry. “Well, isn’t this cute.”

Rex didn’t like the way Terry sounded. He swam to shore and shook himself off. It wasn’t as much fun without the fur. Terry and his brother Phil wore only small pants, and Terry was looking at Lee and Sam in a way that made Rex curl his lip. Terry’s nose was bruised. “What do you want?” Lee asked.

“I want to hit you,” Terry said, left hand curling into a fist, “but my dad would ground me all summer for fighting a girl.” He aimed a kick at Sam, who jumped to the side, then started to growl. “What about you, Sam?” he said, turning to Rex. “If you even are Sam anymore. Maybe I should hit you, see if your girlfriend fights all your battles.”

“Mean,” Rex said. He couldn’t growl, though he certainly wanted to. “Bad Terry. Bad!”

Terry laughed, and Phil, who was smaller and who usually gave Rex snacks from his backpack, laughed too. “I saw it, but I told myself I didn’t,” he said. “You really swapped their bodies, didn’t you?” Terry advanced on Rex, who tried to make himself look bigger. He didn’t know how to do it in a human body, so he settled for copying Terry’s hands. “Y’know, I’ve always hated that damn dog.”

Once, Rex had knocked into the kitchen table and sent a whole turkey sliding to the floor. The biggest human at his house had whacked him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. It hadn’t really hurt. But Terry’s fist against Rex’s jaw did hurt. It hurt a lot, and it made Rex’s teeth ache. He whimpered, stumbled, and spat blood on the rocks by the lake.

Then he leapt at Terry and slammed him to the ground. Terry tried to club Rex’s back, but Rex ignored it and knocked his head into Terry’s face. Terry cried out in pain and grabbed his nose. “You stupid dog!” he shouted. “Bad dog! Bad!”

Rex jumped away as if scalded — those words hurt more than being hit. He saw Terry get up, saw Phil’s eyes go big and get wet, like Lee’s had back at home. “Bad Terry,” Rex said. Then he looked hard at Phil. “Good Phil. Go away, Phil. Good Phil.”

Phil took the hint and ran. Good. Rex liked Phil, and liked the food he gave him. Maybe if he told Phil he was good, Phil would feed him more of those snacks.

“Stupid dog,” Terry said again. He wiped his nose, then ran for Rex. Rex crouched a little, as if to jump, but then Sam dove in front of Terry and knocked him over. Terry went rolling down the bank toward Lee, and as he stumbled to his feet Lee grabbed him. He struggled, but stopped as soon as Sam caught the seat of Terry’s pants in his jaws. “Get off me, Sam!” he shouted. “Get off!”

Sam just growled. “Bad Terry!” Rex barked. “Bad! Go away!”

Lee let Terry go, and he pulled away from Sam. His pants ripped, and Sam spat out the chunk of cloth. “I’m gonna get you,” Terry snarled, his hand over the bare patch on his backside. “You watch out, Sam. And your stupid dog, too!” He tripped over a root, but got up quickly. His voice was quivering. “I’m gonna get you all!”

“Shut up, Terry,” Lee said, and Rex chimed in with another “bad Terry”. Sam sat on the ground, looking satisfied with what had just happened.

“Bad Terry,” Rex said with conviction once they were alone again.

“Yeah,” Lee said. “I never liked him.” Then she looked at Sam. “But you’re going to have to watch your back for a little while.”

Sam barked once, then trotted off into the shade.

“Water?” Rex asked.

“Sure, Rex, go on.”

He bounded into the lake with a series of splashes and soon was floating again, enjoying the sunshine.

* * * *

Rex sat quietly in the middle of the clubhouse, resting easily on his knees. Sam was on the floor beside him, belly to the ground, tail curled under his body. Lee, Ricky, and Steven were against the wall, waiting; Steven had brought some spare clothes, just in case Rex tore them when he changed. Lee had given him a smile, and Rex had seen his face change color like Sam’s sometimes did when Lee touched him or laughed at his jokes.

“Almost sunset,” Ricky said. “You sure this is going to work?”

“It has to,” Lee said, and Sam barked. “Otherwise we’re going to spend the rest of the summer teaching Rex how to be a human.”

“Dog,” Rex said. “Sam human. Rex good dog.”

“You’re a good dog, Rex.” Lee shifted from foot to foot, then checked her watch. “Come on, come on!”

The sun passed behind a cloud. The clubhouse grew dim. And then the wind started to blow.

Rex remembered that from last night. He ducked his head, covered it with his arms, and pushed up against Sam. “Good dog. Rex good dog. Sam good human.” He said it over and over, trying to convince himself that it wouldn’t be so bad this time. “Rex good dog. Sam good human.”

The wind howled through the clubhouse windows and Rex looked up, wishing he could howl too. “Rex good dog!” he screamed. “Rex good dog!”

Sam barked in response, and for just a moment Rex thought he could understand.

“Rex good dog!” The wind was loud enough to drown out his voice, and he barked with all his might. “Rex! Good! Dog!”

* * * *

The clubhouse door slammed shut with a bang and Rex jumped to his feet.

And fell, tangled up in something. He kicked with all four paws to free himself and—

Four paws!

Rex looked up at Lee. Her bright clothes had dimmed, and — he took a deep breath — he could smell her. He could smell them all: the gum in Steven’s mouth, the dirt-and-grass smell of Ricky, the wood of the clubhouse, and… and Sam! Rex turned toward the smell and saw Sam on the floor. He practically jumped on his human, licking his face, and Sam dug his fingers into the fur on Rex’s neck and shoulders. “Good boy, Rex,” Sam said. Rex barked in his face and Sam laughed. “Good boy.”

* * * *

Sam and Lee sat next to each other, backs against a huge tree by the lake. They took turns throwing a tennis ball for Rex, who bolted after it, happy to be on all four paws, happy to be playing with his human. He smelled something new about Sam, smelled it stronger than ever when he was close to Lee. And Lee had a new scent too.

Rex tore after the ball yet again as it sailed toward the lake. He ran up onto a rock and soared, knowing instinctively where the ball would land, knowing he would reach it quickly once he hit the water.

But someone yelled Sam’s name, and Rex lost his balance and tumbled. Ball forgotten, he swam back to shore.

Terry was there, with two other humans, both of them bigger than Sam. Rex didn’t recognize their smells, but he could tell Sam and Lee were scared.

No, that wasn’t right. Lee was scared, but Sam… Sam was angry. Angrier than Rex had ever smelled him. Rex dropped his belly to the ground and crawled forward slowly.

“Don’t be stupid, Terry,” Sam was saying. “What would you prove by beating me up?”

Terry laughed. “You deserve it. You both do,” he said, looking in Rex’s direction. Rex stopped moving until Terry turned away, back toward his human. “Your stupid girlfriend really can do magic, and your stupid dog hit me, and you bit me, and now everything’s supposed to be fine again?”

Rex was close enough to smell the ham sandwich Terry had had for lunch.

“Just go, please,” Lee said. Her voice wasn’t steady; Rex thought she might want to howl, if she knew how. “You made your point.” She grabbed Sam’s arm. “You win. We’re scared!”

“I was going to steal my dad’s rifle,” Terry said. “Then I really would’ve scared you.”

Sam’s heart began beating faster — Rex heard it. He wasn’t sure why, so he inhaled slowly, trying to smell it out. That was when he caught some new scents on the wind. Familiar scents.

“Okay, fine,” Sam said. “You really want to fight me? Then come and get me!”

“Ha!” Terry took a step closer to Sam — and Rex. “Last time, I kicked your ass. Think it’ll be any different?”

Sam’s hands curled into fists. “Try me.”

“Sam,” Lee said, “you don’t have to do this.”

“Just get back,” Sam said. “Yell if those guys try to cheat.”

“I won’t need them,” Terry said. He raised his fists; Sam flinched, and Terry began to laugh.

The laugh became a shout as Rex leaped forward, digging his jaws into Terry’s heel, hard enough that hot blood dripped onto his tongue. Terry shouted and tried to pull away, but Rex didn’t let go. He growled, and bit, and hung on as Terry tried to kick at him. But Rex came from ancestors who had to avoid much bigger and stronger animals than humans, and he easily stayed out of Terry’s way.

Then there was a crunch, and a thud, and Terry collapsed to the ground, hands between his legs. Rex let him go and saw Sam shaking his right fist.

“What are you waiting for?” Terry asked, groaning, clutching his crotch, blood on his lip. “Get him!”

The other humans came closer, and Sam started to smell afraid. Rex barked a couple of times, then bared his teeth. If only Sam or Lee knew what he knew, or smelled what he smelled.

Then they all heard it: the booming bark made by only one dog in the entire neighborhood.

Bull.

The other humans jumped back, looking around. “Where is he?” one asked. “Where’d that come from?”

“Right here, buttheads!” Ricky and Bull trotted up the path, followed by Steven. Bull’s large paws padded silently on the grass. “You want some?”

“Hell no!” The human looked at Terry, who’d managed to get up onto his knees. “I’m not messing with that dog, Terry. No way.”

“Me neither!”

“Fine!” Terry didn’t look back as his friends ran off into the woods. “I’m not scared of a stupid dog!”

Ricky’s hand went to Bull’s collar and unhooked his leash. Bull barked again, and Rex let out several barks of his own. Then Bull stepped up beside Rex, both dogs staring at Terry. Not growling, not showing teeth; just daring him to try and hurt their humans.

Terry looked away first. He stood up and backed off. “This isn’t over,” he said. “Someday, you won’t have your dogs to hide behind. Someday, Sam!” He turned and limped away.

Sam laughed, a little nervously, and dropped the rock. “Thanks, guys,” he said. “Just in time.”

“I saw Terry heading this way with his friends,” Steven said. “I got Ricky and we came as fast as we could.”

Sam nodded and called Rex over. He dug his fingers into the fur behind Rex’s ears and gave him a good scratch. “Good boy, Rex.” He looked at the other dog, so much bigger than Rex was. “Good boy, Bull,” he called. Then he saw Lee, holding a tree branch. “You okay?”

Lee set the branch on the ground. “I would’ve hit him if I had to.” She kicked it out of the way, and Bull took that as an invitation to play. “Oh, no, Ricky. I’m not letting him drag me around!”

Ricky laughed and grabbed the other end of the branch, and he and Steven went to work on wrestling it out of Bull’s jaws.

Sam looked down at Rex. “Good boy,” he said again.

Rex rubbed his side against Sam’s leg, tail wagging. He felt kind of bad about biting a human, but Sam had needed his help. If he got in trouble, it wouldn’t matter.

Because Sam was happy. And when his human was happy, Rex was a happy dog.

And now more than ever he was happy to just be a dog.

* * * *

About the Story

“A Dog and His Boy” was my entry into the Dunesteef’s second broken mirror story event. The prompt was “a child is named king but discovers that it’s not just a game”, and since Rex means king, I decided to write a story about a boy who becomes a dog and a dog who becomes a boy. The story didn’t win, and has never before been published, but I still liked it, mostly because I always wanted to be able to turn into a dog when I was a kid.

I set the story in a sort of 1950s-1980s generic timeframe — no cell phones, no computers, kids playing outside without supervision and dealing with their own problems instead of running to their parents. I’m not saying that time was better or worse than what we have now, but it allowed me to focus only on the kids and not on the technology. It’s possible that Sam, Rex, Lee, and the others live in a world where magic is real and magic books can be checked out of the library, or it could be that everyone thinks it’s a hoax except for these kids, who actually made it work. Questions that can only be answered by the interpretation of the reader, I suppose.

And yes, Rex shouting “squirrel!” is because of Up.

“Stand Up”

My day begins at 5:30 when the alarm goes off and I hear the sound of the news station’s announcer. I sit up and turn it off because I do not care for the news. It is a way to get me to wake up. Once when I was sick I could not get out of bed and I listened to stories of men killing men and women being hurt and the government not having the best interests of the people in mind. That was when I decided to make a change.

It was time to stand up.

* * * *

It is Tuesday morning and I am standing in front of my bathroom mirror brushing my teeth for exactly two minutes as the dentist has instructed. I do this every morning. I have already used the toilet — I will not say the details because my occupational therapist says people do not want to hear them — and I am about to take a shower. For my birthday my mother bought me a digital water temperature gauge for the shower so I can be sure the water is exactly right. I said “thank you” to her.

The water is exactly right.

I make sure to wash all of my parts and use both shampoo and conditioner on my hair. I dry off on my red towel and shave the places that need shaving. Then I go back into my bedroom.

My clothes are arranged exactly correct: shirts on the lower closet rack, pants on the upper closet rack, underwear and socks in the top two drawers of the dresser. My shoes are by the door. I do not like when my floor is dirty so I do not wear my shoes in the house.

This is the second time in the day when I stand up.

Under my clothes but outside of my underwear is where my secret costume goes. It is red and white and blue, like the American and French and British and Australian flags, but I do not fight for my country like Captain America. I once saw Captain America on television. My mother told me it was a movie but I already knew that. Captain America is not real.

My secret costume fits very close to my body. I learned how to sew it myself from the internet because I do not like when strange people touch me. One time when I was thirteen I had to get measured for special clothes and when the woman touched me I kicked her. She was angry even after my mother explained. We went to a different store and my mother measured me for the new salesperson.

I measured myself for the costume and it fits very well. It is smooth and tight around my legs and hips and waist but it does not hurt me or dig into my skin. The first shirt part is tight and long-sleeved and the same blue as the pants. When it is on and I pull the second shirt part up from around my waist the costume is almost complete. The second shirt part is short-sleeved and white. Then there is a third piece and this was the hardest part to sew. I put my arms in it like a jacket but it only covers my shoulders. On the back is my mask and head covering. This piece is red except for the mask — the mask is white and looks like a stripe that goes all the way around.

On the front of the secret costume is the letter S. I put it there because that is what my name starts with but one thing I learned watching movies is that I need a secret identity or else people will find out about my mother and my grandparents and then they could get hurt. This is what happened in the movie Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire. I do not have a name like Spider-Man or Captain America. I wear the S because I stand up when someone must. That is the reason.

* * * *

I put on my clothes for work and go downstairs. My mother is working early today and so my grandfather is here. He smells familiar. I have always liked the smell of him. He is making eggs and eggs are my fourth-most-favorite breakfast food. My grandfather puts the eggs in front of me and I say thank-you because my occupational therapist told me that I should say thank-you when someone gives me a thing. The eggs are good. My grandfather puts spices on them.

My grandfather tells me to have a nice day at work. I think my grandfather would be proud if he knew that I stand up. But I cannot tell him because it could be dangerous. Also sometimes when I do things that my mother or the occupational therapist think are wrong — even if I do not agree — I am not allowed to leave the house except to go to school. I do not like when that happens so I will not tell.

* * * *

Even though I am very intelligent and could easily operate the cash registers the only job the store will give me is helping customers put their groceries in bags and then wheeling their carts outside. The customers say thank-you and some of them try to give me money but the store gives me money and I have been told not to accept any more money for doing my job because I get paid already. It is important to follow the rules at work so that I can keep my job. The money I earn is mine to spend. I used it to buy my secret costume.

I stand at work the entire time — four hours — except for my fifteen-minute break which I spend in the break room eating an apple and doing the crossword puzzle in the newspaper. Sometimes other people have tried to do it and when that happens I do the jumbles instead. The jumbles are very easy.

After work I walk home unless the weather is bad. I always check the forecast and if it is going to rain then my mother or one of my grandparents will pick me up. However walking home is a good thing — I get exercise and fresh air. Also one time I saw something where I should have said “it is time to stand up” but that was before I was wearing my secret costume and instead I called 9-1-1 on my cell phone.

When I get home no one else is there so I go to the basement to practice. When I take off my work clothes the secret costume is smooth and stretchy against my skin. There are often martial arts movies on late at night and I have watched them after everyone else has gone to sleep. I remember what I saw and I practice it. I am not as strong or as fast as Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal or Bruce Lee but I can copy their movements.

I practice for thirty minutes before going upstairs to use the toilet and put my work shirt in the clothes hamper. It is Tuesday which means that my work pants do not need to be cleaned. I fold them and put them on the shelf in the closet — there is a place for pants which are not clean but are not yet dirty.

It is now lunchtime. I put on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt so that no one can see my secret costume and I go to the kitchen. My grandfather has made me a sandwich and some carrots and some grapes which he has left on a plate in the refrigerator. I eat the food and drink a glass of orange juice.

Once the food is finished I clean my dish and go into the living room to read a book. After an hour my grandmother comes home. On Tuesdays she volunteers at the elementary school until 2:00 p.m.

“Did you have a good day at work, dear?”

“Yes, I did.” My occupational therapist says I should put my book down when I am talking to people but I am in the middle of reading and my grandmother knows that. She does not sound like she is upset with me. “Did you have a good day at the school?”

“I did, thank you. Grandpa made you lunch? You ate it all?”

“I did eat it all,” I say. My grandmother talks to me like I am still the same age as the children at her school even though I am not. My occupational therapist explained that sometimes people who do not know how to talk to me do this. It is strange that my grandmother — who has lived with me ever since my father died — should not know the right way to talk to me. I am a person with thoughts and opinions and skills. I am very intelligent. I am not a child.

I would like to stand up and tell her she is wrong but that is not something a person should do to a grandparent. So although I think she is wrong I do not say anything.

My grandmother reminds me that we have to leave for school in half an hour. I know this already. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays I go to school from 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sometimes if my grandmother picks me up afterward she will take me to O’Charley’s so that I can have their potato-and-cheese soup. It is my second-favorite non-breakfast food. We have not gone in two weeks so perhaps we will go tonight. Once I asked my grandmother if she could take me there and she said, “if I told you when we were going, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?” She smiled at me. I did not smile back because I was not happy. I wanted to go to O’Charley’s. I was very unhappy but I controlled myself and did not say anything.

Because the temperature right now according to my phone is 82 degrees my grandmother asks me if I am sure I want to wear long sleeves. “Yes, I am sure,” I tell her.

“If you say so. But you’re going to be sweaty.”

Actually I will not. This shirt is an athletic shirt that I purchased with my own money from the website woot.com. It was on sale. I purchased five of them at a cost of ten dollars each and five additional dollars for shipping. Today I am wearing a shirt that is a similar blue as my secret costume so that if anyone notices the sleeve of the costume he or she will think it is part of my shirt instead. Also I have pushed up the sleeves of the costume so they are at the middle of my forearms. The reason I have chosen this athletic shirt is because my secret costume is made of a similar material and the fabric is breathable. This means I will not get as hot nor sweat as much as my grandmother thinks I will.

I am sitting in the front seat of my grandmother’s car at exactly 3:00 p.m. According to the clock on my phone she does not start the car until 3:03 p.m. However I know that we will not be late. It only takes my grandmother fifteen minutes to drive to the school.

My grandmother does not speak to me correctly but she does know that I do not want to be late. This is my second-favorite thing about her.

* * * *

Although my family calls it “school” I have always known that the Keller Center is a place for adults with disabilities. My occupational therapist works here and she is my favorite person because she lets me speak to her without having to think about what she calls “tact”. She speaks to me the same way.

My occupational therapist is not here today so I instead look at the board where the classes for the day are written down. I decide that I will attend Volleyball. Playing sports was something I was good at in physical education classes in school but some of my teammates said things to me to try and hurt my feelings. Since they were only words I ignored them. One time in the locker-room a teammate pushed me into the lockers. I had a bruise on my shoulder. Because I had been struck first I decided it was acceptable for me to strike back. I broke two fingers on my left hand and was asked to leave the sports program.

Here at the Keller Center I am one of the best sports players even though I sometimes concentrate on things other than the game. However many of the other players are less able to concentrate and some of them are unable to aim the ball in the proper direction. My occupational therapist told me that I have what she calls “competitive spirit” but I do not understand why she would say this.

Sometimes the other players get in the way of the ball. I have learned to say “I’m sorry” when that happens even though I am not at fault.

* * * *

The Volleyball period ends at 5:00. At this time I realize I must use the toilet and so I go into the locker-room. When I am finished I walk down the hallway toward the common room. I pass a classroom that is sometimes used for Chess. The door is open and the lights are on part-way. A student named Kate is there. Kate and I went to the same high school. She cannot communicate as well as I can, but she is very good at mathematics and science. She is crying. She is my third-favorite person at the Keller Center.

I stand in the doorway. “Kate,” I ask, “why are you crying?”

Kate’s mouth opens and closes but there is no sound. If Kate does not wish to speak to me that is her choice. However as I turn to go, she moans. This makes me turn back to her. “Kate, I am going to turn on the lights all the way.”

She does not tell me this is not a good thing. I turn the lights on all the way and take seven steps closer to her. At this distance I can see that she is wearing loose clothing. Also she has a bruise on her left cheek. “Kate, is this bruise why you are crying?”

Kate has blue-green eyes. They are full of tears when she looks up. Her mouth opens and closes again but she says nothing.

Sometimes when Kate and I would work on projects in science class she would be able to write things down that she could not say. This is the reason I ask her to wait a moment.

There is paper in the desk at the front of the classroom. There is also a pen. I bring both to Kate and put them on the desk. Kate picks up the pen and writes down what has made her cry. I read the words as the ink moves from the pen to the paper. When she is finished I take both of them. The last sentence Kate wrote asked me to please rip up the paper when I was done reading and so this is what I do. Then I return to Kate. “I will walk home with you,” I say. “I will tell my grandmother that I will be going to your house.”

Kate does not indicate if this is acceptable or not but after reading what she wrote I have decided that Kate needs someone to stand up for her.

It will be me.

* * * *

My grandmother’s voice did not sound normal when I told her that I was going to Kate’s house but we were already walking when I called her. I do not like to break the rules but one thing I learned from the movies starring Steven Seagal is that sometimes a person must break the rules to do what he or she believes is the “right thing”. This is why I am walking Kate to her house. She lives much closer to the Keller Center than me. It is only a fifteen-minute walk.

I have been to Kate’s house six times this year. Kate now lives in the basement apartment which is sometimes called a “mother-in-law suite”. It has its own entry door. Kate unlocks it and lets me in. I would prefer to live in a mother-in-law suite like this. That way I would not have to share the bathroom with my mother. My grandparents have their own bathroom that is part of their bedroom. Kate’s bathroom is not like that but she does not have to share it. She allows me to use it when I come to her house.

I use Kate’s bathroom and when I return to the main room of Kate’s apartment she has removed her blouse. The ribs on her right side have a dark purple bruise on them. Kate is not wearing a brassiere and I can see her breasts and nipples. Kate looks similar to the girl in the Steven Seagal movie Under Siege 2. That was not my favorite Steven Seagal movie, but I have seen it four times. It is often on channels like USA and FX.

Kate turns around and I see older bruises on her shoulders. I know they are older because they have faded to yellow-green. Kate and I have gone swimming in her pool and I have seen her shoulders before this. They should not have these marks. Also Kate is not holding herself up straight. She is hunching. This is not good posture. I should tell her. Instead I use tact and do not.

“Kate,” I say, “I am going to stand up.”

She turns to face me. I am already removing my long-sleeved shirt. I fold it neatly and place it on the table near Kate’s couch. I have worn it for less than half a day and it is not yet ready to go in the hamper. I remove my shoes so that I can lower my pants. Once they are folded with the shirt I put my shoes back on. They are plain white sneakers and are very comfortable. I will be able to move quickly and confidently when I use what I have learned.

Kate watches me pull the red hood over my head. I tuck my hair in until none of it is visible. I adjust the mask part of the hood so that I can see.

“Wh… what…?”

Kate’s voice is hoarse. She does not talk often. This year she has only spoken to me twelve times. Kate and I have known each other since I was fourteen years old and in that time I have learned that it is important to listen when she speaks and wait until the words all come out. This sometimes takes a long time.

“What… does the…”

I can predict what Kate is going to ask but I do not try to finish her sentence for her.

“What… does the ‘S’… mean?”

I imitate the smile I have seen on Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Buffy Summers is about to slay a vampire.

“I will show you.”

* * * *

My day begins at 5:30 when the alarm goes off and I hear the sound of the news station’s voiceover person. I do not care for the news but this morning I do not sit up and silence the alarm. Instead I listen to the news until 5:34. Once I have heard the story about the man being beaten in his own home in a suburban area I click the switch that makes the alarm turn off.

* * * *

It is Wednesday morning and I am standing in front of the bathroom mirror brushing my teeth for exactly two minutes as the dentist has instructed. It is painful to do this on the right side because Kate’s stepfather punched me. I was fast enough that the punch only glanced off the side of my face but it still hurt. I have already used the toilet.

In the shower, I make sure to wash all of my parts and use both shampoo and conditioner on my hair. It takes longer than usual because my left hand is bruised much more than my face and I have difficulty holding the washcloth. I will also have to be careful at work because I do not want people to ask questions. When Kate saw the bruise she motioned me to sit down and took out some makeup. I watched in the mirror as she put it on my face. She gave me the makeup to take home and I copied her movements this morning.

My mother asks me questions as I eat the Crispix cereal she has put on the table for me. She does not say anything about the use of my right hand to eat. She does not look closely at my face so I must have done the makeup correctly.

Crispix cereal is my second-favorite breakfast food. There is also a banana. I do not care for the consistency of bananas but I know they are healthy and my mother would not ask me to eat one if that was not the case.

“You got home late last night,” she says. “Your grandma was worried.”

I do not like to lie to my mother. “I ate dinner at Kate’s house.”

“So she said. And you walked all the way home?”

“I did.”

“You could’ve called. Someone could have come to get you.”

I eat another spoon of the Crispix. Because I was late coming downstairs the cereal is not as crunchy as it is on other mornings. I find that I am enjoying the slightly-mushy aspect of it. “Could you put the milk into the cereal six minutes earlier the next time it is my breakfast?”

Her brow furrows. “Huh? Why?” Then she shakes her head. “You’re acting strange this morning. Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Yes, I am sure.”

* * * *

My mother drives me to work because it is raining this morning.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out. I have a text message from Kate.

Thank you for standing up for me.

I text her back. It is not easy for me to do with my right hand.

I stand up when someone must. That is the reason I wear my secret costume. You cannot tell anyone about it.

I am in the store and walking to the break room to put my phone in my locker when it buzzes again.

I won’t. Thanks again.

I unlock my locker and put my phone and wallet and keys into it.

But then I take the phone back out and text Kate one more time.

You’re welcome.

I type my employee number and password into the time clock. It beeps as it registers that I am now at work.

I notice in the small mirror near the clock that I am smiling. I decide that this is acceptable and go down the stairs. I am expected to work from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., except for a fifteen-minute break. I would be breaking a rule if I did not do so.

* * * *

About the Story

“Stand Up” is previously unpublished. I wrote it for several reasons: I like superhero stories, I like stories of people who stand up and defend those who cannot defend themselves, and I like to challenge myself when I write. It was a challenge to get into the head of my non-gendered main character (the person’s sex is never mentioned throughout; did you notice?), and even more of a challenge to write from the point of view of a person at this location on the autism spectrum. I did do some research while writing the story, but any missteps or mistakes are mine alone.

This particular story was written during a very difficult time in my life. I felt that I needed to give myself a difficult task — writing a character like this in the first person — to prove to myself that, even when things felt like they were falling apart, I could still do something I was proud of. When things are going badly and I have nowhere to turn, that’s when some of my best work comes out. I don’t know if “Stand Up” qualifies as “best”, but I’m proud of it.

After she helped me edit this story, I asked my partner, “did you like my Buffy reference?” She said no, but that she let me keep it in anyway because it would make me happy. And it does.

Shorts

“Clean Up”

The Blue Knight is outside, talking to the police and the media. Through the front doors of the store, I can see the bright white lights of news cameras and the red-white-and-blue strobes of police cars, ambulances, and fire engines. I already told Monique to turn off the TVs in the electronics department — the last thing we need is to see him out there, all chiseled jaw and intense eyes, talking about how he and the rest of the Chromatic Knights are going to — and I can quote it without even watching — “clean up this city’s vampire problem once and for all.”

Clean it up, huh? Not a chance. Every time there’s a vampire attack and the Rainbow Brigade shows up, we’re the ones called in to clean up the mess.

And the Blue Knight made quite a mess tonight, that’s for damn sure.

* * * *

Jerry, the store manager, is sticking close to me. It’s annoying, actually; I could get a lot more done if he wasn’t looking over my shoulder. “Do you need to know what happened?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I think we’ve pretty much got it under control, thanks.” I point to the vampire with the smashed face, the one who Jerry said was the leader of the gang, and Jason and Becky go to work. First, Becky slams a wooden stake through his heart. Then they take him by the arms and legs and carry him out to the truck. The stake will keep him truly dead until we can burn his body in our incinerator, back at the office. Dave and Rodrigo, without being told, are already in the furniture department — there’s a bunch of smashed pressboard and broken glass that they’ll deal with, just like Evan and Wilson are doing up at the front of the store with the cash wraps.

Just knowing that we’re the ones who have to do the dirty work makes me grumpy. “You’d think even the Blue Knight would know how to deal with vamps properly.”

“Huh?” Jerry practically scampers to catch up with me. “He stopped ’em, didn’t he?”

“He stopped them,” I tell Jerry, “but he didn’t necessarily kill them.”

Jerry’s thin face looks confused.

“Stake through the heart, or decapitated, or killed with fire. Preferably all three. That’s the only way.”

A pause. Then: “oh.” He shrugs. “I wonder why the Blue Knight didn’t do that.”

I don’t have an answer for that one. The Rainbow Brigade — and do they ever hate that nickname, which is why I use it whenever I can — isn’t much for being proactive or learning about their enemies. They just wait to get called in, wreak havoc, destroy whatever they can destroy, and then get the hell out of there without even waiting for us to show up and fix what they’ve broken. And pigs might fly before they ever offer to help.

No, that would be beneath the Chromatic Knights — no one with superpowers ever needs to do such menial things, and especially not the Blue Knight. He’s basically Superman, as long as the sun is down: super-strength, super-speed, and if he can’t fly then at least he does a pretty good job faking it with some epic long-jumps. When the sun’s up, he’s powerless, but that doesn’t stop him from being a smarmy asshat even during the day.

* * * *

Jason and Becky join me in the back stock area. Cleaning up scattered office supplies is tedious, but I always keep the worst jobs to myself. And I can already tell this is going to be a doozy.

“He chased this one back here and beat on him for a little while,” Jerry says, standing back while I assess the situation. “Then he…” He gestures. “Well, you get the idea.”

“Yeah. I do.” I eye the brownish-red stain creeping out from under the forklift — the forklift that’s on its side, of course, because woe betide the Blue Knight making my job even the slightest bit easier. “Please tell me you have another one of these.”

Jerry nods and points to the far end of the stock area. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think all of us working together will be able to lift this thing.”

“Oh. Good point.” Jerry fishes a key out of his pocket. “Here,” he says.

“Thanks.” I take the key and toss it to Becky. “Drive that one over here, will you?”

“Sure thing, boss.” She jogs in that direction.

“She’s going to fork under the roof part here,” I tell Jason, pointing at the driver’s compartment of the toppled forklift. “Once she gets it up enough, we’ll push it the rest of the way.”

“What about…” He swallows hard, his face a little pale. “Well, you know.”

“Just try not to think about it. And remember it was a murderer.”

“Doesn’t help.”

I shrug. “Best I got.”

* * * *

It takes a second for Becky to get her forklift positioned. “Lift it slow,” I say. “Don’t want to tip yours in the process, right?”

“Right.” She nudges the vehicle forward, a few jolting inches at a time, until I give her the thumbs-up. Then she pulls gently on the handle at her right and the forklift’s electric motor starts to whine. It’s the normal ‘I’m lifting heavy things’ sound at first, but as the other forklift starts to rise, Becky’s makes grinding, protesting noises.

Fortunately she doesn’t have to lift it very far; once there’s about three feet of clearance under the toppled forklift, Jason and I reach underneath and shove as hard as we can.

It turns out to be almost too hard; the forklift rights itself, hitting the concrete floor with an enormous CLANG that reverberates through the entire store.

Becky throws up.

Jason claps his hand to his mouth and makes a run for the bathrooms, probably just barely controlling his own vomit.

Jerry sits down hard, then passes out.

I’m the only one still standing, the only one who can stomach seeing the remains of the vampire that the Blue Knight smashed into so much chunky, multi-colored jelly.

The remains that I’ll now be cleaning up on my own.

Awesome.

* * * *

It’s well past three in the morning when we finally walk out of the store and into the mostly-dark parking lot. Jerry’s the only employee still there when we finally do. I can’t fault his people for having left — they just got attacked by vampires; why would they want to hang around if they didn’t have to? My team is ready to go home too; I don’t know about everyone else, but my eyes are pretty gummy and I’m jittery from all the terrible coffee Jerry kept brewing for us.

We wait for Jerry to lock the doors and the security gate, and then Rodrigo escorts him to his car. The rest of us wait by our vehicles — Monique and I came in her ancient Chevy Caprice, and everyone else rode in the van. All our cleaning materials — and the five non-pulverized bodies — are in the trailer hitched to the wood-paneled Chrysler. “You guys good to go?” I ask.

“No problem, boss.” Becky’s leaning against the driver’s side door. She gives me a weak smile. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Not your fault.” Compared to scraping up the remains of a vampire that was crushed into salsa, mopping her vomit was like a walk in the park. “Burn the bodies, get the stuff ready for the morning crew, and then take off, okay? It’s late enough.”

“No shit,” Dave says. “Hey, no offense, but let’s not do this again tomorrow night, huh?”

“Right there with you.” I give the crew a half-hearted wave and then climb into the passenger seat.

Monique’s already got the motor running by the time my seatbelt is on. “Hey, you okay?”

“I’ll live.” I reach across the bench seat and take her right hand in my left. “Just, it’s a long day, y’know?”

“I know.” Her skin is dark against mine, even in the dim, sodium-yellow lights of the parking lot. She raises our joined hands to her mouth, as if to brush her lips over my skin, but I resist. “What is it?”

“I just mopped up chunky vampire remains and whatever Becky had for dinner. Are you sure you want to do that?”

I hear the hint of a smile in her voice. “I guess you’re right.” She settles for resting her cheek on my wrist. “You’re shaking,” she says softly. “You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s the crappy coffee, that’s all. Let’s just go home.” I release her hand so I can try to get comfortable in the crevice between the seat and the door, my head cradled in the shoulder strap of the seatbelt. “Wake me up when we get there. Then we’ll get…” I can’t stop a small grin. “We’ll get cleaned up.”

* * * *

About the Story

This story is one of the winners of the first Triple Word Score contest from The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, in which each entrant got a personalized prompt of three words that had to appear in a story of 2000 words or fewer. Mine were “knight”, “forklift”, and “jelly”. The scene itself is loosely based on part of a vampire novel a friend and I tried to write some years ago, where a human fought a vampire in an Office Depot (both of us happened to work there at the time). I’m told that the concept of the superhero cleanup crew isn’t a new one, and that in fact Marvel has a team called Damage Control who does just that. But I wouldn’t know; I haven’t read very many Marvel — or any other — comics.

When I originally wrote this story, I gave two versions of it to my writing group — one from the store manager’s point of view, and one from the head of the cleanup crew. Everyone agreed this one was better, including me.

“The Birthday Party”

“How was the party?”

“Awesome, Dad! I got a hole-in-one at mini-golf and—”

“The windmill exploded into shrapnel?”

“No, Dad. I won a free game coupon.”

“Oh. What else?”

“I tried roller-skating—”

“And you clotheslined the other children, laughing at their pain?”

“No, Dad.”

He sighed. “Was the cake poisoned, at least?”

I looked at his hopeful face, mostly covered by a silver mask, one eye brown but the other cloudy white.

“Yes, Dad. I made sure.”

“Excellent!”

Dad started up the spiderbot, which rose on piston-powered legs, clomping toward the street, crushing three cars on the way.

* * * *

About the Story

Every week, The Drabblecast features a 100-word story, and if you count, you’ll find that “The Birthday Party” is exactly that long. At some point I’d like to go back and write a longer version, exploring how the child of a supervillain might feel among normal children, but so far I’m only about 500 words into that piece. I’m sure I’ll finish it eventually.

I’m pretty sure the spiderbot is what sold this story to editor Norm Sherman.

“The Roommate Situation”

When I got assigned to this ship, I also got assigned a roommate. That didn’t surprise me. But what did surprise me is that he’s a Kanidun. The quartermaster has to know that Kanidun pheromones irritate Earther breathing passages.

Personally, I think he put us in the same cabin because he doesn’t like Earthers.

To be honest, Mrf is okay. He’s polite, and respectful, and we get along fine. Other than the pheromones, and the fact that I now have to wear a breathing mask when I sleep so that I can actually get some sleep, there’s only one thing that drives me crazy about Mrf.

* * * *

When I get back to the cabin after an exercise session, Mrf is in front of the wallscreen, taking notes on his tablet. “Have I shown you this one yet?” he asks in Common, the sounds mushy in his mouth, like he can’t get them out around his heavy tongue. I’ve been trying to learn his language, but it hurts my throat; he, on the other hand, has no reason to learn mine. No one speaks Earthish.

On the screen, Earthers in black pants and bright shirts are walking around a control room of some sort. A man wearing yellow says something to a man in blue, the only one wearing that color. I notice that his ears are pointed. “I don’t think so,” I say. I flop onto my bunk, propping my head up on the pillow. “Why?”

Mrf glances at me. “That tall one — Sh’pach, yes?”

“That’s what you call him.”

“Sh’pach. He never makes the upturned mouth, not like you do.”

It takes a second for me to realize what Mrf means. Common doesn’t have a word for ‘smile’. “I suppose not.”

“I wonder why.”

I honestly don’t care, but I’m not going to cool Mrf’s thrusters by saying so. I’m in a good mood, for once — Chiselle from computer operations was in the gym today, and I’ve been trying to initiate mating with her for several weeks. She finally returned my interest — I think — and we have an appointment for dinner in two rotations’ time.

“It still bothers me that you don’t speak their language,” Mrf says after a fraction. I’ve tuned out the show — Mrf says it’s called Star Trek, and I have to take his word for it. I can’t read any Earth languages. “How is that possible?”

“How old did your father say the recordings were?”

“At least 800 rotations. In Earther years, about 1,000.”

“And you expect the language to stay exactly the same?”

He mulls that over. “I suppose you have a point.”

“And, remember, when your ancestor found Earth, they had dozens of languages. Who knows which one this is?”

That earns me the affirmative gesture. Mrf’s father got the recordings from his father, and his father’s-father’s-father-several-times-removed got them from Earth itself about 200 revolutions ago, during a League survey mission. “It doesn’t interest you at all, then?”

I turn to look at Mrf. His large, dark eyes are serious and a little wet. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t get into anything where I can’t understand the language.”

“That’s why I’m watching it!” Mrf says, and it’s almost a bark, almost his native tongue. “I want to learn about your ancestors, and this is the only way I can.”

“But why?” I sigh. “The rich ones left the planet with all their money, left the rest of the world wallowing for almost six Earth centuries. If the League hadn’t found the planet, we’d have all died out, and then what would you be watching?”

“But—”

“Just stop, Mrf. Please?” I turn away from him and take my tablet off the bedside shelf. It turns on and brings up my personal queue.

“I’m sorry,” Mrf says, and he sounds like he means it.

He doesn’t turn the screen off, though. He continues watching, the recorded sound of the Earthers a constant babble in the background. I hear his stylus tapping on his tablet, making notes.

This will continue for another tenth, I’m guessing, before Mrf actually goes to sleep. Kanidun don’t need as much of it as Earthers.

But I’ll endure, because Mrf is polite, and respectful, and except for this obsession with ancient Earth, the closest thing I have to a friend on this ship. For an Earther like me, it’s more than I could’ve hoped for in a roommate.

* * * *

About the Story

I originally wrote this story for an Escape Pod flash fiction contest, but it wasn’t voted a winner. Tina Connolly, however, bought it for Toasted Cake. It has a companion piece about the same unnamed main character, but even I recognize that the other one isn’t as interesting.

It’s not easy to distill an entire universe down into 750 words — especially when I have more than 40,000 words already written in the same universe. There will eventually be a book of stories following trader captain Kage Gray (who first appears in “Return to Waypoint 5”, published originally as the cover story of Black Denim Lit issue 8), once I get around to finishing it. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

“Playmate”

Come on.

I said come on. Move your ass.

Good. That’s better. Down the hall. Go on, I’m right behind you.

* * * *

You need to pee? Here, use this bathroom. Don’t close the door.

Fuck, no, I don’t want to watch. I just don’t want you drowning yourself in the toilet. I didn’t bring you out here to die.

You’ll see.

* * * *

Here. Sit. Yes, on the couch.

We’re going to play a game. Here, this one’s yours.

Yes, Madden. I told you I brought you here to play video games with me, didn’t I?

Oh, for crying out… just pick up the damn controller! You can be anyone except Miami.

I don’t care who you pick! Pick the Colts, the Patriots, the Saints, whoever — just pick a team, damn it!

Good. Good. Now, do you want to set your audibles? Mine are already loaded.

Okay. Here we go.

* * * *

That was too easy.

Yes, I know I’m good at it. But you weren’t even trying.

YOU WEREN’T EVEN TRYING!

* * * *

Quit crying. Get up. It’s time to play.

* * * *

No fucking around this time. Play to win, or I’ll kill you. Simple as that.

Really? You really think that? Look, all I want is someone to play Madden with me. That’s why you’re here. If you win, fine. If you lose, but tried to win, fine. Just don’t give up, or I promise you I’ll shoot you.

Oh, for fuck’s sake… here, have a tissue. Don’t get snot on my controller.

* * * *

Hey. Get up.

I’m not telling you what time it is. You don’t need to know. Just get up. It’s time to play.

Yeah, I know, I had some things to do. Didn’t have time to play games. You know how it is.

Okay, fair enough, right now you don’t know how it is.

Hungry?

I brought McDonalds. Just try to keep the grease off the furniture.

* * * *

Ha! Yes! Oh, that was a great game! Gimme five!

* * * *

Get up.

I said get up.

I SAID GET ON YOUR FUCKING FEET AND PLAY MADDEN YOU PIECE OF SHIT!

The broken fingers are your own damn fault. You left me hanging. Would it have killed you to give me a high-five?

BECAUSE IT ALMOST KILLED YOU NOT TO!

Y’know what? Fuck this. Stay in there.

* * * *

How’s the hand?

Good. I’m glad.

Look, I’m sorry about that. No one else here even tries to play. I like you because you make the effort. The others… they just sob and beg me not to kill them. Or hurt them. Or rape them.

No, you idiot, I’m not going to rape you. I’m not gay. I told you: I brought you here to play Madden with me. If I wanted to fuck, I wouldn’t have come to your room.

Last night? Yeah, that’s what you heard. Guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do.

Come on. Let’s play.

I’ll go easy on you.

* * * *

About the Story

“Playmate” is previously unpublished, although it did get to the final round in a Pseudopod flash fiction contest. I wrote it because I used to play Madden on my PlayStation and PS2, and I could never find anyone to play with me. Playing against the computer (especially a computer that cheats when you start doing too well) gets old after a while. I’ve since given up Madden for fantasy football and board games; I managed to convince my partner to join me on the former, and my daughter joins the two of us for the latter.

The kid’s surprisingly good. At age six, she started winning games of Settlers of Catan, and at nine, she watched us play Carcassonne about three times and then beat us the first time she played. (We only helped her a little bit — until we realized she was better at this than we thought and we’d better start trying to win.)

“Aubade”

Aaron stared at the horizon. The dust in the atmosphere obscured the moon and the stars, so really he couldn’t see anything at all. But he knew where it was. His entire crew knew where it was.

What was left of them, anyway.

“It will be daylight soon.” Cesar’s voice. “Two hours.”

Aaron didn’t turn around.

Cesar’s boots crunched on small rocks and grit as he walked toward Aaron. “I knew I would find you out here.” He handed over a flask. “I brought you this.”

“Thanks.” Aaron drank, and the bitter fire of moonshine burned down his throat. He usually avoided the stuff — it made him sick the morning after — but that didn’t matter now.

“Gina is dead,” Cesar said.

“Good.” Gina had been shot, but she’d refused morphine, refused to die before she helped the others on their way. Then there had been no morphine. Aaron had come outside to escape the screaming. “Who’s left?”

“Lise and Jamin. And Yva is still trying to raise a rescue ship.”

Aaron passed Cesar the flask. “Too late for that.”

* * * *

Jamin took four thick chocolate bars out of his coverall and handed them around. He’d been saving them for the end of their mission: three long years scouting for planets the Consortium could mine for minerals or metals. Lise, the geologist, had said this planet had taravite — “more than I’ve ever seen in one place.”

The proximity alarm had broken the mood, and moments later a small, fast cruiser had blasted a hole in the engine compartment and latched on with grapnels. After stealing the locations of every promising planet, the pirates had locked a landing solution into the computer and zipped away.

“Better to have killed us quickly,” Aaron said. He swayed a little on his feet — too much moonshine; the last of it, he supposed, with Priya dead. “Why didn’t they kill us all?”

Cesar shrugged and bit into his chocolate bar. Lise held hers in one hand, still in the wrapper, watching the horizon. Her husband had been the first to die.

Aaron checked his comp: one more hour.

* * * *

“That’s it.” Yva climbed out of the ship and joined the others. “I’m done.” She lit a cigarette and inhaled. “Gina said these things would kill me.” She blew a smoke ring. “Anyone else want one?”

“I do,” Cesar said.

Cesar and Yva smoked. Jamin nibbled his chocolate. But Aaron and Lise just watched the horizon. “At least we won’t burn to death,” she said.

“No. We won’t.”

The sky was lightening quickly, shades of beige and mustard yellow. “I want to die,” Lise whispered. “Do you think I’ll see Jared? When it happens?”

“I don’t know.” Aaron was starting to feel nauseous. Behind him, Jamin threw up. “I hope you do.”

The edge of the sun came over the horizon. Aaron dropped to his knees, unable to stand. Someone — Cesar, he thought — was singing.

Aaron just stared at the sun.

* * * *

About the Story

“Aubade” is from an Escape Pod flash fiction contest; it made it to the final round but didn’t win. This is its first appearance. You can see some of the themes I reused later in “Survivor”, and if I ever finish rewriting “The Man Who Evacuated the Planet”, you’ll see them reappear there as well. I only have a few views of the future in my brain, so they tend to pop up over and over. I’m sure I’m not the only one who does this.

I remember writing this story in one day, after seeing Dictionary.com’s word of the day on 3 February 2010. I thought it was a lovely word, and deserved to have a story written about it.

Afterword

This book would not have been possible without Bigg Anklevich, Tina Connolly, Dayne Edmondson, Kay T. Holt, Marguerite Kenner, Mur Lafferty, Marshal Latham, Bart R. Lieb, Rish Outfield, Casey Seda, Norm Sherman, Tony C. Smith, Cavan Terrill, Carrie Tierney, and, alphabetically-last (but certainly not least), Sheila Williams. Editors have some of the hardest jobs out there, because they have to pick stories that aren’t only good but also that their readers will want to read. Thanks to all of you for thinking mine meet those criteria.

Lots of people have helped to make my work better. I can’t name every single person who ever read any of the stories in this volume, but here are some of them that deserve a mention: Scott Graham, Beau Hall, Liz Helenek, Michael H. King, Linda Sullivan, Dave Thompson, and Lisa Watson.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my friend and fellow author Shon Richards, who let me pester him a few years ago about Kindle formatting for my release of “Secret Santa”. I’m still using the same template I built with his help. (If it sucks, blame me, not him.)

To my daughter Alyssa: it’s not Monkeybutt, but your name did finally make it into one of my books. I love you.

And, for so many reasons, I couldn’t have put this together without Celestia Price. Every day I appreciate her more; every day I love her more. The grass truly is greener on this side.

About the Author

Josh Roseman (not the trombonist; the other one) lives in Georgia (the state; not the other one). His fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Escape Pod, Toasted Cake, and the Crossed Genres anthology Fat Girl in a Strange Land, among other places. His fiction has been reprinted by the award-winning podcasts Cast of Wonders, StarShipSofa, and The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine. He also writes reviews for Escape Pod and a weekly column, “Six of the Best”, for Nerdery Public. He is a 2013 graduate of the Taos Toolbox writing workshop and an active member of the SFWA. When not writing, he mostly complains about the fact that he’s not writing.

Josh can be found many places online, including Twitter (@listener42), Facebook (AuthorJosh), Google Plus (+JoshRoseman), and Tumblr (listener). Links to all of these, as well as the latest information on what he’s published, are at roseplusman.com.

About the Cover Artist

Sara Noto lives outside Dallas, Texas, and would be very glad to help design your book cover, website, or promotional materials. She is the owner of notobella designs, llc, which you can find online at notobelladesigns.com. She is also the curator of The Nerdery Public (thenerderypublic.com), a site born out of the love for all things geek and the desire to force “nerdpinions” on the rest of the world.

Also Available for Kindle

Return to Waypoint 5

originally published in Black Denim Lit issue 8, edited by Christopher T. Garry

A far-future starship pilot gets a call about a daughter he never knew he had, and he may be the only one who can save her from imprisonment… or worse.

Secret Santa

originally published in The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, edited by Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich

Wes Howard has been fat all his life. This Christmas, he learns the reason: he has a destiny, and that destiny is at the North Pole.

Section 3A

in Big Pulp, winter 2010, edited by Bill Olver

Sometimes parents get called to their kids’ schools. Just, not usually for this reason.

Side Effects

In the near future, Dr. Tony Hall just wants to give his patients the best care possible. But when the government and the pharmaceutical industry have teamed up to make it almost impossible to save a single mom, he’ll have to find a way, even if it means breaking the law.

The Plumbers and the Princess

in Aoife’s Kiss issue 41, edited by Tyree Campbell

Two plumbers in 1970s New York are called out to a house on Long Island, where they discover, among other things, a whole lot of mushrooms. A retelling of a modern myth, so to speak.

Commendations

“This is a great book, the kind you read for enjoyment rather than duty. It crosses time and space, from steampunk to space opera, and the stories are intelligent, compelling, and always entertaining.”

— Sean McMullen, winner of the Aurealis and Australian Science Fiction awards, and author of the Greatwinter trilogy

“A diverse and fiercely-intelligent collection, these are stories that interrogate the future while reflecting on the past. Highly recommended.”

— C. S. McMullen, AWGIE-nominated screenwriter and author

“Clever, thought-provoking, and occasionally unsettling in all the best ways, The Clockwork Russian challenges and encourages the reader to see something new in a genre most wrongly decide is not for them. There is a wholly Earthly quality to these futuristic tales, and I can see many of them as full-length novels or on the big screen. Definitely a must-have on your bookshelf.”

— Andy Martello, entertainer and award-winning author of The King of Casinos: Willie Martello and the El Rey Club

“Josh Roseman transports the reader into his stories with vivid details and incredible pacing; a moment never lingers too long, and I can see the scene unfold in my mind’s eye.”

— Beau Hall, author of Snapshot

“The Clockwork Russian includes more than a dozen thought-provoking stories that reach out, grab you, and make you want to keep reading well into the night. Each one is more intriguing than the last, building strange worlds, situations, and characters that remain long after the page-turning pleasure has passed.”

— Big Anklevich, co-editor of The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine

Copyright

This book is copyright © 2015 by Josh Roseman.

“27 Jennifers” was first published by The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, issue 47, 29 September 2009. It was reprinted in Port Iris, issue 4, 3 February 2011.

“Bring on the Rain” was first published by Asimov’s, July 2011. It was reprinted in StarShipSofa, issue 203, 14 September 2011.

“Greener” was first published by Asimov’s, April/May 2012. It was reprinted in StarShipSofa, issue 313, 13 November 2013.

“113 Feet” was first published by Escape Pod, issue 351, 28 June 2012.

“Belief” was first published by Fusion Fragment, issue 16, 23 May 2011. It was reprinted in The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, issue 132, 9 August 2012.

“Amid the Steep Sky’s Commotion: a Tale of the Airship Ozymandias” was first published by Khimairal Ink, volume 7, issue 1, 1 July 2010. It was reprinted in Journey Into…, issue 119, 29 March 2015, and again in Beyond Science Fiction, June 2015.

“Survivor” was first published by Crossed Genres Publications, in the anthology Fat Girl in a Strange Land, 17 February 2012. It was reprinted in Cast of Wonders, issue 131, 2 August 2014.

“Clean Up” was first published by The Dunesteef Audio Fiction Magazine, issue 166, 18 November 2014.

“The Birthday Party” was first published by The Drabblecast, issue 151, 18 February 2010.

“The Roommate Situation” was first published by Toasted Cake, issue 111, 22 June 2014.

“Ode to the West Wind” by Percy Bysshe Shelley was first published in the collection Prometheus Unbound, A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems, in 1820.

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book has been released without DRM.

Content

Josh Roseman
THE CLOCKWORK RUSSIAN
AND OTHER STORIES

Stories

“27 Jennifers”

“Bring on the Rain”

“Greener”

“113 Feet”

“Belief”

“The Clockwork Russian”

“Amid the Steep Sky’s Commotion: a Tale of the Airship Ozymandias”

“Survivor”

“A Dog and His Boy”

“Stand Up”

Shorts

“Clean Up”

“The Birthday Party”

“The Roommate Situation”

“Playmate”

“Aubade”

Afterword

About the Author

About the Cover Artist

Also Available for Kindle

Commendations

Copyright