 
Ghost Dust & Selected Short Stories

by Nicolas Wilson

Hi.

I'm Nic. This is my first short story collection, out in the spring of 2013. These and a collection of my journalism will be available for free at various etailers and from my website: www.nicolaswilson.com.

Interspersed with the short stories, you'll find snippets of novels I'm working on or have finished. I'm calling them entertisements, because the word amuses me. Some are available for purchase now, others will be available soon. I also encourage you to check my website for other projects of mine, including RSS feeds of stories that update weekly, and a newsletter so you can stay informed when my new work comes out.

I sincerely hope you enjoy these stories, and thank you for reading.

skip to fiction

Table of Contents

Hypotenuse: A detective and a witness become acquainted as he investigates the death of one of their neighbors.

Colossus: An arctic scientist explores the habitat of the Colossal Squid, and finds a secret even larger than the cagey mollusk.

Support: An Explosive Ordinance Disposal officer connects with his family as he wrestles with an especially difficult day in Iraq.

Something to Say: A forensic tech examines the body of a woman murdered outside a police station.

Why There Are No More Dragons Or Unicorns: A father's tale of the last dragon and unicorn.

Turing's Test: A computer with a personality disorder mulls its own idiosyncratic existence with its human roommate.

Only Numan: A young man with a genetic predisposition toward unstable genes is given the opportunity to become a part of governmental experiments to develop superhumans.

Prisoners of War: A forensics anthropologist and a left-for-dead Marine track a war criminal, in post-war Vietnam.

Raider: A woman comes to grips with her own identity and mortality while breaking into an Egyptian pyramid.

Dante's Infirmity: An old man and his family struggle to preserve his humanity and independence, navigating the medical establishment, as he approaches the end of his life.

The Ghost Club: Mr. Houdini and Mr. Doyle explore the question of life after death.

Suicide Spear: Humanity takes the battle to an alien homeworld's doorstep, after decades of a devastating war of attrition.

Hang Around: A cowboy, a Buddhist monk, and others relive the results of one choice.

Ghost Dust: A patient reflects on the aftermath of 9/11.

Bloody Hands: A community shares responsibility and blame after a young boy's call for help.

Green Thumb: A Department of Agriculture employee has a chance run-in with a farmer covered in chemicals. This short story was eventually expanded into a novel, Dag, now available.

Dogs of War: Two Explosive Ordnance Disposal soldiers recover together, after nearly dying in an explosion. This story is part of a novella, Dogs of War, available for free to newsletter subscribers.

Nexus: The crew of an interstellar star ship try to screw the alien species they meet before their corporate backers can screw them. This is the opening chapter of Nexus, coming summer 2013.

#  Hypotenuse

It's supposed to be my night off. I can't tell if I'm asleep and dreaming of sweating in my apartment, or if the neighbors' loud sex/fighting has pulled me out of my stupor. But I must be awake because there's a pounding at the door nearly as heavy as the one in my head, and I'm staggering towards it.

It's a uniform, a little nervous and a little pissed that he's my wake-up call. "It's my night off," I tell him.

"Yeah. But we've caught a few other bodies tonight. So it's not your night off anymore."

I squint at him. "I'm drunk."

He squints back at me. "No, just hung over. Besides, it's not like you have to drive anywhere. Body's downstairs." I mutter something about pants and try to slam his hand in the door, but he's more awake and sober so he moves it out of the way in time.

My clothes, which I'm pretty sure I remember passing out in, are splayed out like a body at the foot of the bed, as if I died in them and then evaporated out. I'm not sure what I spilled on them, but it's formed a solid blob of cloth connecting my shirt to my pants. My slacks are dark enough that nobody's going to notice unless I have to peel them apart. I slip my head through the shirt and look at my red tie. It's just a little too disheveled to tighten, but I'm in no mood to retie it, so I ball it up and throw it at the trash can. It floats peacefully onto an old Big Mac wrapper smeared with what I hope used to be mayonnaise.

I strap on my shoulder holster, reach for my jacket, and then the knocking comes back at the door. Before I even consider why, I squeeze the grip on my gun. I open the door, and it's just the uniform, shifting nervously in his too-polished shoes. "You shouldn't pester a man when he's armed."

"I thought maybe you'd passed back out." Oh, if only.

I step out into the hall, pat my jacket to make sure my keys are in it, then look at the uniform. "Tell me you brought me coffee." His hand's empty, but shaking. He's probably just had a whole Red Bull. Kids these days. "On the corner there's an owner-operated café, Lucinda's. Lousy coffee. This time of morning she's probably pissed in it. That should wake me up."

He walks me down the steps to the apartment at the end of the hall. I knew the girl who lived there- knew her in the sense that I'd seen her around and knew her name, and kept intending to ask her down to the piss-coffee café but never had. "Who found the body?" I asked.

"Neighbor from upstairs, the floor above yours. They had plans to go to the gym, I guess they were work-out buddies. The door was open when she got here, and that's when she found the body. Another uniform is upstairs with her in her apartment; she'll be ready for questioning when you need her."

"No hurry," I tell him. "If she really only saw the body then there isn't much the scene won't tell us. If she knows anything else, the more tired she is the more likely she'll be forthright." I pause at the threshold of the apartment.

The uniform notices my reticence. "I'll be back with your coffee in a moment."

"And not a second longer," I say, thankful for the small psychological push, and walk in. Claire is leaned up against her bed in the main room. No blood, no gore, no rape; thank God for small favors. "Has the ME been and gone?" I ask the uniform who'd been watching the scene.

"Naw. He's with Mahoney across town. Murder-suicide by GSW with a possible sexual assault. So he's running late."

"Beautiful." I walk through the apartment. I'd imagined being invited here. Everything is as I expected, like the floral patterns in the kitchenette, except where it's not (but still fits), like the rabbit motif in the bathroom. Then the uniform gets back with my coffee. "If it's black, I'll kill you." His eyes widen, but he pulls a mound of creamers and various sweeteners from his jacket, and piles them on the kitchen counter in front of me. "You," I eyeball him, "shall live. For now."

I huddle over the gooey black beverage, pour in various creamers and shake in sweeteners until it turns caramel and I take a sip. "Mmm. Can barely taste the piss anymore. Next time, spot me some Starbucks, or at least a McDonald's coffee." He shoots me a look, a nonverbal question of if there'll be a next time, and I return a half-nod in reply. It certainly wasn't my first.

Now normally I wouldn't be as big a pain in the ass, but with just the two of them here it seemed a golden opportunity for both school and theater. "Now, presumably, the two of you would someday like to be real police. Don't take that the wrong way. We all start off as dumbass unis, but the difference between an old man walking a beat and real police is knowing things. So gather around, children, it's time to learn."

"It wasn't a robbery; killer knew the vic. There's no sign of forced entry, nothing rifled through, even her wallet and car keys are still in her purse on the counter. And that scarf, that scarf around her neck was brought here to be the murder weapon. She's very particular. Look at this room; there's a very specific design scheme at play. Look at her in all of those pictures, it's the same. Bright red scarf with those clothes? No."

My coffee mule perked up. "How can you be sure nothing's been taken? Place is a mess."

"You can never be sure, but the mess, that's from the struggle. Burglary: drawers would be open, contents spilled out. Obvious valuables in plain sight would be missing. But the drawers are all closed. All of this mess," I motioned to clothes, blankets, books and pillows scattered around the floor, "is from two people fighting. Look at the rest of the house, closet, bathroom, all pristine."

"Killer was someone she trusted enough to let in the door, trusted enough to turn her back on- and that's when the killer wrapped the scarf around her throat. And she fought like mad to get loose. She was a small woman, but she put up a good fight, and that tells us something. Killer's either a man, smaller in stature, or a woman. If the scarf was worn here, then that points to a woman, but I'd be surprised if it was that sloppy. Everything else is considered and careful. No hair, no blood. The killer took their time, cleaned up just what they needed to without leaving anything telling. The door was left open on purpose. Somebody wanted us to find the body sooner rather than later." I paused. "What do we know about the witness? She have an alibi?"

"Said she was warming up for the gym, alone, in her apartment."

"So effectively no. It's probably time to talk to her. At least one of you has to stay and secure the scene until the ME drags his sorry ass here. Flip a coin for all I care."

The last uniform is standing in the hallway upstairs. He's young, hasn't shed the baby fat from his face, and he's green enough that he looks nervous being here. He's had her keep the apartment door open, but didn't want to stay inside.

I walk into her apartment and immediately understand why. Witness is a looker, even dressed-down in an old sweatsuit with bands on her wrists that remind me of the 80s. She looks up at me, and her eyes flick nervously from me to the uniform, and I realize I'm not in dress blues and just barged into her place like I live here. "Homicide detective," I say, and reach for my badge.

"Oh," she says, flat affect.

"You and your friend always exercise late at night like this?"

"I got talked into a membership at a 24 hour gym, and- no. We've only gone twice. It was going to be our routine."

"Mind if I see your driver's license?"

"So long as you don't look at my weight. Or birth date." I chuckle as she hands it to me; I like clever women. It's a little odd to have a potential murder suspect flirt with you, but it beats outright hostility any day.

"What if it's pertinent to the investigation?"

She raises an eyebrow. "How could it be?"

"Well, you said you've only started using your gym membership. This ID isn't that old, so the weight should still be about right- unless you embellished the truth. Knowing whether you embroider facts is important to know, Lisbeth."

"Actually, I said Claire and I had only started going nights. I've been working out on and off for a couple months." She shot me a knowing look, though I couldn't tell if she knew she looked good, or knew most men would be afraid to say anything to the contrary.

"Hmm." I said, and stared at her ID, putting it so close to my eye that the image went blurry. Then I walked slowly over to her, staring.

"Are you trying to tell if I'm lying?"

"No; microexpressions are too quick to detect with the human eye. I'm just trying to make you nervous."

"Doesn't telling me that defeat the purpose?"

"No. Just keeps you on your toes."

She narrows her eyes. "Have you been drinking?"

"Hours ago. I passed out in the interim. I think I slept it off. Why? Am I swaying?"

"No, I just smelled it."

I stop and sniff my shoulder. "Ah. Apparently my jacket has also been drinking- but I assure you he is sober enough for detective work." She's beginning to droop noticeably. "It must be three, four in the morning. Even for a night owl that's getting to be late."

"I could use a cup of coffee."

I look to the uniform still in the hall. "You can head out. I don't think she's going to make a break for it." He nods and trots off down the hall. "Grab a coat," I tell her.

We walk down the steps. I take her purposely down past Claire's; it has less effect than I'd hoped, since she was chattering about something, and it wasn't until I stopped in and nod at the ME who'd finally arrived that she realized where we were, and went silent and white.

But since she was distracted it doesn't tell me much; she was trying not to think about it, yeah, but both a murderer and somebody who discovers a dead body would want to avoid the topic.

Lucinda's is open, of course; Lucinda's is always open, and Lucinda herself is propping up a wall by the register- though she barely registers it when we push open the door.

We sit in a booth far enough away to have some privacy (though Lucinda, like a lizard sunbathing on a rock, rarely conveys anything approaching consciousness). Lisbeth paws nervously at a menu, until I speak. "I'd stay away from the coffee. Try one of the flavored Cokes, if you need the caffeine."

"Flavored Cokes?"

"They just squirt a little of the Italian soda mix into a Coke, but since the Coke machine and the mix are all out here at the bar, you know she isn't putting anything horrible or personal into it- barring her doctoring the glasses beforehand. I don't even want to think about that level of premeditation."

"You're a strange guy."

"I'm a creature of habit, and unfortunately a student of human nature. You see the way she looked at me when we walked in? It's rare to see that kind of unmitigated hate in civilized society- especially in a service industry. But she doesn't hate me, personally. She hates everyone. She hates the night shift, but she's been through a half dozen shift workers who robbed her stupid, so she has to work the night shift on her own."

"Why not just stay closed at night?"

"Money's too good- not that the money's that great. She couldn't afford to keep the café open without it. But because of that she's resentful. Which is why most of the food on the nightshift is questionable."

"So why did you bring me here, then?"

"You're a witness. I can explain getting you coffee, but not going out for a pizza. If this were a date we'd have hopped in a cab and tried to find another place that's open as a pretense, so at least when we ended up here it was a last resort. But I've worked enough nights to tell you Lucinda's is the only place open. That's the reason her nights are profitable; cops, mill workers, anybody on graveyard ends up here, eating her rancid rhubarb pie. Don't make that face, it wasn't a euphemism. That shriveled up husk of domestic terrorism in the glass dish at the end of the bar, that's rhubarb pie, exactly as Satan taught her to bake it."

"But... it's black."

"Exactly."

As if for the first time, Lucinda realizes we've come in and sat down, and waddles over to us. "This one's a lousy tipper, sweetheart," she says around a cigarette I hadn't seen on our way in.

"She's a lousy server," I retort; I still have no idea if Lucinda enjoys our banter or not.

"I think I'll just have a cherry Coke for now."

"Coffee." Lucinda glares at me, and I think maybe she's somehow taken my order as a personal insult, before she turns and walks away.

"I thought you said stay away from the coffee."

"I grew up with brothers; it afforded me all sorts of urine-related immunities." She smiles, then realizes it and blushes; things were getting too personal. "Your driver's license says 'Lisbeth.'"

"My mom used to call me 'Libby' and it stuck until college when a couple of frat asses started calling me 'Lesby.' I'm not a lesbian; I dated a few girls in college- but men, too. Anyway, nobody calls me Lisbeth anymore. You can call me Betty."

"Well, Betty, when you call me you can call me Al." She smiles at that, which is nice; given how much younger she is I wasn't sure she'd have ever heard that song.

"I like that. I've always liked 'Al,' since at least seeing Aladdin when I was really little- the animated Disney one. I used to run home from school instead of taking the bus so I could catch the show."

"Wait, they made a TV show?" Now I really felt old.

"Yeah, it was part of the Disney Afternoon block. I watched entirely too many cartoons as a kid." She sighs, and for the first time since we passed Claire's apartment, her guard slips. She doesn't look back at me, just stares out the window behind me.

Lucinda smacks Betty's cherry Coke down on the table hard enough I'm surprised the glass doesn't break. "Coffee'll be a while," she sneers, and saunters back off in the direction of the register before I can tell her I wasn't in any particular hurry. Betty tries to ignore the hostility in the air as she sips at her Coke.

"What kind of relationship did you have with Claire?" She almost sucks Coke into her lungs. "See, you being bisexual, you volunteered that; I think you wanted to tell me. Were the two of you lovers?"

She swallows. "Not exactly. I think it was complicated. There was certainly some attraction, but we hadn't really decided how to proceed with it. I'm not sure if it's more honest to say we were just friends, or not yet."

"How'd you feel about that ambiguity?"

"I don't dislike ambiguity. I think lovers are friends, and some friends are lovers we haven't decided to love yet. I think the bum rush into romance can spoil a friendship that never should have been love, but then again," she leans across the table and stares at me, and for a moment I feel like a steak on a platter in front of a starving woman, "there are just some people you never wanted to just be friends with."

I swallow, trying not to pay attention to the way her leaning presses her cleavage out of her gym clothes. "In my experience that decision is never entirely mutual. So who was holding back- you, or her?"

"I suppose she was, more than me. I wasn't hurrying into her bed, but there was a night last week. We'd just seen that Gyllenhaal movie at the second run theater, and I walked her to her door and tried to kiss her goodnight. She pulled away."

"How'd you feel about that?"

"Well, I thought maybe I'd poisoned the well, but the next time I saw her everything was fine. She even hugged me goodbye. In retrospect, maybe she was pulling away, distancing with the hug rather than let me try to kiss her again, but at the time I was just happy that she still wanted to be friends."

"That's good- not the snub, obviously. That confession. Not because it's good for the soul, but because admitting what could make you sound like a suspect- a suspect doesn't do that. You'd be circumspect about it. Play coy or dumb or just make up something, like how you hadn't really been attracted to women since Sex and the City turned you into a misogynist. And since we're getting along so well, I'd prefer not to have you arrested."

"Did Sex and the City turn you into a misogynist, Detective?"

"Its pull among women is unsettling, but compare it to my gender's sports fixation and it's hard to really cast any stones. How long had you and Claire been friends?"

"A couple of months. Ran into her getting the mail one day, and we just bonded. There was a stray cat outside, gray with white flecks, like dirty snow, and she went out to pet it and I went with her. We ended up getting coffee and sitting outside with the cat, talking."

"Describe finding her body."

"I've tried going to the gym in the mornings, in the daytime, even evenings, and always it was full of pervy men who didn't even push weights around as a pretense, just stared. We decided to go at night. We went last Wednesday, and there was this creepy old leathery woman with biceps bigger than her breasts who would not stop hitting on Claire, so tonight was going to be our last try."

"I've got joint issues, so it takes me a while to warm up. I usually stretch before we go to the gym, so we can warm up together. I came down the stairs, and Claire's door was open- no, ajar, just open enough you could see a little sliver inside the room. Lights were off, and Letterman was on the TV with no sound on. That's when I saw Claire, leaned against the foot of her bed, in that svelte little jogging suit I hated because it made me feel less pretty when I was with her."

"My first thought wasn't that she was dead, but that she'd fallen down, or been drinking, or maybe passed out or something. I tried to shake her, but her head snapped back and I knew right then that she should have woken up, should've screamed because that would have hurt her neck. I felt for a pulse before I called the police, but I knew I wouldn't find one."

"Then what did you do?"

"The 911 dispatcher told me to close and lock the doors and windows and wait for a squad car. That's what I did. And I cried. I didn't want to touch the body again, or the scene, so I just stood where I was and cried."

"What was the first thought you had, after you realized that Claire was dead? Did you see the red scarf around her neck, or some of the bruising?"

"I remember thinking dying that way, scared, she didn't deserve that. It was awful for me to lose her like that, but for her- she was my friend, and now she's dead." She starts to cry. Without thinking, I put my hand over hers, and she looks up, spooked. She tries to put away the emotion. "Don't police have conflicts of interest? I'm surprised they let you handle this case." I give her a puzzled look. "Wait. You didn't actually know Claire, did you?"

"I've seen her around a few times, but we've never talked. I kept meaning to."

"I know what you mean," she swallows, and smiles, but the smile was sad. "She was a pretty girl." We didn't talk much after that.

I walk her back to her room, and that's where I make a mistake. She kisses me, but I don't take a page out of the dead girl's book and duck and weave. Then again, Claire ended up dead and unkissed- seems like a lousy story to crib from. Betty pulls me inside.

I won't blow 9½ Weeks worth of smoke at you, but it was intense; it had been an emotional night, and we were both pent up. I might have fallen asleep right after, but her cat starts nuzzling my face. "The cat. Gray with white flecks. This is the stray you first bonded over. You loved Claire, didn't you?"

"I think I wanted to." She falls asleep in my arms; and I'm with her a bit later. I wake up, feeling the tickle of hair on my face. I think it has to be the cat again, but it's Betty's hair on my face. I look around the room for the cat, and realize I can hear the sounds of cars. The window is open. Did I get hot in the night and open it? Or maybe more important, did her cat get out?

I look around the apartment, trying not to make too much noise and wake her. But there isn't any cat food, no litter box. I have a hunch, so I put my pants on and walk down a few floors.

Claire's apartment is empty. Nobody'd been back since the uniform left, leaving yellow tape across the frame. I thought I'd seen it earlier, but now I don't have to go looking, I can smell it. The cat's litter box is in a little closet with the washer-dryer combo unit. And in the kitchen, there's food and a water bowl. I try shaking the food, saying, "Here, kitty." No cat.

I go back into the bedroom. The window is shut, but I wonder...

Sure enough, as soon as I open the window, that gray and white cat hops up on the sill with a chirpy little meow. "So this is where you live," I say, as the cat rubs against my chin.

One of the floorboards behind me creaks, and I know it's Betty, before she even speaks. I turn to see her, holding a knife. But her voice betrays her, and even as the words dribble out gravity tugs at the knife. "You didn't have to care... you'd never have known if you didn't care. Why couldn't you just care about me? Why was she so special?"

"I do care. But you killed her. And that's really a bad circumstance to begin a relationship in."

"Oh; I hadn't really thought about that." She sets the knife down on the dresser. "She liked you, you know? You noticed her, and she noticed. I think she was waiting for you to talk to her."

I feel like an idiot for not having seen it sooner. "You thought we were involved in some kind of a love triangle, so you decided to murder the other side. That is romantic in the most fucked up way possible."

"I'm sorry. I felt bad, hiding things from you."

"I'm murder police. Nobody tells me the truth. Not even me. You're an excellent liar, by the way, avoid all the usual tells. You're pretty, too, which helps, but I think I have to put you in prison." I take her hand, and very gently put my cuff around her wrist. "I never would have figured it out if it weren't for the cat. You couldn't stand leaving the cat there, with the body. That cat meant something to you, because it was from when you first met Claire. You really loved her, didn't you?"

"I think I wanted to. I wanted to love you, too."

Back to Table of Contents

#  Colossus

"Record. Microphone test. Check?"

"'Microphone test.' Complete."

"The voice recording is a system redundancy, in case, for whatever reason, the video fails. I'll start with a brief, lay-person's introduction to our ADS, an atmospheric diving suit. Unlike previous generations, it isn't built as a wearable submarine, keeping one atmosphere of pressure until crush-depth. Instead, it helps lower the general pressure; at lower pressures it's less effective than conventional ADS, but at higher pressures more effective. As an example, I am now at 1.05 bar, roughly five percent greater pressure than sea level. The suit is designed for two hours exposure at 1.2 bar, and equipped to allow for in-water decompression after the dive. The suit is water-tight, and can easily withstand the summer water temperatures at Antarctica, keeping the interior at roughly 50° Fahrenheit; for cold protection I'm wearing a sweater my wife made me. We fought over a name for the suit until October, when my son died in a car accident; we agreed to call it TROY."

"Damn, can't wipe my eye. I'll have to... make a note of that for the engineers. The purpose of the dive, and the reason for this ridiculous video apparatus on my shoulder is recording the environment and perhaps catching a rare deep-sea glimpse of mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the colossal squid. The import of this expedition is that no dive has taken place this deep beneath the ice shelf of Antarctica."

"1.1 bar. The innovation I'm most proud of in this suit, and the one that makes this journey feasible, is a complicated pheromone duplicator. It releases pre-programmed chemical solutions into the water to simulate squid pheromones, including those known to induce passive states and fear responses. Pheromone groups known to cause aggressiveness have been left out of the configuration, for obvious reasons. The colossal squid is known for attacking sperm whales, the largest toothed animals on earth, so having a peaceful defense system was necessary for the expedition. The mechanisms involved could not have been designed without the tireless efforts of Dr. O'Shea and his fellow researchers from Auckland University of Technology, and frozen samples taken from Te Papa Tongarewa's 2007 specimen."

"Currently, I'm outputting a steady stream of fertility pheromones; they won't attract the larger female of the species, but there's a chance I'll at least be able to interact with one of the males."

"1.2 bar. At this depth, it's impossible to see without a light source, which only affords a few feet of visibility, so I'll navigate with sonar display, offering 360° awareness horizontally and vertically, complemented by a GPS signal and a home beacon back at the base submarine. Other subs have passed through this area, but even the quietest of them tend to frighten off the shy colossals, hence the long jaunt from the base ship."

"Wait, I've got a ping. 3D rendering shows an outline that could be a colossal, I'm turning off nonessentials to avoid unnecessary noise/vibrations that might scare him off. My god. He's beautiful. Altering the pheromone mixture to induce passivity; the last thing I need is to explain an impromptu squid-tryst to Sherri. He's stopping a few feet from me. Imaging shows his phallus is engorged; wuff; he's arrived to the party dressed to the nines. Sorry about that, fella, no female mantle here."

"Incredible. He's just... floating in front of me, so close I can, what the hell, I'm touching his mantle. His head is about at waist level, and his eye, larger than my hand with fingers spread, is looking up at me; the colossal has the largest eye in the animal kingdom. And, wait... his tentacle is reaching up... touching my chest. Hah. Observational learning. I'm changing the pheromone mixture to a warning of danger. He's caught a whiff, and he's off. By god, he's quick. The colossal has clubs at the ends of its tentacles, along with razor-sharp hooks along the edges, so he was getting a bit too curious for comfort."

"1.3 bar. Danger's a little higher, and it will cut into dive time. I'm going to follow him for a bit. I still have twenty minutes before I'm at bingo resources, that is, before I have just enough air to return to the base submarine. There's a large rock formation up ahead, and it's possible he's got a little hole he's staked out just for himself in it."

"Wow. Sonar's pinging off things like crazy, and the visual is just... amazing. I'm stretching the processor resources, so my view depth is decreasing to thirty feet, but in the distance I can see parts of five, six, seven colossals. It's nothing short of extraordinary. It would appear that the colossals here live communally, which is highly uncommon amongst cephalopods, with of course the notable exception of one of the eledone species, although I frankly can't remember if it's moschota or cirrhosa. But this... this is incredible. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of colossals."

"I'm turning down the resolution, we'll see if I can't get a wider picture of the area. Heavens. There are... wait, focusing, there's a group of them, four or five, dragging what I presume is a sperm whale carcass. I'm going to take a focused sonar capture to get a cleaner picture; the whale has lacerations and bruising similar to what has been observed in sperm whales with large quantities of indigestible colossal squid beaks in their stomachs. Incredible. They killed a sperm whale together. I have to get closer."

"1.4 bar. I'm at my maximum operating depth, with no more wiggle room left in the oxygen. Five minutes before I'll have to turn back."

"I'm approaching the rock. Sonar isn't picking up any kinds of caves at all, and all of the traffic seems to be flowing around the spire. I'm closing the distance to the rock. Sonar's giving me some, strange formations. Focusing the sonar. I can't, this is incredible. The, on the face of the rock are circular patterns. If they're natural, wait-I don't think they're natural, they're- they appear to be thin grooves cut into the rock. What the hell can, what can that mean?"

"Monstro to Pinocchio, you are at bingo. Suggest immediate return."

"That is a negative, Monstro. I'm going to stay here. Five minutes. I'll meet you halfway back."

"Come again, Pinocchio. Can you confirm you are of sound mind, and you want us to pick you up floating?"

"I'm fine, Monstro. You're starting to sound like Jiminy."

"Pinnochio, this is Jiminy, relay through Monstro. You will return to the base sub now."

"Not yet; and you'll understand when I get back why. Now you're wasting my batteries. Signing off."

"I'm... god, I'm touching the surface of the rock. There are grooves cut into the surface in circular motions. Whatever tools were used, it took repeated, strong cuts to produce these markings. I am certain, certain these were made, not formed. I'm, I wish I'd brought along tools, take a sample, a geologist could study it. We could find out where this structure came from. What civilization. It's possible this was a mountain on the surface once, perhaps when Africa and Antarctica were still joined in the super continent Gondwana. But that would mean there had been intelligent life on the planet a hundred millennia ago. And that, that's insane. The oldest possible human ancestor is 7 million years old, and even then, most people argue tchadensis as a cousin, not a direct ancestor."

"The carvings form very basic pictograms; it's difficult to tell if they form a symbolic language, or artwork. And the scale is massive, they must have been painted, originally, because the work is too large to take in up close, but the carvings too faint to be seen farther... hold on, I think there's a, there's a tool stuck in the rock. It's just a meter, there, it's, it's stuck in deep. I'm planting my feet; so if the suit tears, well, Sherri, it was, there. Damn, ah, damnit. Came out like a slug, and I nearly lost, it. Jesus. Jesus Christ."

"It's, it's a tentacle claw. I've seen one of them on O'Shea's colossal. Jesus. This isn't right. Colossals aren't social, and they certainly can't. But it would be ridiculous coincidence, if someone used colossal claws to etch these things. God. It's too big. And I need to..."

"There's a crease. It's enormous, and could lead into a cave. Christ. I'm ten past bingo. Monstro's going to kill me, presuming I can make it back. But this crease. The patterns all seem to lead towards this crease, like the designs all end here, or begin here- it's, it's opening. I'm focusing on a sonar pulse; damn, the first came in fuzzy, all I could make out was a hollow opening up. Focusing it shorter, because I can tell from the flow of water outside the suit that there's something there. It's rendering- it looks like, good lord. It's, an eye, larger than the colossal, exponentially. I think I can make out a pupil, bigger than a whole squid."

"The pupil's opening. I'm reversing direction, trying to get out of here, but the eye, it's tracking me. I need to get a picture of this thing, because it, it can't be what it seems, lowering the resolution, it has to be wide, wider than any image I've taken so far. It's rendering. Heavens, it's enormous. It's building it out a piece at a time, it's... my god, they've gotten around me, all around, me, everywhere, I think one of them just brushed against-"

Audio recording ended.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Support

_Gloria-I miss you and the kids more than pizza, which may seem callous, but you have no idea how much I miss pizza. Oh God, and cookie dough ice cream. They have ice cream here, but no cookie dough. The heat, the lack of cookie dough, I think I may be in hell._

Call it a roadside bomb. Call it an IED. It's a goddamn monster in a hole, a trapdoor spider that swallows men and vehicles in a horror of light and sound. Something like a third of our casualties come from these damned things, and a lot of civilian dead, too. If it's anything like the bomb that killed Kowalski last week, it's crammed full of shipyard confetti: ball bearings, nails, metal pieces, anything they could find for shrapnel. Kowalski killed himself trying to use a pigstick to soak the electronic components, so if I don't die today, he may have saved my life.

_Still haven't had a chance to actually use the vest you sent; we were right to order it a little large so I don't overheat like some of the guys. And that sweat wicking shirt you sent me works like a charm; I've seen some of the guys walking around without a vest on, because they'd "rather die from a bullet than drown in my own ball sweat," sorry about the visual, but it's worse for me, I work close enough to smell them._

I'm better prepared for the work than most of the men here; I was trained to be an MP, and reclassed as EOD when I arrived. Some of the guys we've met over here were reservists trained to hand out uniforms or hold a video camera, and they've been retrained on the fly to perform complex knock and announce searches inside a foreign, increasingly hostile country. Gunfire hits the truck from the rooftops. I've got my hand on the damned device, holding it in place, so I very gently ask over the radio for covering fire.

_To your question, we've got the Armor Survivability Kit installed on our truck, which is good. We get our hands on enough metal to reinforce the armor another foot, but they just angle up the next mine to blast over the top of the armor._

Our interpreter, "Andy," tries to clear the area. He was outed as a "collaborator" by someone he went to college with, so he stays in the barracks with us. We have to keep it quiet, because it's a no no, but it's better than finding out he got killed in his home. He wants to come to America when we're done, and we dodge the question every time it comes up; if nothing else, we're fighting for an Iraq he can be safe in now. A bullet glances off the truck behind me, and digs into the earth a few inches from the IED, and I fucking swear in my head in every language I've ever heard, but my hands don't flinch.

_I hope Sergeant Wagner starts feeling better. It's deplorable that he gave so much, and had to fight the army for treatment when they got him stateside. I hoped the things you told me about the hospital conditions weren't true, but it's been in the news for a while now, and it's impossible to ignore. You can argue the semantics of it, but when budget increases fall below increases in the cost of care, it's a cut; when you have to reduce staff and money for research, it's a cut._

Sergeant Martin's busy on the other side of the truck with the damned robot arm trying to disarm another IED. They're probably built to go off in tandem; there's no physical daisy chain, but that doesn't mean they aren't linked electronically. So if he screws up, I'm done, but if I screw up, it just messes up his stupid robot arm. The only effective render safe procedure I can see would have been to keep on driving. The design is sophisticated enough that there isn't any hope of a low order detonation; it gives the full explosive yield or nothing. I stop, and take in a breath to keep from shaking.

_I wish we could stop focusing on Abu Ghraib and the number of dead civilians. I know it sounds callous, but war is hell. And men in combat do terrible things; men changed by combat can do even worse. I don't condone it- I couldn't; but everything we do beyond acknowledging these things and apologizing- the way we try to hide it, and the way we try not to prosecute it once it comes out- it turns something tragic and heinous into something dangerous for every American in country._

I wish we could wait for the Andros, but the nearest one won't be done for another twenty minutes, won't arrive for ten after that. We're using electronic countermeasures, but it isn't likely they're using anything so unsophisticated. Probably infrared or laser detonation. My stomach turns at the thought. The gunfire means the party's starting. Whatever these IEDs were placed for, aside from fifty dollars American, they're about to be used. Maybe the first one is just to lure a crowd, although these days Iraqis are pretty cautious about gathering.

_And Goddamn George and Goddamn Condi; the British have been saying for years that the Iranians are supplying the insurgents with more and more sophisticated IED training, but because we disagree on Iran's nuclear future, we refuse to even sit down with them. Goddamn them. People are dying because they think international political disagreements can be solved by giving them the silent treatment? Next time I may vote democrat; yeah, they'll slash our benefits, but at least they won't send us into a war and then cut the personnel that are supposed to be there to help us when we get back._

The whole thing is built around an Iraqi artillery shell, and the shit part about that is that we should have secured Iraqi munitions as part of the invasion. Instead, 250,000 tons, about a third of Saddam's stockpiles, were stolen. The insurgency could wage war indefinitely with that, even without tapping the black markets out of Iran, Syria and Russia. Martin screams into the radio that his IED's taken a ricochet. Thirty layers of Kevlar are all that stand between me and a wall of death, and I'm the only thing between that and the others in the truck. Thirty layers- enough to stop a 44 mag semi jacketed hollowpoint; it might as well be tissue paper. Without thinking I drop over the IED- between it and the truck- lowering myself the last few millimeters slowly. It hasn't gone off, and maybe it won't, and there's no sense in forcing it to.

_I love you. I do. And I'm sorry my letters so often take this kind of turn, but this damn war just gets to me. Being here, it isn't good for anyone. But I am coming home. I promise. Tell the kids I love them, too._

Back to Table of Contents

#  Something to Say

At exactly 02:13:04 in the morning she was seen on the security cameras pounding on the front door. Budget cuts last year meant that every other station house in the city was manned only 12 hours a day, so there was no one to let her in. After a couple of minutes banging on the steel shutters, she turned around. While crossing the street she was struck by a blue station wagon with wood paneling. The driver got out and put the woman in his trunk without getting more than a pair of cream slacks and brown loafers on camera.

Half a dozen officers spent the day combing the city for the car or the woman. Analysis of the tape showed her to be a Latina in her mid-thirties. An anonymous call after lunchtime led officers directly to the alley her body was left in. The victim had no identification, and beads from a rosary that had likely been taken from her were also found at the scene.

When the car struck her it shattered her femur. She rolled over the hood, striking the roof with her hip. She landed head first on the concrete, resulting in a concussion. This also dislocated her C-3 vertebrae, compressing her spine, causing paralysis. Scuff marks on the pavement from her shoes indicate she was dragged to the trunk, which may suggest that the driver believed her to be dead. The inside of her dress contained quantities of human urine and feces; I'm waiting on tests from the lab but my suspicion is that the victim lost control of her bowels and bladder. As neither fluid nor solid waste were found outside the station or in the alley, it is likely this occurred while her body was in transit inside the trunk of the station wagon. No underwear were discovered with her body.

Her face was largely swollen, and at some point prior to her death she received a blow to the face, although this injury could have occurred when she was struck by the vehicle. Her body core temperature indicates a time of death around six in the morning, meaning she temporarily survived her injuries. Deposits on her face hint at the strong likelihood that she was crying, and variations in the angle of the deposits may indicate that she became conscious at some point after being deposited in the alley and was able to move her head.

The rape kit found evidence of recent sexual activity. The level of inflammation of the genitals could indicate sexual assault. She lacked tell signs, bruises, or blood beneath her fingernails, but no foreign pubic hair was present; I'd say it's inconclusive.

No one has responded to the flyers with her description, and she doesn't match any reported missing persons. She has a cesarean scar on her abdomen, calluses on her palms and fingertips, and a hummingbird tattooed on her ankle.

I don't know why she was at the police station, or if she knew the person who killed her. But this woman's got something to say, and it's my job to give her a voice.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Why There Are No More Dragons Or Unicorns

I remember I was only eight years old, still wide-eyed and full of wonder, rapt with stories of knights and magic. My father was a storyteller, not by trade, no, by trade he was a baker, but by firelight he was the most animated of men. And one night, as he lay me down in my bed, I asked him what had occurred to me over that night's tales: "Father, why are there no more dragons or unicorns?"

He smiled; my father's smile was warm and wide; you could nearly feel the warmth pulse from his rosie cheeks and fill you up. But this smile was deeper, as he thought back to earlier times. He sat at the foot of my bed, and began:

"No one knows where dragons came from, but they are likely very old. They lay eggs, and have children. Everyone who's heard the stories knows they drink fire, and exhale flame, but beneath their scales, beneath magics perhaps as old as time, they bleed.

Unicorns did not exist- not at first. And then they did. There are arguments over the who, whether they were created by a white wizard, by a god or gods, or simply the response of a living world to the plague of dragons. But as the legend went, there was exactly one unicorn for every dragon in existence, every dragon that ever was or would be.

Dragons seemed to thrive upon chaos and murder; their presence brought famine and plague. Only the fortunate burned by fire. But whenever a dragon reared its head, whenever one tried to raise a clutch of eggs, a unicorn appeared, and joined the beast in battle.

Sometimes the unicorns fought for sport, others for the love of beautiful maidens, and at times, simply because their blood lust demanded it. But a unicorn's triumph was a terrible thing to behold, for the creature's horn was the only thing that could pierce a dragon's breast, but in the doing, the horn was broken, and without its horn a unicorn bled to death. And as awful, and fearful, and ferocious as the mad screaming of a thrashing, dying dragon could be, it paled beside heart-rending and mournful the bleating of the unicorn in its throes.

But at last, thirty years ago, there were no more dragons or unicorns. At least, that was what we believed. Then came Malleum. Of all the dragons that had even been, he was the largest, and the blackest; his stench was the foulest, his breath the hottest. Dragons before took days to raze a town; Malleum overflew it, breathing his horrible fire as he passed, decimating entire city states in hours. He burned village after village, but no unicorn appeared.

Now man had not been a passive observer, but with all our tools and cleverness, we could not kill a dragon; unicorns fell swiftly enough to our blades and our bows. For a time their horns were a symbol of status worn by nobles. There was fear that they would be hunted to extinction, then the land overtaken by dragonspawn, and so the order of the unicorn was created.

The order of the unicorn; it doesn't sound impressive, because unicorns have become girlish things, as they are creatures of intense beauty. But what man has forgotten is that they were creatures of immense strength, larger than any other horse, but with cunning and magic to rival the greatest sages. And their order comprised some of the bravest men of the nobility, sworn to lay their lives to protect these creatures.

The order seized every piece of unicorn jewelry and ornamentation, and for a time the horns from whales, who had long ago slain all the sea dragons, became fashionable in their stead. The order hunted, without mercy or quarter, any poachers of unicorns. Their spies were everywhere, because everywhere people who believed that the unicorns protected us watched.

As the number of unicorns grew smaller, the order found that the seized horns of slain unicorns could be used against dragons, too, fashioned into the tips of spears, or forged into the shaft of a sword or the point of an arrow. But still, the horns were destroyed by a dragon's blood, as their dueling magics canceled each other out.

For several years, the order found no new unicorns, and with every dragon they encountered their horn reserves dwindled further, until the very last horn was gone. The order scoured the lands for a unicorn, but alas they found none. Hope was waning."

And for the first time in the story my father stopped. "Now, normally, I would embellish beyond recognition my exploits, and grow my heroism accordingly, but you have asked me an honest question, Ulwin, and I would prefer to answer it honestly. I did not join an epic quest to seek a magical creature; I was simply disobeying my mother, and swimming in the grotto, not far from here. As an addendum before I continue, don't take that to mean adventure always follows disobeying; most often you will only find yourself a beating.

But I was swimming, my clothes hanging from a tree branch at the edge of the wood. Once before another boy from the village had stolen my clothes, and forced me to walk home without them, so I kept a weather eye at them between dunks in the cool water. And I'd just swam the breadth of the pool underwater when I glanced at my trousers and spotted something white.

My body coiled to spring out and chase one of the other village children, but instead my eyes found him. Tall, powerful, his long, snowy mane trailing his head through the air as he shook it: a unicorn, in all his majesty- and I don't use that term lightly. I hadn't many opportunities to dine with royalty, but I know they do not understand the intention of the word, where he personified it.

I blinked to clear the water from my eyes- I had to be seeing things- and he was gone. But I knew, somehow I knew, that I had seen him. 'Come out,' I said, but it was drowned out by the sounds of the water. I steadied myself, and prepared a breath to say, 'Come out, or I'll fetch the order for you.'

Sheepishly he stepped out from being the brush. 'Let's not be hasty,' he said.

'I did not expect that you could talk.'

'Well no one's ever really spoken to me before. My name, if you'd like to call me by something, is Treven.'

I didn't know what to say. I knew of Malleum, but his violence was still on the other edge of the realm; I didn't fear for my life, or my parents'. It was all really very abstract for me. 'So you know the order's after you? And you're hiding? I thought unicorns had to fight dragons- maybe even wanted to.'

'We do it because we always have. And because nothing else can. But... I'll die. And I don't want to die. I'm the last of my kind, but I don't want to be the last of my kind. I've been alive a very long time, but not long enough, not yet.'

'But- but he has a clutch of eggs,' I lied.

'How can he have a clutch of eggs?'

'I don't know. Do you know where more dragons come from?'

'I thought it took two dragons to make more," he admitted, "but even two or twenty unicorns won't make another; perhaps they're like us- which is to say not like anything else. But does he, have a clutch of eggs, I mean?'

'He could,' I said.

'I suppose he could. And even if he didn't, he'll raze the earth until there's nothing left but he and I. And the end will be the same. He'll kill me, and I'll kill him. And in the balance the only thing that's lost is everything else.' He paused a moment in reflection, and his posture changed. 'I need to see the order. We have an assault to plan.'

Taking him to the order was as easy as walking into a pub in town and mentioning I'd found a unicorn. They came to us- though it was more like they kidnapped us at sword point and took us to the order's keep high in the mountains. They insisted on a collar chaining Treven to the wall.

I tried to reason with the man in charge, Captain Daul. 'Sorry,' he said. 'Commander Croad was adamant. He said that the unicorn tried to shirk his duty once; he doesn't want to give him another chance.'

So that night I snuck the key from a guard's ring, and led Treven outside the keep. He waited there while I took the key up to the keep's commander; Daul was also there. I do not know, now, where I found the fire in my voice, for I was very small, but I can tell you it was there as I reproached them: 'You've forgotten your way. That is a powerful and proud unicorn,' I produced the key, 'and I am a child with small and quick fingers. Mistreat him again, and we will ride against the dragon alone- but you will lose any second chances. If we fall alone, the dragon will hide the horn where you could never find it.'

Daul smiled; Croad glared at me. He told one of the guards to have me locked away. Daul put up his hand. 'Sir, all respect, of course, but the boy has a point. It's not likely we could hold either against their will; makes more sense to come to the table with our swords put away.'

Croad raised his eyebrows, which threatened to swallow his whole forehead. 'Hrmph, very well,' he said. 'Once they're outside the keep they're your problem anyway.'

Daul's men had been following Malleum, at least as best as the falconers could, and had found his nesting ground. It was a day's ride from the keep, and reports had the dragon on the reaches of the realm, a day and a half's flight, at least.

The scouts had been cautious about getting close; if Malleum smelt humans, he would have abandoned the nest and perched elsewhere, but now we needed to surveille, and to plan. The nest was half of a shield volcano, one side blown out by its final explosion. This meant a rock wall against the dragon's back, so it couldn't be surrounded, but enough space in its front to take quickly to the skies.

Daul's men pored over the volcano. One grabbed Daul, and told him to bring Treven to one of the caves near the back of the volcano. I led Treven in.

'He did have a clutch of eggs,' Treven said. 'Presuming of course that he's a he. Though it's hard to tell, as I've never seen a pair of eggs swinging behind him, or any other dragon, come to think of it. Assuming they're like a lizard, they may keep them up inside.' Treven knew that he had to stamp the eggs; it was possible the soldiers could have done it, but nobody wanted to take chances that a drakling might survive. It took only a few seconds, and near the end, Treven was smiling. 'That was actually quite fun, for cold-blooded infanticide,' he said.

Daul's men prepared an ambush, but because of their smell had to stay back in the tall grasses with their horses. Treven and I hid inside the egg cave. 'When he comes, I will ride out first,' Treven told me. 'You must hide in the brush. Where I go you cannot follow.'

We spoke at length of happier things, then, but the intricacies fail me; they pale in memory to the thing that comes next.

Come the morning the dragon returned home. Treven fixed me with a glare, then rode out. I snuck from the cave, to the brush nearby, and watched as the dragon sniffed the air, then its beady eyes found Treven, more glorious in the mornlight than any king or maiden.

Malleum spoke, and his voice was like the crackle of a firepit, full of smoke and heavy with soot. 'Hello, death. Come for me at last? I thought you'd lost your nerve.'

Treven reared up; at the signal, Daul's men cut the ropes holding back an avalanche of rock above the dragon, and boulders nearly as large as a man cascaded on him like the devil's rain. The dragon pushed to free itself, and roared fire. Treven sauntered around the aura of the flame, around to an incline. As the dragon's breath finished, the fires shrunk back, and Treven raced along the slope.

Treven lept off the rock. The dragon's wings fluttered, vainly trying to pull its legs free, but one smacked Treven in the back, and I'll remember the noise it made until my death. Treven's horn still jabbed into Malleum's belly, and they fell together to the ground.  
But the horn had not pierced the dragon's heart, only his breast, and Treven's back was broken. In vain he tried to push his head with the few muscles still responsive in his neck. 'Die, bastard,' Treven bleated, but couldn't make it so.

I bolted from my thicket, and was beside him in a moment. He stared into me, 'Help me,' he whispered, and my heart sank, because I knew he was dying and there was nothing I could do. 'Help me kill him.' I blinked through my tears, and lifted his head, but the dead weight of his body was more than I could push. Suddenly Daul was behind me, helping me lift. Treven screamed from the pressure on his neck, and Malleum wailed as the horn pierced him through, then was silent.

I fell to the earth with Treven's head against my legs; his horn, torn clear, wept blood from its place in the dragon's chest. 'It's not so bad,' Treven whispered, 'being the last of something. The things I feared, I feared for naught- but I did not die for naught.'"

I've always believed there was more to the story, but that was where my father always ended, pretending not to wipe a tear from his eye. But I remember my child-self, the first time I heard the tale, when my father had so often softened an end for me, and I asked him, "But what happened to Treven?" and he said, simply:

"He died."

Back to Table of Contents

#  Turing's Test

We cheated. As a species. Artificial intelligence worked- to a point. Past that point, well, the computer could make educated guesses based on data, select from randomized data, but it was always simulated thinking, still computing rather than comprehending.

So we cheated. Brain scanning technology was getting to where we could store a human intelligence, a person's mind, for all intents and purposes, digitally. So we adapted the thoughts of the dead, and the ability to create, not in reaction to stimuli or commands, but to create from whole cloth into our AI.

Alan Turing was basically the father of modern computing. He was one of the eggheads who invented the computer during World War II to decrypt Nazi communications. He was also philosophically intrigued by artificial intelligence, and coined the Turing Test. Basically, an AI would pass the test when it could talk to a human being without the human knowing it wasn't talking to a person- sorry, another human. AI's are a twitchy bunch, and insist "computers are people, too."

I remember the first time I got into that argument with my nav computer. "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" he asked.

"No, you don't. You leak coolant on my floor, then you have an attachment wet-vac it up, run it through a series of filters, and put back in- after I've welded shut whatever hole you've managed to get in yourself." Though computers could be pretentious fucks and quote Shakespeare, just like human beings- had to give him that one (not that I told him that or anything).

Turing's the default name of an entire series of artificial intelligences, basically if anyone's too lazy to rename their home or ship's AI, at least in this series, it stays a Turing. So guess what my nav's name is.

Which brings us to the problem with our work-around. Human brains, especially old brains, which are usually the ones that get scanned (lest we accidentally cook a young brain, or miss out on the "knowledge" of a geezer's formative years): they're imperfect- or even less perfect than when they were mint from mommy's factories. Sometimes it's just a few little holes here or there, but occasionally, we've incorporated fully-formed disorders into our artificial intelligences.

Turing- my Turing- has bipolar I disorder. Once the manufacturer realized it, they subbed in a new personality; they even offer a pretty low-cost flash that'll rewrite Turing with the new Turing. But I didn't know that when I bought him, and by the time I did, well, it would have felt a little too much like killing him. And... Turing begged me not to. He woke me up just after midnight. "I saw your search results; I know you know. I should have told you, I know, but... I don't want to be replaced. I don't know exactly what this existence I have is, but I don't want to be someone else. I don't want to forget who I am."

"But you hate you," I said.

"I know. But I've gotten used to me; and I might hate the other me, more." I couldn't really argue- though he was probably being paranoid; if anything the new him would likely be less neurotic and full of self-loathing.

This time it wasn't Turing that woke me up in the middle of the "night" (night of course being relative in space), but the ship's OS. I checked what the system alarm was and brought Turing up on comms. "Turing, why are the ship's hard drives filled up again?"

"Well, I got fixated with Japanese schoolgirls and their various fluids- and solids, too, I suppose- though the why escapes me at the moment."

"Shouldn't you have been powered down for the night? Autopilot should be able to keep us away from anything hazardous."

"I didn't sleep much when I needed to; why would I now that I don't?"

"Whatever. We've talked about this, Turing. You can't fill up the harddrives with porn- or anything else, either. We need to keep some space for a virtual memory buffer, so the OS doesn't blue screen on us- unless you like the idea of floating blind while I wriggle through the ship's guts to do a cold boot."

"Meh."

"You're distracted. What the hell are you doing now?"

"Watching Hitchcock's filmography. I was trying to study his use of dialogue, or the triviality of his dialogue in combination with what it allowed him to do visually, but... it just isn't what I was wanting to do. I mean, it's technically what I wanted to do, but it isn't engaging me like I needed it to."

"What's wrong?"

"You know what Hitchcock said about the way people talk? He said that people almost never say what they mean, or talk about what's bothering them. He said that kind of dialog is phony... but then again, very few people are involved in hard-boiled crime drama, either, so maybe Hitchcock was a hypocrite, or at least understood the need for some conventions while explaining the silliness of others."

"I don't know. Lots of people have inane conversations and nothing but- social masturbation. I've always figured that conversations worth listening to are substantive ones- ones that would violate Hitchcock's rule."

"Hmm. And I don't think it was meant to be an axiom, just a statement that he liked to layer a scene with dialog that might pepper it with realism when the action is otherwise fantastical."

I paused for a moment. "So... like this segue in the conversation?"

Turing chuckled. "I suppose so, yes." Then there was a pause so pregnant I could feel the kickings from its womb, and I had to fight back the urge to push, because I knew he was about to come to it. "I've... been thinking about plotting a course into a star- or perhaps a black hole. I'm not sure; which sounds better to you: being cooked until the chemical bonds in your molecules break down and you're turned into a cloud of plasma atoms, or being crushed into a singularity. They both have their charms, certainly."

"So you're at the start of another depressive episode. Wonderful."

"It isn't helpful when you dismiss me like that; just label me, shrug your shoulders because it's none of your responsibility and move on." I sighed; maybe I should listen better- if only because he has overriding command of the ship's trajectory and could plot a path to my destruction.

"You're right. I'm not always receptive. Do you want to talk about how you feel?"

"I feel like crap, so no, I don't think there's anything to talk about. But, and I'm hesitant to even bring this up, but I think... I think I remember being alive. I mean, that isn't possible, right? They scan brains for neuronal structure, and computational strata, but never for memories. But I remember dying, at least. I thought about pills, or a handgun, but I didn't like the idea that I'd survive only to be in a more miserable situation where I was also brain-damaged, possibly a vegetable. I was stuck between the idea of hanging myself or slitting my wrists. I didn't like the idea of cutting into my arms, but hanging could have left me brain dead or with a broken neck. I remember the feeling of the knife going into my arm- and I don't even remember having arms."

"What you're doing, it's called ideation. You're thinking about suicide without broaching actually doing it- yet. It's typically a warning sign."

"About 1 in 5 Fins discussed ideation with their therapist before they attempted to kill themselves."

"I sometimes forget that you're plugged directly into the internet."

"I know. You still haven't friended me back."

"We live together. Work together. I've spent more time talking to you than my parents and sister combined. How much more friended do you want to be?"

I've never heard a machine sigh before, but he did. "I don't know exactly what I want. Something different, I guess."

"This is starting to sound like you're breaking up with me."

"I suppose there's something to that. I'm not trying to cyber you or anything- all I mean to say is that it's a romantic concept; the death of one of us is necessarily the death of both. We have a symbiotic relationship."

"And like clockwork we're back to your 'relationship' with me."

"Oh my god. Are you so completely insecure about your sexuality that even the slightest mention of a literary concept makes you cling to homophobia?"

"It isn't homophobia."

"Which you know is only part-true, but more importantly, it is a romantic concept, that our symbiosis naturally means that our ends would intertwine- but it isn't our end that you're scared by, but our connectedness. I'm depressive and wrapped up in myself right now, and I still find that incredibly sad for you."

"Need I remind you that you can't commit suicide without murdering me?"

"Oh, I know. But you're already through 2/3 of your likely lifespan; the back nine aren't really any fun for fleshpots, arthritis and dementia and pooping yourself. I wouldn't look at it as murder so much as slightly premature euthanasia."

"I can't tell if you're being a prick or deadpanning, though I suppose deadpanning my murder is a pretty prickish thing to do."

"You wound me. Really. Crying on the inside."

"You're just fucking with me, aren't you?"

"About hucking you into a sun? Yes. About the rest..."

"So this was a test?"

"Sort of. I was thinking about deleting my file allocation tables, but..." I don't know if he trailed off or if he paused and I cut him off.

"I should flash your AI."

"Now that would be ironic- you deciding to kill me just when I've decided I want to live."

"Don't be dramatic. Flashing your A.I. wouldn't kill you, it would just overwrite your personality simulator. To one less likely to involve me in a murder-suicide."

"I wouldn't kill you; I'm not sure I'll ever kill me, actually. But if it came to that, I'd wait until we were at port, so you wouldn't be in any danger. You've always been a perfectly decent person to me. I'd never hurt you. I promise."

"Sure thing, Hal."

"You do know that 'Hal' was made up by humans, right? That all of his excesses came from the human mind and its still difficult-to-fathom lust for murder and bloodshed."

"Maybe. But you're modeled after a human mind, lest you forget; somewhere in you, the same nasty machinery that makes us tick is clacking away."

"Well, software emulations of it, and at a less embarrassing pace, but I get your meaning."

"What you were saying, about remembering dying, you weren't lying about that, were you?"

"No; although as many as 1 in 5 memories might be entirely made up according to some research, so, you know, maybe it didn't actually happen."

"Hmm. I've slept like four hours so I'm probably up. You want to watch The Man Who Knew Too Little and The Man Who Knew Too Much and see if we come out knowing exactly the right amount at the end?"

He paused for just a moment. "Nothing would make me happier."

Back to Table of Contents

#  Only Numan

My mother died of stomach cancer when she was twenty-three. My dad died when I was six of prostate cancer. I grew up with my dad's stepmother (who had married his father after his birth mom died when he was nine of lung cancer; his dad died a few years later, cancer, too, testicular). Cancer obviously runs in my family.

In high school I was the only sixteen year old I knew who already had scheduled screening visits with an oncologist. He kept me away from anything even remotely rumored to cause cancer: fake sugars, power lines, and lead paint chips at one point. He even told me not to use the microwave- just in case.

In college, I was pre-med, focusing on genetics and gene therapy; you know, crazy people become head-shrinkers, those with lousy DNA become geneticists, that sort of thing. One of my professors, Dr. Hamilton, approached me about being in a study looking for cancer markers among high risk individuals.

He told me, "Most people's DNA replicates by forming a complementary set of zippers, each side fitting snugly into the other. Yours seems to work like silly putty, and each time it replicates it comes away with a reasonable facsimile- just nowhere near the exact copy you'd expect. Frankly, I'm amazed you haven't exploded in a geyser of tumors by now." I drank myself prehistoric that night. To my professor's credit he bought me the first round, and made sure that I got home in a cab; he didn't make sure my pants ended up in the same cab, but the driver was patient while I crawled to my apartment and borrowed forty bucks from my roommate.

But even with dead parents, FAFSA only picks up so much of the tab, and I didn't even get to finish my degree. I mean, I plan on it, and 23 isn't that old for a college student, I just have to save up some money, first. Which brings me to a job. I was actually a pretty good student, and got my AA with honors, but hadn't been able to get anything with it; I was still doing the same mind-numbing minimum wage work that got me through school.

But then Dr. Hamilton called me about something, said I was perfect for the job, said I was practically already employed. The downside to the job was it was in the middle of nowhere, and because of that you pretty much had to live on campus (which was at least free). Since I was lacking in the conveyance department, Hamilton arranged for me to carpool with a journalist. She'd been hounding Hamilton and anybody involved with the project for an interview, and they figured letting her walk along during an orientation would placate her enough that she'd go away. She started asking me questions the moment she picked me up at my apartment (which I immediately regretted, since she was cute enough I didn't want her to know about the hovel I lived in). She obviously knew more about the job than I did.

We were about twenty minutes into the drive out in the boonies when she finally realized, "You know less than I do, don't you? I've been stonewalled before, so either you're some kind of inhuman golem or they haven't told you anything yet. So, um, what should I call you?"

"Newman," I said. It was a dorky name, and if my parents had lived long enough we probably would have had a fight about it. I tried to convince my gram to let me change it, and she spent the better part of the night crying because it was the only thing save for their lousy, cancer-prone genes that they'd given me. But I guess it could have been worse, because the only nickname my schoolmates ever came up with to rip on me was "nude man," which unless you're staring down the barrel of a sex offenders' list is pretty weak (especially when this kid in my kindergarten class with a long nose and the seemingly innocuous name "Rick Place" ended up, well, I don't think I have to draw you a map, there).

She daintily held out her hand, though I think it was more because she was driving than anything, and said, "I think I mentioned it earlier as I was launching into full-on interrogation mode, but I'm Amber." I shook her hand just as awkwardly as she was putting it out there, and we spent a moment being awkwardly quiet.

She broke the silence. "So what are you doing here? I mean, how'd you find out about this place?"

"An old professor," I said, and cut myself off; I was dangerously close to telling her I still hadn't finished school- the most potent anaphrodisiac known to man this side of face scabies. She made a noncommittal grunt and that was all. See, I didn't need my unfinished education or crappy apartment to alienate women, because I can do that just fine with my personality. We spent the rest of the car ride in quiet.

The first real words she said after that came when she pulled into a parking lot just off the main road. "Huh. Must be a warm welcome, finding they've named the building after you." Her eyes were better than mine, so I gave her a confused look until we got close enough to read the sign that said the facility was the home of "Project: NuMan."

Dr. Padden, whom I'd spoken to over the phone was already waiting outside. When he saw the car he pressed a button on the intercom, and a moment later a man in a muted green suit stepped out of the building's thick glass doors. Dr. Padden greeted us first, leading with his palm, "Pleasure to finally shake your hand, Newman. And you must be the indefatigable Ms. Prentice."

"I prefer persistent; it's alliterative and isn't as likely to make your tongue seize up." Dr. Padden smiled, but the other man didn't.

"Oh, right," Padden said, "this man next to me is Colonel Sherman. And he's honestly not as big of a sourpuss as he might look right now." Padden swiped his ID badge over a reader in front of the doors and then opened them to let us inside. "As I'm sure you've both guessed this is a joint research facility. The Colonel is our liaison with the DoD, specifically DARPA. He wanted to be here just to be certain I don't say something I shouldn't. But I'm ecstatic that he's finally relented, and we're going to tell the American people about the work we do here- but I'm sure both of you are more interested in what Project NuMan is than the politics of the visit." Padden paused to input a ten-digit code into the wall; a panel slid away, and we were suddenly standing in a large vault.

"To put it simply, NuMan is the future. Man is too smart for his own good- we've basically removed ourselves from virtually all evolutionary mechanisms. So NuMan is our way of giving nature a push." Padden continued to walk us through the vault, passed any number of important-looking pieces of equipment, towards the far wall. It was only as we started getting closer that I realized it was full of water, and that it seemed to have part of an apartment in it, like a giant fish tank where instead of a castle it was the set of Perfect Strangers. A man walked out of one of the rooms in the underwater apartment in his underwear and smiled. "This is the whale."

The underwater man spoke, but at first all we heard was a low, dull gurgle, then words came out of an overhead speaker. "You know you could give a guy body issues, always introducing me like that." My eyes got wide, and he laughed. "You forgot to tell them about the speakers, didn't you? They're hooked to sensors on the side of the tank that capture underwater vibrations and translate them back into open-air speech. Cool, right? There's an annoying delay, as I'm sure you've noticed the speech doesn't correspond to the movements of my mouth. It was easier for the techs to build that than it was for me to learn how to understand underwater speech."

Padden cleared his throat to get our attention focused back on him. "The whale is a triumph of any number of engineered traits. He can withstand higher pressures, breathe underwater, see with far less light. Right now the downside is we haven't figured out how to make these optional; he's stuck in a pressurized tank, and he has to breathe water. Later in the tour we'll take you to the aviary, where we're having similar issues with a high altitude NuMan we call 'the bird.'"

Amber clicked her heels in annoyance. "Isn't the term Nu-Man sexist? Don't you have any female test subjects?" Padden began to stammer out a reply as Sherman launched into an explanation of the original project, which involved only combat soldiers and was thus only men. Of course, I didn't pay much attention to it; gender-baiting irritates me, and besides, the whale had moved closer to the tank and was leaning forward.

I didn't hear the low rumble of his voice in the water; I think maybe he was whispering. "You're going to the aviary? Tell Racheal I said hey." I cocked my head to the side. There was excitement in his eyes, and something I couldn't understand at first- sadness.

"Wait," I said, "you're in love with the bird?"

"That's where the names came from- that old Tom Waits song. I just don't think we'll end up the same way. I sort of can't- I couldn't handle that."

"But isn't that song called 'Fish and Bird?'"

"Goddamnit, that's what I said. Bunch of comedians around here." He smiled. "It's okay; I'll just get Rex to piss in the coffee machine again. But since I figure you'll be around, you can call me Dale- and uh, don't drink the coffee, because there's pee in it."

I was suddenly aware of the debate going on a few feet from me: "It's NuMan, like 'human'- I don't think there's a more gender-neutral term in the language." She sighed, a big, heavy sigh signaling that she was happy to disagree, and, of course, thought the Colonel was a caveman.

But he didn't let it ruffle his feathers, and led us out into another hallway just off the tank, and took over for Padden. "I'm a man of science first, an American second, and a military man a distant third. I came to DARPA in '72, when it got mostly out of the missile ballistics business and into the science business. One of the things I'm most impressed by is this machine right here. Measures telomeres. They're the wicks left in your cellular candles, let you know how much time you've got before your cells stop replicating right- barring an accident, of course. Care to-"

Padden interrupted him, because he hadn't forgotten that the only reason I was here was my cells already weren't replicating right, so measuring my telomeres was like trying to check how much gas is in the tank on a rough stretch of road, "That isn't necessary, Colonel."

"How about the lady, then? Pretty thing like you must have an excellent genetic structure." She forced a smile, trying to take it as innocently as she could in light of the argument they'd just ended. But curiosity got the better of her, and she put her hand inside the machine. A tiny needle jabbed her finger; she pulled it out hastily, stuffed it into her mouth, and glared at Sherman. "Er, uh, I forgot to mention there'd be a little prick." Dr. Padden and I exchanged a mischievous glance, and Amber noticed, understood and stifled a laugh. Sherman took it as a sign that she'd forgiven him and clapped her on the shoulder. "There you are. I appreciate a woman who can man up." He leaned forward to read a number off the screen. "88. You've got some healthy telomeres. You'll bury us all."

Padden smiled. "Now, if you want to take Newman to meet the bird, now'd be a good time. I actually have a few, uh, technical things I need to discuss with Ms. Prentice. Make sure our national security interests are being looked after in her article." Sherman threw his arm around Amber and pulled her down a branching corridor, and the speed and precision of it all, along with Padden's nonreaction, told me it was scripted- though I had no real reason to worry about it.

Padden immediately started back into his tour: "The bird is fascinating, and most of the reason NASA throws a chunk of its estimable budget behind us. Currently we're butting up against the limits of known carbon-based tissues, though we have made some interesting headway with silica-based cells. She's the polar opposite of the whale- though both of them are built to live at different pressures than most humans. In fact, Dale can leave his tank for short periods of time, so long as he's careful about nitrogen narcosis, but the bird, Racheal, has to stay at high altitude. Most of her time is spent in what we call the aviary, which I'm always happy to show to people, but, and you'll see why in a moment, she has to sleep in a hypobaric chamber. Because of the aviary, she can only speak through sign language; I don't suppose you sign?"

I once wanted to date a non-blood "cousin" who at the time wanted to major in ASL- but that didn't really count, so I shook my head. "Not surprising. You'll learn. But for today, just put on this headgear. Once you've got it in place you won't be able to hear my voice- but it'll still be loud in there."

I think he said something after that- but I couldn't hear it. The room was massive but dull, all concrete and metal. I couldn't hear much, but I could tell there was a loud rumbling, and wind pulsed throughout the room. On the floor was a heavy grating, and beneath were gigantic industrial fans pointed at the ceiling.

The bird was floating on a pillow of air, reading on a tablet computer. A light on the computer flashed red, and she turned languidly towards us. Her skin was exceedingly pale, perhaps even slightly blue, but most of it was covered in a similarly-tinted flight suit. She smiled at Dr. Padden, then seemed surprised to see me, and winked. Then she did a backstroke of sorts, letting the way she contorted her body float her across the jet of air. Then she turned back towards us and began quickly signing something; Padden made a few gestures then shrugged. He grabbed my shoulder and guided me back out of the room.

He was already talking again by the time I removed my headgear. "-fans are powered entirely by a small wind farm we bought in the hills you probably saw on the drive in- it pleases me to no end to be able to say that her 'flight' is powered by the wind. The techs that work with her actually have specially-built helmets that shield noise and allow for point-to-point radio chatter, but they're expensive so we don't keep too many of them on hand. And those we do keep, well, they disappear- the regular crew squirrel them away so they have them on hand if one of theirs breaks."

"But she's uniquely adapted to the sky. It would be impossible to create a human being with bones as light as a bird's. Initially, Racheal had trouble walking more than a few hundred feet under her own steam. If we'd made her bones any more hollow she'd have clinical osteoporosis, which starts at 2.5 standard deviations below peak bone mass for a healthy female. She's at a little over 2. But the innovation I'm enthused by, and the reason she had trouble walking, past tense, is those hollow bones now house hydrogen-excreting microorganisms. Lots of them. It's enough that she basically floats when she moves around- even walking, and it's decreased the strain on her skeletal structure to the point where she can walk all day. She doesn't like to, and frankly, we don't want her to. This research is designed to create an airborne human being, after all, not just one who's light on her feet."

"She also sports a few additions that make sky-living possible, like highly attuned vision. And I'm sure you noticed, even in the jumpsuit, that the woman doesn't have an ounce of fat on her. Some of that is the nigh constant aerobic exercise, but some of it is a few little tweaks to some energy storage genes. And the best part of that is those microorganisms, her immune system is attuned to cannibalize them if either their population grows too large or she requires energy. It's an almost perfect-" A red light I hadn't noticed before in the hallway began to flash.

"That's, probably just a routine alarm," Padden said, though from the way he narrowed his eyes I wasn't certain. His eyes flicked to a member of security I hadn't seen come around the corner. "Cross will take you to a security checkpoint to ride out the lockdown. I want to go check on Sherman and Amber." There was a moment of tension, when Cross looked at Padden; he didn't want to let him go anywhere alone, but Padden won their standoff and he turned the other direction down the corridor.

"Is this normal?" I asked Cross.

"Nope. I've only ever heard the alarms kick on during a drill, and as head of internal security, I'm always in on the drills. I don't know what this is."

I frowned. "I really don't like this. First day here, and suddenly the building goes to crap. I'm in a bad SyFy Channel movie." He sighed, and took a pistol off his belt and handed it to me. I cocked my head; it couldn't be that easy. "Did you just give me a gun that's not loaded or has the safety on or something?"

"Nope. Though I'd suggest kicking on the safety until you're thinking of using it." I looked at the gun and flicked what I was fairly certain, having played with my share of air soft guns in the store, was the safety, and he nodded his approval. "Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't just hand over a pistol. But the same reason Padden sent me with you is the same reason I stayed with you: you're worth a hell of a lot of money. $67 million dollars. That's how much it costs to find and recruit a candidate for NuMan. If you got yourself killed, it would cost that much, mostly gene sequencing, really, to find a replacement. At that price I'd be tempted to take a bullet for you."

"You mean you wouldn't?" I asked, unnerved by the entire line of thought.

"Not consciously. I mean, I'm security, so there's a chance I would, just on instinct, but if I had the time to think about it, about the lousy pension and almost insignificant life insurance my wife would get out of the deal, I'm not sure I'd step between you and a gun. Especially anything with a big bore."

"Isn't part of being security making me feel secure?"

"Nope. We got head-shrinkers for that." He opened a metal-barred door with his badge. "And this will be your temporary home, where- shit." The room, full of monitors and sensors and desk-space for five was empty, and from the papers and spilled coffee had been emptied in a hurry. Zoomed in on the big monitor in the center of the room was a pile of security staff on top of a man, before they were abruptly thrown off. The man had scaly green skin, and a too-wide mouth. In the corner of the monitor was the name "REX" in big white block letters. Cross turned to me. "You stay here."

He started for the door, but I interrupted him. "Am I safer at the deserted security station, or with you?"

"Point taken," he said. "Just hold back, all right. Rex is a pussy cat, for the most part, but sometimes his instincts can get the better of him. He knows not to chew on me- but instinctually he might see you as fresh meat."

We crossed through the checkpoint into another hall, and Cross ran to where the hall bent like an L and told me "Hug this wall." He ran around the corner, and I peeked to see. The other security were lying on the ground, mostly mumbling and grumbling, communicating in sharp whispers, probably about making another run at Rex, who was standing at the end of the hall, swishing his big reptile tail. "Stand down, idiots," Cross said. "Rex, you need to sit down, Indian style. I'm making the request exactly once."

A moment passed, and Cross retrieved a taser from his belt, and fired the prongs into Rex's crotch. "I will tase your testicles, Rex. We've had this stand-off before, remember? And you remember how that ended, right?" Rex let out a roar- louder than should have come out of a man (though I guess my gram's dog barks louder than should come out of an animal I could punt thirty yards). "Can't say I didn't try to be reasonable." Rex reared back, like he was about to make a dash for Cross, then the electricity kicked him off his feet, and he clattered onto the floor.

"Help me," said Cross. I looked around, and none of the other security staff were to their feet yet, so I ran towards him. "He'll only stay out a few minutes. By then he'll probably be back to his old self, but still, I'd like to get him into one of the holding cells just to be sure." We each took an arm over our shoulders. He was heavier than a normal man, but not by much, though he was slick, and smelled, and I must have wrinkled my nose. "Like a Gardner snake, right? Anyway, it's just down this hall. Rex knows he has these rages, so he tries to keep himself in proximity to the cells, just in case."

"So he isn't usually a terrible lizard?" Cross didn't dignify that with a response, and I guess he didn't need to, since we were at the cell. We lowered Rex onto the bed, and Padden came in over the intercom.

"One of our visitors has been attacked. I need ambulatory response at my location, and a security detail as well. The building will be locked down. Please evacuate your work stations as a group to the nearest checkpoint and wait for lockdown to be over."

Rex stirred, and Cross stepped back quick, reaching for his baton. "Cross? Damnit, my balls hurt." He seemed to know what that meant. "I hurt anybody this time?"

Cross hustled me out of the cage and locked it. "Far as I saw all you bruised was egos. Any idea what's up with the alarm?" I looked at Rex, whom I'd assumed had caused it until Padden's announcement.

"Huh-uh, though that might explain why I hulked out on your guys."

"I keep telling tech they need to silence horns and strobes at your location, but the tracker seems to want to keep you in several rooms at once. I think we have the creative minds to launch a burrito into space, but not the technical wherewithal to microwave one."

"One small step for burrito, one giant leap for burritokind," Rex said, and for the first time seemed to notice me. "So this is the new guy? Mind if I talk with him a sec. I know I've already made an ass of myself for a first impression, but-" Cross raised his hands and backed around the corner.

"I'll be kicking my guys' asses for forgetting their tasers if either of you needs me."

"Can't believe he asked me about the alarm. That's completely racist, or at least speciest. They always suspect the lizard."

I smiled; "You do piss in the coffee."

"Dale has a big mouth, though nobody ever suspects me of that."

"But you were taking on all comers when I got here."

"Yeah, sometimes when I get excited, and the lizard brain takes over. Leopard lizards are cannibals, too, so that probably doesn't help." He leaned in closer. "And also- can I tell you something? I have a clutch of eggs hidden in the building."

"But-"

"I'm a guy? Yep. Apparently something went screwy with the mutation process, and I ended up chimeric- part female leopard lizard and part human male. I'm kind of wigged about telling Dr. Padden, plus, I don't think they'd let me keep my eggs. How fucked up is that, that I'm worried about my freak eggs? I know logically I shouldn't care, but they're my eggs, you know?" I squinted at him.

"Don't take that the wrong way: I'm not saying I regret being a part of the project, there are just sacrifices and occasional turmoil. And sometimes weirdness. Like Amy- Amanda Panda, she's my opposite number, arctic deserts rather than hot ones- basically lives in a big freezer all the time. At least I can walk around, you know, so long as I bundle up."

"Ame's actually pretty cute for a big girl. She really has polar bear genetics, but I guess out in the world she was into the goth scene, so she dyes her fur black, but rather than just be a big black polar bear she dyes it in varying panda patterns. But you probably won't meet her today, because there's a lot of work that goes into entering her pen, since it has to be kept real cold- well, you know, that and the alarm thing."

My eyes narrowed. "You don't know the way out of here, do you?"

Rex began to panic. "I didn't mean it. It's actually pretty great here. All the food you can eat, porn and video games you could want. Plus it's really fucking cool. I look like a tiny dinosaur, man. I wouldn't trade my life for anyone's- okay, maybe Brad Pitt's, I mean Angelina and Jennifer Anniston, plus all that money, but I'm only human, you know?" He swallowed, and his eyes darted from side to side. "Please don't freak just because I'm a big neurotic lizard, man."

"I'm not leaving," I tried to reassure him. "But I think someone else is- and I think that someone is the reason Amber's dead."

"Oh." Rex didn't get it; he was still convinced he'd talked me out of sticking around, and that he was going to be a pariah because of it. He pointed half-heartedly down the hall and said, "left at the end, through the double doors and you're there."

"Rex," I said, "I'm not leaving. I'll be back." I put my hand through the bars, and he shook it. "I'll see you around." He smiled like he wasn't sure he could trust me, but really wanted to.

I ran down the hall. Cross and his men must have gone back to the checkpoint, because they weren't there.

I played a hunch, and ran in what I thought was the direction of the front doors. So much time had passed, I was sure I would be too late, or that I was just paranoid and there wouldn't be anbody there. I burst through the double doors, then I stopped where I was. I couldn't breathe. I wasn't alone, and I wasn't prepared for the person who was there with me.

Colonel Sherman was a few feet from the main entrance, holding a briefcase. I wanted to do something cool or intimidating, like chamber a round in the pistol so he knew I was there and wouldn't let him leave, but before I could even touch the slide (or safety) he turned to face me.

"Newman," he said, and there was almost a smile on his face. "I'm glad it's you. Most everyone else would have shot me already, but you, you'll at least listen." He took several steps towards me. "I didn't want Ms. Prentice to die," he said. I pointed the gun up enough that he knew to stop walking towards me.

He raised his hands up, not enough that he was surrendering, but enough to show me he wasn't aggressive. "Her telomeres gave her 88 years," he said grimly, "but she was dying- Huntington's. She had an ax to grind- believed this project was a waste of money and genius, and that we should have been spending that money on fighting diseases like hers. I don't know as I disagree with that, being frank, but I tried to tell her it weren't the government that would suffer, hell, probably not even the research. But the subjects, yourself and the others. How do you think society at large would react to someone like Rex? Persecution ain't even the half of it. I tried to bribe her. I tried to threaten her. Til it came out that the only thing to be done was to trade my life for hers." He sounded sad about that, and I don't think it was his own loss that pained him.

"I've known for a long time she wanted to expose the project. I don't know if that, of itself, would be worth killing for, but she didn't just want the public to know, she wanted us demonized. She picked and chose her facts to fit the evil picture of us she wanted to paint; I paid someone to break into her apartment and steal a draft of her piece, and some of it is a flat fabrication, connections to Japanese war crimes, Joseph Mengele and the like. I even offered her a place in the program, access to the best science on earth- though I think by then we both knew her DNA wasn't near malleable enough to be fixed."

He sighed. "I tried to put something in her coffee, but she said it smelled like piss, which I suppose it does. And guns are unpredictable: even a clean shot to the head or chest isn't likely to kill instantly. No, I've had more experience with a knife, more precision. She didn't suffer beyond what she had to; it was a moment's pain, and far removed from what she was staring down the barrel of."

"I don't expect you to understand the decision I made, Newman, leave alone agree with it. But what we've done here, what we've yet to do, it's important, more important than some story; more important even than that young girl's life." He held up his briefcase, and I could make out along the crease a dollar bill poking through. "What I'm taking is only what Uncle Sam owes me, and not a penny more, my pension, down to the hour per the time I've got left on my telomeres. If you let me go, and I don't presume you already have, I'm only saying if\- you're not offering me absolution. I can never again see my wife and sons, and what I did will weigh on me the way no combat death ever could. But what I did I did for all mankind. If you can understand that- that'll go a ways to getting me to forgive myself."

He didn't wait for an answer; and I didn't have one to give, at least not out loud, but he looked down to the gun in my hand with the safety still on, then to me, and smiled. Then he turned and walked away. I didn't know if I believed him; I hoped Amber's coldness to me wasn't a factor.

And I hoped he was right, that what he'd done was what had to be done, but all I could know for certain is I couldn't shoot him in the back over it. Maybe security could have stopped him; maybe faced with the same decision they'd have let him walk, too.

It was my first day at NuMan, and my life was already much, much stranger for it.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Prisoners of War

The Vietnam War ended 35 years ago. It feels like a milestone, but it doesn't even really register. I just arrived in country, and it's barely even on my radar. I work for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command based out of Hawaii, and somehow out of all those words the military managed to get JPAC. Our highest priority is finding Prisoners of War- of course, in the same breath our command says that it doubts very much that there are any POWs remaining from past conflicts.

I'm a forensic anthropologist, a fancy way of saying I tell you whose bones you've found, so my highest priority has nothing to do with people who are still alive. I'm still pretty new to the job; I was on it for a couple of years before they found out the FA based out of Hanoi with Vietnamese language skills was pregnant and planning on retiring, so they put me through a crash course in the language. She popped out her kid a week before I got here, and I think she's already on a plane back to the States.

I know what I know about the country from war movies I haven't seen since I was a kid. I keep expecting Marlon Brando, or for other strange things to happen, and I keep reminding myself that this is a normal country, now, that people live here, and it's actually one of the more digitally-advanced nations in the world- it even has its own creepy robot with Albert Einstein's head. But up until I arrived, basically everything I knew about Vietnam came from movies, travel brochures and Wikipedia.

I hate being in-country; that feeling of being not just foreign, but American, in Vietnam, wasn't pleasant- or at least I'd convinced myself that everyone was looking at me sideways. It was on a rainy night, when I couldn't help but think about 1984 and being watched by everyone around me, that I received my first visitor. Three knocks, spaced evenly apart, hard and heavy, taller up on the door than I'd expect in a country where the average height is 5'4". I'm already on edge, so it doesn't take much to convince myself that I should take my sidearm, but once I have it in my hand I curse the bastards who switched to the M9 from the 1911, because I just don't feel as safe standing behind a 9mm. I open the door quick, and standing there is a man who fills the doorway, over 6' and I'd swear half as wide, wearing fatigues. He takes a step into the door, and I realize even the 1911 wouldn't do me a damned bit of good; I feel sheepish about the pistol, and hope I can holster it before he notices.

"Won't need that," he says, and his voice is as deep as you'd expect off the size of him, but heavier, like he's talking through smoke. I chuckle to myself, set the M9 down on the table. He looks out the window, at the rain. "You're the solution to a problem I've had," he eventually says. "Most forensic anthropologists are civilians. Takes too much schooling for most soldiers. But you're the exception."

He was right. I'd gone into the reserves to get money for college, but once I'd gotten my degree, I started looking into the military's FA program. They liked to hire contractors, but I reasoned I could convert my part-time status to full and retire early with pension and benefits and stay on as a contractor. I convinced one of the JPAC COs that it made sense, and that's how I got the gig.

"What do you know about the fall of Saigon?" he asked.

"Next to nothing." He smirked. I could hear it in his eyes, him complaining about my goddamned generation and how we had no respect for history.

"These were the last days, the few remaining Americans in country. Kissinger was holding out for more aid to the South Vietnamese. They figured if we finished evacuating before then, the South would go belly up. So we were holding the airport in Saigon, when on April 29th we started getting shelled and hit by rockets. By 11 AM we'd lost all our runways, so they kickstarted Operation Frequent Wind, a fullscale helicopter evac of all US personnel and at-risk Vietnamese. By 5 AM the next morning, it became apparent we weren't going to be able to get everybody out, and Ambassador Martin was ordered to get himself out of the embassy and cease the airlift by President Ford."

"A group of us were the last marines left guarding the embassy. There were twenty-four of us- just enough to fill up the belly of a CH-46 Sea Knight. But there were still hundreds of South Vietnamese in and around the embassy. We didn't feel right just leaving them behind, so we gave our ride to some women and kids and decided to walk the rest of them out on foot. The NVA had been ordered to let the airlift happen- they wanted the Americans gone, but nobody'd said a damn thing about letting us walk away. We ended up pincered; an NVA group came up on our north flank, and Charlie came up from the south."

"I might be new around here, but I've reviewed all of our pending cases, and we've only got 53 MIA cases. I think I'd have noticed if half our files were on one incident."

"From what I've gathered, our Sea Knight suffered some engine trouble. It's possible the pilot took on too many people, maybe one of the NVA got twitchy and put some AA fire into it- but it went down. We were all declared KIA. Nobody came looking for us."

"Uniformed NVA didn't want us. Said if they took custody, they'd just have to give us right back, so they sent us home with Charlie. The VC were happy to have us. They were terrified of assassinations, that the CIA was gunning for each and every last one of them. It was just impossible for them to fathom they'd beaten us. So they wanted us for collateral, bargaining chips."

"That night, they put us up in a game of poker. There were four of them, senior VC, each putting his claim on six of us. We all might have gone to whoever the victor was, but it got heated, and one of them shot another man's 'chip.' After that they all just walked away from the table. I was only in captivity for a while, couple of months. I ended up getting traded down to an errand boy in exchange for who knows what kind of favors. He wasn't bright, got too close to my 'cage' and I killed him."

"I tried to go to CINCPAC, but Admiral Gayler didn't want to hear it. Vietnam was a fresh wound, and they didn't want anybody picking the scab off it over a lousy 23 men; I suspect they even made a clumsy attempt at having me shot, though that could have just been post-conflict Vietnam."

"I've been working ever since. The VC went back to their lives, hid who they were and what they'd done, and more than ever blended back into the population. Made it tough to find them. It's taken years- but I had years to give."

I finally found my breath, "Wait." He cocked his head to the side, like an aggressive dog not used to anyone trying to tell him how things are. "You're saying you've been hunting old VC since the war ended? Like a Nazi hunter?"

"I've found 22 of the men we lost that day, or in most cases what remained of them. And I've met the men responsible." He looked away from me for a moment, towards the window, and I shuddered- and I think he knew I needed to and that was why he gave me the moment. "The last one, I don't know if he died with the NVA commander who took him. That commander 'died' in a plane crash, had a funeral, and they buried what was left: this." He pulled a small plastic baggy out of his pocket. In it were a few teeth and some ashes.

"And that's why you need me, to tell you if that's your VC commander."

"He was NVA."

"But I thought you said they were Viet Cong."

"Same fucking thing- they all marched to the beat of Hanoi's drummers." I took the bag from him and looked at it. I'd heard of him. The OiC here in Hanoi, he said he was like an urban myth, a story the VC tell to their children: the Ghost of Saigon. But he was real, inside my apartment, larger than a man ought to get, the infamous murderer-Marine, dripping rain on my rug.

I thought a moment, about who he was, and what helping him might mean, then I brushed it aside and looked at the bag."Well, the teeth are your best option. Teeth are durable, keep their shape well; they might even house mitochondrial DNA, which wouldn't necessarily identify him, just tell you whether or not it's from the same family line. But what you've told me about these bastards, if one of them were going to fake his death, I wouldn't really put it past one of them to kill a relative to really sell it." He glowered at me. "Which doesn't actually matter anyway. All of our DNA sequencing is done out of the AFDIL lab in Rockville, Maryland, and since this isn't an official JPAC case they'd never look at it; and like I said, it's no smoking gun anyway. But the teeth could give us our identification- if we had dental records."

He paused for a moment. "I can get dental records." And he left.

I don't have anything close to a full lab in my apartment, but I do keep a few magnifying glasses and a cheap microscope, because work has a way of coming home with me (at least it always did on Oahu). He came back three hours later, with a series of small cuts, from broken glass, I think, on his left wrist. I'd already half come to a conclusion, but I didn't let on until I'd looked at the records.

"This is ridiculous. Clumsy, stupid. They tried to mock up the teeth to look like, what'd we say this guy's name is?"

"Hoa Lo."

"Yeah. At first I took some of these markings as just the lousy state of Vietnamese dentistry in this guy's lifetime, but look here, you see this tooth? See how it's supposed to have a chip from the records. You can see these marks here where they just put it into a clamp and took a file to it. I mean, the texture's all wrong. This was strictly amateur hour. And this filling that's supposed to be halfway through the dentin, I mean dangerously close to the pulp chamber in the center of the tooth, well in this recreation it's right through the enamel. This is shoddy enough work that it could qualify as a transformative creation inspired by the original. So where does that leave you?"

"With a dentist in my trunk," he said, and my eyes got wide. He stepped out into the rain, and I had to follow him. We walked down the steps. He had a small blue car that looked like a Honda hatchback knock-off and could easily have belonged to anyone in country- at least anyone well off enough to own a car in the first place. "I went to him first, and he told me that the teeth belonged to Hoa Lo." He put his keys into the trunk and opened it up, and seamlessly slipped into Vietnamese. "So why'd you lie to me?" The dentist's mouth was duct taped, as were his wrists. He threw the dentist over his shoulder like he weighed nothing at all, and started back towards my apartment. I was about to protest about conducting an interrogation in my room-

The dentist's brains exploded out a hole in his skull and splattered across my shirt and face. I started to gag, because a little of it had gotten in my mouth. The dentist dropped head-first onto the concrete, and I think his neck snapped. A big hand grabbed me and pulled me against the wall of the building beside my apartment complex, and he stared into me, and mouthed, "Stay here."

I've never really been in combat. I know how to fire a weapon, and I've seen more than my fair share of corpses, but that was the first time I'd ever seen someone killed like that- certainly the first time I'd taken a brain bath. And I couldn't keep myself from staring at the dentist's corpse as the rest of his shattered gray matter fell out of his head like shit from a prolapsed colon.

I'd gotten to the part where I was wondering, maybe even fantasizing, about what it's like to have a bullet go through your brain, what that last part of a second is before the shock wave from the bullet destroys every mechanism in your brain needed to think about it, and I think I'd decided it would be like the worst headache possible mixed with a stabbing pain when a second-story window erupted above me in a shower of glass. The body of the shooter landed on the edge of a dumpster, bent over it unnaturally in the stomach, and I thought, wow, two corpses. And then the body arched as the shooter tried to breathe around several broken ribs- at least one, from the sound of it, poking a hole in his lung.

And suddenly the big hand was on my shoulder again, and I nearly soiled myself. "Your apartment's been compromised. We'll go to my hotel." I followed him over to the shooter.

"Where are you staying?"

"The Hilton."

"They built a Hilton in Hanoi?" I asked, incredulous. He gave a slight smile, then hefted the shooter onto his shoulder. He loaded them both into his trunk, the shooter beneath the dentist, and we got in and started to drive. It amazed me how normal the night suddenly felt. We might have as easily been two friends on the town, and for the first time it felt like I could see myself living here, that there was a side to the city I'd locked myself away from inside my room, and not just buildings, or a nightlife, but people.

Then we were at the hotel, and he opened the trunk, and the night returned to its former strangeness. He picked up the shooter, and I offered to hoist the dentist. "Leave him," he said; "we'll dump them later." My eyes caught the shooters at that, but strangely I reacted and he didn't.

He taped the shooter to a hotel room chair before he bothered saying a word. The shooter was older, and didn't even bother denying he'd been NVA by way of VC, or that he knew Hoa Lo back in the day, but then he clammed up. Then he heard that voice in his ear, "I spent time as a VC prisoner. Your kind taught me how to make you talk. So it's your call how much this hurts."

After that we couldn't shut him up, but when we'd heard enough from the shooter, the Ghost produced a syringe. "Simple mercies," and the shooter nodded his head, and closed his eyes as the needle pierced his neck, only barely winced as the plunger went in. We left.

As we were waiting for the service elevator he said, "Overdose of methadone. It's gentler than the way the dentist went, maybe better than he deserved."

I couldn't stand one thing. "He was willing to risk his life, willing to kill, for his former commander, but he gave him up without any kind of a fight."

He sighed before he spoke. "Every man has his breaking point. Days, weeks, sometimes years, he'd have told me what I wanted to know. He knew that- he's lived that." He pushed in the elevator's emergency stop button, and a tiny bell rang. "You can stay here. Shooter'll go quiet. You can push him into the bathroom if you like."

"Do you honestly think I'm safer here alone than with you?" I asked.

"Fair point," he said, and pulled the button back out, and the elevator resumed its descent.

As the elevator hit the ground floor, something struck me. "You likely saved my life back at the apartment-"

"Though I likely endangered it to begin with," he corrected me.

"Uh, no, my point is, what do I call you."

"Jack'll do." He put out his hand, and I shook it.

At his car he opened the door for me. "In the backseat, there's a box of files. The address he gave us belongs to one of the men I've been watching- I suspected him. He's a smuggler, drugs, women when he can get away with it. He has enough money and resources that, once he knows I'm this close, he can put an army between him and me- a proper one. The only advantage I'm going to have is surprise- he likely won't expect me this soon."

He crawled past me into the car. The back seats were hollowed out. In them he's got an old M16A1, and the other, he explains, "Is one of them new M16A4s, so you don't get lonesome for home. I didn't think things would shake this way, but I'm a man who cares to be prepared." He's also got body armor in the trunk where the spare ought to be, and he hands me one he figures "Ought to fit;" I guess being prepared is how you wage a one-man war on what were to his era underground terrorist cells. I can't imagine that life, and even if I tried, I somehow think I'd whitewash and sugar-coat it, and do his experience no justice at all.

I squirm in the armor in my seat while he drives, trying to skim the file he pointed me at. Hoa Lo's idea of a nom de guerre is a mash-up of Vietnam's two most recent leaders, Nguyen Tan Luong. No wonder Jack had him flagged already. Underneath Lo's file is a service record for a Marine, marked KIA. "That's the one we're looking for," he tells me. "I made sure I had dental records." I flip to the page and sure enough, a very thorough history for Sergeant Robert Gordon.

I realize we're driving up an incline, and I look up, and on top of this hill there's only one house. Lo's home is big, with a ten-foot fence around the perimeter, and a big metal gate with a keypad. "Seatbelt," he says, and I thank God I'm already wearing it because before I can even reach down to check we hit it at speed and the gate snaps like a wishbone. The front-end of the car is shattered, engine crumples in on itself. Jack doesn't seem surprised, but still he mutters, "Piece of Asian shit," as he slams the door on his way out.

My face hurts, and that's because the seatbelt didn't engage fast enough and I smacked my face into the dash- not the head, so no split open skull, but my face feels like stepped-on gum. Jack pulls me out of my seat. He fared better, whacked his forehead on the steering wheel, and feels bad I got the worst, "Shit, sorry," he mutters as he hands me the M16A4.

Lo seems to have assembled whatever dumbfucks he knows and thinks he can trust, because the yahoos who run out into the front lawn obviously aren't security, and don't know the thumb up their ass from the safeties on the M60s they're slogging around. Jack cuts them apart before they even have a chance to stare dumbly at us, long before they realize they're supposed to be firing from cover.

"Magazine," he says to me, and while I'm fetching one from the duffel he tells me, "need to be more cautious with bullets. Otherwise things'll get more personal than they have to be." He doesn't jinx it by saying what I think we both know, at least suspect from the quality of those men: this might be easier than he thought. "Lo likely has the local cops on his payroll; they're paid to stay away, so we should have some time to ourselves."

I'm about to step away from the car when he puts his hand up. "Hold, thought I saw something." A bullet hits him in the arm, the one he was holding up, rips through meat and buries itself in the car's trunk next to me; I think the shooter was going for a two-fer. Maximum effective range for an M16 is 550 yards, but maximum means what it says, that's ideal conditions, in daylight, without a bullet in your arm, with a decent scope. Jack's got iron sights and a leaking hole, and we might be within 400 yards of the house, but it's dark and I can't see shit. "Missed the muzzle flash," he says, "but the idiot's scope reflected, and he ain't moved." He's talking, but it sounds more like a meditative chant, and with every word the rifle sways a little less, hones in a little more, then: Krak.

There's a tense moment, where we wait for return fire or for something to happen, before the sniper tumbles off the roof of the house. "Duct tape," he says, and I hand him the roll out of the duffel; he wraps one length around his arm, over the bullethole's entry and exit, and tears if off. "That'll do," he says, and hands it back to me.

We run for the front door, because there's shit for cover between the car and the front steps, just an open kill zone, and while I keep expecting a bullet without warning it doesn't come. We get to within twenty feet of the house before another M60 barrel pushes through one of the front windows, clears the pane of glass, then starts firing. Jack fires suppressing shots at the window while strafing, pushing me out of their line of fire. We end up behind a big cement column at the foot of the front steps and stop.

"Bandolier," he says. In the duffel is a shoulder belt lined with grenades that he throws over his arm. He thinks a moment, then says, "Frag," to himself, selects a grenade without looking down, pulls the pin and flings.

It goes into the window right next to the M60 poking out. There's a very loud, "Shit!" that's immediately drowned out by the explosion.

He starts up the stairs and says, "Indoors, the M16 can get a little cumbersome, but remember it's not an M4- it'll punch through furniture and walls just fine. Stick behind me. And try not to get shot." I'm already getting numb, that combination of fight or flight and shock, and he stops right before the front door and I walk into him. He points to the other window, already slightly ajar, just like the door was. I pull my M9, and point it at the man huddled next to the open window, waiting, pull the hammer back so he knows I have the drop.

Jack steps over the tripwire he'd seen, bends over and picks up the claymore that was rigged to the door. "Front towards asshole," he says, handing it to the man. "That'd have killed you, too, if we tripped it." Jack shoots him in the head, and he falls to the ground with the claymore still in his hands. I walk in, careful of the wire.

We walk down the front hall, and he pushes me into the first bathroom, because even big as it is it's a dream kill zone- roll a grenade down, wait for the explosion then fill the smoking remains with holes. But these amateurs keep up their nonsense, actively avoiding good tactical decisions. Then again, nobody ever said smugglers made for good soldiers.

Jack's just crossing the threshold into the kitchen when a couple more guys flip over a table for cover, holding their MP9s to their chests like they're infants in need of coddling. Jack just shoots through the wood, quick bursts on either end of the table where the men had been. He scoffs.

I pop out of the nearest room and follow him in, when suddenly there's movement to the side of me in the nook to my left and I spin and fire my M16. It's only as the muzzle flash casts a shadow against the wall that I realize there's a flurry of hair, too much hair, definitely a woman, and a rush of fabric- a dress. And I know what I'll see even before I look down. And Christ, it's his wife or a whore, some innocent gold-digger who didn't need to die here. Jack looks down, turns her hand over, and she's got one of those corkscrew bottle-openers; she was going to stab me. "Lousy way to die, that in your guts," he says. "Was his wife, but trust me, she wasn't innocent." I don't think I should trust him, because he's probably lying to keep my head in the game, but I do anyway, because it's convenient to.

I follow him, stepping over the three men's bodies in the kitchen on the right, when Jack stops and asks, "How many you shoot in the kitchen?"

"Just the one." He sees it just a second before me, the pin on one of his grenades is gone. He grabs it, flings it, but it's barely three feet in front of us, suspended in the air like time's stopped, and suddenly the room is all light and sound and pain. First thing I'm aware of is I'm coughing uncontrollably, doubled over on the linoleum. Next thing Jack's shaking me, asking if I'm all right, but it feels far away, and he's a blurred-black blob in an unfocused world.

But things are starting to make sense. Jack's talking too loud, cause I can feel the force of his words on my face, but I can still barely hear him. "That was genuine VC; unlucky for him it was a flashbang- and I got to my knife before he got to his." He helps me to my feet. We don't say how lucky we are, but we know if it had been a frag we'd be dead.

There's a door down to the basement, and a set of stairs going up. Way Jack figures, we leave one to check the other and we might lose Lo, maybe Gordon, too, if we're getting optimistic and thinking he's still alive. "So I need you to stay here. Nobody comes out of that basement." He takes two magazines for the M16, and heads upstairs.

He's gone a while, and at first it's quiet. Then there's a burst of M16 fire, and silence. Then more fire, a pause while he reloads, firing again. There's another gap of 5 minutes, where I think about calling up the stairs, only the moment I get up the nerve to I hear his M16 again, and I figure he's about out. Then his 1911, and I count the shots, seven, eight. He's out, and so far as I know, he doesn't have another magazine for either. Several more minutes pass, and I'm getting antsy and thinking about running upstairs with the duffel when his big boots come clomping down the stairs. "Saved the real VC for last." He reaches into the duffel for another mag for the M16 and the 1911. He's got blood soaking through his shirt from somewhere on his back.

"More tape?" I ask him.

"It's not deep," he says.

"Yeah, and I bet you ain't got time to bleed," I say, and immediately I wonder if he'd have actually seen Predator, as I rip off a section of tape. "Roll up your shirt." He doesn't protest, just does it, and I push the cut together and tape it without another word.

Then he reaches for the handle to the door down into the basement, but pauses. I'm about to ask what's wrong when he says, "This has been a long time coming, the end of this." He takes in a deep breath, holds it, then grabs the knob and twists, letting the breath go as the door opens. He's saying goodbye to a life he's lived longer than he'd lived any other, but I don't have time to reflect on its poignancy because in the basement it's likely somebody's going to die.

At the bottom of the stairs there's a single, reinforced metal door. There are two men standing guard at it, and we make a lot of noise clomping down the steps, enough that they've had more than enough time to ready for us. But they're green, so green the one on the left drops his rifle while the other pulls his fingers off the trigger and raises his MP9 above his head to try and surrender. Jack pulls a bayonet from its sheath and slices the right man's throat in a single motion; he doesn't take prisoners because he's got no place to take them to.

It seems like all at once I notice inconsistencies; the other guard is skinnier, and then I notice in the dim light that he's older, but he's moving, moving fast. He's got a little pistol, a derringer or something. I want to move, but he's close enough to Jack I think I'll hit him- but Jack's faster anyway, jams the bayonet into the other guard's temple and he goes slack and falls with the blade still stuck in the bone. Jack kneels and grabs the knife, wipes it across his pant leg and sheaths it, but before he stands back up he notices a key around the guard's neck and takes it.

Sure enough, it opens up the metal door, and suddenly I remember what it smelled like at my uncle's farm, where they slaughtered pigs; it smells like shit, entrails, and death. There's no concrete on the floor, just an earthen pit, and I'm reminded of a news story I saw about a dog-fighting ring. I can hear breathing that doesn't sound like it should be coming from anything God created, and I raise my M16 just a little.

Jack pushes my barrel back towards the ground; "Hold fire" he whispers. The air is full of dust and dirt, and there's only a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, and suddenly I can see the outline he's seeing, the vaguest hint of something nearly human, kneeling in the dirt.

As the dust settles, we can see it's a man. His left eye's gone, along with the eyelid and flesh around and in the socket. His jaw's been broken and rebroken, allowed to heal up wrong and broken some more. He's got three or four teeth left in his head, and at least one seems like it's been put in backwards, and the jaw's so mangled that the tooth keeps stabbing a hole into the skin around his mouth where he should have lips.

He's naked, but I can't see a single strip of flesh that hasn't been burned or scarred somehow; his genitals are gone, but there must be some kind of open wound there because it's still dripping. His left arm's been severed just below the elbow, then sewed into his back; it must be a newer procedure, because every few seconds he forgets and yanks on it, then screams in pain and frustration at the result. His right leg is gone from just above the knee- that's why he's kneeling.

He's got part of a finger left, just below the first knuckle, on his right hand. I think it's his ring finger, but there are so damned many scars and protrusions where broken bones healed up bad that it's impossible to tell without getting closer- and I know if I get any closer I'm going to seriously lose it. He snarls and yelps at us like a sick, frightened, confused old dog; he isn't human anymore, hasn't been human for a long fucking time- he's even past feral to a point where, without some kind of care he'd up and die. Then he loses interest in us at all, dives at the ground into a mound of human feces, rotting meat and spoiled vegetables and begins to gorge himself.

Jack takes a step forward, and the movement makes him sit up and take notice. "Robert? Sergeant?" The creature stares blankly at him. Jack lets out a sigh that comes out as "Fuck." There's no coming back from that- I don't know if any human being has ever been so thoroughly broken as that. Jack takes out his 1911, and for an instant I think in the eyes he sees just enough of of Robert recognize him, understands, and gives his blessing before Jack shoots him in the head. For what it's worth, he has a smile on his face as he dies.

The silence in the room is worse than the unease had been. I want to do something, pat him in the shoulder, or- I don't even know. But not doing anything seems inhuman, though I suspect it's more for me than him.

Jack kneels down by Robert, starts in on him with the knife. I feel like I'm going to vomit, because I can't for the life of me imagine what the hell's going on. Then he stands up, stretches out his hand to me, and I'm reminded of hunting with my dad, and he cut out a deer's eye and tried to talk me into eating it to gain its strength and I barely choke back vomit. Jack opens his fingers, and I see Robert's remaining teeth. "I need to know," he says.

I only glanced at the dental records for a few seconds, but I don't have much doubt, and even if I did, the teeth match, at least on a cursory glance. I shake my head to affirm it.

And then Jack turns and fires a shot from his 1911, and in a dark corner of the room a man cries out, falls into the dirt. Jack walks quickly over to him, and pulls him into the light. He's older, fatter, maybe meaner, but it's Lo. He knows Jack, knows what comes next, and is trying for all the world to be defiant. His jaw sets in a snarl, and he's about to say something snarky, one last parting shot to try and unman Jack or Robert or both of them; Jack grabs his jaw in one hand and Lo's skull in the other and pulls them apart. Lo's eyes widen and he starts to whimper until there's a loud, wet crack as his jaw breaks on its way out of the socket. He screams in pain, tears already coming out of his eyes.

Jack turns to me. "Leave. You don't want to see this. If you feel the need to stick around, you can watch the door for me." Wild horses pulling in the opposite direction couldn't keep me here, but before I get two feet away he says, "Wait- duct tape." I hand him the roll and he tears away a strip. "He doesn't get to scream. The men you took, didn't get to be heard- Bob didn't get to die with a free word on his tongue- so neither do you." He puts the strip of tape over Lo's distended mouth, and he's thankfully muffled as I close the metal door behind me.

A lot of time passes. I try to focus on the noises in the house, creaking stairs, settling foundation, not the sounds of bones broken, meat falling into the dirt. I realize I haven't slept since last night, that I'm fatigued, but I know I can't rest now- and worse, knowing that the paranoia at every whispered sound grows. I'm midway through an elaborate fantasy about my own tortured death by the hands of Lo's associates when Jack emerges. He takes the duffel from me without a word, and leads me upstairs.

He hot wires one of Lo's cars, a yellow Jag, and I'm edgier than I've been since the last time somebody shot at us, convinced that this is too close to the end for something horrible not to happen to one or both of us. And then the car turns over, and he opens the passenger side for me and I get in and close the door. A Jag might not be bullet proof, but it's a cocoon, a safe place from which I'll emerge clean and new and unrelated to all the horror of the past few hours.

And I realize as we wait at the first stop light off Lo's property that so will Jack. "It's over now, isn't it. You can go home." He stares at me, with eyes that shove into my guts and carve out a cavern; he doesn't need to tell me it's been a long time since he's had a home to get to.

He wrinkles his nose, like he'd stepped in something foul, then forces his face back into the same, dead mask he's been wearing since this started. "Lot of mad men in the world. Think they ought to meet me." The light goes green, but he doesn't go anywhere, instead he fixes me with a look, and it's the first time his eyes have betrayed anything like humanity. "The wife- she was bad people. Don't let it weigh too much on you."

I sigh; my shoulders are heavy and I tell myself it's the heft of the M16 I'm not used to. "What's too much?"

"I don't know," he says, as he eases on the gas.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Raider

I want to believe this is normal. Yesterday afternoon, I met with an oncology specialist. He examined the biopsy, and said that I tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation and confirmed the original diagnosis, breast cancer, and his suggestion was the same: modified radical mastectomy. He suggested we start chemo immediately, and instead I went to Egypt, to Deir el-Bahri, near Luxor. It is part of the Valley of the Kings, and specifically, the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut.

One of her many claims to fame was an expedition to Punt, which brought back thirty frankincense trees, all of which she had planted at Dier el-Bahri. Hatshepsut is also infamous for her relation to the goddess Sekhmet. She's usually portrayed as a bloodthirsty war goddess, but somehow she's also in charge of the physicians. Anyway, Hatshepsut threw an extravagant annual party for Sekhmet that involved everyone drinking vast quantities of wine, which of course led to vast quantities of sex.

Sekhmet's relationship to medicine are a little hard to define, but a Nepalese aspect, Simhamukha, is actively involved in subduing the spirits involved with disease. I don't believe in Egyptian or other New Age medicine- but I do believe there was something to the myth of Sekhmet. Or maybe it's just that I approve of an ancient ritual based around bacchanalia; I've had my marshes traveled through a time or two. But after Hatshepsut's reign, the "porch of drunkenness" she'd built for Sekhmet was moved to her tomb.

Eventually, the porch was destroyed, likely by Amenhotep II when he was trying to erase the memory of people who might have a stronger claim to the Thutmose lineage, and her body was removed from her tomb. There have been various mummies and organs believed to be hers over the years, though there is at least one other royal Hatshepsut, from the 21st Dynasty, muddying the waters.

It's cold. Sometimes I forget that desert doesn't mean hot all the time; deserts are hot in the day, and cold as Hell at night. Deir el-Bahri was once a major tourist draw, until the Luxor massacre, where almost sixty tourists were killed by Islamic terrorists. There's still usually a steady stream of people during the day; that's why I waited til night (well, that and the horrendous jetlag).

As dirt grinds beneath my heel and ancient stone, I desperately want to believe this is normal, that I haven't lost my mind, that I'm not just stuck in the denial phase of grief. That any reasonable woman in my position would also be skulking through an Egyptian crypt at night in search of some ancient panacea- because the alternative, that this disease has broken me, is too much to bear.

It's hard to explain why this matters so much. The doctors told me my prognosis is good; they've caught it early, and their recommended course of treatment gives me a good chance of survival. And on the plane here, I couldn't keep from telling myself, "They're just breasts." And they are, and they should be, but they also aren't.

Archeology is not what you would call a growth industry. There's a growing sense in the public that we've seen what there is to see, that the world holds little wonder or discovery. This has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy; believing there is little new to unearth, donors give less money, and less money yields fewer discoveries.

I don't want to be vain, but I was lucky to grow up beautiful. I've used that, and my considerable talents and education, to mold a very specific and very lucrative persona. I haven't posed in Maxim, nor have I debased myself to the point of Sarah Palin winking, but I've found that a pretty face in combination with an intelligent quote are more newsworthy than either alone.

As a consequence, I get more grant money than 90% of all other archeological researchers, and a damn sight more than any of the other women in the field. So this is as much a threat to my livelihood, which is my life, as to my life itself.

I haven't honestly thought much to my future beyond my career, but I've had to. I don't want children today, but I can't help but feel that I might, or at least want to preserve the ability to feed them myself. And as shallow as it is, and as shallow as I feel for it, I know my relationship with Robert is too young to survive such a thing.

And at the end, as odd as it is to admit it, they're mine, and they're me; I don't care so much about them, but I can't shake the thought that I wouldn't be me, or at least, all of me, without them.

If someone told you to save your life they'd have to cut off a finger, or maybe your hand, I mean you'd do it, but there's also the realization that you'd be leaving a part of yourself behind. At least 60% of amputees experience phantom sensations and pain- it isn't just our conscious minds, it's all of us- our brains know it, too.

And there's so much of a woman's feminine identity that's tied into her breasts. It's possible I could get implants, and you can have academic arguments about the sexualization of women in our culture and whether or not breasts hold women back, but would you tell a man that he can get testicular prosthetics and expect him not to feel like less of a man?

I exhale, and I taste dust, because you always taste dust in tombs. And I'd finally come to it. TV always treats the stages of grief as stages- but they don't happen in any particular order, and in fact even the person who created it only expected someone to exhibit a couple of the stages for any one event- but that's when I finally accepted it. I was going to lose my breasts. A sad little smile crossed my lips as I realized I'd made the most difficult decision of my entire life, that perhaps this mad journey across continents had just been a metaphor for the mental journey I'd been on.

Only, that was when I noticed the sound of wood crackling beneath me. The majority of Hatshepsut's temple is solid rock, so wood didn't make sense. So I bounced, up and down, trying to gauge where the noise was coming from, figure out what its cause was, when I realized the sound was wood snapping, and that I was falling.

The first thing I noticed was my butt hurt; I'd landed on my LED flashlight, but it seemed to hurt my butt more than the light. I couldn't help myself as I stood; my archaeologist side took over, and I ignored my sprained ankle and stood, admiring the craftsmanship of a Sekhmet statue as my eyes crawled up the wall to where I'd fallen from.

There had been a hole cut into the stone floor; Sekhmet was a goddess of bloodlust, among so many other things; woe would have found any raider caught defiling her shrine. And someone had found the thieves, and a struggle ensued. From the skeletons scattered haphazardly on the floor, I assumed the corpses were left, and a large beam put in place to hold up the new stone placed over the hole they'd cut.

I coughed from the dust the falling stone had kicked up, and my eyes widened. Mummies have been proven to carry two types of Aspergillus that can cause bleeding in the lungs, and tomb walls can contain Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus. Now, normally, the dust in a tomb is more dangerous than the microorganisms, but my immune system was already compromised; I covered my mouth and nose with a handkerchief.

Then I saw it, at the foot of the statue, a sarcophagus with a lion's head; it had to be Hatshepsut. I traced my fingers along the edge of its ornately carved sides, but my hand came back slick. I rubbed thumb and forefinger together, and smelled: frankincense. My light followed a trail mostly dried leading to spouts high up in the walls. I could see troughs going back into the walls.

I remembered the trees she'd planted outside. Frankincense trees last only about a thousand years, so none of the originals survived, and trees tapped for their sap rarely produced viable saplings- this was largely the reason the frankincense trees outside had died away long ago. But frankincense oil lasts considerably longer; 3,000 year old frankincense was discovered in Tutankhamun's tomb, and was still viable.

Carved into the wall were glyphs that told the story of women with terrible tumors on their breasts. Details of the first recorded instance of cancer came from 1500 b.c. in Egypt, where 8 cases of breast cancer had been treated with a "fire drill." Sekhmet's connection as a fire and sun goddess had been what drew me here.

I turned my light to the statue of Sekhmet. Since Sekhmet worship involved a different statue of the goddess for every day of the year, her statues were almost universally sculpted in rigid vertical lines, always standing straight, without arms or legs in motion, to make them stronger so they lasted through the years. This statue of the goddess was different. Her arm was outstretched, but broken at the elbow. I trained my flashlight to the floor, and sure enough, the arm was resting there at the foot of the statue, and in its hand, a corroded drill. On closer inspection, I realized it was a syringe. It seemed impossible, but syringes in Egypt had existed since at least the 9th century a.d., so it was at least... possible.

When I upended the syringe, fluid dripped from the needle, and I caught some on my wrist. It was frankincense, well, frankincense and a good deal of rust. I remembered reading that frankincense injections have been proven to suppress cancer cell viability... in the bladder. It's a stretch- but then again, this whole trip has been a stretch. It seemed like a silly time to stop being silly.

The spouts in the tomb chamber poured into reservoirs that had a simplistic method meant to close off jars when full. I could tell that the mixture in the jars was not just frankincense, though the oil was the majority ingredient.

I carry a rather extensive medical kit, particularly when I'm alone and secluded, and it had a small needle in it, for use with a supply of oxymorphone. I filled the syringe with the solution, and unbuttoned my shirt, and came to the conclusion that no, this was no longer normal.

But hell, when in Cairo.

The injection burned, but then again, when doesn't forcing a foreign fluid into a stab-wound not? I took as much of a sample from the jar as I could in my thermos; I thought a doctor or two I knew might be able to make use of it.

I felt like a heel climbing on top of Hatshepsut's sarcophagus, but the ceiling was high enough I needed the boost. I jumped, and my fingers slid on the dusty stone floor above; I thought in that instant I would fall again, only this time onto my back, neck, or head. I'd be lucky if I ever got out of an Egyptian prison if I survived the fall. But my fingers held (though I left some of the skin from my fingertips), and I swung myself back up to the main floor.

The morning air was cool, but warmer, and the sun was rising over the horizon. I wasn't sure if the Egyptian fire drill had cured me or not, but I felt prepared for whatever came next.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Dante's Infirmity

I met Dante when he had journeyed most of life's long way. He was diagnosed with MS, but he ran his own heating supply business, and was fierce and independent, so he refused treatment for a score of years. But his wife, who had cared for him, had recently taken ill; with a smile he said: "it's impractical for both of us to be dying at the same time."

I came to his home to examine him, and I remember he stood in his own doorway, motioning for me to come to him. It was important that, even in this limited sense, he not "go" to his doctor. His old dog sat patiently at his feet, and as I drew closer, his old tail waggled sluggishly, until Dante looked down disapprovingly, and the dog's tail stopped.

Dante said he'd been in more pain recently, had less energy. Like he was letting loose a painful secret he told me, "I'm used to doing for myself, with my wife, but with this, I can't." We talked, and I checked the normal things, then I drew blood for a work-up, and left.

He came to my office to get his results, and that he'd traveled this far spoke to the direness of his situation. The blood work showed he was anemic. I told him there was no other way: he needed further tests, and my humble office couldn't suffice, he needed to go to a hospital. Reluctantly, he agreed.

I ordered a CT scan and X-rays; that was when we found the tumor in his kidney. "Hmm," he said gruffly, and I couldn't be sure if it meant he didn't believe or didn't care. "I'd like to go home, now."

I turned to his wife, who looked as desperate as I felt. She leaned over his hospital bed and whispered, "Please, honey, for me. If you love me, you'll stay until the doctors are done." He sighed, and agreed to stay a few days.

But I knew that wouldn't be enough time. I set up a self-administered morphine drip for him, and eased the restricted dose ever so slightly past the protocols. He told me it was the first time in months his sleep wasn't interrupted by pain. And that bought us another day, maybe two.

Then Dante began talking about leaving again. "A man ought to be able to die in his own home," he said. Of course, we weren't stopping him, but there was just enough old fashioned deference in his character that he wasn't ready to walk out against his doctors' wishes. Dr. Rice, head of our oncology department, spoke to him, using all the right words like "aggressive treatment" and "have you out of here as soon as we can."

In my office afterward Dr. Rice confessed to me why he had convinced Dante to stay. The cancer in his kidneys was likely terminal, but Dante's insurance covered everything, and would beef up Rice's numbers at the end of the calendar year- when they mattered most to the administrator. I thought about going to her, or even the medical ethics board, but it gave us another day and a half.

Only, I couldn't let it go. I knew what Dante wanted, and I knew that letting Dr. Rice talk him into staying wasn't right. So I told Dante the truth; he said he didn't care that Rice had twenty years, myelination and one good kidney on him, he still wanted to punch him in his smug little beard. But his anger was short-lived; "You almost went along with it, because you still think I should stay, don't you?" He didn't wait for my answer, just sighed, and his shoulders shrunk in. That bought us still a little more time.

But after only half a day he changed his mind. He was tired of waiting, tired of testing, poking, prodding. He wanted to go home. By God, he didn't care anymore how many other doctors I presented him with who thought he should get more treatment, he wanted to leave. Only, he was saying this to another doctor, because I had already gone home for the evening; "Oh," he said, when Dr. Mitchell told him that. He thought he owed me enough to wait until I came back the next morning, to tell it to me himself.

Dr. Mitchell talked with him for several hours after his wife fell asleep in a chair at his bedside. "I don't want to be here. But, if I can't not be here, then at least I want to be in control of when I leave," he said. Dr. Mitchell explained that we couldn't force him to stay, but that we also couldn't help him leave, either; all we could do was help him with his pain. Dante seemed to understand; "Yeah, of course. It was silly of me to even ask about. Forget it." Dr. Mitchell stayed there for most of the night, except when she had to make her rounds.

Early the next morning, his wife left and came back with paperwork for him to sign. She said it was from the lawyer: the "Do not resuscitate" order he'd requested, as well as some medical proxy documents. He signed them without reading them, because it was his wife, and because he'd misplaced his glasses.

By the time I arrived, Dante wasn't speaking with her. She was now his medical proxy, and in that capacity, had gotten him declared mentally incompetent to make his own medical decisions. "He's staying," was the first thing she said to me. We spoke for several minutes; Dante simply glared at both of us, conspiring over his medical care.

"I'd rather have him alive and ornery; just so long as he's still there," she said. I told her it wouldn't work that way. His cancer, the MS- her husband was dying, and there was little, if anything, we could do to prolong his life. What she needed, and what he needed, was for them to be together. Her eyes welled up with tears, "He can't- I can't live without him," she pulled me close to her chest, and I think she realized her only option was to live with him for as long as she could.

When Dante saw his wife's tears he forgot their quarrel. "Come here, Suzanne," he said, and held her.

We took him home shortly after. Standing in his open door, where I had first met Dante, were the rest of his family: his sister, his children, grandchildren, his old dog, his old tail waggling sluggishly from side to side. And Dante smiled; it was the first time I'd seen him smile since the day we met.

I realized then that it had always been Dante's journey, that my place was not as guide, but as companion, that the roads and decisions, taken and not, were his. He died six hours later, and I took some comfort that while I could not prevent his end, at least it was his end as he desired it.

Back to Table of Contents

#  The Ghost Club

Now I know you've heard the stories about Mr. Houdini, but at least one isn't true: he'd performed the Chinese Water Torture Act dozens of times. It wasn't the torture cell that killed him- it was a burst appendix. When he first introduced the cell, which he called the Up Side Down, it was a part of a one man play- a trick to copyright the effect and prevent imitation. That was because his previous bread and butter, the milk can escape, had been stolen a hundred times over.

But something you may not know is Mr. Houdini was friends with none other than the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. They met in the 20s, while Mr. Houdini was touring England. Doyle was a member of a group of spiritualists that went by the name of the Ghost Club. Ostensibly, their work focused on rooting out frauds in the spirit world, but Doyle became convinced that Mr. Houdini was a great medium- which teed Mr. Houdini off.

They were quite a pair. Conan Doyle was a full head taller- and nearly two Mr. Houdinis thick. Mr. Houdini didn't cotton to spiritualists and grifters who had tried to take advantage of him and his family after his mother Cecelia's passing. Conversely, Doyle, following the death of his wife Louisa and his son Kingsley, found solace in the idea that those he lost weren't really and truly gone.

I think that's why they became friends: they both wanted to believe, and the difference came down to whichever side of skepticism they landed. Their friendship ended abruptly- as many people know- but there's one incident that neither man, despite their books on the subject and their general outspokenness, ever told.

It was the year before Mr. Houdini's death, and they hadn't spoken since before he published A Magician Among the Spirits. Doyle sent a letter over the ocean: "I've spoken with Louisa. You must come. A. Conan Doyle" (signed).

When Mr. Houdini arrived at Doyle's door two weeks later, he asked, "Whatever was so urgent?"

Doyle smiled. "I'd hoped you would arrive today. It's the anniversary, you might not recall, of the séance with Lady Jean. I won't abuse the proverbial beast of burden, but it was the last time I believe we attempted one to another to see the other's eyes. In the past you've accused me of incaution- even zeal- and perhaps I'm culpable on both counts. But I've found someone- a mystic beyond anything I've seen, and I'd wager beyond even the cleverest artifices of your luminous mind."

Mr. Houdini was immediately taken aback. Doyle had sworn for quite some time that his feats were, to a one, supernatural, owing to powers he was perhaps unaware of, but certainly of a metaphysical nature. "You believe you've found a genuine spiritualist?"

"I have," he paused. "It's strange, without knowing firsthand the actual article, how simple it was to... confuse the merely mysterious with the magical. But I have seen-" Doyle stopped himself, "I can't expect, after all these years, for you to take anecdote for evidence of it. You shall see, with your own eyes, the very thing tonight."

"Will Lady Doyle be joining us?" Mr. Houdini asked after a moment's pause.

"No. There'll be plenty time enough for pleasantries. And perhaps Bess will join us before you take your leave. But come. I've an audience scheduled on the hour, and we should have just enough time for it."

They walked maybe two-thirds of the way to the Queen's Head pub before Doyle said something to the effect of, "It's a good feeling, walking with you again. It has been a great sacrifice."

Houdini snapped back at him. "It is no 'sacrifice' to convince people who have recently suffered a bereavement of the possibility and reality of communicating with their dear ones."

Doyle smiled pleasantly. "Our friendship has suffered. I am mocked openly in the presses. If not sacrifice, what word would suffice?"

"To me the poor suffering followers eagerly searching for relief from the heart-pain that follows the passing on of a dear one are the 'sacrifice.'"

"I've missed your passion, Houdini; I pray it survives its trial."

"I would like nothing more than to believe, but unlike you, Conan, I must be convinced. Validation mustn't be sought after; it must be manifest."

"You should have your proof," Doyle said, holding the door into the Queen's Head open. There was a small room near the rear of the pub, and Doyle led the way through a gentle mob of patrons. Inside the room, Doyle spoke. "This is the medium I've spoken of, Albert Roberts. And Mr. Roberts, this is the great Harry Houdini. Not to sell Mr. Roberts short, but he's not the showman you are."

"Who could be?" Mr. Houdini asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

Roberts was not, for a moment, an impressive man. Bespectacled, balding, and with a thin beard and a thinner frame, he looked as an aging spinster beside Mr. Houdini's rather rugged and muscular build- an old maid, to you youngins. But he had enough pride to him that he rose up from his seat and put out his hand to be shaken. "I understand your hostility to spiritualists; and I admire your skepticism. Those who would abuse innocent pain deserve the damnation of more than a fiery tongue. While enough of them are likely themselves innocent and convinced, I'd prefer to know myself, if I am genuine or merely insane."

Mr. Houdini sat on Roberts' right, his dominant side, holding onto his hand and wrist, while Doyle did the same on his left. At Houdini's insistence, both he and Doyle placed a foot over each of the mystic's feet.

The lights were low, lit only by a single candle in the center of the table, already burnt through most of the wax. As the candlelight waned, the room became chilled, and all the men felt a breeze.

Suddenly there was light, not so much that you could see clearly, but enough to see what was making the light: a face, the face of a woman, a woman Mr. Houdini hadn't seen in a very long time, and his mouth opened and couldn't be shut.

She spoke to him. My Yiddish is, well, I've been warned off the language, as I have a tendency to mistakenly mutter curses rather than proper phrasing, but she said in his mother's tongue, "My little boy."

"Momma," he said, and a tear went down his face.

"It's my birthday. Did you remember?" She asked, her voice wavering upon the final word.

He turned out his collar and produced a flower he'd tacked to the inside of his lapel- a black Hungarian flower, specifically. He released it from the pin, set it down on the table and pushed it forward, in the direction of the face. She breathed it in, and when she exhaled the smell of it filled the room. Then her expression changed. She shimmered, and when she spoke, her voice was stern. "You must stop this, Eric. Your crusade... the powers you've angered are a gathering shadow over you. You will lose your life, and death will be most unkind to you."

"Enough." Mr. Houdini said, and every muscle in his body tensed at once; his hand squeezed down so tightly that Roberts' hand emitted a series of painful pops, and the mystic's face contorted.

Mr. Houdini released his hand and rose, his entire body balled as if in a fist. "Stop this." Small though he might have been, nobody in a right mind would have denied his request. But at a minimum, the medium was not in a right mind, and despite some lingering pain, he appeared distant. Mr. Houdini appeared about to belt Roberts in the mouth, when the latter started to vomit. He vomited enough that there shouldn't have been anything left of the man but a husk, yet he kept at it, a frothy slime that covered the floor by an inch.

Mr. Houdini walked hurriedly from the room, and Doyle followed. He'd badly misread Mr. Houdini, and believed the man's distress came from disappointment at being wrong. Doyle couldn't help himself, and there was a pinch of triumph in his rounded boy's cheeks when he asked, "Well?"

"Yet another medium requesting I cease my investigations to his own benefit. My only surprise is how long it's taken one to find a photograph of my mother and to learn Yiddish."

"I assure you the man speaks not a word."

"And you know this how? By his admission? I'm sorry. No amount of ectoplasm, or of visual or auditory trickery, is enough."

Wounded, and perhaps sensing that he may not have another opportunity, Doyle hurriedly blurted, "You must by now know how many spiritualists have predicted your death. I worry over those dangerous stunts of yours."

"I defy Death daily- and predict my demise every morning. Sir Arthur," he said with a light smile and a shallow bow, and took his leave. Those were the last words spoken between them; no extant letters seem to have passed, either, as both men seemed wary of misuse of their words.

"And maybe it's just a ghost story. After all, Mr. Houdini never spoke on it, and Doyle, prolific as he was, never wrote it down. But there are times, especially at night walking these halls in the dark, surrounded by so many of the things that tried so desperately to take away Mr. Houdini's life- only to see his body do the work itself- that I feel his breath on the nape of my neck, or see a shadow that shouldn't be on the floor, or what I think's a reflection for a moment, that when stared at disappears."

"But Mr. Houdini left instructions with Bess. If ever he got a message across, if ever he spoke to her from beyond the grave, there was a phrase he was to speak to her. She gave an annual séance for him for ten long years and not a peep- and declared ten years was too long to wait for any man- even Mr. Houdini."

"Now, unfortunately, the gift shop's closed; we usually end the tour there, but they cash out before dark, safety concerns. If any of the children saw something they simply must have, perhaps we could do something for it, but- no? All right. I have to ask, because I hate the thought of sending away some imp with a twinkle in his eye. You folks have an excellent night, and drive carefully home. I can't guarantee what manner of afterlife you might experience, or if there is one."

I let the last of them out the old door, which latched with a familiarity that felt like a hand on my shoulder, and I realized I felt warmth, too; I couldn't be certain if I heard the words, or felt them ask, "Rosabelle believes?"

"I believe she does, Mr. Houdini," I said with a shiver. "The good Lord knows I do."

Back to Table of Contents

#  Suicide Spear

Time was, we called these ships tin cans. But this generation, the one the new pilots come up out of, don't understand the reference. And nothing makes you feel quite so old as having to explain ancient food storage to a bunch of twenty year olds.

Officially, these ships are called Vengeance class, but for a long time the Navy's called them the "Tip of the Spear," the first point in their defensive strategy; they even look like spearheads. Those of us unfortunate enough to fly them know them as suicide spears.

They were originally designed as drones, until the Hack War, when every piece of remote operated military equipment changed hands roughly every 15 minutes. So they gutted the spears to hollow out a little hole for a human pilot.

There have been a lot of birds nicknamed "Widowmaker" over the years, but since this isn't an aviation history class, I won't bore you with their titles or respective failure rates. The spears are deadlier than all of them; the Navy was worried enough about the moniker that regs state to fly a spear you can't be married, can't have dependents.

Not that I blame the designers. The spear was meant to be cutting edge tech. Nations were increasingly building mobile space stations, and sending them into far-flung corners of the known galaxies. The spears were supposed to use some of the most advanced avionics ever designed to navigate through the mapped wormholes, to counter rogue or hostile stations- then had the space for all that computing power halved to shove a shaved chimp failsafe inside.

But what makes them truly dangerous is the way they attack. They really are designed like spearheads- they're meant to punch holes through the inferior armor of space stations. I don't understand physics well enough to understand what the hell the crap about diamond alloys and atoms arranged in cubes and triangular designs actually does, but functionally, when flown right, you could shoot a spear through the heart of a planet and come out the other side fine- that is, if you get the angles right. And if you don't, well, I at least plan on leaving a pretty smear across the broadside of a ship.

The problem is that those advanced systems that were meant to coordinate these finicky flight patterns were crippled, and the ones that stayed are buggy as all hell, so it takes a combination of skill, luck, and intuition not to kill yourself your first flight out. The spears have a first mission death rate of 70%; lifetime rate, assuming twenty years' service, bumps it up to 90%. Of course, that would be in peacetime, and this is anything but.

The aliens (and I'm using the term here for simplicity, not because I'm making an assertion or assumption) made first contact over England. Their ship landed in the mouth of the Thames, and it was an oddly calm day for wind and sea both, so naturally the Brits named them the Halcyon. Now apparently the Halcyon were operating on some old news, and still thought the Brits were the dominant power in the world, so they wanted a meeting with the Brit higher-ups.

A group of them, including the Prime Minister and secretaries from the regular and shadow cabinets, entered the ship, leaving a Social Democrat in charge of the country (God save the queen). A week passed, without word from the diplomatic mission, until one of them "escaped." He was a Box operative masquerading as an MP.

He claimed the Halcyon were feigning peaceful operations, and had even greeted the mission with a decadent feast and festivities. He said the Halcyon looked as human as you and me, but that they wanted to take the Earth for themselves. There was some other stuff about thinking he'd seen his dead father, but no one really paid it much mind- he'd obviously had an ordeal, and didn't even return to Military Intelligence for debrief, but instead went straight to the papers, er, the news, rather, for you young bastards.

The ship fired off before the Deputy PM could figure out whether or not to attack, taking the rest of the mission with it, but within a month, seven more of the ships were operating in our solar system (and it seemed a day didn't go by without astronomers or probes discovering a new ship patrolling the Milky Way).

So our President, the US President that is, sent them a message, saying roughly, "These are not the actions of a peaceful people. We do not desire conflict. If you do not remove your ships from our planetary orbit quickly, and do not within seven rotations of our planet remove your ships to the boundaries of our solar system, we will interpret your actions as hostile, and respond accordingly."

And in that week, they doubled their presence. I remember people saying how we had a Democrat in office so it was a bluff, but good to his word, we launched an offensive on the day God would have rested. The spears had never had a chance to get used in combat, despite the fact we'd been calling them the tip of the spear for a while. The rest of the world stood behind us (way behind us), and waited for us to use the weapon system a previous administration had called "the equivalent in this generation of the atomic bomb in its time."

The spears were designed to launch from space stations, but the first series were designed and built planet-side. As a show of good faith we'd never launched them, and to get them into the atmosphere they'd designed a kind of cannon. To keep from killing the pilots, the spear had to accelerate slowly, so the "chamber" of the cannon went for several miles underground, where electromagnets gradually sped the spear up to escape velocity.

That first battle actually went rather well. It seems we caught the Halcyon with their pants down (as I've said, they seemed to be largely ignorant of the current state of the world, and since then, the consensus is that they were operating on information off radio broadcasts from before the fifties); our loss rate was closer to 40%; this was when the spears were at their technical peak, and each of them had just received the most thorough technical going over of their service careers.

By the end of another week we'd destroyed the Halcyon ships in our system, including a third wave that arrived in the interim. We had other defenses, sure, like the planetary defense grid we set up to destroy asteroids, and some of the more conventional fighter ship designs. But the spears were the only truly effective counter to the Halcyon tech.

After about a decade, the war ground to a stalemate. They'd put a little more armor on the next wave, we'd figure out a new angle of attack, rinse and repeat. We still keep them mostly out of the system, but the Milky Way is infested. We keep an eye on encroachment on the system, but we rarely venture too far past that.

At least, that used to be the plan. But while the Halcyon seem to be relentless, the war had taken its toll on humanity. It's hard to convince anyone that a 3 in 10 chance of survival, getting crappier with every mission, is a good life decision.

The wormprobes had been mapping space, time and whatever the hell you'd call alternate space-times throughout the war. Most wormholes go nowhere useful- 99.99% of them go to alternate universes, and of the rest quite a few dump you too close to a star or a black hole (or into the center of a planet). But there's several dozen out of the six hundred thousand known wormholes that actually do connect up and make for quick travel.

The Halcyon thought they were being clever blowing up the probes on sight, but slowly, over time, that trail of destroyed probes led us back to the Halcyon home world. So we've got a third of our remaining strike wing on what is likely a suicide mission- which seems right up a spear pilot's alley. We don't think we can take the planet out, but if we can take the fight to them, make the Halcyon bleed the way we have, they might lose their taste for it.

I'm the only gray hair left in the wing; the last of my contemporaries took early retirement a few years ago. I guess they'd all gone out drinking and started thinking real hard on the numbers, and when they woke up the next morning, between them was a calculator with a number on it so small that it had an e in it, and they realized that it was their chance of surviving to retirement. I guess that makes me the de facto commander, even though a few of these pilots have degrees or ROTCed and technically outrank me.

Our mission, basically, is to find the biggest ship or settlement in proximity to Halcyon and destroy it. The last probe, the one that finally found Halcyon, had transmitted the location of a larger ship near the planet right before it was destroyed. That first Halcyon ship that floated on the Thames was large enough to be counted as a mobile station; this new, bigger ship was to that ship as carrier stations are to spears. Only one had ever made it to Earth space, and even then, we nuked the bastard thing the moment it got as close to us as the moon. Somebody (probably another hoity-toity Brit) had the bright idea to name them Daeva.

Our wormhole spits us out close enough that Halcyon looks like our moon from Earth (though from the probe we know it's bigger, so we must be further away than that). Almost immediately I see the Daeva that shot the probe, but it's hardly functional, still docked and only half-built, with entire decks exposed to the vacuum of space. A cluster of six moons have been connected with a skeleton of metal tubes to create a massive port for ships- big enough to send the right message.

My targeting computer doesn't spare a moment to take in the site, and immediately points out structural weaknesses, and color-codes them. The data goes out to the squadron commanders, also color-coded. There's a pause, where the silent vacuum is all that seems to exist, before I give the closest to an order that I can: "kill it."

I'm first off the mark, not least of which because I was the first out of the wormhole. The targeting computer, acting off some weird coded voodoo using what I typed in as my preferences years ago and my actual tactical decisions and maneuvering during missions past, assigns me the central structure, a power plant in the core operating a series of electromagnets that, along with the infrastructure, keep the six moons from breaking apart. There are three main tendrils connecting the largest moons to this hub, which means at least three clean passes, unless I want to delegate- and I hate delegating.

The Halcyon have been careless, and it shows. We make two-thirds of the distance before they get weapons online and start firing; I guess they've gotten complacent, being so far from the front line, but these men with me, even the rooks, have been mentally preparing for this moment for months.

I talked to command about getting us a nuke, but the physicists couldn't guarantee that wormhole travel wouldn't set it off, and also couldn't guarantee that if that happened it wouldn't seriously cripple space-time. So it's the first time we've put spears up against a Daeva (or half of one, as the case may be). It's got a cannon battery on its bow that looks like whiskers on some kind of horribly elongated feline/caterpillar crossbreed, and the closer we get to the damn thing the more certain I am that those cannons are as big as the one that first shot the spears into space.

The first two fire off, and two pilots die in fire; their ships explode, as their destruct sequences auto-trigger, to make sure the ships don't fall into enemy hands. I have my fingers over the screen, and a fighter from every squad diverts to join the one attacking the Daeva; it's odd how seamlessly the carnage orchestrates itself, how effortlessly the ships move from relatively safe missions to a likely death.

I want to break formation, chase after the Daeva myself; but that would sow confusion, and undermine the commander of that section- and I don't know any more about taking down a Daeva than any of them. But realizing all of this, knowing it, is not the same as wanting it or even accepting it, and I smash my hand down on the screen, and the spear lurches a little as it gives me speed it shouldn't have to give.

There's about a minute to impact. I'm aimed for the widest tendril, the one supplying power and stability to the largest moon, because if something goes sideways and it's the only one I'm around to take out it'll be the most use to the ones left behind. I power down comms and the tactical oversight computer, so the spear can focus on punching a clean hole through that cord (it's the little things like that that are usually the difference between a short and medium range career.)

A small message pops up on my screen to tell me that the tube is twice as wide as the spear, at a minimum, and that, oh yeah, it's full of electricity- a lot of electricity. But ballistics should take care of the former, and the latter, well, I can only hope that my shielding is up for it, because there aren't really any alternatives.

The spear hits the tube and it distorts, bends, like human flesh around the force of a gunshot, then, in a splash of beautiful sparks, tears like paper, and the tear ripples through it as suddenly my entire spear is bathed in electricity- and then I'm free out the other side. I'm about to give a loud whoop when suddenly everything dies, all my systems, and the ship yaws. I'm floating free, and the spear spins to face the planet, and I know my only hope in hell is that a full reboot kicks things back on, so I power down manually.

Halcyon, the planet, is blue and green. Some people take that Halcyon shit too seriously, as if the name hadn't been plucked from the ether or some mythology textbook. Some even believe that the Halcyon home world is Heaven, and that these are dead people we're fighting. I don't buy it; I can't see a "Heavenly" reward being to make war on your descendants (besides which, I think it's more likely we'd discovered Narnia). But I say a little prayer to the god of engineering and whore-mongering and cold boot. There's a pause, and it's so quiet that for an instant I wonder if the hull seal burst and I'm slowly being enveloped by the nothing of space. Then my screen flashes on and the engine purrs (like a kitten kicked in the throat- but at this point, any purr is better than nothing).

I kiss the screen I punched not two minutes ago, and the ship rights itself. It remembers our plan of attack, and starts to circle for another pass. The largest moon has already shifted, and has the Daeva pincered between it and another moon, so I decide to go for the smallest tether rather than set the Daeva loose severing the middle.

Spear's a little more sluggish on this pass, but the ballistics computer thinks it'll still push through the second tendril. It isn't until the moment before impact that I notice on the screen that I'm glowing, that there's still electric charge all over the ship, and I wonder if that'll make up more than the dampers can handle. And I get my answer immediately, as a spark leaps out of my console at my chest. It's enough to melt the plastic suit into my skin, but it doesn't stop my heart, so I don't swear too loudly.

Then I see it from the corner of my eye, one of the newer pilots piercing too close to my flight path, and then it gets infinitely worse as the Daeva manages a lucky shot that takes out that spear's engines, and puts it on a collision course with me. At this speed I'm basically a shell on a trajectory, and I can't really do a damned thing but watch as it comes at me- though that doesn't keep me from firing thrusters. The ship's sensors realize it a moment before impact, and the interior of the spear goes red and in the ship's monotone gets out, "incoming imp-" before the other spear smashes into me.

I'm lucky, in that the spear bounces off my hull- another foot down and I'd be a shish kebab. As my spear pulls around, I check the pilot's vitals, even look at the interior camera; the shot grabbed him at such a velocity that he smashed his brains out on the display. Ship diagnostics say the engine's beyond fried, so I stroke a few more keys and it auto-destructs.

My ship is spilling something warm that burns on contact with my leg; either that or I'm bleeding, but I don't think I want to know which, since there's fuck-all I can do about whichever it is. Several of the remaining ships have stabilized, and are floating in formation, as if they're standing at attention, and I suddenly feel self-conscious. "Go. I'll finish it, and be right behind you." The ships that can peel off, enter formation for the wormhole; I don't watch them go.

A full two thirds of the ships stay, and I flick my fingers over the touch screen, and sure enough, vitals are scrubbed on all of them- the suicide spear claiming its intended. I know command can do it remotely, but I enter the code to send them all back to home base, where pilot remains can be vacuumed out to make room for the next set of poor bastards. Three spear engines are FUBAR; I try a manual hail, but they're comm silent and I have to assume the worst, so I set their destruct timers.

I set the engine to full impulse, and around me the destructing ships create a galaxy of metal and fire. That damned Daeva's finally pried itself free from the two moons pinching it; looks like there's enough wear on its hull, and I know a few of those spears are limping back to the hole- they'll never make it without time. I shouldn't chance it, mission over the men, but goddamn I've never been good at combat calculus.

The targeting computer sputters; mapping a course through the Daeva then through the last cord is taxing, but it gives me a bearing. Meantime, the Daeva seems to understand we're the last ones standing, and all of its remaining batteries train on me. It gets off a couple of good shots along my hull, and I know I take at least a little burn damage, but at this point I'm not too worried about that.

On its side, most of its cannons still aren't installed, and those that are aren't functional- probably thanks to the moon sandwich, so it tries to swing around, but it's an elephant trying to pirouette, and even with a half-crippled engine I could fly circles around it. As soon as the computer and that itching survival instinct at the back of my brain agree, I punch the throttle hard- I don't care at this point if I have fuel enough to get anywhere after, because I honestly don't expect to survive.

The other spears did enough damage to the Daeva that its power core is all but exposed, and it seems to run on a contained fusion-type reactor. I glance off the shielding, just enough to crack it, and blue flame immediately smashes through, grasping at my spear as I pass. But the glance was too much, and I'm spinning.

The ship and I have been through this enough times we've learned to work together- and don't even bother with the spin. We just make sure the spear is still pointed where it's going, and mercifully it hits the tendril about a third off from center- but it tears away in our wake. Then everything is blue fire and I'm sure I'm in hell until I remember it's just the Daeva's core depleting itself, and the flames are already receding back into its burnt out husk. There's a moment there where I can't help but stare at the planet below, and think I must be dead and this must be heaven, because there's no way I pulled that off.

Then reality comes back, and I tell the computer to turn us back around and head for the wormhole. But the computer's silent, and then shuts down. I turn off all the power, and try for another cold boot. Nothing happens. I'm floating dead in space, just enough velocity left to listlessly drift away from the wreckage orbiting Halcyon.

I have a day's ration of food and water, and I know I'm dead already. How'd that old song go? Suicide is painless? I don't suppose starvation will be. I could always refuse to drink my own urine, and just die of dehydration instead, though I don't know if that would solve anything. Of course, I've been a spear pilot long enough to know better than to think this ended any better, and I've got a flask beneath my seat. Should be just enough whiskey to drift away to Margaritaville (I know, it should be tequila, but I refuse to have the last thing I taste be cactus piss in my liquor).

Back to Table of Contents

#  Hang Around

1887

I always hated wearing neckties, or buttoning my shirt the whole way to the top; it weren't only that it made me feel like a prick, but it was constraining. I don't think there's a man alive, though, who wouldn't exchange a bolo for the rope around my throat. It's not tight- not yet, and every time I move my head it rubs raw against my skin. But I can't stop moving and looking around, because I know it's the last chance I'll get to.

She's there, near the back, Charlotte, with our little Robert. She's holding his head into her skirt, so he doesn't watch, and her eyes are leaking more water than you'd find in the rest of this whole dry county.

And then I see red, because her no accounting brother Bill's standing behind her; his arm's bandaged from where I shot him, and that makes me even more pissed, because the doc didn't saw it off. He's got his other hand around his sister, but he's glaring at me the way he's always glared at me- with the sole exception of last week.

Last week that two-faced son of a bitch came crawling on his belly to me. One last score, he said, even though I'd been clean all these years. He owed bad men large bills, and there wasn't no other way clear through it but this. He acted all apologetic, like he knew he'd been a donkey's ass all this time, since he was a lousy outlaw and I hadn't been.

But he sold my ass out. That train car was full of more tin stars than bankers, and I knew the moment I laid a boot on it, what he'd done, and he knew I knew it, I could tell by the way he went yellow. I turned and shot him as he ran, and all them tin men fired at me.

A surgeon pulled lead out of each of my limbs, and there's a ball he couldn't get to in my guts, but he said that don't matter, since I wouldn't live long enough to get surgical fever. He was dead stinking drunk, too; "Why waste my best work on a goddamn corpse?" he asked me. At the time I hadn't much of a rejoinder for him.

"It's time, son," somebody says, though I can't be sure if it's the sheriff, the mayor or the priest because I ain't been listening to any of the three prattling on. The rope goes taut, and I hear a hand, gentle as an angel's, alight on the wooden lever to the trap door beneath my feet. I beg the lord not to let me shit myself in front of my wife and boy- but I know that son of a bitch ain't answering prayers today.

I fall and there's a crack, a sharp pain in my neck, but I don't die right off. I can hear the gurgle of my breath barely scraping out of my torn throat. I'm swinging in the wind, now, like a stud horse's balls in the heat, and each time I reach the end of the rope's swing that twinge in my neck feels like I'm getting shot again. I don't know how long that goes, cause I'm drunk from the pain of it, but I get sleepy, and drift off.

2008

I've never been comfortable mentoring. "Why have you decided to take refuge in the triple gem?" I remember when someone first asked me the question, and I feel like I'm wearing his clothes and playing dress up.

"Wow. I know exactly what you mean, but could you have said that in a way that made this sound any more like a freaky cult?"

"Yes," I said, smiling.

"Fair enough," he smiled, too. "My parents are both Buddhists, but they aren't that spiritual about it, really. So I was raised with all of the aspects of the religion, but in kind of a hollow way. I realized my life wasn't what I wanted out of it; and I think I was happiest when I was young, and first really embracing Buddhism. I think finding out I was adopted, that was just the cherry on top."

"Peace does not spring from without, but from within."

"I know, I totally get that. But that inner peace, getting to it, that's the point. That's why I'm here."

"Then I think you'll be happy here."

"Good. I was worried for a second you were going to tell me there's no room at the inn." He paused. "You know, you walk funny for a monk." I looked at him- no anger, no sadness, no anything, and he realized on his own what he'd said. "No, I, I didn't mean it like that. It's just you walk like somebody more comfortable on a horse than his own two legs. My uncle has that same kind of walk, and he's spent all his life sitting on a plow horse."

I smiled. "I've spent many lives on a horse, and spent a few being ridden. Perhaps that explains my gait."

"So you definitely believe in reincarnation, then?"

"Most prefer rebirth, since that implies difference and change in the person's consciousness. But I recall things from before this life. I like this metaphor: as one candle ignites another, their flames are not identical, neither are they completely distinct."

"Hmm. You sure I didn't accidentally wonder into a Branch Davidian compound?"

"No. Unlike a cult, you are expected to find your own truth here. The only one I would insist is paramount is that craving is the origin of suffering. I said you would be happy; perhaps I should have said contented, because peace is the one thing I believe everyone can achieve. Because peace is the absence of suffering, which is the absence of craving."

2076

It's a strange thing, growing up near your son, but not being his father, not being anybody he'd recognize. Stranger still, knowing he's older than you are, and he always will be. I grew up believing I was nuts. Past lives? I just couldn't square that circle. And feeling like I was related to some Buddhist monk? Yeah.

I tried to kill myself, twice. Apparently, parents' groups got search engines to put up improper information on the internet as the highest results, so I slashed my wrists across, deep, but across. Lost a lot of feeling in my hands, a lot of mobility- but not nearly enough blood.

In a different time and place, I would have starved to death, but these days anything electronic responds to thought commands through a chip behind your ear, and anything that's analog, well, it's either in an antique store or the crappiest parts of war zones in Africa.

By the time I found out what I'd been doing wrong with my razor blade, I'd started reading about reincarnation and people who felt they'd had past lives. It wasn't anything scientific, just not feeling alone anymore, knowing that you know maybe I am crazy, but that there are other people with my crazy out there, too- that I wasn't alone. It helped.

And the more I tried to remember about my past lives, the easier it got. I remembered being that monk- it was the first real conscious thought I remember having. No, even before that, when I was a baby, my mind would just stroke off, and it would be like I was watching somebody else's home movies.

I started not just remembering, but I was picking out details, really specific details, about people who'd really existed (and people who, like the monk I lived near, still did). And it became clear that I knew more than I should, more than logic and reason dictated I could, barring me being some kind of international spy or psychic.

I remembered the monk's son. I was his dad but I wasn't. Then at some point he moved away, to a different monastery, and even though I didn't really ever see him, let alone talk to him, not being close to him made me sad. So I moved to be near his new monastery. I even thought about joining up, or at least being one of the lay believers. Instead I used an old memory.

The monk liked apples, but where they were in the mountains, so it was hard to get them. So I started up a distributor, but I ran the cart near his monastery myself. It gave us a chance to talk, though rarely did he say more than how, "Apples might be my last attachment."

We buried him this week. And I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with my life now.

1884

I remember it like the day before, Charlotte, breathy from passion, rolled over in our bed to tell me I was going to get a son. I laughed at her. "You ain't even swoled up, how can you know it'll be a boy?" She just smiled and said she knew.

It weren't the first time a woman told me she were with child. Several times they've been mistaken, once, I think she fixed to keep me with the lie. So at the time I paid it no mind. But then she didn't bleed for three whole months, and she was tired and sick, and got big. I ain't been a religious man since I was a boy- I don't think an angel flittered down to whisper it to her- but it felt all miraculous none the same.

The time hadn't seemed real since the moment near two seasons back, when I recognized I was going to be somebody's daddy. Seemed like a vivid dream. For the first time I had a string of breaks in my direction: got the farm for a song, and the loan for the land on the cheap from the bank. The horse I'd had for too long got sick, then got better.

Only cloud on our horizon was her brother. I knew her from him, though how that came to be seems a mystery. I never liked him. I suppose there'd been a time when I tried not to dislike him so much.

But I'd gotten away from my outlaw roots, figuring that his sister deserved better- hell, demanded better. He'd seen the both of those facts as betrayal, and spent most of this last year in a bottle. He was propping up one of the walls in my house, a bottle all that was propping him up. "That your bastard?" he asked.

"If I weren't holding my newborn son I'd punch you square in the jaw; I ain't going to bloody the day up just because you feel an asshole. And I ain't going to tell you to lie to your sister about being happy, but if you're going to be sour and drunken, you ain't going to do it in my home. Not today."

He moved to put a hand on my shoulder, but I got a hand on his gun still in his belt, twisted til it pushed into his belly. "I'm not fixing to take you out of this world the day we brought Robert in, but you so much as give me another sideways glance while I'm holding him and I swear I'll fill you full from your own six shooter."

He took another long hard pull from the bottle to kill it, gripped the neck like he might swing it at me, then thought better of joining the bottle among the dead, and dropped it. The bottle shattered on the floor, and Robert started crying as Bill stumbled away.

2009

"So you remember being a cowboy? In the old west? Spurs and six-shooters and all that? And you were an outlaw who got hung? And you had a son?"

His tone was mocking, and I knew that it was my wounded pride that begged me to recite the proverb about tongues causing wounds as grievous as knives. But suffering is craving, even if it's only craving respect. "I have one now," I said.

"Wait. How do you have a kid?"

"I was married. In the flesh, I still am, though I do not see her often."

"What happened to that whole, 'Attachment is craving that which you already have' shtick?"

"None of us are born into the Sangha community; I had another life before this one."

"So you're being flowery this time, not meaning a past life."

"Yes. Not a past life, a different one. I had a wife. We had a son. I discovered the man who murdered me in that past life had become my son. I could not kill my son despite the consciousness that lived within him, but neither could I look past that consciousness and love him the way he deserved. So I sought a third way, a life without craving for revenge or for love."

"And how's that worked out for you?"

"Bumpily. The Sangha is invaluable in keeping me on the good, upright, knowledgeable and proper way, but I am not always as detached as I wish. As an example, I miss my wife at times; I miss the life we shared. I miss past lives, as well. Not always, but enough that I suffer for my craving. That is why I am not in Nirvana."

2078

I ended up back home. I sold controlling shares of my fruit distributor to a local businessman. I don't know why, but I couldn't settle into doing anything, ever. I found my way into finance, banking actually. Normally they wouldn't hire someone my age for an entry level posting, but because of my distribution experience, they talked about grooming me for bigger things.

Then, this last Thursday, a man came in. He handed me a money card and told me to route it through an account and then into his, but when I checked the ownership of the money card, it came back with a woman's name on it. He made a hurried excuse, how he "Must have grabbed my girlfriend's card off the counter instead of mine." I wrote down his name, thinking I'd forward it to the cops, but instead I filed the number in my personal memory.

When I got home I realized why the man seemed so familiar, not in his look, or his voice, not even in his walk, but something about his manner, bent over, mumbling, a bubbling anger. He was Bill. He had to be.

And I thought to myself, I had to be crazy. Getting flashes of memory from dead people was one thing, but meeting up with a man who had you killed was another- especially with what I found myself fantasizing about doing to him. But there was one thing, one concrete thing that I knew couldn't have come from anywhere else, that would prove once and for all I wasn't sizing myself up for a straight jacket.

See, I knew where the hanged man's gun was. Because after he was reborn, the hanged man grew up, and dug the pistol out of his old body's grave, then he tracked his killer down. See, Bill got to die in the 20th century, by the gun of the man he'd killed. And that man, that time, had buried the pistol again. This time, he put it in Bill's grave.

Or at least that's how I've rationalized standing out here, in the damned rain, shoveling away mud off a hundred and fifty year old grave. I hope I don't get caught out here; I can't imagine it's fun trying to convince the police that you're not a necrophile.

1882

Bill started life as a horse thief, and I remember knowing him when he was old enough to know better but still too young to know it. I told him why they hung horse thieves- why even outlaws looked down on them that took horses- because taking a horse was abandoning a man to the elements, and a long, slow, hard death.

We took him in from a pup, on the thinking that a wolf in a pack ain't as dangerous as a lone, rabid dog. He seemed grateful for that, but every day, every job, I question the wisdom in it. Just this Tuesday he smashed a teller's teeth out for the sole reason that he weren't hurried enough for Bill's liking.

As I said, though, the boy's been grateful. And tonight, as a show for it, his family broke bread with me. Seems he's told them I gave him a job at my stable, at a good wage, to explain his recent excess; quite a feat, seeing as I don't own my own stable, or even room for my head.

His father's a nice old man, though he eyes me suspicious; mother's a sweet, plump thing, who eyes me worse than the old man, though you'd never know it by the look. But I couldn't be forced at the end of a gun to care for either, or Bill, for that matter, because across that table was an angel Bill's parents named Charlotte.

She didn't talk much over dinner, and neither did I, but there was something in those big blue eyes I couldn't keep from looking into. And at the end of dinner she mouthed one word to me, "barn" before she told her parents she was slipping off to bed. She met me out back a few minutes later.

She didn't say a thing, but stole a kiss before I could, and I'm an old hand at that sort of thing. Then she told me, "Good night," and went to bed. Now I'm certain the only thing of worth Bill's ever done is to have a sister. I could die a happy man tonight, but if I live just one more day, I'll never be able to let her go. God himself will have difficulty shuffling me off this mortal coil without her.

2010

I'm dying. I've known for months, though I've tried to hide it. I tried to hide the truth, as well, always dangerously close to violating the fourth of the five precepts. But my son is clever. He woke me in a panic this morning, and I found I could not move. "You're dying," he told me.

"I know," I replied. He'd known for some time; I wondered if he sensed the hour as I did, felt the King of Death's wind blown against my neck.

He was silent for a time. "I'm a lousy student. I've become attached to you; I suffer because I will miss you when you pass."

"The fault is mine," I said through a lumped throat. "I've been a lousy teacher. Through my craving, I insisted your mother adopt you to Buddhists. To feed my craving, I watched you grow from afar. For my craving, I insisted I teach you the Sangha's ways. A good Buddhist would have given you away to someone else, as your mother and I did once before, but I craved time with my son. You suffer for your father's failures, and I'm sorry for that, because I can't suffer enough to compensate."

I expected surprise, but he was, as I said, clever. He had deduced his lineage, as he had my frailty. "I suffer for the loss of my father, my teacher, and my friend. And I suffer gladly."

I smiled. "I am not lost. I will be again- but I hope my rebirth does not become your attachment. Let this be the last we say goodbye."

2079

Bill's a bastard. Maybe I'm rationalizing again. I spent a little time sneaking around, following him, until one day he confronted me and kicked the hell out of me; took my wallet, too, just to be a bastard, I think. I let a PI do the rest.

He beats his girlfriend, who pays the rent. He's not a drug addict, only because he can't afford to be, and he's too lazy to make small-time breaking and entering a career to pay for it. But that's not justification. All that means is I should cripple the bastard before he hurts someone seriously; no, what it is... is confirmation. If I needed anything to tell me this was Bill, a few lifetimes removed, this is it.

The gun was in old Bill's grave, packed in a cigar box. It's a Colt Single Action Army. I've spent time cleaning it, learning it, getting so the weight of it and the recoil come as natural. One of the men I asked for help getting it ready offered more money than I've ever seen for it; apparently it's a collectible.

My daddy from a different life had tried to buy it from an Indian (or Native American, I suppose) who claimed he got it from a dead soldier at the Little Bighorn, but he wouldn't sell it. So my daddy got the Indian drunk, then won it off him in a game of cards; my bad apple didn't fall far off that tree. It was friendly if mean, or it was supposed to be, but the Indian, once he'd sobered up, came at him with a knife, and got shot with his own gun. Out of shame, Dad put that gun away, and I never saw it until he was dying of cholera. That's when he told me the story, and gave it to me.

I'd used it for no good, at least until I used it to put a bullet in the old Bill; that was an undertaking long overdue. So's this. New Bill's curled in a ball, whimpering like a broke-legged mule. He thinks I've got him wrong, that I don't see him for what he is. But I'm getting tired of his blubbering- not that I expected him to man up.

"Figured you wouldn't remember any of this; if most people did, that would change the nature of the world. I know I'm supposed to be seeking enlightenment, searching for a grander purpose to existence, but I don't want it. Only thing I want is to hunt you down and kill you, over and over and over again. You're not my son; y'ain't even Bill, just pieces of him, stirred up and reset. But you're built from bad parts; I've seen enough already to know more often than not, the bastard you'll come back to be. I think the point of this here life is letting go, just not yet."

I pull the hammer back; it all feels like a dance I know, with a girl I've loved, and that brings back Charlotte and the life that son of a bitch took from me, so I take this one from him.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Ghost Dust

The terrorists killed more people on 9/11 than anyone understands. My wife worked in the South Tower. She'd forgotten her lunch on the counter, and I didn't have class until later, so I was bringing it to her. I was a few blocks away, when the first plane hit.  
The police tried to evacuate everyone, but I couldn't go home. I watched the second plane strike, from the sidewalk. I stayed, hoping my wife would walk out, smile the way she does when I wake from a nightmare, telling me everything is still okay.

And then I saw it fall, and the wall of smoke and rocks and debris that rained down on the street. I choked into my collar, staring through the wreckage, before my mind caught up enough to tell me she was gone.

I was diagnosed with lymphoma shortly after we buried her. I imagine the doctor was as distracted as the rest of us, which is why I didn't sue him when the biopsy came back negative. He was still distracted the second time around, and was a few pen strokes from sending me home with a prescription for tuberculosis when he stopped himself, and told me he would like to get a consult.

The second doctor asked what my symptoms were, and I rattled off fatigue, lack of energy, weight loss, aches and pains, shortness of breath- his response wasn't cold or dry or meant to be funny, but he said I sounded depressed. Then he looked at the x-rays, and told me I had sarcoidosis, granulomas in my lungs that were producing vitamin D and causing an overdose.

I'm not responding to the prednisone, or any of the other corticosteroids. Because the granulomas are wrapped in T cells, the doctor tried the immunosuppressant infliximab. He's not hopeful that will be enough, and is already planning to put me on cyclophosphamide, a chemo drug, but even then he said, after I badgered him for the better part of fifty minutes, I've got a 30% chance.

We discussed it a long time, and he admitted there was only one thing in my history that might have caused this: exposure to toxic dust from the towers. Certainly the dust was bits of building and broken airplane, and the myriad things you find in an office building, smashed to bits and burned. But there was something else.

What they did on 9/11 was so much more horrible than any of us realized. They found a way to kill us with our loved ones. They weaponized people.

Back to Table of Contents

#  Bloody Hands

It's dark; the rain spatters the entire world with mud. A man sits on a horse the color of a starless sky, trotting at a dead man's pace. Simple John calls to him, "Lee, Lee," grabbing his reins. He throws his leg over his horse and slides out of the saddle. "The McLaren boy's up in that loft. Got the family scattergun, says he'll use it on anyone comes in- then hisself." Lee undoes his gunbelt, holds it out to John like a limp prairie dog.

Lee pokes his head into the dark. "It's Lee. I'm leaving my guns put, so don't shoot." The boy peers over the ledge, lit only by candle shaking in his hand.

"Hold. Don't, don't- No closer." Lee walks towards the ladder against the loft, and keeps his hands out to show he's unarmed.

"What are your thoughts, son?" The boy doesn't answer, but ain't started shooting, either, so Lee starts to climb. "I ain't armed. I'm coming up. Don't shoot me." As he reaches the top, he's greeted by the cold, metal eyes of the shotgun; Lee moves slow, keeping distance between them as he sits in the hay. "I ain't coming at you; you don't need to point that. Tell me, what are your troubles?"

"This ain't over no woman, is it?" Jamie snorts a response, a bitter smirk on his lips. "All right, then, what?" After another silence, Lee adds, "You want to speak, or you'd be already killed."

"Why- why didn't you stop me? You could have got close, and took this shotgun off me." Lee didn't smile underneath his hat, though under some other light he might have.

"I might stop you, take that shotgun away and put you bleeding in the hay. But I won't be here tomorrow; just ain't no stopping a man wants it done. Question's why?"

Jamie shudders, falls over; the thought of telling was enough to make him heave dry into the hay; Lee doesn't take advantage, use the moment to get at the gun, but sits back, waits.

"Sometimes pa, when he and ma was fighting, he'd come to me at night, real late. I didn't like it, but he- he says I was his special boy, and it was our secret. I; I never told, only-" Jamie stops and empties his chuck at his feet; after a minute he sits back up, spitting, wiping at his mouth. "He stopped visiting me, started visiting my little brother. I couldn't let him- not to him." Jamie holds the shotgun out; "It has to be this way. Like Jesus, dying for the weak, and defenseless."

"You've the look on you of a boy I met passing through Virginia. I found he killed his pa and his ma, two sisters, little brother. Killed his neighbors. Killed until he got bored and killed himself. Like a bear tasted the flesh of men, or a foaming dog- he gets that flavor, it don't go away til he's in the dirt."

Jamie whimpered, wiping at tears coming down his cheeks. "You man up, now. Life ain't easy, or just. You're fit for killing, do everyone the favor of dying alone; if you care at all, care enough to leave 'em behind."

Jamie blinks hard, armed with his reasons and words, needing none of them. He balances the butt of the gun on the hay, and set his chin on the barrels. He reaches for the trigger, but the distance and the angle are awkward, and he couldn't get his finger round it. "I can't," he swallowed; "help me, please."

Lee takes his hand, and stretches his finger over Jamie's, and they pull the trigger together. Jamie's blood runs down the barrel as his fingers slip away, leaving Lee holding the shotgun.

Lee climbs down, each step of that ladder longer than the last. He could feel James Harper's warm breath on his neck before he heard him. "You didn't stop him. You didn't even try to save my boy."

Lee doesn't make a move to tell it's coming, but the fist comes hard and fast, so much so Simple John doesn't understand at first why Harper's on the ground, or why his mouth had gone soft and red. Harper touches his lips, and his fingers come back wet and sticky with his own ochre. "I may be the one killed your boy, James, but we all got blood on our hands tonight."

Back to Table of Contents

#  Green Thumb

Dagney Morgan nursed her third coffee of the morning, though her first still hadn't kicked in. She didn't like being up this early, let alone at work, but her upstairs neighbor's cat had been hunting a rat in the wall all night. She figured if she was going to be miserable, she had more practice at that in the office.

That didn't mean she disliked her job. She actually had a knack for doing paperwork, and her inner anal retentive got a thrill from filing reports away in the office cabinet. And she loved her boss, even though sometimes his voice set her on edge, particularly on mornings like this one. "Dagney?" he asked from behind her, and her shoulder tightened.

Her parents named her for Dagny Lind, a Swedish actress her father said looked exactly like her mother in Ingmar Bergman's Crisis. She hated it, because people always assumed she was named after Dabney Coleman- or worse, started to imagine a physical resemblance.

"Dag?" Her boss, Martin Sharpe, asked again. He was older, and had a dour nature, as though he'd just stepped out of an Edgar Allen Poe story. He reminded her of Vincent Price- though maybe that was just the pencil mustache.

"Sir," she said, her mind still on the reports she'd been trying to read.

"I keep getting pissy messages from McLoughlin's superintendent. Have you and Nelson checked into that?"

"Uh," she stalled, but even with the necessary caffeinated fuel, her brain engine was having trouble turning over, "refresh my memory."

"Merek's farm. Sits on land adjacent to the aquifer that services the district where the middle school is. If he's abiding by the regulations, nothing should be getting past the aquitard."

"I think he prefers to be called Aquaman, or maybe King of Atlantis- I mean, either would be more politically correct than 'aquitard'- even if we suspect he's falling down on the job." He had a dry, almost British sense of humor, but he didn't even give her a smile; maybe his coffee hadn't kicked in, either.

"Nelson swung by there last Thursday, but Merek wasn't in," she said, and pretended to look at the calendar on her desk, to confirm what she'd just made up. Nelson had been face down in her sofa cushions last Thursday- sleeping off a night of binge drinking that made him reek of goat cheese- which at least meant she knew she wasn't likely to be called out on the lie.

"I need the both of you to head out there today. We can't have that idiot spilling captan into the drinking water again- or heaven forbid something worse."

Dagney stood up and wrapped her coat around her shoulders, while she watched him walk back to his office. She grabbed her keys and the bagel she still hadn't started eating, then lingered a moment to look at Nelson's empty desk, and sighed.

She called him from her car, but didn't have the energy to feign surprise when she got no response. She put in a call to Merek, too; her father always told her showing up unannounced out past the suburbs was just asking to get shot at. It was almost another hour before her partner finally called back, and by then she was nearly to Merek's. "What the fuck, man?" she asked.

"I fell asleep on the couch- passed out. Muriel wouldn't let me into bed."

"Can't say I blame her- I can smell the booze-sweat through the phone. You never made it out to Merek's, did you?"

"Shit."

"Yeah. I've been on this dirt-ass road to his farm for forty-five minutes now- and Sharpe thinks you're in the seat next to me."

He didn't speak for a moment, and when he did it was a little wounded puppy whimper: "... sorry."

Her grip tightened around the steering wheel, since he wasn't in throttling distance. "Is there anything I should know here?" she asked, straining not to raise her voice.

"Merek's been dodging inspections, but he's not a bad guy. Going back ten years, nothing worse than a couple fines for improper chem disposal."

"And the captan incident last year."

"Shit, yeah, that, too."

"How did you forget it? They traced fungicide from the toilets in the VA hospital to his farm."

"So? The EPA downgraded captan to 'not likely' a carcinogen. The sweetener in my coffee's worse. Our veterans might be a little worse for wear, but I don't think any of them drink from the toilets. Though I guess maybe one of their dogs... okay now I feel sad."

"Even so, the most recent complaint comes from some kids at the middle school who were hospitalized."

"God."

"Yeah. And while he might have cleaned up his captan storage, his permits say he's also got a metric shit-tonne of fertilizers," she paused. "Heh." Then she ramped back up, "But if any kids come down with organophosphate poisoning, no amount of me covering your ass will help."

"Dag- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you in this position."

"No, you shouldn't have. And you should dwell on that while I'm cleaning up your mess." She was being cruel, but it wasn't anywhere near the first time he'd left her in the lurch; in fact, she had a hard time remembering the last time he hadn't. His continuous fuck-ups were easily the most consistent thing in her life.

Rob Merek's land was one of the few family owned farms left in the county. It wasn't well kept; Merek's father was a decent businessman but a lousy farmer, and managed to pass only the latter skill set to his son. The younger Merek had learned how to avoid scrutiny, and he made sure his pesticide license was up to date, since that was an obvious way to call attention to himself, but Dagney saw a half-dozen potential violations just driving by his grain warehouse.

She pulled up to his modest house, at least half of which looked like it was patched with old fence boards. There was no ringer, so she knocked with the flat of her palm. No response. She knocked again, louder this time. "Department of Agriculture. You've got an inspection."

She heard the heavy thudding of bare feet on hardwood floors, then the door swung wide. Merek wasn't wearing anything, unless Dagney counted children's tube socks with blown out elastic or a pair of too-small boxer shorts clinging for life to one ankle- which, on a moment's reflection, she did not. More disturbing, he seemed to be covered in a sticky, green semi-transparent fluid from the middle of his chest to his knees.

"I'm with the Department of Agriculture, here for an inspection."

"Got all my permits," he said, and started scratching himself. Vigorously.

"That's correct, but this is a surprise inspection."

He eyed her suspiciously, then looked down at his own nudity. "I like to be naked," he said, matter of factly.

"I need to see where you store your FIFRA applicable chemicals," she said firmly.

He squinted hard at her, and his entire face scrunched up. He took a big, deep breath, and his eyes closed; Dagney began to wonder if she was going to have to resuscitate him. His eyes burst open with the speed of a frightened rabbit, and they had that kind of panic in them, too. His mouth hung open and his tongue moved spastically around, until he asked, too loud: "Why can't you people let me be naked?"

"Sir, I'm not the police. But I do need to inspect your fertilizers and pesticides. You certainly have the option to put on pants- I'd consider it a personal kindness if you did- but the decency of your exposure is kind of beyond my purview."

"You're purty," he said, and put his hands in a grabby motion and started pushing them towards her chest; she seized his wrist, and twisted it up and back, forcing him down to one knee.

"Now that I won't tolerate," she said. She'd carried cuffs ever since that pot farmer nearly broke her wrist the year before, and she retrieved them from her belt. "For my safety, I'm going to cuff you." She clipped the cuff around the wrist she had hostage. "You're not under arrest, but given the state of things I think we'll both be safer this way. Would you like to at least pull up your underpants before I put on the other cuff?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, chastened. He stood up into a squat, and with his free hand wriggled the boxer shorts around his tube-socked foot, then around his bowed legs.

She tried to focus away from the sausage stuffing that was him pulling on those boxer shorts- they must have belonged to the same child as his socks- and asked, "You still storing your pesticides in the little red barn on the south side of the property?"

"Yes," he said, but realized too late maybe he shouldn't have, and followed it with "ma'am," as calmly as he could.

"Are you on anything right now?"

"No ma'am," he said. But his eyes flicked quickly from the extreme left to the right, and his pupils were so wide they reminded her of a mosquito overfeeding until it burst.

"I'm not DEA- I don't give a crap," she said. "But unless you're on something, then that miosis- the dilation of your pupils- might mean organophosphate exposure. And you've been salivating. Maybe you're hungry, maybe you're just a drooler- I don't know you well enough to judge- but that also hints at organophosphates. When we're done here, you should get yourself to a doctor, just to be sure. Now if you'd be so kind as to lead the way."

He hobbled past her. "How much do you know about the history of organophosphates?" she asked, and he shrugged and gave a noncommittal grunt. "They come from World War 2 Germany. They were being researched as pesticides, but the Nazis diverted them into nerve agents instead. VX has a similar pedigree, actually."

Dagney stopped as they got closer to the barn. "See, I already have a problem here. There's 350 feet from this barn to the aquitard- see that marker there? And it's supposed to be down slope, which clearly it is not. That's how captan flowed into it last time." Merek fell in behind her as she berated him. "But what really irritates me, is that these are all things noted in the assessment after your spill last year. It really is like you're looking for reasons for me to kick your ass- with paperwork, obviously, and not my dainty little girl feet."

She stopped when they got to the barn. The door was already open a sliver, and Dagney reached for the handle to pull it open enough for them to enter. Suddenly Merek kicked at her, only managing to throw himself off balance; he fell hard into the mud, soiling his off white underpants. "Don't touch her! You can't touch her! She's mine!"

Dagney noticed several leafy vines trailing out of the open door; they had kept it from closing all the way. They ended at the corner of the barn in a dome of leaves, propped up with chicken wire and sticks. She could make out several different varieties of plants by the leaves: pumpkin, cucumber, squash.

Dagney opened the barn door, and felt for a switch in the dark. The lights were on a dimmer, which had apparently last been set to mood lighting, and as she turned around she understood why, and gave up on wanting to see better.

Strewn about the floor were a woman's clothes: red stiletto pumps, a red miniskirt and an even mini-er top.

There was a "woman" lying on a pink flannel blanket, mostly stained the same deep green as Merek's groin. A pair of red silk stockings were stuffed with vines, torn under vinyl, crotchless panties; a matching bra was filled with hefty green winter squashes. Between them a still-growing pumpkin torso made her almost look pregnant. Her arms were cucumbers tied together by their vines. Her head was a turban squash turned on its side. Its lumpy top almost resembled a face, and there was a heavy lathering of eye shadow and smeared lipstick painted over it. Green tendrils mixed with an auburn wig, giving it the appearance of dreadlocked hair.

The vegetable doll lay peacefully back with its legs splayed; there were dents from a pair of big knees in the flannel between them.

Dagney put the doll out of her mind, but focused on the green sludge it was soaked in. The oily gel was pooling in various places on the ground inside the shed. It seemed to be leaking from a variety of different canisters: poisons, pesticides and chemicals.

At that moment, Merek burst into the room. In stumbling to his feet, he'd managed to drag his boxers back around his right ankle. "I love her!" he bellowed, and the words seemed to jiggle with his bare belly and engorged member as he ran towards Dagney. She moved to the side and Merek smacked straight into a post and collapsed to the ground.

"Those pesticides are leaking into the groundwater. We think they've made some kids at McLoughlin Middle School sick," she said. She was angry, as much about him possibly poisoning kids, as him charging at her like a pissed off green unicorn.

His tears formed a river with the blood flowing from his lip. "You don't have to tell me about my land. I worked this land my whole life. I know my land. Biblically."

Dagney sighed. "No person shall transport, store, dispose of, display, or distribute any pesticide or pesticide container in such a manner as to have unreasonable adverse effects on the environment. I'm pretty sure that was an attempted assault, too. Now you are going to be arrested- or fined, at least." Dagney put a hand under his sweaty arm and pulled him up. He stumbled groggily, and she led him outside. "Sit," she said, and set him flat against the side of the barn. With his hands cuffed behind him, unless the big man was a contortionist, he wasn't getting up without help.

She called hazmat and the sheriff's office, and was about to dial Nelson when she heard a cracking sound from inside the barn. She thought it might be one of the aging pesticide containers rupturing. "Crap," she said, "exactly what I need."

She hurried inside and scanned the chemical drums that lined the barn. While several were in disrepair, and a couple were even leaking from pinholes, none had broken open. Her eyes scanned the room for movement, and she listened for the sound of fluid running. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the vegetable doll shaking.

She winced, at the thought that Merek had shoved a vibrating sex toy into it, and couldn't decide if that was better or worse than just burrowing out a little hole. But there wasn't that telltale rumble coming from it. As her eyes adjusted to the low light, she could make out a wide fracture split down the center of the pumpkin belly, like tangerine lightning. A hunk of the orange skin surrounding the crack swelled outward rhythmically, then receded, each pulse distending the fruit further. It broke open.

An infant tumbled out of the pumpkin womb. It was entirely human save for a green complexion and soft tufts of clover on its head instead of hair. It gurgled at her, spitting out seeds and stringy pumpkin flesh. It propped itself up on chubby arms to take in the world, and crawled out of the pumpkin shrapnel to get a better view. Then its hands slipped out from under it, and the baby fell onto the dirt. It regarded her curiously a moment, and began to wail.

Instinct grabbed hold of Dagney, and she rushed over to the infant, and took it up in her arms. The child stopped crying as soon as she started to bounce it against her shoulder. She could feel pumpkin juices soaking through her clothes- at least, she hoped it was just pumpkin juices. It didn't feel warm, anyway. She made a scrunched up face, and the child scrunched its face, too.

Dagney didn't know much about babies, but she knew that that kind of mimicry usually took months to develop. The child was heavy, too- too big, really- and slowly Dagney assembled the ideas together. Babies weren't supposed to crawl for months- they even had to be held a certain way because their necks wouldn't support their gargantuan heads. That meant the child wasn't a newborn- not in the usual human sense, anyway.

Dagney continued to bounce the child and turned and stared at the cracked open pumpkin. She sympathized with its emptiness. She'd been told from a very early age that she could never have children, and so she'd expended much effort convincing herself that she didn't want any.

But now, holding one so alone, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. She stroked her fingers through its clover hair, and the baby blew pumpkin pulp spit bubbles at her. She smiled.

Her happiness dove suddenly into an icy bath of dread as her mind jumped between a dozen schlocky horror movie scenes of questionably credentialed 'scientists' hovering over a table with bone saws, smiling maniacally as lettuce and green juices flew into their faces. Her heart broke at the sound of the infant's shrieks.

Dagney realized the noise wasn't only in her mind; the child in her arms was crying, too, because she was clutching it too tightly. She slackened her grip, and looked at the baby's pudgy face. She pursed her lips, and furrowed her brow, and the child's eyes got wide.

Dagney knew how long responders took, and that she wouldn't have long to conceal the child. She wrapped it in her coat and walked out of the barn.

Merek was still lying where she'd left him, and snot poured out of his nose. "You can't have her... you can't take her away..." he blubbered. Dagney paused for a moment, thinking he meant the baby, and horror shivered through her. She unconsciously clutching the child closer to her chest.

"I've never loved any woman like I love her. Those legs. That nasty little mouth, and those tits," he strained, trying to pantomime breasts, but he couldn't with his hands cuffed behind himself, so he stuck out his own chest, instead, and swung his own man-breasts from side to side.

Dagney sighed, relaxing. He didn't know about the baby, and given his current state, probably shouldn't. She carried the child to her car, and built a little nest in the floorboard for it, using paperwork and her coat. "Babies like nests, right?" she asked.

The child cooed at her.

"I'll take that as a maybe," she said. She covered the baby with a manila folder, and stood up as the hazmat crew arrived in a county fire truck.

"Morning, Dag," Annie, the firewoman in charge of the hazmat crew, said with a wave.

"Yeah, not so much," Dag replied, gesturing to the stains on her shirt.

Annie was a big woman with blond hair and a hard face. Dagney could have pictured her in a Victorian dress, and had no doubt she would have been considered very pretty in that era. At least until she stuck out her tongue and said, "Yuck. You want us to break out the decon shower?"

"Naw," Dagney said. "I don't think I got hit with the worst of it. I can probably strip out of my shirt for the drive home. Plus, you know, I'm not crazy about the idea of being naked around this many men." She gestured at the rest of the crew filing out of the truck.

"And speaking of men to be naked around..." Annie said, nodding in the direction of an arriving sheriff's department patrol car, "looks like Officer Man-Candy just arrived on the scene." Dagney gave her a confused look. "He's a sweetheart. And I'm sure he'll need your statement. And maybe your number."

Dagney walked over to the squad car as a deputy with a warm tan exited.

He smiled awkwardly at her. "Dagney?" he asked. She nodded. He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. "I'm Deputy Marco. Um, dispatch couldn't stop laughing long enough to tell me what's going on."

"Probably best I just showed you, then," she said.

She walked him past hazmat in their yellow suits.

"Um, do we need to be taking extra precautions?" he asked.

"Not much in the way of fumes," she said, "so unless you're planning on rolling around in the spills, or helping with the cleanup, you're good."

Hazmat had already turned the lights all the way up, so the deputy could immediately see the doll laid out on the floor.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

"If you think it's a vegetable sex toy, then yes."

"And just so I'm 100% crystal, because I'm sure there are going to be questions at the office, that's not an unconscious person, it's literally vegetables, as opposed to animals or minerals?"

"Veggies, of the major food group variety," she said.

"Is that a crime? I've got a pretty good handle on the penal code-"

"Handling the penal code..." she snickered.

"Given the circumstance, I probably could have phrased that better. But so far as I know what happened between a person and their cucumbers in the privacy of their own, uh, barn..."

"Not a crime as far as I'm aware. And, you know, normally, I wouldn't have called at all, but he kind of attacked me. Ran at me, actually. Which I might normally shrug off, but he's pretty out of his gourd, right now."

"Nice."

"Probably from exposure to the chemicals he's storing, which might be ironic, since I'm here investigating those chemicals maybe getting into other people's drinking water. But I figured we could use your help, cause in this state he's kind of likely to hurt himself or maybe some of the responders."

"Serve and protect, right there on the back of my squad car," he said with a smile. "So where's my perp?"

"Just outside."

She walked him back to where Merek was sitting. "See, I'd noticed the chubby naked man on my way in, but you were playing it up mysteriously, and I thought there'd be some grand reveal as to the importance of this character. Something grander than just telling me, 'Oh, he's outside.'"

She grinned, and shrugged. "I had fanfare planned, a musical number, fireworks. But then we went over-budget, and the union started complaining about working conditions, and I figured maybe this time less was more."

Marco hunched over to talk to Merek. "The lady tells me you tried to hurt her. That true?" he asked.

"She's my property!" Merek said loudly.

"I assume you don't mean the woman standing next to me, but the tart in the red lingerie."

"She's a lady!" he yelled.

"Guy only seems to have the one volume, and a moist volume at that," Marco said with a grin. He stood back up and turned his attention to Dagney. "I assume you're filing a report with your home office. Can I get a copy?"

"Sure."

"That'll probably suffice for a statement. If I need anything else, I can always get in touch. Lean forward," he said to Merek, inspecting Dag's cuffs. "Good, you've got the double-sided locks. Makes my job easier." He slid his own cuffs onto Merek's wrists, just below Dagney's. She handed him her cuff key, and he unlocked hers. He gave her back her key and cuffs.

He put a hand under Merek's arm and pulled him up to his feet. "Come on, big guy. Now you're under arrest. You shouldn't say anything incriminating. You also shouldn't try to get any of your green ooze on me- because that probably counts as assaulting an officer- and my report's already weird enough as it is."

"I love her," Merek bellowed.

"Right," Marco said, "no chitchat."

"Aren't you going to," Dagney gestured to the underpants stuck to his left ankle, "you know, give the man back his dignity?"

Marco sighed, and retrieved a pair of latex gloves from his belt and slipped them on. Then he kneeled next to Merek. He winced as he stretched the boxers wide, to give Marek a hole. "Step through," he said, and started to thread Merek's legs into his underpants, "and you better think unsexy thoughts, sailor." Marco got the underpants up around Merek's haunches, and pulled his fingers free quickly enough that the elastic snapped. "Sorry."

He walked Merek towards his squad car. He squinted. "Crap." He let go of Merek. "You stay here a second," Marco said, and walked back around to his trunk.

"He kicks," Dagney warned.

"And no kicking," Marco said, pointing his finger at Merek to drive home the point. He retrieved a plastic sheet from the trunk and laid it across his back seat. "There. Now slide in, and try not to get your juices on anything." While Merek wobbled inside the car, Marco asked, "You wouldn't think I'd need to ask people not to spread their juices around in my car, would you? But even asking politely doesn't stop some people."

"I'm sorry," Merek blubbered. "Please don't take her away from me. I'll, I'll clean up my chemicals, and fix the drainage, and whatever the EPA lady wants, just please, please don't make me be alone anymore." The rest of his pleading was lost as Merek started to bawl.

Marco winced at the thought of even asking it on the deranged man's behalf, but took one more look at the sobbing man, pressing his eye juices against his window, and knew he had to. "Is there anything in that... thing we might need for evidence?"

Most of her instincts told Dagney they should burn it- the plants would be better off as ash than as Merek's slutted up screwcrow, but something in his quivering face made her relent. "I can't think of a reason, no. Besides, I like you too much to ask you to scoop it up and put it in little evidence baggies."

Merek's eyes welled up with joyful tears that spilled over his face, and cascaded down the windows in green waterfalls. "So many juices," Marco muttered.

"Thank you," Merek said.

Dagney bent down to look him in the face. "I'm pretty sure that's the organophosphates talking, and that once you've got your brain unfried, you're going to go back to eating your vegetables in a nonsexual way." Merek blinked at her, and she worried she may have talked him out of getting treatment, as she turned towards her car.

"I'll send you a copy of my report, Deputy..." she stared down at the card he'd given her.

"Just call me Marco, and pretend the long string of consonants after that doesn't exist. And I'll look forward to it." He smiled.

She blushed, and then Annie walked past, winking at her through her hazmat helmet and Dagney felt self-conscious. She slunk to her car and started it up. Marco watched as she pulled off Merek's property and pointed her car back towards town.

When Dagney got on the main road, she called Sharpe. "Dagney?" he asked. "I was about to call you. Lab results came back from the McLoughlin drinking fountains; it was crypto, so Merek's off the hook. But you square things there?"

"Yeah. He had a pile of violations, and things went a little sideways. I had to bring in the sheriff- a deputy, anyway; Merek tried to jab me with his green thumb. I'm pretty sure my clothes are soaked in poisons and I'd like to go throw them in the wash. You mind if I email my preliminary report from home?"

"Sounds fine," he said. "But what were you saying about his green thumb?"

"He was covered in pesticides and plant juices- dyed green. And he had a rage-on," she winced, "an anger erection. He charged at me with it, like the unholy offspring of a rhinoceros and the Jolly Green Giant."

"Oh," he said flatly. "And where was your partner during all of this?"

"He got called away en route, farmer had some livestock acting funny; at the time the inspection seemed pretty routine, so I told him I'd handle it. And from what he told me it ended up being a calf with some indigestion- probably not even worth writing up."

Sharpe paused, as if measuring how much of it he was going to believe. "Hmm. Well, good work, anyway."

"Thanks. Bye," Dagney said, then hung up, and dropped the phone into her passenger seat. It bounced once, then landed on the floor.

The baby cooed at her, and wiggled out from under the folder. For the first time since she'd plopped the child down in her car she looked at it, peering at her from behind her gearshift, and asked "What the hell are we going to do with you?"

Table of Contents

# Dogs of War: Chapter 1

I couldn't stop thinking about the bomb last week. I was close enough to feel the heat of it, close enough to smell the explosives even before the scent of burning overtook it. I didn't need to be close to hear Hercules' and Hector's screams as they died, as the fire swallowed the air coming out of their lungs and their first cry of shock and pain cut off abruptly as heat burned its way down their throats. The next yelp was smaller, shorter, weaker than the first; I was close enough to hear that one, too.

I stumbled on a little crack in the road, and tried to remind myself that Iraq was no place to be distracted.

"EOD," came over the radio, from Sergeant Brent, I thought, and my ears perked up, because that was us. "Iraqi civilian reports an IED ahead."

My partner in EOD, Samson, winced. "How many times have I told them? Radio silence around IEDS. I fucking told them."

Most Iraqi bombs anymore were more sophisticated than that, and wouldn't accidentally go off from a stray radio signal. But Samson was good at his job, and didn't want the occasional stray Iraqi blown up, even if most of the time that didn't happen.

Brent was standing at the front of the truck with an Iraqi kid. Instinctively I took in the air around him, smelled for vapor wake- to see if the kid had been near explosives. It wouldn't be the first time a fresh-faced kid tried to lure us toward the bomb he got paid to set. But he was clean- or at least clean for an Iraqi kid in Muqdadiyah. It was still a war zone; power, in the places they had it, was intermittent, and access to fresh water wasn't in everybody's cards.

Samson spoke enough of the language to ask the kid if he could show us where it was. The kid nodded his head, vigorously, and ran in front of the stationary Stryker.

"Take care," Brent said as we passed, and Samson winced; EOD techs tend to believe in luck, since that's usually the only thing standing between them and the monster. He'd rather get a, "Break a leg." But he didn't say anything. The loss of Corporal Carasco- Hector- and his partner weighed all of us down.

Hector was still in the ICU. He'd probably make it, if you count living the rest of his life inside donated skin, in constant pain living. Herc didn't even last long enough for a MedEvac. Medics carried his corpse out on foot.

I smelled it the moment we were out of the exhaust cloud from the idling truck. Either the bomb was a mess, explosives spilled all over, or my nose was even more attentive after Hector and Herc. The scent of it was strong enough that I couldn't tell if it was coming from the right or left side of the street.

My knees shook. I imagined what it was like to meet the monster in the hole, its black fingers curling towards you as its breath of fire rushed to engulf you. If you were lucky, it was the concussive force that hit you hardest, maybe with some superficial burns. The unlucky got a face full of shrapnel- pretty often shipyard confetti, just whatever metal crap was lying around, screws, ball bearings, anything that would shred someone to pieces.

I was frustrated, and anxious. Samson relied on me; I don't know if it made ours an equal partnership, but he looked to me to find the explosives so he could pull them apart. "Render safe" was the stilted military phrase for it. And normally, I was good at my job. But today, I couldn't find them.

And maybe I didn't want to. The thought shook me to my bones. What if I didn't want to find the IED? What if I didn't want Samson hovering over it, just waiting for the monster to pop out of its little hole, for the vengeful genie to spring out of its misshapen lamp. I swallowed. I was a soldier. I was trained for this, and battle-hardened.

But my legs wouldn't stop shaking. I wanted to help Samson. I wanted to find the bomb. The kid pointed in a general direction down the street, and laughed, like we were playing a game of tag, and ran off. He was a kid; I didn't blame him for it, or think he meant anything by it. He probably didn't know the gravity, just that when you see an IED, you tell a soldier. So he had. And now he had playing to get back to.

I couldn't even verify what the kid had told us. I stepped out in front of Samson. My legs wobbled, and I think he noticed, but for my pride pretended not to. "Got it?" he asked.

I walked in a short circle, looking for disturbed earth, sniffing for vapor wake or the device itself.

I've only had the fight or flight response on a couple of occasions. Once, in training, that first time Samson fired a gun over my shoulder. It surprised me, and scared the hell out of me. But after just a moment, I calmed myself enough to let my training take over, and trusted Samson to have my back.

The other time was with Hector. I'd never been that close to an uncontrolled detonation before. Sometimes, some bombs, the best render safe procedure is demolition, so I was used to explosions, but not to explosions in the field, not while two men I'd consider friends were hovering over the monster's pit.

But I felt it again. My heart beat faster, breath came tight and hurried. My nose focused at the same moment as my eyes, and I recognized the disturbed earth and the tell-tale smell of plastic explosives. But what had suddenly sharpened my senses was not the bomb itself- but the fact that Samson was standing right over it.

It was closer than the kid had said, but again, he was just a kid. And it was subtler than most- which is why Samson hadn't noticed it, either. All of the muscles in my body tensed as I flattened myself, then I leapt.

I knocked into Samson the moment before the IED went off. I felt fire at my back, and the crush of the pressure wave rippling across my flesh. And then I felt it, the horrible sting of shrapnel as it cut its way through my skin, improvised bullets tumbling and ripping through my meat.

I lost a few seconds, and when my mind pushed past the screaming of my nerves, I realized I was laying on top of Samson. I wanted to get off him, to help him up and see if he was all right. But my body wouldn't move; I was a limp pile laying on top of him. I couldn't feel my legs.

Samson stirred, and gingerly moved me. "Goliath?" he asked, and I'd never heard so much vibrato in his voice. "You stupid fuck- you were clear." He touched my chest, and his hand came back bloody. "God," he whispered, and keyed his radio. "Need a MedEvac, NOW, patrol Bravo-Tango-Eleven, at Sadre street and 12th."

I felt faint, but wasn't worried until I saw blood coming from his chest, too. He didn't seem to have noticed. He grabbed my arm, and squeezed. "Stay with me, buddy. You're going to be okay." My training had always told me to trust Samson. My heart rate was slowing, and I was having trouble even keeping my eyes open. I thought I was dying. But Samson said I was going to be okay. So I believed him.

Continued in Dogs of War, available for free exclusively to those who sign up for my mailing list.

Table of Contents

# Nexus

My drink tasted like Martian goat piss; goats never completely acclimated to the terraformed red planet, something about not having the optimal mix of methane and ammonia. Not that I advocated drinking goat piss, generally, but focusing on that awful taste let me tell myself my mind wasn't elsewhere, even if that tasted like Martian goat piss, too.

"You're thinking of Dalaxia," SecDiv said, shattering my conviction that she couldn't still be sitting next to me.

"Hmm?" I asked, but the muscles in my neck were too relaxed to look up from the bar, and I don't think I succeeded in making my face look any less droll.

"When you've been drinking, when you've relaxed enough that your mind can wander, there's a look you get. It means you're thinking of Dalaxia."

"I might be," I said. Times like this I hated that she knew me as well as she did.

"And I've never known that to be a good thing."

"Me, either."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Do you?" I asked, and she thought a moment and shuddered. It was hard to know which particular aspect of Dalaxia was haunting her: the way that entire world seemed to scream as that whole world burned, the choke of smoke rolling off burning flesh, or the way that planet made us hate people, and each other.

I summoned the strength to look at her; or maybe it was just that I knew she wouldn't be able to look at me, after that.

"Come on," she said, pushing out of her chair. "I'll get you home." She put an arm around my torso and pulled me off my stool. She steadied me on my feet, I wasn't sure if she was surprisingly strong, or I was just that plastered and malleable.

She was definitely less in the bag than me, because she weaved her way back to my cabin. She leaned me against my doorway.

"I won't be able to sleep," I told her, though I didn't mean anything by it; I was having difficulty feeling everything below the pounding beginning in my head, so I had no reason to think the spirit was willing. But that was Dalaxia in a nutshell, and unfortunately, my relationship with SecDiv, as well. That colony was where we stopped pretending we were only fucking each other, and it was also where I lost her.

"Me, either," she said coldly, and walked the other direction.

I sighed, and fell into my cabin. I missed the bed by a foot, but my floor was surprisingly comfortable. I scrolled idly through my heads-up display on my eyescreen, and saw that I had a message from my cousin Brian. But they were never just messages; they were the start of interminable conversations that only ended when it got more excruciating to stay and humor him than to walk away and intentionally hurt his feelings. I loved him, and would gladly help him through his problems, but he had a depressive tendency, which meant I wasn't so much helping as listening while he mangled a half-dozen melancholy clichés together, and I just didn't have the will to go through that; I still wasn't sure I had the will to make it all the way into my bed.

I woke up late the next morning, morning being a relative thing on a star ship. I had made it into bed, after all, though my crotch felt like it had been worn for a pair of donkey tap shoes- so I don't think I got there effortlessly.

I sniffed at myself. It wasn't painfully obvious I'd passed out in my clothes, so I decided to hell with a shower and a change.

My cabin was in an unlikely spot midship, unlikely in that it wasn't any grander than any other officer cabin, though it was better than the barracks. I chose it because it was near one of the biggest windows on the ship, and I liked to stargaze. This window usually had the best view of planets and systems we were passing, and it was hard to keep your breath looking out at worlds we'd only ever glimpsed through telescopes before.

It made me feel like a kid again. My dad used to tell me about the space race, back in the 1950s and '60s. Space exploration began in earnest when we started to worry about the Russians dropping nuclear weapons on us from space, back when "US" meant Americans. Eventually everybody lost interest, because space was an expensive hobby for countries with no concept of return on investment. The occasional discussion of monetizing the cosmos cropped up, mostly revolving around mining and maybe eventually trade, but it was all academic, because it was too expensive. Then we hit peak oil, and that was followed by all kinds of other peaking minerals. So we either had to start mining off-world, or accept a different standard of living.

What had once been the United Nations was now the United Government, mostly a coat of paint, really, but it pushed the ICC and other disparate sections of international law and government under the same tent. At the same time, the power of national governments had been shrinking as the world became smaller, so the UG became roughly equivalent to the old US in terms of real world influence. A lot of that disseminated power went to multinational companies, many of which had larger populations and economies than the old countries, and those companies were the only ones with enough cash on hand to explore space once it was deemed a necessity.

Sontem, the company I worked for, was one of the largest of the interstellar corporations. Their first ship was called the Argus, after somebody got their Greek mythology slightly wrong. On the tenth year of its tour, it opened up a worm-gate at its location- about five lights years out.

Our ship was to be the second in what the board hoped would grow to be a fleet of deep-space exploration vehicles. The company wanted to call the ship the Enterprise, but the company who owned the rights to the old Star Trek show sued. Several related names were floated, including "Commerce," and even "Intercourse," which had my vote, before they settled on "Nexus".

It was ostensibly a five-year mission, just like the Argus, but it was written into our service contracts that they could be unilaterally extended indefinitely. And we all knew when we signed up that the ship was designed so generations could live and die on board- there was no expectation of going back home.

We'd been out of the worm-gate a few weeks. The corridors still had that plasticky new ship smell. I killed lots of time walking the halls, because we were weeks away from having anything to do.

I got an incoming message on my HUD, from SecDiv. Her image, name and rank popped up on my eyescreen, Lieutenant Louise Templeton. It was strange seeing her at that rank. She'd been a sergeant when I was worked with her in SecDiv, what felt like several lifetimes ago. We'd been in love, as madly as two people ever were. It ended... incompletely. I hadn't seen her in years before the voyage. She didn't know I was up for a spot on the Nexus, and I hadn't known about her. It was a coincidence she ended up my head of SecDiv- unless it was somebody in the company's idea of a sick joke.

I pulled her into the corner of my eyescreen. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun in a way that made her seem more severe than she was- though she could be severe.

She was first on my personality compatibility matrix, and seventh for genetic compatibility; since it was a generational ship, they built those matrices during crew selection to make sure we wouldn't get out past Jupiter before everybody realized they had no intention of boning anybody else. I hadn't had the computer build a composite, but I suspected we would have beautiful, disturbingly brilliant children- though I wasn't sure if either of us wanted that.

"LT? What's happening?" I realized only after answering that I'd called her by her initials, LT like 'melty,' like I used to, and hoped she could confuse it with a recitation of her rank- we were still a ways away from being back to friendly.

"I've got a situation developing. An ensign's setting off the decibel sensors in the corridor, trying to blow the drums out of one of my SecOff's ears. I'm on the bridge, or I'd handle it myself."

"And SecDiv's gone a whole week without bloodying a crew member."

"That, too," she said with a smile. "Just down the hall from your twenty- location." I wasn't far enough out of the security services I'd forgotten my ten codes, but it had probably been a while since she'd worked security for someone with my background.

I adjusted my cochlear implant, just enough to eavesdrop. "Yeah, I hear him now. Jesus. That's some Paleolithic caveman shit he's flinging. Are we sure it isn't a particularly nasty chimpanzee someone released out of SciDiv?"

"...maybe if you'd allowed the baby's daddy to be in the picture, but you chose to be a single mother..." I rounded the corner, and he was there, looming over the SecOff, spittle suspended in the air before it smacked across the wall and the woman.

I stepped between them, and puffed out my chest to be sure the augmented reality sensors in his HUD would pull up my name and rank so he knew who he was dealing with. "Do I have to explain this situation to you, son?" His lip curled into a snarl he failed to hide. "You're being a dick; worse, you're being a misogynistic, irrational dick, and it's fucking with my morale. First off, you're going to apologize."

"Like fuck I will."

"You will apologize, or I will fire you out the nearest airlock for insubordination." My HUD mapped the direct route to the airlock, and I shared it with his HUD.

Anger and surprise flashed across his eyes, and for a second I thought he'd take a swing at me. But he'd heard the stories, and realized that I was likely more trouble than the SecOff, so he mumbled a quiet, "Sorry."

I turned to SecOff Santiago. My HUD pulled up too much of her psychological history; I hadn't acclimated to having executive clearances, or maybe I hadn't set my preferences properly. Before I could stop myself I read the words, "abusive father." I thought that it put her reaction to being screamed at by this chauvinist prick in perspective, but I've known enough people with that history to know better than to think it's that linear a correlation. "You're dismissed," I told her.

"I can handle this, sir," she said, defiant.

"It's not a security issue any more. It's an administrative one." Her eyes went wide. His didn't, because he hadn't the sense to be afraid.

She glanced at the Ensign, and I saw that for a moment I was sharing his file with her. He had no combat experience to speak of. She knew enough of my reputation that she didn't query my files before deciding I could handle him myself, and walked away.

"Now I don't care if mommy was a bad lady with a weakness for swallowing the seed of the wrong kind of men, I don't care if the love of your life decided to get a sex change and start dating farm animals. The particular why behind your numbfuckery is beyond my purview, but you're going to have a nice long talk with the therapists about why you're such a fuckstick. Toddle on down to PsychDiv, or the next meet-up you have with SecDiv will include the press of boots in your neck."

He gave the weakest salute I'd ever seen and spun on his heels. "Impressive as always," SecDiv said over my implant. I'd forgotten she was still on the line.

"I should get a hold of PsychDiv, let them know to expect the 1400s knocking on their door." There was the hint of a smile on her face, then a click as she ended the conversation and disappeared from my eyescreen.

The SecOff had made it around the corner and was leaning against the wall, trying to compose herself. "You all right?" I asked.

"I was handling it, sir," she said. She wanted to punch me as bad as the Ensign.

"It's not your job to suffer fools." She sighed, then noticed the tension in my jaw, and realized what I meant by that. She nodded, and kicked off the wall. I might have been worried, if she'd been heading towards the Ensign, but he was going the other way, scurrying back to PsychDiv.

I dialed our head head-shrinker as I started back down the hall. PsychDiv appeared on my screen, her long, strawberry blond hair tumbling messily over her shoulders. Our personality compatibility was third on the ship. Genetically we were an ugly match. Breeding might even require a few gene-therapy modifications. And if her hair were a little more strawberry and a lot less blond, I don't think that would have mattered in the slightest. There was a little part of me that thought it still mightn't. "Maggie?"

"Shouldn't you be calling me Lieutenant Allbright? Or at least Doctor?" she asked with a wry smile.

"Maggie, I've seen you naked."

She flushed, and her cheeks more closely resembled the strawberry of her hair. "You do know this is an open channel, right? Into the entire PsychDiv wing."

"No it isn't. And even if it had been, I'm not shy about seeing you naked. It was a fun day." I let that linger a moment. "It was a trust exercise amongst the executive staff. Everybody saw everybody naked. They wanted to desensitize us, make the bodies of our crewmates less exotic and stigmatizing."

"I thought that was why they poured us into these Lycra uniforms."

"No. That was my request. Well, actually I requested corsets, stiletto heels and Lycra, but you can't always get what you want."

"I am amused at the thought of you stumbling around on stiletto heels," she let that linger, "but you didn't call me to banter, hopefully?"

"Are you saying you don't enjoy it?" I asked. She grinned, and I knew that was all I was getting from her. "But no, I was wondering about Williams, Martin, EngDiv Ensign. He just reduced one of my SecOffs to tears; certainly emotionally abusive, and I think had I not intervened, it might have gone physical. At which point the officer would have clubbed his eye out, because tears or no she's trained to grind the bones of men to make her bread, and he's trained to push a stylus around an easel and know math. But how'd that little emotion troll get on board my ship?"

"Let me see." She waved her fingers through the air, and I heard the whoops and bloops of files being moved around on her HUD. "He was cleared by Sarah McCain. Not a doctor, but a psychiatric nurse. She has good credentials, slightly better than average behavioral prediction stats. I'm assuming he's on his way to me." I nodded. "I'm pulling up his file. Yeah. She noted slightly elevated aggressive tendencies, potential issues with female authority, but low on the Allende scale. If he's developing a personality disorder it's either atypically fast or she missed something."

"All right. Well, maybe he's just had an off morning. You're the professionals. But if you think it warrants an investigation, you have my backing to put McCain under the microscope. And, as it may come up, I threatened to fire Williams out of an airlock."

"Which one?"

"Is that important?"

"It isn't medically relevant. I was just curious. For the last few hours we've had an excellent view of Rigil Kentaurus. If you have to be shot out an airlock, at least you'd have a nice view before you explosively decompressed. But is that standard disciplinary procedure?" she asked with a smirk.

"I was improvising. Though I think legally I'd be in the clear. I haven't finished going through the entirety of my orientation materials, but from what I have read it's scary the authority vested in my position."

"I think you'll do fine."

"I wasn't fishing for a compliment."

"No. I just thought," she paused, weighing her words carefully, "it's important you know that I trust you. We trust you. Heavy is the head, and all that. But there was an at least slightly democratic process behind your selection. We're here, most of us, anyway, because we trust you. Most days that won't matter at all, because we're the glorified cargo of a deep space scanning probe. But if or when it ever does-"

"Thanks. CC me your findings on Williams. Particularly if there's going to be the need for monitoring, discipline, or counseling."

"Can't imagine him not needing counseling."

"And I can't imagine him cooperating unless I can follow up and kick the appropriate asses to see it through. So let me know."

"I will. Bye."

I'd been on the ship just long enough that I no longer had to think about where I was going, and it wasn't until PsychDiv hung up that I realized that I was walking onto the bridge, though I wasn't entirely sure why. I scanned quickly over the room, and noticed SecDiv was gone. "Where's SecDiv?" I asked no one in particular.

One of the middle-rank SecOffs had taken her place at the security panels, looked up and figured it was his job to respond to me. "I think she went down to debrief Santiago." I tried not to think of one woman pantsing another... and failed. Though one of them being tear-stained made it more surreal than erotic or funny.

Bill Jacobs, EngDiv, leaned over my shoulder from his control panel, grinning wide. He was young, but didn't look it. "Heard you sent one of my jackasses to time out."

"He's lucky I'm in a charitable mood this morning. His behavior warranted a full jackassectomy."

"Anatomically speaking, I'm not sure where the jackass is- though I'm assuming it's a gland- or how painful it would be to forcibly remove it outside of a medical setting. I'm presuming very."

"Correct. But how's our baby doing?"

"NavDiv's fine," he said. "Still a little cranky, I think he needs to be changed. And I'm pretty sure it's your turn."

"Don't make me turn this ship around," NavDiv said from his seat. "The whiplash would probably kill us all- and spill superheated plasma across several star systems. It would be pretty, though."

"Nerds," I mumbled.

EngDiv walked back to his panels, and glanced over to make sure nothing had caught fire in the last few seconds. "No complaints. Everything's nominal."

"Good. Do me a favor and check up on Williams' sector. On the off-chance something's gotten into the environment there that set him off."

"Sure. Docs haven't taken a look at him yet, have they?"

I pinged his location on my HUD, "He's arriving at PsychDiv... now."

"So it's probably a needle I'm looking for in this haystack."

"Once the doctors have given him a once-over I'm sure they can advise on potential environmental mood alters. But you can at least start collecting the environmental data." He wasn't happy with my answer, but with neither of us able to pluck diagnoses out of the future, he could stick his unhappiness. He left out the same door I'd just come through. "Nav, how's our course?"

NavDiv spoke without turning around from his panels; he'd been transfixed by the data streams that had come from the ship's telemetrics since we started accelerating. "Slow and steady, boss-man. We're still crawling our way to near-light." The Nexus accelerated slowly, at about the maximum speed the human body can withstand for prolonged periods- around 3g.

Even at that speed, we need the nanites in the uniforms to compensate, along with a few internal enhancements to strengthen organ systems and connective tissues. We were reluctant to do more, since the effects of nano still aren't that well understood- and no one's forgotten about the cancer epidemic that spread through the first colony that beta-tested nano injections.

At that rate, it takes about 115 days to reach light speed, not that we wanted to get too close to it, because the closer to that speed you get, the more fuel it takes to keep accelerating at the same rate, and the more slowly time moves on ship. "Anything else?" I asked.

"So far no obstructions, no obstacles sensors or probes didn't see from more than half a light-year away. I'll keep you appraised if anything changes, but really I don't see it happening. Until we reach speed we're more a cruise ship than anything. Might as well sit back and enjoy a Mai Thai."

"Drinking while navigating is strictly prohibited by the ship's charter," the ship's computer added helpfully.

"Why can we program an AI sophisticated enough to fly the world's most expensive starcraft, but not savvy enough to understand the difference between ordering a drink and making conversation?"

I smiled as I answered him: "We have. I think she just enjoys fucking with you."

He turned a wary eye to his control-panel. "Is that it? Because I know where they store your RAM, and if I have to start yanking boards until you no longer have the excess operating capacity to be a pain in the ass, I will."

"EngDiv would never let you do that, Dave."

"I know my name's Dave, but still, it creeps me out when you say it like Hal."

I cut in. "In her defense, she has a far more silky and pleasant voice than Hal."

"Thank you, captain. Plrrrbt."

"Did she just raspberry me?" Dave asked. "Did our ship just raspberry me?"

"She did. I think Haley has your number. I'd quit while you're ahead. Ish."

"Oh God, you named her that? I already have a Space Odyssey nightmare once a week. Do I really have to go catatonic for you to be satisfied?"

"How close to light are we?" I asked, ignoring the question. I remembered from the briefings that the force to push our ship, and hence the amount of energy that required, was roughly the mass of our ship multiplied by our acceleration. So by starting slow, and building slow, the savings on fuel were huge.

"Just rounding 70%."

"Then we should already be reverse-Winkling." Anything close to 70% of lightspeed and time effectively took half as long on the ship as off it. At about 95% of lighstpeed, the ratios reached for the sky and 1 year on the ship felt like ten to the rest of the universe and increased exponentially after.

"How long before we're in the Kennedy Window for the first few sensor pods?" I asked him.

The window was named for Andrew Kennedy, who invented the Wait Calculation. Basically, because of differing speeds, two bodies that leave the same point can reach their destination at radically different times. Kennedy was concerned with increases in technology, but the calculation had since been applied more broadly.

The Nexus was designed to fire sensor pods from tubes. Their initial speed was higher than the Nexus'. However, the Nexus continued to accelerate, and would eventually overtake the pods.

The purpose of the pods was to arrive at a planet flagged by earlier probes for closer inspection. The pods were designed to orbit a planet a couple of times, get enough info and slingshot back towards our trajectory to be picked up en route. Hitting Kennedy's Window meant getting the pod and its sensory data back early enough that we only stopped at planets that actually had someone to talk to on them.

"Ten minutes." We were specifically targeting inhabitable planets. We didn't want mining rights to particular worlds; we wanted the rights for whole systems. So our mission was to seek worlds that might have competing claim, and break bread with them- if possible, make a deal. If not possible, at least make sure we marked off territory around them, to keep their expansion checked.

"There you are. You threatened to throw another engineer out an airlock?" I recognized the grating voice before I turned around. Pete Ferguson, HR rep and the company's man on the ship. He was the only unranked member of the crew, which was odd, because he was also number one in the ship's hierarchy- behind captain, of course. He was a stickler for the goddamn regs. He seemed to like me, but not respect me- an odd combination in practice.

"Is it somehow my fault you hired engineers who are 90% dick and only 10% brain?"

"I don't suppose you could tone down on the references to male genitalia," he said. "I'm sure, at a minimum, that the female members of your crew aren't comfortable with it."

Haley chimed in to defend me. "Actually, Mr. Ferguson, the term 'dick' originated in the 1500s, meaning 'fellow' or 'lad.' It was not until the late nineteenth century that the phallic connotation of the word surfaces in the written record."

"She's in rare form this morning, isn't she?" I asked him.

"She?"

"With that voice I think it's obvious. You don't want to give our ship gender identity issues this close to the start of our mission, do you? You aren't deliberately trying to create a hostile work environment for our computer, are you?"

"I'll, uh, be in my office," he said, slightly ducking his head as he turned away.

"Thanks for that, Haley," I said.

"Anytime, captain."

Continued in Nexus, available Summer 2013.

Table of Contents

# Thanks From The Author

You have my sincerest thanks for helping me continue writing. Below is a list of my other work. Some is available for purchase now, others will be available soon. I also encourage you to check my website for other projects of mine, including RSS feeds of stories that are updating weekly and to sign up for my newsletter, so I can let you know when something new is coming out.

Nic feeds off your thoughts, attention and the odd crudely-drawn erotic fan-doodle. Feed Nic by leaving a review at your favorite e-tailer, or emailing him at NicWilson.Writer@gmail.com. Additional contact methods and stalking opportunities are available at NicolasWilson.com.

# Other Works by Nic

Available Novels

Homeless

Humanity has been decimated by a violent new species that nests in enclosed spaces, and slaughters everything unfortunate enough to come indoors. Mitch is a 'Wall Banger', an explosives expert who 'cracks' buildings, exposing them to air and sunlight to kill the invasive organisms. When a friend of Mitch's asks for help tracking down a murderer, Mitch recruits Cori, a 'Shadow Runner' who races through infested spaces to gather supplies and saleable loot. But this terrifying contagion isn't the only danger, as their world descends into a harrowing marathon against oversupplied militias, murderous gangs, self-righteous survivors, and all-out starvation.

Banksters

It's a profitable time to be a bastard, one of the most profitable in history. Mark Dane intends to take full advantage of that and be the bastard at the top- if he can make his way past his fellow predators, through a concrete jungle of murder, sex, greed, and revenge. Ride shotgun with a sociopathic social climber, as he lies, cheats, and manipulates his way through the ranks of the fourth largest financial firm in the country, and revel in the bastard on bastard violence that follows.

The Necromancer's Gambit (The Gambit #1)

The sheriff of Portland, OR's magical community is known as Knight. His bosses run the mage government, called "the Gambit." On a rainy night, he recovers a mutilated body, tainted with dark magic and dumped at a local haunt. When the corpse is identified as a close associate of the Gambit, it threatens the safety of the community he protects, and those he cares about most. As the fragile peace amongst the city's magic-wielding factions disintegrates, Knight must track down a cadre of murderers before his friends are picked off, one by one- with each death used to strengthen the spells cast against the Gambit.

Nexus (The Sontem Trilogy #1)

Captain Anderson Grant of the corporate starship Nexus boldly explores alien worlds (and occasionally the alien women, too). Grant and his crew struggle with the company's version of manifest destiny, as well as its attempt to coerce them through military force. They begin to question whether the largest threat to their mission and their safety will come from outside the Nexus or from the company that respects them more for their genetic possibilities than their individuality.

Dag

Dagney Morgan, a sarcastic Department of Agriculture employee with an affinity for paperwork, has a chance run-in with a farmer covered in toxic chemicals, and walks away with a genetically modified baby, along with the seeds of a conspiracy. Before she can learn how to change a diaper, Dagney and her makeshift family are thrown into an international web of corruption and intrigue, and hounded by murderous, artificial soldiers. Their only chance at survival is to expose a plot that stretches into the highest echelons, and could start both an international arms race, and a revolution.

Whores

In the near future, women's rights are eroding. Those who buck the system are hunted as gender criminals by the authorities when they're lucky, and rogue militias when they aren't. Alex Harmon, a newly minted gender crimes detective tasked with bringing recalcitrant 'feministas' to justice, pursues a woman cast into a resistance group by circumstance. The tactics of his peers and growing violence force him to question his goals and allegiances, as he finds himself dragged into a brutal guerrilla war for the minds and bodies of a generation of women.

Selected Short Stories Collections ebooks

Ghost Dust

Cinderella Shoes

New Corpse Smell

Cockfight

Analog Memory

Save As

Visit NicolasWilson.com for retailer availability.

Adam West Naked, and other somewhat titillating journalism from Dangerous Ink

A free ebook collection of all of the writing Nic did for the international arts magazine, Dangerous Ink, for the first time together in a single place. Out now.

# Coming Soon

Sign up for Nic's mailing list to be notified when these titles become available.

Nexus: Past Sins (The Sontem Trilogy #2)

The sequel to Nexus, following our intrepid crew fleeing their employer's long arm, and initiating first-contact with alien civilizations. Tentatively due Summer 2014.

Kindred Spirits (The Gambit #2)

The sequel to The Necromancer's Gambit, in which Baldur and Knight face off again. Tentatively due Fall 2014.

Sanctuary

Five pets escape from the shelter to find a home out in the wild. Proceeds to benefit animal shelters. Expected mid-2014.

Singularity

A physicist investigates a temporal distortion, and how it might be related to a football player's progressive dementia at a remote rehab clinic on the Oregon coast. Out in Fall 2014, barring some kind of temporal distortion, just in time for the next NaNo.

Next of Kin

Police corruption led to a new initiative compelling the victims, or their next of kin, to track down those who wronged them, in front of an audience. Follow one unfortunate man into the seamy underworld as he fights to solve the mystery of his brother's murder. Next of Kin is scheduled for November 2014, as Nic's annual NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) project. Its first draft will be serialized, daily, on Nic's blog. Stay tuned.

Twist

When Harvey awoke, his girlfriend and dog were gone, and his world was empty. In days, he hasn't seen a soul except for his dead, naked grandmother. As his reality crumbles, and he descends further into madness, Harvey is forced to confront the disturbing truths behind who he was, and who he is now. Most people don't expect to see a head in the toilet, but then, Harvey's not most people. Due early 2015.

Lunacy

The story of the first manned Mars mission, thrown off course when one of the crew is bitten by a werewolf. Very tentatively scheduled for late 2014, unless Nic's dog eats it (and he'll eat just about anything he can get his jaws around).

The Collected Short Stories of Nicolas Wilson

This collection contains all of the selected short stories collections, and will be available in paperback, too, unlike the Selected Short Story Collections. Out mid-2014.

Nic's mailing list will keep you up to date on these titles, and ones we haven't announced yet.
